A/N: Viele Dank (or something along those lines) to Procyon Black's speedy beta.

Chapter 10: Requests Fulfilled

“I have officially lost all my respect for you. And for my brother, of course, but that happened a few years ago already, let me tell you that!” Ginny stopped pacing, though she still had an overpowering urge to throw something at the wall. “Why?”

Cormac looked pale and tense. “Stop shouting at me. I already got enough of that from Jack.”

“You haven’t got enough of it from me yet,” Ginny said grimly.

Cormac groaned. “Ginny…” He rubbed his face with the palms of his hands. “Later, okay?”

Ginny said nothing. Half of her wanted to drag Cormac to the nearest pub and buy him a few drinks. He looked an absolute wreck. Ginny remembered, suddenly, the pale, sullen-faced wreck Ron had been the year of the Triwizard Tournament. Cormac had the same look on his face.

“Look, I rarely see my brother, so I can’t speak for him,” Ginny said, “but I don’t get it. I told you how Fred and the Minister practically forced Hermione to resign.”

“Yes, I know—”

“So how can you still follow him around, like a bloody Death Eater bobbing after You-Know-Who?” Cormac blanched. Ginny sighed and paced a few steps. “He’s my brother, but Merlin help me, after seeing the stuff he’s been doing…” She stopped. “Strange, though. I can’t remember a lot of it.”

“What?”

Ginny turned. “What?”

“You said—never mind.” Cormac’s face closed. “It just… reminded me of something.”

Ginny narrowed her eyes. “Really.”

“Drop it, Ginny.”

She shrugged; she knew Cormac well enough to know that she wouldn’t be able to worm it from him when he was sounding like that. “Anyway, even you can’t possibly think Harry’s going to turn Dark, or be the next You-Know-Who, or something.”

“No,” Cormac said reluctantly. He looked about to say something else, but stopped.

Ginny said nothing. Cormac was in denial. That’s what was bothering him.

“Well, anyway,” Ginny said, “I’m heading to Hermione’s.”

“I’ve got to go, too.”

“To Hogwarts?”

Cormac stopped. “How’d you know?”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “What does an underling do after completing his task? Report to his master.” She left, ignoring the dark look Cormac gave her on her way out.

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“So what’re we doing?”

“Waiting for Professor Snape,” said Hermione. “He’s bringing a potion.”

“Right. Hey Aaron.”

“Hiya, Ginny,” Aaron said, grinning.

Ginny rolled her eyes as she took a seat next to him on the couch. “Merlin, that reminds me of— Never mind.”

Aaron’s grin only got wider. He was, Ginny noticed, wearing a shirt that had VARSITY ARITHMANCY emblazoned across the front. “Of what?”

“Some blokes I met at Hogwarts.” The Creevey brothers, Ginny remembered, both of whom— She stopped her thoughts. It was dangerous to remember the victims of the War.

The fireplace turned green. Snape stepped through a moment later.

“Professor Snape,” Ginny greeted.

“Miss Weasley,” he said coolly but politely.

“How’s Harry?”

“As good as can be supposed.”

Ginny nodded. It wasn’t a very informative response, but she’d expected as much from Snape.

“I’ve the potion,” Snape said, to Hermione.

She nodded and turned to Ginny and Aaron. “Severus has kindly brewed us the Wieder-Denk Potion.” She hesitated. “I told you about it, Aaron. Do you remember what it does, Ginny?”

Ginny frowned. A memory tugged at her mind from during the War. “Detect the presence of an Obliviate?”

“Exactly.” Hermione paused again, and then glanced at Snape. Ginny frowned, following the glance, but Snape’s face gave nothing away. “Ginny,” Hermione said, and she was no longer using her Department Head voice; Ginny was reminded sharply of the fact that, for all the maternal calm that Hermione exuded, they were only one year apart. “I think you should take it.”

Ginny blinked. “Me? Why?”

“We think… someone’s been Obliviating you.”

“Who told you that? Jack?”

Hermione shook her head, the strained look still on her face. “No, just me, though Severus agrees with my theory.”

Ginny glanced at Snape, but his face, as usual, was shuttered. Aaron was frowning slightly; did he know about this? Ginny wondered wildly. She looked away. It’d been a while since she’d felt this way.

“All right,” she said lightly. “Why not?”

Snape shook his head. He took out a vial of something that looked poisonously green. “The procedure is simple,” he said. “Hold this amount of the potion in your mouth for half a minute. Spit it here”—he pointed to a gold-colored cup—“and we’ll analyse the magical signature.”

Ginny nodded. “It’s like what they did when I got tested for magical herpes,” she said, smiling wryly at Hermione. Aaron, beside her, made a choking noise. “Here goes,” Ginny said.

“Do refrain from swallowing,” Snape said as Ginny tilted her head back.

It tasted rather minty, Ginny thought. One, two, three…

“Not yet,” Snape said when she reached for the cup, looking a bit disapproving. Ginny remembered that he’d always commented on her bad sense of timing in Potions class. She felt a blush coming, and would have resented it if Snape hadn’t so obviously curbed himself. “Now.”

Ginny spat the potion into the cup. The potion had turned a vivid red, a few shades brighter than blood. “So?”

