Chapter Twenty-Six – Malicious

The door to the classroom banged open with an echoing crash, making the nib of his quill skew right across the paper he was marking in a frenzied line.

"What in the hell..." Snape began, looking up from his desk, his mood switching from irascible to outraged at the interruption. Outrage mutated into loathing when he saw who was standing in the doorway. "What do you want?"

"Inspection time, Snape," Moody growled, a craggy grin pasted across his ugly face.

"I'm busy," Snape pointed out between clenched teeth.

Moody pulled a face at him. "Busy, eh? Working on some sick and twisted little scheme, are you?" The man stumped into the classroom, his carved, wooden foot thunking loudly on the stone floor like a stake being hammered into a vampire's chest. "Not busy with something I should be looking into?"

Snape glared at him sourly. "I would have thought, Moody, that you would have enough marking to deal with without feeling the pressing need to involve yourself in mine." He threw his quill down on his desk and sat back in his chair. "And the last I recalled, it was your leg that had been amputated and not either of your hands. Next time, try knocking before barging into my classroom like an ill-mannered oaf."

Moody's charmed eye rolled slowly in its socket until both eyes were fixed on Snape through the man's straggly mane of grey hair. "What, and miss the chance to catch you doing something you shouldn't be doing, Snape?" he growled, baring his teeth. "I think not." He clumped his way up to the front of the classroom.

"I wonder," Snape began, running the tips of his fingers along the edge of his desk slowly, "if you impose yourself on the other members of faculty with such shining rudeness."

Moody snorted at him, his magical eye roving slowly around the room. "Auror's privilege, Snape. Let's not go through this again, shall we? It's just a waste of time and it makes me cranky." He stopped right in front of Snape's desk, leaned on his staff and leered down at him. "And you don't want to make me cranky, now, do you?"

Snape sneered at the twisted lump of a man in front of him. "Your disposition is a matter of supreme indifference to me, Moody. Just get your snooping over and done with." At that, he picked up his quill again and went back to marking assignments.

It was difficult not to react to the sounds of breaking glass as Moody rifled through all the cupboards in the classroom, discarding bottles and potion-making equipment in as wide a radius as he possibly could. He even wrenched one of the cupboard doors off for no reason other than to annoy Snape. It hit the floor with a wooden clatter.

Snape had been through this tedious charade four times already since Moody's arrival. He'd complained vociferously to Dumbledore the first time it happened, but the Headmaster had merely looked aggrieved.

"Alastor is only trying to discover who was responsible for putting Harry's name in the Goblet, Severus," he had explained with an apologetic shrug.

"By destroying my classroom and ruining all my supplies?" Snape had almost shouted in frustration. "I fail to see how that is a particularly inspired piece of investigation on his part!"

Dumbledore had sighed. "His methods are... unorthodox," the Headmaster admitted. "I will speak to him."

And indeed, Dumbledore must have done so, for the next time Moody pulled a surprise visit on Snape, he was even more thorough and destructive. So Snape had resigned himself to putting up with Moody's intrusions since words from the Headmaster had failed to quell the Auror's rabid zeal in singling Snape out for persecution. It was like being a student again...the flagrant disregard for his personal dignity, the snide comments about his background, the utter disrespect for his possessions and personal space. Complaining about it just fired Moody up even more, so Snape tried hanging on to the shreds of his deportment as best he could and ignored Moody's encroachment on his territory. He hated every second of it though, and it left a reek of hypocrisy in his nose. His life was a litany of examples of how some people were allowed to ignore rules that bound others into the servitude of civility and compromise. It seemed he was destined never to escape such face-slapping incidences of preferential treatment where he had no recourse except to bite down and take it.

Snape scratched out a particularly vindictive comment on the assignment he was grading. When was it going to end? The neck-bending, the sufferance, the erosion of what little standing was left to him? It didn't seem to matter what he did; it always resulted in him being metaphorically spat in the face. His mouth twisted. Some might say that he was fortunate to even have what little autonomy he had, that it was an egregious error that he had avoided incarceration in Azkaban for the damage he had caused. Typically, those that shouted their outrage the loudest usually had the most to hide themselves. That was what made it especially galling. Stupid, double-faced, spineless cowards crowing and pointing fingers, so eager to direct attention away from their own grotty, disgusting and questionable actions. Snape may have escaped Azkaban, but the prison of prejudice and persecution locked him into this miserable existence he eked out for himself, pushed into a fringe-dwelling torpor that was grey with public scorn and pitted with the acid of contempt from people who were too craven to hold themselves to the same standards they measured him by. Petty, obtuse, small people who lived lives of ignorance and privilege. They were almost too pitiful to hate. Almost.

