The Next Great Adventure

The door closed. He cast a silencing spell, and she knew that whatever it was, it was serious - especially since it was something he hadn't talked about over dinner. Something that the rest of the teachers maybe shouldn't know about. The potion. He's found the potion.

"You don't keep up with Ars Alchemica, perchance?" She shook her head mutely. "It was the Ryder-Waite potion. It's good that you left the cauldron as it was. If he finished it, he's raised a wraith - or two." Even if McGonagall wasn't familiar with the methods of creating them, she was familiar with wraiths. She schooled her reaction, however, motioned for the Potions master to continue. "Do you know who -?"

Her eyes snapped back in her head, and she stiffened, caught in the throes of something - for a moment, Snape feared for her life, grabbed her arm and started shaking her. "Minerva - Minerva -" But as quickly as it had come, it was gone, and she was limp as a rag doll in his grip. Her composure returned quickly, and she leant on him as she made her way to an ottoman and sat.

"Albus put something - some sort of enchantment on me to make me remember. He must have. I know who the wraiths are." She cleared her throat, closed her eyes. "He was telling me about a cousin of James' - they couldn't contact him, it seems he was off in Switzerland doing something with the natural powers in the mountains, and he had gone to Beauxbatons anyway, which makes everything harder - but this cousin wanted to take Harry away from the Dursleys." She looked away from Snape's expression. "He must have been raising James - to see "

Snape stood, any concern he might have had for McGonagall's position gone, and stalked to the window seat, resting his hands on the sill and looking intensely out. She watched him for a long moment. The unpleasing face was blank as stone, but his eyes gave him away, searching the grounds for something. Harry - but he's surely in Gryffindor tower, unpacking.

Eventually he straightened, clasped his hands behind his back, and spoke in a buisnesslike tone. "I know of no ways to test if the potion was completed without destroying it."

"We could ask the Mother. I could ask her, that is."

He soured. "If you wish. I'll be in the library, looking for a more reasonable solution."

"No - wait, I want you to come, too."

McGonagall knew the frown was coming before he could even begin it. She also knew, though, that if he had a chance to see this thing, he would - that his natural curiosity could be put to work for her. It took a while, but she convinced him to at least try.

She led him deeper into the room, finding the bowl and placing it as she had done so many times before. The dagger was now a little bloodstained, and she nearly cursed when she saw it - one could not be too careful with magical objects and such powerful things as blood. But her carelessness seemed to have little effect. This time, though, after pouring the water she also transfigured a woolen scarf into a soft white strip of cotton, and gestured for Snape to bind their right hands together, the palm of his against the back of hers. "You won't be cut," she reassured him.

Snape, for his part, felt at the same time incredibly intense and utterly grounded. Part of him wanted to jerk away, run as fast as he could, but more than half wanted to stay and find out just what Minerva experienced. He was so focused on the warring feelings that he barely noticed the slash she made across her hand, only heard her low chant of mother on the edges of his consciousness. Then a jerk came like a Portkey, but rather than behind his navel, it was between his eyes. His eyes flew closed and then opened again, against all his training.

Almost as quickly as the pressure between his eyes had come, it was gone. The feeling disoriented him. He and McGonagall were still bound, and were standing in a grove of trees - no, not a grove but a forest. Redwoods stood all around him. He had been to the United States once, on a trip to gather sap from one of the trees in the dwarf forest in northern California. That dwarf forest had been close to the giants, two opposites attracting - not even an hour away from the places where evergreens grow as wide as a car. Where he stood now, though, the trees were larger than any he had seen there. Through their tops, he could see a blue sky, and there was the weird chirping quiet of a place mankind has forgotten.