Hermione looked grim. “You’ve been Oblivated. And regularly.”

“I see,” Ginny said flatly. She didn’t feel anything yet. She watched Aaron take the cup. “And do you have any idea who’s doing it?”

Hermione was biting her lower lip. “I think—we think Fred might be doing it.”

Ginny felt her stomach sink. “Fred?” she said, hating the fact that her voice was as unsteady as a Hogwarts first year’s. It wasn’t true, she wanted to say. The words felt as dead and hollow as a block of wood.

“We’re hoping the magical signature can help,” Hermione said. “Aaron’s been working on a way to do an analysis.”

Ginny glanced at him. So maybe he did know about this beforehand, she thought vaguely. There was no ire. She felt numb. Exposed, as if a small part of her resented the fact that Hermione had chosen to do it here, in front of Snape and Aaron. All Aurors-in-training had to take a seminar on the effects of forced memory loss. It was a serious mental trauma, a breach of trust, in ways worse than uninvited Legilimency, etc. etc. Snippets from the course came back to her in a rush. Fred. Her body tightened with anger. Why? Hadn’t their family suffered enough? First Percy, then Ron, her father, George, Charlie—

She took a deep breath and looked down, surprised. Aaron had put a hand on her knee. She stared at it for a moment, and then watched herself put her hand on his. “So you’ll be able to tell from the analysis if it was Fred?”

“Not exactly,” said Aaron. “I should be able to get a magical signature based on the wand that was used. It’s not exact, so maybe whoever is responsible was using a different wand, but you wouldn’t normally do that, especially with Obliviate.”

“I see,” Ginny said. He’d said whoever, not her brother, she noted. “Dragon heartstring and willow. That’s Fred’s wand,” she added at Aaron’s puzzled look. “So how’d you guess I was being Obliviated?” Ginny said, to Hermione.

“At first it was from listening to you talk. Some things didn’t match up.”

“Like what?”

“Little things.” Hermione paused. “Also, you say that Fred doesn’t show up at the Burrow very often, but the wards say he’s been there quite a lot.”

“The ones from the war?”

“Yes, those.”

“Ah.” She’d only just seen him yesterday. The memory seemed suddenly sharper, although moments were distorted, as though she were viewing it through a layer of water. Words leapt out at her: Do you remember, Ginny? he’d asked. Merlin.

“And I don’t suppose there’s some way I can get my memories back?”

Hermione shook her head. “This isn’t Confundus. I’m sorry, Ginny.”

Sorry about Fred? Sorry for keeping all this from me? Ginny felt her anger like a very thin line. She was holding it in, checked, but it was temporary. The five years of friendship with Hermione suddenly seemed nonexistent. It was the war again, when all she had was herself and her Auror training and the radio. Four found reported missing in Greenwich. The Ministry would like to remind everyone to be on alert and to report any suspicious activity.

But it wasn’t Hermione’s fault, Ginny told herself. The knowledge didn’t help. Merlin, when would she finally be able to move on?

“Is that all?” Ginny said.

Hermione nodded.

“All right then,” Ginny said, making sure her voice was tightly controlled. “I’ll see all of you later.”

She got up and left Hermione’s office. She was only a few steps down the hall when she heard footsteps.

“Aaron!”

“Ginny,” he said, sounding a bit breathless, “I’ve to help Hermione do the analysis today, but I was wondering if you’d some time tomorrow? There’s a Muggle show in Covent Garden that I’ve got tickets for.”

Ginny felt a wan smile come to her lips. “I’d love to,” she said.

Aaron beamed. “Awesome! I’ll pick you up from your flat at eightish?”

Ginny agreed. Aaron remarked again that it was awesome, they smiled at each other, and then they parted.

It was a cautious sort of joy that she was feeling as she went down the corridor. It did nothing to dispel the numbness and shock of learning that she’d been Obliviated, but… Aaron would be the first person she’d dated who hadn’t started off by taking her to a pub and reminiscing for about the war. Twenty-something-year-olds, she thought, talking like scarred old men. Maybe, despite everything else, despite everything that had happened, a person like Aaron was what she needed. Someone different, who wouldn’t bring up a past that she couldn’t run far away from, but couldn’t bear to forget.

qp qp qp

The strained look on Granger’s face deepened into weariness the moment the Weasley girl stepped outside.

“Just a second, Dr. Granger,” Skonser said hurriedly, and then Snape was alone with Granger in her office. A silence fell. Snape knew the look on Granger’s face all too well, though he’d never been in a position to understand it. It was the look of deep personal failure that he’d seen so often on Albus Dumbledore’s face.

“Well,” said Granger, and Snape could see her folding away the emotions that were so evident on her face, putting them aside for later—when she was home and had her Muggle husband to hold her and talk to, Snape thought, “anyway…”

Skonser came back in, shutting the door quietly.

“Will you be able to do the analysis, Aaron?”

Skonser nodded. “I’ll have it by tomorrow.” He paused. “Is that all?”

Granger nodded. “Actually, Robert and I were wondering if you were free tomorrow night? I’d like you to have dinner with us.”

