Sunday, January 24, 1999
The next morning there was a whole new argument.
"I can't take you," Harry said for the seventh time as he pulled on his socks and shoes. "Not in the pensieve, and not in my head. I won't be able to hold onto the pensieve and the thestral at the same time, and I can't risk having you decide you want to take over my hands and my mouth when we're a couple of hundred feet above open ocean. You're going to have to live with it; you can't go."
"Live with it!" Snape yelled back at him, trembling with impotent rage. Harry would have been worried about his blood pressure if Snape had had any blood pressure to be worried about. "Live with it! I lived with it for nearly twenty-six years, and then I died for it! My life was destroyed by that villain, and I didn't even get the satisfaction of watching him die because I was too busy making sure you could be the hero! You owe me this!"
"You destroyed the memory of him."
"Big deal! Face it, wonder boy, you care what happens to me only so long as I'm useful to you. Well I have news for you. I'm a person! I have feelings!"
"Don't be silly," Harry said, trying not to grin. "If I really didn't care about your feelings, I'd have walked out of here a half hour ago and left you stewing in that bowl."
"And I'd have trashed your apartment while you were gone! So there!" Snape stood rigid with rage, his arms straight at his sides, hands twitching into miniscule fists. He looked like he wanted to punch Harry.
"Thanks for the warning," Harry responded. "Maybe I should put you on the roof with the magpies and the pigeons."
A voice called up stairs – George's voice. "Harry, are you up there? Everyone else is at Hogwarts waiting for you!" A moment later the door opened and George strode in. "Come on, you two. We can't wait all day."
Snape jumped on his words at once. "You see! Even a Weasley can see I should go with you!"
"Oh ho!" George cried, laughing. "Are you planning on locking our pee-wee potions master in your room for the duration? I wouldn't if I were you. Merlin knows what you'd walk in on when you got back."
"I've been trying to explain that to thick-wit here," said Snape. "All my redecorating instincts are coming foreword."
"I can't," Harry explained somewhat sheepishly. "I need both hands to hang onto the thestral, and I don't want him in my brain where he could interfere with my actions if something happens."
"I've got an idea. Why don't we encase him and the pensieve in a bubble that could float next to the thestral?" George smiled at the simplicity of his suggestion.
"I don't know," said Snape. "The thought makes me uncomfortable." He wrinkled his brow. "For some reason it reminds me of snakes."
"Ix-nay on the ubble-bay," Harry hissed at George. "I'll explain later."
"We just have to think of something else," said George. "We can't leave him behind. This is his moment more than any of us."
"See!" Snape crowed. "See! Just because you're a cold-hearted, insensitive lout doesn't mean that the rest of the world is equally callous. I always said the Weasleys were one of the finest wizarding families…"
George's eyebrows shot upward. "When might that have been?" he asked.
"Never mind. Just come up with an idea."
"Well frankly, I don't want you in my head either. We could carry the bottle and the pensieve in a pouch, but getting you out while we're flying wouldn't be easy. Can you go into a portrait? We're taking a little one of Dumbledore so he can watch. If you could get into…"
"Dumbledore's going!" Snape was nearing meltdown. "He's going and you were going to leave me here?"
"Look," said George to Harry, "we can at least take him to Hogwarts. Maybe one of the others will come up with an idea of how to take him along. I agree he should go if we can figure out how. And a dozen heads are better than one any day."
"A dozen?" Snape's voice was ominously calm as he faced Harry. "You knew?"
"Yeah," Harry admitted. "Sort of."
"You, Potter, are a turd. And I am so going to renovate this apartment. No, wait. That wouldn't be fair to Mrs. Nokes. Maybe I'll just renovate you, Potter. Starting with your nose and…"
Harry quickly put Snape into his flask, and he and George hurried down to the little area yard to apparate to Hogwarts.
In McGonagall's office at Hogwarts, it was the immediate consensus that Snape should go with them if a practical way could be found. "Do you think you might be able to travel as a portrait, Severus dear?" was McGonagall's contribution to the discussion.
"Severus dear?" Ron mouthed to Harry, who grimaced.
"I don't know," Snape replied, but he'd clearly seen the Ron-Harry exchange and eyed them with malice. "I still want someone to tell me why my portrait isn't up there. It isn't fair."
"The Board of Governors..." McGonagall began, but Snape was quicker.
"How soon after you went sailing off the tower did your portrait get hung on the wall," he demanded of Dumbledore.
"Almost immediately. That very night."
"Who put it up?"
"No one. The castle simply does it." Dumbledore was frowning in thought.
"Before the Board of Governors was even notified of your death," Snape huffed. "The castle did it. Well, why not me? I was working for the welfare of the school as much as anyone, and under far more difficult and dangerous circumstances. How come I don't have a portrait?"
McGonagall looked embarrassed. "We did think it was because of the manner of your leaving, but since we realized that our… perception of that event was in… error… Well, I really don't know why you're not up there with the others."
"It is possible," said Dumbledore, "that the castle does not perceive you as dead. It may think that you are still alive. After all, that part of your personality which would have gone into a portrait was not available, it having been locked in a flask."
