Whatever side of the teacher/student divide you're on, the end of the semester always power-slams you with way too much fucking work. Let it be known to all.
Hey, look - no canon dialogue or events at all! Only one plagiarized line: "questions of great pitch and moment" should really be "enterprises of great pitch and moment," if it wanted to be faithful to Hamlet.
An alternative title to this chapter could be "A Buncha White Dudes Sitting Around Talking." It was inevitable, unfortunately. I hear there are exciting dragons in our future, though :P
Thank you, as ever, my dears. I can't say it enough. xoxo
The moment Harriet was gone, Snape and Sirius set a match—and a pack of dynamite—to their tenuous pretense of good behavior. When they rounded on each other, it was harder to tell which face showed more loathing.
"You fucking arsehole, Snape, you had no right to bring that shit up in front of her—"
"Speaking of which, do you mean you haven't told your precious, darling goddaughter that you and the werewolf—"
"Don't you fucking call him that!" Sirius roared, the sudden volume of his voice almost making the tent's walls shake.
"Surely you aren't ashamed?" Snape's eyes were glittering in a way that made Remus wince inside. "No, why should you be, just because you and the werewolf—"
Sirius made a lunging movement at him, which Snape sidestepped, drawing his wand; face twisted with fury, Sirius shoved his hand into his jacket for his own.
"You know, I was hoping to go to bed," Remus said, pleased that he managed to sound as if he were staying calm. It was difficult when the sound of that much hatred was winding him up inside. He'd never been able to decide whether it was the wolf reacting within him or if he despised confrontation so much that even other people's rows made him tense. "Without the lullaby of profanity, strange as that sounds."
"Get out, Snivellus," Sirius snarled without acknowledging Remus had spoken.
"I will, Black," Snape said, his voice growing more whip-like and venomous with each word, "straight away, because I always do what you tell me."
"You've got no fucking business being here! You were useless as shit anyway—"
"Yes, it's a good thing you and the werewolf were able to put a stop to everything when I failed—"
"We all failed," Remus said sharply, though they were both so busy shoving their wands in each other's faces that neither of them spared him a glance. "There's no use apportioning blame now it's done with."
"He shouldn't have said that in front of Holly-berry," Sirius said. He might've been addressing Remus, but his eyes never left Snape. It was probably a good thing, though: Snape looked just as ready to let off a scalping hex as Sirius did. "Fucking arsehole—"
"It flew straight over her head." Snape bared his teeth in a way that suggested he wished it hadn't. "Surely if she asks you, you'll be able to lie? Surely even Miss Potter isn't immune to your chronic inability to tell the truth?"
"You were the one in a fucking disguise!—Where are you going, Moony?"
"I'm going to sleep outside," Remus said calmly. "It's been a long day, so I'll leave you two to bite and snarl in peace."
"Don't bother, Lupin," Snape said, in a tone of deepest loathing. "I'm leaving. It hasn't been a pleasure."
Sirius treated the tent to a virtuoso bout of swearing as Snape's heel disappeared out of the tent. Remus went and lay down on one of the bunks and shut his eyes, thinking to let Sirius have it out. But he was reaching for his wand to throw a silencing spell around his bed when Sirius finally ran out of steam, or perhaps ran out of swears.
"I don't like that fucking bastard," he said, his voice just above Remus' head.
"I'd never have guessed," Remus murmured without opening his eyes.
"Dammit, Moony, don't you channel that fucker. I'm serious. Don't, all right."
"You're not in the mood for Sirius-puns?" Remus asked, finally looking up at him. He was really asking, Did he get to you that badly, then? but it had always been their way to disguise serious questions as something else, so the other could ignore it if he wanted.
"I don't like the way he treats Holly-berry. Or the way she talks to him."
Remus blinked. He'd always been rather relieved that Harriet was rather impertinent with Snape, since it suggested her relatives hadn't so badly damaged her that she couldn't stand up for herself. Sirius was the last person who should have a problem with any Snape-directed impertinence, unless he wanted her to be outright nasty. "What way she talks to him?"
"All. . ." Scowling, Sirius made a vague, twirly gesture with his hand. "You know."
"I really don't."
"In the woods she said, 'I think you like being mean to each other.' To him." When Remus only stared at him in more or less total incomprehension, he flapped his hands in the air. "She shouldn't be saying that sort of cute stuff to Snape! It's all. . . familiar! She's supposed to hate his guts!"
"You hate his guts," Remus pointed out.
"They're the sort of guts any decent person would hate!"
"I don't hate his guts. I'm not saying I'm looking to take another holiday with him any time soon," he went on when Sirius gaped at him in slack-jawed outrage, "only that I don't hate him."
"Moony, he's an ass and a wanker!"
"Well, so were you tonight. I suppose I've become accustomed." He couldn't tell whether Sirius was genuinely offended or not, so he made his tone more placating. "Why should Harriet hate Severus?"
"Because he's a complete prick," Sirius replied immediately. "And he's all sneering and nasty to her, and a total git and a tosser."
"I've always thought him rather restrained with her, actually."
"Whose side are you on?" Sirius said, incredulous.
"There are no sides, Sirius." As Sirius spluttered, Remus went on, "You can't think I'd sit idly by if Severus were being genuinely cruel to Harriet. She manages to hold her own against him quite well, I think. Most of the students at Hogwarts would practically cross themselves if they heard his name."
