Summon the Lambs to Slaughter

Chapter Twenty-Five

A mile behind him, the bright lights of King's Cross Station pierced the darkness, pointing the way for weary Muggle commuters as they trudged toward the car park and the fantastical contraptions they used to transport themselves to and fro, but ahead of him there was only darkness and the vague, shadowy outline of the privet hedges. The steady clack of his boots on the pavement was sharp and crisp in the cool night air.

He was grateful for the uniform, encompassing darkness that seemed a singular invention of Great Britain. It hid him well. In his robes and heavy traveling cloak, he was all but invisible. Only his face, white and gaunt, could be seen, jutting out of the blackness like an unexpected moon. He could have Apparated directly to the doorstep of 12 Grimmauld place, but he had decided to walk from King's Cross instead. It would give him time to think, to clear his head of the mad jumble of thoughts that had been plaguing him for days. He was bracing himself.

The walk hadn't been too bad, actually. Most decent Muggles were long home, hunkered behind the closed curtains of their drab little houses, reading the newspaper and trying to shut out the incessant nagging of their wives. Those left on the streets at nightfall were either philandering husbands too wrapped in the promise of illicit fruit to pay him any mind, or drug-ravaged miscreants whose attire made his look positively innocuous. In truth, he was still pondering the youth he'd seen with incandescent pink hair in the fashion of the crest atop a Trojan soldier's helmet and a bolt through his nose. For one stupefied instant, he'd thought he was looking at Nymphadora Tonks in one of her improbable guises, but then he'd drawn closer and seen the unfocused glaze in the young man's eyes. The things Muggles did to themselves.

No one had bothered him, though a dirty child in scruffy trainers and a filthy shirt had crowed at him that if he was looking for the Mayflower, he'd only missed it by a few centuries. He had passed the boy without a word, slipping his hand into the pocket of his trousers to clutch his wand with a white-knuckled grip and reminding himself that hexing the miserable brat would bring sanctions from the Ministry and disappoint Albus still further.

Merlin knows you haven't done enough of that. He snorted and quickened his pace, tugging his cloak more closely around his throat. The nights were chill now; soon they would be cold, cold enough to make your chest ache, and snow would blanket the ground in a glowing white shroud. Tonight, it was just cold enough to make his breath plume like lazily drifting steam. When he left later, there would be a thick, rolling tide of fog slithering through the skeletal hedges like a nebulous white serpent and coiling possessively around the bland facades of the houses.

It was just half-past six. He wasn't expected at the meeting for another half hour, but he wanted to talk to Albus, offer up an explanation if he could. He deserved one. Everyone else could toss off; he owed them nothing. Despite what they told themselves over pints in pubs, he didn't work for the Order. He wasn't their lapdog, to be ordered about as they pleased. The only reason he submitted to their whims is because Albus asked it of him.

Albus was the Order. He could wax all he liked about cooperation, bravery, mutual sacrifice, and all of that sentimental pap, but he was their heart. Without him, they were nothing. The cohesive front they currently presented would disintegrate into a babel of internecine squabbling as those unaccustomed to the mantle of leadership fought over who would wear it. Had it not been for him and his ages of calm wisdom, the Potter brat wouldn't have made it as far as he had.

Number 12 Grimmauld Place loomed suddenly out of the darkness, its grim visage even uglier in the absence of light. He sneered at the ominous black door that yawned at him, but he did not enter it. Instead, he continued around the side of the house until he reached an ungainly snarl of brambles and thorn bushes. Black's great-grandfather, Andromedus, had planted them as a frighteningly effective anti-prowling device two hundred years before. Then, when the grounds had been reasonably well-maintained by industrious and properly terrified house elves, they had been a savagely beautiful deterrent. Now, with the half-mad Kreatcher as the sole means of upkeep, they were a lethal menace.

He squatted in front of them, rolling up the sleeves of his robes so they wouldn't snag in the hectic tangle of vicious thorns, some an inch and a half long, with ends that dripped condensation like venom. He cursed the Headmaster for the thousandth time for accepting Black's offer to use his ancestral home as Order headquarters. No matter how much care he took, he was going to be scratched to bits by the time he reached the Arcanus Room.

"Damn you, Black," he spat, and pulled his wand from the inside pocket of his robes.

He pointed it at the bushes, and as his left arm extended, he saw the unmistakable mark that had set his feet upon this path. The pinprick eyes of the serpent looked impassively up at him, and in the nascent, shifting light, the grinning skull seemed to leer at him. It had been a long time since he had studied the Dark Mark he had once worn so willingly, and it disgusted him. Thick bile rose in his suddenly greasy throat, and he spat to rid his mouth of the taste of bitter contrition. He jerked the sleeve of his robe down his forearm, hiding his secret once more. It no longer mattered if his robes tore.

"Damn you, Black," he repeated, as though his nemesis were responsible for the shameful brand. "Diffendo!" he murmured.

