HP and the Last Blood ch. 1

You could have it all,
My empire of dirt.
I will let you down,
I will make you hurt.

She took in another of a seemingly endless number of shuddering breaths as the water hit her face and fell back into the basin. There was no helping it- no matter how much water she splashed on herself, she couldn't seem to wake up. She pushed her wet hands through her hair, the tangled curls letting her go only so far. She let out a deep, low sob.

"Oh, God..." Her whole body shuddered and she collapsed, clinging to the basin like a castaway to a life raft. For a long time, the only sounds were her choked breath and the water dripping onto the tile.

Perhaps a century later, she realized she was freezing. Woozily, she pulled herself back up until she was standing, fairly surely, once again facing the mirror. She opened her eyes. The dark face looking back out at her shuddered and sobbed once more, then wiped her eyes and stared her down like iron. Her breathing slowed, and relaxed into a normal, stable rhythm. The reflection nodded, and she turned away, rubbing her chilly arms with numb fingers. She walked with amazing determination out of the bathroom.

"Darling..." A voice behind her whispered. She turned so fast the tiny silver amulet she wore flew up from the collar of her gown and flashed in the dark room like a miniscule, lonely star. Her eyes grew wide and her breath sped anew.

He was standing there where she had just stood. His robes were torn and singed, and, in the unkind glow of the bathroom light, the patches of blood and fouler things stood out grotesquely. His face was pale as the ghost she thought him to be for a heartbroken moment.

"Oh, God... Severus?" She said, her throat collapsing.

Severus Snape awoke with a jolt. Had he not been gasping for breath and desperately trying to come to terms with the nightmare he’d just woken from, he might have taken that moment to be incredibly annoyed at how trite that sounded. He was even in a cold sweat. No originality at all.

“Bad dream?” a voice said beside him, also lacking originality, but making up for it in the kind of crumpled sexuality that sent delicious shivers across his back. A bit calmer now(after a fashion) Severus had an urge to roll his eyes, which he cleverly squashed with his desire to roll over and engage in a re-enactment of their earlier exploits.

“That would be fair to say.” He sighed deeply and sank back onto the bed of cushions they’d made on the office floor. He began to draw slow circles on her back with three ginger fingers. She giggled and curled up, and he pulled her close to him, enjoying her warmth and incredible nakedness. Despite the copious distraction the pale, slender woman offered, he couldn’t seem to shake the dreams. The dreams were getting more frustrating, more obtuse day by day. He simply couldn’t make sense of his subconscious ramblings. A man who greatly resembled a tufted armchair who claimed to have been his potion’s professor … Narcissa Malfoy demanding he make an Unbreakable Vow… He himself teaching the only class he had never really had any interest in teaching, Defense Against the Dark Arts…He’d even had other people’s memories, like the one above. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought this one was the follow-up to the most terrifying dream he could remember having…Dumbledore had made him make a promise….

“Well, you know what this means.” She said.

He didn’t. Hethought he did, he hoped he did, but he didn’t.

She sat up and stretched, breaking his reverie and their cuddle as she did. Her sheet (really a long, green corduroy frock coat that they had been planning on transfiguring into a sheet, really, but had somehow become too distracted to) was slipping down.

He hoped he knew what that meant, too.

She handed him his jeans. Perhaps the dreams had finally addled his brain. Even so, he raised on eyebrow as he took the faded black denim.

She punched him in the arm with one pale, thin fist, “Go. Sing.”

Ah.

He pulled on his jeans with a deep sigh, and stood, “You know, there are other solutions…” Hope springs eternal.

She snorted loudly and rolled over, pulling the sheet (coat) back over her head.

This time he fully indulged the rolling-eye urge, whipped his shirt from the chair by the door, and made his way for the stairs.

------------------------------------------------------

Merely twenty-two days, three hours, twelve minutes and thirty-five seconds after getting into the car to begin his most recent (hopefully, final) visit to the Dursley’s, Harry Potter found himself standing on the bustling High Street in fashionable Kensington, waiting for his Head of House. The letter, right in the middle of his self-imposed exile, had been an incredible surprise. It had been followed by a visit from the Headmaster himself, smiling but tired, just two nights before. The Headmaster had come to take him to spend the rest of the holiday with the Weasleys, which pleased Harry no end. Harry hadn’t warned the Dursleys of Dumbledore’s arrival, and had guiltily enjoyed their fear and annoyance while Dumbledore chatted quickly about anything but what was most obviously important to them; that an ancient man in purple velvet was making their tea set cha-cha through the parlor.

