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 scatteredlogic for her cherished friendship and all her invaluable help.

Chapter Thirty Four: The Lengths We Go To…

Propelled by his emotions, Snape slammed his door firmly behind him and then forced himself to stand stock still in the middle of his sitting room. His fingers clenched and unclenched spasmodically. The urge to begin to snatch breakables from their perches and fling them against unyielding surfaces was almost too tempting to ignore. He needed to do something.

This waiting around and being useless was driving him insane. Minerva was out there enduring who knew what indignities, and here he stood doing nothing! Albus had returned from seeing Amelia Bones in a rather subdued mood. He'd spoken briefly with him, but the Headmaster had basically put him off, professing that he didn't have the time right then to tell him if he'd learned anything of value or not. In fact, he seemed rather troubled by his visit to the Ministry. Which certainly didn't bode well for Minerva. Though the last thing Snape had wanted to do was wait any more, they'd set up a meeting to discuss Minerva and her situation first thing in the morning, but now he had all night to get through first. Far too many empty hours to fill and nothing concrete to fill them with.

His restless eyes scanned his chambers for occupation. With quick steps, he approached his mantel and picked up the wand that lay on top. He held it awkwardly in his hands. It wasn't his, and it was obvious to his touch. A wand's connection to its owner was immediate and deep. There was an innate rightness that made it tingle with a special warmth when held in the hand it belonged to. Magic flowed through the body and was channeled and focused by the resonance chambers of these elegant wooden rods. Each one was special to its owner. Another witch or wizard, especially the more powerful ones, could easily use the wand of another, yet somehow their full potential couldn't ever quite flower completely through the use of a borrowed wand.

He slid the slim polished wood through his fingers thoughtfully, turning it slowly and watching the candlelight gleam off its smooth surface. Did the bond go both ways? Once a witch or wizard took up a wand and began to use it, did a part of themselves become housed within? Their own magic, that which came from deep within themselves, must become lodged within these wands to some degree. Would this one always hold a piece of Minerva in its core?

He missed her.

It was an admission not made easily. Only two days had passed, but to his dismay, he found the hole torn in the tangled web of his life was much larger than he ever imagined it would be. No one person was supposed to occupy a position so much more important than any other. Giving anyone, no matter how benign, power over your life was simply the act of a fool, something he'd never fancied himself to be. And yet, here he stood holding her wand in his hands and wishing that it was her that he held instead.

What was happening to her? Albus spoke with controlled anger of her cuts and bruises, her torn robes and disheveled appearance. They were abusing her in that wretched prison. He was as certain of it as he was that the sun would rise in the east, but there wasn't a damned thing that he could do to stop it. Here, he was master of his domain, he could rage and shout and take points from the various ham-handed students who occupied his classes and wandered through his days, but he had no control over this, no power to change this, which mattered so much more.

If only there was a way to see her. He couldn't take the chance of accompanying Albus to Azkaban though, even if it was allowed. If the wrong people got suspicious of his motives or sympathies, it could prove a very real danger, and that would help no one, least of all himself. Self preservation would not allow for stupidity. So here he stood…impotent.

As he continued to stare at her wand, an expression of consideration settled onto his features. Perhaps, there was a way. It would involve some sacrifice on his part, but wasn't the end result worth the pain? It might be, if there was a chance that it would work. He held the wand up in his hand and twirled it before his eyes. It was worth a try at any rate. So before he could reconsider and possibly change his mind, he replaced the wand on the mantelpiece and left his chambers.

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As Snape frowned up at the trap door with the polished brass plaque on it, he realized that he had no idea how one normally made contact with Sibyll Trelawney. Indeed, avoiding contact was usually far higher on his list of things to do, but circumstances change, and now that he'd climbed all the way up here, he'd be truly annoyed if it turned out to be nothing more than a bloody waste of time.

As he was contemplating how best to knock on a door that was several feet above his head, it opened on its own and a silvery ladder snaked down to land silently at his feet.

