* * * Provoke Not Your Children to Anger * * *
They floo'ed to a classroom close to the Headmaster's office, for which Snape was grateful. His dignity had taken too many heavy blows in the past week to make the prospect of rolling onto the floor draped in soot in front of Cornelius Fudge and his minions seem like anything but a kind of torment tailored precisely to him. Past the gargoyle, up the stairs and, if not for the Heartsease coursing through him, Snape would have felt his heart sink.
Cornelius Fudge, two witches wearing Auror's robes, and a young wizard who exuded more officiousness than ten Percy Weasleys could have managed. Even Dumbledore wore a graver smile than usual. Of course, he and Harry had kept them waiting for nearly an hour -- that was Potter, still flouting authority when he thought he could get away with it. Snape let himself smile a little at the thought that *now* he enjoyed that trait, when it was aimed in the proper direction. Fudge was an authority to flout at every possible turn, in Snape's opinion.
"Ah, Harry, my boy. So good to see you up and around again," Fudge's voice tried for hearty goodwill and failed miserably. Fudge had appropriated the most comfortable and least aggressive of Dumbledore's armchairs and didn't bother to get up. "Snape," he said coolly. "Always pleasant to see a colleague." The Minster sounded as if he would rather see a basilisk.
The others were seated in a circle that included Dumbledore's desk. Two seats had been left empty in the middle of the circle. Snape hesitated a moment, staring at the configuration. It looked rather more like a hearing than a meeting of colleagues.
Potter looked back at him just before taking his seat. His brows knit, then the younger man looked again carefully. Without hesitation, Potter picked up his chair, ignoring the whine it gave, and walked to one edge of the circle. He stood and stared pointedly until the younger witch shoved her chair over and he could set his own down in the now lopsided figure. Snape took up the last chair and crammed it in closest to Dumbledore's desk, discommoding the posturing young wizard.
"Well, well, and how do you feel, Harry?" Fudge said, frowning at the tips of his purple boots.
"Better, thank you, Minister." Potter's voice was colorless and respectful. Snape wondered how the Minister managed to completely miss the fact that Potter despised him. Of course, Snape had listened to that tone of voice for seven years and knew its nuances all too well.
"I understand we have Professor Snape to thank for this," Fudge continued, glaring at Snape. Something in the pretentious little man's cold-eyed look rang warning bells in Snape's head. It looked an awful lot like avidity mixed with speculation. He began thinking very quickly and very thoroughly.
It occurred to him again that Voldemort hardly ever used poison as a method of killing. He preferred to watch his victims suffer at his own hands. And *he* would never dream of killing Harry Potter so quietly and efficiently and...impersonally. Which suggested that someone else was responsible. Someone who knew exactly how to get the poisoner close to Potter, someone within the Ministry itself, perhaps. Braisethwaite hadn't ever known the person who gave him the poison, but Concealing Charms had been created for a reason. Cornelius Fudge would be in an excellent position... if he were interested in removing a younger man who might challenge his comfortable sinecure at the Ministry. Harry Potter, for example; young, ambitious, powerful and far too successful.
Even if Fudge were *not* the one who had poisoned Potter, *someone* had created an intricate new poison with a fiendish twist to it. It was hardly the kind of thing one wanted running around the general populace. It was absolutely not the kind of weapon Snape wanted in the hands of a man like Cornelius Fudge, who was either a very subtle and ambitious man or a complete idiot. And Snape had sworn he would never again make a poison for anyone to use -- not even Albus Dumbledore.
Oh, damn. Snape really hated what he was about to do next. He consoled himself that it *really* was a cunning and elegant maneuver, rather than merely stupid and noble. A headache that had nothing to do with Heartsease Potion began to thump at his temples.
"Not at all, Minister," he replied through gritted teeth. "Mr. Potter owes his recovery to his own constitution and Madam Pomfrey's skill. And, of course, to the fact that the poison was a failure."
The expressions on the faces surrounding him were almost amusing enough to make up for the fact that he was once again watching an opportunity for fame and recognition pass him by.
"Albus told us that you were responsible for Harry's cure," Fudge sputtered. "That you had untangled the poison and could reproduce it and its antidote."
