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Chapter Text

From his place high behind the richly ornamented cathedra Albus Dumbledore looked around the large hall one last time.

"If nobody else has any final remarks I would like to close this year's summer meeting. We will see each other again in this place for the general meeting before Christmas. I wish all of you success in your endeavours."

The heads of the assembled Potionsmasters and Alchemists bobbed in unisono agreement, and almost thirty fists pounded their approval on the wooden benches in true academic style. Then the silence was broken by the scratching of wooden chair legs on stone, rustling of robes and the immediate begin of chatter and commentary to this summer's proceedings. The masters belonging to the Guild met two times a year, attendance mandatory. So far nobody had tried to avoid their meetings, even though practising alchemists tended to live secluded lifestyles, unlike their more academically inclined counterparts.

Even the newest addition to the Guild, twenty-five years old and freshly minted Potionsmaster - a scandal if there ever had been one - had been present, albeit reluctantly. As it was tradition the young man had been seated in the very final chair in the last row, and spent the proceedings mostly looking either lost in thought or utterly bored. He hadn't even bothered to don proper wizarding robes and caught more than one disapproving glance for his ensemble of jeans and a worn-out navy t-shirt underneath a black jacket.

Albus didn't find it in him to judge him. The Guild had been utterly against accepting his application as a candidate for the master examination during last year's winter meeting, sparking a vivid shouting match between two seasoned and well-regarded potionsmasters in the middle of the proceedings. Albus, as residing Grand Master of the Guild of Alchemists and Potionmasters, had been forced to break the collision of two strong spirits up before things could turn into a duel. It hadn't stopped Master Croll from throwing dark glances at the Basilius Valentinus, the ancient potionsmaster who had - to the surprise of everybody - taken young Snape in as an apprentice two years ago and then backed his application for the exam with a recommendation. Well-known but a recluse, older even than Albus himself and blessed with a dangerous tongue, a widely feared temper and a taste for the Dark Arts Valentinus had been the right master to wrangle with the young man for two years. Their open disagreements had become famous, and more than one guild member has secretly confided to Albus that they were only still attending the non-mandatory plenary meetings to watch Basilius shout at his young and stubborn apprentice in Byzantine dialect. Snape had never been shy to yell back, and there had been a wide array of rumours circulating how they actually got along living together in Basilius' ancient house located in the middle of nowhere, southern England. Valentinus still suscribed to the old tradition of having his apprentices run his house, combining the position of student, cook, housekeeper and personal slave in one person. Many claimed that this, his terrible temper and the fact that he had hated every single one of his students were the reasons he hadn't had an apprentice for decades. But even though Valentinus never said a good word about Snape they had never duelled in public, and the sudden amount of exciting papers they jointly handed in for publication in the Guild's "Alchemy Quarterly" had finally convinced even the last guild member that they were, against all odds, working very well together.

In the end the Guild had accepted the application and set a date for an examination that everybody expected the young man to fail. Twenty-five was the minimum age to be even considered for the exam, and nobody had ever attempted it at that young age. There had even been a betting pool, one that Albus had just so managed to not participate in.

The public exam had turned into the event of the year, drawing the current members of the Guild in like fire the doomed moth. Nobody would have held it against the young candidate had he failed, not with the strange grudge the Guild held against this newest wunderkind. And nobody had been prepared for what happened then.

He passed. With flying colours, embarrassing one of his examiners on the way by proving that the usual, age old and trusted approach towards extract usage in highly potent painkiller potions had flaws that could lead to a cross-contamination of two substances usually regarded as minor, changing the potency of the potion drastically and reversing its effect. It had been a solution to a question pondered by those in the field for a long time, and for all the world it seemed like the candidate had come up with it during the exam itself, walking the board through his thought process effortlessly, almost unwillingly. The issue had not even been in the general catalogue of questions approved by the Guild. It had come up during a disapproving reaction one examiner had towards a point the candidate made, been used by the recognised leading expert in the field as an analogue point to prove the candidate wrong, and had then been turned around and thrown, torn and useless, before the feet of the old man. He hadn't taken it lightly, needing three days and a whole bag of lemon drops to let go of his defeat at the hands of a scrawny young man with too much brain and too few social skills.

The betting pool had gone to the only master who had put in a few coins in favour of young Snape, and everybody at that time had thought that Basilius Valentinus had just shown a very unusual display of loyalty to his apprentice. Albus hadn't been able to stop himself from congratulating the grumpy Byzantine Alchemist after the fact, and even taken it in good spirit then Valentinus had simply snorted and disapparated without a reply.

Nicholas Flamel had been less forgiving for having his passionate discourse on the virtues of the Opus Magnum interrupted. While he was waxing poetic about the age old quest for the Philosophers' Stone the candidate had simply interjected with a deadpan rebuke and a detailed statement on the usefulness of Spagyrik, this mostly overlooked and generally unimportant science of healing potions real Alchemists didn't touch with a ten foot pole.

It seemed that young, brilliant and generally disliked Severus Snape did not care what real Alchemists did or did not. He had a well-known scorn for any kind of rule that prohibited him from doing exactly what he wanted when he wanted, and this scorn was especially obvious when those rules impeded on his work. That was the one thing Albus Dumbledore knew for sure: the young man was a real talent in his field, hard working, unafraid to try new ways to answer old questions. But he was also proud, everybody knew that, and nobody understood how a man who held his crocked nose so high it could rain into it could churn all his talent over to the least respected branch of the entire science.

Albus, though, had an inkling.

The scandalous examination had not been the first time the young man had come to his attention. Naturally, of course, since he had seen almost every young wizard and witch in Great Britain in the last decades passing through Hogwarts, and young Snape had been no exception.

He had been, though, insofar that Albus had kept a close eye on him even after he had left the old castle for good and progressed to take up his studies at St. Aurelius, College for Alchemy and Arithmetic in Oxford. It was rare that Hogwarts students decided to proceed in their education beyond the school level, but Snape had left the school with impeccable grades and a terrible record everywhere else. Nobody else had collected top grades and broken bones, written too long essays in nearly illegible handwriting with clear and well thought through arguments and at the same time survived more hallway duels one-on-four than it seemed possible.

Albus hadn't been surprised when the board of St. Aurelius had requested a recommendation when Snape applied for a honours program. He hadn't been surprised when the young man had appeared on the rooster of the College's famed Duel Team, and in a short amount of time fought his way up to become captain of the gang. He hadn't been surprised when he had been requested to read Snape's master thesis' as external examiner to enable the College to bestow the highest grades. And, if he were honest, he hadn't been surprised to find the application for the final examination by the Guild with the name of young Snape on it.

But he also hadn't been surprised when he had first heard the young man's name in another connection altogether. When Tom Riddle had fashioned himself into Voldemort and started to collect a group of followers Albus had kept an eye on the age group Snape belonged to, and it hadn't come to anyone as a surprise when the names of those who had supposedly thrown their lot in with Riddle had appeared on the secret Ministry documents. The Malfoys, Blacks and Lestranges had always had a taste for the dark, twisted and powerful. Snape belonged to their group by birth, if not by choice. He had never openly joined their ranks when they were all still in school, and while he seemed to have build a somewhat functional friendship with Lucius Malfoy from his first day in Hogwarts he had never claimed to be one of them. Keeping to himself even as a child, never requesting back-up from his fellow Slytherins Snape had been too much of an isolated figure to succumb to peer pressure. Or that had been what Albus had always believed, until the arguments for the contrary had been too strong.

But he had never had evidence. The fact that Snape was generally disliked didn't automatically turn him into a dark wizard, after all. It made him difficult to deal with, hard to like and a sheer horror to approach, but not evil. Still it was easy to cast him in the role of the bad one, and Albus was the first to admit it. It had thrown him into a deep crisis when he hadn't even found it in himself to feel pity for the young man when he had been but a boy in torn school-robes and hysterically screeched at Albus to throw Remus Lupin into the deepest pits of Azkaban because he was a monster and had nearly killed him.

It had taken Albus a long time to get over the fact that he simply didn't like the boy. He blamed it on the time he had first layed eyes on Snape, not even eleven years old and almost lost in too big school robes, mountains of black fabric swallowing the skinny child up. He had arrived at the Great Hall with all the other children in his year, ready to be introduced to the wonders of Hogwarts and to be sorted in the ceremony Albus never tired of watching. But when the row of first years had marched into the hall and all the children had stared in wonder at what their parents had always told them was magnificent the young boy had kept his gaze fixed to the ground. He hadn't looked up at the floating candles or the enchanted ceiling, hadn't stared at the teachers in curiosity, hadn't looked at the rich food displayed on the tables. With his small hands crammed into the pockets of his robes he had waited until it was his turn, then unceremoniously waited until the Sorting Hat announced his house and slipped into a free spot at the Slytherin table. And that had been it. He had nodded at his new fellow house mates, exchanged a glance with Lucius, who was two years older and apparently already knew the boy. But then he had sat all night staring at his plate, picking at his food, making it obvious for all the world that he would rather sit in a dark ravine at night than right here, underneath the twinkling stars of the enchanted ceiling, with the laughter and chant of the students roaring around him.

From then on Albus had kept an eye on the child, more out of curiosity then worry, as he later came to admit to himself. Snape was obviously not equipped to deal with the sheer amount of children around him, hated the eternal noise of the crowds, the good-natured brawls, the comradeship. But unlike the first impression he had made on Albus the boy was everything but defenceless. It quickly became obvious that he had a nasty wit, using his surprising eloquence mercilessly to his favour. Aimed with what seemed like an endless amount of verbal slander and an unusual knowledge of curses and their use he quickly made it obvious that he hadn't come to Hogwarts to make friends. Within the shortest amount of time he had managed to completely isolate himself, living in the library, talking to nobody if it wasn't strictly necessary. Pairing him up for partner work in class was a nightmare, proving him wrong even worse. He seemed to read continuously, reaching top grades in classes he cared about and generally skipping those he wasn't interested in.

Everyone knew Snape hated Hogwarts more than anything else, although the Marauders ranked very close to the castle itself. Albus lost track of the amount of times he spoke to any of the five involved parties after hallway fights in their second year. It was never really clear who started the fights, but they were a constant nuisance for Albus in all of the seven years he was unfortunate enough to teach Snape. Things took a decided turn for the worse when they all finally discovered puberty, something that took a while longer for the lanky Slytherin to happen. But when it happened nobody missed it. Returning for his sixth year Snape had not only figured out how to use his suddenly dark baritone, but also that the magic he corralled was much more powerful than he or anybody else had anticipated so far. Albus noticed it in the sudden rise of creative curses he had to dissolve in hallways, duelling suddenly looking much less like the schoolboy-brawls he was used to but more like an actual battlefield, and the ease with which Snape picked up on apparating and silent magic. By their seventh year everybody knew that Snape spent his nights sneaking around the forbidden section of the Hogwart's Library, picking up more dark magic along the lines then he already knew anyway. He had slowly turned into a veritable danger, volatile and easy to scare, and Albus kept a closer eye on him then on any other student. He never tried reaching out to him, though. There was nothing to salvage there.

In the end Albus wasn't sure how they had all managed to survive these years, but they did. After the graduation Albus' dealing with Snape had finally been reduced to loosely follow his way up through the ranks of wizarding academia. It had seemed that he had finally found something he could apply all his unutilized resources for, and Snape had thrown himself into Alchemy with more force than anybody had anticipated, with glowing results.

At the same time Albus had received more and more reports that Lucius Malfoy had convinced young Snape to function as a sort of sardonic sidekick to his own angelic splendour. Nobody knew anything for sure, of course. They were seen together a lot, usually enjoying the life the rich and beautiful like Malfoy could afford. Albus never ceased to wonder how a man like Severus Snape, easy to bore and insult, fit into this shallow world of brocade robes and death, but apparently he had managed to find a space for himself.

On Albus' pages he had been a lost case. It wasn't difficult to predict that he would join Riddle's ranks very soon, becoming just one more of the silver masked henchmen doing the dirty work. It might have been a shame, yes, but then there was nobody willing to put up with Snape for too long anyway, and Albus counted himself amongst them. A sad loss of intellect, yes, but nothing more.

With that issue solved Albus focused on a different task. Remus Lupin, the unfortunate werewolf, had been hanging in thin air ever since graduation, and it pained Albus to see it. He had come to appreciate Lupin's friendliness, his gentle spirit paired with a strong sense of justice and compassion. Ever since Albus had started to form the idea of a building a league to put some force against Riddle he had toyed with the idea of pulling Lupin in, giving him a chance the wizarding world itself would never extend to a werewolf.

But there was one thing he needed to do that, and thus Albus Dumbledore, Alchemist, discoverer of the many uses of dragon blood, had decided to look into Wolfsbane. The impossible potion was considered to be out of limits, even for someone of Albus' capacity. But claiming that something was impossible had never done much to put Albus off-track, and he set off in a limited, tentative quest to test the waters.

To his surprise he found that he wasn't the only one. The archives housing the important documents on the Wolfsbane, few as there were, kept immaculate records on their users, as did the libraries, and Albus could be very convincing. Within no amount of time he knew who had been there before him, sometimes only weeks ahead. Severus Snape had requested books and journals regarding anything known about Wolfsbane, had even spent days sorting through the papers belonging to the estate of Belby, the first alchemist who reportedly had tried to brew Wolfsbane and paid for that mistake with his life. Everything was still there, in perfect order, all the papers complete, but the mere fact was enough to give Albus pause. There was hardly any reason for an apprentice to dig through the records for a potion like Wolfsbane, far beyond his capacity, and far away from anything his master was working on.

There were two options. Either Snape himself was interested in the Wolfsbane for a variety of reasons that made no sense to Albus - or Tom Riddle had finally understood whom he had recruited into his ranks and used Snape's intellect as his very own tool. Nothing would persuade the Werewolf packs running wild in the north more to join Riddle's cause than that potion, Albus was aware. What had started as a pet project had suddenly turned into a matter of life-and-death, and Albus reacted promptly - by appearing in Basilius Valentinus' garden uninvited and talking the truth out of his apprentice.

He found Snape much more relaxed then he had ever seen him in Hogwarts. Visibly enjoying his work he was downright amicable, at least for his standards. Disapparating from Basilius' extensive grounds Albus knew that Snape had been researching the Wolfsbane indeed, but on his own terms. Tricking Snape into giving that away hadn't been easy, but there was nothing that indicated he was lying to Albus.

It saved Albus from more sleepless nights, but it had brought up another, very interesting point. If Snape indeed was a Death Eater, why did he run his private research on things his master was probably very interested in himself? Still worrying Albus kept drawing in information, but nothing in all of the data the Ministry and his own contacts had provided Albus with pointed towards any plans Riddle could have that included Wolfsbane. Then the small incidents started to happen. There were suddenly small Death Eater attacks gone wrong, Aurors tipped off a bit too timely, blunders and holes in Riddle's plans. With his informants everywhere Albus started to collect the pieces, putting them together to form a larger picture. It wasn't difficult for him to quickly come towards a conclusion from what he had learnt.

It seemed Snape was keeping secrets, and not only from Albus.

It was that knowledge, cemented by extensive research on Snape's background that finally convinced Albus to form a plan. He mused over it, tossed it around in his head, worried about all possible pitfalls. There were a few holes he hadn't yet been able to cover, the biggest being the most obvious one: while he was absolutely sure of it he couldn't yet prove that Snape was, in fact, really a Death Eater. For a brief moment he considered confiding in Minerva McGonagall, his trusted friend and comrade-in-arms, but in the end he decided against it. His plan was too fault-prone anyway, and he build more than one backdoor into it, spent days honing his tactics. He had been ready just in time for the August meeting the Guild held.

And he was going to make the first move now. The meeting had slowly dissolved, most guild members disapparating from the hall directly, the wards protecting it having been lowered for that very purpose. Albus had spoken with few old friends and colleagues here and there, and fixed a tea hour with Nicholas Flamel to talk about a few issues concerning their current project. It wasn't difficult to catch the exact moment in which Severus Snape nodded a curt goodbye to his former Master Valentinus, waiting politely just until the old man himself disapparated and then slipping out of the hall through the side door. Cheerfully, but quickly saying his goodbyes Albus followed suit, stopping for a moment to remove his lavishly decorated outer robe, shrinking it and carefully folding it so it fit into his pocket like a small handkerchief would. He had spent the entire morning choosing his muggle clothing, hoping that his white suit was appropriate for the summer weather outside.

He exited the large hall and stood in a cobblestone alley. The guild hall was located in central Oxford, looking for all the muggle world like an annex build to a large church, a workshop or vestry, who knew. Covered in spells that made anybody looking at it immediately forget about it again it had been standing there since sixhundred years, its golden sandstone blending in with the architecture around it seamlessly for those who could actually appreciate it.

Standing in the sunlight Albus looked the small alley up and down. Snape was nowhere to be seen, but Albus had an idea where he could have gone. After all he worked in Oxford and was probably only heading back to his own laboratory. Following the alley down and around the building he kept an eye open for the many alcoves the Gothic architecture of the Guild hall offered.

He found the young man on the other side of the building, leaning in an alcove that was brightly lit by the sunshine. The golden sandstone had soaked up the heat of the sun, and Snape was draped against it as if he were enjoying the warmth, vaguely reminding Albus of a reptile bathing in the heat. He had shrugged his dark suit jacket off and tossed it over an ornamental decoration protruding from the wall next to him. With his head back against the warm sandstone he was smoking a cigarette, slowly, visibly enjoying it. It was obvious he hadn't expected anyone to come looking for him.

"Good afternoon, Master Snape."

Caught of guard Snape nearly dropped his cigarette in surprise. Albus made a mental note about the speed with which he had gone from leaning against the wall in a relaxed pose to expecting an attack, ready to defend himself from whatever may come his way. It took a moment for him to relax again, tension remaining in his set shoulders.

"Grand Master Dumbledore. I hadn't expected you."

Formality had always been Snape's second nature, using stiff politeness like a wall he could put between him and his conversational partner. Albus arranged his face into his eternal smile.

"Of course, my apologies for surprising you."

Snape made a handmotion as if he were accepting the apology before dropping his arm again. He had pushed himself off the wall, tall enough to look Albus straight in the eye when he stood straight. In a quick once over Albus noted that he looked tired, dark circles under his eyes betraying that he worked more than it was good for him. He was tall but gangly, with sharp cheekbones and a nose that was more of a beak and had been broken more than once alone during his time at Hogwarts, thus showing very unfortunate bumps. Otherwise he wasn't even half as ugly as Albus remembered him as a child, with his dark hair slowly growing long and his utterly unreadable eyes. The young man was never going to attract anyone keen on beauty, but it couldn't be said that he hadn't learnt how to use what he had to his advantage. The dark voice, of course, was an asset other men would have killed for, and there was no way Snape wasn't highly aware of it.

But Albus stopped the train of thought right then and there, chiding himself internally. He hadn't come to stare at his former student. There was a task at hand. The silken baritone pulling him from his thoughts did wonders for his concentration.

"What can I do for you?"

He had asked the same question when Albus had appeared in Basilius' garden and proceeded to almost interrogate him, and it was clear that Snape remembered that too well.

"I wanted to speak to you, but I'd prefer a more private setting than this. Would you be free to visit me in Hogwarts sometime next week?"

Surprised Snape tilted his head to the side, looking at Albus with narrowed eyes. Instead of a reply he brought his still burning cigarette to his lips and inhaled the smoke. Albus decided against informing him about the guild rules which prohibited members from smoking as part of the Code of Conduct every Alchemist signed. He was confident Snape wasn't giving a damn about it anyway.

Instead he smiled, looking directly into Snape's almost black eyes, and mentally reached out to him. It was nothing but a soft impulse of magic, testing the waters, only a hint of Legilimency. All he wanted to know was if Snape was inclined to hear him out, nothing intrusive. With invisible fingers he carefully reached out, brushing incorporal fingertips over the magical aura surrounding Snape, finding his mind amidst the swirling power. Still careful he peeled the top layer back, disturbing nothing, causing not even a ripple in the magical field. There was no wall he met, no barrier build by Occlumency. The corporal Albus continued to smile, and then the top layer slowly disintegrated and allowed him a glance at what lay beneath.

There was nothing. It took Albus a few seconds to comprehend what he felt. There was not a single emotion visible, no thought, only emptiness. He had maybe expected to encounter Occlumency, but that was something completely different. Snape must have wiped his mind completely blank of anything, cleaning his thoughts completely of emotions and thoughts as soon as he had felt the impulse. Surprised Albus blinked, and at that very moment felt himself forcefully catapulted back. Trying to brush his surprise off his face he watched Snape exhale smoke, something that would be a smile on anybody elses' face tugging at the corner of his thin lips.

