Questions Unanswered
In a nearly-forgotten classroom turned storage room down some nearly-forgotten hall, the Ministry officially joins the investigation into Dorian Penumbra’s illness and subsequent death. And as we now all sit in these uncomfortable and nearly-forgotten desks, these Ministry officials have a lot of questions and demands, clumsy though they are at trying to strong arm me into being a more prominent player in their efforts to rid themselves of the source of their fear. Madam Bones seems the most forthright but nearly the least sympathetic, which I genuinely appreciate. Most of the others can’t seem to see past my younger visage, which is a boon and a curse in one.
“—find it highly unlikely that you’re in any way responsible and now that he’s dead, there’s no reason for you not to tell us everything. He can’t hurt you and certainly can’t intimidate you anymore—“
“Archimedes,” Madame Bones sighs impatiently, “do be quiet and wait your turn.” She fixes her sights back on me and nods.
“The only responsibility I feel is for not having seen something deeper at work, even if I didn’t use all available means to discover what was ailing him,” I say bluntly. “He’s neither scared me nor intimidated me, ever. And I know it sounds callous, but his mental health wasn’t high on my list of priorities of things to fix or fixate on; instinctually, I’ve known he wasn’t an essential actor in what I’m meant to do here." A few of the officials shuffle in their seats uncomfortably, trading looks, and I don't need to be in their heads to read them when they're being this obvious. "That someone’s managed to use him, in any way, to possibly hinder my ability to complete my actual task is concerning to the point of genuine fear. As paranoid as it sounds, there’s something else at play here that hasn’t presented itself and that has to be my focus.”
“Quite frankly, Miss Devons, it does sound callous,” Madam Bones sighs, but not unkindly. “Regardless of what your task here is, it’s now Ministry business as well, and every bit of information you can gleam from what evidence there is—“
“Not thirty minutes ago, I gave you all the means to see that evidence in it’s echo. But if you mean soul-scrying everyone who could possibly be involved, Madam, then no,” I interrupt and her expression tightens. “That isn’t up for debate. You have one Auror already capable of assisting in that manner and I won’t compromise my own conscience by breaking an oath to myself just to ease the way for you to complete your own duties.”
“So Mr. Moody is then without conscience because he’s willing to use all the tools he has available?” One of the other men, Grady, cuts in, nearly sneering his judgement.
“Of course not. I admire his dedication to his job, even if I personally can’t and won’t endorse those methods for myself. I would consider myself amoral only because of the oath I made to myself. I’ve been attacked before in a similar way and asking me to use that same method on another who’s likely as unwilling as I was to the invasion is like demanding someone who's just recovered from an extended period of being tortured to then torture someone else with equal fervor. That type of demand, I find amoral and without conscience," I whip back at him and he drops his eyes, temporarily cowed. A few of his coworkers, though, are visibly less so.
“Given the severity of what we saw of that single soul scry, though...” the other woman in the back mumbles, looking shaken.
“I can’t fully understand that severity,” I confess bluntly, but gently, “because I wasn’t here when any of that even happened. If that madman who’s name you’re all so afraid of uttering is the problem I’m meant to fix, Fate is taking its sweet time telling me so. Regardless—“
“Regardless,” another cuts in with sneered annoyance, fear and snobbery in every growled out syllable. “You are keeping the kinds of secrets that affect us all, Miss, and unless you want to find yourself in a cell in Azkaban—“
“That would first require that Fate let me leave the grounds of this school,” I interrupt right back, expression as blank and cool as I can manage it so I don't accidentally slip and begin breathing fire. (That might get rid of these idiots and their attempted coercion, but likely wouldn't help anything else.) “Not to mention that no Dementor would willingly come within a kilometer of me; they would burn up in the effort long before I ever caught sight of them. And there’s a sizable difference, Mr. Mason, between keeping secrets and refusing to invasively dig for secrets buried in someone else’s mind; it’s a tad alarming that you somehow can’t recognize the difference.” The man swallows hard and finally looks away, huffing under his breath.
"In all my collective lifetimes fixing fates, never once have I needed to compromise myself in the way you are demanding me to. My duty is not to do your job for you, nor to either take on or take out a magical terrorist your Ministry allowed to rise to power in the first place; trying to force me or coerce me into doing such isn't going to work out the way you'd like it to," I say bluntly and nearly every set of eyes in the room drop low with either embarrassment or shame at being caught out. "In the few lifetimes that I've encountered those arrogant enough to think their own judgment could somehow outweigh that of Fate, their societies suffered eventual losses between millions and billions of lives; do keep that in mind before attempting to steer me in any direction but where Fate itself has placed me. Your collective and individual agendas are inconsequential compared to the value of even a single lost life, let alone more.