Out of the corner of his eye Snape saw movement. He snapped his head around. Standing almost directly in front of him - how had he missed her? - was a middle aged woman of African descent, hair combed back into a complex series of gold rings, dressed in a white robe. Her voice spoke into his mind before he could try to say anything. I see you brought another with you this time, Minerva. This one is skeptical. I hope your questions are answered, young one, but I dare say I can't answer them all. First, for both of you. Albus Dumbledore was a Turner, and a mild Seer at that, even if I had met him - and being male doesn't help. You know I have trouble with you, sometimes, Minerva. Turners are hardest, even for me. I can't tell you his intentions. His potion was completed, though, and two Wraiths are in the world. Now - for Minerva. I'll deal with you later, young one.

A door slammed shut in Snape's mind. He blinked, again, with the force of it; his reactions were off-kilter. Glancing over to McGonagall, he saw her bow her head in deference. The Mother - that must be who she was, there could be no one else, if McGonagall had performed the correct rites - was gazing maternally down at her. The Mother could hardly be anything but maternal, it seemed. He opened his mouth to say something - he was not so far gone from his normal self to not even try - but nothing came out.

The Mother turned on him. The door opened again, and his mouth closed. I didn't think I needed to tell you not to speak. This is all illusion, you know, and if you said something wrongly it could all come crashing down and you couldn't get home. As she spoke, though, Snape was considering it, turning the sensation over in his mind: he was not caught off guard. It seemed like he was thinking her words for her. She must know his mind - all his mind - and be planting thoughts for him. She must be enormously powerful. He was not wrong when he argued with Minerva in the Great Hall. You wonder why I'm not Native American, something fitting with this scene of redwoods? He hadn't even verbalized those thoughts in his mind yet. I like it. I've earned the right to be a bit capricious, I think, as long as it harms no one. Besides, this place only echos somewhere in the real world. The jungle, while bursting with life, is quite hostile to outsiders - and you are certainly an outsider. But don't worry. The one thing you really need is acceptance - love will come later - especially from that young boy. I can give you some acceptance, even if it's not from him. Perhaps that will make you easier.

Feeling washed over him, love-comfort-belief-trust, coming from the Mother. At some point he stopped caring whether she was psychoanalyzing him, whether she was right or wrong, and simply savored it. Next to him, McGonagall was doing something with her free left hand, making a symbol. The Mother echoed her, not stopping the flow of feeling. Slowly, though, the world around him began to fade, and with it the Mother's gift - the trees became less opaque, then misty, and finally blew away to reveal McGonagall's study.

He was silent. He didn't need to say anything. "The Mother let me listen in," McGonagall admitted. "Dumbledore was the only one -"

All of a sudden, the glow of unconditional love wore off. He was back. They weren't in some fictional forest with a goddess-mystic who couldn't even use her unlimited powers to fix any problems at all. They were home. He tore at the cotton binding, cursing as it changed back to a scratchy wool scarf. The only reason he didn't stalk out of the room altogether was that the binding seemed to be stuck. "Accio wand," McGonagall said calmly. His wand found its way out of its wrist holster and into her hand. "I will not let you go until you're in a good mental state. The Mother didn't intend her gift to leave you like this."

Snape looked at her coldly, and even if he tried not to show it, he knew she could hear the emotion in his voice. "I killed Dumbledore. I wrote an article in Ars Alchemica and asked him to proofread. Without it, he never would have known what the Ryder-Waite potion was. The only person to give me a second chance, and I killed him. The Mother can't fix Avada Kedavra with a bandage." As quickly as he could, he scooped the silver dagger from the floor where McGonagall had dropped it and used it to slit their bonds. Before she could react, he had his wand in his hand and was out the door.

The invisibility cloak had been a gift for school, an extravagance bestowed on him because he had figured out how Potter's head and head alone could appear in Hogsmeade. Besides, if Potter had one, Draco had to have one too. The slippery fabric hung in light, meshy folds around him as he slipped behind Neville and through the Fat Lady's portal. The password was gryphonheart, easy enough to remember.

