[A/N: Chapter 15 Part 2]

Saturday, 17 April 1993 Severus Snape's Office

"He's going to bloody kill us," one of the Weasley twins said, fidgeting as he waited for Professor Snape to call them into his office.

"If not for the conspiracy, then, well, you know…"

"Kidnapping me?" Mary asked as drily as she could manage. She had been ignoring the twins since they were released from the Hospital wing, but she was willing to make an exception if it made them feel more guilty about their actions in Moaning Myrtle's loo.

"Yes." "That." "We're dead." "So dead."

"Stop saying that," Ginny said with a tiny shudder.

Hermione, who was arguably an enormous softie, put an arm around the redheaded girl. Lilian, who had not forgiven the youngest Weasley for her role in recent events quite yet – specifically not telling anyone when she finally got away from the diary in January – glared at her friend for this blatant betrayal.

"Hey," Mary said, "Aren't you supposed to be my moral support?"

"Shut up, Lizzie," Hermione advised. Lilian smirked at the Ravenclaw. Mary rolled her eyes at the other Slytherin just as the door opened.

Professor Snape took in the scene before him – guilty, worried twins; scared Ginny and supportive Hermione; and the three girls in the midst of a minor power play – and smiled. It was deeply disturbing.

"Miss Potter. Miss Moon. Miss Granger. Miss Weasley. Messers Weasley. Come in," he commanded them. The students filed through the door, directed to a pair of sofas he had arranged in place of the usual visitors' chairs. He himself had an armchair in place of his desk. Mary wondered what he had done with the desk, which, as she recalled, was generally covered in clutter. Surely he hadn't tidied, just for their meeting.

"Sit." The Weasleys took one sofa, the boys flanking their sister, while Hermione and Lilian took up positions on either side of Mary.

The professor did not sit, instead turning his chair around and leaning against the back of it.

"First things first," he said smoothly. "Mister Weasley. Mister Weasley. One hundred points from Gryffindor for kidnapping a Slytherin student and forcing her into a dangerous situation. Each. You will also report here for detention every night until the end of term beginning this Monday."

"Yes, sir," the boys chorused, looking relieved that their punishment had not been far more severe.

"Secondly, Miss Granger, Messers Weasley, I believe you have something to say to your compatriots regarding the brewing of the so-called Veritaserum?" The three looked at each other in confusion. "Or was Headmaster Dumbledore mistaken when he informed me that you had, in fact, relied on the placebo effect in order to question your peers?"

All three of the potioneers in question looked confused. Then understanding dawned on Hermione's face. Professor Snape's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Erm, no, sir. That's correct. We, that is, the boys and I – we realized there was no way we would ever manage to get all the supplies for Veritaserum, so we made a concentrated version of the Suggestibility Solution, and charmed all the vials so that it would appear colorless. We lied to you so that you wouldn't be able to give it away. Sorry."

"So you mean we weren't using Veritaserum on everyone?" Lilian asked.

"No," the twins said, again together, without elaborating.

"Oh, that's good," Lilian said. She also sounded relieved. Mary didn't know why. She would bet anything they were still going to be punished, since they hadn't known that when they had done it.

Sure enough, the next words out of Professor Snape's mouth were, "Miss Potter, Miss Moon, Miss Yaxley, Mr. Lestrange, Mr. Wilkes, the elder Miss Moon, and Miss Lovegood along with Miss Granger, Mr. Weasley, and Mr. Weasley will each serve one hour of detention for each student they dosed with what they believed to be Veritaserum or claimed to be Veritaserum. Your comrades have already been informed. Be glad your duplicity was discovered, Messers Weasley, Miss Granger. The punishment for illegally brewing that particular potion is a mandatory year in Azkaban, and a month for using it on anyone outside of a courtroom setting, and you may be assured that your youth would only defer your punishment to a later date." Mary felt the blood rush from her own face as she watched the Weasley twins go pale across from her. Professor Snape continued blandly. "Even without the Veritaserum aspect, you have assaulted three quarters of the student body, which, despite the Headmaster's laissez faire, no harm, no foul attitudes, is a crime I will not dismiss lightly."

"Yes, sir," she heard Hermione squeak.

"I'm glad we understand each other." Professor Snape smiled again, looking directly at Hermione. The expression did not reach his eyes, and Mary had the impression there was more communication there than she was aware. Hermione looked down, and sank further back into the couch cushions. "These detentions will be held every Saturday beginning with the first Saturday of next term." Mary did not even consider raising a Quidditch-based objection. If she had a conflict, Draco would just have to be seeker.

"Yes, sir," she said quietly, hanging her head, and was echoed a moment later by the Weasley twins and Lilian. She wasn't looking forward to Morgana's reaction, but a hundred hours of detention was much better than a hundred months in Azkaban.

