Laurel Bourne Arrives at Hogwarts

Disclaimer: In the intervening time since my last chapter, I have not inherited rights to Harry Potter.

Author's Notes: No chapter is complete without a big thank you to Verity Brown for critique and punctuation wrestling.

Chapter 21: Laurel Bourne Arrives at Hogwarts

Enveloped in darkness, Rowan and Dumbledore stood waiting on the road between Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. It was fully spring now, but the night air was cold, especially near the lake. A narrow crescent moon, low in the sky, cast its reflection on the still, black water.

After a long and silent time, during which Rowan was certain she would explode from worry, she felt a brush of air. There stood Snape with Rowan's mother standing alongside, her arm through his, wearing only a familiar white, flowered flannel nightgown and a pair of house slippers.

"Oh!" She staggered a moment from the shock of Apparition, but Snape steadied her by the elbow so she didn't fall.

"Mom!" Rowan cried in relief and flung herself into her mother's arms.

"Rowan! I'm so glad you're safe."

"Of course I'm fine. I'm so glad you got out in time!" came Rowan's voice, muffled in her mother's hair.

"Me? I've been worried about you all year. So many terrible things have happened. Then your Professor Snape appeared and said he had to bring me to Hogwarts immediately; I thought something must have happened to you."

The last part of this speech was difficult to make out from the sound of Mrs. Bourne's teeth chattering. Snape slid his cloak off and placed it over her shoulders without comment. She wrapped it tightly around herself; her shivering slowed.

"Thank you."

Rowan observed Snape's gesture with gratitude, but it did not ease her panic at the prospect of explaining to her mother why she had been brought here. Why, oh why, did I not demand that Voldemort just kill me? It would have been so much easier.

"We should not linger here outside the grounds, Mrs. Bourne," Professor Dumbledore interrupted gently. "I know you have many questions and that there is much which Miss Bourne is eager to tell you, but I must ask you both to remain silent until we are within the wards. There will be ample time for explanations when we reach my office. Severus, please go ahead and have the house-elves prepare a guest room for Mrs. Bourne."

Snape gave a brief nod of acknowledgment and walked off into the shadows in the direction of the castle. Dumbledore took Mrs. Bourne's arm, lit his wand to light the way and led her up the road after Snape. Rowan looked around into the dark. She gave a shiver, took a grip on her wand and stuck close behind her mother and headmaster on the narrow road. Mrs. Bourne looked back to be certain that Rowan was close behind before she allowed Professor Dumbledore to lead her towards the castle.

They were only a short way off the school grounds and reached them quickly. In the daylight a telltale shimmer gave away the boundary to the sharp eye, but in the near darkness the only clue was Laurel's short gasp as she crossed it.

Ordinarily, a Muggle such as Mrs. Bourne would not see more than a decrepit old ruin, but escorted by Albus Dumbledore, the wards parted for her and she entered the school grounds. The prospect from the village road was not so dramatic as that from the lake approach which was the first years' first sight, but even in the faint moonlight it was impressive. A few windows were lit here and there, mostly in the towers, enough to give a hint of the castle's size and complexity. Rowan heard her sigh of wonder and smiled; her mother had always wanted to see Hogwarts.

Although silence was no longer strictly necessary now that they were within the protective wards, Rowan was grateful for every minute in which she did not yet have to begin explaining things to her mother. She continued to follow quietly, just behind her mother and the headmaster, until they reached Dumbledore's office.

"Here we are, then," Dumbledore told them. "You must excuse me now for one moment. Please, sit down and make yourselves comfortable." Dumbledore turned away from them towards the darkened window. He lifted his wand, and a silvery, birdlike shape shot from it, which flew out into the night.

When it had gone, he turned back to the Bournes and got them settled into the squashy armchairs by the fireplace. A quick order to the kitchen saw the cold tea and stale biscuits still on the table replaced with fresh. The house-elf who appeared with the tea tray bowed after setting it down on a low table near the fireplace and addressed the headmaster.

"Tippy has prepared the third guestroom on the seventh floor for Professor Dumbledore's guest; there is a fire and fresh linens. I has removed the mirror, sir, as it is very rude to Muggles. Is there anything else Professor Dumbledore wishes?"

