Chapter 23: Phamelia
10 MAY 1979, BEFORE FIRST YEAR
Phamelia's grandfather kept many house elves. She would learn much later that this was a sign of affluence, but all she knew for the moment was that they cooked and cleaned and could not grasp basic grammar if their lives depended upon it. The one assigned to clean her room and lay out her clothes was an uncommonly melancholy house elf named Chipper, who wore a ratty wash rag that looked as though it had passed through a wood-chipper and thus earned the elf her name. While most of the other house elves were annoyingly subservient, Chipper was more subtly so and carried about her an almost human air that seemed to Phamelia to bear a faint resemblance to her grandfather's manipulative manner.
Her grandfather had before always treated Phamelia kindly. He had never struck her, never been harsh with her, never deprived her of either basic needs or what she would later learn were luxuries. She had believed that he loved her, and indeed, she had every reason to love him, but now things were different. She had dared to reject publicly what he stood for, and he had responded with violent anger and boiling hatred.
She had no other confidante, and not knowing any better, she sought Chipper's help as a final act of desperation.
"Please, you've got to help me!" she whispered urgently. It was nearly a week after her defiance; the following night she was due to appear before Voldemort once more.
Chipper looked dolefully at the child's puffed and bruised face, at her split lip and her slashed arms, and nodded slowly. "Chipper is here to help. Chipper is bringing potions and ice and biscuits from Master."
She nearly vomited at the mention of sweets. "No, Chipper. You've got to get me out of here!" she clarified. "Once I'm healed up, he'll hurt me again, and all the sweets in the world can't make up for that. Help me, please."
"Chipper isn't doing anything but healing you up," the house elf said stoutly. "Master says."
"Master's wrong!" Phamelia replied desperately. "Can't you see? What he's doing is wrong!"
Chipper set down her tray and started tending to her charge's wounds. "Chipper is not breaking faith with Master," she said firmly. "You isn't needing help if you isn't breaking faith with Master. If you is doing as he's saying, you isn't in trouble. If you's not in trouble, you isn't hurting. Chipper is a house elf," she added proudly. "Chipper is doing good work and no hurting."
"You are hurting," the child snapped, batting the house elf away. "By not doing anything, you're making things worse."
"But Master is not hurting Chipper!" Chipper countered. "And if Chipper is not hurting, Chipper is not caring!"
"He will kill me," Phamelia enunciated through her teeth.
Chipper calmly returned to the task at hand. "Then you isn't needing help when you's dead. And Chipper is still alive and not hurting."
Phamelia had never tried either her strength or her temper, but now the latter flared, fueling the former, and before she quite understood her actions, she felt her arm hit something solid and saw Chipper fly and hit the wall. Both the house elf and the girl were on her feet almost at once, but when she saw that the selfish thing had survived, her anger resurged.
"There you are, you bloody thing!" she shouted. "Now you're hurting! Now you know how just one of my bruises happened and how it feels. Do you care even a bit now?"
Chipper stared resentfully at her for a long moment, then took a dizzy step toward her. "You is not understanding how it is being for house elves, Mistress," she said. "We is loyal, and no changing that. Chipper is doing what she's told by Master, and he is telling Chipper to be telling him what you is saying. Chipper is a house elf, and Chipper is doing what he is telling." Chipper's normally resigned expression was broken now by a shrewd, mocking sneer. "Or is you killing Chipper to be keeping her quiet?"
I am not Voldemort.
Even if she felt at all inclined to murder Chipper, which, in complete honesty, she did not, Phamelia had nowhere to go afterward, and they both knew it.
"Get out," she snarled. "But if I ever see you again, I will kill you, no matter what the penalties, you miserable ugly tart!"
To judge by Chipper's countenance, she'd swallowed that lie hook, line, and sinker; she had heard such a threat before from one who truly meant it. She scurried away, not bothering to retrieve the tray.
Phamelia sank once more onto her bed, tears welling in her eyes. Faced with a trial, she had just proven herself no better than her grandfather. She had long since ceased to believe the myth of inherent human goodness that he had tried to teach her (his reasoning being that, if everyone was innately good, how could any human act be bad?), but somehow she had thought that she possessed more goodness. Now, however, she had shown her true colors; she was as totally and utterly depraved and corrupt as he.
She thought no more of escape, nor even of survival. She cared very much whether or not he would kill her, though; indeed, she hoped he would. If she lived, she could only grow more and more fully into the corrupt being she was at her core, and that she did not want. Mere moments before, visions of heroic escapes had danced in her head; now she saw another kind of heroism: dying as a ten year-old and sparing the world her evil deeds as an adult.
Her grandfather did not kill her, but the beatings continued through that evening and most of the following day. The next night, he brought her back to the Death Eaters, who also did nothing at all to help her. So grave was her offense that not one dared to speak except for Voldemort, who himself administered her punishment. She had not challenged merely her grandfather's authority, but the Dark Lord's, as well, and he would never let her forget it . . . not while she lived, at any rate.
So dreadful was the physical pain of Voldemort's curse that she fell into a thick, black realm of unconsciousness. At some point, she felt that something had hooked onto her spine and was pulling her up, forward, away . . . but she thought it a dream until she awoke.
PRESENT: EARLY FEBRUARY
Meli never afterward could account for the odd premonition that played at her stomach and teased the short hairs on the back of her neck, but she was quite aware of it, try as she might to conceal that fact as she went about her business. It was rather early in the morning, and her first year Hufflepuffs were having a particularly difficult time with the tricky subject matter—that was her entire world, or should be.
