The Auspice of Mars

The Auspice of Mars

Chapter 3.

Zahirah wished she could be as certain of the centaur's safety as she was of Persephone's with Professor Snape. She had not seen a sign of a single centaur on her almost nightly trips into the Forbidden Forest. She and Mika'il had come to know the Forest better, but not as well as she would like: none of the creatures she found were of the communicative type.

With the lack of hard evidence, she spent many hours over the month in her rooms researching. She poured over both her own books and those she found in the Hogwart's Library. She was getting awfully tired of Madame Pince's disapproving looks at Persephone. But she kept trying to find some precedent of a centaur exodus.

Nothing turned up to give her any ideas about what happened to the herd from the Forbidden Forest. And though she'd seen plenty of magical beasts, none of them would drive a centaur away, not a herd of them. So she decided to write to the Department. Perhaps they would have some records somewhere of a centaur movement of this scale. It wasn't likely, the centaurs had never much used their Liaison before she took the position, but she could always hope. So it came down to waiting for the other experts at the Ministry to owl her back with a response to her inquiring letter.

. o O o .

The owl came at breakfast a week after she sent it. Her fork slipped from her fingers when she saw the non-descript Ministry owl gliding towards her, silent among the raucous cries of the students and other owls. She had her hands on the letter before the large bird had a chance to settle beside her plate. The tearing sound of the envelope required investigation by Persephone. "No, not now," Zahirah muttered and pushed the inquiring nose away.

Severus was surprised to feel the kneazle arrive in his lap and even more surprised to hear the disgruntled noise. Persephone made that noise more commonly when leaving his lap. He looked sharply at Professor Zahir-- the woman never did anything but coddle the kneazle. What could possibly have made her upset her companion?

What he saw upset his previous conceptions of her. The usually perfectly collected woman had gone pale under her dusky skin. He had before assumed that she was as impenetrable as was he. Now, he had to believe that there were things, other than the furry creatures on his lap that could break those walls. Thoughts of what those things might be filtered quickly through his mind as he observed her clenched jaw. The parchment in her hand was trembling more than the airflow around them merited.

His hand rose unconsciously to comfort the glowering kneazle, but his gaze didn't waver from her mistress. He might have made a fool of himself by continuing to stare, but Persephone was in no mood to be ignored and drew his attention with a gentle bite. The irony of having his attention drawn from a woman by an animal was not lost on Severus, but he felt no urge to smile. Instead, he settled his left hand on Persephone and resumed his meal without comment to Professor Zahir.

He wasn't entirely sure, but he didn't think she ate anything the rest of the meal. He only hoped that no one misinterpreted his sidelong glances at the woman as anything but morbid curiosity. She was the first to leave the table, again leaving him to take care of Persephone, a situation that had become more frequent as the kneazle apparently pulled out all the stops when she decided that she would bestow her affections on someone.

She accompanied him to his classroom and assumed her by-now-familiar place on his desk. He hadn't yet heard any of the things the students were surely saying about his sudden tolerance for something that was undeniably both cute and friendly, but when he did he was well prepared to take off as many house points as he could without Dumbledore or McGonagall putting them back.

. o O o .

"Professor Zahir looked really upset today at breakfast," Harry said, crossing the grounds to Care of Magical Creatures with Ron and Hermione.

"She left really fast, too. I bet that big-nosed git Snape said something to upset her."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Didn't you two notice the letter she got? I'm certain that it's what made her so upset. Besides, it's not as if she and Professor Snape fight."

Ron looked taken aback. "What do you mean by that?"

"Just that if you watch them at meals, they don't ever seem upset. Sometimes they both almost smile."

Harry was about to say that he had never seen either of them smile when Ron spoke up.

"Hermione, what were you doing watching them so much, anyway?"

Harry was ready to hear Hermione say something sharp to Ron about his overactive imagination, but was amazed to find her blushing and carrying on with no retort whatsoever.

"And," she continued, "Professor Zahir's kneazle likes him."

"I thought they were supposed to dislike the Dark Arts?" was Ron's grumbled, somewhat sulky response.

. o O o .

