Author's note: If anyone thinks there's 'slash' in this chapter, I prefer to call it harmless innuendo (and, probably, the shameless reinforcing of stereotypes.)
LOST PERSPECTIVE III : REPERCUSSIONS
By Bellegeste
CHAPTER 8 : MILKING THE RUNESPOOR
"A séance?"
Nearly-headless Nick was, for a moment, nearly speechless too. Then he pulled himself together, paying special attention to the collar zone, and surveyed Harry sorrowfully.
"I would not recommend it, my dear boy. In fact, my advice to you would be to eschew it at all costs. I thought we had covered the subject once before, and I did try to make you understand that your friend will have moved on. He may not wish to be summoned back."
"Summoned?" Harry was surprised to hear Nick use that term. He had thought of it as more of a voluntary visit.
"Oh yes," the ghost continued, "it's rather like being called to the headmaster's office - you feel obliged to go, but it may not necessarily be your heart's desire. Or like when you receive an urgent owl when you are watching a particularly enthralling tilt in a jousting tournament. He may not wish to answer the call.
"No, abandon the séance idea, young man. It's a clumsy Muggle means of dabbling in spheres of which they know nothing."
After the bizarre chat with Luna, Harry had been unable to put her suggestion out of his mind. That night he had lain awake, counting through a rosary of temptation, doubt, disbelief, fear and longing. It was well after midnight when he got up and sneaked out, defying the castle curfew to seek expert advice.
They made an unusual couple as they proceeded together down the stairs. The ghost drifted, pearly and translucent, emitting a cool, silvery light which gave Harry's bobbing hair a slicked, wet-look sheen. The rest of Harry was hidden under his Invisibility Cloak - he'd kept it on for warmth as much as concealment. Though insubstantial, it was still one more protective layer to ward off the freezing cold of the night-time corridor, exacerbated by the icy waft of Sir Nicholas's unintentional ectoplasmic chill.
"Ouija is a very imprecise form of communication, Harry. Very difficult to say anything worth saying, what with all the interference from human hubbub - like trying to have a cosy chat when the minstrels are in mid-Madrigal, eh what? And all that cup-moving and spelling-out words - most frustrating. Co-ordination can become pretty poor when one has lost touch with the tangible realm. Imagine trying to excavate a nasal cavity while still wearing your hunting gauntlets†It's a bit like that. Or indeed, trying to execute a bow with elegance and aplomb while maintaining one's head in a conventionally upright position" He sighed a ghostly sigh, and Harry felt a draught of frosty air brush his cheek.
"Are you saying that I won't be able to talk to Sirius?" Harry asked despondently, the fire-fly of hope, winking enticingly in the darkness, having just been demolished by a predatory bat.
"Did I say that, dear boy?" Nick's voice faded into nothing as he drifted through a marble column and disappeared into the masonry.
X X X
"A séance?" exclaimed Hermione. "Has Luna put you up to this? Harry, she's a total whacko! You should stick to conventional magic - don't get involved in all that fringe stuff. Trelawney's bad enough with her tea-bags and dream oracles, but Luna's a hundred times worse. Have you seen the way she gets that vacant expression and gazes at the sky - she says it's Auspicy, but sometimes there isn't a bird in sight. I reckon she's just staring into space. She hasn't got you mucking about with sacrificial entrails or anything, has she? Or advised you to rearrange your furniture to avoid Geopathic Stress lines? I suppose she's told you all that rubbish about Father Christmas wearing red and white robes because the colours resemble some kind of hallucinogenic mushroom?"
"No, but she did say that the Runes were propitious" Harry found it virtually impossible to get a word in once Hermione had launched a tirade.
"Runes! Oh, Harry, she's not been doing her 'riding the wagon' thing for you, has she? If you wanted to know about runes, why didn't you come to me? I did get an O in my Study of Ancient Runes OWL, you know. What do you want to know?" She paused, almost visibly accessing her database. "Runes are based on the early German alphabet; the name comes from the German 'raunen' meaning 'to whisper'; there are twenty-four signs, divided into three families, or aettir, of eight symbols each†See? I bet I know more about runes than Loopy-Luna!" Hermione was confidently dismissive.
"Yes, but she believes it," said Harry. Hermione gasped as though he had just hexed her.
"Fine!" she said. "If you're daft enough to think that Santa Claus is some souped-up Swedish shaman, then go ahead! In fact, why are you walking down to breakfast with me at all? Shouldn't you be with Lovegood?"
"Hermione! You're jealous!"
Those pesky plague rats had been spreading their romantic propaganda. The idea was so preposterous that Harry almost laughed out loud. Hermione gave a disdainful toss of her head.
