Confrontation and New Talents

Chapter Sixteen

Confrontation and New Talents

For the first time in his own Hogwarts history, Harry was leaving the grounds for Spring Break. Of course, he wouldn't have bothered if the only place he had to go was the Dursleys', but now that he had Sirius' house, he planned to go there.

It wouldn't be empty; members of the Order were always coming and going, with his blessings. There would be company if he wanted it, but the house was certainly big enough to avoid the same if he so chose.

He Disapparated from Hogwarts' gate to the empty field near the corner of Grimmauld Place. As he watched the house appear between the two old tenement buildings, he felt oddly as though he were intruding. He almost had to force himself to enter.

He closed the front door behind him, listening to the silence. No more Mrs. Black screaming obscenities at him, no Order members coming down the hall to greet him. He thought he heard scuttling noises; probably Kreacher running away from the new master he loathed.

Harry climbed the stairs to the room he normally shared with Ron. Putting his reduced trunk onto the floor near his bed, he restored it to normal size and began unpacking. He found the books that Tanya had given him in what seemed a lifetime ago; he lovingly ran his hands down the spines and put them on his nightstand. He looked up at the ceiling, remembering the attic and the rumpled blankets in the corner.

He turned, and almost without conscious thought, headed up the stairs to the third floor. Pushing open the door, he paused, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dimness. Looking toward the corner, he saw only empty space; Tanya had removed her blankets when she'd moved out. He slowly walked to the corner and sat down, taking his mind back to the nights that he sat there with Tanya. He looked down and saw something on the dusty floor; picking up a small, white button, he felt a whirlwind of time flow through his brain. His mind's eye saw the button flying off of a nightshirt he'd torn open in his haste to take what Tanya had offered.

He gripped the button in his fist, squeezing his eyes shut against the sudden pain ripping through his heart. Tanya. He'd spent a lot of energy being furious with her, then more energy being worried about her. Now his worries were of a different sort. He wondered if he'd wasted too much time condemning her instead of understanding her. Was he too late to make amends? Would Tanya rather just keep the current status quo he'd initiated by avoiding him?

He put the button in his pocket, almost running out of the attic and away from these tormenting memories.

He followed the stairs all the way down to the kitchen, looking toward the closet where Kreacher made his home. The door was ajar, and he saw something poking out, keeping the door from swinging shut.

Approaching cautiously, he pulled the door open further, his breath catching in his throat. There was a decaying, almost unrecognizable shape on the floor there, the putrid flesh assailing his senses. It was Kreacher. It used to be Kreacher. He must have died weeks ago, judging by what was left.

Harry thought back to the things Tanya had said to Kreacher, playing with his mind, as if willing him to die. He had a moment of unease, realizing that it could have happened that way; he'd seen some of her power, and he could believe without difficulty that she'd been responsible for Kreacher's death. But wouldn't it have happened much earlier then? He hated that, once again, he began to have doubts about Tanya.

He stood up, wondering how one went about hiring, or otherwise attaining the services of a new house-elf. And in the meantime, what does one do with a dead one? He couldn't move himself to feel any real grief about Kreacher's death, but felt he owed him some sort of tribute. Was there enough of the elf left to have his bust mounted as his predecessors had been?

He moved to one of the chairs at the table, deep in thought. The question of the possibility of Tanya's involvement in Kreacher's death is a question he decided never to ask her.

He looked around him. The appeal to be here, instead of Hogwarts, had dimmed, and he waited hopefully for someone to come, yet dreading anyone's arrival; it would mean that Voldemort was moving. There would be no other reason for the Order to convene during the holiday.

*****

Snape forced himself to concentrate on the essay he was reading, trying desperately to ignore the stinging, raw pain of the mark on his left arm. It should not have been burning now. It should never burn again, he thought. Voldemort must be aware that Snape was loyal to Dumbledore, and not the Dark Side.

And if he knew it, Snape wondered, why would he summon him in this way? Surely, he wouldn't assume Snape was idiotic enough to answer the summons. If Voldemort wanted to torture him for his duplicity, or simply to eliminate him completely, wouldn't he go about it in a less obvious way? Perhaps sending by owl post an innocent looking letter, loaded with poisonous vapor? Possessing the body of a student that Snape would not suspect, who would drive a dagger through his heart in an unaware moment?

