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Chapter Forty-Five—Enough

“How could this have happened, Severus?”

Severus keeps his head bowed as he sits in front of Albus’s desk. The Headmaster is not asking any question that Severus has not asked himself.

He has gone over and over the scene of Greengrass’s death, and spoken with her parents, and allowed Aurors into the classroom, and brewed the potion himself with the ingredients he can be sure Greengrass had on hand when she died, and spoken to the apothecary who sold the girl the contents of her kit. Nothing can explain what happened. He discussed Greengrass clutching at her chest with her parents, but both of them denied that she had a problem with her heart or that she was allergic to any common Potions ingredients.

Which always leaves the possibility of something they didn’t know about, or an allergy to an interaction of ingredients instead of a single one. Severus has seen that happen before.

They will probably never know.

“I asked you a question.”

Severus raises his head and stares steadily at Albus. “I do not know. We have looked for answers, and I cannot find them.”

“We must.”

“You think this goes beyond the classroom.”

“Yes. I do think that perhaps Voldemort is attempting to influence matters inside the school, Severus, and he might have chosen this method of doing so.”

Severus knows that he can’t keep the incredulity off his face. “The Greengrasses are blood purists—well, not all the branches, but the one that the girl belonged to. And you think that the Dark Lord would want to kill them?”

“I wish you would use his name, Severus.”

“And I wish you would address the question, Albus.”

For a long moment, Albus simply blinks at him, as if he can’t believe the rebuke. Severus glares back and doesn’t bother hiding how upset and disgruntled he is. He has tried and tried to find the answer. What Albus says could be the truth, but there is no evidence, and to have Albus act as if Severus is trying to deny the obvious…

It makes Severus want to kill something, to be honest.

Albus finally clears his throat. “I have to wonder why Sirius suddenly acted so unstable and got himself sent to prison when he was fine for all the years he was away from Britain.”

“Because he was so stable as a boy, what with trying to murder a fellow student before he had even reached the age of seventeen.”

Albus gives Severus the kind of look that tells Severus exactly which conversational path they are heading down before it happens. “You know that Sirius never meant for that to happen, Severus. He wasn’t thinking clearly.”

Severus keeps his opinions on the clarity of Sirius Black’s intellect to himself. “What could this have to do with Greengrass’s death?”

“We know Voldemort is not dead.”

Albus says nothing more after that, even when Severus leans forwards in unsubtle encouragement. It leaves Severus to say, “And you believe that he would have had a hand in both events?”

“We cannot discount it.”

“Because he is alive.”

“Yes.”

Severus rubs his forehead. It will do him no harm with Albus to show that gesture of human fallibility, although he would not do it in front of anyone else in the castle. Well, perhaps Neville and Harry. “Albus, you will have to lay out the steps of your reasoning more clearly. What proof do you have of the Dark Lord’s involvement in Black’s imprisonment and Greengrass’s death? And why would he desire such a thing?’

“That is something I hope my spy can figure out.”

“I have already told you that my usefulness in such endeavors is now limited.”

“I trust that you will figure out a way to spare the world Voldemort’s full return in any case, Severus. If only for young Neville’s sake.”

Severus sighs and stands up. He should have known that Albus would only make the matter more confusing, instead of offering any true clarity. “I will go now.”

Albus does not try to hold him back. Severus glances over his shoulder on the way out the door and finds Albus staring into the flames of his hearth, while Fawkes perches on his shoulder and touches a gentle wing to Albus’s temple.

It makes Severus wonder…

If, perhaps, Albus sees no true connection between these two events, but is only groping after one. If he seeks a clear path because he is frightened by not having one.

If the most powerful wizard of their time is afraid, then Severus will truly have to do most things himself.

He shakes his head, grimaces, and downs a modified Headache Draught that is combined with a calming potion when he gets back to his quarters. Then he sits down and takes a copy of a book that Albus would tear him to shreds for possessing from its hiding place.

It is time to begin serious research into the nature of Horcruxes, not because Severus thinks that it will truly yield insights into Greengrass’s death, but because he wants the Dark Lord dead before he can fully rise again.

For all their sakes.

