Sticks & Stones

Snape, Trelawney and Hagrid appeared in the kitchen of the House of Black to find Seamus being held at wand-point by half of the D.A., who’d been having dinner. Several of them jumped back in surprise, and Hannah shrieked.

“No, it’s all right!” Hermione said as loudly as she could when a few of the wands pointed toward the three teachers. “That’s Harry, Ginny and Ron!” She stood up. “What on earth happened?” she asked. “You weren’t supposed to bring Seamus back! And where’s—” Her voice caught when Hagrid dumped the blood-soaked bundle on the floor. “Oh, no!” she gasped. “Is—it that—?”

The sheet slipped, and McGonagall’s face stared blankly at the table; her throat was a shredded, bloody mess.

Hannah turned away and retched loudly. “Professor McGonagall!” moaned Lavender. “Oh, no…”

“That’s not McGonagall,” Snape said gruffly. “It’s Snape.”

There was dead silence. Most everyone was staring either at Snape or at the bundle on the ground. “Wh—wh—what h-happened?” Hermione stammered. “Are—are you all right?”

“We’re fine,” Snape growled. “It was Greyback—Fenrir Greyback. He and four Death Eaters followed Seamus to the meeting place.”

“Meeting place?” Dean repeated angrily. “Harry, this bastard—” he poked his wand at Seamus—“—hates our guts! Why in Merlin’s name are you meeting with him, Polyjuiced into Snape?”

“And if that’s Snape, why the hell wasn’t he locked up?” shouted Lee.

Everyone started talking at once, but Hagrid shut them up by bellowing “QUIET!” so loud it shook paint from the ceiling.

“Thanks, Ron,” Snape said quietly. He looked at all the bewildered faces and closed his eyes wearily; the secret was over. “Everyone go to the first practice room,” he ordered. “Right now. It’s time for a meeting. Lee, Hannah—go round up everyone else. Fred, is the shop open?”

Fred was looking suspiciously at Snape. “Look, you can say you’re Harry, but how do we know—”

Fred’s question died off when a look of extreme pain crossed Snape’s face. He doubled over, and he wasn’t the only one—Trelawney was clutching her stomach and grinding her teeth, and Hagrid was pressing his forehead hard into a wall and groaning. Their shapes began to shift, growing or shrinking, reforming into Harry, Ginny and Ron. When they were finished, they all looked up, panting from the physical exertion of transforming through Polyjuice Potion. Ignoring everyone else, Ron ran straight to Hermione and engulfed her in a fierce hug. She hugged him back, both of them on the verge of tears.

Harry raised an ironic eyebrow at Fred. “Satisfied?”

Fred nodded, embarrassed. “Yeah. Er… the shop’s closed for the night—”

“Bloody hell,” Lee groaned, looking sick. Everyone followed his eyes to the bundle on the floor. McGonagall’s body was gone, and Snape’s body was in its place.

“You better explain what the bloody hell Snape was doing outside!” Dean demanded. “And what this cowardly prat is doing here!” he added, again threatening Seamus with his wand. “He was too much of a chicken to—”

Harry stormed right up to Dean, swung around and punched him right in the face. Dean fell back over his chair and hit the floor hard; he stared up at Harry in complete shock. “Don’t you ever call Seamus a coward!” Harry shouted furiously. “EVER!”

“Harry…it’s okay,” Seamus muttered. “I deserve it—”

“No, you don’t!” Harry snapped. “And it’s not okay!” He glared at Dean, and then at all the other D.A. members, who were watching him warily. “Well? I said go to the practice room! What are you waiting for?”

The bewildered D.A. began filing upstairs to the second floor, casting confused and frightened looks at Harry, at Snape’s corpse, and at Seamus. Dean was the last to leave, scowling at Harry and Seamus before turning and stomping up the stairs.

The second they were all out of sight, leaving the four leaders and Seamus alone, Harry sat straight down on the floor and put his head in his hands. The adrenaline and fear was beginning to fade, and he felt exhausted, sick, and scared. And in a few minutes he was going to have to explain exactly what had happened to the entire D.A.

A touch on his shoulder made him look up. Ginny was kneeling next to him, and everything he was feeling he saw in her eyes. They both reached out and pulled the other close, not moving for a long moment, more thankful than ever to be alive.

