Rise From The Ashes

Chapter 7: Secret-Keepers

"How much more is this going to cost me?"

That was his father's voice. It had to be; cold, flat and devoid of any emotion, it was omnipresent. He couldn't see him, though. He couldn't see anything, because they had to keep the room dark. Always. Too dark.

Another voice, softer, more sympathetic: " It should be over soon. He's responding to treatment very well."

"Forgive me if I do not share your optimism. If you could not save his mother's life, why is it you are so sure you can save his?"

"Well..." the other voice faltered. "Research on this subject is limited for ... for obvious reasons, but what little information we do have suggests that a child is more likely to survive an attack than an adult. You see, when they strike, they know the blood source is not going to tap out as fast with adults, so they take the time to drain them completely."

A pause where he felt his throat closing. He was going to choke on fear and shame, waiting for his father's voice to break the silence with two cold words:

"I see."

"However, because children are often bitten by not fully drained ... they are also more likely to succumb to the transformation."

It hurt. It hurt when they gave him the injections, but not much. What really hurt was when they had to test the skin with a concentrated burst of light. The first time they did that, it burned so bad he cried, cried even as he saw his father looking down at him in disgust.

"Sir, we can give him something for the pain -"

"No."

"But -"

"I am well aware of what passes for practicing medicine in this ... facility. Use only what you need to."

He paused in the doorway, trying to push the memory back into the recesses of his mind. Florence was silent when he came back in. It had been that way all day. They had both found obscure books to read, trifling student quizzes to grade. Mercifully, they had managed to keep conversation at a minimum. But Pomfey still insisted on keeping them one more night for observation. Florence was asleep already - or perhaps just pretending to be. He never could tell with her.

Besides his father, she was the only person that knew how close he had come to being a vampire. It was strange, all the things that had learned about each other, over those seven years at school ... well, perhaps it was not so strange, when you considered the dark spell they'd used to create their own version of the secret-keeping charm. It was a spell that had sprung more out of necessity than friendship. They had started working on it in their very first year. And he remembered why, all to well.

They got along splendidly, right from the moment they met at the Sorting. The first few weeks, she was a little annoying, asking him all these questions about obvious things, such as "How do you travel by floo powder?" and "What the hell is quidditch anyway?" He didn't think much of it, though, until a certain second-year boy with a pale, pointed face had pestered him with some cruel but shrewd observations.

He knew he was supposed to care about it - about blood: pure blood, dirty blood, whatever. He tried, and failed, to see how it mattered. Besides, blood was not something he liked to think about it. But Lucius Malfoy was insistent "We need to know," he'd hiss in Snape's ear, whenever Florence wasn't around. "You ask. She trusts you, so she'll tell you the truth."

He should have just lied, and said he'd already asked, said he'd gotten the right answer. The one that would make Malfoy and everyone else leave her alone. But it was only his first year at school; he had not yet learned the subtle art of deception. How obvious had he been when he tried to bring it up in conversation? He might as well just have come out and asked. He wished he had.

"So... I guess you like it here at Hogwarts?" He asked, while they were studying for a quiz in Charms. Even to his own ears, the levity in his voice sounded forced.

"Of course. This is the best place in the world." She said it as if there could be no doubt. "Why, don't you?"

"Yes, but ... well, don't you miss your parents a little?"

She looked at him steadily then, a cold, knowing look. Her eyes narrowed, and she forced her face into a smile.

"Which ones?"

"What?"

"You're going to have to be more specific. I've had a lot of parents." She laughed then - not the warm, wicked laugh he had heard at the Sorting, but a much different sort of laugh, one that chilled him. He silently cursed himself, and Malfoy, as she continued. "I like to think of them as the good, the bad, and the ugly - minus the good part. The last one brought me here, bound and gagged." Her voice dropped to a whisper, and she leaned in closer to him. "But he's dead now. So I must be a very powerful little witch ... don't you think?"

How much he had admired her at that moment. He couldn't tell if she was lying or not, but the implications behind her words, coupled with the way she said them, was absolutely brilliant. She was pure - a pure Slytherin: powerful, manipulative, ready to go to hell and back for what she wanted. And ready, always, to defend herself.

"I know," he whispered, a strange mixture of exhilaration and fear rising in his throat, "I know you're not a pureblood."