A thin beam of purple light shot from the tip of his wand and sheared the heart of the clotted brambles. The two halves fell in opposite directions, revealing a neat square stain. He swore under his breath and groped into the center of the square until his fingers closed around the shape of a heavy iron handle. To his eyes, it looked as though his fingers had been devoured by the masonry. The placement of the Invisibility Charm was seamless.

If Lord Voldemort is to be believed, this should hardly come as a surprise. Old Andromedus was a clever bastard. And damned dangerous. One of Grindewald's favorites.

Whatever he was, he's moldering in his tomb and of no consequence to you. It would be prudent to get through the door before the trap resets itself, and Sirius finds you in the morning, impaled on the thorns like some morbid lolly.

Probably have me mounted on the wall beside the wrinkled heads of the Black family house elves. Nothing like seeing the severed head of your enemy to stimulate the appetite.

The idea of Black smiling and whistling a merry tune as he sauntered down the staircase past his glass-eyed, forever staring face spurred him into action. There was no way he was going to allow Black the satisfaction of standing over his mangled corpse and cackling while the rest of the Order extricated his lifeless body from the tenacious grip of the thorn bushes. His life had been a shambles. His death, at least, should have some pitiful fragment of dignity.

He tugged the unseen handle, grunting with the exertion, fine beads of sweat misting on his upper lip. His shoulders and bicep thrummed with energy, a sensation he paused to savor. Potions was exact science, not brute force, and he seldom had the opportunity to stretch, to test the limits of his body. As a boy, he'd loved Quidditch; he'd been abysmal at it, but he'd enjoyed it. He had been out, free. It was one of the rare occasions when the sun had been permitted to kiss his face, to warm it with its maternal caress. Then James Potter had come along in his entitled arrogance and soured that love, curdled it with his swagger and his ridicule. Yet another sin to lay at clay Potter feet.

He tugged harder, gritting his teeth with the effort, and a crack formed in the smooth square, widening slowly, the blackness spreading like blight. The hidden hinges of the square gave a grating groan, and he froze, ears straining for the sound of the front door opening, for the stealthy hiss of approaching footsteps. He doubted Sirius could hear him from inside the manor, but he wasn't taking any chances.

Assuming Black is even in the house. He could be out.

Albus ordered him to remain inside.

Since when has he listened either to instruction or reason? Intractable prat.

The thought that he might be in the chill London air with his arse in the air and poised precariously between lethal thorn bushes for nothing infuriated him, and he jerked the heavy door open with an impatient snort. His arm gave a warning twang, and he knew he would pay for his rash insouciance in the morning. He shoved the thought out of his mind and crawled into the claustrophobic darkness.

The smells of damp earth and wet stone struck his nostrils, and the ghostly, unseen fingers of dainty cobwebs brushed his nose and cheek. He sniffed and brushed them away, pulling his legs in after him. Just in time, as it turned out. Behind him, the brambles and thorn bushes snapped closed with a voracious, defeated crack. A moment later, the heavy door crashed shut, throttling the fresh air and faint light that had tried to dislodge the fetor of decades, perhaps centuries.

"Lumos!" From beneath his hand, a faint green light speared the shadows.

The beam was narrow, barely illuminating the span of his wrist, and by it, he could see less than a foot in front of his face. He inched along, taking shallow breaths of the stale, close air and grimacing at the gritty feel of dust beneath his palms. Among other things. Rats probably flourished here, and it was discomfiting to think that their petrified offal was accruing beneath his nails. Contrary to popular belief, he was a fastidious man.

His shoulders scraped the pocked walls, and he cursed the name of Black again, not just Sirius, but the whole lot of them. Insanity ran in the family; it was as much a Black birthright as this twisted, sprawling manse, and only minds as poisoned and diseased as theirs could have envisioned this place, with all its secret passages and hidden claves. The fact that the Black family had a connection, however tenuous, with the Potters was more proof that the Fates lived to torment him.

Why Black? Of all the people Saint James could have chosen to be Harry's godfather, why did it have to be Black?

A better question was why did Black have to be a member of the Order at all? He had no place, and aside from the use of this rotting estate, was of no practical value. He was a liability. Hot-tempered and wildly irrational, leaping to preposterous conclusions in a single bound. And a wanted fugitive. Nonetheless, Albus kept him on, insisting that he was a vital part of the resistance.

Part of his stubbornness on the issue of Black and his utility to the cause, stemmed, no doubt, from his sense of responsibility over the deaths of James and Lily. He never said so, but Snape knew he blamed himself. He was so sure he could have, should have done something more. In that, he and young Potter were of a single mind. They both staggered beneath the unimaginable weight of self-imposed Gryffindor nobility.