A particularly loud crash of glass made his shoulders tighten. He longed for the day when the opportunity to wipe Moody's self-satisfied smirk off his haggard face presented itself. Snape still hadn't reached the decision as to whether it would be with a curse, a knife, or his fist. Perhaps all three, and that was just for starters.

"You really should do something about this mess, Snape," came Moody's gravel-rasped voice. "One might consider is hazardous to the students to have to study in such a pig sty."

Snape swivelled his eyes up from his marking. Moody stood calmly amongst the detritus of his search like the self-righteous brute he'd always been as if daring Snape to complain. His fingers tightened on his quill, but he judiciously kept his mouth shut.

"Perhaps I should mention the laxity to the Headmaster," Moody mused aloud, his magical eye spinning gaily in response to his poorly suppressed glee. "I'm sure he'd be most disappointed to hear that his tame Death Eater was becoming an embarrassment to him."

It took all of Snape's self-control not to hex the shattered glass scattered across the floor right down Moody's throat. Sideways.

With a parting gloat, Moody kicked a miraculously unbroken flask aside with his clawed, wooden foot and lurched out of the classroom.

Snape looked at the state of the classroom and sighed heavily. Moody had been as thorough as always, the vindictive bastard. It looked like he would have to make the trip to London once again this weekend to replace the spoiled ingredients and glassware, though some of the former would take weeks to prepare to a stage where they would be useful.

Snape ran the tip of his quill under his chin slowly. At some point in his past, he had found that it tended to calm him down during the more fractious incidences in his daily life, so he continued with it for some time, staring blankly at the mess on the floor. That was until Parr turned up, and whatever serenity there had been inside him fled.

She stood in the doorway and stared at the glass-littered floor with a faintly surprised expression.

"You're late," Snape pointed out tersely, removing the tip of his quill from under his chin.

Parr looked at him, silent, her expression now turned neutral.

"That was an effective little stunt you pulled earlier," he began, as if the ransacking of his classroom had never occurred and that there weren't the contents of an apothecary strewn across the floor like rubbish.

Parr blinked.

"Although it is curious that you would be willing to risk dealing with twenty spiders instead of just one in order to prove a point."

Her mouth tightened at the corners.

"Some might think that courageous. I consider it idiotic."

Her nostrils flared ever so slightly.

"And since you are so obviously adept in creating chaos, I consider it fitting that you tidy this one up," he decided, widening his eyes in expectation of a verbal objection that never eventuated. Truth be told, he was angling for a fight and getting increasingly bad-tempered that Parr was refusing to rise to the bait.

"You have one hour to tidy this classroom to my satisfaction before I penalise Ravenclaw one point for every minute past that hour, Miss Parr, so standing there looking vacuous is ill-advised." That, at least, invoked a glare, which suggested if he pushed a little further, he might get the fight he was spoiling for.

Unfortunately, yet another of his least favourite people turned up.

"Wow, who had the temper tantrum?" asked Lupin from the doorway, his eyes goggling at the explosion of potions ingredients on the floor.

"Step one pace inside my classroom and I'll hex your rancid foot into your flapping mouth, Lupin," Snape warned frostily.

The shabbily-dressed werewolf shrugged and stuck his hands in his pockets. Parr had a stupid smile pasted across her face that made Snape want to throw something at her.

"It appears lack of wisdom is catching," Snape continued stonily. "I wonder what the Headmaster would say to having a werewolf parading around the school premises after being so resoundingly fired from his teaching position."

Lupin leaned against the doorframe without bothering to correct Snape's statement. "Ah, I believe he said, 'Oh, you need Chara? I think she's downstairs being rudely abused by Severus. If you hurry, you might get there before someone gets hurt.'" He smiled. "Or words to that effect."

"Your drollery fails to impress me, Lupin," Snape pointed out snottily and sat back in his chair. "And Miss Parr has a detention to discharge, so if you don't mind–"

"Ah, er, I'm afraid that will have to wait," Lupin interrupted with a questionable look of what might have been regret on his unshaven face.