The premonition's justification was not long in coming, however. In the middle of a sentence, Meli suddenly broke off, gritting her teeth to hold back a scream. She could see from the students' faces that she had gone rigid and pale, but no verbal inquiry reached her ears through the curtain of screams that now enveloped her. She risked opening her lips just far enough to gasp, "Get—help!", then curled and dropped as the Cruciatus was doubled.
She did not know how long she managed to hold out against the agony, but it continued to mount, indicating multiple victims, and at last grew so strong that the scream fighting for freedom at last overwhelmed her resistance and ripped free. It and its echoes joined the growing cacophony ringing in her ears, until she thought the chaos would drive her insane.
Krissy Weller fled through the corridors in search of someone—anyone. In her desperation, she would even have welcomed a run-in with Filch if he would only know how to help Professor Ebony. Krissy had no way of knowing what had happened to her teacher, but that she needed immediate help was abundantly clear.
She dashed around a corner, then experienced an abrupt check that sent her sprawling. She looked up, eyes wide, to find the one person she would rather not have run into.
"Shouldn't you be in class, Miss Weller?" Professor Snape asked severely.
Krissy had to take a moment to seize a clear thought, but quickly blurted, "Professor Ebony told us to get help. She's on the floor, screaming!"
Before she had finished, Snape was already around the corner and out of sight. She scrambled to her feet and ran after him.
A solid voice somehow penetrated the cloud of screams, calling her name repeatedly and relentlessly. Meli forced her eyes to open, and before them knelt Severus Snape, concern etching lines in his face. He had pulled her away from her desk, and her students were busy moving back the front row of their desks, doubtless at his order.
The screams slowly faded, but she still twitched uncontrollably. "Severus," she whispered through her teeth. "Kill me. Please, kill me."
She had expected the flicker of shock and horror that flitted across his face, could almost have scripted the firm "No" with which he replied.
"Please, Severus. It's getting worse."
His eyes narrowed, but compassion touched them. "You know you don't really want to die," he murmured. "And you certainly don't want me to kill you."
Meli closed her eyes and gave up. "Then take me to the hospital wing," she sighed.
Just as Snape moved to pick her up, a death shriek ripped through her ears, and a deadly curse put on another threw her into spasms again.
Nooo! she screamed inwardly. This was a slow-acting curse, she could feel, and she surmised that at least some of the other torture victims would also be killed shortly. Snape would not remove her from the room in this condition during classes; he would not haul her, kicking and screaming, through the corridors to disrupt every class between here and the hospital wing.
Her hand closed on her wand, and an idea burst to life. She jerked it from her pocket, an uncontrolled spasm nearly flinging it from her hand, but she maintained enough control to aim it.
Snape must certainly have seen the look of mad desperation that took over her face, but he obviously had no idea what it meant.
"Accio dictionary!" she gasped, then whipped her wand behind her head. Her Dictionary of Dark Magical Creatures, Dark Magicians, and Other Assorted Dark Evilities—a heavy volume comprising six thousand or more very thick pages—flew from the shelf and landed solidly on her head, striking all sight and sense of the world from her and plunging her into agony-wracked sleep.
Snape could scarcely believe that Meli had actually done it . . . but he could not blame her. Indeed, a man who had once stupefied himself to keep Voldemort from executing him could not talk at all, even had he been inclined to do so.
Before he could pick up Meli to take her to the hospital wing, however, the student he had dispatched to Madame Pomfrey returned.
"I r-ran into her in the hall," Derek Ablemore gasped. "She said . . . she can't come yet. Th-there's a—a problem . . . in the dungeons."
Snape narrowed his eyes in irritation. "Probably Potter," he bit out. "Very well. Thank you, Ablemore. I'll take her myself."
Ablemore nodded, then retreated and sank into a chair, still panting for breath. The other Hufflepuffs stared silently at Snape, plainly awaiting instructions. He considered briefly as he picked up Meli. Slytherins and Gryffindors most certainly could not be left to themselves; Hufflepuffs, however, would probably be diligent enough to await a teacher if he told them to.
Snape cleared his throat as he stood, Meli still twitching in his arms. "I will be leaving to take Professor Ebony to the hospital wing," he announced. "Until I return or the bell rings—whichever comes first—you are to remain here. Write a one scroll summary of the day's topic while you wait."
He received several nods of acknowledgment, then left as quickly as possible. Had Meli been conscious, she would probably have accused him of going soft . . . but there were more important things than tormenting first years with extraneous homework.
Occasionally.
THE NIGHT OF 11 MAY 1979, BEFORE FIRST YEAR
She awoke to strange homey scents and a feeling of warmth that she had no recollection of ever having experienced. The hellish clearing and its dark inhabitants had faded to a carpeted room with a cheery fire and a ridiculously soft couch. She was bundled up in blankets on the couch, with no memory at all of how she had come to be there, nor any notion of where in the storybooks there was.
"Where am I?"
The words were faint, devoid of strength, but the havoc they wreaked on her raw throat was tortuous.
"You are safe."
This response came from a wizened old man, clearly a wizard by his dress. She could not tell which was longer—his hair or his beard. He smiled kindly at her from beneath the latter. Something about him put her at ease in spite of herself.
"Permit me to introduce myself," the old man continued. "My name is Albus Dumbledore."
Her eyes widened. "He's terrified of you!" she blurted, forgetting the consequences for her throat.
Dumbledore looked very grim. "I've given him sufficient reason for it," he said.
She hesitated, then locked eyes with him. "Kill me," she pleaded. "Please."
Dumbledore regarded her thoughtfully. "Why do you want to die?" he asked at last.
"He'll kill anyone who protects me or befriends me," she replied, panic edging the words. "Every time he kills or tortures someone, I'll be tortured. Please, sir, kill me for my sake or for the sake of anyone who calls himself my friend, but please just kill me!"
