Summon the Lambs to Slaughter

Dedicated to Michael Dale Duncan Jr., who, on May 28, went to a far better place. May you find rest in the arms of the Lord. And to Priscilla, who is the embodiment of grace and dignity.

Chapter Nineteen

The Quidditch match was in full swing when they arrived. Gryffindor was outscoring Hufflepuff handily, fifty to zero, and above their heads small figures zoomed, flashes of yellow and scarlet against the faded blue sky. The sharp ripple and pop of windblown robes reached Rebecca's ears, and she smiled, squinting into the bright sunlight. It was a vibrant, life-affirming sound, full of youthful exuberance, and hearing it made her inexplicably glad. Her sudden plunge down the stairs faded into irrelevance.

Professor Snape stopped at the entrance. "Mind the stairs," he muttered, and left them without a backward glance to take his seat in the Slytherin box.

"Sodding prat," hissed Seamus when Professor Snape was out of earshot.

"Isn't he?" she said thoughtfully, her eyes following his progress to his seat. His cloak fluttered regally as he climbed the stairs.

Her hand twitched restlessly on her joystick. She had very nearly followed him to the Slytherin section. It had seemed such a natural thing to do. Just push the stick forward and trundle along in his shadow, smothered by the earthy smell of allspice. She still wanted to. The longing itch hummed in her hand, deep and urgent as the maddening prickle of poison oak. She rubbed the ball of her thumb absently across the smooth black plastic, trying to quell the sensation.

"Well, how shall we get you up there?" Seamus craned his neck to survey the steep, narrow stairs that led to the Gryffindor box. "Bit too narrow for your chair, I think." He casually spit on the grass at his feet.

"We'll manage. I've gotten through tighter spaces with Fred and George." She rolled to the foot of the stairs.

It would probably be best to levitate herself to her seat rather than try and Engorge the stairs. Her mind may have put the near-disaster on the stairs to bed for the time being, but the embedded cells of her muscles had not. They tingled with sudden apprehension, the hairs of her arms knotting in hard gooseflesh. Her mouth puckered, the thin coating of spittle on her tongue evaporating in an instant. Her heart began to thud painfully in her chest. She did not want to go up those stairs. Or any stairs. No, no, not at all.

You've got to go up those stairs. If you don't, you'll never be able to set foot on a staircase again. Besides, those boys came to get you, and if you don't, they'll miss the match.

I didn't ask them to.

No, but they did it because they're your friends, and they wanted you to have a little fun. That's what friends do.

I wish Professor Snape were here. She cast a longing glance in the direction of the Slytherin box, where she could just make out his stern black outline perched among the crowd like a silent Grim.

Well, he isn't, and he isn't going to be there the next time you need to climb the stairs. He's got other things to do, and if you cling to his skirt, he'll break your fingers. You've got to rely on yourself, girl. You know that. No one else is going to do it for you.

She fumbled her wand out of her robes, trying to grip it in numb, frozen fingers. It rounded, fat tip jittered slightly in her hand, and its shiny surface was slick beneath her palm. For the first time since she had been a bumbling, awkward first-year, it felt unnatural, leaden, in her tentative grip. It was warm and cold and seemed to writhe maliciously between her crushing fingers.

Get a grip. Your mind is the only thing you've got, and if you lose that, it's all over. Take a deep breath and get moving,

It's just a wand. Your wand. It's here to help you, not hurt.

He was right. It was just a wand, and that made it dangerous. It had no feelings, no loyalty. It could be used against her just as easily as it could help her. Wizards had been killed by their own wands, blown to pieces or scorched or simply felled without a single mark, as beautiful as porcelain dolls, but just as graceless and dead. Wands were impartial, hunks of wood and feather or hair. Wands killed and saved in equal measure. She would only trust it as much as she trusted herself, and right now, her self-assurance was at its lowest ebb.

She started to turn the wand on herself, then wavered. "Um, Seamus, Neville, would you mind standing behind me while we went up? I'm still a bit on edge from...earlier." She had been about to say, "from nearly becoming abstract art on the castle floor," but changed her mind at the last moment. No need to rub Seamus' nose in it.

He caught a bit of her meaning anyway, it seemed. His face, growing rosy from the heat and anticipation of watching a rousing game of Quidditch, went pale. "Sure. No worries. Listen, I'm so sorry about what happened. It was the bloody stupidest thing I've ever done, an' I could just-"

She put up a hand to stop his burgeoning tirade. "Hey, it's all right. It was an accident, a mindless, idiotic accident. Besides, you're not the one who conceived of the mind-blowing idea to go down the stairs backwards. That was all me. Just don't let me do it again."

