Two: Dumbledore's Army

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns all aspects of the Potterverse. No infringement intended, merely tribute to The Author.

Fall 1995

Thereafter, the advent of classes and concerns of the Order took much of my time. Weighty matters of war mingled with the drudgery of yearly rosters and rubrics. A spate of foul weather and staff meetings disinclined me to venture out of the dungeon. I hardly thought at all of Miss Granger or any other particular student. Little did I feel her arrowlet's patient burrowing through my outer epithelium, biding its time within my flesh. But Fate, merry prankster, well knew it, and devised for me the snare of solitary men everywhere: the accidental encounter – a chance collision with the huntress herself.

Or perhaps I unfairly malign Fate, for I have noticed she often plays coy mistress to the whim of one Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts Headmaster. In fact, I have reason to suspect Albus's hand in the whole circumstance, doubtless a scheme of his to plant me firmly under his Gryffindor heel (a harmless diversion, he surely thought; how he misjudged the designs of my perversion!). You see, the Headmaster had scheduled with me a supposedly "very important" discussion of Order business, under the pretext of a casual excursion round the lake. But on the afternoon in question, I found myself unexpectedly free upon his sudden and unexplained cancellation. It seemed once again he could not be bothered to hear my concerns, and felt himself at perfect liberty to impose upon my busy schedule and then vanish at will whenever he fancied some other matter more important. This slight was simply the latest symptom of his complete disregard for the peril I suffered daily on his behalf, not to mention the tedium of teaching, a career I surely could not long have abided had not his long-ago extortion doomed me to perpetual servitude. Though for these reasons I was much displeased at his cancellation, I resolved that his unfathomable caprice ought not to dictate my life, and enticed by the afternoon's break in rain and still-strong fall sun, I determined on impulse to go on alone round the lake before blockheaded pupils and inclement weather drove me indoors for the season's remainder. I had a secluded spot in mind, a stretch of meadow between the forest and shore, far from the madding crowd, and so I set forth in that direction.

Rather than brood upon Albus's thinly veiled snub, I set my mind upon a current knotty dilemma with this year's Potions ingredients: an apparent disease was, at present, decimating my supplies of doxy eggs. Typically after receiving doxy eggs in batches of several hundred or more, I store them in a sealed incubation chamber, which preserves them in stasis until needed in my laboratory. This term, however, my new batches, though flawless upon arrival, exhibited a progressive set of mysterious symptoms: corrosion and embrittlement of the exterior chorion, followed by disintegration of the internal vitelline envelope and lysis of the egg contents. Symptoms had appeared in patches throughout the entire egg mass of every batch, and within several weeks had spread to nearly every egg, resulting in over 90% mortality.

I strode out from under the castle's shadow, down the sloping lawn to lake's edge, past a daub of scotch bonnet and a gaggle of posturing third years, and recalled my most unfortunate conversation of that morning, when I had finally gotten round to visiting the egg supplier's shop. I had hardly begun the explanation of symptoms when the clerk assured me they were quite impossible, and he strongly implied that the problem's origin lay in my laboratory conditions or my faulty observations and not in the clonal stock sold to me.

You can imagine my aggravation at this reply. I reiterated to him my meticulous control of both setting and observation. For example, I had detected no concomitant change in pH; in addition, their incubation chamber had kept a stable temperature and was already well-warded on the unlikely chance that a stray spell or ingredient would affect the chamber environment. I had hypothesized a biotic agent of disease but could detect no contaminant of any sort in the batches, and neither cleansing charms nor quarantine seemed to halt the spread.

He then suggested that perhaps some undetectable creature had arisen spontaneously, de novo from the air.

