Summoned

Chapter 30: Christmas Remembered

"... thoughts could leave deeper scarring than almost anything else."

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

July 30, 1995, mid-morning

It took them three hours of flying - fortunately, both still had their brooms when the ground shifted beneath them - but Remus and Moody finally managed to get back to the apartment. This time, when they tried the door, they were allowed in without difficulty and a cartoon dog, who had taken on three dimensions, was there to greet them happily.

Moody spent quite a while just on the dog: he tried to get it to speak, to reveal hidden items, anything! All the dog did, however, was prance around the former Auror and wag its tail and slobber two-dimensionally.

Remus was relatively pleased with the bounty they did find in Orestes' apartment. If someone else had been there first, they'd not bothered to take much. There were enough records and potions, as well as a few oddments, that he felt he and Moody should be able to piece together the Healer's actions and, maybe, his motives.

"This is something very Dark," Moody exclaimed, taking a large, grey quill from the desk in the bedroom. "Specialis Revelio!" he intoned, aiming his wand at the object in his hand. Nothing happened. "Fio vestri!" he tried.

Remus, watching him, grinned with amusement. The old Auror had just used an old revelation spell, one that probably dated back a few centuries, and that Remus had only known of from novels he'd read as a child. "I don't think it's anything sinister," he offered.

Moody put the quill back on the desk and aimed his wand again. "Exsisto!" he exclaimed loudly. Again, the spell was one Remus didn't think had been in use since the English language included the words "thee" and "thou".

On the other hand, he thought, Orestes had been over two-hundred years old himself. Old spells might be ones he'd use.

But still, nothing happened. Moody grabbed the quill and stuffed it into the satchel they'd brought with them. "I think the magic is Darker than anything we've ever dealt with," he grumbled. "It'll take a real Dark Arts specialist to figure this one out." He looked up at Remus and gave him something that looked like a sarcastic glare. "Good thing we've got one on staff!"

Remus took a deep breath. "What makes you think there's anything odd about that quill?"

"Look at it! It's bigger than all the other quills on his desk or anywhere else in the apartment. Dark grey - now, that's a bad color! There's something there, I tell ye! Snape'll probably know right off what it is!"

Remus smiled and gave in: it wasn't as if the thing added any weight to their satchel.

They stopped in the wizarding town of Benevento, in Italy, on their way back, for rest and food and rented two rooms for a few hours. Moody was sitting in Remus' room at the moment, as they unpacked the various items they'd taken with them. Moody's shoes were still filled with sand, which he dumped unceremoniously on the rug at the foot of Remus' bed.

"What's that?" Moody asked, as Remus unpacked the magically-enfolded collection of beakers, tubes, vials, weights, and measuring instruments.

"My chemistry set," he said, dryly. "Not as sophisticated as anything Severus has, but it might help us decompose a few of these before we get back." He started setting everything up on the small chest of drawers in the room and then became aware of a bit of fug in the room. He turned and saw Moody removing his magical eye and shaking sand from it onto the floor.

"Do you mind?" he asked, as politely as he could muster.

Being in Moody's company this long had begun to wear on his nerves. Usually, after his transformation, he had a week or two of greater patience: but this was taxing his reserves. As was Moody's almost non-stop criticism and suspicions of Severus.

"Oh, sorry." He popped his eye back into its socket and waved his hand around the area near him: the dust and sand disappeared.

"So - what do you think he left us?"

Remus had just lit a flame beneath the first beaker, and poured in a measured amount of the potion from one of the jars. As he watched, it began to bubble, boiling at a very low temperature.

"Don't know yet," he answered. "Once this decomposes and I can check the ingredients in this," he held up a large book of potion ingredients they'd taken from the apartment, "I might have some idea. But that's going to take a couple hours. So..." He shrugged and held out his hands at the former Auror.

"So - ye want me to go," he said, assuming his brogue again.

"Well, I'd like to take a shower and get something to eat..." Remus started.

