"And then what?" Professor McGonagall said sharply. The last few stragglers from her Transfiguration class brushed past them in the doorway, glancing curiously; but she took no notice. "What else happened last night?"
Magnus Lovell, accosted unexpectedly in the corridor on his way back from his afternoon Arithmancy lesson, gave her a look almost as puzzled as those of her earlier class. "What else? Well, we worked — at least, after he'd done with telling me off for daring to talk to his pet pony, I did the work, heating up water, wiping out cauldrons, holding this and that, while Professor high-and-mighty Snape did his usual stir and sniff wonder chef act—"
Appalled, Magnus had dropped his bag and clamped both hands over his mouth instinctively, trying to stem the truculent flow. He hardly dared meet Professor McGonagall's eyes. "Professor, I didn't mean...I don't know what...."
But to his relief, Professor McGonagall's eyes were twinkling behind her glasses. "Oh, I think I've a pretty fair idea what, Lovell, and it'll wear off in a day or two at the latest. Professor Snape tested his potion on you, didn't he?"
Magnus nodded, mutely, barely trusting his own voice. "We brewed up three or four different versions—" he gained confidence — "and he tested them all. And then he told me to drink one, and made me stand over the other side of the room, and gave me orders. All sorts of silly things I was supposed to do, and half the time when I got it right he'd shout at me, and tell me to do something else. I did the best I could, honestly I did, but nothing I tried was good enough."
To his horror, Magnus found the hot tears he thought he'd finally outgrown prickling again at the back of his eyes, as they had not even under Snape's relentless humiliation. He swallowed, hard.
"Professor Snape was furious. He made me drink the other potions—" his mouth twisted in remembered revulsion — and then go through the whole thing all over again. And he kept saying," Magnus swallowed again, "horrible things. All the while. Horrible things...."
Professor McGonagall made a small movement, as if on the verge of reaching out, but checked herself. "And?" she prompted, very gently.
"And...." Magnus hesitated for a moment, flushing.
"I just couldn't take it any more. Something came over me, and I told him if he didn't like the way I did his silly tricks then that was too bad, because I wasn't going to waste any more time trying to get them right, and he could just put that in his cauldron and boil it. And stick in his own head while he was at it, because it didn't matter what he washed it in, it could only be an improvement—"
He broke off. Professor McGonagall, her head buried in her hands, had made a queer choking noise. It might have been a sob.
"Oh dear," she said, emerging after a moment, her voice unsteady. She removed her spectacles and mopped at her eyes. "And what did Professor Snape do then?"
Magnus shivered. "For a second he looked — well, you can guess how he looked." Joseph Lovell, his father's adored elder brother, had been burnt to death by supporters of He Who Must Not Be Named, using the Immolation Curse, when Magnus was only a child. He could still remember the night they'd brought the news, the first and last night he'd ever seen his father cry.... In those instants facing Snape, still numb from the unbelievable things he'd just heard himself say, he'd seen the black murder in the other man's eyes; and known suddenly that hate like that must have been what Uncle Joseph had seen, in those last endless moments as they burned him alive.
He'd been too scared to cry out, let alone to run. But then—
"Then he got this really weird look," Magnus said slowly. "He told me he'd have me expelled, and I said I didn't care, and he — I think he looked pleased...." He shivered again, remembering that queer look of satisfaction, and ambition, and pitiless interest, as if he'd been held up in a jar for inspection like one of those specimens in Snape's office...and yet somewhere, he'd swear, in the whole unreadable mixture, there'd been approval and even a touch of respect.
"Yes, he would look pleased," Professor McGonagall said, smiling as Magnus jumped at the sound of her voice. "It's all right, Lovell. You reacted exactly as Professor Snape wanted. I don't suppose that potion would have been enough to let you throw off the Imperius Curse—" Magnus flushed, wondering if the story of his last week's disastrous Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson had been circulating around the entire staff room — "but it strengthened your will enough to allow you to defy authority, perhaps for the first time in your life."
She smiled at him again, her rather severe face betraying a hint of affection. "I've no fault to find with your work, Magnus, you're an excellent student. But if there's one thing I've always said to Professor Flitwick, it's that you're almost too sweet-tempered for your own good. If you of all people found the will to stand up to Snape — not that I advise a repeat performance," she added hastily, clearing her throat— "then a true Free-will Potion is a possibility. A definite possibility."
She looked excited. Magnus, putting two and two together, supposed he probably ought to be feeling excited too. It was just that right now, the idea of being anywhere near a Snape who was playing around with the Imperius Curse gave him a sinking feeling as if a broomstick had dropped out from under him. "Does that mean...he's going to want me back after all? Tonight?"
