Free Will and Fate

Before Hermione had walked fully into the room, she saw Harry raise his wand and Summon his Invisibility Cloak. A few seconds later, he followed the swish of fabric through the air and caught it. "That's taken care of," he said as he pushed it down into the pocket of his jeans. He tucked the distending edges under his t-shirt. Harry turned to search behind Professor McGonagall's desk.

"I brought you up here so we could stay out of the way," Hermione said from the doorway.

Her annoyance was clear, but he didn't feel the urge to continue their disagreement from earlier. Besides, they both knew where the other stood and it wasn't likely to change any time soon. She would just have to deal with it.

"Plans change," Harry responded. He pulled the knife Sirius had given him out of his bag and slipped it into his pocket. "Besides, if anything goes wrong, we need to be able to get where we're going unnoticed. Not even the portraits will be able to see where we are."

She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "You say that as if they can't see what you're doing now."

Harry looked up at her statement. The portraits around the room were shamming sleep as usual, but he had no doubt Hermione was right. It was a risk he'd have to take. "Where's the Map?"

"On the desk." Hermione walked over as Harry opened the parchment onto the desk. It was still activated and in no time at all, they were able to spot where Professor Snape was walking at a brisk pace past Hagrid's cabin and into the forest. Not too far behind him, Tonks followed.

"I hope she's using a spell so he can't see her."

Hermione gave him a look that plainly said he wasn't thinking. "Of course she is," she said. "She'd have to be to follow him so closely. I just don't know where Dumbledore and the others are. I thought they were going to follow until Tonks was safely back at the school." She adjusted the Map, looking at different floors. "Your godfather should be here any minute. Are you looking forward to seeing him?"

"Yeah," Harry smiled as he thought of the last time he'd seen Sirius in person, at Christmas. "It'll be strange, though. When I knew Sirius, he'd been imprisoned in Azkaban for years, and he was starving and on the run once he escaped. All of that made him...a little crazy to say the least. He's going to be completely different from what I remember." He'll be what I need right now, Harry thought.

"What matters is that he'll want what's best for your family. I'm sure your mother will appreciate that once she knows everything," Hermione said.

"What I will appreciate more is knowing what's going on."

They both turned abruptly as Lily strode towards them across the office.

Hermione bit her bottom lip, peering cautiously around Lily to the stairs behind her. "Does Professor Snape know you're here?"

Lily looked startled by the question. "No, he's gone, but you already knew that. I get the feeling that's not really your concern," she added. She glanced back and forth between the two nervous teenagers. "I want you to tell me what's going on."

Harry looked quickly at Hermione. She clasped his hand and moved closer to him. Her skin felt clammy against his, but he was glad of her comfort all the same.

"Maybe we should wait for Professor McGonagall and the Minister," she said, "They wanted to--"

"No," Lily said. "I want you to tell me. You weren't being punished, were you? You almost said as much earlier. Why were you really being kept here?"

Harry sighed. He had been telling Hermione the truth. He had no wish to continue to lie to someone he cared about, particularly his mother. He'd done it more than enough already. There was no gentle way to tell her the entirety of what had been going on and it looked as if she wasn't going to give them a choice whether to let her in on it.

"The truth is," Harry began. "Part of the reason is because I know who killed Dad and I figured out he's going to do something much, much worse."

Suppressing a small laugh, Bellatrix watched as the disemboweled body of Gawain Robards slumped to the floor. Dropping his wand and snatching her own from the table, she cast a quick Disillusionment Charm on herself. She pressed her ear to the cool surface of the door and listened. All was silent except for the distant whirr of the elevator on the other side of the floor. Bellatrix eased through the door of the interrogation room and scanned the outer room quickly before breaking into a full-out run around the empty cubicles to the second floor elevator. She knew she had only a few minutes before someone realized she had escaped and came after her. It wouldn't take much longer than that for them to guess where she'd gone.

Stepping into a fireplace in the Ministry of Magic Atrium, Bellatrix closed her eyes and whispered her destination. She intended to have her business done long before any of her would-be captors had time to catch up with her.

Tonks stopped short at the corner that lead to Snape's dungeon office and quickly began to assess the situation. When Snape had taken off abruptly from the courtyard after lunch, she'd realized with disappointment that she didn't have time to signal anyone where they were going if she wanted to keep up with him. They were only in the woods a short time when Snape Summoned a small object out of her vision, turned abruptly and headed back to the castle, an angry expression causing her to scramble out of his way though she knew he couldn't see her.

When he'd gone into his office and slammed the door, she'd known she had two choices. Go in as Harry and confront him as planned, without backup, or go throughout the castle looking for her reinforcements, wasting precious time. It wasn't much of a choice, really, and she knew that. Just as she knew she had to catch him off guard in order to arrest him and this was the only opportunity she'd have to do that.

