AUTHOR'S NOTE: This chapter is a heavily reconstructed re-post of an earlier version. Even if you read the original post, Snarky and I strongly recommend that you read this new version, as it contains different information than the original did. This is the chapter of record and will necessarily set the course of the story, which is now slightly different than what it would otherwise have been.
AE

Chapter 18: Varadunatos

PRESENT: EARLY NOVEMBER

It required only a day or so for Meli's part in settling Dudley to be taken care of, and she happily relinquished the rest of the duty to the capable Molly Weasley. She took her leave of the family two days after their departure from Hogwarts, and then she had a very long day off.

The length of the day had nothing to do with either the number of hours between sunrise and sunset or a lack of anything to do. Meli had planned to catch up on some of her sleep and to spend the rest of the day restocking her supply of necessary potions in the Bat Cave, but unfortunately, brewing work was just mechanical enough to let her mind wander, and when her mind wandered, she was far too likely to think on loose ends and try to tie them up somehow.

Her thoughts returned to the early morning hours of 1 November and the many oddities she had encountered. The Dursleys' capture and Dudley's escape ought to have been quite enough, and at the time, at least, they had been, but the other things she had seen were significant and kept coming back to niggle at her.

First there had been the little run-in with Snape, Lupin, and Padfoot, in which were a number of clues to…well, something, though she couldn't put her finger on what, exactly, that something might be. Lupin had dropped the hint about Padfoot having proven himself somehow useful that evening, while Snape's presence in the group implied that something had gone very wrong, possibly with an article of Order business, though that might just be her paranoia at work. That the three of them had been abroad at that hour implied urgency; Snape, of course, wandered the corridors at any time of the day or night, but Lupin, when not under the effects of a full moon or doing rounds, tended to be strictly diurnal.

Then, of course, there was the trace evidence of some sort of altercation near the front entrance of the school. Someone had fallen or been wrestled to the floor, and a button had been lost from quality clothing. The former could have been nothing more than someone tripping, except for the transfer of human blood from that person to the ground, but the latter indicated some manner of violence. Snape's hearing, according to Crimson Fell, was quite sharp, and knowing as she did that he had some vampiric drops in his veins, Meli had a good idea of just how sharp it might be; Zarekael's hearing was, of course, preternatural, as he had proven more than once. For either of them to have dropped a button at night and not heard it fall, there had to be other noises to cover up that one—noises associated with a scuffle, for instance. Furthermore, both men were extremely fastidious and would have noticed a loose button on their clothing, which they would, in all likelihood, have taken pains to secure before it attempted an escape. If, then, a button had fallen, it had probably been helped on its way.

Why had there been a scuffle, and whom had it involved? The button narrowed one of the combatants down to either Snape or Zarekael, but he had not been fighting by himself. There were very few people awake at the hour at which the fight must have taken place—only four others besides herself that she could account for. Going strictly by what she knew, then, Snape must be the owner of the button, and the only others who could have fought him were Padfoot, Lupin, Dumbledore, and Meli.

"Well, I know I didn't wrestle him," she murmured sardonically to herself. "And unless I'm much mistaken, I think Dumbledore is safely ruled out, as well."

Lupin, then, or Padfoot—or possibly both. After all, hadn't she seen all three of them leaving the headmaster's office together?

Meli smirked as a peculiar image occurred to her: Severus Snape, Remus Lupin, and a big, black dog in a flurry of fisticuffs when a teacher came upon them and hauled them off to the headmaster—

"But if all three of them were involved in the fight," she mused, "who broke it up?" She shook her head. "Far more likely that it was Severus and Black fighting, and Lupin broke it up." It also fit much better with her understanding of the individuals involved; Lupin, while probably willing to stand his ground and put up a fight if circumstances demanded it, was not one to descend to the level of a schoolyard row. As much as she liked and respected him, she had to admit that Snape's temper was short and violent where Black was concerned, and as for Black himself…well, it wasn't too much of a stretch to say that he had probably started it in the first place.

I have to wonder if Lupin ever grows tired of being the perpetual peace-keeper, she thought, feeling a new appreciation for the werewolf's patience. I surely would have done by now.

Of course, there were still two nagging questions to which she had no answers. First, if Lupin had had to break up a fight involving Padfoot—which must surely have nettled him a bit—why had he been so quick to say that Padfoot had been useful that very evening?

And secondly, what on earth had possessed Snape and Black to have a boxing match in the dead of night in, of all places, the entry gallery of Hogwarts?

There was nothing to connect any of it with the Dursley murders; to all appearances, it was a bizarre coincidence…and yet…

Severus knows something, she surmised. I don't know what, and I don't even know how I know it…but my gut tells me it's so.

Before she could continue that thought, however, her arrival alarm sounded, and she was called away from her cauldron to greet another escapee from Voldemort.

ooo

The latest escapee was a disgruntled and frightened Auror, and it took Meli very little time to determine the cause for her terrified frustration. Sable Nightshade was a moderately powerful witch, but her chief intimidating quality was her quirky magical improvisation, which led her to employ unorthodox charms in unintended ways that turned them, for all intents and purposes, into extremely nasty hexes. She had been utterly prevented from doing this to the Death Eaters attacking her, however, because she had found herself unable to utilize magic at all. It was an unpleasant discovery anyway, but under the circumstances, it could very well have got her killed had she not had an Order portkey ring.

