The Best Revenge
Chapter 14
No time to think, no time to react. Snape lay helpless, his body shaking, his mind nearly blank. Boundless darkness floated before him, like the edge of a grave, like the roaring cataract at the edge of the world. From a great distance, he heard a horrible animal grunting: his own voice in syncopation with his rigors. He would feel like this for all eternity.
Quite suddenly, the spasms stopped. Snape lay dazed and still. He had not felt pain, but profound shock. For a moment, all he could manage was the feat of breathing, in and out. He squinted down his arm. It seemed a long, long, long way to his hand. His fingers were inches from the dark red leather spine of a thick codex.
Minerva was speaking to him in a strange, calm voice, ordering him to do something.
"Severus. Move away from the book."
He could not answer, but gaped at her stupidly.
"Severus." The hand she offered him was glowing and blurred at the edges. "Let me help you up. Don't try to touch the book again. No, Albus! Step back."
Dumbledore was anxiously pushing forward, "-what kind of harm he has taken-"
"M'all right," Snape croaked. "M's'prised." His jaw was not working quite right. "Whazzat?"
"A work of very perilous Dark Magic-"
"No, Albus," Minerva contradicted him. "Not Dark Magic. This is Something Else. Don't try to touch the book. It is not for wizards. If you touch it, it will warn you away-"
"M'warned, too bloo'y right-" Snape gargled.
Minerva pulled him up to a sitting position, saying, "-and if you looked inside it, it would do considerably worse to you. Lily was insanely reckless to leave this where James-or little Harry!-could have gotten into it."
Snape swayed and blinked. This was not at all like the aftermath of the Cruciatus Curse. Instead, he was simply exhausted, as if he had been running the length of Britain. He tried to collect his scattered thoughts.
Dumbledore peered cautiously at the red tome under the bed. There was no title on the spine: no writing on the cover. After a long moment, he hazarded, "Could this be the book that is sometimes referred to as the Mysteria Bonae Deae?"
Minerva looked sharply at him, reluctant to answer. Finally she said, "It's really not a subject I can discuss with you. The book may be technically Harry's, but it is my duty to take care of it. Stand aside."
"The What?" Snape asked Albus. The syllables were only gibberish to him. He could barely understand English at the moment, let alone Latin.
Looking concerned, Albus was casting a diagnostic spell at him. He said quietly, "Mysteries of the Good Goddess, known also as Secrets of the Great Mother. I believed the book to be a myth."
Minerva retrieved the volume, and tucked it under her arm, her face stony. "It has nothing to do with you. Lydia showed me this book many years ago. It's very unfortunate that Lily came upon it with no one to guide her. I shall keep it safe, and when Harry someday takes a bride, I shall give it into her keeping."
"M'pu'ing," Snape cleared his throat hard. "I'm putting everything in the Gringotts vault, but perhaps-"
"Exactly," Minerva snapped. "And I'll thank you both to say nothing about this book to anyone else. It might cause trouble for you." She glared at them, and hissed, "Serious trouble."
Snape did not need convincing. "It's very powerful. Perhaps the Dark Lord was really searching-"
"It would have been impossible for him to make use of this," Minerva declared with perfect confidence. "Not even through a female minion."
"I'm quite sure that Voldemort knows nothing about this book or its contents," Dumbledore said lightly. He stopped a moment, his eyes widening a bright blue fraction, excitement in the twinkling depths. "Quite sure," he continued, sounding nearly like his normal self. "I only once came across a reference to it-in a work that ceased to exist in 1915." He smiled then, his good humor entirely restored. "Yes. Well, Severus, you seem to have taken no lasting hurt from gazing at the unclothed goddess-" he hastily nodded an apology to the indignant Minerva, "-in a manner of speaking." In that tone he used when he was trying to get round someone, he said to her, "It might be helpful to know if Lily might have found something-I don't know-something useful in the book-something that might have-"
Minerva said coldly, "I can't possibly give you specifics, but I shall look into it. It is-conceivable."
Snape muttered, "Ought to have poked him with it. Or chucked it at his head."
"Severus," Minerva silenced him icily. "How good was Lily's Latin?"