After a quiet warning to Aunt Petunia that Harry could not quite make out, Dumbledore had bid the stunned family a semi-fond adieu, and they had been off. They had walked down the dark street, Hedwig flying serenely overhead. Instead of walking straight for a safe Apparition point, Dumbledore had insisted they walk around the neighborhood a while and enjoy the night air. They talked, as they walked, like equals, much to Harry’s complete amazement. They spoke of the past, and the year to come. With a strange glint in his eyes, Dumbledore had told Harry how he had planned to introduce him to an old friend that night, but how this friend was proving quite illusive, “But then, many things seem far more slippery these days than once they were. Perhaps, “he smiled sadly, “they are just as slippery as they’ve always been, and I’m simply less agile than I once was.” He had sighed then, “No matter. Should Slughorn become available, I’ll take you to meet him. I think it would be quite the learning experience, all around,” Dumbledore had winked then, and changed the subject smoothly.

At some point in the night, when their wandering had brought them to the Bobbin Road playground, the conversation had turned to Sirius, and the future. Harry had spoken of mourning, had spoken of his time alone, but also of his determination.

“I realized I can’t shut myself away or – or crack up. Sirius wouldn’t have wanted that, would he? And anyway, life’s too short. So many people dying… it could be me next, couldn’t it? But if it is, “ he had said, fierceness in his eyes and voice, “I’ll make sure I take as many Death Eaters with me as I can, and Voldemort too, if I can manage it.”

Harry remembered how Dumbledore’s eyes had flashed then, how proud he had been. He had called him “Lily and James’ true son, Sirius’ true godson, to the core.” Around that time, he noticed the lateness of the hour and turned to the Apparition point, which, strangely, they had just managed to come back to. Harry had experienced his first Apparition then, cold and strangled and sudden, as he held on to Dumbledore’s arm. In a flash of darkness Privet drive vanished, and the Burrow appeared.

“One more thing, before I turn you over to Molly’s tender mercies, Harry,” Dumbledore had said then, just as Harry had turned to the warm kitchen light, “You mentioned a desire to defeat Voldemort, a feat that I believe you more than capable of. To that end, I believe you would be well served by a few more lessons in Occlumency.”

Harry had nearly swallowed his tongue in protest, “But- sir- Snape and I-”

“Professor Snape, Harry, and no, you will most certainly not resume you lessons under him. I admit that it was foolish of me to believe it could ever work well in the first place. And, to answer your next question, I would like to commence certain private lessons with you over the next year that I believe will also serve you well. However, I believe you might learn this art best from another, as I might not always be able to assist you as you may require.”

Harry was puzzled. So he was to have private lessons with Dumbledore? He couldn’t be more excited. And yet…

“But Sir, if not from you-”

“There is another on the faculty, Harry, who, though lacking Professor Snape’s extensive experience in the art, has withstood the Legilimency of Voldemort and lived to tell the tale. I had discussed with her the possibility of teaching you from the very beginning, but, for reasons highly personal to her, and because we both believed that much could be gained from Professor Snape’s experience, we decided to go with him. Tragically, what understanding we hoped might develop proved impossible, And Professor Sinistra has agreed to overcome her personal situations and assist you now.”

“ Professor... Sinistra?” Harry asked, incredulous.

Dumbledore had smiled, “Most certainly, Harry. There’s more to her than just a simple stargazer, you know.”

Harry had not known that at all. He tried, in that moment, to think of what his opinion or impression of Sinistra had been, and in the end he had come up with little. She was a good teacher, he supposed, though his interest in her subject was nil. She was a pale blur in his mind, not unattractive, but not striking, either, with her darkish brown, waist-length hair always back in a severe ponytail and her robes always billowing and nondescript. Even her voice was blurry to Harry, with an accent he couldn’t begin to place. In truth, she hadn’t really made much of an impression at all- though part of that might have been due to the perpetually late hour of her classes and her generally antisocial behavior. The only clear picture he had of her in his mind was of her dancing with Crouch-as-Moody during the Yule Ball his fourth year, but even that was blurry on the edges with memories of Ron and Hermione’s fight, and Cho with Cedric...

“You do not have to study with her, Harry, if you don’t want to - though I think you would benefit greatly from the experience.” Dumbledore had said then. Harry realized he had been staring off into space.

“No, no, Professor. I… I think I’ll try this thing again, if you think it’ll work this time.”

