Chapter 55: In Which A Winner Is Picked
Snape was outside, behind the school, surrounded by two dozen girls and three boys. They had all decided that Occlumency may indeed come in handy or they wanted to get out of their usually scheduled responsibilities. Either way, it was time for him to try and teach something without scaring those who intended to learn with him.
He had chosen the spot where several of the girls did their morning exercise/yoga routines. The grass was soft and well suited for lying on, the sun filtered through the trees, and the girls seemed relaxed in this setting.
They were circled around him, looking expectant. Last night's escapade in the gym seemed to have done his reputation good; almost all of the Slayers in residence had decided to join him.
"I want you to all get comfortable. Sit, lay, get into lotus position, something that feels good and requires minimal effort from you to maintain." He gave them several minutes to get settled, most opted to lie down, but a few were in lotus position.
"Occlumency is not magic. It's discipline. It's the art of keeping your mind and emotions in check and hidden away from unwanted attentions. At its highest level, it will allow you to lie to someone without ever speaking a word. At its most basic, it will allow you to keep your intentions to yourself.
"We're going to start simply. I want you to relax and close your mind. Focus on nothing. Let your heads become empty. I'll give you some time, and then I'll give each of you a gentle mental nudge. If you've succeeded in keeping your mind quiet, all I'll see is a blank. If not, I'll get a quick view of your surface thoughts."
He sat and watched the leaves move above him. The Slayers were silent. Some even appeared to have fallen asleep. After a suitable bit of time, he began to probe.
"The grass is tickling my ears..." "Ommmmm…" "I really can't believe she said that..." "God, these girls are hot…" "…" "Zzzzzz…" "A squared plus b squared equals c squared. A right angle is ninety degrees…" "…" "I hope my plan won…" "Maybe I should dye my hair tonight; the roots are getting pretty long…" "Mani padme oommmm…." "…" "Shut up, shut up, shut up…" "Discipline, I can do discipline." "Hi there Mr Snape, if you get bored with Hermione my room is…" "…" "…" "I wonder if Dean has a girlfriend…" "After this I need to…" "Andrew will be back next week. I can't wait to…" "…" "This is stupid; I thought we'd be learning magic…" "…" "…"
He stopped probing their minds. "It looks like some of you are naturals at this. The rest of you need to work on keeping your mind quiet. Some of you were doing a mantra. If you can't make your mind perfectly quiet, a mantra is a good substitute. Anything that allows an outsider to view something other than your real thoughts will work. Now we do it again. Minds quiet, thoughts empty."
They continued for three hours, by the end of which almost all of them had quieted their minds, and those who hadn't had managed to keep up a constant mantra.
"That's good for today, tomorrow we'll do a bit more with this, and then we'll work on doing something else while keeping your mind blank."
Willow and Hermione joined him a moment later.
"Nice work," Willow said.
"It's much easier to train people who have spent their lives working with discipline. The yoga Buffy has them doing helps as well."
"Strong, flexible, and focused, that's the point of it," Willow answered.
"So how has your morning gone?"
"Splendidly," Hermione replied. "We've been working on channelling the energy around us."
"Why?" Severus asked.
"If you use the energy around you, rather than your own energy, you don't get nearly as tired by the magic."
Willow took over the explanation. "It's part of the reason for your wands. They do the job of energy focus, protecting you from too much of a drain. The universe has infinite energy resources. You have finite resources, so you're much better off using its energy instead of yours."
"Makes sense." They began to walk toward the kitchen. "Shall we grab some lunch and finish our discussion on who won the Defeat the Dark Lord Challenge?" Snape asked Hermione.
"Sounds good. They'll be itching for the result soon."
They gathered food and returned to the grassy spot under the trees. Snape lay on his stomach and began to eat his sandwich. Hermione sat cross-legged and sipped her drink. They munched in comfort for a few minutes before beginning the discussion.
"Who's your winner?" Hermione asked him while nibbling a pickle.
"Abby. Hands down."
"Why?" She looked a bit surprised. "I would have thought the story would have put you off of it."
"It's true I didn't love the story, but I think Voldemort would have gone for the fake Horcrux double cross. That and it was the only plan where the words, 'capture Voldemort', didn't appear. They seem to think that capturing Voldemort would be just as easily said as done."
"That's not quite true. The last plan I read had a seven page detailed assessment of Malfoy Manor, Voldemort's habits, multiple attack squads, anti-apparition spells laid on the property, and a very detailed list of what to do with him after he was captured. What it didn't have was what to do about the Horcruxes."
Snape winced. "Yes, that will disqualify a plan. It doesn't matter if you capture him; you've got to get rid of him, as well. Your winner?"
"I really liked the resouling of Voldemort."
"But you've still got capture and kill him to pull it off. Abby's plan required Voldemort to be Voldemort; he loved insanely complicated plans that allowed him to show off how great he was. So which would have been easier: getting you to trust me again or capturing and killing Voldemort?"
