Harry was slightly shocked, when Albus Dumbledore finished his explanations concerning the fatal night at Goddrick's Hollow. He had his own memories of what had happened inside the house. Now he had to accept that there was someone else, who had tried to save his and his parent's life at the prize of his own.
After Voldemort's defeat Harry had become the celebrity of Great Britain's wizarding world; the 'Boy-who-lived', the baby that had defeated the most powerful dark lord in the history of the country.
Severus was simply thrown into Askaban for a Dementor's Kiss without a process, without questions asked, although over two long years his activity as a spy inside Voldemort's organisation had prevented countless wizards from preceding Lily and James Potter to their graves. All these people, including Harry himself and who owned their survival to Snape's activity as a spy had never ever known whom to thank for their lives.
'Why?'
The boy's voice was almost inaudible. Morigan sat by his side and held his hand in hers.
Dumbledore shrugged his shoulders.
When the British High Council of Magic had approached a brilliant young wizard with a reputation for powerful magic and good brains in 1938 almost immediately after Chamberlain's failure with the nasty muggle dictator Adolf Hitler at Munich, he had considered their request an honour, a sign of the trust of his peers.
Only after he had seen the true face of battle and the ugly features of a silent and secret war fought in the shadows and in the dark, he had lost his illusions and pride in his important mission.
While relating Severus' story to the two youngsters, the memories of these days became clear again before Dumbledore's inner eye. He had banished them for so long now, hidden them away in a distant part of his brain, behind a well-warded door he had hoped never to open again in his lifetime.
The enthusiasm of the first days of the fight against Grindlewald quickly gave way to cynicism and self-loathing. Although Albus had understood that his personal sacrifices were of the utmost importance to the whole wizarding community and even to the muggles, he despised himself for each and every of his actions.
There had been too many dead bodies on the road to Grindlewald's final defeat; too much blood of innocent and guilty alike was shed. In order to vanquish the Dark, he had been obliged to allow his own dark side out of the shadows of his conscience and moral values.
In order to beat a dangerous monster, Albus had become for a while a dangerous predator himself!
After the final defeat of Grindlewald, the suicide of Hitler and the end of that war, he had been so disgusted, that he'd attempted to take his life the very moment, the entire wizarding world considered him a hero, a white knight in shining armour.
The Headmaster knew only to well that Severus bore similar scars of attempt self-destruction. A lot of his behaviour at Hogwarts, where the young one carried his 'war personae' like a never ending burden was by now rooted in reality more then in theatricals and a great gift for acting.
Severus sarcasm and dark moods were real. His worst moments with the children or the teachers often followed days and nights away from the save heaven of the school……..time-outs from his cauldrons, research and the teaching, days and nights he chose not to speak off, when he would transform into something very dangerous and unpredictable, although his transformations were never related to the cycle of the moon…………………..
Habitually at the end of such a transformation it came down to a simple visit of Dumbledore's office, were the young one would give him a name or an emotionless report on intelligence, he'd collected. Cold facts and nothing more!
Then Severus would disappear from the world of the living for as long as his obligations towards Hogwarts or his mission would allow. In all those years Albus had never found out, where he went or what he did to dull his brains and conscience. Severus never explained and never complained.
Dumbledore shrugged his shoulders again in reply to Harry.
'Why? This is a question probably never to be answered, my dear child! A man's decision to do such things is very personal and I am not sure that Severus would ever be willing to give away the true reason why he had acted in such a manner at Goddrick's Hollow or why he does certain things, he hates to do. He'd beguile you with words like 'orders', 'duty', 'mission' or else or he'd simply turn away and leave this room. My experience is that none risks his own sanity and skin for someone else or a cause simply because a higher political or military authority orders him to do it!'
'And why did you and Moody allow the Ministry of Magic to throw Severus into Askaban like a criminal instead of cleaning his name and honour immediately after Halloween Night 1981 and Voldemort's destruction?'
That was the second point beyond Harry's comprehension. Albus Dumbledore whom the boy admired and loved for his sense of justice had allowed an innocent man been thrown into the mud and trampled, almost to the point of having him killed.
Severus had been hardly older then Harry when he'd accepted to take the Dark Mark to infiltrate Voldemort's group of terrorists.
It was cruel to do such a thing to any human being! It was even worse to do it to someone you liked and appreciated.