“If you’re willing to put yourself fully into the task, Harry, I’ve no doubt you’ll succeed. Here,” He pulled a scrap of parchment with a neatly penned address scrolled on it, “ Take this. A group of Order Aurors will come collect you in two days time to take you to this address, where you will be met by Professor McGonagall, who shall take you the rest of the way. Now then, I think we’ve kept poor Molly waiting long enough. Get on with you, and I’ll see you at the welcome feast. And Harry - happy birthday.” Dumbledore had seen Harry to the door then, and, with a tip of his hat to the frazzled mother inside and a wink at Harry, walked to the middle of the lawn and apparated away.

Now, two days later, Harry stood in the shade at the address the note had hinted at, squinting into the afternoon sun and wondering just what he had gotten himself into. And what did Dumbledore mean by “reasons highly personal to her,” anyway?

Ron and Hermione were across the street buying ice creams from a vendor who spoke perhaps three words of English. This seemed impossible for Ron to over come, but Hermione, long accustomed to the barter tactics of Alley Way, seemed to be right in her element. Harry notice that the two seemed closer together than they had ever been before, as if some invisible force was pulling them ever closer together. Three times now he had seen Ron’s hand trying and fling itself and Hermione’s hair, only to be stopped at the last minute by whatever fragment of his brain remained in control. He had seen a similar, though much more subtle, battle in Hermione’s eyes over the past few days, as if more than just her hands were betraying her. The bartering done, the two crossed the road with their treasure. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry noticed a cat jump elegantly from the back of a just-stopped taxi half a block away and rush into an even smaller side street. He didn’t even blink when he saw the stately older woman, her robes traded for a tasteful dress of green linen and a wide-brimmed straw hat, step out of the alley and begin to walk toward him.

“Here you are, mate, one brilliantly bartered for,” Ron said, winking at Hermione, who rolled her eyes but smiled, “incredibly inexpensive chocolate ice cream with cookie dough. Any sign?” He offered a dripping cone while munching savagely on his own strawberry with chocolate. Harry nodded in McGonagall’s direction as he took it.

“Good afternoon, Professor,” Hermione said as the woman approached, waving with the hand that wasn’t holding her cherry-vanilla cone. “How are you?”

The woman smiled kindly, “As well as possible, Miss Granger. Mister Potter, Mister Weasley.” She nodded at each, “Thank you so much for coming today. I know, Harry, that you haven’t had much luck in this field as of yet, but…”

“I understand how important it is, Professor.” Harry said, his mind consumed again by a night he knew he would never forget.

McGonagall smiled briefly, then turned and gestured for the others to follow her down a nearby side street. “I’ve arranged for you to meet her at her club. Depending on your schedule and hers, you may only ever meet her here during the summer, though her flat isn’t very far. “She turned and regarded her students, “If you do have that honor,” she said severely, and paused menacingly, “Be sure and try her cousin’s blueberry jam, if at all possible. I find it goes extremely well with wheat toast and a nice brandy.” She winked slyly, laughing a little at their shocked expressions, and turned to look for the door.

Harry turned and looked at Ron and Hermione, who bore strangely melded expressions of amusement and confusion. Hermione quickly elbowed Ron in the gut just as he seemed about to make a comment that would inevitably push McGonagall just a hair farther than even this slightly conspiratorial side of her would allow. Hermione spoke over Ron’s subsequent groan and irritated grumblings, “The Diving Raven? I think I’ve heard some of the other students talking about this place. They say it’s meant to cater to a blend of Wizard and Muggle society- or, at least, as much as it can. Maybe a bit more, which is impressive… what with the high percentage of Aurors in it’s clientele...” She added, slightly less loudly.

McGonagall nodded, “Euphoria’s family has been running this place since just before the First World War with just that ideal in mind.” Harry watched the professor touch the brick and smile a trifle wistfully, “This place has survived everything from the Blitz to the Dark Lord...” She seemed to wander away a moment into her memory before straightening up and pounding three times on the large black door in front of her It echoed a moment before a voice called out from inside.

“Oi, just a mo!” The muffled man’s voice said. “We don’ open ‘til ten, ye ken!”

“I am well aware of that fact, Mister Mallory!” McGonagall yelled through the door.

Five seconds later, Harry could hear the locks springing open.

“Tha’ you, Minnie?” A man poked his head out the door. He was completely bald, heavily wrinkled, and wore large horn-rimmed glasses and a squinty expression, as if the weak light of the alleyway blinded him. When he saw the Professor, he smiled widely, showing two rows of mostly gold teeth, “Ai, ‘tis you!” The man swooped out into the alley and pulled the Professor into his beefy arms and began to dance with her, humming a song Harry thought he had heard over Seamus’ Wireless at some point in the last year. For her part, Professor McGonagall laughed a bit and hugged him quickly. “Oi, then, lemme ‘ave a gander!” The Wrinkly Man drew back to look the Professor over, “Lovely as ever, I mus’ say! Like the day Alfre’ introduced us, God rest ‘is soul.” The man crossed himself quickly, “Oi, me manners! In ye get, then, and you lot, too. The Lady’s waiting for ye in the office.” The strange man beckoned them in before him and closed the door behind them.

