Work Text:
Disclaimer: not mine, all hers. Canon compliant, where canon gives details. Some dialogue is lifted directly from the Prince’s Tale in DH.
Rereading Jodel (The Red Hen)’s essays alongside canon in the course of writing some Severus-rescues-Harry fanfics inspired this work. First I started thinking about what Phineas could tell Severus if they ever talked without reservation. And then I thought, don’t write a retroactive conversation recapitulating what Phineas might have witnessed years ago.
Write what he saw.
Write what he sees.
So this is dedicated, with respect, to Jodel, and to Jo. All opinions and ideas expressed below are those of the narrator, one P. N. Black, deceased.
*
Say what you will of the man, Dumbledore is much more entertaining to watch than Dippet ever was. He’s got style. Whereas I firmly believe that when the Board of Governors chose my successor, their sole criterion was a blind panic at the thought of dealing with another strong-willed headmaster. Well, they certainly averted that danger. To call Dippet a puffskein is to insult small, nondescript, spherical objects.
Dumbledore, however eccentric, at least knows his own mind. Indeed, I will go further, and admit that the man possesses a mind to know. However little I agree with many of his decisions.
I slept through most of Dippet’s tenure. (To avoid the humiliation, you comprehend, of the thought that that could be considered a replacement for me.) I pretend to sleep through Dumbledore’s. There’s a difference.
Tonight, for instance, I am alert from the moment that that infernal bird disappears from its perch. An urgent message at such an hour promises something of moment, and that it’s not being sent by Patronus indicates that the message is lengthy.
Fortunately, Dumbledore has just recently returned from the Feast, so I have a pitch-side seat. The bird reappears in a flash of crimson and gold, and I recognize the spiky black scrawl of that guttersnipe upstart, that half-blooded child that Dumbledore has had the gall to install as Head of my House. Potions Master, mind, there can be no objection to that—given that daily, it seems, there are fewer purebloods competent to assume such a position—but Head of Slytherin? And he a mere boy! Barely graduated himself, no matter his honors, to hold a House in his hands? And then his somewhat dubious … resume. He’s perhaps the worst example to date of Albus putting the convenience of his Order ahead of the needs of the school. And given that Dumbledore had hired that barfly Trelawney, the competition for the honor of “worst” is considerable.
My familiar, silent (this time) diatribe against Dumbledore’s poor judgment dies when I see the headmaster’s face change. That dotty, genial mask that he wears most of the time disappears, replaced by intense calculation. I snore lightly, my eyes slitted. Dumbledore stands abruptly. “Fawkes!” He orders. “To Godric’s Hollow, James and Lily’s house. Await me there.” The bird vanishes. Then the headmaster snatches a Ministry memo and, with a tap and a mutter, has a completely illicit Portkey. He vanishes too.
I strain and strain, but my angle is wrong to make out most of Snape’s message. Over the last fifty years I’ve developed some adeptness at reading upside down, but not enough to master this scrawl. I can only decipher a few words: “Dark Mark… pain… vanished… broken? … asked. Maternal sacrifice…. Check on …” The vile scrawl, interestingly, gets worse as the message continues. I can make out nothing at all in the last several lines. Agitation? It’s unsigned, but then it doesn’t need a signature.
I settle back in my chair to await the next act.
First back is the bird, flashing into existence on its perch. It trills a little and drops a feather. Then it’s quiet for a time. I practice my snoring.
Dumbledore enters from the door leading to his quarters; I am surprised that he Portkeyed there instead of straight back here. I’m even more surprised by what he carries—it looks remarkably like the Sword of Gryffindor, which should be in its case thirteen feet to my side.
“Phineas Nigellus,” Dumbledore says quietly. “Don’t bother pretending to sleep. If I remember correctly, that duplicate of Gryffindor’s Sword vanished during your tenure in office. What ways had there been to distinguish them? I’d very much like to know whether I have the original or the fake in my hands now.”
I stretch elaborately, of course. “Pardon, Albus? What’s that—why do you have the Sword out of its case?”
Dumbledore places the sword on his desk, crosses to the wall, unwards the case, and places an identical sword beside the first. “Which is the true one?”
