The Silver Wheel

The Silver Wheel

Prologue

Christmas Eve, 1989

"Just what we hoped to hear," a lazy voice drawled. "Crucio!"

There was a sick feeling in the pit of Harry Potter's stomach as awoke with a start, late on Christmas Eve in his cupboard underneath the stairs of 4 Privet Drive. From what he could tell through the open grate the house was still and silent, save for the occasional snores from Uncle Vernon that came drifted down the stairs, reverberating through the house. Harry had gone to sleep earlier than usual, after his Aunt and Uncle had made it abundantly clear that they were entertaining relatives and didn't want him butting in.

"Can't let the in-laws see you," Aunt Petunia had said as she locked him hurriedly into his cupboard. This was all fine by him; he didn't much like his Uncle Vernon's parents anyway. Aunt Petunia had given him a roll left over from dinner to keep him quiet, followed in short order by a stern warning to be on his best behavior.

Harry was a good boy in general, and had tried to be especially quiet during Christmas dinner, coffee, and the planned game of charades. These days, though, strange things had begun to happen without rhyme or reason, and every unusual thing that went on always seemed to revolve somehow around him. So when the buttons on Dudley's nice new dress shirt popped off sometime around eight, after coffee (but before the 1989 Dursley vs. Dursley charades rematch), Uncle Vernon made a pilgrimage to scold Harry but found him curled up asleep. Harry hadn't even known it had happened.

His dreams during the evening had been especially vivid, and served to startle him into wakefulness at some absurd hour of the morning. The biggest surprise at finding himself awake, though, was the revelation that his scar wasn't hurting--because sometimes, when Harry had especially bad nightmares, he would wake up and the lightning-shaped mark on his forehead would be throbbing. This time he felt perfectly fine, if a little shaken and half-asleep. "It was just a dream..." the nine-year-old said to himself softly, closing his eyes once more and settling his head back down on his pillow. "Just a dream..."

Within a few minutes, he had drifted back to sleep.

In his new dream a young blonde man was sitting at a desk, writing intermittently on a sheet of parchment and sucking the tip of a quill during breaks. From what Harry could make out, the man was a priest: he was clad in all black, save for a spot of white cloth in front of his collar. He was the most strangely dressed priest Harry had ever seen, though-- he was also wearing black robes with a silver cross emblazoned in the side and had stuck a long, slender stick (which Harry would later realize was a wizard's wand) tucked behind one of his ears. The priest made a smacking noise with the quill for a few moments, then sighed and yawned.

"Perhaps..." the man said. Harry watched him reach for one of the drawers in the desk, letting go of the quill in the process (it stayed in the air, still poised and ready to write), but shook his head when he saw what was inside, stretched out his arms, then picked up the quill and dipped it in its inkwell, ready to write again.

"Hello?" Harry called out. The priest showed no sign of noticing him, though he paused again a few seconds later and took a sip from a glass of some murky purple liquid that was sitting at the edge of his workspace. The priest then yawned once more and laid his head down on the desk. Harry sighed, and went over to him to read what the man was scribbling. It was a mostly finished Christmas sermon, like the ones he was used to hearing every year at Mass. A clock struck two, and the priest was now breathing deeply and evenly. Harry figured he had fallen asleep.

He wandered around the dream priest's room for a few minutes; it was quite plain, with a simple bed and sparse furnishings. A wooden crucifix hung on one wall next to a moving painting, which didn't startle Harry as he had seen them in many of his dreams before. There was also a Bible on his nightstand, next to a couple of framed photographs: one of a smiling family that included a blonde boy, and a moving one of the same boy in yellow and black robes with a school crest emblazoned on the side, standing next to a girl with curly dark hair.

He had just begun to walk out of the dream room to explore other parts of the house when a loud knock sounded at the door, both startling Harry and waking the priest. "Open the door in the name of the Dark Lord!" a harsh male voice called from the other side.

The priest's eyes shot open, having been startled from their late-night rest and a flustered noise escaped him while he stood up and scraped the wooden legs of the chair against the floor. Harry ducked out of the way to avoid him, but was a second too late: the older man passed right through him and stopped behind the door, looking pensive.

"What--?" Harry began to ask, momentarily forgetting that the priest couldn't hear him. A louder, more insistent knock came from the other side, and the priest frowned more deeply while Harry straightened up.

"Yes, yes, I'm coming, just a minute," the man called back in a distinctive Irish accent as he pressed his face to a crack in the door, gasped, and moved back a few steps. "Death Eaters...?" he wondered aloud as he retrieved his wand from behind his ear. "Whatever would they--?"