An ethereal voice floated down to him on a cloud of incense so thick it would asphyxiate any bird caught in its midst. "Come up, come up, dear Severus. What a lovely surprise. When I foresaw your visit in the dregs of my afternoon tea, I was ever so pleased! I knew that you'd come to consult me sooner or later, you know."

Snape gritted his teeth at the smug sound of her voice. This was going to be more difficult to pull off than he'd imagined. The possibility that he could end up in the cell next to Minerva's loomed large in his mind. Not that that was what he'd had in mind when he came up here, but when dealing with Trelawney, murder was often a 50/50 proposition.

Trying to mute his annoyance, the Potions master took a deep breath, schooled his features into a minor scowl, and began his ascent into the aerie. When he stood on a solid foundation once more, he found himself staring straight into the beaming face of the Divinations mistress herself.

"So nice of you to come for a visit, Severus. Please, why don't you come into my private sitting room where we can be more cozy than here in the classroom."

Grinning from ear to ear, she shepherded him away from the trapdoor, which he was slightly dismayed to see her shut quite firmly, and off through this murky red room that she laughingly referred to as a classroom. Beads, scarves, candles and squashy pillows seemed to make up the décor. Not that he'd have expected anything else considering the gaudy selection of gewgaws that she used to decorate her person.

The sitting room that he now found himself bodily propelled into was a bit less fantastic than the classroom, thank heavens, though it was only a matter of degree. The worst of the scarves and poufs were missing, at least, and it was lit by a cheery, crackling fire instead of the red draped lamps, but the cloudy atmosphere was stifling, and he had this depressing feeling that he'd just made a large tactical error by coming here.

Before he knew it, he was being ushered into a floral print armchair that was hideously soft. His body sank deeply into the cushions, and he knew that escape from the clutches of its depths wouldn't be easy.

Sibyll hovered over him anxiously, smiling her Cheshire cat smile, the many strings of beads that she wore rattled against his arm like the warding charms of a native witch doctor. "Now, my dear. May I get you some tea?"

So you can peer into my life and make insinuations? Not bloody likely, he thought savagely. The shorter he could make this visit, the better.

"No," he exclaimed firmly. "Thank you," he added as an afterthought. He did want something from her, after all. No sense alienating her too quickly. "I came to ask you something."

"Oh?" She eyed him expectantly as she dropped into the neighboring armchair with a flutter of gauzy material.

"Yes. When I was in the infirmary, Minerva…"

Before he could get another word out, Sibyll fluttered her hands excitedly and jumped to her feet again. "Of course, of course, you're wondering about the fate of our dear colleague just like the rest of us. And how sensible of you to come to me to put your mind at rest."

She swiftly turned to a large wooden cabinet painted with twinkling stars that loomed almost menacingly in a corner of the room. As she opened the door, she continued to gibber, "I'll be happy to gaze into the crystal and see if I can determine her future for you. I've been very tempted to do it myself, of course, but I've refrained so far out of a fear that the news I uncovered might not turn out to be very pleasant. However, for you, dear Severus, I'm willing to take that chance."

Flipping her mass of frizzled hair over her shoulder coquettishly, she simpered at him through her enormous magnifying spectacles. Then she pulled a large crystal ball on a gaudy brass stand out of the cabinet and thumped it firmly down onto a low table in front of the chair in which he sat.

Snape tried with only moderate success to pull himself up out of the depths of his cushions. "No. You misunderstand me. Something which could easily be avoided if you'd simply let me finish my sentence," he growled peevishly.

Her face fell dramatically. "You mean you aren't here to discover what's happening to Minerva? Oh, dear…I was so sure…"

Actually, that was exactly why he was there, but he certainly wasn't about to admit that to her.

"As I was saying before you interrupted, when I was in the infirmary, Minerva brought me your scrying pool to use as a viewer for the Quidditch match."

She brightened up once more. "Oh, yes. Minerva has been quite happy to use the pool for that. I've always let her, of course, in the spirit of cooperation and the hope that she'd begin to come around to the understanding that Divination and its tools can be a wonderful help in all our everyday lives."

