The Sybil's Oracle Book Two

Chapter 12

By Pigwidgeon37

It was extremely unusual for Severus to call people by Floo or write to them unless there was a very concrete reason to do so. Reason meaning that he needed something—and he certainly was not a person who needed friendly chatters or pleasant exchanges on idle topics. In a way, he thought, holding the tin containing the Floo powder in his left hand while his right index finger described tiny circles on the lid, registering the faint relief of the four letters running from the top left to the bottom right corner, in a way curiosity could be described as a need. Not in the strictest sense of the word perhaps, not in the Give-It-To-Me-Or-I’ll-Die sense of the word, but still. Need and want were two things too closely related to bother with subtleties, and he wanted this information. Wanted it, needed it, was curious. Damn it. He had always been curious, so what was the big problem now, all of a sudden? But Severus Snape was not easy to be fooled, much less by himself. It was the kiss, of course. That damned—or blessed?—kiss that gave a new meaning to everything he did. No, not to everything, no need to be pathetic here. But it certainly gave a new meaning to whatever he said or did—with Clarissa? To Clarissa? Prepositions had a way of grinning evilly at you sometimes… Concerning Clarissa, that was it. Maybe he should wait until she called him, that would doubtlessly be a lot wiser. But then there was curiosity nibbling at his brain, preventing him from concentrating on his studies, and he could not have that. This, however, was the pretext he had been searching for, a little threadbare, true, a bit diaphanous, yes, but an excuse all the same. He needed—and now the word fit perfectly into the context, without having to be squeezed in—to get the question off his mind.

Severus opened the tin of Floo powder and threw a small pinch into the fireplace. “Clarissa Rosier!” he said, but the grate remained empty, although the connection had been established. “Clarissa! Are you there?”

After a couple of seconds, her head appeared in the flames. She was smiling. “Severus! What a surprise.”

He acknowledged her words with a brief nod and tried to sound as businesslike as possible despite the memory of chocolate and strawberries and of the tip of her tongue engaging in a playful fight with his own. “Er… hi. I wanted to ask you… Could you spare a few minutes for me? To come here, I mean.”

Clarissa’s eyebrows rose. “Yes, sure. Do you need help with something?”

“N-no. I just… I just wanted to, uh, ask you something.”

Her look remained puzzled. “Ask me… Well, whatever. I’ll be there in a second, Apparating, no Floo.”

Had it not been too risky to talk about such matters via Floo, he would have been more than satisfied with speaking to her head, without having the whole Clarissa at his place. As things were, though, he had to accept the compromise… if it really was a compromise…

There was a faint ‘plop’ and a hand touched his arm. “Hallo, Severus. Anything wrong?”

“No,” he said, turning round to look at her, “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And I’m not sure whether it was a good idea…”

They had seen each other since both the kiss and the initiation—how many times? Yes, only once, when he had needed her to help him Apparate to Italy. And on that day, none of the two subjects had been broached, for whatever reason.

She shot him an angry stare. “Maybe you could have answered that question to yourself before asking me to come. So what? Shall I stay or shall I go?”

He certainly did not want to make her angry, and besides she was the only person he could ask. The other five would only sneer and gloat, without giving him any substantial information. “Please stay. As I said, I have to ask you a question. But if you’d rather not answer it, tell me so. It’s quite personal.”

Now she giggled, but at least she was not angry anymore, or so it seemed. “Says the man who healed my bruises countless times. I think we’re well past the point where questions could become too personal.”

“I just wanted you to know that I’d understand if you chose to remain silent,” he replied pointedly. “What I wanted to know was: how was the initiation? It looked so… violent and painful. And I know how you felt about it before it actually happened, so I just wanted to hear from you how you felt.”

Clarissa slumped down on the couch, shaking with laughter. “Severus Snape, the master of perfect timing. Severus, the initiation was ten days ago! Ten days! I have to admit that I was rather hurt about your lack of curiosity… well, not curiosity, interest, really. Especially after what happened the afternoon before. But then, you are who you are, it’s no use denying that. So I had resigned to the idea that you just weren’t interested…” She cast him a long, questioning look and started laughing again. “And there you stand, ten days later, inquiring…”

“I see that you are having a lot of fun at my expense,” Severus snarled, “Needless to say that I’m gratified.”

