Summon the Lambs to Slaughter

Chapter Thirty-six

While Rebecca was dancing for her Potions Master's life beneath the merciless eyes of Madam Toad and her courtier, Albus Dumbledore was making plans of his own. He was in his office with the Hogwarts staff and Kingsley Shacklebolt, who was seated in his place beside the door, quill and parchment in his lap. Even Filch was present, though he did not seem to appreciate the rare and unexplained honor.

"Blast that Peeves," he muttered sourly, massaging his thin, rheumatic knees with arthritic fingers. "I know he's up to no good without me watchin' him. What'd you invite me to this bleedin' meeting for?" He scowled at the Headmaster through narrowed eyes, then remembered whom he was addressing and tacked on a hasty, insincere "sir." "Need instructions on how to clean the toilets now, do I? If the bathrooms are a mess, it's not because I've cut corners. It's those ruddy brats, what with their Dung bombs and Stink Pellets. Some enterprising little sod flushed a piece of Drooble's gum down the toilet on the third floor. Was mopping shite off the floor until three o'clock in the morning."

"Mr. Filch!" interrupted McGonagall in scandalized disapproval. "This is the Headmaster's office, not some seedy pub. A bit of respect, please."

"That's quite all right, Minerva," the Headmaster soothed. "Argus is well within his rights to express his disapproval, even if he does so in...less conventional language."

"Too right," Filch agreed vehemently, stamping his foot for emphasis. "All day long I clean up after these ungrateful turds. Pipes busted and spewin' sewage into the corridors? Call Filch. Some smarmy little tosser locked one of his fellows into the rubbish bin out back of the greenhouses? Get Filch to fetch him out. And never a word of thanks. Just 'geroff me'. What I wouldn't give to hang 'em by their bangers and mash." He smiled, revealing uneven, yellow teeth, and his eyes had a dreamy, faraway look, as though he could hear already the screams of his victims. McGonagall gave an offended harrumph, and Professor Moody, no stranger to histrionic rants, rolled his eyes and unscrewed the cap of his hip flask.

Filch opened his mouth to continue his tirade, but the Headmaster cut him off. "I appreciate your concerns, Argus, and if you would like, we can discuss them further after the meeting proper, but now I'm afraid there are darker matters afoot." He took off his spectacles and massaged the bridge of his nose.

The mood of the room darkened at once. Crass as it might have been, the caretaker's rant had provided a brief moment of bawdy humor, and humor of any sort had been sorely lacking in the castle since Potter's terrifying collapse. Even the Weasley twins, resident pranksters extraordinaire, had been conspicuous by their uncharacteristic silence. The "darker matters" had consumed them all, and no one was in the mood to discuss them still more.

Professor Vector let out a dispirited sigh and reached into his robes for a roll of antacid tablets, and Professor Flitwick, seated beside McGonagall, sank deeper into his chair, as though he hoped to disappear and avoid the topic altogether. Moody took a fortifying gulp from his hip flask and stared at the floor.

After a long and painful silence, McGonagall spoke. "Would anyone like some tea before we begin?"

"You can stow your tea, but I wouldn't mind a nip of what Moody's havin," declared Filch, eyeing Moody's flask with longing.

Moody, in the process of screwing on the cap, froze and surveyed him with beady wariness. "I'd sooner caper naked into Voldemort's inner circle than let anyone put their hands on my hip flask," he retorted, and stowed the object in question inside his robes.

There was a moment of appalled contemplation as everyone pondered this.

"Thank you for that most interesting visual, Alastor," said the Headmaster mildly. "Now, would anyone like some tea?"

"I believe I would, Headmaster," said Kingsley.

"Of course, Kingsley. Dipply!"

No sooner had he said the name than an elderly house elf appeared. She shambled forward and peered myopically over the edge of the Headmaster's desk.

"The Headmaster has called Dipply?" she squeaked solemnly.

"Indeed, Dipply. Would you please bring enough tea for all of us?"

The elf gazed around the room, taking a silent head count. Then she turned to the Headmaster again.

"Is yous wanting sugar and milk? Scones?" She tugged nervously on the hem of her Hogwarts toga.

"Yes, that's a lovely idea," Dumbledore answered.

"Yes, Headmaster Dumbledore, sir. I is bringing it right away." She offered a precarious curtsey and disappeared with a loud crack. When she was gone, they looked at one another in silence.

Dumbledore knew the tea was little more than a diversionary tactic, a way to delay the inevitable, but he couldn't blame them. He didn't want to talk about this, either, particularly the last bit, which he was certain would send Minerva into paroxysms of not altogether spurious outrage. Even though he knew it was the only chance he had to exonerate Severus, the protector in him quailed. It was dangerous and foolish and desperate, and there was every chance that it would end in the ruin of not one, but two souls.