"Good," the professor declared. "You will speak of this to no one. Understood?"

There was a chorus of affirmative responses from the five students implicated. It would be better if the whole school didn't know what they had done, anyway.

"Good." With that the professor spun his chair around again and finally sat, his demeanor shifting at once from the Professor Snape they knew from class to the Professor Snape Mary recalled from their discussions after the Quirrellmort incident. "Tavi!" he called, and an elf appeared. "Tea for seven," he ordered. The students looked at each other in confusion, as the professor apparently enjoyed their reaction. When the tea arrived, Lilian poured, as though she were at a formal party, and passed out the cups with a careful Levitation Charm.

Once they were all settled at the strangest tea party ever, the professor announced, "I have asked you all here today to discuss the events which occurred within the Chamber of Secrets, and leading up to said events. Miss Weasley, Miss Potter, if at any time you wish the other students to leave, you may ask, and we will comply. Should such a request be made, the rest of you will go wait in the hall until I command you to return." Seeing the looks on the twins' faces, he added, "You idiots were the cause of trauma, not the ones who suffered it, here." They subsided without a word. "We will begin with Miss Weasley."

Ginny got off to a stuttering start, and made her way slowly through a tear-filled tale. It soon became clear that she had no memory of most of the attacks, and had been more or less in love with the boy in the diary, before he betrayed her and took over her body. She had been suffering in silence since the beginning of the year as her life fell further and further out of her control.

"And t-the Headmaster, he s-said he c-couldn't remove the b-blocks, so I'll – I'll n-never know what I did – what he m-made me do," she concluded, finally.

The Professor sighed. "Miss Weasley, would you like me to have a look and remove the blocks where possible?"

"B-But my mum said you c-couldn't."

"Your mother is exceedingly distrustful toward me due to a very poor decision I made as a teenager, and for which I have been atoning these past thirteen years. I am, if I do say so myself, somewhat more proficient than the Headmaster at mental manipulation. If the blocks can be removed, I can remove them. It is possible that they have been tied too deeply into your memories to shift, but I could at least tell you if that is the case. If you do not want my in your head, by all means go to St. Mungo's. Their mind healers could do it just as well."

Ginny gave another sniffle. "Yes. Please. I want to know. I want to know what he did to me. And what I did to – to Colin and Percy."

"Come here, then," the professor said, almost gently, and waved her into his chair. He knelt on the floor in front of her, their eyes nearly level. "Legilimens," he whispered. They sat there, eyes locked together for five minutes, then ten. As they neared the fifteen-minute mark, the professor broke away. His face was as impassive as ever, though tears were streaming down Ginny's cheeks.

"What did you do to her?" one of her brothers demanded, as the other spoke to their sister in soothing tones.

"Nothing, Mr. Weasley. She is remembering all the little things Riddle hid from her over the course of the year. Many of them are… unpleasant."

"Is there," Hermione said gently, "Is there anything we can do, Ginny?"

"No. You don't un-under-s-stand. How c-could you?"

"Is there a way we could share Ginny's memories, professor?" the Ravenclaw asked immediately.

Professor Snape considered this for a moment before saying, very slowly, "Yes."

"Do you want us to know, Ginny?" Hermione offered.

The younger girl shook her head violently. "It's to h-horrible. I could-couldn't ask you."

"If you want someone to know, someone should know." Hermione's voice was terribly soft.

Mary didn't think Ginny could hear her at all, so she was surprised when the redhead said, "Okay. I-If you're s-sure."

Professor Snape mumbled something under his breath which sounded to Mary like "Save us all from curious Ravenclaws," before explaining that he could use a spell called the Inception Charm to copy memories directly from Ginny's mind to Hermione's. It was bound to be uncomfortable, not only due to the nature of the memories, but because Hermione would essentially live through the entire year again, as Ginny, in her head, albeit at a vastly accelerated pace. It was, he said drily, not entirely unlike the Yule ritual they had all attended.

"I'll do it," the Ravenclaw said firmly. Ginny nodded again.

Professor Snape narrowed his eyes at the two, but complied, performing the spell. He instructed the girls to look directly into each other's eyes, and whispered the incantation quietly enough that Mary couldn't hear it. A thick beam of whitish blue something leapt from Ginny to Hermione. The transfer lasted only seconds, but it was nearly twenty minutes before Hermione could move again. The professor raised an eyebrow as though surprised she had recovered so quickly. While they waited, the others discussed inconsequential things, as though this were any other tea party. It was exceedingly awkward.