Since Harry had had his own encounters with the Dementors, he imagined lively what it must have done to Severus to be alone, with no hope, no friends, condemned to die and abused from dawn till dusk on an almost daily basis, exposed to these creatures that sucked even the last thoughts of hope and a future from his soul…..
Dumbledore's habitually lively, sparkling eyes were sad. He looked at Harry, thinking very hard what he could tell the boy.
When he and Alastor had come to the decision to not intervene on Severus' behalf with the Ministry of Magic, they did it to protect the most precious weapon they had in their war against the forces of evil; the one spy who'd never blown his cover, the man who'd be able to go back and continue spying on the remainders of Voldemort's dangerous network of killers and terrorists without attracting their attention, the tool that would perhaps be able to identify and destroy later on the remainders of the Death Eaters from inside.
Neither Alastor nor Albus had taken into consideration that Severus would go through hell. They'd been fairly confident that his soldier's training and the muggle methods engrained in the young man and which were completely unknown to the wizarding world of Great Britain would be enough to survive the dungeons of the Ministry of Magic as well as Askaban.
They'd simply agreed upon to bring him back, as soon as his date for the Dementor's Kiss was fixed. Neither had thought of the difference between the simple prison cells of Askaban and the death row of this notorious fortress. Those condemned to sejourn for a determined or undetermined amount of time in the prison cells existed still in the registers of the Magical Law Enforcement Authorities of Great Britain. They had names and numbers. The others, who were send inside the rock and under the sea level, close to the caverns where the Dementors dwelt had already lost their soul and existence before the fatal kiss was performed. They were gone and all they had to do was to move closer and closer from the end of the row to the very beginning, where they'd lose their humanity while their soulless bodies were simply stored away in endless tunnels, chained into the rock until their hearts would cease to beat, too. At the very end the Dementors would simply take off a rotten body or more often forgotten, fleshless bones to make room for another vegetable……..
In the weeks and months that followed Voldemort's destruction, Moody's and Dumbledore's minds were set on other problems then the mental and physical survival of a weapon of war that had already served its cause and was of no use for the moment.
Albus woke suddenly from his contemplations, when he heard Morigan's voice. Harry had been so tense. Instead of giving the Headmaster his time to invent an explanation that would not be too shocking for a young adult, the girl had taken matters into her hands. She'd put her slender, bronzed arm around Potter's shoulder and cuddled him against her body.
'Listen, Harry!' She whispered into his ear 'That's ok, that's ok! They had no choice and they simply could not allow the whole wizarding world to understand what a dangerous game they've been playing for reasons of state. They did not mean it……to harm someone…..'
She pulled her slender member firmer around Potter.
'You know, when the Americans made their mistake and killed my 'papa' and almost two thirds of his men because they thought the French troops were enemies, the newspapers did not write the truth. It was simply too big a mistake to kill your own ally because you were too dumb to ask first and shoot later. In a war they often hide the truth and tell lies, because if everybody would know that his own side is as bad as the enemy, there would be turmoil.'
Dumbledore was shocked, when he heard Morigan's last words. There she sat, this young girl of fifteen and explained how low you could sink in order to win a war. Yes, she was right! He and Alastor, they'd sacrificed Severus in cold blood, because it was not done to tell all England loud and strong that you have been authorizing someone for years at end to commit the most atrocious crimes and conspire with your enemy, only because you could not find another way to beat this very enemy.
And the very moment the human being you'd so wilfully employed as a weapon of war needed your help, you simply let him down from fear…………fear of the scandal it could bring upon an ancient and esteemed institution like the High Council of Magic to authorize the slaughter of innocents to prevent perhaps greater harm!
The political gap between France and England had always been wider then what a superficial observer would have seen on first sight. The institutional framework was so different, that apart a few instructed ones, nobody on the island would ever have believed that their old neighbour and enemy in many muggle and wizards' wars would be liberal and open-minded enough to simply accept the existence of magic and have the whole country profit from this fact instead of hiding it away by desperately clutching to medieval ways!
Only some scholars in the field of History of Magic had ever taken care to research the impact of Napoleon Bonaparte's reign on both muggles and wizards. None of them originated from Great Britain. It was hardly ever mentioned that the man had been a powerful sorcerer and a gifted warlord, too!
