They say there are steps to grieving for those who are lost to us, emotions we all feel when faced with the death of one we love. Our minds and our hearts disagree on the information we learn, and we are hurt, angered by this. We feel doubt as to our own immortality, for do we not all want to live forever? Perhaps we are merely afraid to die. But then, did a great man not once say, "To a well ordered mind, death is but the next great adventure"? There are many among us, who, when the time comes, look on death without fear in their hearts. After all, how else shall we see what lies beyond? Death is an adventure- one from which we cannot return… at least, not unchanged. Why then, do survivors continue to look for us to pull us back, if only to reconcile their own minds with their own hearts.
It was a mere two days before the students were to return to school, and still there was no further information on Harry. No spells could locate him, supporting Dursley's explanation. Tonks and Lupin had pored over Muggle newspapers, looking for information on a body found in a Surrey field, but no articles recounted the events. Charlie and his father were visiting area mortuaries and hospitals, hoping to contact someone who knew anything, but merely facing blank nurses who refused to give out information concerning patients who were not relatives. Now, they were all gathered in the kitchen of Number 12 Grimmauld Place awaiting the arrival of Dumbledore, of whom they had seen very little over the past few weeks.
Sirius was the only member who had not been involved in the constant search for Harry. His prison was much smaller than the house he was not permitted to leave. It was within him, blaming him every moment for the death of the boy who had been his godson. No amount of fire whiskey could drown out the voice, reminding him of his ineptitude in his position.
Failure. A harsh word. The harshest to his ears. He was a failure as a friend, a godfather, as protector… and within the confines of this house, never a home for him, he was constantly reminded of his failures as a son. How often had he been told so?
Sirius was good for nothing but this wretched house which he could give to the Order. His was naught but to sit in the darkest corner of the kitchen with his whiskey- the bottle close to his knee- the constant reminder of what failure means: living death, futility.
Perhaps this was all futile.
₪₪₪₪
Nightfall. Witching hour for the superstitious. The hour for those who defy death, for far away, a similar gathering was taking place. Followers of another powerful wizard had come together, summoned by he whom they revered, identically dressed in pitch robes and featureless masks, forming a circle unbroken.
Severus Snape stood among these men and women, unidentifiable, but for his height, though everyone knew who he was. The Dark Lord's spy. Snape wrapped his haughtiness about himself like his cloak, defying any to speak to him or meet his eye who was not in the Dark Lord's inner-circle. Tonight was the night- the night his screams would echo through the still air. His haughtiness and his cloak were hiding him so he could mentally prepare.
"I must tell him tonight, Albus. I cannot risk not being summoned tomorrow."
"I understand, Severus. I had only hoped it would not be necessary."
"What shall I tell him?"
"Simply that Harry is missing."
"Albus-"
"Nothing more, Severus. Nothing more."
"Do you honestly believe-?"
"Nothing more, Severus."
"Severus? What news from Hogwarts?"
Lowering his head to the appropriate level of acquiescence, Snape stepped forward, daring not raise his eyes above the hem of the Dark Lord's cloak. His mind was cleared of all but the information he was to give.
"The Potter boy is missing, My lord, and has been since he left the school." He lowered his head even further into submission, awaiting the reaction.
"Is that so?" The hem of his cloak moved closer as the Dark Lord approached. Snape braced himself.
"Yes, My Lord."
"And what does that Muggle-loving fool think of this- situation?" Yet, the tone of his voice denoted no curiosity in Dumbledore. He was fishing for something.
"He is out of his mind, My Lord, searching for the boy."
Eternal silence made more terrifying by the Dark Lord's slow trek around the subservient Potions Master. Snape struggled to keep his mind cleared of all thoughts but the information he was to share.
Reveal nothing.
"What do you think of this information, Severus?"
"My Lord?" Where was he going with this?
"Do you believe this information you have brought to me?"
"I believe that Dumbledore believes it, My Lord."
A pause.
"Well answered, Severus-"
Thank the gods for that.
"-however, the information you bring me is false."
