A Dish Served Cold

Chapter 34 – Doubts

Ginny sat nervously fiddling with her wand. Despite the firmness with which she had herded Remus towards this ritual she was not at all sure that it was a good idea. She wanted Remus cured, of course, but she was also terrified for him.

The thing was that the fear of his wolf overrode her natural inclination not to risk his life. Last week had contained the most hellish experience of her short existence and that included waking up covered in blood and ink in the Chamber of Secrets. Remus had been chained in the basement, but his howls and screams had been clearly audible from where she had sat huddled in the kitchen. Listening to the sounds first of his suffering and then of his enraged alter ego for endless hours had been like nothing that she had ever experienced before. Not to mention what he had looked like afterwards.

If the rest of her married life were to contain such horrors, then she would soon go mad and be of little use to anyone.

“Knut for your thoughts?” Hermione asked her gently. Ginny looked up from the parchment she was supposed to be studying and met her best friend’s eyes.

“I’m scared,” she admitted.

“You’d be an idiot if you weren’t, Ginny,” Hermione retorted with a rueful expression. “This has to be the most doom-ridden, ill-conceived venture in the history of doom-ridden, ill-conceived ventures.” Hermione’s eyes were shadowed and her mouth turned down.

“Do we have any other options?” Ginny asked with a touch of desperation in her voice.

“Not one,” Hermione sighed. “Still as far as doom-ridden, ill-conceived ventures go, at least you have Severus brewing the potions and some darn fine witches and wizards performing the spell,” she added as she pushed hair out of her face with an irritated gesture. “That has to count for something.”

“I really hope so.” Ginny turned to stare out the window at the drifting seaweed and hoped that her fear of the wolf wouldn’t lose her the man.

Hermione was still hunched over the desk in her sitting room, translating the ancient parchments when Severus came in. He was dressed in his usual black with the slash of his mouth in a straight line and his eyes stormy and dark.

She immediately wondered what she had done wrong, feeling more like the student she had once been in his classroom than the wife she was now.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as he came into the room.

“The usual, Voldemort wants me to start brewing some asinine potion he found in the diary of some mad Arab that he swears will summon a dark god or two to help him out in the upcoming war.” Severus’ tone was full of derision and irritation rather than concern so Hermione assumed that the potion was of no real use.

“Does he really believe that dark gods care about his campaign in the slightest?” she asked in surprise.

“What part of ego-centric megalomaniac do you fail to appreciate?” he retorted with a snort and a roll of the eyes.

“Probably the whole ego-centric megalomaniac part,” she shot back with a touch of amusement. “Which begs the question, where did you learn Muggle psychotherapy terms?” She shot him a curious look and he smirked back at her.

“I am not as uneducated in Muggle ways as you might imagine.” His face became shadowed for a moment. “To be honest, I learned about it from Therese, long before she became my step-mother.”

“Helena’s mother?”

“She was Georgian’s fiancée at the time and one of my very few friends.” Hermione listened to his words with a growing feeling of confusion.

“How did she end up married to your father?” Hermione couldn’t conceive of anyone preferring Taliesin Snape to Professor Tamarind.

“On his good days, my father can be quite charismatic.” There was so much bitterness in that statement that Hermione wisely backed off of the subject.

“She taught you psychotherapy?” Hermione brought the subject back around.

“She had hopes of introducing some of the more progressive Muggle ideas into the Wizarding world.”

“No doubt why Voldemort had her killed,” Hermione mused.

“No, he had her killed because she was breeding half-bloods into his world of perfect purity,” he shot back with such fury and rage that Hermione leaned back away from him in dismay. He visibly controlled himself and shrugged at her, an apology of sorts.

“Um, Severus, what will he think of our children?” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper as she asked and his immediately blank face told her the answer wasn’t going to be pleasant.

“He will want them dead, Hermione, just as he wants all Muggleborns and half bloods dead.” The matter of fact tone masked little of his emotions; she could see his own fear and uncertainty quite clearly.

She pressed her hands to her belly in a protective gesture and Severus gave her a measuring look.

“I won’t let him hurt them, Severus,” she told him with a dire certainty. He nodded.

“It won’t be an issue, Madam; we will destroy him long before they are in any danger.” She looked up at the deadly killer she had married and felt warm and safe.

It was good to be the Potion Master’s wife.

Bill Weasley sipped the steaming Turkish coffee with a meditative air. He took a nibble of the baklava to cut the deadly acidic taste of the coffee and then took another mouthful of the poisonous brew. Despite the fact that you could use the stuff to scrub cauldrons with, Bill had developed a distinct fondness for it.

