Chapter 36: The Conversation
Sirius appeared out of nowhere— that was one of his many talents— and grabbed Remus by the arm.
"Have you looked at the thing in your drawer today?" he asked without preamble.
"I look at it most days," said Remus nonchalantly as he scanned the crowd around them for signs of students listening too closely. When they'd been at school, James and Sirius would have come up with a thousand wild theories about what "thing" a professor might keep in his drawer and wouldn't have stopped until they'd unravelled the mystery. From what Remus knew, Harry and his friends behaved in much the same way.
"But today?" continued Sirius.
"Yes, today. Do you want to come up and look?"
"Yes," said Sirius, and they detached themselves from the throng heading to the Great Hall to eat a dozen kinds of dessert and retell the events of the second task over and over again. Behind them, the waves of gossip rose and fell. Would Fleur Delacour drop out of the tournament? What would happen then? How serious was Viktor Krum's relationship with Hermione Granger? Could all of Hogwarts admit now that Cedric Diggory was just plain unbeatable?
Inside Remus' office, Sirius jerked the drawer open and looked at the diadem for a long moment.
"Diggory said he thought he saw a crown on Harry's head right before Harry broke an enchantment he shouldn't have been able to break and cast a spell he shouldn't have been able to cast," he said. "For a minute I was convinced that we'd lost this thing and Karkaroff was using it against us. Against Harry."
Remus came over and stared at the diadem too. "Technically it was Ludo Bagman who wanted Harry used as Cedric's hostage," said Remus. "But from what I understand, Karkaroff loved the idea."
"Coward is more the type to hope Harry would get strangled by a grindylow than to take action himself," said Sirius, slamming the door shut. "I didn't think he'd try anything in front of so many people. That's why I gave permission for Harry to take part."
"And Harry is very good at breaking enchantments and casting spells when his back is to the wall," Remus mused. "He learns everything in my class twice as fast as the other students, and Filius is more than pleased with his work in Charms." Remus caught Sirius' eye and grinned. "And Minerva says he's gone from averaging Acceptable to between Exceeds Expectations and Outstanding in Transfiguration, which she attributes to his having an unusually calm year. I attribute it to studying with his godfather."
Remus very much enjoyed watching Sirius look pleased and then pretend not to look pleased.
"I found another one," said Sirius, obviously keen to change the subject. "I didn't want to tell you until I could do it in person. I went to the house where his father's family lived, the shack where his mother's family lived. It was buried there. A ring. If I had to guess, I'd say it belonged to Salazar Slytherin."
"Where is it?"
"Drawer in my house. We need to stop keeping these things in drawers and start destroying them." Abruptly, Sirius flicked his wand at Remus' teakettle and gestured that they should sit down as it whistled. "I had half a mind to go to Dumbledore," he continued. "We're amateurs at this. He knows more about Voldemort, and more about Horcruxes, than we're going to learn in the next few months before Harry gets sent back to his relatives."
"You had half a mind? You don't anymore?"
"I know I agreed to letting Harry act as Diggory's hostage, but I don't like that Dumbledore agreed to it. Just use whatever girl Diggory dragged to the Yule Ball and leave it at that. He took the girl Harry had a crush on, right?"
"Cho Chang." Remus felt sickened as he thought about what might have happened to Harry in the water. "She was the original choice. She had a freak accident and Madam Pomfrey wouldn't let her take part."
"Do you think that's a coincidence?"
"No."
"Do you think we should go to Dumbledore?"
"No."
"Mind giving me more than a one-word answer?"
Remus sighed, and was grateful for the tea that was suddenly in his hands. "Do you remember when I first told you about the… the things I know that I shouldn't know?" Somehow he couldn't bring himself to say the words time travel. Even after a year and a half, it all seemed too ridiculous.
"I'm sorry about hexing you in the back," said Sirius, and Remus laughed.
"Not then. After. When I told you that I would tell you everything but two things."
