Almost Human

Almost Human

Chapter 10

Slytherin Tea

Severus took himself to the staff room after the Dark Arts lesson.

He wondered if the brats knew how fortunate they were, to be taught Defense not only by a Dark creature butbya real Dark wizard as well.

He hoped no one thought he'd talked about his days as a Death Eater by accident. He still had to talk to his Slytherins, and after not talking about it, on pain of death, for twenty years, it was hard to know how to begin.

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Severus dipped his quill in ink and wrote carefully, "Tea. Four o'clock Tuesday." He hesitated. He'd thought at great length about the wording of the invitation, and had chosen the guest list with exquisite care. Miss Zenobia. Mr. Hall. Miss Clouthon. Mr. Towrood. All from old families of the middling sort--not as distinguished as the Blacks, the Malfoys, and the Parkinsons, but not a lot of blood traitors like the Weasleys. None of the families were deeply involved with Voldemort, nor did any have a long tradition of involvement in the Dark Arts.

Once he talked to them, everyone would know that he was telling Slytherin children to repudiate Voldemort. It was funny to think that, even after his entire career as a spy, sending four invitations to tea might be the most dangerous thing he'd ever done.

Carefully, he wrote, "Professor Snape's rooms," on each invitation, then addressed them, and gave them to the four waiting school owls.

They flapped off. It was done.

#

In his fourth-year Potions lesson, the conversation on the Slytherin side was all, "Did you get one?" "No, what do you think it's about?" "He's never had anyone to tea before, has he?" That was Hall, who had gotten one.

At the end of the lesson, Hall hesitated by his desk, turning the invitation over in his hands. "Professor. I..." he trailed off.

"You will find out," Severus said ponderously, "What it's all about. On Tuesday."

"Yes sir," he said uncertainly.

#

"So do you know what it's about?" Zenobia plunked herself down on the arm of his chair.

"What what's all about?" he stalled.

"Professor Snape inviting us to tea. It's me, Darius Hall, Cassiopeia Clouthon, and Marcus Towrood. I think that's everybody. If anyone else got one, they aren't admitting it."

"I think it's something Dumbledore wants him to do," Draco answered. If Snape hadn't told them what he had planned, he must have a good reason for not wanting them to know.

"But what is it?"

"You're going to have to wait and see. But those questions you wanted to ask--you might be about to get your chance."

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He didn't like the idea of inviting students into his personal rooms, but there was no other appropriate venue for the conversation they were going to have. He refused, however, to make the place more welcoming; a house-elf bearing doilies was sent packing sharply. The menu was to be black tea, bread and butter, and plain biscuits. Severus had spurned Albus's suggestions that he hand around sweets.

It was a few minutes of four, and he could hear the children milling around outside. Probably in deep negotiations over who would have to knock.

At four o'clock on the nose, one of them finally did. Snape opened the door, and they all came in in a mass, looking around like there was going to be a pop quiz later.

"Stop gawking and sit down," he snapped. "Miss Clouthon, you'll pour," he ordered.

She did so, offering them each sugar and milk, even though there wasn't any milk. No one complained. Each of the children took one polite sip, and then they say, looking at him expectantly.

"Some of you," Severus began carefully, "Have already had careers advice. Some of you haven't." How inane. "But in any case, we should--that is--the Headmaster has asked me to talk to you about...some of the choices you'll have to make as you grow up."

"This isn't about sex, is it?" Hall asked, then clapped his hand over his mouth.

"No. It isn't about sex. It's about politics."

They all looked vastly relieved. If they had any sense, they'd wish it was about sex. "As you know, the wizarding world is once again divided against itself. Lord Voldemort is amassing followers, among them some of the most ancient and powerful of wizarding families. He promises solutions to some of the problems of the current regime. He promises power, he promises a world where wizards and witches need not live in secrecy. He promises a return to traditional ways. He lies."

The children looked at one another. "My parents," Towrood volunteered, "Don't support you-kn--Him."

"None of yours do," Snape answered him. "Not in any meaningful way. They may say he has some good ideas, or contribute to the right causes, but none of your families are active Death Eaters. That gives you a very valuable opportunity--the opportunity to remain neutral. And that's your best hope of surviving the current...upheaval."

"But that means," Cloutham said slowly, "Whoever wins, we won't be on the winning side."

Snape was about to answer, but Zenobia did first. "We won't be on the losing side, either."

"That's right. You might, if you like, join the Ministry against Voldemort. If you do, you might be killed. It's up to you to decide if that's worth the risk. If you join Voldemort, however, you stand to lose all life that's worthy of the name. Even if he wins."