"Oh, Ginny," Hermione finally said, clearly on the verge of tears, and pulled the younger girl into a long hug, whispering something in her ear. Whatever she said, it must have helped, because Ginny finally stopped crying and settled back on her couch between her brothers, gratitude shining in her eyes. Hermione rejoined Mary and Lilian, though she sent frequent looks of concern at the young Gryffindor.

Lilian was then called upon to explain the activities of the Conspiracy over the course of the term, which she did surprisingly succinctly, and Mary was asked to recount what she recalled from the Chamber of Secrets itself. The Professor halted Mary's story just after the Basilisk died.

"For the benefit of those who were not in the Hospital Wing on Thursday evening," he said (only Hermione and Lilian), "Everything after this point is a fabrication. Continue." All of the Weasleys looked surprised by this, as though the Headmaster hadn't told them when he looked through their minds.

And so Mary recounted the rest of her memories of those two hideous days in the dark under the school, which apparently hadn't happened. The Weasleys all nodded along. They clearly had similar recollections.

After that, the professor ordered his elf to fetch their dinners, and explained while they ate (or tried to eat, in most cases), exactly what a horcrux was, what they were supposed to do, and how this one had apparently deviated from its intended purpose. Apparently it was this which had saved the Dark Lord from dying when he blew himself up. The professor swore the six students to secrecy, then shared his theory that the Dark Lord had created multiple horcruxes, not only improving his claim on immortality, but allowing his horcruxes and his wraith-form a degree of independence from each other which was not supposed to exist. If Mary understood correctly, a horcrux was like an anchor that towed in the other half of its soul after death. By making at least two, the Dark Lord had avoided being pulled back to either of them, and was able to remain a wraith. Why he should want to remain a wraith was unclear to the twins, but as Mary, Hermione, and Professor Snape pointed out at once, a wraith was a bit more mobile than a diary, and clearly as able to possess someone.

After an awkward silence, during which Mary was sure everyone was judging her for thinking like the Dark Lord, one of the twins asked how they knew a wraith could possess someone, which necessitated a lengthy tangent about Quirrellmort. Eventually they managed to get back on track with the current year's misadventures, however, and the professor continued, laying out his suspicions that the Dark Lord's Horcrux had been destroyed as a horcrux, but that the soul fragment had somehow survived.

His theory was tenuous, and based on four facts. First, all four students who had been in the Chamber had had their memories altered voluntarily, which suggested it was in their best interests to do so. Second, Mary had reacted poorly to 'that thrice-cursed bird of Dumbledore's' which suggested she had been involved in far more dark magic than she could recall. Third, she had shown up with a cut that Madam Pomfrey could not heal, which could be interpreted in a number of different ways, but at a minimum suggested the Dark Lord had used her blood for something. Finally, the fact that the diary had been destroyed twice, the second time in order to maintain consistency with their altered memories, suggested that the entity which had once inhabited it no longer needed it, and had also survived to alter their memories.

Worst case scenario, there was a young Dark Lord running around loose somewhere with Mary's blood, some kind of body, and all of their memories of exactly what had happened. Both Mary and Ginny cringed at this realization. The only good thing Mary could draw from Professor Snape's summary of events was that wraith-Voldemort was now down one horcrux. She sincerely hoped that he hadn't had more than one other, and was now trapped in another book somewhere, but she suspected that might be too good to be true. She wished she knew why he had let them go. That had to be the strangest thing out of the whole messy affair. Everything she had heard suggested he was the sort of man who would think nothing of killing the four of them and leaving them in the Chamber. Why go to the trouble of making them forget him? Weren't they loose ends?

It was a very unsettling afternoon, and that was before Mary was asked to stay behind as the others filed out.

"Yes, professor?" she asked, nervously, uncertain what more they might possibly have to discuss.

"Have a seat, Miss Potter," he said, sounding very tired and resuming his own.

Mary sat on the very edge of one of the couches. "What is it, sir?" she asked, now genuinely concerned.

The professor approached the subject delicately. "It's about, well, your mother. And the Dark Lord's insinuations regarding her parentage."

"Oh." Mary wasn't sure what she had expected, but that certainly wasn't it.

"I… knew your mother very well, once upon a time, you know."

Mary nodded. Remus had told her as much, ages ago, and she seemed to recall something like that from the end of the previous year, though she didn't remember any details of their friendship, and it had never seemed the right time to ask the standoffish professor. "Sir, I don't understand." Specifically, she didn't know what that had to do with Riddle's claim on her mother's parentage.

"I also knew the Dark Lord, as well as anyone could."

"Yes?"

"I..." He was pinching the bridge of his nose again, clearly unable to say what he thought needed to be said.

Mary decided to put him out of his misery. "Are you trying to say he might have been right?" She tried hard to keep the outrage from her voice, but she wasn't sure if she managed it.

