Chapter 93 - "Are you gonna go my way?"
Circe had struggled to not look back at her step-brother every five seconds as she led the First Years back up to the castle. Just in case she had imagined him in the Boat House, just in case she was going mental…
She walked them up the stone steps wordlessly, pausing only when she reached the closed wooden doors to the Great Hall. Again, she could hear nothing of the buzz of conversation and activity that was normal before the great feast at the start of the year. Circe wondered if there was going to be a feast at all this year. Perhaps Severus had decided to do away with it. But the First Years still needed sorting….
The First Years…
Circe swallowed hard and turned to face the waiting children. Her eyes instantly found Tom amongst them again, his long, mullet-style hair making him an instant stand-out even if he hadn't been her brother. He was chatting away to a group of three other lads at the back of the crowd, a good six inches taller than them all. He'd kept his well-built figure but didn't look as round-faced or round-bellied as he had once been. The last time Circe had seen him he'd been playing with Scalextric cars and Sonic the Hedgehog stationery. Now, he'd matured into his face, left behind the little boy he'd been at Windmill Way. Two years, and he'd grown up without Circe being around to watch it. Two years, and now a part of the family she had reluctantly left behind had re-emerged to torment her.
She gasped as Tom caught her stare again. He nudged a boy beside him in the arm and pointed at Circe, muttering something like "She's looking at me again." faintly to his friend.
"Um…" Circe stammered, shaking her head. "Wait here please."
She hurriedly scrabbled for the door handle and slipped inside the Great Hall, leaving the First Years unattended. When she whirled around, she found the last few students in the upper years settling into their seats at the House tables. All silent under the watchful eye of Severus, stood at the top of the Hall with his hands behind his back. The burning torches on the walls of the Great Hall were a dim, smouldering flame. The enchanted ceiling above showed an iron sky of roiling black clouds. The shadows seemed deeper. The fear felt stronger. The staff who had escorted the children into the castle stood at the edges of the Hall, their backs pressed against the walls, nowhere for them to sit now; There was nothing where the Staff Table had been, just two, high-backed chairs. One throne for Severus and one for…
Circe's stomach dropped and she hurried up the central aisle towards Severus. She built up the Consort persona around herself a little, keeping her head high and her strides wide, but ultimately she was a shaking, worried bag of nerves. She approached him with wide, unblinking eyes and a face that was as pale as Peeves the Poltergeist's.
"I need to have a word, Headmaster." She breathed to him through clenched teeth.
He frowned deeply at her. His eyes flicking from Circe to the students. "Right now?" He asked dryly.
"This very second." She responded, equally laconically.
Severus nodded his head to the door at the back of the Great Hall and Circe wasted no time in striding towards it. He followed her swiftly, shut the small side-door behind them and cast a quick muffilato charm, just in time before Circe blurted out in a babbling spill of words.
"Severus, we have a big problem. Huge. Massive."
"Circe? What is it? Tell me." He said firmly, looking at her white face with worry.
"The… the First Years…"
"The First Years? I know they're a bit needy and annoying, but I wouldn't describe them as a "problem". They grow out of it after a term or two."
"No! Someone in the First Years. A part of the First Years..." She said, her voice rising in exasperation.
"I'm afraid I'm not following you..." He said with a raised brow.
"Oh God, don't tell me that you forgot too! You were the bloody person who told me he was magic!" Circe shrieked, almost shouting.
Severus's arms went rigid as realisation struck him as hard as lightning.
"You mean-"
"My step-brother Tom… is out there, Sev." Circe said, almost close to tears.
Severus stared at her and gulped, his Adam's apple bobbing like a cork on the water. He was silent for a long while, his pale face growing ever more pallid with each second.
"It… it changes nothing." He stammered.
"Are you kidding?! It changes everything, Severus!" Circe shouted at him. "My brother is in this mess now!"
"I know this is difficult for you, Circe, but you have to listen! He's no different to any other child here. They're all in this mess with us."
"We've got to send him home. Get him out of here…"
"We can't. Can you imagine how suspicious that would look to The Carrows? Send one particular student home for no apparent reason? They'd be knocking on your father's door in no time."
Circe choked out a sob. Everything Severus said was true, and she knew it. She turned from him and paced from left to right as bitter tears welled in her eyes.
"How…? How did I forget? How did I forget that he'd be here?" She muttered, thumping her palm at her temple.
"Circe, do not blame yourself. The fault is mine. I should have checked the admittance lists. The scroll the enchanted quill wrote for-"
"I was researching the Horcruxes… Dumbledore was dying… Odette was gone… You were gone for so much of last year…" Circe sobbed. She wanted to say more but her voice gave out as memories of that awful time came flooding back.
Severus strode to her side and enveloped her in his arms as she cried.
"I know… I'm sorry." He said soothingly. "I'm sorry I was gone for so long."
"This isn't fair…This isn't fair…" she sobbed into his chest.
"No, it's not fair. But there is no way around it now."
"He still doesn't know me. He looked at me like I was a stranger. And the others…the other students will tell him about you and me. The only thing he will know of me is what they all believe to be true." She muttered miserably, pulling away from him and wiping her eyes. "And I don't know why that's so much worse than everybody else believing that I'm the Dark Lord's creature…"
"I understand. Because he's your family." Severus said in a low voice. "But he cannot be given preferential treatment. He must believe the same as everyone else."
