Unlikely Allies: Chapter Seven, "Indecent Acts"
Summary: Severus blackmails an old acquaintance and follows up on an earlier lead.
Have you ever committed any indecent acts with women?
Yes, many. I am guilty of allowing suicidal women to die before my eyes or in my ears or under my hands because I thought I could do nothing…. I am guilty of not loving her who needed me; I regret all the women I have not slept with or comforted, who pulled themselves away from me for lack of something I had not the courage to fight for… These are indecent acts, lacking courage….
Yes I have committed acts of indecency with women and most of them were acts of omission. I regret them bitterly.
Judy Grahn, “A Woman is Talking to Death, ‘Part Four: A Mock Interrogation’”
Phineas snarled, “Who let that criminal into Hogwarts? How could any teacher have missed such signs? If what your Muggle says is true, his crimes at the orphanage were entirely open, unlike those he later committed at school.”
Severus cradled a cup of tea in his hands but didn’t drink. Nor did he look up at the portrait as he answered. “The name recorded for the visitor from Pigsmart was Blunderbuss.”
“Blunderbuss?! But-” Phineas broke off, staring at the young man. The lank hair had swung forward, hiding Snape’s face, but the hands clenched on the cup were shaking a little.
Phineas repeated in another tone, “Blunderbuss. Yes, the Transfigurations professor, as he then was, was one of those who took on the task of Muggleborn home visits. You are certain that some of Riddle’s crimes preceded his entrance to Hogwarts?”
Snape whispered, “Two children were institutionalized for insanity after disappearing with Riddle for a few hours. That was about a month before Blunderbuss’s visit. Others suffered mysterious accidents or found themselves afflicted with inexplicable pain after crossing Tommy. He could force people to tell him secrets. He’d killed at least one animal, another child’s pet rabbit. Another time, a pet rat-Riddle whistled to it, and it rose on its hind legs and danced for him. Until its leg broke. Pigeon and crow corpses had also been found. Those for sure, by the time of the ‘Pigsmart’ visit. He had to have known some of it, Phineas.”
The portrait said fair-mindedly, “It’s possible that matron might have been so desperate to shift the responsibility for Riddle elsewhere that she deliberately concealed what he had been doing lest Hogwarts change its mind about taking him. As, indeed, we should have.”
Snape shook his head and explained to his teacup, “The matron had already taken steps to attempt to get Riddle locked away. Permanently. She-the Muggle world won’t lock someone up as a criminal without a trial proving their crimes. And of course Riddle’s crimes were impossible for Muggles to prove. But all it took, back then, to lock someone away as a dangerous lunatic was a doctor’s examination and recommendation. She’d written to the Board of Governors, asking them to authorize such an examination, and rescinded the request after Blunderbuss’s visit.”
Snape took a deep breath. “So she expected to have him OFF her hands anyhow. As it was, by allowing him instead to go to Hogwarts, she had to accept him back for the summers. She’d have been better off sticking with her first plan. And indeed-had she wanted to conceal what Tom was, could she have? Was not-Blunderbuss-already a Legilimens?”
The portrait said, “I don’t know when he acquired the skill; it’s not one he advertises. But that’s immaterial. Whether or not the then-Transfigurations professor could have read directly from the matron’s mind that young Tom was already a criminal who raised the gravest concerns regarding his future conduct, it was his duty to have detected such things. Either he was negligent, or that mania of his for second chances overcame him.”
The young man’s flinch was very slight. Snape cleared his throat, “Did he ever warn Dippet of what Riddle was?”
“Not in the headmaster’s office, he did not,” Phineas said. “And-no, he could have said nothing, not ever. Dippet liked young Riddle and displayed no shadow of mistrust of him. Nor was Dippet one who could or would have dissembled about that.”
Snape said, almost inaudibly, “Riddle can be very… convincing… when one is in his actual presence.”
“Ah. Yes. That would help. Could he have used that on, er, Blunderbuss? But no-the Transfigurations professor never seemed to like the boy. A little unusual, that; Riddle was a favorite with most of his other teachers.”
The wizard was silent, frowning. The portrait added, “But after all, one must consider that Riddle had up to that point used his magic only against animals and Muggles. Perhaps Blunderbuss truly thought Riddle would behave himself among his peers.”
Snape set his teacup down hard on the table and stared at the portrait, the black eyes unreadable. “I grew up among Muggles, and I didn’t like most of them. In fact, I cordially detested most of the ones I grew up with, with some cause. When I joined-him-I thought I’d like seeing Muggles put in their place. But I hadn’t exactly realized that meant dumping boiling water over a girl’s face.”
”You thought he meant to rule the Muggles with kindness? Exactly how young were you when you joined him, Severus?”
Snape snarled, “I thought he meant revolution. War. That some, many, of those who overtly opposed us might be killed, yes! And yes, that so would others-innocents-the Muggle phrase, it’s a lovely one, is collateral damage. I didn’t let myself think too much about that. But then afterwards, when we’d won, I’d be near the top, unassailable and influential. And then the violence would be over; it would stop. Of course it would stop; there’d be no further need for it. Why should it go on? But this-“
He made a vague gesture. His face dipped again and his voice dropped back to a whisper. “-torturing children-this is what he was. This is what he always was. That is what I bound myself to.”
Looking at the rigid form, Phineas decided to turn the subject. “You’re not only a half-blood, but you actually grew up amidst Muggles? Now that I think of it, I don’t believe I’ve ever conversed with one at length. What are they really like?”
Severus stood suddenly. “Like us, Phineas. Exactly like us. Why do you think I mostly despised them?”
He whirled and stalked out of the room.
*
Phineas allowed the young man some time to recover from his display of temperament while he thought matters through. He finally called out, “Severus? Regarding Horace…. Have you considered how this information simplifies our approach to him?”
The young man appeared, still paler than usual, and frowned at the portrait. He didn’t vouchsafe an answer. Phineas said, “Think, Severus! Our biggest problem with Slughorn has been that he’s had every reason to hide, as far as he can, the information that your Dark Lord was his own former favorite. Given Slughorn’s usual practices with his favorites, he might have-indeed, must have-given young Riddle passes to the Restricted Section, say, or other means of acquiring knowledge that in retrospect Slughorn came to regret deeply. But now we can divert his guilt onto, ah, Blunderbuss’s shoulders if we need to, for withholding information that would have made Slughorn withhold his favor….
Severus frowned at the portrait. “You hired the man originally; how do you think he will react if I tell him his old friend had allowed him to be so deceived, had never warned him when he saw him start to make a pet of the boy?”
“Betrayed, angry, and probably bereaved… but he’d no more want to cross the headmaster openly than he did the Dark Lord, if not quite for the same reasons. You might want to see first what you can get without playing that card. And I have come up with an unexceptional reason for you to approach him.”
*
Slughorn accepted the crystallized fruit with delight and invited Severus to tea to share it, as predicted. Severus was a little disconcerted to be offered a plate of sandwiches; Slughorn’s tastes, like Dumbledore’s, ran heavily to sweets, and Severus had expected tea to comprise only the sponge cake and scones that Horace was piling onto his own plate. He hadn’t realized Slughorn had ever taken the trouble to pay attention to his former student’s taste in food.
As Phineas had predicted, Slughorn knew of a reliable alternative supplier for the Boomslang skin and was only too delighted to share his information with Severus, thus putting Severus mildly in his debt. The conversation moved easily on to gossip about other former Slytherins, and to Snape’s duties as current head of house. Eventually Slughorn looked a little sideways at Snape and said casually, “I heard that you were chosen to shepherd the Boy Who Lived around Diagon Alley. I imagine that you enjoyed the task of escorting Potter’s son.”
Snape sniffed. “The opportunity to tell off a Potter for dawdling and rubbernecking little made up for the utter waste of my time. But the headmaster had decreed the boy’s babysitter should be able to double as a bodyguard, in case anyone, ah, disaffected, should approach him. Instead, as was predictable, Potter was the subject of fawning adulation. Frankly, I was a little surprised not to see you in the Leaky when we arrived, Horace. Surely your sources had let you know to expect him that day.”
Slughorn studied the candied fruit carefully and selected a piece of mango. “As I understand the matter, you made short work of those who DID approach the boy to fawn, Severus. I should have been terrified to face your grim visage.”
Snape laughed at that. “Didn’t care to meet the boy first under conditions where you were competing for his attention?”
The old man popped the mango into his mouth without answering directly, and Severus laughed again.
“So what’s he like, Severus?” Slughorn leaned a little forward in his chair.
“Like?” Severus repeated with a little grimace. “In looks, he’s a living reminder that Evans ended up developing the execrable taste to fall for Potter. The boy has her eyes and Potter’s features. Magically… he’s not at all what one might expect from the hype about The Boy Who Lived, nor even from his parents’ son. Evans’ sister raised him ignorant of magic, punishing him for his outbursts without enlightening him as to their nature. He apparently never figured out what he was doing, never tried at all to control it. So he’s less developed than any Wizard-reared child of his age, but with a reasonable-not exorbitant-native talent. From what I can gather, he levitated himself out of danger once, and once vanished something in a fit of temper. Perfectly ordinary child magic, nothing remarkably powerful or dark. Surprising, really.”
