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Secretly Slytherin	By : Veresna Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 12269 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 31
- 32
- 33
Chapter 32: Shall I Pour?
For the first time, Dumbledore began to truly appreciate how well suited Helena and Severus were to each other. Although he had no doubt that his statement must have came as a shock to both of them, and perhaps even aroused their suspicions of what the other had already confided in him, neither of their faces bore the faintest expression of amazement. Or even mild surprise. Instead, he had seen, by quickly flashing his eyes quickly from Snape to Helena, both of their faces take on a blank, guarded look. And that expression was rapidly replaced within a few seconds by a look of only slight, casual interest.
"And, how long have YOU known that?" Helena finally ventured to ask.
"Oh, for a little over six years now," he replied. "You see, my dear, minutes after you had departed from Mr. Ollivander’s shop after being supplied with your wand, he had sent off an urgent owl to me. Detailing what kind of want you had bought, and that he had NEVER sold a wand with such a core to anyone but a Malfoy. That is your wand there, by the way, isn’t it?"
Helena nodded distractedly and bent down to pick up her wand from where it was still lying on the floor. Dumbledore held out his hand and, after just a moment’s hesitation, she passed it over to him. He took it between his hands and twirled it gently and appreciatively in his fingers.
"Ah, yes, birch, with a magical core of unicorn hair surrounded by dragon heartstring. It seems he had sold its ‘sister’ many years ago. To Lucretia Malfoy. Let’s see, she would be Lucius’ great-aunt, I believe. Making her your great-great-aunt." Dumbledore passed the wand back to Helena.
"A most extraordinary woman. I knew her slightly," he added.
Helena went to place the wand in her pocket and belatedly realized that she was still wearing Snape’s robe. She wondered if she should excuse herself to the bedroom so that she could conjure up some more suitable clothing. On the other hand, she had no wish to allow Dumbledore and Snape to have a private conversation. So, she contented herself with again pulling the robe as tightly as she could around her and laying the wand down beside her.
"She had that white-blond Malfoy hair, of course, like they almost all have. But, you know," Dumbledore’s own eyes grew slightly misty and there was a trace of a smile upon his lips, "she didn’t have blue eyes. No. They were hazel."
He looked back into Helena’s face. "Of course, that was many years ago, but I do believe they were very similar in shade to yours."
Helena dared to glance back at Snape. He was leaning against the mantle again, his eyes narrowed and watching both of their faces carefully.
"And," added Dumbledore, his voice dropping down to a conspiratorial whisper, "she was an unregistered animagus."
"Really?" questioned Helena, her forehead wrinkled in a slight frown. "What form did she take?"
"Oh, an owl," he replied, nodding thoughtfully. "An eagle owl, to be specific. Now, I was never quite sure if the Malfoy’s adopted that specific breed as their preferred mail delivery owl because of that or if it was vice-versa."
Across the room, Snape cleared his throat loudly and the couple on the sofa turned to regard him. He nodded at Helena and shot her a significant look, which she chose to ignore and continued to look at him quizzically. He sighed and gestured at her to come over to him. Her look of bemused puzzlement deepened.
"I believe, my dear, that Professor Snape wishes a private word with you," urged Dumbledore, a small smile breaking out upon his lips as he regarded the elaborate pantomime between the two.
Helena rose and walked towards Snape, tipping her head up as she approached him. He took her by the shoulders and turned both of them around so that his back was now towards the couch.
"I suggest you start being very open and positively chatty with the Headmaster," he warned.
She blinked up at him. "Why, what do you-"
"Helena!" he hissed. He removed his hands from her shoulders and again crossed them over his chest. "Do you really think for a minute that he is stupid enough to believe that cobbled together fairy tale of how our relationship began and progressed?"
She contented herself with replying with a noncommittal murmur.
"I have known Albus for many years and believe me, he is for the moment ignoring the obvious and generously allowing you to ‘come clean’ with as many other details as you can. I suggest you take him up on the offer, because there is just the slightest chance that if you do, you may earn his trust. And protection."