Slipping from person to person - nicer couches than ours. I'll have to speak to Father about that - he overheard bits of gossip, snips of private lives. Mostly he ignored them, although the temptation to throw off his cloak flared when he heard a clump of third-years muttering about what a bastard he was. It wasn't easy to move on, but he was not a Slytherin for nothing, and he gritted his teeth.
It would be worth the insult, if he could find something of interest to Potter - something that might lure him away. The hints of something owned by Potter's parents, overheard in the Great Hall, were too much to ignore. The Dark Lord would be pleased to recieve a gift of the Potters' wedding rings. Not only would they be useful to him, but Harry might sneak out of the castle after them.

It wasn't hard to find the fifth years' dormitory, and even easier to find Harry's bed. Each trunk was explicity marked. He considered doing something malicious - destroying Longbottom's trunk? - but passed it over as he heard footsteps in the hall outside. Quickly he looked under the bed for a small trunk, found it, and swept it under his cloak. The door to the room opened, and he slipped out as Seamus and Dean slipped in. It was almost bedtime, and he would be missed soon. With any luck, Potter would never know the trunk was gone until after anything valuable was sent away.

Coming down to breakfast, Harry was not walking with Ron, and so Ron wasn't there when Crabbe stumped over and grunted that Malfoy was expecting Harry in the trophy room.

"Are you sure you should go, Harry? You don't know what he wants -" Hermione began. Crabbe seemed to be digesting something. Then he opened his mouth again - there was another part of his message.

"Oh, yeah. He also said - It's about your little chest your parents gave you. But I don' know what that means, cuz your muggle-loving mum n' da died, did'n they?" He said this very slowly, as though he had a mouth full of marbles, but with better elocution than either Harry or Hermione had previously suspected he could use. They weren't thinking of that, however. Both their minds were on the chest.

The trophy room was light and open. Draco stood in the middle of it, holding the locked chest casually in one hand - though Harry knew it must have been hard to do, as it was heavier than it looked. "So. Potter. I want the key to the false bottom of this little toy."

For a moment he was confused - wanted to scream, Malfoy, that's the last relic I have of my parents and if you think I'm not going to fight you for it then you are bloody wrong! But he didn't. Next to him, Hermione muttered "I'm going to get McGonagall," and prodded his hand. She wanted him to get his wand. He did. Malfoy had his wand out, too, in the other hand from the chest.

"You must be mistaken, Malfoy. There's no false bottom, and even if there was, I don't have the key." He did have the key, though - now he knew what it was for. "I don't see a keyhole, anyway." Hermione had reached the door - she was scrabbling for the handle - it was locked! Malfoy's mouth formed the words Petrificus Totalus. There was a crunch. Harry wanted to look, but couldn't take his eyes off Malfoy.

In a calm, almost nonchalant voice, the blond boy continued. "You wouldn't think to look. The inside bottom is a good inch higher than the outside. I could show you, but then I'd have to put down my wand. Oh, and did I mention? I'm not averse to smashing it, if you like. Only I'd have to make sure everything was really well destroyed."

"There's no false bottom!" Harry's voice was desperate. "Don't smash it -"

That was fatal. Malfoy laughed, something akin to the high, cold laugh that haunted Harry's dreams. "There's nothing I want in the upper half of it, so I might as well go ahead. Or are you going to try to stop me?" He dropped it on the ground. Harry was going to curse him - would curse him as soon as his wand wavered -

A blur of brownish-white tabby streaked out the door which lay open behind Malfoy. Mrs. Norris! But it was that moment of distraction that Draco chose to flick his wand to the chest and whisper Quasso, and it shattered into a million pieces.

"Of course, that only hurt the chest," Malfoy murmured. Now that he'd done it, he seemed sedate and pleased with himself. "The contents I'll have to do myself, but really, what's the rush? We could be here a good hour before anyone knows we're missing. Weasley will assume you're somewhere snogging the Mudblood. I suppose he'll be angry at you, too, then. It's not a bad plan." Squatting, but with his wand still carefully pointed at Harry, he picked the nosegay out of the wreckage. "I think I'll enjoy watching you as I rip up every single one of your pictures of them." With a quick movement, he crunched the delicate dried flowers in one hand. Pieces of flower petal came off on his robes as he wiped his hand.