Severus took another sip of tea and added, “Of course, one day’s observations are hardly conclusive. He may yet exhibit unexpected depths. But in fact, my real surprise of the day was something altogether different.”
Slughorn looked politely inquiring, and Snape continued, “When I took him to get his wand, Ollivander started reminiscing about various wands he had sold. He happened to mention that the wand carried by You-Know-Who had been sold to an orphan boy named Tom Riddle.”
Slughorn dropped a piece of candied pineapple, and fumbled to pick it up again. His attention was apparently all on the dish of candied fruit.
But his face had gone gray, and he was shaking. Severus decided to end his suspense. “An old favorite of yours, as I apprehend, a distinguished member of the Slug Club.”
Snape picked up a fish paste triangle and ate it in one swift bite.
Slughorn shrank into his seat and whispered, “Why are you really here, Snape? What do you want of me?”
Snape chose another triangle with slow deliberation. “Information, Horace. And I’m willing to trade for it. I am also quite willing to make public some of what I know. Including that You-Know-Who was once your own protégé. What will your friends at the Ministry think, if I tell them that?”
He snapped down the sandwich and stared at the old man. Slughorn was huddled in on himself; sweat was rolling down his bald pate.
Severus folded his arms. “Or I could keep silence. I could even, as I said, make a trade with you: some of what I’ve learned, in exchange for what you know.”
Slughorn’s face was gray and he seemed to be having trouble breathing. Severus huffed impatiently and pulled out the phial he’d brought.
“Calming Draught,” he said, and made to hand it to Slughorn.
Horace pushed it away with a hand that trembled. “Not-not of your brewing.”
“Fine. Accio Horace’s Calming Draught!” A door slammed down the hallway, and another phial zoomed into the room. Snape caught it and handed it to his host, who unstoppered it with unsteady hands and took a large gulp, then another. His eyes were shut. Snape considered him a moment, then added, “Accio brandy and glasses.”
A moment later, he grabbed the phial from Horace, sniffed it, and shoved a snifter in its place. Slughorn gulped the brandy and shuddered.
Really Horace shouldn’t let himself get so shaken; any potioneer should remember that the interaction of alcohol and that particular formulation of the Draught would be nearly as effective at inducing confidences as Veritaserum. Or perhaps Horace did recall that, and was trying to make it easier on himself; his threat had left his former head of house little choice. He poured Horace another brandy, and took a glass himself in pretense of drinking companionably.
Severus spoke softly. “What I want to know first is how Riddle seemed to you when he entered Hogwarts. When did you make a pet of him? What was he like?”
Slughorn started rocking a little in his chair, clutching the brandy to him. When he looked at Snape his eyes were glassy with tears as well as the potion. “He was my favorite student. Ever. Even more than your friend Lily. He was-any teacher’s dream pupil. Extraordinarily bright. Extraordinarily. Not intuitive like Lily, more analytical like you. He absorbed information more readily than anyone I’ve ever known, Severus, and was more creative even than you in extending and applying it. And, er, he was usually deferential to his teachers.”
Snape snorted at that. Slughorn continued, “I’ve never taught anyone so bright, never, though Merrythought compared him to Albus as a boy. It was a pleasure and an honor to teach him. He was-teaching him was like teaching a fish to swim. He-he drew information out of one, Severus.”
Snape snorted again, and Slughorn winced. Tears started dripping down his face, and Snape drew back a little.
“He was -he became interested in immortality, Severus.” Horace was whispering now. “He’d found some of his Wizarding family-they didn’t publicly own him, but they did give him an heirloom ring he started wearing, with the Questers’ symbol on it. He became interested in that problem…. I-I wondered if he’d be the second to make a Philosopher’s Stone. I really thought if anyone I’d met could succeed, it would be Tom, it would be him. I was so proud of being his teacher, of the credit he’d bring me…. So when he asked me about Horcruxes…” Slughorn’s voice faded out and he took another gulp of brandy.
Snape resisted the urge to shake him. He murmured, “When he asked you about Horcruxes…”
“I told him. He’d read the term, and I told him in rough outline what it entailed. Of course I expected him to be interested in knowing all the theoretical methods; I thought it natural he’d ask. Severus, I didn’t realize in time that he was so desperate for immortality that he’d actually do it! And it’s worse-it’s worse-I think-it made him what he became.”
Snape sat very still. He whispered, “What he became…”
“Tom said-he had the thought-that if splitting the soul and sealing part of it in a Horcrux made one invulnerable-would splitting it more than once one even more powerful? He always pushed the limits of any concept like that, his mind was amazing. He asked-if splitting the soul in seven, wouldn’t be better, wouldn’t be most powerful. He always made connections between disciplines like that, what he did with Arithmancy and potions was-all of Belby’s work is essentially based on one paper Riddle published his sixth year, you know. All of it. But when Tom said that, when he said that, he looked… hopeful. Eager. I realized then that he was actually considering doing it. That he wanted immortality that badly, and was afraid he couldn’t make the Stone. I tried-I tried to pretend we were only speaking hypothetically, but I knew then that he might do it. If he got desperate enough. If he couldn’t make it. And he did, didn’t he? He went away Tom, and he came back a monster, and I knew that it was my fault….”
Tears started sliding down Slughorn’s cheeks, and he lowered his face. “I destroyed him, Severus. I made him what he became. I set him on that path.”
Snape pitched his voice to be low, cold, and very clear. ‘In fact, no, Horace. Whatever guilt you bear, that you don’t. Tom Riddle was already a monster; he’d merely successfully hidden that from you. That ring he wore? It was from his family, yes, that much was true. He’d found his family. And he’d destroyed them. He had killed his Muggle father and grandparents, framed his Pureblood uncle for the murders, and stolen the ring from the uncle’s finger.”
Slughorn gaped at him. Severus continued, “Nor were those even his first murders. That orphanage he lived at during the summers? He had figured out that wandless magic escaped the trace. There were a string of mysterious compulsions, mutilations, and deaths, first of animals and then of humans, that dated back before he stole that ring. He didn’t become a monster as a result of making multiple Horcruxes; he was willing to make Horcruxes because he was already a monster. The Tom you thought you knew never existed; it was a mask Riddle wore.”
Slughorn stared up at him a moment and then broke down completely, sobbing. Severus backed away in acute embarrassment and retreated to the window. With a double dose of the draught, that second brandy had clearly been too much.
He stood for a moment calculating interactions, then went to the loo and found Horace’s medicinal potions store. As he’d expected, there was some Sobering Solution. He measured some into the tooth-cup and went back to Slughorn. He thrust it at Horace and muttered, “Pull yourself together, man.”
Horace gulped it, shuddered, and hid his face in his hands, quaking. Finally he whispered, “Snape, I thought I knew him-you’re quite sure?”
Severus said, “Entirely. Else I would not have said.”
“But how could you possibly have learned such things?”
Severus had been thinking very hard about what exactly to tell the old wizard. Now he grimaced and said, “You forget-or maybe you never knew-I was raised half in the Muggle world. Muggles had kept records of Riddle’s exploits, though they had no clue, of course, what they were really recording. Once I had Riddle’s true name and the orphanage, well-Riddle had clearly never expected a wizard to bother looking at Muggle sources, so he never troubled to erase his tracks.”
Slughorn looked up, shaking his head.
Severus said evenly, “There can be no doubt. None. He was a murderer and torturer before he came of age, and before ever he asked you about Horcruxes. In the Muggle world, he hid his abilities behind their ignorance of magic; in ours, he hid his true motivations behind the mask of the appealing orphan.”
The old man muttered, “And he took us all in….”
Snape hummed noncommittally.
Eventually Slughorn looked up. “Not Albus so much, he must have sensed something wrong about him.… But all the rest of us, especially me…. He… Albus… promised me not to reveal that You-Know-Who had been my Tom….”
Snape stiffened, and Slughorn shook his head and hastened to add, “No, no, not an Unbreakable Vow or anything, just a promise between old friends, to protect my reputation. He-Albus-never-never realized what I really thought…. He thought I was just worried, well, what you threatened me with, about it getting out that You-Know-Who had once been one of the Slug Club, not that I thought… what I thought. And you, Severus, do you plan-?” Horace looked down again, his voice dying.
“I won’t repeat the headmaster’s promise, Horace. I’ve no desire to harm you, and I don’t see any immediate reason why I should need to make this information public. But I won’t bind myself.”
Horace pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his face with a shaking hand. “No immediate reason?”
Severus folded his arms. “I’m Head of Slytherin, Horace. You know how many of my school friends were destroyed because they believed in Riddle, followed him. Some of their children are in our house now.”
Snape’s former Head of House winced. “I’m glad at least… you didn’t follow them all the way, Severus. For a time I thought you might….”
“Yes, and you did so much to avert that possibility, didn’t you?” Snape snapped.