Never stopped you from sending Harry into the mouth of madness, did it?

No, it hadn't, but Harry was-or had been until recently-young and hale and magically powerful beyond imagining. Rebecca was young and frail and magically unassuming, and though she had spirit and will by the fistful, could, in fact, match the scion of Gryffindor in that regard, he was not convinced of her physical endurance. She had not been tempered for battle by Quidditch, bouts with bullies in the Muggle world, and vigorous childhood play. Her transcripts from D.A.I.M.S. indicated that she had refused all attempts at physical therapy after compulsory treatment had ended at age twelve and filled the time with directed individual study of Arithmancy. For three years, her muscles and bones had atrophied, wasted to nothing, and he feared that neglect of the body in favor of her mind would backfire.

Three days into what promised to be a long, grueling struggle, she was already beginning to show signs of wear. Her eyes were irritated and haunted, pouched in rings of bruised flesh, and her hair, bright as the sun when she had first arrived was dull and limp. Her body was leaching vital nutrients from it to survive. If she continued as she was for much longer, she would keel over from sheer exhaustion, and Severus' last hope would fade with her.

Not if her mind won't let her. It's as strong as her body is weak, and if she has decided to run this course, it will not let her falter. It will drive her to the limits of her endurance and one hundred leagues beyond it. She will run the race until it is finished, and then she will fall down dead.

Can you justify that risk?

That was the central question. Could he, as Headmaster of Hogwarts and guardian de facto of a child willfully oblivious to limits and due care, allow her to take such a monumental risk, even if it were one she was willing to take? He rubbed his palms together, a dry papery sound in the stillness. The question nagged at him, and though he knew it was inevitable that he would let her go in the end, he turned it over in his mind all the same, grateful for the distraction.

She was going to do it. Of that there was no doubt. He had seen it in the determined set of her hunched shoulders and the constant subdued indignation in her eyes. He suspected it physically pained her to see Severus' empty chair in the Great Hall or his desk in the Potions classroom. Her face grew pinched and wan whenever she looked at them, and her mouth worked as though she were struggling with her gorge.

Part of him knew he should intervene, stop her before it was too late. She was too young, and the gauntlet too long and grueling. The formidable, if not clumsily wielded power of the Ministry would grind her to powder beneath its churning, remorseless wheels. Visions of James and Lily, Frank and Alice, just as brash and twice as strong and experienced, loomed inside his head. All of them had fallen. How could Rebecca Stanhope hope to stand firm?

He remembered her as he had seen her on their first meeting in this office, a withered, dried-apple doll with ancient, watchful eyes, fragile as spun glass. He had wanted to protect her then, swaddle her in a magical cocoon where no harm could ever reach her. The world had done enough, it had seemed to him, and he had wanted to give her what peace he could. So why was he so willing to let her jump headlong into the crucible now?

The simple answer, the sordid, unglamorous answer was expediency. She could do, with her anonymity and subtle perseverance, what he could not. She could slip through the cracks and the nets cast by the Aurors and Ministry officials, poke, prod, and pry with virtual impunity. If she were careful, she could gather the scattered pieces of the puzzle and pore over them at her leisure, ferret out the hows and the whys that more harried, more educated minds could not see.

But there was more to it than that. He was going to let her do it because he thought, in the deepest wellsprings of his heart, that she could. The force of her will was almost palpable at times, a solid wall that went before her like an unseen shield and trailed in her wake, the faint, persistent pull of a magnet. She burned with the strength of it, and sometimes as he watched her eat or stare at Draco Malfoy in the Great Hall, he was convinced that she must surely be consumed by it, reduced to ash and powdered bone. If he ever doubted it, he needed only to recall the look she had given Minerva in this very room not so long ago, a flat, reptilian gaze, rife with mistrust and scorching disdain, a look that said, I will endure you; I will outlast you.

What was more, he understood that he could not stop her. He could order her to leave things be. He could forbid her from seeking the answers with the mysterious and fabled reasoning of For Your Own Good. She would smile and nod, say "yes, sir" with perfect sincerity. And then she would do exactly as she pleased. Nothing he could say would dissuade her. Something had happened and was happening still between her and Severus, something he could not yet decipher, and he doubted he ever would. Whatever it was, she was as bound to it and to the course it demanded as James Potter had once been bound to his path, as he, Albus Dumbledore still was, and she could no more forsake her path than they could.