She gripped his arm so hard that it was painful, and put her lips to his ear.

"And I know," she whispered silkily, "I know that your father beats you. Puts curses on you. Or maybe both." He drew back from her in shock, expecting to see a sneer of triumph, but instead she looked at him with - well, it wasn't pity, or compassion, but it was a certain sort of understanding.

"I'll keep your secret ... if you keep mine."

And soon after that, they had started the spell. The first night, she'd been grinning - or grimacing - as they'd grasped each other's hands through the blaze of a fire, held on until it had burned down to nothing. According to the rules of the spell, they wouldn't begin to burn unless they let go. So they managed not to. But it had been a close thing.

And that was just the first step. One step in a long, complicated, dangerous dark spell. Whether they remained friends or not, they had entered early on into a highly illegal but nevertheless binding magical contract. The more secrets they had fed into the spell, the stronger it had grown. By the time they had their falling-out, the spell was virtually unbreakable. Snape honestly couldn't decide whether or not he preferred it that way.

He wondered what Dumbledore had said to her, if it was more of the same about their ordeal or ... really, he didn't remember it very well. What he remembered was being young, and living in a house that was too big, too dark. A house of silence and secrets. How hard had he tried to make his father lose control? But no, even when he punished him, abused him, the man had to be calm, rational...

Such a poor little rich boy, aren't you? said a mocking voice inside his head. He smiled bitterly at himself in the semi-darkness of the hospital wing. Self-pity did not suit him. And neither did these memories. Florence has suffered worse, far worse, and yet she had almost managed to conjure a Patronus. What happy memory had she drawn upon to overwhelm all those bad feelings, however briefly? He shook his head in wonder. She was, as always, a forced to be reckoned with.

He cast a thoughtful glance over to her bed. She was curled up on her side, and her breathing was deep and even. He could read no expression on her face. Well, if she was just pretending to be asleep, she was doing a damn good job of it. He supposed he had better try pretending to go to sleep too. If he was very, very lucky he might wind up fooling himself and actually getting some more much-needed rest.

"Severus?"

Snape was as startled to hear her voice as he was to hear his first name. He wasn't quite sure how to take it. He supposed two people who had nearly been attacked by a Dementor ought to be on a first name basis. And really, it was rather silly to address each other as "Professor." They were equals ... colleagues.

"Yes?"

"Why did you?" She was looking at him now. Her eyes were very bright.

"Why did I what?"

"You know." She set her thin mouth in a determined line.

"No, I don't. Really," he said, as she gave him a doubtful look. "You heard what I told Dumbledore. I recounted what happened as accurately as I could remember it. I left nothing out." An uneasiness mixed with anger was beginning to grow inside him. What foolishness had the Headmaster told her? I don't care if he is the greatest wizard in the world, Snape thought, my personal life, or lack thereof, is no one's business but my own.

There was a long silence as he met her determined, penetrating gaze, resisting the urge to look away. He was just as determined as she was. Only in his case, it stemmed from a desire to avoid embarrassment and circumvent the possibility of a more serious conversation. Finally she shrugged, muttered "Never mind," and shifted to a sitting position on the bed.

"A nice way to end my first week," she said. The anger in her voice was familiar, almost reassuring, in a strange sort of way. He saw, to his surprise, that her fists were clenched, her jaw was working, and her whole body looked poised and ready to spring at something. She had just faced a Dementor, and yet here she was looking like an owl on the hunt. He marveled inwardly at her strength of spirit. No matter how many times he saw her like this, it never failed to impress him. He wondered what thought could have set her off.

"Florence -"

"If any of those Gryffindor brats call me a fainting flower, I swear I'll curse them all into oblivion."

So that was it. After all this time ... Snape tried hard not to smile. "Florence, I don't think you need to worry about that. If I recall things correctly from our school days, the only 'fainting flower' known to be in existence was in Gryffindor."

He heard her let out a snort of laughter. He supposed it was really quite horrible of him to speak ill about the dead. But then, according to most of the students and about half of the teachers at Hogwarts, he was a horrible person, so no real harm was done.

"Oh, shut up," she said. "I'm going back to sleep." And she curled up again underneath the covers. He waited a good long time. Only when he was dead certain that she was sleeping did he allow himself to smile.

