No Rest for the Wicked
On Saturday, the 9th of January, an exhausted Severus Snape sat down heavily on "his" chair at the tea table in the drawing room of Malfoy Manor.
"Don't you have a term break right now?" Narcissa asked teasingly.
"Hmpf."
No. 15 entered and asked unceremoniously, "Will Mr Malfoy join us, as well?"
"Yes, he'll be here in a minute."
No. 15 took their seat while the door opened. A happy-looking house-elf came in, levitating a big cake with candles on top into the room, with a broadly grinning Lucius following.
"Happy birthday, Severus!"
Narcissa clapped her hands and called out "Happy birthday, Severus!" as well.
No. 15 tilted their head and also said, "Happy birthday, Mr Snape."
Severus blinked and said, "Thank you all! This was not necessary."
"Nonsense! It's your 33rd birthday! Three times eleven. That's a big one," Lucius said and sat down, still smiling broadly.
And Severus had to confess that good company, cake, and tea were very helpful in battling his exhaustion.
After he had finished, he leaned back contently and looked to No. 15, " Anything new on your side?" he asked a little sarcastically.
No. 15 chuckled and answered, "Well, let me first update the Malfoys. After Mr Malfoy informed us of the notebook and possible Horcrux, we managed to question Miss Weasley, without anyone the wiser. She seemed to be rather relieved to talk to someone about it after she had decided to open up. The poor thing is only eleven, after all.
"She had found the book with her newly purchased schoolbooks and had thought her mother had given it to her. She soon found that it answered back, and she told us the answering boy, who called himself 'Tom,' became her best friend quickly. She only grew wary of her diary – as she called the notebook – after she woke up covered in blood and feathers, and a few days later missed some time in her memories. And she learned later that Dean Thomas was found petrified within that timeframe. She also told us some other reasons, but those two were the main ones for her next action. Therefore, because she didn't know what to do with the book without alerting anyone to her involvement, she decided to throw the book into a toilet."
Narcissa sputtered, Severus laughed and Lucius facepalmed.
"She chose the bathroom that no one goes into. The one that's haunted."
"There's a haunted bathroom in Hogwarts?" Lucius asked incredulously.
"Yes, the second-floor girls' lavatory, more commonly known as Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom. Anyway, she ditched the book and went away. She felt some compulsion to go back and get the book again, but how could she, if it was in the plumbing, or so she thought. So, she went on with her life, and after our articles arrived and she had cast the counter, the need to get the book disappeared.
"We speculated how that's possible, but we think she had a link to the book, and when she cast the counter, her end of the link at least, was de-cursed and therefore it had to let go. A little like it happened with Mr Potter, only on a much smaller scale. We naturally tried to summon the book out of the aforementioned toilet and also tried other methods but to no avail. Until three days ago, when Mr Snape and Mr Potter brought the book to us."
"No!" Narcissa gasped.
"How?" Lucius asked in wonder, looking relieved. The thought of the treasured artefact of the most feared Dark Lord in the sewage just didn't sit right with him.
Severus answered, "It seems, Miss Weasley saw Mr Potter writing into the book and being astonished that the book answered back. She grabbed the book and ran to find me. She knew I was involved in the search for it because I had first brought the Unspeakables in contact with her. Mr Potter and his friend naturally had followed her. When I learned that he had written in it, I thought it prudent to bring him along."
No. 15 took over then, "Mr Potter told us the ghost, Moaning Myrtle, had been sitting in the U-bend of said toilet and the book had fallen through her. She was so incensed by this that she caused all the water to come out of that toilet."
Severus wondered what would've happened if someone had used this toilet for its actual designation and shuddered.
No. 15 went on, "Mr Potter, who was passing by, got curious where the water came from, followed it, found the dry book in the water, took it, and then forgot it in his trunk until three days ago where he went through it in search of some parchment.
The others chuckled.
"Long story long, we have the Horcrux now."
"Is Mr Potter all right?"
"Yes, the book had no time to establish a connection. He, as well as Miss Weasley, are free of any outside influence and evil Dark Magic now, Mrs Malfoy. The book hadn't been in anyone's hands for a while, actually, so there had been no chance someone else could've been petrified as you feared."
"That's a relief."
"It is indeed. What I forgot to tell you is that Mr Potter and his friend didn't trust the book and thought to check it for curses, and as they didn't know any others, they hit it with Redianormalis."
"That would not have dispelled the Horcrux, this time."
"That's correct, Mr Malfoy. But it did dispel the negative effects The Spell had on the piece of soul within. So now the book contains the mind of a rather bewildered but helpful sixteen-year-old boy named Tom Marvolo Riddle."
The other three's eyes bulged a little, until Lucius wondered, "Marvolo, where've I heard that name before?"