"What makes you believe I would like to do that?"

The layers of his answer were obvious, and Albus quickly withdrew his magic.

"How interesting."

Snape only continued to look at him silently, not at all intimidated by the magical display Albus had just performed. He was obviously used to Legilimency, something that came rather unexpected but also confirmed what Albus had already guessed. Alchemists didn't practise Legilimency, at least none that Albus knew. Tom Riddle, on the other hand, clearly did.

"What do you want from me?"

There was just enough coolness in Snape's voice without him sounding outright hostile. Albus continued to smile.

"As I said, I would like to discuss that in a less public place. I do believe I have something that is worthwhile your time."

Adding just a hint of forcefulness to his own voice he watched Snape slowly raise an eyebrow, the slight amusement visible on his face taunting at best. Arrogance was something that had always been able to annoy Albus to no end, and if there was one thing Snape basically radiated it was that.

"Yes, you said so. But let me repeat myself: why would I want to do that?"

Still smiling Albus reached out, and instead of replying softly tipped his index finger against the spot on Snape's bare left forearm where he knew Tom to brand his followers with that hideous skull-and-snake-image. It was supposed to do nothing but create confusion, especially since Albus knew from observation that Snape avoided being touched whenever possible, even going out of his way to ensure nobody would come near him without invitation.

He hadn't expected what happened next. As soon as his fingertips connected with Snape's pale skin, cool even through he had been standing in the bright sun for a good few minutes, a jolt of strange power suddenly tingled against his own skin. Albus felt the ripple in his magic, like a small electric shock, gone as soon as it happened.

Snape, however, almost keeled over in what looked like a sudden flash of searing pain. Dropping his cigarette and tearing his arm away from Albus' touch he took a quick step backwards and collided hard with the wall behind him. His right hand protectively wrapped around his left arm he needed a short moment to catch his breath again. He remained pressed against the wall, just out of reach for Albus, completely thrown off his guard.

Albus was the first to recover. For a moment he considered reaching out again just to see if the same would happen again, but Snape looked to much like a cornered cat, and Albus had never found amusement in useless torture. He'd save that for another day. Instead he only took advantage of the sudden turn of events, once more smiling at the still shocked young man.

"I believe that would be a reason. I'll send you an owl, and I am looking forward to welcome you in Hogwarts very soon."

With that he cast one last glance at Snape, nodded without intensifying his smile, and after making sure that there was no muggle in sight disapparated noiselessly. Seconds later he appeared in the Forbidden Forest, just outside the Anti-Apparation-Wards guarding Hogwarts. Inhaling the soothing scents of the forest he smoothed over the lapel of his jacket. For a moment he felt sorry for wrinkling a perfectly good white linen suit that nobody besides the not very fashionable Snape had seen that day. On the other hand the direction things where taking was most promising, and in the end that, maybe, was worth having to iron those damn linen trousers again.

Chapter Text

Almost exactly a week later Albus sat behind his large desk observing the papers carefully stacked to his left and right. The large clock above the mantle on the opposite wall showed him that his unwilling guest would arrive any minute now, and the visit had been a good excuse for Albus to clean up his desk. The summer was always a bit slower than term time, that was for sure, but still there were plenty of tasks at hand, and not all of them had to do with running a school. The ministry requested his help much more often these days, and the formation of the league he had come to call the Order had made leaps forward in the past days. He was confident that he had secured the loyalty of some of his very favourite friends and alumni. There was the threat of war, more and more open every day now, but it started to look as if they would be able to encounter the danger with drawn wands and the willingness to fight for the right side.

And today he would put another knot into the net he was weaving. He could be very convincing, after all. Leaning forward he brushed a bit of dust off the far edge of his desk. There was a small part of him that was looking forward to his talk with Snape, even ignoring the fact that he already knew the outcome, that in the end he was going to get what he wanted, though some verbal sparring could become necessary. There was a tiny voice in his mind reminding him that he liked challenges, and that there hadn't been anyone who was willing to talk back to him - to Albus Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard alive, and so on and so on - for a long time.

In this very moment the feedback from one of the barrier spells around the castle informed him that his guest had apparated in the Forbidden Forest, in just the spot Albus' owl had indicated he was to use. The remaining magical trace of the apparition spell indicated clean work, and Albus couldn't help but chuckle. He had offered Snape a ticket for the Hogwarts Express, mentioning that the young wizard might find pleasure in spending some time in Hogsmeade prior to his return trip. The reply had been curt, only stating that he preferred to travel by other means, thankyouverymuch. The underlining message was obvious. Wizards taking trains weren't capable of apparating securely, and the mere mention had been an insult. Albus himself had a particular fondness for trains, neverminding that his skills to appear and disappear hadn't failed him once in the past decades, but it was obvious that Snape did not share that particular sentiment.

In his preparations Albus had considered walking up to the forest himself to welcome his guest, abandoning the thought after only a short moment. The summer outside was beautiful, but he was sure that Snape still remembered the way up to the Headmaster's office. Judging from the amount of time the boy had spent in the visitor's chair being reprimanded Albus wouldn't have been surprised if Snape had told him that he could rebuilt the office from mere memory easily. It was likely, and the boy had always stared around the room and focused on the books instead of concentrating on whatever slating he received, a habit that had nearly pushed Minerva over the edge. Her petition to reintroduce physical punishment had gone unheeded during the teacher's conferences, though.

Exactly ten minutes later a sharp knock sounded on his door, and Albus sat up a bit straighter, smiled, and pulled the door open by an invisible magical thread.

The young man in the door didn't look impressed, and it was obvious that he hadn't bothered to dress up for the occasion of being invited into one of the spaces of power in the wizarding world. Looking as if he had apparated directly from his laboratory in Oxford Albus mused that he should probably feel honoured that Snape had deigned to at least shrug off his laboratory robe. But the well-worn dark jeans, grey t-shirt and black jacket still managed to look utterly out of place in Albus' office. Amongst the many magical trinkets and the imposing Hogwarts' architecture Snape looked as if someone had accidentally thrown a muggle onto the scene, neverminding the fact that his t-shirt bore the emblem of the School of Alchemy at St. Aurelius, two crossed wands hovering over a cauldron, and that his jacket probably held a special pocket that could hold a wand.

"Ah, welcome. I'm glad to see you could make it. Please, come in. Did you find your way easily?"

His face set into what Albus could only describe as a carefully neutral expression Snape walked into the room, his whole posture pulled up very straight, almost stiff. He settled into the chair Albus indicated for him to take, crossed his long legs and neatly folded his long fingers in his lap.

"It was highly unlikely that the floorplan of the castle would change in a few years, so yes, I did."

Not only his face was void of any expression or emotion, but also his voice, and Albus couldn't help but feel slightly impressed. The boy had never been known to exercise self-control, but it seemed that the young man had learnt. He was a closed book, unreadable. For now.

"Of course, after seven years here it's difficult to imagine anyone could forget. How does it feel to be back?"

The cheerfulness in Albus' voice boarded on painfully sugary, especially in combination with what Albus knew to be a blindingly lovely smile. Usually his former students were flooded with nostalgia upon returning to Hogwarts, cheerfully returning to their precious childhood memories, stories and anecdotes flowing freely. Snape only blinked.

"I do not see the point in useless reminiscing."

The answer was deadpan, reminding Albus painfully of the examination just month ago. It was obvious that Snape was not here to be polite or make conversation, which of course was a pity - how lovely could a good chat be, swelling up and down like the sea - but then this was, technically, a business meeting.

"Oh, but I disagree. In any case, would you like some tea? Our houseelves are very keen on traditional French patisserie with a local twist at the moment. Maybe we should sweeten our words with some chocolate."

Albus didn't even wait for the answer, and seconds later two houseleves appeared bearing trays. Soon the desk groaned under the weight of the plates and platters, teapots and delicate cups. Proudly the elves bowed and pointed out that they had used a specific type of local raspberry in the pastries, and then were gone again. Snape stared at the bowls and plates laden with pastel coloured delicacies as if someone was threatening his life.

"Now, what type of tea would you like? Our lovely elves delivered a green tea for you, but of course you can pick anything you like. This is, let me see, ah, a Sencha. Does that agree with you?"

To Albus' surprise Snape nodded, and wordlessly reached out to first pick up and then drop the small silver ball with the tea leaves into the small teapot nearest to him. Leaning forward he held the chain connected to the tea ball in one hand, and the lid of the teapot in his other. Ostentively busying himself with his own teapot Albus watched the young man keeping the exact necessary time to achieve a proper intensity of brew from the delicate leaves, a hint of concentration on his face that suddenly made him much more approachable than the empty expression beforehand had. When the tea had reached its proper state after only a short time Snape removed the tea ball and carefully set it down on the small plate appointed for that use, replacing the lid and pouring the bright green liquid into the cup the elves had placed in front of him. Counting the time for his own Dajeeling internally with the precision and routine of the Alchemist he was Albus watched his guest handle the delicate bone china carefully, with just the right amount of diligence necessary. It reminded him of the accurateness Snape had displayed while brewing under Albus' inquisitive gaze not long ago. Tea and potions, it seemed, both required and deserved more attention than humans.

The long fingers curled around the tiny handle of the cup Snape sipped the tea, and while Albus removed the tea ball from his own pot he noticed the three already dirty bandaids on his guest's hands. He seemed to have had an unfortunate encounter with a knife or something equally sharp, and apparently hadn't cared to use medical spells, instead reverting to the age old method of plastering muggle band-aids all over his hands and then forgetting to replace them.

Albus' examination, however, was cut short when Snape placed the cup down on the saucer again and then leant back in his chair, again folding his hands neatly.

"I assume I did not come here so you could watch me prepare tea."

After all these years it took a lot to make Albus blush, and being caught in the act of staring wasn't going to be enough. Calmly he added a bit of lemon and a good two spoons of sugar to his tea, and with a glance directed the small spoon to stir the cup while he focused on Snape again.

"Indeed, though I do enjoy sharing a good cup of tea with a friend. Alas, today we have other reasons for our meeting, though I do hope this will change in the future."

Fascinated Albus watched Snape's eyebrow shoot up at the mention of the word 'friend' before his face settled into its expression of neutrality again. This was going to be very interesting, indeed, and Albus wondered whether he would have enough time to indulge himself a bit by teasing Snape to find the little cracks in his armour.

Albus' pause grew a bit more lengthy then he had planned, but Snape didn't pick up on the offered thread of conversation. It seemed that the young man could not only stand silence, but even had no qualms to prolong it.

"Before we begin I would like to ensure you that this is a safe space, and that what we are going to talk about is going to remain confidential. I do hope that goes for both parties."

Again Snape's mask of neutrality slipped slightly, with a quirk of the corner of his mouth indicating that he was indeed getting curious - or worried, Albus was unsure. Still leaning back the young man released his hands and folded his arms in front of his chest.

"Silence is a virtue indeed. Why am I here?"

The small spoon in Albus' cup stopped its circles, lifted from the cup again and carefully desposited itself on the saucer. Picking up his own cup Albus sipped the now sweet tea, savoured the soft taste of the Dajeeling and then placed it down. Looking up at the young man again he placed his elbows on his desk, smile still fixed on his face. No small-talk, then. He wasn't surprised.

"I am, ah, let me call it curious."

Snape nodded.

"Not for the first time. I found it slightly unnerving to find you tracking my moves in the recent past. I thought you were satisfied after we spoke about the Wolfsbane potion, but it seems that your inquisitiveness has only increased."

The realisation settled in very slowly, and Albus allowed his smile to grow to cover his surprise. It was true that he had poked around a bit, pulling strings here and there, uncovering bits and pieces about Snape's past and present circumstances, neverminding the Wolfsbane incident. It seems that he hadn't been as stealthy as he himself had thought. Or that someone had warned Snape.

"As I said, I was curious. How did you know?"

Cards on the table, then. This was going to be very interesting.

"I have my ways, and no intention to enlighten you about them. All I wish to know, at this point, is why you have chosen to observe my comings and goings in the most disrespectful way."

Albus couldn't help but be impressed. He had mapped out their conversation thinking he had the slight advantage over Snape in knowing exactly what they were talking about, but it seemed that the young man himself was utterly aware of Albus' intentions, and willing to actually put up more than one line of defence.

"My apologies if my small inquiries seem disrespectful to you, as that was certainly not my intention. But it seems you already know that I am most interested in your specific case."

Unfolding his arms Snape leant forward a bit, one hand on his knee, and reached out for the tea cup. When his fingertips were only centimetres away from the small cup it moved obediently into his hand, and he leant back again to sip the fine tea, ostensibly enjoying the good quality Albus was proud to offer his guests. Watching the whole process Albus understood the message, the small answer to his own casual display of magical ability, just a hint at the fact that Snape, unlike a lot of others, was not impressed by what he had seen so far.

Done with the tea he carefully replaced the cup, this time staying slightly forward in his chair, back perfectly straight.

"My specific case?"

It surprised Albus how Snape, one of the most impatient wizards he had ever met, didn't seem to mind keeping the pace of their conversation slow, almost dragging.

"Of course. You are in a very interesting position right now."

The young man cast a glance at the bandaids on his hands before looking up, now seeming slightly bored all of a sudden.

"Am I here to talk about my current work? Because if that was what you wanted you could have attended one of the monthly colloquium at St. Aurelius. They are generally open to the professional circles, which you are well aware of considering you are the current Grand Master of the Guild."

Albus nodded, and pointed to Snape's hands.

"Of course, I used to enjoy these occasions very much. Alas, these days, with running the school I find myself without the time to attend. No, I wanted to speak about something quite different. But first, as I see your injuries - may I offer you a healing spell or two?"

He hadn't even intended it, but he had found one of the first larger openings in the armour of neutrality Snape wore so annoyingly. The young man immediately leant back, drawing his hands from his knees and folding his arms in front of his chest, his injured hand now hidden from Albus' eyes.

"That won't be necessary, thank you."

Still smiling Albus picked up his teacup again and put just enough worry into his voice to not sound like an old spinster aunt.

"Why didn't you perform a few easy healing spells yourself instead of using mundane bandaids? They look terrible, you should make sure that you won't catch an infection."

Interestingly the honest concern was enough to disturb Snape's facade further. It seemed that he tried to hide his hands even more in an involuntary motion that he corrected as soon as he became aware of it, and Albus started to wonder if the harsh reaction his touch had drawn from Snape was all pain and not also a simple recoil from any touch.

"Is that what we are discussing now, whether I use healing spells in a laboratory that is already highly charged with magical potency? The answer should be obvious, but I do not have time for these idle chats. Please come to your point, there is a lot of work waiting for me in St. Aurelius."

Albus had an inkling that healing spells were probably not the type of magic that Snape was any good at and that this was the simple reason for the bandaids, but he kept the knowledge to himself. Instead he nodded, spread his hands in what he thought was a reassuring fashion, and leant back in his own chair.

"My apologies for taking away from your time, Master Snape. Now, then, I do have a reason why I invited you here, as you may have already guessed. I want to ask you a simple question - no, let me correct that, actually I have two questions."

Obviously satisfied that Albus was coming to his point and pleased to be called by his proper academic title - or at least the abbreviated version of it - Snape nodded curtly. Albus dropped his hands into his lap and tried not to look too happy. Instead he modelled his face into a more serious version of a friendly expression, hinting at authority and power, and made sure to keep eyecontact with Snape without extending any magical impulses.

"When did you become a Death Eater?"

He had hoped for a reaction, a flinch, anything. But Snape remained unmoving, even daring to keep the eyecontact steady. Albus wondered whether he was internally pulling up defences against any work of Legilimency, but he had no chance to check without destroying whatever common ground they had already found.

"What makes you believe I would be one?"

He was prepared, just as Albus had expected it.

"I think we have already established that."

Snape tilted his head to the side, blinking, the surprise in his face looking almost real.

"Have we? Please remind me of the exact moment, for I do not remember."

Gesturing in his direction Albus nodded.

"Would you like me repeat my actions?"

Straightening his body again Snape almost growled.

"No. Whatever spell you choose, I wish not to be subjected to it again."

So it had been pain, mostly at least.

"It was no spell, and I must admit I had not anticipated the outcome. I would like to analyse that further, but it seems I need your help for that, too, and I remain unsure whether you are willing to cooperate with me."

The dark look on Snape's face remained, and for the first time Albus was reminded of the stubborn child he had to deal with so many time. It wasn't the most glorious memory, if he was honest.

"Why should I cooperate with you, Master Dumbledore? We have no shared objectives, neither in our lines of work nor elsewhere."

Albus used the now slightly charged atmosphere to pick one of the pastel coloured pastries and top his own mug with the soft Dajeeling. Replacing the teapot he looked up at Snape, now sensing how the deflective movements finally started to bother the young man. It would have be interesting to draw these evasive manoeuvres out a bit, simply to see how good Snape's self-control, and most importantly, how solid his grip on his magic actually was. He seemed to be confident in his abilities and decidedly did not lack control, but strong emotions could draw unsolicited outbursts of power from almost any wizard. For the task Albus had at hand it would be interesting to see whether Snape fell into that category or not, if he could operate with a certain amount of stealth, cover not only his tracks but also his power. For now it seemed that the young man was excellent at pulling up a facade, but Albus hadn't pushed him until the breaking-point yet.

"Ah, but I believe we do. Have a pastry, the raspberries are indeed wonderful at this time of the year."

Not to Albus' surprise Snape ignored the offer completely.

"I wish to concentrate on my work, and that's all. We have nothing in common."

Savouring the crunchy, buttery pastry in combination with slight tartness from the fresh fruit Albus sighed. Finishing his bite and brushing a few crumbs out of his beard he chased the sugary goodness with a sip of tea before fixing his gaze on the young man again.

"We have more in common than you think. Foremost, currently, that we both want to stop the madness Tom Riddle is devising."

Snape was only silent for a second, showing no breach in his collected facade, but Albus thought he could feel the tension in the magical atmosphere. He was thoroughly impressed by the stoic conduct the young man had displayed so far, but it was not going to help him, not when Albus was able to feel every single twitch in the magical field surrounding them. It would take a capable man years of practise with cloaking spells to hide his emotions from a sensitive and powerful magical being like Albus, and Snape was simply far too young and too inexperienced. Otherwise his control remained remarkable, enough to fool any ordinary wizard easily.

"I do not know what you are talking about."

Abandoning his pastry for a longer monologue - but not without giving it a longing look - Albus smiled again.

"You perfectly well do. I was convinced you were nothing but one of his idiotic followers - forgive my choice of language, please - until I discovered that you've been very carefully picking your way through the entire scenario. The Wolfsbane was the first pointer into that direction, really, but I found more. Why did you look into this, if it can't be useful to your career at this point? Tom did not order you to do so, I am very sure of that. Why did the last three times Tom tried to infiltrate the Ministry fail after, somehow, someone made spectacular blunders and the whole scheme blew up? Had he been handed falsified Intel? Someone has been sabotaging Riddle in small and very careful ways, almost delicately, and it is someone from the inside."

Snape listened carefully, his arms still crossed in front of his chest, his face only darkening marginally when Albus mentioned the last incident on his long list of things he suspected the young man to somehow have orchestrated.

"What an interesting reasoning. But why would you suspect me?"

For a brief moment Albus wondered what would happen if he sent out a small magical impulse again, just to understand how Snape felt and how likely he was to yield. But the memory of what had happened after the meeting was rather fresh, and even though Albus had wished for the young man to be slightly less sensitive to Legilimency there was no helping it now. How unfortunate, though. Things could have been so much easier.

"Because you are currently stuck in a position you don't want to be in, and you are looking for a way out. Since you were branded with the Dark Mark there is not much you can do, but there are small ways you can make Riddle's life more difficult, and you are using your opportunities wisely. I don't know how you fell for Riddle in the first place, though I do have my theories, but you are too intelligent to stay. But there is not much room for you to operate like this for longer, especially not entirely on your own. Alone you will not accomplish anything."

For a brief moment Snape looked amused.

"It seems I should thank you for the compliment. Now, if I follow your completely ridiculous line of thought further - let's imagine you were right, what would you want me to do?"

Albus felt immediate satisfaction they had come so far, and leant slightly forward.

"I would offer you a chance to work for and with a league that has been formed to fight off Riddle's attempts to rise to power."

Rising an eyebrow Snape suddenly seemed interested, and Albus felt almost pity that he would have to wipe the young man's mind afterwards, no matter the outcome.

"A league that has been formed? So the rumours are true."

