Chapter 9: Hogsmeade

Snape stood in the dark passageway between two adjacent buildings, his cloak wrapped around him to ward off the chill night air as he watched the door of the Hog’s Head Inn. He had followed Dumbledore there furtively, using every trick he had learned or invented in the last year to escape detection. The Headmaster had promised to pass Snape’s warning on to the Potters when they last spoke, and Snape trusted that he would do so. For some reason the Potters had not accepted Dumbledore’s offer to be their Secret Keeper. So it was possible they would not listen to him now. He had to try, himself.

If Lily came to the meeting, he was determined to tell her the whole sorry mess. He was sure she would never forgive what he had done to her son, but … at least she would still be alive. If it was only Potter, he could still try to convince him of the danger.

The sign over the inn door creaked as the door opened and a few people left. In the glow of a lantern, Snape recognized Dumbledore’s friend, the well–known Auror Moody. Doubtless an Order member, Snape thought. This meant the meeting was starting to break up. He wished there were some way to do this without seeing any Order members, since he preferred to know as little as possible that might be of use to the Dark Lord. In this instance, it was the only way to achieve his goal. Because the Potters were hiding under the Fidelius Charm, he could only find them on occasions when they ventured forth from their home.

A few more people trickled out the door, but not Snape’s quarry, not yet. Then another group stepped out, and Snape instantly recognized James Potter. Lily was not with him, Snape saw. Disappointment mingled with a shamed relief, that he would not after all have the opportunity to tell her what he had done. Cautiously, Snape followed Potter and the others as they walked back to the main street of Hogsmeade village. At the corner, Potter said his farewells to his companions and set off to his left, while they turned right.

Dropping all his efforts at stealth, Snape followed Potter, striding rapidly to catch up. Suddenly Potter spun about, and before Snape could open his mouth, he found himself looking at the tip of Potter’s wand. Instinctively his hand reached towards his own wand, as he inwardly cursed Potter’s devilishly quick, Quidditch–honed reflexes. Remembering his purpose, however, Snape moved his arms back down and spoke.

“Potter, I would like a word with you,” he said evenly.

Potter relaxed slightly, but kept his wand raised. “Make it quick, then, Snape,” he responded.

“Your secret is not safe,” Snape said.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” James responded loudly. It was obviously a rehearsed answer. Snape had learned to deliver his lies a lot more smoothly, in the last year. It figured that Potter would decide to play stupid. Snape nearly ground his teeth in frustration.

“You are hiding your family under the Fidelius Charm,” Snape explained quietly, “but–

“Dumbledore has a point, the Order is leaking like a sieve, I see,” James said with a snort. Snape bit back a sharp retort, and took a deep breath.

“The Order is not the problem. The problem is that your Secret Keeper is in the Dark Lord’s pocket,” he persisted.

“The Dark Lord!” Potter said, his tone contemptuous. “Say who you mean: Voldemort.”

Snape paled at the name. He could see that his reaction to the Dark Lord’s name brought a little smile to James’s lips.

“‘Lord’ indeed. He’s no lord,” Potter added.

“Call him what you will, Potter, it won’t change the facts,” Snape said angrily. “He can find you and your family.”

“And you doubtless learned this trailing after your pureblood, Dark Arts loving friends, Snape, along with that pet name you use for Voldemort?” Snape took an angry step forward, fists clenched, and found himself with Potter’s wand in his chest.

He stopped and, having noticed they were clenched, forced himself to relax his hands at his sides.

“Yes,” he responded coldly. “That’s exactly right.”

“If any such thing were true,” James remarked, “it would certainly not get discussed in front of a poseur such as you. I admit Sirius and I expected you to run out and sign up with Voldemort the moment we all had finished school. But Lily has talked about you, and I have come to realize that she was right. It must have been tough, being in Slytherin House with a Muggle father, so you studied the Dark Arts to fit in.”

Snape suppressed an urge to scream in frustration. It was Lily who had misjudged him. James had been right after all, but would he believe it now?

“And if I told you I am a Death Eater?” Snape asked quietly.

James laughed. “I don’t know what Albus Dumbledore is thinking in hiring you to teach at Hogwarts, but I am sure he would not hire a Death Eater.”

“You are still as arrogant as ever, I see. You know everybody’s business better than they do. I could almost walk away, and wait for the inevitable to happen. It would not,” Snape finished venomously, “be a long wait.”

“Please do, Snape,” said James. “I have a family to get back to. Go give some poor student a detention or something.”

“That’s right, you do have a family. It’s nice to see that you remember it. It would be a pity to hear that they’d died with you. What can it hurt, to listen to me? Take them away for a bit, or accept Dumbledore’s offer–”

“I already told Dumbledore: Sirius would die rather then serve Voldemort in any way!” James said heatedly.

“So it is Black,” Snape said, curling his lip. “I don’t know how the Dark Lord turned him: threats, promises, lies, but he has done it.”

“And why should I believe you?” Potter asked.

“You once prevented me from getting killed because of Black. I am trying to return the favor,” Snape said through his teeth.

