Title: Exegesis
Author: femmequixotic
Team: Phoenix
Genre(s): Alternate Reality, Romance
Prompt(s): The Root of All Evil
Rating: NC-17
Warning/Kinks: *minor character death, religious/theological elements*
Word Count: ~49,150
Summary: Every culture has their tales regarding creatures of the night.
A/N: Many thanks and much love to cursive and ze_dragon for their beta work, and a huge, huge, huge debt of gratitude to ze_dragon for Catholic-picking above and beyond the call of duty. Credit for various aspects of this fic must be given to Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Florescu & McNally's In Search of Dracula. Inspiration was also drawn from various film references including Nosferatu, Dracula (1931), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), and Van Helsing. Further elements were taken from Gypsy Law: Romani Legal Traditions and Culture, A Handbook of Vlax Romani, and the various writings of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine.
In later years, the one thing I will remember most clearly about the night it all began was the snow.
The storm--the first of the winter--starts during my last lecture of the day, an evening seminar on Bonaventure, Aquinas and medieval Scholasticism, and by the time I force off the last wretch begging for a reprieve on his next essay, the entire university is coated in blanket of white several inches thick. I stop on the steps and light a cigarette.
As a child in Lancashire, I thought fresh-fallen snow at night to be almost otherworldly. Each patch of smooth, glittering white flooded by a streetlight was a Narnian realm of magic. The crisp sting of the cold against one's skin. The curious silence that hangs heavy in the air, as if the entire world had chosen this moment to, like a damned fool, hold its breath.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" A man moves from the shadows, his blond hair gleaming in moonlight. Snow crusts his black overcoat; he steadies himself with a silver-headed cane. His voice has the familiar clipped cadence of Britain. I feel a momentary pang of homesickness. Even after all these years, I've yet to become accustomed to America.
"One might say, if one were inclined to be maudlin." I look out across the near-silent landscape. The Gothic-spired tower of Gasson Hall pierces a heavy, dark sky--tinted orange by the lights of Boston suburbia--almost as if it is responsible for the sudden rupture of clouds that sends white flakes twisting in the wind. "Pity it will all be muddied slush within a day."
My companion says nothing, just smiles, a tight, curious curve of thin lips. I lift my cigarette again and inhale. Filthy habit, I am quite aware, and one I picked up in my early seminary years. Nothing is more conducive to a nicotine addiction than theological debate. With a flick of my thumb tobacco and paper ash drifts down to the wet stone steps. I can hear the rumble of the T down Commonwealth Avenue, the bright clang of the doors opening and the carefully modulated male voice informing riders they had reached Boston College, last stop.
I shift my satchel, dropping my half-smoked cigarette to the ground and grinding it out with my heel as I tug on my gloves. By my calculations, I have approximately five minutes before the outbound train will become inbound again. Just enough time to walk to what passes for a station. I don't bother to excuse myself.
The man stops me. "Severus."
I look back, a frown furrowing my brow. I'm quite certain I've no idea who he was.
His long black coat sweeps snow from the steps as he descends, almost regal in his movement. He holds his hand out; without thought I extend mine.
Something heavy and round thuds into my palm; my hand jerks down slightly at the weight. My fingers curl around it. It is warm through the knit of my gloves.
"A gift from a friend," the man says, and I open my hand. Gold glints up at me.
"What--" I break off, looking up.
The man is gone.
"Bloody nutter," I snap and I drop the coin in my pocket and head for the train.
By the time I'm home, he's forgotten.
From my birth I was destined for the Church. My earliest memories are of the quiet liturgy of the Mass, the scent of incense heavy in the air. Mother was adamant about that. On my baptism she gave me to Saint Casmir, promised him my devotion for his protection. She scrimped and saved to make certain I was educated by Jesuits, hiding as much as she could from her paycheques from my father and begging scholarships from Stonyhurst on my behalf. And the day I was accepted to seminary was the first time I ever saw her cry.
The Church is your hope, Severus, she said to me, fingers tight on my shoulder. Her dark eyes looked past me, almost as if she were frightened.
Of what I have never determined.
Yet it is to my mother's credit (or at least to the credit of her determined obstinacy) that, on a bitterly cold Saturday afternoon so many years later, I sit on the snowy steps of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, cigarette in one hand, missal in the other, watching as a few students hurry across the street from the T stop, heading back to the warmth of their halls. The fringe of my black and grey striped scarf flutters in a brisk breeze; the curl of smoke from the orange-black tip of my cigarette drifts into the grey sky.
It is half-two already and if Ferris doesn't bloody hurry up I'll once again be late to Vigil. I'll be damned if I intend to drag my arse out of bed at some godforsaken hour tomorrow to make up for it.
I blow out a thin stream of smoke, rolling the cigarette between my fingertips. The wind catches my hair, flicking it against my cheek, into my eyes. I brush it back, annoyed, and grind the cigarette into the bare earth of the stone planter next to the steps. Butts stick up from the dirt, a small forest of abandoned nicotine. The door opens and shuts behind me and the musty, heavy scent of the church rushes out.
"Severus." Teeth bright through his red beard, Ferris smiles down at me--or Father John as he prefers to be called. I have no use for preferences.
"Ferris." I push myself up from the steps and tuck my missal in my coat pocket. "You're late."
"I was hearing confession," he says calmly and I glare at him.
"Walk," I snap, and we fall into step along the curving sidewalk leading between the Corcoran Commons and a group of residence halls.
Ferris waits silently for me to speak first, his hands clasped behind his back, his black coat slapping against his calves as he walks quickly to keep up with my long strides. He's a lifelong Bostonian, bred in Southie, as he calls it, his voice tinged with just the faintest Irish lilt to the thick American accent.
The damned city is awash in ex-pats from the Isles and Ireland.
I light another cigarette and offer him one. He shakes his head. The cellophane crackles as I shove the pack back in my pocket and exhale. I cross myself quickly, fingers pressing to forehead, chest, left shoulder, right without thought. "Bless me Father," I say at last, "for I have sinned. As you're quite aware it's been seven days since my last confession."
"I'm fairly certain," Ferris says dryly, "that we can skip over the usual? Denigration of students' intelligence and threats of bodily harm, thoughts of homicide against Father DiSalvio--"
"And Brother Hutchens." The cigarette smoke is bitter against my tongue. I breathe out a puff. "And Father Monan. And Professors Fleming, Cronin and Northrup."
Ferris hides a smile. "An active week."
"Staff meeting." I tap the cigarette against my finger. Ash flakes away.
"I see." Ferris sidesteps a girl weighed down with a heavy backpack. She gives me a terrified look; I think perhaps I recognise her from a class last term on the rise of Communism. I bare my teeth and she scampers off, eyes wide. Ferris snorts. "Don't torment the undergraduates, Severus."
We stop on a street corner. "Add that to my list." The cigarette flares orange as I inhale again.
"Any others?"
I hesitate, then flick my cigarette away. "Unchaste thoughts." I don't look at him.
Ferris doesn't speak for a moment. When he does, his voice is gentle. "Not any better?"
"In the four years you've been my confessor," I say tightly, "has it ever been?"
"You're not the only one to struggle with this--"
"Oh, for fuck's sake," I snap. Ferris doesn't flinch at the vulgarity. "After twenty years, I'm quite aware that I'm not the only poof in the diocese." My mouth tightens. It's my cross to bear, I've been taught. God's test for my soul, the desires that wake me at night, that threaten to consume me. That wear on what little faith remains to me. It's become empty, all of this. Meaningless words and hollow ritual performed for a Church that insists on my subjugation. My mouth twists bitterly to one side.
"There are those in the Church," Ferris says slowly, not looking at me, "who have a different interpretation of Aquinas's arguments in relation to homosexuality."
I snort. "You bloody liberal Jesuits." Ferris chuckles, and I shake my head and pull the pack of cigarettes out of my pocket again. My hand trembles as I light another. "I've read the Summa more than once, Ferris. Sexual activity is primarily meant for procreation, the unifying of the married couple and pleasure." I gesture wildly, scattering tobacco ashes into the chill breeze. "Whatever the state of Massachusetts decreed last year, in the Church's eyes marriage between two men or two women is morally impossible, and I'm quite certain I needn't point out the absurdity of procreation in this instance. Much as we may wish it different, consummated homosexuality meets only one criteria of natural law, enjoyable as it may be. Ergo, sin."
My throat tightens.
"There is Pius XI's ruling on the sanctity of sexual relations between infertile couples." The wind whips through Ferris's ginger hair, standing it on end. "And Paul VI's acknowledgment in Humanae Vitae that not every sexual act in marriage need be for procreative purposes. Both of which, one might argue, could be extrapolated further to apply to homosexuality."
I take a long drag off my cigarette and exhale slowly. "You're a damned awful confessor. The Holy Father would be horrified."
"Perhaps." Ferris laughs softly, then casts a sideways glance my way. "And Robert Wood argues that it could be God's natural plan for population control."
"Robert-bloody-Wood," I snap, "has the great misfortune not to be Catholic."
Ferris tilts his head. "True. Nevertheless, it is an intriguing argument."
"An argument that you know as well as I is merely an exercise in futile what-ifs."
"John McNeill’s interpretation of the Scriptures," Ferris begins.
I cut him off. "And the Vatican expelled him from the Society of Jesus after almost forty years for the heresy of daring to minister to homosexuals. You’d best watch yourself." I cross my arms over my chest and smooth my thumb over the crisp paper of my cigarette before lifting it to my mouth again. The calming nicotine is a relief. "In any matter, you know as well as I do that at this moment in time, the essence of my being is, to my Church, a sin." I push my hair back out of my eyes in annoyance. "If I should choose to indulge it, at least."
Ferris hesitates. "Have you--"
I stare into a drift of snow. Black dirt stains one end, wetly grey. "I remain physically chaste, never fear. In any case, all discussion is pointless since I've already vowed celibacy."
After a moment, Ferris touches my arm. "Severus. Perhaps it would be easier if you took your final vows. There's support in a community--"
"No."
"You've been a candidate for almost two years now." Ferris pulls his coat tighter and shivers as the wind twists around the building in front of us. "You've finished your dissertation and DiSalvio's been asking me since your tertianship ended if you've any intention of taking on the priesthood."
"I said no." I turn then and look at him. His eyes behind his spectacles are kind and that infuriates me. I do not wish for his pity. "Not at the moment. It's enough that I'm a deacon--and even at that I am not certain what I believe any longer, John." My stomach twists. "I am not taking holy orders with these doubts. Unlike others, I have more respect for the Church than to make such a lie. If I make those vows, I will keep them. But I have to be sure of myself before I can."
"Severus..."
I look away. Fifteen years I have been in seminary and preparation for the priesthood. It is all I've known. All I've expected. I fear I have lost it. "I am sorry," I say finally, "for these and all the sins of my past life."
A moment's silence and then Ferris says quietly, "Stations of the Cross for the next week." I look away, my throat aching. Ferris twists his hands together; his fingers pull at the cuffs of his gloves. "It will get better, Severus. He doesn't put on you more than you can bear."
Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani, I murmur, and Ferris rests his hand on my shoulder.
Desolation sweeps over me as we turn back towards the church and Vigil, my prayer of contrition disappearing into the wind.
Ancient rowhouses and dingy Victorians fill the streets behind Packard's Corner. A wasteland, in my opinion, packed with students drawn by the proximity of two universities on this particular branch of the Green Line. It is also my home.
In the first floor of a near-dilapidated bay-windowed Victorian I find a certain modicum of peace, hidden away from the street. Mine is a sunny flat, large and comfortably worn and filled with leather chairs and heavy walnut bookcases stuffed with books and journals. A stained glass window in the lounge looks out onto the sloping back garden, tarped beds covered with snow and waiting for spring and new plantings to be tended. I consider myself an amateur horticulturist and homeopath; I would much rather tend to my own illnesses than allow some half-educated quack to poke and prod at me. I do have standards, after all, and given that I am rarely laid low by the myriad coughs and colds and viruses that my idiot colleagues suffer through the winter months, I am damned certain I’ve made the wiser choice.
Fools.
The upper four flats are rented by five graduate students and one professor. Three of the students are studying humanities at Boston University; two are seminary students from Boston College. Of the entirety of Boston's idiotic student population, they cause the least damage and destruction, and there is the added benefit that at least half of the wretches are utterly terrified of me, guaranteeing me quiet and solitude.
The professor, however, is a gin-tippling artist who insists I call her Sybil and has spent the past two years attempting to coerce me into allowing her to paint me in the nude.
Bloody mad heifer.
I slide an omelette out of the frying pan and onto a plate. The bright yellow of the eggs stands out against the glazed blue willow. A few rashers on the side and a steaming cup of ginger tisane, and I sit, fork in hand, reaching for Nouzille's tome on Aelred of Rievaulx's De spirituali amicitia. Another two chapters and I will be free to write the scathing review of Nouzille's inane doctrinal suppositions and utterly horrific Latin translation that I've been composing in my head for the past three hundred and thirty-six pages. The glimmer of gold beneath my abandoned gloves stops me, however, and before I reconsider, my fingers curl instead around the still-warm coin.
