Chapter 12: Slings and Arrows

October 30, 1995

Remus Lupin

Lupin had just returned from yet another of Dumbledore's missions- contacting a powerful wizarding family that lived on the Isle of Man. Odd group of people, really. Kept to themselves, but very generous and open minded. They had helped him out years ago when he had been an impoverished wanderer, and he had been hoping they again show their generosity by lending a hand with the war against Voldemort. And while they didn't scoff in disbelief at him, as so many had done before, they couldn't help.

"This is not our fight, Remus." The Matriarch of the family had said with a grave set to her brow. "Your people will continue to bring this kind of trouble down on their head because of their close-mindedness and their dependency on their media and government. We cannot help people who do not want to be helped."

So that was that. Lupin supposed they sort of had a point, but he had hoped they would fight for him at the very least, as his friends. But druids were an odd lot, and there was no reasoning them out of their ways once they had decided upon something.

So, back he sailed to the mainland, eschewing traditional Apparition methods this time, as the full moon was encroaching and he didn't feel like going for a swim thanks to some mistimed Apparition. He even ended up hiring a muggle cab to get back to Grimmauld place, and by the time he found himself on his friend's ghoulish doorstep, he was filthy, tired and disheartened.

Until a familiar voice heralded his ears. "Great Merlin, you look like you're about to topple. You okay, Remus?"

It was Tonks, of course, standing in the doorway. What was about that girl? She could make the rainclouds seem like sunshine and fatigue feel like the best sort of intoxication.

So he couldn't prevent the (probably stupid looking) grin from stretching across his face. "Hi Tonks."

And there was a silence, during which for some reason Tonks was looking expectantly at him.

Then it dawned on him that she had asked him a question.

"Oh, I'm fine. Just got back from a long trip."

Tonks laughed. "Yeah, you don't look fine. You look crap."

"Thanks." He returned wryly, although he didn't argue. He probably always looked crap next to her, whatever his physical state. Suddenly he realised that he had been staring quite obviously at her lips- beautiful full lips parted to show small white teeth. And then her pretty mouth suddenly broke into a cheeky grin.

"Something you like, Remus?" she teased.

"Umm." He silently cursed himself. 'You stupid idiot, acting like a desperate creepy old man.'

"I'm sorry-" he began, but with a happy trill of laughter, Tonks slapped him playfully on the arm.

"You, sir, are in desperate need of sleep- or coffee… or chocolate?' she wriggled her dark eye-brows at the last suggestion.

"Probably I need a shower most of all." Laughed Lupin, guiltily relieved at Tonk's lack of grudge holding.

"Tell you what- you take a shower, and I will make you a hot chocolate, and in payment you can tell me all about your great adventure."

"Umm, all right." Lupin chuckled uncertainly. "What are you doing here though, Tonks?"

She shrugged. "Visiting your friend, Master Misery-guts. Guy has to be fed, although he seems to prefer the brandy Mrs. Weasley packed for him over any of her baked goods. That guy is locked in his room getting sozzled."

Lupin pinched his brow in frustration. "I see."

"Gah, sorry, shouldn't have brought it up. You go have a shower, come back when you look less like a drowned rat."

"Right you are, Tonks. Thank you." Lupin followed Tonks into the house and began to descend the stairs while she made her way down the hall to the kitchen.

"Oh, and Remus?" she called out just before he got to the landing.

He turned with a questioning glance.

"You make a very handsome drowned rat."

The whole time Lupin was showering, he wondered if Tonks had insulted or complemented him.

But after cleaning off the crime and getting into a clean set of robes, he made his way into the warmly lit kitchen, where Tonks, looking as perky as ever in her knee-high boots and pink leather jacket, had just laid out two cups of chocolate. Why did she always have to look so pretty?

"Now I did spike it with this marvellous stuff called chocolate licker." She warned smilingly.

Lupin grinned. "I think you mean liqueur."

"Lick cure?" Tonks screwed up her nose questioningly. "Okay."

They both sat down, and Lupin inhaled the chocolate, allowing the comforting aroma to soothe his nerves. Tonks tended to have a disturbing effect on his gastronomic placidity.

"So? Where did you go? Or is it top, top secret?" she leaned forward expectantly.

Well, it was sort of top secret, but since Tonks was the one asking, Lupin forgot and told her all about the journey to the Isle of Man and the O'Cinaoith family.

