Mather's Treaty

The tense chatter about the prior evening’s events ceased the moment the headmaster entered the room. They all sensed his unease and self-recrimination; it comforted them none at all.

"Thank you all for coming," he started, his eyes grave and his fingers nervously running over the back of a chair. "As most of you know, Hogsmeade was attacked by some unknown force last night. It seemed intent on tearing down the village. I cannot go into all the details, but suffice to say, I was responsible for the upkeep of certain things and I have failed in my duties. I now have to make up for my negligence and I wish to recruit your help. Right now, Severus," Dumbledore gestured to the pale-face Potions master, "is doing some research for me. As some of you may have heard, Remus Lupin was attacked last night as well. His descriptions of what attacked him have been extremely useful. I need the rest of you to please volunteer to help me as well. If you cannot, due to other circumstances, I beg you to tell me now."

Not a hand raised and not a word was spoken. The only sound in the room was the breathing of each teacher as they stared at their headmaster. It was clear from their faces they intended to stay.

"Thank you," Dumbledore said humbly.

"What can we do, Professor?" queried a dreamy voice from the back. A spangled hand rose in the air and Professor Sybill Trelawney's large glasses allowed her eyes to peer at him.

"Sybill, I need you to go to your tower and cast your stones. I need you to look back in time as much as you can in your clairvoyance for details of Rufus Mather." There was a sharp intake of breath around the room but Trelawney squared her hunched and bony shoulders and drifted like a ghost from the room.

"Vector, Hooch and Sinistra, I need you to go down to Hogsmeade and place the following charms and spells on the town's borders." Dumbledore held up a scrap of parchment with some hastily scribbled spells on it. "Place any special, defensive spells on the areas that border with the Forest that you deem necessary. Every little bit will help, I think." Hooch took the list, nodded to her three assigned companions and they too left the room.

"Sprout, Hagrid, I want you to both go through the Forest along the path to where I found Remus. I want you to find any injured animals and find any plants or wildlife that might have been affected from last night's …er…visitor. See that they are taken care of. If you get that done before dusk, come back to the castle immediately." Hagrid held the door open for the buxom Herbology teacher and soon it was just Dumbledore, Snape, Pomfrey and McGonagall left in the room.

"Poppy, there may be more injuries tonight. I have a feeling that last night was just the beginning. Get together all the supplies you can and enlist Remus' help if you feel he is up to it. Severus, before you go back to your studying, unlock your private stores. Poppy, here is a list of special potions you'll have to brew for possible injuries. Do it in bulk if you can. I don't know how long this fight will last. Hopefully, not long, but I cannot guarantee it." Poppy took another list from Dumbledore.

Both Snape and Pomfrey grimaced but neither raised an objection. The school nurse followed the other teachers out the door, closing it with a firm click behind her.

"Severus, you've been studying the book for an hour. Do you need any particular direction? I know it's not been long but -"

Snape stared down at the floor for a long moment. "I need to know what we are fighting. There are strong words and I can sense deep magic in the _Maleficarum_, but there's so much to go through…" He took a deep breath. "I cannot give you the defense you need, Headmaster, if I don't know what it is we're fighting."

Dumbledore chewed on the inside of his cheek a moment. "I wish … Devil take it. Lives are at stake, there's no time for dirty little secrets. Do you know the legend of Rufus Mather?" Snape's beetle-black eyes narrowed and he gave a single careful nod. Dumbledore sensed more in that nod than if Snape had said anything at all. He sat down and leaned forward to stare at his potions master. "Tell me."

Snape began to talk, weaving a tale of madness, magic and destruction with precise words and terrifying clarity. Dumbledore and McGonagall listened raptly. Snape had always had a gift for storytelling and Dumbledore normally loved to have long talks with Severus because of his great oratory skills, but this time he was disturbed more than he could say.

When Snape finished, Dumbledore regarded him solemnly. His Potions master had known the very secret that Dumbledore had thought had been headmaster specific information. "How do you know this, Severus?" he asked gravely and Snape squirmed.

"Being a Death Eater with a keen logical mind, Voldemort set me and a couple others to the task of hunting down legendary objects of power. Mather's Treaty was one of them. I never had the chance to tell him what I'd found, thankfully, and it's knowledge I'd rather have done without." Snape confessed reluctantly.

"Did the others possess this knowledge about the Treaty, Severus?" queried McGonagall tremulously.

He shook his head. "Rosier died and I have no idea what he was hunting and Goyle suffered a mild…problem with a memory charm someone," Snape smiled nastily, "accidentally placed on him one evening."

"That someone would be you," McGonagall said with a reluctant grin.

"I cannot deny nor confirm that insinuation, Minerva," Snape informed her, still smiling.