“Now don’t play the offended maiden. It really doesn’t suit you. Why don’t you offer me something nice to drink, sit down here with me and give me another of those delicious kisses? So I can tell you everything.”

The tastes of lemon and strawberry granita mixed at least as well as chocolate, strawberry and tea. And kissing Clarissa was nice, nicer even than the first time. She was nowhere near as demanding as her aunt—her hands barely touched his shoulders, and their bodies were well apart, with his left hand supporting her right elbow, and his right merely brushing her hair. Although it was not exactly a chaste kiss, far from that; their tongues were involved a good deal. She was the one who broke the kiss, but neither for lack of air nor—at least as far as he could judge—because she did not want to continue. No, it rather seemed that she was still unable to endure more than a certain amount of close contact. A hypothesis that was corroborated by the fact that she did not snuggle up to him afterwards, but retreated into her corner of the couch; only her hand rested close to but not touching his on the upholstery. Not that he minded. On the contrary, he found this way of getting physically acquainted far less threatening, if less arousing, than Nathalie’s bold invasion of his personal space.

“The initiation?” he ventured after she had taken another sip from the appealingly frosted-over glass.

Clarissa nodded slowly. “The initiation. I’m afraid I can’t really tell you that much. It was all feeling and no thinking, you know, everything at gut-level… elemental, really. It’s even difficult to remember distinct images. There are blurs of colour, and that odour of tempest… sulphur, maybe, but something else as well… Like I had got a whiff of how the earth’s skin smells—ridiculous, isn’t it?”

Severus did not think it ridiculous in the least and told her so. In fact, his own recollections of the event were largely similar, only he had not been as close to the Dark Lord and the burst of magic set free by him as she had.

“I’m glad you see it that way. It was as if somebody had disintegrated me, down to the very atoms, so that I could feel my edges going all blurry, but on the whole I was still I. But not closed anymore… not defined. The world was able to seep into me. And that power…” Now she grabbed his hand and looked at him in excitement. “I’m sure you felt it as well, but where we stood… right there in the centre, it was incredible. I think I’d do everything to feel like that again, if only once in my life.” Her grip on his hand was growing painful. “It was… it was like spanning the universe with my arms… from the extremes of pleasure to the extremes of pain, all at the same time, but without being able to distinguish what was what. It was all there, at the same time.”

She released his hand and, with a deep sigh, leaned again back into her corner. Severus eyed her pensively. “Power, you say? Do you think that you’re more powerful now?”

Clarissa wagged her head. “You’re asking difficult questions today, Severus. But then, maybe it’s only my inability to give proper answers. No, I wouldn’t say that I’m more powerful. But it has left its mark—besides the obvious,” she said, automatically touching her left forearm. “It has left me that sensation of craving, of being incomplete… but at the same time, I feel that if I do as Lord Voldemort commands I will have that feeling again… I’m not being very helpful, am I?” she asked with a wry smile.

