Summoned

Chapter 11: The Reason (Part 1)

"... and the Ministry can punish you if you do magic outside school..."

"But I have done magic outside school!"

"We're all right. We haven't got wands yet... But once you're eleven and they start training you, then you've got to go careful."

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

July 14, 1995, late evening

The day he went to Azkaban, Dumbledore packed an overnight bag and gave Minerva a short explanation of the purpose of his trip, one that managed to avoid mentioning Severus completely.

"One of our students has a parent who's been sent there. I need to speak to the warden about her sentence."

"Anyone I know?" Minerva asked. Dumbledore knew she already had strong feelings about the boy, both for and against, and knowing about this aspect of Severus' life would color her view of him drastically. Despite her stern demeanor, he and many of her students knew that her sense of fairness and her rather severe form of compassion were always there to be counted upon. Severus, however, had already earned more of both her wrath and her compassion than most students, the former not without reason.

Besides, he had given Severus his word that this would remain between the two of them. If he felt it necessary to tell her anything after his trip, he'd discuss it with Severus first.

"I'm sure you do, but - there is a matter of confidentiality here."

It hadn't pleased her, but she knew enough not to argue about it.

Since it was not possible to Apparate to Azkaban, it took Dumbledore most of a day to get there. First, from Hogsmeade, he flew north to the small port town of Hellingsport. It was there, and only there, that small boats ferried workers and staff members to and from Azkaban during the day. Visitors were rare. It took Dumbledore the rest of that first day to get a clearance to visit the warden, who was the person he most needed to see and who would decide whether or not to grant him access to Eileen Prince Snape.

Armed with his own set of papers, including those he intended to leave with the warden, Dumbledore took the earliest boat over the next morning, assuming that he would be on the same vessel as the warden himself. He was not. The warden, as it turned out, came to work in the late morning hours, and worked until past sundown. As Dumbledore was not permitted into the staff areas, nor into the warden's office, he was forced to take the next boat back to Hellingsport and wait for the one on which the warden would arrive.

It was just as well, he thought, despite the added expense of the second trip: the hour he had spent on that gloomy island had left him feeling oppressed and unhappy. If he had stayed much longer, he might have needed to check himself into St. Mungo's.

The warden, whose name was Julian Keeper, was a dour man who appeared to be in his fifties. His hair was nearly gone, but what there was of it he had pulled into a pathetic braid behind his head. He limped a little, and his overall appearance reminded Dumbledore of Alastor Moody.

When Dumbledore tried to introduce himself to the warden on the boat, the man glared at him and asked, "Does this have anything to do with Azkaban or its prisoners?" When Dumbledore admitted that it did, the man quickly withdrew his hand from the handshake Albus had offered and snapped, "I'm not at Azkaban right now, am I? I do not deal with that place when I am not at that place. I will talk with you once we get there. Not before."

And so, for the second time that morning, Dumbledore sat in silence for the hour and half trip to the prison. This time, when he debarked, the guards let him through the security wards, made him surrender his wand, and led him to the interior of the prison where various protections and enchantments minimized the hollowing effects of the dementors.

The warden's office was cold. A hard rain had begun falling in the middle of the trip from the mainland, and Keeper lit a fire in the room for warmth. After he did, he turned to Dumbledore and, as if he'd never met the man, offered his hand from behind his desk and said, "I'm Warden Keeper, how may I help you?" He even gestured Dumbledore to a seat across the desk.

"I'm here," the Headmaster began, "because of one of your prisoners. Eileen Prince Snape."

A grim smile swept across Keeper's face. "Ah, yes. Involuntary manslaughter, five years, truth be told, I think she confessed to save her son's life. The brat was vicious!"

"Ah, yes, 'the brat'," Dumbledore repeated. He pulled several pieces of parchment from the pockets in his robes and began unrolling them. "I don't suppose it would be possible to speak with Mrs. Snape?"

"You 'don't suppose' correctly," the man responded. Then he flicked his wand and silently summoned tea. "Would you like some? It's always chilly and damp in here, I'm afraid. Milk?"

