Rachel looked over her team. Each of them looked confident or eager. She smiled. Her team was in top form and they were about to completely annihilate the Ravenclaws. It was nice to have a good team. "Ravenclaw. Jasmine is their captain and is the best Chaser on the team, keep an eye on her. Duncan is a decent Beater, cut him out of the play if you can. They've got a new Keeper and a new Seeker this year, this is their first game. Don't go easy on them. Leave Shoma to me. You all know what to do."
"Let's do this," Scarlett said.
"We've got this easy. Chasers with me," Draco said, nodding to them.
They entered the pitch and Rachel looked up at the stands. From down here, the missing students weren't really noticeable, though the Slytherin section of the stands looked a little thin. She realized she should have tried to find out who was commentating, but decided it didn't matter. Her players were all good at ignoring the commentary and if it threw off the Ravenclaws, all the better for them.
They took their places and a few moments later the Ravenclaw team came out. Rachel looked them over. Noel and Shoma both looked nervous. They were both fourth years, and Rachel would say they looked small, but they were both taller than she was. She supposed they looked small compared to all of the older students on the pitch.
Jasmine stepped forward and Rachel stepped up to shake her hand. "Good luck," Rachel told her, aiming for a friendly smile.
Jasmine nodded, but didn't smile. "Same to you."
They stepped back into position and readied their brooms.
"On my whistle," Madam Hooch called.
Rachel flew up into the air at the sound of the whistle, going higher than her teammates so she was above the Chasers. Draco had possession of the Quaffle and was moving quickly, Harper and Martin in formation. After checking on Stephen and Scarlett, Rachel turned her attention to finding the Snitch.
It felt good to be playing in a game again. She wasn't going to let anything stop her from doing Quidditch this year, as silly as that was. In the grand scheme of things, Quidditch probably should fall at the bottom of her priorities. Her NEWTs were more important, so were her various lessons, and above all, finding the cup and ending the war. But her team was important to her too, just in a different way. And she liked to play Quidditch. Outside of the DA it was pretty much the only enjoyable thing she got to do anymore.
She spotted Shoma flying past, doing some sort of erratic search pattern. She wondered a little bit why other teams didn't have reserve players. Cho could have taught someone Seeking last year. Maybe it just wasn't a commonly done thing in Quidditch.
Rachel changed up her search pattern, taking another look at the game and focusing briefly on the commentary. Whoever was doing it was doing a reasonable job, they seemed to be focused on the plays rather than the personal lives of the players, which was always nice. Martin intercepted a pass, then passed to Harper, and the Slytherin players split to fly around the Ravenclaw Chasers. A Bludger then scattered the Ravenclaw Chasers and Stephen moved to intercept on the other end.
Satisfied that everything was as it should be, Rachel kept flying and searching. Shoma seemed a little lost and was now flying near Rachel. That was a somewhat reasonable strategy, but Rachel knew she was a lot faster than Shoma.
Around an hour in, Rachel saw a flash of gold and went for it at not quite her top speed. The snitch gave them the runaround, zigging and zagging, but Rachel managed to clasp her hand around it and then swerved just in time to prevent Shoma from flying into her. It was fortunate that she'd learned to keep track of what the other Seeker was doing. She needed to make sure Viola had that skill as well.
"That's the game to Slytherin, 270 to 20," the commentator called.
Her team had been up ten goals, which was very nice. It put them at a good lead for the cup. "Good game," she called to Shoma.
Shoma ignored her and flew away.
Rachel shrugged, but felt a little twinge of unhappiness. She'd been pretty good friends with most of the Seekers in the school. It felt weird to have one of them not want to be friends. She flew back down to join her team. "Well done, everyone," she told them.
"Tight formations," Draco said.
"Go team, go Slytherin!" Scarlett was half bouncing.
"We're pretty good," Harper allowed.
"They're probably expecting us in the common room. Go get changed up," she said. She thought she could deal with the common room today, for a little while at least. She could cross win against Ravenclaw off her to-do list and move onto the next thing.
She woke from nightmares early on Halloween morning, her heart beating in her throat as she reminded herself that the Death Eaters weren't in Hogwarts, no one was pointing their wand at her, and that here in her dorm she was about as safe as she could get. She lit her wand and pushed back her bed curtains a bit, proving to herself that no one was there. She could hear the sound of Daphne breathing, which was normal, and then Midnight hopped up on Rachel's bed with a small meow.
"It's alright," Rachel told her as softly as she could, hoping that she hadn't woken Pansy. She rubbed the fur on Midnight's back, scratching her fingers in and ruffling it the way Midnight liked. "It's okay, no one is here, you can go back to sleep."
Midnight started purring and settled herself onto Rachel's legs. That was alright. Rachel didn't want to go back to sleep right away anyway. She'd been taking her modified Dreamless Sleep potion twice a week, the night directly after she had a conversation with the Dark Lord, and again a few days later when she was relatively certain it was too soon for him to want to speak with her again. She wasn't sure what would happen if he wanted to have a conversation with her and she couldn't wake up.
She checked the time on her watch - just past four in the morning - and then picked up the journal and quill that she'd left on her bedside table. She'd been planning on writing to her parents this morning anyway, just not quite this early. Opening her journal to the next blank page, she paused with the tip of her quill resting above it and thought about what she wanted to say.
'Dear mom and dad,
At this point I'm just going to assume you know things in general. That you're watching over me.
I'm not sure how to describe the last year, so I won't. Things are busy as usual.'
Rachel frowned down at her journal. What was it that she was trying to tell them? If they were really here, what would she say to them?
'I can't say whether or not things are difficult right now. I feel like I've lost all perspective on that. Things in general feel difficult, but also they feel like just an unending stretch of blankness. I know my life before Hogwarts was more difficult than it is now, but I also didn't really have the perspective to know that at the time.
This is probably not what you want to hear, but I'm going to be joining you soon. I can't wait to actually meet you. I'm going to miss Severus, and my friends, and Sirius and Remus. They're very important to me. I'm also sure you know why I'm going to die. Why it's necessary for me to die. Don't worry about it. I'm okay with it. I'm not scared. There's even part of me that's looking forward to it.
More than anything, I want this war to end. I want the Dark Lord to be stopped. I think his vision for the future of Britain, and the future of the world, is wrong and will ultimately hurt a lot of people, even purebloods and half-bloods. While I agree that muggleborns should be given access to magical culture sooner in life, preferably when they're young children, and that more should be done to help them and their families acclimate, I don't think being a muggleborn or magical people marrying muggles is a bad thing. Everyone should be who they are and love who they love.'
She paused again, realizing that she was rambling. Absently, she stroked Midnight as she thought about what her parents might want to know that they couldn't get just from watching her.
'I'm doing okay. Severus is taking good care of me. I don't know what I'd do without him. I know for a while I was struggling. Some days I still am. Some days I don't feel like myself, but I'm not sure what feeling like myself even feels like anymore. But overall, I'm alright. I'm looking forward to my NEWTs being over with. I'll be taking them in just under eight months, which feels like an enormously long time away, but I know that it's not very long at all. Hopefully I'll have the Dark Lord taken care of around then as well. I hope I can delay him for as long as it takes for us to be ready.
