Chapter Twenty-Three

The headmaster of Hogwarts and the Dark Arts and Potions master of that fine school sat in a pair of overstuffed chairs, staring bemusedly at the elderly woman sitting placidly across from them.

Dumbledore and Severus had just finished an hour and a half of trying to get past the mental defenses of Hjordis Halvorson, and both of them had little more to show for it than the beginnings of monstrous headaches.

It wasn't just that she was the psionic equivalent of a brick wall. It was that you never realized you were up against a brick wall in the first place. She would lure you down various plausible-but-fake mental pathways and blind alleys, pathways whose fakeness you would never have suspected unless she wanted you to suspect them, and you never could be quite sure whether what you were seeing was truth, invention, or some deceptive mixture of the two. Rarely did she need to face a head-on attack, because she was so good at throwing down supple and detailed distractions; yet she could and did take the occasional hammer-blows from both men's minds with ridiculous ease, and in the process made those two expert Legilimenses look like amateurs.

"I trust, then, that your concerns are somewhat alleviated, Severus?" a wincing Dumbledore said as he measured out a pair of doses of headache remedy from the silver flask he kept in his desk, a necessity in his duties as headmaster.

Severus nodded dully as he accepted a dram glass from Dumbledore. "Yes, yes they are," he replied, just before tipping back the medicine and swallowing it in one gulp. "If we can't defeat her, working in tandem, then not even the Dark Lord could do it – and he would never deign to allow another Legilimens to assist him."

"Ah. He'd be too worried, and with good reason, about being attacked by his assistant."

Severus grunted his assent.

"Are you sure you don't want any headache remedy, Hjordis?" Dumbledore asked, once he had swallowed his own dose. "You performed some tremendously taxing exertions with your mind."

Mrs. Halvorson smiled. "Thank you, no, Albus. I feel just fine."

"'Fine'," Severus echoed unbelievingly. "She's just been subjected to the worst that the two best Legilimenses alive can throw at a person, and she feels 'fine'."

"Well, I am, dear," smiled Hjordis. "That was a mite complex, having the two of you to fend off, but Julie and I have practiced far more intensely on each other over the years."

Severus shook his head. "And yet neither of you can cast a spell."

"So much the better for us, Severus," rejoined Dumbledore, as his mottled and blackened hand, injured earlier that year, set down his now-empty dram glass on the desk. "This will cause them both to be underestimated."

"Exactly," nodded Hjordis. "There's a tendency I've seen among the wizarding world, particularly among those on the other side, to assume that to be a Muggle is to be stupid. That's something that will work in our favor." She looked at her wristwatch. "Two forty-five. I've gotta get a move on – I promised Horace I'd let him try some more of his anti-gout solution on me."

Severus and Albus each raised an eyebrow. "You're letting him experiment on you?" asked the Potions and Dark Arts master.

"It's not that bad," Hjordis replied, chuckling. "Poor Horace would never give it to me if he thought there was the slightest risk in it. If anything, he's a touch on the overprotective side where I'm concerned, the big lug." She pushed herself out of the chair and reached for her four-pronged cane. "And it does seem to be working. Don't know if I'll be going jogging anytime soon, but at least now I can use the cane instead of the walker. Good afternoon, gentlemen."

"Good afternoon, Hjordis," Dumbledore and Severus replied in chorus, as she hobbled briskly out the door.

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For a man – or rather, a being – whose fortunes were thought to be in the ascendant, Lord Voldemort was strangely unsettled. His moods varied greatly, and often, and usually without the slightest hint of a warning to those unfortunate enough to be near him at the time. There were two factors weighing on his mind, pulling him this way and that with equal forcefulness.

On the one hand, the battle was now officially joined; Lucius' ridiculous gamble at the Ministry earlier that summer had forced the Dark Lord to show himself openly before he was quite ready to do so; as a result, there were many casualties among his minions and allies, with Dumbledore's forces – most of whom were schoolchildren! – coming off rather lightly.

