Snake-venom is life to the snake, but death to man;
If you wish him to be kind, then look on him with a lover’s eye.
Snape had summoned Cybele to his office shortly after her NEWT examinations, for what he had warned could be their last meeting. Cybele went down the dungeons gloomily. In spite of six years of various discoveries; she and her professor had not managed to clearly identify her origins, and school was coming to an end. The wizarding world was at war. Cybele was eager to listen to her mentor’s suggestions as to how to employ her time.
‘Cybele.’ The cold voice of Draco came out of the darkness, when she had almost reached Professor Snape’s office. ‘Ready to bump into someone? One would think six years of magical education would have enabled you to remember to look up from your shoes when you walk in a Hogwarts corridor…’
‘Draco. You look dreadful.’ Cybele felt a pang of pity and something else pinching her heart as she saw Draco up close for the first time since the Hogwarts Express.
‘I had a tough year, didn’t I? But reward is coming at last, coming tonight.’
‘There was once a time when a reward for you would have been a happy thought… But it makes me fear the worst, now.’
‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand.’
‘Indeed. I don’t.’
‘But you’re still looking up to him.’ Draco jerked his head in the direction of Snape’s office. ‘You’re so naïve. He has the same goals as me. Can’t you see?’
‘You’re not working towards anything at all. And he would give his life to protect you. That’s what I know, for what it’s worth.’
Draco looked exhausted. The arrogance on his face was like the last piece of a shattered armour. Then his features softened slightly, as they used to when he was with Cybele long ago. She hadn’t seen the look for the longest time. But she was unnerved by what came of it.
‘Why don’t you join me? You haven’t even tried!’ Draco looked feverish now. ‘I’m leaving Hogwarts tonight. Come with me!’
‘I’m leaving Hogwarts soon too. Yet, I reckon it has become very clear that we won’t head in the same direction. I’m your friend, Draco, but if our paths separate, if I cannot pull you my way, and you cannot pull me yours…’
‘Why not? If you still call me your friend, come with me!’
‘If you call me yours, stay. Abandon whatever it is that you’re after.’
‘I don’t have a choice, but you do. Follow me.’
‘Everybody always has a choice! You spoiled child! It’s not like you’ve been letting me fancy that you may regret me, lately. It’s a bit too late to realize that you really want me around.’
‘Oh, you think I do? Like I care! Go, then! As far as I know, you could be a Mudblood, too!’
His aggressive eyes momentarily reflected fear at the irreversibility of his own words. He opened his mouth to take them back, even though it was too late.
Incredulity drew on Cybele’s face. Both had realized that they were beyond reconciliation, but the insult had shown it in the cruellest way.
‘Very true,’ she answered, slowly, clearly, and she turned on the spot, turning her back on the enraged boy, walking away fast.
Boiling anger was overwhelming her, though. A few brisk steps away, she turned back, took her wand out, out of habit, and pointed it at Malfoy.
And all of a sudden, there was a pure rage within her, and it became real. She felt magic, for the first time in her life, as a separate element, flowing through her limbs to the wand. She shouted, ‘Stupefy!’ and a vibration actually disturbed the air as she cast her first ever spell. It felt foreign but wonderfully liberating.
Draco’s defensive spell was cast just fast enough. It was only the beginning of a battle which never seemed to hurt or give victory, which enabled two tormented souls to release their anger and pain, their love and hate, which were all the same thing now. Violent curses were flying but both fighters always carefully waited for the other to have blocked their spell before attacking again in a violent but coordinated ballet.
Cybele was relishing in casting wizarding spells, in the same way wizards could sometimes relish in Muggle duelling when overwhelmed by their rage. For a while, Draco cast only defensive spells.
‘Battle! I’ll leave you unconscious on this floor! Attack me, you coward!’ Cybele threatened.
‘Serpensortia!’ Draco aimed obediently.
Cybele cast a violent wave of magic at the snake, which exploded.
‘Incarcerous!’ he tried next.
But the ropes burst into savage flames and only thick smoke and ashes were left floating in the air between them. Ashes and a dark figure, slowly emerging.
‘Stop that immediately,’ said a dangerously calm, low voice.
They both lowered their wands obediently, still glaring at each other, over their mentor’s shoulders.
‘Draco…’ Snape addressed him sternly first.
‘No. I’m not taking your orders or advice any more. Or have you noticed?’
And with that Draco was gone in a twirl of black robes.
Snape turned back to Cybele, whose body and mind seemed on the verge of giving away, and did the only possible decent thing by supporting her to a bench where he sat beside her.
