Accidental Grace

The Pomfreys were not a sentimental family. On the one hand, that was a good thing, because Severus's nerves were too over-stretched to endure scenes of hugging and sobbing. On the other hand, he had to fight the urge to punch Mr. Pomfrey again when the old man started to explain the previous hour's events to his daughter with the casual words: "It was your mother's fault, love."

Severus watched them from behind one of the blighted thorn trees that bordered their makeshift campsite. It had been sculpted by the wind until the trunk was bent almost double, and all the branches streamed in the same direction, but at least it was something to lean against. He wasn't one hundred per cent sure he could have stood up on his own.  

The air was perfectly still now, but, somehow, the smoke from the house on the sea-front had snaked its way out over the moors in order to go on choking his nostrils. Unless he was just imagining it. After all, he could still feel the heat of the fire, as though a dragon was standing close behind him and breathing down his neck. And, when he shut his eyes, he could still see the flickering shapes made by the flames.

But that campfire the Pomfreys were standing around couldn't have been helping. And they were so damn oblivious that he wouldn't have put it past them to stumble right onto it and set fire to all those wrinkled, sagging heaps of elderly skin.

He didn't have much time. Voldemort had sent him to make sure that Poppy Pomfrey was watching her parents' house burn but, with Apparition, that could be done in about a minute, and he'd been gone for almost twenty. He had lingered too long in the Forest of Thorns. It had just been so… enticing, even with all the fire and explosions and teasing recriminations from his Lily.

It was unbelievable what he'd risk just for an argument with her. Merlin knew how long he would have stayed there if she'd been friendly.

And now, having spent five minutes with her, it was going to take hours to get the delicious taste out of his mouth. He was going to have to go through the litany of Potter's crimes from beginning to end before he'd be fit to face the Dark Lord again. She hadn't used to affect him so much. Potter had always loomed larger in his mind, through sheer weight of git-ishness. There had always been a bemused, glowing feeling after he'd seen her, but it used to wear off almost as soon as she was out of sight. Potter had made damn sure it wore off, by lying in ambush with his sycophantic goons, and leaping out at him as soon as Lily turned her back.

And there were – technically – even worse things to contend with now. But still, Lily's influence was enduring. It was going to be the death of him, this hot, glowing, scatter-brained feeling. But he supposed there were worse ways to die.

The Pomfrey family reunion was very English. Nobody said anything emotional or relevant. In the case of Poppy Pomfrey, Snape suspected that this was because she was afraid – but, in the case of her parents, he couldn't put it down to anything but sheer obliviousness. Whatever had happened – and, being muggles, they were naturally a bit hazy on the details – they were most concerned with establishing whose fault it was.   

"She gave away your pretty fire-horse, love," said Mr. Pomfrey. "Just handed it to 'em."

"Well, I had to do something!" Mrs. Pomfrey leaned in towards her daughter, trying to cut her husband out of the conversation. "Your father wouldn't even come to the door," she hissed.

"That's 'cause I knew they was up to no good! And so should you 'ave done!"

Gradually, with the help of these little barbed comments, Poppy Pomfrey began to build up a picture of what had happened. When she found out that her parents had nearly burned to death – and that her childhood home was now a charred heap of timbers on the sea-front – her expression was more sea-sick than horrified. She started to sway on the spot, but her parents were oblivious to that too.

"I told 'er," said Mr. Pomfrey, with a contemptuous glance at his wife. "I told 'er you'd be more embarrassed than sad when you found out how we died. How thick can you get, giving them the horse-"

"I didn't know!" Mrs. Pomfrey wailed. "Poppy, love, I didn't know!"

Severus shuddered. They had been exactly like this, even when they were in imminent danger of being burnt to death. They didn't fear anything except letting each other get away with it.

He vaguely suspected that his own parents would have reacted the same way. If they'd been trapped together in a burning building, they would have found the time to argue too. They would have tried to out-roar the flames. It was the kind of hatred you couldn't help but admire, because it was so committed. But it left you wondering if maybe even death couldn't put an end to their arguments. You started to wonder if they would shuffle off their mortal coils without even noticing, and would still be digging their claws into each other when they stood in front of a very bemused Saint Peter – or, more likely, a very bemused collection of demons.

Poppy Pomfrey was trying to calm them down, even though she looked moments away from collapse herself. Severus heard her whisper "Please stop" but, either her parents didn't hear her, or they came to the conclusion that she was just being polite.

"You see what I have to put up with now?" said Mrs. Pomfrey, gesticulating wildly at her husband. "You see?"

