Chapter 28: Trust

Harry heard a whimpering sound and was shocked to find that it had escaped the lips of Albus Dumbledore. The old wizard was swaying on the spot, sweat was pouring down his face and he was shaking his head slowly as if to chase away the ghosts he had conjured up.

Snape seemed to have taken a step into the room. He was not leaning against the wall anymore and had somehow escaped Moody's grip. His face was pale and strained, his lips pressed into a thin line. His hands were clasped into tight fists, so tight, in fact, that Harry could see blood dripping from the knuckles. Probably his nails had punctured the skin of his palm.

To his left Harry heard an impatient hissing and when he turned his head slightly, careful not to draw any attention to himself, he saw Hermione at the top of the stairs. Her face was flushed and she looked distressed. Shaking her head fiercely she held out her outstretched arms, palms facing up, in a gesture of helpless defeat. Then she let them drop to her sides again and looked at Harry with a silent plea in her eyes. Do something!

Harry's mind was racing. Which spells did he know that would help him here? How could he interrupt the connection?

The memories had turned into an onslaught of pictures now. Snape seemed to race from one meeting to the next, dividing his attention between the Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix. He quarrelled with Lucius Malfoy about strategies and too drastic steps. He had heated discussions with Dumbledore about the headmaster's policy of secrecy with Harry.

"He HAS to know! How can I teach him, if he doesn't understand?!"

From the looks of it he never won a single of those verbal battles.

Things became even more stressed when Dolores Umbridge appeared on the scene, questioning Snape's ability as a teacher and his loyalty to the Ministry as well as turning the Slytherin students into spies on everybody.

In a quiet corner of Malfoy Manor Snape watched Narcissa Malfoy arranging some flowers in front a marble statue. Yellow leaves brushed the feet of the carefully carved angel as the woman replaced withered roses with fresh ones. Still kneeling down she said in a steady voice:

"You need to be more careful, Severus. There are many who still don't trust you and are just waiting for you to make a mistake."

She got up, wiped her elegant hands on her robes and turned around to face him.

"If you go down, you will take Lucius with you; you know that, don't you?"

Snape gave her a puzzled look.

"Narcissa, I don't …"

She cut him short by placing her long index finger on his lips and fixed him with an icy-blue stare.

"Kreacher has come here to see me. You know who Kreacher is?"

Snape shook his head. His eyes had become small and his shoulders tense.

"Kreacher was my aunt's house-elf and now serves my cousin – Sirius."

She waited a moment to let her words sink in, possibly to give him the chance to react. He didn't.

"He told me about many wizards meeting at his master's house", she continued, "filthy wizards, as he called them, half-breeds and Mudbloods. He told me about new inhabitants and frequent visitors."

Snape gulped visibly but still didn't say anything.

With a heavy sigh Narcissa sank down onto a nearby bench, pulling him with her. There they sat in silence for more than a minute, until Narcissa took Snape's hand and started talking again, avoiding his eyes and staring off into the far ends of the large garden.

"My conviction has never been as strong as yours, Severus. I have never cared for anything else but my own family and maybe that makes me a shallow person. If it wasn't for Lucius, I would never have entered the ranks and I think partly this is true also for you."

She looked at him for confirmation and he finally dared to nod slightly.

"I want my family to be safe", she went on, now looking him right into the eye. "Can you promise me that they will be safe? Can you promise me that whatever you do, whichever way you decide to turn in the end, you will protect them, my son and my husband?"

He didn't flinch when he answered.

"That's why I'm still here, Narcissa."

She nodded. Obviously his answer was sufficient for her.

As she started to walk back towards the mansion, leaving him sitting on the bench alone, she turned around once more.

"I told Lucius what I had to tell him – nothing more. But you have to be more careful, Severus. For all our sakes."

"I want to come with you", Snape declared steadily as he hastened along beside Albus Dumbledore. The headmaster shook his head.

"Too dangerous, Severus. What if they see you? Besides, I think we will be able to handle this without you."

Snape glared at the older wizard with an unusual intensity.

"But I know their weaknesses better than anyone else. If I'm fast enough, no one will have a chance to see me."

Dumbledore stopped dead in his tracks, grabbed Snape's arm and gave him a look of utmost impatience.

"Severus, I don't have time for this now! This is not the right moment to play the hero. You have already done a great deal and you would help me even more if you went to Grimmauld Place and made sure that Sirius doesn't do anything …rash."

With that Dumbledore stormed on and left a fuming Snape behind.

But that's not what happened, Harry thought with the part of his brain that was not frantically searching for a way out of this. Snape hadn't talked to the headmaster and he hadn't gone to Grimmauld Place. He had informed the others and had then gone to the forest to look for Harry. At least that was what Dumbledore had told Harry afterwards.

When Snape stormed through the door there was no sign of Sirius Black, just a happily chuckling house-elf that danced a little victory dance on a rug in front of the fireplace.

