Unlikely Allies, Chapter Six: The Secret Riddle

[terri_testing]

Q: What do a deceased Pureblood supremacist, a magic-hating Muggle, and the Half-blood Head of Slytherin have in common?
A: No, no, you had the correct answer: nothing at all. Don’t be silly!

Chapter Summary: Muggles help to investigate the Riddle mystery.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Muggle saying.

“Only two things make us

Comments

I'll try

[terri_testing]

I'll try not to take so long; I got totally stuck after Severus read the report. I almost posted it with that as the ending, but I felt there should be something more, that Severus should track down a survivor, but I had no idea how it would go if he did.

Well, I knew what Betty would have to say; I've known that since I wrote "How I Spent my Summer Holidays, by Tom Marvolo Riddle." That was, of course, a lot of the problem; I assure you it was as, er, intense to write as to read, and at that I largely wimped out. (I'm accepting thanks for that, you're all quite welcome.)

But the larger problem was twofold. First, I didn't really know what Severus needed to learn from one of Tom's Muggle survivors. It didn't seem relevant to his central problem, of protecting Harry from both Voldemort and Dumbledore. Well, the cave where Tom tortured Amy and Dennis is a Horcrux-site, but he could deduce that that summer excursion was the site of Tom's first serious assault on others from the report and decide to check it out from that.

It's been all the meta back-and-forth about Albus, Muggle-witch relations/prejudice, responsibility, and evil, that made me realize why it really was that Severus needed to talk with Betty. So really it's everyone who's been posting about my metas who's helped me finish this chapter.

And the other problem was, I couldn't bear to have him just mind-rape her as he did Frank, but i couldn't at first see why he would do anything else. Canon shows that he can be polite, and even sometimes kind, when he's with people he doesn't fear or dislike. And that he can act when it serves him. But why would he waste any of that on a Muggle? Why would he even try to talk with her, and offer any portion of truth to get her to open up? I mean, obviously a wizard with Snape's proudly-developed abilities of Legilimency and brewing Veritaserum could just take whatever information he might want from a Muggle and Obliviate her afterwards if need be. That's so obviously just what a wizard would do.

Unless Tom actually made Severus feel shame before Petunia, of all people, for how "freaks" treat their fellows. (Yeah, I know, it's kind of like Sev not figuring out that that Lord Voldemort fellow was pushing things a little too far until the guy threatened Lily. Like the lady said, sometimes you have to hit a fella with a brick; sometimes you have to hit him with a BIG brick.)

Unfortunately, while chapter 8 is essentially done (though I'll have to rewrite extensively in view of the Harrycrux questions) I couldn't even start chapter 7 until I'd broken through the logjam on this. I had no idea what it would even be, just that chapter 8 was absolutely not really chapter 7. But now I know where 7 starts, and about where it's going.

Thanks for the review.

Re: I'll try

[terri_testing]

Right, but the real question was why would he START talking to Betty at all, as though she were a human being? Why did he start by trying to coax her into talking, even revealing (a part of, but a true part of) his own interest in the matter? Why not just force veritaserum down her throat, or cast Legilimens to fish around in her mind without her consent?

That would be the wizardly way to handle the interrogation of a single Muggle, and Severus has been trying to be a wizardly wizard since he first learned he wasn't one of the Muggles he lived among.

Once he was talking to her, yes, he would respond and identify with what she said. I didn't even think about the Marjorie/Lily comparison, but it's extremely apt. (I even thought of Marjorie as being beautiful and charming, and being bold because other people often let her get her way due to that, so it's REALLY apt). And of course Severus himself has some experience of feeling hounded for years on end, though even the Marauders weren't that bad in comparison. (Probably did him some good to put that grudge into perspective, she sniffs. I mean after all, Severus only once had seriously to fear for his life.)

Winding you up

[terri_testing]

Sorry, part of this was deliberately winding you up.

Last first. I was being flippant. I was sexually abused when I was 12; the trauma flared up again a couple years ago when the perpetrator flaunted her lack of remorse. So yes.

Severus was legitimately traumatized; no one else has a right to pass judgment on his rate of healing, especially when canon never showed that he was ever offered an apology, reparstions, security against a repetition of the crime, or indeed support of any kind. On the other hand, recognizing that other people have been hurt as well as oneself, the same or maybe worse, and focusing on their pain and on trying to help them, can help get one's head out of one's ass. In my experience. And indeed, the idea that reaching out to others who've suffered similar traumas can help oneself is the basis of self-help (such as twelve-step) groups.