Severus realized he was digging his fingernails into the thorn-bark, and tried to relax his grip. He knew this game, but he had never seen it played so fiercely, and with so little mercy. His parents hadn't been sophisticated enough to play it with him – to them, using your child as a weapon was a waste of a perfectly good fist. But the Pomfreys were trying to hurt each other by vying for their daughter's sympathies. They had reached a point where nothing they said to each other could do any more damage, but their child – whom they both professed to love, even though they were using her as a pawn in their pathetic little grudge match – could still hurt each of them. That wide-eyed innocence could really sting.

He wanted to shake them by the shoulders and yell: "You're not supposed to be alive! You're not alive anywhere but here! You've been given a few extra moments of existence, by some loophole in causality that will never be repeated. This is grace of a kind you'll never see again. The only kind of grace there is, in fact – accidental grace. And you are using these precious moments to grumble and gripe and moan at each other! God, if you're going to be malicious, at least do it whole-heartedly! If you've really got to destroy each other, then at least have the decency to do it face to face, with clenched fists and no innocent bystanders! Don't just hand out barbed comments until you've bored your enemy to death! Is this what you'd do if you found out you were going to die in ten minutes?'

It probably was, he thought. Some people couldn't seize the moment if it was super-glued to their hands.

But it contributed to this cosmic sense of wrongness which had been irking him all his life. The gifts of this world were not apportioned fairly. Potter – who craved attention more than oxygen – was given an invisibility cloak. A man who bullied his wife and should have died in a fire was given a new lease of life to go on bullying his wife, without being the least bit humbled by his near-death experience. Dumbledore was a self-centred, manipulative git, and yet everybody wanted his approval, even – maybe especially – the people who knew what a manipulative git he could be!

He had never dreamed about rescuing muggles from a burning building. Even Severus, whose imagination was limitless, and who was desperate for admiration and respect – hadn't been able to fantasize about something so ludicrous. But, if he had imagined himself rescuing muggles from a burning building, he would have… well, he would have expected them to deserve it! He would have expected them to be people he liked – or people Lily liked – and he would have expected them to be humbled, grateful, conscious of the danger they'd just escaped.

Probably, worse people had been rescued from burning buildings. Maybe, one day, someone would risk their neck to save Bellatrix, assuming her to be an innocent bystander, and then find out exactly how dangerous these feats of heroism could be.

It was still annoying.

The Pomfreys stumbled when their daughter asked them – out of sheer desperation – to tell her how they'd escaped. Severus had modified their memories so that they wouldn't mention him. It was only a temporary measure, of course, because the Dark Lord could break through Memory Charms as quickly – and as willingly – as he broke through skin. But, with any luck, that wouldn't matter, because he didn't intend to leave the Pomfreys hanging about where Voldemort could find them. He was going to haul them off to the Forest of Thorns as soon as Madam Pomfrey appeared to be satisfied they were safe.

Unfortunately, satisfaction was a million miles away from her current expression. She just continued to sway and say things like "But why would Sally and the others do that? I don't understand why they'd do that!" until the Boggart-Lily cut through her ravings like a sharp, sarcastic knife.

"They threatened to shoot Morry," she said. "They tortured a man in their cellar for three years. In what way is this new development incongruous with the facts?"

Poppy rounded on her. "You said the Foe Fire would keep my parents safe!" she shouted.

"It should have done," she said, folding her arms. "He must have found some way to supersede my commands."

"Who?"

The Boggart sighed, and made her voice as gentle as it could possibly get. "The one who calls himself Colonel Riddle, Poppy. You saw him."

"He almost hypnotized them love," Mrs. Pomfrey piped up. Severus had noticed that, every time she spoke, she winced in the expectation of scornful replies. And her husband didn't disappoint.

"He wouldn't have hypnotized them half so well if you hadn't shown 'im the horse," he grumbled.  

"That's right," Poppy breathed, hope dawning on her feverish face. "He's a wizard, isn't he? Well, that explains it! He's controlling them!"

The German airman, who had been silent throughout most of this exchange, now raised his voice. It was ragged, but surprisingly polite. "Was he still controlling them when they broke my fingers with hammers?" he said.

Poppy's shoulders sagged. And then – as though she was too miserable to commit to just one source of misery – she looked over her shoulder, apparently searching the little pool of firelight for something she had only just remembered was supposed to be there.

Severus wondered if it was the same absence he'd spotted when he'd first arrived. At the time, it had seemed like the least of his worries, but he knew from bitter experience that little worries soon expanded when it was time for them to crush you.