“Bloody…Hell.” Ron said, quietly. ‘Mione just gasped.

Harry’s eyes were pulled immediately, forcefully, up. The room’s ceiling was incredibly high, or at least charmed to appear that way, vaulted like a cathedral, and the color of gold long underwater. From the incredible height hung giant brass chandeliers with hundreds of electric candles burning in each. All around the circular room the walls rose, broken floor by floor by colonnades, some closed off with sparking stained glass windows. Slowly, his eyes drifted back down, taking in gold and pink-orange walls set with electric candelabras and artfully concealed speakers that were currently blaring big band music. On his left, Harry noticed a long, curved mahogany bar trimmed in scrolled brass. Behind it, he noticed a giant bar-glass edged with etchings that matched the scrollwork on the bar. It reflected the tables and chairs that were strewn across the club floor. Turning to his right, Harry looked past the tables to a purple-curtained stage that took up most of that side of the roughly circular room. The Stage was set up for a band, with a drum kit, guitars, a baby grand piano, and microphones all plugged into waiting amps. Harry felt himself smile.

“She’ll be up in the loft, then. Planning fer the Summer Ball, ye ken.” Mallory said, scoot-walking past them to the gilded bar on the left, which he began to polish with a clean white cloth he pulled from his sleeve. He nodded at a set of stairs just past the bar that Harry hadn’t noticed.

“Thank you, Mallory,” McGonagall smiled, and then headed for the stairs with something like her old, pre-assault speed, gesturing for the others to follow her.

They climbed the steps in still-stunned silence. Harry was pretty sure none of them had ever been in a night club before, and certainly never an empty one. He found himself wondering what the club was like at night, when people came in droves. He wondered if the tables ever found their way to the walls, if people ever danced to the music the band played. They reached the second floor, a grand balcony full of tables and soft couches that circled the room and looked down on the club in rich blue darkness. Smiling to himself, Harry thought all of this an incredibly good sign that, whether or not he learned anything, these lessons were bound to be far more enjoyable than his previous ones. After all, you couldn’t very well own a place like this and not be cool to be around.

McGonagall crossed the darkened balcony with the ease of someone who had done it many times and lead the kids to another set of stairs hidden behind a deep blue curtain. She pulled the curtain aside and unlatched a red velvet rope, then gestured the kids to ascend before her.

As soon as he crossed the threshold the rope defined, Harry felt the air change. Gasping a little, he turned back to look at McGonagall. Her form shimmered behind the barely visible barrier he had just crossed.

“Go on, then. It’s just her private wards.” The woman said, and Harry turned, still unsure, but willing to trust his Head of House. He noticed the sound of the club had nearly completely vanished, and what little of the music that remained faded as he climbed the stone steps beneath his feet. The air was indeed different, smelling less like cigarettes and more like strawberry incense, and the light became increasingly less the electric light of the oddly spaced sconces, and more the light of an early evening in the country. The walls changed slowly from the deep blue of the floor below, to a soothing lime-green silk that seemed perpetually about to billow on a sudden breeze. Harry’s breath evened and he calmed considerably.

“Make yourselves at home, I’ll be with you in a sec,” A voice said as they reached the top of the stairs. Harry pulled back the lime-green silk curtain and stepped into the room beyond.

The room was, like the club beneath it, roughly circular and rimmed with windows. Unlike those in the club, these were clear, rectangular regency things, reminding Harry of times spent in history museums during Aunt Petunia’s brief attempt to add a little “culture” to her beloved Duddy-kins. The windows were tall and thin, edged in white, covered in gauzy white curtains. Sunlight glittered through them and bounced off crystal wind chimes that flashed rainbows on the curving purple wall. There were comfy-looking wingback chairs pressed against the wall, flanking several of the windows. Bolts of mismatched cloth huddled in them as if the room was cold and they had forgotten they had no nerve endings.

“Good Lord, no. I’m sorry, Frank. She sounded like epilepsy made flesh. I think I’ll pass.”

