Dumbledore's Secret

Chapter 10

Severus stood in the doorway of the kitchen and scowled. It was 8:01. For the first time in over a month, she was late.

Charlotte was, aside from this unexpected tardiness, a surprisingly good student. Despite her initial resistance to studying with him, she was a quick and eager scholar, often picking up difficult concepts easily. She was, by no means, the most talented student he'd taught (though he'd never admit it, that honor would probably go to Miss Granger). But the pure pleasure she derived from learning made up for any shortcomings in her abilities.

Still, her lack of confidence when it came to the practical application of magic was, to say the least, troubling. Though she could explain why a spell should work, she stumbled when it came time to produce it. This worried him, as he seriously doubted that Voldemort would ask her for an essay on the theoretical aspects of dark magic. So he pushed her hard during their afternoon practicals, often to the point of utter frustration. She'd barely be speaking to him by the end of the sessions, and sometimes, she seemed to be on the verge of tears. She never cried in front of him. Still, he saw how her eyes were red and puffy when they met for dinner, and she was always aloof in the evenings, saying little more to him that was absolutely necessary.

Though he told himself that this was fine, that he had no desire to converse with her anyway, he did not enjoy watching her suffer. But whenever he felt the urge to let up, he reminded himself that Voldemort - or her students, for that matter - would have no mercy. Besides, she needed this. She really was pitiful - and that was putting it mildly - when it came to potions. She was only mediocre at charms. She had no talent, whatsoever, for divination (though Severus saw this as a point in her favor). She had the potential to be good at defense, but she often hesitated and overanalyzed her response, and this inevitably slowed her down. Her best practical subject was, by far, transfiguration, but even in this she had a great deal to learn.

Transfiguration, however, was not her strongest magical skill; she didn't know it, but she was the most naturally gifted legilmens he had ever met. What she called her ability to "read" people was actually her unconscious magic at work. Severus would have admired this ability if he hadn't so often been on the receiving end of those piercing looks. In a moment's glance, she could sneak behind his aloof façade. She never delved deep, but she saw enough to make him uncomfortable.

The worst had been when she had caught him thinking of Dorcas. He tried never to think of her, but when he listened to Charlotte play piano in the late afternoons, he couldn't help but remember his sister. Aside from their mutual love of the piano, the two women were actually quite different. Dorcas had hated the romantics, even te early ones like Beethoven and Schubert. "They are too melodramatic, too manipulative," she had once complained.

She had been young then, still at Hogwarts. She'd come home for summers and teach Severus everything she had learned there, focusing especially on defense. "You can use this against Father," she'd say with a grim smile. "Just you wait, you'll be the smartest and most talented wizard ever to attend Hogwarts."

She had also tried to teach him to play the piano, but he had little patience for practicing scales and finger exercises. So instead, she taught him to listen. "Listen to Mozart's melodies ... so beautiful, so simple," she'd say, playing over the sound of their parents' arguments in the next room. "Listen to Haydn ... he has little jokes hidden everywhere in his music," and her fingers would make musical laughter as their mother sobbed in the corner. "But it's Bach who is the master," she'd whisper, wiping the blood from his lip and sitting him on the piano stool beside her. "His music is haunting, but not manipulative." She'd rub her bruised arms, then begin to play as if there was no one else in the world but the two of them.

But then she had grown up, and she'd sit at the piano in her own house, a beautiful house with lots of light and windows, with perfect furniture and matching place settings. Severus would visit her during his summers at Hogwarts, and she'd sit with her back to him, playing Mozart flawlessly, like clockwork: not a note out of place, not a rhythm out of sync, not a feeling to be found.

"Why don't you play Bach anymore?" he would ask.

Her fingers would continue to fly up and down the keyboard as she'd say, "Oh, Henry doesn't really like Bach." Then quickly, she would add, "And neither do I." Even while she spoke, she would play without making a single mistake.

On his last visit to her house, he'd asked her, "How can you stay married to that manipulative bastard, Dor? Don't you see? Don't you realize what he is?"

She had stopped playing, but she would not face him. He had gone to the piano and gently lifted her chin so that their eyes met. He'd had to keep himself from wincing at the sight of the ugly yellow bruise that marred her pale skin.