Well, it was ridiculous. James had gotten himself blown up, and he had taken his wife with him. He had known the risks of the path he had chosen, or he had, at the least, acted as though he had, and in the end, he had paid the consequence. Lily, in yoking herself to him, had chosen the same fate. There was nothing to be done for it, and all of this teeth-gnashing and self-flagellation was utterly senseless.

The ground sloped downward beneath his hands and knees, and the smell of damp earth grew stronger. Soon, he would be able to stand, and for that he was grateful. Tiny, cold paws skittered across his wand hand, and he recoiled, his lip curling in disgust. He hated this passageway, hated the Arcanus Room. If it weren't for Black, skulking about like thieves in the night would have been unnecessary. They could have met in one of the drafty, mildewed sitting rooms; he could have been pilloried in relative comfort.

In truth, the Black manor made his skin crawl. He never stayed in it any longer than he had to, fleeing as soon as escape presented itself. The other members of the Order slept here, even took meals here upon occasion, and it boggled his mind. He couldn't. He wouldn't. This place was tainted, and it corrupted everything it touched. It was a fundamentally bad place, nursing centuries of malevolence in its slowly crumbling walls. Being inside it was like being trapped in the tumorous belly of an ancient and terrible beast, and as he squirmed torturously through its narrow lower intestine, he thought only of flight, of the hour when he would be vomited back onto the pavement and he could retreat to the blessed sanctuary of Hogwarts and its stalwart walls that repelled the darkness.

Suddenly, the uniform darkness was pierced by the sickly orange glow of flickering torches. He let out a soft sigh of relief. Albus had come this way, then. "Nox!" The light at the tip of his wand winked out, and he tucked it inside his robes.

He carefully navigated the six-inch drop that marked the end of the sloping passageway, his hand coming to rest in a soft dune of dust scant inches from a fat brown spider. The spider seemed unperturbed by his intrusion into its world, surveying him sedately from eight inscrutable green eyes. Its legs shifted, but it did not flee. He stared at it, taken aback by its frank appraisal. After a moment, it retreated, scuttling up the dank wall, its legs clittering drily over the moss-covered stone wall.

The sound unnerved him. It struck a chord of dreadful familiarity within him, and a frigid chill crept up his spine. He remembered it from somewhere.

A spider from your own dungeon?

No. Nothing so mundane. His dungeon had been home to hundreds, if not thousands, of spiders over the years, and he had grown quite accustomed to the light, furtive skittering of their brittle legs. In fact, he had come to associate that sound with security, embraced it as a sign of the peaceful status quo. This was nothing of the sort. It was like being touched by corpse flesh, and he would be thankful if he never heard it again.

You will.

The bald certainty in the thought made him pause in the middle of getting to his feet. He crouched, knees and back bent, fingers of his right hand tented in the thick layer of dirt, head bowed. It was a strangely reverent attitude, and in the dim, washed-out light of the torches, he seemed to be making obeisance to the spider as it haunched in the center of its web. One heartbeat. Another. He slowly rose to his feet, absently dusting off the knees of his robes.

He crossed the tiny room and began the cramped descent down a long spiral of stone steps. The closer he drew to the Arcanus Room, the more uneasy he became. He had never been inside it before, though he knew very well what it was. So did Albus, and he wondered why the Headmaster had chosen it as the war room this time around. Perhaps he thought he, Snape, would draw comfort from familiar surroundings. If so, the man was going to be sorely disappointed.

The Arcanus Room was the first room built after the foundation had set, an enormous cavern entrenched seventy feet below the earth. It had served many purposes over the years, if the gabblings of Bellatrix LeStrange were to be believed. In the days of her great-great-grandfather, when the family's power and prestige had been at its peak, it had been a grand ballroom, a haven where the Blacks could consort as they pleased with whomever or whatever struck their fancy. Bellatrix never wearied of regaling him or anyone else who would listen with tales of the mad orgies to which the walls had borne witness.

When the family fortune began to decline, the raucous revelry of the orgies fell silent, and it wasn't long before the walls became sentinels of something else entirely. Privileged wizards did not surrender power willingly, and the family madness led them down avenues no one else would have dared tread, thoroughfares that had never seen the light of any sun, nor even the jaundiced light of Hell's flame. In the weeks and days before Grindewald was toppled from the bloody parapet of his fortress by the searing sting of a white bumblebee, people disappeared, scores of them. Men, women, and children vanished as quickly and quietly as wisps of woodsmoke. Aurors and regular citizens sifted through the smoldering ruins and blasted corpses strewn across battlefields and stuffed into mass graves searching for the lost, but no trace of them was ever found.

Until Aurors came for Bellatrix's father, that was. Ministry Charm Breakers and Dark Arts Detectors scoured the house, and one of them discovered the passageway through which he was now moving. Unfortunately for him, he also found what lay at the end of it. If he had known what he was walking into, he might have turned around and left the secret to slumber, but he was ignorant and eager to seize whatever indictment he could against the Ancient and Noble House of Black. In the latter, he was successful beyond his wildest dreams, though his dreams were forever cursed.

