Unplottable

17 - Snape

I am just a worthless liar.
I am just an imbecile.
I will only complicate you.
Trust in me and fall as well.
I will find a centre in you.
I will chew it up and leave...

Trust me. Trust me. Trust me. Trust me. Trust me.

Severus Snape pushed the stop button on the CD player, put the headphones down on his bedside table and blew out the candle. It was time to sleep, to wait for darkness to overcome his consciousness. He could only hope that the tidal waves in his stomach would calm down soon, that his mind would stop reeling. Maybe he should try cheap Muggle meditation music before going to sleep, not the kind of dark, soul-ploughing songs that seemed to speak to him, he mused. The Tool CD was his current favourite; its grim depths seemed to mirror his emotions, but did little to calm him.

Going to sleep had been a problem for him for as long as he could remember; like every remedy he had ever tried, music had turned into a part of the problem in the end. His body and mind still seemed to be resonating with the notes that had struck his soul. However, he realised as he lay there, waiting in vain for his spirit to calm down, music was part of the choice - the choice he had made himself, and even though he might well be forever at odds with it, he would never take it back, even if he could. He liked to think he could not forget his past, his sorrows and his own evil deeds, but that was not entirely true. If he was honest with himself, there had been occasions in his life when he could have chosen differently and become somebody else. For example, when Voldemort had fallen, Snape might have left Hogwarts, might have gotten himself a job far from students, from Dumbledore's hopes and fears, far from where the next fight would take place. True, at Hogwarts he had been safe from his fellow Death Eaters' revenge, but there had been a comparably peaceful period of time when he hadn't had that much to worry about. He might have secured himself a steady income, might have cut short his greasy hair, might have put an ad into the Daily Prophet looking for an equally homely and not overly bright wife. He might have fathered obnoxious little children, might have joined the right clubs and acquired social acceptance with his fellow wizards, might have pretended the darkest days of his life had never happened. True, life had not exactly laid out that path for him, but neither had it been completely blocked - the path that might have led him at least to partial forgetfulness. However, he had chosen to stay, to hang on to his dark memories, believing them to be a part of himself which he should not deny. He had chosen to remain Hogwarts' derided Potions master, and therefore remained himself; loneliness was only a part of it.

Beneath all his bitterness, not only did he have to admit that the major forces governing his life had been his own choices, but that on the whole, he accepted them still; however, of course that did not mean he had no regrets. Besides the central one, that of torturing and maiming people as a Death Eater, were the little things he would change if asked to re-write his biography - like holding and comforting the crying teenage girl in his arms until she told him what had made her so unusually upset on that autumn afternoon long ago.

Sometimes he wondered whether, given that he had showed her he really cared, Valerie might have confided in him. She might have told him that her only protectoress had passed away, and that she feared she would be withdrawn from the school very soon. The two of them could have gone to Dumbledore for help. If the Headmaster had known in advance that Valerie's relatives, surely no strangers to him, were planning to remove her to Durmstrang, and that she did not want to leave, he might have consented to protect her, to keep her at Hogwarts. She would have stayed with him. Their walks in the Forbidden Forest, their tutoring sessions, their nightly excursions and duels would have continued. After a while he would have realised he did not need his Slytherin gang; he might never have become a Death Eater if Valerie had stayed. Instead of thinking about joining the Dark Lord, he would have spent his Sunday afternoons in a sunny clearing, listening to her lute playing. He remembered the funny little magical games they used to invent just for the two of them - nothing as boring as gobstones or wizard's chess for Verus and Valerie. Rather, they used to conjure up some basic illusions and make them run a race; they had messed about with dimension shifts, not-so-harmless potions and - he smiled in the darkness when he remembered her passion for it - had caused a lot of noisy explosions. He imagined them as they would have been during his remaining school years, sitting side by side on their old tree trunk, sharing a book, a laugh - a kiss? He knew there had been something between them that might have been more than friendship. True, Valerie had not been exactly pretty at thirteen, but he trusted himself enough to perceive her soul, rather than her body. Maybe the same could be said of her? They would have become a couple if she had stayed, there was no doubt about it. Or was he making things up now? On these nights, staring into the pitch darkness of his underground chamber, it was hard to tell fantasy from memory.

He knew it was silly, nay, regressive, to idolise a past he had never had, but these days it was about the only way to find sleep in the darkness of his cell. He felt his consciousness drift off; he relaxed as he sensed that it seemed to head towards a clearing where the grown wizard could find solace only in his dreams, rather than towards nightmares and terror. Just when all thoughts started to fade, when his mind itself blurred, he heard a noise and felt the light of a candle touch his lids. Reluctantly, he let the hems of sleep slip away from his grasp; he started to blink at the dim light.

"Professor Snape," a female voice whispered - a voice he recognised. A shiver ran down his spine. He sat up in bed to greet the intruder:

"What are you doing here in my sleeping chamber and at this time of the night, Miss Chang?" he asked the person approaching him, taking in her black cloak and her delicate bare feet on the chilly stone-paved floor.

