Substance of a Spy (1/?)
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Substance of a Spy
UNBETA'D. WIP. Harry Potter fanfic.
Chapter 1: A Substitute for Dragonroot
It wasn’t until he heard the floo activate that Snape remembered he had an appointment. He was in a rather delicate stage in the brewing process, though, so he paid it no mind other than a quick mental inventory of anything incriminating he might have left out. Cassie wandered into the private part of his lab, her foot-scuffing the only nod to the convention of announcing oneself or giving a greeting. She stood in the doorway and watched his hands, mentally measuring the ingredients and counting along with him while he stirred counterclockwise four and a quarter times. Snape could tell the moment she identified the potion he was making because her attention wandered to his shelves of ingredients.
He finished the delicate stage of the potion and moved the cauldron off the heat. Only then did Cassie speak. “It has to thicken for five hours, right? That should be long enough for us to talk.”
“Your owl failed to mention the purpose of the meeting, Miss Trefoil. I am not in the habit of gossiping with students who graduated four years ago.”
“It’s a sensitive topic I wanted to discuss. Would you be so kind as to seal the room?”
“You’re not going to do it yourself?” There was a flash of hurt in her eyes. “You have a bottle of sealing vapors in your case, don’t you?”
The hurt was replaced by amusement. “I’ll pass. I know what happens when sealing vapors mix with the wolfsbane fumes from your potion, and I’d rather not die that way.”
Snape smiled. “Twenty points for Slytherin, Miss Trefoil. I’m glad you’ve been paying attention potion interactions; idiot potion makers get killed by their ignorance in that area.” He drew his wand and made a gesture. “The room is sealed. Perhaps we could get to the purpose of this?”
“I want to know if the rumors are true. I want to see with my own eyes.”
Snape started putting away ingredients. “And what will you do with the information? Go to the Daily Prophet? If they won’t believe Dumbledore, I don’t think they’ll listen to the likes of you or me.”
“Of course not. I’ll join the Dark Lord.”
That got Snape’s full attention. “You?”
“Why not me?”
“You told me all Death Eaters were shortsighted fools.”
Cassie blushed. “A bit of hyperbole on my part. You’ll recall that I was only a third year.”
“The Dark Lord isn’t known for his understanding or forgiving nature. He also isn’t known for his tolerance for squibs.”
Cassie’s face was livid. “I am quite obviously not a squib.”
“As close as makes no difference to the Dark Lord. Can you cast a single spell beyond the level of first-year charms?”
“Yes.” Cassie drew her wand and pointed it at Snape. He lunged for his own wand, where it rested next to the cauldron, but had barely touched it when Cassie completed her curse.
“Avada kedavra.” There was a flash of green, the sound of breaking glass behind him. Snape stared at her, shocked.
“Do you realize how expensive that chitose lizard was? It isn’t polite to kill other people’s potion supplies.”
“It isn’t polite to call a witch a squib, either. Besides, we’re going to need its liver and spleen.” Cassie was grinning in triumph, and Snape realized that, in his haste, he had allowed his robe sleeve to shift. The death eater symbol on his left forearm was as vivid as when the Dark Lord had first carved it, testimony to Voldemort’s resurrection.
“You can’t expect me to brew Alomey’s Interrogation Serum for you after that little display. I happen to be rather busy at the moment.”
“Of course not. I’m going to brew it; you’ll watch to make sure I don’t slip in any mandrake root to nullify its effects. Then you’ll use it on me. I’m going to show you exactly how determined I am to become a Death Eater.” Without asking for permission, she appropriated a clean cauldron and work station, then collected ingredients from the shelves. She knew where everything was kept even in Snape’s private lab due to the special tutoring sessions she had begged off him beginning her fourth year.
“What makes you imagine they would accept you?”
“They’ll need a potion maker, since you’ll be stuck here spying on Dumbledore,” she said frankly as she skinned and filleted the chitose lizard, carefully separating the parts and putting them in preserving jars.
“I’m sure the Dark Lord will have any number of talented potion masters at his beck and call.”
“But I want it more.” Cassie set out five cutting boards and five knives at her workstation and sorted the ingredients into five corresponding groups. She prepped half of the ingredients before even putting her cauldron on the heat. Her elbows were close to her sides and her knife work was efficient and practiced.
“Sorting into Patterson’s non-reactive groups may reduce accidents from premature mixing, but it encourages laziness. If you’re not willing to remember which particular ingredients react together, you’ll never be able to mix your own potions. What potions master taught you to rely on this crutch?”
“Seth Diggerson,” she said tightly.
“I’ve never heard of him. What has he published?”
“Nothing. He’s the second-shift manager at Toadstools & Tuftweed.”
“A factory job? Why didn’t you apprentice yourself to a real master?”
She brought down her knife too hard and the cremne seed shot away from her knife and off the counter. She stared at her clenched hands. “No one would take me.”
“You should have listed me as a reference.”
“I did. I don’t think anyone bothered checking after seeing my OWLs.” Snape hadn’t seen them, but he could guess: she would have outright failed at least charms and transfiguration. Cassie started chopping again, but the motion was erratic and more seeds went flying.
“So you’ll prove your value by getting yourself killed by the Dark Lord? It won’t take him long to realize his new ‘potion master’ only knows how to make potions readily available from Toadstool & Tuftweed.”
“I’ve been teaching myself,” Cassie insisted. “Isn’t that how you started out?”
“I had the talent to back it up. Let’s see if you do.” When Cassie reached for it, Snape swept the thinly-sliced dragonroot off the counter; it reacted with the stone floor and shriveled immediately.
“Your test is whether I can slice enough dragonroot before the potion starts boiling in ten minutes?” she asked scornfully.
“The test is whether you can find a replacement for the dragonroot before the potion boils,” Snape corrected. “Fail, and you won’t get my recommendation. Without that, the Dark Lord won’t even consider using you.”
It was a lot of pressure to put on her. She needed to find the correct ingredient and prepare it all in ten minutes, knowing that if she forgot a single ingredient interaction the resulting potion would probably kill her. Considering the number of pain and insanity-inducing ingredients already in the potion, being killed by her screw-up might be the best case scenario. Instead of frantically searching the shelves, Cassie gave Snape a challenging look. “If I pass, then, you have to give me an interrogation like I would expect to receive at the Death Eater initiation, and you have to recommend me to the Dark Lord.”