As the pain grew worse, Snape unbuttoned the cuff of his sleeve and rolled it up to expose the Dark Mark. It seemed almost alive, the serpent seeming to breathe, an imagined mad light in the empty eye sockets of the skull. He carefully moved his finger over the pain-filled mark, feeling the heat emanating from it. It was only getting worse. To deny the summons would be to approach Voldemort with a plea to be killed.

He threw down the unread essay and headed to the headmaster's office. He had no choice. He only wished he could see Tanya once more, before he faced his death.

*****

Tanya returned to castle, her London purchases reduced to the size of a deck of cards in her coat pocket. The weather was mild for March, and the brisk breezes whipping through her open coat were almost welcome, after the crowds of weekend shoppers that had almost suffocated her.

She entered her rooms, tossing the package on her bed to restore them to original size. As she prepared to do just that, her eye was caught by the parchment left on the table near her bed.

Tanya unfroze herself and picked up the medallion. She could feel his heat, his essence, his self in it; it obviously did have great sentimental meaning for him. She knew he'd always worn it beneath his robes, and she was glad he'd left it for her to find. It would work better than a Portkey in finding him. She only hoped she wasn't too late.

She shrugged off her coat, kicked off her shoes and sat on her bed. Breathing in the rhythmic cadences that would allow her physical body to relax, enabling her to release her astral being, she clutched the medallion to her, concentrating with all her awareness on Severus.

She found herself in a void; there was nothing here, not even matter. She looked around, searching for a ripple in this fabric of anti-matter, some fissure that would point the way to where she needed to be. She summoned up a mental picture of light, putting into that light the face of the man she sought.

At last, she could feel herself falling, weightless, yet hurtling downward, spiraling, no thoughts of ever reaching bottom. Before she could begin to despair, she began to hear faint sounds, rumblings which became voices, voices she strove to understand.

She focused her eyes on her new surroundings, and saw the night sky under which she used to sleep. The bare branches of trees broke the imagery, and looking downward, she could finally see the figures to whom the voices belonged. The Death Eaters were grouped around a single man, who was gracefully waving his hands around a bonfire in a ritualistic pattern of movements. They were chanting in a language she didn't understand, didn't want to understand. She searched mentally for Severus, willing him to reveal himself somehow, knowing he couldn't know of her presence here.

One of the figures around the man and bonfire turned his head slightly. This was as much a signal as she could have hoped for, and she drew nearer, knowing the rest would not sense her. She concentrated hard; mentally reaching out to touch this man; she could read him like the book she'd borrowed from him only last week. Severus was still alive, and she'd managed to get here before their opening ritual was complete. Lucky for her, lucky for Severus. But how to break up this meeting without revealing that Severus was the reason she was here?

She moved her mind closer to the man in the middle of the ring, sizing up her enemy. Severus had been right to warn her against underestimating him. Although mortal now, he was considerably more powerful than Malfoy. She'd not be able to bind this one, and rather doubted it would do any good to paralyze him. He'd not need a wand to curse anyone. Suspecting he used the wand for flash, she appraised his ego and determined that it would only be his downfall.

She moved her astral being closer to Severus, anxiously noting the restless shuffling of other feet. Some of the other Death Eaters were becoming aware of her presence, and their agitation was alerting the rest. She was running out of time, and still had no ideas.

She noticed Voldemort holding something up to the moonlight, babbling in some ancient tongue as if offering Hecate a sacrifice. Whatever was in the vial he held, she'd bet it was something he thought might make him immortal once again. Impulsively, without thought, she grabbed it from him, and then was amazed that she could feel it in her hands. She'd picked up this physical thing in her astral hand. What happened? This was something she'd never heard of before, something it never occurred to her to even try in all of her previous astral travels.

The man let loose a howl of rage, and in the confusion of the Death Eaters rushing to his side, she sent Severus a mental order to Disapparate the hell out of there. But he didn't move as quickly as he should have. She felt the searing pain (pain? in the astral? It wasn't supposed to feel the same, it was supposed to be mental pain) of an Unforgivable Curse rush through her being, and both she and Severus were thrown backward. She could sense Severus trying to grab her, but she was already fading to nothingness as she rushed back into the void. This time there were shapes there, gaining on her. She summoned the last of her strength and willed herself back to her body, fleeing from these unknown entities who would try to entrap her, keeping her there, and praying to a god she'd never believed existed that Severus got out of there in time.