“Harry?” Hermione said tentatively. Harry and Ginny let go of each other enough to look up at Hermione, who was looking down at them compassionately. “Harry, Ron’s explained what happened, basically,” she said. “You were definitely right to have Seamus come back with you,” she added for Seamus’ benefit, smiling at Seamus, who was sitting at the table nervously. “We—we have to do something with Snape’s—with the body,” Hermione pointed out. “I—I don’t know what—”

“Oh, Merlin,” Harry said, feeling even more sick. “Uh… Can we just freeze him—it—for now? We have some choices to make and we shouldn’t let anything happen to… to it. To him.”

Hermione nodded. “I can put a Freezing Charm on him,” she offered. “But—but where do you want to put him?”

Harry swallowed. “Uh…” then a thought struck him. “Dobby?” he said. “Winky?”

The two house-elves appeared with soft cracks. “Harry Potter called us?” Dobby squeaked.

“Yeah,” Harry said. “Can you two take Snape’s body and put it in his room after Hermione casts a Freezing Charm on it? Just—just put it on the bed, or something…”

Dobby’s large eyes went even wider. “Harry Potter has the dead body of Professor Snape in his home? Dobby never thought he would see such a thing!”

“Neither did I, Dobby,” Harry said faintly. “Neither did I.”

Ron sat down and started talking with Seamus while Hermione took care of the Charm and saw Dobby and Winky off. Harry clung to Ginny silently, his mind racing. There was nothing immediate they had to worry about—but there was so much to do. Harry was actually looking forward to it, since it meant he could distract himself from thinking too much.

“That’s not true!” Ron said to Seamus, his irritation obvious.

Harry and Ginny looked over at them. “What’s wrong?” Ginny asked.

“Seamus thinks he should still be trying to spy!” Ron exclaimed.

“I should,” Seamus said stubbornly. “Look, isn’t there a way to fix this? It’s not like anyone knows—”

“The two Death Eaters who escaped heard everything!” Harry pointed out.

“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean I’m in any more danger,” Seamus suggested. He wouldn’t meet Harry’s eyes.

“The amount of danger you were already in was more than enough, Seamus,” Hermione said, coming over and sitting on Seamus’ other side. “You did your part for the D.A., and you don’t have to suffer through having the others call you a coward any more. We said that when the day came we would all stand for you—well, today is that day.”

Seamus swallowed, staring at the table. “When Fenrir Greyback killed Snape, I thought it was you,” he whispered, causing Hermione to gasp. “It was the four of you the last time, and you said no one else knew, so I assumed…”

“I’m sorry for that, Seamus,” Harry said. Seamus looked up and met Harry’s eye. “That was my fault, and I shouldn’t have let you think that, even for a second. I only did because… well, because it may prove to be very, very useful.”

The other four all looked at Harry confusedly. “Useful?” Ron said finally. “How could it have been useful to let Seamus think Hermione was dead?”

“Because he cried out her name in front of the Death Eaters,” Harry said with grim satisfaction. “Two of them got away, which means right now they’re telling Voldemort that Hermione Granger, one of Harry Potter’s closest friends, is dead.” He nodded as light dawned on their faces. “Hermione—you’re our secret weapon from now on.”

Hermione smiled evilly. “With pleasure. That’s extremely clever, Harry. And there’s another, psychological edge that we can use to our advantage as well. Voldemort knows that your capacity for love is your greatest strength, which means he’ll be assuming you’re devastated over losing me—he’ll think all of you are,” she added to the others. “So from Voldemort’s point of view, the D.A. will have a terrible problem with morale—and while he thinks we’re floundering, we can be advancing our plans.”

“Good thinking,” Harry agreed, pleased with the idea. He fixed a stare on Seamus. “Seamus, I don’t care what you’ve been thinking—you’re our friend and you’ve been a valuable member of the D.A., even if the others didn’t know it. We aren’t going to throw you to the wolves, so get used to it—from now on you’re staying here with us, and anyone who has a problem with that will be getting a good talking to. Or worse.”

Seamus ducked his head and nodded, blushing. “Thanks,” he mumbled. “I—I didn’t know if I would… um, thanks.”

“I think by now everyone will be in the practice room,” Ginny said. “Harry? Can you—?”