"No," Dumbledore said, eyeing the man more carefully. This was not a simple bureaucrat: he was manipulating the conversation very subtly.

"I've been appointed the boy's guardian," he said, after tasting the tea, which was particularly good. "I need to ask some questions about his mother's arrest."

"Hmm. You have some papers for me? Something proving your guardianship?"

Dumbledore handed the two top parchments to Keeper and waited while he looked them over. "I thought that when the boy was released, it was into the custody of an uncle or some other relative." He looked up. "What happened to that person?"

"I have no idea. I didn't know until just now that he was actually - 'released'?"

The warden's gaze slipped. "Ah, well, I mean that - you see, he was here..."

"Which brings me back to my question. What happened when his mother was arrested?"

The warden drank some of his tea, then summoned a small plate of finger sandwiches and biscuits. "Please," he invited pleasantly, "help yourself."

"Her arrest," Dumbledore said firmly. "What happened?"

"Well, you must have read the court papers?"

Dumbledore nodded.

"You see, they knew the boy had practiced magic, they just didn't know what he'd done until they got there. The place was filthy, a boggart wouldn't have wanted to hide there! Anyway, the Aurors arrived and found the father dead - victim of the Avada Kedavra, although it looked as if other spells had been used on him as well."

Dumbledore sensed that Keeper reveled in the details of the arrest, though he hadn't actually been there himself. He wondered if the details had come from the Aurors themselves or court records.

Keeper paused to eat half a sandwich. Dumbledore waited.

"Anyway, the woman was screaming at the boy, she was brandishing her wand at him. He was cornered in the bedroom, but from the way he was acting - he was really violent, he was throwing things at his mother, swearing, spitting at her - we knew we had a problem."

'We'? Dumbledore thought. Keeper had definitely personalized this arrest. He wondered why.

"One of our Aurors, Moody, maybe you've heard of him? He put the boy in a Body-Bind while another of our Aurors, Chantilly LaRue, disarmed the woman. - Are you sure you won't have one of these? They're quite good, not what you'd really expect from a prison kitchen."

Dumbledore shook his head. He had come here to get answers, he had known he wouldn't like the answers, and he'd known that this would be difficult to hear. But he knew it was nowhere near as difficult as it had been for Severus.

"What happened then?" he prompted.

"Well, as soon as the boy was restrained, the woman calmed down. But then he started screaming that his mother was innocent and that he had killed his father."

Curious, Dumbledore noted: the man referred to them without ever acknowledging their familial relationship. Except for Tobias Snape, 'the father'. Who was dead.

"They told her why they were there - because the boy had been practicing magic. She said he had stolen her wand, even though he had his own. She admitted that he had attended Hogwarts for a year already, so we knew he was aware of the strictures against underage use. She said that he had used the wands several times that day alone.

"Then the Aurors asked who had killed the father. She said she had done it: but no one there believed her. Later, she tried to tell them the boy had no idea what he was doing, but that he had killed the man. Throughout her trial she kept waffling back and forth about whether she had killed her husband in self-defence or whether the boy had done it, possibly also in an act of self-defense, though what she claimed he'd been defending himself against didn't sound realistic to anyone."

"Trust me," Dumbledore said tightly, "anything that child claimed had happened to him undoubtedly had!"

"Anyhow. The Aurors released the boy from the spell, then he got violent again: bit one of the Aurors, scratched Moody's face, punched Chantilly in the stomach and tried to escape. He was bound again, this time with conventional ropes, and the two of them were brought to the Ministry for holding until the following day."

"And what happened to the boy that night?"

The warden blinked. Twice. "What happened?"

Dumbledore nodded.

"Well, nothing, I - I don't know what you mean?"

"Where was he put? Was he in a cell? Was he alone?" He already knew the answers to these questions: it would be impossible for Keeper to lie.

"Goodness, that was quite a while ago, Headmaster. I wasn't the one in charge over there, you know. You might want to speak to -"

"Was he put in a cell with other prisoners?"

Despite the chill, Keeper began to sweat. "Uh, I think he was. Yes, I'm pretty sure he was. But - he was only there overnight!"