She nodded once and turned back to take her seat, retrieving her wand from the cushion as she did so.
"You, know, I am absolutely famished," she stated. "Would anyone else care for a cup of tea and some toast?" she asked, with her wand upraised.
"I think that might be a good idea," replied Dumbledore.
She waved her wand, and a moment later a tea service had appeared on the table before them. "Shall I pour?" she inquired, politely.
Snape, with difficulty, swallowed a loud guffaw. It was interesting to see the delaying tactics she could use while she put her mind furiously to work on the problem of trying to explain to Dumbledore everything he wanted to know, while not revealing anything he didn’t specifically ask her about.
After they had all taken a cup of tea (Snape and Helena were content to take their tea without milk or sweetener, while Dumbledore cheerily added a generous dose of both milk and honey to his). Helena settled back, a piece of buttered toast in her hand and nibbled at it delicately. She put it down to take another swallow or tea and then turned her full attention back to the headmaster.
"You know, I find it quite extraordinary that I seem to be so similar, in so many ways, to this ancestor of mine," she began.
"Really?" inquired Dumbledore, his eyebrows raised every so slightly over his own cup of tea as he sipped.
"Yes," she continued. "You see, I have always been just fascinated by owls, and I’ve rather had this fantasy about being able to turn myself into one. I had made some half-hearted attempts, but-" she turned and gave Snape a friendly, dazzling white smile, "Professor Snape managed to help make a successful transfiguration the other day. Although," she paused, and knit her eyebrows together and continued, in a puzzled tone of voice, "you know I’ve never looked in the mirror to see what kind of owl I became?"
"Oh, you were an Eagle Owl," replied Severus. He sipped at his own tea before continuing. "A very small, petite Eagle Owl. But, an Eagle Owl."
"My, that is interesting," said the Headmaster, placing his cup and saucer down upon the table. "Anyone besides Professor Snape aware of your feat?"
"Oh, no," she replied, shaking her head. "Of course, I fully intend to register myself as soon as possible."
"Well, you know," Dumbledore leaned towards her and lowered his voice, "I rather think that it is best that you don’t. For the moment," he added, taking up a piece of toast.
"Really?" Helena’s eyes were open in genuine surprise.
"Don’t be too shocked," admonished Snape, his eyebrows raised to a sardonic angle. "Professor Dumbledore has been known to look the other way many, many times when rules are being broken. If the rule breaker is one of his ‘friends’, that is."
Helena shot a questioning look at Severus. Her first thought was that he was referring to his own status, but something in the irritated tone with which he spoke made her think he was talking about someone else. She shrugged and looked back at Dumbledore.
"I am rather puzzled about one thing, though," she began.
"Yes?" There was a definite sparkle in the Headmaster’s eyes. Helena was starting to get the feeling that he enjoyed the elaborate mental fencing that they were engaging in.
"Well," she drew in a breath and bit her lip for a moment before proceeding. "I can understand that you knew I was a Malfoy, but did you really know immediately that Lucius Malfoy was my father?"
"Ah, yes." His expression became grim for a moment, and the sparkle was dampened. "You see, there had been an…..incident during your mother’s time at the school."
Helena waited, wondering what was making him suddenly so reticent. She glanced back up at Snape, but he seemed to have no idea either, to judge from his own expression.
Dumbledore took in a deep breath and continued. "It seems your mother had been owled a note to meet one of her friends late at night in a spot very close to the Forbidden Forest."
Helena felt herself shiver involuntarily.
"She thought it was rather strange, but it certainly looked like her friend’s handwriting, and the note stressed that it was an urgent matter that she wanted to discuss in private." Dumbledore hesitated again. "So, she went out at the appointed hour and waited."
Dumbledore stared down at the floor. "Later that night, I was called to the Infirmary. She had been found-unconscious, at the edge of the forest. It appeared that she had been attacked."
"Attacked?" repeated Helena.
He sighed sadly. "Raped and beaten."
"By whom?"
Dumbledore’s face grew even more somber.
"Or what?" gasped Helena.