Do you see the incorrigible depths of human stupidity? A hundred years after even the Muggles determined the spontaneous generation of life to be a fallacious theory, wizards still believe in hocus-pocus and refuse to acknowledge facts they ought to have learnt as children in Hogwarts. It was clear that the supply clerk merited not even the standard third-year explanation: that is, of course, while skilled witches and wizards may, through their own agency, Transfigure living beings from the elements, life cannot arise on its own without either a magical agent of will (human or sentient creature) or the normal course of reproduction¹. I vaguely recalled my own third-year class ignoring McGonagall's lecture on the subject (Scotland's worst teacher, we Slytherins called her then), save for a general round of sniggering at the mention of reproduction. And there before me stood the sorry result – lifelong abject ignorance! I had no choice but to depart his contemptible shop immediately, and needless to say the whole incident still irked me hours later. I reminded myself of the necessity of re-ordering eggs, this time from a more accommodating supplier, and one less thick, if possible –

But I was brooding again: I turned instead to more soothing, idle musings upon the empirical facts of the case. I had, in the last weeks, skimmed the relevant literature but could find no research on the observed symptoms. Why had no one apparently encountered this before? Doxy eggs were quite a common Potions ingredient. Was a magical disease agent or vector concealing itself from detection by spellwork? This would not be unheard of, though unique for doxy egg infestations. Was it a 'disease' at all? How was it spreading through all my batches – some sort of aerial dispersal? I recalled that not all the eggs had died. Perhaps I ought to preserve a resistant stock (no, too much hassle, maybe Sprout would do it) – but I had thought each batch was comprised of clones? Should they not all have equal susceptibility? And so on. With clinical care, my mind tossed questions into the dry breeze like so many grains. The chaff came loose, the kernels settled and stewed. In time, they would congeal into delectable possibilities, testable hypotheses. And then, I would slice them into their elements until a plausible explanation arose. Or perhaps a thing before my nose would turn out to be entirely another, and I would need to begin all over again. Or I would move on, tempted by another, more intricate puzzle. Oh, how I longed to spend my days thus immersed in the studious comprehension of our magical world, to thresh out its secrets – what astounding complexity, what feast for scientific enquiry! How elegant the universe, bound by rational law yet laden to bursting with mystery!

I enjoyed immensely these meditations, the fruits of my solitude. By this creative exercise of mind, I wandered naturally into detached observation of my immediate surroundings. Upon the cusp of the seasons, I strode. Subtle changes marked the death of Scotland's summer – a translucent tinge to the oak leaves, the sharp dry air, the crickets' final, slowing songs, heralds of a coming, early frost. The earth, having slaked its thirst for rain in past days, was now drying, exuding a rich aroma of warm, moist matter². From the oak branches came several uncertain avian warblings into the bright sun, its lone singer no doubt nostalgic for vernal days.

Behind me, the school bell sounded across the grounds. Four times, it tolled slowly, marking the hour's passage, as if to cry, "Farewell! Farewell!", as, deep within the Clock Tower, the unseen pendulum kept its perpetual sway. At the final ring, I paused and turned round to the sight of Hogwarts School, my home for most of the last 25 years.

For a fraction of an instant, I saw with a sort of double vision – the mighty castle, and laid over it like a ghostly sheen, a barren non-Hogwarts, the illusion of an empty, nameless moor as a Muggle might imagine it. The Muggle wanderer would hear no bell. He would see no ravens' nests brimming with life within their namesake's tower, could hear only their harsh, ill cries in the distance. No soaring cliffs would draw his eye, no hint of the invisible realm before him, merely stones eroded, crumbled to dust and strewn from some long-ago epoch, like forgotten cairns across a wasted hillslope. Beneath his feet lay some scraggly ruderal weeds and, buried unseen in the sand, the enduring stone foundations, untouchable to Muggle machinery, hidden away in the earth's memory. But he would see none of the glory, none of the mighty empire, only that which he expected, the wrack and the refuse. He would turn away and never once wonder what might have been.

