Part Third: The Hart Subvertant, Chapter 27, Part 2

Chapter 27, Part 2

An overpowering stench of mustiness and rot seemed to coat Emily's nostrils with dust the second she entered – clearly, this house had been neglected for a long, long time. It would have smelled bad to any human with a functioning nose, but to a deer changeling, it was vile. She covered her mouth with her hand and coughed hard.

The first thing Emily saw upon entering the foyer of number twelve, Grimmauld Place was a very large wall frame covered with mouldering curtains – but the curtains blew open in a gust of wind from the open door, and she found herself face to face with the subject of that painting, an elderly, demented-looking woman in a black dress and lace cap who bore some resemblance in dress and expression to Mrs. Druella Black, Draco Malfoy's grandmother. This stalwart lady took one look at Emily and Dumbledore and both her eyes and mouth widened into Os of outrage. Then she let out a blood-chilling banshee wail that would have made any human's ears ring – but to Emily's hearing, it was positively agonising.

"Who let you into our house?!" the painted woman shrieked. "First Mudbloods, Squibs, werewolves, giants, race traitors, thieves and reprobates, Muggle-lovers – and now a degenerate, dandelion-eating FAERIE? Get out, you godless heathen, you shameless harlot, leave us in peace! Never darken this house's door again, daughter of filth, pagan swine! Out, OUT!"

Emily clapped her hands over her ears, her face flaming, and in another second would have turned around and heeded the woman's command to leave, but then Sirius Black, the tall, dark, gaunt-cheeked fellow Emily remembered from the night the Fusilier exploded, appeared from a doorway. "SHUT UP, you hideous putrescence, shut UP!" he shouted at the portrait, then readjusted the curtains over the painting with a tremendous, grunting effort.

"Sorry for that," he said, with a pained look. "Sometimes the drapes blow a bit, and she's not one to bother with company manners."

Behind Black, the painting continued to shriek vile epithets at a muffled, but still ear-bleeding volume, but he had ceased to pay any attention. "Hello, Albus."

"Hello, Sirius." The Headmaster shook Black's hand, then turned toward Emily. "You of course have already met Sirius Black, Emily. He has generously offered to let us use this house, which has been in his family for over a century, as our headquarters."

"That's... very kind of you, sir," she said to Black, but he did not greet her with a handshake, as he had Dumbledore. Instead, he only nodded to her very curtly, one corner of his lip curling slightly. The message could not have been plainer – while he would honour Dumbledore's request for discretion, he knew the real truth of her association with Lucius, and he put up with her only on sufferance. I know what you really are, his look seemed to say.

And it had been his idea that she become an informant.

Emily's return look was equally cold. I pity anyone who adheres to such a rigid and simplistic moral code, her expression said. Her spine remained straight and her chin up – if he expected her to act like some penitent, self-loathing Magdalene, he was going to be disappointed.

Dumbledore glanced from one to the other, then took Emily's elbow, gently propelling her away from Black and, thankfully, away from the screeching painting. "Come along, everyone should be in the kitchen."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

The kitchen, thankfully, was much cleaner than the foyer and much less noisy. A large, diverse group of people was already inside, sitting and standing about in small groups, with mugs of tea in hand. Sirius Black slunk in behind them and poured himself a cup of tea from a kettle on the stove.

"Albus, hello." A man with prematurely greying light brown hair and large, soulful eyes came forward to greet the two of them when they entered. He was tall and well-built, but with that perpetually stooped, apologetic look some men of a gentle temperament and an imposing stature often acquire. "Is this our new member?" he asked, glancing at Emily.

"Yes, my friend. Emily, meet Professor Remus Lupin. Professor Lupin was actually a Hogwarts Defence Against the Dark Arts professor the year before you came to school. Remus, this is Emily Swain, our newest member. Coincidentally, she just taught a session of Defence Against the Dark Arts this last school year."

"Hello, welcome," Lupin said, shaking her hand. "Good of you to come."

Emily's nose twitched as Lupin came close to her and their hands touched. His scent was strange – intensely virile and masculine, almost like that of a male satyr, yet there was an edge of something else as well, something musky and animal that she couldn't quite place. Lupin's manner, however, was so respectful and sincere that she felt much mollified even after Sirius Black's rude greeting.

Rubeus Hagrid was occupying most of a doorway leading into what looked like the pantry, talking to two grey-haired gentlemen, one in a bright green robe, the other in a vivid purple top hat. Hagrid raised his dinner-plate-sized hand and waved to Emily and Dumbledore when they arrived. "Diggle, Doge, see, there's the Faery gal I's been telling yeh joined up. She 'n her dad are old friends of Dumbledore's, they are. Professor Swain, this here's Elphias Doge, and Daedalus Diggle, he's the bloke in the top hat." She waved greetings from across the crowded kitchen.

A group of redheaded people were standing and sitting around a long table in the centre of the room – Emily immediately recognised her former students, the identical twins Fred and George Weasley. With them were a tall, good-looking, early twenties sort of fellow with a long red ponytail and a definite Weasley family resemblance to him, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, to whom she remembered having once been introduced.

"Professor!" Fred and George got up from their seats to shake her hand. "You've joined the Order? Cool! Going to take out You-Know-Who with that sword you showed us, eh?"

"Well no, not unless he tries to kill me first – murder's still sort of illegal, you know."

The tall, ponytailed redheaded fellow came up to the three of them. "Hello, I'm Bill Weasley – these two bloodthirsty hooligans are my brothers." He cordially shook her hand. "Thanks for coming."

"Thank you, glad to be here." She turned toward Mr. and Mrs. Weasley with a polite smile. "Sir, madam."

Both the Weasleys returned her greeting with equally polite civility. It seemed that Emily and Molly and Arthur hadn't quite made up their minds about each other yet, but were reserving judgment.

Off to Emily's left, she noticed a tall, silent figure in black leaning against the windowsill, his arms folded over his chest in his habitual posture. Professor Snape greeted her with a cool inclination of his head; she returned it in the same manner.

Three more people had just come into the kitchen, a young woman followed by two men. Emily recognised a familiar pink-haired woman with a Carnaby Street accent, who caught sight of Emily and Dumbledore and immediately came forward to meet them.