“On the contrary,” he replied, leaning forward and brushing her cheek with a fingertip, “You illustrated it perfectly. What I felt was maybe a fraction of what you were experiencing, but on a very irrational level… as you said, on a gut level, I can imagine what it must have been like.”

~~~~*~~~~

Malfoy was looking a lot better tonight. Obviously his potion was having the desired effect, for his handshake was vigorous again, and the colour had returned to his face. The only sign that betrayed his still being convalescent was a slight tremor of his fingers. He had been the first to arrive, and he and Severus had just exchanged a few polite phrases when Lestrange materialized directly on the sofa.

“The excellent aim betrays the ex-Beater,” Malfoy commented dryly and sat down beside him. “Barty, of course, is late as always. The advantage of being our Master’s second cousin…”

Both Severus and Lestrange grinned.

“May I offer you something to eat or drink?” Severus inquired—he had become quite accustomed to his role of Lord of the Manor by now.

“Did I see a 1964 Brunello yesterday night?” Malfoy asked, “I am almost sure I did, for those are not the visions commonly created by the after-effects of Cruciatus.”

“You did,” Severus replied, “And there are quite a lot of siblings left in the cellar. You, St. John?”

His former teacher smiled. “You ask? Unless they have that wine in paradise, I don’t care to go there… not that there’s any danger of my being admitted, but you never know.”

The first bottle arrived, was uncorked and decanted, its contents knowingly tasted, and the three wizards agreed that the wine was going to be even better if given a ten minutes’ breathing break. When Elias sailed in and, following his innate raven’s curiosity, tried to get his head into the decanter—obviously the light playing on the ruby-red surface was an enticing sight—Severus saw Julius Malfoy laugh for the very first time. His laughter died immediately, though, when Barty came tumbling out of the fireplace—he was almost ten minutes late.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting,” he said casually, brushing soot off his Ministry uniform, “But I got so caught up in writing that report that I forgot to look at the time.”

Not even an insensitive person like Barty could help feeling the waves of anger emanating from Malfoy. Severus resented Crouch’s lateness, but did not take it too seriously—after all, the situation was quite different from the problems he had encountered previously to the mission to Italy. Lestrange was simply sitting there, watching, obviously preferring Malfoy to pull everybody’s chestnuts out of the fire.

“You forgot to look at the time…” For a brief, eerie moment, Severus thought he was hearing Lucius’s voice. When father and son were using that particular dangerous drawl, their voices were nearly identical.

Crouch seemed to have caught the treacherous tone of barely contained rage only too well. “I… yes, I… when I’m working…” he tried a rather lame excuse.

Loath as Severus was to admit it, Malfoy was impressive. Well, he had to be if he could hold Lucius in a constant state of awe. But this was… masterful. Almost worthy of Lord Voldemort himself. For neither did he rise from his chair nor did he deign to let his icy-grey eyes rest on young Barty Crouch—he was doing it all with his voice. Something Severus thought he could, and certainly would, learn as well. For his very own ends. He had seen many times just how powerful an effect a perfectly controlled voice and impeccably chosen words had on people. It was a skill not too difficult to perfect if you had the talent and the voice for it, and its impact was certainly worth the trouble.

“Working,” Malfoy drawled, “Working for the Ministry. Working for the Ministry so hard that you forgot an assignment given you by our Master. Are you sure you know where exactly your loyalties are, Barty?”

The arrow had hit home; the colour rising to Crouch’s cheeks was unmistakeably showing it. “How dare you,” he whispered, “How dare you insult me, you of all people, you who openly refused an order of Lord Voldemort—”

Obviously this was the reaction Malfoy had been waiting for. “Insulting? I am not insulting you, Barty, I was merely asking you a question. As to the delicate problem of loyalties: don’t you think it to be a proof of courage rather than disloyalty to disobey openly? Whereas the same cannot be said about surreptitiously neglecting one’s duties.”

Barty covered the distance between the fireplace and the sofa by two quick steps and tried to pull him from his seat by his upper arm. But Julius Malfoy was a heavy man, and the sofa was rather low, so that Crouch had to be content with grabbing the older man’s arm while he spat, “I don’t know how you manage to twist everything to your advantage. But believe me, you won’t succeed this time. Lord Voldemort knows very well what a lot of stress I’m under—”

Brushing Crouch’s hand off his sleeve like a piece of some suspicious-looking substance, Malfoy said calmly, “Certainly he knows, Barty. I am sure he is extremely comprehensive. To the extent of replacing you if you don’t have the force to resist anymore. Now be a good boy, sit down and don’t waste more of our precious time than you already have. Anything to drink?”

Had the situation been different Severus would have felt greatly irked by Malfoy so nonchalantly usurping the role of the host; in this case, though, he appreciated the result far too much to let himself be angered by the cause. Malfoy’s arrogance and polite question had the effect of a bucket of water emptied into a fireplace. The flames were gone and what remained was not overly appetizing.

Crouch slumped down into one of the armchairs, shot Malfoy a hateful look and said, his voice heavy with weariness, “Do you think I don’t know what you are planning, Julius? For now, I won’t say anything else, for we have little time, as you pointed out so appropriately. But don’t go too far with your intrigues. You should know best that at times they tend to backfire.—I think I’ll join you with the wine tonight,” he said, turning to Severus.

