AN: It suddenly occured to me to share the spotify playlist I use to keep track of the songs I use in this story. So search for 'Strange as Angels' by clumbs 100 or follow the link below!
I do write a few chapters ahead of whatever I publish, so you might be able to garner some slight spoilers from the last 2 songs on the playlist for future chapters...
playlist/1V9ekYUkJ68wO5uOZH38SC?si=d3bea7aeef6b41cc
Chapter 59 - "We'll make you wish you'd stayed at home tonight."
"Tuesday 19th of June 1979
Mother gifted me my grandfather's Order of Merlin medal today. She looked me in the eye with a face that glowed with pride and admiration and I almost wept at her feet. She told me his medal had been given "in service" and that is what I was now doing: "serving" our kind by being in the ranks of The Dark Lord. A gifting that would have filled my soul to the brim mere months ago, but now scoops me out until I am nought but hollowness.
It should have been Sirius's, she told me. But since he has now "disgraced us", I am now her only son. The house is quiet without him here. You'd think mother would be calmer and more at peace, but she is not. She is manic. Unsettled. She has finally lost control of Sirius, leaving only me for her to mould like shapeless clay. I am what she wants. A son of the House of Black. Proud and pureblooded. "Toujours Pur". I am her life's work and the distillation of hundreds of years of indoctrinated thought.
I wonder if she would look at me in the same way if she knew what I had done? Would she look at me as if I were Helios himself if she'd seen the things I have enacted in The Dark Lord's name? The people I have tortured? The lives I have taken?
Or would she spew the same old rhetoric I have heard from her and the rest of my family since I was old enough to understand them? All the "blood-traitors", the "half-breeds", the "mudblood scum". To her, they are just slurs, names, faceless enemies. To me they are my nightmares. I was the last face they saw before their end, and now I am doomed to forever see them when I slumber…"
"Why did you stop?" Severus asked, looking up at Circe from his position at his desk.
"Because… it's hard." Circe muttered, cradling 'Icelandic Rune Magic' close to her aching chest. "I know what it's like to see the faces of the dead when you sleep…"
Severus lay a comforting hand on Circe's leg, sat on the end of his desk as she was.
"I never knew… I never even suspected that Regulus felt like this."
"Well… this is still early summer of '79. He won't be dead for another three or four months."
"If I'd have known… I would have taken him to The Order with me, Circe. He must have felt so alone. No way out."
Regulus had been clever, oh so clever with the hiding of his journal. Circe marvelled at it.
Icelandic Rune Magic! So dull, you fall asleep after reading a few pages of it. Circe thought with a scoff. But the real contents of the book changed a few chapters in and what looked like pages of transcripts from Icelandic rune stones were in fact hidden messages. Messages from the young Death Eater.
That's why it was shoved down the back of his desk. That's why he wanted to hide it.
But even then, only somebody with a highly developed knowledge of how to read runes would be able to translate his words. Even Dumbledore, having a good but not a specialist level of knowledge in runes, had only had his interest piqued when he'd seen his own name in some of the later passages…
"So, Which passage did Dumbledore spot his own name in?" Severus asked curiously.
"Oh, the next entry. Quite lucky really. He told me that he only really remembered how his name looked in runic and that's why it jumped out to him… It's what I teach all First Years to do in lesson one, Sev. How to write their name in runic... "
"So what does Regulus say of him?" he asked, eager to hear more from his fellow Slytherin.
"Well, this one is a bit later on in the summer… and I haven't managed to reach the end of this passage yet. But, this is what I've translated so far…
"Friday 13th July, 1979
My last day at Hogwarts was brought to an end with a whimper, not a bang.
For many years, I have watched the Seventh Years receive their Certificates of NEWTS from the Headmaster one by one as they mount the dais and shake hands with Dumbledore and I always thought of how ripe and ready they appeared for the world outside of Hogwarts. Like they were itching to become a part of the community as a whole, like tigers pacing at the walls of a cage just outside of the infinite jungle. When my brother left at the end of last year he was a personality too big for the castle's walls. They all were. All of his Marauders. Looking almost unnatural in their uniforms like an adult would appear unnatural dressed in a child's clothes. They were bursting at the seams with their ripening adultness. They had all, quite literally, outgrown school and at that final ceremony is when I would see all of that blooming youth and power and aching sense of freedom. It always, to me, looked like a time of barely-contained anticipation. A final shuddering holding of the breath before bursting free into the life beyond Hogwarts. But I must admit, in these pages if to no one else, that I am scared… terrified of the life that awaits me once I leave this school.
Kreacher… dear Kreacher, he made me a cake to celebrate my graduation when I finally arrived home. I did not have the heart to tell the poor thing that I was feeling sick to my stomach in fear of my laden and burdensome future. But the cake was at least three tiers high, and the poor thing had burnt his hands away to bandaged and blistered messes, toiling away at the oven as he had done. So I choked down a few bites of the nauseatingly sweet icing, all while he and mother looked on at me with faces of fervent admiration. Just for existing. For not being Sirius.
