Chapter 4: Got What He Did Not Want
Severus began his investigation into what had happened to the Potters full well knowing that, the farther he dug and no matter what he dug up, he would find only pain. What he had not anticipated was for that pain to emerge from corners that he did not expect.
When the rumors had first started to fly amongst his Death Eater colleagues about the Dark Lord's supposed defeat at Bloomsbury, which had been confirmed as the Longbottoms' last known location, Severus had refused to believe it at first. Yet, interactions with Dumbledore around that time had been muted. The Headmaster of Hogwarts would stare off into space, as though preoccupied with something. Something that was leaving more mental weight on his shoulders and mind than simply forwarding the magical education of the next generation. But if the old codger had known something about what had allegedly befallen the Dark Lord, he did not say. The attack on the Potters had occurred not long after Halloween.
After visiting Lily that first time in St. Mungo's, Severus began devoting a small portion of his weekends to set aside his professorship duties for a time and investigate the attack on Godric's Hollow. He started, naturally, by traveling to the scene of the crime itself. The home where Lillian had begun her young family was nothing but a pile of mere rubble now. It had strangely heartened and irritated him all at once to see how witches and wizards had clearly been leaving momentos at the attack site, crafting a sort of makeshift memorial. More would keep right on coming, he figured, so he had proceeded with extreme caution in poking around the ruins. Unfortunately, a first pass had turned up nothing incriminating.
Assuming that the rumors about the Dark Lord were true, then the timeline was such that the man couldn't have attacked James and Lillian and Harry. But then that begged the question: who had? Had the raid been an officially sanctioned operation, possibly ordered by the Dark Lord himself before what everyone was now rumbling was a, depending on your point of view, (un)timely death? Or, had it not been ordered and instead evolved into a crime of passion, a revenge strike?
Almost everything Severus needed to know about what had happened to his beloved Lily, at least at this stage, hinged on answering this pertinent question: premeditation or passion? Knowing what he knew about many of his Death Eater comrades, he decided to divide each of them into two buckets based on personality type. Type A involved those who let emotions rule them enough that they might, in grief and confusion, lose their head completely and go for the Potters as a way to avenge their Lord. Type B involved those like, say, Lucius Malfoy and his wife, Narcissa, who approached their service to the Dark Lord more carefully.
Still another, side question also informed how Severus went about his sleuthing. He knew the Longbottoms' location had been extracted by force from a witch Voldemort had tortured, one Marlene McKinnon, who had finally confessed to being the Longbottoms' Secret Keeper and divulging that she had taken what had been a very serious oath to guard the Longbottoms and their boy with her life. The act of employing a Secret Keeper was still, even in these dark times, no longer much of a common practice. If people really wanted something kept private between certain parties, taking an Unbreakable Vow was viewed as an even higher and more effective safeguard than enlisting a Secret Keeper. Ms. McKinnon had also revealed one more thing before she had been…. disposed of. She said that the Potters had employed a Secret Keeper, but swore she didn't know who it was. Voldemort, at this time still torn equally between which boy to target first, had made clear his wishes that the Potters' Secret Keeper be smoked out, whoever it was.
It was at about this same time that Severus had sought out Dumbledore, expressing interest in defecting to at least a double agent status; on the condition Lily remain safe. As a contingency measure, he had also boldly entreated the Dark Lord to consider sparing the life of the mother – and had been surprised when Voldemort had agreed. At that point, there had been nothing left to do but wait and see which man would break his promise first.
What Severus still didn't know was the following: had the Potters' Secret Keeper been uncovered, and if so, who? He suspected the person had been; otherwise, his brethren would not have known where to attack. But he would still have liked to know who the Secret Keeper had been, and who of his comrades had managed to extract the information. Had the raid on the Potters' been an officially sanctioned operation – a term which usually meant Voldemort had personally signed off on it? If not, who had authorized the mission? And finally: who had performed the deed?
Four questions, all seeking the identity of a person. A fifth question also had to be begged: had the same person performed each stage of the attack on Godric's Hollow, or had it involved multiple actors?
It took a few months, months in which Severus had to be extremely careful how he broached the subject. For one thing was clear early on: from the way his former comrades were now scattered to the four corners of the wind, the Dark Lord was probably gone. Something unforeseen had clearly happened to him, for he had never returned from the Longbottoms.
The answers to the other questions finally were extracted and enticed in fits and spurts. No, to the best of everyone's knowledge, the Dark Lord had not yet ordered anyone to move in on the Potters at the time of his…. death, as some were despairingly referring to it.
So, who had ordered the raid?