“Well then,” Lestrange began, a trifle too cheerily, “to make things a little easier I played the amanuensis for you.” He pulled four rolls of parchment from the depths of his robes and handed one to each of them, keeping the fourth for himself. “These are the minutes of yesterday’s meeting, complete with what we decided should be done about Urqhart. And I think—oh, yes, your health!” he interrupted himself, seeing that the other three had raised their glasses and were about to take the first sip. “As I was saying,” he continued, “I think that Julius made a most interesting observation just before we separated. Namely that, provided we pull the right strings, we might even turn the uproar Prewett’s death will cause at the Ministry, and the subsequent wave of repression, to our own advantage. Which ties in nicely with Lord Voldemort’s desire to control both the Wireless and the Prophet.”

“That would doubtlessly be a brilliant move,” Severus agreed, “But if controlling the media was that easy it would already be reality, wouldn’t it?”

“Indeed,” Malfoy said. “On the other hand, we agreed right at the beginning that risky possibilities are not going to be discarded this time—we have been doing that for the last three years, and look where it got us. No, we definitely have to take the more perilous options into consideration. Which means approaching Nathalie Pierson and Herbert Wilkes.”

Lestrange shot Severus a quick glance. “Pierson,” he said slowly, “That should not be too difficult given her attitude towards the ministry and everything to do with it. So who do you think might try and persuade her? I’m not on the best of terms with her, to tell you the truth. We had kind of an… affair some time ago, and it did not end in the best of ways. And I’d suggest that we rather not include Barty in this kind of plans, for he’s one of the few we’ve got inside the Ministry. If he blows his cover we would be worse off than ever. Severus?”

He was not sure whether to feel proud or embarrassed by disclosing the truth. But there was no other way than to drag it out into the open, at the risk of being gloated at by Malfoy and Crouch. Had he been able to come up with a plausible pretext for not going to Nathalie himself, he would gladly have done so. But he honestly could not think of anything even remotely valid.

“I… uh, am in about the same situation as you,” he replied, “And I’m sure she would hex me before I could even open my mouth.”

Malfoy looked incredulously from one to the other. “I must say I’m amazed,” he observed finally while refilling his glass. “Not only have you spoiled your chances with one of the most influential women of the British wizarding society—”

“It was almost ten years ago, Julius,” Lestrange interrupted him angrily, “How the hell was I to know—”

“I was not blaming anybody, I was merely stating a fact. Even if Severus could have acted with a little more prudence, I have to say that.”

“I came home after the initiation,” Severus objected heatedly, “And found the woman lying in my bed. Fortunately I had already taken off my robe and cloak, or else her surprise would have been even greater, and I daresay more unpleasant, than mine. I cannot tolerate anybody invading my privacy in this manner, and so I simply threw her out. I have neither anti-Apparition wards nor any kind of access limitation to the Floo in this house, as I was explicitly told not to do anything unusual that might arouse the neighbours’ curiosity. Therefore you might understand that I was practically obliged to ditch her in a way that was fit to discourage any further attempts in that direction.”

“Yes, Nathalie can get a little possessive,” Malfoy said, a little too nonchalantly.

It was the first time Severus head Barty Crouch actually snort. “Are you saying that you used to bed Nathalie Pierson as well?” he asked.

“It seems that this is something I have in common with St. John and Severus. Only I used a more subtle method to end our affair. I was married after all and could not—”

“You betrayed your wife?” Severus blurted out, regretting it immediately when he saw the expression on Malfoy’s face.

“I doubt you are in any position to pronounce moral verdicts, Severus,” he said, giving him a steely look.

Severus swallowed, cursing himself for his imprudence. “It was no moral judgement. I merely expressed my surprise at the thought of a man feeling the need to betray a woman as beautiful as your wife. That is all,” he said, in as dignified a tone as he could muster.

“Although I do not feel obliged to justify myself, may I tell you that my wife was eight months pregnant at the time. It was a mutual need, nothing else. Nathalie had just divorced Moody and needed some comfort. We met, we were attracted to each other and gave each other what we were able to give.”

“That sounds enticingly simple,” Barty said, leaning back in his chair and looking at Malfoy with raised eyebrows, “But if it really was that uncomplicated, why did you have to ‘get rid of her’? These were your own words, not mine.”

“I am delighted that you are suddenly taking such interest in my love life. Not only is it vulgar, it is also exceedingly rude.”

“Mmh,” Lestrange said with a broad grin, “But you can’t deny that it is also very fascinating. Come on, Julius, tell us, so we don’t have to make up our own versions—they might be a lot more embarrassing than the truth.”

“Doubtlessly,” Malfoy replied dryly. “Well then, as I said, she became a little too possessive. Hence I asked an acquaintance of mine at the Ministry to drop a hint to Alastor Moody—the old bastard still hadn’t gotten over the shock of having been left—and Moody reacted exactly as I had hoped. Nothing obvious, of course, after all, Aurors do have something like a professional ethos, and tend to be very touchy in case one of them chinks it. But he sent me a letter, threatening to make my life hell if I continued the relationship with Nathalie or dared to show the letter to anybody at the Ministry. All I had to do was… uh, let it accidentally fall out of my pocket at her flat. In the end,” he said grinning, after draining his second glass of wine, “she believed it had been she who talked me out of the affair.”

“So it seems you are the lucky one, Julius,” said Lestrange. “You just have to look at it from this point of view: It’s a win-win situation, for either she says yes, which would spare us a lot of trouble, or she says no, in which case you obliviate her and pretend nothing happened.”

Malfoy shook his head. “If she refuses, I will not obliviate but kill her. Not only to avoid the risk of a memory spell gone awry—and you know how easily this happens—but also to create a vacancy we might try to fill. Exactly as we will do with Greenbaum.”