“Ah…” Skonser’s face reddened. “I’d love to, but I have plans for tomorrow.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Granger said lightly. “Some other time, maybe.”

Skonser nodded. “I’m going to La Traviata with Ginny.”

Snape snorted. “Good luck,” he murmured. “The Weasleys—and Gryffindors in general—aren’t known for their taste in fine culture.”

Granger laughed. Skonser looked confused. “Have a good time, Aaron,” Granger said.

Skonser said his goodbyes, and departed.

“Well, Severus,” said Granger, indicating the chair across from her table, “how about some tea?”

Snape felt his lips give a slight twist. “What’s next, Dr. Granger? Sherbert lemons?”

She stared at him for a good moment, before laughing again. It was a different laugh from the one she’d given just a moment ago. “One Dumbledore a century is enough. We needn’t another.”

“It is the next century, I’m sure you’re aware.”

Granger made a face. “I’m bloody pregnant. And I’m not half as powerful a witch as Dumbledore was a wizard.” She pinched her brows with her fingers. “Anyway, Robert’s been asking if there’s a Wizarding reason for why this baby is taking so long?”

“Magical babies can be fickle.” Snape’s lips gave a twitch. “Merlin was said to have stayed in his mother’s womb for seven years.”

Granger groaned. “The poor woman.” She sighed. “How’s Harry?”

“As good as can be supposed.”

“Really, Severus, how is he?”

Snape paused. “I’ve yet to see him today.”

He waited. He could picture the different elements of Granger’s psyche struggling: the Gryffindor reflex of concern, the alarm borne from war-honed instincts, the instinctive calculation courtesy of Dumbledore’s mantle.

Granger’s eyes flickered from her desk to the wall on the opposite side of the room. “I know he’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself, but after what he’s been through…” She paused. “I’m worried about him, that’s all.”

Snape nodded, waited.

“I mean—” Granger droppd her hands in her lap. “We didn’t even get a good run of tests on him, except for what St. Mungo’s did.” She stopped and said abruptly, “The last time I had a real conversation with him was more than five years ago.”

“Yes,” said Snape, about to go on something sarcastic about the difficulties of conversing while frozen stiff, but Granger continued: “Before that, even. Before Ron died.” She took a deep breath. “He changed. Before the war, and after.”

She looked up, and Snape was surprised at the small, sad smile on her face. “Harry’s… different, now. We all changed, of course. But he—” She bit her lips.

Snape knew the words she couldn’t say: but he’d changed the most. The Harry Potter she’d loved like a brother, who’d been one of her best friend for seven years at Hogwarts—that Harry Potter was dead. And only Snape knew the person who’d taken his place.

“You forget, Granger, that it’s been twenty years.”

She nodded, ruefully. “Of course. I was thinking, the other day, what might’ve happened if I’d pushed for the trolleriometer to be done sooner. Then we’d have gotten him out of the ice right after the war ended, and… well, it doesn’t really matter.”

“No. It doesn’t.” But for reasons Granger wouldn’t understand, Snape thought.

He was distantly aware, as though he were hovering above his mind and observing it critically, how deep his unease ran, and how he alone possessed it. Unease—of this man, this stranger. Listening to Granger speak, it’d become apparent that she didn’t have fear of Potter, only concern for him. She probably had considered the possibility of Potter going Dark; Granger was certainly intelligent enough to consider everything. Considered it, and put it away. Snape had overestimated the effects of Dumbledore’s training on the girl. She never understood—would never understand—Voldemort’s power. Abstractly, yes, but she’d never encountered it face to face, never been touched.

And yet, the knowledge didn’t help at all in understanding the man. Fear, terror, the shutting off of his mind until he was as unfeeling as a Muggle doll—that was Voldemort. Ambivalent and uneasy comradeship, the protective instincts of a teacher—that was Potter. Shadows and heat, endless yearning, a confused flurry of worlds forming and unforming, absence and hurt—that was Jonathan.

But this man right now was all of them, and none of them. And did he love him? Did it even matter? Snape stared hard at the table, wishing… He didn’t know what he wished for.

There was a knock at the door. Granger glanced at a small sphere on her table. “Come in,” she called.

Someone that Snape did not recognize entered. Granger did, though, as she smiled and said, “Cormac, how good to see you.”

“Hallo, Dr. Granger,” he said. He glanced at Snape and said, hesitantly, “Professor Snape. I don’t know if you remember, but I had you for Potions at Hogwarts. Cormac McLaggen.”

Snape nodded. He remembered, now, that this man had been one of his students once. A rather hopeless Gryffindor.

McLaggen turned to Granger. “Could I speak to you for a moment—alone?”

“Professor Snape is very discrete, especially if the matter is of importance,” Granger said, keeping her tone light. She waved her wand, and the door shut. “Is this matter about Fred Weasley?”

McLaggen started. “How’d you know?”

“I talk to Ginny.”

McLaggen muttered something under his breath. He cast one last, rather dark look at Snape before saying, in a quiet voice, “I was wondering if the Department of Mysteries has a way of telling if someone’s memory has been altered.”

Snape and Granger exchanged a glance. “Why?” Granger said.