"No." said Harry.

"It can't be true," said Ron. This year was off to a rotten start all ready. Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse...

"Yes," said Hermione, her expression grim. She looked so tired, Ron thought. It wasn't fair. She'd just become a prefect, and to have to handle all this on top of trying to maintain her insane study habits -

"How could they make Malfoy a prefect?" Harry asked, interrupting Ron's thoughts.

"Oh Harry, how do you think?" Hermione said impatiently. "The same way he got on the quidditch team our second year. His father's money and influence." There was a bitter edge to her voice now, one Ron didn't remember ever hearing there before. She sighed and shook her head. "I'll just have to learn to deal with it, that's all. And I guess I'll have to learn pretty quickly, now."

"What do you mean?" Ron asked.

"Well ..." for a moment she paused, her eyes darting between him and Harry as she bit her lip. "We're having an emergency meeting, and everyone has to come. All prefects. From all the houses."

There was a small silence while that sunk in. What followed was a barrage of protests from both himself and Harry. It ended with Ron's threat to curse Malfoy onto an ice glacier somewhere near Durmstang and let him freeze death. Really, if he could figure out a way to do it ...

"Ron!" He heard Hermione's automatic protest, but paid it no heed. "Ooh, I just knew the two of you would make a big deal about this! I shouldn't have told you."

"But it is a big deal," Ron protested. Hermione gave him a stern look, but he plunged on. There had to be a way to convince her not to go to this meeting, or at least to let him and Harry sneak in with their wands and the invisibility cloak, or - well - something! So he tried another tack: reasoning with her. "I mean come on, Hermione," he began, in what he hoped was a calm voice. "Just think. Malfoy and the Slytherins probably planned the whole thing with the Dementors -"

"Oh really?" Hermione snapped. "Is that why two teachers from their own house were the ones who got attacked?"

Damn. Why did she always have to figure things out so quickly?

"Well, y'know Hermione, we don't really know if Riordan is a Slytherin." Harry piped up beside him. Ron looked at him gratefully.

"Yeah!" Well aware that the logic of his protest was hanging on by a mere thread, Ron nevertheless clung to it. He wasn't going to let her get hurt. "I mean, if you would just let us go, just in case, we might find something out, and -"

"And I could turn Malfoy into a ferret!" Harry finished.

For a minute, it looked like she was going to lecture them. But as she opened her mouth, Ron was amazed to hear what came out: not a speech, but a peal of laughter. In a minute they were all laughing. It felt good to have something to laugh about.

"All right, all right," Hermione gasped, wiping her eyes. "But," she said, "you need to understand that this is not like sneaking out to Hogsmeade or something. This is serious." And so was her face. Again. Really, it was amazing how her expression could change so quickly! Both he and Harry nodded.

"So when's the meeting?" Harry asked. Ron could tell he was trying not to smile.

"Now."

Harry felt a strange mixture of emotions as he got out his invisibility cloak. Hermione was one of his best friends, and he wanted to make sure she was safe, but at the same time, he knew that he really needed a distraction. A Dementor, on school grounds again ... and this time, without the authority of the Ministry ... inwardly, he shuddered. He remembered only too well what Voldermort had said last year about Dementors being the "natural allies," of the Death Eaters. And as for Snape, Harry didn't know whether to feel sorry for him or to be suspicious. On the one had, he wouldn't wish a Dementor on anyone, not even the Potions Master. But, then on the other hand, what if Professor Dumbledore was wrong about him? And what about this Riordan woman? She'd been nice to Neville, which unfortunately was quite a feat for any teacher besides Professor Sprout, but he was almost certain she had been a Slytherin in her school days... but he supposed it would be unfair to judge her just by the house she had been, although ...

Harry sighed. This train of thought was getting him nowhere. Better to focus on something else. He'd have to concentrate to resist the urge to trip up the new Slytherin prefect. Lucky for Malfoy that there would be no mud to throw this time. He tried to summon up some willpower as they turned to go. But Ron was grinning knowingly at him, and Harry was only vaguely of Hermione's rapid-fire instructions before they donned the cloak. From underneath it, Harry just had to grin back. They were going to the meeting to protect Hermione, and to see if they could figure out what happened, but that didn't mean they couldn't have a little fun.