"Even so," insisted Snape, "once Minerva was appointed, I was an ex-headmaster. Don't headmasters who resign get portraits?"
"I fear," said Dumbledore, "that over the centuries the headmasters of Hogwarts have had a distressing habit of dying in harness."
"Me included. Which doesn't bode well for you, Minerva dear." McGonagall glowered. Snape smirked back at her and continued. "I suppose all things considered, I'd rather be mobile in a memory jar than stuck on a wall. I'm game to try a portrait experiment, though."
McGonagall got a small portrait frame, which Harry took into the pensieve memory. He and Snape tried a variety of different handoffs, from Harry merely exiting with the frame again to Snape carrying the frame in his pocket as he entered the pensieve. None worked.
"Perhaps," said Dumbledore, "it is impossible for him to leave the soulstone and the pensieve."
"That's not true," Harry told him. "Professor Snape destroyed a memory from inside, and when it was breaking apart, I apparated out with him. He was loose in the room for several seconds."
"Really? Side-along apparation? Harry, there's a little diptych portrait of me in the desk. Would you take it into the pensieve?"
Harry got the portrait, checked that Dumbledore was in it, and joined Snape in the office memory. As before, a very real looking Dumbledore stood beside him. Dumbledore crossed over to where Snape stood watching them and put his arm around Snape's shoulders.
"What do you think you're doing?" Snape said.
"Taking you out with me," replied Dumbledore.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?"
"Do you not trust me? You were willing to try it solo."
"What if something goes wrong?"
"We will give you a beautiful memorial service. You will love it." Dumbledore backed away a step and peered at Snape over his glasses. "Would you rather stay here while we go out over the North Sea without you?"
"No," Snape answered hurriedly. "We'll try it your way."
Dumbledore once more placed his arm around Snape's shoulders while Harry left the memory. When he was again in McGonagall's office, he took the portrait out of his pocket and opened it. Dumbledore smiled up at him. "Did it work all right?" Harry asked.
"Define all right," said Dumbledore. Behind Dumbledore's back Snape's voice could be clearly heard.
"Move over, will you? It's crowded in here. You know, you might have picked a larger frame!"
Dumbledore edged to one side. "If it is too uncomfortable, you could always choose to stay, you know. It is not absolutely required that you come with us."
"Why don't you move into another picture," retorted Snape. "Why do we have to be together?"
"We shall be leaving the building," Dumbledore explained. "I must be in a frame that contains my portrait. I do not possess a large number of small ones."
"But this has space for two different pictures." Snape pointed to the frame on the other side of the diptych.
"Alas," sighed Dumbledore. "That side never held my portrait. Why do you not move into that one?"
"I don't know how."
"Maybe if we have a portrait of you, you could move into that."
"I don't think there are any portraits of me."
Ginny Weasley suddenly said, "Oh!" and rushed out of the room. While she was gone, Harry tried taking the portrait back into the pensieve so that Dumbledore could attempt to first take Snape into the blank frame of the diptych and then move himself into the portrait. It didn't work.
As the assembled group debated what to do, Ginny returned. She held a shoebox and a Chocolate Frog Famous Wizard Card Carrying Case. "What about these?" she asked Dumbledore. "Didn't you go into a Chocolate Frog Wizard Card to give Luna the idea about stealing Gryffindor's sword?"
"That was my idea," said Snape. "What's in the other box?"
"They're pictures Colin Creevey took. He had this camera in first year, and he was photographing everything. It fascinated him that wizard pictures can move. I was just wondering if he ever took one of Professor Snape."
They passed out the pictures and sorted through them. There were plenty of Gryffindor students among the photos, and some of students of other houses. There were even a few of the different professors, but none…
"There!" cried Luna, holding up a photo of the Great Hall at dinner time. "Over on the left, talking to Professor Lockhart! And Professor Dumbledore's in the center"
Photographs, it turned out, however, were not like portraits. Not only could Snape not move into one, Dumbledore could not either. In the end it was decided that Dumbledore would move into a Famous Wizard card and ride on Flitwick's robes, where the card was held on by a charm. Dumbledore was able see everything from that vantage point. Snape would ride in the diptych.
"He's mine," George declared, pulling a long string from one of his pockets. He tied it around the hinges of the diptych and then made a large loop and hung the open picture around his neck. "That way, we can talk."
"You just be sure you don't drop me in the ocean," Snape warned.
"Isn't that what Accio spells are for?" said George with a grin.
Harry carried the urn with the powder. "To think," he mused, "if we brought this together with a soul fragment in a horcrux, it could resurrect him." He looked at George, or rather at the portrait hanging around George's neck. "If we had some of your DNA, do you think we could resurrect you? You know… hair, nail clippings."
"I'll have you know I was always very tidy," retorted Snape. "Where would you get my DNA?"
"We could exhume the body," Luna suggested, and George supported the idea with the sigh, "Wicked."
"I don't think I like that idea," Snape interrupted, and the subject was dropped.
