February 1992
Dorea was not looking forward to this.
Not that she was afraid, exactly, or at least not really. If nothing else, she knew Liz wouldn't hurt her. (Couldn't, with the spells they were limited to.) But she didn't take to these things the way she had — Dorea knew she was going to lose, and she, just, didn't care for it, wasn't motivated to push herself to improve the same way Liz was. She couldn't explain why she tried so hard, she just...
Liz had gotten used to being the most dangerous person around, she guessed. For those last couple years at Privet Drive, once she had the Dursleys properly frightened into compliance and could get everyone else to at least leave her alone, nobody had really been a threat to her anymore. Which had been a...novel experience, because for most of the years running up to that everyone had been a threat to her, in one way or another. It'd been disorienting, suddenly catapulted from being defenceless to being the one people were defenceless against — so disorienting she hadn't known what to do with her newfound power over everyone around her. She hadn't done anything with it, really. The horrible things she could have done to people, just because she wanted to and they couldn't stop her, were limited only by her imagination. Controlling too many people at once could be difficult, yes, but handfuls were manageable, Liz could well have turned the town into hell on earth for anyone who annoyed her.
But she hadn't. All Liz had wanted from them was to leave her alone. The residents of Little Whinging should feel thankful for that, she thought.
But then she suddenly wasn't the most dangerous person around. After discovering other people had magic, learning about some of the things they could do, Liz hadn't been too worried. Not at first, not until she'd started running into people who could defend against mind magic.
She couldn't help wondering, sometimes, what she would do if someone she couldn't just overwhelm — like McGonagall, or Dumbledore, or Snape, or Quirrell, or Tonks — what if someone who could defend themselves tried to hurt her? That encounter with Dumbledore had gotten her to look into defensive mind magic of her own (she hadn't had a chance to test it yet, but she was pretty sure she had that mind magic shield mastered by now), but later it'd occurred to her, Dumbledore hadn't actually been trying to hurt her. If someone could shrug off her mind magic assault, then threw a curse at her while she was off balance, she'd be pretty much fucked.
It wasn't a reasonable concern, maybe, it didn't seem likely anyone would be throwing curses at her any time soon. But she couldn't help the constant, low-simmering anxiety that she should be doing something about it anyway.
So, in any practice duel between the two of them — even in a classroom setting, where they were limited to a tiny handful of spells — Dorea was going to get her arse kicked. She simply hadn't gotten nearly as much practice in as Liz already had.
Quirrell shot off a bang from his wand, signaling they were all to start when ready. Liz didn't do anything, let Dorea get off the first shot — if Liz cast immediately, the little duel would end right away. In a near shout, Dorea cast, "Sileat!'
"Contege," Liz said with a swirl of her wand, retreating back a half step. The little yellow-white shield she'd cast, large enough to cover her head and chest, caught Dorea's invisible jinx — which would be why Dorea had used it, harder to block something you can't see — the shield flaring brighter for an instant before she dropped it. "Evertat, vellicet—" Liz darted forward a step, exaggerating the wand motion, the jab starting back and just above her shoulder, coming down hard just as her foot landed. "—cude!"
Somewhat to Liz's surprise, Dorea managed to dodge the knockback jinx (she wasn't exactly quick on her feet), had a shield up in time to catch the follow-up stinging jinx. Liz's bludgeoner, though, smashed right through Dorea's shield charm like it wasn't even there. The white spellglow nailed Dorea in the chest, she let out a hard cough, stumbled back a few steps before tripping and falling hard on her arse.
Reacting more to the sharp pain she caught from Dorea's head than anything, Liz was over there in a second...and then just stood there like an idiot, because she had absolutely no idea what she should be doing. "Er, are you okay?"
"I'm fine." Her voice sounded slightly strained, but Liz was pretty sure she meant it. She was slightly annoyed, yes, but at the least Dorea believed she wasn't actually hurt, and she wasn't especially angry at Liz or anything. Rubbing at her chest, wincing, Dorea said, "Did you really need to hit me that hard? This is going to bruise, you know."
"Sorry," Liz muttered, shrugging uncomfortably.
Dorea sighed, feeling rather exasperated — but, still, not particularly angry. Awkwardly, she clambered up to her feet, little flickers of pain flaring as she moved. "How did you do that, anyway?"
"Which part?"
"Your aim. All three went right for my heart, but your wand was all over the place."
"Oh, you don't have to aim." That was one of the very few things she'd gotten out of the book Dorea had sent her for Christmas, actually — she did like it, of course, most of it was just too advanced for her to really use yet. "I mean, you don't have to aim very well. Magic is directed by intent more than anything, the spell will go where you want it to go. As long as your wand is pointed in the right general direction, at least."
"Huh." For some reason, Dorea felt a little amused. She must be thinking something only somewhat related to what they were talking about, Liz couldn't guess what it was — at least, not without peeking, which she'd promised she wouldn't do just for curiosity's sake. (Both Dorea and Hermione had said it was fine if she looked when they were trying to tell her something and she wasn't quite getting it, but not just because. They probably wouldn't be able to tell if she broke that promise, at least not yet, they were both looking into occlumency...but she kept it anyway.) Whatever it was she was thinking, she didn't say anything about it, silently looked out over the rest of the class.
Today, they'd been brought to the old dueling arena — not the Slytherin one, but one open to the whole school, around a corner and down a hall from the Grand Staircase. It was mostly used by the dueling club, often monopolised by the teams the school sent to compete in this international student tournament thing for their training sessions. (Liz was definitely joining the club next year, first-years weren't allowed.) It wasn't nearly as nice and pretty as the one in Slytherin, made all in the plain stone of the castle, the risers and dueling platforms in dark, rosy woods, the walls for the first ten feet or so covered in panels of the stuff. Only the first ten feet, because the ceiling was very high, arching much like the Great and Entrance Halls.
Which was slightly weird, because she was certain there were some rooms one and even two floors above their heads which should occupy the same space. But Hogwarts did things like that sometimes.
There was still a bit of chaos going on around them, people throwing spells around or calling for Quirrell to come over and reverse some unfortunate prank jinx, some people around moving into second and third bouts. She didn't bother asking if Dorea wanted to go again, she already knew she didn't. Besides, throwing jinxes at Dorea was hardly good practice, and most of their other classmates wouldn't be much better. And this was a Slytherin–Gryffindor class, so half of them hated her for no good reason, they'd probably break the rules and use unpleasant or embarrassing spells that weren't on the approved list. Didn't want to risk it.
And Dorea was still rubbing at her chest. "We can go to the Hospital Wing when we're out of here if you want. Pomfrey should have some stuff for bruises."
Dorea felt even more amused, an odd, soft and warm kind of amusement. "Yeah, that might be a good idea."
Liz opened her mouth to ask her what she was (silently) laughing about, but she cut herself off. She felt him coming before he appeared, his presence on the air around him heavy and sharp, angry and cold, her stomach twisted with anxiety. Dorea's eyes narrowed, obviously noticing her discomfort.
"G-good work, Miss P-P-Potter."
With some effort, Liz forced her voice calm and steady — even as she felt Quirrell brush against her mind, sticky like syrup and poking like burrs hitching onto her clothes. She instinctively pulled into herself, the intangible line between her and not-her growing firmer. Though it was uncomfortably like blinding herself, she couldn't even feel Dorea anymore. "Thank you, sir."
The strange man looked toward her, but not quite at her, his twitchy eyes not meeting hers. Quirrell had been bloody weird from the beginning, the contrast between how he behaved on the outside — meek and stumbling and awkward — and the feel of his mind — hard and callous and cruel. Recently, it looked like he was growing ill, his face gone pallid, his eyes sunken and hands too bony thin. It was unsettling. "If I m-m-may ask, where did you l-learn that?"
"Learn what?"
"You stressed the blu-bludgeoner w-w-w-with an exaggerated som-matic form. That's N-N-NEWT-level D-Defence, Miss P-Potter."
