Fourteen: Hallowe'en

Warning: Creepy!Snape

Autumn 1996

After that day, Miss Granger insisted that we conduct sessions only in the Room of Requirement. Though she claimed fear for my safety, I knew I had frightened her with my careless mention of the Dark Lord, and she was now attempting to avoid being seen in my company. At first, I opposed the move on logistical grounds: The fickle door to the room would appear in the wall only at her asking, so I could make no preparations prior to each lesson, and more than once I found myself waiting for her in the corridor as if I were the student, pacing back and forth impatiently while Barnabus the Barmy chanted off-key, "One, two, three, one, two, three!" Nevertheless, the change in location proved advantageous, for we found that the room's setting varied exactly according to the needs of each lesson: Broomsticks appeared for a much-needed flying practice; for a session on silent movement, the floor filled with twigs and dry leaves. One day we duelled through a labyrinth of rooms not unlike the Ministry of Magic, the next a wintry forest or a Muggle city street; other times the room simply functioned as a microcosm of Hogwarts, mimicking its various locales. Once we entered to find a great raging fire, the heat and fumes of which taxed even my abilities. The room even conjured its own creatures, from Blood-Sucking Bugbears to Venomous Tentacula to disturbingly realistic replicas of Dementors.

The latter resulted from an unfortunate error of judgement on my part. After days of Miss Granger's persistent importuning, I had grudgingly agreed to allow her to practice her Patronus, but when the faux-Dementors first appeared in the room, she balked and could produce only a brief silvery mist, and since conjuring one of my own was out of the question, I was forced to watch her suffer as one image descended on her for the Kiss –

When it vanished, she was kneeling and shaking, fighting to keep tears from her eyes. The effect had been real enough that even I was unnerved.

"I don't understand why I'm so bad at casting a Patronus," she cried. "Can't you show me? How do you do it? What do you think of?"

"That is none of your concern," I snapped.

She looked up, wide-eyed. "You have – you have got a Patronus, haven't you?"

"Did you not hear me?" I said in a dangerous voice.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said, climbing to her feet. "I don't mean to pry." But the question remained behind her eyes, and after an awkward, half-focused attempt at continuing the lesson, I brought it to an uncomfortable end. The last thing I needed was for her overactive mind to work out too much of my history.

"What time is it anyway? There's a match today," I said, squinting at the out-of-focus clock on the far wall. (I had forgotten my pocket watch.)

"You mean you can't see the clock?" She was watching me curiously.

"Just read me the time."

"I don't know; that clock's been stuck on 12:03 for weeks . . . Have you had your eyes checked? You might need glasses."

"My vision is perfectly fine." Her words prickled. ". . . As a Muggle-born, you are perhaps unaware that as a witch or a wizard one's faculties do not noticeably decline until later in life."

"I know that. Don't get your wand in a knot; it's not a shameful thing to need glasses. Lots of people are near-sighted; it's not just old – er, older people. Harry needs glasses," she added uncharitably.

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

She grinned as the door appeared like a seam in the wall. "If you still don't even know what Harry looks like, you definitely are in need of corrective lenses."

"The better to keep an eye on you three stooges, I suppose," I sneered. She shot me a dirty look as I added with a smirk, ". . . Curly."

* * *

We never returned to the bank by the wood, but I knew she still went there to practice alone. I caught her one morning, in fact. Having seen her depart from the castle, I followed, unseen, some minutes later, via a circuitous route. Soon I came to the dark wood of hawthorn and rowan. Proceeding carefully under its cover, I crept up to peer through the narrow chink of a brush-gap to the green island beyond, where Miss Granger was rehearsing the forms I had taught her.

Noiselessly, patiently, I studied her progression under the sun's changing angle. Was it the arrangement of the branches that framed her, some trick of nature, or merely my shameful condition that sharpened my senses? In the bright early light, she was neither pink nor pale, and her perpetually anxious expression seemed a shade lighter. She had attempted to pin up her hair, but feathery gold-tipped tendrils (was that the merest intimation of red?) still snaked round her shoulders. In her neat sparrow-claws she held her wand ready before her, her bare, outstretched limb a taut, precise line against the lawn.