But the bleak Muggle landscape held not more than a second in my imagination, for in reality the day was bright and the air full with magic. And now I saw that the lake, still as glass, reflected the castle's turrets and gables and the sky's pure blue. Atop the sheer cliffs the castle towered over the lake. From its base, over the precipice hung a thick ivy tapis, like an ever-green veil tumbling down over the rock face. The ivy strands descended to the water and floated in a tangled mat upon its surface, concealing the jagged rent in the rock face leading within to Hogwarts's cavernous entry cove. At this sight of the school, awash in strength and majesty and light from the west, I could not help but see it afresh, not through Muggle eyes, but as the boy I once was, at his first sight of it:

1971. A gaggle of anxious children stepped off the train for the first time, into a cloying overcast darkness. I betrayed no fear or anticipation, but took careful note of the direction we had come and the road ahead of us. Our self-proclaimed chaperone, who called himself Hagrid, was a fierce-looking hairy creature of very large proportions and bore a suspicious resemblance to pictures of giants I had already seen in books on the Dark Arts. I distrusted his slurred accent and ruddy complexion, as if he were drunk. He didn't smell so great either. I wondered how we could be sure that he was Keeper of the Grounds, as he declared, and not a Dark creature? The other students seemed to believe his claim without question. Lily said he looked like a friendly teddy bear. Uncertain, I nonetheless followed her over to Hagrid but kept well away from him. Giants were very unpredictable, I knew. He blathered on during the walk, extolling the virtues of the Headmaster and the supremacy of his house, Gryffindor, at which point I naturally felt even more certain that Lily and I both belonged in Slytherin.

When our flock arrived at the Great Lake, the giant loaded us four by four onto a fleet of student-sized ships bound together by magical moorings. Lily and I chose a boat on the edge of the fleet, away from Hagrid and the other students. I was smaller than most there, and it seemed unwise to draw his attention to myself as a potential target. In truth, I hadn't thought much of the other students so far either, having had a few unpleasant encounters on the train, and wished to be apart from them as well. But they couldn't all be like those superior would-be Gryffindors, could they? Lily wasn't, after all –

And suddenly we were off, stealing across the night into the unknown. We cut darkly through the glass waters, and I was hardly the only boy gripping the boat's edge, wondering if he were sailing into an ogre's lair. Lily's almond eyes, lit by some unearthly light and the giant's lantern-glow, grew round as the moon and edged with white. She was definitely more frightened than I. We heard bellows from the black Forbidden Forest to the east, and Hagrid spoke with alarming fondness of the beasts within; he warned of monsters called Grendel-o's submersed in the lake's obscured deeps. I had already learnt about Dementors and Inferi; could these be yet worse? I peered over the starboard quarter.

I reminded myself, then, that it wasn't for nothing I knew more magic than any other student here. Thank Merlin for that (one of the funny things my mum said). I could be ready – that way, if he grabbed anyone, I would get him with an Incendiecorpus (I could do this spell, failsafe, even if I were the one attacked; that hair of his would burn quite well) and jump for it. I squinted to the far shore and thought I could probably reach it before a Grendel-o got me. I was a pretty good swimmer. I whispered the plan to Lily. She said she didn't think she could swim well enough.

"Not my problem," I shrugged, making a sorry attempt at a joke (come now, I wouldn't really leave her), but I saw that she was frightened and angry, and she said she was pretty sure a water creature could swim faster than an 11-year-old wizard anyway, so why didn't I go ahead? But Hagrid didn't eat anyone, and no one jumped. At once the clouds parted, and the formless mist in front of us cleared, and the castle silhouette loomed up before us like a monstrous maw itself, all sharp angles and steep slopes, and lit by a thousand trembling flames within its halls. Open-mouthed gargoyles bared their throats over us as we passed underneath and through the ivy veil, where, to my boyish wonder, we were not dashed to pieces against the rock, but conducted into to the very heart of Hogwarts, a wondrous subterranean harbour where our ships came safely to rest. And, in a burst of relief, there echoed in the softly lit cavern the great clamour of feverish young witches and wizards lugging their cauldrons and oversized suitcases onto the pebbles, which smacked and clattered gaily under their feet. I was home, for the first time.

Twenty-five years later, I very nearly smiled just at the memory of it.

