Chapter Two: Faith in their hands shall snap in two
"What do you mean, he won't try any of the more effective potions? Why wouldn't he? Isn't it possible that the one he has you brew is sufficient?"
Severus resisted the urge to put his head in his hands, and he looked steadily at Minerva. "He hasn't told you, then. . . ."
"What? What hasn't he told me?"
"I did not believe he had, but I had hoped that at least in this . . ." Severus fought the urge to look away from her. He owed her this much. Without flinching, he said, "The curse is killing him. The Headmaster will be dead within a year. Likely within six months, if he continues as he has done."
Minerva looked at Severus, unblinking. "No . . . no, you are mistaken. It is no worse. And he . . . he would tell me."
"Perhaps he plans to. I do not know. He will no longer discuss it with me, neither that nor the larger issue."
Minerva scarcely heard what he said; she shook her head. "No. He would have told me. He would have told me this. You are wrong. There is no change."
"I am not wrong. The curse is slowly killing him from within. I believe that up until the last few weeks of his life, he will look much as he does now, appear no more ill. But he will eventually succumb to it, and before he does, his body will begin to fail. His magic will gradually weaken. Then . . . he will die. In great pain and lengthy agony."
Minerva's breath came in great gasps; hardly would she exhale when she would take another gasping breath. "No . . . no." She attempted to stand, but Severus took her shoulders and urged her back into her chair.
"Breathe slowly, Minerva, please. Calm yourself. Just . . . just breathe."
"Why? Why! Why do you tell me this? And why didn't he? Gods, what is he thinking?" She shook off his hands.
"He is thinking . . . perhaps of you. But also of me and what he has asked of me." Severus sat back down across from her.
"What is this thing he has asked of you that would make him think that this . . . this course of action is remotely acceptable?" Minerva demanded. Her hands gripped the arms of her chair, but tremors passed through her as she attempted to regain control of herself.
"First, before I tell you—and I will tell you—I wish to give you some of the potion I have made up for him. There are two different ones. I believe both to be far more effective than the one he is currently taking. They are, by no means, cures, but they could extend his life quite comfortably for a decade or more. During that time, perhaps a cure could be found, or his . . . natural lifespan might obviate the need for one." Severus spoke evenly, calmly.
"His natural lifespan?" Minerva asked, voice cracking.
"All I mean is that, at his age, a potion that could fend off the effects of the curse for a dozen years or so . . . might be as good as a cure."
Minerva clenched her jaw but did not rebuke him. Severus rose and crossed the room. He opened a cabinet and removed two large bottles in a wire carrier. Returning to Minerva, he handed them to her, then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a parchment, which he also gave her.
"What is this?"
"The formulas, with some notes on some possible improvements that might be made. In case I am no longer able to brew for the Headmaster."
Minerva looked up at him sharply. "What do you mean by that?"
Severus sat again, drew a breath, and let it out slowly. "There are a few possibilities. The first is that, upon learning that I have informed you of these things, the Headmaster will no longer wish me to brew for him, even if you are successful, as I hope you will be, in dissuading him from his current course; the second is that I will no longer be able to brew for him through some incapacity or unavailability of my own. There are, of course, other scenarios, but those are the primary ones."
Minerva looked with unseeing eyes at the parchments in her left hand. "I don't understand . . . why would he do this? And why would he do this and not tell me?"
"You will need to ask him the second question. I cannot answer it. I can answer, in part, at least, your first question, however."
At this point, Severus was no longer able to look at Minerva. He had already imagined a thousand times what expressions would cross her face when he told her what he must tell her now.
"You see, Minerva, Albus . . . I . . . Albus believes I will kill him."
"What?" Minerva let out a snort of disbelief and Severus winced at her faith in him. "Have you lost your mind, Severus? He would never . . . why would he?" She paused, looking at him, and she shivered suddenly. "Or why would you?"
Severus looked up at Minerva and, knowing he was about to sever his last tie of friendship, he said, "Because at the beginning of the summer, I took an Unbreakable Vow to do so."
The parchment slipped from Minerva's fingers. Severus caught the potions bottles with an Arresto Momentum before they hit the floor and Levitated them to the table beside Minerva's chair.
Minerva's mouth moved, but no sound emerged from it. Severus sat calmly and waited. Finally, she said, her voice barely a whisper, "You wouldn't have."
"I did. I did not know at the time what I was agreeing to do. But the Headmaster had made certain requests of me that made taking the Vow seem . . . prudent. I was unaware for a number of weeks precisely what it was that would be required of me to fulfill the Vow. The Headmaster . . . he was fairly certain from the moment I told him of the Vow. He told me that he had little doubt even when he first heard . . . he said he believed taking it was the right thing to have done. And that he would prefer it to any other outcome.
"It bothered me even then, Minerva, please believe me. And I tried to urge him to find ways around it. But he seemed to feel this was all fated to be, and he has never seriously considered any alternatives. However, I will not carry out the Vow. Yet if he is unprepared for that, it will go badly for him—he must at least begin taking the stronger potions. And Albus must prepare for what will happen when I fail to carry out the Vow."