She possesses the brashness of the young, the braggadocio that tells her she is invincible, that she will never grow old and die. She believes this in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, even her own body, threadbare and precarious and threatening to collapse beneath its own weight.

Just like Harry.

He rubbed his aching knuckles. Harry. The thought of him filled him with a dismal, feverish guilt and made him feel as if he had aged forty years in as many seconds. His arthritis, usually little more than a dull, inconsequential gnawing, flared to sudden, voracious life in his hips, knees, and fingers, and he grimaced.

"All right there, Headmaster Dumbledore, sir?" asked Hagrid, who had foregone the uncomfortable indignity of a chair and sat cross-legged on the floor.

"Yes, Hagrid, yes," he assured him. "The chill no longer looks so favorably upon my bones, I'm afraid." He smiled humorlessly.

Minerva rose from her seat without a word and marched to the empty fire grate. She pulled out her wand. "Incendio!" she muttered grimly, and a fire began to crackle in the hearth. She surveyed it for a moment to be sure it wouldn't gutter, then marched back to her seat with a prim sniff.

"Thank you, Minerva," he murmured.

She gave him a curt nod. "Certainly, Headmaster."

He let his thoughts drift to Harry again. He had gone to see him just after supper, and there had been no change. He lay as unmoving as ever, his thin face as pale as the moonbeams that washed over it. Pomfrey and the house elves that tended the Hospital Wing had kept him clean and trimmed his nails, and it had seemed to him as he had hovered over the boy's bedside that he was in a state of suspended animation.

Only the waxy pallor of his skin and the painful jut of his collarbone from the now-baggy neck of his robes belied the serenity. Nutritive potion after nutritive potion had been poured down his unresisting throat, but Pomfrey reported dolefully that he grew thinner by the day. Worse yet, their supplies were running short, and without Severus to replenish their stores, he wasn't sure where they would get more. Hogwarts students would ice skate on the lakes of Hades before Fudge would give Severus access to potion stores again, much less let him brew anything to be administered to his alleged victim.

It'll be St. Mungo's, I suppose. None are as adept at Severus, but the Mediwizards there can certainly manage a simple nutritive potion. They might ask questions about why their help was needed when a Potions Master was in residence, but Fudge will muzzle them quickly enough.

He had watched Harry for as long as he could bear, fussed over his immaculate coverlet and muttered soothing, inane nothings to the musty, cloying air. Near the end of the visit, when he had been sitting in the straight-backed wooden chair by his bedside, he had reached out and picked up the boy's spectacles. Unlike their owner, cared for and turned every hour like a choice roast, they had been neglected, left to the dust and the smudges of careless, tidying hands.

He had thought, staring and turning them over and over in his restless hands, that seeing them in such a state of sad disrepair was more disturbing than the supine figure on the bed. It was as though they had already conceded defeat, consigned him to the charnel house. So he had polished them with the hem of his robes, moved his thumb and the scrip of fabric beneath it in slow, precise circles until the lenses shone and reflected the moonlight with an eerie beauty. Then he had folded the earpieces and replaced them upon the bedside table. His way, he supposed, of promising that Harry would one day have cause to wear them again.

It was as much for Harry as it was for Severus that he was about to embark on this desperate journey of fervid chance. Rebecca cared nothing for Harry, he suspected, but maybe if she found the key to this wretched cipher, it would unlock the mystery of his unending sleep. And if she managed to drag the true culprit kicking and screaming into delayed justice's harsh light, then he would waste no time in forcing him to undo what he had done.

He would do what he could, naturally. He would do discreet investigating of his own, dust off rare alchemical texts that had not seen the sun in the turning of the century. He would go to Gringott's and retrieve the copious notes of the dearly departed and much-lamented Nicholas Flamel. By the weak, fluttering light of the taper, he would read of potions about which Severus, learned as he was, had only dreamed. But that and what he was going to set in motion tonight was all he could do. He could not, as he had done so often, pick up the sword and lead the charge. That task would be left to smaller, more delicate hands.

Let us hope that I will not rue this as grievous error when all is said and done.

Further contemplation was precluded by the arrival of Dipply with the tea and scones. She tottered beneath the weight of the silver tea tray she held over her head, and the china plate holding the scones slid dangerously to one side. She lurched forward and pushed the tray onto his desk.

"There you is, Headmaster Dumbledore, sir." She bowed until her ears scraped the floor.

"Thank you, Dipply." Vague and dismissive.

The china plate had reminded him of Severus. He had gone to see him tonight as well, and he, too, was unchanged from their last meeting. Silent and stoic. He was even sitting in the same place upon the sofa, long fingers clamped over his knees as he stared sightlessly at the far wall. The only sign that he had moved at all was the fact that he had not soiled himself. His food, brought by a patient, loyal house elf three times a day, remained untouched, and his pale cheeks were being obscured by a steady growth of coarse black stubble.

