See disclaimers and warnings in part one.
Fugue State (Part Seven)
*******
History. One learns from the lessons taught by the mistakes of the past.
The prejudice, the hatred, and the wars. War is the great equalizer,
everyone is at risk. People die on either side and always the innocents
who are lost, to the horrors and the randomness of it all, are mourned.
It is, however, worth it. To the victor go the spoils.
History is written by the victorious. How the war was fought, who are
the heroes, the villains and why the war was fought. The origins of the
conflict are defined by those that win. They, alone, decide how the
ignorant view the war. What the future generations see and learn from
the outcome of the war. It is their prerogative, their right and
ultimately their final victory. The means used to achieve their goals
are softened, justified and explained in the simplest terms.
War is not for the faint of heart. It is a vile business, but necessary.
It restores a balance to society, allows it to focus on something and
someone that is truly evil. Both sides dehumanize the other, allowing
their soldiers to kill without remorse, without shame. There is a goal
and it will be achieved, no matter the cost, the loss of life or the
deceits that are necessary. No one will ever truly know the final cost
to the populace. They believe what they are taught, by parents, teachers
and books.
There is no objectivity in a war. You are on one side or another.
Spectators are often the first to be killed, as they foolishly remain
neutral, to see whom to fall in with. In the end, everyone must choose,
right or wrong, but it is often too late to see the choice that must be
made.
Children are the most malleable. They are born ignorant, unaware that
they are pawns to either side. The children that grew up to follow the
side of the Light were taught that Voldemort was evil. His name was
never spoken, leading to a fear of the unknown. This unnamed thing that
would destroy everything in his path as a means to rule. The children
who grew up in the homes of those that supported Voldemort were taught
the purity of the cause. How their society was tainted by the influence
of the Muggle world. They were taught to hate those that were not raised
in proper society. But in the beginning, at their birth, all the
children were equal, they were taught to hate in different ways, by the
very people they trusted and loved the most. The prejudice of the past
became the facts of the present and the history of tomorrow. Through it
all, children are the noblest sacrifice either side can make, for it is
the children who become the martyrs to the cause of the right and just.
It is in the name of justice that wars come to be, why they are fought,
and those that win teach the children, to read, to love and in the end,
who to hate.
Education is the great equalizer in society. If one can read,
understand, digest the information contained within, they have power.
Words that slowly make sense as their parents read to them perched on a
knee at bedtime become power. A tome that is forbidden to them as a
child, is a magnet to a curious child. It is what they are not meant to
know, but are drawn towards. Children who seek such knowledge are the
most dangerous as they learn what they shouldn't. Facts, events and
deeds that are beyond them. Children learn before they understand. They
only understand that knowledge, even that forbidden to them, is power.
It gives them an entrance into the world of adults. To a place where
people will take them seriously. The precocious child is adored and
praised in their quest for knowledge, in their desire to learn.
Children are our future, they must be protected from the evil that
resides in our midst.
********
Hermione apparated from her flat to Diagon Alley prior to her meeting
with Ginny on her Hogsmeade weekend. She planned to meet up with Ginny
at the Three Broomsticks for lunch, but wanted to look through some of
the books at Flourishes and Blotts prior to that. She was looking for
any reason as to why Snape had been excluded from the History. Also, she
wanted to get some books on Wizarding Law and trials. She was still
astounded by the treatment of Snape at the Ministry, and wondered if
that had been the norm. Neither of her companions had seemed upset at
the proceedings, but she'd always believed that the Wizarding World was
just. It was one of the things that had first drawn her in, after the
initial pleasure of discovering that she had been a witch. The world she
had entered, while part of England, had been pure. Magic was a natural
part of the world. Magical England was a part of the elements. It spoke
to the ground, to the stones and to the air. Much more than the cars,
buildings and way of life that she had grown up with. Her time at
Hogwarts and her life afterwards felt natural. How the world was
supposed to be. Voldemort and his followers were a blight upon that
world and had deserved their fate.
If Snape deserved his fate, why had it been expunged from history?
Surely future Slytherins and other students deserved to know their fate
if they considered falling in league with dark wizards that might
appear. Snape would serve as a warning, that no matter their actions, a
person would always be accountable to their past actions. Every action
had a consequence. The morality of the world would be maintained. The
only way to do that would be to learn from the mistakes of others. Snape
had obviously made grievous mistakes that resulted in his fate. He had
betrayed the Order, disobeyed Professor Dumbledore in a way that had
resulted in testimony from the Headmaster, Harry and McGonagall.