The next day I was summoned to The Dark Lord's side."
"...And that's where I got to." Circe muttered, closing the book delicately in her lap. Severus's face rippled with disappointment and she felt her stomach churn with embarrassment. "I really am doing my best to translate the passages as quickly as possible, but runic translation is slow and difficult work. And on more than a few occasions, I've found myself into a sentence or two of a seemingly identical-looking passage to one of Regulus's journal entries, and it turns out to be a ledger of a farmyard's animals, or a new law issued by a long-dead Jarl, a genuine runestone translation…" she sputtered out.
"I know, my love. I know..." Snape said apologetically. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to add more to your plate. You must be using every spare moment of the day as it is..."
"I will always have time for you, Sev." She responded with a small smile.
"Well, Dolores is keeping us all busy with her Inquisition squads and her demands for more and more of my potions. It's probably best we stay away from the "shag-palace" for a while. If you and I are caught together, who knows what she'll accuse Dumbledore of next. No, it's best if we lay low for a while, just in case she directs the ire of the "pink scare" onto us."
Circe nodded, only half-listening to what Severus had been saying. She had, of course, been keeping Severus away from the Room of Requirement and meeting him in his classrooms of recent so Harry and the DA could go on practising undetected. But Dolores was becoming even more desperate in her enquiries. But as Circe gazed down at the book, she placed a steady hand on the cover and sighed, as if she could feel Regulus's pain all these years later, seeping through the pages and swallowing up any thoughts she had about what was going on at Hogwarts now. The few entries she had managed to translate detailed the life of a boy pushed into extremism and dark magic by his overbearing family. Walburga sounded just as vile and vitriolic as she'd done screaming out of her portrait as on the pages of Regulus's journal. Full of pushing and poisonous words, expectations and bad-examples. Regulus had detailed quite a few occasions that his mother had told him stories of his great and gone Black family ancestors and cloying compliments about how well he fulfilled his "duties" compared to his wayward brother. No wonder the poor boy had felt drawn to the Dark Lord; Walburga had practically pushed him into their ranks. An awful mix of expectations, emotional blackmail and high-born etiquette.
"How did he die, Sev?" Circe asked quietly, tracing a finger over the page's words.
"I'm not entirely sure. I always just assumed Voldemort must have had him killed… or killed him himself."
"But… why? All those cuttings I saw in his room. He was absolutely enamoured with the Dark Lord. And these writings…" Circe said, raising the book up at Severus again. "...You'd almost be inclined to think it's a completely different person."
"I wonder how many of those clippings were cut by him though?" Severus wondered morosely. "I often heard about Walberga when Regulus and I would sit in the Slytherin common room together. She would often complain to him about Sirius. Consorting with the "blood-traitors" and "half-bloods", James and Remus, in Gryffindor. Walburga liked to weaponise anything she could to try and force compliance out of them. Regulus once said that she blamed her horrific migraines on Sirius's antics… said the stress he caused her would trigger them."
"And Regulus was always there to tend to his mother and bring her a soothing draft." Circe muttered miserably.
"Quite. It's not hard to see how one brother was weaponized against the other, is it."
"It's sad, Sev… So sad." Circe uttered, lovingly holding the book to her chest again.
She was feeling unusually attached to Regulus through her readings of the translations of his journal. Sirius seemed to have no idea that his brother harbored regrets and doubts about the life he had been pushed into and it seemed Sirius believed his own brother died a Death Eater through and through. Family relationships had been something of an emotionally stirring issue for Circe to hear about recently too...
"So, Dumbledore has asked you to translate the whole thing, has he?" Severus asked, trying to distract Circe from more morose thoughts.
Since the night of the obliviates, Circe had been understandably depressed. Sinking into long hours of sorrow, curled up in bed, weeping bitterly into Severus's arms when he crawled in beside her to give her solace. It seemed the latent stress of that night was physically affecting her body too; she would often wake up nauseous, sore and emotional. No better for having slept and still exhausted down to her bones. At first she'd been reluctant to let Severus see her grief given that he too had gone through a night of trials that same day with his own father, but Severus had reminded her that they were not in competition with each other. Neither of them deserved center stage to showcase their trauma moreso than the other. The news of Tobias's death, a few days after their return to Cokeworth, had cemented to Severus what he already knew: he would never mourn for him, he would not give Tobias one more single tear from his eyes for as long as he lived, and Severus was contented with that. Circe needed to weep, and she needed him to weep on and share in her grief. So he became her cornerstone. Her unfailing foundations.
She thought for a moment at Severus's question, chewing over the facts she knew. Severus watched as the grim veil of sadness that often covered her features was swiftly pulled away as her mind played with an erudite mystery.
