No Great Magic

No Great Magic, part two

He emerged into a flare of sunlight hitting water, his feet firmly planted on dark-coloured sand, no doubt imported from a distant shore to turn a muddy lakeside into beach for swimming and picnics. There was a grove of maple trees nearby, and a scrub of low-growing plants in the native hues of red and brown, recognisable from his perusal of an ancient Barrayaran herbal on his last visit. A well-cleared path led up the slope through the scrub. He turned and peered up the hillside, finding the pavilion at the top, but no diminutive lord in view. I'm sure he watched to see that I got here, though.

Despite the sun and the absence of breeze, the air was still chilly, and Snape's robes were too thin. He began to look about for something that would burn. Rejecting the native undergrowth for fear of toxic fumes, he searched the area beneath the maple trees, culling some dry and broken branches from amongst the scattered leaves. Carrying the fuel to the centre of the beach, he arranged it in a pile, pulled out his wand, and set the fire going. He crouched down beside it, watching the flames mount; the glow was unimpressive in the full light of morning, but he could already feel the welcome warmth on his skin. Soon, the wood was blazing, and he added more branches, enjoying the feeding of his own tiny inferno.

When he was thoroughly warmed, he paced up and down the small beach, bending to pick up and examine an occasional stone. A round, flat one caught his eye, just like the ones he used to skip across the canals as a youngster (although inevitably warned off by ship masters careful of their property). Perhaps he had not lost his touch... Grasping the stone firmly, he swung his arm back and let it fly, pulling out his wand with the other hand. He caught the stone on its second bounce with a spell that made it turn a somersault in the air, and then, after two more springs across the water, gave it a boomerang effect that brought it skimming back into his hand.

He had just perfected the double twist with an extra-large splash at the end when he heard a puffing sound behind him, and turned his head, after catching the stone on its return journey, to witness Miles's arrival at the beach. He appeared to have run the last stage, as he was slightly out of breath. Snape released the stone again, reprising his latest trick.

"That's cheating," Miles announced. "I did use to be able to get six bounces out of a good one, but then I had to look for another stone." He glanced about him, as if searching for a likely candidate, and caught sight of Snape's fire; groaning, he went on, "Some people wouldn't be cold, if they got a little exercise once in a while." Nonetheless, he moved toward the blaze, loosening his tunic as he did so, and took a seat on a conveniently located rock. "Sorry I took so long," he said, "but I wanted to stop by the house and return the brazier -- I think I can get the dents out -- and get something to eat." He had a bag over his shoulder, which he put down on the ground, pulling out some wrapped sandwiches and a large flask which proved to contain tea. Gesturing Snape over to another rock, he began to pour the tea, and handed Snape a cup and a sandwich made with a paste vaguely resembling meat, plus some sort of green stuff, not worse than what the house-elves came up with while suffering severe butterbeer hangovers. The tea was hot and strong, a smoky Russian blend -- neither Darjeeling nor anything explosive.

"Very nice disappearing act, by the way," went on Miles, with his mouth half full. "I'd be just fascinated to find out how it works. What does it feel like while you're doing it?" He laughed. "Have you ever been red?"

Snape gave him a dubious look. "It's just... blank. But it takes longer if you're going further. You need to be able to visualise your destination, in some way; although there are tricks to getting places you've never been."

"Hmm," said Miles. "Could you go to Vorkosigan House from here?"

"I suppose so," Snape answered. "I don't particularly need to know the intervening geography."

"But you didn't," Miles said, a faint questioning tone in his voice, which Snape decided to ignore. "I was quite amazed," Miles went on after a moment, "how little Mark managed to get out of you about this magic business. An astonishing lack of interest in information gathering, for my little brother. I would have been taking notes."

A vision of Miles as a student in Snape's classes provoked a shudder: worse than Hermione Granger, he would have been; although, like most of the extra-curious and intelligent, at least unlikely to ever cause potions to explode. By accident. "We didn't have a great deal of time for conversation of that nature," he said, remembering his encounters with Mark, which had more resembled the confessional than the lecture room.

Miles had a sort of making-up-for-lost-time gleam in his eye. Snape readied himself for a debriefing more rigorous than any he'd experienced from the Department of Mysteries, but was granted a respite while Miles tidied away the sandwich wrappers and, beginning to sweat noticeably in the heat of the fire, removed his tunic. He was wearing a finely-made shirt underneath, which he unfastened at the collar. Snape saw small but distinct matching scars on either side of the younger man's neck, remnants of calculated wounds rather than of any random act of violence. Seizing an opportunity for distraction, he gestured to the equivalent spot on his own throat, wordlessly inviting an explanation.