Although he'd lost at the end, because he'd gone from changing the political systems of both non-magic and magic in his own country in a revolutionary way to conquering the world in order to secure these changes against all destructive efforts from outside were the old system still prevailed…………..Great Britain had been France's most unforgiving enemy in those days!
Suddenly Dumbledore felt ashamed in front of these two children.
As a teacher he tried to instil values in his students, he'd overrule only instants later in his function as the Speaker of Britain's highest and most ancient magic authority.
But since the royalty of the country was strictly muggle by now, the Council no longer reported to an Overlord who held power in both worlds. With Tudors, Lancasters and Stuarts long gone bye and substituted with foreign princelings devoid of all magic powers, the High Council, or by its ancient name, the 'Order of the Phoenix' was no longer subject to any final verdict from higher authority.
They did, what they believed was the right thing and never reported back to anybody. The relatively young institution of the Ministry of Magic held no influence on the hereditary members of the Order.
From pillar of state in the days of old they'd transmuted over the last 1000 years into a secret society, comparable to Voldemort's own Inner Circle. The only difference between the two was, that the Dark Lord found himself on a ruthless quest for the very power, the High Council of Magic held for reasons of birthright and blood.
The true issue when Salazar left the other three founders of Hogwarts was, that he excluded his entire bloodline from the 'Order of the Phoenix' forever.
Before Voldemort, the majority of Slytherin's direct heirs had simply accepted this fact as their fate and contented themselves with disturbing the ways of the 'Order'.
They'd nagged the established power and its institutions, tried to gain influence via the Ministry of Magic, as soon as it had been created during the reign of the first non-magic imported princelings from the European continent after the abrupt end of the reign of the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell at the end of the Seventieth Century…….. or simply through their tremendous wealth and money.
Only a few, over these 1000 years had dared to challenge the established system and attempt its overthrow.
Their attempts had always been drowned in a sea of blood and violence and by the end, the old system had prevailed, although each and every of these dark times on the British Isles had brought a follow-on period of slow evolution towards a more egalitarian political and social system.
None had ever revolutionised the whole structure from top to bottom, as the ascension of the Corsican wizard Napoleon Bonaparte to absolute power over magic and non-magic France had done in the early Ninetieth Century. But contrary to Napoleon who'd never cherished the Dark Arts and not even in his most desperate moments had abased himself to use this kind of magic, Great Britain's contenders to power from Salazar Slytherin's line had always been Dark Lords. Politics were a terrible thing!
'I do not like this!' Harry said in a firm voice.
He'd straightened up in his seat. What else did they hide from him, when already over so many years Dumbledore had hidden important details like the overall events of Halloween Night 1981 and Severus' real identity? Why had he pushed him into the hands of the Dursley's although it was perfectly clear that his security would have been as good at Montmuran? Had it really been a simply issue of protecting Harry or was there more to letting him grow up away from the magic world and his own kin?
'Professor Dumbledore, I do understand quite a lot of what you told me and also of what you do not want to tell me. ' The boy looked straight into the Headmaster's thoughtful eyes.
Albus had the strange impression that the last two hours had changed the child into a mature young man, although he had no idea if this was a good thing or a bad thing for their cause.
There were so many secrets he'd still to unveil, so many details he'd to tell Harry to have him have the full picture.
Was he already ready to take the rest, too? How would he deal with the revelation that over the last years at Hogwarts he'd been groomed to confront Voldemort one day, because the members of the 'Order of the Phoenix' had developed a theory that Voldemort when having been drained of his powers and body in 1981, had transferred part of them unwillingly onto his victim-turned-conqueror Harry and thus from Slytherin to Gryffindor?
They had been convinced that since Harry, Gryffindor's heir, had taken him down already once with the humble forces of a baby, he'd be able to fully destroy him when a fully trained wizard.
Was this theory still relevant, now that the Dark Lord had been identified clearly as a demon, an immortal concentrate of evil? Or was it irrelevant, since the confrontation would still be Slytherin's heir against the last remaining heir of Goddric Gryffindor?
'Please, ask me what ever you wish, Harry!' Dumbledore gave a sigh. It was certainly better to accept the new problems with Voldemort, while at the same time cleaning up the lies and omissions of the past. James' son had a right to know!
'Why did Voldemort kill my parents?'