He eyed the Souk over the rim of his cup with a cautious optimism. His “accidental” meeting with the young Yidoni had gone according to plan and he was slowly worming his way into the boy’s confidence. Actually it had been ridiculously easy. A few true stories of derring-do and a couple of suggestions for what skills he would need to pursue his own career and the child – obviously starved for attention and desperate for adult approval – lapped it all up.

Dumbledore had been right, though, the grandmother was a nightmare. Just the things that Yoshua didn’t say told Bill all he needed to know about who she was now. It was her past however that had him most curious. Armed with the information that Snape’s formidable grandmother had provided, he had begun discreet enquiries into the history of the Yidoni, with most of his attention on Sarit herself.

It had been a little shocking.

The oldest picture he could find of her was a portrait of her at ten. He had found it at the local museum and library, which was where the foundations of his information had come from. The Yidoni had founded the original library with books salvaged from the fires of Alexandria and the writings of their own ancestors. A whole section of the building was dedicated to the founders and the portrait of the child Sarit had been tucked in between two paintings, almost hidden around a corner, as though the curators were afraid even of her image.

He had stared into the bright black eyes for long minutes, trying to reconcile the evil old bat of today with the pretty dark-haired girl, all smiles with laughing eyes that she had once been. The heart-shaped face with the curly black hair, the almond shaped eyes with thick dark lashes; she had been a pretty child, even a happy child.

What had happened?

Yoshua was much the same; he looked like his grandmother and had the same joyful grin that she had once worn. Bill would do much to keep him from sharing her fate.

Staring sightlessly out at the crowded dusty street, Bill drank his coffee and pondered both the future and the past.

Severus watched his sleeping wife with a feeling close to affection. That it was liberally mingled with relief didn’t change the oddness of the initial sensation. He wasn’t used to feeling anything but irritation and animosity towards all but a select few people. That he was developing a soft spot for the Gryffindor know-it-all was obviously a sign of incipient senility. The relief came from the fact that her temper had been rather uncertain lately as lack of sleep and discomfort from her pregnancy made her irritable. Having her snoring rather than sniping at him was a blessing.

Still, he was finding that she was usually a breath of fresh air in his dungeons. He had grown so solitary, so unused to sharing space with anyone that at first it had been galling in the extreme having her rooting through his things and rearranging his library. But slowly as days and then weeks passed, he noticed that her belongings, carefully placed around their quarters, were all fairly tasteful and rather pleasant. Walking through the door after a long day of teaching dunderheads and making rude comments to his fellow staffers at some interminable meeting, to find her sprawled in a chair, chewing on her quill end as she worked through three feet of a Transfiguration essay wasn’t the nightmare he had once envisioned.

Her appreciation of his Sahara-dry wit and dark sarcasm was a welcome surprise and as long as he was careful not to direct it at either herself or her friends he found that they could converse tolerably well.

He rose abruptly from his reverie and slipped out of the bedchamber, leaving her asleep in the huge gaudy bed.

He turned right down the hall and pressed in on a bit of carving, causing a portion of the wall to slide forward just enough for a slender person to squeeze through. The corpulent slug who had preceded Severus in his position as Slytherin Head of House had never been able to get into this chamber, something which made Severus chortle even now.

The fat bastard would have wet himself had he ever seen its contents.

It was a treasure house of Slytherin gold. What was contained in here was more precious by far than mere money. In neatly bound journals, in darkened mirrors and tiny insect-like receivers there was everything a man would ever need to blackmail anyone. Starting with Salazar’s own illuminated manuscripts and dragon skin bound tomes, and with the additions from many Heads since, a nearly complete history of the Magical world’s peccadilloes were lovingly recorded and eternally preserved.

With a smile, Severus activated one of the tiny receivers and directed it to connect to its twin. Somewhere inside Mulciber’s old home a small transmitter awoke and began sending its information to one Severus Snape. Like a spider in a web, picking up each delicate vibration of his spun filament to detect where the fly had landed, Severus listened to voices speaking far from Hogwarts.

“Mulciber had no taste in décor.” Bella’s voice, filled with disdain and loathing came through to him clearly and he felt his lips twist in distaste.

“A safe house doesn’t have to be pretty Bella,” Voldemort purred. It was a damn good thing that Slughorn had never found this room, Severus mused, as he could never have resisted dropping little hints about it to everyone. Voldemort would have had it out of him in no time, which would have made Severus’ present activity impossible.

“True, my lord, but a little judicious magic could make it much more habitable,” she sneered, implying that Mulciber was deficient as a Wizard.
“Perhaps, but magic will draw unwanted attention to this place. Let us not provide the Ministry with our address,” Voldemort retorted sharply and whether he was irritated at the insult to Mulciber or at Bellatrix’s snobbery was unclear to Severus.