Severus' complete inertia frightened him. He had expected vitriol and tantrums and venomous sarcasm, for these were the time-tested defenses that had seen him through countless hours of torture and humiliation. Not this complete and unnerving silence that brought to mind the living husks of Frank and Alice Longbottom in their dressing gowns of dirty snow, shambling away the waning hours of their lives in the fetid confines of St. Mungo's.

He had been so shaken by it that he had been tempted to slap him, to shake him until the blessedly familiar anger bubbled to the surface again. In the end, he had refrained because he was afraid that there would be no reaction, that no matter how hard he slapped him or how much he shook him, he would only stare wordlessly back at him. So he had left him as he was.

"Headmaster Dumbledore, sir?" squeaked Dipply in concern.

He came to himself with a start. "Mmm. Oh? Oh, yes. Thank you."

The elf gave a nervous curtsey and disappeared with another resounding crack, and he and the other teachers spared themselves the discomfiture of looking at one another by helping themselves to tea, sugar, milk, and black currant scones. The pained, indolent tinkle of metal on porcelain filled the room, and Professor Sinistra jumped when Vector peeled another antacid tablet from the dwindling roll in his hand and dropped it into his tea.

Dumbledore took a sip of tea. "Professor Vector, have there been any further incidents with Miss Ogleby? I spoke to her yesterday after lunch."

Vector shifted in his seat, balancing his tea saucer on one knee. "No. She seemed mostly all right, if not quiet. Most of Slytherin seems quiet, come to think of it. Truthfully, I expected more of an outcry from them."

"That's true," murmured Sprout, who crammed a scone into her mouth and dusted her hands on her robes. "Draco Malfoy is usually such an obnoxious little prat, but there has been hardly a peep out of him. I thought I'd like it if he put a sock in it for a spell, but now I find I don't like it at all. He's got this decidedly shifty look about him. I'd almost think he was up to something."

There was an incomprehensible grunt from Moody.

"He is, like as not," muttered McGonagall. "Probably awaiting word from his illustrious sire."

There was a collective groan. The name Lucius Malfoy was synonymous with trouble in spades. With his bottomless purse strings and inestimable influence among the ranks of the like-minded wealthy, he could cause elegant havoc with a few well-placed words and missives, and the undeniable fact that Fudge was his lapdog would certainly not help matters.

"Is there any way we can keep him away from the school?" asked McGonagall without much hope.

Dumbledore spread his hands in a rare gesture of helplessness. "Alas, no. As a parent, he has every right to enter the school grounds." He picked up a scone and took a small, contemplative bite.

"Even if he's nothing more than a wretched Death Eater?" she protested bitterly.

Dumbledore nodded. "Painful as it sometimes is, there are no qualifications required to be a parent, not even decency. All one needs is desire and a willing partner."

McGonagall choked in disgust and took an enormous sip of tea. "Merlin only knows the trouble he'll cause."

"Not to mention the others," added Flitwick gloomily as he eyed the tepid dregs of his tea. "Parkinson is always looking for an opportunity to throw his money around, and Crabbe and Goyle, Srs. are at Malfoy's beck and call."

"Like fathers, like sons," said McGonagall sardonically.

Dumbledore reached for the bowl of lemon sherbets on his desk, plucked one from among its comrades, and popped it into his mouth. He was well aware of the pandemonium Lucius could cause were he so inclined. In fact, he had been expecting it. That he had not yet made an appearance, armed with his ostentatious walking stick and nauseating hauteur, struck him as odd. By all rights, he should have been here by now, striding through the corridors and looking around with half-lidded eyes, marking everything in sight with his singular brand of disdain. He would never miss an opportunity to cross words, wits, and wands with the man he regarded as the corporeal embodiment of everything amiss in his world, nor would he forego a chance to be hovering on the periphery should there be a sudden vacancy in the Headmastership.

Perhaps young Draco has not yet informed his father of what has happened.

Poppycock. The younger Malfoy, every inch the son of his father, had been conditioned to seek out his father in times of crisis, or indeed, in times of mild discomfort. Experience had taught him that he could hope for a swift and favorable resolution to the matter at hand. It was inconceivable that he would not turn to him now, when it must seem to him-and not without reason, the Headmaster was embarrassed to admit-that his whole world was teetering on the brink of disaster.

Perhaps the owl has not yet arrived.