And Severus... one could argue that he gave himself to Tom in part to protect himself from the Marauders. (Not a complete description of what was going on, but not an inaccurate one.) In which case he clearly sold himself to the worse devil, in this individual case.

Not that, at 17, he could have been expected to see that. But, at 31, he CAN see it, and it appalls him.

I just posted a comparison I wrote some time ago, of Harry's/Sev's reasons for joining the side each did.

I largely agree with you.

However; canon Severus joined a group whose public rhetoric espoused overturning the Statute of Secrecy to set up Purebloods to rule over Muggles and Muggleborns. Even if he didn't think their intent as murderous as it turned in DH, even if he discounted it because he (a known-half-blood) was eagerly recruited, he AT LEAST was willing to tolerate the rhetoric. And, as I pointed out in "Death Eaters in the Seventies," the only public activity sponsored by DE's in the 90's in Voldemort's absence was "a spot of Muggle baiting." NOT Muggle killing, but certainly mistreatment.

And as a number of us have argued, most on "the good side" have showed a pronounced willingness to accord Muggles less respect and consideration than wizards: Albus, Arthur, Molly, the Weasley children, Hagrid, and Hermione. If all of them show that they consider Muggles beneath them, even if Severus doesn't show MORE WW supremacism than they do, why would he show less?

Canon doesn't strongly suggest that Severus considered Muggles his brothers and equals. In fact, the suggestions (not proof) are on the side of greater, rather than lesser, prejudice.

Finally, I write Severus mostly as a whole: my Severus here is the adult who resulted from my story "Father of the Man." (Which as a fanfic writer is legitimate enough, though as I move from direct canon to quoting earlier stories of my own I can catch the unwary in conundrums--a meta writer once called me on quoting my Petunia story, "The Girl and the Boy", as though it were canon. In a lot of ways, though, I as a writer am developing ideas within a specific subset of the Potterverse.) But in "Father of the Man," Severus developed anti-Muggle prejudice as a protection against pain. The WW told Severus he wasn't allowed to use his magic to protect a Muggle playmate, and the Muggle world bullied him while his witch mother assured him that he was superior to the bullies because he was a wizard (at that same age, I assured myself that I was smarter than they, an intellectual, and when I was among my own I'd be appreciated...)

I mentioned I broke the logjam to start writing chapter seven, and this issue (of wizards preferring to regard themselves as separate from/above Muggles became a flashpoint between Severus and Phineas: Phineas (thinking Sev's evident upset over Tom's antics at the orphanage a bit unseemly) tries to change the subject by noting that he had never actually conversed with actual Muggles. So, he asked Severus, what are Muggle really like?

Severus stood suddenly. “In fact, exactly like us, Phineas. Exactly. Why do you think I mostly despised them?”

But Severus can't move to there if that's where he starts....

Only 2 things make us human, sorrow and love

[terri_testing]

I hear what you're saying.

Regarding Ox-baiting, rat-baiting, and other Victorian blood sports--I always subconsciously assumed that Walburga's cousin Araminta was quite a bit older and a bit of a holdover from the Victorian era--just sort of made sense.

Muggle-baiting, of course, is Arthur's term for using magic to torment or tease us.

And you're right, the people under our noses (whatever our prejudices or lack thereof) are more real to us, and therefore more human, than the faceless.

So, yes, Muggle-borns and Muggle-raised Halfbloods like Severus and Harry, even as they absorb the anti-Muggle prejudice of their adopted culture, will still tend to see Muggles as more real, more human, than even a sympathetic pureblood such as Arthur.

But the WW is so absolutely disrespectful of Muggle memory... I just borrowed Fantastic Beasts and read about the rogue Welsh green and the brave person who got the Order of Merlin for saving everyone and averting disaster.... and what it's mentioned he/she actually did was mass Obliviates. And reread Fudge's account of the arrest of Sirius....

It just seems that the WW has such a well-developed Standard Operating Procedure for dealing with witnesses to magical crimes or accidents, and that the procedure totally denies the mental integrity of the victim (Obliviation is not optional, and we know Obliviation can cause mental damage) that for Severus to come in intending not to interrogate Betty as a wizard normally would is exceptional and calls for explanation.

Re: Only 2 things make us human, sorrow and love

[terri_testing]

Exactly.

Re: I'll try

[oryx_leucoryx]

(Probably did him some good to put that grudge into perspective, she sniffs. I mean after all, Severus only once had seriously to fear for his life.)

You know this isn't true. Oh, it is possible the Marauders only actually tried to kill Severus that once, but especially once he saw how they got away with it, he feared a repetition of some kind for a long while - at least until James started dating Lily somewhere in 7th year, if not until they all left Hogwarts. Look how fast he is with his wand after the DADA OWL.