I tell him the truth. “I know of no way of telling except to ask the Sorting Hat. It claims to know the difference.”
Selwyn chimes in, “So it was when I was Headmistress. The hat claims to feel Godric’s traces. Though I am convinced there must be other differences, could we but ascertain them.”
Dumbledore gestures and the hat flies to the desk. “Well, Hat? Which is the original?”
I can’t resist it; I point out, “Neither might be, of course. You might have two fakes there.” Dumbledore is always too ready to take his first reading as the right one.
“No, no,” says the hat’s high voice. “This one is Godric’s true sword, right enough.” It tips its point at the one Dumbledore had brought in. The headmaster goes a little gray, but he says with absent courtesy, “Thank you, Hat,” before sweeping Godric’s other relic back to its shelf with a wave.
Then he bends over the true sword, the kidnapped one, and begins a series of slow wand passes. The accompanying muttering is almost inaudible, but it makes my flesh prickle. Or it would, at least, if I had any flesh. I can identify it as a powerful revelatory spell, keyed to some Dark magic, but it’s not a spell I’ve ever encountered. And I did not lead a sheltered life. Finally Dumbledore’s shoulders sag in relief, and he straightens from his examination. He carefully locks the true sword away in the case. The fake one he places on a shelf out of the way, Disillusioned and warded. Then the headmaster picks up Snape’s note again and rereads it, looking a little troubled.
He shakes his head as though he’s pushing some uncertainty aside. Then he sits back at his desk and visibly braces himself for some unpleasant task. He raises his wand and says, “Expecto Patronum!”
They have called me arrogant, but Dumbledore’s Patronus is a Phoenix. I’ve never heard of another who dares to claim a magical creature as his guardian.
I’m not surprised when I hear the gargoyles move aside and the stairs start to rise, nor by the identity of Dumbledore’s visitor. What takes me aback is how slowly and stiffly the boy enters. Usually he strides, snaps, sweeps, or billows. Whatever one may say to the boy’s detriment, he’s learned (from his betters—it was a great advantage to him to sort to my House) to develop a presence.
But now the boy is moving like a poorly-animated suit of armor. And his face, always pale, is like a death mask, marble white and still.
Dumbledore takes a breath at seeing him. I would too. He says quietly, “Please sit, Severus.”
The boy looks at him as though he’s waiting for the headmaster to begin talking in English. Dumbledore gets up and moves around the desk towards him. The boy automatically steps back and stumbles into the chair behind him. Dumbledore stops herding him once the boy is seated. He says even more quietly, “Severus, most of your suppositions seem to have been proved correct.”
The boy lifts his head and stares blankly at the headmaster. Dumbledore continues, “Lord Voldemort did indeed visit the Potters’ home tonight. There are traces of a magical backlash sufficient to have killed any normal wizard. We dare not be sanguine that Lord Voldemort is truly dead, but his powers are broken and his body destroyed. And the baby survives, but I am sorry to have to tell you that both parents are dead. “
The boy collapses as though only a spell had been holding him upright and someone cast Finite. And no one should ever have to listen to the sounds he’s making.
Terrible sounds. Animal sounds, of pain past endurance.
No one should make such sounds.
I expect Dumbledore to touch the boy’s shoulder at least, but he does not. He stands over him grimly, waiting out the first storm.
After a time, the boy raises his face and forces out, “I thought… you were going… to keep her… safe….”
Dumbledore says, “She and James put their faith in the wrong person. Rather like you, Severus. Weren’t you hoping that the Dark Lord would spare her?”
The boy’s breathing is shallow. I’m not sure he’s even heard what the headmaster said. When he doesn’t answer, the headmaster continues, “Her boy survives.”
The boy jerks his head at that. Dumbledore presses, “Her son lives. He has her eyes, precisely her eyes. You remember the shape and color of Lily Evans’s eyes, I am sure?”
“DON’T,” the boy bellows. “Gone… dead…”
“Is this remorse, Severus?”
“I wish… I wish I were dead….”
“And what use would that be to anyone?” Dumbledore says coldly. “If you loved Lily Evans, if you truly loved her, then your way forward is clear.”
