"Explaining the curses on the books will simply encourage her," Severus said quietly. "And letting her see the contents of some of those books is in no one's best interest."

"The only alternative is to simply remove all of the books," Dumbledore said. "Which will only feed the resentment that she has towards us."

"She doesn't seem to resent me," Severus said. He smirked.

"Be on your guard," Dumbledore said. "I suspect that one of the reasons she wanted the memory charm so badly was to remove anything damning that you discover before you have a chance to inform me."

Scowling, Severus said, "I can't imagine what prompted that fool to teach her."

"Blackmail, most likely," Dumbledore said. "Or fear. He did say he was taking an extended sabbatical to places as far away from here as possible."

"Of her or the Dark Lord?"

"Yes," Dumbledore said, without elucidating further.

"I'll find out what I can," Severus said. "And see whether she is a delusional genius, or something much more dangerous."

He stood up and took his leave.

The Order Headquarters wasn't the only place they met; for one thing, they'd never be able to keep secrets from the girl. For another thing, they needed places where less trusted assets could meet with them.

After all, someone who knew the secret could always be controlled into taking someone else with them.

Apparating to an alley near Black's house, Severus walked there quickly. It was daytime, and so he moved quickly. Most of the muggles were working, but there were a few who were on the dole, and the last thing he needed was for the obliviators to be summoned.

He was inside the house a moment later.

The changes in only two days were impressive. Gone were the cobwebs, the heavy coating of dust. Everything had been meticulously cleaned with the best effort that magic could give.

There was a smell of food cooking in the kitchen.

Molly Weasley was a failure as a mother in some ways; her children were all willful and disobedient. Yet there was something about the way in which she treated them that made a strange pressure in his chest.

Their family was nothing like his own had been. His parents had been cold toward him even as they'd fought each other with desperate intensity. There was something strangely warm about the Weasley household that made him wonder if his life might have been different if he'd been raised in such surroundings.

"I don't need any more to eat," he heard Potter saying irritably from the other room.

"You're a tiny thing," Molly was saying. "Maybe a few more bites."

"The food's great, Mrs. Weasley," he heard Potter say.

He waited for the old familiar anger and bitterness to rise up. This was James Potter's brat, the child of a man who was everything Severus was not. Potter had been a bully, yet in the end he'd gotten the girl.

He'd been prepared to see Harry Potter as being his father's son. He looked enough like him.

At first it had seemed clear and simple. The boy was brash, and every bit the Gryffindor his father had been.

However, his association with Taylor had made him quieter, more reflective. Training had given the boy discipline, and he'd lost his tendency to spout off whatever nonsense that came into his head.

He'd never care for the boy, but much of the venom that had fueled him was gone. In it's place was a sort of feeling of hollowness. This was all that was left of Lily; all that ever would be. He'd sacrificed a great deal to keep the boy alive.

He closed his eyes and forced himself to focus. The last thing he needed was for Taylor Hebert to go rummaging through his memories. With his luck, she'd go right for the current location of the Dark Lord, and he'd return to find a lot of murdered Death Eaters.

The Dark Lord himself wouldn't die, of course. He was immortal. The fact that the others did would lead to a lot of pain for Severus; it might even lead to his death.

He stepped into the room. The kitchen was changed dramatically from two days before. It was almost sparkling.

"I am here to see Miss Hebert," he said.

Molly was ruffling Harry's head with one hand. She looked up.

"She's in the drawing room," Molly said.

Snape turned and headed for the drawing room.

The girl had cornered Kreacher and was speaking to him in a low voice.

"She thought it was rats, but it might have been doxies. I know a really good way of getting rid of those."

"Stupid mudblood is good at killing," Kreacher said grudgingly.

"I showed you how to kill the rats, didn't I?" the girl said.

The house elf chuckled evilly, and Severus had an uneasy feeling that the rats in the house hadn't died an easy death.

"Running around without eyes," Kreacher said. He grinned, and the expression on his face wasn't pretty. "Stupid rats got what they deserved. Hurting the mistress like that."

Severus felt a chill down his spine. He knew of one rat that had been murdered recently with exploding eyeballs, one that had threatened to reveal a young girl's secrets.

The girl obviously knew that he'd heard, but she turned around and smiled at him as though nothing had been said at all.

"Hello Professor Snape," she said. "Is it time for lessons?"

Did he dare say anything about what he had heard? If he did, then he'd worry that he'd wake up one night with her standing over his bed, and then he'd be missing some of his memories.

