Sunday December 1. Evening. Hogwarts Castle
Reluctantly, Harry made his way down to Professor Snape's office. He was not feeling at all well. In the past day or so he had been kidnapped by Voldemort, re-kidnapped by an insane Australian wizard for who knew what sort of sinister purpose, and had somehow upset Dumbledore. On top of that, he had had nothing to eat or drink except a little bit of tea in Dumbledore's office. As a result, he walked as slowly as he could, trying to delay the unhappy moment when he would have to speak with Snape as Dumbledore had told him.
As unhappy as Harry was, he was even more upset after he knocked on Professor Snape's door. He heard a muffled invitation to enter, and the door swung open. As soon as he came in, he could see that Severus Snape was not at all a happy man. In fact, he had not had such an expression of fury on his face, since Harry had poked his nose into his pensieve last year.
Snape pointed a long finger at Harry, a look of undisguised loathing on his face. "Sit." He told Harry, pointing at an uncomfortable looking wooden chair.
Not wanting to further contribute to whatever it was that had the Potion's Master in such a foul mood, Harry sat wordlessly down. There was a shimmer of a silvery phoenix sitting on Snape's desk. It was Dumbledore's Patronus. Which was rather odd,. Harry thought. It had taken him nearly 30 minutes to get from Dumbledore's office to Snape's. Surely Dumbledore's patronus should have long since delivered whatever message it had to Snape, and have then vanished. Just then Snape noticed him gazing at it, and waved his wand, dismissing the ethereal creature.
"Rather nosey, aren't you Potter." Snape said nastily.
"No sir." Harry did not think this was at all fair. He could hardly help from seeing the shining Patronus if it was sitting right there, could he?
"You're a liar, Potter. 10 points from Gryffindor. Now sit there and stop looking at things that don't concern you, until I'm ready to talk to you."
Harry stared at the floor, counting cracks, burn marks, and stains. He noticed a silvery shimmer out of the corner of one eye as Snape summoned his own patronus, but did not dare look up to see what it was. Eventually he noticed a shadow over him, reflecting in the silvery surface of the pensieve, and looked up to see Professor Snape sneering down at him.
" I believe that you have something for me from the Headmaster, Potter?" Snape said.
Harry handed Snape the Pensieve and the bottled memory which Dumbledore had given him. Rather than doing anything with it immediately, however, Snape placed them both on his desk, regarding them with an expression of vile distaste, which after a few moments he redirected towards Harry.
"So." Snape sneered at him. "The famous 'Chosen One' has finally gotten himself into the sort of trouble that the Headmaster can't buy or wheedle him out of. Quite an accomplishment, Potter. I don't think any student at Hogwarts has ever managed it, before. Even attempted murder couldn't do that for your idiot Godfather."
"Don't you dare talk about Sirius like that after you got him killed!"
"Silence!" Snape roared. Harry began to be worried. There was something very wrong with Snape. He was not only nasty, which was par for the course with him, but somewhat frightened as well, which was not at all usual for Snape. "Sirius Black died because both he and you were undisciplined fools who fell into a trap that a first year could have pointed out to you. 25 points from Gryffindor for making false accusations against a professor."
Snape sat back down at his desk and regarded Harry as if he were a bit of dried worm. "So, the famous Harry Potter thinks that he does not have to pay his life debts to other wizards. He thinks that there will be no consequences for this. Tell me, Potter, do you really think I have saved your life countless times out of devotion to your father? Frankly, I've had little other choice."
With a swift motion, he got up, drew his wand, and handed it to Harry. "Take it." He ordered.
Not understanding what this was about, Harry took Snape's wand, and sat holding it dumbly in his hand.
"Well, don't just sit there looking as stupid as you undoubtedly are." Snape said after several seconds. "Try using it. A simple spell will do. Wingardium Leviosa, I think. Oh, do cast it on something unbreakable. That scroll on the end of my desk will do."
Taking a firmer grip on the end of Snape's wand, Harry pointed it at the scroll and cast the simple first-year spell. "Wingardium Leviosa!"
The results were less than dramatic. The scroll wobbled for a bit, slowly rose a few inches in the air, then began to shake, and fell down to the ground. Snape picked it up, and looked at Harry with an oddly satisfied look. "So, do you understand yet, Potter, what you have done to yourself with your foolish arrogance?"
Harry looked at Snape's wand, wanting to believe this was a trick of some kind, but knowing in his heart that it wasn't. "Is it because it's not my wand, that it doesn't work right for me."