“I-I made it clear that his followers weren’t in my favor. If you chose to run with that crowd, I, well, I could not well dissuade any of you.”
“Not without taking a stand, no,” Snape snarled. “You knew we none of us understood that he was, as you put it, a monster, and you didn’t tell us. It was a pity a perfectly reasonable political movement should have been hijacked by a psychopathic terrorist for his own ends. I and my friends were hardly the first and we won’t be the last to believe we should rule over our inferiors rather than cower in hiding from them. But following You-Know-Who to achieve that goal led many of my friends to their deaths. And his unconscionable methods turned our justifiable aims into the despicable agenda of a defeated criminal. Had they known to what depths he was willing to sink, many of my friends would never have joined him. And then they might be alive today.”
He glared at Slughorn, who pleaded in response, “But that-that’s not quite fair, Severus. You all knew it was an extremist view. And I-it’s not fair to say I understood what he was, not all along. I only put it together-well really, just about the time Albus as-I decided to retire. It was only then that I guessed that You-Know-Who was Tom Riddle, and guessed … what he had become. Or, you say now, what he always was….”
Snape frowned skeptically. Slughorn stammered, “Like, like everyone else, at first I thought You-Know-Who was from the continent. Tom had disappeared decades earlier, you see, I thought he’d buried himself in his research or, or been buried. Killed. It was always a possibility, with his interests. Hadn’t thought of him in years-hadn’t, hadn’t wanted to, was afraid to speculate …. And he’d said, Tom had said back then, that he wasn’t interested in a political career. When I talked about helping him with my contacts in the Ministry. And You-Know-Who … for a long time, you remember, Severus, for a long time what he was doing was all only rumors. Some of them ugly, but one didn’t know what to believe. But then he started to use the Dark Mark, started to advertise his killings, so we knew finally what he was like.”
Slughorn took a breath, and began again in a whisper. “And then there was a string of captures and deaths of his followers, and they were mostly boys I’d taught only a few years before, boys from my house. And that’s when I suddenly thought-I started wondering why there’d be so many Slytherin Death Eaters, why he’d have an affinity for our house-I mean besides the Pureblood first stance, but he didn’t seem to be having such luck recruiting Ravenclaws or Gryffindors-and several of them were sons or nephews of Tom’s old friends-and then I heard whispers that You-Know-Who was trying to make himself immortal, or that he had-and then it hit me. It all fit.”
He shut his eyes and shuddered. “And that’s when I realized-well, thought-that it was, that it had been, making Horcruxes that made Tom into…into You-Know-Who. And I went to Albus with my suspicions-well, about the connection to Slytherin and the interest in immortality, and that I wondered if You-Know-Who could be Tom, returned-and that’s when he promised me he’d keep it quiet for my sake. But then when he thought about it some more, he … he asked me to retire. And I did. I felt I’d done enough harm.”
There were tears in his eyes again, but thankfully not falling.
Severus cleared his throat. “Yes, well. I told you, I won’t echo the headmaster’s promise. If Riddle ever returns and tries to start up his movement again, I may need to use the information about his Muggle father as leverage against his recruiting among my Pureblood students. I won’t make a point of his having been your protégé, but unfortunately that information is readily available once his identity becomes known. But… anything else I can find out about his youth might lead me to other weaknesses; perhaps I can find things I can use without full disclosure of who he had been. As I said, I will make you no promises. But if you help me now, if I can keep your-or rather his-name out of it, I will.”
*
“Well, that fetched him, Phineas. You’d have thought I had cast Alohomara on his tongue.”
Snape stirred the Pensieve that he’d placed on the bedside table, and man and portrait watched the silver figure talk. The man jotted occasional notes about young Tom’s associates and interests. Phineas gasped involuntarily when Horace mumbled about Tom’s interest in splitting his soul seven times, but suppressed any further reaction.
At the end, Phineas contented himself with noting, “So you didn’t tell Horace about, ah, Blunderbuss’s role in young Tom’s rise.”
The wizard raised his brows at Phineas’s choice of topic, but he answered readily enough, “No. I preferred to reserve that information. Horace is weak, he doesn’t like taking a firm stand, and he considers Blunderbuss a friend. The last thing I want would be him confronting Blunderbuss; the second last, his consulting him. Fortunately, he has no wish at all to explain to his old friend what he’d really feared most-and no idea I’m supposed to be on the headmaster’s leash, reporting to him. Amour-propre can be such a helpful thing. ”
Phineas shrugged. “You’re right; Horace is a fence-sitter, when he can be. Leave him there. If we ever need him, we can, as you put it earlier, fetch him. So … what else new do we know now about our young friend Tom?”
Severus scanned his notes and started itemizing: “Not much that we couldn’t have expected. He was interested in the Dark Arts, that was a given. His interest in finding his glorious family or more accurately, in establishing that he belonged to a glorious family, seems to have transmuted into a more general obsession with the glories of the past: Wizarding treasures and legendary places, including Hogwarts-”
Snape broke off as the portrait banged a fist on his painted chair, hissing, “Legendary places, including Hogwarts-I’m a fool not to have spotted it!”
The young man looked at him blankly. Phineas said, “You don’t see it? The Chamber of Secrets?”
“The Chamber of Secrets? Slytherin’s Chamber of Secrets? That rubbish-? Oh. Of course. Certainly, he might well have looked for it…. What am I missing?” He frowned at the portrait.
Phineas smiled tightly. “So, our hard work to hush it up was at least marginally successful. Riddle’s fifth year, there was a series of nasty attacks inside the castle itself by an unidentified monster-several students were Petrified, and one was finally killed. The now-gamekeeper, Hagrid, was caught with a giant spider, which escaped before it could be examined. Hagrid claimed it was merely a normal Acromantula, but since Kettleburn had caught the boy earlier in the year trying to cross a fire crab with a jarvey, of all things, well…. Dippet figured Hagrid himself might not have known exactly what he really had. And of course Acromantulae are Class XXXXX by themselves-raising one in the castle was ample grounds for expulsion.
“Hagrid was never tried for murder-you know the man, you can imagine that as a boy he was even less compos mentis to appreciate that his sweet darling little baby monsters could actually be dangerous to others. At-Blunderbuss’s urging, actually-it was deemed enough to separate him from vulnerable students and to break his wand. But graffiti scrawled on the walls had previously claimed that the monster was Slytherin’s, being released by the heir of Slytherin from the secret chamber. Of course, we simply thought at the time some student was just resurrecting that old legend to make a bad situation worse. But it was a certain Slytherin prefect who caught Hagrid red-handed with his pet-but yet failed to capture the creature itself. All this happening immediately after Dippet explained to said prefect that Hogwarts would be closed and Tom sent back to his orphanage if the monster wasn’t caught.”
Snape stared at him. “Yes, you certainly should have spotted that. Do you suspect now there really was a chamber and another monster and that Riddle framed Hagrid, or that Riddle had merely been exploiting his knowledge of Hagrid’s crime to add to his own importance?”
Phineas laced his fingers together and studied them. “I’m almost inclined to suspect the former now.”
“What a devious frame, if so! Do you think Riddle actually arranged for Kettleburn to find Hagrid’s earliest dabbling in experimental breeding, then?”
“You needn’t sound so admiring, Severus.”
Snape ignored that comment, continuing, “It fits, too; Riddle’s a Parselmouth like Slytherin, and wanting to think himself of importance, would blow that up into being Slytherin’s “Heir.” Merlin, but so were his uncle and grandfather, the arresting notes said. Parselmouths, I mean. Moreover, his uncle complained of two missing family treasures-the ring that vanished the night of the Riddles’ murders, and a locket that Merope took when she eloped. Which was said to have been made by Salazar Slytherin for his oldest daughter.”
He shook his head at the thought. “Tom might actually have been descended from Salazar…. One wonders what he felt when he finally met his illustrious family.”
Phineas smiled sourly. “I would say that Tom seemed to have expressed his feelings quite, ah, adequately.”
There was silence for a bit. Phineas decided it was time finally to mention the erumpent in their midst. “Then there’s that minor matter of the six Horcruxes.”
“Up to six,” Severus corrected. “Which is certainly… sobering. And may, as Horace thought, explain some aspects of Tom’s character.”
Phineas looked at him. “I think that it’s time to teach you that spell which I believe to be a Horcrux-detector. Unfortunately Dumbledore didn’t incant it loudly enough for me to make out the incantation. But here’s what I remember the wand movement to be.” He demonstrated a rather complex series of slow circling passes followed by a snap of the wrist, and Snape tried several times to copy it. Eventually Phineas had Snape position both of them so the portrait could watch Severus from the same angle as he’d seen the headmaster. Phineas made a minor correction, and Snape tried again.
“Horcrucem Revelo would be the obvious incantation,” mused Snape. His eyes narrowed, and he stared at the innocent teacup he was using as the focus object. He tried the spell again, and then again, the last time slightly changing the circling.
Phineas said sharply, “That-looks better. Closer. Why did you change that, Severus?”