Miles's mouth split in a wolfish grin. "Vampires," he said, then amused Snape with a startled and abashed smile, revealing a belated realisation that the wizard might take this statement seriously.

"Hmm," murmured Snape. "Do you suppose any of them would like a job?"

Miles laughed rather uncertainly. "I believe they're fully occupied at the moment. They were life-saving vampires; drained my blood so I'd be ready for someone to... put me back together later on. I wasn't there at the time, so I can't give you any more details." He poured himself some more tea, and held up the flask to Snape, who shook his head. "Turn about is fair play," he went on. "The thing on your arm."

Cursing Vorkosigan House's bottomless wine cellars and Mark's lack of reticence, Snape pulled up the sleeve of his robes. "Nothing to see. It's gone. Sorry to disappoint you."

"Not at all," Miles put in graciously, and Snape relented a bit.

"It vanished when Voldemort was killed. The freedom was..." He paused, searching for the right words. "It was a self-inflicted wound, you understand. So to be relieved of it through the actions of... another... to become whole again, unmarked... there was an incredible awareness of grace." As well as a grinding burden of debt, but one on which Potter has not thought to draw. To his... credit, I suppose. "I never thought I would see my arm unblemished again." He glanced at Miles, who was paying him rapt attention. Lowering his voice, he went on: "Although I wonder if the magic lingers; it still burns, at times."

"What wound did ever heal but by degrees?" Miles answered, pensively. "I know an old hillman who lost an arm in the wars; he told me once that he could still feel it sometimes, tingling and aching, even years later. Even looking right at the stump, so he knew the arm wasn't there. It still had invisible fingers." He wiggled his in the air, and then, bending, took up a stick to poke at the fire. "Quite a few of my wounds are self-inflicted as well," he added.

"I knew a man," Snape said, Lucius Malfoy's sneering face swimming into his mind, "who went mad when the Dark Mark disappeared from his arm. It didn't just exist on his skin; it burrowed its way inside, all the way into his bones. He couldn't live without it. I hear," he continued, looking into the lowering flames, "that he sat down right on the battlefield and began to dig at his arm with a knife, looking for the Mark. He'd never had the slightest tolerance for pain before. By the time they came around to collect the wounded and prisoners, he had his arm nearly off. They just let him keep on." He'd had this from Alastor Moody, much later, related with a grim delectation that had made him sick.

"Did he die?" enquired Miles blandly.

"Oh, yes. Very slowly." Another ghost for my collection.

"There are all kinds of suicides," Miles commented. He seemed about to say something more, then desisted.

And here is where you tell him about Dumbledore. Again, Snape felt that pressure building in his brain, like water behind a dam. It was far more difficult not to let the dam burst this time; the words were on his lips, and he only managed to keep silent by rising abruptly and striding to the grove of maples, where he stood unmoving for some moments before bending to collect more fuel for the fire. Returning some time later, he added several more pieces of wood to the coals, and then placed the rest at a convenient distance, seating himself again on his rock and drawing a deep breath.

"So you think we'll be here a while," Miles said, nodding at the considerable pile of twigs and branches.

Snape let his head fall forward into his hands, smiling involuntarily. "Yes, I expect so. Not," he added, looking up, "that you need wait here with me."

Miles shook his head. "I don't mind. Unless you want me to go."

"No need." In fact, Snape felt rather glad of the company. Miles was like a fly buzzing around an open sore: an irritant but also a distraction from the pain. "Is there more tea?"

"Uh, no. Sorry." He waved an apologetic hand. "I could get more. Or there's lots of wine up at the house, if you want that." He grinned. "Worked for Mark."

"No thank you," replied Snape, in an almost friendly snarl. "I don't think getting me drunk would be a good idea."

"Possibly not," said Miles mildly. "Though it would be entertaining to watch."

"Was it entertaining to watch Mark?" Snape growled back, his resentment flaring up again. "Why didn't you just use fast-penta on him and have done with it?"

"Well, interestingly enough," Miles said, steepling his fingers and tapping them together, "I do have the authority to do that if I wish. And I could have invented a pretext. But it hardly seemed worthwhile to go to that trouble to get the dirt on an insignificant, ungracious, gate-crashing spell-caster. And besides," with a mirthless smile, "he's deathly allergic to the stuff. Hence the... old-fashioned methods."

Snape, who had used the old-fashioned methods with success himself, could hardly argue with this from any high moral standpoint, but he was still simmering with anger. Insignificant spell-caster indeed. "He wasn't the enemy," he muttered darkly.