Apparently Albus wasn't the only one who could run inquiries about his conversational partners. He hadn't expected the news of the forming of the Order leak so quickly, but it was obvious they had, and even into the circles Snape ran in. That wasn't exactly what he had wanted to hear, but he pushed the knowledge to the back of his mind to deal with it later.

"They are. Let's return to the question - if you were a Death Eater keen on a way out, and I would make that offer, what would you say?"

Smiling intensely Albus looked Snape straight into the eyes again, but found nothing he could make any sense of. Then Snape blinked.

"I would say no."

That took Albus by surprise.

"You wouldn't work with me?"

For a moment Snape loosened his crossed arms and brushed the long sleeve of his jacket back to look at his wristwatch. Then he looked up again.

"Naturally. What makes you believe a man like me would work for a league infested with a lot of people I have no wish to ever see again for a goal I do not share nor could benefit from?"

At least he now knew that the boy hadn't changed that much, which wasn't as much of a relief as Albus had thought.

"Is your own benefit always the one thing you consider when acting?"

For the first time that day Snape smiled at him, almost friendly, and then nodded.

"I am glad you came to understand that."

Sighing Albus leant back. He hadn't wanted to go there, at least not that quickly, but it seemed like he would need to pull a few more strings. Placing his elbows on the armrests of his chair he stapled his fingertips, and glanced at Snape again.

"Then let me give you an incentive to work for your own benefit."

With the smile gone from Snape's face he still looked strangely amused, and Albus saw no need in stretch the pause longer.

"I have proof that you are working for Tom Riddle, and if you refuse to cooperate with me I will, personally, hand you over to the ministry for trial and a very long time in Azkaban."

He put enough emphasis on the last few words to make sure Snape knew exactly what he meant, and waited for an answer.

Chapter Text

He waited, a few seconds passing, carefully scrutinizing Snape. He knew exactly what he was looking for - the small things that could show surprise, the first crack in the thick walls of arrogance and boredom surrounding the young man. A direct threat wasn't something he could have expected, not at this point in the conversation and without any preamble.

But all that happened was that Snape blinked twice, slowly, and then delivered his answer without even flinching.

"Well, if you must."

That wasn't even close to what Albus had been expecting, and it took all the experience of years negotiating in difficult situations for him to keep his surprise safely tucked away.

"That is your final answer?"

Snape only sighed, still not looking impressed. A slight hint of displeasure and slow loss of patience was the only outward change in his demeanour.

"I wasn't under the impression that you suffer from any hearing difficulties."

Brushing away the slight provocation Albus infused his voice with a bit more authority - not too much, just a hint to ensure his conversational partner that he indeed meant what he had threatened.

"Oh, indeed I do not. But be so kind and explain yourself, will you?"

It wasn't quite a request, but Snape seemed to understand that he needed to become more generous with his words if he wanted to solve the situation and deigned to follow the order.

"A very basic probabilistic evaluation shows that to any accusation there are two possible outcomes, as a court can only find two different verdicts. A defendant can be guilty or not guilty, each at a fifty percent chance if we stay in the realm of mathematics."

He paused, eyebrow slightly raised to indicate that he wasn't in the habit of explaining himself and was doing Albus a favour he wouldn't usually bestow on his conversational partners. Albus nodded curtly, edging him on. And he continued.

"So, at fifty per cent chance the verdict not guilty is found and generally does not result in a very long time in Azkaban, as you put it so eloquently. There would be nothing to worry there, would you not agree? That leaves us with the second option, being found guilty with all its consequences. But even that would not lead to the scenario you propose."

Listening to the slowly dragged out explanation in the calm and almost emotionless matter-of-fact voice Snape used reminded Albus painfully of the examination he had just recently conducted, and it wasn't a memory he was too keen on revisiting. But he knew better than to interrupt, having seen any rhetorical cheat under the sun. Patience was a virtue, and Albus had mastered it a very long time ago. So he only interjected where it was obvious that Snape wanted the nudge of a follow-up question, keeping his voice soft and open.

"Why would that be so?"

Now there was a hint of a smile on the young man's thin lips, indicating that they had arrived at a point he had been looking forward to make.

"Because current court records show that the Great Wizengamot has a history of rendering harsh sentences in such cases as you propose this one to be. Death sentences tend to be enforced within a very short amount of time, leaving the culprit in Azkaban for less than five days in average before the execution."

There was no emotion besides a hint of dogmatism visible, and beyond the hint of annoyance that his task was delayed by unforeseen consequences something inside Albus wasn't pleased with the direction this was taking. There was something beyond the mere fact that Snape discussed court verdicts in cases of multiple murders as if they were mathematical equations and nothing more - no moral, no ethics, no need for proof. Being guilty or not was reduced to the mere throw of a dice, and whichever side showed was nothing but a thing of probabilistic luck.

"I don't see how a death sentence would be preferable to being looked up for a very long time."

He wasn't being honest, because he knew exactly what Snape meant. He wasn't naive enough to believe that any type of life could be better than death, and he had seen Azkaban. But he needed to push on, move the conversation carefully now, making only a small mental note that apparently Snape had been following legal developments closely and turned newspaper reports into statistics. It wasn't a piece of information he could use immediately, but he was sure that was a moment to come when everything would be useful, and when they would have time to include a lenghtly lecture on ethics and moral responsibilitiy. But for now both had to wait.

"So the great Albus Dumbledore fears death?"

He hadn't expected the smugness, but there was no time to be annoyed.

"Of course, every living creature does. It's a primordial instinct, in all of us."

But Snape only snorted. "Sentimentality. Death means oblivion, why be afraid of that? There is no point in fearing what eventually will befall you."

It seemed like something a bratty teenager would say, but Albus remembered the frightened boy in his office all those years ago, the boy who had almost died and been scared beyond measure in the process. He also remembered not offering the slightest in respect of comfort, only harsh words and threats to keep silence. He had never been proud of his treatment of the incident, but back then he had to make quick decision. Weighting Lupin against Snape he had decided once, and it wasn't without a small pang of guilt that he realised that he would make the same decision again, should it ever become necessary. Back then he had thought that he had managed to masquerade it as a consequence of working for the greater good. There was one students' pride against the welfare of at least three others, and these things needed to be weighted carefully. Of course it had worked splendidly, everybody involved applauding his foresight and prudence and then enforcing the ban of silence. It had never occurred to him that Snape had looked right through the scheme even as a young student.

The realisation gave their current conversation a new depth, essentially forbidding Albus to read it as a mere theoretical game. There was no possibility that Snape had not understood the threat to be an actual real one, not with the firm knowledge that Albus had already once given up on him easily and without remorse. There was no bluff behind the pokerfaced explanation. Snape meant what he said, word for word, and Albus had never met a person as young as this not batting an eye at what was positively a threat of gruesome death.

"That is how much your own life matters to you?"

Nodding as if finally being relieved that Albus had gotten the point Snape agreed.

"I see we have come to an understanding."

The slight chime of one of Albus' many clocks interrupted him, and Snape stayed silent until the bell stayed silent again. Then he nodded.

"Time is passing, and there is work. If that is all I will take my leave."

Without waiting for Albus' he pushed his chair back and rose. Out of habit Albus followed his example, know that there was no chance to keep his guest around any longer. Unwilling as he was, he had to acknowledge that his former strategy was not going to work. If Akzakan wasn't a threat he'd have to redefine his plan of attack. If death wasn't enough of an incentive he'd need to find something else that would work, but not tonight. Things needed time.

"I shall not hold you back, although I must admit I'd rather continue our conversation. But it is late, and I assume you will work in the laboratory tonight?"

Nodding Snape confirmed, standing stiffly in front of the desk.

"Well, then." Albus smiled, using the short second Snape stood still to unfold his magic and casting a silent Oblivate. There was no point in using much force, he didn't need to wipe their entire conversation from the young man's mind. It was just enough to scratch out the memory of what Albus had told him about the league, while still leaving him with a blurred idea of what they had spoken about.

The spell was soft and aimed to feel as non-intrusive as possible, but the impact was enough to make Snape flinch back. He blinked once and it was over, and Albus was clever enough to take the memory of the Oblivate itself off Snape's mind when he pulled back again.

"Have a safe return to Oxford. I believe we shall continue our interesting discussion at some later time."

Albus smiled at the three seconds of confusion the Oblivate had left the young man with. He was obviously disoriented for a moment, but managed to cover it up at surprising speed. It would take him a while longer to understand what had just happened, and even though Albus knew it wouldn't make their future conversations any easier some things simply had to happen. Albus had people to protect, after all, and Snape was not one of them. The door closed silently behind him, and Albus listened to the sounds of the rotating staircase carrying him down and out of reach.

Evening fell swiftly with Albus sorting through his papers and his mind. His plan had only left him with a few uncomfortable realisations instead of a proper success, and he could not keep himself from pondering whether the advance might have been too hastily arranged. He should have waited, maybe, used more time getting to know Snape instead of simply plunging both of them into a rhetorical stand-off that had to fall through eventually. Now Snape knew that Albus wanted something, and if he realised that an Oblivate had been used he also knew that Albus was keeping secrets. Sometimes that alone was dangerous knowledge, and hours later over a cold cup of tea Albus mused whether he should have pushed harder, or taken more away with his spell. It had been tempting, he admitted it. There had been no resistance to his intrusion, only the small flinch that in itself was remarkable. Albus' magic wasn't a battleaxe but a fine scalpel, and most people he had been forced to free from difficult knowledge hadn't noticed a thing. He hadn't known that Snape was that sensitive to magic, no matter how subtle. It was interesting knowledge, but it wasn't going to make things easier at all.

The sudden flare of the fire in the fireplace pushed him away from the depth of his thoughts into real life. He felt the pull from the connection and recognized the Minister of Magic's very private signature, a strong call urging him to reply. With a sigh he placed his cold teacup back on the saucer, and rose from the desk. The connection opened without any further effort, and the head of the Minister appeared in the flames just as Albus arrived in front of the fireplace.

"Headmaster Dumbledore, it is good that I could reach you."

Nodding Albus brushed a hand through his beard, hoping there weren't any crumbs left. He was always dressed for business, but he hadn't expected a call this night. And especially not a call like this, from the very head of government, and with the urgency the pressed voice of the minister exhibited.

"What can I do for you?"

The minister shook his head, the image bobbing in the flames.

"It is merely information that I want you to have before it reaches the public and the press so you can - well. And it also falls under your authority, to a certain degree."

Leaning slightly forward Albus motioned for the minister to continue. It didn't sound good, not at all.

"There has been another attack. This time on a single individual, although the entire property was destroyed. We were alerted far too late, but Aurors are on scene now doing damage control. Local muggle population has been taken care off, but it becomes more and more difficult to hide the green light markings they use."

He wasn't sure what else he had expected, not when it seemed that these days every catastrophe came straight from the twisted mind of Tom Riddle.

"So Riddle's followers attacked someone? Was he involved himself? And what about the victim?"

And why was the minister immediately contacting him? Albus had his resources in the ministry, of course, but usually information got to him with a slight delay. He wasn't complaining about the sudden intimacy, of course, but he still wasn't sure if he desired it for future incidents as well.

"Yes, yes, absolutely Riddle and his followers. Listen, we don't know much at the moment, there's too much damage. And the victim, that's why I am calling you, not in your function as the Headmaster of Hogwarts, but because you are holding the post of the Grand Master of the Guild of Potionsmasters and Alchemists."

Now that was decidedly bad news. It took him only seconds to scroll through a list of possible targets Tom could find within the ranks of the guild, and he could easily think of a few. His heart sank at the idea that Tom had finally figured out that Nicholas had almost created the stone, the damned stone -

"Who was targeted?"

The minister nodded at the obvious urgency in Albus' voice.

"Basilius Valentinus. He was killed, his property obliterated. Aurors on the scene are trying to secure the crime scene, but pretty much everything is burnt. Muggles from the nearest village alerted their authorities to a series of explosions and green lights in the sky, but we managed to get there first. It was quite a job to clear the confusion amongst muggle authorities, but now there will be reports of an exploded warehouse complex used to store illegal fireworks. An arrest has already been made. I will keep you informed. The Guild will receive official notification of the death tomorrow. I wanted to inform you so can start appropriate proceedings in advance."

For a split second Albus was thankful to not hear Nicholas' name coming from the flames. Then the realisation hit him, and he listened to the flurry of explanations the minister bestowed on him through the flames with only half an ear. When the connection closed and he returned to his desk it took a moment before reality finally pushed through the rearranging of his current position.

Another victim in this war, and this time a high profile one. There were going to be discussions about this, articles in the press. Nobody had liked Valentinus, but that didn't quite make anybody harbour murderous thoughts. People would be sorry, or at least pretend to be. The Guilt would hold a remembrance ceremony and a funeral, burying Valentinus, or what was going to be left of him, at a place of his choice. There was probably a will, somewhere. There were rules concerning the death of a potionsmaster, regulations on who took over what - the library, the books, the house, and it was the job of the Guild to make sure things would happen according to tradition. It was the last apprentice a master had trained that took over responsibilities, and usually he or she was the one to continue the tradition, to take over the house and make good use of a properly kept garden and laboratory. Basilius Valentinus had been very keen on their traditions, and Albus was fairly certain that his death would mean that his last apprentice would inherit everything. It would also mean that there was only one logical suspect in a sudden death like this, and Albus knew exactly whom Aurors had arrested in an Oxford laboratory earlier this evening for the murder of Valentinus.

Fate had its twist and turns, destroying the best laid schemes to the left and the right. Sitting back in his chair Albus pondered the movement of the flames in the fireplace, now devoid of any floating heads, and wondered if Snape had imagined that he would get to experience the inside of Azkaban that quickly. But it would do wonders to further Albus' plan. Darkness and fear would work their ways as they had done a hundred times before. Azkaban had shattered stronger men in shorter time, and Albus was looking forward to see how Snape would walk out of that particular trial by fire. And from then on things would need only a little bit of pushing, just a small amount of intrigue. Oh, how easy it would be now.

It was the first time that Tom's perversions had played into Albus' hands, actively furthering his own plans, and the implication of all of it continued to overshadow the whole evening, even when Albus' raised a glass of whiskey to his dead colleague. But he felt no remorse. It was war, after all, and they all had no business being squeamish. Death, as Snape had so aptly put it, would befall all of them in the end, and there was no point in being sentimental about it.

Chapter Text

Albus waited for five days. A week was the usual time the Ministry kept suspects in investigative custody, giving them exactly seven days to prove their innocence before a time for the trial would be set. Five days seemed like a good amount of time to give Snape some incentive to think about his wrongdoings, to just get a taste of what consequences there might be in store for him.

The news had stirred up confusion, but the headlines had been kept in check by some clever policing and a calculated retention of information on the side of the Ministry. Nobody cared too much about the death of a secluded eremit-alchemist as Valentinus had been per se. It was a nice scandal to have his own apprentice in prison under suspicion of having betrayed him, but Snape didn't make for a photogenic suspect, and everybody had already heard about his bad character. The Guild was mildly annoyed by the whole trouble, preferring to solve its problems without interference from the press or any curious public. There had been an unofficial meeting of the oldest members of the Guild, a small circle of which Valentinus had been a member without ever attending. Meddling old fools he had called them, a moniker Albus would absolutely subscribe to.

Hardly anybody believed that Tom Riddle might have had anything to do with Valentinus' death. The story of the careless scientist was too common and obvious - a bad calculation, a cauldron too full or too hot, highly volatile concoctions, all of these were perfectly reasonable chances to blow up an entire village and not just the house. Of course Valentinus was dead, but he surely wasn't the first alchemist to go up with his work. Belby had died that way, and surely it could happen again. There were rumours, but they weren't encouraged. Riddle wasn't prolific enough to keep the public on its toes.

But Albus knew the truth, having heard and read every report the Ministry had produced on the issue, having attended many meetings with the Minister and having seen the scene of the crime with his own eyes. There was no question that it had been Riddle who had killed Valentinus, blown up the house and vanished again. Albus had seen the drawing one of the first responding Aurors had made of the floating mark to know that there was no room for doubt. But there was one question that neither he nor the Ministry could find an answer to. Nobody knew why Tom Riddle had decided to kill the old alchemist, to track him down in his own house and then blow up any possible trace of what had happened. The fire had consumed all, burnt the evidence and the library, the laboratory and the living areas. Everything was gone.

But there was an answer to every question on this planet, and there was always a person who knew it. That alone would have been enough reason for Albus to get Snape out of Azkaban again, neverminding the fact that he of course knew that Snape could not have been the murderer. He had been with Albus, and there was only a very slim chance that he had orchestrated the murder from afar. And even if there were ways to find that out, and Albus' plan had been set in stone almost as soon as he had heard the news.

On the fifth day he contacted the Ministry. All five days long he had waited for them to call on him and request that he confirmed the alibi Snape must have surely provided during questioning. He had heard that there had already been someone vouching for him for the hours after he had returned from Albus' office, stating under oath that Snape had been in their shared laboratory in St. Aurelius in Oxford, and that there had simply been no moment in which he could have killed Valentinus during that night. But the hours before that were unclear, and it would have been the logical thing for Snape to tell the truth - that he had been with the best possible person to be with to make his claim irrefutable, in the safest space the wizarding world provided. It was failsafe, curseproof. But he hadn't done it.

Sadly Albus had no room in his plans for any suicidal thoughts Snape could entertain. He needed the man, and if it was just for a few more years. What he did afterwards was his business, but right now he had a job to do, and Albus had to make sure he would finally grasp the weight of the situation. So he appeared in the Ministry, stated under oath that Snape had been with him in the relevant hours, and requested a special favour from the Ministry that was quickly granted. The day afterwards the newspapers reported that Snape had been declared innocent, wrongly accused of a terrible deed he had not committed.

It was already afternoon when Albus apparated on a windy spot right opposite the entrance to the most famous prison the wizarding world had. It was beastly cold, wind pulling on his robes and beard with strong fingers, waves drumming endlessly against the black rock. Above him he could hear the gulls screaming their endless mocking song while circling the prison, free to fly away and yet staying. It was against protocol to pick up released prisoners right in front of the gates, but Albus needed the element of surprise and the entrapment the situation provided. And he didn't mind looking at Azkaban, unlike most of the wizarding elite that tended to ignore what exactly they were doing to people who had breached the social contract of the magical world. Azkaban always reminded Albus that the line between being a hero wearing the Order of Merlin and a criminal slowly withering away in a cell was razor-thin, that sometimes it was mere luck to fall on the right side of the divide. So far fortune had favoured him. He just wished he had more time to pray to her that she would continue her favourable treatment.

He was only minutes early, and the cold wind hadn't managed to do more than send slight shivers down his spine when the large gates suddenly opened. They revealed three figures, two of them Aurors wearing the robes of the Azkaban Guard. The third was taller, stick thin and looking very gloomy. A deep frown etched into his now positively gaunt looking features Snape followed the direction one of the Aurors was pointing with his eyes, and if it was even possible his expression darkened when he realised who was waiting for him.

"There is your welcoming committee, go."

The guard made a harsh motion, obviously no too enthusiastic about the strange situation he was suddenly in. Usually prisoners were delivered to the Ministry to be released, not picked up at the very doors. And not by people like Albus.

Snape took a careful step forward, and as soon as he was out of the range of the doors the heavy gate swung shut again. The sound of the many locks closing the gates behind him made him flinch, and he made no effort to hide it. He moved again only when the door was firmly shut behind him, waves clashing against rock and seagulls screaming the only noise. Giving him a good once-over Albus realised that his new charge wasn't going to make much of a fuss today, at least not judging from his appearance. He was still dressed in the same t-shirt and trousers he had worn when Albus had seen him for the last time, confirming what Albus already knew - that he had been arrested straight after his return to Oxford. His clothing was suspiciously clean, just like his personal appearance, indicating that the guards had taken care to get his outward appearance into an acceptable state before delivering him to Albus. But still the signs that the past five days had taken their toll on him were too visible. He was too thin to cope with five days without proper sustenation without looking half-starved immediately, and the unnatural paleness of his skin only helped to emphasise the dark circles under his eyes. Wearing only a t-shirt in the continuous cold of Azkaban must have been deadly, and in the cruel wind it was obvious that Snape was cold to the bone, shivering slightly. But his posture was painfully straight, shoulders stiff and pulled back. He kept his hands clutched behind his back, just out of sight.

"What a surprise."

His voice, however, was dry and calm as always. There was a hint of tiredness in it and a distinct coarseness indicating that he would be sick soon with fever if he wasn't already. For a moment Albus felt a hint of compassion, especially taking into calculation what he was about to do. Then he pushed the feeling aside. They didn't have time for such things.

"I am glad I could make it one. You will come with me."