“It is still all about school for you, isn’t it, Snape? I’ll hear no more ill said of Sirius,” James said. “Good night!” he added, stepping aside to walk past Snape.

Snape grasped his arm as he passed. “I’m telling you the truth!” he exclaimed heatedly as James jerked his arm free.

“This conversation is over,” Potter declared, and walked on.

Snape hurried after him and stepped out in front of him.

“It was I who overheard the Prophecy, Potter,” he said.

Potter raised his wand. “If that’s true, I should like to kill you where you stand. I am certainly not going to waste any more time bandying words with you. I am going to walk away, and Disapparate. If you attempt in any way to detain me, you will be sorry.”

Snape spat bitterly on the ground and stepped back to let Potter pass. He watched as Potter walked on towards the Three Broomsticks and Disapparated, with a sinking feeling of being forced to watch an impending disaster that he was powerless to prevent.

Once Potter was gone, Snape started walking dispiritedly in the same direction, back towards the school. Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Snape jumped in surprise, and then turned, to find the Headmaster regarding him seriously over his half-moon glasses.

“It was a good try, Severus,” said Dumbledore gently.

Snape shook his head wordlessly.

“Come, let’s walk back to the school,” Dumbledore said, and quickened his step. Snape fell in alongside. As they passed the Three Broomsticks, Dumbledore exchanged greetings with patrons leaving the pub, while Snape waited.

“I lost my temper,” Snape muttered, as they left the village. Dumbledore merely continued walking.

“Perhaps, if I hadn’t insulted him –” Snape did not complete his thought.

Anything was possible, Dumbledore thought, but that encounter had been doomed from the start. Letting Severus blame himself for his failure did not serve any purpose. If he had thought revealing the source of his information to James would help, he might have done it himself.

“James is adamant,” Dumbledore stated. “He is convinced Sirius is completely trustworthy. I am inclined to think he may be right in this. At any rate, I did not lose my temper, and I had no more success than you,” Dumbledore added with a smile.

“But the information I heard was quite suggestive,” Snape disagreed.

“I have been thinking. Voldemort must have started to give some thought to the events that have occurred. The Potters’ amazing luck to date, the run-ins certain Death Eaters have had with Aurors, Order members rescued by the unexpected arrival of friends … we feared his anger at you this summer might reflect some suspicions on his part. Perhaps he is starting to float some misinformation among his followers, to see what comes of it.”

Snape considered this possibility. It seemed unlikely Bellatrix had been acting, but she could have been misinformed herself. Perhaps the Potters were truly safe. In which case, the danger would have been to him, had the Potters acted on his warning.

“I should not have come,” he said to Dumbledore. “You told me that you would warn them.”

“I understand why you had to speak to him yourself,” said Dumbledore. “The head cannot always lead; there are times when you must let your heart decide.”

Snape looked down at the road and drew his cloak tightly around him with his hands. He didn’t care to contradict the Headmaster, but he knew better. It might be true of other men, but never of him. It was his heart that had gotten him into this mess in the first place, and his heart that had just caused him to lose his temper with Potter.

Dumbledore looked at his companion. Severus’s body language spoke eloquently of his rejection of the sympathy he was offered: shoulders hunched, hair hanging down on either side and hiding his face, arms tucked inside his cloak. The disappointment probably seemed that much greater, following as it did what might have been Severus’s biggest success as a spy to date. Perhaps it was not the right time to discuss the matter further, Dumbledore decided.

They walked together in silence to the gates to the castle. Snape drew his wand and cast the incantations to open the padlocked gates, and then closed them after he and the Headmaster had passed through.

“Thank you, Severus,” Dumbledore said with a smile.

“You are welcome,” Snape replied stiffly.

They continued together to the Entrance Hall, where they said their goodbyes. Dumbledore ascended the wide marble staircase to the first floor, and headed to his office. Snape opened the door located to the side of that staircase and descended into the dungeons. Between time spent supervising the Halloween Feast and his unsuccessful trip into Hogsmeade, he had a late night in front of him, for he had gotten no grading done that afternoon.

***

Snape put down the quill he has been holding and leaned back in his chair, rubbing the bridge of his hooked nose. He had hoped that grading would distract him from his disgust over his confrontation with Potter, but it was no use. He had marked the last five essays turned in by his first years from the Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff class with a T, and had been about to do the same for the sixth.

The idiots deserved it, he thought to himself, pushing away a memory of Potter, his stance displaying the casual arrogance Snape had always loathed, as he held Snape at wand point. Not only did the first years have no concept of the properties of even the most common magical plants, they could not string sentences together into a logical exposition of the little they did know. If, indeed, they could manage to write grammatical sentences at all….

Grading was definitely one of the downsides of his new job, Snape mused. Yet he normally managed enough restraint to avoid failing an entire class. Perhaps a walk in the dungeons would clear his head, and he could finish more quickly. Not to mention managing to assign higher grades, thereby avoiding a future visit full of motherly advice from Professor Sprout, concerned about her Hufflepuffs.

He rose from his chair and swept his cloak on over his black robes, in case he decided to step out onto the castle grounds. Closing the door behind him, he strode down the hallway, the cloak billowing behind him, and his wand tip lighting the way in the dark corridor. He glared at a portrait of a crotchety old wizard who complained of the light as he passed by.

