Jiggly Joe: Harry's protests about Shunpike's arrest were never about him being killed; as far as we are told, Shunpike was still alive at the end of the series. It's explicitly stated that what Harry was unhappy about was him being arrested and then imprisoned so the Ministry could be seen "doing something", which was the same reason Fudge had Hagrid arrested in book 2. If what Harry was protesting was summary execution, he would have a very valid point, but it wasn't and he didn't. And since the entire series was from Harry's perspective, I can't see that there is any functional difference between "Scrimgeour was an antagonist to Harry's perspective" and "Scrimgeour was an antagonist in the story".
naruto: Yes, Jen has continued to slowly enlarge the amount of magic her body can channel at a time like she did back in Princess of the Blacks. She does that every four or five months, but I just haven't shown it happen after the first time because it would be pointlessly repetitive and serves no narrative purpose.
Disclaimer: Did Snape's 'redemption arc' have him show any remorse for the people he and the other Death Eaters killed while he was a willing member of the organization? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.
Chapter 10
Friends in Strange Places
Lily scowled with disgust and threw down the Daily Prophet that she had been handed. "You're right. They're really going through with it."
His own frown firmly in place, James nodded and picked it up to resume reading. He did not have long before he had to meet with yet another realtor; thanks to the year he spent working at Hogwarts, they had been able to qualify for a loan to purchase a new house, but now it was a matter of finding the right one. They did not want to go through the hassle of contracting out to have a house built for them, but at the rate they were going, that might be what eventually happened. None of the houses for sale right now were up to their standards, met all their requirements, and were in their budget range. While he was off doing that, she would head back down to the potion lab in the Longbottoms' manor that she had all but taken over to continue her brewing, which currently was their only source of income since James's previous plan to join the DMLE as a Patrolman or a Hit Wizard had gone up in smoke as soon as Lestrange cut off his leg.
And even if she had not, Lily reflected, he probably would not want to work for them now, anyway. The article he showed her was another about Stan Shunpike, this time that he was being formally charged with conspiracy to commit murder and acts of terrorism. Arresting the man for something he had not done – Danny in particular was quite vehement on that point – was bad enough, but now the DMLE was blundering on and was actually going to put him on trial for it! And, of course, it was almost assuredly going to be a show trial with a guilty verdict already decided.
Heaven forbid the Ministry admit that it was doing something wrong when it was riding the swell of public support this illegal arrest garnered them.
It was bad enough that the Ministry was behaving like this, but Danny had made no secret of the identity of the Auror whom he and Dumbledore had talked to when they went to the DMLE to straighten this all out. Neither Sirius nor Narcissa Malfoy had even tried to explain away Nymphadora Tonks's accusations when the Order met following that disastrous discussion, but neither had they spoken out against them. They had, in fact, said absolutely nothing regarding the Ministry's recent actions. Word had then been passed around following their departure that Sirius was still working as a Hit Wizard trainer even after being called in to chat with Scrimgeour. It seemed that the Black family had made the choice to side with the Ministry even when it stood in opposition to the Order, and while everyone hoped this war did not become a three-sided fight with the Ministry and the Order fighting themselves at the same time they moved against the Death Eaters, a few of the more hot-headed Order members were already floating out the idea that the Blacks be preemptively barred from further meetings since they clearly could not be trusted.
As if summoned by her thoughts, the door opened to allow Dumbledore to walk in. "Ah, James, Lily. Just who I needed to see. We need to have a quick chat, and a rather uncomfortable one, at that."
"On that note, I believe I will take my leave." Augusta stood and picked up her empty bowl, waving away James's protests that they could find somewhere else to talk. "I have other things I need to do, anyway. Besides, from the look on your face, Albus, I don't think I want to hear what it is you have to say."
"No, you don't. Thank you." He waited until the middle-aged witch had closed the door before he sighed and dropped heavily into an empty chair.
James and Lily glanced worriedly at each other. "So what is it?" he finally asked. "Is something wrong with Danny?"
"No, or if there is, it's nothing I'm aware of. I'm afraid I'm here to talk to you about your other child." Neither Potter had anything to say to that, so he pulled off his half-moon glasses and rubbed his crooked nose for a moment. "While the Ministry may have pulled me from my post in the ICW, I do still have some connections in the international community. I was catching up with one of them yesterday when he mentioned something 'funny' he had heard about last month. Our disgust with and stand against dark magic is well known on the Continent, and as a result some representatives from other nations found it ironically amusing that a British girl should travel to Bulgaria and take their version of the OWLs, specifically the one for the Dark Arts."
"You're sure it was Jenny?" she asked in a weak voice. Jenny had told her at their last – and from the way the girl had ignored her letters following that, possibly final – discussion about how it was only the weak returns that kept her from moving against the populace and trying to take over the country as a Dark Lady. That had shaken her for obvious reasons, but after several weeks of worry and back-and-forth discussions with herself, Lily had almost managed to convince herself that Jen had phrased her statement the way she had purely for the shock value and that there were other reasons she would not really do something like that, lack of ability among them. Now, though, with news that her daughter might be defiling herself with dark magic?
