PREVIOUSLY
The Minister continued drawing symbols on his head in his own blood, finally finishing, "May you follow your unified spirit at its season of Fire and Night."
The Egyptian returned his hands to Osiris' and when he took them away, his hands bled no more. Osiris lolled forward almost imperceptibly before the elder put his hands on his shoulders and lowered him to the sand, and turned him onto his back. Then he crossed the boy's arms over his chest.
There were not any cuts on Osiris' hands anymore either.
As Osiris lay on the sand completely unconscious, Amsu said, "I will stay with him, Ata." He sat down, cross-legged, in the sand by Osiris' head.
The older man nodded, but it was as if more was said between them that was unsaid.
Chapter 43 - Xeper Neteru Se'Nextu
"You are very skilled at controlling yourself." The minister addressed the professor when he finally exited the circle. "Such Protections are not possible if all is not as it should be, so we are glad that you were able to have this experience."
"I have never seen blood magic like that before."
The minister smiled some, "Our magic is all blood magic to some degree, but we do not call it that. It is not entirely analogous to blood magic of your world. We do not hold such classifications. 'Dark magic is dark because it is alive. Blood magic is alive, therefore it must be Dark.' We have little use for those distinctions. What you feel here in my home is that, simple and most basic type of bonding, and it brings you peace, quiets the worst pieces within you. As you can see, blood rituals are not by nature evil. Blood is life. We do not use magic as your wizards do."
"I do not take issue with blood magic or rituals," Severus replied.
His concern was hard to put a finger on in the peace of this place, but he did continue to feel that protectiveness over his apprentice. Simply without the sensation of vigilance, which was mentally concerning, for he did not feel unsettled either. This place was very full of magic. These people were very full of magic. He added, "That is not how Osiris responded to blood before."
The other man nodded, "Because you did not know what he needed and nor did he. Ausar thought he wished to attack you for it, but what he needed was this healing, not physical blood; he has been harboring this illness for a time. If you remove a piece of the body, it does not work properly; to be removed from this type of magic and placed under such great loads of magical stress, his everything shut down. For lack of better explanation, his magic knew he needed our blood magic to heal him. It knew you had it.
"It's like being dehydrated. I am the water. Amsu is the water. Any of us. You. It only has to magically be freely given." He added, "What I have done today is a different sort of protection. But healing or protection as its most basic is not so very complex. That small amount from you that was an accident was enough to make a connection neither of you understood. It scared him though it healed him. It did not need to frighten."
"Anyone that has some Egyptian blood, no matter how little, because it is very little…?"
"Can heal with it? Yes." Then the minister added, "Can sense it to heal them, no. You would not be able to sense it as he does. But you can heal each other with it, yes, to a degree. Without any ritual."
That was not typical blood magic. Not that any blood magic was typical to most wizards. Unless it was dragon blood in a potion, most wizards found blood an unacceptable magical entity. Dark. Always.
"It is very old, before magic was called magic, Severus," the Minister said without him asking the question. "Did not my daughter explain it is more like the protection of love that you are familiar with – it must be a sacrifice freely given – but even that is not the same sort of magic. Just most similar than other magic you are familiar with."
"If it is a sacrifice then it weakens you to do so?"
"Yes and no. For me or for one of our High Priests of Priestesses, not measurably in most instances of application. For you…with him…some, but there exists magical bonds between you that prevent immense dangers." He gave him a meaningful look, "Unless one of you wished to move beyond that point. Or if you both did. That…is complicated."
Severus' dark eyes moved to one of the date palms as it swished in the wind, wondering if that was also how Osiris had been successful with healing him that night when he had come back mostly dead with the Dark Lord's ultimatum.
"Yes," came the response to the question he had not asked.
"How is it that you do that?" he asked, sharply, finally bothered by it enough to penetrate the sedate magical aura of the place.
"How is it that you do it?" the Egyptian replied, raising a brow. "You have done it with Ausar. Neither of you even knows what you are doing and you do it." He chuckled. "With some training it is no different than any way of communication. You are very young too. I do not mean to smile so very much and nor do I mean to patronize you." He stopped walked and said, "My daughter told you that you are closed, you are, and we feel you like a disturbance which is the same way we could all feel that Ausar was ill. You cannot close your mind to this. It is inside you already. You've framed your own abilities among the new world magic, but it is not constrained by that."