On the other hand, Dumbledore's own powers, which had been at their peak for far longer than anyone had thought possible, were finally on the wane. He had managed a few months ago to injure himself in what Severus Snape, the Dark Lord's most trusted and useful lieutenant now that Lucius Malfoy was in disfavor, contemptuously described as a "pre-senile magical accident". The appearance of Dumbledore in public, rheumy-eyed, limping slightly and with an obviously magically-withered hand, bore witness to the truth of Severus' description.

Voldemort feared a healthy Dumbledore more than he feared the whole of the Ministry, more even than Harry Potter himself – and Potter, from all accounts but especially Severus', was a rather incurious, clumsy, lazy boy interested mainly in Quidditch who leaned on his friends to do his thinking for him. Hardly a match for the entity that even Dumbledore admitted was, when mortal, the most brilliant student ever to pass through Hogwarts' doors.

But a sickened, possibly pre-senescent Dumbledore – that was another matter entirely.

Granted, Dumbledore still was quite potent. When the Dark Lord had discovered that Severus had suffered a temporarily incapacitating incident himself, thanks to the clumsiness and inattentiveness of Harry Potter, he found that he was prevented from trying to pry into Severus' helpless mind by a bit of protection magic that had Dumbledore's name written all over it. No one but him could have designed a spell so maddeningly effective.

But be that as it may, Dumbledore was still weakening and wounded, and would get weaker still with time. The Dark Lord was looking forward to the day when Albus Dumbledore no longer stood between him and his dreams of conquest.

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"That's the last of them, then," said Trainee Healer Augustus Pye to Julie and her grandmother as they wrapped up their tour of the Janus Thickey ward of the Spell Damage floor at St. Mungo's one fine November morning, some six weeks after the two women had first come to Hogwarts. This was Julie's third visit, and she and Hjordis had already made quite the impression on the staff. "I must say that I've never seen a talent such as yours," continued Healer Pye, "yours and your grandmother's, that is. Most bloodstoppers can't heal magically-caused injuries."

"Just lucky, I guess," smiled Doctor Halvorson, smoothing out the wrinkles in the robes she'd been given to wear. St. Mungo's staff robes, they were, and her gran was wearing them too: Lime green, with an emblem consisting of a wand crossed over a bone; in Julie's and Hjordis' case, they had an extra element, a small red B – for Bloodstopper – below the St. Mungo's emblem.

Hjordis, now walking unassisted for the first time in decades thanks to Horace Slughorn, matched her granddaughter smile for smile. "It just comes naturally," she said as they walked briskly alone. "I'm half afraid that if we stay here too long you'll vivisect us just to find out what makes us tick."

Pye's boyish face turned dead white. "Oh, Merlin's beard, no!" he said. "Never in life!" Pye might advocate the use of some Muggle methods, but the mere thought of cutting into living, conscious, unanesthetized beings rightly horrified him, as both Hjordis and Julie knew it would. Thus, it served as a useful distraction from his probing further into their shared capabilities.

"I was wondering," Julie said, taking advantage of his horrified silence to change the subject as they walked the ward, "whether some of my Muggle world's medicines could be put to good use on some of the patients with mental illnesses."

Pye turned to look at her. "I've been wondering the same thing, Doctor," he said. "The Longbottoms, right?"

"Right."

"You're thinking about using that new generation of antipsychotic medicines, then?"

"I sure am." Julie had secretly done quick scans of both Frank and Alice Longbottom, probing their minds with hers; they were classic cases of trauma-induced psychosis. The new, "atypical" antipsychotics were tailor-made for situations like theirs.

"I've never been able to procure any."

"Well, I can," Julie said. "It's part of my job." She raised her eyes to the ceiling as she walked in thought. "Clozapine's the most commonly-used drug, but that tends to suppress white blood cell count and thus immune system function; however, there's a new drug called olanzapine that doesn't produce that side effect." She thought some more, her pert, upturned nose crinkling as she did. "I could certainly bring some here from the States."

Pye's earnest young face lit up. "You could? That'd be awfully good of you."

"I'll bring over some antianxiety drugs, too. It often works best if those are administered first." She looked at him. "Won't we have to clear it with Healer Smethwyck or Strout first, though?"

Pye gave her a sad smile. "No. The Longbottoms were written off as incurable over a decade ago. It's why Smethwyck trusts me, a trainee, with them, even though this isn't my ward – he doesn't think I can harm them more than they've been harmed already."