"Hey, Professor Dumbledore. Wotcher, Emily," the Auror said, grinning and holding out her hand. "I heard you were joining us. This is brilliant!"

"So this is why you couldn't come out with me, Tonks," Emily said, smiling. "Very secret Auror stuff indeed."

"Are we still on for next time?" Tonks said, over a jovial handshake.

"We'd better be," Emily replied.

"I see you two have met," Dumbledore said, glancing amusedly from Emily to Tonks.

"Oh yeah – on New Year's Eve, I mistook her for a Metamorphmagus and she set me straight, and then she Glamoured herself up as me and I put her ears on, and we shot the shite. It was a famously good time," Tonks said, grinning. She glanced behind her – "Hey, Kingsley, Moody, come here and say hi."

The first of Tonks's two companions came forward and held out his hand. "Kingsley Shacklebolt," he said. He was a tall, handsome black man with a bald head and a deep, rich voice.

"Hello, sir, good evening," she replied, shaking Shacklebolt's hand.

"Kingsley's my boss over at Auror Headquarters," Tonks said, then turned toward Moody. "And this is the famous Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody. This is Emily Swain, Moody. Don't worry, I think she's unarmed."

"Yeah, yeah, funny," Moody said to Tonks, then also held out his hand to Emily. " 'Evening, lassie. Thanks for coming out here tonight."

Emily glanced at Moody, her face closing. "I believe we've already met." She gave him a glacial nod and did not accept his offered hand. "Good evening, Professor."

Moody looked at her wary face, his grizzled brows quirking. "Professor Nothing – I never ended up setting foot in a bloody classroom. What's the matter, lassie? I don't bite, you know."

"I'm sure," she replied.

"Oh... that's right, if you were at Hogwarts, you must have ended up working with that... fake Moody. From what I've heard, that bloke pissed everyone on staff off," Tonks said, with a disgusted look. She leaned forward and lowered her voice – "At our first meeting, Professor Snape was still furious about having his office searched, even though Alastor here wasn't even the one who did it."

Moody leaned close to Emily's ear. "Still upset because that little rat bastard impersonating me tried to have you done in this year?" he asked, aside to her.

Both Tonks's and Shacklebolt's eyes widened to the size of hubcaps. "Shite! What happened?" Tonks whispered, turning to Emily.

"It's a long story, I'll tell you later. But yes, that's it exactly," she muttered back. She put her hand to her left shoulder – "Still recuperating, actually."

Moody's mouth tightened. "Swear on my sainted mother's life, Professor, I'd never seen you before the Leaving Feast at Hogwarts, and I think I'd've remembered you if I had. Come on, put her there," he said irritably, again holding out his hand.

"Moody's a great bloke, really," Tonks said loyally.

Emily's hard look softened, and she shook Moody's hand. "I'm sorry, I know it's irrational, but it's just... "

"Yeah, having someone try to have you killed is a mite bit objectionable. Believe me, I know," Moody interjected. "But think of it this way – it's also sort of unpleasant to have some bloke kidnap you, Stun you once a day, borrow your prosthetic bits, and then give you a phenomenally bad haircut on top of it all." He raked his hand through his close-cropped, grizzled locks. "I know I'm no beauty, but with the way I looked afterward, I still had a job of it making meself go to the barber. Plus, can you imagine waking up without having brushed your fecking teeth for an entire school year? I couldn't get my hands on a toothbrush fast enough, I tell you."

Despite herself, she laughed heartily at that. "I'll bet it was."

"Anyway, Albus has made it sound like the Fianna know what they're about, and if he says you're all right, I'll be glad to work with you."

She smiled at him, genuinely this time. "Thank you. Likewise."

Dumbledore turned to Emily again. "Unfortunately, all of our members are not with us this evening. Emmeline Vance and Hestia Jones are on Privet Drive duty, Sturgis Podmore had a late meeting at the Ministry, Charlie Weasley's work keeps him in Romania much of the time, and Mundungus Fletcher is in bed suffering from a surfeit of gherkins. You will have to make their acquaintance another time."

Then the Headmaster raised his voice slightly and addressed the whole group: "Now, everyone, if I could have your attention please, we can begin."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Dumbledore opened the meeting with an account of what had happened regarding the explosion at the Fusilier the previous week – or rather, he gave a discreetly abbreviated account of it. He described how Lucius Malfoy had set up a meeting with Professor Snape at the pub, then left a powerful Incendio spell or similar magic upon the establishment, timed to go off when Snape would have made his arrival.

The other Order members reacted to this news with consternation. Molly Weasley gasped in horror, turning toward Snape with her hand to her lips, and Tonks cried "Damn, Professor, that was close!"

"Yes, it was," Snape said, with a curt nod. Emily glanced in his direction, but his expression remained inscrutable.

The Headmaster continued, describing how the Swain family had been close friends of the Malfoys for generations, and how Lucius Malfoy had then given Professor Swain some hint as to these plans, knowing that she and Professor Snape had had a few, er, professional differences during the school year, and apparently imagining that she would find this news of his intended assassination to be welcome. Instead, Dumbledore said, Professor Swain went to the Fusilier herself, evacuated the pub through the use of a Glamoured magical ruse, and prevented Snape from entering. She and Professor Snape had then come to him with news of what had happened, and once she realised the position in which she had found herself, Professor Swain had offered her services as an informant.

Shacklebolt, Fred, and George cheered, and Tonks jumped up from her chair and gave Emily a spontaneous round of applause. "Nice work, mate!"

"Thanks," she said, smiling. Professor Snape's face remained unreadable, his eyes on Dumbledore.

"So they know you're working for us, then, Snape," Moody muttered darkly.

"They know that I tried to prevent Quirrell from stealing the Philosopher's Stone, and they know that I didn't heed the summons to the graveyard after Potter was abducted," Snape said curtly. "They don't know for certain that I'm working for the Order, actively trying to undermine them. As far as they know, I might just be afraid to return or insufficiently motivated to return, not openly antagonistic."

"Do they know you lived through the bombing attempt?" Moody asked.

