Chapter 5 Step Ye Lively

"Halloween's coming! It's coming!" There was no doubt that any student at Hogwarts had only to look at a calendar to know that Halloween was indeed coming, but three days before the great holiday, there was mounting excitement in the air, as if the celebration was a surprise.

The closer one came to Halloween, the more the pranks proliferated, and the more outrageous they became. Most of the Masters suffered the fun gladly, and some might even be coaxed into league with the pranksters, as when McGonagall assisted the Gryffindors in providing the house ghosts with spectral motor cars of ancient and noisy vintage, and the corridors and halls resounded with the "Ah-OOGAH!" of klaxons, multiple backfires like the farting of elephants, and various Grands Prix run on the ceiling of the Great Hall.

In the kitchens, Mrs Susan Dowd, her husband Samuel and their staff of culinary elves planned the feasts: the Halloween Eve banquet and the picnics to be enjoyed in the graveyards. This year, there was to be a masked ball, at the special request of Headmaster Dumbledore. After the past year's battles and victories, the good man believed that celebration was in order. Students began to work on masks and costumes, and the staff (well, almost all of it) was enthused. A guest list grew as wizards and witches from all the known worlds were invited, along with dignitaries who resided in the Ether and only visited Real Time on special occasions.

Dame Angharad offered the talents of Cuchulain, a famous Celtic band that played everything from medieval dances to rock. Professor Sprout's nephew, Andrew, belonged to a swing band wherein he played a mean saxophone, and he agreed to have them perform. Although there were some mutterings about Muggle entertainment, in truth, music was one of the few arts that transcended such divisions.

*** Snape took Madam Pomfrey's hand and brought her around in front of him to take Lockhart's hand, then he pivoted and passed right shoulders with Professor McGonagall, resplendent in an emerald green ball gown with an astonishing enormous skirt. Although he would later deny that he had done it, he scooped McGonagall up around the waist, and swung her high in the air, her petticoats flying, then set her down to twirl away, delighted, her thin cheeks bright red with excitement. Professor Sprout, passing left shoulders with him, tugged on his sleeve. "Swing me! Swing me, Severus!" she squealed. Snape took a big breath and got the plump lady a respectable twelve inches off the ground; she wobbled a bit on landing, but danced off, all a-flutter. Gilderoy Lockhart did dance rather well, he noted, although not with his grace and refinement; Lockhart tended to odd attitudes of his feet and stilted hand-motions.

The Irish band began a dignified Gaillard, and the students made for the tables; it seemed that social dancing was a dying grace. They would rather shake like palsy and posture like automatons. The masters, it seemed, were the last bastions of culture in the wizarding world. Snape saw, approaching him with her hand out, his next partner. Ah, no, not she, not that blasted Runes Mistress. He drew himself up, looked down his nose and held out his fist. Dame Angharad placed her hand on it, and they moved off into the intricate figures of a dance that celebrated Samhain.

She did not speak, but danced with lightness and elegance. She had changed her usual green gown, cloak, nunlike wimple and veil for an Irish court robe, bordered with spectacular ribbonwork, and a small hat that sat like a crown on her long, rose-red hair. On her breast was the rune of Mab, and her silver girdle held a leathern pouch in which she carried rune stones and a triskellion.

Snape found himself transported inside the music, far from the Great Hall at Hogwarts. He and Dame Angharad danced in a circle of standing stones, pacing amongst the monoliths, circling the menhir. A rising sun struck the central dolmen and radiance shot from it, striking him momentarily blind. He cried out and almost fell; a small, strong hand supported him. Of a sudden, he was standing on the balcony that surrounded the Gryffindor tower. Another dream?

His voice reached that high, peevish whine perfected by generations of upper class Englishmen, and most uncharacteristic of himself: "I don't want to be any different than I am, dammit; I am quite content, thank you, and my life is as I wish it to be, and I do not intend to change!"

"Think of this then," said Dame Angharad. "For reasons beyond your ken, you suffered as a child, and so you made a small cell in which you might hide yourself from the many who hurt you. You made that cell strong, and it is a familiar place, your sanctuary into which none may enter. It is where you are safe-"

Snape interrupted her, looming over her, his fists clenching and unclenching. "You have no knowledge of my life!" he shouted. "You have no idea! Nor do I wish you to! I have made my life to suit myself and none other, and that's the way I want to keep it. I don't need your well meaning platitudes, and I especially don't need your psychological analysis!" He stalked to the balcony railing, willing the cold breeze to push the blood from his cheeks, to quiet his breathing and restore his icy calm.

There was silence behind him. He turned to see the Runes Mistress, walk slowly towards the door. She stopped and turned to him. In the torchlight he saw her wet cheeks. Oh, you rotten sod, you have made her cry, how could you. He caught himself up: "Now, I won't fall for your tricks, so you can save your tears."

She stepped forward. "I will weep for you whether you will it or no. The Mother gave me a task, which was to help you to open yourself to the heaven on earth around you. That was all she asked; that you accept what She gives you. And that includes joy, which we offer to Her in gratitude. She never asked you to change: you are what you are. She only asked you to open your heart and let Her in. I've failed."

She put her hand lightly on his arm, and her grief shot out and pierced him. She turned and left the balcony, and left him with an unaccustomed ache in the back of his throat. He seemed to hear the creak of hinges long rusted as a door long bolted shut opened a crack; the door that sealed a small, low-ceilinged cell, dark and dank and with one tiny high window, barred almost to the point of obscurity.

He watched himself enter, and sit down on the stone bench, his elbow on his knee, his chin on his fist. The smell of wild roses came to him, sweet and fresh and heartbreaking. He knew how they grew. A child's wound healed; the armies of corpuscles battled invading organisms and a sparkling shower from nowhere knitted the sundered flesh together. His knees felt weak as he saw the open wound and felt the pain that had caused it when the hot, hard fragments of an exploding cauldron smote the child at almost one hundred kilometres an hour.

Music played, his favourite Dvorak, and his heart moved to its rhythms. He knew that music is indeed the song of the spheres; he witnessed the heavenly dance and its accompanying cantata, and he was humbled. The notes resonated in every fibre of his being, and with an excruciating snap a crack appeared in the thick stone wall of his cell and at the same time, in the shell surrounding the spirit of Severus Snape. His spirit, exposed, shrank with fear. The music bathed his senses like balm, and he smelt balsam and vervain. The crack widened, and he shivered. On the other side there waited a warmth and light utterly alien to him.

He did not know how he regained his feet; how he walked towards the crack in the cell's cold ugly stone, but there was gold and green light glowing outside, the scent of balsam and vervain, and warmth that drew him forward. His fear hammered on the inside of his skull: "Don't go there, you will be hurt!" He could not hurt any worse than he was hurting now. All of his pain, all of his anguish and sorrow, jealously guarded as if they were jewels of virtue instead of the stones of shame all these years, beat in his chest and eyes and hands: we have never deserted you; your pain has been faithful to you; do not let it go.

Gasping for breath and blinded by alien light, he burst through the crevice, and his head pounded hideously, recalling his tortured birth. Consciousness fled down a long corridor, and the soft dark took him.