"No, Potter, that is not why. As you know full well. I believe your friend Weasley was able to function at least somewhat adequately with a hand-me-down wand for a number of years."
"Then why didn't the spell work?" Harry demanded.
"I already told you, Potter, but apparently you weren't paying attention. You owed a life debt to another wizard. This Michael Von Richthoven, I believe Dumbledore said he was. He could have demanded anything. Your permanent enslavement, for instance. And you would have been obligated to pay. Instead he went remarkably easy on you. All he wanted was for you to answer a few questions for him. But could you do that? No. The famous Harry Potter had to finally display his arrogance one time too often. You would not pay your debt to him. Well, Potter, if you don't pay life debts one way, you'll pay them another."
"I don't understand." Harry said with a tremor in his voice. "How am I paying? What's happening to me?"
"Why, what happens to every wizard who refuses to pay a life debt that demanded of him." Snape said, sounding quite cheerful at Harry's fright. "Your magic is being drained. Transfered to Michael Von Richthoven."
"No, that's not fair!" Harry stood up. Magic was his entire life, the only way he could ever get away from the Dursleys. "I won't let that happen. Dumbledore can do something!"
"Dumbledore can't do anything." Snape told him. "This is immensely ancient and powerful magic. Dumbledore would have to be a god to even begin to do anything about it. The only one who can do anything about it is you."
"Well then what do I do? Tell me."
"Simple. You pay your debt to Michael Von Richthoven, and answer whatever questions he had for you. Oh, and I would recommend doing so in the next month. After that, your magic will be entirely drained, and the effect will be irreversible. And it will all be for nothing. Dumbledore's told me something about this Richthoven. I doubt very much that he will give up looking for the answers he wants simply because he's drained all your magic. After a month is up, he'll come after you again. And again. And again. He won't give up, ever. Sooner or later he will get hold of you. And then, beleive me, you'll answer his questions. One way or the other."
"Why didn't anyone ever tell me this before?" Harry demanded. "That your magic could be drained if you didn't pay a life debt."
"Didn't tell you, Potter?" Snape said smoothly. "Dear me, I have a distinct recollection of spending 15 minutes discussing the subject in your Defense against the Dark Arts class back in the third week of September this year. I believe you were passing notes with Mr. Weasley at the time. Isn't that unfortunate? However, I hardly think it would be fair to the rest of the class to artificially hold them back and repeat the same topics endlessly until you see fit to pay attention to them."
He gave Harry another nasty look, making the boy shrivel in his chair.
"I can't tell Richthoven what he wants to know. He wants me to betray..." He trailed off. He did not want to mentions Umbridge's name in front of Snape, as he would no doubt go out immediately and tell it to Richthoven himself. "He wants me to betray someone to him. I can't do it. It wouldn't be right."
"Oh, it would offend your ethics. It wouldn't be honorable, is that it, Potter?" Snape said. Harry nodded dumbly. "Well, I suggest you ask yourself Potter, which you would rather lose: your honor or your magic. And then I suggest you ask yourself whether giving this person's name to Richthoven would actually BE dishonorable, or simply make you FEEL dishonorable. There is a difference, you know. And given the sort of crimes this Richthoven has been committing, I suspect that the latter is more likely the case."
Harry did not understand the fine distinction between being dishonorable and merely feeling thus, that Snape was refering to. He shook his head. "I can't do it. And what sort of crimes has he committed. He mentioned to me that he tortured people. It's strange that I haven't read about any of that in the newspaper, though."
"The Daily Prophet is a remarkably poor source of information for certain types of crimes, Potter." Snape said, his voice dripping with contempt. "It only reports those crimes which have had a complaint regarding them filed with the Ministry of Magic."
"I don't understand. If someone were tortured, surely they would report it?"
Snape's look of contempt for Harry deepened. "Oh, certainly. If someone comes in and tortures Bellatrix Black, she's going to go straight to the aurors and complain about it. Even if it's someone who isn't going to be arrested on sight, there are a multitude of reasons someone would choose not to go to the authorities. For instance, if the reason they were tortured was to get information on something they did which was illegal, do you think they would want to admit their involvement in those crimes?"
"Oh." Harry thought about this and decided it made sense, though it showed him a picture of a far more corrupt world than he really wanted to believe in. "If they don't tell the ministry, than how does anyone find out about it. Like Dumbledore."
"The ministry is not the only source of justice, Harry. Simply the only official one. The Dark Lord himself is actually a source of justice, if you want to be technical about the matter. He will avenge most crimes against his followers. There are other means of justice as well. Some, of course, are more just than others."