Moody's Eye swirled in his direction and then the man laughed. "Come on down to the bar when yer ready," he said. "I'll treat ye to some good Italian wine!"

The man limped out of the room and Remus sighed with relief. Being treated to wine didn't hold the appeal it might have with Tonks or Dumbledore. In fact, he expected it would be about as pleasant as spending time with Sirius, reminiscing about the horrors of Azkaban, or with Severus, reminiscing about the horrors of his life...

He stopped himself. He checked the burbling vials and beakers. Then he grabbed his toiletries and took them to the bathroom down the hallway.

He washed away the thought that spending time with Sirius and with Severus were the same. He ignored all the implications of it, and as he scraped his fingers along his scalp and cleaned the dust and grime out of his hair, he emptied himself of all thoughts that spending time with Tonks would be blissful...

... telling Tonks what was in his heart, telling her...

Such a life was not for him, he reminded himself. It could never be.

He dressed and checked the distillation of the potion once more before he went downstairs to the bar.

Moody, having skipped a shower, had also - again to Remus' surprise - imbibed a couple drinks. Apparently, the caution he took of drinking only from his flask didn't apply outside of England. He was in the far corner of the tavern, his body in shadows from the flickering lamps, his head bent forward in a way that made Remus wonder if he were asleep.

"Moody!"

The man looked up: he hadn't been asleep. He took a deep breath and raised a large, frosted mug in Remus' direction as he sat on the other side of the booth.

"To war! To peace! To those who know the difference! To those who never need to know!" He slugged down everything in his mug and stared at Remus.

A waitress, a pretty girl who couldn't have been more than fourteen, came over and asked him a question.

"Just a moment," Remus said, and pulled out his wand. He flicked it first in his direction, then hers, and said, "What was that, Mistress?"

"Ale, sir? Or wine? Or - what'll ye have?"

"Wine, thank you. And - and some stew. For both of us, please."

The pretty girl nodded and left and Remus turned to Moody. "You're drunk," he said.

"I'm - not feelin' any pain," the man responded. But then he shut his eyes tightly and when they opened his magical eye popped out and he had to push it back in place quickly, before any of the other patrons noticed. "I did a terrible thing long ago, Remus. A terrible thing!"

Remus took a deep breath. He didn't want to hear any more confessions.

He didn't want to hear Sirius crying out at night. He didn't want to hold him through the nightmares he had.

He didn't want to hear Severus' confessions of murder and torture, by or to him.

He didn't want to hear anything Moody had to say...

"Alastor..."

"I took a little boy to the Ministry," the man said, not paying any attention to Remus. He looked up, his eyes - both of them - moving around in their sockets. "Maybe he killed his father, maybe he didn't. But he was a little boy! You hear me? A. Little. Boy! And they put 'im into a cell with ugly men. Mean men! I left him there... And I came and got him the next morning and took him - I took him to Azkaban."

"I know," Remus said. His drink and the stew - with bread - arrived and he dug in. "You arrested Severus, he told me. I'm sure you're sorry about what hap-"

"I let him stay there," the former Auror said, his voice deep and angry, "because I believed - I still believe - he killed his father. But he was just a little boy, and I let him stay there!"

Remus tried to eat the stew: it was uncommonly delicious, but as Moody continued to talk, his appetite diminished.

"D'ye know what they did to him there?"

Remus took a deep breath and slammed his spoon onto the table. "I don't need to know. I don't want to know. Please. Just - shut - up!"

Moody glowered at him, then noticed that his mug was empty. "Hey there! Mistress!" The waitress came to the table. "Two more," Moody ordered. The girl took his empty mug, glanced at Remus - who gave her a shrug - and left.

"They beat him," Moody started off.

Lord, would nothing silence this man? "Moody, I don't-"

"Oh, they beat him so bad he was - he bled-"

Remus closed his eyes. "Moody. Please. I'm trying to eat."

