CHAPTER 32

I step into Snape's office but find nothing, no Snape, no curt command to leave, no sarcastic comment. His office is empty, and for a moment, a part of me almost wants to search around, but the moment that thought surfaces, an alarm bell rings in my mind: I've reached dangerous territory if I'm comfortable enough around Snape that I think about searching his office. Panicked at this realization that my comfort levels with him have grown so much, I start to back away quickly but collide into someone. With a jolt, I move away so that we're no longer touching. "I almost believed you would skip your lessons today," Snape says as he walks around me, the door closing behind him.

"You're the one who sent me away—"

"With good reason."

"—so don't act like I chose to skip our lessons earlier."

His lip twitches as if he wants to smile, like he's just purposefully trying to needle me. "Are you ready now?"

"I was ready earlier."

"That's all well and good, but are you ready now?"

"Yes." He levels his gaze at me. "Yes, Professor."

"Being ill-tempered only makes it more difficult for you to hide your thoughts."

I huff at him. He's right, of course, but he is trying to get under my skin and it's working really well right now. "Then this should be an interesting lesson for you, yeah? Let's just get started." I take a seat across from his desk, and he claims his normal chair and points his wand at me, then puts me to sleep.

I'm sitting in the Astronomy Tower, watching the skies. There's an obvious pain on my face. Draco comes in. I make a chair for him, and together we sit in silence, until Draco asks, "Why are you up here, Charlotte?"

I've done fairly well up to this point at keeping things hidden in this memory, and while I'm actually a bit proud of myself, he can't know that. "It's been a rather long day, and the night sky always seems to calm me," I say. "Why're you up here?"

"For the same reasons, basically," he replies.

We're silent again.

"Who's supposed to die this year, Draco?" I ask.

He looks at me. "I can't tell you."

"Bellatrix told me that should you need help, I should be willing to help. If the Dark Lord learns that I've hindered you in any way, she fears that my good standing with him will not be enough to keep me from punishment."

"I don't need your help!" He stands and leaves the Astronomy Tower. I turn back to the stars and just look at the sky.

Then I push Snape from my mind. He watches me for a moment, almost suspicious. I almost smile at him—this was the first time while sleeping that I have thoroughly hidden my thoughts from him. This is an improvement! And I can't even share the good news with him because he can't know that Draco told me the truth. Something about that makes me sad, but I fight down that emotion as well. "Did you really think he would tell you who is going to die? Do you really think he knows who is going to die?"

"Probably not, Professor." I bite back my smile, pride swelling in my chest at my accomplishment, of showing him only what I needed to show him.

"This time, try to control what I see."

Unsure if I care if he finds out that I hid the truth from him a moment ago, I decide to give it my all and follow up my recent success with another.

I'm sitting in my little room at the orphanage. In my hands I play with a little doll. "How was your day?" I ask it. It's silent, but I put it up to my ear anyway so I can listen. "That's good. That's good." My dream-self smiles widely. "Do you think Professor Snape will be happy at my success?"

I force Snape out of my mind once more. He looks quite proud—and even more suspicious—and satisfaction surges through my chest. I smile broadly at him, and he almost smiles back but instead narrows his eyes at me as if debating speaking more about the Draco memory. Before he can do that, I say, "So . . . do you believe I stand a chance of joining the Order?"

He watches me for a moment. "I believe there's a chance. But there is still one major lesson you must learn before we throw you to the Dark Lord, especially if you are to be in the Order."

"Such as?"

"Fighting off the effects of Veritaserum. A skill that we will focus on only at night. I'm in short supply of the antidote; therefore, our lessons must take place a time that will minimize the risk of you running amuck throughout the day with the potion in your system."

I nod. "And are we starting that tonight?"

He shakes his head. "We will continue working on this for tonight. The Veritaserum lessons will begin on the first of November. We should continue working on this for now. It's more important. It's unlikely that the Dark Lord will try to use Veritaserum against you within the first few months of . . ." He doesn't have to say it.

For the next hour, I show Snape only the memories or thoughts that I want him to see—but only when I'm awake, not when I'm asleep. Though I cannot yet manipulate my thoughts all of the time when sleeping, I can successfully fool him about half of the time. Manipulating my thoughts while awake now, however, is almost a breeze; he was right about the sleeping lessons making the waking lessons easier, and I have hope that maybe practicing Veritaserum will help me control my thoughts while I'm asleep. I don't know what might help me against the Veritaserum when I undoubtedly fail that at first, but I trust that Snape will figure something out. He won't let me fail.

By the time I make it to the common room after my lessons, no other students are around, most of them having gone to sleep already or at least retreated to their dorms.