Snape tossed his quill on to his desk and stood up slowly. "For one unfortunate moment there, I thought I heard you overriding me, Lupin, and in my own classroom." He leaned forward with his hands on the desk. "But perhaps I was mistaken?" he added in a dangerously quiet voice.

Lupin looked very hard at him with a rather steely glint in his eye. "For some reason, the Headmaster feels that the tragic death of a Ministry member outweighs your personal need to transfer your pent-up frustration on to one of your students, Severus," Lupin replied in an uncharacteristically terse manner. "Time is in short supply, so if the rancour could be delayed until another time, it would be appreciated. We need Chara right now."

Parr looked back at Snape, eyes wide and shuffling from foot to foot.

"I don't know why you even bother waiting for me to dismiss you, Miss Parr, since it is obvious that my authority isn't worth a brass Knut!" he snapped. "You can spend every evening next week dissecting Hook-Backs since you are incapable of serving detention now. Get out!"

Parr raced out of the door, briefly touching her hand to Lupin's forearm on her way past.

"Five minutes! Front gate!" Lupin called after her. He sighed, and looked back at Snape. "Severus, I am sorry, but this is really–"

"Spare me, Lupin," Snape hissed at him, sweeping away from his desk. "I've never been graced with explanations before, so why start now?" He righted a glass jar that had tipped over on the top shelf of the supply cupboard. It was perhaps the only thing in there that hadn't been destroyed.

"I'd be careful of pushing Chara too far, Severus," Lupin commented to the black-robed figure that had his back resolutely facing him.

Snape gritted his teeth and turned slowly with the sound of glass grinding beneath the heel of his boot. "You forget yourself, Lupin, and your opinion means even less to me now than it ever did. I will treat my students as I see fit."

Lupin deflected the repressed fury with another of his shrugs. "Fine." He pushed himself away from the doorframe. "Just be aware of where the boundary of your jurisdiction ends, is all I'm saying."

He jumped back as Snape slammed the door shut in his face with a hissed Colloportus.

Dumbledore tapped his thumbs together and regarded the glowering man opposite him.

"Severus, I appreciate your dissatisfaction at the situation, but it was an emergency," he pointed out gently. "You know that I wouldn't interfere unless it was so."

Snape thinned his lips and shook his head, making his long black hair sway. "That isn't what I am objecting to, Headmaster," he said in a snippy tone. "It's the negation of my authority by others, one of whom does not even have a position here at this school! Bad enough that I have to deal with Moody and his frenetic destruction of my property in one of his 'Auror's privilege' snap inspections, but now I have Lupin swanning in and pulling a student out from detention. I confess I am at a loss as to the point of me even pretending to have any control in my role here."

Dumbledore leaned back in his chair and sighed. He pressed his fingertips to his forehead briefly and then gestured at the chair on the opposite side of the table. "Severus, perhaps you should sit down."

Snape squinted down his long nose at him. "I prefer to stand."

"So be it," Dumbledore replied mildly, wondering how Snape was going to react to what he was about to say. He pushed some parchments about on his desk for a few seconds to buy him some thinking time. "It hasn't escaped me that you are unhappy with Chara's presence here." Snape's expression got even stonier at that remark. "I have also explained to you that it is necessary she be here, but admittedly, not the reason why. I'm starting to think that perhaps I should do so now." He gestured hopefully at the chair once more. "Please?"

Snape remained where he was for a moment before reluctantly relenting. He sat, stiff-backed, in the chair and sniffed, fussing at his teaching robes until they sat in a manner he deemed acceptable.

"No doubt–" Dumbledore paused and fixed Snape with a shrewd gaze. "–No doubt, you are aware that Chara has spent some time at St Mungo's for her injuries and that she was brought here whilst still significantly injured." Snape failed to reveal any indication of surprise and didn't even bother to feign any. He knew better than to dissemble ignorance in front of Dumbledore. "You are also undoubtedly aware that the reason for that was because an attempt was made on her life whilst she was being treated at the hospital." Snape opened his mouth. "Please, Severus, I've known you long enough to know that you are more than capable of piecing together information into something less fractured and filling in the gaps with the most logical options, but for now let us pretend that I am unaware of your surreptitious investigations." He noticed Snape's eyes lower to the floor briefly, confirming what Dumbledore had merely suspected was true. He waited a few moments before continuing. "Had the person who had been sent to kill Chara been an enemy, I would not have been as concerned. However, the intruder was one of Chara's most trusted confidantes. Whilst it is true that even the closest of companions can turn into the bitterest enemy over the mildest of infractions, in this case it appears to have been due to an Imperius Curse."