"You do, and I'll Transfigure you into a bronze statue. Never leave the ground again," he vowed.

She snorted at the image of being transformed into a crippled version of Rodin's Thinker. She wondered how long it would take before she was covered in birdshit and squirrels nested in her dull bronze tresses. She doubted she could count on Filch to keep up appearances. Probably laugh each time he saw a fresh dollop. Draco Malfoy might even happen by and wet her feet with a well-timed drizzle, little bastard.

Not unless you've got a bidet hidden in your works. Little shit probably has an armed escort to go to the can. Bet you my prize rooster that he doesn't even wipe his own ass.

The image of water spurting from between bronze thighs while birds twittered and squirrels chattered flashed across her mind, and she guffawed, nearly dropping her wand. Good Lord, Grandpa was on a roll today. Bidet for Draco Malfoy was dead last on her to-do list, and she'd be damned if she'd do it, even if she were a lifeless bronze statue.

"All right, Rebecca?" came Neville's anxious voice from beside her.

"Just fine. Just had a funny thought, is all." She pointed her wand at her chest again. Her hand shook for a moment, then stilled. "Automus Wingardium leviosa!"

The binding weight of the earth fell from her body, and she rose, hovering over the chair that had been her body, helpmate, and jailer for days uncounted, and would be for tens of thousands more. An unbidden sigh escaped her, and her body shuddered softly from the shock of momentary liberation. She floated there for moment, just feeling, and then, with a deliberate flick of the wrist, she pulled herself to bottom-most stair.

The sun-warmed wood bit into her buttocks as she set herself down, and she grimaced. The step groaned beneath her sparse weight, and she gave it a cautious, considering glance. Now I'm really glad I didn't Engorge the stairs.

When she was certain she wasn't going to topple face-first into the dirt in front of her, she turned her wand on the chair and mumbled a Shrinking Charm. It dwindled to the size of a handbag with a small pop. "Accio wheelchair!" Roles temporarily reversed, the object that cradled and chained her nestled unobtrusively in the palm of her hand. She closed her recalcitrant fingers around it and tucked her hand to her side.

"Ready?" she asked the two boys, who shuffled good-naturedly in front of her.

"Absolutely," Neville said cheerfully.

"Anytime you are." Seamus gave a snappy salute.

"Ok, then. Here we go." She turned the wand on herself again. "Automus Wingardium leviosa!"

She left the earth again and pivoted around, drifting slowly upward, small, eggshell feet dangling uselessly below her. Her toes clipped each riser, and she ticked them off inside her head. One. Two. Three. Please don't let me get splinters.

Up they ventured, Seamus and Neville close upon her heels. The higher they went, the more agitated she became. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead, and she fought to keep the wand steady. In her other hand, the wheelchair slipped treacherously. Two-thirds of the way up, her heart was pounding so hard that she could feel the flesh of her breast jumping beneath her robes. Her vision started to double.

I'm having a panic attack, she thought. Right here on the stairs. Whee.

Don't you lose your head. You fall here, and you take two people with you. Tough it out. You're a Stanhope, dammit.

You say that as though we were great warriors. We're plumbers and dirt farmers. Never the bravest sort, either. Tosspots and rabblerousers, more like.

Aye, but we work hard, put our backs into it when we need to. We don't collapse in a blubbering heap after a tumble down the stairs.

I nearly died, and oh, Jesus, I can't breathe.

That's your own damn fault, and don't you dare fall apart on me. Her grandfather reached into her mind, wrapped his ghostly, memory hands around the core of her, and shook, the hard calluses on his palm scraping across the fog of panic that was enveloping her mind.

It was no use. The terror was growing thicker, weighting her limbs and severing them from her central nervous system. She saw them on the periphery of her vision, but they seemed outside her sphere of influence, pale trembling creatures not of her flesh. Only the dim and fading heft of the wheelchair trapped between clammy fingers assured her that they were indeed hers.

The hand holding the wand wavered erratically, making her weave and bob, and a monstrous spasm was building in her bicep. The tension was hot and throbbing, making the skin of her upper arm ripple and crawl, as though it rested uneasily on her sinew. She clamped the inside of her cheek in her teeth and willed it down.

Just let me make it to level ground. Let them get away from me. Goddammit, why does every day of my life have to be an exercise in misery?

Her wand arm was stiffening, preparing to lash out at the air in front of her, and when it did, the Levitating Charm would be broken. Back down the rickety stairs she would go, and this time Seamus and Neville would come with her.

Maybe I'm contagious after all, Madam Pomfrey, because if they survive this little tumble, they'll be sucking air through a ventilator for the rest of their lives. Ha. Haha. I Was Friend to a Gimp and All I Got Was This Lousy Wheelchair. She gave an unbalanced titter.