"That's easy for you to say!" she exclaimed. "You'll be fine. Emotionless as always. He means nothing to you." Circe said heatedly. She didn't mean to be so harsh, but she was sick of being told how to feel, and she ended up lashing out in her emotional state.
"Nothing to me?" Severus hissed indignantly. Circe instantly regretted calling him "emotionless"; she could see all the different shades of hurt shining in his eyes in that moment. "Tom would have been my blasted brother-in-law if you'd let me…"
Severus too felt his voice fail him.
Circe looked at the ground in shame. The weight of what Severus had been about to say sat heavy between them:
… if you'd let me marry you.
Circe raised her eyes and searched Severus's face. His jaw was locked tight, his expression was unreadable, but Circe could almost feel the twisting, writhing pain from that rejection inside him. Just behind his black, unknowable eyes.
"Severus…" she said weakly, taking a step towards him.
"Join me in the Great Hall when you're ready." Snape said flatly, striding past her before she could touch him.
The door out of the small side-room opened and closed with a bang, and Severus was gone. Circe bit back the fresh tears that threatened to spring out of her eyes. She looked at the carved ceiling and cursed to herself. The silence was deafening around her, the empty room suddenly colder. Circe knew that Severus still kept his mother's ring on him. He'd kept it with him all throughout the long summer they'd spent apart, and in their days in the B&B she'd glimpsed it once or twice when he cleared out his coat pockets for a wash. It broke her heart to think that Severus didn't quite know what to do with it now, since she'd made it clear she couldn't have it on her finger. The wound Circe had inflicted when she'd told Severus that she may not ever want to get married was certainly a deep one. Perhaps even deeper than she'd dared to imagine…
He knows I love him. Circe thought, trying to calm herself down enough to step back outside. He knows. I just lashed out at him and he lashed right back at me.
She sniffed and wiped her face with her sleeve one last time. Circe opened the side door and emerged back into the Great Hall, a thousand eyes greeting her as she did so. The room fell utterly silent, what little conversation had been going on between the students vanishing with her presence. Severus stood before his throne, his cold, alabaster face turned to her and a single hand stretched her way. Circe glanced at the many faces of the Hogwarts students now watching her, then to the staff, Mcgonagall, Sprout, Flitwick, Hooch, all stood at the perimeters with drawn and hopeless faces, and then her stare returned to Severus. She compliantly made her way to his side, laying her hand in his palm as demurely as a princess. Severus guided her to the chair at his side and she sank into its hard, wooden embrace.
"Bring the First Years in." Severus boomed at Alecto, poised at the back of the room.
The Death Eater nodded and flung the wooden doors open. The nervous little First Years came scampering down the central aisle towards Circe and Severus's dual thrones. Circe spotted Tom again almost as soon as his bobbing mulleted head entered the Great Hall. He caught her stare again and she sharply looked away.
The young students came to a stop in front of Severus and Circe. Their expectant little faces looked at them both, and Circe forced herself to look back at them as if she was the Ice Queen incarnate.
Severus rose slowly out of his seat and the little First Years seemed to shrink shorter under his withering stares. The whole of the Great Hall held their breaths. Waiting for their new Headmaster to speak…
"I know many of you have feelings of… displeasure, dissatisfaction maybe, upon seeing me here." He began slowly. His voice was quiet, but every single person in the room heard him. "But it is time that Hogwarts accepted some hard truths. Those now in charge, should be in charge. The old and the weak and the soft are gone. And this school will change dramatically now it is under better management."
Circe suppressed a wince. Severus sounded as cold and vicious as a viper. And from the stirring of unhappy expressions she saw rippling through the crowd, she could tell his message wasn't going down well…
"For starters…" Severus continued. "…anyone who dares to challenge my authority as Headmaster will be sanctioned. Anyone who refuses to comply with the wishes of their new Teachers, Professors Alecto and Amycus Carrow, will be sanctioned. Anyone who chooses to disobey an order from my second in command, Professor Circe Smith, will be sanctioned."
Severus's gaze flicked to her and Circe did her best to nod demurely back at him. Yet, she noted the face of each student looking at her with a burning kind of loathing. They knew now that Severus considered her to be his accomplice, his partner, his equal.
"And I advise you not to try and find out what those sanctions may be. It will not end well for you." Severus said, his voice so cold he could have breathed icicles. "All forms of student gatherings, may they be social or extra-curricular, are to be banned. Expect all of your correspondence in and out of this school to be subject to random searches. A strict curfew will be upheld in all Houses. No one is permitted to leave the grounds of this castle without my expressed permission. And any conversations about a particular boy wizard…"
The room stirred, a few students daring to turn and mutter to the person beside them.
"… will not be tolerated." Severus finished.
The eyes of the Gryffindors sparkled with defiance and Circe wished she could see some other kind of emotion in their eyes. She knew they would fight tooth and nail against all of this. She knew they wouldn't take Severus's warning to heart and do as they're told. She knew a very long and difficult year was ahead of them all…
"Now, the Sorting Ceremony will be a touch different this year." Severus continued, reaching underneath his throne and pulling out something that looked like a lumpy bit of cloth. "Seen as the Sorting Hat likes to espouse dubious opinions that it is not entitled to."
