AUTHOR'S NOTE: So I'm not dead yet, and hopefully Eric Idle isn't going to settle the question by clubbing me over the head once and for all. I apologize for taking so long to post, but three factors have contributed to it. Firstly, I was under deadline for another story and consequently had no time for laundry (except in emergency cases), much less fanfic. Secondly, this particular chapter had a few problems in it because I'd written it in two parts, so when I spliced it, it needed surgery to eliminate a lot of repetition. Thirdly, this was actually the end of what I had written in advance, so I needed time to write more in order to post again. Howsomever, I made my deadline, I did my laundry for real, I have just finished the Chapter 24 surgery, and Snarky and I have worked out, in detail, the entire rest of sixth year, so all I need to do is type it all out.

Thank you for your patience, and I hope you continue to enjoy this tale of woe.
AE

Chapter 24: A Towmond o' Trouble

Snape and Zarekael were not at breakfast the following morning, and Meli had no trouble believing that they were probably either asleep or staring aimlessly at a wall—or drinking themselves into a stupor. She had no appetite to speak of and consequently made quick work of the meal and went wandering through the corridors afterward.

She had been awake the entire night, making what plans she could for her grandparents' safe removal from Hogwarts and reestablishment elsewhere. It would have been nice, she thought darkly, to hide them as far away as possible—China, for example, was probably very lovely that time of year, and if they preferred to relocate to a warmer climate, there was always Peru. Unfortunately, she had no connections outside of Britain save Andrea Underhill, and even Andrea really wasn't a connection anymore. She might be willing to hide the Ebonys for the sake of her "late" friend Meli…but Reglan was beginning to swell with British nationals. The town was small enough to hide the Camerons and the Fells, but to add another family to that might very well be pushing it.

They would, therefore, be hidden away relatively nearby, and if she kept to pattern, she would have to visit them every now and again to see how they were doing. It would be a difficult task in any case because she would have to play the part of a stranger to her own grandparents, but it would now be all the harder. Henry Ebony had never been one to keep his grudges to himself, and it stood to reason that he would either regard Rasa with suspicion or he would look on her as the perfect audience for voicing his opinions of Snape and Zarekael. That left her with an unpleasant choice: either take it in silence, or attempt to defend her friends.

The prospect of defending them, unfortunately, raised a hateful question in Meli's own mind: How much had they truly known?

No, that wasn't the question at all; particularly after the events of the summer, she understood, even if she didn't necessarily like it, that sometimes spies could not afford to tell everyone everything, but even so, she had no doubt of Snape's sincerity in this case. After all, he and Zarekael had admitted to their foreknowledge of the assassinations as soon as it was safe to do so; there was no reason for them to lie outright here and now, even if they were not comfortable telling the entire truth in the Ebonys' presence.

Say rather, then that the true question was how much had it been safe to tell Dumbledore? Snape might very well have had some inkling, even if he hadn't had precise, hard information, of more specific timing or of the victims' possible identities, and Zarekael might not have been as entirely in the dark as he seemed to be. This was allowable, even understandable, but it introduced the question of plausible deniability.

In this case, they had not failed to inform her personally; under such circumstances, that was Dumbledore's job, and, truth be known, she was not important enough to keep intentionally out of the loop. This was her family, yes, but her only possible courses of action on learning that her grandparents might have been in danger were to become hysterical, to tip the spies' hand and warn the Ebonys, or to do nothing at all. The first two courses helped no one and would potentially have destroyed everything, and the only way to guarantee that she followed the third course instead was to have her do it by default by not telling her—which they had done both indirectly and well.

If they had thought it necessary to keep Dumbledore even slightly in the dark, however, she needed to know just how in the dark the headmaster might need to be in future. There had been no need for a genuine reaction in this case; the only other witnesses to the Ebonys' arrival were Poppy and Amber, who had learnt everything immediately anyway. Poppy, like Meli, was of no concern, for, as a member of the Order, she knew enough to trust Dumbledore's choices.

Amber, on the other hand, was the Minister of Mysteries, and while the Order had a tenuous alliance with the Department of Mysteries, its head was not likely to appreciate being kept uninformed of things that either affected the Department or impacted her personally. It had been necessary, of course, for her possible reactions had been the same as Meli's: destroy everything, or do nothing. Unfortunately, since she was emotionally involved in the situation, Meli had a good hunch that Amber would not have seen it that way and would most certainly not appreciate having it pointed out to her.