Meli's first course of action was to test Sable's wand, but it proved to be in perfect working order. Her next course was to call Alfred.

"Bring a pot of anise tea," she told him, "and a very large teacup. We're going to have to experiment with antidotes."

There were a large number of potions that caused witches and wizards to lose the ability to use magic. Some acted as blockers, effectively turning them into squibs, while others leeched the magic itself out of them. Most had antidotes, but these were difficult to come by unless they were kept on hand, and who generally kept a ready supply of that sort of antidote?

The answer, predictably, was that almost no one did, and that was why the occasional use of one of those potions on a particularly troublesome person like Sable Nightshade was so effective. Fortunately, Rasa kept an arsenal of antidotes for every potion Voldemort could use as a weapon, a complete list of which had been provided and was consistently updated by none other than the Dark Lord's own potions brewers.

Very few antidotes to any potion ever tasted good, but sugar rendered several of them ineffective. In her search for flavoring agents that would mask the nastiness without interfering with the function of an antidote, Meli had found only one universally benign flavor, and that was anise. Granted, a number of people didn't care for anise, either, but she knew from experience that it was far more palatable than, say, the antidote to the slow-acting Venaconstrictus poison—to say nothing of its taste being preferable to the effects of the poison itself.

She left Sable for a moment, returning soon after Alfred did and bringing with her a carrying case filled with bottles and vials.

It required about three hours, not a moment of which time was incredibly pleasant for either lady, to ascertain that the potion used on Sable was not a power-blocker or a power-leecher. Meli was becoming frustrated, and Sable, who had vomited more than once and developed a migraine in the course of the experimentation, was toeing the line of losing her temper.

It was the Auror's anger, in fact, that tipped them off to the true problem. When Meli capped the last of the vials in her case and stared at the teapot in despair, Sable exploded—and so did the teapot.

"I thought you were supposed to know about these things!" the Auror snapped amid a torrential downpour of anise tea and porcelain shards. "But you don't even know how to brew a proper antidote to a leeching potion! If you're that stupid, how can I even trust you to hide me safely? What sort of an idiot does Albus Dumbledore have to be to have put you in charge of mopping floors, much less—"

"The antidotes work perfectly well, Miss Nightshade," Meli interrupted coldly. "What isn't working well is your ability to use your wand. You've not been leeched or blocked."

"Oh, really," Sable sneered. "Then what, exactly, have I been?"

Meli regarded her impassively. "What you've been," she replied, "is what forgotten stories would call wand-baned. Your wandless magic is as powerful as ever; I submit for your consideration Exhibit A." She indicated the spatter of shards and gray liquid now occupying the tea tray. "It's not your magic being blocked; it's your ability to use your wand."

"And I don't suppose you happen to have an antidote for that?" Sable said snidely.

Meli narrowed her eyes in an expression she'd learned from several of her familiars. "I find it rather irritating and not a little insulting that you think of my supply as inadequate," she stated through her teeth. "You're lucky to come across a third of these antidotes in one place together, much less all of them at once. That I happen to lack one is inconvenient, but it ought to be more expected than not. I have in my possession antidotes for every poison I know You-Know-Who to use, and I have resources that will allow me to locate others, as well—if not already brewed, at least the recipes for them. That being the case, I would greatly appreciate it if you would shut up and allow me to do my job. If that proves too much for you to do unassisted, I can easily arrange for you to be placed under house arrest until such a time as you can have your abilities restored to you, at which time I will make arrangements for you to be hidden somewhere far away from here." She arched a diabolical eyebrow. "I hear Antarctica is very nice this time of year. Do we understand one another?"

Sable wasn't happy, to say the least, but under the circumstances, she didn't have much leverage for argument. All anyone had to do was ward a door, and even if the charm could be broken by a simple "Alohamora", she wouldn't be able to get past it.

"If you don't mind my asking, then," the Auror growled ungraciously, "just how long will I have to wait for this antidote?"

"I don't rightly know," Meli replied airily. "It depends largely upon how long it takes me to locate the recipe and brew it up. Any other questions, or shall I have Alfred escort you to your temporary quarters?"

Sable hadn't any further questions—at least none that she cared to voice at that time—so, at Meli's bidding, Alfred led her away, leaving her to ponder the problem at hand.

She lived in a Potions master's house, with free access to countless books that might hold the answer she sought—or might not. Only the most modern of those volumes would have helpful indices, which meant that she would have to make her search page by page through the majority of the brewing library. That alone could take days, even if she took a bit of time first to look up a word-locating spell and used that to help her. The antidote might be complicated, but her instinct told her otherwise; the chief devastation of this particular potion lay not in its effect nor in the difficulty of brewing its antidote but rather in its masquerading as a different type of potion altogether. If not for Sable's understandable loss of temper, the true nature of the potion might never have been known.

It was a rarely-used brew, though, and only Meli's fascination with odd facts and odder potions and spells had caused her to remember any reference to it. She recalled vaguely having stumbled over an off-hand mention of it in some convoluted fairy story she'd read as a teenager, and it had intrigued her enough that she had looked it up. She had discovered in the process that it was far easier to uncover random allusions to it than to find anything pertaining to the science of it, and she knew, therefore, that she had a pile of work ahead of her. It was entirely possible that her search here would come up fruitless, in which case she would have to go to Hogwarts and ask either Snape or Zarekael about it.

