The Last Sanguimagus

Sarah dreamt.

She is light, weightless, dizzy. There is a hard surface beneath her. Cold. Something is holding her down. She blinks, turns her head, and sees the straps that pin her to the table, hold her left arm outstretched.

Severus calmly holds a basin under her wrist, and she feels it then, the familiar slip of blood from her vein, the hot liquid dripping from her fingers in time with the beating of her heart. She can feel herself growing weaker. The room begins to whiten. "Stop," she rasps weakly. It is almost too late. "I'll die."

He looks at her, surprised. "You can't be serious," he says brusquely.

"I want to live," she breathes.

"And he did not?" he says, his face suddenly close to hers, his eyes menacing. "What you have taken, you cannot possibly expect to keep."

She woke, panting, her heart banging painfully against her ribs. The blackness of her room was impenetrable, and she realised that her fire had gone out. The cold assailed her, and she shivered, groping for her wand in the darkness.

***

Severus stepped through the doors into the entrance hall, his anger finally ebbing away. He thought again of Narcissa's words to him yesterday, and walked down the corridor to Sarah's rooms. The game was getting progressively more complicated. Knocking on the door, there was no answer, and he let himself in. Looking around, it became obvious that she wasn't there.

She wasn't in the staffroom, either, but Filius was, and mentioned that she had gone to the Owlery. He made for the West Tower, and found her on one of the staircases.

"Sarah," he said.

"Yes?" She stopped her descent and looked at him, and he was surprised to see a flicker of apprehension in her eyes.

"I wish to speak with you." She waited. "In private," he added.

"Ah," she said. She continued to walk down the stairs.

He felt slightly off-balance at her reaction. "You had no difficulties finding an owl?" It was the only innocuous question he could think of at the moment.

"No," she answered. They walked in silence until they turned the next corner, revealing another staircase. "It was smaller than I remembered," she said in a what seemed like a deliberately casual manner.

"What?" he answered.

"The Owlery." She was paying close attention to the stairs, one hand holding a handful of her double robes so that she wouldn't trip.

He remembered that she had been writing something before Narcissa had shown up. "Your letter to Madam Malkin?"

"Safely on its way."

"You decided your course then?"

"I am going to attempt to purchase both," she said quietly. "It all depends on Madam Malkin, however."

They reached the marble staircase, and Sarah kept to the right-hand side, but went down the corridor to her own rooms instead of toward the dungeons.

Opening the door to her office, she gestured to the fireplace with her wand, and the fire leapt up higher. She sat down on the couch and looked at him expectantly, though he could still see a trace of fear.

He sat down in one of the chairs. "I spoke to Narcissa Malfoy yesterday," he said.

"Yes," she said.

"She mentioned that Lucius has...been somewhat incapacitated as of late."

"Really," she said, in the same neutral tone.

"You told me that the fetch would not harm him directly," he said, watching her closely.

"I did," she answered, "and it won't. We've already discussed this."

"Sarah, you must tell me the fetch's purpose," he said. "You sent it to him. If Lucius is harmed in some way, he...or Narcissa...will come after you, and that will affect the Headmaster and the school as well."

"It was a risk to send out the fetch," she said. "But I do not regret it."

"Tell me what it does." She shook her head, and her eyes were guarded as they looked at him. "Didn't you hear me? The Malfoys know more than a little about revenge, Sarah."

"So do I," she said calmly. "I will not tell you anything more about the fetch voluntarily, save that what you have described could not have been caused by the fetch."

Then Lucius was simply reacting to Azkaban, and was prey only to his own thoughts at the moment. Severus could not imagine what the fetch's purpose was, and it irritated him. "You would really seek revenge?" he asked coldly. "It would be a waste of all the Headmaster has done for you."

"You accuse me of incompetence and ingratitude in the same breath," she said, frowning. "I do understand what the Headmaster has done for me here, and I would not eschew it lightly. If the situation presents itself, however, I will do my best to have all the advantages I can muster, and if provoked...he will not walk away without some greater understanding of all I have suffered at his hand." She pointed her wand at the fire and lowered the flames slightly. "You seem fairly protective of him, even though you are having relations with his wife."