If Dumbledore was nothing more than an ally, withholding information—particularly this information—could be construed as either a lack of trust in the Department or an attempt to gain leverage over it—or its head. If, on the other hand, he was, as Meli and a few others quietly suspected, a free-agent Unspeakable, withholding information from Amber Ebony constituted holding out on his superior, which, particularly in a case in which Amber was personally involved, was tantamount to mutiny.

In either case, it would not go well for either Dumbledore or the alliance between the Department and the Order if, at any time during the war, it was learned that the headmaster had deliberately not shared pertinent information with the Minister of Mysteries. And if Meli, who was fairly out of the political arena at the moment, knew that, it stood to reason that Snape and Zarekael were all the more aware of it.

It was possible, then, that she might at some point in her line of work come across information that it might be politic to keep away from the Department, and if the established rule for spies was to keep key information from Dumbledore in order to protect him, it might be wise to establish a similar rule for rogue agents, as well.

And, unfortunately, the only way to learn the facts of the matter was to ask either Snape or Zarekael about it.

There's nothing for it, she sighed inwardly, setting her jaw. I'll just withstand the temptation to beat about the bush, and I won't ask either of them about their family history, and as long as that bloody dragon doesn't show up…I may just survive the conversation.

ooo

She decided, more on a whim than for any traceable purpose, to talk with Snape first, but as it turned out, that was the perfect choice. When she knocked at Snape's door, it was Zarekael who answered and, without a word, motioned for her to enter.

The apprentice looked very much worse for the wear; his face was dark with dried blood, and while the wound that had drawn the blood in the first place had been healed, he hadn't bothered to clean up, nor to change out of his torn, untidy, and bloodied shirt. Behind him, Snape stood up groggily from a chair to greet her, and she saw that his shirt, too, was torn and bloodied, showing evidence of an also-healed slash across his arm and part of his chest. He had also not cleaned up, and his movement drew her eye first to him, then to the two fencing swords tossed carelessly aside nearby.

She could see two whiskey bottles, one empty and one halfway there, on one of the tables, and there were two rocks glasses in evidence. It was clear from both men's manners that they had just woken up, and although they were probably hung-over, they had just as probably started right where they had left off with the bottles.

Meli entered, and Zarekael turned his back to her when closing the door, a sign more of trust, she gathered, than of contempt. He then stepped past her to stand at Snape's right and turned once more to face her, both father and son plainly waiting in weary expectation for whatever it was that she had come to say.

Seeing them so battered and reduced, she couldn't help herself and, instead of jumping directly to the point, she had to ask: "Are you—?"

Snape held up a hand to cut her off before she could finish asking for an answer she already knew.

"You're right," she conceded. "Stupid question. Moving beyond that epiphany…" She took a deep breath, pausing to think out her next words in the hopes that a precise phrasing would prevent a nasty misunderstanding. "Given the tenuous nature of the alliance with the Department of Mysteries," she began after a moment, "I can understand you wanting to give Dumbledore plausible de—"

She never made it further; Zarekael turned to look impassively at his father, who met his eye in return. "I told you, Severus," the apprentice said flatly. Both men's faces had turned to stone, with empty, dead eyes, the father nodding in silent agreement with his son.

"I spoke the truth," Snape told Meli without inflection as Zarekael turned away.

"But why you?" she blurted out. "Why the Ebonys? I understand you're being tested, but why choose them?"

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized that they had come out completely wrong. She had meant, of course, that Voldemort had chosen the victims…but that wasn't what her friends had heard. Snape looked stunned, as if she had punched him in the gut, and Zarekael whirled about to face her, his expression incensed. His eyes were not changing, at least, but that was scant comfort, for they blazed now like Hellfire.

"Why were the Ebonys chosen?" he snapped. "I can give you any number of reasons why the Ebonys were chosen. They're Muggles, their daughter is a Muggle-born witch who happens to be the Minister of Mysteries. I can tell you why they were chosen, but we didn't choose them—we only rarely get that 'honor'." He practically spit out the last word. "And as for why it was us?" He glared at her and ripped up his sleeve, exposing his odd dragon-and-skull Dark Mark.