Obviously, he had sinned. But why, thought Hermione, had he been erased
from memory?
Browsing through the shelves, hours later, Hermione was willing to admit
defeat. She had found books on the law, on trials, but nothing on why
Snape wasn't in the Hogwarts history. Nothing. Glancing to the clock on
the wall, and starting when the hands pointed to half-past lunch, she
took her purchases to the desk. Passing the remainder bins, a book of
the final battle caught her eye, the only one that focused on the
participants of the Battle and not he conflict itself. Written by Rita
Skeeter; The Final Battle: Heroes and the Damned, called to her. Based
on her past experience with the hack, Skeeter had most likely focused on
the people in the Battle and not the fight itself. She had covered the
Death Eater trials twenty years prior to the Final Battle, and perhaps
once Hermione waded through the tripe that Skeeter inevitably would have
written, the truth could be found. Between this book and the ones that
covered the law, Hermione was certain that some sense could be made of
the things that had so confused her. Knowledge was power, and the words
within the books held in her hands contained the information she needed.
They always had in the past.
Paying for the books, she gave a glance to the other books nestled in
the bin where she had found the Skeeter book, and shuttered. Hermione
did not need any reminders of the Battle, she had been there, and
watching as classmates fell on both sides and the blood flowed. The
ground had been soaked, worked to mud, not with rain, but with the
fluids that spilled from the fallen. Her feet had slipped and she'd
fallen to the ground, rising soaked to the core with the dark, sticky
and rancid mud that marked the death of the combatants. She still woke
in the night, trembling and screaming, the smell coating her nostrils
and making her retch. Nights like that made her believe that she would
never get clean, no matter that she scrubbed her body until she was red,
submerged in a scalding bath, futilely trying to remove the stains that
had been on her body and remained, etched into her flesh.
Walking quickly out the door and into Diagon Alley proper, she sought
the warmth of the sun, shivering at the thoughts and memories
surrounding her. Gathering herself she apparated to her meeting with
Ginny, clutching her purchases to her chest as a child would do to a
security blanket.
********
In the depths of Azkaban, the Dementors were confused. The prisoner,
once again, escaped their attentions. He sat stoically as they swarmed
his cell. He walked unresistingly in between them as they led him to be
cleaned. His eyes, blank and unresponsive, never moved. He hardly
blinked. Once again, they were forced to feed him with assistance. He
would not be allowed to die. Life imprisonment in Azkaban meant just
that. Life. He would be forced to live.
But this was not what worried the Dementors so. Unlike the others within
the walls, who screamed at each and every pass of a Dementor, this one
had no pattern. After the first feeding, the Dementors had eagerly
approached his cell the next day, and had fed on nothing. No thoughts,
no screams, the man was a void, an empty slate. The human watchers of
the prison, safely ensconced miles from the prison were likewise
puzzled. They had watched as the prisoner lay in bed, unmoving, as still
as death. Only his shallow breathing attained to the life still within
the body. One day his eyes had fluttered. Over the following month, they
had opened during the day, he had eaten without assistance and allowed
himself to be led and walked. His trial had gone as expected, and he had
finally been placed in the cell he would remain in for the rest of his
life.
After a year, the watchers had become accustomed to the prisoner and his
ability to resist the Dementors. But they hadn't seen. The man had
nothing to give them. Everything that he had once been was gone. He had
no place in the world, nothing that called to him. He had no idea who he
was, and who he had been. The day after his trial, the Dementors made
their customary pass, and he had screamed. For the day before, someone
had seen him. Looked at him and had seen a person, and for the first
time, the man mourned, for he had no idea who he was, what he had
become, he had only seen the blackness of his walls and the knowledge
that he would never again be seen. He was Severus Snape and trapped
within a cell and a life over which he had no control and nothing to
mourn, yet the woman had been saddened for him, angry on his behalf and
had seen him. But here, in the bowels of Azkaban, he was nothing, yet
someone, and that was dangerous. For it gave notice to the Dementors
that he could be feed upon. It had been easier in the dark. Yet he was
unable to return to it for any length of time, and for the first time in
years he felt fear. For in this, he was truly alone, and very scared.
He was nothing, yet someone. For the first time that he could remember
he desired something. He wanted to be seen.