"Don't be ridiculous," he spat, his ability to cover his emotions serving him well. "She came to me because of your fetch." He gripped the arms of the chair tightly, and he forced himself to loosen his fingers.

"And you consoled her?" she asked calmly. "She seemed dressed for a far different event."

Sarah must have come down the staircase as he was escorting Narcissa to the dungeons. "Narcissa wanted to know what was wrong with her husband."

"And you told her that it was caused by the poppet."

He did not want to lie to her, irrationally. "I told her that I was worried about the poppet, but that the fact remained that he was in Azkaban for months, and that...changes a man."

"You did not reveal that it was me?" Her tone was neutral, but her eyes were suspicious.

"I distracted her from it," he said. "If she knew that you had threatened anything of hers, she would have you sacked immediately, at the least."

"Lucius knows."

"He has not mentioned to her that he knows you created the fetch, apparently. He does not perceive you as a threat."

"Interesting."

"Dangerous."

"The benefit outweighs the risk."

"Even if you risk the school or the Headmaster?"

She hesitated for a moment, looking troubled. "I had hoped that it would appear to be a childish prank, and be overlooked, though you have spoiled that effect by alarming them both...I still don't think that it will be seen as a risk. I am certain that attempts were made to find its purpose, and it is obvious that those attempts failed."

"I will be looking into the matter myself."

"You won't find anything."

"You sound very certain of that."

"I am certain. Unless, of course, you should decide to use your Legilimency skills on me instead..."

Suddenly her earlier look of fear made sense. "Are you so ignorant of Legilimency that you believe I could simply reach into your mind and pluck out the desired information?" he said in disbelief.

"I know almost nothing of it," she said, colouring.

"It is a complicated discipline," he said, annoyed. "Suffice it to say that what you are describing is nearly impossible. It is not so specific. It has more to do with emotions...with knowing when one is lying..."

"Ah," she said thoughtfully. "So that is why you believed in Nott's innocence so easily. A useful talent."

"You have reason to believe that he stole the potion?"

"He was waiting in the Owlery for a letter," she said. "He had a look about him...he seemed to be up to no good."

"Ah, yes, the Slytherin must be the one," he said bitterly.

She gave him a sharp look. "That wasn't what I was implying. He is rather clever, that one, and his father..."

"He does not have the sample," interrupted Severus.

"Not now, at any rate."

"He doesn't have it," he said. "And beyond a 'look' you have no proof that he ever did."

"No, of course I don't," she said, beginning to look irritated.

They sat in silence for a moment. He felt tired and angry. The room was too warm. "You will not tell me what the fetch does."

"You would have me compromise my future safety by revealing its purpose?" she said with a touch of disbelief. "You would have me choose his future over my own?" She shook her head. "You, more than anyone, must realise how favoured he would be in nearly any situation. I have to do something to weight the odds more evenly."

"You are safe here. Yet you are deliberately seeking him out and playing games with him. That does not shift the odds in your favour...it plays into his desire for games. Do you honestly think it will stop, now that you've sent him something dangerous? He is secretly delighted. He'll find a way to take it one step further, to send you something that won't be as innocent as your own property."

She did not look so sure of herself suddenly. "I hadn't thought of it in that manner."

He could not stop himself. "Apparently you are not as well-schooled in revenge as you thought."

She gave him a sharp look. "You, of all people, should be thankful that I...lack the skills for revenge."

He meant to reply cuttingly, but it was lost somehow as he stared at her. "You meant to revenge yourself upon me as well?"

"You think yourself undeserving of it?"

He thought for a moment. Here, in front of her, he felt the wrongness of what he had done seeping through. "I..."

"In the past...when I hurt, all the time, when I bled, and bled...when my father cried every time he saw me...I thought revenge was my due." Her hands tightened in her lap, and then relaxed. "Now that I have seen you try to make amends for what you have done..." She shook her head slightly. "Revenge is a difficult thing...how can anyone decide who should live or die? How is it my place to deal out such a fate? Yet there have been days where I can't help but recall the entirety of the pain that was meted out to me, and I can't stand to see it go unpunished..."