On the way downstairs, they were joined first by Neville and then, in the entrance hall, by Hermione. Hagrid was there, too, though he wasn't joining them since he was too large to ride a thestral. Harry quietly mentioned to Hermione the possibility of extracting DNA from Snape's corpse.
"I wouldn't," she replied. "There are other things in a coffin besides just the body, and after eight months any sample you take could be contaminated."
The image that brought to Harry's mind was unpleasant, and he dismissed it immediately. He could understand why pensieve Snape might not be enthused.
The party walked down the hill from the castle in the crisp January air and headed into the forest where Hagrid had assembled a small herd of thestrals to take them out over the North Sea.
It was supposed to be a solemn occasion, and in most respects it was. The professors and George had never ridden thestrals before, but with help and advice from the younger members of the group, they soon got the hang of it. It did make a difference that they could all now see the animals, and as the winged steeds rose majestically into the air, Harry felt a thrill of accomplishment. Another chapter in the long saga was about to close.
Northern Scotland spread out below, dull in its winter colors of brown and pine green, with a dusting of snow in the higher places. Their heading was northeast, and so they bypassed Aberdeen, for their goal was deeper water past Kinnairds Head. Dumbledore and Snape had both agreed that a depth of at least one hundred meters was called for, reasoning that although the powder might at first float, it would, if not consumed by fish, eventually settle to the bottom.
One thing that Harry had not counted on was that the thestrals could not get near each other due to the spread of their wingspans, and they could not hover. And though the day was calm, the wind created by their passage made talking almost impossible. Once out of sight of land, the gray of the North Sea swelling below them, Flitwick gestured to Harry that it was time, and he extracted a small portion of the powder from the urn with his wand, directed it away from the thestrals so it wouldn't accidently be caught on their bodies or the clothes of their riders, and then let it fall. There was a ragged cheer from the others, faint and quickly whipped away by the wind as the powder disappeared.
A distance farther, and another pinch of powder was dropped, then another, and another. Over a hundred square miles of ocean they scattered the dust of Lord Voldemort until the urn was empty of even the smallest grain. Harry held the urn over his head to the cheers of the others and then let it, too, fall into the sea. If there was any residual magic in the squat humpty-dumpty figure of the urn, it was now too far away from anyone or anything to do any damage.
The thestrals turned in a wide arc and made their way back to the highlands of Scotland. Since conversation was impossible, Harry used the time to think. The first task was, of course, to talk to Deirdre Dowd and locate the other soulstone coffin. Whether that would turn out to be as easy as the urn had been, or as difficult as fighting Lord Voldemort himself had been, was something that had to be dealt with as the task unfolded. Harry rather hoped it would be easy.
The second task was growing in Harry's mind. Part of him now very much wanted to bring Snape back. If Tom Riddle could be resurrected by the union of DNA with a soul fragment, why couldn't Severus Snape be resurrected in the same way, by a union of DNA with the spirit and memories contained in the emerald flask?
The thestrals touched down in the forest where Hagrid was waiting for them with slabs of raw meat as a reward for their exertions. The people, Hagrid now included, trudged back up the hill to the castle, where they went directly to McGonagall's office for a well-deserved party.
An hour into the merriment, as Neville was dancing with Professor Sprout, George was doing imitations of the entire staff, and Snape was shooting little fireworks from his wand up towards the ceiling, Harry managed to corner McGonagall in a whispered conversation.
"Do you think he's right about being too tidy to have left any personal remains around?" he asked. "After all, the police can find all sorts of things at a crime scene. Hair, fingerprints, particles of skin…"
"You forget, Harry dear, that the cleaning here is done by house-elves. And Severus really was that neat and methodical. I doubt you'll find even the smallest smidgeon."
"What about his home? The things he had there? That wasn't cleaned by house-elves."
McGonagall thought for a moment. "All his books and papers were placed in the library. Madame Pince is sorting them. I don't think you'll find anything there. The personal effects are in storage."
"Where's storage?" Harry asked.
"We have archives and artifact storage on the sixth floor. It'll be in a few boxes there. It was a wee, poor house without many things other than the books. We didna keep the furniture."
"Could I look at it now?"
"Shouldna ye ask his permission?" McGonagall said, nodding toward the pensieve and its bite-sized inhabitant. "They're his things, after all."
"I should," Harry admitted, "but he's a lot more vulnerable than he used to be. Emotionally, I mean. I don't want to get his hopes up."
McGonagall nodded in agreement.
The music hall quartet of Dumbledore, Hagrid, George, and Flitwick had just started singing 'There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover…' so Harry and McGonagall were able to slip out unnoticed. She led him down to a door on the sixth floor that opened into an area filled with furniture, school equipment, and tall racks of shelves loaded with boxes. It was smaller and far more orderly than the room of requirement had been. McGonagall pointed towards the shelves.
"There are ten boxes there," she told Harry. "They're all labeled with his name. Some of them contain clothing, or household goods. There are a few personal papers and books, too, not connected with Hogwarts or magical research. It wasna much for thirty-eight years of life. It shouldna take ye long."