I love you both a lot and I miss you and I'll see you soon.
Love, your daughter, Rachel'
She looked over the letter and thought that was about as good as it was going to get. She had put the important things at least. They knew to expect her soon.
Stopping herself from biting her lip, Rachel set aside her journal, quill, and wand and settled back into the darkness. She pet Midnight, focusing on the feeling of her fur under her fingers and the rumble of her purrs.
It wasn't that she didn't have regrets. She had wanted to fly in the league. And she'd wanted to do a Potions Mastery and grow older with her friends and see different things. She didn't want to leave Severus, or Sirius and Remus, or her friends. She cared about them and she didn't want to hurt them. As soon as they had the cup horcrux taken care of she needed to write letters to all of them. She just needed to sort out what she wanted to say.
At the end of the day though, the prophecy and the Dark Lord had to come first. She had to end the war and in a way that was for Severus, and Sirius and Remus, and her friends too. Ending the war was the best way that she had to protect them. She was willing to die to stop the Dark Lord. She was even okay with it, particularly because she knew that it would help a lot of people.
She had eight months until the end of the school year. Hopefully she could deal with the Dark Lord either before that or shortly after. Eight months to live wasn't so bad. She just had to make the most of it.
"How are you today?" Millie asked in the lull of conversation.
"Fine. I wrote to my parents this morning, so that was nice. I'm going to spend some time with Severus tonight, after everyone has settled down from the feast. I know Halloween is hard for him too," Rachel said, pushing her plate away from her. "Actually, I'm staying the night, because it seems likely that the Dark Lord is planning something tonight."
"Just from past events or can you feel something from him that lets you know?" Hermione asked.
"Let me check again," Rachel said. She'd been checking on and off today, even though Professor Dumbledore had told her not to check so often. She was trying to find any sort of changes that might tell her what he was planning. With her eyes closed she reached out and gently probed at the connection. "He's steady right now. Not really moving around, but there's definitely anticipation. He's excited." She opened her eyes again. "There's definitely going to be an attack tonight."
"I assume the people who should know already do?" Ginny asked, her eyes slightly wide as she set down the chocolate frog she'd been holding.
"They do. The Order already knows Halloween night is a likely time for an attack, and if they know, the MLE and the aurors know too." Thus far in her scanning of the Dark Lord she hadn't found anything new to tell them. It didn't stop her from trying.
"Why do you think he attacks on holidays? He attacked on Halloween and Christmas last year as well," Luna asked, her forehead creasing as she frowned.
"Scare tactics. Hit people when they're together with family, at night when they're vulnerable. I hope they have all of the Wizengamot under protection tonight," Theo said.
They all sat quietly for a moment.
"I hate that everything is about the war now," Ginny said abruptly.
Rachel nodded slightly. It was inescapable. First thing they did in the morning when they got to the Great Hall was to check the papers to see who was dead. All of the professors had a sense of urgency about them this year as they taught, and it wasn't because they were in NEWT classes. They couldn't walk through the common room without noticing how many students were missing. Everyone in the DA knew exactly what they were preparing for. And any night the Dark Lord felt like it, he came and talked to her in her dreams.
"Maybe we just need a time where we can't talk about anything related to the war. Like once a week or something we take a short break and just talk about anything else we can think of," Neville suggested.
"We can try it. The sad thing is I'm not sure what else we can talk about besides our classes. I feel like I can't remember what we used to talk about," Millie said.
"We need to take more time off," Theo said as he looked around at each of them. "I'm serious. If we're so wound up about the war and our classes, we're not doing ourselves any good."
"You're right, but I'm not sure just time off is the answer." Hermione looked thoughtful. "I think we need to figure out fun things to do and do them."
Rachel wondered where exactly she was supposed to fit fun things into her schedule.
"We could play with the Room of Requirement more. We won't have access to it for much longer and I'll bet we haven't seen even part of what it can do," Luna suggested.
"I like that," Neville said.
"I wish we had a wizarding wireless set. Then we could have music in here," Millie said.
Rachel perked up a little at the suggestion of music. "Maybe we can figure out who sells them and how much they cost."
"I know the shop in Diagon Alley. I can write to them for a catalog," Ginny offered. "And there's nothing stopping us from just playing Exploding Snap or Gobstones. I have Exploding Snap cards."
"And I have a Gobstones set," Millie said.
"We could look around the library for fun instead of searching for specific books or topics. I bet there are things we haven't seen in there," Hermione suggested, leaning down to dig in her bag. "I'm going to make a list of fun things we can do."
"We should make a list of things to try on the Room of Requirement too," Theo said, conjuring a roll of parchment.
"I want to see if it can make a garden," Neville said.
"We know what it does with Christmas, maybe we should see what it does with other holidays," Rachel suggested. She wasn't sure she wanted to know what the Room of Requirement thought about Halloween though. Or Valentine's Day for that matter. Easter might be alright, as long as none of them thought too closely about rabbits or eggs.
"You're right, we should try abstract ideas as well as concrete ones," Hermione said, her quill busy with her list.
"Oh, I wanted a picture of us today," Rachel said, remembering that she'd put her camera in her bag this morning. "I've been kind of forgetful about that lately and I don't want our only pictures this year to be birthday pictures." She was still on the same roll of film she'd been using last year. Taking pictures hadn't really been on her mind last year.
She needed to finish this role in the next few months and then borrow Severus' private lab over the Easter holiday to develop them so that everyone had copies before the end of the year. She'd somewhat arbitrarily decided their timetable had to be with the Dark Lord dead by the elections at the end of July. That gave them time to find the cup horcrux, figure out what to do about the snake horcrux, and then she could lure the Dark Lord to wherever Professor Dumbledore decided was the best place. She only hoped she could keep deflecting him for that long.
"All of us standing or some of us seated?" Hermione asked.
"We can all stand, some of us are short enough to stand in front." Rachel pulled her camera out of her bag and then conjured herself a tripod. She took most of her pictures with a tripod now or with her camera balanced on her knee or her lap. Her hands simply shook too much. There were only a handful of spells - that she knew - that she could no longer do thanks to her hands, but none of them were particularly important.
"By the fireplace?" Luna asked.
"That works," Rachel said. She set up the tripod and quickly charmed the camera so that it would take a photo when she said the passphrase.
Everyone gathered by the fireplace, Theo moving away one of the armchairs so they had more space and Rachel looked through the viewfinder to make sure she had everyone in frame. Theo, Neville, and Millie made up the back row. Ginny stood a little to the side, now that she was taller than Hermione, and Luna and Hermione stood in front.
"Alright, everyone stay about where you are." Rachel took her place in front of Millie and next to Luna. "Smile. And Cheese." She wasn't sure who had designed that charm so the keyphrase was 'cheese' but she was relatively certain they were a muggleborn or half-blood. The click of the camera let them know it had worked and everyone returned to their seats as Rachel wrangled her camera back down.
