In the Head of the Snake
Chapter 14: Mind Change
It was with heavy feet that Severus reached the gargoyles that guard the entrance to the Headmaster's office.
He sighed as he said the password, "Cherry Nougat."
"At least you can move further than a step," sniggered the one gargoyle as it leapt aside to allow Severus through.
Severus grunted in amusement, but petted the gargoyle's head nonetheless as he stepped onto the winding staircase.
Just as he was settling into a state of semi-control, however, the staircase stopped moving. Severus knew what that meant; someone was coming down the stairs as he was going up them. He stood rigid as he waited for the unannounced person to start walking down the bend and into his sight, an emotionless mask plastered on his face.
As Ginny Weasley took the step needed to put her two stairs out of Severus reach, but well within sight, she froze.
He stared up at her, his black eyes taking her presence in with two short glances up and down; her hair was tousled and twigs stuck out of it in odd directions; her clothes were ripped; she had a long scratch along her arm, the blood oozing slowly out making it look longer than it was; and her eyes were dimmed, no longer with the shine that he knew they normally held. It was that, above all, that alerted Severus – something in the girl was very very wrong.
"Ah, Severus," Albus Dumbledore appeared on the step above Ginny. He placed a long fingered hand on Ginny's shoulder. "I am going to take Miss Weasley to the Hospital Wing. Wait for me."
Severus merely nodded and let Dumbledore and Ginny Weasley pass. Once the pair stepped off of the final stair, Severus let the staircase move him upwards to the Headmaster's Office. He didn't hesitate at the door but opened it with sure hands and stepped through. Fawkes turned his head towards Snape, looking at him through one beady eye.
"Yes, Bird, I am in a bad mood," growled Snape.
Fawkes answered with a soft coo. Severus felt his muscles relax involuntarily as the sound swept around him. His lip lifted in a sneer as he reclenched his arms.
"Not going to work this time!" he hurrumffed into the leather-backed chair, purposefully holding himself down hard. Fawkes, his black intelligent gaze shifting to the other eye, merely ruffled his feathers and hopped from his perch onto Snape's leg.
"You are too much like your Griffindore counterpart," grumbled Snape as he begrudgingly lifted a finger and stroked the feathered neck of the phoenix. More soft coos ensued and Snape found the icy layer that he coated over his mind thawing out slowly.
Every time. Every single time he went to do the Dark Lord's bidding, Snape put up his defences. Either burning anger, its origin untraceable under the sheer heat of it. Or a cold indifference, placing everyone and everything below him. Tonight he had shrouded himself in ice as he looked down at both Rookwood and Avery. The idiots. The absolute morons. The complete fools!
Fawkes flapped off of Snape's lap as he suddenly brought his hand down angrily on the side of the chair. Sending out indignant clucks at him, Fawkes landed along one of the many shelves in the office, his claws digging into the wood as he held himself in a dignified diagonal stance along the shelf. Their eyes glared black to black.
Knowing he would have to make amends to the bird, Snape huffed out of the chair and extended his arm out. Fawkes shuffled further along the shelf out of the Potion Master's reach.
Eyes not leaving the bird, Snape followed its course. It fluttered further out of his reach once more. Fighting the urge to roll his eyes or to huff in exasperation, he stepped once again after the bird. Fawkes, with a glint in his eye that Severus could not place, flew from the shelf to the other side of the room where he settled comfortably on his perch. Fawkes gave a chirp of victory. Snape, his eyes still on the shelf saw why; Fawkes had lead him to the Sorting Hat.
"You going to put me on?" the rip in the hat said to him.
Knowing how crazy he must be to have been tricked by a bird and now pressurised by a hat, Severus placed the hat gently over his oily hair.
"You put me on, therefore I've won"
Severus snarled, "Yes, yes, you're a brilliant piece of brainless patched stitch-work."
"You think you need me to grow, so what do you want to know?"
"Why you always talk in rhyme is one thing I want to know," growled Severus and shook his head. The only end he gained was to let the hat drop further down over his head.
"Remembering the first time where I spoke to you in rhyme?" enquired the hat with a silky smile.
"Difficult to forget the first time. You fell all the way down to my eyes. At least I know I've grown in that sense."
"My doe-hearted friend, your mind has gone around the bend."
"I give that a four out of ten," Snape smirked
"I always loved your wit, and the truth hidden under it."
"I don't know how much truth there is in sarcasm. I don't think I know much at all."
"Turn to your past, or won't your heart last?"