"Before she scrambled his brain, he wasn't often wrong," the man said sardonically.

"So…"

"In hindsight there are certain similarities between the two of them. And you are more like them than you know." Mary quirked an eyebrow at this, and he added, "In a good way."

Mary snorted. She didn't think he had meant to imply that there was anything good about the Dark Lord, but she was fairly certain he had.

He rolled his eyes at her. "Don't give me that. He was very pragmatic, charming. You met him."

"Yes, and I liked him even though I didn't think I should, and apparently he got me to trust him enough to help him with something that was worth not killing me, and I agreed to let him take my memories of whatever it was."

The professor waved a negligent hand. "A Black Arts destruction ritual, at the very least. Probably more. Speculation will get us nowhere."

"But you think I'm like him?"

"In some ways." He fixed her with a piercing stare. "I could see it in your memory. You stand the same. Your face is the same when you're trying not to admit to knowing more than you should. And you have the same Slytherin pragmatic streak, and a selfish disregard for rules and convention. He and Lily both had that. They also shared a penchant for dangerous ritual magic, though I did not see it at the time. And the charm, the charisma of teenage Riddle was much the same as teenage Lily – mercurial and calculating all at once. She was, of course, much kinder than he, and whatever he once was, he is no longer, but, yes… there are similarities."

"Those could be coincidence," Mary objected. "I mean, he could have copied me on purpose, and the rest of that – they could be coincidences. I mean, pragmatism and a disregard for rules? That's like, all of Slytherin House, and most of Ravenclaw too. Hermione is way worse about that than I am."

The professor snorted at that. "You may tell Miss Granger that I chose not to look too closely at that whole Veritaserum situation, and that I will be watching her much more closely from now on. If she poisons anyone who did not explicitly volunteer to participate in her extra-curricular studies, she will be out of this school before she can apologize."

"Wait – does that mean we really did use Veritaserum on all those people?"

The potions-master smirked. "The headmaster has informed me that I need not look into this case any further and I have every intention of following that advice. Incidentally, you may also tell Miss Granger that random acts of kindness toward Miss Weasley do not constitute atonement for her actions this year, and should she wish to appear more innocent in the future, she would do well not to look so damn guilty and jump on the first available opportunity to assuage said guilt. Though aside from that, her ability to dissemble is coming along quite well."

It took a moment for Mary to parse out that statement. "So she's getting better at lying? But she acts too guilty? And she's not forgiven for… whatever she, or we, might have done, just because she's being nice to Ginny?"

The professor nodded.

She gave up on figuring out that particular conversational detour. "Yes, sir. I'll pass the message along." She would have to ask Hermione what was going on. If she had risked her life with a unicorn and a thestral for nothing, she was going to be very upset.

"See that you do. And while you're at it, you may remind Messers Weasley and Weasley that the accepted strategy to dispose of a class five, highly dangerous magical creature on Hogwarts' grounds, is to report it to a teacher, not to kidnap a Slytherin and then transfigure numerous roosters in the hopes that one of them will crow before it manages to kill you."

"Or sneak it off the top of the tallest tower?"

"If you had managed to sneak a basilisk off the Astronomy tower, I would be very impressed. At least dragons fly."

"This conversation has gotten weird."

Professor Snape sighed. "Hogwarts was much less weird before you arrived," he informed her. "It used to just be laughably incompetent DADA instructors and the occasional verbal tussle with Sinistra. Now we've had two different incarnations of the Dark Lord here in two years, and a dragon and a basilisk, not to mention that idiotic obstacle course, and Powers know what else you lot have managed to cover up so far."

"I, erm, think you know everything, sir. That's all I can think of, anyway."

"You should have been a Gryffindor," he responded.

"What? Why?" Mary was highly offended.

"You attract too much trouble for Slytherin."

Mary crossed her arms and slouched on her sofa. "I'm not a Gryffindor."

"Ah, but are you a Slytherin?"

"Of course I am!" she said, before his meaning sunk in. "Oh, wait, you mean…"

The professor smirked at her. "There are ways to find out, you know. Potions, spells. The goblins will do it for a fee."

"Do you think I should?"

The man hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "Knowing one way or the other is generally better than suspecting, but not knowing."

"You said there're potions. Could you…?" Mary let the question trail off.

He nodded again. "It will take a month, but it's the most accurate way, for blood ancestry. Magical inheritance is trickier, but the goblins will do that when you come of age. I'll let you know when it's ready. Before the end of the term."

"Thank you, sir."

"You're welcome, Mary Elizabeth."

And with that, Mary excused herself and returned to her room, uncertain about a great many things, but pleased that Professor Snape seemed to be on her side.