Murmuring the names of the forms as she went, she proceeded with a sequential series of steps, tracing a wide anti-clockwise circle in the grass. She moved with the careless flexibility of the young as her unaccustomed muscles committed each movement to memory. As she neared the shore, her distorted reflection burned upon the water behind her, softly wavering, turning her ill-gathered hair-mop to a gold anadem, her fingers to hovering pale pinions. The world had gone silent, save her soft sounds and the drone of a stray bumblebee, or Myrmidon perhaps, snatching its last few minutes of life before the first frost.

I could not look away. I stood as if struck; I felt then the weight of the arrow shaft within me, ardis buried neatly into its target, and the release of its delicate poison, its mingling with my own base matter. I heard the beat of my hideous heart, and I sighed, with the hopeless resignation of the celibate, at my irremediable descent into lechery.

There we remained, perceiver and perceived, in this strange sort of stasis, for quite some time, till the morning had lengthened and the sun shone high overhead. She came to rest, thin shadow contracted behind her, mane come messily undone, the light dew of exertion distilled into a smooth sheen upon her forehead. Finally, with a sigh of her own, she entered the thicket where I hid under shadow, passing right by me, completely unconscious that I too was there.

Oh yes, I watched her, and not only while she was training. I saw her fleet-footed trots to the library; her daily march through the corridors, prefect badge prominently displayed; her gauche gaffes at those infernal Slug Club reunions. I caught with my unhallowed eye her late-night forays to the kitchens for an ice cream, her one-sided chats with the house-elves, her trips to the lavatory at certain hours, and by such observations I grew gradually attuned to her daily routes and rhythms. Each memory-fragment – Snapeshots, I dubbed them – was carefully placed in my Pensieve at night; in the margins of her class schedule there accumulated little annotations, such as: Oft knits in Gr common room and Avoids L Brown. I noted her carriage, her gait, her mercurial moods. I trailed her to the library for her daily ritual of study, where she followed a predictable pattern, settling down at her preferred table and spreading various books and parchments around her. She could sit there for hours, lost in thought, fingers fluttering, head gently inclined over her parchment or bowed in reverence over her texts, her lips murmuring as if in prayer. At mealtimes, I carefully lifted my eyes to her over the morning Prophet as she spread her jam in innocent ceremony, or over evening dessert while the ceiling stars winked conspiratorially at me. If she happened to catch my eyes upon her, I hastily fixed upon the celestial ceiling or simply pretended to scowl at the adjacent Potter, who usually flung back at me a self-important sneer just as James would have done, or at Weasley minor as he picked bits of beef Wellington out of his teeth.

It was impossible to avoid watching Potter and Weasley as well; they were nearly inseparable from her. In D.A.D.A., they flanked her, protruding like ugly bookends. In the halls, I invariably came upon the three of them whispering and bickering like a Runespoor's heads. Even so, their fellowship was unmistakable. I observed, with the wry chagrin of the outsider, that her incessant needling was a form of possessiveness, a symptom of regard. She seemed closer to Potter than ever before. Was it with amorous intent that she brushed powdered cantharid carapace from his robes or fussed over his Quidditch injuries? Once or twice, I even saw the two engaged in heated debate over a textbook, and I wondered if he were trying to impress her as well. But I could not determine the nature of her attentions, for even urchin Weasley was subjected to her daily harangues. Indeed, she often berated the mustelid simpleton to an even greater degree, and I was reduced to contemplating even him as a potential rival: a laughable notion, as I could have trounced the testicles off him without a lift of my little finger. (If only a duel could really win a woman, like in the fantasy books.)