I’m impressed. I doubt I’d have been capable of taking that line in the face of such grief. Having failed to uphold his end of his first bargain with the boy, the headmaster is going to manipulate him into a fresh bondage? I don’t much like Albus Dumbledore, but he must command one’s respect. I’m almost tempted to intervene, but I suspect that the boy would suicide if not given some other goal, however unworthy. And he may be just a half-blood, but he’s a skilled and intelligent wizard, far too good to die for grief over that little Mudblood.
The boy seems to be hearing Dumbledore in Cantonese again, but finally enough registers that his eyes focus and he stammers, “What—what do you mean?”
“You know how and why she died.”
Now that’s an interesting statement. What had been in the boy’s note? I wish again that I could read it. Unfortunately, it’s still at a bad angle.
“Make sure it was not in vain,” Dumbledore continues. “Help me protect Lily’s son.”
“He does not need protection,” the boy protests. Good, even in this extremity he retains some self-protective instincts, as a Slytherin should. “The Dark Lord has gone—”
No, wrong argument, you young fool! Dumbledore has already said that he’s not really dead.
Sure enough, Dumbledore is insisting, “The Dark Lord will return, and Harry Potter will be in terrible danger when he does.”
But that doesn’t mean you need bind yourself anew to the headmaster, boy. Even should you decide to dedicate yourself to the son’s protection, you should consider other means of doing so before committing yourself to this one.
But the boy, however bright, is terribly young and in shock. There is a long pause in which the boy tries to master his breathing. I very much doubt that he’s calculating anything save how to draw his next breath without openly sobbing. He clearly thinks he’s regained control when he finally says, “Very well. Very well. But never—never tell, Dumbledore! This must be between us! Swear it! I cannot bear… especially Potter’s son… I want your word!”
“My word, Severus, that I shall never reveal the best of you?” Dumbledore sighs, looking down into the boy’s ferocious, anguished face.
I should not, myself, have characterized gullibility as anyone’s best characteristic. But I suppose that from Dumbledore’s perspective, it is at any rate the most useful.
“If you insist…,” says Dumbledore, and motions the boy to rise.
He stumbles, getting up. I’ve never seen the boy graceless since Sixth Year. He had mastered that weakness when he started training in more formal dueling.
I’m angry at the boy for conduct unbecoming our House. But looking at his face, I’m not sorry I didn’t intervene. I had nothing better to offer, after all. And he’s too good to die for some Mudblood.
Dumbledore at least has the decency to walk him to the stairs.
Or I think it decency until I realize that this night is not over. Dumbledore isn’t preparing to retire. So he might merely have been ensuring he won’t be overseen.
Dumbledore has returned to his desk and is rereading the original note, frowning again. He glances over at the case where the Sword of Gryffindor hangs, and his mouth tightens. “Fawkes,” he says quietly. “Would you please return to the Potters’ house and see if you can spot anything with a … significant Dark magical residue. Voldemort’s wand, perhaps? Oh!” His eyes widen.
Forgotten something, have we, headmaster?
While the bird is gone, he sits at his desk and jots notes, occasionally pausing and steepling his fingers while he thinks. One list has names on it—couples, mostly, it looks like, who are members of his Order. But my worthless great-great-grandson’s name is on the list too, and Dumbledore frowns longest at it.
Not but what that’s a reaction young Sirius deserves.
The phoenix reappears, and Dumbledore’s face changes when he sees that it is empty-clawed. “An accomplice perhaps…,” he whispers, as though to reassure himself. The bird senses his mood and perches on his arm. He strokes it for a minute and then lifts it back to its perch. He goes back into his quarters and comes out with a cloth bundle.
No, not cloth. A baby. Deeply unconscious. He traces his wand over the baby’s head, and then reaches an arm out to Fawkes. Great pearly tears slide down the bird’s feathers and roll onto the baby’s forehead. But even from my angle, I can see that the wound doesn’t close.
A curse incurable by phoenix tears. I forget to snore.