Sadness touched Dumbledore's eyes. "If I kill you," he said gently, "Voldemort will have won."
"I can't bear it!" she hissed fiercely. "I stood up to him until the end, but I'm spent. I can't do anymore! I played tough, but it was only a bluff."
As if to emphasize her words, a great pain seized her body, burning, tearing, shredding every cell and wringing from her a hoarse scream. She could not tell how long it lasted, but her own ruined voice could not drown out the scream that crossed countless miles to haunt her. A grown man howled and shrieked like a tortured animal, burning his voice forever into her mind and taunting her with the knowledge that his pain was probably because of her.
The episode passed, and she lay there, trembling and exhausted, too tormented even to beg once more for death.
Dumbledore had not sat idle. Once the first spasms took her, he had moved away anything that might get in the way of flailing limbs, then he had retreated to the fireplace to retrieve a few articles. These he carried to her now.
"Take some tea," he urged. "It will do your throat some good, and it may help to calm you." He helped her to handle the cup, tipping it to her lips then away again. Next, he handed her a lump of something she had never before seen. It was brown and sticky, it reeked of sugar, and it started to melt the moment it touched her fingers. "Turkish Delight," Dumbledore explained, a twinkle in his eye. "Of no medicinal value whatsoever, but I find it to be comforting in times of trouble."
She forced herself not to recoil. "Am I to . . . eat it?"
Dumbledore smiled kindly. "Unless you would prefer it to melt in your hand," he replied. "Candy is often more enjoyable when eaten."
She gave him a small, solemn smile, then took a bite of the thing in her hand. It was almost overpoweringly sweet, but she politely chewed and swallowed until it was completely gone.
"I see you don't have much of a sweet tooth," Dumbledore observed.
"Er, no." She flushed. "He gave me candy to try and get me to enjoy something . . . unpleasant." A shudder that would not be checked whipped through her willowy frame. "I had a peppermint stick the first time I saw someone killed with a Kedavra curse. The first time I witnessed a Sangriatus, it was a biscuit. I had my first lollipop watching a Cruciatus." She shuddered again. "I hate sweets."
Dumbledore smiled understandingly. "I apologize for introducing the subject so soon," he said.
"You couldn't have known," she countered. She paused now, looking searchingly at him. "Since you're not going to kill me, what am I to call you?"
His eyes twinkled again. "Professor Dumbledore will do," he replied. "And how shall I call you?"
Her eyes fell out of focus for a moment. "He called me Phamelia," she murmured. She shook her head firmly. "I will never answer to that name again."
"You may leave it behind if you wish."
"I will," she stated solemnly. Her eyes abruptly refocused, zeroing in on Dumbledore. "Call
me . . . Meli, then."
Dumbledore smiled again. "Very well, Meli."
Meli paused then as a dark thought resurfaced. "The man who was tortured just now," she said in a low voice. "It's because I got away, isn't it."
He measured her with his eyes, then slowly nodded once. "You have more friends than you know, Meli," he told her. "At least one was willing to undergo torture—even to risk his life—to see you freed. Friends yet in your future will, I daresay, be willing to lay their lives on the line to stand by you."
"I don't want them to risk their lives for me. I'd rather be the only one to suffer."
"You may one day meet someone who will challenge your resolve," Dumbledore said mildly.
She shook her head resolutely. "I will not change my mind," she declared.
11 MAY 1985, SIXTH YEAR
"Six days 'til Crim's and my birthday," Collum announced, grinning broadly. "Going to get us something particularly splendid this year?"
Meli stared at him uncomprehendingly. Somehow she had lost track of the dates—if it was six days until the Fell twins' birthday, that made today May 11—
"Hey!" Collum waved a hand in front of her eyes. "You there, behind the Potions book! Are you awake?"
She blinked several times, then nodded slowly. "Sorry, my mind went elsewhere," she said, acutely aware of the ridiculous understatement in her words. "Yes, I've got something in mind . . . and I think it's splendid, at least."
Collum's brow furrowed in concern. "You all right, Meli?"
She glanced at her watch, then smiled wanly. "Just tired," she lied. "It's nearly eleven—time I went to bed." She stood, closing her text and tucking it under one arm. "See you in the morning."
He stared at her as she left the common room, but he knew better than to ask anything further. Even Crim, Meli's best friend, had never been enlightened on the subject of May 11.
Meli was strangely torn about the night of May 11. She dreaded it because on that night she always relived the night six years before when Voldemort had placed on her the curse she would carry to his death. But in a strange, twisted way, she anticipated the dreams that passed through her mind, tantalizing her with partially comprehended faces and half-whispered names. Each year, one of these grew clearer: the face of her rescuer. She knew she had seen his full face unmasked somewhere, but only in dreams had she any hope of connecting those black, glittering eyes to their proper countenance. Things came together in dreams that didn't come together in waking. While she dreaded the terror of memory, she was desperate and anxious to identify her rescuer.
If she could discover his identity, she could track him down. If she could track him down, she could ask him why. She had forced herself to believe that her rescuer was a he, for if it was a she, she must be Tinúviel Everett, and that particular Death Eater could not be tracked down. Only the living could be found; only the living could answer questions; if only for that reason, her rescuer must be someone else.
These thoughts accompanied her as she lay in bed for some time, staring into the darkness around her. The dreams would come in their own time; desiring or dreading them would neither hasten nor slow their coming . . .
At last a thick sleep blanketed her, drawing her once more to a darkened forest clearing and a ring of masked figures lining the perimeter. Two black eyes met hers—glittering black eyes possessed of a determination which no longer puzzled her, but which still astounded. She had stared intently at him that night, inexplicably hoping to see through his mask, until everything she knew was washed away in a wave of—
PAIN
She fought it with a strength that grew each year she relived it. A red miasma flowed before her eyes, but she forced them to focus beyond it, to latch onto two black anchors . . .
