Another HP moment. -- Falling Stars
I am still wrangling with several of my SV pieces and hope to post something by wed, but this has almost been writing itself the past two days.
Title: Falling Stars
Rating: PG, Angst
Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?
Falling Stars
Unexpectedly, at the last rise of stairs, Severus had to pause to steel his nerves. Sneering at his own moment of weakness, the professor reminded himself of the long decision making process that he had gone through to reach this conclusion. In retrospect, the logic of it was still sound.
He had paid the penance of his earlier tragic decision to the fullest extent that he could. He had done Albus’s bidding to the letter. The war was over. The Dark Lord was vanquished. Even if his family would accept his return, he was not the same man who had left them… a man they could or should love… a man who could love them in return. There was no reason or purpose left to hold him.
Severus had by necessity become a thorough study of the human mindset; as such he thoroughly understood that -though he had found a measure of friendly acceptance among both of the sides- he would go down in the annuals of history as a turn-coat, if he was even named in the footnotes. Their memories of his often unknown services would quickly fade - becoming vague and suspicious. Soon, seeds of doubt would blossom, and the security that Dumbledore’s presence and backing had secured for him would fall as surely as his mentor had.
After shutting the swift stab of pain that came at the thought of Albus’s sacrifice, Severus shook off his lethargy and took the stairs two at a time before he was tempted to rethink his decision yet again. His progress was quickly halted as he threw a hand up to push the door at the top of the stairs open and nearly broke his wrist. It had been locked and warded shut… with a very familiar signature.
Sneering in disgust at the reasons that the reckless hero might have locked the astronomy tower (all of which undoubtedly cycled around the youngest Weasley sibling in varying shades of dress), Severus nearly turned and left them to their personal celebrations. After all, despite the obstacle the boy was being to his plans, Potter had certainly earned the right to risk his reputation with a hasty wand-point wedding. What did it matter if he was delayed one more day? Shaking his head wryly as he turned, Severus was almost amused by the matter.
Having ample exposure to the boy’s mind through the ‘remedial potions lessons’, Severus had been uncomfortably aware that the boy was still an innocent in every sense of the word. In fact, he was certain that Potter had never even having gone beyond two tentative and chaste kisses with the young Miss Weasley, whom Severus suspected was actually the more experienced of the two despite her brothers’ constant tendency to be overprotective. Not that he would have wanted to be privy to the boy’s peccadilloes; but, with the intense demands being placed on the the young Gryffindor, Severus had thought, more than once, that the child should have been encouraged, at least occasionally. to follow the model of his friends and enjoy the life he had so painfully earned.
Perhaps, it was even right that Severus should find himself so delayed to take the same opportunity. Would it be so bad to participate in the revelry while they still considered him a companion of sorts? He would still depart before their fickle opinions had the chance to change. Perhaps he might even take the opportunity to lift the tankard that Moody had offered to buy him - in the auror’s irrational joy at the dark - at Voldemort’s demise. It would be amusing if only to watch the convolutions that Rosemerta’s face would undoubtedly go through. The delay grew in appeal as he considered it, and Severus was soon turning to go back downstairs and join the revelers when his mind oddly separated several sounds from the ecstatic hue and cry rising up the spiral stairs.
With his back to the door, the sounds were easily separated both by their location and by their nature. Those rising from below were chaotic and joyous while those coming from behind him were frantic and heartrending - filled with anguish and anxiety. What most surprised Severus though was that they were not human. The frantic cries were clearly that of an owl… and Fawkes, the headmaster’s phoenix.
Turning back to the door, Severus listened carefully for the sounds of the boy’s sobbing or other emotional outburst, but he heard nothing. If he had, he would have immediately returned with McGonagall to comfort the boy’s well deserved unravel; but, aside from the panicked hooting and pathetic phoenix trills, the roof was disturbingly quiet. An unpleasant apprehension began to claw at his chest.
If the boy wanted to break down, in private, there were numerous rooms to do so in. The room of requirement. Several on the third and fourth floors that Severus had certain knowledge of the boy exploring in his first year. The Gryffindor tower. Even the headmaster’s bedrooms, which had been given over to the boy in the last days of the war - as the only rooms sufficiently warded to dampen Voldemort’s almost constant mental attacks. To Severus’s knowledge, the child had yet to move back into the tower and had never given his friends or dorm mates the passwords at the late headmaster’s request.
There were no logical reasons that he could bring to mind for the boy to choose the astronomy tower in his still fragile condition, particularly given the availability of so many closer rooms and the long winding climb to the tower’s roof… and especially none that would explain or justify the alarmed hoots and cries that he was hearing. As if to peak his interest, other frantic bird cries, hoots, and caws joined the first. Had the boy, even in his weakened state, made it to the top of the tower - only to collapse?