Slytherins were good at spotting conspicuous absences. But, funnily enough, it was working for Dumbledore that had taught him to look for things which weren't there – things like options and excuses.

Moribund Prince was gone. He had been gone too long for reasonable explanations. And, besides, there were no reasonable explanations in this nightmare. Every detail had been created to pitch Poppy Pomfrey out of the realms of sanity.

Did she care about him? It was difficult to tell. She treated everyone with the same strained patience which would later transform her into the scourge of the Hogwarts Hospital Wing. But, even if he hadn't fallen into the clutches of Voldemort and the widows, he had still apparently left her, and that was not going to help the old bat keep her temper.

Severus started to grind his teeth. Every inch of him was singed and sweaty and raw. He'd risked his life – he'd risked Lily's life, for God's sake! – just to save Madam Pomfrey's parents, and now she was going to go crazy at the loss of some mustachioed nightmare tourist?

"Where's Morry?" she said, in a distant, girlish voice.

The Boggart-Lily and the German airman looked around, and then looked at each other. The glance they exchanged was full of loathing, but it still contained an unspoken agreement, and they proceeded to answer her with as much reassuring nonsense as they could concoct.

"He's probably just –,"

"He wouldn't go anywhere without telling us."

" – gone for a walk to clear his head. Or something."

Madam Pomfrey ignored them. She wandered, stunned, out of the circle of firelight, but she couldn't commit to a direction any more than she could commit to a source of misery, so she wandered back, stumbling slightly.

"Where is he?" she whispered, too bemused to be distraught. But distraction was coming. Severus could see it bearing down on her. It might take a long time to reach her, but it would be gathering momentum in the interim. It was going to tear her to pieces when it arrived.

"Look," said the Boggart, who obviously couldn't maintain a soothing tone for very long. "He must have left of his own free will. We would have heard it if they'd taken him."

"They wouldn't -" Poppy started automatically, but trailed off when the Boggart groaned.

"Oh, god, Poppy! The torturing? The attempted murder? Is any of this ringing any bells? Are we still just having a little tiff with the neighbours?" She stopped, and, with tendon-snapping effort, managed to lower her voice. "My point is that Morry left of his own free will, and he can take care of himself. It's not him they're after."

The German airman laid a hand – complete with swollen knuckles and twisted finger-joints – on Poppy's shoulder. She winced, but didn't pull away. Severus had a vague memory of hearing back at Hogwarts that she didn't like physical contact. She was touchy only in the metaphorical sense of the word.

"He will come back," said the airman simply. "How could he stay away?"

Madam Pomfrey didn't answer – but she hardly needed to. The strain was beginning to show in her appearance now. Those plump blonde curls were unraveling, as though the dragging weight of her misery was pulling them taut.

She was alone. Severus had never seen someone so alone. That was what this curse did. It isolated you. It made you feel desperate and helpless – and convinced that lashing out was your only option.

He was starting to wonder if he'd been living in a curse like this all his life. Of course, he had, in a manner of speaking, but at least his curse had permitted good things – things like Lily Evans, and peace and quiet – to wander in through the door. It just hadn't given him very long with them.

There was nothing he could do, he realized, his stomach sinking to the level of his knees. He couldn't fight a curse that had been devouring people for millennia. It had got good at it by now. The Phoenix Curse would burn Madam Pomfrey - it would strip her bare, just like the Foe Fire had stripped her house. And Voldemort would grow fat on the leftovers. It was no good trying.

But Severus was used to despair. It didn't immobilize him anymore. It was cold, and it numbed his faculties, but that was good, because he would need his faculties numbed before he could go back to The Shipwreck and face Voldemort's probing red gaze. And he was running out of time.

Dimly, he drew his wand out of his pocket, pointed it at Mr and Mrs Pomfrey, and cast a non-verbal Imperius Curse. It was as effortless as sliding a knife through butter. They hardly had any will to overcome. Gently, he made them follow him out of the circle of firelight and onto the moors. The others – too preoccupied with clawing Madam Pomfrey back from the brink of insanity – didn't notice them slink away.

The Boggart could explain later. She knew he had to keep the Pomfreys out of the way while Voldemort was on the loose. Madam Pomfrey would understand, if she ever again attained the state of rationality necessary for understanding.

He opened the door to the Forest of Thorns without looking inside. He couldn't risk it. He needed to be composed if he was going to face Voldemort, and Lily scattered his thoughts like an exuberant dog chasing pigeons. He ushered the obedient Pomfreys through the door, and then closed it with a jerky motion of his wand, forcing himself to keep his eyes on the ground, hardly even daring to breathe in case he caught the gingerbread scent of her hair and it sent flames marauding through every inch of his body.