Snape bared his teeth. "The Headmaster is too kind. While I was able to determine most of the ingredients, as I owled you, there was no cure discovered, or even needed. Potter recovered on his own, with a few simple anti-nausea recipes from the school's mediwitch. Quite simply, this disastrous new poison is a dud."
Potter's mouth was hanging open in a most unattractive way. Really, someone should tell the man he looked like the village idiot when he did that. Dumbledore's expression was ice-sharp and very thoughtful. Snape was pinned by that gaze for endless moments, until Dumbledore nodded fractionally and smiled more warmly than he had since they had arrived.
"But our best mediwizards swore he was dying...! They tried everything they could think of, every known antidote, and nothing worked!" Fudge's florid face was rapidly purpling. Snape wondered how long it would take until the shade rivaled the man's revolting footwear. He decided to help it along with a sardonic curl of his lip and a slight drawl as he said,
"That is why the bezoars and Phoenix Tears had no effect -- they weren't needed. All the panic was for nothing. Once again, Harry Potter is the Boy Who Lived... through a stomach ache."
There was a stifled snicker from Fudge's officious assistant. Fudge himself was making sputtering noises, and the two witches were just staring at him. Potter, though...Potter was scowling at him. The younger wizard held his gaze, then nodded once and Snape knew that Potter saw the reason for the subterfuge. But something in the set of his jaw and the flash of those eyes promised that Snape would pay dearly for that comment. The Potions master sighed internally. When hadn't he paid dearly for anything having to do with Harry Potter?
He leaned back in his seat, steepled his fingers before his face and closed his eyes for a moment. He really was tired; the hot water had leached any energy right out of him, leaving him none with which to deal with Fudge and his idiocies. The quarrelsome murmur became almost restful, with only occasional phrases breaking through to him.
"But you assured me...!" "Such a thing could have its uses..." "The question remains..." "I'd like to know who poisoned...tried to poison me, anyway!"
Snape let his lip curl at that last comment and mentally subtracted five points from Gryffindor for utter inability to dissemble properly. He let the debate swirl away from him again. He was pleasantly lulled by the mostly regular thudding of his own heartbeat behind his eyes and in the tips of his fingers.
A hand touched his shoulder gently. Dumbledore. Severus turned his head and opened his eyes to find the Headmaster holding something out to him on the palm of his hand. "Lemon drop, Severus?" Snape sighed and took it without arguing. As he had expected, the bitter bite of Heartsease clashed with the artificial lemon flavor he despised. He closed his eyes again, trying hard to recapture that drowsy, pleasant sense of detachment he had been enjoying. Phrases trickled back to him.
"Bad news, I'm afraid..." "Dreadful loss..." "Lack of experience..." "Key mistakes..." "Died in the ..."
Dead? Who was dead? Potter was alive - Snape had saved him. He was considering opening his eyes to double-check when he heard Potter's voice. But the tone was enough to snap him back to full alertness, even before the words penetrated. Harry Potter was standing in the middle of the room, a copy of the Daily Prophet clenched in his hand.
"How did they die?" Cold, flat, hard words, like slabs of ice crunching underfoot.
"The mission they were on ran into some unexpected difficulties," the senior Auror said in clipped tones. "All three were killed as they tried to capture a small Death Eater outpost. Really, it was a routine mission."
"Which outpost?" More ice cracking in Potter's voice. Snape felt something begin itching at the back of his neck.
"The Western Fens," Fudge replied. "Frankly, I expected better from Special Ops cadets whom you trained yourself, young Mr. Potter."
Snape could feel the air in the room grow heavier, charged as if lightning were going to strike soon. Looking at Potter's flushed cheeks and burning eyes, he thought that might not be unlikely. Potter was staring at the Minister, his jaw clenched and his lips clamped and Snape's skin prickled at what he saw in those green eyes.
"Harry, my boy," Dumbledore began.
There was a low keening sensation that was nearly sound as it scraped against Snape's nerves. The sense of a furious magic, barely restrained, made itself felt behind his eyeballs. From the sudden winces around the room, everyone had noticed it. Potter's fist hit the top of Dumbledore's desk... and split the ancient oak, cleaving it to the floor.