Setting aside his indecision, Severus brought forward the delicate imprint of Harry’s persona and magic that he had captured early in their occulmency lessons to camouflage him from Voldemort were they ever to link with Potter’s mind simultaneously. Pulling it around him, Severus softly whispered ‘finite’ and carefully pushed the door open, drawing his wand in case Potter needed immediate first aid. Had he not done so, Potter would have died moments later - for on hearing the soft barely audible squeak of the hinges, Potter frantically pushed through the wall of crows, owls, eagles, (and Fawkes) that had been holding him on the bulwark and stepped off the edge.
Had Severus’s reflexes been even a second slower, the wizarding world would have lost its latest hero. Instead, without pausing to think, Severus roared ‘Immobillus’ and froze even the air surrounding Potter so that the child hung over the edge of the tower - staring at the ground below. As his heart lurched in panic, Severus rushed forward grabbing the boy and pulling him back in.
“You idiot boy! You idiot boy! What on earth were you thinking? What possessed you?” Staring down at the broken child, Severus wanted to shake him but feared leashing his temper if he did.
“Albus gave his life - for you, and you do this? Why?” The headmaster wasn’t even in his grave yet, and the ungrateful wretch was throwing away the headmaster’s gift. He had the right to be distressed certainly, to feel broken, to wallow in depression, yes… to that and so many other possible responses, but this? No, the child had no right to do this.
“What were you thinking?” he wanted to shriek, but it only came out as a choked question.
“He was thinking of you and of everyone else, who’s prophesied to die, tonight.” a solemn voice answered from the parapet’s entrance.
“Prophesied?” Severus shuddered at the thought that his death had been prophesied. “There was another prophesy when, from whom?”
“Three nights ago. It was given in the presence of Harry, the Headmaster, and Headmistress McGonagall as they waited for news of Ginny and Fleur’s recovery.”
Scanning the darkness, Severus suddenly jerked his head back and scowled as he recognized Potter’s know-it-all friend hovering in the door. At the last report, he’d been told that she was still recovering from the trauma of watching her fiancé die in the last battle after being surrounded mid air by an entire nest of dementors. Poppy doubted that she would be back to her self even by the end of the week. Yet, here she stood babbling about a prophesy.
“What is the meaning of this? Trelawny was the only verified seer living after the first war.”
He did not need to add that she had been killed in Hogsmeade eight months earlier after it had come to Voldemort’s attention, due to a slip in Harry’s shields, that Trelawny had been the seer prophesying both his return and Harry’s role. Hermione would know that as well as he, having been one of Potter’s few supports in the weeks that followed the Hogsmeade attack.
An unnerving smile crossed her lips as she studied him. Finally, when he was about to demand an explanation, she actually snorted - delicately and rather femininely, but snorted nonetheless and answered, “Verified perhaps, though I would have loved to see her own scores, the old fraud. Yes, she was the only ‘verified’ seer, but that was due to Headmaster Dumbledore’s fear that the ministry would persecute a muggleborn seeress - particularly one befriending the boy-who-lived.”
Waiting with a smirk as the implications sunk in, Hermione nodded when his eyes asked the question that he barely kept himself from asking.
“Yes, me.” She answered, regardless. “Perhaps you noticed that it seemed to take me twice as long to recover from being petrified by the basilisk than any of its other victims?”
“Or, did you think, that perhaps it was due to my muggle bloodline?” She nearly laughed when his shocked expression confirmed her suspicion. “No, somehow, the mandrake potion triggered my first prophesy. It rather startled Madam Pomfrey. No doubt it would have startled you even more.”
“Four of five remained alive bonded by hate and love, slaves of the past. One haunted, two hunted, one beloved but guilty, two hated but innocent - two left at last. The fifth lives anew in love but hatred, too. Until with a sixth, they become three.”
“huhhhh.” Severus sighed as he slowly attempted to interpret the strangely complex prophesy. “Only you could have predicted something so convoluted.”
It was surreal to hear her chuckle as they almost ignored one of her closest friends still lying spellbound at their feet.
“Well, that’s perhaps true; however, if Trelawny had truly accepted her gifts and studied them instead of trying to pass off that drivel on us, so much of the sorrow that has happened over the past ten years could have been avoided. Instead, she effectively forced the powers to use her as a conduit for only the simplest and most straight forward messages that her audience could self-interpret. On top of that, she was so much of a gossip monger that even the memory of her visions were kept from her, so that she wouldn’t let the information slip to the wrong person.”
“You’re saying that you remember you’re visions… and interpret them?” he sneered and continued, “How convenient. Tell me just what did that one mean.”
