CHAPTER 6 – Why Me?

"We need to protect firs the most vulnerable points. The school years is about to start and Hogwarts will not be safe place for kids with the Elder Wand still in Albus's tomb. The second target is you, Mr. Potter.'

The Boy-Wonder almost jumped out of his skin to be singled out. 'Why me?'

Merlin, why could not Lily and James fashion a little bit more intelligent kid or his brain was constantly sipping through this scar on his forehead without anyone noticing?

'Because you are still the true master of the Elder Wand and until you are alive its strength is alive. My utmost fear is that you are going to be captured and held barely alive as long as it is necessary to reproduce the wand on mass scale - and you will be killed then. So I will be much obliged if Minister Shacklebolt provides adequate security for you...'

'Of course! I see the gravity of the situation. I think we would arrange for Harry to stay at the Ministry until Mulciber is captured and tried!' the minister had finally found his voice.

'And you consider your bloody ministry a safe place?' the sneer in Lucius's voice was not disguised by courtesy.

'Oh, what, Malfoy manor is better?'

'At least the goblins failed to infiltrate here!'

Shacklebolt drew his wand, but Hagrid plucked it with one swift movement before Lucius could produce his own.

'You listen when the Headmaster Snape talks, am I clear?' the giant bended towards Shacklebolt. 'We are talking danger here, not your ministerial games!'

'Give me back my wand!' the minister was green.

'After we finish here, stay put now!' Hagrid stood up and put it on the top circle of the glittering chandelier. "I will get it for you then! Headmaster!'

'It is time to dispatch the teachers back to Hogwarts to strengthen the protective charms and clean up the ground from anything suspicious. We have to enlist the help of the house elves and the centaurs for that as well. Bayly, I will count on you for daily updates on the situation in Durmstrang - and if there are news that come at any time of the day or night that you may deem even slightly suspicious or important - I want to be informed immediately. It is good that the schools in France and Bulgaria are going to start their school year later as per their standard calendar, it will give them more time to regroup.'

Severus stopped to take a breath and saw the look at the faces of Minerva, Augusta and Horace. He did not like it.

'You see, Headmaster, we will do all that. But I think that you are underestimating Mulciber. He does act like that, of course. But it is not the most dangerous part, if I am right!'

'I think you are, Horace, no matter how much I hate to agree with you!' seconded Augusta.

'It will be worse than the Final Battle, Severus, much worse!' said Minerva looking a hundred years older than when he had entered the room.

'Why?'

'Horace!' There was a warning in Minerva's voice but her mind was deliberately blank under Severus's subtle try.

'Jack, what you will hear may surprise you.' The old man was giving him a chance to exit before he started. Jack however refused to bulge. What for - one way or another he was going to face his sire, for the moment the most secure place was where he was, anyway. He was not quite sure he wanted to hear it all, but if it made him better prepared for the face-to-face meeting, why not.

'Severus, you are young and there is a lot that you don't know about the not so distant history of Hogwarts. Agelastus was two years Tom senior, also a Slytherin, and a member of the Slug club as well. Among these presents one more of the Slugs is here tonight and she would tell you that Gell-O as he was universally known at that time was one of the most clever, most cunning and most twisted minds that had even entered Hogwarts. Couple that with being a pureblood of exceptional personal beauty and decent fortune - he was irresistible. He loved it. He loved turning tables during an intellectual debate. He loved throwing his teachers off-base with a new spell or me with an obscure potion - and he was good at both. At that time it was fashionable to spend the summer abroad despite the troubles in the Muggle world and he traveled extensively, to Greece, to Italy, spent a semester at Beaubatons and another one at Durmstrang as an exchange student. There he learned about the Elder Wand and tipped one very impressionable young boy about it. It was his form of a sadism - he would tease the counterpart with the unreachable for him but seemingly available to Gell-O. Tom swallowed the bait and started digging himself. You know the rest.

Agelastus loved playing cat and mouse in more sense than one, right, Minerva? Don't be fooled, he is a powerful animagus and if you find a mouse in your kitchen drawer think twice whether to give it cheese. May bite your hand together with the treat.

Almost at the same time when he befriended Tom and toyed with him, he got involved with the most brilliant witch of his generation. They would have made a perfect couple as she was witty enough to block his sadistic streak and clever enough to almost see who he actually was. It may have turned into a fairytale if not for his parents. Mulciber Sr. was not less proud with his ancestry than Marvolo Gaunt, may be even more so, as he claimed that the family tree was started by none other than Mars the god of war and the finest smith in human history. If Albus had held onto the classic program which he abandoned in exchange for the idiocy called Divination, you might have learned that Mulciber is the other name of Mars, so there may be some grain of truth in the entire pedigree story. There was no way his only son and heir would marry a half-blood.'