In truth, the sudden hopelessness of Madam Pomfrey's situation was helping to clear his mind of all those incriminating memories of Lily, but he couldn't be too careful. He took one last look over his shoulder at the makeshift campsite before Disapparating.

This turned out to be a mistake.

"Look, Poppy," the Boggart was saying, in her closest approximation of a soothing tone. "I'm going to give you a Charm to calm your nerves, OK? You'll feel better -"

Severus was half-way through the Apparition when Madam Pomfrey's yell cracked through the air like a whip. "You stay away from me! Stay away!"

And, amidst the blurs and whirling space, he was almost sure he saw Madam Pomfrey snatch the wand out of the Boggart's hand. For an instant, he froze, trying to resist the motion of the spell. He almost Splinched himself. He could feel his feet on the cobblestones outside The Shipwreck, but his eyeballs remained on the moors, watering with the intense pressure of Apparition, but still combing the darkness with growing horror for a last glimpse of Madam Pomfrey.

His instincts won out in the end. He stepped back into the rushing nausea and let the spell whisk him away. The Boggart would be alright. Madam Pomfrey wasn't after her. The best thing he could do now was return to The Shipwreck and wait for her to arrive there. And then… and then he would have to think of something else.

He made his way back to The Shipwreck in a leaden stupor, to find Colonel Riddle standing alone by the bar, brooding over a tumbler-full of whisky.

"Well, Severus?" he said, without turning round.

Severus was too numb to feel the fear. It prodded uselessly at his insides for a few seconds and then got bored and slunk away.

"She is close to insanity, my Lord. It won't be long now."

"Show me."

"Of course, my L-,"

But Voldemort didn't wait to be handed a thread of memory. He rounded on Severus and essentially jumped into his mind through his eyeballs. The force of the mental intrusion knocked his head back. Pain shot through his sinuses and promised imminent nose-bleeds. But he knew that the only image swimming to the surface of his thoughts was Poppy Pomfrey's agonized face.

"She is ready to break," said Voldemort with satisfaction, lowering his wand. "I have made something of a study of these things."

"My Lord," said Severus woodenly. He didn't doubt it for a second.  

"I wonder which curse she will select to end her life with. I understand that it is different for every dreamer. It is always the very worst thing they can think of – which, in a sensible person, would mean the Avada Kedavra curse – but let us not forget that Madam Pomfrey has been infected by Dumbledore's feeble-minded ideas." He looked down again, into the depths of the whisky, as though he was using it as a crystal ball. "Of course, in practice, it doesn't matter," he went on. "Whichever curse they throw at their enemies, it inevitably becomes the Phoenix curse, because its energy fuels the Phoenix Curse. Still, it will be interesting to see what Madam Pomfrey considers to be the very worst curse in her repertoire."

"Yes, my Lord."

Voldemort looked up again, taking in Snape's sagging shoulders and exhaustion-glazed eyes. "Incidentally, Severus, I am very impressed that you are still standing. Sixteen Cruciatus Curses and twenty-seven hours of continuous consciousness would probably kill a lesser man."

Severus wanted to say 'give it a couple of minutes'. But he literally couldn't imagine what would happen if he tried to make a joke in front of Lord Voldemort. As far as he knew, no-one had yet been dumb enough to try it, and he was not going to be the first Instead, he mumbled: "I would not want to miss anything, my Lord."

"If time permits, we must see if this extraordinary resilience is a family trait."

"My Lord?"

"Come downstairs. I will explain."


It was true, you really could see up through the gaps in the floorboards from the Shipwreck's cellar – although, currently, there was nothing to see but the soft, sinuous footfalls of the man who called himself Colonel Riddle. After a while, another pair of shoes joined his; smaller, and stumbling slightly, but supporting a voice that was unnervingly steady. Morry tried to make out what it was saying, but the widows in the cellar were making too much noise. All the actual words were being spoken by Sally, but the other widows were supporting her with regular gasps and exclamations. They were harmonizing with her like a disapproving chorus.

Morry didn't care. His spirits could soar to the accompaniment of any tune at the moment, because there was no sign of Poppy Pomfrey overhead. The absence of her light but careworn tread was more comforting than sunlight, or angels, or a rescuing army of wand-toting wizards – although Morry, as a Slytherin, naturally didn't believe in such things.

He hadn't been certain – not absolutely certain – that she wouldn't follow him. It would have been very uncharacteristic, but she was nearing the end of her tether, and there was no knowing what a woman at the end of her tether would do.

