Chapter Two

The household had hung together for not quite a year. Ten months, tops. Long enough for Harry to wonder, sometimes, if he'd made a mistake. Not in Ron's case, obviously, but for himself. He hadn't realised how hard it would be to tolerate other people while he was a walking grab-bag of Voldemort's guilt.

It had sounded so brill, the idea that they should all live together. Ron needed to be taken care of, right? So did Harry, come to that.

With the Burrow still under repair, Molly and Arthur had signed off on Ron's release into Harry's – no, Hermione's custody. Harry hadn't been considered mentally fit enough to be responsible for another person's welfare. At the last minute, Harry had persuaded Remus to board with them, in exchange for helping out with Ron. It was like a two-for-one sale. Ask for Remus, get Tonks free.

With one week to go, Harry had consulted Kingsley Shacklebolt on a troublesome clause in the St. Mungo's guidelines.

"Patient R. B. Weasley's magic unstable and sympathetic. Liable to be affected by proximity to Dark intent."

Kingsley had raised his eyebrows at all the dark corners and Darker artifacts and the constant scrutiny from soot-darkened paintings. Generations of Blacks had sowed spells in the secret corners of Grimmauld Place, specifically designed to escape notice. They'd made an art of pitting magic against itself in long-forgotten, often lethal, ambush. Their history, and therefore their house, bristled with feuds, paranoia, and hideous practical jokes.

"You're going to need a specialist for this."

Well, when he put it like that. Harry grimaced. No wonder Sirius had been such a dab hand at devising cruel pranks.

"I know someone who enjoys a bit of a challenge." Kingsley had polished off his firewhisky and stood to take his leave. "A bit on the raffish side, but I think magical affinity counts for something in these cases."

~~#~~

On the appointed day, a clack of heels in the parlour had signalled the sudden landing, portkey in hand, of Senior Class Warden Odile Lalique. Harry fumbled with the leather wallet she presented. He'd meant to glance politely at her credentials – Kingsley had vetted her already, so surely there was no need? – but such a flurry of miniature scrolls greeted him, squeaky testimonials breaking into disembodied clamour, that he practically threw the wallet back into her hands.

The Warden turned from him in a swirl of robes slit up the sides. Harry trailing behind her, she stalked from room to room in calf-length black boots, stroking surfaces and pressing her ear to the floorboards, casting spells that provoked crackling from alcoves and furious buzzing from drab-looking splotches of mildew. In no time at all she detected a number of active layers infesting the walls, newest upon old upon ancient.

"Positive nest of snakes, 'mid lots of rusty old snakeskins," she murmured. The opal stud in her left nostril sparkled fire. Her russet hair was rolled high in a stylish bun, held in place with a double-serpent clip, her nails immaculate, red-tipped except for the index fingers of both hands, which were black as beetle wings.

Bugger. Kingsley had sent a Slytherin to bail them out.

In a brisk voice, she ordered everyone out until the buried frictions in Grimmauld Place could be isolated and their raw spots cauterised.

"Hard to believe this place hasn't gone up like a bloody volcano by now," Odile remarked as Harry joined her at the foot of the stairs. "There are invocations here that oughtn't to abide in the same historical moment, let alone co-habit beneath the same roof."

They stood by, watching Remus and then Hermione and then Remus again shepherd Tonks in and out of the Floo. Remus looked harassed; they'd only just finished moving in the week before, and it was a bit much to have to move right back out again. Tonks kept popping back in with one of them in tow, chirruping, "Don't mind me. Won't be a minute," scattering fireplace ash on the carpet before ricocheting upstairs to fetch yet another misplaced possession.

A dimple fleeted by on the Warden's face, and Harry would have bet a year of detentions that it telegraphed silly bint. His temper flared. Merlin's maiden aunt, did all Slytherins smirk?

Odile turned, caught his sullen glance, and interrogated him with an eyebrow. Harry immediately added eyebrow-cocking arrogance to his list of Slytherin traits. Unless -

"Did you study under Sna – I mean, uh, where'd you go to school?" he blurted. On the basis of her name alone, she could just as well have been a Beauxbatons student who'd never had to deal with House divisions.

"You don't do subtle, do you, Mr. Potter?" the Warden said, not missing a beat. "Refrain from making Sonorus-level assumptions that can be heard all the way down in Diagon Alley, and you may actually merit an honest answer."

She studied him for a moment, then her gaze swept the entrance hall. It snagged briefly on the covered portrait of Mrs. Black.

"If you must know," she addressed the heavy red drape, "I took my N.E.W.T.s at Hogwarts, class of '89. My former Head of House was a brilliant Dark wizard with a stiff wand lodged up his skinny white arse. At any rate," wry fondness flashed across her face, a sly mockery of herself as a besotted student, "that was the consensus of the dim twits who provoked his right bastard of a temper. Which, I'm sure it will astonish you to hear, was pretty much the lot of us. Now he's shunted away – this is about Professor Snape, I take it? Trapped like a basilisk by the Ministry of Magic, for," her head jerked, and a dazzle of rainbow flamed her cheek, "the crime of unexpected heroism. Had the gall to pull their bleedin' stones out of the fire still sporting Voldemort's Mark, the stupid git."

