[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Chapter Thirty-Seven of 'Adagio'- Imminent Threats

[lomonaaeren]

“This is full of rubbish.”

“And also full of cursed objects. Wand out.”

Harry shot Severus a withering glance. His wand was already out, of course. Severus hid a smile and led Harry into the piles of furniture, unraveling tapestries, old brooms, and worse.

They searched for more than an hour before Harry uttered a low hiss. At the same time, Severus felt a twinge in his Mark. He turned towards Harry, who had one hand clapped across his scar and one eye squinted shut.

“You are in pain?” Severus asked sharply.

“Not—intolerable. I suppose this is the way that my Horcrux reacts with other Horcruxes.”

“I have a pain potion. There is no reason—”

“It must mean that it’s close, right?”

“Yes, of course.” Severus rubbed his Mark, and Harry’s eyes skittered across it. “I can feel the same pain here.”

Harry started. Severus looked at him evenly, but Harry didn’t object to Severus’s presence, and didn’t say whatever he was thinking. There was a faint, thoughtful frown on his face as he turned away and began to walk in the direction of a large cabinet.

Severus expected to hear whatever it was Harry was thinking about, later.

The cabinet turned out to bear the bust of an ugly warlock atop it, and on the warlock’s head, a silver diadem hung, carelessly placed. Severus halted when he saw it, and Harry turned towards him, wand poking out of his holster.

“Severus?”

Severus cleared his throat, eyes still locked on the diadem. “I believe that—is—surely the lost diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw.”

“Things that are important to him,” Harry murmured, his head tilted and thoughts traveling so fast through his green eyes that they flickered with the light of a storm. “Hogwarts mattered to him. It makes sense that he would look for Founders’ artifacts.” Harry shook his head, an expression of almost professional disgust on his face. “Imagine ripping up your soul to store in them instead of basking in the prestige for collecting them.”

Severus managed a smile with an effort. It was hard not to reach out and touch the diadem, even knowing what it must be. The diadem offered wisdom and insight unparalleled. The potions he could brew with it—

A Stinging Hex hit his hand.

Severus shuddered and snatched back his arm. He had been reaching for the diadem, and hadn’t even known it. He looked at Harry, who stared back at him without expression.

“Thank you,” Severus said hoarsely.

“You’re welcome.” Harry contemplated the diadem for a second, his head on the side and an ancient look in his eyes. “It’s ugly, isn’t it?”

“I—do not find it so.”

“So you don’t see it as tarnished?”

“No.” Severus turned back to the diadem to make certain, but it still looked like cool and gleaming silver. The sapphire set in the front of it made him have to swallow an instinctive hunger to touch it, to wear it—

Another Stinging Hex hit his hand. Severus cursed and closed his eyes, freezing his mind with spreading webs of frost-like Occlumency. Harry shifted beside him and said softly, “I think I should be the one to gather this Horcrux, Severus.”

“Yes, please do.” Severus stood in the darkness and listened to the rustling as Harry conjured a bag and used his wand to lift the diadem and imprison it in the bag. All the while, he shuddered and clenched his hands. He had never encountered a threat, not from the time he was eighteen years old, that could prevail against his Occlumency.

“It’s all right.”

Harry’s shoulder was pressed to his. Severus nodded and walked towards the door of the Room of Requirement with his eyes closed. What stung him the most was not humiliation, but the realization that Harry might have to handle most of their hunt for Horcruxes alone.

*

“Have you noticed any signs of possession in Harry, Severus?”

Severus sighed and looked up from the essays spread out in front of him. This time, Albus simply stood in the doorway of his office. Severus supposed it was preferable to appearing in his Floo, but only just.

“No, Albus.”

“You sound certain.”

“Why ask me to watch out for them in the first place if you will simply doubt every negative answer?”

Albus dragged a student chair forwards with his wand instead of answering, and Transfigured it into a throne with a high gold back that was studded with semiprecious jewels. Severus was careful not to roll his eyes. “I fear that things are coming to a head,” Albus said with a sigh, sitting down in the chair and turning so that he could meet Severus’s eyes. “I find it suspicious and strange that Voldemort has not made a move—unless he is making ones that we cannot see, hidden beneath that placid mask of Mr. Potter’s.”

Severus rubbed his forehead. He had essays to mark and strategy to think through, and if he was no longer as desperate as he had felt a year ago, that didn’t mean it was easy to have Albus here and have to dance through his words so that he spoke no direct lie that Albus’s Legilimency could pick up. “I still do not believe that the Dark Lord is possessing Mr. Potter.”

“I know that you are close to the boy and wish to think no ill of him, Severus. But that is not reality.”

“You are not close to him. How do you know?”

“I told you about their similarities, more than could be accorded to mere chance—”

“There are similarities between myself and the Dark Lord as well, but you do not think that he is possessing me.”

“You know love, as he does not.” Albus gave him what was probably meant to be a comforting smile. “I am not sure that Mr. Potter does.”

“Why not?” Of course, Severus would not reveal anything Harry had done for him, but this was a strangely confident pronouncement when Albus truly did not know anything about the boy.

“He does not love his family—”

“They abused him, Albus.”

Albus paused and seemed to think that through, so that Severus felt an ember of hope burning, before Albus shook his head. “They are still his family. One might say that they hate their family members, but love lies buried at the root of all their interactions.”