Yet another knock rapped at the door, and Harry froze in place. What are Death Eaters? he thought, as he saw the frightened expression on the dream priest's face and watched him mutter a few things under his breath. The wand tip flared with a sickly yellow light as he approached the door cautiously... the wand was raised...

Suddenly Harry, in a fit of bravery that surprised even himself, jumped in front of the man.

"Don't open it!" he shouted, hoping the man would hear him this time. "They're going to--"

The man closed his eyes as he walked through Harry, ignoring his protests. "Just a minute!" he called back to the people on the outside of the door, an edge coming to his voice.

Harry felt his heart sink as the man opened the doors and got his first view of the growing crowd outside of the house's doors. An eerie silence prevailed, save for the occasional loud popping noise that occurred when a new member joined their ranks. The priest's wand faltered.

"Drop the wand," the same man that spoke the first time commanded, in silkier, almost lazy tones. He was standing behind a few others, all of whom were clad in black, masked, and staring at the priest. It was hard for Harry to see who was in charge, but he had an inkling that it was the man with the lazy voice. No one else had spoken yet.

"What do you want?" the priest asked, with narrowed eyes. The masked man continued to fix him with the same icy gaze and slowly, the blonde priest let his arm drop; the wand clattered to the ground and gave off a few angry sparks in protest. Harry watched the entire scene from behind him; a shorter, fatter figure bent down to retrieve the fallen wand, while two of the figures advanced upon the priest.

"Our father, who art in heaven, blessed be thy name," the priest began to whisper, keeping his eyes on the masked people. "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven..."

"Quiet!" the man commanded, pointing his wand at the priest. The priest's lips stopped moving, but he kept his eyes open all the same. Harry wished there was something he could do to comfort or protect the man whose home he was in, though he knew instinctively that it was a bad idea to interfere with the situation in the doorway. His only hope was that the priest could handle himself.

"The door?" the second masked figure, a woman with a prim British accent, asked flatly. Her voice was familiar to Harry, a resonant alto that tugged at the back of his mind; as she was masked and cloaked, the only thing that could be made out were her eyes. Glazed over and in the sparse moonlight, however, it was difficult to tell what color they were.

"The doors of the Lord are always open," the priest said quietly, his eyebrows arching at the last voice that spoke. He drew his eyes away from the masked man warily, towards the direction the woman's voice had just come from. "All you need do is ask, though I daresay, Arian--"

"Just what we hoped to hear," the leader of the group interjected, raising his wand and cutting the man off before he finished. He flicked the wand up with a turn of his wrist, and lazily murmured, "Crucio."

Harry recoiled as a bright jet of light shot out from the man's wand and hit the priest squarely in the stomach. A fraction of a second passed as the masked man looked coldly on and the priest looked shocked; Harry covered his ears then, as the screams began. In desperation he looked up at the woman who had spoken a few moments before, and--to his surprise and horror--the woman looked back.

* * *

At two-thirty in the morning, a door opened with a deafening bang and a flash of red light, and the normally quiet church town of Belles Ambrose was shaken awake by a troupe of Dark Wizards on parade. Or what the general populace and the British Ministry of Magic assumed to be Dark Wizards; the matter was cleared up within a couple of days and rarely referred to again once the initial gossip had died down. The local church was torched to the ground, though the remainder of the hamlet was left alone. Only one casualty was counted: one Father Sean MacKenzie.

"Raise the sign, Snape!" the leader's voice bellowed in the night, as the flames reared up in the dark and the young priest screamed for mercy.

"Mosmordre!" the flat, prim voice called, and a wand was raised in the midst of the chaos. Moments later, a blinding flash of green light snaked its way through the air and summarily exploded into the dreaded Dark Mark- a sign that hadn't been seen in almost a decade.

A nearby Muggle town by the name of Darwin's Bluff recorded it in their records as a curious anomaly; it was rumoured that it could be seen throughout the English countryside, from Belle's Ambrose all the way to Ottery St. Catchpole. The residents of Darwin's Bluff were more open about the incident and still talked about it, though a number of rumors had spread and left the original happenings practically unknown.

It was the beginning of the end for the respite the wizarding world had from Voldemort eight years earlier, though the Dark Lord himself wouldn't appear for a few more years yet.

* * *

It was late the next evening when Albus Dumbledore heard the sound of rushed footsteps echoing down the nearby corridor. Fawkes was squealing with excitement in the antechamber and the paintings on the wall were making a low hum, but he decided to wait for the visitor to come to him.