"We don't know that for certain, though if they've read the Muggle newspaper accounts of the incident, they can fairly assume that I did. Professor Swain has been invited to an event at the Malfoys' home this coming weekend, and Dumbledore and I are hoping that she will be able to find out exactly what they know about the attack," Snape said, nodding in Emily's direction.

"You're going to be staying at Malfeasant this weekend?" Tonks turned to Emily, shuddering. "Yikes. Good luck with that, mate."

"Yes, I'm going to go visit my old chums Lucius and Narcissa to celebrate their son's birthday. Ought to be a splendid time," Emily said with sarcastic brightness.

Dumbledore then reported some new developments he had heard from contacts in London as to the Death Eaters' plans and movements – "They've begun a campaign of sabotaging Muggle public buildings and offices, although their agents seem to be doing a rather half-hearted job of it. So far we've only seen a few enchanted biting mailboxes and regurgitating lavatories, so we're not convinced that these aren't just pranks intended to distract us from their real movements. Sturgis Podmore has informed me that Lucius Malfoy has been holding an unusual number of closed-door meetings with people Severus assures us are confirmed Death Eaters, and he seems to be strongly advocating the creation of a Department of Interdimensional Magical Cooperation, organised with the aim of furthering relations with the Fae. What with Bartemious Crouch's death, unfortunately, his last real obstacle in creating such a department seems to have been removed."

"Lucius has been trying to enlist me as staff for that department for much of this year," Emily pointed out. "Though truly, if he thinks the way to win the Fae over is by offering us government jobs, he's pretty sadly mistaken." The group chuckled.

Sometime after the meeting's business was concluded, Moody approached Emily for more information about the proposed Department of Interdimensional Magical Cooperation. After they had been talking for some time, Professor Snape silently appeared at Emily's elbow. "Professor?"

Both turned in his direction. "Yes, sir?" Emily answered.

"Oh yes, Snape, you're thinking of that, er, concern we had," Moody said.

"Do you think now is a good time to broach the subject? Professor Swain will be leaving on Friday, after all," Snape said crisply.

Moody glanced at Dumbledore, who nodded, then turned back to Snape. "Yeah, I think it's as good a time as any." He then turned in Emily's direction. "Snape's got something he wants to discuss with you, lassie, regarding this Death Eater garden party you're heading out to this weekend."

"Yes, what is it, sir?" Emily asked, turning in Snape's direction.

"If I could speak to you privately, madam?" Snape stepped back, gestured for her to follow him, and led her out of the kitchen.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Emily followed him down the musty-smelling hall to a large, high-ceilinged chamber that appeared to have been a parlour or sitting room, back before the dingy tapestries covering the olive-green walls had gotten ferociously damp and never dried properly, and probably a decade's worth of dust and mildew was allowed to collect on every surface. Professor Snape motioned her in and then closed the door behind them.

"Lovely place Mr. Black has got here," she remarked, wrinkling her nose and coughing against the pervasive odour of mildew.

"Nothing a bit of spit and polish and a catastrophic house fire couldn't improve," Snape replied.

She smiled thinly. "All right, care to tell me what this is about?"

"It hasn't escaped my notice that your people don't seem to have any equivalent art of Legilimency, so it was decided that perhaps I should attempt to give you a crash course in how to defend against it before you embarked for Malfeasant. Legilimency is – "

"I know what Legilimency is, and no, we don't have an equivalent art," she interjected, with a look of high disdain. "Where I come from, Legilimency and its ilk is neither taught, or learned, nor even spoken of, most of the time."

"Why is that?" Snape demanded.

She looked at him as though he was missing something incredibly obvious. "Think about what you know of us, sir. What do you think the Arcadian majority opinion would be of arts like Legilimency?"

He considered carefully. "I would imagine that your people would hold any art that revealed someone else's secrets without his or her consent in great contempt," he said. "Its use or its study would probably be illegal."

"Right on both counts," she replied, nodding. "And it's not just held in contempt – it's considered blasphemy."

"So if your people won't use Legilimency or Occlumency, aren't you forcing yourselves to go about with – oh, how did you describe this – a great big weak point in your defences for your enemies to exploit?" he asked witheringly. "So what's to stop any wizard or witch skilled in Legilimency from going to the Faerielands and collecting Words of Power at will? I didn't notice any reference to Occlumency in your father's Encyclopaedia," he challenged her.

"That's right. You won't," she replied, nodding.

"Nor is there any mention of Occlumency in Identity and Illusion: A Wizard's Overview of Faery Magic," Snape continued. "Rather a notably slender volume, that one."

"That it is. Perhaps a cut above a pamphlet," she said, with a polite and totally unconcerned smile. "Would you like to know why you haven't found anything?"

"Do enlighten me," he invited.

"That would be because we don't call our equivalent defensive art Occlumency – we call it Scyttantis. And the reason there's no entry for it in any of my father's books is because Queen Mab strenuously objected to any mention of it being included in the final draft, and Gwydion thought the best diplomatic move was to humour her wishes."

"Of course – the famous policy for openness and honesty at work yet again," Snape said, turning away from her.

"Her reasons were political – she thought that allowing humans to study Scyttantis was tantamount to giving up an advantage to the enemy. We don't learn Legilimency itself, but we know damned well how to defend against it and its ilk, and that you can be certain of. When your magic depends on perpetually keeping a secret, mental defence is the very first art you learn. Before Obscurantis, before Glamour, before Deceivre, before anything. Didn't you listen to my first Word of Power lecture at all?" she asked, in the manner of a teacher lightly reproving a student who should know better.

Snape scowled. "But Legilimency is blasphemous – and I thought the Fae were petrified of so much as appearing to ask another for a True Name. It's difficult enough to ask one of you for her own name," he testily reminded her.

"Then here's a bit of news for you, then, Professor – not all Faeries are good. Remind me to tell you about hunting down Name ghouls at home sometime," she said. "And if you wanted to know my name so badly, maybe you should have tried telling me yours first."

His eyes glinted with challenge – and he drew his wand from a pocket of his robes. "Then I'm sure you won't object if I ask for a demonstration of the noble art of Scyttantis."

She threw back her head and folded her arms. Attitude of defiance. "I'm ready."

