Chapter Four

“This is interminable,” Severus snapped, pacing back and forth in front of Albus’ desk. “I have an inventory of my reagents and components to perform, five more vats of various salves and balms to brew for Poppy, and apparently some type of preliminary report on our newest faculty member to pen for the Dark Lord.”

And he was still the Dark Lord to Severus. A careless slip of tongue in front of the wrong person could prove fatal, and he had no intention of setting himself up for failure, even in the darkest recesses of his own mind.

“A new faculty member, who will be here presently,” Albus replied, cheerfully bustling around his office. The headmaster was always cheerful when one of his schemes was going according to plan. “One who will need to discuss lesson plans with you, unless I am too much mistaken. Won’t that make an interesting anecdote in your report?”

Severus just ground his teeth.

“I do hope that she and Minerva are getting along,” Albus said with a sigh. “I’m afraid that our little subterfuge has already turned much of the staff against her.”

That definitely deserved a disbelieving snort. Only Albus could discuss selling out the watcher’s concept of an acceptable curriculum to the Dark Lord himself in one breath, and then worry about her future social life within the school in the next. No matter how many years he worked with the man, the mind of Albus Dumbledore often remained a complete cipher.

The headmaster opened his mouth, probably to toss more pearls of wisdom onto the floor, when he froze in place, eyes wide and glazed. A second later, Severus felt something like a thousand thousand spiders crawling down his spine. “What is that?” he ground through his teeth.

Albus drew his wand, eyes searching wildly for something Severus could not see. “The wards are dropping,” he said darkly.

In a heartbeat, Severus’ wand was out as well. “An attack?” he asked, tense with shock. He had heard nothing. Surely he would have been informed if there was an attack planned on the school. He had been ordered to wait and watch the new wandless professor, for Merlin’s sake. ‘To collect information,’ the letter had said, just this morning. To mount an attack now made no sense. No sense at all.

Unless he had been found out.

The thought dumped ice water into his veins.

“Can you hold the shields, Severus?” Albus’ hands were raised, feeling, pressing against the air around him. His eyes slid worriedly past Fawkes’ empty stand, the headmaster’s familiar and part-time messenger was away at the moment, probably carrying letters or some other such, before pinning Severus where he stood.

“I…” he scoured his mind for the correct incantations. The spells placed on the school were powerful, constructed by multiple wizards over the course of many days. But Albus wasn’t asking if he could cast the wards alone. He was asking if Severus could hold the tattered pieces of the spells together until… what? Until the headmaster fought off the Death Eaters alone? Until all else was lost? Until what? “Yes,” he finally snarled, putting his trust in this man one more time.

Severus started to chant then, voice only faltering slightly when Albus Apparated away, proving exactly how weak the wards had become. Each word brought another thread of the pattern into his grasp, but the pieces of the shield were weak, brittle. It was as if something had left the framework of the spells behind, but sucked dry like fruit left too long on a dying vine.

Each word brought more and more strands of magic into his grasp. By the time he was sure he had gathered them all, he was swaying from the effort. At least whatever had triggered the magical drain had stopped, but the web-like filaments were fragile to the ‘touch.’ He was hanging onto the web by his fingernails, but he knew, even as the sweat started to break out on his forehead, that it wasn’t enough. If this really was a Death Eater attack, then having the wards in place would limit what they could do, what kind of spells they could perform, and what kind of reinforcements they could summon. Stronger wards might buy Albus the time he needed. If this was something other than an attack, then they were still left vulnerable. Some agent of the Dark Lord would be watching the school grounds, and this show of weakness would invariably draw in the predators like sharks smelling blood in the water. He knew his ‘compatriots’ well enough to predict that.

Simply holding the wards together wasn’t enough. He had to put some of the energy back into the shield.

Or at least he had to try.

Drawing on his own magics, he sent the raw power through his wand and into the weave. It was dizzying, and Severus knew he could not keep this up for long, but stopping was also out of the question.

