To Face the Wolf

Severus Snape

Entering Lupin's rooms Snape froze, clutching the harp. He hadn't expected to find Dumbledore here, and the Headmaster's raised eyebrows made him feel like a court jester about to entertain a demanding old despot and two of his more roughshod barons. Nor did it help that the werewolf was gazing at him like he had done the day after Neville's boggart lesson, and that the too good-looking stranger - coldly beautiful was the phrase that came to mind - appraised the instrument with the critical eye of a connoisseur.

The idea, born soon after Snape remembered where the harp was, had seemed excellent last night before he went to sleep and still workable this morning during breakfast. He would present this Mr. Felagund with the harp and set up a conversation (about music, if necessary), into which he would cleverly insert a few innocent sounding queries that might yield incriminating answers. He knew how to go about. Lupin's presence made no difference; the werewolf disliked him anyway, and if the stranger would give himself away it would be interesting to watch Lupin's reaction.

Dumbledore was another matter, though. The Headmaster would no doubt see him through, most likely disapprove of his prying and deftly steer the conversation away from deeper waters toward the shallows of blandness and inanity. But there was no way back now. Schooling his face Snape greeted the three of them with a stiff nod and took a few steps further into the room before he turned to address Mr. Felagund.

'You wanted a harp,' he said without further ado. 'Would this be right?' He held the instrument at arm's length.

Mr. Felagund rose. 'Thank you,' he said, accepting it with a polite nod of the head. He turned the around and stroked the soundbox with his index finger. 'This may be precisely what I need.'

'Music,' said Dumbledore, smiling. 'A magic beyond all we do here. So you play?'

'I do,' Felagund replied, plucking one of the strings and at the same time humming softly.

The effect was astounding. The note, in itself neither loud or resounding, rippled across the room, reverberating, lingering, and spreading along the walls, the ceiling and the floor to turn them into sounding boards, until the single harp string had became a chorus of voices that all sang the same song in subtly different ways. The werewolf straightened in his chair, and for a moment it looked as if he would give in to his canine instincts and howl.

Another note, and another one, the sounds building until the unwelcome thought crossed Snape's mind that if he were a wolf, he would surely howl. Suddenly he felt silly, hovering like he did in the middle of the room, and as he hated feeling silly he decided to leave. When Felagund's bright gaze came to rest on him, though, he felt... not precisely attacked, yet in some way challenged.

While he was still hesitating he heard Lupin say: 'Please, sit down, Severus - and Snape found himself in the last unoccupied chair in the room. He folded his arms across his chest and waited for the things to come.

'The Headmaster stroked his beard. 'You make me want to hear more,' he said, 'but maybe later? You were going to tell us about yourself, Mr. Felagund.' How can he not want to hear more?

'I am,' was the reply. 'I will do so using this harp; its song will tell you what my tongue can't say well enough yet in yours.' Then he sat down as well and began to play.

Snape hadn't known that he had wanted him to sing until he heard the fullness of that voice again. The beauty of it took his breath away; if anything it seemed to have increased since last night's encounter in the corridor.

At first he did not understand the words, but after a while the language shaped itself into images and the song seemed to encompass the universe and its history. Briefly he wondered how Lupin's sitting room could possibly contain the world, but the force of the music swept all such questions away. He saw how the earth was made and how disharmony entered into it and marred it. Light grew and blossomed like flowers on trees and was caught in living stars by the greatest of artists, a spirit of fire, the proudest son of a prideful people - but darkness apprehended it.

The proud ones rebelled, rejecting their elders, slaying their kin, denouncing a race they feared and detested without having met it. The music darkened as they were cursed. Yet they were both wronged and wrong, and Snape wanted to cry out in fury, in sorrow, in shame, for he was in the midst of it and part of it: a rebel with a cause yet knowing he had, of his own free will, chosen to follow a false lead and therefore deserved the curse.

It was almost like being in someone's Pensieve - except that he was no bystander here but part of the drama, and it swept him along. The harp strings rang loudly, voices cried and swore, and he saw the passions flare on the fair and haughty faces of those around him.

He was there when some turned traitor and more yet were betrayed. He perished many times over crossing a hell of ice, a freezing waste of time and lives. But carried by the song he also survived to help build new realms and to meet new people in old lands, lit by the familiar lights of sun and moon under the shadow of a dark lord, a corrupter of souls wearing an iron crown of tyranny.