"True," Miles replied, dangerously calm. "But he's perfectly aware of the effects of ethyl alcohol on the brain. And he wasn't exactly forced. If I'd been feeding him, that might have been another matter."

Snape had a belated epiphany at that moment about Mark's motivations for spilling the true history of his adventures to Miles. There was a ceaseless struggle for one-upmanship between these siblings, exacerbated by the unusual nature of their relationship (Snape had ventured into a Muggle library to do some research on cloning soon after his return from Barrayar), and the chance to trump Miles must have been irresistible for Mark. He was afraid that Miles would gain the upper hand again after today, however. From what he had been able to gather, Mark had begun the contest with a nearly unpayable debt.

"Did he really kill you?" Snape asked suddenly.

Miles laughed. "Is that what he told you? He has a tendency to take too much credit for the incident. Wonder what he'd have done with it if I hadn't come back?" A shadow passed over his face, and he grew serious again. "It may be a matter of inexperience. My dead are resting a little more quietly these days." He got up and fetched some more wood for the fire, and then went on, tossing the branches onto the flames one at a time. "I dug the Sergeant's grave myself, practically with my bare bleeding hands. I won't dig my father's. Even if he dies through some stupidity of my own, which God forbid. There's less point to symbolic gestures now, I find."

"The burning thing seems to work," Snape said, gesturing vaguely up the hillside to indicate the graveyard.

"For the living, yes. Maybe because it's something real of ourselves we're giving, cutting a bit of us off." He shrugged. "Real hair; real blood. I don't know that it makes a difference. It's no way to appease a ghost, either way. Not that I really believe in ghosts."

I do. I have to, thought Snape, but said nothing.

Miles sat down again. "It's hard work, grave-digging," he said. "The blood, and the calluses, and the cold. Very... satisfying. And it takes ages. You have a long time to think."

"You can do it in five seconds with a wand," Snape told him. "I have."

Miles was looking at him very oddly. "Next thing you'll say," he murmured, "is that blood washes away sin."

Snape considered this seriously, despite its non sequitur nature. "I don't think it does."

"I don't think it does either," Miles said, "...although maybe vampires would help."

"Not any of the ones I know," Snape commented, and lapsed into silence.

The sun had been climbing in the sky as they spoke, and the tiny fire was pathetic in comparison, but its intimate warmth was more cheering than the attenuated heat from above, and Snape had no desire to leave its side. A breeze across the lake was sending wavelets scudding along the surface, the sunlight bouncing off them like gold and diamonds used for skipping stones. There was a bank of cloud massing to what Snape assumed was the west, but its threat was not imminent, so the errant bit of fluff that covered the sun and darkened the water then took him by surprise. It passed in a moment, but in that time he had watched the fire spring into prominence and the small waves splash against the dark sand like streaming blood, and the return of the sun did nothing to alleviate the darkness in his mind. He felt as though his mouth were full of blood, like a man dying of something broken inside, and opened his lips to spit it out, to let the words come tumbling out that would be held back no longer. To his surprise, it was Miles's voice that he heard, sounding as dark and brooding as his own imaginings.

"I watched him die. The Sergeant. He killed himself, you know, even though it wasn't his hand on the trigger, but he wouldn't have had to if I'd just been a little smarter, if I'd done things differently. I've been second-guessing myself for years, but I can't reason away from that truth. It's just part of me now, like the Sergeant dead is part of my life; I'd be a different person, in some way, if he'd lived. The sins and the errors and the miscalculations stay with you; they don't get washed away. They build you up. If you go back and try to cut them out, it's like cutting away part of your own body."

Snape's voice, when he replied, was thick and clotted, his tongue heavy in his mouth. "The parts that have gone green and rotten, are we not allowed to cut those away? To save the rest?"

"Metaphorically speaking? You could try. It's hard to be a clever enough surgeon to know where to cut; you run the risk of taking too much, just to salvage your pride."

"You're not one to talk about being unable to go back and fix things," Snape said accusingly. "One who's risen from the dead."

Miles shook his head violently. "It wasn't going back. It was going forward, going through. Not a miracle, just medical science. Believe me, it's quite a different life than it would have been."

As is mine. At every turning, a different Snape than the one he had become: the happy child, the youth with a productive future ahead, the Death Eater unrescued. The man with nothing to live for. The Snape who died while Dumbledore lived. There was no inevitability about any of it, no blind fate, though there were choice and happenstance and bloody great mistakes, and grace and kindness and love. And he had to admit he preferred being alive.