Snape put a hand over Zarekael's Dark Mark, almost as if he couldn't stand the sight of it, and looked at Meli, his countenance once more resigned and touched by sadness. "We are slaves, Meli," he told her quietly. "Our wills and our desires mean nothing—we've sold our right to choose."

They believed she thought them traitors; as far as they were concerned, she had thrown in her lot with her adoptive family—against them. It was all she could do to keep from showing that she was near tears as she felt the anguish well up inside of her at the realization that she had done more damage now than ever before. It was the last message she had ever wanted to convey to them, and she had delivered it, in all of its falsehood, as truly and thoroughly and devastatingly as anyone else could have done.

I never thought them traitors, but I never thought them slaves, either…and I never knew that they thought of themselves that way.

Zarekael looked down at his Dark Mark, away from her, and she felt that if she left them now, without even trying to undo the damage, the door would close behind her forever.

"That isn't what I meant," she said haltingly.

The apprentice looked up again and, in a tone as dark as his glare, asked, "Then what did you mean?"

Right back where we started, she thought. Except that it's worse every time. And now we've come to the point where, no matter what I say, they won't believe me anyway.

That realization acted as a catalyst that turned her anguish to dynamic anger. To Hell with it, she decided, and abandoned her emotional restraint. "Bloody fucking pronoun!" she burst out. "I didn't mean you chose, I meant he chose! But it started out wrong and got worse from there, which really shouldn't surprise any of us, since that seems to be the only thing I'm capable of anymore!" She felt a tear escape at last and trickle down her cheek. "Oh, fuck!" She actually stamped her foot as more tears followed the first. "We're on the same side, damn it all, and I can never say it right! It never comes out right, and all I ever do is make things worse, and I am so bloody sick and tired of it!" She clamped her mouth shut then, rather than make a bigger spectacle of herself in front of the two astonished Potions teachers, and, throwing her hands up in the air, she sat on the floor and had a good, long cry while the others looked on.

A few minutes passed while she let her tears out, then Snape sighed. "Oh, for God's sake, sit in a chair," he muttered.

While the invitation wasn't exactly friendly, she hadn't the energy to be rude and refuse it, so she silently complied. Once she was settled, Zarekael picked up the half-full whiskey bottle and an extra rocks glass and plunked them down on the end-table nearest her.

"Welcome to our party," he said dismally, then he threw himself on the couch, and Snape fell back into a chair, and there they sat, united in their misery, if in nothing else.

ooo

Meli returned to her rooms long before noon, not having touched the proffered whiskey but dissipated nonetheless, as she faced a very long day of staring at the walls and wrestling with her thoughts. The time really mattered very little, in reality, since she had no windows and wouldn't have been able to sleep in any case. She found herself unable even to drown her sorrows in drink—she hadn't enough will to ponder a bottle, much less open one and partake.

She had counted herself fortunate to be both alive and still Zarekael's friend after the Dursleys' deaths and the near-disastrous conversation that followed, but instead of learning her lesson and just keeping her mouth shut altogether, she had just made the same mistake all over again. And while her life had never once been in danger, the outcome of this face-off was far worse. Snape and Zarekael now felt, once and for all, that they truly could trust only one another, and she had, in the same shot, destroyed any trust they had of her.

Up until that point, she had been their champion, standing up for them or at least, in the case of the summer assassinations, saying nothing to condemn them. Now, however, she had shown herself to be just like everyone else. They had opened the door to Rasa and had instead admitted Amber Ebony—a different face, to be sure, but the same cold accusation.

The worst of it was that, in their eyes, she had defended them publicly then turned around to condemn them privately. She might not be as many-faced as her aunt alleged, but she was most certainly perceived as two-faced, and that was quite enough.

A hollow well of loneliness opened up inside of her, and she drew her knees up to her chin, as a child might when she was trying to disappear. Snape and Zarekael had been the only family left to her; they were the only people in the world whose good opinion mattered. Dumbledore was a distant, if friendly, figure, and Poppy and McGonagall were necessary pleasant acquaintances. Everyone else thought her dead, and after her display in the hospital wing the previous evening, her adoptive family would not be inclined to think well of her if they ever learned that she had been Rasa.

