There were very few things in the world that had the power to terrify Severus Snape. Cornered in the hallway outside one of the staff member's bathrooms, the Potions master was sharply reminded that Dumbledore was near the top of that short list as he had to throw all the willpower he possessed into holding the other's gaze instead of cowering back against the wall.
"Have you no pity?" The Headmaster's eyes were suddenly blazing. Snape took a step back, and then another, pride forgotten, until his back touched the wood paneling of the wall. To his dismay, Dumbledore matched him pace for pace. "Remus is nearly broken. A word from anyone could crush him, even from you. Especially from you!"
Snape's mouth worked around a protest. The one he finally settled upon sounded hollow and petty, even before spoken aloud. "He tried to kill--"
"Yes! Yes, and he knows it!" Dumbledore's fury was palpable, a terrible force that kept Snape pinned to the wall. Just as his voice rose to the verge of a shout, it abruptly dropped to a near-whisper, and his face became so sad that the Potions master felt shame beginning to chip at him. "You saw him in there. Don't shake your head, you looked at him and you said it. You knew what was going through his mind. He was shaking, Severus. Shaking! He couldn't look you in the eye."
"And he shouldn't!" snarled the former Death Eater suddenly, some of his fear turning into anger. "He should have begged forgiveness on bended knee!" Spittle flew from his lips. "I was right, I was right all along, a werewolf is a monster and no matter what potion is administered and no matter how faithfully it is taken something will happen--"
"Enough!"
This time Snape did cower against the wall.
"Severus." Dumbledore's eyebrows pushed his forehead into an expression of sorrow that mixed with the faint incredulity in his voice. "How could you say such a thing? How could you forget? You, you who received a second chance when all hope of a chance was gone. Can you turn and denounce another who is more blameless than you?" Snape suddenly flinched and looked away, his body going rigid. Dumbledore hesitated for one moment...and twisted the knife. "He could not control himself, and you seem to forget your own frantic claims that you could not--"
"Don't. Please."
Dumbledore cut off. The fire in his eyes died to weary embers that flashed once in remorse. Snape's plea was nothing more than raw pain. It hung between them like the bitter cry of a dying man.
Snape straightened. He brought one hand up, palm outwards, a phantom push that Dumbledore yielded to by stepping back. The sleeve of Snape's robe slid down to his elbow as he did so. There was the Dark Mark, faint in its dormancy, but its bearer could still see every line of ruined flesh that arched to form the skull; curled to mark the serpent in the gaping, toothless mouth. Snape's eyes slid up the tattoo into Dumbledore's gaze.
"You have made your point, Headmaster."
Albus didn't move as Snape walked past him. He stared after the younger man's back, which was a bowstring stretched taut and ready to snap at any moment. When he was certain he was alone, Dumbledore closed his eyes in grief and shame.
****
William stood immediately when Sirius walked back into the Headmaster's chambers. "Is he all right?" he demanded in an undertone, meeting his leader halfway.
"He's fine," murmured Black with a glance past William at McGonagall. "He just had a bit of a snap; the bastard hit a nerve."
"I'll bloody say he hit a--"
Sirius saw William look to the door and turned just as Remus said, "I'm fine." The werewolf stepped into the room, perfectly composed, if still a bit pale. He smiled wanly. "Where's Albus?"
"He--"
"He's on his way." Snape finished McGonagall's sentence. Lupin jumped, visibly, before calming himself and moving aside for the other man. Sirius's eyes narrowed dangerously, which elicited a wary stare and warning hand on his shoulder from William. The Potions master made his way to the couch and sat without a shred of his usual arrogance or menace. McGonagall and the others exchanged looks, wondering at how subdued he was.
Dumbledore returned shortly after. "Well." He clapped his hands once and rubbed them briskly together. "I do hope you'll work out your differences on your own time, and soon." He leveled a glance at Sirius that promised a lengthy discussion in the future even as he continued with annoying cheer, "Let's continue, shall we?"
****
Harry got back into the house only minutes before the Dursleys did. He was sitting in his room, staring ahead at the wall and trying to make sense of the thoroughly strange--and strangely likable--Laura Ranone when he heard Uncle Vernon's car pull into the driveway. He was so deep in thought that he paid it almost no heed; focusing on the noises they made tromping into the house only long enough to make sure that they wouldn't be bothering him.
"Well," he said to himself, shaking his head, "I'll just have to wait and see. Laura." His expression contorted into one of frustration. "Damn it."
Harry's fingers traced the top of the box. The wood of the lid was smooth, and so they passed over his mother's name blindly. Harry looked down. He had pulled the box from beneath his bed upon entering his room and it had been in his lap since, a weigh that seemed to aid his thinking. "What do you think, Mum?" he asked the name of Lily Evans. "What does a witness do in a wizard's court?"
Dumbledore had told him that a trial of the magical world was, for all intents and purposes, identical to a Muggle one. But Harry doubted that Percy, or Laura Ranone, or he himself would be so lucky. Even months ago, when he had first heard about it, the entire affair had reeked of politics.
