Spilt Milk, Part Five

The archives of Azkaban contained confessions: shelf upon shelf stacked with bottled memories - catalogued and alphabetized, kept underground in the prison’s basement, inside the cliff on which the bulk of the black-stone building perched.

They were guarded by a Dementor thinner and more ragged than the others: the Archivist. There was a glimmer of happiness, a trace of nourishment, about the memories - from the exhilarated or self-righteous feelings of criminals when they remembered their crimes, or perhaps because the act of remembering was itself life-affirming, in a place like Azkaban. Giving the confessions was probably the last happiness the prisoners ever felt.

At any rate, a Dementor could live on them. The Archivist was usually a weak or wounded Dementor (for a Dementor could be permanently injured by a Patronus), not strong enough to draw the happiness out of living humans, forced to hang around human creations, inventions, things that still vibrated with human emotions. You could find starving Dementors in deserted museums or libraries, scavenging on the traces of human feelings left there. Their black robes gradually became grey and ragged, fuzzy around the edges, as though they had been ruined in the wash - they became less sharply defined, until they grew translucent, and eventually their molecules could not adhere together any more, and they drifted apart.  

The Confessions had to be given, but they were never examined by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. If they attested to the criminals’ innocence, nobody ever knew. Only the Dementors ever saw them, unless the criminal’s family asked to examine them. And, even then, the criminal in question had to be dead. Memory was a volatile substance with a mind of its own. There was no telling what it could do to the susceptible.  

The Light Mark

Lily slipped out of the Hospital Wing early on the morning following her discovery of the secret chapter in Sympathetic Magic. Streams of students were arriving with boils, petrified limbs and furry faces, on account of bitter reprisals or high-spirited celebrations following the Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch match, and Madam Pomfrey was too busy tutting furiously at her new patients to notice Lily leave.

She didn’t want to stay to have the cut on her arm healed. She had a childish desire to keep it as a reminder of the wonderful things she had seen the night before, and of all the difficult things it meant she now had to live with. Because, when you’re trying to steel yourself to do something brave, it’s important to remember precedent.

Not only did she now have a lot of homework to catch up on, but she had to stop being afraid of spiders and forget Severus Snape. Both were essential if she wanted to maintain her self-respect.

She thought of asking Madam Pomfrey whether she had ever discovered the secret chapter in Sympathetic Magic. After all, before the malice of a hundred teenagers hexing one another into oblivion had driven her to distraction, she must have been a compassionate girl, just the kind to spill her blood in pity or weep with love.

But the circumstances had probably been different. Lily couldn’t imagine the formidable Poppy Pomfrey getting tearful over a book, or cutting herself open on account of a baby-shaped plant.

In the welcome coolness of the corridors, she began to think about what she had seen the night before: the glossy, dark palm leaves and the sequinned sea, her friends all getting along with each other, and Severus standing alone in the shallow water, still on her side, still half-exasperated and half-affectionate.     

And now she knew she was in love with him. She was hoping that she could reason herself out of it, because loving someone who called you a Mudblood and hit you over the head with cauldrons was a very bad idea.

She wondered what had happened - because he had cared for her at one point, she was sure of it. Perhaps his Slytherin friends had finally convinced him she was a worthless mudblood. Perhaps he’d realised that a friendship with a muggle-born would hinder his career - because he was ambitious, she had always known that; he wanted to be important and respected.

It was a shame that the things he had to do to win everyone else’s respect were the very things that made him lose hers.    

But Lily wasn’t going to let the present poison the past. He would always be a part of her, she had seen that last night. She would always love the man he was, even if he was no longer that man. She was not going to compromise. It would be hard living without his friendship, but she could do it. She was a Gryffindor.

She got to the Great Hall in time for breakfast. She heard a few sniggers from the Slytherin table, but walked straight on without looking, holding her head up as high as her ebbing concussion would permit.

She sat next to Meg Valance, who was scowling at the Slytherin table. “Worthless scumbags to a man,” Meg growled. “And a woman, come to that.”

“Forget about it,” Lily said. She hadn’t realised how hungry she’d been. Heartbreak, contrary to everything she’d heard about it, had given her a voracious appetite. She tore at a piece of toast with her teeth; she wasn’t going to let a few mean Slytherins spoil her breakfast.

“How are you feeling?”

“Good,” Lily said, through a mouthful of toast.

“Are you going to tell me who attacked you now?” Meg asked patiently.  

“I told you, I don’t know. I had my eyes closed.”