"I. Am. Not. A. Boy." Cold, quiet, intensely angry. "I am tired of being manipulated, patronized and lied to."
"No one has done anything of the kind..." one of the Ministry hacks began.
"My team members are DEAD!" Potter shouted. Three panes of glass in the window behind Dumbledore's head fractured.
"Enough of this, Potter," Fudge ordered, with what seemed to Snape to be an insane amount of irritation in his voice. Didn't the idiot realize what he had unleashed here?
"Your team members died because they were not well-trained. It is a great pity and we are all very sorry about it, but the facts speak for themselves." Fudge was trying to look stern and fatherly. In fact, he was doing a spectacularly bad imitation of Albus Dumbledore. The original was sitting behind the pieces of his ruined desk and regarding Potter with a very focused and attentive look.
"You're right, Fudge. The facts DO speak for themselves," Potter said grimly, tossing the paper away. "Fact - three months ago, I told you that it would take half a year for my cadets to have a basic working knowledge of defense." Another diamond-shaped pane of glass became webbed with cracks. Potter must be very close to unleashing his rage if it were reaching out to attack the very fabric of Hogwarts itself. Snape became slightly concerned. He picked up the cast-aside newspaper.
Potter continued, his voice a smooth ribbon of ice. "Fact - I assessed the Western Fens enclave myself and reported that it would take a force of at least FIFTEEN trained Aurors and Special Ops wizards to take the site successfully." Another pane of glass gone. "Fact - two days after I was poisoned, IN THE MINISTRY BUILDING ITSELF, you send my team and only three junior Aurors to take the Western Fens. They are butchered... and no one thinks to tell me about it."
"You were so ill," the junior witch said hesitantly.
"I was sick," Potter said flatly. "But they were dead."
Fudge blustered in again. "They are each being awarded the Order of Merlin - posthumously. They died with honor."
"They shouldn't have died at all!"
Oddly enough, it was Snape who said that. Shouted, really. He was as surprised as the rest and the silence rang. He stared down at the paper in his hand, two of the three faces familiar to him. A Ravenclaw girl from two years ago, a Hufflepuff from three years before. He couldn't even remember their names or whether they had been any good in his classes, but they had been students once. Children under his care. And Fudge, that supreme idiot, had gotten them killed.
The stone beneath his feet was humming with strain. Potter had become pale and silent and Snape wondered which would break first. Fudge, heedless as always, began blustering. "I understand you're upset, Mr. Potter, but I expect courtesy from junior members of my staff ..."
"I quit."
The silence rang like a plucked string but Snape could feel the floor beneath him subside with a sigh. All eyes were turned toward Potter. At a moment like this, he should have looked melodramatic or defiant or blazingly angry. Instead, the young man just looked exhausted. A babble broke out and Fudge began shouting, "You can't quit! I'll fire you first!" and other such nonsense. Potter merely turned on his heel and walked out.
"Albus, will you talk to the boy and make him see reason?"
Dumbledore, still sitting behind his shattered desk, looked coolly at the Minister of Magic. "No, Cornelius, I don't believe I will. Or can, for that matter." Snape's chair stirred restively under him and the headmaster's eye was drawn to his Potions Master. "Severus, I believe you need to return to bed. Thank you for being present for this meeting."
Summarily dismissed, Snape struggled to his feet, annoyed at his weakness, annoyed at Dumbledore's tone, annoyed by Potter's disappearance, and especially annoyed that he couldn't even seem to muster up a decent sense of seething rage at Cornelius Fudge. Wretched Heartsease Potion. Dumbledore must have coated the damned lemon drop in something calming as well, the old cheater. He wondered if he could even make it back to his dungeon without a short nap.
"Severus, would you take this, please?"
Snape automatically reached for the 1/300th scale model of Edinburgh Castle that Dumbledore held out to him. As the office and its seething occupants spun away, he could almost find it in his undependable heart to be grateful to the headmaster. The portkey deposited him three staggering paces from his bed. He fell into it and was asleep without another thought, his fingers still wrapped loosely around the cool granite.