“It’s not quite as simple as that, prophesy is not about predicting the future in order for others to try and change it as Voldemort did - selecting Harry because he feared that he would have less of a chance against a pure-blood wizard than he would a half-blood like himself.” At his questioning look, she explained: “The proper role of prophesy is merely to help those involved understand, recognize present options, and accept what must come to pass. But, Voldemort wasn’t capable of any of those things, and he believed or wanted to that he could thwart the prophesy by choosing his opponent.”
Severus’s look of doubt begged for an answer, and Hermione couldn’t resist finally being allowed to explain something to him so continued even though she knew the prophesied events were swiftly approaching.
“In some senses, he was a strong believer in what muggles call genetics and worried that magic was necessarily carried in the blood (hence blood magics). In his mind, the purer the bloodline, the purer and more dangerous the bloodline. Hence his decision to attack Harry’s parents (one a muggle born and the other a lesser pureblood from a family with several instances of ‘muggle contamination’ in its bloodline). That was just another reason that he allowed pure bloods to retain the highest ranks in his little militia (in addition to their hefty donations to his cause): he believed that their presumably stronger magic would provide a better defense.”
“And… what does that prophesy have to do with this?”
“Well, quite a lot actually, but hopefully we’ll be able to discuss it at a later date. I was merely using it as an example of how much suffering was caused because of it.”
“How quaint, but you still haven’t explained your prophesy.”
“I was actually hoping to see whether you would draw its meaning.”
“I see several possibilities. Tell me, has it come to pass?”
“Yes. If we had more time, it would be interesting to let you puzzle it out. Basically, it discussed Sirius’s return, Peter Petegrew’s exposure, Severus’s death … And your mental link with Harry and Remus in the final battle with the Dementors and Voldemort. Three becoming one to cast a form of patronus that none could have alone.”
“How is that possible? I assure you that there was not even one moment in time during which I could have been considered one of the Marauders.”
“Perhaps you were not welcomed by them, but think back, consider whether you can remember spending a greater amount of time with any of your housemates than you did with them. You were an outcast in your house - reviled by the others because of your parentage. Until your seventh year, who did you spend most of your time following, trading pranks with, and challenging?”
Stepping backward in shock, Severus turned a snarling grimace back to Har- Potter. Potter had sworn that he had never disclosed those or other details, and now he was seeing the truth of the arrogant boy’s honor. Without thinking, Severus felt himself drawing his foot back in a barely aimed kick. He wouldn’t strike anywhere that was already damaged, but it was absolutely beyond bearing for the boy to not share in the pain of this last betrayal.
“Severus, no. Harry didn’t tell me. I saw it for myself.” Hermione explained in a rush, recognizing the pain, anger, and anguish in his expression, “That, and the Christmas in France when you took Gabrielle Fontescue’s aunt to the Louvre. Sir… Professor, Harry never knew about that. You know he didn’t. He doesn’t know about Juliette, either. But, I do.”
“How dare you! How did you find out? How did…” His eyes snapped sharply to her, the betrayal no less pained but now at a different target. “A time turner. I always suspected that you were given one third year. Taking all of those courses when there was simply no time to do so. But, Albus wouldn’t speak of it. Then, Black miraculously disappears before he’s about to be kissed.’
‘Tell me child, didn’t they tell you that using those to go back and spy on someone’s life is absolutely against the rules. I was even a confirmed spy for the order and the side of light, but Albus refused my request for one. Then, he allows you to have one. Tell me, did you enjoy your little voyeuristic trip through my life? Hmm? Which made you laugh loudest when my father beat me or when James humiliated me or when Voldemort debased me? Which did you enjoy most? I’m dying to know.” His rant ended on a bitter laugh.
“Professor, stop and think for a moment. I’m certain you know how closely the ministry monitors time turner spells, and how restricted it is. Do you really think they gave it to me to get a few extra class credits in? No matter how bright I was, they wouldn’t take that kind of risk. I couldn’t have gone back for frivolous reasons, even if I had wanted to. Think! I was given the time turner precisely because I was a seer, and if you think the general rules regarding time turners are strict, you should see the seer’s restrictions on time turners. It took me the whole summer between my second and third year to read the entire book and I finally had to test out on it. That was a trick in itself; the headmaster helped me borrow a few of the supplies to mix polly juice so that I could take my test as Professor Trelawny. She even tasted flaky.”
Despite his still-churning anger, Severus couldn’t help pulling up short from his pacing at that comment with a harsh chuckle.
“Professor, I didn’t find a minute of it amusing. Not watching your childhood … or Harry’s” Hermione stepped between them and cast a glance at her friend who was staring up at her with his own shocked, angry expression. “Do you think I wouldn’t have gone back and pulled him away from their clutches, rules or no rules if I wasn’t so strongly and magically bound to my duty?”
“Why didn’t you ever tell us, Love?” she asked softly, but Harry was still spellbound and until she got through to Severus, Hermione knew that she couldn’t release him. While she was the strongest witch of her age, she had long ago recognized that Harry was beyond her ability to contain.
