The Time For Silence
Characters and main events leading to this chapter belong to JK Rowling.
4.
"Things do not always have to be spoken out loud between friends."
Minerva sat up with a jolt. As it often happened with Severus, the sting of his remark had only begun to hurt when she had finally been on the point of falling asleep.
Lucius Malfoy had been a real friend to Severus.
She had not.
Cruel, arrogant Death Eater Lucius Malfoy had understood his friend and hadn't betrayed him.
She had gleefully sent him to his death.
No wonder Severus had sent her away to be alone with his students, with his friend's son.
Her hand trembled, but didn't hesitate, as she reached for the bottle of dreamless sleep potion in the dark. She couldn't afford insomnia. The school needed her.
ooo
In the dungeon, the dormitory door opened and then closed very quietly. Greg heard Draco's distinctive tiptoe and guessed he could hear Blaise's too.
They had gone to talk to Professor Snape, Greg knew them well enough to understand that.
Greg didn't care. He didn't care about Snape, he didn't care about Draco and he didn't care about Blaise. He didn't care about anything. He just couldn't sleep. He had just woken up drenched in sweat, after fleeing the room of Requirement again and losing Vince once more.
How many times was he going to lose Vince?
The worst was that each time, Vince was still there before he lost him. As if each time, he could have prevented it from happening, but didn't.
In the bed across the room, Theo was moaning and calling his father.
Greg couldn't blame Blaise and Draco for leaving the dormitory. No one wanted to sleep.
Being awake wasn't better, though. Life was so bad it had got to the point where Greg listened to Binns' lectures and scribbled down notes, just not to think about anything else. Just not to think. He listened to Trelawney. She had told him he had another hundred and thirty years to live. What was he going to do for the next hundred and thirty years?
He didn't care.
Greg had never wondered much about what he was going to do. He wasn't going to start now.
Perhaps Firewhisky would help him sleep.
He heard Draco and Blaise toss in their beds. Snape hadn't helped them. Of course, how could Snape help them? He was dead. Even alive people couldn't help.
Greg didn't ask himself questions. He just felt a huge hole in his middle, he didn't care about anything any more and he knew it was because Vince was gone. Vince had been a part of him. He had always been there. Vince's father was Greg's mother's brother and Greg's father was Vince's mother's brother. They had grown up together. They had always done everything together. They had followed Draco together, sharing a secret understanding and secret jokes Draco never suspected. They had been Beaters on the Quidditch team together.
Now that idiot Knatchbull was the other Beater.
Greg had stopped following Draco everywhere, because Draco was moody and snappy all the time and didn't seem to want him around. They had never really been friends, but now Draco had even stopped pretending.
Life had become chilly, as if Greg was suddenly walking around without his clothes.
Greg saw no point in visiting Snape's portrait. Snape's portrait couldn't bring Vince back.
There was nowhere to go.
ooo
Even so, a few days later, Greg walked into the Headmistress' office, because Professor Slughorn had told him Professor Snape wanted to speak to him. Greg walked in there as he walked everywhere, automatically, unfeeling, uncaring.
The spiral staircase left him opposite a door with a knocker in the shape of a griffon. Greg supposed he was expected to knock, so he knocked.
Professor McGonagall opened the door.
"Ah, Goyle, come in. Professor Snape is waiting for you."
With that, she walked out, leaving him alone.
Greg blinked. He had never been in the Headmaster's - Headmistress', whatever - 's office. It was a strange room. Well, headmasters were strange. Even when they were Professor Snape.
Where was Snape, anyway? Greg gazed aournd the room at the portraits on the wall. Dumbledore smiled at him. Greg blinked again. Dumbledore was smiling at HIM, a mediocre Slytherin student? He looked away quickly.
Another portrait was smiling at him, though the smile was somewhat different. Greg couldn't have said how he recognised it, but he knew it was a Slytherin smile. Besides, the man was wearing green and silver.
"One of our Slytherins," said the portrait. "Gregory Goyle, I get it?"
