Into the Fold

THE ST MUNGO'S COACH

June 1976

Severus couldn't decide whether sitting in the passenger seat of the St Mungo's coach was more like sitting in a jail cell or the centre of a sprung trap. Nothing but a thin partition with an iron grille in the middle separated him from the back of the coach, whence came the sounds he wanted to escape: the sounds of the mediwizards working on the unconscious James Potter.

"Pass some more of that Blood-Replenisher, would you, Ned? Then a bit of a Carmenoris--you don't want him choking.... There you go, young fellow, down the hatch."

And nothing but a couple of feet of clear and empty air separated Severus from a sight nearly as frightening as those sounds: Professor Dumbledore, sitting stiff-faced and silent, staring into space.

Presently, without turning, Dumbledore touched the tip of his wand to the grille. The mediwizards went silent, as if a blanket of cotton wool had dropped over the opening.

An Imperturbable Charm, Severus supposed. But Professor Dumbledore did not say so. He remained silent and looked as troubled as ever.

Severus looked away from him, out of the coach window. It should have been one of the most amazing things that had ever happened to him, to be riding so high that the stars studding the black sky seemed to surround him, beneath a moon so huge and bright it looked close enough to touch.

Severus might have put his hand out of the window, to feel the wind, to see if he really could touch the moon, if Potter hadn't been lying behind him, beyond the partition, doomed to death, perhaps, by his hand. As it was, he didn't have the heart. As it was, he felt his eyes dragged from the sky, back into the coach, back to Dumbledore, who, so far, had made not the least effort to explain what they would do when they arrived at St Mungo's.

"Er--Professor?"

Dumbledore blinked as if waking, then turned his head. "Yes, Severus?"

"You said I'd have to help heal James Potter."

"Yes. You will."

"But--how? I'm no Healer." For the first time since Professor Dumbledore had cast the Imperturbable Charm, Severus glanced toward the grille--and saw that it was gone. The partition had closed over it, so that a smooth wall now separated the passenger seat from the rear of the coach.

"No, you're not. And even the mediwizards aren't having an easy time of it," said Dumbledore, as if he'd read the meaning of Severus's glance. He sighed. "This is even worse than the Firewhip."

Severus's stomach did a slow turn.

"Yes, I know about that. That's why I asked Madam Pomfrey to notify me immediately if you ever cast so injurious a curse again. Which she has done, because you have done."

It was very hard to look away from Professor Dumbledore's eyes. Finally, after squirming a bit, Severus managed it, looking instead at his hands knotted in his lap.

"I understand that you invented the spell you cast on Mr Pettigrew." Dumbledore's voice sounded over Severus's bowed head. "Did you invent the spell you cast on Mr Potter?"

"Yes, sir."

There was a silence. Severus kept his eyes down.

"I was afraid of that," sighed Dumbledore. "A brilliantly Dark achievement, to be sure. One of the most devastating curses I have ever seen cast at Hogwarts. I can't say congratulations are in order, however."

He paused again, and if he meant to disconcert Severus by doing so, he succeeded. "What is the incantation for this--ah, creation of yours?"

"Sectumsempra."

"Sectumsempra. Very apt. I take it you have not yet devised a counter-curse to Sectumsempra?"

Severus jerked his head up angrily. "I'd have used it if I had!"

"Precisely. And there you have the answer to your question. You will help heal James Potter by formulating the counter-curse to Sectumsempra and casting it upon him."

"But I can't! I've been working on it all year!"

Dumbledore shifted in his seat to turn his gaze fully upon Severus. "You must find a way. Or I shall have to expel you from Hogwarts."

Expel him! His heart pounding in his chest, his blood pounding in his brain, Severus felt as though he would explode from the injustice of it all. "This isn't my fault!" he shouted. "You're the one who invited a werewolf into the school! You're the one who put him into a House and a dormitory full of troublemakers, who've only made him more dangerous! You're the one who made him into a prefect who lets his friends get away with everything!"

Severus had leaned into Dumbledore's face until their noses were inches apart. Dumbledore blinked and drew back.

"If it isn't your fault, it isn't Remus's, either. He deserves schooling as much as any other wizard. He didn't ask to become a werewolf--"

"You sound just like them; you're a Gryffindor and they're your Gryffindor favourites! Do you know what Black and Potter did? They put me in Lupin's path while he was transformed! He knew it too, he played along, he goes along with everything they do to keep them liking him!"