That day, the one in which he had fed the Dementors, all took notice.
Man, Dementors and watchers alike. The man because he realized that he
might have had a life, he had been something to the woman in the
courtroom. The Dementors because they had finally fed on the soul of the
man, and that well had run deep. They had been unable to stop
themselves. After being deprived for so long, they had feasted, and it
was sweet.
The watchers saw the actions in the cell and were interested. The
prisoner had something the Dementors wanted. They wanted to know what it
was. On the advice of their head, they placed surveillance threads in
his cell. These allowed them to observe the prisoner from the safety of
their world. They watched and waited for a sign from the prisoner. A
clue as to what made him writhe under the spell of his jailers.
Knowledge is power. Always.
*******
Albus Dumbledore sat in his office watching his children scatter to the
winds. It was a beautiful day at Hogwarts as the elder ones headed off
their first Hogsmeade weekend of the Spring term. Bobbing among them was
Ginny Weasley, the youngest in a long line of redheads that had graced
the halls of Hogwarts. He watched as she chatted with her friends along
the path and to her luncheon with Hermione.
And he smiled. Looking to the copies of the threads that graced the cell
of Severus, he played again the scene of Severus reacting to the
Dementors. Something had drawn the man to the conscious world. Someone,
he corrected himself softly. He had to see where this path would take
them. Where it would lead and if necessary, contain it. The world needed
protection from certain things and for years, he, Albus Dumbledore had
done so. He had rid the world of Grindelwald, sheltered Harry Potter
until he was able to kill Voldemort and had for years ruled kindly over
the halls of Hogwarts. The children were his life and everything in his
power would be done to protect them.
They were the future.
And so he sat watching the Dementors swarm over Severus and to the
current thread that showed the man, unresponsive again in his cell. He
waited, for Miss Granger to realize that the knowledge she sought was
contained not in the books she so treasured, but within the man in the
depths of Azkaban. Albus needed the information and so he waited. For
Hermione to ask the questions necessary to unlock the secrets so long
kept hidden.
Albus Dumbledore was a patient man, he would wait for the questions, for
he needed the answers.
For the children. His children. Those past, present and future.
He would protect them all.
******
TBCÉ.
Fugue State (Part Seven)
*******
History. One learns from the lessons taught by the mistakes of the past.
The prejudice, the hatred, and the wars. War is the great equalizer,
everyone is at risk. People die on either side and always the innocents
who are lost, to the horrors and the randomness of it all, are mourned.
It is, however, worth it. To the victor go the spoils.
History is written by the victorious. How the war was fought, who are
the heroes, the villains and why the war was fought. The origins of the
conflict are defined by those that win. They, alone, decide how the
ignorant view the war. What the future generations see and learn from
the outcome of the war. It is their prerogative, their right and
ultimately their final victory. The means used to achieve their goals
are softened, justified and explained in the simplest terms.
War is not for the faint of heart. It is a vile business, but necessary.
It restores a balance to society, allows it to focus on something and
someone that is truly evil. Both sides dehumanize the other, allowing
their soldiers to kill without remorse, without shame. There is a goal
and it will be achieved, no matter the cost, the loss of life or the
deceits that are necessary. No one will ever truly know the final cost
to the populace. They believe what they are taught, by parents, teachers
and books.
There is no objectivity in a war. You are on one side or another.
Spectators are often the first to be killed, as they foolishly remain
neutral, to see whom to fall in with. In the end, everyone must choose,
right or wrong, but it is often too late to see the choice that must be
made.
Children are the most malleable. They are born ignorant, unaware that
they are pawns to either side. The children that grew up to follow the
side of the Light were taught that Voldemort was evil. His name was
never spoken, leading to a fear of the unknown. This unnamed thing that
would destroy everything in his path as a means to rule. The children
who grew up in the homes of those that supported Voldemort were taught
the purity of the cause. How their society was tainted by the influence
of the Muggle world. They were taught to hate those that were not raised
in proper society. But in the beginning, at their birth, all the
children were equal, they were taught to hate in different ways, by the
very people they trusted and loved the most. The prejudice of the past
became the facts of the present and the history of tomorrow. Through it
all, children are the noblest sacrifice either side can make, for it is
the children who become the martyrs to the cause of the right and just.
It is in the name of justice that wars come to be, why they are fought,
and those that win teach the children, to read, to love and in the end,
who to hate.
