Severus sighed as he entered his quarters. Cressida had left shortly after their meeting in the office and thankfully, had not asked more questions about Potter's home life. He figured that if she did not ask any other questions, he would stop thinking on it. The afternoon's events, however, stirred up many unwanted memories, namely those of Lily. He anticipated this. Cressida and he barely spent time together in person. His teaching and spying duties did not coincide with her balancing of her family needs and her responsibilities as head of a task force to mitigate the impact of the wizarding world on the Muggle world. Therefore, apart from the occasional holidays in which he was invited to her manor in the south of France and frequent, for Severus at least, correspondence, they often went months without seeing each other in person. Again, he inwardly cursed Potter for the flood of memories which were usually carefully compartmentalized due to occlumency. During other times, it was easy to justify his negative feelings towards the boy as being due to Potter's similarities to his father, of which there were many. James Potter as an object of hate and repulsion was a much easier subject for Severus, especially given that he relied on showing these emotions as proof of his loyalty to the Dark Lord during his spying days. Lily was a different matter. It was difficult to cope with the immense feelings of guilt, anger, grief, and pain associated with her death. He summoned a house elf and asked for a cup of tea as he waved his wand to send a stack of potions essays his way.
As soon as he had taken his first sip of tea, his floo flared green. He groaned as he heard the voice of none other than Albus Dumbledore call his name. "Are you there? Might I step through?" Asked the older wizard as he stepped through the grate. Severus had long stopped responding to this greeting long ago once he understood that it often did not matter whether or not he gave the headmaster his permission.
"I assure you, Albus, the wolfsbane for your mangy, and might I mention, dangerous professor, is well on it's way. No, I will not sabotage the potion in any way as I do happen to care about the safety and general welfare of students, even though no one on this staff appears to..." Severus did not know why Albus had come through his floo but felt the need to voice his complaints and knew that he would not get a word in edgewise if he let Albus dominate the conversation from the get go.
In the meantime, Dumbledore had managed to obtain his own cup of tea and took the liberty of sitting down in one of Severus' armchairs by the fire, his eyes twinkling as he observed the potion master's obvious displeasure. Finally he coughed and interrupted Severus' tirade, "Not at all my dear boy, I'm sure the potion will be perfect and administered most amiably. I trust your good judgement."
Severus scoffed at this and rolled his eyes. He knew that Dumbledore rarely spared a moment to even listen to his opinion. He had been vociferous in his objections towards Remus Lupin's appointment to the Defense against Dark Arts post and as always they were unheeded by both Dumbledore and the rest of the Hogwarts staff. Minerva even had the nerve to say that she was "delighted that a sweet boy like Remus would have a chance to show his talents."
Albus continued, "In any case, my boy, I did not come here tonight to speak about Remus' potions. I merely came to speak with you about your opinions about Lady DuLac. It must be nice to have a friend in the castle after all these years. The two of you, if I remember, were rather inseparable during your time at Hogwarts. Until ah...what year was it that the lovely lady transferred?"
"Before fifth year," answered Severus curtly. The remark, 'one of the worst years of my life,' went unsaid. He was too tired to play guessing games as to why the headmaster decided to bring up these subjects and didn't bother pointing out that it was he, Lily, and Cressida who were often seen together. No one ever seemed to remember that the wonderful, unimpeachable, Gryffindor golden girl had ever associated with the likes of him. Cressida's sharp attitude and sorting in Slytherin had never particularly endeared her to staff members in the same way as Lily and therefore, she was deemed a much more fitting school-mate for Severus.
"Ah yes, to our French sister Beaxbatons. She must have fared well there to have ended up in such an esteemed position nowadays. I must say, I am rather surprised given her ancestry that she occupies such an office. However, I enjoy surprises. One can never have too many of them when you get to my age." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled and he let out a short chuckle.