"Did you know they have digital cameras now where you can see the picture before you develop it?" Hermione asked.
"I didn't. That sounds really useful," Rachel said, holding her camera with one hand and vanishing the tripod with her wand.
"Some of the things muggles can do with technology almost seem like magic," Neville said.
"Some of the things muggles can do with technology almost seem like they got the idea from magic," Theo said. "I read that book you gave me, the Stephen King one."
"Don't take Stephen King as an expert on muggles or muggle technology," Hermione warned with a laugh. "And I think some of that is muggle America is quite a different place than magical Britain."
"Which Stephen King book did you give him?" Rachel asked.
"It was a set of novellas, but I presume Theo is talking about The Langoliers, which is set on an airplane," Hermione said.
"I just don't understand how they can get something that big to fly without magic," Theo said, shaking his head.
Rachel shrugged. She didn't understand how that worked either except for fast engines and large wings. She checked her watch. It was nearly eight and Severus should be well done with the feast by now. "I'm going to go see Severus. Do you want help carrying stuff down to the kitchens?"
"No, we can do it," Ginny said. "There's not much."
"I'll walk you down," Millie said, getting to her feet.
"We're seeing Sirius and Remus tomorrow, right?" Neville asked.
"Assuming they're free by lunch time, yes. They said they'd be here if they can," she said, hoping that whatever happened tonight didn't take that long. And hoping that they would be safe. And hoping that everyone else in the Order was safe as well. She knew far too many people in the Order at this point and knew that she definitely shouldn't know more than she did.
"I'll be back in twenty minutes," Millie said.
"We'll keep watch," Luna said, nodding to her.
"Goodnight," Rachel said, getting a chorus of 'goodnight' in reply.
With her bag slung over one shoulder, Rachel left the study room with Millie.
"What do you think of our plan to have some fun? I think it's a good idea," Millie asked as they began the walk toward the dungeons.
"It is a good idea. I don't think I can remember the last time that we did something just for fun," she said.
"Sometimes I feel a little guilty when I have fun," Millie said. "Does that happen to you too? Like this summer, sometimes I'd just be hanging out with the wireless or laying out in the garden, and I would feel guilty that I wasn't doing something."
Rachel had been feeling that way for years now. "Yeah. I feel that way when I fly. But I think we need to remind ourselves that if there was something we could be doing for the war, we'd be doing it."
"And we are. We're training. My mom wasn't too happy about that, by the way, but my dad said to let me do it. I think he knows," Millie said.
"He knows what?" Rachel asked as they went down the staircase.
"That I'm going to join the Order. He asked me outright if I was joining the aurors, and I told him no. Then he told me that if I was doing the MLE and since I had the grades, I might as well join the aurors instead of the MLE patrol. He also said that I was going to scare the hell out of mom while I was doing it, but that he'd support me if I wanted to do that instead of being a Healer."
"What did you tell him?" Rachel asked.
"I told him that we'd see what happened when I got my NEWT results. I didn't think he'd understand the Order and I didn't want to make mom more worried than she already is. Eventually I'm going to have to tell them about the Charms Mastery thing, but that can wait until I get my NEWT scores," Millie said, shrugging. "I don't think he actually wants me to join the MLE."
"Not during a war, at least," she said.
"Not at all. The MLE isn't exactly safe work, even on the patrol. It wouldn't be Midnight having kittens, it would be my mom. But it's a moot point. I don't want to join the MLE."
Rachel nodded. She didn't think the aurors or the MLE patrol sounded like her idea of a good time either.
"Anyway, I think it's a good idea for us to do something fun every once in a while. Even if it feels weird. And we should take more breaks. Right?"
"Right." Rachel still didn't know where exactly she was fitting fun on her schedule. She'd have to make room somewhere. At least her spells and write-ups for her rune writing quill were done and turned into Professor Vector, and now she had a very handy quill for writing runes clearly.
"I wonder if the Room can make a beach? I mean, no water, obviously, but sand. Maybe it would be warm," Millie asked.
"I saw a beach this summer. For my apparition exam, we went to a beach. Severus let me go down to the water. I didn't realize the ocean was that big. I mean, I knew, but I didn't really know."
Millie looked at her for a long moment, seeming like she was about to say something and then shook her head slightly. "I'm glad Professor Snape let you go then. After all of this - after we're done at Hogwarts and the war is over, we should do all sorts of fun things that we never got the opportunity to do. We should go to a beach. And go camping. And…and go to another muggle bookshop. And see a movie like Hermione was talking about."
"Maybe," Rachel said, not wanting to commit to things she knew she couldn't do. "We'll see when we get there."
"We'll make a list. It doesn't have to be all at once. Just things we can do on weekends when we're no longer at Hogwarts. Do you think Sirius and Remus would let me move in with them?" Millie asked.
"Probably, assuming they still have space in the summer. Do you want to live with them?"
"Well. I want to move out of my parents' house once I start my Mastery. Me living at home as an adult with my mom just isn't going to work. But I don't want to be out of the wards. And I don't really want to live on my own. And I know Professor Snape isn't going to let you move out right away," Millie listed. "I mean, not that he can stop you, but you should be in the most warded place possible."
Rachel was absolutely certain that Severus could stop her from moving out and would if she tried. Thankfully she wasn't even planning on trying. "I'm pretty much planning on staying with Severus until the war is over. But I think if Sirius and Remus have space, they'd probably welcome you. You can always ask them."
Millie nodded. "I'm going to wait until it's closer. Maybe I'll ask over the Easter holiday, because they'll probably have an idea how many people they have living with them at that point."
"Seems reasonable," Rachel said as they reached Severus' office door. "I'll meet you here tomorrow at eight?"
"You don't have an appointment tomorrow?" Millie asked.
"No, I'm allowed to have Saturdays where we have Quidditch games or Hogsmeade weekends off," Rachel explained. As much as she appreciated Torey, it was also nice to take a small break from therapy.
"Alright. Tomorrow at eight it is, Theo and I will be here," Millie said, her brow furrowing. "I hope…well…I hope things aren't too terrible. You know."
Rachel nodded, knowing Millie was talking about her visions. "Me too. Goodnight."
"Goodnight. I'll see you first thing tomorrow," Millie repeated.
Rachel managed a smile for her and let herself into Severus' office. It was quiet and the fire was banked and Rachel exhaled. Sometimes it was nice just to take a break from Hogwarts, even though she liked spending time with her friends. She went through the permeable wall and found Severus in his armchair with a book.
"How was your day?" he asked as he looked up.
"Alright. And yours?" she asked, coming to sit on the sofa.
"Manageable," he said, closing his book entirely.
"Did you talk with my mom today?" she asked, not entirely sure she should ask such a thing.
"What do you mean?"
Rachel shrugged. "I write my parents a letter on Halloween. I was wondering if you sort of thought at them or something."
"I do think of Lily on Halloween, though that is more with regret. I tend to remember her differently on her birthday," he explained.