Severus Snape and Zarekael Sel Dar Jerrikhan were, as she had said a year before, the best friends she had…but not anymore. She was left alone, untrusted, trusting few, and thought to trust no one.

All on account of her Gryffindor tongue.

Ever since awakening in the hospital wing after her "death", she had felt her serpent's nature becoming more and more prominent, slowly taking over because it must. Her survival and her anonymity both depended heavily upon her ability to be subtle and cunning, and for that reason alone, the lion would have been forced to bow to the snake. The helpful, if wholly unintentional, influence of Snape and Zarekael had further intensified the effect, to the degree that she wondered if a re-Sorting at the end of the war might just put her in Slytherin instead.

Unfortunately, the transformation had not yet affected the most brazen part of her—her mouth. Her notorious tendency for speaking first and thinking after was woefully intact in all of its glory, and whether or not this occasion would prove to be the last, it was certainly the most costly.

Meli buried her head in her hands and sat motionless in the solitary silence.

I had better get used to it, she thought bitterly. It is only me from now on, after all—God, too, I suppose, but I haven't quite got the hang of conversing with Him, and I can't very well have Him over for tea.

It was an irreverent thought, of course, but she didn't particularly care. If God couldn't take her as she was, that was His problem; she was used to being alone.

Well, she had been at one time, anyway—before an annoying neighbor girl had made it her mission in life to befriend her. Meli hadn't wanted friendship until she knew what it was, but now…It was addictive, she was forced to admit, and withdrawal might not be deadly, but it would certainly be Hell.

From somewhere in the less dark recesses of her mind came, unbidden and manifestly unwelcome, an odd little stanza that refused to go away once it had announced itself:

A towmond o' trouble, should that be my fa',
A night o' gude fellowship sowthers it a';
When at the blythe end of our journey at last,
Wha the deil ever thinks o' the road he has past?

It was Robert Burns, back to haunt her, and this time the words of "Contented Wi' Little", far from comforting, rang through the silence in accusing mockery. Her "towmond o' trouble" was, quite simply, that she now had no opportunity for the comfort of "gude fellowship". And whatever road Robert Burns had walked, Meli Ebony had no comparable assurance that her journey would end happily. It was likelier than not that she and her friends would die long before the war ended, and any of them who didn't stood a good chance of being forced into quasi-voluntary exile or, in the case of the spies, sentenced to Azkaban. The Ministry of Magic was happy to accept help but villainously reticent to reward it.

A heavy pall fell over her as the full weight of her stupidity at last came to bear. Her friends would die, whether sooner or later, believing that she judged and blamed them as the rest of the world did. And if she died first…she doubted that they would grieve for her as she would do for them.

The lion within reared up in protest, demanding that she act now and speak up to prevent such a thing, but for the first time in memory, she firmly reined it in. It was the lion's roar that had destroyed this, and she was not about to allow it a chance to wreak even further damage.

Let Severus and Ruthvencairn judge me by what I do, she decided morosely and without much hope. I shall have to prove myself trustworthy—She broke off the thought and swallowed hard in the wake of a bitter epiphany. Just as they've had to do with Dumbledore, she finished sadly.

It gave her direction, deciding to be their friend even if they were not hers, but she still felt no hope in the moment.

She understood at last—fully and heartbreakingly—the utter despair in Zarekael's eyes when facing Dumbledore after obliviating the Llewellyns.

For the first time since childhood, she tasted misery in its unadulterated form…and it was, indeed, Hell.

ooo

FURTHER AUTHOR'S NOTE: Ah, yes, Cinammon. Rasa is back to work for a bit, and Aunt Amber, while understandably upset, will prove her coolness yet. I'm not sure what you mean by saying this is very Hufflepuff, but to answer your question about names…I suppose it depends on which names you mean. Henry is just a great grandpa's name; as for the rest of the Ebonys, all of the women (with the exception of Meli, who's adopted) are named for colors (Bianca (white), Rose, and Amber). Pretty much any other name in the story was chosen for or evolved out of meanings; I'll be happy to give meanings for any of those you ask about, but if I list them all here, the A/N will be longer than the chapter.

Thanks for your review! More story will be forthcoming soon.
AE