"Who you married, and who killed Dumbledore," said Sirius. "I know the first. Is it time to tell me the second?"
"I think it must be," said Remus slowly. Sirius wasn't the half-crazed Azkaban escapee he had been when Remus had first told him his story. Sirius was calm and measured and downright thoughtful about his plans. He'd had dementors almost eradicated from Azkaban. He'd safely extracted a Horcrux on his own. He'd delicately balanced the need to preserve Lily's blood protection with Harry's need to know the truth.
He probably wasn't going to shout from the highest tower of the castle that Severus Snape was a Death Eater and Dumbledore was an old fool for trusting him.
"Well?" prompted Sirius.
"At the end of Harry's sixth year, Draco Malfoy—"
"I know about the battle, I know about the vanishing cabinet that no longer exists thanks to me, I know about Fenrir Greyback maiming Bill Weasley, and I know Harry watched Dumbledore die. The only thing you didn't tell me was who," Sirius interrupted impatiently. "Was it my monstrous little cousin Draco?"
"No, despite his best efforts, which were very poor indeed."
"Then who?"
"Severus Snape."
For a fraction of a second, Sirius was speechless. "Slimy little Snivellus ran around with that crowd, but he was never even accused of being a Death Eater," he gaped.
"I can only assume that that's because Dumbledore covered for him."
"Why in the name of Merlin's saggy left nut would Dumbledore do that?"
"I always thought he had a reason to trust him. A reason to believe that Snape was on his side, on our side, on Harry's side." He remembered anew, with a rush of self-loathing, how certain he'd been that Dumbledore had had his reasons. How he'd insisted to Harry that Dumbledore had had his reasons. "I was never arrogant enough to ask, not that Dumbledore would have told me. But it seems that he told Harry, and after he was dead, Harry told me." Remus drew in a shaky breath and braced himself for the explosion, wand positioned just so. "That prophecy. Snape was the one who knew about it and went to Voldemort. Snape was the one who sent Voldemort after Lily and James."
Sirius jumped to his feet and lunged for the door. Remus locked the door and froze Sirius in place with one flick of his wand.
He walked around Sirius so that he could face the gray-eyed glower. Sirius looked more than willing to rip him limb from limb to get to Snape.
Remus didn't blame him. James and Sirius had been so close, and Sirius had been destroyed by James' death…
Sirius was never going to forgive Remus for not taking revenge on Snape and for not telling Sirius sooner that Snape was as responsible as anyone— as responsible as Peter— for Voldemort's attack on the Potters.
It didn't matter what Remus and Sirius had gone through together in this timeline or in the other one that only Remus remembered. James, not Remus, had been the best friend Sirius had ever had. Sirius would never forgive Remus for hiding what he knew about Snape— or for failing to avenge James.
But he couldn't let the fear of losing Sirius (and Harry, Sirius would take Harry, and oh God what if Sirius took Dora too…) stop him from doing what needed to be done. They'd bested Voldemort in the future-past, but they'd done so at an enormous cost. How many had died at the final battle alone? Fifty? Many of them children?
Ted, dead on the run for committing the crime of being Muggle-born. Mad-Eye, hexed in the face. Dumbledore thrown off the tower, and Sirius falling through the curtain, and Cedric Diggory (who was the kindest, most respectful young man), the death that had started it all…
"I suppose it's my turn to apologize for hexing you in the back," said Remus with a calm he didn't feel. "But I can't let you do any of the things you're thinking of doing."
Sirius didn't need words to tell Remus that he couldn't stop him. The glowering sneer said it all.
"No, I can't stop you forever," said Remus, making certain that his tones were polite and measured over the pounding of his heart. "But I'm going to keep you here until you've heard me out. You do recall that the last time you went running after one of the people who handed Lily and James to Voldemort, you wound up in Azkaban. If you murder Severus Snape, you'll go right back there."
Sirius glared harder. Remus wouldn't have thought that was possible.
