Mather's Treaty

Severus Snape drug himself from the library, heavily laden with the Malleus Maleficarum tucked under one arm and notes and suggestions tucked under the other. He plopped everything down next to Dumbledore at the lunch table and glowered at him.

“Here,” the potions master said with an arched eyebrow. “I suggest that it’s your turn to study. You’re going to need it.”

Dumbledore stared nonplussed at the mound next to his goblet of pumpkin juice and then looked up at his potions master, who was now seating himself and tearing hungrily into a large piece of chicken. “Severus,” the headmaster said hesitantly. “All of this?”

Snape nodded. He finished chewing before pointing at the papers with his fork. “The notes are passages within the Maleficarum that you can use to,” Snape hesitated, his eyes taking on a nasty gleam, “taunt Mather. Since you’re serving as the main attraction while we do the dirty work behind the scenes, you might say, I got some powerful passages. Keep in mind that the book is one contradiction after another and there are holes that would make a lawyer swoon with glee. The authors left out information here and there, or were so far off the mark it is beyond humorous.”

Dumbledore flipped through several of the pages that Snape had noted and the grin that spread beneath his white beard could have been considered evil if it had been on someone other than Albus Dumbledore. “Perfect, Severus, just perfect. I shall indeed study these this afternoon. I shall also go over my Bible studies as well. Every little bit of ammunition will help.”

“Just remember,” said Lupin down the table a bit, cutting up a pot roast. “You only have to keep Mather’s attention on you. If he comes back to his…ground of interment we could be in a lot of trouble.”

Dumbledore nodded, his eyes still reading through the notes Snape had given him.

“Fight fire with fire,” he murmured. Snape only grunted.

Night again came too soon for anyone’s comfort, but they felt more prepared than they had in any of the other encounters. Rosmerta’s bishop cousin stood on the other side of the forest where McGonagall had entered the night before with the other professors. In their hands were crosses, holy water, salt, incenses, and the Litany the bishop from which the bishop had to read. Everyone but the bishop had their wands secure in the pockets of their robes.

Just in case.

As the sun sank down past the horizon they waited for the wind to howl through the forest. Like the night before it was a long time in coming, well past one in the morning by Lupin’s wristwatch this time. McGonagall re-emerged from the forest, having shifted back to human form before the bishop could see her. She had gone into the forest as a lookout and now she gave the all clear.

Together the group trod as carefully and silently as they could through the eerily black forest. The waning moon was still bright, though almost half gone. There was enough left to adequately illuminated their way. They reached the small clearing and paused, listening for the return of the spirit wind, but they were not accosted.

Under the bishop’s direction, they began to set-up for the consecration and blessing of Mather’s resting place.

Dumbledore had been to America and had visited a ghost town in the state of Colorado once. The town didn’t have any resident ghosts but had been eerily empty, looking as though anyone could move in and make it come alive once more. That was how Hogsmeade seemed to him now.

He heard Mather’s wind before he felt it. Gripping the Malleus Maleficarum tightly in his grip, Dumbledore waited. The windows in the houses and shops rattled and debris from the forest blew around him, but he was untouched, unharmed. His own protective spells saw to that.

The wind stopped blowing abruptly and for a moment Dumbledore feared it had returned from its place of origin. A luminous cloud began to suddenly roil around him and a face became discernable in its orangey depths.

YOU FACE ME ALONE THIS TIME, HERETIC! a voice moaned at him in fiendish glee.

“I am not the only heretic in this village, Rufus Mather. See the powers that you use? They are an abomination to God as well.” Dumbledore said the words calmly but with force of conviction. It was his ‘pulpit voice’, as his brother Aberforth called it. In his youth, Albus had been a minister of his local parish. He had forsaken his ‘calling’ when he’d decided he was better suited to keeping true to his magical roots. He now called forth everything he remembered from his much younger days so long ago.

Mather was enraged at the words. I AM NOT A HERETIC! I UPHOLD THE WORD OF OUR HEAVENLY FATHER AND HE SHALL –

Dumbledore flipped open the Malleus Maleficarum almost lazily, causing the gaseous haunt to halt in mid sentence. It was obvious Mather’s spirit recognized the powerful book in Dumbledore’s hand.

