by Mila
It was a book. But not just any book.
"Good Lord," Remus breathed. "I thought the last copy was destroyed years ago -- in the Great Fire."
Severus just stared at the book, sitting there, looking oh-so-innocent. "A better question, Lupin, might be how did Potter get his hands on it?" he finally said, a bite in his voice. "I have never seen a copy of the book, nor would I have ever stored it with my penseive."
Remus stared at the book for a few seconds longer before bending over and picking it up gently. The way he handled it was akin to reverence as he ran his fingers along the cracked leather spine. "Gustav Török's Of the Mind, the Memories, and the Mysteries. Who would have thought?" he muttered to himself under his breath. Then he frowned. "Does it strike you as rather odd that of all the books to have caused Harry's current predicament, it would be this one?"
Severus rolled his eyes. "Further proof that fate exists, obviously," he replied drily, never taking his eyes off of the book.
Remus nodded and carefully cracked open the cover of the book. Running his fingers along the title page, he commented offhandedly, "I have a question for you, Severus. Why exactly did you leave your memories lying around?"
And then, that characteristic Snape-glare was back 100. Remus ignored it and grinned back while closing up the book and tucking it under his arm. "Well, I'm headed to the library. I'll see if I can dredge up anything useful from Herr Török's lost tome," he said, his grin getting wider. "Weren't you going to work on some sort of potion to cure Harry?"
As Severus sucked in an affronted breath, Remus strode swiftly from the room without awaiting a reply.
While the subject matter was not one that Remus was particularly interested in, there was something about reading a previously lost book that made it fascinating. There was no doubt in Remus's mind that if it had been a treatise on the correct collection method of ground centaur hoof, he would still have found it fascinating... though probably a bit less so than this one.
Unfortunately for him, the book was written in Old English, with a decent amount of Kemi Sami thrown in. Unwilling to cast any sort of charm or hex on the brittle pages of the ancient tome, Remus finally decided to charm an old magnifying glass with a transitive matrix and attempt to read it that way.
The book itself was fascinating. As he fingered each page, he was acutely aware of the fact that a plethora of lost knowledge was sitting in his lap. But every time he felt the urge to read the book cover to cover, he ruthlessly crushed the urge and continued skimming for something -- anything that could possibly help Harry.
Severus Snape stood in Harry's room, glaring at the thrice damned mirror. There was something decidedly off about the thing. First off, it was incredibly old... much older than most of the other furniture in the building. It was also in a very old, outdated style that was immensely unpopular for all of time but its three year heyday. Nor did it match the decor of any room... and especially not this room.
There was also the matter of that thrice damned book. The book that conveniently appeared on the floor, behind Harry's feet, and in front of aforementioned mirror. Where could Potter have ever have gotten his hands on that book? Or Black?
And if not either of them, then who?
He spied a flash on the floor out of the corner of his eye. It was a shard of mirror ... Lupin really had done an awfully shoddy job of cleaning up.
Picking up the glass carefully, he glanced at it as he moved to place it in his pocket. As he observed the images in the glass, he froze, eyes widening.
Another glint from the floor caught his attention, and he quickly moved to gather that piece of glass as well. He observed the scene in the glass, face becoming more astonished every second.
Ignoring all rules of propriety and damning the fact that Lupin might enter at any minute, Severus got onto his hands and knees and scoured the floor for any remaining mirror shards. Finding three, only two of which were just as astonishing as the first two, he quickly pocketed them all and swept from the room.
Their situation had just gotten a tiny bit more complicated.
"This is pointless," Remus complained loudly, rubbing his hand across his face tiredly as Severus entered the library. "Bloody brilliant or not, Herr Török can't seem to pick a single language to stick to. And he keeps swearing in Kemi Sami. There's a section in here that I think is Burgundian... but I can't tell you what the bloody hell it says because no-one's spoken Burgundian since the bleeding 6th century!"
Severus raised an eyebrow in amusement. "Frustrated, Lupin?"
Remus sighed and fixed his gaze on the Potions Master. "I think we should tell Dumbledore about this," he said at length.
"Then you can be the one to explain why exactly the boy hero is lying in a veritable coma, completely and totally out of his mind," Severus replied drily before changing the subject. "I returned to Potter's room to see whether you missed any of the mirror shards during your clean up. Some of the shards had some odd images and I wish to have your input."
Remus nodded, putting aside his book and gesturing for Severus to set out the shards on the coffee table before him. As the Potions Master began setting out the shards, Remus picked one of them up and peered at it. "This one's one of Harry's," he said at length. "That's his uncle. It's pretty old -- Harry only looks five or six in this one."
Severus froze, hand hovering over the table. "Then, pray tell, why is Mister Potter being beaten in that memory?"
Remus frowned. "What? He's not --" he froze, watching the mini-drama unfold on the small glass shard. A myriad of emotions fluttered across his face before it became completely blank. "Ah. I see."
"Well?"
"It is not my place to tell," Remus replied, slipping the shard into his robe pocket. He picked up another shard and peered at it. "A man is casting a curse of some sort upon another man in this one. Who are these people?" he asked.
"I do not know," Severus replied, never taking his eyes off of the shard that he was observing. "I have never seen either of those people in my life. That is why I brought it here."
Remus made a noncommittal affirmative noise and returned to examining the image. "I don't think it's one of Harry's," he said at length. "These men -- their robes are cut in a very old style. 16th century? 17th century? Sometime around then. High collars, ruffled shirts, closed fronts on the robes, lace or ruffles on the shirt sleeves. Perhaps they are the memories of the mirror itself."
"Perhaps. The mirrors are charmed after all," Severus replied. He paused, and, unable to resist the jab, added, "I was unaware that you studied wizarding fashion, Lupin."
"It was a summer job, nothing more," Remus replied nonchalantly, placing the shard carefully onto the table and picking up another. "I think this one is the same way. The memory seems to be observing a house elf beating its head against the wall. They're all probably the memories of the mirror."
"That is what I surmised as well," Severus answered. "But unless a mirror suddenly learns the ability to read and write, I find that doubtful."
Severus showed Remus the shard, in which Remus observed someone's hand dipping a quill into a bottle of ink and carefully writing out words on the page. Squinting in order to try and make out the words being written, Remus froze in surprise. "Merlin," he breathed. "Can it be?"
Sitting up straight he quickly grabbed his book and began flipping through the pages, nearly tearing some in the process. "There! I knew I'd seen it before!" he finally exclaimed in triumph, turning the book to show the pages to his companion. There, on the page of the book, were the exact words that were being carefully transcribed onto the page in the memory shard. "It's Török's memory of writing his lost masterpiece."
They sat in silence, watching the hands carefully transcribe each word neatly to the page in the shard. At length, Remus sighed and said, "This day is a day for the history books. In twelve hours alone, we have found a lost masterpiece, uncovered a plethora of memories from a long-dead genius, and damned the entire wizarding world by allowing their hero to go insane. All in a day's work, eh, Severus?"
He paused and then continued. "Let's think on that now. Harry has his memories in his head, along with yours. But he also has the mirror's memories and impressions -- and Merlin only knows what that thing has seen. And he has all of Török's memories. This is going to be one seriously messed up kid."
Now, after sitting in silence for most of Remus's spiel, Severus spoke up. "What we have not explained is how Török's memories entered the mirror in the first place," he said.
"He was a master of the mind," Remus replied. "Who knows what he was capable of doing? Perhaps he made the mirror into one big penseive, one that he could have show a memory to a large group of people or something. I don't know."
They sat in silence, contemplating the information.
"Perhaps we should get the headmaster now?" Remus said at length.