"Some half-human creature who resided in the Forbidden Forest," he replied. In answer to Helena’s look of disbelief, he added, "Even I am not entirely certain of exactly what creatures abide in that dark place. Whatever it was, it fed off of her terror rather than her blood."
She stared down at the floor. "And Malfoy?"
"Was the hero who found her," he stated, his voice flat and hollow.
"Or the fiend who had perpetrated the whole plot?"
Dumbledore raised his head and regarded her thoughtfully. "That was always my suspicion. That he had bargained with one of those beasts to deliver a victim in exchange for some kind of Dark Magic reward. To this day, I still don’t know whether he took pity on her, or if it had always been part of his plan to ensure that no suspicion fell upon him if he ‘rescued her’. Regrettably, he had covered his tracks well and I had no evidence to charge him in the matter. And your grandmother-"
"Was very anxious to avoid a scandal," finished Helena bitterly. "Therefore, no investigation was made public," she finished.
"I am afraid so," replied Dumbledore. He reached out his hand. "Your mother was also adamant that the matter be dropped. And it was out of respect for her feelings that I kept the matter confidential."
"And you knew nothing about it?" asked Helena, turning her face towards Snape.
He shook his head slowly. "There were rumors about an attack, but the name of the student was never revealed."
Helena shivered again. "No wonder I hate going near there," she whispered. She noticed that Dumbledore’s hand was still stretched out towards her. She hesitated a moment, and then placed her hand on top of his.
"Your mother seemed convinced that she owed her life to Malfoy. And I thought that, since he obviously would never openly associate with a member of Ravenclaw that the infatuation would eventually fade away."
"No, it’s just grown steadily over the years," she whispered, raising her hand away from Dumbledore’s using it to wipe a tear away from her cheek. "At least on her side," she amended.
"Yes," he agreed, quietly. "As a matter of fact, I was in the vestibule, talking with both your mother and grandmother last week, when I got the message that Malfoy was on his way to investigate what had happened to Draco. Just hearing his name-"
"Yes," interrupted Helena, her teeth gritted firmly together. "I can just imagine the look that came over her at the thought that she had almost gotten the chance to see him again."
"Quite so," he admitted and nodded his head sadly.
"I had heard that she married Herbert Harrison, of course," he continued. "And, until Mr. Ollivander’s message had no reason to suspect that you were not his daughter. But, I had no doubt regarding your parentage after hearing the details of the wand that had chosen you."
"Or," she paused and held out the pot of tea. Dumbledore extended his cup towards her and she filled both his cup and hers. Severus shook his head and placed his own cup upon the mantle. She took another sip before finally continuing. "If you had any doubts, I am sure they were erased by McGon…..by PROFESSOR McGonagall’s account of my behavior while wearing the sorting hat."
"Ah, yes, Minerva was quite sure that something was afoot. And, she came to me several other times during your first weeks of class complaining that someone had been teaching you Dark Arts Magic."
She snorted. "Oh, hardly. I was merely very skillful. And unfortunate enough not to be a Gryffindor. Another point which made my quite suspect in her mind, I suppose."
Dumbledore’s eyebrows raised slightly in a reproach, but there was still a hint of a smile around his lips. "At any rate, you seemed to settle down into a pattern of quiet excellence shortly there afterward. And even Minerva could not find a reason to keep such a close watch upon you."
"But you did," she challenged.
"Yes," he admitted, picking up his cup of tea and blowing gently across it. "And I came to the conclusion that you were a very powerful, very intelligent young witch who was quite adept at presenting a pleasing front to whoever you were with at the moment. And that, while you were not the simple, loving woman that your mother had been, you were also not the strident, vengeful woman your grandmother was either. And it was going to be very interesting to see what sort of person you really were once you had decided to please yourself instead of others."
Helena nodded thoughtfully.
"And," continued the Headmaster, "that you appeared to have had absolutely no contact with your biological father or his family."
"Oh, but he was keeping an eye on me apparently. With his own spy, it seems," she replied, dryly.
"Really?"
"Lewis Thurston," she spat out, reaching over for another piece of toast.