He pointed his wand at her. "Legilimens."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

She wasn't lying. She was good.

At first, his attempts to slide through her defences slid almost frictionlessly off the walled barrier of her mind as easily as she had evaded his attacks during their fencing classes. It was like trying to climb a sheer wall of oiled black glass. He pressed forward – saw distorted images swirling under the seamless surface, but a vigilant awareness drove him back, turning his forward movements back on him, presenting only the opaque, slippery front, made up of inconsequential nothings of thoughts flowing past him – this room was filthy and smelled awful, their host was rude and the house was an eyesore, her companion's questions annoyed her, and she wanted to go home to her own clean and airy apartments at Hogwarts.

Snape knew that he should have been pleased with this highly competent proof of her ability – should have immediately taken it as a sign that she was indeed up to the task she had undertaken for the Headmaster. But instead, being kept out like this, yet again, filled him with an unreasoning, irrational anger. He gathered his consciousness and slammed into the dark, slick surface in front of him and felt it give slightly. Mustered his always-formidable will and pushed forward again, harder. Found a crack in her barriers and battered at it like a mountain climber forcing a piton into a sheer rock face. Fleeting impressions roiled though that small aperture like water pouring through a pinhole in a dam –

He sees, through her eyes, the concerned face of a handsome, middle-aged, dark-haired human man, felt her fists pounding a pillow –

"Why is your solution to everything always to send me away? When there was war at home, you sent me to wizard school. War in the wizard world, you send me to Muggle school. I can fight, dammit! I'm as good she is, and she's the only one who can't see it!"

Then, the face of a tall, fine-boned Faery man with long, snow-white hair, and wide-pupilled brown eyes like her own, leaning to clasp her hand across a table. Feels her voice choking as she asks: "Gwydion – are you still angry at me? Is that what this is about?"

"I was never angry at you, dear one," he said. "I disagreed with you, yes, but we never bore each other ill will."

"Then why are you sending me so far away, for an entire year?"

Down a hallway, a half-open door. The same handsome, dark human man – her father – and a Faery woman with red-gold hair, who would have been breathtakingly beautiful had her face not been contorted miserably with sympathetic tears, sitting on a bed holding each other tightly. The man's shoulders were shaking. "Elaine," he sobbed, "How could I have been so wrong... Albus will never forgive me. How can you, of all people, live with a miserable coward for a husband... "

He is a nineteen-year-old girl, watching her father weeping in her mother's arms while his beloved ideals crash and burn around him.

– then he felt her sudden fury that he has seen any of these memories, was surprised by the primacy of her reaction, the acid-in-the-veins physical rage and humiliation she feels at it, as if he had just forced her onto her back and reached for his belt buckle. Then she hit back, filling his mind with the sound of metal tearing, the sense of falling from a great height. He stumbled back until he could feel the comforting hardness of the stone wall against his back, his own defences faltering.

But even after she rendered him vulnerable, she didn't push farther, didn't examine any of his memories, either because she refused to inflict the same indignity on him that he had on her, or because she wouldn't commit blasphemy, or... because she wasn't interested. Apparently there were things she would not do, even to a vulnerable adversary. At any rate, she withdrew completely, and he saw the blindingly white crack in her blank exterior surface seal itself closed. No impression other than impatience to be gone from here, and irritation that she had to reiterate these child's lessons for the contentious and thick-headed man before her.

Well done, my lady, he thought.

But she didn't break the contact... he felt her gathering her energies again.

You want to see what's on the other side, do you? came the wordless challenge. Then let's see what you think of THIS –

A welter of full-sensory imagery crashed down on him, making him stumble against the wall behind him again – and he was thrust into an unfamiliar, terrible scene, with the abruptness of quick Apparition.

He felt her heart slamming insanely hard against the inside of her chest, pumping blood and adrenalin through her veins so fast that she felt euphoric, invincible, drugged with fear and rage. Saw the mass of Baalorite warriors bearing down on her, their mottled-grey, green-flecked skins straining over muscle, their long sharp lower tusks, their sunken, sewn- and scabbed- and scarred-shut right eyelids, the perspiration beading off their heavy brows, and felt her adjusting the sword hilt in her hands. Felt the sweat dropping down her back as she waited to be confronted, not allowed to attack until attack was offered to her.

She can see the fear in their eyes as they watch her – she is well known to this enemy, after what she's done in earlier conflicts. Her mother has warned her repeatedly – They know who you are, and they'll be competing to be the one who kills my daughter – but even after a year of warfare, they haven't managed to so much as seriously wound her yet. The rumour is that she bears a charmed life – and that she's a highly efficient sadist on the battlefield. She's heard that they tell dark stories about her past deeds around their campfires, tell their children that Lady Whispersnickt will come and get them if they don't do as they're told. The enemy soldiers stink of fear when they see her in the front lines – and she loves that, glories in it, exalts in her hatred. She can't wait to spill enemy blood that day, to add to her own legend.

Their Prince gave the command to charge, and then she had at them, as mindlessly as a straining attack dog finally let off its leash.

The vorpal blade sliced through the first enemy with less resistance than a surgical scalpel through hot butter. She speared his pulmonary artery with her first thrust, then lifted her blade out through his spine and ribcage well above the wound she inflicted – anaesthesia for a painless death. Dodged the swing of a morning star that went past her with the force of a cannonball, moved aside just enough to avoid it – then severed the arm that swung it with a motion that felt like a continuation of her first forward lunge. She disengaged and took the second Baalorite's head from his shoulders with the backward return stroke – and the internal pressure of his circulatory system sent blue blood spurting from the stump of his neck as he fell.

Her thoughts spiralling through his mind – cold, detached, clinical. The enemy reduced to only so much matter to be dispersed, vulnerable areas to be breached. Personality and emotion forced down entirely, physical needs forgotten, spatial and anatomical calculation occupying every iota of her attention, fuelled by the free reign of murderous aggressions from down in the most primitive, reptilian part of her mind. A form of controlled, temporary sociopathology, learned because there is no other possible way to cope with this situation.