When the Auror opened the door to the Arcanus Room, it must have seemed as though he had tumbled headlong into the foul black waters of the river Styx. Newspaper accounts of the time all agree on one thing. Shortly after disappearing down this godforsaken corridor, he returned, screaming at the top of his voice. He lurched past his gobsmacked colleagues, wrenched open the heavy black front door, vomited noisily on the front steps, and collapsed. He took early retirement the next day at the ripe old age of thirty-nine.

One hundred and ninety-six bodies were removed from the Arcanus Room over the next three days. House elves had to be called in to complement the exhausted and appalled Aurors as they hauled out litter after litter and bin bag after bin bag of human remains. The house was silent, save for the groans and prayers of the workers and the sounds of retching when they could take no more. The Black patriarch had only smiled when the revolted Aurors led him away. His silence remained unbroken until he received the Kiss eight weeks later.

The rest of the Blacks were left to their own, abandoned to the merciless influence of the house and the incessant whispers of contagious lunacy. There wasn't enough evidence to do anything else, though everyone knew that Madame Black and her twisted daughters and sons had been involved as surely as they drew breath. After a while, the horrified gossiped had tapered away, turning to juicier fare, and the once prestigious name of Black became an epithet. The widow and her children withdrew into their insular world, cocooned themselves inside the blackened heart of Grimmauld Place and surrendered to its siren song. The Arcanus Room became the family crypt.

The stone stairs ended, giving way to a narrow corridor. At the far end, the heavy iron door of the Arcanus Room waited, blackened with age and its own malice. He slowed his pace, stepping gingerly over the desiccated bodies of mice. He was in no hurry to reach that room, even if Albus was there. He, a creature of rationality and reason, who had spent his entire life compiling measures and angles and calculated the risk to his survival to the last cold degree, was afraid of it, afraid of the whole damn house, and the fear weighted down his feet, contravened his incontrovertible will.

He knew Black was somewhere above his head, and he sent a thousand hexes toward him on every breath, heaved them upward with each leaden footstep. That he should be drawing nearer that damnable door while Black whiled away the minutes and hours in the fading comfort of a ragged parlor seemed an unpardonable sin. This trek was only needed because of Black and his hereditary madness. He should be here now, swallowing his own sour spit and trying to calm a bladder suddenly two sizes too small. Hell, had the Fates any sense of justice, he would have made this journey long ago, in an oblong box borne upon the shoulders of his kin.

Not likely. Even if there were many of them left.

He snorted. Juno Black would have been flayed alive rather than allow her prodigal son burial in the family crypt. She had disowned him when it became apparent he did not share their pathological loathing for Muggles and Mudbloods. Burned him right off the family tapestry, as if obliteration of his name from the soiled, tatty fabric would erase his very existence. For her, it had. Nothing beyond the walls of this house was real to her in the end.

Regulus was buried here, entombed beside his father. Regulus, with views more virulent and radical than those held by the Malfoys, a sycophant fanatic who had believed too ardently, been too loyal. The Dark Lord had used him for his ends, and when his part was finished, he had killed him with a casual flick of his wrist. Regulus had professed his allegiance unto the end, his last words of devotion tumbling from his lips even as his eyes began to fade and glaze.

The death of Regulus had been the death of Juno, though she drew breath for five years more. She had been inconsolable during the funeral, ranting and raving, not against the cold savagery of Voldemort, but against Sirius, whom she believed to have framed Regulus for some crime against her Lord. The blatant illogic of her accusation was of no consequence, and she had trumpeted it all through the service. It had gotten so shrill and grating that, Snape, acting as a pallbearer, had needed all of his will to refrain from casting a Silencing Charm. Lucius, unencumbered by such trivialities as tact, had finally done it for him, and for a brief moment, he had remembered why he had once been drawn to him.

Yet another reason to thank Albus for my chance at redemption. Being a pallbearer for people who make my stomach turn.

Those in need of redemption cannot choose the path by which they reach it.

No need to proselytize, Albus.

He stopped and took a deep breath. He was in front of the massive iron door. All that remained was to open it and step inside. Except he didn't want to touch the door. There was nothing wrong with it-no Curses or traps lurked beneath its disused exterior. All the same, his hand absolutely refused to reach for the door handle.

If I touch it, I'll be contaminated, he thought.

Don't be absurd. It's a door handle. Nothing more. Besides, if that's true, you're done for already. You've touched the floor half a dozen times.

Yes, but the dust protected me, he countered nonsensically.

Really, Severus, get a hold of yourself. What would your pupils think if they could see you now, the draconian teacher of their darkest nightmares, cowering before an ordinary door and pinning his faith on dust and calcified rat shit? Albus is in there, and if an old man of one hundred and fifty can make the trip without coming undone, so can you.