Zahirah barely remembered teaching that day. Her mind had been firmly fixed on the news in the letter she received at breakfast. The information just kept rolling over and over in her mind along with dozens of possible implications. Unfortunately, the outcome of her thoughts was depressingly similar regardless of which explanation she chose to pursue. She decided she had to go and make precautions as well as she could or the foreboding darkness would color her thoughts until something snapped.

The fourth section of her trunk contained the things she would need for this-- and all further-- trips into the Forbidden Forest. Zahirah belted on black robes with a wide, black leather belt. The heavy quiver of short crossbow bolts she hung on the belt, wrapping the straps around it and checking the knots three times before she was satisfied. Two wickedly curved knives were slipped into slits in the leather to hold them in, but leave the blades exposed.

Only after she was properly girded did she draw the compact crossbow from her small arsenal. The enchanted weapon was specially licensed by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement with the approval of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Commission. It was intended to stun its targets, to make the bolts like pre-charged stupefy spells, but Zahirah had learned a lot about it in the years she had possessed it. She murmured a spell and the crossbow seemed heavier, more real, less like something she was issued to keep stray pogreblins away and more like a weapon she was taking into battle.

Her heavy traveling cloak and Mika'il's invisibility were her armor and Persephone was her sentry. The kneazle, however, hadn't returned to her even after dark. She murmured the calling charm that she and Persephone were attuned to, but felt no response-- no slackening of the brief pull the spell evoked. That meant she was still sulking, and Zahirah had a pretty good idea where she was. It was her fondest hope at that time that Snape stayed true to type and didn't ask questions.

She should have known better. The kneazle had worked her endearing feline magic on the straight-faced (if hook-nosed) Potions Master just as she had on Zahirah herself.

Professor Snape came to the door of his office with sneer fully in place. She refused to acknowledge the curiosity around his eyes when he realized who she was. She kept the thick cloak pulled closed around her, hiding the crossbow from him. "What?" he snapped at her, the curiosity quickly replaced with his usual blank annoyance.

"I'm certain you know 'what,' Professor," she said smoothly, again mocking him by parroting his word and tone back at him. Perhaps if she got him angry enough, he would forget to be curious. "I've come for Persephone, surely you two haven't become so attached that you can't let her out of your sight." Bitterness crept into her voice, though she told herself it was part of the act.

"As you said yourself, Persephone is not a pet-- she goes where she pleases." Snape didn't change his expression at all as he spoke, it was as if he were the one who had worked years and years with centaurs.

Zahirah closed her eyes for a moment to try and regain her composure, something she hadn't had to do in a very long time: she shouldn't have thought of the centaurs, it made her stomach clench up unpleasantly.

Severus watched the emotions flit unchecked across her face. There was a time that his being an excellent reader of faces was necessary to his survival, but hers was usually closed even to him. She was so off balance, though, that her thoughts were plain to see: annoyance was overshadowed by fear, but forced to the front before the woman's exotic face became a mask again.

"I wish this were just a social call to trade insults and compete like children over a favorite person's affection, but it is not. I need Persephone to come with me, and I don't have all night to argue with you about it." He saw the muscle in her jaw contract as she snapped her mouth shut on the last cold word. Cold, yes, but he could hear the ragged edges around the control of her melodic voice.

He knew there was something very wrong, that she would have never spoken frankly if there wasn't. If there was something wrong, Dumbledore needed to know about it. If there was something wrong, she didn't need to be sneaking about, hiding in that black cloak and demanding a kneazle as a protector.

Severus expected her to be angry-- scared people anger easily-- but he didn't quite expect her to try and push past him. He was too surprised to push back. It was a long time ago that anyone resisted him physically. Still, she had to move him to get through his half-open door. The sudden feel of another body against his was as unfamiliar as the kneazle's affection.

Later, he would realize that all of the human contact in his adult life had been hostile. Perhaps that's why he noticed Professor Zahir's small frame against him rather than the frustration behind the push. Perhaps that's why his body chose that moment to realize that Professor Zahir was not only a woman, but also a fairly attractive one at that.