He didn't wait for any reply that could have only been negative anyway. Without waiting or asking for permission he reached out, took hold of Snape's bony shoulder, and the power of his magic whisked both of them away.

They materialised on a path leading up to a forest. The change of scenery was impressive, the harsh wind and screaming gulls suddenly replaced by the softly whispering trees and the lush colours of the countryside. The ground underneath their feet was soft, and the sky above them bright and dotted with white clouds in the warm light of the afternoon. The trees were less fragrant now than they had been in summer, and the smell of burnt wood drifted towards them from a place just outside of their view with every movement of the wind.

Drawing in a sharp breath Snape stumbled out of Albus' hold as soon as they had firmly arrived. He needed a moment to regain his footing on the suddenly uneven ground of the dirt track they were on, staggering backwards and turning around. He had turned slightly green, and Albus expected him to be sick behind a bush any minute. But he caught himself, needing only a few deep breath to recover his composure.

When he turned around again his focus had completely returned, cool gaze fixed on Albus.

"By wizarding law I am a free person, and as such I demand my possessions back."

Albus was impressed by the speed with which Snape recovered, still capable of keeping the focus on the important issues beside the fact that he must be completely at a loss where he was and had almost no control of his current situation.

"As you have correctly guessed the Ministry handed me your wand. You have my word that it will be returned to you in a short moment."

But Snape didn't give a damn about Albus' promises.

"No. You are not entitled to hold it, and I request it back now."

Crossing his arms in front of his chest he stared Albus down, determination visible in every inch of him. But Albus wasn't going to yield.

"You will receive it, but in a minute. And now follow me."

Turning around he lead the way around the corner, wondering whether Snape had really not yet realised where they were or if he had just pushed his emotions so far down that he could ignore what was about to happen.

"You are breaking the law!"

Turning around Albus regretted having to be so candid already, but if the situation requested it he was not going to shy away from the truth.

"Have you so far been under the impression that I would be particularly squeamish about that?"

He kept his voice soft and inviting, but his reply still managed to bewilder Snape, who was too tired to conceal his surprise and simply stared back and had no reply at the ready, possibly for the first time since Albus had decided to open negotiations with him.

"It's good we managed to clear that up. Now follow me."

Without waiting for a reply he turned around and walked onwards, and the rustling steps on the path indicated that this time Snape obeyed. They walked the path in silence, just for a few meters before they turned a corner. The smell of burnt wood became stronger, now mixed with sulphur and countless other substances. There was no way that Snape had not realised where they were a long time ago, but it was only at the exact moment when they rounded the corner and finally had a clear view of the remains that he stopped dead in his tracks, recoiling as if he had walked into an invisible wall. Turning around Albus saw him frozen in place, shock clearly visible on his thin face.

His eyes were fixed on the ruins of the property in front of them. Situated on the edge of the forest, just on top of a gently sloping hill lay the burnt skeleton of what had been a stately house not long ago, black beams that used to support the construction reaching into the sky like burnt fingers. The roof had caved in under the heat of the fire ravaging everything, fed by explosive substances and countless volumes of what had been an extensive library. The outer walls still stood in some places and had been blown apart by explosions in others. Debris was everywhere, littering the remains of the garden that had been destroyed by a raging power unleashing anger all over the formerly well-arranged property. Smoke was still rising from areas here and there, even after five days and a few efforts to quench all the fire. But there was too much dry wood and paper to feed it, and finally the Aurors had ceased their efforts and simply cast a strong spell around the area that prevented any fires to spread into the forest. Nobody was supposed to be inside the circle drawn around the house, but Albus had pulled a few strings and there were no Aurors in sight.

There could have been an entire army of Aurors and Snape would not have noticed. He stood fixed in place, simply staring as if he could not comprehend what he was seeing.

"Obviously it's a scene of an ongoing crime investigation, so we should be careful."

But Albus could have spoken to a tree for all impact his words made. It took a long while until Snape moved, but when he did he was pulled towards the house as if moved on strings. There was nothing for Albus to do but to follow and observe. Together they walked up to the former entrance, past the gate to what used to be the front garden and was now essentially burnt grass covered with fallen detritus from the upper levels of the house. The stench of smoke was still pungent in the air, but while Albus found it decidedly unpleasant Snape didn't seem to feel it. Moving like a man walking in his sleep he crossed the path towards what used to be the front door, and without hesitating walked through the now empty doorframe that was still standing.

"The structure is instable, you should not venture far."

But Snape did not reply. Albus could hear his heavy boots trod over broken wood and burnt debris, the sound of smaller pieces of burnt wood falling down. He knew that there was no space to move inside the house, that the structure had completely collapsed into itself. Snape couldn't go far, barely beyond what had been the large central entrance hall with the creaky staircase leading up to the more private area, to the large library where Aurors assumed Valentinus' body must have been when the house had been blown up. They hadn't recovered much of it, only pieces of bone scattered amongst torn and blackened books. They were what the Guild had decided to put into the coffin they were set to bury in a few days, remains of a studious life and a mysterious death.

There was no point in waiting for Snape in front of the house, not when he was possibly taking longer crawling through the debris. Not when Albus kept his wand as a security, making sure that he wasn't going to suddenly disappear without a warning. So Albus walked around the remains of the building into the back garden. He wasn't sure what pained him more, the burnt ruin or the destroyed plant life behind it. Valentinus had kept his large garden in excellent shape, had nourished and cared for an impressive number of rare plants and herbs needed for his work and sometimes even sold the especially rare ones to his colleagues. Now the former paradise had turned into ash. There was only chaos of dirt and plants ripped from their beds, the remains of burnt out trees painfully black against the clear autumn sky.

He stood and waited. It took long for Snape to finally emerge from around the corner, still moving like a man walking in his sleep or in his death, unstable and shellshocked. Albus had expected a strong emotional reaction, but his face was perfectly empty beyond the firm set of his jaw. His formerly clean clothing was covered in soot and ash that had rained down on him while he had moved in the smouldering ruin. White residue from the cinders was in his hair, mixed with other small particles of dirt. He did not cast more than one look at the garden and then marched straight up to Albus, stopping just far enough so that he remained out of physical reach.

"Why did you bring me here?"

It wasn't a question but a demand, but there it was finally - the breaking of the voice, now not only coarse but almost choked. There were still remains of composure visible, but Snape's defences were worn down from the time in Azkaban, and as Albus had predicted the emotional onslaught of seeing what used to be his home was threatening to pull him under. It just needed one more little push.

"First because I thought you should see it to understand what had happened. Second because I have a few questions for you, and why not ask them while looking at some evidence?"

Snape stared at Albus as if he had grown as second head, possibly in the shape of werewolf and armed with sharp teeth and nothing but bloodlust.

"You have questions? You?"

There was only marginally more urgency in Snape's voice, but Albus noticed how he had clenched his hands to fists, knuckles whitening as his nails were digging into his palms.

"Yes, naturally. For example I'd like to know why exactly Tom Riddle killed Valentinus. The obvious answer would be because he wanted something, but he destroyed the entire property and we don't know what he took, if he took anything at all. Or did whatever he wanted die with Valentinus? Tell me, I believe you would know."

There, a nice push, not too hard yet. All he needed now was for Snape to stumble over his own emotions and betray himself. It was only a matter of time.

But Snape only closed his eyes, apparently concentrating on breathing properly for a moment. When he looked at Albus again he must have cleared his mind and retained a semblance of control.

"How would I know? I was here a week ago and spoke with my master, everything was as usual. Then suddenly you have absurd claims, then I get thrown into Azkaban and now you drag me here and have the audacity of questioning me? This - " He turned around and pointed at the house, covering the ruined garden with a wide, swooping handmotion, turning away from Albus - "this is not my fault. Nothing of this."

And suddenly Albus could almost feel the emotions raging in Snape, all of the misery of loss and fear that came with the sudden and brutal bereavement. The feelings came and went again, just a slight crack in the cool exterior, but they were there, and Snape was incapable of hiding them properly anymore. Albus pushed on.

"Why would I believe you? You could just as well have sold Valentinus to Tom Riddle. You knew everything about him, his property, his work. If not you, who else?"

And that was enough. Snape turned around at a speed betraying years of duel practice, anger exploding in his face, eyes narrowed.

"I did not betray him!"

One long index finger stabbed the air in front of Albus, underlining his every word. But even more impressively the large tree closest to them suddenly erupted into fire, the crown engulfed with blazing heat, flames licking the already blackened trunk. Surprised by the sudden heat Snape turned around again, his face falling at the result of his loss of control. Lifting both hands he made a closing motion, extinguishing the fire with a silent spell. But even with the quick reaction it was an impressive display of leaked magic due to massive emotional strain, proof to the fact that Snape did have a breaking point and that Albus had found it.

For a moment Snape simply stared at the smoke rising from the dead tree, looking as forlorn as a person could with the ruins of the house in the background. And Albus waited, for the next move, for the right moment to pose the next question.

But before he could say anything Snape took a deep breath, and turned around again. Staring straight at Albus a visible change had overcome him. Gone was the desperation visible just seconds ago. Instead he now focused Albus, face set into a firm mask of displeasure, crossing his arms in front of his chest. Too late Albus realised that he should have taken advantage of the moment and instead had failed to react on time.

"So this is your strategy."

Snape's voice was still coarse with the oncoming cold, but there was a new quality in his words. Clipped, cold and precise there was no room for emotions or misunderstanding.

"Excuse me?"

Keeping his own stance soft Albus tried to buffer the worst, but he knew had no chance to turn the situation around when Snape laughed in return.

"You know exactly what I mean. What a noble idea, using a horrific death to further your own plan. What are you trying to achieve in taking advantage of my loss? Did you bring me here to watch me repent? Confess any sins and beg for absolution?"

Snape was of course right, painfully right. It hadn't been too difficult to find Albus out, but he still had to admit that he was impressed with Snape's ability to still see through it, given all circumstances. Albus wanted to answer, but Snape wasn't there anymore to listen.

"There is no need to deny it. You are a honoured member of wizarding society for your achievements, but that also means that everybody knows what you have done, what you were willing to do and probably would do again. You have tried to manipulate and blackmail me, you have taken parts of my memory during our last meeting without permission or any explanation, severely damaging my mental balance. I don't care who you are or what you want, but this will end right here."

Pausing in his little speech Snape glared at Albus, and then loosed his stiff stance to hold out a hand.

"My wand, now."

It wasn't a request.

With the dim feeling that they had been in this exact position before, just elsewhere and at another time Albus gave in. From the inside of his Burgundy robe he produced Snape's wand, and it flew out of his grasp and into Snape's open hands as soon as it was magically possible. There was no need for Albus to reach for his own wand. It was obvious that Snape has said what he had wanted to say, and that there was nothing that could possibly follow this.

And he was right. Seconds after Snape had grasped his wand safely he stared at Albus one final time, unrelenting in the intensity of his gaze. And then he was gone, the plopp of the disapparition echoing over the destroyed garden and burnt house. Sighing Albus stared at the spot from where he had been so angrily lectured just seconds ago, wondering where exactly things had started to go off the rails and why he hadn't noticed earlier that Snape was one hell of a difficult bastard to manipulate, not matter how far he was pushed in the corner and how much emotional distress was heaped on him. There weren't many people who were willing to stand up to Albus Dumbledore, unarmed and tired to the bone with no chance of actually coming victorious out of a confrontation. It was a rare quality in anybody to be that reckless and stubborn in the face of sure defeat, and it was just what Albus needed - a man who'd need to be executed standing up because he would just not kneel. The trouble with that was just that these tended to hellishly difficult to be convinced of anything, and he knew, because he was one of them as well.

Sighing at nothing in particular he turned around. But there before him were only the ruins of the house, still silently smoking, grey thin columns rising towards the sky until the wind carried them away.

Chapter Text

The funeral for Basilius Valentinus was to be a simple affair, without too much pomp and circumstances, and yet just enough decorum to ensure the old Alchemist would receive the honours his position and age deserved. He had, after all, been one of the most well-known spagyrians, with quite a few famous inventions to his name. If it hadn't been for his terrible temper and general hatred for anybody and everybody he would have probably been an admired saviour of the wizarding world, somebody whose achievements in his field would have made him famous and celebrated if not rich. His character being the way it was he had lived in obscurity, well-known only among colleagues and the odd mediwitch with an interest in where the potions they administered daily had come from. He had turned down the Order of Merlin, twice, and insisted on any documentation to that effect being destroyed immediately.

Lacking any family anybody knew of it was the sole responsibility of the Guild to organise the funeral for Valentinus with all the necessary attention to details, and being the Grand Master the responsibility for the whole affair lasted to a great degree on Albus' shoulders. Luckily tradition meant that everybody knew what was to be done, that protocol was already in place and only needed to be followed precisely, without much room to change anything or real need to do so. There were to be various meetings of the most ancient and wise members, a public funeral at a cemetery that usually the deceased had already decided upon, and later a meeting in the Guild Hall, to be presided over by the Grand Master and to be dedicated to the spirit of the passed Guild member. If no family was known to the Guild the final apprentice of the deceased took over responsibilities usually reserved for family members, especially when it came to the reading and execution of the will, which tradition required any member to deposit in the vault the Guild kept at Gringotts in London.

So it came that Albus stood waiting at the entrance to the main branch of the wizarding bank on a clear day, waiting for his colleagues to arrive so they could proceed with the breaking of the seal and declaration of Valentinus' will. He had been slightly too early, apparating into Diagon Alley directly from Hogwarts and then making his way through the crowds, drawing attention not only because he was Albus Dumbeldore and half the wizarding population knew him personally, but also because he was dressed in the most fitting, yet for him very unusual sombre dark blue robes. He had shaken hands here and there and exchanged greetings, but his short explanation - "Death of a colleague, very sad, yes, no time to stay and talk" - had made people move out of his way respectfully, and he had been slightly faster than anticipated. It gave him time to idle by the main entrance, waiting for the two Lower Masters of the Guild, Nicholas Flamel and Leona Constantia of Clermont, as well as for Valentinus' final apprentice, Severus Snape.

Flamel and Clermont arrived both perfectly on time, both dressed sombrely for the occasion in dark robes just like Albus, even though Leona Clermont hadn't been able to resist wearing her trademark sunflower in muted colours embroidered upon her shawl. They had barely time to shake hands before Snape appeared out of the crowd that always swelled up and down around the bank. If before he had been sticking out like a sore thumb because of his refusal to dress even remotely appropriate for whatever the occasion was or at least eschewing wizarding robes whenever possible he had now done a perfect turn around. It seemed Snape was not doing things by halves, not only donning mourning robes in the traditional muted colours, but dressing entirely in black in formal academic robes, including a full-length draped cloak that was oddly out of place in the currently pleasant early autumn weather. Only his collar and shirt cuffs betrayed that he was wearing a white shirt underneath, the high collar slightly too stiff for Albus' taste. It didn't help that he apparently hadn't managed to regain any of the weight he had lost in Azkaban, resulting in giving him a slightly skeletal outline that even the mass of fabric he had wrapped himself in couldn't hide. His face was gaunt and pale, and it took Albus not even ten seconds to deduce that the illness Snape must have caught in Azkaban was still very much troubling him. He was pale as a sheet, with telltale spots of blushing on his high cheekbones, indicating that he was still sick with a touch of fever. His greeting was barely more than a raspy whisper, but he brushed off Clermont's gentle inquiry if he was capable of attending the reading with open distaste. It was obvious that he wanted whatever was going to happen to just be done, and Albus used the short walk into the main hall of Gringotts to contemplate why exactly he was feeling a slight pang of worry that could also easily be guilt. He had, after all, kept Snape out of bed with his little detour to Valentinus' house instead of allowing him to go free and immediately hide wherever he lived to recuperate.

But there was nothing he could do about it now, and Snape was a fully grown-up wizard as well as decidedly not Albus' responsibility. So he pushed the thought down and instead focused on the proceedings at hand. The four Guild members were quickly welcomed by a sombre looking goblin who ushered them into a private room. The parchment scroll had already been retrieved from the vault following directions issued by the Guild, so there was no wait time or ride down to the vaults, a fact that Albus could have sworn made Snape relax his shoulders just a little bit. Sitting down in a circle around the desk where the goblin took residence Albus had a moment to observe the young man settle down, very still, and very straight. The formal robes made him look like a completely different person - just as reserved, but much stiffer, perfectly closed up. He kept his back painfully upright, hands neatly folded in his lap, not bothering to take off the cloak but instead allowing it to flow over the chair and around him. It was as if he carried his very own black cloud around with him, enough to make him vanish perfectly behind the facade of formality he had always used in conversation but never in dress. The change was astonishing, and for Albus the psychological implication behind was only too clear.

In the meantime the goblin had climbed on the high chair behind the desk, and taken the parchment scroll in his hands.

"Masters, would you prefer to name someone from your ranks to break the seal and read the scroll, or shall I do it? There has been no order by the deceased concerning this issue."

Traditionally the closest family member of a deceased had to break the seal if nobody else had been named. Within the framework of the Guild the last apprentice took this place, acting as chosen family member, which would have meant that Snape would have had to not only open the will, but also read it out loud. It was clear as day to Albus that this wasn't going to be quite possible, not with Snape's voice already barely audible and the obvious pain speaking caused him.

"As the Grand Master of the Guild I shall take the responsibility on me."

Flamel and Clermont, well versed in protocol, weren't quite as surprised as they should have been. Clermont nodded her understanding while casting a sympathetic look at Snape next to her, while Flamel simply accepted the change in course without any comment. Snape didn't seem to notice that he had been passed over, adding certainty to Albus' suspicion that he was mostly occupied with staying upright in his chair and roughly following what was happening around him.

The goblin handed the scroll over without protesting, made a note in his book of protocol and then motioned for Albus to commence. The seal broke easily, and Albus unrolled the scroll, proceeding to read. There was nothing in the short will that surprised him. Valentinus followed true and tried patterns for his will, handing over his house and garden to his final apprentice, and determining the Oxford cemetery the Guild had used ever since its funding days for his gravesite. It would make preparations for the funeral easy, as everything was on territory owned by the Guild and hardly any authorities would need to be informed. Valentinus did not mention any living family members or friends, and Albus found himself saddened at the impersonal nature of what was supposed to be the last personal statement the famous Alchemist had left them with. There were no terms of endearments, no small memorabilia allotted to people who could used them as object of remembrance. It was just the house, garden, books and money, all of which were supposed to be handed over to Snape as last apprentice, and most of which had now gone up in fire and smoke.

He was done quickly enough, rerolled the scroll and handed it over to Snape, who was now entitled to keep it as proof of his claim on Valentinus' inheritance. It took the young man a moment before he moved, staring at the scroll for a second before slowly reaching out and taking it. The goblin, however, was already back at business. Collecting signatures for his book of protocol from everybody present he scattered a bit of sand on the page, waved it away with a quick spell and then bowed at the assembled Alchemists.

"If there is no other business I will hand over the key to the vault to Master Snape. If you don't mind, I still need a few details for the records."

Snape nodded as the others shook their heads, and got up slowly. He still held the scroll in his hands while being escorted out of the room by the goblin, who nodded to one of his colleagues positioned by the door to guide the other visitors back into the bustle of the main hall. There he bowed respectfully and vanished.

Clermont sighed and wrapped her sunflower shawl tighter around her shoulders.

"Most dreadful, what a sad little gathering. Nicholas, Albus, will you join me for a quick break? I feel like I need sustenance before we go back to planning the funeral, it's all just too depressing for me."

Exchanging a glance with Nicholas Albus nodded, took her offered arm and together they stepped out of the bank and back into the sunlight.

It took a long meal at the Leaky Cauldron to lift their spirits again, but then the afternoon turned out to be most fruitful, and by the end of the day the funeral was perfectly organised. It helped that they could simply stick to the common way things were done in the Guild, and that Valentinus had requested nothing specific to happen to his body - or, in his case, the almost empty casket with the few bone fragments that had been collected out of the smoking ruins of his house.

Five days later the funeral took place. The only guests present were the members of the Guild, and Albus had made sure to keep a low profile as not to alarm the press or any unwanted third-party-attention. Valentinus' death had by now turned into a bit of a state secret, with the Ministry keeping the involvement of Tom Riddle as low profile as possible. The official version was now an accident, and even the release of Severus Snape from Azkaban had been tailored to fit well into the narrative, claiming that they had let him go when it became clear that the explosion had merely been caused by a wrongly filled cauldron and nobody had betrayed anyone after all. Accidents had happened before, Alchemists sometimes went up with their failed experiments, and usually that didn't make the headlines. Albus made even sure that Nicholas Flamel gave the Prophet an exclusive interview in which he recounted all famous accidents within the larger field of Alchemy, stressing how frequent they were and what horrid consequences they could have. Flamel was an excellent storyteller, and Albus watched amused how the readers flocked to his colourful descriptions of explosions, flames and other horrors brought upon seasoned Alchemists by minute mistakes or a lapse in concentration.