McLaggen’s face colored. “Look, it’s just a feeling, okay? A hunch. But I think someone may have been tinkering with Ginny’s memory.”

“An interesting theory,” Granger said. Snape suppressed a smirk. Here, at long last, was Dumbledore’s training, coming full force.

“Just—if you’ve a way of finding out, I think you ought to try it. And I didn’t give you the hunch, either,” McLaggen added. He looked very uneasy.

A pause. And then, from Granger: “Is there something you’d like to tell us?”

Snape stifled a snort. Us, was it? He looked from Granger’s open, compassionate face, to McLaggen’s pale one. Hadn’t McLaggen actually been a few years above Granger? He looked all too much like an overgrown boy. The war worked in strange ways, thought Snape: boys became old men, but men became children.

McLaggen was struggling. “Nothing,” he said at last. “Only—” He faltered and fell silent.

When nothing more came, Granger sighed. “There is a way of telling if someone’s memory has been altered,” she said. “In fact, Professor Snape was here for the purpose of administering the test.”

McLaggen’s head snapped up. “On whom? If I may ask.”

“Ginny Weasley. Severus, may I have a vial?”

Snape nodded. Granger was obviously onto something.

“The subject takes a mouthful of the potion—which, by the way, tastes a bit like mint—holds it for half a minute, and spits it into a gold-plated cup,” Granger explained.

There was another pause.

“The analysis can determine not only can the frequency and severity of the memory alteration, but also the properties of the wand responsible.”

McLaggen was still hesitant. Snape knew what Granger was playing at; it had to be McLaggen’s own idea.

“Have you got Ginny’s results back yet?”

“Not yet; they’re being analysed by our magicists.” She added, softly, “It doesn’t hurt to be sure.”

McLaggen stirred. “Yes. Yes, I—” The words came out stumblingly. “I know it’s an odd request, but perhaps it’s possible that I’m tested, too? The way Ginny was?”

Granger smiled brilliantly. “Not an odd request at all. Severus?”

He administered the potion. Instead of trying to make light of it, the way the Weasley girl had, McLaggen was quiet, pale, set.

“When will the analysis be completed?” he asked, after he’d spat the potion into the chalice. Snape masked his surprise: McLaggen’s potion was a faint pink. Red, he knew, meant memory alterations; green meant the opposite. Pink though…

There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” Granger called.

A compact, middle-aged man wearing a knitted vest came in. Snape recognized him as Demme, head of the Auror division.

“McLaggen,” Demme said, after a moment of surprise, “what’re you doing here?”

“Er…”

“Department business,” Granger said evenly.

Demme shrugged, clearly not buying it, but as though he didn’t care one way or another. “You’re needed. Shoo.”

McLaggen scurried out with one last look at the chalice and its unmoving contents. Demme shut the door behind him and glanced between Granger and Snape. “You Order people,” he muttered.

“What is it?”

“Hogwarts has been attacked,” Demme said.

For a moment, there was silence in the room. Snape had a sharp feeling of déjà vu; Voldemort is dead, he thought. But then an insidious voice whispered: is he? is he completely dead? He shuddered and tried not to remember green eyes that seemed, strangely, to contain a glint of red.

“No casualties, fortunately,” Demme went on, “but there’s one injury.”

“Who?”

“Fred Weasley.”

Years ago, Snape had heard, quite by accident, a prophecy predicting the birth of a child who would have power to defeat the Dark Lord. It was only later, much later, that he wondered how it was that his mind had jumped to Lily and James Potter.

And here, now, the same thing happened. Only, whereas he’d felt dread and—he was ashamed to admit it—envy and even triumph twenty years ago, he felt now only fear—deep, inexplicable fear.

“How badly is he hurt?” Granger asked.

Demme shook his head. “He’s not injured, per se, but he’s not waking up. He’s in St. Mungo’s right now. We figured maybe one of your magicists might be able to help.”

Granger nodded. She tapped a bell on her table. “Aaron? Aaron, come to my office right away. You can finish the analysis tomorrow.”

The silence settled again.

“I should probably have asked before McLaggen left,” Demme said, “but has any of you seen Ginny Weasley?”

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Hogwarts attacked…

How many times had those words echoed in her head? How many times had she heard them in her nightmares? It’d been McGonagall who’d said them—the last words Ginny had heard the Transfiguration Professor say…

You brother is at St. Mungo’s.

She shut her eyes. In the mortuary. She knew exactly how to get there: go down two floors, enter a door with translucent windows through which you could see the faint pale shapes of beds…

Ginny clutched the wall, suddenly unable to move.

“Hey, Gin,” said Tonks. “You all right?”

With tremendous effort, Ginny nodded. “Yes,” she croaked. “I’m all right.”

At least he was alive. At least he was breathing. The completion of the thought came bearing down on her like a boulder, together with those horrible images she had no defense against: unlike Ron. Unlike Charlie. Unlike Percy. Unlike George. Unlike Dad...

“Ginny?”

She turned sharply. “Aaron!” she said. She could hear the edge of hysteria in her voice, but it was as though from a distance, as if she were standing on the other side of a glass wall. “What’re you doing here?”

