Chapter 51 - Grand Gestures
Albus was still waiting for him in front of the fire when he returned from the bedroom. He closed the bedroom door behind him so that he would not disturb Harry. As he crossed back over to the couch, he saw the sad, introspective look on the headmaster's face.
"They're Odin's familiars, aren't they?" Severus asked as he sat down, wanting confirmation of his fears of the ravens.
Albus nodded. "Yes, I'm certain of it now. I think they are bringing these dreams to him. Trying to show him something, or teach him something."
"And the city - do you think it is meant to be literal?" Severus asked. "Some city that Voldemort destroys?"
"I don't know," Albus shook his head. "I find it interesting that there were no marks on the bodies. Even Voldemort is not capable of using the killing curse on an entire city of people."
"Poison then," Severus suggested. "Or a biological agent."
"Maybe," Albus shrugged. "Wouldn't it be ironic if after all this Voldemort used some Muggle means to kill so many?"
"Albus, that house elf that follows Harry around, Dobby - he said something strange when he brought the hot chocolate earlier." Severus could see that he had Albus' full attention. "He called Voldemort He-Who-Would-Walk-Alone."
Albus nodded, seeming unsurprised by the news. "Yes," he agreed. "They've been calling him that now for several months, but they don't know why. I questioned them extensively when I first noticed the change, but none of them seem to know what it might mean. It's what they used to call Grindelwald. They didn't know what it meant then either."
Severus felt a shiver of unease wash over him. "I've never read anything about that in the history books."
A faint smile twisted Albus' lips, his eyes twinkling behind his glasses. "Doesn't surprise me," he agreed. "Very few people ever sit down and have long conversations with house elves, and even fewer still would think to write down their words of wisdom."
"Words of wisdom?"
"They don't think the way we do, Severus," Albus explained. "Non-humans have their own myths and legends, and they're often dismissed because they're considered lesser creatures. Look at centaurs - they possess intelligence far superior to ours, and yet they are considered beneath us because they choose to live in the wild. I have found that house elves often know things that wizards don't; they just lack the ability to explain any of it."
"And Grindelwald?" Severus asked. "Did you ever learn what the name meant?"
Albus leaned back in his chair and stroked his beard slowly. "Grindelwald was a power hungry madman who preached about pureblood superiority and a return to greatness through acts of genocide. He was like a thousand other madmen before him, spouting the same rhetoric, gathering up the bitter and disgruntled. And then one day something changed. Some new madness gripped him." Albus frowned and Severus watched him intently. The headmaster never talked about those days, and to have a chance to hear something about the war with Grindelwald from Dumbledore's own mouth was a rare opportunity indeed.
"He believed that there was some great secret that would give him the power to rule the world," Albus continued with his story. "He became obsessed with this secret - with finding it or learning it. Everything else became secondary to it, and he began making mistakes, leaving himself vulnerable to attack. Eventually his followers were captured or killed or disserted him, and he was left to face me alone."
"He never learned this secret?" Severus asked.
Albus shook his head. "No, nor did I. When he died, whatever knowledge about it he possessed, died with him."
"You think Voldemort is after that secret now," Severus guessed. "That maybe it is what the ravens are whispering in Harry's ear."
"I hope not, Severus," Albus sighed. A log in the fire snapped loudly, the light of the flames flickering in Dumbledore's glasses. "I hope I'm imagining things."
Severus snorted in disgust at the likelihood of that possibility. "What am I supposed to do, Albus? How am I supposed to protect him?"
"Believe in yourself, Severus," Albus said simply. "Believe in him. Have faith that things will work out."
Severus shook his head, despair washing over him. "I'm not like you, Albus. I don't see the world through rose-colored glasses. I can't believe in the impossible."
Albus laughed softly at that. "Oh, I don't think you and I are so different, Severus. I'm not omniscient. I've lost my way a time or two." He smiled suddenly, a strange gleam in his eyes. "You weren't here last year when Voldemort attacked. I honestly believe that day that we were going to fail, that I was going to die."