Something more registered, though, in those short moments she pushed against him: there was something hidden underneath her cloak. Something solid and not at all like a wand or a robe, or the flesh underneath. It intruded on his traitorous body's evaluation of this woman as a woman. That she was hiding something reminded him that she was a person on a mission, and she required special equipment to do it.

He relented and moved back, if only to remove the contact so he could think without insidious, inappropriate thoughts creeping into his brain. Severus glowered more deeply at her once she was inside his spartan office. His brief unbalanced feeling and the unexpected, unwelcome reaction of his body did nothing good for his mood, already inflamed by her insistence and secretiveness. Only his curiosity about her sudden impulsive actions gave him the distance from his anger to coldly say, "Your use of force and your sulking about all day are quite Gryffindor. Are you sure you weren't Sorted here?" It wasn't a compliment, and he knew she realized that.

"Professor Snape, you have no idea what I am dealing with. Just keep out of my way and let me do my job." She glared up at him with a clenched jaw, almost baring her teeth.

Zahirah did not have time to argue, not if she had any intention of getting anything done. She wanted very much for Snape to just disappear and stop making her life difficult-- more difficult than it got that morning.

"Your job, Professor Zahir, I'm certain does not include rushing about like an agitated first year." His voice conveyed more scorn than even his words. His face was impassive, his dark eyes like obsidian chips. The man radiated stubborn immobility despite his physical retreat a few moments before.

His petty insults were getting them nowhere, and she didn't think telling him so would do any good. Instead, she walked past him and scooped Persephone up from her place by the small fireplace. Zahirah had no doubt that the kneazle had known why she was at Snape's office from the moment she knocked on the door. If she didn't need Persephone's cooperation right now, she'd have several things to say about that defection.

"Excuse me, Professor Snape, I have work to do." She swept out of the room with Persephone growling in her arms. Sometimes retreat was the best option-- it even had the added bonus of infuriating Snape to the point of rigid speechlessness. He very nearly gaped like a fish at her disrespectful departure.

Zahirah had quite a time holding onto Persephone. The kneazle was making her protest known so insistently that Zahirah hoped the wailing 'meows' weren't attracting attention. The last thing she needed was to run into that pretentious Filch.

"Persephone, I'm sorry I got upset this morning," she whispered as she clung to the angry animal.

Her strides carried them quickly down the stone corridor and into the blackness of the wet night. "I need your help, Persephone. I don't know what's out there." The kneazle must have sensed the desperation in her voice because she stopped her abused yeowling and leaned up to touch her nose to Zahirah's chin. The woman barely noticed the comforting touch, she barely noticed herself talking until she had to stop to whistle and murmur the Calling spell for Mika'il.

A disconcerting rippling of the darkness materialized into the winged horse. She would always be awed at the sight of him: a magnificent creature carved from night, blacker than black because of the wet. His muscles gleamed along his arched neck and deep chest back to his powerful flanks. He bowed his head and lowered his wings in invitation for her to mount.

"Mika'il," she said, the familiar sounds and syllables of the language rolling from her tongue. She spoke quietly to him in Arabic, her voice finally without the ragged edges that touched it since she received the letter. There was no more waiting, anticipating, fearing what she would find in the Forest. Now, she would find out.

She took comfort in his strength, in the warmth of his muscles and flesh beneath her. She leaned into his neck as the surge of power in the take off threatened to push her to the ground.

Disappearing into the forest was disconcerting with the reaching trees closing around them and her own body shimmering out of existence with Mika'il and Persephone. She felt for the crossbow, its cold length on her leg in sharp contrast to the soft warmth of the kneazle braced between her stomach and Mika'il's feathered withers.

This time, she was looking for something different. This time, she was hoping that she wouldn't find what she was looking for. Water dripped from the heavy leaves and black branches surrounding her-- the rain had stopped, but how many days had it been drizzling in this Scottish autumn? How many opportunities for disaster had there already been? What might she find beneath the trees?

Mika'il's flew just above the thick tangle of trunks and branches, agilely maneuvering around the tallest of the trees. There were no stars to light their way with silver, only the dull gleam behind the heavy cloud-cover that marked the position of the half moon. Zahirah narrowed her eyes against the occasional light drizzle and the screen of the dark, damp leaves, trying to see through the umbrella of foliage. Periodically, she urged the thestral down through the canopy of leaves.