“You are significantly less intelligent than I thought, Albus, if you believe Petunia Dursley is a loving woman.”

“I am certain she loves her husband and son. And I did not come here to discuss her. I came to discuss what you think of Mr. Potter.”

“More capable of love than you think. Because he does not care for the Muggles who abused him, you would not deny him all capacity for the emotion? That is your own fondness for Muggles blinding you, Albus.”

“Hating Muggles is also very like Tom.”

Severus openly rolled his eyes. “Lucius Malfoy hates them. You do not think that the Dark Lord is possessing him, although it would be a wise choice when Lucius has more power and prestige than Mr. Potter—”

“I am here to ask you what you think of my theory, Severus, not to listen to a lecture.”

Oh, that sharpness was new. Severus leaned a little back in his chair and evaluated Albus before he said at last, slowly, “I do not believe that the Dark Lord could have possessed Mr. Potter, Albus.”

Albus sighed. “I had thought you would see the signs. It would make my course of action clearer.”

“What course of action?”

“Mr. Potter will need to die before the end of this year.”

It felt as if Severus’s whole world had been traveling at an even pace and had suddenly jerked to a stop. He stood up and croaked, “What.” His wand was in his hand, although he did not remember drawing it, and pointing at Albus.

Albus simply looked at him, his head cocking a little, as if he welcomed the chance to consider Severus from this closer angle. “Yes. It would be true even if my possession theory is not true. He is a Horcrux, Severus. He holds Tom to life. The death of a child is always a sad event, but many more children will die if Harry lives. And if he dies before the end of this year, we will be all the safer.”

“Would you do this if the boy were a Gryffindor?”

“You think that this is a matter of Houses? You think I do not care for him?”

“I will level the charge at you that you leveled at me when I came to ask you to protect Lily. You care for unknown children you cannot even name more than you care for him!”

“That is not the same charge.” Albus folded his hands and regarded Severus over the top of his glasses. “I am caring for more people than the one immediately in front of me. It is what I will require you to do as well.”

“I swore an Unbreakable Vow to protect the boy,” Severus hissed back, taking the first joy that he ever had in that circumstance, as bitter as it was. “You think I could disregard it? Or that I should kill him and court my own death?”

“Yes. You swore to protect Lily’s child.”

“Yes.”

“That is not Lily’s child. That is Tom. You can get around the Vow and live.”

Severus laughed, and heard the echoes sound like metal clanging off metal. “He is not possessed, Albus. You have your own means of ascertaining whether he is.”

“In fact, I just came from asking young Harry to open his Occlumency shields so that I might read his thoughts and make sure that the Horcrux was not unduly influencing him. Not that I phrased it like that, of course. We must not let Tom know he has been discovered. But Harry refused, and I could not pry open his mind without being detected.”

Severus had to lean his arm on his desk, he was laughing so hard. “You were the one who directed me to teach him Occlumency, remember, Headmaster?”

“I confess, I did not think Harry would become this good.”

“I am not going to kill him.”

“You will condemn the world if you do not.”

“Why?” Driven by the goad of his own bitterness, Severus smiled at the man who had had a part in making his life hell and asked, “Why can you not do it yourself?”

There was a pause long enough that Severus wondered exactly what Albus was thinking. He had never seen the Headmaster like this, unless he was using the hesitation as a political ploy—which of course he might be.

At last, Albus sighed and murmured, “I care for the boy too much.”

“And you think I care less?”

“He is still James Potter’s son. He is still the incarnation of the man who killed Lily.”

Severus tucked his wand away and took a deep breath. It was hard, knowing that Albus was an imminent threat to Harry, but he could not do otherwise. He would begin to duel Albus if he kept his wand out, and he could not face the Headmaster and live.

He needed to live, for Harry’s sake.

“My Vow would not let me. I am not convinced he is possessed.”

“What more proof do you need?”

“More than ‘he grew up in the Muggle world and loathes his guardians’ and ‘he is good at Occlumency.’”

“Do you truly believe that Harry would have become so good at Occlumency himself without Tom to teach him? Truly, Severus?”

“Why, Headmaster,” Severus drawled, finding black hilarity at the bottom of it all, “this sounds as if you doubt my skill in teaching.”

Albus closed his eyes and stood there for a moment. Severus watched him back. There could be all kinds of things going on here, he thought. Everything from Albus telling the truth to trying to use this kind of directive to reestablish a hold on Severus he had sensed was slipping.

“If I get you the proof,” Albus said at last, quietly, without opening his eyes, “will you kill him?”

“I would still have to go against the Vow.”

“But if Harry Potter is essentially already dead…”

“You do not think I can teach him impenetrable Occlumency, but you think I can convince myself that mental survival matters more than physical?”

Albus sighed again and said, “I will get you the evidence.” And he turned and walked out of Severus’s office.

Severus leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. His hand shook, lightly, as he laid it atop the Dark Mark.

He needed to speak to the Dark Lord as soon as possible. Severus knew what he wanted to do, but it was such a drastic step that he needed his Lord’s permission.

He would talk to Harry about it as well, of course, but he already thought Harry would approve. The Dark Lord might not.

But Merlin, Severus hoped he would.