Published 13th of October, 2020
Author's notes:
I would like to answer Alutek's review concerning classification of this story as COMPLETED, yet you cannot read everything on one shoot:
The reason why I considered the story as Completed is because in polish language it is completed. I'm just translating in into English now. To show that the translation is not finished yet, I added "Translation In progress" in the story name, however I considered it as Completed for a purpose:
First – it took me one year to write it. So when I published the chapters in polish, people had to wait weeks to read next part. Now it takes one or two days to translate it (this is also why at the beginning of each chapter I write the date of publishing – to show you that I'm doing that "right now".)
Second – the most important - the story IS completed. There is no risk that I simply abandon it in the middle. I remember, I went crazy when I started to read something, I waited for next chapters, waited… and then I realized that the author just abandoned it. So here it won't be the case. I translate each day part by part (maybe today I will post next chapter). Between us, there is also Part II, also finished in Polish and I will soon start Part III :)
So yes, I know that you have to wait for next chapters and it can be frustrating but please be patient :) Soon all this Part I will be finished and I will be able to jump on Part II.
By the way, if there is somebody willing to help me with translation and correct errors, I will be more then happy!
Have a nice reading ;)
Anni
Grimmauld Place number 12
6 p.m.
Ginny was just finishing early dinner when green flames exploded on the kitchen fireplace and Hermione's head appeared.
„Hermione !" The red-haired girl shouted, even before her friend could speak. "Come on in! You have no idea how happy I am!"
She nearly flew off the table and jumped at Hermione.
"How do you do?! Fine?" Hermione returned a weak hug but didn't answer, so Ginny looked up at her in surprise.
"Ginny, I need to talk to Harry," Hermione said seriously.
Harry came down to the kitchen a few minutes later, hugged the girl tightly, and sat down heavily on the other side of the table. Ginny settled down next to him.
„What happened?" He asked and summoned three bottles of butterbeer. "Do you want?"
He slowly opened the first one and pushed it towards Hermione, but Hermione waved her hand and bit her lips nervously.
"Harry, I need your help. I mean, not me… at least not only" she began chaotically and took a deep breath, trying to calm down. And focus, because so far she hadn't even thought about how Harry can really help her.
"Can you check if Snape was interrogated at the Ministry this morning?"
Harry glowered at his friend and began pouring beer for Ginny and himself.
"Snape? What are you interested in Snape?"
"Yes, Snape," Hermione sighed heavily. "Please don't ask for details because ... I can't speak. I need to know if he was at the Ministry this morning and what time he left. Can you find out?"
The boy shrugged and offered Ginny a mug.
"Sure I can find out. One of the boys at Headquarters will know for sure."
"Find out. As soon as possible."
Harry poured himself the rest of his beer and nodded.
"I will check. Do you need it for your inspection?"
Hermione thought the idea was pretty good.
"Yes," she confirmed, and decided to occupy her friend into something else, just in case. "How about you? Because you look ... like something has gone wrong."
Ginny gave her friend a strange look and was about to say something when Harry spoke up.
"Griselda Marchbanks is dead," he said in a heavy voice.
The redhead immediately lost interest in the sudden change of subject and put her arm around Harry.
„Griselda ...? Marchbanks?" Hermione sent her friend a questioning look.
"The one that was on the Examination Board," Ginny explained immediately. "What happened?"
„Oh, nothing. She was very old, I think she must have been a hundred and fifty ... But since I became an Auror, we saw each other often and ... we became friends. She was like a good grandmother to me" he confessed in a choked voice as he buried his face in Ginny's hair.
Hermione hung her head. At that moment, she felt as if the sun would never raise again.
Wednesday, May 7th
Auror Headquarters
Around eight in the morning
Headquarters was still empty when Harry got to work at twenty to eight.
He'd come to work earlier quite often, even before seven, so that he could go over all evening aeroplanes, plan the day, finish the tedious reports, or just read the next few pages of the Auror Guide - the awfully thick book Ginny had given him for Christmas.
But today he showed up before the others because he wanted to check on Snape.
