Unknowingly Given

Author's note: Where I have quoted from the original Harry Potter books, I have marked the passage with an asterisk.

Chapter Nine

Unknowingly Given

Tess read the wording on the parchment spread across the table, taking a bite of her sandwich, and Clym studied her intently, ignoring the bustling trade of Saturday lunchtime at the Leaky Cauldron. This was the fourth time they had met at the pub, and Clym noticed she'd gradually thawed and become more open since his blunder in Hogwarts' dungeons. He hoped this was a sign of her forgiveness.

"Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son.

Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you will revive your master.

Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe."*

"This is everything Harry Potter could remember?" Tess asked, glancing his way before continuing her meal.

Clym's sandwich lay untouched upon his plate. "Pettigrew made this incantation after placing Voldemort's body into the cauldron. First, he extracted Riddle's bone from the grave. Then, Pettigrew severed his own arm in sacrifice and forced Potter to provide blood."

Tess visibly shuddered. "Could Harry remember anything about the potion?"

"He said it was brewed in an oversized cauldron. At first the potion appeared like water, but when heated it sparked, and upon the addition of each ingredient the liquid turned blue, red and then blinding white."

"I'm amazed Harry could remember such detail," Tess commented with a touch of awe. She picked up her tankard of Butterbeer and swirled the golden liquid around the rim.

Clym paused. He'd worked hard to obtain this information. Harder than Tess realised.

"I convinced him to let me view his memory inside a Pensieve. Understandably, he didn't want to relive the experience, but I needed as much detailed information as possible."

"I'm surprised he agreed to help you at all," Tess mused, rolling up the parchment and handing it back to him. "The details of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's resurrection could be dangerous in the wrong hands."

"That's why I needed Professor McGonagall's help to convince Potter," he explained, hoping Tess would value his attempts on her behalf. "When Potter realised we were attempting to resurrect Snape, he agreed at once. The boy even called him a 'hero'." Clym laughed under his breath, only to be immediately chastised.

"He was a hero," Tess snapped. "He... is a hero."

Clym refrained from further comment, knowing he'd tripped over his own feet again. Astutely, he watched her expression of annoyance transforming into a flicker of shame, then he reached across the table to touch her hand.

She responded by moving away to adjust her napkin. Avoiding eye-contact, Tess took another bite of her sandwich. Clym snatched his Butterbeer and took a long gulp, feeling as though he'd made a fool of himself.

Tess deflected the awkwardness by changing the subject. "Any idea what the potion was?"

Clym nodded, relieved. "Some. There are a couple of possibilities, and I suspect the same potion could be used, but with Light incantations and offerings instead of Dark."

Tess considered the approach whilst she chewed her food, seemingly in agreement. "So the question is – how to turn this into Light magic."

"Well, the first one is easy," he said confidently. "Bone of the father, knowingly given... Assuming Snape's father is still alive?"

A frown creased Tess's forehead. "As far as I know, he's alive, but I don't know how to find him. Severus once told me his father's last known whereabouts were in Cornwall, but he's a Muggle, and Severus might not let me trace him; there's a lot of bad blood between them."

Clym's curiosity immediately piqued, realising this could be his chance, if he played it carefully...

"Well, it sounds as though you've identified the first challenge."

"Yes, you could say that." Tess appeared uncomfortable, but not unconvinced.

"I'll leave the father business up to you," he suggested. "I'll focus on the potion and the other two elements."

Tess took a final bite of her sandwich and pushed her plate to one side. "Leave it with me," she confirmed as she stood and shrugged on her cloak.

"You're not staying?" Clym asked, feeling peeved that the hours he'd lavished upon resurrecting Snape were not to be rewarded by Tess's continuing presence.

"I've got to get back to Hogwarts."

"But it's Saturday; surely you can have an afternoon off?" He hoped his voice didn't sound too pleading.

Tess cast him a quizzical expression, noticing his untouched plate of food. "The OWL and NEWT exams are next week, Clym. I'm running Potions tutorials all afternoon, and then Nate is coming for dinner."

"Nate," he remembered out loud. Clym had almost forgotten about Tess's older brother.

"Yes, Nate," Tess replied sardonically. "And he wouldn't be too pleased to learn you're the one who's helping me with Severus's resurrection."

"Undoubtedly not," he mused, glad of his anonymity.

"Thanks for lunch," she said courteously. It was the first time she'd been anything other than frosty, and it did not escape Clym's notice. "See you next week? Same time, same place?"

He hoped to see Tess again sooner, but he nodded his goodbye and was left alone to eat lunch and percolate his plan.