They floo'ed to a classroom close to the Headmaster's office, for which Snape was grateful. His dignity had taken too many heavy blows in the past week to make the prospect of rolling onto the floor draped in soot in front of Cornelius Fudge and his minions seem like anything but a kind of torment tailored precisely to him. Past the gargoyle, up the stairs and, if not for the Heartsease coursing through him, Snape would have felt his heart sink.
Cornelius Fudge, two witches wearing Auror's robes, and a young wizard who exuded more officiousness than ten Percy Weasleys could have managed. Even Dumbledore wore a graver smile than usual. Of course, he and Harry had kept them waiting for nearly an hour -- that was Potter, still flouting authority when he thought he could get away with it. Snape let himself smile a little at the thought that *now* he enjoyed that trait, when it was aimed in the proper direction. Fudge was an authority to flout at every possible turn, in Snape's opinion.
"Ah, Harry, my boy. So good to see you up and around again," Fudge's voice tried for hearty goodwill and failed miserably. Fudge had appropriated the most comfortable and least aggressive of Dumbledore's armchairs and didn't bother to get up. "Snape," he said coolly. "Always pleasant to see a colleague." The Minster sounded as if he would rather see a basilisk.
The others were seated in a circle that included Dumbledore's desk. Two seats had been left empty in the middle of the circle. Snape hesitated a moment, staring at the configuration. It looked rather more like a hearing than a meeting of colleagues.
Potter looked back at him just before taking his seat. His brows knit, then the younger man looked again carefully. Without hesitation, Potter picked up his chair, ignoring the whine it gave, and walked to one edge of the circle. He stood and stared pointedly until the younger witch shoved her chair over and he could set his own down in the now lopsided figure. Snape took up the last chair and crammed it in closest to Dumbledore's desk, discommoding the posturing young wizard.
"Well, well, and how do you feel, Harry?" Fudge said, frowning at the tips of his purple boots.
"Better, thank you, Minister." Potter's voice was colorless and respectful. Snape wondered how the Minister managed to completely miss the fact that Potter despised him. Of course, Snape had listened to that tone of voice for seven years and knew its nuances all too well.
"I understand we have Professor Snape to thank for this," Fudge continued, glaring at Snape. Something in the pretentious little man's cold-eyed look rang warning bells in Snape's head. It looked an awful lot like avidity mixed with speculation. He began thinking very quickly and very thoroughly.
It occurred to him again that Voldemort hardly ever used poison as a method of killing. He preferred to watch his victims suffer at his own hands. And *he* would never dream of killing Harry Potter so quietly and efficiently and...impersonally. Which suggested that someone else was responsible. Someone who knew exactly how to get the poisoner close to Potter, someone within the Ministry itself, perhaps. Braisethwaite hadn't ever known the person who gave him the poison, but Concealing Charms had been created for a reason. Cornelius Fudge would be in an excellent position... if he were interested in removing a younger man who might challenge his comfortable sinecure at the Ministry. Harry Potter, for example; young, ambitious, powerful and far too successful.
Even if Fudge were *not* the one who had poisoned Potter, *someone* had created an intricate new poison with a fiendish twist to it. It was hardly the kind of thing one wanted running around the general populace. It was absolutely not the kind of weapon Snape wanted in the hands of a man like Cornelius Fudge, who was either a very subtle and ambitious man or a complete idiot. And Snape had sworn he would never again make a poison for anyone to use -- not even Albus Dumbledore.
Oh, damn. Snape really hated what he was about to do next. He consoled himself that it *really* was a cunning and elegant maneuver, rather than merely stupid and noble. A headache that had nothing to do with Heartsease Potion began to thump at his temples.
"Not at all, Minister," he replied through gritted teeth. "Mr. Potter owes his recovery to his own constitution and Madam Pomfrey's skill. And, of course, to the fact that the poison was a failure."
The expressions on the faces surrounding him were almost amusing enough to make up for the fact that he was once again watching an opportunity for fame and recognition pass him by.
"Albus told us that you were responsible for Harry's cure," Fudge sputtered. "That you had untangled the poison and could reproduce it and its antidote."