By good, she explained, she did not mean if Lily was able to pronounce spells correctly, or limp through a paragraph of Agrippa. "Could she read it as well as she read English? Did she understand regional idiosyncrasies? Did she understand the subtle differences in usage over centuries?"
"I-don't know," Snape answered. "She studied some Latin in muggle school. A year or two. I know she worked a bit on her own. We worked together for a few summers. I tend to think she was not an expert, but I might be wrong. I don't know how she spent her days after Hogwarts. Possibly she undertook an intense study of Latin at that time."
"I don't think so," Albus considered. "I saw Lily now and then, and her time was very engaged elsewhere."
Minerva said softly, "She may not have understood clearly what this was...She may not even have realized the dangers..." Her face closed, and she changed the subject resolutely. "Here," she said, handing Snape a small moneybag. "I found this in the dressing table. It has fifteen galleons, five sickles, and six knuts in it. I think we can agree that this is also Harry's."
"Indubitably," Albus smiled.
Snape creaked to his feet somewhat warily, clutching the bag. Fifteen galleons was a handy sum. Changed to muggle money, it might well be enough for the bicycle Harry kept hinting at. He tossed it into James' empty trunk.
"I suppose we're mostly done here," he said, somewhat sorry they had not found more. "Wait. Is there a cellar?"
"Off the kitchen," Minerva told him, busily shrinking the boxes and trunks.
It was something to do. Surely Lily had a potions laboratory somewhere. If it was not up here, it must be elsewhere. He heard Minerva and Albus talking quietly until he reached the bottom of the stairs and pushed through to the kitchen and pantry.
Minerva was right. There was nothing here of value. He grimaced in faint distaste, and opened a door. The pantry was a wreck, already rifled by rats and human souvenir hunters. Another door led outside, and was heavily damaged. Unsurprisingly, the attackers had struck at both entrances to the house. A third door remained.
It led down a narrow staircase to pitch darkness below. Snape uttered a quick "Lumos," and reconnoitered in the crumbling, low-ceilinged hole in the ground.
A heavy cauldron squatted on a worktable, covered in dust. A set of crystal phials rested in a wooden rack. Shelves of ingredients hung on the nearby wall. Snape fingered the jars briefly. There was nothing usable left in them. In fact, the full jars and the dusty shine of the gear suggested that the laboratory had not been much used at all. It was really a very uninviting workspace. Snape imagined that James Potter must have objected to having food and potions prepared in the same kitchen. There was a small table and a chair. On the table was an inkstand. The ink was a bone-dry black cake. A little leather notebook sat foursquare on the table, waiting forlornly to be filled with brilliant insights. Snape snatched it up and thrust it into a pocket. He stood briefly debating whether he should bother to bring the cauldron and vials to Harry. What was here was not worth all that much. Snape found himself resenting these relics of Lily's neglected talent. Let the cottage keep them. He turned away to go upstairs.
Instantly, sensible thrift overcame his qualms. Quickly, he shrank and pocketed the cauldron and rack of phials. They were very nice crystal ones. Harry could use them when he was a little more experienced. Children were always melting their cauldrons. Harry should have a spare. That done, he took the rickety steps quickly, leaving the place to darkness.
He passed the splintered newel post once more, and sneered at the blast mark. Idiot. As far as he could see, James Potter had valued Lily only for her beauty. More fool he. Albus had nattered on about ancient Blood Magic a few days ago, and now Minerva was being very tight lipped. It seemed more and more certain to him that it was Lily who had saved Harry, while Potter had indulged in futile heroics. Useless poser. Lily had always been worth ten of Potter.
When he reentered the room, he was aware of a certain tension. Probably Albus had probed a little too deeply. Minerva had turned her back to him. She saw Snape, and said nothing as she helped Snape gather up what they were removing from the cottage.
They passed down the hall, and then descended the stairs in silence. Dumbledore took the painting, shaking his head over its deplorable state. He then gestured for his two professors to precede him out of the cottage, and he set the wards at the door. Civilly, Snape and Minerva awaited him outside the gate. The Headmaster moved very slowly, looking every year of his age and more. He shut the gate behind him, and raised the sealing ward in a momentary haze of crackling light.
He said, very low, "It was never a lucky house. Never. I was very wrong to entrust another family to it."