The voice was right, of course. He was being perfectly ridiculous. He grunted in exasperation, seized the door handle, yanked it open, and stepped inside before his nerves could fail him.

Albus sat in the middle of the room, hands folded placidly across his stomach, spectacles sliding precariously on the edge of his nose, feet stretched out in front of him. He smiled knowingly. "Ah, there you are. Bit later than I expected."

"I don't like this house," he snapped by way of explanation, stalking over to the spindle-legged chair on the Headmaster's left. He sat stiffly, sneering when the chair emitted an unbecoming creak.

"Not terribly sturdy, I'm afraid," Albus said ruefully, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "Kreatcher rounded them up. What you see here is the best of the lot." He gestured at the semicircle of chairs, several of which sported warped or splintered legs. One was missing a leg entirely, leaning drunkenly against the wall.

"I see you've found a seat for Moody," he said, eyeing the derelict chair.

"It was a chore finding seats for everyone," Albus replied, clearly choosing to ignore his barb.

"The whole estate should be burned to the ground, and the ground seeded with salt," he muttered irritably.

"Oh, I don't know. Sirius came out of it all right."

"My point exactly."

"Given the circumstances, Severus, don't you think it time to put aside petty childhood grievances?"

"I'll thank you not to patronize me, Headmaster," he snapped, anger at Black rising anew. He pulled a handkerchief from the folds of his robes and began to swipe at the grime on his hands. "A petty childhood grievance is precisely why we are in the Arcanus Room at all."

Albus sighed and pushed his spectacles back onto the bridge of his nose. "Severus, please. Despite what you think, Sirius is a good man. He simply has a blind spot when it comes to Harry. He shouldn't be damned for past mistakes."

"He'll be quite happy to damn me for mine," Snape pointed out. "Bloody hell!" he spat. The handkerchief was utterly useless. The more he scrubbed, the more dirt caked beneath the crescents of his fingernails. He crumpled it and tossed it to the ground with a defeated sigh.

"Scourgify!"

He looked up to see Albus calmly putting his wand away and reaching for the dishonored linen. He plucked it from the floor with his long fingers and folded it neatly into a crisp square. He held it out with a small smile.

"I believe this is yours," he said gently.

Snape stared at him, torn between a spate of unhinged laughter and a string of venomous oaths. In the end, he chose neither, opting instead to look down at his now clean hands. How could he have been so thick? A Cleansing Charm. He had used it a thousand times, and twenty-two years ago, one James Potter had used it to great efficacy on his choking, gagging mouth. How could he have forgotten? He was losing his mind. The father had stolen his dignity, and now the son was shearing away his sanity. He covered his face with his hands and gave a mirthless laugh.

"The truth will find the light, Severus." Albus patted him reassuringly on the shoulder.

He snorted behind his hands. "How can it? We don't even know what it is."

"Don't we?"

He slowly dropped his hands. That was as close as the Headmaster was going to come to asking him if he had acted upon his festering malice and poisoned Potter. He suddenly felt very tired, drained, as though the Fates had reached down and plucked the bones from his body.

"No. We don't." He ran his fingers through his hair and then brought them down to knead his temples.

Dumbledore mulled this over for a moment, tapping his chin thoughtfully. Then he nodded, as if that were the response he had expected. "Then, whatever it is, Severus, we shall find it together."

Snape sagged beneath the weight of his relief and gratitude. But it was not in him to articulate such thoughts, and so he merely nodded imperceptibly and began to study his surroundings. It took him less than a minute to determine that the Arcanus Room was still an ugly place. It was bare except for the chairs Albus had commandeered from the manor. In the walls rested the cobweb-festooned sarcophagi holding the earthly remains of the Black family, arranged chronologically from earliest to latest. Juno's coffin was socketed in the vault furthest to the right, her tarnished brass nameplate reflecting the cold torchlight in a dirty bronze smear.

All around him were reminders of what he could become, the bleak possibility of his own ignominious end. Here lay the remnants of dreams and lives, the sad revenants of lives that had once walked the earth bearing dreams and cancerous hopes. They were all forgotten, even by their kin, cast aside as undesirable, obsolete relics. Those that did remember them cursed their names.

Is that the end that awaits you?

He thought it was. He had no family to mourn him. His father had been dead for nearly ten years, and his mother was gone long before that, her heart shattered by the accusations cast against her only son. There were no cousins or uncles, no distant relations from some obscure, withered branch of the family tree. The Snapes had never been a prolific clan, and when he was gone, they would be lost to the world. The surname would live only in the minds of reluctant allies and bitter enemies.

He had little doubt his students would remember him, though not with the saccharine visions of nostalgia. He would live on as a bogey with which to terrify their recalcitrant children and as a curse to hurl at the unsuspecting back of a loathed supervisor. His would be the remembrance of old fear. The thought did not sadden him. He had never lived his life for the approbation and everlasting affection of the world, but it did rankle him that once the last of his pupils succumbed to the dark lure of the earth from whence they had sprung, he would truly cease to be, even as a malevolent shade in the minds of children shivering beneath their bedclothes.