"All right there, Rebecca?" Seamus asked, clapping her reassuringly on the shoulder.

"Lovely," she said airily, her voice high and strangled. We're all going to die.

Ask for help, damn you. Don't take them with you.

"Seamus, you might want to have your wand at the ready. I feel a spasm coming on."

"Right. She heard the swish of his robes as he brought out his wand. "Feel that?"

"Yes," she said, flinching at the poke of his wand into the small of her back.

"Don't worry. I'll not let you fall again," he vowed resolutely.

Marginally comforted, she continued her wobbly ascent. The cramp in her upper arm was growing worse, forcing her fingers into gnarled claws. Her wand teetered suicidally on the web of her thumb, and she held her breath, afraid that the slightest puff of air would send it spiraling downward.

She pleaded with her rebelling fingers to close around the dangling, swaying piece of wood that was the only barrier between the three of them and a bone-snapping descent, but they were as stubborn as their master and did not move. She cursed breathlessly, her eyes filling with desperate tears.

Just one time, let things go right.

Instinctively, she turned her head to look out over the pitch. Dark shadows swarmed over the lush carpet of grass, players intent on the raging struggle above her head and oblivious to the one taking place twenty-five feet below their soaring brooms. Her eyes froze on the black dot in the middle of the Slytherin stands. Professor Snape, who had bought her an extra forty-five minutes of precious life with his alabaster hands. Though he was not looking at her-his eyes were trained on the streaking figures above his head-she was directly in his line of sight, and if she tumbled now, he would see it. See it and curse a waste of perfectly good magic.

She gritted her teeth and pulled herself along. She was close, so close. Close enough to see the brilliant red hem of the Headmaster's robes. The pitiless cramp in her arm was reaching critical mass, and the tears of panic and frustration rolled freely down bloodless cheeks.

The Headmaster was a Gryffindor. Should've guessed.

Her head swiveled in the direction of the Slytherin box once more. Professor Snape sat just as he had before, as immutable as the mountains wrought by the hand of God. His black cloak and robes were smooth and unruffled, and on his face he wore an expression of bland hauteur, a countenance that clearly held the belief that neither weather nor circumstance would best him, and that, though he found life unspeakably unpleasant, he would not quit it until he was ready.

She surveyed his rigid, implacable form through tear-hazed eyes, blinking away the blurred edges and salty sting. She could not, could not, fall. She had to make it to the top of these stairs. She would not be weak, would not acquiesce to the impudent demands of the worthless shell in which she lived. She was better than that, greater than the pitiful sum of her parts. She would not squander the reprieve he had granted her, probably against his better judgment.

Her wand hand was shrieking now, the tendons little more than a hot, sizzling throb underneath her frozen skin. The icy scald blazed from her fingertips to the gaunt protrusion of her wrist. Her arm was a dead slab of coiling energy. The nerves were overloading, sending staccato signals of distress to her tenacious brain that refused to let them through.

Allspice and parchment dust. That's what bastards are made of. The nonsense lyric spun drowsily in her head, and for just a moment, though she knew it was only her wandering imagination, she thought she smelled him on the wind. A smile played on her lips.

Ok, Professor, here we go.

Potting mulch, Miss Stanhope, potting mulch.

"I'll give you potting mulch," she muttered disagreeably.

"Almost there," called Neville.

Indeed, no sooner had he spoken than her feet scraped the final riser. Panting with relief and exertion, she levitated herself the last few feet to the closest seat and collapsed there, clutching her agonized arm to her abdomen and letting it spasm and flail helplessly.

"You all right?" asked Seamus, stumping up beside her and eyeing her shivering, convulsing limb with solicitous trepidation.

"Yes, I'm Ok, I think. Just not used to so much effort," she answered breathlessly, swiping her good hand over her red, sweaty forehead. No, I'm not all right. In fact, I'm nowhere near; I nearly pissed myself, thank you very much, and the only reason I didn't is because I smelled Professor Snape from across the Quidditch pitch. How does that grab you?

"I believe a chocolate frog is in order," said a jovial voice.

Three startled head turned to see Headmaster Dumbledore smiling at them. Rebecca realized with an abashed wince that she had unceremoniously seated herself on the bench beside him and Professor McGonagall, who, she saw with unhappy clarity, was taking in her disheveled, strained state with beady-eyed concern.

"Maybe you should-,"

Please don't say it. Please.

"-go to the Hospital Wing," she suggested, looking Rebecca up and down for signs of imminent collapse.

Maybe I should just move there. That way they won't have far to carry me when I go toes up from that mysterious calamity you see lurking around every corner, she thought venomously, but she forced a polite smile and said, "Yes, ma'am. Can I at least watch the match first? It's so exciting, and the fresh air will do me good."

