Disclaimer: Characters and situations all belong to JK Rowlings, not me. Caius the raven belongs to Draqonelle, who has kindly allowed me to borrow him (Vesta McGonagall and Caligula Snape are hers too). In addition, I got the name Polaris Black for Sirius's sister from someone else's fanfic, but I can't remember whose (her character, however, belongs entirely to me and Draqonelle—and owes a bit to Victor Hugo's Inspector Javert). The Black Bitch is mine from her three-cylinder 750cc engine to the blue detail work on her gas tank (though I occasionally let Draq borrow her).
Posted by: Elspeth (also known as L Squared)
Ships: Professor Sinistra and an adorable black dog, hopefully hints at a future Snape/McGonagall
Not much in the way of plot in this installment, but lots of character development and guilt.
Chapter Seven: In Which Several People Have Second Thoughts, and a Woman Talks to a Mirror.
The day following the startling revelations in Dumbledore's office had been a distinctly difficult one for Minerva, beginning with the walk into the Great Hall at breakfast, when a storm of whispering had arisen among the students and the entire Slytherin table had pinned her with a variety of truly vicious glares. Claire Sinistra, who had probably anticipated some of the rumors busily circulating among the student body, had not even shown up.
The announcement Dumbledore had made at the beginning of the meal—"Contrary to what you may have heard, Professors McGonagall and Snape did not engage in a wizards' duel to the death last night, and Professor Sinistra is not pregnant with Voldemort's heir"—had put paid to the most outrageous of the stories, but the lively speculation continued throughout the day.
Worse, almost, than the fact that a full quarter of her students spent the day acting even more spiteful toward her than the Slytherins usually did was the fact that she had brought the situation on herself. Her actions toward Snape the night before had been totally uncalled for. Even if he had been sleeping with Claire, her fellow teachers' love lives were no business of hers, and that slap, though strangely satisfying, had been outrageously inappropriate.
She actually felt rather guilty about the whole thing. For once in his life, Snape actually hadn't done anything wrong, and she had practically attacked him on the basis of what had been nothing more than an unfounded suspicion. Why had she overreacted so horribly? She had put two and two together and come up with five, and had responded in an irrational and totally unprofessional manner. What on earth had possessed her to actually hit him?
At least he had accepted her apology, if in a slightly less than gracious manner. Minerva was actually surprised to have gotten off so easily; she could only assume that the presence of Sirius Black had relegated her to the post of minor annoyance in comparison.
Sirius Black! She still felt a vague sense of disbelief when she thought back to the astonishing scene in the Headmaster's office the previous night. For fourteen years, she, and the rest of the wizarding world, had been deceived, believing implicitly in his guilt. She had been as shocked and appalled as anyone else that horrible All Saints Day, when the news of the Potters' deaths and Sirius's crimes had filtered throughout the wizarding community. How, how, she had kept asking herself, could he have done it? It had just seemed so unbelievable, so inconsistent with his personality and prior behavior. But to believe that Peter Pettigrew had been the real culprit? That seemed still more unlikely. Shy, timid little Peter a murderer? But if Dumbledore believed it, was willing to let Sirius actually stay at Hogwarts, than it had to be true.
In retrospect, the fact that Snape and the rest of the Hogwarts faculty—for she had been as intent on calling in the ministry as he had, if for slightly different reasons—had almost caused him to be given the dementors' kiss two years ago made her blood run cold, as did the very prospect of an innocent man spending twelve years in Azkaban. He had seemed sane enough the previous night, but what internal scars might there be to match the ones on his wrists?
If damage of any sort had been done, he was showing no signs of it at the moment. Currently, "Snuffles" was sitting on the floor between Remus and Claire, engaged in a blatant and very canine display of begging, which Claire was responding to by giving him bits of her diner. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, seated down at the Gryffindor table, were watching the two of them with speculative smiles. Snape would probably have sneered and said something rude, but he was not present at the dinner table. He was spending the evening meal down in the dungeons, supervising the Weasley twins' detention. Snape was quite happy to miss diner if it meant that some of his least favorite students had to go hungry as well—though knowing the twins, they would be obtaining all the foodstuffs they could want from the house-elves later that evening. Come to think of it, Severus hadn't been at any of the meals today. It was probably just as well—Minerva wasn't sure if she was quite ready to face him yet.
^_~
Claire Sinistra couldn't help smiling as she slipped "Snuffles" another tidbit of steak. He was taking the bits of food she gave him with only a modicum of interest, and she was beginning to suspect that the whole begging act, effective as it was, was merely an excuse for him to put one paw up on her thigh and rest his chin on her knee. Usually—and especially now that she knew "Snuffles" wasn't a real dog—she'd have bopped him on the nose and shoved the overly affectionate paw firmly off her leg, but at the moment, she didn't have the heart to push him away.
