Fic: LONG -- Out of His Mind, Snape/Harry, Adult
Finally found the time to post this.
Title: Out Of His Mind
Author: captain_tulip, me.
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Snape/Harry
Warnings: Dubious consent, offensive language, moral ambiguity, mindfuckery and allusions to character death.
Summary: A desperate Order begins to suspect Voldemort of spying on them through Harry's mind, and the only person they can think of to help them isn't too happy about being enlisted.
A/N: Written for this year's snarry_games for Team Wartime. Espionage and angst. Beta'd by the incomparable auctasinistra. Thanks also to smarmypenguin. Original post here.
* * * * *
one
The sound of the legs of a chair being scraped across the ground fills the stone cell, and the various members of the Order give a collective wince. It is freezing cold but the room with "HOLDING AREA" blazoned across the walls still manages to feel stuffy -- thick with melancholy and sticky breath and a thousand memories. Potter is absent, as usual, but seeing as how they've taken to discussing him at the meetings, it's not as demoralizing as it was when it started. They all know he's safe wandering the winding hallways of Azkaban prison, anyway, as ironic as that seems -- they're all too tired for irony, now. Since the Great Escape there isn't a single Death Eater left in the whole place, save for the dead ones left rotting on the stone. They've all been moved along now.
The meeting starts late. Everyone filters slowly in, collapsing onto chairs and staring bleakly into their own little distances. Lupin and Tonks are the last in, their clothing mussed and their lips pink and bruising. Someone would have leered at them in the early years, but no one has the energy now.
"Maybe he has Tourettes," Hermione offers to the room, trying to fill up the silence.
Ron scowls. "What's trets?"
"Tourettes is an inherited neurological disorder defined as part of a spectrum of tic disorders, which include transient and chronic tics," Hermione recites. She gets fewer stares than she would have, once upon a time. Oliver Wood doesn't even look up.
Kingsley shakes his head. "We would have seen it when he was younger."
The room lapses into silence again. Hermione purses her lips.
"What happened to the roll?" she asks.
"Too fucking depressing," Fred mutters and there is general assent. Up until a few months ago they were still putting out the same number of chairs as they had in the early years, until they realised there were more empty seats than filled ones and they were having to shout at one another across the room, constantly reminded of every loss and every sorrow they had ever encountered.
"Someone oughta work on them blood stains," Mundungus says, gesturing at the crimson covered walls.
"They don't come off," Tonks replies, her eyes slowly travelling up and down the brown mess. "We've tried everything."
"Didn't think Dementors dealt with blood," Fred mutters.
"They don't," Terry Boot replies. "The people who brought the prisoners to the Death Eaters did, though -- Government officials and whatnot. Beating them and torturing them before giving them to the Dementors -- it was all really gruesome stuff. Didn't you study it your final year?"
"Buggered off, didn't I?" Fred snaps and Boot pales.
"Right. Of course. My mistake."
Neville stares idly at his thumb. "I think it's broken," he mutters to himself. "Anyone know when Professor McGonagall's getting here?"
"One step ahead of you, as always, Mr Longbottom," a croaky voice says wryly and Neville jerks his head up to see McGonagall making her entrance, carefully spelling the heavy bolted door across behind her. Neville smiles as she walks in slowly, her left hand still shaking uncontrollably. She takes a few shuddering breaths as she makes her way across the room, and with everyone's eyes on her she seats herself in the remaining chair, which -- not by accident -- it the biggest and most prominent one there. She closes her eyes, looking very old, very tired and somewhat pained.
"Are you all right, Professor?" Hermione asks, concerned.
"Fine, thank you," McGonagall says stiffly.
"Is something the matter, then?" Neville asks.
Every person in the room stares at McGonagall -- the lines on her ragged face, her velvet hat and her watery eyes, her shaking hands and her stiff posture -- waiting for the answer. No news is good news, after all, and the way McGonagall slowly takes off her gloves and folds them in her lap with a sense of forced calm suggests that there is, indeed, news.
No one wants to push for it, though. They sit quietly.
No one breathes.
No one shuffles.
No one dares to even blink.
McGonagall sighs and opens her mouth and the whole room leans forward a little, seeming to strain toward her lips.
"There is," she says with a piercing gaze, "a spy in our midst." She says it without falter, and the room freezes.
"What?" Ron says stupidly and Hermione glares at him out of the corner of her eye.
"Someone," McGonagall says, looking up and over the eyes of everyone in the room, "has carefully and calculatedly been feeding all of our most private information to the other side. Without fail."
"Impossible!" Mundungus says, doing his best to look appropriately scandalized and innocent.
"How do you know this?" Melinda Bobbin demands.
"McLaggen and I were just out -- questioning Alecto Carrow," Moody growls, sharing a dark look with McLaggen. "Certainly knew a damn lot more than I'd like scum of his sort to know."
McGonagall nods. "They know of all the plans we have made within the last few months."
Collective gasps go around the room. Hestia Jones's chin wobbles.
"It was no accident that the Death Eaters anticipated our attack on their camp outside of Hogsmeade," McGonagall says steadily. "Nor did they happen upon George Weasley and Alicia Spinnet as we had at first surmised."
Fred's face pales and his jaw starts to tighten.
"They know of our past actions and they know exactly what we know. They know about relationships between us -- Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks, for example."
Lupin shifts in his chair and casts a terrified look at Tonks.
"Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley also."
"But--!" Ron begins to splutter and Hermione silences him with a tense hand on his thigh.
"Whatever the possibilities, whatever the chances, however much you wish this not to be so -- it is so," McGonagall says. "And now we must decide what to do. Knowing, of course, that the Dark Lord may as well be sitting in the chair next to me as we discuss it."
There is dead silence.
"I don't think any of this lot did it, Professor," Fred says finally, nodding at the people surrounding him.
McGonagall clears her throat. "It is not necessarily someone in this room."
Padma Patil scrunches up her nose. "Excuse me, Professor, but you just said--"
"I am well aware of what I have just said, thank you, Miss Patil," McGonagall says. "Let us think for a moment. Who knows every in and out and careful little detail of our lives who is not in this room?"
Lupin leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. "Harry Potter is not the Dark Lord's spy."
Luna gazes at Lupin with inappropriate interest and the rest of the Order swivels their attention from Lupin's statement back to McGonagall, who stiffens slightly. "Not what I was implying, Lupin. I would hope I am not that far gone yet."
"Then what are you implying, Professor?" Hermione asks, frustrated.
McGonagall takes a deep breath and looks, oddly, at Ginny, who nods her head in encouragement. Everyone looks at her in confusion and then back to McGonagall.
"I'm not in the habit of making outrageous accusations or pointing the finger. We do not need someone to blame, nor is there any point in isolating anyone because we are scared," McGonagall begins. She lifts a hand up to her perfectly neat bun and smoothes it, picking at imaginary stray hairs. "It is necessary, though, in times like these to consider a wide range of possibilities," she continues. " 'It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it, after all.'"
A few gazes drift slowly over to Hermione. "Aristotle," she murmurs and McGonagall nods curtly.
"The thought I am about to present to you will be difficult -- perhaps, nearly impossible to entertain, but I must ask you not to reject it immediately. We are in the middle of a war. It is a different reality now. Things will happen that were not anticipated or desired. Sometimes, the luck is on your side. On other occasions, it is not."
"You can say that again," Bill mumbles and there are a few bitter chuckles.
"This particular instance has nothing to do with luck or chance. It is something that we feared would happen, and something we took considerable steps to avoid. I am afraid it may have happened nonetheless." McGonagall suddenly seems reluctant to continue.
"Go on, Professor," Ginny whispers.
A hush falls upon the room as McGonagall prepares for her final blow. No one dares pretend they already know what she is about to say, nor does anyone look away from the parched lips and wrinkled skin for even a moment.