"Jealous? Of that batty, bug-eyed bird-brain? Should I be? Harry, can't you see that I'm worried about you? I'm the one who's been sticking up for you all this time while Malfoy's been slagging you off. And, honestly, I don't know why I bother. If you'd rather hang out with Luna" She faced him reproachfully.
"Can't you see she's just taking advantage of you? Playing on your insecurities to fit in with her crackpot spiritual theories? Has she shown you any proof? She's making it all up. There's no evidence that a séance is anything other than sleight of hand and a load of clever mental manipulation."
It was quite a speech. Hermione's cheeks were flushed and she was slightly out of breath, but she hadn't finished yet.
"And why now? Why are you so desperate to see Sirius all of a sudden? You've hardly mentioned him for weeks, and then all this stuff happens with Voldemort and Snape, and all at once it's imperative that you talk to Sirius. What's changed? What happened last week? Harry, Sirius is dead. And anyway, you've got Snape now. He wouldn't want you dabbling with Luna's Muggle-magic and trying to contact Sirius - he hated him, didn't he? He wouldn't want you getting mixed-up with ghosts."
A flare of distress flickered in Harry's already troubled eyes.
"What is it, Harry? Did you and Snape have a row about Sirius? You've got to try and get over him, Harry; he's gone. Snape's your father now."
"Yes, but Snape's..." Harry scraped around for an acceptable description.
"Snape's what? What is he, Harry?" Hermione pounced like Crookshanks catching a vole. "You've barely said a word about him. Every time anyone asks you about last week you start talking about lizards or sea-snakes or poisonous mushrooms, but everything else is off-limits. Either you've discovered the formula for the Philosopher's Stone and you're determined to keep it to yourself, or else you're guarding some other secret you don't want to tell us.
"You've been weird ever since you got back to school. We're all bending over backwards to be understanding, but you make it terribly difficult. You've fallen out with Malfoy, you've upset Remus, the rest of the staff are treating you like you're contagious, and now Ron's not speaking to you either. You've hardly seen Snape, and the one time you did, you said something that made him chuck a mental. Are you avoiding him, Harry? What happened last week?"
"I can't say."
"He hasn't put you under Imperius, has he?" A cloud of doubt, edged with apprehension, scudded across Hermione's face. She might accept that Snape had several redeeming features, but he was still fundamentally Snape... A Runespoor doesn't change its stripes.
"Did he do something awful? He didn't keep you in a box like Mad-Eye, or make you do sadistic detentions like Umbridge, or use you as a guinea-pig for some dreadful new potions, or...?"
"SHUT UP!" Harry yelled at her. She was as bad as Lupin - automatically assuming the worst. It was hard having a father whom everybody hated.
Harry did want to tell Hermione what had happened that day, but Snape had sworn him to secrecy
X X X
(Flashback)
Snape actually had a live Runespoor in the basement menagerie at his cottage. He wouldn't be drawn on the subject of where and how he had obtained it, but claimed that it had been bred in captivity, not illegally imported from its natural home in Burkina Faso.
On that last Saturday at Snape Cottage, he had permitted Harry to help him with the monthly milking of venom - a task he usually performed with the assistance of Quig. Two people were essential for this operation because of the Runespoor's three heads, each of which could inflict a vicious bite, although only one possessed the venomous fangs. Although nervous at the prospect of subduing an angry, seven-foot long African snake, Harry was also excited: this was a rare privilege - he doubted if even Hagrid had ever milked a Runespoor - and the idea of working along Snape mashed his insides to a purée of panic and pride.
Whereas the Potions laboratory had been clinically cool (downright perishing, truth be told, thought Harry, remembering how his hands had gone numb while he was stirring the Dreamless Sleep he had brewed for Snape), the tropical humidity of the live specimen room enveloped Harry in its steamy fug the minute he opened the door.
"I adjust the conditions in each cage to replicate more closely the habitats of each individual species," Snape told him. "I believe the Muggles are able to achieve a similar effect with thermostatic controls. In general the reptiles require a certain degree of warmth in order to maintain optimum bodily function - heat is, for instance, essential to activate the digestive process in many snakes. Today the settings are lower than normal to slow down their reactions - it facilitates the milking."
He took Harry round the room, pointing out the occupants of the various cages, tanks, aquaria and vivaria. A sleepy Pit Viper waved its rattle lazily at Harry as he passed. A Gila Monster and a Mexican Bearded lizard in adjacent cages were engaged in deep debate about vestigial limbs and the rate of tail re-growth - Harry couldn't catch many of the words: he had only a smattering of lizard language, and anyway, they did seem to be speaking in a reptilio-Spanish patois. Two Poison Dart frogs blinked beadily, each trying to outshine the other in deterrent acrylic brilliance. A writhing tangle of silvery green Mokes shrank and hid under a water pot. A white Salamander was dancing in and out of a jet of flame which flared intermittently in the centre of its cage like a fiery geyser, its scales turning alternately blue and scarlet in the variable heat.