"Oh, Sev, you don't understand. He loves me, he really does! He just gets angry ... the pressure of work. He's a good man. He's well respected at the Ministry, he's a hero for Merlin's sake! That he could ever want to be with me ..."

"Good god, Dor, you sound just like Mother. You're just like Mother and he's just like Father and ..."

Saying nothing, she had resumed the Mozart, and he had left. Those had been the last words he'd spoken to her.

Charlotte loved the romantics; she approached them with a restrained passion, not with the showy bravado that so many pianists used. Her technique was not stellar; she hit wrongs notes often enough. But she seemed to reach inside the music and draw out something more than the notes alone could have conveyed. Sometimes, she would stop on a chord, stop and play it over and over again, then look over at him and smile. "My God, have you ever heard anything like that before?" And she'd repeat the notes several more times before finishing the piece.

One afternoon, when she had just finished a Chopin mazurka, he had found himself wishing that Dorcas could have been there to hear it, that perhaps she would have changed her mind about the romantics. See, not manipulative, but moving. They're two different things, Dor, they're two different things. Why did you never understand that?

After she had closed the cover of the piano, Charlotte had looked over at him and met his gaze. "Who are you missing so much?" she had asked with concern. He had left the room without another word.

When he could, he used his occulmency. While he was able to block Voldemort, one of the most powerful legilimens in the world, he found it more difficult to use occulmency with her. Charlotte was certainly less accomplished than the dark wizard; she couldn't have flipped casually through his memories, as Voldemort was so fond of doing. No, her talent stemmed from her ability to look inside him before he had a chance to stop her. Whereas Voldemort invaded the mind, she slipped in, quickly and quietly, entering and leaving before he was even aware she had been there. And what made it more amazing - and perhaps more frightening - was that she herself didn't know what she was doing. If she ever learned to marshal her talents, she would be a worthy adversary indeed.

He supposed he should have taught her to hone these skills, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He still shuddered when he thought of his Occulmency lessons with Potter. Even before that arrogant brat had nosed around in the Pensieve, the boy had seen far too much of Severus's past. As there was no Pensieve available at Grimmauld, and as Charlotte was already far more skilled at breaking into minds than Potter, Severus had decided it was much safer to let Albus refine his granddaughter's skill. It was bad enough that she had sensed his thoughts of Dorcas. He had no desire for her to find out what he'd been thinking about her.

The door to his makeshift lab opened, and Charlotte strolled into the kitchen.

"You thought I was late, didn't you?" she asked with a grin. Her eyes were bright and smiling, as they always were in the mornings. It seemed no matter how much he wounded her during the course of the day, she always bounced back with the rising sun.

"And so you are," he said, walking over to the stove. "I told you to be in the kitchen, not the lab, at 8." He poured himself a cup of tea and muttered, "When is Molly going to deliver some more coffee?"

"She's not our maid, you know," Charlotte said, reaching inside one of the cupboards and pulling out a shiny red apple. "Besides, Remus returned last night, after you went to bed, and he brought fresh food." She ran some water over the apple. "I guess he forgot about your coffee." She gave him an airy smile. "Too bad."

His voice became icy. "Well, I'm glad you'll have some company, then. You've bothered me for too long."

She looked at him in surprise. "Does this mean ... aren't we going to finish the lessons?"

His heart leapt at the sound of disappointment in her voice. He made sure to look away from her as he said, casually, "We can't stop ...you've still got too much to learn." He glanced over at her and caught the smallest of smiles flicker across her face. "What were you doing the lab, anyway? I thought I told you not to go in there without ..."

"Oh, calm down. I didn't destroy any of your precious materials. I just wanted to check on my potion. The directions said to check after 15 hours, so that's what I did."

He grunted, then sat down at the table. "Very well, Miss Richardson, what long-winded essay do you have for me today?"

She sat down across from him and started slicing the apple. "Okay, two questions. First, Severus, when will you call me by my first name ... I've only asked you this every other day ... and second, why is teaching by insult your preferred pedagogical method?"