I had now not quite reached the Hogsmeade station dock where the little silent fleet lay. I passed through a brief wooded copse, a spur of the larger forest where, within the dense brush, small rustles betrayed the wanderings of creatures from farther within, the mischievous deeds of faunlets and Panlets. A roof of hardwood branches arched over me, the successively layered vaulting of sun-seeking rivals striving against one another. I followed a footpath that led through a tangle of brush, a bright mixture of prickly hawthorn and rowan-trees bearing full ripe clusters of red berries. But at the point of exit from the shade, I paused, my eye caught by an incongruous spot of colour upon the green sward beyond. Was that a pumpkin? How very odd. One of Hagrid's, I supposed, but unnaturally far from its patch. I sidled up behind the woody brambles and peered round the mesh of vines and through their interstices, senses alert, intent upon the displaced gourd.

A gust of magic came past, brushed the plump fruit into the form of a wriggling field mouse. With a murid squeak, it stilled; its limbs stiffened and closed, pressed together as if bound by cord, or by rodent-length corset. Hmm, a modified Incarcerous. I waited, in controlled readiness, for ambush.

A murmur and another sweep of magic, and slowly, the mouse (oh wee timorous beastie, recited a schoolmarmish singsongy voice of memory from my own Muggle schoolboy days) rose into the air, rotated 180 degrees, and hung flailing by the pink thread of its tail.

The Levicorpus – so, it had finally come back into fashion at Hogwarts. I recalled it all too well. I had once been that mouse – limp prey, helplessly exposed. Something cold and taut inside me snapped. I whipped out my wand and in fell swoop leapt from the brush – to find none other than Gryffindor's own coppery-locked goddess, wand raised and steady, upon the grassy bank beyond.

Her shriek split my ears. The poor beastie, suddenly a pumpkin once more, lurched and burst. I let out a cry of consternation. Orange innards flew round me.

Miss Granger sat mutely a-tremble, clutching a very large book. My meditation was utterly broken. And I was no longer the awkward, awestruck schoolboy of my reverie, but a suddenly, thoroughly cross disciplinarian.

"Granger! Explain yourself!"

Her lip quivered. She shrank and said nothing.

"You are expected to respond."

She squeaked some sort of nonsense: "Sir, I didn't know you were there – I'm sorry –"

She didn't look sorry; or rather, she looked sorry only to have been caught by me. "You are alone, are you?" She nodded. "Have you told anyone you are here, experimenting with spells?" She shook her head faintly.

Upon further enquiry, she affirmed the book as her source of spell material. I promptly snatched it from her hand: Advanced Spells for Duelling: Combat with Dark Wizards and Fell Creatures.

"Where did you get this text?" I knew that under no circumstance would this year's Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, Dolores Umbridge, allow her permission to borrow this book from the library's Restricted Section. Had she filched it? I began to suspect the hatching of a plot of distinctly Gryffindor proportions. What mischief was afoot here? How much did she know about the Order's activities? Were the other usual suspects here as well? I looked round her, half expecting to discover Tweedledee and Tweedledum hiding amongst the brambles.

"I – it was a gift, sir – You see, we're not really getting enough in class – and with the war and all – and I've already read all the library's books –"

"You seem to think I have time to waste on your blubbering. These spells are not on your O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s, though I suppose I am to blindly believe that you merely wish to increase your encyclopaedic knowledge by mutilating small animals. I will ask you one time: Why are you learning these spells?" She was clearly hiding something. I would check my own library when I returned; after all, it would hardly be the first of my possessions Miss Granger had stolen.

She steeled herself, thrust out her chin. "Because Voldemort is back," she whispered.

It took every ounce of my fortitude not to flinch at the name. Defiant little bitch – she was toying with me, was she? Was she challenging me to deny his existence, as per the Ministry canon³?

Well, I would not be baited. I hissed, "You prodigious fool. Expulsion, Miss Granger, is the consequence of practicing such forbidden and dangerous magic. And fifty points for the lack of sense to speak that name. I see you believe that rules are to be strictly followed until it suits your own interests to manipulate them. Well – what a principled ally you make in the 'war'."