"It is possible," McGonagall declares, "that Potter's mind is being possessed by the Dark Lord."
two
Ron grunts softly, his breath misting over Hermione's face before dissipating into the darkness.
"Could you...?" Hermione whispers.
"I don't--" Ron breaks off with an angry hiss. He bucks his hips and Hermione winces.
"Sorry, it's just -- it's freezing in here," she says into his ear, wrapping her numbing arms around him and pulling him tighter against her chest.
"It is Azkaban," he murmurs back, pausing a moment as a shiver shudders down his spine. They are don't speak for a while and all that can be heard in the roaring silence is the squeaking of the bed and the slick sound of flesh on flesh.
Hermione bites her lip. "Do you feel bad?"
"Fucking awful."
"Then why...?"
"Because I love you," he says, in a frustrated tone of voice, falling off her inelegantly. "What bloke doesn't want to say 'I love you' in the closest way he knows how?"
Hermione sits up, wrapping the blanket around her chest. "You don't have to have sex with me just to show me that you love me, Ronald," she says stiffly.
"Yeah, but I want to," Ron protests. "I don't know if I'll -- y'know, if I'll ever be able to."
Hermione sighs. "I wouldn't be surprised. What with all we've been through."
"Pretty fucking depressing that after all we've been through I don't even get this to cheer up these bloody awful days." He buries his face in his pillow and Hermione frowns.
"Are they so awful?" She knows she shouldn't push Ron like this.
"We living in a prison in the middle of a war," Ron deadpans.
"It's not a prison anymore..."
"It still feels like a fucking prison. And it feels like you're only let out to get killed, so freedom isn't all that flash either..."
Hermione doesn't think she can reply to that, so she stays silent a moment. "Do you think it's true?" she asks softly.
"What?"
"About Harry."
The watch on Ron's wrists suddenly starts beeping like mad. "Oh, for Christ's sake," Ron grumbles, jerking up, "what the hell is he up to now?"
Hermione lies down, putting her hands gently behind her head. "He seems to enjoy getting lost, these days."
"He's left the fucking vicinity again. For Merlin's sake," Ron says, pulling himself out of the flimsy bed, "I'm going to have to follow him--"
"I know."
"--I don't even know how he gets past all the wards," Ron continues, pulling his trousers and socks on roughly. "This tracking gizmo is a bloody great invention, Hermione, but it's a bloody pain in the arse too--"
"Why, thank you, Ronald."
"--cause now I have to heave myself over to whatever fucking hell-hole he winds up in this time -- some bloody church or playground or something -- to drag him back. Don't see why we don't just keep him tied up, myself. It'd certainly solve a hell of a lot of problems--"
"Just -- make sure you come back, okay?" Hermione interrupts anxiously.
Ron suddenly freezes, his boot hanging off his foot. "Now why would you go and say a thing like that?"
Hermione blinks. "Because I love you and want you to come home."
"Now you've just bloody well gone and bollixed it all up, haven't you? You've -- you've jinxed it."
"I haven't. I've given you luck," Hermione protest.
"Oh," Ron says, slightly placated. "Well, alright then," he says, going back to tying up his shoes and pulling on his jumper.
"Kiss?" she asks when he's done, offering her cheek. Ron grabs his wand, then leans down and kisses her softly on the lips.
"I love you. Remember that. No matter what, yeah?"
Hermione nods her head jerkily. "No matter what," she agrees.
"I'll be back soon."
Hermione nods again.
"Lead me," Ron says to his wristwatch, and with a shudder he's off.
three
Ron stumbles a little as his feet hit the ground with a splash, plunging into icy water. He sucks in a breath, anxiously trying to adjust his eyes to the dark light. The cold wind whips at his ears and he can hear trees rustling in the background -- not a good sign. He straightens up and winces, trying to fix his eyes on something.
It takes him a moment to realise he is in a graveyard.
"Harry?" Ron calls, his voice wavering slightly. He digs his hand into his pocket and pulls out his wand, his hand sweaty despite the cold. The moon is glittering down from the sky amidst the darkening clouds and the tombstones are like dominating figures leaning over him in the gloom. He suddenly notices a dark figure moving deeper and deeper into the mist and he wraps his arms around himself. "What are you doing?" he shouts. He can see a shudder go down Harry's back and he watches as Harry's fists tighten. He swallows nervously. "There's nothing you can do here," he says loudly, pulling himself through the swirling, filthy water. "Just another flood, is all."
Harry lets out a short puff that is halfway between amusement and despair, staring off at some point in the distance. "Dad's grave just went below."
Ron takes one last sluggish step through the water, now standing directly behind Harry. "What?"
"His grave. The water just -- can you see that? It's covered it completely."
Ron shakes his head. "Listen, let's just get out of here. It's not right for you to be here when this is happening--"
"I -- I could stop it."
Ron stares at the back of Harry's head. He rubs his hands roughly across his freckled face. "Right," he says wearily. "Because you're special, yeah?"
The air hangs thick and heavy between them before Harry starts to tread away, into the steadily flowing water.
Ron glares at his retreating back, refusing to trudge after him. "Buggered if I can remember the last time I had a good sleep," he mutters to himself. "The last time I had a proper meal, the last time I had a proper fuck -- and I'm standing here, freezing my balls off, in the middle of a flooded graveyard with my best mate who's gone completely bonkers wondering," he raises his voice, "what the hell I'm pissing around for!"
Harry spins around in the mud, sending two perfectly cascading waves around him, and stares at Ron, the whites of his eyes lit up by the cracking bolts of electricity in the sky.
"You don't need to be here."
"I came here to see if you--"
"I didn't ask you to follow me," Harry snaps.
Ron takes a deep breath. "Come on, mate," he says plaintively, briskly rubbing his arms. "Let's go home. You need sleep."
"Sleep, eat, wallow -- that's all any of us seem to do anymore! Why aren't we out doing something?! You'd think we'd be frantic, but I guess the power of love doesn't extend to drafting up plans," Harry says bitterly.
Ron doesn't know how to respond. He shivers uncontrollably and shifts, the freezing water seeping into his shoes and socks. "We have plans," he says, awkwardly.
Harry spins around again, choosing not to reply.
"Come on," Ron repeats again, reaching forward and slipping his hand into Harry's. Harry doesn't move or make any noise of protest and Ron takes this as consent. He concentrates hard on the distance between them and the prison, on the stone walls and the wards, letting his magical signature slip and slide around the intricate layers and details and potential dangers, letting it identify him and check his intentions, before finally he is able to apparate the two back into Azkaban.
He carefully lets go of Harry hand and they stand in the stony entrance chamber, staring at each other. Harry is breathing heavily, his hair and clothing drenched with rain. He rakes his eyes over Ron's body before laughing softly. "Home sweet home!" he says, flinging his arms out.
Ron blinks, then laughs awkwardly. "Yeah," he agrees. He scuffs his foot on the ground, staring at his toe poking out the end of his shoe, then looks back up at Harry. "Don't keep running out on us like that, you hear?" he says lowly.
The smile dissolves from Harry's face.
"What if something happened to you? What if there was an attack? You're safe within these walls, mate, but as soon as you get out into the real world--"
"I know that," Harry snaps. "I'm not stupid."
Ron takes a deep breath and nods slowly. "Right."
The two stand facing each other for a moment. "Well, I'm going to go and get some sleep, which everyone seems to find so damn important around here. Night," he says abruptly, turning around and slipping through the door.
"It's not true, you know," Ron calls to his retreating back. "What you said about the plans. We do have some."
Harry takes a step back and pokes his head through the door. "Oh, really?" His eyes sparkle with something akin to a cruel sort of playfulness. "And what are they?"
"Well," Ron says, frowning as he tries to think of an example. "We had reports that a large party of Death Eaters had taken camp in the church outside of Beauxbatons, and it was confirmed yesterday. We're going to wizardbomb it."
Harry cocks his head to the side. "Are you?" he asks in an odd voice.