That would probably be the best course anyway, she reflected. On the one hand, if one of them had brewed it, it ought to be on her list of potions to which she had ready antidotes, which indicated that another Death Eater had made it or, more likely, bought it on Knockturn Alley. On the other hand, however, potions were their livelihood and one of their greatest joys, and it was highly unlikely that an intriguing brew like this one would have escaped the notice of both. One or the other would know of it, and surely one of them would have a helpful text on it.

I wouldn't put it past Severus to keep extra copies of particularly helpful texts here, though, she thought. It's entirely possible…if rather unlikely…that I could find the answer without having to leave Snape Manor.

She doubted it, however, and so posted a coded letter to Dumbledore, informing him that there was a high probability of a curriculum evaluator by the name of Esther Summerson dropping by the school in a few days. Her cover well-established ahead of time, she then turned her steps toward the manor house library.

ooo

As she had suspected, her searching the library was in vain. She found only isolated references to the potion, and those in some of the most unsavory volumes she had the misfortune to encounter, the writers of which had felt no compulsion to allude to the existence of an antidote, much less to spell out how said antidote could be concocted. She therefore posted another letter to Dumbledore to tell him that Miss Summerson would, indeed, be coming and, after a fitful few hours' sleep, apparated to Hogsmeade and took a stroll that would have been pleasant had it not been bitterly cold outside.

She arrived at the school just before breakfast and met briefly with Dumbledore, first to update her logbook and secondly to inform him of the reason for her visit. He approved of her methods, and confirmed what she'd already determined: that there was a good chance that one or both of the Potions teachers would know the potion in question. With that encouragement, she waited for the best possible time to seek out her information.

As it happened, she might very well have chosen better.

Snape was not at lunch, so she decided to ask Zarekael first, and if he was unable to help, she could seek out Snape later on.

She had no wish to broadcast to the school what, exactly, she was researching, but it was necessary to make clear to Zarekael that she needed to talk to him. Had she been primarily a Slytherin, rather than the quasi-Slytherin she admitted to, she might have gone about it a bit differently, but in this unfortunate case, her Gryffindor nature came more than usually to the forefront.

She started out well enough, with a polite inquiry to talk with Zarekael after lunch. Given that she was supposedly there to evaluate various different curricula, her request was not particularly out of the ordinary—not for Zarekael, and not for anyone else who might overhear.

After lunch, she and Zarekael left the Great Hall, and out in the corridor, she caught his eye. "There's a potion I need to discuss with you," she said, quite naturally, but giving him a significant look. It wasn't a potion to be talked about lightly, nor where certain enterprising Slytherins could overhear. "I was hoping you'd have some information on it."

Zarekael narrowed his eyes, obviously picking up on part of her meaning—the part about it requiring secrecy, at any rate. "Very well," he replied, his tone as neutral as his countenance. "Would you care to move this conversation to a more comfortable location?"

Meli smiled. "By all means."

They silently relocated from the public corridor, not to the Potions room nor to Snape's office, but to Zarekael's quarters. Once inside, Zarekael went as far as the fireplace, then turned to address her, his back to the fire and his face suddenly a marble mask unreadable even to someone who knew him. The flames backlit him slightly and interacted oddly with the flickering torchlight with which his rooms were lit to send strange, menacing shadows playing across his cold countenance.

"So," he said flatly, crossing his arms and looking down his nose at her with narrowed eyes. "What is it that you want from me?"

Meli frowned, not at all bothering to disguise her utter confusion. His question was, on the surface, almost normal, but there was that little qualifier, and there were also his tone of voice and body language to consider. He had gone, in the space of a heartbeat, from the young man she knew and considered a friend to this cold, accusing stranger standing before her…and she could think of absolutely no reason for the change.

Well, she thought dubiously, I doubt I'm going to get any further clues from him without either answering his question—such as it is—or asking one of my own…which I'm suddenly rather unwilling to do.

The question itself bewildered her, for she didn't think she'd been so subtle as to leave out the fact that she needed information on a potion. In fact, I specifically remember saying I needed to ask about a potion, she recalled. When you need to ask about a potion, you go to a Potions master—

She broke off in the middle of that thought. Snape, not Zarekael, was the master, and she had gone to the apprentice rather than the master. It was a minor protocol, really, and one that friends sometimes bypassed, but there was more to both men than potions; they were also Death Eaters, which predisposed them to be suspicious, even paranoid.

I broke protocol with people who are daily surrounded by intrigue, and I made it clear that I had something secretive in mind when I asked my initial question, she realized with a pang. What else could he think, then?

"I—I never—" she stammered, floundering for the best words to articulate her actual intention. "This isn't a—a prelude to some—shady deal! Good Lord, it never entered my mind!"

While he did nothing to alter his pose, Zarekael's features softened just slightly, and she had the uncomfortable feeling that he wasn't sure whether or not to believe her. "I apologize for jumping to conclusions," he said quietly…but there was an unspoken but at the end of his apology that made her more nervous still.

"Things being as they are, it was a reasonable conclusion," she countered. It was difficult to think at the moment, so she slipped her eyes away from him, searching for something—anything—to focus on that would help her to find clarity again. Instead, she found other objects of concern, which were all too happy to glimmer and gleam in the firelight at her: the sword, the battle-axe, and the javelin, displayed around the mantle…and within extremely easy reach of the suddenly very intimidating man standing before her.

