[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Chapter Forty-Three of 'Adagio'- The Cause of Atonement

[lomonaaeren]

Albus had told no one else how much he had steadily weakened. Severus had assumed that Poppy knew at first, but when he made a reference to Albus’s “time left” in front of her, she had laughed a little and reassured him that it was just an allergy to some common Potions ingredients, which was apparently the lie Albus had fed her.

“How do you expect Madam Pomfrey to help you if she does not know the truth?” Severus asked, as he held the latest of an array of useless potions to Albus’s lips. He enjoyed the license to experiment and brew, but nothing could counteract the poison.

Albus swallowed and slumped back in his chair, closing his eyes. “You could call her Poppy, Severus. You have been colleagues long enough.”

“I would like an answer to my question.”

“She cannot do anything, and I would not want to worry her.”

Severus held back the temptation to say that it would worry Poppy if Albus flaked to ash in front of her. In truth, there was no reason to assume that the poison’s effect would be quite that dramatic. He settled back, his arms folded across his chest. “And what happens if you cannot defeat this curse?” Albus seemed to be utterly stuck on the theory that the Dark Lord had cursed him somehow.

“Then I must have your oath.”

Albus was suddenly sitting upright, his eyes more direct and strong than they had been in weeks. Severus regarded him warily. “Related to what?”

“That you will rid Harry of the Horcrux inside him.”

“Kill him and myself, you mean.”

“You could get around the Vow if you applied your Occlumency, Severus. I know how good an Occlumens you are.”

Severus spent a moment considering his options. There were many things he wanted to say, but they might give the game away. On the other hand, Albus was dying, and Severus’s resistance to the idea of destroying Harry was not new.

“I think that you want me to die,” Severus breathed, as if it were a new revelation, his eyes locked on Albus’s. “I think you would prefer I do not outlive you, even if the Dark Lord is not doing anything in particular at the moment, because you do not trust that I will continue down the path of redemption without you to watch over me.”

Albus jerked backwards. The chair in which he sat wobbled and nearly fell. Fawkes issued a warning croon from his perch.

Severus glanced over at the phoenix. Fawkes hid his head beneath his wing in response. Severus controlled the temptation to sneer. Ruddy bird.

“I have never wanted you to die, Severus. To atone, yes. But not to die.”

“How is killing the boy I swore to protect atonement?”

Albus was silent for a long moment, as though considering an actual answer—or, Severus thought, a way to phrase the actual answer that Severus would accept. Then he looked up and said simply, “It would prove that you care about the soul of Harry Potter—the untarnished Harry, without the possession by Tom that now afflicts him—more than you care about the simple survival of a vessel possessing Lily’s blood.”

A vessel.

Severus wanted to scream and throw something. The Headmaster had thought of Lily as the means to an end, to make Severus swear to him, and now he thought of Harry as the means to an end, too.

As a chain to yank so that Severus would dance to his tune.

“I am not in the business of caring about souls,” Severus sneered.

“That is more than evident, given the way you have endangered your own.”

Albus’s words broke off into fiery coughs, and this time, there was no denying the flames that jerked forth from his lips. Severus raised his eyebrows. Perhaps the poison would ensure that Albus flaked to ash, after all.

Severus dearly hoped he was there to witness it.

“And killing Mr. Potter would splinter it further, would it not? If the Vow did not simply kill me in response.”

“I truly believe it would not, Severus.”

“Perhaps I am not so assured of that.”

Albus closed his eyes and sat back, rasping. Severus listened and determined that the rasps did sound much the same as someone’s voice would after breathing in smoke for an undetermined period of time.

It soothed part of his—ha—soul.

“Then I shall have to assume that you do not care so much about Lily,” Albus whispered at last. He did not open his eyes again, but his hand groped out, faltering, and then closed on Severus’s with what was probably all the strength he had left. “Because you would let Tom walk around wearing her son’s skin and dishonor her memory.”

“Do not presume to tell me how much I care about Lily,” Severus hissed in response. He kept his voice low to hide the enjoyment and project as much anger as possible.

In truth, he had become—not immune, but aware, of the ways that Albus was trying to manipulate him by constantly bringing up Lily, far more than he had in the months or years before this.

“Would you truly wish me to take on the task of killing the boy myself?”

“You are the only one convinced it is necessary,” Severus’s voice replied, while the rest of him sat up in ringing, paralyzed rage.

If you touch him—

But Severus would make it such that Albus could not touch him. If nothing else, he would simply order Harry to sneak out of the school under the Invisibility Cloak, Apparate to the Dark Lord, and stay there until Albus was dead.

Severus folded his arms now and shook his head. “Are you sure that your idea that Mr. Potter is possessed is not a further consequence of the curse clouding your mind, Albus?”

Albus blinked and shifted around in his chair. Severus enjoyed the uncertainty driving his every movement right now. Albus clearly hadn’t thought of that possibility, and liked it even less than he liked the idea of Harry Potter possessed by Tom Riddle.

In the end, Albus simply shook his head and said firmly, “I was convinced of this before the symptoms of the curse showed up.”