"Wow, Remus, I bet you have met such fascinating people in your travels." She smiled dreamily at the end of his account. "I would so love to travel all over the place with nothing on me but my wand, just relying on the kindness of strangers and my own ingenuity, walking with both Muggles and the weirdest of wizard-kind. Merlin, that would be such blasted fun." And she closed her eyes dreamily, dark lashes brushing against pale, rose-tinted skin.

"I didn't do it by choice." He said, making an effort not to stare.

At that Tonk's eyes flew open wide in dismay. "Hey I am so sorry. Gahh, I always put my foot in my mouth."

Lupin shrugged smilingly. "I am not awkward about it, Tonks, and neither should you be. It's a fact of life- I am as poor as a church mouse and have never been able to hold down a job. As the Muggles termed it, I've been a hobo much of my life."

"But like you said, not by choice." Tonks's voice was mutinous. "I am such an idiot, making it sound like a glamourous adventure. You could have been a great professor or Auror, but because of our stupid, backward society you were stiff-armed."

"You're not an idiot." He soothed. "It's just the way it is, being a werewolf in today's society. There isn't anything I can do about it but accept it. And you are right. It has been an adventure- I have seen things that most people in Wizarding Britain could never see."

"Maybe you could write a book about it?"

"The Travels of a Penniless Werewolf?" Lupin chortled. "I'm sure it would just fly off the bookshelves- probably because the Ministry would censor it."

"Oh you-" Tonks looked as if she couldn't work out whether to laugh or cry. "It's so not fair, Remus."

"I am not the worst off in the world, Tonks. I have learnt to be happy. It's amazing the changes that come to life when you understand that while you may not be able to change the events around you all the time, you do have the power to control your reaction to events. In accepting hardship, you can remove its grasp on you."

"That's beautiful." Tonks sat back in her chair, pensively tracing her fingers around her tea-cup reflective. "See, I'm happy, and that's because my life has been pretty good. Loving family, nice house, good school experience, supportive friends, good job. I've never really been tested much in my whole life. And I wonder if I would be the same person today if I'd had an awful life."

"Maybe not." Lupin said gently, feeling an inward respect for her honesty.

She hadn't finished. "I mean, being a half-blood metamorphmagus, imagine what how different life would have turned out if I had been put into Slytherin instead of Hufflepuff?"

"But you would have had to be a different person to be put into Slytherin anyway."

"Oh, I don't know." Tonks shrugged. "To be honest I think those House divides are a load of baloney. I had friends from all the houses and we all got along roaringly. When you get to know an individual, you forgot the house and only see the person. It's the culture that Hogwarts urges the Houses to accept that makes us label each other."

Intrigued, Lupin gazed wonderingly at her. "That's very rare thinking. House divisions has been around for centuries… it's the core of British wizarding society… you are quite a radical, aren't you?"

Tonks shrugged. "No, I just like people and say what I think. We are always making stupid discriminations in the world that make it a worse place than it should be. Like your werewolfish-ness."

"Well, there is truth in that. Which is why I am so at home with the Order. Discrimination seems utterly foreign to them."

Tonks snorted. "That's bull."

"What?" Lupin was startled. "Nymphadora, I have never in my whole life been more accepted than I have been by the Order. What do you mean, 'that's bull.'?"

Tonks' dark eyes sparkled dangerously. "DON'T call me that. And what I mean by 'that's bull', is that while you may be accepted whole-heartedly, there are other member of the Order who are treated like dirt."

"You don't mean that you feel treated like-"

"No, not me. Snape."

Silence filled the kitchen, and for a moment Lupin had no idea what to say. Then he sighed. "That's completely true. I hadn't realised you'd noticed." Feeling extremely sad and exhausted all of a sudden, he leaned his head against his hand. "The Order does treat him like shit."

"You weren't at the Order meeting two months ago, Tonks, when he turned up bleeding after Voledmort had thrashed him over some stupid little thing. And no one did anything about it, or cared. He has been so good to me recently, Tonks, and I can't really tell you why, I promised him, but he is really trying to fight for us. I can't understand him, I have hated him at times… he is such a prickly personality, but I think he is doing the right thing. And he gets treated so badly…" suddenly a wave of guilt flooded through him, as he recalled all the senseless bullying Snape had endured throughout Hogwarts, and it compounded on him the great depths of his inaction. "And I never ever do anything about it. Because I am a coward… I am a coward, and I always have been."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Tonks gripped his hand suddenly, her warm skin sending a tingle through Lupin's body. "You are… the bravest man I know."