"Er, yeah."
"And what if they're not there? When you, er, wizard bomb this place?"
"Oh, they're there, Harry," Ron assures him. "Trust me. This'll take a hell of a lot off our minds, just you wait and see."
Harry turns around. "Indeed," he says again, before disappearing through the doorway once more.
four
The clock ticks heavily in the background.
No one speaks.
"I feel like a traitor," Neville says glumly.
"Nonsense, Longbottom," McGonagall snaps, before slipping into silence again.
Someone shifts in their chair and it squeaks. There is a shuffle of feet and someone else uncrosses their legs. Lupin lets out a maudlin sigh and Tonks gazes across the circle at him sympathetically.
"Someone will have to say something eventually," Kingsley supplies.
"How astute of you," Hermione quips, crossing her arms.
Arthur sighs. "There's no use arguing--"
"Well, there's no use us all sitting around like a bunch of twats, either," Fred snaps.
No one responds. George is dead and every word Fred speaks reminds them of it.
"He called me 'Weasley' the other day," Ron says eventually.
Bill rolls his eyes. "And there's no way You-Know-Who would call you 'Ron'--"
"--there's no way Harry would call me Weasley," Ron snaps back.
"You-Know-Who called Harry 'Harry' in the Chamber of Secrets," Ginny murmurs. Everyone looks at her with sympathetic eyes, images of a young girl trapped and terrified in a snake pit filtering through their minds. "He was Tom then, though."
There is a general ripple of unease at the familiarity with which Tom slips from Ginny's lips, but she doesn't seem to notice. Her eyes are locked on a stone in the corner.
"Voldemort called him 'Potter' when we saw him at the Department of Mysteries," Hermione says.
"So basically this whole name thing means nothing," Fred mutters.
There is a murmur of accord.
"Harry might be trying to defamiliarize -- to disassociate with everyone," Lupin says quietly. "One of his main fears has always been that someone will hurt his friends and family in order to get to him. Maybe he's trying to push everyone away so that Voldemort won't go after them."
"What about our private information being leaked? The swings of behaviour?" McGonagall asks severely.
"The last can be attributed to hormones," Moody grunts from his corner.
"He's twenty-two," McGonagall snaps, and then slips back into silence.
"I asked him if he's been having blackouts," Ginny says. "You know, like I did when I--"
"Yes, yes," Moody interrupts. "And?"
Ginny swallows, then frowns. "He looked at me in this completely terrified way and made this weird straining noise. He nodded again and again and then he looked like he was about to say something and then this weird change came over him. He suddenly looked calm and -- and almost pleasant. He said that he was sorry everyone was getting afraid, but he'd just been having some trouble sleeping lately. Then he..."
"Yes?"
"He came over and hugged me. It was sort of--" She looks uncomfortable. "It was sort of romantic."
A few thin smiles appear. Ron looks uncomfortable.
"I was strung out at the time and started -- y'know, crying and stuff. He just kept rubbing my back and saying calmly, 'Everything must converge, Gin. It's only a matter of time. Everything must converge. It'll be over soon.'"
"Converge?" Moody asks sharply. "You're sure he said converge?"
Ginny nods and sniffs.
"How odd," Lupin says softly. "It still doesn't mean he's being possessed--"
"The blackouts, though?" Ginny demands. "The sudden change? That's not Harry," she insists. "That's not him."
"Yes, but is it Voldemort, necessarily?" Hermione says, raising a skeptical eyebrow. "It would be perfectly understandable for Harry's personality to go through changes during the war as it adapts to the situations and stress around him."
"Harry has been acting awful strange lately," Hestia murmurs with a frown.
"Yeh -- smacking his head and the like," McLaggen adds eagerly.
"Harry's Occlumency skills are extremely poor," McGonagall states. "And the Dark Lord has talents in this area possibly greater than the world has ever seen. He has tried to insinuate himself inside Potter's head before -- it would be natural for him to attempt it again, especially at this stage."
"It doesn't mean that all this time Harry has really been You-Know-Who," Ginny explains carefully, "just that sometimes the Dark Lord had control of his mind and his actions and stuff. It explains how the Death Eaters got hold of all our plans and why Harry is so exhausted all of the time -- his sudden mood swings, his odd behaviour -- plus the reason he doesn't want to involve himself with us so much. I remember having this sort of subconscious inkling that I shouldn't involve myself with too many other people when it happened to me."
The room lapses into silence as they process the information.
"How long has this been going on for?" Zacharias Smith asks.
"If it is happening, anywhere from a month to three," McGonagall replies shortly.
"How did this happen?" Bill demands. "I thought Harry was getting Occlumency lessons, or something?"
"They stopped at the end of Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts." McGonagall's eyes are hard. "The Dark Lord is a powerful enemy," she adds and Moody nods and mutters vociferous agreement.
"So," Neville says, a note of desperation creeping into his voice, "what do we do now?"
All eyes swivel to McGonagall.
"Mr Longbottom," she says, her lips thinning, "has kindly brought us to our next topic." There is a general murmur of conversation. "But let us have a break for half an hour, or so." She sighs deeply. "I'm afraid I am getting frail in my old age."
five
The thick globs of paint glimmer softly in the firelight, surrounded by the gold of the frame that has dulled and tarnished. At the time of the painting, it had seemed unnatural and eerie, even to McGonagall herself, but now she is glad of his stillness. His unmoving eyes, his unchanged expression. His still-fresh robes, his modest beard. She couldn't imagine standing in front of a moving Albus again, in this state. In this world. In her failure.
"My humblest apologies," she whispers.
His eyes do not dance. His painted lips do not quirk. Nor does the paint shift to allow a "Now, now, Minerva. There's no need to apologise. I'm the one who forgot you prefer truffles to praline crunches..."
She can feel her chin trembling slightly. "I am -- unsure of what my next action should be."
She starts when his left eye twinkles, but her heart settles down again when she realises it is just the embers crackling up in the fire.
"You're not here to help. The Order is falling apart --" She purses her lips to prevent anything as imprudent as a gasp to escape. She lifts her chin up to stare him straight in his glassy eyes. "V-voldemort could be in Potter's mind."
The words hang in the air, shriveling and blackening until they perch thick and heavy on the edges of the portrait. She can't tell if saying the words has made it more real, or more like a sick fantasy dirtying the corners of her mind.
"You-Know-Who is such a superb Occlumens and Harry so weak -- it would be so simple for the Dark Lord to infiltrate his mind." McGonagall takes a shuddering breath. "We've tried to ascertain, but our Legilimency skills are so inferior compared to -- compared to his, there's no way we could ever know for sure..."
Dumbledore's face stays hard and displeased.
"I'm afraid we are in dire need of you, Headmaster," McGonagall says quietly, raising a shaking hand to her brow. "I don't believe there has been a child born with your seemingly infinite wisdom for hundreds of years. For Merlin's sake, even someone with Severus's aptitude would do..."
Dumbledore doesn't blush or pull a silly face or mention that no child is born with infinite wisdom. Something in his cold stare makes McGonagall's mind tick over.
"Severus," she says again.
Dumbledore makes no move to dissuade her or tell her off.
"Severus Snape." She can tell there is a stupid look on her face but there's nothing she can do to wipe it off. "But of course." She stares up at Dumbledore with delight. "You used to call him your saviour." She isn't interested in going into any irony carried within that memory. "Perhaps," she says, "he can be our saviour too?"
Dumbledore would nod with approval, she knows, if he could.
six
Snape is sitting on a wooden back chair, his head in his hands. Every so often they turn into fists at his ears and his knuckles go white, and he lets out an enraged roar, before slipping into silence again. He hasn't moved from the chair for over an hour but no one is brave enough to do anything about it. McGonagall is the only one in the tiny room with him; the rest of the Order stand crowded around the small window outside.
