Summoned

Chapter 35: Commitment

"Course Dumbledore trusts you... But me - I say there are spots that don't come off, Snape. Spots that never come off, d' you know what I mean?"

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

August 3, 1995, afternoon

The medical office of Healer Galena Galen at St. Mungo's hospital was small and felt terribly cramped due to the floor-to-ceiling bookcases that covered all six walls in her office. A much younger woman than Dumbledore would have expected for her position (Chief Healer and Administrator of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies), she wore very small, green, square-rimmed spectacles and smoked a pipe containing something that emitted a faint blue hazy smoke and smelled quite pleasant.

"Professor Dumbledore, come in, please, it's an honor to finally meet you. Have a seat." She met him at the door, gave him a warm, vigorous handshake, and gestured him to a seat across from her small, but crowded desk. "Tea?"

"Thank you." He was unconscionably tired. Last night had been taxing and the strain he was feeling now - trying to prepare a guard and method for getting Harry safely to Order Headquarters, and dealing with Severus' current state - left him grasping at every reserve he had to muster the strength for this interview.

"Here you are, Professor, and have a biscuit. You don't look as if you're feeling well."

He managed a smile. "I'm simply tired, Healer Galen. No, the problem I have to discuss involves one of my professors."

"Yes, well," the woman said, putting her pipe in an orange pipe-holder and taking her own cup of tea, "from what you said in your Owl, you certainly have my curiosity piqued."

"I suppose you've heard that Voldemort has returned."

She winced, predictably at the name, but her expression turned a bit sour. "I've - heard some rumors, yes. You don't believe them, do you?"

"I most certainly do." And with that, he launched into what he had tried to prepare as an encapsulated version of what had happened to Severus this summer, without divulging his name. He was always cautious about that, given the man's not-undeserved reputation.

When he had finished, some twenty minutes later, the Healer sat back in her chair and considered the situation silently, finishing her second cup of tea before she spoke again.

"You have three possible avenues of treatment, as I see it," she said.

"Is there one you would most strongly recommend?"

She shook her head. "No. It will depend upon his preferences, his personality, the actual amount and type of damage... A number of factors. But we have three different approaches, possibly a combination of them. It depends partly, also, on how rapidly you need him to make progress."

"Rapidly," Dumbledore said grimly. He put his own empty tea cup back on the desk. "What are our options?"

"Well, first there's the approach you already started with the Deletrius. Of course, you should know that all the work you say you and the Healer Orestes were doing on his Occlumency was highly contra-indicated. Use of the Legilimency will have only made the situation worse. - Is there some reason the Healer didn't begin using Deletrius as soon as the patient was conscious and coherent? And is there any reason you didn't use some of Dr. Ubbly's Oblivious Unction? "

Dumbledore had wondered that himself. He sighed. "I don't know. But there weren't any physical wounds caused by the mental attacks, so I assume that's why our nurse didn't use the Unction."

"Hmm. Well, in any case." She chewed on the stem of her pipe. "We have a team of Healers here, highly trained in the Deletrius, and we can give him much more intensive therapy that you can, obviously. And, I mean no insult, but much more skilled therapy as well."

He smiled. "No insult taken. How long..?"

"It depends. At best, perhaps a fortnight."

"I need him back before then. What's my next option?"

"There is no option that will take less than a fortnight, Professor. But the next option to consider would be Memory Charms. No," she said as he began to object, "there are several medical uses for Memory Charms, and put in place by a skilled Healer, they can be very beneficial. But they aren't permanent. We can Obliviate some of his worst, most damaging memories for a while. Then, over time, we would remove the Charms one-by-one, and work on actually healing the memories."

"And how - would that work?"

"In some cases, using the Deletrius. But there's also something new we've been trying as part of our experimentation with complementary medicine. Some Muggles have discovered what they call 'talk therapy'."

Dumbledore actually started to laugh. "Talk therapy? If that involves Se- my professor talking about what happened, I can guarantee you, that will not be effective."

She smiled back at him but it didn't reach her eyes. "Well, it's just one more choice. The third method would be shock spells."

His gaze sharpened and his body tensed. He shook his head, but she continued before he could say anything.

"I know, they have a bad reputation. But there are two Healers I know of who have done amazing work with them. One of them is at St. Hilary's, which is in the United States."

"How," he asked, feeling defeated, "does it work?"