"Well, I'm sure the ministry is the most just." Harry said.
"Is it?" Snape raised an eyebrow, and Harry suddenly wasn't sure about that, anymore.
Snape sat with his hands folded regarding Harry for a long moment. Harry looked back at him, feeling uncomfortable. Snape then opened a small vial filled with a calming draught, took a large swallow, and began speaking again.
"The headmaster has told you that this wizard, Michael Von Richthoven, comes from Gibson Territory, down in Australia." It was not a question.
"Yes."
"To understand a man, Potter, it often helps to understand the culture he came from. What do you know about the Gibsonites?"
Harry thought about this. "Not much. We only studied them for a few days in Professor Binn's class. He didn't have much to say about them, other than that they were 'peculiar'."
"Yes, they certainly are that. There are reasons for that. Do you recall how the Gibsonite wizards originally came to colonize that area of Australia?"
Harry thought for a moment. "They were exiled, weren't they? The muggles were exiling a lot of their criminals to Australia, then, and the Ministry of Magic thought it would be a good thing to do with certain wizard criminals. Better than Azkaban, I guess."
"Yes, I should imagine so. However the wizards who were sent there were not precisely criminals."
"Oh. Who were they, then."
Snape closed his eyes, as if recalling text-books from long ago. "There were three distinct groups of wizards sent to Gibson Territory, Potter. 2 of them were what would properly be termed, 'political dissidents'. One of them disagreed with the treatment of certain groups such as muggleborn wizards, goblins, house elves, and the like. Which had led to a number of disasters, most notoriously, the 'Boston Incident' in 1776, when an untrained muggle-born chronomancer inadvertantly aged a number of people to death after being injured by a muggle musket ball. As well as the Goblin rebellion."
Snape went on. "The second group of political dissidents objected primarily to the use of Dementors. They felt that their use under any circumstances was completely immoral. The two groups joined up and were threatening civil war. It looked to be very bloody for a while. However, they came to an agreement with the ministry. Rather than start an uprising where a lot of people would get killed, they agreed to voluntarily emigrate to Australia."
"I thought they were exiled, sir?"
"Well, given what happened to them, exile would be the more precise term. The ministry of magic misrepresented, shall we say, the conditions of the area of Australia that they were given a charter to. They were led to believe that it was a fairly tropical area. As indeed, Australia is on the coastline. When in reality, the land they were given was a desert. Barely able to support life."
Harry thought about this. "You said there were three groups? Were there more political dissidents?"
"No. The third group was composed of several researchers. Potion Masters, Alchemists, and the like. They heard about the first two groups going to Australia, and decided to join them. They wanted to do research into the magical qualities of flora and fauna that only existed on that continent. The ministry let them go, they believed the loss of a group of their best thaumaturgical researchers was a small price to pay for ridding themselves of a bunch of malcontent rebels at the same time."
Snape looked at Harry, expectantly. "You don't agree with that decision, sir?"
The potions master shrugged. "It hardly matters if I agree with it or not. But I suggest you think about what the results of what the ministry did, were. They sent away not only the wizards with what some might say were the highest ethical standards, but also the wizards with the highest intelligence. And there aren't that many wizards in the first place, Potter. Not compared to muggles. The results of that decision are still affecting England, and not in a good way. You might be interested to know, Potter, that the average intelligence of a wizard from Gibson territory is 5 higher than that of a wizard from England. Not a very large difference, one might say, but over a large span of time, it makes a great deal of difference indeed."
"So what happened to them, when they found themselves in the desert? Found out the ministry had lied to them? Sir." He remembered to add at the last second.
"A quarter of them died in the first three months, Potter."
"I'm surprised they didn't demand to go back!"
"A few of them did, I'm sure. But most didn't want to. They felt they would rather die than go back to a place which was run by 'apostates of the demonic', as they put it. Had it not been for some of the local muggle aborigine tribes having pity on them, they probably all would have died. As it is, a large number of them survived. So, question for you, Potter: The Gibsonites left our country because it was immoral. They were tricked into a situation where they were not likely to survive. And to this day, England continues to engage in those practices they regard as demonic, and is populated by wizards whom they believe are inferior to them in most ways. How do you think they feel about us?"
"I don't know, sir."
"How do you feel about Crabbe, Malfoy, and Goyle, Potter?"
"Well, I don't much like them, sir." He was about to add that he was certain they were up to no good, but was too suspicious of Snape to tell HIM that. Dumbledore and the rest might insist that the Potion's Master could be trusted, but Harry didn't believe it. Not after what Snape had done to get Sirius killed last year.