She wheeled suddenly to face him. "Mr. Potter."

Forget hexes; the contempt in her eyes could have knocked Harry off his feet at fifty paces.

"Out of respect for the immense service you have done us all in offing the Dark Lord, I shall gladly pass your case to another Warden who might better suit your unspecified…preferences. I can promise you at the very least a Ravenclaw. You may Owl him at your earliest convenience."

"No!" Harry said. "I didn't mean – it's just, the eyebrow thing reminded me of – "

"Did it now?"

Back straight (Harry suspected she'd also got the wand-up-the-arse thing from Snape), Odile smiled, displaying a top row of gleaming white teeth. Harry blushed, resisting the urge to back away.

"I do believe I'll take that as a compliment," Odile purred. "That is, if I'm not misreading your intent and may still expect you to honour our contract?"

"Please," he nodded vigorously and gestured towards the walls. "Carry on with whatever you were doing."

The dismantling precipitated days of strife, of shrieking and groaning throughout the house. Shadows frothed down the walls like potions catastrophes. Staircases creaked. Chandeliers went berserk, their cut-glass ornaments dinging and rattling. The drape slid to a heap beneath Mrs. Black's frame, followed by the painting itself when the Sticking charm let go and the whole thing crashed to the tiles.

With a lazy, lounging stride, Odile strutted over and stood with arms folded, grinning down as the old lady shrieked abuse.

"Add this to my payment," she instructed, stubbing the toe of her boot against the canvas.

Odile also took it upon herself to offer Harry practicals in ward structure and the magical equivalent of breaking and entering.

"Here, feel this," she urged, the tip of her wand teasing nimbly along the joins between stone blocks. She put away the wand and performed a scooping motion, easing back with a length of – well, nothing, in her arms.

Harry humphed. Way to make an impression.

Without warning, the thing she was holding thrashed wildly, nearly lifting the Warden off her feet. Blimey! Harry started forward, but Odile's scowl drove him off. The breath hissed between her teeth, and a black flash of Parseltongue zigzagged through Harry's mind.

The next second, the vestibule wall bulged outward, accompanied by an ominous rumble. The entire house shook. Harry reached for the wall to steady himself. Gritty fragments of rock drizzled from the upper mouldings and bounced across the carpet. With a splintery, ringing report, cracks started to spread, their black lightning-bolts splitting stonework and wallpaper.

Harry had his wand out before he realised it. Mentally, he slagged Kingsley for not vetting this witch more carefully. A rush of frigid wind sucked his hair back and drove his glasses hard into his cheekbones.

Darkness descended with a bang. The house groaned. A black hole in its gold rococo frame, the tarnished mirror started to glow. Frantic, Harry glanced around. Every shadow, every bit of moss and mould, every ineradicable stain in Grimmauld Place was oozing into the front hall. Prisms rippled through the black sludge, refracted from the opal in Odile's nose.

Braced, intent, she stood hugging an armload of writhing cables. Or so Harry supposed; he couldn't tell if his eyes were playing tricks or not. Shiny snake-like veins strained out of the walls, dislodging bits of marble and mortar.

Just as Harry was about to yell, "Stop!" Odile staggered. Her snake clip came flying loose, skipped off the stair railing and fell to the rug. A knot of hair uncoiled after it, spiraling down her neck as if alive. Face rigid in a feral grin, she gave a yank, and a large splinter of something shot out of the wall, just missing her face. It clattered across the floor and rolled to a stop.

She wasted no time wrestling the coils of ward fibre back into the shuddering bones of the house. Wand pinning them in place, she raised one boot and stamped. The walls boomed upright. Cracks dried on their surfaces like water stains.

Every bloody candle in the room snapped alight. Harry, who'd been about to investigate what had come whizzing out of the stones, couldn't control a flinch or the impulse to shade his eyes.

Odile pirouetted, agile fingers re-winding her bun. With a single stride she bent and snatched up her hair clip, shoving it haphazardly onto her head as she Summoned whatever the Wards had spat out in such fury.

"What was that?" Harry said.

She glanced up, red streaks of excitement just fading from her cheeks. A cracked, twisted wand lay in her hands.

"Foundational magic of the house. Nasty stuff. Best leave that to fester in peace, you agree?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said, reaching out. "Do you mind if I – ?"

A knowing eyebrow made him withdraw his hand quickly, as if she'd caught him reaching for a wank mag. Smiling and shaking her head slightly, Odile pulled a thin, filigreed tube from her toolbelt, slid the wand inside, and snapped it shut.