Severus sat down abruptly, still staring at the cup. “Did you never invent spells, Phineas? I’m trying to - Muggles have a term, reinventing the wheel. Since we don’t know it precisely enough just to copy exactly, I’m trying to reinvent it. This spell seems to me to combines aspects of the Hominem Revelere, one of the Maleficam Revelere charms, and something else-a healer’s diagnostic, of all things, if I’m any judge. You said if it works it makes the Horcrux object glow briefly green?”
Phineas nodded, then realized Snape wasn’t looking at him and spoke, “Yes. And no, it was my grandson who was the inventor in the family; I never fiddled with that.”
“The hardest part is actually figuring out exactly what you need the spell to do. Exactly. Here, the crux, as it were, is defining what a Horcrux is….”
He pushed his chair back abruptly. “I need to check some references.”
Eventually he reappeared back in the tiny bedroom, his arms still filled with books. “Watch me one more time,” he demanded, “then I’m going to try this at the Gaunt hovel.”
Phineas raised a brow at that. “Ah. Yes, the level of protection you described certainly sounded suggestive.”
*
Phineas woke to the crack of Apparition. It was the dead of night, but Phineas had no clue as to the time. Snape cast a lumos, said briefly, “It worked, eventually. There’s a Horcrux under the floorboards, as we suspected. But I’ve a further idea.”
He disappeared downstairs to his library before Phineas could remind him he was taking the boy in the morning and should get some sleep. Well, if Snape wanted to spend another day on Pepper-Up, Phineas would trust him to know his limits.
*
The portrait was woken by another Apparition around dawn two mornings later. Snape was swaying, hollow-eyed, and triumphant. “It works!” he proclaimed, holding something aloft for Phineas’s admiration.
Phineas regarded it with disfavor. He had never liked being woken when alive, even for good reason, and saw no reason to let death and paint mellow him in that regard. “Indeed it does-for the purchase of trifles. That is a Knut, Severus. No doubt it’s a wildly exciting object to one reared in poverty, but…”
Snape laughed, tossed it on the table, and collapsed on the bed, his feet dangling off uncomfortably. “I took the basic idea from the various Dark Detectors. Told you Maleficam Revelere was a part of the original spell. Much easier to adapt existing charms than to create fresh, but still….” He shut his eyes and yawned.
“Merlin’s beard, at least get those boots off! And what does your last Knut do?”
The question appeared to rouse the man more than did the admonition, but when he sat up to answer he did start to wrestle with a boot (by hand, but then the young wizard looked that exhausted). He said, “It vibrates. If it gets within twenty-one feet, three by seven, see, of a Horcrux, it vibrates, and it vibrates more the closer it gets. Do wizard kids play that game “Hotter colder” too…? Course, couldn’t test too close….” Severus dropped the boot and his eyes closed briefly, then he shook himself and opened them again. He stared at his other boot as though trying to remember what it was, and then managed to tug it off as well. “Don’t have Harry today, Phineas, do I…?”
“No, today you’d reserved for shopping.” Phineas sighed in resignation; he had signed on as a conspirator to see that a competent job was made of destroying the Dark Lord, not as social secretary and nursemaid to some overdriven young wizard. A Merlin-be-damned half-blood at that, and no blood or concern of the Blacks!
Though the legends said Merlin had been a half-blood too.
Phineas growled, “Turn the clock so I can see it, and I’ll wake you at one-thirty, Severus. That should give you enough time for Diagon and Knockturn. Sleep, for Merlin’s sake!”
*
A black shadow in the darkness prowled silently around the half-ruined hovel, re-checking Riddle’s wards’ perimeter. Satisfied finally, Severus cast his own ward to block any light and sound from reaching the lane. Then he moved into position outside the broken door.
“Horcrucem Revelo!”
The green glow oozed up from beneath the rotting floorboards. Severus focused on the thought that that was his soul and cast. “Avada kedavra!”
He trembled a little as the green light flashed. The floorboards splintered, but the glow didn’t so much as flicker. Severus frowned, disappointed. Either the rotting floorboards were still solid enough to block the curse, or he couldn’t aim well enough at the unseen object, or the killing curse simply didn’t work to destroy a soul fragment housed in a (presumably) inanimate object.
Severus would have relished blasting the bastard’s soul out of existence. But plan B it would have to be. He reached in his left pocket, pulled out the pouch of sea salt, and started walking a sunwise circle, muttering the protective incantation.
The only other time Severus had ever used this curse, he hadn’t taken such precautions; he’d restrained the flame-monsters only with his wand. But then, back when Snape had used this spell on the book that had been Lucius’s fellowship gift, he hadn’t cared all that much if he were destroyed along with it.
This time he couldn’t take foolish chances; he owed protection to a boy.
Severus closed the circle, and it flared up silver around the shack. He placed himself a careful distance behind it. Then he recast the Revelere, braced himself, and aimed at the renewed green light. “Igne perde!”
Fiery serpents exploded from the center of the green haze. They writhed and hissed and snapped at each other, starting to devour the rotting floorboards and what lay hidden beneath them. Severus automatically retreated a few paces from the inferno.
But then another form bloomed suddenly from the green glow, a human one, with hair as bright as the flames engulfing her. She had time only for one screamed word: “Sev!”
Then she was gone in a blaze of green and red-gold even as he jerked forward in response. The burning monsters raced away from her afterimage to feast happily on the shack’s dry walls and roof. And he knew it could not have been her, not really.
It could not have.
“That wasn’t you,” Severus whispered, fighting the urge to just… step across the immaterial silver barrier and join her. “It wasn’t. You were already dead.”
He stumbled forward another step, dangerously closer to his salt line. He explained quietly, reasonably, to the air empty of her form, to the flame-creatures whirling so beautifully before him, “It wasn’t you in there. You’re dead.”
His hand reached out anyway.
But the boy was alive, and the boy had to be protected.
Sev shut his eyes tightly against the brilliant roar of the flames.
Some time later he realized that the world had become black again instead of flame-colored, and very, very quiet. There weren’t even the little popping and settling noises one would hear in the aftermath of a natural conflagration.
He wiped his face mechanically. The plan. He had a plan. He had to finish here.
He picked up his wand and checked the wards keeping the Muggles away. Yes, they had been physically anchored, and had collapsed when the shack was destroyed.
Numbly, he Accioed some fallen branches and transfigured them. Minerva would have taken points for his sloppiness, but all he needed was an empty shell. To be eaten by the fire.
He cast the Incendius almost absently. When he was sure the fire had caught properly, he cancelled his masking ward. Then, finally, he could fade back into the trees to wait until the Muggles noticed, and to keep watch over whether he’d need to intervene to keep the fire from spreading too badly in the woods...
He thought maybe he was cold now, in the dark.
Most of his mind was entirely elsewhere as he waited.
He had to tell the boy the truth. That he had killed her.
*
A/N:
Thanks to oryx_leucoryx, ioanna_ioananna and lynn_waterfall and all the people over on Snapedom for helping me out with Slughorn, what he knew when, and his attitude towards Voldemort’s followers. Sorry if you don’t like what I made of it!
Sluggy’s remorse in HBP seemed totally incommensurate with his actual offense. I mean, all he did with Tom was exactly what Albus later did with Harry: gave a Sixth Year boy he favored a very short overview of Horcruxes, which are officially a banned subject at Hogwarts. And yes, it turns out that Tom decided to make practical use of the knowledge (which we all hope Harry won’t), but given Tom’s tastes and talents, the reader is fully confident that Tom would have tracked down the knowledge independently anyhow. (A way to make murder magically profitable as well as just fun-cool! It’s not just Dumbles who thinks Horcruxes would appeal more than the PS to Tommy.) Indeed, Tom did track down the knowledge independently anyhow-Slughorn gave him nothing practical. So why Sluggy’s over-the-top reluctance to let the truth come out, particularly to the man who already was sure of it?
Harry, of course, thought Slughorn was just afraid to take sides openly against Voldemort by spilling the number. And of course Slughorn was. But if that had really been the only thing going on, if Horace thought Tom so wanted that magic number seven kept secret that he’d kill Horace in revenge for telling it, then really Riddle should have killed him prophylactically to conceal it. “Two people can keep a secret, if one of them is dead,” after all. Oh, right, because Riddle’s so reluctant to kill to eliminate a potential threat-like the brave Gryffindors, he only uses violence in revenge. Right.
So if it was that big a deal, Slughorn should have “disappeared” either over Tom’s first summer out of Hogwarts or upon “Lord Voldemort’s” first appearance in Britain, well before Sluggy might have been on guard against any Death Eaters. The fact that he didn’t, means Tom’s not that worried about it-probably too vain to think it would do his enemies any good, or maybe he thinks he’ll wow them with the awesomeness of his evil.
Anyone have a better incantation for Fiendfyre? It’s a pity I know no Latin.
To be honest, when I wrote this last bit, and really thought how about how Riddle’s soul piece (fighting for its “life”) might use the properties of the suicide stone, I actually ended up feeling a little sorry for canon!Dumbles. I even wondered if maybe he hadn’t been fool enough to try deliberately to invoke Ariana….
