Disclaimer: The fine tapestry of plot and characters belongs to J.K. Rowling. I am merely pulling threads at will and weaving my own design in counterpoint to hers.
Chapter 49
A Bit of Rain
All the nervousness that Harry had felt about the evening fell away as Ginny entered through the stone scone, her smile eclipsing all the bracketed lights that shone along the walls. The soft yarn of her creamy sweater made Harry want to hold her in an even closer embrace. As if standing on a distant shore, he watched Ron hold up the metal box housing the locket and wave by the exit to indicate that he and Hermione were going to do reconnaissance in the Trophy Room.
“Where’s Neville this evening?” Ginny asked with feigned casualness as she settled down next to Harry on the sofa.
“Doing his early rounds I suspect,” Harry ad libbed. “Soon to be followed by his later rounds; then the really, really late rounds. Any excuse to spend time with Luna.”
“He’s not very subtle, is he?” Ginny giggled. “So are you going to induct me into the Order or what?”
“Ginny, I’m not even a member myself.”
“I can’t imagine Remus committing such an oversight.” She sighed dramatically. “He’s always such a stickler for the little details.”
Harry laughed in spite of himself. “Well, he has asked me to join “ twice now.”
“Let me guess: you’re holding out for a better offer,” she returned.
“Did you have one in mind?”
Ginny was caught short momentarily but recovered quickly. “You really shouldn’t give me such an opening. I didn’t come prepared to argue my case like that.”
“No arguing necessary, you’ve already won me over,” Harry whispered as he nuzzled her ear.
Ginny giggled before pushing Harry away playfully. She gave him that appraising look of hers and then demanded point blank, “Why all the secrecy in the dungeons today?”
Harry took a moment to compose his thoughts and then outlined his compromise.
“So you think that keeping a low profile will keep people from talking about us?” Ginny summarized.
“You have to admit it’s much more difficult to talk about something that they haven’t got the words to describe.”
“True, so you’re counting on the world being full of amateurs lacking in much imagination. Has the ring of truth to it “ might just work,” Ginny conceded.
“It’s the best I could come up with by myself,” Harry admitted. “I’m not good at the fancy double-blinds like Lupin is. All I can tell you is that if I didn’t address my worries from the start, they would just threaten to overshadow us.”
How could he tell her that despite the happiness in his heart, there were still a few drops of icy dread lurking in its depths?
“I’ll accept your terms,” Ginny offered stoically. “Any other surprises you have waiting in the wings?”
Ginny had always been direct but he really hadn’t been expecting this. “What makes you say that?” he stammered unconvincingly.
“Surely you don’t expect me to think you spend all those hours closeted with Lupin discussing men’s fashions, do you? He’s grooming you to lead the attack on Voldemort, fulfill the destiny of the prophecy.”
“It’s not something I can run away from, Ginny,” Harry admitted in resignation. “If I could, don’t you think I would’ve long ago? I would’ve even offered to take you with me.”
“You might want to rethink that; I have expensive tastes,” she quipped.
And I have a vault full of money that my parents left me, Harry thought to himself but knew better than to offer that as a comeback. She was only joking about accepting trivialities over substance.
“I know we’ve shared a lot of our secrets in the past, Gin, but there are things I’m involved with right now that I won’t be able to share with you. Things that I haven’t even been able to share with Lupin.”
“What sorts of things?” she asked solemnly.
“They involve a promise I made to Dumbledore the night he died. He was very clear that I was only to include Ron and Hermione.”
“And you’ve told no one else?”
“No one.”
“Promise me then that you won’t make me pretend to be seeing someone else as a cover,” Ginny countered.
“I would never ask that of you. Even if you could pull it off convincingly, I would never be able to!”
“As long as we understand one another then…” Her voice was soft and intimate as she sealed their bargain with a long and enduring kiss.
The next day’s Apparition lesson carried an extra bonus: Tonks had agreed to do another practice session with the seventh years. This time Harry was better prepared and when the inevitable request came for her to demonstrate her faerie lights variation, he captured it in the instant replay mode of his Omnioculars. At session’s end, he presented it to her as a gift.