“That devils and their disciples can by witchcraft cause lightnings and hailstorms and tempests, and that the devils have power from God to do this, and their disciples do so with God's permission, is proved by Holy Scripture in Job i and ii.”

Mather screamed in protest and began spouting Biblical quotes in return.

WHEN THOU ART COME INTO THE LAND WHICH THE LORD THY GOD GIVETH THEE, THOU SHALT NOT LEARN TO DO AFTER THE ABOMINATIONS OF THOSE NATIONS. THERE SHALL NOT BE FOUND AMONG YOU ANY THAT MAKETH HIS SON OR HIS DAUGHTER TO PASS THROUGH THE FIRE, OR THAT USETH DIVINATION, OR AN OBSERVER OF TIMES, OR AN ENCHANTER, OR A WITCH. OR A CHARMER, OR A CONSULTER WITH FAMILIAR SPIRITS, OR A WIZARD OR A NECROMANCER. FOR ALL THAT DO THESE THINGS ARE AN ABOMINATION UNTO THE LORD: AND BECAUSE OF THESE ABOMINATIONS THE LORD THY GOD DOTH DRIVE THEM OUT FROM BEFORE THEE!

Dumbledore was unperturbed and quoted, “There are three classes of men blessed by God, whom that detestable race cannot injure with their witchcraft.” He paused and skipped a couple of paragraphs. “The second are those who, according to the traditional and holy rites of the Church, make lawful use of the power and virtue which the Church by her exorcisms furnishes in the aspersion of Holy Water, the taking of consecrated salt, the carrying of blessed candles on the Day of the Purification of Our Lady, of palm leaves upon Palm Sunday, and men who thus fortify themselves are acting so that the powers of devils are diminished; and of these we shall speak later.” He paused for another breath and read a passage further down again, as Severus had directed. “The reason in the case of the second class of men is self-evident. For the exorcisms of the Church are for this very purpose, and are entirely efficacious remedies for preserving oneself from the injuries of witches. “ Dumbledore paused, looked up with a smile and tilted his head to one side. “Tell me, Mather, were you blessed and believed in your blessing to the root of your very soul, so that when you stand before judgement, you will be clean?”

If Mather had been alive, his mouth no doubt would have dropped open in shock. There was an uncomfortable silence before Mather yammered on.

The holy water was sprinkled; salt circled the area and the five crosses placed in key point of the small grove clearing. The bishop took a deep breath, crossed himself and began to speak.

Snape didn’t listened to the words; his senses were trained on the quiet around them. He was waiting for Mather to interrupt. He hoped the headmaster could keep the maniac busy long enough for the rite of consecration and blessing to finish. He’d neglected to ask how long it would take.

Dumbledore was thinking much the same thing as passage after passage from both the Bible and the Maleficarum was tossed back and forth. When Mather began quoting his Treaty, Dumbledore was ready for him there too.

AND FROM THE BOWLS OF HELL, YE SHALL BE REVEALED! thundered the disembodied voice. AND THE LOST LAMBS OF GOD SHALL BE PUNISHED FOR THEIR SINS. THOSE WHO WERE DEFEATED BY THE DENIZENS OF HELL SHALL BE REDEEMED ONLY THROUGH THE –

Dumbledore shouted over Mather’s righteous fervour a long passage from the Apocrypha finishing with a flourishing, “They took for themselves, they and all the others with them, took themselves wives, and each chose for himself one. They began to come upon them and cleaved to them and taught them magic and witchcraft and they taught them to cut roots and plants.” He spoke of the angel, Shemhazai and his tribe of angels that left Heaven to live among men, taking mortal women as their mates.

Mather again seemed to be momentarily stumped.

Dumbledore smiled to himself. It was working.

Lupin handed the last piece of the blessing right to the bishop who droned on through his memorized litany. It was almost completed and then they would see if their trick had actually worked. Lupin half-believed it would, half-believed it wouldn’t. He also had been wondering, and had been afraid to ask, what the other headmasters of Hogwarts had done to keep the spirit at bay that Dumbledore had not done. He supposed it was a moot point now.

The bishop went silent and everyone turned to him.

“I am finished,” he said in a low tone.

They waited.

What they were expecting to happen they knew not, but whatever it was didn’t occur. In fact, nothing occurred.

“Now what?” snapped Snape peevishly. Everyone looked around apprehensively.

“It must not have worked,” worried Trelawney, twisting the bangles on her wrist nervously.