"Severus," McGonagall finally begins in a low voice, but before she can continue, Snape stands, picks up the chair and hurls it at the wall. The wood splinters into a million pieces and the impact sends shudders through the beams of the structure.
McGonagall flinches.
"You had -- nothing. Nothing," Snape thunders. "I was it. I was all you had."
McGonagall adjusts her hat, but doesn't trust herself to speak.
"My priceless position in the inner circle of the Dark Lord himself had all but ensured your victory." Snape looks like he doesn't know whether he wants to laugh or to rip McGonagall's throat out. The crazed look in his eyes suggests the latter and McGonagall takes a step backwards. "Everything was resting on my being there and everything had been sacrificed to ensure my place. Albus Dumbledore gave his life to this effort and now his sacrifice has been made worthless because of your inadequacies as a leader and as a thinker. You don't even understand what you've done, you insufferable cunt--"
"I will not be spoken to in such a way, Snape!" McGonagall snaps, without thinking.
"Potter," Snape continues on without so much as a blink, "is a mediocre wizard at the best of times -- certainly nothing compared to the sickening power the Dark Lord can summon on a whim," Snape spits, his thin lips slick and frothy. "You do not have the numbers, you do not have the talent, you don't have the will or resolve or perseverance--" Snape breaks off to let out another enraged roar that makes him seem more animal than man. "You had absolutely no chance of winning except for me! I was the spy! I was the secret weapon! I was the worm in the apple, I was the needle in the haystack, I was the ticking bomb in the crowded hall -- I was your LIFE!"
McGonagall considers herself a strong woman but she has begun to shake without shame. There is something about Snape -- usually so exquisitely calm and controlled -- frothing, screaming and sweating, the whites of his eyes and the points of his teeth shining ferociously, that is so incomparably terrifying.
Snape shakes his head and suddenly seems to shrink in on himself, shaking his head back and forth, back and forth like an abused child trying to deny what has happened.
"It takes so much out of you to spy," he says lowly. "I have given so much of myself for this war. There is nothing left except the need for it to be over -- and now it is." He looks up slowly and fixes his dark beady eyes on McGonagall. "And you don't even realise." He laughs softly. "You old bat," he says flatly.
The former Head of Gryffindor fingers the wand in her hand, rolling it between her fingers. There must be something she can do. Her mind is blank. She feels suddenly, crushingly, like an old woman.
Snape cocks his head to the side, examining her carefully. "Can you feel the walls closing in around you?" he hisses, taking a predatory step towards her. "Can you hear the bodies being stacked up outside? Can you feel everything darkening, ending, converging?"
"It isn't over yet," McGonagall says, in an effort to sound stern.
"Oh, but it is. Everything is falling in around you," Snape says, his voice taking on mocking quality, "and you haven't even realised yet."
McGonagall swallows. "I have," she says, her voice cracking.
Snape sucks in a breath, clenching his teeth and his fists. "Then," he says, "what possible reason could you have to throw away your last spark of a chance?"
"You-Know-Who has invaded Potter's mind."
Snape freezes and McGonagall feels like the whole world is holding its breath.
"What?"
"It's the only possible explanation."
Snape continues staring at her. McGonagall keeps her eyes as hard as possible.
"The only possible explanation?" Snape repeats. McGonagall nods and Snape's mouth twists into a deformed smile. "You, madam, have gone completely insane. That is the only possible explanation."
"I will not be dismissed in such a way, young man," McGonagall says in a steely voice. "If you aren't prepared to listen to what I have to say, then you have permission to visit Potter yourself."
"Permission? How kind."
"It is the reason we chose to -- 'make all of Albus's sacrifices worthless' by inviting you here, after all," McGonagall says acidly.
"I don't quite remember being invited," Snape retorts. "I remember a snowy owl arriving right in the middle of a meeting of some of the most dangerous criminals in the world clearly identifying myself as their enemy--"
"What would you have had us do, Severus?" McGonagall snaps.
"What about Albus?
"Albus is dead, as well you know--"
Snape snarls. "The portraits, woman!"
"There are no moving portraits of Albus."
A beat.
"What?!"
"He had none commissioned and in his will it is clearly stated that he refuses permission to allow any to be done posthumously. He has told us," McGonagall says, her tone getting slightly sarcastic, "that death is the next great adventure, and to leave any part of himself behind would be like forgetting to pack something in your suitcase."
"You lot, you're all as bad as each other--"
"So you see, Severus, we do not have contact with anyone whose Legilimency skills outdo that of You-Know-Who."
Something like triumph flashes over Snape's face. "Except me."
McGonagall inclines her head. "Except you."
Snape flicks his head and scratches his chin, momentarily distracted from his anger by the idea. McGonagall tries not to hold her breath.
"All we ask," McGonagall says carefully, "is that you visit Potter and use Legilimency upon his mind to ascertain, once and for all, whether or not the Dark Lord is possessing him."
"And if he is?"
McGonagall steels herself. "We will take the appropriate action."
"And if he isn't?"
There is a long pause. "We will have lost a vital spy in their ranks and gained one in ours. For if it isn't Potter feeding the information to the Death Eaters--"
Snape waves his hand irritably. "I understood your meaning perfectly, thank you." He walks slowly across the room, his thumb and forefinger squeezing the top of his nose. He stops, his eyes closed. "There's no need for me to visit Potter."
"Has the Dark Lord already told you of his plans?"
Snape nods and McGonagall's jaw tightens. "I knew it wasn't Potter--"
"--and he made absolutely no mention of any plans to use Potter's mind as a vessel for espionage."
McGonagall opens and closes her mouth a few times. "And you're convinced the Dark Lord tells you everything, are you?"
Snape stiffens. "He does." He sneers. "Well, up until this particular moment in time."
"I see," McGonagall says witheringly. "I hadn't realised you were the Dark Lord's closest confidant--"
"Well, it wouldn't have been very helpful if I were only an underling, would it?" Snape snaps.
McGonagall gives a long-suffering sigh and fixes Snape with an intense glare. "You might as well see the boy now that you're here."
Snape stares at her incredulously. "Is that so? Was that your plan, then, to completely ruin every single thing I had tried to attain in my life and bring me down to so low a level that I no longer saw any option but to blindly obey you in your course of madness?"
McGonagall lets his words mull around the room awhile.
"More or less," she replies stiffly.
seven
"He's completely bonkers," Tonks whispers, shivering in the cold.
"He's not so bad," Lupin replies, moving closer to her. "He's had a tough life. And a particularly rough time of it lately."
"He'll probably kill Harry, y'know," Tonks says in a conspiratorial voice and Lupin snorts. "No, seriously. He'll just walk in there and blast his head off."
"Snape's not going to kill him, you silly girl," Lupin murmurs, wrapping his woolly arms around Tonks's small frame. "That's what I have to believe, anyway. Snape's our last chance on this one -- you understand that, yes?"
"Yeah, I get it."
"As soon as Harry goes, we're gone, too."
Tonks nods and pulls Lupin closer. "We might be gone anyway," she whispers. Lupin looks down at her with a frown.
"What do you mean?" he asks softly.
She shakes her head and buries it into his neck. "I always think about -- about how much it would totally suck if our side won but I still managed to get myself killed, y'know?"
Lupin puts his hand softly under her chin and lifts her up to look him in the eyes. "Would you rather survive in Voldemort's reign?" he murmurs.
"If you were there, maybe," she says back, fluttering her long eyelashes.
"Silly girl," Lupin repeats into her ear.
"But I feel like -- like it's going to happen, y'know? Like my days are numbered."
"Don't say that," Lupin whispers urgently. "Don't you ever say that."
Tonks takes a shuddering breath against Lupin's scratchy jersey.
"Hey. Hey," Lupin says, bringing Tonks's face back up again. "You won't die as long as I'm around. Yes?"
Tonks sniffs, her doey eyes flicking tears collected in her eyelashes. "Yes," she whispers back and clutches Lupin as hard as she can.