"Well he obviously thinks Regulus has something to hide, seen as he went to such lengths to encrypt his journal and hide it from prying eyes."
Circe lay the book flat in her lap and started thumbing through page after page, turning them over one by one with a flick of her hand. "But it'll take me hours, days to go through every single entry of Regulus's. And my translation skills must not be that fantastic cause I can see a word that keeps popping up that I don't even slightly recognise…. or it doesn't translate into an English equivalent."
Severus leaned over her lap to peer at the word she was pointing at. True enough, Severus also saw it dotted about the same page, and again on the other.
"Do runes not translate into individual letters then?" He asked. He knew the answer, but nevertheless wanted to keep Circe's mind off thoughts that made her miserable.
"No. Otherwise I'd have the word translated in a matter of seconds. Sometimes they can be translated directly into sounds… but there are symbols in this word that even I've never seen.
"So, can you translate any part of the word?" Severus asked.
"Umm…. "Hoh" is this first symbol." Circe said, making a noise that sounded like she was retching. "And the last one is a sort of "Ux" sound. So, currently all I have is "Hoh something something Ux. And that sure as hell sounds like no English word I know."
Severus felt the blood drain from his face. He knew a word like that… Horcrux.
"But still… I've got a few leads I can pursue to try and find out. I've seen the name "Herpo the Foul" pop up a few times with this other word in some of the later entries. At least it keeps me busy, all this research."
Severus stood up from his desk slowly, feeling his legs shaking beneath him.
Horcrux. Regulus knew something about Horcruxes. Maybe Voldemort's Horcruxes… his mind raced. Dumbledore always expected there would be more than just the diary. There must be more if he was able to return last summer. But how many? Where? And Regulus knew…
Severus began nervously fidgeting with the buttons on his sleeve, his forehead pricking with sweat.
"Severus… are you alright?" Circe asked.
"Ahem…" came a small, polite cough from the entrance to Severus's classroom.
Circe leapt off the desk in surprise as Umbridge came trotting into the room, hands clasped primly before her.
"I do hope I'm not interrupting anything important, colleagues." She said sweetly.
"Just the standard dissent and revolution that's apparently going on at Hogwarts, Dolores…" Circe said rather sarcastically. "Oh and the planned usurpation to overturn Fudge and replace him with Dumbledore. That's what you told the Minister, isn't it?"
Umbridge's mouth formed into a thin pink line of rage. "Oh, my dear. You aren't still upset about your little spat in jail are you? You were released without charge within twelve hours, after all…"
"Sure, sure." Circe said derisively. "Got a hot meal, decent place to kip, made a friend, sang 'Kum Bay Yah' into the morning. Gwidyon has a lovely singing voice…"
"Professor Umbridge…" Severus stepped in, rolling his eyes and positioning himself squarely in front of Circe to block the fierce staring match that had been underway between her and Dolores. "Are you here, in my classrooms, for anything in particular?"
"Yes, actually. I was rather hoping that you had some more veritaserum lying about."
""Lying about"?" Severus echoed. "You are aware that it takes years to brew veritaserum. And you have already used up a substantial amount on your "interviews" with the students."
"Oh, I do apologise that your stocks have been depleted by my enquiries. But I believe that the Inquisition Squad may have finally brought me someone that would be worth… making their tongue a little looser." Umbridge purred. Her eyes narrowed into two small slits and Circe's body erupted into goosebumps. "Your donations to my enquiries will be noted to The Minister, should you choose to help me." Dolores finished in a patronising little squeak.
"Veritaserum? You're using veritaserum on students?" Circe asked, alarm in her voice.
"Oh a wonderful, bright girl who really should have nothing to fear if she has been behaving herself." Umbridge smiled at Circe as her piggy little eyes gleamed with cruel intentions. "One of your House, Professor Smith. Your Seeker, I believe. Cho Chang."
Circe went as pale as Severus, her knees knocking together as Umbridge's words struck home.
Shit shit shit shit…. Severus, don't give it to her! She pleaded internally, but could only watch on in abject horror as Snape wandered wordlessly over to his storage cupboard and, after a few moments searching, came back with an iridescent opal vial in his hands.
"Now that really is the last of it." He muttered. Circe wanted to scream at him as he dropped it into Dolores's waiting, upturned palm.
"Thank you, Professor Snape. Your cooperation has been noted." And then Dolores turned on her heels and left.
When Severus finally turned his attentions back to Circe, she looked like she was about to faint.
"Bloody hell… I didn't realise she got under your skin that mu-"
"Severus, I'm fucked…" she whispered.
"What is it. What have you done?" He asked, placing his hands on her shoulders, staring into her eyes intently.
"The children, Severus… they've been meeting to learn all the stuff Dolores hasn't been teaching them."
"Oh, well that's unfortunate for them but they'll probably deal with a mild to severe bollocking and several detentions-"
"No Severus, you don't understand. I…"
Circe faltered, her breaths coming in panicked, short bursts. Even now, she was afraid of telling Severus but she had to decide what she was afraid of more: his anger or Umbridge's wrath.