She didn't want to believe it, but it was hard to argue with Dumbledore's certainty.
"Well, she was tested under the name Jennifer Black, so I can only assume so. In case you were wondering, she received top marks," he added in an acid tone. "I'm sure Mrs. Malfoy was quite pleased to hear that."
"But surely Sirius would be upset about this," James cut in, though his voice betrayed his own doubts. "He always hated the Dark Arts. I know Azkaban left him damaged, but he wouldn't let her study dark magic. And then there's Andromeda's daughter. She's an Auror. Wouldn't she be against it, too?"
"Young Nymphadora, I'm afraid, may be lost to the Light. We already know she is a liar and a traitor; in light of that, is it so unlikely that she might not secretly support the Dark? Kingsley has told me that she is currently enjoying the benefits of being a member of the Blacks and supporting the Ministry's new militancy, among them increased standing with Scrimgeour. One does not have to be evil already to start down the road of Darkness. Greed and selfishness will do just fine for that.
"But what Nymphadora or Sirius or Narcissa approve of or don't is irrelevant. We may not like it, but your daughter currently has a not-insignificant amount of sway with the DMLE as a result of fighting Voldemort in Hogsmeade, particularly since she then made it sound like she did so alone, and her friendship with Amelia Bones's niece gives her an additional route directly to the top of the Ministry. She has, at least to my knowledge, not taken advantage of that influence, but I fear it will only be a short time before she does. We cannot allow her to use that influence to hinder our efforts to end this war, by accident or design."
"You want us to discredit our daughter?" Lily asked feebly. On the one hand, it would make any efforts at bringing her back to the Light and her family all but impossible. On the other, if doing so would make this war end faster, could they afford not to?
"If necessary, yes. The worst possible outcome would be for us to vanquish Voldemort only to discover that the Ministry had become even more authoritarian and prejudiced than it is now. But," he added thoughtfully, a hand rising to stroke his long beard, "there might be an alternative to removing her influence. If she could be convinced to use it for good, we could ensure that the Ministry comes out from this war a better institution than it is now. I just do not know how we can reach her at this point," he finished with a sigh.
"She might go by the name Black, but she's a Potter deep down," said James in a far more confident voice than he had used previously. "We just… need to get past her dislike of us personally."
"That won't work." James and Dumbledore turned to look curiously at her. "I… We… I might have convinced her to meet with me a couple of times over the last year."
"That is wonderful, my dear," Dumbledore said with a wide smile. "If you are already making inroads—"
"I'm not. Or I was, maybe, but…" Lily shook her head. "She just walked out the last time we talked. I don't know why, and when I tried to find out, she never answered any of my letters. Even when we were talking, she made it very clear she doesn't think much of us." Pulling her arms close around her, she whispered, "She's Dark. I didn't want to admit it to myself, but she is. She just doesn't care about anyone else, and she's proud of that. She told me that she would support Bones even after I told her that would mean the Ministry killing people, and she laughed at the idea of imprisoning the Death Eaters. I don't know how we could reach her."
Dumbledore slipped out of the chair to kneel at her feet and lay a hand on her knee. "Oh, Lily," he said in a voice thick with sorrow, "I know it seems like an impossible task, but no one is beyond redemption if they truly desire it. It will be a hard, hard road for her, but we can pull your daughter back from the Darkness. We just need to drag her close enough for her to realize how far she has fallen. The question, ever ever, is how."
"Miss Black, stay behind if you would."
Jen and Susan exchanged confused glances before the redhead shrugged. That period of Potions had been completely unremarkable, just as every period of this class had been now that it contained only the school's top brewers, so she was sure Snape did not want her to stay for any disciplinary reason. Had something happened to her sample from the previous class? But if that were the case, why did he phrase his statement like a request?
She had no idea, and now she was curious.
Susan walked out alongside Padma, the only two members of their group who had both managed to get an O on their OWL and were willing to spend another two years with Snape, while Jen finished packing her belongings. One eyebrow rose delicately when the normally dour professor flicked his wand at the door, causing it to slam closed and erecting an impressive privacy charm upon it. "I need to ask you a… personal favor," he said after a moment's hesitation.
"A personal favor." He nodded, and the corner of her mouth quirked. This situation was just too ripe for humor for her to pass up. "A sixteen-year-old girl alone in a room with an older, mysterious man; the door's locked and charmed so no one can overhear us; and he's asking for a personal favor," she counted off, and her expression bloomed into a wide grin. "I knew I should have worn the lacy underwear today."
Snape gaped at her for a moment before his jaw clacked shut and his head shook back and forth as though to get rid of those mental images. Clearly he did not appreciate her moment of mirth. "Are you quite done with playing the coquette?" he demanded with his teeth clenched.
"If I must."
