As soon as Harry left his office, Snape hurried up to the Headmaster's office. The information he had received from Dumbledore's patronus had gotten him worried, far more worried than he had been in a very long time.
"Severus," Albus greeted him as he entered. "You must explain to me again what you had your patronus tell me. You say that you know about this dementor that the wizard is looking for? Why have you never mentioned it before?"
The headmaster's expression was sorrowful, as if chiding a relcalcitrant child.
Snape sighed. "Frankly, headmaster, because I did not regard it as important. To be quite truthful, I had all but forgotten about the incident."
"In light of recent events, Severus, I would have to say that is not the case." Dumbledore shook his head. Things were becoming far more complicated than he would have liked. "It would seem to be very important indeed. But how did you come to be involved in it? You were not among those who attacked the Gibson Academy. So tell me about those who were. Why did they choose you to be the secret keeper for them?"
"No, I wasn't." Snape closed his eyes slightly, remembering back. "It's a complicated tale, Headmaster. Those involved were being treacherous to a number of different parties, including the Dark Lord himself."
"Indeed. Some might be surprised, but I am not." Dumbledore silently offered the Potion's Master a dish of lemon drops, which he pushed away with an angry gesture. "Well, start at the beginning and tell me what you think I need to know."
"Well, you are familiar, headmaster, with the fact that over 15 years ago, the Dark Lord decided on what turned out to be a disastrous course of action. As direct violence had failed him, in his attempts to gain control of England, he decided to try indirect violence. Most wizards, particularily the sort who populate the Ministry of Magic, don't bother to think about the infrastructure necessary to running an economy. Other than to tax it, that is. Voldemort decided to exploit this weakness. He looked for what he thought was the most important, and least well protected link in that economy. Which he decided, after some consideration, was the transportation services provided by the Gibsonites."
"In some ways he was right. The freight portals are a magnificent bit of magical engineering. Like much of the rest of what the Gibsonite's have created, it is vulnerable to violence. There is no way to harden it for war. They haven't the manpower."
"However, Voldemort did not want to destroy the freight portals. That would do him little good. He wanted to control them. And for that, he needed to control the Gibsonites."
Dumbledore's eyebrow's quirked. "That sounds rather inconvenient? Why not simply kill the Gibsonites and replace them with his own people?"
Snape gave him a sour look. "For the same reason that England does not run it's own freight portals, and very few other countries do. He lacks the sort of wizards with the proper skill. Headmaster, for centuries now this country, and most others, has been giving special privileges to a few wizards based on the idiotic fact that their ancestors became wizards an arbitrary number of generations ago. It serves the purposes of those in power, but does little to inspire talent. The purebloods with talent don't bother to develop it. Why should they go to the effort? The system we have guarantees them power and privelege, by the mere fact that they were born. And the opposite is true as well. Why should those of so-called 'lower' birth bother to develop their talents when their only reward for doing so will be to have that talent exploited, and profit purebloods who are their demonstrable intellectual inferiors?"
"Very true." Dumbledore said, nodding. He had noticed this at Hogwarts even back as a student, long over a century ago. With a very few exceptions, the only wizards who bothered going to any great efforts to improve themselves any more were Half-bloods, those who, if they were very lucky, and tried very hard indeed, might possibly have a chance to improve themselves. But as time went on, their chances of success were becoming less and less, hampered not only by traditions that favored purebloods, but policies of the Ministry that taxed and otherwise punished success in ANYONE, regardless of their heritage.
"I know that you are one of the very few who ever followed Voldemort who has a Master's degree in any magical discipline." Dumbledore noted.
"Yes." Snape nodded slightly, acknowledging the praise. "It's why I rose so quickly in the Death Eater ranks, despite my parentage. But you see why he could not simply take over the portals themselves. His followers might be very skilled at rape, torture, and the Dark Arts. But they know little or nothing about such things as long distance apparating, runes, arithmancy, or any of half a dozen other subjects needed to run the freight portals. And without the freight portals, wizarding England would disintegrate. Our economy would collapse. Voldemort wants to rule England, not destroy it."
