Disclaimer: None of the recognizable characters and settings belong to me. They are all the intellectual property of J.K. Rowling. I'm just playing around with them for the fun of it…no monetary gain is sought.
This story is dedicated to scattered logic for her cherished friendship and all her invaluable help.
Chapter Twenty Five: Laying Out the Evidence"Murder? You can't be serious," stated Snape incredulously. He must've wandered into another reality while he wasn't looking. First Minerva resigns from Hogwarts, throwing away a life she's happily lived for decades, then she gets so drunk that she can hardly stand up, and now she confesses to murder? This simply could not be the woman he thought he knew so well.
Minerva watched as disbelief and shock spread vividly across Snape's pale face. How could she have hoped for anything different? This just illustrated so clearly why she couldn't tell anyone about this. No one would believe it possible; then, once they saw the evidence against her, no one would believe it wasn't.
Her expression hardened with disappointment, and she turned away from him and back to the fire. "I told you that you wouldn't believe me," she said in a tired voice laced with pain. "Go away, Severus. Leave me alone."
Reluctantly realizing that he wasn't going to get anywhere by expressing his skepticism before he heard her out, Snape frowned down at her and sighed. "I apologize if I sounded disbelieving, but the idea of you committing a murder seems to be an absurd one. You're one of the most decent and morally upstanding people I've ever known. It's hard to give credence to such an idea. However, obviously, you're quite serious. Please…go on."
She hesitated and looked up at him again, trying to determine what he was really thinking. Severus was always so hard to read accurately. As they measured each other stare-for-stare, Snape broke the silence. "Whom are you supposed to have murdered?"
Deciding that at this point she had nothing to lose by telling him, Minerva turned away from him with a sigh and sank down onto the couch. Steepling her hands in front of her, she rested her head against them while she gathered her thoughts. Silence reigned for a few moments, then she raised her head and looked up at him.
"A man named Henry Grant. He worked for Ian as a groom when we had horses on the estate back during the early years of our marriage."
Snape sat down next to her. "And did you murder him?" he asked quietly.
Minerva's eyes filled with pain and uncertainty. "I don't know. That's the worst part of all this. I simply don't know."
"Perhaps you should start at the beginning," he suggested reasonably.
She gave a short, sharp laugh. "I'm not even sure where the beginning is."
"Well, I'd say that the beginning was Ian Standish's visit to Hogwarts. Why did he come? What did he want from you?"
"Blackmail…money…sex. Ian is a greedy man. Basically, he pushed for as much as he thought he could get. It didn't work. He had to leave empty-handed, but now… Well, even though he didn't win, I lose."
Snape's face still reflected his puzzlement. In sympathy, Minerva reached out and rested her hand on his for a brief moment, squeezing it lightly. Then she sat back against the cushions of the sofa and began to speak.
"As we know, Ian has backed several ventures for Voldemort in the past. When Ian arrived here, he was fairly cagey at first, implying that he wanted me back in his life again, but what he really wanted was money. So it's my guess that he's in debt to someone, and considering his desperation and the lengths that he's willing to go to, I'd bet everything I have that Voldemort is the one he's promised the money to. The encouragement that you've said that he's gotten from that monster certainly supports that. Obviously, I don't know what Voldemort wants to do with it; perhaps you might know that better than I, but it's irrelevant to this. The fact is that Ian needs money, and apparently, he doesn't have it. Albus has checked into his finances and says that he's quite short of funds at the moment."
Snape nodded thoughtfully. "That would make sense. Money is really all that Standish ever had that the Dark Lord would value."
"Well, it's not that surprising to me that Ian needs money. He and his sons have always been spendthrifts. Money slips through their fingers like water. In addition, Ian often gambles…and he tends to lose. He came here with the idea that he could blackmail me into handing over the McGonagall estate to him. He'd had it within his grasp once, when we were married, but when he agreed to petition for a divorce, the estate came back under my control as the sole heir. He knows that the estate is quite profitable in and of itself, but more importantly, he could easily make a great deal of money simply by selling it off, singly or in pieces, to the highest bidder.
"In addition to the estate, he thought that he could pressure me into sleeping with him again. Apparently, he and his wife are not particularly sexually compatible, and my guess is that there are fewer lovely young women who'll consent to have him at this point in his life, for whatever reason. Maybe the women he runs into are simply getting smarter; who knows?"