Yesterday he thought it would be easiest to just ask Paul and Roger, possibly others, but then it occurred to him that he would need to explain his curiosity somehow. Harry Potter inquiring about Snape? He would have to think of a reason, because he couldn't have implicitly involved Hermione in this.
So instead of going out to make some coffee, he walked over to the shelf where there were plastic cups with initials of everybody on it.
They were full of aeroplanes with folded wings and parchment rolls with non-confidential messages that arrived during their absence, lists of equipment to order or pick up from the Warehouse, information about personnel changes at the Ministry, or items lost by the owners. He himself had recently lost his scarf somewhere, and two days later he found it rolled up in a ball at the bottom of the cup. Rumor had it that some received love letters this way from time to time.
Harry ostentatiously set his bag on the table, but instead of reaching for his cup, he climbed on his toes and began to browse the contents of Gawain Robards's cup.
At the end of each day, one of the partners would always prepare for him a short report of the more important things that had happened throughout the day. Harry knew there would be nothing confidential in this report of course, but he hoped to find even a brief mention of Snape. Some of the rolls were stuck upside down and he couldn't see the initials of the team, so gritting his teeth, he glanced briefly at the door that was still locked, pulled it out and hurriedly pushed it into place.
PB RW ... PB RW ... where the hell are you ...!
He found them three seconds later. The door was still locked, so he set his own cup down and, turning his back to the door, opened the Paul and Roger's report quickly and recognized Roger's handwriting. He scanned a few lines.
"... Belfast the body of an unidentified woman, possibly a Muggle ..., ... Obliviators Team sent so far ..., ... a cloak to the Research Office ..." – he whispered. "Wallet containing...", I don't care about the wallet ...!"
He read till the end and found nothing about Snape, so he quickly put the report in his cup, grabbed his own and walked calmly to his desk.
As far as he could remember, Hermione hadn't said that he WAS, but asked IF he was there. Well, apparently he was not.
In the mug, he found a reminder of the fitting-out of new robes this afternoon and a reminder from the ministerial library.
Of course he didn't have the rune book he had borrowed when he was working on the puzzling inscriptions appearing on the walls of the houses in Diagon Alley, but it reminded him that he should have returned a report on that case to the Archives.
As he entered a large room full of rows of shelves with thousands of documents, he was immediately enveloped in the musty air, filled with the scent of old parchment, book glue, and leather.
At the sound of the door closing, Liz, the old archivist, peeked out from behind one of the shelves and gave him a gloomy look before he spoke. As always.
"Good morning, Liz," Harry called.
"Good maybe for you but certainly not for everybody," replied the witch harshly, adjusting her enormous glasses. "What do you have there?"
Harry waved the set of pages.
"Report on the last case. Attached and labelled as prescribed an inch from the upper left corner," he added, trying to be nice, though he always fumed at the ridiculous requirement. The report went to the archives! So who cared if the documents were attached an inch or two from the edge?
"Don't pull the wool over my eyes," Liz replied immediately. "Come here and put it down!"
Shall I ENTER?
Surprised, Harry walked over to the other side of the high gate, behind which only the archivists were allowed, and approached Liz.
"Put it in that pile on the left!"
Harry glanced at the enormous pile of parchment and another, slightly smaller pile next to it.
"Merlin, these are all returned rapports?!"
"Does that surprise you? You bring it, two days later you want it back, apparently it doesn't matter, but you have to be pushed to return this bloody report ... Come on, get down and get out of here."
Harry walked over to the pile of papers and at the same time Liz disappeared somewhere between the shelves. The boy was about to put the document back to the top when he noticed that the previous one was not attached at all. He wondered who dared to do it and glanced at the headline and took a deep breath.
Judgement
On behalf of Ministry of Magic
Azkaban, May 6,2003
Mode of trial: simplified, secret
According to Order from August, 8 1985 year of Trial modes, ob. 5.1 with last chgs.
Wizengamot Decision in case of:
Severus Snape against Ministry of Magic
No. A-K 3.