"At least not yet." Dumbledore said. "His ultimate goal is immortality. I imagine he would destroy the world entire, if it meant he could acheive it."
"Possibly. But for the time being he needs the world fairly intact." Snape said. "So he wanted to get control of the Gibsonites, so that they would control the freight portal on his behalf. And he would use his control of the freight portal to control England. But first he had to control the Gibsonites."
"A difficult proposition." Dumbledore noted. "They are a contrary people. They don't take orders well, even from eachother. They would hardly be likely to take orders from Voldemort. And having no recognizable government as such, there is no-one in that country who has the authority to surrender."
"All good points. And ones Voldemort failed to understand. He took their lack of government as a weakness." Snape sighed. "It's a common misconception, one that has been deliberately perpetrated by governments. That Anarchy is synonymous with disorder, and hence weakness. Anarchy merely means the absence of a parasitical government. Anything else associated with it is merely incidental."
"Disorder, Albus? England has been tearing itself to peices two or three times a century, in order to support the purposes of those in our 'orderly' government. Which inevitably involve robbing, oppressing or killing one group in order to provide an unearned benefit to another." Snape gave one of his best sarcastic looks. "Naturally the first group objects sooner or later, and then you have war."
"Meanwhile, the disorderly, anarchistic Gibsonites have had over 200 years of peace. Since they have no government to mind anyone else's business for them, and are skilled enough at magic that it is clear to anyone that attacking them for their little peice of desert would cost far more than it was worth. The Dark Lord thought this was weakness, that not having fought in all that time meant they would be lacking in the ability to fight, if they had to." Snape gave a hoarse laugh. "He found out otherwise. Gibson Territory is a meritocracy. It favors the able, not the politically popular. He may have convinced the Ministry here to violate their own treaties with Gibson and not intervene in his attack on them, but he could hardly persuade the Gibsonites not to defend themselves. And they are good at self defense, Albus. Very very good. They have to be, since they don't permit themselves the deadly illusion that any government, or anyone else, has a greater interest in keeping their skins intact than they, themselves, do."
"I take it the Death Eaters found themselves outclassed?" Albus poured two cups of tea, handing one to a grateful Snape, who sipped it, before going on.
"Oh, just a little bit outclassed." Snape said testily. "He attacked what he thought was a weak target, one that would sufficiently frighten the Gibsonites into obeying his every whim. Their largest, and oldest school, the Gibson Academy. He intended for the Death Eaters he sent to raze it to the ground, and kill every student there, starting with the youngest. In a way, he did choose one of the few targets that would greatly affect the Gibsonite psyche if it were destroyed. Unfortunately for the Dark Lord, the effect it had on the Gibsonites, was to cause rage, not fear. And the attack was not even successful, either."
Snape thought back for a moment, remembering how angry the Dark Lord had been when he heard, from the few survivors, what had happened over in Australia.
"As I said, the Ministry of Magic refused to help the Gibsonites when they called them for aid with the attack. Despite the fact that they were legally and morally obligated to do so. I believe they were being bribed by Lucius Malfoy, and no," Snape raised one hand to cut off Albus's question. "I can't prove it was him. Though he does have the money to do so. It may not even have been. I don't know."
Snape thought for another minute. "Actually, preventing Ministry involvement was probably a grave mistake on the Dark Lord's part. Had the ministry come to deal with the situation, it actually would have gone far better for him. There would have been the usual arrests, of course, followed by releases when he followers claimed to be under the "Imperio" curse, and perhaps two or three of them would be tossed into Azkaban, where they could eventually have been gotten out. But instead of dealing with the Ministry aurors, his Death Eaters ended up having to deal with the Gibson Territory Apparator's guild. Who were no doubt summoned by some student or professor sticking his head in the floo and screaming for help."
