Hello everyone!
This is the third part of backstory that concludes the sum of what we will know… until action reveals more. I guess this is the most interesting of the three, eh?
So, Onwards! Chapter 24.
***
Rasmus walked away from the Golden Trio, and though Harry moved to join the young Slytherin, Hermione held him back.
"Give him his space for a while, Harry," she murmured, watching the tired gait that was not that lofty at the moment. "Don't you think everything he said cost him? I can't begin to imagine how much he is afraid for his godfather to just reveal all this information without hedging."
Ron frowned.
"Why would he even want that, anyway? It's not like he's got Snape's excuse- unless being a Snape is an excuse-"
"Oh, stop it," Hermione rolled her eyes. "Didn't you hear what he said he is? Or do you think Pythagoreans go around announcing who they are to everyone?"
"No, I guess he wouldn't do that," Harry said softly just as Ron was about to answer. "Do you think we are heading for another battle?"
"Why?" Ron asked, but it was a token question. He knew why, and so did his friends.
Hermione sighed, biting her lip.
"Well, we do know now that whoever killed Rita Skeeter was of the Isis cult. No way that scarab sign means anything else. And we know that Rasmus' godfather is injured because he confronted some such wizards; probably Skeeter's killers themselves."
"And he did tell McGonagall that whoever did all that might want to come after them here," Ron nodded, hating to admit it. "Bloody hell."
"They may also want to come after me," Harry said calmly, making both Hermione and Ron start.
"You? Why you?" Ron blurted out. "You're done with that! Isis isn't You-Know-Who!"
Harry sighed as they entered the main hall to sit down to tea, watching warily as a first year approached, quill and parchment in hand.
"I never sign autographs," he murmured before the starry eyed girl managed to speak, and walked past her. Then he turned to his friends again.
"Because of that dream. It's stopped now, and it stopped just as his godfather got hurt, so it's a safe bet that it stopped because Rasmus' godfather stopped it. Probably by knocking out the wizard, or some such thing. And if I have a connection or anything causing me that, I won't ever again dismiss it as chance or coincidental."
Hermione eyed Harry cautiously.
"And what are you going to do?" she asked.
"For one thing, I'm going to have Professor Bai alert and ready- he may be a lot of things, but tolerant of dark magic is not one of them."
Ron snorted. "He could have fooled me."
"He fools many people," Harry said, happy to see coffee in his cup instead of warm milk or tea. "But I know him."
***
Snape's portrait was the only thing heard in Minerva's office as Severus narrated one of the secrets he had taken to his grave. Minerva's heart constricted a little with half-formed thoughts of what other burdens the man had shouldered to see through a commitment and debt that had not been only his to shoulder.
Severus was quiet, glancing away from Minerva and any other portrait as he spoke.
"It was a professional letter, an offer by the same Nikos Galanos you met now. He addressed me as a healer at the time of course, deep in cutting-edge research who needed a competent and daring potions expert to help him with some of the challenges that had arisen. It caught my interest immediately- at the time, everything was quiet here, and teaching was not my idea of an interesting occupation. So you can understand that even if Galanos wanted me to invent a manure detergent, I would have taken this excuse to leave for a little while. Thankfully, Dumbledore gave me the sabbatical."
"It wasn't every day that we got formal requests from Athens' School- and I knew you'd come back greatly benefited," Dumbledore felt the need to explain.
Severus didn't acknowledge him, and just continued.
"When I arrived there, Galanos introduced me to his research- it was incredible, though I would appreciate it if you kept this evaluation of mine to yourself, Minerva."
"Naturally," Minerva paid attention not to smirk.
"Galanos was researching how to cure Craigh's disease. He had already managed to stall its advance in patients of the first and second stage, just with treatment of enhanced potions. He enhanced them with augury, having them harvested at a particular given time, or brewed in a specific way, following closely the charts to make them much more potent than they would usually be. It was truly an exciting time for me, as I had not ever seen anyone use Arithmancy for Potions that way before. It didn't occur to me to ask why he was so interested in Craigh's disease at all.
"So in the first few months, we worked together and created concoctions that were more or less volatile- because Galanos wanted to make a new serum that would not just stall Craigh's, but actually cure it, and he felt that he could do it if he had a Potions Master who could tell him what values to transcribe into his equations, and what to look out for."