"Professor Snape," she repeated, then corrected herself in a soft voice that seemed to talk of a heartfelt longing: "Severus! I cannot sleep, I cannot eat, I can only think of you. It is as if I was bewitched, only that I know no magic could feel this strong. Never have I yearned for any man the way that I long for you. I need you - oh, I need you so much more than I can say. Please, don't send me away - let me be your lover!"

Snape was silent for a moment, willing his mind to wake up properly. The words touched something deep within him. Nobody had ever talked to him like that, no, not even remotely. At last, he replied as icily as he could:

"Miss Chang, I cannot believe that a student, what's more, a Ravenclaw in her last year, should approach a teacher in this outrageous and indecent fashion. I will take thirty points from Ravenclaw, and you shall be grateful to me if I do not make public for which offence. And now return to your dormitory immediately!"

"Severus!" she gasped. Then she knelt down in front of his cot. "No, please, Severus, do not send me away! I love you, and if you will not love me back, I will certainly die of a broken heart!" In the flicker of the candle, Snape could see tears in her eyes. The way her black hair fell over her face when she bent her head ever so briefly reminded him of another black-haired female. He felt his throat constrict. Only with an immense effort, he managed to say:

"Out! And that will be fifty points from Ravenclaw."

Something gleamed in her liquid black eyes. "Do not think you can scare me with that punishment you use to hold children in check, Severus," she replied, her voice a velvety version of rebellion. "I am no longer a child." And with these words, she opened her cloak with both hands, revealing bare skin.

For a moment, or maybe more than one, all Snape could do was just stare at her naked body displayed for him so close that the smallest movement of his hands would have sufficed for touching it. Her smallish, round breasts, shaped by the wintry cold of his chamber and maybe by something else, shone golden in the light of the candle; so did her gently curved stomach, touched by black shadows in the concavity of her belly bottom and among the black hair which grew a hand span below it. A part of him, a very physical part, seemed to bang its fists against the gates of his control, as if screaming that seventeen years of celibacy should be enough. Strange images flashed before his eyes: The naked body of Dolores Lestrange stretched out on a black velvet divan - oh, it had been so long! -; Professor Varlerta unlacing her boots to duel with him; a zipper hexed to jam, revealing a female back barely covered with lacy Muggle undergarments. Usually Snape took care to ban such images from his mind, but now he felt overpowered. Cho must have sensed his thoughts somehow, because she bent closer to him, whispering: "Severus, will you not make love to me?"

For a second, the world seemed to hold its breath, waiting for his answer. But there was only one possible reply to such a question. Snape cast his blanket aside and set his feet on the cold stone floor to rise, taking care that his nightshirt revealed no more than his ankles as he moved. After he had risen, he towered over the nude, kneeling girl; his most authoritative voice, his most evil stare, came easily as soon as he stood.

"Miss Chang, you must have gotten in the way of a bad hex. Perhaps the enemy is working something evil in you with his Ice Missile. You obviously are not in your right mind. Get up and cover your body. We will go and see the Head of your house immediately."

Cho whimpered softly as if he had hit her, but she drew her cloak back over her skin and scrambled to her feet. Snape could see the tears running down her face; her quivering lips seemed to mutely form his name. After stepping into a pair of protective shoes and casting a cloak over his nightshirt, Snape stepped to the door and held it open for her. Her head bent, Cho stepped through it, obeying the commands of the teacher for whom she mysteriously seemed to have developed strange carnal desires.

Carnal desires... The moment she passed him, realisation hit him like a curse. There was a very simple explanation for her behaviour, a dreadful, a fatal cause. Snape felt his blood run cold; he was done for. The thought filled his head, his body, the whole dungeon; it seemed to rise up to the very turrets of the castle and to spread into the whole world of witches and wizards. Severus Snape had made a mistake; Severus Snape had committed a crime. In the end, it amounted to the same. He would pay for it.

Although he was absolutely certain, he sought confirmation, hoping against hope that he was mistaken. "Why did you drink the black potion? Who gave it to you, and what did you hope to gain from drinking it?" he asked while they walked up the stairs to the ground floor.

Cho stopped dead in her tracks and stared at him with her black, tear-filled eyes. For a blissful moment, he thought she did not know what he was talking about. Then she replied with despair in her voice: "What do I care about the potion, what do I care about flying if you won't love me? What do I care about life any more? I wish I had never been born."

"So you did drink it - the black potion on my desk?"

Cho put her hands to her face and sobbed. "Is that why you hate me?" she gasped, her mouth and eyes half-hidden by her fingers. "Because I tried to cheat at Quidditch? You gave me that potion which made me a bad flyer. They said they would kick me off the team. I did not want to cheat with the Hawk Potion - all I wanted was to get back my skill which your other potion took away from me."