“Or you, for that matter, no matter what you think of me, consider how I feel about any thing being mistreated- even house elves. Do you honestly believe I would have left a child in those conditions if it would not have been ruinous not to? Do you think I would have let Ron…” She broke of dashing tears from her eyes and focused determined eyes on the professor as she continued, “We don’t have time for this. No matter what you may think of me. Harry needs you. There’s so little time.”
As she finished speaking, Hermione pulled a remeberall out of her pocket and swept her hand over it, before murmuring ‘Wulfric.’ Setting aside his pique, Severus turned his rapt attention to the globe floating above her palm as a thin wisp of smoke twisted inside it to form a small image of Hermione within the globe. As he studied it, an echo of her soft voice gently sang in tones of unearthly sadness:
On the night that sees
Goliath die -- wraith-razed,
Joyous toasts lifted,
And young David praised--
A freed fool’s enmity
Shall crest and break,
Leaving revelers -
Deaths disguised
By war’s wake -
Lest David, cloaked,
In Death’s grim pall,
Should seem to fall-
Where Goliath, too,
From heights on high,
Once marked a star’s
Fall from the sky.
Expose the fool
Bring about his fall,
Your sacrifice shall
Gently- finally, end it all.
So, in death’s grim protection,
Go alone and forlorn,
To be made whole,
To be reborn.
Welcome Death, young David
but do not cease,
In the shade of death,
Find and give peace.
As her tear filled song ended, Severus turned back to Harry to stare down at the child’s begging eyes. Before the child had even recovered from the mildest of the wounds that he’d suffered, he was being asked once again to sacrifice everything. It was simply too much. Yet, the child had clearly intended …
“No.” he answered the desperate green eyes. “You can not simply accept death on her word. Seeress or no. Too much has been asked of you. Too much has been paid for your life to be thrown away.” The professor broke off as his own words tore apart the whole logical chain of decisions that had led him to the tower for a very similar purpose.
“Thank you. Severus, thank you.” Hermione cried. “I’ve tried to tell him not to take it on face value. But, he just doesn’t understand. He thinks it has to be literal and straight forward because the other prophesies about him were. I’ve tried and tried to point out other options, but I don’t know what else to do.”
Shocked by her sudden return to seeming her age, Severus considered the prophesy again and suddenly laughed. The irony. The sheer irony. Without even realizing it, she had given him the answer. He wouldn’t have remembered his aborted plan to get Juliette out of Dover if Hermione had not mentioned the girl. Staggering as he felt the weight and surety of his purpose restored, Severus looked up at the seeress and asked with a smirk, “How much of my time with Juliette did you see?”
“Up to the flat in Hastings. Why?”
“Dover?”
“Yes.”
He waited smugly until her eyes flashed up at him with an obvious answer.
“The prophesy said David should seem to fall, I believe?”
Her eyes lit with grim appreciation at his question as she began to understand his plan.
“It fits. It fits. Cloaked… he’s supposed to be cloaked in death’s grim pall - not suffering it. Or in the grip of it. Oh, Severus, it fits.”
“You know what I need?”
“A well deceased corpse that hasn’t been buried. Well, we have plenty of those. Poly juice. Harry’s hair. His wand. His…oh… oh no. It won’t work.” She broke off in a sob.
“What?”
“We… it wouldn’t work without his magical imprint. We don’t have it, and it would take too long to create one.”
“Actually, we do. From our… sessions.”
“Oh.” A wide smile broke across her face until she caught sight of a thick mass of shadows approaching on the road from Hogsmeade. “He’s coming.”
Before Severus could ask exactly who he was, Hermione pulled the gold time turner out, stared at it briefly and disappeared, without even having touched it.
Glancing back at Potter, the Potions master tried to gauge the determination in the child’s green eyes before he released the bind and was disturbed to find defiance and fatalism burning in his gaze.
“Potter… Harry…Child, do you want to die?” the boy had apparently expected a rougher, more argumentative response, and turned away to gather his nerve, but not before Severus saw his sad hesitation. Nevertheless, after a second, the child’s head dipped in a seemingly determined nod.
The pure Gryffindor bravado of the act brought a thick chuckle from his professor. When the boy finally looked up, Severus unbuttoned his cuffs and asked, “Potter, haven’t you figured it out yet? You don’t have to die, only seem to. It’s there. ‘Welcome death, but do not cease.’ In other lines as well. ‘In death’s grim protection’… Have you not figured out who death is, yet?”
Turning his arm so that Harry could see it, Severus rolled his sleeve up until Harry could see the still prominent dark mark. When Harry’s eyes finally widened with understanding, he softly asked- not willing to stir up the boy’s defiance- “even if you’re not certain, will you trust me, Harry?”
Pressing the boy’s uncertainty, he shamelessly reminded, “Albus did.”