"The dementors... He had to have been evil, right? To come out of there, after four days, still havin' his wits about him? Had to have been evil! Nice little boy would've been insane, right? Snape was - he must've killed. Must've been evil! I mean, he knew more curses when I arrested him than some o' his professors!" Moody's refills arrived. He took a long gulp from one of them, then looked Remus in the eye. Or tried to. "Well, he turned out bad in the end, didn't he?"

Remus forced himself to eat another spoonful of the stew before he answered. "No. He turned out bad in the middle. He's on our side now. Remember?"

"Hah! Ye don' really believe that, do ye? He got there before us, ye know. Ye know he did. Went and took things from there..."

"I told you before: Severus does not have the sense of humor to set that kind of trap." He thought that sounded quite convincing, actually. And he really didn't want to believe that Severus might have done what Moody suspected: hidden evidence that Orestes was working for Voldemort.

But Moody seemed to be running out of steam. Finally. The man took another slug from one of the mugs in front of him. Remus had some more stew.

"He never cried," Moody muttered, his words becoming indistinct. "Not once. Even when I took him to Azkaban - after that night - with those men - he never cried. - Had to 'ave been evil. Right? A child who doesn't cry? Evil! Right?"

A child who doesn't cry? Not Severus, Remus thought. Not Snivellus! How did Moody think Snape got that horrible nickname? Remus could remember seeing Severus cry several times. What he couldn't remember was seeing him laugh.

"The life of an Auror is not filled with rest," Moody began to sing, in a tune that sounded like a sea shanty. "We work hard all day, and we give it our best."

The waitress returned and grabbed the mugs of ale. "Sorry, sir, house rule. When you start singing, you stop drinking!" She glanced at Remus.

"Uh, this is all on his tab," he said. And smiled.

* * *

"Deletrius," Dumbledore whispered. His hand clasped Severus' more easily this time. They had come to a meeting of the minds, and Severus was calmer, less resistant to the spell. Even so, he still had to push his way past the natural barriers that even a non-Occlumens would have, and then he found what he knew he would find:

...Over his office he hovered. Their memories melded...

...The door opened and a very angry fourteen- year-old entered. It was Christmas break, and there should have been only presents and good cheer and eggnog. But instead, there was this.

"Sit down, Severus," he invited, and met the boy halfway through the antechamber. He touched Severus' arm and urged him to sit in the soft, overstuffed chair near the fireplace, but Severus pulled himself away and ground his teeth.

"I didn't do anything!"

Dumbledore smiled. "No, Severus, no, this isn't about anything at Hogwarts. - Sit down, boy, sit down."

He took the seat in front of the fireplace right next to Severus. "Here," he offered, holding out a chocolate frog. "Sometimes this helps."

He took the candy and turned it in his hand. "It's you," he said. He looked up. "What did I do?"

"Nothing, Severus. - This time," he added, trying to add a bit of humor to the situation. He failed. "I'm afraid I'm going to need you to testify in court."

"Testify? About what?" He held the frog in his lap, fiddling with it nervously.

Dumbledore took a deep breath. "About what happened to you when your mother was arrested."

Severus shot from his seat and headed for the door. "No! No!"

"Severus!"

"No! No! You can't make me! I won't!!"

"Severus..." Dumbledore crossed the room and took hold of the boy's arms. "Severus, if you don't testify, I can't win the case."

"Fine! I don't care about - whatever you're doing! I didn't ask you to do it! - I'm not telling!"

"But others will suffer if the truth isn't told," Dumbledore said, his fingers digging into Severus' arms, holding him tightly. "You don't want other children hurt because you stayed silent, do you?"

"STOP!"

"Deletrius..." Dumbledore covered the scene with his cloak and held tightly to Severus' hand.

"I didn't..." he moaned.

Dumbledore held his hand and waited until his breathing steadied. It was a hard memory, especially in light of their recent argument.

