“Are you sure this is the path you have chosen to walk,” Salazar finally asked.
“Yes,” Kamen answered as he looked down at his hands and then back up at the two portraits, “I will leave the Brotherhood. I will leave the Quidditch team. And then I will join the Order and search for a new job. I will do the right thing, and I will strive to do it the right way.”
“Your intentions are admirable,” Dumbledore said smoothly, “and I wish you the best of luck. We both do,” he nodded towards Salazar, who was grumpily pacing within the confines of his frame.
“You realize,” Salazar said sharply, “that you will never be able to come back to this room.”
“I do,” Kamen said slowly. “And I am sorry for that.”
Salazar sighed, “I shall miss you my boy. You’d best be going.”
Kamen nodded, opened his mouth, but found that he couldn’t trust himself to speak, so he simply turned to leave.
“Send Armand to see us before he sends you on your way!” Salazar ordered. And then resumed pacing as he waited for the young organization leader to come in. “Don’t do it the normal way,” he ordered as soon as Armand entered.
Armand turned questioning eyes to the portrait of Dumbledore for an explanation.
“Salazar would consider it a personal favor if you did not wipe young Mr. Snape’s mind completely.”
“It is the common procedure…”
“To hell with procedure!” Salazar turned furiously, “he has come too far to lose all that he has learned here.”
“Might I suggest a compromise,” Dumbledore said calmly, “only remove his memories of how to reach the headquarters, leave him with all of the conversations and actions he has been a part of. He will be a better man because of it. And memories that have long been forgotten will have a chance to live again. And we have a suggestion for where you can send him.”
Kamen sat up quickly, his head throbbing. He had no idea where he was or how he had gotten there. He noticed the morning light streaming from the window. It had been the middle of the night last he remembered.
“Have you completed your application?”
“Huh?” Kamen looked around for the voice that had addressed him.
An irritated little sigh, “have you completed your application yet? You’ve certainly taken your time with it.”
Kamen came to his feet when he realized that the voice addressing him was female. “I don’t think…” he looked down at the application in his hand, and then back up at the young woman addressing him. She had a mass of curly brown hair and a splash of freckles across her nose.
“Let me see it then,” she took the application from him, “all done then.” She smiled pleasantly at him. “You’ll be a bit behind, starting in the middle of term like this, but we’ll get you caught up so on enough. Although I have to say that I would have never pinned you as a healer. Most wizards that come through here want to be mediwizards or nothing. Plus, I remember you from school, seems to me as though you would want something a bit more flashy.”
“I did once,” Kamen said. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember you though…”
“That doesn’t surprise me. You ran with a slightly faster crowd than I did. I’m Beth,” she held out her hand.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Are you awake now?”
Nimue struggled to get her eyes fully open and found Olivia sitting at her feet. “I guess I am.”
“Are you ok?”
“I think so,” Nimue didn’t add that her father and Madame Pomphrey would likely argue otherwise.
“They moved you next to Mum,” Olivia hopped off the bed to pull back the dividing curtain.
Tears filled Nimue’s eyes as she looked at the still form of her mother, “hi Mum,” she said softly, “I missed you so much.” Seeing the difference in her mother after so much time had passed, versus hearing it from her siblings… the results were most definitely harder to see than they were to hear. It was hard to reconcile the emaciated, grey figure with the energetic mother that she knew. She knew, without the aid of any visions, that things were never going to be the same. She could also feel the prospect of death lingering in the hospital wing. It made her shiver.
She sighed and pulled back her own curtain to look out into the infirmary. It was empty. “I think I’m ready to get up, will you give me a hand?”
Olivia looked uncertainly at her sister, “Dad said you were really hurt and needed lots of rest.”
“I promise, I’m ok to get up for just a little bit,” Nimue managed a somewhat strained smile. She was in a lot of pain still, but she felt the need to move even though she knew her body needed more rest. “Here, give me a hand,” she slowly moved around so that her legs were hanging over the side of the bed, and rested some of her weight on Olivia’s shoulder as she managed to get on her feet. She rested against the bed for a minute, feeling a bit wobbly, but then decided she was ready to go. Almost. “Olivia, can you have Misty find me something to wear please?” She knew that the family House Elf was always somewhere nearby, and more than willing to do anything she could for the Snape children.