*

Harry wanders out of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, his mind full of the dust-creatures that he’s going to unleash on Callahan’s broom in the next Slytherin Quidditch game, and isn’t all that surprised when Professor Lupin calls him back. He knows he wasn’t at his best in class today, not paying much attention.

“Yes, sir?”

Lupin looks at Harry with a flat expression and picks up something from behind his desk. Harry stares at it. It’s a little trunk with handles attached to the lid.

“Hurry. We don’t want to be late. We’re unlikely to get permission to visit again until next year, but not at all if we’re late.”

“Where are we going?” And why does he assume that I’ll come with him?

“Azkaban.”

Everything in Harry’s head feels as if it’s tumbled to a halt, as if he were falling down stairs and suddenly someone caught him with a Levitation Charm. He stares at Lupin, but Lupin doesn’t appear to notice. He’s already moving towards the door of the classroom, a closed and cold expression on his face.

He does turn around when he seems to notice that Harry isn’t following him. A wave of amber rolls over his eyes. “Come on, Harry.”

“No.”

“You have to see what you did to your godfather.”

“He did it to himself! If he hadn’t killed Pettigrew like a bloody idiot and then attacked someone in the middle of the Wizengamot—”

“Not that.” Lupin’s voice slips perilously close to a growl, although Harry has to admit that he might not have noticed if he didn’t already know Lupin’s a werewolf. “What you did to him before that. How it eroded his mind and sanity to be without his godson. And then what happened when you wouldn’t give him a chance when we returned to Britain.”

“That was his choice.”

“He would never have been so reckless and impulsive if it hadn’t been for your rejection. You have to see what you did to him.”

Lupin reaches for Harry’s arm. He seems to be idiotic enough to believe that Harry will actually stand still. Harry ducks and rolls, and then he runs around on the other side of the desk. Lupin comes around it fast, of course. Werewolf speed.

Harry scrambles for the door.

“Stupefy!”

The Stunner shoots past him and hits the frame of the door as Harry ducks again. Harry whirls around and stares at Lupin. “Have you gone mad?” he shouts in the professor’s face. “I didn’t do anything to your stupid friend, and—”

“You’ll come with me now.”

Lupin grabs his arm, and Artemis swarms out of Harry’s sleeve and bites him at the same time.

“Artemis!”

“He is trying to do you harm!”

Harry expects Lupin to jerk back in pain but probably not do more than that. After all, Harry didn’t make Artemis venomous when he created her.

But instead, Lupin lifts his hand into the air with a scream. Harry stares. A darkness is spreading down his arm from the place between his fingers where Harry can see the mark of Artemis’s fangs. It’s moving incredibly fast, and already Lupin’s skin is turning black and puffy and starting to fall off his arm.

Harry has no idea what happened. “What…”

“I am venomous when I need to be. I have never needed to be. But now I was.”

Harry blinks and shakes his head. Far more than the magical theory involved, he has to protect himself and Artemis. At least one other person must have known of Lupin’s plan to take Harry to Azkaban, the person he made the appointment with. That means that they’ll be expecting Lupin to show up with Harry in tow.

Harry can’t just run away and pretend that he was never here, not when someone outside Lupin knows he was supposed to be. And he can’t leave Artemis without protection. Lupin will remember her. He might even remember that Harry spoke Parseltongue.

Unless he doesn’t.

Harry moves forwards a light step, drawing his wand. Artemis loops up and around his shoulder. Lupin is still thrashing on the floor, literally howling. The blackness is starting to retreat down his arm, however.

“I am sorry. My venom should have affected him more, but this is the first time I have used it.”

“It might also be because he’s a werewolf. I don’t blame you, Artemis. You might have saved my life.”

She gives a soft, pleased hiss.

Harry kneels down in front of Lupin and looks at his arm critically. Yes, the blackness really is going. Harry turns around and aims his wand between Lupin’s eyes.

The man’s voice is faint, but he still speaks. “Harry. You’re a good boy. You don’t want to do this.”

“I mostly don’t want to do this because it’s annoying. Also, I haven’t practiced it before, so there’s a possibility that you might end up as a drooling husk.” A higher chance than with other people, Harry reflects, because of his difficulties with wanded spells. Well, he’ll just have to do what he can.