Snape peered at Harry, as if divining his unspoken thoughts. "I would say that your 'loathing' them would be a more accurate statement Potter. And believe me when I say that what you feel for Malfoy and his friends is extremely mild in comparison to what most Gibsonites feel for the English Ministry of Magic and those who support it. In their own way, they are doing their utmost to destroy us. They have been for over 100 years now. In a very real sense, we are at war with them, though it is not any sort of war the world has ever seen before. Like nearly everything else they do, it is quite peculiar."
Harry frowned. "I haven't heard about any war between England and the Gibsonite Australians. Professor Binns said that they have a lot of skirmishes with the Eastern Australian wizards, but he didn't say anything about their fighting us."
"War is not fought and won only with violence and spells, Potter." Snape glared at the ignorant boy. "There are other ways. I would have thought you would have learned that from the Headmaster by now, but apparently you haven't. Tell me, Potter. What are the main imports and exports of Gibson Territory. Surely you learned that from your textbooks."
Harry thought for a moment. He did not understand this new line of questioning, but he was fairly sure he remembered what it said on the matter in his magical history books. He answered confidently "Their main import is food... on account of it being so dry there, they can't grow much. And their main export is glassware. About the only thing they can export, they make it out of the sand in the desert."
Snape deflated Harry's triumph over his answer with a single withering look. "That answer is both erroneous, and incomplete, Potter. Gibson Territory imports very little food. They are, in fact, a net food exporter, and the only wizarding country which actually feeds itself, rather than purchasing food from the muggles."
"How, if it's so dry?"
"Irrigation, Potter. I believe the headmaster told you that the Gibsonites are highly skilled apparators? I don't suppose you ever thought to wonder why. They have to be. They apparate enormous quanitities of water from the few lakes that exist out there to supply their needs."
"That's a lot of apparating." Harry said in wonderment.
"Indeed. It keeps them quite busy. Not only training apparators, but recruiting them. Which is their main import, by the way. For over a century now, the Gibsonites have spent a great deal of trouble recruiting the best and brightest wizards from every other nation in the world, and convincing them to move there. They prefer to get them young, before they've had time to form a loyalty to other countries, but they'll take a very talented witch or wizard at any age they can get them."
Harry frowned. "Just talk them into walking away from everything they know. That must be kind of hard. What do they have there to offer them that other countries don't?"
"It's something they don't have that other countries do, Potter. In Gibson Territory, there is no taxation, and also no dementors. The guarantee of being able to keep what you earn and never having to worry about your soul being destroyed is quite attractive to some people, Potter. But that's neither here nor there. The point is that the Gibsons started out 200 years ago being populated by people who were far brighter than average. For approximately half that time, they have been draining the brains of the rest of the world, so to speak. Make no mistake Potter. In their own way, they are quite as elitist as Lord Voldemort. Certainly they have very rigid ideas of who they want to breed with. Unlike Voldemort, however, the Gibsonites have some idea of what they are doing. They comprehend genetics and the undesirability of inbreeding quite well. For 10 generations now, they have been getting smarter, at the expense of the rest of the world."
"Why haven't they been stopped?" Harry said.
"Stop them how, Potter?" Snape said silkily. "It is not illegal for a wizard to move to Australia. And unlike Lord Voldemort, the Gibsonites don't seek to exterminate anyone else, or prevent anyone else from breeding with whomever they choose. They simply have their own ideas of whom they, personally, want as mates. What are you going to do? Tell them they can't marry whom they want? My, my, that's precisely the same restriction the Dark Lord wants to put on the world. And even if you did decide to stop them, it's far too late. Irritating the Gibsonites would destroy our own economy."
"How's that?" Harry said.
Snape folded his hands together. "The main import of Gibson territory is genetic and intellectual raw material. Their main export is identical to their import, after it's been educated. Gibson Apparators are the best. They provide transportation services to almost every other wizarding country in the world. They have cleverly, and legally obtained a monopoly on an essential service that most other wizards don't care to do. And aren't capable of doing anyways, any longer, for the most part, even if they did want to do it. Any country that wants to try to annoy the Gibsonites had better be prepared for a severe cut in their standard of living. After which they will be in no condition to fight the Gibsonites any longer."
"They sound like pretty nasty people." Harry decided. "The Headmaster said they were lacking in compassion."
