Six: The Midnight Duel

December 1995

Compunctions seem always dispelled by darkness, and such was the case on the eve of this particular memory. On that frosty late night, several days before holiday, I was returning to the castle from a Summons, exhausted from the toils of shielding my mind from the Dark Lord's probes and the strain to detect any meaningful signal from the usual Death Eater noise and petty political sniping. Fatigued as I was, I nonetheless hunted, out of habit, for wayward students breaking curfew – or for anything else that might be about. I was well-accustomed to this sort of task, since as the junior faculty member and Albus's personal source of travaux forcés à perpétuité, I was often assigned to curfew duty at his behest. The students' behaviour had been unusually bad of late; I had already caught quite a few at odd hours, practicing spells or whispering conspiratorially. As the majority seemed not to be from my house, I could happily deduct the appropriate quantity of points. The hour was late enough upon my return that the students ought to have all retired to bed or at least to the common rooms. Most of the portraits had settled to rest, excepting those of the Ladies Vinifera, who were awake, but very drunk. The narrative frieze of the Goblin Rebellion had called its nightly ceasefire. No scrape of rat's claw nor owl's hoot could be heard; even the house-elves had ceased their scuttling about.

I crept through the deserted first floor corridors, wrapped in travelling cloak. The rancid taste of cheap wine and false flattery still burned within my throat; my left arm felt heavy and sore. I peered through the shadows, my pupils adjusting, as I slid through a black torchless stretch. My boots beat a soundless slow rhythm across the grey flagstones, under the keystones of arches, past the chip of a stone where an axe had fallen centuries ago; a monument to Merlin and another to Arthur; a mural of three rogues under a tree. Through the corridor's centre wound a trail of smoothed stones, worn by centuries of students' boots. Outside, bare old oak boughs, crystallised by winter, tapped an uneven gait upon the castle's frost-ferned windowpanes. A stripe of light stole across the passage from the glass to the foot of the staircase; branched shadows cut jaggedly across it.

But then again – no. Tap, tap . . . a gliding whisper. This was no branch. Moving as one of the shadows, I slipped round the corner and crouched in wait, just beyond the staircase, in time to spy a thin lone silhouette, now in pause, now furtively creeping down the marble steps, now reaching the bottom. By its lean, slight form, I knew it to be a student. My lips twisted – caught! In moments, I was upon the culprit –

Granger gasped, whirled round to face me. I had not expected her. It was not long after the previously described 'headache' incident, and I was weary of dealing with her and quite looking forward to the holiday respite. None of this meant she was exempt from punishment; in fact, I would rather enjoy it.

"Moonlight stroll?"

She tried, unsuccessfully, to mask a guilty look by straightening her posture. What in hell was she doing – was she following me? I looked round and squinted for any trace of Potter's cloak behind her or other telltale signs of the holy Trinity's lesser appendages.

She appeared to be alone. She seemed oddly out of sorts for a school night, wore some sort of fitted athletic attire (the type she later wore for our private sessions), short-cut sleeves, and no school robes. She smelled of dust and fresh perspiration, her hair of Commiphora, some Muggle shampoo. I stepped backward.

"Where are you going?"

"I – I'm just going to talk to Professor McGonagall, that's all," she said breathlessly. Her chin rose sharply; she looked harried.

"And what is the nature of this little visit? Pray tell. Or is this secret worthy of Gryffindors only?"

In place of an answer, she stubbornly set her mouth. I proceeded, despite my increasing discomfiture with her proximity and state of dress: "My, my, it must be serious if even Granger has no words for it. Consider your position, Miss Granger. You have just cost your house twenty points. Are you gunning for twenty more?"

She said nothing. I said, "If you will not tell me, perhaps a bit of Legilimency would persuade you to divulge your plans."

She stepped backward, her eyes growing round. "That's not allowed on students," she breathed. "That's against school rules."

I hovered over her. "As is breaking curfew."

"Please don't," she said. "I won't do it again, it's only – it's about Harry. He – he's not feeling well."

So – it required a threat of force to make her finally show some respect for authority, did it? And yet she still was not coming clean. "Really? What a pity." I lifted an impatient eyebrow and my wand. "That's all, is it? Poor, poor Potter."