"What do you mean?" Towrood asked. "I know he kills people who betray him--like the Malfoys--but--"

"The Malfoys. Yes," he snapped. This was harder than he had expected, and he had expected it would be hard. He saw Lucius, whirling Narcissa across a dance floor, both of them laughing. And he saw the creature Lucius had become, with his wand raised, speaking the killing curse. "They were lost long before they were killed," he blustered. "You wouldn't volunteer to be Kissed by a Dementor, would you? Of course not. Going down the path of Dark magic destroys your soul as surely as if you were Kissed. Voldemort has stopped being human--in his quest for power, he's turned himself into a monster. And his followers remake themselves in his image, with even less reward."

The children didn't understand, he could see it. They probably didn't want to understand. He tried again. "No one has ever gotten anything he wanted from Voldemort. The only opportunity he offers is the opportunity to be his slave."

There were dim looks of recognition on Cloutham's and Hall's faces, and Zenobia was nodding knowingly.

Snape moved to more comfortable ground. "If you want power--a perfectly laudable ambition, by the way--joining Voldemort is not the way to get it. Voldemort has power, but he hoards it for himself. If your only ambition is to kill as many people as possible, he might have something to offer you. But killing people isn't nearly as fulfilling as it sounds, and if you decide to stop, you'll earn yourself a violent and painful death."

Zenobia raised her hand tentatively.

"Yes, Miss Zenobia?"

"Why did you join him? I mean, you make it sound like you'd have to be pretty stupid to--" she shut her mouth abruptly.

"Precisely," he drawled. "But I didn't find that out until it was too late." They deserved a better answer than that, and he had several prepared. One of them started, They killed my parents. But instead he chose, "I found the idea of killing indiscriminately and without penalty...appealing." It hadn't just been that, though. It had also been the idea of being part of a cause that made him larger than himself. He ought to work that in. "All of the other young people were joining--all the ones who mattered," he added, thinking again of the Malfoys. "I'm sure you know how strong a temptation that is to the young." He could tell now they were thinking of Professor Snape being their age. "And my family was already deeply involved in the Dark Arts," he added, giving them the picture of Professor Snape having a mother and a father to chew over. "You should know," he continued hastily, "that the people from the best families won't start thinking of you as equals all of the sudden just because you've taken the Dark Mark. If Voldemort does win, your place is his regime will most likely be as someone's lackey. The Dumbledore side offers more opportunity to attain prestige. You won't get any preferment for being pure-blood--but you won't automatically have to stand behind anyone who happens to be able to trace his ancestry back to the Norman invasion, either."

"They don't let women do anything important, either, do they?" Zenobia asked shrewdly.

"Usually not. There's Bellatrix Lestrange....but Voldemort thinks most women lack the necessary ruthlessness for complicated Dark magic. He prefers that they stay out of the way and breed the next generation of pure-bloods."

Zenobia nodded. "That's what I thought."

"You don't have to listen to me, of course," Snape continued. "You'll make your own decisions. But I'm the only person you'll ever get a chance to talk to who has been on both sides. And Voldemort's side has nothing to recommend it. It's not about how pure your blood is...or how you feel about muggles. All he's interested in is living forever. Muggles don't matter. Mudbloods don't matter. His Death Eaters don't matter. If you want to be a pawn, join Voldemort. If you want to be anything else...anything else...don't."

"Why are you telling us this?" Towrood asked. "And how do we know you're telling the truth?"

Because Dumbledore had told him to, of course. "Why do you think I am?"

They thought about that. "We have to ask ourselves," Zenobia addressed her Housemates, "Why would he lie? Is there anything in it for him?"

"He wants Dumbledore to win. If Voldemort takes over, he'll kill him," Cloutham pointed out.

Snape didn't say anything, not yet. They were thinking about the problem, and that was good. He didn't want them to follow him blindly--not that they would if he asked them to.

"There are better ways to stop Voldemort killing him," Hall pointed out. "Like not betraying him in the first place, for starters."

"What if it's not about Voldemort?" Zenobia asked. "What if it's about us?"

They looked at each other. "What about us?" Cloutham asked irritably.

"So that we don't end up curse fodder just because we're pure-blood," Zenobia explained. The others looked at her like she'd grown a second head, without even taking any funny potions first.

Clearly, the notion that anyone, even their own Head of House, would so much as cross the street to save their lives was foreign to these children.

Or, perhaps, especially their Head of House.