"Yes, he did seem very concerned about you the other day," admitted Dumbledore.
"Probably scared that he was going to be punished for allowing me to be damaged," snorted Helena.
"Oh, no, I do think he truly has feelings for you," mused Snape. "In fact, I do wonder if Malfoy has insinuated that his reward for looking after you will be….you, eventually."
"He better not hold his breath," she answered, tartly.
"Is he the one who informed Malfoy about your affair?" Dumbledore asked, this time directing the question towards Severus.
Snape shrugged his shoulders. "Actually, Malfoy was complaining that he hadn’t warned him in time to prevent it from starting. Although, he appears to have made up for it by providing some key pieces of blackmail material obtained from Miss Harrison’s desk," he added, dryly.
"Ah, indeed. And, what exactly would that be?" Dumbledore inquired mildly.
Snape cleared his throat. "A pair of Miss Harrison’s socks with…" he hesitated.
Helena forced herself to keep a straight face as she waited for him to complete the statement. Just a few hours previously, she would never have believed that she would ever be sitting and chatting with Dumbledore about anything. Much less about Snape’s bodily fluids while sipping a cup of tea.
"With material that could be traced to you?" finished Dumbledore, delicately.
"Yes," admitted Snape. "Along with a collection of rather intimate pictures drawn by Miss Harrison."
"Oh, you draw, Miss Harrison?"
***Oh, yes, Headmaster. Smutty pictures are something of a specialty for me, actually.***
"A bit," was what she really ended up replying. She cocked an eyebrow at him, "And now you’re going to tell me that dear old Great-Great-Aunt Lucretia was an artist as well?"
"Oh, no, not that I’m aware of," he replied, cheerfully. "And, these pictures and the socks are now in Malfoy’s possession?"
Snape nodded.
Dumbledore shook his head and sighed. "And I will assume that the payment he is demanding is the reason why you have transferred your mark to Miss Harrison?"
"Indirectly, yes." Snape placed his hands back in his pockets and began to pace again. "He paid me a visit last week while Helena was in the hospital wing and made it quite clear that he and Voldemort had plans for her." He stopped in front of Dumbledore’s chair. "Plans that were, unfortunately, helped along by both you and I."
"Really?"
Snape nodded. "Yes. My letter of recommendation and the generous support we all gave to Pomfrey’s suggestion that Miss Harrison be granted direct admission to the Mediwitch program meant that she would soon be in London. And, since she had just been given the full support of the Hogwart’s staff it seems there would be little suspicion aroused about her loyalties or motives if she began to cultivate some friendships among some influential members of the government and University committees."
"Such as?"
"Fergus Breverton was named specifically."
"Ah."
"Apparently his wife is not well," Snape explained, more to Helena than to Dumbledore. "Your father had no doubt that you could arrange to provide some ‘solace’ to him after the funeral."
"I see," she replied, grimacing in distaste. "And work my way ‘up’ from there? In a horizontal manner?"
"Yes," he replied shortly.
"And what did Malfoy expect of you?" inquired Dumbledore.
"To make sure that Helena became a Death Eater and swore her loyalty to Voldemort. And to provide an ample sexual education for her to assist her in her new career of seducing influential, older men."
"And if you did not, the evidence would be used to discredit you?"
"And, by extension, Hogwarts," replied Snape. "Although," he paused and frowned for a moment, "Lucius also insinuated that Helena and I would be allowed to continue our own relationship as long as it didn’t ‘interfere’ with her new career."
"Oh, that’s nice of him," murmured Helena.
"Of course, complicating the whole issue was the fact that, despite my repeated entreaties, Helena had never admitted to me that Malfoy was her father." Snape glared at her for a moment.
She smiled and shrugged back at him. "Well, perhaps if you had been a little more honest about some other things, I wouldn’t have been so reticent," she responded.
"And therefore," interpolated Dumbledore, "you were not quite sure if this was an elaborate plan to test your own loyalty to Voldemort?"