“Sounds good to me,” Barty said. “Severus, do you think we could have something to eat? The wine is getting to my head.” While Severus gave the respective order to Peggy he continued, “That means that Urqhart and the Daily Prophet are taken care of. What about the Wizards’ Wireless, then? I don’t suppose any of you slept with Wilkes or Boulder, or did you?”

No, Severus thought, he definitely did not like the sneaky look Barty darted at him. The other two had not noticed anything, at least so it seemed, and thus it was better not to moot the subject now. But as soon as the occasion presented itself in the form of being alone with Crouch, he would have to put the fellow in his place, Voldemort’s second cousin or not.

A little taunting could not go amiss, though. “No,” he said, “But perhaps you succumbed to the charms of Mrs. Reynolds?”

Barty went scarlet. “Severus, she is my future mother-in-law!”

His starched shirt looked even more starched, so great was his indignation. Severus chuckled. “Take a sandwich, Barty,” he said, handing him the platter. “Would anybody care to explain to me why we need Wilkes if we have Boulder? He’s Lord Voldemort’s uncle, so why—”

“Second uncle, to be exact,” Lestrange corrected him. “And the fact that he isn’t sitting here with us tonight should tell you all you need to know. He was one of the first to join, shortly after myself and Julius, in fact, but he did so merely out of fear. He was afraid of Lord Voldemort’s revenge for having been dumped at a Muggle orphanage just because the family despised him for his Muggle father. As far as I can judge it, that was his only reason to join, and given the non-existent results of his activities so far, I doubt whether he’ll survive the next meeting. He could have been of great help but the man isn’t able to cast a decent Imperius Curse. That’s why we need Wilkes.”

“Why not Catherine Reynolds—no, sorry, I forgot she’s Roger Lovegood’s sister,” Severus said. “Just pretend I didn’t say it.”

Lestrange smiled at him. “It seems you did your homework,” he said, “As I told you, the Who’s Who can be quite useful at times.” He took a sandwich. “What about Wilkes, then? Killing or Imperius?”

“Not Imperius,” Malfoy replied, “Herbert Wilkes is one of the few who might be capable of resisting it. I say we kill him.”

“I certainly don’t have your experience,” Severus chimed in, “But should we really make things so obvious?” The other three looked at him in surprise. “Let me explain: We kill Prewett and try to get Julius to take over his job. We kill Nathalie Pierson, if necessary, and attempt to push in one of us. We kill Wilkes et voilà, there’s one of us to take his place. That means serving our people to the Ministry on a silver platter, don’t you think so? They might be stupid but the pattern should be obvious even to them.”

A lengthy silence followed, punctuated only by the soft splashing noise when Severus refilled their glasses.

“I think you have a point there,” Malfoy said finally. “We want to get attention, but not this kind of attention. Any suggestions as to how we should proceed instead?”

“Yes, I think so. As far as Urqhart is concerned, couldn’t St. John apply for Prewett’s job? He is beyond suspicion and will even be recommended by Dumbledore.”

“Sounds great,” Lestrange said, “But Lord Voldemort would never allow that. It would mean losing his only contact at Hogwarts.”

“All we would have to do would be to introduce one of our group to Dumbledore, in order to take over your position. He would understand if you wanted to start a career at the university, after all, he can hardly expect you to teach at his school for the rest of your life. We only have to find a suitable substitute for you.”

“It may sound arrogant,” Lestrange said, “But that will be a little difficult. Dumbledore’s standards are very high, and there are not many qualified Potions Masters. Not to mention that there are even fewer who would be ready to sacrifice research for teaching, at a school to boot. I would suggest you, Severus, but you’re too young, especially for being Head of House. No, it would have to be… Wait, doesn’t Igor have a Potions Master degree?”

Malfoy nodded. “Yes, indeed. And he’s your senior by then years, so he would be more than qualified for assuming your role as Head of Slytherin as well. Even though I have to say that it would require a lot of blindness on Dumbledore’s part to accept him. I’m one of the school governors, granted, and there are enough of us who would support Karkaroff’s application. But there’s the Ministry as well, they have their say in the matter—”

“I think that Mulciber could be of help there,” Barty spoke up, “He has more than enough meetings with the Minister, and private ones as well, to be able to cast Imperius on him. Just for a short while, until he has given his placet to Karkaroff’s appointment.”

“Agreed then,” Malfoy said, “We will try and suggest this strategy to our Lord. But let us return to Wilkes. Do you have a similarly brilliant strategy for replacing him?”

In spite of the slightly acid tone, or maybe because of it, Severus felt quite elated by the compliment. “I don’t know whether what I have in mind is brilliant,” he retorted, “So I will leave it to you to tell me what you think of it. In my opinion, the problem arises after we kill Wilkes. For either we just hope that his successor has sympathies for our cause, which seems a little too aleatory, or we ensure that his place be taken by someone we can rely upon. The logical choice would be Stuart, of course, he’s the only son and heir. Why not drug him with the Imperius potion shortly before his father leaves to meet his maker, and let him take over? We would have to spare him and his mother but that doesn’t seem to be a problem, does it?”

“Much as I hate to admit it, the scheme is brilliant,” Malfoy said. “How do we drug him, however?”

“Lucius’s wedding would provide an excellent occasion,” Lestrange suggested. “Lots of guests, lots of alcohol, people are distracted… Severus could slip him the potion without anybody being the wiser. Or Tabitha might do it, I’m sure she would love to. Moreover,” he said, stabbing Malfoy’s shoulder with his index finger, “you would have the perfect justification for performing the wedding your way. The Wilkes would never agree to come if there was as much as a shadow of a doubt that the Dark Arts are involved.”

Mafloy wagged his head. “It is a justification ex nunc and thus a bit lame, but it’s certainly better than nothing at all. Next, then: St. Mungo’s.”

