Chapters 201-210

Times Have Changed—And May Change Again

Andromeda put a small, square box on the table top. It looked like the boxes the Ministry presented the Orders of Merlin in. She flipped open the lid. On red velvet lay a black pebble. Its jagged edge showed where the original stone had been broken in two.

‘Ministry curse breakers as well as an outside expert from Gringotts have verified that the leeching curse is indeed anchored to the stone. But they have not been able to break or modify it. The Gringotts expert—’

Severus just raised an eyebrow. If they’d called in a goblin, why couldn’t they just say so?

Andromeda’s lips thinned. ‘—the goblin was able to tell us that the Stone will reach the limit of its capacity within a month. He also suggested that the only solution may be to reunite the Stone with its other half. So it seems you and Harry will indeed have to go back beyond the Veil.’

‘I am glad that your experts find themselves in agreement with those who get to do the dirty deeds,’ he sneered, though the goblin’s assessment that they still had a few weeks to go until the Stones would blow up did afford him some much needed reassurance.

The Minister of Magic fixed him with a cold stare. ‘Harry has informed me that you are now the Owner of the Elder Wand?’

‘That seems to be the case, yes.’ He didn’t quite trust the silver-screened contraption that Ollivander’s niece called a ‘wand scanner’. But Legilimency had assured him that she had spoken truthfully, when she swore that the scanner could not be manipulated.

‘So you will use the Elder Wand to re-join the Stones and to separate Dumbledore’s soul from curse?’

‘Just as Dumbledore intended me to.’ He’d meant his words to be a calm statement of facts, but somehow they had a sinister ring in his ears.

Andromeda snorted. ‘Rest assured, Snape: souls are beyond the Wizengamot’s jurisdiction. No matter what you do to Dumbledore, you don’t have to worry about another trial upon your return. Very well. The Ministry will keep the Elder Wand and the Resurrection Stone in a secure vault at Gringotts until you have brewed that potion—’

‘The Sempiternal Solution.’

‘The Sempiternal Solution again and are ready to return beyond the Veil. The Ministry offers you the use of the Death Chamber again. Healers will be ready, anticipating your return. We will also dispatch a guard of Aurors to accompany your wife to the White Horse at Uffington.’

Severus frowned at that. ‘Why such safety measures all of a sudden?’

‘I still don’t share your suspicions, Severus,’ Andromeda announced.

But? He knew there was a ‘but’. Still unspoken, it was already present in the room, in the uneasiness that darkened the Minister’s eyes and the tightness of her shoulders.

‘However,’ she continued, ‘I have taken it upon myself to follow up the message from the Vatican that welcomed me to this office and extended the most cordial greetings of the Pope. It seemed only polite to inquire about the committee that worked so successfully with the late Secretary of the Registry Office. I encountered a strange reluctance to put me into contact with the chairman of that committee. As if they were literally unable to even remember his name, much less his phone number.’

‘A Memory Charm?’

‘Or just the inefficiency of a Muggle organisation? You know how administrative machineries work.’ But the tightness of her lips betrayed that she did not truly believe her own excuses.

Severus remained silent. In his experience, only few people could endure that. Most felt compelled to fill the void that silence created between two persons. Normally he would have thought that Andromeda was one of those few—unlike Hermione or Andromeda’s late daughter. But today Andromeda was grieving, and she was troubled.

The silence stretched and lengthened to the point where he began to search for a family likeness in Andromeda’s face, a hint, a shadow of her nephew…When he was about to close his eyes in defeat, he was finally rewarded for his patience.

‘Severus, have you any idea what it would mean if you were right?’

When he still didn’t speak, she glared at him. ‘You must be aware of the fact that my Oath of Office forbids me from spelling out certain details. So would you kindly open your mouth, Snape?’

‘The treaties have long since been regarded as nothing but historical documents, words on paper, nothing more,’ he said softly. ‘Yet they are what they always were: binding magical contracts.’

‘Yes,’ she breathed.

‘And we—’ He hesitated, going over the details of the treaties with the Inquisition again in his mind.

To keep the magical world absolutely secret and strictly separate from the Muggle world. Not to permit marriage between witches and wizards and Muggles. Never to appraise a Muggle-born of the existence of the magical world. Only to accept Muggle-borns into the magical world if they managed to enter it on their own…

‘—we have broken them.’

‘But it was understood,’ Andromeda whispered, ‘that times have changed. That things are different today. The Inquisition was disbanded long ago. Diplomatic relations with the Vatican have been good—neutral, at least, and sometimes even amicable—for many years now.’

‘Maybe times are changing again,’ Severus observed bitterly. ‘The involvement of magic-wielding Muggles dressed in robes—robes the likes of which can customarily be found among members of Muggle churches—certainly points in that direction.’

‘I hope you are wrong, Severus,’ Andromeda said. ‘Nevertheless you should be even more careful than before when you return beyond the Veil. You don’t know who else may be there. And while I will send Aurors to guard Hermione…If you are right—’

‘—that may not be enough,’ he concluded wearily. ‘I know.’ He rose to his feet. The audience was over. ‘Thank you, Andromeda.’

She nodded. ‘I shall see you at the funeral.’