Upon closer examination, I realise the coin is actually an amulet; a small broken circle at the top was obviously meant for a cord. The piece is old, significantly so. Not that it couldn't be an adept forgery, of course. My academic field has been rife with those throughout the ages, courtesy of some of our more unscrupulous medieval relic dealers. I settle my spectacles--seldom used for more than reading in the privacy of my own home--on the bridge of my nose and peer over the rims. I've seen this design before, somewhere, I'm certain
I drag my thumb over the engraved serpent on the front--an ouroboros of sorts, stained with age. A symbol used by numerous groups throughout the years, from pagans to heretics to alchemists to the Church herself. A symbol of cyclicality, of self-renewal, of rebirth, of eternal return.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Rough-smooth carving catches on my callused skin. Severus. The tongue flickers--a frisson of something twists through me, a strange sense of familiarity that thrums in rhythm with my blood.
Until a blistering pain rips through my left arm, as if immersed in fire.
I swear and drop the amulet. It clatters against the slick Formica of the table and rolls a few inches away. I can almost believe the blackened serpent moves, coiling itself once more across the gold.
Impossible.
My arm aches still and I push up my sleeve. For as long as I can recall I have had a faint birthmark on my left forearm that, in my more fanciful years, I believed resembled a skull. My mother had one as well; she'd told me it is was a family trait. The mark has always been barely noticeable, a pale flush of pink on my sallow skin. Now, however, it is red, swollen.
Almost as if it has been seared into my flesh.
My hand trembles slightly; I close my fist, and the skin around the burn tightens and pulls. For the briefest moment I could swear the coils of a serpent slide through the reddened birthmark, white and smooth.
I must be going mad.
The amulet gleams up at me; I throw my book over it with a shudder.
I wake with a start.
The clock gleams red at me from the side table. Half-three almost. I run a hand over my face and sigh. The Nouzille falls to the floor with a thud. I push the covers back and lean over the side of the bed to pick it up.
And I see him.
Silver-blond hair blowing in the wind, skin pale in the moonlight. He tilts his head and smiles through the thick, wavy glass of the window. Rivulets of rain blur his features as he raises his cane.
By the time I'm out of bed, he's gone, lost in the torrent that pours down, washing away the drifts of snow.
I don't sleep the remainder of the night.
My arm burns.
The T rumbles down the centre of Commonwealth Avenue, horn blowing at cars foolish enough to cross the tracks against the lights.
I sit at a window, staring blankly out at the street; the traffic is bright splotches of colour against wet grey. I press my hand to my forearm, which hurts still. A reaction, I think. Some sort of allergy I haven't previously been aware of. My fingers trace the raised skin through the sleeves of my jumper and my coat.
The amulet, wrapped in a handkerchief, is heavy in my pocket; my palm brushes against it. It's warm through the thick wool and I pull my hand away slowly. Reluctantly.
The street blurs past.
The nave is near silent, save for the soft whispers of the students praying the rosary in the back pews. Requests for easing of youthful troubles, I'm certain: the angst of tormented love, the fear of a difficult examination, simple homesickness.
Pale, watery sunlight filters through the rose window above the altar. Limestone traces graceful circles and swags around the delicate glass representations of the Holy Trinity.
I move to the twelfth station, my missal clenched tight in my hand, fingers digging into its worn leather cover. The figures are carved into basswood, faint indentations of bodies coaxed from the smooth grain and framed reverently in gold leaf. Christ hangs from the cross, limp and broken, flanked on each side by a mourning disciple. Death. Emptiness.
I wish I could believe again. Wish the words, black against the pale cream page of my missal, resonated as they once had so many years past.
By the merits of Thy death, give me grace to die, embracing Thy feet and burning with love of Thee. I commit my soul into Thy hands.
Jaw tight, I pray the Our Father and a Hail Mary. I'm not certain I mean either.
Nothing makes sense any longer.
The amulet in the pocket of my jacket slaps heavy and hot against my hip as I shift. A odd flare of unease twists through me; my mouth thins. I am being ridiculous, I'm quite aware. Utterly. I turn the page in my missal and move on.
"Good Lord, lad, you look more dour today than usual." Horace waves me into his office; I close the door behind me. Stacks of books line his walls; the extras are piled on his desk and the floor. "I'd no idea that was possible."
I'm not entirely certain why I'm here, other than the fact that Horace with his tea and scones and the bars of Cadbury his sister sends from Liverpool which he keeps tucked away in the bottom drawer of his desk is welcome bit of home in the brash upheaval that is America. Two decades in this country and I've yet to become adjusted to it. Horace's arrival a few years back was, if I am to be forced to admit it, a godsend.
"Didn't sleep." I set my satchel next to a chair and drop down into it. It's large and overstuffed, dwarfing even my long legs. Horace does like his creature comforts.
"Pity. Did you try that lavender and chamomile infusion I recommended?" He pours water from the electric kettle on his hutch into a teacup. "Earl Grey or Darjeeling?"
"Yes. It was utterly useless. And Earl Grey, if you will."
Horace chuckles. "You're a creature of habit, Severus." He hands me the teacup. I swirl the Twinnings bag in the water, watching it turn dark brown. Bergamot wafts up in the thick steam and I feel my body relax. "I'd offer sugar," he says, "but you've yet to accept it."
I snort. Four years of weekly tea and he should know by now I prefer it bitter and strong. Horace smiles and takes his seat, smoothing his moustache. He folds his hands over his ample stomach and sighs. "Have you heard about young Reilly?" he asks and I hmm into my teacup. Horace is a font of gossip for the history department, yet another reason I do not object to our teas. My field straddles both theology and history. Keeping track of the convoluted politics for both departments is impossible without assistance. "Terrible thing. Terrible. One does wonder, of course."
I set my teacup in its saucer. "About?" I search my memory for a Reilly. It takes a moment before I place him. Doctoral student in my course on the Church in Modern Europe. Quiet and unassuming. Adequate student, nothing spectacular.
Horace swells a bit, as he always does when he's the source of new information. I say nothing; it gives him a sense of importance. "Reilly, my dear boy, was found dead this morning in his flat. Obviously some sort of foul play." He lowers his voice and leans forward. "Total confidence, of course, but I just happened to discuss the matter with one of the students I know lives in the same building and he claims that he overhead the detectives claiming that drugs may have been involved."
I frown. "Ridiculous."
"Perhaps." Horace settles back in his chair, burrowing into the leather. He looks oddly like a well-fed bug. His moustache trembles; his eyes are bright. "Two needle marks on his neck, though, they say. Neatly placed. Very curious. Obviously he was involved with something not on the up and up."
I suppose I should feel sympathy for the boy. I don't. I barely remember him. Still I grunt and take a sip of tea. I look out the window. It's still raining. Much of the snow has melted, save for the high berns, shoveled and plowed. Students run across the Quadrangle under a flurry of colourful umbrellas.
At my silence, Horace frowns. He steeples his fingers and presses them to his mouth. "Was there a reason you stopped by, Severus? Other than tea? Usually I don't see you until midweek at the earliest."
"No," I say and then I catch myself. With a sigh, I reach into my pocket and pull out the amulet, setting it on Horace's desk and unwrapping it. "Have you ever seen anything like this?"
Horace tugs it closer, squinting into the fabric, then jerks back, face pale. "Where did you get this?"
"It was given to me Friday evening." I watch him closely. "You know what it is."
A moment of hesitation, then Horace shakes his head. "No."
He's lying. I can tell. He won't look at me; his hand shakes as he wraps the amulet back in the handkerchief and pushes it across the desk to me. "Horace," I say and his mouth tightens.
"Really, Severus, I'm terribly sorry, lad, but I've a student coming by shortly and, well, you know how you dodisturb them--"
Within moments he has me out of his office, standing in the hall, the door closed firmly behind me.
"Horace," I shout and pound on his door. He doesn't answer. A student walks past, looking at me curiously until I glare at her. She flushes and hurries down the hall. "Horace!"
Nothing.
I wait in the hallway for an hour, watching for the apocryphal student. He never shows. When the bell rings, I sling my satchel over my shoulder with a scowl and stomp off towards the stairs that will take me to my next lecture.
Bloody hell.
I'll take my temper out on the dunderheads fool enough to enter my classroom.
God knows the imbeciles will deserve it anyway.
As a deacon, on Wednesday evenings I assist Ferris with Mass.
This service is always well-attended by the historical theology department, or at least those church history classes which I teach. DiSalvio insists upon all seminary professors encouraging our students to attend services, regardless of whether or not their primary field of study falls within the School of Theology and Ministry. In order to keep him from driving me mad--or worse yet, arriving at my office door unannounced, I make arrangements with my students. Bribery, I have found, is an excellent motivator. If the idiots attend Mass once a week for the entirety of the semester I will drop one mark of their choice--as long as I have confirmation of their presence at every service.
By the second day of classes, former students have warned them all and for the remainder of the term, my line at Eucharist is filled only by my classes; no one else wishes to receive Communion from my hand. Even the non-Catholics among my students attend, or most at least, filing by after service with muttered Professor Snapes in an attempt to make certain I note their attendance. In return I take great pleasure in discomfiting them with a blessing. Ferris laughs and informs me that I remind him of a feudal lord receiving recalcitrant vassals.
I rather like the analogy.
Only once have I been challenged by a student who objected to being forced to endure services. As I recall, my response was a tart I would strongly suggest you study for class then. The dean was not pleased; I did not give a damn.
I still do not. Being exposed to philosophies outside one's own sphere of thought is, after all, crucial to proper intellectual growth. Not that my imbecilic students would recognise that fact if it did the bloody can-can and slapped them in the face, of course.
I am halfway through the Gospel reading when I see him in the pews. Tall, thin, with a shock of messy black hair. James, I think, despite the impossibility, and my voice catches. Ferris gives me a sharp look across the altar before I continue.
"The Gospel of the Lord," I say, not looking towards the boy, and the congregation responds with a quiet praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. I kiss the Book of the Gospels, whispering "Through the words of the Gospel may our sins be washed away" before I carry it back to the side table and take my seat next to Ferris.
He looks over at me, eyebrow raised as he stands. I shake my head and smooth my vestment over my thigh. The brocade is rough against my palm. As Ferris makes his way over to the ambo for the homily, I studiously avoid looking out into the pews.
James Potter. I haven't thought of him in years.
How I hated him at Stonyhurst College. Arrogant wretch adored by those idiot Jesuits. My bête noire, the bane of my school existence. King of the rugby field. Perfect in his black suit and red tie proclaiming his status in Campion Line--a legacy from his father and his father's father. Bastard.
My green Shireburn tie still lies folded in a trunk in my bedroom.
I had far more brags than he at least. Top of my class, challenged only by my friend Lily.
Lils.
To my chagrin, I lost her to him during sixth form. My own fault, of course. The angst of adolescence exploding into bitter fury. It is the one thing in my life I have regretted. The one that if I could go back and change I would.
For many years she was the only friend I'd ever had. I keep myself withdrawn from others, that I know full well. Only Ferris has come close to winnowing beneath my defences.
Ferris coughs softly from his place at the ambo and I realise it is time for the General Intercessions. I rise, avoiding his curious look.
The remainder of the service I perform on rote, mind lost in the past as my hands prepare the chalice and paten for Ferris's consecration; as I swing the censor over the altar; as I raise the chalice before the people, waiting for their amen; as Ferris places the Host on my tongue, lifts the Blood of Christ to my mouth.
I barely remember administering communion, the students passing by me, taking the Host from me by hand or tongue. And finally--finally--I find myself before the altar with Ferris, hands joined as we exhort the worshipers to go in the peace of Christ, then kiss the altar and bow. I gather the Book of the Gospels and, raising it, precede Ferris down the center aisle.
The dark-haired man who is not James sits silently in his pew, watching me as I pass by. I look away.
My left arm aches.
My mobile rings halfway home.
I fumble with it, lifting it to my ear as the T lurches down the tracks. "Snape," I say loudly, over the rumble-rattle-clack of wheels.
"Severus, lad," Horace wheezes into my ear. "I've left two messages already."
I lean back against the window. "Mass, Horace. Or have you forgotten it's Wednesday."
"Yes, yes." He sounds distracted. "Say, lad, might you stop by my office tomorrow afternoon? There's something I wish to speak to you about." I hesitate; Horace coughs. "I've not been entirely forthright with you," he says apologetically.
I snort. "Really."
"You needn't sound so peeved." Horace sighs. "I just--look, my dear boy, it's that amulet of yours. I've uncovered some information--"
"Which you already had."
There's a moment's silence and then Horace continues, more subdued. "I recognised the symbol, yes. And I've been in contact with a friend of mine who's much more of an expert on the matter--Albus Dumbledore, his name is, quite a lovely fellow, quite. But there are things I need to tell you, Severus. Things you should know. Say you'll stop by. Indulge an old man."
"My last lecture ends at half three," I say after a moment. "I'll stop by then."
"Excellent." Horace's relief is palpable across the cellular connection. "I shall have a cup of Earl Grey waiting." He hesitates. "And Severus? Do be careful, lad."
"Whyever--" I begin, but my mobile beeps in my ear, letting me know that my signal's been dropped. When I'm finally able to ring back, I'm immediately sent to voicemail. I click my mobile off and frown down at it. Bastard.
A touch of a fingertip and I bring up my Internet connection. It takes only a moment to enter the search into Google: Albus Dumbledore. The name sounds oddly familiar. The screen on my mobile fills with a list of links.
Modern technology is magic.