"Politics, Harry. You can tell what Fudge is more concerned about by what he's trying to do. If he had really had the Ministry's interests at heart--the Ministry's, not the magical world--he'd be hushing this trial up, or settling it outside of court, or burying this entire thing altogether. They're already split into two factions; the best thing to do right now is to reunite them."
A pang of nostalgia squeezed his chest. Already those quiet words, spoken by clever Hermione late one night in the common room, seemed years and years away.
"But he's making noise. Pointing fingers."
"Exactly," replied Hermione grimly. He only cares about saving face. His ego. Discrediting Ron's family and their supporters so that his faction will support the upper hand. I don't think he even realizes we're on the same side anymore. That's just what..."
"What Voldemort wants," he mouthed. A shiver broke out over his body, jolting him back into his room. He frowned down at the box. "Mum, how'd you lock this?" He brought it up to his ear and shook it again. The faint rustling of parchments fueled his curiosity to an even greater height. "You must not have wanted anyone seeing it...but what's it doing in this house?"
Harry's eyes fell on the edge of his headboard. For a brief moment he considered bashing the box against it to break the lid open, but a deep, sudden wave of horror coursed through his veins at the very thought, an emotion so powerful that he wasn't certain that it was entirely his. In any case, it shook him, and he set it back down onto the bed, staring at it in confusion and a bit of fear. "Maybe not," he said out loud, and was surprised by how shaken he sounded.
A scuffle from Hedwig's cage and then several fierce hoots preceded a sharp tap-tap-tap at his window. Harry looked up. A smoky grey owl hovered outside, scraping at the glass with its talons and beak. Harry jumped up and eagerly crossed his room. Probably just as well, he thought as he pried open the latch, I was starting to talk to myself too much.
****
"I'll be right out," promised Black in Remus's ear as his friend brushed past him to the door. He ground his teeth together and allowed the werewolf to hear the seething quality to his voice, as it was the last outlet he would have for the next few minutes. The next few excruciating minutes. The meeting was ended; he wanted to go home now. He needed to go home now, where pen and quill and privacy to break down into hysteria would be.
He glared after the Headmaster as the door closed behind his bright blue robes. As soon as the old wizard was out of sight his murderous emotions shifted to the other in the room with him. Snape crossed his arms, drawing his black robes about himself. Sirius reigned in his frantic anger with a massive effort of will and told him through tight lips, "You owe him an apology."
"This has nothing to do with Lupin," sneered Snape. Black bit back a viscous reply. The Potions master's assuredness was returning, and he cloaked himself in it as imperiously as he did his robes. "If any apology is owed, it is to me. From you." Snape's lip curled further. "That is, if Sirius Black can wrap his mind about such a concept."
Black stared at the other for a moment before turning his back and walking to the other side of the room to one of the round windows. He rested his forearm above his head on the framing stones and leaned forward, screwing his eyes shut against the sun. "I don't have time for you, Snape," he said, careful to keep his anguished, impatient expression out of his voice. He succeeded almost too well, sounding more tired that contemptuous as he had intended.
"Ah, what a sharp change of façade," drawled Snape. "I seem to recall that you had ample time for me just a short while ago."
Sirius let out a mocking laugh. "Yes, Snape you got your rise out of me. Are you happy?" He dropped his hand and swung about. "I hope you are, because you won't be getting another one. I didn't spend twelve years in Azkaban to come out and pick up on an old boy's grudge." He shook his head pityingly, but hatred made him sound less indifferent than he wanted. "You're pathetic, Snape. Hanging on to a prank I played eighteen years ago when it didn't even work. Didn't even have any consequences." A short, incredulous exhalation through his nose, with his eyes closed. He did not see the emotion that spasmed across the other's face, something that bordered on hurt.
"Where are you going?" he demanded when Sirius pushed past him to the door. Black paused with his hand on the latch.
"Out."
"We are to wait until the Headmaster returns," he snapped, almost snarling.
Black had pushed the door open. He twisted his shoulders to toss his enemy a scathing look. "You can tell the Headmaster that I had more important things to do."
He was two meters down the hall, struggling to control himself, struggling to walk and not run, when Snape's voice reached his ears again, saying something that made him freeze. "They fall, you know." There was a pause through which Sirius could feel Snape's eyes upon his back, trying to gauge his reaction, willing him to turn around. Even if he'd had a mind to Black could do nothing of the sort; his fear put into words--by him, no less--cramped his stomach and rooted him to the spot. "If they open that book. They don't even have to read it...even though I would think they would have had to, to find the correct page for the Summoning. And then copying it. Quite damaging. Considering the very will to open it is enough to corrupt." Snape seemed to caress the words. "One has to be quite corrupt already to even attempt such madness. It is madness, Black."
Sirius forced one foot in front of the other, feeling his control fraying dangerously fast at the edges. Goosebumps rose along his spine as sweat broke out on his temples.
"Who is it?" Now his voice was soft; curiosity outweighed the gleeful malice. "You know him. Who is it?"
Damned to hell if I tell you, thought Black as he continued away, biting his lip so hard he drew blood.
"They fall, Black. If they're strong it will be a slow slide, but they fall!"