Severus held the cloth by the tip and sure enough the face of the Sorting Hat emerged from out of the folds of the fabric. But a gasp rippled around the room. A surge of outrage and shock spreading amongst the House tables. Circe looked back at the Sorting Hat in Severus's hands and saw a long line of vicious, red stitches sewing the hat's mouth shut. She couldn't stop the surprise from showing on her face on time, not before her mouth dropped open a few centimeters…
Oh God, he's disfigured the poor thing. Circe thought as a ringing alarm pulsed through her head. One of the oldest, most treasured things in Hogwarts. He's mutilated it…
Severus delved another hand into his other pocket and produced a bottle of a crystal-clear, iridescent liquid.
"First Years. You shall approach one by one, when your name is called by Professor Smith, accept your dose of veritaserum…" Severus stated, waving the vial in the air. "... and have the Hat placed upon your head. After which, you will inform us of which House the Hat placed you in during its telepathic conversations with you."
"T-telepathic conversations?" Circe heard Tom whisper to a boy at his side and she pitied him, as well as the other muggle-born wizards, who had no clue what was going on.
But Circe suddenly had a scroll shoved into her face. She bit down her gasp of shock and irritably snatched the piece of paper from Severus, standing up straight. With sinking dread in her guts, she unraveled the parchment and scanned the scrawls on the page. Like some kind of cruel joke, the first name right at the top of the parchment was…
"Thomas Lukather." she spoke levelly.
Tom's eyes bulged and after a loud gulp, he squared his shoulders and bravely approached the dais.
I thought these names were meant to be in alphabetical order?! Circe thought, as she watched her step-brother approach Headmaster Snape for his drop of veritaserum. Priorities, Circe… Priorities… She scolded herself, feeling her body break out into a cold sweat as Tom stood stoutly before them both.
Severus pinched the pipette inside the vial and sucked up the delicate, shimmering liquid into the glass.
"Open." he said firmly, and Tom yawned wide for him.
Severus squeezed a single drop of veritaserum onto his tongue and placed the pipette back in the vial. He directed Tom onto a modest stool and the young boy sat down tensely, facing the rest of the student body with apprehension written all over his young face. Severus placed the Hat upon Tom's head, the rim dipping over his eyes... and Circe held her breath.
For a second, she expected the Sorting Hat to talk, but then she remembered the awful, ugly stitches in its mouth. The hat still moved. Wriggling about on Tom's head as if it wanted to speak aloud, but was unable to. Stifled and sewn up. But after a few moments, it stilled and slackened.
"Um… do I speak now?" Tom asked suddenly, his voice echoing in the stony silence.
Severus snatched the Hat from his head and fixed him with an iron gaze.
"What house did the Sorting Hat tell you that you belonged in?" he asked cautiously.
Circe's heart hammered inside her.
Is he a Slytherin? One of Severus's lot? No. He's too gentle and easygoing for that. He used to hide the Scalextrics from Alec, sure enough, but he'd always give them back eventually...
Ravenclaw like me? Maybe. But Jane always used to say he was an average learner in school. Had his hobbies, like every kid, but would get bored after a while and move on to something else.
Hufflepuff might be a good shout. Tom is a kind soul. Likes his food. But there's a touch of something else inside him… In the way he approached Sev, the first student to go through the Sorting Ceremony, despite not knowing anything about this place or this world. In the way he looks me in the eye, despite not having the foggiest idea who I am. Something that might be-
"Gryffindor." Tom said boldly.
The rest of the First Years were sorted in a procession that passed like a blur.
Child after terrified child passed her by, took their drop of veritaserum and joined their House table.
Circe was there for it, but not there for it. Her head whirling with the same thoughts over and over again:
He's a Gryffindor. He's here, at Hogwarts. He'll be trouble...
Circe fell back into her body somewhere towards the end of the simple meal the House-Elves had prepared. The feat was unspectacular this year. No home-baked pies or succulent chicken drumsticks or mountains of mashed potato or sumptuously buttered veggies or bright orange pumpkin juice this year. No, the students and staff alike suppered on a simple selection of cheeses, cured meats and crusty bread. But Circe's stomach roiled with anxiety. She couldn't eat a single thing.
Her hand gripped her wine goblet tightly as she realised she was staring at Tom again. Luckily, this time, he was too busy getting to know his fellow Gryffindors to notice her again. Most of the children ate nervously, hurriedly shoving a few mouthfuls of cheese into their mouths and muttering under their breaths when they dared. The Gryffindors were, rather unsurprisingly, the bravest in this regard. They were the House that dared to talk and make noise the most. Yet, each time the chatter in the Great Hall rose to an unacceptable level of sound, Severus would fix them all under his steely gaze and they would fall silent once more.
Circe took another sip of wine when suddenly she felt another pair of eyes upon her. She spluttered a little when she saw the ghost-white and pallid face of Ginny staring at her. The breath caught in Circe's throat. Ginny looked like she was about to faint. Like she was sick. So ashen and haggard that it reminded Circe of how the young girl had looked that long time ago in the sewers under Voldemort's possession. Not a single piece of food in front of her had been touched. Circe felt a second pair of eyes on her too, and her gaze flicked to the Ravenclaw table. Luna stared back at her with exactly the same haunted expression. Her skin was almost pearlescent white, but she looked back down at her empty plate when Circe's eyes met hers. Scared to maintain her gaze. But Ginny kept looking at her. That Gryffindor spirit burning strong. Ginny kept her eyes on her…
Wait… Circe thought, counting the familiar faces she saw sat around the House tables. She totted them up once again, just as she had done when they'd entered the castle led by Mcgonagall in their little procession. But Circe suddenly realised who was missing. Where is-
Ginny suddenly rose to her feet, the only person in the Great Hall standing up and staring them down. The whole room fell deathly silent.