“I’ll be fine,” Harry said, disentangling himself from Ginny so they could get up. “Everyone needs to know what happened. I just wish that our only decent spy losing his cover and our best source of information’s death had gotten us something more than a bit of misinformation sent to Voldemort.”

“We did catch two Death Eaters,” Ron pointed out.

“And Greyback won’t be a problem any longer, either,” Hermione added with satisfaction.

“Yeah, I guess it’ll take him a while to recover from being burned so badly,” Harry said. “I wonder how long—what?”

Hermione was looking at him oddly. “Harry… Fenrir Greyback is almost certainly dead,” Hermione said delicately. “Not even a werewolf could survive what he went through!”

Harry blinked. “What? But he can’t be, Hermione—sure, he was burned really badly, but he wasn’t stabbed or shot with silver!”

Hermione huffed. “For pity’s sake, Harry! Don’t you remember what we learned about werewolves?” Harry looked blank. “When Snape set us the essay during third year?”

“Oh, come on, Hermione, I never did that essay!” Harry protested.

“But it was an important assignment!”

“Snape wasn’t our teacher,” Ron put in stubbornly. “He shouldn’t have set us an essay like that!”

“So you didn’t do it either?”

“No, I didn’t!”

“Er—Hermione, most of us didn’t do it,” Seamus said. “Remember, we complained to Professor Lupin and he told us we didn’t have to?”

“And you’d already done it,” Ron said with a smirk. “I suppose you got extra credit on it, but the rest of us forgot about it.”

Hermione looked about ready to start in on scolding them all for neglecting their schoolwork—even Ginny, who was in the following year’s class. “So what should I know about werewolves?” Harry asked quickly.

Hermione sniffed. “Hnff. Well if you’d done the work you’d been assigned, you’d have found in your research that killing a werewolf doesn’t require silver—that’s just a modern-day myth. Werewolves may have hardier constitutions than humans, but they can be killed in the same ways. If Fenrir Greyback was burned as badly as Ron described, and then blasted through a wall, I seriously doubt he managed to survive, especially if the Shrieking Shack collapsed with him still inside.”

Harry’s jaw dropped. “You’re telling me I might have just killed Fenrir Greyback?”

Hermione nodded sadly. “I—I can’t say that I’d be sorry he’s gone, but…”

“But I killed,” Harry finished for her. He was stunned; the two spells he’d cast on Greyback had been simple, obvious ones that he’d cast instinctively. Had he actually killed someone, without even knowing? Harry had been suffering from a mounting fear that, when the time came, he wouldn’t be able to cast the spell that would finally kill Voldemort. But if it was as easy as what he’d just done… “We need to know for certain if he’s dead,” Harry said. “Ron, go send a message to Tonks right away before coming to the practice room. Tell her that the Shrieking Shack burned down and we need to know if Greyback was inside.” Ron nodded, ran to the stairs and pounded up them out of sight.

Harry, Ginny, Hermione and Seamus all went up to the practice room. Someone had thought to get out chairs and pillows, so everyone was seated or lounging on the floor. There had been a lively chatter, but as soon as Seamus walked in it all died away. Several D.A. members, Dean in particular, looked suspicious and angry. Harry noticed that Hannah and Lee had returned from their task of rounding up members. “Is everyone here?” he asked.

“George and Luna were… um, just coming,” Hannah said, pinking slightly. Harry nodded, knowing exactly what she meant.

“Where’s Ron?” Lavender asked.

“He’s running an errand for me; he’ll be here shortly,” Harry said. Just then George and Luna slipped through the door. They looked quite disheveled; George’s face was scarlet, but Luna smiled calmly at Harry and Ginny before seating herself next to George.

“Right,” Harry said. “First of all… Dean, I’m sorry I punched you.” Dean looked shocked. “I just forgot that you don’t know what we know about Seamus,” Harry said. “I got angry when you called him a coward.”

“He is a coward,” Dean muttered.

“No, he’s not,” Harry said firmly. “That’s the real reason I called this meeting—to explain to you all why Seamus really refused to join the D.A. after what happened to his parents.”