"Oh, that." That was another thing she'd picked up from that dueling book: wand-motions were well and good, but exaggerating them into a full-body gesture tended to make it easier for most people to open up their higher registers — that is, channel more magic more easily, making spells more powerful. The margin was usually small, but it could make a difference. Like, Liz probably wouldn't have been able to get off a bludgeoner strong enough to break through Dorea's shield, and have enough power left over to still hit her hard enough to bruise, if she'd cast it textbook. But, well, apparently what you needed to do was different for each spell, and that basic bludgeoning jinx hadn't been among the examples in the book. Quite honestly, "I'm not sure how I knew to do that. I just did what felt right."
"I see." Quirrell said nothing for a long moment, face blank and eyes empty, his mind lingering around Liz's like a hot knife against her throat. "You should fffeel b-blessed, Miss P-Potter. Few are fortunate enough to have such...useful in-instincts."
"Is that common, Professor?" Dorea asked — blatantly attempting to draw Quirrell's attention off of Liz, because she was a thoughtful person and a good friend like that. (Sometimes Liz wondered why the hell someone like Dorea was friends with her, of all people.) "For people to have natural talent with particular branches of magic, I mean. I'm familiar with the idea of inborn abilities, like metamorphs and parselmouths and the like, but I hadn't heard anything about the kind of intuition you're talking about."
Quirrell turned away from her, his unpleasant presence retreating somewhat, and Liz let out a breath she hadn't been quite aware she'd been holding. "The, there is much deb-b-bate on this topic, M-Miss Black. There have always b-been stories of—"
In mid-sentence, with no warning, Quirrell attacked.
He came as a storm of blades, searing and freezing all at once, her guard let down he tore into her before she could hardly blink. Already lights and shapes were flashing before her eyes, memories half-surfaced murmuring in her ears, but she grit her teeth, focused on the here-and-now. Glaring up at him — she could barely see him, her vision swimming, times not now and places not here jumping in the way — she grit her teeth and dug in. Her nerves shivering and stinging, like lightning shooting through her head to foot, she took a breath, and pushed—
Surprisingly easily, the knives went flying out of her (agony slicing through her in their sudden absence), and her push kept going, staggering Quirrell back. That...shouldn't have been that easy...she didn't think? He came back around quickly, mental blows raining down toward her in a flurry she could barely make sense of — like a tornado that had picked up a million knives (and was also on fire). But Liz had a weird feeling, she just waited, hunkered down for the assault.
It hit, hard, but Quirrell stumbled with his own momentum, like...
Like Liz had better leverage. For some reason.
She waited for Quirrell to pull back to gather himself for the next assault. Even as he started to stab out toward her, she lashed out at him — just like Liz when she'd unthinkingly flailed at Dumbledore, Quirrell was unprepared to defend himself, and since she was dug in better than him, for some inexplicable reason, it was she that pushed right past his sharp, vicious-feeling attack and straight into him.
She didn't see much of anything, Quirrell whipped his memories out of her reach before she could touch them, leaving her drifting in a featureless sea of rage and fire and hatred, screaming at her so high her ears were ringing. But Liz didn't care, she wasn't actually looking for anything. She shouted right back at him, forcing into his head a single thought, leave me alone leave me alone leave me alone leave me alone—
Deadly green fire washed over her, a curse that made her skin melt and her teeth crack, but it wasn't real, they were just memories, and not even hers, she just ignored it all. He hit her and he cut at her, but she was dug in, he didn't have the leverage to do any damage, and—
Alien memories flooded her mind, too many all at once for her to make sense of, whipping by before she could get her bearings — walking along a wooded mountain trail, heads hidden with heavy black hoods bowing to her, laughing at a dinner table with wine sweet and sharp on her tongue, bent over a desk in a library scribbling runes across the page, bodies torn to bloody pieces by curses falling from her wand, her ears half-deafened and ringing as she watched a team of volunteers dig through the rubble, the wind playing with her hair as she flew through the night free and—
Liz staggered as, distracted, she was flung back, nearly falling over — she would have fallen if Dorea wasn't there, Liz clung to her against the room swinging and spinning around her. It righted itself quickly, leaving her gasping, light-headed and sweating from exertion. Her head hurt, hot and sharp and pounding, her spine stinging and sizzling, her chest aching like it'd been sliced open (—snap—), she squeezed her eyes shut and grit her teeth.
"What is it? Liz, what's wrong?"
Quirrell was still right there, she could still feel him, fingers hovering just over her skin, a knife an inch from her throat, she couldn't— "I'm fine, I—" Liz broke off, cleared her throat. "It's, headache. I'm going to see Pomfrey."
"A headache? This isn't a headache, Liz, you—"
I NEED TO GO NOW LET ME GO
Dorea jumped, cringing, but she didn't let go, her arm around Liz's waist and hand on her shoulder only gripping tighter. "What the hell, Liz, did you just—"
Liz pushed her — not with her mind this time, with her hands. One of Dorea's hands caught for a second, but she let go this time, Liz lurched for a couple steps before she remembered how to stand up on her own. The room was a blurry mess around her, she could barely make out anything, yet somehow she knew she was going the right way, a wave of whispers in her wake as she made for the door. She staggered into the hall, putting the class behind her, and kept moving, opening up distance between her and the knife against her throat, the fingers dragging over her.
Before long, the knife lifted away, and she could breathe again.
But the fingers didn't.
She only had a few seconds to wonder what the fuck was going on when they struck.
Another mind, shimmering like oil and stringy like sick, jabbed into her, sliding into her head like fingers into a glove, and it gripped—
—and it pulled—
She stumbled, falling to lean against the hard stone banister of the Grand Staircase, fresh pain shooting through her head, her stomach churned as her vision split, the single image split into two mostly overlapping. She squeezed her eyes shut, tried to push the, the disgusting thing out, pull herself back together.
The thing retreated a little, not pulling away entirely but at least not so deep inside anymore — but it didn't go alone, Liz felt something tear, her head spun and her legs went weak, sliding down the banister to sit on the floor.
Her chest burned, she could feel each line of those zig-zagging scars, like someone had traced over them with a knife, her hand had ended up pressed against them at some point, she hadn't noticed. Her shirt clung to her, something hot and wet and...
Like she was bleeding.
She felt the piece of her that had been pulled away, fuzzily and distantly, as it was torn apart, ripped into tiny pieces that were then ripped into tinier pieces, and the thing swallowed them up, dissolved that piece of her until it wasn't really part of her at all. And the thing grew that much bigger.
Shivering with an overwhelming mix of confusion and terror and horror, Liz clung limply to the banister, gagging, sick pooling around her knees.
But Liz didn't hesitate. Desperate, panicky, she slammed down on the thing with everything she had, falling upon it angry and heavy and slashing. But it was quicker than her, slipping between the knives driving toward it, so Liz pulled back again, and pushed, not cutting at it, but just slapping it with a wide, flat hit, trying to—
A flare of agony ripped through her chest in a wave. And the thing slipped into her again, twisting, grasping...
...from inside of her. She couldn't push it out because there was no one nearby, whatever it was it had no body to go back to, it was already inside of her...
...inside of her scars.
Which meant it was smaller than her.
Liz didn't bother pausing to examine this thought, to wonder what the fuck this thing was, she didn't have time for that. The thing was trying to grab another piece of her, to pull it away and swallow it up, but Liz didn't let it, scrambled to keep every bit of her out of its grip. It was fast, and it was tricky, and it had less of itself to keep track of, but this was her mind, it was hers, this thing would play by her rules dammit, she kept herself back, opening an empty space around the thing, it couldn't reach.
And Liz — bigger than it, there was more of her, she was stronger and heavier — pushed in from all sides at once, squeezing it in place.
RELEASE ME! The voice was anger and pride and hatred, high and piercing — but there was fear, it had made a mistake, attacking her on her own turf, it was in danger and it knew it.
Liz paused a moment to gather herself, focusing. Fuck you.
YOU DON'T KNOW WHO YOU'RE DEALING WITH, YOU STUPID GIRL.
I don't care. Liz pushed in further, squeezing the thing until its edge broke, little bits of it breaking off, and Liz dragged them away, like taking a lick off of a spoonful of ice cream. The pieces of the thing were kind of gross, making her shiver, dry-heaving hard enough her head bumped into the banister. But they were hers now — Liz forced herself into them, like pushing her magic into tea casting a warming charm, made them less like the thing and more like her—
STOP! ARROGANT CHILD, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE MAGIC YOU'RE—
You're trying to kill me. I understand enough to kill you first. Liz pushed in further, lapped up more broken pieces, made them part of herself. Alien memories flashed behind her eyes, but she pushed them away, focused. And I know you're afraid. I must be doing something right.