"Up until that point, Voldemort regarded the Apparators as a joke, Albus. Glorified plumbers and dock workers who spent their time apparating water and freight for a few Galleons. Fit only to be enslaved. Well, he found out, didn't he." An inscrutable look passed over Snape's face. "That a wizard who can open a portal to apparate tons of water hundreds of miles, or a huge stack of crated cauldrons from China to England has no difficultly at all in apparating off a few dozen pounds of flesh from a human body. And they had no interest in playing by the 'rules' Voldemort has found so convenient, and merely capturing his followers for show trials and brief imprisonments. They slaughtered them. Almost entirely to a man."
"Oh, their school was destroyed, which Voldemort hoped would demoralize them, but it didn't. A few of the professors died, but every last one of the students survived. They left through the floo immediately after the school was attacked. Apparently they practiced periodic drills in evacuating the place." Snape laughed again, and nearly choked. "The whole country is a miniature armed camp, Albus. Like the muggle Switzerland. The Death Eaters who died were attacking nearly empty building, with only a few professors to cast curses and distract them while the students got away and the Apparators came to kill them. All they managed to do was to wreck the building. It took the Gibsonites less than three months to rebuild it, bigger than it had been before."
"I imagine Voldemort was not very pleased." Dumbledore noted.
"Voldemort was bloody furious." Snape said, annoyed at the Headmaster's talent for vast understatement. "He was Crucio'ing everyone in sight for weeks, even those who had nothing at all to do with the failed attack. Then he gave one of the few smart orders he has ever given his followers and told them that henceforth, until further notice, they were not to attempt any hostile actions against Gibson Territory, or Gibsonite Wizards. It was a sensible order, though it actually helped the Gibsonites as well."
Dumbledore nodded. One Death Eater or the other had let slip that the Dark Lord considered it forbidden to initiatate hostility against the Gibsonite wizards. When the fact became common knowledge, Gibsonite wizards found new employment as escorts for caravans with important people or cargo.
"A sensible order," Snape mused. "Though apparently not all of the Death Eaters were inclined to follow that order."
"I gathered as much." Dumbledore said. "From all that I have learned of what happened. They went back, didn't they? For revenge?"
"A fools revenge." Spat Snape. "There were not many survivors of that attack. The few that did survive were not happy. They had been humiliated by the Gibsonites, and tortured by the Dark Lord for that humiliation. They needed someone to blame. They could hardly safely blame the Dark Lord. So they decided to blame one of the Gibsonites, the head of the Apparator's Guild that had so thoroughly beaten them."
"Michael Von Richthoven." Dumbledore stated with confidence.
"Yes." A flicker of fear passed over Snape's face, then was gone, buried under his discipline of Occlumency. "They focused their hatred on him. They found him somehow, when he wasn't protected. A lot of the Apparators were killed in the attack on the Death Eaters. So finding him alone probably wasn't hard."
He rubbed his head. "I'm not clear on what happened next. From what you told me, and Potter told you, they apparently had found out he was married to a muggle, which a number of people knew, but could not find out who she was or where she was, because Richthoven had protected her with the Fidelius charm. He was the secret keeper. But they apparently tortured it out of him, then left him for dead, before going after his wife."
"He did not die, though. He took unicorn blood." Dumbledore said. "At least that is what he told Harry."
"Yes, your Patronus mentioned that. However, this is where I am somewhat confused, Albus." Snape gave an unhappy look. He was a precise man, and did not like mysteries. "His symptoms are not consistent with the ingestion of unicorn blood. I have had plenty of time to observe Lord Voldemort, who took unicorn blood, and have read other accounts of those who also did so. There are a number of discrepencies between what I have observed and read, and what Harry claims to have observed in Richthoven."
He pursed his lips. "Do you think that Potter's statements are entirely accurate? His powers of observation do leave a great deal to be desired. Perhaps I should look at his memories in a pensieve."