Being alone in a cupboard had been pretty horrible. Being alone in his new room with lots of fun things to do, Harry decided, was pretty neat. He was having a wonderful day.
At the moment, he was messing about with his art supplies and a thin book called Watercolours for the Young Artist. On the easel was his impression of the back garden: the sky a delicate wash of blue, the grass lavishly green, the flowers blobs of brilliant reds and pinks and purples. The book explained about shadows and perspective. Harry's bold yellow wall slanted away into brown shadows. The shed could barely be seen behind an explosion of shrubbery. No one in the world would call it a great painting, but Harry had never had resources like this before, and rejoiced in the possession of unlimited colour. He could draw all sorts of things-whatever he saw or imagined.
A shrill voice called from downstairs.
"Dudley darling, we have to leave now! I need you to carry the bags for me."
"Awwwww, Mum!" Rolling thunder marked Dudley's heavy tread on the stairs.
Harry smirked, and then carefully rinsed his brush before adding some more blue to the dark corner on the right. It was so strange to listen to the Dursleys living their lives on the other side of his door. Since the night Professor Snape had told off the three of them, Harry had never spoken to them or heard himself summoned. No shouts of "Boy!" impinged on his privacy. They never spoke of him either. He had ceased to exist for them.
It would have made him unhappy, if he had cared about them. They were still there, but they no longer mattered. He wondered if it would be better to have Professor Snape put a-a-yes!-a Silencing Charm on the wall facing the upstairs hall. At night he could hear Dudley and Uncle Vernon snoring, and sometimes it bothered him. Back in his cupboard it had been very quiet at night. The night before last he had dreamed that they found his door and were coming in...
But they couldn't. Muggles couldn't see his door. In Professor Burbage's book, she wrote that muggles were blind to nearly half the world. But witches and wizards saw everything.
He scowled. He had finished the book and learned a lot. Some of it wasn't very nice. At the back of the book, there was an appendix telling all about "Notable Magical Families of Britain and Ireland." Harry had been startled to see the name Potter in there, right after "Peverell," and just before "Prince." And there weren't any Peverells anymore, and hardly any Princes. In fact, Harry was surprised at how many of those notable families had gone extinct.
It seemed to be one of the reasons the Potters were important. There was actually one of them left. Harry discovered that he would automatically have a seat on the Wizengamot when he turned fifty. The oldest families did, it seemed. They inherited their places just like the House of Lords. That was something he would worry about when the time came. It sounded like an interesting thing to do, though. Harry had found out that his dad's marriage to his mum had really stirred people up. Professor Snape had warned him that some of the "purebloods" didnt like the "muggleborns." It had been a real scandal when his dad, who came from such a famous old family, married muggleborn witch Lily Evans. There had been some sort of trouble at the wedding, even, though Professor Burbage didn't give too many details. Gatecrashers had caused a disruption, and some of the guests had been attacked and cursed-
"Blood-traitor!" That was what somebody had stood up and shouted. And then all hell broke loose. It must have been awful for Mum. And then the war had gone from bad to worse, and they had gone into hiding, and then "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" had found them, and-
-And then Professor Burbage went on about "The-Boy-Who-Lived," and how this boy-Harry had trouble accepting that she was writing about Harry himself-had saved everybody by destroying Voldemort.
How do they know? Nobody was there but Mum and Him. And me, but I was too little to remember-much. How do they know I did it? How do they know it was even a Killing Curse he threw at me?
Harry now knew about lots of other curses and hexes. You could kill people with all sorts of spells if they were used the wrong way. Vindictus Viridian's book warned about fatal results even with things like the Bloating Belly hex. People could trip and fall if you hit them with a Jelly-Legs or a Tickling charm when they were on a staircase. Even everyday charms could injure or kill, like the Mincing Charm used in cooking.
Maybe they could tell that the Killing Curse was what he did to Mum and Dad, but they can't know the rest, because they weren't there!
It had bothered him a lot, but it didn't keep him from reading all about the Potters.