I am just heading to the stairs to go to my dormitory when a voice says, "Wait." I jump with a start, rounding on the source of the voice, my wand at the ready. Draco smiles half-heartedly, his eyes red as if he's been crying. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

"It's fine." I take a step toward him but stop myself before reaching him. "Was it you?"

Eyes nearly on the brink of tears meet mine. "If I do nothing, he will become suspicious, but I never meant—not her—it was an accident . . . I never . . ." He covers his face with his hands and sinks to the floor in the middle of the common room, muffling his sobs. I walk over and sit next to him and wrap my arms around him. Draco buries his face in my shoulder, and I awkwardly try to comfort him by rubbing his back, just trying to let him know that I'm here. "How do people do this?" he whispers.

"How do they do what?"

"I could . . . I could have k-killed her. How-how d-do people l-live with themselves?"

"Not without difficulty."

Draco pulls away. "Right . . . sorry . . ."

"It's fine. I've learned to live with it." He leans forward over his legs and rests his head in his hands. "You'll be fine, Draco. I swear to you, you will be fine."

"How can you know that?" he mumbles, his hands blocking his mouth.

"Because I'm fine."

He quickly sits up. "But you didn't have to kill someone you've known for six years!"

"No, but I watched my makeshift mother of nine years be tortured with the Cruciatus Curse and then murdered, and I'm still living a fairly happy life. I murdered her murderer and went on to murder a few undeserving people. You'll be fine."

Draco nods slightly. "I need to—er—go." And with that, he stands and retreats to the dormitories.

I wait until Draco has been gone for a few minutes before standing and leaving the common room. I knock on Snape's door, and unsurprisingly, no one answers. So I knock again, louder this time, grunting in frustration when he doesn't answer even though I know damn well that he's in there.

I wave my wand, parchment and ink and a quill flying out of the common room and straight into my hands. I brace the parchment against the stone wall and write a quick message that simply says, "Open the door."

I fold up the note and charm it, pushing it under Snape's door. It's a short wait, only four minutes, before his door opens, and Snape stands before me, scowling. "This had better be important," he says softly, dangerously, as he crumbles the note and tosses it at me.

"It is. Kind of. Well . . ." His lips snarls. "It's important to me."

"What is it?" he asks, a very obvious annoyance in his eyes.

"I need you to make me a potion, Professor."

He closes his eyes, his brow downturned angrily. "What potion?"

"The Elixir to Induce Euphoria. And I need it as quickly as possible."

"I thought it would be rather clear that I would never again make that particular potion for you. Do you not remember what happened last time I gave it to you?"

"I do. I panicked and took the whole thing, leading you to Stun me." I set my jaw, determined, and level my gaze at him. "But I need it."

He looks back at me with the same determination. "When do you need it?"

"As soon as possible."

"Is there any particular reason for you wanting this potion?"

"I—with all that's happening . . . I need—I need it."

His scowl fades. "Because I have come to respect you, Charlotte, I will do you this kindness."

Rolling my eyes, knowing all too well that asking for something of this magnitude will have to cost me something, I ask, "And what will I owe you in return?"

He seems to ponder this for a moment. "We'll come to terms later."

"Thank you, Professor." Then I turn and leave, heading to my bed.

Once in the sixth-year Slytherin girls' dormitory, I quickly change and crawl under my sheets. Am I doing the right thing here? I can't help but wonder whether this is a bad idea or not. I'm only trying to help. He'll never have to know. He won't figure it out. No one will.

I am doing a good thing. I only wish someone had looked after me when I was going through problems. I know what Draco is going through. I know how much he's suffering. And I'm going to do my best to help him through it, even if he won't tell me what's actually going on. I will not just leave him to suffer on his own as I did for so many years. I refuse to allow someone to go through that alone.

The first Quidditch match of the season has arrived, and everyone, from McGonagall to Snape to the students of all the Hogwarts Houses, seems to be excited about it, almost to the point of complete annoyance. It's between Gryffindor and Slytherin of course, two weekends away, yet everyone is already abuzz. Sometimes I feel as if I'm the only student in the school who does not care about Quidditch. And while I've spoken to Hermione, who dislikes the sport as well, and don't feel so alone knowing that she dislikes it too, at least she has friends on the team and has a reason to be somewhat excited—if only for the sakes of Harry and Ron.

For me, the arrival of the Quidditch season brings the first weekend in November, which will quickly be followed by my birthday, which will leave and be replaced with Christmas, my last Christmas holiday before being made a slave to Voldemort.

However, as I will be given a chance to join the Order of the Phoenix on my birthday, November isn't all bad. I just have to master Occlumency, and to do that I have to attend the Veritaserum-fighting lessons in a few hours. My morning lessons focus solely on manipulating my thoughts so Snape sees only what I want him to, and while I'm getting better—Occlumency while awake is going well, and I'm working hard to do better with it while sleeping, particularly with manipulating my thoughts because I can kick him out of my mind before he sees anything—this Veritaserum thing stresses me out. I'll surely be even worse at it than I am manipulating my sleeping thoughts, and that's saying something.