"Overnight," Dumbledore repeated, using the most threatening tone he could. "With, if I'm not mistaken, three violent prisoners who had each spent no less than five years here and were facing new charges in the morning."

Keeper finished his tea and nervously poured more: all sense that he was in control had been stripped from him, and Dumbledore was glad to see that the man had at least a shred of decency left: enough to know that what had happened in that holding cell, before Severus even made it to Azkaban, was about to become a very big problem.

"As you say, you weren't in charge. But you were, if I am not mistaken," Dumbledore continued, "one of the guards that night."

Keeper clasped his hands tightly together on the desk in front of him. "I was a relief guard for three hours. I was not present for anything that happened. I didn't come on duty until after it hap-" And his face registered the shock of what he'd inadvertently said as soon as his mouth shut.

Dumbledore handed him one of the remaining pieces of parchment, one that had taken him months to secure from the Ministry. "This, Warden, is a summons to appear before a closed session of the Wizengamot to answer questions regarding the treatment and security of a certain underage wizard who was left alone with violent criminals, and whose only crime was that his mother had been arrested!" His voice had risen as he spoke, the anger inside him boiling again, as it had when he'd gotten his first clues about this travesty last autumn.

"Headmaster, I've just told you -"

"And this," Dumbledore continued, handing another page to him, "is another summons. Can you guess what this is about?"

The man cleared his throat and glanced away from Dumbledore's glare. "The, uh, the unfortunate incident with the dementors?"

"Very good. - Please enlighten me, Warden: how was it that a twelve-year-old boy, who had not been charged with any crime, was brought to this place?"

The warden glanced helplessly at his empty teacup, as if he'd expected to divine some answer in the tea leaves. "I don't deny that it was a mistake, Headmaster, but - we did try to rectify it as soon as it was discovered."

Dumbledore felt a piece of ice slide through him: this bastard was going to go down, and Albus was going to experience great pleasure in doing it himself. "As soon as it was discovered?" he demanded, knowing the answer already. He'd been given access to all the records regarding this horror, though it had been a fight to get them. "How long was he here, Warden, before it was 'discovered'?"

The man was getting pale: Dumbledore imagined he was considering the fact that, at this point, he'd be lucky if all he lost was his job and pension. "I - I had just returned from vacation, you know, it was - well, the paperwork was stacked up -"

"HOW LONG?"

"Four days." He bit his lower lip. "I assure you, I got him released the moment I discovered -"

"The moment you discovered that he'd been left alone with the dementors long enough for many grown men to lose their minds? Do you know how fortunate you are that this particular 'brat' knew as much magic as he did? It was the only thing that saved him!"

The man gulped. He reached back and played with the braid behind his head, twirling it in his fist, much the way Dumbledore was used to seeing teenaged girls do. "Well, if he hadn't been so clever, he'd have never ended up here, would he?"

That was when Dumbledore lost his temper completely...

... It was so cold, he huddled in the corner, his knees drawn up to his chest, arms locked around them. He sniffed a lot; his nose was running because of the chill in the air. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and then gasped. He could hear Tobias screaming at him, "Filthy pig! Filthy, evil pig child! You bastard!"

He had learned that the word bastard might mean that Tobias wasn't really his father, and so whenever the man called him that, it had given him hope that maybe, somewhere out there, away from this dark and sooty town, there was someone else who was really his father. Maybe a father who wanted him. Maybe he didn't know he had a son. Severus knew that kind of thing could happen: two girls in his class at the Muggle school, twins, said their mother "got knocked up" and their father didn't even know they existed.

But right now, the thought that there might be someone else out there who might have knocked up his mother, someone who didn't know he existed, but who would want him if he knew about him, didn't help. All he wanted to do was disappear. He wanted to be invisible.

"Hey! Filth! Come here!"

He considered staying right where he was, not answering the summons, pretending he couldn't hear him. But when the man called him again, he knew he'd better go or it would only be worse. He crept across the stone floor and sat there waiting until the man paid attention to him.