And he was surprised to realize how whole-heartedly glad he was that she wasn't coming to his rescue. He had always known that keeping her safe was his top priority, but he had still expected to feel a bit resentful when it was proved beyond doubt that she didn't care. But he wasn't. Decades of wandering, ignored, through other people's nightmares made you lose sight of little things like vanity. Vanity was for young, idealistic people, not ancient wanderers like Morry. He just wanted the woman he loved to be safe. He just wanted this gamble to pay off. There was no room for hurt feelings.

Besides, his situation at the moment wasn't so bad. True, he was shirtless, and chained to a damp wall in The Shipwreck's highly unsanitary cellar, but the widows hadn't actually done anything to him yet. In fact, Morry felt sufficiently cheerful to remark on this, as though he was gently reminding a hostess of her proper duties.

"Shall we get started, ladies? I know a little German, if that would help you to get into the spirit of things?"

Sally slapped him again, and turned back to the little crowd of widows. She was regaling them with the tale of Morry's dastardly affair with a soldier's wife. It seemed to have made quite an impression on her.

The other widows listened breathlessly, clutched their chests with shock, and made all the appropriate noises of middle-aged outrage. There was even some tongue-clicking at one point, which Morry thought adorably quaint for a troop of torturers. They were a good audience, mainly because nobody had ever asked them to cheat on their husbands while their husbands were at war, and so they felt motivated by jealousy as well as ignorance to condemn anyone who had. Not being tested was as good as passing.

What a rush it must have been, he thought, to finally find someone worthy of their anger. Oh, he didn't suppose for a moment that they'd been conflicted about torturing the German airman, but there must have been days when he just wasn't the remorseless monster they needed him to be. There must have been days when their anger was flagging, and Kurt – by being wounded, or sleepy, or sick – just wasn't helping to stoke up their fury the way he should.

But Morry could make it so easy. He knew what they needed to hear from their scapegoats. And he could take any amount of pain, because his mind was always wandering off on secret missions, and never concentrating on the hopelessness of his own situation.

"He made her imagine-," and here, Sally faltered, as though she was beginning to doubt that anyone could be as evil as all that. But Morry gave her a look of twinkly-eyed innocence that reinforced her conviction, and she turned back to the widows, shuddering. "He made her imagine what her husband was doing right then – right while they were lying in bed together! He wasn't content with ruining her – he had to torture her as well!"

Morry half-expected the roof to cave in with the sheer enormity of her hypocrisy. When it didn't, he smiled his charming smile and shrugged, with an audible clanking of chains. "My dear Madam, surely you don't imagine that the soldiers were faithful to their wives while they were at war? Every detachment was taken to the brothel once a week, as regular as clockwork."

"Oh?" sneered Sally. "And how would you know, since you were too cowardly to go to war yourself?"  

"I've got a friend who shot himself in the knee to get out of active service," said Morry, with another clanking shrug. "He told me."

The widows hesitated. Fortunately for them, the man who called himself Colonel Riddle chose that moment to saunter down the cellar steps. Morry had seen him briefly on the way in. He was obviously in charge, but he was one of those commanders who liked to lurk silently at the back of rooms, watching with a kind of predatory calm, until it was time for him to pounce – and he didn't seem to care whether the creature he pounced on was one of his own men or one of the enemy's. Morry was a connoisseur of monsters, and this one was a grade-A super-monster – the kind that would infest the nightmares of someone who had turned having nightmares into a fine art. At the moment, he didn't see fit to announce his presence. He just listened with sparkling eyes while the widows continued to deplore Morry's depravity.  

But, as the tedious condemnation continued, Morry found himself more and more intrigued by the boy who had come down beside Colonel Riddle – not least because he had the same hooked nose and black eyes as Morry himself. He had gravitated invisibly towards the back of the room, which seemed to be his natural habitat, and was now leaning against the far wall, as silent and impassive as a guard, but managing to radiate a withering impatience that anyone on guard duty would have found exhausting to keep up.

Immediately, Morry sensed that the hook-nosed boy didn't like him very much. He didn't seem to like anyone very much – in fact, he gave the impression of restraining himself, with great difficulty, from throttling everyone in the room – but he was reserving all his especially venomous glances for Morry.

The widows seemed to have forgotten he was there. It was probably a defence mechanism, because his skulking, seething impatience would make the most oblivious person uneasy. But Morry – as a Slytherin – had found that it was always rewarding to pay attention to the things other people ignored.

