The Alchemist - Chapter 17

[northangel27]

 Sorry this took so long. It was a little hard to get back into the swing of things after the holidays.  I will try and get Chapter 18 out this week as well.  After that I will be out of town for a week on business, so it may be awhile until I get Chapter 19 up.  Here you go:

The surface of the lake was placid and serene and Harry was sure that he must be the only one awake on such a frosty Saturday morning.  The ice and frost that had gathered off and on over the last few weeks had finally melted, but there was still a bite in the air, and he was glad that he had thought to bring his coat.  His head felt blurry and his eyes heavy.  He had not slept a wink the night before.  After all he had witnessed in Dumbledore’s office the previous evening his mind was too burdened with suppositions and questions that he did not think he really wanted clarification on.

 

Somewhere in the clear, crisp air, a lone bird began to sing its solitary song, announcing the dawn and he walked down to the water’s edge where he bent down and picked up a handful of rocks which he began to skip aimlessly across the glassy surface of the water.  The little bird continued on in its tune, and after a time another joined in, much closer.  The two took up what sounded a little like a conversation and he stopped to listen, intrigued.  The second bird seemed to be located in a tiny copse of bushes hugging the base of a beech tree a few feet away, and as there was nothing else to hold his attention he decided to go over and investigate.

 

As he drew near to the tree the first bird soared past his shoulder and lit on the top of one of the rose bushes surrounding the trunk, where it hopped about chirping its responses to the questions being asked it from deep inside the of branches.  Finally, it disappeared into the tangle.  Suddenly there was a rustling in the branches, and for a moment he feared that some sort of predator must have been lurking there, as the birds song stopped abruptly, but at that moment a familiar blond head popped up from the brambles, the tiny bird perched amicably on her outstretched finger.  He took a quick step back at her unexpected appearance and nearly stumbled.  It was only then that she noticed him.

 

“Oh Harry, I didn’t expect anyone would be up and about this early.  I was just visiting with Cory…”

 

It struck him as oddly absurd that a sparrow should be named Cory, but he was used to Luna Lovegood’s eccentricities by now and knew better than to ask.

 

“Yeah, I was just…  Well, I didn’t sleep too well last night so I thought that I would get up and go for a walk rather than just lying around and waiting for breakfast.”

 

The bird was still sitting on her finger and it cocked its head to one side as though trying to understand what they were saying.  “It’s the nearness of the full moon.  I can never sleep on full moon either.  It’s fine though, it’s the best time for harvesting aconite, which is good for curing blood boils and …”

 

He raised an eyebrow.  “Aconite, isn’t that fairly dangerous?”

 

“Oh no, not as long as you know how to harvest and prepare it.  Professor Sprout was quite helpful in explaining the harvesting process in detail, and Professor Snape had us do that paper on the preparation last year, do you remember?  Daddy says that he is wrong about its application for…”

 

She continued to prattle on, but Harry didn’t hear anymore.  The mention of Snape had brought back all the questions that he had just managed to finally push from his mind, and he felt the fuzzy heaviness returning to his already weary brain.  A series of chirps and whistles finally brought him back to the present.  Luna had taken up her conversation with the bird again.

 

He raked a hand through his hair and sighed.  “I’m sorry Luna, I …”

 

“It’s alright Harry…”  She whistled a last few phrases and the bird sprang from her finger and disappeared into the morning sky.  “You have a lot on your mind,” she finished with a kind smile.

 

“Yeah, but I didn’t mean to ...”

 

“Do you want to come in?”  She motioned to the small space beside her in the midst of the bushes.

 

“How do you get in there?”

 

“There’s a little space just there.”  She pointed to a small hole that barely looked big enough for a small dog to pass through let alone a full grown person.  “Be careful though, it’s a bit thorny.”

 

After tearing a nice big whole in the leg of his trousers he thought that ‘a bit’ was a rather large understatement, but once he actually made his way through the riot of branches, the space she had found for herself next to the trunk was quite cozy.  He looked around at the small clearing, just large enough to seat two people comfortably and imagined that it must be quite nice in the summer when the leaves were out in full.  As it was, it totally hid them from sight even with the late autumn bareness.  “How did you find this place?”