But no matter how hideous her actions – some part of her really enjoys this, revels in the way that she can inflict her will on these people, decide who will die and the manner of their deaths, and no one will stop her. Indeed, no matter how many of these people she butchers, later on she will be praised, honoured, and venerated for it. Our Lady of the Blade, the patron saint of mass slaughter. She knows there has to be something inherently evil in her – no one who adapts to this kind of atrocity so readily could ever be said to be purely good or decent – but this has never troubled her. It's not only patriotism, love of country, or love of her people that brings her out here to fight – this is also a socially acceptable excuse to wield the most primal form of power and cruelty. Lady Elaine may lead out of love for others, but Elaine's daughter fights only to please herself.

She has never rebelled against this mindset or questioned its necessity. Instead, she feels oddly comfortable in this state, to the point of feeling nostalgia for the freedom of the battlefield once the conflict is over and she has to behave like a civilised person again.

All of which Severus Snape can understand completely.

He knows that she means to frighten him with these memories, scare him into abandoning his attempts at breaking her defences, sending him shivering back into his own consciousness, but instead, he finds it all strangely exhilarating. In barest truth – he is positively envious.

I'll show you slaughter and cruelty like you've never known, came her wordless challenge.

His reply – Brava. I'm impressed.

He watched through her eyes as she dodged beneath the swing of a spiked mace – feels the edgy hyperamplitude of her nervous system, the incredible coordination of her movements; feels her gather her hooves beneath her, for she is, naturally, in her stronger and more agile form for battle – feels her upward thrust as her sword pierces the mace swinger's viscera, bisects his heart, and severs his spinal cord on its way out.

She never takes more than two strokes to kill any of them. She takes most of them with one.

He watched, unafraid, as she waded through dozens of opponents, maybe over a hundred. Elaine has relentlessly taught her daughter everything she knows about sword combat for over twenty years, so that Emily now has Elaine's skill and a nearly fifty-years'-younger body; she is not only prepared for this battle, she is overprepared for it. The enemy can't land a blow on her – she is too fast, too slippery, and too skilled with the sword. Other Faeries are killed around her as massive blunt-force blows pulp their organs and tissues inside their glittering armour, but all of the ink-blue blood that spatters over her belongs to other people. She can taste it splashing over her gritted teeth, feel it drying in her hair. But there is no time for grief on a battlefield.

The fighting ends. All of the invaders are dead, or driven back. There is blood soaking the ground, squelching under her hooves and fetlocks, but she comes out with nothing more than a scraped cheek, and knowing that no members of her unit were killed. She takes more satisfaction in that than she has in any of the decorations ever awarded her.

Someone behind her pulls her into a fierce embrace. She turns into the man holding her and buries her face in his neck, knowing from only the scent of his skin and the wood of his bow, exactly who this is. Oh, him. Alive. Unhurt. Her muscles go limp in an ecstasy of relief. He's filthy, rank with sweat, and covered with blood and worse, but he could not be more beautiful to her.

"Are you hurt?" he demands gruffly. "Let me see you – are you bleeding?" Rough hands push the chain mail cowl off, rake back her sodden hair, examining her face for the extent of her injury – and to convince himself that she is still alive.

Black voids of eyes in his burningly white face. Long straight black hair, tied back at the nape of his neck. A black tabard, embroidered with the blue, green, and gold Sixth Kingdom colours and the device of the horn lily, over chain and scale armour.

A second later, Snape felt her surprise that he withstood this memory for so long, and now feels her forcing him, the outsider, out of her mind – this part is too precious for her to share with anyone else. But he doesn't go easily. He is fascinated rather than terrified by the battle scene before him, and curious about who Tumnus was, having only heard about him second-hand. She won't share any of it with him, but he expects that, and clamps down hard on the corners of her consciousness. This glimpse through the chink in her armour has lasted only a few minutes, but it feels much, much longer.

Then he came to himself, because someone had thrown his corporeal body hard against a wall and shoved a forearm against his windpipe.

"Stop it," she snarled through bared teeth. A rivulet of ink-blue has leaked from her nose sometime recently – did he do that? He gasped for breath; then prised her arm away from his throat with a hard grip.

"Why did you do that?" she demanded. "You wanted proof that I could keep my thoughts secure – you have that."

"Yes," he said softly. "I have that."

It struck him as terribly odd that she would have sex with him so readily, yet all but physically attack him over a few brief glimpses into her mind – but his curiosity had not yet been satisfied.

"So," he said. "If you can't keep someone out – you go on the offensive. You bombard the enemy with your most terrifying and horrible memories until he can't stand it any more. How very effective."

"That's hardly all we can do." She looked very forbidding, cold, and proud. "That's only the beginning."

"What else is there?" he whispered.

"You don't want to know."

Snape almost laughed – how little she knew him. To tell him that a branch of magical knowledge was dark, arcane, and terrifying was a guarantee that he would become fascinated with it and strive to learn all he could about it. Or perhaps she knew him all too well and was trying to intrigue him, to draw him closer to her. He watched her still, austere face, for a moment allowing himself to enjoy the second possibility.

"Tell me," he said.

"The Descorder Curse."

"Descorder... " He searched his memory for the meaning of the word – "Discord. And – "

"Insanity," she said, her eyes never leaving his. "You could enslave me, torture me, or kill me with a curse. But I could drive you mad – completely and irreversibly. It wouldn't stop even after you had killed me."

"But your people aren't sadists – why would they devise such a horrible curse?" he asked, eyes narrowing.

"The intent is that anyone so cursed would then go back to his own people, who would then all watch as the affliction slowly and inevitably took him," she replied. "It's meant to be a warning, a display of our power to those who would persecute us. It's only ever used as a last resort."

"Then you're absolutely right on one count, madam," he said, shuddering with horror. "I truly don't want you as my enemy."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

"Professors?" They both turned hard toward the door, to where Mad-Eye Moody was peering into the room through the half-open door. "Sorry, thought I heard a crash. Everything all right?" the Auror asked. His eyes widened as he took in the sight of Emily pinning Snape to a wall, with blood leaking from her nose, but he said nothing.

Emily and Snape turned hard away from each other – she muttered, We're fine, and he, Everything's all right, almost in unison. Emily discreetly turned away and dabbed at her nose with her handkerchief.