"I'll be the judge of that," said Julie, fully Doctor Halvorson now with all that this entailed. "I was able to help their son, Neville, with his memory problems."

This pulled Augustus Pye up short. "Did you now?" he said. "What happened?"

Dr. Halvorson's voice was dark and bleak. "Professor Dumbledore, when he found out I was a psychiatrist, had Neville Longbottom come to me for therapy for some memory problems he'd been having." She took a deep breath. "It turned out that the memory problems stemmed from an Obliviate he'd been given as a toddler."

Healer Pye was aghast. "Why would anyone Obliviate a toddler?"

"Neville was in the room when the Death Eaters were torturing his parents. He saw the whole thing. Some well-meaning Auror tried to wipe the event from his mind, but wound up impairing his short-term memory in the process."

"Merlin's beard... that poor boy..."

Julie took another deep breath. She remembered all too well witnessing those memories with Neville in his own mind, and the agony they had caused him; agony that was no less sharp for having been repressed all these years. It was one of the few times in her career when she had wondered, if only for a moment, whether it would have been better to have left a problem untreated. But Neville had rallied, when he realized that he wasn't alone to relive those awful memories: Julie and Hjordis would be with him every step of the way.

"So you were able to help him?" Pye asked, after a longish silence.

"Yes, yes I was. It took a while, and a lot of therapy and the occasional Dreamless Sleep potion –" and a lot more things that I can't tell you about, she thought to herself, not until after what's left of Voldemort is ground into a fine dust and burned in the fireplace in Dumbledore's office "– but I was able to help him." She turned to smile at Pye. It was a more subdued version of her earlier smile, but it was a smile nonetheless. "If I can help Neville, I can help his parents. Trust me."

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A small, dainty grey tabby cat, having finished grading the last set of Transfiguration essays, was just settling down to sunning herself in the window of her office when she heard the slap-slap-slap of shoe leather on stone just outside her open office door. That sounds like Severus' shoes, she thought.

With the cat equivalent of a sigh, she transformed herself. She was back at her desk, and in human form, just as Professor Snape burst into her office.

"Minerva," he said, "may I borrow your Time-Turner?"

She fetched it from where she kept it and handed it over to him with a raised eyebrow. "Dare I ask why?"

Severus hesitated a moment before responding. "I'm going to St. Mungo's for a little while."

If Minerva McGonagall were capable of smirking, she may well have done so at that moment. Instead, she kept her face free of even the slightest hint of a smirk. "Very well. Return it to me in one piece, Severus."

"That, I promise you. Thank you, Minerva." He turned to go, his black robes sweeping behind him.

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"I do hope we're not keeping you from your practice or your home life, Doctor," Augustus Pye said as they walked the Dai Llewellyn ward. "You've been spending a lot of time here."

Dr. Halvorson gave a small laugh. "Oh, my practice is doing just fine, Augustus. I'm always 'on call'," she said, patting the small pager where it sat under her robes, "and with the Floo I can be back home in an instant. Besides, I don't really have a life outside of my work anyway -- if I wasn't here I'd just be sitting in front of the TV watching some stupid sitcom or something."

Pye didn't know what 'sitcoms' were and wasn't about to embarrass himself by asking. "'Married to your work', I take it?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Pretty much so. Never had time for a husband, much less a family." The truth was a bit more complicated, but it wasn't something she could blurt out to Augustus.

Their conversation was interrupted by the appearance of a visitor, who had checked his fast stride down the hell to make way for them as he walked in the other direction. His face had the slightest suggestion of hauteur about it as his gaze went from the Trainee Healer to the Muggle doctor. But there was something under that hauteur that Pye could not detect.

Perfect timing, love -- my shift's just ending.

Meet me in the supply cupboard in five minutes, Julie?
I'll be there with bells on, Severus.

Please don't. Wear bells, that is. Wouldn't want to attract attention.

Speaking of which, we'll have to stay quiet in the cupboard – can't use any type of silencing or muffling spells. The wards are set to detect it when unauthorized people cast them...

"Good afternoon, Professor," Pye said.