McGonagall's face, hard with teacherly worry, softened, and the transformation was so stunning that Rebecca blinked in surprise. Gone was the meddlesome, hard-nosed harpy that harried her steps and prodded indelicately at her thoughts, and in her place was a radiant witch glowing with girlish joy.

"Of course, dear. I remember when I was a young girl. Quidditch days were such fun! I used to be a Chaser in my school days, don't you know?"

"No, ma'am, I didn't," Rebecca said, dazed by the swift change in demeanor.

"Had the time of my life up there. Nothing like it. Wind in your hair and rushing beneath your feet. Tops, it is." She beamed at her for a moment, and then returned her attention to the darting blurs streaking over the pitch.

Before Rebecca could puzzle over why McGonagall had volunteered such information, a chocolate frog wrapped in bright gold foil materialized beneath her nose.

"Chocolate frog?" Headmaster Dumbledore beamed at her, smiling softly through his downy white beard.

"Thank you, sir." She took it gratefully.

He watched placidly as she painstakingly unwrapped the foil, tearing it to pieces. "There now. Better?" he asked when she had at last managed to pop it into her mouth.

She nodded, afraid to open her mouth and expose unbecoming chocolate teeth.

Another agreeable silence as he gave her time to lick the sticky chocolate from the inside of her cheeks. Then, "Are the pitch stairs terribly difficult for you, Miss Stanhope?"

She paused, scouring the last of the chocolate from between her teeth and gathering her thoughts. So he had seen her struggle. She wasn't surprised. She doubted there was much that he didn't see with those wise old eyes of his. She smiled ruefully. "Not used to expending quite so much magic, sir. Especially not after going ass over tea kettle down four flights of stairs. "D.A.I.M.S. isn't the most magic-intensive place."

"Mmm." The Headmaster was scrutinizing the bench and stairs thoughtfully, tapping his long, slender fingers on his beard. "I'm afraid Hogwarts is a tad archaic. The founders did not anticipate such an eventuality, alas." He sounded apologetic.

"Not many people do, sir," she observed calmly. "Besides, I love it here. Such a lovely place, full of charm. I don't think I've ever had such fun."

"That's the spirit," he said, radiating serenity. His blue eyes were dancing behind his spectacles.

She smiled at him, feeling nothing but confident happiness in his presence. She had quite forgotten that she was perched hundreds of feet in air in an ancient grandstand, and in any case, it didn't matter. He would never let anything hurt her. As long as he was near, danger was far away, and everything was as it should be. Even her body fell beneath his healing, soothing power, the spasming, trembling arm going still in her lap.

He looked at the steeply descending stairs again. "I'm sure we can come up with a thing or two. Perhaps Professor Flitwick will be able to devise some Charms to make such ascents easier," he mused aloud. "Indeed, I think he'd be positively delighted. Been a few years since he's put on the proverbial thinking cap."

She blushed, unconsciously ducking her head. "Thank you, sir."

"Not at all. Having you here is a most welcome adventure." He patted her paternally on one bony knee.

She fell silent, unsure how to respond. On the one hand, she was immensely glad and flattered by the attention and concern; it made her feel valued, wanted, and needed, but on the other hand, she wondered if such ready acceptance of well-meaning offers of help didn't mean Professor Snape was right about her. What if she was weak and needy and dependent on the charity of others? Hermione Granger certainly seemed to agree with him, prating as she did about her reliance on Winky.

She sneaked a peek across the pitch to the Slytherin box, seeking out the strangely comforting sight of Professor Snape scowling at the players above his head as though they were bothersome gnats. She felt vaguely naughty peeping at a rival Head of House from the safe eyrie of the Gryffindor box, but the feeling was not strong enough to make her stop.

Truthfully, what else am I going to look at? McGonagall? Rather shovel Borgergup puke.

That was a weak justification for her constant surreptitious surveillance of her Potions Master, but the compulsion was inexplicable. It was beyond her control, an entity unto itself, one that turned her eyes inexorably to wherever he happened to be. For as long as he was in the room or in her line of sight, she could concentrate on little else. She watched him, and he watched her, and they gathered wits and ammunition for the next inevitable clash.

The silent, bloodless war raging between them was common knowledge to the Gryffindor and Slytherin students. They lived precariously in its path, growing wise to the signs of impending confrontation, learning when to run for cover and when to freeze in plain sight. All of them, even Draco, kept far away from them when the battle drew near, reluctant to become ravaged collateral damage.