Her mind made up, she made the necessary changes to her appearance and approached the office door, mindful of her assurances to everyone that morning that she could handle what she was about to do, with or without reinforcements. She was, after all, a trained professional. What better test of her skills than a direct confrontation with a Death Eater harboring the greatest threat to Wizarding society?

Before she could knock on the closed door, it opened and Snape stood before her, a slow smile dawning on his face. He stood back from the doorway and gestured for her to enter the office.

"Lucky that I don't have to go searching for you, Potter," he said just before slamming the door shut behind her.

Tonks shuddered. She was in for the trial of her life.

"You can't be serious." The words came out in a whispered rush of air and Lily looked around at both teenagers wildly, frowning when neither of them bothered to negate the statement. "How would you--?" Her voice broke off and she coughed, struggling to pull air into her lungs as she took in her son's stony expression.

"I was attacked," Harry said. "Last week at Hogsmeade Station. He had someone put the same curse on me that killed Dad. I would've died from it too if Hermione and I hadn't spent the better part of the last week or so trying to find a cure."

"Professor McGonagall helped us create it and gave us all the time we needed to research," Hermione added. "That's why she kept us out of classes. She's also been helping us get evidence so he can be sent to Azkaban."

"I don't--I don't understand," Lily said. "This doesn't make any sense. Why would anyone attack you?" She looked at her son and he noted that her eyes had quickly filled with tears.

Without answering, Harry gestured to one of the chairs in front of Professor McGonagall's desk and waited until his mother collapsed into it. He leaned against the front of the desk with Hermione next to him, waiting until his mother had seemed to get her breathing under control before speaking.

"He's a Death Eater and I found out he and a few others have a plan to bring Voldemort back," Harry stated. At his mother's shocked expression, he continued. "I stole information he needed to create a body for Voldemort and he's been after me ever since."

"Who?" Lily said. Her voice had become so soft Harry could barely hear her, but he knew even from the pleading look in her eyes, she was willing him not to say the name she was thinking.

"I can't do this," he said. Hermione slipped an arm around him and squeezed his side as he leaned into her. As happy as he was that Snape was finally going to get punished, he couldn't bear to be the one to tell his mother she'd loved and trusted the wrong man for years. He couldn't force himself to say what he knew was going to destroy whatever she'd felt she had to hold onto after his father died. The one person she'd come to depend on for everything. The person she had defended to her own son. "Hermione, you know how hard this is."

"Shh. Yes, I know," she responded. Hermione looked over to Harry's mother. She'd had no visible reaction to their quiet exchange, but the woman was watching both of them warily, her mouth parted as if she were going to utter a denial before the accusation was fully made.

"We didn't want to tell you unless we had proof," Hermione said. She glanced at Harry. "The Minister assured us both that he's not going to hurt you or Raven or anyone else anymore." At those words, Lily rose from her chair, shaking her head in disbelief. Harry began reaching towards his mother. She snatched her hand back.

"I'm sorry, Mom. I'm so, so sorry," Harry said.

"No! No, I won't listen to this. Has he got you believing the same things he was telling me over the summer?" Lily pointed at her son as she sobbed, her voice rising shrilly on the last word. "How far will you go with your conspiracy theories before you realize you can't turn me away from him?"

"I'm not lying!"

Lily took another step back at this outburst and shook her head again. "You're certainly not telling the truth if you expect me to believe--"

"He tried to kill me," Harry said. He reached into his pocket and withdrew the second glass vial of the potion he'd made. "He gave me this potion, who knows how many times, and had someone attack me last week. He did the same thing to Dad. He was probably dosing him with it for years, increasing the symptoms, just waiting for him to die so he could get to you."

"Harry, stop it!" Hermione pushed away from the desk and rushed to Lily's side, tears forming in her own eyes as Harry's mother embraced her. "We're sorry we had to lie to you. We had no choice but to keep it hidden. If he'd known Harry suspected he was really behind the attack last week, he might have killed him here at Hogwarts."

Lily stood up straight suddenly and began wiping frantically at her eyes with the edges of her sleeves. "Severus couldn't have done this. He's not the kind of person who would hurt someone," she whispered. Though her words were disbelieving, the look in her eyes spoke volumes. "Maybe he was being threatened or--or he was under the Imperius Curse."

"You know better than that," Harry said quietly. "You know what he was like at school. Even after Dad and his friends stopped picking on him as much, he was never really a nice person, was he? And he was truly a Death Eater once he left school. The thing is, he never stopped being one. He just didn't have Voldemort to follow. He's been trying to change that."

An alarm went off from the direction of the stairs and Harry started. "What is that?"