The red cloud of phantom pain took her once more into the void of sleep . . . but at last she carried with her a face, and she knew the name that went with it.
She passed through much of the next day more dead than alive. The thick sleep was not restful, and the familiar recurring nightmare had been only the first of several that plagued her. Nevertheless, she clung tenaciously to the face that had finally revealed itself the night before, and in that she found some encouragement.
That encouragement was not enough to save her from clumsiness, however. Her hands refused to cooperate fully, and she succeeded, as a result, in destroying her cauldron in a spectacular explosion that sent the entire Potions class and Snape ducking for cover. Through the acrid, choking smoke of over-reactive and over-stimulated porcupine quill powder, Snape managed to gasp out a fifty point deduction from Gryffindor, and she was sorely tempted to use the cloud as cover for an escape. Crim highly approved of entertaining explosions, but Collum, who was much nearer at hand, highly disapproved of needless point deductions that had no spectacular prank attached to render them worthwhile.
She stayed, however, and spent the remainder of the period collecting the pieces of her cauldron and avoiding the looks of betrayal her fellow Gryffindors leveled at her.
When the bell rang, she dropped a last handful of pewter shards into her book bag, then straightened with a sigh. Crim offered an encouraging smile, then rolled her eyes toward the door, indicating that she would wait for Meli in the corridor. Collum pushed past Meli without a word, and Sharpie, with an eloquent shrug, chased after him.
Meli shouldered her bag, then stepped quietly to the front of the room.
"I apologize for the mess, sir," she said in a low voice. "I've made rather a larger one than usual."
Snape arched an eyebrow. "You usually make messes?" he countered.
She looked down. "Well, not in Potions," she conceded. "But there have been some
unfortunate . . . frequent . . . incidents in Herbology." She looked up briefly and quickly added, "But that's all right; Herbology's for poseurs anyway."
She felt his eyes rest on her, and suddenly she wanted nothing more than to dig a hole and bury herself alive. "You've lost sleep," he observed after a moment.
"Yes, sir," she replied. "Nightmares, sir."
She looked up to find him consulting a desk calendar. "May twelfth," he said. "Last year on May twelfth, you spilled a jar of monkshood into Fell's cauldron. Fortunately, he caught it before it could mess things up too badly. The year before, you put too much salamander skin in a youthening potion, resulting in a peculiar, though amusing, polka-dotted effect when Fell drank it. The year before that, your shrinking potion poisoned the rat we tested it on, though the unfortunate rodent also managed to turn into a fire-breathing scorpion before it stopped twitching. And finally, as a second year, you fell asleep while waiting for your potion to boil, with the result that it boiled over into the flame and evaporated in a poisonous fume, necessitating a two-day evacuation of the dungeons." He raised his eyebrows. "It never occurred to me at the time, but perhaps I should have asked Professor Brewer about your commemoration of the day as a first year."
"I'm sorry, sir." Her eyes had fallen once more—not a common mannerism for her, and most certainly not a welcome one. "I have no excuse."
"Really."
She smiled bitterly, her eyes still on the stonework floor. "What would you have me say, sir?" she asked softly. "Is it truly an excuse that I happen to have nightmares one certain night every year?" She forced her eyes upward to meet his. They were toying with one another, and she knew it. Snape would never admit to what he knew, and she was beginning to wonder if she would ever admit that she knew he knew what he knew.
"Recurring dreams are often signals," Snape said. "Perhaps you should try to determine their purpose and cause, then address it. Then if they keep haunting you, you will have an excuse."
"'Some hae meat and canna eat, and some wad eat that want it,'" she murmured, more to herself than to Snape. He was watching her curiously, she saw, but rather than explaining, she forced herself to continue with the task she had set for herself. "It was you, wasn't it, sir." She intentionally refrained from making it a true question.
He frowned slightly. "What was me?" he asked.
She pressed on before she lost her nerve. "It was you who pulled me out of there, who brought me to Dumbledore six years ago. It was you he punished—whose screams I heard that night." She bit her lip. "Sir, I don't know if the nightmares have any intended message, but I do know that every year, the face around those shining black eyes has gotten clearer, and last night I finally saw it. It was you." She swallowed, hard. "Thank you, sir. I don't know why you did it, and I wish I could repay you a bit better than by wreaking havoc in your classroom every May twelfth, but from the depths of my heart, thank you."
To look at his face, she probably could not have surprised him more if she had come into Double Potions wearing a clown costume and tap-dancing while singing "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean".
Snape was quiet for a long moment, clearly pondering what to say. He finally came to a decision: "I have half a mind to return fifty points to Gryffindor."
Meli slowly settled into something more closely resembling her normal demeanor, and after a moment of berating herself for losing control, replied dryly, "With all due respect, sir, please don't. It might damage your reputation."
He smirked. "Just for that remark, I won't."
"Thank you, sir."
Snape regarded her coolly, then slowly, deliberately . . . smiled. Meli felt at that moment that she might actually faint from shock. The Potions master held his smile for a full minute, long enough for Meli to go pale and place a hand on the worktable behind her to steady herself, then he resumed his customary dour expression.
"Someday, Miss Ebony," he said, "I may tell you just why I did what I did. In the meantime, however, if you must lose sleep over it, please limit your Potions episodes to those of a non-lethal variety."
Meli recovered enough to offer a sardonic smile and a nod of acknowledgment, then excused herself and did her best not to flee from the room.
4 MAY 1979, BEFORE FIRST YEAR
It was clear from the beginning that this was to be a very different kind of meeting. The entire inner circle had gathered before Voldemort arrived, and when he finally did appear, he was accompanied by a much smaller person, clad from head to toe in a heavy hooded cloak like the others, but unmasked.