The bleakness of the forest floor was emphasized by the lack of life that usually livened it. There was nothing scurrying about on the sodden, dead leaves, nothing flitting through the lower branches of the trees, nothing stalking and nothing being stalked through the underbrush. She saw signs still that there had been many things there, but the creatures themselves were in hiding.

Then, suddenly below them in one of their dips into the dank branches was a scene that made Persephone huddle against her in silence. Broken bodies lay strewn on the forest floor, left to rot on the wet ground. The creatures had not died easily: blood and gore and fur and feathers littered the mud and leaves.

Zahirah's hands tightened in Mika'il's mane. She fought the urge to retch at the carnage, her eyes locked on the wreckage of life below her, unable to turn away. Everything from common squirrels to red caps to fwoopers died in the mass slaughter. And there. There was a wing so big and tawny it could only have belonged to a griffin.

The thestral trembled under her, but held his position in the air. She smoothed one hand over his neck, and, unfrozen, loaded the crossbow with the other. Grateful for the enchantments, she slid the bolt in the track and let the magic draw the heavy string into position.

So it was true. The Ministry's missing chimera egg had been stolen and relocated somewhere it would incubate. Not sold, nor traded, but planted here in the magic of the Forbidden Forest. But it was egg no longer.

She had to get out of there. They had to leave before it came back for a second bloodbath. Mika'il responded eagerly to the pressure on his side. He banked and flew back the way they came.

The tightening in her stomach while they flew back towards the beacon of lights that was Hogwarts had nothing to do with fear or nausea. Why hadn't she been told when the chimera egg went missing? There were only a few places in the Ministry's domain that were magical enough to incubate a chimera egg-- the Forbidden Forest was one of them. If she had known about the missing egg she could have searched the Forest before the rain and the magic had a chance to wake the dormant shell. Even if she had known just a few weeks ago, there would have been a chance she could have exterminated the beast without much risk.

But now-- Now the chimera was marking his territory with death. Now it was at full growth, if not final maturity. There was only one recorded slaying of a chimera: millennia before. The wizard didn't survive the victory much longer than the monster he killed.

She dismounted by Hagrid's cabin, but didn't take her hand from Mika'il's neck. Thus far, she had trusted that the thestral would keep himself safe: his defenses should have been sufficient to keep him from falling prey to the predators in the Forbidden Forest. That was before there was a rare Greek monster staining the leaves on the forest floor red with the blood of its victims.

The thestral had never taken well to being stabled, but Zahirah felt she had no choice. "Come," she murmured to the animal in a lower undertone, stepping away. He followed, not breaking the contact between them even as they moved towards the pasture beside Hagrid's cabin. Releasing the tactile bond, she whispered and apology and then a spell to keep him from leaving the enclosure.

She held Persephone close as she walked away from the paddock, not releasing the kneazle to follow at her own pace as usual. She was blocking out the memories of the ground in the Forbidden Forest, concentrating on what she had to do, but Persephone's warmth was still a comfort in the wet night.

Dumbledore would need to be informed, though at this point there was no need to disturb his sleep: there was nothing that could be done in a hurry to combat such a dangerous creature as now occupied the Hogwarts grounds. She could tell him in the morning before she had her classes. What would she tell him? He surely hadn't known about the chimera egg or he would have let her know. But she hadn't told him about the centaurs. Now that seemed like a gross oversight-- he might have been able to get information from the Ministry before she. It rankled to think that someone else might be more up to date about her own department, but she was afraid it was the truth.

Morning came too soon for her tired body and her troubled mind. She ached from the tension of the day before, and removing herself from the warmth of the bed was the last thing she wanted to do. Persephone was curled against her under the duvet instead of in her usual place at the foot of the bed. The kneazle hadn't slept so close to her since she was a kitten.

"Seph," she mumbled, touching the feline's back to wake her. "Seph, we have to get up. We have things to do." She was trying to convince herself more than her companion. The 'things to do' were cloudy, uncomfortable demands that she was trying not to consider in sharper focus.

