Almost Human

Almost Human

Chapter 11

Cockroach Clusters

Two days later, waiting for Prosecutor Littlebourne in Dumbledore's sitting room, Draco asked, "Have they found out what happened to Milly?"

He should have said "Bulstrode." Snape glanced over at him sympathetically.

"She was poisoned," Dumbledore answered. "But they don't know by whom. None of the guards appear to be involved, nor did they see anyone who didn't belong near the holding cells.

"Are there any theories as to why she was murdered, and not the others?" the Professor asked.

"Apparently she was cooperating with the prosecution."

"I told her to do that," Snape said glumly.

"She didn't have a whole lot of choices, did she?" Draco asked pragmatically. "She could have ended up a whole lot worse than dead if she hadn't cooperated." He didn't want the Professor to start brooding again.

"That's true." Snape didn't sound happy about it.

"I don't know what she thought was going to happen," Draco continued. "But I can't decide how to feel about it. Because she made her own bed, didn't she? Feeling worse about her than I would if it had happened to Pansy instead...well, that's like saying she was too pathetic to be responsible for her actions, isn't it? But maybe she was." It was hard to explain. He pitied her. But in her place, he wouldn't want to be pitied.

"She made her own bed," Snape agreed slowly. "But I still...she didn't deserve to die, did she?" He looked over to Dumbledore as if he wasn't entirely sure that was the right answer.

"She didn't," Dumbledore agreed. "She does, of course, bear the ultimate responsibility for her choices. But none of us will ever know if there was something we could have done to lead her to choose differently."

Draco wondered if he was really talking about Milly, because Snape suddenly became very interested in his cuff buttons.

"Still," Draco said, "It doesn't bother me a bit knowing there's someone who wants this trial to go ahead even less than I do. Maybe they'll get to all of them, and I won't have to testify."

"Maybe," Snape said. "But I expect the Ministry is taking extra precautions to protect the other defendants."

"Won't help much if it's someone in the Ministry who killed her, will it?" Draco asked.

The fireplace, which had been burning gently, flared up. "Ah," Dumbledore said. "Unless I'm mistaken, that will be Miss Littlebourne."

It was. She rolled out of the fireplace in a somersault, bounced to her feet, and brushed off her robes. "Hello," she said. "Not late, am I?"

Snape was looking at her with undisguised loathing.

"No, indeed, you're right on time," Dumbledore said.

"Good. I am sorry," she added, "To trouble you again. Personally, I thought we could have handled Mr. Finks's--that's my superior--that we could have handled his queries by owl. But he insisted that I had to ask them in person. It shouldn't be too difficult." She peered at Draco anxiously.

"I don't mind," he said. It wasn't answering the questions that he minded. It was the fact that someone was trying to lure him to the Ministry to kill him. Or the Professor, which would be almost as bad.

"Cockroach cluster?" she offered, taking a handful of them from her pocket.

"No, thank you," Draco said politely. Snape just shuddered. "Do you know anything about what happened to Millicent Bulstrode?" He decided to stall for time before they started the questions.

"Know?" Littlebourne asked, sitting down in a chintz armchair. "I found her. It was horrible."

"Found her?" Snape asked sharply.

"Yes--she's cooperating with the prosecution, you know. I've met with her several times to go over her testimony. She doesn't know anything--or doesn't know that she knows anything--about the Death Eaters, really. We had been going over every contact she had with them. Conversations she overheard, people she saw but didn't recognize, that sort of thing. Putting together her information with that from other sources, we've come up with a few decent leads. But she can't--couldn't--evaluate what was important and what wasn't, so it meant hours of interviews. We weren't even close to finished. Sad girl," she added parenthetically.

They agreed that she was, indeed, sad.

"Poisoned, I heard." Snape dragged them back on topic.

"That's how it looks."

"They don't know what poison?" The Professor sounded faintly scornful.

"It's not any of the usual suspects. Cause of death was dehydration--she vomited herself to death, to be blunt. Could have been almost anything."

"Can you send me samples?" Snape asked.

"What for?"

"I might be able," he said patiently, "To determine the nature of the poison." His mouth twisted. "There's an outside chance I invented it, although most of my work was a bit more baroque. If it's one of mine, we'll know the Death Eaters killed her."

"Who else might it have been?" Littlebourne asked innocently.

Snape declined to answer.

"Well," Draco said into the looming silence. "You had some questions?"

"Indeed." She looked at her notebook. "Your father. When did you last see him?"

"In Azkaban, last summer. June. I don't remember the date." He wished he did. He hadn't known it was going to be the last time.