Neville spoke up hesitantly. “But—but Harry… we were there—me and Dean—when Seamus told us—”

“When he told us that he didn’t want to be caught in the middle when we all went down in flames against Voldemort,” Harry finished. “I know, Neville, I was there too. What you don’t know is that—” He took a deep breath. “—is that Seamus only said that because I asked him to.”

“What?” Neville looked deeply confused—so did everyone else. “What do you mean?”

“What none of you knew—what only me, Ginny, Hermione and Ron knew—was that I Portkeyed into Seamus’ room about forty-five minutes before that, and asked Seamus if he would be willing to take on a much bigger risk to help the D.A.”

“What risk?” asked someone in the back; Harry couldn’t tell if it had been Sally-Ann or Padma.

“Because Seamus had attacked some of us while under the Imperius Curse, it was obvious that Voldemort knew he was a possible way to get to me,” Harry explained. “But I thought that if Seamus appeared to most everyone to be angry at me because of what happened to his parents, he could make contact with some Dark wizards, under the pretext of wanting to dabble in Dark magic to get back at me. Seamus was in a position where he could find things out in places none of us could risk going.”

“None of the rest of you could know,” Harry continued, “because Seamus had to play the part. He had to be ostracized from us for real or no one would have believed his cover story. He’s been spying for us—at great risk to himself—to provide us with information. Seamus agreed to do this for us, knowing that it would mean all of you would think he was a coward, or even suspect he was on the other side. He’d just lost his family, and he agreed to give up his friends to help us win the war.”

Harry stopped talking. Every single D.A. member—except those few who’d already known about Seamus—were staring at Harry in complete, utter disbelief. “I—I can’t believe you did that,” Parvati blurted out tearfully. “You let us think—”

“I let you think what you wanted to,” Harry interrupted sharply, “so Seamus could get the job done. And he has—some of what he’s found out has been unbelievably important, as important as anything we’ve managed to accomplish.” He nodded at Seamus, who looked skeptical. “It’s true, Seamus. I can’t explain why, because most of it involves some of the biggest secrets of the D.A.—”

“Bigger than lying to us about Seamus, you mean?” Dean shouted.

“Yeah, Dean. A lot bigger. Some of the information Seamus has provided could literally mean the difference between winning or losing the war, and that’s not an exaggeration. And I really am sorry for misleading all of you, but hurt feelings won’t seem so bad once Voldemort is dead.”

“Harry,” Neville asked curiously, “if what Seamus was doing was so important, then why is he here now?”

“And why did you bring back a dead Snape?” Lee demanded.

“What?” Pansy who was sitting beside Neville, sat bolt upright. “What? Professor Snape is dead?” She glared furiously at Harry. “Is it true, Potter? You killed Severus Snape?”

“I didn’t kill him,” Harry said softly. “Fenrir Greyback did.”

In a dull, flat voice, Harry described what had happened at the Shrieking Shack. Ginny helped, and once Ron showed up he put in his observations as well. “We’re waiting to hear back whether Greyback is dead or not,” Ron concluded.

“It sounds like… like Snape saved your life, Harry,” Neville said slowly.

“Only because of the geas we put on him!” Harry snapped, making Neville jump. “Snape would never have done it otherwise! If he’d had the choice he’d have let Greyback tear me to pieces!”

Harry’s voice echoed in the wide room. “Harry,” Ginny said carefully, “Snape can wait for now. Tell the rest of it.”

Harry realized that Ginny was trying to calm him down. Admittedly, his shouting wasn’t helping. “Right,” he said tiredly. “When Greyback took down Snape I hit Greyback with a Flame Spell. He, um… he’s hairy, and his hair caught on fire. And while he was trying to put it out, he stumbled into a wall, and the wall caught.”

“The w—the wall?” Lee exclaimed. “You mean the Shrieking Shack burned down?”

Harry nodded. “It was still up when we left, but it was on fire everywhere. I really doubt there’s anything left. It doesn’t matter, Lee. The Shrieking Shack wasn’t a haunted house—it was where Professor Lupin suffered through his werewolf transformations when he was a student.”

“A werewolf was a student at Hogwarts?” Terry exclaimed in horror.

“Of course he was! How is that any weirder than him being a teacher?” Harry demanded. “Dumbledore arranged it for Lupin so he could try to live a normal life. I know what that feels like,” he added bitterly, which quieted the muttering. “That’s not important now, anyway. What’s important is that Seamus is back; it’s too dangerous for him to keep on as he has been. He’s joining the D.A. like he would have if I hadn’t asked him to take the more dangerous route.”

