My EXTREME apologies to those who read Dark Avatar and were cut off in the middle. It previewed correctly, but cut off in posting -- and then I got a migraine to die from, and didn't come back to look last night.



This time of morning, there were few students in the halls; most were enduring class, unless given official dispensation to visit the library or bathrooms. The Common Rooms were typically deserted.

As Snape bespelled the door and creaked it open, he saw immediately that something was very wrong. His Slytherins were children, but they were tidy -- any mess was instantly cleaned, because they all knew the penalties for infractions of the rules.

The Common Room was in chaos.

"Mercy!" McGonagall breathed as she eased in behind him. "What's happened here?"

Broken, splintered furniture. Slashed portraits. The violence of the attack made Snape think of Remus Lupin, of werewolf frenzies, but this was too specific and too orderly, and besides, the moon was well down.

McGonagall drew her wand and moved away from him, picking her way through an unfamiliar landscape of ripped pillows, splintered chairs, overturned tables.

And then she cried out and dropped to a crouch next to a lump of black fabric. "Severus!"

He lunged toward her as she rolled the child over, and for a second he had a flash of Althea Gidding's pallid, dead-seeming face ...

... but this time, it was male. No less pallid, but the eyes were closed.

"Thomas Thesbury," he confirmed. There were bruises on his face, blood from a split lip. His hands were cut and abraded. "He put up a fight."

"Against whom?"

"The portraits -- " McGonagall turned to look, and fell silent. Every single one had been slashed apart, not a sign of their occupants remaining. "Oh dear. We'll be forever tracking them down. Well. Let's get the poor boy to Pomfrey -- "

The boy's eyes opened wide, and he whispered, "You have to stop her. Stop her before ..."

"Who?" Snape asked. "Who was it, Thesbury?"

"She'll destroy us all. She hates us, hates Slytherin, hates you -- " Thesbury's eyes fixed wildly on Snape, and he reached up to grab a handful of his dark robe. "She'll come for you."

His eyes rolled back whitely in his head, and he collapsed, limp as the dead.

"She?" McGonagall echoed blankly. "What on earth is going on, Severus?"

He hated to admit it, but he had no idea.

###

"Any more of this," Poppy Pomfrey said without the slightest trace of humor, "and I'm going to ask the Headmaster to install a Slytherin wing on the Infirmary."

"I'd think you'd have him consecrate a special Potter room first," Snape shot back. They were standing next to Thesbury's bed, and the boy was bandaged and patched and sleeping soundly. "That wretch has been more of an imposition on you than all of my students put together."

She gave him a wintry smile and smoothed her long white apron -- spotless, as always. He'd never been able to determine her age, not that it mattered; Pomfrey had as much feminine appeal as a clothes mannequin. She made McGonagall look positively flirtatious.

"How is the boy?" McGonagall asked, drawing their attention back to Thesbury's pale form.

"Cuts, bruises, a small broken bone in his hand. He'll heal up just fine," Pomfrey said, and then frowned at the girl lying in the next bed. "I'm not so certain about poor Miss Giddings. She's not responding well to treatment."

"Has she said anything?"

"Not a word. She's still under the influence of the Holding Potion. I've asked some of the Slytherins to make up a roster; they've been coming to sit with her and read to her. Or simply talk. Anything to keep her connected to the world."

"Any word from the Aurors?" Snape asked. If his voice heaped contempt on the noun, it was hardly his fault.

"They've tried some antidotes. Nothing's worked so far ... Professor. He's awake." Pomfrey leaned in and put her hand on Thesbury's forehead. "Can you hear me, Thomas?"

His eyes were open. Confused. "I -- yes. Where am I?"

"Infirmary," Snape said. "What do you remember?"

"Nothing -- I -- I wasn't feeling well and I went to lie down in the Common Room -- then -- " He stopped. Snape stared at him, into him, and read nothing. A vast and ringing silence. "I don't know."

"You said something about she," McGonagall put in helpfully. "She'll destroy us all. Do you not remember?"

Thesbury visibly struggled with it, and then admitted, "No. I don't. I'm sorry."

"He's telling the truth," Snape said softly. "He doesn't remember."

"A memory charm?" Madame Pomfrey asked. "It'd have to be a subtle one, to work without either of you noticing it! -- oh dear. It's time to change Mister Longbottom's dressings. Burned, you know. An accident with fireplants, in Professor Sprout's class ..."

She hurried away, leaving Snape to think about what she'd said. The charm ... subtle, and extraordinarily powerful. Like the potion holding Giddings between life and death. Like the force that had battered Thesbury and destroyed the Slytherin Common Room.

"Severus?" McGonagall asked him, and touched him lightly on the arm.

"I don't know," he admitted. "Only a Slytherin could have entered the Common Room. None of the Slytherins are guilty. It makes no sense."

"Perhaps we should focus on helping the victims, then. Poppy, you said that the Aurors were working on counterspells for the Holding Potion ...?"