Lupin gave a hollow laugh. "You don't know me then. You know I was in the same year as him? Back in Hogwarts?"

"No, I didn't know." Tonks looked unsurely down at their interlocked hands.

"And I watched him, I just watched when kids bullied him. I did nothing. I did nothing when my friends bullied him." In the back of his head, a part of him was screaming 'what are you doing, blurting out all this to someone you hardly know, just happen to have a pathetic mid-life crush on?' but he ignored that voice and kept on talking, emotion flowing like a breaking dam. "It's always Snape, it's like he is a person, but I can't allow myself to recognize it because then it makes me abnormal. We are all supposed to think Snape is just a symbol of Slytherin snakiness, something we force ourselves to stand, but never to know."

Tonks stared at him. "I… had no idea you felt like this. I only brought it up because it was blindingly obvious the discrimination the Order has for Snape, and it's a discrimination that makes sense. I didn't expect you to care so much. I mean, I don't- didn't- until you came out with this. I just, accepted it as the way it was. I remember at the first meeting the stares he got, and how after fighting off Sirius and Moody and Mundungus and Vance, he gave his report and just waited, like some statue… he looks kinda, inhuman, doesn't he? Kinda ageless, I've always thought. In a creepy way. I thought that at the time, but then I remember as everyone was preparing to settle down and eat, Snape seemed unsure of what to do. And then I noticed Sirius glare pointedly at him, and Snape turned and left. Everyone then gasped about how rude he was being, but nobody acknowledged the fact that he hadn't been made welcome. But you know, I think I thought that this was normal… I was just like, 'oh, that's Snape versus everyone else, and he likes it that way just as everyone else does. Despite what I said, I never thought that it was… you know, wrong." Tonks sat back. "Merlin, that's awful of me."

Lupin groaned.

Guilt was such a strange feeling. Like a weight in your head and a turbulence in your belly, and longer it remains, the worse those feelings get. It can be ignored, it can be buried, but it always will remerge, and when it does, the feelings just increase a million-fold.

And Lupin was now feeling sick.

"Snape was bullied?" Tonks said curiously. "That would explain why he was such a bully when he taught our classes. He once called me a 'bungling gaudy elephant' which had people hexing elephant ears onto me for the next month."

Lupin sighed. "He's nasty. That is what makes it easy to be nasty back to him. Or to ignore him."

"You don't seem to find it easy. You seem to be the only one not finding it easy."

"I'm sorry, it's been a long day. I didn't mean to unload on you."

"No, you got a point. Snape may be a git but if you think some serious wrong has been done him…" Tonks tossed her head back, pink spikes of hair flicking into a new arrangement. "Well, two wrongs don't make a right."

November 4, 1995

Severus Snape

Snape was having a normal day. Nuclear exhaustion in the morning, aching limbs from Cruciatus exposure, a hastily snatched half hour reading research material over a cup of coffee, a hasty escape to the bathroom to retch after eating breakfast in the Great Hall- probably the coffee- and a boring, lengthy, soul-crushing stint monitoring fat-headed Neanderthals in their ham-handed attempts to even slightly understand Potions.

In tiny snatched moment when cauldrons weren't about to explode and when First Year Gryffindors and Slytherins' weren't about to poison each other, Snape would attempt to return to his Imperious detecting research while in class. It may have been futile when it came to actually getting any work done, but at least it kept his mind firmly fixed on the goal… for he was so close! As he silently and malevolently demonstrated the correct preparatory method of Blind-worm's Sting to some blundering Hufflepuff, he found himself lost in thought. 'The assecula shouldn't have been interfering with the detection spell to such an extent… I can't understand why they would be so central, for they had never been so in previous spell detection work. What is it I'm missing?

Apparently a finger.

Snape stared down in interest at his mutilated hand as it gushed blood straight into Mr. Godfrey's cauldron.

That was when it stopped being a normal day.

'Curious. In fifteen years of teaching Potions to these dunder-heads, none of them have succeeded in chopping off my fingers. Until now.'

Of course, such a rational response was not what he had given the hapless Mr. Godfrey, who probably had been punished enough by the sight of Snape's long sallow finger seeping blood onto his Potions textbook, but Snape was not one to be merciful.

"You imbecilic lummox of a child!" he hissed, radiating black flames of anger that his pain had no difficulty producing.