The words spilled out as a goat-like bleat of dismay before he could stop them, and Professor McGonagall gave him a sharp look. "You mean he's said nothing? You've not seen him at all today?"
"Not since he told me to get out and get back up to the Ravenloft at ten o'clock last night...." Magnus said, feeling the words spill out of his mouth with a sort of astonishment at his own daring. "Why — is something wrong?"
"No," Professor McGonagall said quickly. But she was frowning. "Nothing at all. It's just— I'd assumed—"
She sighed. "Professor Snape hasn't been to the staff room in two days, or the teachers' table at Hall, or eaten anything at all so far as I can make out. I've known him like this before, mind, when he's been working...but by all accounts I don't believe he's sleeping well either. This morning, now, he turned up half an hour late for the first lesson looking like death warmed over, and scared a class of first-years into fits. I had to restore a hundred and seventy points to Hufflepuff alone — and even by Severus' standards—"
The Deputy Headmistress broke off suddenly with a glance at Magnus. Two spots of colour had appeared high on her cheeks. "Well, that's neither here nor there, Mr Lovell. I'd assumed that the two of you at least would be talking, that was all. With Professor Snape not himself — and Dark Magic in question—"
She broke off again, looking worried. "When will you next see him?"
"Not before tonight — even assuming he does want me again." And assuming I want to go back, that is. But the rebellious thought didn't make it out. Magnus sighed. "I've got homework for my N.E.W.T.s, Professor — I can't spend all my free time down in the dungeons—"
"Of course not," Professor McGonagall agreed briskly, sounding for a moment much more like herself. "But after supper I want you to go and offer your assistance as normal, just as if nothing had happened. I'm sure there will be no awkwardness at all."
Magnus found himself wondering if even she believed that, or if she was trying to persuade herself as much as him; but he capitulated with a sigh. "Yes, Professor."
"Good boy." Professor McGonagall looked extremely relieved. "I know Severus likes to work alone...but just now I'd be much happier if I knew there was someone else down there with him."
She sighed. "And no doubt he'll be missing Hall again tonight. I've a good mind to have a plate sent down there from the kitchens, though I know well he'll call it 'interfering'...."
For a ghastly moment Magnus thought she was about to ask him to make certain that Professor Snape ate up his supper, but mercifully, if she'd had it in mind, she thought better of it.
"And you'll be sure to let me know how the work is coming along?" she said instead, laying a delaying hand on his sleeve.
"I think Professor Snape would be much happier if he was the one to tell you that himself," Magnus managed, with another little spurt of saving defiance.
Professor McGonagall's lips thinned, and she stared at him very hard from behind her glasses; but after a moment she relaxed. "I'm sorry, Lovell. You're quite right, and Professor Snape would not thank me for it. I'll see him myself this evening."
She shut the door to the Transfiguration classroom firmly behind her, but hesitated, looking back at Magnus before he had made it more than a few steps down the corridor. "You'll have guessed what we're working on, I suppose?"
"The Imperius Curse," Magnus said cautiously, watching her expression. "Resisting...the Imperius Curse—"
Professor McGonagall cut him off. "It might be best if you don't talk about it. Not unless you're asked."
"Even to Professor Dumbledore?" Magnus said involuntarily, and saw her face close down. For one wild moment he almost expected the Deputy Headmistress to say "Especially Professor Dumbledore"; but instead she simply frowned and said, rather sharply, "Naturally — if you're asked. I do hope you can see that the last thing we want is irresponsible rumours flying around the school — particularly after last year."
Magnus nodded. It must have been emphatic enough, evidently, because Professor McGonagall smiled in reassurance. "It is only rumours, so far, Lovell. If this works...we'll have a defence in reserve, that's all."
Suddenly brisk once more, she pulled herself to her full height and gathered her robes around her. "And now, young man, I for one have work to do."
A swift nod of farewell later, and she was gone, her footsteps tapping rapidly away into the echo along the corridor. Magnus followed, more slowly. Despite himself, he was thinking of Uncle Joseph's fate again, and remembering stories of things Dark wizards were said to have done with the Imperius Curse.
Judging by the tray and empty plate, Magnus Lovell decided that evening, Professor McGonagall had evidently fulfilled her threat of having Snape's meals sent down to him. It didn't seem to have improved the man's foul mood, though.