"Circe! Tell me now!" He said forcefully, shaking her shoulders, his eyes hard pits of onyx.
"I… I've been helping them." She whispered. A long, deafening silence followed.
"You've been what?!" He hissed at her through clenched teeth.
"I've been teaching them how to Duel." She whispered, closing her eyes as her shame threatened to swallow her whole.
"Circe… you…. YOU…!" Severus uttered out, unable to coherently speak from his rapidly mounting anger. He picked up a cauldron from a nearby bench and hurled it across the room with an almighty crash. "YOU FUCKING FOOL!" He roared.
"Don't you dare call me a fool, Severus! I needed to help them! They need our help if they're going to survive this war!"
"You may have just endangered them all...As well as yourself! When word of this gets out, The Dark Lord will kill you! And me too, just for good measure… All because you couldn't control your bleeding heart!"
Circe fell silent. She knew that Severus's words were true and her eyes prickled with tears. Severus placed his hand on his hips and looked exasperatedly up at the ceiling.
"In the Room of Requirement too?" He asked incredulously. "Is that why you've been directing me away from there? Making excuses to keep me away so you didn't double book yourself?!"
"Yes… but it's different to the place you and I go to."
"I know… I know it changes depending on the purpose it's required for." He said as if he was speaking to a small child. "You lied to me, Circe. Not explicitly, but you went out of your way to keep me in the dark."
"They needed me, Severus. They need to be taught how to defend themselves…" she said weakly.
"Oh come on, Circe. Was this to boost their confidence… or yours?" He sneered. He didn't mean to, but in that moment he glanced down at her arm.
"Sev… that's cruel." She muttered, her eyes clouding over again.
"Well forgive me if I'm not feeling in a very sensitive mood!" He scoffed. He talked his foot on the ground whilst Circe stared at her hands in shame. "You stay here." He said finally, pointing at her with a long finger. "Don't try to alert the other students. If Umbridge has Chang, odds are she probably has eyes on that Room already. If you go anywhere near it now, you'll incriminate yourself further." He began walking from the classroom, his blood boiling, when Circe called out to him.
"Wait! Where are you going?"
"Maybe if I'm present for Umbridge's interrogation on Cho, I can partly control what information she gives her. I may just be able to clean up another one of your bloody messes..."
Circe swallowed the lump in her throat and sat down on Severus's desk as she watched him swoop from the room, vanishing from her sight with a flutter of his black cape. Only when his footsteps were well into the echoing distance of the dungeon did she begin to cry out her frustration and ignominy.
Severus had to stay his shaking hands as he strode up the flight of stairs that led out of the dungeons. His mind was racing with furious thoughts, cursing Circe, Dumbledoe Voldemort… anybody that had put him in this blasted situation. Of course he understood Circe's compulsion to help the students, but he would have thought that even she wouldn't have taken such a huge risk that could have endangered both their covers and their lives to boot.
God damn it, Circe. Why do you have to be so impulsive?! So single minded? There are other ways that you and I are helping these children. Not by teaching them how to become little Aurors, but by fighting for their future! Trying to take down the people who would build a brutal and cruel world for them to inhabit. It is not rewarding. No one congratulates us, but it is vital in securing their future safety nonetheless!
He was still jittering when he finally came to Umbridge's office. He knocked on the door politely and took a long, level breath to try and calm himself. The door swung open to him and as he peered through into the room, he saw Dolores seated behind her desk, already pouring out a seemingly ordinary cup of tea for Cho.
"Professor Snape…" she said, the surprise evident on her toady face. "Is there a problem?"
"Professor Umbridge, might I have a word?" He asked, casting his eye around the re-decorated office, lined wall to wall with porcelain plates decorated with a variety of softly mewing cats. Umbridge put the pot down sharply and rose to talk to Snape, slamming the office door behind her with a flick of her wand. She stood with Severus on the stairs outside of her interrogation room, an irritated look plastered on her wide features.
"Severus, you are aware that I am about to undergo a very delicate and important-"
"Yes Dolores, and I really must insist that I am present for your interrogation of Miss Chang." He interrupted swiftly. His voice taking on that icy and authoritative quality he had when talking to his students.
"Oh, and why is that?"
"Veritaserum works most effectively if the person asking the questions is the brewer of the potion." He lied swiftly. Yet it sounded true enough. There were many nuances and laws about magic that
held similar caveats to that idea. "I trust you've not had much luck with garnering any useful information from your other interviewees?"
"Well no, but I assumed that was because they had nothing to do with whatever has been going on…" Dolores breathed.
"Possibly… or it may be because you, not being the brewer of the veritaserum administered, could not use it to its full potency."