"Bah!" Snape flipped a dismissive gesture at nothing in particular. "Notoriously unreliable. They're mad to try it."

"Isn't there an antidote?"

"Of course. It's among the most difficult and time-consuming to prepare, naturally." He felt a sour ache somewhere around the pit of his stomach. "I offered my services. The Aurors don't feel it would be advisable at this time. I think they take a dim view of Slytherin in general. This -- incident -- certainly won't convince them otherwise."

She gave him a thin, understanding smile. "And yet, I feel certain that there is a potion brewing even now in your laboratory. Or am I wrong?"

He cast her a look. She didn't flinch from it, but then, she had plenty of acquaintance with his moods.

"Give it to me when it's completed," she said. "Nobody has forbidden me to do anything."

Nor would they, if they had any sense of self-preservation, Snape thought. He smiled.

"You should do that more often," she said. "It suits you. Gives you a kind of evil glamour."

"Flatterer."

"Surly git."

"Evil old biddy."

"Reptile."

"A compliment!"

He won an outright grin from her. "At times, you honestly charm, do you know that? But don't worry. I'll keep it in the strictest confidence. I would so hate to ruin your image, Severus."

He bowed mockingly, allowing her to precede him out of the room. A moment of warmth in a very cold and bitter day; the instant they were outside, reality descended again.

Dumbledore and the Aurors were coming towards them.

They had been introduced to him earlier as Langford and Williamson, but to Snape's mind they were interchangeable -- business-class wizards in neat pinstriped robes and carefully knotted Windsor ties, stylish Muggle haircuts. Langford -- was it Langford? -- wore spectacles. Between them, they had less personality than a gnat.

"Professors," Dumbledore said. His formal tone put Snape on skin-tingling alert. "I understand there appears to be another injury to a student."

"This time in the Slytherin Common Room," Langford put in smoothly. "Which is, I believe, only accessible to Slytherins themselves. Given that there is considerable evidence that one or more students from Slytherin House may have been involved in these incidents, we are focusing our attention exclusively in that area."

"Are you," Snape said flatly. "How surprising, as we are of course always guilty."

Langford had no sense of sarcasm. "I should not admit that if I were you, Professor. An extremely advanced Restricted Potion was administered to the girl, which implies that at the very least you may demonstrated a lack of vigilance in safeguarding the necessary knowledge and ingredients ... and of course, questions remain about your, ah, associations and actions in the past ..." He trailed off significantly. Snape bored a murderous glare into him. His fingertips itched for his wand. "Naturally, we completely respect Headmaster Dumbledore's confidence in you, Professor, but for the sake of prudence, we cannot allow you any further involvement in this matter while we investigate. You are not to visit this Infirmary again."

"And what have your investigations revealed so far?" he asked.

"I don't think it's wise to share that information at this time."

"Of course," he said. "No doubt you'll inform me when you come to take me to Azkaban ... for a lack of vigilance." He sketched a very slight, mocking bow toward the Aurors, and took a step forward.

"Not quite yet, Professor." Williamson, this time. The man moved squarely into Snape's path, for all the world as if he was a Quidditch player protecting a goal. "You should also inform your students that their visitation privileges to the Infirmary have also been suspended for the time being. We are keeping Miss Giddings and Mister Thesbury under strict watch, for their own protection."

Snape felt his eyes narrow and couldn't help the dark undertone in his next words. "You're punishing my students?"

"Who may very well be guilty of dosing and raping one girl, and beating a boy unconscious? Yes. I rather think we might. And the fact that you seem to disagree with that judgment makes me wonder exactly what sort of role model you represent for them, Professor Snape." Williamson's malicious smile faded as Dumbledore turned a forbidding stare his way. "Begging your pardon, Headmaster."

"I grant you the opportunity," Dumbledore said blandly.

He might have said more -- Snape suspected it, strongly -- but the doors suddenly burst open behind them and Madame Pomfrey, looking a good deal more unsettled than her usual, said, "Headmaster! Aurors, please, quickly. Miss Giddings has taken a turn for the worse. Her heartbeat is highly irregular."

"A possible side effect of trying to countercharm a potion, instead of using the proper antidote," Snape said. "Headmaster, I urge you -- "

Dumbledore laid a hand on his arm, but did not look at him. "Severus, I understand your distress," he said. "But the Aurors have made their decision clear on this. -- Now, may I see the girl? Unless of course you suspect me as well."

The two Aurors made politely shocked demurs, and the three of them disappeared into the Infirmary, following Pomfrey.

Snape glanced aside at McGonagall.

"Get the potion ready, and bring it to me when you're finished." Her eyes were bright with fury, her lips set in a flat, compressed line. "I cannot believe that Albus allowed them to say -- No. You will not be blamed for this."

He said nothing. He knew -- even if she did not -- that it was a foregone conclusion.