Severus looked over at the old man in shock. He'd never heard Albus say such a thing. Pessimism was not like him.
Albus just shrugged and smiled gently at him. "I went out that day to fight expecting to die. All of us did - the other teachers, the Aurors, the Order members who came to make a last stand. I'm strong, Severus, but with the Eye of Odin in his hands, I don't think I could have stopped him if there had been a hundred of me. I lost faith, lost hope. And then Harry Potter, flying on a Quidditch broom, saved us all." He grinned at the memory. "I find it odd to think of that great, final battle as nothing more than interlude in something larger, and that Harry's act of bravery has repercussions we are only seeing now with the arrival of these ravens. But all these events have restored my faith, and I can't lose hope despite the darkness I see on the horizon."
Albus gazed into the fire, seeming ancient but powerful, and Severus stared at him, riveted by his words. "There is something terrible coming, Severus," the old man said softly. "I can feel that. All the non-humans know it is coming - the elves, the centaurs, the goblins, the giants. The world is going to change. And yet despite everything, I have faith that we will endure."
The headmaster turned and smiled at Severus, his eyes dancing. "You're in love with him, aren't you," he stated, catching him completely off guard.
Severus felt his body flush with heat. Albus had asked him a similar question when Harry had been wounded in Hogsmeade. He'd been quick then to dismiss the subject. "I. . .I. . " he struggled to make sense of the chaos in his mind. Love was not a word in his vocabulary - not something that belonged in his life. Lust he could admit to - but love? "I don't know."
"Well, when you figure it out, you might consider telling him," Albus quipped, as he rose to his feet. "Love does funny things to people, especially to Gryffindors. We could use more of that in the world." He patted Severus on the shoulder and then headed out the door, letting the portrait swing shut behind him.
Harry was leaving the Great Hall after dinner a few days later with Ron and Hermione when he spied a Grim slinking around a dark corner of the castle. Excusing himself from his friends, he hurried after the dark form, following it down several unused passages and into a dark, dusty old storage room where he found his godfather waiting for him.
Worried, and anxious, but happy to see the man, Harry threw his arms around Sirius and hugged him tightly. Some of that anxiety fled when Sirius hugged him back. "You shouldn't be here," he told the man, when he finally released him. "It's not safe."
"I had to see Moony," Sirius explained. The dark shadows under his eyes and the worried expression on his face spoke volumes. Harry should have known he could never stay away. "The full moon is tonight."
"He won't change," Harry told him. "The Draught of the Living Death freezes everything. He won't even know you're there." He'd done some reading on the potion since they'd given it to Remus and knew that even the power of the full moon would have no effect on the werewolf. Until they gave him the antidote, nothing would affect him.
"I don't care," Sirius shook his head. "I just have to see him. Take me to him. Please Harry."
Harry sighed, but nodded in acceptance. "Meet me in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. I'll go get some brooms and meet you there."
Sirius switched forms again and Harry raced off, heading down to the dungeons to retrieve his broom. He grabbed the new broom his godfather had bought him at Christmas as well as his old firebolt so that Sirius would have something to ride. Then grabbing his invisibility cloak as a final precaution, he headed back to Myrtle's bathroom to meet his godfather.
Sirius was waiting for him, still in dog form, pacing back and forth in front of the sink that contained the entrance to the Chamber. There was no sign of Myrtle - strangely enough even the ghosts seemed wary of the Grim. Padfoot shifted and changed once more when Harry entered, transforming seamless into Sirius. He took the broom Harry handed him and stood back while his godson opened the Chamber. A moment later the two of them were sliding down into the cavern below.
He could tell that Sirius was anxious and upset as they followed the cavern toward the Chamber doorway, and he worried about what the sight of Remus would do to him.
"Did he really go feral, Harry?" Sirius asked as they walked, their feet crunching the tiny bones of dead animals beneath them.
Harry nodded. "He said he lost control of the wolf, that he couldn't get it back."
Sirius turned sharply toward him. "He spoke to you?"
