[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Chapter Thirty-Five of 'Adagio'- Dumbledore's Discovery

[lomonaaeren]

“Please sit down, Severus. There is something important I have to tell you.”

Severus did so, maintaining his mask of slightly bored impatience without effort. He had reached a crucial point in his development of the potion the Dark Lord had assigned him, and he would have to split his work soon so that he could truly develop the twin brews Harry had suggested. This meeting, vague as ever when Albus had asked him through the Floo, was an ill-timed interruption. “Yes, Headmaster?”

“You know the diary that you destroyed in Harry’s second year.”

Severus blinked. Meanwhile, inwardly he had gone still and crouched, but that of course wasn’t something he was going to show Albus. “Yes?”

“I have learned something important about it from studying it.” Albus’s face was grey, and his hands trembled a little as he folded them on his desk. “I could hardly believe it at first, but there is no—there is no doubt. The diary is a Dark artifact called a Horcrux, infused with a piece of Voldemort’s soul.”

Severus flinched. Let Albus think it was at the name, and not the proclamation.

Bollocks.

“I’ve heard of them, of course,” Severus said slowly, as if he were thinking back and trying to remember the book he had first read the term in. “But I didn’t think they were—I thought they were only objects that sat in a certain place? That they didn’t reach out and try to possess someone?”

“I believe the diary was different, as it was meant to be written in. Most other Horcruxes are pieces of jewelry and similar objects. They might interact with someone who wore them, but only in dreams and the like. Not through writing and the direct absorption of magic.”

Severus nodded. “Then we have struck the Dark Lord a blow by killing the thing?” Let Albus claim his part in this, as small as his part had been, limited to his permission for Severus to use Dark Arts to discover the Chamber.

“I believe so, but I also believe he has made multiple Horcruxes.”

Severus didn’t have to feign the flinch this time, both because Albus was on the trail that Harry had already traveled, and because the notion was still insane to him. “What?”

“Yes. Voldemort always believed himself cleverer than anyone else. He would see the lack of multiple Horcruxes in other Dark wizards as a flaw in their character, not as a warning not to commit that crime.”

Severus nodded, swallowing back his sickness. “Then we will search for the others?”

“I do not need to search for at least one of them.”

No.

But Severus maintained his calm, Occluding furiously, and his voice came out icy and slightly interested. “The diary?”

“No.” Albus took a deep breath that seemed to suck in most of the air in the room. “Young Harry.”

Severus could have managed a Killing Curse aimed at Albus at the moment. The dark hatred surged under the icy surface of his mind, so thick, so tempting, to lose himself in. He wanted to drown, to kill, to keep Harry safe and flee the castle with him in the next hour if they had to do so.

But Severus knew it would be to their advantage if they could wait. He shrank backwards. “What?”

“I know that you do not want to believe it, Severus, but it is true.”

“What evidence do you base this on, Albus?’

“Alas, my dear boy, I see no way that I can detail all the evidence for you.”

In other words, Albus wasn’t going to trust Severus with it. He let loose a bitter laugh and leaned back in his seat. “So you will hobble my ability to do my job effectively, both as his Head of House and because of my oath.”

Albus hesitated long enough that Severus thought the ploy might not work and he might have to resort to Legilimency or Veritaserum in the future. Then Albus took a deep breath and said, “In the end, you will have to step back from those jobs.”

“Thanks to the Vow you had me swear, Albus, that is literally impossible for me.”

“You will have to find a way around that. There is no way around the fact that Harry has to die.”

Severus spent a full minute swallowing his protective fury. Albus could think that Severus was swallowing anger or grief or the requirements of the Vow, if he liked. Severus didn’t care that much. “What?” he finally rasped.

“The Horcruxes hold Voldemort to life. The one in Harry fulfills the same purpose. It will be impossible for Voldemort to die as long as Harry exists.”

Which is one reason that makes him unspeakably valuable to the Dark Lord.

But Severus just folded his arms and stared at Albus. “There are ways around the murder of an innocent child.”

“This is the first time I have heard you appreciate Harry’s innocence, Severus.”

You think you know how little he has of it. You have no idea. “We could disembody the Dark Lord again, trap his spirit, and search for a way to remove the Horcrux from Mr. Potter so that it could be transferred to an object we could destroy.’