###

The rest of the day, he was uncommonly waspish in his classes, reducing at least four students to tears; he assigned far too much homework and admitted to himself that it would be just as much of a punishment to himself to read it as the students to prepare it.

He couldn't keep his mind on the business at hand. The impulse to continue to pursue questions was overpowering ... although he had to admit, he had exhausted every avenue that seemed immediately obvious. Thesbury was released from hospital and escorted back to the Slytherin halls, with precise instructions to rest, and refrain from answering the questions that were sure to be fired at him from all sides.

Giddings continued to worsen, clinging to life in shallow breaths, and nothing the Aurors could do seemed to stop the relentless winding down of her heart.

Snape was grateful when he could escape to his laboratory, to brood over the potion that had been brewing, untouched, for more than a day.

It finished at precisely two in the morning, right on schedule. Snape roused himself from his seat in the corner -- reminding himself once again that he really did need to furnish his laboratory with a decently padded armchair and a small library, for occasions like this -- and removed the heavy cauldron from the flames. When he lifted the cover, he averted his face from the bloom of steam -- scented with lilies, of all things -- and took up a dipper to check the color. A perfect moonstone white, swirling with subtle colors. Yes.

The yield was small. The more difficult the potion, the smaller the result; that rule always held true. He used great care in transferring it to a clean bottle, stoppering it and started to label it with his usual care, then remembered McGonagall's intent. It wouldn't do, to have his handwriting on the evidence. He slipped it into an inside pocket of his robes and moved out into night-draped shadows.

The stillness of Hogwarts at this later hour didn't bother him. When unable to sleep, he had always roamed the halls. He'd started it as a first-year student, creeping silently along darkened passages while the paintings snored and mumbled, painstakingly mapping the place. In the dark, he'd felt safe. In command of himself and the world around him. He'd felt as if Hogwarts belonged to him, and him alone.

In daylight, things had been far different.

Tonight, though, he paced the halls without any sense of security or freedom; it felt as if the walls were close and moving in, as if every painting he passed looked on him with harsh and judging eyes. Langford's supercilious words returned to him. Questions remain about his, ah, associations in the past ... He'd lived under that cloud for a long time, but after so long in the trusting environment of Hogwarts, he'd assumed -- quite wrongly -- that it might have begun to clear.

He heard something up ahead -- a furtive rustle of cloth. His dark-adapted eyes picked out a dim shadow of movement. He subvocalized the Lumos charm and a chill blue-white light blazed from the tip of his outstretched wand, freezing the culprit in place.

Well, not precisely, because the culprit's wand blazed out at the same instant, dazzling them both, and behind the glare a brisk Scots-accented voice said dryly, "For Merlin's sake, Severus, what are you going to do? Blind me? Give me detention?"

McGonagall. He sighed and lowered his wand, muting the glow; she did the same, until they were both illuminated by something like candlelight, if candlelight glowed blue.

"It's ready. I was looking for you," he said, and started to take the potion out of his robes. She gave him a warning look.

"Follow me," she said, and marched back the way she'd come, down the long hall, then taking the left-hand turn that led to the faculty rooms. Women's quarters were on the third floor ... unknown territory to him, who'd always found the female professors of Hogwarts to be either chilly, ancient or entirely too eager. Not that he'd ever been overfond of any of the male ones, either ...

The portraits along the walls that were awakened by the light whispered behind their hands, some smirking. McGonagall ignored them. Snape followed suit, but felt a high tight burn in his cheeks. Me? With McGonagall? Do they imagine ...? Clearly, they did. And now they'd gossip, and by tomorrow every portrait in the hall would be alive with it, and then the ghosts, and it would be just a matter of hours before the students --

"Severus!" McGonagall's sharp, no-nonsense whisper. "Stop dawdling. In here."

She was standing in an open doorway, glaring at him. He supposed he should be thankful that she was dressed, as always, in a voluminous working robe -- and over that, a green-and-blue tartan sleeveless coat. Her sole concession to the late hour was that she had doffed the witch's hat she so often favored, and her hair was piled carelessly on top of her head, fastened with pins and no doubt a well-placed charm or two.

He moved past her into the inner sanctum, and she shut the door behind him.

"Who's this?" a strong male voice asked from near his elbow, startling him; he turned and saw a portrait, nearly life-sized, of a bluff-looking wizard with thinning ginger hair. Sharp dark eyes, a thin nose, a sly cast to the mouth, which did not come near to smiling. "Bringing home students these days, Minerva? What's the world coming to when ..."

"Oh, for the love of Merlin, Laddie, he's not a student," she said, and then dismissed the portrait and held out her hand to Snape. He wordlessly handed over the bottle. She looked at the color of it and shot him a look that might have been admiring. He found he didn't mind. "This is Professor Snape."

"Ah! Of course!" the portrait -- Laddie? -- chortled, and crossed his arms. He was wearing a robe, of course, but his was of some muddy maroon color, trimmed in (what else?) tartan plaid. "Heard much about you, Snape. Minerva curses your name in the dark of the moon at least three times a year, you know."