"How are the Occlumency lessons going?" Moody asked, with an air of elaborately noticing nothing.

Emily turned back toward Moody, getting ready to defend herself from the onslaught of criticism she was certain Snape would then heap upon her – but then to her utter surprise, he quite calmly replied: "Our Occlumency lesson went quite well – more of a review session, actually. Apparently the Fae not only learn Occlumency, they seem to have made a few improvements on it." He slanted a wary glance in her direction. "There isn't much I could teach her."

"Good, good," Moody nodded, looking gruffly pleased. "Can I, er, get you something for that nose, there, Professor?"

"No, it's nothing," she said cheerfully.

"All right then," the Auror replied, nodding. If Moody was at all curious about this new, more physical variety of Occlumency the two Professors seemed to be practicing, he kept it to himself.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

The Thursday evening before Emily had to make her way to Malfeasant came entirely too soon.

Emily's trunk was packed, she had decided on a birthday gift for Draco, and had spent days mulling over the briefings Professor Snape and Dumbledore had given her. Yet she was terrifically antsy, with a huge amount of nervous, pent-up energy – so she made her way up to her old combat practice studio, where she had not been since her final session with Professor Snape.

Fuck it, she needed to do something, to work at something, to move. Her shoulder was almost entirely healed, the three weeks she had been told to wait before undertaking strenuous exercise were past; there was no one around, no students for whom she had to tone it down, and no fellow professor she had to avoid discouraging. She untied her trainers, pulled off her socks, threw her jersey aside, and pulled her Orcleofian out of the tiny paper of swords unfurled on the work table. Then, in her bare feet, dressed only in black fencing breeches and a black sport bra – she unsheathed the weapon of a Fianna knight, and began a traditional long training form.

Thrust first, parry first, parry second, dodge right, dodge and leap right – hooves rang on the wooden floor as she landed – thrust second, parry third, parry fourth, dodge left, foot sweep left – they were just a bunch of witches and wizards, none of them had even managed to create a True Name except poor little Pansy Parkinson. Lucius was so addled with lust and self-love that he believed her to be completely on his side – thrust third, parry fifth, parry sixth, leap left – he was so eager to confide everything to her and to bask in what he thought was her admiration. His appetites, his vanity, and his hubris were his weak points – thrust fourth, parry seventh, parry eighth, dodge left, dodge right – she could use that. And this kind of stealth opposition was so much more satisfying than continually being his dupe, his pawn, the unknowing target of his intrigues – thrust fifth, parry ninth, parry tenth, leap, sweep right –

By the time she finished, all sixteen attacks, thirty-two parries, all forms of dodge and sweep, spring and leap, sweat was pooling between her breasts and shoulder blades and her hair was plastered to her forehead and neck, but her mind was clear and resolute.

It was time to pay that bastard Malfoy back for slandering Dumbledore, and for all that he had tried to do to her, to Professor Snape, to all those Muggles in the pub; to exact some vindication for Harry, and for poor lost Cedric.

From here on in, she wasn't going to stop until they either stopped her, or that son of a bitch got life in Azkaban.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

After her solo training session and a long hot shower, Emily felt much more settled – but there was still one more thing left to do, one good-bye to be said. He probably wouldn't appreciate it, but she wanted to say it anyway.

She made the long trek up to the turret walk. As she suspected, Professor Snape was already there, leaning on the railing overlooking the lake and seemingly lost in thought.

"Professor."

"Professor."

Then she drew closer and saw him more clearly, and felt a sharp and totally unexpected pang of sympathy. She'd expected his usual glacial arrogance, but instead, his stance reminded her of the giant Atlas, with the weight of the world on his shoulders. His eyes were red-veined and his manner distracted, as though he hadn't been sleeping. But then, he had looked increasingly haggard ever since the Fusilier was destroyed.

Go to bed, stop doing this to yourself. Don't worry about the rest of us, just for one night, she wanted to say to him. "Good evening, sir," she said instead. "I thought you might be up here."

He didn't look at her. "Tomorrow is Friday, isn't it," he said flatly.

"Yes, it is. I just wanted to tell you that I'll immediately let you and the Headmaster know everything I've found out as soon as I return."

He snorted. "If you return. The Dark Lord is probably still at Malfeasant, you know, and he doesn't look kindly on those who refuse to cooperate with him."

"I'll deal with that if it comes up. For now, he seems content to try to negotiate with me."

"You assume that he's willing to negotiate honourably, and in that, you couldn't be more wrong. He'll never consider himself bound by the kind of codes of honour you were taught." He glanced down at his clenched hands with a fatalistic grimace.

"Professor... I'm committed to this now. So please, just once, could you let an opportunity to tell me yet again that I'm a ruddy great romantic fool pass? Would that really be so impossible?"

"You're worse than a romantic fool," he said, his voice hoarsening. "You're a naïve little girl who thinks that she's somehow going to redeem her father's poor judgment by getting herself killed."

That stung – she would always be roused to instant fury by any criticism offered to her father. "What do you know about my father?" she demanded.

"I've done some reading," he replied. "Apparently he held some rather interesting political opinions back in the seventies. It's all a matter of public record, you know."

"Yes, I know. He advocated that Voldemort should be pacified, rather than openly opposed, in a debate before the Wizengamot in 1979," she told him, almost entirely calmly. "My mother and I watched it from the gallery."

"With all due respect, my Lady, it appears that as a defence strategist, your father is truly a marvellous anthropologist. I can see why the Sorting Hat put him in Ravenclaw and not Slytherin," Snape remarked acridly.

"He advocated pacification because oftentimes it works at home, believe it or not. The Orcs attack our villages because they're starving. We give them some food and clear them some farmland – and they settle down. Our population grows slowly, and we have an excess of resources – sometimes they have nothing. It's been going on for hundreds of years. He's written extensively about pacification measures in his history of the Third Kingdom."

"And that book is only available in Arcadia, if I recall correctly," Snape muttered.

Emily scowled. "Even so, his reasoning isn't that hard to follow. Father figured – Voldemort wants power, authority, respect, he wants to be a leader – fine. Give him a position within the Ministry and harness his energy for the good. If you'd ever been in the Wizengamot, if you'd ever commanded a military unit, you'd know that the most difficult thing any leader ever has to overcome is apathy and resistance to change. Father admires motivated people. He always thinks everyone can be reasoned with."