"I see…" Dolores muttered, pursing her lips together. "Well thank you for offering your services, Professor Snape." Umbridge said, turning back to the door of her office and opening it again. She waved him inside with the pointing her wand and another chair floated into the spot beside Cho as she shuffled back to her position behind the desk.
Severus let out a small sigh of relief as he sat down, happy enough that Umbridge had so readily swallowed his fib. But his thoughts sobered again as he saw Miss Chang looking at him with wide-eyed fear, her delicate Seeker's hands shaking slightly as she took Umbridge's tea cup.
"Now my dear, there's nothing to worry about." Dolores said soothingly. "The Minister and I just wanted to… check in with you after the troubling events of last year. I hear you were quite closely connected to Mr Diggory?"
Oof, that's low even for you Umbridge. Severus thought. You've spent the whole year telling Cho what happened to Cedric was an accident. And now you're using his death to lower her defenses….
"Oh… Yeah he was my boyfriend." Cho uttered back, staring down at her cup. Umbridge and Severus too were both acutely fixed on the floral-patterned, china cup, waiting on bated breath for Cho to take her first sip.
"Ahh, I see. How awful it must have been for you then to have lost him."
"Yeah… I don't really know how I would have been if I didn't have Ginny and Hermione and… and Harry to get me through it." She said with a hint of a smile. Severus rolled his eyes. "I was struggling quite a bit over the summer. Before I came back to school."
Still no sip.
"And you live in Glasgow?" Dolores asked. "With your mother and father?"
"Above my Dad's acupuncture studio." She explained, raising the cup off of the saucer. "He practises holistic medicine."
"Does he. Fascinating." Dolores stated sweetly.
"Was it him who asked you to speak to me?" Cho asked, colouring red. "I know he's been worrying about me since I came back here. He didn't want me to come back after last year…" Cho swallowed hard as her voice grew emotional.
"Have a drink of tea, dear." Umbridge offered, encouraging the cup to Cho's mouth. Severus and Dolores both leaned forwards in their seats expectantly.
The girl nodded and finally took a long swig of tea from the cup. Her face grimaced a little as the noticeably saccharine taste of veritaserum hit her tongue.
"Ugh, finally…" Severus muttered.
Umbridge's face fell into a sinister smirk and without warning, she rose from the desk and batted the teacup from Cho's hand. The young Ravenclaw shrieked as it hit the ground in a clatter, her eyes popping out of her head when Umbridge pointed her wand squarely under her chin.
"Now you are going to answer every question Professor Snape has for you. Do you understand?!" Dolores cried out, her voice tinged with desperation.
"What? What's happening?" Cho asked, utterly terrified.
"Ask her something to test it out, Severus. Something she wouldn't want to tell us."
"Uhh, righ." Severus murmured, feeling quite sorry for the poor girl. "Who are you sweet on?"
"Harry Potter!" she blurted out. Cho gasped loudly and slapped her hand to her open mouth in shock.
"Oh marvellous, Severus!" Dolores said gleefully, jumping up and down on the spot.
Severus felt the squeeze of empathy around his heart as Cho began crying in front of him. "Professor Umbridge, is this not woefully immoral..?" he asked cautiously.
"The Minister has sanctioned my use of veritaserum, Professor." She responded smugly.
"Which of course makes all the difference…" Snape muttered.
"Hurry Severus! Before it wears off. Ask her what they've all been up to behind my back."
Severus looked at Cho, still with her hand clamped over her mouth, tears running down over her fingers.
"What have the students been doing in secret?" He asked in a whisper.
"Meeting!" Cho spluttered out through her hand. She let out a small whimper, unable to stop her own voice from sounding out. "Meeting to learn defensive magic."
"I knew it! Brazenly flouting my educational decrees! Laughing in my face…."
"Because you wouldn't teach us what we needed to know!" Screamed Cho. "You lied about Cedric and you lied about Harry too! He saw him! He saw Him return and he killed Cedric…" Cho descended into sobs.
Severus looked over to Dolores with a raised brow and found the middle-aged witch a tad pale.
"Ahh poor child… she obviously believes whatever Potter's been telling them in their little club gatherings. Ask her more, Severus!" Dolores said impatiently.
"Where do these meetings take place?"
"In the Room of Requirement…" Cho stated monotonously, her whole face wet with tears.
"And where is that?"
"On the third floor, the east corridor, in the place where there is only bare brick a door appears for us…"
"And who is "us"?" Cut in Dolores suddenly.
Severus's heart beat wildly as Cho began dutifully listing off who met in the Room, "Me, Neville, Harry, Ron, Herm-"
"Cho, stop!" He said firmly. Umbridge looked at him with a confused look and drew in a deep breath to ask him why he had ordered Cho to cease her listing. "Professor, you do not wish for her to leave out names, do you?" He butt in quickly.
"No, Severus." Umbridge stated primly.
"Then remember what I said about the veritaserum. Let me ask the questions…"
"Ohh! Understood, Professor Snape." Dolores tittered menacingly.