And there was something else ringing distant alarm bells in his mind. Mrs Snape had said her dead husband looked a lot like Morry, and had mysteriously referred to him in the present tense, as though he wasn't really dead at all...

"I think we should kill the coward now," said Colonel Riddle, whose time to pounce was obviously getting nearer. "If you wish to punish your friend."

Sally looked up at him as though she had only just remembered he was there. "What friend?" she said.

Morry's heart leapt. They were forgetting about Poppy. How could you detest Poppy Pomfrey when you had a sadomasochistic conscientious objector chained up in your cellar? The Colonel's eyes flicked towards with obvious annoyance, and Morry realized with a sickly jolt that this man could see his leaping heart – could hear his ecstatic thoughts – and was finding them very irritating.

"Your friend Poppy?" he said quietly. "The one who dishonoured your husbands' memories by releasing your prisoner?"

Sally blinked. "Oh, but we couldn't possibly kill him, sir," she protested. "Not yet. You said yourself that death was far too good for traitors! And, who knows, maybe he tricked Poppy into letting the prisoner go? Maybe he's been the bad influence all along!"

Morry tried to keep a check on his excitement this time, but Colonel Riddle seemed to be done with him anyway. He was concentrating his gaze on Sally.

"No," he said steadily, every syllable ringing with command. "Poppy Pomfrey is your enemy, not this clown. You would do well to remember it."

It was a spell, Morry realized, as he felt the last sentence shudder through him. This man was possessing them. The Imperius Curse would have been too noticeable – and would have required the use of a wand anyway – but possession could be achieved through simple eye-contact, and Colonel Riddle was obviously good at it. Morry was half-tempted to think of Poppy as the enemy himself.

Sally squirmed under his gaze, but it wasn't holding her. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and said: "I beg your pardon, sir, but I think you're wrong there."

The silence was like a twelve-inch thick sheet of ice. And Morry – who was convinced the Colonel could read his mind now – made a point of thinking very loudly:

You're losing them. Are you sure you know what it is they want?

"I will require a moment alone with the traitor," said Colonel Riddle. "We will see who is to blame."

This seemed to meet with general approval. The widows were loath to miss a scene of torture, but they were also conscious of the fact that they ought to appear properly modest and retiring in front of a man like Colonel Riddle. Morry watched their stockinged legs disappear up the cellar staircase. The fierce-faced boy remained with Colonel Riddle, who didn't mention him. Morry was starting to wonder if he was a ghost.

The Colonel was telling the wrong kind of stories, he realized suddenly. For him, everything was all power and might and billowing cloaks. But the widows didn't know power and might and billowing cloaks. They knew little frailties and faults and vices. They knew lies and excuses. They knew about brothels and self-inflicted wounds. They were used to that filthy, misty, seeping rain, whereas Colonel Riddle was all thunderstorms.

His magic was very powerful – perhaps the most powerful Morry had ever encountered, in his long, wandering life – but it was somehow a bad fit for this dream. The circumstances here were too sordid for Dark Lords and epic struggles.

But how had he managed to stop the Colonel from possessing Sally? He hadn't even been using any magic! And, even if he had, he was obviously the inferior wizard. What exactly was going on?

Perhaps, if magic was just a concentration of feeling, you could take it on without a wand. Maybe words and stories and emotional manipulation could compete with it – if only for a little while.

"I had come to more or less the same conclusion myself," said Colonel Riddle. "And with a good deal less nonsense along the way. You tell a good horror-story, Mr. Moribund Prince. I dare say your experience with this curse has helped you there. But your tricks have a limited shelf-life, and I am an exceedingly patient man."

Morry stared at him. Nobody – nobody – knew the name 'Moribund Prince' here. This man had to be from the waking world, although his eyes were just as dead as Sally's.

Colonel Riddle gave him a languorous smile, clearly gratified by the horrified stare. "You know, I had been wondering when we would run into you. A great wizard, they used to say – when he could concentrate his mind on one thing for long enough to cast a spell. Needless to say, it wasn't a talent that could be reflected in something as mundane as exam results."

The Colonel looked over at the hook-nosed boy, who wasn't sycophantic enough to laugh, but gave him a raised eyebrow that might have indicated approval.

"I was just saying to Severus that I sensed the presence of a great wizard in this dream – someone who had been here long before us and had sculpted this landscape to give us clues about the nature of the curse we are inhabiting. I am reasonably – let us say, ninety-eight per cent – certain it wasn't you."

Morry wasn't sure what he was supposed to say to this. He wasn't contesting for a moment that he was not a great wizard. He knew –and even took some pride in the fact – that he was a very bad wizard, and wasn't sure why the Colonel thought he would take offense at being reminded of this.