"Good afternoon, Healer Pye, Dr. Halvorson. If you will excuse me..." And he was gone down the hallway without another word.

"Such a ray of sunshine, he is," Julie said once he was out of sight. "Has he always been so antisocial?"

I heard that, Julie!

I know you did, love. You can spank me for it later.

Is that a promise?

Pye grinned. "Actually, that was positively polite by his standards. He used to just whip past without so much as a grunt."

I heard that, too.

I know you did, Severus. Relax and I'll be along in a minute.

"Ah. Well, I'd better be going, myself, Augustus. I have to go freshen up first, though."

The Call of the Bladder?

Of course. Now stop it, Severus, or I'll spank you.

Spoilsport.

"Well, then, same time this weekend?"

"Certainly, Augustus. Catch you later."

They parted as they came to the lavatories at the end of the hall.

When Julie was finished with her ablutions, she made her way to the large walk-in supply cupboard just across the hall and shut the door behind her. She stood in the middle of the floor, surrounded by shelves stacked with all sorts of arcane instruments and implements, and looked patiently at the one clear spot on the floor directly in front of her.

I spy with my Inner Eye... a Dark Arts master!

The air shimmered in a silvery way, and the one clear spot was revealed to be occupied after all.

Full marks to Gryffindor, Miss Halvorson.

Julie looked up at Severus, returning his smile as he took her in his arms. So you think I would have Sorted there?

Almost certainly. You're too disgustingly noble for your own good.

She repressed a soft chuckle. You say the sweetest things, love. His response was to pull her closer and kiss her forehead. Her arms automatically slid around him, enveloping him the way her mind offered to envelop his.

With great reluctance, Severus disengaged himself, physically and mentally, just long enough to pull an object from inside of his robes. Here it is.

That's a Time-Turner?

That's a Time-Turner.

Not exactly a precision instrument, is it?

You'd be surprised, love.

He turned it two times, then set it in a safe spot on the nearest bit of shelving. Two hours. That will have to do for us for now.

Julie's eyes sparkled. I'm sure we'll make the most of it.

She put her head against his shoulder, and for a moment they said nothing, with either mouths or minds, content just to feel each other's warmth and closeness. It had been so long, so very long...

I remember the day they took you, Severus. I remember it... more than anything. She snuggled tighter against his robes. I was asleep, just like you were.

What woke you up?

Your despair.

She pulled her face away from his shoulder so she could look him in the eye; her hands clutched hold of his robes. We could feel it, Gran and I. We could feel your agony, your helplessness, your despair... and before we could get over there, you were gone.

Oh, Julie...

His hands pulled her closer as they ran over her from back to buttocks, soothing and caressing. You couldn't have stopped them, you know.

Tears from her eyes settled onto the skin of his neck. I could have tried. I could have done something. At least Becky took a chomp out of that old bitch.

Severus couldn't help but snicker at that vision, even as he raised up Julie's chin so he could kiss her tears away. It's just as well that you didn't try.

It's why I decided to become a shrink.

A shrink?

She gave him a small smile. Short for "head-shrinker". It's a colloquial term for 'psychiatrist'. The smile faded. It was my way of trying to make up for not being able to save you...

But you did save me after all, Julie.

Severus hugged her tighter to him. You did save me, in the end. He grimaced slightly. I feel horrible for thinking this... but I'm so glad you weren't attached, when Dumbledore came to fetch you for me.

Now it was Julie's turn to snicker. Why should I be attached? Besides to you? Not that I didn't try, early on... but it wasn't the same. It just wasn't the same. Her gaze met his, steadfast and unwavering. I couldn't connect the way I could with you. And can with you.

At least you were able to try. The way my life went, there was little time for me to try to find a lover, and less chance of finding someone who I suited – or whose ethical stance didn't repel me. He made another grimace. You're getting a virgin, I hope you know. Totally untrained and untried. Never so much as been kissed, aside from by you – and I didn't even know about that until a few weeks ago.

Julie smiled up at him as she ran her fingers lightly along his side; he drew in a sharp intake of breath and held it until her fingers moved away. Then we can learn together.

She pulled his face to hers, and then they didn't do much mind-talking after that.