“Now you can finally see the lights for yourself,” he offered.
“Thanks, Harry.” Tonks smiled after watching herself for the first time then went to hand the device back to him.
Harry shook his head. “You keep it.”
“But, Harry, there’s footage of Ginny here. Don’t you want to keep that?”
Seeing that there was no one else in the room with them at that point, Harry saw no reason not to answer her candidly, “From now on, I’m not settling for anything short of the real thing!”
Tonks laughed happily as she peeked out the door to make sure that Lupin was still occupied in the Great Hall. Sure enough, there was a longer line of students waiting to confer with the professor than those who had follow-up questions of their Apparition instructor. Harry caught Ginny’s eye from where she was waiting last in line and smiled in her direction.
“Please don’t tell Remus about the other eleven bottles, Harry,” Tonks beseeched in an urgent whisper. At his surprised look, she added, “Dobby told me. Remus would think it was too extravagant a gift.”
“But you don’t?” Harry was intrigued by her thinking.
“Oh, I do. But I have no problem accepting it. I can recognize a gift from the heart.”
“And you’re saying Remus can’t?”
“His background is just so different; he just doesn’t see things the same way,” Tonks explained. “Especially when it comes to subjects that he considers vulgar to discuss.”
Finally catching on, Harry supplied, “You mean like money and finances?” At Tonks’ nod, he continued, “My parents left me a vault at Gringott’s. I would much have preferred to have them alive instead, but Fate didn’t see it that way. For years all I’ve done with that money is to supply my modest needs at Hogwarts. Who’s to begrudge me the pleasure of making a generous gift to some of my friends?”
“I understand completely, Harry. It’s just that for years, Remus has had nothing…”
“It’s the people we love that matter, Tonks. I’ve been the one who has had nothing. Without that, a pile of galleons is no more than bits of shiny metal.”
Tonks nodded in agreement then supplied, “Remus also forgets that when he finished his schooling, he lived with James and Lily at Godric’s Hollow.” Noticing Harry’s surprise, she elaborated, “This is news to you? Sirius was there most of the time as well.”
“Didn’t they get on each other’s nerves with James and Lily being newlyweds and all?”
“James and Lily had one wing of the house, Remus and Sirius occupied the other,” she replied knowingly.
The snowy days of winter gave way to the sloshy days of March. Grey rain clouds in the afternoon were not uncommon as they hastened the snow to melt in preparation for spring.
Often confined to the castle for weeks on end, Harry and Lupin had taken to transforming the Room of Requirement into various outdoor settings to make themselves feel like they were getting their quota of fresh air and sunshine. Tonks often joined them for teatime picnics on a clear Alpine meadow or on the banks of a tumbling stream. Not that there was actual running water but the illusion was rather convincing from ten feet way.
It was after one such leisurely snack that Harry found the perfect moment to broach a subject that had been preying on his mind. Lupin was relaxing on his back atop a long rock ledge, gazing lazily at the cloud patterns above. Tonks was leaning nearby and allowing the gentle mountain breeze to caress her face and hair.
Still seated on the picnic cloth, Harry reclined on his elbows and began, “Tonks, you always talk about how Mad-Eye Moody was your mentor when you started in the Auror Department. Well, there’s something that I’ve always wondered about the Dark Arts classes he taught during my fourth year.”
“That wasn’t really Alastor Moody,” Tonks reminded him. “That was Barty Crouch, Junior, using Polyjuice Potion.”
“I know; but since no one thought his lessons were anything out of the ordinary then it would have been something the real Moody might have done, right?”
“The lessons seem odd in retrospect?” Lupin surmised in a casual tone, still entranced with the soft blue of the sky.
“A bit,” Harry admitted. “Moody began the year by telling us about the Unforgivable Curses. Demonstrating them, too, on some hairy spiders that he had collected for that very purpose, he said. Not that I would’ve expected him to demonstrate on humans, of course, but how was he able to perform the Unforgivable Curses in the first place? Don’t they have to be fueled by intent? Take the Killing Curse, for instance, doesn’t that require hatred…”
Harry’s words trailed off as he noticed Lupin’s reaction. He had jolted upright and was now facing Harry directly. The look on the man’s brow was reminiscent of a great black thunderhead.