Pitch-black Hawk Potion, yes, of course -illegal for Quidditch players, but on the Potions syllabus of every Fifth Year student. Why Cho should think that he would keep a bottle of the substance on his desk he could not fathom; it had to be the despair ringing in her every word which had driven her to the utmost folly, drinking an unidentified potion just because it had the right colour. Suddenly he saw her not as a threatening temptation, not as his ruin, not even as one student among many: He saw a girl whose boyfriend had been murdered by Lord Voldemort, who was trying to keep her place in an obviously hostile team, who stood under the threat of the Ice Missile which had hit her, who had been de-wanded and magically obstructed. This action had not only endangered her performance at the upcoming NEWTs, but had also made her almost useless on the Quidditch pitch. He could suddenly understand why she might resort to such desperate action - an action she was visibly paying for, now that she stood before him, looking pathetic with her bare feet on cold marble, crying because Hogwarts' least liked teacher refused to sexually take advantage of her.

Never mind that he would pay far more dearly for this than even she; for a moment he wished he could at least take her to someone kind and understanding. Had he only made things up with Valerie, he thought briefly - a female who, in contrary to most teachers, would look after the girl first and only later ask about punishment or morality. But then again, even Professor Varlerta might come to ask how and why Miss Chang had found love bottled up in a phial, had found black Devotacarna on Snape's desk. Come to think of it, Valerie was the last person he wanted to know, he contemplated as he resumed his steps, Cho trailing behind him.

Flitwick's apartment was situated around the corner from Ravenclaw Hall. Snape had expected Cho to plead with him that he would not report her behaviour to the Head of her house, but the girl remained quiet. After the ultimate pain, the object of her potion-induced devotion rejecting her, being humiliated before Flitwick seemed not to matter much to her. Snape rapped at the door, bending a little as the entrance to the Flitwicks' quarters had not been made for wizards of his height.

Mrs. Flitwick opened, doll-like in her lacy gown and cap, rubbing her eyes with tiny hands. After a glance upwards, she snapped: "Severus! Do you know what time it is?"

"I do indeed, Miniscula, and I apologise for the untimely disturbance," Snape replied to his colleague's wife. "I need to talk to your husband in an urgent matter that cannot wait until morning."

Mrs. Flitwick's eyes strayed to Cho and fixed on her naked ankles clearly visible beneath the cloak. Then Miniscula glanced up at Snape with a suspicious sneer. Snape did his best not to flinch. That was how they would all look at him in future - before they would lock him away, that was. Mumbling under her breath, Miniscula shuffled off into the apartment. A minute later, Flitwick appeared in a worn-out silk nightgown.

"I am very sorry to wake you up, but one of your students appears to have an acute problem," Snape told him. "We need to sit down somewhere and talk."

Trusting Snape not to wake him up for trifles, Flitwick led the two of them into his office, a normal-sized room allowing him to accommodate visitors there. Snape and Cho sat on two carved, high-backed chairs with leather upholstery, while Flitwick climbed onto his armchair. "So what is so urgent?" he asked Snape.

"Miss Chang disturbed me in my sleeping chamber and told me she had developed an ... interest in me." Snape deliberately used pauses to stress that he was talking euphemistically. "As she is not a student with a history of ... indecent behaviour, I believe she might have been afflicted by an unknown magical source. It seems unwise to leave her unsupervised under the current circumstances, but as this matter is a bit ... delicate, I would very much like to pass her supervision over to you as the Head of her house."

Flitwick had blushed deeply while Snape was talking; apparently he had understood. "What happened?" he squeaked, audibly too upset to ask in a more subtle way whether his colleague had engaged in a sexual action with a student. If he had, he certainly wouldn't tell Flitwick, Snape thought wryly. At the same time, he felt overwhelmed by guilt, even though this particular offence was one he hadn't committed.

"Apart from Miss Chang disturbing my sleep, nothing happened," he replied evenly. "I saw to it that she returned safely to the vicinity of Ravenclaw Hall. I'd like to think that she will be ... kept safe here now." He hoped he had succeeded in making Flitwick feel a little guilty, too: If a student from his house had become a nymphomaniac, it certainly shouldn't be Snape's responsibility to baby-sit her.

Flitwick's tiny eyes darted towards Cho. "Miss Chang, what do you have to say for yourself?" he asked.

Cho, who had been crying silently, abruptly broke into loud sobs. Flitwick cast Snape a worried glance. He thinks I abused her, Snape thought. If I was him, I would think the same.

Flitwick handed Cho a ridiculously small handkerchief which the girl clutched to her mouth. A minor shaking spasm later, she suddenly stated quite clearly:

"I love him with all my heart, and always will. If he does not love me back, I will die. Please, Professor Flitwick, tell him that it is beyond human cruelty to deny me his love."

Flitwick paled. "So he did deny you ...?" he inquired, more interested in facts than in feelings.

"Oh yes, he did," Cho said, her lips audibly trembling. "Don't you know any way in which I might win his heart? Please, Professor, tell me what I have to do to become his lover."

"Miss Chang!" Flitwick sounded genuinely appalled by this request. "You don't know what you are saying! Don't you realise that you are a student, bound by a school code of honour and morals, and that the last thing you should have is such - such desires -" his voice cracked, "for a teacher?"