The funeral itself was as unspectacular as it was even possible. It was a rather bleak day, the first cool wind threatening a cold autumn, the sky grey and befitting the occasion. There was the usual procession of Guild members past the coffin at the cemetery, the lowering of the casket into the freshly dug grave. Everybody dropped handfuls of dirt onto the casket, Albus spoke a few reassuring words in remembrance of Valentinus and then invited everybody back to the Guild Hall for a small gathering with refreshments. Everybody apparated the short distance from the cemetery back to the Hall, sparing the muggle population in Oxford the sight of a procession of women and men in dark robes looking slightly sad, but otherwise mostly detached.

Later in the Hall the usual arrangement of seats had been changed, leaving room for the members to move around and regroup as they saw fitting. Usually proceedings were only open to full members of the Guild, who had to be certified masters, but social gatherings such as funerals were always open to associated members - usually those living in the household of a master and working for them, as assistants or apprentices, and students of Alchemy. And they had all come out, strangely enough, to pay their respects to one of the least liked members the Guild had ever had. Albus blamed Valentinus' spectacular death for it. It wasn't every day that someone went up in smoke, no matter what Nicholas had told the press. Now they milled around the hall, sitting in groups at the tables, slowly recovering from the sadness of the cemetery and returning to their usual lively chat. Moving around Albus greeted those whom he only been able to nod at during the funeral, completely absorbed with his duties as Master of Ceremonies. Now the worst was done and he could relax a bit, chat with Guild members he hadn't seen for a while, mostly because they lived withdrawn in various remote parts of the British Isles. He wandered from table to table, slowly working his way around the hall while at the same time keeping an eye on Severus Snape. Although five days had passed since they had seen each other last at Gringott's it seemed that whatever illness Snape had caught was still bothering him. That in itself was unusual. Magical healing remedies were much stronger than their muggle equivalent, and it didn't make sense Snape wouldn't have taken anything, especially not since the man himself was working in the filed of pharmaceutical alchemy, healing potions being his speciality and daily bread. Albus had expected him to have a rather well stocked selection on hand at all times, and make liberal use of them.

But on the day of the funeral he was just as pale-faced as before. He was dressed with the same stiff formality he had been at Gringott's, layers of black on black, white collar stiff and perfectly ironed. At least now the weather warranted the long cloak, and Snape had been wrapped into it during the entire funeral. He had declined to speak, to offer a few words of remembrance about his late Master, and Albus hadn't found it in him to be angry when he saw him on the day, with all blood drained from his features. He spent the entire funeral standing next to Albus, back ramrod straight, hands folded, with an completely empty expression in his face, watching the procession of witches and wizards past the casket next to them. There was no sign of emotion from him, but the tension in his body was so strong that Albus himself felt it seeping into his own bones. He exhaled only when he arrived at the Hall, Snape immediately moving away from him. But he didn't join one of the tables, rather finding a space on the stone seats carved into the walls of the hall, formerly used by the Masters during assemblies before they had become too many for the few seats present and resorted to using wooden chairs. But the decorative Gothic carved seats were still there, and Snape quickly found one, back flat to the wall, looking ahead without really taking part in what was happened around him. He kept his straight posture, hands neatly folded in his lap, but his face had turned from simply pale to grey, the telltale red spots on his high cheekbones slowly reappearing. It seemed he was counting down time until he could leave, just staying for a few more minutes to ensure politeness and ceremonial adequacy. He was approached a few times by witches and wizards offering their condolences, but he was generally not liked enough for anybody to stay longer. So he sat alone for a while, or at least until he was joined by the only Guild Member known to willingly socialise with him. It was Andreas Libavius, Nicholas Flamel's slightly eccentric but properly brilliant former apprentice, a candidate for the Master examination to take place the following spring, and Snape's long-term laboratory partner ever since their shared years as undergraduates in Oxford. They were sharing a laboratory again for their graduate studies, and Albus knew it had been him who had vouched for Snape's whereabouts during the later hours of the fateful night Valentinus had died.

Now the young man wandered over, gathered his dark robes around him and settled next to Snape, leaning towards him in a display of familiarity Albus had not seen anyone show that easily around Snape in public. Snape slowly turned around, and listened to whatever it was his colleague told him sotto voce. Then he shook his head and turned back to staring straight ahead, causing Libavius to roll his eyes and lean in further, properly invading Snape's personal space, even slightly leaning into him. For a moment Snape looked startled, unwilling, but didn't shrink away. Again he shook his head, but his lab partner seemed to care rather little about his objections. Albus couldn't help but smile as Libavius leant over further, and for a brief moment rested a hand on Snape's folded hands. He pulled back immediately again and obviously started to berate Snape, everything still completely inaudible to everybody around him, but beautifully projected through Libavius' extravagant bodylanguage. And then he did something completely unexpected. He turned to Snape again, said something, Snape again shook his head - but Libavius only grimaced, put a hand on Snape's arm and both vanished with a plopp. A few heads in the Hall rose from their plates and conversation, but nobody besides Albus seemed to have watched the conversation and surprising disapparition, and everybody returned quickly to the conversation. Nobody expected good manners from Severus Snape, and nobody commented on the vanishing act.

Not even five minutes later Libavius returned to the Hall, this time properly through the main entrance after he had apparently apparated into the atrium of the Hall, as prescribed by the Guild's rules. Wandering among the chairs he seemed completely nonchalant about the actually quite outraging thing he had just done, but he was well-known and liked among his peers and quickly settled back at the table he had formerly occupied. Excusing himself from the conversation at his table Albus rose, and walked over.

"Good Afternoon, Mr Libavius. If you have a minute for me?"

Libavius didn't seem surprised and immediately rose to follow him. Albus guided them a few steps away from the tables where they could talk without being immediately overheard, and made sure to smile as unthreatingly at the young man as possible.

"Now, I don't want to seem prying, but I couldn't help notice your little intervention."

But Libavius was good-natured and only laughed. "Yes, yes, I apologise for breaking the rules. It was just that I would have never gotten Severus to come with me otherwise, but he was doing rather poorly and needed rest. It was all a bit too much."

And it wasn't just empty words - there was genuine concern visible in Libavius' face. For a moment Albus marvelled at the fact that apparently Snape had managed to find somebody to care for him, and even somebody who was as popular and easy-going as young Libavius.

"Well, of course there are rules, but you know them. It's far beyond me to lecture you, please don't worry. I gather Master Snape is still rather sick?"

Libavius nodded, for a moment looking slightly pissed. "And has been for weeks now, I don't know what he's doing. The loss of Valentinus is harder than he lets on, but, oh, I shouldn't tell you those things. I hope he'll rest now that he's home."

Albus made a mental note to question this young man further, giving that he seemed to have a rather loose tongue. But for now he only smiled back, looking carefully concerned. "Speaking of, do you happen to have his address? I considered visiting him soon, merely for reasons of organising a few things concerning Valentinus' inheritance."

It wasn't the best of lies, but Libavius wasn't a suspicious person, and when they parted and the young man strolled back to his table Albus had a napkin in his pocket with an address in Oxford. Returning to his own table he refined his plans, the next move, musing over his decisions while chatting away with his colleagues and finally rising the glass in a last toast to Basilius Valentinus.

The next day he decided to make good use of his newfound knowledge. In the afternoon he dressed in his favourite tweed suit and apparated from the Forbidden Forest straight into Oxford, quickly finding the quiet street outside the main city centre and the apartment building bearing the number Libavius had written on the napkin. It was a very ordinary street, with cars and bikes parked everywhere and small apartment buildings left and right, most obviously occupied by students or young faculty members, at least judging by what people kept on their balconies and in front of their houses. It was perfectly unassuming, not overly run down, not too flashy, yet quiet enough and easy to reach from the city centre by foot or on a bike.

Using a small spell to open the entrance door to the building after checking the name was indeed on the mailbox Albus slowly climbed the stairs. The building smelt clean, but lived in, with cooking scents coming in from the flats as he passed them by. Snape lived on the third floor, left door, and Albus hadn't used the bell on street level because he needed the element of surprise. Instead he knocked on the door, three times, and listened. For a moment he thought he heard some movement, but nothing happened. Was there a chance Snape wasn't at home? Albus knocked again, this time with a bit more purpose, but again there was not reply.

Hesitating he listened again, waiting. Then he heard a movement on the ground floor, the entrance door being unlocked and steps moving up the stairs. Obviously a resident was coming home, and Albus wasn't keen on being seen. It was a decision of a split second, but quickly his hand was on the door knob, feeling for any magic enforcing the look. There was a spell, not quite easy but nothing too complicated, and he deciphered it with the practised ease of an experienced curse breaker. Well before the returning resident had reached the third floor the door clicked open, and Albus led himself in.

Carefully closing the door behind him he listened into the flat. From the first glance it was obvious that it was small, worn but well maintained. A few doors led into rooms, but only one was open, natural light coming into the half-darkness of the hallway. A quick spell later Albus knew that it was the largest room of the small flat, and that he'd find Snape right there. Trying to make as much noise as he could he followed the direction his spell was pointing him in, and arrived in a room that seemed to function as a study-cum-living room. From the incoherence and worn-out look of the furniture it seemed that the flat had come half furnished, and that Snape had only added very few pieces. There wasn't much there anyway, only a couple of bookshelves filled to the brim, a desk with a view out of the window stacked with all the things a graduate student would need for work - papers and books, notebooks, pens and pencils, a few carefully labelled vials, Snape's wand next to a glass half-filled with water -, a desk chair and a sofa. The latter one was pushed against the only wall not occupied by bookshelves, with a small, rickety looking coffee table in front of it.

The sofa was a horrible shade of yellowish-green and far too small for a tall man like Snape to stretch out on, but it looked slightly more comfortable than the desk chair. And as if to prove the fact Snape was curled up on it, covered with a blanket in a terrible brown tartan pattern that had certainly seen better days, using his arm as pillow. He looked as if he had passed out from exhaustion, and the way his desk was set up indicated that he had been working before resting on the sofa for a moment and falling asleep. There was a now probably cold mug of tea set on the worn carpet, next to the foot of the sofa by a book that probably slipped off the sofa when Snape had fallen asleep.

Albus coughed, and pulled the desk chair up.

"Good afternoon."

Snape stirred, moving slightly, and then fell silent again. Sighing Albus watched him, noticing that he was not only deadly pale but also visibly sweating, probably still running a rather high fever. Faking a loud cough he tried again, and this time it worked. Snape stirred once more, blinked, needed a second to clear his vision and then realised he wasn't alone anymore.

"What the fuck - "

The reaction was astonishing, mostly because it was fast. Bolting upright and untangling himself from the blanket at the same time he moved on the sofa, away from Albus' reach, pressed against the back of the sofa to bring the largest possible distance between him and his intruder. For a second Albus wasn't sure if he wouldn't attack in a defensive reflex, but he seemed to recognize his visitor with surprising speed.

Albus did his best to smile as reassuring as possible, ignoring the fact that he had effectively just broken into Snape's private flat without an invitation and surprised him in his sleep, which would have been enough for any sane person to curse him all the way back to Hogwarts. Snape, however, was apparently dizzy from sitting upright too fast, needing a moment until his vision cleared again. Then he proceeded to stare at Albus, a mixture of shock and anger on his sunken face. It would have been impressive had Snape not been dressed in pyjama trousers and an old grey t-shirt, black hair dishevelled and unkempt, looking more like a panicked crow than anything really dangerous.

"What in Merlin's name are you doing here?"

His voice was still hoarse, but a bit stronger then it had been before. Albus just continued to smile.

"I let myself in when you didn't answer the door. I noticed your disappearance yesterday at the funeral and wanted to see how you are."

Snape just stared at him, and then exhaled and rubbed his face, looking slightly more defeated.

"Why did you have to break into my flat for that? How did you get this address, anyway? It's not even registered with the Guild."

Ignoring the fact that Snape apparently had no qualms imagining Albus abusing what the Guild kept as private information on its members Albus leant slightly forward.

"No, it is not. Your friend was nice enough - "

It was immediately clear that Snape knew perfectly well about whom Albus was talking. Looking up his eyes narrowed.

"If I find you forcing the information from Libavius - "

He didn't finish his sentence, but the implication was clear, and Albus was impressed. He hadn't been threatened for a while, and especially not by a young, dishevelled and obviously sick wizard who didn't even have his wand on him. Protectiveness was an excellent character trait that was just as surprising in Snape as lovely to see, and Albus made a mental note to exploit it further soon.

"Don't worry, we simply had a nice conversation. What makes you believe I harmed him in any way?"

Snape's eyebrows seemed to nearly reach his hairline. "You just broke into my flat."

Spreading his hands in front of him Albus ceded the point. "My motives are honest, I simply wanted to see how you are doing."

But Snape just laughed at that, or at least until he had to cough into his elbows. When he could speak again he gave Albus an icy glare.

"Recent events prove you wrong. You want something from me, and you've already gone to great length to get it. I don't know why it has to be me, but your sights seem set on that. But now is a bad time. Leave."

He had barely finished his sentence when he brought his hands to his temples, rubbing them slowly. The tension had already vanished from his posture, leaving him slumped in the far corner of the rather small sofa. It was obvious that he didn't have the physical strength to keep his resistance up much longer, a perfect opportunity.

"Do you have a headache? Have you taken anything at all against that terribly flu you caught? Come here, let me try something."

Rising from the desk chair Albus moved over and sat on the sofa, essentially invading Snape's private space. It worked immediately, making Snape move as far away as possible, trying to keep out of reach.

"Don't touch me, and get out of my flat."

But Albus didn't budge. "I will, soon, but not now. I have many questions, but first I want to know why you are still sick. It's been more than a week, and no flu should be that persistent. Unless you refused medical attention, but why? There is no point in suffering without any reason."

Snape just stared at him, now flushed with anger and the fever, slightly trembling from the exertion of staying upright and coherent enough to understand what Albus was doing. He was in no shape to stand up to Albus, and that was more or less exactly what Albus had hoped for. It wasn't far from his former strategy when picking Snape up in Azkaban, but why shouldn't work now what hadn't worked then? He needed his questions answered, and better sooner than later.

"Come, don't be so dramatic. Let me at least help with the headache."

The sofa was too short for Snape to move away further and Albus had long arms, easily closing the distance by simply reaching out. Whether it was the exhaustion or the reality of being slightly trapped, Snape was too slow to escape Albus' reach, and before he could do anything about it Albus' right hand reached his face.

"No - "

He winced and jerked back, but without room left he couldn't put up any resistance before the spell hit him. Involuntarily he leant into the touch, slightly sagging forward. Moving closer Albus could feel the heat of the fever sitting in Snape's body, his skin hot to the touch. The magical impulse had been stronger than strictly necessary, anticipating some sort of resistance, but there was none. Utterly exhausted Snape simply collapsed under the spell, his eyes loosing focus immediately.

With ease Albus slipped into his mind. This time there was nothing in his way, no emptiness or barriers. Laid bare before him he could see the chaos the past days had left in Snape's mind. There were images and feelings floating around, nothing like the strictly ordered mind he had expected to see. Slowly and with deft fingers he moved deeper, brushing aside the recent memories, feelings of loss and incredible sadness, the sickness like a haze wafting through the memories he saw. There were things he only looked at in passing - scenes of Snape working, knowledge about his current projects that Albus would have looked at with more interest if he wasn't still questing for two answers: what had happened to Valentinus, and why? It was his primary objective to know why Riddle had come for the Alchemist, and if anybody else was in danger. He carded through the funeral, the moment he had shown Snape the burnt down house, and finally arrived in Azkaban. He'd need to go further, though, weeks, maybe month before that.

For a moment he got stuck on the feeling of being in Azkaban. He saw the darkness and dirt, the emptiness, and was almost overwhelmed with the feeling of despair and resignation. It seemed that Snape had not expected to ever come out of Azkaban again. Albus sat in his cell with him, looking up at the small window, feeling the cold sea breeze chilling him to the bone. There were the smells and the noise, the screams and shouts, prisoners yelling abuse at each other, the guards and themselves. It was terrible, claustrophobic and seemingly without end. But he needed to dig deeper, and from the darkness the time in Azkaban provided he tried to grasp for a string he could pull to dive deeper.

But there was nothing. Underneath the layers of darkness there was only more darkness. Snape's mind seemed like an abyss, bottomless, without shape, and it was obvious that it was no coincidence. There were still emotions, of a strength Albus had rarely found in himself, or at least hadn't for many years. He wasn't familiar any more with that gut-wrenching loneliness, the wondering whether being dead would be better than being alive, the isolation. It disturbed him for a moment, although he should have expected to find these things. Looking around he saw no sign of Tom Riddle. There was no image connected to him, no memory, no knowledge. Pushing deeper he saw other things - childish fears and angers, cigarettes being extinguished on bare skin, the yellow eyes of a werewolf burning in the darkness, a malicious cackle he couldn't quite place - but those floated past slowly, leaving him without any information. He tried looking for Valentinus and found images of the house and garden, memories of brewing sessions and many, many lessons on Alchemy and Herbology, on Life and Art, and a lot in between. But it was hard to get a grip, Snape's mind now seemingly fluid around him, nothing he could control. And then he realized the fraying around the edge, and understood that he had been using too much power too quickly, wondering if the fraying indicated that Tom had been there, too, with too much impact and force. From this place Albus couldn't push deeper, further, not without risking damage to Snape's mind. For a second he calculated the risk, and just in time noticed that Snape was on the brink of loosing consciousness.

He wasn't one second too late in pulling back. Seated now so close to Snape Albus noticed his breathing being laboured, and his skin suddenly cold where it had been hot before. Carefully he withdrew all his magic and allowed Snape to sink against the backrest of the sofa entirely. Waiting a moment for any signs of returning consciousness he slowly leant forward again, just brushing a hand over Snape's cheek once and letting it rest there, fingertips on high cheekbones. The strong healing spell seemed to glow on the pale skin for a moment, and with Albus' magic working its way through his body Snape sighed once. His breathing slowed and deepened again until it returned to normal. It took a few minutes, but then he blinked, looking at Albus out of half-closed eyes. His gaze was much clearer then it had before, evidence that Albus' healing spell had worked like a charm. For some reason Albus found himself incapable of pulling his hand back just yet, letting it rest lightly on Snape's cheek.

If he had been Snape, in this very second, collapsed on his sofa with an almost stranger who had just broken into his mind and then overwhelmed his body with magic Albus would have absolutely lost his marbles, and he waited for the eruption that was sure to come.

But Snape, usually all for dramatic shouting matches and theatrical yelling, had turned deadly silent. He looked at Albus for a moment longer through half closed eyes, and Albus wondered if he assessed the damage done to his mind to decide based upon the evidence what course of action he wanted to take. When he spoke it was in a low, calm voice, close to a whisper.

"You thought that would work, did you not."

Was it possible that Snape had anticipated his actions? In Albus' mind it was barely feasible, but from what he'd seen it was obvious that Snape had been prepared in some way. How had he done it? How could he have anticipated that Albus would appear, and break into his mind? But Severus' soft voice pulled him from his thoughts again.

"You are really willing to go far with this."

There was something in the intonation Albus didn't like, the softness too tempting, the dark baritone now back to its velvet quality, the hoarseness gone.

"To what ends will the great Albus Dumbledore resort to get what he wants?"

Slowly Snape raised a hand and placed it over Albus' hand on his cheek, very lightly, before continuing.

"After taking a walk through my mind and putting your hands and magic on my body what would you like to do next?"

Snape's fingers were cold on Albus' hand. But it was the quality of his voice that kept Albus absolutely transfixed, the gaze out of half-closed eyes, perfectly black in the afternoon light. Pulling back his hand he was met by no resistance, his fingers slipping away easily. For some reason, however, Albus found it difficult to let go without brushing over Snape's thin shoulders. It was supposed to be a reassurance, but even Albus wasn't sure why he couldn't just keep his hands to himself.

"So will you torture or kill me?"

It was almost ridiculous how relaxed Snape suddenly seemed, breathing deeply, chest moving with every exhale and inhale while he was still draped against the backrest of the sofa as if he were completely boneless. Inexplicably Albus found himself leaning forward, ever so slightly, as if pulled by the dark gaze.