He began to speak again, wanting now to tell Miles about Dumbledore, willing the worthy phrases and the grand truths to come from his lips, to express somehow all that the Headmaster had done for him, all that he had been unable to say to his face when he was living, and the things he had only discovered after he was dead. Before he could get two words out, however, with a shattering gulp he started to cry. It hurt, and it was utterly humiliating. He had only wept for Dumbledore once before, and his audience on that occasion had been the one person he could possibly have let see him in that condition, accepting, incapable of judging him. This was completely different, wrong, not to be allowed; he tried desperately to hold the tears back, praying that Miles would not notice; he leaned his head forward into his hands, whispering, "Damn, damn, damn," but there was no helping it, no fighting. His body was wracked by enormous shudders like those he had felt by the pavilion, his throat was raw, his jaw tight, his tears seemingly never-ending, spilling through his fingers. Gradually, he found that it hurt less if he stopped resisting, and he began to relax into his grief. It felt rather like an unpractised speaker of a foreign language gaining fluency by being abandoned in a monoglot village of that country; his initial awkwardness and reticence gave way to open and sometimes noisy volubility: he wailed like a child, swore brokenly for minutes on end, fell on the ground and pounded his fist in the sand. Finally, the last faint sobs dying away, he lay still, spent and empty, staring blindly at the fire.

After some time, he pushed himself to a sitting position, not looking at Miles. A linen handkerchief, embroidered with a brown-and-silver monogram, dropped itself in front of him, only a faint rustle of feet on sand indicating that it had not been Transfigured out of thin air.

"Thank you," he said roughly, and blew his nose.

"Don't mention it," came a quiet voice behind him; it went on a moment later, cautiously, "Was that for someone in particular, or are you in mourning for your life?"

Snape dropped his face into his hands again, but this time it was laughter that shook his shoulders. "Both, I suppose," he said when he could speak. "But someone in particular, yes. I watched him die, too; I did nothing to stop it. That wasn't in the plan, and it would have been stupid and useless; Voldemort would only have killed me too. And yet it felt horribly wrong." He was speaking calmly, with a remarkable ease; there was no shame, nothing to hold back. The words seemed inadequate, but they were being said, and that was what mattered. "It still feels wrong. I think there will always be a part of me that knows I should have died with him."

"Perhaps the Vor have it easier in that sort of situation," Miles said, although Snape suspected he believed his own words very little. "What was your duty in the matter? What had you sworn to do?"

"Remain loyal to Voldemort," Snape answered, with a grating bitterness, touching his left arm.

"I think," said Miles slowly, "there was a deeper oath than that. Not one you could speak with your mouth, perhaps; not one that showed up on your skin. Maybe in your bones. I wouldn't know. These things may be different for wizards."

Snape shook his head. Then he bowed it, and sat unmoving for a very long time, listening to the fire crackle and the growing breeze rustle the dying leaves on the trees. He could not go back, and he felt unable to go forward; it was as though all his momentum had depended on his turbulent thoughts and feelings, as though a violent wind had been pushing him from behind, shifting capriciously at times to blow in his face, forcing him to struggle against it; but the wind having died now, blown itself out, he had no reason to do anything. The fire was warm; the sand was comfortable.

He looked up only when he heard the sound of wood cracking, and saw that Miles was breaking some of the larger branches into pieces by standing on them and yanking upwards. The Barrayaran looked down at him in apology. "Sorry. I just thought I'd better keep it going." He threw a couple of the pieces onto the fire, and then asked, "Do you have any idea how long you'll be here? Not to be rude or anything."

"It's not really up to me," Snape responded passively.

"Hmm. I would have thought you'd make more of an effort to find out. Do you know why you're here? Aside from the opportunity for catharsis, I mean. More a what than a why. Or a who. Do you know anyone who thinks you needed a good cry?"

Snape's lip twitched. "I know half a dozen of my colleagues who used to whisper in my hearing that what I needed was a good... never mind. Rather irrelevant now."

Miles grinned. "That sounds familiar. In any case -- why you should be sent to blubber in the sand in front of a hyperactive Vor dwarf is still perplexing."

"Hardly. That much is quite clear to me." He was not about to elaborate, however. "Let us assume that someone thought it would be beneficial. A kind of back-handed wish fulfilment, perhaps."

It hit him then, with the force of a Stunning Spell, and he nearly toppled over: all the hints, the dream, the half-formed memories, all his strange adventures. And it all comes down to... this? He scrambled to his feet, muttering, "Bloody hell," and advanced purposefully down the beach to the very edge of the shore. Drawing a deep breath and pitching his voice as loud as it would go without magical enhancement, he called out, "Protraho!"

