Chapter 29: Upping the Ante
Andrea did not expect to receive much, if any, mail while at Hogwarts, but a letter came for her anyway, and not from either the American Ministry or its British counterpart. It dropped from the sky to land beside her plate, and as soon as she saw the handwriting on the envelope, she pocketed it and excused herself. Meli looked curiously at her, but she replied with an innocuous excuse that wasn't precisely dishonest, but which was also quite distant from the truth and still had the redeeming trait of mollifying Meli.
Once she was alone in her rooms, with a few dozen extra wards added to her usual several, she took out the envelope and opened it. The handwriting was familiar to her, but no one else would recognize it; the letter had been written with a scrambling Dicto-quill. The writer had to have been desperate or the message urgent to justify the cost and risk of a trans-Atlantic owl. It was both, as Andrea saw when she read it:
Impalers creating file on you.
Gave safe account, but beware.
Possible hit.
The Auror set her jaw, then burned both letter and envelope. As if her life wasn't complicated enough at the moment, the Impalers had suddenly taken an interest in her.
The Impalers were the vampiric equivalent of the Death Eaters. At their head was Morden Vlad, whom Meli had identified as a Death Eater nearly a decade before. Details on the Impalers' relationship with Voldemort were officially sketchy, but Andrea's informant had filled in a few holes for her.
Vampires were an exclusive, and often egotistical, community, and they would never willingly subject themselves to a mere human, even if that human was a Dark Lord. Nevertheless, an alliance between the Impalers and Voldemort was mutually beneficial, and the two sides had ironed out a compromise: the Impalers answered directly to Vlad, and he alone received the Dark Mark—strictly for communication purposes, of course. What Andrea and her informant knew, namely that the Dark Mark made Morden Vlad and, consequently, every one of his subordinates subject to Voldemort, seemed to have bypassed the self-satisfied Impalers entirely.
Andrea knew that the Vlad family, who controlled the Impalers, had never liked or trusted her. She came from a meddlesome family that produced an inordinate amount of Aurors, and she had shown signs early in life that she would follow in the family tradition. While at Ariel, she had also been responsible, directly or indirectly, for a number of incidents that publicly humiliated Damon Vlad, who had been until recently his father's heir apparent. The final straw had come when her cousin Will had started dating Damon's cousin Raven; Andrea, far from disapproving, had done her best to befriend Raven and encourage her to distance herself from the family business. Raven's father (Morden's brother) had, as it happened, been consolidating his position as a dissenting voice, and he had shortly thereafter separated entirely from Morden's pursuits. Although Turin Vlad had never been an Impaler, nor had any of the members of the sizable faction he led away from the main vampire community, Morden and Damon somehow blamed Andrea's influence on Raven for the breach. Within six months of the schism, Damon had personally killed first Will's brother, then Will, leaving them on their front lawn with Impalers' stakes through their hearts.
"So now you're finally after me," Andrea murmured to the air. "Took you a year to get around to it . . . what's your game?"
The nature of the game really didn't matter much, and she knew it. As soon as the last traces of the letter were reduced to ashes, Andrea turned away to her suitcase, from which she drew an item she'd brought along just in case. She checked to be sure that the silver stake was sharp, then re-sheathed it and belted the sheath at her waist under her robes.
Andrea's first Saturday at Hogwarts, she treated Meli to lunch in Hogsmeade. Both wore witches' robes for the occasion and agreed to leave all discussions pertaining to Aurors and Death Eaters behind at the school. Nevertheless, Meli had the distinct impression that her always-efficient old friend was trying to slip in through the back door while still keeping a low profile. It was a Hogsmeade weekend for students from Hogwarts, but all that meant was that Andrea would have to be a little more subtle in her sifting.
"So now you're a teacher," the Auror observed after their food had been set down. "How does this compare with your days as a student?"
Meli smiled and took a sip of butterbeer. "Difference between day and night," she replied after swallowing. "Before, I was paying to learn and pulled pranks on the side. Now I get paid to teach and sniff out pranksters on the side." She shrugged. "It's a living."
"And how do you and McGonagall get along now?" Andrea asked with a smirk.
Meli snorted. "We get on quite well, since I behave as a normal, responsible adult should. She never had much of a problem with me before—it's what I did that bothered her.