If he didn't he'd be tacitly condoning her behaviors.

"We've all done things we aren't proud of," the girl said quietly. Apparently some of his dilemma had shown in his expression. "But for the moment we are all moving toward the same goal."

She turned and said, "You're doing a great job, Kreacher. I think your mistress would have been proud."

"Stupid mudblood! Who cares about your opinion?" Kreacher's face twisted up and he turned away from the girl.

Yet as she turned away, his posture straightened. His shoulders lost a little of the droop they'd had in every encounter Severus had ever had with the thing.

The girl was blatant and obvious in her attempts at ingratiating herself to the thing; it should have been completely ineffective, but it seemed that she was getting through to him.

Yet equally as obvious, being nice wasn't a skill that she was used to using. Intimidation and fear were well worn paths for her. Diplomacy and being nice much less so.

It made Severus feel a little better to see her being so clumsy and obvious. He'd wondered at times whether the seeming affection she had for him was an affectation, an attempt to manipulate him much like the dark lord had once.

Unless she was being clumsy and obvious with the house elf in an effort to convince him and Dumbledore that she wasn't manipulating them. That was a chilling thought.

Severus shook the thought off. She wouldn't be letting him into her mind unless she was sure that he wouldn't be repulsed by what she would see.

"It's time," he said.

When he was sure that the house elf was gone, and that there were no other spies, using the best spells that he knew, he turned to the girl and said, "I assume you've done the reading."

"Everything I could find," she said.

"You will wish to sit for this," he said. He'd thought she might protest; after all she was the girl who'd laughed while experiencing the cruciatus. Instead, she primly took a seat.

"If you were Potter I'd be more worried," he said. "His mind is undisciplined, and his emotions are close to the surface. Part of the reason this is rarely taught to children is because they have difficulty controlling their emotions."

"I had an easier time of it in my last body," Taylor admitted. "I think there's something about a childish brain that makes emotional regulation harder. Maybe it has something to do with the glands. I'm not looking forward to puberty again."

"Speak to Professor McGonegall or one of your female prefects if you have questions. There are potions to control bodily functions that are not covered in general classes."

At her raised eyebrow, he continued.

"Wizards tend to be conservative, and what the muggles call sexual education isn't on the agenda."

"Are there magical STDs?" she asked. "Hagrid's a half-giant, so wizards are apparently doing things with other races... it seems like you could get some funky diseases that way, much less from sharing a bath with someone with a weird magical foot fungus."

"None are yet incurable," he said. "And this is off the subject. Despite your... handicaps, your emotions tend to be muted."

"I've got ways to control that," she said. "I'm trying to use it less; I think it's not healthy."

"In occlumency, being able to clear one's mind is an asset. Once you become more advanced, you will be able to clear everything but those things that you want an opponent to see."

"Creating a false narrative," she said. She nodded.

"I will attempt to break into your mind," Severus said. "Which will require me to point my wand at you."

He knew better than to try that unannounced.

"It will be painful," he said.

"So you could use it as a means of torture?" she asked.

"The process itself is not painful," Severus said. "It is the resisting that causes the pain. The dark lord has been known to extract every ounce of pain from his victims before ending their lives in agony."

"That's a waste, unless you're trying to send a message," she said. She looked thoughtful. "Is terror the only reason he's able to keep his people's loyalty?"

"No," Severus said. "Although your presence has made the lowest level members much more cautious about courting the disfavor of their superiors."

"What? The Terror? Right. So why is that?"

"It's become... fashionable to recommend members who do not perform as well for the next mission against you. The Dark Lord tolerates it because as long as the rank and file fight among themselves, they will not turn on him."

"I always wondered why someone didn't just shoot him in the back, then the lot of you pretend he was still alive. You could easily use it as an excuse to loot the houses of your enemies, then fade into the woodwork."

"If the Dark Lord were known to be permanently dead, the organization would likely split into factions."

She nodded sagely. "I've seen that before. Have you ever thought of leading a Death Eater reform party? Once I've killed your boss, I mean."

"What?"

"You could create a kinder, gentler organization of Death Eaters who do nothing but sit in their rocking chairs and mutter racist things while the younger generation goes out and changes things."

"And you'd leave that be?"

"As long as it wasn't someone who has directly harmed me. Maybe even some of them, depending on what they did. It depends on whether I believed they were faking it or not. I'd hate to be eating out in Hogsmeade a year from now and have to put blood on the walls."