Education is the great equalizer in society. If one can read,
understand, digest the information contained within, they have power.
Words that slowly make sense as their parents read to them perched on a
knee at bedtime become power. A tome that is forbidden to them as a
child, is a magnet to a curious child. It is what they are not meant to
know, but are drawn towards. Children who seek such knowledge are the
most dangerous as they learn what they shouldn't. Facts, events and
deeds that are beyond them. Children learn before they understand. They
only understand that knowledge, even that forbidden to them, is power.
It gives them an entrance into the world of adults. To a place where
people will take them seriously. The precocious child is adored and
praised in their quest for knowledge, in their desire to learn.
Children are our future, they must be protected from the evil that
resides in our midst.
********
Hermione apparated from her flat to Diagon Alley prior to her meeting
with Ginny on her Hogsmeade weekend. She planned to meet up with Ginny
at the Three Broomsticks for lunch, but wanted to look through some of
the books at Flourishes and Blotts prior to that. She was looking for
any reason as to why Snape had been excluded from the History. Also, she
wanted to get some books on Wizarding Law and trials. She was still
astounded by the treatment of Snape at the Ministry, and wondered if
that had been the norm. Neither of her companions had seemed upset at
the proceedings, but she'd always believed that the Wizarding World was
just. It was one of the things that had first drawn her in, after the
initial pleasure of discovering that she had been a witch. The world she
had entered, while part of England, had been pure. Magic was a natural
part of the world. Magical England was a part of the elements. It spoke
to the ground, to the stones and to the air. Much more than the cars,
buildings and way of life that she had grown up with. Her time at
Hogwarts and her life afterwards felt natural. How the world was
supposed to be. Voldemort and his followers were a blight upon that
world and had deserved their fate.
If Snape deserved his fate, why had it been expunged from history?
Surely future Slytherins and other students deserved to know their fate
if they considered falling in league with dark wizards that might
appear. Snape would serve as a warning, that no matter their actions, a
person would always be accountable to their past actions. Every action
had a consequence. The morality of the world would be maintained. The
only way to do that would be to learn from the mistakes of others. Snape
had obviously made grievous mistakes that resulted in his fate. He had
betrayed the Order, disobeyed Professor Dumbledore in a way that had
resulted in testimony from the Headmaster, Harry and McGonagall.
Obviously, he had sinned. But why, thought Hermione, had he been erased
from memory?
Browsing through the shelves, hours later, Hermione was willing to admit
defeat. She had found books on the law, on trials, but nothing on why
Snape wasn't in the Hogwarts history. Nothing. Glancing to the clock on
the wall, and starting when the hands pointed to half-past lunch, she
took her purchases to the desk. Passing the remainder bins, a book of
the final battle caught her eye, the only one that focused on the
participants of the Battle and not he conflict itself. Written by Rita
Skeeter; The Final Battle: Heroes and the Damned, called to her. Based
on her past experience with the hack, Skeeter had most likely focused on
the people in the Battle and not the fight itself. She had covered the
Death Eater trials twenty years prior to the Final Battle, and perhaps
once Hermione waded through the tripe that Skeeter inevitably would have
written, the truth could be found. Between this book and the ones that
covered the law, Hermione was certain that some sense could be made of
the things that had so confused her. Knowledge was power, and the words
within the books held in her hands contained the information she needed.
They always had in the past.
Paying for the books, she gave a glance to the other books nestled in
the bin where she had found the Skeeter book, and shuttered. Hermione
did not need any reminders of the Battle, she had been there, and
watching as classmates fell on both sides and the blood flowed. The
ground had been soaked, worked to mud, not with rain, but with the
fluids that spilled from the fallen. Her feet had slipped and she'd
fallen to the ground, rising soaked to the core with the dark, sticky
and rancid mud that marked the death of the combatants. She still woke
in the night, trembling and screaming, the smell coating her nostrils
and making her retch. Nights like that made her believe that she would
never get clean, no matter that she scrubbed her body until she was red,
submerged in a scalding bath, futilely trying to remove the stains that
had been on her body and remained, etched into her flesh.
Walking quickly out the door and into Diagon Alley proper, she sought
the warmth of the sun, shivering at the thoughts and memories
surrounding her. Gathering herself she apparated to her meeting with
Ginny, clutching her purchases to her chest as a child would do to a
security blanket.