Severus turned to face Cho, who fixed him with a look of deep hatred. It was not a look he was unused to receiving from students so he took it in his stride, but nevertheless he felt his heart stir upon seeing the distraught young girl, forced into this terrible situation, powerless to stop her own tongue from giving up her friends.
"Cho, what students are meeting in the Room of Requirement?" He asked slowly, placing so much emphasis on the word "students" he was afraid Dolores would clock his subtle rephrasing. But Umbridge held her breath expectantly and seemed not to bat an eyelid at him.
Cho spewed out the long list of names as if she were vomiting them all up:
"Hannah Abbott, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, Katie Bell, Colin and Denis Creevey…."
On and on her list went as Severus felt the bile rise up in his throat as she spat out each name. Every time praying that the next one that tumbled out of Cho's mouth was not Circe's.
"... Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger and Harry Potter." She finished finally, hanging her head low in shame.
"That's it? That's all of the students?" Dolores asked, smiling with delight.
"Yes." Cho muttered. "All of the students." She echoed, placing similar emphasis on the word in the way Severus had done.
"Oh this is marvelous! Severus, stay with Miss Chang whilst I fetch the Inquisition Squad!" Umbridge tittered again, shuffling from the room with a happy little trot.
Dolores slammed her office door shut, sending a few of the plates on her wall shivering with the force of the bang. Up went the cry of many mewing cats, but Severus could hear none of them over the thunderous beating of his heart in his ears.
"You know. Don't you…" Cho whispered to him through the long, limp curtains of her black hair. "You know she's also been helping us."
"I suggest you keep your mouth shut, Miss Chang. Just in case anything else sensitive falls out of it…" he said harshly.
"We could never figure out if you were a friend or a foe…" Cho said almost dreamily. "She trusted you though… She seemed to trust you…"
Severus was silenced by the steady gaze of Cho, studying his face intently. She looked like she was staring up at a mass of shapeless clouds and trying to form shapes from them and Severus could think of nothing to say to her. Dolores emerged a few moments later with Filch and the Slytherin boys in tow, riled up like a pack of hunting hounds with the scent of blood.
"I believe I've reached my full, useful capacity to you, Dolores…" Severus muttered, sweeping past them all with a downcast and miserable look to his eye. "The potion should have worn off by now. It's effect is rather short lived."
"No matter. We have everything that we'll need." Umbridge laughed merrily. Malfoy and his cronies joined in on the cruel laughter as Severus made a swift exit, hating himself a little bit more for having been involved in Cho's humiliation…
Circe was still waiting in Severus's classroom, biting her nails and pacing up and down the rows of desks as she fought down the acid bile rising in her throat. She kicked the cauldron that Severus had thrown across the room so it scraped its way along the floor. The metal screeched over the stone in a hair-raising scream that echoed off the dungeon walls, making her hair stand on end, each kick a self-inflicted punishment on her ears. She almost jumped out of her skin when Snape came striding back into the classroom, trailing his long black cape behind him and wearing a scowl as sour as a bitter grape.
"Well? What happened?" She asked when Severus marched past her, his fists balled beside him. "Did… did Cho-"
"She betrayed all of her friends and had her civil liberties stripped from her. But no. She didn't mention you." Snape shot back bitterly, his temper still up. He slumped back down into his desk chair and buried his head in his hands. He couldn't look at Circe just yet, he was still too angry with her. Circe watched him, her heart sinking as a heavy silence settled over them both. She stared at the cauldron on the floor, feeling like an icy knife had just been slipped in between her ribs.
"Severus… I'm sorry." She uttered out hoarsely. "I'm sorry I put you in danger because of all this."
"Cho said that you trusted me. But you don't...You didn't trust me enough to tell me what you were doing, Circe…" he said, his voice warped with emotion.
"Because I didn't think you'd… approve."
"Approve of you putting your cover amongst the Death Eaters at risk?! Or at the very least, your job here at Hogwarts?! No of course I bloody wouldn't!" he said, snapping at her. Circe flinched away from him, stung by his not unwholly unfair summation of her actions. "But you don't need my "approval", Circe. You're a grown woman. But I do at least expect that you keep me in the loop when you're risking both of our lives!"
Circe hung her head low, feeling the shame constricting at her chest again.
"I'm… I'm sorry…" she muttered again.
Severus watched her for a moment, trying to keep his simmering temper under control. Gazing levelly at her as the playing of the greenish light that illuminated the dungeons danced across her hair. She looked almost ill in that viridian light and Severus was once again reminded of Medusa as the sickly colour brought her curls to life as a mass of writhing snakes in his mind's eye. She was contrite and apologetic now, but she was a warrior through and through. A being of indefinable strength and power. Forced to placate and fall on their sword for the moment, but still with one foot in their armour.
"Given the choice again, you'd make the same decision wouldn't you." Severus grumbled.