"Oh, I suppose they are that. However they are not violent. Their only desire is to be left alone, and they have taken steps to see to it that they will be. There is no reason to object to that, unless you are the sort of person who is unable to mind their own business." Snape gave Harry a long look. "The point of all this Potter, is that 15 years ago, the Dark Lord tried to get control of the Gibsonites. His idea was that if he could intimidate them, he could take over the transportation services they provide, and thereby be in a position to control the world by threatening an embargo on those services."
"I see his reasoning. But it didn't work, did it? The headmaster said the apparators there drove him off." Harry frowned, thinking. "Dumbledore said that this wizard, Richthoven, was the head of the apparators at the time, and they wanted to charge him with 'misuse of apparating spells' or something. That doesn't make any sense, though. How do you misuse an apparating spell?"
"Quite easily, Potter. You've seen people splinch themselves before, haven't you?" He waited for Harry to nod, and then went on. "It isn't very difficult at all for a highly trained apparator to apparate away PARTS of people. Permanently. It's a hideous way to die."
Snape took the bottled memory which Harry had brought him. "The headmaster obtained this memory several years ago from one of the very few death eaters to survive the attempt to attack the Gibsonites. He feels that you need to see it. You are dealing with a people with very little mercy, Potter. This is quite ugly, but if you make a mess on my floor after seeing it, you will clean it up. Without magic."
With that, Snape poured the memory into the Penseive. "Put your hand in there, with mine, Potter."
Cautiously, not sure what he was going to see, Harry obeyed. He found gazing up at a Death Eater that was flying on a broomstick above a large structure... no, it was several large structures. Or rather ruins. They seemed to have once been building made mainly of multi-colored glass on a metal framework, but there was little left but smoking remains of furniture, twisted metal beams, and jagged looking piles of glass shards. The pile of glass nearest the broomstick where Harry found himself was blue, there were three other piles which were red, yellow, and white, respectively.
Bodies littered the ground. Some had no apparent injuries, others were twitching and vomitting with the effects of horrible curses, and still others were dismembered, missing limbs or heads.
The noise was appalling, a combination of the crackling fires below, the louder crack of several wizards apparating in quick succession, curses and screams from those fighting, and the moans of the injured lying on the ground. There seemed to be two groups of wizards, the black robed Death Eaters, and a far smaller group wearing blue robes with yellow stars that was belted at the waist and only came down to the knees. Most of them also wore blue cloaks, and pins on their breasts with symbols unfamiliar to Harry. The blue robed wizards were obviously badly outnumbered as they fought the Death Eaters, but seemed to be holding their own, nonetheless. As Harry watched, on of the blue robed wizards waved his wand at a broomstick mounted Death Eater. The rear half of the broom suddenly vanished, apparated away, and the Death Eater fell helplessly 20 feet to the ground, landing on top of a jagged peice of glass, that impaled him. He twitched and screamed as he was transfixed there, the sharp edges of the glass inexorably severing him in two, until he either bled out or the glass cut through some vital organ, and he mercifully died.
"Over here, Potter." Snape was standing there near him. "That's Richthoven, over there. Keep an eye on him, he's quite fast."
A blue robed wizard with several burns and injuries was apparating rapidly from one place to another. He appeared, partly behind one of the twisted metal beams, and pointed his wand at a Death Eater who was in the process of casting a curse. There was a 'crack', and the top half of the Death Eaters head was simply gone. Blood poured out from the lower half of his brain, like water from a fountain, and there was a horrible look on the Death Eater's face as he simply collapsed to the ground, blood still spilling out from what was left of his head.
The wizard apparated again, and pointed his wand at another Death Eater. The 'crack' of his apparation spell was oddly muffled this time, which puzzled Harry for a moment. Then a bloody mass appeared in the air, at first Harry did not recognize it, and then realized that it was a large section of someone's lungs and intestines. The Death Eater who had been thus disemboweled looked shocked rather than frightened for a moment, as the skin over his abdomen suddenly caved into the newly emptied space. Then blood began pouring from his mouth, nose, and nether regions as well. He raised his wand arm as if to cast a curse, but then it fell, and the Death Eater collapsed to the ground, his head buried in a pile of his own bloody and shit-smeared innards. Richthoven gave an oddly satisfied smile, and continued to slaughter Death Eaters, as dispassionately as a farmer mows down wheat with a scythe
"He's a damned murderer!" Harry choked, disgusted at the bloody display. Richthoven was not the only Apparator engaged in the massacre. There were now more dead Death Eaters than dead Apparators, he saw. A few of the Apparators were hastily casting anti-apparation wards around the battlefield. Harry did not understand this, until he saw a few frightened Death Eaters try to apparate away, only to be stopped at the wards. Then he comprehended. The apparators did not intend to let them retreat or surrender. They intended to slaughter every last one of the Death Eaters. A few of the Death Eaters managed to apparate away through a hole where the wards had not yet been put up, including apparently the one who the memory was taken from, because everything went black for a moment, and then Harry found himself standing in an empty field elsewhere with several other injured Death Eaters, but no more of the terrible blue-robed Apparators, or their sadistic leader, Richthoven.