"Is it all reptiles and amphibians?" asked Harry.
"Not at all. There are Arachnids in that part of the laboratory," Snape indicated, "Insects over there, and Mammals - though, of course, there are very few truly venomous mammals. The saliva of the short-tailed shrew does contain a nerve poison which can kill in seconds. Most of the other mammals here fall into the category of 'Nutrition and Dietetics'."
Harry glanced at several cages and incubators containing day-old chicks, white mice, pink baby rats and a number of small voles and shrews, and he shuddered at the implication. The pair of Gruber weasels was out of sight, still asleep, hidden deep inside the hollow log that was once again their home. Their shelf held several non-poisonous creatures: a golden Marmoset, a fluffy, speckled Kneazle kitten, a Clabbert hanging upside-down from a branch, holding a half-eaten sparrow chick in its webbed foot; and in the last cage something brown and furry that might have been a Kinkajou, but had no intention of getting out of its leafy nest for Harry to find out.
While Snape prepared the equipment, Harry browsed his way back to the reptiles. He couldn't help tuning-in to snatches of snakey chit-chat as he passed the cages:
"...so I says to 'im, I says, 'Basking's wot you need, my lad - a good bask on a hot stone. That'll put that kink right in no time"
"...no, wait for it: he goes 'Skunk? I thought you said 'skink'!' Geddit? Skink – skunk ? Sssss!"
"...bit taters today; could do with a nice, warm weasel..." ¹
"...rheumatics in me trunk vertebra; slows me slither somethin' chronic..."
The Runespoor was kept in a very large, environmentally regulated glass tank at the end of the basement. The creature was at least six feet long, as thick as a man's arm and zingy orange with black diagonal stripes. The single tail divided two thirds of the way along its length into three separate and singularly argumentative heads. They seemed to be quite distinct characters: two of them were decidedly unhappy at the approach of Harry and Snape. The third head, the central one, took an alternative viewpoint.
"Oooh! Look dears, he's brought a new boy with him! Wonder what's happened to darling crinkle-cut Quigley? Quite a young one this time too - aah, bless! Perhaps he'll be my Serpent in Shining Scales - come to take me away from all this!" He gave a histrionic sigh and wove his head from side to side in a sinuous, undulating swing.
"Be quiet, Hulmin, we all know why they're here. It's that time of the month again," hissed the right-hand head, irritably.
"Sssss! I'll stick with Snapey then," simpered the central head, Hulmin. He sashayed forwards with a seductive shimmy. "He can milk my venom any time. So firm and masterful!"
Harry just loved this!
"It's all very well for you," scolded the right-hand head, whose name seemed to be Nak. "You're not the one who's going to have his face shoved into a jam jar and his cheeks massaged."
"Don't I wish! Some pythons get all the perks. Now, don't get your fangs in a frazzle, Nak dearie, only teasing"
"If you two could both stop bickering, and concentrate." The left-hand head spoke for the first time, bossy and officious. "I propose we adopt Anti-Venom Extraction Plan A."
"That works for me, luv," smooched Hulmin, flickering his tongue over his lips.
"You don't know what Plan A is yet," criticised Nak, sucking in his venom sacs protectively. "Stop coiling about like a camp King Cobra, and pay attention to Szam."
Szam drew himself stiffly upright to brief the troops:
"Right. Nak, you will have to resist Snape, as you will be his primary target. Be debilitating but not deadly. Hulmin, you go for the eyes..."
"Sssss! I always do, sweetie - so smouldering and sexy!"
"You will attack the eyes of both humans," corrected Szam, "while I will mount a defence against the smaller of the two. Tail-guard action will take the form of a strangling manoeuvre - that will require your full co-operation and co-ordination"
Harry was still delighting in the wild idea of relaying this conversation to Snape, when the Potions master joined him in front of the tank.
"Attempt to immobilise the left-hand and central heads, Harry. I will subdue the tail for the duration of the milking. Be slow and circumspect in your movements," he advised. "The creature can be aggressive - to itself and to what it perceives as an external threat."
"Oh, it's just a family squabble. They won't harm each other, or us, much," said Harry. "And Hulmin certainly won't harm you!" He could hardly keep a straight face. Hurrying on before Snape could press him for details, Harry explained:
"The Runespoor's combined name is Szahuna, but if you want to address the individual heads, they are called Szam, Hulmin and Nak, going from left to right. They're ready to put up a decent fight, but they won't do anything lethal.