A dramatic sigh escaped her lips and her hand fluttered to her breast and began to toy with a strand of bright orange beads. "Poor Minerva has always been a bit…skeptical…of my talents, I think. Though she's tried to hide it. I've been hoping that this gesture of cooperation on my part might serve to open her mind a bit more. Do you think it's working?" She stared earnestly down at him.

He hesitated fractionally and then smiled a thin smile. "I'm sure that Minerva accurately appreciates your value to the school. I shouldn't be concerned about that, if I were you. Now, as I was saying, the viewer was very helpful to me. With Minerva gone, my duties have picked up a bit, and I find myself much more busy at the moment than I'd planned to be right now. There is a Potions lecture in London that I intended to attend, but now that I cannot go in person, I was wondering if I couldn't borrow the pool and perhaps view the lecture through it. Would the scrying pool have the range to pull in a view of something from that far away?"

A rattling rent the air again as Sibyll's head bobbed enthusiastically. "Oh, yes it should. And if you want to be sure, placing something connected to the lecture, perhaps a brochure or a notice of time or place, inside the pool before you fill and charm it, will help to focus its energies on the desired location."

With a tremendous effort, Snape hauled himself out of the hideous chair and attained his feet once more. "Excellent. As I do need to use it this evening, could you show me where it is now, perhaps?"

"Now?" She looked surprised. "I hoped we could have a bit of a visit. Surely the lecture isn't tonight? It's getting rather late for that."

"It's a three day symposium. There will be some opening remarks presented later this evening that I'd like to catch as well."

"Oh, I see. Well, all right. You'll need to follow me though. The pool isn't kept up here; it's housed below, down in my storeroom. This way." She waved a languid hand in his direction and turned to jangle her way out of the sitting room and back into the main classroom once more.

With a faint sigh of relief, Snape followed her back through the lurid red room to an unobtrusive door hiding behind a gauzy wall hanging. Sibyll pushed the hanging out of the way, opened the door and stepped onto a stone landing. "Mind your step now. These stairs are a bit steep," she warned, as she turned and descended the spiral steps into the torch lit darkness below.

Trailing a steadying hand against the wall, Snape followed her down the somewhat uneven staircase and into a semi circular room full of odd objects on stands. The room was lit by floating magical candles, and their bobbing created rather creepy shadows across the odd landscape of the chamber.

In the middle of the room, on a tall brass stand in the shape of a naked mermaid, stood the object of his mission. The mermaid's hands clasped the bowl over her head like an offering dish. For a moment, he almost expected to see the inside of it littered with coins.

Sibyll gestured to the pool. "There you go, Severus. I'm sure that it will work well for you. I've used it myself to view distant events, and the quality of the picture is truly marvelous. Although, I just thought of something, the pool isn't very reliable when it comes to sounds. Although it works reasonably well here within the castle, I'm quite certain that it won't allow you to hear what's said over such a long distance. How are you going to listen to your lecture without sound?"

Snape froze, his hands in the process of reaching for the pool. Damn it. He'd forgotten that little detail. He'd noticed himself that the sound had been faint and sketchy when he'd watched the Quidditch match. Apparently, visuals were easier for the pool to pick up than sounds were over long distances. Slowly, he turned back to the now frowning woman and attempted a smile. "Of course, I was aware of that limitation. However, this conference is always attended by a fairly prominent member of the society, who happens to be deaf. As a result, everyone is required to magically caption his or her lectures. I should be able to read the lecture right out of the viewer."

He watched her carefully; just how gullible was she, anyway? Apparently gullible enough to suit his purposes because her face lit up like a Great Hall Halloween pumpkin. "Oh, what a splendid idea! I wish they'd do that at some of the conferences that I attend. I always get stuck at the back sitting behind some witch or wizard who refuses to stay silent while the talk is going on."

He nodded and heaved the pool up into his arms. Great Merlin, the bloody thing weighed a ton! How in hell had Minerva carried it all the way down to the infirmary?

"How shall I get the pool out of here, if I may ask? Surely I don't have to take it back up and down through that trapdoor, do I?" Oh, please, let there be another way.