“Out of the question. If you failed in some endeavor, the punishment would fall on me as well. I am not so fond of the Cruciatus curse that I would go out on a limb for you.”
“Then you’ll accept me as an apprentice until you’re ready to recommend me.”
“Very well. But you’ll have to succeed first.”
Cassie nodded and pursed her lips. “The ingredient is in the room, correct?”
“Yes,” Snape agreed. There were more than three hundred ingredients in his private lab, so that didn’t give away much.
The young woman moved her head slowly back and forth as if scanning the shelves, but her eyes were closed. Snape, with his eidetic memory, had never needed such tricks, but Cassie had once admitted to using a method where every piece of new information was attached to a particular spacial location in a mental room. As the minutes passed, lines of frustration deepened around her eyes.
Snape sighed. “I don’t particularly want to waste the parts of that chitose lizard, so why don’t you tell me what you’re thinking, and I’ll tell you if you’re on the right track.”
“No! Don’t help me.”
“If you insist. Then explain your thought process and I might give you partial credit.”
She was running out of time, so she reluctantly talked. “The dragonroot causes intense pain with little physical damage. The particular aspect exploited by the interrogation potion is the increase in pain in response to mental effort or concentration. There isn’t a single other ingredient in the room with those properties.”
“Then the task is impossible, given . . .” Snape prompted.
“Given my initial assumptions,” Cassie finished. “So I reexamine my assumptions. Assumption one: it has to be a primary effect. That’s no good; there are too many possible secondary effects to figure out in a couple of minutes. So I move on to assumption two: hmm . . . there isn’t a single ingredient in the room with those properties, but you never said it had to be a single ingredient, did you? Multiple ingredients that work together to get the desired results . . .” After a minute of staring intently into space, Cassie began to laugh. “Merlin’s beard, I never thought I’d get any practical use out of tending bar for the company party. Have you ever heard of Intellectual’s Delight? It uses sophbalm as the activator, since it detects strong mental activity.” She moved confidently to the shelf and picked out a bottle of sophbalm nectar. She hesitated over the acids, settling on Blueblood .08%. Stronger than Snape would have used, but she should be okay as long as she used enough of the ground shark teeth she selected next. “Of course, in the party drink it’s combined with a pleasure agent like mermaid scale instead of acid.” She quickly mixed together four drops of acid, a squirt of sophbalm and a generous spoonful of shark teeth. Now that she was in a hurry, she was abandoning careful measurements and relying on a feel for what the potion needed. Snape was glad to see she her years working in a factory hadn’t beaten her potion-sense out of her, even if she was using more shark teeth than was really necessary. “And the bridging agent is, naturally, ethanol.” She reached into Snape’s liquor cabinet and pulled out a random bottle.
“Not the scotch,” Snape corrected. “It’s single malt. Use the port instead.”
Cassie added half a pint of port to the mixing bowl with the flair of a barmaid angling for tips and dumped the concoction into the main potion just as it started to boil. She stirred it rapidly for five minutes and removed it from the heat, stretching out a sore wrist while they waited for it to cool. Snape would have cooled one of his own potions with a spell, but it was the height of rudeness to charm another’s potion, not to mention dangerous if the potion wasn’t brewed properly. It didn’t seem that Cassie would ask; she was trying to calm herself for her ordeal.
“You don’t have to go through with this,” Snape pointed out. “I’ll take you as an apprentice this summer, either way. By the time the summer is over you’ll have learned enough about my methods that every potions master in the country will want to steal them from you.”
“Don’t you understand the time for pure research has passed? The Dark Lord is resurrected. It’s time to brew potions of violence and dominance, potions to eradicate muggles from the face of the Earth.”
Snape always appreciated Cassie’s intellect and persistence, but this streak of fanaticism in her made him nervous. “Miss Trefoil, not even the Death Eaters are talking about killing all the muggles; there are too many of them, and they’re mostly harmless. Just subduing or enslaving them is more than sufficient.”
“Which is why I say the Death Eaters are idiots. Dominating and enslaving them are only temporary measures. It won’t stop the moral decay of the wizarding world or the pollution of its bloodlines.” The more she warmed to her subject, the more elaborate the phrasing became. Was she quoting someone else? Or had she planned out this little speech? “I know the Dark Lord has considered these things carefully and will initiate a permanent solution to the muggle problem. And when he does, I want to be by his side.”
“You plan to replace me?” Snape couldn’t keep the amusement out of his voice.
“Your greatest value is as a spy, Professor, bringing down Dumbledore. Which leaves your former place by the Dark Lord’s side open for me.”
“You’re quite ambitious.”
“Had you imagined, all these years, that I was really a Hufflepuff? Of course I’m ambitious.”
“Foolishly so.”
“We’ll see about that.” She ladled a quarter-pint of the interrogation potion into a cup, raised the glass mockingly, and downed the contents.
Interlude: The House Elf's Invitation
Brendan Trefoil Jr was a bit nonplussed when he opened the door and found a house elf waiting patiently on the other side. “What do you want?”
“I was asked here by Miz Terra,” she announced in what had to be her shrillest voice.
“Whatever. Wait here.” Brendan shut the door in her face and wandered to the stairs, where he bellowed up, “Mom, there’s a pinkie here says you wanted it. Should I send it back to its owner?”
Ms. Terra took the stairs two at a time hurrying to the door, a sealed letter in one hand. “Brendan George Trefoil Jr, I never want you to use that kind of derogatory language in this house. Do you understand? Rosalind is a guest.”
“Who the hell names a pinkie something stupid like ‘Rosalind’, anyway?” Brendan muttered, trailing behind.
“Rosalind, thank you so much for coming. I hope I didn’t disturb your work.”
The house elf shrugged. “Is no problem. Hogwarts kitchen closed for summer.”
“Still, I feel so embarrassed asking you to do courier service. It’s just an owl would take much too long, and she’s not hooked up to the floo network.”
“Is no problem. Is excuse to take care of her. She not do well on her own. Everything dusty. I come back soon.”
Ms. Terra assumed it would take at least half a day to deliver the letter and get a response, so she was out shopping when Rosalind returned just two and a half hours later. “I have letter for Miz Terra,” she announced when Brendan opened the door.