"First, never - it's highly unprofessional, and you should really call me Professor Snape." She laughed at this. "And second, I only speak the truth. Your essay on animagi was 12 feet longer than I required." He reached inside his robes and pulled out her essay. Throwing it on the table, he added, "You could have stopped after the first two paragraphs."

She offered him a piece of the fruit. "Well, you required too little of me, then."

"Too bad you don't apply that attitude when it comes to performing magic," he said, taking the apple slice and popping into this mouth.

"Save your complaints about the practical stuff until this afternoon. I'm serious ... I'm not long winded. A one-parchment essay is not really an essay at all. It's a summary. If you had actually read my essay, you'd have seen that I analyzed the role of animagi in wizarding society." She huffed. "I thought it was pretty damn good."

He looked away. So did he. "It was superfluous. Perhaps that's the way you plan to run your history classes, but I ..."

"What, require my students to think? Make them do more than regurgitate? Yes, that is the way I plan to run my classes."

"How is your class preparation going?" His voice was suddenly polite, almost kind.

She looked at him in surprise, and he had to hide his grin. He quite enjoyed throwing her off.

"Do you mess with everyone's head, or just mine?" she asked, smiling.

He leaned forward and took another piece of apple. "You didn't answer my question."

"My class is ... okay. I'm ready for the first month ... but after that ..." She sighed. "I feel like I'm drowning ... my head is too full of unconnected information. I can't believe I actually taught magic before ... even if it was only the basics! I didn't know anything!" Then she glanced at him. "Go on, tell me I shouldn't be here, that I'm a disgrace to Hogwarts, that ..."

"You need more confidence in yourself."

"This, coming from the man who puts me down, day after day?"

"Think of it as preparation. You'll get eaten alive in the classroom."

"Are the students really so predatory at Hogwarts?"

"Some of them are." He thought about Draco, his own little monster. Oh, Draco would have been a pain in the ass no matter what, but his coddling of the boy for the last five years had not helped matters. Of course, he'd had no choice, but that didn't make him feel any better about it, especially since he was going to feel the full repercussions in the fall.

"Well, I've had some discipline cases before ..." Charlotte began.

"Not discipline cases with magic wands."

"True, though I did have a kid with a knife once."

"Did he use it?"

"No, it was more for show."

"Well, your students will use their weapons."

"Fantastic. Thanks for making me feel better."

"That's not my job."

"Apparently." Then she sighed. "I wish you could have seen me in the muggle world."

He raised an eyebrow. "Whatever for?"

"Because, I was a good teacher there. I was smart there. I knew what I was doing and ..." She sighed again. "I guess I'm just a little homesick, that's all."

Without thinking he said, "Did you leave behind a ..." He stopped when he realized what he was about to ask. She met his eyes, and he told himself to look away before she had a chance to see what he was thinking. But her eyes were like magnets, and he simply stared at her.

"No," she said quietly. Her cheeks flushed slightly, and she looked away.

Shoving a blank parchment across the table, he said gruffly, "I want a one-parchment essay, Miss Richardson, one parchment only on the properties of fluxweed."

She nodded, and he got up quickly from the table. He went to the back corner of the room and sat so that her back was to him. Pulling out the latest issue of The European Journal of Potions, he tried to read about the newest developments in healing potions, but he couldn't concentrate, so he stared at the back of her head instead. Remember, he told himself firmly. Remember that she is nothing extraordinary, that you only feel this way because she's the one and only person in this god-forsaken house. True, she is intelligent, but she is by no means brilliant. She may be attractive, but not remarkably so. She can be witty, but she can also be dull. But she puts up with you, even likes you, something inside him said, and he shook his head fiercely. That was only because she was stuck with him. He knew what he was: he was a greasy-haired, sallow-skinned, ill-tempered ex-death eater. He rubbed his left arm, which now burned so consistently that he sometimes forgot the feel the pain. No, he was a death eater, pure and simple. He may have left Voldemort's service long ago, but the mark was still there, and Dorcas was still dead. There was no way to escape that.

"Good morning, Charlotte!"

Severus looked over at the doorway and frowned. Lupin looked as worn and ragged as always, but his face was relaxed, even happy, as he greeted Charlotte.

