A/N. I had so much fun writing the previous chapter, because Snape is such an interesting character to work with. I wanted to reassure everyone that I do not plan to gloss over or ignore the fact that Snape is quite a reprehensible person in many ways; he spent years taking out a grudge on a child in the books, and was cruel and cold to Neville and Hermione just because he could be. His grudge reveals a childlike mentality that he has against those he feels have wronged him, and he is a selfish man; even where Lily is concerned, where he does act for someone other than himself, he asks Voldemort to spare her with little to no thought of her child or husband.
That being said, what he isn't is a one dimensional sociopath incapable of feeling any good emotion, i.e Love. That's Voldemort you're thinking of, and that was the whole point of Snape's arc in the last two books of the series; even Snape, one of the darkest characters in the series, could know love, but Voldemort could not.
I don't particularly want anyone to feel sorry for Snape if they're not inclined to do so, but I aim to go in depth with all the characters that I can, and I won't bash a character just because the character is a bad person; lots of times what makes a good character is a bad personality.
Thank you for reading and reviewing, and as always, I hope you enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 29
Sirius failed to notice that his cousin and his best friend were dating until the second week of August, and he only came to the realization when confronted with them snogging in front of him. He rather wished that he could have avoided the sight, but alas, he was not so lucky.
He, Arya, Remus, and Tonks had started the day with their morning run as had become their routine, and halfway through he had realized that Remus and Tonks had been falling behind. At first he had been elated, thinking that he was finally in such good shape that he was out running them; but when he and Arya made it so far ahead that Remus and Tonks were lost to view, he began to suspect that something else must be going on.
Arya protested when he turned back, but he dragged her reluctantly behind him as he jogged back the way they had come to see what their friends had gotten up to, only to round a bend in the path to find them snogging quite determinedly against an old oak tree, oblivious to everything else.
Sirius felt like he'd been hit in the face with a brick, and by the way Arya was sniggering at him as she dragged him away, he probably looked like it too.
He hightailed it back to the cottage in record time, and wished he had something stronger than orange juice to drink. Arya took pity on him and took over cooking breakfast, allowing him to sit at the kitchen table and stew in his shock. Their two companions were conspicuously absent.
"So… How long did you say this has been going on?" He asked eventually.
"At least the last month or so, I think." Arya answered as she stirred a pan of eggs. "I can't believe you didn't notice; they haven't exactly been hiding it very well."
"I'll say!" Sirius shuddered.
"Say what?" Tonks asked, sliding open the screen door and entering the cottage, Remus close behind.
Sirius leapt from the table in alarm, looking slightly wild around the eyes.
"Nothing! Not saying anything!"
Tonks raised her eyebrows at him, looking more than a little confused by his bizarre behavior.
"Got to go, actually, meeting with Dumbledore – very important – see you later!" And he practically dived into the floo, leaving Remus and Tonks standing stunned in his wake.
"Did he just leave… Without eating breakfast?" Remus asked in astonishment.
"I reckon he did. And in his sweaty workout clothes too. Do you think he's ill?" Tonks actually sounded concerned, and Arya couldn't repress a snigger.
"He's fine. Just a bit surprised to see you two snogging on the trail back there is all."
Arya would store the look of shocked embarrassment that appeared on their faces in a very safe place within her Liars Palace, so that she could re-visit the memory later. Tonks actually blushed to the very ends of her hair, and Remus could have beaten a tomato for redness.
Dumbledore's Office
Sirius stumbled out of the floo in Dumbledore's office feeling decidedly jumpy. He'd never had much interest in dating (a fact his occasional girlfriends at Hogwarts had been quick to take notice of), and he hadn't given consideration to the fact that Remus and Dora might have been heading in that direction for some time. Now that he knew, he thought that Arya might have been right; they had been quite obvious about it, he'd just been totally oblivious.
He did wish someone would have told him before he was presented with a visual of the two of them snogging like teenagers. And right in front of Arya, too! She was just a kid, she didn't need to see that… though she would be a teenager in just three years.
Sirius felt the blood drain from his face; she'd probably start dating around then. That wasn't that far off! He remembered what his friends had been like at school, and if Arya continued to look like her mother as she aged… Merlin, how was he supposed to beat the guys off her while she was in school and he was at the cottage?