Re: I'll try

[oryx_leucoryx]

Well, the cave where Tom tortured Amy and Dennis is a Horcrux-site, but he could deduce that that summer excursion was the site of Tom's first serious assault on others from the report and decide to check it out from that.

So at some point Severus will visit cave inferi? I think it will be an important experience for him. He still has to come clean, first to Petunia and eventually to Harry, regarding his role in Lily's death. So far he has side-stepped that. (Coming to Dumbledore is not enough, because to Dumbledore Lily was yet another chess piece. He needs to talk to the people for whom Lily mattered as a person. There really aren't that many of them.)

I agree with Jodel (or was it swythyv?) that the potion in the basin is a remorse-inducer. So anyone who manages to consume it all and survives has his soul/conscience healed. Which means we can't really trust Dumbledore when he says there is no way around drinking the potion - I think he wanted to experience its effects just before he died. (This interpretation doesn't require him to have known in advance a DE attack was planned that night as the year Severus expected him to survive after the ring's curse was nearly up.) But since it was a trap set by Tom there is a chance Albus was correct, though since Tom didn't predict a way for more than one person to be on the island there probably isn't a necessity that one person will do the drinking.

Is there a reason not to use the obvious work-around of having the potion fed to animals? Well, the ones Severus seems to have most access to tend to be on the small side. I don't know how many horned toads he'd need to bring along to finish up that potion, and any of them that make their way to the lake will wake the inferi.

A house-elf is the ideal partner to someone who is planning to empty the basin and return because the elf can rescue the drinker and Apparate hir away, regardless of Tom's protections. But the ones Severus knows report to the headmaster (who can probably get around any attempt of Severus to silence the elf by his authority). Maybe an elf like the freed Dobby of canon can help once such exists.

I don't see an obvious non-human magical being (besides an elf) Severus can recruit to his alliance. Firenze? Is he motivated more by loyalty to Dumbledore or to Harry? (In PS he seemed to care for Harry himself, but I don't see signs of it in books 5-7.)

Which leaves the options of an underage wizard or a Muggle.

I hadn't thought that far ahead

[terri_testing]

I'm just having Severus gather information so far; how he'll use it, I haven't started on. (I'm character-, not plot- driven, though there are plot points that must be addressed. You see with Betty how my writing twists to address the character needs, plot go hang.)

So I hadn't thought at ALL how Severus is going to deal with the cave. But he might never have to, if Phineas gets the information from Kreacher that the locket is now at Twelve Grimmauld Place.

But if the alliance does essay the cave, thinking it still might contain a Horcrux....

Well, your thought that Severus could bring a MUGGLE partner is--interesting.

Especially given, in that scenario, Severus would have to submit to letting the Muggle be the one who runs the risk of drinking the remorse potion. He'd have to be in possession of his faculties to protect them both from the other hazards (and get them the hell out of there), after all. (And it's an interesting twist on the canon situation if the senior, responsible party can't be allowed to take the risk of drinking the potion.)

You know, I think I like the thought of making Petunia ingest that potion. And I'm sure any reader of canon has some ideas about what she'd experience....

I've saved this comment to my UA notes section, in case my story wanders in that direction.

Alas, I suspect Kreacher will intervene. But I LIKE this suggestion.

Re: I hadn't thought that far ahead

[oryx_leucoryx]

So I hadn't thought at ALL how Severus is going to deal with the cave. But he might never have to, if Phineas gets the information from Kreacher that the locket is now at Twelve Grimmauld Place.

Does Severus return Phineas' portrait to 12GP before term? How does he do it without Draco? Or can Phineas call Kreacher to him?

Phineas's portrait

[terri_testing]

That question is easy. The portrait comes with Severus to Hogwarts, probably shrunk and shrouded from attention, so Severus can consult it at need. Of course, there may eventually be a problem if Albus wonders why Phineas is spending more time sleeping at the Black mansion than in the headmaster's office.

But Phineas is creative; I'm sure he can come up with some excuse if Albus challenges him.

Re: Phineas's portrait

[oryx_leucoryx]

Unless Dumbledore actually needs information from the Black home (though what would that be these days?) and discovers Phineas can't get there?

And why wouldn't Phineas spend more time pretending to sleep in Albus' office? There's a chance he'd hear something that might serve Severus and the Alliance.

So if he's with Severus can he also contact Kreacher if the need arises or does Severus need to bring the portrait back to 12GP for that to happen? Can portraits summon the house-elf of their own family?