Soul's Memory

The room was lit only by the swirling green light of the two Pensieves. Fog billowed off one, and a mass of silver strands coiled over and around each other deep inside. The other Pensieve stood empty, emitting only a dull olive-green glow.

The wizard, the Watcher, worked in solitude. It was meticulous work and his hands shook slightly. He had been working for over an hour, and time was short. But he never faltered, never stopped. Over and over he brought his wand to his ear, and pulled another silver strand from his memory. He caught each glowing thread lightly, and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger.

Lily. He had identified eight hundred and ninety-one memories that could betray him. Nearly nine hundred pieces of thought, which if uncovered, could lead to his death and the likely end of the world. It was shocking, then, that only twenty-nine of those memories were about Lily. There were days, after all, when he hated Dumbledore with a burning passion. And truthfully, he hated Harry Potter every day. But the memory of his soul--the only memory he could hide--remembered Lily as if it were yesterday.

This was the eight hundred and ninety first memory, but the night was young and the damage needed to be done before dawn. Memory, he snorted. This one was no real memory; it was a fantasy, but one he had replayed so often that he had for a time convinced himself that it could maybe, possibly, one day come true. Convincing, indeed, he mocked himself, with all those qualifiers. This fantasy was particularly damning, if you knew what to look for. He rubbed it again, and remembered.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The surroundings were indistinct; he had played out this particular sick delusion on the beach, in a bar, and on crowded streets. Lily and James Potter walked down the street, arm in arm. He was the appointed Watcher, and so followed closely behind, waiting for the violence to start. And it did: the windows on a nearby house burst out, spewing drops of molten glass on the passersby.

"Lily!" shrieked James. "Get down!" The Dark Mark grew, etched in the sky, and the Death Eaters, laughing, erupted out of the ruined house. Lucius Malfoy saw the Potters first.

"Well, well," Lucius rumbled. "It looks like we found ourselves a little bit of a bonus." In a trice, the Potters were surrounded, stripped of their wands, and magically bound. The Watcher didn’t close ranks with his fellow Death Eaters, but he observed.

"Lily," cooed Bellatrix. "I just love what you've done with your hair. But my mother taught me a beauty spell. I bet it would improve your looks." Bellatrix stood back, brandishing her wand. "Crucio!" And Lily screamed, every muscle tensing. The magical bonds kept her from falling to the ground, but she wept and tossed against them.

"No!" shouted James.

"Oh, Jamesy," sighed Bellatrix. "You will have your turn. But first, you'll watch Lily." Bellatrix dipped her wand, ending the spell, and Lily slumped, sobbing. "There," said Bellatrix. "I thought that what you needed was a little more pain. It really brings out the bloom in your cheeks, you know. But the effects are fading already. Perhaps we should do it again?"

Before Bellatrix could act on her threat, a fourth Death Eater shoved his way into the group. "Shit, Bell. Dumbledore's on his way," Antonin warned. "We better finish this fast."

"Allow me, Dolohov." Lucius intervened. He pointed his wand at Lily. "Avada Kedavra!" he shouted. And somehow, James broke through his magical bonds. As the killing green light flashed towards Lily, James threw himself in front of her. And the Watcher--he was a Watcher, and therefore sensitive to the magic of the soul--saw what the others could not.

James, that stupid brave sot, threw his life away without thought to the powerful residue that remained. (This, thought the Watcher as he remembered, was always a favorite part of his fantasia--James Potter's death.) The most powerful magics were wrought with newly sundered souls. The lightest of those spells were forged with lives given freely. The dark ones, of course, were built with lives taken by force. But the darkest of the dark spells grasped the power released by a life given for another, and used it to bend reality to their will.

The few people who could sense soul's magic would have understood the silent spell that the Watcher cast using James' senseless sacrifice. If they had a soul to see, they would have seen the Watcher use the power given by James. They would have seen him take hold of the love between James and Lily. That love was twisted, wrenched, and used to extinguish everything good in Lily. Some magic, after all, was worse than unforgivable.

"Thank God," the new Lily said, as James' body fell to the ground. "He was getting to be such a pain." The Watcher, silently, cut her bonds. Lily stepped free, and walked over to the Watcher, while the other Death Eaters watched in surprise.

"So," she said, offering him her arm. "Tell me how I can pledge my soul to Voldemort."

He, curse him for a fool, kissed her cheek and took her away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Watcher shuddered out of the fantasy. If only they had died in that manner, he thought. If only James had the gumption to die for Lily in real life. But no. It hadn't really been like that. No. Instead, she bound me with her death.

This daydream wasn't difficult to doctor. Chances were, in fact, that Voldemort would never be able to see soul's magic again. Voldemort had cut, crossed, and adulterated his soul so many times that he demonstrably didn't recognize the subtle forms of soul's magic when it was performed right in front of his nose. But nothing could be left to chance; when the world is on the line, an abundance of caution is indicated.