Have you ever committed any indecent acts with women?
Yes, many. I am guilty of allowing suicidal women to die before my eyes or in my ears or under my hands because I thought I could do nothing…. I am guilty of not loving her who needed me; I regret all the women I have not slept with or comforted, who pulled themselves away from me for lack of something I had not the courage to fight for… These are indecent acts, lacking courage….
Yes I have committed acts of indecency with women and most of them were acts of omission. I regret them bitterly.
Judy Grahn, “A Woman is Talking to Death, ‘Part Four: A Mock Interrogation’”
Phineas snarled, “Who let that criminal into Hogwarts? How could any teacher have missed such signs? If what your Muggle says is true, his crimes at the orphanage were entirely open, unlike those he later committed at school.”
Severus cradled a cup of tea in his hands but didn’t drink. Nor did he look up at the portrait as he answered. “The name recorded for the visitor from Pigsmart was Blunderbuss.”
“Blunderbuss?! But-” Phineas broke off, staring at the young man. The lank hair had swung forward, hiding Snape’s face, but the hands clenched on the cup were shaking a little.
Phineas repeated in another tone, “Blunderbuss. Yes, the Transfigurations professor, as he then was, was one of those who took on the task of Muggleborn home visits. You are certain that some of Riddle’s crimes preceded his entrance to Hogwarts?”
Snape whispered, “Two children were institutionalized for insanity after disappearing with Riddle for a few hours. That was about a month before Blunderbuss’s visit. Others suffered mysterious accidents or found themselves afflicted with inexplicable pain after crossing Tommy. He could force people to tell him secrets. He’d killed at least one animal, another child’s pet rabbit. Another time, a pet rat-Riddle whistled to it, and it rose on its hind legs and danced for him. Until its leg broke. Pigeon and crow corpses had also been found. Those for sure, by the time of the ‘Pigsmart’ visit. He had to have known some of it, Phineas.”
The portrait said fair-mindedly, “It’s possible that matron might have been so desperate to shift the responsibility for Riddle elsewhere that she deliberately concealed what he had been doing lest Hogwarts change its mind about taking him. As, indeed, we should have.”
Snape shook his head and explained to his teacup, “The matron had already taken steps to attempt to get Riddle locked away. Permanently. She-the Muggle world won’t lock someone up as a criminal without a trial proving their crimes. And of course Riddle’s crimes were impossible for Muggles to prove. But all it took, back then, to lock someone away as a dangerous lunatic was a doctor’s examination and recommendation. She’d written to the Board of Governors, asking them to authorize such an examination, and rescinded the request after Blunderbuss’s visit.”
Snape took a deep breath. “So she expected to have him OFF her hands anyhow. As it was, by allowing him instead to go to Hogwarts, she had to accept him back for the summers. She’d have been better off sticking with her first plan. And indeed-had she wanted to conceal what Tom was, could she have? Was not-Blunderbuss-already a Legilimens?”
The portrait said, “I don’t know when he acquired the skill; it’s not one he advertises. But that’s immaterial. Whether or not the then-Transfigurations professor could have read directly from the matron’s mind that young Tom was already a criminal who raised the gravest concerns regarding his future conduct, it was his duty to have detected such things. Either he was negligent, or that mania of his for second chances overcame him.”
The young man’s flinch was very slight. Snape cleared his throat, “Did he ever warn Dippet of what Riddle was?”
“Not in the headmaster’s office, he did not,” Phineas said. “And-no, he could have said nothing, not ever. Dippet liked young Riddle and displayed no shadow of mistrust of him. Nor was Dippet one who could or would have dissembled about that.”
Snape said, almost inaudibly, “Riddle can be very… convincing… when one is in his actual presence.”
“Ah. Yes. That would help. Could he have used that on, er, Blunderbuss? But no-the Transfigurations professor never seemed to like the boy. A little unusual, that; Riddle was a favorite with most of his other teachers.”
The wizard was silent, frowning. The portrait added, “But after all, one must consider that Riddle had up to that point used his magic only against animals and Muggles. Perhaps Blunderbuss truly thought Riddle would behave himself among his peers.”
Snape set his teacup down hard on the table and stared at the portrait, the black eyes unreadable. “I grew up among Muggles, and I didn’t like most of them. In fact, I cordially detested most of the ones I grew up with, with some cause. When I joined-him-I thought I’d like seeing Muggles put in their place. But I hadn’t exactly realized that meant dumping boiling water over a girl’s face.”
”You thought he meant to rule the Muggles with kindness? Exactly how young were you when you joined him, Severus?”
Snape snarled, “I thought he meant revolution. War. That some, many, of those who overtly opposed us might be killed, yes! And yes, that so would others-innocents-the Muggle phrase, it’s a lovely one, is collateral damage. I didn’t let myself think too much about that. But then afterwards, when we’d won, I’d be near the top, unassailable and influential. And then the violence would be over; it would stop. Of course it would stop; there’d be no further need for it. Why should it go on? But this-“
He made a vague gesture. His face dipped again and his voice dropped back to a whisper. “-torturing children-this is what he was. This is what he always was. That is what I bound myself to.”
Looking at the rigid form, Phineas decided to turn the subject. “You’re not only a half-blood, but you actually grew up amidst Muggles? Now that I think of it, I don’t believe I’ve ever conversed with one at length. What are they really like?”
Severus stood suddenly. “Like us, Phineas. Exactly like us. Why do you think I mostly despised them?”
He whirled and stalked out of the room.
*
Phineas allowed the young man some time to recover from his display of temperament while he thought matters through. He finally called out, “Severus? Regarding Horace…. Have you considered how this information simplifies our approach to him?”
The young man appeared, still paler than usual, and frowned at the portrait. He didn’t vouchsafe an answer. Phineas said, “Think, Severus! Our biggest problem with Slughorn has been that he’s had every reason to hide, as far as he can, the information that your Dark Lord was his own former favorite. Given Slughorn’s usual practices with his favorites, he might have-indeed, must have-given young Riddle passes to the Restricted Section, say, or other means of acquiring knowledge that in retrospect Slughorn came to regret deeply. But now we can divert his guilt onto, ah, Blunderbuss’s shoulders if we need to, for withholding information that would have made Slughorn withhold his favor….
Severus frowned at the portrait. “You hired the man originally; how do you think he will react if I tell him his old friend had allowed him to be so deceived, had never warned him when he saw him start to make a pet of the boy?”
“Betrayed, angry, and probably bereaved… but he’d no more want to cross the headmaster openly than he did the Dark Lord, if not quite for the same reasons. You might want to see first what you can get without playing that card. And I have come up with an unexceptional reason for you to approach him.”
*
Slughorn accepted the crystallized fruit with delight and invited Severus to tea to share it, as predicted. Severus was a little disconcerted to be offered a plate of sandwiches; Slughorn’s tastes, like Dumbledore’s, ran heavily to sweets, and Severus had expected tea to comprise only the sponge cake and scones that Horace was piling onto his own plate. He hadn’t realized Slughorn had ever taken the trouble to pay attention to his former student’s taste in food.
As Phineas had predicted, Slughorn knew of a reliable alternative supplier for the Boomslang skin and was only too delighted to share his information with Severus, thus putting Severus mildly in his debt. The conversation moved easily on to gossip about other former Slytherins, and to Snape’s duties as current head of house. Eventually Slughorn looked a little sideways at Snape and said casually, “I heard that you were chosen to shepherd the Boy Who Lived around Diagon Alley. I imagine that you enjoyed the task of escorting Potter’s son.”
Snape sniffed. “The opportunity to tell off a Potter for dawdling and rubbernecking little made up for the utter waste of my time. But the headmaster had decreed the boy’s babysitter should be able to double as a bodyguard, in case anyone, ah, disaffected, should approach him. Instead, as was predictable, Potter was the subject of fawning adulation. Frankly, I was a little surprised not to see you in the Leaky when we arrived, Horace. Surely your sources had let you know to expect him that day.”
Slughorn studied the candied fruit carefully and selected a piece of mango. “As I understand the matter, you made short work of those who DID approach the boy to fawn, Severus. I should have been terrified to face your grim visage.”
Snape laughed at that. “Didn’t care to meet the boy first under conditions where you were competing for his attention?”
The old man popped the mango into his mouth without answering directly, and Severus laughed again.
“So what’s he like, Severus?” Slughorn leaned a little forward in his chair.
“Like?” Severus repeated with a little grimace. “In looks, he’s a living reminder that Evans ended up developing the execrable taste to fall for Potter. The boy has her eyes and Potter’s features. Magically… he’s not at all what one might expect from the hype about The Boy Who Lived, nor even from his parents’ son. Evans’ sister raised him ignorant of magic, punishing him for his outbursts without enlightening him as to their nature. He apparently never figured out what he was doing, never tried at all to control it. So he’s less developed than any Wizard-reared child of his age, but with a reasonable-not exorbitant-native talent. From what I can gather, he levitated himself out of danger once, and once vanished something in a fit of temper. Perfectly ordinary child magic, nothing remarkably powerful or dark. Surprising, really.”