"Nasty old creep," Sirius muttered, reminding Remus rather strongly of one of his students. "Harriet's a bright girl—why was he in disguise, eh? I don't buy that rubbish about not wanting the Weasleys to recognize him. He gets his rocks off when people stampede the other way at the sight of his greasy beak of a face."
"I don't think anyone enjoys being hated," Remus said as diplomatically as he could. "And Fred and George would certainly have tried to get him to drink something that would turn him into a giant purple aardvark at best. It may have reacted badly with the Polyjuice."
"You're just taking him at face value, then?" Sirius said, staring hard at him.
"No," Remus sighed. "Not entirely."
Not at all, in fact. As they'd made their rounds through the camp yesterday (God, was it only yesterday?) Severus had not pointed out anyone that had surprised him, but Snape had been certain of every person whom he thought might don a mask and join the Death Eater brigade—not merely suspicious, but certain. And if Snape was a Death Eater, or at least possessing loyal ties to Voldemort, he wouldn't have wanted other Death Eaters to see him kicking round with a family of blood-traitors and a werewolf.
But if Snape was a Death Eater, why help Remus? Why be with the Weasleys at all? Why watch over Harriet? And going even further afield than tonight, why be allowed to teach at Hogwarts and be so obviously close with Dumbledore?
Could Snape be a reformed Death Eater?
It was seeming more and more likely; or at least, the most likely explanation Remus had come up with. It would even explain all the secrecy, because they all knew that Death Eaters who tried to break away from Voldemort found it to be the last thing they ever tried to do. But he didn't want to mention any of this to Sirius, who despised Snape so very much that it seemed improbable he could permit him to be a reformed anything. . .
Honesty is so inconvenient, came the whisper in his mind.
He sighed. Yes, it was.
"Not entirely," he repeated. "I noticed something interesting, while we were going about yesterday. . ."
Leaving Lupin and Black and all those bloody Weasleys behind was like getting a smoke after too bloody long of nothing. He lit a fag as he strode away from the camp, in fact, and breathed in poison and the cold night air in equal proportion.
At least he'd managed to get under Black's fucking worthless, furry skin before he'd left.
His own susceptibility to the Veela had mortified him. He'd seen Veela before—Lucius had once brought one in a gilded cage to the manor—but not three of them together with their power turned on. Still, he shouldn't have struggled that much; he shouldn't have let it distract him to a point of near-disaster. It was pathetic that he should have to thank Miss Potter's good sense for her continued safety, for thinking to follow him when he'd completely lost his head. To have been reduced to that laughable state in front of anyone—any student—Miss Potter in particular—and then Black not remotely affected—
Fuck. He stomped the fag end into the dirt and lit another, so angry he could have uprooted a few trees and driven everyone into hysterics for a third time that night.
He'd gone doughy soft in the last thirteen years, apparently. He couldn't afford to unravel like that again. Tonight had been nothing really. There would only be more to lose from here on in.
Well, it's not as if you've ever had to resist a seduction.
Speaking of resistance. . . Black was lucky Severus hadn't hexed his aristocratic nose off his arrogant fucking face. If it hadn't been for Miss Potter's wide eyes, he would probably have lost that battle with himself without too much of a fight. Yes, Black was just bloody fucking lucky he had Miss Potter for a goddaughter, hovering round and looking anxious—especially when he and Lupin had started in on each other. It was an old fight, clearly, the sort that broke relationships. Lucius and Narcissa had plenty of those. So had his parents. At least Lupin was bloody in control of himself. Miss Potter didn't need to be exposed to that.
He hadn't actually anticipated that they hadn't told her about them. It was a pleasant secret to have in his arsenal of little torments, but he wished to know why. Which of them was forestalling that revelation? Lupin was used to keeping secrets, but Black had grown up in a world where homosexuality was so taboo, even the admission of it to oneself was almost never done. And with a werewolf. . .
Severus was even beginning to wonder whether Potter or Lily had known. Free from wizarding prejudices, Lily might have figured it out, but Potter would have been raised in Black's mindset, and some things Simply Weren't Done.
He'd walked far enough that the muscles in his legs were starting to burn. Far enough, then.
He ground the cigarette against a tree, repressing a very un-Slytherin, neo-Pagan pang of remorse, and Apparated back to Spinners End. The stagnant pall of the trash-logged river filled his mouth as he picked his way up the bank, ducked through the hole in the fence where the links were twisted up, and emerged silently onto the shadowed street.
No city street could be truly dark with light pollution bleeding down from the sky. Electrical light pollution, that is; in Diagon Alley and those other wizarding avenues of London, an ancient blackness still dwelt that Muggle electricity had tamed. But Spinners End was industrial Muggle working-class; its darkness was shallow and sullen, tinted with the cast-off illumination of a million lights that never went out.
He was unlocking the gate to the alley in the back when something black and feathery swooped down on his head. When he snatched it out of the air, the owl screeched indignantly, beating at his face with its wings.
He threw the owl into his kitchen and slammed the door behind him. When he flicked on the lights, the bird was glaring at him with all the haughty cruelty of a sharp-beaked face.
It was Narcissa's eagle owl.