Harry didn't feel angry. He felt dead. He risked a glance at Hermione - after all, it wasn't as though Malfoy couldn't easily curse him to the ground anyway - and saw that she was lying face-down, bleeding from her nose. "You're an utter, utter bastard, Malfoy. You don't deserve to call yourself a wizard, running around playing Death Eater Junior League. You should tell your horrible father that you want to go to Durmstrang and put the rest of us out of our misery -"

And just then, Professor McGonagall came through the door behind Draco, Filch trailing behind. She took in the scene with a gasp, and each person exhaled, a soft sigh. Malfoy's posture sunk into that of the schoolboy, sullen, with an acid tongue. Harry straightened, began to explain. McGonagall took the Body-Bind off Hermione, and she relaxed, standing up and wiping blood off her nose.

The status quo was back - things were normal, for a second. But Malfoy was suddenly different than he had been before. There was a dangerous side to him, Harry saw, although he didn't want to think about it.

Everyone would be on their guards. Malfoy had bite, now. He was willing to truly hurt.

He saw, and was pleased.

"Harry - I didn't see this before, did you?" It was a small, leather-bound diary with Lily Evans embossed in gold across the front. "Must have cost a mint - must've been your mother's!" Ron's eyes widened. Without asking, he opened it, flipped through. "Aw - bunch of girly stuff. You might want to read it, though," he added, in as gracious a manner as he could.

Harry didn't know. He took it from Ron, slipping it in his robe pocket, but somewhere he wondered if he should read it. Perhaps I should ask Hermione. They were her private thoughts... maybe it wouldn't be exactly respectful to read them. But what he said to Ron was, "Blimey - I guess there really was a false bottom."

And she had informed him, as concisely as she could, that Draco Malfoy had destroyed a chest containing what Harry Potter still had of his parents. Harry Potter... James...

Lily...

"I assume you have something to say for yourself?"

Draco's eyes flitted to every corner of the room, which was filled with specimen jars and bookcases, meticulously organized and free of dust. "It was a joke gone wrong, sir. I just wanted to tease Potter a little."

"You're sure."

"I thought that perhaps the Dark Lord would think well on me if I stole Potter's parents' wedding rings. I thought they might be there - they could have -" Malfoy seemed to admire Snape, for some obscure reason, but he also respected him, if only out of fear. Snape didn't try to control Malfoy's every move, but those he did try to control, he succeeded at. He suspected it was partially because Lucius Malfoy would no more remove him from teaching than he would cut off his own right hand.

Summoning a frown, he scanned Draco's face carefully - let him sweat, just a little - before answering. He would have to be lenient, but not too lenient. "A hundred points to Slytherin, then, to halve what Professor McGonagall took off. And from now on, Mr. Malfoy, please consider the consequences of your actions carefully." A pause, then he continued: "Am I right in assuming you still have something from that chest?"

Guiltily, Malfoy dipped into his pocket and rolled a single marble across the desk. "I picked it up on my way out. May I leave?"

Snape's breath stopped. He nodded and waved his hand, but the other was occupied with the marble. Red-and-gold whorled - not expensive, but meaningful.

There was a fad for marbles. It was a simple Muggle game, but it took some skill, and Lily was the best at it.

He didn't want to give her something that might be traced back to him - she didn't like people to know she was friends with a Slytherin. By sixth year, Sirius Black thoroughly hated him. Letting him know of their owled conversations and occasional rendezvous would be fatal. He would never believe that Snape hadn't seduced her.

And he hadn't, of course. Such a beautiful thing - he could never do anything that might lead Lily to go away. She would run if he did, and then he wouldn't even have her company.

So it was a marble, and he pressed it into her hand as they passed in the hallway. She was walking with Sirius Black again. He scowled at Snape, but she held him back. Black thought the grin she flashed was for him.

He was wrong, so wrong. It was the only time anything had been meant for Snape, not Black, and he cherished it.