 

“Oh…I was just searching for bramble fairies one day and thought that this looked like a likely spot.  No fairies, unfortunately, but I thought it rather nice after I found it.  I come here sometimes when I want to be alone…”

 

He nodded.  “It’s nice.”

 

She smiled and leaned back against the trunk to stare up at the early morning clouds skittering across the golden sky above them.  “I like it here.  It reminds me of my, Mum.”

 

He had settled in beside her and taken to staring at the sky himself, but his eyes returned to her face now.  “Really?  Why?”

 

“She used to tell me tales when I was little about how she would come and sit under the trees by the lake when she was a girl here at Hogwarts.  It was while she was doing homework under a beech like this one day that she first met Albertus.”

 

“Who’s Albertus?”

 

“Oh he was this boy that Mum loved when she was in school.  They were really close, but…well, things went wrong between them.”

 

“Oh.  I…I’m sorry.  That’s…that’s really sad.  And she just told you this story?”

 

“Oh yes, she loved him very much.  It took her a long time to get over it, but then when she was doing her Alchemy apprenticeship at Paracelsus College in Oxford she met Daddy, and they just had so much in common that they knew they had to get married.  They did a lot of research together.”

 

“Doesn’t it bother you that your mum loved someone other than your dad?”

 

She looked at him curiously.  “No, why should it?  She loved Albertus, but she loved Daddy too.  It doesn’t mean that she loved Daddy any more or less, it just means that…well, I guess she loved them differently.”

 

Harry leaned back against the trunk again and stared back up at the clouds.  They were starting to break up and the sun had begun to take on a warmth that made him suppose it would be a beautiful day.  He started a little as the sensation of Luna’s soft mittened hand stole over his cold one.

 

“Do you feel any better now, Harry?”

 

He shrugged.

 

“Maybe you should talk to them about it.”

 

“Who?”

 

“The person you’re upset with.”

 

He just stared at her.  “I…I didn’t say I was upset with anyone.”

 

She just smiled again. 

 

“I…I can’t.  I can’t talk to them.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I…I just…It would be like you having to talk to your dad about your mum’s relationship with that boy back when she was in school.  It would…it would just be awkward.”

 

She shook her head.  “Not really.  Daddy knows about him.  It’s not like it’s a secret.”

 

“Well what if it was?!” he snapped, rather more harshly than he intended.  “What if it was a secret?  What if your dad didn’t know?!”

 

She seemed nonplussed by his tone. “Well, Mum and Daddy told one another everything.  I can’t imagine her not telling him that.”  She patted his hand.  “It’ll be alright, Harry.  You’ll see.”

 

He shook his head and stared down at her mittened hand covering his.  “I don’t think so.”

 

“Just tell the truth, and then you can’t go wrong.  Sometimes it hurts, but in the end it’s always the easiest and fastest way to get things sorted.”

 

He looked back up at her and her impossibly wide blue eyes sparkling innocently in the morning sun.  “Thanks Luna.”

 

She nodded.  “The sun’s gotten high.  I think it’s almost breakfast.  We should head back.  It’s oatmeal this morning.  I never miss oatmeal!” 

 

“Oh, right.”

 

“Ooo…,” she suddenly cried, pointing above her head.  “Look at that cloud.  It looks just like Mrs. Norris!”

 

And it did.

 

 

As the first rays of the dawn pierced through the scattered clouds outside her window Lily let out a sigh of relief as she crawled from beneath the thick blankets of her bed to stride across the room to the window.  She had not slept a wink all night.  The air in the small room that had been provided to her off of Dumbledore’s office was bracing in its chill and she shivered a little as she looked out over the brown lawn.  The grounds were silent and still, even Hagrid, normally an early riser as she recalled, appeared to still be asleep as there was no smoke coming from his chimney.  For the first time since she had returned to the school she felt a sudden desperate longing for her old flat in Burley Court.  True, it was nothing grand, but at least it was home. 

