[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Chapter Thirty of 'Adagio'- Paths into Darkness

[lomonaaeren]

“I think I can manage it, Severus.”

Harry’s voice was so quiet that it took Severus a long moment to hear the confidence behind it. He looked up, blinked, and then stepped out of the way. “Can you? Let’s see it, then.”

Harry’s smile was almost shy as he lifted his wand and aimed at the slab of wood Severus had set up on the far end of the classroom. “Sectumsempra.”

The spell left Harry and collided with the door, and chopped a hole in it nearly as big as the one that Severus had created in the Chamber doors using the same spell. Harry didn’t stagger in exhaustion, either. He turned to Severus with a bright, expectant smile.

“Well done,” Severus said softly.

Harry’s smile flashed brighter, and he gave a little bow in Severus’s direction. Then he said, “You invented other spells, didn’t you? Can I learn them?”

“Most of them are just minor hexes and jinxes. Sectumsempra is the most powerful of them.”

“I still want to learn them.”

“Why?”

“Because you made them.”

Harry said that as if Severus should already know the answer, and maybe he should have. Severus quirked a smile that felt less joyful than it should have and nodded. “Very well. There is one that hangs the victim upside down in the air by their ankles, known as Levicorpus.”

Harry mouthed the incantation to himself, his wand twitching. Severus thought, as he watched, that Harry’s true forte was curses.

A forte that of course the Dark Lord would do his best to encourage.

“Why are you frowning, Severus?”

“The world is heading into a war. I fear for your future.”

Harry gave him a smile older, wiser, than any years he had spent on the planet. “That’s why I’m doing the best I can to defend myself, Severus. I know that our Lord has given me his promise, but maybe he’ll get disembodied again, or I’ll be taken prisoner by someone with no reason to listen to him. I have to be able to stay safe.”

Severus nodded tightly, remembering that conversation they’d had at the end of Harry’s second year about safety and how it was the thing that mattered the most. At the time, he had thought it a simplistic view of the world, but also one that would protect Harry.

It had ended up doing that, perhaps, but at the cost of everything else.

“And I know that you’re sworn to protect me, but you won’t always be here.”

Inexplicably, that soothed something in Severus, to know that Harry recognized it and was prepared for the possibility. He nodded again. “Very well. Let me conjure a dummy for you to practice Levicorpus on.”

“Thanks, Severus.”

Severus shook his head as he conjured the dummy. Albus had once predicted that Severus would find much of Lily in her son, if he could get past the idea that Harry was only James Potter’s child.

I doubt Albus thought betraying the master I once swore myself to was one of those things I would find.

*

“Sir? I need to ask you something.”

Severus could not recall that Theodore Nott had ever needed to “ask him something.” But it was not as though he could refuse the conversation, when both the Dark Lord and Harry would probably hear in an hour if he did.

“Wait in my office, Mr. Nott.”

Severus did not allow himself to take a long time cleaning up the spills from the fifth-years cauldrons, even though he wanted to. (One way or another, this was at least the last year of Neville Longbottom). Then he strode to his office and stepped inside, expecting anything from the Dark Lord to Harry waiting with Nott.

But it was just Nott by himself, his hands clasped behind his back in much the same fashion he had held them when they had talked about the plan to fool Albus into believing Harry was at Privet Drive. “I wanted to ask if you are loyal, sir.”

“I am exceedingly loyal. It is one of my redeeming qualities.”

“This isn’t a trap, sir.”

“It is unless I know to whom you are reporting, Mr. Nott.”

A ghost of a smile traveled across Nott’s face. Severus had to resist the temptation to blink and stare. The boy had never done that before, either. “This was one of several questions that Professor Dawlish told me to ask. He has interesting ideas about loyalty. More complex than I expected from an Auror.”

So Barty was testing Severus’s loyalty again? Severus felt an unreasonable prickle of irritation, given how much he had resented being trapped into the Dark Lord’s service.

But truly, Barty should know by now that Severus would serve the Dark Lord faithfully. Barty had said himself how effective a chain on Severus Harry was.