"Where is he?!" she screamed at Snape and Circe. The rafters rang with her cry. Her eyes shone with frightened tears. "What have you done with him?!"
The whole of the Great Hall was quiet. Every single person was wide-eyed and shocked into stunned silence at Ginny's outburst. Circe felt a constricting feeling of fear grip her heart although she didn't quite know why.
"Sit down, Miss Weasley!" Severus snarled back at her, rising to his feet.
McGonagall rushed to her side, reaching out for her arm and trying to sit her back down. "Ginny. Please…"
"What have you done with him?!" Ginny screamed again, yanking herself out of her grasp.
Circe flinched as her voice rang in her ears.
"Miss Weasley, I informed you that any alluding to the existence of Mister Potter will-"
Severus's reply was cut short by a pair of tittering laughs. The hair on Circe's arms rose up.
"She ain't talking' about Potter, Headmaster." Amycus chuckled cruelly.
Severus turned his gaze to the Carrows, poised like two grotesque gargoyles on either side of the wooden door.
Circe's wine goblet began to shake in her hand.
Neville. That's who's missing. She realised, writhing, squirming dread moving in her stomach. Where's Neville?
"We 'ad a very… rude…young man on the train today, Headmaster Snape." Alecto purred. Her voice was all knife-edge and menace. "Would you like t'repeat what he called my twin and I?" She asked Ginny, pointing a bony finger at her from across the Hall.
The red-headed girl stared back at Alecto with thin, pale lips. She was shaking with rage. Minerva's hands were clasped firmly over her arms, as if she were about to stop Ginny from charging at the Carrows.
"He called us "losers"." Alecto continued when Ginny did not answer. Her voice took on that mockingly sweet, offended tone that Bellatrix often liked to use. "When we searched the Hogwarts Express, he said "Hey losers, he isn't here"."
Circe felt her blood go cold. An insult like that to a pair of Death Eaters…
Oh God, what did they do to him?
"And how did you respond, Alecto?" Severus asked, his voice deep and booming.
"As you would wish us to, Headmaster." Amycus said with a grand sweeping bow. "Any challenge to your authority will be sanctioned. As you just said."
"Where is the Longbottom boy?" Severus asked sternly.
Circe's limbs felt thick. The wine in her stomach turned nauseous and bitter.
"Facing his sanctions, Headmaster." Alecto said sweetly. She reached for the door handle and pulled the great wooden doors open…
Circe shot to her feet. Her wine cup spilling all over the floor as it dropped from her hands.
Neville hung, suspended by some dark form of magic, in the middle of the atrium. His knitted shirt bloody and stained. His head hung so low she couldn't see his face.
An awful rippling passed over his limbs. The flesh on his young body seemed to stretch and constrict so horribly that Circe's teeth set on edge. Neville's terrible, dreadful scream echoed through the Hall.
The students erupted into horrified gasps. Many of them jumping to their feet as well as they clamoured for a view of poor Neville.
No… No, no, no, no….
"What have you done to him?!" Luna shrieked.
"Gave him a few smacks for his rudeness." Amycus replied coolly. "And then fed him a few mouthfuls of angor beans."
Angor beans?! Circe thought as her head pulsed with alarm. Eating one of those things will keep you up all night with painful muscle spasms.
She remembered helping Severus to prepare some angor beans for a class a few years ago. Back then, she'd managed to accidentally lick some angor juice off her finger and she'd had an awful stomach ache all afternoon.
"So, you helped yourself to my personal stash?" Severus asked, trying to mask his bubbling anger as irritation that they'd gone through his potions supplies.
"I thought you'd be supportive of our efforts to enforce your authority." Alecto said.
"I'm sure he is, Alecto." Amycus said to his twin. "The Headmaster wouldn't allow such a blatant insult to his new staff to go unpunished."
Neville's flesh tensed and drew taut again and his agonising screams sliced through the Hall.
Circe wanted to be sick. She wanted to run to Neville and release him from the magic bonds that held him. But all she could do was watch helplessly as he remained suspended in the air, his arms outstretched and his head bent low. He was a crucified martyr, an example being set to all the other children of Hogwarts.
"He'll stay up there until he's learned his lesson." Alecto spat.
"Or until the beans have worked their way through his system." Amycus added, a cruel laugh tinting his voice.
But that could be for hours! Days, if they force-fed him several handfuls! Circe thought, clapping a hand over her open mouth.
Neville's muscles contorted again and his screams dug into her soul like talons.
She looked to Severus beside her, internally begging him, imploring him, to think of a way to stop this. But his jaw was firm. His face was expressionless. And Circe knew that neither her nor Severus could do anything.
"Very well." Severus said in a voice so low it could have been a whisper.
Circe's heart dropped like a stone inside her.
"The feast is over." Snape said flatly. "Go to your dormitories. All of you…"
For a second, nobody moved. Every single student stared at Severus and Circe for a poignant, heartbreaking moment.
"Now!" Severus roared.
Reluctantly, the House leaders stepped forwards and whispered hurriedly to their students. Steadily, the children rose to their feets, ashen-faced and wide-eyed. Slowly, they began to trickle out of the Great Hall, through the wooden doors and beneath the hanging body of Neville. Circe sat motionless in her throne, gripping on tightly to the wooden arms and spiralling further and further into black hopelessness as they left. Not even Mcgonagall's searching, desperate eyes could rouse her from her comatose state of despair and reluctantly Minerva dropped her head, turned and led her procession of Gryffindors away.