"No, Tippy, that will do excellently. Please have breakfast for two sent to the guestroom in the morning at 10 o'clock; thank you. You may go."

Tippy's ears perked with pleasure. She bowed her stumpy form gracefully, then vanished.

Dumbledore turned to Laurel and explained to her, "I think it would be unwise to let anyone for whom it is not strictly necessary learn of your presence here. That is why I took the liberty of ordering breakfast sent to your room; you should not appear in the Great Hall."

"What about that creature, Professor?" Laurel sounded curious. "What was it?"

"Tippy is a house-elf, Mrs. Bourne. There is little point in attempting to keep anything hidden from them, as they do all the housekeeping. In any case, they will keep their silence and my secrets; it is their nature."

Just then, a bright silver thing in the form of some strange sea creature flew in through the window and swam back and forth in front of Professor Dumbledore. Although Rowan could hear no words, Dumbledore appeared to understand its message and seemed pleased with it. When he dismissed the thing, it faded to nothingness.

Dumbledore turned and apologized to Rowan and Laurel, "I beg your pardon, but I must leave you here in my office for a little while. I trust Miss Bourne will be able to relate to you the circumstances which made it necessary to bring you here. When I return, I will escort you to your room and Miss Bourne to her dormitory."

Without waiting for a response, Dumbledore then departed through the fireplace. Rowan, wild with curiosity, strained to hear, but was not able to make out his destination.

Laurel Bourne looked on with widened eyes and an amazed expression as the flames went back from green to the more normal yellow-orange in the wake of the headmaster's departure. Rowan observed her mother's awe with a smile, remembering her own first days at Hogwarts. It was one thing to hear of such things, but quite another to sit in an enchanted castle and see them happen with your own eyes. The only magical person in the family, as far as they knew, was Rowan. For her first five years at Hogwarts, she had been underage. Since then, Rowan had continued to do things the Muggle way at home because she hadn't wanted her mother to feel alienated from her. The result was that her mother had seen very little magic before now.

Stalling for more time, Rowan poured out the tea and offered her mother the biscuit tray. With a smile, she offered a biscuit to Fawkes, who had begun stepping from side to side on his perch. While she performed these comfortingly normal tasks, her mind worked feverishly. She could not explain to her mother that Professor Snape was a still a spy. The public story was that he had been captured with her and placed under the Imperius Curse. The school governors and parents must not find out that he had actually regained Voldemort's trust and continued to pretend allegiance. While she trusted her mother implicitly, she had not been given permission to reveal this secret.

Laurel, appearing anxious and tired, did not wait for Rowan to begin, but asked her own questions.

"What happened, Rowan? Why was I brought here in the middle of the night? Professor Snape wouldn't say – only that I had to come right away. I see you aren't hurt; what is going on?"

"You were in danger, at home, but now that you are here, everything is fine."

Rowan handed her mother the teacup and saucer. She saw some of the tension go out of her mother's face at the brush of their fingers. Her mother seemed to draw calm from the touch of her daughter, alive and safe before her.

"I don't understand. Why was your headmaster worried about me?"

"This is such a long story; I don't know where to start..."

"Why don't you start at the beginning?"

Which beginning? When I started lusting for my Potions professor? When I started my term project? When he raped me? This is not going to go well, Rowan thought in despair.

Fawkes finished gobbling his biscuit. He shook his feathers to de-crumb and settle them, then gave Rowan a soft croon of reassurance.

"You got the handout the Ministry sent, right, Mom?"

"Do you mean the one about protecting against the Dark Forces? It seemed a bit ... melodramatic," Laurel commented. She had always had a healthy distrust of businesses or government offices which used fear to increase their influence. Rowan knew her mother probably thought that this had been one of those attempts.

"Yes, that one. They weren't kidding, Mom. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is really dangerous, and his servants – they call themselves Death Eaters – can really do all that stuff the handout talks about. Most of all, he wants to kill Dumbledore so he can get to Harry Potter. You know about him, right?"

"He's the Boy Who Lived, right? Although I hear now they are calling him the Chosen One. What has he got to do with you or me? He's a year younger than you, isn't he? I didn't think you even knew him."