~~~~*~~~~

Time had really been flying, Severus thought, lingering for a moment at his fireplace before he started his first journey to McLachlan’s house. He was nervous because he felt insufficiently prepared, and besides today was a Sunday. Did the old wizard really mean to begin on a Sunday? He had told Severus to be there on 1 August at ten a.m., but had he been aware what day of the week it was? On the other hand, Severus was not overly eager to ask him—his grumpy behaviour was not exactly encouraging. With a sigh, he decided to simply take the risk. After all, the worst thing that could happen was to be immediately dispatched back home. If pull came to shove, he would be rudely dispatched. So what? He was not a little boy anymore, and did not have to make a ‘good impression’ on whoever.

The flames turned green and, obediently as always, transported him to his destination.

If it was possible to judge persons by the living space they had created for themselves, Severus thought he might come to like McLachlan. The room he was stumbling into—the inelegant landings the Floo network caused its users to make nettled him to no end, but he had never seen anybody arrive other than more or less ruffled, not even Lucius, the epitome of groomed-ness—was a habitable encyclopaedia. Habitable meaning that you could exist within, though not necessarily feeling comfortable while doing so. There was nobody in the room, and thus Severus decided that he was going to have a thorough look round before drawing attention to his arrival.

There had to be thousands of books here, he thought in fascination, as he roamed along the walls covered in shelves containing the tomes. Their number withstood any attempt of quick mental calculation, for not only had they been shrunk to the size of a palm, they were also aligned in double rows, lots of them were squeezed into the small space between the books and the boards above them. For once, Severus renounced any attempt at reading the titles written on their spines in minuscule letters—he simply drank in the sight and let himself become inebriated by their number. But books were not all there was to the chamber. It contained paintings as well; only they were not hanging at the walls as would have been the normal way of displaying them. Simon McLachlan had preferred to suspend them from the ceiling, close to each other but at different heights, dangling and turning slowly in the faint breeze that came in through the open windows, so that the sunlight playing on their gilt frames produced gently dancing, golden reflexes on the covers of the books.

