Chapter 25: The Plan

"Because, Potter, it's not his ghost."

We had adjourned to the Hog's Head. Filius had met our little group in the school entrance hall and strongly suggested we would be better off discussing things 'away from this place and its influence,' and there wasn't any dissent. Hagrid, Hooch, Poppy, and Sinistra joined us as we crossed the grounds to the service gate. Aberforth had taken one look at us dragging in and said, "back room." Hagrid, bless him, bought the first round as we settled in at the various tables. Hooch was trying to get a food order together.

"How do you know?" Potter demanded.

"Because I went off script and he didn't."

"What?"

I sighed. "I always had to be ready, always, for anything he could ask me. Whenever I spoke to him, I was always on script. I decided to try going off the script. He asked me if I knew the penalty for one who turns against him, and I said yes, that's why I'd had him killed –"

"You –"

"Which I did, but he didn't react at all, and as you can imagine, that's not like him."

"That's your proof, it wasn't like him?"

Oh, a couple years of auror training, and now he was interested in proof?

"It was very much not like him. And further, no matter how I went off the script, he just kept going around in circles. And when I looked at him, he wasn't there. There was nothing there. It was just like, a, a little loop." A snake eating its own tail.

Filius was listening to us intently from across the table. "Severus, do you think I could be correct that it's a fragment from the Source? That it's trying to communicate through the words of the last, ah, thing it was attached to?"

"It's possible. Whatever it is, it's certainly not him. Though if it is only the Source, that doesn't explain why it's appearing to me in particular."

Filius looked skeptically at his pint, then sipped at it carefully. "Well, if the Source was particularly well attached to Voldemort, and his last thoughts may have been, ah, directed towards you in some way, that might have set you up as a trigger."

Potter looked down quickly at his glass.

At the table just to my right, Longbottom had cornered Nott, who was working on his pint and trying to look bored. "So, you were one of Snape's eyes?"

"His what?"

"You know."

"No, I don't think I do," said Nott innocently.

"What exactly did it say to you?" asked Filius.

I tried to separate his words from the memory of his face and voice. "It calls me its friend, and says it knew I would return. It says to come to it, to turn to it." I took a drink. I could have done with something stronger. "It, it asks if I know the penalty for one who turns against it. Then it just starts repeating itself. 'Turn against me.'"

"That's... well, I can't say it's what I was expecting. I mean based on the historic dreams and visions experienced by others."

"It wants something, but I'm not sure what." Why would it call me it's friend and tell me to turn against it?

"It leaves us with the same problem," said Filius. "Short of closing the school, what do we do about it?"

Longbottom pressed on at Nott. "You know, helping Snape and Bulstrode keep students away from the Carrows."

"I'm not a traitor."

"But you were helping him, just now."

"I dropped by to pick up my transcript. Just wanted to see what all the fuss was about."

"Hmm."

Lovegood was sliding into the seat next to Filius. "Professor, from what Millie told me, it sounds like there's a dementor swarm under the school that's planting ideas in students' heads. Is that right?"

Millie?

"On a symbolic level, you could be quite close, Luna," said Filius. If he was encouraging her delusions that would explain a great deal.

Hagrid tromped over and set another brace of pints on the table, then squeezed Potter's shoulder. He winced.

"Good to see yer, Harry! Yeh don't get up to the school much. How's yer trainin'? Are Ron and Hermione still off honeymoonin'?"

Dear lord, they probably deserved each other.

"Filius," I said, "this cycle the Source is playing out. How would you describe it? A period of dormancy, then some sort of trigger, such as a suitable personality becoming available, and if they follow through, then a sacrifice, a metamorphosis – you called it 'becoming beastly'? And then a period of dormancy again."

"As a general description, yes."

"Did yeh get yer pint, Minerva?" bellowed Hagrid across the room. "Looks like yeh could use one." I saw Minerva wince.

"Like lycanthropy," I said. I traced a circle on the tabletop in the little pool of condensation that had dripped from my pint glass.

Filius considered. "There is no mention of werewolves connected with the incidents I've been investigating, but if you are referring to a symbolic affiliation, yes, I could see the pain and burden of the condition as the sacrifice, and then the transformation, becoming a violent beast. Yes, it is much like that."

"And you think the cycle is compressing?"

"A cycle?" said Potter. "But it's over, it's all over, we're all right now!"

"Of course, Harry," said Hagrid, "but we've still got that problem of all the dark wizards comin' out of Slytherin."