"Deletrius..."

... They were in the courtroom; Severus was in the chair in the center. The chains had, thankfully, been removed before he got there.

"Severus, were you alone in the cell that night?" Dumbledore asked. It had taken ten minutes just to get the boy calm enough to answer the first few questions: his name, his age, where he lived.

Severus shook his head.

"I'm afraid you must speak, Severus, for the court-" He decided not to say, "recording". He doubted Severus would open his mouth at all if he knew this was being written down and would be a permanent record.

"No, sir."

"Who else was in there with you?"

"Three men." He wouldn't look at Dumbledore: he stared at his lap and fidgeted his fingers on the arms of the chair.

"And what happened with those three men that night?"

That got him to look up. His eyes burned with anger. "Nothing."

Dumbledore sighed and put a hand on his shoulder. "Severus, you must tell the truth. What happened? Did they hurt you?"

It was a long moment, and finally the boy looked at Dumbledore and he smiled encouragingly and the boy sniffed and wiped his sleeve across his face.

"Yes," he whispered. Dumbledore glanced at the clerk, who nodded. The answer was loud enough.

"How did they-"

"No! I'm not going to tell that!"

Dumbledore glanced at the courtroom again, but this time at the judge. "I think - the point is made," the woman said. Dumbledore nodded, then pulled two photographs from his robes.

"Severus, do you know when these two pictures of you were taken?"

The boy glanced at them then shut his eyes tightly and turned away. "Yes," he whispered again.

"When?"

"When they - took me - from my house. And - and when they took me - to Azkaban."

Dumbledore crossed the room and handed the pictures to the judge. "As you can see from the first picture," he said, "the boy had clearly been beaten when they arrested his mother. But the next day, he had been far more thoroughly beaten. And more."

The photos were grisly. In each case, the boy turned a full circle, documenting his condition. In the first, he was wearing a tattered tunic shirt and shorts. There were lashes across his legs, front and back, and older, healing slash marks on his arms. His nose was bleeding and broken. His right eye was swollen and blackened.

In the second photo, the boy's clothing had been removed, probably during the initial delousing at Azkaban. Again, the full rotation told a silent, awful tale. He'd been so badly beaten through the night that both his eyes were nearly closed with swelling. His lips were cut and his nose was bleeding again. His arms bore dark, ugly bruising, that, by itself, should have warranted him being looked at by a nurse. His legs were swollen and purple, some of his toes looked as if they'd been broken. And dried blood had crusted the backs of his legs...

"Deletrius!"

Severus let out a long, awful wail and broke away from Dumbledore's touch. He sat upright and flung his legs over the other side of the bed and sat there, his back to Dumbledore, his head in his hands.

"Severus?"

He shook his head.

Carefully, Dumbledore put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," Albus said quietly. "I should have covered that sooner. - Severus, lie down. It won't go into the past until we finish with it."

"We - are - finished - with it!" He got up and left the room before Dumbledore could stop him.

He took the steps two at a time, spiraling down to the dungeons, down under the lake, to the room he could still call his own.

He slammed the door shut behind him and then stripped and took a long, hot shower, trying to get rid of the feel and the smell and the pain that those memories brought back. Trying to stop feeling filthy and bloodied. Trying to stop feeling the shame...

It had happened other times after that, many times, but that time, that night, he had begged and begged for help and the guards had stood around and watched and laughed at him...

He sank to the floor of the shower stall and pulled his knees to his chest and sat there until the hot water ran out and he began to shiver.

And even then, the memories left him feeling dirty and he could still smell their sweat and their body odors, and the sticky blood and he thought he would never be clean again...

* * * July 30, 1995, late afternoon

Remus and Moody debated whether to fly directly to Hogwarts and turn over what they'd found to Dumbledore and Snape, or to go back to Headquarters and contact Dumbledore from there.