A prerogative at midnight, he thought smilingly as he sipped his late-night tea. Whoever it was outside gave a couple of short raps at his door, and Dumbledore rose to meet his nocturnal visitor, setting aside the book he had been perusing and absentmindedly taking his teacup with him. The caller was rather a shock, however--on the other side of the door stood a white-faced creature who looked very much like one of the school ghosts at first glance, but a further inspection revealed it to be none other than--

"Arianrhod Snape, bless my heart," Dumbledore said gently, despite the ghastly expression on the woman's face. He held his teacup out to her. "Would you like some tea?"

Arianrhod shook her head slowly. Her hair was caked with grime, her face scratched and blotchy, and under her arm was a large, lumpy paper sack. She seemed devoid of any good-humor tonight, but Dumbledore smiled anyway as he held the door open for her and led the way back to his desk.

"Excuse my poor manners," he began, summoning a plate of chocolate biscuits and taking a seat, "but what brings you to Hogwarts after these many years? I rarely get visitors at so late an hour... especially so prestigious a visitor as yourself. How is your teaching career going?"

Still standing, she fished around in the paper bag and silently dropped the broken pieces of a wand on the desk. A couple of unicorn hairs poked out of the ends and sent forth small sparks in the air. Another wand joined it on the desk, this one made of a much lighter wood, though it gave off no sparks and appeared, for all intensive purposes, inert. Dumbledore suddenly lost interest in small talk and picked up the wands, examining them then looking back up at her.

"That isn't why I'm here," Arianrhod murmured as she looked away from the Headmaster's searching eyes. "I'm turning myself in for last night at Belles Ambrose."

At that, Dumbledore raised his snowy eyebrows and summoned an armchair for her, pushing the remains of the wands aside.

"Have a sit," he said in much more authoritarian tones. Arianrhod fell into the chair, and covered her face with her hands as Dumbledore took the empty paper bag from her and pushed it too aside. "First and foremost... are you all right?" he asked.

"I need to see Severus," she murmured, ignoring his question and drawing her knees up to her chin.

Dumbledore despised being the harbinger of bad news, and so decided to push his luck a little further before disappointing her with the absence of her brother, who was busying himself at a Potions Convention on the Continent. Her brother, who would undoubtedly be both furious and worried sick at her when he came back from London the next evening.

"Miss Snape, please," he pressed.

"I am Professor Snape," she corrected him, muttering into her hands.

"Professor Snape," he began again, "I need to know whether or not you're all right."

The hands covering her face dropped slightly, and she looked up at him through her hair with bloodshot brown eyes. "The Wheel," she said hoarsely, "they know about the Wheel, Albus-- Merlyn above, I need to speak to Morgan, or to Severus..." She brought her knees down, and braced herself to stand. Dumbledore, however, was determined to make sure that the Potions Master's sister was in a functional condition by the time he returned, despite her protests and desperation at the current situation. When she got to her feet, Dumbledore raised his wand and she fell back ungracefully.

"Severus is away, Arianrhod, and from what I've heard and seen, you ought to go to St. Mungo's. He'll be here tomorrow evening."

"But--" she interjected.

"But at the moment you need rest, and a good meal before worrying about the events of last night." He said the words a bit more harshly than he had intended, and she backed down, making him sigh into his beard. "Please," he continued, in his characteristic calm tones. I've a Floo open, I'll escort you there myself. It's the least I can do for an old student of mine."

"Albus, I don't think you understand... last night--" her voice faltered, and she bit her lower lip hard to force the words out. "Last night, I apparently summoned the Dark Mark, and the Seekers--they know, Albus. This wand belonged to Sean MacKenzie..."

"Of course," Dumbledore responded quietly. He had already stood up from his desk and offered Arianrhod one of his hands. "Up with you. We're heading to London."

"Albus!"

Dumbledore tilted Arianrhod's head up slightly with his free hand and gazed intently into her eyes; the normal merry spark usually present in them was quite gone, replaced by a line or two of worry on his face. "Miss Snape, you of all people should know that I am not in the business of shunning Hogwarts students, present or former, on account of unfortunate incidents that sometimes happen," he uttered softly, dropping the hand from her chin and tightening his grip on the young woman's hand. "Please trust me," he continued, closing his eyes. "The situation will mostly certainly better itself without you playing the martyr."

The young professor gaped at him, at a loss for words-- her shock was apparent as she docilely allowed herself to be led up to the fireplace, and subsequently through London. The matter of Belles Ambrose was summarily taken care of the next day at the Ministry, and the name A.C. Snape was cleared from the lists of guilty under extenuating circumstances.

All this, of course, was written about and skewed in the Daily Prophet for weeks afterward, though young Harry Potter never knew it.

He also never thought he'd have that dream again.

***