His left hand gripped the edge of Albus’ desk. His wand hand hit the wooden surface as well, clenched tightly around the focus of his magic. The effort needed to maintain the spell was rapidly draining his strength, leaving a soul deep ache in every corner of his body. He gritted his teeth, braced himself against the desk, and soldiered on. He had sworn to Albus, years ago, that he would do anything, perform any task, undergo any indignity, suffer any injury, for just the chance to lash out at his former masters.

For the chance to make up for his innumerable sins.

Merlin help him, for Lily’s memory.

So even though the magic was starting to burn in his veins. Even though the only thing keeping him on his feet was sheer stubbornness. Even though this foolhardy attempt would more than likely end in failure, he just kept pushing more and more of himself into the shield until his head was bowed and his nerves burned at the effort.

It was then that he felt the hands on his own.

He looked up in shock, finding himself faced with the oddest of creatures. A woman, at least he thought it was a woman, had latched onto his wrists, leaning across the expanse of Albus’ desk until their faces were a scant few inches apart. Her eyes were a shade of red so dark that it appeared almost black. They had no pupils, no whites, just this solid shade of unnatural color that seemed to crackle with energy. Her hair was a shade of red only one step lighter, writhing around her face as if alive. She was pale and thin, with a face that made her look like she was part fae. Albus himself was behind her, looking worried, but generally unalarmed at the woman’s presence.

Well Severus was alarmed. He was more than alarmed. He was pissed. He was Severus Snape, and no one, no one that didn’t want to suffer the sharp edge of his tongue or the sharper attentions of his wand or potions, laid hands upon him without permission.

Even this eldritch creature.

Maybe especially this eldritch creature.

“Well, too bad, bub,” she said in an unnaturally deep snarl. “It’ll make this a whole lot easier, and I am not getting fired on my first day. Now you steer and I’ll provide the juice.”

Bub? Juice? The threads of the spells were starting to unravel under his fingers thanks to her distracting actions, and she was offering him juice? What was she babbling about? And Merlin, was she reading his mind? He started to retreat even further behind his mental defenses when her thoughts abruptly opened to him.

Like him, she had levels of psychic shielding, so he couldn’t see much, but there in the forefront of her mind were her intentions, spelled out in images and sensation if not words. She could channel magic into him. If he had the power to take it and funnel it into the spell, she could provide the raw energy to power the wards.

Such a thing was unheard of in wand magic. There was no sharing of power, only what an individual could take and hold for themselves. Oh, there were spells that could be performed cooperatively, but this was very, very different. This wasn’t two people channeling magic into the same goal, this was a single casting, fuelled by both people, but guided by only one.

Fascinating.

And unless he was too much mistaken, he really needed to set that line of thought aside so he could brace himself for whatever this fae slip of a girl was going to send his way. Not that he was expecting much.

Merlin, was he wrong.

A blast of energy hit his wrists and shot straight to his brain. He was so surprised that more than a little spilled from his control, sending energy zinging across his skin to gather tightly around his eyes and blasting the papers on Albus’ desk into even more disarray. He gritted his teeth and bent the flood to his will, forcing it back out of his wand and into the wards.

And it was working. The power was darker that the magic it was replacing, but not in an evil way. It seemed wilder somehow, more untamed. Severus could feel it singing in his veins, making him lightheaded with its sheer power. What was more amazing, he could tell that the girl was holding back.

That stung his pride more than a little.

“More,” he snarled, and just like that she complied.

It was amazing. The threads of magic in his grasp were soaking up the magic, taking on a life and power of their own. He heard Albus chanting in the background, Minerva quickly joining in. He had no idea when she had arrived. They were taking over the spell-specific wards, the ones that prevented the various methods of direct transportation into the grounds and certain types of large scale attacks. He dropped those spells from his grasp, letting the other two handle them. He could finish the framework in which those spells would live while they did the detail work.

He was still locked in eye contact with the woman. For the most part, her mind was still closed to him, foreign and mysterious as the magic she was wielding. Wisps of memories and emotions teased him from behind her black eyes, just out of reach. It was rare to find another person capable of that level of control.