He dismissed that, too, as hopeful naiveté. Often had he heard Draco boasting to his friends about the speed and incomparable efficiency of his eagle owl, and though smug showboating was not an uncommon ailment for him, or any of the other boys for that matter, he had no doubt that he was telling the truth. He himself used an eagle owl for urgent correspondence and international post. No, if he had used his own owl, and there was no reason he shouldn't have, the letter would have arrived days ago.

"Twenty Galleons says Lucius Malfoy is going to make trouble before the end," grunted Moody. The silver flask reappeared.

"Oh, I've no doubt about that," agreed Dumbledore, his fingers tented beneath his chin. "Then again, if he doesn't, it could be much worse."

"How do you mean?" asked Sinistra, puzzled.

He did not answer her. She, Sprout, and Vector, though they must surely harbor their suspicions about the things Severus did in the middle of the night, were not full members of the Order and were not aware of his status as a spy. It wasn't that he mistrusted them; indeed he had full confidence in every member of his staff, even Filch, who was glaring mutinously at him, and who swore every week that he would quit but never did. But the fewer people who knew about Severus' covert service to the Light, the fewer that could be tortured into surrendering such sensitive information to the Death Eaters.

"Well," he answered after a moment of consideration, "it has been my experience that the quieter the enemy, the more ferocious the attack."

This seemed to pacify Sinistra, but from the corner of his eye he saw Minerva take a hasty sip of tea to cover a huff of dry amusement. Kingsley, too, had seen through the transparent veil of his flimsy excuse, and his smooth brown brow furrowed in unease. Moody sat up in his seat and stroked his chin, his magical eye spinning in thoughtful circles.

Filch scowled and leaned forward in his chair, gnarled hands planted on his skinny thighs. "Well, all this is bloody fascinatin', Headmaster, but what does it have to do with me?" he asked impatiently.

"We're coming to that, Argus, but first we must discuss other matters," Dumbledore replied, grateful for the diversion from the current, dangerous line of questioning.

Filch slouched in his seat, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, we'll be here all bloomin' night, we will, and scuffed his heavy leather boots along the carpet.

"Namely," Dumbledore said when the muttering had ceased, "has a bezoar been found?"

There was a derisive snort from Moody, and he propped the open flask against his thigh and leaned forward to grip his walking stick in rough, leathery hands. "I expect my application for one from the Ministry was consigned to the legendary circular file the moment it crossed an Auror's desk," he said wryly. "Pointy-headed bureaucrats have no concept of caution. One disrespectful berk not much older than the Weasley twins as much as told me I'd cried wolf one time too many." He tugged indignantly on the hem of his robes.

"Imagine that." Vector stirred his third cup of tea.

Moody shot him a withering glare, but said nothing. He reached for his flask, which was slipping drunkenly against his leg.

Dumbledore smiled wistfully. Moody's bizarre and strident demands and accusations were the stuff of Auror lore at the Ministry. From the day of his retirement, he had continually requested bezoars to fend off imagined poisoning attempts. It made no difference that he lived alone and refused to allow even the house elves to prepare his food. The Aurors learned soon enough to disregard his ravings, and until the incident with the possessed rubbish bins last year, things had been quiet. Now his manic paranoia had returned to haunt them.

Not that his own attempts to procure one had gone any better. All known clandestine avenues had turned up empty. Mundungus had broached the subject of black market bezoars and healing stones with every street urchin in Knockturn Alley and several miles beyond. All he had gotten for his efforts were sly, black-toothed smiles and whispered promises. All for naught.

Aberforth had been of no help, either. The goat that had gotten him into such trouble as an impetuous young man had given up the ghost, and when he had checked its stomach contents in the hope of finding a bezoar, he had come away empty-handed. He had agreed to ask about goats with a penchant for eating rocks the next time he went to a breeder, but that was weeks away, and there was no guarantee he would find one.

"What about St. Mungo's?" asked Sprout.

Dumbledore shook his head. "Too closely tied with Lucius. Even if they gave us one, we couldn't trust that it hadn't been Cursed."

"Isn't there anyplace in this insular, incestuous little world that hasn't been touched by the darkness?" snapped Sinistra in exasperation.

"Nothing within our borders is safe anymore." Kingsley tapped the shaft of his quill against his knee in a sloppy, meandering rhythm.

Dumbledore sighed, then stiffened abruptly as realization struck him. "What did you say, Kingsley?" he said slowly.

The quill ceased its nervous patter, and the Auror looked nonplussed. "Headmaster?"

"Just now, Kingsley; what did you say?" he repeated urgently.

Kingsley shrugged. "I said nothing within our borders was safe anymore."

"Indeed, indeed you did," Dumbledore murmured, and his mind raced with the sudden possibility Kingsley had offered. He reached for a quill and a scrip of parchment.