No answer but the softest, most derisive little laugh. Emily scowled again.

"But of course Dumbledore opposed him in that debate, saying that You-Know-Who should be opposed at all costs. Then... the Death Eaters tried to recruit my father and threatened to kill him and his family – his other children, me, my mother – when he refused. And then... "

"Then what?" Snape pressed.

"They made good on the threats – they sent assassins to kill him," she said, through clenched teeth. "Though you probably already knew that, didn't you."

"No, I didn't," Snape shot back. "I was a minor foot soldier at best, madam – no one ever felt the need to clear all the group's assassination plans with me, thank you. And given that your father is now alive and well and living in another dimension, can I assume the murder attempt was unsuccessful?"

"Let's just say that really nice bloke or not, my father isn't anyone's idea of an easy mark," she said, her chin lifting proudly. "He captured the two men who attacked him and delivered them to the authorities. By 1980, he had recanted and admitted Dumbledore was right, and threw his full support behind him. Then the Potters were killed, and Harry lived, in October of 1981."

"Ah yes, he threw his full support behind Dumbledore. And then later that very supportive fellow gave away everything he owned and left the Wizarding world forever," Snape said, turning a dire eye back over the lake.

"Yes, he did, and I'm sure it wasn't hard to do – he always was more Faerie than wizard," she retorted scornfully. "Who was he here? No one – just another dilettante pure-blood who scribbled some history and dabbled in politics. In Arcadia, he's our leading historian and social scientist. He's recorded more of our history than any of us have ever – "

"How very nice for him. While he was cajoling Faeries to talk about themselves, some of us found ourselves rather busy back in the world he left behind," Snape snarled. "Although I see how you would think that was a task of Homeric proportions, given the difficulty in compelling a Faerie to talk about anything – "

"At least he gave the right answer when the Death Eaters came to recruit him," she snapped, furious. "There's no Dark Mark on his arm, so I'd thank you to remember that you are in no position to be self-righteous on that score."

He glared at her, eyes burning with resentment. "How very easy it must be to be judgmental, Commander," he whispered. "Or should I say Milady?"

"Say whatever you want – but the worst anyone can ever say about my father is that he was naïve. What's the worst anyone can say about you?"

"Be that as it may – the worst anyone can say about me will never be, He died stupidly and in vain," Snape shot back. "I'm not looking forward to seeing that on your tombstone."

His words were harsh, but the way he said them suddenly gave her pause. He sounded absolutely sincere – as though he would truly regret seeing her meet such an ignominious end. Emily glanced away from him, suddenly ashamed.

"Look – don't worry. Please. I can take care of myself," she said, but her tone lost its accusing edge. "Although everyone here likes to gloss over the bloody particulars, the fact is I've spent a lot of time hacking people to death with a very sharp sword. I don't have that blade just so I can demonstrate magical objects to Second-World schoolchildren, you know."

"Yes, I quite recall what you've shown me of the way your kind engage marauding Orcs on fields of battle. How pleasant it must be, to fight in such a simple conflict – the Shining Host of us, versus the hideous ravening hordes of them. No masks, no uncertain loyalties, no guesswork." He gave a deranged little laugh, his hand raking through his already dishevelled hair. "I truly envy that."

"Believe me, sir, it's hardly as pleasant or as easy as you seem to think. Simply because I went into combat by daylight and without a mask on does not somehow make me any less of a killer. I don't even know how many people I've killed – there's no time to count when you're really in the thick of combat. Since they gave me my Orcleofian, I can't even measure by how long it takes for my sword to get blunted anymore."

Snape shrugged. "I couldn't tell you how many deaths I'm responsible for, either. Like I said, I wasn't kept apprised of everyone the Dark Lord had killed – I just kept him supplied with the poisons." He watched the serenely glimmering lake below, his hands whiteknuckling his own upper arms.

Emily moved closer to his side, gazing at his averted face. "Is that why you're so adamant about the students paying attention during your poison antidote classes?" she asked quietly.

His eyes met hers for a single, anguished second, then he turned away from her again. "Oh yes, poison was my speciality," he said levelly. "That's what they recruited me for, you know – my interest in the less than savoury sort of pharmaceuticals. They kept me so hard at work in that fecking lab that I barely saw daylight for a year."

She was silent, leaning on the turret rail, just listening to him.

"But even that wasn't the worst of it," he said, warming to the topic with the air of a man making a speech before being led to the gallows. "Pain-inducers were also a sideline. Now and then I also found the time to dabble in behaviour-modification pharmacologicals. I could brew an aphrodisiac potion that induces such intense arousal that anyone who ingested it became pitifully easy to manipulate. And my piece de resistance were the drugs used for interrogation – I can make potions that make the Muggles' sodium pentothal truth serum seem like infant soothing syrup. One dose of my Veritaserum would have even a Faerie spilling her innermost secrets for all the world to hear."

His dark gaze rested on her face avidly, and defiantly; no doubt anticipating the disgust and castigation his confession would prompt in her.

An aphrodisiac potion that could make anyone pitifully easy to manipulate – oh yes. She was intimately familiar with that one. And if he wanted to shock and offend her with the idea of being forced to violate her own internal privacy, he had managed it.

She glanced at his left forearm, her eyes narrowing. "It continues to amaze me that someone of your intelligence, your talent, your skill, ever needed to be one of them. I simply cannot understand what would motivate someone like you – a scientist, a magical prodigy – to ally himself with someone like Voldemort."

His defiant expression soured; he had expected a fight, and had instead gotten both validation and a challenge. "Well. I sympathise – I remain wholly mystified why someone like you would ever give the much-handled Mr. Malfoy the time of day," he retorted.

"Ah, there's the rub – I don't have anything like a justification for it. I knew it was wrong, and I did it anyway," she replied. "Perhaps you can sympathise with that as well."

He only scowled and averted his eyes, gazing back out over the lake.

"Well, good evening, then, sir. I'll be sure to let you know everything I've discovered upon my return." She turned to leave him alone.