He would see it that way. Trelawney was weaving her way between the tables. "Yes, there is a dark force rising, I have seen it!" When had she caught up with us? And how had she managed to get pissed already? This might be a record, even for her.

Longbottom was making another go at Nott. "No, you were helping him today. And you were helping him then too, I know it."

"You don't know anything."

Neville dropped his voice. "Back when we were setting up the resistance, I saw you a few of times, round a corner, down a hall. You never seemed to notice us."

"Yeah, I didn't."

"And there was the time the Carrows almost got us, except that we could hear you talking to them very loudly as they came up the stair. I've never heard you talk loudly before."

"Amycus always was a bit deaf in his right ear."

"Ok, you're right, I don't know anything, particularly why you eyes are so dead set against getting thanked," said Longbottom.

"Oh, thanked, is it?"

"Yes, that's all!"

Nott sighed. "No, that would not be all."

"Look, I'm not going to publicize anything against your will. I'm just sitting in front of you, Nott, trying to thank you."

Nott rubbed his forehead. "You know my dad's in Azkaban."

"Yeah, uh…"

"All right, listen up," he leaned in close to Longbottom. "I might hate that sodding bastard, but I'd still rather he not get stabbed as a traitor in prison on my account. Do you understand me?"

"Oh."

"Oh. So you have nothing to thank me for, right?"

Longbottom paused. "All right. So, uh… thanks for nothing, Nott."

"Yeah. All right."

"Uh, if you ever don't need anything, make sure not to call on me."

"Won't."

As if a Slytherin would ever go to an outsider and openly ask for help. Or else would we just speak in opposites and hope that someone could read between the lines? "Filius, what if we do complete the cycle?"

"You cannot be suggesting –"

"Not like that, symbolically."

"What do you mean?"

Bulstrode joined Nott at his table with her own pint. "Piss off, Longbottom." Her expression was still stony.

"You were going to pose a question to us at the meeting. All right Filius, I'll answer it. Yes, I've had those dreams. If I tried to tell you all the dreams I've had of a black bottomless hole and a white thing rising up… and I know I'm not the only one. It's talking to us, Filius, the only way it knows how. And we understand what it's saying. It's a bottomless hole, and it needs to be fed. And some of us… many of us choose the wrong way to feed it. We need to try feeding it the right way."

"But the danger, the danger, Severus, is reinforcing the cycle and making it more powerful. You are so close to its influence, so you see feeding it as a solution, but that is not the only way. We could not feed it at all. Shut down the school and the Source."

Close to its influence. It could have been feeding me ideas for years, for most of my life. But what of the others? There were many that had been at the school longer than I had. And a headmaster had special access to the Source room. And wasn't it the headmaster who came up with all the plans, all those merciless, impossible plans? The ones that required that I let the students of my House come under Voldemort's influence without opposition, in order to keep my cover? I found I was breathing hard.

"Severus?" Filius was looking at me with concern.

And hadn't I agreed to those plans?

"Right, and what if it's not the Source, Filius, what if the black hole is in us? What if we're the ones that influenced it? That we've been sorted that way because of the flaw in us? That what it wants and what we give it are two different things, and all we've been giving it is death?"

"Oh, come now."

"No, I mean it. It's Frazier's Third Principle. The caster may affect the spell and the spell the caster. We could have influenced it as much as it us. To destroy it and leave is no solution. If you are correct, the cycle has been reinforced in a destructive way for centuries. You talk about sacrifice and metamorphosis, but those are not inherently destructive. You said it yourself; water can stand for rebirth –"

"-But if we start to feed it and it becomes more destructive –"

"Filius, you are familiar with Paracelsus, yes? 'Poison is in everything and no thing is without poison.'"

"-It is the dosage that makes it either a poison or a medicine," Filius completed.

"How can poison be medicine?" asked Potter.

Filius addressed me. "In theory, in theory, yes, I agree. But it's been poison for centuries."

"I don't think it wants to be. I think it's been made into poison."

"If that poem I found is any indication, it seems that it actively chose that role at first."

"Does that really matter? If it wants to change now and we want to change it, why not try? I think it wants to be medicine. And why else would it be appearing and saying that it's a friend, except that it's asking for help? That it wants to turn… it keeps saying turn. For god's sake, Filius, we've always been the House of medicine. Just look at our alchemical meaning; wasn't it Abraham Eleazar who said that Python is the 'king of nature' who will heal the whole world? But first, the poisonous body must be dismembered and the volatile spirit fixed. Nobody has even tried to fix the spirit. And this obsession with so-called purity. What if it doesn't want to purify others but wants itself to be purified? So that it can be the thing that heals instead of destroys? But it's been reversed, turned outwards, or turned inside-out. So let's not make it poison for once, let's make it medicine."