Aaron had an inscrutable look on his face. “Jack Demme came asking the Department of Mysteries for help,” he said. He looked around. “Don’t know how much I can do, but… You all right?”

Ginny nodded, though the out-of-body feeling hadn’t gone away. Maybe it was only the firewhisky, she thought. “I’m fine.”

She’d found out—of all places—in the Green Dragon, which was the favored pub of the Aurors. She’d been nursing her second lager, wondering if she wanted to flirt with the tattooed (like Bill), dark-haired (like Harry) wizard sitting quietly at the table, when the bartender, Bernie, had leaned over and asked her if she’d heart about the attack on Hogwarts.

“Heard there was only one injury,” he’d said, eyes concerned. “Seems like it was your brother.”

My brother. Ginny shut her eyes at the memory. After that, she remembered standing before the fireplace with a handful of Floo powder. She could’ve shouted any name—St. Mungo’s, the Burrow, Auror headquarters—but she’d gone, instead, to Hogwarts, even though she knew that the Aurors must have cleared everything away by now. Why hadn’t she gone to St. Mungo’s, or to her Mum’s? (Did her Mum even know?) Maybe it was to avoid the image of her brother’s still body, the bloodless face. Maybe it was so she wouldn’t have to see the way her mother clutched the countertop until her knuckles were whiter than parchment…

“Ginny!”

She started. Aaron and Tonks were looking at her worriedly. “You better take her away,” Tonks said in a low voice. “Not much you can do here, I think…”

“No,” Ginny said, aware that her voice was almost hoarse. “I’m—it’s just—”

“Ginny…”

She shook her head. She wouldn’t go, she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Not to face the long spiral of stairs that descended from the headmaster’s office. She remembered taking them after Dumbledore had told her and her family about how Ron had been taken. She could remember…

She shook herself. She was aware that someone had a hand on her shoulder. She took it and—she couldn’t help herself—started squeezing. Feeling it, she knew that it was Aaron’s. She didn’t want to turn around and see him wincing from the desperate strength of her hands, as she knew he must be.

“What’s that?” Aaron said.

Her eyes focused. “What?”

He pointed again. This time, Ginny saw what looked like a small smear of white dust on the floor. “Oh, just…” She paused and frowned.

“What?” said Tonks.

Aaron pointed again.

Tonks moved forward and held her wand above it. When she turned around, her face was grim. “It’s crackle,” she said.

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He went into the liquor store on impulse. He’d been meaning to floo straight to his flat from Granger’s office, but after the little scene regarding Fred Weasley, he’d found himself in the atrium of the Ministry. The doorway had been five steps to the left. The fireplaces, far down the other end of the hall.

Inexplicably, he’d gone outside.

It was a beautiful day. The sun was out, and a slight breeze snuck between the gutters and nudged at his robe. Snape felt as though he were walking in a daze, separated from everyone else in a streets by an unbridgeable width of worlds.

‘Linnaeus’s Fine Liquors,’ the sign read. Snape went inside.

The clerk let him wander a moment or two before greeting him. “How may I help you, sir?”

Snape paused, looking at the bottles lining the wall. He let his gaze go over each one, dispassionately reading the labels: Dragon’s Breath, Milchtod, Firewhisky— He stopped. Absinthe. Hadn’t Frost drunk absinthe with Lily Evans?

“Yes,” Snape said, hearing his voice coming out as smoothly as ever. “I’d like a Milchtod.”

“Will that be all, sir?”

“And an absinthe.”

He paid, turned, and paused in the doorway. “Would it be possible that I use the fireplace of your establishment?”

The clerk gave a grin that showed one front tooth missing. “Sure, sure, good ahead.”

Snape went to the fireplace and hesitated. He thought: I’ve become afraid of going back to my own flat. He tossed a pinch of green powder into the fire and said, in a clear, angry voice, “Twenty-four, Spinner’s End!”

The living room blinds were still down, so it was a moment before his eyes could adjust. He looked around carefully. “Potter?” he called. There was no response. Muttering an oath under his breath, Snape snapped his wand; the windows jerked open and shivered, as though unaccustomed to such violent commands.

“Thoughtless, irritating fool,” Snape snapped, to no one at all. He went down the hall, pushed open the door to his bedroom, and stopped short.

Lying on the bed, naked and asleep, was Niles.

Snape frowned, took out his wand, tugged at the wards that coated his flat. None of them had been disturbed. He looked at the boy fully for the first time. There were scratches and bruises—some rather nasty looking—all over the body. Zabini’s doing, most like, Snape thought grimly.

“Boy?” he said. Then, though the word felt awkward in his mouth, “Niles?”

No response, except a deepening of the frown on the boy’s brow. Sighing, Snape tapped the supine body with his wand. “Ennervate—”

The boy’s eyes snapped open. Then he flung himself out of his bed and sank his teeth into Snape’s arm.

Snape bit back a scream. He jabbed his wand at the boy’s throat, and found his mind suddenly and completely blank. Quite frankly, he didn’t know a spell to stop someone from biting on his arm without killing or seriously maimimg the attacker. The pain becoming unbearable, and the boy’s entire head seemed to be trembling with exertion. Finally: “Musculus dystrophus!”