McGonagall was right. From the moment Harry opened the first box, he knew it wasn't going to be a long search. What he found was clothing, but it was muggle clothing, some of it a woman's clothing. He never threw away his parents' things. Most of this must have belonged to his mum and dad.
The clothing was well-worn, neat and clean, but mended and darned. There was no jewelry, not even a pair of earrings or cufflinks. No suits or neckties, just the plain, sturdy clothes of a working man and the simple dresses of a working-class woman. Other boxes contained mismatched dishes, pots and pans, a couple of cheap knick-knacks. Recalling all the things in the Dursleys' house, Harry felt an odd sadness. He remembered the pensieve memory of the little boy with his few crayons. Harry's own meager childhood seemed suddenly rich. At least he'd eaten off of matching plates and watched the telly in his own home.
Another box held books and… magazines. Old magazines. Strand magazines. For a few moments Harry let himself flip through the pages of the very first Sherlock Holmes stories. He looked at the other books. Ancient muggle school books, murder mysteries, the complete works of Shakespeare – it was a side of Snape he never would have guessed. Overcome by curiosity, Harry dug deeper into the box. Down at the bottom he found something besides books. It was a packet of letters still in their envelopes, tied together with a bit of string.
Feeling very guilty, for this couldn't possibly have anything to do with DNA, Harry untied the string and sifted through the envelopes. Some, in a small, crabbed script, were from Snape's father to Snape's mother. A glance at the contents showed they were written before the two were married, and Harry quickly thrust them back in their envelopes, ashamed at his intrusion into their privacy. Others in a larger, more open hand, were from Eileen Prince to Tobias Snape. They were worn and tattered, and appeared to have been read and reread often. Still others seemed to be from Snape's grandmothers. In the middle of the packet was an envelope without an address. Harry opened it.
Inside was another, smaller envelope, and a slip of paper. The paper held Eileen Snape's sprawling handwriting in the words 'Russ's first haircut.' Harry stared at it for a moment, then opened the small envelope. Inside was a lock of soft, jet black hair. A memento for a loving mother; the possibility of renewed life for her son.
Harry shoved the small envelope and note back into the larger envelope and both into his jacket pocket. The books were returned to their box and the boxes all replaced on the shelf. Filled now with a sense of hope and mission, a jubilant Harry made his way back to the headmistress's office. Only McGonagall witnessed his return; the others were engrossed in an arm-wrestling match between Hermione and Ginny.
"Find anything?" McGonagall asked.
"Maybe," Harry replied, but did not elaborate.
It was another hour before the party broke up. It was approaching dinner time at Hogwarts, so the professors went first to their rooms to freshen up before facing the students. Ginny, Luna, and Neville went to their dorms, probably to go straight to bed, they having already feasted and not being hungry but faced with the need to 'sleep it off.' Ron, Hermione, and George went back to Diagon Alley. Harry returned to Avery Row, but not before pocketing the little portrait of Dumbledore.
Once back in his own rooms, with Snape settled for the night in the flask, Harry went into his bedroom and pulled out the diptych. "Professor Dumbledore, may I talk to you?" he said to the empty frame.
"Certainly, Harry," replied Dumbledore, smiling up suddenly from the frame. "I thought you might want to when I saw you put this in your jacket. Has something happened? You were gone from the office for quite a while."
"Professor McGonagall let me look through Professor Snape's things from his house in Lancashire."
"Oh, dear. He will not be pleased, That is a serious invasion of his…"
"Privacy. Yes, I know. These last few days he's been on such an emotional roller-coaster ride, Professor… I don't want to build him up and then dash his hopes."
"You have found something?"
"His mother kept a lock of his hair from the first time it was cut."
Dumbledore smiled gently. "It does seem odd to think of Severus as being a small child having his hair cut for the first time, does it not? Not so odd to me, of course. I knew him when he was eleven."
"And I've seen him in a memory when he was about five." Harry paused. "Professor, if I used the hair for the DNA to bring him back, would he come back as himself, or as a two-year-old child?"
"That is assuming it would work," Dumbledore pointed out. "It might not. And then there is so much to be taken into account. The DNA is from a very young child, but the soulstone has strengthened an adult spirit. That might have a lot to do with it."
"I read somewhere that if you clone something, it starts out as an embryo, then a fetus, then a newborn. It should produce a baby, right?"
"A baby with the mind and memories of an adult. Do not forget, Harry, that we are not working in the muggle world here. There is also magic involved." Leaving Harry with this thought, Dumbledore returned to Hogwarts, and Harry went to bed.
Early the next morning Harry contacted Headmistress McGonagall, who contacted Gawain Robards, who gave Harry permission to be on extended leave as a service to Hogwarts. Harry and Snape went down to breakfast that morning knowing that they were free to work with the Dowd sisters.
