Chapter 40: Investigations
Conflicting emotions washed over Severus as he continued to stare at The Daily Prophet. A rock opera called 'The Half-Blood Prince'? Should he feel honored? Possibly, depending on the plot, but mostly he felt stunned.
Potter and his friends would likely throw a fit when they found out about it, if they hadn't already – that thought brought a smile to his lips – but it was bound to reopen unhealed wounds, and that would no doubt cause more problems for his Slytherins.
His Slytherins? No, that was finished. He'd done all that he could, and 'his' Slytherins would just have to look after themselves. Really. He would absolutely not get involved. Would he?
But as hard as he tried to put his Hogwarts years behind him, he couldn't quite do it. Hogwarts, and especially Slytherin House, had been his home for almost three-quarters of his life, and although most of that time had been far from good, it was still a big part of who he was. He liked his new life, roaming the seas like Sinbad the Sailor, buying and selling potion ingredients, but he couldn't quite bring himself to turn his back on his past. Not completely.
Maybe he ought to go back and see for himself what was going on. He should be able to do it without being recognized, especially at a masquerade ball. Was he not a Slytherin? Was he not the greatest spy that the wizarding world had ever known? It would be a piece of cake.
But it was early November and the ball wouldn't occur until New Years Eve. That meant there would be almost two months in which things could get totally out of hand. He ought to do something sooner that that.
So what to do? Controversy was going to erupt over the opera, even if Parselmouth decided not to proceed with it (which was extremely unlikely, knowing Tracey Davis, who was undoubtedly the most stubborn witch of her generation, as well as a very good musician). The word was out, thanks to that article in The Prophet, and the matter wasn't going to go away.
Was there a way to defuse the thing, he wondered? Then an idea occurred to him and he smiled. This might actually be amusing. He'd compose some letters and send them off, just as soon as he finished his security rounds.
"Did you see Rita Skeeter's column on the editorial page?" Biscuit called from the galley.
Severus skimmed through the paper until he found it.
Fawkes: Feathered Friend or Fickle Fowl?
By Rita Skeeter
An unanswered question about Dumbledore's phoenix looms large in my mind: Why did the bird abandon us in our time of need? Yes, Dumbledore was dead, but that was no reason for the phoenix to simply take off and fly away. Or was it?
The bird appeared to be devoted to Dumbledore. It even sacrificed itself to save the old man during the battle at the Ministry. (Why couldn't the old man have saved himself, I ask, if he was such a powerful wizard? Everyone claims that he was 'the only one that the Dark Lord feared', but you really have to wonder.)
If the bird cared about Dumbledore, then what about the old wizard's precious protégé, Harry Potter? What about the school and the students? What about the so-called 'Order of the Phoenix'? And what about all of us? Where were its invaluable tears when Battle of Hogwarts was raging? How many young witches and wizards could they have saved?
But perhaps the bird wasn't devoted to Dumbledore at all. Perhaps Dumbledore had enslaved the poor bird, and with his death the spell was finally broken and it was free to escape. Perhaps it never wanted to be here at all. We will never know.
"What absolute rot!" Severus said, tossing the paper down on the table.
"Do you think Fawkes can read?" Biscuit asked.
The phoenix was perched by a porthole, happily watching for flying fish.
Severus thought for a moment. "I doubt it," he said, "but I don't really know." Then he laughed. "You'd better make sure that you don't use that paper when you line the dropping-pan under his perch, just in case."
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"Thanks for coming," Harry said when Hermione stepped out of the floo at Grimmauld Place. She dusted herself off with a quick charm. Ron and Ginny were already there.
"Have you seen this thing in The Prophet? he said, holding up a copy of the paper. "About Parselmouth and their 'rock opera'? Do you think my Dad and Sirius are in it?"
Hermione knew they were in it, and they weren't going to be the heroes of the piece, either. "Um, …" she said, trying to figure out the best way to put it, when Ron bought her some time by interrupting.
"It's probably going to be an outrage," he stated. "An insult to Gryffindors. And an insult to the war dead."
"I'm sure it will be horrible," Ginny added, making a sour face. "Help yourself to some tea, Hermione."
"Thanks, Ginny," Hermione said as she took a seat next to Ron. "Let's not fly off the handle here. Parselmouth is entitled to their opinion. But yes, I've heard that James and Sirius and their friends are in it, and I don't think it will be very complimentary to them."
"It's probably slander," Ron said, "or libel, or something. They can't have any evidence. They probably made the whole thing up. Is there a legal way to stop them?"
"Evidence?" Harry asked. "What evidence could they possibly have? I mean, I know that Dad and Sirius weren't always the nicest guys, but everybody liked them. Well, everybody except for Snape and his Slytherin friends, I guess."
"That might be stretching the truth a bit, Harry," Hermione said. "Remember when Snape made you go through all those dusty old records during that detention? You told me that they did all sorts of nasty things, and not just to Snape, either. You said that almost anyone could be a target. They even 'pranked' other Gryffindors sometimes."
"But that was all in fun," Ron said angrily, "just like the stuff my brothers used to do. And Sirius said they changed. You told me so."