"And despite what you think, there are actually far worse circumstances than the ones you’ve been suffering here in the last twenty years. For example: no one here in this reality has yet set off a magical bomb that killed fourteen million people in the space of a heartbeat and permanently, magically mangled another four million beyond those by proximity alone.”
Whatever sound was left in the room dies out almost instantly and wary looks are traded again, but not even one of these six seems to doubt me, so I continue.
“No one has yet released masses of nightmares worldwide so terrible that even children were committing suicide by the hundreds, just to escape them,” I continue softly. “Nor has anyone released toxins during a world war that turned it’s victims, both soldiers and civilians alike, into ravenous, near-rabid cannibals by the thousands.” My audience looks genuinely ill now, finally, so I don't pitch in the added horrors of seeing half-mad parents weeping over their children's screams while those same parents were also still chewing--
“Well,” Moody huffs from the doorway he’d just stealthily entered from and making the Ministry flunkies all jerk in surprise, “if they’re all still in such a hurry for a bit of scrying, I’ll just start with them, shall I?” His scarred smile is twisted with dark humor and anger, but in combination with his crazy blue eye darting from one official to the next, it’s the type of menacing that’d make anyone wary. “So! Who’s first?” He demands.
Though tempted to smirk at their newly uncomfortable expressions, I'm not sure it's needed anymore. "Somehow, I don't think they really understand what they're even asking, or I highly doubt they'd want to be in the same building as me, let alone the same room," I add drolly.
"You mean they don't realize scrying would bring both their best ever and worst ever deeds and thoughts to light in picture perfect detail? To have every crime and lie revealed? Every fear exposed?" He huffs, crazy eye darting all new looks at the now-pale, wide-eyed bunch.
"Bet you're all glad for my conscientious moral principals now, huh?" I drawl. "Mr. Moody is no doubt very good at his job, but with my collective two hundred thousand years of experience, when it comes to scrying, I'm better," I confess honestly and Moody obligingly ticks a 'yeah, probably' sort of shrug. "So... which of us did you want scrying you again?" I ask dryly, faintly amused by their increasingly nervous fidgeting. "Standard societal crime profiling puts anyone who injects themselves into an investigation outside their usual purview at the top of the suspect list." I lace my fingers on top of my dusty desk and lean forward to pin them all with my best 'I see right through every one of you' expression. "Which, by your own standards, makes you all guilty until proven innocent. So... me? Or Mr. Moody? Take your pick."
After a few silent beats too long, Moody huffs derisively. “As I thought. Well, then! I suggest we all get back to the Ministry, find whatever crackpot ‘capped Penumbra in the first place and track down our fake healer. Those do seem like obvious first steps that no one’s yet seen to. Or," he grunts, looking almost casual now, "we can stay and hope no one else dies while you're all wasting time trying to bully a fatemaker for no just cause than to settle your own fears, eh?”
Again, the officials look nervously from one to another, but for Madam Bones, who’s now eyeing both Moody and I a bit curiously, but says nothing as she nods once in silence, shuffles her forms and notes back into her bag, and leads the others out with Moody on their heels like a sheepdog intent on keeping them from straying. I stay sitting at the dusty desk, worrying over all the things those ‘officials’ didn’t say until Snape’s shadow fills the doorway.
“The Headmaster is waiting,” he says quietly, and there’s enough of something like sympathy in his eyes to make me wonder how much of that bullying shitshow he'd overheard. Even knowing most of the blame for Penumbra's death doesn't rest at my feet, I can practically feel how much worse all of this is going to get. But sitting and grieving and self-guilting and hiding in here helps no one.
I rise and follow Snape out.
***
“The students are being sent home early for winter holiday and the train is set to leave at 10:30 tomorrow morning; the parents have already been contacted,” Dumbledore announces from behind his desk and frowning at Liska Madu's uniform cap and what I’m certain is her wand, currently snapped in two. Moody and Dumbledore had followed a final echo out of the east entrance, but her trail was lost a mere foot out the door having weirdly vanished between one blink and the next, leaving behind nothing but the broken wand and cap.