"Wait! It's – something isn't right with him. All he does is stare into space, and he has these funny blackout moments, and he looks like he hasn't slept for days. I really think something's wrong with him. Please, please don't tell anyone. I'm sorry for breaking curfew. I only wanted to ask Professor McGonagall to keep an eye on him over the holiday, and I had forgotten before tonight, so I left – erm, straight from the library, and I guess it was later than I thought – that's all, really –"

As her words tumbled out, I searched her demeanour; having become lately accustomed to her expressions, I noted that she did look unusually bothered. My years of experience in Legilimency and Occlumency meant that even when not actively casting the Legilimens, I nonetheless retained a shady intuition of truthfulness and falsehood in others' words (rather like the effect of this training on the experience of combat, wherein one may attune to one's attacker and sense an oncoming spell at nearly the moment of release). The ability was neither infallible nor precise; still, here I sensed contradiction – some truth to her words, but falsehood as well.

She peered beyond me into the dark, her face in shadow. Then she said, "So the rumours are true. You really do know Legilimency." When I did not reply, she raised her eyes into the moon-stream and whispered, "Are you using it now?"

Surely she asked a simple question, to which I then gave a simple answer. But that is not how I recall it. My Pensieved facsimile preserves the encounter, so I know that the details are generally factually accurate; the Pensieve's runic inscriptions ensure that a memory's outline remains essentially the same as its first occurrence. Yet there are important distinctions. For instance, when viewed through the lens of a Pensieve, a memory's subconscious observations or overlooked details may emerge and come clear. As in a picture, the viewer may enhance or focus upon a previously unseen element or pattern. This, among other reasons, renders the Pensieve invaluable as memory's accomplice; it aids the discernment of detail, the unearthing of clues from the past.

But it is limited nonetheless. It would be a great danger to rely too heavily on its revelations, for in contrast to most students' first impressions, the Pensieve-kept recollection is not an objective rendering, but an idiosyncratic product of the mind. Indeed, in all instances of memory retrieval, one would do well to remember that the process of memory creation depends heavily on the creator himself. As his mind consolidates a memory, his faculty of reason – and sometimes emotion – smoothes over rough edges; it fills in the spaces and touches up truth. The mind sieves and filters; distortions may arise. So might a picture reflect the limitations of the camera, or a portrait those of its painter.

Similarly, the viewer himself plays a role; his intent moulds the interpretation of the retrieved memory. The raw meat of the memory is fixed, but the emotion, the meaning, the salient message, must rely on the viewer's discretion and skill. In this way, a memory, as such, cannot be considered complete without the inseparable act of recalling to make it so.

Of course, in the case of this memory, the viewer is the same man as the recorder – separated from the episode only by the passage of years, the weight of his history, and what he has lost therein. But even unaided, I remember that night very clearly, and so with my Pensieve I experience it afresh, in vivid colour and sensation, an odd azeotrope of memory and desire. My reactions of that night mix uneasily with the knowledge I have today, as I view from the exile of my present:

I recall her face cradled by moonlight, swathed in delusory haze, palely shining with the uncanny vitality of paintings, memories and other such phantoms. The darkness welled round her. Removed from the daylight, she seemed quasi-insubstantial, a vague trompe l'oeil, a ghostly reflection of another little girl now so long gone, as if there stood not before me not a pupil, but a dream I had conjured into being. Did I imagine the echo of Lily in her brazen defiance and barbed tongue, in the manner in which her ceaseless curiosity for all subjects magical swallowed all trepidation, even now? Wherein lay this resemblance that so stirred my long-buried memories? The girl seemed at once shrouded in mystery, no ordinary mortal, as if Lily disguised crouched before me. And at once, I felt a desire to know more of her thoughts. Clearly she no longer feared me; how did she perceive her glowering Potions professor? As suave superior, brimming with secrets? Or seedy old snake on the verge of senility? Did she see the air of failure, the trace of the long, bitter years?

"No," I said quietly; it was not a lie, exactly. "Were I to penetrate your mind, you would be quite aware."

I had meant no innuendo; of this I am sure. But had I not hastily let the words fall from my tongue? Had there been but the briefest of hints that implied a caress? She suddenly leant towards me, and I saw her shoulders bent, the stitching of the cotton seams atop them; between, two points of bare clavicles where they met at her sternum, a delicate hollow at her throat; below it, a half-glimpsed softness – I quickly lifted my scowl to her face. I had never before bothered to look her in the eye, yet now I saw clearly her dilated pupils, her irises – no shade of green, as I somehow had thought, but rather the headiest cognac, a light golden-rimmed bronze – two vaporous moon-drops, two Selenian tears. In her transparent gaze, I saw my own shadow reflected, arrested in motion in a curious way – a winged creature hovering, beating against an invisible crystalline web, as if I, and not she, had been caught.

She whispered, "I'd like to learn sometime."

