Chapter 36

Fear and Fireside Meditations

Osiris stared at the fire, watching the flames move. It put him into half a trance where he did not feel the full impact of either the pain nor the sickness. It was a sickness more than torture. The temptation of being bathed in it, the draw, in a strange way that he knew was not normal, had reached a high point since the meeting. The throbbing of his own heartbeat felt foreign, his own blood over-warm for a cold body.

"Making yourself quite at home, Mr. Silver." The baritone broke the silence, joining him just outside.

The boy made to get up, but the professor put his hand up and said, "Sit." It had the effect of quieting Osiris too.

"You have earned your right to try to find your peace as you might." From the sound of it, such was not a thing Professor Snape had been able to find either. "So long as it does not interfere with my work or your training," he qualified, proving that any open room for laziness was still not tolerated.

"That is all my life is, sir" the boy replied, with neither a cut nor melodrama, merely a fact, a simple and strangling one for Severus to hear at that. Reality could be harsh.

"Few adult wizards hold my respect, and while that is no fit compensation for what you have done, for things and people who are little to do with you, who will always dislike and suspect you." The professor paused. "You hold more than my respect," he finished, about as warmly as he might have been capable.

"You hold more than my respect too, master," he replied, feeling lifted by the 'sentiment', after most of the Order entirely dismissed or antagonized him.

The Potions master held him a cup. Another dose of a healing potion of some form, which he took without question or hesitation.

"Thank you, master." He took a shaky breath. The bleeding had not wholly stopped on his torso. Between the Mark on one arm and the split open gash on the other, it would be less painful to have his arms cut off, but far more inconvenient. The cocktail of potions to keep him moving was rather immense, he realized, as he added them up during the course of the day. It went wordlessly, but significantly between them.

"Although I think manners a lost art, Mr. Silver, you may dispense with some formality for a short while. We can forego gratitude for healing to a nod." He was no longer just a student, or even just an apprentice. "Make no mistake, I feel a ghost of your suffering, having been there many times."

This was the closest any being had gotten to him in well over a decade. A person who bled for him for perhaps the only time in his life save Lily or his wife.

Which begged his next very direct question, "Do you often speak to people within their minds, Mr. Silver? That was no random burst of legilimencing magic." The question was which of them had done it, whatever "it" was, but with Osiris' origins, Severus was ready to wager that it was the boy.

"Wha-what, sir?"

Well, clearly, by the parting of the lips and stutter, the young Slytherin knew that was not normal either.

"I heard your voice say in my head 'It hurts.'" The professor's voice did not waver with any form of judgment.

"You did?"

"Do not answer my question with a question," his master cautioned.

"No, sir. I'm sorry. I mean, I did not realize that was real, that you heard me." There was a long pause.

"Yes, now, shall I repeat the question?"

For a moment Osiris looked perplexed and then he recalled the question that had started the exchange, "With my brother a few times, master, but I never...did you see me, sir? Were you with me there?"

The there Osiris was talking about was that lush green place of peace that had been mostly a void for Severus the last decade or more. "I was..."

"Did you...?" The boy asked.

"No, Mr. Silver, I do not think so. My Llywen has not looked like that for some long time. Speaking in someone's mind is not a usual skill, Mr. Silver, even for a druid. Nor is sharing your Llywen with another consciousness, as far as I know. Shall I suppose that associated with your strange origins?"

As the professor always said, the mind was not an open book, but would it not need to be for what had happened to be possible? Mindsight and Telepathy were laughed at concepts in the general magical world; at least without possession or Legilimency involved.

"You are wondering why I did not have a stronger ability for Occlumency then, sir? If I have strong enough mind powers to, erm, speak in your head?" His brow furrowed, as if he did not know what to call it.

"I do not wish to wonder about any of it," Snape said, something harshly, but then he seemed to amend himself some, as if unused to having any desire to hold an interpersonal accord with anyone. "I promised you that I would teach you what it is that I know, everything that I know. You are going to be a boy for some time yet, but you have taken on a man's duties. It is time to at least practice being one and stop evading me."

Osiris scowled heavily at this. So far as he was concerned, he had taken on a man's duties a long time prior. Perhaps not Severus Snape's full definition of a man's duties, granted. Nevertheless, he stopped evading and replied candidly, "I do not know how to use them, sir. During my Rite they said I was yet too young, that I had too much fear."

"Not afraid of a torturous death by the Dark Lord but afraid of your own powers? Of it? And what might it be?"

Osiris knew he could not lie. He had rather given up his rights when he undertook this…whatever this was that was now represented by the burnt mark on his arm; it was no longer wholly an apprenticeship. His master could penetrate his mind at any time in the furthering of the training he needed for this charade.

"You do not understand, sir. The blood...I feel things when I do those things." He looked down at his knees, something he had done far more often when he had first met the Potions master and not so much anymore.

There was this last bit of Osiris Silver clinging to an irrational fear. Perhaps it was an unspoken fear. And without speaking it, no wiser person had ever cured him of it; though with the Elders that was somewhat hard to believe.