She sighed gloomily and stared into the fire.
"Why did Ian consent to divorce you, Minerva? Obviously, he gave up a great deal when he did that. Why was he so foolish?"
Her gaze dropped to her folded hands, and reluctantly she continued in a small voice, "Ian, like myself, was the sole child of a wealthy pureblood family. Unlike the McGonagalls, who've always been a bit eccentric, the Standish family was much more…traditional. They've always counted their importance within the community, not by their accomplishments, but by the number of heirs they could produce and the rich matches they could make with them.
"Ian's father had let down the family by only having one child, though he married well. It was up to Ian to do better. I endured five miscarriages in six years of marriage."
"Five," murmured Snape in surprise.
"The last one almost killed me. It was several days before they knew that I'd survive…though my son did not. That was the only time that the baby survived long enough to be buried. My previous miscarriages had all occurred much earlier in the pregnancies."
She shivered in painful remembrance and clasped her hands around herself protectively, keeping her eyes averted from Snape's. "Ian was sorry that I survived. I've always been a little surprised that he didn't find some way to assure my death. I don't imagine that it would've been too difficult, but perhaps he simply didn't have the chance…or the courage to act. Certainly, he could see the handwriting on the wall by that point. He knew that if he wanted heirs, he was going to have to let me go and take another wife, and it would have been much easier for him if I'd simply died and let him get on with it. He'd have lost nothing that way. About that time, his mistress managed to get herself pregnant, so rather than miss out on that opportunity, he accepted reality, divorced me, and lost my estate in the process."
"It seems he now regrets the loss," stated Snape dryly.
"Oh yes," Minerva readily agreed. "He's always regretted the loss of the estate. Ian's a very greedy man. Letting easy wealth like that go wasn't something he wanted to do, you can be sure."
"He seems to have come to regret the loss of more than the land." Snape watched her carefully.
With a short burst of harsh laughter, she flashed a chiding look his way. "Oh, don't go making the mistake of thinking that Ian cared for me. He didn't…not one bit…not ever. It was only sex that he regretted losing. Like all men I've ever been involved with, it was always only about sex." Her voice was tinged with bitterness, and she looked down and away from him again.
Snape frowned, but before he could speak, Minerva continued, "Apparently Nelda isn't all that interested in sex herself. What she was after was a comfortable situation, and the prestige of being the wife of a powerful man. Unlike myself, she possessed the ability to carry a child to term, and thus could give Ian what he required…sons. Three, as it turned out. A fairly useless lot apparently, but with all the proper equipment to carry on the family name. So he had his heirs, and I had my freedom. An equitable trade, it seemed to me. I've certainly been much happier without him. For many, many years, I thought I was rid of him for good, until he showed up here again demanding payment or he'd reveal my guilt over something that I never even knew happened."
"The murder of Henry Grant," murmured Snape softly.
She nodded. "Yes."
"Tell me about that."
A helpless look came over her. "I wish I could, but until Ian showed up here with this evidence of his that seemed to show that I was responsible for this man's death, I didn't even realize that there had been a murder. Grant vanished years ago, but everyone assumed that he'd done so voluntarily. No one ever suspected foul play."
"What sort of evidence did Ian have then?"
Minerva paused and turned to Snape thoughtfully. "The easiest way to explain would probably be to show you. Wait here a moment."
Swiftly, she rose to her feet and crossed the room to her desk. There, she slid the roll top into its open position and reached inside to lift out the rather bulky stone box that she'd come to hate so very much. Holding it carefully in both hands, she returned to the couch and set it down on the flat cushion between herself and her companion.
"Do you know what this is, Severus?" she asked curiously. Perhaps she was the only one ignorant of the existence of such things.
He shook his head as he examined the box carefully. "No. I've never seen anything quite like it before. What is it?"
"It's a pensieve copy."
Snape's eyebrows flew up to his hairline as he lifted his face to hers. "A pensieve copy? You mean it contains a copy of memories stored in a pensieve? I didn't know that such a thing was possible."