The thing screamed at her, insults and threats, a million horrible fates flashing across the surface. It was furious, it was evil.
It was terrified.
Liz took another bite.
Dorea pushed back the rest of her uncertainty (as well as she could, anyway), and knocked on the door. There was a brief pause, no more than a handful of seconds, before it gave off a click, swinging open a couple inches. She tilted her head, peeking through the gap. "Sir?"
"Miss Black. Come in, then, and close the door behind you."
Everyone knew Snape had a private potions lab. Of course he did, he managed to squeeze in his own academic work between dealing with the students, apparently publishing in this or that potions or alchemy journal with some regularity, he had to be doing all that somewhere. All the Slytherins knew where it was — in the dungeons down the hall from the common room, a couple doors further than his apartments — though they were told where it was with the explicit instruction to not bother him here outside of an emergency. Who knows, he could be in the middle of something volatile, it could blow up with unpredictable consequences...or Snape could blow up, he didn't like being interrupted.
Today was different, but only slightly. Scrimgeour had said Snape would be in his lab all night and probably most of tomorrow (Potions classes had even been cancelled), working on Liz's treatment — everyone knew something had happened to her, she'd been found unconscious and covered with blood and vomit at the bottom of the stairs in the Entrance Hall (from just a headache, apparently) — if anyone needed to talk to him he would be there. All the normal rules about bringing things to prefects first still applied, but she couldn't talk to a prefect about this.
Snape's private lab was, all things considered, remarkably ordinary. In fact, Dorea suspect it'd once been another potions classroom, back when the student body was large enough to need more than one — some of the desks had been removed, the rest extended into three long tables, but otherwise it looked exactly the same. Except for the absence of all the creepy shite Snape had scattered about here and there in their classroom, of course, Dorea was certain he just did that to mess with people now. Because Snape liked to mess with people, everyone knew that.
He was standing over one of the tables, stripped down to trousers and what looked an awful lot like a non-magical tee shirt, his hair tied back out of his face, his brow and his face streaked with sweat. It was very warm in here, he must have had potions going for hours now. There were four separate potions bubbling away right now, one in a pewter cauldron, two in bronze, and another in... Was that a silver cauldron? That was some seriously expensive equipment and, according to Cassiopiea, was only really necessary for Healers or cursebreakers who dealt with very dark magic.
Dorea bit her lip — they'd been told Liz would be fine, but...
Right now, Snape was fiddling with the pewter cauldron, his lips twitching with unvoiced words, his wand swirling over the potion — stirring it, she guessed. Before Dorea could decide what she wanted to say first, Snape got out in head of her. "Potter will recover, Miss Black. As you can see, it will be no simple process, but the feat is well within our abilities."
Oh, well. That was...slightly reassuring. Dorea hadn't actually been worried before, they'd been told she'd been fine and she'd just taken them at their word, but seeing Snape scrambling to brew four potions at once, that was... Well, his reassurance was only slightly reassuring. "What happened to her?"
"It appears to have been a soul magic curse of some kind."
"A what?!" Soul magic was serious fucking business, it— You didn't play with that! Someone had hit Liz with a sou—
"Don't shout at me, Black, I'm trying to listen."
Er... Listen to what?
Snape twitched, his head tilting to the side a little. He flicked his wand at the pewter cauldron, then moved, picked up a cutting board. There was something chopped up on it, Dorea couldn't tell what, he swiped half of it into each bronze cauldron, followed with splashes of some odd blue-yellow liquid out of a bottle. Each cauldron got a rap of the rim from his wand, then thick steel stirring spoons floated over and started slowly folding the contents over, seemingly on their own. Snape returned to the pewter cauldron, started swirling his wand and mouthing to himself again.
What the hell was he even doing...
"Whatever magic Potter was assaulted with, whoever cast it did not commit the power necessary to achieve their aims, whatever those might be. She fought it off on her own, though she strained herself in the process. She will recover. Was that all you wanted from me, Miss Black?"
Oh, well... "I actually wanted to talk to you about something else, but, er, if now is a bad time..."
Snape let out a brief sigh. "You're already here, you might as well get it over with." He reached for the bronze cauldrons, tapping each with his wand again, turned right back to the pewter. "Pull up a stool, if you like."
"Er, no thanks, I'm okay standing." Not that she could spot any stools from here...or anything to sit on, for that matter. She sort of doubted Snape would be happy with her if she sat on any of the tables."
"Suit yourself. Go ahead, Miss Black — I'm busy, but I am listening."
"It is about Liz. I've been thinking about bringing it to you for a while, actually, I just..." She wasn't sure Liz would be happy with her if she went blabbing to Snape, was the thing. In fact, she was positive Liz wouldn't be happy about it. But Dorea couldn't just...not do anything anymore. This thing with her getting hospitalised out of nowhere really had nothing to do with it.
"What about Miss Potter?" Snape flicked his wand at the pewter again, then another flick, one of the cabinets along the wall banged open, a few pieces of white linen floating over to rest on the table. A few more charms flung at the bronze cauldrons, and Snape levitated them up and tipped them over, a thick orange paste dribbling onto the cloth. "Black?"
"Oh, sorry." It was just distracting, was all. What was that stuff? He shot a quick stream of charms at the stuff — it hardened, a white sheen coming over the surface, lines scoring through it, cutting it into blocky slices. "Er, it's just...been bothering me, ever since I met her, really. I think something's seriously wrong, and I don't know what to do about it."
Snape folded the corners of the linen up, forming a little bundle. "Fennis." A house-elf popped into existence at his hip, practically bouncing with frantic energy, his(?) eyes gleaming. Snape handed him the bundle of whatever that was, and the elf vanished again. "This is Potter we're talking about, Miss Black. You're going to have to be more specific than that."
For a brief second, Dorea was annoyed with Snape for talking that way about Liz, before remembering he'd been in here for, what, had to be nearly ten hours now, working to save her life. Just maybe, he'd earned the right to joke around a little. "Er, you know she's, um...not good with people."
Snape's lips twitched. "I had noticed that, yes. Was there some particular incident that has you—" He was interrupted by a high whistling sound. "Hold that thought. Cover your eyes — in a minute or so it's going to get very bright in here." Snape moved to the silver cauldron, his wand dancing over the surface with... Well, it wasn't an incantation, really, it sounded like Snape was singing. Dorea didn't know what language that was, but she was pretty sure it wasn't Latin. What was he...
Fighting against her own curiosity, Dorea dutifully covered her eyes with her sleeve.
After some moments of Snape whisper-crooning over the potion (she tried not to listen, it sounded very private somehow), the air shivered with a high vibration Dorea could feel in her bones, then there was a sharp crack, the snapping of electricity — and then, as promised, an impossibly bright flash of white-silver light. It was somehow dazzling through Dorea's arm, what the hell. It dissipated quickly, and Snape said, "You can open your eyes now." She did, blinking away the spots in her vision. He'd gotten potion bottles out at some point, had the rim of the cauldron held in a clamp, carefully pouring out a thin stream of intensely white potion, an odd blue sheen shimmering across it now and again. "You were saying?"
"What was that?"
"To effectively counter soul magic, Miss Black, one must use soul magic oneself."
He meant... Was Snape saying he'd just performed a soul magic ritual, right in front of her? Jesus Christ... "Er... Well, I think... Understand, I don't know anything, she's never said, I just..." Dorea paused, her fingers restlessly tapping against her forearm. "You can't tell anyone. I mean, you can't let anyone know you got this from me. Especially Liz."
"Anything you tell me will be held in confidence." Snape conjured a little box, levitated the now filled potion bottles into it all at once. The house-elf appeared again when Snape called, took the box of weird soul magic potions, and popped away again. "May I know what exactly it is I am to hold in confidence?"
Dorea bit her lip for a moment. Might as well spit it out, there really was no delicate way to say it. Besides, if she tried for delicate, she might chicken out. "I think Liz is being abused by her family."