Instantly, she flew across the room and caressed a blank section of the wall. "Oh no. There's a back entrance right here. Then all you need to do is carry it right down the stairs."

Oh yes, all twelve or so flights of them.

She hesitated. "Are you sure that you couldn't spare a little more time for a visit? You know, I believe that this is the very first time that you've ever come up here to see me, and I do hate to have you leave so soon. I get down to the main castle so seldom that I don't usually even know what's going on with everyone else."

He raised an eyebrow. Surely the daft cow didn't expect him to stand here holding this monumental birdbath while he caught her up on a selection of the latest gossip?

"Really, Sibyll? That surprises me. With this pool at your fingertips, I'd think it would be child's play for you to peek into the everyday affairs of the castle's inhabitants. Do you, in fact, ever use the pool for that purpose?" His eyes gleamed, and he tilted his head and smiled a knowing smile at her.

Her face flushed a rather unbecoming shade of plum, and she hurriedly activated whatever catch held the concealed door closed behind her. As the door opened onto the circular landing at the top of her staircase, she stepped out of his way and murmured, "Of course not, Severus. That would be unethical."

"Yes, I suppose it would. A pity, though. Thank you again, Sibyll. I will return the viewer in a few days. Goodnight." He swept past her awkward figure and off down the stairs to begin the tedious task of hauling his treasure all the way down to the far too distant dungeon.

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Snape set Minerva's wand in the middle of the scrying pool and filled the basin with water from a pewter pitcher. Then he set the pitcher aside and picked up his own wand from the desktop. Getting the pool down here to his quarters had taken a bit of doing. For some reason, the damned thing seemed to get heavier and heavier the farther he carried it. The trip from the towers to the dungeons had never seemed longer. He was unused to such physically arduous tasks it appeared. There were times when magic made things a bit too easy apparently. Perhaps some sort of exercise program would be in order for the future. However, right now he had other things to focus his thoughts on. Such as whether he could get this fool thing to show him Minerva or not.

There was a distinct chance that this wouldn't work for a variety of reasons. Distance was certainly one of them. The middle of the North Sea was a considerable distance away. Though if anything was powerful enough to focus in on Minerva, it should be her wand, so he had a feeling that wouldn't end up being a problem.

Then there was also the chance that those who protected Azkaban wouldn't allow the viewer to bypass all of its wards and protective spells and get a glimpse within its walls. He just had to hope that this was something that no one had ever thought to guard against. After all, most people no doubt thought as he had, that these devices were good for nothing but allowing so called seers to look at their much admired reflections in their glassy surfaces.

Ah, well, enough speculation. Time to give it a try. Swiftly, he cast a magic mirror spell and watched as the water stiffened and the surface of the pool became glassy and clear. Then he tilted the mirror up and began to try to focus in on Azkaban and the cell he needed to see into.

The spells worked more easily than he'd have thought they would, and in merely a moment, he was watching her standing there in front of his eyes. She stood next to a rather lumpy looking cot and stared out through a narrow window towards the dark sea beyond. There couldn't possibly be anything that she could be watching out there, and indeed from the expression on her pale face, he suspected that her vision was actually turned inward for all that her eyes stared off into the night.

A slight shiver ran through him as he observed her appearance. As he'd feared, Albus had downplayed her injuries. Her face was quite swollen on one side and one cheek was a hideous purplish black. Her usually lustrous hair hung tangled and limp down her back and the slump of her shoulders and downcast expression gave her an air of fragility that was very unlike the woman he knew so well. He could feel anger beginning to build within him. Perhaps this hadn't been a good idea after all. To see but not be able to touch or help…or even hear…

Suddenly, she jumped and cast a startled glance over her shoulder, an expression of fear shining from her eyes. Swiftly, she turned around and pressed herself back against the wall of the cell staring at something that was outside his view. He knew if he took the time to try to adjust the point of view that he'd probably miss whatever was going to happen next so he simply clenched his fists impotently and waited.