Only one voice, out of the hundreds there, came close to stirring her.
She heard Tom whispering to another Gryffindor beside him as he left.
"Jesus H Christ, what kind of place is this!?"
"Those fucking Carrows!" Severus bellowed as he burst through the door of the Headmaster's Office.
Circe watched him pace up and down the room, his hands on his hips.
I suppose this is Severus's office now, not Albus's… she thought morosely.
"They undermine me, in my own school!" He shouted, grabbing at a goblet and flinging it at the nearby wall. "They strung that boy up in front of the whole cohort!"
Circe flinched as Severus's goblet struck Fawke's empty cage and something in her hollow chest stirred. The last time she'd been here, she'd been in hiding, looking for answers, and Fawkes and her had grieved together. She glanced down to her palm, at the very faint scar where the wound Fawkes had healed had been. It seemed so long ago, even longer since Albus had been here…
Dumbledore's portrait on the wall gave a snort as the loud crash roused him from sleep.
"Keep it down, Severus…" he muttered lethargically.
Severus groaned in exasperation and sank down into the chair behind his desk. Circe was stone-faced as she watched Severus bury his head in his hands and after a few moments of silence, he slowly raised his face to her, his eyes shining with tears.
Yet Circe's face was vacant and shellshocked. Her silence was its own form of torture. Perhaps she was in shock again, she certainly looked it. Yet, once upon a time she would have been the one to come shouting and throwing things about in this office if somebody had hurt one of her cubs. Circe would have been the angry one. Hurling insults and coming up with plans left, right and center…
"Please… say something." He whispered to Circe, looking her dead in her eyes. "Tell me there's some way we can help the Longbottom boy…"
Circe blinked at him as something harsh and bitter moved in the cavity inside her chest.
"You… you're almost in tears… over Neville?" She asked, her shock evident. "You hate Neville."
"I hated that he had been spared the prophecy that ultimately fell to Harry and Lily. But… but…" Severus's words left him and he stared at the surface of his desk.
Circe was similarly lost for words. I always told you that you needed to be kinder to Neville…
"But you would not wish to see him hurt." Circe finished for him.
Severus locked eyes with her again, and after a moment of poignant staring, he nodded.
"Circe, please… Help me." He whispered imploringly. Circe was shocked at the desperateness in his voice. "I thought… all these years… I wished that it had been Longbottom who Voldemort hunted that night. I wish he'd died instead of Lily and James. No." Severus violently shook his head. "I do not wish that on the boy, I never have. But… but it is only now he is in real danger that I…I see what a spiteful old cunt I've been to him. He deserved none of my bullying. He deserves to live, Circe."
Circe reached for his face and pulled it to her chest as tears spilled over Severus's eyes. She shushed him gently and waited for his shaking to stop. The shellshocked hole in her chest filled with real, painful emotions with each of Severus's heaves. Like she was leeching all of the hurt from him. Sharing the pain.
You'll be my strength and I'll be yours.
Circe stroked his hair and whispered softly to him. "My, my… you do have a heart after all, Severus Snape."
Severus scoffed and dried his eyes on his black sleeve. "Well, as that old film says, "now I know I have a heart, because it's breaking"."
"I'm sorry… about what I said to you before. When I first saw Tom.." Circe said, looking to the floor in shame. "I know you find all this as difficult as me. Seeing our children in harm's way."
"This is all wrong. Tom, Neville, Ginny, Luna, all of them. Letting Death Eaters torture them for sport, to torment them in new and horrible ways. Just so I can maintain my deep cover with the Dark Lord. Putting them through this is wrong."
"But what other choice do we have?" Circe asked solemnly.
Severus had no answer. They both looked back over to the sleeping portrait of Dumbledore again, hoping that he might wake up and drop them some helpful advice at any moment.
"Do you think the portrait knows-"
"Portraits aren't the consciousness of that individual. Just… a shadow of them." Severus said in a dull voice. "He'll be about as useful as a chocolate teapot." He added, pointing at the portrait.
Circe sighed and took a turn about the room. There were so many problems, so many things to face, that she didn't even know where to start.
How to help Neville. How to keep Tom safe. How to find Harry. How to find the missing Horcruxes. How to keep The Carrows under control. How to keep themselves under control…
She felt sicker as her list grew longer.
Not to mention dear old Herri stashed away in an abandoned room on the Fifth Floor…
Circe rolled her eyes as she thought of the difficult task her and Severus had gone through to try and smuggle Herriculus in the castle. Getting him to leave his room in the B&B had been difficult enough, but convincing the old man to allow Circe to transfigure him into a field mouse so he could hide in the pocket of her handbag…Herriculus had agreed to it eventually, when Circe had told him the room in Hogwarts had a direct hatch down to the Kitchens.
Circe found her eyes drifting back to the portrait of Dumbledore. She wished that Dumbledore had met Herriculus. Maybe he'd have known how to separate the part of Herpo's soul from Herriculus without killing him. Or maybe not. The Headmaster knew a lot of things, but how to solve the impossible?
Circe shook her head.
Come on, Circe…. One problem at a time.
"Neville." She said suddenly, turning abruptly to Severus. "You can't help him."
Severus groaned and banged his forehead on the desk. "Yes, Circe. I am painfully aware of that." He mumbled into the wood.