"Not bestest buds, though?" Andrea remarked sardonically.
Meli gave Andrea her most reptilian smile. "We have a professional understanding," she answered. "I've just a touch too much Slytherin in me for us really to be friends." For example, she added silently, I would never think of going shopping with her. That, unfortunately, brought to mind her shopping expedition with Zarekael, which, in turn, brought to mind the night club fiasco. The mental image of Minerva McGonagall walking into that club was enough to make Meli burst out laughing, an occurrence which drew every eye in the Three Broomsticks to their table.
Andrea, meanwhile, looked on with some alarm at first, then began to check Meli's butterbeer bottle for signs of a laughing hex.
Once Meli had calmed herself somewhat, she straightened, took a deep breath, and then had another pull at her drink, all as if nothing had happened. It was a hard battle, though; the only way to stop laughing was to chase the image from her mind, and the only way to do that was to replace it with another, far less humorous image. Thus, by the time she had swallowed a sip of butterbeer, McGonagall in the night club had been displaced by a troupe of ballerinas performing Swan Lake. As long as the lead's face wasn't replaced by McGonagall's (or even worse, Snape's or Zarekael's), she was safe from repeating the outburst.
"So what about you?" she asked casually. "Do you think you'll ever go back to teach at Ariel or Blackwing?"
Andrea stared at her for a moment, plainly debating on whether or not to call a psychiatrist, then slowly shrugged. "I haven't thought that far ahead yet," she replied, her tone showing that she was still mildly disturbed. "If I did, it'd be Blackwing, though. I can't work with kids."
"Arithmancy, or Defense Against the Dark Arts?"
The Auror smirked. "What do you think?" she countered. There was a subtle shift in her manner, and Meli detected a probable change in conversational track, as well. "I doubt I could have co-workers any better than yours, though," Andrea continued. "They're all top-notch over there at Hogwarts."
"Yes." If you want information, you're going to have to ask for it; I'm not volunteering anything.
"Even the ones who don't seem so warm and fuzzy at first . . ." Andrea arched an eyebrow.
Sorry, I'm not biting. Meli furrowed her brow. "Oh, I know Flitwick can be a little brusque at first," she said, deadpan. "But under all that, he's really quite—"
"Charming?" Andrea suggested dryly.
Meli smiled impishly. "Oh, you've heard that one, have you?"
"Rather recently, too," the Auror replied. "But actually, I was thinking of Hogwarts' Potions master."
And here I thought we were leaving work at home. "Severus Snape?" Meli asked innocently. "What about him?"
"Well . . ." Andrea trailed off for a moment, her eyes seeming to search the ceiling above Meli's head. She returned her focus a moment later, though, and picked up precisely where she'd left off. "I have to admit, Meli, he's not someone I'd've expected you to be friends with." She gave her former roommate a significant look.
Meli raised mild eyebrows. "It's a pity you never knew Crimson Fell," she replied. "Had you ever seen me with her, nothing would surprise you about the people I choose to call friends. She was a Slytherin—did I ever tell you that?"
Andrea nodded slowly. "A couple of times."
"Moreover, she was a Slytherin with no strong secondary House," Meli continued. "I, by a small re-balancing, could have found myself in either Slytherin or Ravenclaw, but there was never any doubt at any point that Crim belonged anywhere but where she was Sorted. She was incredibly clever, of course, but hers was a Slytherin cleverness, not at all suited to Ravenclaw." Her eyes locked with Andrea's. "But she was the least likely of any of them to go bad. Pierce would have gone first—and did. Collum next, and he never did. And far down the road from there, long afterward, if ever, Crim might have gone, under extreme and highly improbable and unlikely circumstances. Yet of the four of us, she was the only true Slytherin." She shook her head decisively. "Appearances can be gravely deceiving, my friend."
"They can be," the Auror allowed. "But what if they're not?"
Meli forced her eyes not to flash, reminding herself firmly that Andrea was her friend, and, in the end, they were all on the same side. "In this case, I know they're not," she replied. "Severus is as true a friend to me as Crim ever was, and I think you'll find without having to probe too much that you and he have very similar priorities."