"Sorry, the last time before he was arrested?"

"Christmas. Christmas of the year before last."

"Did he tell you anything--"

"No."

"About--"

"No, he never told me anything about anything."

"Something you may not have recognized as important, like we were talking about with Millicent."

"He never told me anything. Why is that so difficult for you to understand? HE. NEVER. TOLD. ME. ANYTHING!" He was screaming by the time he got to the last word. No one asked him why--he couldn't have said.

The Professor got up to stand beside him.

"Nothing," he repeated quietly. "Never." It felt like a literal truth. Father must have spoken to him sometimes, but he couldn't remember a thing he had said.

"Fine," Littlebourne said warily. "Nothing." She made a note.

"Draco, do you need a moment?" Dumbledore asked.

"No," he said quickly. Better to get this over with, now that they had started.

The Professor put his hand on his shoulder. Draco put his own hand over it.

"Pansy Parkinson," Littlebourne continued. "Did she become a Death Eater while you were still involved?"

"I don't think so." If she had been, he'd have been hurt--angry and ashamed--that it hadn't been him. It was funny, thinking that, since now he knew he was well out of it.

Except it still hurt that Father hadn't thought he was good enough.

He pulled himself back to Littlebourne's question. "No. She'd have said, I'm pretty sure." Pansy wasn't the sort of girl who would hold off bragging to spare his feelings. They hadn't had that sort of relationship.

"How about any of the others?"

"No. Pansy would have been the first, of the kids our age."

"Parkinson was first," Snape agreed. "It would have been...November. While you were in hospital, Draco. Your department should have that information, as I gave it to them."

"You gave it to the Aurors, I would expect," Littlebourne said. "They don't always share."

Snape tipped his head in acknowledgement.

She asked a few more questions, about minor details of his statement, then closed her notebook and said, "There. That wasn't so bad, I hope."

"It was fine."

"Sorry we couldn't handle it by owl. Don't forget about that mental status exam. You should do it soon."

Draco wondered if she thought he was crazy. He wondered if he was. But he just said, "Okay."

"The Healer," Snape said, "Will have to come here. And the Headmaster's going to decide which one."

Miss Littlebourne nodded understanding. "Yes, of course. As long as it's done before the trial."

Draco wondered if that was a good sign. If she was the one trying to kill him, she would insist that he go to St. Mungo's, wouldn't she?

They said their farewells, and Miss Littlebourne left through the fireplace.

"What do you think?" Draco asked, when she had gone.

The Professor knew what he meant. "I'm not sure. If it is her, she's playing it close to the vest. She's decided not to try anything for a while."

Draco nodded.

"You don't want it to be her, do you?" Snape asked shrewdly.

"Not particularly," Draco said evasively.

The Professor patted his shoulder. "It's all right." He sat down, nudging his chair closer to Draco's. "Your father," he said.

"What about him?" He didn't want to talk about that.

"I'm sorry."

"What for?" It wasn't his fault. The Professor had told Father he couldn't be trusted, but he'd only done it to protect him. And he didn't fool himself that Father would have really cared about him if Snape hadn't gotten involved.

But the Professor seemed to be thinking seriously about the question. "I suppose," he said slowly, "That you didn't know him before. He probably would have been a good father, if Voldemort hadn't gotten his fangs into him."

"You liked him a lot, didn't you?" It was a strange thought, somebody actually liking Father, as opposed to fearing him or liking what he could do for them.

"I did."

"What was he like?"

"I don't know if I can answer that. I was several years below him in school. By the time I spent much time with him, we were both--" He shrugged. "You know. He was funny. Witty, more like. Intelligent, very popular. Charismatic. Good at Quidditch. He played Chaser."

None of that was exactly what Draco was asking, and Snape seemed to know it.

"Occasionally," he continued, "He was kind." He shifted in his seat. "First year, I was having some trouble with flying lessons. He took me out one morning and coached me until I could get through lessons without embarrassing myself."

That was as unlike Father as anything he could imagine.

"He said," Snape added, "That he did it because he didn't want me embarrassing the House. But--" He shrugged.

It did sound like something Draco would say, if he was caught being nice to some swotty first year who nobody liked. And he might even have believed it.

"I thought about that when you started your Quidditch team," the Professor added.

Draco wondered if the story was true. If Snape was going to whip up a story to make him feel better, it would probably be a lot like the one he had just told. But Snape didn't usually lie to him. He'd told the truth many times when a lie would have spared Draco's feelings--even the Professor's stubborn insistence that he didn't know why he'd saved Draco's life spoke more of his guilt and confusion than a desire to avoid the truth.