Title: Falling Stars
Rating: PG, Angst
Summary: The war's finished, the good guys won, and it's time to live. Wouldn’t it be lovely if that were true?
Falling Stars
Unexpectedly, at the last rise of stairs, Severus had to pause to steel his nerves. Sneering at his own moment of weakness, the professor reminded himself of the long decision making process that he had gone through to reach this conclusion. In retrospect, the logic of it was still sound.
He had paid the penance of his earlier tragic decision to the fullest extent that he could. He had done Albus’s bidding to the letter. The war was over. The Dark Lord was vanquished. Even if his family would accept his return, he was not the same man who had left them… a man they could or should love… a man who could love them in return. There was no reason or purpose left to hold him.
Severus had by necessity become a thorough study of the human mindset; as such he thoroughly understood that -though he had found a measure of friendly acceptance among both of the sides- he would go down in the annuals of history as a turn-coat, if he was even named in the footnotes. Their memories of his often unknown services would quickly fade - becoming vague and suspicious. Soon, seeds of doubt would blossom, and the security that Dumbledore’s presence and backing had secured for him would fall as surely as his mentor had.
After shutting the swift stab of pain that came at the thought of Albus’s sacrifice, Severus shook off his lethargy and took the stairs two at a time before he was tempted to rethink his decision yet again. His progress was quickly halted as he threw a hand up to push the door at the top of the stairs open and nearly broke his wrist. It had been locked and warded shut… with a very familiar signature.
Sneering in disgust at the reasons that the reckless hero might have locked the astronomy tower (all of which undoubtedly cycled around the youngest Weasley sibling in varying shades of dress), Severus nearly turned and left them to their personal celebrations. After all, despite the obstacle the boy was being to his plans, Potter had certainly earned the right to risk his reputation with a hasty wand-point wedding. What did it matter if he was delayed one more day? Shaking his head wryly as he turned, Severus was almost amused by the matter.
Having ample exposure to the boy’s mind through the ‘remedial potions lessons’, Severus had been uncomfortably aware that the boy was still an innocent in every sense of the word. In fact, he was certain that Potter had never even having gone beyond two tentative and chaste kisses with the young Miss Weasley, whom Severus suspected was actually the more experienced of the two despite her brothers’ constant tendency to be overprotective. Not that he would have wanted to be privy to the boy’s peccadilloes; but, with the intense demands being placed on the the young Gryffindor, Severus had thought, more than once, that the child should have been encouraged, at least occasionally. to follow the model of his friends and enjoy the life he had so painfully earned.
Perhaps, it was even right that Severus should find himself so delayed to take the same opportunity. Would it be so bad to participate in the revelry while they still considered him a companion of sorts? He would still depart before their fickle opinions had the chance to change. Perhaps he might even take the opportunity to lift the tankard that Moody had offered to buy him - in the auror’s irrational joy at the dark - at Voldemort’s demise. It would be amusing if only to watch the convolutions that Rosemerta’s face would undoubtedly go through. The delay grew in appeal as he considered it, and Severus was soon turning to go back downstairs and join the revelers when his mind oddly separated several sounds from the ecstatic hue and cry rising up the spiral stairs.
With his back to the door, the sounds were easily separated both by their location and by their nature. Those rising from below were chaotic and joyous while those coming from behind him were frantic and heartrending - filled with anguish and anxiety. What most surprised Severus though was that they were not human. The frantic cries were clearly that of an owl… and Fawkes, the headmaster’s phoenix.
Turning back to the door, Severus listened carefully for the sounds of the boy’s sobbing or other emotional outburst, but he heard nothing. If he had, he would have immediately returned with McGonagall to comfort the boy’s well deserved unravel; but, aside from the panicked hooting and pathetic phoenix trills, the roof was disturbingly quiet. An unpleasant apprehension began to claw at his chest.
If the boy wanted to break down, in private, there were numerous rooms to do so in. The room of requirement. Several on the third and fourth floors that Severus had certain knowledge of the boy exploring in his first year. The Gryffindor tower. Even the headmaster’s bedrooms, which had been given over to the boy in the last days of the war - as the only rooms sufficiently warded to dampen Voldemort’s almost constant mental attacks. To Severus’s knowledge, the child had yet to move back into the tower and had never given his friends or dorm mates the passwords at the late headmaster’s request.
There were no logical reasons that he could bring to mind for the boy to choose the astronomy tower in his still fragile condition, particularly given the availability of so many closer rooms and the long winding climb to the tower’s roof… and especially none that would explain or justify the alarmed hoots and cries that he was hearing. As if to peak his interest, other frantic bird cries, hoots, and caws joined the first. Had the boy, even in his weakened state, made it to the top of the tower - only to collapse?