Niles went slack and dropped to the ground. Snape stepped back and stared at his arm. There was a very clear and very ugly ring of teeth marks. Several places—around the incisors and canines—were pitted with blood. “Idiot boy,” Snape muttered. He cast several layers of healing charms, wincing when the redness only dulled slightly, before the boy began to stir. The spell was wearing off.

“Vinculum extremis!” Snape snapped, feeling more than a little satisfaction the boy jerked from the ropes that snapped around his body like hungry eels. “Now…” He met the boy’s eyes. They were more than a little wild. Snape frowned, turned and swept the wards again. Nothing. He ran his wand over the boy, who only stared at him blankly. Nothing.

“You will explain yourself, boy,” Snape said ominously. “Niles,” he added, though he wasn’t sure why he did so.

For a moment, Snape wondered if the boy had suffered from a particularly bad Obliviate. His eyes were still fixed at nothing, and his body, Snape noted for the first time, was almost trembling.

“Niles…?”

The eyes snapped to his face, and the boy shuddered. “It wasn’t a dream, was it?” he muttered, the unseeing look still there. “I didn’t jus’ dream it, did I?”

“Dream what?”

The boy squeezed his eyes shut. “They’re killing ‘im. He’s—dead.”

Snape clenched his jaw. “What are you blabbering about, boy?” he snapped.

The boy’s eyes finally cleared. “You!” he blurted. Snape watched bemusedly as Niles looked around, as though he’d just noticed that he was now in Snape’s bedroom. Well, thought Snape peevishly, maybe the idiot boy did just notice. “What am I doing ‘ere?”

“I was hoping you could answer that,” Snape said coolly.

“And why’m I in these fucking ropes again?” the boy demanded, sounding outraged.

Snape smiled grimly and drew up his sleeve. “Because this, Mr. Niles, is your idea of greeting your host.”

Niles stared at the bite mark. “Wha’?”

“You bit me,” Snape said shortly.

“I did that?” The boy frowned. “I thought…” He looked up uneasily. “Er, I guess I did do that. Sorry. I thought I was…” He stopped.

“Yes?”

“I was—I wasn’t here a moment ago,” Niles said. There was a helpless note in his voice. “I was back in Nightmare Manor—”

“Where?”

“Oh, it’s this big place in Devon—that’s what he calls it, at least.”

“Who’s he?”

Niles bit his lower lip. “My Master.”

It was a good thing he’d been a spy for so long, Snape thought; he knew his face was as smooth as a rock when he asked, “Who is this ‘Master’ of yours?”

The boy looked up through his eyelashes. It was not a very different from so many idiot schoolchildren he’d taught in the past, Snape thought. He could read the emotions like words—resentment, fear. But there was something else, too. Something old and exhausted. “You know him. He calls himself the White Knight.”

“Blaise Zabini?”

Niles nodded. “I’m Bound to him.”

“I see,” said Snape, though he didn’t, not really. He remembered Zabini saying something about Terrance Lestrange, who Snape knew had been bound to Voldemort in a strange, unfathomable way. It was impossible to shake free the associations: Lestrange, whom Frost had killed.

The memory was still on his mind when Niles continued, “I was seeing… and I guess I must’ve been sleeping while I was, but I was seeing… seeing him killed.”

“Who?” Lestrange? Snape thought in a moment of wild uncertainty.

“My Master,” Niles said. He fell silent, face white.

Snape straightened. “I’m sorry,” he said. The boy looked empty, dead. A memory from years and years ago came to him: he remembered a story he’d read of a kneazle who had been Bound to a boy. When the boy had died from a flood, the book had described kneazle wandering in aimless circles, keening and looking as though a fiery wind had passed through it. The words had never quite left him, nor the image they’d conjured: a fiery wind.

He felt one of the wards stroke his mind. The fireplace was in use.

“Severus?” he heard Granger’s voice calling.

Snape cast a quick glance at the boy. He seemed dazed, quite incapable of destroying anymore furniture, as he had the first time around. “Finite incantatem,” he said. The ropes disappeared. Snape caught the small, surprised smile Niles gave before he left the room.

“What is it?”

“Is Harry here?” Granger asked.

“No.”

She nodded. Her face was grim. “I’ve got news.”

Snape felt parts of him clench in apprehension. “Weasley?”

Granger hesitated. “Blaise Zabini is dead.”

“Zabini?” Snape said slowly, as though the thought had never occurred to him.

“Yes. His body was found at the edge of Hogwarts wards. He’d been killed—with Fred Weasley’s wand.”

qp qp qp

“But you don’t think he did it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you?”

“Ginny, I don’t know what to think.”

She’s being honest, Ginny thought. She really doesn’t know what to think. Hermione doesn’t know what to think. Oh Merlin. “Well, what’re the chances of him going to Azkaban?”

“Ginny…”

She’d taken a Calming Draught from Aaron. The world still didn’t seem to hold together correctly, but Ginny could view each piece dispassionately. Or at least, that’s how it seemed. “If Fred’s gone to Azbakan, the Weasley name is going with him.”

“It’s very unlikely that he’ll go. Even if he did do it—”

“But he didn’t.” She got up and found herself facing the wall. “It doesn’t make any sense. He wouldn’t.”