Andrea's eyes widened as the full message of that statement translated itself in her mind. Snape's priorities must include protecting Meli as well as he could—which meant he knew the nature of her curse and bane, and was willing to risk friendship with her anyway—and bringing about Voldemort's fall in any way he could.
Still, she was suspicious by nature, an Auror to the core, and she must be sure. "You're certain of that?" she asked. "I mean, really certain of it? No doubt in your mind?"
Meli's history with Snape spanned nearly two decades; she knew him too well for that. "Not one," she replied truthfully. And now it's time that we changed the subject entirely. "Are you going to eat your lamb stew before it gets cold?"
Andrea smirked. "Says the girl who hasn't touched her shepherd's pie," she rejoined.
Meli smiled. "I stand rebuked and convicted of my hypocrisy; please, allow me to rescue my conscience by having a bite or two."
"Sounds good to me."
It was Meli's turn to host Sunday afternoon tea, and since she was still playing hostess to Andrea, she invited the Auror, as well. Andrea could have no concept of how radically her mere presence altered the conversation; Meli, Snape, and Zarekael were far too careful of actors for that. However, it was a fact that her being there put the others ill at-ease, and Meli regarded that as unfortunate; under pretty much any other circumstances, she thought that Andrea would have gotten on quite well with Snape and Zarekael.
Meli served a simple tea, to which no one objected. Snape alone of the three knew the root of her aversion to sugar, but the others accepted the aversion itself without question. She kept no sugar, and she flatly refused to serve biscuits, but she saw to it that cream, scones, and lemon curd were available.
She had spent the entire morning making a mental list of safe topics for conversation: Andrea, Andrea's extracurricular interests, and her own stories of Hogwarts.
"So, Andrea," she now said, handing around the cups and barely hiding a slight smirk, "what progress have you made with the American curricula?"
Andrea rolled her eyes. "The Ministry tried to re-instate Self-Defense four years ago, but some enterprising watchdogs have tied it up in the courts. They've got deep pockets, too, so it could drag out indefinitely."
Meli raised her eyebrows. "The judge actually heard the case?"
"Idiotic, isn't it?" Andrea shook her head. "America isn't Britain, my friend; back home, you can collect millions from McDonald's for spilling hot coffee in your lap because of your own stupidity, but I'd lay odds that no British judge who wanted to stay outside of a padded cell would hear the case." She rolled her eyes and reverted to the previous subject. "They'll see the light, though—now that You-Know-Who's back."
Snape's eyes glittered dangerously. "Am I to assume that you're referring to Defense Against the Dark Arts?" he asked.
"Mm." Andrea nodded as she took a sip of tea. "They removed it about fifteen years ago. The headmaster at the time was a namby-pamby conciliatory wuss, so he pretty much just let them do it. Five years ago, though, he finally kicked off, and we got a real wizard in there—not Dumbledore, but a good sight better than Pliant was."
"Was Pliant the one who oversaw the changes made for the sake of self-esteem?" Meli inquired. Let's just take a step away from references to "You-Know-Who", shall we?
"I wouldn't say he oversaw them, exactly," Andrea replied, disgusted. "Let 'em steamroller him is more like it. He wanted too much to be liked, so he let people do anything they wanted. But yes, it happened during his stint."
"'Self-esteem'?" Zarekael echoed, raising mildly amused eyebrows.
Meli smiled wryly. "Americans place a higher value on students feeling good about themselves than on students actually comprehending academic basics. If a magical student is talking about school with a friend, won't he feel terribly inadequate and suicidal if he takes Arithmancy instead of Arithmetic, or Potions instead of Chemistry?"
Zarekael, who was different even from ordinary magical folk, and who had lived for seven years in Slytherin House (in which self-esteem was the last thing on anyone's mind, except as a flaw to be exploited) fell silent, but his amusement was evident.
"On the bright side," Andrea said dryly, "it helped to expand my vocabulary. Who knew that meteorology was fundamentally about prediction?" She smiled sweetly at Meli. "But one of the first things Lyons did when he came in was to put all the names back the way they used to be. So, where I took Natural Chemistry, Transformational Geometry, and Integrated Meteorological Math, my nephew is taking Potions, Transfiguration, and Arithmancy. Lord willing, he'll even get in a year or two of Self-Defense before graduation." She shrugged. "If anyone can get it done, my money's on Lyons. And if he gets it in at Ariel, it's only a matter of time before they put it back in at Tres Brujas and Prospero, too."