Snape scowled. "That should be in the past tense. When Potter came into her own as a legilimens she put a stop to whatever was being done to her. I'm certain it was absolutely abhorrent — I can think of several things that might have left those scars on her back, and none of them are pleasant — but there's nothing to be done about it now."
She'd already been considering how to word what she wanted to say next, but that quite effectively distracted her. "Wait, scars on her back? You mean her chest, right?" Liz had said there were a whole bunch of them, stretching all the way below her ribs, but Dorea had never really seen much of it. When she was wearing a vest, before dressing for the day, one line stretched out over her shoulder, a couple were visible around her collarbones, that was really it.
For a second, Snape said nothing, just blankly staring at her. "The scars on her chest are from her encounter with the Dark Lord, she's had them since she was an infant." Oh, so that was what those were from. Growing up, Liz had been told she'd gotten them in the car crash that had killed her parents, she'd only assumed it had something to do with the Dark Lord just last summer. "The scars on her back, however, are newer, and quite...suggestive."
That Liz's uncle had been whipping her hard enough to bleed he meant, God... "How did you even know they're there? I've never seen them." Of course, she'd never been in a position to see them, Liz was very shy...
Which, if she had scars from her uncle beating her, that made perfect sense, didn't it! Dorea didn't even know how to process this, just, Jesus...
(It was best to not process it at all right now. It would just be bloody embarrassing if she started crying, and Snape would probably be annoyed.)
"Miss Greengrass caught a glimpse during a flying class back in October, she provided me with the memory of the incident. She believes Potter is unaware she saw anything, but who can say what Potter picked up from her at the time." Snape's eyes narrowed slightly. "It should go without saying, Miss Black, that I expect what I have just told you to be held in confidence, and you are not to let anyone know you got it from me. Especially Potter."
He'd probably thought she'd already known, that these scars were what she was coming to him about in the first place. He must be really distracted if he'd slipped like that. "Of course, sir. If something happens, I'll just say I got it from Daphne, she was concerned, you know."
His brow dipping into a light frown, his voice heavy and cold, "You cannot lie to Potter, Miss Black."
"I know that." Well, she could lie to Liz, she just had to be careful about it. "I wouldn't be lying, sir. You see, I did get it from Daphne. Indirectly."
Snape's displeasure swiftly vanished, he sniffed, shaking his head to himself. "Clever brat." Dorea chose to take that as a compliment. "If that wasn't what was concerning you, what are you here about?"
"Liz didn't go home for Christmas."
"I am aware."
"Well, yes, but, back on Hallowe'en, we—"
Dorea was interrupted by Fennis the elf making a surprise reappearance. He handed Snape a little piece of parchment, the instant Snape read it he let out a long sigh, rubbing at his face with his free hand. "That's ready," he said after a moment, pointing at the pewter cauldron. "Tell me if Poppy is close to running out of anything."
The elf gave Snape a sharp, energetic nod, his long ears flopping about with the motion. He levitated the cauldron with a snap of his fingers, and vanished again.
For a moment, Dorea just watched Snape. He was leaning against one of the tables, rubbing at his face with both hands now. He looked...tired. Of course, he had apparently been working since this morning, and it had to be after eight in the evening now... "Sir? Is something wrong?"
"No, Miss Black, it was good news. Potter is stabilising, she'll be fine." Snape dropped his hands, let out another long sigh. "I believe you were saying something a moment ago, Miss Black."
"Er. Right." Dorea stared at him for another few seconds, her face pulled with what was probably a suspicious glare — Snape had tried to reassure her minutes ago that Liz would be fine, but he clearly hadn't been certain of that, with how relieved he seemed now. The filthy liar. If Liz had actually been in serious danger would he have told her? That, just, was not reassuring, what if she got hurt again, Dorea wouldn't be able to trust a word Snape said...
He met her gaze, staring flatly back, completely impassive. No, there was no point confronting him about that, obviously. Okay.
"Back on Hallowe'en, we... Well, it's a long story, but the short version is most of the Gryffindors are terrible, we went up to pick up Hermione before going down to the kitchens. On the way back, we ran into that troll everyone was talking about the next day."
"You ran into—" Snape cut himself off with another sigh. "I should have known better than to believe Potter truly had managed to keep herself well out of harm's way for the night. I suppose the three of you did at least escape without getting yourselves killed." It didn't quite sound like a Tell me exactly what happened or else.
"Yeah, Liz put the thing to sleep pretty much instantly."
It was very subtle, but Dorea almost thought Snape looked surprised. "Well. That would do it. I suppose you'll be explaining what this has to do with your concerns at some point."
Dorea somehow held back the urge to roll her eyes. "I'm getting there, sir. Hermione and I didn't know she was a legilimens before that, so we asked her about it over dinner. Which, besides telling us that Dumbledore legilimised her the first time they met — and about that, isn't that illegal?" She'd been under the impression the legilimency charm — and Dumbledore had used the charm, Liz was very certain he wasn't a legilimens — was much more invasive than proper mind magic, repeated or inexpert use could cause serious and even permanent damage. Dumbledore probably knew what he was doing, but still...
"Theoretically? Yes. But you'll find there are exceptions in these sorts of laws where a child's legal guardian is concerned. It is fully within our illustrious Headmaster's rights to do whatever he likes to Potter if he feels he has sufficient cause to do so."
For some seconds, Dorea just stared at him, trying to find her voice to make some kind of response to that. She really couldn't think of anything, though. She'd known magical law was sometimes ridiculous, literally medieval, but that was, just, ugh. "Fine, whatever. But, when that happened... Liz said she was living out of a hotel in London. On her own."
"...You're saying Miss Potter ran away from home." Snape's voice had gone completely flat, smooth and precise, empty of any hint of feeling at all. It was actually a little creepy.
Dorea nodded. "She said she left the day she got her acceptance letter. She said Dumbledore brought her back, but... You might have noticed, sir, Liz is kind of a shite liar. I don't think she stayed where Dumbledore put her. I think she stayed here over Christmas because she has nowhere to go."
Something crossed Snape's face Dorea couldn't quite read, something twisted, hateful. "I suspect anywhere is better than going back to her family."
"Yes, sir, I don't doubt that." Especially if they were leaving scars all over her back, just, Jesus, what the hell. "But, what about when summer comes around? They don't let students stay at the castle over the summer, I asked. I'd invite her to come stay with us, but..." They didn't have an extra bed, true, but they could figure something out. If nothing else, she could just put Liz up in one of the Black properties. But she had the feeling Liz wouldn't accept, and she'd probably be annoyed with her for even making the offer.
"You're worried about her."
"Yes, sir."
For long moments, neither of them said anything. Snape stared at her, dark eyes still and sharp, his fingers slowly tapping at the table behind him. It took all her focus (and all of Cassiopeia's lectures) to keep meeting his eyes, staring back unwavering. She probably wasn't doing as good a job at keeping her face blank as he was, though. Her best friend had just been nearly murdered (who?!), and apparently had scars all over her back from... Yeah, Dorea thought she was doing pretty well, but she didn't have Snape levels of self-possession, okay.
Was he reading her mind right now? Supposedly eye contact made it easier — from what Dorea had read (and observing Liz), it wasn't nearly as important for true legilimens as people who used the charm, it was just a matter of attention — and Dorea was pretty sure she wouldn't even notice if he was. She could only tell Liz had just been in her head sometimes from things she said or did.
Finally, after what must have been a minute or two, Snape spoke. "The options available to me when it comes to Miss Potter are somewhat limited. Intervening with her muggle relatives on her behalf would be worse than useless. If I inform the Headmaster, who is at least nominally responsible for her, I suspect he will only attempt to return her to them — I have no doubt she will simply leave again, there is nothing Dumbledore can do to coerce her to stay. Should he miraculously develop the insight to realise the futility of attempting to force her to stay with her relatives, he will make other arrangements; however, I severely doubt Potter will be amenable to any arrangements he might make. She will simply leave again.
"The problem with childhood legilimens, Miss Black, is that they will often refuse to do what they are told if they are not given sufficiently convincing reasons as to why they must. I suspect Dumbledore will find it quite impossible to convince her to stay in a home where she does not want to be."
Dorea tried not to glare at the absent Headmaster. "Can't we find somewhere she'll be willing to stay?"