“I really don’t think these are matters that we should be discussing.” Lupin’s tone had a hard edge to it.
“Now, Remus.” Tonks walked up behind Lupin and placed a restraining hand on his arm. “You know we talked about this before.”
Lupin’s words were caustic. “I still don’t think--”
“Remus! We agreed, remember? If Harry asked these questions, I was allowed to answer him.” Lupin made as if to protest once again, but Tonks cut him off. “I recognize that you and I don’t see eye to eye, but we did agree.”
Lupin’s face still bore a mutinous look as he sighed heavily, his lips pursed together as if each of Tonks’ words was offensive to him. It took Harry an extra moment to acknowledge that he was witnessing proof of the major fallout Snape had described. All his doubts about the veracity of Snape’s allegations evaporated.
“But listen to what Harry’s saying,” Lupin continued stubbornly. “I assure you that teaching students to perform Unforgivable Curses has never been part of the Dark Arts curriculum at this school! Dumbledore must have been truly out of touch to have not put a stop to that!”
“Forgive me for not speaking more plainly,” Harry clarified. “The purpose of the demonstration was to teach us how to resist the Imperius Curse by placing us under it in turn.”
“That actually does sound like something the real Moody would do,” Tonks conceded. “His teaching methods have always been a bit unorthodox but undeniably effective.”
“But it sounds like he didn’t stop there. Harry, didn’t he also demonstrate the other two curses?” Lupin prodded.
“Yes,” Harry allowed, “but mainly to state unequivocally that there was no defense against the Avada Kedavra.”
“See that’s where a knowledgeable observer would have immediately recognized that the teacher before them could not possibly have been Alastor Moody,” Lupin asserted firmly. “That statement is blatantly untrue--”
“Yeah, he made a point of signaling me out as the one person who had ever survived the Killing Curse,” Harry supplied.
“The correct statement is that there is no counter-curse, no manner of directly blocking or deflecting the spell,” Tonks explained. “But there are defences. You can simply dive out of the way or hit the assailant with some sort of immobilizing charm before the lethal green light reaches you.”
“Very useful information, Tonks,” Harry replied graciously. “But I’m still not understanding how Crouch was able to do what he did. He put each of us under the Imperius Curse, for goodness sake!”
A quick look in Lupin’s direction indicated that he was looking away from them with a grim expression on his face.
Tonks sat down on the picnic cloth next to Harry and continued in a gentle tone, “It’s a technique that all Aurors must master. Insects are often used in practice since their small size means less effort is required “ not to mention that people often hate insects instinctively. The larger and more complex the subject, though, the more difficult it becomes. But your feelings don’t have to be generated by the subject, they only have to be directed at it. You can dredge up hatred and rage from other sources and with enough willpower, impose them on the subject.”
“I believe the word you’re searching for is victim,” Lupin intoned coldly. “It does no good to teach Harry to objectify that which he’s planning to torture or kill.”
It had been nearly four weeks since his last contact with Snape and Harry was beginning to get a bit anxious. Even though he would never be able to explain why, he was still convinced the man held the key to unlocking the Horcruxes. He was startled when he heard the unmistakable hiss of Snape’s voice emanating from the bottom drawer even though it was an hour earlier than their appointed time.
“I was wondering whether the Dark Lord had found you out yet,” Harry responded.
“Your luck’s never been that good,” Snape sneered. “Unforeseeable circumstances require a change of contact time. Make note of it.”
“Looks like my schedule will allow for that but you could have asked more politely.”
“My situation doesn’t allow for such luxuries,” Snape shot back. “Besides, I believe you have something that belongs to me.”
Harry was immediately on alert. “What makes you think that?” he answered coyly.
Snape’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “I told you I was the Half-Blood Prince. What else do you need from me?”
“If you wanted to hang on to your book, why did you discard it in a pile of old textbooks?”
“To keep it hidden and distance myself from it.”
“Again not the actions of a man who respects his property,” Harry countered, determined not to give in easily.