Dumbledore goes gray. Then, moving almost as stiffly as Snape had earlier, he passes his wand over the baby. It’s the same revelatory spell he’d used on the Sword of Gryffindor, and this time it is answered. There is a sickly green glow, and it comes from the child’s unhealed head. Dumbledore whispers, “No. That’s not… that’s not how it was supposed to happen.”
He sinks down in his chair, staring at the cursed baby. He whispers, “That’s not what it meant. Not at all. It can’t be. I don’t—I can’t—I don’t want to. That can’t be what it meant.” Fawkes perches on his arm and trills, but for once the man ignores the bird.
He sits silently, staring at the unconscious baby, for a long time. Finally his face hardens. He Accio’s the parchment with the list of names and vanishes it. Then he summons a blank one and stiffly, with many long pauses, writes again.
Scheming comforts him; well I remember the phenomenon. After a time his face relaxes a little.
One parchment he sends by Fawkes to the Ministry of Magic, another to the night desk at the Prophet. Both elicit immediate Floo-calls, but to my disappointment all he says to the Auror on duty is, “I wrote all I know for certain. I will apprise your department and the Minister as I learn more."
I can’t quite make out the woman’s words from the fire, only her pleading tone. Dumbledore says patiently, “The Potters’ home was under a Fidelius Charm, and I’m not the Secret-Keeper. How, then, could I tell you where it happened?”
I hide my smirk. Now that’s disingenuous. I had been able to read the parchment sent by my great-great-grandson last week, officially apprising Dumbledore of the Secret. It had read, “Dear Professor Dumbledore, James and Lily Potter live at ---.”
The rest, of course, was gibberish to me; I wasn’t the designated recipient. But “live”, you see.
They no longer live, so the Secret no longer exists. Anyone could speak of the house now; anyone could see it—well, perhaps, depending on what other charms may have been cast on it. Dumbledore is simply obstructing the Ministry. Nicely done, too; he didn’t even lie. As I said, the man has style. I hope that his reasons for delaying the investigation will become apparent, but I don’t depend on it.
The night editor gets an even terser, “I have given you all I know. Good morning.”
It’s after moonset when Dumbledore looks up at me. “This is partly your grandson’s fault, you will note.”
I raise my brows at him. Not but what many things are—Sirius is not at all his dead brother’s equal—but this?
“I told the boys that their scheme to use Sirius as Secret-Keeper would fail if Sirius were taken, that Lord Voldemort is an Legilimens talented enough to take the information Sirius would not voluntarily give him. In their arrogance they refused to pay heed to my warnings. Had they adhered to my original suggestion and used me as the Secret-Keeper, all this would have been averted.”
Which has the agreeable additional implication that the last scion of my name has been captured, probably tortured, perhaps is dead by now himself…. Not that any of our family has set any great value on that boy since he attempted to murder a fellow wizard—and in such a Gryffindor manner, no subtlety at all, and no reason to it! His decision to sort to the braggarts’ house to spite his mother has clearly ruined him. Still, with his brother, uncles, and father all dead he’s the last hope to produce another generation. I don’t look forward to telling Walpurga and his grandfathers if he’s dead.
I duck out to Twelve Grimmauld and call the house elf. But when Kreacher checks the tapestry Sirius’s name still has only his birthdate. So Sirius is still alive, if not necessarily unscathed. I order Kreacher not to tell his mistress that I had been concerned enough to check and return to the headmaster’s office.
I wrestle with myself. But he may need the information. “You may be interested to learn that my worthless great-great-grandson is yet alive.”
Dumbledore looks up in faint surprise. “That’s… unexpected. The Black family tapestry, I presume?”
I incline my head.
He says, “Thank you for sharing that information, Phineas. He may be being held by Lord Voldemort’s followers. But their Dark Marks have vanished—”
That’s how the boy knew!
“—and they must be in substantial disarray at this time. They must be scattering, trying to hide or to provide legal defenses for themselves. Perhaps they’ll leave Sirius unharmed.”
I look at him. Were I a fool, it would be kind of him to reassure me in this manner.
He does nothing but write for a time; I let myself doze off until dawn. There’s little else to do.