Setting aside his indecision, Severus brought forward the delicate imprint of Harry’s persona and magic that he had captured early in their occulmency lessons to camouflage him from Voldemort were they ever to link with Potter’s mind simultaneously. Pulling it around him, Severus softly whispered ‘finite’ and carefully pushed the door open, drawing his wand in case Potter needed immediate first aid. Had he not done so, Potter would have died moments later - for on hearing the soft barely audible squeak of the hinges, Potter frantically pushed through the wall of crows, owls, eagles, (and Fawkes) that had been holding him on the bulwark and stepped off the edge.
Had Severus’s reflexes been even a second slower, the wizarding world would have lost its latest hero. Instead, without pausing to think, Severus roared ‘Immobillus’ and froze even the air surrounding Potter so that the child hung over the edge of the tower - staring at the ground below. As his heart lurched in panic, Severus rushed forward grabbing the boy and pulling him back in.
“You idiot boy! You idiot boy! What on earth were you thinking? What possessed you?” Staring down at the broken child, Severus wanted to shake him but feared leashing his temper if he did.
“Albus gave his life - for you, and you do this? Why?” The headmaster wasn’t even in his grave yet, and the ungrateful wretch was throwing away the headmaster’s gift. He had the right to be distressed certainly, to feel broken, to wallow in depression, yes… to that and so many other possible responses, but this? No, the child had no right to do this.
“What were you thinking?” he wanted to shriek, but it only came out as a choked question.
“He was thinking of you and of everyone else, who’s prophesied to die, tonight.” a solemn voice answered from the parapet’s entrance.
“Prophesied?” Severus shuddered at the thought that his death had been prophesied. “There was another prophesy when, from whom?”
“Three nights ago. It was given in the presence of Harry, the Headmaster, and Headmistress McGonagall as they waited for news of Ginny and Fleur’s recovery.”
Scanning the darkness, Severus suddenly jerked his head back and scowled as he recognized Potter’s know-it-all friend hovering in the door. At the last report, he’d been told that she was still recovering from the trauma of watching her fiancé die in the last battle after being surrounded mid air by an entire nest of dementors. Poppy doubted that she would be back to her self even by the end of the week. Yet, here she stood babbling about a prophesy.
“What is the meaning of this? Trelawny was the only verified seer living after the first war.”
He did not need to add that she had been killed in Hogsmeade eight months earlier after it had come to Voldemort’s attention, due to a slip in Harry’s shields, that Trelawny had been the seer prophesying both his return and Harry’s role. Hermione would know that as well as he, having been one of Potter’s few supports in the weeks that followed the Hogsmeade attack.
An unnerving smile crossed her lips as she studied him. Finally, when he was about to demand an explanation, she actually snorted - delicately and rather femininely, but snorted nonetheless and answered, “Verified perhaps, though I would have loved to see her own scores, the old fraud. Yes, she was the only ‘verified’ seer, but that was due to Headmaster Dumbledore’s fear that the ministry would persecute a muggleborn seeress - particularly one befriending the boy-who-lived.”
Waiting with a smirk as the implications sunk in, Hermione nodded when his eyes asked the question that he barely kept himself from asking.
“Yes, me.” She answered, regardless. “Perhaps you noticed that it seemed to take me twice as long to recover from being petrified by the basilisk than any of its other victims?”
“Or, did you think, that perhaps it was due to my muggle bloodline?” She nearly laughed when his shocked expression confirmed her suspicion. “No, somehow, the mandrake potion triggered my first prophesy. It rather startled Madam Pomfrey. No doubt it would have startled you even more.”
“Four of five remained alive bonded by hate and love, slaves of the past. One haunted, two hunted, one beloved but guilty, two hated but innocent - two left at last. The fifth lives anew in love but hatred, too. Until with a sixth, they become three.”
“huhhhh.” Severus sighed as he slowly attempted to interpret the strangely complex prophesy. “Only you could have predicted something so convoluted.”
It was surreal to hear her chuckle as they almost ignored one of her closest friends still lying spellbound at their feet.
“Well, that’s perhaps true; however, if Trelawny had truly accepted her gifts and studied them instead of trying to pass off that drivel on us, so much of the sorrow that has happened over the past ten years could have been avoided. Instead, she effectively forced the powers to use her as a conduit for only the simplest and most straight forward messages that her audience could self-interpret. On top of that, she was so much of a gossip monger that even the memory of her visions were kept from her, so that she wouldn’t let the information slip to the wrong person.”
“You’re saying that you remember you’re visions… and interpret them?” he sneered and continued, “How convenient. Tell me just what did that one mean.”
“It’s not quite as simple as that, prophesy is not about predicting the future in order for others to try and change it as Voldemort did - selecting Harry because he feared that he would have less of a chance against a pure-blood wizard than he would a half-blood like himself.” At his questioning look, she explained: “The proper role of prophesy is merely to help those involved understand, recognize present options, and accept what must come to pass. But, Voldemort wasn’t capable of any of those things, and he believed or wanted to that he could thwart the prophesy by choosing his opponent.”