“The book is dangerous. Need I remind you of your attack on Mr. Malfoy? Your soul wouldn’t be so unblemished if I hadn’t happened upon you so quickly. Even a few extra minutes’ delay would have proven fatal. You were extraordinarily lucky in that respect.”
“Malfoy was lucky, I was just stupid!”
“Finally, a point on which we can agree!” Snape chuckled grimly. “Where is the book?”
“Hidden away from prying eyes. Hidden in such a manner that it’s clear that I wish to keep it in my possession.”
“That is not an option.”
“Why ever not? Because the book contains your invaluable Potions notes? Consider it payment for five years of enduring your lousy teaching techniques.” Harry’s tone was dripping with sarcasm.
“The book has special meaning to me. I should not have left it unattended as I did. Is that enough of an apology to satisfy you?”
Sensing the tiniest crack in Snape’s veneer, Harry was emboldened to suggest, “Did it belong to your mother when she was at school?”
Snape was caught short for the most infinitesimal moment then eyed Harry critically. “It originally belonged to the Dark Lord. He gave it to me as a gift when he first tried to lure me into his ranks; I was still a student at the time. It was he who dubbed me the ‘Half-Blood Prince.’”
Harry was practically speechless at the extent of the revelation. “So that explains why the nickname was so secret.”
“Not a nickname,” Snape returned with sudden anger. “That implies something that’s conferred affectionately by friends… This was an epithet, a label to remind me of his estimation of my true worth.”
“If you hated it so, why did you hang on to the book?” Harry prodded. “If it’s so dangerous, why didn’t you just burn it?”
“It’s not so easily destroyed; it has been imbued with special properties.”
Harry knew he was entering dangerous territory but he couldn’t keep from noting, “It was entrusted to you for safe-keeping by the Dark Lord, wasn’t it?”
“That alone would not have kept me from destroying it,” Snape returned darkly. “I needed to wait for the right moment to do so.”
“And you believe that moment has come?” Harry held his breath as he waited for a response.
“You tell me,” Snape suggested slyly, then turned the tables on Harry completely. “How much progress have you made on Dumbledore’s assignment? The one he entrusted to you on the night that he died.”
“On the night that you murdered him, you mean!”
“How about: on the night that cantankerous old man twisted my existence so that it was unbearable? Do you think events are classified solely by how they impact you?”
“Tell me then: what happened that night? If my interpretation is wrong it’s because I don’t have the same set of facts as you.”
“You won’t believe the truth of my words.”
Was there actually a note of sadness in Snape’s tone?
“Tell me how to destroy the book then,” Harry dared.
“You just finished telling me that the book was valuable to you and now you want to destroy it? Make up your mind, Potter. Only a crazy man changes his thoughts in mid-stream!”
“Am I crazy to think that the book, your book, is a cursed object? Not just a run-of-the-mill cursed object, either, but a Horcrux?” Harry felt his heart hammering out of control now that he’d finally addressed the subject directly. At least he hadn’t revealed anything about the other Horcruxes, the ones that he had identified on his own.
“Created with the murder of my young wife, Potter,” Snape volunteered in his softest, most threatening tone. “A long, drawn out process to mark my final initiation into the ranks of the Death Eaters. A condition that I would never have agreed to if I’d known about it beforehand…” Harry was startled by the flash of true pain that flitted across Snape’s features.
“I take it the procedure back-fired. It sent you back to Dumbledore instead, didn’t it?”
“What more did I have to lose at that point?” Snape’s voice was almost a whisper. “He’d already announced his plans to take my best friend, the only one who would have stood by me even after I turned my back on her.”
“You’re referring to my mother, Lily, aren’t you?” Harry asked gingerly.
A curt nod was the only sign from Snape. “I have to destroy the book personally. It’s part of my penance to watch the tattered remnants of my wife’s existence that will be driven forth with the first blow.”
Harry could only respond to Snape’s haunted look with compassion. “Can’t you just forgive yourself, Severus? Admit that you made a mistake despite the disastrous consequences and just go on with your life? I’m certain that’s what Dumbledore would have wanted you to do.”
“He made that impossible with his final request.” Snape’s words were the condemnation of a dying man.