“Thank goodness,” Professor Sprout whispers. “The students were eager enough before Dorian’s death. There are some who just-- don’t feel safe now,” she adds in a murmur and while she doesn’t look my way, I already know there will be quite a bit more wariness aimed my direction from the staff, even after the break.
Flitwick and McGonagall both shoot Sprout uncomfortable, not-quite-accusing looks while Snape sits frozen in silence, his dark eyes fixed on Dumbledore. I haven’t felt this out of place in months; I feel as if my time here is going backward, somehow, in trust and in tolerance and I’m not sure how to stop it.
“The holiday will help,” Dumbledore assures her. “With the... ‘assistance’ of the Ministry, we’ll be setting up further safety measures here to both the grounds and the castle to reassure students as well as parents, the specifics of which will be sent by owl prior to their return for next term.”
There’s nods all around, though I’m not sure anyone’s all that happy that the Ministry will be ‘assisting’ with anything. I know I’m not. Once dismissed, we all stand to go, but Dumbledore waves Snape and I both back down and only speaks once the door is shut.
“I find it highly concerning how quickly this has escalated, Miss Devons,” Dumbledore sighs out. “I must ask again how certain you are that Professor Penumbra was not intended to be a part of your set task?”
“After seeing that echo in the hospital wing? I’m becoming less certain by the minute, but I haven’t had a chance to catch up with the in-depth, personal events of the last few hundred years here, which I’ll be doing shortly. Until then, I can only hypothesize,” I sigh back. “But even if he wasn’t originally, the fact that he was killed right in front of us while we were all blind to it— he’s definitely a part of it now.”
Both men nod their agreement, but Snape’s continued silence and overall stillness worries me. He looks honestly ill and is practically radiating guilty remorse. I try not to dwell on it because it’s not really my business unless he makes it so, but it’s not a good look on him at all. Dumbledore purses his lips before frowning uncomfortably.
"Do you have any insights on why this last echo spell... er--"
"Failed?" I supply gently. "I won't know until I see it, but I doubt it was the spell itself; that doesn't mean she didn't have alternative ways of vanishing in plain sight, or vanishing just enough to escape Moody's sight."
"If you mean apparition..." Dumbledore supplies, but I'm already shaking my head.
"Barring breaking the seals, it's not possible without either a sizable alteration to the seals themselves or the type of advanced apparition charm that would definitely draw notice; it's not exactly a quiet method, I know," I offer back, frowning in thought.
“Your first day here,” Snape murmurs, eyes narrowed as he recalls, “you moved across half the hospital wing, then around Pomfrey and I both, with little more than a step and some type of smoke. Could she have used a similar method?”
“Shadow hopping,” I supply, “or shadow blinking, as I call it. It’s something I learned in a similar reality, but it’s for line of sight only. I can't go through closed doors unless there's a window in it I can see through. It's possible she knows how to do it, but I seriously doubt it. Even in the reality I learned it in, it was too risky for most to ever attempt.”
Dumbledore’s eyebrows are lowered uncomfortably low. “Could you show me, please?”
I head-nod toward the window and blink my way to the alcove just in front of it, the shadow trails clinging to my robe’s sleeves and hem and even my feet and hair. Shadow trails lick out a bit from connection points like dark flames before dispelling like ethereal smoke. Dumbledore’s eyebrows have reversed course and are now set fairly high.
“In a similar reality, you say?” Dumbledore inquires, a handful of shades mumbling to their neighbors with surprise.
“Very similar,” I repeat, then blink back across the room to retake my seat. “It’s largely reliant on knowledge of magical physics. Unlike apparition, though, it actually can take a heavy toll on personal magic reserves. If I did it from the castle to the tree line and back again and again, I’d eventually pass out, even if it's not that far.” I shrug, then pause. “But if that snake -- woman- whatever used something similar to blink herself further out where apparition could be achieved..."
"And you'd be able to see what Moody and I missed?" Dumbledore guesses, sounding a little irked.
"I don't think you missed anything, actually, so much as someone else knew exactly how to hide from you. Just based on his aura alone, I know Moody sees most of what I have the ability to see, but not everything," I admit. "He can't see magic quite the way I can. Everything and everyone has tiny scraps of other magics they've encountered on them. The chair I'm sitting on has been touched by no less than a hundred different people, for example; there's lingering traces of every one of those people and always will be. But most magics that are in motion, like people and animals, also leave a faint trail, like a scent trail for bloodhounds." I cringe a bit, then add: "And barring that method, there's a chance I can follow her actual scent trail," I offer, flashing my wolf eyes briefly and both Snape and Dumbledore stare at me, either stunned or dumbfounded as the myriad of possibilities race through their heads.