They do rely so greatly on self-discovery. Severus could understand that. Sometimes it was the lesson had in the getting which made the end all the more powerful.

"Blood magic is no different than other types of magic," Severus said, as his own pedantic and stoic version of a pep talk. "And all these things, very eloquent Mr. Silver."

The boy replied, "I know you do not think that true after your reaction when we returned." He hastily added, "Sir."

"The unknown and unfamiliar sometimes startles even me," came the silky reply. "Our beliefs, or disbeliefs, do not change the nature or reality of things." He gave his apprentice a hard glance. "And mind your cheek."

"You are lying to me, sir," Osiris said, somewhat quietly.

The man might have slapped his insolent mouth where it not for the sacrifice that had been made, even still, he had to remind himself of the sacrifice in order to keep his distaste for being contested at bay. If the boy was well, sacrifice or not, that would be different.

"You only think that because you are afraid." He put particular inflection on that last word. "Do not pretend you do not know what the Elders think of fear." The boy had, in fact, just said it not five minutes prior. "And I shall not remind you again of your cheek, bloody and ill or not." He did not allow anyone to take that tone with him.

"I…do not like feeling…not in control of myself, master." Osiris looked down, taking a breath through his nose. He felt like he was becoming paler…bluer...with the time since the meeting with the Dark Lord.

"Not feeling in control will happen often enough in what you have chosen to undertake in accompanying me and at your age." For a brief twinge, he remembered the tribulations of fifth through seventh year. The torment of the Marauders had hit an all-time high.

Crossing his arms, Osiris bit back a very disrespectful comment and said, "You do not understand, master. It feels…very…Dark."

Clearly, the boy feared not just the magic, the darkness of it, but his ability to control it.

"I do not fear your powers nor you, Mr. Silver. I do not give a damn about the bloody Chosen One, so why your inter-dimensional parentage might cause me such significant pause, I have no idea. Whatever it is that you have within you or are, boy, it is no worse than the Dark Lord or Prince Potter. Even Shadow is no worse than either," he added, of one of the worst consequences of using too much or too strong of Dark Arts.

It was somewhat clear that the boy had no significant fear for his life, nor for any length of pain, and any other fear seemed subordinate to both those things to Severus. He remembered when he had gotten to that point, many years ago as well, where things that scared usual people did not phase him in the least. Osiris was young yet.

"Master, I think in the general course of such things, one at least has some clue exactly what they are and what is happening to them. I have not that benefit, sir." The was a hesitancy in his voice. A quiet necessity.

Perhaps some fortitude for saying it at all, in Severus Snape's estimation. "Touche, Mr. Silver. I do not believe I may answer that for you." If the story he had told about his grandmother coming back from a cross-dimensional apparation pregnant with Osiris' mother, nobody probably knew precisely what was happening with the boy.

The shadows against the man's face, highlighted the more angular features, but also the pensive focus in the press of his cheeks upward, narrowing his eyes. It was sure that Severus had never seen someone turn blue quite like that.

Osiris thought that might be the end of the talk, by how his master also focused back into the flames, watching them dance against a dark sky, with just a sliver of a moon.

Severus continued after the silence, as if there was no pause at all. "Magic, Mr. Silver, our magic, will generally be protective of us, not dangerous to us. If it calls to you…that is something of the equivalent of a wand choosing its wizard." You shall have to answer sometime. "Your magic protecting you is probably what pulled us into your Llywen." The boy had likely been very close to dying.

"Perhaps, master…perhaps it shall be clearer when I am a proper man, as you say."

The cheek!

The black eyes ran over the boy for a moment, as if deciding whether a glare would even be effective. It was not often that Severus found someone witty enough to use his own words as ammunition in support of their own position.

"I will practice, also as you say," the boy, rather innocently, added.

"Mr. Silver, I would be a poor teacher if I did not push you to your capabilities, but we shall think on that once you master more important things." The boy looked too weak to continue on such a vein anyway. "Come, you should be in bed. If you are not well-enough by the next summons…" He need not finish that thought really; death threats wore very old after only a few instances of trying them on.

The boy turned to look at him, and for a moment he contemplated the forthcoming protesting.

"It is worse, sir, in the dark, with nothing." The response was candid. "Please, master, meditating in front of the fire helps."

The professor could not fathom this strange fear. It was beneath the capabilities and strength of his apprentice, but it was deeply ingrained. The boy was still very ill, though, and if this felt better, then perhaps meditation was the only answer they had to at least put the boy's mind at some ease; his body was not going to get any ease soon.

"Then I will sit with you, Mr. Silver," came the professor's reply.

The amber eyes met black eyes, and a small nod of thanks was shared. The professor had little idea how to take it, what to acknowledge in his own feelings, it was all so foreign. There was a burn behind his breastbone, a preoccupation that unfocused his thoughts.

AN: It's been a LONG TIME COMING! Please find it in your hearts to leave me a review if you liked it!