"You do know that he's only doing that in order to get you to pet him, right?" Remus asked from beside her. He leaned over and de-pawed her leg for her. "Try not to flirt so blatantly in public, Snuffles, she's on to you now."
"Oh, leave him," Claire said. "It's sort of cute." Sirius, hearing her, immediately returned the displaced paw to its former position. "But if that paw goes another two inches higher, I'm cutting it off with my steak knife. You hear that, 'Snuffles?'"
Sirius gave her a wounded look.
"I really ought to apologize to you and Snuffles for my little fit of hysterics last night. I shouldn't have come barging into your room in the first place, and then to cause that whole big scene… I mean, the whole faculty knows now, and I know Snuffles was supposed to be a secret. I really am sorry."
Remus shook his head. "Don't apologize, Claire. You had every right to react the way you did. There was no way you could have known that Snuffle's was innocent, and to walk in and find the two of us like that…" he trailed off, looking away for a moment and pushing the steak and chips around on his plate. "I should be the one apologizing. I shouldn't have left my door unlocked like that; it was unforgivably careless. What if I had done more than just growl at you?"
"Remus, don't. I was shrieking at you like a harpy and holding your friend at wandpoint. I think you showed admirable restraint—I would have bitten me."
Remus actually went pale at the thought. "Oh God, don't even say that. When I think about what could have happened… It's just luck that I didn't do something horrible to you."
Sirius gave a single, sharp bark, quite obviously a denial. Claire agreed with him.
"I don't believe you would ever hurt anyone, no matter what phase of the moon it was. I was just—startled—last night. Snuffles feels comfortable around you when you're transformed, after all."
"That's because Snuffles is an idiot. You saw his shoulder last night; he's far too careless around me when I'm transformed."
"I think he knows that you would never seriously hurt him, especially not now that there's the wolfsbane potion." Sirius nodded enthusiastically in support, a gesture which looked distinctly odd coming from a giant black dog, and Claire continued: "As he said, he probably deserved it anyway. Most of those scars seemed to be rather self-inflicted." She stopped, horrified, realizing what she had just said. "I mean," she babbled hurriedly, trying to recover from her faux pas, "the motorcycle crash ones, and all those from the bludgers—anyone who plays a beater and tears around on that horrid muggle machine like he used to is asking for it."
Sirius removed his head from her leg and gave her an offended look that spoke louder than words. I was not "asking for it," the look said, and my bike is not horrid.
"Never insult Bike around Snuffles," Remus told her, choosing—thank the fates—to ignore the fist part of what she had said. "He might bite you. He loved her more than anything. That's probably the real reason he never had a steady girlfriend—he was engaged to a '69 Triumph. That's why James and I christened her the Black Bitch." He grinned, and for a moment the ghost of a much younger Remus Lupin peeked out from those golden eyes. "Insert apostrophe and 'S' where appropriate."
"That's horrible," Claire said, trying to stifle the impulse to laugh.
"It was mainly James's idea," Remus defended himself. "He was also the one behind Snuffles' immense collection of monogrammed items. I swear, by the time James was done, he must have owned more handkerchiefs, sweaters, pens, and sets of luggage with his initials on them than any wizard in Britain."
"Why monogrammed?" Claire asked in confusion. "I don't get the joke."
"You mean all those romantic evenings atop the astronomy tower and he never told you?"
"They weren't romantic evenings! We actually were studying astronomy. He was even better at it than I was, even though I was two years ahead, what with his father being an astronomer and all. Anyway, told me what?"
Again the wicked grin. "His middle name," Remus informed her solemnly, "is Orion."
Claire drew a blank for a moment, but after a few seconds' thought, she had figured it out. This time, she was unable to stifle her laughter.
^_~
Snape, ensconced behind his desk in the potions classroom, had rarely felt less like laughing, despite the fact that the two thoroughly miserable Weasley twins were supplying what would normally have been a considerable amount of entertainment value. Under most circumstances, the sight of Fred Weasley balanced precariously on top of one of Filch's ladders, diligently scrubbing away the carefully painted "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here," emblazoned above the classroom door, while his brother got ready to scour all the cauldrons in the classroom with a toothbrush, would have been a source of great personal satisfaction. Had they honestly thought that after six and a half years of grading their pathetic attempts at essays, he would fail to recognize their handwriting?