* * * * *
Part Two
Title: Out Of His Mind
Author: captain_tulip, me.
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Snape/Harry
Warnings: Dubious consent, offensive language, moral ambiguity, mindfuckery and allusions to character death.
Summary: A desperate Order begins to suspect Voldemort of spying on them through Harry's mind, and the only person they can think of to help them isn't too happy about being enlisted.
A/N: Written for this year's snarry_games for Team Wartime. Espionage and angst. Beta'd by the incomparable auctasinistra. Thanks also to smarmypenguin. Original post here.
* * * * *
one
The sound of the legs of a chair being scraped across the ground fills the stone cell, and the various members of the Order give a collective wince. It is freezing cold but the room with "HOLDING AREA" blazoned across the walls still manages to feel stuffy -- thick with melancholy and sticky breath and a thousand memories. Potter is absent, as usual, but seeing as how they've taken to discussing him at the meetings, it's not as demoralizing as it was when it started. They all know he's safe wandering the winding hallways of Azkaban prison, anyway, as ironic as that seems -- they're all too tired for irony, now. Since the Great Escape there isn't a single Death Eater left in the whole place, save for the dead ones left rotting on the stone. They've all been moved along now.
The meeting starts late. Everyone filters slowly in, collapsing onto chairs and staring bleakly into their own little distances. Lupin and Tonks are the last in, their clothing mussed and their lips pink and bruising. Someone would have leered at them in the early years, but no one has the energy now.
"Maybe he has Tourettes," Hermione offers to the room, trying to fill up the silence.
Ron scowls. "What's trets?"
"Tourettes is an inherited neurological disorder defined as part of a spectrum of tic disorders, which include transient and chronic tics," Hermione recites. She gets fewer stares than she would have, once upon a time. Oliver Wood doesn't even look up.
Kingsley shakes his head. "We would have seen it when he was younger."
The room lapses into silence again. Hermione purses her lips.
"What happened to the roll?" she asks.
"Too fucking depressing," Fred mutters and there is general assent. Up until a few months ago they were still putting out the same number of chairs as they had in the early years, until they realised there were more empty seats than filled ones and they were having to shout at one another across the room, constantly reminded of every loss and every sorrow they had ever encountered.
"Someone oughta work on them blood stains," Mundungus says, gesturing at the crimson covered walls.
"They don't come off," Tonks replies, her eyes slowly travelling up and down the brown mess. "We've tried everything."
"Didn't think Dementors dealt with blood," Fred mutters.
"They don't," Terry Boot replies. "The people who brought the prisoners to the Death Eaters did, though -- Government officials and whatnot. Beating them and torturing them before giving them to the Dementors -- it was all really gruesome stuff. Didn't you study it your final year?"
"Buggered off, didn't I?" Fred snaps and Boot pales.
"Right. Of course. My mistake."
Neville stares idly at his thumb. "I think it's broken," he mutters to himself. "Anyone know when Professor McGonagall's getting here?"
"One step ahead of you, as always, Mr Longbottom," a croaky voice says wryly and Neville jerks his head up to see McGonagall making her entrance, carefully spelling the heavy bolted door across behind her. Neville smiles as she walks in slowly, her left hand still shaking uncontrollably. She takes a few shuddering breaths as she makes her way across the room, and with everyone's eyes on her she seats herself in the remaining chair, which -- not by accident -- it the biggest and most prominent one there. She closes her eyes, looking very old, very tired and somewhat pained.
"Are you all right, Professor?" Hermione asks, concerned.
"Fine, thank you," McGonagall says stiffly.
"Is something the matter, then?" Neville asks.
Every person in the room stares at McGonagall -- the lines on her ragged face, her velvet hat and her watery eyes, her shaking hands and her stiff posture -- waiting for the answer. No news is good news, after all, and the way McGonagall slowly takes off her gloves and folds them in her lap with a sense of forced calm suggests that there is, indeed, news.
No one wants to push for it, though. They sit quietly.
No one breathes.
No one shuffles.
No one dares to even blink.
McGonagall sighs and opens her mouth and the whole room leans forward a little, seeming to strain toward her lips.
"There is," she says with a piercing gaze, "a spy in our midst." She says it without falter, and the room freezes.
"What?" Ron says stupidly and Hermione glares at him out of the corner of her eye.
"Someone," McGonagall says, looking up and over the eyes of everyone in the room, "has carefully and calculatedly been feeding all of our most private information to the other side. Without fail."
"Impossible!" Mundungus says, doing his best to look appropriately scandalized and innocent.
"How do you know this?" Melinda Bobbin demands.
"McLaggen and I were just out -- questioning Alecto Carrow," Moody growls, sharing a dark look with McLaggen. "Certainly knew a damn lot more than I'd like scum of his sort to know."
McGonagall nods. "They know of all the plans we have made within the last few months."
Collective gasps go around the room. Hestia Jones's chin wobbles.
"It was no accident that the Death Eaters anticipated our attack on their camp outside of Hogsmeade," McGonagall says steadily. "Nor did they happen upon George Weasley and Alicia Spinnet as we had at first surmised."
Fred's face pales and his jaw starts to tighten.
"They know of our past actions and they know exactly what we know. They know about relationships between us -- Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks, for example."
Lupin shifts in his chair and casts a terrified look at Tonks.
"Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley also."
"But--!" Ron begins to splutter and Hermione silences him with a tense hand on his thigh.
"Whatever the possibilities, whatever the chances, however much you wish this not to be so -- it is so," McGonagall says. "And now we must decide what to do. Knowing, of course, that the Dark Lord may as well be sitting in the chair next to me as we discuss it."
There is dead silence.
"I don't think any of this lot did it, Professor," Fred says finally, nodding at the people surrounding him.
McGonagall clears her throat. "It is not necessarily someone in this room."
Padma Patil scrunches up her nose. "Excuse me, Professor, but you just said--"
"I am well aware of what I have just said, thank you, Miss Patil," McGonagall says. "Let us think for a moment. Who knows every in and out and careful little detail of our lives who is not in this room?"
Lupin leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. "Harry Potter is not the Dark Lord's spy."
Luna gazes at Lupin with inappropriate interest and the rest of the Order swivels their attention from Lupin's statement back to McGonagall, who stiffens slightly. "Not what I was implying, Lupin. I would hope I am not that far gone yet."
"Then what are you implying, Professor?" Hermione asks, frustrated.
McGonagall takes a deep breath and looks, oddly, at Ginny, who nods her head in encouragement. Everyone looks at her in confusion and then back to McGonagall.
"I'm not in the habit of making outrageous accusations or pointing the finger. We do not need someone to blame, nor is there any point in isolating anyone because we are scared," McGonagall begins. She lifts a hand up to her perfectly neat bun and smoothes it, picking at imaginary stray hairs. "It is necessary, though, in times like these to consider a wide range of possibilities," she continues. " 'It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it, after all.'"
A few gazes drift slowly over to Hermione. "Aristotle," she murmurs and McGonagall nods curtly.
"The thought I am about to present to you will be difficult -- perhaps, nearly impossible to entertain, but I must ask you not to reject it immediately. We are in the middle of a war. It is a different reality now. Things will happen that were not anticipated or desired. Sometimes, the luck is on your side. On other occasions, it is not."
"You can say that again," Bill mumbles and there are a few bitter chuckles.
"This particular instance has nothing to do with luck or chance. It is something that we feared would happen, and something we took considerable steps to avoid. I am afraid it may have happened nonetheless." McGonagall suddenly seems reluctant to continue.
"Go on, Professor," Ginny whispers.
A hush falls upon the room as McGonagall prepares for her final blow. No one dares pretend they already know what she is about to say, nor does anyone look away from the parched lips and wrinkled skin for even a moment.
"It is possible," McGonagall declares, "that Potter's mind is being possessed by the Dark Lord."
two
Ron grunts softly, his breath misting over Hermione's face before dissipating into the darkness.