“We do not know how Lily disembodied him in the first place, so that is not a method that we can employ.”

I do. I might even be able to stand against the Dark Lord and lay down my life for Harry.

But that was not an option he could say to Albus, so Severus sneered at him a little. “And you would give up committing to research? You would leap to the fastest solution of simply destroying him?”

Albus paused. Severus waited, the beat of his heart under control now, his mind glittering in layers of ice even colder and firmer than the ones that he tended to employ around the Dark Lord. This would be what he did. This would be one of the means by which he saved Harry.

Because he was certainly not going to destroy him. No information Albus could share would change his mind.

“If I told you that I have evidence Harry has been possessed by the Dark Lord?”

“What is that evidence?”

“You do not trust me, Severus.”

“You ask me to violate the Vow that you made me swear in the first place, after snapping at me about how I did not understand the value of an innocent child’s life. Say that I have learned your lessons well enough to turn them against the teacher, Headmaster.”

There was a long pause this time. Severus wondered if he had spoken too honestly and with too real a bitterness in his voice. But he simply stared at Albus and waited.

The Headmaster rapped his fingers on the desk. Then he said, “I will require an oath from you not to share this evidence with anyone else. It could cause a panic.”

Or warn Harry in time for him to escape from a trap.

But Severus did not hesitate, because if he waited, there was always the chance that Albus would make him swear on his life or his magic or something else that he needed to go on protecting Harry. He clasped his hand in a fist in front of his heart and bowed his head. “I swear on the Unbreakable Vow that I swore to guard Harry Potter’s life.”

Albus was silent. Severus leaned back in his chair and met the Headmaster’s eyes, and thought he recognized the signs of unguarded shock. Of course, with Albus being as skilled with the mind arts as he was, even that could be a trick.

But Albus blinked and cleared his throat a moment later, and said, “Ah. I didn’t know that swearing a vow on another vow would work.”

Severus shrugged. “It makes the second vow as binding as the first. I am sworn twice, now. To defend Harry Potter with my life, and to tell no one of what you told me.”

For an instant, his nerves were alive with singing fire, waiting to see if Albus noticed what Severus had slipped past him and made him swear another oath. Severus hadn’t sworn not to share any information about Harry’s possible possession with anyone. He had simply sworn.

But Albus either did not notice, or thought that he would let the game play out. One more hesitation, and he nodded and leaned back in his seat.

“I am entrusting you with this, Severus.”

His trust had long since ceased to matter to Severus as a reward. It was only a chain that he must keep bearing as long as he and Harry were in danger. So Severus just nodded.

“I was wary of the boy’s Sorting into Slytherin at first, but then I convinced myself that that was nothing to worry about. After all, Slytherin is only a House, and not everyone who goes through it comes out with darkness in their being.” He nodded to Severus as if complimenting him.

Only the ones who need it.

Severus raised his eyebrows patiently, and Albus coughed and went on.

“But I came to realize that Harry was not the boy I had thought he was, or even just a more abused and quieter version of the boy I thought he was. He spoke Parseltongue. He hid from the responsibilities that his fame charged him with—”

“Responsibilities?”

“Fame requires much of those who are subject to it.” The Headmaster made a deprecating little gesture to himself. “I could not hide from what I had done after I had defeated Grindelwald. Harry cannot hide from the fact that people expect more of him, and if he is going to enjoy the rights, he must also take up the burdens.”

Severus choked on rage. He bowed his head to hold it in, and then spoke, as the Occlumency grew over his mind like frost spreading across a window. “You were an adult when you defeated Grindelwald, Headmaster. Mr. Potter’s fame comes from something that happened when he was one year old. He did not choose it.”

“But you cannot deny that he has taken advantage of it.”

“How? He hasn’t tried to get out of detentions with other professors or answered back to them in class or the like. Not that I’m aware of.”

“He has enjoyed attention from yourself, Alastor last year—” Albus paused. “The man I thought was Alastor. He has people who would do anything he asks of them.”

“Does he know that? Would he ask them?”

“There are burdens that are unfair, Severus, but are still given.”

I do not think he really believes that. I think this is way of trying to convince himself that it’s perfectly all right to sacrifice a child on the altar of the magical world.