Grimly he untied the finger-length cylinder from its foot and spelled the end open. A tightly rolled letter unfurled on his palm, smelling faintly of lavender, as all of Narcissa's letters did. Like many of Narcissa's letters, too, it was brief, though every sheet of this hot-pressed letter paper cost seven sickles. But this time it was brief from a different motive than languor:
Come to the manor as quick as you can. Please, Severus.
She couldn't name the true cause of her distress on paper for fear of its being intercepted, but she'd know that he would know it would take something dreadful to wring a "please" out of her. At whatever time he read this, he would know to come at once.
He vanished the paper and chucked the owl out the door, getting another indignant screech. He might as well go now. He was too wired to sleep, and now he was curious to see how Lucius was faring after the events of tonight.
However, he couldn't go dressed as a Muggle. He mounted the creaking stairs by the light of a Lumos and went into the bedroom he might as well call his own, he'd used it for so long. He'd never moved out of it, even when his father's death and his mother's leaving had abandoned the larger room.
Clicking on the lamp, he pulled off the Muggle clothes and stuffed them in a drawer. It was when he was reaching into the wardrobe that he saw what lay on his own arm.
The Dark Mark, for so long invisible, had darkened to a shadow.
He stared at it for several long moments, in the silence of the house.
Then he dragged down his robes, threw them on, and shut off the light.
The Manor was still dark in these thin, ghostly hours between night and morning. From the front walk he could see only faint, undulating patches of light and shadow playing against one of the upstairs windows. But before he'd mounted the steps to the front door, it clattered open and Narcissa appeared, in more disarray than he'd seen her in over a decade. She'd thrown a dressing-gown on slapdash over a fine, billowing nightdress, and her long hair was pulled to one side in a braid.
She met him halfway on the stairs and seized his hands, wrapping her fingers around his. It was even more startling than the "please."
"Has it darkened?" she said, sounding out of breath. "Has yours darkened, too?"
"Yes." When he said it, her fingers tightened on his. "What's happened?" he demanded, for she wasn't to know where he'd been or that he'd seen it. Here were the first lies of many he'd need to tell. . . only they weren't the first, were they? He'd been lying to them in bits and pieces for thirteen years. The only difference was that now, he would only tell them the truth as a means to an end.
"Come inside." She pulled him into the house by his hand.
"It was at the World Cup," she said, breathless, as they climbed the stairs to the first floor. "Ghastly, abominable—I came home, of course, who can sleep in those wretched tents? And Lucius was carousing with all that uncouth rabble—and they got so blinding drunk they paraded through the campsite levitating Muggles like a pack of fools, when the grounds were crawling with Ministry wizards—"
She threw open the doors to the library, her gauzy dressing-gown billowing behind her, and bore down on the figure in front of the fireplace. Lucius was slumped in a chair next to the fire that had drawn those swatches of light and shadow on the front window pane. His elbows rested on his knees and his head was in his hands, and his pale hair hung disheveled around his face.
"Tell him," Narcissa said harshly. The firelight turned her eyes almost wholly to pupil and bled the color out of what remained of her irises.
"The Dark Mark," Lucius said hoarsely without raising his head. "In the sky. Someone cast it."
"Show him."
Lucius reached for his unbuttoned sleeve and pushed it up, extending his arm. Severus could just make out the Mark hovering like a bruise. Then Lucius did look up, his expression bleak, his eyes red.
Severus stared at them, trying to project that his speechlessness had its source in dread and surprise, when in reality he was taken aback by how quickly they'd come to pieces. He'd known they would fear the Dark Lord's return, but he had not anticipated it would put reduce them to such a terror as this, a panic verging on the pathetic.
"Your mark's darker too, isn't it," Lucius said grimly.
"Only a shadow."
"Yes, but it hasn't even been visible before now." Lucius stood, leaning his weight on the mantle. He curled his fingers up against his palms, cracking his knuckles. "I heard Narcissa regaling you with this evening's merriment. None of us cast it, Severus."
No; you'd all be too terrified to do any such thing. No Death Eater who'd escaped prison would use the Dark Lord's symbol any more lightly than his name. Bill Weasley had the right of it: they'd be even more frightened to see him return. . . for a time. Then they would rise to the call of their own resourcefulness and plot ways to smuggle themselves back into his good graces. The Malfoys were scared now, but soon they would be stocking plans around themselves, keeping them for the day when they'd be needed.
"Tell me everything that you know," he said harshly. "Everything, by Merlin. Who was with you at the camp?"
"Oh, the usual," Lucius said, waving his hand in irritable contempt. "Crabbe, Goyle, Avery, Macnair—even Nott, though he's getting on in years. Only seems to make him more determined to drink himself blind, though—"
"Who else?"
"The usual, Severus, everyone who got off clean. And as we marched along our merry way, more and more of our fellow Quidditch carousers joined us. Better to be on our side, in control, than running frantic through the wood like frightened rabbits—"
Same old story, Severus thought, knowing that Lucius wasn't talking only of that night.
"—the Ministry cretins were afraid to attack in case we dropped the Muggles, but when we saw the Mark. . ." He shivered. "I Disapparated. I assume the rest of the fools did the same—well, if they aren't fools."
"And where's Draco?" Severus asked, trying not to sound sardonic. Ronald Weasley had thought he was in the woods.
"I told him to wait for me in the woods, naturally I went back and got him."