There was a long moment of silence until Neville said “Well welcome back then!”

Most of the D.A. got up to welcome Seamus to the D.A. There were a few notable exceptions—Dean remained seated, scowling at the mass of people crowded around Seamus’ chair. Ginny noticed Harry’s frown, and leaned over; “I’ll have a word with Dean after we’re done here,” she murmured. Harry nodded, smiling grimly at the hint of a threat in Ginny’s voice. Dean was really in for it.

Pansy fought her way past the crowd and over to Harry. “You knew something like that would happen,” she accused; there was a hint of brightness in her eyes. “You’ve always hated Snape, you wanted him to die!”

“Pansy!” Ginny snapped angrily.

“Ginny, don’t,” Harry said. “You’re right, Pansy—there were times I wanted to kill Snape myself. But we’d come to an agreement, and I was fulfilling our part of it. Snape asked to come along on one of our missions, and this one was supposed to be low risk!”

Pansy’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why in Merlin’s name would Snape want to go along on one of your little excursions?”

“Tactics,” Harry answered. “Snape is better—was better at it than any of us. He thought he could make suggestions on how we could keep ourselves safer in the future.”

Pansy looked shocked. “You mean he was actually flat-out helping you?”

“It was part of our agreement,” Harry said. “He was under the geas to ensure he couldn’t harm us. It was all planned out. If it had been anyone but Greyback trailing Seamus then they never would have found us.”

Pansy considered Harry for a long moment before turning without another word and returning to her chairs. Harry got the impression that she was still angry and badly wanted to blame Harry, but couldn’t think of how to criticize him with authority.

After another minute or so Harry broke up the impromptu welcome-back celebration. “We’re not done yet,” he said loudly, directing everyone back to their seats. “I’ve got a bit more to say.” When everyone was seated Harry continued; “We’ve got a few more things we’ll have to work out surrounding what happened, but we’ll have a few more tasks over the next day or two as a result. Just be aware that we may need to call on any of you, so don’t make any plans other than work.”

“Harry,” Hermione said, “you should tell them about me.”

“Oh!” Harry slapped his palm to his forehead. “Everyone, this is really important—we’re going to be pretending that Hermione is dead.”

Several people gasped or exclaimed “What?” And it took a while for everyone to calm down enough so that Harry could explain. “Snape was Polyjuiced into McGonagall when he was killed,” Harry said. “Seamus didn’t know it, so he thought Snape was actually Hermione. When Fenrir attacked and killed Snape, Seamus yelled Hermione’s name. So the two Death Eaters that got away will carry the news back to Voldemort that Hermione is dead. We can use that to our advantage—Hermione is a powerful witch, and having an asset like her that the other side doesn’t know about could be invaluable!”

“But—but you want us to go around telling people she’s—dead?” Lavender asked tremulously.

“I want you to act the part,” Harry said carefully. “That doesn’t mean blurting it out to anyone who will listen, but it does mean acting sad or depressed. And if anyone asks, you can tell them or not according to how you would actually react if Hermione had died. Hermione won’t be leaving the house or contacting anyone outside after this—not that she did much anyway because of the Curse she was hit with—but we have to let people think she’s died.”

“So you expect us to help you lie to everyone who knows Hermione the same way you lied to us about Seamus?” Dean growled.

“Yeah, I do!” Harry shot back. “I expect you to do your part like you said you would when you joined the D.A.! And while I’m on the subject, stop being such a tosser to everyone who gets under your skin, Dean!”

Dean gritted his teeth, clearly thinking of some choice retorts, but he didn’t say anything. “I’m all right with being—well, used this way,” Hermione said soothingly. “Honestly, I don’t think it’s that big a deal. We’ll be contacting my family and Ron’s secretly to let them know that I’m fine.”

Harry didn’t contradict Hermione, although they hadn’t agreed to contact her parents. But he supposed it was only fair since they would be telling the Weasleys. “Anyway, that’s it,” he said, trying not to sound glum. “Luna, I need to talk to you for a minute privately, but everyone else is free to go. Don’t forget what I said about not making plans. Thanks, everyone.”