*****

Snape was ready to fling the old man down if he insisted on moving Tanya to the infirmary. He tried once again to articulate to Dumbledore the need to keep her here, that she could even now be striving to return. But words were hard to come by; clearly, Dumbledore knew less than he about this ability of Tanya's, and in the time it would take to start at the beginning and explain, he would have levitated Tanya away.

"Sit down!" he commanded Dumbledore. Dumbledore sat down in an armchair as if knocked down, and Snape registered this dimly in his subconscious mind to be analyzed later. Right now, he worried that time was crucial, but as long as Tanya's physical body remained here, where she'd left it, she could come back to it. If she could come back to it.

"Do you understand," Snape said, controlling his anxiety, "that Tanya is not really here? That what you see lying on this bed is merely a package that normally contains her soul, her self . . . her very essence?"

"I believe so," Dumbledore uttered. "She's away, visiting?" There was no mockery behind his words, so Snape continued on, searching for the words to explain what he did not understand.

"Before Apparating out to Voldemort's gathering, I left her a note. She apparently found it and used her magic to follow me. Had I known this was possible for her to do, I wouldn't have left the note. Because of my ignorance . . ."

Dumbledore stood up, and gently eased Snape down to sit on Tanya's bed. "Am I right in assuming this is no time for recriminations, Severus?"

"You're quite right, of course." He took a steadying breath. "There was a time in the past that she's done this . . . this visiting . . . before. In my presence. And I could tell instantly when she'd gone, because all of a sudden . . . well, she just wasn't there anymore. Can't you feel it? Or rather, can't you feel the absence?"

"Now you mention it," Dumbledore admitted softly, "yes, I can tell. So, where is she?"

"I don't know!" he yelled in frustration. "She left the site, but she's not here, you can tell she's not here."

"Calm down, Severus, and tell me what happened out there tonight."

"Voldemort began his usual opening ritual of the . . . festivities," he sneered, "and I stood there with the rest, feeling kind of surreal, really. I thought he was preparing for my death. He might have been, actually. There is no doubt in my mind that he knows I'm loyal to you, and his calling of us all there tonight was so they could all witness my execution.

"I could sense her. Just like before, I knew she was there. And there was nothing I could do. I couldn't demand she leave; I couldn't chance alerting anyone there that something was amiss.

"She couldn't be seen, but some of the others began looking around; they must have sensed her. I couldn't tell what she was doing, but then Voldemort yelled and threw a curse my way. I felt a force flinging me backward, and the curse glanced off." He looked down at his arm, a wicked-looking burn across the skin near the fold at his elbow. "It was Tanya. She bore the brunt of the curse." He looked up at Dumbledore. "I have no idea how it would affect her astral self."

"Do you know how it affects the physical self?"

"No."

"Then, surely you must understand why the urgency to get her to Madam Pomfrey. She must be examined and treated, if indeed, she suffered the Crucio."

"If we move her, she won't be able to return," Snape insisted. "She's running out of energy, if she hasn't already, and would then never be able to return. She'll be out there for all eternity . . . not dead, not alive . . . not even existing. We have to keep her here."

"Then the least we can do is examine her here," Dumbledore conceded.

They both stood over Tanya's body, looking for visible signs of injury. She appeared to be dead; her eyes under her lids were not moving, her chest was not rising with her breathing. Snape estimated where the curse might have hit her, and decided that there was really no way of knowing. Hoping that simply moving her body in situ would not complicate her safe return, he carefully put his hands on her ribcage, searching for bleeding, for broken bones. There was nothing there.

He moved down her hips, her legs. Hoping she had no burns that would cause her clothing to adhere to her body, he tenderly continued his search, not finding anything. He nodded to Dumbledore, and they gently rolled her until Snape could examine her back. Realizing that she was probably facing him when she pushed him out of harm's way, he slowly pulled her shirt up from her waist until he could see her back, horrified to see the long scorch mark that had appeared there. This then, was the portal through which Voldemort had sent his Crucio. He closed his eyes against the knowledge of the pain she must have suffered on his behalf. Why had he left that cursed note?