At the moment, however, even the prospect of Harry Potter up to his elbows in cleaning fluid would have failed to delight. No petty exercise of power over troublesome students could wipe away the events of the night before, or change the fact that Draco Malfoy had missed Potions that morning, as well as half of his History of Magic class.
It was that second bit of information which was the most troublesome, making the painful scenes with Black and McGonagall dwindle almost into insignificance. Draco, Snape knew, had been at summoned to a Death Eater raid. He had felt the ghost of the summoning through his Mark that morning, even though it had not been directed at him. Snape was considered too valuable as a spy on Dumbledore and provider of poisons to risk blowing his cover by calling him away for every raid, but the newly inducted Draco would be required to join in every mission and meeting, until his loyalty and worth were proven.
Snape remembered his own "breaking in" period, nearly twenty years ago now. He had been only a few months older than Draco, and the excitement, the sense of camaraderie among his compatriots, the heady feeling of power that came from holding another person's life in your hands, the thrill of receiving approval and recognition for the first time in his life, had been intoxicating.
When his father had been murdered by aurors in his sixth year, Lucius Malfoy had arranged the funeral while Snape had still been out of contact in the Hogwarts infirmary. He had sent an owl—the only one that had arrived for Snape during the whole affair, other than the belated official notice from the ministry—offering condolences, sympathy, and a chance for revenge. It had been as simple as that, one small step at a time down the road to Hades, until eventually he was in so deep that even Caius's departure hadn't been enough to bring him to his senses. It had taken an afternoon spent "volunteering" at the site of a Death Eater raid—at Dumbledore's invitation; the old man was far more ruthless than anyone gave him credit for—to finally do that.
It was easy, so easy to slip into the darkness, to tell yourself that you were only following orders, that they deserved it, that the ends justified the means, that you were a part of something special and larger than yourself, and you couldn't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs… Eventually, one became desensitized to the blood, the screams. From watching on the sidelines while someone else killed to holding the wand yourself was not so very great a step to take.
How long would it be before Draco took that final stride over into darkness? All the necessary ingredients were there: his resentment of Harry and the other Gryffindors, the unthinking prejudices Lucius had drummed into him since birth, his natural Slytherin affinity for power and thirst to prove himself, and his absolute trust in his father and in Snape himself, the two who had between them conspired to sell the child's soul into evil.
He had fully deserved that slap McGonagall had given him the night before, if not for quite the reason she had delivered it. Bad as it was to know that she was willing to believe that he would actually have an affair with Claire Sinistra—Sinistra, who had spent a large portion of her seventh year on top of the astronomy tower doing God knew what with Sirius Black!—to have her learn what his recent activities had truly been would be far worse. If she had had any idea of what he had done, she wouldn't have stopped with one blow, she would have pummeled him to a bloody pulp—and she would have been right to. This January he had betrayed all his responsibilities, broken all the promises he had made when he was appointed head of Slytherin House. He was supposed to protect his students, take care of them, keep them from making the same mistakes he had made, not tender them a personal introduction to Voldemort.
On top of that, there was the planned invasion of Hogwarts that had been discussed at the last meeting with Voldemort. When it came, and it would come soon, more damage would be done. To the school, to the students, to the one place that all the wizarding world held to be safe, inviolate. An impenetrable fortress that could only be assailed through treachery. Three guesses as to whom Voldemort had picked as his Trojan Horse. Dumbledore had been warned, of course, but forewarned was not the same as forearmed, despite what muggles said.
Snape was startled from his thoughts by a sudden, resounding crash that reverberated off the dungeon walls. Fred, still perched unsteadily on top of the ladder, had dropped the bucket of Mrs. Skowers Magical Mess Remover he had been holding onto the stone floor, sending splashes of cleaning fluid everywhere. Snape strongly suspected that he had done it on purpose.
"Fred-a-George," Caius croaked, glowering at the unfortunately Weasley from his position on the back of Snape's chair; he had held a special animosity toward the Weasley twins, whom he seemed to regard as a single unit, ever since George had tried to feed him an exploding mouse. "Not-a-gain. Ten points from Grif-in-dor."
"Excellent idea, Caius," Snape purred, reaching up to absentmindedly preen his fingers through the bird's feathers. "Mr. Weasley, you are down here to clean, not to create an even greater mess. Ten points from Gryffindor for being clumsy and careless."