“If it’s any consolation, I’m also haunted by the final request he made of me. What say we destroy the book together then?”
Snape stared fixedly at a distant point for a moment but before a reply had formed on his lips, he whipped his head about in fear. “Next week,” he breathed before the mirror went blank.
Harry felt no satisfaction that his intuition had been correct concerning Snape’s knowledge of the Horcruxes. No satisfaction that his questions had elicited bits and pieces of a shattered life that had driven themselves like coffin nails into his chest. The bottomless despair in Snape’s eyes was bound to haunt his nightmares in the weeks to come.
After the elation of Ron’s and Hermione’s confirmation of Hufflepuff’s Cup, they had reached an impasse with the Horcruxes. Secretly Harry still kindled the hope of obtaining more information from Snape but he would have to tread very carefully. Dumbledore’s withered hand served as a reminder that these items might release seem sort of hex when attacked, but none of them knew how to recognize or protect themselves from that risk.
Since Lupin had seen him reading Bill’s book about the Valley of the Kings a number of times, Harry felt that he had already established a pretext to suggest looking into curses and curse-breaking in more detail. Lupin readily agreed that it was a worthy subject but differed to Professor Flitwick as the resident expert. By the next day, Lupin had arranged for Harry to meet with Flitwick twice weekly; and as a bonus, he would be working together with Ron on the subject. It meant having to rearrange those classes where Harry was able to assist Tonks, but in the end, he had been able to find a slot for everything. Between that and the new intensive dueling sessions administered jointly by Lupin and Tonks, Harry was busier than ever. Ginny was caught up in extra Quidditch practices as her next match loomed near so they were finding it more and more difficult to spend more that an hour together at a time. Harry consoled himself that at least the situation was only temporary.
Not wanting to be left out of the action, Hermione located some useful prototypes that still awaited review for Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. Since both products were intended to identify jinxes and hexes, she felt that the boys’ newfound expertise would be ideal. The first item was from the more serious line and consisted of a light sensor that fitted over the hand like a fingerless glove and would alert of the presence of cursed objects without having to come in direct contact with them.
The second item was obviously more in the vein of a joke shop as it was shaped like a large rubber nose which also had a light sensor. The wording on the box guaranteed that it would ‘Sniff out jokes and pranks before they make a fool of you!’ Before they knew it, Harry and Ron were clutching their sides with laughter over that one.
“I would feel like the biggest fool just buying such a thing!” Ron howled.
“Do you think the sales clerks would actually be able to keep a straight face?” Harry commented gleefully.
“If that was supposed to be a pun, Harry,” Hermione noted acerbically, “it really needs a lot of work… I believe that it might make a great gag gift for someone--”
“Especially if he were an incurable gossip!” Harry added merrily.
“Or had an abnormally large nose like Snape!” Ron amended with satisfaction as Hermione finally succumbed to the laughter around her.
“You two are incorrigible,” she scolded weakly. “Both products perform essentially the same function so I expect that most people would be likely to purchase the glove-type sensor. I should test that they perform similarly, though.”
Both products identified the presence of the hex on their bedroom doorways, Hermione’s summoning coin from Dumbledore’s Army, as well as practically burning themselves out with feverish intensity as they came within several yards of Hermione’s stash of untested Weasley products. They debated whether they should use the prototypes to examine the Horcruxes themselves but decided that was a rather dangerous undertaking until they were more familiar with how the sensors operated.
After all, they had already pinpointed the sensors’ first failing: neither identified the type of threat that they had located, making it virtually impossible to do anything other than to avoid it. A product that also gave a person the option of neutralizing the threat would have been more useful.
The next hurdle was to find some more innocuous novelty-type objects that they could test. Harry immediately volunteered to retrieve some additional items from the Treasure Room.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like some company, mate?” Ron suggested.
“It’s such a big undertaking if more than one of us goes these days,” Harry demurred. “If it’s just me, I won’t even need to consult the Map. The Cloak is all I need.”
“Be careful, Harry,” Hermione warned. “A lot of those objects could be potentially deadly.”