He hated the attention! All three of them paid attention to him this time. When they were done, he was too sore and too humiliated to do anything except crawl back to his corner and curl into a ball. He couldn't even cry...

... The dementor soared closer, closer, and he felt as if his breath would freeze in his chest. "No!" he cried, shutting his eyes tightly. He could feel it crawling under his skin, into his mind... He felt sick and the only thing in his mind was Tobias, coming closer to him, his belt wrapped around his fist... His mother stood in the doorway behind Tobias, and her face was swollen and bloody... She was pointing the wand at him, she was screaming, the pain shot through him...

... The dining hall was still crowded with students when Dumbledore approached him. Avery was on his right, Mulciber sat across from him, and Lucius sat next to Mulciber. The Headmaster nodded a greeting to the others, then said, "Mr. Snape, please see me in my office when you've finished dinner. Professor McGonagall will give you the password."

There were low "oooh's" and "someone's going to get it," from his classmates, which Dumbledore ignored.

Twenty minutes later, there was a quiet knock on his half-opened door. "Come in, Severus, close the door behind you, please." He got up from his desk and went to the antechamber portion of his office. "Have a seat," he invited, smiling and trying to put the boy at ease. "Don't worry, you aren't in any trouble," he continued. "Although, given the classmates you were sitting with, I thought it might enhance your reputation if they thought you were."

That almost brought what might have been the hint of a smile to the boy's face. He sat nervously on the edge of the seat and seemed to be waiting for the announcement of his imminent execution.

"Here," he said, pulling two chocolate frogs from his pockets. "I prefer cockroach clusters myself, but these are very good for when you're feeling anxious. Did you know I have my own chocolate frog card? My most significant accomplishment in life! So far." He smiled deeply, trying to break through the boy's fear.

The boy took the two chocolates and held them in his lap. Dumbledore sighed and sat down across from him. "I want to talk to about some things that have happened concerning you." He paused; the boy looked even paler than usual now. He was still clearly terrified.

"I know," Albus said. "Hot chocolate!" He waved his wand and summoned two mugs from the kitchens and handed one to Severus. "Go ahead, drink up."

Once the boy took a nervous sip from his mug, and a bite of one of the frogs, Albus sat back, cradling his own mug in his hands. "First of all, I want you to know that, since you have no other family, I asked to be appointed your guardian until you come of age, unless we find some relative who wishes to take that position. Do you understand what that means?"

The boy looked down at his hot cocoa, his dark veil of scraggly hair falling forward, hiding his expression. He nodded. "It means you're in charge of me."

Dumbledore nodded. "Unless you have a relative? Perhaps, whoever you went with when you left the prison?"

Severus shivered a bit and shook his head and shrugged. "Dunno who it was. Never saw him again."

"Well. Alright, then," the Headmaster said, hearing a lie that would not be disclosed today, "do you think you'll have any problem with this?"

He said nothing for a minute, then he looked up, his dark eyes hollowed out, his expression purposely blank. "The other kids will think -"

"The other kids will not know. Unless you tell them. In fact, no one here will know except for the two of us. Unless you want me to tell your teachers..."

He shook his head vigorously. "They'll think you're playing favorites. Lucius will kill me!"

"He won't find out, and I assure you, Mr. Snape, I will not play favorites! In point of fact, I expect you will be quite a challenge, based on your behavior so far."

That seemed to reassure him a bit...

... The words barely made sense. A guardian was almost like a father. But Dumbledore wasn't at all like Tobias. Maybe that would change now, though. Maybe now that someone had told him he could be in charge of Severus, he'd start doing things like Tobias used to do.

"... bringing a legal case against those who were responsible for taking you to Azkaban. And for leaving you in the cell at the Ministry overnight. - Are you listening?"

"Yes, sir." He chewed on the chocolate, but his stomach was churning inside him.

"I am going to do everything I can to keep you from having to testify," Dumbledore continued. Again, the words didn't make sense right away. "But if I can't, I want you to be prepared. - Do you understand what I'm saying?"

He shook his head. He hadn't really been paying enough attention: he was still wondering what was going to change now that he had a guardian.