Miss Arwella was in the dining room enjoying her bacon and eggs and the morning Prophet, but Deirdre was not. Neither was Mrs. Nokes. "She was feeling poorly yesterday," Arwella said of her sister. "It started around midmorning. Then it got worse. She's a bit better today, though, so I doubt it was very serious." She had no information about Mrs. Nokes's condition.
"Do you think it had anything to do with our activities of yesterday?" Harry whispered to Snape as he settled at the far end of the table from Miss Arwella. "Maybe they're more attuned to him than we thought."
"It's possible," said Snape. "Do you think you could spread some of that orange marmalade on a biscuit and take it upstairs? It's been ages since I've had marmalade."
"You could try not thinking of yourself for a while," commented Harry, doing as he was bid.
"There speaks the boy who's polishing off scrambled eggs, bacon, biscuits, grapefruit, toast, orange juice, tea, and eyeing the waffles," Snape huffed. "The only difference is that you can take what you want, and I have to ask."
"Would you like to be able to get things for yourself?"
Snape cocked his head to one side and peered at Harry through narrowed eyes. "That's a silly question," he said. "Of course I would. Are you hiding something from me?"
"What if you couldn't come back as quite you? What if you had to inhabit another body?"
If it had been possible for Snape's eyes to narrow even more and still allow him to see, they would have. "It depends on the body. I'm not coming back as a springer spaniel, thank you."
"Why not? They're smart. They're cute."
"There's a thought," said Snape acidly. "Which is preferable? Being cute, or self-immolation? I hope you don't have your heart set on cute, because I can always take you with me."
"Define cute," said Harry.
"Babies and monkeys are cute. Baby monkeys are especially cute. You'd better not be thinking of baby monkeys."
"No springer spaniels and no baby monkeys," Harry assured him.
"And…?" Snape prompted.
"That's as far as I promise," Harry told him.
"I will take you with me," Snape said. "As Merlin is my witness, I will take you with me."
"I'm quite prepared for that eventuality," Harry replied.
Back in Harry's rooms after breakfast, Snape got his marmalade on a biscuit. He also got coffee and some of the bacon and eggs. Harry joined him in the pensieve office for a conference.
"Do you think Miss Deirdre will be downstairs for lunch?" Snape asked as he dug into his breakfast with a will.
"Miss Arwella seemed to think she was improving. I rather expect so. The problem is that we don't have Hermione as backup today. If Deirdre tries to open the flask, are we going to be able to stop her?"
"You'd better be ready to, Potter," Snape said, his mouth partly full of bacon. "I can't work spells at that level."
"At least not that we know of," said Harry.
At lunch, everyone remarked on Harry's presence. "You aren't sick, are you?" asked Mrs. Nokes, for both she and Deirdre Dowd were present.
"No, ma'am," Harry replied. "I've been given a special assignment. One that requires outside research. I won't have to go in to the office for a while."
"That's nice," said Sugarman, the estate agent. "I'd like to not have to go into the office for a week or two." Unlike Harry, he apparated back to the boarding house daily for lunch as it saved him having to spend money in restaurants. He was rumored to have hoarded a fortune on lunch alone.
"It is kind of nice," Harry admitted. "I have work to do, but I get to decide when and where to do it."
The when and the where came right after lunch. Miss Arwella went upstairs. Harry approached Miss Deirdre with the statement, "Since Voldemort 'as gone…" upon which she abruptly left him for the area yard, where she disapparated.
It was most fortunate that Harry was holding his briefcase, and that his briefcase contained Snape. He hurried after Deirdre Dowd and from the kitchen door heard distinctly the 'pop' of her departure. Without pausing to consider where it might be taking him, he rushed past a surprised Mrs. Purdy, out into the area yard, and followed the strong apparation trail. He hadn't had a stray second to let Snape know what was happening.
Harry apparated onto an overgrown path in a wooded area on the gentle slope of a hill. As he turned slowly around, he shivered slightly, for the wild tangle of ancient trees, the untamed brush, the creeping, all-covering ivy, could not conceal that he was in the midst of a cemetery whose half-hidden markers, solemn statues, and coffered tombs lay scattered about him in a jumble. It was cold and peaceful. There were no people. He had no idea which direction Miss Deirdre had gone.
Setting his briefcase next to one of the tombs, Harry took out flask and pensieve so that Snape could emerge and advise him. "Where do you think we are?" he asked as the silver mist took shape.
It took but a few seconds of observation. "Highgate," Snape replied. "The west section. Have you lost her?"
"There's nobody in sight," Harry said, glancing around.
"On a Monday in January, there won't be anyone here at all." Snape told him, turning in the pensieve as he tried to get his bearings. "Admission is as the member of a tour only. That's why we were able to use it. Very few interruptions. That way!" He pointed down the path to Harry's left. "Egyptian Avenue!"
Harry grabbed flask and pensieve and ran, Snape struggling to maintain his balance and directing Harry's turns until they reached a pharaonic arch flanked by obelisks and lotus-bearing pillars. There was still no sign of Deirdre Dowd. "Through there," Snape commanded. "He joined us a couple of times, and that's where he went."
"What's in there?"
"How should I know? You don't think I was stupid enough to follow him?"