She smiled easily at him. "Hey! You're looking better this morning."

Lupin headed to the stove and poured himself some tea. "I was beat last night, that's for sure." As put back the kettle, he caught sight of Severus and nodded. "Severus."

He said nothing and pretended to look at his book.

Charlotte laughed. "I think he's pissed that you didn't get him any coffee. But thanks for the fresh fruit." She sighed. "It's been a long month of canned and frozen food."

"No problem. I thought you might be in need of something more than beans and whatever else Molly left you."

"She left us a lot of frozen casseroles, actually. She's quite the cook. But those only lasted for a week. And since I can't cook without my muggle appliances (I only know three cooking spells), and Severus can't cook, period," she looked back at him and grinned, "we were getting a little desperate."

"I can cook," he muttered, standing up and walking to the table "But it's a wasted effort when we haven't got anything to cook." Standing directly behind her, he looked down at her half-filled parchment. "Are you going to finish this?"

"Oh, sorry, am I interrupting?" Lupin asked as he sat down at the table and stirred milk into his tea.

"Yes," he said at the same time that Charlotte said, "No."

"I'm just finishing up an essay on fluxweed." She grimaced. "I'm not a potions person."

"Nor will you be if you spend all morning chatting."

Lupin grinned.

"And what do you find so amusing?" Severus asked in a low growl.

The werewolf only grinned more broadly.

Charlotte said, "If you really want to be amused, come back this afternoon. We're practicing defense. It's a regular ball of fun watching me fail time and time again."

"Yes," Severus said stiffly. "Perhaps you should come by. Seeing as you're the DADA professor. Perhaps she should be your responsibility. God knows I've got enough to do with the potion I'm working on ..."

Charlotte shot him an angry glance, and Lupin said with a chuckle, "Uh, no, actually, I'm busy this afternoon, though if you need any help Charlotte, feel free..."

Severus rolled his eyes. "Believe me, she needs all the help she can get."

Charlotte grabbed her quill and started writing furiously on the parchment.

"I'm sure you're doing quite well," Lupin said consolingly. "I heard, after all, that you managed an invisible death eater. That is quite a feat."

"A fluke," Severus bit out, stalking back to his corner.

Charlotte threw down her quill and stood up. "Listen," she said, turning to face him, her cheeks flushed.

But before she could finish, the kitchen door burst open.

"Professor Snape! Kingsley's hurt, he needs a potion immediately, he needs ..."

Severus stared at Tonks in surprise. "What ..."

"Remus!" Tonks cried, just noticing him at the table. "Oh, thank God, Remus, you're back ... we have to get to ..."

"Tonks, what's the matter?" Lupin asked, running over to her. She had a small cut on her face, and her muggle clothes were torn in several places.

"We were attacked by death eaters. We have to hurry. Kingsley's in a muggle hospital. They don't know how to help him. He's dying, we have to hurry, we have to ..."

"Okay, okay, slow down," Lupin said, running a hand up her arm. "You're hurt, we've got to get you ..."

"There's no time! Professor Snape, do you have any healing potions, anything at all?"

Severus quickly got to his feet. "Do you know what curse they used?"

Tonks shook her head. "No, I wasn't there when they attacked him. But when I found him, he had blood coming out of his eyes, and his mouth. He was practically choking on it, so I ... I did a Respiro charm so that he could breath. But the blood won't stop."

"We've got to get him to St. Mungo's. What the hell is he doing in a muggle hospital?" Severus demanded as he raced into his lab and began grabbing jars from the wall.

"I didn't have any other choice!" she screeched. "I don't understand it. Four death eaters attacked a muggle café, and no magical law enforcement showed up, there was no one to oblivate the muggles, no one to chase after the death eaters ... I had to pretend to be part of the police, and I managed to get Kingsley checked into a hospital. He was too ill for me to apparate with him ... he just kept bleeding everywhere. The muggles started giving him some medicine to keep the blood from flowing, but I don't think it's working, we have to hurry, we have to ..."

Severus hurried into the kitchen with a bag full of supplies. "All right, I'm ready."