There wasn't long to wait. A tall somewhat gangly figure of a guard moved in front of Minerva holding a bowl in one hand. He gestured with the bowl, and hesitantly, she reached out to take it from him. As soon as her fingers touched the bowl's surface, the guard seized her arm and pulled her roughly towards him. The bowl slipped from her grasp to fall unnoticed to the floor as Minerva began to try to push the guard off of her.

The taller and obviously stronger man shoved her viciously back against the stones. Snape growled to himself as he watched her head bounce sharply off the wall. Obviously dazed and in pain, she ceased her resistance for a moment and the guard took advantage of her pain to pull her against him once more and force a savage kiss on her mouth. Minerva's hands came up abruptly, and she dug her fingertips deeply into the muscles of the man's arm. With an expression of fury on his face, Snape watched her begin to struggle futilely with her assailant.

Then suddenly, the man shoved her back towards the wall again, turning away from her with a sneering expression on his face. Pausing momentarily to kick at the remains of her dinner, he said something to her that she answered with vehemence. Whatever she said only provoked more laughter. Then the guard turned on his heel and left the confines of the viewer and presumably the cell as well.

With a despairing look in her eye, Minerva sank down onto the cot staring at nothing for a long moment. Then her eyes dropped to the floor at her feet. Slowly, she bent down and picked up the bowl from the floor and held it in a trembling hand. Hesitantly, she ran a finger around the inside of it, scooping out the remnants of whatever had been inside. Raising it to her lips, she placed what remained of her meal in her mouth. Once she'd swallowed what little food had stayed in the bowl, she took the bowl and with a flash of renewed anger threw it as hard as she could across her cell.

The battered woman leaned back against the wall and simply stared once more at nothing. A single tear rolled down her cheek; then abruptly, she shook herself hard and wiped angrily at her face with trembling hands. With a deep sigh, she grasped the ragged blankets that were piled on the cot, wrapped herself up in them, and let her thin form sink down onto the mattress, and curling up into a ball, she closed her eyes.

By this time, Snape was gripping his wand so tightly that he had to pry his own fingers off it in order to keep from snapping it in two. As a snarl escaped his lips, he dropped the wand and, with a sweep of his long arm, he shoved every book on the shelf above his desk as hard as he could propel them. The books scattered widely across the near expanse of floor and made satisfying thuds as they hit the uncarpeted stones.

Angrily, he began to pace up and down in the small space allowed him. Damn his inability to do anything but watch this travesty! What good was all the power at his command if he couldn't use any of it to do what he truly longed to do? He couldn't even hear whatever that damned guard had said to her, nor hear her answer in return. That limitation of the viewer suddenly rankled more than he'd thought it would. Where once he'd have thought that seeing her face would have been enough, now he found he needed to hear her voice and the voices of those around her as well. The better to identify them for a later time when their paths might cross his to their detriment, he thought darkly.

A sudden thought struck the furious man, and he turned back to the viewer with narrowed eyes. A lack of sound had been a prominent feature in that pensieve copy that he'd seen, too. This viewer wasn't able to produce sound under these circumstances, but was that true of the copy? Had the original pensieve had sound? They always did in his experience, but what if this one hadn't? What might it mean?

Without sound, he wasn't able to hear what the guard said to Minerva, nor her response in return. He hadn't heard what Minerva and Grant had said to each other in that stable so long ago either. Did it matter? Perhaps. Everyone who viewed the contents of that pensieve copy thought that they could tell what was happening simply by watching, but really so much of it was mere speculation, and the one person who would know what really happened, no longer possessed the memories in question. How convenient.

He shook his head. Was this important or wasn't it? It wasn't really possible to know, but he was certainly going to ask Albus about it in the morning. If the original pensieve was also silent, then odds were good that someone had wanted it to be, and the only reason for that would be to hide whatever Minerva and Grant had actually said to each other. In which case, it apparently mattered a great deal.

His eyes drifted back to the viewer, which was still focused on the now apparently sleeping form of Minerva. Soberly, he returned to his desk and sank slowly into his chair. Crossing his arms over his chest, he settled in to think and to keep watch over her as best he could.

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Next Chapter: Snape remembers something of value, and Minerva gets some bad news.