"Thirtieth of January, 1960," Rachel said. She'd taken note of her parents' birthdays when they'd visited their grave.
Severus nodded. "She used to celebrate my birthday, even when I did not wish her to do so. It was both frustrating and caused mixed emotions for me. She did not understand why I would not wish to celebrate my birthday and I could not explain it to her."
Rachel bobbed her head, though she didn't understand either. She wouldn't press him to explain. If he really didn't want anyone to celebrate his birthday, and made an effort to conceal his birthdate, she was not going to force the issue. "What did she like to do on her birthday?"
"She would celebrate with her family over the Christmas holiday before she came back to Hogwarts. She often invited me to these celebrations. We'd have cake and there were gifts for her, but mostly she just wanted to spend the time with people she cared about. At Hogwarts, on her birthday, her friends would celebrate with her," he said, looking a little distant.
"Did she have a pet?" Rachel asked.
"She had a ginger tomcat that she rather doted on."
Rachel reminded herself of all the reasons she couldn't have her own cat. She'd have to be content with cuddling Midnight in the dorm.
"I don't recall its name. I wish I did." Severus frowned.
Watching him, Rachel decided that was probably enough questions about her mom for the evening. She didn't want to hurt Severus. And she could ask her mom everything soon enough. "How was the feast?"
"Raucous, as usual. You are wise to avoid it," he said.
Rachel smiled briefly. She didn't avoid the feast because of the noise, but she was still kind of glad to miss it. "The Dark Lord is excited. I don't think that's a good sign."
"No, it's probably not. Is it alright if I cast a charm on your door tonight so I can wake if you have a vision? You are staying tonight?" he asked.
"I am, and you can, that's fine. It's easier than me trying to come to you afterward," she said. "I'm really starting to think he has at least some control over sending me visions. Like, I think some of them he doesn't mean to send, but I'm almost positive that he is sending some of these on purpose."
"Which begs the question of why isn't he doing it more frequently? If he really wanted to torture you with this, he would."
"Maybe right now he doesn't want to torture me because he thinks I might actually join him. All the more reason not to upset him or reject him outright," she suggested.
He nodded once. "We'll see what happens tonight. But you're correct that we should continue to string him along for as long as possible. He's far from stupid, but he has much to gain by convincing you to come to him. I think a possibility is that he's assessed the situation at Hogwarts and has decided he will have a far easier time getting you to come to him than he will have assailing the castle. Probably his worst case scenario concerning you is that you finish at Hogwarts and then the Order hides you away where he can't find you or spy on you."
"I think he can tell where I am."
Severus' frown deepened. "What makes you think that?"
"I just feel that he can. Which sounds ridiculous, I'm fully aware, but I'm also pretty sure that the feeling that I'm being watched is coming from him too," she insisted.
He rested his hand against his chin and watched her for a long moment. "I don't wish to dismiss your premonitions, but I think we need to accept these things as a possibility rather than as a given. Do you have any feelings as to how accurate his sense of where you are is? Or a scale? Such as within a town or within a specific house? Or larger than that?"
"Well, when I try it on him, all I ever get is south, which really isn't helpful. Almost everything in Britain is south of here. But no, I don't know. It's just the feeling that he knows where I am."
"I suppose we could take you to Dorchester and see if that sense changes to north, but I'm not sure what that would gain us," he said.
"It might tell us if it was real," she pointed out.
"But you would expect him to then be north, invalidating the experiment. I suppose the real test would be to take you to different locations where you don't know where you are and have you sense a direction."
"We could do that. That might even give us a general idea of where he is if we went to enough places. I'd be like a compass."
Severus shook his head. "I'd rather not have you out of the wards for that long. And ultimately, we want the Dark Lord to come to us so that we control the battleground."
That was true enough, she supposed. It would just be nice to know if what she was feeling was real or just some wishful thinking. "I think it's going to be bad tonight. Just the way he feels."
"Can you say specifically why?" he asked.
Rachel fidgeted and checked on the Dark Lord again. "It's not just anticipation, it's excitement, and that's different for him. What would make him excited?"
"Unfortunately I can think of a number of things and none of them are good. Whatever you see tonight…"
She looked up when he trailed off. "I can handle it. I've seen enough now."
He shook his head again. "You haven't seen one of the Dark Lord's revels and I do not wish you to. And if we are assuming that he can control the visions and is truly attempting to get you to come to him, I don't think he will show you that. But regardless, whatever you see, it is out of your control. Whatever he and his Death Eaters do is their choice. It has nothing to do with you."
Rachel thought she understood the general idea of what happened at the Dark Lord's revels and Severus was right that she didn't want to see it. There were worse things than death and much of what happened at those revels probably counted as worse. "I'll be alright," she told him, because there wasn't really much more to say.
"You will," he agreed, though the crinkles around his eyes said he was worried.
"Do you think if I just stay awake it will be like the vision last year where it started while I was awake?"
"We can try and find out, if you would like to."
"Maybe. I'll think about it. There's still a few hours to decide." She'd much rather wind up with a headache than a vision and a headache. She wasn't sure she'd be able to go to sleep anyway.
In the end, Rachel had decided to stay awake to see if she could forestall the vision and Severus had been concerned enough to stay up with her. He was settled in his armchair with a book and she was sitting on the sofa with several books.
Severus had already tried to urge her to take a break and to stop studying, but she said she wanted something to occupy her mind while she waited. He could understand the reasoning behind that. It was obvious she was nervous about what she might see tonight and he shared that worry. If her connection to the Dark Lord was telling her this was going to be bad, then he was willing to accept it probably would be.
Rachel ascribed a lot of things to her connection to the Dark Lord. His first impulse was to dismiss it as her simply fearing that the Dark Lord had powers he didn't have. But it was clear her connection was changing over time and it was unwise to assume she wasn't receiving something from him. They had to at least consider the possibility that he could do the things she said he could do.
Being able to tell where she was through the connection was particularly worrying. Their house was protected through the Fidelius, but that wouldn't stop the Dark Lord from using Fiendfyre and anti-apparition wards over the entire area if he could narrow down a location. It might simply be safer to keep Rachel at Hogwarts even after she finished her seventh year.
"It's happening," she said. "I can hear screaming."
Severus closed his book and set it aside. "Can you resist the vision at all? Does it work like that?"
"I don't know. It's kind of coming in and out. I feel like a badly tuned radio."
"Does talking to me help you focus on what's happening here in this room?" He stood and moved closer. He had already retrieved the potions they usually needed after Rachel had a vision, just in case.
"Um. Not really," Rachel set her books aside with her shoes and swung her feet up onto the sofa with the rest of her. "I might, I don't know, lose consciousness in a moment or something. That's what happened last time."
"That's fine, do whatever you need to do. Maybe lay down so you don't fall. Try to stay focused here," he coached, not at all sure that was even feasible.
"It's getting louder and it's lasting longer when it does." Rachel laid down on the sofa and blinked a few times. "I feel something. It's like being pulled into a tunnel."
"Imagine walking away from the tunnel," he suggested, hoping that she could counter this with mind magic techniques.