Harry looked very uncomfortable. "I really wanted to believe Sirius," he said. "I really did. It bothered me a lot when I first found out how they went after Snape, and I really wanted to believe that they stopped doing stuff like that. But I know they didn't. Sirius lied to me. And I think Dad lied to Mom about it, too."
Ron slammed his hand down on the table so hard that the teacups jumped. "It's none of Parselmouth's business! They have no right to go making up stuff about people that they never knew and things that happened before they were even born. Who do they think they are, anyway?"
"Rita Skeeter does that sort of thing for a living, and she gets away with it all the time," Harry complained. "It isn't fair! I defeated Voldemort and we won the war. Why can't they just leave things alone?"
"They never have appreciated you, Harry," Ginny said. "They've always been mean to you, right from the very beginning, but you're the greatest hero ever." She smiled at him. "You really should have your own chocolate frog card."
"At least there won't be anything about the Shrieking Shack incident in that opera," Ron assured him. "There's no one left who knows about that except us. Dumbledore hushed it up so well that even Snape couldn't, talk about it."
"I wouldn't count on that," Hermione said cautiously. She knew that the business in the shack would be in the opera. Tracey Davis had told her so. "I've heard that there were rumors about it in Slytherin House, so it's possible that they do know something."
Ron gave her a puzzled look. "Where have you been hearing this stuff?" he asked.
Harry saved her from having to answer that question by asking, "Do you think they know what really happened? I want to know the truth. Even if it hurts."
Ginny took his hand. "I'm sure no one will ever know the truth. That Tracey Davis and her horrible friends are just making things up. Please don't worry about it."
"But I do worry about it. I want to know, "Harry said firmly. "I need to know. Maybe I should ask them."
"No, Harry," Ginny said. "Bad idea. You'd be outnumbered, and Tracey would probably turn you into a pile of skrewt droppings before you could even say 'hello'. Everyone knows how nasty she can be. Promise me you'll stay away from them."
Good luck with that, Ron thought. It's never worked for me.
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Rita Skeeter sat at her desk looking through her notes. She had amassed a fair amount of information about Snape's childhood. It had obviously been miserable. She planned to emphasize how horribly wizard children were treated by muggles, including his father, and how horribly half-bloods were treated by wizards, including their fellow students. It was a no-win situation. If she wrote it well, it would tear at her readers' heartstrings.
She would write about how Snape was driven into the arms of the Dark Lord by a society that despised him for his unfortunate beginnings. She still didn't have any detailed information about his experiences while he was with the Death Eaters, but if she couldn't come up with anything solid, she could always fill the space with speculation. And she had heard some juicy tidbits about his years with Dumbledore. She ought to be able to whip up some outrage with those.
But there was so much more that she wanted to know. She had obtained some excellent information about the early days of his relationship with the Evans girl from the muggle sister, Petunia, but she still wanted more dirt about the breakup. And what about other girls, and women? She would have to do more digging and start interviewing Snape's former school mates. If she was lucky, she might get more dirt on Albus Dumbledore and his cronies, too. There was no such thing as too much of that!
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It was a few days later when Anthony Goldstein answered the door at his parents' place in London and found Harry Potter standing there. His heart skipped a beat when he realized that there was only one thing that could have brought Harry there: the rock opera. He wouldn't Crucio me right here in my parents' doorway, would he? Anthony wondered.
"Hi," Harry said cheerfully. "I was wondering if we could talk for a few minutes. Can I come in?"
Anthony was home alone. He thought fast. "I was just about to go for coffee," he said. "We've run out. There's a nice coffee shop around the corner, and they have really good snacks, too." And with luck it will be crowded and he wouldn't dare do anything in front of a bunch of muggles.
Anthony accio'd his coat and discretely stuffed his wand up his sleeve as they started down the street.
They made small talk about the weather and Hogwarts until they'd got their coffees and settled down at a corner table. The shop wasn't very crowded, but Harry cast the Muffliato charm around them, just to make sure.
He came right to the point then. "I'm trying to learn more about my parents," Harry said, "and I was wondering about that rock opera that you and your band mates are working on. Like, what do you know for sure about Snape and my parents? Or are you just making most of it up?"
"We are not making it up," Anthony retorted, annoyed by the assertion. Tracey might have changed some parts around a bit, but he was pretty sure that most of it was true. "All that stuff, about the 'pranks', and the werewolf and everything, all that stuff really happened."
"The werewolf? Look, I'm not mad or anything," Harry said, trying to sound calm and reassuring. "I just want to know the truth, even if it's … well … unpleasant. Do you know what happened with the werewolf? Dumbledore told me a little bit, but I think he might have lied or left things out. What do you and your friends know, and how did you find out? I thought everyone involved in that werewolf business was sworn to secrecy."
Gryffindors are unbelievably stupid sometimes, Anthony thought to himself. "Legilimency, of course," he said. "According to what Tracey told me, it was obvious that something really bad had happened to Snape and, not surprisingly, it looked like the so-called Marauders were involved. The senior Slytherins wanted to know what had happened, and they were not about to be kept in the dark about it."
Harry's mouth fell open in shock. "They legilimized Snape?" he asked.
"Are you kidding?" Anthony said. "That would have been suicidal. Even when Snape was young he could cast one heck of a curse. No, they legilimized Sirius." He looked over at Harry. Unbelievably stupid, he thought.