"I can just imagine," Minerva smiled, knowing just from the tone of restraint to keep to the bare details and not launch into an extensive lecture of exactly what was done, how much sheer fun Severus had had. It made the Headmistress happy- she remembered that she recalled the period of Snape's sabbatical as the most peaceful time between the two wars; but she now realized it had continued to be that way up until Harry Potter's sorting.
She sighed and focused again to the man's portrait. Severus sighed too, in his portrait, pausing for a moment.
"I met Aello about three months into my working with Galanos. She had been away, you see, and Galanos had so obsessed over following her trails in Augury that I was convinced she was some sort of invalid or foolhardy nutjob. So when I did actually meet her, she took me quite by surprise.
"She was a beautiful woman- she didn't strike me like Lily always had, but maybe if my heart wasn't… already bonded, she would have." Severus' voice had trailed for a moment, and Minerva decided then that portraits couldn't possibly be unconnected to the souls of the people they displayed.
Severus smiled that thin quasi-smile that was so him, and continued.
"She was every bit the optimist, and extremely active. She introduced herself to me as a field researcher just back from Egypt. It was not quite a lie, and she had brought with her obscure ingredients I had believed extinct for centuries. Aello was absolutely enamoured with Potions, potent magic, dangerous artifacts… she was someone I could talk with. One could say… that very quickly we became the friends that I thought I had been with Lily, but was not. Most likely because love had nothing to do with it."
"Hm," Minerva felt doubtful, and though she didn't want to interrupt the portrait lest she need to exert her authority to make him talk again, she did tut. Snape caught the tone and turned to look at her for the first time since he began his narration.
"Do you know the Greek have two words for 'love'? Eros and Agape… Aello explained that to me, before… I think that what I felt- probably still feel wherever I am- for Lily is that Greek eros: hopeless, bonded devotion and obsession that can border on madness, but is still pure because all you wish for is for that person to be happy and just love you back." The portrait sighed. "But for Aello I felt that Greek agape: the feeling that the other person is dear to you, and you'd do anything for them, but you are still free and whole despite of your affections."
"That's a beautiful thing to say," Minerva gripped her tartan handkerchief to her mouth once, then took up her spiked tea to drink. Severus nodded, too.
"Of course it's beautiful. It's Aello's; her words, her explanation. She was an expert in explaining truths that to the rest of us remain mysteries and appear vices. She told me in one brief note that this is how she had explained it to our son, with an underlined order not to mess that up."
Severus was chuckling. Minerva joined, but some part of her inside was weeping for some unfathomable reason.
"So what did Aello really do?"
"I found that out rather late- I found out first that she was the patient Galanos was seeking to cure first. Aello had Craigh's disease. You know what it is, right?"
"A progressive degeneration of a wizard's magic energy, that ends in death," McGonagall nodded. "Oh dear; but wasn't she young? Craigh's is supposed to inflict the extremely old or abusers of magic."
"Aello was young. Do you know she and her brother only have one year difference between them? But she was also a Pythagorean, and of the Galanos clan. Her real actions involved hunting down Isis cultists, in her family's quest to find all of the Keys Rasmus spoke of."
"Why?"
"Because if one has all of the Keys in one's possession, apart from becoming master of Nature, one can destroy them once and for all, thus making it impossible for anyone to be able to tap Nature like Isis and Osiris want."
Minerva nodded, understanding the quest.
"So Nikos is now doing it in her stead?"
"Yes. And if he fails, Rasmus will be next. He is a Galanos too, even if he bears my surname. Blood bonding doesn't care for surnames." The fear began creeping in the portrait's lifelike eyes again. "And that is why you must ensure Galanos is the one who does the job, so my son can stay out of it."
"Severus, will you tell us how you and Aello decided to have that remarkable boy? I don't think it was an accident," Dumbledore asked cheerfully, and Snape scowled, as if he had been trying to dodge that part of the story, only to be foiled. Minerva felt a tug that she speak and say it's not necessary, but she was too much of a closet gossip not to burn to know. So she stayed silent and glanced at Snape's portrait with the same question.
"If you don't know how that is done, then I don't believe I am suitable to illuminate you on the subject," Severus groused at them both, but he knew he'd have to answer.
"Just the basics, not the details, Severus," Minerva said softly.
"Like I said, Aello was dying. She didn't look it, and her brother's Healing was doing a great job of sustaining her and giving her strength to fight on, but she was definitely deteriorating. Actually what was worrying her was not that her life was shortened, but that her magic power might decline as well, and render her incompetent in finding new ways to counter and fight. Back from Egypt- she eventually, when we grew to trust each other, told me she had been there clearing out an Isis cult cache and those guarding it- she had brought several things to work with to develop the serum Nikos was aiming for.