^_~
Draco Malfoy sat in the huge, marble tub in the palatial prefects' bathroom, staring contemplatively at the raw-looking, half-healed brand on his left arm. The Dark Mark was a part of him now, burned into his skin and bone forever. "You can flay all of the skin off your arm," Professor Snape had told him before his induction, "and when it grows back, the Mark will still be there." Draco had tried not to think about how he could possibly have learned that. Could it have been a punishment of some sort for Death Eaters who showed disloyal tendencies or failed in their duties? He hoped not.
His Mark still hurt, a nagging throb like a bad sunburn, but even the sharp sting awoken by the soapy water couldn't compare to the vicious, burning agony that struck when he was summoned. The first time, the shock of it had literally driven him to his knees, spearing through his arm as though the branding iron had once again been pressed against his skin. It was fortunate for his cover that the summons had come during potions class. Any other teacher would have demanded an explanation for why he suddenly had to leave—Snape had provided one for him, announcing to the entire class that Draco was officially dismissed to the hospital wing to "wash the dissolving potion off his arm."
He had immediately quit the dungeons and sneaked off the Hogwarts Grounds into the Forbidden Forest, where he had put into the practice the apparating skills his father had taught him over the summer—as far as Lucius Malfoy was concerned, the laws against underage spell casting were meant only to apply to mudbloods and other such lower forms of life.
What had followed had been…an interesting experience. He had been desperately nervous, afraid that he would chicken out, make a mistake, somehow fail to live up to the standards expected of a Malfoy, but as it turned out, he need not have worried. When the crucial moment came, he had been cool and controlled, unemotional. Everything had around him had gone clear and sharp, the world narrowing down until it contained only him and the low-ranking ministry official at the other end of his wand. One brief cruciatus curse, and the man had spilled all he knew—which hadn't been much, unfortunately. Draco had been rather hoping that his first mission would accomplish something of earth-shattering importance, though even at the time he had recognized the feeling as childish.
Macnair had killed the man with brief flick of his wand, almost offhandedly. Vincent Crabbe had told Draco once that he had it from his father that Macnair was one of the most accomplished casters of avada kedavra in the world—due, it was said, to dedicated practice.
He had been summoned twice more since that first time, each excursion being more demanding—and having a higher body count—than the one before it. This morning's mission, a spot of muggle torture in a village in Shropshire, had somehow been different from the first two. The last victim, a muggle woman, had lasted a long time, crying and pleading with them to stop, asking again and again why they were doing this to her. It had been much harder to maintain his detachment for that one, and impossible to feel smug afterwards, as he had about the ministry official. She had been blond, around his mother's age, and the Lestranges, who had been the ones doing the largest share of the torturing, had not used the cruciatus curse. There had been a great deal of blood. He had had to clean his robes off himself; he didn't dare give them to the house-elves. It had made him late for his morning History of Magic class, but luckily, Professor Binns had not even noticed.
The more he thought about that last mission—and he thought about it a great deal, as the subject had a habit of creeping into his head at unexpected moments—the more disturbed he began to be.
He still agreed with everything Voldemort said. It wasn't that he didn't share the Death Eaters' goals; he still felt that their aims were noble, their grievances justified. It was just that their methods…
It wasn't like he hadn't known about the muggle torture and the killings, it was just, he hadn't expected them to be so…messy. He couldn't stop thinking about the way that woman had just screamed and screamed.
A sudden feeling of rawness in his arm brought Draco back to himself with a start, and he realize that the water around him had now gone cold, and that the skin of his left forearm had gone red; he had been vigorously scrubbing at it non-stop for at least fifteen minutes.
^_~
"Happy fortieth birthday, Polaris," the woman sighed to herself as she looked in the mirror, letting her hair loose from its customary braid in preparation for bed.
"I don't want to tell you this, honey, but you've got another gray hair," the magicked looking-glass answered back critically. "And the circles under your eyes are back."
"Yes, I can see that," Polaris snapped at her reflection, turning away in disgust. She didn't need the mirror's snide comments to notice the threads of silver working their way insidiously into her black curls, the tiny crows' feet forming at the corners of her eyes, the dark circles born of long hours and days filled with worry. The past few months had not been good ones.
Alastor Moody, her old boss, had contacted her at the beginning of the summer with word that Voldemort was returning to power—something her new boss, Fudge, still vehemently maintained to be untrue, despite the recently killings and the reappearance of the Dark Mark.
"Damn the man," she muttered to herself as she picked up the day's copy of the Evening Prophet to see yet another picture of a burned out building—this one in Shropshire—the skull-and-serpent floating unmistakable above the ruins. "Still claiming that it's all the work of a few crackpots! How did he ever manage to become Minister of Magic? Robert Brocklehurst was right; he is Neville bloody Chamberlain—he's worse!"
