Same disclaimer: The Potterverse is the province of J. K. Rowling. I'm just borrowing her characters for a bit of non-profit fun.

IV

In Ars, Veritatem

Part I

While London's fog lifted, morning came late to the Highlands, dragging her feet and trailing her misty skirts through the mud. High in her new apartments, Minerva gazed out the turret's long window over the grounds. This was terrible weather for the workers: mortar wouldn't set, varnish wouldn't dry, and all that waterlogged wood was a nightmare in itself. She sighed. "I don't care how many spells they would've used, today's just not a good day for repairs inside or out." As she scanned the buildings below, great hulks of stone wrapped in fog and shadows, uneasiness crept upon her. "I can't ever remember a spring so dank and dreary," she said, rubbing her arms.

"Damn the weather. If you ask me, the sooner you set the castle to rights, the better," said a soft voice from higher on the wall. "Once word gets out, they won't come back at all." The honorable and extremely-late Headmaster Archibald MacNabb tipped his tricorne. "Dwarves are a superstitious lot."

"You're right, Archibald: I didn't ask you." She left the window and returned to the settee, but neither its cheery tartan throw nor her dining companion, who was just now rubbing her tongue with a corner of her shawl, could lift the fug that had settled over her. "What on earth are you doing, Sybill?"

"I feel like I'fth sthwallowed a cat."

Minerva settled stiffly next to her. "I'm surprised you can feel anything at all."

"That firewhiskey's a deadly quaff. In my day, a real lady wouldn't have touched the stuff." MacNabb drew a lace handkerchief from his sleeve and dabbed a spot beneath his nose.

"It'th not the firewhithskey. I alwayth fell like thith after I've had a premonithion." She looked up at him. "Why wouldn't they come back? Wath it something I thaid?"

"You said that Professor McGonagall wasn't the rightful Headmistress. Well, not with those exact words, but that was the gist." He waved his handkerchief at the portrait of Snape that hung behind Minerva's desk. "I've been anticipating his response, we all have, but there he sits: mute as a stone with a stare to match."

"Not Headmistress?" Sybill gawped at him.

"Not while the last one's still at large. I'm no seer but I could've told you the same thing," he said. "And don't give me that look, Minerva. While she was diving deeper into her cups, it was all you and Hagrid talked about." He settled into his throne chair with a flourish. We portraits like to listen as much as we like to talk but we see things too, don't we, friends?" Around him, former Heads of Hogwarts murmured in agreement.

"That's enough, Archibald," said Minerva.

"If what you're saying is true, then where's Severus?" Sybill twisted her shawl. "If he's here and he's alive, why is he hiding from us?"

"Why have all the spirits gone? What makes the moon weep and blood run cold? When does a dragon supplant a doe?" Archibald smacked the chair arms so hard his gilt frame rattled. "Are you third eye-blind, woman?"

"Voldemort hexed him! Dark magic should die with its caster but his didn't, and now Severus is out there, wounded and alone. We have to find him!" Sybill sprang from her seat and ran to the door. "Oh, I can't wait to tell Mr. Filch the good news!"

"Find him? Yes and when you do, put a stake through his heart and seal his ashes in a silver urn!" Archibald called after her.

Minerva glared at him. "You have no proof of that."

"Do you think we portraits—all of us, mind you—were put up just for show? We've been watching Master Snape mix his special brew for over twenty years."

"No, you mustn't say any more!" Helga Hufflepuff shrieked from the opposite wall. "We are bound by the wishes of the Headmaster! To break a vow to him will doom us all!"

"A tincture of Asphodel and Aconite to quell the undead appetite. Isn't that right, Sir?" McNabb gnashed his teeth at Snape's portrait. "You see, he does not refute me! His very silence substantiates his guilt. He's nothing more than a bloodsucking ghoul!"

Helga dissolved in tears. Ever chivalrous, Phineas Nigellus Black slipped into her frame to comfort her.

"Sybill's predictions are often flawed. If they weren't, over half of our student body would be dead by now. She was simply overcome by grief, " Minerva said. "Tell them, Severus!" But his likeness continued to stare stonily into space.

"He already has, Minerva," McNabb huffed from his frame. "The proof is in the Patronus."

Part II.

Argus Filch lay in his Infirmary bed. Eyes closed and still muzzy headed from his sedative, he listened to the gears click-click on the tower clock. Gears, because the old timepiece had lost its hands and much of its face in the skirmishes. While its metal heart stolidly counted down the day, turning the great wheels within wheels that formed its iron carapace, gusts of wind whistled through its broken spaces. One of these errant breezes now whispered to him.

Argus listened, letting it tickle the hair in his ears. It spoke comfort to him, sharing a secret in a voice that was low and soft, and so familiar. Still caught between dreams and waking, Argus smiled; he nodded.

Moments later, when Professor Trelawney burst into the room, he obeyed the wind in his dream and lay completely still. The wind had something it wanted to share with Sybill. It wasn't a secret like the one it had just shared with him: it was a gift—the kind that would keep on giving, regardless of the wishes of its recipient.

The wind's gift, wrapped in a whiff of green smoke, was a single word. One that would make Sybill go wherever it wanted her to go and know only what it wanted her to know: Imperio.