Snape assures me that I'll eventually learn all components of Occlumency, and though I don't fully believe him, I trust him. If he says it's possible, I will choose to believe him and continue practicing.

I'm currently killing time in the common room with Daphne and the rest of my friends, all of us working on homework. Writing essays like this still irritates me—because if anything, I'm less of a normal student now than I was last year, yet my workload has heavily increased. I have more free time, but this work is so much harder, which kind of cancels out the free time because so much of it is now spent on classwork outside of class.

Becoming too frustrated with these essays to continue working on them, about an hour into it, I push them aside and pull out Alphard's pocket watch. It's still too early for my lesson, but as these essays will be the death of me unless there's a break, I stand to leave.

"Where are you going?" Christopher asks, abandoning his spell for the moment.

"Private lessons."

"Are you ever going to tell us what those are all about?"

"The whole point of 'private lessons' is that they remain private. I'll likely not be back before you all go to bed." Then I leave to go to Snape's office.

I enter without knocking, only to find it empty. This is the second time he's seen fit not to be in his office for our lessons. "Professor?" I wait a few moments. "Professor?"

There's a rumbling on the far wall, and as I'm just realizing what is about to happen, the shelf of potions opens, a room once concealed behind it now visible. Snape exits from that room and pauses for a short moment when he sees me. "You're early."

"Am I?" I ask mindlessly, completely distracted by what just occurred. "I didn't realize."

"So you just entered my office without my permission?" The door behind him closes and once again hides in plain sight.

"Well . . . I-I've done it before." Perhaps he should start to lock his office doors. Of course, I don't voice this thought because a painless existence is too important to me.

"It's good to see you still fear me." He points to the wall. "My private chambers," he informs me. "All of the professors here at Hogwarts have an actual place in which they stay. You didn't believe I slept out in the office, did you?" There's no mistaking the mockery in his voice.

"I've never really put much thought into where you may or may not sleep, Professor."

He ignores that comment and holds up a vial of what I assume to be a potion. "Veritaserum. Have you prepared yourself for your first lesson?"

"Was . . . was I supposed to prepare myself for this? How does one prepare oneself for this sort of thing?"

"Have a seat." I do. Then he sits in a chair directly in front of me rather than behind his desk and unstops the potion top. "I am going to ask you the simplest of questions. You need to fight the effects of the potion and lie to me. Understood?"

"You're encouraging a student to lie?"

He ignores my comment again. "I want you to take control of your mind, as you have done in our Occlumency lessons. Ready?"

I nod, and he pours a few drops of the potion into a cup of tea that I have not seen until just now. "Free tea without a breakdown? This is the best lesson we've had yet." He doesn't acknowledge that, so I put the cup to my lips to keep from saying anything else. "That . . . I take my tea differently," I say once the cup is empty. "Needs some sugar. I'll have to remember that for next time."

"Focus," he says firmly.

"Yes, sir."

"What is your name?"

"Aurelia Lestrange."

He seems a little concerned, probably a bit disturbed, by my answer but continues with his questions nonetheless. "What name do you go by?"

"I go by Charlotte Rodgers."

"You don't seem too pleased by that fact. Why is that?"

"Because I'd like to go by Aurelia Lestrange," I say. I have to stop telling him this. I don't want him knowing this. I'm not even sure if I truly know this. But surely I must, or else I wouldn't be saying this, right?

His voice breaks through my internal rambling. "Why?"

"Because it's my real name. When my mother took me to my grave, I realized that I am Aurelia Celaeno Lestrange, no matter what others may call me."

Snape shifts uncomfortably. "Have you told anyone this?"

"I hadn't even told myself this aloud yet until just now."

"Are you planning to tell anyone else this?

"No. Not so long as I can help it."

"And why is that?"

"I fear they might think I want to serve Voldemort."

He opens his mouth, probably to yell at me for using Voldemort's name, but he stops himself, instead asking, "When were you born?"

"The twenty-first of November," I say, "in nineteen seventy-eight."

Snape frowns. "I need you to lie to me. Focus, Charlotte. Fight of the effects of the potion." I nod. "Who is your mother?"

"Bellatrix Lestrange."

"Who is your father?"

"Her husband Rodolphus."

Snape sighs. "If you can't lie about even the simplest of questions, there is no hope of you joining the Order."

"I'm trying," I growl between clenched teeth.

"Try harder." He looks into my eyes. "Who is Draco Malfoy to you?"

"My cousin."

"How do you feel about him?"