Severus concluded that the headmaster was merely fishing for information and let his prejudiced comments slide. Cressida's grandmother had started the task force and had raised her granddaughter to follow her footsteps. There had never been the same sort of pureblood fascination in her family, in fact, that kind of mindset had really only begun taking root at the beginning of the century in Britain. Things were quite different in France. In fact, he was sure that Cressida had explained that her ability to teleport herself (beyond the normal limits of apparition) came from being a descendent of some kind of elivish line. Dumbledore, being quite comfortable in his position in the Wizarding World and more specifically, Britain's wizarding society, was often limited in his knowledge of how international organizations interacted with the muggle world. As skilled of a tactician as Dumbledore was, his need to control all of the moving pieces limited him from anticipating all possible opportunities, especially those present in the muggle world and internationally. The Order of the Phoenix, therefore, comprised of brave and skilled but narrow-minded individuals, who saw the protection of muggles as secondary to defeating the influence of the Dark Lord and his followers on British wizarding society.
Severus took long sip of his tea before responding to the headmaster's unasked questions. "I believe that the Wizardry, Alchemy and Necromancy Department of the International Secret Society deemed it wise that their director oversee the matter related to a well-known sociopathic murderer on the loose. Given that Hogwarts is his known destination, I believe that Lady DuLac thought it appropriate that she be stationed her to capture him."
"Of course, of course," laughed Dumbledore waving his hand in a gesture of dismissal. "I did not mean to question the Lady's authority. Surely, we should follow the lead of an international organization. I was merely wondering whether or not there had been progress on the case. Surely, as one of her confidantes," Dumbledore paused suggestively, "you would have the first information on the progress with Black. I would hate to have Dementors lingering about for longer than neccessary.
Albus is tired of his lack of control in this situation and is attempting to cite Cressida's lack of suitability and progress for any troubles with the Dementors, Severus thought. He almost lashed out in frustration. He, however, responded, "I don't know what you are insinuating, Albus. Cressida and I are old friends, that is true, but our relationship is merely collegiate in nature. I have no doubt that she will inform all relevant parties if and when new information leading to Black's capture arises."
Dumbledore had the decency to look abashed for a second before smiling at Severus and answering, "Wonderful. I should hate to get in the way of investigations especially considering what Sirius did to poor James and Lily. Peter, too, of course. However, we must remember to protect Mr. Potter against Sirius' threats after all, it would be in poor taste considering the memory of..."
"Enough!" Snarled Severus. He knew that Albus would bring up Lily. He always managed to when he felt that Severus was not dutifully reporting to him. Merlin! Even the Dark Lord back in the day did not nearly infuriate him as much as Albus did at times. "I will let you know if anything enlightening arises in the hunt for Black. Although, I wonder if he would be causing as much trouble now if he had been expelled when he first displayed his homicidal tendencies. An incident involving the deliberate luring of a student to a werewolf transformation comes to mind." Severus could not resist the barb. He knew that Albus, as manipulative as he was at times, also suffered from guilt due to his past decisions.
True to his expectations, the twinkle was gone from Albus' eyes and replaced with tiredness. "Yes well, there are many things that could have been done differently in the past." He looked purposely at Severus' left arm. "However, as much as we wish things were different, we are left in our present predicament. Thank you for inviting me for tea, Severus, but I believe that it has gotten very late."
"Good night, Headmaster." He could not bring himself to call Albus by his first name as he usually did, not tonight.
Dumbledore disappeared into the green flames of the Floo.
Severus attempted to begin grading the essays when he had a sudden flashback to Lily's body lying prone on the floor of the nursery in Godric's Hollow. He rubbed his temples as his emotions threatened to overwhelm him, taking calming breaths and attempting to clear his mind. He laughed morosely and wondered, not for the first time, whether he was losing his mind or whether the world was really out to get him. Sirius Black's escape, Lupin's appointment, and Cressida's appointment to Hogwarts brought back unwelcome ghosts of the past.