I'm up until after four, hunched over my laptop, still scouring cyberspace. The amount of material on this Dumbledore is incredible. Two doctorates from Oxford, one in history, one in folklore. A good eighty papers alone in various journals authored or co-authored under his name from the forties through the seventies. Several books. Most of them appear to have been the standard fare for academia. He specialised in the Crusades, and I vaguely recalled seeing his name in a footnote here and there during my studies.
After 1979, he stopped publishing. Retirement, perhaps, or so I thought until I stumble upon a horrific website of bright green lettering against a black, starry background. A midi of the Star Wars theme begins playing the moment the page loads. I slap my volume to mute and frown at my laptop screen.
My eyes widen.
Albus Dumbledore, it seems, lost his mind in 1980.
It was a presentation given at the European Studies Centre at St Antony's College, Oxford in which he focused on the Societas Draconistrarum.
The Order of the Dragon.
A political society, one I was quite familiar with. It was founded in 1408 at the behest of Sigismund of Hungary and his wife Barbara as an elite order for European nobility. Highly influential, it counted among its founding members Ladislaus II of Poland, Alfonso of Aragon and Naples, Henry V of England, Christopher III of Bavaria and Denmark, Duke Ernst of Austria. The leading Catholic royals of the day, bent upon turning back the threat of the Ottoman Empire from the East.
Its second group of inductees a quarter century later, however, included a name which within one generation would become synonymous with evil.
Vlad II Dracul, father of Vlad Tepes, soon to be known as Dracul's son.
Dracula.
From this, Dumbledore extrapolated before his peers and enemies that the Order of the Dragon was to become a haven for vampires.
He was laughed out of a job. A breakdown, his university claimed, trying to cover it up. Stress, overwork, the loss of his partner.
Madness, certainly.
Vampires are a myth, nothing more. Peasant superstition, the remnants of ancient fears and generations of prejudice encouraged by some of the less scrupulous of my predecessors.
And yet I find myself discomfited as I close my laptop. Uneasy. I shake myself and stand. Horace has obviously gone round the bend himself if this is whom he has contacted. Ridiculous. Utterly.
Still.
Dragon. Serpent.
An Order whose mark was a graceful winged serpent swallowing its tail. An ouroboros. Rebirth. Recreation.
It can't be. And yet I know it is.
The amulet--
A scrape of a tree branch across my window startles me and I jump. I almost think I see a pale face in the glass, and then it's gone.
My own reflection, I am certain.
Nevertheless, when I slide beneath my coverlet, I hesitate as I reach for the lamp switch. The amulet rests at its base, still wrapped in the handkerchief. My breath catches. I can hear the steady thud of my heartbeat echoing in my ears, a staccato thump-thump-thump. Want twists through me--for what I'm not certain, though I recognise its deep primal call. It pulls me, tugs me, draws me closer, calls to some dark, twisted place deep within my soul...
I jerk my hand away and sink back onto my pillows, shaking. My forearm throbs; the birthmark is swollen again, red and ugly and near-blistered. I close my eyes for a moment and swallow.
Something is wrong with me. I can feel it in my bones.
What fitful rest I manage is only with the light on.
When I wake to sunlight streaming through my windowpanes, I swear and roll out of bed. I've slept through office hours and my first class of the morning. My students will be delighted.
An hour and a half later I've dressed and taken the excruciatingly slow T ten stops down Commonwealth to campus. I barely make my one o'clock class.
It's there I hear the news.
The police have been called, the students whisper before class begins. It's the same as before. A serial killer, they're suspecting--
I look up from my desk. "What?" I ask sharply and they fall silent, looking between each other. "What?"
A girl three rows back raises her hand hesitantly. Longbottom, I believe her name is. Not exactly one of my brightest students. "Professor Slughorn, sir," she says slowly. She bites her bottom lip. "They found him in his office this morning--"
My ears buzz; I can't decipher what she's saying. I cut her off mid-sentence. "Out."
The lot of them gaze at me blankly.
"Out," I say again, and I stand. I'm grateful that I don't tremble. "Out, out, OUT!"
It takes them only a moment to comprehend, and they grab their satchels and backpacks and dash for the door.
I sit alone in the classroom for nearly twenty minutes, staring blankly at the wall across from me.
The third-floor hallway is corded off with bright yellow tape and crowded with people. I stop at the top of the stairwell. A photographer snaps photos from the doorway of Horace's office; a woman in jeans brushes past him, scribbling across a clipboard in her hand. She stops next to a man crouched over what looks like a toolbox and shows him what she's written. He nods and points towards a tall, broad-shouldered man in a suit leaning against the window at the end of the hall and speaking into a mobile.
There's a dark smear on the wall next to Horace's office, another on the floor outside.
A Boston police officer watches me idly for a moment before striding over, her thumbs caught in her belt loops. A shock of pink hair is twisted into a neat bun at the nape of her neck. "You can't enter."
"I'm on the college staff." I look over her shoulder. Even two steps below her, I'm still taller than she.
"Right," she says and she leans back. "Shacklebolt!"
The suited man looks over.
"Faculty," she says and he nods, pushing off the windowsill and tucking his mobile in his pocket as he walks towards us.
The girl falls back.
"Is your office on this floor?" he asks, with a faint tinge of West Indies in his voice, and I shake my head. It still hasn't sunk in.
"No. He was a friend."
Shacklebolt just grunts and dips his head. The lights above gleam warmly off his smooth, bald pate. "Your name?"
"Severus Snape." I look sharply at him as he writes it down. "I didn't kill him." I hesitate, glancing back at the office door. "I don't even know how he died." The word feels heavy and thick on my tongue. Bitter.
I keep hoping that it's not true. That someone will tell me it's an elaborate prank. A ruse of some sort.
Shacklebolt doesn't. "Was he on drugs of any sort?" he asks after a moment, studying me. "Anything that would require injections?"
"No." My voice cracks; I hate its betrayal. Damned fool--and I'm not certain if I refer to myself or Horace.
Or both of us.
"Two needle punctures on the side of his neck," Shacklebolt says. He still watches me; I close my eyes. "Looks like he hit an artery judging from the blood. We'll know about drugs after the results come back from the lab."
It can't be. It's impossible. I refuse to consider it.
His mobile trills and he steps away, answering it with a curt Shacklebolt. I turn down the stairs. I have to go. Have to get outside and breathe. Pretend that this isn't happening. None of it has occurred. I'll wake up in the morning and it will have all been a wretched nightmare.
A glint of metal in an alcove on the landing catches my eye. I bend closer, brow furrowed. A silver crucifix is caught on a baseboard; I pick it up. The beads slip familiarly into my palm. My birthmark aches again, and I grit my teeth.
I glance back up the stairs; Shacklebolt has his back to me. He moves out of my line of sight.
I'm halfway down the stairs before I uncurl my fingers. Nestled in my palm is a rosary...one I've seen many times before.
In Horace's hand.
I twist the beads around my fingers and continue down the steps.
The man from Mass is waiting for me when I leave the building. He leans against a lamp post, a lit cigarette dangling from his fingertips. He flicks ash off the end and nods when he sees me.
I stop on the steps, lighting a cigarette of my own; I tuck my lighter in my coat pocket. My fingers brush the wrapped amulet. "Who are you?" I ask bluntly and he smiles and pushes himself off the lamp post.
"Harry," he says and his voice has the clipped cadence of London. He drops the cigarette to the ground and stamps it out. "Harry Potter."
My mouth tightens at the name. I should be surprised. I'm curiously not. "James' brat, I assume."
Potter tilts his head to one side. "And Lily Evans'."
I hide my flinch well.
He studies me for a moment. "Father Snape, is it?"
"Professor." I blow a stream of smoke in his face. "I've not taken vows yet."
Potter nods. "Professor. There's a coffeeshop across the street. Would you like to join me?"
"Not particularly." I don't know what the bastard's up to, but I don't trust him. Not with that last name. "Why are you here? Surely it's not mere coincidence that's brought you across the pond to my campus." I look him up and down, taking in his scruffy trainers, the frayed hem of his jeans. He shoves his fists in the pocket of his overcoat and blinks at me from behind smudged glasses. "You're not Catholic, are you?"
"I'm not much of anything to be honest," Potter says lightly. He hesitates. "You went to school in Lancashire with my parents."
I say nothing; he shifts from foot to foot and sighs.
"I'd really like to talk to you in private." He looks around uneasily. "It'll be dark in an hour or two--"
"It's winter in Boston. That happens." I take a slow drag and exhale again. "What does that have to do with anything?"
Potter meets my gaze directly. "Everything." He licks his bottom lip and shifts again. "I know what killed Professor Slughorn. Now will you meet with me?"
My hand shakes as I lift the cigarette again, inhaling the nicotine deeply. Part of me screams to walk away. I can't. "Bollocks on the coffeeshop. I want actual food."
Potter follows me to the T.
Brown Sugar is a Thai restaurant just across from the Babcock T stop. Pimmada leads me to my usual spot deep within the long, narrow stretch of peach walls and teak and glass tables, tucked away behind a fringe of bright green foliage just outside the kitchen. She gives Potter a cursory curious glance before looking back at me. "Green tea?" she asks and I nod.
"Two pots." I don't give Potter a chance to answer. It's cold outside and the tea is excellent. "And spring rolls and na-tang to start."
She nods and leaves us with the menus--nearly a dozen pages of choices. I set mine aside. Unadventurously I order kow soi each time.
We're early for dinner; the restaurant is far quieter than it will be in an hour or two once it is filled with students and weary workers commuting from downtown who haven't the energy or desire to cook for themselves. I can hear the rattle and clink of dishes in the kitchen around the corner. It's oddly comforting.
Potter looks over the edge of his menu. I say nothing and instead lean back in my chair, waiting for him to begin. With a sigh he sets his menu down. "You don't make this easy, do you?"
"Is it supposed to be?"
Pimmada arrives with our small pewter pots of tea. I pour a cup and watch a few leaves settle at the bottom.
"My mother talked about you at times," Potter says after a moment. My stomach twists. "You were friends once."
I take a sip of tea. It's warm and pleasantly bitter against my tongue. "Not in the manner I'm certain you're thinking."
"No." He smiles faintly. "She always said you fancied my dad more than her that way."
I splutter, nearly choking on my tea. I wipe the back of my hand against my mouth. "Not amusing."
"That's just what Dad said." Potter's grin is easy and bright. It annoys me. Intensely.
We're silent for a moment, then I set my teacup down. "You speak of her in the past tense," I say quietly.
Potter looks away for a moment, pulling his menu to his chest. His fingers stroke small circles over the leather cover. "They both died a few years back. I was still in school."
Lily, I think and I smooth my palm over the polished wood of the tabletop. A pang of grief twists through me, sorrow for past mistakes. "My condolences," I hear myself say dully, as from a distance.
Potter just nods and swallows.
"How?" I ask before I can stop myself. I have to know.
He twists his water glass between his palms. Before he can answer Pimmada is back with spring rolls and nan-tang. I order my kow soi; Potter chooses drunken noodles. When she walks off, he leans forward. "They were killed by the same thing that murdered Professor Slughorn last night."
I dip a spring roll in turnip sauce and take a bite. It's spicy-sweet and filled with coriander. "And that would be?"
Potter waits for me to swallow. "A vampire," he says simply and I stare at him.
"You're mad."
Potter meets my gaze directly. "Am I."
I look away. "There's no such thing--"
"His name is Lucius Malfoy," Potter says quietly. "He's tall with long blond hair and the kind of smarmy smirk that makes you just want to stab him on general principle. He carries a cane topped by a silver serpent."
My blood chills.
"You've seen him." Potter reaches for a spring roll. "Late at night."
"That means nothing," I protest. "You're expecting me to believe that I've been approached by some vampire--"
"We've been expecting it to happen for rather a while now," Potter says calmly and I stare at him in shock.
"We."
He nods. "The Order of the Phoenix."
I feel as if I'm caught in some horrifically written Hollywood tripe. Or worse yet, a damned Dan Brown novel teaming with entirely inaccurate secret orders and inane occult mysteries. I shake myself. Ridiculous. "I've no idea what you're talking about."
Potter runs his hand over his face. "Perhaps I should start from the very beginning."
"A very good place to start."
He peers at me through his fringe. "Did you really just quote Maria von Trapp at me?"
My face burns. I sip my tea and let my mouth curl into a sneer. "Don't be an idiot." In any case, technically it would Rodgers and Hammerstein, damn it.
Potter looks sceptical but he shrugs. "How much are you willing to believe?"
"I don't know until you tell me," I snap. I'm desperate for another cigarette.
"Have you heard of the Order of the Dragon?" Potter asks. Before I can answer he continues. "A political society formed in 1408--"
"By Sigismund of Hungary, yes, yes." I glare at him, shoulders stiff. "I am a theological historian, Potter, specialising in the Catholicisation of Eastern Europe. I am quite well acquainted with dear Siggy's Draconists."
Potter nods but doesn't bother apologising. I am not certain if I applaud his bollocks or resent them. "Well, let's just say in time they lost their primary focus."
"The vampiric connection your Dumbledore claims." At Potter's surprised look, I raise one shoulder in a half-shrug. "There is such a thing as Google these days."
"Wouldn't have thought it of you," Potter says and I frown at him. "But yeah. That connection."