"Why would anyone try to kill a Muggle with a person under an Imperius Curse?" Snape inevitably interrupted, his nostrils slightly flared.

"Chara is more than capable of defending herself, as I am sure you are aware," Dumbledore mentioned with a small smile. "I am guessing that the perpetrator correctly determined that the best way to catch her with her guard down would be to use someone that she knew well and trusted implicitly. Unfortunately for them, they didn't count on the would-be murderer to fight off the curse long enough to warn Chara of the plan." Dumbledore shifted in his chair. "Whilst it is true that Chara does not possess magical abilities as witches and wizards do, she is not without uncommon ability, and she is not alone in this. Her world is a hidden one from necessity, but its potential is incalculable."

Snape blinked. "And what world is that, Headmaster?"

Dumbledore studied the younger man seated opposite him who had the suspicious nature of one twice his years, weighing up which words to use and which to leave aside. "An old one, perhaps one as old as ours, though not nearly as populous. It is one that I have considered for some years as essential to our cause against Voldemort." He noted the reactive tic in Snape's face at the name. "And in such times, I must make effort to gather potential allies to us, not only to aid us, but to shield them from possible control by darker forces. Indeed, it appears that efforts by the other side have already been made in drawing some of the more disparate societies under their control, Chara's among them.

"She is our first reliable and direct contact with her kind for at least four and a half centuries, and that alone is reason enough for me to have had her brought here to Hogwarts in an effort to keep her safe. Some know her kind as Strikers or Trackers, though Chara ascribes a different name to them. I believe that, in times past at least, the Ministry has used them and not always honourably, and that is one of the things that has made them extremely wary of magicfolk. There is always a middle party between the Strikers and those seeking their assistance, so most theories on Strikers are guesswork at best because of this lack of direct contact.

"Chara has agreed, albeit unwillingly, to assist us in some of the more dangerous exploits of the Order, as well as provide us with certain information that may allow us to make an overture of friendship towards other Strikers. The price she has asked in exchange I believe to be fair, although I am certain that some members of Ministry will not." He rubbed his lower lip with his finger and frowned. "For that reason, amongst others, her presence here at the school is unbeknownst to the Ministry as a whole. The MLE is the only department who know she is still alive, as well as certain other officials who are also in the Order. In fact, the report of the murder in the Daily Prophet was as much to fool the Ministry as it was to fool those who had sent Chara's companion to kill her. If both parties believe her dead, then we are at a distinct advantage."

"But the board of governors..." Snape began, "... as well as the parents of students here that work at the Ministry will know she is here."

"They know only of a mature-age student by the name of Chara Parr, nothing more. There is no connection between her and the unnamed, now deceased, patient at St Mungo's."

The sneer portrayed what Snape thought of that. "A fine line to be dancing along, Headmaster."

"Life is drawn in fine lines, Severus," Dumbledore replied simply.

"Is it altogether wise to have her under the same roof as Karkaroff?" Snape inquired smoothly.

"Whilst I have never claimed Igor Karkaroff to be an idiot, despite his poor decisions in life, I believe him to be suitably distracted by his own problems to remark on Chara's presence. In fact," Dumbledore smiled wryly, "you have been the only one to cause a fuss at it, Severus."

That earned a snort. "I find that hard to believe," Snape muttered, looking at the floor again.

Dumbledore shook his head. Sometimes the man was like a child with a sweet-tooth that considered it a heinous insult that the biscuit jar was kept out of his reach.

"Nevertheless," said Dumbledore, judiciously refraining from voicing his thoughts on some of Snape's behavioural tendencies. He noticed that Snape hadn't looked up from the floor. "There is something that concerns you?" he prompted.