Severus took another sip of tea and added, “Of course, one day’s observations are hardly conclusive. He may yet exhibit unexpected depths. But in fact, my real surprise of the day was something altogether different.”
Slughorn looked politely inquiring, and Snape continued, “When I took him to get his wand, Ollivander started reminiscing about various wands he had sold. He happened to mention that the wand carried by You-Know-Who had been sold to an orphan boy named Tom Riddle.”
Slughorn dropped a piece of candied pineapple, and fumbled to pick it up again. His attention was apparently all on the dish of candied fruit.
But his face had gone gray, and he was shaking. Severus decided to end his suspense. “An old favorite of yours, as I apprehend, a distinguished member of the Slug Club.”
Snape picked up a fish paste triangle and ate it in one swift bite.
Slughorn shrank into his seat and whispered, “Why are you really here, Snape? What do you want of me?”
Snape chose another triangle with slow deliberation. “Information, Horace. And I’m willing to trade for it. I am also quite willing to make public some of what I know. Including that You-Know-Who was once your own protégé. What will your friends at the Ministry think, if I tell them that?”
He snapped down the sandwich and stared at the old man. Slughorn was huddled in on himself; sweat was rolling down his bald pate.
Severus folded his arms. “Or I could keep silence. I could even, as I said, make a trade with you: some of what I’ve learned, in exchange for what you know.”
Slughorn’s face was gray and he seemed to be having trouble breathing. Severus huffed impatiently and pulled out the phial he’d brought.
“Calming Draught,” he said, and made to hand it to Slughorn.
Horace pushed it away with a hand that trembled. “Not-not of your brewing.”
“Fine. Accio Horace’s Calming Draught!” A door slammed down the hallway, and another phial zoomed into the room. Snape caught it and handed it to his host, who unstoppered it with unsteady hands and took a large gulp, then another. His eyes were shut. Snape considered him a moment, then added, “Accio brandy and glasses.”
A moment later, he grabbed the phial from Horace, sniffed it, and shoved a snifter in its place. Slughorn gulped the brandy and shuddered.
Really Horace shouldn’t let himself get so shaken; any potioneer should remember that the interaction of alcohol and that particular formulation of the Draught would be nearly as effective at inducing confidences as Veritaserum. Or perhaps Horace did recall that, and was trying to make it easier on himself; his threat had left his former head of house little choice. He poured Horace another brandy, and took a glass himself in pretense of drinking companionably.
Severus spoke softly. “What I want to know first is how Riddle seemed to you when he entered Hogwarts. When did you make a pet of him? What was he like?”
Slughorn started rocking a little in his chair, clutching the brandy to him. When he looked at Snape his eyes were glassy with tears as well as the potion. “He was my favorite student. Ever. Even more than your friend Lily. He was-any teacher’s dream pupil. Extraordinarily bright. Extraordinarily. Not intuitive like Lily, more analytical like you. He absorbed information more readily than anyone I’ve ever known, Severus, and was more creative even than you in extending and applying it. And, er, he was usually deferential to his teachers.”
Snape snorted at that. Slughorn continued, “I’ve never taught anyone so bright, never, though Merrythought compared him to Albus as a boy. It was a pleasure and an honor to teach him. He was-teaching him was like teaching a fish to swim. He-he drew information out of one, Severus.”
Snape snorted again, and Slughorn winced. Tears started dripping down his face, and Snape drew back a little.
“He was -he became interested in immortality, Severus.” Horace was whispering now. “He’d found some of his Wizarding family-they didn’t publicly own him, but they did give him an heirloom ring he started wearing, with the Questers’ symbol on it. He became interested in that problem…. I-I wondered if he’d be the second to make a Philosopher’s Stone. I really thought if anyone I’d met could succeed, it would be Tom, it would be him. I was so proud of being his teacher, of the credit he’d bring me…. So when he asked me about Horcruxes…” Slughorn’s voice faded out and he took another gulp of brandy.
Snape resisted the urge to shake him. He murmured, “When he asked you about Horcruxes…”
“I told him. He’d read the term, and I told him in rough outline what it entailed. Of course I expected him to be interested in knowing all the theoretical methods; I thought it natural he’d ask. Severus, I didn’t realize in time that he was so desperate for immortality that he’d actually do it! And it’s worse-it’s worse-I think-it made him what he became.”
Snape sat very still. He whispered, “What he became…”
“Tom said-he had the thought-that if splitting the soul and sealing part of it in a Horcrux made one invulnerable-would splitting it more than once one even more powerful? He always pushed the limits of any concept like that, his mind was amazing. He asked-if splitting the soul in seven, wouldn’t be better, wouldn’t be most powerful. He always made connections between disciplines like that, what he did with Arithmancy and potions was-all of Belby’s work is essentially based on one paper Riddle published his sixth year, you know. All of it. But when Tom said that, when he said that, he looked… hopeful. Eager. I realized then that he was actually considering doing it. That he wanted immortality that badly, and was afraid he couldn’t make the Stone. I tried-I tried to pretend we were only speaking hypothetically, but I knew then that he might do it. If he got desperate enough. If he couldn’t make it. And he did, didn’t he? He went away Tom, and he came back a monster, and I knew that it was my fault….”
Tears started sliding down Slughorn’s cheeks, and he lowered his face. “I destroyed him, Severus. I made him what he became. I set him on that path.”
Snape pitched his voice to be low, cold, and very clear. ‘In fact, no, Horace. Whatever guilt you bear, that you don’t. Tom Riddle was already a monster; he’d merely successfully hidden that from you. That ring he wore? It was from his family, yes, that much was true. He’d found his family. And he’d destroyed them. He had killed his Muggle father and grandparents, framed his Pureblood uncle for the murders, and stolen the ring from the uncle’s finger.”
Slughorn gaped at him. Severus continued, “Nor were those even his first murders. That orphanage he lived at during the summers? He had figured out that wandless magic escaped the trace. There were a string of mysterious compulsions, mutilations, and deaths, first of animals and then of humans, that dated back before he stole that ring. He didn’t become a monster as a result of making multiple Horcruxes; he was willing to make Horcruxes because he was already a monster. The Tom you thought you knew never existed; it was a mask Riddle wore.”
Slughorn stared up at him a moment and then broke down completely, sobbing. Severus backed away in acute embarrassment and retreated to the window. With a double dose of the draught, that second brandy had clearly been too much.
He stood for a moment calculating interactions, then went to the loo and found Horace’s medicinal potions store. As he’d expected, there was some Sobering Solution. He measured some into the tooth-cup and went back to Slughorn. He thrust it at Horace and muttered, “Pull yourself together, man.”
Horace gulped it, shuddered, and hid his face in his hands, quaking. Finally he whispered, “Snape, I thought I knew him-you’re quite sure?”
Severus said, “Entirely. Else I would not have said.”
“But how could you possibly have learned such things?”
Severus had been thinking very hard about what exactly to tell the old wizard. Now he grimaced and said, “You forget-or maybe you never knew-I was raised half in the Muggle world. Muggles had kept records of Riddle’s exploits, though they had no clue, of course, what they were really recording. Once I had Riddle’s true name and the orphanage, well-Riddle had clearly never expected a wizard to bother looking at Muggle sources, so he never troubled to erase his tracks.”
Slughorn looked up, shaking his head.
Severus said evenly, “There can be no doubt. None. He was a murderer and torturer before he came of age, and before ever he asked you about Horcruxes. In the Muggle world, he hid his abilities behind their ignorance of magic; in ours, he hid his true motivations behind the mask of the appealing orphan.”
The old man muttered, “And he took us all in….”
Snape hummed noncommittally.
Eventually Slughorn looked up. “Not Albus so much, he must have sensed something wrong about him.… But all the rest of us, especially me…. He… Albus… promised me not to reveal that You-Know-Who had been my Tom….”
Snape stiffened, and Slughorn shook his head and hastened to add, “No, no, not an Unbreakable Vow or anything, just a promise between old friends, to protect my reputation. He-Albus-never-never realized what I really thought…. He thought I was just worried, well, what you threatened me with, about it getting out that You-Know-Who had once been one of the Slug Club, not that I thought… what I thought. And you, Severus, do you plan-?” Horace looked down again, his voice dying.
“I won’t repeat the headmaster’s promise, Horace. I’ve no desire to harm you, and I don’t see any immediate reason why I should need to make this information public. But I won’t bind myself.”
Horace pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his face with a shaking hand. “No immediate reason?”
Severus folded his arms. “I’m Head of Slytherin, Horace. You know how many of my school friends were destroyed because they believed in Riddle, followed him. Some of their children are in our house now.”
Snape’s former Head of House winced. “I’m glad at least… you didn’t follow them all the way, Severus. For a time I thought you might….”
“Yes, and you did so much to avert that possibility, didn’t you?” Snape snapped.
“I-I made it clear that his followers weren’t in my favor. If you chose to run with that crowd, I, well, I could not well dissuade any of you.”