Severus’s look of doubt begged for an answer, and Hermione couldn’t resist finally being allowed to explain something to him so continued even though she knew the prophesied events were swiftly approaching.
“In some senses, he was a strong believer in what muggles call genetics and worried that magic was necessarily carried in the blood (hence blood magics). In his mind, the purer the bloodline, the purer and more dangerous the bloodline. Hence his decision to attack Harry’s parents (one a muggle born and the other a lesser pureblood from a family with several instances of ‘muggle contamination’ in its bloodline). That was just another reason that he allowed pure bloods to retain the highest ranks in his little militia (in addition to their hefty donations to his cause): he believed that their presumably stronger magic would provide a better defense.”
“And… what does that prophesy have to do with this?”
“Well, quite a lot actually, but hopefully we’ll be able to discuss it at a later date. I was merely using it as an example of how much suffering was caused because of it.”
“How quaint, but you still haven’t explained your prophesy.”
“I was actually hoping to see whether you would draw its meaning.”
“I see several possibilities. Tell me, has it come to pass?”
“Yes. If we had more time, it would be interesting to let you puzzle it out. Basically, it discussed Sirius’s return, Peter Petegrew’s exposure, Severus’s death … And your mental link with Harry and Remus in the final battle with the Dementors and Voldemort. Three becoming one to cast a form of patronus that none could have alone.”
“How is that possible? I assure you that there was not even one moment in time during which I could have been considered one of the Marauders.”
“Perhaps you were not welcomed by them, but think back, consider whether you can remember spending a greater amount of time with any of your housemates than you did with them. You were an outcast in your house - reviled by the others because of your parentage. Until your seventh year, who did you spend most of your time following, trading pranks with, and challenging?”
Stepping backward in shock, Severus turned a snarling grimace back to Har- Potter. Potter had sworn that he had never disclosed those or other details, and now he was seeing the truth of the arrogant boy’s honor. Without thinking, Severus felt himself drawing his foot back in a barely aimed kick. He wouldn’t strike anywhere that was already damaged, but it was absolutely beyond bearing for the boy to not share in the pain of this last betrayal.
“Severus, no. Harry didn’t tell me. I saw it for myself.” Hermione explained in a rush, recognizing the pain, anger, and anguish in his expression, “That, and the Christmas in France when you took Gabrielle Fontescue’s aunt to the Louvre. Sir… Professor, Harry never knew about that. You know he didn’t. He doesn’t know about Juliette, either. But, I do.”
“How dare you! How did you find out? How did…” His eyes snapped sharply to her, the betrayal no less pained but now at a different target. “A time turner. I always suspected that you were given one third year. Taking all of those courses when there was simply no time to do so. But, Albus wouldn’t speak of it. Then, Black miraculously disappears before he’s about to be kissed.’
‘Tell me child, didn’t they tell you that using those to go back and spy on someone’s life is absolutely against the rules. I was even a confirmed spy for the order and the side of light, but Albus refused my request for one. Then, he allows you to have one. Tell me, did you enjoy your little voyeuristic trip through my life? Hmm? Which made you laugh loudest when my father beat me or when James humiliated me or when Voldemort debased me? Which did you enjoy most? I’m dying to know.” His rant ended on a bitter laugh.
“Professor, stop and think for a moment. I’m certain you know how closely the ministry monitors time turner spells, and how restricted it is. Do you really think they gave it to me to get a few extra class credits in? No matter how bright I was, they wouldn’t take that kind of risk. I couldn’t have gone back for frivolous reasons, even if I had wanted to. Think! I was given the time turner precisely because I was a seer, and if you think the general rules regarding time turners are strict, you should see the seer’s restrictions on time turners. It took me the whole summer between my second and third year to read the entire book and I finally had to test out on it. That was a trick in itself; the headmaster helped me borrow a few of the supplies to mix polly juice so that I could take my test as Professor Trelawny. She even tasted flaky.”
Despite his still-churning anger, Severus couldn’t help pulling up short from his pacing at that comment with a harsh chuckle.
“Professor, I didn’t find a minute of it amusing. Not watching your childhood … or Harry’s” Hermione stepped between them and cast a glance at her friend who was staring up at her with his own shocked, angry expression. “Do you think I wouldn’t have gone back and pulled him away from their clutches, rules or no rules if I wasn’t so strongly and magically bound to my duty?”
“Why didn’t you ever tell us, Love?” she asked softly, but Harry was still spellbound and until she got through to Severus, Hermione knew that she couldn’t release him. While she was the strongest witch of her age, she had long ago recognized that Harry was beyond her ability to contain.
