Anakin was trying not to turn back to the Dark Side, but it would be simpler if the people here would at least tell him what the rules were! Severus had told him not to use non-consensual telepathy, but this hadn't been non-consensual! Konstantine had given him those memories!

What had been surprising – after the surge of anger when he realised Anakin was reading his mind earlier on – was not just the fact that he had given him the memories, but the warmth and love with which he had done so. Anakin had only experienced this much unconditional love from a few people over the course of his life, and they had been young, innocent, unambiguously good people. Konstantine's soul, with its lust for violence and cruelty, felt at least as tainted by the Dark Side as Anakin's. And yet – like Anakin, when he loved someone, he loved them absolutely, without boundaries.

Anakin could feel Konstantine's love for the younglings in the memories, especially the skinny, hunchbacked boy with the caliper on his leg. As far as Anakin could tell, the beautiful dark-eyed girl was Konstantine's daughter (probably with the young woman he had seen in the earlier memory as her mother), and Konstantine loved her as obsessively and protectively as he did the crippled boy, but didn't seem to have as close a relationship with her. He also seemed to feel nearly as much quasi-parental protectiveness for the quiet boy with the green-brown eyes, but mixed with an awed wonder because this was the Emperor (how strange to hear someone think that word with reverence instead of terror and bitterness!). As for the other boy, the one who had burned his hand on the campfire, the one clowning around in the art gallery pretending to be transformed into an animal – well, he was part of the gang, cousin of the other two boys. They were evidently friends, the way Anakin had been with Kitster and Wald back on Tattooine, the way he had never really managed to form close friendships in the Jedi crèche, thrown in among younglings who had known each other all their lives.

He had picked up some impressions of the adults in the art gallery scene – though only slightly, because Konstantine's attention had mainly been on the younglings, and on scanning the room for any potential threat. Anakin had gathered that the elegant, aristocratic woman and the cyborg man were both secretly in love with each other, and that the red-haired woman knew this but wasn't sure if they knew it yet, and was trying to throw them together in a museum full of erotic paintings to see whether they would finally get together.

But the red-haired woman – even when Konstantine's conscious attention wasn't focused on her, Anakin could sense that she was the centre of his universe. It wasn't that he lusted after her, but that he adored her the way a Padawan adores his Master – someone who is simultaneously friend, mentor, commander, and comrade-in-arms. Yet it was also like the way that Anakin had been struck with adoration the first time he had seen Padme, with the same sense that this must, surely, be an angel.

So, why had Konstantine shown him these memories? He wasn't comfortable with talking much – he seemed to find it as emotionally tiring as Anakin had found it physically tiring to talk when he was mortally wounded and dying. So instead he had given the memories as a way of saying, 'You are my charge, as much as this boy was, and I will care for you no less devotedly.'

But also – his surge of rage earlier, when he realised that Anakin could read his memories, seemed to be at least partly driven by fear that Anakin, if he knew the identity and whereabouts of the boy, could harm him. Giving the memories, of this boy and his friends as younglings, had been a way of saying, 'I made a mistake. I realise now that I can trust you.' Not that Anakin deserved trust, except that – Konstantine wasn't saying this an innocent who believes that everyone is kindly, but as one reformed villain to another, as a way of saying, 'Just because you've done bad things in the past doesn't mean you can't be a good person.' After all, he was from the future, and he knew maybe more about Anakin's life than Anakin did.

So there hadn't really been anything wrong. But as Konstantine had left the room, Anakin could feel a sense of relief from him, as if he had been making an effort to censor his thoughts while he was with Anakin, and could now relax. Anakin hadn't gone on reading his thoughts, since he clearly wasn't willing to share any more right now, but he couldn't stop being aware of Konstantine's presence and emotions – and the emotions of the other people downstairs. Severus, suspicious and angry and horrified, and another being, not human or any species that Anakin was familiar with, trying to calm them. Now Severus, resentment steaming off him, was opening the door, holding a mug of hot chocolate.

Earlier, Anakin had formed the impression that Konstantine was more nearly Sith than Jedi, and Severus was more Jedi than Sith. Now, he wasn't so sure. It wasn't simply that Severus was far more emotional than Jedi were supposed to be, and that there was almost as much of a powerful undercurrent of Dark emotions – fear and anger and guilt and sorrow – in his mind as there was in Konstantine's. Anakin could actually feel the remains of a Force bond to a Sith Master in him. Sith practices were evidently different in Severus's time, because he was connected by a ritual which was located in his body, in the skin of his left arm. The bond seemed to be broken off – whether because Severus was cut off from his Master by being dead, or because his Master himself had been killed.

'What did I say about non-consensual mind-reading?' the black-haired man snarled.