Around the periphery of his vision, he could see that her nose was starting to bleed, a trickle of dark color against an otherwise colorless face. She didn’t seem to notice it at all. There were lines around her huge eyes, colored true black now, and her lips were pressed together in a bloodless line, which told him all he needed to know about the strain she was under. He wasn’t even the source of all of this power, but he too was starting to feel like a violently wrung rag.

Thankfully the wards were starting to melt into the unified sphere that characterized their previous form. Piece after piece, thread after thread, were falling into place, and all they needed was a little bit… More!

He released the completed ward from his grasp, sagging heavily against the desk. Almost at once, the flow of magic from the woman stopped. She didn’t release him though. Impressive magical action aside, he was about to rebuff her presumption, but then the woman underwent the most unexpected transformation.

Her black eyes faded to moss green and her dark hair lightened to a burnished copper. As the magics drained out of her, the woman’s face lost its pale hollowness and unnatural glow. So she was human, only a young human woman. In fact she was starting to look a bit like…

A drop of blood hit the back of his hand, hot and distracting. In that exact moment, the walls encasing her mind cracked a little, and Severus found himself slipping inside before he really realized what had happened.

A blond woman stood in front of him, palpable menace concealed in shadow. “Did you cut the throat?” she snarled. “Did you pat its head? The blood dried on your hands, didn’t it?”

Someone was repeating, “Oh my God, oh my God,” over and over again behind him. Still, Severus never took his eyes from the white-eyed, threatening figure.

Her voice rose furiously over the fearful mantra, “You were stained, you still are! I know what you did!”

Severus found himself looking into the wide, trusting eyes of a fawn. The sudden peace of the scene was almost as jolting as what happened next. A hand, maybe his hand, drove a long dagger into the young deer. Hot blood washed over him as the animal was stabbed again and again. Blood splattered across pale flesh and dark red hair. Her blood? The fawn’s blood? Impossible to tell.

Severus tore himself free from her mind with a jerk, wrenching his hands away from the woman’s grasp as if scalded. He stumbled away from the desk, trying with little success to rediscover his own physical and psychological equilibrium. He had no understanding of what he had just seen, only the vivid memory of the accusations and the blood spattered redhead, a memory too close in theory, if not in detail, to one of his own.

Old wounds, poorly healed, tore open and trickled their poison back into his system.

“I left my stuff outside.” Severus barely registered the content of her statement, only the fact that she had an American accent. “And I think I might pass out,” she added abruptly.

True to her words, she did, sliding down the other side of the desk until Albus and Minerva, who had finished their own spell casting, managed to catch her and keep her from hitting the floor behind the desk. Severus just watched them spirit her onto a plush chair, stamping down the unexpected and wholly unwelcome emotions that were gnawing at the edges of his mind.

He caught himself compulsively trying to clean the single droplet of blood from his hand, an action which was only serving to smear the sticky fluid into a red streak up his wrist. He forced himself to stop, willing himself to calmly wipe the stain away with the absorbancy towel he kept in one of his pockets.

This was sheer stupidity. That had not been Lily in the vision. This woman was not Lily, she didn’t even really resemble her except for in the most superficial of ways. So she had red hair and green eyes, so did millions of other women, especially in this part of Scotland. His reaction had been an act of weakness, brought on by the shock and surprise of the moment, but still inexcusable. Pretty soon he would be seeing imagined ghosts in his morning tea, just like Sybill He had more control than that.

A sharp pain in his palm drew his attention to the fact that he was clenching his fists so hard around the rag that his short fingernails were digging into his skin. He purposefully and forcibly relaxed, folding the towel and returning it to his pocket, reining in his emotions and willing the tension from his thin frame. The situation called for cold logic and quick thinking, not emotional posturing. He was only partially successful.