"Duplis," the Watcher whispered, tapping the memory. It shimmered, coiled, and split in two. One of the silver threads was dropped into the empty Pensieve, where it hissed, sputtered, and began to emit a light fog. He tapped the other memory with his wand. "Alterio." Like that, he spliced the ending away. In the new ending, Lily was less willing, and the Watcher did substantially more than watch. Still, he apologized to Lily, it's not as if the old fantasy respected your wishes and your boundaries. And this is no time to respect any boundaries at all, not if you want your son to survive. That was, after all, what his war was about. For everyone else, it was about the Boy Who Lived. He was, he imagined, the only person in the world who remembered the Mother Who Died.

One down; eight hundred and ninety to go. He pulled another silver thread from the roiling Pensieve.

He worked throughout the night, the new memories slipping into his head one by one. His soul remembered who he was, remembered the debt that he owed. But he found himself becoming more and more the Death Eater that he only pretended to be. The truth of the matter, he admitted to himself, was that he could not afford to hide his thoughts from Voldemort. He was, he humbly admitted, only the world's greatest occlumens. And, he humbly admitted, the world's greatest occlumens could assuredly put off the world's second-greatest legilimens. But Voldemort would want to know why.

"Dark Lord," he imagined himself saying, "I can't possibly let you know what I'm thinking, because I'm plotting your death. It was supposed to be a surprise. For your birthday. With candles. And a dancing gorilla." It didn't go over well, not even in his imagination. Voldemort had no sense of humor. Thought by thought, he doctored away the evidence that he had been hiding for so many years. Eight hundred and ninety-one truths needed to be shaded, filled in, or otherwise destroyed. The twenty-ninth memory of Lily--her actual death--needed only slight alteration. But he obliterated some conversations with Dumbledore entirely.

Ah, the Watcher thought, as he spliced his last memory of Dumbledore. I had forgotten. Voldemort is now the world's greatest legilimens. Not second-best any longer. Maybe the Watcher's hands shook when he slipped the altered memory back into his brain; maybe his eyes watered. Or maybe not, for he never slowed, and never fumbled.

Hours passed, and the Watcher watched, and edited, and taught himself falsehoods. Finally, the last gleaming thread was duplicated; the last alteration performed. The first Pensieve, once filled with memories, sat empty. The second, once-empty Pensieve now boiled over with silver threads. And his mind teemed with falsehoods. For now, he could remember that they were false. For now, he could remember what he needed to do to finish the task at hand. The Watcher stood, stretched. "Lumos." A bright flare of light burst from his wand. The room suddenly stood out in sharp focus--a narrow bed, a small table containing one empty Pensieve and one billowing one, a desk with a jumble of scrolls and a self-inking quill. The Watcher pushed up the sleeves of his black robe, and sat down at the desk.

Parchment, parchment. Blank piece of parchment? He found one, underneath a grotty copy of Poisonous Potions and How to Administer Them.

Dear Miss Granger, he wrote. You have no reason to trust me, and every reason to wish me harm. As you will see from these thoughts, I am on your side. I trust that you will keep these memories close to your heart. Share as you think fit, but be careful--the Dark Lord has spies everywhere. I have destroyed or altered the originals. You'll have to verify my research. I can think of nobody else qualified. For that reason, I give you my password. You'll need to access the restricted portion of the library . . . .

The Watcher scratched on, and finally stood up. "Incendio." He tapped the letter, and it burst into flame. Satisfied, he pulled the memory of writing the letter from his head. Another tap, and the memory turned bright green; when he slipped it into the full Pensieve, pregnant with duplicated memories, it shone like a snake in a sea of silver.

Almost there. A simple concealment charm turned the boiling Pensieve into a gazing ball, silver with a single green line inked across its surface. A shrinking spell shrunk the sphere to the size of a small marble. The Watcher gestured, and the shutters of his window opened. It was a warm summer night--soon, he gathered from the violet hints in the east, to be a hot summer day. Next to the silver marble, he added a feather, a sprinkling of dust from a container labeled "Powdered Eye of Newt," and finally, a single strand of curly brown hair. A flask in his pocket unstoppered to reveal a brilliant blue cordial. And there--just a drop, as the first rays of morning light hit the glinting sphere.

The ball shimmered, grew wings, and hovered in the air. "Go to her, then," he whispered. Away winged all of his secrets. He watched the messenger glint, like a snitch made of silver, until it passed beyond the trees. It would take weeks to arrive, of course. But the Dark Lord's wards would have detected a more powerful spell, and owls were searched thoroughly.

He had worked through the night, and was deathly tired. But tasks remained. The shutters closed, and he climbed into bed. "Obliterus," he commanded, and the empty Pensieve crumbled to dust. In the final hours before the household woke, he extruded one final memory: The memory of tonight, of the damage he had wrought upon his psyche. "Obliterus," he whispered again, and like that, all traces of his night's work disappeared.

The Watcher felt despair and confusion as he looked up to the ceiling. Who am I? What do I want? Who do I serve? And why is the light on?

The last, he could take care of. Let there be darkness, he thought grimly. "Nox." And there was dark.

* * * Several hours later, the door swung open, and another black-robed man stepped inside.

"Wake up, Severus!" laughed Antonin Dolohov, seating himself on the chair. "I hear that you killed Dumbledore last night. The Dark Lord just arrived, and he wants to hear all about it."