"That will have to do, I suppose." Taking a breath, the wizard rolled up his left sleeve to display the pitch-black tattoo of a snake coming out of a skull's mouth. "This is what I need help with. Can you get rid of it?"
She blinked and started walking toward him so she could more closely inspect the Dark Mark emblazoned on the underside of his forearm, though most of what she needed to know she could feel with her sonar just fine from where she had been sitting. "Okay, I'll be honest: not what I thought you were going to ask. Partly because I don't know why you're asking me about it."
"The intersection of those I believe can help with this problem and those who would be willing to do it is, unfortunately for me, limited to you. I would not walk away alive if I asked one of the Death Eaters, I have seen not a sign of the Dark Lord over the last few months even if I could ask him to release me from his service, and of the Order, I am the only one who has any detailed, first-hand experience with dark magic. The Aurors only know enough to be able to effectively fight dark wizards, and for all that Dumbledore is nowhere near as lily-white as we once thought him, he abhors the Dark Arts." He glanced away and answered her unasked follow-up question. "I myself have a great deal of expertise in curses and certain poisons, but that will not work on this unless I wished to remove my arm. You, on the other hand, have knowledge of more uncommon aspects of the Dark Arts. Very few— Ow!"
"You wanted this. Quit complaining," she retorted while she continued pulling and prodding at the icy patch of magic behind the image with her hands and her powers. The edges of the spell were wrapped around themselves, which should have given her a good grip, but as his reaction proved, that was not the case here. "Very few what?"
"Fourteen-year-olds can create a working oath with blood magic. Stop!" He tried to jerk his forearm away from her grasp and grunted when she grabbed the center of the spell and stretched. "What are you doing?!"
"Trying to figure out what this is," she answered with a faint huff. "I thought it would be a complex charm of some sort, but it's fighting me more like a ward, which is weird. If it's just experience with other forms of dark magic you needed, you could have Flooed Aunt Cissy, you know. She and Aunt Andi both know more blood magic than I do, at least for the moment."
"I considered going to her, but she is not bound to keep my secrets the way you are."
That did not mesh with his previous answer, but it was still a fair point. The oath he had mentioned was something she had done a couple of years earlier in what she now realized was an instance of her acting out of arrogance more than sense, but thankfully it had not blown up in her face the way it could have. They were both oath-bound to keep secret what the other did not wish for anyone else to know, and that magically created trust was no small part of the reason their relationship was a little bit different from the norm. The knowledge that her favorite aunt had once had designs to ravish his prepubescent body didn't make it any more conventional, at least not on her end.
One more tug, and the bit of magic on his arm flashed momentarily with ice and a too-familiar spark. She let go of his hand with a disappointed sigh. "Well, I have good news, bad news, and worse news."
"Just go ahead and skip to the worse news," he said in a resigned tone of voice.
"You don't get a say in the order. Good news, I do know what this is. Bad news, it's soul magic."
"And soul magic is?"
"A form of black magic." Ah, there was the expected expression of terror. Black magic was, understandably, feared by the average witch and wizard, even those who were otherwise inured to the Dark Arts. Mostly that was because black magic was a mystery to anyone who was not a practitioner and all that was commonly known about it was that it put incredible, impossible things within the realms of reality. "The Dark Lord put a piece of his soul in your flesh to bind you to him for the rest of your life. Worse news? There are only two ways to break a spell like this. First, we could ask him to undo it himself—"
"Because that would ever happen," Snape scoffed.
"Exactly. Second, we have to totally destroy its physical anchor."
"Which still leaves me with only one arm," he pointed out unnecessarily. Obviously grasping for straws, he asked, "The Dark Lord Marks all of his followers. Is it even possible for him to have divided his soul as many times as he would have to do to accomplish that?"
"I think you are greatly overestimating the amount of his soul in the Mark. It really is a tiny piece, relatively speaking, though that does not make getting rid of it any less problematic." Did she really want to continue with the second part of the explanation? It was not something that many people knew, which she personally considered a good thing as otherwise there would be far more of Nyarlathotep's peons running around spreading madness like their patron wanted. "And… If you traumatize a soul by snipping bits of it off, it does regrow. Just slowly, and more importantly, it never comes back… right."
They stood in silence for a moment before she prompted, "How did you get it, anyway?"
"Why do you need to know that?" he demanded, his eyes pointedly not looking in her direction.
"The more I know about the Mark, the better the chances I have of figuring out some way of getting it off of you. I can't destroy it outright, but there might be a loophole we can use to our advantage."
Snape flicked his gaze at her for a second before looking away again. "People who want to become Death Eaters have to have a current member petition the Dark Lord for inclusion, and then they are given a test of some sort. Most often, they have to show that they can torture and murder Muggles or Muggleborns without regret; their chances of being accepted into the ranks are better if they show they enjoy it or if they do something… creative."
"Who did you kill?" she asked in a non-accusing voice.
"Kyle and Rebecca Standland and their son, Michael."
Her eyebrows rose of their own accord. "You knew them personally?"