“Not without taking a stand, no,” Snape snarled. “You knew we none of us understood that he was, as you put it, a monster, and you didn’t tell us. It was a pity a perfectly reasonable political movement should have been hijacked by a psychopathic terrorist for his own ends. I and my friends were hardly the first and we won’t be the last to believe we should rule over our inferiors rather than cower in hiding from them. But following You-Know-Who to achieve that goal led many of my friends to their deaths. And his unconscionable methods turned our justifiable aims into the despicable agenda of a defeated criminal. Had they known to what depths he was willing to sink, many of my friends would never have joined him. And then they might be alive today.”
He glared at Slughorn, who pleaded in response, “But that-that’s not quite fair, Severus. You all knew it was an extremist view. And I-it’s not fair to say I understood what he was, not all along. I only put it together-well really, just about the time Albus as-I decided to retire. It was only then that I guessed that You-Know-Who was Tom Riddle, and guessed … what he had become. Or, you say now, what he always was….”
Snape frowned skeptically. Slughorn stammered, “Like, like everyone else, at first I thought You-Know-Who was from the continent. Tom had disappeared decades earlier, you see, I thought he’d buried himself in his research or, or been buried. Killed. It was always a possibility, with his interests. Hadn’t thought of him in years-hadn’t, hadn’t wanted to, was afraid to speculate …. And he’d said, Tom had said back then, that he wasn’t interested in a political career. When I talked about helping him with my contacts in the Ministry. And You-Know-Who … for a long time, you remember, Severus, for a long time what he was doing was all only rumors. Some of them ugly, but one didn’t know what to believe. But then he started to use the Dark Mark, started to advertise his killings, so we knew finally what he was like.”
Slughorn took a breath, and began again in a whisper. “And then there was a string of captures and deaths of his followers, and they were mostly boys I’d taught only a few years before, boys from my house. And that’s when I suddenly thought-I started wondering why there’d be so many Slytherin Death Eaters, why he’d have an affinity for our house-I mean besides the Pureblood first stance, but he didn’t seem to be having such luck recruiting Ravenclaws or Gryffindors-and several of them were sons or nephews of Tom’s old friends-and then I heard whispers that You-Know-Who was trying to make himself immortal, or that he had-and then it hit me. It all fit.”
He shut his eyes and shuddered. “And that’s when I realized-well, thought-that it was, that it had been, making Horcruxes that made Tom into…into You-Know-Who. And I went to Albus with my suspicions-well, about the connection to Slytherin and the interest in immortality, and that I wondered if You-Know-Who could be Tom, returned-and that’s when he promised me he’d keep it quiet for my sake. But then when he thought about it some more, he … he asked me to retire. And I did. I felt I’d done enough harm.”
There were tears in his eyes again, but thankfully not falling.
Severus cleared his throat. “Yes, well. I told you, I won’t echo the headmaster’s promise. If Riddle ever returns and tries to start up his movement again, I may need to use the information about his Muggle father as leverage against his recruiting among my Pureblood students. I won’t make a point of his having been your protégé, but unfortunately that information is readily available once his identity becomes known. But… anything else I can find out about his youth might lead me to other weaknesses; perhaps I can find things I can use without full disclosure of who he had been. As I said, I will make you no promises. But if you help me now, if I can keep your-or rather his-name out of it, I will.”
*
“Well, that fetched him, Phineas. You’d have thought I had cast Alohomara on his tongue.”
Snape stirred the Pensieve that he’d placed on the bedside table, and man and portrait watched the silver figure talk. The man jotted occasional notes about young Tom’s associates and interests. Phineas gasped involuntarily when Horace mumbled about Tom’s interest in splitting his soul seven times, but suppressed any further reaction.
At the end, Phineas contented himself with noting, “So you didn’t tell Horace about, ah, Blunderbuss’s role in young Tom’s rise.”
The wizard raised his brows at Phineas’s choice of topic, but he answered readily enough, “No. I preferred to reserve that information. Horace is weak, he doesn’t like taking a firm stand, and he considers Blunderbuss a friend. The last thing I want would be him confronting Blunderbuss; the second last, his consulting him. Fortunately, he has no wish at all to explain to his old friend what he’d really feared most-and no idea I’m supposed to be on the headmaster’s leash, reporting to him. Amour-propre can be such a helpful thing. ”
Phineas shrugged. “You’re right; Horace is a fence-sitter, when he can be. Leave him there. If we ever need him, we can, as you put it earlier, fetch him. So … what else new do we know now about our young friend Tom?”
Severus scanned his notes and started itemizing: “Not much that we couldn’t have expected. He was interested in the Dark Arts, that was a given. His interest in finding his glorious family or more accurately, in establishing that he belonged to a glorious family, seems to have transmuted into a more general obsession with the glories of the past: Wizarding treasures and legendary places, including Hogwarts-”
Snape broke off as the portrait banged a fist on his painted chair, hissing, “Legendary places, including Hogwarts-I’m a fool not to have spotted it!”
The young man looked at him blankly. Phineas said, “You don’t see it? The Chamber of Secrets?”
“The Chamber of Secrets? Slytherin’s Chamber of Secrets? That rubbish-? Oh. Of course. Certainly, he might well have looked for it…. What am I missing?” He frowned at the portrait.
Phineas smiled tightly. “So, our hard work to hush it up was at least marginally successful. Riddle’s fifth year, there was a series of nasty attacks inside the castle itself by an unidentified monster-several students were Petrified, and one was finally killed. The now-gamekeeper, Hagrid, was caught with a giant spider, which escaped before it could be examined. Hagrid claimed it was merely a normal Acromantula, but since Kettleburn had caught the boy earlier in the year trying to cross a fire crab with a jarvey, of all things, well…. Dippet figured Hagrid himself might not have known exactly what he really had. And of course Acromantulae are Class XXXXX by themselves-raising one in the castle was ample grounds for expulsion.
“Hagrid was never tried for murder-you know the man, you can imagine that as a boy he was even less compos mentis to appreciate that his sweet darling little baby monsters could actually be dangerous to others. At-Blunderbuss’s urging, actually-it was deemed enough to separate him from vulnerable students and to break his wand. But graffiti scrawled on the walls had previously claimed that the monster was Slytherin’s, being released by the heir of Slytherin from the secret chamber. Of course, we simply thought at the time some student was just resurrecting that old legend to make a bad situation worse. But it was a certain Slytherin prefect who caught Hagrid red-handed with his pet-but yet failed to capture the creature itself. All this happening immediately after Dippet explained to said prefect that Hogwarts would be closed and Tom sent back to his orphanage if the monster wasn’t caught.”
Snape stared at him. “Yes, you certainly should have spotted that. Do you suspect now there really was a chamber and another monster and that Riddle framed Hagrid, or that Riddle had merely been exploiting his knowledge of Hagrid’s crime to add to his own importance?”
Phineas laced his fingers together and studied them. “I’m almost inclined to suspect the former now.”
“What a devious frame, if so! Do you think Riddle actually arranged for Kettleburn to find Hagrid’s earliest dabbling in experimental breeding, then?”
“You needn’t sound so admiring, Severus.”
Snape ignored that comment, continuing, “It fits, too; Riddle’s a Parselmouth like Slytherin, and wanting to think himself of importance, would blow that up into being Slytherin’s “Heir.” Merlin, but so were his uncle and grandfather, the arresting notes said. Parselmouths, I mean. Moreover, his uncle complained of two missing family treasures-the ring that vanished the night of the Riddles’ murders, and a locket that Merope took when she eloped. Which was said to have been made by Salazar Slytherin for his oldest daughter.”
He shook his head at the thought. “Tom might actually have been descended from Salazar…. One wonders what he felt when he finally met his illustrious family.”
Phineas smiled sourly. “I would say that Tom seemed to have expressed his feelings quite, ah, adequately.”
There was silence for a bit. Phineas decided it was time finally to mention the erumpent in their midst. “Then there’s that minor matter of the six Horcruxes.”
“Up to six,” Severus corrected. “Which is certainly… sobering. And may, as Horace thought, explain some aspects of Tom’s character.”
Phineas looked at him. “I think that it’s time to teach you that spell which I believe to be a Horcrux-detector. Unfortunately Dumbledore didn’t incant it loudly enough for me to make out the incantation. But here’s what I remember the wand movement to be.” He demonstrated a rather complex series of slow circling passes followed by a snap of the wrist, and Snape tried several times to copy it. Eventually Phineas had Snape position both of them so the portrait could watch Severus from the same angle as he’d seen the headmaster. Phineas made a minor correction, and Snape tried again.
“Horcrucem Revelo would be the obvious incantation,” mused Snape. His eyes narrowed, and he stared at the innocent teacup he was using as the focus object. He tried the spell again, and then again, the last time slightly changing the circling.
Phineas said sharply, “That-looks better. Closer. Why did you change that, Severus?”