It was then that Albus realised he was straying onto dangerous territory. Sitting upright he pulled himself together, needing only a few seconds to recover his composure. He was impressed, there was no way around it, and a little bit sad he couldn't afford to indulge in seeing where this thing was going to lead them, giving the fact that Snape seemed to know exactly what he was doing. It reminded Albus why he had thought the young wizard could do as a spy. If he could be playing games with Albus right now, in this very moment, he could play Tom Riddle just as well - and, if Albus was honest with himself, probably already was doing just that.

"You're good at this."

Snape looked at him, for a brief second smiling the most unnerving smile Albus had ever seen.

"At what exactly?"

Albus sighed. "How did your empty your mind? You don't practise Occlumency, it doesn't feel like that at all."

Acknowledging that Albus was not going to mention how he had nearly been drawn in by nothing more than a little bit of talking Snape shrugged, and stretched languidly, slowly pushing upwards again, long legs now off the sofa, feet in thick socks on the floor.

"Azkaban gave me some time to think."

He came to sitting fully upright, hands relaxed in his lap, closed up like a shut book just seconds after being laid open so bare.

"That was barely a week, and you've used different techniques before. Last time your mind was empty, but now - there was something floating around, just not what I was looking for. Have you tried to learn proper Occlumency at some point?"

For a moment Snape looked interested, and with a sudden certainty Albus realised that he had found something the man could want, something he could offer up in trade. He had no intention to torture any knowledge out of Snape, after all, no matter what the man had just suggested. And if the promise of working for the right side wasn't enough to lure a man like Snape in, why not offer something in return?

"Occlumency is a very rare art. Hardly anybody practises it."

Now they were in familiar territory, and Albus resumed his eternal smile. "Indeed. In case you're interested we could talk about it." He put many layers of meaning on the last part of his sentence, and it was obvious that Snape understood them all. But he didn't say anything.

"Well, I should take my leave. I'm glad to see you're doing better. Apologies for the interruption."

Getting up from the sofa Albus rearranged his clothing, brushing the creases out of his trousers and nodding back to Snape, who remained on the sofa, looking up at Albus inquisitively. Turning around he was almost at the door when Snape called him back.

"One last question."

Always curious Albus turned around, indicating that he was willing to listen, maybe even to answer.

"You pulled back from my mind when you reached a certain layer. What would have happened had you continued?"

It was a strange question, but Albus picked up on the actual meaning behind it quickly, and knew exactly what Snape was afraid of.

"I would have caused damage to your mind, of unclear magnitude. It could have been a lot, it could have been very little, depending on the amount of magical force I'd have used. It was safer to pull back. But from what I saw there might be damage already."

Snape looked down at his hands for a moment. "And Occlumency?"

Albus nodded. "Allows you more control and offers protection. There's a way to deal with intrusive Legilimency. It's not easy, but I believe you would be more than capable."

Snape kept his gaze on his hands. "I see." Then he looked up, eyes suddenly hard. "I will not forget that you broke into my flat and rummaged through my mind."

Continuing to smile Albus shrugged. "I guess you're not going to thank me for the healing spell."

For a second he thought Snape would hiss at him.

"Get out and never come back."

That was fair enough in Albus opinion, and he took his leave without looking back, closing the door behind him carefully and walking down the stairs whistling. He hadn't expected their meeting to go like this, that much was for sure, but by now he should have been used to Snape playing his games almost as well as Albus himself did. He wouldn't be as interesting if things were otherwise, and now that Albus had finally discovered the bait that could lure the beast all he needed to do was sit, watch, and wait.

Still whistling he apparated back to Hogwarts from a hidden corner, for once not caring if a muggle might catch a glance of a foolish old man in a rumpled tweed suit looking ridiculously happy.

Chapter Text

It took exactly three weeks until Albus received the message he had been waiting for. It was during lunch that the dark bird swept through the Great Hall, straight towards the High Table where Albus was seated. It wasn't difficult to recognise the elegant ravens used by members of St. Aurelius, College of Alchemy and Arithmetic in Oxford. The note the bird carried was short, clipped and precise. Snape didn't ask for a meeting, he demanded one, and had already set time and place. Albus wasn't used to be treated like that, but taking his last visit at Snape's flat into consideration he quietly accepted that they were past pleasantries without even really trying.

It was thus that on the next late Saturday evening Snape swept into Albus' office perfectly on time, all black fabric and serious face. Without being asked to he seated himself in the visitors' chair right where he had sat not too long ago, the same person yet very much a changed man. The long cloak he apparently had kept as part of his wardrobe ever since the funeral seemed to flow from his thin shoulders, an undulating black mass around his body, draped over his more muggle attire underneath. He was dressed a bit less formal than he had been during the funeral, but still more than Albus was used to, black on black seemingly his new signature look. He kept his hands in his lap, folded together, and above everything sat the still too gaunt face, perfectly pale, and mostly unreadable.

"Good evening."

But Snape sat in silence. For a moment he just looked at Albus, a stiff figure in the chair, uncomfortably tense. It didn't take Albus' hypersensibility towards other's magical balance to realise that he was on edge, the slight buzz almost tangible in the air.

But he remained unmoving, for long enough to finally make Albus uncomfortable. If he hadn't been who he was, not as powerful as he was, he might have even begun to worry about his personal safety. There was just something completely unnerving about the situation, the silence too heavy, Snape poised like a predator waiting for the opportunity for the perfect strike.

Just when Albus wondered how he could break up the situation without causing an earthquake Snape lifted his chin, only marginally, straightened, and finally addressed him.

"So you are trying to get me killed."

The way he stressed the first verb turned the sentence into something of a statement. It echoed the question he had asked weeks before, wondering if Albus wanted to resort to torture or murder, and it seemed he had come to a conclusion. Albus, however, was surprised.

"Let me reassure I had no intention to have you murdered. But I wonder why you came to this false impression?"

There was nothing in Snape's face that gave away if he believed Albus' words.

"There is no need for denial, your actions have already betrayed you. I was right assuming so, but what I want to know is why."

His voice was hard, making his feelings far too clear. The issue was just that Albus had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

"Please, enlighten me. What have I done that endangered your life?"

Genuinely curious he leant slightly forwards, still perfectly focused on Snape.

"First, you used an Oblivate on my mind. I recognise that you did try to conceal it, but you're less subtle than you think you are. Second, you broke into my mind, without much care for the traces you might leave behind. Finally you put a strong healing spell on me, using enough power to ensure it would continue to show effect for a longer period of time."

Snape sounded more and more animated the further he progressed in his list, a hint of anger seeping into his voice. When he was done he stared at Albus, who could only nod at the itemisation and then motion for Snape to continue.

"Your magic was, and still is, traceable on me."

It wasn't a conclusion but an accusation, and with a sinking feeling Albus realised that there was, actually, a slim chance that Snape was right. It pained him that Snape considered him to be anything but subtle, critic on his magical approach something he hadn't heard for many decades and now couldn't quite believe. But it was true that magic generally tended to be traceable, and his healing spell hadn't been exactly covert. Yet he still couldn't understand how all of Snape's arguments added together to the single possible solution that Albus intended to kill him, and he made sure Snape realised this by keeping his face carefully neutral.

"Yes, it might very well be. I concede that my healing spell was powerful, but you were looking very bad indeed. I still don't understand where you are going with this."

He watched Snape sigh, his shoulders slumping slightly. But his gaze was unwavering in its intensity, and Albus could feel the quiver of magic in the air intensify for a short moment. Then Snape took a deep breath, and said the most impossible thing.

"He noticed."

And then the buzzing was gone, perfect silence in the room as well as in the magical atmosphere. The weight of the relevation was too heavy, and for a second Albus couldn't think properly. Until now Snape had never admitted to being what Albus thought he was, and it was this admittance that suddenly tilted their whole power balance irrevocably. It gave Albus everything he needed, but also a responsibility he hadn't had before this meeting and was rather sure he didn't really want to have at all.

It seemed preposterous to play dumb and pretend he didn't exactly know who they were talking about, so Albus didn't even try. He only nodded, and leant back in his chair.

"Are you sure?"

Snape looked down for a moment, and nodded. Following his gaze Albus read his body language, and understood. It explained the stiffness in his posture, the perfect stillness, the cramped way his hands were digging into each other now. They were small signs, but they could be telltale, and Albus had not only properly studied Snape's body language before, but also knew what victims of recent violence looked like. Albus' magic was unique, and if Tom had indeed searched for it and found traces of it all over Snape it was a miracle the man had gotten out of there alive.

"I didn't know Tom tortured his followers. What does he use, the Cruciatus? Other curses?"

For a fleeting second Snape tensed, and then forcibly relaxed his body as much as possible. Then he shook his head, slowly but determinedly.

"That will not be part of our discussion tonight."

But Albus couldn't let it slide, making moves to rise.

"There is no point in you denying it, I can see that you're in pain. Let me try something."

But he could hardly stand up to make good on his words when Snape raised a hand, stopping him in his tracks.

"You will put neither your hands nor your magic on me, and if you do this conversation will immediately be over."

He didn't even raise his voice, but it was very clear that he meant exactly what he was saying. It impressed Albus to see this amount of determination, considering that Snape was not exactly playing a winning hand right now.

"You have already confessed."

But Snape only shrugged. "You can proceed however you wish. Kill me now or hand me over to the ministry, but keep your hands and magic to yourself."

That was blunt enough, and Albus settled himself in his chair again, for a moment raising his hands with palms forward to signal that he accepted Snape's conditions for negotiation. It gave his mind enough time to dive all the way into the every single possibility why Snape was so adamant about remaining far away from Albus' reach, and if there was any reason for that beyond Albus' own actions. It made him wonder what Tom had done to the young man before him, and what he did to his followers at large, but there was no time for horror scenarios to play out.

"As you wish, although I'd like you to know that I act with good intentions."

Snape only shrugged. "You have not given me much reason to believe your words. But it doesn't matter. I'm here to negotiate and see if we can come to an agreement we can both find acceptable."

Spreading his hands on his desk Albus nodded. Finally they were where he had wanted them to be all along, and he could barely keep the satisfaction out of his voice. He hadn't won this, after all, not yet.

"Very good. How shall we proceed?"

Nodding Snape relaxed a bit, now secure in the knowledge that Albus was going to remain behind his desk.

"Your Oblivate took enough of my memory from our first conversation that you will have to repeat a few things. It seems paramount that we agree on the actual objective of negotiation before we can decide on the terms."

There was something about the way Snape could immediately get down to business that Albus could appreciate, himself being a man who enjoyed clarity in his dealings with others above anything else.

"Good. Here is my offer. I am forming a league of likeminded friends to encounter the threat of Tom Riddle and protect our society from his hostile aggression. He will bring war to our doorstep, and needs to be stopped. We are developing an undercover network to protect possible victims, and confront him if necessary. We assume there will be battle, and while the ministry is resolved to negotiate as long as possible we are certain that we will be facing war before that point."

Snape listened, completely still, not giving anything away. Albus, knowing fully well that passionate rhetoric wasn't going to win him over, stayed away from any too emotional arguments.

"So far our league is comprised of various members in all places of society. But we are lacking someone who actually understands how Tom works, how his group is built, how he thinks. We need somebody on the inside, as close to him as possible. I've been watching you for a while now, and considering everything I know about you I came to the conclusion that you are a high ranked member of his inner circle, a Death Eater with access to important information and enough magical ability and control to survive as a spy in his ranks, very close to him. Over the past couple of weeks I've tested you and your abilities, and you meet all of my criteria."

Albus waited for his words to sink in, and a reaction from Snape. He was still treading carefully, waiting for the situation to implode as it had over the past month again and again, no matter how hard he had tried to not push too far, to not anger Snape before he could even make his point properly. But this time Snape remained calm, perfectly collected, and only reacted by nodding slowly.

"It seems I indeed match your criteria."

So his guesses had been right. He hadn't been exactly sure if Snape had been an inner circle member, only assuming from the circles the man moved it, the people he knew and how they fared within Tom's hierarchy of evil.

"So you have direct access to Tom?"

It was the most unbelievable sight, but Snape actually snorted. "You could phrase it like that."

"You'll need to be more precise."

Carefully leaning a bit backwards Snape nodded. "It is as you suspect. I am a member of what the Dark Lord indeed calls his inner circle, and have been for a few years now."

Every word kindled Albus' curiosity, and he had to bite back the wish to push too fast, ask too much too quickly. Reigning himself in he kept his voice calm, as if Snape wasn't about to tell him a few of the things he had been trying to understand for a long time now.

"What does that mean exactly, within the hierarchy Tom has built?"

There had been nothing to give it away, but Snape seemed to have figured out how eager Albus was to know. But he didn't hesitate, and only a raised eyebrow indicated that he had picked up on Albus' curiosity.

"Well, a few different things. The Dark Lord has built a strong hierarchy, meaning there's a lot of henchmen and only a few who are close enough to actually have access to himself on a regular basis. Members of the inner circle fulfil a variety of roles. Some bring in money and organise the movements of the whole group, others function as advisors to plan strategy, others manage the network he needs, some recruit new members and keep an eye on the lower ranked Death Eaters, others lead attacks, such things."

Albus listened intently, making sure every word sank into his memory to be recorded properly later. He'd need to pull the memory of this conversation from his mind and store it safely, and he made a mental note to do so later.

"And your roles in this? Where do you fit it?"

For a short second Snape hesitated, but then apparently decided that it was far too late anyway.

"I'd say I'm some sort of advisor, as much as you can advise someone like the Dark Lord. He uses my ability for strategic thinking and planning, but I'm not the only one nor am I his head counsellor. But I have a wide knowledge about the Dark Arts he finds useful, as well as a certain finesse in leading negotiations."

There was nothing that surprised Albus in the list Snape rattled off, but the last point seemed specifically vague.

"Clarify that for me. What type of negotiations?"

For a moment Snape said nothing, simply looking at Albus as if he was deciding how he could phrase things more clearly and whether Albus really was that stupid. But he did deign to answer the question, albeit sounding like he was talking to a slightly slow toddler.

"You are aware that people who vanish are questioned before they are eventually disposed of? That they aren't just picked off the street but are taken for a reason, mostly for knowledge they have?"

Slightly annoyed Albus couldn't help but roll his eyes.

"And how does that connect to your negotiations?"

But as soon as he said it he understood what Snape had told him, slightly belated and not without a shiver down his spine.

"Ah, of course. You're his interrogator. And also the torturer? The executioner, for an interrogation is surely followed by an execution? Or at least that what I've heard, given nobody comes out alive after these negotiations."

There was hint of unpleasantness in Albus' voice, disapproval he couldn't hide very well. But Snape only nodded.

"Nobody comes out alive. I ask questions, there's others for the less tasteful proceedings." For a moment he paused, and then continued, briefly looking down at his own hands. "At least most of the time."

"So you do kill for him?"

Quickly Snape looked up again, straight at Albus, gaze suddenly cold and calm.

"Of course."

And even though Albus had known that every member of Tom's little twisted army had to kill a muggle to become a full member, and that, logically, Snape must have killed more than just that one person the sheer calm with which the man claimed his crimes was chilling.

"A lot?"

Still perfectly calm Snape shrugged. But there was a hint of impatience, making it obvious that Albus wasn't going to get more information about that particular topic that day.

"Headmaster, when I told you during our first meeting that the Wizengamot would surely sentence me to death for my crimes I fully meant it. There are men in Azkaban who have done far less than I have, but I don't believe that our current conversation will benefit if I gave you a full list of all my wrongdoing."

For a brief moment Albus was glad Snape hadn't called their little chat a negotiation right now, and silently reprimanded himself to that illogical slip. He wasn't afraid of the young man, not even slightly, but he could understand how people with less power and experience dealing with death might be at least slightly worried about their personal safety just going by the steely glance and cold focus. Snape seemed to possess a quite formidable mind and above the average power, but barely any conscience.

"And still you decided to betray your Lord, a move that might cost you your life. I wonder what happened."

Relaxing back further into his chair while crossing his arms Snape only shrugged and then visibly had to suppress a wince.

"You didn't give me much of a choice, if you care to remember why I'm actually here."

But Albus picked up on the lie.

"No, that's too easy. You came here first, do you remember? We spoke in Oxford, and you followed my invitation. You didn't have to, as I had nothing against you besides a slight suspicion that wouldn't have harmed you even if I had pushed it publicly. I know you'll deny it, but you wanted to talk to me. And today you came here without any invitation at all. Tom killed Valentinus and you took it hard, but you've been trying to sabotage Tom before. And there's something else, because you are not here to hand over your knowledge just like this, you want something in return. You wouldn't do something just for the greater good, would you?"

At the mention of Valentinus' name Snape looked slightly tortured, but quickly pushed the emotion from his face again.

"The greater good, I thought we weren't speaking of that ever since you killed Grindelwald. Of course I want something in return. You have a skill I need to learn, and I know you could teach me."

Just as Albus had expected the bait he had set during their last meeting in Snape's apartment worked perfectly. Briefly he wondered why Snape mentioned Gellert, but had no time to think about it further.

"You want to learn Occlumency. I wonder why? It's a rare skill, very difficult, almost dangerous to learn. But I know that Tom uses Legilmency, I saw it in the damage done to your mind."

Snape nodded. "He uses highly invasive Legilimency, and quite freely. But protecting my mind isn't my primary concern."

That surprised Albus. "It's not?"

"No." Snape sounded as if he'd like to roll his eyes and only didn't out of formality and manners. But he continued his explanation, a clear sign that Albus had managed to somewhat make him more talkative than ever before.

"I understand that you are still looking for the reason the Dark Lord killed Basilius Valentinus?"

That was a turn Albus had not expected. "Yes, of course I am. How does this fit together?"

Snape shook his head, visibly disapproving of Albus' impatience. "It will, in a moment. The Dark Lord came to Valentinus for a certain piece of knowledge that my master had, ways to acquire power Valentinus had discovered in his many years as a working alchemist and used in his work. He had never openly stated this, but the Dark Lord has a knack for picking up on these things, and he is very curious indeed, always looking to strengthen his power. Valentinus seemed to have discovered a source for this, an easy one even, and that was what brought both of them together. But Valentinus had already expected that to happen, and provided for the case. When the Dark Lord came to his house that night my master wasn't able to divulge his secret anymore, as he had cast a strong Fidelius charm barely a month before."

Albus followed the trail of thought easily. "A Fidelius! So he couldn't tell Tom anymore, only his secret keeper could."

All the piece fell into place and Albus finally knew what they were talking about.

"You are Valentinus' Secret Keeper. Just after your apprenticeship with Valentinus' ended you cast a Fidelius together, and whatever Tom did would not have helped him. Valentinus set himself up to die, but his secret would be safe with you. Did he know you were a Death Eater?"

Snape looked pained at the deduction.

"He spent much of his time working with the Dark Arts, and I always assumed he was aware of my specific affiliation. He wasn't pleased because he detested the Dark Lord, but I never gave Valentinus reason to doubt my loyalty towards him, and I intend to honour my commitment."

Albus couldn't keep the pointed remark down, there was just no helping it.

"I hadn't suspected you of being a loyal man."

But Snape only shrugged, unfazed by the accusation. "I am not. But Valentinus' secret will die with me, and I need your help to make sure of it."

It was a strangely emotional avowal, untypical for the cynical Snape, but nothing Albus didn't enjoy hearing. He still had his doubts, though.

"You are right that a Fidelius can leave the Secret Keeper in a precarious situation, but at the same time the secret itself is relatively safe. Neither torture nor an Imperio curse can make a Secret Keeper divulge it, it can only be given up voluntarily - but you know these things. Why are you worried?"

Snape didn't look convinced. "It hasn't been proven yet that Legilimency can't at least sense the mere existence of the secret. I know that it is tied to the soul and not the mind, but the Legilimency the Dark Lord practises is particularly invasive and could be enough to find traces of it. And then he will have enough Dark Arts at his disposal to find a way to unravel my soul and go digging there, it's all just a new level of Legilimency in the end. Occlumency will hide any trace of what happened, make the Fidelius impossible to detect. If he doesn't know it's there he won't go searching."

He was right, and Albus had to admit it. While a Fidelius itself didn't sit on the mind it could be tied to memories there, and it had never been proven that there was indeed nothing in this world that could unravel the secret from the soul, especially when there was no importance placed on the life of the Secret Keeper. The urgency in Snape's voice made it very obvious that the Dark Lord wouldn't hesitate to take his soul apart if he could just find out what Valentinus had tried to hide from him. At the same time it saddened Albus to see how Snape apparently cared for Valentinus' secret, but seemed to find no particular horror in the idea of someone reaching in and unravelling his very soul slowly and cruelly.

"I'm surprised you're not trying to protect yourself."

For a moment Snape looked tired, dropping his arms and simply placing his hands on his knees.