"No, no…. You can't help him, Sev." Circe said again, placing both hands on the table. "If the Carrows find out that you've helped him, then the game will be up and they'll go running straight to Voldemort. But I can help him."
"Circe…" Severus sighed. "If you're caught, the consequences will be just as dire."
"No, no, no… if I'm caught just say my "bleeding heart" got the best of me, that I, as a feeble woman, let my emotions rule me. I'm not as hardened a Death Eater as you, yadda yadda yadda…" she said, a small spark of hope glimmering within. "And if The Carrows really kick off, if they find out, you can always say that you… punished me… for my insubordination." Circe finished with a cheeky smile.
Severus choked out a surprised laugh. The ember of hope catching on something inside him too.
"Naughty." He purred, tracing a circle on her hand.
"I'll go down to the Dungeons… see if I can brew him up a quick Pain Suppressant Draft. Maybe a Calming Draft too…" Circe said hurriedly.
"Pain Suppressant is easy enough… but when did you learn to make Calming Draft?" Severus asked.
"… last year." Circe replied evasively.
"Oh, I see…" Severus said as he saw darkness cloud in her eyes. "Thank you."
Severus stood to his feet and leant across the desk, planting a warm and lingering kiss on her mouth.
"Don't thank me until I've done it without being caught…" Circe grumbled in reply.
Severus huffed and fell silent. He reached for a curl that fell over Circe's left shoulder and caressed it lovingly between his fingers.
"I thought I'd lost you for a minute…" he whispered, his brow furrowing.
"What do you mean?"
"Well… for a moment, I couldn't see the fire and the fight in you. I thought you'd given up..."
Circe pulled away from him, her expression sour.
"I don't understand what you want of me, Severus." She said, scrunching her eyes tight. "One day it's "control your urges", the next it's "where's the fire?". After the Seven Potters mission, you tell me that I can't stand up for the ones I love, and now you're worried because I didn't immediately act in their favour!"
"Circe, come on…"
"Or is it only fine to act when you want to?" She asked indignantly.
"You know I don't mean that! You act on spirit and heart! I act on logic... It has always been that way between us." Severus said, his voice rising to a crescendo.
Circe folded her arms. "Are you saying I move before I think?"
"Yes. Sometimes yes." Severus said exhaustedly. "And I love you for it."
Circe's rising anger softened a little at that and she lowered her crossed arms.
"But you must let a little bit of me in you as I have tried to let a little bit of you in me." Severus continued. "When I fell in love with you, I learnt to dive in, leave logic behind, follow my heart. You do not make sense, and by Merlin, sometimes that has saved lives. But sometimes it's also gotten you into trouble too."
"Name three times." Circe said a little childishly.
"Stealing Miss Granger's timeturner, getting your head caved in by the Basilisk, running into the Vanishing Cabinet and trapping yourself in Malfoy Manor, the mob of spiders I found you in when I'd just returned from-"
"Alright, alright, I said just three…" Circe muttered.
Severus eyed her up and walked slowly over to her side. He cupped her chin with his hand and raised her blazing emerald eyes to his.
"I've told you many times of how you complete me." He said softly to her. "Now please, let the small part of my nature that's of any benefit complete you. You are my heart, now let me be your head."
"I have my own head, Severus. I can think for myself." Circe mumbled, her temper still a little raised.
"Well, maybe not your head, but your impulse control perhaps."
Circe huffed but she dropped her eyes from his. A small show of humility. That she knew what Severus was getting at.
"You know…" Severus said, relaxing a little once he understood his message was sinking in. "Dumbledore once told me that he believed we Sort too soon. I see so much of that Gryffindor spirit in you. Your step-brother's not a Ravenclaw, but he takes after you alright."
Circe rolled her eyes and tried to pull away, but Severus's firm hands held her chin tightly. She was gazing back into his black eyes once more.
"Are you giving me sass, Miss Smith?" He purred wickedly.
"And what if I am, Headmaster?" She whispered, breathing the challenge onto his lips.
"You know, I could punish you for your insubordination… right now." Severus said hoarsely, running a hand down to her neck. "People will be expecting much more severe consequences from me now I'm Voldemort's puppet Headmaster, other than writing lines and clearing out the potions cauldrons…"
"Oh, well as much as I'd like to receive your special treatment..." Circe whispered, ghosting her lips over his mouth and her hand over his groin. She pushed his chest hard and he staggered backwards into the desk. Dumbledore's portrait gave another snort of alarm. "…There's a boy downstairs in a lot of pain. And he probably won't appreciate waiting for us to stop fucking before he gets his pain suppressants."
Severus snorted, the smile that he gave her was all sin and lust. Circe turned from him and walked slowly away, making sure Severus watched every bounce of her backside as she could.
It was approaching midnight by the time Circe had made her way back out of the Dungeons. It was easy for her to get around the castle unseen; everybody was too afraid to leave the Dormitories. She only heard the Carrows patrolling the halls once, somewhere by the Slytherin Common Room, drinking firewhiskey by a snake statue and reminiscing about how they apparently both lost their virginities behind the statue…
They'd both been too drunk to notice when Circe had walked right underneath the two of them. Hidden from their sights in the pipes that traversed the subterranean school.
The potions she had prepared for Neville were stashed away in her inside pocket. Even with the stopper firmly in the Calming Draft, she still could smell the floral scent of lavender every time her inner cloak flapped open. It had been many months since she'd needed Calming Draft, but the cloyingly sweet smell churned her guts every time it assaulted her nostrils. It did nothing to affect Circe's mood now, but she hoped it would give poor Neville something to help him cope with this horrendous night.