********
In the depths of Azkaban, the Dementors were confused. The prisoner,
once again, escaped their attentions. He sat stoically as they swarmed
his cell. He walked unresistingly in between them as they led him to be
cleaned. His eyes, blank and unresponsive, never moved. He hardly
blinked. Once again, they were forced to feed him with assistance. He
would not be allowed to die. Life imprisonment in Azkaban meant just
that. Life. He would be forced to live.
But this was not what worried the Dementors so. Unlike the others within
the walls, who screamed at each and every pass of a Dementor, this one
had no pattern. After the first feeding, the Dementors had eagerly
approached his cell the next day, and had fed on nothing. No thoughts,
no screams, the man was a void, an empty slate. The human watchers of
the prison, safely ensconced miles from the prison were likewise
puzzled. They had watched as the prisoner lay in bed, unmoving, as still
as death. Only his shallow breathing attained to the life still within
the body. One day his eyes had fluttered. Over the following month, they
had opened during the day, he had eaten without assistance and allowed
himself to be led and walked. His trial had gone as expected, and he had
finally been placed in the cell he would remain in for the rest of his
life.
After a year, the watchers had become accustomed to the prisoner and his
ability to resist the Dementors. But they hadn't seen. The man had
nothing to give them. Everything that he had once been was gone. He had
no place in the world, nothing that called to him. He had no idea who he
was, and who he had been. The day after his trial, the Dementors made
their customary pass, and he had screamed. For the day before, someone
had seen him. Looked at him and had seen a person, and for the first
time, the man mourned, for he had no idea who he was, what he had
become, he had only seen the blackness of his walls and the knowledge
that he would never again be seen. He was Severus Snape and trapped
within a cell and a life over which he had no control and nothing to
mourn, yet the woman had been saddened for him, angry on his behalf and
had seen him. But here, in the bowels of Azkaban, he was nothing, yet
someone, and that was dangerous. For it gave notice to the Dementors
that he could be feed upon. It had been easier in the dark. Yet he was
unable to return to it for any length of time, and for the first time in
years he felt fear. For in this, he was truly alone, and very scared.
He was nothing, yet someone. For the first time that he could remember
he desired something. He wanted to be seen.
That day, the one in which he had fed the Dementors, all took notice.
Man, Dementors and watchers alike. The man because he realized that he
might have had a life, he had been something to the woman in the
courtroom. The Dementors because they had finally fed on the soul of the
man, and that well had run deep. They had been unable to stop
themselves. After being deprived for so long, they had feasted, and it
was sweet.
The watchers saw the actions in the cell and were interested. The
prisoner had something the Dementors wanted. They wanted to know what it
was. On the advice of their head, they placed surveillance threads in
his cell. These allowed them to observe the prisoner from the safety of
their world. They watched and waited for a sign from the prisoner. A
clue as to what made him writhe under the spell of his jailers.
Knowledge is power. Always.
*******
Albus Dumbledore sat in his office watching his children scatter to the
winds. It was a beautiful day at Hogwarts as the elder ones headed off
their first Hogsmeade weekend of the Spring term. Bobbing among them was
Ginny Weasley, the youngest in a long line of redheads that had graced
the halls of Hogwarts. He watched as she chatted with her friends along
the path and to her luncheon with Hermione.
And he smiled. Looking to the copies of the threads that graced the cell
of Severus, he played again the scene of Severus reacting to the
Dementors. Something had drawn the man to the conscious world. Someone,
he corrected himself softly. He had to see where this path would take
them. Where it would lead and if necessary, contain it. The world needed
protection from certain things and for years, he, Albus Dumbledore had
done so. He had rid the world of Grindelwald, sheltered Harry Potter
until he was able to kill Voldemort and had for years ruled kindly over
the halls of Hogwarts. The children were his life and everything in his
power would be done to protect them.
They were the future.
And so he sat watching the Dementors swarm over Severus and to the
current thread that showed the man, unresponsive again in his cell. He
waited, for Miss Granger to realize that the knowledge she sought was
contained not in the books she so treasured, but within the man in the
depths of Azkaban. Albus needed the information and so he waited. For
Hermione to ask the questions necessary to unlock the secrets so long
kept hidden.
Albus Dumbledore was a patient man, he would wait for the questions, for
he needed the answers.
For the children. His children. Those past, present and future.
He would protect them all.
******
TBCÉ.