“I’m going to bypass the weirder artifacts, I assure you. Just grab some of those old Zonko products that are still lying around. Let’s see if the reaction is any different for those things that are in a pretty feeble state.”
Hermione nodded and flashed a brilliant smile at this innovative approach. She would not be so pleased with him if she suspected that he had an ulterior motive of his own. But then he wasn’t going to be foolish enough to tell her, either.
Despite his familiarity with the terrain, the sheer magnitude of the vaulted space always seemed a bit daunting from the doorway. Once again Harry was struck by how the Treasure Room represented the artifacts of Hogwarts’ residents waiting for an archeologist’s hand to shift and catalogue them from one strata to the next. He immediately turned down the Avenue of Discarded Dreams as he’d jokingly named the most direct route to the hidden Potions book.
A quick peek was all that was needed before he turned his sights towards his true goal. Two rows down and then to the left, circle around the teetering hat rack and, yes, there was the short cul-de-sac he remembered. At the exact mid-point of the circle, he found the short wardrobe. Donning dragon-hide gloves for protection, he opened the doors reverently and gazed within. He couldn’t help feeling a twinge of guilt as if he were invading someone’s privacy but the sensation faded away when he saw the object of his quest peeking from within the small wooden drawer. Gingerly, he drew the handle towards him and stared at it longingly.
It was no more than a trinket; a small metal biplane rendered from the front, its twin propellers attached in a manner that suggested that they might actually spin. He pulled an old pencil stub from his pocket and gave the propellers an experimental turn with the tip of the eraser. Each turned easily despite the dullness of the time-worn metal. He flipped it over on its back as if it were a turtle to examine the clasp. He smiled to see that it was a tie-tack. It could not be more perfect! Dare he appropriate it for his own use? The possibility of a jinx or hex was more of an immediate concern than whether he had the right to claim it. After all, it had been ignominiously discarded by its previous owner.
He passed his wand tip experimentally within an inch of the plane’s surface on both sides, silently intoning the variation of the revelio charm that Flitwick had taught him. He let out his breath when there was no reaction. He would have the professor check it over just as an added precaution, he decided. Without a second thought, Harry levitated it out of its resting place and dropped it inside one of his gloves for safekeeping. Carefully he rolled the remainder of the flexible glove around it as added protection.
Turning his attention to the secondary purpose of his visit, Harry quickly collected a small pile of discarded novelty objects in various condition. When he was satisfied that Hermione would be pleased with the assortment, he packed them all into the rucksack that he’d brought for that very purpose.
“Professor Flitwick, might I have a word?” Harry ventured at the end of their next session.
“Of course, Harry,” Flitwick offered. “Why don’t we step into my office? That way we won’t be disturbed by students entering the classroom early.”
Flitwick ushered Harry into a surprisingly spacious office adjoining the Charms classroom. It was traditionally appointed much like Lupin’s but offered an expansive view of the back lawn and a patch of the heathered foothills in the distance. Other than the huge desk that commanded the room’s center, every other available surface was covered with chess sets of all configurations from every corner of the globe.
“Evidences of my passion are everywhere,” Flitwick acknowledged with a wave of his tiny hand. “Can I interest you in some tea? Or perhaps some Firewhiskey or Scotch?” Flitwick’s eyes lit up at the mention of the more potent offerings.
“Thanks, Professor, but I’m fine,” returned Harry drawing up a chair before the polished desk.
Flitwick nodded then tilted his head critically. “No, you don’t strike me as much of a drinker. Although I suppose you’re old enough… Didn’t I hear Ron say that he turned eighteen a few weeks ago?”
“Ron’s a few months older than I. My eighteenth birthday isn’t until the end of July.”
“Then I was right, you are of age. Another time for the Firewhiskey then. What can I do for you today?”
Harry hesitated slightly before pulling out the airplane tie tack. The small box had been salvaged from Ron’s birthday haul. “Could I have you take a look at something for me? Check that it isn’t hexed or cursed in any way?”
“Certainly, but isn’t that what you and Ron have been learning in your lessons?”
“It already came up negative when I performed all those spells but I wanted to be doubly sure.” At Flitwick’s questioning look, Harry added, “I’m giving it to someone as a gift and, well, you never can tell with antique objects.”