She swallowed, as the Slytherin in her took stock of the situation as it was and came to a rather unpleasant conclusion. He was very deliberate in where he chose to stand, she realized. Her Gryffindor nature, however, was a bit slower on the take and reasoned that the best way to break, or at least to ease, the growing tension might be through a candid joke. "I see what you mean by a 'more comfortable location'," she blurted, with a pointed glance at the weapons behind him. "It's very comfortable for you."

While the punch-line was still coming out, however, she caught sight of what she had missed before: a peculiar, not at all human, glint in Zarekael's eye that she could not precisely identify but which did not, by any stretch of the imagination, herald a pleasant end to the conversation. That glint, combined now with the frown her words elicited, were all she needed to realize that her joke was no joke at all.

"I'm sorry," she babbled unthinkingly. "I didn't mean—well, I suppose I did, but I didn't know—"

"You've said nothing that hadn't already occurred to me," he interjected.

"Oh. All right. So it had occurred…" She trailed off, realizing what that meant. "Right, then."

There was no recovering from this, she realized; her composure was shot, her balance lost, and nothing showed any sign of becoming comprehensible anytime soon. There was nothing reassuring to be found in Zarekael's countenance, which was marred now by a further deepening of his frown.

And then, when she had all but concluded that things couldn't possibly get any worse, she suddenly heard a voice in her head.

Is someone going to say something intelligent, or are we just going to continue hearing the sound of foot-in-mouth? And by the way, Ruthvencairn, would you like some catsup to go with your foot?

Meli swallowed. It was not at all the sort of comment she would ever have made, either aloud or in her thoughts, particularly given her present predicament, and even had it been, this was not her own mental voice. Rather, it had a male timbre, similar to Zarekael's, actually, but with a proper Oxford accent completely untouched by any trace of the apprentice's native tongue.

Then the situation descended further into surreality, for, as if in reply to the voice she had heard in her head (which had addressed him, as well, she suddenly remembered), Zarekael scowled and switched from English to his first language and started uttering vicious syllables that could not be at all flattering to their recipient. The only comfort to be had from this was that the disturbing glint had disappeared from his eye, but that comfort was tempered by the fact that his eyes had turned inward and lost sight of her entirely…which was, in its own way, every bit as creepy as the glint had been.

This naturally begs the question, Meli thought faintly, of how he could be talking to a voice in my head.

The voice, it seemed, was quite capable of and willing to continue the conversation, however, for after a few seconds of Zarekael's verbal viciousness, it sighed. Tsk, tsk, Ruthvencairn. I'm afraid that's anatomically impossible and not nearly as elegant as it could be in any case.

Again, as if in response to the voice's taunt, Zarekael added a few more comments, still in his native tongue. Meli watched and listened in growing horror, but it was tempered by both a bizarre amusement at the whole situation and a morbid curiosity as to what, in fact, Zarekael had said that was so inelegant and anatomically impossible.

The voice was also amused and showed no sign of discouraging Zarekael from continuing his muttered abuse. My, it said, rather saucily. And how did you come to know so very much about mating habits outside your species?

It was all Meli could do to hold back a snort of laughter; she was, after all, eavesdropping, and she hadn't come close to forgetting the dangerous situation that had immediately preceded the voice announcing itself in her head and, it appeared, in Zarekael's head, as well.

The voice permitted Zarekael one more comment, which was, judging by the tone of the apprentice's voice and the enraged look on his face, the least charitable one yet, and then it sighed dramatically. Well, that's all well and good, it replied. But are you aware that you're talking out loud, Ruthvencairn?

Zarekael's eyes returned to focus on Meli, his countenance melting from fury in the midst of arguing with the voice to an expression that Andrea Underhill would have dubbed the "Oh, Shit-Face". He caught sight of Meli's expression, which surely left no doubt in his mind as to her having heard the whole thing, and she saw that he had a sinking feeling of the full extent of this newest mess.

Meli's Gryffindor nature was, most fortunately, so thoroughly flummoxed that the Slytherin had a chance to take over, and the first thought it sent calmly through her mind was, Play dumb! So, with that sound advice firmly in mind, she took a small step backward from Zarekael and mustered up a worried smile. "Ah…" she said faintly, "what's going on?"

The voice had no further commentary to offer, either to Meli or to Zarekael, and she had the distinct impression that it had stepped briefly into their conversation and then, certain of an accomplished purpose, had stepped away again.

Zarekael's expression changed again into a look of long-suffering resignation. "How much did you hear?" he sighed.

"Well…" she replied slowly, "Assuming it started with the comment about a foot in the mouth, I heard everything, even if I didn't understand all of it." And I am not going to ask about the anatomically incorrect remark, she vowed silently, even if I am dreadfully curious.

There was a brief flicker of embarrassment and anger in Zarekael's eye as he realized that she had heard both sides of the conversation—including the voice's responses to his off-color remarks—and took stock of the resulting damage. "I…see," he said in a strangled-sounding voice. He regarded her silently for a long moment, then let out a heartfelt sigh and closed his eyes. "The gods have a very peculiar sense of humor."

"I know the feeling," Meli told him quietly, and while the comment was neutral, it was entirely sincere.

Zarekael opened his eyes and looked to her with a near-smile. "Yes," he allowed, "I suppose you would." He raised his eyebrows slightly. "Would you like to have a seat? This has not…gone well—perhaps it would be best if we just start over?"

Meli offered a wan smile and a shaky nod as she moved to the nearest chair and seated herself. She was unable to relax, however, and she noted that she had not held herself so military-stiff since she had confronted Zarekael about the Golden murders nearly a year before.