And then the class room exploded in screams and gasps, the children now all seeing the gory sight that Mr. Godfrey had inadvertently facilitated. The only one who didn't scream was their esteemed teacher, being too busy casting a quick bone-reattachment spell with his left hand. But once he had done that, and doused his hand in Dittany, he turned a baleful glare onto Mr. Godfrey. Doubtless the child would become a Hogwarts-wide hero by dinnertime, but for the moment, he was in Snape's (now restored) clutches.

Depthless eyes cold and sinister, he slowly turned back to the bloody desk where Godfrey crouched, white-faced and shivering, "Two months of detention, Godfrey." He said softly. "And you can clean up this mess too."

"But I didn't mean to! I was trying to chop the worm-sting!"

"You will cease to make pathetic excuses, I really could not care less, Mr. Godfrey." The Potions Master snapped, rubbing his aching, limp hand, the memory of the severing still reverberating through his body.

"But I didn't mean to!" Godfrey was near tears, and probably not trying to make excuses- likely just uncertain of how to phrase an apology to the Slytherin Dungeon-Master.

"Intentions do not matter, boy, only results." Was Snape's wilting rebuke.

And then suddenly, his expression faltered. 'Intentions don't matter, but results do! Of course! I was looking at it from completely the wrong angle!' The next moment Snape's gaze cleared back to its normal dead fish stare.

"And you can do an essay on the laws the Ministry has on manslaughter and maiming- just in case you plan on 'not meaning' to dismember somebody else."

And with that, he cast a hawkish eye over his class and growled, "Get back to work, the rest of you."

When classes were finally over for the day, Snape practically raced to the library, trying to ignore the awed stares and whispers that erupted through the Hogwarts halls as he passed. Already word had spread of his utter non-reaction to losing a finger, and doubtless new rumours would soon erupt about his level of pain endurance. Pain insensibility was probably a better descriptor, at least for how he was feeling that day.

But that was all external- the pain, the gossip, the weariness, the irritation- because he was about to solve the greatest riddle of his career. A spell to detect the Imperious. The throwaway comment he had made when scolding Godfrey had given him the answer. He'd been spending so much time trying to unravel the detection starting from the signum and working up to the assecula, but none of that mattered! Well, it did, it was quite crucial actually, but what had to be taken into account first was the result. The result being the individual ensnared in the Imperious spell- which registered in neural brain waves! He had studied that in an effort to understand the spell but he hadn't thought of using the spell to scan for neural brain waves that showed readings of the Imperious signum and assescula. Obviously, what would be required was a combination spell of neural brain scans, signum detection, and assecula sifting. Now he just needed to find out what magic formula could be arrived at by combining such complex spells. With a faint twinge of irritation, he realised any reasonably intelligent Muggle probably would have had that idea sooner.

When he arrived at the library, he made a beeline for the spell section, specifically looking for work on mathematical spell formulae. There wasn't very much to find, as he expected. Hogwarts, despite having a library befitting an institute run by some of the greatest British wizarding minds, really was quite limited when it came to the more rational works of magical literature. Well, that's what Snape thought, at least.

But when he made his way past Madame Pince (who still glared at him just like she'd done when he was in First Year), somebody slammed into him from behind. Hard. His knee crashed down into the wooden floor and the books went sliding all over the place under Madame Pince's horrified gaze.

Snape was really beginning to get annoyed. First his finger being chopped off, and now this? All while he was on the cusp of a great discovery! A genius's life is never an easy one…

So he turned his finely attuned death glare on the fresh hell sent to torment him- which seemed to be in the form of quiet, polite little Hermione Granger, who even now was busily picking up his books while visibly taking an acute interest in the titles.

"Oh dear, Professor, I am sooo sorry!" she wailed. "I wasn't looking where I was going! I was reading and-"

"Yes, I know, memorizing the written content of books does take up all the observational powers your limited mental resources are able to access. Which, I suppose, accounts for both your clumsiness and your lack of originality." He snarked, snatching his books away from her prying eyes, although he doubted she'd be able to make much sense from titles such as 'The Encyclopaedia of Elemental Incantation', 'Die Gleichung lösenor' 'Combined Spellcraft; A Dissertation'.

Insult firmly in place, he strode off, deaf to Hermione's repeated apology and Madame Pince's angry caterwauls. Although he was suspicious at Hermione's ill-disguised attempt to see what he was reading, his mind was too occupied to bother itself with such trifles. History was waiting to be made!