Flitwick placed the unopened box in the middle of the desk blotter and looked Harry in the eye. “Tell me honestly, is this the true reason you wanted to learn more about curses and jinxes?”
“Only partially, Professor. Ron’s older brother, Bill, is a curse-breaker for Gringott’s Bank and he’s told some intriguing tales.”
Flitwick smiled in reply. “There’s nothing wrong with having a personal stake in things, Harry. Sort of gives meaning to the lessons, don’t you think? Tell me: is this a present for a lady friend?”
Momentarily embarrassed that even Flitwick might know about Ginny, Harry replied, “Actually no, it’s a bit of a late birthday present for Professor Lupin.”
Flitwick smiled graciously. “Of course, Remus turned thirty-eight this past weekend. What I wouldn’t give to be a young man of thirty-eight again, my whole life ahead of me, a pretty young wife by my side… But I digress; let’s see what we have here.”
Flitwick perched himself on his chair and rubbed his tiny hands in anticipation. Then with a great flourish, he opened the box. For a brief moment he hesitated then asked Harry point blank, “Did you buy this in an antique shop?”
“Actually no, Professor,” Harry admitted. “I found it abandoned on school grounds.” That was technically true, he reassured himself.
“Might I ask where? It’s just that I once knew someone who had a pin very much like this. Hers was gold and engraved on the back with two sets of initials.”
“I found it in a grassy patch near the rear courtyard, right after the rains washed away the last of the snow banks,” Harry improvised. “But this isn’t the same object. Turn it over and you’ll see that it’s actually a tie tack and there are no initials.”
Flitwick turned the biplane over to verify Harry’s words. “I suppose it might just be a coincidence.” He didn’t sound very convinced, Harry noted with growing disquiet.
“Is it something that I should turn over to the headmistress?” Harry inquired, regretting his earlier decision to pronounce it as his own.
“I don’t think so,” Flitwick conceded slowly. “There would no longer be anyone to claim it.”
He performed a few complicated wand movements over the surface of the box and then brought his palm close to the plane’s metal surface without actually touching it. Then picking it up in his fingers, he examined it one last time before laying it back on the box’s black velvet interior.
“Everything seems to be in order,” Flitwick pronounced with certainty. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t give that to Professor Lupin as a gift. It’s just the sort of trinket Remus would like, too.” With a small smile, Flitwick pushed the box back across the desk towards Harry.
Harry was about to reach for it when Flitwick added as an afterthought, “Could do with a bit of polish, though.”
With one last flick of his wand, the pin was rendered a few shades brighter. True, no one would mistake the matte surface for gold but it was attractive enough in its own right.
“Thanks, Professor.” Harry tucked the box back into his book bag and made as if to rise. The acrid tang of polish had already dissipated into the air.
“Before you go, Harry, don’t you think you should know the true origins of the tie tack? Might make you want to reconsider giving it as a gift,” Flitwick volunteered in an enigmatic tone.
“You know its history?” Harry was intrigued despite the misgivings that Flitwick’s words stirred in him.
“Enough of it. It’s too much like the other pin, the gold one, not to have come from the same source. I believe it likely belonged to a man named Ian Hardcastle, a Muggle Studies instructor who taught at Hogwarts just prior to the elder Professor Farquar. He was a Muggle-born wizard, you see, rumored to be a great adventurer. His hobby was flying vintage aircraft.”
The professor’s words rang true as Harry remembered the weathered leather jacket that had occupied the same discarded wardrobe.
“Without a doubt he was a very dashing fellow, a bit of a rake -- but that only made him seem more appealing to the ladies,” Flitwick began. “Not that there were any women his age at Hogwarts -- not any unmarried ones, at least. Not until Professor Dumbledore hired Sybill Trelawney. She was much different in those days, still dressed like a Bohemian but with a stylish flair as if she wanted to be a trend-setter in her own right. Ian immediately set his sights on her and she didn’t resist much, if at all. The very next term, Dumbledore hired a young Potions master by the name of Severus Snape.”
Harry’s spine began to tingle in anticipation. What an unexpected boon!