I roll my eyes. "Made merely through Vlad Dracul's presence in the Order? A weak assumption based on ridiculous later literary claims." I push my hair behind my ear and rest my chin on my palm. I cannot believe I am even arguing this point. "Stoker's novel--brilliant as it may be--combined meagre historical facts with a multitude of folklore concerning vampiric traits. It is most certainly not an historical document."
"No. The novel isn't. Not entirely." Potter runs a thumb over the rim of his teacup. "But what it was based on..." He trails off.
My eyes narrow. "What the hell do you mean?"
Potter takes a sip of his tea. "The Order of the Phoenix was founded by Bram Stoker," he says after a moment. "My father's great-great grandfather. My grandmother was a Dobbs, and her grandfather was a Dobbs who married Anne, the daughter of Bram's son Noel."
"A fascinating genealogy," I say tightly. "Frankly, however, I do not give a bloody damn about your father's family tree."
"But I think you should." Potter leans forward, his elbows on the table. His eyes are wide and bright green. Just like his mother's. I look away. "Lucy Westerna was real, you see. As were Seward and the Harkers. They were friends of my great-great-great grandfather's. What he wrote...it was fiction, yes, but not entirely."
I stare at him. He's mad. Obviously. There's no other explanation.
"You have to believe me," Potter says softly, gaze fixed on me. "Your life depends upon it."
I snort and his brow draws together. "Overly melodramatic, Potter." I push my chair back. "This is ridiculous."
Potter catches my arm. "Fifteen minutes," he says. "Give me fifteen minutes to convince you, and if I haven't, you can walk out that door and I won't bother you any more."
I hesitate. If I had any damned sense at all I'd leave now. I know this. But the amulet is still in my pocket and the skin on my arm still burns and aches.
With a sigh I lean back in my chair. "Fifteen minutes, Potter. Begin."
"It actually began hundreds of years ago," Potter says, "but that's not really my story to tell. The only part I can speak of is my family's side of events, and that began over a hundred years past with my grandfather's great-grandfather."
A man born in 1847 in Dublin, Ireland, the third of seven children, and named Abraham.
The majority of his life was normal, dull even by some standards. An education at Trinity College in Dublin, followed by eight years in civil service, during which he worked as an unpaid theatre critic. The one surprising quirk in his life was, at the age of thirty-one, his abandonment of his staid civil service position in favour of a position as actor-manager for the Lyceum Theatre in London.
A wife, Florence, soon followed and a son, Noel, his only child.
And then, in the 1890s, Stoker joined a small group of occultists known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. His fellow members included men such as William Yeats, Aleister Crowley, and Arthur Waite. He had been curious about the folkloric aspects of the occult for some time, amassing a large collection of books and pamphlets and treatises on superstitions in Eastern Europe in particular in the hopes of writing a work of fiction.
"It was particularly his interest in vampires, you see," Potter says through a mouthful of spring roll, "that brought him to the notice of Florence Farr. They had theatre connections and she heard of his research and was fascinated by it. She convinced the others to let him join."
In their midst, he met a young woman who shared his fascination with the peasant tales of the undead.
Potter licks turnip sauce off his finger. "Her name was Lucy Westerna. She was beautiful and charming and bright for a woman--far more interesting than his wife Florence." He makes a face. "My great-great-great-grandda wasn’t exactly the most, er, faithful--"
"He couldn’t keep his trousers buttoned?" I ask dryly and Potter dips his head.
"Something along those lines, yeah." He sips his tea. "Later he said that she seduced him, not the other way about, but no one really quite believed him. But the shit of it for him was that he managed to get Lucy up the duff and her family wasn’t best pleased, especially since the scandal would be worse if Bram divorced his wife for Lucy. So the Golden Dawn came to the rescue."
They closed ranks, keeping their secret, protecting them both from society's notice. A marriage was arranged quickly for Lucy with a French vicomte known to Crowley.
Abraxas Malfoy.
It was done quickly, with little pomp and even less circumstance. An elopement, it was whispered about town, how very romantic, and by the time her son Lucius was born seven months later, a new season had begun and Lucy Westerna was barely remembered, save by a few close friends.
Including one Mina Murray, soon to be Harker.
"Except," Potter says, "about two years after Lucy's marriage, Mina began to receive letters from her. Weird ones at first, ones that just made Mina a bit uneasy, right? But then the letters got more mad and more terrified. Lucy wrote about creatures that she called ‘evil and dark’ and she said they came to her every night so that she couldn’t sleep." He looks up at me, his brows drawn together. He fingers the rim of his teacup. "She said they touched her, stroked her, pressed sharp teeth against her skin, and she was sure she was dying slowly. Her letters talk about being drained of life and about being afraid for her baby, and they scared Mina pretty damn badly."
Pimmada sets our food in front of us. Potter gives her a wide, friendly grin--rather like a buoyant Labrador, I think uncharitably--and a cheerful thanks, love and she blushes and smiles back at him. I glare at her. She rolls her eyes and leaves us be.
Potter picks up his chopsticks. "Mina went to the Golden Dawn for help and was turned away. It was the fevered imaginations of a woman, she was told. They said that Lucy was just unhappy in her marriage, hadn’t settled yet into her role as mother, but they were certain the life she had been dropped into would be best for her."
"And Mina, I am assuming, objected." It annoys me that I’ve become engrossed in Potter’s ridiculous tale.
"Yeah." Potter spears a piece of chicken. "She didn’t like it to say the least. So she went to people she knew actually gave a damn about Lucy--and about her. Her husband Jonathan, a doctor named Seward, an American named Morris, and Stoker. They set a plan into motion to bring Lucy and her son back to England."
I drag my chopsticks through my noodles. "And?"
Potter hesitates; I look up at him. "They were too late." He rubs his thumb over his knuckle. Flecks of sauce drip from his chopsticks onto the table. "By the time they'd arrived, Lucy had been buried, and Malfoy refused to release her son. Even to his rightful father."
I stare at Potter. The bells on the door jangle brightly as students enter, loud and laughing. "That's not how the novel went."
"Do you really think he was about to tell the entire truth?" Potter asks calmly and he takes a bite of noodle. Pimmada has brought our food during his tale. "I've access to journal accounts and sworn affidavits from all of them. Bram just used the actuality to write the fiction." He furrows his brow and twists his chopsticks between his fingers. "It was his way of remembering her. And their son, in a way." He hesitates. "He named Abraham Van Helsing after himself."
I lean back in my chair and run my hand over my face. "This is mad." I hesitate. I cannot believe I am about to ask this. I grit my teeth. "Was she…" I sigh. "Turned?"
Potter nods. "According to Bram's diaries." He rubs his thumb over his bottom lip. "They killed her. A stake through the heart and Bram cut off her head. It wasn't pleasant for him."
"I can imagine," I find myself saying. Bloody hell. I do not believe this. I refuse to.
"They went back to get the boy, but the castle--there were too many waiting for them. They couldn't kill Abraxas." Potter stares off into the distance. "I think that's why Bram insisted on Dracula dying in his book. It was a catharsis for him. It was the way he wished it'd ended."
I don't say anything. I'm not certain what to think anyway. Instead I pick up a slice of chicken with my chopsticks and pop it into my mouth.
"They came home," Potter says, "Or at least some of them. Morris was dead, and Seward--" He hesitates. "The clan...they took him. Turned him." His jaw tightens. "My father killed him just before I was born."
"Your father." My lip curls.
Potter meets my disbelieving gaze evenly. "When Bram and the others came back, they vowed to keep fighting, however they could. Whenever they could. They became the first members of the Order of the Phoenix, and my family became vampire hunters, passed down from the Stokers to the Dobbs to the Potters. It's who we are."
I pull the amulet from my pocket, my fingers first catching in the coil of Horace's rosary. I disentangle my hand, then throw the amulet on the table. My arm throbs again, briefly. "And that?"
"Is who we fight." Potter unwraps the amulet and stares down at it. Disgust twists across his face for just a moment. "It didn't take Bram long to figure out that the vampire clan was part of a larger organisation. One that went back centuries." He pushes the amulet back across the table to me. "The Order of the Dragon."
"Are you seriously suggesting Henry V was a vampire?"
Potter smiles faintly and pokes at his noodles with his chopsticks. "No. Bram believed the vampirism began after the Order was disbanded. He thought Vlad Tepes--or the undead version of him, rather, brought it back. Albus's research supports his claim."
I raise my eyebrow. "A secret society of vampires?" My disbelief chills my voice. This is utterly ridiculous. A madman's tale and somehow I'm not surprised at all that James Potter's whelp would be in the centre of this idiocy.
"Why not?" Potter bites into a broccoli floret. "Tepes was a ruler, after all. It's not that far-fetched to think that after he became a vampire he'd want to organise the others he found. Make a vampiric kingdom to rule over forever." He shrugs and twists a noodle around his chopsticks. "At least until another vampire decided to get rid of him. They're not entirely loyal, that lot."
"You're barking," I mutter, tucking the handkerchief back around the amulet. "So if all this is true--and do believe me when I say I continue to have serious questions as to your sanity--where the bloody hell do I fit into it?"
Potter doesn't say anything for a moment, and then he sighs. "That's not my story to tell either."
"Bollocks," I snap.
He shakes his head, almost regretfully. "I've just been sent to convince you to meet with Albus. To bring you home, I suppose." He looks up at me. "If you'll come."
I open my mouth, then snap it shut and look away, lips pressed together. "You've most certainly lost whatever mind you might have once had."
"Albus thought you might say that," Potter says with a grin.
"I have classes; I have responsibilities--" I break off. "And you've yet to tell me why Horace was killed."
Potter swallows and stares down into his drunken noodles. After a moment he says quietly, "It was my fault, that. He emailed to tell us about your amulet, and Albus sent me to speak to him. I..." He trails off and takes a deep breath. "I promised him I'd keep him safe, and I didn't." He swallows. "He was a good man."
I just look at him. I don't know what to think. "How did he know to contact you?"
"He was once part of the Order." Potter smoothes his fingertips over his serviette, pressing out folds. "It wasn't a good fit for him. He always said he was too much of a coward to be of any use. He was bloody wrong though."
"And I suppose it's just a coincidence he happened to be here, to know me," I begin.
Potter cuts me off with a raised hand. "We sent him."
"Why?"
"It's not my story to tell," Potter says again. His eyes are bright and green when he looks at me. Lily, my mind screams. Lily, Lily. "Come to Britain with me and Albus will explain everything."
We sit silently for a moment, staring at each other, barely breathing.
I push my chair back and stand, throwing my serviette on the table. "I have to go--"
Potter catches my arm. "Just think about it, all right?" He pulls a card from his pocket and scribbles on the back. "My mobile doesn't work in the States, but there's the hotel I'm staying at. You can reach me there if you change your mind."
With a curt nod, I shove it into my coat pocket.
I don't bother to say goodbye as I walk away; I can feel his eyes on me.
I shiver as I step out onto Commonwealth; snowflakes are beginning to fall again.
The door closes behind me.
I don't bother with the T; Packard's Corner is only two blocks away as it is and I need the brisk air to focus me.
My mind is whirling, logic and intellect and all damned rational thought rejecting what something in my very gut tells me to believe.
I don't trust myself. I don't want to trust myself.
The shadows lengthen as I walk; night falls early during Boston winters, blackening the sky by five o'clock. I don't notice. Don't care.
A rush of wings startles me, and I look up. The birds have gone for the season, not to be seen again before late March. A shadow dips in the sky, then disappears. I shiver and draw my coat closer as I turn down my street.
I've just put the key in the lock when the floorboards of the porch creak behind me. I tense and twist the key sharply, some hidden instinct screaming at me to get inside. Now.
A pale hand catches my arm and pulls me back with surprising strength. I stumble against a solid body.
"Well, now," Malfoy says against my ear and I shudder. His fingers stroke over my throat, cool and soft, the perfectly manicured nails pressing into my skin. "Aren't you going to invite me in?"
I try to pull away; he holds me fast. His hair brushes cheek. "What do you want?" I say sharply. I can smell his skin, the faint whiff of lavender soap covering a deeper scent, heavy and musty and filled with decay.
"You've been talking to the boy." Malfoy's voice is soft but it thrums in my head. "Not wise, Severus. At all."
"How do you know me?" I stop struggling, but his vise grip doesn't relax.
He chuckles in my ear. "I've been watching you for years," he murmurs. "Waiting." His thumb smoothes over my jaw and I can't stop the quiet gasp. It's been years since I've been touched like this. A few stolen months in university with Evan Rosier…
"You like that." Malfoy smiles into my cheek. His fingers slip down my neck, into the collar of my shirt and over my clavicle. I can barely breathe, can barely think and when his tongue flicks at my throat, my body shudders.
"No," I say weakly, and I try to push him back, but his hands tighten on me, push my head back against his shoulder and I know what he wants, can smell the rusty need on his rancid breath.
It hurts, sharp and quick and I cry out, arching against him. I scrabble in my pocket, desperate, reaching for the one thing I know will stop him.
My fingers curl around the rosary beads and with a groan I swing it upwards, slamming the crucifix against Malfoy's cheek.
His scream echoes in the silent darkness, the wail of a wounded animal. "You bastard," he says, jerking away from me and I fall to the floor, shaking. Blood, warm and sticky pours down my neck. It's smeared dark across his thin mouth. "In the name of the Father," I choke out, raising the crucifix, "and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…"
A rush of wings and he's gone.