"You will get caught, Sirius, don't tell me that you won't. We are in a heavily protected castle. Dumbledore, for whatever reason, loves Severus. You will never get within shouting distance of Harry again if Dumbledore so much as suspects that you attacked him."
Sirius' eyes flickered, and Remus took that as a his cue to hit Sirius with a second bind.
"Even if all you do is scream at him or hurt him, you've tipped our hand. We need to get rid of those Horcruxes, and we don't need Severus nosing around while we do it. Never mind that if you aggravate Severus, he'll feel justified in taking it out on Harry. But Harry isn't physically unsafe, you see, so Dumbledore won't do anything to stop it. You had a laugh when you saw that memory of me teaching last year when Neville Longbottom's boggart turned into Severus. Did you think about what it means? About how horrible he is to students he doesn't like? Neville knows that the Lestranges tortured his parents into insanity. But are they what he fears the most? No. He's afraid of Severus, because Severus makes a point of mocking and humiliating and punishing students who have the most distant connection to someone he didn't like when he was a child."
The sneer relaxed into Sirius' patented you-are-so-stupid-that-I-won't-bother-with-you expression.
"I agree," said Remus. "It would be better if we could remove him from the school entirely. But he's not an immediate danger the way Peter Pettigrew and Barty Crouch were, and that means he's not our priority. We have hundreds of innocent lives to save. You told me once that I belittled Harry's sacrifice when I gave in to the impulse to live again. Don't belittle the lives we can save now by rushing in when there's no evidence whatsoever to suggest that he was ever a Death Eater."
Sirius' expression softened the slightest bit. He was listening.
"I know it's horrible," said Remus. "Knowing, and not doing anything. Every so often, I look at George Weasley and I can feel his blood all over my body. He and I were on a broom together— George was disguised as Harry, you saw bits of this in the Pensieve— and Severus cut off George's ear. It was a miracle George even survived, but he had a black hole in the side of his head for the rest of his life, however long that may have been. Every time I think of it, I want to murder Severus all over again. But I don't, because I want to save you and Cedric and Mad-Eye and Ted, and I want to see Teddy again…"
His throat threatened to close up, and he knew he'd said almost everything that he could possibly say.
"I kept it from you for as long as I could because I didn't want you to have to carry that knowledge around. You had enough on your mind. I always knew I'd tell you. I didn't trust you when we were children and I could have told you that I was a werewolf, but I didn't, and I wasted a lot of time and energy that way. I could have trusted that you wouldn't betray James when were adults, but I didn't, and I'm not entirely sure how you forgave me for that. I won't make the same mistake three times. I've trusted you with everything I know, now, and I didn't have to tell you. I just hope you'll decide not to do anything rash that takes you away from Harry again."
He flicked his wand and released Sirius. Sirius stalked around him and began to pace the length of the room.
"Why did knowing that Snape handed Lily and James to Voldemort make Dumbledore trust him?" Sirius asked.
"I don't know. All Harry said was that Severus told Dumbledore that he was sorry. I don't think Harry found it a very convincing story, either. All I can assume is that Dumbledore gave a lot of weight to Severus confessing and was tantalized by the prospect of having a spy so close to Voldemort."
Sirius swore.
Sirius called Dumbledore all sorts of names, some of them impressively creative.
Sirius reminded Remus at length that Dumbledore had given evidence to the Wizengamot that had led to Sirius' torturous imprisonment, and that that evidence had turned out to be inaccurate.
Sirius raged against every indignity Harry had ever suffered at the hands of his Muggle relatives and laid all of them at Dumbledore's feet.
Sirius proposed taking Harry and fleeing the wizarding world (Remus understood the appeal); fleeing the country (Remus understood the appeal of that, too); and fleeing the planet (Remus was reasonably certain that Sirius was joking.)
Sirius listed the various ways in which he would like to murder Severus.