"The past has nothing to do with anything! Ginevra Weasley is my problem! She obviously tried to run away, probably through the Forbidden Forest from her appearance. What am I supposed to do with her? I thought that I could teach her Occlumensy to separate herself from her past, but how can I help her do that when even I cannot?"
The hat took a deep breath, Severus feeling it rise and fall softly on his head. He clenched his eyes, knowing that the Hat had a song for him.
And so began the Sorting Hat's song to Severus:
"The secrets locked in your head,
are hidden but never dead
Oh soulless snake, why look to me
when already you have your precious key?
I am but a torn old hat,
what difference do I know about this or that?
I read your thoughts and heart's desires
but the future no cup, nore book, nor hat can transpire.
Leave the reading to me – of that I am sure
but your worries and cares – only you know the cure."
The hat fell silent and, his cue unspoken but felt, Severus lifted it off of his head and placed it back on the shelf. If anything, the Hat had given him much to think of. He strode quickly around to Fawkes and, at the bird's extended neck, stroked his feathered head.
"I see you have more fun with Fawkes these days than with me."
Snape turned and nodded his head in greeting to the Headmaster.
"I am sorry I took so long in returning to Hogwarts."
"I am sorry too. The school can barely function without you."
"Don't be so sure of yourself, Severus. There is much the school can do without me. And much that it must do without me in the future."
"And me? How much longer is my role in this school?"
"I do not know. I can merely guess."
"Not saying much," scoffed Snape, "considering most of your guesses are always right."
Dumbledore sighed and sunk into his chair behind his desk. Snape settled into the one opposite him.
"I wish it weren't so," said Dumbledore eventually. Looking carefully at Snape, Dumbledore asked, "Close your mind Severus; this must not get back to Voldemort."
Snape barely had time to put up his defences as Dumbledore pulled out of his pocket a torn book, its centre blackened with a large hole.
"That is..." Snape trailed, waiting for Dumbledore to fill in the gap.
"An old diary that once belonged to Tom Marvolo Riddle. Given to Ginevra Weasley five years ago before her first year. Destroyed by Harry Potter a year later in the Chamber of Secrets."
"This is the book that you were referring to?"
"Yes. And no – I did find a particularly fascinating book on Five-Fingered Fungi that was particularly interesting. I couldn't resist the urge to buy it."
Shrugging the Headmaster's ditsy comment off, Snape concentrated on the book. That was what changed Ginny. That was what gave her this sudden power.
"How did the book work?"
Dumbledore, caught slightly off guard by the question, let his surprise show with a twinkle of large eyes over his half-moon spectacles.
"In terms of what?"
"When the girl found it," snapped Snape. "What did it do to her?"
"It held memories that possessed her as she poured more of herself into the book," Dumbledore's voice was steely as he spoke.
"Possessed? So it poured its magic into her as she poured hers into it?"
"Something like that."
"And now that experience has engraved itself into her magical ability..." Severus was not asking. He was contemplating his own thoughts aloud. In his sudden vulnerable state of mind, his emotions showed clearly on his face.
"My, my, Severus. You do not have feelings for the girl, do you?"
"Feelings?" spat Snape just as suddenly as the question was asked.
"Yes, Severus. Also known as emotions or a tugging of the heart."
"There is no heart involved. Only calculated involvement."
Dumbledore chuckled.
"If that is what you want to call it, then so be it. But I warn you – that is not the definition she would choose for herself."
"Where did you find her?" asked Snape, rueing the answer.
"I did not. Firenze felt a disturbance in the stars above the forest and followed their alignment, only to find the girl in an enclosure not far from the Centaur's herd. He risked his life once more among his people and brought her to safety just as I reentered the castle."
Snape sat in silence, contemplating this news. She had tried to run away. From who? For what?
"From what I gathered," said Dumbledore, the twinkle in his eyes renewed as he perched his bearded chin on interlinked fingers and surveyed the man before him as he would any other student, "she was running away after some form of encounter with you."
"With me?" So he was right! She had run away after he had fainted.
"You aren't trying to scare my students to death again, are you Severus?"
Snape scowled.
"If anything, the girl scares me! The last I saw of her was the night before last! She was waiting for me to get back from my summons from the Dark Lord. I didn't realise my wounds were so severe. She helped me to my rooms. I fainted. That was it! I did no more and no less than that! I don't even know how she knew that I would be there!"
"Ah, that would be me. I gave her instructions to wait for you."
"Y-y-you?" spluttered Snape, his anger rising like the incoming of the tide.
"Oh don't look so surprised, Severus. I know that you always get hurt and you never ask for help. So," Dumbledore shrugged, "I asked for you."