For the remaining questions, Severus slowly but surely began to piece together the puzzles, compile the answers. As the picture had slowly come into focus, it chilled him that every single one of his questions all circled back to one person: Bellatrix Lestrange. Apparently, according to the other sources, she had been the one to find the Potters' Secret Keeper, though she had not revealed to anyone (except possibly Rodolphus, her husband) who the Secret Keeper had been, or exactly how the information had been extracted.
After that, the theory, as Severus was beginning to understand it, went something like this: Bellatrix had heard of the Dark Lord's trouble going after the Longbottoms, heard the whispers that her Lord was gone, something terrible had happened to him. She had flown into a grief-stricken rage, assaulted the Potters' cottage in Godric's Hollow and razed the thing to the ground. As far as it appeared, Bellatrix had taken matters into her own hands, acting as judge, jury and executioner. She had not waited for orders, and of course, how could she have? In the days immediately following Halloween, there had been massive confusion in the Death Eater ranks over exactly who was in charge. No one had appeared to attempt and take the mantle, as there had still been uncertainty at that time as to whether the Dark Lord was actually dead.
Most telling of all: no one had seen or heard from Bellatrix or Rodolphus since just after the Longbottom hit job.
Bellatrix. Bellatrix had done everything. And it made sense, really: Severus had already grouped her as a person who let emotions get the better of her. Plus, everyone knew she had had a special relationship with the Dark Lord.
There was one thing, however, that still did not make sense: given Bellatrix's bouts of temper and how she would have been beside herself over losing the Dark Lord, Severus couldn't understand how, in taking what she must have perceived as her just revenge, Bella could have been so sloppy.
She had refrained from using Avada Kedavra, one of her favorite spells. If she'd wanted James and Lily and their boy dead, why not just do it? Instead, based on the evidence in Godric's Hollow, Bellatrix had tortured James and Lily just about out of their minds, and then…. simply brought the house down on all of them, burying the little family alive. For some reason. Perhaps in doing this, Bellatrix had wanted to make a louder statement, and perhaps she had trusted that the rubble would finish her job for her.
Except it didn't, and it hadn't. James and Lily Potter had been retrieved alive, physically anyway, though their minds were all but gone. So too had the boy been retrieved, apparently unharmed in any way – physically or mentally.
That had been all Dumbledore was willing to say about it, as Severus now sat in the Headmaster's office, having just finished delivering his report on his findings.
"If he's safe, then where is he?!" Severus had demanded when he'd learned that Dumbledore's Order had been the one to recover the boy.
"Nowhere that need concern you at present, Severus," Dumbledore intoned. "For now, be assured it is somewhere well-concealed and safe."
Severus pounded his fist on his armrest, scoffing. "Safe…. You gave your word you would keep them all safe!"
He froze under the unusually sharp look Dumbledore suddenly sent his way. "Is that really what you wanted?" Severus flinched at actually hearing something that sounded like a sneer in the other man's voice. "When you first came to me, Severus, you were quite adamant that it was Lily who should remain safe! You only extended your request to include James and the baby when I pushed back, seeing as how I knew it would only be right to keep a family together!" Severus tried not to cower as Dumbledore leaned across his desk, fingers steepled, gaze far too omniscient. "Tell me: are you really all that upset that James Potter is now deceased, may the man rest in peace? Or that Lily's baby is and remains a happy, healthy little boy?"
Severus glowered at him. "Of course I am! And how dare you. How dare you insinuate otherwise!"
Dumbledore leaned back, seeming jolted by the vehemence to Severus's denial that he was in any way happy about what had occurred. There was a long moment where the Headmaster just studied his spy. "Shockingly enough, I believe you." Reaching down to a liquor cabinet, he poured himself a glass of brandy, taking tentative, contemplative sips.
"Have you been by to visit Lillian?"
In spite of himself, Severus flushed. "Whenever I have a free opportunity," he mumbled.
Dumbledore nodded. "I thought so. Now, Severus, I trust you are a man who would understand as much, but I feel it still needs to be said: Lily is now a widow in a deeply precarious mental and emotional state." His icy-blue eyes peered at Severus hard. "Do not attempt to take advantage of that, or her, in any way, in your visits with her."
Severus almost hexed him. The very idea of what Dumbledore was implying affronted him at every possible level. "What kind of man do you take me for?" he bit back in a growl.
Dumbledore shrugged. "A man who still has the one he loves, and with a path to her now clear. I trust you would attempt nothing untoward with Lily, my boy, but I must caution you: love, and all its cousins – lust chief among these – can make one do very stupid things. Right now, Lily does not need to take a new lover. Lily needs to have a friend. Her best friend." He smiled at Severus gently.
Severus squirmed. "Our friendship was sundered long ago," he mumbled. "If she truly needs a best friend, wouldn't that be her husband?"
"Her husband isn't here now, is he?" Dumbledore pointed out. "Only you are. Just try and control yourself and your feelings for her enough not to abuse that."