"Laddie!"

"Sorry -- up to a bit of mischief, then? She's a right handful when she gets the bit between her teeth -- "

"I apologize on his behalf," McGonagall interrupted, and grabbed Snape by the elbow to drag him out of sight of the picture. Laddie, undeterred, continued some sort of soliloquy on the virtues of Minerva McGonagall. "My husband. He does tend to go on."

Husband?

"The late Mr. McGonagall," she clarified, no doubt in response to his doubtful expression. "He died -- during the troubles." Meaning, of course, that he'd died fighting Voldemort. Snape took it like a blow, half offended; he'd known her for more than fifteen years, and she'd never once mentioned such a thing. Why would she? some dour part of his mind asked. You're the last man in the world any sensible woman would approach for sympathy.

"I see," he said.

Her eyes assessed him for a few sharp seconds, and then she smiled. "I expect you would, Severus. Don't worry. It was nothing to do with you."

"Minerva!" Laddie said suddenly. "Stay where I can see you! Indecent, running off with some handsome lad in the middle of the night."

Handsome lad?

McGonagall rolled her eyes. "Ignore him. He enjoys teasing me, however inappropriately."

"Pray, why am I in your rooms, Min – Professor McGonagall? Because I do assure you, if it's only to make your deceased husband jealous – "

"Don't be ridiculous," she snapped, and color flared dark in her cheeks. "If you'd given me the potion in the hallway, there'd be a half dozen portraits to witness your involvement. I can claim with perfect safety to have prepared the potion and given it to the girl. You can't."

"You'd lie?"

"Assuredly."

"You don't think the portraits in the hall will ... report my coming here?"

"I think," she said quite steadily, "that there could be any number of reasons a female professor might invite a male professor to her rooms in the dark of night."

He felt his eyebrows rise. "You surprise me."

"I don't know why, Severus, we're all of us accomplished liars around Hogwarts. We've had to be." The flush was fading from her face, and she looked unwontedly serious. "I took the opportunity this afternoon to investigate a bit more about your Slytherins. In particular, the two victims. Miss Giddings' father was once a Death Eater, did you know?"

He had not, but it did not surprise him; there were many who'd hidden their identities well, had disappeared like rats into wainscoting the moment Voldemort was defeated. "And Thesbury?"

"That's a bit of a different case. In fact, his family was targeted by Voldemort, or at least, his mother was ... " McGonagall looked a bit uneasy with the topic, but continued nevertheless. "She was one of the Slytherins who stood against the Dark Lord, during your school days. I'm sure you knew her. Hester Holmes."

Hester. Hester ...

He sat down rather suddenly on McGonagall's bed.

"Hester Holmes?" he repeated numbly. "Impossible."

"I'm certain." She was frowning down at him in concern. "Severus, are you quite all right?" She clearly saw he wasn't.

"I -- did know Hester," he said slowly. "We -- "

There was no word to put to it. They had competed fiercely, fired each other with tests of skill and pride and arrogance. Laughed and looked down on all of the ridiculously undertalented wizards around them. Hester had been his ally. His partner in crime.

Hester had been ...

"She was my friend," he finished quietly. "As you know, I don't make them easily."

"I doubt you'd make them at all, given the choice," she replied. "Well. I'm sorry to report that there was an ... incident ... with Hester after she left school. She took to crusading against the Dark Lord, trying to rally resistance among Slytherin alumni ..."

He knew, all too well, what was coming next. It was easier to say it than hear it. "She was taken by Death Eaters." And he'd been one of them. Not the worst, not by far, but ... present, overseeing the thing on Lord Voldemort's command -- black humor, from the black master. Terrible things had been done to her. Terrible things ... and he had stood blindly, watching. Unable to prevent it.

He remembered his friend, contorted in the torment of the Cruciatus, and loathed himself anew. He'd made sure she wasn't killed, but that was all he'd been able to do. Anything else would have drawn Voldemort's attention ...

"Yes," McGonagall agreed quietly. "I don't know what happened to her, but it seems likely ... well. After that, she was never the same, apparently. She married a very nice, normal Muggle man, but she -- Severus, to put it bluntly, she was institutionalized when her son was summoned to Hogwarts a few years ago. I think she'd hoped he'd be kept away from all this."

"She," he repeated. "Could that have been who Thesbury was talking about? His mother?"

"I don't see how it's possible. Hester is dead. And ghosts hardly present the kind of power necessary to -- to do what's been done."

"Then we're back where we started."

"Apparently," she sighed. "We cannot lose you, not to the prejudice and laziness of the Ministry. When the girl wakes up, she'll tell us who attacked her, and this can be swiftly disposed of."

Snape inclined his head in acknowledgment. "I hope you're right."

"I am." She touched his arm, a mere brush of her fingers. "All will be well."

Laddie McGonagall, attempting to peer around the edges of his picture frame, muttered, "Keep your hands off of my woman, you great flapping black git. Or at least hae the decency to turn me to the wall!"