"No, neither did I, but it seems that it is. The copies of memories that are stored in this thing are apparently copies of my own memories from approximately fifty years ago. They appear to show me killing Mr. Grant, and then disposing of his body as well. Ian has the pensieve with the original memories in his possession. Naturally, he wasn't going to show it to me and risk my somehow destroying it, so he made this somewhat crude copy. Unlike a true pensieve, you can't go into the memories and experience them. All you can do is watch from the outside, rather like going to a Muggle cinema, but that's bad enough, I assure you."
Snape nodded grimly. "I imagine it is."
"Would you like to see it?" whispered Minerva.
"Yes…if you don't mind."
She laughed shortly, and tears sparkled once more and were impatiently wiped away. "Oh, of course I mind, but I've gone this far. You might as well see the entire case against me."
She fumbled with the pockets of her robe and then looked vaguely around her at the cluttered room. "I seem to have misplaced my wand. Do you have yours?" She looked back at him.
"Of course," he stated dryly and withdrew it from his sleeve.
She nodded and pointed to the indentation in the side of the box. "Prod the box there with your wand, and it will activate the viewer."
Silently, Snape did as instructed, and then watched in fascination and growing horror as the events of Henry Grant's long ago murder unrolled before his eyes. Although, the images were shown from the murderer's point of view, and he could never see a face, somehow he didn't have any trouble identifying Minerva as the likely culprit. The slender hand that cast the spell seemed familiar in shape and manner of movement, and she held her wand in much the same way that she did now. When the recording had run its course, he raised his eyes to hers once more.
"Why isn't there any sound?" he asked.
"I don't know. It just doesn't have any. Perhaps that's a limitation of the copying process."
Snape nodded thoughtfully as he continued to stare down at the pensieve copy. "Perhaps."
"Pretty damning, isn't it?" whispered Minerva.
"You don't remember any of this?" he asked cautiously.
"No." She shook her head and gazed sadly down at the block of roughly hewn stone. "But it's me. It's my hand…my wand…my ring. I even vaguely recognize the sleeve of the robe, but the incident itself is a complete blank. Obviously, the vivid memories of the event were removed and stored in a pensieve or Ian wouldn't have them to copy, but usually there remains an echo, a less vivid imprint to remind you that something had happened, even if the more colorful emotions of the event are gone. But I have absolutely no recollection of this at all. No knowledge that it ever occurred, and considering the enormity of this incident, I can't imagine that I'd simply forget it."
"Perhaps you were obliviated," Snape suggested.
"Obliviated?" Why hadn't that possibility occurred to her? "Is there anyway to tell?" she asked.
"Actually, there might be. It depends on whether or not you've been obliviated many times in your life. It's not possible to tell one scar from another."
"To my knowledge, I've never been obliviated," Minerva asserted firmly. "Of course, I wouldn't remember if I had been, now would I?"
"Not if it was properly done," Snape agreed. "There are other sorts of memory blocks and charms, of course, but if I wanted to be sure that someone never remembered something damning, I'd be sure they were properly obliviated. When someone is obliviated, a scar is formed in the mind. It will stand out amongst someone's memories like a blank wound…dead and dull. It's possible to tell the general age of such obliviation scars, but not to pinpoint it exactly, and it's not possible to recapture the memories that the procedure destroyed; they're gone for good."
"Could you look into my mind and tell if I'd been obliviated?" Minerva asked with a thoughtful expression on her face.
"Yes. I could. Simply recognizing an obliviation scar only takes a very rudimentary skill at Legilimency. A Ministry Obliviator could probably tell much more than I could, but if you'll allow me to try, I could probably tell you fairly quickly whether a scar exists or not."
"All right." She nodded determinedly. "Then do it. That will answer one question for me at least."
"Remember, all it will do is tell you that someone obliviated you…not who did it or exactly when it was done."
"If you find a scar, then it won't be difficult to know who did it. Ian trained to be an Obliviator. He was quite good at the job, but it wasn't prestigious enough for him or his father so he moved on to the law and moved up through the ranks to become a member of the Wizengemot instead. If I was obliviated in secret, then I'll lay odds that Ian is the one who did it." Her expression had turned grim and cold. "Which means that he lied. Not that that should surprise me. He told me that he recently found the pensieve, along with the wand that I used back then, hidden in a cupboard in the room that was mine when I lived in his house, but if he obliviated me, then he obviously knew all about this incident at the time it happened."
"Perhaps, he was the one who killed Henry Grant," suggested Snape.