She went rigid for a moment and then started screaming, her eyes wide open.
He immediately went to her side. "Rachel? It's alright. It's okay, you're still here."
She didn't seem to register his words or to see him at all. Her body jerked while she screamed.
"You're okay. I'm right here," he told her, unsure what else he could do. He took her hand and stroked the back of it. She had told him the only pain she was in during these visions was the pain in her head and scar afterward, but she seemed like she was in pain.
He glanced at the clock. He'd never seen a vision last more than ten minutes. He just had to get her through the next ten minutes and then they could deal with the fallout.
She jolted several times as though she was being hit by a spell repeatedly.
"You're okay," he told her again, feeling utterly powerless.
A line of blood began to fill the scar on her forehead. Severus stood and retrieved the potions from the side table where he'd left them and carefully rubbed Healing salve over her scar and conjured a bandage so that she would not bleed all over herself. He considered spelling the Pain Relieving potion into her stomach, but he didn't want her to be ill when she came out of the vision - as sometimes happened - and then not know how much of the potion she'd received.
Her body jerked several times again and Severus wished they had a better way to understand how this worked and how to stop it. She was still screaming, though she was starting to sound hoarse as she gasped for air in between screams.
If he thought it would help, he would have Albus watch this. Maybe he'd show him the memory of this in the pensieve, maybe seeing it directly would give him some ideas of what they could do.
Rachel gasped for air again and then stopped screaming as she leaned over the edge of the sofa to be ill. "Oh my god, oh my god," she said to herself after she stopped.
"I've got you, you're here now," he told her. "Do you need to be ill again or do you want a Pain Relieving potion?"
She covered her face with her hands. "Oh god."
Severus vanished the vomit and moved so that he was sitting on the edge of the sofa and gently placed his hands on Rachel's forearms. "It's okay. Take a few slow breaths."
She leaned into him, obviously crying behind her hands.
He moved one of his hands to her back and awkwardly patted her. "You're back, the vision is over. I have a Pain Relieving potion when you're ready for it."
"I can't keep doing this," she said in between gasps of air. "I can't do this again."
"I know," he told her, though he didn't know of anything he could do that would make this stop. Maybe, if the Dark Lord had as much control over the visions as Rachel suspected, she could negotiate with him. The only problem was that he couldn't think of anything the Dark Lord wanted that she could safely give to him.
They sat for what felt like a long time, Rachel rocking herself slightly while he half held her. Of all the things he'd been through with Rachel, these visions were what made him feel the most powerless. He couldn't stop them from happening. Most of the time they couldn't even predict them. He couldn't protect her from this, no matter how much he wanted to.
"I think I can swallow the Pain Relieving potion now," she finally said, wiping her face with her hands.
He uncorked the vial and handed it to her, watching as she drank it without even making a face at the taste. "Is there anything I should know? A location we should direct the Order and the aurors to?"
"I don't know where they were, it was out somewhere away from buildings. They had…they had taken people captive and…" her expression crumpled again and she shook her head.
The Dark Lord had shown her one of his revels then. Severus wondered why he would do such a thing when allegedly trying to convince Rachel to come to him. "I'm sorry," he told her.
"It was still going when I…when I came back, I suppose. How long do things like this last?"
Severus glanced at the clock. It was around half past midnight. "They should be finished by around one thirty or two."
"I hope that the people there don't survive. They won't just let them go, will they?" she asked.
"It's unlikely any of them will survive. The only reason one of them would is if the Dark Lord wanted to make a point to someone's family. Most of them will simply be missing persons," he explained reluctantly.
Tears ran down Rachel's face again and she started gasping for air again. "Why are they doing this?"
Severus kept himself from sighing as he reached for Rachel again. He wished he had better answers for her. "Some people enjoy hurting other people. It makes them feel powerful."
"I can't keep watching this happen," she managed to say in between sobs. "I can't keep doing this."
"I know," he told her again, squeezing her forearm as he held her. "The war will end. We will get through this. We have a plan." A plan that he needed to press Albus on. While he wanted to delay the confrontation between Rachel and the Dark Lord until she was ready, he could also see the value in ending this as soon as possible.
She slowly calmed again. "Is it alright if I stay out here for a while? It's not going to keep you awake?"
"That's fine," he told her, though he had no intention of going to bed while she was sitting up struggling. "If you want to talk about what you saw, you can."
Rachel shook her head. "I don't want to even try to describe it."
He worried about her keeping things locked up. She tended to not want to speak about the things that hurt her. At the same time, he didn't want to pressure her. He fully understood not wanting to talk about what happened at the Dark Lord's revels. "You don't have to talk about what you saw, it can be about how you felt, or anything at all."
She shook her head again. "I just want it to stop. Both my visions and I want to stop it from happening."
"We will. Both will stop after the war is over. And we will end this war." Merlin help them, they had to end the war before nothing was left.
"You do not have to go. You can stay in here with me today if you want," Severus offered.
Rachel shook her head and retrieved her bag from where she'd left it. "I'm okay."
He frowned at her. "You do not have to lie to me. I would rather appreciate it if you didn't."
She finished going through her bag. At some point today she needed to go back to her dorm and trade books before they studied. "I'm okay enough. Last night was-" She closed her mouth abruptly to prevent herself from saying the first thing that came to mind. "It was hard. But I'm better off if I go out there and do the things I need to do. It's better to be distracted. If I sit in here I'm just going to keep thinking about it."
"I can understand wanting to keep your mind occupied, but you can't keep running from yourself forever."
Maybe not forever, but she could keep things at bay for at least the next eight or nine months and that was all she really needed to do. "I know. But right now is not the right time to be thinking about things. I'll talk about it with Torey next Saturday. Or I'll write in my journal about it. Or something. I just don't want to deal with it right now."
"Alright. I am also available if you want to talk about anything," he reminded her.
"I know. Thank you. Are you alright?" she asked.
"I am concerned and frustrated, but I am alright."
She nodded. She knew he had stayed up all night because she had stayed up all night. That had been kind of him. She hadn't told him it was alright if he went to bed, because she hadn't wanted to be alone with the images in her mind. "Alright. You can talk to me too, you know."
"I appreciate that," he said.
A knock on his office door told her that Theo and Millie had arrived. "I'll see you for dinner tomorrow," she told him.
"You will. Please remember to eat," he called after her.
"I will," she called without looking back. She let herself out of Severus' office and found Millie and Theo waiting for her.
"Are you okay?" Millie asked.
"Okay enough," she said, really not wanting to rehash all of this.
"Want to go to breakfast?" Theo asked.
She didn't, but she nodded, and they started up the corridor. "How was the common room last night?"
"Almost back to normal. I mean, like, normal four years ago, before all this craziness started," Millie said.
"Tensions are pretty low right now. I'm keeping an eye on a few people, but the prevailing mood is simply we don't talk in the common room about what's happening outside of the castle," Theo said.
"Anyone I should be keeping an eye on?" Rachel asked, figuring she should know.