“Do you think that Severus will be able to brew that potion?” she asked, changing the subject with alacrity.

“Perhaps, but I doubt that the Mad Arab was particularly accurate in his transcriptions.” There was a verbal shrug in his words and Severus wished for a nice little poison that could penetrate Voldemort’s rings of protection. He hated being given make work which was precisely what his ex-master was implying that potion was.

“So no Dark Gods?” she asked with a touch of wistful regret.

“Probably not, though if anyone could do it Severus is the one.” The vote of confidence would be touching if it weren’t so revolting, he mused. “That reminds me, I have recently received some disturbing information about Malfoy.”

“Lucius?” Bellatrix asked with audible disbelief.

“Yes, his correspondence to his son has become increasingly… upsetting to me.” Severus could almost see Voldemort tenting his fingers and glaring over them at Bellatrix. “Mind you, Draco has shown no signs of heeding his father’s traitorous advice, which pleases me, but I find Lucius’ lack of faith in me… irritating.”

“What would you like me to do, my Master?” Bellatrix’s voice was that of a true fanatic and no ties of blood or kinship would even slow her in her execution of her Master’s will.

“Nothing for now, but plans must be made to deal with Lucius should he become… unreliable.” Severus hated the long pauses that Voldemort always used. He supposed the egocentric nutter thought it sounded all dramatic and threatening, but he really sounded like a bloody pantomime villain, not even scary enough to make a child really nervous.

On the other hand, men in grease paint and baggy trousers didn’t usually cast Cruciatus or the Avada Kedavra, which made Voldemort just a tad more alarming, he supposed.

He listened for a while more, but it quickly devolved into more unrealistic plans for how they would rule the world and enslave the Muggles and everything would be all better.

He wondered if all the crazy people with delusions of world domination were put in one room together, would they suddenly realize how daft they all sounded? Would they figure out the impracticability of ruling an entire planet through fear and force of arms? Perhaps they would kill each other off trying to be the only one who could carry it off. It was a lovely mental image, either way.

On that thought, Severus finally went to bed.

Sabine Dumbledore looked at the wedding band around her finger and decided that her curiosity had landed her into a far worse pickle than it ever had before. Not that she particularly minded being married again. She didn’t even mind that it was to Albus, whom she had known nearly forever. It was the idea of giving birth again and at her age.

What had she been thinking?

Oh right, the lure of rank and presumably fortune.

Rochester was looking up at her with soulful eyes from over his new Hogwarts tea towel. He had been a Snape elf for his entire life and his family had been Snape-owned for so many generations that it just seemed wrong to him to wear someone else’s livery.

Sabine had thought about gifting him to her grandson, but she suspected from comments that Albus had made, that his new wife might not appreciate that. She wasn’t quite sure why yet, but Albus had always had an uncanny knack for knowing more about what went on in people’s minds than they did themselves. So, she kept Rochester with her.

“Mistress Sn - Dumbledore,” he began with a trifle bit of a whimper in his voice.

“Rochester, it’s only for a while, after all, my grandson is bound to have children and I plan on leaving you to them in my will,” she reassured the poor creature and watched as his long pointed ears rose from their dragging state to a nearly cheerful height.

“Very well, Mistress. About the mealtimes, will you be eating downstairs or upstairs?” Which was, she thought, an excellent question.

“Upstairs” she answered almost in unison with Albus’ voice.

“Downstairs,” he chimed in and then frowned at her answer. “Why?”

“I have not eaten in the Great Hall since I was a student, Albus and I am not one now, neither am I a faculty member.”

“That could be changed,” he suggested to her horror.

“Merlin no! I am not one of those old women who dotes on the infantry and teenagers give me hives,” she shot back.

“Oh poor dear Sabine, what have I dragged you into,” he laughed at her expression.

“I begin to wonder myself, Albus. Now, what is the real reason why you married me?” She crossed her arms and glared at him. He smiled up at her his eyes bright and dancing.

“That is why I like you, Sabine, you know I have an ulterior motive yet you marry me anyway, just to find it out.” She rolled her eyes and considered chucking crockery at him. The only thing that prevented her was how gauche it was to have a fight while still on honeymoon.

“You are trying my patience,” she muttered through gritted teeth.

“Do not worry, Sabine, all will be revealed at the proper time,” he gave her an enigmatic smile and she realized that she would have to play dirty. She would find out and the timing would be of her choosing, not his.

No mere Gryffindor male stood a chance against a determined Slytherin female. Not even the great Albus Dumbledore.