Severus stood mesmerized, almost hypnotized by the soft, swaying movements, gazing at the paintings and wondering why they were so silent—at Hogwarts, they had always been rather annoyingly noisy—until, at second glance, he saw that they were all still-lives or landscapes in various styles from the early Renaissance up to what he guessed had to be the period of McLachlan’s own youth.

A sudden movement at his feet made him jump in alarm and then laugh at his own susceptibility: If the pictures did not move, the carpet certainly more than made up for their immobility. He looked down, and then crouched on his heels to examine it more closely, brows furrowed in amazement and wonder. What he had at first thought to be a pattern of minuscule snakes, slithering and entwining and entangling their flexible bodies, turned out to be signs, letters maybe. But they were not runes, and neither were they Greek letters.

“I see that you are admiring the pièce de résistance,” said a slightly squeaky voice behind him.

Severus, who was still crouching on the floor, lost his balance and toppled over, to land on his rear end. He was sure that he had never felt so stupid in his life as he did right now, sitting on the carpet with its still-moving pattern, looking up at McLachlan, who was indeed very short, and feeling lost for words. A memorable way to start his apprenticeship. The appearance of a second person in the doorframe did nothing to make him feel better, or less ridiculous. Above all because the person was none other than Remus Lupin. McLachlan stretched out a hand and Severus took it, misinterpreting the gesture as a greeting; the hand pulled him to his feet, though, with surprising strength.

“Welcome to my humble home,” McLachlan said, with a smile so wide that his pince-nez seemed in immediate danger of succumbing to the law of gravity. It stayed on the bridge of his nose, though, probably he had fixed it there with a spell, Severus thought.

“Good morning, professor,” he said, scraping up what little remained of his dignity, “Sorry to intrude, I already supposed it was the wrong day…”

“No, no, that’s all right, that’s all right,” the old wizard said, nodding vigorously. “So, how do you like my carpet?”

Lupin was still skulking at the door, and Severus decided to simply ignore him. “It’s very interesting,” he replied, “Although I can’t quite make out what those signs are meant to be. In fact, I was just having a closer look when…” He decided not to elaborate.

McLachlan giggled. “Interesting, yes, it’s interesting, doubtlessly very interesting. Ever seen anything like it?”

“No,” Severus said, “I’m absolutely sure that I have never seen anything even vaguely similar.”

“Just what I thought, just what I thought.” Severus found the mannerism of repeating everything at least twice a little annoying, but then thought that it might come in useful for writing down complicated formulas. “It’s a kabbalistic carpet, that’s what it is, a kabbalistic carpet.”

“Does that mean those signs are Hebrew?”

“Yes, that’s what it means, exactly what it means.” Either the fixating charm had been sloppily applied or the pince-nez had been very lucky so far; now, however, it went flying to the floor, due to a particularly vehement nod.

Severus bent down to pick it up and handed it back to its proprietor. “And… what are those letters doing all the time?”

McLachlan’s brows shot up. “Good question to ask, good question indeed. And not easy to answer, by no means easy.—What are you doing, Mr. Lupin, lingering on the doorstep? Come and join us, a little knowledge won’t damage your brain.”

A terrible suspicion crept up in Severus’s mind. “Uh, Sir, is… er, is Mr. Lupin another apprentice?”

This time the pince-nez flew straight into the fireplace and was rescued by Lupin. “No, Mr. Lupin is here on behalf of his… er, problem. We’ll come to that later. Now to the Kabbalah: It is a very special kind of magic, in fact it’s the closest Muggles have ever come to doing actual magic. Close, but not quite there, not quite there. I won’t bore you with the History of Kabbalah, though. The man who is of interest in order to understand this carpet is Abraham Abulafia, who firmly believed that God cannot be described or conceptualised using everyday symbols. Like many Kabbalists he believed in the divine nature of the Hebrew alphabet and used abstract letter combinations and permutations in intense meditations lasting many hours to reach ecstatic states. Because his abstract letter combinations were used as keys or entry points to altered states of consciousness, failure to carry through the manipulations correctly could have a drastic effect on the Kabbalist. And of course, Abulafia and his followers had every interest in preserving those entry points untouched, opening only to their own command. Did I mention that Abulafia also happened to be a wizard?”