"And that's all part of the 'go for broke or go home’ fatemaker package?" Snape finally asks and I smirk back.
"No one who's ever really known me has ever accused me of being under qualified," I huff. "And the sooner I get to that trail, the better."
"I'll go with you," Snape decides, shooting a concerned look at Dumbledore, who nods his approval, but frowns, too.
"Should we call the Aurors back for this? If you do find her--"
"If she's on school grounds, I'm more than qualified to handle that too," I assure him and while Dumbledore still nods his approval, he's definitely doubting my word on that, but I think half that doubt is that gnarly discordance still lingering in his aura.
I stand to go with Snape on my heels until Dumbledore calls him back, but I merely wait at the bottom of the stairs until he's caught up. The stone gargoyles both nod respectfully to me, though I’ve asked them not to. I scowl at them and the one on the right smirks while the left one winks at me.
“Cheeky,” I mutter, glaring lightly at the pair of them who pretend not to hear me.
“Say again?” Snape says woodenly, suddenly rounding the corner and the gargoyles both snicker behind him.
"Sorry, not--" I sigh. "Not you," I mutter, then reinstate my cover charm as we head for the stairs. "Let's get this done."
***
I let Snape power the spell this time and we're soon chasing the echo to the east entry where, as advertised, she vanishes two steps out the door, broken wand clattering to the floor in her wake.
"Well, she didn't shadow blink," I announce, pursing my lips.
"And yet, she's not here," Snape points out, eyes skipping around everywhere like there's a clue left to be found.
"Truuuueee," I murmur, pausing the spell and backing it up thirty seconds, then rewatch it from the other direction and startle slightly at the sight of her actual snake eyes, vivid yellow and slitted and cold to the core. And yet, still so familiar-feeling and I don't know why. She vanishes just as completely from this direction, but for an odd, fuzziness in her aura at the last second. "Weird," I mutter, then pause it again.
"So you do see something?"
"Briefly, then just-- gone. Her aura goes a bit strange at the last second," I explain, then close my eyes and breathe slow and deep, baffled when even her dry, papery scent vanishes just as completely as the rest of her. "No scent, either," I announce, drooping, because despite my proclamation of following magical trails, it's a pain to do, literally.
"You look unhappy not to be regaled to the position of bloodhound," he huffs. "What about her magical trail?"
"Yeah," I sigh, "that's next. I'd just hoped to avoid it, honestly. It's a literal headache afterward."
"Worse than your usual?" He guesses, looking grumpier now. "If there's a way to avoid it--"
"No, it's fine. Locking it back down after is the painful part, honestly. And... I'll need to give you a bit of body art, if that's okay? It'll be temporary?"
I expected some amount of eye-rolling and snark, but I hadn't expected him to stiffen like a statue and glare at me like I'd just suggested he offer himself as shark bait or something. "No."
I blink back, surprised at the amount of venom in that one word, but there seems to be a mountain-sized chunk of fear somehow hidden within that single syllable, so I slump and frown and then nod with understanding (that I don't actually feel). Still, there's a trail to hopefully follow and hopefully before there's students spilling into the hallway that might catch sight of Snape loitering around with (and probably glaring at) a mostly-blurry image of a student. That would surely be the kind of noteworthy neither of us wants.
"Okay then. You stay put and I'll be back in a bit," I offer with a firm nod and a half-smile, then turn and get promptly snagged by the back of my robe and tugged back around to face a whole new frown, this one impatient and worried on top of the grumpy.
"Stop," he huffs through clenched teeth. "What exactly would this art be for?"
"To keep from accidentally seeing more of your soul than you'd ever want me to," I explain, though softly. "This particular view strips down every layer to the magical molecules, not just people, but everything and I've yet to meet anyone in any life that was comfortable with being seen that way, unless you're the sole exception?" I ask a bit wryly and he actually squirms in place looking everywhere but at me. "Exactly my point. So, with this little marker," I add, plucking a non-toxic, washable Crayola green marker from thin air, "I can put a tiny glyph on the back of your hand which will make your soul, temporarily, a gray-ish blob I couldn't decipher if I tried."
He narrows his eyes at my marker like he's considering it, but there's still a somewhat unsettled, unhappy frown going on.