Dumbledore was sitting behind his desk, observing him with a slight smile and a raised eyebrow, still wearing his dressing robe, and Sirius realized that he had arrived a good hour early for their appointment. He sank down into the chair opposite the headmaster, and looked at him beseechingly.
"I don't suppose any knew school rules preventing students snogging in broom cupboards has been implemented since I graduated, have they?"
Dumbledore did a poor job of hiding his smile behind a hand as he rubbed his beard.
"I'm afraid not. I've always believed a certain amount of freedom, away from the prying eyes of families, was good for the students."
Sirius looked as if he strongly disagreed, but merely shook his head and let the matter drop for the moment. He looked down at his sweaty track outfit, and then over at Dumbledore's dressing robe.
"I'll come back in an hour, shall I?"
"Certainly, my dear man."
Arya, Remus, and Tonks were seated at the kitchen table as Sirius tromped out of the floo to join them for breakfast. They all looked deeply amused, and also slightly concerned for his health. Remus was a bit red around the ears, and shot him a guilty look as he sat down.
Sirius glared at them as he took his seat and accepted a plate of sausages and eggs from Arya. He stabbed a sausage with his fork before using it to point at them accusingly.
"No snogging in front of me! You're my best mate, and you're my cousin, and I'm happy for you now that the shock is wearing off, but I don't want to see that!"
"To be fair, mate, it was a perfectly deserted path until you came snooping back. Not our fault you're nosy." Tonks replied, grinning happily at him.
They bantered back and forth while they ate, and Sirius had time to get used to the idea of the two of them together. To his surprise, he found that he actually was genuinely glad for them; they were a bizarre match, to be sure, but they seemed to fit together all the same.
By the time he finished eating, showering, and getting dressed, he had decided that it was a good thing they were together. Remus had always been like family to him, and now there was a good chance that he'd actually end up in the family for real. By the time he was heading through the floo again, he was warming to the idea of a nice wedding for the two of them, quickly followed by a succession of clumsy, rainbow haired little wolf babies. The two of them had probably not even discussed such a possibility yet, but once Sirius got an idea in his head he could go from zero to a hundred mighty fast.
He stepped from the hearth in Dumbledore's office much more composed than earlier, and dragged his mind back to reality from where it had been floating around with the idea of the cottage filled with small children who would call him 'uncle Sirius'.
His business with the headmaster today was actually of utmost importance; Dumbledore had been searching since their discovery of the locket and ring horcruxes for a means of destroying them, and he had written at the end of July that he had finally made progress. Sirius knew that Dumbledore had been traveling since the end of the last Hogwarts term, looking for something to help them in their cause; today he was to discover what the old wizard had been after.
The original idea had been to befriend Horace Slughorn with the hope that his numerous connections would include someone who could get their hands on basilisk venom; the walrus of a man had his hands in a lot of pies, so to speak, and at first they had maintained hope. Sirius had gently pried and hinted, not wanting to come off as too suspicious, and Slughorn had happily told them all about how impossible it was to get any, even for him.
Disappointed and desperate, they had turned the attempt over to Arya, who Slughorn adored; she had told him (all wide eyed innocence) about how she had read all about basilisks in her books, and wouldn't it just be so cool to have some of their very own? Sirius thought it was a tad over done, but Slughorn had melted at the batting of her lashes, and proceeded to attempt to find the extraordinarily rare magical substance.
He had been unsuccessful.
The last confirmed sighting of a basilisk had been over a hundred years ago, and the last one to be killed and its venom harvested had been centuries before that. The last of the venom had long since been used up. Short of buying a chicken egg and a toad and waiting for the Sirius star to be ascendant to hatch their own damn basilisk, and then waiting fifty years for it to grow to maturity, Sirius wasn't sure how to proceed.
They maintained their friendship with Horace, however. Dumbledore insisted that he would be useful to their quest in the long run, having had the closest relationship with Tom Riddle as a student and teacher; if Tom had ever gone to someone for advice, it would have been his mentor and head of house, Horace Slughorn.