Greg nodded.
"Professor Snape is right behind you."
Greg turned his back to the man quite unceremoniously.
"Good afternoon, Gregory."
Greg grabbed the Headmistress'desk. The shock of hearing that voice was like getting a punch in the stomach. Last time he had heard it, Snape was headmaster, the Dark Lord was in power and VINCE WAS ALIVE.
Snape had never called him Gregory. He always called him Goyle and even that sounded funny, at the time, because few people ever called him anything but Crabbeandgoyle. Vince called him Greg. Nobody called him Gregory.
"Sit down," said Snape.
Greg let go of the desk and looked around. There was a straight-backed McGonagall chair by the desk. Greg perched himself on it.
Snape was watching him. Greg gazed up into the black eyes.
"I had a friend," began Snape, after a few minutes of silence that hadn't been uncomfortable because Greg liked silence. Too many words made him dizzy.
"I had a friend when I was at school. She was in Gryffindor."
She? Gryffindor?
"You may have heard the story. Her name was Lily Evans."
Greg didn't think he'd ever heard the name Lily Evans. Why would he know the name of a Gryffindor?
"The man who called himself the Dark Lord killed her. After she died, the world stopped existing. There were no more colours, no more tastes, no more joys. There was no more reason to live."
Geg nodded.
"I lived anyway. Professor Dumbledore made me Head of Slytherin."
There was a silence. Professor Snape had finished his story.
"Did you have nightmares?" asked Greg.
"Every night. Do you take dreamless sleep potion?"
Greg shrugged.
"Why not?"
"Dunno."
"Go to Madam Pomfrey. You know she is one of us. A Slytherin. Tell her I sent you. Ask her for a dreamless sleep potion. And never take more than she prescribes."
"I couldn't. She wouldn't let me."
"I know. What do you do during the day?"
"Lessons."
"Quidditch?"
"That idiot Knatchbull is Beater."
"Sorry to hear that. At least, the team has one good Beater."
"One?"
"You."
"Oh."
"Try to win the Cup this year. I don't want the Headmistress looking too happy."
A reluctant half-grin crept to Greg's lips. He nodded.
"How are your marks?"
Greg shrugged.
"I heard they have improved."
Shrug.
"It's good."
Shrug.
"Even Professor Trelawney says you have a good future."
"Well, she's wrong."
There was a ripple of chuckles among the portraits.
"Indeed," said Snape.
"Severus!" scolded Dumbledore. "Is that how you encourage your students?"
"Yes," said Snape. "By the way, Dumbledore, you might also have a story to share with Gregory."
"I? Ahem, you are in charge of the Slytherin students, Severus."
"That's what I thought. Professor Dumbledore put me in charge of the Slytherin students, Gregory. That's why I lived."
"Then you died."
"I died when my time came."
Greg nodded.
"What am I in charge of?"
"Yourself. I had a conversation with Blaise and Draco a few nights ago. I told them the importance of redefining Slytherin."
"Redef-...?"
"You are a Slytherin."
"I know that."
"Good. And you are not a Death Eater."
"Can't be. Not now."
"Exactly."
"So what am I?"
"You have to answer that question."
"I don't know how to answer questions."
"You will. Your mother and your aunt need you. So does the Slytherin Quidditch team. That's all you need to know for now."
Greg wasn't sure what Professor Snape meant, but he couldn't be bothered to figure it out. So he nodded again.
"You can come back to see me whenever you feel like it. The Headmistress has instructions to let you in."
"Okay. Goodbye, sir."
"Goodbye, Gregory."
.
"I'm Gregory," thought Greg, as he spiralled downwards.
He had answered his first question.
ooo
"Lucius Malfoy ws a better friend to you than I was."
"Lucius Malfoy?" Snape frowned. "It was different."
"He guessed."
"Circumstances were very different, Minerva. Besides," he added, "Gryffindors lack subtlety. That's why they're Gryffindors."
Minerva refrained from asking why Goyle wasn't in her house.