An owl arrived at Clym's family home the following afternoon, and he was grateful for the interruption. He wanted to see Tess, so he Apparated to Hogsmeade and met her at the Three Broomsticks, as requested. Clym found her nursing a goblet of mead in a quiet corner of the inn.

She looked tired and sad, but when her eyes met his, she smiled briefly and arose from her table to greet him.

"Do you mind if we go for a walk?" she asked, picking up her summer cloak. "I was stuck indoors for most of yesterday; I just need some fresh air."

"Of course," Clym replied, welcoming any excuse to get away from a public place to be alone with her.

Outside, the sky was overcast with heavy clouds; one of those peculiar summer days when the temperature was neither cold nor warm, suggesting the season was about to change, ahead of time.

"I talked to Severus last night," Tess said as she led him out of the village and down a sloping hill.

The silence which followed seemed to stretch into minutes. She appeared despondent, her head dipped, and her gaze focused on the ground at her feet. Clym resisted the urge to reach out for her hand.

"He said 'no'," Tess eventually stated.

"No?"

She nodded. "He told me he didn't want his father to be involved and that he had no wish to be beholden to him. He made me promise that I wouldn't go knocking on his father's door."

"I see," he replied.

Although he was conscious of Tess's inner turmoil, his mind had already skipped several steps ahead. Clym told himself that he was only trying to help Tess; at least that reason sounded justifiable.

"Severus told me we have to find another way, Clym."

"I'm not sure there is another way."

He was telling the truth.

Tess slowed her pace as they reached the end of the incline, and they trudged to a rickety fence with a broken gate, behind which an old wooden shack with boarded-up windows stood in the distance. Clym wondered what this ramshackle building was doing in the middle of nowhere, and he struggled to understand why Tess had brought him to this place.

Tess leaned over the fence, on the verge of tears. "He died here."

Clym liked to think that her sorrow compelled him to utter his next words.

"I want to help you, Tess. Forget about 'bone of the father' for now. I'll make some enquiries; see what I can find out. You've got enough on your plate with your students' exams. Take today off. Rest. I'll contact you later this week."

Her eyes met his, and for the first time since they'd been reunited, he felt their connection renewed. Clym didn't know if he was responding to her sadness, her gratitude, or her beauty. Perhaps it was all of those things. All he knew was that the warm ache in his chest had returned with surprising intensity, and as he watched her walk back to Hogwarts on her own, his throat constricted, holding the warmth inside his body.

Clym knew that feeling. He remembered how it felt all those years ago when he'd first laid eyes upon her. And he remembered how he'd felt when it had all ended.

He knew exactly where he was.

His emotions had crept through an unlocked gate whilst no one was looking and were slowly and surely leading him astray.

Clym forced himself to behave like a Muggle when he arrived at the Old County Hall in Truro. The denim he wore felt harsh against his skin, and the polyester shirt made him hot and sticky. Why people wore such ridiculous clothing was beyond him, and he yearned for his fur-lined Durmstrang robes, despite the warmth of the morning sun.

With his wand tucked safely inside the back of his jeans and underneath his shirt, Clym's fingers twitched impatiently as a middle-aged lady with dyed blonde hair led him through the archives and extracted the first of a series of large, bound books which contained Cornwall's census records for the year 1991.

"It could be a long day, Mr Turnstone, if you don't know roughly where Tobias Snape lived, but don't worry; I'm not busy this morning so I don't mind lending a hand."

The woman smiled kindly, and Clym knew he should fake a smile to show some gratitude for her offer of help. In reality, his wand would have made short shrift of the work. Years ago, he'd developed a spell to search literature for key words or phrases; the charm made his studies at Durmstrang easier, but he'd never revealed his invention to anyone. Knowledge was power, so why would he share?

A second tome was placed on the desk in front of him, and they spent the next half-an-hour or so leafing through pages of meaningless names. Mercifully, when the office telephone rang, his assistant left him to his own devices, and Clym surreptitiously extracted his wand and cast a charm upon all volumes of the 1991 census.

One book eased itself to the edge of the shelf, and when placed under the reading light, it fell open at the correct page. Magically illuminated in ultra-violet, he found Tobias Snape's entry listed alongside his wife, Isobel Snape, at an address in Mevagissey on the southern coast of Cornwall.

Hurriedly, Clym cancelled the charm, concealed his wand, and scribbled the address on a scrap of paper. The cheap plastic biro almost snapped when he heard the footsteps of the archive administrator heading towards him.

"Ah, I see you've skipped ahead!" she said, her curiosity evident in her smile. "Did you find what you were looking for, Mr Turnstone?"

"Yes," he replied, folding up the piece of paper and stuffing it into his jeans pocket. "Thank you for your assistance today; this information will be most useful."