"I'm watching Ella, but she seems relatively downbeat without Selina. Pansy says that Sylvia is alright, but something seems a little off about her to me."
"Sylvia?" Rachel asked, a little surprised. "She seems pretty timid to me."
"Timid, yes, but the way she watches people is very discreet and she is watching everyone," Theo said. "She'd be a good spy."
"How likely is it that they'd send her back alone to spy?" Millie asked.
"Not very likely, but we've also seen the Death Eaters do things that we wouldn't have thought were likely. I'd say if the real threat in the school is coming from anywhere, it's coming from inside Ravenclaw, but it doesn't do us any harm to watch our Housemates."
Rachel nodded. "Well, if she's spying on me, she can't be getting much. I'm almost never around Sylvia. If they wanted to spy on me, they should have just sent Pansy back."
"I think they knew they were losing Pansy and that's why they didn't want to send her back," Theo said.
"Then they made a stupid decision by forcing the issue. If they wanted to keep Pansy, they should have given her what she wanted," Millie said, shaking her head.
They arrived at the Great Hall and found that instead of the four House tables there were now scattered round tables that could each seat about twenty people occupying half the room and the other half had small shop stalls being set up. Rachel had nearly forgotten that they'd had the faux Hogsmeade weekend today.
"I see the others, let's sit with them today," Millie said, leading the way.
The rest of the study group, except for Draco, were sitting together at one of the tables near the front of the hall. There were food platters in the center. Rachel sat next to Luna and readied herself for the challenge of eating. She selected toast, scrambled eggs, and pumpkin juice and tried to pretend she couldn't smell the sausage on the platter across the table.
Hermione had the paper open and Rachel wondered if there had been other attacks last night. There had only been maybe twenty Death Eaters that she'd seen last night. The ones the Dark Lord wanted to reward, she assumed. She shivered. She really had to stop thinking about that.
"What do we want to do today? Maybe one of our fun things should be that we stay for a little bit and we check things out here," Hermione suggested.
"I want to stop by and see Fred and George while they're here," Ginny said.
"I could use a stop at the Honeydukes stall," Millie said.
"And we have lunch with Sirius and Remus, assuming they're available," Neville reminded them.
Rachel focused on her breakfast while her friends talked. It was relatively simple. Move the food to her mouth. Try to chew without tasting it. Force herself to swallow. Take a drink. Repeat. She'd learned over the past six months not to allow herself to think about the texture of the food, the process of chewing, the process of digestion, or anything else that would make it difficult for her to swallow the food that was in her mouth. If she let herself ruminate on how disgusting the entire process was, then it just made things much harder.
Her thoughts tried to stray back to what she'd seen last night and she carefully redirected them by thinking of her study schedule and all the things she needed to do. She knew better than to try to block the thoughts, but that didn't mean she had to think about them. Her mind was a little bit like a minefield. She had to navigate to different places without triggering any of the things she didn't want to think about. Certain things were safe, like school work, and she could stay there for a while, but eventually she had to come back out again.
"Is that okay with you, Rachel?" Luna asked.
Rachel looked at her. "Sorry, I wasn't listening."
"We do the shops here, then we do a study session, then lunch with Sirius and Remus, then we visit Hagrid, then more studying, then dinner, and then we take a break," Luna listed.
"That's fine," Rachel said, thinking she could probably manage most of that, though she had a lesson with Professor Dumbledore instead of taking a break. "Hermione, are you done with the paper?"
"Sure, here," Hermione said, folding it and passing it across the table.
"I'll get my Exploding Snap cards from my dorm when we go to our dorms. We can play tonight," Ginny said.
Rachel looked over the front page of the paper. There had been more attacks. Three houses had been burned down, but not with Fiendfyre. A couple had been killed in Dorset. A woman had been reported missing. Rachel wondered if she was one of the people she'd seen last night. There was nothing in the paper about missing muggles, though she could almost understand that. There were a lot of muggles and muggles weren't going to report people missing to the MLE.
She wondered how often these revels happened. How many people just disappeared and no one ever knew what happened to them? She hoped they were all dead. Maybe that was wrong. It probably was wrong to wish that people were dead. But no one should survive the sorts of torture she had seen last night.
"I need to not be here right now," she heard herself say. She felt strange. Crowded almost.
Theo turned to her. "Rachel?"
She shook her head and stood up, remembering to grab her bag. "I just don't want to be in here right now. It's kind of crowded. I need to go take a walk or something."
"We can do that," he said, also standing. "We'll send a Patronus in twenty minutes or so and let you know we're alright," he told the rest of the table.
Rachel hurried away from their concerned expressions and reminded herself that she had plenty of space around her. The last place she should be feeling claustrophobic was the Great Hall. She went out the front doors and down the steps, grateful that while it was chilly, at least it wasn't raining on them. She turned in the direction of the lake, just for a place to walk to, Theo keeping pace easily.
"Sorry," she told him.
"It's okay. It's better that you told us instead of just running out," he said.
She looked down. She tried not to do that, but sometimes things simply became overwhelming all of a sudden.
"Was it something in the paper?" he asked.
"No. Not really. It's just a lot of things." It was a lot of things, but it was also simply just the war and her connection to the Dark Lord. They continued to walk, Rachel watching the curve of the lake. It seemed a little absurd to her that she'd been in that lake almost three years ago now. She had much preferred when the Triwizard Tournament had been her biggest problem, though that had seemed like a huge problem at the time. That was growing up, she supposed.
"Would it help to talk about it? Get a fresh perspective?" Theo offered.
"I'm not sure I should put that burden on you," she said after considering it for a moment.
"On me specifically? Or on anyone?" he pressed.
"On anyone. And there are parts I can't talk about. Not because I don't trust you, but because there are things that no one can know."
Theo frowned. "I still say they put too much of this war on you."
"Even knowing the prophecy? It's kind of my job," she pointed out.
"It's not your job. I want the war to end as much as the next person. But I don't think it's fair or right for Professor Dumbledore and Professor Snape to entrust you with the secrets of the war and ask you to solve the problem. They wouldn't do that to anyone else, especially not someone who was still a student."
"I have to be involved. I'm the one talking with the Dark Lord. I'm the one seeing all of this. I need to be able to make informed choices when I'm talking with the Dark Lord because if I mess this up he is going to kill people."
"He's already killing people. I don't think you talking to him is going to change that," he said, coming to a stop and looking at her.
"He's threatened to kill people in my name and tell them why if I don't talk with him or if I lie to him or if I don't respond the way he wants me to respond. I don't want people knowing that I can speak with the Dark Lord in my head. Can you imagine what people's responses would be?" She also stopped walking and met his gaze.
"That has the potential to be really bad. How many people know that you can do that?" Theo asked.
"The study group, Severus, and Professor Dumbledore. Well, and the Dark Lord and whoever he's told."
"I think he's going to want to keep that a secret so he can use it when it best suits him. And there may be nothing you can do to stop him from telling people. What does he want from you? What does he want you to do?" he asked.