"This will be open war soon, and if I die in it, well, riddance. But until then Valentinus' secret must be kept, that is all I ask. Teach me Occlumency, and it will be safe."

For a moment Albus felt sadness at the resolute denial of any will to survive. A suicidal spy could potentially be a bad one, but it seemed that Snape was determined to at least keep whatever secret Valentinus had trusted him with, and that alone was enough to impress Albus.

"So if I teach you Occlumency you will work for me?"

Snape nodded, slowly but determined. "Yes."

For a moment they just sat opposite each other, letting the severity of the situation sink it. Albus had made plans for that moment, of course, but now they seemed strangely useless.

"And I assume you are not going to tell me what Valentinus protected so thoroughly."

For a short moment Snape looked surprised at the mere idea. "I just told you I'm willing to die to keep this particular piece of information from a capricious and very powerful wizard. What makes you believe I'd disclose it to you of all people?"

Albus shrugged, trying not to be offended at the comparison. "We will be working for the same purpose."

But Snape only shook his head.

"Let me make this clear. I will not work for you for any reason you will deem morally superior. I need your help and you need mine, and that tends to make a good base for a working deal. I will not join your league or order or however you will call your conglomeration of people I'd rather not engage with. This is a thing between you and me, nothing else."

Albus hadn't expected enthusiasm from Snape for the idea of joining their Order, but a little less disillusionment would have been nice.

"Are you talking to Tom like this as well?"

For a split second Snape grinned, all bare toothed like a shark. "Of course. Why do you think I'm still alive? He considers me to be very amusing company."

Moving yet again in his chair he crossed his legs, placed his elbows on the armrest of the chair and stapled his fingers, forcibly relaxing his posture while visibly not being able to remain in one position for very long. The unsettling grin vanishing from his thin face he continued.

"Let us be clear that I am under no illusions as to who you are. There is no need for you to pretend that war and bloodshed shock you as they do most people. You have been there already, and just like me you have killed."

Suddenly the earlier mention of Gellert's death made sense, but before Albus could say anything a raised hand stopped his objection.

"No need for that. Yes, you're the saviour of the wizarding world, Order of Merlin and so on, and I'm just a lowly traitor - " for a second he savoured the word, as if tasting its full meaning for the first time before continuing. "- but that one thing we have in common. We both took lives, for whatever reasons. We're not equals, but if you really want to continue this you have to know that I will not ask you for anything. I will not worship you and I am not here to beg."

It was a short speech, but Albus was utterly impressed at the sheer determination and willpower Snape demonstrated, the ability to manoeuvre with such confidence in the face of a total defeat. He was playing a very high-stakes game with his life on the table to gamble with, and one he had essentially already lost with his first confession.

"That is fair enough for me. But I want your word on this, because however you frame this you will, at some point, receive information that is vital to our resistance. I cannot risk you turn around, so I will require a safety."

He paused, waiting for any reaction from Snape. He had spent a lot of time thinking of this next step, never knowing if they were ever going to get there at all and, if yes, if that wouldn't be the last thing that would make Snape run for the hills. But there was no reaction from Snape, his face blank and his attention still focused on Albus with a slightly unsettling intensity. So Albus continued.

"If we decide to go through with this I need your name to be cleared by the Ministry. Our conglomeration of people, as you call it, is more official than you think it is, and I need your name on paper, too."

It was obvious that Snape didn't like the idea. "What does that mean?"

"It means the Ministery will need to be involved. I assume you are aware that you've been a target of their security operations for a while, so they will not be surprised. I want the Wizengamot to clear your name for this, at least unofficially. The proceedings will be kept secret, even within the Ministry. Only very few people will know about it. We can keep your side of this agreement between the both of us, but your role in the Order needs to be confirmed."

At the mention of the Wizarding High Court Snape looked decidedly uncomfortable, and Albus precisely knew why. A trial meant Azkaban, and for a proclaimed Death Eater neither the prison now the court were good places to be. Snape wouldn't stand a chance without protection, and as he had stated multiple times already he knew it very well.

"I can assure you that if you decide to submit yourself to these proceedings I will accompany you." He fixed Snape with a firm gaze, no Legilimency involved, only assurance and for the first time in their conversation a hint of power.

"I can protect you, and in this instance I will."

Albus put as much emphasis on this declaration as he could, making it not a promise but a statement. He assumed Snape was aware of the power he wielded even beyond his magical force, the strong foothold he kept in the wizarding society, that he could indeed move mountains with just a word - but he needed to say it, just once. That it was power that attracted Snape, in whatever form, was one of the few things Albus was sure he had understood about the young man. He had joined the Death Eaters because Tom was strong and made no secret of it, and if Albus were to achieve anything with him it would be because he had made an equally good impression, in an absurd little competition he was sure he would win. He hadn't yet decided how far he was willing to go, how much he would disclose. It felt slightly tasteless, this display of might and weapons, but if it was necessary Albus wouldn't be beneath doing it. For the greater good, of course. He didn't need to impress this scrawny little Death Eater in front of him, or compete with Tom for Snape's loyalty - not now, when he'd essentially already won Snape over, in the unlikely case that Snape was a man who could be won over at all.

Snape sat motionless, apparently calculating, his face unreadable. Then he nodded slowly, and Albus wondered if it was because he had actually decided to put his trust in that declaration or if he had just come to the rightful conclusion that from here he had nowhere to go but forward.

"So you want a vow?"

A magical vow would be the best solution, a fireproof way that Snape wouldn't be able to betray him. And yet it felt wrong, and Albus had spent a lot of time thinking of this. A vow would be a form of force, and what Albus wanted Snape to do couldn't be done because of pressure. Coercion would not do the trick when only will could, and will could not be forced.

"No. I want your word, just that."

Snape looked genuinely surprised, and for a moment Albus felt something in him soften at this display of confusion. It reminded him that he was talking to a man who had been bound by Tom, who would never escape the connection that was burnt into his very flesh and would forever remain tethered to the darkness. He wasn't going to chain him to the light in the same way, not as long as he could avoid it. In the end, when all was said and done he wasn't Tom Riddle, and he needed Snape to know.

"Just that?"

Albus nodded, savouring how Snape could be thrown off guard by displays of trust when nothing brutal seemed to shock him anymore.

"Yes. And for now only your word that you will not tell anyone what we have spoken about today. You need to think about this, and so do I, and we need to agree on the exact terms. For now I just need to know that you will not take the information you already have straight to Tom, and then we will see if we can arrange to have the Wizengamot take your case on."

A little test, nothing more, to see if Snape was actually willing to commit fully, a decision both wouldn't be able to undo once it had been made. And for Albus it was a low-risk game, for Snape knew nothing yet that wasn't vaguely making the rounds anyway, no knowledge he could use to harm the Order or its members.

For a moment Snape looked at his hands. Then he nodded, again slowly, and looked up. Albus took the chance to reach over the desk, offering his hand. Hesitating for just a second Snape reached out, and they shook hands. Snape's bony fingers were cold in Albus' grip, his handshake firm and determined.

Allowing himself a smile Albus sat back. "Well, what a pleasant outcome of this conversation."

Snape seemed undetermined whether he was willing to join in Albus' statement. Instead he cleared his throat, sitting back himself.

"And the Occlumency lessons?"

Still smiling Albus shrugged.

"What about we start right now?"

Snape wasn't done with nodding when Albus cast the spell, strong yet perfectly covert, his magic softly gliding over Snape's skull and straight into the swirling fog of his mind.

Chapter Text

Soon the Occlumency lessons became a regular fixture in Albus' schedule, and at the same speed with which Snape's grasp of the difficult magical technique grew Albus started to feed him knowledge about the Order and its strategy. He didn't quite offer Snape the names of other members of the Order, but instead started to talk about general concepts and strategic goals, and quickly discovered that Tom had known exactly what he had been doing when he had picked Snape as one of his advisors for battle strategy.

He wasn't sure what surprised him more: the ease with which Snape slipped into his new role as strategic advisor to Albus, or the speed at which he picked up on Occlumency and, tied into it, Legilimency. Both were obscure and difficult practices that required a high level of control and magical resources, but Snape proved to have a good grip on his own powers and a solid idea of what he could do combined with the will to push his own boundaries as fast as possible. Albus had been a teacher all his life, but he had never taught anyone Occlumency before. His approach turned out to be rather direct and without any pedagogical components, and Snape reacted well to it.

But Snape was far from being a perfect student. Impatient with others and himself his temper could easily sour their sessions, and more than once Albus felt like he was wrangling a large beast instead of teaching useful lessons. Snape tended to complain about not having enough time for practise, about Albus being too easy on him or too lenient, greedily reaching for any morsel of knowledge and being offended when he felt Albus was withholding anything. They had arguments and heated conversations, but in the end Snape could always be lured back in with the promise of longer lessons, more information, hidden knowledge.

And he kept his side of their deal from the very beginning, providing Albus with the information he wanted, naming people involved in Tom's little army Albus had never suspected of being followers of the dark wizard, explaining the hierarchy and rituals that had been built around Riddle as their central focal point. It very quickly became obvious that the movement was far less structured than Albus had expected, much more centred on Tom himself, who was clever enough to obscure what was actually going on.

But apparently not well enough. It didn't take long for Albus to understand that Snape was much more curious than he let on and had already spent quite a bit of time figuring out what was going on around him, having acquired knowledge that he wasn't supposed to have, no matter how high his standing in the hierarchy of evil actually was. And he was surprisingly forthcoming with information, finding ways to contact Albus to let him know about new developments as they happened, passing warnings on, saving lives.

He was also open about his own participation in the many horrific acts Riddle demanded his followers carry out, not sparing himself when he reported to Albus, telling things as they were, recounting the horrors curse by curse in composed, neutral fashion. He was powerfully eloquent, yet detached enough to communicate easily with Albus, straight to the point. And yet Albus couldn't brush the feeling off that there were things Snape was keeping from him, small things only, nothing that could taint the worth of the information he was carrying. Snape knew more than he told Albus, that much was for sure. But despite this Albus was pleased with the situation, slowly, very slowly, building confidence in his new spy.

A few weeks in Albus decided to start introducing Snape to Order members. His first try with his right-hand woman Minerva McGonagall ended in a spectacular disaster at the end of which Snape stormed off in a cloud of dark anger and Minerva seriously questioned Albus' sanity right along with his decision to pick the young man as his personal spy. The conflict lasted for several weeks before a careful truce could be forged between them, a working agreement that was mostly built on the fact that they weren't exactly seeing a lot of each other anyway. Based on this experience Albus decided to keep the rest of the Order away from Snape for the moment, wanting to leave the inevitable great fallout of the introduction until after Snape's name had been cleared by the Wizengamot and he had at least that official recognition to back his plan. It took longer than Albus had expected to sort this particular piece of his general plan of action out, but in the middle of December it was finally all arranged, with the necessary people either persuaded or bribed well enough.

Albus picked an evening shortly after Christmas to apparate into Oxford. It wasn't very late but already dark on this snowy evening, and Albus found the street where Snape lived deserted and empty. The windows of his flat were dark, and having a fairly solid idea where Snape would be on a night as such if he wasn't at home Albus turned on his heel and took the chance of being the only pedestrian around to disapparate again from the middle of the street.

Five minutes later he strode through the gatehouse of St. Aurelius, the wizarding college Snape was currently finishing is graduate degree at and of which Albus had fond memories from his long gone days as a student there. He passed through the snowed in main quad without anyone seeing him, ducked through an arched doorway into the much smaller Gerber Quad and marched straight into the laboratory tract. It was calm and quite, the holiday leaving its mark on the college's population.

Most of the laboratories were deserted, their doors locked. It was only behind the door with the number eight on it that he heard movement, and he knocked sharply once before simply letting himself into the large room.

It was brightly lit, and while one half of it was clean and empty the other side was occupied. Bent over a row of three small cauldrons Snape stood dressed in a dirty laboratory coat, hair tied back out of his face. Next to the three tripods a large book and a notebook were placed on the bench, just out of reach so they couldn't catch any sparks from the fire burning underneath the cauldrons. Even standing in the doorway Albus heard the bubbling sounds of the boiling liquid inside the cauldrons, smoke rising from all three of them in dark purple. Three wooden spoons stirred the mixtures in perfectly synchronised circles. The air was heavy with thick layers of a flowery, earthy scent.

Snape was focused on his work, bestowing nothing but a short glance on Albus before he returned to his cauldrons, concentrating on the circular movements of the spoons and the regular rising of the smoke. He seemed to count seconds or a rise of temperature, his lips moving silently. Then he nodded, turning to the notebook and scribbling something into a margin before returning to the cauldrons, the pencil carelessly tucked behind his ear. He didn't look up again or bother with a formal greeting.

"What can I do for you?"

They hadn't seen each other for two weeks, the busy holiday season an excuse for Albus to take a break from their Occlumency lessons. Snape hadn't complained, apparently being grateful for a few days off so he could focus on his actual work in Oxford, where he was running a rather large and complicated experiment that was designed to be turned into a thesis one day.

Albus smiled at the young man, sensing that he would notice it even without looking. The magical saturation in the room was dense, and Albus felt it prickling on his skin. Snape had been working in this very lab for a longer period of time, using larger quantities of magic, and decidedly not only the Ministry-approved type of magic. It was that and the scent filling the lab that told Albus in unclear terms that whatever Snape was working on had probably nothing to do with his Guild-approved current project.

"There's a few things I would like to discuss with you."

Snape peered into the middle cauldron and moved his hand to adjust the fire underneath it. "This will take a while." He didn't sound overly apologetic.

"I have time on my hands. Would you mind if I stayed and observed?"

Snape seemed surprised for a moment, but then shrugged. "If you insist."

Looking around Albus saw a coat hanger in the corner of the room and focused his attention on it for a moment. Obediently the object transformed into a comfortable easy chair, complete with cushions just perfectly stuffed to support his slightly aching back. Slipping out of his muggle winter coat and draping it over the back of the new chair he seated himself comfortably. He just considered asking Snape for something else to transform into a useful footstool when he noticed the sour glance thrown his way.

"No more magic, it will disturb the balance."

It was the first rule of working in a laboratory to control the amount of magic saturating the atmosphere in the room. Various ingredients could react to leftover magic, leading to uncontrollable situations where an explosion was sometimes the least terrible thing that could happen. Albus knew this, of course, but was also tightly in control of his own power and thus fairly sure he wasn't leaving any residual magic flying around. Still Snape was technically absolutely right, and all that remained for Albus was to nod and make do with. With a relaxed sigh he leant back into the comfort of the easy chair, registering the slight furrowing of the brow announcing the growing annoyance Snape was harbouring towards his guest.

He considered offering Snape to entertain him with the latest magical news, but he had barely opened his mouth when Snape muttered an unfavourable answer under his breath. With a dark glare in Albus' direction he extended his left hand and gestured towards the easy chair Albus was seated in with a non-descript circular movement of the wrist.

The slight shift in the magical potency in the laboratory felt most curious, and Albus bit down a sarcastic comment about keeping to one's own rules. Instead he carefully reached out to touch the invisible barrier descending in front of him. His fingers skimmed over the slightly sticky surface of the spell, toying with the gooey quality of the barrier that Snape had used to effectively soundproof his working space from any unwanted chatter. It was an absolutely impertinent and bratty thing to do, yet so much in character that Albus couldn't help but smile while he prodded the spell before him, feeling the magic tingle against his skill.

It was an interwoven textual type of spell that he hardly saw these days, multilayered and nicely executed. Fascinated Albus reached out again, slowly allowing his own magic to unfold from its usual hiding place, mentally latching to the barrier spell and disentangling the various layers slowly and carefully. The very baseline was an easy Ericius spell, with a Confuto layer used to specify its function, but the construction was solid and without any gaps. Silencing charms came a dime a dozen in broad variety, but this one had a few tweaks to it that ensured that it didn't work within the already existing space of a room like ordinary silencing spells did, but constructed its own shape within larger spaces, enabling its use in tightly packed surroundings. It essentially worked like a magical bell jar, shielding Snape from anything anyone would say around him. It looked and felt like a creative solution with a few rough edges, something Snape had probably come up a while ago to ensure he could work whenever and under whatever circumstances. Chatty old men or air raid, he had a calm space where he could isolate himself from his surroundings.

The spell wasn't complicated per se but well-woven, and cast with a bit more magic than would have been necessary to power it, something Albus had already identified as a pattern with Snape's magic. It was a bad habit magically speaking, but went well with the general character of the man as Albus had gotten to know him by now. He certainly wasn't doing things by halves, never mind if the thing in question was a difficult potion or betraying a dark wizard who'd certainly murder him for it brutally if given the chance.

Letting the spell go and do its job Albus looked up again. Snape had moved from watching the fire to taking small samples from the cauldrons, each in individual test tubes he was holding into a fourth fire to increase the heat. The smells seemed to intensify by the minute, and Albus' mind jumped from examining the spell to analysing what he was smelling. His analytical mind took to the task happily, categorising scents and sorting through possible ingredients, heat processes and functions. Running through various combinations and options Albus settled on the potion in question being closely related to Veritasserum. But there was something different in there as well, and Albus couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Allowing himself to sink into contemplation he continued to watch Snape, whose intense focus didn't seem to lessen. He looked stern in his concentration, but also unnaturally pale in the harsh light of the laboratory. The brightness wasn't doing him any favours, casting deep shadows on his thin face and enhancing the dark circles under his eyes. By now Albus had gotten used to the fact that Snape always looked like he could use a weekend of sleep and a good meal, no matter what day of the week or time it was. He seemed to fray slightly along the edges, pushing just a little bit too hard in his academic endeavours and now in his new job as a spy.

Like this an hour passed, and then Snape was done. The fires under the cauldrons died down slowly, perfectly in synch, and the smoke started to evaporate. A spell cooled the cauldrons at the exact same time, and another time-coded freezing spell would ensure the potion could sit for the exact time that was needed. Walking over to his notebook Snape took a few final notes, then closed the books and dropped the pencil. Stretching his shoulders a little bit he reached out and pulled the silencing spell back. But instead of dissolving it he enlarged the shape so it covered the walls of the entire laboratory, soundproofing the room. He wanted to talk, it seemed, and he preferred not to be eavesdropped on.

Sitting up in his chair Albus smiled.

"Quite a nice spell. A creation of yours?"

Snape nodded, and busied himself cleaning the worktable around his cauldrons. Picking up the tools he had used he walked over to the sink, deposited everything there and returned with a wet cloth.

"Sometimes these old things are useful. It could do with a few tweaks, but as longs as it serves its purpose I see no need to change anything."

Snape sounded confident, secure in knowing what he was capable of and that a small spell like the one he had used on Albus was nothing more than a fingerexercise he couldn't pay much attention to. Returning to his work table he started to clean the table accurately around the cauldrons, making sure to catch any accidental spillages. Looking down at the work his hands were doing he continued to talk.

"I meant to send you a bird, but since you are here now it's just as well. The Dark Lord had an interesting epiphany you should consider."

Surprised Albus leant forward in his chair, curious.

"Do tell, and we will think it through."

Snape continued to look at his hands scrubbing the table.

"It seems he's come to the conclusion that to combat his overwhelming paranoia concerning your person it would make sense to keep a close eye on your machinations and plans. He's decided to plant a spy close to you, to receive first-hand information."

Picking up the cloth Snape marched back to the sink, and thoroughly washed it out before hanging it up to dry.

"And he decided that you should be that person?"

It seemed the obvious solution, and Albus wasn't surprised to see Snape nodding. Returning from the sink he unbuttoned his ratty laboratory coat, pulled the silver clip holding his hair back out and stuffed it into the pockets of the coat. Then he stalked around the work bench he had been using and leant against the table closest to Albus, crossing his feet at the ankles.

"For obvious reasons. He knows you were interested in me, I had to explain your magic all over me in some way. While he was not pleased at first it seems he has decided to make use of the situation and ordered me to be a bit more, well, accommodating towards your advances."

There was a hint of amusement in Snape's always cool voice, pointing towards the fact that maybe he was keeping a few details to himself.

"Did he specify what accommodating exactly means?"

Now Snape grinned, all teeth and not much emotion, and Albus couldn't say he liked the look of it. He sobered up quickly, though, leaving only the faint impression that whatever Riddle had meant was certainly not innocent.

"Well, he said a few inappropriate things, but that's unimportant. If the Dark Lords desires that I spent time in your company I shall follow his every wish. He will stop throwing a fit over every little whiff of your magic he traces on me, I can gloat about how easily I won your confidence and you can influence everything he hears about you without doing more than you are already doing."