If there had been even a miniscule impulse Snape might have had toward romancing Minerva McGonagall, that was more than enough to banish it.

###

The potion, if it worked at all, would work immediately. Snape went back to his rooms and waited, unwilling to endure the blunt humor of McGonagall's dead husband a moment longer, despite the proximity of her chambers to the Infirmary. He tried to imagine what would have possessed her first to marry such an oaf, and second, to retain enough of a fondness for his memory to keep it chattering on the walls of her room.

Maybe it was simply that she was lonely, and a portrait was company, of a kind. Though he could not imagine the pale impression of personality it held to be anything less than torture, if she'd truly loved the man.

He was spending entirely too much time thinking about McGonagall. It was ridiculous. She was far too old and far too grimly Gryffindor for his tastes.

Exhaustion grated his bones to powder as he paced, glaring at the low-burning fire, then at the neatly stacked papers still waiting to be graded for the morning's class. Reading Ronald Weasley's pathetic essay on the proper chopping methods for hoarhound ought to make for some decent light entertainment ... but he couldn't even bring himself to unroll the scroll, which – he could already see – had been written in an extra-large hand to attempt to fill space. Hunger gnawed at him. He charmed up a platter of fruit and cheese, with a glass of red wine from the cellars. No doubt the house elves would grumble about it for days.

He had just finished his meal when he heard a knock at the door, and quickly sent the tray back to the kitchens before rising to meet McGonagall.

It wasn't only McGonagall. It was the two Aurors, Langford and Williamson, both looking flushed and nervous. Wands out. Behind them, Dumbledore ... and there, behind him, Minerva, pale as the grave.

"Severus Snape," Langford said, stepping forward. "Surrender your wand."

Snape took an involuntary step backward, darting a look at Dumbledore; the ancient wizard's hands were folded in front of him, an attitude that spoke loudly of conciliation.

He was going to allow it to happen again.

Memory took Snape hard, fresh even after all these years ... voices in the night, hands wrenching his arms behind him, his wand being taken. An endless gray torture of a time in Azkaban with Dementors dining on his pain. Harsh questions before the Tribunal. He had somehow maintained his composure through the trial, until he was acquitted on the strength of Dumbledore's assurances. He had collapsed like a broken puppet, after, in the safety of Hogwarts.

This time, there was no safety here.

"Surrender your wand," Langford insisted, and the threat of his raised hand was clear. "I warn you, we will disable you if necessary."

"What is it I'm supposed to have done?" he asked. His voice sounded hoarse and dry.

"Althea Giddings has awakened from her paralysis," the other Auror, Williamson, said grimly. "She has named her attacker."

He read the truth not in Dumbledore's eyes, which were blandly reflective, but in McGonagall's. She looked betrayed and ill.

"She named you, Snape. And in all the low regard I hold you, I never imagined you for a molester of children," Williamson continued in a low, vicious tone. "I give you one more chance to hand over your wand, but I beg you, don't take it. It would give me the greatest of pleasure to curse you."

"Severus," Dumbledore said, very softly. "Please don't resist. We will find the truth."

There was no point in struggling. Snape closed his eyes for a bare second, then opened his robe and reached to turn over his wand. Williamson stopped him with a fast, threatening gesture, reached into the pocket and fished it carefully out. Snape put up no fight. He focused all his attention on McGonagall as the two Ministers administered a binding charm, and said only two words as they hustled him out and down the corridor.

"Polyjuice potion."

McGonagall sucked in a quick, damp breath.

He trusted she had gotten the full implication.

###

They had him halfway down the dark hallways ... halfway to Azkaban ... when the scream came, freezing the entire group of them in place. High, thin, terrified ... a child's scream in the night. The Ministers held tight to Snape's bound arms, but McGonagall and Dumbledore moved quickly, very quickly – it was always a surprise, how spry Dumbledore could be for a man of his advanced years.

"We'd best see what's happening," said Williamson, frowning uneasily, and Langford nodded and tugged Snape along the path the other two Hogwarts staff had taken. Snape went willingly, and then felt a sharp surge of alarm, because they were turning to take the stairs, and the screaming was coming from the deserted fourth floor where Althea Giddings had been attacked.

The paintings were all alive, moving from one frame to another, witches and wizards crashing into each other and the confused livestock milling around in the landscapes. "Over here! Over here!" One of the Renaissance-era wizards draped in elaborate Hufflepuff robes gestured urgently at the top of the stairs. "Hurry! This way! -- Oh, I say, this is unusual. Professor Snape, you just came this way!"

Dumbledore and McGonagall were already at the top of the steps and running into the deserted area, lumos charms exploding the darkness ahead.

The screaming abruptly cut off. Snape took the stairs three at a time, off balance from the binding spell but grimly determined not to fall behind; the Ministers puffed as they tried to keep up. I could turn. Turn and push them down the stairs. He had enough wandless magic to dissolve the binding charm, given enough time and concentration. He could easily escape in the confusion.