Sirius took a seat across the desk again, and the two men, now fully dressed for the day, observed the three objects sitting on the desk before them. The locket and the ring lay side by side on the wooden surface, and this time Sirius thought he could feel something of the evil emanations that Dumbledore had described to him before; the very air of the room felt charged with a nervous and malevolent energy. It made him feel edgy.
On the other side of the desk was a wicked looking weapon of some kind, with a sword like blade, and straight handle with a curved blade ending with a point and a downward hook. It looked archaic, but in excellent condition; Sirius was familiar enough with goblin forged work to recognize something made by goblin hands.
"Is this what you've been after, Albus? If it was just a goblin forged weapon you wanted I could have gotten one from the old family vault."
"Ah, but this is not just a goblin made blade. This is an Egyptian Khopesh; this one in particular is the weapon of one of the pharaohs of Egypt, most famously known in our society for the defeat of one of the last confirmed basilisks. You, of course, are aware of the properties of goblin forged metals?"
Sirius shrugged, "Durable, impervious to magical and mundane damage…" he trailed off. "Absorbs substances which increase its power. Are you telling me this blade is imbued with basilisk venom?"
Dumbledore smiled.
"I am. I have spent many hours determining its location over the last few years, and managed to locate the correct tomb and obtain the blade this last month, with no small amount of effort, I assure you."
Sirius refrained from commenting on the implications that Dumbledore had crossed national borders and raided a pharaoh's tomb to obtain the ancient blade, no doubt breaking a dozen or so multi-national wizarding laws in the process.
"This will destroy them, then? Put them past the possibility of magical repair?" He asked instead.
"Well, it will destroy one of them; the ring is vulnerable to us now, though I expect the piece of soul within it will not go quietly once our intentions become focused. The locket, however, presents a different problem; as Kreacher discovered, no damage can be done to it while it remains closed. He was unable to open it, for all the strong magical abilities of his kind, and I have not been successful either."
"Fortunately, for all of Voldemorts phenomenal skill with magic, his mind remains decidedly one sided, and thus easy to predict. This is the locket of Slytherin, Voldemort is his heir, parsalmouth runs in the family, there is a snake on the front of the locket… I believe it will open if someone tells it to, in the correct tongue. Tom Riddle's style has always been painfully direct."
Sirius felt like a boulder had settled in his stomach.
"I'm not letting Arya within a mile of this thing when it opens." His voice sounded quite cold.
"I do not believe her presence will be necessary, Sirius. I see no reason that she wouldn't be able to simply teach us the word 'open' and leave the rest of it to us."
Sirius relaxed again. "She doesn't seem to be able to speak it unless there's an actual snake present, but she seems friendly with a few in the back garden. I'll see what we can come up with when I get back."
"Excellent. Now, for the matter of the ring; I believe the defenses of horcruxs are along the lines of manipulation and, in extreme cases, possession. Those who become emotionally attached to an object containing a fragment of soul open themselves to it, and thus become vulnerable to possession; I do not believe we have to worry overly much about this because we are on guard, and because such things take time which we are not inclined to spend. More likely in our scenario, the piece of soul contained in the ring will attempt to manipulate and dissuade us from destroying it. It is advisable therefore, that we not attempt it alone, and do our best to destroy it before it has time to get ahold of us."
"Destroying bits of Voldemort by stabbing them with a sword… Shall we get started then?"
Dumbledore smiled. "Indeed, I believe it is time."
He scooped the locket back into its protected drawer, leaving the ring sitting alone on the desk top; the air in the room felt charged, every muscle in Sirius's body suddenly felt tight with nerves. It seemed as if the bit of Voldemort inside the ring sensed their intentions, and was beginning to exude its defense.
True to his own advice, Dumbledore didn't give the ring any time to truly act against him; he went from passive conversation that hadn't provoked the soul fragment, to rapid action that spared no room for resistance.
Dumbledore sprang to his feet suddenly with the agility of a much younger man, with the strange curved weapon raised above his head; there was a strange sound emanating from the ring, as if a voice was beginning to speak to them, and Sirius abruptly felt the urge to listen to it; surely it wouldn't hurt to hear what it had to say? They might hear something useful!