If he even had any testicles. I could hardly believe how little he and Potter seemed to notice her. They never spoke even a word of admiration at her clear progress in Defence, at the new fluidity to her step; they continued to plagiarise her essays and take for granted her brilliance. And how could they remain so oblivious to the disarming click of her heels as she approached, or the nascent gait of a woman that she awkwardly affected upon entering a room? How could they fail to feel the adolescent frisson, the pinprick of delight? I could hardly believe that the whole class had not drawn in their breaths along with their master when she moved in her seat, wiggling in clumsy coquetry, to adjust some disordered article of clothing beneath her robes or when she wet her finger upon her lips to turn a page with and no one even looked up.

Oh, how I relished keeping a secret that was mine alone! It was with smug satisfaction and hardly a twinge of fear that I Occluded Miss Granger from the Dark Lord. It was too easy, in fact: So neatly did she fit in the spaces behind my Lily-memories, clothed in book-scent, inlaid in those secret hollows that the Dark Lord could not touch, that I kept her there, safe and secluded, as Unplottable as the Room of Requirement itself. I did not pause to wonder, until it was too late, why those spaces were there to begin with, why my master might remain so oblivious to such immediately detectable desire. I did not see that Miss Granger's enchantment was working through me as surely and insidiously as the curse to Albus's hand.

My meetings with the Headmaster were nothing but wrenching. His Legilimantic sense was so keenly attuned to matters of – well, sensibility, shall we say – that in spite of my most ingenious efforts at Occlumency, I was sure he would winkle out something of my mortifying secret. Just imagine the absurd position I found myself in: the traitorous prince weekly facing the throne, seated under his monarch's unwinkingly curious gaze, labouring to lid his treacherous, simmering thoughts. I could see the look of utter revulsion spreading across his features were he ever to guess. At times, I was certain he had suspected something amiss, but he never mentioned a thing.

Indeed, I was sure he was avoiding me. This was not entirely unwelcome on my part, for I could hardly bear the sight of him: his stiff carriage hiding the spreading pain, his robes concealing the dead limb, his befuddled smiles hiding the fear he must have felt at the encroaching end and the unknown beyond. For the end was indeed advancing upon him, irresistibly, on its unpredictable schedule. I guessed he might have until spring, Draco Malfoy's feeble attempts on his life notwithstanding. Albus had kindly assured me that an appropriate moment to commit murder would somehow present itself, thus ensuring that I spent every moment on knife's edge, watching and waiting for the clock to stop, for the hand to fall. Would he give me some sort of a sign? Would I do it in madness, in despair, in furious anguish? Would I do it at all?

At one point, I feared he would die before I even had the chance to decide. It happened to be the night of the annual Hallowe'en feast (which, for the record, I have always despised). The evening had begun with typical Hogwarts pomp. The whole school had gathered in the Great Hall, which was specially bedizened for the occasion: wreaths of witches' broom draped over the entrance; curtains of spiderweb over the windows; a fleet of gold-burning tapers floated through the air; wall brackets burned with blue flames. Several stuffed trolls and a Petrified Bolge¹ loomed in one corner; in another stood a dool tree adorned with dozens of Mandrakes strung up by their roots. The painted lords and ladies of Hogwarts, dressed in their finest, had all migrated into the hall's tapestries for the occasion while the ghosts roamed about, sniffing the baked pumpkin and sighing tragically.

Albus himself was decked out in full flaming regalia: dress robes of rich royal velvet trimmed with gold. His wand arm was tucked carefully away in its folds. He had been absent from Hogwarts all day, but had returned just in time to introduce the feast: "Tonight we have the honour of an aerial performance specially choreographed by Professor Filius Flitwick and his Charming third-year class." He gestured with his good hand to a group of fidgety third years near the entrance. "Professor McGonagall has kindly supplied the musical accompaniment. And so without further ado, I present to you –" His eye twinkled theatrically. "– a very special 'Vol de Nuit.'"