"What?" Charlotte said. He looked over at her in surprise. Her face had gone from an angry red to a sickly white. "You can't go there! If there are death eaters ..."

"Kingsley is dying!" Tonks shouted. "Don't you get that?"

Severus said gently, "They don't know how to administer this."

Charlotte nodded reluctantly. "Then I should contact someone, Granddad, somebody else in the Order, Molly Weasley ..."

Lupin shook his head. "You can't, we're not connected to the floo here, it's too dangerous. And an owl will be too slow. We'll contact someone as soon as we have a chance. Just sit tight. We'll be fine." He turned to Tonks and Severus. "Ready?"

Tonks had already raced out of the room, and Lupin quickly followed. Severus glanced over at Charlotte, and she took a tentative step toward him. "Take care, Severus," she said.

With no time to consider his actions, he reached for her hand and brushed his thumb lightly across her knuckles. "I will, Charlotte."

*

Albus gulped down his fifth shot of vodka that evening and smiled. "You're too generous, Minister Nimikoff."

The Russian frowned. "You hold your vodka well," he mumbled as he downed his own shot.

Albus glanced across the room at Minerva, who was primly sipping tea with the minister's wife. She shot him a disapproving glance, then went back to her conversation with Madam Nimikoff.

"Now," Albus said, forcing himself to focus on his drinking partner. His head did feel quite fuzzy, actually, but he managed to speak without slurring. "We were talking about your views on Voldemort."

Nimikoff shuddered. "I had hoped, after five shots, you'd no longer be able to say his name."

"And I thought you were trying to be hospitable."

"Look," the minister said, putting down his shot glass. "We have no love for that wizard, you know this. But we are a fragile community. And his message ... well, it appeals to some portion of our population. The muggles around here have turned Mother Russia into a hellhole! First the communists, then these lawless whatever they are ... I can remember in my youth, the Romanovs ... now, they understood the importance of magic, but these muggles ..." Nimikoff poured himself another shot of vodka and drained it immediately.

"Voldemort will not return Russia to its former glory," Albus pointed out. He decided not to mention that Russia's former glory, which depended mostly on enslaving muggles and exploiting their labor, was not much to be proud of.

"No, and this is why I say, we have no love for him. But this is Britain's fight."

"Really? I believe several of his top men are from this nation, Minister."

"Ah, renegades. Not real Russians. Besides, they fight on Britain's soil. I feel for you, really, I do, but as I said, we are a fragile community, and it is difficult right now for us to concentrate on outside affairs. The economy here ..."

"If Voldemort wins in England, your economy will only get worse," Albus said. "And there have been murders throughout Europe, not just in Britain."

The minister shrugged. "Muggle murders. Those do not concern us."

Albus only barely managed to keep his voice friendly. "Very well, then. My wife and I do not want to intrude on your hospitality any longer." He got up from the table and glanced over at Minerva. She quickly stood up, and the four of them shook hands. Just as Albus and Minerva headed for the door of the minister's office, Albus turned around and said, "Oh, by the way, I forgot to offer you my congratulations. Please, forgive my lapse in manners."

Nimikoff and his wife exchanged a wary glance. "Congratulations? We're not sure what you mean," the minister said.

"I have an associate who is highly placed in the Gringotts Currency Division. He mentioned that you had impeccable judgment about when to sell and buy Russian currency, that it was almost as if you had the Sight where money was concerned. Apparently, you have done quite well for yourselves. I do wish the British government would allow us to invest in our own currency. With the inside information I get from my government connections, I, too, might lavish my wife with jewels such as those Madam Nimikoff wears so elegantly."

"Though I'd be just as happy with a nice vacation in Southern France," Minerva cut in. "Teachers' salaries really are quite pitiful."

Nimikoff paled, and his wife shook with anger. "I thought you were a nice, harmless old man!" she muttered.

Albus shrugged. "It is a common misconception."

The Minister sighed. "What is that you want?"

"We want a pledge - a written pledge - that your government will not knowingly aid or abet Voldemort or his Death Eaters."

"Yes, we can provide that. As I said, we have no love for him."

"We also want the full cooperation of your enforcement and intelligence agencies where Voldemort is concerned."