Dumbledore didn't look angry: in fact, he leaned forward and his eyes had a watery blue look that wasn't the least bit scary. "Severus, what happened to you when your mother was arrested - it should never have happened. Someone should have had a representative for you sent to the house when the Aurors arrested your mother. Someone from Underage Magical Use Law Enforcement should have taken you somewhere safe. You should never, under any circumstances, have been taken that night to the Wizengamot cell."

Severus put his hot cocoa down on the bench. "They said I was under arrest." He didn't want to talk about this. He didn't want to think about it.

"You weren't. One of the Aurors, I think it was the one you scratched before you left the house, is working with me. He tried to get the others to call someone for you, but they didn't."

"I don't want to talk about this."

"I know." He sighed. "But we have to. I'm suing the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Improper Use of Magic Office on your behalf."

He stared stupidly. "What?"

"I'm going to make them admit that what they did was very wrong."

"Why? It doesn't matter!"

"It does matter. And as for why? Well, to begin with, I don't want the people who did this to be allowed to ever do it again to someone else."

Severus looked away. He didn't want to think about it...

"And I'm asking for a monetary settlement," Dumbledore continued.

"A what?"

"They're going to pay you for what they did wrong. Of course, until you come of age, I'll be administering the money, but it'll be put aside for you at Gringotts, and when you leave here, you'll have some money to get yourself started."

Severus blinked several times. "I'm going to get money - because of - that?"

"I hope so. Now, none of this should get out to anyone, especially not to your classmates."

Let his classmates know about this? And how would he do that without telling them why Dumbledore was doing all this?.

The idea of having money didn't really mean anything to him. He remembered that there had been times when his mother would leave the house for days at a time and he'd have to steal money from Tobias' pants or his dresser at night, when he was sleeping, so he could buy some food. But he didn't need to buy food here, and Dumbledore had already told him he'd take care of his books and supplies.

But what was that other part he'd said? About testifying?

"Now, there's one more thing."

Severus waited, feeling scared again. He wouldn't show it, though...

... "This summer -" Dumbledore hesitated. He didn't like this at all, but he didn't want the boy to know that. "I'm afraid you'll need to spend the summer at the orphanage. It's just for two months, Severus," he continued quickly.

... "No! I don't want to go there!"

"I'm sorry, but that was the only arrangement I could find for you."

Severus ground his teeth together. Okay. Fine! He would go, he decided, But he wouldn't stay. He'd leave as soon as Dumbledore had gone.

And he would go - where? Maybe he'd go back home. Maybe no one had bought the house. Or maybe he'd sneak back to Hogwarts without anyone knowing he was here... Yeah, that's what he'd do.

"Okay," he said. His voice was dull, monotonous...

... it put Dumbledore's nerves on edge.

For a few seconds, he met Severus' eyes and tried to look at the world through them: he had the vaguest of impressions that the boy was planning some way to thwart his plan, but he couldn't see what it was.

What he did see, what he realized with a start, was that Severus Snape was a natural Occlumens!

That wasn't something he was prepared to deal with right now.

"Alright, Severus. We'll talk more about that as the time gets closer. In the meantime, as your guardian, I intend to spend more time with you. In order to keep anyone else from becoming too nosy, I'll tell your teachers that we're meeting to give you some remedial history of magic work: I understand you're not doing well in that class at all."

Severus blushed and looked down.

"That's all for now. Unless you have something you want to say?"

The boy shook his head. Then he looked up...

It felt the way other kids told him Christmas morning felt. All those years that he'd pretended he had a real father somewhere who wanted him, all the years that he tried to believe he really was a bastard, it was almost like it was all coming true. Sure, Dumbledore was old, and he could be mean sometimes, but he just kept hearing the Headmaster's words over and over in his head: "...I asked to be appointed your guardian..."

Dumbledore wanted him! Someone really wanted him!

This had to be the best feeling in the whole world!

"Good night, then, Severus."

He kept staring for another minute: there was something he wanted to do, something he wanted to do really badly, and he couldn't...