There would be a gravestone in some forgotten cemetery, but no one would ever tend it. The rain and snow and sleet would cover it, wear away the name etched by a carefully practiced hand until it was as blank and anonymous as the pile of moss-covered bones beneath it. He had no legacy to leave; no plaque bore his name below any deed of renown. Even the dubious honor of fleeting Quidditch fame had eluded him. James Potter had ruled that kingdom with a golden Gryffindor fist.

There had been a single, fleeting chance two years ago to leave something behind, but it had been snatched away from him at the last moment. By Potter and Black, of course. But he had been so close, not only to leaving his mark, however small, upon the world, but tasting the sweet, burning gall of vengeance. He had had it all at the quivering tip of his wand. Sirius Black, the wanted fugitive, hiding beneath the Whomping Willow with his werewolf companion and the sainted Potter boy. It was perfect. All that had remained to be done was to round them up and present them to Fudge. Black would've been Kissed, and Potter and his congenital entitlement would have been expelled. The Order of Merlin, Third Class would have been his, and along with it a piece of eternity. But it had worked out that way. Some sneaking coward had Stunned him, and when he awoke, all he had to show for it was a large, inexplicable knot on the back of his head. Black was gone, and Potter was sitting smugly in his bed in the Hospital Wing.

How he'd done it was never explained, but Snape knew that Albus had absolutely been involved. Only he was cunning enough to both aid and abet a wanted felon and extricate Potter from the madness with nary a scratch. He would probably admit it if Snape asked, but he really didn't want to know.

So much for the trust in me gospel he spouts at every turn.

He snorted. After all the reprieves and good faith leeway the Headmaster had shown him, he was allowed to bollix things now and then. He cast a sidelong glance to his left to see if Albus was watching him, but the Headmaster was wandering his own paths, staring speculatively at the dusty torch bracket above Regulus Black's tomb.

Further rumination was cut off by the arrival of Kingsley Shacklebolt and the Weasleys. No one spoke as they entered. Shacklebolt stomped his feet to rid his shoes of the omnipresent dust and found a seat among the empty chairs. He nodded in greeting to both he and Albus. His thin, smooth face was somnolent.

"Headmaster, Professor," he said in his rich baritone.

"Kingsley," the Headmaster answered, smiling.

Snape murmured unintelligibly in response. He had never gotten on with the other members of the Order, and frankly, inane chatter bored him. Besides, he was preoccupied with the Weasleys, especially Molly, who was already sending beady, accusatory glares in his direction. He fought to stifle a sigh. Arthur had told her everything, no doubt, and she had clearly presumed his guilt. The thought of her shrill voice rising above the civilized din of the subtle lynch mob made him cringe. Sometimes he wondered how Arthur could stand it.

By the looks of him, not very well. He was wan and haggard, and his thinning red hair looked more sparse than ever, the dying embers of a once raging fire. His open, eternally youthful face was finally giving in to the ravages of age. There were fine lines around his eyes and deep grooves around his mouth that had not been there the year before. Some of the exuberant joviality for which he was known had deserted him. It was as though the terrible gravity of the world had finally broken through his cheerful façade.

Little wonder if he's married to that, he mused, eyeing the squat form of Molly. She reminded him of a bulldog sizing up a particularly tender morsel.

At least he's married.

If that is what that much-vaunted institution has to offer, I'll kiss the ground for my solitary life.

You've only got yourself to blame.

Merlin bless my impeccable intellect.

The uncomfortable silence was broken by the steady, echoing rap of Alastor Moody's walking stick and the cautious shuffle of feet. To Snape's ears, they sounded like the tolling of funereal bells. As they drew closer, the rattling wheeze of Moody's labored breathing could be heard, and then, like the sibilant tributary to a raging river, the soft murmur of Lupin's voice.

"Headmaster," Moody grunted, as he thumped into the room, leaning heavily on his walking stick. No one said anything else until he had situated himself in the chair beside Shacklebolt and propped his stick between his knees. Lupin merely waved and sat beside a glowering Molly Weasley.

"Ah. I was rather hoping Tonks would be with you," Dumbledore said, gazing hopefully to the mouth of the passageway.

"She'll be along shortly, no doubt," grunted Moody. "Bright girl, but not the most directionally minded."

Snape sniffed at the understatement. Nymphadora Tonks could lose herself within a circle.

"We'll have to start without her, I'm afraid. I'll leave it to you to pass along anything she may miss," Dumbledore said briskly.

Moody merely nodded, pulled out his silver hip flask, unscrewed the cap, and took a long draught. The rest of the Order sat forward, and the air was spicy with anticipation.