"No," he muttered. "At the time, they were just three strangers. It was only later that I went looking for their names and what kind of people they were. I did not have the right to remember them only as nameless faces." He turned to stare at her now, his black eyes hard with something emotion that, as soon as he spoke, she identified as self-loathing. "You have to understand, my time as a faithful Death Eater is not part of my life I am proud— No. It is a part of my life that I am actively ashamed of. I could try to excuse myself by claiming I was young and stupid and full of anger and didn't care who I took it out on, but that's all it would be. Excuses. It doesn't change the fact that I murdered three people in cold blood and didn't think a thing was wrong with it."
"So what changed?" she questioned gently. "You believed in their cause once upon a time, but now you're a spy working against them."
"My best friend is a Muggleborn," said Snape softly, "someone I grew up with. I knew her parents and her older sister. Then I found out the Dark Lord planned to kill her. You asked me once why I was a spy for the Order even though I hate doing so; that is why. I went to Dumbledore to beg for his help in keeping her safe, and that was the price he demanded of me." Leaning backward against the front of his desk, he continued, "It was only after that night that I really considered that the people I killed, the people the rest of the Death Eaters killed? They were other people's families, other people's best friends, and we took them away from those people just as she was almost taken away from me." He sighed. "It's hard to mindlessly hate someone when you find you have common ground with them."
They were silent for a moment. "How did he apply the Mark to you?" she finally asked.
He seemed to appreciate the change of subject because he immediately explained in a more normal voice, "The Dark Lord only gives his Mark to one recruit at a time – which, if you're right in that it is a piece of his soul, makes much more sense now. I don't know if we all went through the same thing since none of us were given permission to talk about it, but for me, he smeared a foul-smelling paste on my arm and cast a spell on it. It was reddish brown in color, and he reapplied it every day for a week. The morning after my last 'session', I found the Dark Mark there, and it has never gone away since, not even when we thought he was dead."
A reddish-brown paste. Foul-smelling. She scowled; without more information, there were just too many things that could describe. "You said it smelled bad. How, exactly? Did it smell burned? Sour? Rotten?"
"I don't remember. It's been eighteen years since I smelled it."
Yes, because that was so incredibly helpful. Still, she felt like she should know this. Voldemort had to anchor his soul fragment to something, and he probably would not just do so to the Death Eaters' skin directly since they had their own souls that could fight back against it. Something red and foul that would interact with other magics, strengthen them—
No. Could it be that simple?
"Did it smell like feces?"
"I told you, I…" He trailed off, and his brow wrinkled as he cast his mind back through the years. "Actually, I think it did. Yes, that's it. I think I wondered why at the time, but I never did ask for an explanation."
"It smelled like feces because it was." His expression was disgusted and only grew more so as she continued, "Feces and blood for the color, and most likely bile and phlegm were mixed in as well. The four primary humors for the classical elements, with the magic of the charm to represent the aether. In ritual arithmancy, the number five is associated with manifestation and creation, and the seven repetitions were for permanence. He did not want this coming undone."
"As fascinating as that information is, is there a point to this? You already said you cannot destroy the Mark," he pointed out darkly.
"As a matter of fact, there is." He stared at her, and was that a gleam of hope in his eyes? "You're right, I can't break the Mark while it is on you, but what I can do is manipulate the interface. He used humoral magic to apply the Mark, which means I can use the same thing to move it from you to something else that I can destroy."
He hesitated for only a moment before he stretched out his arm for her to take once more. "Do it."
Conjuring a small knife in her pocket, she pulled it out and scratched two hagalaz runes on his wrist and in the crook of his elbow, cutting just deep enough to draw blood. Yes, they would scar, but she knew Snape could brew a Scar-Diminishing Potion; he had created a modified version to remove the scarring on her eyes that had left her blind for most of her life. "This won't be immediate; I hope you realize that. I need a day or two to collect enough fluid to work the magic, and then it'll take several more days to apply it," she told him while pulling her index fingers from the bloodied runes to the center of the Mark where the little spark of Voldemort's soul was hiding. Around and around and around her fingers circled, thin streaks of blood trailing behind them, and once she had woven the threads of magic from the runes through the fabric of the spell sufficiently, she anchored the threads back onto their respective runes. "The number six signifies transference, so that's how many humors I will be using. I'll have to apply that mixture eight times; that number is good for purification, and it's also the sum of seven and one. Seven to match the number of times the Dark Lord applied his own humoral mixture to you, and one for union to tie the Dark Mark to whatever object you choose to hold the soul fragment."
"And what humors do you plan to use?"
She looked up to find him staring down at her with a queasy expression. Still, he asked, and she had no reason not to answer. "Blood, bile, and phlegm are traditional, but instead of feces, I think I'll use urine. I'll also need to include a secondary axis to add up to six. Introversion–extraversion would probably be the easiest, which means it will also contain tears and vaginal secretions."
"Do we have to?" he asked in voice that was definitely a whine. "I appreciate the effort, but couldn't you find something else? I really do not want to have urine and… your stuff from… down there on me."