It didn't help that Albus had a very clear idea of what Riddle had actually said, and he didn't like the implication. Albus had never exactly been hiding his sexuality, but neither had he felt the need to discuss it with the broader public. He had been quite happy to pose as an eternal bachelor and leave it at that. Only very few people still alive knew what Gellert Grindelwald had actually been to him, and he preferred to keep it this way.

Of course Tom would have found out, it had just been a matter of time. And yet it left a sour taste in Albus' mouth to think about what Riddle exactly had told Snape to do, and that Riddle thought it would work, as if Albus wasn't a very old man and Snape barely old enough to be stirring a cauldron on his own in a student laboratory in Oxford. It could have been ridiculous if it hadn't been that much of an insult to Albus' integrity, if it didn't bring up questions of what Riddle was thinking about Snape to order him to do such things. He made a mental note to question Snape on this particular issue further if the occasion should ever arrive and briskly moved on from the topic.

"So you're working as a double agent now?"

Snape shrugged, but again grinned.

"Apparently there's no rest for the wicked these days."

Shaking his head at the comment Albus leant back in his chair, sighing.

"I do admit it's a good solution, since you're reporting to him anyway. What did you tell him to explain the healing spell and the Oblivate?"

The slightly mischievous look on Snape's face vanished immediately.

"The obvious explanation was to tell him how you bothered me with questions concerning Valentinus' death, that you used invasive magic and I couldn't do anything against it."

Tilting his head Albus nodded. "And that worked?"

As if haunted by an unfavourable memory Snape shivered briefly.

"As well as one can expect. Lucky for me I am still useful."

It was obvious what Snape was hinting at, and just as obvious that he still didn't want to talk about it. It was just one more thing on a long list of things Albus needed to properly find out one day, maybe if they ever managed to develop a more solid connection than they had now, if they ever got that far.

"Useful, as a Potions Master?"

Albus nodded to the three cauldrons behind Snape. It would make sense that whatever he was brewing there had something to do with Riddle, with the services Snape was providing for Riddle's army. Tom would be stupid to have an Alchemist with Snape's capacity at his hands and not use him to the fullest degree.

Snape followed Albus' line of sight, and shrugged.

"For example. I already told you that the Dark Lord enjoys using Veritasserum in his interrogations, and it has to come from somewhere."

Albus looked at the cauldrons again, once more compared colour, smell and smoke density with everything he knew about Veritasserum just to be sure and came to the conclusion that Snape was not exactly telling the truth.

"There's no Veritasserum in these cauldrons."

Apparently Snape had expected this answer, and enjoyed hearing it. There was the strange grin again that looked so out of place on his thin face, mischievous and confident.

"Is it not?"

Clicking his tongue to make his disapproval audible Albus considered pointing out that he wasn't the residing Grand Master of the Guild of Alchemists for no reason, that he could very well tell a N.E.W.T level potion like Veritasserum was from another one, and that he wouldn't have given a single point to a master candidate presenting whatever was resting in the cauldrons behind Snape as properly brewed Veritasserum. But if it wasn't Veritasserum, well, what was in those cauldrons?

"Explain yourself."

Snape crossed his arms in front of his chest, and suddenly sounded like he was teaching a group of undergraduates in an intro to potions class, which Albus incidentally knew he was actually doing as part of his job at St. Aurelius.

"It will look like Veritasserum in about one lunar phase, given it can rest in vials within a temperature controlled environment while being undisturbed after a two-day-period of cooling time within the cauldron it was originally brewed in, which, by the way, has to contain iron. After the resting period it will turn completely transparent, water-like in all characteristics. It also works like Veritasserum, at least slightly. And, most importantly, it will look like Veritasserum on all commonly known tests that can be performed on it. Besides tracking effects very meticulously there is no way to prove it is not Veritasserum."

Albus tried to follow the line of thought, and came to an intriguing solution.

"So you're making a potion that looks like Veritasserum, feels like Veritasserum and reacts like Veritasserum, with the exception that - well?"

He had a suspicion, but he wanted to hear if he was right before he ventured a guess that could expose him as being hopelessly naive when it came to Snape's dedication as a traitor.

"It can be resisted, with a little bit of effort most magical people are capable of making. It still feels like a small struggle, but it allows the person ingesting it to not exactly tell the truth."

Raising an eyebrow Albus followed the conclusion to its logical end.

"A non-functional Veritasserum that is basically untraceable?"

Snape nodded, visibly satisfied with the conclusion they had arrived at. „Almost impossible to detect."

It was the perfect solution to a dilemma Albus had been thinking about ever since he realised that Snape was working as an interrogator for Tom, without question using Veritasserum because even Albus wouldn't trust an interrogation led without it, not when so much was at stake.

"How?"

Shrugging Snape looked very content with his own cunning.

"Rebuilding the potion on a different baselevel. I untangled the alchemic notation for Veritasserum and replaced what I needed to achieve the desired effect - less potency, same characteristics, slightly different ingredients. That's why you recognized the baselevel by smell and colour. As I said, it is Veritasserum, but at the same time, well, it's not."

For a moment Albus was speechless. Not many Potions Masters were capable of tweaking the baselevel of a potion that way, no matter how many years of experience they had. Just doing the calculations needed for that must have taken month, not speaking of the test stages and the final adjustments. Albus had seen people receive academic degrees and accolades for something that Snape ran as a secret sideline project next to his actual work load, and for a moment Albus wasn't surprised why the man always looked like he'd drop dead at any given moment from exhaustion.

"How did you test it?"

Snape only crocked his head a little. "On myself, naturally. There were plenty of occasions."

The thought made Albus uncomfortable, but it made perfect sense.

"And Tom never realised?"

Again Snape shrugged. "How should he? He doesn't know his victims are lying. For him they took the potion, they answer, and if in the end they had managed to hide something, well, how would I know? Maybe I'm less capable as interrogator as he thinks."

So Snape had sabotaged Riddle, and maybe for years now. It must have taken him a while to come up with the idea to manipulate the Veritasserum, to design the alternative potion, to brew it, to test it. This hadn't been a sudden decision, it was planned.

"And he does not punish you for what he thinks is your failure?"

Suddenly Snape looked uncomfortable, and Albus already knew the answer.

"The Dark Lord punishes every failure within his ranks."

His voice was sober, but somehow Albus thought he could still pick up on the pain and couldn't help softening.

"And it is worth it?"

The gentleness in Albus' voice seemed to disturb Snape for a moment. But he looked determined, having made this particular decision a long time ago.

"Yes."

For a moment Albus wished he had known this before. It would have made everything so much easier, would have allowed them to skip the month of running in circles around each other and spared him the constant questioning whether Snape would be cooperative. It also told him, crucially, that learning Occlumency was at best a flimsy excuse, probably rooted in an actual need as Snape claimed, but by far not the only reason why Snape had turned himself over to the light. There was no benefit at all in manipulating Riddle's grasp on his victims, nothing besides doing the right thing and, maybe, the knowledge that despite everything Riddle put Snape through it was by using his cunning, ability and learning that Snape had managed to take the piss out of the most dangerous wizard alive.

If that wasn't pure Slytherin spirit Albus really didn't know. He realised he was grinning when Snape started to look slightly disturbed and sobered up again.

"When did you decide you had to do something against Riddle?"

Albus kept his voice gentle to soften the blow, but this was one of the questions he had been burning to know the answer to ever since he had begun to suspect Snape of those acts of sabotage he had picked up on while trying to find a suitable candidate for his plan, someone who was on the inside and wanted out. It was what had drawn him to Snape in the very first place, and after Snape had successfully pretended to be nothing but an opportunist for month now it satisfied Albus enormously to know that he had been right from the very beginning.

But Snape seemed reluctant to answer, looking at his shoes for a moment, then brushing a strand of unruly black hair behind his ear. Finally he sighed, and looked up again, suddenly looking nothing but exhausted.

"Five years ago, more or less."

For a second Albus was speechless. Five years was a very long time to survive within Riddle's ranks without being fully committed to the agenda, but it also meant that Snape must have had the Dark Mark burnt into his skin for much longer than Albus had anticipated.

"When did you join Tom?"

Albus already knew Snape had carried the Mark when he had joined Valentinus as an apprentice, which was roughly three years ago, but not when exactly his induction ceremony had happened. Looking deeply uncomfortable Snape looked at Albus for a moment, apparently trying to decide whether he wanted to share this particular part of information. It was obvious that he decided they were too far in anyway, that there was no turning back now anymore. Relaxing his stance he dropped his arms from their crossed position, for a moment looking at his left forearm where the Dark Mark was currently invisible.

"I took the Mark three month after leaving school. I could still tell you the date and the hour, but I don't believe it matters."

Without realising he did it Albus held his breath. Snape had been seventeen years old when he left Hogwarts, having been always slightly younger than most of his peers, and he wouldn't have turned eighteen before the next January. He hadn't known Tom took them in so early, so young, when making bad decisions was a course of life and none of these mistakes should have been as deadly as this one was.

"And you killed for the first time?"

Albus kept his voice gentle, knowing he was treading on very thin ice here, hoping it would hold. To his surprise it did.

"The same night."

There was something in Snape's voice that made Albus' stomach clench, emotion sounding strange in the beautiful but usually completely detached baritone. Seventeen was too young to do such things, but Snape had done them, and there was no turning back from this. It didn't make him less of a murderer, but it also did nothing to assure Albus that maybe they hadn't just all failed terribly as adults watching over these children playing death at the beckoning of a mad man.

Snape, in the meantime, had decided that this was enough information for one evening, voice and face closed and matter-of-fact again. For a moment Albus regretted that these open moments were always fleeting ones, that Snape immediately pulled back and refused to allow any actual communication beyond those few glimpses.

"You are not here because of this, I assume."

Pulling back from his line of thought Albus carefully shook his head, matching his own display of emotions to the coolness that had returned to Snape's voice.

"No, indeed I'm not. I've spoken to the Wizengamot and could arrange a suitable time for the trial. Everything was handled in absolute secrecy, and there are very few people in the Ministry aware of it. If you are ready."

Albus hadn't thought it was possible for Snape to pale even further, but he very much did. Considering Albus had just offered him a week in Azkaban and a trial he had no other chance to survive but based on Albus' political power nobody would have faulted him for loosing his head and falling into hysterics. But like this, being Snape, he simply exhaled carefully and then, to Albus' endless relief, nodded.

"When?"

His voice was controlled, the fear that had been visible on him just a fraction of a second gone again.

"The first week of January. The Oxford term should not start until a few days after the date for the trial, but you need to spent the prescribed time in detention while awaiting trail. I'm afraid there are certain things even I cannot change."

Snape looked lost in thought for a moment, and Albus simply continued.

"I have arranged for the Aurors to pick you up wherever we choose. But you'll need to find an excuse for your disappearance, maybe a vacation or a spontaneous research trip to somewhere."

Forcefully relaxing his posture Snape seemed to search for something to do with his hands and lacking anything stuffed them into the pockets of his lab robe in a unusual display of nervousness Albus could not fault him for one bit.

"As long as I'm back first day of term nobody will miss me."

From what Albus had seen and knew about Snape there was no reason to doubt that he was saying the truth, that indeed nobody would miss him if he just vanished for two weeks, maybe even if he vanished forever.

"And nobody will ask questions?"

Snape just shrugged.

"No."

It was a damning statement, but said with such clarity and determination that Albus wondered for a moment if they were still talking about a week in Azkaban or maybe something different altogether. Again he entertained the idea that Snape might just be severely suicidal, and it would fit so nicely with the acts of treason he had committed, the complete disregard of his personal safety, the willingness with which he had handed his life over to Albus despite knowing virtually nothing about the earnestness of his endeavour.

It left Albus with a lack of meaningful things to say. Instead he decided to carefully reach out, just to test the waters and see if Snape was in a stable emotional condition. But to his surprise the Legilimens spell slid off Snape's mind like water on a windowpane.

"You practised."

Not without admiration Albus eyed Snape, now suddenly very composed, very straight, not betraying any emotion, dark eyes completely unreadable. Then Snape took his hands out of the pockets of his lab robe and pushed himself off the table's edge.

"Tell me when and were. I am prepared."

Albus nodded, rising from his own chair, very impressed with the sudden change in stance, fully knowing that Snape was absolutely saying the truth and was indeed ready to face whatever was going to come his way. He took that knowledge with him as he left the laboratory and disapparated back to Hogwarts, in his mind already arranging anything that still had to be set into motion.

They met again shortly after the new year had come, on the date they had agreed upon. Albus had proposed the apparition clearing of the Forbidden Forest close to Hogwarts as a good place where they could meet the Aurors that were supposed to take Snape to Azkaban, mostly because it was the most private public place he could think of that was still firmly in his domain and under his control. Albus trusted the Ministry on very few things, and there remained a little worry that this game would not fully turn out the way he wanted it. Both he and the Order would survive if they lost Snape to a ministry blunder now, but he wasn't keen on it, not when he had little chances of ever finding someone this capable and willing to do the impossible again.

The clearing was snowed in, the white blanket undisturbed by footprints, and Albus was early. He had enjoyed the little walk through the forest in the waning afternoon light, a spot of colour in his fur-lined aubergine wintercloak next to the bleak winter landscape, ostensibly relaxed while at the back of his mind there was still a small voice questioning if Snape was really going to show up.

He needn't have worried. Apparently Snape was a man with the habit of being early, for Albus was barely two steps onto the clearing when he heard the soft sound of apparition and the young man stood on the other end of the open space. For a moment he seemed openly surprised to see Albus there already, but then only nodded in greeting. They met in the exact middle of the clearing, their breath little puffs in the cold air. It was colder in Scotland than it was down south, and Snape wasn't dressed for the weather, his baggy leather jacket too thin for the temperature, an old grey scarf wrapped around his neck, hands without gloves stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. He seemed deadly pale in the fading afternoon light, the cold colouring him in uneasy red and blue.

"Good afternoon. I'm glad you came."

Snape looked slightly amused, pulling his shoulders up against the cold.

"Did you doubt I would?"

But Albus only shrugged. "I wouldn't have faulted anyone for fleeing from this, and you already know what awaits you. Considering that, why did you not dress warmer?"

He remembered the last time he had picked Snape up from Azkaban, the raging fever brought on by the harsh conditions in the prison, how he had shivered in the cold. But Snape only frowned at Albus' display of ignorance.

"They don't let anyone keep their clothing."

Briefly Albus wondered if he should or could have known that, and decided against it.

They stood on the clearing in silence for a moment, Snape displaying no sign of nervousness, looking around the Forbidden Forest in its snowy blanket glittering in the twilight. It seemed oddly peaceful, and Albus couldn't help but feel like they were looking at the final calm before the storm would break loose. He followed Snape's gaze at the wonderfully shaped trees heavily laden with their white burden, the silence perfect besides the crunch of the snow under their feet. Then he stopped watching the trees and looked at Snape instead, all dark against the white background of the forest yet radiating much of the same cold.

"Are you sure you want to follow through with this?"

Albus' voice was barely above a whisper, but in the almost complete stillness of the forest his words nevertheless carried. Snape turned to look over his shoulder, eyes cool.

"Are you?"

The counterquestion surprised Albus, but not for long. Meeting the calculating gaze he nodded.

"I can't do this on my own."

It sounded much more like a confession than he had wanted it to be, and for a moment he was startled by his own candidness, wondering if vulnerability was something Snape could be trusted with just yet. Fleetingly he considered taking his words back. But then Snape just nodded and turned to look at the trees again, shoulders hunched against the cold.

"I thought I could."

For a moment he hesitated, and Albus suddenly realised that he needn't have worried. He hadn't expected this to be the moment he would finally manage to slip under all of Snape's many lines of defence, that it would take a confession to get one in return. Giving Snape space to finish what he was saying Albus kept his tongue in check, waiting for whatever would happen next in silence.

"It turned out I can't."

Snape didn't look at Albus when he finally continued, but it was obvious that he meant it, voice low but clear, and for some reason the weight on Albus' shoulders suddenly felt a little lighter.

„We want the same thing.“

He watched Snape exhale slowly, trying to loosen his posture and open his mouth to say something. But whatever it was suddenly was drowned by the loud plop of a double apparition, and then they were joined by two formally dressed Aurors in grey robes, badges pointing towards their high standing in the Ministry hierarchy. They were perfectly on time, but for a moment Albus inwardly cursed their punctuality before turning and greeting them.

"Ah, good afternoon. Mr. Levi, Mr. Bailey. Thank you for joining us."

Both Aurors nodded and murmured their greetings. The taller of both addressed Albus first.

"Professor Dumbledore, we are being send by the Wizengamot to arrest Severus Snape."

Albus nodded, and gestured towards Snape who hadn't moved, calmly watching the Aurors.

"That would be me."

The Aurors nodded, exchanged glances and moved quickly. It wasn't often that they could arrest a Death Eater without battle, and both seemed rightfully careful of their surroundings, even with Albus Dumbledore himself right there more or less guaranteeing their safety. Positioning themselves left and right of Snape the smaller one produced a set of enchanted chains, ordering Snape to cross his wrists behind his back and securing his hands with a quick spell. The chains wound themselves rightly around his hands, pulling his shoulders back painfully. It wasn't the most uncomfortable thing he was about to endure the next weeks, but Albus couldn't help but feel a little sympathy.

"We also require your wand."

For a moment Snape looked as if he was about to ask the taller Auror how he was supposed to hand it over with both hands tightly bound behind his back, and just so managed to reign himself in.

"Does the regulation state that you will take it, or that it just can't be on my person anymore?"

Not having expected to receive that particular answer the Auror looked slightly annoyed.

"It cannot be in your possession. Hand it over to whomever you please."

Seemingly satisfied Snape tilted his head to the side and nodded into the direction of Albus.

"Then I would prefer Professor Dumbledore to take it."

Quickly moving in Albus registered the leap of faith and tried not to feel strangely proud.

"I guess it would be in your jacket?"

Snape nodded, and Albus carefully moved closer, getting a good close-up look of how beaten up the leather jacket actually was while gently unzipping it. For a moment Albus let the strangeness of being so close to Snape sink in, feeling the warmth of his body as he slipped his hands inside the jacket searching for Snape's wand, which he quickly found in the appropriate pocket. Pulling it out and pocketing it in his own cloak Albus made sure to properly zip the jacket up again, and on a whim took the time and opportunity to rearrange the grey scarf properly. Up close Snape's face was completely unreadable, devoid of any colour, eyes dark in the quickly vanishing winter light. They were almost equal in height, but even with his hands tied behind his back Snape stood a little taller, almost painfully straight. Finishing his fiddling with the scarf Albus stepped back, nodding to the Aurors.

They quickly closed in, both clamping a hand on Snape's shoulders, looking slightly ridiculous in their threatening stance next to the bound and unarmed Snape, who seemed to have sagged just a little under the weight of the Auror's firm grip.

"Right, Mr. Snape, if you will accompany us. Professor Dumbledore, have a good day."

Albus noted how their tone switched from commanding when speaking to Snape and utterly formal when talking to him, and nodded. But just before the Aurors prepared to disapparate with their new prisoner Albus lifted a hand.

"Severus?"

The Aurors paused for just a second, and Severus looked up, surprised at the use of his given name. But Albus just smiled, reaching out mentally and finding the barriers of Occlumency part before his Legilimens willingly. Under the watchful glance of the Aurors they both stood in complete silence, and Albus said the words without ever opening his mouth.

"I will see you later."

Severus nodded, and Albus found that speaking through this new invisible mental connection was much easier than saying things aloud, that he could simply drop the promise into Severus' mind and leave it there, making it much more tangible that way. He hoped that it would stay there, that it would remain even while they would toss Snape into the howling madness of Azkaban prison, while the Wizengamot would sit and deliberate his fate, while he would have to survive days and nights bound by heavy, cold chains around his feet and ankles. It wasn't much but it would have to do, and he wanted to leave Snape with that certainty, that one simple fact that Albus would be there waiting, in front of the gates of Azkaban or the court room in the Ministry or wherever it would be necessary. What they had set out to do wasn't going to be easy - war, after all, wasn't easy - but they would be allies or maybe even friends, and maybe get done what nobody could do on their own anyway.

With a resonating plop the Aurors and Severus vanished, and Albus made sure not to stand too long on the clearing before he turned around, feeling Severus' wand securely in his pocket and the fading Legilimency still on his mind. Then he marched back towards his castle, striding purposefully through the silent forest, his focus already set on continuing his plans, on getting his spy out of Azkaban, bringing the Order together and like this one step at a time coming closer to winning the war against Tom Riddle. It wasn't going to be easy, but he was prepared and, most importantly, not alone anymore.