Snape bared his teeth. "The Headmaster is too kind. While I was able to determine most of the ingredients, as I owled you, there was no cure discovered, or even needed. Potter recovered on his own, with a few simple anti-nausea recipes from the school's mediwitch. Quite simply, this disastrous new poison is a dud."
Potter's mouth was hanging open in a most unattractive way. Really, someone should tell the man he looked like the village idiot when he did that. Dumbledore's expression was ice-sharp and very thoughtful. Snape was pinned by that gaze for endless moments, until Dumbledore nodded fractionally and smiled more warmly than he had since they had arrived.
"But our best mediwizards swore he was dying...! They tried everything they could think of, every known antidote, and nothing worked!" Fudge's florid face was rapidly purpling. Snape wondered how long it would take until the shade rivaled the man's revolting footwear. He decided to help it along with a sardonic curl of his lip and a slight drawl as he said,
"That is why the bezoars and Phoenix Tears had no effect -- they weren't needed. All the panic was for nothing. Once again, Harry Potter is the Boy Who Lived... through a stomach ache."
There was a stifled snicker from Fudge's officious assistant. Fudge himself was making sputtering noises, and the two witches were just staring at him. Potter, though...Potter was scowling at him. The younger wizard held his gaze, then nodded once and Snape knew that Potter saw the reason for the subterfuge. But something in the set of his jaw and the flash of those eyes promised that Snape would pay dearly for that comment. The Potions master sighed internally. When hadn't he paid dearly for anything having to do with Harry Potter?
He leaned back in his seat, steepled his fingers before his face and closed his eyes for a moment. He really was tired; the hot water had leached any energy right out of him, leaving him none with which to deal with Fudge and his idiocies. The quarrelsome murmur became almost restful, with only occasional phrases breaking through to him.
"But you assured me...!" "Such a thing could have its uses..." "The question remains..." "I'd like to know who poisoned...tried to poison me, anyway!"
Snape let his lip curl at that last comment and mentally subtracted five points from Gryffindor for utter inability to dissemble properly. He let the debate swirl away from him again. He was pleasantly lulled by the mostly regular thudding of his own heartbeat behind his eyes and in the tips of his fingers.
A hand touched his shoulder gently. Dumbledore. Severus turned his head and opened his eyes to find the Headmaster holding something out to him on the palm of his hand. "Lemon drop, Severus?" Snape sighed and took it without arguing. As he had expected, the bitter bite of Heartsease clashed with the artificial lemon flavor he despised. He closed his eyes again, trying hard to recapture that drowsy, pleasant sense of detachment he had been enjoying. Phrases trickled back to him.
"Bad news, I'm afraid..." "Dreadful loss..." "Lack of experience..." "Key mistakes..." "Died in the ..."
Dead? Who was dead? Potter was alive - Snape had saved him. He was considering opening his eyes to double-check when he heard Potter's voice. But the tone was enough to snap him back to full alertness, even before the words penetrated. Harry Potter was standing in the middle of the room, a copy of the Daily Prophet clenched in his hand.
"How did they die?" Cold, flat, hard words, like slabs of ice crunching underfoot.
"The mission they were on ran into some unexpected difficulties," the senior Auror said in clipped tones. "All three were killed as they tried to capture a small Death Eater outpost. Really, it was a routine mission."
"Which outpost?" More ice cracking in Potter's voice. Snape felt something begin itching at the back of his neck.
"The Western Fens," Fudge replied. "Frankly, I expected better from Special Ops cadets whom you trained yourself, young Mr. Potter."
Snape could feel the air in the room grow heavier, charged as if lightning were going to strike soon. Looking at Potter's flushed cheeks and burning eyes, he thought that might not be unlikely. Potter was staring at the Minister, his jaw clenched and his lips clamped and Snape's skin prickled at what he saw in those green eyes.
"Harry, my boy," Dumbledore began.
There was a low keening sensation that was nearly sound as it scraped against Snape's nerves. The sense of a furious magic, barely restrained, made itself felt behind his eyeballs. From the sudden winces around the room, everyone had noticed it. Potter's fist hit the top of Dumbledore's desk... and split the ancient oak, cleaving it to the floor.
