Note: Ok, please allow me a concession to ridiculousness. (Well, theoretically this entire thing is ridiculousness, and you haven't seen what I'm cooking up for the ending yet.) Herein a few things happen that would probably never happen in the real thing, but they aid the story-telling so please let them lie.

Note2: Part two of the update! In which there is a reference to Jason Isaacs' filmography. Brownies for the person who finds it.

Chapter Forty

Tea and Biscuits

If Severus could describe this particular Christmas Day in one word, it would be quiet. In the wake of all the unrest, there was no wonder that parents wanted to have their children as close to them as possible during this most important holiday. Minerva had remarked to him at lunch that she thought it was the only time in the school's history when there had been more staff present than pupils for the festive period. It had been a sobering sight, the few pupils gathered around one table as far away from the teachers as possible. The staff had decided to dispense with the formality of the top table and descend into the hall itself considering they were so few, and the pupils had been visibly worried by the idea of having them in such close proximity whilst they enjoyed their Christmas meal. Thankfully, the wine flowing in full force had meant that the staff were more raucous than the students and a good time had been had by all. Whilst Severus had been perfectly content to remain out of sight as normal throughout the meal, Minerva had insisted that he show his face to prove to the rest of the staff that she hadn't killed him. Thankfully, the colleagues that would have reacted to his presence the most frostily had all gone to their respective homes and the ones that remained were far more interested in drowning their sorrows to pay much attention to the fact that Severus had suddenly returned from his supposed early grave.

Apart from lunch he, Minerva and Poppy had spent the majority of the day in the latter's office next to the hospital wing, exchanging small token gifts and talking in muted tones about the progression of the year so far. It was almost as if they were subconsciously afraid of anyone hearing the truth. It had occurred to Severus at several points over the last few months that only these two witches knew his true allegiance, and that if anything were to happen to them, he would be alone in his mission; one man who did not truly belong to any side trying to change the course of an entire war. He shuddered inwardly at the thought, but he could not put his unease out of his mind completely. He was convinced that something was going to happen in the near future, and he had been on his guard for so long that he was certain that this anticipated something would occur as soon as he relaxed for even a moment. It would have been so easy for the Dark Lord to install him as the head (not that Severus was particularly enthralled by this idea, having seen the burdens that Dumbledore and Minerva had had to bear), but he had not done so. Minerva still had ultimate control over the establishment, and Severus knew that for the Dark Lord to gain complete dominion as he wanted, she would have to be replaced at some point. It was this that Severus was afraid of.

Thankfully, Minerva had had the good sense to remain within the safety of Hogwarts' walls as much as possible, and Severus knew that the Dark Lord would not risk an all out strike yet. Yet. The word hung in the air, an ominous threat mocking Severus with its uncertainty and grim potential. Yet. It was a marker of an inevitable that hadn't happened yet, and although one knew it was coming, one could not predict when.

"Milk, Severus?"

Poppy's voice brought him back from his daydream; such a simple, down-to-earth question managed to half-pull him out of his dark and depressive downward spiral of thought. He shook his head in response and accepted the cup of tea that the nurse handed him, focussing on the present. They had once more gravitated to her office and, as the evening drew closer in towards the night, they were enjoying tea and the rather decadent chocolate biscuits that Poppy had been gifted by her nephew that morning.

"Well, we've nearly survived another year," said Minerva dryly, stirring her tea with a chocolate finger.

"Don't speak too soon," warned Severus. "Evil never sleeps."

"I've often wondered about that," said Poppy, dunking a biscuit into her cup and forgetting to take it out again, looking rather surprised when she did eventually remove it to find that it had disintegrated into soggy mush. "After all, it pays to know thy enemy. How human is he? Does he need to sleep and eat like any other person, or is he more magic than man?"

"I wouldn't want to know," said Minerva, unable to suppress a shudder of revulsion at the thought.