Minerva shook her head. "No. As much as I'd like to believe that I wasn't responsible, that was my hand and my wand in the memory, not Ian's, and there's no blurring of the mental image as there would be if they were the memories of someone using Polyjuice. However, it's certainly probable that Ian knows much more about this whole incident than he told me."
"What about the wand that he claims to have found with the pensieve? Is it yours?"
"He didn't let me see the wand, but it must be mine. It would be extremely easy to check so Ian isn't likely to lie about that. I lost it, or thought I did, back about that time. I even reported it as missing before obtaining another one. A record of that would still be on file at the Ministry no doubt, even after all this time. According to Ian, by using Priori Incantatem on the wand, it shows that the last two spells cast were Avada Kadavra and a transfiguration spell that would correspond to what's seen in the pensieve."
"I see," Snape murmured softly. His face had taken on a decidedly somber expression as they'd talked.
Minerva sighed. His opinion of the damning nature of the evidence was easily discernable from his voice. She hardly needed to ask what he thought. "Yes. It all looks pretty grim. Ian promised that if I didn't give in to him, he was going to turn all this over to the Ministry immediately and see that I was arrested and charged with murder. When I refused to let him blackmail me, the clock started ticking. He left earlier today. If he's true to his word, he may already have gone to the Ministry. Even if he hasn't yet, it's only a matter of time, and probably not very much time. I need to leave, and leave now. Tomorrow at the latest. If I'm arrested here, it will look bad for the school. If I've already resigned and gone, then the school might have a chance of escaping the scandal. Albus can truthfully say that he knew nothing about it."
"That's not a good reason to leave," argued the Potions master. "We can't protect you if you go. If you're here, there's a chance that we can help you, keep you out of prison while his claims are investigated."
She shook her head and smiled sadly. "That's a nice thought, but not very practical. My mind is made up. I'm leaving first thing in the morning. I'll go home and await them there."
"They could accuse you of flight, you know."
"How? I'm not going to make a secret of my whereabouts. No. I'm leaving and that's that. Now, you said that you can tell if someone has been obliviated or not. Would you be willing to look into my mind and see?" asked Minerva.
"Yes, if you're sure that you're willing," agreed Snape.
"That's all you'll be looking for, isn't it? You won't be examining all of my thoughts and memories." A faint stab of reluctance slid through her when she thought about all the feelings and thoughts that she'd rather he didn't see.
He raised a brow at her reluctance, but under the circumstances thought better of teasing her about keeping secrets. "No. I promise to invade your privacy as little as possible."
"Okay then." She nodded decisively. "What do I have to do?"
"Just relax and try to empty your mind as much as you can." He hesitated and added softly. "It would be easier if I touched you."
A pang of longing hit her strongly at his words. Oh, how she longed for him to touch her, at least one more time before she had to go, but now wasn't the time for such thoughts. Especially not now that he might be able to sense them in her mind. To cover her discomfort at her sudden surge of feeling for him, she reached over and picked up the stone bowl. Then she got up and deposited it on the mantelpiece and returned and sat down a bit closer to Snape. Extending her face towards him, she nodded soberly. "Whatever you need to do, Severus, just do it. I want to know. Have I been obliviated or not?"
He nodded. "Very well. Close your eyes, take a deep breath and try to empty your mind."
She complied with his instructions, and he laid a gentle hand on her temple and clasped his wand tightly. "Open your eyes and look into mine," he said softly. She did as she was told, falling easily into the darkness. Faintly, she heard Snape murmur, "Legilimens."
Immediately, she could feel his presence in her mind scurrying here and there, touching and probing lightly. His mental probe was a flowing warmth that skimmed the surface but didn't intrude on the depths. In a very short time, she felt him withdraw his hand, and she was able to pull her eyes away from his.
"Well?" she asked softly.
He nodded. "There is a scar…a fairly substantial one…very old. Obviously, sometime in the past, you were obliviated. By the ragged edges of it, I'd say that you struggled against its creation, but that's all that I can say for sure."
Anger slid across her face, and she clenched her hands tightly in her lap. "Damn you, Ian Standish. What did you do to me? Will I ever know the truth?"
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Next Chapter: Severus and Minerva argue about her leaving…and rediscover their passion for each other.