"At least there's hope," Meli mused.
Andrea shrugged again. "There's always hope," she replied. "The only thing in question is whether or not hope'll pan out." She altered her posture slightly, but not in a business-like manner, and Meli sensed a change in topic; she was not disappointed. "So, Meli, I've heard a bit about your pranking days—only the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure—but what about you, Zarekael? Did you spend a lot of time serving detention as a student?"
Inwardly, Meli grimaced. It was an admirable attempt to include one of the two mostly silent members of their party in the conversation, but pranking had probably never entered his practical vocabulary until he befriended a Skulker.
To her surprise, though, Zarekael nearly smirked. "Well," he replied, "there is one thing I could tell . . ."
Meli's eyebrows reached unprecedented heights, and Snape actually turned his head sharply to stare at the son and apprentice he had thought he knew so well. "Indeed," the Potions master managed.
Andrea, however, grinned knowingly. "The quiet ones," she observed. "They always seem way too innocent to be pranksters."
"I do not believe it could be precisely categorized as a prank," Zarekael told her. "It was more of a preventative and . . . educational . . . nature. The Weasley twins benefited handsomely from the lesson."
Snape's eyes went wide, and Meli knew her own had done so, as well. "That was you!" the former breathed.
"I would never have guessed," Meli said, truly awestruck. "And yet it fits so perfectly."
She knew that the Weasleys avoided Zarekael when at all possible, but she suspected that it was less from fear than from respect and a desire not to annoy him. She had also heard whispers around the school that, as first years, Fred and George had been foiled in an attempt to carry out an unspecified prank against an unnamed Slytherin, whose identity they would likely carry to their deaths in an attempt to minimize further consequences; she had synthesized those with McGonagall's account to formulate a hypothesis about the nature of said prank. These facts had been filed side by side in her mind, but she had never once thought to put them together.
"Sounds like quite a doozy, whatever it is," Andrea interjected. "What did you do, Zarekael?"
A Gryffindor might have blushed and glanced at the floor with an unspoken "aw-shucks", but Zarekael was very much not a Gryffindor. A sardonic quirk turned upward one corner of his mouth, and his eyes took on a shrewd gleam.
"It would seem that, as a third-year, I gave the misimpression that I needed to lighten up and laugh a bit—at myself, or so Fred and George Weasley determined," he began. "I had insomnia one night and was walking the corridors near Slytherin, and I came upon two Gryffindors who had sneaked into the dungeons on some as-yet unclear mission of mischief. It took only a moment of listening to determine their purpose, however. They had put into place several dung-bomb launchers, all aimed at approximately the same location, but they were experiencing difficulty in setting up a person-specific stasis spell. I gathered from their discussion that that person was none other than myself, so, having already relieved them of their wands without their knowledge, I offered my input as to how they could account for certain factors." The quirk in Zarekael's lips developed now into a full-fledged smirk. "They thanked me very politely before realizing exactly who it was that had spoken to them."
Meli and Andrea burst into laughter, and Snape shook his head wonderingly.
"So," the Potions master marveled, "you set the stasis spell to hold two troublesome first-years, then set off the launchers and left them to be found in the morning."
"Who found them?" Andrea asked, still snickering.
Snape raised his eyebrows. "The Weasleys were wise in choosing the location for their trap," he allowed. "They were themselves trapped in the T-junction between the Potions corridor and the Slytherin common room. The only question was whether I would find them before the Slytherins did; as it happened, the discovery was simultaneous." He darted an accusing glance at Zarekael. "And you were there the whole time, to all appearances as surprised and amused as everyone else."
"Do I want to know how many points Gryffindor lost for that lapse?" Meli inquired.
He smirked. "I believe the total was somewhere in the range of eighty," he answered. "They also served a week of detentions and suffered through a number of just comparisons to their predecessors."
"By which you mean the Skulkers?" Andrea suggested.
Snape nodded sagely. "The Weasleys were every bit as unimaginative in their response to detention as they were in planning their prank in the first place."