"I'm the one who has to collect them. Trust me, if there were any other option, I would take it, but we have to counter humors with humors. Earth is intimately linked to the act of excretion, and I don't like the idea of playing with shit any more than you do. Urine, at least, is relatively clean." Snape did not seem relieved by that fact. "As for the secretions, extraversion is connected with reproduction in the same way earth and excretion are. I'd offer semen, but the fluids all need to come from the same source, and that is one substance I just can't produce. I don't want to use yours in case there is contamination of some sort from the Mark, and I very much doubt you want me to call in a third person for this."
"No, but that doesn't mean I like it. This is all revolting."
"We're working with bodily fluids. It should go without saying that things are going to get gross." Plucking the strings of magic coming from the runes to check that they were stable, she gave them both a hard yank to tighten the magic around the Mark. She needed to make sure she had 'lifted' the soul piece out of Snape's arm enough that the magic she was going to use would be able to flow underneath it. Snape, unaware of just what she was doing, grunted at the sudden stab of pain. "Admittedly, you do have a choice for reproductive fluids since I'm a girl, but the other option is menstrual blood, which has its own problems. For one, I'm not on the rag right now, so we'd have to wait a couple of weeks to do this, and for two, if we used blood for extraversion, we couldn't use it for air, and I refuse to go with the alternative for that element."
Very hesitantly, he asked, "Which would be?"
"Spinal fluid."
"Ah. I understand your reluctance, then." A beat passed, and then he said, "Thank you for the information, but I think I've changed my mind. I've had the Dark Mark on my arm for almost two decades now, and while the Dark Lord was gone, I didn't have a single problem with it. Perhaps I'll just keep it, after all."
A mirthless smile slid onto her face. "That would be a terrible idea."
"Why?"
"You didn't have any problems with it because he was turned into a spirit, but he wasn't dead. Once he really dies – and he will, have no fear about that – there's no way to predict just how the Mark will react. It might turn quiescent again; it might even fade away entirely. On the other hand, it's possible – even likely – that this bit of soul has wrapped itself into your magic and will rip it all away when he's gone, turning you and all the rest of the Death Eaters into Squibs. Or it might just kill you outright." She shrugged. "There's really no way to tell. But since you took it voluntarily, I doubt the outcome would be a good one."
Snape looked at her, then at the Mark on his arm, then back at her. Finally, he said in a voice of utmost resignation, "You know more about this than I do. Much as I don't want to, I'll… trust your judgement on this."
The bag dangling from Ginny's shoulder lurched unexpectedly, and she scrabbled to grab it. She managed to catch the far end of the strap, but the bag just kept falling to smash against the stone floor. The redhead eyed the frayed end of the strap with an unhappy eye. This was the problem with second-hand satchels: they were always tearing and falling apart at the worst possible time. Wincing at the thought of what might have been damaged in the fall, she pulled the mouth of the bag open and peered inside.
And yes, of course her bottle of ink had to be the one thing broken. Ginny sighed and twirled her wand, siphoning up the spilled ink. She could Reparo the bottle just like she could the bag, but the ink itself was a loss. Maybe Marissa would be willing to loan her a spare bottle; she had not borrowed anything from the Muggleborn girl in a while. She made sure that when she needed to ask for help from her roommates, she went through them in order so as to burden any one of them as little as she could and in the process come across a little less as a freeloader, but giving away a bottle of ink was a minor inconvenience, and the other girls knew she would repay them for the stuff they gave her if she could and if they would let her. To her simultaneous relief and shame, the the latter had happened less and less often as they realized the depths of her family's poverty.
Of course, it ate at her to need to borrow anything from her roommates at all, but what could she do? Her father did not make much money, and after losing Bill at the end of last year, she had discovered that he and her dad had an arrangement where her oldest brother would transfer portions of his paycheck to the family's account and her dad would say nothing about it to anyone else. Fred and George had planned on making tons of money once they opened their joke shop, but without the kind of capital they needed to build up their stock, that windfall was just a dream, and that was probably all it would ever be. Percy still wanted nothing to do with them, Charlie barely made enough at the dragon preserve to maintain his own meager lifestyle, and that was all the breadwinners in the family.
Her books and rolls of parchment clean and ink-free once more, she looked up to see that the rest of the class had just kept on walking without her. She huffed and magicked the bag back together. Okay, she didn't blame them for wanting to get out of the dungeons as quickly as they could after yet another disastrous class with Snape, but not one of them had been willing to help her out or even ask what was wrong? Ugh! She barely resisted the urge to stamp one foot. It was like they had all completely ignored her—
"Need some help?"
"Not anymore. Thanks, though…" She turned around to face the speaker, and immediately her expression devolved into a scowl. "What do you want, Malfoy?"
"I did just offer to help. That should answer your question," he said, leaning against the cold wall. The white-blond boy pursed his lips. "I think you might need more help than just with your bag, though."