Snape did not share his colleague's surprise. It was obvious that Cho Chang was in the strong grip of a love spell, and that all sense of customs and morality had retreated behind her overwhelming feelings. On the other hand, Flitwick now seemed to believe him that he had not touched her. This would not help much in the long run - the alchemist couple, maybe even the Unspeakables would run a test and see that the powers at work in Cho were not the ones the Ice Missiles liberated. Further tests would indicate the influence of a strong, forbidden love potion, maybe even point directly to the most forbidden of them all, to Devotacarna. Be that as it may, soon it would become known that the object of Miss Chang's desire was to blame for her feelings, even though he had not intended to cause them - not in the student, anyway. However, by making Flitwick believe him, Snape was buying time. He would not have to deal with the consequences of his crime straight away. He handed Flitwick a strong sedative potion for the student, made his excuses and left it to the Charms teacher to deal with the delicate matter.

After he had left Flitwick's office, Snape climbed the one hundred and seventy-seven steps which led up into the Astronomy Tower. Passing through the observatory at its top, he took the door outside to the turreted gallery which encircled it. The dungeons were all very well for solitude, but some occasions seemed to demand the overview which only great heights could provide. Snape inhaled the chilly December air and turned his face upwards to the stars twinkling in the clear night sky. He had some quick thinking to do. Was there still a way out for him?

Possession of Devotacarna - the least they could give him for that was two years in Azkaban. If they took into account that he had willingly and consciously produced the potion himself, that he had carelessly left it on his desk, that this carelessness had resulted into a student drinking it and suffering its effects, they would sentence him to far more than that. Insanity would ensue; that much was certain. The judges would look at him and see a former Death Eater who had caused a seventeen-year-old student to become enamoured in him. This student had asked him to involve in sexual action with her, had done so repeatedly and in front of a colleague, and if he was not very much mistaken, would continue to do so openly and publicly for at least a few weeks. Snape remembered Fudge's words, remembered the misgivings of parents which the Minister had mentioned. True, Fudge was dead, but that would not make anything easier. Already there was a demand for action to be taken against Hogwarts, where the murder had occurred. Lucius Malfoy, who was running for the office, was trying to convince the public that Dumbledore should be removed. They would use Snape's offence as a stick to beat the old Headmaster; they would state an example with Snape and lock him away at Azkaban until his mind had decayed like a corpse. In a sick way it was almost funny: Suddenly he was a criminal with nowhere to go, with nothing to take with him but his strange half-guilt, and with death, torture or Azkaban to fear wherever he turned - just like Remus Lupin.

Snape leant his forehead against the cool stones which formed the turrets. Then he looked through the gap between two of them, gazed down at the ink-black land far below. The grounds and the forest were invisible. A faint glimmer showed him the outline of the lake, only interrupted by the slightly peaked roofline of the building standing at its shore. Suddenly the ground seemed to beckon to him. It would be so easy. All he had to do was swing one foot through the gap, then the other, and let himself fall. It would be quicker than Azkaban, less painful than being caught by his fellow Death Eaters. He would not have to face the shame of looking Mr. and Mrs. Chang into the eyes. Snape gazed down again, then set one foot on the lower part of the stone wall. Of course, it would cause a disgusting mess at the bottom at the tower, nothing he would want the students to see. Well, as appealing as the ground seemed, there were more hygienic ways of leaving this world. Snape set his foot back on the floor. Beside his bed, he had kept a bottle filled with quick and painless death for all these years, not for any special reason, just because the option it provided made him feel better about his life. He should be glad none of the students had found this bottle and drained it, he contemplated as he turned towards the door to make his way downwards and die in his bed. Of course, who would be so stupid to drink an unmarked potion? Yet there was no cause to blame Cho for her abysmal naivety if he had himself to blame, whose stupidity far outran hers. It had been nothing but folly to ever brew this potion - and the unadulterated madness of a deluded, lovesick idiot to keep it even though he had decided against seducing Valerie with it. Well, he would pay with his life for his madness.

When his fingers touched the wooden door that led inside, another thought occurred to him. If he committed suicide, everyone would think him guilty - not only of brewing the potion, but of purposefully seducing the unfortunate Miss Chang. The annals of the school would remember him as a child molester. They would urinate on his grave. Dumbledore would be appalled, Valerie would be disgusted, while Black would have a laugh at his expense. Death, his only escape route, would be the least honourable path to take now, he decided. It would be the easiest way, but he had to deny himself his escape. But, he wondered, was there no honourable way to die?