"How can you bring yourself to drink that Wolfsbane Potion he makes you?" Sirius asked, interrupting his own tirade. "I know how much it helps, and at Christmas I almost said something nice about Snape. But he could poison you at any time, Moony!"
"He didn't last time," said Remus.
"You weren't here for two years last time."
"He won't do anything until Voldemort rises again. He doesn't see me as a threat."
"You broke the curse on the Defense position and you brought me back to the land of the living. He sees you as a a threat. Just like Karkaroff— he's afraid we have a list of former Death Eaters we'd like to see put away, right?"
"Perhaps you're right." Remus sighed. "But I won't leave Hogwarts until I have to, and Dumbledore won't keep me here unless Severus makes that potion."
"Let someone else make it."
"Who else do you know who is remotely capable of—"
"Horace Slughorn."
"You mean, one of the few professors who didn't know about my condition when I was a student? Not that it would have mattered. Seven years and he never learned my name."
"You liked to be invisible. You would have gone to class under James' cloak and never had any of the professors learn your name if you could have managed it."
Remus shrugged. There was some truth to that.
"I don't know whether I would have found the ring Horcrux without talking to him," Sirius continued. "And he gave me an introduction to a dueling club. I wouldn't have thought of it, but it was a great idea."
"I'm glad," said Remus, and he meant it. There was no denying that Slughorn had always come through for his favorites. Slughorn, too, was on the list of powerful wizards who hadn't tried to stay neutral when the Ministry had fallen. Voldemort would have had Slughorn, but Slughorn wouldn't have Voldemort.
"Why do you do you dislike him?" asked Sirius.
"I don't dislike him. I dislike his pedagogy."
Sirius burst into peals of laughter. He laughed so hard that he stopped pacing. He laughed so hard that his body shook and tears rolled down his cheeks. He laughed so hard that Remus wondered whether he had inadvertently forced Sirius into the same kind of mental break he'd had when Peter had blown up the street in 1981. He started to reach for Sirius, but then drew his hand back. He didn't know how Sirius would react or what Sirius needed.
Finally, Sirius let himself drop bonelessly to the floor at Remus' feet. He settled himself into a cross-legged position and gazed up at Remus with ersatz rapture. "By all means, Professor Moony," he said with a stronger voice than Remus would have expected. "Please enlighten me as to your problems with Professor Slughorn's pedagogy. If you think a layperson could possibly understand, that is."
Sirius' mockery hurt a little, but at least Sirius wasn't off murdering Snape or telling Dumbledore about the Horcruxes.
"He gave the most help to the students who needed it the least," said Remus quietly. "If you were one of the smartest— or the richest, or the most connected— he was a wonderful professor who would make certain that you had every chance to succeed in life. If you were one of the rest, he wasn't going to bother with you. He made certain that you knew that your professor didn't believe that you were capable of learning and growing. He showed you your place: you weren't going to be invited to the Slug Club. You weren't even worthy of the basic respect of being called by your proper name."
"You're upset about not being invited to the Slug Club twenty years ago?"
"Of course not. I always thought the Slug Club sounded like hell on Earth, and if I'd ever wanted to go, I had rich and brilliant and well-connected friends who would have taken me as a guest. What he did didn't bother me at the time. It bothers me now when I have a classroom of children in front of me all day. I can't imagine damning any of them with my indifference. Should I spend all of the fourth-year Gryffindor class fawning over Harry and demonstrating to Neville Longbottom that I've written him off at the age of fourteen? Or would it be better if I tried to teach them both, and find a way for each of them to push his own limits? I don't want to hold the rest of the class back for a student who can't keep up, and I certainly don't think the more gifted students should spend their school years bored out of their minds because their classmates are struggling, but the lesser students at least deserve a modicum of attention while their supposed betters are being invited to parties. I don't like the way Severus treats Neville, but I don't like the way Professor Slughorn would have treated him, either."
He could see that Sirius— Sirius, who had always been the best at everything he tried— didn't grasp what he was saying.