"As you know, Karkaroff has mentioned to me, with some agitation," Snape rolled his eyes in a gesture of sufferance, "that he is being kept in the dark about some plot going on between Macnair and Brachoveitch.' He tapped his long fingers on the arms of his chair. "I am... still unacquainted with what this plot could be," he added with some reluctance. "However, considering that Macnair works in the Committee for the Disposal of Magical Creatures at the Ministry, and therefore has access to and knowledge of many creatures of remarkable abilities, I wonder if the plot has something to do with overtures being made to potential allies or... potential servants," he added. "It is also my suspicion that Greyback is involved somehow, but precisely how, I do not know. Macnair's recent presence in Albania is also of some concern, if that is where the Dark Lord is suspected to be."

"Do you believe that Voldemort is directing Macnair and Brachoveitch?" Dumbledore asked with some anxiety.

Snape considered this possibility while trying to ignore the way his pulse had sped up at the second mention of the Dark Lord's name. "I don't believe so. If anything, Macnair seems worried that the plot could be known to the Dark Lord, which suggests it is being carried out independently." He paused. "I did mention Greyback to Lupin in the hopes that he would be able to determine what that maniac's involvement could be, but his reaction was less than helpful." He straightened the sleeve of his coat primly, a look of distaste on his long face.

"Ah," said Dumbledore, nodding slightly. "Then I will endeavour to bring the subject up with him."

"As you wish," Snape replied, one eyebrow arched. "One thing concerns me, though."

Dumbledore waited expectantly.

"If Macnair is trying to avoid the Dark Lord's notice, why was he in Albania?" When no reply was forthcoming from the Headmaster, he continued. "If the Dark Lord wasn't the reason, what was? It can't have been Jorkins." He paused again, his black gaze set unwaveringly on Dumbledore. "Who did Lupin and Parr get into a fight with that night?"

This time it was Dumbledore who dropped his eyes momentarily. "Chara believes it was another Striker." He looked back up again. "An English one."

There was another silence between them. "In Albania? And why would that be?" Snape inquired.

"Either to find Voldemort or–"

"–to find other seevy," Snape interrupted. "Is it possible they were after Parr?" Dumbledore nodded. "To what end? That they were attacked by this Striker suggests one of two things: that the Striker was intending harm to Parr, possibly mortal harm, or that the attacking Striker was caught by surprise doing something they wanted kept secret. Either way it represents a conflict of some description amongst Strikers, which bodes ill in your plans for their alliance with those who might stand against the Dark Lord unless the nature of the conflict can be determined and catered for."

"Something that Chara has mentioned to me on more than one occasion," Dumbledore admitted. "It is one of the more pressing developments that she and Lupin are attempting to clarify. Brunton's death earlier this evening is another."

"I am unfamiliar with the name," Snape admitted, tilting his head to one side.

"A junior secretary in the Obliviation Department," Dumbledore provided. "He was found with his throat torn out in an alley in West London. Kingsley managed to get word to me as he was on his way to the scene. I know nothing beyond this," Dumbledore said, raising his hands in a gesture of uneasiness.

Snape sighed and rubbed his temple with the knuckle of one finger. First Jorkins and now this Brunton. He wondered how many more Ministry employees would be picked off in such seemingly random fashion, how many that had already been that he had not been told about. When people started to turn up dead in suspicious circumstances, panic inevitably started to work its own brand of pervasive magic. In such an atmosphere, people who would normally talk clammed up and became guarded, keeping all sorts of secrets and vital snippets of information to themselves.

"You've not been sleeping." It wasn't a question, so technically Snape felt no need to respond to it. He just stared at Dumbledore impassively and suppressed an urge to jiggle his leg in annoyance.

"Are you having bad dreams?" the Headmaster asked, his eyes sharp.

Snape tried to find a way around the question but couldn't. "Sometimes," he conceded warily.

"Is there something I can–"

"No." Snape cleared his throat slightly and blinked. "Thank you, but no," he amended.

Dumbledore sighed. "Severus, it isn't necessary to deal with such things alone. I believe we have discussed this on a number of occasions."

Snape remained silent.

"Accepting help from others is not a sign of weakness," Dumbledore pointed out.

Snape raised his eyebrows incrementally. "Another discussion we have had on a number of occasions, Headmaster," he mentioned dryly.

"Quite so," Dumbledore agreed. "I am guessing this occasion is, once again, to end in you eschewing the opportunity to make the burden lighter." He folded his hands in his lap and smiled sadly at Snape, already knowing what the response would be.

"Quite so, Headmaster."