Severus sat down abruptly, still staring at the cup. “Did you never invent spells, Phineas? I’m trying to - Muggles have a term, reinventing the wheel. Since we don’t know it precisely enough just to copy exactly, I’m trying to reinvent it. This spell seems to me to combines aspects of the Hominem Revelere, one of the Maleficam Revelere charms, and something else-a healer’s diagnostic, of all things, if I’m any judge. You said if it works it makes the Horcrux object glow briefly green?”
Phineas nodded, then realized Snape wasn’t looking at him and spoke, “Yes. And no, it was my grandson who was the inventor in the family; I never fiddled with that.”
“The hardest part is actually figuring out exactly what you need the spell to do. Exactly. Here, the crux, as it were, is defining what a Horcrux is….”
He pushed his chair back abruptly. “I need to check some references.”
Eventually he reappeared back in the tiny bedroom, his arms still filled with books. “Watch me one more time,” he demanded, “then I’m going to try this at the Gaunt hovel.”
Phineas raised a brow at that. “Ah. Yes, the level of protection you described certainly sounded suggestive.”
*
Phineas woke to the crack of Apparition. It was the dead of night, but Phineas had no clue as to the time. Snape cast a lumos, said briefly, “It worked, eventually. There’s a Horcrux under the floorboards, as we suspected. But I’ve a further idea.”
He disappeared downstairs to his library before Phineas could remind him he was taking the boy in the morning and should get some sleep. Well, if Snape wanted to spend another day on Pepper-Up, Phineas would trust him to know his limits.
*
The portrait was woken by another Apparition around dawn two mornings later. Snape was swaying, hollow-eyed, and triumphant. “It works!” he proclaimed, holding something aloft for Phineas’s admiration.
Phineas regarded it with disfavor. He had never liked being woken when alive, even for good reason, and saw no reason to let death and paint mellow him in that regard. “Indeed it does-for the purchase of trifles. That is a Knut, Severus. No doubt it’s a wildly exciting object to one reared in poverty, but…”
Snape laughed, tossed it on the table, and collapsed on the bed, his feet dangling off uncomfortably. “I took the basic idea from the various Dark Detectors. Told you Maleficam Revelere was a part of the original spell. Much easier to adapt existing charms than to create fresh, but still….” He shut his eyes and yawned.
“Merlin’s beard, at least get those boots off! And what does your last Knut do?”
The question appeared to rouse the man more than did the admonition, but when he sat up to answer he did start to wrestle with a boot (by hand, but then the young wizard looked that exhausted). He said, “It vibrates. If it gets within twenty-one feet, three by seven, see, of a Horcrux, it vibrates, and it vibrates more the closer it gets. Do wizard kids play that game “Hotter colder” too…? Course, couldn’t test too close….” Severus dropped the boot and his eyes closed briefly, then he shook himself and opened them again. He stared at his other boot as though trying to remember what it was, and then managed to tug it off as well. “Don’t have Harry today, Phineas, do I…?”
“No, today you’d reserved for shopping.” Phineas sighed in resignation; he had signed on as a conspirator to see that a competent job was made of destroying the Dark Lord, not as social secretary and nursemaid to some overdriven young wizard. A Merlin-be-damned half-blood at that, and no blood or concern of the Blacks!
Though the legends said Merlin had been a half-blood too.
Phineas growled, “Turn the clock so I can see it, and I’ll wake you at one-thirty, Severus. That should give you enough time for Diagon and Knockturn. Sleep, for Merlin’s sake!”
*
A black shadow in the darkness prowled silently around the half-ruined hovel, re-checking Riddle’s wards’ perimeter. Satisfied finally, Severus cast his own ward to block any light and sound from reaching the lane. Then he moved into position outside the broken door.
“Horcrucem Revelo!”
The green glow oozed up from beneath the rotting floorboards. Severus focused on the thought that that was his soul and cast. “Avada kedavra!”
He trembled a little as the green light flashed. The floorboards splintered, but the glow didn’t so much as flicker. Severus frowned, disappointed. Either the rotting floorboards were still solid enough to block the curse, or he couldn’t aim well enough at the unseen object, or the killing curse simply didn’t work to destroy a soul fragment housed in a (presumably) inanimate object.
Severus would have relished blasting the bastard’s soul out of existence. But plan B it would have to be. He reached in his left pocket, pulled out the pouch of sea salt, and started walking a sunwise circle, muttering the protective incantation.
The only other time Severus had ever used this curse, he hadn’t taken such precautions; he’d restrained the flame-monsters only with his wand. But then, back when Snape had used this spell on the book that had been Lucius’s fellowship gift, he hadn’t cared all that much if he were destroyed along with it.
This time he couldn’t take foolish chances; he owed protection to a boy.
Severus closed the circle, and it flared up silver around the shack. He placed himself a careful distance behind it. Then he recast the Revelere, braced himself, and aimed at the renewed green light. “Igne perde!”
Fiery serpents exploded from the center of the green haze. They writhed and hissed and snapped at each other, starting to devour the rotting floorboards and what lay hidden beneath them. Severus automatically retreated a few paces from the inferno.
But then another form bloomed suddenly from the green glow, a human one, with hair as bright as the flames engulfing her. She had time only for one screamed word: “Sev!”
Then she was gone in a blaze of green and red-gold even as he jerked forward in response. The burning monsters raced away from her afterimage to feast happily on the shack’s dry walls and roof. And he knew it could not have been her, not really.
It could not have.
“That wasn’t you,” Severus whispered, fighting the urge to just… step across the immaterial silver barrier and join her. “It wasn’t. You were already dead.”
He stumbled forward another step, dangerously closer to his salt line. He explained quietly, reasonably, to the air empty of her form, to the flame-creatures whirling so beautifully before him, “It wasn’t you in there. You’re dead.”
His hand reached out anyway.
But the boy was alive, and the boy had to be protected.
Sev shut his eyes tightly against the brilliant roar of the flames.
Some time later he realized that the world had become black again instead of flame-colored, and very, very quiet. There weren’t even the little popping and settling noises one would hear in the aftermath of a natural conflagration.
He wiped his face mechanically. The plan. He had a plan. He had to finish here.
He picked up his wand and checked the wards keeping the Muggles away. Yes, they had been physically anchored, and had collapsed when the shack was destroyed.
Numbly, he Accioed some fallen branches and transfigured them. Minerva would have taken points for his sloppiness, but all he needed was an empty shell. To be eaten by the fire.
He cast the Incendius almost absently. When he was sure the fire had caught properly, he cancelled his masking ward. Then, finally, he could fade back into the trees to wait until the Muggles noticed, and to keep watch over whether he’d need to intervene to keep the fire from spreading too badly in the woods...
He thought maybe he was cold now, in the dark.
Most of his mind was entirely elsewhere as he waited.
He had to tell the boy the truth. That he had killed her.
*
A/N:
Thanks to oryx_leucoryx, ioanna_ioananna and lynn_waterfall and all the people over on Snapedom for helping me out with Slughorn, what he knew when, and his attitude towards Voldemort’s followers. Sorry if you don’t like what I made of it!
Sluggy’s remorse in HBP seemed totally incommensurate with his actual offense. I mean, all he did with Tom was exactly what Albus later did with Harry: gave a Sixth Year boy he favored a very short overview of Horcruxes, which are officially a banned subject at Hogwarts. And yes, it turns out that Tom decided to make practical use of the knowledge (which we all hope Harry won’t), but given Tom’s tastes and talents, the reader is fully confident that Tom would have tracked down the knowledge independently anyhow. (A way to make murder magically profitable as well as just fun-cool! It’s not just Dumbles who thinks Horcruxes would appeal more than the PS to Tommy.) Indeed, Tom did track down the knowledge independently anyhow-Slughorn gave him nothing practical. So why Sluggy’s over-the-top reluctance to let the truth come out, particularly to the man who already was sure of it?
Harry, of course, thought Slughorn was just afraid to take sides openly against Voldemort by spilling the number. And of course Slughorn was. But if that had really been the only thing going on, if Horace thought Tom so wanted that magic number seven kept secret that he’d kill Horace in revenge for telling it, then really Riddle should have killed him prophylactically to conceal it. “Two people can keep a secret, if one of them is dead,” after all. Oh, right, because Riddle’s so reluctant to kill to eliminate a potential threat-like the brave Gryffindors, he only uses violence in revenge. Right.
So if it was that big a deal, Slughorn should have “disappeared” either over Tom’s first summer out of Hogwarts or upon “Lord Voldemort’s” first appearance in Britain, well before Sluggy might have been on guard against any Death Eaters. The fact that he didn’t, means Tom’s not that worried about it-probably too vain to think it would do his enemies any good, or maybe he thinks he’ll wow them with the awesomeness of his evil.
Anyone have a better incantation for Fiendfyre? It’s a pity I know no Latin.
To be honest, when I wrote this last bit, and really thought how about how Riddle’s soul piece (fighting for its “life”) might use the properties of the suicide stone, I actually ended up feeling a little sorry for canon!Dumbles. I even wondered if maybe he hadn’t been fool enough to try deliberately to invoke Ariana….