Riddle of the Dark

by Icarus

Snape sat on the boulder they used as a table for the Dark Arts class; Harry on a low stool Snape had summoned for today, his chin in his hands. Harry had known his good luck couldn't hold. At some point the Dark Arts classes had to resume.

The clouds above them were streaked with sunset red and pink, the Forest black about them, and there was a brisk wind. Harry's breath froze in the air in front of him. A chill was starting to sink into Harry's skin. Usually they kept active, as Harry fired spell after ineffective spell at some proposedly doomed object on the rock. But tonight, Snape simply sat, looming darkly in front of him, his face a sharp landscape of more subtle shadows in the twilight.

"Harry, we need to have a little talk."

"Is this about Ron?" Harry asked, and then winced suddenly, wishing he hadn't been so open. The last thing you did with Snape was give him an advantage.

It seemed a slight smile flickered across Snape's face, though it was hard to guess in this light; but he said only, "No."

"Harry, I believe that you feel the Dark Arts are somehow dark and evil. Even after all our classes."

"Well, aren't they?" Harry said, in spite of himself. It seemed safer than usual to ask questions, though one could never tell.

Snape made a satisfied sound. "Yes. They can be. And I will not lie to you: they usually are.

"But the Dark Arts are not in themselves evil, Harry. That is an ignorance perpetrated by the ignorant. They have been in my family a very, very long time, and I flatter myself to think that perhaps I understand them a bit better than the likes of the Minister of Magic. Maybe, even more than our beloved Professor Dumbledore." He shook his head in the half-light.

"It is not the type of magic one uses that corrupts the mind; not the power itself, but the quest, the desire for power. Voldemort - " Harry noticed with a small shock that Snape didn't fear to use his real name either. "- he would have been a danger no matter what form of magic he practiced. Trust that I know, Harry. He could twist anything to his ends. Willful ignorance, Harry, letting the other side know more, learn more, than you.… is deadly. Letting them have an advantage, simply because we have a weaker stomach - is nothing less than suicide. This is what you, of all people, must learn."

Snape produced from a pocket in his robes a small furry vole. It nibbled cautiously at Snape's hand, then sniffed the air experimentally. Harry gasped with sudden understanding - so far all they'd hurt was a few vases and rosebuds. No….

"Sublimino!" Snape pronounced.

The vole toppled and lay completely still in his hand, as if hit by the Avada Kedavra curse. Harry suppressed a whimper, looking up in appalled shock at Professor Snape. Snape's eyes were blacker than the night falling around them.

"Ah. You think it's evil. But it is not what you think at all, Harry."

Snape's face was eerily outlined by stars; some creature rustled and stirred the branches behind them, but Harry paid it no notice. The vole didn't move or breathe.

"I'll tell you a story. A wizard, a very bad wizard, was keeping Muggles for experimentation. He didn't want to feed them, these Muggles, while he, ah, kept them - stored them - between experiments. He was a madman, long caught and dead for his trouble - but.… he devised this spell. To stun them, to Suspend all life functions. Indefinitely. Until the counter spell is applied:

"Revivo!"

The vole perked up, stirred. And it sat up in Snape's hand, sniffing for food. Snape's long fingers delicately caressed it. Snape looked down at Harry.

"This spell is now used by every Medi-Wizard in the field, throughout the wizarding world. A patient with wounds so severe they are draining him of blood is Suspended, until he can be brought in for treatment.

"Is that evil, Harry?"

And the Avada Kedavra curse? Harry wondered, can you say that has benefits? But he said nothing. Because he very much feared Snape would say yes. Even about the Three Unforgivables. Thinking of how his parents died, Harry found he resented even the thought. Nor did he believe it for a second.

Finis. Next: 'Unwitting Confessions.'