Chapter 14 Of Prophecy
Harry arrived back a few days before the beginning of term, and sought out Severus.
"Are you feeling well enough for me to ask questions, sir?" he asked anxiously. "There are things I need to know, but I don't want to tire you out.."
"I'm not an invalid!" said Severus irritably. "Especially with the Blood Group's intervention….which proves how powerful the whole concept is…."
Harry grinned.
"Yeah, that went really well….Ron was half wondering if we should use it on his dad, but your antidote worked wonders….seems the blood wouldn't stop flowing, they were getting ready to poke blood-replenishing potions into him, but as soon as he had yours, the wounds started healing normally with magic."
"I obtained a sample of Nagini's poison some time ago and analysed it….I carry a phial of antidote every time we visit Fishface just in case, so I had some made up. Call me paranoid, but…"
"It's a kind of creative paranoia that might save your life one day – and saved Arthur Weasley's" said Harry seriously. "Well, if you're okay for me to talk…."
"Just ask, Harry, stop going on a Night Bus trip…"
"When I dreamed about Mr Weasley I was inside the snake….but if I was sampling Voldemort's mind…"
"DON'T say his name!"
"Sirius and Professor Dumbledore do"
"Sirius is reckless; and not unpowerful; Dumbledore is extremely powerful. And YOU have a link to him that can more easily be opened if you use his name, or think about him too deeply."
"If someone had only told me that before….."
"All right, you're being told now….nobody wanted to frighten you with the possibility of having a portion of his consciousness before; it doesn't hurt to tell you the whys now you know that. As to your question, I should think if you think about it you'd reach the answer yourself….the dark lord, disembodied, possessed the minds of snakes….as he has possessed other minds, like Ginny Weasley's…"
"So his mind was in the snake, with its senses…..I wondered if he was an animagus, like Krait. He's very snakelike…."
"He sustained himself on unicorn blood and snake venom….hardly surprising that the serpentine characteristics rubbed off. You're still looking questions, Harry – why don't you put the kettle on?"
Harry made hot, sweet coffee and sat down again, cradling his mug.
"I saw where Mr Weasley was" he said carefully "Kind of….but I've been dreaming of a passage for a long time…. I want to know where it was."
"Put your coffee down" said Severus. "I'll see what I can find…let your blood sing with mine and we'll explore your closed mind together."
Harry looked trustingly into his mentor's eyes; and Severus, muttering 'legilimens' to himself pushed forward towards Harry's memories of his dreams. They found a long, windowless corridor with a locked black door, the memory of Arthur Weasley going to the left down a flight of stone steps.
"It's the Department of Mysteries" said Harry. "I've been seeing bits of the passage for months…What's in there?"
Severus' eyes glittered.
"A whole lot of things the Ministry wants to keep secret…experimental stuff….and prophesies. HE wants to see that prophecy."
"I know I'm a prophecy…but nobody has ever told me what the prophecy IS" said Harry.
"Albus has not? I had assumed…as it is the reason the dark lord tried to kill you….why you bear that scar…"
Harry rubbed the scar absently.
"Severus, I have never known why he tried to kill me…I guess I've sort of rationalised that he wanted to kill my parents and I was in the way…."
"Ah Harry, it's quite the reverse…your parents were the bar to him killing you…I told you I had overheard part of the prophecy, told the dark lord what I heard….but there was more, I was disturbed and had to leave hurriedly….Sybil Trelawney went into a trance."
"How can you tell?" Harry managed to quip.
"She became rational" said Severus dryly "What I heard was" he collected himself "I would do better to use the Pensieve to show you."
"Or I could look, like you just did in me. to save you having to go and get it." Suggested Harry.
Severus looked at him thoughtfully.
"And have Albus ask me why I wanted it….there is that in the suggestion…I do not readily let people in, Harry, I have been locked down for so many years, only Krait….very well, let us explore my memories. And say the spell like you mean it!" he added irritably.
Harry gulped and pointed his wand.
"Legilimens!" he said.
Trelwney's voice was muffled by the thick door he was listening at the keyhole of. It wasn't her usual mystic, ethereal voice but thick, harsh tones.
"the one with power to vanquish the dark lord approaches…born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…"
there was then the interruption as Snape was disturbed, hurried away.
"And that" said Severus dryly "is all I can help you with…I believe there to have been more. There were two boy children born at the end of July; you and Neville. The Dark Lord chose to assume YOU were the prophecy; as you are the boy who lived, presumably he got it right."
"What power have I to vanquish him?" Harry wondered.
Severus grinned.
"The ability to make friends and influence people?" he suggested facetiously. "You've the power to inspire people to be ready to risk blood magic….even if it's only the power to be a symbol to spur the rest of us on that has to mean something."
"Why am I dreaming of the Department of Mysteries though? When I didn't even know there was more to know there?"
Severus regarded him with hooded eyes.
"Because HE wants you to dream of it….he wants to whet your curiosity to go there and get it – for him. He was, I think, unaware that you could see his emotions as well by that connection…we are a stage further."
"Why does he want ME to go and get it? Can't he get a spy in the ministry to do it?"
Severus stared.
"Of course, another piece of missing knowledge….only those named in a prophecy can take it from the shelves or go insane….he's probably tried to get others to do it, when I went to visit Arthur in St Mungos there was a fellow called Bode there, and he's an Unspeakable – that's what they call people who work in the Department of Mysteries. It would explain his sudden insanity."
"Yes, someone sent him a Christmas present…Neville was there visiting his parents." Harry swallowed. "What, er, Fishface did to them was worse than killing them."
"Indeed….Krait has some ideas, rather radical ideas…..if it is possible to restore them we most certainly shall, but say nothing to Neville….we don't want to raise his hopes when it may come to nothing."