*
I wake when the headmaster rises. My eyes widen when I see what he holds. Not many people would recognize it, but my grandson had helped develop it, after all. Not that I ever understood the theory myself, but I do know what it can do. And that, last I had heard (I may need to check with my contacts at the Ministry) only four had ever been made. A time-folder. And it looks merely like a standard customizable watch. When he disappears with the baby, I have a guess what he may be doing.
I’m partially correct. But Hagrid? Dumbledore calls in the half-giant and says, “Hagrid, I have some tragic news, some wonderful news, and a vitally important task for you. Last night, Lord Voldemort himself found and attacked the Potters. I am sorry to say that both James and Lily were killed.”
The gamekeeper is louder than the boy had been, but easier to bear. He blubbers unabashedly. Of course, with his blood, mentally he’s probably still a child. Finally he blows his nose on what looks like a tablecloth and looks up at Dumbledore, eyes still streaming. “Lily an’ James… I can’t believe it… great witch an’ wizard like ‘em…. ‘s the good die young, that’s the truth….”
“But their baby, little Harry Potter, survived. Lord Voldemort tried to kill him too, and the child somehow blocked it. And no one yet understands how, but Lord Voldemort’s failed attempt upon Harry rebounded and destroyed himself instead. We dare not assume he’s truly dead, but he is gone, his power broken. This is a great day for the Wizarding World.”
The half-giant seems unable to take this in, no surprise. “The baby lived? A baby blocked You-Know-Who’s curse? And You-Know-Who is gone?”
Dumbledore says, “And I need you now to rescue the baby from the ruins of the Potter’s home, and bring him to the address I shall give you. I shall Portkey you there, but you need to fly him away. You have the competence for that still, should I give you authorization?”
The gamekeeper looks a little uncomfortable; if he admits he’s in practice, he’s admitting to breaking his formal restrictions. “Professor Dumbledore… yeh know I’ll do anythin’ yeh say… but wouldn’ it be faster to Portkey both ways?”
“Portkeys can be traced; flying is the least easily monitored form of travel, Hagrid. And the time is irrelevant, because this will Charm you to arrive at both destinations at the time of my choice.” The headmaster holds out a silver bauble on a three-foot chain. My eyes narrow. The time-folder, I understood from my grandson, like a time-turner, has to be held by the one manipulating it and its field only affects the people within its nimbus. Dumbledore’s found a way to transfer the effect to another artifact, while still controlling it himself? Well, no one has ever claimed the man was not a genius.
“Once you have your broom, Hagrid—”
The giant shuffles his feet uncomfortably. As though the entire faculty didn’t know he sometimes used a broom to travel to the farther reaches of the Forbidden Forest! No one ever thought that monstrosity of his was just for sweeping! Or, indeed, if student rumors about the state of the gamekeeper’s hut are true, primarily for sweeping.
“—put this around your neck and say Portus and it will take you to the Potter’s ruined home in Godric’s Hollow immediately after the disaster happened. You’ll be first on the scene and should have leisure to hunt for the baby. When you have Harry safe and have travelled, mm, half an hour, say Tempus, and that will activate the spell to fold time so that you’ll arrive at little Harry’s destination at the correct time. The time folding will ensure that no one can track you or the baby. You’ll be bringing the child to near London, Four Privet Drive, Little Whinging. All you need do is head towards London, and then use my device as a locator as you come closer. The chain is loose enough that you can watch which way it points. I’ll meet you at your destination.”
First on the scene, indeed. One presumes that Dumbledore does not want an intelligent witness, and that Hagrid’s search efforts will disrupt the Ministry’s subsequent investigation. I may never know what exactly Dumbledore has been playing at tonight, but I’ll apply my intelligence—and my intelligence-gathering skills—to the task.
After Hagrid lurches out, Dumbledore leaves several orders to be given to the deputy headmistress and disappears entirely. Classes are cancelled in celebration of Who-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s downfall. I smile grimly. The morning is long.