"Send for Madam Pomfrey," he told Dumbledore. "She can treat her here just as easily."

Dumbledore nodded, going into Tanya's sitting room. Seeing the stove in place of the usual fireplace, he entered the kitchen, summoning a house-elf with the button there.

Coming back into the bedroom, he told Snape that a house-elf would bring Madam Pomfrey to them. Snape was still staring down at the evidence of Voldemort's violent nature. Dumbledore put his hand on Snape's shoulder and urged him to sit. Snape lowered himself to the bed and tore his eyes away from Tanya's body. He leaned mutely forward, holding his head in his hands.

They both sat quietly as Madam Pomfrey worked her miracles with the salves which Snape had always provided for her. Before their eyes, the painful-looking burn slowly vanished, starting with the outer edges and working toward the rawest of it at the center. Soon, the skin on Tanya's back was as flawless as ever it was.

Giving Poppy her leave, Dumbledore gestured to Snape, and they moved Tanya back until she was reclining once more on her back. As Snape sat down beside her hip, he reached for her hand, more to comfort himself than anything else. In surprise, he looked down at what she held in her hand. It was the vial that Voldemort had been waving about the fire. He looked at Dumbledore in amazement.

"She brought this back with her!" he exclaimed. "How is that possible?"

"Well," Dumbledore said indifferently, "she brought back her injury as well. Is this a new development of her talents?"

"I don't know," Snape admitted. "She never mentioned doing anything like this before." He caught his breath. "If this came back with her, then clearly, she's back as well, right?"

"Severus, you know much more than I about this sort of thing."

He quickly looked at her other hand, and was only slightly surprised to find his medallion loosely tangled in her fingers.

Snape put his hand to her throat, searching for the pulse. It remained slow, but steady. He counted the heartbeats while his eyes searched for other signs of life. And there was still no presence. Where was she?

*****

After three days, Harry could take it no more. He'd retreated to the relative bustle of Hogwarts, where he could at least seek out Tanya's company. Hermione had mentioned that Tanya was planning to remain at Hogwarts over the break in order to be there when Hagrid's new eggs hatched. Rumor had it that it was a breed of creatures never before seen at Hogwarts, and therefore, probably illegal. Well, at least Tanya would never dream of turning Hagrid in to the Ministry for his activities. She was the perfect partner in crime for him.

He realized that he was thinking of Tanya in friendly terms. Something he hadn't been able to do for a long time. It felt good, as if they'd already made things right between them. It gave him a small dose of confidence for the awkward conversation that would be his first hurdle to repairing his relationship with her.

He had no delusions about taking up the thread of their past relationship. Too much time had gone by, and there was bound to be a lot of competition by now. Even those who had kept away because of the gypsy blood running through her veins were changing their minds about her. Or rather, their hormones were changing their minds. He'd been amused, then slightly annoyed, by the lecherous looks sent her way.

No, he reasoned with himself. The best he could hope for was that she'd forgive him for being such an ass, and then maybe he could at least count on her friendship. He missed hearing the lilt in her voice, the breathiness of her laughter when something caught her by surprise. He missed seeing the sparkle of fun in her eyes, and her sometimes dry and sardonic humor.

He unpacked his trunk in his room, then went to where he knew her rooms to be. A hint of anticipation putting a lift in his steps, he knocked smartly on her door. Just when he was lifting his hand to knock again, the door opened and he froze, his fist still upraised to knock, his smile etched into his face. What the hell was Snape doing here, in her private rooms?

He quickly found his voice. "I was hoping to talk to Tanya. She's here?"

Snape looked down, appearing, uncharacteristically for him, uncomfortable. "She is, but she's indisposed at the moment." He looked at Harry, not offering any other information.

"She'll not ill, is she?"

"She's . . . We're not . . ." Snape at a loss for words? Harry began to worry. What was going on? It must have shown up in his eyes, because Snape pulled the door open more fully and allowed Harry to enter.

She wasn't in the sitting room. He looked back at Snape, who nodded toward the door at the back of the room. Harry almost ran through it, and saw Tanya lying on her bed, looking like she hadn't seen consciousness for a while.

He turned back to Snape, who was just entering the room. Harry watched as he sat at the chair by Tanya's side, his weariness showing up in his movements.

Snape looked up at him, preparing to answer his unasked question.