ﬗ
The Wizengamot represented by Griselda Marchbanks at the accelerated trial:
- In case of attempted and mass murder of non-magical persons found the accused guilty of committing the alleged act
- In case of giving false testimony to the Aurors in person of Paul Bryant and Roger White found the accused guilty of committing the alleged act
- In case of
At that moment he heard Liz return, so he quickly tossed his report on top and stepped back. In the last second.
"Oh but you're dawdling," gasped the witch with displeasure and adjusted the glasses that were sliding down her nose. "Get out, now!"
The boy forced a smile and look in the opposite direction of Wizengamot sentence.
"I'm gone!"
He slowly walked over to the other side of the gate and waved goodbye to Liz.
He didn't care about goodbye. He just wanted to see what Liz would do. She reached for the documents from the right pile and hurried him away with a jerk of her head, so he left just as slowly and only behind the door, leaned his back against the wall.
"Holy shit ... May 6th ...? But this was ..."
He already knew that he would have to go back and examine the sentence again.
The sixth of May was yesterday. On the morning of May 6, he saw Griselda at the Ministry just before the old woman went home for dinner. About an hour later her granddaughter found her dead on the couch in the living room. And Griselda didn't tell him anything...
Storeroom of the pub "At Grandma Cirke", Diagon Alley
11:00 am
There was really no room for more than two people in the small storeroom at the back of the most popular pub in Diagon Alley. The shelves were set too close together, each of them heave from piled up sacks, jars, cans and bottles, and walking between them, one had to be careful not to drop anything. Which, judging by the stains on the floor and the squeaking of mouses, must have happened often.
A broad-shouldered red-haired young man with a stuffed bag stepped inside, and immediately crystal bubbles under the ceiling came to life; candles lit inside of them and they flowed slowly in all directions.
The boy blocked the door, stepped between the shelves, and quickly found bottles of concentrated self-mixing chocolate and dozens of Ogden's Fire Whiskey barrels.
He set the bag down rolled the first barrel from under the wall, tapped the lid with his wand and whispered a spell. For a moment nothing happened, then with a soft pop, the lid popped open.
The boy pulled on the dragon-leather gloves, took a large glass bottle from the bag, carefully pulled out the cork and replaced it with a transparent ball on a long thread, hollow inside, with a spout sticking out from the bottom. As he turned the bottle upside down and the glass ball filled with colorless liquid, he lowered it low over the barrel, tilted it back, and a thin trickle of measured liquid dripped out of the spout and the rest returned to the bottle.
The boy repeated it three more times, closed the barrel and did the same with three others. Then he poured the colorless liquid into a few bottles of chocolate. Finally, he arranged everything as it had been before his arrival, made sure he hadn't left any traces, and walked out into a small, empty street. Glancing at his watch, he realized that he had at least half an hour before the polyjuice would stop working. He could afford to enter the pub and have the last safe glass of good whiskey.
Grimmauld Place 12
Midday
Harry didn't have time to brush off his robes when green flames burst into the fireplace behind him and Hermione jumped out.
Yesterday she was just very stressed but today she was simply out of her mind. Crazy.
"Harry!" She called, almost falling over. "And?! You know what's going on ?!"
Harry nodded.
"Snape had a trial, not in the Ministry, but in Azkaban."
The girl froze with her mouth open. She just didn't understand what Harry was saying to her.
„W-what did he have?" She gasped, stunned. „Where ...?"
"Right in Azkaban," Harry repeated. „This is a unique mode that ..."
"TRIA ... TRIAL ... ?"
Harry looked at Hermione's suddenly pale and remembered that indeed Hermione had asked for an interrogation yesterday, not a trial.
„I read that ..."
"Oh my God ..." Hermione gasped, not listening him at all. "Harry ... it must be some mistake ...! TRIAL ?!"
„Hermione ..."
„... But he was a witness! He just had to give evidence! It is impossible!"
"I saw the sentence of the Wizengamot ..." Harry objected, confused. "Snape was an accused, not a witness."
Hermione stiffened at the first words.
"And what...?!" She asked in a tense voice. "What did they decide ...?"
Her heart froze as she waited for an answer. The whole world froze.
"Guilty," Harry's words pushed the air out of her lungs. "Found him guilty of the mass murder of Muggles."