“You can just leave it with me,” he said.
“You give to Miz Terra? You no sneaky read?”
“Just give it to me and get the bloody hell out of here!” Brendan snapped. Then, just to show the uppity pinkie who was boss, he read the letter. Not that he was able to get much out of it:
Terra:
So? What do you want me to do about it?
Keep your answer concise. Even while I write this, Ros is moving things around in my workroom. She thinks she does me a favor by bloody alphabetizing my potions. Given my eyesight, it’s only a matter of time before I accidentally poison myself.
C. T. T
Brendan didn’t know who C.T.T. was, but he was certainly rude. When his mother got home, she was so eager to read the letter she didn’t bother chastising him for reading her mail. She sent another letter, and the response came with enough galleons to buy a Hermes racing broom. That night at dinner, Brendan’s mother broke the news. “You’re going to live with your aunt this summer.”
“Bloody hell, no. I told you I’m staying with Vinnie Crabbe and Susan Jugson.”
“I’ve told you time and again I don’t like you being friends with that sort of-- of Death-Eater-wannabe. Even more so now that you three got those horrific tattoos done.”
“Lighten up, mom, it’s just to freak out the mudbloods.”
“Brendan!” She struggled for control. “I know it hasn’t been easy for you, being a Slytherin when your father was in the resistance. Still, it’s time you realized not all Slytherins supported Voldemort. There were several in the resistance.”
Brendan snorted. “Oh come on. Name a single one other than Slughorn and Snape.”
“Your aunt.”
“Aunt Debbie’s an idiot Hufflepuff, mom.”
"Your other aunt."
Brendan’s mouth opened and closed uselessly. “Wait, Aunt Trefoil? You want me to spend the summer with a convicted Death Eater? One who escaped from Azkaban? Have you completely lost your mind?” It was one thing to idolize Death Eaters from afar; quite another to move in with them.
Ms. Terra ran her hands through her short blond hair. “I don’t know what else I can do. You won’t listen to me anymore. You won’t obey me. You’re constantly getting in trouble at Hogwarts, and your idiotic stunts have even gotten you the attention of the Ministry. You think that Death Eaters and Voldemort were cool or tough, when they were actually just thugs and psychotics. Cassie’s the only one I know who could set you straight.”
“If she was in the resistance, why the bloody hell would they send her to Azkaban?”
“She only defected near the end, in the last few months before Voldemort’s fall. She could have defended herself, but instead she plead guilty to every charge; not that she stayed in Azkaban for more than a week, anyway.”
“You never told me how she broke out.”
“You should ask her, Brendan. Your portkey leaves in two days; you have until then to pack and tell your friends you’re not coming. I’d ask that you not tell them about staying with your aunt; she’s rather fanatical about her privacy. Oh, and you’ll need to leave your owl; she won’t like the heat where you’re going.”
“Where am I going?”
“Botswana.”
Chapter 2: Alomay’s Interrogation Potion
Snape had to support Cassie while she stumbled to the armchair he’d chosen for her. There were half a dozen ingredients that caused disorientation and loss of balance even before she added the alcohol which, due to the accelerating effects of powdered dragon saliva, hit her bloodstream within the first thirty seconds. From the way she nearly fell out of the cushioned armchair, Snape suspected she didn’t drink often.
“Wha? Where?” she mumbled. Snape took her chin and forced her to make eye contact. “Profser Snaaype?”
“I need you to concentrate for a moment, Miss Trefoil. What are the ingredients of Dreamless Slumber?”
She opened her mouth to reply but cried out instead as her entire body jerked through a contraction. When she’d recovered enough to speak, she gasped, “Profser, what’s hap’ning?” Lines of pain formed around her eyes.
“Just relax, Miss Trefoil. Relax, and the pain will go away.” When her face smoothed, Snape drew his wand. “Legilimens.” Nauseating images swirled into his mind from hers, her usually well-ordered mind throwing up images from her subconscious. There were insects and rat’s tails, gillyweed and puce-green furniture, all looping and mixing in her intoxicated state. Snape hated using legilimency against those in altered states of consciousness for this very reason, but Alomay’s potion was known for its effectiveness in circumventing occlumency. Cassie’s insistence on using it meant she was probably very good at occlumency; Snape imagined a disciplined mind like hers would take to it easily.
Legilimency is an art that requires experience and skill not because it is difficult to read someone’s mind, but because it is difficult to read anything useful; one can spend as long exploring someone’s memories as they did living them. One can’t just ask “Why do you want to join the Death Eaters?” and expect a cohesive, articulated answer. Snape knew the way to answer such a question was to pursue images and feelings associated with the idea of Death Eaters. Her resistance was brief: it broke under the first razing pain. When he finally reached what he was looking for, Snape was disgusted to realize that, more than fame and success, Cassie was seeking a sense of belonging, of family . . . which she somehow believed she could find among deranged, sycophantic mass murderers. Pathetic, yes, but Snape knew a human’s secret desires and fears usually were.
Snape stumbled upon a particularly strong memory of Cassie in fifth year, curled up in the Slytherin lounge with Barkel’s 101 Essential Poisons and Their Antidotes, eavesdropping on a conversation between two seventh-year boys.
“That’s what I’m saying,” one of them said, “Now that the Dark Lord’s gone forever, we’ll never get our chance to shine.”
“Crabbe claims his older brother still goes on Dark Revels with some of the old gang. Doesn’t send up the snakehead anymore, of course, but it still drives the Aurors crazy.”
“Yeah, but that’s small stuff, Will. I’m talking about enslaving all the muggles, of ruling the bloody world.” Cassie snorted audibly. “You got a problem, squib?”
“No, please, carry on. You’re quite amusing to listen to.” She stretched out her legs and adopted a look of bored condescension.
“What’s so bloody funny?”
“Well, to begin with, you obviously revere the Dark Lord, yet you believe him weak enough to be killed by a toddler. Either the Dark Lord is a truly pathetic figurehead who will soon be replaced by one of his followers,” she began, and all other conversations in the room stopped, “or he’s biding his time, waiting to strike at the most advantageous moment. I know which one I believe. And in either case, you need only practice your Unforgivables and wait for the Death Eaters’ return.” The tension eased in the room when it was clear Cassie wasn’t impugning Voldemort’s power. It ratcheted back up again when she threw out, “Of course, it isn’t much to look forward to, considering they’re mostly idiots.”