He spent the rest of the evening locked away in his laboratory, pouring over his books and jotting down notes into his journal. He rudely sent Minerva away after she, having heard of the dismembered finger incident, came to check on him.

"Well, someone's being an ornery old man today." She harrumphed loudly from outside his office. "Sulking because a kid got the better of you again?"

He ignored her.

Finally, as the clouds scudded to black and the moon gained dominance of the sky, Snape stalked out of the laboratory, clutching a fist full of papers and bearing his black messenger owl on his shoulder. It was time to put his new theory to the test! Through the dark halls of Hogwarts, and out to the Forbidden Forest, until there was no one around but the trees and mystical creatures to view the apex of his career.

After casting Imperious on his ever-willing test subject, the black owl, Snape prepared to launch his new invention…

"Divordinatus!"

Nothing.

But that was to be expected. The first execution of a new spell is very unlikely to succeed immediately. Because it wasn't really a new spell. The elements of the spell he was attempting to cast had existed since the beginning of time… he wasn't really creating a spell. He was discovering it.

So for the next thirty minutes he continued to attempt to discover it, repeating the lines with different rhythm, stress, pitch, accents, moving his wand in slightly different patterns, although not varying too far outside the perimeters his calculations had led him to conclude… the poor owl was beginning to look very limp and battered as it continued to waddle back and forth upon the Imperious curse's demand. And then it happened.

"Divordinatus?"

From Snape's wand a dash of neon lavender light exploded, and leap-frog like, the light pounced upon his forlorn little owl, ensnaring it in mesh of purple luminosity that shone with a startling brilliance.

Yes!

Snape threw his head back with triumph, his hair flowing wildly in the night breeze.

And then just to make sure that the Imperious detector would not only detect but also alert, he mentally altered the spell a little bit, the calculations flowing like free-style composition in his head. He was in his element- if he was Mozart, spell-craft was his music.

'Obside, Prison, Captivus, Vana Mentis, Hostage, Mind, Directive, Order, Mentem, Moneo, Warning, Sonorus, Sound, Divine, Divobsidusmentum, Divinordate Moneo, Divinordate Moneo, Divinordate, Divordinamone… Divordermone…'

"Divordermone!"

And again, the lavender light imprisoned the owl, but was this time accompanied by a high-pitched squealing sound, so onerous to the ears that Snape hastily cancelled the spell (he had always made a habit of calculating a spells counter before casting.)

"So eminently simple." He sighed out loud. "To think that for so many decades wizards have overlooked it. It's like Stefan Von Koch discovering the law of wand affinity or Pasteur discovering germs… it's been in front of us all this time."

The sheer beauty of the moment washed over him. It had been such a long time since he had been able to simply bathe in the glory of magic's infinity.

But abruptly, he hissed between his teeth, clasping a hand to grip the searing pain that burned on his forearm. Tonight?

The Dark Lord was calling, and he was not one to enjoy waiting.

Snape knew he was not well prepared. He was still weakened from the effects of having a finger temporarily removed, and he knew his mind was disturbingly over-excited by the breakthrough he had just wrought.

He breathed in deeply, steadying his nerves, sinking his inner consciousness down to the depths of his mind and raising his mental shields high. And then, black robes swirling around him, he turned on his heel. But just as his vision was sucked into the tunnel of transport, he saw a face peer out from behind a tree trunk, and for a moment his shocked, Apparating eyes locked with those of George Weasley's!

But his Apparation had already taken place, and the next moment he was outside the Dark Lord's forest- there would be no time to muse on what he had just seen.

November 4, 1995

Harry Potter

"You blasted idiot, he saw you!" Fred raged, looking genuinely angry with his brother.

"Hardly my fault, you were the one sticking an elbow in my face! I was just trying to get a better view- that blasted cloak is completely useless with all three of us under it!" George retorted

"Oh stop it, both of you!" Harry shoved the invisibility cloak aside, where it had been previously covering him and Fred. "It was you two that had the bright idea to follow Snape anyway; what's done is done. So he saw you, George. It's not like he will go and try to get you expelled- after all, then he'd have to explain what he was doing out in the forbidden forest at midnight."

"What d'you reckon' he was doing?" George sat down on the log and began brushing twigs and leaves out of his red tousled hair. "And that spell then, what the 'ell was it meant for?"

"A curse to drive owls insane?" Fred joked.