Vaguely, Severus noted that Albus had produced a thick blanket from somewhere, which he was spreading across their unconscious guest. “Minerva, I believe that we are about to be flooded by the rest of the faculty,” he said quietly. “I will attempt to head them off, if you would be so kind as to pick Poppy out of the crowd. I believe that Miss Rosenberg has only overextended herself somewhat, but I want to make absolutely sure that this is nothing more serious.”

“Of course,” Minerva responded, but her voice was a far cry from its usual, calm self. Severus quirked his lips in the tiniest of ironic smiles at her discomfiture. It was perversely pleasing to know that the unflappable Minerva McGonagall was also unsettled, dare he say flustered, by the unconscious witch at her side. Still, she leaned forward and wiped away the worst of the blood on the girl’s face with a handkerchief. Practical and protective, even under fire, that was hallmark Minerva.

“Severus, I suspect that your eyes will also return to normal with rest, but I would like for Poppy to look at you as well. In the meantime, would you mind keeping an eye on Miss Rosenberg while we handle the others?” Albus asked, though it wasn’t really a question. In fact, he didn’t even wait for Severus’ confused if acquiescing nod before sweeping towards the exit to his office, Minerva close behind him.

Severus’ mind was trying to race off in a multitude of directions at once, but now that the magic and adrenaline was starting to drain out of his body, leaving behind only aching joints and fried nerves in their wake, he was going to have to stick to one mental tangent at a time. He already felt like his brains had been rendered for soup.

First things first, what was wrong with his eyes? The disconcerting hum from the strange magic was still crawling over his skin, although it was starting to dissipate. He spotted a small hand mirror on the shelf behind Dumbledore’s desk and managed to stagger his way to it without falling over, an option that was looking more and more attractive. Picking up the silver mirror, it took a serious effort of will to not drop the thing in shock at what he saw.

His eyes were solid black, like the wandless witch’s had been during their casting. No, not exactly. He could see his normal dark eyes and hints of white behind the swirling black eddies, and even as he watched, the wisps of darkness seemed to lessen somewhat, either draining out of him or soaking into his very flesh. It was hard to tell.

He retreated to the far side of the room, mirror in hand and collapsed into the chair farthest from the witch. There he sat, alternating glaring at the mirror and glaring at the girl, trying to determine what in the bloody hell she had done to him, until his eyes had finally returned to their normal hue.

Then, he just glared at the girl.

So this was the mysterious Miss Willow Rosenberg. Severus’ eyes narrowed into mere slits. He would give her one thing, she certainly knew how to make an entrance. Reason dictated that the timing of her arrival was simply too fortuitous if she had not also been involved in the shields’ failure somehow.

He doubted that this was some kind of stunt on the part of the Council of Watchers, though that was always a possibility. He, Albus, and Minerva had been the ones to actually cast the spells, not the watcher, so it was doubtful that she had managed to slip something new into the weave of the wards. Then again, he was not entirely certain of what she could do. That display of power, not to mention the foreign taste of the magic she had summoned and the unusual way with which she could manipulate it lead him to believe that her methods for spell casting were even more different from his own than he had been expecting. He would have to ask Albus to check and make sure that nothing out of the ordinary had crept into their defenses, just in case.

Even he couldn’t bring himself to believe that it had been a staged demonstration, a ploy to exhibit the extent of the witch’s power. Not with the streak of blood that was once again starting to trickle down towards her lip. In general, any display meant to awe the observers with a demonstration of raw power was not best capped off by passing out from exhaustion and bleeding on your rival’s furniture.

So if that ruled out intentional subterfuge that left… what? An accident? Albus had intimated that Miss Rosenberg seemed to be the best witch that the Council had to offer. It seemed unlikely that they would send an incompetent into this situation. Then again, it was true that rumors often tended to hold grains of truth, and the low opinion of wandless witches in the wizarding community had to have come from somewhere. Was the best they had to offer a loose cannon? Something to think about, but again, Severus doubted it. Maybe funneling all of that magic into him hadn’t taken finesse, but it had required an impressive amount of control.