His family was really old. The Potters had been in England since before the days of King Arthur-who had been real, by the way, just like Merlin and Morgan. They had been in what was now Norfolk before muggles started writing history down. They had even ruled a chunk of it, and been very rich. Reading about the Witch-Queen Carabogdunia was like reading a fantasy novel-something he had only been able to do at school in the library. She had been a Seer and a Healer and a Judge (something Harry wondered about). People from far countries would bring treasure to her in exchange for her advice. Witches in the Potter family were very revered, and Professor Burbage wrote that it was a shame that there hadn't been a witch born to the Potters in a long time. Like a lot of pureblood families, they often only had one child, and it had happened that they had had boys for several generations. But the wizards did pretty great stuff too. There had been four Potters who had been Headmasters of Hogwarts, and a lot of Potters had taught there. Two Potters had been Ministers of Magic, though it seemed like Potters didn't usually care much for politics. They raised magical animals, and a lot of them played Quidditch, and some of them had become Healers or Aurors.
His great-grandfather Charlus had been a wizard adventurer, and had traveled to all sort of places, fighting monsters and breaking curses. It didn't seem to be common for British wizards to do a lot of traveling, but Great-Grandfather Charlus certainly had. Professor Burbage mentioned a book about him. Harry hoped he could find a copy somewhere.
Harry took his finished gardenscape off the easel, and set the lead figure of Merlin on his desk. He would paint Merlin next. Harry studied how the colors differed depending on the light. The shadows were almost a dark blue. Where the sun hit the figure directly, it was almost white. He sketched a faint pencil outline. He could paint a cloudy sky behind Merlin, and maybe some yellow lightning bolts.
Far below, the front door closed. Aunt Petunia didn't ordinarily go to Waitrose on Sundays. She must have forgotten something. It was a long drive to Waitrose, but Aunt Petunia liked it better than any of the supermarkets in Little Whinging. She and Dudley would be gone nearly two hours, maybe more. Uncle Vernon had gone to play golf this afternoon, and was going to have dinner with his friends from work. Harry had the house to himself.
He took another look at the garden. The grass was clumpy and overgrown. Sorrel was straggling up amongst the fairy roses. The Dursleys, so quick to notice a weed amiss when they could order Harry to deal with it, were a lazy lot when they themselves might have to do the work. All his efforts were going to waste. He looked again at the garden and then grinned. He closed his paintbox, and Merlin was forgotten for the moment.
Harry burst out of his room, banging his door open.
"Yaaaaahhhhh!" he roared, waving his arms. "Yaaaaahhhhh! Wizard coming through!" He ran into Dudley's room, nearing tripping on a pile of dirty clothes. "Oi, Dudley! I'm in your roo-oom!" He made a face and raced down the hall to the master bedroom. He ran in circles, and jumped up and down. "I'm in your room, spreading wizard cooties! Watch out!"
At top speed, he galloped down the stairs and rushed into the kitchen. Flinging the door of the fridge open with a wizardly flourish, he studied the contents for something to scrounge. Yogurt? Since when do the Dursleys eat yogurt? Shaking his head, he moved on to the cupboards, and was relieved to find a tin of shortbread. Nicking some, he strolled outside to enjoy the warm afternoon sun.
Gardening wasn't so bad when he wasnt being forced to do it. His body craved a bit of vigorous exercise. He would do this his way, and Dursleys would be left to puzzle over it. The earth crumbled moistly around his fingers as he pulled long and strong on the weeds, satisfied with the lengths of root he was getting. He tossed the weeds over his shoulder onto the scrap of front lawn. The mower would grind them up without a trace. It took less than twenty minutes to restore the front of the house to pristine condition. A neighbor across the street was digging in her own garden, and looked up to stare at him curiously. Harry gave her his most innocent smile and a friendly wave. To his surprise, the woman got up, and came over to speak to him. It startled him a little that a muggle even noticed him.
She was a nice-looking, thirtyish lady. Harry struggled to remember the name-Mrs Lamb. She was not one of Aunt Petunia's good friends. The Lambs were fairly new to the neighborhood, and Aunt Petunia disapproved of the wife because she thought a mother with young children should not be working.
"Harry, isn't it?" she asked.
"Yes, Mrs Lamb. I'm Harry Potter."
"I hadn't seen you for a few days, and I was wondering if-" She smiled, and then said, "It seems that you're having a good summer, Harry. I like your new look."
He was confused for a moment, and then laughed. "Oh-the contacts. Thanks. I can see much better now."