"Yes. And that perhaps she had been conveniently placed before me at the time of Voldemort’s request that I find a virgin to ravage." Snape returned his gaze to Helena’s face. "Miss Harrison had readily admitted to me that her father was a Death Eater and seemed singularly unaffected by the fact that I myself had the Dark Mark on my arm. So, I was faced with the difficult task of trying to decide which of three possibilities was the truth."
Snape paused and removed his wand from his pocket. A moment later, a large, comfortable chair upholstered in leather had appeared in the room. He eased himself into it and sat, with his hands templed in front of him.
"There was the chance that Helena was simply an unwitting victim of circumstance. However, the possibilities that she was either already working on her father’s orders, or seriously contemplating joining Voldemort’s service of her own free will seemed equally probable."
He shifted slightly in his chair. "If she were a victim, it seemed clear to me that she was in desperate need of help and protection. Not only from me, but from you as well, Albus." He shrugged. "So, I arranged to transfer my Dark Mark to her."
"This was your way of helping me?" Helena’s voice was harsh and disbelieving.
"Lucius admitted to me himself that, no matter how pretty or seductive she was, no member of the government would be able to overlook the presence of a Dark Mark on the arm of an eighteen-year-old girl," he explained. "She would hardly be able to claim, as so many others will, that it is a relic from the last time Voldemort was amassing followers."
He paused and spoke the next words directly to Helena. "And I was quite serious earlier this morning when I told you that one is not allowed to decline the invitation to join Voldemort’s service."
"I could either give you up to Malfoy and the other Death Eaters and allow them to ‘persuade’ you-and I’m sure your father was fully prepared to use whatever means necessary to ensure your cooperation. Or I could claim you for myself, marking you with physical proof that you had sworn loyalty to me while under the influence of Dark Magic. The Death Eaters are hardly paragons of virtue, but it is clearly understood that if you have been personally marked by one, you are not to be touched by another."
He shrugged. "It you were destined for the Dark Side, it would merely help you on the way to your inevitable path while allowing me to maintain my current position as a double agent. If you were uncertain as to where your ultimate ambitions lay, I believed it would be the jolt that would finally make you decide between using your powers for good or evil."
"At any rate," he continued, turning his gaze to Dumbledore, "I assure you that Miss Harrison is one of the most adept liars and actresses it has ever been my fortune, or misfortune, to come across. She has lied to me so many times, under so many situations, that I could hardly expect her to tell me the truth if I asked her to her face what her intentions were."
"Isn’t this a little extreme?" she objected.
He regarded her mockingly. "You once lied repeatedly to me while I had my hands around your throat," he noted.
Helena was vaguely aware of a muffled sound coming from Dumbledore’s direction following that admission. And, for some strange reason, she found herself unable to keep herself from smiling at the memory of that as Severus continued speaking.
"I submit that I needed to do something absolutely horrible to you to break down your formidable defenses."
He turned to face Dumbledore. "When I placed the Dark Mark upon her she appeared terrified and horrified. But I still thought she might merely be acting. It was not until she begged me to kill her that I finally began to really believe that she truly did not want to be a Death Eater."
He turned his eyes back towards Helena. "Even when I was holding your wand in my hand and casting the spell, I was still half-expecting you to pull some trick, or to try and duck away from me. Or beg me to stop."
She stared at him for a long moment. "And if I had?" she whispered finally.
His voice was soft, but there was no hesitation. "I would personally have delivered into Voldemort’s hands."
"Would you?"
His eyes never blinked. "Yes. Your actions decided whether or not I called Albus to my rooms to explain the situation to him or whether I would have taken you to the next Death Eater meeting and presented you to Voldemort as an ‘offering’ to prove my loyalty."
She nodded and looked down at her arm.
"This is really here forever, isn’t it?" she whispered.
"Yes." Snape rose from his chair and walked towards her. "I spoke the truth this morning," he said. "This is the only protection I could give you."
He knelt down in front of her. "And I must also tell you that Voldemort will probably still want to place his own mark personally upon your left arm."
She shuddered and managed a weak laugh. "Great, a matched set."
"But," he continued, reaching out with his hand to lightly stroke the dark lines of the Mark, "It has bought us some time. And even though I couldn’t trust you, I didn’t think you wanted to be a whore."