"It's a wailing klaxon," Hermione said. "The same kind of charm that's on the stairs in the girls' dormitory. I wonder who tried to come up here."

"Professor McGonagall obviously didn't have a problem with my mom being allowed into her office," Harry replied. "One guess who she would've set that alarm against."

"I thought he went into the forest," she said. "Check the Map."

Harry leaned over the parchment on the desk and flipped the page, quickly scanning the large area of woods they'd seen Snape walking through earlier. "I don't see him here at all," Harry said. "Either he's so far into the woods I can't find him on the Map or he's back inside the castle. I put my money on him trying to break in here to hurt me again." He turned back to Hermione and his mother. "You saw the way he was acting at lunch. It's only a matter of time before he lets that mask slip and shows the real monster underneath."

"Harry, can you please see if he's in the dungeons?"

"Raven is asleep in his quarters," Lily said. She approached the desk as Harry turned the page to show the dungeons. "What is this Map?"

"Dad and his friends made it when they were in school so they could...well, so they could get sneak around and not get caught," Harry said. "There he is." Harry put his finger on the square representing Snape's office. "He's in his office with Tonks. She's an Auror who's disguised herself as me," Harry said by way of explanation to his mother.

"Then who was outside this office?" Hermione asked. She approached the desk and pulled the Map closer so she could examine it. "There's no one there now."

"It doesn't matter," Harry said. "We're safe in here. As long as Tonks keeps him in that office and talking, it'll work out the way it's supposed to. It's probably the last chance they'll have to get information from him before they arrest him."

"Harry, you can't expect me to believe your stepfather tried to kill you," Lily said. Her whisper indicated that she was waiting in vain for him to deny the truth of his statement.

"If you don't believe he'd go after me, just remember how much he hated Dad when you were in school," Harry said. "It wasn't just two kids who couldn't get along. There was a real hatred there. At least on Snape's side. It never went away." He put a hand on his mother's shoulder and looked into eyes betraying the pain and fear he'd been so wary to put there. In time, he knew, it would go away.

"I'm sorry. I know hearing this is hurting you," Harry began, "but that doesn't make it any less true."

"But he loves me," she whispered.

"Probably," Harry responded. "But he may have hated Dad even more."

"I had hoped you'd wait for me," Professor McGonagall said from the doorway. The three turned together and watched as the Headmistress, Dumbledore and Sirius Black crossed the office.

"Sirius?" Lily's eyes widened. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to help you," he said as Lily stepped into his arms. He hugged her tight before looking over her head, his face breaking into a huge grin. "It's like looking back in time," Sirius remarked, his gaze settling on Harry. "You look so much like your father. Even more than I remember."

"He manages to get into trouble just like him too," Lily said, stepping back from the embrace. "I can't imagine how you got drawn into this."

"My cousin and Minister Dumbledore explained the situation to me and I had to come." He grasped Lily firmly by both shoulders. "I know this is going to be difficult for you, but once Severus is locked up--"

"This cannot be happening," Lily said. She pushed away from Sirius's reach. "Harry, tell them you've made this up," she pleaded. When her son said nothing, she looked over to Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall, tears blurring her vision as the two figures regarded her with somber expressions. "There really is proof?" she asked, more statement than question.

Professor McGonagall nodded. "I hate to say it, but there is evidence that goes back even to your years at school."

As silent tears traced their way down Lily's face, Harry looked over at his godfather who looked healthier, and possibly younger, than Harry remembered seeing him, even when he was living at Grimmauld Place. The years of free living had obviously done Sirius a world of good. Even as his mother struggled to accept what she was being told about her husband, Harry longed to pull his godfather to the side and fire questions at him, to learn everything he could about the life he'd helped shape for the people in the room.

"Perhaps it's best if you wait outside," Dumbledore said, nodding towards Harry and Hermione.

"To the Great Hall," Professor McGonagall corrected. "It's almost time."

Harry nodded, inwardly cursing that he hadn't had time to snag the Map before they'd been interrupted. "Come on, Hermione," he said, grabbing her hand. He smiled at his godfather as he walked past, taking small comfort that Sirius had taken to holding his mother again, whispering assurances to her about what she'd just learned.

"How long do you think she'll be like that?" Harry asked.

"You've got to be patient," Hermione responded as they started walking down the stairs. "She's just found out something horrible about her husband. I can't imagine she'll ever get over it. I wouldn't."

"You know, Hermione, you're not doing much to comfort me right now."

Hermione sighed and took his hand as they tackled the next flight of stairs. "I'm sorry Harry, but there's really no other way to say some of these things. She's just heard something devastating. In spite of what he's done, some part of her loves him and probably will a long time after today."

Harry nearly stumbled over the next step. "You think she still loves him?"