"Wouldn't it be easier if I just had a word with them and asked Nak to spit into your collecting pot?"
Snape was put out - not smouldering, but extinguished. At one time such casual confidence on Harry's part would have earned him an instant detention and the cutting edge of Snape's sarcasm. Now, however, Snape found himself in unmapped and hazardous territory: how to embrace Harry's talent, and not resent it; how to react to this blatant criticism of his methods - whether or not to adopt Harry's suggestion and, if he did, how to accept it graciously.
Harry was aware of Snape's appraising look - a mixture of surprise, annoyance and, possibly, approval.
"I had overlooked your powers as a Parselmouth," Snape said in a forcedly neutral tone. "You may address the Runespoor."
"Hello guys!" Harry stepped forwards; three orange, stripy heads shot up.
"Good grief! It speaks! Code Red, everybody!" Szam ordered.
"Have we been introduced?" queried Nak.
"S-serendipitouss! Oooh, sling me in a sack and call me Susan!"
xxx
"They want to negotiate," Harry reported back to Snape. "Or Szam does. Nak wants to take legal advice about drafting a binding contract, and Hulmin just wants you to wipe his scales down with a damp cloth... Nak will supply a monthly venom sample in return for the following conditions:
- frogs to be served not more than twice weekly, with a live rat each on Sundays.
- unlimited access to an outdoor cage with built-in basking deck and running water feature.
- you must get rid of the Mongoose."
xxx
And afterwards, in the kitchen, in the mutual satisfaction of having a job well done, without injury to either themselves or the beast, the atmosphere had bordered on companionable. Harry kept wanting to pinch himself.
"We made a good team!" Harry cast out the comment without thinking and immediately began winding frantically to reel it in again - with Snape, even the most innocent fly could hook a piranha: you could be paddling in a puddle and step on a Stone-fish; shrimping and scoop up a Grindylow in your net.
"Your Parsel abilities are a considerable asset," commented Snape. He made it sound more like a practical assessment than a compliment, but Harry glowed anyway. This was how it could be; this they could build on.
He refused to join Snape in a celebratory glass of Absinthe, but watched in fascination as the Potions master mixed 'la fée verte' in the traditional way, slowly pouring iced water over a sugar cube on a perforated spoon, into a glass containing a shot of the pale green spirit. The scent of herbs and aniseed masked the more bitter, sinister aroma of wormwood. As the liquid turned cloudy, Snape raised his glass to Harry,
"Santé!" he said.
X X X
So why, in the name of all that was magic, had Harry gone and spoilt everything? Was he really cursed? Did he have a death wish? Or was he just a fool, an immature, arrogant, self-opinionated, disobedient fool? In the days that followed he asked himself these questions repeatedly. How could one of the best days of his life turn into one of the worst?
Snape had insisted on preparing Remus' Wolfsbane potion unassisted. The mixture could be unstable in the early stages, he said; he was experienced at gauging the volatility, whereas Harry might misjudge the levels and jeopardise the entire brew; Harry would find the long and complicated process too arduous... Harry could tell that these reasons, however valid, were also excuses. Snape wanted to be alone. With Harry's continued presence he had reached his social saturation point. He needed to be alone.
Harry decided to go for a walk. As a precaution, he approached Snape for permission and a topping-up of the anti-biting spell.
"Morsum repello," Snape obliged, laying aside his pestle and mortar in which he was pulverising a yellowish object that looked suspiciously like a caried, molar tooth. Was it Harry's imagination, or did his hand rest slightly longer on Harry's head than it had the first time he had cast that spell?
"Is it necessary for me to repeat the rules? You are aware which areas of the estate are out of bounds?" he asked.
"Absolutely, Sir."
"Very well. You may go. Sois prudent!"
If Snape breathed an audible sigh of relief at the boy's departure, Harry did not, this time, take it personally. Harry felt buoyed by the whole experience of that morning. He had trudged happily out into the insipid afternoon and even the ailing, invalid October sun seemed to recover its strength and shine for a golden hour. Somehow he found himself retracing the steps of his first walk with Snape: through the garden and up the hill to the plateau with the view across the valley.
For the second time that week, Harry gazed down at the distant gables, towers and chimneys of his ancestral family home - Snape Manor.
END OF CHAPTER. Next chapter: AT SNAPE MANOR. So, what did Snape do that day? Is he guilty or not? Anyone like to hazard a guess?
¹ Cockney rhyming slang: 'Taters' (potatoes)in the mould cold; 'Weasel' and stoat coat
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