"Bugger… If I had known you were still one of us ahead of time, it wouldn't have been a problem, beyond meeting you without Ron or Harry noticing. They did trust me and my amazing brains so much so that any plausible theory I could have come up with would have been fine by them. It's so simple: all I would have had to do was say, 'I need some time to read and think alone,' hop into the library at Grimmauld Place, and then send my Patronus to you to let you know I was alone, and then you could have sent the message back by yours."
"So the sticking point of that plan is we need to change the past to make it so at least you know that I'm still one of the good guys. If we don't stipulate that, is there any chance this plan could have worked?"
"Between slim and none. It wouldn't have been impossible, but it would have been immensely unlikely. We really did believe that no one was to know about the Horcruxes. It started out as just the three of us, but we were floundering around with no luck and no hope, so we brought in Fred and George. They didn't have much insight into where a Horcrux might have been, but they at least helped keep us from killing each other. Then Ron died, and Ginny replaced him. After Fred died, Harry kind of let Neville know what was up, just enough to let him know Nagini had to be killed. We didn't even tell Lupin when he offered to join us."
"Lupin offered to join? I thought he spent his whole Order career wasted on Dumbledore's harebrained scheme to get the werewolves out of play."
"He got a massive case of cold feet when Tonks got pregnant. Harry sent him home. No way one orphan was going to help create another one, at least, not that way."
"So, we're still stuck with two issues: you somehow have to trust me enough to set Abby's plan into motion or Voldemort has to be captured."
"We never did capture him or even came close for that matter. I did trust you. I wanted to trust you. So that makes the idea possible, if not likely. But we never got him." She was shaking her head.
"Yes, but to the best of my knowledge, no one ever tried."
"No one ever tried?" Hermione looked incredulous.
"I didn't think it made much sense at the time. It made my job easier. I never had to report an attack was brewing because there never was one. Knowing about the Horcruxes now: my best guess is that Dumbledore didn't want to risk getting Voldemort killed yet again, and then having to wait however long until he came up with another new body, and the whole cycle started again. But it could be he just didn't want to deal with all that would go with trying to capture him. The main job of the Order was to make sure the Death Eaters did as little damage as possible."
Hermione lay back in the grass. Tired frustration radiated off of her.
"How did Dumbledore end up in charge?"
"For all of his shortcomings, the man knew that trouble was coming. He never believed that Voldemort was dead, really dead, in the first place, and he began planning for his return from November 1, 1981."
"Was he in charge of the first Order?"
"Yes. Order of the Phoenix. We can guess that's a tribute to Fawkes, or he always believed Voldemort would be a returning threat."
"So how did he end up in charge the first time?" Snape was silent. Hermione continued, "And better yet, with so many of you getting killed, why did he stay in charge?"
Snape thought about it while playing with a piece of grass and watching the clouds. "No one else wanted the job." He chewed on the grass. "It's easy to see how a better job could have been done, would have been done had someone else stepped up, but no one did. By the time others were willing to acknowledge the problem, Dumbledore had been in charge for years, and no one was willing to question him. He was Dumbledore: larger than life, better than us mere mortals, more powerful, more intelligent, more worthy. You've been there with him, he filled up the room, and people just wanted to trust him."
Snape shook his head. "Then real life came and smacked us in the head, and we saw he wasn't, but by that time, who else was there? Moody was half bonkers, most of the rest were too young to really lead. Who took over after Dumbledore died?"
"Shacklebolt? Maybe. We weren't members. Molly or Arthur could tell you. It wasn't Minerva or Moody or Lupin or Arthur. It didn't matter; we knew that he didn't want the Order to know what we were up to, so we never bothered to find out what it was doing after we headed out on our own."
They sat quietly, staring at the sky, remembering the man who had shaped so much of each of their lives. Finally Hermione asked, "Have you ever read any Muggle psychology?"
"I know who Freud is, but that's about it."
"That's about where I am as well, but somewhere, in the back of my mind, is something about the feelings of disappointment and betrayal that come when you realize your parents are real people."
"It could be. He certainly filled the role of 'Father:' all wise, all knowing, and able to solve any problem. Father as we think of him as little, little children. Father as we wanted him to be."
"And as he never was."
"And never could be." Severus looked around and saw a group of Slayers watching him intently. "And it doesn't get us any closer to the winner. To trust or capture?"
"Trust."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, as you said, Voldemort liked insanely complex plots that showed off his brilliance. Abby's plan does more to take him into account than anything I've seen in several years. Also, the resouling spell has only been used on intact souls; there's no way to know if it would have worked on a fractured soul."
"Abby's day is about to get quite a bit better."
"And you, what's up for the rest of your day?" Hermione asked.
"Working with Willow this afternoon. Magical versus non-magical potions testing tonight. Giles told me that both of our potions worked, but mine lasted the full twelve hours. Yours worked for about six. Anya was thrilled with both. First real meal she's had in weeks according to Giles. Apparently the hormone swings are not nearly as bad when she's eaten. And you?"
"More wanded magic for Slayers. I've probably only got a day or two of teaching left before Amber and Rose can take my place here. Then we could go on holiday or stick around a bit longer if you like."
"I think it's time to head off. I can wrap us basic Occlumency in that time, and then…"
"Then… How about we start with New York and find our way from there."
"Sounds lovely."