"Precisely how old are you?" he could not stop himself from asking, tired of being called young, by both this man AND his daughter, who did not appear much older than him.
"Very, very old," the man replied, giving him something as strangely audacious as a wink. "Amsu is not my oldest child from here, and he is more than one of your centuries."
"Oldest child from here?" Something about the way he said it made it clear he was not thinking here as in Egypt.
Never mind that the man he had met earlier also did not look much older than Severus himself. If Amsu was more than double his age, these people did not age like normal wizards either.
"And you do not like being called very young but ask that question? I know that you know of Ausar's circumstances as explained through his very basic level of possible understanding. And I know that you know that there are some magical beings that are human that do not make their presence known to others, like Druids. We let our presence be known, but we do not let those outside of our blood know our truth; our magic ensures that on its own. It is why I do not touch any outsiders, as you astutely noted, save rare occasions."
"And why you do not intervene in the outside world?"
"Precisely." Then he added, "Your world is very little different from the Muggle world to us. Your world is young. Their world is young."
"But you watch?"
"All, and more closely than you can fathom." He wet his lips, "But, this is not about us. It should not be. We, here, exist em hotep nefer weret. In very great peace. It is of the boy and you that we should speak more. I merely wish you to know what you need in order to protect yourself and the boy and to not fear us and these things which are strange to you. I answer your questions so you know that they are not strange, but you truly do not have enough understanding to begin to grasp more."
"You spoke to me differently before."
"Sometimes people speak to the young harshly to very great effect. There is nothing you must make up for but that you make it so. Our now is our only window with which to look at either the past or the future, and our now changes both," He smiled, "That sounds much less profound in English."
"My now needs to change, you are saying?" Nebthet had said similarly.
"Your now needs to change. Yes. Very good. The point transfers in English, thankfully."
As they walked along the lines of date palms, sycamores, incense burners, and water features, Severus thought about that idea. His now needed to change and would change both the past and the future. His now seemed far too bound to circumstances beyond his control to alter, even his mentality of looking at the past and closing off – which, he understood, was more the point. That was how he survived.
The Egyptian seemed to sense his reservation, or maybe even hear it. "Your own concern for the boy is a fear for you. That you care so much, you fear is a danger to you both. You realize that notion, being afraid of the bond you feel with the boy, is silly?" The knowledgeable smile was nothing like Dumbledore's faux grandfatherly one. "It is a source of very great strength."
"You rebuke me for telling the boy that being afraid of his powers is beneath him when I am afraid of the bond that is felt between us, of letting him…close to me…to know me." he found himself saying.
The minister smiled at him. "What do you fear by caring for him? That the Dark Lord shall see? You have hidden greater things than caring for a child. That it will make it harder to die or to watch him die? Death with emptiness sounds better to you?"
"It had not mattered. Before." It had not mattered how he died. Now that fate was too wound into Osiris' for it to not matter at all.
The Egyptian shrugged, "So, you will have to be stronger. So, he will have to be stronger. Fear only delays the act of being stronger. Do not ask a boy to do what you cannot do and have not done. You might not be afraid of your power, but you deny it nonetheless, in your way of closing off. You taunt a seventeen-year-old who has no guidance on what is happening to him, telling him to listen to his powers?"
The Minister chuckled, "You do realize you told him to listen to his powers when he thought his powers were telling him to attack and exsanguinate you in a way analogous to some Dark creature? And you insinuated it was bonkers for him to be afraid of that? Without being able to promise him he is truly quite normal?"
Put that way, it did sound rather impossible and unfair. Now that they both knew it was quite normal, though…he still had been correct. But from Osiris' perspective and the outside perspective of his own failures to answer the magical call, it was hypocritical at the time, he supposed.
The professor said, "Now he should not have the same difficultly, knowing that what he is experiencing is very normal for you?"
"For us. You are self-excluding in your own way. Then, also, you should not have the same difficulty you had previously, then, with acknowledging what you feel between you? If you expect him not have issue at all with his own difficulties. It is a journey, not an instant completion. The young need to practice. And not give up when they fail. You must help him with that."
