Sheep as a Lamb

A/N:

For those of you who are wondering in disgust why the hell this story has an NC-17 rating, I promise: the naughty bits are coming. Really, they are. Meanwhile, enjoy all this English dialogue and know that RedSkyAtNight really earned her exorbitant salary this time around.

“I think I could do the first part,” she said, “although I have never attempted an exchange with a person who was not . . . I do not know how to say this. I can do the pull, but I do not know if it will work without the push.”

“And then what?” asked Snape. The four of them—Rawa, Snape, McGonagall, and Dumbledore—were in Dumbledore’s office. “Now the bit of Voldemort is gone from Potter, but it is trapped inside Professor Akapana. How has this improved matters?”

“Because Harry is a child, for one thing,” said Dumbledore patiently, “whereas Rawa is an accomplished witch.” He turned to her. “Can you expel this fragment into some object where it can be destroyed?”

She shook her head. “Even if that were not forbidden—which it is—I would have no idea how to do it.”

“And even if she could,” persisted Snape, “we are left with the problem that the Dark Lord retains within him a bit of Potter, does he not?”

“Yes,” said Dumbledore.

“The push,” Rawa said slowly, “would be easier than the pull, I think.”

“What do you mean?” asked McGonagall.

“If I had a way to make contact with . . . with this person, I could return to him the fragment that is his.”

There was a long silence.

“What kind of contact?” Snape asked at last.

“I would have to kiss him,” she said, “and it would have to last long enough for me to make the transfer. I do not know how long that would be, if I am doing the work of it alone.”

“What a ghastly idea,” said McGonagall.

“Indeed,” said Dumbledore.

“A kiss,” said Rawa, “or any other prolonged . . . intimate contact.”

McGonagall turned to Dumbledore. “Albus, it doesn’t bear imagining.”

“No,” agreed Dumbledore.

For a long time no one said anything. Then Rawa asked, “Except for the . . . the repugnant nature of the task, what exactly are the risks?”

“You could be killed,” said Snape at once.

“As could whoever took you to meet Voldemort,” said Dumbledore. “And that would be Severus, of course. Killed, or exposed.”

“I think the biggest problem,” she said, “is, how are we to induce Voldemort to initiate such a contact?”

“I hardly think he is likely to turn down the opportunity,” said McGonagall dryly.

“No, she’s right, Minerva,” said Dumbledore. “A man like Severus, or Sirius Black, might jump at the chance—” here he gave the ghost of a smile “—but I never knew Tom Riddle to show the slightest interest in girls.”

“You think he’s gay?” McGonagall said incredulously.

“No,” said Dumbledore. “I think of him as rather asexual.”

“What does bring the Dark Lord pleasure,” said Snape, “is the pain of others. And in this he is quite indiscriminate in his tastes.”

Rawa had begun to feel a sick fear in the pit of her stomach. She knew that this was why she had come here, and understood now why the Condor had refused to warrant her safety. Was this it, then? Was Voldemort the source of the darkness she had seen, and was it her portion to offer herself up as a sacrifice?

She took a deep breath. “Once it happens,” she ventured, “it should be quite pleasurable for him. He will be receiving something that will strengthen him, help to complete him. He should feel a rush of power, in the moment. And perhaps a lesser sense of relief if I can find and extract the fragment of Harry. The beginning is the problem.” She saw McGonagall looking at her, aghast. “He must be made to believe that this contact with me will cause me pain.”

“To you,” said Dumbledore, “or to someone else.”

They looked at him.

“Severus,” he said, “can you make him think that you want Rawa for yourself?”

“Possibly.” Snape’s face revealed nothing.

“Can you keep her safe?” asked McGonagall.

“We are none of us safe,” Snape said, in a flat voice.

“And you?” Dumbledore asked him. “Are you willing to take on the risk yourself?”

Snape shrugged. “Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,” he said.

These responses did nothing to alleviate Rawa’s fear, and she looked at him uneasily. She was finding it difficult to know exactly where he stood in all of this, although some aspects had come clearer to her since the meeting of the Order. Evidently Dumbledore—who of course knew Snape far better than she did—trusted him implicitly, and so must the other members of the Order, including Sirius, even though he made no secret of his dislike for him. In fact, she thought, to call Sirius’s attitude toward Snape dislike was to accord it too much importance; it was more of an amused contempt. And it seemed to be mutual: every contribution Sirius made during the meeting was met immediately by a scathing rejoinder from Snape. Not that these had had any visible effect on Sirius, whose attention had been focused almost entirely on Rawa.

She had not seen the mortífago tattoo on Snape’s arm since that first afternoon in the Potions classroom, and realized now that he took care to keep it covered up when others were around. It was only because she had surprised him at work in his shirtsleeves that she had seen it at all. But she knew it was there: incontrovertible evidence that he had once been a follower, however much he might now profess to have changed his allegiance.

And she was about to stake her life on the genuineness of that change of heart.

She was proud that Dumbledore had trusted her enough to invite her into the Order, and prouder still that he was asking this tremendous risk of her so matter-of-factly, without protectiveness or apology. She hoped desperately that his confidence in Snape’s loyalty was well-placed.

The plan they came up with was hardly foolproof—in fact, it had weaknesses everywhere you looked.

Snape was to let Voldemort know that Rawa wanted to meet him—might, in fact, be induced to join him. Then they would wait to be summoned.

The transfer with Harry must be put off until the last possible moment, since every second that Rawa carried the fragment of Voldemort inside her would leave them open to discovery. They had no way of knowing whether he could see out of that portal at will, or whether he was even aware that it existed; in any event, for him to realize that Rawa, rather than Harry, had become the host would be disastrous.

They had no idea how Voldemort was to be induced to kiss Rawa, nor indeed any plan to escape once the exchange had been effected.

As plans go, it was not one of the best. But it was the best they had, and so Dumbledore took on the task of explaining it all to Harry. How this went Rawa did not know, except that in the end apparently the boy was persuaded.

Snape sent a message to Voldemort, and they waited.

Two weeks later Rawa was in the middle of an afternoon lesson when one of the finches fluttered into her classroom and perched on the lectern. She unrolled the tiny scrap of paper, feeling the blood drain from her face as she read it.

She looked up. “Harry,” she said. “It is time.”