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Into the Fold by Pasi [Reviews - 3]

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June 1976

Severus returned to the Trainee's Room. "I need to speak to Professor Dumbledore before we can go on," Healer Meed had said. It was enough to make him forget about the parade of humanity passing by beneath the window, in the street before Purge and Douse. Leaving the window-curtains closed, he sat on the narrow bed and stared at his hands in his lap.

He could just hear Meed and Dumbledore's conversation: "He's angry, hateful, cold and full of Dark patches. I can't do a thing with him. I don't know why you bothered to bring him here."

"Ah, well, it will have to be expulsion, then. And I'll ask the Warden of Azkaban to get a cell ready...."


He had nearly killed Potter, because Potter had nearly killed him and had expected to get away with it. Whenever Severus thought of it, fury boiled up in him anew, and he could not imagine doing anything other than he had done. And so here he sat, waiting to pay for it, waiting for his life to be ruined forever. If he lived at all. They said people didn't last long around the Dementors.

A soft knock sounded at the door, and Severus looked up.

"Severus?" said Professor Dumbledore's voice.

It was over. With a sigh, Severus went to the door and opened it.

There stood the Headmaster. "May I come in?"

Severus stepped aside, and Dumbledore entered the Trainee's Room.

"Severus," he began, "we're leaving St Mungo's to--"

"Washing her hands of me, is she?" Severus said.

"I'm sorry?"

"She can't do anything with me. I've got Dark patches, so you're both getting rid of me. But then James Potter will die, and...and...." Severus couldn't finish.

"If I understand you correctly, you are saying that you believe Healer Meed has given up on you and that we have both decided to dismiss you. Although I must say, I don't see where I'd have a hand in it."

"Well, she's decided, then. Hasn't she?"

Dumbledore gazed at Severus over the top of his glasses. Severus looked away uneasily. He should have kept his mouth shut. He'd all but invited Dumbledore to prod him about those Dark patches and what lay behind them, and that was most definitely not a good idea.

"Healer Meed has decided nothing," said Dumbledore. "She sensed in you an experience with Dark magic which may have twisted your soul so much that you are incapable of creating a counter to Sectumsempra. You can understand that if that's the case, we're only wasting her time."

Dumbledore had decided, then. Couldn't wait to expel me, could you? I suppose Potter's father made a special request. Severus clamped his jaw tight to keep the words behind his teeth.

"And so I came," Dumbledore went on, "to tell you you're coming with me to room at the Leaky Cauldron, because it will be easier for me there to teach you how to conjure a Patronus."

"Conjure a Patronus?" What did that have to do with anything?

"Yes, conjure a Patronus. If you can do that, I am sure you have it in you to do anything Healer Meed requires, including heal James Potter. And that you need to do as quickly as you can, so come along. We have no time to waste."

****

"I'll have your things sent here from Hogwarts," Professor Dumbledore said as he and Severus entered the pub. Following Dumbledore to the bar, Severus saw the landlord give Dumbledore a toothlessly obsequious grin.

"I hope you were able to reserve the room next to mine, Tom?" Dumbledore asked the landlord.

"Yes, sir, for the young gent--?" Tom transferred his unnerving smile to Severus. "Do I have the pleasure--?"

"Yes, Tom, this is my guest, Severus Snape," said Dumbledore. "And may I reserve a parlour as well?"

"Certainly, sir. For the evening?"

Dumbledore looked Severus up and down, then said, "For the entire day. After that, we'll see."

"An entire day?" Tom's grin grew wider, exposing uninhabited gums. "I'll have to ask for a two-Galleon deposit, then, sir. So you can come and go as you please."

"So we can come and go as we please," Dumbledore repeated with a small sigh. "So kind of you to consider our convenience." He took three Galleons from a change purse of flowery brocade and dropped them into the landlord's eager hands. "There. That should include the price of lunch and a pitcher of butterbeer."

Tom examined the coins so closely Severus half-expected him to bite them. "So it does, sir." He dropped the gold into the drawer of an ancient cash register, took a tarnished key from a hook on the wall behind the bar and handed it to Dumbledore. "For the day, sir."

"Thank you. This way, Severus." Dumbledore led Severus down a narrow passageway to a room with a dining table, chairs and a couple of armchairs before a fireplace. In the warmth of the early summer afternoon, the fireplace was empty.

The landlord arrived, wearing an apron of questionable cleanliness and carrying a tray of roast beef sandwiches and butterbeer. After he had left, Dumbledore handed Severus a sandwich and poured him a glass of butterbeer.

Severus didn't eat or drink. "What's so special about conjuring a Patronus?"

Dumbledore finished filling his own glass. "You sound as though conjuring Patronuses is something you do every day."

"And you sound as though you think I'm still a child. I'm not; I'm seventeen, I'm of age."