Lupin’s expression flickers, and then he lunges forwards and tries to grab Harry again. But Artemis lunges at the same time, and Lupin crashes to the floor trying to avoid her. Harry chuckles as he dances back from the man’s hand. “Good choice. You don’t know that a second dose of the poison wouldn’t be fatal.”

“What are you?”

Harry cocks his head and lets a little of his real self paint the expression on his face. It doesn’t matter, not now. Lupin starts and shrinks back from him.

“A child who was abused, who you ignored, who was abused because you ignored me,” Harry says softly. “You chose the quest that Dumbledore sent you on and each other over me. Fine. But then you had the gall to show up and demand that I consider your welfare above my own.” He shakes his head. “That’s just stupid. Why would you expect me to care about you when you’ve never shown me the slightest consideration?”

“You don’t understand,” Lupin pants. It seems that every other sentence he speaks starts with those words, Harry thinks, bored and irritated. “It killed Sirius to leave you behind, but the quest would have been unsafe for you.”

“And so was the Muggle home. You made the wrong decision, Lupin. Do be quiet now and stop trying to justify yourself.”

“He cannot help himself. It is like a disease.”

“One I have no chance of catching, Artemis. It’s all right.”

“I am not worried about that.”

“How are you a Parselmouth?”

Lupin’s voice is low and horrified. Harry just shakes his head, rolling his eyes. It says something, he thinks, that Lupin is more upset about this than about Harry’s snake biting him or his own plan to bring Harry to Azkaban of all places.

“You don’t need to worry about that.”

“Everything about you concerns me, Harry.”

“Maybe you should work on that.” Harry knows that maybe he should banish the snarl from his face, but it truly doesn’t matter, not given what’s going to happen next. “You would be happier.”

“What are you—”

And then Harry draws his wand and casts the Memory Charm with as much strength as he can.

Lupin’s face glazes, and he falls over. Harry steps close to him and stares into his eyes, Artemis ducking into his robe pocket when Harry gives her a little hiss.

“You told me that we would be going to Azkaban. I was horrified and tried to run away. You grabbed me, and I used a backlash of accidental magic to curse your arm. You remember me telling you that I don’t want you in my life and don’t want to go to Azkaban, but you don’t remember everything else.”

For a long moment, Lupin seems to fight the charm. Harry holds his breath. Rather than risk the truth about Artemis and his Parseltongue getting out, he’ll kill the man and disguise it as one of those backlashes of accidental magic, but he would really prefer to avoid that if he can. It’s too obvious.

And after Greengrass’s death in Potions, they’ll be looking more closely at anything involving strange and unusual magical reactions. It’s one of the reasons that he and Blaise have had to plan Callahan’s death so carefully.

In the end, Lupin sags to the ground. The blackness is almost completely gone from his arm. Harry sighs a little and then says strongly, “Professor?”

Lupin jerks his head up and darts his eyes around. When they fall on Harry, his face crumples.

“I told you that I don’t want to go to Azkaban,” Harry says, as strongly and coldly as he can. “I don’t want you to ever approach me again outside of class. From now on, you should just think of me as your student.”

“Harry…”

Harry hits him with a glare cold enough that Lupin shrinks back, and then he turns and strides out of the classroom.

Once he’s in the corridor, he stands there and shakes.

“We should go.”

Harry opens his eyes and nods, although he doesn’t risk replying, not when he’s still close enough to the classroom door that he thinks Lupin could probably overhear his Parseltongue. For a moment, though, his mind is blank.

He wants to go to Blaise, but he doesn’t know that that would work, that Blaise could help him with what happened. Well, he could help kill Lupin, but Harry still thinks that that’s a bad idea. And he has as much right to protect his boyfriend as Blaise has to protect him.

But there’s someone else.

Harry turns and hurries down the corridors as fast as he can towards Severus’s office.

*

“You wanted Lupin to take the boy to Azkaban? Are you out of your mind, Albus?”

Unlike their previous conversation, Severus doesn’t just let incredulity leak into his voice. He places anger there as well, and he lets it be cold and dark and freezing. Albus just keeps staring at Severus as if he’s never seen him before.