Rachel sighed and sat down on the grass facing the lake. The surface was mostly calm today. She felt a little bit like that. She was calm on the outside, but underneath there were merpeople and the giant squid and grindylows all broiling around. "He says he wants me to join him. But he doesn't. He wants to lure me there to kill me. But in all of our conversations he's trying to tell me that Professor Dumbledore sent me to my relatives to try and keep me from becoming powerful and that he asked my parents to join him, and that together we'll end the war. And he does that, and I play along, and he knows I'm playing along, and then he sends me visions of people being tortured and raped. Why would he do that? How the hell am I supposed to talk with him and still pretend that there's the possibility of me joining him after that?"
Theo sat down so that he was perpendicular to her. "That's the vision he sent you last night?"
"One of his revels, Severus calls them. It's like a party to them." Rachel's mouth twisted. The Dark Lord was going to keep doing that until she stopped him. The problem was she didn't know what to do to stop him any faster than what they were currently doing.
"You sound like you think he sent the vision on purpose," he said after a long moment.
"I'm pretty sure he can control the visions."
"Pretty sure? Because I can think of two options here."
She pried her gaze away from the lake and looked at him. "What?"
"The first is that he doesn't have as good of control over the visions as you think he does. Maybe he can control some of them and not others. Why would he have wanted you to see Mr. Weasley getting hurt when you could save him?" Theo asked.
"I think he couldn't control it then, but he is in more control now. I think both of us are learning to use the connection. But maybe he didn't send the one last night on purpose," she admitted, though she still believed that he had. "What's the other option?"
"That he did send it to you on purpose and that this whole thing is just a mind game designed to tie up you, Professor Snape, and Professor Dumbledore. The three of you are probably his top enemies-"
"Minister Scrimgeour," she pointed out.
Theo shrugged. "He's not that fussed about Scrimgeour, or Scrimgeour would be dead already. The Dark Lord can get to him if he wanted to, he proved that in June with his attack on the Ministry. But the Dark Lord can't get to Professor Dumbledore, who is the person that is the most direct challenge to him. He can't get to Professor Snape, who has personally betrayed him and is very important both to you and to Professor Dumbledore. And he can't get to you. He's tried to kill you three times-"
"Twice."
"When you were an infant, after the third task, and after our OWLs," Theo listed, a little hesitantly.
"Not after our OWLs. He never raised his wand to me while I was at Malfoy Manor," she said, looking away.
Theo sat quietly for a moment. "I think he would have, if Draco hadn't gotten you out."
"Probably eventually."
"My point is, he can't reach any of you, but he can send the three of you in circles trying to understand his cryptic messages to you and coming up with responses. He knows that you'll all respond to the threat of people being killed and your connection being revealed. So, with the vision, he just throws another branch onto the fire and leaves you worrying over it instead of doing something to stop him. The longer he can mess with the three of you, the more time he has to achieve his goals."
Rachel pressed her lips together as she thought about it. "You really think he'd go through all that trouble just to mess with us?"
"Why not? What does it cost him? Thirty minutes a week to talk to you and it leaves the three of you scrambling to put together a strategy and response, which could take a couple of days to try and sort everything out. That's a very low cost to confuse your enemies. If we could do it to him, I'd say that we should," he said with a firm nod.
"So if he is just messing with us, what should my response be?" she asked.
"You said that he knows you're stringing him along?"
"I can't imagine he doesn't. He can't really think I would join him. Or that I'm that stupid enough to go to him."
Theo shrugged. "It's not about stupidity, it's about ego. The same reason he tried to duel you in the graveyard instead of just killing you. He wants to show off and you are his captive audience. Getting you to come to him would be the ultimate show of power for him. He probably believes he can do it. And yeah, he probably knows you're stringing him along for now, but while you're doing that, you're also giving him access to you to mess with you. Everything I've ever heard said that the Dark Lord is incredibly persuasive and tricky. He's got a bunch of purebloods following a muggle raised half-blood in a blood purity crusade. It's crazy. But I think you should be honest with him. Confront him."
"Confront the Dark Lord?" she repeated incredulously.
"Well, not in a direct way. But ask him why you would join him after him showing you something like that. You said he will kill people if you lie to him. I think he's either expecting you to lie and then he'll call you on it, or that he has some sort of plan where you tell him that it's terrible and he reveals that killing and torturing muggles is actually a good thing."
Rachel sighed. This whole thing was convoluted. She just wanted it to be over, but Theo and the Dark Lord were both right that she wouldn't stop the conversations while the threat of him killing people in her name was there.
"I'm not trying to say that this is easy, Rachel. Far from it. And maybe Professor Snape and Professor Dumbledore will have a better strategy than that. I guess it's at the point where they think there is no solution to blocking your connection," Theo said, softer this time.
"If anyone could do it, it would be Professor Dumbledore, and I believe that he did try." She did believe that. Professor Dumbledore had plenty of time to see that she wasn't getting much useful information from the connection and that overall it was causing more harm than good.
Hermione's otter Patronus swam over to them. "Just checking in. The shopping booths are open now if you want to join us, or we can meet you in the study room later if this is just too crowded for you right now. Let us know."
Theo pulled out his wand. "What do you want to do?"
"I don't want to go in there. I know we're supposed to be having fun, but I just can't right now. Do you want to go in?" she asked, feeling a little guilty she was keeping him out here.
"Not particularly. There's nothing I need from the booths and honestly I don't find shopping to be all that much fun. I go with all of you to Hogsmeade weekends because I like being with you, not because I want to go to Hogsmeade," he said.
Rachel bit back a laugh.
"What?" he asked.
"I wonder how many of us are going to Hogsmeade just because we want to spend time as a group and not because we want to be there. I feel pretty much the same way. I was only going to spend time with all of you and to see Sirius and Remus," she admitted.
Theo smiled and shook his head. He silently cast his Patronus. "To Hermione Granger. I think we're going to stay out here a little while and then we'll meet you in the study room by ten."
"It's interesting that you and Hermione both have water animal Patronuses. Pansy, Daphne, and Astoria all have birds," Rachel said, watching Theo's shark swim quickly away.
"It is interesting. Hermione and I are very similar in some ways, but very different in others. I hope my animagus form isn't a shark though, or a water animal."
"Me too. I don't want to be a doe. Not that they aren't nice animals. I just don't particularly feel like I'm a doe."
"What do you feel like? Animal wise?" he asked.
"Something quick, I hope. Small. I think I'm just kind of small in general. I'm not sure how I would feel about a snake. I would feel a lot more open to it if I hadn't experienced being the Dark Lord's snake." She thought she could live with being a snake, if that's what her form was. She'd just have to get over that association.
"I could be a snake. There are a lot of good snakes. And House pride of course. I also want to be fast. Maybe a bit bigger, but not so big that I can't be inconspicuous. I don't think I'd be a good bird, that doesn't feel like me. Maybe an eagle. Or a raven. I'd be alright with that, but I bet learning to fly would be a pain," he said, smiling a little bit.
"Probably. Professor McGonagall seems to think we can do this."