Everyone tensed. “What will we do now?” asked McGonagall tersely.

Everyone looked to the bishop, who’d gone as white as his robes. “Well, we can try this,” he informed them and took the jar of holy water from Sinistra. Unceremoniously he began to toss handfuls of the water all over the ground around them. “Try the salt as well,” he told Flitwick. Hands delved into the jar of consecration salt and began liberally sprinkling it all over the open ground.

Mather was screaming quotes from his treaty, the force of his ire whipping Dumbledore’s robes about him. Dumbledore held up the Malleus Maleficarum directly in front of him, reciting passages of punishing those using God’s abilities for their own uses. Any witnesses would have likened the headmaster to Moses, standing on Mount Sinai, reading aloud the tablets containing the Ten Commandments.

There was a deafening roar from Mather and Dumbledore glanced up at the haze surrounding him to see Mather’s spectral feature contorted in pain. The graveside ritual was finally working. Good, he’d been running out passages.

The spectral haze lost its features and began whirling and roiling in the air. Hisses and moans emitted from it and the windy gales returned. Dumbledore slammed the Malleus Maleficarum shut and tossed it negligently on the ground as the wind gusted away back to the forest. Dumbledore was right behind it, wand drawn and features cold.

The professors and bishop heard the wind howling toward them and immediately finished tossing water and salt everywhere. They crowded together in a protective circle with the bishop in the middle clutching his cross like a lifeline. The trees shuddered and they could hear several of them crashing to the ground.

The screaming grew so loud that they were clamping their hands over their ears in a vain effort to block it. The fierce wind blew around them in a circular pattern, blowing their robes about crazily and making them lose their balance, leaning into each other for mutual support.

“LOOK!” cried Lupin, who’d risked a glance to see what was going on. He, like the others, had clamped his eyes shut to keep the grit and dirt from the wind from getting in his eyes.

Everyone’s eyes popped open and they gaped at the scene before them. The wind had whirled itself into a tight conical shape, spinning madly in the center of the clearing. Dumbledore could be seen shoving his way through the trees, avoiding madly swaying branches.

The conical shape grew smaller and smaller as if sinking into the ground, pulled by a force it could not fight.

“IT’S WORKING!” crowed Snape triumphantly.

Mather was still determined to have the last word, however. Lightning arched from the sky and hail rained down upon them, as big as bludgers. The professors ran for cover, whipping out protective spells as they did so. Snape turned to the headmaster just in time to see lightning strike the old wizard directly.

“NOOOOO!” screamed Snape in maddened terror. He shoved past little Flitwick and ran straight across the newly consecrated ground, ignoring the calls of stop from the bishop.

As soon as the potions master’s feet touch the grave he was whirled into the miniature storm and flung up and out over several trees, landing with a sickening thud just a few meters from Dumbledore’s slightly smoking body.

Lupin skirted the clearing and headed directly for Snape; McGonagall was right behind him and heading for Dumbledore. They turned to the storm in time to see it sizzle into the ground with one last agonized wail. The other professors met up with McGonagall and Lupin, and the two fallen teachers’ vitals were checked. Unconscious, the spells and charms placed on each had saved them from death but they would be hurting considerably in the morning.

The walk back to the castle was a long one yet even despite their injured peers, the professors were starting to feel light-hearted. It was still a couple hours until dawn and Mather seemed to be permanently interred now.

They had won.

McGonagall and Dumbledore placed a new password on the passage in the headmaster’s office. Mather’s Treaty was placed back into its boxed, charmed with every lock spell they could find, and placed in the lock-charmed cabinet. Dumbledore had learned his lesson and McGonagall had learned from it as well.

Hogsmeade’s residents had spent a week putting their little town back to rights. The professors, a few days behind schedule of taking their own summer break, got their affairs in order and left with words of good-bye to each other. Snape remained behind, as he always did. Dumbledore had caught the potions master and Lupin in deep conversation one morning over breakfast about some dark arts material; it seemed some differences could be gotten past when two people were united against a common foe.

A small blurb concerning the incident was printed in the Daily Prophet. It made no mention of how the problem was resolved, merely that the professors at Hogwarts had helped the Hogsmeade residents to defeat the unknown attacker. The matter was left alone even by the Ministry, for which everyone was thankful.