The clock struck seven, and a horde of flying creatures rushed in through a crack in the ceiling. The avian corps led first, a detachment of snowy owls that swept over the hall like a billowing white sail. Close behind came the chiropteral contingent; thousands of bats dropped together like a black writhing cyclone through the owl wings and gyred over the tables, their airy double membranes lifting like dark leaves in the wind. Sharp shrieks of delight erupted from the students. The younger ones, ignorant of the basics of echolocation, threw up their hands to avoid being hit. The third-year conductors waved their wands in unsynchronised fashion. Presently, above the whisper of wing-beats – an altogether pleasant, familiar sound to my sensitive ears – came a percussive rumour from outside, and a few seconds later a set of self-playing drums marched through the hall's entrance, followed a bevy of out-of-tune bagpipes. McGonagall wore a self-satisfied smirk, which I tried my best to ignore. The performance was otherwise unremarkable, excepting a slight wand malfunction by Miss Antimony Babel that managed to decapitate the Bolge and spatter blood all over the portrait of the Woefully-Countenanced Knight.

Through it all, of course, I was watching Miss Granger. She sat with the usual company at the Gryffindor table, tucking in to her snapdragon soup. The first time she glanced up at the High Table, my heart lurched in my chest, for I thought she was looking at me. But I soon realised she was in fact stealing worried glances at Albus, who, now that I noticed, did seem rather pale in the face. As he raised his goblet of nettle wine, I saw that his fingers were shaking with a barely perceptible palsy. By the time Miss Granger had finished her peduncle pie, Albus had emptied the goblet and was beginning to sway slightly on his throne. Not poison, surely? No, the wine had come from my own tuns, and every other staff member had partaken as well. I sniffed my own (mostly full) goblet just in case. Where had he been that had put him in such a state? I knew he had recently met with his precious protégé for one of their exclusive, à huis clos discussions. How much would I wager that Potter knew all about Albus's excursions? What secret knowledge was Albus imparting to his worthy disciple?

The Boy Who Lived was currently seated across from Granger, doggedly fixed upon the Slytherin table, where Draco Malfoy's place sat conspicuously empty. (Malfoy was avoiding me nearly as much as was Albus.) Potter suspected something, of course; his eyes were narrowed, his jaw set. A feather floated over his face, and he waved it lazily away in a gesture that somehow, oddly reminded me of the Dark Lord –

I sensed, more than saw, a movement to my side: Albus had risen as if to stand. Faces automatically turned toward him as he gave a tetanic lurch and fell backward, throwing his arms up before him.

The pipes died with a dolorous whine. I leapt to my feet and took half a pace forward, as did every other professor.

In a moment – in the twinkling of an eye – it was over. From the floor, he held up his hand to halt my advance, aiming at me a wry, pained smile. He slowly righted himself, his lined face grey as one raised from the dead, the limp limb hanging from his sleeve like a crooked black wing. Gradually, as his ashen expression cleared and gained colour, he shrugged his sleeves back into place and looked sheepishly round at the hall full of hushed, upturned faces. "Dear me," he chuckled. "I seem to have overindulged a bit."

The third years stood in thick silence with their wands at their sides. The bats and birds had scattered at the sudden release from their magical leash, the drums vanished and pipes deflated. "No matter," said Albus. With typical panache, he struck up a full orchestra and a Straussian waltz, and for the rest of the evening set merrily to the surreptitious task of causing all the knights' moustaches to curl and uncurl in time to the music.

Treason or mutiny, which would it be? His words washed about my mind: You must kill me . . . Then you shall be free. If I were to refuse, Draco would surely die too. And Death would come for Albus all the same. It would take his long-livered fingers, his crooked old oak limbs; it would creep through the spun-wool beard and mossy cheeks, up the forehead scored with creases to the silver-white tresses, erasing, erasing the greatest wizard of the age into nought but thin air.

I stared into the cold pie on my plate, the certainty of Albus's fate, and my own, sinking through me like some heavy thing through deep water. Damn it all! What empty nonsense he spoke! He knew as well as I that no death would free me but my own.

¹ Minerva and I had found this one wandering out of the Forest too close to the school and suitably prepared it for a more benign role at the feast. For those unfamiliar with this giant-like beast, its chief weapon is the overdeveloped nail on its thick middle finger, which it wields like a rapier.

Author's Note:

* Many thanks as always to Countrymouse for her editing and suggestions.