 

The events of the previous evening had taken their toll, and she just couldn’t seem to erase the image of Severus hunched over Albus’ desk trembling with the emotion of all that the loss of her had meant to him.  She felt horribly guilty.  She had never really taken the time to think about how her deception would affect him.  True, she had hardly been in a state to argue when Dumbledore had thrust the plan upon her, but she had had fifteen years after the fact to think over her situation and in all that time she should have at least tried to determine whether or not Severus knew that she was still alive, especially considering how they had parted.  She had, after all, expressed a desire to renew their old friendship on the very eve of her going into hiding. 

 

And then there was the anger.  She was angry at both Severus and Albus.  Albus for obvious reasons: the fact that he had kept her existence from Severus, lied to him even, and to all appearances for no other reason but to keep him a puppet to his plans and whims.   As for Severus, she was angry at him for allowing the old man to manipulate him so, angry at him for loving her, for using that love as an excuse to allow himself to be used for so long.

 

And then there was she.  She was angry at herself more than at anyone.  Angry for being so dense and selfish in her youth, angry for doing as she was told, just as she always had done, and for the terrible consequences her easy acquiescence seemed to have perpetrated on everyone that she cared for.   If Harry’s tales were to be believed, then he had lived a life of neglect at the very least, and abuse at the worst, under her sister’s roof.  And now add to that horrible neglect the fact that her last words to Severus, those expressing a desire to renew their old friendship had planted some sort of fiery hope in his heart that had led him to throw his life away in an attempt to somehow redeem himself, and for what? For a love that could never be, a love for a dead woman.  She shuddered a little in the cold stillness, and wrapped her arms around herself in comfort.

 

A motion at the edge of the forest caught her eye.  Two cloaked figures had appeared just where the forest gave way to lawn.  They hugged the tree line as they walked slowly side-by-side, obviously deep in conversation.  The taller of the two she would have known anywhere.  The bright silver and blue of his robes and brilliant white of his long hair and beard were obviously that of the headmaster.  She had to squint hard at the shadows before she realized that the shorter of the two men was Severus.  The black of his robes blended in so well with the shadows that at first glance she hadn’t even been sure that she had seen two men. 

 

When they had reached a spot several yards past the groundskeeper’s cottage they stopped.  She could tell that Severus was quite agitated, even from a distance.  His posture was straight and unyielding and she could imagine his voice cold and distant.  He motioned toward the cottage and then turned back to the headmaster, who seemed to respond with something that did not please him, for he turned on his heel and began to stride back across the lawn toward the castle.  She could see Albus call after him, but he ignored him and continued on.  The old man did not attempt to follow. 

 

As Severus drew closer she could actually see the look on his face, and was surprised to see something almost akin to disappointment and even hurt, rather than the anger she had expected.  She pressed her hand against the cold window and leaned in toward the glass in an attempt to continue following his progress toward the school, but very soon he had passed beyond her line of sight.  She looked back to the edge of the forest.  Albus still stood there staring after him; after a minute or so more his shoulders slumped and he turned and returned to the school himself.   She backed away from the window then and went back to sit down on the bed.

 

Dumbledore had said nothing to her the night before when he had finally returned to his office and she had assumed from what Severus had said that they would all meet to discuss things, but now she wasn’t so sure.  Perhaps the two men had already discussed things between themselves.  It angered her to think that perhaps her fate was again being decided without her input.  She had no intention of letting that happen again. 

 

She dressed quickly in the chill and then sat back down on the bed to think.  What was she to do?  This life to which she had condemned herself upon returning to the school was worse than anything she had had to endure in Manchester; it was barely a step above Azkaban as far as she was concerned, and slowly but surely her heart was starting to feel as dead and numb as it would have had she been daily exposed to the dementor’s soul crushing presence.  She could not stay locked up in this prison day after endless day.  She needed to do something, to take some sort of action before she slid so far down into this abyss of numb indifference that she would be unable to return.

 

The soft click of the door in the room beyond let her know that Dumbledore had returned.  She did not want to see him.  If she was furious at anyone at present it was him.  The majority of the tears that had kept her awake the previous night had been prompted by the thought of all he had done to Severus.  If her personal experience with the man had taught her anything it was that for him, the ‘greater good’ was always going to be his primary motivator, but she had never thought that he would stoop to such a level. 