But you came here first, didn't you? Before you came to your senses and thought of your son. Was it his imagination, or was there a bruised hand print on Lucius' cheek? Had Lucius remembered before Narcissa slapped his head on straight?
"I wrote for you as soon as he'd told me the whole," Narcissa said to Severus. "Severus—what this means—Draco. . . he thinks it's a lark."
Of course he does; you've painted it as a noble crusade. "He's a child, it's not surprising. He remembers nothing."
"If the Dark Lord returns, he will be the perfect age," Narcissa said. She was practically wringing her hands. Severus hadn't seen her so discomposed since she had come to him fifteen years ago and said, I must have children, Severus, or I shall die. "What can we do?"
Lucius was rubbing his hand across his mouth, staring into space. No help there, then.
"We must find out everything about the event that is possible to know," Severus said coldly, "and then keep digging. Take nothing on faith, Lucius—you were all masked, anyone could have slipped away and done it."
But not everyone, he thought. Someone who had access to Miss Potter's wand, someone who was close enough to her to be able to steal it.
The Malfoys had been in the Top Box, sitting directly behind her. But if Lucius was responsible for the Dark Mark, he wouldn't need to pretend to be devastated now.
"Process of elimination?" Lucius said, mouth twisting.
"You still frighten most of our former comrades," Severus said coolly. "Use it."
"Leave the wives to me," Narcissa said. She had regained some measure of control over herself. It wasn't consummate, but it was more complete than it had been. By the time she was dressing in the morning for her first attack, her composure would be even stronger, and while she terrified the first woman of her acquaintance, she would be feeling quite calm and collected.
The Malfoys would be well, for now. They'd spent so long bribing and extorting everyone they knew for the sheer pleasure of it that they'd be able to call in a favor or two when it was needed. If he were a better person, he'd probably have thought it was disgusting, the way their dissolute habits doubled as an insurance plan.
Perhaps he did, just a little. Perhaps he was a little glad to get out of there and make for his next stop. A very different type of relief than escaping Black, Lupin and the Weasleys, but still, to his surprise, a relief.
During his terms at Hogwarts, Remus had appreciated the silence of the Hogsmeade-Hogwarts road in the deep watches of the night. The quiet seemed to stretch from the earth to the heavens, it was so profound. But as things turned out, it was not so hard to rent that silence with the crack of Apparition and the rabble of a continued row.
Sirius had Disapparated from the Quidditch camp before Remus had a chance to blink, but he hadn't known the man for all these years without learning a thing or two hundred about the way his mind worked. Since Sirius didn't know where Snape lived, he would head for the next best thing.
"Padfoot!" Remus shouted after the shadow ploughing up the track ahead of him, separated from the deep darkness only by the gossamer light of his wand. "Would you please just—"
"No!" Sirius bellowed over his shoulder. "He's going to explain to me what the sodding hell he thinks he's playing at!"
"It's the middle of the night, for Godric's sake! And damn it, would you transform? You're going to be seen!"
"By bloody who? I don't care, how can I care?! I need to know why he trusts that creeping, conniving—"
"I wish I hadn't told you!" Remus said furiously. "I wish I'd kept my bloody mouth shut, if this was how you were going to take it—"
Sirius finally stopped, though it was only to round on Remus. The wand-light carved his face into planes of shadow, and the effect it had on the menace in his voice would have chilled another person. "If you'd kept this from me, Remus—"
"Well, it's not a banner day for common sense, is it?" Remus snapped.
"I'm going to see Albus," Sirius snarled, "and he's going to give me a damned good fucking explanation why he's trusted that fucking Death Eater with my goddaughter all these years."
"There's no evidence he was a—" But Sirius had turned and stomped off up the path again. Remus threw his hands in the air and followed him.
The gates were shut when they reached them, to Remus' complete lack of surprise. "Don't!" he started in alarm as Sirius raised his fist to bang on the bars—but the locking spells clicked open, the wards shimmered like a golden curtain, and with a creak the gate unlatched itself.
Sirius paused for only a moment, and then he shoved the gate open and strode in. When Remus went through likewise, the gate politely shut itself and the wards re-knitted, their bright light rippling against the night.
"Would you please turn back to a dog?" Remus hissed, grabbing his arm to stop him barelling forward. "Albus isn't the only one here." He could sense that Sirius was about to tell him to piss off, so he played his trump card: "What would Harriet say if you were caught?"
Sirius shook him off, but a moment later his form melted down to a shaggy black dog's. He growled and snapped his teeth at Remus' knees, and then took off with an angry whuff.
A similar hospitality met them at the front doors, and the staircases civilly swung over to make their path to the headmaster's office quick and easy. Whether it was the lengthy walk or these signs of Albus' prescience, Padfoot simmered down. . . to a certain extent. A grim kind of silence radiated from him, but at least it was no longer the aura of blistering fury.
When they reached the Headmaster's gargoyle, Padfoot stopped. He growled long and low at the immobile gargoyle, who stared back (ha), stony-faced.
"Albus's passwords are usually candy-related," Remus said, unsurprised when this got him glared at. "Let's see, the last one was. . . Ice Mice?"
The gargoyle came alive and shuffled over as the door scraped upward. Remus was rather surprised Albus hadn't changed the password in the past two weeks. . . but they'd been expected after all, hadn't they?