"We wondered the same and only found one possible clue in the life and death of one Marvolo Gaunt, who died shortly after being released from Azkaban in 1926 or 1927. The boy in the book told us he had researched the name Marvolo as well and had reached the same conclusion. Especially because the boy, as well as the Gaunts, were known to be parselmouths."
"Like the Dark Lord," Lucius whispered. "You were right last week."
"Yes. The boy told us he had planned to travel to a town called Little Hangleton to investigate in the summer of '43. That means, a few months after the creation of this Horcrux. We now know that his alter ego did follow that plan. We went to the town disguised as Muggles and found the shack the Gaunts had lived in. And even more surprisingly, we found another Horcrux there."
The other three didn't know whether to cheer or weep.
"We also found stories of a family named Riddle, who had lived in the small town. Or rather, they were an affluent Muggle family residing in a Manor close by. The son was said to have eloped with 'the tramp's daughter', Merope Gaunt and later returned to tell stories of witchcraft and bedazzlement. That all happened during the twenties. We concluded she must've given the young man a love potion."
"The poor guy," Severus sighed, to Narcissa's and Lucius's surprise.
"We thought so, too. The family was found dead in August of '43. No signs of forced entry to the manor or wounds on the bodies. Together with young Tom's plan to visit the town during that time, we concluded that he might've visited them and gotten rejected. The only thing we are unclear about is that he had been sixteen at that time, so how had he managed to cast any magic, much less an Unforgivable, without the Ministry noticing?"
"Oh, good question, did the trace exist already, back then? Did the Second World War disrupt the scanners? Is it possible to get rid of the trace?" Severus asked.
"All good questions. Yes, the trace existed back then and to the other two questions, we don't know. We'll look into them. We didn't think of the war that was happening back then. That was when Grindelwald wreaked havoc, too, now that I think of it."
The others nodded.
"Our Magical Law Enforcement of that time did investigate the deaths of the Muggle family, and they concluded that Tom's uncle Morfin Gaunt had killed the Muggles. He was sentenced to life in Azkaban. We cannot determine who did it, but, in the end, it doesn't matter, really.
"But what matters is that we found the next Horcrux. Right now, we are discussing what to do with it. We are unsure if the book contains a nice teenage boy, who readily communicates with us, or a very manipulative and cunning sociopath. We are 50/50 on that matter. And the answer to that question determines what we'll do with any other Horcruxes we find. One extreme possibility is that we destroy them after we've learned everything. The other extreme one is that we try to put the man back together."
The others blinked. That was a loaded question.
"Let us be real," Severus snarked. "The Unspeakables will never destroy such an interesting object."
No. 15 ducked their head and chuckled, "You're not wrong. Especially since the boy in the book has asked us to do exactly that."
"Does he feel trapped?"
"Tom says he doesn't. Because he has no real physical body with nerves and blood, he apparently is okay with being a book, if you can believe it. No, he suggested that, because he 'heard of our dilemma'."
"Fascinating," Severus said.
"It really is!" No. 15 nodded.
"You had concluded that there are more than three Horcruxes before the one in Potter, so did you find any more?"
"Not yet. Tom told us he thinks he would've hidden them in places important to him. We are investigating some leads he gave us. But we haven't found anything concrete. Another possibility we are investigating is Voldemort's (flinch) followers. He gave the book to your father, after all," No. 15 nodded to Lucius.
"Well, he would've only given it to someone he trusted. Hm. There are still many. And quite a few are in Azkaban," Lucius mused.
"We thought so, too. And that brought up an entirely different topic or rather topics."
They all waited for No. 15 to go on. And after a while they did. "The question came up as to whether the inmates of Azkaban had been subjected to the negative effects of The Spell as well."
"Bella," Narcissa whispered.
"Exactly. The next loaded question was, what if they were? How do we determine their culpability?"
Now they all sat there in silence, looking stunned.
"Well, you cannot leave them there in good conscience, can you?" Narcissa nearly yelled then.
"You're right, Mrs Malfoy, we can't. And we are in the process of reviewing all the cases of the people sitting in Azkaban and are planning to bring some to the Ministry soon. Even before we thought of this, there had been movements to review the Azkaban cases because some irregularities have come up in one particular case. There was much opposition, but with the counter-spell, it's dwindling quickly. Now there's only Crouch Senior left for us to convince. I'm positive we'll clear all of that up, soon."
Narcissa relaxed a little, "The rest of the Ministry will go along with a review?"
"They will. The Minister and the Wizengamot have changed greatly. For example, Madam Umbridge was trying to lobby for a new anti-werewolf law and failed miserably. And the nephew of the Minister tried to wreak havoc by stealing a Muggle train if you can believe it. He didn't get far and is in huge trouble because his uncle recused himself and asked to be kept out of that case. That would've gone very differently without the counter, would be my guess."
"Oh yes. I do need a very different approach to the Ministry now," Lucius said.