Severus had never really given the matter all that much attention. He thought of the Dark Lord as a dangerous psychopath not to be crossed except by the suicidally brave or the simply suicidal, and he spent many a spare moment wondering which category he fitted into. He pushed the matter to the back of his mind, wondering what his other colleagues were doing, wondering how they had spent their Christmas day. No doubt in as much fear and unease as he had. Idly he wondered how they could stand it, working for someone out of fear alone, but he knew that they had no choice. What most people overlooked when they thought of the Dark Lord's depraved followers, was that unlike their serpentine master, they really were people, with fears and loves like anyone else of the human race.

He thought in particular of Marlena Dolohov: a quiet, unassuming witch with terrible taste in spectacles who worked in the Gargoyle Liaison Office and who never crossed anyone's mind until they realised just why her surname seemed so horribly familiar and looked at her with a new-found fear. To the public at large, she was the woman who had stayed by her husband's side as he had admitted to performing horrific torture and countless murders in front of the Wizengamot; the Wicked Witch of Cornwall with a heart as black as her hair. To Severus, she was the woman who had spent more of her married life separated from her husband than she had spent with him, and who had found a willing friend in Calvados to help her through the loneliness. Perhaps that was why she wore such awful glasses, to detract people's attention from the broken capillaries in her eyes caused by years of finding solace in the bottle. It was sad to think that so many refused to believe that the human side of those they feared existed, writing them off as a single, faceless phalanx.

Before his thoughts could go any further, they were interrupted by a flash of silver light that forced its way through the slightly opened door and came skidding to a halt in front of Severus. It was a patronus in the shape of a great grey she-wolf with wide and sorrowful eyes.

"Whose is that?" asked Poppy. "The only Order members I know with wolf patronuses are Tonks and Remus, and it definitely isn't either of those." Minerva shrugged, also baffled by the unknown creature, but Severus had an idea, and it was with grim trepidation that he realised that if the sender was who he thought it was, then something had gone very wrong indeed. His fears were confirmed when the wolf began to speak.

"Severus, I know that it is unorthodox, contacting you at the castle like this, but I have to speak to you as soon as possible; a letter would take too long. Please get in touch as quickly as you can, it's important."

The patronus vanished and Severus looked up to find Poppy and Minerva staring at him politely.

"Camilla Rosier," he said eventually.

Poppy gave an exclamation of surprise then shook her head sadly.

"That girl should have been a healer. She was about to start her training but then she had to go and get married and give it up." She brought her cup down on the saucer with such force that Severus was worried that both would shatter. "I've never understood the old families' obsession with marrying their girls off so young."

"If it makes you feel any better, Camilla and Evan were very much in love," said Severus, inexplicably feeling the need to jump to Camilla's defence. "And she is a healer of sorts."

Poppy nodded, slightly mollified by this. He didn't need to go on to explain exactly how she was a healer; the others understood.

"I had not seen her patronus before," he said absently, "but I guessed it was hers. They do say that a she-wolf will care for all the cubs in her pack, whether they are her own or not, and Camilla certainly does that. These past few months she has been needed at the Malfoy residence with increasing regularity."

"She always had a really remarkable capacity for love," said Poppy fondly. "Pomona said that she would have made an excellent Hufflepuff."

Severus wondered at their different memories of the same woman. Camilla had belonged to the half-generation between himself and Poppy; she completed her education at Hogwarts just as Poppy was beginning her working life there. There was not, in reality, all that much difference between the two women, but one could never think of them in the same light. Whilst Poppy was caring, sympathetic and no-nonsense, just as Camilla was, the younger witch was ultimately driven and ruthlessly determined. However good a Hufflepuff she would have been, she was a better Slytherin.

"Severus…" Minerva's voice broke through the haze of his thoughts. "Hadn't you better go? It sounded urgent."

Severus shook his head.

"I am under very strict instructions to remain here at all costs. Ostensibly to keep an eye on things, although there isn't all that much to be keeping an eye on." He paused. "I should contact her, though. If she needs my advice then she must have run into something really quite atrocious. It's not often that she asks for outside help."