Padfoot didn't waste the invitation. His tail was whipping out of sight before Remus stopped musing and started up after him. Nor, at the top of the stairs, did he bother knocking. It wasn't because it was hard to knock with paws: he'd transformed halfway up the stairs, heedless of whoever else might be at the top, and threw open the door as a man whose thunderous expression was as forbidding as centuries of well-bred censure could make it.
Though it was half past four the morning, Albus stood fully dressed beside his window, overlooking the darkened grounds (though what he could see, in all that blackness, was anyone's guess). His phoenix was perched on his arm, and he was gently stroking its feathers.
"Good morning, gentlemen," he said before Sirius could draw breath and start bellowing. "I say 'good' as a matter of courtesy. . . though it is always a pleasure to see you, I believe the events of last night somewhat preclude its being a truly good morning."
"Good morning, Albus," Remus said. When Sirius didn't launch straightaway into a Snape-related diatribe, Remus glanced warily at him, but Sirius had gone oddly silent. His lips were pressed together so they almost disappeared into each other, and he was staring hard at Albus. Perhaps his hind-brain had remembered that Albus was one of the few people he truly respected and had tempered his temper accordingly? It had been like that in the old days, but Remus had been afraid that had gone, too, with a lot of Sirius' other habits.
"I thought you might come to report what had happened," Albus said, looking curiously between them. "Though I confess I wasn't expecting to see you quite so early in the day. Or is it late in the evening? Well, I'd have made sure breakfast was prepared, in any case. Forgive me. I can remedy the oversight in a trice—if you'll take a seat?"
"That would be lovely, thank you," said Remus, who was always hungry. It was a werewolf thing. Bugger enhanced strength and senses; all he got was a superhuman appetite. The hours since dinner had carved his stomach into an aching, hollow pit.
Albus gestured them toward a heavy, ancient table, the sort that had probably seated an entire cloister of medieval monks at their meals. It was covered in books at one end. Sirius slouched into his mismatched armchair, looking broody and mutinous and slightly minatory. It wasn't just Azkaban that had put that look in his face; Sirius had always had a Dark strain. He was just less adept at controlling it now.
Covered platters appeared on the table within a few minutes, the smell of food rising in tantalizing vapors, and Remus barely awaited Albus's invitation ("Please don't stand on ceremony, gentlemen") to start piling his plate with sausages and eggs and fried tomatoes. It was only decades of training against looking like a rabid animal that let him wait until he'd set down his plate and picked up his fork to start, instead of eating straight out of the platter. He could have tackled the whole dish of sausages in under forty-five seconds. Lily used to say it was like sharing the table with the Tasmanian Devil.
"Marmalade?" Albus offered the pot. It had short legs with tiny feet that wriggled in the air, looking for purchase.
"I want to know if it's true Snape was a Death Eater," Sirius said.
Remus didn't stop eating, even though Sirius' voice scraped on his ears like granite. It was foolish to leave good food to go to waste just because someone was about to have it out at the breakfast table.
Albus didn't even blink. On the contrary, his air of polite solicitude never wavered, though it gained an edge of appropriate gravity.
"Naturally, this would be a matter of great import," he said, setting down the marmalade pot (which scuttled away and hid behind a platter of eggs). "I understand why it's brought you to see me in the middle of the night."
"Was he?" Sirius asked, leaning forward. He wouldn't order Albus to answer the question, but he wouldn't let it drop until he had the answer, either.
"Remus, you don't seem surprised by this question," Albus said, glancing his way.
"He's the one who brought it up," Sirius said; perhaps because he didn't appreciate Albus's deflection, or because Remus' mouth was full of bacon and he didn't want to wait. "Was he?"
Albus looked at him for a moment before replying. The pause was brief, but Remus knew that Albus could think quickly enough that he didn't need any pause to collect his thoughts and gauge the most appropriate way to move forward. He was deliberately hesitating—and yet it didn't feel like hesitation. Remus would bet that Albus had held his answer in reserve for weeks, even months.
"You are aware that we had a number of useful spies in Lord Voldemort's camp during the last war," he said, and the fact that he put last on it, that he did not simply call it The War as everyone else did, almost froze Remus' fork. Even though he'd known it would be this way, hearing it from Albus was somehow more sobering.
"I thought most of them were killed," Remus said, swallowing his bacon.
"They were," Albus said heavily. "Lord Voldemort proved far too adept at uncovering spies who had been planted in his ranks. We only ever had one who came to us from the other side."
"Snape," Sirius said, his voice so flat it was harsh.
"Severus," Albus said without flinching. "Yes. In 1981 he came to me with information that turned the tide of the war. You must remember how heavily we were losing."
"What information?" Sirius demanded.
"I cannot tell you that. Severus wishes it to remain between us. I have given him my word."
"You trust that evil, creeping—"
"Yes," Albus said, in such a tone that Sirius actually broke off. "I do. I trust him with my life and with my safety."
"Do you trust him with Harriet's?" Sirius asked, his gaze and voice as hard as adamant. Harriet—not Holly-berry. That was significant.
"I trust him with Harriet's most of all."
"Why?" Sirius' fury was so powerful it looked almost like grief.
"That is a matter between Severus and me," Albus said, though more gently.