"Makes more sense to stop at Hogwarts," Remus argued. "We can tell Dumbledore what we've got, Severus can start working on figuring out the rest of these," he added, gesturing to the jars in their satchels, "and we can schedule a meeting."

"I'm not handing these over to Snape," Moody said. After a two-hour nap, he was apparently suffering from a well-deserved hangover, and Remus felt absolutely no pity.

"We'll hand them to Dumbledore." They were outside the inn, standing on the sidewalk.

"And Snape will walk right off with 'em, and we'll never know the truth, will we?" He glared at Remus.

Lupin sighed. "I think we should take them to Dumbledore. But - maybe I'll ask Severus if I can stay and help him determine what we've got."

Moody grinned. "Good idea, Lupin, good idea! If he says no, we know he's tryin' to hide somethin'! That'll force his hand!"

Lupin didn't expect it would do anything of the sort, but he was eager to be home, so he said nothing.

* * *

"I seem to be making a fool out of myself more than usual," Severus said, by way of announcing himself in Dumbledore's office a couple hours later.

The Headmaster looked up and smiled. "Not at all. Quite understandable." He looked downward through his spectacles. "Up for a bit more?"

The Potions master nodded once, very curtly. "They will not go away on their own," he admitted. "But I would prefer - if you will allow me the indulgence to stay out here. At least until we are through this - set of memories."

Dumbledore nodded, but it took him a few seconds to understand his Potions master's reluctance. And then, when he did, he cursed himself for having been oblivious to the subtle, but real, implications of Severus being flat on his back and helpless in another man's bed.

"I understand," he said, coming down the steps to his antechamber. "Have a seat?"

He pulled his chair closer to Severus', so he could grasp the man's hand in a comfortable fashion for both of them. Then, meeting the fear in Severus' eyes, he whispered, "Deletrius..."

... Hovering over the courtroom, again, their memories intertwining, again...

It was later the same day. The testimony had continued and the horrible word, "rape," had finally been spoken. But not by Severus. He would admit none of it. The photographs and the rest of his testimony - and his absolute refusal to discuss anything besides the beatings - merely confirmed the truth.

Now, the defense was having their go at the boy, and things were not going well. "Do you know," the lawyer, a witch named Gisela, asked, "what the legal definition of rape is, Mr. Snape?"

The boy shook his head and wouldn't look at anyone. Dumbledore was sitting in front of him, watching him carefully, ready to intervene if things got too hard for him.

"Again, Mr. Snape, I didn't hear you."

"No, ma'am."

"Then I shall read it to you. Rape is defined as 'the sexual act between a male and a female in which either of the participants is unwilling.' Do you understand the definition?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then please tell this court, Mr. Snape, were any of the other prisoners in the cell with you females?"

"No, ma'am."

"Then are you a female?"

"Deletrius..."

... "No."

"I cannot hear you, Mr. Snape. Or is it - Miss Snape? Are you a female?"

"No!"

"Deletrius..."

... The boy sat shivering and sweating in the seat, and Dumbledore knew what those symptom meant.

"Your honor," he said, "this is nothing but badgering! Mr. Snape never used that word to describe what had happened to him-"

"But you did, Professor Dumbledore," the judge said curtly. "If the defense wishes to disagree with the appropriateness of the term, she is free to do so."

"Thank you, You Honor," Gisela said. She turned back to the boy. "If you aren't a girl, you can't have been raped, can you?"

"I didn't say I was," he answered through gritted teeth. He finally looked in Dumbledore's direction, but not for help. He was shooting him a gaze that Dumbledore thought would probably make the entire House of Slytherin cringe. Even Malfoy!

"Then we shall leave it that you were beaten, and no more, is that right?"

"Yes."

"Objection! That's not the truth! Severus," he said, "you must tell the truth! All of the truth!"

He glared at the man for a second, then turned a cold, almost maniacal look on Gisela. She did cringe. Just slightly, but she did.

And he told the truth.

The woman finally seemed to have nothing more to say. She returned to her seat.