She was looking at her laps, distressed.
‘Cybele.’
She looked up. She was crying silently. Snape was touched by an oddly liberating feeling: Nothing mattered right now. He had seen, these last years, his godson making the very same mistakes he once made with Lily Evans. And he had not been able to prevent it. Out of the only two people he had unwillingly come to love these past years, one had cast himself out of his reach, while the other was staring right back at him on this bench.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said to her simply.
It has been a long fight against himself, his feelings for Draco and Cybele along the years. Much more strongly than with Draco, he had hated every moment of not being able not to love and trust Cybele. It had felt like a blessing, and like a curse, made him feel weak, and strong; it had confused and enraged him, loosing control. And today too, he felt both sad and relieved that these trouble years – the teaching Harry Potter years as he referred to them inwardly – were coming to an end. As distressful an end as it was marked down to be; it was to be over at last.
‘He is my best friend,’ Cybele whispered after a while.
Snape registered the use of the present tense.
‘Is he?’
‘Yes, he is. Such bounds are not meant to be destroyed by some bad words and a couple of spells.’
‘The bounds Magi have in love…’
But Cybele stood on her feet at this, trembling.
‘No! Enough with these theories; this is Cybele talking! Whatever I am, this is not my blood, it’s not my nature, not my name, it’s no fate. It’s not what I am, it’s who I am… and I am… this friend! I feel, deep inside, that I wouldn’t say it differently if I was born a witch or a Muggle,’ she explained in a calmer voice.
‘I know you wouldn’t,’ Snape said soothingly.
He let silence linger for a minute. He had only few things to say before running out of excuses to stay and then he would be gone to Dumbledore.
They would probably not have any more private conversations this year, and the future was uncertain. He made his mind and spoke in his best cold professor’s voice, business like.
‘There is more about Magi, Cybele. But time is over for us, I’m afraid, to study and exchange. I had come to give you all my notes.’
He summoned from his office and passed to her a thick green file, which she took silently.
‘More,’ she simply repeated after a while. It was not a question.
‘Something I have discovered recently. I wish I could discuss it with you. But as I said, our time is running out; I may have to leave very soon.’
Cybele didn’t react.
In this moment, surprising himself, Snape made his mind and declared with authority:
‘I would also like you to look into my mind, now.’
The girl looked up at this, surprised.
‘There are things you deserve to know, things I want you to know. But if they are to ever be known by anybody else, they would endanger our world. Do you understand?’
‘What… why?’
‘I’m doing it for Draco, Cybele, so that he could have a second chance if he ever seeks one from you. Now, please.’
Cybele had never done it purposely before and she never had expected, of all people, her forbidding and very private mentor to offer such a procedure. Used to obey Professor Snape’s most unusual commands, though, she proceeded. She didn’t lock eyes with Snape first but looked somewhere beyond his eyes. Soon and easily, she was there. She made eye contact and tried to focus on Snape’s will as to see only what he meant her to. She saw Draco and his parents being tortured by Voldemort, she saw the latest torture his mother in front of him, Voldemort torturing him into accepting a disgusting task; the murder of Dumbledore. She saw Snape taking orders from Dumbledore and vowing to help Draco; Draco, shaking, tried to convince himself he was proud and honoured by his task in front of his godfather, Draco’s fall into despair and mad anger thorough the year, refusing his mentor’s help. That was it. It was over in a split second and Snape and she were looking at each other in real life again. She knew it was useless to argue what she had seen was coming.
‘I will, if he does,’ she said simply.
It was time for Snape to put his mask of indifference and efficiency back on for the war ahead. He braced himself and made to stand up. But Cybele stood up first.
‘We love you too, Severus.’ She left kiss on her mentor’s forehead and quickly went away, walking up the long corridor, not looking back, not looking back or something terrible would happen.
But something terrible happened anyway, the very same evening.
Like most Hogwarts students, Cybele was sleeping when Professor Snape killed Professor Dumbledore, as he had vowed to do, as she knew he would.
When she heard the news in the morning, Cybele simply walked up to the library.
That is it, she thought. For all the powers on Earth, I couldn’t save Professor Snape from his fate; I cannot help Draco escape his choices.
She made it directly for the literature section, sat on her usual armchair and opened Professor’s Snape file on the coffee table. It was a handsome dark green wooden case large enough to contain some parchment.
But to Cybele’s surprise, when she opened it, it only contained a key and a small scroll, reading,
***