"Bollocks to that." Sirius shoved his empty plate to the side with a clatter. "Bloody hell, Albus, she's my goddaughter, James and Lily wanted me to look after her, am I supposed to let some murdering—"
"Sirius," Albus said, quite seriously. "Do you trust my judgment?"
"I don't know," Sirius snapped. For a moment he looked surprised by his own daring, but he didn't stop. "Not anymore—not in this."
Albus was silent a moment, though he did not look away. He and Sirius stared at each other, as if the answers were on the other end of that gaze. Remus wondered if he should stop eating. Perhaps it was heartless to be going on with kippers and toast while questions of great pitch and moment were raising themselves at the same table. But he'd gone without breakfast too many times to give it up for the sake of delicacy. He hoped they'd forgive him.
"What do you wish for me to do, Sirius?" Albus asked at last. "When the war returns—as it will—I will need Severus more dearly than I can describe."
"You're going to send him back to spy?" Remus said, so startled that his toast stopped halfway to his mouth.
"He has agreed to undertake it," Albus said. There was no reading his expression.
Remus lowered his toast. "Will he survive that?"
"We believe Lord Voldemort will not want to give up his spy—a spy in the Order, at Hogwarts."
"So if you think he's your spy and Voldemort thinks he's his," Sirius' face was hard as the stone gargoyle's down below, "whose is he, really?"
"I have answered that question already, Sirius," Albus said in a tone that would not permit it to be asked again. "Do not let your personal feelings for Severus cloud your judgment, or lead you to—"
He broke off as a little glass globe on his desk shimmered green. He blinked, then looked rueful.
"Oh dear," he murmured.
"Is that your doorbell?" Remus asked, eying it curiously.
"It lets me know someone's coming up. I have it color-coded so I know who—you were still on the registry, Remus, so I knew to open the gargoyle for you—"
"Who's green?" Sirius asked suspiciously.
Albus' visitor opened the door and walked in without knocking. His heart practically exploding with panic, Remus scrambled to shove Sirius under the table, until he saw who it was.
Snape stopped and actually eyed them with horror. "Christ, not you again."
"Good morning, Severus," Albus said, smiling at him. "Breakfast?"
"Funny, it seems to have suddenly gone off," Snape said, his sneer settling into its comfortable spot on his face.
"Must've been at the sight of your face," Sirius threw at him, winning the hour's first-place award for immaturity.
"Gentlemen, you are not to old for me to set lines," Albus said, earning himself two incredulous glares. "Severus, do have a seat. Sirius, please return to yours. From the way Remus has been sampling everything," (a smile was sent Remus' way) "I would say the house-elves have outdone themselves. Eat," he added, with just the slightest emphasis.
Sirius stabbed a sausage so viciously he almost knocked the platter onto Remus' lap, and Snape deigned to take a piece of toast, though from the way he was handling it you'd think it had been cooked by Hagrid.
"Excellent," Albus said, again with that spiderweb-thin thread of emphasis, and gestured his wand at the teapot. "Tea? Do have some," he said when Sirius only chewed his poor sausage with extra viciousness, glaring at Snape down the table, and Snape tore at his crust as if he wished it was Sirius' eyelids. Albus directed the tea, cream and sugar pots in an intricate ballet, to all appearances ignoring the air of loathing that was trying to eat the table like acid.
"I apologize for not expecting you, Severus," Albus said as four teacups floated to their final destinations, "but when Remus and Sirius showed up without you, I had thought you might not be coming for the night."
Snape slid a mistrustful glance along his cheekbones at Sirius and Remus while his long, clever fingers methodically tore the toast into increasingly smaller bits.
"We were just here to ask Albus if you were one of Voldemort's old pals," Sirius said, baring his teeth in a parody of a smile—or maybe not. Maybe he was imagining biting Snape on the ankle.
"Lupin must have figured that out," Snape said with an air of sneering boredom. "Seeing as you were so occupied sniffing your own arse all day."
Sirius chose to respond to that with some language Remus was very glad Harriet didn't hear, as she'd learned quite enough from the pair of them already. He could have sworn Albus appealed to the ceiling with a look.
"I'm sure you'd know all about it," Snape said to Sirius.
"What kept you, Severus?" Albus asked firmly.
"The Malfoys wished to see me," Snape said to him, now ignoring Remus and Sirius rather ostentatiously.
"Malfoys?" Sirius said, looking, in fact, even more disgusted than he did with Snape.
"Inbred cousins of yours. Only that would apply to everyone in your family tree, so never mind—"
"Piss on you, Snape, only inbreeding could be responsible for a mug as ugly as yours—"
"I have learned a new and rather powerful silencing spell," Albus said. "Does anyone wish to see it? No? It's quite fascinating, so perhaps some other time. Please continue, Severus. I am all ears—and several feet of beard."
"Lucius' Mark has darkened."
Remus didn't know what this meant, and neither did Sirius, although it had a definite effect on Albus. He did not exactly sit up straighter, but a sort of sharpness came over him, an alertness that seemed to travel to the core of his being. His eyes appeared brighter, his attention more focused.
"May I?" he asked Snape, to Remus' confusion.
Without a word, Snape set down his mangled square of toast and rolled up his left sleeve. He didn't once glance at Remus or Sirius, but stretched his bared forearm out to Albus, who touched it lightly. Remus saw a shape like a bruise. Sirius actually stood up and leaned over the table to get a better look.