"Certain memories - only the most severely damaging - are targeted using Legilimens Extremis, and then - eliminated."

"Eliminated," he repeated.

"Yes. Completely."

"But then, he'd have holes in his memory? What if he needed to remember what happened?"

"That's the second part of the process."

Dumbledore didn't like the sound of the word 'process': it sounded far too lengthy to be helpful. If Severus were Summoned...

"After the memories themselves are removed, the Healers who have worked with him will - tell him what happened. Knowing that the incidents happened is quite different from remembering them. The psychic pain is almost entirely eliminated."

She stopped and waited. She poured herself more tea, added sugar, and sat back.

"Is there anything I could do at Hogwarts?" he asked after a moment. "I know he's not going to willingly be admitted here."

She shook her head. "If the damage is as bad as you say, he must come here - or St. Hilary's, they have excellent Healers there. But no, he needs professional Healing, Professor. About that, you have no choice."

"He won't come."

"Then we will need to detach two Healers to go to Hogwarts and certify him incompetent to make a rational decision for his own welfare. He will be admitted involuntarily."

"He would never forgive me."

"Well," the Healer said lightly, "we'll just put a little Charm around that and he won't have to." He glared at her and she shrank a bit. "Sorry."

* * *

He was fading in and out of consciousness. When he was awake, he knew where he was - the hospital wing of Hogwarts. Again!

When he faded out, he went to a number of different places, all of them horrible and dark and ugly and painful. He wanted to stay awake, to stay conscious, but he couldn't manage it.

At one point, he knew Dumbledore and Minerva were with him. Dumbledore was talking about St. Mungo's, but all he could manage to tell him was, "No." And it seemed he was saying that again and again and Dumbledore just wasn't listening.

And then he went back to the swirling darkness, which was no relief, for within that darkness came forth all manner of horrid moments ("Obliviate!"), and when he woke, he felt a despair so great he wanted nothing but to die ("Obliviate!"). To die, to stop feeling the pain, to stop having to fight for every moment of consciousness, to stop remembering...

"Obliviate!"

"Obliviate!"

And then someone else was there, in the wing, someone he didn't know. Two people, arguing, using his name. He heard the word "involuntary" and he heard Minerva's voice sounding very unhappy. He knew he was telling them "no" again, even though he wasn't sure what he was objecting to. He heard Dumbledore apologizing - again - and then he felt himself lifted from the bed, and he tried to sit up, to leave, to get away, and strong cords bound him and he struggled...

... And he was back in Azkaban, back in the dementors' world ("Obliviate!"), back in the despair that wouldn't leave ("Obliviate!"), that never left...

And then, as he wished, he stopped being.

But just for a while.

* * * August 6, 1995, afternoon

He awoke. He was wide awake. He was in St. Mungo's, and according to the room number he could see on the open door, he was on the fourth floor, and Dumbledore was there.

"Severus," he said quite loudly, as if he'd been calling to him for some time. He moved his eyes to look at him, and as he did, his body seemed to wake up, and he felt the sharp, familiar scorching in his arm..

"Oh, hell!"

"You've got to go," Dumbledore said. His voice was quite cool, devoid of any emotion, any concern. It made this much easier for him.

"How long?" he asked, struggling, with the Headmaster's help, into a sitting position. There was someone else behind his curtained area, a witch he didn't recognize.

"You've been here three days," Dumbledore said shortly. "The Mark has been getting darker for almost an hour now. We've been trying to waken you."

"Who are you?" he asked of the stranger.

"Galena Galen. I'm one of your Healers. I think - it would be prudent of me to leave now," she said. Her voice was frosty, and she shot a quick, disapproving look at Dumbledore, then left and pulled the curtains back around the hospital bed.

"You'll need these," Dumbledore said, handing him a large brown bag. He took it, still not entirely sure what was going on, and looked inside. His mask. His cloak. His wand. He looked at Dumbledore.

"How did you find-"

"Never mind. You need to hurry."

"Or," he said heavily, "not bother." He stared at his feet. He was dressed not in hospital garb, but in his usual clothing. He thought that was odd if he'd been here for three days. Had someone dressed him while he was - what? Asleep? Unconscious?

"Severus!" Dumbledore barked. "Pull yourself together! We need you. Now hurry up and go!" With that, he, too, left and Severus was alone.