"You will die." Minerva said, looking at him hard.
"I took the Vow. You said once that I make bad choices, that I am self-destructive. And here is your final, incontrovertible proof of it. But it was my choice. I made it. I will pay for it. I am sorry that it will make things difficult for the Order when they lose their spy, but this is the one final choice that I can make that will—"
"How could you! How can you!? How could you do such a thing—take the Vow, not even knowing what would be required of you? Of all the absolutely stupid, idiotic, boneheaded—Severus! And then to actually contemplate carrying it out? And you would have, wouldn't you? He would say jump, and you would jump, killing Albus and condemning yourself—"
"I did this for Albus, because he asked me, not because of the Dark Lord."
"I don't care who you are obeying anymore, Severus! I could kill you right now, I am so angry with you. And to think that Albus . . . he must have a plan. He must. He wouldn't just let you do that. How could he? How could he do it . . . to any of us?" Tears of anger, frustration, disbelief, and pain coursed down Minerva's cheeks. Severus thought that she looked a decade older than she had when she had entered his sitting room that evening.
"His plan is to pass on to Potter all he can between now and the event and, I believe, to sicken and to allow me to see him weaken. He also believes that events will force our hand. That it will be inevitable. That circumstances will come together so that either I kill him and live or I don't kill him and we both die, with perhaps others dying with us. Potter . . . and others. But because he believes this, he is creating those exact circumstances. And I will not conspire with him to bring them about. Whatever happens, I will not kill him. I will not do it to him, I will not do it to you, and I will not have yet one more death on my soul, and certainly not his. Yet if he is unprepared for this, it is quite likely that the only alternative course of events is the one that he foresees—both of us dead, and others along with us, the future of the wizarding world in the hands of the Dark Lord. I am quite willing to die rather than kill, but I do not want to bring him and everyone else along with me. That is why you must talk to him. He forbids me to even speak to him of . . . of the consequences of what he is planning. Soon, I fear he will not even allow me to speak of alternatives. Not," Severus spat, "that he ever considers any alternatives."
Minerva sat still now, numbly. "I do not know whom to be more angry with. You or him. And you have both known this. And you have both just . . . gone on . . . for months . . . as though I do not matter. As though I do not need to be considered, let alone consulted." She looked up at Severus. "You would have just gone ahead with this, wouldn't you, if it hadn't been for that spell? Wouldn't you?" Minerva asked harshly, not naming the curse that had afflicted Severus that September, and from which she had freed him at no little cost to herself.
"I do not know," Severus replied quietly. "Possibly. Probably. Albus . . . Albus has been most adamant. And he usually knows what is right, as you have pointed out yourself. But now . . . I cannot . . . and I have been trying to get him to take the improved potions for weeks now, hoping that he would see that there might be some other course if he took them and knew that . . . knew that the curse would not kill him within months. I do not know whether he refuses in order to make it easier for me or to make it easier for himself. And I no longer care. I will not kill him. And I will tell him that. You need not."
"I need not? You give me these potions," she said bitterly, gesturing at the bottles, "and you tell me that Albus has been plotting his own death for months, and you ask me to get him to change his mind, but you say that I need not tell him that you refuse to be the instrument of his suicide? For that is what you would be . . . how could he be so damned idiotic? And unfeeling?" Minerva began to weep again.
"I think he does appreciate that I do not wish to do it, he simply believes—"
"I do not mean about you, man! Me! What of me? Almost forty years together, and now—how do I believe in anything now?" Suddenly she was heaving great, violent sobs, her head in arms, and her magic began crackling around her.
"Shh, shh, Minerva, please, shh, shh," Severus said, alarmed and without a clue of how to calm the nearly hysterical witch. He reached out and touched her shoulder, trying to offer some little comfort. His hand was thrown back with a bright burst of yellow sparks.
"Do NOT TOUCH ME! Never, ever, ever touch me again!" Minerva shouted, raising her head and glaring at him, tears streaming down her face, scarcely reining in her magic. But as she collapsed back into the chair, cradling her head in her hands, she seemed to regain some control over herself, although her sobs did not cease.
"I . . . I will be in my office," Severus said. "You may stay or leave, as you wish." He turned and went to leave. Reaching the door, he paused and said softly, "I cannot ask and do not deserve your forgiveness. But please believe me when I say that I knew of no other way. Not today and not last summer." He waited a moment, and when there was no sound but the continued quiet weeping of the witch behind him, he opened the door and left, knowing he had wrought the destruction of his last tie to human warmth and friendship.
NEXT: Chapter Three, Heads of the characters hammer through daisies. In July 1997, a surprised Harry sees a secret plan unfold before his eyes as he leaves Privet Drive for the last time. Characters: Harry Potter, Vernon Dursley, Petunia Dursley, Dudley Dursley, Minerva McGonagall.
Author's Note: This story is deliberately nonlinear in structure, although chapters one through nine are all in chronological order (not including the prologue), with only some "flashbacks" through a character's memories. Some of the events follow one another closely from one chapter to the next, with others, there is more of a jump ahead of days, weeks, or months.