"He probably would have muddled along all right, as a father," Snape continued, "At least." He spoke almost as if Draco's Father had died.

"I guess I just don't understand," he said slowly. They had talked about it before. Maybe he was stupid not to understand yet. "Why--it--changed him so much." But that wasn't quite it. He knew that Dark magic was corrupting, and he accepted that it was a slow version of the Dementor's Kiss. But.... "....and not you." Because if he had to pick between having a Potions professor who loved him an parents who did....

"Y think it didn't?" Snape drawled.

But Dumbledore quelled him with a look. "I'm sure you were affected profoundly by your service to Voldemort," he acknowledged, "But your choice to leave his service and enter mine proves that you retained your humanity to a degree that others did not."

Which was all well and good--and Snape probably needed the reassurance--but it didn't answer his question.

But the Professor hadn't forgotten. "I don't know. I've wondered what I have that--that Lucius didn't. Perhaps--my own father used to tell a story about a wizard who wore his heart on his sleeve, until a harpy ate it, leaving him a shell of himself."

Draco thought that story sounded familiar.

"The point of the story was supposed to be that one should always be governed by reason, intellect, not emotion, because feelings could be used against you," Snape continued. "But maybe he interpreted it wrong. Perhaps it means that emotion is the first casualty of Dark magic. Maybe more emotional people are affected more." He shrugged. "I left Voldemort's service for intellectual reasons--I didn't see his policies heading anywhere I wanted to go. Not because I felt morally--emotionally--repelled. I thought I ought to be, but I wasn't. Which sounds like I'm saying I was smarter than Lucius, but that's not exactly what I mean."

Draco thought he understood a little, now. Dementors fed on feelings, and if the corrupting effects of Dark magic were like a Dementor, then Snape had fought them by not having any.

And what Father had lost had been his feelings--his love for Mother, whatever compassion had led him to help Snape when they were boys. Most people made moral choices with their hearts--once his heart was gone, a man could rationalize anything--even killing his own son.

"I don't know," Snape repeated. "Maybe I was just lucky."

Draco thought "Lucky" was the last way he'd describe Snape's life, but he said, "Lucky. Maybe."

#

When the parcel from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement arrived, Severus sent his last period class away early, so he could open it in private and get to work right away. It held three glass phials--one of blood, one of vomitus, and one of the gruel that had been Bulstrode's last meal. There was also an envelope, which contained a hank of the girl's dishwater blond hair. The collection of artifacts was a lot like Millicent herself--repellent, but somehow inexpressibly sad.

It was a fey thought, and Severus Snape was many things, but fey was never one of them. He shook the thought away, and set to work. The first thing he tested was the hair. Early in his years with Voldemort, he had suggested inoculating all Death Eaters with a slow-acting poison that would remain inert as long as they received the counter-agent regularly. The counteragent, he had pointed out, could be distributed at Death Eater meetings, so that anyone who betrayed the Dark Lord would die horribly without any of them having to lift a finger.

As far as he knew, his plan had never been put into practice. But Bulstrode had betrayed the Dark Lord, and she had died horribly, so it was worth checking out.

Besides, some part of him wondered how well his poison might have worked.

After preparing the solution that would detect the presence of the poison, he clipped an inch or so from the lock of hair and dropped it in.

Nothing happened.

It had been a long shot, anyway. He started setting up more tests, and soon had seven cauldrons going. Draco came in then and said, "Some of the kids said you threw a fit and pitched everyone out of Potions."

"I did not." Severus didn't bother looking up from what he was doing.

"Yeah, it didn't sound like something you would do. What's up?"

"Testing the samples from Miss Bulstrode's...." He wasn't sure what to call it.

"Oh, yeah. Can I help?"

Severus said, "Yes," and then tried to figure out how. "A little bit later," he decided.

"Okay." Draco leaned against the end of the workbench that Snape wasn't using. "What have you found out?"

"Sod all."

"Oh."

He rethought his answer. "I've found a number of things she wasn't poisoned with."

"I guess that's good."

"Well, she was definitely poisoned with something," he said peevishly.

"Um, yeah."

Severus turned and looked at him. "What are you doing standing up?" he asked, shocked.

Draco smirked. "I wondered how long it was going to take for you to notice."

"How long have you been doing that?"

"Ages."

"Good," he said vaguely. Wasn't that something Draco should have told him about? Maybe he had started while they were fighting.

"So I guess I'm going to be okay," Draco said, sounding like he wasn't sure.

"Probably." Snape studied him. He was leaning heavily against the workbench. His balance was probably terrible, and there had to be considerable muscle weakness--he hadn't been doing his physical therapy. Not that Severus could blame him.