Whether the Hufflepuff or Ravenclaws were as aware of the bitter clash of wills was unknown. She had little contact or interest in them, and save for Care of Magical Creatures, their educational paths never crossed. The accepted pattern was Gryffindor paired with Slytherin and Hufflepuff aligned with Ravenclaw, the two sets of polar opposites working shoulder to each day. She idly wondered whether anyone had ever noticed that fact before.

Notice it? Child, they probably planned it. One of those "fostering cooperation through forced interaction" fiascoes. Harebrained claptrap is the plainer name for it. Putting avowed enemies in a room together only helps them find newer, better ways of screwing each other. Put Gryffindor and Slytherin in a room armed with nothing but shivs and rocks and see how far cooperation gets you. And stop goggling at Snape. That McGonagall is getting awfully interested in you.

Startled, she shifted her eyes to the right. As her grandfather had said, McGonagall had dropped her gaze from the happy furor of the match and was watching her with hooded, speculative eyes.

Still at it, are you? Thought you'd given up that night I took tea with Professor Snape. Should've known I wouldn't be that lucky.

She forced her eyes away from the solemn figure in black on the other side of the pitch and turned her face upward to the sky. The wind of passing players buffeted her face, and she closed her eyes, letting it wash over her in a warm breeze, tinged with the scent of sweat and heated wool. It tickled her sparse eyelashes, and she gave a contented sigh. All around her, the sonorous heartbeat of the collective soul of Hogwarts thudded dully, a deep, timbrous sound that vibrated in the sensitive soles of her feet and filled her eardrums with gentle pressure.

When she opened her eyes again, one of the Gryffindor Chasers was directly above her head, the Quaffle tucked beneath an armpit. Two Hufflepuff Chasers were bearing down on her, and Rebecca saw her loose plait swish as she turned her head, searching for an open teammate. Her free hand clamped around the thin, smooth shaft of her broom, and she gritted her teeth in unknowing ferocity. The Chasers were coming, and there was nowhere for her to go.

Come on, come on, Rebecca thought fiercely, her hands fisting in her lap. The tart surge of adrenaline had returned to her mouth, but it was gleeful this time, the triphammer gallop of vicarious competition tapping in her chest and in her bones in delirious staccato rhythm. Expectant sweat dewed on her palms, and the world stood out in vibrant, slow-motion clarity, the green of the grass so dazzling her eyes squinted against it.

"Come on, Katie!" bellowed Seamus, his pale hands cupped to his mouth.

"Yeah!" echoed Neville, clapping vigorously.

Above them, Katie took action. Realizing that time was running out and that her options had done the same long ago, she dropped the shaft of her broomstick straight down. The air rushed up from beneath her, making her robes billow and flap. The verdant carpet of grass sped toward her, engulfing her field of vision. The weight of her stomach dropped to her knees, and then ricocheted into her throat, lodging there in a hot, hard knot.

At the last instant, she leveled off, the scuffed toes of her Quidditch boots hissing through the grass like striking serpents. She was close enough to see individual pebbles in the dirt. Behind and above her, the Hufflepuff Chasers gave dismayed shouts and pursued her, but she was gone, gone and laughing. Blood, red and vital, coursed through her veins like molten lava, and perched astride her broom, she was gloriously and wholly alive.

Watching her from her earthbound seat, Rebecca felt a thrill of longing empathy. The look of controlled ecstasy on Katie Bell's face was a familiar thought to her. Why shouldn't it be? She had brushed fingertips with it on the fourth floor landing not long ago, though that had been of a different breed, more akin to the dark and lethal eroticism of heroin than the pure rush of life lived to the fullest that was jolting through Katie Bell's body.

Many times over the course of her life, she had wondered what it would be like to dribble such undiluted freedom through her fingers. Would it be soft and yielding like cool, cool cake flour, or jagged and cutting as coquina sand? Maybe it was both, a double-edged sword the gored even as it liberated. Whatever it was, she wanted it, envied those who had it with all the strength of her heart. Nor was she the only one. The thirst for it had been in every eye when the D.A.I.M.S. students and staff had gone to the Quidditch World Cup last year. Even some of the staff had been affected by the unspoken lust for it. Professor Trask, suffering from congenital, ataxic Cerebral Palsy and encroaching rheumatoid arthritis, had looked down at his twisted, gnarled hips in mute loathing, eyes dark as wet embers.

The taint of ecstasy beyond reach had lingered for weeks after their return to the United States. The mood had been sullen and tempers had flared. Fights and verbal scuffles erupted like heat rash, and the number of students sent to the infirmary with spasms, convulsions, and panic attacks had trebled. It was as though they were punishing themselves and each other for that which they had seen but could not touch.