"He's a filthy damned murderer." Harry repeated, finding himself back in Snape's office once again. He had to struggle to keep himself from vomitting, even though there was little but tea in his stomach. "How could he do something like that? They were trying to get away. He could have let them surrender, turned them over to the Ministry."
"Murderer, Potter?" Snape raised an eyebrow. "A killer, perhaps. But murder implies the killing of the innocent. Those Death Eaters were attacking their school, Potter. They would have murdered helpless children, had Richthoven and his Apparators not intervened."
"They could have let them surrender. Why did they have to slaughter them, when they were trying to give up and get away?"
"You are speaking like a child, Potter." Snape said coldly. "You are letting yourself be ruled by your emotions at the sight of a few bits of bloody meat. The Gibsonites had very practical reasons for doing what they did. I told you that their main ambition is to be left alone. Lord Voldemort did not leave them alone. So they made it very clear that the price of attacking them was much higher than it was worth. It worked, too. Voldemort gave all of his followers strict instructions never to enter Gibson Territory ever again, until he said otherwise. Which is more than the Ministry of Magic has ever managed to accomplish."
Of course, not all of them obeyed Lord Voldemort, Snape thought to himself. Some few fools went back looking for revenge. The damned bastards. Their mistake of 15 years ago was now likely to cost him, personally, far more than the magic Potter stood to lose. It could cost him his very soul. But he let no hint of his fear show on his face as he spoke to Harry.
"Feel like talking to Richthoven yet, Potter?" Snape said nastily.
But all Harry could do was shake his head. "I, I don't know. I need time to think. How can I cooperate with someone like that?"
"Fine. Then you'd best go to your room and pack your things. As you are losing your magic, you are remarkably vulnerable to the Dark Lord. If he should find how helpless you are, he would undoubtedly try to have you killed immediately. So until you manage to make up your mind whether you want to pay your life debt, or live the rest of as a muggle, you are going to have to go somewhere where you will be safe from him.
"And where is that?" Harry said sullenly.
"Why, the only place where Voldemort is at all afraid to go, Potter. Why do you think I've wasted the past hour educating you about their culture? The headmaster is making arrangements for you to be hidden in Gibson Territory itself!"
Harry could not have been more stunned. He stood there gaping dumbly at Snape.
"Stop standing there, Potter, and get moving. Oh, and I would recommend that you not tell your friends Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger where you are going. Unless of course you want either the Dark Lord or Michael Von Richthoven to come asking them about it."
Snape got up. "I'll meet you in the headmaster's office in one hour. So I suggest you not delay overly long."
"You? What do you need to meet me for? Won't I be going with Dumbledore."
"Alas, no." said Snape, sounding as if he was quite enjoying Potter's discomfiture with the entire situation. "The headmaster has numerous other duties which he must attend to. So he has asked me to accompany you to Australia."
"You mean I'm going to be alone in a strange country with YOU?" Harry was disgusted. How could Dumbledore do this to him?
"Believe me, Potter, it's no more enjoyable a thought for me than it is for you. Since for among other reasons, you are not capable of providing me with any intelligent conversation, and will no doubt require me to waste a good deal of my time preventing you from getting into trouble. You will not find the Gibsonites as forgiving as the Headmaster of your immature and impulsive behavior."
"I am not immature." Harry said.
Snape gave him a disgusted look. "There are other reasons I am going with you as well. For one thing, I happen to know a Gibsonite. He used to be a classmate of mine. He was recruited by the Gibsonites when they became aware of his particular talents, and defected there a week before he graduated."
"Who was he? What talents did he have that they wanted him so bad?"
Snape looked almost wistful for a moment. "His name, Potter, was Andre DeVries. As for his talent, let's just say that in Gibson Territory, he is commonly known at The Parselmouth."
If Harry had been stunned before, now he was shocked beyond words. He stared at Snape a moment more, then turned to go up to the Gryffindor rooms and pack his suitcases.