He was there when his King was betrayed by his people because of an oath that he had sworn, a life-debt that had to be fulfilled. Valuing honour over safety he chose to defend love rather than to protect his own hide. His guilt unravelled his part of the music, and he died in the dark by the teeth of a werewolf, mortally afraid yet faithful to his cause, though he didn't even know whether his sacrifice had been in vain or a saving grace.

The music ended, the song fell silent, the images dissolved. Snape found himself in the familiar shabbiness of Lupin's sitting room, feeling a keen sense of loss akin to physical pain. It was as if he had just emerged from a living dream or even a vision, and he knew he had been caught in the web of an enchantment unlike any other, so powerful that he couldn't have disentangled himself to save his life. It was frightening and exhilarating, wonderful and terrible, something to cling to even when it could be his undoing.

A magic beyond all they did here.

Snape wondered if it had affected the others as strongly as it had hit him. He also wondered what part the Headmaster had seen himself enact in the drama. The old man sat there, blinking against the light as if it was too bright after the gloom in which the song had immersed them toward the end .

The werewolf was blinking and rubbing his eyes as if he had trouble rousing himself from sleep. He looked stricken, his features more deceptively human than ever, but Snape was willing to bet that Lupin had acted the monster that mauled the King and his companions. The King who was, in fact, no other than Felagund.

Snape shook his head to dispel the last shrouds and shreds of sound. He gritted his teeth. I refuse to be swayed by this sorcery! He felt a strong urge to believe what he had witnessed, even now that the incantation had ended. But the uncanny thing was that Felagund had woven the shadows of the Potions Master's dark past into his song, bypassing all his mental wards.

Outraged at himself, Snape wished he had tried to access the other's memories in order to verify his story, instead of letting himself be carried away. Had the Headmaster tried, at least? Was this enchanter able to keep a great wizard like Albus Dumbledore out of his head?

It was Lupin who finally broke the silence, his voice grating after the beauty of Felagund's song. 'So you were somehow ... spirited away without even knowing if you'd managed to save Beren?' Trust a romantic fool of a Gryffindor to focus on that part of the story.

Felagund's hand lay limply across the harp strings. 'How can he live?' He bent his head. 'I swore to protect him, but I failed. The past caught up with me to destroy someone who put his trust in me.'

Had Lupin just cringed? As Snape was gazing at Dumbledore he only saw the werewolf from the corner of his eye, and he wasn't sure.

The Headmaster, who appeared to have recovered, turned to Felagund. 'All the more reason,' he replied, 'to help you find a way back to where you belong, wherever it may be - in this world or another one that exists side by side with it. Your injuries are healed. If we could send you back, you'd stand a far better chance to protect your friend.'

Why am I not surprised? Apparently neither of them considers doubting the fellow. Once more it was up to him to remain suspicious. Paradoxically, Snape felt justified by the enchanter's own words about failed trust. Someone had to remain watchful, to think the worst of others. Who better than Severus Snape, who knew the worst about himself?

'But how?' asked the enchanter. 'How could you send me back?'

'We'll think of something!' Lupin said with the same disgusting optimism that had to be the main reason why he kept despoiling the face of the earth. Something that not even his bad experiences with trust and friendship had been able to change.

Felagund turned to Dumbledore. 'Would you advise me to consult your Divination teacher?'

The Potions Master snorted, and earned himself a mildly reproachful look from his Headmaster. True, he had to admit that visiting the tart could be useful to identify the impossibilities and dead ends.

'I would,' the Headmaster replied, rising to his feet. 'After all, there's no foretelling when foresight will occur.' Smiling a watery smile he went to the fireplace. 'Meanwhile, I will try to recapitulate everything I ever knew about Displacement Magic.'

While Dumbledore flooed back to his own office, Snape stood as well. 'I'd consult my Dark Arts books if I were you, Lupin. They may come in handy in a case like this.'

'Alas.' The werewolf shook his head as if it didn't sit loosely enough on his shoulders yet. 'I had to sell most of them some time ago when I ran out of dog food. But maybe you'd be so kind to lend me yours, Severus?' he added, and if Snape hadn't known better he'd have sworn that Lupin was merely being polite.

'I'm a Potions Master,' he retorted, smirking. 'Why should I own any Dark Arts books?' It wasn't until he closed the door behind him that he thought of the harp. But he wasn't going back for it. Leaving it where it was provided him with an excellent opportunity to pay the enchanter another visit. But this time he'd do it while Lupin was away teaching classes.