She glared at him. "I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't care. There's nothing you can offer to 'help' me with that I want." Pulling the repaired bag back onto her shoulder, she whirled around and stomped away.
"Are you sure about that?" he called out. "I mean, Potter only has eyes for Cho Chang. Unless you really don't want him?"
Ginny stopped in her tracks. Whatever she might have expected him to say, that was definitely not it. She also could not help her heart from thudding loudly and unhappily at that reminder. She had noticed Danny's fancy for the Chinese Seeker the previous year, and she had hoped it would crash and burn like so many crushes did. That, however, had not happened. Getting him to notice her was already going to be an uphill battle because he thought of her as his best mate's little sister, and having to compete against an admittedly attractive witch like Chang was only going to make her goal that much more difficult to achieve.
Her issues with Chang, however, did not explain why Malfoy was bringing up her and Danny. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure you don't. Look, Weasley, I hate to break it to you, but your thing for Potter is obvious to anyone who has eyes." Shoes scraped against the floor, and Malfoy slipped into view. He was keeping his distance, though, which was the only reason she wasn't whipping out her wand and hexing him right here and now. Well, the only reason she felt comfortable thinking about, anyway. "You keep beating your head against the wall waiting for him to notice you, but you're ignoring the fact that that's not going to work. You need to start playing the game sooner rather than later, or you're going to lose before you have a chance."
"I'm still waiting for you to make some sense," she bit out. Malfoy sounded like he was working his way up to something, but for the life of her she could not figure out what it was. Not that she should even be listening to him, she told herself sternly. The Malfoys had been held up as the epitome of everything a wizard or witch should not be all her life, and from listening in to Ron's complaints about Draco Malfoy, she already knew nothing he was going to say would benefit her. So why was she still listening?!
No, she knew why. It was because he had mentioned the exact problem she could find no answer for. If he really, honestly was trying to help – and that was a huge if – he might have noticed something that she was missing. Then there was just the question of why in the world did he care? He could just be planning to make fun of her; he had never done that to her since he was always too busy insulting Ron and Danny, but it was definitely something someone like him would do.
She frowned as she thought more about that. This seemed like an awful lot of trouble to go through for a quick laugh, and if that was all he was after, why was he doing it when it was just the two of them here? Wouldn't he want an audience for that?
"All right," he said, unaware of the debate raging inside her head. "I'll give you the short version. You can love Potter all you want, but if that's all you have, any hopes of getting together with him are doomed. You two are playing by different sets of rules."
"What do you mean, different rules?" she hesitantly asked.
He flashed her a smile that was more of a smirk. "For all that they don't call attention to it, the Potters are nobility, and there are certain… let's call them 'expectations', that apply to Noble Houses. They need to maintain their social standing, and when they go out courting, they need to think about what their partner can bring to the table in terms of finances and connections with other Houses. Your family isn't nobility, so you don't think about those kinds of things, but if you want to land him, you need to start playing along with his expectations."
"Maybe that's how your family does things," she spat, "but the Potters aren't like that! They wouldn't pick who to date because of stuff like how much money would be involved or how pure the other person's blood is." The very idea was ludicrous! After all, Mrs. Potter was a Muggleborn, and she had hinted that her family didn't have a lot of money when she was growing up. If Malfoy were telling the truth, Mr. Potter would not have given her the time of day. No, this sounded more like the sad, selfish, underhanded way slimy snakes like the Malfoys would go about love and relationships.
"Aren't they?" Malfoy swept his hand over his slicked-back hair. "Look at the Lady Potter. Sure, she might be a Muggleborn and so doesn't have any worthwhile connections, but do you think it's just a coincidence that when Lord Potter – the latest in a long-unbroken line of Purebloods – started dating a Muggleborn, it was also someone who was considered the brightest witch of her generation and was believed to have a fantastic future waiting for her after Hogwarts? That certainly sounds like a secondary motive to me. And while the Changs are newcomers to Britain, they're also rich newcomers, and from what I've heard, that family is a big deal back in Hong Kong.
"But even if he isn't thinking about it all the time and intentionally picking who he's interested in based on their family, that doesn't mean thoughts like that aren't going around on in the back of his mind. Courting is something that even the Light Houses at least pay lip service to, and eventually that's almost certainly how he's going to find his wife."
"You don't know that," she retorted. Inside, though, she had to wonder. Malfoy's comments about Mr. and Mrs. Potter sounded right and matched some things they themselves had told her, and she had noticed that Chang always wore fancy clothes. It was something she had lamented more than once in private. Could he be right about what Danny was thinking, too?
"Maybe I don't. But do you really want to risk it?"
"I still don't know what you want or what you're offering," Ginny said, shoving her doubts away where they couldn't hurt her.
Malfoy rolled his eyes. "That's because you keep interrupting me. You don't realize it, but courting is an incredibly expensive process. The amount of resources it takes is staggering. Now, normally it's the guys spending that money on the girls, but for a girl to chase after the guys she likes isn't unheard of. Unconventional, to be sure, but there is some precedent, and I've heard Bulstrode's family is doing that right now. Unfortunately for you, that means you're the one who will need to have that money. If nothing else, you'll need to update your wardrobe. It's hard to make people think you're a good catch if you don't look like one."