When Harry nodded, a faint smile touched Sirius' lips. "A feral werewolf should not have been able to speak at all. Moony was always far stronger than anyone gave him credit for."
"He told me to tell you that he was sorry," Harry confessed. "Sorry that he made you wait."
Sirius' face tightened and in the faint light of their wands he thought he saw a single tear sliding down the man's cheek. "He's always so quick to blame himself." He shook his head, his mouth hardening into a thin line. "This is Narcissa's fault."
"Narcissa?" Harry asked in confusion. "I was under the impression that this was Lucius' idea."
But Sirius just shook his head. "Lucius may think it's his idea, but I can guarantee Narcissa was behind this. She's the one who put the idea into his head. She's the one who picked me for Draco."
"Why would she do that?" Harry didn't know much about Draco's mother, but he had always assumed that Lucius was the true danger in that family.
"She hates Remus," Sirius explained. "And she wants to punish me. She knows I love him."
"You mean this was about hurting Remus instead of saving Draco?" Harry asked incredulously.
Sirius just sighed. "My family is Dark, Harry. Nothing good has ever come from the House of Black."
"Except you," Harry told him.
Something painful burned in Sirius' eyes. "I spent my entire adult life in Azkaban, Harry. I failed your parents, and now I have driven my dearest friend mad. I can't even provide a proper home for you. Severus Snape had to pick up my slack."
Harry caught hold of Sirius' arm, horrified to hear such words coming from his beloved godfather. "I love you," he told the man. "And so does Remus. None of that was your fault."
Sirius raised one hand to affectionately stroke his godson's hair. He nodded his head, as if accepting his words, but there was still such sadness in his blue eyes. "You're always saving me from the dark places my mind wanders, Harry," he sighed. "That's supposed to be my job." He gave Harry a one armed hug and they continued on down the corridor.
"Why does Narcissa hate Remus?" Harry asked as they walked.
Sirius sighed heavily. "She was in love with me."
Startled, Harry looked up at him. "I thought she was your cousin. Weren't you raised together like siblings?"
A pained-look crossed over Sirius' features. "The Blacks have always been a bit twisted, Harry," he confessed. He shook his head as if chasing away some bad memory. "I used to date a lot when I was younger. But even back then I wanted Remus. But he never gave me any indication that he was interested - he never seemed interested in anyone. I didn't know about werewolves mating for life. If I had I wouldn't have made so many mistakes."
"What happened with Narcissa?" Harry asked.
"She decided she wanted to marry me, and tried to get our parents to agree," Sirius explained. "I told her no - that my heart belonged to someone else. She didn't care."
"Would your Conscriptus have allowed such a marriage?" Harry asked curiously.
Sirius shrugged. "There's nothing preventing first cousins from marrying. But it wasn't a very advantageous marriage. The Blacks had a lot of money, but they were always looking for more. And marrying me to Narcissa brought nothing into the family. So I convinced them to marry her off to Lucius. I knew he wanted her, and the Malfoys were everything the Blacks were looking for in an alliance."
"She wasn't happy with Lucius," Harry guessed.
Sirius shook his head. "She swore she'd get her revenge on me one day, even if she had to kill her own child to do so."
Horrified, Harry felt a sudden wave of sympathy for Draco. He wondered if the blond Slytherin had any idea what sort of person his mother was. He had always assumed that Lucius was the true monster in that family, but now he wondered about Narcissa. What sort of mother had she been, hating as deeply as she did?
They walked in silence the rest of the way to the Chamber, Harry speaking Parseltongue to open all the doors. When at last they reached Slytherin's library, and pushed open the door, Harry stood back and let Sirius go forward, both their eyes fixed on the bed in the middle of the room. Remus lay exactly as they had left him, unmoved from his position on the bed McGonagall had transfigured. Dumbledore's lantern still burned softly next to the bed, and the warming charms had kept the worst of the chill from the room. Still there was something so eerie about the silence of the chamber, and Harry shivered at the thought of Remus lying down here alone with only the flickering shadows for company.