*
Dumbledore Floos in and stalks over to my portrait. I have never before seen the man furious. He is still quite controlled. He says quietly, “Muggle witnesses state that, about an hour ago, an individual since identified as Peter Pettigrew cornered your great-great-grandson on the street. Pettigrew was sobbing, ‘Lily and James, Sirius! How could you?’ Your great-great-grandson, say the survivors, then threw a flash of light that blasted a crater in the street. Twelve Muggles and Pettigrew dead, blown to pieces. And Black standing there laughing when the Magical Law Enforcement Squad Apparated in. He wasn’t taken and tortured; he was apparently a traitor. Can you explain this?”
The terrible thing is, I can.
Death would have been better.
I say numbly, “This will destroy Walpurga.”
Sirius betrayed the people who thought themselves his friends, to join the group whose avowed politics he’d always claimed to abhor. None of Sirius’s admirers can possibly explain this.
But I can.
“Can you explain this to me, Phineas Nigellus?” Dumbledore demands again.
I say, “He’s a mad dog. He’ll tear his friends to destroy an enemy. We’ve seen him do so before.”
Dumbledore frowns at me. I lose patience with him. “In this room I heard him brag of it! That ‘prank’ he played on the Snape boy—had Potter not stopped it, Lupin would have been put down as a feral werewolf, Sirius
would at best have been expelled and had his wand snapped, at worst have gone to Azkaban for life—the penalty he faces now. Potter and Pettigrew might well have accompanied him, if they had been supposed in his confidence. You know this, Dumbledore!
“And the boy cared nothing, nothing, for any of those consequences. He shrugged and looked sullen when his family pointed them out to him. And he finally ran away, rather than face our remonstrance and correction.
“When he sets out to destroy an enemy, he’s a Gryffindor; he thinks of nothing else! He’s proved, before, that he’ll destroy a friend to take out an enemy. And his enmity for the Snape boy was just a schoolboy grudge.”
I stop and take a breath. Which is odd since I need not breathe. Old habits reassert themselves at the strangest times.
I do not claim that a house as old as mine has never seen a scion attempt murder. But I will state without hesitation that no previous Black has ever tried to use a dear friend as a murder weapon. Or hatched a plan almost certain to implicate both himself and his other close friends. Or made such an attempt for such frivolous reasons.
A schoolboy grudge?
That was really the worst: that he had become such a Gryffindor that he could set out to murder the other boy on impulse, in a fit of irritation. The worst he could say of the Snape boy was that the other had been spying on them. If the boy’s spying was discommoding them, they should have arranged the other’s expulsion or found a lever to make him stop. To attempt murder, and nearly destroy himself and his own friends, for such a reason?
Dumbledore is gray. “And who is the enemy, in your reading, that Sirius so wished to see destroyed, that he’d betray his closest friend?”
“I already told you. His mother.”
Dumbledore’s eyes widen, and he reluctantly nods.
If I were alive I would be shaking. Even as a portrait, my voice is not as steady as it should be. “Did Sirius ever tell you what we told him of Regulus’s death?”
Dumbledore holds himself without reaction now. “No. I know only what the world knows, that Regulus disappeared and the tapestry notified the family. I assumed it was Death Eater activity, which surprised me; I should have expected Lord Voldemort rather to have recruited him, given your family’s well-known sympathy for part of Voldemort’s overt program, and Regulus’s obvious collectability.”
I say. “He did. We should have been more open with Regulus, but we thought he was safe until NEWTs…. He left a note for his mother, telling her he’d been a fool, but that he’d found his error and a way to harm the Dark Lord. And that the attempt would kill him. She… fools that we were, we thought that if we shared that information with Sirius, that his brother had died defecting to your side of this fight, to Sirius’s side, that it might—bring Sirius back.
“Instead—while Sirius thought You-Know-Who’s pureblood supremacist agenda appealed to his family, he was an ardent member of your Order. But he must, given the information we so unwisely shared, eventually have realized that none of the senior family members ever had endorsed the upstart Dark Lord. And that Regulus’s destruction would have turned Walpurga’s fear and distaste to passionate hatred.
“Sirius must have turned his coat almost immediately upon realizing that. Rending his own friends, if need be, to harm the one he hates.
“This will destroy Walpurga. And that’s what Sirius would die to do.”
*