“Well, it’s pretty obvious, anyway, considering that everybody at the Slytherin table is patting Snape on the back.”

Lily kept her eyes on her toast. “Maybe he’s just won twenty points for Slytherin,” she suggested impassively.  

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he had, knowing that git Slughorn. Hitting a muggle-born with a cauldron is probably worth fifty.”

Lily shook her head emphatically. “Not Slughorn. You might have been right about Snape, but you’re wrong about Slughorn.”

Meg’s face softened slightly. “I wish I hadn’t been right, you know.”

Lily smiled. “I know.”      

They were interrupted by the arrival of the post owls, one of which swooped down and landed in front of Meg, glaring at her with reproachful amber eyes, and brandishing a grand-looking letter in its beak.

Meg and Lily exchanged uneasy glances.

Meg’s father - no doubt going crazy in the echoing, dilapidated house of his ancestors, with only Silversmith for company - was sending his daughter daily owls about the decay of the Valance line. He kept urging her to find a male heir, as though he suspected she had been hiding one under her bed all these years.

Meg responded to these letters with good-natured shrugs, but it had become clear after a few days that they were getting to her.

“He’s just fretting,” she said, as she folded up this latest letter and turned back to her pumpkin juice. “I’ve told him I can do everything a male Valance can do, plus I can talk coherently and unhook a bra.”

“What does he say?” Lily asked.

“Says he wants me to go through all my aunt’s letters to see if there’s anything that might suggest she had an illegitimate son.”

“What?” Lily asked incredulously.

“It’s unlikely,” Meg agreed, shrugging. “Auntie Augustine, she - er- liked the ladies.”

Lily laughed. “Does your father know?”

“He sort of only hears what he wants to hear.” Meg shook the letter open again and scanned it. “And then,” she continued, with brittle brightness, “he wants me to examine Guillotine Valance’s confession in Azkaban, to see if any of her children might have survived that cannibalism episode. He says missing limbs would not put him off.”

Lily choked on her pumpkin juice. “That’s pretty appalling,” she said.  

“That’s wizard genealogy for you,” Meg replied. “You can’t blame them. Wizard numbers have been dwindling for hundreds of years. They think we’ve inter-bred too much with muggles, and that magic is dying out.”

“But that can’t be right,” Lily said, with an emphatic wave of her spoon, “because magical children can be born into muggle families. If magic was entirely genetic, that wouldn’t happen.”

“You’ve heard my dad,” Meg replied, “most wizards prefer to think that it doesn’t happen. They reckon you muggle-borns can only perform weak, rudimentary magic - not real magic. Lucius Malfoy calls you all magical impersonators. And if there’s a really talented muggle-born,” she added, seeing Lily’s exasperated expression, “they just assume that he or she had a magical ancestor some way back, like my dad did with you.”   

Lily sighed. This topic of conversation made her gloomy. It also tended to make her glance over at the Slytherin table and, at all costs, she wanted to avoid that.

“I didn’t know they kept confessions in Azkaban,” she said, hoping to distract herself.

“Yeah. They’re never examined, though. Beats me why they do it. If the prisoner dies, and his family writes to the Ministry, they can examine the confession. But it’s not allowed to leave Azkaban.”

“So you’re allowed to go and see it?”

“Dad’s made an appointment for me,” Meg said - and again, there was a weary edge to her cheerfulness. “I have to go see Idris Mulligan - the Azkaban Liaison Officer. She’s a friend of the family. Completely batty, but the Dementors don’t seem to bother her, so she’s a useful person to have around.”

“Why don’t they bother her?”

“She’s sort of like a Patronus. She doesn’t have any unhappy memories to relive, so the Dementors can’t affect her. And if they can’t affect her, they can’t feed off her. She’s a concentration of happiness, confidence - everything they feed on - but they can’t get their teeth into her. She’s too much of a good thing.”

Meg piled sausage and egg onto her fork and added: “I expect being completely batty helps.”

By the day of Meg’s appointment with Idris Mulligan, she had got into a nasty fight with a Slytherin seventh-year, and had acrid black smoke constantly pouring out of her ears (though, as she pointed out, the Slytherin had come off worse - he was an oozing mass of fur and tentacles in the corner of the hospital wing, and he could only communicate in barks). Madam Pomfrey insisted that Meg remain in the Hospital Wing, as she was in danger of suffocating anyone who hadn’t been carefully enchanted with a Bubble-Head Charm.

Lily was asked to take her place, which she was only too happy to do, because it would get her out of Potions, where Slughorn was promising, as though it were a great treat, to pair her up with Snape.