"How much do you know about her . . . talents?" he asked Harry.

Harry sat down in the chair on the other side of Tanya's bed, and talked across her sleeping form to Snape. "I know that she's very powerful," he began, "and something she does for the Order really tires her out. I know that she doesn't need a wand . . . I saw what she did to Mr. Malfoy . . ." He decided to continue in Snape's silence. "I saw Dumbledore's memory of her hearing. I saw how she displayed her powers to the Wizengamot."

Snape nodded, looking down at his hands. He seemed to be gathering his strength. Harry looked at Tanya, willing her to open her eyes.

Snape cleared his throat. "Tanya has the ability to send out her astral self, her spirit, in a manner of speaking, to gather information, to search for people or things, and return to her physical self afterward. We, meaning Professor Dumbledore and I, have recently discovered that she is also capable of removing physical items from one plane of existence to another.

"These exploits exhaust her; it takes an enormous amount of energy to project herself this way. When she returns, she needs several hours of sleep to regroup. So far, it hasn't been a problem.

"But this last time," he paused, taking a deep shuddering breath, "this last time, she'd been injured. She showed the wound from a curse sent out to her while in her astral form. A Crucio curse. The physical injury has been healed, but we don't know what form the astral injury took, if anything. She has not returned to her physical self yet."

Harry struggled to process this information, feeling the fear build up from his very soul. What was Snape trying to tell him?

"How long has it been since she was . . . here?" he asked, realizing that any answer Snape would give him would not help him understand.

"It's been four hours now."

"Is that a long time?"

For a while, Snape was silent. Then, making Harry realize that he'd been searching for an answer, said simply, "I don't know."

"Isn't there anything we can do?"

"No. Just make sure no one moves her."

"Why not?"

Snape sighed. He felt like he'd explained this only too often. "She has to know where to return to. If we move her, she may never find her way back." He looked at Tanya's sleeping form. "She has no reason to stay away. She should have been back long ago."

Harry sat back in his chair, dimly registering that he felt grateful Snape was not pushing him out the door. He looked at Tanya's unmoving form and quietly joined Snape in his wait for her return.

*****

She fought against the dragging feeling, the awful sensation of trying to run through quicksand. Trying to run, but not having feet, to fly without having wings. She was trying to find shelter, someplace to hide from the monstrous shapes that were too amorphous to name. She was waning fast, but still could not find the egress that would take her back to safety.

She concentrated on a wavering she felt coming from her left. She faced it, hoping she was, in fact, facing it, and hoped to catch it again. There, it was almost there, it was trying to be there; she could sense it. It was a voice, anchoring her, giving her direction, and she willed herself to approach it.

She was now hearing it, as opposed to just knowing it was there, and she mutely begged it to continue, pulling her in; she couldn't do this alone. Her energy had ebbed to a new low.

It was there; it was familiar; it was Severus. She drifted closer, opening eyes that she'd forgotten employed vision. It did no good, there was nothing here to see. She focused on the sound of his voice again, felt it pulling her, and she relaxed, knowing she had no choice; there was no energy left, and she drifted, lulled by the voice. It followed a rhythm, a cadence. She felt a fuzzy feeling of electricity gently surrounding her nebulous form; she could now hear the words the voice was speaking. She let the sound fill her, forgetting about the quicksand, forgetting about the void, acknowledging only the words this voice was speaking, the words that he was sending out to her, they were familiar, they were friends, they were . . . Shakespeare? He was reading to her.

She became aware of the cold, of the weight of a heavy quilt over her, the soft firmness of a mattress beneath her. She sighed, not having the strength to take the deep breath she craved. She opened eyelids that weighed a ton apiece, and shifted her eyes to the sound of the voice beside her. Severus was sitting next to her bed, leaning over to rest his elbows on the bed. She could now feel the weight of the book he was reading; he rested it on her hip. She tried to find her voice, but couldn't; it was too much for her. She willed him to look at her, and he did. He stared for a moment, then closed his eyes.

He opened them, looking at her intensely. "I was afraid I was imagining it," he said quietly. "I was afraid it was wishful thinking, but I knew you'd come back to me."

He gathered her in his arms and moved onto the bed so they were lying side by side. She allowed herself to sink into unconsciousness, knowing he was there watching out for her. She'd made it back, and so had he.