Chapter 25-Research

The sisters went straight to Paige's room from Dumbledore's office. Once they arrived, Paige wasted no time pulling the Book of Shadows out of an old chest where they had been keeping it. For two hours each sister took a turn examining the book from cover to cover and found only one vague reference to Zanku. Unfortunately, it had all the same information that Snape had already provided them and nothing at all new, not even a picture.

"I'll go get Hermione and the other kids and see if they would like to come and help us check out the library," Piper said in defeat as she gently closed the Book of Shadows and handed it back to Paige.

"Maybe one or two of us should go check out the library at the Wiccan magic school," Paige said. When her sisters looked at her questioningly she added, "I mean I'm sure that there is nothing wrong with the library here, but it is not a Wiccan school. They may not have as much information on demons as ours would, right? They probably have books on dangers that these students are more likely to face."

"That's a good idea, Paige," Piper said with a small smile. "But who goes and who stays?"

"Well, I'll stay here with the kids and the two of you can go," Phoebe said at once, hoping to get a chance to confront Severus alone.

"Okay, let's get started," Piper said, giving Phoebe a strange look.

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Harry had been practically bursting at the seams to tell the others everything that had transpired in Dumbledore's office. He ran at break neck speed through the castle toward Gryffindor Tower, taking every short cut he knew.

"Midnight faerie," Harry panted out as he skidded to a halt in front of the picture of the fat lady, guardian of the Gryffindor common room.

"You are going to kill yourself running around like that," she admonished. "Slow down!" she added as she swung forward to admit him.

Ginny, Hermione, and Ron all looked up in surprise as Harry hurled himself into the common room. They were, apparently, in the middle of a spirited game of exploding snap.

"You will never guess what happened!" Harry cried happily, face flushed with exertion, eyes shining with triumph. "Dumbledore, the sisters, and Lupin agreed to teach me, to teach all of us, how to fight!"

The three before him looked extremely surprised by this news.

"They're going to teach all of us?" Ron repeated, a smile slowly breaking over his face. "Excellent!"

"Well, it does make sense really," Hermione said, looking thoughtful. When the other three looked at her incredulously, she flushed a little saying, "Well Harry has to defeat Voldemort and Dumbledore, at least, knows that we will stand with him. It makes sense that we should all be prepared."

"I think it is a great idea. When do we start?" Ginny asked eagerly.

"With any luck we will start with the sisters tomorrow," Harry said, then quickly explained about the new demonic threat that was soon to be looming over them.

"Oh, I would LOVE to help them research!" Hermione exclaimed happily, beaming with pride.

"Well, it is not how I would prefer to spend one of my last days before school starts, but I'll help if it will help to keep the school safe," Ron said with resignation, looking longingly out of the window at the beautiful summer day.

"We don't have to help unless they ask us to," Harry said quickly. Within minutes Piper walked into the common room to ask for their help in finding Zanku.

Hermione practically drooled at the thought of another magical library. It was decided, to her utmost delight, that she would go with Piper and Paige, while Ginny, Harry, and Ron helped Phoebe and Madam Pince.

None of the students with Phoebe were particularly happy to learn that they were going to be working with the vulture-resembling librarian. Phoebe soon realized why. The irritable woman spent more time chewing them out for nonsense reasons like turning the pages of her precious books too roughly or closing a book too hard to do much actual researching herself.

As Paige had suspected, there was very little information on upper or, for that matter, lower level demons at all. The books mostly consisted of horrible dark magic and pest demons easily taken care of by these kinds of wizards.

After hours spent scouring the restricted section, Phoebe had to concede defeat to the others. She begrudgingly thanked Madam Pince for her help and led the dusty, red-eyed teenagers out into the hall.

"Thank you for your help, you guys were great," Phoebe said with a warm smile. She could feel their disappointment as acutely as she felt her own.

"I'm sorry we couldn't find anything to help you," Harry said.

"Well, if Pince would have left us alone or actually helped us, we would have gotten more done," Ginny said with annoyance.

"Don't worry about it," Phoebe said. "With any luck Piper, Paige, and Hermione will have found something to help us out. We had better all get cleaned up; dinner is in half an hour."

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Phoebe met up with her disgruntled-looking sisters just outside the Great Hall.

"Please tell me that you actually found something so that this whole day was not wasted for nothing," Paige said irritably.

"Not so much. We found less than nothing," Phoebe said, frowning with disappointment. "I was hoping that the three of you found something."

"Well, we weren't able to go through, every single book so there is still a chance for us to find something," Piper said, leading her sisters into the hall. "Let's go, I'm starving.

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Many of the members of the Order of the Phoenix were in the Great Hall already having a nice, warm, safe meal in the comfort of friends and allies. Since many members were working undercover for the Order in the Ministry or spying on Voldemort and his followers, a hot meal in a place where one could let down her or his guard was indeed a seldom shared luxury.