“I am exceedingly loyal,” Severus repeated. “It takes more than just a vague promise to earn my loyalty, of course. The arrangement must have advantages for me.”

“Like being able to research as much as you want?”

“Like that.”

Is this specifically a checkup on the progress of the potion? The Dark Lord could have summoned me himself.

Nott gave a thoughtful nod, his hands still linked together behind his back as they had been since the beginning of the conversation. “I see. I would also like to have an arrangement where the majority of my time is taken up by research.”

Severus blinked rapidly. Then he said, “You are asking me more about your own future prospects than about my own, Mr. Nott?”

“Of course. But I would welcome any insight you could provide.”

Severus wanted to plaster a hand over his face. He wanted to howl with something that would be only half laughter. He wanted a drink of Firewhisky.

He reminded himself that Nott had already been following Harry into the darkness, and said, “Of course it would depend on whether you could prove the value of your research to your—employer. If you want to study pure theory or the like, you would be better off joining the Unspeakables than finding someone who wants specific research.”

“Oh, don’t worry, sir. Pure theory doesn’t interest me at all. Only practical applications do.”

They had a stilted conversation that lasted a few more minutes, and then Severus nodded at Nott to get out and leaned back against the wall of his office. With his eyes closed, the urge to scream or laugh or howl was easier to resist.

I suppose I can spin this as career counseling for Albus, if he asks.

Severus straightened and shook his head. He had other things to worry about than Albus’s perception of a conversation he might never hear of. For one thing, the next step in his potion needed to be completed that night to take advantage of the full moon.

For another, the time when he could have changed Nott’s path had clearly already passed.

*

“I suppose you know nothing about this, Severus?”

Severus had been thinking about the golden color his potion had unexpectedly turned, and why it would have done that when its ingredients should have turned it any other color from yellow to red, and was slow to react to Minerva’s indignation. He looked up completely only when he realized the conversation in the staff meeting room had fallen silent.

“Know about what?”

“Cormac McLaggen was found in his dormitory this morning with pulsating sores all over his body. Madam Pomfrey can’t heal them.”

Severus stared at her blankly. “I certainly had nothing to do with it.”

“And one of your Slytherins? Mr. McLaggen does taunt Slytherins and has sometimes bullied them, but—”

“Then perhaps you should speak with Mr. McLaggen instead?”

“Severus.”

Severus ground his teeth. Trust Albus to get involved. He kept his gaze on Minerva, though, as he drawled, “No, I had nothing to do with it, and neither did any of my Slytherins that I know of.”

There. That was a straightforward statement and had the advantage of sounding as the truth to Albus because it was.

A small frustrated silence ensued. Pomona was watching both Severus and Minerva as if she thought this was prime entertainment. Severus sneered at her, and she decided to turn around and have a conversation with Bathsheda instead.

“But do you have any suspicions of who it might be?” Minerva pressed stubbornly.

Severus sighed in irritation. “None of my students have come to me complaining of Mr. McLaggen.” They usually would not when it was an upper-year Gryffindor. They knew it would do no good. “And none of my students have talked to me about working on a spell or prank like that, either.”

“Are you sure, Severus? You can remember accurately?”

Severus let himself shoot an irritated glance at Albus, too. He would know better than most people that Severus had a good memory because he was an Occlumens. “Yes, I’m sure. No one has been asking questions or bragging about that.”

“Hmmm.”

Severus couldn’t resist, for all that it might be a bad idea. “Just as no one has been asking about getting mauled by a werewolf,” he said. “And no one asked about it in years past, either.”

“That is enough, Severus.”

Severus gave Albus his thinnest smile, and leaned back to let others speak. It seemed that McGonagall had moved on to the novel idea that someone from Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw could have cursed McLaggen, and was questioning them.

Why not someone in his own House? Severus thought, and made his sure his disgust was especially prominent as his eyes swept past Albus’s, meeting them for a brief moment.

And then the meeting began, and he didn’t have to think about it any longer. Not that he had done much of that in the beginning, tucking the likely possibilities behind his Occlumency shields.

There were people he would have to warn when the meeting was done, of course. And for once, they did not include Harry.