"Welcome, my friends," Voldemort greeted them cordially. "I've brought with me someone very important, whom I would like you all to meet."
They remained both silent and uncertain, not at all sure how best to respond. Voldemort motioned to his companion, and the figure removed its hood, revealing the face of a young girl. Glossy black hair framed pale cheeks and contrasted sharply with blue eyes. She looked to be between eight and ten years old, but her self-composure was more consistent with that of a mature adult. She gazed unflinchingly at the motley band before her and betrayed no emotion whatsoever.
"My friends," Voldemort said again, "permit me to introduce to you my granddaughter Phamelia Marvolo."
This introduction elicited some murmurs and a sound of subtle stirring from among the Death Eaters. Such a statement at this time and in this place could only mean one thing: Voldemort intended to set up his granddaughter as his heir to power. Phamelia, meanwhile, regarded them dispassionately, an expression of apathy beginning to take hold behind her eyes.
"Young though she may be," Voldemort continued, "I think that her time has come. She is ready to join us tonight."
At his words, Phamelia stiffened suddenly, darting a startled, though not at all fearful, glance up at him. He smiled reassuringly, but the look carried no warmth. "You need not perform any test tonight," he told her soothingly. "It is enough to pledge your loyalty before these witnesses here."
Now she met his eyes more easily. "Loyalty to what?" she asked softly, but no ear missed her words. "To whom?"
Voldemort's brow furrowed. "To me, of course," he replied. "To all that I stand for."
"I cannot do it," she stated unequivocally. "I will not do it."
The Dark Lord's face paled somewhat, but he retained his composure. "Why not?" he inquired dangerously. "Nothing further is required of you just now."
"Because it's wrong," she answered, almost defiantly. "What you do and what you fight for are evil, and I will have no part in them."
A stunned silence ensued, during which Voldemort fought visibly for control of his reaction, and the Death Eaters braced themselves for what must surely come next.
At last, Voldemort found his voice. "Do you dare challenge me in front of all of these witnesses?"
Phamelia did not falter. "I challenge you before them," she affirmed calmly. "Before the whole world and God Himself, if it comes to that. What you ask of me is wrong, and I won't do it."
"Who told you it's wrong?" he demanded poisonously. "Who?!"
She paused, waiting until the echoes of his shout had faded to nothing, still looking at him in complete apathy and utter resolve. "No one had to teach me," she answered. "I've always known it."
That Voldemort had not expected anything like this was painfully clear to all present. Before the eyes of his followers, he had been challenged and reduced by a ten year-old child—a child, moreover, whom he had raised from birth. It was not expected, and it could not be allowed. He raised his wand, but even at that sight she did not shrink. "Crucio!"
Phamelia's screams filled the forest beyond the clearing in which the Death Eaters met. She writhed on the ground in agony, nearly choked by her cloak until, by accident or design, she broke its clasp and rolled free. Waist-length hair whipped around her, now covering her face, now parting to reveal flashing blue eyes—eyes that burned with pain, but which were strangely untouched by hatred, anger, or betrayal. This seemed only further to enrage her punisher, who hit her with another Cruciatus and another, until it seemed that the entire world was tainted by her screams. Yet not once did the word "mercy" escape her.
Voldemort finally gave up, snarling, "Stupefy" and returning his attention to his followers. "Return in a week," he ordered venomously. "If she does not repent before you, you will see once and for all the penalty for defying me!"
She had fallen still, her head turned to one side, her eyes open and oddly innocent, an echo of torture still lingering in them. Though she could not have consciously caused them to do so, they unseeingly met and pierced through another set of eyes, this one black and glittering and staring at her from under an anonymous mask, behind which a stone had begun to warm and beat and melt into a heart once more.
To Headmaster Albus Dumbledore
Dear Sir,
Something has happened which I must bring immediately to your attention. I must meet with you as soon as possible. While care must be taken that we are not seen together, a midnight meeting in a pub is perhaps not the wisest course. I leave it to your wisdom and judgment, but it must be soon.
Severus Snape
Dear Severus,
I am thinking of touring Loch Tay in two days' time. It has been some time since we have spoken, and I wondered if you might be in that neighborhood. If so, perhaps we can catch up on all that has happened since your graduation. Have you at last found a suitably challenging job?
I shall look for you at Loch Tay. If you cannot make it, perhaps we may chat some other time.
Yours, etc.
Albus Dumbledore
PS Naturally, there will be Muggles about, so you may wish to dress accordingly. AD
Although necessity dictated that Snape dress like a Muggle, he could not bring himself to dress more than necessarily out of his ordinary tone. So it was that he arrived at Loch Tay dressed in a sensible long-sleeved shirt and trousers, both black. I doubt Dumbledore would recognize me if I dressed in any other color anyway, he thought darkly.
Dumbledore, by predictable contrast, wore as little black as possible and was clad instead in as many different bright colors as he'd been able to lay his hands on. He was without his usual pointed hat, but he had done nothing to hide or shorten his unusually long beard and hair. He carried a road map in one hand and a tour book in the other, and Snape had to admit that, even without those cues, the average Muggle would write off such an extraordinary person as a tourist—for no one would ever think that someone dressed like that actually belonged to some place.
Snape took a deep breath and steeled himself. Dumbledore was the last person on earth he wished to be around, for a whole host of reasons . . . but for one far more important reason, Dumbledore was the only one he could speak to. And he had to speak to someone.
He took another deep breath, then crossed the street to join his former headmaster.
"Severus!" Dumbledore greeted him quietly. "And how are you?"
