Chapter 18: Secrets

Rein and I spent the afternoon brewing potions and shuttling them between the dungeons and the Hospital Wing. It was fun at first, because I got to spend time with Rein. But after nearly three hours nonstop brewing, we'd exhausted the basics of Parseltongue, and there wasn't much to talk about. Well, except Snape.

"What do you think is taking him so long?" Rein worried aloud. I didn't have to ask who she was referring to – she'd asked the same question six times in the last half hour.

"Rein, I don't know what's taking your dad so long." I replied warily. "But whatever it is, it can't be too bad. My forehead doesn't even itch, let alone burn."

"Maybe you're right…"

We brewed in a worried silence (or at least it was worried on Rein's end) for another hour before the door was thrown open to reveal a battered, exhausted Professor Snape.

"Daddy!" Rein cried, throwing herself into his arms, "You're alright. You are aren't you?"

"Of course I'm alright," replied the Professor, sitting gingerly in the chair behind his desk, "I've been a spy for far longer than you've been alive Rein. Occasionally, I like to think I know what I'm doing."

"I was concerned."

"I noticed." Then, "I see you kept Potter from running head first in danger. Congratulations, now pass me that burn salve."

Professor Snape was much more morose than he had been all summer. He stalked around the dungeons like a bat out of Hell, and snapped at the both of us if we made the slightest bit of noise. After an hour his mood began to rub off on me, and I abandoned father and daughter in favor of dinner in the Great Hall.

"Wotcher Harry." Tonks said after I nearly bowled her over in the doorway, "What's got your knickers in a twist?"

"Nothing." I replied as I helped myself to a sizeable amount of everything within arms reach. "Just tired of being in the dungeons I suppose."

"I understand, I never liked them much myself. I heard you were brewing potions for Madame Pomfrey."

"Yeah, I was just trying to help."

"I couldn't do it – I'm troll at Potions. Even melted a desk once."

"An entire desk?" I asked, laughing, "How did you manage that?"

"Well, you know how dragon's blood is highly corrosive?"

Tonks and I had a grand time reliving our Potions mishaps (or in my case, Neville's Potions mishaps) over dinner, and it wasn't until I was passing the Potions classroom that I realized that Rein had missed dinner.

"Rein?" I called out as I peered into the classroom. "Rein, are you in here?"

"No she is not, Potter."

"Oh, sorry Professor, I didn't see you there."

"Clearly."

"Do you know where she might've gone? She wasn't at dinner, and I was wondering--"

"Rein has gone home." Snape answered briskly. "Mina decided that it was no longer safe for her here, and so she has returned to France for the duration of the summer."

"France?" I croaked. But I… we were just getting to know each other.

"Must you repeat everything I say?"

"Sir, can I--"

"What you can do Mr. Potter, is find your way to bed. We will be returning to my home first thing in the morning, and I expect no delays."

"But--"

"Go to bed!"

I hurried through the corridors, jumping at every noise and peering around corners at if there were something ominous lurking about. Twice I found myself whipping out my wand ready to do battle with some mysterious figure, just to find that it was only my reflection in the darkened windows. I couldn't stop thinking about Rein. What did Snape mean when he said that it 'wasn't safe' here? I thought there wasn't any place safer than Hogwarts? As I rounded a corner, voices floated down the corridor from an open door, and I quietly crept closer to listen.

"It won't work."

"Minerva, have faith."

"Alastor is right, Black cannot be brought back."

"Minerva…"

"No! Albus, you and I both know that there is no way to bring someone back from the dead!"

"We don't know that Sirius is dead, Minerva. No one knows where the Veil leads."

"No one knows because no one that passes through it returns."

"Perhaps they cannot return without aid."

"Perhaps dead men tell no tales."

"Minerva, I have faith that Mina will be able to do this. She is an Unspeakable."

"She was an Unspeakable, Albus! And that was years ago, before she fled to Egypt."

"She was pregnant, Minerva. Surely you remember that?"

"So was Lily Potter, but she didn't flee the continent!"

"But Lily did go into hiding."

"It's not the same."

"She had just found out about a Prophecy that could set Voldemort on her heels, yet again. Minerva, what would you have done?"

"Surely going into hiding would have sufficed."

"She had not only Severus' position as a spy to safe guard, but also the life of her son and unborn daughter. She did what any mother would have done in her place."

"Rein wasn't even born July!"

"No, she was not. But how was Voldemort supposed to know that she would be born two weeks late? How was anyone supposed to know?"

"Still the Prophecy said that 'the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal' and that 'he will have power the Dark Lord knows not'. It clearly states that the child would be a boy!"

"Ah, but Voldemort never heard the Prophecy in its entirety. He only heard the beginning. 'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches. Born to parents who thrice defied Him… born as the seventh month dies...' He would not have know the gender of the child in question, only that this child would be born at the close of July."

"Even so Albus, what makes you think that Wilhelmina can raise the dead?"

"She has done it before."

"Impossible!"

"She has. Ask Severus if you don't believe me. If my memory serves me correctly, she's resurrected him several times."

"Albus--"

"Wilhelmina Nightshade comes from a very long line of Egyptian Necromancers. If anyone can do this, she can."

There was a pregnant pause, in which I held my breath for fear of being found out and contemplated the curiousness of having been taught Potions by a man several times deceased.. It was broken by a question from McGonagall so quiet that, in all my musing, I nearly missed it.

"Why, Albus?"

"Because, Minerva, I owe this to him. If I had told him of the prophecy when he first asked, he might not have gone to the Ministry. If I had taught him Occlumency, then perhaps he would have never had the vision of Sirius being tortured. There are so many things that I could have done differently, Minerva, and didn't."

"Very well, Albus. But don't mention it to Potter until you are sure it can be done. There's no need getting his hopes up."

The door opened further and the patch of light on the floor widened, casting the Headmaster and McGonagall's shadows on the opposite wall. Just as I was backing away, I was grabbed from behind and silenced by a hand covering my mouth. I struggled fruitlessly against my unseen captor as I was pulled down the hallway and into an unoccupied room. The door closed behind us, and it wasn't until I felt a spell flare up around me that I found myself able to move of my own volition. I spun around, wand at the ready, only to come face-to-face with Professor Snape.

"Professor?" I asked, lowering my wand.

"What are you doing traversing the halls at this hour? Didn't I tell you to get to bed?"

"Sir, I--"

"What did you think you were doing? What did you hear?" he cut in, bearing down on me like Dementor ready to administer the kiss.

"I…"

"The truth Potter, if you will."

"They were talking about the Prophecy, and Mina being an Unspeakable and a Necromancer. And they said something about the Prophecy being applied to Rein, and--"

"That's enough! What you heard must never be revealed to anyone under any circumstances, do you understand? Do not speak of it to me, or to your friends, and definitely not to Rein. Do not breathe a word of this aloud, even when you fancy yourself alone. If anyone finds out what you heard, Mina and Rein will be marked for death, and if they are killed because of your idiocy, I will kill you myself. Understood?"

"Yes Professor." I said nodding vigorously.

"Good. Now go to bed!"

I nodded again, and hastily slipped past Snape into the now-empty corridor. It would not do to be caught out this late again. Once safely ensconced in Gryffindor Tower, I hastily readied for bed and lie down to rest. But my mind was frantically examining what I'd overheard, and when sleep finally did come, it was far from restful.