“My two best students teaming up,” he’d said, clasping his hands together in rapture, “what’s to stop you from inventing a cure for Squibbery, or taking over the wizard world completely?”

“Domestic squabbles?” Lily had joked uncomfortably. She could feel Severus watching her from the back of the classroom. “Unfortunately, Sir, I have to go to Azkaban. Meg Valance has an appointment there, but she’s too sick to go. Madam Pomfrey said I could go instead.”

“Azkaban, eh?” Slughorn’s eyes glinted keenly. “Why’s Meg Valance supposed to go there? Don’t tell me abysmal Potions skills has become an arrestable offence?”  

Lily looked hurt. “It’s just not her thing, sir. She’s very good at Transfiguration.”

“Yes, I know the type. No patience with subtleties.”

Lily heard Avery suppress a snigger. She decided that this wasn’t a safe topic to pursue, so she changed the subject. “Anyway, she’s supposed to examine her great-aunt’s confession.”

“The great Valance cannibal, eh? That should be interesting.” She saw Slughorn’s moustache droop a little, as his smile faded. “You be careful, young Evans; watching other people’s memories is a treacherous pastime. When you see things from the criminal’s perspective, the crime tends to disappear.”

Lily promised to be careful, and stepped out into the cool dungeon corridor with considerable relief.

She took the Floo Network from the fireplace in the Entrance Hall to the Azkaban Liaison Officer’s house, with a note from Meg explaining everything.

Idris Mulligan turned out to be an old lady with a pointed nose, frizzy hair that wreathed her head like grey flames, and large, hazel eyes. She wore thick red lipstick, which was clotted and clumped at the corners of her mouth, making Lily think uneasily of vampires. She wore pin-striped robes and her voice was shrill and bird-like.    

Her cottage was crowded but fascinating. It had the curious smell - somewhere between lavender and cat litter - of old ladies’ houses everywhere, and a detritus of lace, straggly ferns, framed photographs and animal cages lay over all the surfaces.

Lily made her way carefully to the table, where the largest of these cages stood. It contained a handsome bird with pastel-green plumage and a long, sweeping tail of curled feathers. The bird was twittering musically; it had a sound that made Lily think of clean, running streams and green mountains.

“Oh, it’s a Fwooper,” she breathed, “how beautiful!”

“What, dear?” said Idris Mulligan.

“The Fwooper,” Lily repeated, raising her voice. “I’ve never seen one before.”

Mrs Mulligan was too busy rummaging around on her shelves to respond. She shook a box of slug-pellets and tutted, but said nothing.  

“You know, you have to be careful with these, Mrs Mulligan,” Lily went on. “They need a Silencing Charm every month, or their song can cause - ,”

But she stopped, because Mrs Mulligan was now trying to feed cat biscuits to the rug.

“Insanity,” she finished quietly.

Mrs Mulligan stroked the rug’s tassels, cooing softly. “There you are, Sniffles. You haven’t been very well, have you? No, dear. You’ve been feeling worn down.”

Lily looked at Mrs Mulligan, her mouth slightly open.  

The old lady crumbled three more biscuits onto the rug, dusted her hands, and then looked up at Lily.

“Well, if you’re ready, girl, we’d better get going. People think Dementors have no use for punctuality, but that isn’t the case. I’ve been studying their customs for all the years that I’ve been Liaison Officer to Azkaban and, I can tell you, they get highly affronted when you keep them waiting. Another thing to bear in mind,” she added, taking Lily’s arm and leading her through the sea of cages towards the fireplace, “is that they don’t like chocolate. Show chocolate to a Dementor and you won’t be able to get any sense out of them for weeks.”

“Sense?” Lily asked. “But I thought they didn’t talk.”

“A popular misconception. Arrogant nonsense, put about by wizards who think themselves superior to other magical creatures.”

“What do they say?”

“A great deal, my girl. Can’t get them to shut up, normally.”

“Can anyone else understand them?”

“Only me.” Mrs Mulligan sniffed. “Nobody else has had the patience to try, you see. They don’t understand. Dementors are scavengers, certainly; parasites, undoubtedly; carnivores, even. But they are beautiful creatures, as you will see.”

She scattered a handful of Floo Powder into the flames, which turned emerald green and roared upwards. Mrs Mulligan pushed Lily in the small of the back and said: “You first, dear. Just say: ‘The Gate House, Azkaban.’”

Lily did as she was told, and felt herself whisked away by that familiar rushing nausea.