Snape raised his eyebrows. "How am I?" he repeated. Really, he thought sourly, what kind of answer is he expecting to that? How am I supposed to be?! "Tired," he replied at last. "And you?"
"Very curious," Dumbledore answered, a twinkle in his eye. "Do you think Loch Tay has a monster in it?"
Snape stared at him. "I beg your pardon?" he said faintly.
Dumbledore smiled. "Well, Loch Ness has its monster, you know. Have you ever wondered about Loch Tay?"
What are you playing at?! "Er, no," Snape replied aloud. "I can't say that I have."
The other's smile widened. "Shall we row out in a boat to see what we can see?" he suggested.
Snape blinked. You clever sneak . . . "Certainly."
Dumbledore did all of the rowing, and, old as he looked, he had them out in the center of the loch in almost no time. Once there, he put in place several silencing spells and an unfamiliar charm that surrounded the boat with mist, the better to conceal the two of them from prying eyes.
"And now, Severus," he said, putting away his wand and drawing from his pocket an odd little bottle. "I'm afraid I have to ask you to swallow a few drops of this."
It was a perfectly clear liquid, and Snape recognized it immediately as veritaserum. Dumbledore knew, then, or had guessed, about his association with Voldemort. As much as he hated to, he did as Dumbledore asked; had anyone else asked it of him, he would have refused.
They waited a moment for the potion to take effect, then Dumbledore nodded for him to begin. At that juncture, Snape came to the full realization that he really had no idea of where to begin.
Dumbledore, perceiving the problem, smiled kindly. "Something happened three days ago, Severus," he stated. "Something which you have to make known."
"The Dark Lord has a granddaughter," Snape blurted, hardly knowing whence the words had come. "She's in terrible danger."
Dumbledore did not look surprised, but his smile faded. "In danger from whom?" he asked carefully.
A logical question, Snape thought. He could think I'm trying to convince him to spare her from Aurors. "From the Dark Lord himself," he answered miserably. "He attempted to initiate her as a Death Eater—prelude, I believe, to setting her up as his heir. She refused him in the most explicit possible terms."
Dumbledore seemed lost in thought. "She could not be very old," he murmured after a moment. "Desdemona would only have been . . . twenty-five by now."
"Desdemona?"
"Voldemort's daughter," Dumbledore explained. "Unless he . . . remarried . . . Voldemort only had one child."
Snape stared at him. "You knew about this?"
Dumbledore was unusually grim. "I knew only of the existence of the child," he replied, "but I knew more about Desdemona. Her mother told me about her."
There was plainly a story there, but, beyond mild curiosity, Snape had no interest in Desdemona; it was her daughter's plight that had brought him here, and that must be addressed immediately.
"But what about Phamelia Marvolo?" he asked tensely.
"I think you had better tell me all that happened," Dumbledore answered. "Then a plan may be formulated."
Snape explained, as thoroughly and as quickly as possible, what had taken place at the last gathering, down to the details of Voldemort's rage and Phamelia's apathy. He did not neglect to mention the certainty of further punishment and the date Voldemort had set for it, though he did leave out details that would permit Aurors to divine the location of the meeting or the identities of any other Death Eaters.
Dumbledore considered his words carefully for several minutes, then looked Snape squarely in the eye. "To your knowledge," he said quietly, "is any part or all of this drama designed as a trap for anyone opposed to Voldemort?"
"No," Snape replied firmly.
"Then I will help you."
He wants something . . . Snape set his jaw. "I have no intention of becoming a spy," he said flatly. "Once she's safe, I'm returning to his service." He deserves to know that much, at least.
Dumbledore's eyes had saddened, but he merely nodded. "That is, of course, your decision." He looked thoughtfully at Snape for a long moment, then added, "But I have something for you to consider."
"I'm listening."
"Did you ever know a woman named Nienor Hawke?" Dumbledore asked. "Or a man named Julius Grinden?"
Snape frowned. "I've heard of Grinden," he replied slowly, "but I never knew him. I've never heard of Nienor Hawke."
"Nienor was a fine representative of Ravenclaw in her time at Hogwarts," Dumbledore said quietly. "She caught the eye of a promising young Slytherin named Tom Riddle." His eyes had locked with Snape's and would not release them. "She did not reciprocate his . . . affections . . . but he was determined to have her. One of his first acts as Voldemort was to place her under the Imperius. The rest you can probably guess."
Snape's throat tightened; it was all he could do to show no reaction.
"Nienor was permitted contact with their daughter Desdemona only under Voldemort's supervision," Dumbledore continued. "She battled the Imperius for years, until at last she came to herself. She contrived a way to escape and came to me for protection, hoping I could work out some way to help Desdemona. Nienor lived in constant terror of discovery, and she eventually killed herself. At the time, there was no way for me to find Desdemona, much less rescue her.
"She had perceived her mother's condition, though, and she had attributed it to Voldemort. She refused to serve him." Dumbledore's brow furrowed. "And here begins the part of the tale which I have had to piece together.
"One of the Death Eaters was a fiercely loyal but tragically inept young man by the name of Julius Grinden. Voldemort considered him a liability but would not simply toss him aside; Grinden's loyalty was too valuable to him. I believe that Grinden was given the . . . privilege . . . of having his way with his lord's daughter, the intended purpose being to produce a child. Once that purpose was served, Voldemort killed him because he was of no further use."
Dumbledore's eyes widened in emphasis. "Desdemona was found dead nearly eleven years ago." His voice hardened. "She had recently delivered a child, and the name 'Grinden' was branded across her shoulder. She was fourteen."
Snape's stomach churned, and he was suddenly very aware of the rocking motion of the boat. The ability to order life and death—that was power at its greatest, and Voldemort had a firm grip on it. It was admirable, a goal accomplished, a zenith reached . . . and yet Snape felt neither admiration nor jealousy. All he felt was sick to his stomach.