She was standing behind a large oak desk covered in huge star charts, strange bits of metallic machinery, and various flyers for bands, acts, and other strange diversions, most of which were covered in great and small swatches of cloth. She wore a long ice blue frock coat over a black shirt and ripped, faded jeans, and was chatting loudly into a headset phone, “Of course, Frank, no harm done. I know times are tough,” She rolled her eyes, smiled, and waved Harry and the others over to some of the chairs opposite the desk, “I know,Frank. It’s all right.” She sighed dramatically, “OH, Frank, don’t cry!I just don’t think her brand of cat screeching is… I’m not sure the Summer Ball crowd is…er… ready for that. Yes, I will continue to consider your other acts. Yes, I’ll still call you for the next- I know. Yes. Listen, Frank, I’ve got some people here- No. I’ve got some people here, unrelated to the Ball, and I need to – Yes. Yes. I’ll see you at the Ball. You too. Yes. Bye now.” She pushed a button on the headset at fell into the roller chair behind her with a loud groan. “OI! Artists’ Reps these days! So temperamental! They’re like… teenage girls!  Oh, um... nothing personal, Hermione.” She pulled the headset from her ear, tugging a few hairs from their place in her dark brown ponytail. She smoothed them back with a practiced hand. “Sorry about that. The Summer Ball is only two weeks away, and we’re way behind, things being how they are…”

“You’re still going on with the Ball, then?” McGonagall asked.

“Of course. The club’s been open 80 years, and in that time, we’ve never once skipped a Ball. It went on during the Blitz, it survived Grindlewald, it lived through the first Voldy war and we’ve never skipped a year, we’re not skipping this one. And you know what?” She leaned over the desk with a scowl on her face that Harry tried not to think of as cute, “ Even if Voldy strolls right up to the door, he's not getting in without a ticket. Damnit.” She said, leaning back again. Suddenly, she seemed to really notice McGonagall, as if she’d just appeared in the room , not entered minutes before and engaged her in conversation. Sinistra jumped from her chair and rushed to the older witch.

“Oh, Minnie, how are you?” She said, kneeling in front of and then hugging the older woman.

“I’m fine, Euphoria. Fit as a fiddle, like you say.” The Gryffindor Head of House said, smiling, when they broke the hug a few seconds later, “You?”

Sinistra laughed and stood, “We’re fine, really. It’s not that big of a deal. I’m just whining to hear myself speak, anyway. Goodness gracious!” She laughed out loud, “My manners are on vacation, it seems! Hello Harry, Ron, Hermione. Welcome to The Diving Raven! What do you think?” She said, now sitting on the table, displacing several quills and far more ballpoint pens.

“It’s Brilliant!” Ron said, genuinely excited.

“That ceiling is amazing. What charm did you use? Is it a variant of the Great Hall charm, or simply a complicated glamour?” Hermione said, leaning her elbows on her knees.

“Hmmn? Oh, there’s no charm. That’s paint. I know, nifty, isn’t it? “She smiled proudly, “The club is purely muggle, from the walls, to the wine, to the wiring. We try to limit the magic to up here, inside the wards, so the tech stuff still works. Most of our clientele is muggle, anyway. We get a lot of witches and wizards, don’t get me wrong, but we get a ton more muggles.”

A bell on the table lifted itself and rang; Sinistra gave a quick glance at the door before looking back at Ron. Harry heard footsteps coming up the stairs.

“Bet you don’t get a lot of Slytherins here, huh?” Ron said, conspiratorially.

”Um…” Sinistra said, smirking, then turned back to Harry, “So, Harry, about these lessons-”

“Bills... bills... bills…” An undeniably, unpleasantly familiar voice said, echoing in the stone-and-silk passage, drawing nearer, “and, for a change of pace, MORE bills...Oh, my goodness, an ad! How completely un-refreshing!” His slender, sallow hand pushed back the green silk and he entered the room.

“Ooh, a letter from Cousin Jane in America! Probably wants money...” He grumbled and turned to throw the pile of letters he carried onto the table beside the curtain. He wore a long-sleeved, faded green oxford shirt with the top few buttons undone over equally faded once-black jeans spattered with paint. His feet were bare, and his long black hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail at the base of his neck. He seemed totally unaware anyone else was in the room as he began to open the pile of mail.

“Honestly, she’s in college, what do you expect? And hi to you, too.” Sinistra said, smiling a little too wickedly for Harry’s sickened state.

“She's been in college for, what, two centuries now?” the intruder sighed, flinging the open letter back onto the table before turning to look at Sinistra, a wicked grin just like hers on his face, “And hello there, you lovely, se-” The word stuck in his mouth as he finally noticed they weren’t alone.

“Oh, Hell, that's today, isn't it?” Severus Snape said, sounding nearly as miserable as Harry felt.