"Like I said, my full vision is something... different," I huff, shrugging and looking away. "In one of my earliest realities, I landed in one nearly identical to this, at least in the way of magics and magical talents. And someone with the gift of sight got a good look... at me."
"And didn't like what they saw?" He surmises quietly, looking less angsty.
I swallow hard and shake my head, still cringing at how pale the man had gone; how much he'd trembled with horror when his small daughter had come toddling in with a wide, gummy grin.
"He offered me damn near everything he had to get me gone and away from his family as fast as I could go," I mumble. "That was before I built up two hundred thousand years of good karma to counter it. So, I decided early on that no one should be judged based on someone else's presumptions and I prefer not being a hypocrite, if I can help it. So now I don't look at anyone's, at all, unless it's an immediate life and death kind of serious or if they ask me to, so..." I trail off, but he's relaxed again, understanding.
Then he thrusts out his hand with a put-upon eye roll, like it's all ridiculous and I waste no time scrawling the glyph on, then pressing my thumb to it to activate it. Instantly, even the air surrounding him seems to go dark and murky and I nod, satisfied.
"Should last for a few hours, unless you mess with it, so try not to, if you can help it," I add, turning and shutting my eyes, then reopen and wince at the sheer amount of brightness that I can only describe as beautiful, magical chaos. To me, it always looks like that scene from the original Matrix when Neo is suddenly faced with a world made of code, continually changing, indecipherable characters trickling down and up and sideways-- For me, it's layers upon layers of what the school and grounds are made of become newly remade by hundreds and thousands of multi-colored glyphs and runes. It's breathtaking.
"What is it?" Snape asks from behind me with a frown in his voice.
"It's-- sorry. Been a while since I've seen it this way is all," I shrug, then turn back for the door and restart the echo. "Okay," I mutter after a minute, squinting. "On the upside, her vanishing is a one time only thing. The wand itself was spelled and breaking it..."
The second the wand snaps, I jerk, then gape, because she's just gone half-realm.
"She has to be crazy," I breathe out in horror.
"I can't see anything," Snape grouses but I sort of envy that at this second.
"Be glad," I insist, watching the faint trace of her now stalking down the steps and I hurry to follow. "She's traveling through the half-realm."
"She's-- wait, isn't that where Dementors come from?" He demands quietly, his longer strides keeping up easily.
"Yeah," I confirm, shaking my head. "Halfway point between dimensions, which is why she's crazy. No one travels that way without leaving something behind every time they do. But, it's pretty smart, if you're already suicidal and don't care about missing chunks of magic and probably larger chunks of sanity; it's not something that can usually be traced or tracked. Using this as an escape route is the very definition of mad genius."
"Should I point out that you're tracking it?"
"Should I point out that I'm not that usual?" I counter with a half smirk, then step onto the frozen grass and follow the fuzzy outline as she aims for the Forbidden Forest. "Crap, I can't follow her far in there."
"It's only called the Forbidden--"
"I'm bound to school grounds," I remind him and he curses as we step into the eerie, frozen shadows, but I quickly slow to a stop, squinting cautiously around. "And... now I don't see her," I mutter softly, spinning slowly on my feet but keeping Snape close.
"How far to the boundary line, do you know?" He asks, just as quietly and I'm glad he's got his wand out, but now worry he'll have to use it.
"Another ten meters or so," I breathe out, inching closer to him. "But we'd hear her disapparate, if she were going to. I don't think she's gone far, though."
"Because...?"
"Because my instincts are awesome," I murmur, then pause the spell again, rewind it, and from this angle, her fuzzy outline enters the forest, seems to stumble through the frozen shadows right past us and now I follow as she veers back toward the lake and village, through what looks like an open paddock with a handful of thestrals already slinking deeper into the shadows and only when she hits the next thick patch of oak trees does she stumble and fall-- right back into normal sight, though now on hands and knees, a steady stream of pinkish blood trickling from the corners of both her eyes, her nose and both ears. The rest of her looks like she's suffering radiation burns and even her healer's robes seem decades old and falling to rot.
"That's what happens when you travel through the half-realm?" Snape demands, looking appropriately sickened. He'd be a lot more so if he could see what that little trip just did to her soul; I buckle down my own horror because it won't help now and she's recovering quickly enough to stand, panting with exhaustion and pain but still determined to get to wherever she's going.