"True." Dumbledore began eating his lunch. "And so what do you want of me as a result of--or perhaps in homage to--your new maturity?"

"An answer to my question," said Severus. He felt angry and heady with insolence. "What's so special about conjuring a Patronus?"

"I was coming to that." Dumbledore set down his half-eaten sandwich and sighed. "I'm sorry. Much has happened to you in the past few days. Your strengths--and your weaknesses--have brought you to what must seem a very strange pass. Healer Meed has told me what went on between the two of you. She has gifts that I don't share--that, indeed, I doubt anyone else in the wizarding world possesses--and can therefore speak about them only metaphorically to the rest of us. For as long as I have known her, I have known of nothing her Legilimency could not uncover. If anything in the mind of another is hidden from Constance Meed, it is because she permits it to remain so. She will not invade the privacy of one who truly wishes to keep a secret from her."

"So, the Dark patches--?"

"Were your representation to her of your desire to keep a particular secret. And also, according to her, an indication that you had the power to keep your secret, unless she wished to use force to take it from you."

Memories of Ruskin and Lestrange, of burned and bleeding animals tried to flit across Severus's mind. He pushed them back.

"Healer Meed has not forced a secret from anyone in years," said Dumbledore. "She decided against it long ago." He looked thoughtfully at Severus. "So, although I am very curious about what you hid from Healer Meed, I wouldn't presume to rush in where she has feared to tread, even if I had her abilities. She has said, however, and I can hardly disagree with her, that she needs evidence that you have the innate capacity to create the counter-curse to Sectumsempra. There's no point in your trying to do the impossible. That's where the Patronus comes in."

Dumbledore looked expectantly at Severus, as if he thought it would all fall into place. It didn't.

"Well, perhaps it bodes well that you don't understand," said Dumbledore. "You see, one conjures a Patronus by speaking or thinking the incantation while concentrating on a single, very happy memory. But the thing about being evil, Dark at heart, at the root of your being, is that it makes you incapable of being truly happy. In fact," he added musingly, "the definition of evil might be exactly that: the impossibility of happiness."

"I don't see that at all," said Severus. "Wicked people are happy all the time." Take Tobias, for instance. There was one wicked man, and yet he knew how to have a good time of an evening with his mates at the pub.

"There are wicked people," said Dumbledore, "and there are people who have done wicked things. There is revelry, glee, relish, triumph--and there is true happiness. I trust you to be able to understand the difference, Severus. That is why I invited you here. Eat your lunch; you'll need it."

Suddenly ravenous, Severus obeyed. Dumbledore finished his own sandwich, then stood and drew his wand. Waving it in a sweeping motion, he turned in place to trace a spell over the four walls of the parlour. "There. A good strong Imperturbable Charm. We won't disturb Tom's other guests." He pocketed his wand. "To business, then. Do you understand the purpose of a Patronus?"

"To dispel Dementors and Lethifolds," said Severus, setting down his empty glass of butterbeer.

"Very good. They're interesting creatures, Dementors and Lethifolds. Probably the greatest unthinking agents of chaos we know, capable of complete and utter destruction, the Dementor of the human soul, the Lethifold of the human body. Understandably, then, the conjuring of a Patronus strong enough to drive them off is some of the most advanced magic a wizard can perform, requiring a great deal of confidence and power." Dumbledore smiled a bit ruefully. "I've always considered it odd that the instruction for this magic is quite ridiculously simple. You concentrate with all your might on your single, very happy memory and repeat the incantation: expecto patronum."

Severus waited, looking at him.

"So there you are," said Dumbledore. "Give it a try."

Severus took out his wand and sought a happy memory. He thought immediately of Lily. But under Dumbledore's serene and steady gaze, the suspicion grew in him that the headmaster had more of Healer Meed's sort of powers than he wanted to let on. He seemed to have a way of looking straight into Severus's heart. Might he not see there the memory Severus used to conjure a Patronus, a memory of Lily, perhaps, embellished with his longing dreams? No. The very thought made Severus want the earth to open and swallow him. Besides, all his memories of Lily were tainted now, with what they'd said to each other on the night they had collected moon-shifting mushrooms, with her repudiating him for good. No memory of her, he told himself, could be happy enough.

There were other memories, if not many. He remembered one of the first, when he was eight and Tobias had threatened to give him the belt. Why? He couldn't remember. But Mother, hearing his shriek of fear, had Stunned Tobias just as the Muggle's belt was whistling through the air toward his backside. "We're going to Gran's in London and we're never coming back," Mother had declared then, and Severus had believed her, for they'd left the house bags in hand while Tobias still lay flat on the sitting-room rug. There they'd stood in the street, and Severus's heart had filled suddenly with joy. They were leaving, they were really leaving, and, unable to contain his happiness, Severus began to run. Legs pumping, heart pounding, lungs drinking in the damp night air, he could run all the way to London, he'd thought, run, run, run....