"I'm sorry for breaking the rules, sir," she mumbled, quite unconvincingly; her downcast lashes obscured her expression. "But we're not practicing defensive spells in class anymore, now that we need them more than ever – and I'm afraid. We haven't ever had a proper teacher. I'm trying to be safe but I'm going about it all wrong –" She halted, perhaps aware she was babbling again, and awaited my usual remonstrance.

In truth, though nettled by her interruption of my excursion, I was of two minds on the matter of spell experimentation and undecided as to the proper course of action. This whole affair stank of Potter's involvement somehow; yet I was disinclined to mention him and bring further ruin upon a perfectly adequate day. Granger clearly deserved punishment, not least for flagrant abuse of my authority. Still – did I sense an implied plea for instruction in her words?

Sod it, this situation was impossible – Potter's lackey or not, was she not wise to arm herself, while the rest of society hid their empty heads in the sand? The succession of inept Defence Against Dark Arts professors invited disaster; one could not whitewash the Dark Arts, pretend that 'book learning' was adequate, or handle Dark subjects with kid gloves. The Dark Lord was indeed returned, and even if his evil did not persist, he would hardly be the last threat to the wizarding world. Hogwarts pupils required sound judgement skills in the ethics and appropriate use of Dark Magic and defence against it. If students were not trained, in a safe environment, to wrestle with the Dark Arts, more lives would certainly be lost, more youth lost to false auguries of limitless power. Had I but had the training...

The warm autumn sun must certainly have confounded my senses, for I was suddenly inclined to assist her. After all, she was clearly determined to learn defensive spells, regardless of sanction (had I behaved any differently?); I judged her unlikely to be lured by the Dark Arts themselves. Perhaps she could benefit from a bit of guidance. This would certainly be granting her an enormous and undeserved leniency. But, I reasoned, for so many years I had been denied the opportunity to provide adequate Defence training at Hogwarts; here sat a receptive student and a perfect opportunity to take a private jab at Albus and to flout the vapidly tyrannical Dolores Umbridge, who was (to put it generously) making a mockery of the D.A.D.A. professorship. What could it hurt to instruct the girl in a few simple spells? I would inform Dumbledore of her illicit activities later and let him deal with her if he wished.

Against my better judgement, I sat down upon the knoll, not imprudently near to her, averted my eyes from her delicate hands as I returned the book to her. Perhaps, I reasoned, if Potter and Weasley were hiding in the vicinity, the unnatural sight of Professor Snape in repose would shock them into leaving. I adjusted my cloak, for it was a warm day, and reclined a bit, enjoying her obvious discomfiture and the mosaic of afternoon light upon the lake. A touch of autumn gold crept into the green-growing rushes fringing the shore. Round my feet and through the meadow, the grass was freshly mown, likely for the final time that fall. Bumblebees foraged among the low stands of clover in unconscious fulfilment of Nature's ancient mandate. Just behind Miss Granger, brambles climbed atop one another, extending from the edge of the wood. The raspberries, a double-bearing strain, were flowering in their second round of the season, while their first fruits still hung in bright drupelets and mingled with the rowanberries also poking through the tangle. Bees and hoverflies flew up to the blossoms in the hedge, and it seemed, from the whir of their wings, that the whole tangled coppice hummed sweetly over her. Farther off in the field, a skylark suddenly burst forth in exaltation, rose up into the air and circled, pouring out his soul to the limitless blue, then descended, alighting upon a tussock. The grassy blades bent low beneath his triumphal clasp.