"What's that?" he asked, sounding revolted. "It looks like the bloody—"
"Yes, it's the Dark Mark," Snape said in a bored voice that didn't quite travel to his expression.
Somehow, seeing it was more affecting than guessing at his allegiance, even more powerful than Albus' admission. Voldemort's sign was on his arm. Snape had been a Death Eater.
Remus wondered if this was what people felt like when they learned he was a werewolf. Most people recoiled in disgust, though Sirius and James had not. Had they had that visceral reaction, though? And then had their better natures asserted themselves, cataloging all the good things they knew about him, everything that made him their friend? Snape wasn't Remus' friend, but he couldn't help remembering how Snape had protected Harriet in the forest last winter. He'd have taken a werewolf bite, any number of injuries, even death, to keep Harriet safe. And the Patronus—he'd cast a Patronus of such strength it had driven away a hundred Dementors. Surely that meant more than a shadow on his arm? No matter who'd put it there. Surely.
Remus looked at Snape's face. His eyes were glittering in that strange way that never boded well, and there was a hint of. . . satisfaction. . . not quite hidden in his expression. It was almost as if he was pleased they finally knew this about him.
"I can't fucking believe," Sirius said, his voice, starting so quiet that Remus almost had to strain to hear, rising with each word, "I can't fucking believe you'd led some murdering traitor—"
"Very good, Black," Snape said. "Did you get that out of your own press cuttings?"
Sirius stood up so fast he knocked his chair over. It wasn't a spindly table chair; it was an arm chair, with a heavy, wooden frame and a great deal of stuffing.
"Gentlemen!" Albus' voice had lost all its indulgence. "Severus, not another word. Sirius—with me. I will speak with you alone."
He stood and walked over to a door partially secluded behind the bookshelf. Sirius strode after him, spearing Snape with a look of such loathing it was as good as a spoken threat. Snape watched him go, unflinching, that peculiar satisfaction lingering in the bones of his face.
The door clicked shut behind them. Not a sound fluttered against the silence. The door was probably sealed with a permanent Silencing Charm.
Remus glanced back at Snape, who had picked up his discarded square of toast and was methodically mangling it once more.
"I'd never heard of the Dark Mark," Remus said. "I mean, not on. . . arms."
"Of course you hadn't, idiot. It was meant to be a secret. They faded when the Dark Lord disappeared."
Only his followers called him the Dark Lord, Remus remembered Snape saying in the forest that night with Peter. And they would never have dared call him by his name.
"So there was no tracking any of them after his fall," Remus said slowly. "But why didn't we know this during the war?"
"Only a select few were Marked. Think, Lupin. If that knowledge were made common among you lot—"
"It would have jeopardized your position. I see." He tried his hardest not to stare at Snape's arm. His sleeve had slipped down again anyway.
"Lucius Malfoy's looks exactly like yours?" Remus asked.
"Yes." The toast was now little more than one inch square, and Snape was still tearing strips off of it.
"Does he have any idea who—"
"No. He was prepared to swear it was none of the fools who caroused with him, but I think I've convinced him not to be a complete cretin. Narcissa is prepared to use her talents of. . . information extraction to find out what she can."
"Narcissa?"
"You don't know much about pure-blood women, do you? She's skilled at blackmail and extortion."
"I can see how much I've been missing all these years, being ostracized from polite society. . . Is she motivated?"
Snape's expression was rather cloaked. "She has a son in whom the Dark Lord would have a vested interest—if only for his own extortion."
"But that could cut both ways, couldn't it?"
"The Dark Lord has always used his followers almost as ill as his opponents." Snape's voice was dismissive, but again, his face looked otherwise. "Narcissa is clever enough to have noticed."
Remus was silent for a few moments, mulling over this unlikely helpfulness of the Malfoys, however self-preserving it would be. "Do you think they're likely to turn anything up?"
"No." Snape had finally torn the toast into so miniscule a fragment he had to give up on it. "Anyone remaining out of prison would be playing a deep, double game. I'd have said it was Pettigrew if it hadn't been done with Miss Potter's wand."
"Meaning it had to be someone in the Top Box—probably acting opportunistically."
"Yes."
"The Malfoys were there," Remus pointed out.
"There'd be no need for them to play-act being frightened," Snape said, with the contempt for which he was so renowned. "On the contrary, they'd be much more likely to have sent for me tonight to gloat if they were the fools responsible for it."
Remus sighed, rubbing his forehead. "I have the feeling we're missing something really obvious."
Snape didn't reply. He did, however, scowl at the door behind which Albus and Sirius had disappeared. "I don't have all night to wait for Black to vent his damned spleen. Tell the Headmaster I've gone home. If he can ever tear himself away from Black's scintillating tirade, he can send me a note."
"Sirius is just worried about Harriet," Remus said, and then felt rather stupid for trying to put Sirius' hatred in a less prejudiced light.
For the first time, Snape's face showed a flash of fury. "Yes," he bared his teeth, "I'm sure he got very adept at that in prison. Maybe one day his godfatherly ambition will venture past revenge and assault and move on to something a young woman can actually benefit from."
And with that high-minded parting shot, he left, slamming the door behind him. Remus was left to dwell on the fact that although Snape was perfectly right, he was also a perfect ass.