"I'm unsure at the moment. I both hate and care about him." I strongly dislike that Snape can ask me any question under the sun and receive an absolutely true answer. This whole Veritaserum thing is a bad idea.

"Who is Fred Weasley to you?

I bite my tongue, not wanting to talk about Fred with him, but the answer is pulled from me. "Someone important to me."

"Are you still dating him?"

"Yes."

"Does he know about your duty to the Dark Lord?"

"No."

"Why have you not told him?"

"Deep down, I'm hoping I will never have to tell him."

He seems to ponder this for a second. "Yes, you mentioned your failure before. What happened when you tried to tell him?"

"I couldn't do it, so I told someone else instead."

"Who?"

"Zoe Accrington."

"Why did you tell her and not Fred?"

"I don't know," I say.

Snape seems genuinely intrigued by my lack of knowledge, but he doesn't continue along this line of questioning. Instead, he changes the subject. "What is your duty to the Dark Lord?"

I close my eyes, willing myself not to say it aloud, but cannot fight off the potion. "I . . . I have to bear him a child."

"Why?"

"He chose me as punishment for my mother when I was born."

"Punishment?" His voice sounds curious, almost as if he has never heard this before. And now I don't want him to. I want this to be a secret from him. "For what actions or failure did she need to be punished?"

"Her love for me rivaled her affection for the Dark Lord. He didn't take too kindly to that. I was going to be used to make an example of her. You never turn your back on the Dark Lord, not for anything. I don't want to continue with this lesson anymore."

"Do you know when you supposedly died?"

"Yes. Can we stop?"

"What was the day?"

"The fifteenth of May, nineteen eighty. Professor—"

"How old would that have made you?"

"Can't you do the math yourself?" I snap. Then the potion pulls the answer out of me: "About a year and a half."

"You need to focus—"

"I'm trying!"

"Try harder," he says curtly. "Now, who was Mrs. Stoico?"

"A liar."

"And?"

"The first mother I ever had."

"And?"

"A witch."

"How was she a liar?"

"YOU KNOW BLOODY WELL HOW!"

Snape stands and moves to the other side of his desk. He puts a few teaspoons of sugar in what looks like another cup of tea. "Drink this and calm down. Typically, it's easier to block your mind if you are in control of your emotions." I obey him with a scowl on my face. "How was Mrs. Stoico a liar?"

I pull the cup of tea from my lips and say, "When I learned that I am a witch, she told me she was a Squib but that I'd be safe with her. She was a liar. She was a witch. She could've protected me. She should've told me, and I wouldn't have left her. I thought my magic would hurt her like it did Dylan and the others, but she could've protected herself. I could've stayed with her, and she wouldn't be dead right now."

"Who killed her?" Snape asks.

"A Death Eater by the name of Avery."

"Who was he?"

"Her father."

"What did you do?"

"I stabbed him to death."

"How many people have you killed?"

"Just a handful."

"How many of them were innocent?"

It's like he wants to make me cry. "Three that I know of."

"Why did you kill them?"

He definitely wants to see me break down. "I panicked and my spells came across stronger than I meant to. Guilt, because I didn't want that child to be an orphan like I was. It just depended on the circumstance."

"How many of your murders do you regret?"

I swallow down the lump in my throat. "Almost all of them."

"'Almost'? Which ones do you not regret?"

"Avery," I say coldly. "And there were a few who I killed strictly because they wanted to kill me."

"Was your memory of Draco truly a lie?"

"The majority of it," I say. "We did talk in the Astronomy Tower."

"About what?"

I need to focus here. While Snape surely knows about Voldemort's plan to kill Dumbledore, I can't let him know that I now know about it. "Draco is a Death Eater." I can't lie, not like Snape wants me to, but I'm avoiding some topics, which is better than blurting the full truth. Unfortunately, I can't share this small success with Snape because he will ask more direct questions to find out what I know.

Snape is expressionless. "How do you know this?"

"He showed me his Dark Mark."

He closes his eyes for a second. "What did he tell you?"

"That he will try to stall his duty until after Christmas, so I can have more freedom."

"Do you think he will be able to fulfill this promise?"

"Yes."

He nods slightly as if pleased by my answer, but then he changes the subject, almost as if he doesn't want to know everything that was said between Draco and me, as if not knowing will absolve him somehow. "How are your tutoring sessions going?"

"The first-years are extremely annoying, but they're kind and seem to enjoy learning Transfiguration."

"Do you believe that you've never been annoying?"

"Not like that," I say with a smile.

"How so?"

"I had to grow up much faster than they did because of my circumstances. I've never been that annoying."

Snape smirks, like he doesn't believe what I'm telling him. But I believe it, which I guess is why I'm able to say it without any problems. "Do you have any desire to serve the Dark Lord?"

"Yes."