"Maybe?" I guess, because I haven't got a clue. "I knew it was possible, but I've never seen the post-travel effects; I've never known anyone who'd even wanted to try, let alone actually attempt it." I swallow hard and hurry after her when she stumbles just a bit farther-- and right toward the boundary line, then veers off toward the lake. I stop and press a hand to the invisible force and it lights up with a soft blue that shimmers up and outward, the hidden, buried seals glowing briefly before the magic fades, transparent once more. But that little shimmer tells me she's aware of the boundary too, on some level, just unwilling to cross it.
"I'll keep going," Snape decides, already stepping past me, but even from here, I can see he won't need to go far because the snake shimmers once and vanishes again, this time shrinking, lengthening and with a small splash, vanishes into the icy water of the lake as a small water snake.
"Or not," I sigh, frustrated, and finally force my full vision back down, already wincing at the strain of keeping it locked down tight and rest my head against the cool bark of the closest tree just to have something solid to focus on until the pain settles, levels and soon becomes background noise once again.
"This happens every time?" Snape asks quietly, sounding almost sympathetic.
"On some level, yeah," I sigh, finally daring to open my eyes again, squinting at even the shadowed forest levels of brightness. "Worth it, though, since it gave us a shot at tracking her."
Snape makes a disgruntled noise of half-objection, but doesn't argue as we aim back for the castle.
"She could be anywhere in the lake, or even the village. Or, if she's snake-shaped, could even be hiding in the castle. Worst cat and mouse game ever," I grumble.
"So we'll shore up the castle's defenses," Snape suggests. "Reset it to only allow for staff or students unless they're escorted."
And yeah, that's what will happen, but it doesn't change that my home isn't quite the fortress it's meant to be and it feels like a personal affront that someone snuck in, hurt someone who should've been safe here and actually escaped right under our collective noses.
"Yeah, I know," I sigh. "It's just going to feel like an unscratchable itch until she's caught."
We trudge slowly back up to the castle and by the time we reach the top of the stairway, the gloomy sleet has changed to a gentle snow, soft and beautiful and yes, with the gently-lit castle as a background, the whole of it looks positively magical. Despite that childlike whimsical thought, I can’t help but feel the dread that’s following us as closely as our own shadows.
***
Three days later, Moody returns with an update.
"The idiot who 'capped him has been cleared and there's been no sign of Madu anywhere near the Ministry and Saint Mungo's has never seen or heard of her."
"And yet," I point out, "she knew just where to be and when."
Moody grunts and half-nods. "Still no sign of her here, then?"
"Nope. But I've been looking... the way she knew just where the boundary was, though, has me wondering if she's not as stuck here as I am."
Moody stares at me, lips thin, then jerks a nod. "I've wondered too."
Dumbledore frowns contemplatively, but offers no opinion beyond his grudging recommendation. "The sooner we get the extra protections up, the better."
***
The castle is not empty, despite the mass exodus of students, because a large handful have been replaced by Ministry workers from at least five different departments and more than half recommended by Moody himself, which is reassuring. Even more reassuring is that as each of Moody's recommended set introduces themselves, they offer up their minds for a limited soul-scan to ease not only my nerves, but those of their co-workers. What’s less reassuring is the way half of those recommended seem to watch Snape with obvious suspicion while Snape pretends not to notice. I notice, though, and now practice my 'think before you barbeque' mindset at least twice a day to keep my dragon from judging them worse than I am already because they're not bad people, just judgy people. Even still, they all trust Dumbledore and he trusts Snape, so... what, exactly, is their issue?
Somewhere in the halfway point of those workers is Tonks, an Auror newly out of training and a relative of horrible people she refuses to talk about. (I can fully relate.) She doesn't particularly like Snape but doesn't snub him outright, either, and she does trust Dumbledore and so she has, so far, remained in my good books. Also? She's really, really good at being a metamorphmagus, which I'd somehow, amazingly, never met before in any reality. And she's got spunk, sarcasm and sass (my favorite three S's) and I'd kinda love to hang with her more, though she's got trouble seeing me as more than just a kid, usually. (As does Dumbledore, it seems, along with half the school staff.) (It's endlessly frustrating.)
Even less reassuring than Moody's 'untrustings' are the other Ministry workers creeping around the castle (and continually getting static-zapped by the castle itself, hilariously) setting up extra enchantments on individual doorways and entrances, but almost openly spying on everyone (but mostly on me, annoyingly) and blatantly turning away any ideas Moody might have of scrying for any reason on their persons (which I can respect, mostly), which only makes them all the more shady-seeming in my (yes, hypocritical) book. Every time I cross one of them in the halls, I feel more and more certain I should look a bit deeper than my planned news history search.