A couple of chairs scraped as Slytherins rose to their feet. “Care to say that again?” Danny Crabbe asked.
“Anyone who can’t think through the ramifications of their plans is an idiot, so yes: Death Eaters are idiots. Their big plan is to ‘dominate’ the muggles, to enslave the muggles. Measures like that are bound to fail and leave us in a worse situation.”
Danny went right up to her chair and towered over it. “So what do you suggest? We keep hiding like we’re afraid of them?”
“What good would that do? No, I’m talking about a permanent solution: we exterminate them.”
Danny was almost speechless. “What? But--but there are millions of them. Tens of millions.”
“There are more than five and a half billion muggles, actually. We’re outnumbered more than ten to one. Which is the first reason enslaving them is useless. How in bloody hell do you propose to ensorcell or track them all? If we fail in that, uprisings are inevitable. Futile, of course, but they would cause extensive property damage, even the deaths of a few witches and wizards in some cases. After all, you never know when some bleeding-heart Griffindor will help the filthy things.”
The listeners were exchanging nervous glances. Were even Slytherins allowed to talk about this so bluntly? “You said the first reason. What are the others?” one bystander asked.
Cassie grinned, orating for her entire audience. “Muggles are more brutal and dangerous than most of us realize. You’ve all seen pictures of what happened to Little Havasham after that massive entropy spell misfired, right?”
“It leveled the whole village, killed a lot of people,” one girl answered.
“Muggles have weapons they call ‘hydrogen bombs’ that are a hundred times more powerful.”
Danny snorted. “That’s such bullshit. If it were a hundred times more powerful, it could destroy half of London.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“You’re right, I was lying. Hydrogen bombs are a lot more than a hundred times that powerful. And one could destroy more than just London. My point is that we haven’t a single shield that could even hold up against the entropy spell’s ‘catastrophic misfire’. We can’t defend against a muggle hydrogen bomb.”
“You’re saying muggles could destroy us?” a nervous first-year asked.
“Not intentionally,” Cassie assured him. “They don’t know where we are yet. Right now we’re far more likely to be obliterated in the crossfire of one of their wars. Still, it’s something to consider before we announce they’re supposed to bow to us.” She looked around theatrically. “Will everyone stop wetting their pants? It’s not like their weapons are difficult to defeat. We just fry the weapons’ brains before they’re launched. All it takes is foresight and an understanding of what we’re up against. Two things distinctly lacking in the ranks of the Death Eaters,” she added, rubbing salt in the wound. “Third, and most importantly, we can’t guarantee muggles won’t continue to dilute our race with mudbloods and half-breeds. Anyone who thinks muggles could be used as house elves obviously doesn’t understand that muggles are constantly trying to contaminate our bloodlines. If we merely enslave them, rather than putting them down, there’s nothing to stop a male muggle from attacking a sleeping witch or a female muggle from seducing an otherwise upstanding wizard. Unless we want a veritable plague of mudbloods, half-bloods and squibs, we have to protect our wombs and seed from contamination.”
Danny asked with mock thoughtfulness, “And what happens to squibs in this world you’re imagining?”
“Since squibs come from powerful wizarding families, ordering them executed is problematic. The solution seems to be allowing them to live, but sterilizing them.”
“Yeah?” Danny leaned far into her personal space. “Why don’t you prove just how committed you are by sterilizing yourself then, bitch?”
“I’m no squib, pea-brain. I’m the top potions student in the entire bloody school. Which is why I’m able to brew something like this.” She held up a small black vial and Danny stumbled backward nervously. “Don’t worry, it’s just an Infecundus potion. Three drops for a man, four for a woman, and he or she will never have a child. There’s no antidote. Care to try a sip? No?” she asked in mock surprise. “Crabbe, you have a point. I’m no squib, but I agree my blood isn’t powerful enough to pass on to the next generation. So: bottoms up.” She opened her throat and swallowed the contents of the entire bottle before rising to her feet and glaring around the room. “Anyone else wonder if I have the courage to stand behind my convictions?”
Snape shook free of the memory. It was obvious that Cassie spoke like a true Death Eater, her little digs about its members aside. Still, he needed to see past that to what she really believed. The next part of the interrogation required real skill: unearthing her greatest secrets and shames. The mind tries to protect itself from guilt or horror by throwing up mental barricades against particularly horrifying thoughts and images. Call it denial or repression, those barricades are signposts for any mind reader: “Important information here.” It was while Snape was putting pressure on the largest of her barricades that Cassie really started resisting. Even while thrashing against the onslaught of pain, her mind remained blank gray. Still, her will could hardly match Snape’s.
He tore down the barrier and found Cassie, about six or seven years old, crouched at the top of the stairs, listening intently, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. A man spoke coldly while a woman sobbed somewhere downstairs. “You like my name, don’t you? You like calling yourself ‘Mrs. Trefoil’ even while fucking every muggle in the bloody neighborhood. And I’m supposed to smile and forgive? Even raise one of their bastards as if she were my own daughter?”
“John, please. You don’t know that she isn’t your daughter.”
“Of course she isn’t. No child of mine is a fucking squib.”
That was the whole of the memory: short and anything but sweet. Snape allowed the legilimency to fade and got a glass of water for Cassie, who was sitting limply, eyes focused in the middle-distance. “You’ll give up on the Death Eaters and apprentice with me for a few months. Do a good enough job and I may allow you to do research for one of my papers.”
“No. I’m joining the Death Eaters.”
“After leaking a secret like that? I hardly think so. You’re a mudblood.”
“Half-blood,” Cassie mumbled in protest. “I’m joining anyway.”
“Be reasonable. You already failed the test you set up for yourself,” Snape pointed out mercilessly, but he hesitated. Slytherins felt no shame in retreating to fight another day, so why was she being so stubborn? “Didn’t I find your secrets? Or are you hiding something else?” He knocked the glass out of her hand and grabbed her chin, examining the pupil dilation. Greater than normal, but it was clear the potion was wearing off. “You can still give up,” he offered her.
“No.”
“Then drink this-- it’s another half-dose of the interrogation potion-- and we’ll start over again.”