The headmaster shook his head. "I am confident that Harry's statement is fairly accurate. It is my belief that there is some difference between Michael Von Richthoven and other people who have taken Unicorn Blood. For one thing, if he displayed the usual effects of it, he would have simply tortured Harry for the information he wanted, and then killed him. For another, he told Harry that he did not kill the Unicorn in question. Unlike Lord Voldemort and everyone whom you have read about."
"Well, if he didn't kill the unicorn, then how did he get it's blood?" Snape spread his hands helplessly. "There are a few ancient accounts of those who persuaded a unicorn to give small amounts of blood voluntarily. However, if that were the case, he would not be displaying any abnormalities at all. And charming a unicorn into doing such a thing requires that one be a virgin. As Richthoven was married, I don't think he qualifies."
Dumbledore thought. "It's an interesting question, Severus, and I feel that it may be important. But there is no way to answer it now. So, let's get back to the subject on hand. From what Richthoven told Harry, the Death Eaters came after his wife, and sucked her soul out with a Dementor. Richthoven himself, after having saved his life somehow with unicorn blood found her in that condition. According to Harry, he then killed her. Though by any meaningful standard, she was already dead, and worse then dead."
Dumbledore looked terribly sad, then got up, and hobbled over to a small table, where he took out two bits of newspaper.
"This was sent to me through the floo, just before, by Andre DeVries. He used to know Richthoven, before the attack. Perhaps you should read it. You might find it interesting."
Snape read the first newspaper article. It was a sadly worded account about how the great hero of Gibson Territory, the best Apparator they or the world had ever seen, Michael Von Richthoven, had inexplicably gone mad and broken his own wife's neck. He was found by what seemed to be a sort of Gibsonite private detective or perhaps bounty hunter called a 'Justicar' sitting next to the body and screaming incoherently. He was brought in for trial, but had been judged unfit to be on trial. He would not stop screaming. And he was displaying a number of magical syndromes that their mediwizards had never seen before, and couldn't sort out. So rather than putting him on trial, he was going to be permanently confined in solitary confinement in the insanity ward of a wizarding hospital.
Snape finished the article.
"He seems to have gotten somewhat better since then." He noted wryly. "He isn't screaming mindlessly any more."
The second article was shorter. The tone was almost relieved, it seemed. Though knowing what he did, Snape was alarmed by what it said. Apparently Richthoven had only screamed for a month or so while in the mental hospital. Then he had sat in his cell, saying nothing at all for nearly a year.
Then he had simply vanished.
Through wards that Snape doubted he could have gotten through, with the best of wands. Richthoven had taken them down with a crudely carved bit of wood that he had apparently apparated, wandlessly, out of of one of the decorative support beams in the ceiling.
Dumbledore noticed that Snape had finished reading the second article. "From that day to this, no-one has seen Michael Von Richthoven. At least, no-one who will admit to it officially. Though I am quite certain now, that he has been around. I imagine the Death Eaters who had you hide the Dementor for them fled England after Lord Voldemort was nearly destroyed by Harry long ago, both to escape the Aurors, and to escape Richthoven. Though I believe he eventually found most of them. I have heard reports and rumors, over the years, of mysterious attacks and torturings in remote parts of the world, that did not quite seem to be the Death Eater's Modus Operendi. I did not know what to think of them. Now I do."
He took the articles and put them back. "So, Severus. Tell me of these Death Eaters. You say they came to you, to hide the Dementor, which I am certain was the same one they used to attack Richthoven's wife. Why did they come to you? And why hide it at all?"
"Yes." Snape nodded. "I suppose they came to me, because I was foolish enough to be tricked. Much as it galls me to admit it, I was very young at the time. I thought I was tricking them, that they were worried over nothing. After all, who would come looking for a Dementor? Anyone in their right mind would keep away from the damned things. But then, I suppose Richthoven is not entirely in his right mind."
"Insane, perhaps." Dumbledore said. "Though there may be a method to his madness. Love can make one do peculiar things."