Then again, if her magic had felt foreign to him, then theirs must have seemed equally odd to her. An accident based on unfamiliarity instead of incompetence? Slightly more excusable and definitely possible, especially considering what had just happened to his eyes. Her eyes had done the same, indicating that the change might be a normal part of her casting, no matter how unexpected the effect had been for him.

Very, very interesting.

He was still thinking on the matter, long fingers drumming slowly on his arm rest, when Minerva returned with Poppy, both women bustling to the far side of the room where Miss Rosenberg, or as he should start referring to her, Professor Rosenberg, was still sleeping, and bleeding, on the brocaded chair.

Poppy muttered something to Minerva, who backed away to give the mediwitch more room. Severus decided that he trusted his legs to not buckle out from underneath him and shoved himself to his feet. Poppy didn’t look up from her work, scanning the new professor for any internal injuries or ailments, either magical or mundane in nature. Minerva gave him a tight lipped nod when he turned back from returning the mirror to its place on the shelf. He walked to her side, unable to keep a tired drag out of his step. Reaching her side, he unconsciously crossed his arms across his chest.

Minerva had a pinched, worried expression on her face. They might not have been close, the rivalry between the heads of Slytherin and Gryffindor houses was only partially for show, but Severus still knew her well enough to recognize when she was truly upset. Still, offering any kind of comforting platitude was far outside of his social repertoire. Something safely neutral then. “She is younger than I was expecting,” he commented flatly.

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. Minerva’s face fell even further. “I know,” she said with a sigh.

So that was her problem. If Albus did not shy away from using students as pawns on the chessboard of this war, then he would certainly tap any resources the Council of Watchers willingly sent his way, young and attractive as they might be. “Do not paint her as an innocent, Minerva. Her organization regularly deals in vampires, demons, and worse. Also, I believe that we have firmly established the kind of power she has.” All of this was delivered in a dry monotone, a clinical retelling of the facts.

Minerva huffed in exasperation. “She is barely older than a student herself, and I strongly doubt that she has any idea of what she is facing here. Have a heart, Severus.”

Have a heart. His heart was perfectly fine where it was, safely under tight lock and key, where it couldn’t cause him any more trouble. Having a heart in his line of work was a quick way to end up dead. “Some of us cannot afford the luxury, Minerva,” he coldly snapped.

Minerva looked as if he had struck her, and even Poppy stopped her incantation to look over her shoulder at the two of them. Severus just sneered at them both.

“Save your condescension as well as your pity for someone who cares,” he hissed before turning on his heel and storming out of the room. If Poppy wanted to waste her time checking his eyes, she could bloody well make house calls. This conversation was unequivocally over.

Albus was still outside, explaining what had just happened to the throng of confused faculty members. The wards had reacted oddly with their new professor’s magic, everything is fine now, please go away and pretend like nothing happened. Perhaps that wasn’t a direct quote, but the gist was the same. What was worse, Severus noted with disgust, was that most of them were blindly accepting the headmaster’s comforting words, nodding like the sheep they were.

Severus pushed his way through the crowd, nearly slamming into a prim cow dressed in nauseating pinks and scribbling on a clipboard. Umbridge, if he wasn’t mistaken, and already writing some missive for her master. He had conveniently waited to inform Albus of his early morning letter until right before her arrival and official presentation to the faculty. He was not above twisting Order business to suit him, and he had no interest in being lined up in front of the Ministry’s spy to be studied, interpreted, and recorded for a report to Fudge.

His feelings on the subject had not changed much since morning.

Severus pushed past her as well, ignoring her indignant exclamation, and broke free of the throng of people. He didn’t even give the casual rudeness a second thought. Inside of this school, that was who he was. Professor Severus Snape, asinine potions master and all around selfish bastard. The Death Eater who had escaped punishment. The Slytherin sadist.

The greasy git.

Oh yes, he knew all about that particular nickname. It concerned him not at all, past the vaguely pleasing knowledge that he was doing his job well. Why should he care about his appearance? He was clean in truth, if not in appearance. He knew the spells and potions to style his hair as well as anyone else, he simply didn’t see the point of wasting the time and effort.