"Headmaster, what is it?" Minerva had set aside her tea and was staring at him with an expression of diffuse concern.

"Mr. Shacklebolt's comment has reminded me of a fact I had previously overlooked." He dipped the tip of his quill into his inkwell and began to write in excited, looping strokes.

"Oh?" Intrigued.

"Quite. The sun rises and sets over the world, not just Great Britain." He set down his quill with a sharp satisfied snap.

"Naturally. There are, I believe, seven continents," Minerva agreed. "But I don't see your point."

"A wonder of the British educational system." Vector crunched another tablet.

"Oh, stow it," she retorted. "You sound like Severus."

There was a long, pained silence. All the color drained from her face, and her mouth worked soundlessly for a moment. Then she closed it with a boneless, wet plip. She removed her spectacles and stabbed them onto her face again.

"Forgive me, Headmaster. That was inappropriate," she said weakly.

"You are quiet correct in your assessment of world geography, Minerva," Dumbledore said placidly, and he saw her shoulders slump with relief. "And on five continents beside our own, there are witches and wizards who may be able to help. As for Professor Vector's wit, I daresay Severus would be offended at the comparison." Another sad smile.

"Who are you thinking of asking, Headmaster?" Moody asked. "Karkaroff won't be of any help. What about the French woman, what was her name?" He flapped one hand as he struggled with his memory. "Maxine? Maximy?" He snapped his fingers. Maxime, Madam Maxime, it was."

"Yes, perhaps, though she was not who I had in mind," Dumbledore conceded. "And it would seem strange to the post examiners for me to be in contact with Beaubatons. The United States, on the other hand..." He trailed off and took a sip of tea.

"You're thinking of asking that Donnelly woman for a bezoar?" Minerva said, thunderstruck.

That Donnelly woman was Minerva's disdainful epithet of choice for the intractable, wholly uncooperative Headmistress of D.A.I.M.S. She had rebuffed every effort to buy Dinks from the institution, and her last letter had made it quite plain that she would entertain no further offers. The tone of her letters had been abrupt and businesslike, and Minerva, upon spying one on his desk, had read it and proclaimed her a boorish cow.

"She wouldn't give you one if you held her over the mouth of Hades and threatened to let go," she avowed.

"Likely not, but perhaps the singularly American need to come to the rescue will sway her."

"Anything is worth a try at this point," said Moody. "Potter is no better."

"How long until we can expect a reply?" McGonagall picked up a scone and put it down again.

Dumbledore thought for a moment. "If I send it tomorrow, three weeks, give or take."

"Three weeks," Minerva moaned. "An eternity. Why not use the Floo network?"

"They are not connected internationally. They are connected to the school in Salem, however; perhaps we can arrange a patch call." He made another note on his parchment. "Now, is there anything else before we get to the matter at hand?"

Sinistra put up her hand. "Sir, have you given any more thought as to who will be the interim Head of Slytherin House?" She grimaced apologetically. Minerva paused in her absent-minded rearrangement of the remaining scones on the plate and stared shrewdly at him.

Though he was seventy years her senior and her superior, he squirmed beneath her unsettling gaze. He masked his discomfiture by slowly removing his spectacles and polishing them against the sleeve of his robe.

"No," he admitted. "I haven't."

"Albus, you must," implored Minerva with an exasperated sigh. "If you don't, that imbecile, Fudge, will start poking about. He may even appoint one for you."

"That he most certainly will not," Dumbledore said, and though it was little more than a whisper, it was the cool steel of conviction. "I am still Headmaster here."

"Yes, you are," she agreed gently. "And the Slytherins need guidance."

A strangled guffaw from Moody. "There's a world of difference between what they need and what they want. Snape has let them govern themselves for the most part, I'll wager. The Slytherin philosophy of self-reliance. Anyone else tries to bring them to heel, they're liable to come out of the experience with more than a passing resemblance to me."

Dumbledore remained silent. The truth was, he could not bring himself to twist the knife into Severus any further, any more than he could leave Harry's glasses uncleaned. The silver and jade serpent lying on the corner of his desk was Severus' pride, his mark of distinction. He had worn it on the collar of his robes for seventeen years, and as far as he had been concerned, it was his. His prize for service painfully rendered. The moment he pinned it to another collar, Fudge would carry the tidings to the dungeons with giddy feet, crow about the latest affront to his captive's mercilessly assailed honor, and there would be no hope of pulling Severus away from the edge of the yawning abyss. He would go to it with arms outstretched.

"I will come to that decision in my own time," he said finally.