"To help those kids? Yes." She answered honestly, a spark of defiance in her eye. "Otherwise what good am I here if I can't even help those I'm meant to protect?" Circe said, consciously echoing almost exactly the same words Dumbledore had once said to her.
"Have you really taught them all how to "defend themselves", Circe?" Severus scoffed, his temper rising. "Or have you just created a battalion of child soldiers?"
"Severus!" Circe exclaimed, her eyes filling with indignant tears.
"Because that is certainly how The Minister would have seen it. And Umbridge."
"You think any of those children want to be pulled into this fight?" she spat back.
"You did when you were young. You went actively seeking it. Like a lemming walking towards a cliff." He added pointedly.
"A lemming?! A LEMMING!?" She shouted, her face turning pale with anger.
But Circe did not have time to voice her outrage further, feeling a burning sensation beginning in her pocket.
"Oh no…" she muttered, pulling out Hermione's charmed galleon. "No, no, no, no…!"
"What is it?" Severus asked, glancing at the coin in her palm.
"A meeting. They've called a meeting… Now!"
"That's poor timing." He answered flatly.
"No, Sev… My Cantuscope. It's in the Room. I left it there for them after Dolores trashed all of the music!" Circe said in a voice of mounting panic.
"Of course you did…" Severus said wearily, rubbing his eyes.
"I can warn them! I can tell them to scramble!" Circe shouted, reaching for the brooch pinned under her coat lapel. Yet her hand was stopped as Severus's long, slender fingers clasped around her wrist.
"No! If you warn them, Umbridge will suspect that somebody told them that Cho had snitched! Somebody that Cho didn't mention in her inquisition."
"But if she sees my Cantuscope in there, she'll figure out it was me! I made such a bloody fuss over the music and the MMAP when she first got here… She'll put two and two together!" She turned on her heels and went running from the potions classroom, off in a blind panic towards the Room of Requirement.
"Fucking hell…" Severus growled, rising back up from his chair and sprinting after her.
When he eventually caught up to her, he pulled her sharply by the arm and into the shadows of a concealed little nook. The coloured sunlight from Hogwarts's stained glass fell over her puzzled face as she looked to Severus.
"Can't you leave the lemming alone, Severus? I don't want to pull any more people off the cliff with me…" she said, snatching her arm from him as she waited impatiently for him to tell her why he had halted her.
"What did you do? To alert them, I mean. You said you could warn them that Umbridge was coming." He said, his voice firm and as hard as black ice.
"We… we used songs. Different tunes for different messages or people. They all had something like my brooch. Some bit of jewellery that linked to the Cantuscope." She explained in a breathless jumble.
"Look, you won't be able to warn them properly now. Umbridge was on her way there already by the time I left her. And charging in aimlessly isn't going to help the situation either. But maybe if you cause a bit of a panic… You can slip in the Room and get your Cantuscope."
"Under the cover of chaos…" Circe breathed, nodding slowly.
"What was the code song for "everyone get out quickly" or "we've been discovered" or something like that?"
Circe thought for a moment and after a brief pause, she broke into a run again, Severus close behind her.
"'Caught by the Fuzz', Supergrass!" Circe screamed into the amber brooch.
The sound of struggling, flying spells, curses and shouts blended beautifully with the blaring music. Circe and Severus approached the third floor east corridor, the woefully anarchic jumble of noise filling their ears as they drew closer. There was no time to halt. No time to stare and look at any one interaction in the mash of fighting. Circe could taste the pandemonium in the air as she approached the Room of Requirement. There was nothing but noise and chaos.
"Caught by the fuzz
Well I was, still on a buzz
In the back of the van
With my head in my hands
Just like a bad dream
I was only fifteen"
Crabbe lifted Luna off of her feet, hauling her over his shoulder as she thumped at his back.
Goyle staggered past Circe cradling his face as it erupted into a mask of pustules.
Dolores screamed for order as a rogue shrinking curse struck her in the thigh and withered her stout legs down until she was the same height as Flitwick.
Neville slammed bodily into Draco, knocking him away from cursing Ginny in the back and bringing both of them crashing to the floor in a tangle.
"If only my brother could be here now
He'd get me out he'd sort me out alright
I knew I should have stayed at home tonight"
Mrs Norris went screeching past Circe, biting and clawing at Fred's head of hair in a god-awful tangle in his robe's hood.
George was trying desperately to get the cat off his brother and manoeuver his wand into the body of the screeching animal.
"Hold still, Freddie!"
"She's clawing my scalp off George! Get her off!"
Colin Creevey crawled over Circe's feet, in the throws of a leg-locking curse but refusing to bow out of the calamity. He heaved himself over to Pansy Parkinson and sent an electrifying curse up her skirt.
"Circe! The Room… get in the Room, now!" Severus hissed into her ear as he blocked hexes and spells left, right and center.