"You never approached the Wizengamot," he said, his mouth suddenly dry. "You never turned us in. I thought you were dead...but you were alive, and you never had us tried for our crimes..."

"I don't know much of what happened the year after the incident. I was in a haze most of the time. I do know that my father attempted to gain justice, but was thwarted by Lucius's connections." She took a deep breath. "It was difficult for my father...the nature of the incident precluded witnesses, excepting those involved...and I could not present a coherent statement on my behalf. I could not even place the memories in a Pensieve for the Wizengamot to examine, because of the nature of the pain potions I was ingesting. Even after months of diligent effort he accomplished nothing." Her hands were trembling. "You were in Azkaban, briefly, and then you were being protected, somehow. Later...when I had regained some of myself...I could not dare to bring anyone to trial, because there was always the threat that someone would reveal that I had become a Sanguimagus."

One fact suddenly clicked into place. "Lucius knew you were alive."

She nodded. "My father nearly fought a duel with him..."

"I had no idea," he said quietly.

"I'm certain that you had other things to deal with at that moment that were far more distracting."

He shook his head. "The Death Eaters scattered...many of them were imprisoned, or avoided it through clever means. Lucius never mentioned..."

"I would have been very difficult to find after that year," she said, and her voice was nearly inaudible. "That, coupled with other...circumstances, might have made him believe that I had passed away..."

"Other circumstances?"

"My father disowned me," she said, and there was a flash of pain in her eyes, "and I disappeared, in a way."

Lucius's voice came back to him then. She has discredited herself so thoroughly...He could not imagine what she had done to bring her father to take such a measure. Severus's own mother had never done so, even after Severus's capture. "Disowned," he repeated, stunned.

"Some thought he was mad to do so," she added, "because I was gone, and presumed dead. They thought I'd finally killed myself to free myself from the pain, and he'd lost his mind. Some thought that he was reacting, that he was deeply hurt that I would throw my life away after all he'd done..."

"Merlin," he breathed. It was clear now why she was Knutless, and he wondered who else knew. To be disowned carried a stigma in Wizarding society. "Your father...he was in the Ministry?"

"Yes." Subtle though they were, he could read the shame and upset in her face easily. "He might still be...I don't know."

"He's...alive?"

"Yes."

"He hasn't attempted to contact you since you accepted the position here?"

"No." She looked even more uncomfortable.

"You feel no desire to contact him? To let him know that you are alive?"

"He knows," she said in clipped tones.

There was more to this than what she had said, he knew, but he could not bring himself to ask anything further. He felt as if he needed to give her some privacy. "Sarah...I must tell you..." He faltered, wanting to say words that would help somehow. "That day in the grove...I..." Her eyes suddenly became intense. "It was wrong, what I did. It was wrong to make that potion." It felt as if sparks were under his skin.

The air seemed charged as she watched him for a moment. "What is it you want me to say?" she asked softly. "You desire my forgiveness, now that you think my life is wretched and shameful? You wish me to placate you and free your guilt?" Her voice was odd. Her hands were still and tense in her lap. "The things that you did are long past. I cannot speak for other victims of your cruelty, but for me I would say that in curing me, any obligation was fulfiled. I would not seek any revenge or punishment for you on behalf of my former suffering, if that is what you want to hear." She took a breath and looked away. "You speak of revenge as if it is a birthright...you think of it as expected, as something to be bestowed or withdrawn according to a code. But I'm not so certain. In the long passage of time my pain, my problems, are easily forgotten. With the absence of that pain, much has become clearer. I know that retribution does not put things to right...pity does not make things easier to bear." She looked back at him. "You want forgiveness for yourself, so that you can erase another wrong from your toll. But you already know, I think, that I bear you no ill will any longer."

"I did not know for certain," he said, and it was an effort to say it. They sat in silence, and he felt so strange to be here, now, with her.

"You should go," she said finally, her eyes shuttered. "I think we've said enough."

He nodded, still unable to speak, and let himself out.