"Expecto patronum," Severus muttered, and a wisp of white vapour rose from the tip of his wand.

"Very good!" said Dumbledore, smiling.

"That's not what they're supposed to look like," said Severus.

"Never mind. It's a start. Try again."

Running, running, with his hands in the air and his head thrown back, he could fly to Gran Prince's, and Gran will let them stay if Mum's not married to him any more, she has to let them stay....

"Expecto patronum,"
said Severus, and his wand emitted another bubble of white mist.

"It's coming along," Dumbledore said encouragingly as the mist shredded away, but Severus didn't believe him. The second ball of white mist had looked much like the first, and if that was his very own Patronus, unique to him, there wasn't much to him, was there? "Expecto patronum!" Severus snapped, giving his wand a shake. Nothing came out of it this time.

Dumbledore eyed him with raised brows, and Severus realised he must have looked very stupid, trying to shake a Patronus out of his wand.

"It takes patience," Dumbledore said. "Patience, concentration and a moment of pure happiness. As I said, the Patronus Charm sounds simple, but it's very complex magic. Try it again--perhaps with a different happy memory."

As if he had that many to choose from. Dumbledore didn't seem to get that you had to have good things happen to you in order to have happy memories. Severus averted his eyes, struggling to crush his resentment, and tried again.

Now Mum's caught up to him, and she's laughing, laughing for the first time in ages, laughing, grabbing Severus's hand and running. She's happy, and so's Severus, so happy he shouts with laughter too--

"Expecto patronum."
Another silvery cloud flowed from the tip of Severus's wand. Wait--wasn't that roundness at one end growing ears and a nose, didn't those tendrils look something like legs? But then the cloud broke apart into a shower of sparkling dust and disappeared.

"Better. Better," said Dumbledore. "Try again."

Severus did try again. And again. He accessed every angle of his memory of the first time he and Mother had run away, of the one time he'd actually believed they would escape Tobias, of a time long ago when he was too young to know better. "Expecto patronum...expecto patronum...expecto patronum..."

The afternoon wore on, and Severus's wand discharged shapeless mist after shapeless mist. Perhaps his Patronus was a slug--that seemed to be the best he could hope for. More likely, he simply couldn't do it. When that thought came to him, invading his happy memory with its inevitable, fear-stocked corollaries of expulsion and Azkaban, his wand sent forth not a silver cloud, but a hazy grey filament like cigarette smoke.

You can't do it. Severus gripped his wand until his knuckles turned white. "Expecto patronum!" Nothing happened.

"It's not anger that does it," Dumbledore said in that mild voice of his, and before Severus knew it, he'd flung his wand across the room. It bounced off the wall and clattered to the floor. Dumbledore looked at him and said nothing. His face on fire, Severus summoned the wand back.

"Did you try a different memory?" asked Dumbledore.

"I tried the happiest memory I have," said Severus through gritted teeth. "Reckon you and Meed were right--I'm too evil to be happy."

"Healer Meed," said Dumbledore. "You will be good enough, if you please, to speak of her with respect."

"Why? What's she, another Gryffindor? Like you? Like Potter? Like Potter's father, your friend?"

"No, Healer Meed is not a Gryffindor. She attended Durmstrang, the only school which provided a curriculum to suit her singular talents." Dumbledore paused. "And does it matter to you so much that I am Harold Potter's friend? That he, James and I are all Gryffindors? Do you think we're all conspiring against you somehow?"

Severus pressed his lips together and said nothing.

"If so, it's a conspiracy to see you succeed. I imagine James doesn't want to die. I can assure you his father and I don't want him to die. You alone can save him, but if you counter Sectumsempra, you shouldn't do it only to save James Potter. You should do it to save yourself."

"I can't counter Sectumsempra! I can't even conjure a Patronus!"

"I wouldn't be so sure of that if I were you." Severus stared down at his feet, fiercely longing to trust Dumbledore, to believe him, but the evidence was against him; Severus was getting worse at casting the Patronus Charm, not better.

"Good heavens, it's five o'clock," said Dumbledore. " No wonder we're frazzled."

Severus looked up. Though Dumbledore was looking at a watch in his hand, Severus had no idea how he'd told the time: the watch had not numbers but planets circling its edge, and twelve hands swept confusingly across its face. "Why don't we end our lesson here for the day?" said the headmaster. "Dinner's at seven--you could take a tramp in Diagon Alley till then, if you'd like."

It was better than being cooped up in the parlour, or in his room next to Dumbledore's. Two hours of freedom, during which he wouldn't have to worry about what on earth he would talk about at dinner with his headmaster, the friend of the man whose son he'd nearly killed. "Right," muttered Severus, all but dashing out the door, grabbing that freedom while he could.






Into the Fold by Pasi [Reviews - 3]

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