"Yes, well," Snape grew uncomfortable as he did whenever the elderly headmaster grew too sentimental. "As it turns out, they did have reason to be afraid. Not only had they disobeyed the Dark Lord, but they had probably heard rumors of Richthoven's having survived their attempt to kill him, and were worried he would come after them. In fact, from the way they acted, I now think they were probably more afraid of Richthoven than they were of the Dark Lord."
"That seems rather odd." Dumbledore said. "I cannot imagine any Death Eater fearing anyone or anything more than Lord Voldemort."
"Not so odd, given what he said to Harry." Snape paused for a moment, and pressed his hands together thoughtfully. "He said he was going to get his wife back."
"That is not possible." Dumbledore said. "Once a dementor takes a soul, it is gone forever. This is why I have always opposed their use, if a mistake were ever to be made, and an innocent soul taken, nothing could be done about it."
"I don't know if it's possible or not, Albus." Snape said. "But the point is, that whether or not it is actually possible, Richthoven believes it to be. Which means that he is setting out on a very deadly course of action."
Dumbledore actually looked puzzled. "And that would be?"
Snape could not help but grin slightly, at actually knowing something that the Headmaster did not. "I have read a very few books about the Dark Arts, Albus, with rumours of a ceremony. Something to free a soul from the Dementors. But they are universally very Dark spells. Probably far darker than the creation of a horcrux. It involves trading one soul, to free another."
Dumbledore was obviously disturbed by this. "So, he intends to sacrifice the soul of one of the Death Eaters to free his wife? I'm not sure he has the right to do that."
"Oh, I think he does have the right to do it," Snape said. "And I suspect that it's exactly what he intends to do. They study the Dark Arts quite a bit at Gibson. Plus they live side by side with the Aborigines, who actually have the oldest muggle and magical culture on the planet. They both go back at least 50,000 years. They've probably forgotten more magic than the rest of the world has ever learned. But the problem is, that it won't work. I've done the Arithmancy. The Dementor would simply eat up the soul offered to it. It wouldn't give any other soul back in return. You can't give back a soul that's been destroyed."
"Then I can't let him do that." Albus said. "Even if it could work, I don't think I could let him do that."
"Well, how do you think I feel," Snape said. "Given that I'm the secret keeper, and the last of the Death Eaters he will have to visit, before he finds the damned thing, he's likely to try and use ME to feed to it. Why do you think I asked you to send me out of England immediately?"
"I see." Dumbledore got up and started pacing. "This is quite a dilemna. I cannot let Richthoven give your soul to the Dementors, Severus. You hardly deserve it. You had no way of knowing at the time what that particular dementor had been used for. But what am I going to do about Harry? If he does not give Lord Richthoven his information within a month, he will lose his magic forever. I can't let that happen."
"And why not?" Snape asked.
"Why not? Dumbledore nearly gaped. "Harry is the prophecied one. He needs to confront Voldemort and destroy him. He can hardly do that, if his magic is gone."
"Well, there are other alternatives, Albus," Snape said smoothly. "You know as well as I do, that if this Michael Von Richthoven is absorbing Harry's magic, he is also absorbing other things about Harry. His fate. The prophecy about him. Already the protection from his mother's bloodline is gone, you saw that as clearly as I did. I say, why not things stand as they are? Since Potter in his arrogance and stupidity has kindly provided us with a far superior replacement for himself, why not keep that replacement? Let this Apparator, Richthoven fight Voldemort for us, and afterwards, we can either show him the proof that what he is attempting will not work, or else give him unlimitted resources to attempt to find something that WILL work."
"Snape, that is horrible! You would simply let Harry be ruined and lose his magic? After what happened to his parents?"