"You asked a TEENAGE GIRL TO HELP ME?" the tide had come in with the fierceness of a tsunami crashing against the shore. Severus felt his calm exterior crack. He was on his feet without knowing how he had gotten there. He could feel anger radiating off of him in sweeps of power. He knew all that, and yet he could not force himself to control his actions. "FEEL FREE TO PLAY GAMES WITH ME, DUBLEDORE, BUT THE GIRL! DON'T! JUST...just don't..." he sagged back into his chair, his shoulders slumping down, his bedraggled hair falling in shadows around his bent head.
"She wants to help," said Dumbledore after a while.
"Well she can't."
"Why not?"
"She shouldn't."
"Says who?"
"She mustn't."
"But she will."
Snape looked up tiredly at Dumbledore.
"You think she will? You think there is no way that I can chase her away from the stupid path she has decided to walk?"
"I think she will. I think that there is no way that you can chase her away. I think that the path she has decided to walk is treacherous, but highly noble."
"What of the means of this path?"
"Do what you must. You know that she will do the same."
"It is not a simple mind change. It goes deeper than that. She wants something that I cannot give. I have not had it for years."
"Hearts mend."
"When they are broken, not when they're lost."
"Then maybe she can find yours. Or if not, make for you a new one."
Snape laughed.
"What is the use of a spy with a heart?"
"What is the use of a soul without a heart?"
"Who says I have a soul."
Dumbledore looked hard at Snape, his eyes forcing the man to want to both fidget incessantly and to sit stock still, a frozen masterpiece of human flesh and blood.
"I say you have a soul. Your actions – going to face Tom every single time he calls, saving those who you can, applying mercy to those who you can't – those actions tell me that you have a soul. And if you ever feel any doubt as to whether you have a soul, look but into yourself and call forth the light of happiness and love; your patronus will remind you of who you are."
Just as seriously, Snape replied, "My patronus reminds me of why I fight. It reminds me of her. It has nothing to do with me."
"Then maybe it is time that you changed your mind about yourself. Learn to love again, Severus."
"Not too long ago you were asking me to make friends. Now you are asking me to love. On top of my other duties, don't you think you are asking me too much? Can't you just leave me to wallow in my own selfpity and be on with it. We both know that I will not live past this war. There is no place for me within the future. A spy has no purpose when there is no reason to spy."
"Have you grown so attached to your role in this war, that it has become the very essence that is you? Or can't you remove yourself from your job any more?"
"I don't understand," and truly, Severus didn't. Once again, Dumbledore was talking in a riddle that he didn't know the answer to.
"I am Hogwart's Headmaster. I am also Albus Dumbledore. The one role is different from the other. The one role trumps the other. You are Severus Snape. You are also Spy. Are the roles the same, Severus? Or do they differ?"
"I am Spy. Severus Snape is Spy. Whether you want to call me the one or the other, it makes no difference. There is no way to detach me from what I am, nor who I am. You can hide the past, but it will never die. I have no place in the future."
"You are prepared to die?"
"Always."
"That is something I wish Ginevra will never hear from you."
"I would rather tell her now than have her misunderstand my death."
"Yes. It would be good for her to know that it is not murder. But sacrifice."
They elapsed into silence, the portraits on the walls snoring too loudly for them to be genuine.
"Rookwood has asked for my help. The Dark Lord has a plan for the item in the Department of Mysteries."
"You consented, I take it?" asked Dumbledore, leaning back in his chair and letting his head rest so that he was facing the roof instead of the man that had just proclaimed his own death.
"I had no choice. Avery spoke to me too. He believes the Dark Lord will listen to my pleas for his forgiveness..."
"Will he?"
"Many believe so. I do not know. The Dark Lord...he becomes more and more inhuman as time wears on. It is almost like he is only part human, part something else."
"You may be right," Severus thought that he saw a worried frown line the wrinkles in Dumbledore's face, but a blink later and they were hidden by a ditsy old-man smile. "Is that all that you have to report?" he looked back down at Snape.
"Yes," Snape nodded, then paused before saying, "So what of the girl?"
Dumbledore smiled widely.
"Let your calculated involvement lead the way," then he waved his hand in an obvious dismissal.
(A/N: Right so I really need inspiration. I know where I wanna go with this story - the finish is written first as is my writing pattern - but the middle...it's always a bit of a problem. So thoughts, comments, or anything of the sort are needed and appreciated. I think that I'm in the middle of a "calculated involement" drain; that might explain it. WonderWhiteRabbit droopily dragging her feet as she hops off)