I push myself upright and lean against the door, my knees drawn to my chest. I'm shaking; my heart thuds wildly in my chest. I press my hand to my neck, Horace's rosary still twisted between my fingers. The beads burn against my flushed skin.
I need them to.
A half hour passes as I sit in the cold, silently staring into the drifting snow. I don't think. I barely breathe.
And then finally, I reach into my pocket and pull out my mobile and the card Potter gave me. I stare down at it for a moment, at the neatly block black letters that read Harry James Potter with a number beneath.
I flip the card over and ring the number he's scrawled on the back.
A woman answers, her accent a neatly modulated generic American. "Hotel Victoria."
"Room 1436."
She connects me.
"Hello," Potter says after a moment and I freeze. My hand trembles. "Hello," he says again in wary annoyance.
"Potter." My voice is faint but clear.
"Snape?" He breathes out. "I didn't expect to hear from you so soon. I thought--"
"I'll go." I cut him off sharply.
Potter falls silent. When he replies, his voice is tight. "What happened?"
"Just tell me where to be tomorrow." I don't want to discuss it right now. I can't.
He doesn't say anything for a moment. "I'll arrange for a flight out of Logan and call you with the details." He hesitates. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," I lie. "I'll be packed and waiting."
"You don't sound all right--"
I snap my mobile shut.
I'm fine.
I lie to DiSalvio and the dean in order to obtain time away from my classes, claiming my mother has fallen desperately ill and is in need of my presence. Entirely laughable given that at the age of 65 she was in far better health than I, as she delights in pointing out each time we meet, immediately after asking me if I've ceased smoking yet.
There are times when I think my nicotine addiction has more to do with annoying my mother than anything else.
I have been excused for two weeks, though I am required to leave contact information. It's a lie that I pray will be forgiven.
Ferris, of course, doesn't believe me and instead shows up at my door before breakfast. "Your mother's as healthy as a horse," he says with a frown and I roll my eyes. "What exactly are you up to, Severus?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I say, hefting my bag over my shoulder. The taxi blares its horn from the street.
He trails after me. "Have you considered what it'll look like to the police, your disappearing like this?"
I lock the door behind me and drop the key in my pocket. It clanks against the amulet and Horace's rosary. "If I were guilty I would have disappeared after Reilly." I start down the steps. "I have to do this."
"Why?"
I look back at him, just frowning and he sighs. "You're not going to tell me are you?"
"It's better for you if I don't." The taxi driver takes my bag and tosses it in the trunk. "I'll confess everything when I return. I promise. You can give me whatever penance you deem acceptable."
"Don't think I won't." Ferris crosses his arms over his chest. "I'll have two weeks to consider."
I snort and slide into the back seat. "Just pray, John."
A frown furrows his brow. "I don't like the sound of that."
"Neither do I." I close the door behind me. "You'd damned well better take me the fastest way," I snap at the driver and he rolls his eyes and mumbles beneath his breath as he pulls away from the kerb.
When I look back Ferris stands alone on the pavement, watching me drive away, his mouth tight.
I trust him implicitly. Whatever happens.
There is nothing more irritating, I soon discover, than a trans-Atlantic flight with Harry-bloody-Potter.
I do not care for flying at the best of times. It is a torture that must be endured only when necessary, and Potter's incessant chatter does nothing to make it less infuriating. I am relieved when he falls asleep, only to discover we are close to our descent into Heathrow.
Blasted fool.
The train ride is better at least; the steady clackety-clack of the wheels from King's Cross to Scotland seems to quickly lull Potter into sleep. He stretches out on the seats across from me and closes his eyes.
I can study him then. Black hair hangs in his face, nearly down to his glasses. A curious scar zigzags across his forehead, pink-white against his pale skin. The resemblance to his father is strong, but I can see glimpses of his mother in the sharp angle of his jaw and the soft curve of his bottom lip. I feel another pang of guilt. We'd been inseparable for so many years, Lily and I. The entire school had thought we were dating; she alone had known my bitter secret.
I'd half expected her to shout it from the towers after our final argument, to tell everyone that Severus Snape was nothing more than a nancy poof.
She hadn't.
"You're staring at me," Potter murmurs, his eyes still closed and I scowl at him.
"I most certainly am not."
He smiles faintly and shifts on the seat, curling in on himself. His jumper rides up, exposing a stretch of pale skin and the jut of a hipbone over his jeans. My cheeks burn.
I pull Horace's rosary from my pocket. The quiet repetition of Hail Marys falls in rhythm to the rumble and clatter of the train. The green English countryside blurs outside my window.
I sleep.
The train leaves us standing on the empty, minuscule platform of a tiny village in the Highlands. The weathered sign above the ticket office reads Hogsmeade--barely--and I raise an eyebrow as Potter hefts his bag over his shoulder.
Snow blows across the train tracks.
"It's a bit of a walk," Potter says far too cheerfully. "But I reckon we could use it after sitting for so long."
Bloody well speak for himself, he can. I glare at him as I pick up my bag. "Surely you've heard of such thing as an automobile."
Potter shrugs. "Albus's is usually broken down. Brilliant man, but he's absolute pants at keeping it tuned."
"And there's nothing for hire?" We begin walking down the High Street. The snow hasn't been plowed yet; it crunches beneath my boots. A pub sits at the corner of two streets. The sign swaying in the wind dubs it the Three Broomsticks.
"Don't need one. There's not that many people in the village."
An understatement to say the least. The village consists of a few short blocks of shops and houses before disappearing into a thick, dark forest. We take a circuitous path along the edge--Potter tells me few people even consider entering unless they've cause. It's exhausting, slogging through knee-deep snow, always up a slight incline, and even Potter's out of breath after half an hour. We stop on the side of the road, leaning against a fence. I've rid myself of my scarf and hat, preferring the sharp sting of the cold air against my sweaty skin to the hot, rough itch of the knitted wool.
The rattle of an engine catches my ear, and a moment later a faded red lorry rumbles around the curve, slipping on the snow. A wide grin crosses Potter's face. "We're in luck," he says, stepping out into the road.
Part of me secretly hopes the lorry slides into him.
Instead it lurches to a stop a few metres away and an enormous man, taller than even myself with wide shoulders and a thick beard, climbs out from behind the wheel. "'Arry," he shouts and wraps Potter in a one-armed embrace that dwarfs him.
Potter pulls back finally. "Hagrid, this is Severus Snape. Snape, Rubeus Hagrid. He's the caretaker for the castle."
"Castle?" I ask, but the giant's grabbed hold of my hand and is pumping it roughly, shouting please to meet yer loudly enough to bring down an avalanche. I extract myself gingerly.
Potter's already thrown our bags into the back of the lorry. "Hogwarts Castle. It's Albus's home." He slides across the bench seat and I follow him, gingerly. Neither the lorry nor its driver exactly inspires confidence.
Hagrid shifts the ancient lorry into gear and with a groan of rusted metal and it jerks forward.
I cling to the door handle.
Potter props his feet on the dash. "So you managed to get old Buckbeak running did you?"
"Wi' a bit o’ love an' care," Hagrid says, slapping the wheel. The lorry slides across the road. I grit my teeth. "'E's a right solid one, 'e is, if cranky. Just need to 'ave the right sort o’ touch."
I snort.
Potter looks over at me. His hip is pressed firmly against mine. He tries to budge over, to no avail. "You all right?"
"Perfectly fine," I say tightly and grip the door handle harder. I am quite certain I'm going to die on this stretch of mountain.
But I don't.
After twenty minutes of slipping back and forth along the road, we turn a curve and my breath is taken away.
A castle is set into the side of the mountain, large and turreted with parapets that would rival a king's Bavarian palace. Beneath it is a wide lake, smooth and glassy in the late afternoon sun.
It's exquisite.
Potter chuckles and it's only then that I realise he's watching me. "Beautiful isn't it?"
"I suppose," I say noncommittally, but I'm afraid my thoughts have already been revealed. Potter just smiles.
"He only lives in the main wing," he says as we rattle through the gates. Hagrid stops the lorry in front of a set of steps leading to an arched wooden door. "The rest of it's locked up."
I climb out of the lorry and reach for my bag. "How can he afford this on a professorial salary? Surely he couldn't have saved that much money--"
"Family home." Potter grabs his bag and starts up the steps. "Don't mention it though, or he'll offer to take you on the tour."
"I don't want the tour?"
Potter throws a warning look back over his shoulder. "No. Really. You don't."
The door swings open with slam. Startled, I nearly drop my bag. A man stands in the doorway, younger than I expect, in rumpled trousers and patched jumper, his grey-brown hair shaggy over his collar. "Harry," he says warmly and Potter grins. The man glances towards me, and I take a step back in surprise.
"Remus Lupin," I say tightly. A friend of James's from school. A scholarship boy, as I was. Not as objectionable as many of the wretch's companions but a sodding prick nevertheless.
He nods at me. "Severus." His voice is cool and the look he gives me is appraising. "It's been a while."
My mouth thins. For all I care it could have been longer.
Lupin turns back to Potter. "He's waiting in the study." He reaches for my bag; I stiffen and he drops his hand, an amused smile playing across his face. "I'm not going to steal anything, Severus. I'm not exactly keen on dressing like a priest as a general rule."
I ignore him and instead follow Potter deeper into the castle. The entrance hall is wide and long, lined with overlarge portraits of wizened old men whose eyes seem to follow me as I stride past them. A few lamps flicker and buzz every so often on the wall, as if the electrical connections are faulty. Then again, in a castle this old, they almost certainly are.
Shadows twist across the Aubusson carpets covering the flagstones. A scamper and rustle as we turn the corner gives me pause until a cat bounds into the middle of the hallway. She stops, her tail twitching slowly as she eyes me with suspicion.
Lupin chuckles behind me. "Meet Mrs Norris. She keeps the mice away."
The cat hisses and swipes at my ankle before dashing down a side hall.
"Nasty little cow," Potter says. "But Filch is fond of her."
"Filch?" I ask.
"Albus says he's his butler, but he spends most of his time in the kitchen, tippling from the cooking sherry." Potter stops in front of a carved wooden door. He lowers his voice. "I think he just keeps the crotchety old twat around because no one else down village will hire him." He pushes the door open.
The entire room is filled with books. Two storeys worth, with a circular staircase in one corner leading up to the second level.
It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
I don't notice the others until Potter coughs. I blink and turn back. An elderly man with a long white beard and twinkling blue eyes over half-moon spectacles smiles at me. "Severus," he says, and when he places his hand on my shoulder, I don't wish to pull away.
Curious.
"Albus Dumbledore," Potter says quietly, then turns to the others, still seated in front of the fire. He nods to a woman his age with bushy brown hair caught back with a tie. "Hermione Granger and her husband, Ron Weasley." A red-haired man next to her nods. His fingers are twined with his wife's; they look disgustingly content. "And Sirius Black."
I freeze.
Black looks the same, if older. His hair is still black, his shoulders still wide, his smirk still as bloody damned annoying.
"Snivellus," he says, and his smile doesn't reach his eyes.
My jaw tightens.
I hated him in school. Despised him. Loathed him. Spent the great majority of my years at Stonyhurst being tormented by him and James bloody Potter. I haven't forgotten the time they trussed me up, hanging me by my ankles from a branch of the old oak off the rugby field, my trousers belted to my knees. They'd taken great delight in humiliating me before the whole school in any manner possible.
Black had broken my nose once in sixth form. I'd split his lip in return. The fathers hadn't been best pleased with either of us.
Dumbledore takes my elbow, leads me to a wide leather chair. "So very pleased to meet you at last, Severus," he says and he turns to Granger. "Hermione, dear, a glass of whisky for Professor Snape, will you, my dear?" He sits next to me. "It is Professor still, yes, and not Father?"
Black snorts.
I glare at him. "Yes." I look back at Dumbledore. "Potter says you've answers for me."
"Ah, yes." Dumbledore steeples his fingers and presses them to his mouth. Granger hands me a glass filled with whisky. I sip it. Macallan, eighteen-year, I'm certain. "Would you care for dinner? I do hate the food served on planes now."
"I'm fine." I lean back in my chair. The leather is aged and worn to a buttery patina.
Dumbledore nods. "If I might have a moment alone with Professor Snape?" He doesn't take his bright gaze off me and it's bloody disconcerting.
"I need a shower anyway," Potter says, rising to his feet. "If that's all right, sir?"
"Certainly." Dumbledore smiles at him. "Your usual room, of course."
Granger stands and pulls Weasley to his feet. "We'll start dinner then." At Weasley's surprised but that's Filch's job, she shushes him and hurries him out of the room still protesting.
"Sirius," Lupin says from the doorway, and Black scowls at me.
"I don't think you should be left alone with him, Albus." Black crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the mantel. The fire flickers behind him; shadows twist in the folds of his trousers. "Snivellus always was a mean little sod back in school."
My jaw clenches and I tighten my fingers around my glass. Before I can snap out an appropriate reply, Dumbledore puts his hand up. "Sirius," he says quietly but with a firmness that makes even me take note, "I would suggest you assist Remus with setting the table for dinner."
Black doesn't answer, but he pushes himself away from the mantel with a grunt and a vile glare in my direction. "I'm keeping an eye on you, Snape," he murmurs as he ambles past.
I bare my teeth at him; he smirks.