“You need not protect the boy, you know, Severus. Not the way that I asked you to protect young Neville.”

Harry is right. He is merely a casualty of the Headmaster’s fondness for the Marauders.

Severus has to close his hands into fists. “And did you ever think about the fact that the boy in question is Lily’s son and that might matter to me?”

“He is also James’s.”

Careful, Severus. The last thing Severus wants to do is reveal his close association with Harry to Albus. But he does give the Headmaster his most disdainful look and say, “If you think that I am incapable of looking past that when one speaks of bringing a child to Azkaban, then you must truly believe my redemption impossible.”

A complicated series of expressions passes over Albus’s face. Severus watches with carefully restrained glee. In fact, he thinks Albus had him swear the oath to protect Neville more for the usefulness of having a spy than because he believed in Severus’s “redemption,” but it is entertaining to catch Albus up in the contradictions between his beliefs.

“The journey there would not have harmed the boy.”

“Which is why you spoke with Mrs. Zabini before you arranged it, I am certain.”

“Of course not. She is not the boy’s guardian in truth, Severus, only by convenience—”

“Who is his guardian?”

“Sirius, of course.”

“Who could hardly have arranged it, in prison as he is.” Severus folds his arms. “And anyway, he did not act as a guardian for long enough that you know even magical law would have seen him as abrogating his rights, let alone the Muggle side of things.”

“He was Harry’s guardian in spirit, always.”

“Then did he sign the paperwork that would have transferred the right of guardianship to the Dursleys?”

Albus is silent. Severus nods slowly. He knows that Albus skipped going through the Ministry channels not because he wished to torment Harry, but because he thought the boy unimportant.

That has come back to claw the Headmaster’s face off now.

“Why would Lupin have taken the boy to Azkaban?”

“Sirius deserved to speak with him.”

“And what did Mr. Potter deserve?”

Albus’s mask cracks so that his clear frustration emerges. “He did not deserve the right to put Remus in the hospital wing and reap no consequences for it!”

“Lupin spoke to me and admitted that he told the boy they were going to Azkaban with no warning and grabbed his arm, trying to force him through the door of the classroom. Mr. Potter lashed out with accidental magic and laid him on the floor. Yes, he’s under Poppy’s care, but she said she could barely find a thing wrong with him.”

In truth, Severus would be surprised if there was anything. A werewolf can take the kind of damage that an ordinary wizard or witch would die of or at least spend a week in a bed at St. Mungo’s for.

Severus should know, given the amount of research he did into ways to kill werewolves after his encounter with Lupin in his teens.

“Still, the boy attacked his professor.”

“Who attacked him.”

“Trying to take the boy to visit his godfather is hardly an attack.”

Severus closes his eyes. He hoped that he could appeal to Albus’s common sense, but then, the Headmaster has never had much of that when it comes to the Marauders. He will have to take another route. “Do you think that Mrs. Zabini will see the difference?”

“She must be made to. I count on you for that.”

“I cannot do that, Albus.”

“You will not try?”

Severus opens his eyes again and leans in across the desk until his nose nearly touches Albus’s. He can feel the pressure on his Occlumency shields, but he ignores that. Albus won’t get through any more than the Dark Lord ever has. “No, I will not convince the most dangerous woman in Europe that she should forgive you for trying to force her foster son—and the boyfriend of her blood son, if you would remember—to visit the godfather who abandoned him in Azkaban.”

Albus shakes his head. “I could wish young Harry had made a better choice. Young Mr. Zabini could ruin him.”

Severus wants to scream. “Albus. Are you listening? Do you understand that you have probably made yourself Mrs. Zabini’s next target?”

“All of Britain would be outraged if she killed me, and her miraculous ability to shed suspicion for her killings would desert her at last.”

“But you would still be dead.”

“I am telling you the reasons that she would not try to kill me, Severus, no matter what happens to young Harry or Mr. Zabini.”

Severus abruptly gives up. There are still certain terms of the vow to protect Neville that he must keep, but he does not need to be personally loyal to Albus himself. And with the man this far gone in blindness, he will even be able to keep his own actions under the Headmaster’s notice.

“As you say. In the meantime, tell Lupin to keep away from Mr. Potter except when they must interact as professor and student.”