There had been other subtler signs, signs that only initiated eyes could see. It was in the furtive upturning of searching eyes to the heavens with the coming of the twilight, the accounting of the twinkling stars in hearts that before had never stopped to consider them. It was in the shadowy figures that dotted the discreetly fenced-in lawns and reached imploringly to the sky when they believed themselves to be beyond the scope of prying eyes. She had been one of those, lifting her quivering arms toward the firmament and straining to graze fingertips against the cold, diamond edges of the stars, needing to feel the chilly coating of wish granting stardust cupped in her palms. It had remained ever out of her reach, heartbreakingly close, but never quite close enough, and in the end she had turned from it with a venomous heart. They all had, returning gradually to the hopeless, drowsy existence the powers that be had designed for them.

They had not forgotten. Their memories were long, and their resentments unshakeable. They had simply buried the longing deep inside, beneath the craggy limestone of their stoicism. They occupied themselves with the dreary toil of making it through day after colorless day. At night, when the barriers between dream and truth were weakest, they turned sweet visions of leaving the earth between their shadowed hands, cherishing them even as they cursed the misery they brought.

George-at least she thought it was him-soared past, Beater club held aloft, eyes fixed on the action ahead of him

"Go, George!" she shouted happily, clapping as hard as she could.

Harry was circling the pitch, a scarlet goshawk on the lookout for the golden dormouse. His robes flapped dramatically as he flew, billowing behind him like a proud herald. From this distance, his features were indistinct, but his posture was relaxed and languid. The burden he nursed behind those vivid green eyes did not lie so heavily on him now. It was as though he left it behind, shaking it from the soles of his feet when he lifted into the sky. He was alive and he was happy, and she could see by the eager twitch of his shoulders that he was glad to be free of his gilded cage.

How much pressure is he really under? she thought, watching him dart after a glinting object on the horizon.

More than enough, I'd imagine. He's breaking under it.

It's his own damn fault; he likes the martyr game. He'll never walk away. Everybody's superhero. The Boy Who Lived. The Boy Who Never Loses. The Boy Who Never Makes Mistakes. The Boy Who Pisses Rosewater. If he hates it, if it hurts so much, he should just walk away.

Maybe he can't.

Oh, yes he could. They would deny him nothing.

Except his freedom. They need him. They've become so dependent on him that they no longer remember a time before him. They can't think around him. They sure as hell don't think they can survive without him. As far as they're concerned, he is their world. If they lose him, if he walks away, they lose everything. Society crumbles. Oceans sunder and stars crash down from the heavens. They can't let him go. Self-preservation is a voracious beast, and it will consume anything, no matter how beloved, to exist one more hour. They'll break him like kindling if they think it will buy them their lives.

Bet Granger would love that thought. How can he not resent them, turn his face away in disgust?

Who's to say he doesn't?

She watched him as he soared around the pitch, and even as the unending sea of her bitterness churned and writhed to see him flying so freely while she was forever shackled to the earth, she could not suppress a twinge of empathy. To bear such a responsibility while you were still trying to struggle through the bracken swamps of your own twisted, uncertain emotions and your nebulous dreams was a curse worse than death. His life was not his own, not truly, and people were all too willing to offer it up without a second thought should the need arise.

I'd run, run far, far away.

Would you? Would you voluntarily give up your place in a world where you were a god?

But the price is so high,

Evidently he's willing to pay it.

I thought you said he had no choice.

Not anymore, he doesn't. He had one once, and I guess he made it.

Bet he wishes he hadn't.

You know what they say about that...

Yes, she most certainly did, and she shoved the thought away before it could fully form. The last thing she needed was to be hooting in disgusted laughter beside the Headmaster and Professor McGonagall. She'd be sent to Madam Pomfrey for a once-over before her last snort had died away. She forced herself to concentrate on the match.

There wasn't much to see. Gryffindor had things well in hand. The score was ninety to thirty, and Hufflepuff was flagging badly. Their Beaters were moving slowly, clubs drooping loosely from their hands, and the Chasers seemed wilted and dispirited. Endurance was obviously not their strong suit. Unless Harry and the rest of the Gryffindor team suddenly suffered a collective epileptic fit, she doubted the game would go on much longer.

With nothing on the pitch to hold her attention, she found her eyes drifting once more to the figure of Professor Snape. He looked supremely bored, she noted with amusement. Indeed, he did not seem to be paying mind to the match at all; he was gazing balefully at those around him and mopping morosely at his brow with a handkerchief.

Probably the same one he gave me to clean my face. Must've gotten the filth out. Don't imagine he's the sort to go collecting handkerchiefs. The fact that he still had it surprised her. After the way he'd handled it, she'd been sure he was going to incinerate it and order a house elf to disinfect everything he owned.