When the door snicks shut, I look back at Dumbledore. "Well?"
He sighs and stares into the fire. "What do you know about your mother, Severus?"
"My mother." I blink and lower my glass. "What does my mother have to do with anything?"
"Only that she is a link between you and your grandmother." Dumbledore stands, his purple dressing gown falling over his dark trousers. He's wearing socks, bright gold and blue, but neither of the patterns match. He walks to the sideboard and pours a glass of whisky for himself, before bringing the bottle back to his chair. He sets it on the side table between us. "So I ask again, what do you know about your mother?"
I hesitate, turning my glass between my hands. "She was born Eileen Prince, sixty-five years ago. Prince wasn't my grandmother's last name, though. It was the name of the family who gave her and my mother a home."
"And your grandmother's actual name?"
"Caldararu." I give him a curious look. "Husa Caldararu."
"A Rom from Bavaria," Dumbledore says quietly. "Who didn't wish her child to be discriminated against in her new country."
I am silent for a moment, meeting his gaze directly. Somehow I am unsurprised that he knows this fact about me. "Yes," I say finally. "She was pregnant by a gadje. Her vitsa cast her out. In Romani custom, half-bloods are marhime--unclean, that is. And at the time my mother was born there was no recourse with the kris."
"It was the middle of the war."
"1940, yes." I take a sip of my whisky. My hand shakes slightly. "The Romani were frightened. Even if they were inclined to trust the gadje--a laughable thought, do believe me--a year earlier the Germans had begun rounding them up for imprisonment along with the Jews."
The hatred towards the Romani had been deep-seated throughout Europe for generations. A thousand years of Gypsy hunts and mass genocide, of serfdom and prejudice had led to the common belief that they were nothing but thieves and criminals, good for nothing at all. Sub-human, in fact. In 1899 the Nachrichtendienst in Bezug auf die Zigeuner had been set up in Munich to register the Rom and in 1905 the organisation recommended that Germany use--and I do quote--'ruthless punishments' against the 'plague' and 'menace' of the Romanies.
Lebensunwertesleben, the Nachrichtendienst said of us. Unworthy of life. My grandmother had made certain that I learnt this history, that I knew what had been done to my ancestors, that I understood why she forgave her family what they'd done to her. And that I realised why we could never go back to them.
I look at Dumbledore, anger twisting up inside of me. "All Gypsies should be treated as hereditarily sick; the only solution is elimination. So spake the Nazi Office of Racial Hygiene." My mouth twists to the side. "Is it any wonder they sent my grandmother away when they found she was up the duff by a gadje? It was a necessity for survival." My hand shakes as I lift my glass. "For them and her."
Not that it had done my grandmother's vitsa any good. She'd discovered years later through other Romanies that most of her family had been killed, either in the gas chambers or deep within the forests where they had been rounded up and shot.
The Romani call it the Porrajmos. The Devouring. By 1945 only one-quarter of the twenty thousand Roma known to reside in Germany only six years before were still alive.
And so my grandmother, barely fifteen, found herself on her own, with little more than a rosary and small sack of clothing, a bastard in her belly, and no place to go. An abbess helped her to Munich and to the notice of a Jesuit priest who was helping Jews escape through the underground. He made arrangements for her to accompany several Jewish teenagers to resistance members in Switzerland who then smuggled them through France and into a small boat that took them across the Channel. When she arrived in England, frightened, wracked with morning sickness and entirely at a loss language-wise, she was sent to live with an elderly Catholic couple in Lancashire.
The Princes.
My grandmother had kept in touch with her fellow refugees throughout her life.
Dumbledore touches my knee, drawing my attention. "Your grandmother's expulsion from her family was more than a requirement for their survival than you know."
"What do you mean?" I drain my whisky and reach for the bottle, pouring another glass.
"You are quite accurate in your belief that your grandfather was not a Romani." Dumbledore leans back in his chair and crosses one leg over the other. His socks are almost too garish to be borne. "However, I do not know if I would necessarily term him, what was it you said? Gadje?"
I frown at him over the rim of my glass. "Again I ask, what do you mean?"
Dumbledore sighs, his brows drawing together. The fire crackles in the hearth, a log collapsing with a thump and a shower of sparks. "I'm afraid there's really no easy way to say this." He runs his thumb over the rim of his glass. "You’ve already seen one example of what your grandfather is."
I lower my whisky slowly. "You’re not saying…"
"Your grandfather is a vampire."
I burst out in a sharp bark of laughter, only to have it fade away at the seriousness of his expression. "You really can't be serious."
"Are you so willing to deny their existence after your recent experience?" His eyes study me closely, soberly; they've lost their twinkle. "Every culture has their tales regarding creatures of the night, Severus. The Greeks call them vrykolakes, the Sanskrit katakhanoso. Russians talk of the upiry. Germans of the blutsauger, Chinese of the giang shi. The people of ancient Peru thought a cult of the devil existed whose followers drank youths’ blood, depriving them of life."
Dumbledore folds his hands together. His fingers are long and graceful and pale in the firelight. "In the early eighteenth century a man named Peter Plogojowitz’s body was disinterred in the Serbian village of Kisilova after nine of his fellow villagers died a week after his death. Each one claimed on their deathbeds to have been throttled the night before by Plogojowitz. The body was found fresh, undecomposed, with new growth of beard and nails. His mouth was filled with blood."
"Folkloric superstition--"
"Eighteen ninety-two." Dumbledore’s eyes harden. "Mercy Brown. Exeter, Rhode Island. A victim of consumption buried behind the Baptist church in her town. She was exhumed a few moths later by her own father in a vain attempt to prevent the death of her brother from the same disease. Her corpse was found to have turned over in her grave; her heart and liver still contained blood."
I press my mouth together. This is utterly ridiculous. "Improperly embalmed bodies have been known to sit up at times."
"Arnold Paole." Dumbledore leans forward, his voice louder. "Again Serbian. A highwayman who died in 1725 of a broken neck and who was deemed to be responsible for at least four deaths in the village of Medwegya over the next thirty days. He and his victims were dug up and staked through the heart, their bodies burned. Six years later in the same village seventeen people died. The first, Miliza, had eaten sheep believed to have been killed by Paole and his vampires. Another, Stana, had admitted before her death to have smeared her body with vampire blood in order to protect herself from vampires whilst traveling through lands under the control of the Ottoman Empire."
"These tales mean nothing!" I run my hand over my face. "All can be disproved by science."
"’There are such beings as vampires, some of us have evidence that they exist. Even had we not the proof of our own unhappy experience, the teachings and the records of the past give proof enough for sane peoples.’" Dumbledore looks at me calmly. "Stoker attributes those words to Van Helsing in his novel. They’re a direct echo of his own journal."
I look away.
"Severus," Dumbledore says gently, and he reaches out. His fingertips brush across my throat, just blow the jut of my jaw. The skin is still tender there, still swollen and raw. I wince. "You know what you’ve experienced. Stop being so bloody stubborn."
The glass in my hand trembles. Whisky splashes across my thumb. "Even if we said such creatures do in fact exist, they are undead. Which I would bloody well assume means unable to reproduce."
"Ah." Dumbledore drops his hand. His glasses slide to the edge of his nose. "And there would be the rub. However, there are many elements of folklore that suggest the ability of human women to reproduce via intercourse with such creatures as incubi. The legend of Merlin claims that he is the result of such a union and even your own Church discusses the possibility in the Malleus Maleficarum. Of course Father Ludovico Maria Sinistrari holds an opposite view from tradition in his Daemonialitas, yes? As I recall he believed that intercourse with an incubus--or a succubus for that matter--would be a positive experience for the human--"
"And he was a bloody Franciscan," I snap. "No Jesuit worth his salt would have allowed such nonsensical twaddle."
Dumbledore tilts his head slightly and watches me. "Really? Your Saint Augustine even suggests that demons are responsible for gathering semen from men and using it to impregnate women whilst they sleep."
"Stop." I down half my whisky. This is not a conversation I wish to be entirely sober for. "You are not informing me that my grandfather was a--" My throat closes on the word. I cannot even say it.
"Yes." Dumbledore settles his glasses on the bridge of his nose. "As I understand it is not an uncommon belief for the Roma people."
"They also believe spirits roam the earth at night," I snap. I watch my whisky swirl as I tilt my glass to one side. It's cool and firm beneath my fingers.
Dumbledore studies me for a long moment. "Your mother is a dhampir, Severus," he says at last, his voice soft. "Her father seduced her mother and she was the result. She has accepted that."
I jerk my head up, narrowing my eyes at him. "And how would you know?"
He smiles faintly at me. "You should speak to her. Lancashire is not that far from us."
"That's not an answer."
"It's not my answer to give," he says, and my mouth twists. He taught Potter well. I don't say anything; he sighs and sets his glass aside. "I realise the difficulty you face---
"No." I look at him impassively. "You don't."
He leans back in his chair. "Don't I?"
"I am Catholic," I say after a moment. "Even if this ridiculous tripe is true--and I am not yet completely convinced that the entire lot of you are not off your bloody nut--even if it is true, I would have been born out of an evil union. Sins of the fathers visited upon the sons. Whilst I have not made a study of vampiric legend, I do remember Bela Lugosi at the Saturday matinee. If the cinema industry is to be believed, vampires cannot enter sacred spaces nor can they stand against religious symbols." I hesitate, remembering Malfoy's cry of pain as Horace's rosary struck his cheek. "I have firsthand knowledge of the latter," I say reluctantly. "If this is the case, how the bloody hell would I even be capable of stepping foot inside a church all these years?"
Dumbledore presses his fingertips to his lips and smiles. "A logical conclusion I would have expected you to make. However you are wrong in two assumptions, I'm afraid. The first being sacred spaces. Should such an environment, whether church or synagogue or mosque or temple, be abandoned or left in ruins--the sanctified spirit of the place departed one might say--then one may find such creatures in residence. Even Dracula himself was once devoutly Orthodox, you realise."
I frown at him over the rim of my glass.
"The other…sins of the fathers, my dear boy." Dumbledore shakes his head. "Did you know that during the medieval years the Catholic Church actually sought out dhampirs as vampire hunters? Not that your current leaders would encourage such a practise, of course. It would be...unwise."
"Bloody mad is what I think you mean."
Dumbledore nods slightly. "In the eyes of some, yes. However, even your early Church fathers accepted the possibility of vampiric activity. Tertullian suggests--"
I slam my glass against the side table. It shatters with a crash. "Stop it," I say tightly. I can't listen any longer.
"Severus," Dumbledore says quietly and his eyes are fixed on my hand.
I look down. Blood seeps across my fingers, thick and red. I can smell it and my body thrums with a heady pulse. I want. I want. I want.
My arm burns, but the pain is an afterthought. I don't seem to care about it as I watch the drops of blood run across the pale skin of my thumb and spatter darkly against my trousers.
Dumbledore's fingers are on my wrist, turning it as he pulls a shard of glass from the ball of my palm. He presses a white handkerchief to my hand. Within seconds it's red.
"Come with me," he says.
Shaking, I do.
I am stitched up by Lupin who appears to my utter surprise to have, in the years after Stonyhurst, attended medical school.
His specialty, he tells me with a small twist of his mouth, is actually psychiatry; however, he does have the basic medical skills required not to maim me.
I am not certain I trust him. His two stitches across the heel of my palm are neat and careful, though, and he slicks my hand with a salve of his own concoction, comfrey and golden seal. I cannot complain; it was what I would have used myself.
After bandaging me from wrist to fingers, he leaves me in my room at my request. I've no wish for supper, or to be surrounded by the fools downstairs. There's too much swirling in my head.
Instead I find myself on a small balcony outside my chambers, leaning against the rough stone parapet. I light a cigarette; the flare of the match is bright against the shadows.
The air is bitterly cold. It stings my cheeks, burns my lungs with each breath. I rather like it. Beneath me the lake lies smooth and glassy, a million stars reflected in its depths.
My hand throbs. The pain is a welcome relief.
The French doors open behind me with a rush of warmth that quickly dissipates.
"Hey," Potter says, and I take another drag of my cigarette. He sets a book on the parapet next to me; a small journal, bound in leather and tied with a black cord. "That's for you."
I touch the cover. It's old. The leather is worn smooth. "What is it?"
"Bram's journal," Potter says quietly. "Read it when you feel up to it." He leans against the wall, staring out across the snowy stretch of yard. Light gleams from the windows of a small, ramshackle hut next to the paddocks. A shadow crosses the drapes, nearly blocking the warm yellow glow for a moment. "Hagrid," Potter says without explanation. I shrug and pass over the cigarette. He takes it with a nod, inhaling deeply. He blows out a thin stream of smoke. It drifts off into the darkness.
After a moment he sighs. "Albus says he talked to you."
"Yes."
"And that you didn't take it entirely well."
I grunt and extend my hand. Potter gives me back the cigarette. "I don't know how well one can take being informed that one allegedly comes from evil stock."
"You're not evil." Potter watches me. "Look, a vampire's kid--or grandkid, I guess in your case--isn't a vampire. According to legend you might get some vampiric traits passed on, rather like genetics, you could say. Some dhampir inherit the father's weaknesses--like being oversensitive to the sun. Some end up with traits like the vampire's physical strength. Some don't inherit anything at all except a bit of sensitivity to vampiric presence. A pull in the blood, per se."