In the course of the last two hours Snape had managed to find fault with just about everything his assistant had done, whether under his direct instructions or not. For the first time in his life, it had occurred to Magnus to wonder, rebelliously, just how much difference it really made to have measured out five and a quarter drachms of powdered forkroot instead of five and a half, or sixteen grains of cobweb in place of fourteen. It wasn't Snape, after all, who was going to be affected if the fire burned for a few seconds less than the stipulated time before the cauldron was swung off the heat — somehow he really didn't see the Potions master administering experimental dosages to himself. And it wasn't as if Snape had any practical basis for the absurd precision of those figures, save for the endless sheets of notes he'd been scrawling over for days. Magnus stole a few moments away from his dutiful observation of the slow, viscid surface of the potion, now on the point of boiling, to slide a sidelong glance at the other man.
Snape was scowling yet again over his own cramped writing in the lamplight, looking as if he wanted to murder the parchment — possibly by stabbing it to death with the hooked blade of his own overlarge nose, judging by the way he was bringing it closer and closer to his face. Magnus couldn't help a grin at the thought. It was unfortunate that it was at this precise moment that the cauldron finally came to the boil.
Snape swung round on the instant, his stare taking in Magnus' hastily-fading grin and the all-too-obviously unattended cauldron and narrowing to a spear of pure ice.
"I suggest that you add the steeped speedwell now, Mr Lovell—" Magnus had begun to slide the dragonsmane mat under the base of the cauldron in an instinctive attempt to look busy— "now. And pray — if there is any Deity that will deign to listen to you — that it is not too late!"
The little four-lobed flowers certainly gave off a distinctly unpleasant smell, even by Potions standards, as they slid wetly over the rim of the flask and met the hot liquid. Magnus, leaning gingerly over the potion to see if it was clarifying or not, had to conjure a hasty Shielding Charm to ward off the fumes.
Snape, who had arrived at his elbow with his customary silent and unwelcome rapidity, was manipulating the dragonsmane diffusing mat between the cauldron and the flame, handling the scorching metal sides with a tight-lipped urgency that had to be costing him in burns, even through the callus-marks of long years of practice. His voice hissed through clenched teeth. "I have allowed you a great deal of leeway this evening, Mr Lovell, much against my inclination, because I am aware that your abnormal behaviour is resulting from observable side-effects of the potions to which you were exposed last night. I would remind you that my patience is far from infinite, and that you are treading very, very close to the limits of its extent."
He released the dragonsmane weave, which was starting to diffuse a gentle simmering heat into the cauldron above, where the liquid had begun to take on a deep, clear reddish hue.
"One more unforced error from you now could cost all the work that has been put into this project from the beginning," Snape said softly, staring down into the potion's depths as if Magnus, barely eight inches away, did not even exist. "There will be no second chances for anyone in this. But if you give me cause to lay that failure at your door — then believe me, Lovell, you will spend the rest of your time at Hogwarts wishing you had never been born." That last word was spat out like a dagger, the icy black of Snape's stare swinging suddenly upwards to pinion Magnus without warning, and despite himself the boy flinched.
But Snape had already turned on his heel and stalked off, back to his piles of research and his notes, a faint beading of sweat standing out on the unhealthy sheen of his skin. 'Looking like death warmed over': Magnus remembered Professor McGonagall's words with a jolt. And she'd hinted at Dark Magic. Professor Snape looked like a man who'd spent the last few days fighting off the Imperius curse — or fighting the worst part of himself.
All sorts of unpleasant thoughts were flooding through his mind, as if a tap somewhere outside had been turned suddenly on. Professor McGonagall's veiled warnings. Dark mutterings from his own father about the war years. The caged creature in the corner, uncleaned, unfed. The unwitting use he himself had been made of by Snape last night. The realisation, cold and uncomfortable, that no-one from Ravenclaw knew he was here—
"Don't be daft," Magnus told himself under his breath. The Deputy Headmistress had practically sent him down here herself, hadn't she? And nothing of that sort could be going on at Hogwarts anyway. It would be stupid — and, as years of students had discovered to their cost, the one fault Professor Snape had never been accused of was lack of intelligence.
Giving himself a firm mental shake, Magnus peered down into the cauldron and breathed a sigh of relief. By luck or by judgement, the last ingredients had evidently been added just in time.
The liquid now simmering gently on the diffused heat had cleared to a dark, almost crystalline red, like the deepest crimson silk. In the ray of light that he sent down into the depths from the end of his wand, as he'd been taught, translucent veils shifted like ghosts of draperies in the heat, promising secrets, hiding truths. Magnus caught his breath, remembering what, in the past few days, he had almost forgotten. He'd not only been good at Potions; he'd loved it, once.