“How do you know that? The curse could be slow-acting, and it could have happened at a time when you went into public, given how hard it would be for a Death Eater to sneak into Hogwarts.”

Severus enjoyed saying that, given the Death Eater who was currently sitting in an agonized torment of indecision in “Professor Dawlish’s” office.

“I know that this curse is Tom’s work. Not the work of any Death Eater.”

Severus sighed a little. “Very well. But you will get no oath out of me.”

“Then I must do it myself.”

Severus cocked his head. “Do you think the Unbreakable Vow I swore to protect Lily’s son will let me step aside and do nothing when it comes to that, Albus?”

Albus paused, long enough to cough again and roast part of his beard off with the flames coming out of his mouth. But he shook his head and murmured, “You have made it clear that you intend to obstruct me no matter what, Severus. I will not allow your disapproval to weigh with me anymore.”

Severus stepped back, watching the Headmaster narrowly. He made no attempt to stand, however. And the progress of the poison was such that Severus thought Albus would not be up to any strenuous running or dueling for this evening, at least.

“You don’t have to do anything, Severus,” Albus said softly. “You can avert your eyes. Send Harry to me tomorrow morning without telling him why I want to see him. Speak and then ignore the consequences. The exact thing you are so good at.”

Albus was trying to sting him about carrying the prophecy to the Dark Lord or maybe about insulting his students the way he did, but Severus did not care. He was deep in the ice, and he only nodded and turned and left the office for what might be the last time.

Let Albus take the nod as he would.

*

As soon as he reached the corridor that led to the Defense professor’s quarters, Severus lengthened his stride. He knocked briskly on “Dawlish’s” door and listened to the shuffling inside before Barty opened it.

“Yes?” Barty asked listlessly. He had been listless most of the time since he had been tortured at the Dark Lord’s hands.

“Albus is planning to kill Harry.”

Barty’s eyes widened, and his wand slid into his hand without his seeming to be aware of it. “That is—how can we stop him?”

“Our Lord ordered me to kill him in a slow, subtle way, and not until the end of term. However, I am not sure what I should do now. I do not wish to disobey our Lord’s orders, but we must protect Harry at all costs. He is the key to our Lord’s stability.”

“And you care for him,” Barty muttered, but he wasn’t trying to sting with the words. He might also be thinking that Harry was the cure to his own stability, Severus thought. “There is one thing I’m practically an expert in.”

“What’s that?”

“The Imperius Curse.”

Severus stared at him. When Barty returned the stare with an impatient look, he said, “I was aware that you suffered under it, but I was not aware that that gave you expertise in casting or holding it.”

Barty snorted. “I didn’t have a lot to do during the summer when I wasn’t tutoring Harry but read. I went into a lot of the theory behind the curse. I know exactly how it works, now, and how to flex it to hold a powerful mind and direct that mind without even letting the target know that they’re under Imperius.”

“And you believe that you can do it to Albus?”

“He’s dying. He’s preoccupied with thoughts about Harry. Yes, I can do it if I take him by surprise.” Barty breathed out. “Is he likely to leave the office this evening to come to dinner in the Great Hall?”

“I don’t believe so. He is increasingly sickly.”

“Then I’ll have to make up an excuse to visit him. Well, he did ask that I reconsider my behavior towards the other professors.” Barty’s voice was full of acid. “I’ll just pretend that I have to see him because of a conflict with you.”

Severus half-smiled. “That will work. If you are sure that you can hold him…”

He would not have suggested such a course. Even weakened, Albus was a formidable duelist and a skilled Occlumens. He should have been able to fight off an Imperius Curse from someone as much magically weaker than he was as Barty easily.

But Barty was giving him a look that was half-pleading. “This way, I know that I’m helping you fulfill our Lord’s orders to prolong Albus’s death and keep the boy safe, but I’m not interfering with his orders not to ask questions. Please, Severus. This might be the only thing I can do to prove…”

To win your way back into the Dark Lord’s good graces? In truth, Severus was not sure if that would be possible. The Dark Lord had not summoned Barty to torture him or berate him since the night he’d come crawling to the doors of the hospital wing, from what Severus knew, but neither had Barty received a summons of forgiveness or even communication.

“If you are sure.”

“Yes, I am.”

Severus nodded. “If you cannot hold him, you must flee before he can look into your mind.”

“Do you think I’m stupid?”

No. Devoted, and reckless in the name of proving your devotion.

But Severus only nodded again and said, “I shall be in my office if you—require my aid with anything.”

“Thanks, Severus.” Barty turned to go, but hesitated, and Severus waited, although he was internally dreading the sounds of battle to come down the corridors, as they inevitably would if Albus found himself strong enough to attack Harry.

“And Severus?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for giving me a chance to make up for irritating the Dark Lord.”

Barty started towards the staircase that would take him most directly to Albus’s office, and Severus stared after him for a moment. Then he shook his head.

Albus had accused Severus of resisting the need for forgiveness and atonement, but it seemed he was doomed to be the cause of atonement in other people.