“Or?”

“Or it might not be Lupin’s arm that Mr. Potter makes temporarily swell up the next time.”

“He could not kill Remus.”

“You are blind, Albus,” Severus says, in a cold, empty tone that Albus will probably dismiss as just more “Slytherin nonsense,” and turns and strides out of the office. Fawkes croons after him, but Severus ignores that. It’s probably meant for Albus, anyway.

The idiot.

*

Aradia stands with her eyes shut as outrage sheets through her.

She is deep in a thick purple jungle that lies on the other side of the gap opening to the Suns’ world. It is not often that she can come here, not when the native magic of this world will sink into hers and begin to trouble it, but right after a sacrifice is the best time. And she killed someone who attacked her, a cousin of a husband she slew several years ago. She walks cloaked in service as the Suns understand it, and they protect those who serve them.

All around her are the deep buzzing and singing of the winged frogs of this place, and the miniature dragons that burst into flame and die after a day, and the jumping wolves with crooked hind legs like a rabbit’s.

Perhaps it is for the best that she stays away from the wolves for the moment. They resemble the real target of her ire too much.

I do not know what to do.

Her fury and hatred against Lupin and against Dumbledore are simple things, but also so deep that they make her helpless before them. She could kill them, but that is not enough.

Torturing them might be enough, but she cannot conceive that she would be able to hold them for a sufficient amount of time in captivity before being forced to kill them.

Aradia paces back and forth, her blood so thick and furious inside her that she can come up with no coherent plan. Sacrificing them would not be enough. Stalking and killing them would not be enough. Killing them in the middle of Hogwarts leads to impractical logistical considerations.

As much as she has told her sons about not being reckless and obvious when they take their vengeance, she cannot neglect her own lessons.

She closes her eyes and stands still again. She never thought to feel this way. She trusted to her reputation to protect Blaise in Hogwarts. And if it had not, she knew exactly how to punish the transgressors.

There is no solution to the way that she feels right now.

But in the end, she will come up with something.

She must.

No one touches her foster son and lives.

*

“It is beyond fascinating that she had venom when she needed to.”

Harry smiles at Steel. His mentor wasn’t pleased to hear about the way that Lupin tried to manhandle him, but luckily, they’re far more interested in the way that Artemis manifested venom to protect Harry.

It’s a nice holiday from Blaise, who wants to follow Harry around everywhere, including to their shared Defense classes, and Aradia, who so clearly feels helpless and upset that Harry wants to reassure her. But he can’t exactly do either of those things. He finally had to speak firmly and gently to Blaise and make him promise not to stalk and kill Lupin. At least Blaise is happily occupied now in dreaming up other ways to make Lupin pay.

Aradia’s responses in the journal and Harry’s head are still clipped and heavy, but Harry trusts that she will also find her way to some kind of peace.

That peace might be deadly for Lupin and Dumbledore, but that’s not Harry’s problem.

“Do you think you could do it with another creature?”

Harry tears his thoughts from contemplating Blaise and Aradia, and finds Steel patiently waiting for his attention. Harry flushes. “Sorry.”

“No. I am merely interested. Could you do this with another creature?”

“Maybe with Ignis. He’s the only one as complicated as Artemis. But I mostly made him to do what Blaise needs, so I don’t really think so.”

“And if you made another one like us, you might take up more of your wanded magic, and then what would happen if you needed to perform the Memory Charm right the first time again?”

Harry smiles and scoops up Artemis from the shelf where she’s been watching him and Steel speak. “That’s true.”

“I think your gift goes deeper.”

“Huh?”

Steel’s eyes glint a little with amusement, but they merely tap their claws together the way they do when they’re thinking. “Deeper than merely creating life. Animals have life. That is what I have been thinking, and what Aradia and I have treated it as. But what if it goes deeper than that?”

“How could it, though?”

“What if what you make is a spirit? It would explain the way that your most complicated creations can change and adapt to their circumstances.”

Harry can barely speak as he sees what Steel is getting at. “If they have a soul.”

“Yes.” Steel’s claws tap together faster. “I think—I think we should study this further.”

And Harry, half-marveling and half-terrified, can only agree.