Doesn't look like much of a sun worshipper, either, pointed out her grandfather.

The image of pasty, cadaverous Professor Snape sunbathing sans robes on the Hogwarts lawn came to her, and she chomped viciously on the inside of her cheek to quell hysterical laughter. An undignified squeal still escaped her, and she rocked forward, muffling it with the back of her hand.

Thankfully, her outburst was overshadowed by Seamus, who had leapt to his feet after a foul on the pitch. Whether through fatigue or the desire to take something from this embarrassing shellacking, a Hufflepuff Chaser had collided with Angelina Johnson, and Johnson was sporting a spectacularly bloody nose.

"Oi," Seamus cried, leaping to his feet, "watch where you're going, you ruddy idiot!"

"Mr. Finnegan, please!" admonished McGonagall in a scandalized tone. "One point for obscenity in front of a teacher."

"Erm, sorry, Professor," he mumbled, sitting down quickly.

"Very well," she murmured absently, but she was barely aware of him. The whole of her attention was fixed on Rebecca Stanhope.

From the moment the girl had set foot in the box, her eyes had been fixed on the Slytherin box. On Severus Snape, to be more exact. Right now, she was trying to fix her gaze on the figures flying above her head, but each time her eyes lifted to the horizon, they drifted back to that stolid, Puritanical form. It was as though an unseen force were drawing her back, some mental telepathy that beckoned her attention from across the pitch.

Now Severus is a Svengali, is he? Really.

She knew it was ridiculous, but it just seemed so very odd. Most students were repulsed by Snape, sensing his malicious, withered soul the way animals sensed weakness or disease among their number, and like most animals bent upon survival, they shunned him. But Rebecca Stanhope did not. Nor did she embrace him. She watched, just as she was now, crouching low in her seat like a scientist studying a particularly deadly beast. There was wariness, thankfully, but not nearly enough. Curiosity was stronger. She was like a kitten tugging playfully on a string, oblivious to what waited on the other end.

Minerva was not oblivious. She couldn't be. For seventeen years, she had lived and worked in his dark, skulking presence. She felt the hate radiating from him in palpable waves as he sat at the High Table, blighting her food, making it taste greasy and rotten. She knew things that Rebecca did not. She knew his past, understood, in small part at least, the circumstances that had forged him, twisted him in their bitter heat. Forewarned was forearmed, and that girl was neither.

What is she doing?

Whatever it was, it was taking its toll. She was terribly pale, and her small hands, awkwardly clutching her knees, were more fragile and ephemeral than when she had first arrived, something she would not have believed possible. She looked positively ghastly. Some of the other Gryffindor students, whom McGonagall had enlisted as lookouts, had told her that Miss Stanhope was returning to the Common Room far past the twelve-thirty curfew, and that she was often incoherent with weariness.

Clearly, something had to be done. This was an unhealthy situation for her; for both of them, really. She needed to be out making friends and exploring all the possibilities Hogwarts had to offer, not locked inside rank and fetid dungeons every waking hour of the day. Merlin only knew what such a damp environment was doing to her joints. Arthritis for the asking. Not to mention her lungs. She wasn't fit as it was; all they needed was for her to come down with tuberculosis or pneumonia. She doubted it such a feeble body could survive such an onslaught.

Fine mess that would be, having to send our first transfer student home in a cheap pine box because our Potions professor worked her to death. Be the worst international incident in a century. The parents might even file charges. You should be thankful there wasn't much publicity about her arrival. The press would have a field day.

Rather callous view of things, don't you think?

Well, it was true. They would have a field day. Education of pupils would become all but impossible, what, with story-hungry journalists crawling all over the grounds. Dig up every bit of dirt, too, they would, and thanks to Rita Skeeter and Albus' hiring choices of late, there was plenty of that. That simpering fraud Lockhart, a werewolf, the escape of a convicted criminal from the grounds-right under the Minister of Magic's nose, for Merlin's sake-the hiring of a loony ex-Auror who turned out to be, not a loony ex-Auror, but an escaped Death Eater presumed long dead. Oh, yes, there would be more than enough grist for the mill. Never mind that most of those incidents had been smoothed over; toss in a dead student and all bets were off.

Hogwarts has lost students before. Moaning Myrtle, for one.

Yes, but this time there would be no giant basilisk on which to blame it, only a hook-nosed, sallow, miserable man who probably never should have been given a position in the first place. He would make a magnificent villain, Snape, and were the press and public content with just one scapegoat, things might not go so badly for them, but Hogwarts would never be so lucky, especially since the falling out between that idiot Fudge and Dumbledore. There would be precious little help from the Ministry, and they would be frothing to come off looking well after the disastrous series of mishaps that had befallen them. What better way to regain prestige than to put away a former Death Eater that had eluded justice the first time around and sack an eccentric headmaster that many prominent families regarded with disdain and suspicion?