Olivia nodded enthusiastically and reached for a talisman that hung around her neck. Misty almost immediately popped into the curtained off area. She received her order enthusiastically, and was back again in no time.
It took some maneuvering, but Nimue finally managed to wriggle into the simple dress Misty returned with, only to find that it wouldn’t quite fasten and the hem was inches higher off the ground than it used to be.
“Misty will fix it miss Nimue, yous have only grown a bit since you wore it last,” with a snap of her green fingers the hem lengthened and the rest of the dress fit itself to Nimue’s willowy body before fastening itself. “You should be resting yourself now Miss Nimue,” Misty took Nimue’s hand and tried to lead her back to bed.
“No, that’s alright, I think I want to have a look around,” Nimue said pulling away from the elf. She was, in fact, very tired, but didn’t think she could stand to spend anymore time in bed just now. She was restless. Not so much as in Greece, but now that she was home she wanted to everything to get back to normal. Or at least as normal as things could be with things the way they were. “Olivia will keep an eye on me, won’t you?”
“But who will be keeping an eye on young miss sos that she is taking good care of Miss Nimue,” Misty grumbled. Nevertheless, she disappeared with a *pop*, leaving the two youngest Snape children together.
“You might have to help me a bit,” Nimue said uncertainly as she used Olivia’s shoulder to steady herself. She was still a bit wobbly and limped a bit, finding that her left foot was stiff and was rather painful when she tried to put weight on it.
Olivia, trusting Nimue’s assertion that she was fine, happy explored the halls with her returned sibling, enjoying having someone different to talk to. She chattered on about her lessons with Draco, how she was no longer allowed to see the friends she had made, and other details of her daily life.
“Who is that?” Nimue interrupted Olivia as she came to a sudden halt.
“That’s Professor MacLeod, she’s teaching Ancient Runes now. I used to see her by the lake sometimes. But I’m not supposed to go down there anymore.”
Nimue nodded, but her mind was spinning in at least a dozen different directions. She had asked because she had seen the woman before, this Professor MacLeod. She was the one that Nimue had met when she first disapparated from Greece. The one that had told her she would come to no harm and had told her the path to follow. She quickly made a decision. She would keep that piece of information to herself for the time being.
As they continued toward the dungeons she peeked into the classrooms they passed, wondering what it would be like to be back in school at Hogwarts.
~~~~~~~~~~~ What do you suppose the point of this lesson is?
Serena dipped put quill to parchment, but wasn’t quite sure what to respond. She was a stumped as her sister. It was a lesson worthy of History of Magic, not Defense Against the Dark Arts. Instead of penning an answer she shrugged.
Dierna rolled her eyes and mouthed ‘want me to ask?’
“Is there a problem, Miss Snape?” Harry was ready to admit that he was a bit less than patient this morning, having arrived back late the following night unexpectedly rather than early this morning when he could have been well rested. But, he was also getting tired of the large number of notes being passed in his class, and the whispering that was going on whenever his back was turned. Yes, today’s lesson was not a practical one, but he usually garnered far more respect than this. In fact, the only House whose occupants were diligently working on the assignment was Slytherin.
Dierna thought about saying that no, there was no problem, everything was fine. But she didn’t. “Yes there is. I think that this assignment is a waste of our time.”
Quills stopped scratching their way across rolls of parchment as the rest of the students to look up to see how that statement would be dealt with. Serena couldn’t help but think that her sister could be a right idiot at times.
“I don’t see how writing essays on the history of the Dementors, and all the other dark creatures you’ve assigned us are going to help us actually fight a battle. We covered dark creatures several years ago, we need to know how to fight! And not just to defend ourselves. There aren’t defensive spells against a killing curse, there are times when we may need to strike first!”
Harry shoved his hands in his pockets as he walked down the aisle to stand by Dierna’s desk. “You raise an interesting point, Miss Snape, please stand up.” They faced each other, one on either side of her desk. The camaraderie from the weekend formed over the mysteries of Severus Snape was gone. It was once again professor and student. “Am I correct in assuming that you think the best way to defend yourself is to make sure that you, in all actuality, are not defending, but attacking?”