As he approached the stairs leading up to the Entrance Hall, he heard a loud creak. Approaching the foot of the stairs, he felt a cold draft on his upturned face. Quickly and soundlessly, he jogged up the stairs, just in time to see the last sliver of moonlight disappear as the main doors to the castle shut. As he walked to the door himself, he transfigured a portion of one of the great wooden planks that made up the door into a sheet of clear glass. Through it, he saw clearly the figures of two students, who huddled together as they walked slowly in the direction of the groundskeeper’s hut.

Snape returned the door to its natural state before opening it. He considered shouting at the students to come back, but he admitted to himself that he could probably give them a good scare if he did not. It would leave a more lasting impression than the House points he certainly planned to take, once he caught up with them, he reasoned.

With his wand, he cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself. Ignoring the unpleasant sensation of cold water trickling down from his head to his toes as his appearance blended into the surroundings, he set off after the students, relying on his longer legs and rapid movement to catch them up.

As he got closer, he could hear the two students talking.

“…really is haunted? They say Hagrid’s pumpkins grow so large because he’s planted them over an old graveyard…” one of them trailed off fearfully.

“I suppose they have never heard of an Engorgement Charm?” Snape said clearly, as he countered the Disillusionment charm. The speaker gasped and spun around. His companion bit off a cry of fear as he nearly jumped out of his shoes.

Snape thought rapidly - one of the younger students, curly brown hair, tall for his age, Gryffindor colors. It was Matthews, he remembered, a second year, which meant that his companion must be O’Connell. The duo was an occasional source of problems in Potions class.

“Matthews, O’Connell, what is the meaning of this?” Snape demanded coldly. Matthews did not quite manage the unconcerned expression he was so obviously trying to assume. O’Connell, his freckled face pale in the moonlight, simply looked scared.

“Sir…” O’Connell said hesitantly, trailing off as his companion elbowed him in the ribs.

“Off to play a Halloween prank on the groundskeeper, were we?” Snape asked with a contemptuous curl of his lip.

“No!” Matthews burst out indignantly

“We were just going to the pumpkin patch at midnight, on a dare!” O’Connell offered.

“A dare?” Snape raised an eyebrow. “And just who was it that suggested to a pair of second years that they ought to violate curfew and leave the castle, I wonder?”

O’Connell shuffled his feet, his eyes downcast, while the bolder Matthews stared at him defiantly. Of course, they weren’t going to tell him.

Snape shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not my problem, anyway. Rest assured that I will be placing the question in the able hands of Professor McGonagall,” he said. Matthews’ face fell.

“Though, for being out of bounds after curfew, I will take twenty points from Gryffindor,” Snape concluded.

“But sir-” began Matthews.

Just then, Snape felt a searing pain in his left forearm, far more intense than the usual summons from the Dark Lord, as bad, he rather thought, as the pain of his initial branding. He turned the exclamation of pain that threatened to burst past his clenched teeth into a loud shout of “EACH!” This served to stop Matthews arguing, anyway. As the pain increased, Snape added through clenched teeth, “Inside. GO!”

The boys, looking quite chastened, set off rapidly for the castle. Snape stood and watched them. The pain stopped completely, as suddenly as it had come. Another anomaly, for the burning of the Dark Mark usually faded away gradually. He considered what this might mean. Did this unusual summons indicate he was being summoned regarding a matter of great urgency? Alternatively, could it indicate he had been discovered? He considered not answering the summons, for a moment, before he thought, with a sinking feeling, that the summons might also portend the announcement of a great triumph. He would go, as soon as the two boys were back inside the castle. He had to know.

The boys were obviously eager to put some distance between themselves and him, but the wait as they approached the stairs and reentered the castle seemed endless. As soon as the great doors shut behind them, Snape ran for the gates. For the third time that night, he released and reset the spells that provided extra security to the school during the Dark Lord’s present reign of terror.

Once outside the school grounds and the limits of its anti-Apparition wards, Snape focused his mind on his forearm and the remembered pain, and Disapparated. Opening his eyes, he was shocked to find that he still stood just outside the Hogwarts gates. Glancing around to ascertain he was not watched, he bared his left forearm. It was a pure, milky white in the moonlight, completely unmarred. He stared down at it, uncomprehending. The mark typically took hours to fade completely after it burned. This was doubtless the explanation for his failure to Apparate to the Dark Lord’s side, but why was the Dark Mark gone?

Something very unusual was happening, Snape concluded. Despite the lateness of the hour, he resolved to seek out Dumbledore. Opening and shutting the gates again, Snape strode rapidly back to the castle. After the Halloween feast and a meeting with Order members, he, too, might still be awake and in his office.

***

Author’s Note:
Snape, in PoA, said to Harry, “You'd have died like your father, too arrogant to believe you might be mistaken in Black –”

For some odd reason, just after I finished “Unintended Consequences”, I happened to reread this line and the first scene of this chapter sprang into my mind fully formed. I wrote this story to give it a home.