"You-Know-Who has been trying to kill Potter since he was a baby – something to do with a prophecy. Nobody knows what it says, but it has You-Know-Who worried. As long as Professor Dumbledore has been protecting Potter, he's been safe, so You-Know-Who wants to get Dumbledore out of the way in order to get Potter."

"I understand, Mrs. Galanis told me something about that. She was glad Ariadne is still here with Dumbledore. But, I don't understand, how are you mixed up in all that?"

"You-Know-Who found out about this potion which he thought would help him get rid of Dumbledore. It's a really Dark potion. That means you have to do something horrible to make it."

Laurel waited for Rowan to continue, then prompted, "What kind of something ...?"

"It depends on the potion. Usually kill someone or some creature, like a unicorn, and use their blood. It's the killing that gives the potion power."

"All those deaths after Christmas, was that to make some potion?"

"No, that was because You-Know-Who was angry. He tried to make this potion, but it didn't work, and he was furious."

Rowan paused and took a breath. "I started in the wrong place, I have to back up," she explained. After a moment she began again in a low voice.

"Years and years ago, Professor Snape used to be a Death Eater. I don't know why, but he changed his mind. You can't quit the Death Eaters, not and live, so instead, he became Dumbledore's spy. Professor Dumbledore gave him the Potions job at Hogwarts, I guess so he could get his reports easily. Then You-Know-Who disappeared, and all anyone knew was that Snape was the Potions master here. He really is a genius at Potions," Rowan added.

Laurel leaned back into the armchair and waited in silence, with widened eyes, her tea forgotten.

"A few months ago, You-Know-Who came across an old recipe for a potion called Aversion Serum. It would make Professor Dumbledore's friends turn against him. Twisting the will, turning loyalties, that is Dark magic. To make it though, he had to ..." Rowan faltered, "hurt someone."

"He was angry that Professor Snape hadn't returned to him with the others. He sent a couple of Death Eaters who had children here at Hogwarts to find Professor Snape and bring him back, to make him help with the potion. I was in his office when they came; I had a question about my term project. They took me, too."

"No!" Laurel gasped softly, but Rowan continued.

"When we got there, You-Know-Who cast the Imperius Curse on Professor Snape. That's a kind of mind-control spell. He forced Professor Snape to ... made him ..." Rowan trailed off.

And here we are. What can I possibly tell her? Rowan knew her mom would feel terrible that she could not have protected her daughter. She would happily have spared her mother this, keeping her silence until her dying day, but none of the subsequent events made any sense without it. Still, the words would not come.

Softly, without attracting either woman's attention, Fawkes began a low humming. Rowan felt her cares lift just a little. Her mother looked less afraid, but suddenly sad.

"He had to hurt you," Laurel filled in for her. "Oh, Rowan."

Laurel's face told Rowan that she understood what Rowan couldn't find the words to say. Rowan slid from her seat to her knees and laid her head in her mother's lap. Laurel abandoned her tea, leaned over and held her daughter.

"It ... wasn't as bad as it might have been. And it's kind of complicated."

Laurel stroked her daughter's hair. Rowan, her face buried in her mother's lap, strengthened by the softly crooned phoenix song, found it a little easier to speak.

"I'm a pretty good Potions student, so I figured out what You-Know-Who wanted. I didn't know what potion he was making, but I guessed what ingredient he needed, and I fixed it so it wouldn't work."

Rowan said this with some pride. It was no small thing to have ruined one of Voldemort's plans. Knowing she had done that had gone a long way towards helping Rowan feel at peace with what had happened. She hoped it could help her mother too.

"How could you do that?"

"It's kind of hard to explain. I guess I just knew Professor Snape wouldn't have hurt me if he could have helped it. I trusted him, and I ... accepted it." Rowan had no intention of going into the details. In unconscious imitation of her professor, she slipped into a lecturing tone that let her distance herself from what she had to say.

"Dark Magic works on fear and pain and hate. It is weakened by trust, sacrifice, or love. In this case since I was able to be ... willing, even though I didn't have any choice, that meant that the ... ingredient ... wasn't potent. They made the potion, and it looked like it was supposed to, but it was useless – and a good thing too. Dumbledore came crashing in with a bunch of Aurors to rescue the both of us, and the Death Eaters threw the potion right on him. Since it didn't work, the Aurors were able to grab us and get us back to the castle before You-Know-Who figured out the Aversion Serum hadn't worked."