Harry waited by the door as Sirius crossed the room to Remus. He could see pain in his godfather's handsome face as he sat beside Remus on the bed and reached out to touch the unmoving man's face. He recognized the look of shock that flashed through Sirius' eyes. Remus skin would be cold to the touch, even the blood that should flow through his veins held in stasis by the power of the potion.
"He's fine," he assured his godfather. "It's just the potion. It keeps him frozen in stasis."
Sirius nodded in understanding. More likely than not he probably knew the effects of the potion better than Harry did. The man had once been an Auror after all. But still the shock of seeing a loved one like that was overwhelming.
"My poor Mooney," he heard Sirius whispered. "He must have been so ashamed."
"Ashamed?" Harry asked.
Sirius sighed. "He's always prided himself on his control. Even when we were children he was careful never to lose his temper, never to lose his control over his emotions. The full moon robbed him of all his control so he took pains to hold onto it all the more tightly during the rest of the month. There were few things he despised more than werewolves who just gave up and let themselves go feral. There were few things he feared more than going feral himself."
Sirius reached out and stroked the man's hair, smoothing it back from his forehead. He traced the pale scars on Remus' face. "I should have stayed here with him," Sirius said. "I should have been beside him so I could stop this."
"There were Aurors and reporters all over the place, Sirius," Harry told him. "You couldn't stay with him. He knows that."
"I wouldn't have married the Malfoy boy," Sirius swore.
Harry frowned at that, shifting uncertainly in the doorway. "Wouldn't your Conscriptus have forced you to?" Had they gotten it wrong, he wondered.
Sirius just shrugged. "I still could have refused."
"Then Lucius would have had you removed as Head of House and Bellatrix would have used Blood Magic to kill you."
Sirius looked up, his blue eyes practically glowing in the dim light. So fierce was his expression that Harry wondered if maybe his godfather had been a bit feral all his life. "I'm strong, Harry," he said. "Magically, I mean. Really strong. I could have fought the Blood Magic."
Harry remembered the stories in the paper during his third year about the feared murderer Sirius Black. People had whispered about him in terror, saying he was the strongest of Voldemort's servants. They believed he could kill dozens of people with a single spell alone. After learning the extent of the power distribution in the Wizarding World, he was beginning to understand what people really meant when they spoke abut powerful wizards.
"Severus implied that the Blood Magic was something really powerful," Harry told him. "Could you have defeated it?"
"I don't know," Sirius admitted, though the ferocity did not leave his eyes. "But I could have tried. I'd do anything for Remus, even die."
Gryffindor bravado - they were all guilty of it. Harry was beginning to understand why it might bother Severus so much.
"Can we all stop talking about dying and just decide to live for each other instead," Harry said in exasperation.
His words startled Sirius and he stared across the gloomy room at Harry for a long moment before a slow smile spread over his face. "Now, you sound like your mother," he laughed softly. "She used to hate to hear James talk about that sort of thing as well." A wistful gleam took the smile from his face. "I often wondered if she had a touch of foresight sometimes."
He smiled back at Harry, his mood seeming mercurial. "She used to call you her little prince, and now here you are King of the Winter Lands."
Harry groaned at his words. "Oh, God, don't call me that," he protested. "It doesn't mean anything - not really. And I get enough teasing from the other students. Lavender Brown is trying to get all the girls to curtsey when they see me - though Ginny and Hermione explained that it had more to do with how the curtsey showed off their legs than with me."
Sirius laughed at that, an odd sound in the grim chamber. "Then they're obviously not doing it properly. A proper curtsey should not reveal any leg at all."
"Really short skirts," Harry said simply, thinking of the school uniforms the girls all favored. Of course right now most of them had their legs covered up with heavy winter tights, but the form was still quite visible if not the skin.
Sirius chuckled and then grew thoughtful again. "It is what they call you, you know."
"What?"
"King of the Winter Lands," Sirius explained. "Brand's people seem to like the idea. Even the highborn in that land have embraced the concept. They've stopped whispering in terror about You-Know-Who and have begun speaking openly about their king. You seem to have given them back their courage."
