Stealing the Stars

"Harry?" Snape breathed, and Harry shook his head. His hair was long, and he wore muggle contacts in his eyes to disguise the green with a muddy brown colour.

"It's James now," he said softly, then added, "May I help you?" Snape stared at him, disbelief written across his features.

"How on earth did you come to be in Romania?"

Did the man not know how to take a hint?

"Mama!" Harry called over his shoulder, switching to Romanian. "Tonight's not a good night for me, I don't feel well. Would you mind helping this man so I may lay down?"

Snape shot him a startled glance at the easy switch into a foreign language, and Harry studied him out of the corner of his eyes. Time had not been good to him, he thought. His hair was longer and greasier than ever, and his face was smudged with dirt. His clothes were torn, and dirty, and for a moment, Harry wanted to invite him down to the pub for a drink, and catch up. He knew that Snape was on the run as well, but for the both of them to end up in Romania, at the same time, in the same small, out of the way shop was too much coincidence. He put the pub idea straight out of his head; too dangerous.

Who knew what Snape was doing here?

"Of course, Jamie! I would not have called you but I needed to get something for another man, you go, lie down, feel better." She responded in kind, leaving Snape glancing back and forth between them, puzzling out what they were saying, and if it had anything to do with him. Rose came out, and Harry bent down to kiss her cheek, and smiled. "Good night, Jamie," she said.

"Good night, mama," Harry whispered, and took himself up the back stairs into his room. He looked around at the few things he'd collected in the six months since he'd moved in with Rose, and sighed. He was going to miss this little room above the shop.

But he couldn't stay any longer, and he knew it. If Snape knew where to find him, exiled or not he could contact someone in England, and inform them, and maybe turn over Harry's location for his own safe return, and that wouldn't do. He packed everything he could into his backpack, and when he looked at the things that wouldn't fit, he cast a spell on the pack to allow more into it, much like the spell on the tents at the World Cup.

Thinking back to fourth year made his eyes well up with tears, as he remembered Ron and Hermione, and then just as suddenly as the thoughts had come on him, he shoved them away. They were no longer a part of his life; they were like Rose now, someone he'd met on his journey and moved beyond.

He waited until he heard Rose closing the shop up, and went down to her. She saw his backpack, and the look on his face, and her eyes welled up with tears. "My Jamie," she whispered. "I have loved you as my own. You will always have a home here to return to, should you need it."

Harry had told himself he wouldn't cry, but when she offered him her home, even as he was leaving, his eyes filled with tears. "I'm so sorry, mama. That man today.. he would bring me back, to England, and I'm never going back. I have to leave before he returns. I love you, mama, and I'll come back when it's safe, I promise." This was the difficult part; she'd truly come to be a surrogate mother, a replacement Molly Weasley almost.

They hugged, and he kissed her cheek again, and then stole out into the night. It wasn't until he was farther away from the small suburb outside of Bucharest that he realized that she'd put a charm into his pocket. Pulling it out, he saw a hippogriff surrounded by a winged serpent. It didn't move, although he expected it to, and it hung on a simple leather strip that he slipped over his head. He picked up a map of Romania, and pressed his finger down onto it after closing his eyes. Checking, he found it had come down on Piatra Neamt, and chose his path northward towards the city.

-o0o-

"He's living in a potion shop just outside of Bucharest," Snape said quietly into the fire. "I found him by complete accident. He doesn't look a thing like his old self, however, and he speaks Romanian like he's been living there all his life. Even his English was accented. He's got some kind of glamour over his eyes; they're brown, and his hair is nearly halfway down his back. He wasn't expecting to see me."

"I understand. I'll be there just as soon as I can get out of the country. Thank you for coming to me with this, Snape. The resistance is small, but we're growing."

Snape allowed himself a rare smile. "With you at their head, I'm surprised they're growing at all."

His partner scowled. "With Potter gone, Voldemort is gaining support. People are going to him, just because they think there is no other alternative than for him to win. Finding support has been a task, but word of mouth spreads faster then Granger or Lupin, and many have sought us out. Voldemort suspects nothing, so far. I intend to keep it that way until we can bring him back."

"Good luck," Snape whispered. "Bring Freedom."

"Freedom," the other man said, and disappeared from the fire. Snape settled into the chair with a bottle of whiskey. He'd started with a glass but the conversation warranted more than that, and he'd abandoned it to the sink.

-o0o-

It took a week for Harry to make it to Piatra Neamt on foot, and he was fairly surprised. He'd been expecting it to take much longer than that, but then, he supposed the occasional bus ride or lift from passing strangers helped hurry the journey. By sheer accident, he walked straight into an encampment of Dragon Tamers, out in the wilderness hunting, and after a few tense hours, asked to join them.

"I'm from England, almost a year ago. I had a friend who came here to tame dragons; Charlie Weasley."

"Ahh, Weasley!" One man, clearly the leader, stood up. "I remember Weasley. A better man there never was. A friend of Weasley is a friend of ours. What is your name?"

"Evans," Harry said. "James Evans."

-o0o-

Upon arriving in Bucharest, he was surprised to see none other than Severus Snape waiting for him.

"How did you know I was coming today?" he asked, and Snape smirked.

"I didn't. I guessed. You didn't turn up yesterday, and no one had seen you, so I tried again today, and here you are."

He scowled. "I could have been here sooner, but Voldemort is beginning to take hold on even the Muggle side of things, and getting a plane to France was damn near impossible. I had to take a boat in the end, and spent the next twenty four hours puking my guts up. I am never getting on another boat so long as I live," he muttered. "Never."

Snape surprised him by tossing his head back and laughing. "Come on. The sooner we get started the sooner we can get back to England with him."

He nodded, and followed Snape back to his hotel room. From there, they went back to the shop Snape had found Harry in originally, and he brought a photograph of Harry before the old woman.

"Harry Potter," he said, gesturing. "Have you seen him?" She smiled at him, recognising the picture.

"No," she said. "Jamie." She hunted around behind the counter for a moment, and came up with a muggle ball-point pen, then took the picture and coloured on the eyes, and drew the hair out. "Jamie," she said again. "Gone."

Snape had said brown eyes and long hair, he mused, and scowled into the shop.

"Gone? When? Where?" This wasn't going to be as easy as he'd originally thought, then.

"Gone, seven days ago. Left. Don't know where. May I help you?" She smiled again, and he scowled.

"Senile old woman," he muttered, and took himself out of the shop. Snape met him at the door of the hotel room, looking amused.

"You didn't find him so easily, then?" the Potions Master asked, and he shook his head.

"Wasn't expecting to, but I hoped." He sat down and poured himself a glass of whiskey. "Said he left seven days ago - I'm betting he took off right after you walked out the door."

"Probably. I'll ask around; I've been here a while, and it won't look as strange as somone as new as you poking around in their business."

"Alright."