There was, he realised - not to the public, not to, say, Ministry officials or to Lady Snape, but at least to the few people who mattered. They would remember him as a hero, or at least as someone who had died trying to do something useful, even if nobody else knew about it. Snape shivered as the thought continued to take shape; compared to the task he had set for himself, jumping off the Astronomy Tower sounded positively pleasant. A part of him wanted to turn around and cast himself over the stone wall before he could put his plan into action, but he willed himself to turn the handle of the door instead and walk down towards Dumbledore's office. He did not like to wake the Headmaster, whose health was no better than last summer, but he knew that speed was required. If they started the preparations now, he might be far from the school once his crime came to light.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After all was decided, he wanted to get it over with and get out of the school as quickly as possible, but of course there were still plenty of things to prepare for his departure. It wasn't so much packing as cleaning out: In his quarters and office there were quite a few potions, ingredients and rolls of parchment stashed away which he knew he had to dispose of before he left for good. Dumbledore had decreed that he would have to inform one person ahead of time, too - namely his successor as a teacher, Roary Lyons. After all, Hogwarts needed the skills and knowledge of a Potions master in difficult times, and Roary was knowledgeable even if in some ways inexperienced.

Just after he had thrown a large stack of potion recipes into the fire, deciding that they conveyed the kind of knowledge which might be harmful to others rather than helpful, there was a knock at the door. Snape did not reply; he wished to see nobody. However, in accordance to the general school rule that nobody respected the Potions master's privacy anymore, the door opened nevertheless, and Valerie entered. She looked bleary-eyed and dishevelled, which Snape attributed to the fact that it was barely six o'clock in the morning yet, and therefore not even remotely the time when she usually condescended to get up. Snape decided to ignore her and added another roll of parchment to the evil-smelling fire.

"Roary told me you're going to Voldemort to spy on him," Valerie said hoarsely.

Curse Dumbledore - here they had agreed on something top secret which nobody was supposed to know, and the first person he met had already heard it through the grapevine. If that kept up, his chances of survival were actually not zero, but less than that. Not wanting to encourage this kind of talk, he leafed through one of his notebooks, tearing out a few pages and leaving others for Roary: Of the many potions he had developed himself, some might actually help the fight against Voldemort or preserve the lives of Hogwarts' students and teachers.

"You're not going," Valerie said as if she was in a position to command him. "It's sheer madness, and you know it. He'll kill you, that's all you will achieve with that - except that before he kills you, he'll cut you into pieces and put a Crucio on each separate limb."

Snape took his quill and corrected his own writing in the notebook - he had improved the potion recipe over time, but never corrected his notes because he knew the alteration by heart. Roary, of course, wouldn't.

"Didn't you snirking hear me?" Varlerta almost shouted and tore the notebook from his hand. She slammed the item onto his desk and repeated: "You're not shnirking going!"

"Professor Varlerta, would you terribly mind letting me do my work?" he asked her, cursing the audible tremble in his voice.

"Your work," she hissed, her anger-distorted face uncomfortably close to his now, "is to be this school's Potions master, and to help us fight Voldemort. It is not, I repeat, not, to go to Voldemort just so he can make mincemeat of you. I don't care what you have or haven't done, or why nobody cares to tell me what the shnirk is going on, but I'm not going to let you throw your life away on some shnirking bullshit plan!"

"Oh, you won't let me? Well, let me tell you something, Professor - I happen not to take any orders from you. It's none of your bloody business, so get lost and let me get my office straightened out."

"You think you're so damn smart," she said with a sneer. "You think you tricked him last time, and you'll do it again. You think you can just go there and say: 'Hi, Voldy, I'm back,' and he'll give you a welcoming hug and say: 'Hi Snape, never mind the fact that you betrayed me last time around - I'll forgive you and trust you again. Welcome back to the Death Eater club. Have a cookie.' Well, if you're that deluded, let me give you an update on reality. It's not going to happen like that. As soon as he sees you, he'll just kill you without thinking twice about it - except for showing off a bit by torturing you."

"I'm glad you tell me all this, as you are, of course, such an expert on Lord Voldemort," he replied, knowing his words would sting, as she had probably never met the creature which had fathered her. Of course, he knew that she was probably right: The likelihood that Voldemort would not trust him in spite of his precautions was alarmingly high. Even in the best of cases, he would be severely punished for his past betrayal. It would be painful, that much was certain.

"I don't need to be an expert to know that he'll kill you," she said, her voice strangely softened. "Don't go."

"We urgently need a spy among the Death Eaters," he tried to explain. "Our situation is desperate. We need to know what he is planning." Of course, that wasn't his main reason for going, but if she didn't know yet, he would certainly not tell her.

She bent her head and seemed to survey the papers on his desk. After a pause, she replied: "Then let me go instead. He doesn't know me yet. I mean, he knows who I am, of course, but I've never betrayed him, and I don't think he knows exactly on whose side I am. Maybe I can convince him that I've finally come to be his loyal daughter."

The thought of Valerie going to Voldemort was somehow even worse than the thought of himself going back to the Dark Lord. Picturing her in a Death Eater's hood and cloak, branded with the Dark Mark, forced to kill and to torture at Voldemort's bidding, made him physically sick. He shook his head. "Trust me, he knows that you are with Dumbledore. Don't think your chances of surviving such a mission are any better than mine."