He waited, sending waves of compulsion out along the path of the spell, breaking down the reluctance and secrecy of the thing that was hiding under the surface of the lake. At last, far out from shore, there was a disturbance on the surface of the water, and several tentacles emerged, waving. Behind him, Miles swore like a sailor. "Not coming any closer, are you?" Snape murmured resentfully, and then began to shout imprecations at it, his voice straining to be heard above the suddenly rising wind.

"You dare manipulate me like this? I never gave you the right... I said no! I said leave me alone!I am not part of your damned fairy-tale!" Bleeding over-sized mollusc. There was an aura of implacability coming from the thing in the lake, however, and he knew his words were having little impact. And of course it was too late. He was part of the tale; he had been granted three wishes like the finder of a magic talisman; he had been taught the lessons and had won the prizes. If he didn't live happily ever after, it was his own fault.

"Have I paid my debt, then?" he breathed, not troubling to raise his voice any longer. Almossst... came the hiss of a reply into his mind. Finisssh what you have begun. For a brief second, the gargantuan head rose above the surface, and then it sank again beneath the wind-whipped waves.

"And just how long has that thing been living in our lake?" Miles enquired, his voice admirably steady.

Snape looked at the sun, or what he could still see of it behind the clouds. "Not more than a few hours. And it will go when I do."

"Good. Because I don't think the villagers would take to it. Not to mention ImpSec."

"I owe it a great deal," said Snape quietly.

Miles shook his head. "You continue to surprise me."

As you wish, Lord Vorkosigan, thought Snape, and began to walk towards the water again. He was up to his ankles before Miles called out, "What are you doing?"

"Using psychology," answered Snape, wading further.

"Wait!" Snape turned his head as Miles came up to the edge of the water. "You'll drown if you go in with those robes on, you know," he said with a faint note of accusation, which Snape read as Don't you dare commit suicide in front of me.

"There are any number of charms I could use to protect myself if necessary," Snape told him, "but I don't expect I'll need them."

"All right," said Miles doubtfully. "Hold on, though." He pulled his knife out of his belt, and sawed away at his hair once again, handing the resulting dark tuft over to Snape. "Just in case," he said, and Snape looked at him in surprise, before tucking the hair away in a small inner pocket. On an impulse, he held out his hand, and Miles shook it, looking at him with that same mixture of curiosity and wariness with which he had first greeted him, but with some degree of respect as well.

"Tell Mark," said Snape, raising his voice over the now howling wind.

"Oh, believe me, I will," Miles responded, with a quick grin. Snape turned to go again, then looked back.

"And tell your mother... that we won." And tell Pym... no. He already knows.

Miles nodded, and Snape turned back and began to walk into the lake. Turn about is fair play, he thought at the creature waiting below. You've found all my weak spots; let me see if I can find yours.

His robes were heavy and sodden about his legs, and as rain began to fall it soaked his top half as well. The lake was cold, and the wind whipping around him made him shiver, but he pressed on, going deeper. When he had gone in above his waist, he took a deep breath and dived under.

The water of the lake was clear enough for him to see through: the sand below, rocks scattered here and there, a flash of fish scales out of the corner of his eye, the waving of green plants through the greenish haze further out, beyond where the sand stopped. He swam forward clumsily, wishing he'd taken his boots off, or Transfigured his feet into flippers, although he couldn't help feeling that using magic of any sort would be cheating. The bottom dropped off quickly, leaving an indefinable murky blackness, where anything could be lurking. And I certainly hope it is.

The breath in his lungs became sharp and acrid; he held it as long as he could, then swam for the surface, popping his head out and taking deep gulps of air while treading water. He glanced back at the shore and saw that Miles was still standing on the beach watching, holding his tunic over his head to keep the worst of the wet off. Drenched, he looked even smaller and more fragile than he had, and perhaps even more out of his depth than Snape was at the moment, but there was a core of determination there that made one desire to live up to it. Snape searched the horizon for tentacles, saw nothing, and resisted one last temptation to struggle back to shore. Letting his aching legs stop churning in their effort to keep him afloat, he pulled them up, wrapped his arms around his knees, took a deep breath, and sank like a stone.

He could have been back in his dream. The water around him went from pale green to a deeper green, to inky black; it was freezing, and he could feel the energy draining out of him like blood out of a wound. The lake almost seemed to be punishing him, as though it were a living entity, angry at this foreign invasion, the second in a matter of hours. There were enormous fish down here; they glared at him from unlidded eyes, quite obviously wondering how long he would be able to fight them, and what he would taste like. But there were no other living things. As the last of the oxygen faded from his lungs, he became resigned to using a Transfiguration spell to save himself, only to realise that he no longer had the will or recalled the technique. Even a simple Bubble-Head Charm seemed beyond him. He tried to swim toward the surface, but his arms were so weak they would not move as directed, and the rest of his body felt like lead. Every part of him began to scream with pain from the absence of air, and his consciousness was dimming fast.