You know bloody well why, and it's not because of anything he's done. It's because he welcomes Muggleborns.

The real why didn't matter as long as their righteous indignation was couched and cosseted behind the cause du jour. The elitist Pureblood families would gladly raise a hue and cry over the death of a Muggleborn if they thought it would achieve their end of ridding themselves of Dumbledore and his troublesome morals. She glanced to her right, where Albus sat watching the match and chewing contentedly on a chocolate frog. Some of the chocolate had smeared into his beard. She smiled fondly.

Circe bless him. You'd never peg him to be one of the greatest, would you?

Many a person had underestimated him, taking his cheerful, placid, sweetly cracked demeanor at face value. Down to the last, they had soon discovered the error of their ways. First Grindelwald and then Voldemort had fallen before his steely determination and peerless generalship, and in the fifty years between his two greatest adversaries, dozens more had been brought to heel by his powerful hand.

Her eyes were drawn to Rebecca again. She was still watching Snape, though every now and again her eyes would flit toward the sky. She had a settled, fierce look about her, and her large eyes were sparkling with something she could not quite interpret.

This must stop. For her own safety. Albus may trust Severus' judgment, but I don't.

Do you still think he's a child molester?

She sniffed and cast a shrewd, appraising glance at him. Absolutely not. She'd wager that Severus had last entertained a sexual thought when he emerged from between his mother's thighs. Even as a boy, he had been sullen, uncommunicative, and withdrawn. The young girls never noticed him. By the same token, he never seemed to notice them, preoccupied as he was with cauldrons, tannins, alembics, and other tools of what would eventually become his trade. He was quite content to be alone, and time had not done much to change his inclinations.

Inculcation with his dark ideology was still a possibility, but if that were the case, then she was more confused than ever. What could Severus possibly offer that child? A lifetime of darkness and misery? A chance to grow sallow and unwashed in a filthy, godforsaken laboratory while the sun rose and set and the hours of her life grew shorter? A lonely, shuttered existence that no love would ever reach?

She may well already have that last. Sad to say, young men are not apt to overlook the physical. Nor are older men for that matter, she mused, recalling a rather nasty episode with a drunk, boisterous sot at the Three Broomsticks some years before.

Well, casting her lot with Severus was not likely to improve her odds. The man had the social grace of a rampaging Quintaped, and his personal grooming left much to be desired. It was highly improbable that Severus was going to dole out etiquette advice, but if she continued to spend a great deal of time with him, some of his behavior was bound to transmit itself to her.

It was ridiculous. Rebecca needed to be out in the sunshine and developing friendships. She needed to be shown the beauty of life and all its untapped potential. Yes, life was harsh, but it was not so all the time, and she should be shown that. She needed a positive role model, and Severus just didn't fit the bill. It was up to her to do something about it before it was too late.

"Headmaster," she murmured, leaning next to his ear.

"Yes, Professor McGonagall?" he answered pleasantly.

"Sir, I-," She stopped.

Rebecca's eyes, which for forty minutes had been riveted on Severus, had suddenly turned to her. She was not looking directly at her; that would have been too audacious, too confrontational, and that was not Rebecca's way. Her face was still turned toward the pitch, but her small head was cocked down and to the side, and her eyes had shifted to the toes of McGonagall's sensible black flats. She was listening. Intently.

"Nothing, sir. Perhaps we can discuss it later?" McGonagall cast a meaningful glance at Rebecca's hunched back.

The Headmaster followed her gaze, his eyes instantly losing their sheen of hazy, drifting contentment. He stroked his beard, dislodging crumbs from the apple scone he'd eaten at breakfast. "As you wish, Professor McGonagall."

Before she returned her attention to the Quidditch pitch, McGonagall caught a glimpse of Rebecca. Her face was twisted into a contemptuous leer, and she could see her narrowed eyes glittering with smug loathing. She resembled Severus so much at that moment that she recoiled.

What has he done? What has he done? The thought reverberated inside her head, the echo of an ancient curse, and it was all she could do to turn her eyes back to a game, that, for the first time in her long life, held no joy for her.

After several excruciating minutes, Rebecca's eyes turned to the front again and settled on the black dot that was Professor Snape, the living enigma. She watched and was watched in turn. None of the surreptitious observers knew that in a little less than ninety-six hours, four paths would converge in an explosion of horror, confusion, and a desperate search for truth.

November the first of 1996 was the last peaceful day Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry would know for three long, bloody, nightmare years. The Second Inquisition was about to begin, and it would come from the most unlikely source.