Severus had long ago plotted the fastest ways to get from any point in the school to any other, due in part to his own tenure as a student here as well as excessive patrolling of the hallways after curfew. It was a useful set of knowledge to have, as demonstrated by his rapid arrival at the potions classroom, deep in the dungeons of the castle.

A word sent the torches around the room flaring, lighting the dark area in a sulfurous yellow glow. He hadn’t entered the room since the end of the last term, but the house elves had kept it free of the dust and cobwebs which would otherwise have collected in every nook and cranny. Reagent inventories were mindless work, but maybe if he brewed a few potions at the same time, he would have enough on his mind to find a little peace in the task, free of thoughts involving Dark Lords, political entanglements, blood stained hands, and wandless witches with familiar red hair.

~*~*~*~

“It is strange, don’t you think?”

Severus did not look up from the broken jar and strands of kelpie mane that he was carefully brushing into a dustpan. He had knocked it from its shelf earlier, shattering the leaded glass and scattering the wet locks of hair across the floor. He must have been more tired than he had imagined, to have been so careless.

Albus continued, blithely ignoring the fact that he was being ignored in turn. “There are not many people who can so rapidly unhinge both you and Minerva, a fact which seems particularly noteworthy, considering your very different temperaments.”

Severus brushed past the headmaster, his half-filled dustpan in hand. Released from their preserving fluid, the bits of mane were already starting to dry out, rendering them useless for potions work, if not immune to the negative reaction to cleaning spells that was the reason he found himself performing this task the muggle way. Thankfully, he would not be needing any kelpie hair in any great quantity until the spring term. He had some in reserve in his personal stores, but properly collected and preserved hair was difficult to procure on short order. He would need to place an order as soon as possible to replace the ruined batch.

“She is in the infirmary now. Poppy wanted to keep her for observation,” Albus commented conversationally, leaning close to look at a jar of wormwood worms. “And speaking of Poppy, she stopped by your rooms earlier to check on your eyes, but you were not there, obviously.”

The bits of glass and hair found their way into the lab’s disposal system, a bin that immolated anything placed within it upon contact. Many a failed student-made potion of dubious nature had ended up in this same bin. Severus used his wand to make sure that the dustpan was entirely emptied before returning it to its hanging hook on the wall. It wouldn’t do to have a reaction occur in an unclean pan the next time it was used.

“Considering the circumstances, I understand Minerva’s reaction, but yours is a bit more of a mystery. I was wondering if you would enlighten me?” Albus asked gently.

Severus had no interest in being coddled, and he certainly did not wish to discuss this topic. However, long experience told him that he would have to provide some kind of answer if he wanted Albus to go away. “I was simply taken by surprise by the nature and volume of her magic. Reconstructing the wards was extremely fatiguing.” His voice was cold and tightly controlled, his face a stony mask.

Albus just picked up the jar of worms and turned it around and around in his hands. “Is that all? Our newest guest has no other features that could have disturbed you?”

Red hair. Green eyes. Dark memories and power. Unbelievable power.

“No,” Severus replied frostily.

Albus met his eyes and held them, but this was Severus’ turf, his rules. His mind was carefully shielded again, and not even the headmaster could pierce those defenses. In the end, it was Albus who broke eye contact with a weary sigh. “Do be careful, Severus,” he finally said, returning the worms to their place on the shelf, label facing out and carefully centered, just like the potions master liked it. “My door is as open to my faculty as it is to my students, but in the meantime, I would like to see a draft of your report on Miss Rosenberg before you send it. A note on the incident with the wards might not be out of place either,” and with that, Albus nodded briefly before exiting the room as silently as he had entered it.

Severus did not move for many minutes, mulling over the headmaster’s words, but soon the last of Poppy’s potions called his attention back to the task at hand. He had neither the time nor the patience to deal in Albus’ abstractions and riddles.

Be careful? It had been a stupid, sentimental warning. Severus was always careful.