The meeting started directly after dinner.

"Were you able to find us any new information on the demon Zanku?" Dumbledore asked the sisters after explaining the situation to the rest of the Order.

"There was only a vague reference in our Book of Shadows about Zanku, being that he was a big bad about, oh, a thousand years before our Book was created. We spent literally all day with Hermione, Harry, Ginny and Ron scouring the libraries here and at our magic school, but we couldn't find anything more than what Professor Snape already told us," Piper answered looking both tired and irritated.

"But that doesn't mean that we won't find something," Phoebe said reassuringly. "We'll keep looking."

"Yeah, we weren't able to look in every single book, obviously," Paige said, putting her hand through her dark, shining curls and beginning to pace back and forth in agitation. Suddenly she stopped and pounded her right hand into her left palm, saying, "I know that we'll be able to find something somewhere, we just need more time."

"Well, Miss Matthews, time is something we may not have," Severus said, wondering if those curls were as soft as they looked and wished he could run his hands through them. Severus mentally smacked himself, quickly recalling that it could never happen. Even if she could bring herself to push away her distain and grow to care about him, it would only give his enemies a target and leverage over him. He shuddered to think of what Bellatrix would do to Paige just to hurt him. No Paige Matthews could only ever be his Achilles' heel, a weakness, a liability. None of which could he afford at this stage of the war.

"Well, then maybe you should go back to Voldemort and get more information that we can actually use to make a potion or a vanquishing spell, huh?" Paige shot back, eyes flashing dangerously, one hand on her hip. "That is your job, isn't it?"

Severus stood up from his chair quickly, anger flushing his pale features, but before he could say a word Dumbledore raised his hand and said, "Enough. You have each done as much as possible thus far. There is no good that can come from fighting amongst ourselves. I ask the Charmed Ones to please continue with their search and Severus to keep your eyes and ears open for anything that may help us."

"I always do, Headmaster," Snape said resentfully, retaking his seat and resolutely ignoring the youngest sister throughout the rest of the meeting.

If only he could ignore Phoebe's intense stare, which showed a sort of curious incredulity. Snape thought that she must be trying to feel his emotions and strengthened the walls of his Occlumency. When Phoebe continued to study him, Snape shifted uncomfortably under her penetrating glare and wondered if he had something on his face, perhaps a booger hanging from his nose? He covertly rubbed the back of his hand across his nose. Nope, no boogers.

The meeting went on for another twenty uneasy minutes before Dumbledore dismissed them all and Snape was able to escape. Severus was just starting to breathe a deep sigh of relief as he stalked down the hallway towards his dungeon rooms, robes billowing out behind him, when he heard, "Professor Snape, may I have a word with you, please?"

"Damn it! So close!" he thought vehemently.

"What do you want, Mrs. Lupin? As your sister so tactlessly pointed out, I have a lot of work to do to make up for your inability to find anything useful on our soon to be nemesis," Snape said coldly as he stopped on the spot and spun around gracefully.

Phoebe sighed heavily as she came to a halt in front of the dark figure towering over her. His sudden relief had rapidly switched back into intense irritation. She was not sure how to deal with this man and, although she thought it wouldn't work, decided to try flattery first.

"I know that you're a busy man, Professor," Phoebe said, flashing her most winning smile, "however, since you are a certified potions master, I was wondering if I could possibly persuade you to use your vast experience and considerable knowledge to help Paige, you know find a cure for Remus. Usually it would be Piper helping with the potions, but she's so busy with the boys, you know," Phoebe said very carefully, still smiling with her best brown nosing attitude about her.

Snape cocked his head to the side and arched an eyebrow at the annoying woman before him with the glow of hope on her face and the distinct impression of bull shit around her. After glaring at her for a full minute without blinking, Snape said, "To coin a phrase that I am quite certain you are familiar with 'never bull shit a bull shitter.' There is no cure for werewolfism and the three of you would be very foolish to place all your energy and efforts into finding one instead of trying to find a way to defeat Zanku. Good day, Mrs. Lupin."

Severus turned away resolutely and began to walk down the hall only to have Phoebe quickly move in front of him, blocking his path.

"Okay, okay wait just a minute! First of all, it's Mrs. Halliwell, not Mrs. Lupin. Second, it would really only be one of us working on the cure. Third, I know you want to help us, you even feel bad for Remus, I can feel it, so why are you refusing?"

Severus blinked in surprise. "What do you mean you can feel it?" he asked menacingly, taking a step toward her, glaring down at her.

"I'm an empath, remember?" Phoebe replied peevishly, tapping the side of her head with her finger, not intimidated in the least. "I can feel everything that everyone is feeling, even you," she taunted.