I look at him sharply. "In the blood."
"Yeah." Potter reaches for the cigarette again. He meets my gaze directly.
I look away, barely suppressing a shudder. "I don't like this," I say after a moment.
"Don't blame you." Potter flicks ash against the stone. "Doesn't make much difference though. It is what it is."
"I suppose." I lean against the parapet, my arms folded on the stone. From this height, I feel like I can see forever. In the distance, over a wide swathe of black forest, the lights of the village gleam and glitter.
Potter hands me the cigarette. "I'm going to be training you," he says. "We'll start in the morning so you should try to sleep."
"Training?" I blow a stream of smoke towards him.
He nods. "You don't want to face Malfoy again without it. Trust me."
"I've no intention of finding myself face to face with that creature again."
With a snort, Potter shakes his head. "You don't get it, do you? For some reason, your grandda has decided to look you up and unless you want to end up being dead or turned, you might want to learn how to kill these wankers."
"And you're to be my Rupert Giles?" I snort. "Oh, please."
Potter grins at me. It lights up his face, and at that moment, he looks exactly like his mother. "Half nine," he says. "Downstairs after breakfast. Don't be tardy." He stops, his hand on the door. "Oh, and I brought you up supper. Hermione's bangers and mash are pretty decent." He glances down at my bandaged hand. "You'll need something inside of you for tomorrow, so eat."
I glare at the door as it swings shut behind him.
My stomach rumbles and I swear under my breath.
Damned annoying wretch.
I look down at the journal still lying on the wall next to me.
With a sigh, I pick it up.
Only Weasley is in the breakfast room when I come downstairs. It takes me fifteen minutes to find it. Despite numerous wings being shut off the castle is still overwhelming. It reminds me, oddly, of Stonyhurst with its meandering passageways and hidden nooks. It has the feel of an old school.
The sideboard is spread with steaming chafers of eggs and rashers, bowls of beans and stacks of toast. I fill my plate and sit with a nod at Weasley. With a grunt, he pushes the teapot across the table from me. "Fairly fresh," he says, taking a bite of toast and turning the next page of The Scotsman. Football scores are emblazoned across the bottom fold.
The Celtic won over the Rangers I note as I fill my mug.
I eat quickly, grateful for the silence, until I look up to find Weasley has set his paper aside and is studying me. I frown and reach for my tea. "What?"
He shrugs. "Never seen a dhampir before."
The tea is bitter against my tongue. The bastard's left it to steep too long. I set my mug down and lean across the table for the milk and sugar. "So very delighted to have obliged."
"Can't fault me for being curious." Weasley leans on his elbows. "So what does it feel like?"
I stir two spoonfuls of sugar into my tea calmly. "At the moment I'm considering what your blood might taste like."
He blanches. "Not funny."
"It wasn't meant to be." I sip my tea. Better.
The door to the breakfast room flies open. Potter strides in, wearing loose jeans and a faded t-shirt. Peeling letters proclaim his devotion to The Who. Roger Daltry would be so pleased, I'm certain. His feet are bare.
He yawns and stretches, running his hands through his disheveled hair. His t-shirt rides up, revealing a stretch of pale stomach. I blink slowly, then look away, face flushing. I'm all too aware of Weasley's raised eyebrow.
Potter sits next to me and reaches for a triangle of toast. I slap his hand hard; he doesn't drop the bread. "Morning," he says sleepily.
Weasley pushes the jar of Marmite towards him. "How late were you up?"
"Three, maybe?" Potter smears Marmite thickly over the bread and takes a bite. "Could have been later."
"Sleep, mate," Weasley says with a shake of his head, "is necessary, you realise."
Potter gives him a faint smile and says nothing as he pours a mug of tea. He drinks it black, downing the entire mug in one long gulp. I find myself strangely impressed. It's a discomfiting thought in relation to Potter.
"We might as get started, I reckon," Potter says and he stands. "Snape?"
"This is utterly ridiculous." I push myself up.
Potter eyes me. "Are you actually wearing that?"
I glance down at my usual garb of black trousers, black jumper over a white dress shirt, black jacket. "I see entirely nothing wrong with it."
"Right." Potter looks dubious. "Don't you have any jeans?"
I roll my eyes. "No."
"Sweatpants?"
I look at him in abject horror. "Not bloody likely."
Potter sighs. "Fine. All right. Come on then."
I follow him into the hallway, Weasley behind me. Potter's feet slap softly against the smooth stone floor. We turn down a side corridor and go up a short flight of steps before Potter stops in front of an arched doorway. The carvings on the door are well-worn, but I'm almost certain I can make out Latin letters among the tangled vines and elaborate curlicues.
"Room of Requirement?" I ask curiously and Potter shrugs.
"There's some strange family legend of Albus's that it appears in a time of need," he says. "It's been here as long as I can remember. I used to play in it when I was a sprog." He pushes the door open.
The room is wide and open. Sunlight spills in from two long Gothic windows on the far wall. The lake shimmers in the distance. There's little furniture in the room--a few chairs and a table are pushed against one wall. The wooden floor is worn smooth and covered with an enormous Persian carpet.
"Take your boots off," Potter says and he pads over to the table. By the time I've my first boot toed off, he's back, a wooden box tucked under his arm.
"What's that?" I kick off my other boot. It feels odd to stand in stockinged feet.
Potter squats on the carpet, setting the box at his feet. He looks up at me. "A vampire hunting kit."
I stare at him. "You must be joking."
"He's not," Weasley drawls from the wall he's leaned against. His arms are crossed over his chest. "It's genuine. Made and sold by one Professor Ernst Blomberg in the 1870s. That's one of three I own."
"Ron has one of the biggest collections of vampire memorabilia in Scotland," Potter says with a grin.
"A worthy accomplishment," I mutter.
Weasley pushes himself off the wall and walks over. "Don't be so damn flippant," he says, squatting next to Potter. "This kit might just save your life someday."
Potter unlocks the box. "What do you know about vampires?" he asks.
I shrug. "Only what I've seen in cinema."
"Well, forget all that shite," he says. He pushes the box open. The maroon velvet lining is worn and crushed in places and there are dark blotches on the fabric that I'd prefer not to consider. A gun nestles inside, along with a small crossbow, a crucifix, a Star of David, a rosary, several stained wooden stakes, a small mallet, and a number of dark amber phials.
"Lesson one. How to kill a vampire."
Potter pulls out a stake and hands it to me. My fingers curl around the smooth wood without thought and he smiles. "You've a natural grip," he says and I look down at the stake.
It feels oddly settled in my hand, as if it had been meant for the curve of my palm. The weight of it presses against the cuts on my hand; they sting through the bandage.
"There are three ways to kill a vampire," Weasley says calmly, pulling the pistol from the case. "Shooting him with a silver bullet--"
"I thought that was only for werewolves," I interrupted.
Weasley and Potter exchange a long look, then Potter nods. "For it to be effective against a vampire he has to actually be in his casket. You shoot through the lid. Staking the heart seems to be the best way to keep the bastards dead, though. Or cutting off their heads but that tends to get messy." Potter pulls out one of the phials, capped with a green lid. "Holy water. Very helpful in keeping them away if you need a bit of a breather, but this phial’s only if they’re of Christian heritage. The Host works well too--"
I stiffen. "That's the Body of Christ you're talking about."
"Yes." Potter looks at me soberly through his messy fringe. "Is that a problem?"
"For me, yes." My mouth tightens. "It's blasphemy."
Potter rocks back on his heels. "You take that seriously." It's a statement more than a question, but I can hear the curiosity in his voice.
"Yes." I don't look at him. Whatever my uncertainties might be about my faith, they remain mine. I have no wish to share them.
A moment's silence, then Potter continues. "Ron'll leave the Host out of your kit then. Holy water's all right though?" I nod curtly. "Right. We’re mostly working in the European tradition right now, so a goodly chunk of the vampires you might run into are probably going to respond best to the Christian symbols. The Star of David seems to give Jewish vampires a bit of pause. Enough time for you to regroup a bit, which is all you need. Hermione’s worked out an Arabic prayer that’s effective on Islamic vampires, and this," Potter pulls out another phial filled with petals, "will slow down Buddhist vampires."
I peer at the phial. "What the hell is that?"
"Lotus flowers blessed by a Tibetan monk." Potter tucks it back into the kit. "Wild rose works on pagan vampires. We’ve also holy water from the Hindu, Islamic, and Buddhist traditions." He pulls out phials capped in blue, white and yellow. "Colour-coded, thanks to Hermione. She’s a bit of an organisational problem."
"And if they’ve an atheist heritage?" I ask with not a small amount of curiosity.
Weasley laughs from the wall. "Then you’re fucked, mate. You’d best hope you’ve a strong arm or you can get out of the way quickly."
"Or hope you’ve a bag of seeds to throw. Vampires in general are a bit obsessive-compulsive and have to stop and count them. If all else fails, that’ll work." Potter stands up. "Let's see how you handle that stake."
I raise my eyebrow and he grins at me. "Exactly how do you wish to test that?"
"Like this." Potter rushes me and I barely sidestep before he barrels into my shoulder, sending me staggering backwards. "Not bad," he says as he turns back around. "Keep your arms up a bit. Protect your neck."
I shed my jacket, pushing up the sleeves of my jumper and we circle one another slowly, eyes fixed on each other. Potter's glasses are askew; his t-shirt is pulled to one side, revealing a sharp clavicle. "Come on," he says. "I'm Malfoy and I'm going to bite you. What are you going to do?"
"Stay the bloody hell away?" I say dryly and he grins.
"Yeah, well, I've other plans." Potter lurches forward and I raise the stake higher. Weasley watches us from the side of the room, amused. "Come on, Snape. Don't be such a nancy priest."
"I'm not," I say sharply, "a priest." I move towards Potter, who circles to the side.
"Come on," he taunts. "Scared of me?"
I run at him, lowering one shoulder the way I'd once done on the streets of Clitheroe. I'd spent most of my summers learning how to fight as a child. I'm not about to forget how now.
Potter grunts as I slam into him and we tumble to the floor. My knee presses against his chest and I raise the stake up, ready to plunge it--
And he twists beneath me.
The next thing I know I'm flat on my back and Potter's wrenched the stake from my hand. The tip is pressed against my throat and Potter leans over me, his thighs straddling my chest, his breath hot on my cheek.
I stare up at him, into narrowed green eyes. His hair hangs around his flushed cheeks; he licks his bottom lip. I almost want to lift my neck, to let him have free access to my throat. It's a nearly irresistible urge.
"Not bad," he whispers and a wide grin breaks across his face. "You did better than Ron his first time--"
"Oi," Weasley says from the sidelines and Potter ignores him.
"Try again?" he asks me, standing and holding a hand out.
I ignore it as I clamber to my feet. "Oh, yes," I say grimly.
I'm not going to be shown up by a twenty-five-year-old wretch, that's for bloody certain.
My entire body aches.
I'm bruised and scratched and am quite certain that at one point I dislocated my knee. I am far too damned old for this sort of idiocy.
I escape the castle--and Weasley's mirth at Potter's thorough trouncing of my useless arse--choosing to walk off my soreness. I find myself at a small tower on the north side of the castle. Owls perch on the roof and in the windows, watching me cautiously as I make my way up the path. I hear my name called; in surprise I look up. Dumbledore leans out of a window and motions to me.
"Come up, my boy."
The door to the tower is open, and I enter, curious. The tower is dry and hot inside and it reeks of owl droppings and dead rats.
Dumbledore descends from a far too rickety ladder, his Wellingtons slick on the narrow rungs. His long beard is caught with a tie, halfway down his chest, and he pulls a falconer's glove off his left hand.
A small ball of grey fuzzy feathers and sharp beak pokes out from his jacket pocket. Dumbledore lifts the tiny owlet out, letting it roll across his hand. "A hatchling," he says. "Very uncommon this time of year, but we've a new flock coming in early it seems." He smiles and strokes the quivering clutch of feathers. The bird eyes me quizzically as it shuffles across Dumbledore's palm, its wings dragging slightly behind it. "He'll fledge in another month, I'd say."
Dumbledore sets the owlet in a nest; several other owlets clack at him, rushing to the side of the nest to nip at his fingertips. "Little ones," he says with a quiet laugh. "Children are a delight, whatever form they take."
I snort. "I might disagree." My few experiences with the obnoxious ankle-biters have not been enjoyable, to say the least. Wretchedly horrifying beasts.
Adult owls swoop above us, hooting softly, their wings spread wide. Dumbledore looks up.
"Beautiful, are they not?"
I eye the birds dubiously. "In a Hitchcockian way, perhaps."
Dumbledore chuckles and looks up. "My pet project." At my questioning look, he smiles. "I've a theory that owls might be quite useful as trained messengers, much like homing pigeons."
A white owl swoops down and settles on his shoulder, dragging its beak through his hair. "Have you had any success?" I ask dubiously. I'm quite certain the old man is barking.
"Enough to continue." He strokes the owl's feathers. "I understand you were to have training with Harry this morning?"
I wince. "Yes."
Dumbledore's eyes twinkle. "He did say he would go easy on you at first, given your wounds."
"Wretch," I murmur. I glance down at my hand, turning it. It doesn't hurt as badly as it had before. Sunlight brightens the white bandages, nearly blinding me and I have to blink for a moment before I realise Dumbledore is watching me.