If you want me to continue with this story, please comment! Otherwise I might move on to a different one.
Substance of a Spy
UNBETA'D. WIP. Harry Potter fanfic.
Chapter 1: A Substitute for Dragonroot
It wasn’t until he heard the floo activate that Snape remembered he had an appointment. He was in a rather delicate stage in the brewing process, though, so he paid it no mind other than a quick mental inventory of anything incriminating he might have left out. Cassie wandered into the private part of his lab, her foot-scuffing the only nod to the convention of announcing oneself or giving a greeting. She stood in the doorway and watched his hands, mentally measuring the ingredients and counting along with him while he stirred counterclockwise four and a quarter times. Snape could tell the moment she identified the potion he was making because her attention wandered to his shelves of ingredients.
He finished the delicate stage of the potion and moved the cauldron off the heat. Only then did Cassie speak. “It has to thicken for five hours, right? That should be long enough for us to talk.”
“Your owl failed to mention the purpose of the meeting, Miss Trefoil. I am not in the habit of gossiping with students who graduated four years ago.”
“It’s a sensitive topic I wanted to discuss. Would you be so kind as to seal the room?”
“You’re not going to do it yourself?” There was a flash of hurt in her eyes. “You have a bottle of sealing vapors in your case, don’t you?”
The hurt was replaced by amusement. “I’ll pass. I know what happens when sealing vapors mix with the wolfsbane fumes from your potion, and I’d rather not die that way.”
Snape smiled. “Twenty points for Slytherin, Miss Trefoil. I’m glad you’ve been paying attention potion interactions; idiot potion makers get killed by their ignorance in that area.” He drew his wand and made a gesture. “The room is sealed. Perhaps we could get to the purpose of this?”
“I want to know if the rumors are true. I want to see with my own eyes.”
Snape started putting away ingredients. “And what will you do with the information? Go to the Daily Prophet? If they won’t believe Dumbledore, I don’t think they’ll listen to the likes of you or me.”
“Of course not. I’ll join the Dark Lord.”
That got Snape’s full attention. “You?”
“Why not me?”
“You told me all Death Eaters were shortsighted fools.”
Cassie blushed. “A bit of hyperbole on my part. You’ll recall that I was only a third year.”
“The Dark Lord isn’t known for his understanding or forgiving nature. He also isn’t known for his tolerance for squibs.”
Cassie’s face was livid. “I am quite obviously not a squib.”
“As close as makes no difference to the Dark Lord. Can you cast a single spell beyond the level of first-year charms?”
“Yes.” Cassie drew her wand and pointed it at Snape. He lunged for his own wand, where it rested next to the cauldron, but had barely touched it when Cassie completed her curse.
“Avada kedavra.” There was a flash of green, the sound of breaking glass behind him. Snape stared at her, shocked.
“Do you realize how expensive that chitose lizard was? It isn’t polite to kill other people’s potion supplies.”
“It isn’t polite to call a witch a squib, either. Besides, we’re going to need its liver and spleen.” Cassie was grinning in triumph, and Snape realized that, in his haste, he had allowed his robe sleeve to shift. The death eater symbol on his left forearm was as vivid as when the Dark Lord had first carved it, testimony to Voldemort’s resurrection.
“You can’t expect me to brew Alomey’s Interrogation Serum for you after that little display. I happen to be rather busy at the moment.”
“Of course not. I’m going to brew it; you’ll watch to make sure I don’t slip in any mandrake root to nullify its effects. Then you’ll use it on me. I’m going to show you exactly how determined I am to become a Death Eater.” Without asking for permission, she appropriated a clean cauldron and work station, then collected ingredients from the shelves. She knew where everything was kept even in Snape’s private lab due to the special tutoring sessions she had begged off him beginning her fourth year.
“What makes you imagine they would accept you?”
“They’ll need a potion maker, since you’ll be stuck here spying on Dumbledore,” she said frankly as she skinned and filleted the chitose lizard, carefully separating the parts and putting them in preserving jars.
“I’m sure the Dark Lord will have any number of talented potion masters at his beck and call.”
“But I want it more.” Cassie set out five cutting boards and five knives at her workstation and sorted the ingredients into five corresponding groups. She prepped half of the ingredients before even putting her cauldron on the heat. Her elbows were close to her sides and her knife work was efficient and practiced.
“Sorting into Patterson’s non-reactive groups may reduce accidents from premature mixing, but it encourages laziness. If you’re not willing to remember which particular ingredients react together, you’ll never be able to mix your own potions. What potions master taught you to rely on this crutch?”
“Seth Diggerson,” she said tightly.
“I’ve never heard of him. What has he published?”
“Nothing. He’s the second-shift manager at Toadstools & Tuftweed.”
“A factory job? Why didn’t you apprentice yourself to a real master?”
She brought down her knife too hard and the cremne seed shot away from her knife and off the counter. She stared at her clenched hands. “No one would take me.”
“You should have listed me as a reference.”
“I did. I don’t think anyone bothered checking after seeing my OWLs.” Snape hadn’t seen them, but he could guess: she would have outright failed at least charms and transfiguration. Cassie started chopping again, but the motion was erratic and more seeds went flying.
“So you’ll prove your value by getting yourself killed by the Dark Lord? It won’t take him long to realize his new ‘potion master’ only knows how to make potions readily available from Toadstool & Tuftweed.”
“I’ve been teaching myself,” Cassie insisted. “Isn’t that how you started out?”
“I had the talent to back it up. Let’s see if you do.” When Cassie reached for it, Snape swept the thinly-sliced dragonroot off the counter; it reacted with the stone floor and shriveled immediately.
“Your test is whether I can slice enough dragonroot before the potion starts boiling in ten minutes?” she asked scornfully.
“The test is whether you can find a replacement for the dragonroot before the potion boils,” Snape corrected. “Fail, and you won’t get my recommendation. Without that, the Dark Lord won’t even consider using you.”
It was a lot of pressure to put on her. She needed to find the correct ingredient and prepare it all in ten minutes, knowing that if she forgot a single ingredient interaction the resulting potion would probably kill her. Considering the number of pain and insanity-inducing ingredients already in the potion, being killed by her screw-up might be the best case scenario. Instead of frantically searching the shelves, Cassie gave Snape a challenging look. “If I pass, then, you have to give me an interrogation like I would expect to receive at the Death Eater initiation, and you have to recommend me to the Dark Lord.”
