ꜱᴇʀᴘᴇɴᴛɪɴᴇ ꜱᴇʀɪᴇꜱ | ᴛᴏᴍɪᴏɴᴇ

Whispers from the Past, ch. 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Trees as thin as spaghetti contracted and condensed until their trunks were as thick as pillars. Their leaves, florescent green in the sunlight, were blurry forms up above until they sharpened to the point Harmony could make out each of their heart shaped bodies. When she had Apparated Snape and herself, she had fallen backward and landed her head on a boulder making lights dance behind her eyes.

Why she was never able to make a stable Apparition landing was beyond her.

Harmony propped on her elbows, waited for the nausea to pass, and sat up. She was resting on a bed of dry leaves which crunched beneath her weight when she moved. With a look around she saw she was surrounded by trees with no ending in sight; over to the side she saw Snape, motionless. She groaned as she stood and stumbled over to the potions professor.

"Sir?" she said, grunting when she grasped his shoulders and moved him onto his back. His face was covered in mud having landed down in the ground. It rather suits him, Harmony thought jokingly, giving some consideration to leave the mud. But after a moment her guilt won over and she wiped away the dirt with the edge of his cloak. While she worked, her scrubbing had irritated Snape and he quickly snapped out of his spell. He was faster to sit up and question his surroundings.

"Where are we?" He looked around, his dark shiny eyes finding Harmony's.

She stood, wiping dirt from her hands. "We're in the forest between Shell cottage and town."

His eyes widened and he looked up at her furiously. "Near Shell cottage? Have you gone mad? This place could have been crawling with Ministry officials!" He quickly moved to his wiry feet. "They could be scouring the forest as we speak! Has your intelligence left you?" He looked her over questioningly.

"I'm sorry," she said, although she felt she shouldn't be the one apologizing since she was the one who had helped them escape the Death Eaters, Mag and Marek, when he couldn't. "I couldn't stop myself from coming here. My mind has been on Shell cottage a lot lately and it came to mind when I thought of a destination, but at the last moment I knew I had to take us somewhere safer." She waved her hands about. "I camped here for a couple days after the Battle of Hogwarts."

Snape grunted, glancing around. When he was assured no one was around, he quickly whipped out his wand and set charms around their circle of trees to keep from outsiders hearing or seeing them. When he was finished, and his temper subdued, he said, "So you two stuck to the countryside while on the run, hm?"

"Excuse me?" Harmony asked, "'you two'?"

He rose an eyebrow at her while he slipped his wand into his cloak, "You and the Dark Lord, after you Apparated yourselves from Hogwarts."

"Oh," she suddenly remembered she hadn't told him, or anyone else for that matter, what had happened after the battle at Hogwarts. All everyone knew was that she had left Hogwarts with Voldemort, so they assumed she was with him. Anyone could figure that out. "Yeah," she said meekly. She winced at him waiting for the next dreaded question she knew had to come next: so how did Voldemort lose his memory?

But the question didn't come. Snape went about setting up camp, starting a fire. He looked up at her from beneath black bangs and asked, "You wouldn't happen to have anything useful in that sack of yours, would you?"

"Er," she dropped her bag on the ground and opened it, rummaging through her contents. "Not unless you're going to a party or need some reading material." She showed him her Slytherin dress and book.

Snape produced a money bag from his cloak and began counting his galleons. "Which book?" he asked.

"Horcruxes," Harmony said, staring at Snape without blinking, watching his reaction. He looked up at her slowly. She continued, "I'm in the process of doing some research on how to split my soul into millions of pieces, all the while planning to take over the world."