Egyptian Avenue was a roofless tunnel, shielded by tree branches. On either side rectangular recesses were set in its walls, niches with blank doors. Tombs, Harry thought. The path angled upwards between the doors, and was shorter than Harry at first thought, for he found himself suddenly in the open, confronting a circle of more tomb doors built into a curved wall that surrounded a huge cedar tree. Outside of and facing this circle, forming a kind of narrow street, was a semicircular wall of more doors. More cautiously now, Harry made his way between the tombs. Over the lintel of one of the doors was the word 'Columbarium.' The door was ajar, and Harry entered it, his wand now drawn.
There, crouched in a heap on the floor of the dim room, was Deirdre Dowd. She had opened one of the niches, but it was now empty. There was no sign of a soulstone coffin. There was no sign of any urn or casket at all, and Miss Deirdre herself seemed to be in something of a daze. She looked up as Harry entered and said, "I have to open it. What have you done with it? How can I open it if I don't know where it is?"
Harry handed her Snape's emerald flask. "Is this what you're looking for?" he asked.
"No… it's… it's not the right one. Where have you taken it? I have to open it."
"I'll take you to it," Harry said. Putting Snape's pensieve down on the stone floor, he helped Deirdre to her feet. "Could you carry this for me?" he asked, placing the flask in her hands. She took it without demur.
"What are you doing?" Snape demanded.
"We have to get her where they can help her," Harry explained. "She's still operating under the memory spell. I think Hogwarts would be best. She might even have information we could use." Picking up the pensieve, Harry balanced it in one hand while guiding Deirdre by the arm with the other. "You have to show me the way back to where we started."
"Why? Why not go straight to Hogwarts?"
"I left my briefcase by the tomb."
The return trip took longer, but Snape got Harry back to his briefcase. Snape went into the flask, flask and pensieve into the briefcase, then Harry and Deirdre apparated side-along to Hogsmeade where Harry sent a quick patronus to Professor McGonagall. A few minutes later they were climbing the hill to the castle.
Once inside, McGonagall took charge, taking Deirdre to the hospital wing where a portrait of Dumbledore had been hung on the wall so that he, too, could participate. As Madam Pomfrey checked Deirdre for symptoms to identify what kind of spell had been used, she managed to spare a few choice words for Snape.
"You'd better hide your face in that bottle, you ungrateful little runt. After all I've done for you, you'll be fortunate if I don't slip a cathartic into your coffee. When were you planning on remembering I exist, Tom Thumb?"
The stopper shot out of the green flask and Snape oozed himself into the pensieve. "How did you know it was me?" he asked, "if no one ever told you I was here?"
"Pomona let it slip yesterday, about taking the thestrals. I still want to know why you haven't dropped by here."
"I'm not the host," Snape grumbled. "I wasn't consulted about the guest list."
"A likely story." Pomfrey peered into Deirdre's ears. "What was it supposed to make her do?"
"Find and open something. Like post-hypnotic suggestion."
"Did she find it?"
"No," Harry answered for Snape. "She went to where it had been, but it was gone. So she couldn't complete the task."
"Did you try a substitute?"
"Right away. It didn't work." Harry pointed to Snape's flask. "It's unique. It looks just like that one, except it's purple. I tried to get her to open that one, but she knew it wasn't right."
"Miss Dowd?" said Dumbledore, and Deirdre looked at him, her eyes a bit glassy. "Miss Dowd, do you remember what it was that you were to open?"
"The genie," she replied. "I have to let the genie out."
"That's quite a metaphor," McGonagall observed.
"I'll need to keep her under observation for a while," said Pomfrey. "At least until I have some indication of the precise spell she's under. Removing it the wrong way could cause damage."
"Would it be all right if I ask her a few more things?" Dumbledore would have leaned forward had he not been two-dimensional. "Miss Dowd, do you know why Tom Riddle placed the genie's bottle where he did? In the…" He glanced at Harry.
"In the columbarium at Highgate Cemetery," Harry finished for him. "Why there?"
"The book of coming forth during the day," responded Deirdre. "Sata."
"I hope you know what that means," said Snape, looking over at Dumbledore. "Because I don't."
"I must confess," admitted the portrait, "to having always been intrigued by such things. That area of the cemetery has an Egyptian motif as I recall. The work Miss Dowd mentioned is popularly known as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and talks of such things as the soul and body being rejoined so that the dead may return to life."
"That sounds like exactly what we want," McGonagall said.
"The bit just referred to is quite short. 'I am the serpent Sata whose years are infinite. I lie down dead. I am born daily. I am the serpent Sa-en-ta, the dweller in the uttermost parts of the earth. I lie down in death. I am born, I become new, I renew my youth every day.' It may, with its focus on a serpent, have had special meaning for Riddle."
"It sounds like what he told me in the Chamber of Secrets," said Harry. "He said that his name was an anagram for 'I am Lord Voldemort,' as if the 'I am' part was important, too."