As Clym left the census office, he pondered how best to use his newfound knowledge in his quest to win back Tess's heart.

One week later, Clym offered Tess the scrap of paper bearing Tobias Snape's address, but she refused to take the information. Instead, she stood up and walked around the office, making light conversation.

"I miss those weather walls," she commented, gazing into the magical window behind his work desk and watching candyfloss clouds eclipsing the sun. "The dungeons at Hogwarts can be dark and oppressive during the summer months. I was glad to escape from them this evening."

Absent-mindedly, she tipped the brass scales on his bookcase with the edge of her fingernail. Clym knew she would be reluctant to take Snape's father's address, so he decided to alter his strategy.

"I've identified the Revivification Potion and ordered the ingredients from Slug and Jigger's apothecary. Today, I've been to St. Mungo's and persuaded one of their potioneers to brew the formulae for us."

"That's good news," Tess said, smiling for the first time.

"The potion takes a full lunar-cycle to brew, and will be ready in five weeks' time. Then there's the 'flesh of the servant' component. As far as I can tell, the Headmaster's house-elf was the only servant Snape ever had."

Tess nodded. "I can talk to Binky when I get back to Hogwarts. House-elves will do anything to please their masters, but I'll check with Minerva McGonagall first, seeing as Binky is her elf now."

"Just tell him we're not looking for a sacrificial limb; one of his Hogwarts tea-towel togas will suffice."

"I'll try and remember not to offer him clothes in return," Tess replied ruefully. "What about 'blood of the enemy, forcibly taken'?"

"That one's a little bit trickier," Clym admitted. "Snape's enemies are all dead; but that aside, I'm not sure that such a component fits with Light magic."

"I've been thinking that too," Tess confided. "The Dark Lord used Harry Potter's blood as a means of strengthening himself against his enemy, increasing his power and control over Harry. It's Dark magic by its very nature. An enemy isn't appropriate for Light magic."

Clym nodded. In truth, he hadn't yet progressed any further than this.

Tess realigned his scales and took a seat at his desk, furrowing her brow in thought. "If we're going to adapt the incantation to Light magic, we need to flip this element on its head. The opposite of being an enemy is being a friend. We need to focus on love rather than hate."

He agreed with her hypothesis and immediately felt a rush of emotion coursing through his body. He'd always valued her intelligence, and Clym now realised how much he'd missed her insight. He was so lost in admiration that he was unprepared for her next words.

"It needs to be me, Clym," she stated. "I am his friend. I love him. I should be the third element of the potion."

He rose to standing, and his chair leg screeched loudly on the stone floor. "I'm not sure about that."

"Why not?"

Tess had asked a reasonable question, and if he'd chosen to answer honestly, Clym would have told her that he didn't want her to be tied to that man, for if she were to contribute towards Snape's resurrection with even so much as a hair from her head, then she would be bound magically to him forever. Clym wanted Tess, and he would fight Snape for her, hand over fist if necessary. But he wouldn't relish battling through further magical complications. That could get very messy indeed.

"I don't know," Clym answered somewhat pathetically, unable to reveal his motives. "My gut instinct says 'no'."

"I don't see why that should be," Tess replied, already leaping several steps ahead. "I'm the only person who can do it. I'm by far the strongest candidate."

"What about asking Harry Potter instead?"

Tess spluttered and choked away a cough.

"I'm sure he'd be willing to help," Clym ventured.

"Yes, he probably would. That's not what I'm worried about. Severus will never agree."

Clym's heart pressed like a cold stone into his sternum; he could see his chance slipping through his fingers.

"I will do this, Clym. I must."

He leaned forward onto his desk, positing a challenge. "Before you make a final decision, please know this, Tess. If you give of yourself, then this tie will bind you to Snape for the rest of his life. It's not a decision to be taken lightly."

Clym tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but his tongue felt as coarse and dry as sandpaper in his mouth. Tess considered his words seriously; her beautiful blue-grey eyes held his gaze, simultaneously assessing his sincerity whilst processing her own vicissitude. Clym willed her to change her mind. He wanted her to notice how much he cared for her. He needed to feel as though he stood a chance.

"I'm going to do it, magically binding or not." Tess stood up, expressing the finality of her decision. "I'll do anything to bring him back."

He wanted to ask if she were sure, but Clym knew from her tone that she'd made up her mind. His options were becoming fewer by the minute, so he picked up the piece of paper on his desktop and offered her the bait.

"Take this, then. You're going to need it."

Tess's lips pressed together as she accepted Tobias Snape's address, and Clym smiled, confident that his hook would hold long enough for him to catch her.