"If you don't come back, you had best hope I'm not called upon to give your eulogy. Because if I am, I guarantee you it will be neither sympathetic, nor flattering," he snarled at her departing back.

She paused, glancing at him over her shoulder. "Then for the sake of my posterity, I shall have to be certain to come back," she replied.

The sinister eyebrow quirked over an instant's grim smile – apparently if she pledged to return just to preserve her own vanity and to spite him, that was a promise he could believe in – but then he shook his head direly again. "If I didn't know you were a Beauxbatons alum, I'd swear you were another bloody Gryffindor."

"The Swains have all been Ravenclaws going back centuries."

"Yes, but you would have been a Gryffindor."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Emily got up very early in the morning on the Friday she was expected at Malfeasant. She had packed her trunk the night before and left the castle before the sun was up, before even Argus Filch was awake.

In the early hours of that morning, Anil Manaktala, who sold maps, magazines, chocolate bars and cigarettes from a corner kiosk in London, would sell a street atlas to a well-dressed blonde woman in a long black cloak, with an ornately tooled suitcase in her hand – one of those goths, he thought sleepily, as he made her change. Sometime after that lady had left, he would glance at his tip cup to discover it full of pound coins – enough to pay the overdue utility bill that had lain heavily on his mind for the last two weeks.

While the sky was paling, she made several stops in London: first before an Indian restaurant in Diagon Alley, and then before a Muggle accountancy near the Leaky Cauldron pub. She next made a stop before a Summerstown row house where a former pub keeper was just sitting down to his breakfast and poring over a pile of business realtor's pamphlets and insurance claim forms, and then made final stops before the pleasant apartment complexes where a mediwitch and her husband, and a Muggle physician and her semi-pro boxer boyfriend, were still sleeping.

At each location, she spoke the following words, in Old Arcadian – May what you have given be returned to you threefold; may the Mother of Us All turn Her gentle face toward you in kindness and favour. May you know prosperity and hope, health and happiness, and the best of blessed luck – and invoked her True Name.

The next month, a waitress named Daireen Dayananda would impulsively buy a Witches' Aid Society raffle ticket – and her winnings would allow her to pay her first year's tuition to chef's school. She would then apply her culinary and management training to her parents' restaurant, which would earn them enough to retire early and turn the entire establishment over to her. Alessandro Pacoli, half of the husband and wife team of Pacoli & Pacoli, Accountants, would that week suddenly find his long and painful battle with the gout gradually coming to an end, never to trouble him again. His temper and his work would very much improve as a result, and he would resume his usual habit of long evening walks with his wife Clarissa, which made them both very happy.

Jack Vintner's new pub, the puckishly named Bombardier, would enjoy even greater popularity than the Fusilier. His loyal patrons and all his former pub staff would return en masse to his new establishment, which Jack would tirelessly make certain remained top of the line as far as safety measures. Additionally, the new building he purchased would turn out to be smack-dab in the centre of an up-and-coming business district, which would appreciate considerably in value by the time that good entrepreneur turned fifty. The pub explosion would go down as simply another tale in the already long and varied tradition of London pub legends.

Licensed Healer Dayna Egurl would later be promoted to Head of Triage at St. Mungo's, just in time to be the surgiwitch open-minded enough to consent to the use of Muggle stitches in the treatment of one Arthur Weasley, the victim of a mauling by a large snake. Roderick Sellars would at his next check-up be pronounced entirely healed of the eye injury that kept him out of the ring for much of that year. And Catherine Orson, who had in her dreams all that night pondered the question of how to cure the Faery sensitivity to iron, would that morning cut her ankle slightly while shaving in the bath. The sight of her own blood prompted her to form a new hypothesis that sent her to her desk, still dripping, to pen a hurried note in her journal, and begin another letter to her correspondent at Hogwarts.

All this good fortune perhaps had nothing to do with the blessings Emily spoke that morning – after all, none of them ever knew that she had offered such, and all of these occurrences might have happened to those worthy people anyway.

But nonetheless, in what are now the children's stories of many countries, there remain several centuries' worth of tales of good fortune befalling those who aid the Fae even by happenstance, and perhaps within those tales, there is some grain of truth.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

By the morning Emily left for Malfeasant, sleep had become a teasing mistress whom Severus Snape could very rarely visit.

After he parted from her on the turrets, he had barely closed his eyes at all that evening. Now, rather than lie fruitlessly in bed, he had stationed himself in front of his chessboard, ranged the black marble pieces against the white, and had been playing games against himself all night.

It helped him, now and then, to think of the wizard forces now ranged against each other as a problem in chess.

Voldemort stood in the black king's square, with Lucius Malfoy beside him as queen, the most powerful aggressive piece on the black side. The Lestranges flanked them as bishops. Walden Macnair and Druella Black took position as knights, with all their erratic destructiveness. Two stolid menaces named Crabbe and Goyle took the ends of the line as castles. In front of them stood a row of pawns named Rookwood, Parkinson, Nott, Mulciber, Draco Malfoy, Felina Rosier, Peter Pettigrew, and Bartemious Crouch, Junior. Pettigrew was, of course, the king's pawn, and Draco Malfoy the queen's. The pawn named Crouch, Jr. had been taken early – the first sacrifice in this game.

On the white side, Cornelius Fudge, the Ministry figurehead for law and order if nothing else, stood in the white king's square, an ineffectual plodder at best, but the overthrow of the Ministry would end the entire game forever. Albus Dumbledore, the real power behind the throne, took the white queen's square. He himself stood beside Dumbledore as the black-square bishop, while Minerva McGonagall played the white bishop. Rubeus Hagrid played queen's side castle, balanced by Alastor Moody on the king's side. Nymphadora Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt took the king's knight square. The pawns on this side were named Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, Arthur, Molly, Percy, and Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and Harry Potter. Potter was the queen's pawn, of course.

It seemed that Emily Swain had now effectively stepped onto the board in the position of queen's side knight, and now, as she made her first move into this game, skipping over the protective pawn structure and sneaking unguarded into the ranks of the enemy, neither the queen, nor the queen's side bishop would be in any position to offer support.

May her Mother Goddess help her.