"Could you...?" Hermione whispers.
"I don't--" Ron breaks off with an angry hiss. He bucks his hips and Hermione winces.
"Sorry, it's just -- it's freezing in here," she says into his ear, wrapping her numbing arms around him and pulling him tighter against her chest.
"It is Azkaban," he murmurs back, pausing a moment as a shiver shudders down his spine. They are don't speak for a while and all that can be heard in the roaring silence is the squeaking of the bed and the slick sound of flesh on flesh.
Hermione bites her lip. "Do you feel bad?"
"Fucking awful."
"Then why...?"
"Because I love you," he says, in a frustrated tone of voice, falling off her inelegantly. "What bloke doesn't want to say 'I love you' in the closest way he knows how?"
Hermione sits up, wrapping the blanket around her chest. "You don't have to have sex with me just to show me that you love me, Ronald," she says stiffly.
"Yeah, but I want to," Ron protests. "I don't know if I'll -- y'know, if I'll ever be able to."
Hermione sighs. "I wouldn't be surprised. What with all we've been through."
"Pretty fucking depressing that after all we've been through I don't even get this to cheer up these bloody awful days." He buries his face in his pillow and Hermione frowns.
"Are they so awful?" She knows she shouldn't push Ron like this.
"We living in a prison in the middle of a war," Ron deadpans.
"It's not a prison anymore..."
"It still feels like a fucking prison. And it feels like you're only let out to get killed, so freedom isn't all that flash either..."
Hermione doesn't think she can reply to that, so she stays silent a moment. "Do you think it's true?" she asks softly.
"What?"
"About Harry."
The watch on Ron's wrists suddenly starts beeping like mad. "Oh, for Christ's sake," Ron grumbles, jerking up, "what the hell is he up to now?"
Hermione lies down, putting her hands gently behind her head. "He seems to enjoy getting lost, these days."
"He's left the fucking vicinity again. For Merlin's sake," Ron says, pulling himself out of the flimsy bed, "I'm going to have to follow him--"
"I know."
"--I don't even know how he gets past all the wards," Ron continues, pulling his trousers and socks on roughly. "This tracking gizmo is a bloody great invention, Hermione, but it's a bloody pain in the arse too--"
"Why, thank you, Ronald."
"--cause now I have to heave myself over to whatever fucking hell-hole he winds up in this time -- some bloody church or playground or something -- to drag him back. Don't see why we don't just keep him tied up, myself. It'd certainly solve a hell of a lot of problems--"
"Just -- make sure you come back, okay?" Hermione interrupts anxiously.
Ron suddenly freezes, his boot hanging off his foot. "Now why would you go and say a thing like that?"
Hermione blinks. "Because I love you and want you to come home."
"Now you've just bloody well gone and bollixed it all up, haven't you? You've -- you've jinxed it."
"I haven't. I've given you luck," Hermione protest.
"Oh," Ron says, slightly placated. "Well, alright then," he says, going back to tying up his shoes and pulling on his jumper.
"Kiss?" she asks when he's done, offering her cheek. Ron grabs his wand, then leans down and kisses her softly on the lips.
"I love you. Remember that. No matter what, yeah?"
Hermione nods her head jerkily. "No matter what," she agrees.
"I'll be back soon."
Hermione nods again.
"Lead me," Ron says to his wristwatch, and with a shudder he's off.
three
Ron stumbles a little as his feet hit the ground with a splash, plunging into icy water. He sucks in a breath, anxiously trying to adjust his eyes to the dark light. The cold wind whips at his ears and he can hear trees rustling in the background -- not a good sign. He straightens up and winces, trying to fix his eyes on something.
It takes him a moment to realise he is in a graveyard.
"Harry?" Ron calls, his voice wavering slightly. He digs his hand into his pocket and pulls out his wand, his hand sweaty despite the cold. The moon is glittering down from the sky amidst the darkening clouds and the tombstones are like dominating figures leaning over him in the gloom. He suddenly notices a dark figure moving deeper and deeper into the mist and he wraps his arms around himself. "What are you doing?" he shouts. He can see a shudder go down Harry's back and he watches as Harry's fists tighten. He swallows nervously. "There's nothing you can do here," he says loudly, pulling himself through the swirling, filthy water. "Just another flood, is all."
Harry lets out a short puff that is halfway between amusement and despair, staring off at some point in the distance. "Dad's grave just went below."
Ron takes one last sluggish step through the water, now standing directly behind Harry. "What?"
"His grave. The water just -- can you see that? It's covered it completely."
Ron shakes his head. "Listen, let's just get out of here. It's not right for you to be here when this is happening--"
"I -- I could stop it."
Ron stares at the back of Harry's head. He rubs his hands roughly across his freckled face. "Right," he says wearily. "Because you're special, yeah?"
The air hangs thick and heavy between them before Harry starts to tread away, into the steadily flowing water.
Ron glares at his retreating back, refusing to trudge after him. "Buggered if I can remember the last time I had a good sleep," he mutters to himself. "The last time I had a proper meal, the last time I had a proper fuck -- and I'm standing here, freezing my balls off, in the middle of a flooded graveyard with my best mate who's gone completely bonkers wondering," he raises his voice, "what the hell I'm pissing around for!"
Harry spins around in the mud, sending two perfectly cascading waves around him, and stares at Ron, the whites of his eyes lit up by the cracking bolts of electricity in the sky.
"You don't need to be here."
"I came here to see if you--"
"I didn't ask you to follow me," Harry snaps.
Ron takes a deep breath. "Come on, mate," he says plaintively, briskly rubbing his arms. "Let's go home. You need sleep."
"Sleep, eat, wallow -- that's all any of us seem to do anymore! Why aren't we out doing something?! You'd think we'd be frantic, but I guess the power of love doesn't extend to drafting up plans," Harry says bitterly.
Ron doesn't know how to respond. He shivers uncontrollably and shifts, the freezing water seeping into his shoes and socks. "We have plans," he says, awkwardly.
Harry spins around again, choosing not to reply.
"Come on," Ron repeats again, reaching forward and slipping his hand into Harry's. Harry doesn't move or make any noise of protest and Ron takes this as consent. He concentrates hard on the distance between them and the prison, on the stone walls and the wards, letting his magical signature slip and slide around the intricate layers and details and potential dangers, letting it identify him and check his intentions, before finally he is able to apparate the two back into Azkaban.
He carefully lets go of Harry hand and they stand in the stony entrance chamber, staring at each other. Harry is breathing heavily, his hair and clothing drenched with rain. He rakes his eyes over Ron's body before laughing softly. "Home sweet home!" he says, flinging his arms out.
Ron blinks, then laughs awkwardly. "Yeah," he agrees. He scuffs his foot on the ground, staring at his toe poking out the end of his shoe, then looks back up at Harry. "Don't keep running out on us like that, you hear?" he says lowly.
The smile dissolves from Harry's face.
"What if something happened to you? What if there was an attack? You're safe within these walls, mate, but as soon as you get out into the real world--"
"I know that," Harry snaps. "I'm not stupid."
Ron takes a deep breath and nods slowly. "Right."
The two stand facing each other for a moment. "Well, I'm going to go and get some sleep, which everyone seems to find so damn important around here. Night," he says abruptly, turning around and slipping through the door.
"It's not true, you know," Ron calls to his retreating back. "What you said about the plans. We do have some."
Harry takes a step back and pokes his head through the door. "Oh, really?" His eyes sparkle with something akin to a cruel sort of playfulness. "And what are they?"
"Well," Ron says, frowning as he tries to think of an example. "We had reports that a large party of Death Eaters had taken camp in the church outside of Beauxbatons, and it was confirmed yesterday. We're going to wizardbomb it."
Harry cocks his head to the side. "Are you?" he asks in an odd voice.
"Er, yeah."