... And watching him, Dumbledore knew. He smiled, and stepped closer, and wrapped his arms around the boy and hugged him, and knew this was something he would just have to do from time to time now.

If only he'd paid this much attention to Tom Riddle, he thought. If only he had tried harder...

If he cared enough, if he tried hard enough, maybe he wouldn't lose this one...

He tried to pull himself back, out of the Pensieve, away from the memory. There was a sharp pain inside him and he needed to get away from the past. But then another silvery thread swirled and caught him and the second set of memories Dumbledore had left in the Pensieve pulled him down...

He was both relieved and concerned as he boarded the train with Severus. The boy seemed to have pulled into himself, so there was no emotional scene that he had to deal with. Albus offered him various sweets and hot cocoa, sandwiches, soup, tea, even a butterbeer he'd sneaked on board: but all offers were turned away.

He stared out the window of their compartment with a face that showed nothing at all. No emotion, no anticipation, no sadness: nothing!

The court case, which had been postponed for several ridiculous reasons, was set to begin, if Dumbledore chose to believe it, in less than two weeks. As Chief Warlock for the Wizengamot, he had spent a lot of time this past term in London, filing papers, gathering evidence, interviewing the witnesses, especially Alastor Moody, who was risking his career to speak out against what had happened.

The best thing that had happened, as far as Dumbledore was concerned, was that one of the prisoners who'd been in the cell at the Ministry with Severus had been coaxed into giving his testimony in exchange for a reduction in his sentence. It wasn't that Dumbledore wanted that man free any sooner than he had to be, but without his testimony it would be almost imperative that Severus testify to what had happened. That was something Dumbledore was ready to do almost anything to prevent.

Their ride on the Express back to London was silent and dismal; a cold, hard rain was falling, the sky seemed to be filled with dark shadows of depression, and Dumbledore felt a horrible foreboding as they got closer to their destination.

For the first two hours of the trip, Severus simply stared blankly out the window. When Dumbledore tried to pry out of him some indication of what was going on inside his head, he was rebuffed, at first politely, and then quite rudely.

After a time, Severus pulled out one of his potions books, and sat curled on the seat - he was still quite small for his age - engrossed in the pages.

When the train pulled into Kings Cross, Dumbledore grabbed the boy's luggage from the overhead compartment, and Severus took his trunk and the satchel where he'd kept some of the extra books Dumbledore had let him check out of the library for the summer. Of course, he'd had to leave his broom at Hogwarts.

It was with a horrible sense of déjà vu that Dumbledore led the boy to a shadowed corner of the station to Disapparate. "We'll be using Side-Along Apparition," he explained to Severus, who still showed no signs of life. "Have you ever Apparated before with someone?"

The boy shook his head. Albus had given up on trying to make any type of conversation, and instead simply grabbed the boy's hand, made sure the trunk was clutched tightly in his other hand, and spun on the spot...

... And appeared outside the orphanage. In the darkening twilight, the building looked more desolate and depressing than he remembered it, and for the first time, he got a reaction of sorts from Severus: the boy shuddered.

"There's something - bad in there," he whispered, his voice much smaller than Dumbledore would have expected.

The old wizard felt something give inside him: the memory of finding Tom Riddle here so long ago surged and caught him in the web of guilt and loss he always felt when he thought of that boy.

He would not lose this one!

"There's nothing bad here, Severus," he said, his voice as stern as he could make it. "It's not quite as nice as Hogwarts, but I think you'll like Mrs. Cole. She's a lot like Professor McGonagall."

That brought a hesitant half-smile to the boy's lips. It left quickly though.

Severus didn't exactly have to be dragged to the door, but he did hang back, walked very slowly, and kept his eyes on the window to one of the bedrooms. "That was his room, wasn't it?" the boy whispered as they got to the steps leading to the front door.

"Who?"

"You-Know-Who."

Dumbledore stopped and turned to the boy. "His name is - was - Tom Riddle. And how did you know that?"

Severus stared at the building, then looked around at the high railings that surrounded the place. "Lucius said this was where You-Know-Who grew up." When he finally looked back at Dumbledore, his eyes were shining with moisture. "He said I belonged here because - I was just like him."