"I. Am. Not. A. Boy." Cold, quiet, intensely angry. "I am tired of being manipulated, patronized and lied to."
"No one has done anything of the kind..." one of the Ministry hacks began.
"My team members are DEAD!" Potter shouted. Three panes of glass in the window behind Dumbledore's head fractured.
"Enough of this, Potter," Fudge ordered, with what seemed to Snape to be an insane amount of irritation in his voice. Didn't the idiot realize what he had unleashed here?
"Your team members died because they were not well-trained. It is a great pity and we are all very sorry about it, but the facts speak for themselves." Fudge was trying to look stern and fatherly. In fact, he was doing a spectacularly bad imitation of Albus Dumbledore. The original was sitting behind the pieces of his ruined desk and regarding Potter with a very focused and attentive look.
"You're right, Fudge. The facts DO speak for themselves," Potter said grimly, tossing the paper away. "Fact - three months ago, I told you that it would take half a year for my cadets to have a basic working knowledge of defense." Another diamond-shaped pane of glass became webbed with cracks. Potter must be very close to unleashing his rage if it were reaching out to attack the very fabric of Hogwarts itself. Snape became slightly concerned. He picked up the cast-aside newspaper.
Potter continued, his voice a smooth ribbon of ice. "Fact - I assessed the Western Fens enclave myself and reported that it would take a force of at least FIFTEEN trained Aurors and Special Ops wizards to take the site successfully." Another pane of glass gone. "Fact - two days after I was poisoned, IN THE MINISTRY BUILDING ITSELF, you send my team and only three junior Aurors to take the Western Fens. They are butchered... and no one thinks to tell me about it."
"You were so ill," the junior witch said hesitantly.
"I was sick," Potter said flatly. "But they were dead."
Fudge blustered in again. "They are each being awarded the Order of Merlin - posthumously. They died with honor."
"They shouldn't have died at all!"
Oddly enough, it was Snape who said that. Shouted, really. He was as surprised as the rest and the silence rang. He stared down at the paper in his hand, two of the three faces familiar to him. A Ravenclaw girl from two years ago, a Hufflepuff from three years before. He couldn't even remember their names or whether they had been any good in his classes, but they had been students once. Children under his care. And Fudge, that supreme idiot, had gotten them killed.
The stone beneath his feet was humming with strain. Potter had become pale and silent and Snape wondered which would break first. Fudge, heedless as always, began blustering. "I understand you're upset, Mr. Potter, but I expect courtesy from junior members of my staff ..."
"I quit."
The silence rang like a plucked string but Snape could feel the floor beneath him subside with a sigh. All eyes were turned toward Potter. At a moment like this, he should have looked melodramatic or defiant or blazingly angry. Instead, the young man just looked exhausted. A babble broke out and Fudge began shouting, "You can't quit! I'll fire you first!" and other such nonsense. Potter merely turned on his heel and walked out.
"Albus, will you talk to the boy and make him see reason?"
Dumbledore, still sitting behind his shattered desk, looked coolly at the Minister of Magic. "No, Cornelius, I don't believe I will. Or can, for that matter." Snape's chair stirred restively under him and the headmaster's eye was drawn to his Potions Master. "Severus, I believe you need to return to bed. Thank you for being present for this meeting."
Summarily dismissed, Snape struggled to his feet, annoyed at his weakness, annoyed at Dumbledore's tone, annoyed by Potter's disappearance, and especially annoyed that he couldn't even seem to muster up a decent sense of seething rage at Cornelius Fudge. Wretched Heartsease Potion. Dumbledore must have coated the damned lemon drop in something calming as well, the old cheater. He wondered if he could even make it back to his dungeon without a short nap.
"Severus, would you take this, please?"
Snape automatically reached for the 1/300th scale model of Edinburgh Castle that Dumbledore held out to him. As the office and its seething occupants spun away, he could almost find it in his undependable heart to be grateful to the headmaster. The portkey deposited him three staggering paces from his bed. He fell into it and was asleep without another thought, his fingers still wrapped loosely around the cool granite.