"Oh Jesus Chris..."
She felt as if she had suddenly crushed against a wall. Or as if someone had suddenly cut her wings and she couldn't fly any more.
It was absurd! After all, it was Snape who discovered Chase had been killed and tried to catch the murderer! And he was trying to save other people! And now he was going to be sentenced to Azkaban ...?!
Out of the question! You cannot allow it!
„He's innocent!"
"Hermione, listen to me, I don't think ..." Harry began a little helplessly.
„No, Harry! YOU listen to me! Snape is not a murderer! This is some terrible mistake!"
"It must be true," Harry squeezed her arm gently. „I saw the official sentence."
„Bugger the sentence !" Hermione jerked away. "It is he who found the poison! And he found the ingredients to make the antidote! I saw it, do you understand ?! I brewed them myself! I don't know who the killer is, but it's not Snape for sure !"
Her scream echoed long time in the large kitchen before Harry sat down slowly on the coffee table.
"I guess it'll be better if you tell me everything from the beginning," he said very seriously.
.,.,.,.
"... and he wrote me on the galleon"DONE". And that was the last time we had contact with each other," Hermione finished explaining and sighed heavily.
Harry unconsciously pushed his hair back and stared at the surface of the wooden table.
At first he was too stunned to focus, both because it was about Snape and because the story was simply shocking, but quite quickly his instincts for Auror awoke within him and, as Hermione was explaining, he began analyze various facts. And try to connect them with what he already knew from the brief conversations with Paul and Roger and the rumors at the Headquarters. And with the sentence he saw in the Archives today.
"And you're saying that this chocolate spot was exactly the same as the one Snape found the day after Griffin's murder?" He asked, frowning.
The girl began to swing her leg nervously under the table.
„I made it myself, mixing chocolate from home with poison. Which, by the way, I brewed myself."
Harry sighed heavily.
"I remember Paul telling me that in the little chocolate they found then at Powell's, nothing could be found. Since the investigation was closed after that, it means that there was nothing in it. And now, in the same spot, they found something that allowed someone to be sentenced to Azkaban ...?"
Hermione shifted impatiently on the bench. It took an awful long time to tell it all, and she didn't want to explain it again. She felt that they were just wasting their time. First of all, it was necessary to free Snape! Maybe he knew what happened? She wanted to jump out of here and do something, not sit still!
"Harry, I swear it was exactly the same spot! I don't know why in the first one they didn't find a bloodroot, or bundimun secretions or octopus powder!" She shrugged. „What we do? We have to get him out of there!" She added urgently.
Harry couldn't really tell what it was all about and who was right, but what he already saw in this mess was very disquieting.
„Shit. I wish we knew what Powell might have told them on Monday."
The rhythmic tapping of a foot against the table leg stopped, as did Hermione.
"... You think he split on Snape ...? That ... it is he ...?"
Harry shook his head. He didn't want to argue with Hermione right now. ASSUMING Snape is innocent ...
"No. I do not think so."
Hermione let out a relieved sigh.
"Thank God!"
"I'll say that," Harry said in a very strange voice. "I'm afraid it's not Powell."
"Afraid-are you afraid ...?" Hermione didn't understand.
"Hermione, there was no way Powell could get the Wizengamot in two or three hours to hold an accelerated, secret trial and sentence him to Azkaban."
„Why in a few hours?"
„Because the judgement was issued by Griselda Marchbanks. Who died just before noon yesterday."
They both stared at each other for a moment, then Hermione heard herself:
"Harry, how did Griselda die?"
North Sea, Azkaban
Timeless
The soft murmur of water running down the wall was generally the only sound that reached the cell. Only rarely was it interrupted by an excruciating scream, groans or whimpering coming out of nowhere. All other sounds died on the surface, away from this city of the living dead.
In this silence, he could easily hear the fear that came silently and wrapped its arms around him. It was fear that made him shake all the time, even when his body was no longer able to do so. He was shaking so much that he bit his lip and the salty taste of blood was in his mouth for a long time. But he took it like a blessing; he was glad to be able to feel Time for a few moments. He could touch it and knew it existed, though it was just quickly cooling trickle down his chilled beard.