Severus understood that he was included in the young. "He is the first person I have allowed near me in a very long time. He does know me more than anyone."
"And yet very, very little. You do not know you as you are today. Practice. Speak to him honestly. Let him feel the warmth you feel for him so deep within you. That is the only thing inside you that is familiar to us, and it will be familiar to him. Everything else that you carry around with you, you must learn to leave it behind, it is not good for either of you. He has already helped you, and he will help you more, but only as you do him."
"Because it is a sacrifice, freely given?"
"You are a very quick study. That Mark alters you very greatly. It is a predisposition and now the call of that is blocked. It is a freedom different than freedom of action."
"It is assuredly different." Now, in the absence, it was like an afterimage experience. As if things had been too much saturated to the darker side of things, now that it was removed, the opposite was more salient. He did not feel that deep, painful pressure held inside.
"The magic of that Mark cannot exist with certain other types of magic very well, that you are able to hold any is only because you are different, you are us, as Nebthet says, it does not matter how little. Ausar's magic blocked his like it was a bodily invader. Yet you wonder at how easily I blocked yours? That your magic had already blocked some is quite a beautiful thing, you understand. You should not be able to make a Patronus. Your magic even knows about you that which you refuse to accept in your mind. That disconnect cannot continue to exist if you wish to be as powerful as you can be."
Albus had said something similar about his ability to make a Patronus. That sort of light magic could not be done by someone unworthy of it.
The Minister found it very difficult to attempt to say in English. "Nature is in all things, governs all things. What you sow, you reap. What you give, you get. No energy destroyed, only borrowed or manipulated when used by one. When you and those around you are in balance, you give freely, all become greater. As all magic, it is greater than the sum of its parts. You are not in balance and you do not give freely, that produces a limitation. I cannot teach you. There is not a learning, there is a becoming."
It was very difficult to teach those who did not spent their childhood as part of it. There were always some who came back as 'adults,' but it was never as easy or natural.
"How I have played this part is very ingrained, but I will do as you ask for him. I can see that it helps. He has made a great sacrifice for me." He owed it to Osiris to try. Or to practice, as the Egyptian said.
"He fears what he does not know. He knows Death. He knows what pain is. He has been to the point where one is so bad, he wishes for the other. What he knows he can no longer fear, because he has survived it once already
"There are fears he is not telling you. He thinks he might no longer be himself if he allows this to happen. Until he faces it, he cannot know his name, and if he cannot know his name, he will remain somewhat alone. He has only you and what magic I can leave to protect him, which is enough for now, but it will only last so long. At most I shall only be able to do so once more before it becomes enabling. We do not believe in that, but we are patient with children. It will be up to you, Severus; he trusts you."
"How can I help him toward something I do not truly understand?"
"But you do understand what is happening to him. His magic is maturing. It matters little in what way, and it is like yours even if you do not know it. Sometimes children need a push, sometimes they need a shove, sometimes they need someone to put a hand on their shoulder and tell them it will be okay. If you think a seventeen-year-old is going to ask you for that, it is the very opposite. But he will feel it from you if you try. Ausar's magic has…chosen you." Yet something else that did not work well in English. "You must rise to it. If you do not know what to say, just tell him Xeper neteru, Ausar. Se'nextu*."
"Which means?"
"It is our Way. He will know what it means. That is all that matters. As I told you, it is a becoming, not a learning. I cannot teach you. He can."
AN - * Xeper neteru, Ausar. Se'nextu* Remember this, because you all will find out what it means when Snape does! I know some of this might seem a bit out of left field, but it will all come together before the end :D
Remember, they are both deeply impacted by the magic of the place and the people which is the reason why we see changes in character in response to it. Altered states alter what things and traits tend to come out of people. In my views, when everything else is removed, we see the more positive character traits come out that rarely have opportunity to come out because of his role as a spy. Everything else removed, all obligations and roles aside, he's reflective and intelligent; he might a fierce protector, but his nature is not adversarial. As Snape says, it's like an afterimage, after being bathed with one thing for so long, the opposite seems very saturated.
Also, I promise we will be back to Osiris and Snape in the next chapter! I do have it mostly written, so if y'all throw some reviews my way, I will post it all the faster for your quarantined viewing pleasure!