Zarekael sat down in the chair facing her and sighed again. "I apologize; you weren't meant to hear any of that."

"If you don't mind my asking," Meli said hesitantly, "what the hell was that?"

"That," Zarekael replied between his teeth, "was Glaurung." He was very irritated, she saw, but his irritation was not directed at her, and that hellish, dangerous glint was still gone from his eyes, turning him once more into the Zarekael she had thought she knew.

"And who is this person?" Meli inquired. Strictly speaking, she had no way of knowing for certain that glaurung was a person's name rather than a name for the brief departure from reality that her mental faculties seemed to have taken, but she vastly preferred to believe it was a person.

"He's not a person, per se," Zarekael answered.

"What, you—" Meli broke off, wisely perceiving that her efforts to lighten the mood would probably only cause further trouble again. "Ah, well, um…hm. Never mind. Please continue."

Zarekael offered an amused glance, testimony that he understood the comment, even unuttered. "What do you know of my father's appearance here?" he asked.

The apparently random question took her aback. "Well…" There were sketchy eyewitness accounts, but nothing that would tell her anything, really. "He came through the gateway," she said at last. "He asked Dumbledore to take you in—"

Zarekael held up a hand to stop her. "What details do you know about his first arrival?" He caught the odd look on her face, realized that she might have interpreted it as an attempt to catch her in a lie, and added, "I'm only asking for what's on the public record. Before I can explain, I need to know how much you know."

Meli thought back. All of the teachers had had vantage points for the arrival; it had set off alarms that roused the entire faculty. Flitwick's account had contained an interesting detail that the others had minimized, probably because he was the most prone to flutter and excitement.

"The most stunning detail I can recall," she answered at last, "is that he was riding a dragon when he arrived." She shrugged. "Well, it was dark, so a dragon or some like beast." I sound just like Minerva McGonagall, she sighed inwardly.

Zarekael's countenance was overswept with irony and the faintest brush of irritation. "Ah, yes. The dragon," he said. "Funny you should mention him."

Meli looked narrowly at him as a likely puzzle piece found a probable resting place. And who says dragons can't be telepathic on his plane? Aloud, she asked, "He didn't go home with your father the second time, did he?"

"No." Zarekael's voice lowered to a mutter. "I'm not entirely sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing."

"Ah." A helpful loose cannon of a familiar. I've had a couple of those. She furrowed her brow. And a dragon from elsewhere whose name is the same as one of the dragons in Tolkien's works. Interesting… "I take it he's…telepathic?" she hedged aloud.

"In a way," he replied. "Dragons choose their riders; generally those are the only ones with whom they speak."

But the dragon was his father's. Meli frowned slightly. Maybe the dragon chose Zarekael when he was cut off from his other rider? It made as much sense as anything else—which was to say, not much, at least at the moment. "So why did he include me in the conversation?" she asked.

Now Zarekael nearly smirked. "I don't know," he answered. "Ask Severus why Glaurung sometimes talks with him."

"I may do that," Meli said. I may also ask if there's any particularly good way to wring a telepathic dragon's neck. "So…why didn't your father take his dragon back with him?"

"He was left for me," Zarekael told her. His tone had taken on a strange dignity, even beyond its usual formality. "It wouldn't do for the first heir of Dar Jerrikhan to have an unsuitable mount."

Meli saw an opening, a way out of the awkward subject at hand, and, hoping to lead him away from it, she took the opportunity. "Did he leave you other things, too?" she asked. "Other things you…remember him by?" I won't even bother asking what else they remind you of, she added silently, given that you claim to have betrayed him to his death.

"Of course," Zarekael replied, his tone reasonable.

It was the closest thing she was going to get to an invitation for further exploration, and, since he seemed suddenly to have gone back to being the man she knew, she was cautiously willing to accept the invitation. "If you don't mind my asking…what?"

In reply, he motioned to the sword, javelin, and axe arrayed over and beside the fireplace.

"Family heirlooms?" Meli guessed. He may have come from a military society, but none of the weapons would have been small enough for a child of eleven to bear. Tall he was, and tall he had been, but she knew he had been shorter than Snape when he first arrived, and she doubted that even Snape could have used any of them with ease.

"Yes. They are passed to the first heir."

Interesting. It was the most she had yet heard from him about either his family or his home, and since he made no move to stop her questions, she kept asking. "Is there some sort of ceremony that goes with it, then? Something like the passing the command of a ship—except that you pass command of the family?"

Zarekael nodded. "In my House, on the Feast Day of Dwyrin after the first heir turns sixteen, the spear is passed on."

Meli smiled. "I must say, it's a far more interesting rite of passage than we have in Britain," she remarked. "All I got to do when I turned sixteen was buy liquor—" She broke off suddenly as the meaning of the numbers belatedly dawned. For whatever reason, he had kept his true age hidden when he enrolled at Hogwarts; everyone had thought him to be eleven, but his possession of the spear showed that he had to have been at least sixteen.

With that realization came another, far less pleasant, one: Zarekael had paused, his posture no longer conversational and his expression suddenly very hard and calculating. It was the look of a predator analyzing its prey…

No, she corrected herself, it was the look of a cornered animal analyzing the threat to it. She was oddly, if minimally, comforted by the fact that that awful glint had not returned to his eye. He wasn't threatening her; rather, he felt threatened by her, and after a bare second's reflection, it wasn't hard to see why. If she had gotten that fact out of him, however unintentionally on either her part or his, what else could she extract if she put in the effort? His age was of minimal concern, to her or to Voldemort, but there was obviously a great deal more to Zarekael than he wanted anyone knowing—especially Voldemort. If it became known that he had hidden anything of importance from the Dark Lord, Voldemort would summarily kill him.