"Craigh's is a constant siphoning away of magic, so the cure would be to stopper that, and replenish what was lost. It took us about five months of research, but we did get to develop a possible cure. It was extremely similar to a love potion. Love potions increase endorphin and dopamine secretion among other things, which is where magic stems from biologically, when we tap on it. So what we created was a serum that was 50% a healing draught, and 50% a love potion, just without any compelling agent in it."
Severus paused for a moment, then bit his lip.
"When Aello took it, it didn't work. It did all the right things, but it didn't reach her magic. It didn't connect to her. It took about another month of Augury by Galanos to determine that the potion had to be made by someone who loved her enough to be her blood- while not a blood relative."
Minerva began to understand where this was going, and how Rasmus' comments about being a byproduct tied in. It was a disturbing concept, wasn't it?
But Severus was not paying attention to her.
"You must understand, that by that time, short that it was, Aello had become a… a soulmate. She could look upon me, after having gazed upon such evil, after having fought with worse than Death Eaters, after seeing my Dark Mark-"
"You showed her your Dark Mark?" gasped Minerva.
"She sensed it at that first moment she met me, and held me at wand point. It was one of the most exciting duels I have had, and it took more than just Nikos to convince her I was not actually Dark."
"Who won?" asked Fineas, speaking suddenly from higher up in the wall and startling everyone.
"I did," Snape said. "But only because I got lucky. The second time we dueled, was very humbling for me. And the third time, for her. Like I said, she was …family. And she could look upon me, and tell me I was not just 'not Dark'… but that I was light. And that is something I never got from anyone- not even Lily. Not even you."
Minerva flinched, although she knew Severus was addressing Dumbledore. That was true for everyone. There was good reason why it was true, but… don't dwell on it now.
"I see," she said quietly instead. "So how did the potion work?"
"We knew blood relatives couldn't help her, and though the Galanos family is respected in Greece, not many dared approach a woman such as Aello with anything but fear or awe or aversion. Respect is not equal to love," Snape snorted. "Some men just cannot handle women as they can really be."
"I told her that I could not forget about Lily, but that I would give my blood for her in a heartbeat, just as I would for Lily if I could. And Aello then asked me that if I had a heart big enough to love so fiercely twice, and the courage to acknowledge it, if I would also love a child. Because that's what the potion meant- it would work only if the one making the potion and the one taking it, shared a blood bond of love between them. I said yes."
"Did it work?" Minerva asked.
"At first we thought it hadn't, although Aello had conceived; we decided to keep the baby anyway. Upon Rasmus' birth though, Aello's symptoms were gone, and she was cured. Rasmus saved her life- and in a sense he saved mine, too. But that is something far too personal for a Headmistress to need to know, don't you think?"
Minerva nodded, her mind reeling at all of this that she had never ever suspected about Severus Snape. There were tons more questions she wanted to ask, but as Headmistress, only one was relevant.
"As a Pythagorean, Severus, what did you do? Well, except what you have already told me."
"I only did one significant thing," Severus said. "I made sure Voldemort never found out anything about Isis, the Keys, or anything else he might want to use. Had I known about the Horcruxes in time, I would have other remedies for them and some people would not have had to die."
***
and that's that! I hope it wasn't too sappy for you. Severus sounds very forthcoming and maybe too emotional, but it's his portrait speaking, he doesn't have too much capacity to say no, and maybe the portrait Snape is rehearsing what he'll tell Rasmus. Mwe hehee!
Anyway, I realized upon writing this chapter, that this whole thing Snape is narrating, his sabbatical to Athens (it lasted for two years almost) is enough material for another story to write. Just to describe how Severus and Aello warmed to each other… makes my fingers tingle! But the point is it might appear sketchy even with the response of the portrait to Minerva's questioning, and I can't see even the portrait wanting to get into more detail than he already did.
Ah, I'm rambling. What do you think of it all?Again if anything sounds odd or confusing, tell me and I'll fix it. I don't have time to read it over again, so… you know the drill. :)
Sindie: Really? Thank you! I am counting on you and everyone who is willing to review for feedback.
Duj: Yay for Nikos, then! I responded to the rest in PM, so I will just say I agree on realism for villainy.
RebeccaRoy: thank you! It is really fun to piece it together, like a puzzle made of fantasy and fact, to make a whole!
Till tomorrow!