In the last second before blackness took him, something seized him about the waist, and he felt a surge of triumph, gasped with relief, and opened his mouth to the water. A maelstrom formed about him, and he was pulled away from the choking, suffocating sensation of drowning into a world where breathing was unnecessary; he could not see, or hear, or feel anything but that reassuring pressure holding him, tightly, lovingly. The benevolence that was rocking him felt nearly as suffocating as the water had been, but he had no desire to have it release him, yet.

There was a presence near him, something unbelievably ancient, and it spoke to him in his mind, hissing slow and sad and sonorous: Ssseverusss...

What do you want from me? he answered.

I have granted your wissshes, the voice said, sounding hurt. I want what you want.

Your interpretation of what I want!

There were waves of pain coming from it now. What other did I have? Are you not sssatisfied?

I am, he returned, feeling an absurd desire to comfort the thing. But...

Let it be enough, then. Be happy.

What if... he began, still protesting, what if I had wanted something wrong? What if I had wanted to go back to Voldemort?

He would not have made you happy, came the simple answer, and he shivered. The things of the ancient magic followed a different morality, a creed of ruthless expedience which Voldemort himself had tapped into; this kindness, this giving, was but another side of the same coin. He realised suddenly that his wish to bring Dumbledore back to life had gone ungranted not because it was wrong, but because it was impossible. All the pitfalls of his clever strategy for going home on his own terms, the forced rescue, suddenly opened under him.

You're not going to give me more wishes, are you? he asked in fear.

Not if you do not wisssh it, came the voice, with a deep chuckle that shook his whole body. Water began to splash about him; he could see and hear once more; his lungs were full of a breath of cool, salty air. His waist was released, and he felt a tentacle gently caress his cheek, then he was pushed to the surface, and fell onto the shore of the lake at Hogwarts, clutching at the smooth pebbles and breathing loudly.

Getting to his feet, he found that his robes were completely dry and his boots empty of water. Here at home, the sky was still almost dark, as he had left it, with only the faint glow of approaching sunrise to the east, and there was no wind. Looking over the water, dark and smooth, he strained to catch even a glimpse of the creature who had now saved his life twice, but it had left no sign. Nevertheless, he raised a hand in a vague half-salute, a gesture of respect and farewell, and then turned to walk back toward the castle.

Halfway up the path, he paused, looking down at the heather. Finisssh what you have begun. He had not thought of Dumbledore since speaking to Miles of him, but now he remembered that the promised good-bye had not been said, except in tears. His weeping had done well at washing away his pride and his hesitations, but it had lacked something of the ceremonial. I think fire will do better than water, for that. He spotted a plant, dry and dead, whose roots had pulled half out of the soil of the hillside, and bent to uproot it fully.

A sniffling noise to his right froze him in mid-movement, and he turned quickly, pulling out his wand and calling "Lumos!" The light revealed a pale face, half-hidden by a dark cloak clutched in a white hand, and striped pyjama legs protruding from below: a fifth year student he knew only too well.

Snape relaxed and unlit his wand. "Mr Creevey," he said with exasperation, "what in Merlin's name are you doing out here?"

"Sorry, Professor Snape!" Dennis Creevey responded in a small, hoarse voice. "I... I come out here sometimes, when I can't sleep. I have... bad dreams, sometimes. Looking at the lake helps." He sniffed loudly, and then let out a tremendous sneeze. "You can take points from Gryffindor, if you like."

Snape shook his head. "No." Had he really been self-centred enough to think he was the only one with bad dreams? "Blow your nose, Mr Creevey," he added, and when the boy made a helpless sort of gesture, went on impatiently, "Oh, use mine, then," and reached into his sleeve for a handkerchief. To his surprise, it was Miles's monogrammed square of linen he found in his hand; he had tucked it away absentmindedly after using it. Something else for my secret drawer.He searched again, found a clean handkerchief of his own, one of his old black ones, and passed it to Creevey, who took it gratefully. Uncertain what to say next, he bent once more to pull the heather plant away from the soil, and was startled when Creevey spoke again, a disturbing intensity in his voice.