Harry wasn't certain how to respond to that. "I don't want to be anyone's king, Sirius. I don't want power. I don't want to be involved with politics or the Ministry."
"I know, Harry," Sirius said gently. "While I was there they asked me for help reclaiming their farms. As the Dementors grew more numerous, they had to abandon their farmland. Over the years they've become dependent on purchasing food from the Muggle world - something they've all hated. Now they're determined that come spring they will replant all their old crops and live independent of the Muggle world once more. So they are going back to their farms and chasing off the Grendlings that have taken over. And they asked me to help them fight. Over and over people kept coming to me and asking if they thought you would approve of their accomplishments, if you would be proud of what they were trying to do."
Harry shivered at his words, finding himself choked up at such a thought, that anyone would care if he were proud of them.
"I don't think they care about politics or rules and regulations, Harry," Sirius told him. "I think they just want to know that the boy who saved them was proud to have done so."
"I didn't save them alone, Sirius," Harry reminded him, emotion welling in his chest. "They saved themselves."
"Ah, but don't you see, Harry," Sirius smiled. "That's exactly what they expect a king to do - inspire a people to save themselves."
To that Harry had no response. He just shifted uncomfortably in the doorway at a loss for words.
"Do you mind if I transfigure a few things?" Sirius asked suddenly, his mood changing once again to something almost playful.
"Why would I mind?" Harry asked in confusion.
"It's your chamber," Sirius reminded him.
"It's Slytherin's Chamber," Harry corrected.
But Sirius just shrugged dismissively as if that fact were unimportant. "It's yours now."
"Go ahead," Harry told him, not wanting to argue the point.
Sirius leaped off the bed and began rifling through the pockets of his coat. He pulled out a handful of knuts and sickles along with his wand. As Harry watched, the man proceeded to transform the coins into various pieces of furnishings from plush chairs to carpets and tapestries. He seemed intent on decorating the room in bright, cheerful colors so that it resembled the Gryffindor common room.
As he worked, Harry found himself analyzing the man's magic. He'd seen Dumbledore and McGonagall do the most transfiguration work in his life. Both of them seemed capable of transfiguring anything - evening pulling things literally out of thin air. McGonagall had explained that they were in fact doing exactly that - transfiguring the very air molecules into something new. It was one of the hardest forms of magic to master.
Harry for his part was merely average at such things. Certainly Hermione far surpassed his skills no matter how much he practiced. Watching Sirius now he could see that the man had not been boasting when he said he was strong. While his tapestry was a bit lopsided and his carpet had a rather obnoxious color to it - more orange than red - he seemed to do it all with relative ease.
Harry found himself thinking about Slytherin's notes on feeling the magic in another Wizard, and impulsively he tried to reach out with his mind to sense Sirius' magic in the air.
He felt it almost at once, a vibrant energy filled with bright pulsing explosions of inspiration and life. Granted there was something almost manic to it, as Harry sensed Sirius was attempting to distract himself from the man lying as if dead on the bed in the center of the room.
Unbidden Harry turned his focus toward Remus and found to his surprise that he could feel him as well. But this time there was no movement to the energy. It was still and dormant as if simply waiting for the single beat of a heart to bring it back to life. Could he do it, he wondered. Could he send some of his own energy into that stillness and force it awake, quicken the life back into Remus' veins?
"What do you think?" Sirius' voice snapped him out of his musings and Harry shivered at the thoughts running through his head. He'd spent too much time reading the Serpent's notes if such crazy thoughts were the results.
"What?" he asked his godfather.
"The room," Sirius clarified waving his hand around to display his handwork. "Do you think he'd like it?"
Harry stared at the slightly off-colored version of the Gryffindor common room - he spied a Muggle whoopee cushion on one of the chairs, along with a complete set of dribble glasses. And the painting on the far wall was supposed to depict a gathering of some of the noble members of Gryffindor house, not a group of dogs playing poker. One of the dogs looked remarkably like Padfoot. Harry smiled - always the practical joker. "You forgot the books," Harry said. "Remus would never love a room unless it had books."