Rowan sat back on her heels and looked up at her mother. There were fine tracks of tears on her mother's cheeks, but she looked proud. Laurel took Rowan's hands and held them tightly in her own.

"Go on."

"When we got back to the castle, I was taken to the hospital wing. The next morning I found out that Professor Snape had been arrested and taken to the Ministry. I explained to Professor Dumbledore what had happened, and, well, I had to testify at the trial. I told them that the professor had been under the Imperius Curse, and Dumbledore told them the potion hadn't worked, so Professor Snape was found not guilty."

Rowan stopped again for thought. As much as she wanted to rail at Snape for everything that had happened to her, she couldn't stand the idea that her mother would hate him for it. She was glad she couldn't tell her mother that he was still a spy and might yet have to do such things.

Laurel reached forward and tucked back a lock of Rowan's hair which had dropped forward onto her face. "I'm proud of you, Rowan. It must have been hard to stand up for him after what he did to you – even if he couldn't help it."

"Thanks, Mum," Rowan answered gravely, but she blushed – whether from the praise or her own uncomfortable awareness of the elisions in her story, she wasn't sure. She disentangled herself from her mother, stood, and paced a little to unwind her feelings.

Laurel looked up at her from the armchair, she sat up straighter and placed her hands on the chair arms.

"Is this why you are in danger? Is this wizard angry at what you did?"

"Something like that, but it's not only me. He's after you, too. That's why you had to come here."

"Me? But I'm not part of any of this," Laurel waved her hand vaguely at her surroundings. "I can't do magic; why should he care about me?"

"He, You-Know-Who, is ... I'd say he's insane, but that's not far enough. He's not even really human anymore. His face looks like a snake, and his eyes..." Rowan shuddered and Laurel's eyes widened.

"I don't think anyone normal can really understand why he does anything. You-Know-Who and his followers are big into blood purity. They don't approve of people like me, magical kids born into Muggle families. They don't think we should be allowed into their world. They don't think 'pureblood' wizards should marry us. You-Know-Who built up his power and his following by promising to keep the Wizarding world clean from my kind."

"You're kind is worth a hundred of them, any day!" Laurel said angrily.

"You're my mother; that's what you are supposed to say," Rowan said with a small smile. "Most witches and wizards don't care about blood. It's just a few, but they can make big trouble."

Rowan turned and gazed into the fire. The flames were bright orange; no hope of being interrupted there.

"There's more. It turns out there were ... consequences ... to my speaking at the trial. I hadn't realized this, but the magical world is pretty old-fashioned about a lot of things."

"Things like..."

"Women, and sex, and talking about it in public."

"Oh. Oh, dear."

"Exactly. Professor Dumbledore got the Ministry to seal the records until the end of term so I could finish school in peace. When the school year is over, though, it gets unsealed, and there is going to be a terrific scandal. He warned me that I probably wouldn't be able to get a job. He apologized; he said he thought I'd understood what would happen, but, of course, I didn't and by then it was too late. I don't know what I could have done differently anyway."

"Rowan! Isn't there anything you can do? You had your heart set on a research career. Ugh, and that was a government job; those are the worst for stupid rules."

"Professor Snape offered to marry me. Professor Dumbledore said if I married, the scandal would blow over and in a year or so I'd be able to try for that job."

"Marry? Professor Snape?" Laurel looked thoroughly horrified.

"But now it looks like that isn't necessary," Rowan continued quickly. "Remember that term project I was working on? The reason I was in Professor Snape's office that day? Well, I finished it – I found a process for making invisibility fabric for invisibility cloaks. No one knows how to make them anymore, and they're really expensive." Rowan paused for a moment and continued shyly "Professor Snape told me if I go into business making them, no one could afford to snub me. I could do whatever I want."

"So, what happens now?"

"I don't know," Rowan cried. Now, overwrought from reliving the entire story and the release of finally being able to reveal it to someone, she lost her battle for self-control. She knelt back onto the floor and again buried her head into her mother's lap. Her mother just stroked her hair to the slow rhythm of the phoenix's song until her sobbing subsided into hiccups and finally stopped.