"Why are you telling me this?" he asked when he at last held some mastery over his voice.
"If you are proud to serve such a master," Dumbledore said softly, "you now know the extent of his great exploits." He paused for effect, then continued, "But if the time ever comes when such service has lost its luster, you can be sure of my best help."
I doubt that time will come, Snape thought, but when he opened his mouth to say so, the words would not form. Instead, inexplicably, he replied, "I'll keep it in mind."
Veritaserum.
Dumbledore nodded gravely, then carefully outlined a plan. Snape listened intently, but part of his mind was distracted, fixated on a single word that taunted him, accusing him of lying to himself.
Veritaserum . . .
They gathered again a week later as ordered. How Phamelia Marvolo had found it in herself to stand in defiance of Voldemort they could not comprehend, and for that very reason they were unable to do it themselves. When the Dark Lord gave an order to jump, Phamelia might only offer him a one-finger salute, but the Death Eaters' only delay would be to ask how high.
Phamelia herself looked only a little worse than she had seven days previously; bruises dotted her face and neck, but the blue coals of her eyes burned as clearly as ever. Her expression still lacked any trace of hatred or anger, and her countenance remained entirely dispassionate.
Black eyes gazed steadily back at her, alive with purpose and determination. She felt their stare and met them briefly, seeming for the barest second to see through the mask to the face beyond, but her brow knit in puzzlement; she did not understand their message.
"Phamelia Marvolo," Voldemort said loudly and deliberately.
"Yes."
"Do you repent of your rebellion?"
Inexplicably, her eyes once more found the glittering black gaze. "In order to repent," she replied calmly, "one must first have done something wrong. I have not." She raised her eyes to the treetops.
An animalistic growl escaped from the Dark Lord's throat. "Do you choose to turn from this foolishness and swear fealty to me?"
"You know I don't."
"Then hear your sentence!" Voldemort turned dramatically to the Death Eaters. "Phamelia Marvolo is no longer under my protection," he pronounced. "From this day forth, until she dies, everyone close to her, every friend and protector, is under a sentence of death. Execute them, painfully, horribly, and in her sight if at all possible. If she begs any of you for death, leave her to live in her misery. This is her lifelong bane."
Phamelia made no visible reaction to these words. She seemed expectant, as if well aware that more and worse had yet to come.
Voldemort smiled now, and even the most stalwart of the Death Eaters quailed at the sight. It was not a kind or a pleasant smile, and it most certainly did not bode well for Phamelia.
"Tonight, Phamelia Marvolo shall also receive a curse which I myself have this week devised," Voldemort continued. "Unlike most curses, the effects of this one will never leave; once I pronounce it against her, she will carry it for the rest of her miserable life. Any time I use magic to torture or kill someone, she will experience a pain more intense and far more lingering than even a Cruciatus could cause, and she will hear clearly the victim's screams. It will not kill her, nor can she be reduced to a blissful vegetable state. She will remain ever cognizant of the pain and of impending pain."
"Oh, how perfectly diabolical," Phamelia said, sounding almost bored. "You'll never obtain my loyalty with threats, Voldemort. The more you punish me, the more strongly I shall rise up against you. You cannot win, and I will kill you one day, if I can."
In response, Voldemort slapped her hard across the face, then threw her roughly to the ground. She made no move to oppose him but lay still, staring apathetically up at him as he leveled his wand at her and began reciting a litany of Latin, with odd, unrecognizable words occasionally mixed in. It was a detailed and intricate spell, so much so that a countercurse must necessarily be impossible to devise.
At first, Phamelia was silent and still, but as the spell took hold, she began to whimper. She slowly rolled onto her side and curled up into a ball, and as Voldemort still continued, every muscle in her body tightened until it seemed that she must fall to pieces from this self-imposed pressure. Suddenly, as the litany crescendoed, she unwrapped herself and threw her head back in a soul-rending scream that continued to echo even after Phamelia had screamed herself hoarse.
The echoes slowly faded, and so did Voldemort's recitation. Phamelia lay still once more, unconscious.
"Only one who desires such pain should think of opposing me," Voldemort said, his voice deadly quiet. "Severus, keep watch over her. When she wakes, bring her to me." He waited until one Death Eater had taken a position of surveillance and all of the others had disapparated, then he kicked Phamelia soundly in the side and himself disapparated.
Severus Snape waited for a seeming eternity to be sure that he was alone with Phamelia. One of the Death Eaters lingered, her eyes fixed on the child, then, just before she disapparated, she looked to Snape, her gaze as unreadable as her mask. After a final glance at Phamelia, she, too, disapparated, and Snape, satisfied that he had at least a few minutes, he acted, slowly untangling from his robes a small object that he dared not touch or take hold of. With his wand, he levitated it over to Phamelia, then lowered it slowly onto the palm of one hand that had fallen open. As soon as she touched the tiny jewelry case, both she and it disappeared.
Now Snape took a deep breath and turned his wand on himself. There was only one way to ensure that Voldemort would not discover his part in this.
"Stupefy."
The entire world went black.
PRESENT: LATE FEBRUARY
Meli awoke in the hospital wing, Poppy hovering over her like a vengeful angel of healing and Snape in a chair off to the side, frowning over a stack of scrolls. There was a lump on her head the size of a duck's egg, but the throbbing through it was next to nothing compared with the familiar shooting pain that haunted the rest of her body.
"You're awake!" Poppy announced, drawing Snape's eyes upward.
Thank you, Poppy. I wouldn't have known that otherwise, Meli thought irritably.