At length, I spoke: "This text would be an excellent choice for an advanced Defence class. I also recommend a personal favourite, Confronting the Faceless, which is more general in nature. The spells in these two volumes carry some risk but are not beyond your grasp, and are of immense practical value. For the novice, it is imperative that caution be exercised in experimenting with these spells, especially without a proper teacher. I need not remind you, since you are casting these spells alone," (I examined her expression with care but she gave nothing away), "but practicing first on a human being is extremely unwise. The first principle of spell experimentation is the employment of a stepwise progression towards your eventual target. Your initial attempts are very likely to fail or backfire, as in the case of your rodent friend." (I could not help noticing that she, looking a bit shamefaced, was now balancing her arms upon her robed knees, her head upon both, her sharp chin cocked thoughtfully towards my voice.) "There are several other precautions you can take to ensure that risk is minimized. Take the commonly employed Stupefy. A good first step is to get a handle on the counter-spell – do you know it?"

"No, I don't think so," she said, frowning in thought.

"I shall teach it to you –" (How came I to be saying such things? Had the sun addled my brains?) "– on the condition that you keep the source of your knowledge strictly confidential."

She marvelled at me. Suddenly embarrassed, I snapped, "Wipe that idiot grin off your face, Granger. You are lucky I am favourably disposed today."

"Oh, thank you, sir! Will you help me practice the Stupefy too, please? I – I've tried it, but I can't get it right." Her words artlessly tumbled and stumbled over each other, as if they had been trapped and burst out in flushed escape (her habitual pattern of speech, I now know).

I nodded curtly and chanced another encounter of her toothy smile, which, despite my command, had not dissipated in the slightest.

"Um, Professor Snape?"

"Yes?"

"...There's still pumpkin in your hair."

I waved a silent Scourgify and replied, "For which you are serving a week of detention with Mr. Filch."

And so commenced the first impromptu lesson, a slow pavane, given and received not in affection nor in lust but, I believe, in a simple desire to teach and learn, a counterpoint stripped of the classroom affectation that had previously coloured all our interactions. My embellished recollection of a richly-toned autumn Arcadia, beyond time itself, surely strays far from truth, for I was never disposed to idle pleasure, nor conscious of its source at the time. Nonetheless, I revive the ambrosial memory of our first meeting as a sort of improbable overture, setting into motion an invisible, indecipherable series of alchemical reactions that turned a child to a Siren, her professor to her prey. As I lectured to her, I seemed nearly to forget myself in brief contentment; the yet unfelt arrow of her spell wriggled into me. Had I recognized its nature, would I have struggled so in the coming years? Would I have rather abandoned the illusion of control, still so potent within me on that day? Might it have altered the outcome?

She listened solemnly, diligently, behaved only as a pupil ought towards a master. She spoke little – never divulged from whence the book came or the truth behind her private Defence studies (which became apparent later in the year). But I have long since ceased to care. I taught what I could, and she learnt her lessons well – thank Merlin, for I fear their consequences shall soon be rendered in battle. And in return, as might the drowning mariner clutch his battered ship's last plank, so I hold fast to the echo of her first tentative smile.

¹ This is leaving aside, of course, the perpetual debate about original abiogenesis, or the first origin of life. It seems safe to say that the shop clerk was not attempting to posit the occurrence of the highly improbable, yet theoretically possible, phenomenon of a rearrangement from inorganic to organic molecules, in a protobiotic step towards assemblages of self-replicating polymers, and eventually, life. No, his dim eye held no spark of mystery and awe at life itself; he was merely stupid. Or perhaps he was a religious Creationist.

² This aroma is in actuality produced by geosmin, a volatile organic compound produced by soil Actinomycetes. The human nose is extremely sensitive to this compound, even at very low atmospheric concentrations.

³ At this time, the Ministry of Magic chose to ignore the obvious signs of the Dark Lord's return, and with its slogans and mantras, they lulled the public into ignorant complacency. Though the subsequent government changed the Ministry's tune on the matter somewhat, it seems that truth is always an unfashionable policy, no matter who is in governance.

Author's Notes:

* 'far from the madding crowd' derives from a number of sources, most notably a book of the same name by Thomas Hardy.

* 'fruits of solitude' - A book by the same title is by William Penn.

* Many thanks to the Bard of Ayrshire for lending me his 'wee timorous beasties' and green-growing rushes.

* Thanks to Countrymouse for editing and assistance.