Both young men shook their heads, unable to speak for sheer information overload.

“Well, there you are, he was a wizard. Not an exceptionally gifted one, if truth be told. No wonder he used Kabbalah to reinforce his own magical abilities. He was, however, skilled enough to enchant his meditation carpet so that the letters would remain in constant movement and only come to a standstill when he touched them with his wand. I have often tried to find out how the carpet came into our family, but never succeeded. It’s here, that’s all I know, all I know.”

“Does it… work?” Lupin asked.

“I suppose it would, if Abulafia’s wand still existed. But it’s lost, unfortunately it’s lost.” He beamed at them as if he had just given them the happiest of news. “And now, as I always say, to something completely different: Mr. Lupin’s problem.”

Lupin had always been the least hated of his gang for Severus, but now that there was only he, without the company of his cronies, Severus’s loathing was concentrated solely on him. The steady look of those amber eyes brought back some of the most painful moments of Severus’s life—moments he had safely stored away in his memory, in order to use them whenever he needed them. Those tiny miniatures of hate had a surprisingly strong effect when picked from their cases of velvety black and held against the sunlight of reality: he had used the technique only once so far, after McGonagall had denied him the second Transfiguration N.E.W.T. . He had fled the company of his fellow students, boiling with helpless rage, almost sick with it, and retired to one of the balconies of the Astronomy Tower to sit there at vertiginous height, fighting back tears of hurt and fury. He had felt trapped, like an animal confined to a cage the walls of which would shift the closer to its occupant the more it raved and howled. There was nothing he could do, he had reached a dead end, an impasse, and all he was likely to get was a smashed skull, if he continued to run against the wall barring his way. And not unlike many trapped animals, he had suddenly given up when the awareness of his own impotence had fully struck him. He had been sitting there for hours and hours, running against the wall, trying to escape, trying to go back, trying to climb it, to no avail. So he had given in to despair. Until he had heard the howl of a wolf floating up towards him from the Forbidden Forest. Immediately and completely unbidden, is mind had picked out the scene of two years ago in Dumbledore’s office. The oath. The humiliation. And then, Lesrtange’s words to him. Take your hate and turn it into strength. It had been enough to make him get up and go back, limping at first because his legs were totally numb, but then with his usual self-assured stride, to the Slytherin quarters. Showing real contempt—not some affected pose, but real disdain—for McGonagall. His time for revenge would come, those had been his words, and he had felt the truth of what he said. The mechanism had worked.

And it worked now. Just a fleeting, stealthy look at the memory of Remus Lupin, radiating righteous anger next to a fuming McGonagall, who had taken hundred points from Slytherin because Severus had tossed a silver coin at the werewolf, during dinner at the beginning of their seventh year. The idiot had caught it by mere reflex. And of course, he had to swallow the physical pain and the sickness, for they would have betrayed him for what he was—after all, Dumbledore had forbidden Severus to tell anybody, mute demonstrations had not been included in the interdict. It was what the Head of Gryffindor had said to him, though, certain words that stuck in his brain like glass splinters in the eye, words like “rotten to the core” and “I knew as soon as I saw you for the first time” and “unsurprisingly, given your family history” and “shame to Hogwarts”. Those words, and the hint of satisfaction in Lupin’s eyes. It worked.

He looked calmly at McLachlan. “You mean his being a werewolf or a social outcast?” he asked in the most winning tone of voice he could muster.

Sharp intake of breath—Lupin’s eyes were shooting daggers at him.

“Sadly the one is closely linked to the other,” McLachlan replied, “And in order to remedy this deplorable situation he has asked me to try and find a cure. Or at least something that might alleviate his condition. Which is of course a most lucky coincidence, for two brilliant minds are bound to come up with more results than just one.”

Severus was beginning to have a faint idea of how being dismembered had to feel, torn as he was between pride at McLachlan’s appraisal of his abilities and the yoke those abilities were about to bear. But then, who said that their research would actually yield a result? It was better to look at the business from a somewhat elevated point of view: he would doubtlessly learn a great deal doing research together with McLachlan, and that was what he had come for.

“What an interesting project,” he said therefore, “Really, fascinating. We should start immediately.”

Which had the advantage of causing Lupin to leave, more nolens than volens, with a sour look at Severus. Not bad on the whole, Severus thought, put on his workrobes and followed McLachlan into the laboratory.