"Good work, Severus, you constantly amaze me with your powers of foresight." Dumbledore was pleased when Snape looked satisfied with the praise. It was well deserved. "I stand by my statement that not all Slytherins are evil and that your other questionable attributes of deviousness and cunning are more than usually helpful." Snape continued to smile, his eyes glittering and his manner now arrogant.

"I will get back to my book learning, then, Headmaster. Now that my own suspicions are confirmed as to what we are dealing with, I can look for more specific aides to our cause." Snape rose and stalked to the door with a purpose, jerking it open and close it with a decisive thump behind him.

"He constantly amazes me," Dumbledore told his deputy headmistress. She merely raised an eyebrow at him. "If he is still available when you become Headmistress of Hogwarts, I sincerely hope you will keep him on. He is quite probably the most brilliant mind I have ever encountered."

Minerva refrained from comment and instead sniffed in slight dudgeon.

"You are the exception to all rules, of course, Minerva," smiled Dumbledore, his face temporarily erased of the pressure he felt at the moment.

"Of course," McGonagall said with another raised eyebrow in her superior's direction.

"I need to speak with the paintings and the ghosts. They will be the castle's defense during this time and they more than likely have plenty of ideas of defending against Mather's spirit." Dumbledore trudged to the door himself.

"What do you want me to do?" asked McGonagall.

"Tonight you will turn into a tabby and do some hunting, Minerva. I suggest a nap."

Snape poured over the musty book in front of him he did not know how long. Time seemed to slip away as he purposefully forced his mind to engross itself in the text. He'd never been very good at history, preferring to look to the future rather than the past, but he knew that history had to be known so he forced himself to work at the task at hand. 'Every great man should know the mistakes of the past, Severus,' he heard his father lecturing him, 'that way he can stop himself from repeating them.' He had really had no desire to be a great man, well respected by his peers; Severus had been more interested in the heady rush of power and feeling of superiority from those frightened of him. Alas, he had learned his lesson the hard way and seemed doomed to spend the rest of his life atoning for a few years of foolishness and stupidity.

While researching Mather's Treaty for Lord Voldemort those years ago, Severus had made himself read the passages of the Bible that witch hunters of hundreds of years ago made their credo. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" was foremost on the list and still made him shudder. Its words did more than suggest intolerance and death. He thought the words ignorant then and ignorant now.

"Muggles are such narrow-minded people," he muttered to himself.

As he studied the later parts of the Malleus Maleficarum, the words from the introduction seemed to scroll before his eyes, blocking out the text he was trying to read. The words of the Papal Bull validated his muttered sentence.

"… many persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and straying from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and succubi, and by their incantations, spells, conjurations, and other accursed charms and crafts, enormities and horrid offences, have slain infants yet in the mother's womb, as also the offspring of cattle, have blasted the produce of the earth, the grapes of the vine, the fruits of the trees, nay, men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, vineyards, orchards, meadows, pasture-land, corn, wheat, and all other cereals; these wretches furthermore afflict and torment men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, with terrible and piteous pains and sore diseases, both internal and external; they hinder men from performing the sexual act and women from conceiving, when've husbands cannot know their wives nor wives receive their husbands; over and above this, they blasphemously renounce that Faith which is theirs by the Sacrament of Baptism, and at the instigation of the Enemy of Mankind they do not shrink from committing and perpetrating the foulest abominations and filthiest excesses to the deadly peril of their own souls, whereby they outrage the Divine Majesty and are a cause of scandal and danger to very many."

He couldn't shake the scent of danger that permeated the pages before him and his hands began to shake. Severus slammed the book closed and shoved himself from the small desk where he'd ensconced himself.

"They do not shrink from committing and perpetrating the foulest abomination and filthiest excesses to the deadly peril of their own souls," Severus recited. He closed his eyes and tried to suppress the shudder of terror that tremored through his body. He was not successful.

The words from the book faded only to be replaced instead by screaming people, not from too long ago. A woman clawed at the robes of a young wizard with a mask that covered his features even in the deep recesses of a black flowing cloak. A bone thin and shaky pale hand clutched a wand and pointed it at the woman. Terse words were said and a flash of green light -

Severus jerked and tumbled from his chair, his breathing laboured and his body cold from the inside out. He raised a hand to his face to rub in warmth there and found his cheeks wet with tears he hadn't known he'd shed.

He didn't know her name until after the deed had been done. She'd been his parents' neighbour when he was a child. His mind had been so shuttered, so closed, he had not recognized her until much, much later.

"Amanda Mills," he murmured.

Still trembling from head to foot, Severus stood up, swaying slightly on unsteady feet. He squared his shoulders with determination and sneered down at the book that sat on the desk, so innocent looking.

"I know what you're doing," he told it snidely. "It won't work. I've been dealing with those demons for a long time. There is nothing you can do that I haven't lived through once."

Words filtered into his mind, mocking his bravado and causing him to take a surprised step back. "You didn't have a conscience then."