If Severus was right, it wouldn't be the first time. How she'd killed an entire group of Death Eaters and then creatively decorated the town, he didn't know. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"I'm sure that you'd be quick to believe anyone," he said.

"It's a great reason to teach me legilimency," she said. "Otherwise, I might have to be proactive."

Was she threatening to murder all of his old acquaintances if he didn't teach her?

"It'd be aggressive self defense," she said.

"I doubt the Ministry would think so," Severus said dryly. "And while I don't doubt that you'd be successful in escaping Azkaban, they might think it wise to have you Kissed simply because of the danger you represent."

"I'm considering ways to deal with the Dementors," she said.

She didn't continue, though, so hopefully the message was taken.

"Are you ready?"

She nodded.

He lifted his wand and pointed it at her.

Her mind had always been difficult to penetrate. Every mind was different, of course, but almost all shared many things in common. Her mind was more alien than even the mind of a house elf.

It was like looking through a kaleidoscope, jumbled bits and pieces of images, with only small bits making sense. If she were able to control and refine it, it would make for an effective occlumency shield.

As it was, it took him longer than he would have liked to slip through the ever shifting maze that was her defenses.

A moment later, he was in. It wasn't a recent memory, but he didn't have enough control to do more than snatch at anything he could reach.

"And the neck bone's connected to the...back bone. The back bone's connected to the...leg bone."

A child with blonde hair was leaning over a body on a table. She'd opened the body up and was doing something with a scalpel. It took Severus a moment to realize that the body on the table was alive. The open chest cavity showed lungs still working and the heart was still pumping.

Was this Taylor in her old body, performing some kind of torture on an innocent?

Through a set of heavy refrigerator doors, Severus could see what had been a black teenager, splayed out much like the bodies in Hogsmeade had been. His face was contorted in agony, and somehow, impossibly he was still alive.

"Wake up Taylor," the girl with the scalpel said sweetly. "I don't want you to miss all of this."

The girl's eyes blinked open but she didn't speak. She was wearing a strange sort of a mask with goggles, enough that Severus couldn't quite make out her face.

This was Taylor?

Before he could see anymore, he felt himself being ripped away, swept into the maelstrom of her mind.

Suddenly he found himself gagging, with a memory of a stench so profound that he felt it in the back of his own throat. He could barely breathe.

They were in the darkness, trapped inside a claustrophobic metal box. Had someone put her in a coffin? There were insects crawling all over her as she struggled.

Outside he could hear female voices, taunting.

"Nobody's coming Taylor," a girl said in a low voice on the other side of the door. "You'll die in there and nobody will even care. They can all hear you scream, but even the teachers won't protect you. Stay in there with the rest of the filth."

He could hear the sounds of several girls laughing as they walked away.

The girl screamed and sobbed and beat on the doors, but true to the other girl's words no one came.

It reminded him of his own experiences with James Potter. He'd seen all sorts of bullying at Hogwarts, yet he'd never worked to stop it despite his own experiences with how painful it could be.

Why hadn't he ever done anything?

He'd lashed out at students, but not at the ones who tortured their classmates every year.

He tried to pull himself from the memory, but he found himself trapped, gagging and choking from the smell of vomit and rotten bodily wastes. It was hard to take a breath, and he saw the moment the girl started to panic.

This girl was younger than the girl on the table. That girl had been afraid but resigned, even given the pain she was in. This girl didn't have the raw power that the other girl...

Severus suddenly felt an outside memory intrude on his mind, one that he could not remember even a moment later.

That should not happen inside a memory. He felt a sudden moment of anxiety; was she obliviating him even now, in the middle of his rummaging through her mind?

He tried to pull away, but he found himself lost in the maelstrom, spun back and forth until he landed in water.

He was in some kind of an underground vault. It was huge filled with a large number of muggles, all of whom stunk of fear. They were in water, and some of them were trying to make their way up a set of stairs.

The girl looked much more menacing in her full costume than he would have thought. She was wearing a black and gray bodysuit with armored panels. He couldn't make out what any of it was made of, but he could tell it was well made.

People were sobbing; some were holding pets above the water as they made their way out of the vault.

The girl's head snapped up in an expression that he'd learned to recognize.

The back wall of the vault exploded, and something stepped into the breach. The girl was pushed to the side as people panicked. They screamed and fled, crawling over each other in an effort to get away from whatever this was.

Taylor had had a name for these. What was it?

Severus stared up at the unblinking eyes above him, and despite himself he felt afraid.

Right.

This was an Endbringer.