“In some cases, sir.”
“But where do you draw the line? How do you decide which curse you use, and which one you don’t? Which one will mark you as ‘good’ versus ‘evil’?”
“Seems to me that since you’re the one that has to finish off Voldemort, you’d be thankful for whatever help you got from the rest of the witches and wizards fighting on your side and wouldn’t be so picky about what type of help it was.” Something had changed for Dierna in Rome. She had seen life that was not oppressed by the looming presence of war. They were very much aware of the situation there. But there lives were not in constant danger. She wanted that, more than anything. And not just for herself, but for her family… for her father.
“So… would you be willing to… bind someone?”
“Yes.”
“Injure them to make them immobile?”
“Yes.”
“Kill them?”
Dierna hesitated.
“Come now, Miss Snape, we were discussing fighting by whatever means necessary. Would you kill someone?”
“I don’t know…”
“What if they were going to kill you?”
Dierna chewed on her bottom lip, feeling that she might have worked herself into an uncomfortable situation.
“Say the words Miss Snape.”
“Sir?”
“Say the words to the killing curse.”
Dierna’s eyes grew large, but she obediently mumbled, “avada kedavra.”
“Now tell me, what do you hate? What annoys you?” Harry was determined to get through to these children, these young adults, as best he could.
“Umm… I’m not particularly partial to spiders.”
“Most people aren’t. But you use them in potions, so it must be the live ones that really get to you,” Harry pressed. He had a feeling he would be hearing from Minerva about this lesson later. She wouldn’t be pleased. But he also had the strange feeling that the deputy headmaster, one Severus Snape, would support him.
“I don’t like things crawling on me,” Dierna was now very uncertain where this was going to go. She looked around at her classmates, they seemed as lost as she was. Except for Mark McKean. His gaze was unusually intense. She was certain that he knew something she didn’t.
Harry walked around the perimeter of the room until he found a good sized spider in sitting comfortably in a web by the window. He carried it back to Dierna’s desk where he set it down and then stood behind the student. “Imagine it crawling on you, ready to bite. It won’t harm you, but that feeling… knowing that it is there on your skin… you’d do anything to stop it wouldn’t you. If you stun it, you know it won’t crawl on you,” at that suggestion Dierna raised her wand, “but of course it won’t stay stunned forever. You could kill it, think the words…kill it.”
“No,” Dierna’s hand shook slightly. This was not what she meant when she insisted that they learn how to fight.
“It’s only a spider,” Harry said, very aware that every eye in the classroom was on him. At this moment a memory of Mad Eye Moody’s class was very close at hand. “I’m sure you’ve killed many spiders in your lifetime, what makes this one different?” A flick of his wand and invisible spiders were climbing up Dierna’s neck, “kill it!” he hissed in her ear.
“Avada Kedavra!” a blast of green light and the spider was dead.
Dierna dropped her wand as she realized what she had just done.
“Class dismissed. Miss Snape, I’d like a word with you.”
The class was silent as they filed out without any hesitation. Save for one person. Mark paused long enough to retrieve Dierna’s wand and place it on top of her books. He shook his head at the way she still stood unmoving. Gryffindor bravery was certainly a far cry for Slytherin survival skills. However, it appeared that now the Gryffindors, as well as the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs would have to realize what the war and upcoming battle truly meant. People would die, and other people would kill them. Knowing that he was likely in the way, he nodded to Potter and closed the door behind him as he left the classroom.
“Sit down Dierna,” Harry said, not unkindly. He waited as Dierna stiffly complied. “I’m here if you need to talk about what just happened, and I can have Professor Longbottom up here in just a few minutes if you’d rather discuss it with your Head of House.”
“I’m fine…”
Harry frowned at that, he knew she was anything but. “I know I was a bit hard on you. However, there was a point to be made and you all but volunteered yourself for the making of it.”
“It’s alright, really, and I have a class to get to.”
“The Seventh Years have the next hour free.”
“Yes, well, I’ve been doing some work for Dad and I have to go change out my books.”
Harry felt like there was something he should say, but he had no idea what it was.
~~~~~~~~~~~