After confronting Albus about his failure to protect the Potters, namely Lily, Severus had spent a week in a depression. He did not eat or sleep but researched night and day about ways to communicate with the dead. After that search yielded no results, he became angry, nearly destroying everything in his house. In one of his furious phases, he remembered that Cressida knew where Lily had been hiding and probably knew that Lily had been in danger due to a pendant she wore which alerted her. She could have apparated Lily and the boy to safety. In his rage, he had stormed to the headquarters of W.A.N.D., fully expecting to be turned away but intent on causing as much destruction and disruption as possible to get Cressida's attention. She hadn't even attempted to contact him after Lily's death. He was surprised, therefore, on announcing his name to the reception on being ushered by professional but obviously nervous agents to a hospital below the base. He had visited Cressida in the labs to offer his knowledge of potions to a young lab technician, Charlotte, who had taken a fancy to Cressida despite her obliviousness at the technician's attempts to gain her attention. However, he had never explored other areas of the building.
This surprise was nothing compared to the horror that he felt upon seeing Cressida. She was lying in a hospital bed with all sorts of tubes, going into her body. There were several other wounded agents in other beds but it seemed that she was the most impacted by whatever had happened. Charlotte stood by her bed, frantically checking different charts and monitoring her vitals. She looked up and upon, noticing his approach, ran up to Severus. "Thank god, you're here! We sent several letters and I would have sent a wizard or witch from our department to find you but as you can see, they are all injured or dead and we haven't been able to heal them properly. We don't know how to treat magical injuries without, well, magic. " Charlotte's rambling revealed her obvious lack of sleep.
Severus grimaced as he remembered that he had set a repelling spell on all owls attempting to reach him and barely managed to rasp out, "What happened?" when he noticed the state of Cressida's injuries. There were severe burns that covered her neck and seemed to extend over her entire upper chest. Her blankets were pulled back as it appeared that the medical staff was inspecting a festering wound on her thigh. Severus saw what appeared to be a cursed stab wound, the bloody laceration looked infected and dark purple veins spread from the injury.
"They were attacked on Halloween," explained Charlotte. "By a group of...um..what were they called...Death Eaters...I think. Ambushed, when it was reported that there was going to be attacks in London. They managed to incapacitate and capture most of them despite sustaining severe injuries. Cressie's got the worst of it, though. One of them, I think...Lestrange? Yes, that's her name, threw a dagger at her at the last minute. I don't know about the burns, though, they seemed to be caused by this necklace. I had to surgically remove a pendant from the burnt flesh...it's not good. Before Cressie became completely unconscious, she said, 'Get Severus." Thank god, I knew who you were...We had to give her anesthesia for the pain... I'm hoping you know what to do." The young woman bit her lip nervously.
Severus swallowed hard. "I...I" He stammered. "L-Let me see what I can do."
The next few weeks took Severus' mind off his misery. The burns were easy enough to heal and after the administration of a few different potions, the scars had disappeared entirely. Bellatrix's dagger, however, was a different matter. Fortunately, the dagger had been confiscated for further investigation by the Muggle agents that had arrived on scene. Severus was therefore, able to examine it. Unfortunately, before they were able to take Bellatrix into custody for interrogation, ministry aurors had arrived on scene and claimed credit for the capture of said deatheater, her husband, and Barty Crouch Jr. They would not remand custody to the department, especially given that all wizards/witches were incapacitated at the time. After consulting his numerous dark arts resources and performing countless spells on the dagger, Severus determined that it had been enchanted with a kind of stay in place curse. In most instances, it would render the person at the receiving end of the curse to be unable to utilize any means of magical transport. In the rare cases that it had been performed on muggles, it made them afraid to leave their homes. However, it appeared that Bellatrix had tampered with the dagger prior to its usage and had added numerous other painful curses, including an organ failure curse (the muggle doctors were just barely able to stop the internal bleeding) as well as a blood poisoning curse. Somehow and quite fortunately, the plethora of curses had weakened all the other curses (enchanted objects tended to like being single-purpose) and Severus was able to develop a counter-curse. Cressida still accidentally splinched herself slightly every once in a while at the site of the wound and would often jokingly blame Severus for not doing the job right. He had, however, saved her life, which only made up for one of the numerous occasions in which she had saved his.