“Ginny? Ginny, come here, I—”

There was something wrong with Hermione’s voice. When Ginny turned, she saw that Hermione had a hand over her belly. She hurried over, but Hermione waved her other hand.

“Nothing,” she said. “Not time yet.”

qp qp qp

“Perhaps you would like a Dreamless Sleep Potion?”

The boy considered him for a moment. “Does it work on people who can’t do any magic?”

Snape glowered. “Don’t be an idiot, boy. You are a wizard.”

“I’m not.”

“Don’t argue with me, boy.”

“I’m not arguing. I’m just saying. I know I’m not magic.”

Snape coffed. “Then how—”

“It’s the Bond,” Niles said suddenly. He shivered. “It’s the Bond that lets me do some stuff.” He looked up, suddenly angry. “If I was a wizard, I’d know!” He grew quiet. “I wouldn’t have let them all walk over me. I’m not… like that.” Then he shivered again. “But now he’s…”

A silence. “Did you see who killed him?”

Niles shook his head.

qp qp qp

“Someone could be trying to frame him. Someone could’ve gone up to his office, knocked him out, left some crackle on the floor, then gone down with his wand and killed Zabini. It’s possible, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.” It took Hermione too long to respond. Ginny felt her stomach plummet. She shivered.

“But who would want to do that to Fred? Who?”

“It’s not who’d want to do it. It’s who could.”

There was a knock on the door. “Jack,” said Hermione, “do come in.”

“Weasley, Dr. Granger,” he said. “The autopsy results for Zabini have come back.”

“And?”

“They match the Priori Incantatem results of Fred Weasley’s wand. Zabini died of the Intestine-Splitting Hex.”

Ginny felt a shudder clutch her body. She wished she were clutching something warmer than her own, cold hands. I wish Aaron were here, she thought, each word clear and precise in her mind. She paused. It’s only the Calming Draught. Once it wears off, I’m going to be a wreck. You’re really not as prepared as you thought you’d be. You’re really not prepared.

“Thank you, Jack.”

“But Fred wouldn’t do that,” Ginny found herself muttering. “He wouldn’t even know that spell. He wouldn’t even know it.”

Hermione was frowning.

qp qp qp

“Did he hurt you?”

Niles frowned. “Why’d you ask that every time?”

“It seems like a reasonable assumption. You are aware, I take it, of the photographs Zabini sent me? You did not look exactly comfortable in them.”

“Yeah, I remember.” There was a momentary dark look on the boy’s face. Snape found himself reminded of the Potter boy, years and years ago, at every mention of his dead godfather, or dementors, or Voldemort. “That wasn’t so good. But mostly they didn’t hurt me. They weren’t nice or anything, but least they didn’t hurt me. He wouldn’t have let them.”

Sounds like a good master, Snape thought, but bit back the comment. “Where were you taken next?”

“Oh, I dunno. We weren’t just runnin’ from the Ministry, you know. There’s other crackle lords who’d love to take a crack at us when we’re down.”

“I imagine.”

“My Master, he—”

“Don’t call him that.”

“What? Master?”

“Yes, that. Call him the White Knight or Zabini. Not the other.”

Snape watched several expressions war on Niles’s face—resentfulness, sorrow, the ever-present weariness. Then they collapsed. “That’s what he was, though,” Niles muttered, looking down. The gruel, which Snape had asked for from Tibby, was untouched. “And I was… I was his slave.”

Snape was pleased by the touch of sullenness in the boy’s voice. “Not anymore.”

Niles closed his eyes and wouldn’t say anything else for a long time.

qp qp qp

Ginny shrugged in the silence. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said lightly, though she felt exhausted. The Calming Draught was ebbing. “You’re thinking, ‘Here’s Ginny, saying this and that about her brother Fred, but really she’s Obliviated. Nothing she says is at all reliable.’”

“Ginny, I don’t think—”

“No, you don’t. You wouldn’t.”

“You need rest, Ginny.”

“Yes.” She thought of going back, not to her flat but to the Burrow. Her mum would probably still be at St. Mungo’s. Oh Merlin, she probably hadn’t heard about Zabini yet, had she?

“Would you like me to talk to your mother?”

Ginny whirled around, mouth open. Then she shut it. “No. Merlin, Hermione, you need rest, too!”

“I’ve a firecall to make.”

Ginny nodded. She turned and stopped, hesitant. “You don’t— Sorry.”

“I don’t believe Fred did it,” Hermione said. She’d faltered halfway through, but her voice had an undercurrent of determination.

Ginny felt calmer immediately. Since when did I just let Hermione do everything? she thought. Since my family started to die, one by one. The memory surged, of how everything that had once been crisp abruptly became a whirl in the space of a week. But Hermione lost her parents in an attack, Ginny thought. Why can’t I do it? What’s wrong with me?

“Ginny?”

Ginny shook her head, hoping to Merlin that this was one thought Hermione wouldn’t be able to guess. “I’ll see you later,” she said, and left.

Hermione sat silently for a moment. Her face was tight, strained. Then she tossed a pinch of Floo powder into a basin on her table. A green flame arose. “24 Spinner’s End,” she said.

qp qp qp

“Is there any particular reason you are staring at me like that?”