'James had to die because of blood, Harry! Your mother was killed because she shielded your body with hers and since she was pregnant with another child, the Dark One could not risk the birth of a new potential danger, beyond James' and your grave. But there were still more reasons to this slaughter……..in particular an object your father owned and Voldemort desperately wanted: You once held it in your hands! Gryffindor's sword wields enormous magic power, this power becomes even stronger when the sword is used together with Slytherins' Shield. Voldemort misunderstood the true meaning of the conflict between the four founders of Hogwarts and simply embarked upon a quest for raw, crude, basic power! He had already three of the four magic objects the founders of Hogwarts had left for the protection of our school, which is the future of the wizarding world of the British Isles. He was convinced that the possession of the sword would allow him to take over this place and transform it into a forge of dark sorcerers which would then become the minions in his conquest of the four lands: England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland – the plains, the valleys, the waters and the mountains – Slytherin, Rawenclaw, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor!'
'So in the end all comes down to establish a new balance?'
Morigan asked shyly. She had been allowed to stay, because her uncle had wanted her to understand what she had seen in the Pensiève that other night. She was not sure if this permission included questions towards 'Pappie's' friend Professor Dumbledore.
But the whole discussion between him and Harry had ended up around something else and she was pretty much familiar with the subject due to her upbringing and cultural and family background.
When all had begun, more then one thousand years ago, there had been five lands closely entwhined: The old duchies on the continent, Cornouailles, Brittany and Normandy had counted as one. They represented the fifth element, the one that was inside the other four: Fire!
Balance meant in Morigan's world the existence of all five elements; Slytherin, Rawenclaw, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff all had blood from the other side of the sea in their veins, although they were wizards, while the old duchies knew only druids, bards and ovates.
Their kin had crossed the sea at the very beginning of time and established communities on the islands. Since they did not refuse to mix their blood with the people who already populated England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland differences soon disappeared or were simply forgotten.
For a long time they'd been living together in peace and none considered the sea a line of separation. But one day the blood from the old duchies had become so mixed up with the islanders that the connection was broken. And since this event happened during dark days, when invaders from the North haunted both, the old duchies and the islands, people on both sides of the sea engaged in a frantic struggle for survival.
The first to surrender to the overwhelming forces from the North was Normandy and from there the Norse started their invasion of England, Wales, Scotland and finally Ireland.
It was at exactly this moment, that Slytherin, Rawenclaw, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor decided to build Hogwarts in order to protect their world by teaching a maximum of youngsters who had magic gifts the use of the craft.
Their hope was to oppose force to force, strength to strength.
They'd invited Merlin to join, but the Old One refused, professing that the old knowledge could not be beaten into each and every skull who had a touch of magic at high speed and through a standardized curriculum –to use a very modern word! Merlin had been afraid to distribute magic power wholesale.
He'd been afraid that in the end they'd replace bad simply with evil. He had told the four others that the druids preferred to keep to their own ways at the risk of perhaps being overwhelmed by the Norse one day or another, since he was sure that this day would never come. They'd existed for so long, because they'd kept close-knit structures and ensured the transmission of the full knowledge of old to a selected few. They'd survived, because they'd kept out of each and every form of power politics. Traditionally they'd been neutral. They'd been the Balance and intended to keep it that way……………….
Dumbledore gave her a smile.
'You are a clever young lady, Morigan! It is all about balance. Voldemort's pretensions destroy from inside the precarious balance on which the whole magic Britain is built. If he succeeds it will be like a cancer eating up a body from inside. At the end, only the cancer is left and although he can no longer survive without the life force of his host………………….well, the host is gone and cannot be brought back into life.'
'And nothing is left!'
'Yes, Morigan. And nothing is left! Our magic world would simply disappear from the surface of the Earth. And since the cancer will need a new host in order to continue his own existence, he will leave the barren plains and try and conquer another place, where he'll feed upon another life force until it is destroyed and so on and so on……..'
Harry listened attentively to Dumbledore and Severus niece. Although he had found their exchange at first cryptical and difficult to understand, the more he heard the clearer the picture became before his inner eye.
Voldemort functioned like a Dementor, but on a much higher level: He'd suck Great Britain's magic world of its life force in order to strengthen himself and when he'd brought them to their knees, when only darkness was left, he'd go to suck the next magic world, and the next and the next. He'd leave nothing behind, because he had no other plan then becoming the most powerful wizard of the world, not caring if there would be anybody left who could challenge his power and therewith prove its existence. It was nothing more but madness! Madness on a high and dangerous level…….