Nimikoff frowned. "You are asking us to give up our sovereignty!"

"We are not looking to take over these agencies. We only want cooperation when it is necessary. We're only asking that you help us when you can. We're not asking you to fight our fight, as you suggested earlier. Though it is in all of our best interest to defeat Voldemort."

Nimikoff studied Albus for a moment, then nodded. "But should my government fall ... there are others who may know of my little indiscretions, if you do ... there is no guarantee that the future minister will be so easily blackmailed."

Albus forced himself to appear impassive, but he shuddered inwardly. Blackmail was an ugly but appropriate word. He might try to rationalize it, to argue that the ends justified the means, that Nimikoff was corrupt and that this so-called blackmail was really a roundabout form of justice, but Albus knew that these things were only excuses.

Still, he managed to say coolly, "Your successor, should the time come, will have secrets, too."

"And what is your secret, Your Honor?" Madam Nimikoff asked with narrowed eyes.

Albus smiled grimly. "My secrets have all been discovered, Madam. That's why I'm here, and that's why I'm putting you in this position. Quite simply, I am desperate."

"This must be the case," Nimikoff said, moving to the fireplace and gathering a handful of floo powder. "For I had heard that you were quite an honorable man."

"Watching one's family die has a way of changing one's definition of honor," Minerva said hotly.

Nimikoff nodded with appreciation, then threw the floo powder into the hearth. "Send in a scribe immediately," he said into the green flames.

After a few moments of tense silence, the door to the office opened, and a young man entered with parchment and ink. After the agreement had been written up and signed, the secretary handed something to Nimikoff. "The evening paper, sir." Then, turning to Albus, he added, "Oh, by the way, there was an owl, sir, that came for you. A strange bird ... she will not leave, nor will she give me the letter. I only know it's for you because I saw your name on the outside of the parchment."

"Bring the owl here," Nimikoff said. As the secretary left, the minister unfolded the paper and whistled. "Well, Your Honor, I can guess what that owl is about." He handed Albus the paper, and though Albus's Russian was only mediocre, he understood the headline well enough: "Britain's Minister of Magic Run Out of Country, Government in Disarray."

Minerva, who had been reading over his shoulder, gasped.

"It's odd," Nimikoff said with a humorless smile, "that you should find out via a Russian newspaper, isn't it? One would have thought that you, as Chief of the Wizengamot, would have been the first to know this. I don't know whether to think I've been negotiating with someone who has less power than he thought ... or perhaps someone who is so powerful that his enemies are trying to keep him out of the loop? Which is it, hmmm?"

Before Albus could find a way to respond to this, the secretary came in with a snowy white owl in his hands.

"Hedwig!" Minerva said, looking at Albus with concern.

Albus rushed to the owl, who dropped the parchment into his hands and hooted urgently.

Dear Professor Dumbledore, I need to speak to you immediately. Harry P.S. I'm sorry about your office.

It was, to say the least, a cryptic note.

"From your ministry?" Nimikoff asked.

Albus said, "We'll need to leave immediately." Without another word, he and Minerva raced out of the minister's palace and into the rainy streets of Moscow. "We'll apparate from here," he said, shoving Harry's note and the Russian agreement into his robes. "But we must go separate ways."

"No, Albus, we shouldn't separate. If something is wrong ..."

"This note from Harry, I don't know what it means. But if he's apologizing for his behavior in June, I can only think that whatever he needs to discuss is not urgent, though it may be very important. I want you to go to him immediately. I've got to get to the Ministry. It may be too late, but if I can keep Odgen from taking over ..."

"Do you think he's responsible for Fudge's departure?"

"I think there's something happening that we don't know about, and we should. I'm surprised we haven't heard from Remus or one of the Weasleys."

"I think I should go with you. Surely Harry is fine ... who's on guard tonight?"

"I don't even know what day it is anymore. I think Hestia is on guard tonight. But it's not his safety I'm worried about. I think he's ready to talk. So I need you to talk to him. Take over the guard from Hestia, and contact the Weasleys, let them know that we'll be taking Harry to the Order Headquarters this evening. I'll meet you at Privet Drive as soon as I can."