She could almost have tracked where Neville was by closing her eyes and following the sounds of his screaming. Every few minutes the angor beans would have him contracting and roaring into the cavernous atrium of the castle. Circe felt a part of her soul dying each time Neville screamed. His voice was hoarse and feral. The ground beneath where he hung was wet with his vomit. His back faced her, and it arched with pain as another attack of agony gripped him. Circe cringed, her eyes filling with tears as she waited for it to ebb
Circe looked up at him from the shadows. Neville still hung in midair, his arms outstretched in a pose of total submission. She squinted at him in the darkness, a small shaft of moonlight falling across his body. The only light they'd left him. In the light of the moon, she thought she saw… a web around Neville. Circe squinted again, seeing what looked like a thousand iridescent, dark threads entangled around Neville's body. So small and so thin that they hadn't been visible in the light of day. But in the moonlight, she saw the spider web of dark magic The Carrows had bound him in, and Circe wished she'd hexed them both on her way out of the Dungeons…
Severus's "impulse control" be damned.
Circe stepped out of the shadows and walked beneath Neville. Her eyes looked up at the boy through glazed tears as she took her wand out and banished the binding charms around him.
"Reparifors." She whispered. Neville's outstretched arms flopped to his sides.
"Finite Leviosa." She said next, and Neville's limp body descended down into her outstretched arms. He couldn't stand, so Circe let him lay on the floor, holding his head upright as she tried to shake some consciousness into him. But all Circe got from the boy was a few quiet mumbles. Neville's face was still bloodied from the punches the Carrows had given him, a nasty series of bruises developing on his cheeks and around his eyes. But he was grey. His eyes looked without looking. Half-delirious with agony. When suddenly his features contorted into a grotesque mask of pain…
He screamed at her, his limbs twisting and his muscles tightening. Circe felt every part of the boy go taut. So horribly constricted that she thought he might snap like a rubber band. Her ears rang as Neville roared straight into her face, oblivious that she was there, oblivious to anything else other than the torment of the angor beans.
Eventually he stilled and slumped back into a comatose state of respire.
"Take this, Neville, before the next pain contraction comes." Circe said hurriedly, propping up Neville's body in one hand and reaching for the Pain Suppressant Draft with the other
She unstoppered the vial with a pop of her thumb and the boy did not resist her when she poured the potion down his throat.
Circe re-pocketed the glass vial and waited, staring at Neville's grey and bruised face, hoping that it had worked…
She waited for another contraction of agony to come.
Waited for his young face to change into that mask of pain again.
And when she felt his muscles constrict beneath her hands, she held her breath.
But no scream came. Just the sound of her hurried, nervous breathing. Neville's eyelids fluttered open and he stared blearily at her.
"You…" he said shakily. "You get off me, you…"
"Shh, don't fight Neville." Circe said, quickly waving the Calming Draft under his nose.
"You… you're a tra… a traitor…" Neville said dreamily. "A back… stabber…"
The boy's eyes fluttered as he breathed in deep from the lavender-scented potion.
"And you are a very brave young man." Circe said soothingly. "Tom couldn't be in better company. You're everything that's good about this place."
"Don't… get away… from me." Neville murmured again.
"Shh." Circe said again, pointing her wand at his temple. "It's alright Neville, you won't remember this at all in a moment. You won't remember me. This will all be just a bad nightmare."
Neville stared at her with vacant eyes and Circe finally whispered "Obliviate."
Carefully, she took out all the memories Neville had of her face that night. Everything of the potions and help she had given him, and everything of his terrible night of torturous pain. She went back a little further, until just after the Carrows had forced a few handfuls of angor beans into his mouth and the first few building waves of pain began to rake through him. After that, she would leave only a vague presence of this night in his mind, but none of the pain, none of the agony.
Neville doesn't deserve to be traumatised by this. Circe thought sadly.
She put Neville into a deep and calming sleep as she hoisted him back up into the sky. Circe felt a small trumpet of triumph inside her; she'd helped Neville, and she'd not been caught doing it by the Carrows. The Pain Suppressant potion she'd given him was strong enough to stop his bouts of agony until at least the morning, by then the angor beans should have mostly worked their way out of his system. The Calming Draft too should help to keep him levelled and tranquil, until the Carrows were finished with him.
But if Circe wanted nobody to know that she'd helped alleviate Neville's suffering, she had to put him back exactly as she'd found him…
Circe carefully reworked the spider's web of dark magic back around his body until Neville was back in his crucified position in the sky. His head was still bent low against his chest, but this time in a quiet, peaceful sleep, not comatose pain. Happy with her work, Circe sighed to herself. She was so, so ready for her bed. To crawl in besides Severus and gently weep out the stress of the day in his arms. He'd be waiting for her in their shared rooms. She turned to go, to hurry to Severus…
… and there was Mcgonagall.
She stood in the grand entrance doorway to the castle. Her striking silhouette framed against the indigo nighttime sky. Circe's pulse quickened as the old woman remained still and unmoving. Just like the duo of armoured suits at either side of her.
Circe gulped and tried to summon up her courage.
"What are you doing here?" She asked Minerva, trying to sound like the Ice Queen Death Eater she had been that afternoon in the Great Hall.