"I hope," Snape said, "I've given you something to think about. Perhaps you won't have to make a decision as to where your loyalties lay for some time yet. Don't let anyone tell you that blood loyalty means you have to follow Lord Voldemort--it doesn't. You can be proud of your heritage if you like. You can even take up the Dark Arts if you like--once you're out of school, that is. If you've any ambitions in that line, you'd be better helping to defeat Voldemort, though, so you've a clear field to set yourself up as a Dark wizard. He's not fond of competition. On the other hand, you can spend your week-ends helping little old muggle ladies across the street if you like, too. It doesn't matter how you feel about muggles and--wizards of muggle heritage," he borrowed Draco's phrase, "No matter what your politics are otherwise, no matter what you might like to do with your lives, joining Voldemort is...a very bad idea." A weak phrase, but everything else he had tried came out like he was trying to be dramatic. "Do you have any further questions?"

"Yes," Zenobia said. "Why did you stop being a Death Eater? I mean, I can see why you wish you hadn't started, but once you had, why did you stop when you knew it could get you killed?"

Somehow, he hadn't expected that question. From Draco, yes, but not from the others. The Order members all thought it was more or less self evident that evil had to be fought, that if you weren't with Voldemort you were against him. With these children, he had taken a pragmatic approach--the only approach they might believe. But since she had asked.... "I didn't want to live in the world we were creating," he answered. That was a more honest answer than they could know. Turning himself over to Dumbledore had been, he knew, something by way of a suicide attempt. He was still astonished that the old man hadn't killed him the second he opened the door on him.

Zenobia nodded, but her brow was creased in puzzlement.

He stood, and the children read that--correctly--as dismissal.

#

"Come in," Draco called, at the knock on his door.

It was Zenobia who came in. He had been expecting Snape. "Hi Draco," she said. "How's it going?" She avoided looking at him, or his wheelchair.

"Not bad. What's up?"

"I just came from tea at Snape's."

"Oh, that was today?" he asked casually. He was still a little cross that he hadn't been invited. "What did he want?"

"He told us why we shouldn't run off and join the Death Eaters."

"Oh. How did it go?"

She shrugged. "Okay. Some of the things he said made a lot of sense."

"They usually do."

"Is he for real?" she asked abruptly.

"Yes. He's for real."

"You've met Voldemort," she said slowly.

"Yeah." You could call it that, he supposed. "He's a complete fucking lunatic."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Draco waved at the sofa. "You want to sit down?"

"No, I'd better not stay. He said...Snape, I mean...that going with Voldemort doesn't have anything to do with blood loyalty."

"That's...well, in a way...if you look at it logically, it doesn't. But most people don't look at it that way." Pansy and the others, after all, had called him a blood traitor when Mother agreed to go Minister's evidence against Voldemort and his followers. "If you're against Voldemort in any way that matters, people are going to say you're a blood traitor. So you have to decide if you care about that or not." He didn't, anymore. Being pure-blood did mean something--it meant a certain set of attitudes, a style of upbringing, manners, traditions. Muggle-born and mixed blood wizards lived differently from the old pureblooded families. The distinction wasn't arbitrary. It just meant a lot less than he had grown up thinking it meant.

Zenobia nodded. "Okay."

Draco wondered if what she was really thinking was whether that would be enough to get her thrown off the Slytherin Quidditch team. He didn't know, but he hoped she knew that the Dragons would take her back, if it did.

#

"Professor?" Draco peered into his office, oddly hesitant. Perhaps he wasn't sure of his welcome.

"Hello, Draco. Come in."

He did. "Prosecutor Littlebourne sent me this." He passed Snape a roll of parchment.

It was oddly disappointing--he realized he had hoped the boy had come by for a visit. Even though they had made up, things were still a little strained between them.

But the contents of the letter distracted him from those thoughts. "Mr. Malfoy," the letter read. "I'm afraid I must ask you and your guardian to come to the Ministry again, to discuss a few small matters we didn't cover in your original interview. Will Friday afternoon suit? I await your answer by return owl. Sincerely, Deputy Prosecutor Amelia Littlebourne."

"We're not going," Snape said. It was a transparent ruse--the first attempt to ambush them in the Ministry had failed, so they were being summoned there again.

Draco looked vastly relieved.

"You still have to answer her questions," he clarified, "But we're not going to the Ministry again until we find out who sent that note last time. We'll invite her here--she won't dare try anything under Dumbledore's nose."

Draco slumped. "I liked her," he said irrelevantly. "I mean--cockroach clusters, ew--but I hope she isn't trying to kill me."

"Perhaps she isn't," Snape said, although he thought she probably was, or knew who was. "She could be someone's dupe."