“In contrast to Ian’s cheerful manner, Severus presented a melancholy figure dressed perpetually in black, still in mourning for his young wife. The fact that no one knew for certain what had happened to Constance just added to Severus’ mystique. It was whispered that she had fallen victim to You-Know-Who but he never said for sure, never reported it as such to the Ministry. In the end, she was simply listed as missing.”
“Do you think that Snape might’ve been afraid that someone would accuse him of contributing to her death?” Harry asked tentatively, expecting to be brushed off for his impertinence.
But instead Flitwick elaborated, “No one who saw Severus in those days would’ve thought that. The constant hollowed expression in his eyes were clearly those of a man in great personal pain. But with his wife listed as missing, it would be ten years before the Ministry declared her officially dead. If Severus had reported her as a casualty of Lord Voldemort’s rampage, it would have been only a year or so before he could’ve started his life over with a clean slate.”
Perhaps that’s not what Snape had wanted, Harry considered, perhaps his goal was to prolong his suffering, to offer up his unhappiness as proof of his remorse. Certainly the bitter man he knew today had never found personal redemption.
“Despite their differences, though, Severus and Ian soon became fast friends,” Flitwick continued. “They often went horseback riding through the countryside, Sybill waving her long scarves dramatically from the sidelines. I even went grouse hunting with them once or twice but I can’t say I’ve ever been overly fond of rifles myself.”
“What happened to lure Ian away from Hogwarts, Professor?”
“His wandering spirit called and he left in his airplane, shouting to Sybill that he would return for her. But he never did. She would spend hours searching the skies for him in the topmost part of her tower. Hoping he would swoop down low over the castle turrets as he used to do, skimming so close that only a few yards separated the bottom of his craft from disaster. About that time she decided that she would latch on to Severus instead, recalling that the three of them had been such great friends together.”
“I don’t suspect Snape liked that much, did he?” Harry observed wryly.
“To tell you the truth, he might have been glad for a bit of female company if only it had come with any sort of intellect attached to it. So he rebuffed her as politely as possible until it became clear that she was determined to avoid the reality of the situation. Severus took it upon himself to track Hardcastle down, to find out what had prevented his return in order to give Sybill some sort of peace of mind “ even if the man was indeed dead as everyone suspected.
“What he discovered was that Hardcastle had a number of wives in various countries, none of whom knew about the others. Each of them had been given a gold airplane pin engraved with Ian’s initials and their own. It was the mark of his conquest.”
“Did Snape ever tell Trelawney the truth?” Harry dared to ask.
“Not at first, but eventually he did. When he could no longer take her moping around in her own little fantasy world. But his hard pragmatism did not sit well with Sybill; she was looking for romance, not common sense. She accused him of being a blatant liar and refused to speak to him again. I suspect that she held to that promise most of the intervening years. Severus’ final act of compassion was to locate an English language newspaper from North Africa that carried Ian’s death notice and place it outside of her tower door where she would be sure to find it. That was the year of the Triwizard Tournament.”
Flitwick’s tale left Harry speechless. It seemed as if Snape’s name was always cropping up in the most unexpected ways. Most startling was that Flitwick had portrayed him in a sympathetic light, somewhat brusque and unyielding but not mean-spirited. It dovetailed remarkably with the few true fragments that the man himself had allowed to seep into their last conversation, Harry mused.
Bringing himself back to the present, Harry hazarded a final question. “Do you think I should refrain from presenting the tie tack to Professor Lupin then?”
“Not at all, Harry. It’s not like it’s a magical object that would absorb negative energies from its owner -- not that Ian didn’t appear to be supremely satisfied with his life. Neither are you going to present it to Remus in front of Professor Trelawney. She hardly ever climbs down from her tower as it is. Go ahead with your original plan,” Flitwick urged. “It’s not like it’s that unique an item, not even the gold ones turned out to be.”
Harry thanked him profusely for his time and exited through the classroom that was already beginning to fill up with students.
Harry Potter and the Hero's Lament by L A Moody
Chapter Notes: Revealing conversations all around; a search for the perfect birthday gift results in more pieces of the puzzle falling into Harry’s lap.