The Colonel stepped up to him, and trailed a cold, white finger down his cheek. "You have seen this exquisite curse work its magic before, haven't you?" he asked, his voice dark and gleeful. "I wonder if you think Poppy Pomfrey is nearing the end of her tether? I wonder if you recognize the signs? I wonder if that is why you came here?"

"I wonder why you're bothering to ask, since you can clearly read my mind," said Morry lightly. "Who are you?"

The Colonel smiled. "If you had stayed awake a few more years, you would have called me 'Master', or died an excruciating death at my feet. It is the choice everyone in the waking world now has to make – and a choice which will likewise become important in this place."

"I choose the excruciating death," said Morry promptly.

"Alas, I thought you would." Colonel Riddle glanced over at the hook-nosed boy and gave him a commiserating smile. "Ones ancestors are not always something to be proud of, Severus."

"So it seems, my Lord," said the boy.

"Lord, is it?" said Morry. "Is that the aristocratic or the theological kind?"

"It is the kind which is going to kill you, Moribund Prince," said the Colonel sweetly. "That's all you need to know. Severus, watch him while I speak to the widows. He has made a dreadful mess of their minds."

Morry watched the Colonel climb the stairs. Worry was starting to make little pin-pricks in his cheerful façade now.  It wouldn't be enough to distract the widows. This man could destroy Poppy without them. In fact, it was slightly odd that he was bothering with them at all.

That was something to think about – although preferably not when the Colonel was around.

Morry gave the hook-nosed boy an encouraging smile, when he thought the Colonel was out of ear-shot. Of course, it was absurd to think like that – a man who could read your mind didn't have to worry about eavesdropping. He could just come back later and open you up at his leisure to see what he'd missed.

"Um," said Morry, to fill the chilly silence. "Your last name wouldn't happen to be 'Snape', would it?"  

The hook-nosed boy gave him a brooding, suspicious frown, but Morry didn't wait for a reply. Somehow, he sensed that helpful information from this boy would not be readily forthcoming.

"But it can't be you," he went on, staring at the bottomless black eyes. "You're just a boy."

The boy called Severus raised his eyebrows. "Just a boy, is it?"

"Plus, you're supposed to be dead."

"What in God's name are you talking about?"

"Mrs. Snape's husband," said Morry, watching carefully for the boy's reaction. It was… complicated. A strange expression passed over his face – half a snarl, and half a spasm of misery. And all of it subsumed under that strange, guarded calm.

"I am not her husband," the boy hissed.

Well, it was a start, thought Morry. It was a piece of information that the boy seemed to believe.

"Is that man - ," he nodded at the stairs which had so recently supported Colonel Riddle – "your master?"

"He'll be everyone's master soon enough."

Morry was impressed. He had thought Poppy was good at not answering questions, but this boy deserved an Olympic gold medal in prevarication.

"And he's a dark wizard, is he?"

Guarded as he was, the boy couldn't seem to conceal his amusement at this question. "No," he said, with a twisted smile. "Not a dark wizard. The dark wizard. Fortunately for you, you'll probably be dead before you understand the distinction. Treasure your ignorance, Mr Prince."

Morry concentrated on the smile and ignored the words. The boy was talking, and that was the important thing. Get him to open up. Find out… what? What could possibly help? How was he supposed to fight a man like Colonel Riddle? It would have been unthinkable even if he hadn't been chained to a wall.  

"Well, he couldn't possess Sally," said Morry reasonably, "even at point-blank range. And, besides, I'm not afraid of him. Dark magic works through fear."   

The boy let out an exasperated sigh. "No," he said, teeth set in a grimace of strained patience. "It might have its origins in fear, but it works through sound magical principles that can kill you whether you're frightened or not. You think you just have to stand up to him? You think there haven't been idiots who have already tried? The Avada Kedavra Curse can't be blocked or deflected. It's not like a bullet-wound, where you can take it in the shoulder and hope to survive the process. If this curse grazes your elbow, you're as dead as if it had hit you straight in the heart. Death can come at any time, from any direction, and for any reason. If you're lucky, you won't even have a chance to comprehend what's happening. So be as frightened as you like. It couldn't possibly make your situation any worse."

There was a silence. Morry, who had been staring at him throughout this speech with an expression of mild, courteous surprise, finally said: "I can see how you drove your wife to the brink of insanity."