"You're right, of course," Sirius agreed and tossed another knut down on the ground so that it rolled against a wall. With a wave of his wand he created an enormous bookcase filled with books. Harry frowned. The books were all identical - same exact shape and size. He pulled one off the shelf.
"The Karma Sutra?" he mused, giving his godfather an impish look.
Sirius just shrugged. "Hope springs eternal." When Harry opened the book he noticed that the pages were blank.
"I've never been able to conjure books," Sirius admitted. "Just the shapes. Remus can conjure up any book he's ever read. He's always been brilliant." A fond smile crossed his lips as he gazed back down at the sleeping man.
"He'll be fine, Sirius," Harry assured him. "We should go. It's getting late."
"I think I'll stay here tonight," Sirius told him as he approached the bed.
Harry balked at the idea. He couldn't risk leaving the doors to the Chamber open, not with the Ministry still looking for Remus. And once they were closed, Sirius would have no way to escape the Chamber if something happened.
"I'll be alright," Sirius assured him when he saw the look on his face. "You can come back for me in the morning."
"But Sirius he won't wake up," Harry reasoned.
"I know," Sirius nodded. "But there's a full moon tonight and I promised him I would always be with him on the full moon. I'm not going to break that promise. I've missed too many moons as it is."
Faced with such a statement, Harry knew there was no point in protesting. He just nodded in acceptance and watched sadly as his godfather transformed once again into Padfoot. The black dog leaped up onto the bed and lay down beside Remus, resting his furry head on Remus' stomach.
"Good night, Padfoot," Harry said softly, and left the two of them alone.
When Harry returned to his rooms, he noticed the door to Severus' lab standing open. Normally by this time of night he would have been ensconced on the couch working on his translation while Severus worked on the potion. He moved to the laboratory door to tell Severus that he was back. The man was busy stirring the contents of a small iron cauldron when he entered the room, three other cauldrons sitting off to one side filled with various fluids.
"You're late," Severus informed him, though his tone lacked the derision it would have held a few months ago.
"Sirius showed up," Harry explained. "I took him down to see Remus."
He saw Severus stiffen at that, his features tightening with some emotion. He wasn't certain what part of that bothered him - the fact that Sirius was back in the castle, or the fact that Harry had gone back down to the Chamber. "Is he still here?"
"He stayed in the Chamber," Harry told him. "He wanted to stay with Remus. The full moon is tonight."
The man looked up in surprise at that. "The man is catatonic," he exclaimed, and now Harry could hear the derision. "He won't even know he's there. What's the point?"
"It's Gryffindor sentimentality," Harry said defensively. "We're big on grand romantic gestures."
Severus snorted in disgust, shaking his head at the thought. Harry felt a flare of annoyance at his reaction. "Yes, I know what you think of such things," he snapped. "You don't have to say it."
One dark eyebrow rose in mocking amusement. "Indeed?" Severus asked. "You know what I'm thinking, do you?"
Harry smirked at him, folding his arms across his chest. "I can make a good guess," he nodded, then adjusted his stance so that it more closely resembled Severus', and though lacking the proper height, he attempted to look down his nose at the man. He couldn't mimic Severus' voice - few people had a voice like his - but he gave it his best shot. "Really, Mr. Potter, such sentimentality is valued only by fools. But as there is so little difference between fools and Gryffindors I can see how you would be confused."
Severus' lips twitched upward, his dark eyes gleaming. "And no doubt you would respond with some snide insult to Slytherin about how we have no romance in our souls and wouldn't recognize a grand gesture if one bit us on our overly large noses."
Harry couldn't help himself. He laughed out loud, unable to hold his 'Severus-scowl' any longer on his face. Amused, Severus picked up a jar of flobberworms and a large knife, placing them down on the edge of his worktable nearest Harry. "Cut up those flobberworms," he ordered. "There's your grand, romantic gesture."
"Slytherins!" Harry just sighed in protest, but still smiling, he picked up the knife and got to work.