 

No doubt there was much more to the tale than even she knew.  She shuddered to think of it.  What exactly was it that Dumbledore had required Severus to do for the Order?  And more terrifyingly still, had he done it willingly, or been forced or manipulated into doing it?  If Severus had been forced into serving The Order all those years, surly there must be concern over where his loyalties currently lay.  Dumbledore seemed to trust him implicitly, but was that trust based on the fact that he felt he had his claws in deep enough to keep her old friend compliant or because he felt that he had truly changed.

 

She remembered the way Severus had clung to her the night before,   the weariness and sincerity in his eyes.  She did not want to believe ill of him.  She wanted to believe that he was changed, that he worked for The Order now because he wanted to, or at the very least because he felt it was the right path to take.  Damn Dumbledore and his Machiavellian schemes!  It was his manipulation that had cast this doubt in her heart.

 

Her stomach growled loudly reminding her that she had eaten nothing since noon the following day, and she supposed that she should make the old man aware that she was awake.  He was usually quick at getting a house elf to attend to her as soon as he knew she was stirring, and as much as she abhorred the thought of facing him at the moment, she wanted answers too.  Quietly she cracked the door and peered through the little hole in the tapestry that covered the door.  The office appeared empty.  Perhaps she had been mistaken in assuming that he had returned.  She squeezed from behind the fabric and stopped short. 

 

He was there after all, at his desk, his head bowed low, buried in his uncursed hand.  He was trembling slightly as though in deep pain, and didn’t seem to notice her presence.  “Albus…?”  She spoke quietly, not wanting to frighten him, but he didn’t move.  “Are you ill?  I can get someone.  Pomfrey or Severus…”

 

His head lifted slowly and she was shocked to see how frighteningly old he looked.  His normally bright eyes were red and blood-shot and his skin was unnaturally pale.  “Sir, you are not well.  Let me call someone.  I know I am not supposed to be seen about the castle, but I could send an elf.  Clearly you need…”

 

He shook his head.  “I will be fine, Lily.  Don’t bother yourself.  I did not know you were awake.  Let me call one of the elves to get you breakfast…”

 

She shook her head.  “You are clearly ill.”  She nodded toward the blackened and twisted hand resting useless on the desk.  “That is fairly serious, is it not?  Are you sure it is contained?”

 

He looked down at the useless appendage for a moment and then looked past her to the sun slowly rising outside the window across the room.  “For the time being…”

 

“Does it give you pain?”

 

His eyes finally met hers.  “No.  There are treatments that keep it at bay.”

 

“It appears to be very dark magic.  I don’t recall Pomfrey having much experience in…”

 

“Severus prepares the necessary potions.”

 

She nodded, and turned away to stride across the room to the window beyond, unable to hold his sad, weary gaze any longer.  Some of her previous fury at the old man began to wane.  She stood in silence for some time, looking out over the lawn where he and Severus had been conversing only a mere half hour before.  He would not want to tell her, but she had to ask.  She had to try.

 

“Albus, what exactly is it that Severus does for The Order?”  She could not bring herself to turn around, and her question had been met with only silence.  She waited.

 

Finally he spoke.  He sounded older than she had ever heard him.  “You know I cannot tell you that.”

 

She shook her head and sighed.  “No…no, of course you can’t…”  She sounded bitter, even to her own ears, and she knew the tone could not have been lost on him.  Finally she turned.  “And he won’t tell me either, will he.”

 

For a moment she thought she saw a little of the old familiar sparkle in the man’s eyes, but it was gone before she could be sure.  “I think not.”

 

She nodded.  “Then I am to be kept in the dark, and must be satisfied to remain there it seems…”  She wanted to fight him, but couldn’t bring herself to do so, not at the moment, not when he was obviously as disturbed by the previous day’s events as she – perhaps more so. 

 

She walked back across the room and sat down across the desk from him.  “I would like to have the opportunity to see him again today.  It has been so many years and there is so much that I…”

 

“I don’t believe that he will agree to it, Lily.”

 

“He seemed eager enough for it, last night.”

 

“Yes, well he has had the night to think things over, and he is somewhat more reticent now that he has time to ponder the situation.”