That childhood glamour had worn off, some time during his second year, to be replaced by the patient reality of researching, measuring and testing. But it had never been quite lost, and classes in the dungeon had been the brighter for it.
Small thanks to Snape — the thought stole in for the first time, as if through a stranger's eyes, with a jolt. Small thanks to Professor Snape, who'd bullied and hectored them through the work with thinly-disguised contempt and the scantiest of praise. And all the while Magnus Lovell had kept his head down, obeyed without complaint, and been grateful for whatever scraps of commendation the master chose to toss his way, like a good, obedient little student....
Magnus flushed, trying to quash the image. But it had lodged itself in the corners of his mind like the insinuations of an anonymous letter.
"Sir, it's ready," he told Snape hastily, as if to disown the thought.
For a moment Snape gave no sign of having heard him; then he straightened up abruptly, letting the scroll he'd been studying snap shut, and nodded.
"All right, Lovell." The words were harsh. "You know what to do."
Magnus nodded in turn, with reluctance. Blood magic was one of the strongest forces there was, and even without Snape's notes he could guess at why this was necessary. He made his way slowly towards the barred enclosure, drawing his wand, and began to set the Controlling Charm that would keep the animal helpless on its last, short journey. It seemed to him that there was very little difference between what they were doing now, and the Dark Arts they were supposedly working to combat.
The each uisge watched his movements with a bright, dark eye, pressing up against the bars and snorting softly against the surreptitious hand he had slipped down to fondle its nose. The black hide was sleek and glossy, like an otter's pelt.
He rubbed round its muzzle, feeling the ridges of teeth behind soft lips, and remembering his own nips and bites ruefully. But the creature no longer showed any signs of fear or resentment, and its gentle breath was warm against his fingers....
"Don't be such a fool." Snape's voice in his ear was icy cold, and Magnus sprang back without thinking, his hand cracking painfully against the bars. "Haven't you learned anything at all, Mr Lovell? Or do you think you know it all where soft, sweet, lovable animals are concerned?"
For a moment they stared at each other like images in a distorting-mirror, two dark faces across an abyss; Magnus' still sun-browned from the summer, Snape's sallow skin faded to a yellowish underground pallor. Black gaze met black — and this year, for the first time, Magnus realised with a sort of queer shock, it was Snape who had to look up. It was hard to comprehend, even now, that the years had brought change — that he himself had grown taller, broader, stronger than the older man who had loomed over him in his mind's eye for so long.
"No, sir," he said quietly, backing off, still hugging the new perception to his breast like a tiny flame. He watched Snape unlocking the cage. "No, sir, I don't know it all."
Snape was removing the charms that sealed the gate, now, his back to Magnus. The each uisge had shrunk away at his approach. Its ears were back, and it made as if to nip at Snape's wrist, only to be brought up short by the Controlling Charm.
Magnus held onto the leash of that magic, grimly, depriving the creature of even the most token defiance during the few seconds that Snape would need as he released the final binding charms. He couldn't seem to think very clearly. He couldn't seem to remember why Snape had been so adamant about what they were doing; all he could think of was the each uisge's rolling, desperate eyes — and the sudden knowledge that at this instant, for these few moments, Snape's safety was entirely in his hands. He'd never thought of it that way before. But there was a strange pleasure in it — in holding the ultimate power over another human being.
He tested the limits of his magic, carefully, keeping his wand trained steadily on the side of the cage. He could feel weak power struggling against his as the creature fought, trying to balk as it was forced out of the enclosure. Snape's face was twisted unpleasantly in concentration, his lips constantly moving.
It would be so easy — the thought, slipping in from the edges of Magnus' awareness, was almost irresistible — so easy to let the Controlling Charm slip by just a fraction. Just enough to get one really good nip in on Snape.... Nothing happened.
He took a couple of steps closer, unseen. Reaching out to touch a slick black neck as the ground seemed to recede, dream-like, far beneath him. Trying, all of a sudden, to clutch back the vestiges of his fractured Charm, as the first fringes of howling fear slid across his understanding — too little, too late — and the feeble fluttering power that had aroused such pity swelled up, and up, vast and hungry and old. Roaring free through the opening he had made, like a river in spate. Sweeping away all words and protections, shattering the Containment Curse that had held it pent.
The each uisge, a flame of crimson hatred flickering in its eyes, devoured the last fragments of his mind that still remained his own, its own jaw lolling slack in ghastly parody. In the next instant it had turned, razor-swift, upon Snape.