"Is the Longbottom boy that much of a lost cause?" asked Sirius after a moment.
"He's fourteen. There's no such thing as being a lost cause when you're fourteen. Children grow up in their own time, and Neville has had a rougher journey than most."
"What happened to that little girl you were so concerned about?"
Simona. "She left."
"I'm sorry."
"So am I. I do understand that no school is right for every student. I only think that professors have a moral obligation to attempt to make it right for every student."
"Okay," said Sirius, obviously bored with the conversation. "We need to worry about Dumbledore and Snape, not old Sluggy."
Even the nickname rubbed Remus the wrong way, but Sirius was right. "I don't know that we need to worry about Dumbledore. He wants what we want— Voldemort banished forever, and Harry as protected and happy as possible in the meanwhile. We can't trust him with the Horcruxes because we can't trust him not to trust Severus."
"We can't trust him because he's a manipulative old bastard who thinks he's entitled to play God with everyone else's life since he's so much smarter and more powerful than us ordinary mortals."
"He's a good man who makes mistakes, and both of us owe a great deal to him."
Sirius snorted. "Tell me, please, what precisely I owe to him?"
"He let you stay in school after you decided to feed Severus Snape to a werewolf."
The air around them thickened. Remus and Sirius talked about all manner of things, but they never talked about that.
"If Dumbledore expelled every child who played a prank on a classmate, you wouldn't have anyone left to teach, Professor," said Sirius. "And let us not forget that it was well within Snape's control to refuse to go down the the willow. He knew it was against the rules to touch the willow. He knew it was guarding something dangerous. He knew I despised him. I gave him some information. I didn't truss him up and lay him at the wolf's feet. He went of his own volition because that was how desperately he wanted to see my very dear friend deprived of his education and ostracized for the great crime of being sick."
There were not enough hours in the day to try to explain to Sirius that his actions that night had been far, far worse than a "prank." Sirius had had nineteen years to reconsider, and he had chosen not to.
"Dumbledore also listened to you when you brought Peter to him last spring," Remus said quietly. "If he was as manipulative as you say, he could have wiped the children's memories, let Peter run free, and thrown you to the dementors. He wouldn't have had to deal with the possibility that your claims on Harry would interfere with the spells binding him to Lily's sister."
"He can be a manipulative bastard without going that far."
"And that would make him an imperfect man trying to win what by all rights should be an unwinnable war. Dumbledore is the man who let me into school when no other headmaster would have done it."
"Because that way he'd have your undying gratitude so he could use you however he wished without your ever questioning it or put your own self-interest first."
"He forgave me for not telling him that you were an Animagus when you were the most wanted criminal in the world."
"Are you sure?"
"He chooses to be headmaster of a school when he could have been Minister of Magic a thousand times over."
"Who wants to be Minister of Magic? Just looking at the front hall of the Ministry makes me want to be sick."
"He defeated Gellert Grindelwald even though he was in love with him."
"You can't tell me that you believe that old rumor!"
"In point of fact, I do," said Remus. "But even if there was nothing romantic between them, they were certainly very close friends. Lily even mentions it in that letter to you that you found before Christmas."
"Lily mentioned that Bathilda Bagshot, who was ancient and probably senile, said they were friends. That proves nothing."
"There was a book written after Dumbledore's death. It presented a great deal of evidence that—"
"A book written by whom?"
Remus knew he'd lost this argument. "Rita Skeeter."
Sirius rolled his eyes. "Let me see if I've kept up. According to you, Slughorn is bad because he supported his talented students, the man who left Harry with abusive relatives for ten years is good because he was secretly in love with a dark wizard, and we should all believe what Rita Skeeter says."
"You wouldn't willfully misstate what I said if you didn't think I might be right."
"I don't care if you're right. I care about finding those Horcruxes, getting rid of Voldemort, and getting Harry into a proper home where he can make his own decisions about his future."
"I want all of those things too."
"You'd better," said Sirius, and he left.
To be continued.