𝑷𝑹𝑶𝑻𝑬𝑪𝑻𝑶𝑹 || 𝗦𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘂𝘀 𝗦𝗻𝗮𝗽𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗕𝗮𝗯𝘆 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗿𝘆

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟐.

Snape was tired. The afternoon had been long, but interesting. The Death Eaters were certainly up to something, but they still seemed to be guarded with what they said. He expected this. There had been those who had questioned his loyalty because of his position at Hogwarts. Most bought his story about being installed there as a spy, but there were still those with their reservations. These were the people Snape had to be most wary of.

One such person was Risa Farrell. She and Mathilde had very different opinions of him. During the course of the afternoon Risa had shushed her sister no less than five times, and every time afterwards she cast a dark look at Severus.

Now it was night and Snape began to contemplate all he had heard. He was staying in the house, so were the rest of the group aside from the werewolves. Severus was glad for that much, he didn't like the creatures to begin with, they put him on edge, and these particular three seemed especially unappealing. He was in a small room by himself, on the second story of the house. The room in which he was staying had no unnecessary furnishings, much like the rest of the house. The bed was rather small and had no headboard or footrest, just four, tall, completely square poles pointing towards the ceiling at the corners of the bed. The sheets were white and smelled faintly like mothballs, and the blanket on top was gray, and a bit scratchy.

Snape sat on the bed and made a mental list of everything he'd discovered thus far. One, the Death Eaters were still active. Two, they had access to a journal which had been kept by Bellatrix LeStrange. This surprised Snape, he'd never thought of her as the journal-keeping type. However, he suspected that the contents of the journal were dangerous, as the journal was locked and protected with many spells. Most of the Death Eaters at the table that afternoon had been sure that the correct course of action was to do everything in their power to get it open and read it. They believed that some sorts of secrets to bringing Voldemort back would be found there, because Bellatrix had always been so devoted to the Dark Lord. Snape was of the opinion that she wouldn't know of any such things, but he kept this opinion to himself. The truth was, he wanted to find out what was in the journal, because whether it contained secrets concerning the Dark Lord or not, it was sure to be dangerous. Snape wanted to evaluate it, and if possible, destroy it.

The third thing Snape had found which he knew would be of interest to Dumbledore was that the werewolves were planning on terrorizing muggles. The Death Eaters had split opinions on whether that was the best idea at the current time. Some were in favor, others against, and some wanted nothing more than to join the werewolves and do all they could to lessen the muggle population.

Snape was getting a headache. He rested his head in his hands and slowly massaged his temples. All he could do now was wait and do everything in his power to find out what was truly going on. Dumbledore had warned him not to contact him, until he was first contacted by either Albus himself, or someone else from the Order. He didn't want to risk jeopardizing this mission. Knowing there was nothing he could do that night, Severus laid down on the bed. The pillow smelled...not good. Snape turned his head and threw the pillow off the bed and onto the floor. It smelled the way Harry smelled when his stomach wasn't handling well what was fed to him. Not pleasant. Snape closed his eyes and tried to sleep, forcing himself not to strain to hear Harry's breathing in the next room. Because Harry wasn't there.

------------------------ ~♥~ ------------------------

Molly Weasley had picked Harry up from off the floor, giving Dumbledore a sharp look.

"Is there a reason Harry is sleeping under the table?" she had asked.

"It's where he cried the least," Dumbledore said with an apologetic smile.

The sleeping boy stirred slightly in Molly's arms. "Poor thing," she said. "He's probably so confused. This will be good for him though," she added thoughtfully. "It isn't healthy for a child to be anti-social. This will help him learn,"

Dumbledore nodded and handed Arthur the diaper bag with Harry's things, since Molly's arms were full. "Thank you for caring for him tonight," Dumbledore said. "I trust I'll be seeing you tomorrow morning."

Molly nodded. "We'll bring him back around lunch time," she said. Then she and Arthur turned and left the Great Hall, and soon they were headed home to the Burrow.

------------------------ ~♥~ ------------------------

"Loo-loo." said a voice. Harry opened his eyes in irritation. Who was talking to him when he was trying to sleep? He had had a very hard day. Sitting up, his eyes widened as he saw that he was in a crib but it was not his own! Oh no! It was not near so pretty as his, and not only that but there was another person in it!

"Loo-la. Bobo." said Ron, staring at Harry. Harry stuck his lip out. He didn't know who this person was and he didn't want to share a crib. He looked around for someone to help him, but there wasn't anyone else in the room. Suddenly the little red-headed boy tapped Harry and looked at him insistently. Harry turned back to look at him and the little boy placed a hand on his own head. "Won." he said.

Harry put his hand on his head too. "Pot."

------------------------ ~♥~ ------------------------

The next morning Harry and Ron were sitting on the floor and Ron was showing Harry his toys. Harry looked at them but did not play. He just sat and held onto his stuffed owl and watched as Ron crawled around and waved blocks and plastic toy wands in the air. Molly Weasley was sitting in a brown rocking chair reading the Daily Prophet and every couple minutes she would look up from over the paper to make sure the babies were fine. On another chair across the room a blanket was knitting itself. Harry looked at the clicking needles in interest and crawled over. As he reached his hand up to try and grab the half-completed sweater Molly shook her head.

"Don't touch that, Harry," she said. He obediently pulled his hand back and sat, trying to figure out where he was and what was going on.

It was then that two more people toddled into the room. Harry was very confused. These people were the same! They were the same height, had matching hair color, and matching facial features. The only thing that was different was the color of their shirts.

"Uh-oh!" he said, pointing to them, and looking worriedly to Molly, who he knew was the person in charge.

"Good morning, Fred. Good morning, George." Molly said, standing up and walking over to them to give them a hug.

Fred pointed at Harry and asked, "Who's that, Mum?"

"That's Harry," she replied. "We're going to be babysitting him some for the next few days."

"Sitting?" George said, sounding delighted. "We can sit on the baby?"

"Can we sit on Ron too?" Fred asked, eagerly, tugging on his mother's hand.

"I meant to say we'd be tending," Molly corrected. "You cannot sit on either of them."

Fred smiled and knelt down in front of Harry. "Hi baby." he said. "Let's play."

Harry shook his head and crawled away as fast as his little hands and knees could carry him.