He kept his focus on the moving lights and shadows ahead, where Dumbledore and McGonagall were chasing a fading scream.

"What is it?" Shouts from below. Children piling out on the landings. Professors Sprout and Flitwick emerging breathlessly from one floor above. Madames Hooch and Pomfrey joining the confused group. Snape did not pause. He ran, Aurors close at his heels, through the maze of dust and decaying wood, following the scuffled trails of those who'd gone before.

He skidded to a stop when he saw Dumbledore and McGonagall standing very still in the next room, wands out. Facing away from him.

"Let her go," Dumbledore said, and although there was no menace in his voice there was no sense of pity, either. "You cannot escape. Put down your wand."

No answer. Snape took a slow step forward, unwilling to provoke any rash actions, but he had to see. Had to know.

He came face to face with himself.

The shock was immense and oddly unsettling; apart from viewing himself in a mirror, he'd never had the opportunity to observe how he appeared to others. Cruel. Hard as flint. Arrogantly superior.

His own dark eyes narrowed on seeing him, and his own hand tightened around the throat of the girl who'd screamed down Hogwarts ... Winter Westmarch. The small girl looked traumatized, cowering inside of her too-large robe.

Dumbledore's attention remained strictly focused on the enemy before him, the hand around Winter's neck. "Whoever you are – and believe me, I know you are not whom you appear to be – your masquerade is finished. You will not escape. There is no point in hurting Miss Westmarch. It will gain you nothing."

"Another Slytherin dead," the creature who was not Snape said, and the voice was wrong, wrenchingly so -- a clear male tenor. "That's what it gains me. I'll destroy you all, every last serpent, until it's finished. I swear I will."

"She's just a child." Dumbledore put out a gentle, placating hand. "There's nothing evil in her."

"Slytherin," Snape's doppelganger hissed, face contorted in rage. "Every great evil has come out of this house. It has to end. Snape has to pay!"

The wand pressing tight against Winter's temple took on an unclean, green glow. Snape recognized it, and felt a burning lurch of fear. Avada kedavra, the killing curse, powered by hate. Impossible to counter.

The wand moved at the last second, flicking toward Snape like a striking snake, and the green flood of energy burned the air with a smell like charnel houses ...

Winter, squealing in fear, grabbed not-Snape's arm and dragged it out of line.

The curse went wild, striking Langford squarely in the chest; he dropped without a sound, dead in a blink. At the same time, Dumbledore and McGonagall cast spells – what, Snape was too dazed to hear – and his doppelganger flew backward, crashed into the stone wall, and slumped limply to the floor, wand tumbling from his pale hand.

Winter ran forward, into McGonagall's sheltering embrace.

Williamson was clearly too stunned to imagine what it all meant. Snape turned on him furiously and shouted, "Unbind me, you idiot!" When Williamson proved too witless to manage it, Albus Dumbledore took matters in hand and waved in his direction, and the bindings melted like frost in summer.

Snape lunged forward to stand next to Dumbledore over the body of the imposter.

"A tactical error," Dumbledore said, sheathing his wand in his robes. "Your enemy wanted to ensure that you were sent to Azkaban for the rest of your life, not just a few years. No doubt Miss Westmarch's murder was to be the final proof of your guilt, but with one small problem: you were already well caught."

The body at their feet was shifting, taking on new features.

The features of Thomas Thesbury, still bruised and battered from his fight.

"Impossible," Snape whispered.

"No," Dumbledore said. "There are forces at work here, can you feel them?" He waved his hand in the air; where it passed, a subtle white mist followed. "A presence is here."

Trelawney's ridiculous pronouncement. I see a cloud hanging over him -- a dark cloud ... He'd have sooner swallowed her crystal ball that admit she'd been right.

Dumbledore leaned down, placed his hand on the boy's pallid forehead, and murmured something under his breath. The wave of power prickled Snape's skin from where he stood.

"Leave him," Dumbledore said, and then more sharply, "Finitum occupatio!"

Thesbury's back arched so sharply that it looked as if he might snap in two, his eyes flew open, and he let out a shriek that was terrible to hear ...

... and then collapsed again, senseless.

"It will take two of us to carry him to the Infirmary," Dumbledore said.

"I'll do it." Out of nowhere, Argus Filch had joined them, and he picked up Thesbury like a stray cat and stalked away, back straight under the boy's weight. For once, Snape was glad the caretaker had chosen to put in one of his normally forbidding appearances. Hauling stricken students to the Infirmary was getting sadly repetitive.

"I believe the boy used a Polyjuice Potion to assume my form," Snape said. "It's the only explanation -- "

"Not here, Severus," Dumbledore said, and cast a warning look at the Auror, at Winter Westmarch. "Time enough for that once Miss Winter has been given a clean bill of health by Madame Pomfrey – "

"But I'm fine!" Westmarch insisted, color flaring in her cheeks. "I knew it wasn't you, Professor. He looked so frightening -- I ran, and I screamed ... he'd only just caught me when you came. I'm all right!"