"Let go of me!" Shrieked Pansy as Colin clung on to her left leg for dear life.
"STOP THIS! STOP THIS ALL OF YOU…! I WILL HAVE ORDER!" came a high-pitched squeak from the folds of the pink, crumpled coat where Umbridge had once stood.
Circe laughed as she jumped over the limp bodies of the students who had been knocked out with a nasty hex, almost tripping over a starry-eyed looking Ron, pointing up into the vacant air and muttering about the "pretty birdies".
"If only you'd tell us we'd let you go
We'll make it up for you my son,
So tell us what you know,
We'll make you wish you'd stayed at home tonight"
Circe made it to the door and slipped inside the Room of Requirement under the cover of the chaos she had helped create. The practise room was deserted and immediately she strode over to her Cantuscope, poised in the corner and blaring out the rude and raucous Supergrass song. She heaved it up into her arms, straining under its weight.
"Circe!" Severus impatiently called out to her, poking his head around the huge open doors. "Hurry up!"
"What do I do now?" She asked.
"You need to hide it!" He shouted back at her.
"Levicorpus!" Cried out a voice somewhere in the calamity outside.
Mrs Norris came flying into the Room of Requirement with a demonic-sounding "MMYYYAAAAAA!", sailing past Severus's head in a furry, brown blur and collided rather heavily with the mirrored wall at the far end of the room. Circe moved to Severus's side as the cat picked herself up and slinked back Into the shadows with her tail between her legs.
"You'll need to cover me so I can make it back to mine and Minerva's rooms." Circe said to him above the noise of the scapper.
"No not there! Come out of the Room…" Severus said irritably. He tugged Circe by the elbow until her and he both were stood just outside of The Room of Requirement's doors. Once again, Circe stared out at the pandemonium in front of her with a wide-eyed curiosity. Hermione had Blaise Zabini upside down and dangling in the air. George and Fred were now being pursued by the irate Mr Filch, chasing them with a broom…
"Now come back inside." Severus said, again tugging her by the elbow back towards the Room.
"B…. But we just left it, Sev. Why do I want to go back in-"
But her question was cut short as she turned around and realised she was now stood in a gargantuan room, filled to the brim with knick-knacks, furniture and discarded old items. This wasn't the "shag-palace", this wasn't the cathedral-like practise room, this was a new room entirely… and it was a veritable Aladdin's cave of stuff.
"Bloody hell… it's… it's like a…"
"A Room of Hidden Things. Odds are every bit of "lost" homework, broken classroom furniture, and important thing that goes missing in Hogwarts is in here somewhere…"
Circe wished desperately that she had time to look around for longer; she saw piles of yellowing, ancient-looking textbooks stacked like bricks at the bottom of the mountains of items, old suits of armour that were missing a part of their regalia or dented beyond their uniform presentability, discarded, dusty uniforms from eras long gone, and countless items of curious and mysterious purpose. She even thought she spied the ice sculpture of St Basil's Cathedral from the Yule Ball somewhere around the corner of a stuff-mountain... But Severus tugged her hastily by the elbow over to the base of the nearest pile of stuff and instructed her to lay down the Cantuscope.
"Well… this is a fascinating little place." Circe breathed, setting down her Cantuscope and taking one last look around the room.
"And I'm sure you'll be back to have a snoop around later…" Severus stated dry, grabbing her by the arm and tugging her towards the door.
Almost as quickly as she'd arrived, Circe found herself leaving the Room of Hidden Things behind. She glanced back at her Cantuscope briefly.
I'll be back for you, my love. She thought with a frown, before she closed the door and took her last look at Hogwarts's Aladdin's Cave…. back into the messy children's wand-fight. Circe flinched and ducked down low just in time, before a nasty bubble-burp curse struck the space just behind her head, popping against the wooden door with a pop.
"Oh for goodness sake… all that "practise" from you and they're still fighting like a bunch of headless chickens." Severus grumbled.
"Hey, I don't tell you how to make snide and sarcastic remarks. So don't tell me how to teach Duelling." Circe mumbled back at him.
Severus tutted and whispered back to her "You better make yourself scarce, Professor. Before the headless chickens clock that you're here."
Circe swallowed hard and tried to manoeuver her way around the battling students trying to resist their arrest. When Circe was finally at the end of the corridor, hidden behind a corner, he took out his wand and standing tall he roared into the writhing, screaming mass of teenagers. "IMMOBULUS!"
As one, the fighting students froze rigidly into place. Their fists locked around their wands, their eyes seemingly glued open as one by one they crashed to the floor like wooden, rigid bowling pins.
"Now… for goodness sake… have the dignity to accept defeat with grace." He spoke levelly, hovering just above Harry's sour-looking face, staring up at him with a hatred similar to Miss Chang's glinting in his eyes. He became almost breathless as he recognised that burning look of hatred in Harry's green eyes.
The exact same look Lily had given him… when I called her a mudblood