"Well, yes. It's not something one can just turn off. Knowing what she now knows, her feelings aren't going to be easy to deal with."

"And I can't even help her with it, can I?" he asked. "You saw the way she was looking at me. Like she'd rather believe I'd lie to her about something like that, in spite of how much it was hurting her."

"She didn't know how to deal with it," Hermione said. "You've been accusing him of wrongdoing for a long time. She thought you were just angry with him for whatever reason. Or paranoid."

"It's not paranoia if someone really is after you."

"We both know that," Hermione responded. "Now, so does your mother. She'll find a way to deal with it and she'll trust you completely from now on."

Harry stopped short, swaying a bit as the staircase moved beneath them. "You think she stopped trusting me?"

"I--well, maybe a bit. You accused him of having secret plans with Lucius Malfoy over the summer with nothing but protections around his home office as proof that he was hiding something." Hermione shrugged. "She had to have doubts because she knew the two of you don't get along."

"Now she'll have no choice but to admit I was right all along."

"And she'll have to explain to Raven what's happening now. That's going to be worse," Hermione stated. "Trying to get your sister to understand why her father's going to Azkaban."

"And that her beloved brother is to blame," Harry said as they descended the final set of stairs to the ground floor. "Really looking forward to that conversation." He stopped on the ground floor and waited until Hermione stood next to him. "I know what Professor McGonagall said, but--"

"She's got the Map opened on her desk, Harry," Hermione warned. "She'll notice if you're so much as down the hall from his office."

Harry nodded, backing towards the next set of stairs as he said, "But she'll be too far away to do anything about it. She'd have to come down here. Besides, there's no harm in listening outside the door, is there?"

Hermione sighed and watched Harry take the final flight of stairs down into the dungeons before throwing her hands in the air and following him.

Tonks stopped short at the sight of the large black and orange snake curled on the center of Snape's desk. She felt an instant's moment of fear then relaxed minutely as she realized the creature was not poised to attack her. Yet. She began gauging the distance between herself and the snake, wondering if she could draw her wand in time to kill it before it reached her.

"Admiring the snake? I thought I'd let you satisfy your curiosity about my secret before I take care of you," Snape said from behind her.

She turned quickly, her arms behind her back. "Take care of me?" she asked in Harry's voice. Tonks fumbled with the edge of her sleeve, suppressing a sigh as she realized she should've pulled out her wand before entering the room. "You must think a lot of yourself if you assume you're going to take care of anything." The edge of her wand slid against her fingertips and she eased it out slowly, keeping an eye on Snape as he crossed the office to where she stood.

Snape let out a short, mirthless laugh. "It's you who's been a little too confident this entire time. But there are no other chances, are there?" he asked. "No more walls to hide behind. No secrets that must stay hidden." He let his voice drop to a whisper. "No more mommy to plead for you."

Before Tonks could think of a reply, a sharp pain pierced through her head accompanied by a shrill, high whisper that seemed to be coming simultaneously from her own thoughts and the very walls around her. She fell to her knees, dropped her wand and put her hands over her ears, screaming as the pain seemed to intensify in strength. She'd scarcely had time to acknowledge the blood pouring from her ears in thin streams when she felt her air supply being choked off. Her body began rising into the air. She landed in the chair before the desk with a small thud. Ropes snaked around her seconds later, binding her tightly to her seat. Snape walked around the desk and surveyed her from his own seat, a small smile playing across his thin lips.

"It seems the Dark Lord is unhappy with you as well," Snape remarked. "Not so cocky now, are we Potter?" he drawled. He rolled his wand between his fingers before flicking it to release Tonks from the spell, allowing her to breathe freely. Slowly, the pain in her head eased.

She struggled against the ropes binding her. "Let me go!" she said in a strangled voice. It was nothing like her own. Nothing like Harry's either. It was a garbled voicing of the pain and frustration she felt as she recognized her own helplessness for what it was. The beginning of her end.

Snape laughed and flicked his wand in her direction again, causing a return to the pain in her head. After a few seconds, it spread to her chest and she found herself struggling to breathe again. Releasing her, he stood and flicked his wand quickly towards his fireplace.

"Do you know why I haven't killed you long before now?" Snape asked. He raised his wand and pointed it at Tonks. "I lo--" The words seemed to choke him. Snape cleared his throat as he circled the desk. "I tried to spare your mother the death of her precious son--the meddling fool who is the one living, breathing reminder of someone I've spent most of my life hating. And what did I get for my trouble? What have I to show for my consideration? Interference from someone who didn't know when to leave well enough alone. I tried to keep you out of this, I even ordered Lucius not to kill you immediately, but to erase your memory--more fool me."

He stopped next to the chair and looked down at the green eyes he believed belonged to his stepson. "You deserve every bit of what is coming to you."