"I'm certain of that," Dumbledore said with grave courtesy. "And perhaps you'd be so kind as to furnish me the reason why you were out of bed in the middle of the night, in an area clearly off limits to you."

Westmarch's flush deepened, and she hung her head. "I had a note, sir," she said. Or, more accurately, mumbled. "From someone in Gryffindor who said they knew how to wake up Althea."

A lure, plain and obvious, but not to an eleven year old. If she'd been a little less sure of herself ... if she'd not reacted as quickly ...

Snape suddenly felt the world lurch around him.

"Why -- " His lips felt cold, unable to shape the words. "Why take my shape to do this thing?"

Dumbledore's hand gripped his arm, steadying him. "His mother was Hester Holmes. And I think you know full well why the impulse to ravage innocence might take your form, in her mind," he said. "Though I doubt it's any comfort knowing she was insane."

Snape nodded stiffly and pulled free. He left Dumbledore to deal with the two Ministers, one dead, one living, and followed Argus Filch toward the Infirmary.

Outside on the landing, it was mayhem, with the Prefects shouting for order, students chattering with terror and excitement ... halfway down the stairs, McGonagall was gesturing for students to clear a path, but it was hard going. Potter and Weasley had claimed spots next to her, further confusing the issue, and everyone was trying to ask what was going on at the same time.

Snape, out of all patience, roared, "Slytherin! LINES!"

Instantly, the one-quarter of the crowd who had learned instant obedience to his orders vacated the melee, forming up in queues to both sides of the stairs. The remaining three houses looked around, confused but impressed, and began clumsily following Slytherin's example. McGonagall blew out an exasperated breath and descended the staircase in Filch's wake, only having to avoid the occasional inept Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw, and of course the straggling follower-on of Gryffindor, who no doubt felt that they were exempt from such orderly conduct.

As Snape passed, Slytherin fell in behind him in a mass, shoving aside the other houses with threatening glares.

"Sir." Malfoy, at his elbow. Snape shot him a glance. "What ... well, is Thesbury ...all right?"

"No," Snape said. "And I doubt he ever will be. But that shouldn't concern you, Malfoy. After all, he might be a Mudblood."

Malfoy fell back from the ice in Snape's voice.

###

Miss Westmarch's battle scars were checked over and dismissed with a disapproving click of Pomfrey's tongue; dosed with Bruise-B-Gone, she was dismissed from the Infirmary to travel in a mass Slytherin escort back to the Common Room. McGonagall stayed, as was her right and indeed her responsibility. Dumbledore arrived in a fast-moving flurry of ash-powdered robes after nearly an hour; he had, he said, been deep in conference with the Ministry via floo. The other Auror, Williamson, did not join them. Snape didn't ask.

"Now," Dumbledore said, and settled into a chair next to Thesbury's bedside. The boy had been changed out of his robes and into some white cotton pyjamas. He was awake again, filled with that same charmed emptiness Snape had seen before. "Mister Thesbury. May I call you Thomas?"

"Yes sir," Thomas said, and sat up against the pillows.

"What do you remember, Thomas?"

"I don't know," he said. "I heard my mother's voice ... I hear it all the time now. When I'm tired, especially." He looked exhausted -- skin pale as thin milk, bruise-dark shadows under his eyes. "She tells me to do things, but I -- I don't want to, sir. I try not to."

"Do you remember brewing a Polyjuice Potion, to take the form of Professor Snape?"

Blink. "No sir."

"Do you remember being in the halls just now, with Winter Westmarch?"

"Was I -- " Thomas sucked in an alarmed breath. "Did I hurt her? I tried not to -- "

"Easy, my boy. It's all right." Dumbledore put his large, square hand on the boy's forehead. "Sleep."

Instantly, Thomas obeyed, breathing slowly and deeply, frown easing from his brow. Little enough comfort, but all that could be offered at the moment.

"Pomfrey," Dumbledore said. "I'd like to see his clothing, please."

She silently offered the box containing it. Snape watched as the Headmaster set aside robe, shirt, trousers, underwear ... and paused over a small golden necklace with a closed locket. He fished it out carefully, using the tip of his wand, tapped it lightly, and whispered, "Reveal."

And there she stood before them. Not Hester, not as Snape remembered her in life ... an older, harder woman with Hester's fine dark eyes and waist-length straight hair. Still dressed in thick black robes, but where the Hogwarts emblem had once been, she'd pinned something else.

The skeleton of a dead snake.

"Can she see us?" McGonagall asked, and instantly, those dark eyes shifted to focus with eerie intensity -- not on McGonagall, but on Snape.

"Severus." Not Hester's voice, it couldn't be ... it had echoes of cold, and the grave. "I'd hoped to see you again."

He reached out, but his hand went through her. She was nothing but a ghost, built of hate.