“No. No, not really.”

“Hmm.”

Niles took the potion with eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“It’s not poisoned,” Snape said, very dryly.

The boy flushed and then took one sip, then another. Not at all like that time the idiot boy had downed a entire vial in one gulp, Snape thought. The memory seemed from a lifetime ago.

Snape took the empty cup and hesitated. “I am… kind to you for my own peace of mind,” he said finally.

Niles was still looking at him, though Snape could see the sleepiness film over the boy’s eyes. “Your peace of mind?” Niles muttered, frowning.

“Shh,” Snape said. “Go to sleep.”

He watched the eyes flutter shut, and felt a strange ache that he couldn’t remember having felt before. Or, Snape thought slowly, as he stood and regarded the sleeping body with dispassionate eyes, felt so long ago that it’s only the shadow of a shadow.

The wards shivered. “Severus?”

Granger. Snape closed his eyes. He opened his eyes a moment later and stepped out of the room.

qp qp qp

“Hello, Severus.”

“Hello, Granger,” Snape said, sitting down. There was a pause.

“Well,” said Granger, smiling slightly, “it’s been a long day.”

“Yes,” Snape said dryly. And I’m sure you needed to fire-call to tell me that, he thought.

“Have you seen Harry about today?”

“No.”

Granger bit her lip. “I see,” she said. It might have been a trick of the light, but Snape had been looking for it; Granger’s eyes became suddenly more guarded. Yes, he thought. I know what you are thinking. “Well, let me know if you do, will you?”

“Was anything else of interest found in Weasley’s office?”

Granger hesitated. “No,” she said.

Snape sat back. “Granger,” he said in a cool, calm voice, the kind he hadn’t used in years, “I hope you realize what you are doing.”

He gave her a moment to digest what he’d said. Knowing Granger, a moment was more than enough. “Did they really not find anything?” he said quietly.

Granger’s face was a fascinating study of reluctance, unhappiness, and fear. “Fred’s wand had the Intestine-Splitting Hex on it,” she said. “That’s what killed Zabini. And Ginny mentioned that they found a trace of crackle on the floor.”

Snape nodded. “Not surprising,” he said. “Zabini, after all, is the head of a crackle ring.”

“Do you believe that Fred Weasley killed Zabini?”

“That is where the evidence points, do they not?” Snape said coolly.

Granger nodded. Her head was bowed.

“Well, I’ll talk to you later, I’m sure,” Granger said with a sigh. “Do tell me when Harry comes around?”

“He may not come here,” Snape pointed out. “Get some rest, Granger.”

Granger nodded and withdrew her head from the flames. What am I doing? Snape thought, even before the green flames had faded. What am I doing?

He stopped and went unsteadily to the kitchen. Defending him again. Why? Snape closed his eyes, the voice whispering in his mind: Only this morning, you’d hoped that Granger would realize just how dangerous Potter—Frost—was. And now, now that a hint of that understanding is entering her mind, now that she is on the edge of realizing, what do you do? You defend him. Just like you defended him even after you saw him kill Lestrange. Even after you watched him cut the clothes off the corpse, like pulling scales off a fish.

Snape shook his head, trying to push aside the memory. His throat was clenched so tightly that any sound he made would’ve been a scream. Tea, he thought. He got to the doorway before stopping short.

Potter was sitting in one of the chairs. “Hello, Severus.”

The instincts from years before Voldemort took over. He swallowed. “Potter,” he said calmly.

The blinds here were still drawn. Potter was no more than a vague, sullen shape in the darkness. “That was Hermione,” he said.

Snape nodded, realized there was no point, and then decided that Potter was probably aware of it anyway. He raised his wand; the blinds heaved up, and the sharp afternoon sunlight flooded the room. Potter looked exceptionally pale.

“It was,” Snape said. “Busy day, today?”

He watched one side of the lip pull up in the shadow of a smile. “Yes,” Potter said.

He wasn’t any more forthcoming. Tea, Snape reminded himself, and went to the cabinet. “I suppose you’re responsible for the new arrival in my sitting room today?”

“Niles? Yes.”

“Tea?”

“No. Thanks.”

Snape sat down, blowing softly at the cup. He noticed Potter’s glance darting from the opposite wall to his mouth. “Doubtless you’ve heard about Weasley and Zabini?” Snape said, keeping his voice as dark and smooth as possible.

Potter nodded once, his face inscrutable. No, thought Snape. It was actually transparent. The sullenness was that—sullenness. The resentment and the edge of some internal unease, like the last flickers of an ember, were what they were. It was only the silence that made things difficult. It was a thick, impenetrable glass, walled between abstraction and meaning.

He took a sip of the tea.

“Sorry,” Potter said suddenly.

Snape frowned. “You do realize…”

“Yes,” Potter said. He slipped out of his chair, one swift, uncoiling movement. For a moment, his eyes were wild. “I know. I’m apologizing again. I’m not supposed to. But at least this way, you won’t have to forgive me.” Then, without meeting Snape’s gaze, he disappeared down the hall.

A/N: Please review! You'll be making an author immeasurably happy. :)