"Please control yourself." Dumbledore spoke calmly, but there was something in his eyes and voice that silenced Severus immediately. "I had the entire story from Sirius before you and Madam Pomfrey arrived."

"He told you his side."

"Have you anything to add, then?"

Severus poured out his tale in a rush, beneath Professor Dumbledore's calmly unchanging gaze. "Thank you," said Dumbledore when he was finished. "That concurs exactly with what Mr Black told me."

"All three of them planned it--!"

"You don't know that. You never knew it."

Severus was silent a moment, breathing hard, gathering the shreds of his self-control. "Sirius Black told me how to follow Remus Lupin into that tunnel when he knew I'd face a transformed werewolf once I got inside. I could have been bitten, made into a werewolf myself. I could have been killed. What are you going to do about that?"

"Sirius will face consequences for what he has done. As you will face consequences for very possibly killing James Potter."

That brought Severus up short. An image flashed through his mind, of Potter's grey face, the seemingly endless flow of his blood.

For once, Severus had equalled Potter and Black. No. Not equalled. He'd done worse. It was Potter, not he, who lay dying in the back of the St Mungo's coach.

"I didn't mean to," he whispered. Then, in a louder voice: "I want to counter the curse, but I don't know how!"

Dumbledore leaned back. Fresh heat surged into Severus's cheeks as he realised he was still too aggressively close to his headmaster. He slid quickly over to the coach window, then back until his spine was ramrod-straight against the back of the passenger seat.

"That is why we are going to St Mungo's," Dumbledore answered. "There are people there who can help--well, who can help both of us. Healer-Legilimentes, experts in the workings of magic upon the mind. You see, Severus, as you'll learn in Magical Theory when--" here he gave Severus a keen glance over the tops of his spectacles "--or if you return for your seventh year, some spells affect the caster as much as they affect their object, although in different ways. Complex spells of healing or artistic creation can hone the soul of the wizard who casts them to such a capacity and brilliance that, if he practises the magic often and skilfully enough, his power in that magic and the strength of his soul will both be unmatched. The indulgence in similarly powerful but dark and destructive magic will have the opposite effect: if it is practised long and deeply enough, it will, perhaps, damage the practitioner's soul beyond repair." Dumbledore paused, then added, "And if he's the one who invented the spell to boot..."

What was all that supposed to mean? "What are they going to do to me?" Severus demanded.

"I beg your pardon?"

Had he forgotten what they were talking about? "The Healer-Legilimentes. What are they going to do?"

"Oh, of course. I'm sorry. Well, what they need to do is establish your state of mind, first when you created Sectumsempra and later when you cast it on James Potter. So they will examine your memories by removing some to a Pensieve and observing them and by sifting through others in your mind. Knowing your state of mind will serve to inform the Healers' analysis of your intent at the time you invented and later cast the spell. Thus they will discern the essence of the spell, as opposed to its outward manifestations, and the level of Darkness of the magic you used to create it."

That," Dumbledore went on, "describes the discovery of the emotional component of Sectumsempra. There is, of course, an intellectual component. The Healers will ask you to break down your thought processes as you were creating Sectumsempra into concrete steps, so that they can analyse each one. They--and you--will try to rebuild the curse into a sort of mirror of itself--a counter-curse. But you are Sectumsempra's creator, Severus, and no outsider, not even the most skilled Legilimens, can completely know your mind. You must work closely and cooperatively with the Healers every step of the way."

Dumbledore stopped to gaze at Severus for several long moments. "And none of it--neither the raking-through of your mind nor the breaking-down and rebuilding of Sectumsempra into its counter-curse--will be easy or painless, I'm afraid. Especially for you. That will be the first of the consequences you'll face."

"The first?" said Severus. "There'll be more?"

"Of course. If you fail, there will be expulsion and Azkaban."

"Azkaban?"

"Why, yes. If you fail, James Potter will die. You will have killed him. You can't escape judgement for that."

Severus stared at Dumbledore in sick dismay. "And--and if I succeed?" he asked finally.

"Let us see how you succeed. Then I shall know what to do next."

Severus stared a moment longer. Then he turned away from the headmaster and looked out of the coach window. He did not look back, even when the lights of London spread below him like a glittering carpet and the gentle descent of the coach began to fill him with the fear of what lay in wait for him at St Mungo's Hospital.