"Except Danny doesn't care about stuff like that! He's been friends with Ron for years—"
"And he doesn't want to date your brother, either, does he?" Malfoy cut in. "Just because he's friends with people who don't have the kind of money he does doesn't mean he'll be interested in dating or marrying someone from such a different background."
"So this was all just to laugh at me for being poor, was it?" she exploded, her grip on her wand tightening until it was almost painful. She did not want to listen to any more of his drivel. She should have kept walking like she had thought to do at first.
Malfoy just crossed his arms and stared her down. "Do I look like I'm laughing?"
That brought her thoughts up short. No, he wasn't. He… actually had a fairly serious expression on his face. But if this wasn't a cruel joke, that meant he actually believed what he had been saying, and that wasn't right, either!
"My offer to help is a serious one. You don't have the means to court Potter, nor to make yourself look good enough that he chases after you. I, on the other hand, do have those means. If you want to stand a chance to get him—"
"If the next words out of your mouth are 'I'll give you the money I just said you need', I'm going to hex you until you can't walk," she snapped. It did not matter how right or wrong he might be; there was no way she was going to accept charity from a Malfoy of all people! "I don't want your 'help', Malfoy. Not with this, not with anything. Don't ever talk to me about anything like this again."
He just kept smirking at her, and after a moment he pushed off from the wall. "That's what you say now, but if you keep your eyes open, you'll see that I'm right. Let me know when you change your mind." Walking back down the hallway, he turned around again. "Oh, but fair warning. My patience is limited. Don't take too long thinking it over."
After a minute, it was just her, standing alone in the cold corridor. Her eyes itched, and she hastily brushed away a couple of tears she had not realized were threatening to drip down her cheeks. She was going to be late for History, she decided, and she hitched her bag back up. She needed to run if she wanted to get there in time, and if she ran, she didn't have to think about any of this.
She just needed a day or two. Enough time that she could forget about this terrible conversation. Or at least enough time that she could prove Malfoy wrong.
"This has been a week I never want to relive," Snape muttered when she shut the door to his office behind her.
Jen just rolled her eyes. He had been doing so well, too; it only took one day for him to push himself past the unsavory details of the magic she was working, probably because having bodily fluids spread over his skin was not that different from getting filthy while rendering down an animal for parts, something he had mentioned he had to do during his Mastery training. Besides, she was the one who had to produce and harvest these fluids, so if she were not complaining, he had no right to, either. "It's a good thing we're almost done, then, isn't it?" she asked in an overly sweet tone.
"I just hope you do know what you're doing and this hasn't all been for nothing," he countered. "Shouldn't I have felt or seen some sign that it was working by now?"
"Not all magic is as flashy as the curses you love so much. Sometimes it is subtle, mysterious. And since we're working at the very edge of black magic, I'm more than happy with staying unimpressive," she added in a foreboding tone. A rustle through her satchel, and she pulled out the jar she had taken from her house in Wales to hold the mix of humors and the much-disgraced brush she had been using to apply the concoction to his forearm for the last week. "If it got too spectacular, I'd be afraid things were about to go very wrong. Did you find something for me to move the Mark onto?"
He reached in his right-hand pocket and pulled out a small bronze amulet.
"Okay. A little fancier than I would have picked out when it's just going to be destroyed, but to each his own, I suppose."
"Actually, about that." Snape hesitated for a moment before voicing his question. "Once the Mark is transferred, will it still work? Will it still signal when the Dark Lord has summoned us and lead me to him?"
"Probably? I mean, we're using a similar interface, and the magic of the Mark itself will be unchanged, so there's a good chance it would…" She trailed off as she realized why he was asking. "You're going to remain the Order's spy even after the Mark's off, aren't you?"
He looked away briefly before meeting her eyes with his own. "My reason for working with the Order is unchanged. It will be nice to have the option to quit, but for now, I think it is for the best that I soldier on. We have no one else in the Death Eaters' ranks, and we need the information I can bring back."
"Well, you're a grown man. Arm." He obediently stretched out his limb so she could roll up his sleeve. "If you want to keep risking your life in your quest for atonement, who am I to stop you? I will be quite put out if I hear you made me go through all this work just to die on me, though, so watch yourself around them."
"I will endeavor not to disappoint."
She worked in silence for a minute, just brushing her fluids over the Mark. She knew why he had his doubts about whether she was doing any good. This kind of magic needed no words, no fancy motions, no colored lights or eerie noises; all it needed were the humors themselves and the intent, the purpose, that she put in every stroke of the brush. Humoral magic might be considered Dark from a legal perspective, but as someone who could feel the distinction between light, neutral, and dark magics, she knew it was not dark in reality. It was just raw and primal, the kind of magic that unnerved people who liked to trumpet about the innate superiority of wizardry and wand-work, and that more than anything was the reason she expected its use was restricted.