"Why?" he asked. "How could you -- "

"I told you. To destroy Slytherin."

"You are Slytherin!"

"Was," she said in that same cold, passionless voice. "But you showed me the heart of the snake, and I knew it had to be destroyed. You will not raise another generation like you. I will not allow it."

"Let your son go," Dumbledore said, and raised his wand. "Hester, let him go. He is innocent in this."

"He's mine," she whispered, and it sounded like breezes sighing over tombs. Like ice and death. "It's fate, you see. I kept him away from magic, I raised him as a normal boy, and then you sent for him, Albus Dumbledore. You took my son from me. And you put him in Slytherin. You made him foul and unclean and loathsome."

"Madness," McGonagall whispered.

"You gave my son to Severus Snape," Hester finished remorselessly. "And sealed his fate. How could he be anything but evil, taught by that?"

"I didn't teach your son the Unforgivable Curses," Snape said. "You did."

"Evil must be fought with evil."

"Evil must be fought with faith, and love, and kindness," Dumbledore said. "If you do not know that, is not Severus who failed you, it is I, to teach you so poorly. Now let the boy go, or I will take him."

"You can't," she sneered. "He's mine. When the Sorting Hat put him in Slytherin, I knew, I knew that it was meant to be. I knew I could use him as my strong right arm, to put an end to this evil house."

"By attacking children? Innocent children?" Snape's fists clenched hard. "Why not come after me, if you hate me so bitterly?"

"I want you to see it die. You're so good at standing by and watching." She smiled, then, and he remembered that smile ... Hester, friend and ally and partner in crime, whom he'd watched tortured in her own home at Voldemort's behest. "The whole evil, black, sordid truth of what Severus Snape is, what he's capable of doing, that must be known. I won't stop, you know. I'll never stop hunting you down -- "

Dumbledore's wand released a blast of pure, white power that slammed into the locket with blinding force. For a dazzling second, Snape saw a swirling gray miasma around the locket, a vibrating line of pure black running to Thesbury's unconscious form, and then it ripped apart under the pressure of Dumbledore's attack.

He remembered Hester's screams, too.

"A ghost?" McGonagall asked, appalled. "A ghost did these things?"

"Dark arts," Dumbledore said grimly. "Hate and heart's blood. She could take over poor Thomas's body, at times; she used him as a puppet. I don't doubt he fought her. The damage to the Slytherin Common Room -- that would have been Thomas, trying desperately to drive her out of his mind."

"But he didn't remember!"

"Hester -- " Snape's voice sounded hoarse and wounded. He licked his lips and tried again. "Hester's special gift was memory charms. No doubt, when she'd done with him what she wanted, she simply erased it. He could only know hints of it. Though I think he was learning to resist her."

"This will be a long recovery for him," Dumbledore agreed. "With the locket broken, I do not think she can form the link again. Though we should be vigilant for any sign of reinfection."

"She went after the students whose parents held the Dark Mark," Snape said numbly. "Giddings ... then Westmarch. She wanted me to know."

Dumbledore touched him on the arm, very gently. The arm that still held a shadow of the Dark Mark.

"Thesbury can't stay in Slytherin," he said. "It would be torture for him."

"On the contrary, he needs Slytherin now, more than ever, I should think." Dumbledore's heavy white brows rose a fraction. "And you. If anyone can understand the hell that this boy has endured, it is you. I shall leave him in your care. – oh, and Severus? Do get some rest. You look even more like death than usual."

He swept out, an old man, fragile with years, trailing a faint aroma of ashes and lavender. The mightiest wizard in the world, most likely; certain, in Snape's opinion, the most troublesome.

He saw McGonagall watching him. She gestured urgently, and he moved to join her at Giddings' bedside across the way. The girl was sleeping now, dosed with a sleeping draught that would take her safely, dreamlessly through the night. Even so, he saw the nightmares moving in the rapid shift of her eyes under closed lids.

"I'll take care of putting your Slytherins to bed," McGonagall said, and pulled a chair close to the bedside. "I expect you'll want to be here when they wake."

He sat. After a few moments, Giddings began to whimper softly in her sleep. He put a hand on her forehead, stroking gently, until it subsided. Thesbury slept through the last innocent sleep he would have in his life. Tomorrow, there could be no memory charms, no lies. The truth would have to be told.

All the truth.

No matter if they loved him or hated him, despised him or feared him ... in the end, he was the only one who had looked into the face of evil and seen its heart, and he was the only one who could understand what they risked in this fight.

He would not fail them again. Any of them.

His thumb stroked a frown from Giddings' forehead, as morning came.

Something pressed cold on the back of his neck, like a ghost's harsh kiss. I'll never leave you. It was a breath in his ear, a dark and terrible promise.

"No," he said aloud. "Nor I you, Hester."

And that, too, was a promise.

-end-



OK, if you don't hate me for leaving you hanging, please fire away!

-- J.