"The fireplace in the head's office is the only one in the school not being monitored by the Ministry," said Minerva matter-of-factly. "Thankfully I have an agreement with a nice man named Seymour at the Floo Office."

Severus nodded his thanks and left the room. Minerva had not offered the fireplace overtly, but he knew her reasoning all the same. As he made his way through the all-but-deserted school to the head's office, he wondered what on Earth had happened. He would find out soon enough. Severus knelt on the mat in front of the fireplace and threw the sparkling powder into the grate.

"Hope House," he said to the green flames before gritting his teeth and plunging his head into the fireplace. Floo travel was no-one's favourite means of communication, but it was the quickest method that they had.

"Camilla?" he called to the room that he was now faced with, the witch in question standing and staring out of the window into the night, paying no attention to the world around her. She started when she heard Severus's voice and ran over to the fireplace.

"Merlin, you scared the life out of me! I know I said ASAP, but I wasn't expecting it to be quite so soon." She paused. "I'm sorry to put a dampener on your Christmas spirit, Severus, but I don't quite know what to make of it all."

"What's happened?" asked Severus, the beginnings of alarm making themselves known for the first time since receiving the patronus message.

Camilla sighed.

"I've just got back from you-can-guess-where," she said, indicating the outdoor cloak still swathed around her shoulders. "It's a long story but suffice it to say that there's in-fighting in the ranks. They're turning on each other Severus, and that scares me."

"Cam, when you put so many morally and mentally dubious people together, there's always going to be friction."

Camilla shook her head.

"Not like this. There's always snarking and back-biting and one-upmanship, but words can't harm anyone. It's never extended any further than that, until now. And I am afraid, Severus, because he wouldn't allow it. He wouldn't allow them to destroy themselves from the inside out, so that means he must be behind it. And that's the thought that scares me."

It scared Severus too, although he did not want to unnerve Camilla further by admitting this. She had come to him for support, not the opposite.

"Who was it?" he asked. "Or can I guess?"

"You can probably guess."

"Cam, Lucius and Bellatrix have never seen eye to eye and every family's tensions run higher at Christmas. Are you sure it's as bad as you think it is?"

The older witch nodded.

"It's a long story."

Severus grimaced, he was already getting a crick in his neck from the brief conversation. An idea flickered into life at the back of his mind and he pondered it in silence for a while.

"Severus?" probed Camilla. "Is everything alright?"

He nodded.

"Come through," he said eventually. "I can't leave the school but you can come in. It'll be slightly more comfortable than this method of communication. Just… trust me," he added on seeing Camilla's eyebrows raise in polite disbelief at his suggestion. She shrugged her shoulders and Severus pulled out of the flames and stepped aside to allow Camilla through the connection. A few moments later, she landed in the office.

"Well, here's a place I haven't seen in a while," she murmured, looking around at the portraits whose universal slumber she appeared not to have disturbed. Severus knew for a fact, however, that more than a few of them were surreptitiously eavesdropping and would repeat the entire conversation parrot-fashion to Minerva later. Considering their vast combined age, the ex-heads of Hogwarts were absolutely merciless when it came to gossip. Camilla sat thankfully in the chair in front of the desk and Severus drew up another one opposite her, feeling it a tad inappropriate to use Minerva's.

"So what's the long story?" he asked. Camilla drew a bottle out of one of the voluminous pockets of her cloak and handed to him.

"Is that what I think it is?" she asked plainly.

"It's brandy," said Severus, puzzled. Camilla shook her head.

"Open it," she said.

He spun the cap off the bottle and sniffed, suddenly overpowered by a terrible chemical smell generally found in the dungeons after a bodged potions test. He knew immediately what Camilla thought it was and he had to agree with her.

"I thought so," she said. "It took me a while to bring him round."

"Lucius drank this?" Severus asked in disbelief.

"Right now, Lucius would drink drain cleaner if you told him it was over ten per cent proof," said Camilla drily. "But hopefully this latest escapade should temper his enthusiasm slightly. I warned him that if I find him comatose once more, I'll take advantage of the situation and dress him in green sequins and fishnet stockings." She paused. "Well, either that or I'll give him an orchidectomy, in which case he really will have cause to lose consciousness."