"And what if they're not there? When you, er, wizard bomb this place?"
"Oh, they're there, Harry," Ron assures him. "Trust me. This'll take a hell of a lot off our minds, just you wait and see."
Harry turns around. "Indeed," he says again, before disappearing through the doorway once more.
four
The clock ticks heavily in the background.
No one speaks.
"I feel like a traitor," Neville says glumly.
"Nonsense, Longbottom," McGonagall snaps, before slipping into silence again.
Someone shifts in their chair and it squeaks. There is a shuffle of feet and someone else uncrosses their legs. Lupin lets out a maudlin sigh and Tonks gazes across the circle at him sympathetically.
"Someone will have to say something eventually," Kingsley supplies.
"How astute of you," Hermione quips, crossing her arms.
Arthur sighs. "There's no use arguing--"
"Well, there's no use us all sitting around like a bunch of twats, either," Fred snaps.
No one responds. George is dead and every word Fred speaks reminds them of it.
"He called me 'Weasley' the other day," Ron says eventually.
Bill rolls his eyes. "And there's no way You-Know-Who would call you 'Ron'--"
"--there's no way Harry would call me Weasley," Ron snaps back.
"You-Know-Who called Harry 'Harry' in the Chamber of Secrets," Ginny murmurs. Everyone looks at her with sympathetic eyes, images of a young girl trapped and terrified in a snake pit filtering through their minds. "He was Tom then, though."
There is a general ripple of unease at the familiarity with which Tom slips from Ginny's lips, but she doesn't seem to notice. Her eyes are locked on a stone in the corner.
"Voldemort called him 'Potter' when we saw him at the Department of Mysteries," Hermione says.
"So basically this whole name thing means nothing," Fred mutters.
There is a murmur of accord.
"Harry might be trying to defamiliarize -- to disassociate with everyone," Lupin says quietly. "One of his main fears has always been that someone will hurt his friends and family in order to get to him. Maybe he's trying to push everyone away so that Voldemort won't go after them."
"What about our private information being leaked? The swings of behaviour?" McGonagall asks severely.
"The last can be attributed to hormones," Moody grunts from his corner.
"He's twenty-two," McGonagall snaps, and then slips back into silence.
"I asked him if he's been having blackouts," Ginny says. "You know, like I did when I--"
"Yes, yes," Moody interrupts. "And?"
Ginny swallows, then frowns. "He looked at me in this completely terrified way and made this weird straining noise. He nodded again and again and then he looked like he was about to say something and then this weird change came over him. He suddenly looked calm and -- and almost pleasant. He said that he was sorry everyone was getting afraid, but he'd just been having some trouble sleeping lately. Then he..."
"Yes?"
"He came over and hugged me. It was sort of--" She looks uncomfortable. "It was sort of romantic."
A few thin smiles appear. Ron looks uncomfortable.
"I was strung out at the time and started -- y'know, crying and stuff. He just kept rubbing my back and saying calmly, 'Everything must converge, Gin. It's only a matter of time. Everything must converge. It'll be over soon.'"
"Converge?" Moody asks sharply. "You're sure he said converge?"
Ginny nods and sniffs.
"How odd," Lupin says softly. "It still doesn't mean he's being possessed--"
"The blackouts, though?" Ginny demands. "The sudden change? That's not Harry," she insists. "That's not him."
"Yes, but is it Voldemort, necessarily?" Hermione says, raising a skeptical eyebrow. "It would be perfectly understandable for Harry's personality to go through changes during the war as it adapts to the situations and stress around him."
"Harry has been acting awful strange lately," Hestia murmurs with a frown.
"Yeh -- smacking his head and the like," McLaggen adds eagerly.
"Harry's Occlumency skills are extremely poor," McGonagall states. "And the Dark Lord has talents in this area possibly greater than the world has ever seen. He has tried to insinuate himself inside Potter's head before -- it would be natural for him to attempt it again, especially at this stage."
"It doesn't mean that all this time Harry has really been You-Know-Who," Ginny explains carefully, "just that sometimes the Dark Lord had control of his mind and his actions and stuff. It explains how the Death Eaters got hold of all our plans and why Harry is so exhausted all of the time -- his sudden mood swings, his odd behaviour -- plus the reason he doesn't want to involve himself with us so much. I remember having this sort of subconscious inkling that I shouldn't involve myself with too many other people when it happened to me."
The room lapses into silence as they process the information.
"How long has this been going on for?" Zacharias Smith asks.
"If it is happening, anywhere from a month to three," McGonagall replies shortly.
"How did this happen?" Bill demands. "I thought Harry was getting Occlumency lessons, or something?"
"They stopped at the end of Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts." McGonagall's eyes are hard. "The Dark Lord is a powerful enemy," she adds and Moody nods and mutters vociferous agreement.
"So," Neville says, a note of desperation creeping into his voice, "what do we do now?"
All eyes swivel to McGonagall.
"Mr Longbottom," she says, her lips thinning, "has kindly brought us to our next topic." There is a general murmur of conversation. "But let us have a break for half an hour, or so." She sighs deeply. "I'm afraid I am getting frail in my old age."
five
The thick globs of paint glimmer softly in the firelight, surrounded by the gold of the frame that has dulled and tarnished. At the time of the painting, it had seemed unnatural and eerie, even to McGonagall herself, but now she is glad of his stillness. His unmoving eyes, his unchanged expression. His still-fresh robes, his modest beard. She couldn't imagine standing in front of a moving Albus again, in this state. In this world. In her failure.
"My humblest apologies," she whispers.
His eyes do not dance. His painted lips do not quirk. Nor does the paint shift to allow a "Now, now, Minerva. There's no need to apologise. I'm the one who forgot you prefer truffles to praline crunches..."
She can feel her chin trembling slightly. "I am -- unsure of what my next action should be."
She starts when his left eye twinkles, but her heart settles down again when she realises it is just the embers crackling up in the fire.
"You're not here to help. The Order is falling apart --" She purses her lips to prevent anything as imprudent as a gasp to escape. She lifts her chin up to stare him straight in his glassy eyes. "V-voldemort could be in Potter's mind."
The words hang in the air, shriveling and blackening until they perch thick and heavy on the edges of the portrait. She can't tell if saying the words has made it more real, or more like a sick fantasy dirtying the corners of her mind.
"You-Know-Who is such a superb Occlumens and Harry so weak -- it would be so simple for the Dark Lord to infiltrate his mind." McGonagall takes a shuddering breath. "We've tried to ascertain, but our Legilimency skills are so inferior compared to -- compared to his, there's no way we could ever know for sure..."
Dumbledore's face stays hard and displeased.
"I'm afraid we are in dire need of you, Headmaster," McGonagall says quietly, raising a shaking hand to her brow. "I don't believe there has been a child born with your seemingly infinite wisdom for hundreds of years. For Merlin's sake, even someone with Severus's aptitude would do..."
Dumbledore doesn't blush or pull a silly face or mention that no child is born with infinite wisdom. Something in his cold stare makes McGonagall's mind tick over.
"Severus," she says again.
Dumbledore makes no move to dissuade her or tell her off.
"Severus Snape." She can tell there is a stupid look on her face but there's nothing she can do to wipe it off. "But of course." She stares up at Dumbledore with delight. "You used to call him your saviour." She isn't interested in going into any irony carried within that memory. "Perhaps," she says, "he can be our saviour too?"
Dumbledore would nod with approval, she knows, if he could.
six
Snape is sitting on a wooden back chair, his head in his hands. Every so often they turn into fists at his ears and his knuckles go white, and he lets out an enraged roar, before slipping into silence again. He hasn't moved from the chair for over an hour but no one is brave enough to do anything about it. McGonagall is the only one in the tiny room with him; the rest of the Order stand crowded around the small window outside.
"Severus," McGonagall finally begins in a low voice, but before she can continue, Snape stands, picks up the chair and hurls it at the wall. The wood splinters into a million pieces and the impact sends shudders through the beams of the structure.