"Yeah, maybe." Draco sounded unconvinced.

It would make a nice change if Draco hadn't been betrayed by someone he liked, this time. But Severus wasn't holding out much hope. "I'll write back to her, if you'd rather not."

"Thanks." Draco sat back in his chair. "How'd your tea-party go?"

"It was not a tea-party," Snape said waspishly.

"Sorry. I mean, how was it having Zeno and the others over for tea?"

"Strange," he answered. "I think I've had more people in my rooms in the last month than I have in the last sixteen years."

"Did you know," Draco said, "The Ravenclaws go knocking on Flitwick's door at all hours of the night? Violet told me she went there all the time in her first term, when she was homesick. I guess she didn't have any friends or something before she started Quidditch. He made her hot chocolate."

Snape had known, but he shared Draco's wonderment. "I think if I'd woken up my head of house to tell him I missed my mum, I'd have been killed. Or at least expelled."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Draco said. Snape mock-glared at him.

"You can wake me up if you like," he said generously.

"I know."

"And of course the others could if there was a genuine emergency."

"Like what?" Draco asked curiously.

"Well--if the castle were on fire, I suppose. Or if someone was bleeding...though that's really Poppy's department...." He was having trouble thinking of a situation that really would warrant his attention in the middle of the night. One that involved neither Draco nor Potter. "If somebody eloped," he decided, "And their roommates didn't notice until lights-out. They'd have to come and get me then. Or if someone started throwing around Dark curses in the common room, and wouldn't stop when the prefects told them to."

"I don't know about the current prefects," Draco said, "But Pansy and I wouldn't have tried to stop anyone doing Dark curses in the common room, unless maybe we were trying to study in there."

"Well, whatever." He rather thought that his Slytherins ought to be able to come to him under some circumstances--even if he didn't coddle them like some Heads of House did--and was vaguely disquieted that neither of them could think of a plausible scenario in which they might.

"We Slytherins are just more independent, I guess, than the Ravenclaws," Draco said. "I expect it's good for us in later life."

"Yes," Snape agreed. Except when it wasn't.

They talked a bit longer, and when Draco seemed reluctant to leave, Severus set him to marking the first years' homework, while he composed a carefully worded reply to Miss Littlebourne--one that didn't quite come out and say we know you're trying to kill us but still clearly communicated that they were on to her.

When an owl swooped in ten minutes after his left, his first thought was that Miss Littlebourne was working late, and that she had a very fast owl.

Then he read the letter, and thought nothing for almost a minute, shocked numb.

Not by the news, but because it felt like it mattered.

"What is it?" Draco asked, looking worriedly at him.

"Miss Bulstrode," he said slowly. "She's dead."

"Oh." Draco looked down. "How? Voldemort?"

"Probably. Somebody from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement entered her cell and found her dead. They don't know how yet." They probably didn't care, much. "It'll be in the papers tomorrow. They sent me...they wanted to notify me ahead of time, because I was her Head of House. And I might want to break the news gently to her friends, they say." He looked bleakly at Draco. "Did she have any?"

"I don't think so." They sat and avoided looking at each other for a few minutes. "It's too bad," Draco said. "She was probably the least guilty of all of them."

It wasn't much of a eulogy, but it was probably all she was going to get. Severus thought he ought to be glad: she had--at the very least--stood by and watched while Parkinson and the others tortured Draco. She had known what they had planned, and had let it go forward, even if she hadn't actively participated herself. He should be glad.

But he wasn't.

Millicent Bulstrode had spent her school days being the butt of her classmates' jokes, and had been too blind, or too stupid, or too...something...to notice when they had passed from casual cruelty to casual atrocity.

Perhaps it hadn't felt all that different.

He remembered her tearfully admitting that she fancied Draco, and that she had thought that kissing him under the Imperius Curse was the best she could hope for.

She had probably been right.

His own reasons for following the Malfoys and the Lestranges into Voldemort's service were no better than hers for following Parkinson and the rest. He had done far worse than she had by the time he was her age, and it was only by luck that he had survived.

Draco continued, "This is really stupid, but I kind of feel....she had a thing for me, you know. I thought it was sort of funny. And sort of disgusting. You remember what she looked like."

Snape nodded.

"But now I wonder if...well, if I hadn't been quite so awful to her, maybe..."

"It's not your fault," Severus said. "She made her own decisions."

"Well, yeah, I know. But I still feel sort of bad about it." Then Draco looked defiant and added, "If the others get killed too, I want to piss on their graves."

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