"Deletrius..."

... He was humiliated. He couldn't look at anyone. He couldn't believe he'd said it! He couldn't believe he'd told them... He didn't breathe. He was waiting for someone to yell at him, to hit him for saying such a horrible thing, to grab him and take him to a cell somewhere for having let them do that to him.

But there was only a long, horrible silence. He finally looked at Dumbledore, but the Headmaster was whispering with the judge and the awful woman who'd just made him say that.

Finally, Dumbledore turned to him and said, "You're finished, Mr. Snape. You can go. - Wait for me out there," he said, pointing to the long hallway that this room was at the end of.

He got off the chair and realized he had sweat running down his face. He wiped it away with his sleeve, and walked through the enormous room, feeling every set of eyes staring at him. He opened the big door and walked through it to the hallway, which was much cooler. He found a bench and sat there, his head down, not wanting to see anyone who might walk by, not wanting anyone to see him.

He wanted to die. He just wanted to stop being, and die!

He felt his breath start shaking, and then, to his horror, he was crying.

"Deletrius..."

... "Severus." It was Dumbledore, and before he knew what had happened, he found himself enfolded in the man's strong arms once more, and the man was patting his hair and telling him he'd done well, that it was over, he wouldn't have to come back again, ever.

"I will never let anyone hurt you like that again, Severus," he promised. "Ever." He had no idea how soon he would break that promise...

"Somnus."

He shut Snape's eyes and waited for him to fall forward, as Minerva had, but to his delight, Severus' head lolled back on the chair. He released the man's clenched hand and straightened the fingers: the knuckles were white, even whiter than usual.

Dumbledore rose and stared at the fireplace. He wasn't feeling very strong at the moment. That set of memories had left their marks in his soul, as well. He had never been sure that he should have forced Severus to testify. He would have asked Minerva for her advice, but of course he was keeping all this from the rest of the instructors and staff.

Except Hagrid, of course, who only knew that the boy was staying at Hogwarts because his family was "away". Year after year, the boy's family was "away", and he privately wondered if Hagrid had caught on to what was really happening. Or might have asked Severus himself.

And Horace Slughorn knew that the boy spent at least part of the summer at the castle: he often commented about how neat and organized his stores were when the fall term began.

Albus watched Severus sleeping in the chair for a few moments, once more cursing himself for not having had more sensitivity in choosing the venue for these treatments.

"Maybe I am getting old," he muttered to himself. And then he saw the vision in Severus' head: the Morsmordre, himself beneath the glowing skull, the sign that Death Eaters had killed.

And he looked back at Severus and wondered why or how he could ever ask that of him...

He didn't doubt for a moment that the vision was real. He only wondered how Severus could have it.

Fifteen minutes into the sleep segment of the healing process, an indistinct form, a glowing Patronus, flitted into the office. "We're back, Dumbledore," Lupin's voice said. "We've got quite a stash with us, too."

Dumbledore glanced at Severus. He didn't want to interrupt the dreaming process: it was that, most of all, that put the memories back where they belonged. This time he very much wanted those memories hidden away again.

"Tell them I'll meet them in the Great Hall in fifteen minutes," he said, very quietly, and the Patronus flounced out the window. "Wonder what that is," he muttered to himself.

Severus slept for another ten minutes, which, given the emotional wounding of those memories was not unexpected. When he woke, he looked a bit confused. Then he saw Dumbledore and took a deep breath.

"Remus and Alastor have returned from Albania," Dumbledore told him, rising and heading toward the door. He stopped by the chair on the way. "I thought we'd go down together and see what they found."

Severus nodded, but he stayed in the seat for another moment, staring into the space between them. "I know I said once that I would never forgive you..." He stopped and bit his bottom lip.

Dumbledore gave him an easy smile and put his hand briefly on the man's shoulder. "Actually, I remember you telling me that quite a few times over the years. I've learned to ignore it."