Chapter 53
EXPIRY
"Nothing more for me to do here'!" Voldemort clapped his hands, chuckling at Snape's words. "'Nothing more.' Oh, that's priceless."
A malicious smile crept across Malfoy's face, and he gave Snape an approving nod.
"But the old fusspot hasn't snuffed it yet!" Willimar protested.
Snape's expression remained impassive. "With Coritoxia, he'd be dead already. With Coritoxia Alternatus, whether he lives or dies hangs on my word."
Back in the Djinn ball, Harry saw Dumbledore revive long enough to whisper, "lemon lime gobstopper." The portal to his chambers opened. Hagrid carried him through, Madame Pomfrey at his heels. As it had when Harry had tried to penetrate the Headmaster's haven, after the door closed, the view in the glowing orb remained in the hallway.
"That's cheating! Why can't we see—"
"Don't be thick." Snape's first words to Avery Senior since he'd arrived held all the loathing McGonagall had said he harbored for his one-time pal. "Those rooms have been the private domain of Hogwarts's Headmasters for centuries. Each new occupant has added his own spell to thwart prying eyes. Even a Djinn ball can't penetrate really potent magic—but my word can." Slowly, he turned to Voldemort. "It doesn't matter where I speak that word. In his ear, or at your side, wherever I am upon the face of the earth, Dumbledore will die. With a different word, I can restore him to vigor and health. The decision is yours."
"Severus." Voldemort's face softened with an expression Harry couldn't quite place. "You want assurances. Any I could give would be trivial. Our understanding must be deeper. You know I see you as a son. You were dead to me, yes, but today you have come back, asking for another chance. When you do this thing for me, you shall have shown yourself worthy above all others. You will be alive to me again."
"As you wish. So be it." Snape pointed his wand skyward and cleared his throat. Without further delay, without so much as a blink to show he cared about the ramifications of what he was doing, he uttered one word: "Expiry."
Harry began to tremble, trying to grasp what he had just heard and seen. Expiry. There had to be more to it than that, some shaking of the ground, some roaring of the wind, some falling of the stars. Dumbledore couldn't be dead. Not with just one word. He couldn't be.
As if Snape's pronouncement had been a Petrificus spell, the Death Eaters had frozen, shots of liquor, slices of cheese, slivers of sandwiches halfway to their mouths. They waited noiselessly, as if also listening for the explosion of heaven and earth that would prove the greatest wizard of the last century was no more.
Even Willimar Avery sat tense and expectant. Then his scowl deepened and he shook himself. "What kind of boobs do you take us for?"
"My Lord," Snape swiveled toward Voldemort, effectively excluding Avery from his field of vision. "I do not know what is happening in the Headmaster's quarters at this moment. I only know that he is gone. If you will allow me, I should be able to show you evidence of this fact soon enough."
Gone. Dumbledore can't be. Harry glanced at Professor Daine. Her face had crumpled with what looked like genuine, unbridled grief. His stomach felt queasy. Could he be gone?
Snape pointed at the hanging orb. At first it was hard for Harry to tell what he was doing, but when McGonagall dashed up, double speed, he realized that the scene was being fast-forwarded. Several students and staff came and went, flashing into view, milling around, then vanishing. When the granite door rasped open and Hagrid hunched through at normal speed, Harry realized that the vision in the Djinn ball had caught up with now.
"What news?" McGonagall asked anxiously.
The tears streaming down the gamekeeper's face said it all. Harry groaned and squeezed his eyes shut.
"You're working some kind of dodge," Willimar muttered. "I'll believe old Bumblebore's dead when I see he's dead."
That's it! Relief bubbled up inside Harry. It's an elaborate dodge. Hadn't the Headmaster said Snape had perpetrated deceptions on the Dark Lord both crafty and perilous? Anxiously, he searched his uncle's face for a clue.
But if Snape was attempting to hoodwink his former associates, his demeanor didn't give him away. "Tradition holds that newly deceased headmasters lie in state in the rotunda that opens off the upper exit from their chambers. The preparations may take some time, but you will see his body brought there soon enough."
