Chpt. 3-Trust Me

Lyric stood before the statue trying desperately to guess the new password.

"Treacle tart." Nothing.

"Fizz-whizzles." Nothing. She though for a minute.

"Sherbet Lemon." The statue stepped aside and wall opened to reveal a spiral staircase. Lyric laughed, her uncle had talked of nothing else in his letters all summer. Sometimes, he was rather predictable.

When she entered the room, Dumbledore sat at his desk playing with a strange metallic cylinder-shaped thing that appeared to be made of a wire spiral.

"What on earth is that?" she asked her uncle.

"Muggle toy," he responded, "they call it a Slinky. It is quite adept at walking down stairs by itself."

"Strange breed those Muggles are."

"I don't know, I thought is rather inventive," Dumbledore put the Slinky away in a drawer that no doubt contained several dozen other Slinkys. Lyric's uncle had a habit of collecting strange Muggle artifacts that caught his fancy. Last year, Lyric had received four different colored yo-yos for Christmas, and Dumbledore seemed quite proud of them. "Are you going to just stand there, or are you going to give your favorite uncle a hug?"

Lyric happily obliged. It had been months since she had seen him. She wrapped her arms around the man and held tight. When they broke she stood back and asked "Notice anything different about me?" She hoped that at least her uncle would notice her newfound beauty.

"No, not that I can tell. What is it?"

"Nothing," she replied sadly, "just seeing if you could see something I didn't."

"Come now, sit. Tell me, how is your mother, dear girl?"

"Fine," she responded indifferently, "happy now that I'm back in school. She can travel freely without me weighing her down."

"Now Lyric, you know don't she doesn't feel that way. But it's her job. It's the life a Tritondon. She must go where the mermaids are." Lyric mother was responsible for gathering information from Mermaid colonies all over the world. The Ministry of Magic liked to keep tabs on these colonies to prevent the Muggles from discovering them.

"I know," Lyric said sadly, but perked up a bit, "This summer wasn't all bad. Got to go to Fiji. So while Mom worked all day, I laid out on the beach."

"Sounds like fun," he said happy for his niece, "but it also sounds like a missed opportunity to learn something. You are still studying to go into Cryptozoology, aren't you?" He chided his neice.

"I know, but all she saw was the mermaids, and I already know more about them then I'd ever want to know," she defended herself.

"There is always a lesson in studying what you already know," he said sagely. As much as Lyric loved her uncle, she was always annoyed when he began to sound like a fortune cookie.

"Well, maybe next summer then."

"How is she, about, your father?" he asked in a hushed voice.

"Getting better, she misses him. We both do, but I think she is getting ready to move on." Lyric's father and Dumbledore's much younger brother had been killed by Voldemort when he was just rising to power. His death devastated the family, and Dumbledore had always felt partly responsible. It was him that the Dark Lord wanted, not his brother.

"Good, give her my love next time you talk," he asked.

"Of course." There was a slight awkward pause. Lyric wanted to ask him about the Snape, but she was terrified to being up the subject.

"You want to know about my latest employments?" he said, breaking the silence.

"Well… yes. How did you know?" she was surprised at his forwardness.

"Lucky guess. My dear girl, I realize that you have heard certain things about Severus Snape that make you uneasy around him-"

"Uneasy?" she interrupted, "How about horrified? Terrified? Scared shitless? That bastard ought to be rotting in Azkaban for all he's done, not sitting on a cushy teaching job. This is fucking madness!" She stopped quickly, realizing she had just cursed. She was surprised at her outburst.

"I trust him," he said calmly, ignoring his niece's language. "There is no evidence that the man has done anything illegal. When the Dark Lord fell, people began to point fingers at everyone, even the innocent. He has done nothing wrong," Dumbledore sounded as calm as ever.

"How do you know that?" Lyric voiced had lowered considerably, but was still dripping with anger.

"I just do," he tenderly grabbed his niece's hand. "My girl, I know you are hurting because of your father's death and you want to blame someone. But Professor Snape is not the one to blame."

"But-" she began, but just then the door to Dumbledore's office swung open. Lyric remained facing her uncle, but she could feel eyes boring into the back of her head. Without looking, she knew who it was. Snape.

"I wanted to discuss with you the possibility of becoming the new head of Slytherin. I realize that last their last staff head is gone, and since that was my house, I'd be happy to do the job," his voiced hissed into the room.

Lyric worried that he had just heard her outbursts. She felt her face grow hot. She didn't know if it was from embarrassment or hatred. Maybe both. She turned to face him, and all the blood drained from her face.

"Of course," Dumbledore answered happily, "just give me a minute, have you met my niece?"

"I don't believe I've had the pleasure," he cocked his head to the side as if examining her. He then walked across the room to greet the girl. Lyric felt more and more frightened with every step he took. "I am Professor Snape." He held out his hand to shake, Lyric didn't want to touch him.

After a somewhat awkward pause in which Lyric decided she must take his hand, she introduced herself. "Lyric Dumbledore," she squeaked, taking his hand. She was surprised. From the look of this man, his handshake should have been ice cold and crushing, but his touch was warming as he gently shook Lyric's hand. For some unknown reason, the fear in her heart vanished, and was replaced by something she had never felt before.

"Good to meet you," his voice was as ice cold as Lyric had expected his touch to be. The fear rushed back to Lyric's heart. She remained silent.

"Come along dear, I'll walk you out," said Dumbledore in his cheeriest voice. He walked Lyric to the door, dropped a small package in her hand, and kissed her on the forehead. "Come back and visit soon, darling, I love to hear from you. And about what we were discussing," he said in a much quieter tone, "I need you to just trust me. I am your uncle, not some crazy old kook. It will make sense to you someday."

"I hope so," she said giving Snape one last look. His black eyes stared right back. There was something hiding there, she didn't know quite what.

Lyric slowly walked through the halls back to her dormitory. She stopped to open the package her uncle had given her. It was a Slinky.

"If it isn't Lyric," a voice called above her head. "More like… Rear-lick!"

"Nice try Peeves, but you used that one in my fourth year. I found it rather inventive, though." Lyric hated the poltergeist with a burning passion, but Dumbledore had taught her to just act nice to the little bugger.

"Well, then," Peeves paused to think of a new cruel nickname, "Deer-tick?"

"Nope, did that the first year. You keep thinking about it, I'll catch up with you later," Lyric had arrived at the Portrait of the Lady. "Hookah bar," Lyric called out to the lady, and crawled inside the opening.