"I'm certain we could. However, I fear Dumbledore is unlikely to approve of anything Potter would actually consent to, which complicates the matter greatly."
"So, what, there's nothing we can do? We just...leave Liz on her own, who knows where?"
"Not precisely." Letting out a brief sigh, Snape's eyes tipped to the ceiling, just for a second before dropping back to hers. "I will check up on her, over the summer. There is nothing I can do about her legal circumstances, but it is within my power to ensure that her physical circumstances are...tolerable. Would that ease your mind, Miss Black?"
...Well, a little bit, actually. It might not seem like a lot, but if nothing else Snape was probably willing to bend the rules to get what he wanted. And looking after the Slytherins was his job — one which, according to rumour, he took very seriously. There were whispers that he'd literally murdered abusive guardians in the past, Dorea wasn't certain whether she should believe that. (She could definitely imagine Snape murdering someone, but that was a bit...extreme, and what if he got caught?) If that meant compelling the Dursleys to not be terrible somehow or, hell, leasing a flat in his own name and sticking Liz in it, she didn't doubt he would do something like that. "What if she's not where she's supposed to be?"
"That is not a concern. I have ways of finding her, no matter where she might be."
Dark magic. He probably meant dark magic. It wasn't really a secret that he had some practical knowledge of the Dark Arts. So, okay, he probably could, then. Good. "Right. Well. I suppose that might be okay, then. If you're looking out for her."
Snape's lips twitched. "I would have done so if you said nothing. I was not considering what to do, a moment ago, but precisely how much Potter's personal affairs are your concern. On that topic, it should go without saying that I would prefer you not tell anyone of Potter's...particular circumstances."
Dorea couldn't quite hold in a derisive snort — don't let anyone know the Girl Who Lived was abused by her muggle relatives and is maybe also possibly technically homeless right now, he meant. Yeah, she could see how spreading that little bit of news around might be perhaps a little problematic. Not that she cared, Dorea thought she would — if nothing else, if everyone knew what was going on someone might actually do something about it — if she weren't certain Liz didn't want anyone to know, and would absolutely hate the attention the scandal would turn on her.
Of course, she was fully aware the larger part of her reluctance to, just, write into the Prophet about this stuff was that she knew Liz would be angry with her. So she couldn't help hating herself a little as she muttered, "Yes, sir."
"Was there anything else, Miss Black?"
It...kind of felt like there should be. This had been one hell of a conversation. (Dorea didn't even want to think about the scars Liz apparently had all over back, Jesus Christ...) But she couldn't really think of anything. Snape said he was on it, so, she'd just have to...accept that. Fine. Okay. "No, sir. See you tomorrow."
Dorea was already at the door, her hand an inch from touching the handle, when Snape stopped her with a flat, "Miss Black." She turned to see he was still staring at her, his head slightly tilted, clearly thinking about something but none of it showing on his face. After a long, somewhat awkward pause, he said, "Twenty points to Slytherin."
Oh. Er. "Thank you, sir," sounded like not quite the right thing to say, but she couldn't think of anything else. Before Snape could do or say anything else confusing or uncomfortable, Dorea opened the door, and fled toward the dorms.
She had far too many things to think about.
Liz woke up slowly, reluctantly, numb and tired.
She felt raw.
Like Dudley had shoved her and she'd fallen scraping skin against asphalt, or like that time she'd accidentally swiped her hand across a cheese grater. That was the best thing she could come up with, but it wasn't quite right — it wasn't a physical thing, but a mental one, her thoughts scattered and broken and painful. When she woke up, she wasn't even entirely conscious of being conscious at first, too unfocused, floating mindless in an odd mix of warmth and cold, numbness and pain.
Slowly, her...everything started working again. She realised she was lying on her back, her chin tipping up at an angle that told her she didn't have a pillow. The bed wasn't her own, the sheets feeling smoother, the mattress firmer. There was a scent of... Well, she wasn't sure what it was. Faintly green, she guessed, with a bittersweet tang to it that vaguely reminded her of the potions storeroom. As she woke up further, she noticed tingles of magic on the air, an almost tangible warmth pressing against her skin, as though she were sitting out under the sun.
Which was necessary, because she was lying out on the bed completely naked.
Well, no, not really, it just sort of felt like it. She felt a blanket over her legs, coming up to low over her hips, and she had shorts on. But that didn't really make her feel much better. Liz had tried the underthings mages wore, but she did not like them. They were usually made out of this soft, silky cloth, and rather looser than she was used to — somehow, she felt too aware that she was wearing them, the cloth shifting and rubbing against her skin, while simultaneously feeling strangely naked, as though she weren't wearing underwear at all. She much preferred the cotton knickers she was used to, she'd picked up a couple packs of cheap ones while staying in London.
These shorts were a bit longer than the magical pants she'd tried, and the cloth was different, she suspected they weren't actually meant to be worn as underwear. But she was all too aware they were the only layer she had on.
It was making her very uncomfortable.
As she tried to control the anxious tingles rising all over her, keep her breathing level, she noticed something pulling at her chest. It took her a moment to figure out what those probably were: bandages. She vaguely remembered she'd been bleeding, before she'd passed out. Probably quite a lot, judging by how her shirt had been clinging to her.
Which was weird. The only thing she could figure had happened was that the lines covering her chest had opened up, but...why? They did sort of hurt, a bit, whenever Quirrell was around, but they'd never bled before.
She started remembering Quirrell attacking her, then fighting that thing, but she shoved it away. She felt too unsteady to think about all that right now.
What she did want to do right now was get some bloody pants on. They had to have her clothes somewhere around here, right? Liz opened her eyes, wincing as the light stabbed into her skull, her vision swirled for a moment, splitting in two and coming back together, then a second time and a third, but it quickly settled. There was a white tiled ceiling above her, floor-to-ceiling curtains a couple metres away from the bed, but she couldn't see much at this angle. She shifted, moving to sit up.
A wave of cold agony shot over her chest the instant she tried to move. Liz clenched her teeth, failed to bite back a pained groan.
A few seconds later, there was a metallic rattle, a section of the curtains being whipped away and closed again. Liz felt the person's mind immediately, sharp and intense, undercut with a sort of low-bowling anxiety. "Good, you're awake. Don't sit up just yet, Miss Potter, I'll need to take a look under your bandages first."
Liz glanced to her right, finding the woman after a moment struggling to focus. Middle-aged, in the narrow-cuffed white and green robes Liz had learned in Charing were associated with Healers, reddish brown hair pulled into a tight bun, her face thin and severe-looking. She walked up to the side of her bed, set a few bottles on a nearby nightstand, something she couldn't see on the floor. And then she reached for her — Liz flinched, the motion pulling painfully at her chest.
The woman paused, staring down at her, her face slightly softening. The shift in her mind was more dramatic, warm pity blossoming just under the surface. "My name is Poppy Pomfrey. I'm a sworn Healer. I will not harm you, Miss Potter. Not ever."
Liz swallowed. She knew that. Healers took oaths and stuff, the magical kind that had actual consequences if they broke them. They could break them, and it didn't, like, kill them, or anything like that, but it was supposedly uncomfortable, like getting a bad flu that lasted until whatever suffering they'd caused ended. (Which was sort of neat magic, when she thought about it.) So, there was nothing to worry about. It was fine. She was fine.
Over the next minutes, Pomfrey carefully peeled off her bandages, starting at the thinner lines around the edges and working her way inward. They stuck to her skin a bit, but it didn't bother her so much — at least, not the actual pulling them off part, once they were gone the lines on her chest burned in the open air. Not overwhelmingly painful, but certainly distracting. But they started to sting a bit as Pomfrey got closer to the middle, worse and worse as she went along, and Liz grit her teeth, her spine starting to shiver with nerves, this had to be over soon, didn't it...
A gasp was yanked out of her as Pomfrey gently pulled at another bandage, hot pain shooting through her for an instant. "Oh dear, shh shh..." A charm of some kind broke over her, cool and tingly, and the lingering echo instantly vanished. Pomfrey cast the charm every time before she pulled at a bandage, pausing every centimetre or so to cast it again. It didn't stop it from hurting entirely, she still winced at twinges here and there, but it did seem to help a bit. Though the last, right in the middle, was the worst, Liz grit her teeth through it, her fists clenched. "There we go, Miss Potter, that's all of them. Let's get this cleaned up."