"She wouldn't have agreed to mentor us if she thought we couldn't do it. I think we can do it. We've done plenty of difficult things."
Rachel wondered where Theo got that sort of self assurance. She could use some of that right now.
"We'll be alright. There's a lot of stuff ahead of us that will be hard. But we're doing everything that we need to do right now and we'll get through it," he said, watching her closely with an expression that was more reassuring than confident.
"We will," she agreed. There simply weren't any other options than to go forward.
It was early on Sunday morning when the flames in his fireplace grew and Albus' voice came through. "Severus, can you join me for a moment?"
Severus set aside the newspaper and stood. "On my way," he said, so Albus would know to step away from the fireplace. A few moments later he was in Albus' office and Albus was moving to the chairs by his window. Severus joined him, though he could already guess what Albus wanted to talk about.
"I assume you already read about Rachel's latest conversation with Voldemort?" Albus asked without preamble once they were seated.
"Yes, this morning. I had not expected him to speak with her so soon or I would have talked with her about how to approach him," Severus said. He'd actually intended to have that conversation with Rachel tonight. "However, I do not think she spoke without merit. She could not have simply ignored what she saw and it was clear the Dark Lord knew that she had seen some of the revel."
Albus nodded slowly. "Do you believe Voldemort's assertion that he does not know what causes her to have a vision?"
"No. But I also don't believe he sent this vision on purpose. It was very clear he was trying to do damage control with her last night." According to Rachel's entry, the Dark Lord had denied being in control of the visions and had indicated he only knew that one was happening because he could sense Rachel watching. Severus didn't accept all of that, they knew he had at least some control, but perhaps not as much as they'd come to believe.
"There remains the possibility that it was on purpose and this is another way of attempting to manipulate Rachel," Albus said after a long moment, still looking thoughtful.
"If his goal is to get her to come to him, either by convincing her to join him or to attempt to end the war, I would think showing her a revel would be antithetical to that." As far as he could tell, the only reason for the Dark Lord to send her visions of his revels was to torture her. "Rachel is struggling. What she saw was deeply upsetting to her, obviously for a number of reasons. She kept telling me she couldn't keep doing this."
"I wish I knew what the other options were. I'm afraid I still don't know how to block her connection. Rachel is now able to identify the horcruxes while Looking through space and we're working on having her open her connection there and search for the cup horcrux. There is always the option of having Rachel refuse to converse with Voldemort, but the consequences to that may include more visions with the intent to mentally torture her."
"Have we considered the option of killing the Dark Lord without finding the horcrux? It might buy us six months or so before he can get another body," Severus asked.
"It's a possibility I've considered if we fail to locate the cup horcrux by the next election. However, killing Voldemort will be a monumental task. I don't mean to sound immodest, but I may be the only one who can do it, and we would have to carefully set up the circumstances to be rather exacting for that to happen. Voldemort will apparate away if he believes he is in actual danger. And that will make our lure that much more difficult when it comes time to kill him after we've dealt with the horcruxes." Albus now looked pensive.
"What is the plan when we do lure him?" Severus asked, intending to have knowledge of it now so that he could object while there was still time to change the plan.
"Assuming the conversational state between Rachel and Voldemort allows, she will agree to meet with him and will tell him when and where she can go," Albus began.
"He will most certainly see that as a trap."
"He will, but he will come anyway because Rachel will be out of the wards. He will not miss that opportunity. And as you've said, it will be a trap. We will have the Order and aurors hidden then, ready to handle any Death Eaters he brings with him. From what we've seen, I think we can assume he will bring his snake, as he is rarely parted from her. By the way, please ask Rachel to note in her visions when she sees the snake."
"I'll ask her," Severus said, though he knew Rachel hadn't written down an accounting of the latest vision at all. He wasn't going to ask her to do so. "If he does not bring the snake?"
"If he does not, and the snake has not yet been dealt with, we abort and try again. Rachel will be by my side, as will you. I will keep Voldemort's focus on me, as the larger threat. You will protect Rachel as well as attempting to kill the snake. Rachel will strike the killing blow. As much as I regret this, I think the best solution would be for Rachel to learn the Killing Curse," Albus continued.
That had matched Severus' idea of how they should handle the situation as well, more or less. He simply didn't have a better plan. "I have been attempting to teach Rachel the Killing Curse. She is struggling with it. She has difficulty accessing her own emotions, especially things like anger and hate."
"Perhaps the Killing Curse is not the answer then. Give me a few days and I will assemble a list of lethal spells that Rachel may be more able to cast. Please take her from the castle before you have her attempt to cast them as the wards will be sensitive to most of them," Albus instructed.
Severus nodded. While the Killing Curse would be ideal due to it being unblockable, if Rachel could not cast it then she could not cast it. They would have to work around that.
"When you speak with Rachel next, ask her to slowly work around to the subjects they were on before, namely attempting to separate her from me and Voldemort's plans for the future and her place in them. She can appear reticent and reluctant, but we need to begin setting the stage for her to tell him that she'll meet him somewhere."
"I will do so, but we must allow her to be flexible in these conversations. Thus far our predictions of what will happen have not been entirely accurate. I believe she's shown herself to be a good judge of what to say," he said.
"She is doing as well as possible under the circumstances, and considering she has been managing this for four months, I think she can be trusted to make some of these decisions herself in the moment, but I believe having your guidance will both reassure her and remind her of the direction we're trying to move things in." Albus nodded to himself. "Please keep a close eye on her. I can only imagine how detrimental to her the things she is seeing are. She is very sensitive and the things she is seeing would be difficult for anyone."
"I am watching her closely and she knows she can come to me if she needs help," Severus promised. "Is there anything else I should know?"
"Not at this time. The involvement of the Order on Halloween was minimal. The people who were attacked were not on our list of warded locations. The Wizengamot continues to stand at fifty four members and none of the attacks were on Wizengamot families this weekend, likely because they were guarded in anticipation of attacks. We are still moving families out of Britain, but that has slowed. Most of the people who were easily persuaded to leave have already left," Albus summarized.
Severus suspected that it would take the Ministry falling before the next wave of people were ready to flee. And some wouldn't go even then. "Thank you. I'll leave you to your day then."
"Please let me know if you need anything," Albus said.
Severus nodded and flooed back to his quarters. He wanted to be reassured that they had a plan, but he wasn't entirely certain how viable that plan was. There were a lot of fail points in the plan. The Dark Lord didn't bring the snake. The Death Eaters overwhelmed them before they could fight the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord fled rather than being killed. And Severus wasn't entirely convinced that the Dark Lord would focus on Albus rather than focusing on killing Rachel. Of course, if that was the case, both he and Albus could focus on protecting Rachel.
Part of him believed that the sooner they did this, the better. He wanted Rachel's visions to stop and for her to be free from the Dark Lord's influence. On the other hand, he wasn't prepared to send Rachel to face the Dark Lord. He didn't know if he was ever going to be prepared for that.
For now they had to take things one day at a time. The cup horcrux was the first step. Everything would follow.