"I knew for sure when Colin was picked as Seeker this autumn," he said, cryptically, and Snape turned back to look at him. "That it really had granted all my wishes. That was the most unlikely one," he went on, with an abashed smile, as if maligning his brother's reputation in any way was an act of betrayal. "But I was pretty sure before that. You are less angry now. And I think that was mine and not yours." If he was managing to interpret Snape's shocked glare as something other than anger, he was quite perceptive. He went on, more tentatively, "I saw you come out of the water just now. So I thought..."

Sinking down onto the path, Snape shook his head, this time in disbelief. "How long ago...?" he managed.

"Oh, ages," said young Creevey. "My first year. Do you remember that time I exploded a potion in your class? Well... the first time. Everyone laughed. Even... you almost did. It said," nodding at the lake, "that I was strong, because I moved a muscle this far." He quirked his lip up in a deadly accurate portrait of Snape's usual excuse for a smile. "I thought it quite stupid, at the time. Then I began to watch you." His face grew pensive. "Did you really turn it down, when it gave you wishes?"

"Not thoroughly enough, apparently," Snape said dryly. "I would suggest, Mr Creevey, that in future you keep your distance from magical cephalopods; you've had your wishes and you appear to be in good health and reasonable cheer for someone who survived the Battle of Hogwarts, but I would not tempt fate any longer." He rose, brushing himself off. "Shall we go?"

"Go where?" Creevey asked hesitantly, sniffing again.

"Back to the castle, of course. I believe," he said, glancing at the horizon, where the dawn's approach was becoming more apparent by the minute, "you may just have time before breakfast to finish that essay you owe Professor McGonagall." He raised his eyebrows meaningfully at Creevey, and was rewarded by a flush of embarrassment. Good. My reputation for clairvoyance remains intact.

They set out up the path, Creevey making no comment on Snape's carrying the dead heather plant along. He was glad the boy remained quiet, as he was having some difficulty with the realisation that his secret history had been known to at least one other person all this time. Only his duty as Headmaster had kept him from holding Creevey up by the hair over the cliff until he'd sworn silence, but on reflection, he didn't think him the blabbermouth type.

Snape left Creevey outside the front doors. "I have some business to attend to," he informed him. "You should be able to find your dormitory without assistance, and without," pulling out his wand and casting a temporary Concealment Charm over him, "interruption. Go quickly. Oh, and Mr Creevey," he added, as the boy turned to go, "...thank you for your concern."

Creevey flashed him a quick conspiratorial grin, and vanished into the castle. And now... His feet led him inexorably to the spot, not far distant, where the grass had been burnt away by the power of Dumbledore's self-immolation and the wake of Voldemort's Killing Curse. He had to finish this quickly, before the castle was stirring; there was no time to fetch the correct equipment. Kneeling on the ground, he used his fingers to scrape the hard soil into the shape of a bowl. When it was large enough, he began to break up the dead plant into sticks of kindling, and placed them one at a time into the depression, meticulously building a tiny edifice, like a hut, or a pyramid, or a cairn. He had to resist a temptation to designate each piece with a person's name. This is for me... this for my wife... this for Creevey... this for Potter. There were far too many names; the resulting pile would have kindled a blaze big enough to burn Hogwarts to the ground. Let them build their own fires. He might suggest that in his letter to Longbottom, come to think of it. Perhaps an annual celebration by the monument, a sort of Guy Fawkes Day in reverse.

When the kindling was in place, he used a Severing Charm to cut a good-sized lock of black hair from his own head, and placed it on top. It looked lonely and insufficient. Hesitating only briefly, he reached into his inner pocket for Miles's contribution, and as he pulled it out, saw the coil of a long blonde hair attached to it. With a smile, he remembered removing that from his robes one day and hiding it away, an unlikely sort of sentimental gesture. He added it to the pile, whispering Forgive me, my love, for doing this alone.I know you loved him too. And then he added Miles's hair, Miles who had not loved Dumbledore, had not known him at all, but had instinctively realised that his gift, generous if rather lordly in manner, would mean something to Snape. Besides which, I suspect he couldn't bear to be left out.

And that was it. It still looked like very little. Reaching for his wand, his hand brushed against the pocket where he had secreted Dumbledore's letter. You have far too many secret inner pockets -- the stray thought came to him -- the Muggle psychoanalysts would have a field day with your tailoring. He pulled out the roll of parchment, stared at it for a moment, and then tapped it with his wand. The green ribbon unknotted itself, the letter unrolled, and the black letters of Dumbledore's tidy handwriting jumped into prominence against the pale background. He ran his eye over the familiar phrases: I have tremendous faith... even into death... silken ties... the last word... His lips tight and his hands barely steady, he rolled the parchment up again and placed it on top of the offering.