And then the sword came down in a rush, and the stone of the ring cracked on impact, a fissure running down the middle of the line representing the elder wand. The noise cut off abruptly, and the urge that had gripped Sirius and made him want to listen vanished just as fast; the air in the room went back to normal, and Fawkes gave a low musical cry from his perch.
Dumbledore sat heavily in his chair, and laid the weapon down in front of him next to the now cracked ring, looking deeply shaken.
Sirius took a deep, calming breath.
"That was… much more, and much less than I imagined it would be. Do you think the stone will still work, or did we just destroy a Hallow, as well as a Horcrux?"
"I… I do not know. But I think we must find out. I didn't think using it while it was still linked to such an evil magic was advisable, but not that the soul fragment has been destroyed…" Dumbledore clasped his hands together and surveyed Sirius over the tips of his fingers. "Your brother may be the only person before us to discover Riddle's secret. He may have believed that only one was made, but he may have seen something that could point us in the direction of others, or hint at how many there might have been."
"You want me to bring Regulus back."
It wasn't really a question, but Dumbledore nodded conformation anyway.
Sirius picked the cracked ring up from the table in a shaking hand, examining the smooth polished surface with the fissure down the center.
"Just for a few moments, Sirius, if you are willing. I will give you the office for an hour…"
He swept from the office with a swish of sky-blue robes, and Sirius was left in the room with the phoenix and the resurrection stone.
Arya Lily Potter POV
When Sirius arrived home in the afternoon, Arya was in the backyard of the cottage, stretched out on a blanket in the grass with a book and her broomstick both laying discarded next to her. She cracked an eye open as he flopped down next to her, and gently scooched a small garden snake over on the blanket to give him more room.
Sirius looked rather exhausted, and she could tell that his eyes were a bit puffy, even though he had them closed with his face turned toward the sun.
"Rough day?"
"One hell of a day, kid."
She reached over and gripped his hand comfortingly, and they were silent for a moment, before Sirius spoke again in a scratchy voice.
"I used the resurrection stone."
Arya sat bolt upright, eyes wide but not saying anything. Sirius kept his eyes shut as he spoke, but a steady stream of tears was running down his temples to soak the sunny blanket.
"Had to ask about the Horcruxes, see if he could help us find more. He didn't know there was more than one, but Dumbledore thinks he may have given us a hint to find the next one… Said that Bella was bragging about being trusted above all the others, about being given an item of great value. Dumbledore says that Gringotts would appeal to him as a hiding place, with its history of magic and old family names…"
He dragged the back of his hand over his face, smearing the tears more than wiping them away.
"He was almost there, Arya. More real than any ghost, but I couldn't even touch him. It felt like a resistance in the air, but not actually corporeal… I got to say I was sorry. And now he's just gone again."
Arya felt her heart squeeze with an uncomfortable surge of strong emotions; empathy with Sirius's pain, anger that she wasn't allowed to use the stone, envy so strong it hurt, relief that she was spared the pain that he was going through, and excitement that they might find another horcrux.
She decided that his grief was more important than her own mixed feelings, and tackled him with a hug to show her support; she didn't know how to be particularly articulate with comforting words, so a hug would have to do. He seemed to understand.
After another silence, Sirius spoke again in a calmer voice.
"Dumbledore thinks the locket will open if we command it to in parseltongue."
"Oh! I can-"
"Teach me how to say 'open'? Yes you can, thanks for offering." He cut her off.
She glared at him. "Fine. Its-" She made a strangled kind of hissing and spitting noise, and deposited the small garden snake on his lap. "Now you try it."
The little snake twined gently around his fingers, and he looked skeptically at it before trying to mimic the strange sound she had made. The snake hissed at him, and Arya gave in to a fit of giggles before explaining to him that he'd said a very rude word.
He actually flushed in embarrassment when she told him what he'd said, and she had to explain to the insulted reptile that he didn't mean it.
The lesson continued with much hilarity, and by the end of it Sirius swore that the small creature had actually rolled its eyes at him, though Arya informed him that it wasn't likely. He did manage to imitate Arya successfully though, and planned another visit with Dumbledore for the following week.