“Or you, for that matter, no matter what you think of me, consider how I feel about any thing being mistreated- even house elves. Do you honestly believe I would have left a child in those conditions if it would not have been ruinous not to? Do you think I would have let Ron…” She broke of dashing tears from her eyes and focused determined eyes on the professor as she continued, “We don’t have time for this. No matter what you may think of me. Harry needs you. There’s so little time.”
As she finished speaking, Hermione pulled a remeberall out of her pocket and swept her hand over it, before murmuring ‘Wulfric.’ Setting aside his pique, Severus turned his rapt attention to the globe floating above her palm as a thin wisp of smoke twisted inside it to form a small image of Hermione within the globe. As he studied it, an echo of her soft voice gently sang in tones of unearthly sadness:
On the night that sees
Goliath die -- wraith-razed,
Joyous toasts lifted,
And young David praised--
A freed fool’s enmity
Shall crest and break,
Leaving revelers -
Deaths disguised
By war’s wake -
Lest David, cloaked,
In Death’s grim pall,
Should seem to fall-
Where Goliath, too,
From heights on high,
Once marked a star’s
Fall from the sky.
Expose the fool
Bring about his fall,
Your sacrifice shall
Gently- finally, end it all.
So, in death’s grim protection,
Go alone and forlorn,
To be made whole,
To be reborn.
Welcome Death, young David
but do not cease,
In the shade of death,
Find and give peace.
As her tear filled song ended, Severus turned back to Harry to stare down at the child’s begging eyes. Before the child had even recovered from the mildest of the wounds that he’d suffered, he was being asked once again to sacrifice everything. It was simply too much. Yet, the child had clearly intended …
“No.” he answered the desperate green eyes. “You can not simply accept death on her word. Seeress or no. Too much has been asked of you. Too much has been paid for your life to be thrown away.” The professor broke off as his own words tore apart the whole logical chain of decisions that had led him to the tower for a very similar purpose.
“Thank you. Severus, thank you.” Hermione cried. “I’ve tried to tell him not to take it on face value. But, he just doesn’t understand. He thinks it has to be literal and straight forward because the other prophesies about him were. I’ve tried and tried to point out other options, but I don’t know what else to do.”
Shocked by her sudden return to seeming her age, Severus considered the prophesy again and suddenly laughed. The irony. The sheer irony. Without even realizing it, she had given him the answer. He wouldn’t have remembered his aborted plan to get Juliette out of Dover if Hermione had not mentioned the girl. Staggering as he felt the weight and surety of his purpose restored, Severus looked up at the seeress and asked with a smirk, “How much of my time with Juliette did you see?”
“Up to the flat in Hastings. Why?”
“Dover?”
“Yes.”
He waited smugly until her eyes flashed up at him with an obvious answer.
“The prophesy said David should seem to fall, I believe?”
Her eyes lit with grim appreciation at his question as she began to understand his plan.
“It fits. It fits. Cloaked… he’s supposed to be cloaked in death’s grim pall - not suffering it. Or in the grip of it. Oh, Severus, it fits.”
“You know what I need?”
“A well deceased corpse that hasn’t been buried. Well, we have plenty of those. Poly juice. Harry’s hair. His wand. His…oh… oh no. It won’t work.” She broke off in a sob.
“What?”
“We… it wouldn’t work without his magical imprint. We don’t have it, and it would take too long to create one.”
“Actually, we do. From our… sessions.”
“Oh.” A wide smile broke across her face until she caught sight of a thick mass of shadows approaching on the road from Hogsmeade. “He’s coming.”
Before Severus could ask exactly who he was, Hermione pulled the gold time turner out, stared at it briefly and disappeared, without even having touched it.
Glancing back at Potter, the Potions master tried to gauge the determination in the child’s green eyes before he released the bind and was disturbed to find defiance and fatalism burning in his gaze.
“Potter… Harry…Child, do you want to die?” the boy had apparently expected a rougher, more argumentative response, and turned away to gather his nerve, but not before Severus saw his sad hesitation. Nevertheless, after a second, the child’s head dipped in a seemingly determined nod.
The pure Gryffindor bravado of the act brought a thick chuckle from his professor. When the boy finally looked up, Severus unbuttoned his cuffs and asked, “Potter, haven’t you figured it out yet? You don’t have to die, only seem to. It’s there. ‘Welcome death, but do not cease.’ In other lines as well. ‘In death’s grim protection’… Have you not figured out who death is, yet?”
Turning his arm so that Harry could see it, Severus rolled his sleeve up until Harry could see the still prominent dark mark. When Harry’s eyes finally widened with understanding, he softly asked- not willing to stir up the boy’s defiance- “even if you’re not certain, will you trust me, Harry?”
Pressing the boy’s uncertainty, he shamelessly reminded, “Albus did.”