"No," she replied. "Instead I get to be a double agent, don’t I?"
Snape directed his gaze back towards Dumbledore.
"Well, you are in a rather unique and strategic position," he replied. He stroked his long white beard for a moment. "But, I would like you to tell me something."
She looked at him curiously.
"Why didn’t you want to be a Death Eater?"
She smiled and laughed in a deprecating manner, and then shrugged her shoulders. "I wish," she sighed, "that I could say I have an unfailing moral compass, and have always been firmly committed to the side of good. But, to tell the truth," she hesitated for a moment and shook her head.
"Two of the people I love best in the world are my cousin Luke and his mother, my Aunt Maggie. Though, technically," she laughed, "since Herbert Harrison isn’t my father, I’m not even related to them."
"She’s a Muggle, married to a Wizard and Luke is a Squib," she explained. "Just the sort of people that Death Eaters would love to get their hands on so that they could torture them." There was a slightly tremble in her voice. "When I saw those poor Muggles being abused at the Quidditch Cup last year, I couldn’t help but think about them."
She shrugged her shoulders again. "I’m ashamed to say it, but you could throw facts and figures at me all day about how many people were hurt or killed by Voldemort in the past and in the present, and I might not blink an eye. But, to think of Maggie or Luke being hurt simply because of who they are makes me angry and outraged enough to want to fight him. It’s very shallow of me, I know," she added, lamely, "to have it come down to such a personal, trivial thing."
Dumbledore smiled over at her. "Not at all, my dear. It has always been my opinion that the Death Eaters manage to wreak the havoc that they do because they refuse to personalize their victims."
"Well," he continued, picking up his cup and sipping at his tea again, "The problem remains that Malfoy still has material in his posession that could jeopardize the reputation of both Professor Snape and this school. And that he might be angry enough, now that you have thwarted his original plan, to punish you be releasing them to an interested party."
"He specifically mentioned you, Moody, and Rita Skeeter by name," remarked Snape. "Or to the government or University board."
"Ah, yes," sighed Dumbledore. "I would use my influence as much as I could, but still….."
"Yes, I think it would be much better to be proactive about it," interjected Helena.
Both men turned to her with their eyebrows raised.
"Well, it seems fairly straightforward to me," she continued, standing up and crossing her arms in front of her. "The best way to keep Malfoy from blackmailing us is to make sure we have something we can use to blackmail him," she stated, calmly.
"Miss Harrison," said Dumbledore, a trace of admiration in his voice, "I believe you have a plan?"
"Of course," she replied. "But," she hesitated for a moment and sat back down again. "First I would like to know whether or not Professor Snape and I may continue to see each other here at Hogwarts. Provided we are discrete, of course." She smiled pleasantly but expectantly.
"Of course," he replied. "Although I still am not quite comfortable with the situation, even after all the extenuating circumstances, it does seems rather inevitable. After all," he added, dryly, "it appears that you will be working very closely together for a number of years to come."
"Did you really have no idea about us?" she challenged, frank curiosity in her eyes.
"Well….." He smiled. "I must admit that when the two of you walked into my office for the party that a pair of my sneakoscopes began oscillating so violently I thought they would shatter. However," he continued, "the fact that I knew you were Malfoy’s daughter seemed to offer an endless list of reasons why the two of you would have something to hide from me."
"And, after all, you thought I would be safely out of the way within a few months," she finished.
Dumbledore smiled at her. "Absolutely. You know, Severus," he said, turning back to face Snape, "she really is a most remarkable young woman."
"Yes, Albus. She’s clever, practical and ambitious. Pity that I’m still not sure we can trust her," he added with a smirk.
"Hmm. I dare say many people would say the same thing about you," noted Dumbledore. "Now, then, Miss Harrison," he said, turning back to regard Helena. "What exactly is this plan of yours?"
"Well, to begin with….." She drew her eyebrows together and pondered for a moment. Then she turned to Severus. "Do you really think Lewis cares about me?"
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Secretly Slytherin