Poppy flitted around, picking up and setting down any number of things out of Meli's field of vision. After several minutes of this annoying activity, she returned, a bottle the size of a tea kettle in her hand.
"Now, I want you to drink this down," she directed. "It'll make you feel better."
Meli looked at the bottle, then at its bearer, a distinctly unimpressed expression on her face. "It'll make me have to use the bedpan five times before I'm through with it," she countered. "No, thanks. I'll take my chances with the pain."
Poppy seemed about to press the issue, but Snape cleared his throat, drawing her attention. "Why don't you let me try to convince her, Poppy?" he suggested smoothly. "At the moment, I think she regards you more as a threat than a friend."
Poppy looked suspiciously at him, but after a moment, she surrendered the bottle to him and left, sending Meli a narrow, warning glance on her way out.
Snape smirked. "Take a sip, Meli," he ordered. "Whether you drink all of it, at least drink some of it." He poured out a measure of the potion into the water glass on her bedside table, then held the glass out to her.
"Thanks," she said, her tone quite ungrateful. She took a sip, nearly spit it out again, but forced herself to swallow. "Do I want to ask what this is?" she gasped.
Snape's smirk deepened. "Given what you normally brew up to counter one of your seizures?" he replied. "It's no less frightful."
"It's got sugar in it," she growled. "I'd rather eat divinity."
He seemed dangerously close to smiling as he took back the glass and returned to his chair, obviously understanding that she had no desire to converse. He pulled out a quill and started to frown over the scrolls again, clearly not impressed with what he read on them.
The near-smile brought something else to mind from the odd half-dreams and memories that had haunted her during her apparently hours-long forced rest. What emboldened her now she could not say, but that something did so was self-evident. She turned her head to face Snape.
"Severus, do you mind if I distract you a moment?"
He looked up. "I would greatly appreciate a distraction from this deplorable analysis of wolfsbane potion," he replied.
Meli smiled faintly. "I don't know how welcome the distraction will prove to be, but I think I may safely promise a distraction, at least."
Snape eyed her closely and cautiously, but nodded slowly. "I see."
"I don't think I need remind you of the particulars of a conversation we had on May twelfth my sixth year here," she began slowly.
He apprehended her meaning immediately. "No," he said. "I remember it quite well."
"I've had eleven years to puzzle it out," she went on, "but I still can't come to a final conclusion. Why, Severus? Why, after seeing clearly the penalties of defying Voldemort only moments before, did you risk your life to rescue a girl you didn't know?"
Silence reigned as Snape looked measuringly at her. "There were several factors which contributed to my actions that night," he answered at last. "Many of which you cannot have guessed."
"So I gathered."
"You may or may not know that I had already begun to question my service to the Dark Lord at that point," Snape continued slowly. "Otherwise, your plight would have made no decisive impact on me. I questioned very strongly my own definitions and understanding of right and wrong, and I found them lacking."
One corner of his mouth quirked. "Once that foundation was laid, other factors were able to take hold. Your fearless conviction was a very powerful factor, for example. As small and young as you were, you dared to stand up and call him evil."
"It was a bluff," Meli said in a low voice. "I was quite thoroughly terrified."
"No," Snape corrected. "We were quite thoroughly terrified. You, by contrast, had enough mastery of your terror to speak against him—something the rest of us had never imagined doing. It convicted me, I assure you.
"Another powerful motivator was seeing that he had no qualm about torturing you. You were his granddaughter and ward—his heir apparent, moreover—but he turned against you as swiftly and cruelly as he ever turned on his enemies." He pressed his lips into a hard, uncompromising line. "I realized at that point exactly that I was just as culpable because I stood by and let it happen."
Snape closed his eyes. "There is something very heart-rending about seeing a child in excruciating pain, Meli." His eyes opened again to lock with hers. "The destruction of innocence—the punishment of innocence—is evil at its purest. Seeing that, I saw that there were lengths to which I could never go—lengths to which I had no desire to go. Furthermore, I could not stand by and allow it to continue."
"So when an opportunity next presented itself, you took me to Dumbledore."
"No." Snape shook his head. "I was more subtle—a Gryffindor might say more cowardly. I smuggled a portkey to the next meeting, then took advantage of the fact that I was ordered to guard you. I put the portkey in your hand, then stupefied myself to make it appear that I had been ambushed and you had been carried off."
"He punished you for failure, then, rather than betrayal."
Snape nodded. "I was not yet ready to leave his service," he said. "It was still some time before I turned and became a spy."
Meli was silent for awhile, not sure exactly what to say. After a few minutes, her eyes fell on her hands, one adorned by a smooth gold band with a white stone, the other by a woven silver band with a black stone. They contradicted each other; each was the other's antithesis. One spoke of solitude and betrayal; the other spoke of friendship and bravery.
"I don't think it was cowardly to be subtle," she said at last. From the corner of her eye, she saw Snape's brow furrow slightly. "A coward would have convinced himself that there was nothing he could do. You took the risk of contacting Dumbledore, and you certainly took a risk by having in your possession such a portkey, to say nothing of actually using it." She turned her head again and looked him squarely in the eye. "I don' t know what other Gryffindors might say," she admitted, "but I will never call you a coward."
Snape had no words of reply for this, but his eyes fixed keenly on her. Meli smiled solemnly, then raised her hands from the blanket, ignoring the pain the motion caused. Slowly, she took hold of Andrew's ring and drew it off for the first time in her life.
"It is an insult to a brave man for me to remember him side by side with the man I use as an excuse for my own cowardice," she stated, dropping the ring to the floor. It fell with a metallic ping, but the sound seemed very far away, echoing surreally through years of fear and pain that seemed somehow to have separated from her. She had not ceased to be Meli Ebony, but she had changed, and she would not look back.