"You are nothing like Voldemort!" he shouted. Severus drew back and whipped out his wand and his eyes turned instantly to anger. He had scared the boy and his natural reflex was to crouch back in a defensive position, waiting for a chance to attack.

"Severus." He took a deep breath and put his hand on the boy's shoulder, ignoring the wand he knew would not be used on him. "You are not going to end up like Voldemort. You're not at all like him. Do you understand me?"

Slowly, the boy's muscles relaxed and he slipped his wand back up his sleeve. He didn't acknowledge what Dumbledore had said.

"How did Lucius know you were coming here?"

Severus hesitated and didn't meet his eyes when he spoke. "He said his father supports the orphanage. He said his father heard them saying that I was going to come live here."

This was more than just news to Dumbledore: it was too far-fetched to believe. That Abraxas Malfoy would support anything Muggle was hard to conceive. The man was as haughty about his ancient, pure-blood status as anyone Dumbledore had met recently. And his son took after him.

But the fact was, somehow Lucius Malfoy had learned of Severus' summer abode: and he could imagine that the taunts of those in his House had to have been fierce. He was surprised he hadn't received a flock of Owls reporting an increase in jinxes and hexes in Slytherin House.

"He was in that room, wasn't he?" Severus asked again, pointing to the window he'd kept his eyes on.

"Yes." Dumbledore didn't want to think about how Severus had picked it out: maybe Lucius had given him more details than the boy was telling. Or maybe Severus was unusually attuned to Dark things.

Mrs. Cole greeted them at the door. She was, of course, much older, looked in fact to be tottering on eighty, and there seemed to be nothing left of the occasional smile she'd had back when Dumbledore had taken Tom Riddle away from here.

"Not another trouble-maker, I hope," she snapped as she led them to her office.

Dumbledore didn't answer. Severus looked around the dimly lit hallway and they passed a parlor where two boys were playing chess and two others were tumbling on the floor in a scuffle. Mrs. Cole didn't seem concerned about it.

For the next hour, Dumbledore completed the paperwork necessary to admit Severus for the summer. He'd spent nearly a week at the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, having several Muggle-appropriate documents drawn up: a birth certificate, a court document giving him custody of Severus Snape, and even documents that gave an address and telephone number where he could be reached in case of an emergency.

The only time Severus seemed even remotely interested in what was going on was when Mrs. Cole asked about a phone number. When Dumbledore rattled off the number he'd memorized for this occasion, he got a look of wide-eyed surprise from Severus.

"I had one installed in the office last week," he explained to the boy. And, indeed he had, though the person from the Ministry who was supposed to have shown him how to use it had never shown up.

Severus almost smiled.

But then all the paperwork was finished, and Mrs. Cole brusquely concluded the interview. "I'll expect you back on August 31, at nine a.m., Mr. Dumbledore. Please be punctual."

She ushered him back toward the door, but when he paused to say good-bye to Severus, she planted herself between them and said, "No sentimental nonsense here, sir. You've turned the boy over to me for keeping, and as of now he is in my custody. Good evening, Mr. Dumbledore."

He glanced around the woman to try to catch Severus' eyes, but the boy had turned his back on the adults.

His guilt over what he'd done grew to the size of a hippogriff by the time he returned to Hogsmeade, where he stopped to have dinner at The Hog's Head Inn, and to chat with Aberforth, who ran the place. Despite everything he had told the boy, the similarities between him and Tom Riddle seemed to grow every day.

He remembered Tom Riddle begging Headmaster Dippet to let him stay at Hogwarts for the summer. He remembered taking Riddle back to the orphanage instead...

He didn't sleep that night at all.

Four days later, the telephone in the office rang for the first time. He remembered seeing Muggles use one of these from time to time, and figured out how to answer it and how to communicate through it by holding the handle to his ear and speaking into the other half of the handle.

Severus Snape had not been in the orphanage for the bed check that night, and no one could recall seeing him at dinner earlier.

He was missing.