"That's not possible. Ever since you got that bloody power back, I have been using Occlumency to block your entrance to my mind every time I have been anywhere near you," Snape said apprehensively, disbelievingly.

"I wasn't sure what it was called, but I felt you trying to block me. It, unfortunately for both of us, doesn't work on me for some reason," Phoebe told him.

"This is absurd," Severus said, clearly shaken as he tried to brush past her.

"You're falling in love with Paige and it scares the hell out of you. You're worried about Harry and care about him in spite of the fact that you want to hate him as much as you did his father," Phoebe said, turning to look at him, hand on her wand to block any spell that he might hit her with in his fear of being laid bare and made vulnerable. "The funny thing is you hate James much more for marrying the woman you secretly loved much more than for any of the pranks that he and his friends pulled on you in school."

Severus spun around, wand in hand and cried, "Obliviate!"

Phoebe cried, "Protego!" easily deflecting the spell to Severus' surprise.

"Legilimens," Snape said, changing tactics. Phoebe knew what the spell was and made a split second decision to let Snape into her mind, figuring that it was the only way to get him to trust her.

Severus could find no feelings of deceit or memories of Phoebe revealing to anyone, even her husband, what he felt about Paige. She didn't even try to block any memories and he saw many losses for all the sisters, many demon vanquishes, and many happy times.

Snape released her and saw pain and loss in her eyes. For some reason the fact that she had allowed him to see all that he wanted to calmed him. The fact that she wasn't judging him, that she understood what he was going through being pulled back and forth between two different worlds, but not belonging to either, was frightening as hell and comforting at the same time.

"You should stop hiding Severus and tell her. Being an ass to protect her now will only make it harder later," Phoebe said sadly.

"Am I interrupting something? Need some help Phoebe?" asked Paige as she hurried up the hallway, wand drawn.

Phoebe and Severus both realized that they both still had wands pointed at each other and they quickly put them away.

"You're not interrupting Paige, Severus was just agreeing to help you work on a cure for Remus," Phoebe said.

"Oh really," Paige said putting her own wand away. "He was agreeing at wand point, huh?"

Severus had jerked a look at Phoebe at the mention of a cure and as soon as Paige looked at Severus after putting her wand away, Phoebe looked pointedly at her sister, flashed a smile and winked at Severus.

Severus was angered at Phoebe's reply to Paige, thinking that he had somehow deceived him when he probed her mind. When he looked at her, however, she made it very clear she wanted him to work with her sister. The insane empath was playing match maker!

Severus looked back at Paige, who was standing next to Phoebe with her arms folded across her chest, glaring at him. The sight of her standing there, glowing in the candle light, caused his heart to expand with an ever growing, alarming emotion.

Need, nervousness, lust, and the feeling of just beginning to fall in love hit Phoebe with such speed and force she actually gasped.

"What? Are you okay?" Paige asked, focusing all her attention on Phoebe with concern.

Alarm and panic flowed from Severus as he realized what had made Phoebe gasp. She looked into his eyes and said, "Oh, I'm fine, just, uh, hiccups. hiccup See?"

"Uh, right," Paige said, unconvinced. "When do you want to get to work?" she asked, turning to Severus.

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It seemed like years later when he finally returned to the security of his dungeons. It had taken a bit of time to find a time when they would both be available. Severus couldn't believe how, in the span of a couple of hours, his life had taken an unexpected and alarming turn. He wanted to feel resentful, but couldn't quite manage the feeling which in and of itself irritated him.

Suddenly the dark mark on his arm began to burn like fire and he hissed in pain. Severus took a deep breath, putting on his mask of contempt and indifference before stalking to the fireplace. Taking some floo powder, Severus knelt on the ground in front of the fireplace, threw in the floo powder, and said, "Headmaster's office." His head swirled around and around quickly arriving in Dumbledore's office grate. The headmaster was alone and looking thoughtfully out of the window.

"Excuse me, Headmaster," Severus said politely.

"Yes, Severus," Dumbledore replied without turning around.

"The Dark Lord has summoned me. I will report back as soon as I return."

Dumbledore sighed heavily and turned to face the head of his potions master floating in his fire. "Very well, be careful."

"I will," Severus replied shortly before pulling his head back through his own fire.

Standing quickly, he went to his wardrobe and pulled out a cloak and his Death Eater mask. He threw on the cloak, hid the mask, left the castle, and stalked through the halls of the castle, across the grounds and through the gates. Once he had passed them, he apparated to Voldemort.

Severus appeared in a cave in the underworld that served as the Dark Lord's throne room. He quickly strode toward the throne, noticing Bellatrix standing at her Lord's side, and knelt to kiss the hem of Voldemort's robes.

"Ah, Severus, finally!" Voldemort said in his insane, cold high pitched voice. "Here at last! I have something I would like to show you!" he said with his eyes glowing red in anticipation.