"Shut up!" Severus hissed. And there – right there – was the real boy. Morry almost wished he hadn't seen it. How was he supposed to keep it concealed the next time Colonel Riddle read his mind? The boy was Mrs Snape's husband somehow – was in love with her, in some way. Morry didn't understand all the particulars, but he understood that emotionally-damaged redheads played a bigger part in the boy's priorities than he wanted anyone to know.

"She isn't even real," said Severus, who seemed to have got a hold of himself now. He had folded his arms, and was driving all that impatient energy in on himself. "She's like this dream, alright? Just a projection of fears. A waking nightmare. You should know enough about nightmares to recognize them when you see them."

"I do," said Morry mildly. "She isn't one. It's in the eyes. Compare her eyes with Sally's next time you see her."

"I've got a better idea, Mr Prince," said the boy, with jerky, deadly, brittle politeness. "Why don't I compare them with your eyes in about five minutes' time? Because I've never met a man who managed to paint such a comprehensive bull's-eye on his face."

Morry smiled meekly – his first genuine smile in quite some time. "Thanks," he said. "Coming from you, I'm sure that's quite a compliment."


The Field Hospital was just one long tent pitched between the sand dunes on the Normandy beaches. The canvas floor bulged with uneven little pockets of sand, which tripped up one of the hurrying nurses every five minutes.

But you got up again. The job made you persistent. It had to, because new patients were arriving all the time, and each one was as helpless as a newborn baby – with the added disadvantage that they knew what was happening to them.

Even with the ones you couldn't help, you still bustled around, making it look as though you were doing something for them. You checked bandages and heart-rates, uttered soothing but vague words of comfort, injected morphine with the air of someone administering a cure, as opposed to someone who just wanted to keep their screams from rattling the other patients. It was all a carefully-choreographed dance to keep despair at bay.

And it didn't matter if their screams rattled you. You were the padded walls that they bounced off. You absorbed their shocks, listened to their stories, even took their confessions, if you were called upon to do so. Because you didn't have to venture behind enemy lines and risk life and limb for King and country, no matter how much you might wish you could.

They had given so much for you. It was a small thing, wasn't it, to soothe their fears, listen to their screams and their death rattles?

Besides, Matron had insisted. You didn't just do your job; you did it kindly and patiently. You endured any and all abuse. You never broke down in tears. You never flinched when you heard shells exploding overhead, and you never, ever quailed away from looking your patients in the eye. That was important. When they died, Matron wanted them to see the women of their country, looking back at them with unflinching pride.

It was the least you could do. But, after you'd been here a few weeks, and witnessed the endless procession of deaths and injuries, you began to realize that the least you could do was the most you could do. And then some. Anything else would be criminal.

And at night, you heard screams in other languages but chillingly familiar tones, and you just had to hope that the enemy's nurses were awake like you, and had all the supplies and equipment and training that you had, because you couldn't wander out of the Field Hospital to find those voices in the dark. There were enough voices in the light, clamouring for your care.


At the moment – and the moment was going to pass, but she knew it would always have a shadowy life of its own somewhere – there were six men dying of wounds she could heal. She couldn't stop the bleeding by conventional methods. A simple Coagulant Charm – God, she had learnt it in her first year at Hogwarts – could save them, and she had her wand stashed at the bottom of her pack in the adjoining tent.

In her mind, she took herself through the motions of going to get it. She saw herself digging through blankets, uniforms and rations, until she clasped the familiar wood in her hand. Willow and phoenix feather. Nine-and-a-half inches. She even muttered the incantation under her breath.

But her body wouldn't move. She was fifteen and frightened. She didn't want to go to Azkaban.

In the end, just because she was attracting too much attention by standing still, her feet directed her through a flap of canvas at the end of the tent, into the make-shift morgue that adjoined the Field Hospital. It was just a closed-off section of the tent, with bodies lined up neatly along the floor, each one covered by its own sheet. Except that they had started to run out of sheets on Thursday, so now some bodies were covered by coats, and others had to share a stretched sheet with two or three of their fallen comrades.

Carefully, Poppy picked her way between them, into the centre of the room, where she knelt down, covered her mouth with shaking hands, and tried to sob without making a sound.


Perhaps she had killed Morry the same way. Perhaps he had been clamouring for her care, and she'd been too frightened to give it. But she was surrounded by death everywhere she looked. It was like a black ceiling lowering itself onto her, pushing her head down, bending her back, crushing her shoulders. She didn't have the strength to push against it. She would be lying with the dead soon – with a whole black ceiling for her sheet – and guilt and grief would all be over.

It had already forced her down onto her knees when she began to realize – through dim, tear-swollen eyes – that she had a wand in her hand this time.