Valerie seemed to study his shelves of pickled potion ingredients. He could see her fists were clenched. It was an ordeal to have her in the room; her presence tore at his resolve. After they had stood in silence for a while, she said, her gaze firmly on the jars of reptile innards:

"Roary said there was a potion accident, and that a student was harmed. He says you are facing Azkaban. If that is your reason for going to Voldemort, it is an exceptionally stupid one. Others got away, too. Sirius and Remus got away. They are - safe now." He could hear her voice crack. In an odd way it touched him that she was lying for him. There had been no news of Black and Lupin since they had left on the plane to America, not a single word; Roary, who had been supposed to pick them up at the airport, had missed them. Nobody knew what had happened to them, or where they were now. Snape knew Valerie must be worrying herself silly.

"Don't trouble yourself," he replied, trying to sound cold and distant. "I have already decided that I will carry out my plan. Nothing you could say or do could make me change my mind."

This, of course, wasn't entirely true. As she stood before him with her dishevelled hair and her tear-stained cheeks, he could think of many things she could have said to change his mind. Suddenly he thought of Black, who without a moment's hesitation had proclaimed he would go wherever Lupin went. If she were to tell him that she would share his exile, that she would be his whatever happened, all past decisions would become null and void. But, of course, she would say no such thing.

"They will have to modify your memory, Roary says," she said almost angrily. "They will have to mess with your mind so that you forget most of who you are, because when Voldemort tortures you, you can't tell them any of our plans, and you won't tell him that you are not really on our side, because you have forgotten yourself. This will give you a slight chance to survive with him, but it will also make it likely that you will lose yourself. Even if you survive, and if Voldemort does not drive you insane with his torture, you may never remember who you really are. It's madness, and you know it. No sane person should ever permit anyone to mess with his or her own mind, that's what you said yourself once. Remember Dolores Lestrange, remember the effect a memory charm had on her. Do you want to end up like that, someone who has forgotten his real self?"

She should not have brought up Dolores Lestrange; the thought increased his feelings of being ill and contaminated. He felt a ridiculous urge to shout at Valerie, to shatter all breakables in his office, to run away as fast as he could, or to take her into his arms and bury his face in her hair. Hoping to retain control, he rammed his trembling hands into his robes' pockets and clutched the flesh of his thighs through the fabric. She seemed adamant to destroy his resolve which cost him so much strength to uphold. Did she think he was not scared out of his wits? Did she really think he could bear to listen to the things she was telling him much longer? He needed her to disappear from his sight, otherwise he would bring shame onto his name by pleading with her instead: 'Valerie, will you accompany me to some faraway country and spend the rest of your life in hiding with me?' No, he could never ask that.

"Please mind your own business, Professor," he replied to her instead, avoiding her eyes.

"Do you want me to beg you not to go to your death?" she half-whispered. "Do you want me to kneel before you and plead with you for your own life and sanity? If that's what you want, then just say so." Even more softly, she added: "Because I'd do it."

He told his heart to turn into stone, not to heed her pleas. Spying on Voldemort was the correct choice of action, the only one which might save his honour after his crime.

"Get out and leave me to my preparations," he said blandly.

Her sharp intake of breath sounded almost like a sob. "A long time ago, you and me used to be friends, even though you pretend that this time never existed. Early this year, I did you wrong. I misused our friendship, disregarding the possible consequences my actions might have for you. I regretted what I did quite soon and apologised - at least I think I did. You did not forgive me. Now you plan to go away. It is likely that we will never meet again. I am asking your forgiveness once more. Verus, will you not make it up with me?"

Forgive you that you took another man for your lover? How could I ever do that, Valerie?

"Yes, sure, I forgive you, no offence taken," he said in the flattest voice he could muster, knowing that she knew he did not mean it. "Now, if you do not mind, I still have a number of things of which I have to take care."

"Fine," she snapped and vigorously rubbed her robes' sleeve over her face. "So be it." She fiddled with something that hung around her neck, then pulled a small clay pendant on a leather chord out from beneath her robes - a plain, but slightly bulging amulet with little holes in it. Before he could express his disconcertment, she put the item into his hand.

"Put that on when you go," she said in a deadened voice. "Never take it off. It is a device that will help you not to lose yourself, and it will bring you luck. It is an ocarina. I hope that if you have a chance to play it, it will make you remember who you are, who you were and whose side you are on just at the time when it is safe to do so."

"Va- - Professor, that's ridiculous," he murmured, checking himself just in time. The object felt coarse and unmagical in his palm. "Even if, I repeat, if this thing has any magical powers whatsoever, I will not be able to benefit from them. The Death Eaters will strip me and take everything I have on me, be sure of that. Your ocarina will only fall into the hands of Voldemort if you give it to me. Keep your toy." And with these words, he tried to give the pendant back to her. She, however, would not take it, but put her hands behind her back in a refusal to accept the object back.

"Try to keep it on you by all means," she said. "Hide it in your mouth or in your - well, whatever turns out to be possible. It is an inconspicuous little thing, and I've observed that people do not tend to notice it much."

"That's ridiculous," he repeated, unable to think of something more convincing to say.