'And one Minerva McGonagall may have been all that Horace just said but was born to a powerful yet ancient Scottish wizard who died soon after her birth and his anonymous young blond wife who refused to reveal her blood status and was thus disqualified as a pureblood.' The contempt was evident on the withered face of the Transfiguration professor. The people around the table - with the exception of Horace and Augusta - were so used to her image of a strict schoolmarm that they never had pondered over the fact that she should have been young at one point. Even as an old woman she retained her regal beauty - she must have been stunning as a young woman. The Scottish blood gave a credible explanation to her stubborn character and rare dueling qualities, and may be even to the red streaks in her hair.

'Horace, let me take from here. Agelastus suddenly found the tables turned - I was out of his reach but within anybody else one. To say that he loathed the situation would be an understatement. He channeled his considerable energy into other field. Unfortunately one of his younger friends got interested in me, although I neither encouraged it nor even knew about it at the start.' Minerva stopped to conjure a glass of water and in the tiny pause Severus was able to guess the name of that fellow student. Merlin, he hated it before the old witch was halfway through her glass. He hated not even the facts, although, Merlin's beard, they were nasty enough. He hated the story unfolding - another ruthless, clever and twisted mind had played with a kid in love and used that love for reaching his own aims. Severus felt how his fingers were digging into the polished wood. The fading green eyes of the wise witch held his ones captive.

'Yes, Severus, you are right! The other boy was Tom. Handsome, clever, homeless and penniless Tom, who was gently led by his elder friend to believe that he hated Muggle-borns and half-bloods as a precaution to not getting involved with me. That was the start of his downfall as the poisonous seeds of the idea were planted in the very well prepared soil of his unhappy childhood and liberally sprayed with his own sadistic streak that had led him to befriend Agelastus in first place. I am afraid if it shatters your image of your father, Jack, but it is also a form of "the greater goods" that Albus was preparing for the entire wizarding community in his youth. Simply it was one at a time being destroyed rather than in droves.'

'That is what we are afraid of, Severus!' Augusta had already pulled from her handbag the mouse trap that she had carried seemingly forever. 'There had never been a fanged gerbil but one very persistent mouse is always on my mind. It does not only eat the cheese in the cupboard, it eats the very roots of the society that we know and treasure. Poor little mousie, nobody pays attention to few droppings here and there until it is too late, remember that rat Pettigrew. Gell-O the bloody bastard robbed Minerva of her life and made the life of many others a misery as well. Albus was too much concentrated on Tom to see the initial force behind him. After that it was Tom's doing, all right, he was of the type that if fallen for a girl or an idea it was until Death do them part, and we all know how it ended for the idea, but none of you knows about the mysterious deaths of any male who dared to get close to Minnie, one way or another they all died, I am not counting Albus, we all know why. When we accounted for the bodies after the Battle of Hogwarts we did not find Gell-O and I got suspicious then and there but you know, the damage was great and there were more urgent matters to attend. Now I regret it. Fear not, according to your daughter's memory, he had not changed and still knows all that is there to be known about the current events. People tend to talk when they are upset, he was used to say, but they talk more and remember less when they are happy. Does that make you think of something?'

Simultaneously the blood retreated from three faces - Lucius, Aline and Severus stared at each other in horror. They remembered the blacksmith that had performed the rites at the quick ceremony. In the dim light of his shop he had smiled knowingly at the four of them and the hand that had given the marriage certificate to Severus was adorned with a pale moonstone ring. They have left hastily and refused his offer of a glass of wine. Well the glass had come to them. The blacksmith had been actually dressed in green instead of black but as it was a popular place to get married they have assumed that his "blacksmith" status was mainly ceremonial for the sake of the tradition. Fools, utter fools, they have looked and not seen the obvious!

Suddenly it struck Severus. Minerva being Griffindor to the bones was wearing Slytherin-green robe. He quickly searched his memory, yes, it was either black or green, but never her house scarlet. Sweet Merlin, was it possible that she was still harbouring any feelings for Jack's father? Before the Headmaster managed to ponder over the unsettling question, Hagrid slapped his forehead with a force that would have flattened a goat to the thickness of a post stamp.

'Mice! Thestrals are startled by mice!'

The room felt very quiet.