With a choice. A wand he could aim at himself... Or a Summons he could answer.

He stared at the curtain, where Dumbledore had gone through, and thought for several minutes about the Headmaster.

He thought about second chances. And forgiveness. And Lily. And vows.

He sighed and pulled his mask and cloak and wand from the bag. He closed his eyes and choked back the almost overwhelming despair that was boiling in his mind. He concentrated on the Dark Lord, only on him, and he whirled himself away from St. Mungo's, away from his chance to end it all, and back to the service of Lord Voldemort.

* * * August 6, 1995, evening

Dumbledore was waiting at Hogwarts for news from the Order that Harry had arrived at Grimmauld Place, and for news from Severus: he doubted the man would return to St. Mungo's. Just in case, though, Minerva was waiting there for him. Remus, Alastor, Kingsley, and Tonks were all part of the guard escorting Harry to the Headquarters.

Rarely had he felt so anxious. He was almost beside himself with worry for Harry and Severus. At the moment, he was slightly more concerned for Severus, since he'd been gone nearly four hours already and, unlike Harry, had no one protecting him.

He had paced so many times through his office that half the portraits had started to complain. He had fiddled with every object on his desk and the other tables, and had spent several overly-sentimental minutes enjoying the candy box Severus had given him so many years ago. Its enchantments allowed him to transform the candy inside it into nearly any other candy he might want, and it refilled itself four times before he had to actually replenish the stock. Plus, it danced!

He was immensely tired, and it was to that that he attributed his brief skirmish with burning tears as he remembered the boy Severus had been and thought about the man he had become.

And then, as he had tried to focus on some of the Hogwarts paperwork he still needed to complete, Severus threw open his office door unannounced, his mask under his arm, his cloak billowing out behind him, his eyes dark with pain and anger.

"Are you moving Potter to Grimmauld Place tonight?" he demanded.

"Yes. Severus, are you-"

"He knows. The Dark Lord knows!"

Dumbledore crossed the room, trying to catch Severus' gaze, to look for any hint of the man's well-being. "He has nine people guarding him, and we have look-outs along the routes as well. What took you so long?"

"They need to be warned!"

"They're already en route. - What happened, Severus? What took so long?"

He shook his head. He was breathing with difficulty and he wasn't looking in Dumbledore's eyes and that was not a good sign. "The Dark Lord has given me an assignment," he said. "I am to discover how he can get the prophecy and give that information to Lucius Malfoy. He will then arrange to get it and deliver it to his master."

Dumbledore considered that for a moment, then made a hasty decision. "The Order is meeting as soon as Harry arrives at Headquarters. I want you to go back to the hospital-"

"I am not going back to the hospital! I will come with you."

"No. You need-"

"I need - to do my job," he said very slowly, finally meeting his eyes and glaring angrily at him.

Dumbledore only hesitated a moment longer. Then, without another word, they set off for the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix.

* * *

Never had this many members of the Order been here for a meeting that Severus had ever attended. It felt as if he'd walked into a swarm of wasps.

His mind, thanks to what had happened in the last several hours with the Dark Lord, thanks to Dumbledore's inadvertent breaking of the Memory Charm around Tobias' perversions, and thanks to what had happened for the last several weeks, was wide open and raw.

Impressions from the minds in the room were assailing him like arrows, shooting images and feelings at him that he couldn't block, couldn't stop. He saw houses and families and offices and brooms and animals and children and flashes of lovers kissing and brothers playing Quidditch and families eating supper and...

He struggled to breathe.

There were so many members this time they were meeting in the kitchen. He glanced around: there were a few witches and wizards he knew by sight, but a number of them were strangers. Sirius, of course, was there. And Arthur. But the others were missing.

Lupin was missing.

As soon as he realized he had noted that most especially, he drew his mind away from thought of the werewolf with a shudder of disgust for himself: he had wanted to see Lupin! He had needed to see him, to see the support in his eyes that he tried repeatedly to convince himself he didn't want to see and never needed.

He had looked for Lupin... Where was he?

"They haven't arrived yet?" Dumbledore asked Molly anxiously as she greeted them.

She spared a smile for Severus, then turned back to the Headmaster. "On their way. The children are all upstairs. We'll Imperturb the door as soon as we get started."