Before a thought could form in Snape's head, his body was screaming out in pain.
₪₪₪₪
Albus Dumbledore sat at the head of the kitchen table, fingertips pressed together just in front of his nose, listening to the reports being made by the members of the Order of the Phoenix. Essentially, everyone was reporting that they had nothing to report. No further information could be found regarding Harry. The poor boy's body could not be found.
"What about the prophecy?" Remus Lupin asked, raising his gaze from the scratches in the scrubbed table, to the aged face of his former headmaster.
"We must continue to be sure it is kept safe at all-."
"Why?" Sirius had pulled himself out of his drunken stupor long enough to interrupt the head of the Order.
"Why?" Dumbledore repeated.
"Why keep it safe?" he asked more bitterly. "Voldemort won. Harry's dead. Why bother keeping a bottled memory safe? What's the point?"
"The point?"
"Yes, the point." He rose unsteadily to his feet, an action mirrored by Lupin, who also rose, his eyes trained on his friend. "What is the point in protecting the prophecy?" He looked around at the other members of the Order, shocked into silence by his behavior. "We couldn't even protect a fifteen year old boy from being beaten to death by a filthy Muggle."
"Sirius-"
"Stay out of this, Remus."
"Sirius, sit down before you say something you will regret." His eyes strayed uncomfortably toward Tonks, who was staring open-mouthed at her cousin.
"The boy you've put all of your faith in is dead. Almost everyone from the first Order is dead or crazy. What exactly are we accomplishing except to shorten our own lives?"
"If we do not stand up to Voldemort, Sirius, who will?" Dumbledore's blue-gray eyes held the deep blue eyes of his former student, holding him as if they were the only two in the room, in a quiet conversation before a roaring fire. He raised not his voice, nor allowed anger to permeate his words. "Cornelius Fudge? Do you trust him with your life?"
"I don't trust myself with my life!" Sirius cried, flinging his glass of whiskey at the wall and charging from the room as the glass and its contents shattered. Remus moved to follow, but was still by Dumbledore.
"Let him go, Remus. He is grieving. Let him grieve. However," he continued, looking around the room, and especially at Remus and the Weasleys, "limit the liquor to which he has access. I realize this is his house, but this behavior must not be allowed to continue, for his own health and safety."
₪₪₪₪
When the pain had subsided enough to become conscious again of his surroundings, Snape lifted himself to his hands and knees, never daring to attempt standing or looking at the black robes of his Master. He knew something, definitely more than Snape had told him, and Snape was being punished, but what did he know?
"My Lord, what have I done?" He knew the Cruciatus Curse was coming again, even before it hit him, but he needed to discover what the Dark Lord knew. Did he know of the boy's fate? Or his location?
"My foolish Potions Master," the spector of a man hissed, "I discovered this information weeks ago from the Dementors. And Lucius was kind enough to discover the boy's fate." An eerie laugh escaped his throat, sending shivers down Snape's spine. "Murdered by his Muggle relatives. How Dumbledore must relish this, that the boy was killed by those he seeks to protect, as I'm sure he already knows. He has no need to protect them any longer."
"My Lord?" A white light flashed before Snape's eyes, as every nerve in his body exploded in pain. His very bones seemed to be on fire as his body writhed uncontrollably on the ground. Screaming rang in his ears, though he only realized later it was his own. All he could be sure of was that his body was rebelling against him, and that he only wanted it all to end. It was only when it again stopped abruptly that he realized his nose was bleeding, and had been for some time. He turned his head to the side to cough up the bloody phlegm in his throat.
"Do you really believe I would allow them to live after they have taken what is only my right to have?" the Dark Lord spat. "Those Mudbloods experienced a very long death. Any who takes what is mine will be dealt the same. Potter is dead. Now, I want Dumbledore." He paused, probably to survey the Death Eaters gathered around him. "Let Severus' lesson be a lesson for all of you. Information is to be timely and accurate. Severus, next time, I will not be so kind."