 

“Is that his decision, or you trying to protect him?”

 

If he was shocked by the candor of her question he gave no sign.  He simply rose and walked across the room to ring the bell for the house elf.  “You still haven’t had your breakfast, Lily, and they will stop serving soon.”

 

She felt herself growing angry then.  “So that is it, I am to be brushed off so easily?  I just want to see my friend, Albus!  Is that so much to ask?!”

 

He spun around with surprising agility considering how weary he had just appeared.  His eyes were bright.  “You are an intelligent girl, Lily.  You know that you are more than that to him!”  He looked as though he wanted to say more, but he restrained himself. 

 

She stared back at him, waiting to see if he would go on, but apparently he expected some sort of response.  “I know...”

 

He walked over to the hearth and lit a fire before strolling over to a cage in the corner that contained a tiny wizened creature that look suspiciously like a fledgling phoenix.  “Your death fifteen years ago was nearly the death of him.  But in the end it set him upon a surer path.  He has become what you hoped for him, Lily, and that would not have happened without…I had to do what I did.  If I had not he would surely be beyond help.  I had no choice.”

 

She wondered if he was trying to convince her or himself, but she kept her silence.

 

“His redemption has been tenuous at times.  I kept the “Defense Against the Dark Arts” position from him for years because of it.”

 

“Perhaps you underestimate him.”  He looked up at her, weariness again showing in his eyes.  She continued.  “Or perhaps you choose to underestimate him because it is easier then giving him his freedom. 

 

“I will not lie, the very doubts that you have have crossed my mind as well since I have returned, even as recently as this morning, but I looked into his eyes last night, Albus, and I saw something, something indefinable that I had never seen there before, something that made me believe he had changed.  You know him far better than I after all these years.  Surely you must see what I have seen.  Surely you know that he can be relied on to go his own way. 

 

“Perhaps there was a time and place for what you did to originally woo him back into the fold, I don’t know.  I am only glad that I have not had to make the decisions that you have, but if he were going to return his allegiance to The Fraternity; surely he would have done so by now.  I do not think you are so afraid of that, as you are of…”  She stopped.  No.  She had no right to make assumptions of that nature, to insinuate herself on a situation that was clearly none of her affair.

 

“Well Lily, you’ve come this far.  Go ahead; say what it is you want to say.”  His voice was calm and quiet, but she sensed barely repressed fear behind it.

 

She sighed and buried her face in her hands for a minute before lifting it again to look him in the eye.  “You know what it is you fear, Albus.  I do not have to restate it for you.  But clinging to the way things were before I returned is not going to solve anything.  You know that.  I did not intend to see Severus again so soon, but it’s happened, and everything has changed, and we all must change with it.  We have no choice.”

 

“Clearly.”  He had opened the cage now and was feeding some sort of tiny squirming creatures to the bird.  “Only time will tell the ramifications of your actions.  For the time being, I would rather err on the side of caution, and if he has no desire to see you at present, then I have no intention of forcing the interaction on him.  Give him time.  He has had quite a shock, and he is not as young as Harry.  He needs time to process it.”

 

She felt defeated.  No doubt the old man was right, but still she couldn’t help the fact that she wanted to speak with Severus again.  There was so much still to say…

 

“Of course I do not want to force something on him that he is not ready for, it’s just that…”  She shook her head.  “Never mind.  Is Harry still coming this afternoon, do you know?  I wondered if he was alright after yesterday.”

 

Albus turned from the cage and rang for a house elf, looking much stronger, much more himself.  “He said nothing to the contrary yesterday evening.  We did not speak of what took place here.  He did not seem ready.”

 

She nodded.  “No doubt he will have many questions…questions I am not sure I have answers for.”

 

At that moment they were interrupted by the pop of the house elf arriving.  He already bore her breakfast, used to the regular orders by now, no doubt. She smiled in thanks as she took the tray from the little creature and moved across the room to place it on the table by the window.

 

She looked back toward the desk. The headmaster sat in silence, busily scribbling away at a huge stack of papers on his desk. Obviously he meant the conversation to be over.  She sat down and ate her breakfast in silence.