Minerva opened her mouth to remonstrate, but from the corner of his eye, Dumbledore saw Moody shoot her a measured, cautionary look. Don't press him. She closed her mouth and squared her shoulders with a desultory scowl. He stifled a guilty sigh of relief.

"At last we come to it," he announced. He straightened in his chair and folded his hands. "Filius, has Miss Stanhope been to see you about those Quidditch Charms?" He spared a sidelong glance at Minerva, who looked thoroughly confused.

Flitwick nodded. "Yes. She approached me about them after her Charms lesson."

"Good, good. I trust you know what to do? Give her whatever help she requires." As he had expected, Minerva did not miss the subtle emphasis on the word "whatever," and she stiffened in her seat.

"Certainly, Headmaster. I've no doubt she will be a most apt pupil." In her seat, Minerva's eyes narrowed dangerously, but she said nothing.

"Nor do I. In fact, I'm counting on it."

Minerva was now ramrod-straight in her chair. "What is this about, Headmaster?" Her eyes darted between his face and that of Flitwick, twin flecks of amber in her wary face.

"Something that must be done, Minerva," he said calmly, and shifted his attention to Kingsley, who was watching the proceedings with genteel interest. "Kingsley, you are a member of the team posted outside Severus' chambers?"

"Yes, sir. Tonks takes my place when I'm here."

"You are familiar with a young lady named Rebecca Stanhope?"

Kingsley nodded. "The one that rides in that wheeled chair."

"Indeed. I have reason to believe she will be paying a visit to Professor Snape in the near future, and I would be grateful were you to turn a blind eye to her arrival."

Minerva shot to her feet. "What? Albus, Headmaster, you can't be serious! Letting a student visit a man under suspicion of attempted murder! With all due respect, have you taken leave of your senses?"

"Minerva, upon my word, I will explain. If you would only allow me to finish."

She stared at him, hands fisted and trembling at her sides. Then she sat with a furious, disbelieving huff. Flitwick shrank from her in mild alarm, and she spared him a disapproving scowl.

"Will you do me this favor, Kingsley?" Dumbledore prompted. The Auror had remained wisely silent during Minerva's outburst.

"If you wish, Headmaster, but I can't offer any guarantees about Dawlish." He spiced his fellow Auror's name with contempt.

"Ah. Leave him to me." A faint smile curled around the corners of his mouth, and the mischievous twinkle, so often absent in these terrible days, rekindled in his eyes.

"Very good, Headmaster." Kingsley gave a curt nod and doodled on the parchment on his knee.

"That goes for all of you." Dumbledore pushed his glasses onto the bridge of his nose and gazed at his assembled staff. "Give her what she requires to see this through, including access to the restricted section of the library should she need it. Alastor, I suspect she will come to you ere long."

Moody stamped his wooden leg irritably against the carpet. "I imagine so. What is she doing, Dumbledore?"

He answered without hesitation. "The impossible, Alastor."

In her seat beside the uncharacteristically grave Flitwick, Minerva was throttling a linen napkin, twisting it between her strong, wiry fingers. Her eyes were blazing, and he knew that when her colleagues filed out and the door shut behind them, she was going to unleash a fullisade of protests against this latest madcap dash to justice.

So he was ridiculously grateful when Filch suffered a fortuitous fit of pique.

"Well, pleased as I am to watch the powers that be flap their gums at one another," he trumpeted in his nasally rasp, "I still haven't got the faintest idea why I'm here." He was hunched and scowling in his chair, a surly, molting vulture.

"And we come to you at last, Argus," said the Headmaster patiently, his face a mask of unblemished serenity.

"'Bout bloomin' time," Filch muttered disagreeably.

"I need the Watcher to close his eyes."

Filch mulled this over, his craggy, greasy forehead furrowed in agonized concentration. "You need what?"

Dumbledore sighed. "I need you to relax your time-honored rules and let her pass unhindered."

Filch went a deep plum and sprang from his chair with the muffled cellophane crackle of pained joints. "You want me to let an obnoxious fifth-year roam the corridors unchecked?" he wheezed incredulously, eyes bulging.

"Obnoxious? I've always thought her most polite," he said blandly.

Filch sneered, and now he was nearly capering in his outrage. "Polite? Every blasted night, Professor Snape had me march her to his classroom. Thought I was finally shut of her, and now you want me to let her run amok in the middle of the night?"

"If I'm not mistaken, Argus, you and Professor Snape have always got on relatively well?"

"He doesn't make me want to vomit," Filch conceded.

"Indeed. You've always approved of his stringent discipline, and I would venture to guess you've noticed the pointed disdain in which most of the students hold him?"