"For Keranta's sake, Verus, can't you for once do what I shnirking tell you?" she positively shouted at him. Their gazes met. For a moment, he lost himself in her grey eyes, framed by dark lashes and very fine crowfeet. His whole body seemed to feel the impact. He moved his head very slightly downwards. She returned his minimal nod.

Following a sudden impulse, he took something from his desk and pressed it into her palm - a small, flat object he had found while tidying up his office, a thing he had not thought of in a long time. She stole a fleeting glance at it. For a moment, her whole body expressed recognition. She did not utter any words, nor were any needed. Their eyes met for one last time; then she turned on her heels and left his office, noiselessly closing the door behind her. He flinched, as he had half expected she would slam it. Then, as if in slow motion, Snape hung the ocarina around his neck and hid it under his robes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After he had packed his personal affairs into two wooden crates and nailed them shut, wondering idly whether anyone would ever bother unpacking them and find his CD collection, Snape went up to Dumbledore's office. After determinedly operating the gargoyle, he found himself hesitating in front of the door. His hand on the doorknob, he remembered how shattered Dumbledore had looked when Snape had woken him with the bad news and revealed his plan to him.

For one thing, the 'accident', as Snape was inclined to call the occurrence involving Cho Chang and him, was a nasty thing to happen at any school. It did not look good. Parents would worry. Much worse, the 'accident' would all but destroy the school's reputation in the current situation. Between Icy Fingers and the injuries caused by Ice Missiles, rumours of a League camp, rumours of Black's presence at the school, an escaped Hippogriff, a renegade Death Eater and Lord Voldemort's daughter, things had not looked overly presentable at Hogwarts in the first place. Then the Minister of Magic had been murdered here, and the culprit had fled, unhindered by teachers and Headmaster. Now a girl was suffering the unpleasant effects of an accidentally imbibed potion - and again, before the culprit, the said renegade Death Eater, would be found and punished, he would be gone, presumably to rejoin his old master, Lord Voldemort. That, to put matters kindly, would look shnirking awful. Investiwitches and -wizards would practically camp at the school, trying to find out why everything was going wrong at the moment. Even if law enforcement would not be up to its usual standards due to the confusion about Fudge's murder, the consequences for the school could hardly be predicted. No headmaster could be anything like pleased by the current development, and he, Snape, had made things a lot worse.

For another matter, Snape knew that Dumbledore had been relying on him. How he hated to disappoint the old Headmaster! Sure, he might accomplish something useful with his mission, but then again, it was more likely that he was killed instantly, accomplishing nothing whatsoever. Dumbledore had been reluctant to let Snape go even in the current circumstances; he had made it clear that the Potions master was needed at Hogwarts. "Your place is here, Severus," he had said, like he had said to him every single time Snape had suggested he should vacate his post. Never before, however, had Dumbledore said it so insistently and with so much feeling. In a way, this was what scared Snape most: He would not only be missed because he really had a job to do at Hogwarts, but also for himself, as Dumbledore had made unequivocally clear.

Snape had always respected the Headmaster; he had admired him and had been grateful for the great wizard's kindness. To be respected in return had been one of his foremost goals in the past. Of course, they had had plenty of disagreements which had kept them at a certain distance from each other, a distance Snape found comfortable. Now, after all these years, however, he had to realise that Dumbledore actually seemed to like Snape - to care for him almost in a way he might have cared for one of his dead children once upon a time. In a way, the mere thought was unbearable. Dumbledore was old; he was sick; he was forsaken, and, in a way, orphaned by the betrayal of his own son. Snape would never go as far as saying he could take Evnissyen's place, but he had suddenly realised that by leaving, and possibly by dying, he was just one more person deserting the old wizard.

Just when opening the door in front of him had become a nearly impossible task to him, he felt the doorknob turn between his fingers; Dumbledore himself opened and beckoned him inside. As he followed him inside, Snape noticed that the Headmaster was leaning heavily on his wooden-and-silver staff, something he had to do at times, but avoided doing in front of the students out of sheer vanity. Snape almost smiled to himself.

"I wish you'd reconsider, Severus," Dumbledore said after he had sat down behind his desk. Fawkes stated his agreement with a single, mournful note. "You act like a man who feels he deserves death, but if the things you tell me are true, you do not."

"They are true." Snape tried to keep his face emotionless. He remained standing in a step away from the desk, unwilling to get too comfortable. "As for me deserving or not deserving death, the sentence may depend on the judge. I am innocent of seducing Miss Chang, but I am guilty of breaking the law, of brewing a potion that is strictly forbidden."

"Certainly not the kind of guilt that should be punished with death," Dumbledore countered.

"You do not think so? By law, at least, it is punished with a juicy Azkaban sentence. I, however, am not willing to undergo this punishment. I know the place. I have seen the way it drives witches and wizards insane. I am not going there."

Dumbledore nodded gravely. "And yet you risk your soundness of mind if you let me modify your memory. You know that, don't you?" It was not really a question.