The search, for all that it won’t take more than an hour or two to absorb, sort and study, is something I’m in no hurry to do with the way Snape seems to be almost cringing around me now, like he’s sure there’s judgement coming his way, regardless of my earlier sentiments. (Though considering my personal hypocrisy of judging judgmental people, I probably shouldn't be surprised.) But I'm missing our usual easy-going conversations more every day.
Two days before Christmas, I stop stalling and finally bite the bullet, settle myself against the Hufflepuff common room’s stone wall, and let the castle tell me what it hasn’t yet, let it fill in the gaps as best it can and holy hellfire, can it ever. The castle is practically a magical supercomputer, but genuinely sentient and capable of basic drives, desires, and thought. There's few stones left unturned in its own curious musings; like me, if it wants to know something, it seeks that information out. Best of all, though, is that its recollection for events is usually dramatically acute because it witnessed those events from multiple points of view.
That said, where I’d only gotten the headline news overview in Dumbledore’s office, there’s nothing vague in the castle's recollection of what had sparked the original catastrophe. The stories are painful, which I knew they would be, but almost as much to my heart as my head because ‘harsh’ doesn’t begin to cover it. And still, that's only the surface of the larger problems both political and personal, plucking up names, accusations and so much finger pointing there should've been hundreds of fingers permanently petrified straight out by the end of it.
And it’s easy to see, equally harsh and miserable as it is, why Snape’s cringing around me now. The first seems obvious, honestly, because that bizarre mark on Penumbra’s soul is on Snape’s arm. (Though it does explain his reaction to my suggested 'body art'.) That mark is on the arm of a great many followers of Tom Riddle, a.k.a Voldemort, a.k.a. 'You Know Who', a.k.a. ‘He Who Shall Not Be Named’, a.k.a. (and in my opinion best described as:) Drama Llama Supreme.
And Hells bells, people, really? I will always, always be puzzled by genuine minions. And that’s what they were. Not followers. Minions. Sacrificial worker ants who never realize how vulnerable their positions are until they’re being locked out and left behind. Seriously, idiots, and yeah, Snape was among their numbers. But while Riddle was wow-ing the masses with his ability to terrorize by simply being a magical Hitler while lacking a nose, Snape was desperately trying to undo a wrong of his own— and couldn’t.
At some point, someone wept against a castle wall while remembering the half-burnt, half-demolished husk of a house and the two dead left within it, survived only by a small boy named Harry. That small boy, that simple scar. His father’s death... his mother’s sacrifice and the protection it continues to offer.
But the castle shows Snape’s inevitable heartbreak while he tortured himself with memories of his childhood friend and his unspoken love that only grew with time. He tortured himself over their falling out, too, and the terrible things he'd said. It’s all further proof that the second most dour face in the castle (because Filch will always win first), genuinely carried his heart on his sleeve for a single person, right up until he’d been forced to replace it with his penance for the same. I probably shouldn’t see as much of Dumbledore’s guilt-trip speech as I do, but the castle thinks it important, apparently.
And it is.
Snape will pay, if not to his conscience, to his own soul for his wrongs. Only, he's already paying, to both. But like my own first lifetime ending and voluntary removal from this world, he’d also bargained for his penance and has never once doubted he’d bargained well and for something worth dying for; for a chance at making at least a little of it right. That he might still die because of all this Drama Llama and the Backup Minions b.s. twists my heart uncomfortably.
I curl close to the cool stone with the hearth at my back warming me, and sleep while my mind reconciles at least one fated task: help rid this world of the danger of a nose-less wannabe (even if only to spare my friend). But with Riddle's horcruxes out and about, there’s no ending him until those missing shards are destroyed. So what, exactly, is Dumbledore waiting for?
***
I wake Christmas morning surrounded by gifts, which is odd, but nice? Just odd. Most of them are from house elves, which is amazingly sweet, and all seem to be handmade, mini chocolate statues of all the teachers (plus Dumbledore, Hagrid and even the duo of Filch and Mrs. Norris). Even Penumbra has one and with respect for his unwilling sacrifice, I eat that one first. (It’s delicious and I like to think he'd have enjoyed it just as much.)
Mini-chocolate Snape looks just as imposing as his human visage, but (I check the tag) Fleppy has a gift for expressions and Snape’s is positively amused behind the faint sneer. I kinda love it. Love them all, really, but mini-Snape’s honestly makes me grin. (I charm them impervious until I've got reason to bite any heads off.)