"We need to start now," Dumbledore said. "Keep watch out here until they arrive, Molly?" She nodded. He glanced at Severus, who was doing his damnedest not to waver or falter as they took seats at the long table.

Dumbledore glanced around the room and then turned back to Arthur. "We need to start," he said.

And then Severus heard the front door open, heard a cluster of voices, including Potter's!

He was here. He was safe.

And then the crowd came in: Tonks ("Wotcher, everyone!"); Moody ("Dumbledore. - Snape!"); Shacklebolt ("Evening, everyone. Great night for flying.").

And Lupin, shooting him a look of concern, from which he turned quickly, but not before a quiet relief warmed him. There was standing room only, but Lupin made his way to the table and Severus slid over to give him a place to sit next to him.

He began to feel as if he were floating in a wave of minds: images and sounds were still attacking him and his own thoughts were difficult to hold onto. He clenched his right hand around the hem of his cloak as he pulled it close, despite the warmth in the kitchen, trying for some handle on sanity.

"Professor Snape has just returned from a meeting with Voldemort," Dumbledore said. "I'm going to let him tell you the gist of it, then I think we need to discuss what we're going to do. - Severus?"

He repeated, as quickly as he could, the short message he'd given Dumbledore, not entirely sure why Dumbledore couldn't have just taken this message himself. After all, they had already agreed that he would not be coming to the meetings, but reporting solely to the Headmaster.

Then he remembered: he had insisted on coming here. It was a way to stay out of the hospital.

There were murmurs around the room, quiet exclamations of dismay, and a few words of surprise.

And then Sirius leaned forward and said, "So what happened this time, Snape?"

He could feel the waves of animosity from Black and he turned a cold eye on him. "This is a meeting of the Order of the Phoenix, not a discussion of-"

"There'll be time for that later, Sirius," Dumbledore interrupted, and Severus felt his fury rise, ready to explode.

Oh, no, there was not going to be another discussion of his physical or mental condition! He felt himself reaching for his wand, not entirely sure why, not even aware of it until he caught Dumbledore watching his hand.

Under the table, Lupin reached over and silently, subtly, wrapped one hand around Severus' wrist, and slipped the wand from the Potions master's hand with the other. He pocketed Snape's wand, and Severus was too stunned by the werewolf's action to respond.

"We have a problem," Dumbledore said. "We have to give Severus something to take back. And it can't be a lie."

"Old Voldy has to get it himself," Moody reminded them. "He can't send someone else to do it for him. - What if he doesn't know that? What if we just don't tell him that part?"

"That might work," Dumbledore said. "We can let him think he can have someone retrieve it for him."

"We can give him the location of the orb," Arthur suggested. "It won't help him, but it's information Professor Snape would have had to have gotten from one of us."

"We've already set guards at the Department of Mysteries," Shacklebolt said. "I think we'll need to double them."

There was a bit more discussion, then Lupin asked, "How soon are you supposed to get this to him?"

It took him several seconds to realize he was being spoken to. "He expects I will have to use stealth and deceit, so I have some time."

More discussion. He listened to what he could, but his mind was beginning to betray him. The images he was unable to stop from invading his mind were confusing him. He was having difficulty focusing.

It took a touch on his arm from Lupin to realize he was being addressed.

"--as long as we can then. - Severus?" Dumbledore asked.

He turned to the Headmaster. "Yes," he said, not sure what he had just agreed to.

"We'll adjourn the meeting, then," Arthur said, and he saw him exchange a quick look with Dumbledore.

There was a vote of some sort. He didn't follow what had just been decided, but he trusted that Dumbledore or Lupin would fill him in on it after the meeting.

And then he was part of the crowd filing out of the kitchen, spilling into the hallway. Tonks and Lupin were standing close to him, almost guarding him, he thought. Others from the group, some of whom he didn't know, were asking him questions. He was surrounded...

He was trapped. He couldn't get out, he couldn't get away, he couldn't breathe...

The group broke up and Lupin, Tonks, and Molly Weasley saw him to the door, almost as if they were guarding him from the others. Lupin handed him back his wand and said something quietly, but he wasn't sure what. He nodded, hoping that was the right response.

Then, just before he left, he got a very clear image: directly above him, Harry Potter looked down on him with suspicion and disgust.

Well, he thought, at least some things hadn't changed: Potter's feelings for him, and his for Potter were a constant that he could depend on.

He didn't think anything more for several days.