A/N - as you may have noticed, this story is set at the height of the first war agaist Voldemort - but also in 1944.

Repentance – part 2

Severus Snape accepted his fate with a cold, hard dignity that Minerva found terrifying, and all too reminiscent of herself. She saw the moment that hope died in his eyes, the moment he realised that throwing himself on the mercy of his old Headmaster had not saved him – or at least not in the way he had been hoping for. It was all too easy to look at him and remember the boy he had been not so long ago. But it was useless now to ask herself why none of the teachers at Hogwarts had managed to reach him, why none of them had been able to see his ability and his unhappiness. They had abandoned him to his fate – only his own strength had offered him this paltry shot at repentance – and even that might not be enough.

She stayed in the shadows while Albus Dumbledore told the boy, their spy, what his choice was. She didn't move from the darkness when he replied, with a voice that she was sure he struggled hard to keep steady, that he would do whatever was asked of him. Only when her friend and mentor was satisfied did he call her from the corner of the room and she changed back from her cat form to stand before two men.

"What is she doing here?" Now Snape's voice was far from steady and she had to wonder just what it was about her in particular he found so objectionable. It was the Headmaster who replied,

"You need her help – I will teach you to shield your thoughts from Voldemort's, but Professor McGonagall will…"

"Lend me some Gryffindor courage?" Snape's tone was scathing and Minerva didn't tell him that if he wanted to survive he would be better off relying on Slytherin cunning.

"My boy, I've never been a spy, I've never had to live on my wits, I can't tell you what it will be like, what you'll need to be prepared for." She saw Snape's eyes widen as the implication sank in, none of them really needed the sentence to be finished, "but Professor McGonagall has."

She closed her eyes and, just for a moment she was back in a room buried deep within the Ministry of Magic as Albus Dumbledore – a man who had taught her the basics of transfiguration rooted around in her mind looking for lies, evasions, betrayals. Whatever he had found had satisfied him – and although Moody had wanted her to bind herself to them with a spell, Dumbledore had pronounced it unnecessary.

"What did you tell your father when you left Germany?" Moody asked as she had struggled to put aside the disturbing feeling of someone wandering freely through her mind.

"That I needed to put my affairs in order in Scotland – and that I would return in a week."

"You were certain we would accept your help?" She had turned back and met Albus' gaze, disconcerted by the remembered intimacy of just a moment before.

"I have learnt that very little is certain – but I hoped you would not refuse my offer."

"You understand that this will be extremely dangerous? I can teach you to shield your thoughts from Grindelwald, a week is not long to learn such a challenging skill but I am sure you can master the rudiments of it Miss McGonagall. But you will face other dangers, you will need to be on your guard constantly – and there are no guarantees that if you are discovered we will be able to rescue you." Hearing him speak the words had been so much more real than when the thoughts were flying around in her head. And she had known that this was her only chance to back out. She had no intention of taking it.

"Professor – my father, who I love, wishes to give me to his master as proof of his, loyalty. Even if I were to defy him and refuse to return to Germany, I feel sure he would find me and take me back by force. I could ask for your protection, but at a time of war I imagine your resources could be put to better use. Under these circucmstances I do not see that there is much of a choice." Something had flashed in her former Professor's eyes at her words, but the emotion had come and gone too rapidly for her to identify it. All she knew was that after her words his demeanour had changed.

"You realise that you will be called upon to betray your father?" Moody asked. He'd been watching the two of them carefully and even now, years later she wasn't sure what he had been looking for.

"I do."

When she opened her eyes she was standing between two men, who both needed her, albeit in different ways. Snape was looking at her as though he was seeing her for the first time and the Headmaster, her friend, was refusing to look at her at all.

"How long do you think we will have before you are summoned again?" She asked briskly.

"I don't know, it can be days, or weeks or just a few hours. If I do not go when I am called the pain will become worse and when I doeventually appear I will be punished."

"Well, let us hope your master does not feel the need to have you at his side for the next couple of days." She glanced over towards Albus, "one can learn the rudiments of occulmency in a week if one is an apt pupil. I have no doubt that you will do all we ask of you Mr Snape."

Dumbledore didn't know if he could stand here and listen to this, hear Minerva teach Snape what she had learnt from Moody, what she had learnt over the months that she had spent with Grindelwald. He didn't want to remember the result of that time – although there was little he could do to prevent either of them from doing so. He didn't want to face the fact that what he was asking Minerva to relive must be the stuff of her deepest, darkest nightmares.

"Well, I have matters to attend to. Mr Snape, you will receive your first lesson in occulmency tonight – at 6 o'clock, in my study."

Snape's eyes widened as the Headmaster took his departure, and Minerva thought about telling him what he would perhaps learn for himself one day, that the greatest wizard alive was, at times, a coward. That he would never be comfortable facing the consequences of his decisions when he believed they led to destruction and damnation – but that he would make the decisions anyway.

But Albus wasn't the only coward here and she couldn't tell her newest pupil that – or not yet anyway. Instead she relied on her teacher's instincts and in the dryest of voices she began,

"In order to stay alive in the most perilous of circumstances you will need," and here she paused, a smile almost gracing her lips as she remembered the hours when it was drummed into her, "constant vigilance."

TBC