"You'll manage," Narcissa told her husband dryly.
"Let's move on, Mr Snape, how does Hogwarts fare?" No. 15 asked.
"Splendidly. It's us mere mortal teachers, who are just a tiny bit stressed. Well, where to start? It happened that both our Headmaster and our Deputy Headmistress stayed away from the school for longer than twelve hours at the same time between last Tuesday and Wednesday. That caused the wards to reset themselves."
"What?" Lucius yelped, "The governors weren't informed!"
"Oh, I'm sure they will be. We asked Flitwick to be the interim headmaster for the time being. We're positive Albus will come back soon."
Lucius nodded, that sounded like a good short-term plan.
"Minerva McGonagall, who had been called in by Dumbledore but had taken her good time to react, got catty and wished Flitwick good luck with the correspondence and flounced off again, until the start of term. Flitwick then nearly fell over when he saw the mountain of letters that Albus normally keeps disillusioned, but which reappeared due to the reset of the wards. We offered our help and spent the next day and a half sorting and reading all the letters sent to the school.
"There were some from a decade ago. We found older ones stashed in an unused classroom. But we ignored them for now. There were many questions from Muggle parents, which he ignored, as well as many complaints. Especially about History and Potions, I'm sad to say. But also, about other subjects like Muggle Studies or all the abolished ones."
Lucius listened with interest, "That's very interesting. We, the governors, ask at each meeting with him if there had been any complaints and he always said, he hadn't read any."
Severus huffed, "Typical. Well, the letters to the governors were in that pile, too."
"No! Did you read them?"
"We didn't. That would be illegal. We collected them in one of the big baskets."
"Oh, dear."
Severus smirked at Lucius, "So, I meant to ask, when's the next meeting of the governors?"
Lucius huffed, "We meet twice a year. Once in the summer, once in winter."
"So?"
"Sometime in January. It hasn't been planned yet."
"Very well, please invite the Heads of Houses, too. Now that the date will go missing in another pile of Albus' making."
"Agreed. So, are you answering the letters as well?"
"We still have acute questions and grievances. For example, we promise that the Potions lessons will get better now that I've been de-cursed. We'll be looking into History, Muggle Studies, and Divination and we'll try to solve matters until next school year at the latest. Also, we now can assure concerned parents that the matter of the petrifications has been solved and the school is safe once more. Our owls are getting quite the workout."
"That seems to be quite the task," No. 15 said.
"It is. And that's not all," Severus sighed. "This morning, our Matron Madam Pomfrey resigned and left immediately."
"What?"
"How did that happen?"
The Malfoys talked over one another.
"It might've been my fault, but I certainly didn't expect her to react as she did. You see, I had nudged her about ten days ago into doing a full medical scan of a student I suspect lives in an abusive home, and we agreed to get together to go over the results, but she never contacted me. So, I thought she had helped the student by herself, at first. Because, let's say, the student definitely needed help. But it became more and more obvious that he didn't get any, so I asked her this morning when we should get together to tackle the diagnostic results and was told there was no need. That Albus had said it wasn't necessary. And when I asked how that could possibly work with her healer's oath, she resigned, packed her bags, and left. – I'm still reeling, to be honest."
"She did cast the counter, didn't she?" No. 15 asked the first question they now always ask in a situation like this.
"I think so, but I didn't see it myself. When I brought it to the teacher's attention, I don't think she was present.
"Hm, but it's concerning. The oath would punish her if she knowingly left a patient in need of help," one could nearly hear the disbelief in No. 15's distorted voice.
"I'm as confused as you are. That was why I asked, actually. Anyway, we cannot open the school again without a full-time and in-house healer. So…" Severus looked to Narcissa.
She laughed in disbelief, "You want me to take on the job?"
"Would you? Please?"
"Well… hmm… I've been quite bored since Draco has been gone for most of the year, and have revised and updated my medical knowledge," she looked to Lucius, "What do you think?"
"I think you certainly can do it if you want. You're an amazing healer. Maybe for this term for now, so you can see if you like it. And I would want to move to Hogwarts with you, so fair warning."
Narcissa smiled lovingly at her husband and answered, "Then yes, Severus. Until this summer for now, if that's alright with you."
"Oh yes! It's more than all right. Thank you!"
Narcissa nodded and smiled a little meanly, "I look forward to seeing Draco's face."
"He'll be elated," Severus drawled.
"So, I ho–"
A Patronus in the form of an owl rushed into the room and said in Flitwick's voice, "Severus, please come to Hogwarts at once. Albus has retired with immediate effect." *
"You've got to be kidding me!" Severus jumped up. "Are you coming?"
The other three nodded and they soon flooed to the headmaster's office.
* Due to the HPwiki, Flitwick's Patronus is non corporal. Well, in this world it's an owl. I mean, how is it possible that the Charms Master cannot cast a corporal Patronus Charm?