"As I told Arthur early this morning, there has been an incident involving Harry Potter. During an afternoon Potions lesson yesterday, he was given a dose of an Advanced Sleeping Draught he himself had brewed the week before, a dose that, prior to its administration, had been kept in Professor Snape's locked and warded cabinet. Seconds after receiving the draught, Harry collapsed and was rushed to the infirmary. He has been stable, but unresponsive ever since."

Molly Weasley let out a watery sniff, but there was no real surprise. Word had traveled quickly from Arthur to other Order members, stealthy and virulent as pestilence. Shacklebolt shifted in his seat, and Dumbledore spoke again.

"Upon reviewing his stores, Professor Snape discovered that a lethal dose of cyanide was missing."

There were astonished murmurs at that, and Molly Weasley shot another outraged glare at him, as if to say she should have expected such a thing. The first sharp tines of irritation pricked his skin. If she had already made up her mind, then why was she here? She had no relevance to the problem at hand. Her role in the Order was to serve as den mother and anchor to the others. If she thought he was a fiend, she ought to say so and be done with it.

That's not the Gryffindor way. She has to keep up the pretense of justice.

"Do we know for certain that's what caused this?" Shacklebolt's resonant voice broke the silence. His dark, graceful fingers were steepled beneath his chin.

"No," Snape said. "But if traces of it are found in Potter's system or in the shards of phial, we can make that assumption. Cyanide is not an ingredient in the potion."

"And if cyanide is responsible, what then?" Moody took another pull from his flask and leaned forward, letting it dangle loosely between his knees. Both his eyes were watching Snape with shrewd intensity.

"Then we can try an antidote. No guarantee it will work, however. Antidotes are at their most effective in the first hour after ingestion."

"What about a bezoar?" Arthur kneaded his elbow joint thoughtfully, as though it pained him.

"If I had one, it would likely keep him alive. Unfortunately, they are becoming increasingly rare. It seems goats have finally wearied of swallowing stones." Snape sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"You should have had one on hand," Molly snapped. "You're a Potions Master, for Merlin's sake! Were you simply too tight-fisted to buy one?" Her chest was heaving, and her chin jutted defiantly.

Snape gripped the sides of his chair to keep himself from throttling her. Her haughty, sanctimonious face made him want to scream. He fought to maintain control.

"I wonder, Mrs. Weasley, if your indignation would be quite so vehement if this were anyone else?" he hissed.

Molly shot to her feet, hands fisted at her sides. "How dare you!" she spat, quaking in her rage. "I have four children at the castle, in case you've forgotten. I just want to know what kind of shoddy operation you're running. I doubt you give less than a damn about your charges." She was nearly frothing now, her nostrils flaring like a bull preparing to charge.

"No student has ever been seriously injured in my care in seventeen years," he snapped, blood hammering in his temples.

"Dumb luck, and it finally ran out," she retorted hotly, eyes flashing. "And how convenient that it just happen to run out on Harry, only son of your bitter enemy."

He sprang to his feet. "I've spent ten years of my life writhing and convulsing in my own filth just to keep that little ingrate alive," he snarled.

And you deserve every last second of it, her eyes said.

Arthur reached out a restraining hand, but she shook it off, her mouth trembling.

Snape let out an exasperated sigh and folded his arms across his chest. "Do you really think that after ten years of highly dangerous espionage, I would be thick enough, bloody daft enough to poison darling Harry Potter, savior of the wizarding world, in front of thirty witnesses, two of whom are his closest friends?" He stared at her in disgusted incredulity.

She gaped at him, taken aback. Clearly, that thought had never crossed her mind. Her eyes darted to and fro, and her chin wobbled dangerously. She squared her shoulders and drew herself up. "If you were angry enough, yes," she answered at last, but creeping doubt tinged her voice.

"Then it's as I feared," he said blandly, "Gryffindor and logic are mutually exclusive terms." He sat down, his arms still folded across his chest, a barrier against further remonstrance.

"You...you," she sputtered, and sat with a furious flounce.

"Perhaps we should concentrate on the matter of restoring Harry to health before we set about the business of assigning blame," Dumbledore suggested mildly, and everyone turned to look at him.

He gave a sad, listless smile, and seeing it made Snape's heart lurch in his chest and thump painfully against his ribcage. It was such an alien expression on the Headmaster's steadfastly cheerful face, an expression more at home on his own sallow face. He wanted to seize him by his brilliant red robes and shake him until the melancholy was swept from his venerable old heart like the sticky threads of old cobwebs, until the light returned to his eyes.

I'm the one who should look like that, not you, he wanted to shout. You're hope, you're the Light. You can't flicker out. I'm lost if you do.

Further pursuit of this train of thought was derailed by the spectacular arrival of Tonks, who materialized from the passageway in a sprawl of arms and legs and eye-blindingly blue hair. She landed at Dumbledore's feet with a soft thump, yelping as her chin struck the stone floor. She sat up slowly, rubbing her chin and swiping at the thick layer of dust on her robes.