"Who knows?" Harry mused. "Divordermone… maybe 'Mione will know what it means."

George shrugged. "We can ask her, but I doubt it. Snape knows a lot a lot more spells than her, and that one- I've never seen or heard about anything like it."

Fred looked bored. "Yeh, whatever, he likes to cast purple spells at birds in the middle of the Forbidden Forest. Pretty typical Death Eater behaviour, if you ask me. But didn't you lads notice how at the end there he was being summoned by You-Know-Who? How he gripped his arm and all…"

"Hmm, yeah I think so." Harry muttered, unsure of everything he had just seen. "C'mon, we are wasting time. We were meant to be cracking his medical records, not tracking him through this stupid forest."

"Speaking of which… you chaps have the foggiest clue where we are right now?" George asked, looking apprehensively up at the towering circle of trees.

Of course, no one had any idea.

It would usually be at this point that Hermione would step in to save their hides, but she was safely tucked away in her bed back at Hogwarts, completely unaware of Harry and the twins' nocturnal wanderings.

The Weasley twins had snuck into Harry's bedroom that evening after Ron had gone to sleep and they had insisted that Harry lend them the cloak so they could steal Snape's medical records. And of course, Harry had thought it would be a good idea to go with them. It was a useful diversion from the misery Harry had sustained after being given a lifelong ban from Quidditch the day before. They had just gotten to the West Wing and were about to jimmy the Hospital Wing's lock when George had spied Snape stalking out of the gates and heading towards the forest. The rest, of course, was history…

So there they were, lost in the forbidden forest with nothing to show for their spot of espionage but another bucket load of questions.

Well, it took about an hour before they had actually managed to find their way home, and it only due to George's compass spell, which he didn't think of, of course, until at least a half hour had passed since realising that they were lost. But finally, they were back to where it all began, in the West Wing staring at the door to the Hospital Wing.

Fred did the Alohomora honours, and, shrouded in the Invisibility Cloak, they crept into the sterile, empty Hospital wing.

"Where to?" hissed Harry.

"I think Pomfrey keeps them in her office." George whispered back, tripping over a bedstand and restraining a yelp of pain.

"You think?" Fred was still annoyed at his twin for his bungle earlier and his latent remembrance of the compass spell. "So you don't really know where it is, you blockhead, just that it exists?"

"Oh stow it, it stands to reason that it's there."

So two more Alohamoras later and they had bypassed both Pomfrey's office door and her desk draw. The problem was there were a lot of files in there, and as they went rifling through them, finding nothing resembling 1970s medical records, Fred's voice began to get louder and louder in his fraternal castigations.

"You see, this is why I'm the one with the ideas, and you're the one who backs me up!"

"Actually it's the other way around, you berk. Have you forgotten whose idea it was to start the prank shop?"

"The prank shop! You think I'd let you be my partner after this? I'll buy you out!"

"Moron, you can't do that, there aren't even any shares yet!"

"I found it!" at Harry's exclamation, the read-heads turned around, quarrel forgotten.

"Let's see it!"

"Show us, 'Arry!"

But just as they were about to wrench the dusty old book from Harry's grasp, a voice sounded from outside the office.

"Quickly, set him down on the bed. Oh the poor boy…"

It was Madame Pomfrey.

At that, all three boys went silent, standing in the middle of the paper strewn office, their hearts in their mouth.

They were royally screwed, of that, Harry was certain. Of course, some stupid First Year student had to choose that night to fall ill. Doubtless Madame Pomfrey was going to storm into her office any moment soon and they would be completely discovered, and be given detention for the rest of the school year. Probably expelled for good measure too, and he didn't suppose Dumbledore would lift a finger to stop that, what with the way he'd been acting that term.

"We need to hide!" George whispered frantically. "Get the cloak!"

But with the two tall Weasley boys and Harry altogether, their legs stuck out comically from beneath the cloak- it really wasn't much of a long-term solution.

Harry was just about to make up his mind to turn himself in when suddenly a voice sounded from the medical room that made him forget everything entirely.

"For Salazar's sake, take me to my bloody quarters, I shouldn't- be here." Although the words were rasped through clenched teeth, it was unmistakably belonging to a certain Death Eater- the object of their investigation.

As if of one mind, the boys crept over to the office's one-way mirror window and what they saw left them utterly chilled with horror.