Her gaze swept over him, and he knew she also meant the new clothes that fit him. She said, "You're always outside, working so hard...When I didn't see you, I came over to ask your Aunt about you. She told me you were getting ready to go to boarding school."
"Yeah-I mean-Yes. I'm going to my parents' old school. It's going to be brilliant."
"I'm very happy for you, Harry. Your cousin isn't going to the same school, is he?"
"No, he's going to Smeltings. It's a boys' school. Uncle Vernon went there." He said, straight-faced, "They wear orange knickerbockers at Smeltings."
She laughed. "I hope you don't have to wear anything like that."
He grinned slyly. "Nothing in the least like it. It's been nice talking to you, Mrs Lamb, but I do have to finish my work before Aunt Petunia comes home."
It pleased him to know that at least one of the neighbors noticed how much he had to do. Very light of heart, he tore into the back garden. It took rather longer, because the hydrangeas needed water and the roses needed to be deadheaded. Still, he was finished in less than an hour. He put the mower and his tools away, and made a point of going back through the garage and strutting through the front door. He poured a tall glass of orange juice from the fridge and savoured it in full, rich gulps. He then washed and dried the glass and put it away in the cupboard, making sure everything looked perfectly undisturbed. And then he shrugged and nicked another piece of shortbread. He sat at the top of the stairs, waiting.
Through the front window, he saw the car drive up. Doors slammed. Dudley and Aunt Petunia were talking about the Herb-and-Citrus Chicken Dudley was going to learn to make tonight for the two of them. Harry smirked at the sight of Dudley lugging the heavy bags.
Time to go. He shot up and vanished into his room, munching the last buttery-sweet bite of shortbread. Aunt Petunia was wondering who had mowed the lawn. Harry nearly hugged himself with glee.
It was just like being a superhero. No. He was a superhero, or at least learning to be one. He had a secret hideout, and wise magical advisors training him in ancient lore. He had Muffy, his own elf, who would arrive with a "Pop!" bearing trays of delicious food, and who could clean his room with a snap of her fingers. When Harry went outside, innocent muggles like Mrs Lamb never knew that he had special powers.
And that was something he needed to discuss with Professor Snape. According to the books he was reading, it seemed like most witches and wizards were just normal people who could do magic. In their secret wizarding world, they went to work in offices or kept shops or kept house just like muggles. Most of them were pretty-ordinary. It bothered him. What was the point of being a superhero, if you didn't do amazing things?
Now Lord Voldemort-he was a pretty fair example of a supervillain. He had superpowers, but used them for killing people and seizing power, which were things all supervillains seemed to want to do. Harry had tried to find out more about Voldemort in his history book, but that didn't have anything in it past the eighteen-hundreds. Why was that? It sounded to him like there had been plenty of history recently! Lord Voldemort wasn't in Hogwarts: a History, either. Did supervillains go to school? He snorted at the idea, picturing a class of evil little wizard kids. His smile faded. Lord Voldemort had had followers, and it was likely that they might have children who would go to school. Was there a separate school for them?
Harry grabbed The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection from his bookshelf. Professor Snape thought Defense against the Dark Arts was a really important subject, and had assigned a chapter for Harry to read. When he visited tonight, he would quiz Harry about it, so it was a good idea to look over it again. They were going back to Diagon Alley tomorrow, and he wanted Professor Snape to be pleased with him. It wouldn't be that hard, because the chapter was about Dark Creatures, and it was incredibly cool. Vampires and werewolves were real. Since the book was just an introduction for first years, it only talked about what they were, and listed sensible things to do to make sure you never met one. There were no large vampire clans left in Great Britain, so the chances of meeting a vampire were not that great. There were lots of werewolves though, but you only had to worry about werewolves during the full moon. It was a good idea to keep track of lunar phases, and that tied in with astronomy.
Professor Snape said that he had a clock in his quarters that showed the phase of the moon as well as the time. Professor Snape said that one could not be too careful, where werewolves were concerned.
A.N.-Thanks again to my reviewers for their many wonderful ideas. Since a number of you have asked about the timeline, I am projecting that with communication and cooperation, Harry might be able to complete his task in three, rather than in seven years. However, there may be some issues left unresolved.
And about last chapter's scream issue. Yes, I'm afraid it really was rather a girly scream.