"Is it better to be nasty and right," he murmured ironically to himself, "or pleasant, well-meaning and wrong?"
When Albus returned a few moments later with a simmering Sirius in tow, Remus couldn't help wondering if Albus had known when Snape finally left.
Sirius stalked straight past the breakfast table and out the door, thudding it shut behind him not much more carefully than Snape had. He didn't look at Remus, or at Albus, as he left.
"I suppose that's my cue to say good-morning and thanks for the breakfast," Remus said to Albus.
"It was my pleasure. Even you couldn't manage to out-eat our larders." He smiled as he shook Remus' hand. "How are you faring at the croft?"
"Exceedingly well. Thank you for letting us put up there. It sets his mind a little at rest to be nearer Harriet, I think."
"How is he doing?"
"As well as can be expected," Remus said calmly.
Albus' light blue gaze pierced an X-ray. It held that strength for a moment longer than a simple confirmation, and then dissipated until it was nothing more than a friendly, commiserating smile.
"'Give it time,'" he said. "I found myself saying that over and over last spring, when Harriet and Severus were ill. I find I must say it again now. Give him time. Sometimes, that is all we can do."
Remus nodded; Albus touched his shoulder in farewell.
How much time, Remus wondered as he rode the spiraling staircase downward, would twelve years of misery and despair take to heal?
The sky hung heavy and dark overhead, with the faintest touch of lightness on the horizon, glinting behind the forest, and Padfoot was pacing in front of the gates when Remus caught up with him. The wards had apparently been waiting to let them both out, for the air shimmered obligingly, and in a few moments he and Padfoot were on the Hogsmeade-Hogwarts road again.
They walked in silence through the dawn twilight toward the Apparition point. Sunrise wasn't far off, now, though the light was still ghostly pale. Padfoot stayed with Remus until they started wading through the trees to the little clearing within squinting distance of the road, and then he transformed into a man, as if he couldn't stand the silence anymore.
"Do you think I'm a bad godfather?" he asked.
Remus glanced at him. Sirius had never been subtle. Unlike the Malfoys, his expressions didn't freeze a mile below the surface. The Blacks had always been volatile and contentious, their emotions and psychoses so close to the front of their thoughts, they could burn you if you weren't careful. Right now, Sirius' face said his heart held a mixture of the anxious, sullen, and wounded.
"I think you love Harriet very much," Remus said after a moment.
Sirius seemed to frown with his whole body. "That's not what I asked."
Remus shrugged. "It's the only truth I can give you. You do love Harriet. As to the rest, I think we're both on a steep learning curve."
Sirius snorted. "Since day one."
Remus felt an inappropriate stirring of mischief. "At least I never dropped her."
"It was only once," Sirius said indignantly. "And only onto the bed. And you swore never to speak of it, Moony."
"I doubt anyone's around to hear us."
"I wouldn't put it past Lily's spirit to come after me from the grave." He fell silent again as they scaled a fallen tree so tall that they couldn't climb over it without using the remaining branches like a stepladder.
"I love her like she was my own," he said as he dropped to the grass on the tree's other side. "My own blood, I mean."
"I know." Remus wondered how different their lives would have been if James had felt for Sirius the way Sirius felt for him. With a pretense of mock gravity, he added, "It's a good change from the sulking."
"Oh, shut up," Sirius said (sulkily). "How was I to know?"
"It's true, nobody could have predicted what a soppy godfather you'd be. Particularly considering how churlish you were all through the pregnancy."
"And the honeymoon, and the wedding, and the dating," Sirius said, in the voice of one who's been ribbed about this a million times. "All right, then, Moony, you've made your bloody point."
"You moped from the first time she stopped smashing her dessert in his face whenever he asked her out until graduation," Remus went on, ignoring this heartfelt, if mulish, plea. "And then, they had the gall to get engaged and it set you off again. Poor dear, you didn't even have time to recover from the wedding before they were expecting the baby—"
"Oh, shut up," Sirius repeated. "I'm over it now. I'm so far over it, it's a dot to me." Then he gave Remus a pointed look. "Glad to see some of that's wearing off on you."
"What are we talking about now? The that or the it?"
"You being all weird about Holly-berry," Sirius said patiently. "Acting like you're afraid of giving her werewolf cooties." He rolled his eyes. "It was the same when me and James found out about your furry little problem, don't think I've forgotten. You always come over thinking people are only being polite when they say they don't give a flaming damn you're a werewolf. Every time Holly-berry gave you a hug, you'd give her this ginger little pat, like you were afraid of exploding her. Yeah, I noticed. Glad to see you got over it."
It was Remus' turn to be silent as they walked. It was true, but. . .
"I kept telling myself she was with you, and Snape, and she'd be fine," he said quietly. "I even had myself convinced, I think—until she turned up. She wasn't even hurt, but I suddenly realized she could have been, and. . ."
Sirius made a satisfied noise. "It's about time, Moony." He clapped Remus on the shoulder, close to his neck, and then dragged his fingers up through Remus' hair, ruffling it. "You dreary old werewolf."
The Dark Mark does not appear to have been common knowledge before the first war, as Sirius didn't understand the significance of Karkaroff showing Snape his arm during GoF. Also, the way Snape explains the Mark to Cornelius Fudge makes me wonder if anyone knew about it at all (however little sense that seems to make).