There was more to it, though; there had to be. On no less than two occasions, Zarekael had known that Meli had reason to kill him, and he'd had no problem with it. Indeed, he had no problem risking his life as a spy in Voldemort's ranks. He had nearly given his life—

To save Snape's.

Snape had to know, then, if not how deep the rabbit's hole delved, at least most of its course and contents. If Zarekael's secrets, or the fact that he even had secrets, became known, so, too, would the fact that Snape was privy to them, and that would result in Snape's death, as well. Zarekael might willingly die himself, but he was fiercely protective of his adoptive father and co-conspirator. That meant that she was also now a threat to Snape, and she was therefore a threat under evaluation.

"You're older than you look," she choked out before she could stop herself, then actually gulped as Zarekael's expression went from calculating to outright murderous. The glint resurfaced, and he shifted subtly in his chair, adopting a position that would allow him to spring at her more easily should he deem it necessary—and, she thought, feeling very ill, the chances of him doing precisely that had skyrocketed in the space of a heartbeat.

She held up her hands, palms outward, in what really amounted to an inadequate way of warding him off. More than flimsy protection, though, the gesture was also an appeal to him not to act rashly; if they could only talk calmly, there might be a way out of this bizarre, godforsaken mess. The silent appeal made no apparent impression on him, however, so she ventured to speak. "I don't ask you why," she said, forcing evenness to her voice. "I know you must have sound reasons for it. I swear to you, it doesn't leave this room—I know what it would mean for you and for Severus, and I don't want that anymore than you do, Ruthvencairn."

She placed a slight emphasis on his second name, hoping that that would get through to him if nothing else did. We're friends, damn it—don't you remember she railed silently. Can't I at least leave here alive and with that knowledge?

There was a very horrible, long pause as he thought over what she had said, and while she could not identify the precise ideas passing through his mind, she had the impression that they weren't entirely in her favor. The pause lengthened out into a dreadful silence, until Meli, seeing her chances at living fading before her eyes, could stand it no longer.

"Look," she said, shattering the silence with her ragged appeal. "If you don't believe me, obliviate me or use some other memory charm—you have my permission! You can even use the Damam Dahath, if that's what it takes!"

It was not a charm to suggest lightly, and both of them knew it. Meli kept it in ready reserve if it was ever needed, but she had only ever used it once, on little Jerreth Llewellyn. It allowed the subject to retain full memory of whatever knowledge he possessed, but it kept him from being able to discuss sensitive information with someone who didn't already know it. It was considered by some (Meli among them) to be a far more practical and humanitarian alternative to the memory-erasing charms, but the Ministry, in typical fashion, did not agree and had outlawed its use for all purposes not deemed appropriate by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

She saw a brief flicker of surprise flit through his eyes, but he quickly damped it down as he turned coldly thoughtful again. Silence reigned while he considered her words, and she had no idea, even to the extent of whether his thoughts were in or out of her favor, of what he might be thinking. At last he took a deep breath and slowly shook his head as his eyes cleared.

"That will not be necessary," he said softly. "You already knew enough to guarantee my death and Severus'."

It was hardly a vote of confidence, but the mere absence of that predatory glint was enough to put her more at ease, at least enough to relax slightly in her seat.

"I will explain this situation to the headmaster, of course," Zarekael continued, "and I will have words with Glaurung."

"Please don't be too hard on Glaurung," Meli said. "The fault here lies with me—I ask too many questions."

As irritated as she was at Zarekael's telepathic dragon, she was able to say that much, at least; his interference had probably saved her life, after all, even if it had provided her with a second opportunity to hang herself. She didn't feel especially charitable toward him, but she certainly didn't want Zarekael slamming the whole of the blame on his shoulders, either.

The apprentice shook his head and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "No," he countered. "I could have stopped you at any time."

"Then why didn't you?" Meli demanded before she could stop herself or restrain her tone. If he had known the entire time that she was edging closer and closer to deadly territory, why in bloody hell hadn't he set up a fence!

He sighed again, but this time he leaned forward and stood up to step away from her. "You deserved all of the answers I could safely give," he told her quietly, then looked away and actually turned his back to her. "If I had refused to answer, you would have been more suspicious."

Now Meli sighed as the frustration of constantly banging her head against the wall of misunderstanding actually started to give her the beginnings of a headache. "Think for a moment about who you're talking to," she told him. "I rarely talk about where I've come from." She hesitated briefly, but she wanted no further misunderstandings, deadly or otherwise, and the only way she could think of to avoid that outcome was to be as perfectly frank as possible. "My past was hardly rose blossoms and cherries, and from what very little I know of your own history, I can't blame you for not wanting to speak about it. It's a perfect excuse to ward off any kind of personal question—all you ever need tell me at any time is that you had rather not answer a question, and I will gladly and without suspicion leave it at that."

His shoulders slumped, and he nodded slowly, then raised a hand to his forehead as if to keep off a headache of his own. "I understand that now," he sighed.