***

Finrod Felagund

'I'm not sure anyone here could have done what you just did. Not even the Headmaster,' Remus said, a considerable silence later. 'You may not call yourself a wizard, but what you did qualifies as magic to me.'

'It is what happens when I tell a tale, whether my own or someone else's.' Finrod patted the harp. It was a fine enough instrument, though given the right tools he knew that he could improve on it. But it was unlikely that this place would contain the right tools, and he doubted they had a forge. He stroked the instrument, feeling the texture of the wood, probing the core. Good, honest wood. I wish I had some to work with.

'Does this instrument do for you what wands do for us? Does it work like a conduit? Help you to focus?'

Finrod thought for a moment, trying to grasp what Remus could mean by that. 'The art of telling tales does not demand music,' he said at last. 'I could have shown all this without accompanying myself, even without singing. The instrument adds beauty. Every well-placed, well-played note enhances and enriches Creation.'

Remus' blank gaze made it clear that the wizard considered this a vague answer. 'You're a strange man,' he said.

'Man? We call ourselves Eldar. The people of the stars.'

'Yes,' Remus said as if this did not surprise him in the least, and then: 'You were their King. So I suppose I'll have to address you as Your Majesty from now on.'

It sounded like a quip, but knowing Remus a little by now Finrod suspected he might be joking to conceal something else. He hoped it was not awe or adoration. 'I was only one of their kings. And were is the right word. They thrust me from my own gates; I have little majesty left.' He laid the harp aside. 'That curse, Remus - it truly caught up with me.'

'Oh, I know what it is to be cursed. Let's stick to "Finrod" then.' Remus smiled hesitantly. 'Do you - do you have more stories to tell?'

The impatience of mortals... But Finrod was not convinced that everything he had told had truly sunk in. 'Not now,' he said. Reliving his life and recounting his fate and that of his companions had shaken him quite badly and the pain of having failed Beren and his love was as keen as ever. 'Shouldn't we inform Sybill Trelawney that I accept her kind invitation?'

***

They went late that night to avoid meeting students. Finrod doubted very much that he would be able to travel by fireplace, and Remus did not dispute this. So they climbed the winding stairs of yet another tower and arrived on a dimly lit landing beneath a circular trap door bearing a brass plaque. As Finrod had spent most of the afternoon learning his letters - and discovering what an excellent teacher his host was - he attempted to decipher the words on the plaque.

The script they used here was neither beautiful nor logical; Finrod felt a grudging admiration for Fëanor and his tengwar (as well as the usual regret for so much brilliance gone to waste). Unlike his uncle, the people who had devised these letters had obviously missed the connection between voiced and voiceless consonants formed in the same manner, while the sound principle that one sign had best represent one sound must have been lost in the course of changeable mortal history. That the letters were easy to learn, especially for someone boasting the memory of the Eldar, seemed to be their saving grace. 'S,' he began, 'y, b... The name of the teacher?'

'Good guess,' said Remus, his eyes twinkling. 'And the rest?'

Disomething... teasomething... 'Divination teacher.'

'Quick thinking for someone who claims he's got a lot of time.'

The trapdoor creaked. Overhead, a crescent moon of blood red light appeared, slowly growing larger until the opening gaped wide and the moon was full. Preoccupied with the phases of Isil, son of Finarfin? Finrod thought, just before the anything but moonlike face of Sybill Trelawney drifted into view. The scent of burning herbs invaded his nose. He found himself wondering if he was supposed to fly through the opening when the answer descended in the shape of a silvery ladder.

'My dearest Mr. Felagund,' breathed a misty voice. (She had not sounded like that in the hospital wing). 'I knew you were waiting below.' (She must have heard them talk.) 'Do come up, please.'

Finrod clambered up to a cluttered, overheated room strewn with small round tables, chairs and poufs and lit by lamps draped with crimson gauze. The heavy curtains were closed, which was a pity, as he would have liked to cast a look outside. The fire blazed. Everywhere along the walls were shelves crammed with shining, moonlike orbs, delicate cups, and candle stubs, with small bunches of herbs arranged between them. The Divination teacher mostly resembled a clothes stand hung with bright shawls and gaudy baubles; she flashed and tinkled with every movement. Some of the beads around her neck looked like tiny teeth.

Through the circular opening Finrod said to Remus, who remained on the landing below: 'Won't you come up?'