Every nail on her hand glittered black. Where before there'd been an opal in the arch of her nose, now burned a ruby.

"Tell you what," Odile said. "Let's not report this, shall we? Just for the time being. And if we find another one, it's yours. Agreed?"

In the end, they unearthed three ancient, gnarly, magic-laden wands. Odile kept two of them. Harry's was currently stashed upstairs with all the things he'd stolen from Spinner's End, the things no one else knew about.

From Odile, Harry gleaned everything he knew about sabotaging Wards. He learned to weave, smother, disembowel, subdue, and forge magical signatures in a variety of castings. Not without setbacks: he had to Firecall her one night because he'd created a vortex in the upstairs loo.

But he also wondered why. Had someone close to Scrimgeour instructed the Warden to lure him under her professional wing? In the wrong hands, this kind of knowledge was a weapon. Was she waiting for him to use it? Was the Ministry of Magic?

~~#~~

Ron came home on March 1st. By July Harry was searching for excuses to get out of Grimmauld Place. Everyone else had jobs and a routine; he had to devise his own escapes.

At the time of Snape's trial, Harry had still been in hospital. Reading about it later, he snorted at the headlines. "Albus Dumbledore's Snake-in-the-Grass!" "Death-Eater Redux!" "Murderer or Martyr?" "The Spy Who Betrayed Them All Six Ways from Sunday!"

Culling through pages of lucrative hysteria, Harry had cared about only two things. One, Snape hadn't been sentenced to Azkaban. Two, the house where he was shut away from the world was warded.

~~#~~

The first time he laid a finger on Spinner's End, he half-expected a Petrificus Totalus to knock him flat on his arse.

Thorns sliced through his palm. Shocked, Harry stopped the bleeding. Then he drew his wand and ran some tests before he touched the bricks again. The minutes ticked by. Silence, stillness, were his only companions. Before he knew it, it'd gone an hour. He pulled his hands out puffy with welts.

No Aurors. No one at all. Snape was a sitting duck.

For weeks, Harry kept at it. The thorns savaged him at first. Before Apparating home, he always spent a few minutes tidying the torn skin.

He got into the habit of watching for Snape's shadow at the window. The scent of roses touched him, the submissive kiss of elusive perfumes. Harry pressed in deeper, until his hands ran with blood. Always, he got his roses. Always, he pushed as far as he could go.

Slowly, in the darkness, with a single light blazing at the window, he wormed his way into the heart of Snape's solitude.

One night the briars parted, and Harry stepped through.

He told no one. Spying on Snape was his secret. Concealed beneath his father's cloak, Harry broke into Snape's house, sprawled on Snape's chairs, prowled Snape's hallways, and, when the mood was on him, stole Snape's books.

Mostly, though, he watched.

Snape was still Snape. He practiced elementary potions using a battered, blackened saucepan and anything else he could scare up, including, on enough occasions to be worrisome if Harry were inclined to worry, his own blood. Harry thrilled with disgust every time Snape's skin split under the knife, every time he stretched his pale, smeared arm over the hissing potion. He held his breath and watched, fingering his own scars. Every batch ended up dumped down the sink. Or else Harry watched Snape cook elaborate meals, using every pot and pan and utensil and spice in the cramped, lino-tiled kitchen, only to turn off the burner and bin the lot, so savagely the container hit the floor with a crash. Food splattered the tiles. Not much of a one for eating, was Snape.

Or Harry watched him stand at various windows with arms folded, staring out into the street or the back lot. Since this happened every time he visited, it was a fair bet Snape did it every day. He watched him pull books from shelves and read and take notes and read and mutter and read and close the books and rest his cheek against their covers. He watched him pace. And drink. And throw things just for the pleasure of seeing them shatter. This was Snape, after all. Not books, though. Harry never saw him throw a single book. He watched him refuse to clean up, so that the broken pieces were still there the next time he snuck in. But later he watched Snape clean obsessively, wash and dust and scrub and knock cobwebs out of corners. In private, Snape rolled his shirtsleeves up, and the Dark Mark banded his left forearm like a bruise. Once, Harry caught him opening the door, thrusting his hand forward, saw him snatch it back, swearing, and stick his bleeding fingers in his mouth. He watched him practise Accio over and over without a wand.

He watched Snape fail, and he smiled.

He didn't watch him undress. Or follow him into the loo. He wasn't so far gone yet that he'd creep in at night and watch him while he slept. Or wanked, if he ever actually did, which Harry doubted.

For this, Harry incurred not a single reprimand. Not the slightest indication that the Ministry was aware of him or bothered by the news of someone breaking in. Hermione asked him once about his bloodshot eyes. Ginny let fly with a few childish remarks about tomcats prowling back-alley fences. But if an Auto-Quill were jotting details of his visits onto Ministry parchment, Harry had yet to see the forces of Light come racing to investigate.

It was January now. Six months, and he'd finally been caught at it.