That, she supposed, was the closest he was likely to come to an admission that he had misread her—at least, had it been Snape saying it, that would have been her interpretation. Things being as they were, she wasn't willing to stake her life on making the same assessment of Zarekael, but fortunately, that danger had probably passed.

Probably.

There didn't seem to be a specific direction for the conversation to take, though, and Zarekael appeared to have said his piece for the moment, which placed the ball squarely in her court.

Damn. What the hell do I say now? She furiously racked her brains for anything to say, either on the topic at hand or to introduce an entirely new topic, and unfortunately, only one thing came readily to mind.

"Well," she said hesitantly, "while I must admit that I'm almost afraid to bring this up again…it's the only thing I can think of at the moment. I…still need to ask you about…the potion."

He turned around to face her, his expression clinical, interested, professional—anything but familiar and specifically friendly. "Ah, yes," he said analytically. "The potion."

His reply was not exactly encouraging, but she forged ahead anyway. "It's the Varadunatos potion—more specifically its antidote. When used in combination with a spell, Varadunatos prevents the victim from being able to use any wand—until the antidote is taken, wands simply won't respond to him, and at first blush it resembles a power-leeching potion."

"Ah." Zarekael's tone was still perfectly matter-of-fact, devoid of any real inflection. His eyes betrayed a spark of interest, but it was entirely professional in nature; this was still not a conversation between friends. "The magic is still available, but inaccessible. I believe I know the one you mean. Give me a moment."

He walked to a bookshelf on the opposite side of the room from the fireplace and started searching through the books. Zarekael was every bit as much of a bibliophile as either Meli or Snape; his shelves started next to the doorway leading to his bedroom and wound around the room, leaving space only for the entryway, the fireplace, a door leading to a small storage room, and the furniture that happened to be pushed up against a wall. His search was rapid, taking him around from the door to the side of the fireplace nearest Meli. Still not finding it, he stepped across and past her and resumed on the other side. She watched him the entire time, but his mask was firmly in place, and she had no hint of what, other than his search, was passing through his mind.

She stood and cleared her throat. "Zarekael, stop," she implored. "Look at me." She waited until he turned slowly to face her, and only then, when she could see the effect her words produced on him, did she continue. "Forget about the potion for a minute; I need to know." She bit her lip. "Are we still friends?"

Zarekael's eyes widened, and his jaw went slightly slack then suddenly tightened before it could fully drop. "What I want is irrelevant," he replied, his tone slightly edged with mystification. "It's entirely up to you." He lowered his eyes and looked to the side. "I have threatened you not once but twice, and I've shown you exactly what kind of man I am. I've told you before that I'm unworthy of your friendship; now I've shown you."

Meli took a step toward him. "I don't think you're unworthy," she told him.

Zarekael let out a sound of exasperated disbelief.

"You're a loyal and honorable man," she continued. "I know it would have torn you apart to have to hurt me in order to protect Severus."

He blinked, startled.

She smiled wryly. "Yes," she told him. "I realize this is about more than just you—in fact, I know it's not about you at all."

He opened his mouth as if to deny it, then firmly closed it again, effectively returning the ball to her court.

Damn it, she thought again. At what point does this finally become a conversation—or is the answer never? She sighed. "Look," she said aloud. "We can have this one-sided debate until I'm blue in the face and your eyes are bloodshot from all of your blinking, but none of it touches the question." She peered up at him, almost sorrowfully. "Do you still want us to be friends, Ruthvencairn?"

His shoulders slumped, and she caught sight of a deep pain in his eyes. "If you could ask my other friends that question," he replied in an anguished voice, "they would tell you how very much I want to be your friend…but unfortunately, every one of them is dead." And as he spoke those final words, he gave her a significant look that added silently, Because of me.

Something in those unspoken words struck a resonant chord with her and brought to mind a conversation she'd had with Snape shortly before coming to teach at Hogwarts. The Fells have had to go into hiding, she had said. Because of me.

"Zarekael," she began hesitantly, not knowing if her next question would come across as profound or foolish, "are you under some manner of bane?"

He blinked again in utter surprise and gave a quick, confused shake of his head, but he took a moment to think before he replied. "No, Meli," he answered at last, with an almost rueful smile. "Though I almost wish I were." Seeing her startled look, he sighed. "I know you will disagree with my view," he explained quietly, "but unlike you, I am responsible for their deaths."

Meli opened her mouth to protest, but, seeing the look of finality on his countenance, she held her silence to think out her own answer. It was clear that nothing she said would change his mind or convince him to think that she, too, bore responsibility for the deaths of her parents and Andrew and the Goldens, and arguing the point would only drag out the conversation further and take it away from the topic at hand. With a reluctance that caused her Gryffindor nature to growl in futile frustration, she forced herself away from that rabbit trail and returned her attention to the true question of the moment.

She hated thinking it—hated herself for thinking it—but his answers led her to believe that he had killed or as good as killed all of his late friends. He had told her before that he betrayed his own father to his death, and he had admitted to murdering the head of the Department of Aurors. As unbelievable as these things had seemed at first, and as difficult as it still was for her to associate those actions with him, after twice witnessing that cold, terrifying glint that surfaced in his eye, she was beginning to believe. It might be that he had been edged repeatedly into situations in which it was necessary to kill one in order to protect another—much as she might have died to protect Snape—and while his conscience would forever plague him for it, he had killed them for whatever greater good he served at the time.