He stared at me. "But how?"

"Very carefully."

Filius didn't look satisfied with my answer. Minerva sat at our table and leaned in. "Severus, Filius, I hope you have some ideas." She still looked exhausted.

"Perhaps, but I need to think about it further," I said.

"Well, please don't take too long. When I think about that thing in there –"

"He says it's not Voldemort's ghost," Potter broke in.

"Whatever it is, I can't have it." She leaned in closer to me. "Look, I'm worried about Bulstrode. I don't want to leave things as they are, but I don't think she's up to any more meetings and she certainly doesn't want to talk to me at the moment. Will you talk to her?"

"Yes."

"And Filius, I just can't think of taking your resignation before we try every avenue –"

"Resignation!" said Potter.

"Mr. Potter," said Minerva, "why don't you come with me for a moment, I believe I can clarify some things for you." She ushered him out, finally, Longbottom hurrying behind.

Filius stood as well. "Whatever our course, Severus, as you said, we will have to proceed very carefully."

The back room was clearing out now. Lovegood stopped at Bulstrode and Nott's table on her way out. "Are we still on for dinner at your aunt's on Friday, Millie?" she asked.

Bulstrode grunted and didn't look up. "Have to see how the pictures come out."

"Oh, yes, I'll bring them along." She maneuvered her contraption out the door.

Nott was staring at Bulstrode. "Millie?"

"What."

"Really?" He had a bemused look on his face.

"Piss off, Nott."

"Oh, come on, Mil."

"Piss. Off."

He sighed. "Be seeing you, Mil. All right?"

She didn't answer. Nott gave me a nod as he left. I took his seat at the table. Trelawney was the last to go, collecting someone's half-finished pint as she wove her way out the door.

We sat with our empty pints and empty table and empty room.

"You can piss right off, too." She wasn't looking at me.

"I could."

"Been handling it all alone since you've been gone."

"Yes."

"And if I delegate any of it to the others, they need managing."

"Oh, yes."

"Sluggy needs the most managing."

She wasn't wrong.

"And there's all the talk."

I nodded.

"And now there's something been gnawing at us all this time."

"Yes."

She paused. "Get tired sometimes."

"Yes."

She wiped her nose on a stray serviette.

"You got some rubbish plan, then?"

"Yes."

"Well, why don't you piss off and get on with it?"

"We are going to need to lay the groundwork first, Bulstrode."

"Oh, bollocks."

"And for that, I'll need a contract."

"Fine. I'll get Sully."

A few minutes later she was talking at him through the floo, using her most delicate persuasion.

"Come through, Sully, or I'll bash your precious little skull in."

"Threats like that are legally actionable, Bulstrode."

"Don't you want to earn a fee?"

"Well, certainly, but I'm –"

"Then come through, or should we get that swot Granger?"

"Oh, lord no, she'd leave all sorts of loopholes – I'll get my case."

A few minutes later I had sealed the door and Sully was through and laying out forms and quills and inkwells on one of the tables between the empty pints.

"Now, sir, my rate for contracts is forty galleons per hour with a one-hour billing minimum and one-hour increments. There is a rush job surcharge of –"

He caught my look.

"-But that is entirely waived as a 'friends and family' courtesy," he finished smoothly. "Just a standard contract form?"

"No. Bulstrode, are you still sending acceptance letters?"

"Second quarter birthdays go out this week, sir."

"We want her to sign without reading it."

"Right," said Bulstrode, "letterhead, then."

Sully shrugged. "Certainly I can put it on letterhead." He drew out a form and started on the header. "The parties?"

"Myself and Minerva McGonagall in her capacity as Headmistress."

"And the terms?"

"I want the right to remove and use material from Hogwarts' Source without interference."

"For what uses?"

"For any uses."

"Sir, I can make the contract as broad as you wish, but vagueness doesn't protect you. If you can give me a starting point of what you need…"

"Very well. Extraction, research, development, licensing, distribution, and sale."