"I don't know," Meli countered. "It was fairly imaginative. Pre-doomed to failure when carried out by first-year Gryffindors, of course, but had they been patient enough to wait until they knew the proper spells, or had they found a co-conspirator with more Ravenclaw or Slytherin tendencies, they might very well have pulled it off." She smiled sweetly. "Though my vanity thanks you for the honor you pay it, Severus. It is a pleasing thought, however inaccurate it may prove to be, that the Skulkers were the greatest pranksters of all time."
"Your vanity is very welcome," Snape replied dryly. "However, the Weasleys have since shown that their initial lack of bizarre inventiveness has developed into an entrenched one; I harbor little hope that they will ever succeed in a Skulker-esque stunt." He frowned then, as if something had occurred to him, and drew out his pocket watch.
Oh, no, Meli thought. Please, let it just be Severus . . .
The hope was in vain, for Zarekael, acting masterfully, glanced at Snape first, then drew out his own watch. He, too, was summoned into Voldemort's presence at a time when only one of them could leave without arousing suspicion.
Snape looked significantly at Zarekael. "I went last time," he said firmly. "It's your turn."
The apprentice, usually politely submissive, shook his head. "I'd rather you went this time, Father," he replied. "I'll go next time."
Snape's eyes widened authoritatively. "My statement was not an invitation to debate," he said coldly. "It is your turn, Zarekael."
Zarekael looked as though he might protest further, but, with a glance to the ladies present, he instead rose gracefully. "Yes, Father." He bowed to Meli and Andrea, then excused himself.
Snape put away his watch and calmly took a sip of tea.
Meli's stomach churned and roiled, and, though she couldn't have done otherwise without potentially raising suspicion, she bitterly regretted having invited Andrea. Had she, Meli, been the only other present, both Snape and Zarekael could have answered Voldemort's call without drawing unwanted attention, but the Auror's presence made that impossible. One had to remain behind, and Snape had volunteered.
It made sense, analytically speaking. Zarekael was still slightly out of favor with Voldemort because of his perceived failure in the attempt to kidnap Harry Potter; if even now he made a single stray step—such as answering a summons late, even with mitigating circumstances that must surely be known to the Dark Lord—Voldemort might well harm him more than he would another member of the inner circle. Snape, on the other hand, was more favored; he would be punished, of course, but his would be a less severe punishment, and he would lose less status in Voldemort's sight than Zarekael would.
Nevertheless, knowing as she did that Snape was willingly subjecting himself to several rounds of the Cruciatus, Meli had a difficult time behaving normally. Still, there was nothing she could do to prevent his coming torment without tipping both his hand and Zarekael's, and that, obviously, was not an option.
They sat in her quarters for nearly another hour, Snape doubtless receiving an urgent and painful summons every few minutes. Both he and Meli retained their composure, for no other reason than that they must. At last, however, Meli consulted her own watch.
"Andrea, didn't you say you needed to speak with Minerva McGonagall today?" she asked.
The Auror nodded. "Yeah."
"I believe she should be available in about twenty minutes." She glanced at Snape, who nodded once. McGonagall always kept office hours on Sundays to accommodate over-studious Ravenclaws.
Now Andrea checked the time. "Great. That should give me time to find her." She looked at Meli. "Do you know where she'd be?"
"You can find her in the Transfiguration classroom," Snape interjected smoothly. "I'd be happy to show you the way."
Andrea smiled. "Thanks. That'd be great."
She and Snape stood to go, and Meli firmly repressed a sigh of relief. She saw them out, then mechanically cleaned up the tea implements. Then she picked up a ready bottle from her work table and locked herself in her bedroom. By her calculation, she had perhaps ten minutes left until Snape at last arrived in Voldemort's presence, and it was best that she be prepared.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I know it doesn't seem like it, but the end of the story is coming within a couple more posts. At the suggestion of my beta-reader, I'm considering putting in an extra post at the end containing what Snarky and I facetiously refer to as "special features" (alas, even the realm of fanfiction is no longer safe from the DVD mentality). These include random crap that we came up with in idle moments, such as outtakes, an interview with the protagonist, and a few other oddities. If you have any interest in reading these examples of why people like me ought not to have too much free time on our hands, please let me know by email. If no one emails, the world will be spared (or deprived, depending on your point of view).