Snape's scream caught in his throat, somewhere between complete agony and a need to breathe. His muscles felt like they were tearing away from his bones. His body no longer existed; only the pain sent to his brain in lightening flashes of torture and agony. He was blinded again by white lights before everything fell to darkness.
₪₪₪₪
Dumbledore was sitting at his desk in deep thought when his Potions Master entered his office and, tossing his Death Eater mask on the desk, sunk into a chair, crossing his arms with his robes wrapped tightly around him.
"You're returning very late."
"We had a late night."
"How did it go?"
"The Dursleys are dead."
Dumbledore looked up suddenly, meeting the ink black eyes of his spy.
"He has learned Potter is dead," Snape continued. "The Dursleys are no more."
"How?"
"Most likely, after a very long torture," the spy answered darkly.
"How did he find out?" Dumbledore reiterated.
"Why does it matter?" Snape asked irritably. "Or did you seek to protect them after what they did?"
"Severus, did you-?"
"Were he a wizard, Dursley would have sent to Azkaban until he died. This fate was more than he deserved." He knew these words would anger the headmaster, the man he looked up to more than any other, but at this moment, after everything he had experienced this night, he did not care. He believed fully what he stated.
"No one deserves torture, Severus. And his wife and child were innocent-."
"Nobody is innocent, Albus!" he cried, his voice rising to a level he had never used with this man before. "If there are any guilty people, it is them, for they did nothing to stop it! They are guilty of weakness!"
"Weakness is not punishable by death, Severus!" Anger seeped into the old man's eyes, the likes of which Snape had not seen directed toward himself since he first admitted to being a Death Eater. "You, of all people, should understand that!"
"What I understand is that Dursley murdered our one real chance to defeat the Dark Lord, and for that he was killed." He was standing now, towering over his mentor, the man who had trusted him so long ago when none should have. "He kept a wizard child caged like an animal and beat him to death. I cannot feel sorry for his fate. Had I the chance myself-."
"Do not finish that statement, Severus," Dumbledore warned. "Do not make me question what side you are on."
Snape stared stonily at the headmaster.
"You question my side?"
"I told you specifically to inform Voldemort of nothing more than that Harry was missing. You handed him a Muggle family, Harry's family, and as to their deaths-."
"I told him exactly what you wished me to, that Potter was missing." He reached out with a badly shaking hand, the only after-affect of the curses he had withstood that he had not been able to conceal, and grabbed his mask from the desk. "He had already learned the truth, and the Dursleys were dead before I was ever summoned."
Dumbledore's eyes, however, were on Snape's thin hand, gripping the mask, and he wondered that he did not notice before, even when it was concealed within the younger man's robes, so pronounced were the tremors.
"Why did he torture you?" he asked more quietly.
"For bringing him inaccurate information," Snape answered in an angry, but more controlled voice. There was no need to add who had bid him to repeat that information. The hurt look in the headmaster's eyes was enough to know he understood the implication. Snape turned and, without being dismissed, swept across the room toward the door. Opening the heavy door, he turned once more to the Head of the Order. "Never question my allegiance, Albus." He held the old man's eyes for as long as he dared. "I would take my own life before I would willingly give it back to him." Thus, he left Dumbledore to sink slowly into his chair, his head in his hands, to reflect on the words he had said to the man who risked so much for the Order, as the door across the room shut with a soft thunk.
* * *
Very angsty chapter here. I think it's my favorite so far. I purposely tried to parallel the two meetings in this one. Is it confusing? I think it worked very nicely to lead up to the confrontation between Snape and Dumbledore at the end. I think that in order for it to work, Dumbledore had to be worried/preoccupied with the Sirius confrontation earlier in the chapter. Did it work? Was it believable? I feel like I really hit Snape in this one… his parts just flowed onto the paper (well, computer screen).
As for Sirius, people complained that I didn't portray his anger in the last chapter. That was because I already had this one planned. And before you can say he is ooc, I simply took the Christmas-time Sirius from OoTP and pushed it to the extreme, and here he is. He's drunk, he's pissed, and he wants someone to blame for Harry's death. Is it too much?