"Too right I have," Filch said fiercely. "Whinging little bastards. No respect for authority. Want everything to be candy and flowers, they do. Indolent little-"

Dumbledore interrupted before the tirade could gather steam. "Exactly, Argus. And now some of his least grateful pupils are out to do him a grave injustice. You know how vengeful they can be."

"Yes, I do," Filch said softly. "Like the Potter brat. String Snape up by his toes and boil him in oil if he could. All the wrong in the world comes from him and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, according to that little turd." Filch shuffled his feet and rubbed the underside of his long, thin nose.

Dumbledore blinked, nonplussed by such an astute observation from his taciturn, shambling caretaker. But he only said. "So you see why you must do this."

"Bloody hell," was Filch's only response, but by the belligerent droop of his shoulders, it was clear that he saw no choice.

"You do not see her, Argus, even if she is treading upon your toes."

"No need to bring out the damned point hammer, Headmaster," muttered Filch testily. "I'm old, not thick. I don't see the brat or that machine of hers, but it's no business of mine if the Aurors catch her out."

"Indeed not," he agreed.

"Now, if there's nothing else, I'd like to be getting back to my rounds. Some delinquent sneaks off and falls out of the Astronomy Tower, and it won't be your eminent arse hoisted up the flagpole. Beggin' your pardon, Headmaster," he said, though he sounded not the least bit sorry.

"Yes, you may go, Argus," he said wearily, and the man turned and hobbled toward the door with surprising speed. "The rest of you are free to go as well, unless you have something you'd like to discuss."

His staff departed, round-shouldered and yawning. All save Minerva, who was sitting in her chair as though rooted there by unbearable gravity.

"Now, Minerva-," Dumbledore began.

"Merlin bless you, Albus, but you've cracked," she said bluntly, and drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair.

"Oh?" he said, feigning surprise.

"Don't be coy," she snapped. Then, in a calmer voice, "You know exactly what I'm talking about. How could you even entertain such a notion? Sending a young girl to do such a dangerous and foolish thing?"

"I don't see any choice."

"Of course there is a choice! There is always a choice!" She rose and began to pace restlessly. "You told me so yourself. You can choose to do nothing."

He leaned back in his chair and scrubbed his face with his hands. "Not this time, my dear Minerva."

She stopped and stared at him. "Why not? Because it's Severus?" There was no scorn, only honest bewilderment.

"Yes."

She snorted.

"And because of Harry."

"What has Harry to do with your misplaced affinity for Severus?" She resumed her pacing.

"Nothing. But if Miss Stanhope can get to the bottom of this mystery, it may bring the perpetrator to light."

She froze again. "Perpetrator? Albus, we have the culprit." She gave a despairing sigh.

"I cannot believe that." He rubbed his throbbing eyes with his fingertips, their coolness soothing the irritated sting.

"And I refused to believe that Peter Pettigrew blew up twelve Muggles and betrayed James and Lily, but it was so, Albus, it was so."

"And for all of those years, you believed an innocent man guilty," he pointed out.

She blanched, and her thin lips disappeared inside her face. "I admit my mistakes are many," she said quietly.

"And I am not casting blame," he soothed. "I am merely saying that it is possible you are mistaken again."

There was a long pause as she considered this. "Even if I were," she answered at length, "why trust Stanhope?" The child can't even plait her hair without help."

"That is precisely why, Minerva. Her weakness makes her invisible to the Aurors, gives her a freedom we cannot hope to achieve."

"And that same weakness will be her undoing," she countered.

"Her will shall carry her when her body cannot. She will do this whether we approve or not."

"Then stop her. Make her see reason. There are things she was never meant to do," she said adamantly.

"And who are we to judge what those things may be?"

"Stop rationalizing," she hissed. "What you ask of her is Daedalian hubris."

"I ask no more of her than she is willing to give. We have asked more of Harry, and you have never lodged an objection."

"Harry?" she nearly screamed. Then she stopped herself and ran a shaking hand over her robes. "Harry, Albus? Yes, yes, we have, and look where it got him." The last words trailed off into a miserable moan, and she sank into the nearest chair and buried her face in her hands. "Why, Albus, why must you do this?" she beseeched him without looking up.

"A thousand races have I run for others, Minerva. It is time I ran for Severus."

"But you're not Albus. It's a fifteen-year-old girl who cannot walk, much less run." She tittered humorlessly.

He left his chair and went to sit beside her. "Then let us hope her wheels hide wings of gold," he murmured, and wrapped an arm around her bony shoulders. She sank into him with a sigh.

From his perch, Fawkes watched them with gimlet amber eyes, and the sands of the hourglass shifted inexorably onward.