But he was upright, and that was more than anyone had a right to expect. He could easily be dead, like poor Millicent. Only in that case, Severus wouldn't have to waste an afternoon researching what happened to him, because he'd know, know know.

"Good," Draco said. "I think I'll sit down now."

"Done showing off?"

"For now." he flopped into his wheelchair. Severus wondered how much standing up like that...waiting for Severus to notice...had taken out of him. "So...did Milly have any friends?"

"Not that I noticed." He had assembled the Slytherins in their common room to break the news that their former Housemate had been murdered. When he told them, they had started back at him, as if they couldn't imagine why he was making a point of telling them. Except for Zenobia, Hall, and Towrood, who--clustered together on one of the sofas--had exchanged knowing looks.

"Sad," Draco said, and then shrugged.

"Yes," Severus agreed distractedly.

"I'm still not sure," Draco continued, "How much I care. That's she's dead, who killed her, all of it."

"Who killed her could be important later. As for caring that she's dead--" It was his turn to shrug. "I don't so much care, as I think someone should." That was really the crux of the matter. A girl was dead, and nobody cared.

He took an eyedropper and dripped minute amounts of Busltrode's stomach contents into the solutions he'd prepared. The second one from the left frothed and steamed.

"What's that mean, then?" Draco asked.

"That is actual progress. She was poisoned with some kind of plant alkaloid." That narrowed the field to a manageable number of poisons.

"Most of those aren't exactly hard to come by, are they?" Draco asked.

"No," he agreed. Unless the murderer had chosen to use a plant available only on a certain mountaintop in Peru where he or she happened to have a holiday cottage, chances were good that identifying the specific poison used wouldn't move the investigation forward.

Still, it was the only aspect of the whole mess he had any control over, so he set up another batch of experiments, and directed Draco to start some of the simpler solutions.

"Like old times, isn't it? You and me, making potions."

"Yes."

"It's good we're friends again."

"Indeed." Severus dripped armadillo bile into a flask of snake blood.

"You don't sound very happy about it," Draco complained.

"I'm deliriously happy," he said vaguely. "That's supposed to be quarter-inch dice, you know."

Draco gave him the Victory sign backwards. "How long, do you suppose, before I can play Quidditch again?"

"Don't know. Eventually, I suppose."

"Yeah. We've got the weather for it. I think the team would like to have a match, but nobody wants to say anything since I can't play."

"Wouldn't matter--when the Slytherin side isn't using the pitch, the Gryffindors are." The final match for the House cup was coming up.

"I didn't think of that," Draco admitted. "I suppose it doesn't matter, then."

"No, I suppose not," Snape agreed.

"That cauldron on the left's bubbling over."

Severus swore and took it off the fire.

"What's that, then?"

He checked his list. "Amarylis."

Draco banged a measuring spoon down on the worktop and shoved his chair back. "So anybody could have gotten it out of his Auntie Mable's garden for all we know," he said disgustedly.

"Yes," Severus admitted.

"Fat waste of time."

"You never know. We could have found out something." He was disappointed too--he'd have liked to have found the clue that identified Bulstrode's killer.

"Yeah. I don't suppose there's anyone in the Death Eaters who grows prizewinning amaryllis as a hobby?" Draco asked hopefully.

Severus gave him a withering look.

"Yeah, I guess I didn't really think so."

"On the other hand," Snape said, "If she'd been trampled by an Ayershire bull, I'd know exactly where to point the finger." Except that Ragier wouldn't be killing anyone else, because Snape had killed him.

Draco straightened up. "So what's next?"

"Next?" He was about to say that next they'd clean up all the cauldrons and put them away, but then he realize what Draco meant. "Nothing. We did our part. Now we'll leave it to the Aurors to find out who killed Bulstrode."

"What? No! They don't care. We've got to keep trying to find the killer."

"No, we don't." Did he understand nothing? "If we go messing around in the Ministry, there's only a good chance you'll get killed again. This isn't a bloody game."

"I didn't think it was," Draco said, but it sounded more like a reflex than anything else. "Okay, maybe I wanted to sneak around like James Bond--"

"Who?"

"Not important. But there's got to be something we can do."

"There really isn't. Having people you know get killed is..." Is what? A part of life? The price you pay for being born? "There isn't always something you can do."

Draco slumped, and put his head in his hands. "I didn't even like the stupid cow," he said in a small voice.

"Neither did I." He wasn't sure that mattered. Maybe it was important to care what happened to people you didn't personally like. "Come on, we've got a lot of glassware to wash up."