"And Vol-de-mort does mean flight from death," Dumbledore added. "An immortal serpent for a parselmouth wizard. It does seem to fit. The question is – why is it no longer there, and when was it moved?"
"Professor Snape said that Voldemort used to visit the place." Harry turned to the pensieve. "You also said you were never stupid enough to follow him. When 'we' were using the cemetery because there'd be no interruptions. What were you talking about?"
"Yes, Severus," chimed in Dumbledore. "This sounds fascinating. What were you talking about?"
"We were practicing," Snape said, staring down at his hands. "Death Eaters. One of my jobs was to create silencing and concealing spells, and the operatives needed to practice them in a wooded area. The cemetery was convenient."
"And this would have been…?" Dumbledore prompted.
"Late seventy-nine. Early eighty." Snape wrinkled his brow in thought. "After he learned about the… you know."
"The prophecy," said Dumbledore. "It is perfectly acceptable to speak of it now. So he was worried, and he moved the flask. He may also have updated it. I wonder if he went back to it at any time between ninety-five and his death. We may have a very up-to-the-minute resurrection in the making."
"But where would he have moved the flask to?" Harry asked, worried.
"He was never one to be random," Dumbledore pointed out. "We have the possibility of deducing the location."
They set out with the idea that the words would be an anagram, the words being 'I am the serpent Sa-en-ta.' It was a long shot, but at least it gave them a place to start. Neville, Luna, and Ginny appeared in the hospital wing after their last classes, Luna making a set of tiles with the proper letters just as if she was playing Scrabble. Harry noticed soon after that the word 'street' was contained in the words, and for quite a while the group concentrated on trying to find street names. Harry even contacted Hermione to join them at supper and work on the rearranging of letters. They could, however, find no street names.
At about seven o'clock, tired and grumpy, Snape pointed out that they also had both the word 'Saint,' and the abbreviation 'St.' This began a whole new round of rearranging letters. Hermione brought up the fact that the abbreviation Mt. was also there, but there were more saints (Asaph, Theresa, Stephen...) that they could derive from the letters than mountains, and Hermione was forced to back down. Especially since the saints could refer to churches.
The clock ticked out the hours of the evening as two former headmasters, a current headmistress, two teachers, three students, four ex-students, a nurse and, eventually, a teacher/gamekeeper, worked on the problem. At about ten o'clock, George said, "Is there a village called Eastenham?"
The query got everyone's immediate attention. "Why Eastenham?" Harry demanded, looking over George's shoulder.
"Because if there's a St. Peter's church in Eastenham, we have a match," George told him. "Look. 'Saint Peter, Eastenham' equals 'I am the serpent Sa-en-ta.'"
"Is there an Eastenham anywhere in England?" Harry asked of the assembled group.
Hermione had, as was to be expected, an atlas of Britain. Eastenham turned out to be a village in North Yorkshire, between Rievaulx Abbey and the town of Helmsley. "And there is," she informed the group triumphantly, "a St. Peter's chapel there."
"Wonderful," added Snape. "It's in the valley of the Rye river. Ryedale is considered to be one source of the surname Riddle. This is coming together on several counts. May I suggest, since we have nowhere better to look, that we start with the chapel of St. Peter in the village of Eastenham, in the North Riding of Yorkshire?"
Shortly thereafter, the group retired for the night in order to get an early start the next morning. Harry (and therefore Snape) had a guest room on the sixth floor. Snape wasted no time in letting his displeasure be known.
"You have to go back to London," he told Harry. "Now. Before you go to bed."
"Why?"
"To tell Miss Arwella that her sister is staying the night at Hogwarts. What's she going to think, her sister having disappeared like that?"
Harry resisted, but Snape insisted. The insistence included the threat of keeping Harry awake all night, and Harry quickly gave in. He went down the hill to apparate back to London, spoke briefly to Miss Arwella, and soon rejoined Snape on the sixth floor.
"There. Are you satisfied?'
"Not really, but it's close enough."
Bridling at the perceived insult, Harry insisted, "What more could I have done?"
"Besides bringing Arwella here to be with her sister? I don't know… You might have thought of it yourself. It's not like you had a whole army of people to worry about."
"And you've had an army of people?" Harry sniffed in derision. "Right!"
"An army? No, never. A few dozen going out to fight and maybe get killed. Yeah."
"So did I! At the Battle of Hogwarts! Where were you when Fred was killed? Or Colin Creevey?"
Snape wheeled on the pensieve's surface, his head high and his eyes meeting Harry's. "Maybe I was letting some son of a witch kill me so that some other son of a witch could destroy a horcrux.," he said. "Could you do that? Stand there and stare death in the face knowing you couldn't fight back? Could you?"
Harry stared at Snape, then let his breath out slowly. "Probably not," he said with controlled calm. "Lucky it wasn't me that had to do it. I'd've screwed it up by fighting back. I'm not the type to go gently into that good night."
"And take everyone else with you!" Snape was practically dancing with frustration. "You'd let him win! You'd hold the door for him!"