The way Fudge managed to stay firmly mewed up inside his protective walls of denial despite the daily inpourings of evidence to the contrary was truly spectacular. The Ministry had lost a half-dozen employees in the past two months alone, if one counted those who had died of suspiciously well-timed "natural causes"—and Polaris did. Voldemort's poison brewers were obviously back at work.
According to her old partner, Vesta, now working for the Department of Mysteries, Voldemort and his Death Eaters were planning something big, possibly something involving Hogwarts. "But you have to keep this quiet, Pub," she had said. "The agent who sent us the information is in a very precarious position, and if he's compromised, Dumbledore will lose his only man on the inside." Polaris had sniffed disapprovingly. Not only did she hate it when Vesta called her by that stupid nickname—parents should never give their children a set of initials that spelled words—she also felt nothing but contempt for Dumbledore's "man on the inside." Vesta's old school friend was a greasy, thoroughly reprehensible young man, who, if justice had taken its proper course, would have been rotting in Azkaban.
Underneath her disapproval, however, there had lurked a cold, nagging fear: What if her brother was involved in the rumored attack? Every crime her brother committed, every wizard or muggle he killed, was another addition to the burden of guilt she already carried. She had failed to see him for what he was, been deceived by the act of friendship and loyalty he had put up, and thus, all the horror and destruction he had eventually been responsible for could in a sense be laid at her feet.
When, when were Fudge or Dumbledore going to order a contingent of aurors to Hogwarts? Polaris would volunteer for such a mission in a heartbeat; far better to lay in wait for the enemy than to run around England surveying the burned out sites of Death Eater raids. Perhaps this time, she would be the one to take her traitorous younger sibling into custody.
^_~
Thank you to everyone who reviewed me (wow, 63 reviews * jumps up and down and cheers * )!
Sarah-Dunleavy: You read "Lil Red Riding Hood"!?! You weren't supposed to know that that story even existed. Please, please don't tell Mommy and Daddy that it exists! I will pay you not to (I can't afford to shell out much, but I really will). For future reference: don't read anything marked "slash." If you have ever wondered what "slash" is, now you know.
LoveChilde and Lady Foxfire: Thank you; that slapping scene was planned out weeks in advance and I'm glad y'all enjoyed it as much as I did.
Faith Accompli, Leigh, and Alla: Yea! I love hearing that people like my Sirius and Snape (and that my attempts at humor are succeeding).
Siriuslyinlove and You-Know-Who: I'm glad you liked the last chapter; it's my favorite of all the ones I've written so far.
ViEiRA: Here you go: another Draco POV (there will be more of him in chapter ten, and maybe in nine).
Moonwing, Giesbrecht, and Alexandra Black: Sorry, the next chapter will be a bit delayed, as I'm going home for spring break this week, and may not be posted until the end of March.
Chad-Catsmeat: You think Sirius and Sinistra would go well together? Thank you! I purposefully designed her for him, so I'm glad people other than me approve of the pairing.
Taracollowen: Sorry, Fudge will survive for the moment (the good guys can't kill him because they're good, and the bad guys won't because he helps them too much). But just for you, I've included more Fudge bashing in this chapter.
Chochang913: Yep, my chapter titles are heavily inspired by the ones in Patricia C. Wrede's wonderful Dealing With Dragons (sounds almost like a title you'd find in the Hogwarts library, doesn't it?).
Fawkesnflame: Thank you! Sirius will be in all future chapters except chapter ten.
Shanara: You're going to encourage your daughter to read this? Wow! (I hope she's over thirteen, 'cause there's going to be some fairly gruesome bits in the next couple of chapters).
Shinigami: (Great name, by the way) you're going to like Polaris Black; she agrees with you about Snape.
RADKA: About the Minerva/Severus stuff: I know J.K. Rowling has said that McGonagall's around 70, but when I first read the books, that interview hadn't been released yet, and I always pictured her to be about 50, so that's how old she is in my little HP universe (age gap is down from 35 years to 15 years, that make things any better?).
CLS: Thank you! I went to a very small high school and now attend an even smaller college and rumors in both places spread like wildfire, so I figured they would do so at Hogwarts as well.
Ozma: I'm on your favorites? * dances around in a circle * Yea! (you're on mine, you know, go check). I'm glad you liked the scene with Sirius's scars—I actually put a lot of thought into those (and thank you for the compliment about Sinistra; I'm trying hard to keep her out of Mary Sue territory).
Next up, Chapter Eight: In Which Many Nasty Things Happen.
Stay tuned for "When Dementors Attack Part II: the Return of the Dementors!"