'But would he ever dare and challenge Merlin, Professor Dumbledore?' Morigan asked.
Voldemort had somehow managed to snatch immortality from the hands of nature, but he was a newcomer in this very restricted and exclusive club: The stone rings existed since the beginning of times, the menhirs of Carnac were over four thousand years old………………………
'Merlin? Morigan, I am not sure that the Dark Lord is even aware of the existence of Merlin. To him, as to many others the Old One and Avalon belong into the realm of fairy tales, with Brocéliande being nothing else but the Forest of Paimpol and Carnac and the stone rings a useless reliquary of times long gone bye……..'
'But Merlin is as real as you and I, Professor Dumbledore!' Morigan blushed and pressed Harry's hand a bit firmer.
She had gone to see the Old One and the Ancestors together with 'Papie' and 'Mamie' since she was a small child. She had even a dim memory of the Old One standing over her cradle and giving her his blessing and putting a chain with her birth amulet around her baby neck. When her father had still been alive they'd crossed the stone ring together, whenever an important decision for the family requested it. Her 'Maman' had gone to Avalon and so had Gwenael and Delphine and Myriam and almost all the women who were downstairs in the Medieval Garden, enjoying their breakfast and the pleasure to exchange the latest family news with one another. She'd perhaps go for a while to Avalon, too……after Beaubaxton and if her heart told her to chose this way in life!
'Most certainly he is, Morigan. But this does not mean that a Dark Lord like Voldemort will accept it. He has no interest in the balance of nature. He cannot conceive that there is grey in the middle, where he himself sees only the Dark and the Light. His aim is to extinguish the Light in order to establish the Dark. Merlin on the other side can turn to the dark or to the light for a while out of necessity, simply because it is useful to re-establish the balance that keeps everything going.'
Morigan and Harry nodded almost in unison. But while Morigan seemed fully satisfied with Professor Dumbledore's explanation, Harry still missed one reply. And to him, this reply was of more importance then most of the other issues they'd tackled over the last hours…….apart perhaps the truth concerning the death of his mother and father on Halloween Night 1981.
'Professor Dumbledore,' he asked ' could you now tell me finally, why Severus' memory ended up in my Pensiève? Has this to do with my scar and him cursing Voldemort only a short time before Voldemort tried to kill me. Have there been two who survived Voldemort's 'Aveda Kedavra' that night?'
Albus already wanted to shake his head and tell the boy, that it was not this simply and evident. But when he realized who'd entered Severus rooms in the Northern Tower he stopped. The old wizard stood up from his comfortable seat. He gave a slight bow of his head and smiled.
'I think Harry, that there is someone more instructed in the ways of magic in this room and I have the feeling that he came especially in order to answer your question.'
'Albus! It has been a long time ……..'
Harry heard a voice that sounded at first familiar, but then……..
Morigan shock her long raven black hair and sniggered. That old trickster was always good for a surprise.
When Potter turned around he saw first the ditty old bat leaning against the massive oak frame of the entrance to his living, arms crossed over his chest and a familiar sarcastic grin on his lips.
Next to Severus stood another man, who looked more or less like an ageless and timeless copy of his Potions Master. Only his raven black hair was much longer, almost down to the newcomer's hips and it hung open in shiny curls over a very old-fashioned forest green tunic. A broad brown leather belt held the tunic. The man wore soft brown leather boots and matching leather brogues. He was half a head shorter then Severus and his eyes were light brown.
Right between his high arching eyebrows over the bridge of his eagle's beak Harry distinguished a mark that looked like the form of a raven. The mark shimmered softly, as if illuminated.
In an instant the boy looked from the newcomer back to his Potions Master. The same raven shimmered softly between Severus eyebrows, too. He'd never seen it before! The two almost looked as if they were brothers. But Dumbledore's reverend bow and Snape's sarcastic grin told him, that this was most certainly not just another Snape sibling……
'Well, before you forget breathing or swallow your tongue, Harry…….. I'd better do the courtesies!'
Severus voice dripped with well-known sarcasm, although it lacked its Hogwart's bite.
'Mister Potter, this is Merlin!'
Harry gasped. The Old One simply left Severus' side and took the boy's hands into his before bending down to be at a level with the child. His light brown eyes smiled.