'Does he have to?' murmured Sybill in his ear. 'I foresee no changes in his situation and he doesn't want me to read his future anyway.'

'Do I have to?' mouthed Remus from below. 'I can wait for you down here.'

Finrod decided to let him escape. 'Thank you, but I'll find my way back. There's no need to stay.'

'Mind the moving stairs then.' Remus raised a hand in salute and left. Finrod suspected he'd find him waiting at the foot of the stairs.

The Divination teacher closed the trapdoor. She indicated a chair at a tiny table with a very large moon in the middle. 'Please, sit down. Make yourself comfortable. You shall need it when I read your future.' She threw another handful of herbs into the fire. 'Tea?'

Finrod declined politely, though he had nothing against the brew in itself. It was just the quantity they drank here.

Sybill poured herself a cup from a pot with large flower motives and took the chair opposite him. 'First show me your hand, Mr Felagund.'

He held it out. 'Please call me Finrod, my lady.'

'Sybill.' She took the hand eagerly in both of hers and turned the palm upward; her hands felt a little clammy. 'My inner eye tells me you're unmarried, Finrod,' she announced, tracing his life line with a lazy fingertip. (Did people here also use rings to symbolise love-bonds?) 'Yet maybe you will find bliss yet.'

How wonderful. Maybe was such a malleable concept. Finrod, whose attention was focused on the round object in front of him, dismissed her words as a warming up. He pointed. 'Is this a seeing stone, my lady?'

Behind the pieces of glass that enlarged her eyes to insect proportions, Sybill blinked. Unless she was batting her eyelashes at him. 'Ah,' she said. 'I knew a man like you would be able to come up with an original name.'

'One can gaze into it and speak with others who have a similar stone, even if they are many days away?'

'True seers use this to catch glimpses of the future.' Not a palantir then. 'Your future, in this case,' the Divination teacher added, lowering her voice and bending forward. 'Ah... I see a lady...' She gazed up at him, a moist gleam in those huge eyes, her equally moist lips curved in a smile that probably tried to be endearingly shy but turned out to be embarrassingly sheepish.

Finrod winced. Should he have known this was behind her invitation? How to guide her down to earth without making her land too roughly? He sighed emphatically. 'A lady? Is she alone? This must be my betrothed. Since we parted, she is ever in my thoughts and I dearly wish to return to her.'

Abruptly, Sybill let go of his hand. She did not speak, and neither did he, until the silence began to gather the weight of the universe unto itself.

Nodding at the crystal in front of him Finrod said: 'Does your m - orb also show glimpses of the past, my lady? A few days ago, I was... transported to this place without knowing how and why. Could you... would you be able to uncover the truth?' He peered into the shining, round object. Briefly, it seemed to acquire a life of its own, flaring, flames leaping, reminding him of the fiery hearts of Fëanor's palantiri, in Valinor behind the Encircling Mountains. He knew, though, that it was but the reflection of the firelight. 'Or am I asking too much?'

'The truth,' Sybill muttered, 'is many-faceted like a crystal.'

Observing her thin, suddenly tense face Finrod knew without having to read her mind that Sybill could not help him, that she could see less in that orb of hers than his own sister Saw in a bowl of water, and that she was little more than a pathetic fraud. He rose; the herbal fumes and the heat in the room were becoming oppressive. 'Forgive me, my lady. I should have told you what I hoped to hear when I accepted your invitation.' What else could he say? Ah, yes. 'I shall not waste any more of your time.' He rose to leave.

'I see a wolf. I see a hound. I see a maiden,' Sybill spoke abruptly, her voice gone harsh, her gaze distant, her posture rigid. Finrod stopped in his tracks.

'Wolf and hound shall struggle fiercely,' the Divination teacher went on. 'The hound prevails; the wolf runs; the doomed one shall live, the deceiver flee to his dark master. The maiden holds the key to that which was wrought in the past and must come undone. The maiden... holds the key...'

She slumped in her chair. Finrod eyed her thoughtfully. He ought to have known. True foresight was never crystal clear.

Suddenly, Sybill straightened. Her voice, more normal now, held a sliver of resentment when she said: 'Poor man. Beware the grim.'

'What is a grim?'

'A grim is a harbinger of death,' replied the Divination teacher. 'It appears in the shape of a large black dog. It has been sighted near Hogwarts. I fear that you shall see it, and die.'

(TBC)