"At last, Tonks. So good of you to come, dear. Are you all right?" There was no trace of sarcasm or reproof in Dumbledore's voice, only concern and thinly disguised merriment. He offered her his hand.

"Er, yes, sir, I'm fine. In a bit of a rush and lost my footing." She smiled ruefully and heaved herself to her feet, gently gripping the Headmaster's deceptively strong hand. "Thank you."

"Not at all."

Tonks seated herself in the drunken chair, and Snape waited for her to topple again, racking his brain for anything in the dark corridor that might have caused her to trip. Miraculously, she stayed upright, and after a moment, he gave up the mental search for a culprit. Her own two feet were all she needed.

"Would a bezoar be of any help now, even at this late hour?" It was Lupin. He looked at Snape through haunted, weariness-smudged eyes.

"It would keep him from dying," he said.

"Is that a possibility? I thought if he hadn't...well, you know, by now, he was safe." Molly Weasley, on the verge of tears.

"Of course it is," Snape snapped irritably, unnerved by the threat of maternal histrionics. "Some poisons take months or years to work. Cyanide, however, kills within minutes, so the fact that Potter is still alive is a good sign. He has a remarkably strong resistance to toxins, as illustrated by his survival of an Acromantula bite in the Tri-wizard Tournament."

There were grunts of acknowledgement from all around. "How soon can you get one?" Moody shifted his walking stick between his knees.

"Hard to say. They're extremely rare these days. They can be especially ordered, but delivery is notoriously slow. St. Mungo's may keep some on hand."

"I'll ask around," growled Moody. "Won't attract attention. Fools will just chalk it up to 'paranoia.' Young people today, so blithe, never considering the terrible possibilities. Eating and drinking anything put in front of them. Sharing food." He said this last as though he were discussing an act of gross sexual deviance.

"And I'll get in touch with my brother, Aberforth. He has always had a special affinity for goats," Dumbledore interjected, before Moody could get a full head of steam on the perils of eating, and there was a collective sigh of relief.

Moody was just struggling to his feet when a voice from the corridor made them all freeze.

"Why would Harry need a bezoar?" Sirius Black asked, stepping from the shadows, his face contorted with fury, and his wild eyes fixed on Snape.

"Sirius, how did-," began Arthur Weasley, but he got no farther. Sirius let out a bellow of rage and charged Snape.

Snape bolted to his feet, intending to sidestep the assault, but rage had made Black quick, and his thin shoulder caught him just above the left hip. He staggered backward and spun, pulling his wand from his pocket in a fluid arc. Black grabbed his arm, trying to wrench it downward, knock the weapon from his grasp. Sour breath wafted into Snape's face, old Grunier and Ogden's Firewhiskey. Repulsed, he twisted away, teeth bared in a snarl.

Black lunged for him again, but the strong hands of Kingsley Shacklebolt and Arthur Weasley pulled him back. His eyes rolled in their sockets, and his face had gone an alarming puce.

Snape stepped away from him, his wand pointed at his throat. With his free hand, he smoothed his robes. "Been drinking, Black?" he spat, his eyes alight with feverish malice. "Should have known you wouldn't put yourself to any good use."

Black tried to break free, but his captors' grip was too firm. "What did you do? I know it was you. What did you do, you bastard?"

Snape rolled his eyes, bored with the overblown theatrics. "I did nothing. Young Potter was merely a victim of his own ineptitude." He ignored an outraged gasp from Molly Weasley, relishing the crazed rage that suffused his nemesis' face. "Like his father, he has discovered that fame will not save you in the end." He smirked.

"Severus, that's enough," Dumbledore said from behind Black.

But it wasn't enough. Black had slipped through his fingers too many times, and now he was here, of his own volition, trapped like a fly in a spider's web. He was going to seize the opportunity. His wand jittered softly in his hand. His forearm tingled in anticipation. He could do it. Just a flick of his wrist and two simple words. They would send him to Azkaban, but what did that matter? He had lived in his own private hell for years because of Black and Potter. The Kiss might actually be a blessing.

Black grinned, a wavering, mad twist of the lips. "Go on, Snivellus. You know you want to. Go on and do it. Kill me. I'll see you on the other side."

"Severus." Dumbledore again, commanding, but also uneasy.

Snape looked at Black again, his lips curving upward in a closed-mouth, bloodless smile. "Petrificus Totalus!"

Black went rigid in Shacklebolt and Weasley's arms, and Snape stepped forward until they were nearly cheek to cheek, his breath tickling Black's grimy ear. "Not here. Not now," he whispered. "But someday, I will kill you."

He whirled away from Black's bug-eyed face, pointing his wand over his shoulder. "Finite Incantatem." He disappeared into the yawning dark of the corridor and was gone.