Severus laughed. Camilla's threats were inventive, but it was worryingly rare for her to back down on them.

"I'm deadly serious! Honestly though Severus, you can tell why I'm worried."

Severus turned the bottle over in his hands.

"Why?" he asked simply. "Mind you, we'd be hard pushed to find a logical reason why Bellatrix does anything."

Camilla sighed.

"And therein lies the long story. I don't suppose you've got any brandy yourself, Severus? I could use something after the evening I've had. Christmas Day. Christmas bleeding Day."

Severus shook his head.

"I'm afraid I can't help you, although I suspect Minerva has medicinal Scotch somewhere in here."

"Well, you can't have everything." She sighed. "Bellatrix decided to take advantage of the festive lull to give Draco a little personal tuition. In order for said tuition to be effective however, she needed Lucius out of the way. And to that end…" She nodded towards the bottle. "I'm not sure if she was aware of its long-term effects but I wouldn't put anything past her. Anyway, lessons were learned all round. Draco learned that his aunt really is clinically insane, Bellatrix that you can't turn a boy against his father no matter how sneaky you try to be, and I learned that Rodolphus has a brain beneath the exterior. I was most surprised when he was the one who contacted me. But, when the rest of the family are having hysterics, someone needs to take charge."

Severus was completely confused as to precisely what had occurred at the manor, but he knew that he probably didn't want to know the exact details.

"I really wanted a second opinion," she said, looking mournfully at the bottle that now sat on the desk. "Christmas Day," she murmured again. "Has the woman no soul?" The vehemence with which she spat the last word shook some of the portraits out of their faux slumbers, and Camilla shifted uncomfortably under their eyes. "Apologies ladies, gentlemen. I probably shouldn't intrude any longer. I'm sorry Severus, I've managed to mess up your Christmas too with my foreboding."

"It doesn't matter, Cam," Severus reassured the older witch. "The sooner the better in such cases. And I do accept that your worry has true cause." There was a long pause. "I hate to say it Cam, but all you or I can do is wait and see what happens. There's nothing to gain from interfering, and unfortunately everything to lose from such an action."

Camilla nodded her agreement glumly.

"This wasn't how it was supposed to be," she sighed. "I don't quite know how it was supposed to be, but it certainly wasn't like this."

"Cam," said Severus gently, "don't dwell on it. Go home, enjoy what's left of your Christmas Day and try to forget for the moment."

As they said their short goodbyes and Camilla disappeared back into the fireplace, Severus knew that his words would have had no effect and that the witch would be contemplating the day's events for a long time to come.

"She doesn't treat you as one of them."

If Severus was surprised by the entry of the room's owner, he didn't show it. Minerva came around the door fully and sat down in the chair that Camilla had vacated.

"I apologise for eavesdropping, Severus," she said simply. She offered no explanation or excuse, and Severus understood perfectly and nodded to that end.

"No," he said, pondering the headmistress's earlier words. "I can't explain why. That's just the way Cam is. I think she sees me more as an outsider, like she is."

"Does she know your true allegiance?" Minerva asked. The question was asked lightly, but the depth of meaning behind it was all too clear to see.

"If she suspects, then she doesn't care," Severus replied in earnest. "Camilla's first and foremost priority is making sure no-one gets killed. If that means resorting to insubordination and fraternising with the enemy, then so be it. Considering that the majority of what she deals with is caused by the Dark Lord himself, I don't think that she will be betraying her suspicions of my loyalty in a hurry."

Minerva seemed a little pacified by this, but only a little.

"What do you think this means for the Order?" she asked at length. "For us in general?"

Severus shook his head.

"I don't know."

As he had said to Camilla, they could only wait and see.

Note3: More about precisely what happened chez Malfoy on Christmas Day will be revealed in time.

Disclaimer: Credit for the idea of a she-wolf caring for all the cubs in her pack goes to David Eddings. I am no zoologist and I have no idea whether it is true or not.