“Out of the question. If you failed in some endeavor, the punishment would fall on me as well. I am not so fond of the Cruciatus curse that I would go out on a limb for you.”
“Then you’ll accept me as an apprentice until you’re ready to recommend me.”
“Very well. But you’ll have to succeed first.”
Cassie nodded and pursed her lips. “The ingredient is in the room, correct?”
“Yes,” Snape agreed. There were more than three hundred ingredients in his private lab, so that didn’t give away much.
The young woman moved her head slowly back and forth as if scanning the shelves, but her eyes were closed. Snape, with his eidetic memory, had never needed such tricks, but Cassie had once admitted to using a method where every piece of new information was attached to a particular spacial location in a mental room. As the minutes passed, lines of frustration deepened around her eyes.
Snape sighed. “I don’t particularly want to waste the parts of that chitose lizard, so why don’t you tell me what you’re thinking, and I’ll tell you if you’re on the right track.”
“No! Don’t help me.”
“If you insist. Then explain your thought process and I might give you partial credit.”
She was running out of time, so she reluctantly talked. “The dragonroot causes intense pain with little physical damage. The particular aspect exploited by the interrogation potion is the increase in pain in response to mental effort or concentration. There isn’t a single other ingredient in the room with those properties.”
“Then the task is impossible, given . . .” Snape prompted.
“Given my initial assumptions,” Cassie finished. “So I reexamine my assumptions. Assumption one: it has to be a primary effect. That’s no good; there are too many possible secondary effects to figure out in a couple of minutes. So I move on to assumption two: hmm . . . there isn’t a single ingredient in the room with those properties, but you never said it had to be a single ingredient, did you? Multiple ingredients that work together to get the desired results . . .” After a minute of staring intently into space, Cassie began to laugh. “Merlin’s beard, I never thought I’d get any practical use out of tending bar for the company party. Have you ever heard of Intellectual’s Delight? It uses sophbalm as the activator, since it detects strong mental activity.” She moved confidently to the shelf and picked out a bottle of sophbalm nectar. She hesitated over the acids, settling on Blueblood .08%. Stronger than Snape would have used, but she should be okay as long as she used enough of the ground shark teeth she selected next. “Of course, in the party drink it’s combined with a pleasure agent like mermaid scale instead of acid.” She quickly mixed together four drops of acid, a squirt of sophbalm and a generous spoonful of shark teeth. Now that she was in a hurry, she was abandoning careful measurements and relying on a feel for what the potion needed. Snape was glad to see she her years working in a factory hadn’t beaten her potion-sense out of her, even if she was using more shark teeth than was really necessary. “And the bridging agent is, naturally, ethanol.” She reached into Snape’s liquor cabinet and pulled out a random bottle.
“Not the scotch,” Snape corrected. “It’s single malt. Use the port instead.”
Cassie added half a pint of port to the mixing bowl with the flair of a barmaid angling for tips and dumped the concoction into the main potion just as it started to boil. She stirred it rapidly for five minutes and removed it from the heat, stretching out a sore wrist while they waited for it to cool. Snape would have cooled one of his own potions with a spell, but it was the height of rudeness to charm another’s potion, not to mention dangerous if the potion wasn’t brewed properly. It didn’t seem that Cassie would ask; she was trying to calm herself for her ordeal.
“You don’t have to go through with this,” Snape pointed out. “I’ll take you as an apprentice this summer, either way. By the time the summer is over you’ll have learned enough about my methods that every potions master in the country will want to steal them from you.”
“Don’t you understand the time for pure research has passed? The Dark Lord is resurrected. It’s time to brew potions of violence and dominance, potions to eradicate muggles from the face of the Earth.”
Snape always appreciated Cassie’s intellect and persistence, but this streak of fanaticism in her made him nervous. “Miss Trefoil, not even the Death Eaters are talking about killing all the muggles; there are too many of them, and they’re mostly harmless. Just subduing or enslaving them is more than sufficient.”
“Which is why I say the Death Eaters are idiots. Dominating and enslaving them are only temporary measures. It won’t stop the moral decay of the wizarding world or the pollution of its bloodlines.” The more she warmed to her subject, the more elaborate the phrasing became. Was she quoting someone else? Or had she planned out this little speech? “I know the Dark Lord has considered these things carefully and will initiate a permanent solution to the muggle problem. And when he does, I want to be by his side.”
“You plan to replace me?” Snape couldn’t keep the amusement out of his voice.
“Your greatest value is as a spy, Professor, bringing down Dumbledore. Which leaves your former place by the Dark Lord’s side open for me.”
“You’re quite ambitious.”
“Had you imagined, all these years, that I was really a Hufflepuff? Of course I’m ambitious.”
“Foolishly so.”
“We’ll see about that.” She ladled a quarter-pint of the interrogation potion into a cup, raised the glass mockingly, and downed the contents.
Interlude: The House Elf's Invitation
Brendan Trefoil Jr was a bit nonplussed when he opened the door and found a house elf waiting patiently on the other side. “What do you want?”
“I was asked here by Miz Terra,” she announced in what had to be her shrillest voice.
“Whatever. Wait here.” Brendan shut the door in her face and wandered to the stairs, where he bellowed up, “Mom, there’s a pinkie here says you wanted it. Should I send it back to its owner?”
Ms. Terra took the stairs two at a time hurrying to the door, a sealed letter in one hand. “Brendan George Trefoil Jr, I never want you to use that kind of derogatory language in this house. Do you understand? Rosalind is a guest.”
“Who the hell names a pinkie something stupid like ‘Rosalind’, anyway?” Brendan muttered, trailing behind.
“Rosalind, thank you so much for coming. I hope I didn’t disturb your work.”
The house elf shrugged. “Is no problem. Hogwarts kitchen closed for summer.”
“Still, I feel so embarrassed asking you to do courier service. It’s just an owl would take much too long, and she’s not hooked up to the floo network.”
“Is no problem. Is excuse to take care of her. She not do well on her own. Everything dusty. I come back soon.”
Ms. Terra assumed it would take at least half a day to deliver the letter and get a response, so she was out shopping when Rosalind returned just two and a half hours later. “I have letter for Miz Terra,” she announced when Brendan opened the door.