"Gone for good he his, the master", he chanted manically, "and finally meets disaster. Never, never comes he back and peace is for the House of Black."

Snape didn't bother to ask the mad elf what was going on or where Sirius was. He didn't even close the door behind him as he stormed out again.

He arrived at the Ministry far too late. Officials were running around, obviously at a loss. Debris was scattered wherever he looked and Aurors were searching the place. When he heard one of them ticking names off a list his face went blank.

"…, Dolohov and Malfoy have already been sent there by portkey."

Narcissa was crying.

"You promised me, Severus!" she yelled at him. "You promised me he would be safe and now he is in Azkaban!"

Helplessly he held her, endured her wrath and the punches she threw at his chest and waited until the tears and the anger subsided.

Pictures started overlapping each other now. Lupin's face changed into that of a young Death Eater, Moody's into the ragged face of McNair, Dumbledore's into Voldemort's.

"Where is he?"

The question echoed around them as if repeated by a dozen voices and reflected by a hundred walls.

"Has he contacted you? Did you hear anything? Where is he?"

Snape's face was a mask of anger and harassment as he took another step towards Dumbledore who was crying now, tears mingling with the sweat.

"Where is he?"

Hermione had pressed her hands against her ears to block out the deafening sounds that poured out of the bubble and into the room.

Harry felt as if his head was about to burst. His gaze went frantically from Dumbledore's pained face to Snape's tormented expression. Without thinking he started running towards them. He didn't have a plan. He didn't even have the merest hint of an idea. He just knew that this had to stop or they would all go insane.

With all his might he threw himself against the headmaster's shaking form, dragging the older man down with him. In that exact same moment he heard Tonks' voice shouting:

"Expelliarmus!"

The bubble burst.

Tiny particles of pure light shot out into every direction, trailing little tails behind them like miniature comets. For a moment it seemed like all sounds had died and been replaced by a silence so deafening that it hurt more than the just subsided thunder.

Then the world of noise returned and Harry heard himself draw a sharp breath. Beside him Dumbledore moaned quietly as he tried to raise himself from the ground. Harry made a move to help the headmaster, but Lupin quickly stepped between them, forcing Harry to retreat under the table to avoid being trampled on, while Tonks lend the older wizard a hand.

Confused Harry tried to glimpse out from underneath the table. He didn't know what he had expected to see, yet the sight of Snape's face struck him to the chore. There was no anger, no hate anymore, just the most intense desperation he had ever seen. Tears clung to the fathomless black eyes, too stubborn and still too proud to fall. The thin lips were parted slightly and he heard laboured breathing, like the man was trying to gather control over his voice.

"Did you see what you wanted to see?" he finally asked in a deadly whisper.

"Did you get what you want? IS IT OVER NOW?"

Finally the tears surrendered as Snape fixed his eyes on Dumbledore, who had fought his way back to his feet again. With one hand the older wizard reached out to steady himself on Tonks' arm, but the young witch took a step backwards and turned away from him, facing the wall. Nobody stepped in to take her place.

"Severus, I …" Dumbledore's voice was shaky.

"No, you're not", Snape interrupted him before he had even begun.

"If you are sorry for anything, then for the fact that it didn't work."

Snape was crying now, all his attention fixed on Dumbledore, which was probably his only way to see this through. Acknowledging the presence of the others would have meant acknowledging the public humiliation.

"You never really trusted me, did you? You defended me in front of anyone else, but in your heart you never trusted me."

Dumbledore didn't answer, at least not verbally. But when he cast down his eyes Harry knew that Snape had hit the point.

With the sleeve of his robe Snape wiped away his tears – like a little child, Harry thought – and made for the door. His steps were shaky, yet he obviously tried to put as much grace and dignity into them as he could muster. In the doorframe he stopped and whispered "Accio wand". Noiselessly his wand made its way from Moody's pocket into Snape's outstretched hand. Long fingers grabbed the handle so hard that the knuckles turned white.

Arthur Weasley and his son as well as Alastor Moody reached for their own wands, expecting some sort of emotional outburst, some imminent act of revenge.

In the blink of an eye Snape had disappeared.

"He's going to Voldemort", whispered Molly Weasley. "He will tell him everything he knows. We are as good as dead."

Harry finally appeared from underneath the table, shaking with anger. He tasted bile in his throat and was frowning so hard that his eyes hurt. How his wand had come into his hand he couldn't remember.

"Hypocrites!" he yelled. "Spineless lying hypocrites! You are supposed to be the brave and honest ones! You are supposed to stand for justice and compassion!"

Fuming he turned towards Dumbledore.

"And you!"

He was so angry that the words kept slipping away from him which did nothing to quench his fury.

"You lied to me! About Sirius; about him, about myself! How can you expect to be trusted if all you ever do is lie?!"

Dumbfounded Albus Dumbledore stared at Harry's wand, at the tip that still pointed straight at his chest. Then he sat down on a chair and sighed heavily.