Prefect Annie, trying to cheer my lonely holiday, left me a book of children’s riddles and nursery stories that she'd grown up learning. I’ll have to find something extra for her to add to the shorthand ink I’d gifted all my fellow Hufflepuffs. Hagrid sent me cookies, of course, maybe in response to the easy-make lava recipe and ingredients I’d sent him should he ever need a temporary batch for his fiery friends. All in all, it’s a good morning.
The rest of the day is... not terrible. I wish a happy Christmas to everyone I meet, even the remaining grumpy Ministry workers who’d rather be elsewhere as much as the rest of us wish they’d be elsewhere. But we manage both breakfast and lunch without bloodshed, so I call it a hesitant win, then twice so when I sit myself next to Snape at lunch, wish him a happy Christmas and he doesn’t flee until the meal’s officially over.
But he also doesn’t reappear again until evening security rounds, then manages not to scowl too hard when he thanks me for the ingredient cabinet the castle had delivered while he was at lunch. (I was surprised to find the second one already completed and unused in the Room of Requirement, just waiting for someone to remember it.) He rolled his eyes when he also thanked me for stocking it, then frowned at me a lot until I confessed I had no clue how that happened.
The icing on my Christmas Day: The castle chose that moment to spontaneously shoot Slytherin-colored glitter confetti out of the ceiling and onto Snape's head along with a bow, note attached offering a simple 'Happy Christmas, Professor!'. Snape glowered at me until I took my snickering giggles away and back toward my dorm. I can only guess that the castle has been happy with his work here so far. Snape gives me an unreadable look when I holler down the hall to tell him as much, then wish him good night.
But he also stops actively avoiding me after that, so I consider that a bit of a gift on it's own.
***
Hagrid sneaks me a bit of fire whiskey on Boxing Day, which is sweet, even if it is a terrible tease. I don’t have the heart to tell him that barring a few select (and expensive) beverages, my wolf and dragon genetics don’t let me get drunk for longer than a few minutes, then spend half the afternoon pacing the school borders with Fang keeping me company, mentally tinkering with potion recipes to see if that’s something fixable. (I’m still not sure, but I think I’m close.)
The day before New Years Eve, the castle mildly creaks with excitement when someone new arrives and when he first appears through the main front doors conversing with the Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt, I can’t quite look away at first glance. Despite knowing he's a stranger, he’s oddly familiar and so very, very not. If he sees me staring from where I’m helping remove garland down the side hall, he doesn’t show it, but I'm sure he knows he's being watched.
The man is tired and pale with heavy bags beneath slightly sunken, but kind-looking, eyes. His hair is shaggy and a touch over-long, speckled brown and grey that makes him look older than I'm sure he is. His clothing is neat but thread worn and he carries the air of an unseen burden. I blink twice more before I see it and then wonder how I’d missed it.
Werewolf. And even from here, I can feel his wolf's disquiet. I can feel it's pain and exhaustion well enough for my own wolf to perk up, zero in on our target and jump straight to a 'We're adopting him.' mindset.
“Well,” Snape mutters softly from just behind my left shoulder, “perhaps you’ll see a second example of the cursed position's work in action.”
That... sounds a lot like bitter grapes and I give him a curious glance. “Not a stranger, then?”
Snape says nothing for a minute, but when the pair of gargoyles guarding Dumbledore's office slide aside and the mystery man vanishes up into the stairway, Snape continues and concludes with a simple but cold: “No.” He vanishes down the opposite hallway in silence while I finish up with my garland removal.
When I've dealt with as much de-decoration as I can handle in a day, I move on to familiarizing myself with the castle’s newest defenses, poking at the bits that seem weak and thin, bolstering what I can and unsurprised to find a few 'watcher' spells set by the Ministry workers and I'm sure not a one of them has been authorized by Dumbledore. (But I'm newly sure they're why so many of the non-Moody-recommended Ministry workers got zapped.) (If I just happen to sneakily zap a few of those illegal spells, like the ones outside Snape's classroom and the Hufflepuff/kitchen corridor, no one needs to know.)
Still, I can’t help but think our defenses need something more, maybe something unexpected to catch intruders rather than simply warning them off. (With students returning in less than a week, I can't set the kinds of traps that would no doubt be more efficient.) Still, something’s just... not quite right. We're not quite safe enough.