Three figures gathered around a single bed, where, stretched out and panting in tiny agony filled gasps, lay Severus Snape. He was wearing Death Eater robes (Harry would later wonder at what point since Disapparating from the forest he had changed into them) but the robes were barely distinguishable from a pile of rags, so tattered and muddied they had become. Snape was quivering quite violently, as if with some kind of strange ague, and the clean sheets of the hospital bed were definitely beginning to look as if they were soaked in blood.

"I'm serious, take me to my quarters. I-I- c…can heal myself." Snape was saying with some effort.

"Nonsense, silly boy." Pomfrey said sternly, although a heavy strain of concern had entered her tone. "This is exactly where you should be, now lie still. Filch, you can go. Albus, I am getting some supplies, would you be able to undress him?"

"Of course, Poppy." It was Dumbledore, and he also sounded extremely worried. As Poppy hurried off, Dumbledore gently flicked his wand, vanishing the useless rags that covered Snape's body.

"Blast-it, can't-you-go?" Snape swore, his body convulsing, as if the mere removal of the fabric had sent pain all through his body.

"You haven't been looking after your health, like I'd asked you to, my boy." Dumbledore patted his hand gently, but Snape wrenched himself free, although yet again his body gave a torturous shudder.

"Oh, about bloody time for another lecture- gaarrgh!" Snape's vitriolic response was cut short by a rather pitiful wail that left Harry's ears stunned. When a man could be silent and stoic at having a finger chopped off, how much pain did they have to be in to make such a sound?

"Severus, my boy, please don't distress yourself." Dumbledore again patted the Potion Master's hand, as if oblivious to Snape's obvious disdain for such an action. "Now, what exactly happened? Filch found you in a heap at the end of the forest- apparently there was a flare going out above your body, did you do that?"

"No-fhhhh." Snape gasped, lifting his chin and flexing his stomach muscles as though trying to sit up. Dumbledore moved to make him lie still, and as Dumbledore shifted position, Harry's jaw suddenly dropped, as he was afforded with a clear view of Snape's naked, wraithlike form. Judging by the tensed bodies of the twins next to him, they were also affected by it. Because the man was skinny… so very skinny, and almost entirely wet with blood. And all along his thin body, deep open gouges had been torn into his flesh, like enormous claw marks made by some terrible beast.

"What happened?" breathed a horrified George at a barely audible volume.

Snape flopped back, taking in slow, ragged breaths. "It must have been Lucius who left the flare. I don't know, I was barely conscious by the time the Dark Lord had finished with me. I think Lucius took me back."

"And why would he do that?" Dumbledore settled himself down in a chair next to the blood-soaked bed.

"He's my friend." Snape retorted.

"He's a Death Eater."

"Well, here is a fascinating bit of news for you, Headmaster. So am I!"

"No, you may wear the mark but you aren't a Death Eater, you know that. You know where Lucius's loyalties lie…"

"Oh, will you BOTTLE IT, you old man!" Snape roared, pain seeming to have stripped him of all his social amenabilities. Harry could barely believe Snape was being so rude to the world's greatest wizard.

"My dear boy, I'm only trying to say-"

"Well, you shouldn't be trying to say anything, Albus, and neither should Severus. In case you've noticed he's hardly in any condition to be speaking." Pomfrey's sharp accent interrupted the Headmaster amid his remonstrations, and she flurried over, urging a potion down Snape's throat while simultaneously casting a wound-sealing spell.

"I can talk fine. What were you saying, Headmaster?" Snape, despite having previously demanded Dumbledore to 'bottle it', seemed determined not to be ordered about.

"Wonderful!" Dumbledore said brightly, ignoring Pomfrey's indignant expression. "So Voldemort didn't discover your true loyalties?"

Snape snorted. "If he had, do you think I'd still be alive?"

"Then what happened, my boy? What in Merlin's name did you do to deserve this?"

"Deserve?" Snape let out a strangled laugh. "But this was an honour, don't you know? A true test of my loyalties, which I passed."

"I don't understand."

While Pomfrey cleaned the blood away from Snape's strangely small, pale body, he cleared his throat and croaked out an explanation.

"It was Goyle who started it, pathetic worm… the Dark Lord had just explained to them my suggestion- you know, Azkaban and he thought it would be a good idea to challenge my loyalty. He suggested it was all a trap- gahhh, madame, a little less force, please!" he snapped at Pomfrey, who merely rolled her eyes and continued swabbing Dittany over his wounds.