Liz heard a splash, a long trickle of water. It didn't take her long to figure out what Pomfrey intended to do — her chest did feel weird and sticky, there must have been some kind of potion or something under those bandages. She bit her lip, trying not to shiver. She wasn't cold, that charm was still hovering over her, like sitting out under the summer sun, but she was uncomfortably aware of the fact that she was naked from the waist up, not even the bandages were covering her anymore, and she didn't— She was trying to manage it, there wasn't anything she could do about what was going on right now really, but she couldn't help the uneasy sparks tingling along her limbs and her spine and—
"Would you like a calming potion, dear?"
She let out a sigh, thick and shuddering. "Yes, just a little bit." It wasn't so bad she needed to go completely floaty, but...
The process of actually taking the potion was uncomfortable — Pomfrey had to help her sit halfway up, her arm under her naked shoulders, the heat along her scars flaring — but it was entirely worth it. She wasn't exactly happy about Pomfrey mopping at her chest with a damp rag, but at least she wasn't on the edge of freaking out over it.
Though, it was sort of nice, actually. She thought there might be some kind of potion in the water — there was a faint tangy scent to it, and whenever she passed over a burning line the heat subsided. Closer to the edges, the pain went away entirely, and though it still lingered toward the middle it was certainly a lot better than it'd been at the beginning. She wouldn't have minded the whole thing, if Liz didn't feel so very exposed and if it weren't being done by a complete bloody stranger.
Pomfrey finished up with a couple gentle spells — drying charms, she thought. "All done, Miss Potter. Now, have these scars always bothered you? I mean, have they always been...red and puffy, never healed all the way?"
"I guess." Honestly, Liz hadn't thought that meant they'd never properly healed. She'd just assumed scars were like that...though, none of her other scars were, obviously, so that was sort of silly.
"I thought as much. I want to show you something, let's sit you up." That process wasn't particularly pleasant either, Liz all too weak and stiff, she tried not to cringe away from Pomfrey's arm. At least she didn't keep holding her, slid her back against the padded headboard so she could stay up on her own. Once she was settled, Pomfrey conjured a sizeable mirror with the twitch of her wand, propped it just under her knees.
The first thing Liz noticed was the dark, ragged mess at the centre of the network of scars she'd always had twisting across her chest, looking quite nasty — something had definitely happened with these things, yep, no doubt about that. The scars started from a central point, somewhat low and to the left (directly over her heart, she knew now), a few thick lines toward the middle branching out into over a dozen thinner lines toward the edges. Sort of like a grotesque snowflake, she'd always thought, or like... She didn't know what they were called, those balls with the lightning in them. The middle spot had never looked that different than the rest, just a little raised from the rest of her skin and kind of reddish, but now...
It kind of looked like something had burst out of it from the inside. The surface had been smooth before, but now it was all uneven and torn-looking, the disturbance spreading a little bit into the nearby thicker lines, and... Well, some of her veins were strangely visible, threads of a deep blue — nearly black, which she didn't think they should be — with little darkened bits here and there. Not like red dark, black dark, little flecks at the centre and stretching out in narrow bands into the nearest lines, which was just...
The whole thing looked pretty awful, and slightly scary — what the hell had happened to her?
She nearly didn't notice Pomfrey was talking to her, too distracted by the mess made of her chest. "There was quite a nasty curse suspended all throughout here, I'm afraid, but most of it is released now. Many of these around the edges," she said, fingers drifting over her skin but not quite touching, "we managed to cleanse entirely. You will probably notice them start to fade over the next weeks. They won't vanish all the way — and they'll still be considered curse damage, I'm afraid, so I can't remove them with the means available to me here — but they will certainly become much less noticeable with time.
"Toward the middle here, though," she said, indicating the stuff at the centre, "is a different story. These blackened bits you see here are stains from some very dark magic. You'll notice some of your veins were affected too, where it got into your blood. Further treatment will lighten this a bit, and some of these edges, where it looks like your skin was torn, these will smoothen out some. It won't fade entirely, but it's not going to look like this forever.
"When you're released, probably tomorrow morning, you'll be leaving with a special healing potion diluted into a skin cream. You are to rub it into the more unpleasant looking parts twice a day — once shortly after waking, and again before bed. Only enough to be fully absorbed, wipe off any extra that isn't. It's not dangerous to leave it there or anything, but it will stain your clothes, and the elves won't be able to get it out. You'll check in with me once a week, come in at any time over the weekend and I'll evaluate how you're healing up. I can't guess how long you'll need to do it, we'll have to see how you're coming along. I'll explain this all again when you're released.
"Do you have any questions for me, Miss Potter?"
Not any she expected an answer to. Pomfrey hadn't mentioned the thing she'd had that mental battle with, Liz had the feeling asking what the hell it was wouldn't get a straight answer — even if Pomfrey did give her an answer, Liz probably wouldn't understand it anyway. (She was well aware her knowledge in most topics was, well, she was eleven...) So she shook her head.
Pomfrey hesitated for a moment, something in her head churning. "Is there anything you would like to tell me? Anything you tell me, anything we do here, I cannot repeat any of it to anyone."
Liz blinked. "No?"
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
Her severe face folding a bit in a frown, Pomfrey muttered, "All right." She obviously doubted her, thought Liz was holding back something, though she couldn't imagine what. She bent down to pick up the thing she'd set down on the floor — a little bucket, Liz could see now, must have had that potioned water in it. "Professor Snape asked to be informed when you woke up. I believe he wishes to discuss what happened with you. He should be here shortly. I'll be outside if you need anything, Miss Potter." She turned to go.
"Oh, wait!" The Healer paused, glancing over her shoulder. "Could I, er, get a shirt or something?" Especially if Snape was going to be here soon...
Pomfrey's lips twitched. "Of course, I'll be back in a moment."
She only waited maybe thirty seconds before Pomfrey was back, with a sleeveless shirt made out of the same material as the shorts she was already wearing, in a sort of pale khaki green. Except, it wasn't a shirt, exactly, it was long enough it would probably nearly reach her knees. Liz blanched at the thought of getting it down over her hips — that would require moving, she was far too weak and achy to want to do that just now. Instead she just let the excess pool around her on the bed, bunched up on her thighs, pulled the blanket up to her waist. There, that was fine.
She still felt uncomfortably exposed, the cloth thin and not covering quite so much of her shoulders as she would like, and she'd probably be cold if that nice warming charm weren't still there. But there wasn't much she could do about that.
Belatedly, as Pomfrey vanished past the curtain into the rest of the Hospital Wing (she assumed, never been here before), Liz realised what Pomfrey had been hinting she could talk about. Someone had changed her out of her clothes, most likely Pomfrey herself. She'd probably seen... Well, she'd never seen them herself, obviously, but she assumed there would be marks.
Liz had absolutely no idea how to feel about that.
When Snape showed up, what might have been maybe an hour later, Liz was busy poking at her Transfiguration essay. It'd only taken thirty seconds after Pomfrey's disappearance to become very bored, but luckily her wand was on the nightstand (next to the partial bottle of calming potion and a pitcher of water), and her book bag was sitting on a nearby chair, it was easy enough to levitate the thing over. The only real homework she had at the moment was for Transfiguration (blech), and she'd wavered on whether she should try working on it — and whether she could get an excuse not to do this one, she had been hospitalised — before surrendering and just doing the damn thing.
Besides, McGonagall probably wouldn't let her off for anything less than an extended coma. She was very strict, it was annoying.
She jumped when a section of curtains was whipped aside — she winced as her chest flared, barely stopped herself from pressing a hand to the hot ache over her heart. (Touching it did not make it feel better.) Snape swirled his way into her little blocked-off nook, snapping the curtains closed behind him again. Before even glancing at her, his wand was in his hand, shivering pulses of magic flying off him one after the other. They didn't fade away, they might be palings, she thought.
Then he turned to face her, eyes dark and face stony, she cringed as mental fingers brushed over the surface of her mind. He didn't push inside at all, but it was still unnerving. The examination (she thought?) ended quickly, Snape's tension only slightly easing. "What is your name?"