Sully was scribbling furiously. "By this contract, the undersigned grants Severus Snape, (hereafter 'Designee'), all rights pertaining to physical or magical materials of Hogwarts' Source, (hereafter 'the Source'), and their extraction, research, development, licensing, distribution, and sale, and any and all processes pertaining or necessary to the above, at the Designee's sole discretion."

I nodded.

"Now as to interference… I think, yes." He was writing again. "Access to and extraction of the Source will be aided and abetted by all Hogwarts' staff as required for the above purposes, to all extent allowed under their employment contracts with Hogwarts' School of etc." He paused. "We don't want to conflict with any existing contracts or you'll be tied up in the courts for simply ages. Now, what about transference?"

"Transference?"

"If you ever want to assign someone that role or sell the rights away."

"Yes."

"The above rights exist in perpetuity and are fully assignable and transferable at the discretion of the Designee, or his heirs or assigns. There! Now just a paragraph or two of definitions and tying up loopholes…" He was scribbling again. "And signature lines, date…"

"We only have one signature line on the acceptance letters, sir."

"Sully, if we start with her signature, which Bulstrode can witness, can mine be added after the fact?"

"A bit irregular, but it shouldn't invalidate the contract. The first signatory does not need to witness subsequent signers. It would be best for the second signature to come as soon as possible after the first, and the same witness, of course."

"Of course."

"Now, when it's signed and complete, just call me to certify copies and record the original. My copy and recording rate is ten galleons per document - here, I'll write it on the back of my card."

"Not done yet, Sully, we need another contract," said Bulstrode.

We did?

"Oh, you do? Now then…" Sully pulled over another parchment.

"Snape's paying."

"Oh, I am?"

"If you want me as witness, you are."

"Go ahead, Sully." I said. I could see I had miscalculated with Bulstrode. I had expected her back on her old footing as head of my eyes, where I gave the orders and she followed them. But as she had just said, she had been managing on her own for years and she considered herself an equal now. I couldn't just order her to cooperate with my project. And then I had made the critical mistake of letting her see the terms of my contract before she had committed herself to help, so now she had leverage. And there she was, cracking her knuckles, preparing to pry.

Sully looked at Bulstrode.

"Between me and him. I'll be his witness, and I'll get the signature for him, but I want ten percent."

I sighed. "Ten percent of what, Bulstrode?"

"Of your proceeds from the Source. Distribution and sale, you said. So, you want my work on this? Ten percent."

It would be an insult to Bulstrode not to try to bargain. And ten percent was ridiculous.

"Your witnessing the signature is a minor component -"

"A crucial component."

"It is nowhere near ten percent of this project. One percent at most."

"Pfff. It's a hundred percent if you can't proceed without it."

Sully was sitting back and watching the bargaining with interest.

"You imagine you are the only one who can get McGonagall to sign something without reading it?"

"I'm the best placed to do it anytime before term begins and you won't let this drag out that long. You want to move now."

"And you do not understand the scope of this project."

"Don't need to. You need me. McGonagall feels so guilty that she'll sign anything I put in front of her."

"In light of the aid you've given me in the past, I would give you three percent as a courtesy."

Bulstrode gave me a look. "If this goes tits up, you just walk away. I'm out of a job."

"A job you quit two hours ago."

"Headmistress begged me back. You remember, you were there. Eight percent."

"And didn't that just go to your head? Six percent."

"Gross."

"Net, you bint, or you'll be running into my other contracts."

Bulstrode smiled, there was a disconcerting sight. "Done."

"Get on with it, Sully," I said.

He got on with it, happily. While we were signing Bulstrode's little goldmine, Sully said, "oh, and sir, I'd like to collect those references from you at your earliest convenience. I've got my position at Farnsworth, Frobisher, Fotheringham, and Khan lined up, but it never hurts to have references ready."

"I have your card. I'll send them."

"Excellent! Make them glowing, sir! Now, the two contracts, copy and recording fee for the second, that will be ninety galleons, sir."

I sighed and went to get the pounds to galleons exchange rate from Aberforth. They were both looking quite smug when I returned to count out the stack of bills for Sully. They could probably tell that the footing had changed, they had bargained with me as equals.

"Before the next staff meeting, Bulstrode," I said shortly as I countersigned Sully's receipt.

"Of course, sir."

A/N:

If there's anything more exciting than a staff meeting, it's got to be contract negotiations. Thank you so much for reading!

Paracelsus was a Swiss alchemist of the 14 -1500s, and Abraham Eleazar wrote the alchemical text Uraltes Chymisches Werk in 1760.