Harry shook his head. He couldn't stop thinking about the look on Neville's face.
"Krait said she'd try to legilimens Trelawney's unconscious memory" said Harry.
"I think that would be wise" Severus nodded. "If she'll let her near enough….Trelawney doesn't like either of us much."
"I wonder why!" grinned Harry.
-/-
Severus and Krait between them concocted an excuse for Krait to carry a message to Madame Trelawney before term began.
Krait tapped at the door and went into the cluttered Divination Room where Trelawney was fussing around to get things just so for the beginning of term.
"Excuse me Professor" the girl said politely "But Professor Snape wanted to borrow some divining rods if you have any."
Trelawney turned a malevolent eye on her.
"He has a cheek!" she hissed. "After the things he said…Don't touch that!" Krait had reached towards a large crystal ball.
Krait stiffened as if poleaxed and stood straight. She spoke in a harsh, croaking voice.
"Beware….beware the ides of March!" she cried. "Woe….death…..they fly from above and from below, within and without….thirteen times thirteen in number and yet uncountable as the flies of summer…." She gave a horrid gasp and slumped to the floor with her eyes open and staring.
Trelawney rushed over and knelt at her side; and Krait thrust into her thoughts, seeking a specific time, a specific memory, looking for the peculiarity that locked it away. Trelawney screamed and swayed; and Krait held her eyes ruthlessly until she found what she sought.
-/-
Trelawney came to as Krait was dragging her from the room.
"What's going on?" she shrieked.
"Reckon there must be bad air in there, Professor" said Krait. "I felt faint and passed out…and when I came to, you were lying beside me." She had learned how to obliviate now, having felt it a lack, and had blurred Trelawney's memory of her own legilimensy.
Trelawney peered at her owlishly.
"Don't you remember what you said?" she asked eagerly.
"Of course…I was asking to borrow divining rods" said Krait impatiently.
"You…you don't remember warning about the ides of March? The…the warning of death and attack? Oh my dear, I KNEW you were a true seer!" she burst into tears.
"I guess I'd better get you to Madam Pomfrey pretty quick" said Krait in a concerned voice. "I think you may have a chill….sounds like you're delirious to me." and she half dragged the excited witch to the hospital wing still babbling that Krait was a seer.
-/-
Krait reported to Harry and Severus as soon as she had inexorably handed Trelawney into the care of Madam Pomfrey.
"I managed to convince her with a load of incomprehensible and suitably mystical crap" she said cheerfully.
"How ever did you manage it?" asked Harry.
"I've been doing yours and Ron's Divination homework long enough…I might even put in for the OWL just for a laugh….sorry, moving swiftly on…." She said as Severus cleared his throat pointedly. "We know where you got to…the next bit is meaty…." She unfocused as she read through her own memories to get the words exactly right, and mimicked the harsh voice Trelawney had spoken in.
"…And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives….the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…"
"Wow" said Harry. "Suitably cryptic. Does that add anything apart from the fact that it's him or me…which I think I'd already gathered?"
"You don't need the bravado for us, lad" said Severus quietly. "I felt your shock to hear it stated so baldly….even if deep down you did already realise it."
"Yeah…it's kind of hard. What if it is Neville though?"
"'The Dark Lord will MARK HIM as an equal'" said Krait. "He chose to believe it was you; so it became irrevocably you when he put the mark on you. If he had chosen Neville, he might have born that scar instead…or maybe HE would have died and then Fishface would have come after you…He knew who he thought was the most dangerous."
"Why? Neville comes from an old family doesn't he?"
"Yes, he's pure bred" said Severus. "YOU are half bred….so was Tom Riddle…maybe that was where he perceived the threat in hybrid vigour…"
"What power do I have that Fishface does not though? I'm pretty ordinary…I never get top marks in anything, even if I am doing better in potions these days…"
"Idiot" said Krait, impatiently. "It's old magic…the oldest. People LOVE you, you blithering twerp!"
"But….what can that do?"
"What but have people ready to bleed for you, die for you if necessary?" said Severus quietly. "The dark Lord cannot even understand the concept of love….lust, yes; but not love, romantic or platonic. To him all are motivated by base urges; he has never felt anything for anybody because he truly IS coldblooded in his feelings; save in the negative emotions. Your mother and my feelings for her helped to save me, Harry; and the fact that Albus Dumbledore has been like a father to me….Riddle has nothing, he never responded with affection to anyone in the orphanage where he was reared, I don't think, even were it a million times better than Krait's…there is a flaw in his very nature, I think, for of the two one might have expected Krait to be hard…that people will give their lives for you willingly not out of fearful worship but out of love for you is our ace in the hole."
Harry swallowed hard.
"But I don't WANT anyone to give their lives for me! I – I don't want to lose any of my friends…."
"Don't be afraid to admit to love too" said Krait. "It's not unmanly as younger lads like Ron might think…"
"Ron's my age…"
"No, you're a zillion years older than Ron…deep down where it counts. Of course you don't want those who love you, who you love to die; but we are prepared to do so. THAT is what counts. We'd as soon not either" she added candidly. "But accept that it is so. And that we CAN as well use our blood to protect each and every one of us. Or spend each and every one of us in your defence – because the alternative, Fishface winning, is too horrible to contemplate….Severus and I would die for our children as well as for you, that you would save them from HIM."
"It's a heavy responsibility to bear" said Severus "It's why Albus has kept you so much in the dark…but you are a big enough man to bear it."
"I suppose in a way I knew all this already….it makes it rather bald and uncompromising though." Said Harry. "Well! If it has to be done, it has to be done….it's left me with a dry mouth, coffee anyone?"
"You're a brave lad" said Severus softly. "James couldn't fault your courage, nor Lily your compassion…and I can't fault your growing common sense."