After several minutes, Snape spoke again. "May I ask a personal question, Miss Black?"
"I've been smearing my blood and vomit on your arm for the last week. I think we can do away with the 'Miss Black's, and I doubt whatever it is you plan to ask is going to be more personal than this already is."
"Very well. When I told you about what I had done as a Death Eater, you barely reacted. Most people your age, and even those decades older, would have changed their opinions of me or at a minimum said something about it."
"And you're wondering why I didn't." He nodded. "There are a couple of reasons. First, remember who my mother is. She's probably killed more people in one night than you did over your entire career as a Death Eater."
Hesitantly he agreed, "That is likely to be an accurate assumption."
"I know; that's why I said it. Second, the Blacks have allegedly murdered our enemies and political opponents in the dark of the night for centuries. I really don't have room to throw any stones."
"What your family did in the past is not the same as what you yourself have done," he pointed out. "Your Head of House spent his entire time when he was a student here acting out against your family's legacy to prove that very point."
Jen's eyebrows rose in surprise. She was well aware of the grudges and bad blood that existed between Snape and Sirius, and yet that comment was rather neutral in tone. Would wonders never cease? "Are you saying you don't think I've killed before? The spirits of the Muggles and werewolves I cut down in Hogsmeade will be so ashamed to know they've been hating the wrong person all these months."
"There is a difference between killing in defense of yourself or others and murdering the innocent because you enjoy it."
And where does murdering the innocent in exchange for blessings from Death fall in there?, she wondered. Curious about how he would react, she shrugged. "And if you straddle that line? If someone killed in defense of others but still enjoyed the spray of blood and the tear of flesh when she butchered those who intended her harm?"
"Then I would recommend that person be very careful in the future lest she fall over the edge and truly become her mother's daughter."
Application of the humors complete, she waited a moment before looking up at the concerned expression she had already felt him giving her. "We are who we are," she finally murmured. "In my case, it means bloodlust and madness run thick through my veins. I've come to terms with that. Medallion."
He held it out for her, but once she had it, he refused to let go. "If it is any consolation, I do not think your mother would have volunteered to help someone like you have for me. She liked causing pain too much to try her hand at taking it away." Finally, he released the pendant into her grasp.
Jen gave him a weak smile that faded as soon as she turned away. Would he offer those same words of comfort if he knew the kinds of things she had done in her role as Baron Samedi's avatar? She doubted it. "You wanted impressive? This is where things should get a little more visible. It's also by far the most dangerous part of what we're doing, so be prepared to run if things take a turn for the worse."
Dropping the medallion into the jar, she shook it to coat the bronze with the last of the fluids contained within. She pulled it out and laid it on the desk, the wet metal dripping lazily, and then she reached for the runes she had previously etched in Snape's skin. Every night, after she followed him down to his office following dinner, she had slowly tightened the threads of energy that lifted the Mark away from his own magic. Now she removed the threads from the runes entirely and pulled them taught, smiling faintly when she felt the last tendrils of Voldemort's magic be ripped out of Snape's arm and then saw the ink of the tattoo spray upward in a gush of smoke and shadow. Before her enemy's essence could creep up her threads and latch onto her, she carried the writhing cloud to the medallion and slammed her hands on either side of the medal. Held between her hands as it was, the soul fragment landed squarely on the bronze and after only a moment's hesitation coalesced into a thin layer of black patina on the surface, the discoloration taking the shape of a skull.
She let out the breath she had not realized she was holding when she felt the magic of the Mark settle down into its new home, and then she pushed away the doubts that were bubbling up. She had probably not created a new soul jar for Voldemort; if the Marks contained enough of his soul, either individually or together, to hold him to this world, she was sure the Baron would have mentioned that she needed to slaughter her way through the Death Eaters' ranks as well as destroy the soul jars proper. If she were wrong about that? Well, she had a feeling her patron Power would let her know sooner or later. She just had to make sure she survived the experience.
"And that's that." Hooking her finger through the chain, she lifted the medallion off the desk. "You should probably wash it off, preferably with lots of soap and hot water, before you start wearing it, but otherwise, it's ready to go. …Should I give you two a minute alone?"
Snape reluctantly pulled his eyes from where they had been fixated on his newly unblemished forearm. "Ah. No, no, I'm fine. It's just…" He shook his head in wonder, his eyes drifting once or twice toward his arm again. "I always assumed I would bear his Mark for the rest of my life. To have it gone, completely and forever? To be free? I can't tell you how amazing this is. Thank you, Miss Black. Truly."
"You're welcome."
This chapter got a little farther afield than I really wanted. Thankfully, it works with the overall theme and plot/subplots of this story, so I can't complain too much. You can blame Lily's scene on all the people who wanted Dumbledore to find out that Jen had taken the Dark Arts exam, and I guess you can blame me for Malfoy not knowing how to make a coherent sales pitch.
Silently Watches out.