(Oh, my enchanted huntress, you knew not what you sought!)

I wrenched my eyes from her, moved away.

"You think, perhaps, to best Voldemort at his own game?" I snapped. "Do you wish to cast the Imperius as well? If it is knowledge you desire, would you learn how it feels to make children scream for death?"

She recoiled in fright. "No, you've got it all wrong," she said. "I didn't mean –"

"Come," I barked and turned from her.

Clearly, I was badly out of sorts from the Summons. I led her briskly down the corridor; she trotted along behind me. Soon we arrived at McGonagall's office and I delivered her to her tartan Head of house, who, despite being present in her office, seemed herself rather harassed by the late intrusion, a factor I supposed Granger never bothered to consider. Of course not; she considered Potter and herself the centre of the universe and her teachers mere instruments to manipulate as they saw fit. I willed myself not to glance at the impudent child, but faltered an instant; her wide, fawn eyes trained to me, she breathed, "Thank you." Minerva shot me a quizzical look.

"Minerva, I suggest you keep your Gryffindors in line. I have been lenient tonight, but do not expect it in the future."

With this, I fled for the safety of my quarters, unable to shake the dissonance from my thoughts. Reason dictated: her unaccountable actions were neither seductive in motive nor particularly persuasive. Yet I had nearly been swayed to enter her mind for the sheer (and strictly forbidden) pleasure of calling her bluff. What impulse coursed through me to even consider toying with a student in that manner? What sorcery held my senses in such thrall? Were the Dark Lord's Summonses so taxing that I no longer could trust myself even with students? Was my character reverting to the old days of unquelled passions and fears? I gritted my teeth and pulled my cloak tightly around me. My moment of weakness was yet one more reminder of how I must never be tricked into lowering my guard; I must never admit aberration from duty; I must keep my emotions away from myself most of all, for I knew only too well what sordid results came when dangerous passions took hold of my mind.

And the fleeting illusion of Lily's shadow within her – what lunacy! To compare the two was in all ways absurd – an apple to an oyster; the rarest of friends to a troublesome child; a singular beauty to ordinary, plain; Beatrice to a Harpy; a strong-willed and clever idealist to a – this was ridiculous, never mind, enough –

I fled down the steps to the dungeon. The staircase's flickering torches cast my shadow against the far wall. One by one, I extinguished their flames. Miss Granger was now nowhere near me, but before me, her image still rose up unbidden. To quiet my turbulent mind, I employed a favourite (and much-practiced, of late) Occlumency exercise, a type of drill with which all students of mental magic become familiar.

Every Occlumens's method is unique. The best I can describe my own is as the imagination, the bringing to my mind's forefront, of an inner fog or vapour. As I descended, it rose up throughout me, dense and rotating, as might the steam from a cauldron or a mist given off by a fen or a bog within a deep wood. My vapour, the great insulator – each droplet, each molecule in random motion, impermanent, intangible, filled the tiniest niches with its nebulous shade. Thought-forms, erratic and weaving, flew paths round the edge of the cloud, but could find no landing; no surface existed for thought to adhere. Condensing, dispersing, detaching to un-thoughts, each bond was destroyed scarce upon its creation. This was my armour: this stillness in motion, this absence of all within presence, the movement of water surrounding no centre, erasing all detail and form. Thus I envisioned my immovable mind; one could not penetrate that which one could not find. No temptation would creep into this ever-shifting empty fortress; no tempest would scatter this hazy eclipse. Volition, emotion, time and space, had no sovereignty here; they scattered until there remained only fog. And here, in this shedding, this sublimation from substance, lay escape from the girl, and the Summons, from enslavement to Potter, and the whole sodding war, and the truth of my miserable self and the terrible crimes I had wrought, the terrible memories I held to my side every night. At last, I could let go of these things; my confusion ebbed; my unease subsided; the doors of my perception were cleansed, and in this frame of mind I arrived at my quarters.

I entered my rooms and embarked on the semi-routine application of Firewhisky, Glenn Gould, and the current issue of Ars Alchemica, to restore method and order to my wits. After scanning the morrow's lesson plans, refilling the inkwells, haranguing the house-elf, and other such routine tasks, I finally sank into sleep.

Author's Notes:

* Endless thanks to my wonderful beta, Countrymouse, for invaluable help.

* Thank you to John Updike's Ode to Crystallization for the phrases 'crystallised by winter' and 'frost-ferns'.

* Ars Alchemica is a Potions journal created by fanfiction author Riley. I have borrowed it here because Professor Snape reads it quite often.