"Headmaster, I am as sorry for what happened to his mother as you are, you know that." Snape said. "But I am also a realist. Look at the facts, Albus. Michael Von Richthoven is a very dangerous, and highly trained wizard. He has thwarted Voldemort at least 3 times that we know of, once when he beat his Death Eaters, once when he didn't die when he should have, and again just yesterday, when he snatched Harry out from under his nose. And what has Harry done? Albus, I know you've tried to give him a happy life here, but your protection has made him weak. His been spending his time getting into trouble with his friends, playing Quidditch and eating candy in Hogsmeade village, when he ought to have been studying every offensive spell there is to give him a decent chance against the Dark Lord. Now it's far too late. Sending Potter out against Voldemort would be like sending a kitten out to fight a lion. Potter would simply be slaughtered, Albus. Let Richthoven take his place. He has a far better chance of beating Voldemort than Harry does."
"Beating him? And then what? Richthoven is no longer human, any more than Voldemort is. We would merely be replacing an English Dark Lord with an Australian one. I can't imagine that would be an improvement."
"It can't possibly be any worse! And may be far better. He has no followers, and doesn't seem to want any. Even if he spent all his time killing, he could not equal the damage caused by Voldemort's armies of Death Eaters. And he does not seem to be as ultimately corrupted as Voldemort. He didn't kill the unicorn, after all, and didn't hurt Potter very badly, despite all the whining he did about it."
Dumbledore shook his head. "No. I can't do that to Harry. He deserves his chance to confront Voldemort, after what happened to his parents."
Snape glowered. "Albus, Harry's parents are not the only ones to suffer from the Dark Lord's madness! Take a look at Longbottom's parents, sometimes. Hundreds of wizards have been driven mad, mutilated, and killed. How many more are going to suffer the same fate while you wait for Potter to perform an unlikely miracle?"
The headmaster seemed to consider it again. "I still can't do it. I feel in my heart that the Dark Lord must be destroyed by someone capable of love. Real love, not whatever twisted, cruel version of it Richthoven might still feel for his wife. Otherwise whoever destroys him will just take his place. I'm willing to wait a little while longer for a world finally free of Dark Wizards like Voldemort and Grindewald."
"Love, Albus?" Snape actually sneered at Dumbledore. "You place so much faith in that emotion. But how valuable is it, really? A dog can love, Albus. Someone as twisted as Bellatrix Black can love, in her own peculiar way. When are you ever going to learn that love is only as valuable as the person doing the loving, and their reason for doing so? Potter may be able to love, but so long as he remains mindless and incompetent, that emotion is worthless and useless in him."
"I don't think any human being is worthless." Dumbledore said quietly. "Even you, I gave another chance, when everyone else said you were worthless."
Snape said nothing, and simply fumed. Had Dumbledore not displayed his vaunted 'love' to the idiot marauders who tried to kill him, rather than giving him justice in the first place, the 'second chance' would never have been necessary. He would have been saved at the 'first chance' as would have been far more proper.
"My mind is made up." Dumbledore finally said firmly. "You are going to go with Harry to Gibson Territory. I think the trip will do you both good. I trust you have informed Voldemort of this?"
"Yes." Snape nodded. "The Dark Lord will not be pleased, but he will accept it. He knows as well as I do that I am unlikely to be able to take the one you are sending Potter to unawares, and her particular unique talents which enable her to protect Potter from both Richthoven and the Dark Lord himself mean that I will not be able to attempt anything against him either. I imagine he will punish me as a matter of course when I return, but probably not too badly."
"Good, then." There was the sound of the doorway at the bottom of the stairs opening, and then of footsteps. "That would be Harry. So, I suppose there will be nothing to worry about. At least not for another month."
"Not unless Potter annoys the Gibsonites. They have little patience, you know. I'll keep an eye on the boy, but unless I imperio him, I can't control his behavior completely." Snape pressed his lips together. He had a private bet with himself that Potter could not last a week where they were going without getting either challenged to a duel or hauled into court to have his ass sued off.
"You best is all I can ask, Severus. You've given me more than anyone else ever has. I only regret having to ask more of you."
"Forget it." Snape got up and went to the door. "Let's me get Potter, and we'll be on our way."