But Severus did not show that. He simply drew a little back, looked Albus in the eye, and drawled, “Continue.”

“If he had merely been quiet and self-protective, I might have overlooked it. But he seems to have no friends. He seems to be passionate about nothing. Apathy rules his soul. I thought perhaps he would become interested in Defense with the time that Remus spent teaching him and then the man wearing Alastor’s skin, but he has not. Neither has he picked up on your brewing skills, despite your being his frequent champion.”

“So because he is friendless and apathetic, that means he must be possessed by the Dark Lord?”

“You forget that I taught Tom Riddle, Severus. I think I know him better than anyone else now alive. And he was just the same. Friendless, self-involved, to the point that it was noticeable to anyone who looked further than the surface. And if Harry, who comes from such different circumstances, ends up the same way…”

“How were their circumstances different? Both were raised in the Muggle world, were they not?”

“How did you know that, Severus?”

Severus let a ghastly smile travel across his face. “You forget that I was recruited into the Death Eaters, and the Dark Lord took a personal interest in me. And that I also grew up in the Muggle world, at the hands of one particular Muggle who hated me.”

“I do not think he hated you, Severus. I think that he must have loved you, very deep down. I had my differences with my brother, but I loved him.”

Severus laughed, quietly, and wondered what Aberforth Dumbledore would say if Severus went to ask him. But he said only, “This is not about my background, except insofar as it gives me some knowledge of the Dark Lord’s and Mr. Potter’s. How were they different?’

“Tom Riddle was raised in an orphanage, with no one to call family until perhaps further on—when it would indeed have been too late. Harry was raised with his family.”

“Did they love him? Could a woman like Petunia love anyone?”

Albus gave him a reproving look that grew the ice in Severus’s mind the way winter would. “Just because she is a Muggle and you had bad experiences with her as a child, Severus, does not mean that she is incapable of love.”

“Did she love Harry Potter?”

“She must have. Otherwise, her house would not have been a home for him. The blood protections would not have functioned.”

Severus nodded very slowly. In truth, he knew the kind of blood protections Albus was talking about would have functioned based on intent, not love. Petunia could have intended to shelter Harry for any number of reasons, including some hope that she would raise him to spite her sister if he didn’t have magic, and the protections would have taken.

“I am glad that you are learning to see reason, Severus. Muggles are not lesser than we are. They are not incapable of love.”

Severus nodded throughout the lecture, and finished with, “So you believe Harry Potter was raised with love, and that is the reason he must be possessed by the Dark Lord now?”

“I wish you would call Voldemort by his name, or Tom. Not the title he took for himself.”

“You have neglected to answer my question twice now, Headmaster. I ask now thrice.” Severus lowered his voice, and saw a bit of wariness creep into Albus’s eyes. “Thrice I ask, and done. Is Harry Potter possessed by the Dark Lord?”

Albus hesitated. He might not recognize the source of the demand Severus was making, might not have studied the magic that could be woven with the voice alone and the demand for truth.

Or, more likely, he did, but was not sure that Severus was actually invoking it. It was subtle magic and hard to sense even in a plain, bare room. With the instruments and the phoenix and the spells that the Headmaster had active, it would be impossible.

“I believe so, yes,” Albus said.

“Because of the differences in their childhoods and the way that Mr. Potter is similar to the Dark Lord anyway.”

“Yes.”

Severus nodded, feeling something like relief slide through him. He had turned against Albus in secret long months ago, of course, but there had always been the chance that Albus would prove less inimical to Harry than the Dark Lord in the end. Now there was no chance of that.

Severus and Harry would need to fight for themselves against the Dark Lord, should he turn on them, and fight Dumbledore as well.

Now he knew that for certain.

“This is what I want you to do, Severus…”

Severus listened to the plans in perfect indifference, although now and then he did nod or ask a question. His memory would retain the words for him, and he could always revise them in a Pensieve afterwards.

His mind was busy with the more important plans, the ones that he and Harry would make, and despite Albus’s knowledge of the Horcruxes and plots against Harry, he left the Headmaster’s office feeling lighter.

He had someone to stand beside. Someone he did not have to serve, and someone who would protect him as certainly as Severus would fight to protect Harry.

It was a sensation he had last experienced twenty years ago.

This time, he would do nothing to mess it up.