They reluctantly stretched protesting muscles and climbed from the haven of the bed. The stone against her feet was a wake up call, finally jarring her into the unwelcome waking world with its responsibilities and danger and death. Too much death. She steeled herself against her churning stomach while the sights of last night flashed in front of her mind's eye with disgusting detail.

. o O o .

Severus went to breakfast from Dumbledore's office. Professor Zahir's behavior the night before had been strange enough to merit a conversation with the Headmaster. Though the students thought him omniscient, Severus knew differently. Information had to come from somewhere, and he was well practiced in passing things on to Albus Dumbledore.

So, he had learned to be particularly observant. Even if he hadn't, he would have been paying special attention to Professor Zahir that morning to see if she was still as upset as she had been the day before. He was sitting at the end of the table in time to observe her entrance through narrowed eyes. Just thinking about her brought back the emotions of last night; he ground his teeth in spite of his resolve that he would not let her childish display affect his public image. She had angered him even before she walked out, as if he was the one being irrational when it was she who had acted without reason. After that, he had barely maintained the control to keep himself from storming after her and forcing her to take heed of him, to stop hiding whatever it was that distressed her so much and to take it to Professor Dumbledore as she ought. He had decided that she was going to continue to disregard him and his best course of action would be to inform the Headmaster at his first opportunity.

Her appearance confirmed his conviction. She looked as if she had hardly slept and there was a bloodlessness about her that made her look grey instead of brown. That hat looked even more precariously perched than usual and Severus became certain that more than natural gravity held it over her haggard face.

She did not even look at him when she dropped into her place at the table. No grumpy 'good morning,' no half-smile of greeting, not even an acknowledgement of his presence. She looked so worn out that he almost felt compassion for her: hadn't he known those mornings? His, though, had been in service to Dumbledore and not because of whatever this woman was doing of her own accord. The hint of compassion was replaced by suspicion and the righteous anger of the night before. Not even Persephone's gentle attention to her mistress, surely an indication of the woman's state of mind, lessoned his simmering anger.

He divided his glowers between Professor Zahir and the student body, trying to avoid undue attention to her, but thinking of her none-the-less. What had she done that required the kneazle's help-- he couldn't bring himself to think 'protection.' Where was she going in that thick black cloak on a dreary, wet night? And what had he felt under that cloak? Severus discouraged his rebellious mind from supplying the obvious and frustrating 'curves' as an answer. That she was a woman with a woman's body did nothing to change her possible treachery. He should have learned that lesson well enough during his time as a Death Eater.

Admittedly, he had never seen a Death Eater look so disgusted at the sight of traditional English bacon and sausage. But Professor Zahir turned away at the smell and covered her mouth with her napkin. She waved away her usual breakfast, not turning back to the table until her golden plate was again empty and clean. Instead, she took a piece of dry toast from the center of the table and broke it into pieces. She ate it slowly, with necessity.

Persephone would receive nothing from those hands that morning, but she held none of her previous indignation. She touched her nose to the woman's wrist and mewed softly. Professor Zahir murmured something that sounded suspiciously like, "Get him to feed you."

Get him to feed her. Since when was he part of the kneazle's support staff? He didn't believe he was, even though he started cutting up his sausage into Persephone-sized bites before he felt the slight weight of her against his legs. The creature did have to eat, after all-- it wasn't her fault that Professor Zahir lost every scrap of mature responsibility she possessed.

The rest of the meal passed with the slow agony of people who must be civil but wish nothing more than open confrontation. Severus was only managing civil because of the complete lack of interaction between them. It was a different silence than their usual comfort-- it was a silence hung with unspoken questions and anger and almost palpable fear.

Fear. That was just it. There was fear about Professor Zahir's manner, fear underscored by Persephone's gentle treatment. Severus knew that Professor Zahir ventured into the Forbidden Forest almost nightly without a hint of the demoralizing emotion he saw in her even through her well-practiced mask of impartiality. So if there was something there now that caused such a change, why did she not inform someone? Her excursion during the night had increased her fear, but it had permeated her actions since she received that letter the day before. Severus felt like he was slamming his head into a wall over and over with the same unanswered question: if she was so upset, so afraid, why did she not ask for help? What was she hiding? He intended to discover what it was and to tell Dumbledore at the first opportunity.