Taking out his wand to light the fire, he froze with the words of the spell on his lips and then sat unmoving for a moment. It may mean that the trifling amount of courage I thought I'd gained is exhausted -- but I cannot do this. I cannot burn the last thing he ever gave me. Considering how many intangibles Dumbledore had bestowed upon him -- love, respect, the ability to face his own sins and go on, his very life -- it seemed ridiculous to cling to a bit of parchment. But then, it seemed ridiculous to offer it up, either. There's less point to symbolic gestures now, I find. Miles had been quite right.

Enough. Laying the letter aside, he pointed his wand at the pile of wood and hair, and murmured, "Incendio!" The fire burst into life, the flames licking around the twigs, consuming the hair with a faintly unpleasant odour as it fell into newly burnt gaps in the construction, hungrily turning his offering into charred wood, fine ash, and rising smoke. It was all over very quickly.

As the last embers faded into grey death, the letter stirred, as if blown by a faint breeze, and then rolled open. The black ink marks began to glow with a fervent green fire; they trembled, sending sparks of pain into his eyes, and then they lifted off the page and rose into the air. The words shifted, tumbled about, formed themselves into hoops and dived through each other, hung in glittering chains in the air like Christmas lights, made towers and poems and sentences that burned themselves into Snape's brain: profound, eternal truths that he was certain he would never forget and that he knew quite well would soon vanish without trace, like that perfect moment in a dream that can never be recalled afterwards, leaving you longing for it the rest of your life.

And then, one word at a time, they faded, each going pale and grey and bursting in the dawn's light like a cinder, until only the phrase the last word hung, lingering, and then it too was gone. But not completely. Snape looked down at the letter, letting his breath out for the first time in what felt like hours, and saw that all the words were still there on the parchment -- but they had faded from black to a washed-out sepia, looking as though they had been written a hundred years ago and kept in someone's secret drawer ever since. Tentatively, he tapped the parchment with his wand, and nothing happened; the page did not roll up, the letters did not vanish, there was no change whatsoever. All the magic had gone out of the thing, except what was intrinsic to the words themselves and had come out of Dumbledore's own, very human, love.

Snape picked the letter up and carefully, as the parchment had gone stiff as though with age, rolled it up, tying the green ribbon around it with his own shaking fingers. Silken ties... "Good-bye, Albus," he whispered, "and thank you." He tucked the letter away, along with his wand.

The eastern sky was full of light now; he noticed for the first time that it was a very cold morning, promising winter, and brilliantly clear: a good day to accomplish things. He thought he would have another go at those letters first. "Dear Mr and Mrs Pigeon," he rehearsed, "At this time, we have no plans to add a vampire to the Hogwarts staff. However, if any such individual should apply for an opening and should meet our strict hiring criteria, I should be pleased to consider his or her application." For about five seconds. Might as well be honest, in fact. "Hiring decisions are not made on the basis of lifestyle diversity, nor for reasons of sympathy, nor because the applicant belonged to a particular House, or donated a great deal of money to the school, or knows the right people, or slept with the right people, or played bloody Quidditch for the right team..." Well, it might need a little work. But I think it has a certain ring to it. Too bad there wasn't another clone of Miles Vorkosigan available to hire as a secretary.

He stood, and spread the ashes from the burning across the ground with one foot. Squaring his shoulders, he looked up at the castle before him, its towers and windows and the secrets it held, all the glory of it. He took a deep breath as though plunging into water, and headed for the door. Back to work.

THE END

See Notes at beginning for tribute to R.J. Anderson. I would also like to thank her for the revelation about Who the Squid Really Is. I was most surprised.

My other beta-readers are marvelous people as well, so here's a toast to each of them:

To Susan, who informed me that "Nemo parvum iacet," and of course she is quite right. The inspiration for the fate of Dumbledore's letter is due to her, for which much thanks.

To Alec, for whom I included the line from the other Professor, as well as the illusions of planetary conquest. And thanks for the Latin help.

To Teri, who enjoys Conversations With Miles, and would never try to control him with Imperius. Read Alec and Teri's "Imperius Quidditch " for the story of someone who might.

To Cally, who can visit the Albus Memorial with me any time she likes, or the Globe, in the role of First Gravedigger.

To Melanie, who read and commented with amazing grace.

To Melissssa, who needs to watch out what she wishes for.

And to Carol and Mark, who read, and made encouraging noises, and what-have-we-here noises, and noises-before-beginning-a-piece-of-poetry, all of which helped.

Last but not least, thanks to all the readers and reviewers out there, who have made this a wonderful journey, full of magic and enchantment, and leaving only memorable and welcome marks and scars. May you be granted every good wish.

--E.H.S.