"I think the more pertinent question is what are you doing here?" Mcgonagall replied curtly, stepping into the shaft of moonlight.
Each one of her wrinkles looked deeper. Each frown and worry-line exacerbated by the darkness. Mcgonagall looked like she'd aged ten years since the last time Circe had seen her. But Circe thought of all the trauma she had caused her old friend: Dumbledore's death, the scene she'd made at the funeral, the long summer on the run, the Ministry takeover… Was it, therefore, any wonder that Minerva looked aged and tired?
"I… I don't know what you think you saw, but I was just checking to make sure the Longbottom boy was-"
"You have never been able to lie to me, Circe Smith." Minerva said gently, approaching Circe with a slow tap of her heels on the flagstones. "And you have not overcome that deficit of ability tonight."
Circe blinked at her, unsure of what to say next. Her oldest, dearest friend at Hogwarts, was right there. Confronting her with all the ferocity of a lion. They had not spoken a word to each other since the night on the Astronomy Tower, and the air between them was electrified with tension. But there was something other than intense hatred in her old friend's face. Something soft and curious. And as Minerva approached Circe, Mcgonagall could have been a huntress approaching a wild animal in the forest, afraid that it would spook at any moment.
Circe did want to run. The presence of anything other than intense loathing in Mcgonagall's face unnerved her. Her blood was thrumming with alarm and panic. She glanced back up to Neville as sweat pricked her forehead.
How much did Minerva see? What did she hear me say? What does she suspect?
She tried to purse her lips and look steely, like she'd watched Mcgonagall herself do many a time when telling off a student or giving someone a reprimand. She couldn't let her Death Eater mask slip, not even for Minerva…
"I don't have time for this." Circe said hurriedly, pushing past Mcgonagall. "And you better get back to your quarters before Alecto and Amycus find you in the halls without the Headmaster's permission."
"Does Severus know you're here?" Minerva asked her gently.
The quiet concern in Mcgonagall's voice made Circe stop. She turned to face her old friend slowly, gradually putting the pieces together of what Minerva was thinking…
"Does he know you're going behind his back to help us?" Minerva pressed.
Circe's heart cracked inside her.
Oh no, Min. Don't think that about him…
Mcgonagall must have watched her give the potions to Neville. She'd seen every little bit of Circe's betraying compassion. She'd glimpsed underneath the Death Eater mask and seen the Circe she knew. Not the Ice Queen. Not the Death Eater's consort, but the young woman she'd nurtured all these years. Perhaps Circe was that same young woman, led astray by a dark-hearted, charismatic seducer...
No, no, no Min. Severus sent me here. He was the one that wanted to help…Circe thought, raging against the hand of fate that stopped her from blurting it all out at Minerva.
Circe's silence seemed to speak to Mcgonagall. Again, she edged closer to Circe, one gentle inch at a time.
"I saw what you did for Longbottom. I was hiding nearby myself, hoping to find a good moment to offer him some relief from his pain." Minerva said with a wobble of emotion. Circe flinched at the sound, knowing just how deeply seeing her Gryffindors in danger would cut her. "I thought perhaps those ghastly Carrows had come back to torment him some more. But then you appeared and-"
"Minerva, please…Just forget what you saw here." Circe said quickly, her voice cracking.
Her soul ached to tell her friend the truth. That her and Severus were secretly working for the greater good. That neither of them wanted this hurt and torture, but they had to abide it to maintain their cover. That Severus wasn't the cruel and unfeeling monster everyone believed him to be.
"If he's forcing you to do this, Circe…" Mcgonagall said, a quiver rising in her throat. A dark look passed over Minerva's eyes and Circe saw the all too familiar sparkle of hatred there. Minerva may have been reconsidering Circe's true loyalties, but her mind was still firmly set against Severus. Circe's heart sank as she realised that Mcgonagall could extend her grace to her, it seemed, but not to Snape. Perhaps because it had been Severus himself that had played executioner, whilst Circe was merely present at the scene. But still, the realisation stung; Minerva could not believe the worst of Circe, but she could of Severus. Severus, whom she'd known longer than Circe. Cared for and mothered and guided since his teenage years… He, apparently, was beyond saving.
He deserves your loyalty too, Min. Circe thought sadly. He's still the good man you know. He just… He just plays his part better than me.
"I know you love him…" Mcgonagall continued. ".. but if he's made you an accomplice in all this… You know you don't have to stick by his side, don't you? If you wanted to come back… I would be here."
That almost sent Circe into a blubbering, tearful mess. Despite everything Minerva believed she'd done, or stood at Severus's side whilst he did it, she still wanted her back. A waiting, welcoming embrace.
But Circe shook her head gently. You're wrong, Min. You're wrong about us both.
"Forget it, Minerva. Forget about me." Circe said sternly, her back to her. If she looked her in the eye, she surely would start crying. "I'm sorry."
And as much as it hurt her, as much as it felt like she was separating herself from another mother in her life, she walked away…
Each step away from Minerva she took was agony. Every fall of her foot willed her to turn around and go running into her embrace and tell her all. They'd sit together in their conservatory, they'd have a cup of tea, they'd set the world to right, it would all be okay...
But Circe knew it wouldn't. Nobody could know of their true loyalties, otherwise Voldemort would be one legilimens spell away from discovering them both.
So Circe had to drive the knife of betrayal even deeper into Minerva's chest.
She had to leave Mcgonagall silently weeping to herself as she watched her surrogate daughter slip back into the embrace of darkness.