She blinked. "Er, Elizabeth Potter?"
Snape conjured a sheet of paper, pulled a pen out of his pocket, held the both of them out to her. "What is the date? You've been out for a little bit, so the month and year will suffice."
"February Ninety-Two?" She took the paper and the pen — a muggle-made pen, she noticed — absently wondering what the hell these were for.
"Draw a clock, showing the time nine-fifteen." For a second, Liz stared up at him; Snape just stared back. She sighed, but obeyed, setting the sheet along the cover of her Transfiguration text, and started drawing a big circle. Carefully, circles were hard. "Repeat these words after me, and try to remember them: house, blue, daffodil, hand, cotton."
Once her circle was done, she wrote in the 12 first, then the 6 across from it, then the 3 and the 9 before filling in the rest. "Wait, what?" She hadn't been paying attention, circles were hard...
Snape's eyes narrowed. Slower, sharper, he said, "Repeat these words after me, and try to remember them: house, blue, daffodil, hand, cotton."
Liz grumbled, but obeyed. And then she counted backward from a hundred by sevens. Then she repeated a sequence of numbers, then a second sequence, but backward. (She messed up the second one a little bit, she thought she had two of the numbers in the middle switched around.) He asked if she knew where she was, then to list off as many cities in Britain as she could think of, who the Prime Minister was, as many names of her classmates as she could think of. (She was certain she got all the Slytherins, but she was a lot more spotty with the other houses.) After a couple minutes of silly questions, he asked her to repeat the list of words she'd been told to remember. She thought she had them all? He asked her if she was certain the colour was really "black", but she was pretty sure...
"All right," Snape said, crumpling up her clock drawing and vanishing it with a flick of his fingers. "That'll do, I suppose."
"Are you going to tell me what this is about now?"
One of his eyebrows ticked up. "You suffered a significant mental shock. A quick evaluation of the patient's basic cognitive function is called for in these cases."
"Oh." She frowned to herself for a moment. "Pomfrey didn't do any of that."
A wave of exasperation rose from Snape — she almost thought he should be rolling his eyes, but he didn't, the feeling didn't show on his face at all. "Poppy is a Healer of the body. She tends to pass on dealing with any potential neurological or psychological issues to me." Snape pulled over one of the spindly little arm chairs, gracefully swooshed down to a seat. (It really was silly, how his robes kept dramatically swishing all over the place, it was hard to take Snape seriously sometimes.) "I assume you have questions."
"What happened? What the hell was that thing?"
For a brief moment, Snape silently stared at her. Deciding what to tell her, she assumed — or perhaps simply how to word it, she decided she could give Snape enough of the benefit of the doubt to not assume he intended to hide anything important from her. "When the Dark Lord was defeated that Hallowe'en, he did not fully die. He endures yet in a diminished state, a shapeless spirit with little magical strength of his own. At some point over his life, he must have done some sort of magic to protect himself from true death."
As Snape spoke, Liz felt her eyes go wide. Not exactly at the revelation that this Dark Lord person was apparently still around somewhere — though, that was sort of a big deal when she thought about it, but if he was really so badly weakened it probably didn't matter. She was mostly wondering, "You can do that?"
Snape's head rang with dark amusement. "I tell you the Dark Lord yet lives, and that's how you respond?"
Liz shrugged, strangely uncomfortable all of a sudden. She was just curious, okay. Magic did all kinds of neat things, and... Well, death was sort of...bad, wasn't it? If people could, just, not die, that seemed...like a...good thing?
"There are multiple different methods through which one may extend one's life, some more effective than others, some rather more ethically dubious than others." One of his eyebrows ticked up. "The most effective tend to involve a ritual human sacrifice at some point."
"Oh, well, never mind, then." She was assuming doing ritual sacrifices was a bad idea, for reasons she wasn't aware of right now. (There had to be a downside, or people would do it all the time, right?) If for no other reason, if she went running around murdering people to fuel neat magic she'd probably be caught at some point.
Snape's lips twitched, as though he was trying not to smile. "Understand, I have no proof of this — and I cannot determine for certain, one way or the other, now that it has been destroyed. But I suspect that, when the Dark Lord was destroyed that Hallowe'en, he left something of himself behind. You've been carrying it with you all these years. But now it is gone, nothing of it remains."
"That thing was..." Now that she thought about it, Liz vaguely recalled the gross, slimy thing had been yelling something about Liz not knowing who she was dealing with. Which, at the time Liz had thought that was a bloody stupid thing to say, obviously she'd had no idea who she'd been dealing with. She also hadn't cared. And, honestly, she didn't care that much now, either. She'd won, it was dead, what did it really matter? "What the hell was it trying to do? It felt like it was trying to eat me."
Something dark crossed over Snape's face and mind, thick and cold. "It was, in a manner of speaking. Judging by the details of your injuries, I suspect this fragment of the Dark Lord was attempting to subsume your mind and soul for its own."
That sounded...ominous. "Subsume?"
Snape hesitated, mind flinching with uncertainty, but just for a moment. "What I am about to tell you you are not to speak of with anyone. Not. Anyone. Understood?"
Slightly unsettled by the quiet ice on his voice despite herself, Liz nodded. "Yes, sir."
"Subsumption is one of the more esoteric Dark Arts, though it is more a process than it is any particular class of spells. Broadly speaking, any work of magic that involves absorbing energy from an outside source and converting it to the user's ends may be considered a form of subsumption. Some applications are legal, or at the least harmless enough law enforcement turns a blind eye. The most widely acceptable form is entirely defensive: one can leech at the magic of a spell acting upon oneself, allowing one to break simple hexes or curses without the need of a formal spell. It is possible for a mage to draw on local ambient magic, or perhaps energy focused by a ward or enchantment, to increase the power of their spells — Professor Flitwick has some talent with that particular technique, he was known for it back in his professional dueling days.
"Some applications," Snape muttered, his voice low and slow, "are rather less generally permissible. It is possible for one to absorb outside magic and integrate it into oneself — doing so, one can gain a new affinity for a particular sort of magic, or simply augment one's channeling threshold. These effects can be temporary or permanent, though permanent ones are rather more difficult to achieve. Mind mages such as ourselves have available to us our own particular brand of subsumption. It is possible to reach into another person's mind, steal knowledge or a memory, and consume it, make it your own.
"In its most extreme form, a small number of individuals have been known to consume not the part, but the whole, integrating the entirety of a person's mind and soul into one's own. If done correctly these mind mages, now referred to as bodysnatchers, can leave their previous body behind to die, walking away in complete, permanent control of the new one, every trace of its previous resident destroyed."
Oh. Well. That was...unnerving. Even through the lingering effects of the calming potion she'd taken earlier, even though Snape was just talking about it, Liz still got a creeping sense of horror. She almost felt like shivering, in spite of the warming charm still over her bed. (She might have to learn this, she quite liked it.) It took a moment to find her voice, her mouth feeling annoyingly dry — she poured herself some more water while she dithered, probably needed it. "Um. That's what it was trying to do, then? Take over my body."
Snape nodded, looking mostly calm on the outside, but not quite managing to hide from her the simmering rage under the surface. "Yes, I believe so. It was very foolish. The fragment had likely been unaware you are a legilimens yourself, if it were it shouldn't have made the attempt. We do have some significant resistance to external mind magic, legilimens are far more difficult to subvert in such a way. Though I am impressed you managed to subsume the fragment yourself."
"Was that what I did? I didn't really know what was going on, I just sort of...killed it before it could kill me, you know." Come to think of it, it was sort of funny that she'd apparently used scary, evil Dark Arts for the first time, and hadn't even realised she was doing it.
...She should probably take the idea of the Dark Arts more seriously than she did. She couldn't help it, people (Gryffindors) kept referring to her useless ability to talk to snakes as a Dark Art, it had made the whole subject just seem kind of silly...
"I did anticipate as much." Reaching into his robe for something (Liz tried not to tense), he said, "Mind magic subsumption is a very obscure art, and it can be volatile if not performed correctly. All too easily, subjects of such an assault can be driven completely insane. A reckless legilimens can even destabilise their own mind, if they are not careful. Such acts are also illegal to begin with, of course."
Snape mentioning that part last was somehow funny, Liz couldn't help smiling back at him.