'It was not non-consensual,' Anakin retorted. 'If I had wished to rake through thoughts and memories that your friend wished to keep private, I could have done so. The technique is immensely painful, and can leave subjects permanently brain-damaged, and even comatose.' He caught a flash of fearful recognition in Severus's mind – perhaps Severus had seen people (victims? allies?) who had been injured by a Mind Probe. 'I could do the same to you, if I chose.'

Severus squared up to him, trying to conceal his fear (both in the Force and in his facial expression). 'I doubt it,' he sneered. 'I spent twenty years as a spy convincing a real Dark Lord – not some apprentice – of my absolute loyalty to him.'

'Your emotions make you weak,' Anakin countered. 'The emotionally overwrought and unbalanced are easy to read. You would never have been accepted as a Jedi.'

'I am not a Jedi. I am a wizard. Besides, from what I heard, your school barely accepted you for Jedi training. If I had been in charge of admissions, I would certainly not have done so. You would have been exactly the sort of pupil I always loathed: arrogant, over-emotional, impulsive, trading on your reputation as the so-called "Chosen One" and your skill in flying…'

While the wizard was distracted by ranting, Anakin levitated the mug of hot chocolate out of his hands and over to himself, and sipped it. It tasted oddly different from the chocolate he remembered drinking once before, just as the yogurt had tasted different. Again, it came from a different world, made with a different animal's milk, and perhaps with a different species of cocoa bean as well. Also, instead of the warm, sweet taste of tang bark, it had a cool, herbal undertone, and there were flecks of a ground-up green leaf in it. 'This is good,' he said eventually, setting the empty mug down on the table beside him. 'What is the herb?'

'Peppermint. It's one of the more obscure – but indispensable – ingredients in Felix Felicis, Amortentia, Wit-Sharpening Potion, Memory Potion, and several healing potions, including, fairly obviously, Pepperup Potion, and is a useful counter to some of the side-effects in Elixir to Induce Euphoria, and yet the only potion the average student can cite that uses it is the Calming Draught! Also, our Divination mistress insists that peppermint tea opens the Third Eye, but considering that she has made a grand total of two genuine prophecies in her entire life, I would be sceptical of that claim.'

Severus himself had cheered up and calmed down considerably in discussing potions, but his presence darkened again as the reference to prophecies clearly awoke painful memories. This, Anakin was sure, was related to a key turning point in his life – the reason he Fell to the Dark Side? Or the reason he turned away from the Dark Side? When the memory was uppermost in his mind, it would be easy to read it without probing deeply enough for Severus even to feel Anakin's mind touching his.

Instead, he asked, 'What does it do in hot chocolate?'

Severus gave him an odd look. 'Improves the flavour. Or don't you think so?'

'Yes. It does. Thank you.'

'It's also good for the digestion, even without the aid of magic.'

'Were you a Healer?' Not that the Jedi Healers Anakin remembered would rely on potions that sounded like something a primitive Ewok shaman would brew up, but something about Severus's presence, when he was in a good mood, reminded Anakin of Vokara Che, the blue Twi'lek Chief Healer at the Temple's Halls of Healing.

'No. If I were sixteen again, and considering my career options, perhaps I would choose that path, now…' Another tantalising glimpse of memories, regrets, if I'd been sorted into Ravenclaw someone might have suggested working at St Mungo's, but no-one would trust a Slytherin, would they… Anakin forced himself to turn the eyes of his mind away, focus on the lingering taste of minty hot chocolate on his tongue, until Severus had composed himself enough to continue, 'However, my job did include brewing potions for the school infirmary, and for any colleagues with – let us say, medical conditions they would rather not publicise – not to mention doing my best to teach my idiotic students to brew them. I do know some useful healing incantations for emergencies, such as when students have been duelling in the corridors and someone needs to keep them in one piece for long enough to get them to the school Healer.

'I need to leave shortly. Do you need anything else?'

'No, just quiet.' Perhaps he would try to meditate for a while, or practise levitating objects.

'Fine.'

As Severus left, Anakin realised that the second time, the wizard had deliberately dropped his Thought Shield for a few minutes, to see how Anakin would react. It had been a test. Whatever his abilities as a Healer, and apart from his claims to have been a spy, Severus's main job had apparently been working as a teacher at some kind of primitive-world equivalent of the Jedi Academy. With teachers, everything is a test. Anakin wondered whether he had passed or failed. Once more, he resisted the temptation to scan Severus's mind to find out.

Author's note: Of the potions I mentioned, only Calming Draught and Memory Potion are canonically mentioned to have peppermint as a main ingredient (though it is also a useful addition in the Elixir to Induce Euphoria), but I suspect that it is probably useful in many more potions. It just doesn't get mentioned a lot because it doesn't sound as exotic as Jobberknoll feathers, Murtlap tentacles, Ashwinder eggs, and Mandrake roots.