Snape and Lupin appeared on a rough and narrow road across a deep chasm from an impressive mountain fortress. Their last impression of the castle had been one of danger and power… a good place to walk warily and watch for trouble that most certainly was waiting to spring at any moment. The impression that they got from the castle now was very different. The façade was streaked with dirt and soot. The windows were gaping holes boring into the mountain, and the door was wide open to the elements.

“Wow,” exclaimed Lupin. “What a difference a few months can make. It looks deserted and ruined. I’ll bet the vampires have moved on to new quarters.”

Snape studied the fortress silently. “That would certainly make things easier. I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.”

Lupin nodded agreement. “Yeah, I guess so.” He shivered in the light wind and wrapped his arms around himself. “Brr. It’s a little chilly up here in the mountains.”

Snape turned to him impatiently. “I offered to lend you a cloak. You should’ve listened to me.”

Lupin turned to look at Snape, back in his customary black, wearing a warm, well-fitting sweater, pants, and sturdy boots. While Lupin was still wearing the lighter summer weight clothing he’d worn the day before. He shrugged. “I didn’t want to be bogged down with a cloak. Now if you’d offered a nice jacket…maybe a sweater…”

Snape rolled his eyes. “I’m sure you’ll be fine inside. Let’s get started, shall we?”

Lupin grinned and followed Snape across the drawbridge to the steps leading up to the castle. Both wizards breathed identical sighs of relief when they’d passed more than halfway across without any hint of the dampening magic that the vampires had produced. Hoping that meant that they were truly gone, they approached the ruined doorway and peered inside.

The entrance hall was a mess. The beautiful marble was streaked with ashes and muck. The torches that had previously kept the interior lit were all gutted and dead. It was blacker than midnight in the Forbidden Forest inside and still as the dead.

“Well, this place was hardly a resort before, but at least we could see to get around. What do we do now? We’ll be stumbling all over ourselves with nothing but our wands for light,” Lupin said with a sigh as he squinted to see into the gloom-shrouded interior.

Instead of answering, Snape simply removed a small black bag from his pocket. Out of the bag came two miniature lanterns. With a flick of his wand and a muttered charm, he restored the lanterns to their normal useful size. He then lit them quickly and handed one to Lupin.

Lupin took the lantern with a bemused smile. “Not going to be caught unprepared on this trip, huh, Severus. You know if you were a Muggle I’d ask you if you were ever a Boy Scout.”

Snape looked confused. “A what?”

Lupin shook his head, still smiling to himself. “Never mind. Shall we head for the library?”

Snape nodded and held his lantern high in the air as they picked their way across the debris strewn floor heading for the main staircase. When they reached the second level they turned down the correct corridor only to come face to face with a huge pile of rocks.

Snape frowned. “Apparently there was some structural damage after all.” He turned to Lupin. “We were all over this place the last time. Do you remember if there’s another route that would eventually get us to the library?”

“I think so. It could take awhile, though. Wouldn’t it be faster to just apparate? Without the vampires there’s nothing in our way.”

“I’d rather not take the chance. There may be a lot more damage than we thought. The current condition of the library may not be even close to the condition we last saw it in.”

Lupin sighed. “Okay. Well, I think we need to go back this way, and then down that short corridor to the left. There were stairs there I think that would get us up and over this area.”

Resignedly the two wizards retraced their tracks in the muck and struck out on another path. After slogging around in the darkness and mess for an hour or so, they finally hit on a route that took them safely to the door of the library. By the time they got there though, they weren’t feeling very hopeful of finding anything of value. Everywhere they’d been had been filled with nothing but ashes and soot, utter ruin and destruction.

Snape reached for the doorknob to open the library door and hesitated. “Why would this door be closed? We certainly didn’t close it after us when we ran out of here. I can’t believe the vampires bothered, either.” He held the lantern up to examine the floor more closely.

Sure enough, there were signs of other tracks in the ashes. Others, it seems had been here before them.

Forewarned, they cautiously opened the door and peered inside. The stained glass window of the impressive snake was as vibrant and well lit as ever, but the rest of the library was a total loss. There were piles of debris everywhere. The railing around the balcony looked like it had melted and the balcony itself had collapsed. No books could be seen…only ashes and scraps of material that might once have been covers and bindings.

They stepped inside and looked around in dismay.

“Well, this looks about the way I feared.” Lupin shook his head. “There can’t be anything of value left in this place, Severus. Just look at this mess!”

Snape was busy wandering around with his eyes glued to the floor, tracking the footprints they’d found in the corridor. “Perhaps there’s nothing of value because someone has been here before us, Lupin. Look at this.”

Lupin walked over to join him. The footprints followed a neat path right over to the fireplace and vanished into the opening.

“Hmm. Whoever made those prints seems to know all about the secret room,” Lupin mused as he raised his eyes to Snape.

Snape nodded. “Unfortunately, there’s no way to know how fresh these prints are. Whoever left them could be long gone…or right behind that wall.”

“Well, standing here isn’t going to get us any answers,” Lupin added as he drew his wand.

Snape nodded, and he too drew his wand. At Snape’s nod, they both pressed the heads of identical carved serpents on the opposite sides of the mantle support columns. When the back of the fireplace dropped down into the floor, they bent down and went through the opening together, wands held at the ready.

They burst into the secret room and looked around. It was empty…at least of people. To their utter amazement what it was not empty of was books. There were piles of ashes against the walls where the remains of the tapestries fell, but the marble bookstands spread around the room still held their leather bound volumes, seemingly untouched.

The enchanted ceiling over their heads beamed down sunshine from a cloudless sky as they stared flabbergasted at the books on the stands. Snape went over to the nearest one, put down his lantern, and opened it. It was a book about the intensive study of serpents and parseltongue. It was absolutely pristine, as if it had been newly printed that morning.

“These books must have extremely powerful protective spells on them, Lupin. That’s the only explanation I can imagine for finding them in this condition.” Snape glanced up and caught Lupin’s eye.

Lupin grinned. “You know what that means, Severus. The book on Lycanthropy must have survived as well.”

Quickly he turned to the stand that previously had contained the book, but it was empty, its connecting chain severed.

Snape remarked, “Jenni took the book from me. She dropped it onto the ledge. Perhaps it’s still up there.”

Lupin climbed up onto the bookstand to get a better look at the ledge, but there was nothing up there but ashes and soot.

They scanned the room, but really there was no place to hide a piece of paper, much less a large leather bound volume. Their precious book had vanished.

Lupin was angry. “Damn it! This really isn’t fair. Of all the books here to choose from why did “ashes-footprints” need to steal our book!”

Snape snorted. “It’s hardly “our” book, Lupin.”

Snape paused and looked carefully around the room. “I just realized something.”

Lupin frowned down at him still annoyed beyond reason. “Oh? What revelation from on high has struck the great Snape now.”

Snape glowered at him. “Since we could be standing here all day before you’d think of it, I’ll tell you. Those footprints came into this room. They didn’t go out again.”

“You’re right!” Surprised, Lupin jumped down and began to look around. “There must be another entrance to this room.”

They began to search the walls very carefully. Finally on the side of the room opposite to the fireplace, they found the faint outline of a door in the stones of the wall. It blended in beautifully and was almost unnoticeable. If it still had had a tapestry in front of it, no one would have ever guessed it was there.

Snape attempted to open the door, and with very little effort on his part, it swung open noiselessly. Inside was a flight of stone steps going down. The torches on the wall were still lit, but as the stairway curved, they couldn’t see the bottom.

Exchanging a glance of understanding, they held their wands at the ready and stepped together onto the staircase and began their descent.