Not that he was smiling at her, though he was giving her a sardonically raised eyebrow, which was pretty much the Snape-ish equivalent. He held a notebook out toward her, a pen clipped onto the cover. "Your mind is seemingly stable, but it is very likely the process is not complete. I want you to write down any memories or feelings that don't seem quite right, or disturbing dreams you might have. If these become too frequent, too intrusive, or too disorienting, we may have to consider further treatment options. So far as things stand at the moment, however, I believe you will be fully recovered within the week."
Liz took the notebook. At this point, she wasn't at all surprised it was muggle-made — for supposedly having been a Death Eater, Snape sure used a lot of muggle stuff. "So, there won't be any effects from eating the thing?"
"I didn't say that. Without knowing what condition the fragment was in when you subsumed it, or how efficient your amateur attempt was, I simply cannot say what those effects will be. It is likely you will wander more easily into the thoughts of the people around you for a time, until you adapt. It is less likely, but possible, that you may have inadvertently increased your channeling threshold — your spellcasting may be more powerful, and more difficult to properly focus. As your mind's slightly altered form fully settles, you might find you remember scattered events from the Dark Lord's life. This would be normal, and not a cause for concern. But if your subsumption of the fragment was...incomplete, these memories may become distracting, or overwhelming. It is not unheard of for one in your position to become convinced they are the person the memories were subsumed from, for brief moments at least. However, you have no experience in such magics, so it's very likely the fragment's memories lost coherence in the process. You may not remember anything of his at all. I suspect that result is most likely, in fact."
"So, write down anything that does come up, just in case, but it probably won't be a problem."
"Probably not, no."
"Okay." Liz wasn't entirely certain what to think about that. On the one hand, getting memories from an older person who'd known a lot more about magic than she did was kind of neat, in theory — even if the person in question was this awful Dark Lord who'd killed her parents, and who knew how many other people. Really, there was no telling whether the memories she ended up with would be actually useful fancy magic things, or unpleasant Dark Lord things. And, well, the idea of getting so lost in them she forgot who she was was, just, terrifying.
It hadn't taken Liz long to realise that she did not like mind-influencing magics, of pretty much any kind. Inside her own head was pretty much the only place that had always been solely hers (or mostly, anyway), it was the one thing Vernon and Dudley and Petunia or anyone else hadn't been able to take away from her, and... Okay, some of the stuff mages had come up with that messed with people's heads was just fucking scary — making people think or feel things, force them into waking nightmares, erase their memories or replace them with whatever the caster wanted...
When Liz had learned love potions actually existed, she'd been confused to find they were perfectly legal — that was just fucking weird, she was pretty sure rape was illegal in magical Britain, and what the hell else could they possibly be for? They were banned in Hogwarts...well, unofficially banned. When Snape had been hired, he'd moved all the books in the library that described how to brew any love potion into the Restricted Section — which included the textbook the professor before Snape had been using for NEWT students, because of course it did — and while they weren't officially contraband most of the rest of the professors acted as though they were, especially Sinistra, Sprout, and Babbling (the Runes professor).
Snape, Sinistra, Flitwick, and Babbling apparently had a reputation for, when a student had done something especially bad, coming up with some kind of ironic punishment for them — because for some offences, writing lines just wasn't good enough. Just this year, a sixth-year Ravenclaw had been caught slipping a girl a love potion (the rumours didn't say who, just that she was in Hufflepuff), and shortly afterward someone had slipped him a potion that had apparently done something especially embarrassing to him that had ended with him spending a few days in the Hospital Wing. No one knew for certain who had poisoned him, they weren't stupid enough to get caught, but the students generally assumed it was Snape or Sinistra, or possibly both.
That was months ago now, and he was still in detentions with Flich. Love potions might not be technically illegal, but it was obvious certain staff members took them very seriously anyway.
Liz realised she was pretty much a huge fucking hypocrite, considering how much she'd messed with other people's heads (and that she didn't plan to stop), but the idea of someone else messing with her head was, just, it— She didn't like it, okay. She'd learned that mind magic shield for a reason, and she planned to find a bracelet or necklace or something that could detect potions the next time she could get to London. Getting lost enough in stolen memories that she forgot who she was, even temporarily, wasn't quite the same thing, but the idea was still seriously bloody unnerving.
"Thank you, sir."
One of Snape's eyebrows ticked up, a question hanging on the air.
"You said I got a big mental shock, and that Pomfrey doesn't do mind stuff — I assume I would have needed treatment after that, er, subsumption battle, and you would have been the one to do it. So, thank you for...not letting me accidentally drive myself insane. Is what I'm saying."
For some reason, Snape seemed faintly...uncomfortable. It was subtle, nothing showed on his face at all, just the slightest odd shiver on the air, but... "Think nothing of it, Miss Potter." A flick of his fingers dispelled the palings he'd cast and, with a swirl of his robes and some more rattling of the curtains being whipped around, he was gone.
...All right, then. She'd just been trying to be polite, she couldn't possibly have fucked it up that badly. She really didn't get that man sometimes.
Turning her thoughts away from confusing Potions professors and scary (but fascinating) Dark Arts and not-quite-dead Dark Lords, Liz turned back to her Transfiguration essay. Which was rather difficult — those topics were all far more interesting than McGonagall's class, she hated Transfiguration.
Maybe she should see if she could get Pomfrey to write her a note. She was in hospital, for fuck's sake, that had to count for something...
As usual, I'll be altering a lot of the canon incantations, because they bother me. A lot of them are bad fake Latin, which is irritating enough, but one particular pet peeve of mine is how so many charms are just the person shouting out a noun, which is just... Wouldn't you think a magic spell should be a verb, or at least involve a verb somewhere? I mean, you are doing something. It's weird.
sileat — This is a silencing jinx, from the verb for "to be silent" inflected into the third-person subjunctive. You'll notice many of my jinxes/hexes are going to end in -t, I use third-person subjunctives a lot, for grammatical reasons that aren't super important to blab on about here. Honestly, the canon "silencio" is one of those weird noun spells, and isn't even Latin, it's Spanish. Very silly.
(The HP wiki stubbornly insists "silencio" is Latin. No, it's not. That "-cio" ending is proof all by itself — that's a later innovation in latinate languages from the "-tiō-" found in some nouns/adjectives. The closest I can find to "silencio" is the adjectival form "silentiōsus", which has various declined forms, none of which is "silencio", because "silencio" is not Latin. This annoys me more than is in any way reasonable, I'm a nerd, I know, but they have a link to Google Translate on the wiki like SEE IT'S LATIN. No. No, it's not. Stop. Please stop.)
contege — This is a basic shield charm, easier to cast than the standard one but smaller and weaker, pretty much only useful for people too underpowered or underdeveloped to cast a better one. The word is from Latin for "to conceal, protect", inflected into the imperative (which is also a common inflection, for grammar reasons that– etc etc).
evertat — This is a knockback jinx (canon "flipendo"), from a verb for "to overturn, throw down".
vellicet — This is a basic stinging jinx, from a verb for "to pluck, pinch".
cude — This is a weak bludgeoning jinx, from a verb for "to strike, pound".
omg why do I have another chapter of this finished already, I meant to work on other things...
For those wondering, why Snape is taking a very different approach with Liz than... Well, I was going to say "in canon", but that's not right, canon!Snape isn't even on the table — I prefer to write Snape as the sort of person JKR wants us to believe he is than the one he's actually depicted as in the books. (The books have a very serious problem with demonstrated and informed traits not matching up.) Let's put it, the reasoning behind the different approach Snape takes with a Slytherin Boy/Girl Who Lived than he would if they were in Gryffindor has been mostly explained in subtext by this point. It was actually rather explicit in the scene with Dorea, probably as close as this fic will ever get to talking about it directly.
It amuses me that it doesn't quite click to Liz that the "downside" to ritual magic that involves human sacrifice is, you know, the killing people part. Silly little sociopath.
The next chapter will be the end of first year. I can't say for certain, but I anticipate second year will actually be pretty short — the diary fiasco isn't going to go even close to how it did in canon. Plotting it in my head as I sit here, it should probably only be three...maybe four chapters including summer, we'll see.
—Lysandra