McGonagall flinches.
"You had -- nothing. Nothing," Snape thunders. "I was it. I was all you had."
McGonagall adjusts her hat, but doesn't trust herself to speak.
"My priceless position in the inner circle of the Dark Lord himself had all but ensured your victory." Snape looks like he doesn't know whether he wants to laugh or to rip McGonagall's throat out. The crazed look in his eyes suggests the latter and McGonagall takes a step backwards. "Everything was resting on my being there and everything had been sacrificed to ensure my place. Albus Dumbledore gave his life to this effort and now his sacrifice has been made worthless because of your inadequacies as a leader and as a thinker. You don't even understand what you've done, you insufferable cunt--"
"I will not be spoken to in such a way, Snape!" McGonagall snaps, without thinking.
"Potter," Snape continues on without so much as a blink, "is a mediocre wizard at the best of times -- certainly nothing compared to the sickening power the Dark Lord can summon on a whim," Snape spits, his thin lips slick and frothy. "You do not have the numbers, you do not have the talent, you don't have the will or resolve or perseverance--" Snape breaks off to let out another enraged roar that makes him seem more animal than man. "You had absolutely no chance of winning except for me! I was the spy! I was the secret weapon! I was the worm in the apple, I was the needle in the haystack, I was the ticking bomb in the crowded hall -- I was your LIFE!"
McGonagall considers herself a strong woman but she has begun to shake without shame. There is something about Snape -- usually so exquisitely calm and controlled -- frothing, screaming and sweating, the whites of his eyes and the points of his teeth shining ferociously, that is so incomparably terrifying.
Snape shakes his head and suddenly seems to shrink in on himself, shaking his head back and forth, back and forth like an abused child trying to deny what has happened.
"It takes so much out of you to spy," he says lowly. "I have given so much of myself for this war. There is nothing left except the need for it to be over -- and now it is." He looks up slowly and fixes his dark beady eyes on McGonagall. "And you don't even realise." He laughs softly. "You old bat," he says flatly.
The former Head of Gryffindor fingers the wand in her hand, rolling it between her fingers. There must be something she can do. Her mind is blank. She feels suddenly, crushingly, like an old woman.
Snape cocks his head to the side, examining her carefully. "Can you feel the walls closing in around you?" he hisses, taking a predatory step towards her. "Can you hear the bodies being stacked up outside? Can you feel everything darkening, ending, converging?"
"It isn't over yet," McGonagall says, in an effort to sound stern.
"Oh, but it is. Everything is falling in around you," Snape says, his voice taking on mocking quality, "and you haven't even realised yet."
McGonagall swallows. "I have," she says, her voice cracking.
Snape sucks in a breath, clenching his teeth and his fists. "Then," he says, "what possible reason could you have to throw away your last spark of a chance?"
"You-Know-Who has invaded Potter's mind."
Snape freezes and McGonagall feels like the whole world is holding its breath.
"What?"
"It's the only possible explanation."
Snape continues staring at her. McGonagall keeps her eyes as hard as possible.
"The only possible explanation?" Snape repeats. McGonagall nods and Snape's mouth twists into a deformed smile. "You, madam, have gone completely insane. That is the only possible explanation."
"I will not be dismissed in such a way, young man," McGonagall says in a steely voice. "If you aren't prepared to listen to what I have to say, then you have permission to visit Potter yourself."
"Permission? How kind."
"It is the reason we chose to -- 'make all of Albus's sacrifices worthless' by inviting you here, after all," McGonagall says acidly.
"I don't quite remember being invited," Snape retorts. "I remember a snowy owl arriving right in the middle of a meeting of some of the most dangerous criminals in the world clearly identifying myself as their enemy--"
"What would you have had us do, Severus?" McGonagall snaps.
"What about Albus?
"Albus is dead, as well you know--"
Snape snarls. "The portraits, woman!"
"There are no moving portraits of Albus."
A beat.
"What?!"
"He had none commissioned and in his will it is clearly stated that he refuses permission to allow any to be done posthumously. He has told us," McGonagall says, her tone getting slightly sarcastic, "that death is the next great adventure, and to leave any part of himself behind would be like forgetting to pack something in your suitcase."
"You lot, you're all as bad as each other--"
"So you see, Severus, we do not have contact with anyone whose Legilimency skills outdo that of You-Know-Who."
Something like triumph flashes over Snape's face. "Except me."
McGonagall inclines her head. "Except you."
Snape flicks his head and scratches his chin, momentarily distracted from his anger by the idea. McGonagall tries not to hold her breath.
"All we ask," McGonagall says carefully, "is that you visit Potter and use Legilimency upon his mind to ascertain, once and for all, whether or not the Dark Lord is possessing him."
"And if he is?"
McGonagall steels herself. "We will take the appropriate action."
"And if he isn't?"
There is a long pause. "We will have lost a vital spy in their ranks and gained one in ours. For if it isn't Potter feeding the information to the Death Eaters--"
Snape waves his hand irritably. "I understood your meaning perfectly, thank you." He walks slowly across the room, his thumb and forefinger squeezing the top of his nose. He stops, his eyes closed. "There's no need for me to visit Potter."
"Has the Dark Lord already told you of his plans?"
Snape nods and McGonagall's jaw tightens. "I knew it wasn't Potter--"
"--and he made absolutely no mention of any plans to use Potter's mind as a vessel for espionage."
McGonagall opens and closes her mouth a few times. "And you're convinced the Dark Lord tells you everything, are you?"
Snape stiffens. "He does." He sneers. "Well, up until this particular moment in time."
"I see," McGonagall says witheringly. "I hadn't realised you were the Dark Lord's closest confidant--"
"Well, it wouldn't have been very helpful if I were only an underling, would it?" Snape snaps.
McGonagall gives a long-suffering sigh and fixes Snape with an intense glare. "You might as well see the boy now that you're here."
Snape stares at her incredulously. "Is that so? Was that your plan, then, to completely ruin every single thing I had tried to attain in my life and bring me down to so low a level that I no longer saw any option but to blindly obey you in your course of madness?"
McGonagall lets his words mull around the room awhile.
"More or less," she replies stiffly.
seven
"He's completely bonkers," Tonks whispers, shivering in the cold.
"He's not so bad," Lupin replies, moving closer to her. "He's had a tough life. And a particularly rough time of it lately."
"He'll probably kill Harry, y'know," Tonks says in a conspiratorial voice and Lupin snorts. "No, seriously. He'll just walk in there and blast his head off."
"Snape's not going to kill him, you silly girl," Lupin murmurs, wrapping his woolly arms around Tonks's small frame. "That's what I have to believe, anyway. Snape's our last chance on this one -- you understand that, yes?"
"Yeah, I get it."
"As soon as Harry goes, we're gone, too."
Tonks nods and pulls Lupin closer. "We might be gone anyway," she whispers. Lupin looks down at her with a frown.
"What do you mean?" he asks softly.
She shakes her head and buries it into his neck. "I always think about -- about how much it would totally suck if our side won but I still managed to get myself killed, y'know?"
Lupin puts his hand softly under her chin and lifts her up to look him in the eyes. "Would you rather survive in Voldemort's reign?" he murmurs.
"If you were there, maybe," she says back, fluttering her long eyelashes.
"Silly girl," Lupin repeats into her ear.
"But I feel like -- like it's going to happen, y'know? Like my days are numbered."
"Don't say that," Lupin whispers urgently. "Don't you ever say that."
Tonks takes a shuddering breath against Lupin's scratchy jersey.
"Hey. Hey," Lupin says, bringing Tonks's face back up again. "You won't die as long as I'm around. Yes?"
Tonks sniffs, her doey eyes flicking tears collected in her eyelashes. "Yes," she whispers back and clutches Lupin as hard as she can.
* * * * *
Part Two