"Continue, my boy." Dumbledore pressed, ignoring Snape's labouring breath and the flinches of pain that accompanied his every breath.

"Well, the Dark Lord was unhappy that my loyalty was being challenged- after all, that's also a challenge to his competence as a Legilimens."

Harry had no idea what a Legilimens was, but he continued listening with sickened fascination.

"So he decided to torture me with every blasted curse short of Avada Kedavra, and then invaded my mind once I was near unconscious."

"Did he break through?" Dumbledore's voice was sharp with anxiety.

"You think I'm such a fool as to not have mental safeguards in moments of unconsciousness? Of course he didn't."

"So did Tom prove his point then?" Dumbledore asked gently, the stern edge now gone from his voice, apparently satisfied with Snape's information.

"I suppose. I don't know, I wasn't exactly cognizant by that point." Was Snape's sarcastic rejoinder. "But he's completely insane, you know. The metamorphosis he has been through has affected more than his body- he's irrational, unstable. Last time he would not have done something like this- allowed a petty follower to egg him into nearly killing me… because I think he may have without realising, if Lucius hadn't stopped him."

"Well at least Malfoy is good for something- although he is not your friend."

Instead of replying, Snape's body convulsed once more and he hunched over the side of the bed, disturbing the unfasted bandages the Pomfrey had been working on.

A moment later, the sound of retching filled Harry's ears, but he couldn't see that Snape had vomited anything.

"Dear boy, you have brought nothing up at all! When was the last time you've eaten? You really have been disobeying my orders to see to your health." Dumbledore, in Snape's moment of dry retching misery, somehow seemed to think this was as good occasion as any to scold him.

"Oh go to Cerberus!" Snape gasped.

"I'm sorry, who?" the Headmaster queried benignly.

"Fluffy." And at that nonsensical word, Snape's eyes rolled back in his head and his body stilled.

"Dear me, Poppy, I think he's fainted." Dumbledore peered over Snape's body, adjusting his gold-rimmed spectacles.

"What did you think would happen, what with you pressing him with questions?" Poppy said brusquely. "I haven't seen him this ill in a long time, and you decide to interrogate him? You really are a stupid old man."

"Why is everyone an ageist this evening?" Dumbledore tutted. "I'm only a hundred and thirteen."

Poppy didn't reply, and busied herself with dressing Snape's injuries, wrapping nearly his entire body up with bandages. "These will need to be one for at least a day, until the skin has healed. I don't know what spell was used, but it was strong."

"How long will he be in bed for?" Dumbledore asked.

"I'd say a good week. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Names hit him with everything in the spell-book, and a few things beside."

"A week?" Dumbledore protested. "Severus is hardly going to accept that."

"Severus has no say in the matter. And neither do you." Pomfrey's voice was girded with steel. "The boy is utterly emaciated, and is suffering severe sleep deprivation, no doubt due to your constant demands."

"I did try to tell him-"

"Maybe you should try harder." Pomfrey said tartly. "Now go to bed, you can't do anything else here tonight."

Nodding, Dumbledore turned to go, but then paused, and looked down at Snape with an expression that Harry, from his vantage point at the window, could only describe as tenderness.

"You will tell me if anything changes, will you not?"

"Of course, Headmaster."

Harry and the twins stayed most of the night crouched under that window, simultaneously terrified of discovery and disturbed by the scene they had witnessed. It wasn't until the dawn, when Pomfrey began discreetly levitating Snape out of the hall, doubtless returning him to his quarters, that the boys were able to slip out, after quickly tidied the files. They took the book of medical records with them, although only on the condition that George be the one to return it. They found they could say nothing to each other on the way back to Gryffindor Tower- for really, what good were words at this point? They had just witnessed the bane of their school existence quivering and groaning, bruised and bloodied- and speaking of things that seemed to confirm an incredible loyalty to the Order. Could that really be all a sham?

Author's Note;

Okay, now I sincerely apologise for the shameless whump and angst in this chapter, but I solemnly swear I have a very good reason for it. After all to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven, a time to kill, and a time to heal, a time to break down, and a time to build up…. Oh great, now I'm quoting scripture. Anyway…

Now technically the previous chapter was dedicated to Shattenjagd but I did promise something special for them and wasn't able to fit it in, so, Shattenjagd, you should be able to figure out what I've given you.

And to the rest of you, thanks so much for the support. I will admit, I find myself extremely surprised and humbled at some of the comments I got since Chapter 11. So, thanks. Really.