"At least I may be doing something useful. If I go into Azkaban, or even go into hiding like Black and Lupin," he tried his best to pronounce the names in a neutral manner for Dumbledore's sake, "I will be utterly useless."

Dumbledore nodded again. Snape could not help noticing how depressed the Headmaster seemed. After a long, long silence, he reminded the Headmaster: "I have come to you because I am ready for the charm."

The old Headmaster shook his head, as if to disagree, but then he said: "We agreed on the following. I will alter your memory so that you will not remember you are going to Voldemort to spy; you will think you are completely going over to his side again. Only once a month, at every new moon, you will remember your true aim for half an hour and try to report to me or send me a message. You will lose access to a large part of your memory; instead, you will have a shallow concept of who you are supposed to be, what course your life is supposed to have taken, and which views you are supposed to hold. This will protect you from giving in to torture. As we both know that Voldemort will torture you, we will devise two further means of protection. For one, you will not feel the Crucio curse down to the core of your being, as that part of you is hidden from your own perception. Therefore, you will feel pain, but you will be able to bear it and not go insane from Crucio no matter how often it is employed. For another, we will implant into your memory the 'bait', the 'hidden agenda' we agreed on - a thing for Voldemort to extract from you by torture. We agreed that if he found out nothing unexpected from you, it would look far more suspicious to him than if he discovered that an evil plan of yourself was behind your almost incomprehensible step of returning to him. We agreed that I should install all this in your mind. You are perfectly aware that the charm may cause you permanent loss of memory, and that your undertaking may cost you your life, if things go wrong."

At first, Snape wondered why Dumbledore was telling him all this again, but then he realised that the Headmaster was turning the content of their earlier conversation into a kind of contract: He wanted Snape to hear once more what was going to happen to him if he had his memory modified; he did not want him to run blindly into peril. To ease the old wizard's mind, Snape patiently heard him out, then replied: "I am aware of all of this, and I agree to it."

He shook off a slight bout of shame remembering the bait the two of them had agreed on, the information they would let Voldemort forcefully extract from Snape: It had been necessary to confess some of his inner feelings to the Headmaster, and even to utter them had made the Potions master uncomfortable. The feeling of shame, however, soon evaporated. Once you had passed a certain point, Snape contemplated, once you had, for example, decided that death would be preferable to life, many things ceased to matter so much. For example, of course he was afraid of the torture; of course he was afraid of losing himself due to the memory charm, and he was afraid of death. On the other hand, a few hours ago, he had wanted to die, the quicker the better. From that perspective, he had exceeded his life expectancy already. He was hoping to detach himself from his self, from his body and mind - first by wanting to die, then by giving up his life in another way: Once his memory was modified, he would no longer be himself. He might feel pain, but he would not feel it himself: The other Snape, the Death Eater, would feel it. That Death Eater would also have to kneel in front of Voldemort and plead for the privilege of serving him again; he would once more have to commit horrors in his name, if Voldemort let him live. But this person would no longer be Snape himself; it would only be a tool, the ghost of someone who had jumped down from the Astronomy Tower tonight.

Dumbledore rose awkwardly from his seat; his bones must be bothering him, Snape thought. For a fleeting moment, he wondered why the Headmaster, one of the Ice Missile victims, had never been de-wanded. Surely he was more powerful of mind than students who often did not seem to know what they were doing even if they were not controlled by the Enemy. The Ice Missile should not be able to control the Headmaster. Yet when Dumbledore stood before him, his wand in his hand, a strange, almost triumphant light in his eyes, Snape suddenly felt afraid of him. He must have flinched, because Dumbledore put his wand back in his pocket and gave him one of his kind, pitying looks.

"Won't you reconsider, Severus?" he asked again. "I don't want you to die, and I don't want you in the claws of Voldemort under any circumstances. No matter how much we might need a spy - we need you alive and with us much more urgently. There is always another way. I am so afraid for you. You once tricked the Enemy, and might think you will trick him again. But please remember that he is well warned of you, and that he is not likely to ever trust you again. His wrath may be lethal. Won't you reconsider?"

"I have made up my mind, Dumbledore," Snape replied, unwilling to delay much longer. Soon the school would have to contact Cho's parents, and he wanted to be well away by then. He did not know where else to go.

Dumbledore sought Snape's gaze and held it for a long time. "I wish you the best of luck for your dangerous mission, and for all that comes afterwards," he said. "Say goodbye to me now, Severus, because if fate will have it so, we may never meet again." Then, unexpectedly for Snape, he hugged him firmly. Snape was taken aback. He could not remember being hugged, ever, by anyone. The sensation of Dumbledore's bony but strong arms around his back was strange; so was feeling a strand of the Headmaster's long, white hair touch his face. He did not know how to react. When Dumbledore let go of him, he looked at his feet, unsure of what to say. Finally, he murmured:

"Goodbye, and the best of luck to you, too, Albus. I am ready."

Dumbledore only nodded, and caught Snape's gaze for one last time. Then he raised his wand to Snape's forehead.

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