Willimar snorted. "If the crystal shows them trundling out the old man, slapping him on a slab, and sobbing a little, so what? Anyone can play dead."
"Go and check, then," Snape replied testily. "I'm certain your fellow wizards and witches at Hogwarts will welcome your desire to pay your last respects."
"Why shouldn't we? See with our own eyes. At this distance you could pass a golem off as the dead Dumbledore."
Voldemort laughed. "Children, children. Stop bickering. For most of us, visiting the Alma Mater would be imprudent. Even Lucius and Willimar can't show up at a moment's notice without raising questions. No. Only one of our number is an appropriate emissary: Wilhelm. If he emerges from the forest with a tale of witnessing the abduction of Mistress Daine and Master Potter, of running, of hiding—of not finding his way back until a second night had passed—he'll be welcomed with tea and sympathy. When he pays his last respects, he should be able to gather all the proof we need."
Wilhelm had looked up hopefully the moment Voldemort said his name. Now he sprang to his feet. "Yes, my Lord. I'm ready."
Harry peered at Snape, desperate for a glimmer of reaction that would tell him how soon his uncle was expecting the arrival of the rescuers that would surely make sense of the weeping and wailing still filling the Djinn ball. It's a distraction. Convincing, yes, but just a distraction.
Voldemort tapped his wand on his palm. A small bottle appeared. "Pour this into the stiff's mouth and place a parchment in the hand. If Dumbledore's true name and forebears appear on it, we can put to rest any speculations about dead ringers. Identity Potion never lies."
Wilhelm bowed and accepted the bottle.
"If magic determines the body to be Dumbledore, you will not require magic to determine he is truly dead." Voldemort spooned a smidgen of sea dragon caviar onto a biscuit and took a dainty bite. "I trust you can find yourself a long, sharp knife?"
Wilhelm clasped his hands together. "Yes, my lord. I won't let you down. I can fly to Hogwarts before dawn."
Harry didn't listen to Voldemort's last minute instructions to his devotee. Instead, he stared at his uncle, trying to read his expressionless eyes. Was he concerned that Wilhelm's double-checking might expose his subterfuge? When the Identity Potion touched Dumbledore's lips, would the Djinn ball show the supposed corpse sitting up and spluttering? Or was Snape dwelling on what a sorry excuse for a man he was, yielding to the Death Eaters and murdering the mentor he'd once crowned Father Christmas? And all for a woman who may have been in league with the Dark Lord all along.
"Bon Voyage," Voldemort called out as Wilhelm hurried away. Then he smiled at the beautiful but nasty-looking witch sitting across from him. "Bellatrix, my dear, won't you have some centaur pâté? It's to die for."
At some point (Harry didn't know when), the strait jacket of the Imperius Curse had given way to a different spell that kept him in some kind of bubble. Though his imprisonment was no less helpless, at least he could lie down and toss and turn in an area the size of a single bed. Rather like a padded cell, the bubble also kept him from feeling the abandoned factory's cold and damp.
But Harry could not—would not—sleep. Instead, he mulled over the attempts on Dumbledore's life. Had Ariel Daine been Wilhelm Avery's back up all along? He recalled her sticking her wand into the cleaning bucket that had turned out to hold transmogrification solution. Could she have forged Hagrid's griffin request that had replaced the obliging Waldo with the mean-tempered Rex? Or woven the shock laurel into the Yule Ball crown? She had been present when Filch attacked them. Feeling a shiver run down his back, Harry recalled the Defense Against the Dark Arts master speaking in the caretaker's ear before anyone else had an opportunity to question him. Had they been gentle words liberating him from Wilhelm's hex? Or furtive commands?
But Professor Daine always seemed so nice! he moaned to himself. Or had she been too nice?
But her grief when Dumbledore died looked so sincere! Or were her tears just more proof of what an accomplished double agent she was?
Snape is in love with her. What turn of events could be more questionable than that? His uncle had been ashamed of using an Adoripotion on Ariel Daine. Could his desire to do so have stemmed from her already having used one on him?
So many certainties had proven false in the last few months, Harry no longer knew what to believe.