She rose from her seat at the first moment it was polite and he followed directly. Persephone went with her mistress, keeping close to her ankles yet amazingly out of the way. Severus could have followed them if he were blind: the chiming jingle that marked Professor Zahir's steps was easy to follow through the quiet corridors of the castle.

Once they were a suitable distance from the Great Hall, he increased his stride and caught up with her. "I see your little errand last night was good for you: you look like twice-warmed hell." He grabbed her upper arm when she made no move to stop at his growl.

She responded with something low and guttural in a tone that made the literal meaning of the foreign words superfluous. He held fast to her arm though she tried to wrench it away. His long fingers in the muscle of her arm would probably leave bruises, but he paid that no attention.

"I don't know what you are up to, but I assure you that I will not allow you to put this school in danger." He used his most menacing hiss, the quiet, malevolent one that made the blood drain from students' faces.

The bleak look in Professor Zahir's eyes when she turned to face him proved the threat in his voice didn't impress her. "Professor Snape," she said, all formality, "may I remind you that you are not the only one concerned with the safety of Hogwarts and, at the risk of being repetitive, you have absolutely no idea what I am dealing with." She was dismissing him again. In the face of his barely-concealed anger she was a block of unimpressionable ice, as nonplussed by his words and grip as if he had enquired about the weather at tea.

"I have no idea because you refuse to tell anyone, whether because of your own stupidity or treachery I don't know." He leaned heavily on the word 'treachery,' his fingers tightening on her tense arm.

Persephone's sudden hiss was unnecessary to his knowing of the woman's anger. The bleak look in her eyes was replaced with a flash of anger, light reflecting from the one he could see with the narrowing of it. "Are you so arrogant you can't see beyond your own substantial nose? I was not informed that you were to be told of all the happenings of Hogwarts and I'm not about to start explaining myself to you. You are not the Headmaster and whether or not you need to be privy to the details of my job is at his discretion.

"I confess I am at a loss as to understand why you believe this is your problem to deal with." The tension drained from her, he felt it through her arm. Her last question wasn't angry or defensive, she seemed to have spent the energy she had for ire in her little rant. Still, it wasn't quite giving into him. It was an honest inquiry, a need to understand, and possibly an opening to discussion like rational adults rather than the childish baiting they'd exchanged since her tirade and abrupt exit the night before.

"You burst into my office like the apocalypse was coming and expect me not to wonder why? Not to be concerned for the security of the school?" He still didn't release her, she might be almost open to discussion, but she still refused to see his position. He felt the sarcasm in his question even as he tried to acknowledge her question.

"I do not have time for this. I don't have to report to you any more than I have to clear my comings and goings with Argus Filch and that mangy creature he calls a cat." He read that message loud and clear. She had told him before that she was not to be treated like a student, and she was as good as telling him again. Her anger had returned, resurrected itself to combat his scorn. He could feel it in the tension in her arm, see it in the narrow glare on her face. "But I do have to report to the Headmaster, and I have something of great importance to the security of the school to discuss with him. So if you are genuinely concerned with the school and not with soothing your own hurt ego, let me go so I can get on with it."

She was standing facing him now, drawn up to her full height and looking up at him with determined defiance. She was so close he could see the veins in the pale circle under her visible eye. He wanted to reach out and slap the impertinent defiance from her face. Her logic, unfortunately, was flawless. He had no authority over her.

He wanted to pull her closer, to tower over her and growl a threat, but common sense told him that he didn't have the right to do that, either, that it would only give her more of a right to disdain him and then he might never know what she was hiding. The warning sirens in the back of his mind told him that if she got any closer his common sense might short out again and he'd forget about finding out what she was up to. Damnable woman-- he had no reason to be attracted to her and every reason to be suspicious, but his body refused to acknowledge that simple truth. Better he get away from her before he gave into one urge or the other. She had at least decided to talk to Dumbledore, if not to include him in the confidence. That would do.

Severus released her arm, almost pushing her away as he did. Persephone hissed warningly again as Professor Zahir almost failed to recover her balance. He whirled and walked away before he could catch the confusion clear on her face.