"You heal quickly," he says after a moment. "You always have."
It's true. Mother had never worried about scrapes and bruises on me. They'd be gone within a day or two. I'd never questioned it; it had always just been that way.
"How do you know so much about me?" I ask. "You can't have learnt so much so quickly."
Dumbledore doesn't answer for a moment and then he shakes his head. "Your mother and you have been of interest to the Order since we first discovered her story." He steps out of the tower; I follow him. The owl on his shoulder takes flight, circling above us in the bright winter sky.
"Why me?" I ask after a moment. "Surely if this is my grandfather, he's more interest in his daughter."
Dumbledore hmms. I glance at him. Shadows from the bare tree branches above us cross his face. "And you are a male heir," he says finally.
I shiver and pull my coat closer around me. "Incredibly old-fashioned of him."
"I highly doubt your grandfather is a very progressive vampire." Dumbledore clasps his hands behind his back.
"Who was he?" I ask.
Dumbledore glances at me. "Your grandfather? A man not unlike ourselves. His wish for power tainted him, however. Bound his soul to darkness."
"How very dramatic," I mutter.
"Indeed." Dumbledore looks over the rims of his glasses at me. His blue eyes are sober, shadowed. "Willfully giving oneself to a vampire is not an action to take lightly."
Snow falls from a tree branch, striking my shoulder. I brush it off absently. "And you know he was turned of his own free will?"
"Yes." Dumbledore sighs. "I knew the vampire who turned him."
I nearly stumble over a tree root. "I see." I don't. At all. None of this makes any damned bloody sense. I'm not certain it ever will.
A twist in the path brings us to an open view of the lake. It sparkles in the afternoon sunlight. A heavy splash sends drops of water shimmering through the air.
"The squid," Dumbledore says with a smile and I raise my eyebrow.
"In a lake?"
He chuckles softly. "You'd be surprised at what you might find in a Highland loch." He stares out over the water. "The squid is what it's been called for generations now, whether or not its genus is indeed Architeuthis."
We stand still, watching a hawk dip lazily over the water. "You were acquainted with the vampire who infected my grandfather?" I ask finally, turning to look at Dumbledore.
"Yes," he says. The sun glints off his glasses, hiding his eyes. "He was someone I once knew well." His voice softens, grows wistful.
"A friend?"
Dumbledore nods and his glasses slip to the end of his nose. The sunlight is harsh against his face, highlighting every wrinkle, every age spot. He's old, I realise, far older than his spryness would indicate. "His name was Gellert. We were once..." He trails off for a moment, then sighs. "Close."
I catch his meaning immediately. "Oh." We begin to walk again, slower now.
"We were young," Dumbledore says quietly. "Foolish and curious and far too certain of our own immortality. We'd only been with the Order for a year, perhaps a few months over. It was all so new back then. We'd no idea what we were doing in many ways." A small smile curves his lips. "Perhaps that was part of the excitement of it all. The danger. We were still at Oxford at the time, both of us reading history, and on holidays we were tracking creatures that, with one slight misjudgment on our parts, could kill us. Or worse. It was, one might say, extraordinarily heady. And our prey was quite persuasive at times."
"And this Gellert..." I trail off.
"Was intrigued by the promise of power. Strength. Immortality." Dumbledore steps over a snow-covered log. "I won't fault him for that. I came close to that seduction as well."
I frown. "What stopped you?"
"Gellert," Dumbledore says simply. "I saw what happened to him after he turned. What he became."
An owl hoots in a tree above us. I'm silent for a moment. "You truly believe all this," I say at last.
"I know what I have experienced." Dumbledore looks over at me. "Is this so very different from your belief in your God?"
Yes, entirely different, I wish to scream. Instead I sigh and press my lips together. "I am not certain of what faith, if any, I have any longer."
"What is faith but the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen?" Dumbledore stops on the path, his hand on my arm. "You haven't lost your beliefs, Severus," he says, voice gentle. "You've only lost your path. Those are entirely different matters."
"How do you even know?" My anger flares up. "You're barely acquainted with me, if that. You've no idea--"
"I wasn't so very different from you in my youth." Dumbledore continues towards the castle. I follow him. Snow crunches beneath our boots. "I recognise the symptoms perhaps." He looks oddly wistful. "I lost my way once and I've yet to find it again." He looks at me over the rim of his spectacles. "I should hate for you to find yourself on the same course."
After a moment I say tightly, "I do not require your sympathy."
Dumbledore lays a hand on my arm. "No. But you have it nevertheless."
"What happened to Gellert?" I ask.
His eyes soften, sadden. "One night, many years later, I killed him," he says quietly.
The remainder of our walk to the castle is silent.
My training takes place each morning after breakfast.
Surprisingly, I enjoy it. I have never been a physical man. The company of books has been of more import to me in my life. I stayed away from sport in school, allowing the Blacks and Potters to ponce about the rugby field. I preferred to sit inside at my window, book in hand, and mock the fools.
Now, however, there's something almost primal about the release sparring with Potter brings me.
On occasion Weasley takes his place. He is a police officer in Edinburgh, and his training takes the form of proper fighting procedure. Movements designed to bring an opponent down from various angles are his specialty; he is startled to find himself on his knees, arm twisted behind his back, on our second encounter.
"Not bad for a scrawny shit like yourself, I reckon," he says reluctantly, and he scowls when I twist his arm just a slight bit harder before releasing him.
Potter just laughs.
My afternoons and evening are spent with Stoker's diary, deciphering his spiky scrawl. The leather binding of the journal is torn and stained, page corners crumble with each careful turn. Still, I'm captured by the story he tells. The pain of seeing his Lucy defiled, the sharpness of her teeth when she bit his hand as he was trying to contain her, the burn he'd felt afterwards, the horror. He writes of his guilt at leaving his son behind, of his attempts throughout the next fifteen years to find him again, only to be thwarted in one way or another.
Stoker's private self-flagellation is wrenching at times to read, even for a cynical bastard such as myself.
There are such beings as vampires, some of us have evidence that they exist, he writes in a shaky hand and I stop reading at that sentence, staring out the window for an hour.
My doubts are slowly fading.
The journal is a compendium of vampiric research, a collection that extends past that which he presented in Dracula. He has documented everything, cross-referenced with other volumes that I soon find on the library shelves. Maps trace reports of vampire sightings throughout the years, a strangely migratory pattern circling across the Continent. Charts track folkloric customs for detecting and destroying vampires. I am most amused by the Serbian claim that vampires may only be seen by twins born on Saturday--and only when both wear their shirts inside out.
Madness, I tell Potter during our next match and he just grins and informs me I obviously have not reached the tradition regarding pelting a corpse with pebbles as it is lowered into its grave as a precaution against the creation of a vampire.
I have not.
By the weekend my hand has healed and Lupin takes out the stitches. The wound is pink and barely swollen. Lupin says nothing, just eyes the startling progress calmly, then smears it with salve and bandages it again. He looks pale, almost unwell. It's startling enough of a difference that I feel compelled despite my better judgment, to ask after his health.
He just smiles faintly. "An old illness, nothing of concern," he says without looking at me as he packs his medical kit again. "It flares up every so often."
I am dubious, but, as he pointed out, it is no concern of mine. I put it out of mind.
Monday night I am unable to sleep. The moon is high and almost full, its light brightening my room. I'm uneasy for some reason. Restless. Wolfish howls echo through the mountains, far too close to the castle for my comfort. At half one I find myself sitting in the window seat, feet flexed against the worn velvet cushion beneath me, Stoker's diary propped on my knees. I am close to the end. From my dressing gown pocket I pull the amulet, still wrapped in its handkerchief covering. It's warm in my hand, and I unwrap it slowly, barely daring to breathe. I have taken to carrying it with me at all times. I'm not certain why. I just need the weight of it nearby. It's oddly comforting.
The amulet gleams up at me in the moonlight, shadows falling across the face of the worn gold. I tilt it; the dragon appears to twist with the movement. I smooth my fingertip across the rough carved scales. The burn is immediate. I grit my teeth and turn my arm. My birthmark has grown darker over the last few days, purpling beneath my skin. The skull is more pronounced and the stain has widened. I'm quite certain a serpent twists through the eye socket now.
A movement outside the window catches my eye, the quick flutter of a wing against diamond-paned glass. I jump, then shake myself for such foolishness. The owls, of course.
Still my discomfort lingers.
A whisper echoes across the room, unintelligible. I turn. No one is there.
I frown down at the amulet. "What are you?" I murmur, and I slip it into my palm.
The moment the gold touches my skin, I fall from the window seat. Stoker's journal flies across the room. Pain twists down my arm, sharp and ragged, and I can barely hold myself up. Wind rushes around me, catching my hair, pushing me back into the floor. Blood pounds in my ears, a steady thrum of my heartbeat. The whispers return, soft at first, then building into a shriek of voices, a high cacophonic crescendo that I finally realise is my name.
Hands are on me, pulling me up and I try to jerk away from them.
"Severus."
I strike out, my fist balled tightly, and the amulet slips from my grasp, rolling across the floor.
Silence falls.
"Severus," Potter says quietly, and it's his hands on me, steadying me as he helps me sit up. I slump against the wall, breathing hard. My fingers ache. I turn my hand over.
The amulet has burnt into my palm, a red and angry serpentine circle across the slick pink scars. I watch as it fades slowly.
"Are you all right?" Potter asks.
I nod.
An unearthly howl fills the air, and I jerk back. Potter lays his hand on my arm, though he looks distracted for a moment. "It's just the wolves."
"I was not aware there were so many in this area."
Potter doesn't answer for a moment, then he shrugs. "There are a few." He helps me stand. "What happened?"
I shake my head. I don't wish to speak about it. Potter picks up the journal and hands it to me. He reaches for the amulet before I can stop him. Calmly he wraps it back in the handkerchief.
"That didn't burn you," I say, idiotically, as I take the amulet from him. I slip it back into my pocket.
"It wouldn't."
"You're not a dhampir." I spit the hated word out.
"Something like that, yeah." He sits next to me on the window seat. He's wearing a pair of plaid pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt that is far too tight for his shoulders. I look away, throat suddenly dry. I have the distinct feeling that my next confession will involve far more than the Stations of the Cross.
With a rush of proper Catholic guilt, I realise I have abandoned my penance in the past few days. I should find a church, I think blankly.
Potter looks at me, his brows drawing together in a worried expression that reminds me of his mother. I find it highly disturbing. "You're certain you're fine?"
"Yes," I snap, humiliated at being seen in such a weak position. I push my hair back from my forehead. My hand barely shakes. "Get out, Potter."
"I don't think--" he begins, running a hand through his hair.
I glare at him. "OUT."
Potter's mouth snaps shut, and he gives me a mulish look. "Fine," he mutters. "See if I give a bloody damn if you're alive in the morning."
The door slams behind him, and I fall back against the window. The glass is cool against my flushed back.
I'm nearly certain I've gone mad.
It's a five-hour train to Clitheroe in Lancashire.
I leave early, before the others are awake. A note left at the breakfast table merely states where I am going and when I expect to return in the evening. No apology. No belated requests for permission. I merely go. The sky has not yet begun to lighten.
A boy watches me curiously at the station. His eyes are grey and his hair beneath his fur cap is a pale blond. Something about him is disconcerting. Perhaps the steady way he watches me as I purchase a ticket and board the train. He stays on the platform when the train pulls away, a curious smile twisting his thin lips.
I'm paranoid, I decide. I've spent far too damn long with madmen lately.
I sleep on the way down, curled beneath my coat, my legs stretched out on the seat beside me. When I arrive in Clitheroe, I catch a taxi to take me to the street I swore I'd never step foot in again.
Spinner's End is as ramshackle as I remember it. Half the rowhouses along the street have been boarded up; the old cotton mill looms empty and dark above their roofs. I can smell the reek of this curve of the River Ribble.
The key to the house is still on my key ring. Even after all these years I've yet to remove it. The door sticks when I turn the lock and I shove at it roughly. It swings open with a creak.
Dust dances in the dim sunlight from the door, disappearing only when I shut it behind me. I shiver, not only from the chill in the air but also from the memories. If I close my eyes I can hear the shouting still and faint strains of the Sinatra my mother used to try to drown it out.
Fly Me To The Moon still sets my teeth on edge.
The furniture in the lounge is draped in once-white twill. I sit gingerly on the edge of the sofa and wait.
She'll come, I know. I've no doubt Dumbledore will ring her once he's read my note. She'll know where to find me.
It takes nearly an hour before the door rattles. I've stretched across the sofa by now, half-dozing, but by the time she enters the room, I'm upright, on my feet.
"Mother," I say quietly, and she stops in the doorway.
It's been five years since we've seen each other. I'm surprised by how frail she looks. Her skin is pale; her cheeks gaunt. She's twisted her thick grey hair in a knot at the nape of her neck as always, though, and her dark eyes are bright and sharp. "Severus."
"I knew he'd talk to you."
She doesn't say anything, just walks into the room and looks around. Her eyebrows furrow. "Everything I've done, Severus, was to protect you."
"I see."
Mother sighs and trails her fingertips across the mantel. They come away black with dirt. "You don't understand--"
"Because you've never told me!" Mouth tight, I cross my arms over my chest. For so long it was just the two of us against him. Now I feel alone. Adrift. "