Everything around was plunged into dense darkness, but not because it was the time of the day. Simply the darkness in this land was always there and it was to remain that way. Merlin, please, as short as possible.
Day turned to night, but sleep did not come. And he wished it would come and put all of them to sleep and take them away. Further. To the other side of the curtain.
So he was in the middle of a emptiness, haunted by the Past.
And he did not know whether he preferred to weep, holding Lily's cooling body in his arms, to crouch in front of his father who beat him and his mother, howl, rolling on the ground under Cruciatus, twisting his mouth in a smile, having to kill the whole Muggle family in front of the Dark Lord whether to sit in front of the fireplace, look at the fire roaring on it and wonder whether not to point the wand to himself and say two words that would liberate him.
There were times when he tried to fight and think about the present, but it wasn't any better.
He wondered if Hermione Granger could cope with the coming nightmare. Because from now on she will be alone. Will she be able to brew more antidotes when Moonwater is available for purchase in a few months? And he was afraid that she will not be.
But there was nothing more he could do. He will be gone in a moment. He will only be a painful memory in her life that she will want to escape from.
And he drifted away as his maddened, aching mind plunged into other thoughts.
Who will come to meet him? He knew it wasn't Lily because he didn't deserve it. He betrayed her, failed and killed her. All his wasted life he had followed a different path, so different from hers that now he had no chance to meet her. Lily has gone to a world he was not allowed to enter.
There was no one else besides her he would like to meet for that one and last time.
He felt a burning sensation in blind eyes and tears streaming down his cheeks. Lily. He lost her forever. He couldn't even say goodbye to her. He lost not only his Life, but also Eternity.
He felt it coming before he heard it. A dull pain, vibrating somewhere in his chest, squeezing his throat, slowly turning into a hollow groan and lasting longer than he could bear.
Severus dug his curved fingers into his own chest and began scratched them through his soaked clothes as if trying to tear his soul out.
"Lily ... please! Lilyyyy ... !"
Only dead silence answered him.
Ministry of Magic
Auror Headquarters
Afternoon
"Go and book a place for me in the canteen, I'm done and I'm coming down to you," Paul called to his friends going to dinner. "If there is a cake with a hole, take one for me!"
"You'll have a hole today, and a cake tomorrow," Marcus chuckled.
"It's only one thing in his mind," said Peter, and grinned to the rest. "One hole in the house is not enough for you?"
Everyone laughed and left. Paul stared at the slightly swaying Auror badge someone had hung from a string on the doorknob, then, making sure he was alone, walked over to the old typewriter they were using when they couldn't wait for the secretary. He hastily selected a small roll of the official Wizengamot parchment, loaded it into the machine and, tapping it with his wand, tossed the Scribere and began to speak aloud the carefully prepared text. Finally, he made a sweeping signature and examined the document.
London, May 6, 2003
Judgement implementation in the case of:
Severus Snape against Ministry of Magic
No. A-K 3.
ﬗ
By Wizengamot's decision the Dementor's Kiss is to be executed on Friday, May 9, 2003 year.
Until the execution the prisoner is to remain in Prisoner's Cell.
On behalf of Wizengamot
Griselda Marchbanks
It could be. He would like to get rid of Snape today, but legally the sentence could not be executed at the earliest 3 days after the announcement. This could have served as an appeal, and if Paul had shortened the time it would have seemed suspicious.
The Auror smiled to himself. He didn't think anyone would be interested in Snape - before and after the execution. Yesterday he told Powell that it was Snape who had turned out to be the murderer, and suggested it would be in his best interest to keep the news to himself. If it was discovered that Powell's Potions Laboratory, the most famous potion maker, was hiring a murderer, Powell might forget not only the fifth Drop.
The old greedy immediately took the hint and decided to announce that on Monday Severus Snape had requested an early termination of employment.
Now, knowing Liz was at lunch, he intended to take the letter back to the Archives, and in the afternoon he would go to Azkaban to deliver the decision to the Dementors.