“You can just leave it with me,” he said.
“You give to Miz Terra? You no sneaky read?”
“Just give it to me and get the bloody hell out of here!” Brendan snapped. Then, just to show the uppity pinkie who was boss, he read the letter. Not that he was able to get much out of it:
Terra:
So? What do you want me to do about it?
Keep your answer concise. Even while I write this, Ros is moving things around in my workroom. She thinks she does me a favor by bloody alphabetizing my potions. Given my eyesight, it’s only a matter of time before I accidentally poison myself.
C. T. T
Brendan didn’t know who C.T.T. was, but he was certainly rude. When his mother got home, she was so eager to read the letter she didn’t bother chastising him for reading her mail. She sent another letter, and the response came with enough galleons to buy a Hermes racing broom. That night at dinner, Brendan’s mother broke the news. “You’re going to live with your aunt this summer.”
“Bloody hell, no. I told you I’m staying with Vinnie Crabbe and Susan Jugson.”
“I’ve told you time and again I don’t like you being friends with that sort of-- of Death-Eater-wannabe. Even more so now that you three got those horrific tattoos done.”
“Lighten up, mom, it’s just to freak out the mudbloods.”
“Brendan!” She struggled for control. “I know it hasn’t been easy for you, being a Slytherin when your father was in the resistance. Still, it’s time you realized not all Slytherins supported Voldemort. There were several in the resistance.”
Brendan snorted. “Oh come on. Name a single one other than Slughorn and Snape.”
“Your aunt.”
“Aunt Debbie’s an idiot Hufflepuff, mom.”
"Your other aunt."
Brendan’s mouth opened and closed uselessly. “Wait, Aunt Trefoil? You want me to spend the summer with a convicted Death Eater? One who escaped from Azkaban? Have you completely lost your mind?” It was one thing to idolize Death Eaters from afar; quite another to move in with them.
Ms. Terra ran her hands through her short blond hair. “I don’t know what else I can do. You won’t listen to me anymore. You won’t obey me. You’re constantly getting in trouble at Hogwarts, and your idiotic stunts have even gotten you the attention of the Ministry. You think that Death Eaters and Voldemort were cool or tough, when they were actually just thugs and psychotics. Cassie’s the only one I know who could set you straight.”
“If she was in the resistance, why the bloody hell would they send her to Azkaban?”
“She only defected near the end, in the last few months before Voldemort’s fall. She could have defended herself, but instead she plead guilty to every charge; not that she stayed in Azkaban for more than a week, anyway.”
“You never told me how she broke out.”
“You should ask her, Brendan. Your portkey leaves in two days; you have until then to pack and tell your friends you’re not coming. I’d ask that you not tell them about staying with your aunt; she’s rather fanatical about her privacy. Oh, and you’ll need to leave your owl; she won’t like the heat where you’re going.”
“Where am I going?”
“Botswana.”
Chapter 2: Alomay’s Interrogation Potion
Snape had to support Cassie while she stumbled to the armchair he’d chosen for her. There were half a dozen ingredients that caused disorientation and loss of balance even before she added the alcohol which, due to the accelerating effects of powdered dragon saliva, hit her bloodstream within the first thirty seconds. From the way she nearly fell out of the cushioned armchair, Snape suspected she didn’t drink often.
“Wha? Where?” she mumbled. Snape took her chin and forced her to make eye contact. “Profser Snaaype?”
“I need you to concentrate for a moment, Miss Trefoil. What are the ingredients of Dreamless Slumber?”
She opened her mouth to reply but cried out instead as her entire body jerked through a contraction. When she’d recovered enough to speak, she gasped, “Profser, what’s hap’ning?” Lines of pain formed around her eyes.
“Just relax, Miss Trefoil. Relax, and the pain will go away.” When her face smoothed, Snape drew his wand. “Legilimens.” Nauseating images swirled into his mind from hers, her usually well-ordered mind throwing up images from her subconscious. There were insects and rat’s tails, gillyweed and puce-green furniture, all looping and mixing in her intoxicated state. Snape hated using legilimency against those in altered states of consciousness for this very reason, but Alomay’s potion was known for its effectiveness in circumventing occlumency. Cassie’s insistence on using it meant she was probably very good at occlumency; Snape imagined a disciplined mind like hers would take to it easily.
Legilimency is an art that requires experience and skill not because it is difficult to read someone’s mind, but because it is difficult to read anything useful; one can spend as long exploring someone’s memories as they did living them. One can’t just ask “Why do you want to join the Death Eaters?” and expect a cohesive, articulated answer. Snape knew the way to answer such a question was to pursue images and feelings associated with the idea of Death Eaters. Her resistance was brief: it broke under the first razing pain. When he finally reached what he was looking for, Snape was disgusted to realize that, more than fame and success, Cassie was seeking a sense of belonging, of family . . . which she somehow believed she could find among deranged, sycophantic mass murderers. Pathetic, yes, but Snape knew a human’s secret desires and fears usually were.
Snape stumbled upon a particularly strong memory of Cassie in fifth year, curled up in the Slytherin lounge with Barkel’s 101 Essential Poisons and Their Antidotes, eavesdropping on a conversation between two seventh-year boys.
“That’s what I’m saying,” one of them said, “Now that the Dark Lord’s gone forever, we’ll never get our chance to shine.”
“Crabbe claims his older brother still goes on Dark Revels with some of the old gang. Doesn’t send up the snakehead anymore, of course, but it still drives the Aurors crazy.”
“Yeah, but that’s small stuff, Will. I’m talking about enslaving all the muggles, of ruling the bloody world.” Cassie snorted audibly. “You got a problem, squib?”
“No, please, carry on. You’re quite amusing to listen to.” She stretched out her legs and adopted a look of bored condescension.
“What’s so bloody funny?”
“Well, to begin with, you obviously revere the Dark Lord, yet you believe him weak enough to be killed by a toddler. Either the Dark Lord is a truly pathetic figurehead who will soon be replaced by one of his followers,” she began, and all other conversations in the room stopped, “or he’s biding his time, waiting to strike at the most advantageous moment. I know which one I believe. And in either case, you need only practice your Unforgivables and wait for the Death Eaters’ return.” The tension eased in the room when it was clear Cassie wasn’t impugning Voldemort’s power. It ratcheted back up again when she threw out, “Of course, it isn’t much to look forward to, considering they’re mostly idiots.”