He was, in short, afraid of a recurrence of what had happened twice in the space of an hour, and even more afraid that next time there would be nothing to keep it from escalating to that awful choice. The question, then, was not an issue of whether or not she could befriend such a man but instead whether or not she was willing to befriend him with open eyes.

I'm not afraid! the Gryffindor roared, but she stopped herself from saying it aloud. She was afraid, and she thought it a completely healthy fear. Very few people truly welcomed the prospect of death with open arms and not a doubt or reservation in the world, and, having cheated death once, she wasn't ready just yet for a rematch. Zarekael had spoken truly; she had glimpsed the predatory nature beneath his surface, and it did terrify her…and yet…

And yet, no matter how they parted today, she would still always count him among her friends. Even if he spared her today and was forced by circumstances to kill her tomorrow, she would say that much at least.

"I can't say that I'm not afraid," she told him firmly. "But, like you, I'm willing to accept the risk."

She could tell from the brief flickers through his eyes that he wanted to debate the parallels she had drawn between her bane and his situation, but he, like she, apparently recognized the futility of it. "I will do my best to honor your courage," he stated softly, with a small bow from the waist, after that moment of thought.

Now it was Meli's turn to blink in surprise. "Really?" She had expected more of an argument before he conceded the point.

Zarekael offered her a darkly amused near-smile. "I know better than to argue with a bull-headed Gryffindor who has more bravery than she knows what to do with," he told her sardonically.

She grinned in spite of herself at that characterization.

There was a brief pause, then Zarekael raised his eyebrows mildly. "Now that we've answered your question," he said, "I still haven't found the potion. Would you like me to keep looking?"

"By all means," she replied. "I'll just…sit down, shall I?"

He offered a small smirk. "Please." She sat, and he continued his search, at last finding the book and opening it.

He stepped back to her chair, then hesitated, apparently unsure of whether he should hand it to her or set it on the coffee table. It was a small wonder, really. This was a Dark potion, which meant it was inscribed in a Dark book, and Meli had never encountered a Dark Arts book that wasn't, at the very least, written in blood; some had even been known to have pages of human skin. However, just as she was unhealthily comfortable on Knockturn Alley, she was nearly desensitized to the implements used in such unsavory literature; she held out her hands to take the book, which he gingerly relinquished to her.

This one, she saw, was written on good, old-fashioned parchment, but the ink was indeed animal blood. That, unfortunately, was all she could tell about it.

"It's very lovely," she commented dryly, looking up at Zarekael. "But what does it say?"

The apprentice actually came close to a full smile, if an embarrassed one, then pulled out his wand and muttered something that was neither English nor Latin. The lettering in the book, which had been from a completely unfamiliar alphabet (probably the one used on Zarekael's plane, she reasoned) gave way to Roman lettering and English words. That work finished, he returned to his chair.

Meli consulted the book once more. "Yes, this is exactly what I needed." She looked up, not bothering to mask her relief; Sable Nightshade's temper had failed to cool, with the result that the Auror had started to take full advantage of every opportunity to make Meli's life miserable. "Do you mind if I copy down the antidote?"

He nodded, and she pulled out a pocket notebook and ballpoint pen. It was the work of only a few minutes to write out the antidote, at the end of which time she handed back the book and then offered him the notebook. It was good and well to trust friends, but there was a war going on, and he was a Slytherin and she an honorary one—and the conversation had only confirmed just how tenuous a thing trust truly was.

Zarekael accepted the book, but he handed back her copy with a pointed look. She silently took it back and pocketed it as he reshelved the book.

And now, having officially worn out my welcome several times over… "Well, I had better see to other duties, I suppose," she sighed.

"Very well."

She stood. "Thank you for your help," she said sincerely.

Zarekael, always a perfect gentleman, saw her to the door. "I hope the information is helpful," he told her. "Have a good afternoon, Neshdiana."

She picked up on the subtle emphasis applied to her nickname, and offered him another hawkish look. "You, too…Ruthvencairn."

ooo

FURTHER AUTHOR'S NOTE: I apologize for taking so long to re-post this chapter. Snarky and I knew when I first pulled it that it required some, hm, necessary work, but we had no idea until we started at it just how extensive and thorough that work would turn out to be. This particular chapter was created very early on in our concept of "Contented". The Dursleys were originally intended to die around Easter of fifth year, but when other events (such as The Fudge's assassination) crowded in, we moved the scene to Halloween of sixth year. It had been re-drafted several times, but it wasn't until after posting that we realized (courtesy of Snarky's former roommate Nicandra) that we had failed to make behavioral adjustments to account for this being during sixth rather than fifth year. So, shout out to Nicandra for your help and critique (and for beta-re-reading this latest incarnation), thanks to the readers for your patience in waiting for the re-post, and much gratitude to J.K. Rowling for coincidentally releasing her book in the middle of all of this so that the delay wasn't (hopefully) so terribly annoying.
AE

PS Speaking of which…for anyone who might be wondering if the events of the canonical Book 6 will in any way effect this fanfic, the answer is an emphatic NO. For anyone who might be wondering if Book 6 has in any way influenced my view of Snape, the answer again is a wholehearted NO. If you feel that I am pigheaded or in error, feel free to debate me via email. I should warn you, however, that I read books the same way Snape does—I mark them up and annotate them and observe details. My arguments were settled before I finished reading the book, and I am refining them all the time as I have more opportunity to think it out and talk it through. Debate with me if you wish, but at least know what you're getting into.
Warmest Regards,
Ancalimë