It took effort for Harry to resist mentioning his confrontation with Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest and stand down from the battle with Snape, but he did. "What's wrong with you?" he insisted. "We could be going after the last of Voldemort tomorrow, and all you want to do is fight! Don't you care about our goals?"
Instead of answering, Snape dove for the flask and disappeared into the mists it contained.
Harry did not go to bed. Instead he sat staring at the green coffin for about ten minutes. What upset him like that? He was fine, and then he was practically hysterical. I'd never have believed he could be hysterical – cool Professor Snape – but he said himself that he's different in the pensieve… He can't shut the doors. Harry thought about the five-year-old boy with the closed, unfeeling eyes, and how they opened only for his mother. And for Harry's mother. And for Harry…?
He considered going back to London to get the memories Snape was keeping in the carafe, but then realized it wasn't necessary. What I want to see, I've already seen. Those are my memories, too. I don't need to get them from his head. The sixth floor 'room' was a small suite, and Harry took the pensieve into the inner bedroom to explore his own memories.
The first time Harry'd ever seen Snape had been at his first-year Sorting and the welcoming feast that followed. He concentrated on that event, drew the gossamer memory from his head into the pensieve, then entered it with a feeling of eager anticipation. He would be able to watch the scene unfold with nearly full background knowledge. Arriving in the entrance hall as the first years marched through, Harry ran past them up the center aisle in order to have a clear view of both the procession, and the professors watching it. Snape was on the left, next to Quirrell – next to Voldemort, though Snape did not know it. Harry's awareness of this fact heightened his tension, for he noticed that the back of Quirrell's head was watching Snape.
Harry could tell the moment Snape identified his own eleven-year-old self by the tiny twitch in Snape's nose and mouth, as if he smelled something bad. He's looking at James Potter, not at me, Harry thought. Then Snape's face softened infinitesimally. Did he see my mum in me, too? Another moment, and there was the hint of a smile. Harry moved quickly behind Snape to find he was watching Draco. Stay cool, Harry told himself. They were friends, schoolmates, he and Lucius. He may already have known Draco.
The Sorting started, and Harry watched his friends and classmates as they nervously approached the Hat, one by one. There was Hannah, who would lose her mother in sixth year, Lavender, who would make Hermione jealous over Ron, Justin, who would be petrified by a basilisk, and Hermione herself, trying so hard to look self-assured and yet so nervous.
Suddenly Snape leaned forward, focused and alert, for McGonagall had just called Neville's name. He must have known that Neville was born in July. Harry thought. He may even have thought Neville was the One. But what interested Harry even more was that Quirrell had just as suddenly turned to face Snape. Did he do that so Voldemort could see Neville? There was more beneath the surface than Harry had expected. Neither one of them totally discounted the possibility that the prophecy might have been referring to Neville!
When McGonagall called his own name, Harry saw Snape lean forward with the same keen interest, but this time it was Quirrell who watched the Hat, and his turban that watched Snape. Of course. Voldemort knew Snape loved my mum. Harry thought back to the memory that pensieve Snape had destroyed. Snape walked into that house knowing he'd kept Quirrell from killing me, knowing he'd threatened Quirrell and helped keep the Philosopher's Stone out of Voldemort's hands. Was he prepared to die?
The feast started, and Harry became aware that his pensieve self was looking at the high table… looking at Snape. He hurried to the other side to watch Snape's face more closely. Snape glanced up, black eyes staring suddenly into green ones, and there was the sense of doors opening, barriers falling… Then pensieve Harry flinched as Voldemort touched his scar from the back of Quirrell's turban, and the connection was broken.
There was nothing more to be seen in that memory, and Harry left the pensieve. He had a lot to think about.
He was waiting for me. Waiting to see what I looked like. I thought it was for the same reason everyone else was looking at me. Because I was famous. But it was because of my mum. And the prophecy. They were both still interested in Neville. Was I really the Chosen One, or had Voldemort planned to kill us both that night? Me first and Neville afterwards. It would explain why the Lestranges attacked the Longbottoms after Voldemort disappeared. He probably told them he was going to kill the Longbottoms after he dealt with the Potters. Didn't he say that after he killed me? That I had never been anything but a boy who relied on the sacrifice of others? It was Neville who confronted him then, Neville who killed Nagini with Gryffindor's sword…
It was too confusing. Harry replaced his memory in his head and softly opened the door to the outer room. The emerald coffin was silent and still. Quietly he tiptoed over to the table where it stood and set the empty pensieve next to it. Nothing happened, so Harry returned to the bedroom and got ready for bed. Slipping between the sheets, he focused on the first thought.
Why did he get so upset? He was fine until he found out we were staying the night instead of going back to London… That Miss Arwella needed to know where Miss Deirdre was… And worrying about people getting killed…
It hit then. I never worried about Fred and Colin because it never occurred to me they might die. I mourned for them after the fact, but not before. Snape betrayed his own colleagues to Dumbledore – I know some of them died. Does he feel like a murderer? Will Deirdre Dowd have to go with us? Is she going to die? Is that what's bothering him?
It was a bit difficult for Harry to get to sleep after that.
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