A couple of chairs scraped as Slytherins rose to their feet. “Care to say that again?” Danny Crabbe asked.
“Anyone who can’t think through the ramifications of their plans is an idiot, so yes: Death Eaters are idiots. Their big plan is to ‘dominate’ the muggles, to enslave the muggles. Measures like that are bound to fail and leave us in a worse situation.”
Danny went right up to her chair and towered over it. “So what do you suggest? We keep hiding like we’re afraid of them?”
“What good would that do? No, I’m talking about a permanent solution: we exterminate them.”
Danny was almost speechless. “What? But--but there are millions of them. Tens of millions.”
“There are more than five and a half billion muggles, actually. We’re outnumbered more than ten to one. Which is the first reason enslaving them is useless. How in bloody hell do you propose to ensorcell or track them all? If we fail in that, uprisings are inevitable. Futile, of course, but they would cause extensive property damage, even the deaths of a few witches and wizards in some cases. After all, you never know when some bleeding-heart Griffindor will help the filthy things.”
The listeners were exchanging nervous glances. Were even Slytherins allowed to talk about this so bluntly? “You said the first reason. What are the others?” one bystander asked.
Cassie grinned, orating for her entire audience. “Muggles are more brutal and dangerous than most of us realize. You’ve all seen pictures of what happened to Little Havasham after that massive entropy spell misfired, right?”
“It leveled the whole village, killed a lot of people,” one girl answered.
“Muggles have weapons they call ‘hydrogen bombs’ that are a hundred times more powerful.”
Danny snorted. “That’s such bullshit. If it were a hundred times more powerful, it could destroy half of London.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“You’re right, I was lying. Hydrogen bombs are a lot more than a hundred times that powerful. And one could destroy more than just London. My point is that we haven’t a single shield that could even hold up against the entropy spell’s ‘catastrophic misfire’. We can’t defend against a muggle hydrogen bomb.”
“You’re saying muggles could destroy us?” a nervous first-year asked.
“Not intentionally,” Cassie assured him. “They don’t know where we are yet. Right now we’re far more likely to be obliterated in the crossfire of one of their wars. Still, it’s something to consider before we announce they’re supposed to bow to us.” She looked around theatrically. “Will everyone stop wetting their pants? It’s not like their weapons are difficult to defeat. We just fry the weapons’ brains before they’re launched. All it takes is foresight and an understanding of what we’re up against. Two things distinctly lacking in the ranks of the Death Eaters,” she added, rubbing salt in the wound. “Third, and most importantly, we can’t guarantee muggles won’t continue to dilute our race with mudbloods and half-breeds. Anyone who thinks muggles could be used as house elves obviously doesn’t understand that muggles are constantly trying to contaminate our bloodlines. If we merely enslave them, rather than putting them down, there’s nothing to stop a male muggle from attacking a sleeping witch or a female muggle from seducing an otherwise upstanding wizard. Unless we want a veritable plague of mudbloods, half-bloods and squibs, we have to protect our wombs and seed from contamination.”
Danny asked with mock thoughtfulness, “And what happens to squibs in this world you’re imagining?”
“Since squibs come from powerful wizarding families, ordering them executed is problematic. The solution seems to be allowing them to live, but sterilizing them.”
“Yeah?” Danny leaned far into her personal space. “Why don’t you prove just how committed you are by sterilizing yourself then, bitch?”
“I’m no squib, pea-brain. I’m the top potions student in the entire bloody school. Which is why I’m able to brew something like this.” She held up a small black vial and Danny stumbled backward nervously. “Don’t worry, it’s just an Infecundus potion. Three drops for a man, four for a woman, and he or she will never have a child. There’s no antidote. Care to try a sip? No?” she asked in mock surprise. “Crabbe, you have a point. I’m no squib, but I agree my blood isn’t powerful enough to pass on to the next generation. So: bottoms up.” She opened her throat and swallowed the contents of the entire bottle before rising to her feet and glaring around the room. “Anyone else wonder if I have the courage to stand behind my convictions?”
Snape shook free of the memory. It was obvious that Cassie spoke like a true Death Eater, her little digs about its members aside. Still, he needed to see past that to what she really believed. The next part of the interrogation required real skill: unearthing her greatest secrets and shames. The mind tries to protect itself from guilt or horror by throwing up mental barricades against particularly horrifying thoughts and images. Call it denial or repression, those barricades are signposts for any mind reader: “Important information here.” It was while Snape was putting pressure on the largest of her barricades that Cassie really started resisting. Even while thrashing against the onslaught of pain, her mind remained blank gray. Still, her will could hardly match Snape’s.
He tore down the barrier and found Cassie, about six or seven years old, crouched at the top of the stairs, listening intently, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. A man spoke coldly while a woman sobbed somewhere downstairs. “You like my name, don’t you? You like calling yourself ‘Mrs. Trefoil’ even while fucking every muggle in the bloody neighborhood. And I’m supposed to smile and forgive? Even raise one of their bastards as if she were my own daughter?”
“John, please. You don’t know that she isn’t your daughter.”
“Of course she isn’t. No child of mine is a fucking squib.”
That was the whole of the memory: short and anything but sweet. Snape allowed the legilimency to fade and got a glass of water for Cassie, who was sitting limply, eyes focused in the middle-distance. “You’ll give up on the Death Eaters and apprentice with me for a few months. Do a good enough job and I may allow you to do research for one of my papers.”
“No. I’m joining the Death Eaters.”
“After leaking a secret like that? I hardly think so. You’re a mudblood.”
“Half-blood,” Cassie mumbled in protest. “I’m joining anyway.”
“Be reasonable. You already failed the test you set up for yourself,” Snape pointed out mercilessly, but he hesitated. Slytherins felt no shame in retreating to fight another day, so why was she being so stubborn? “Didn’t I find your secrets? Or are you hiding something else?” He knocked the glass out of her hand and grabbed her chin, examining the pupil dilation. Greater than normal, but it was clear the potion was wearing off. “You can still give up,” he offered her.
“No.”
“Then drink this-- it’s another half-dose of the interrogation potion-- and we’ll start over again.”