CHAPTER 13

After giving Harry a vial of Dreamless Sleep and instructing him to use the cloak to follow him back to Gryffindor Tower, for the second time that evening Snape found himself pacing in agitation. This time however, it was in the headmaster's office as he attempted to convince the old man of the dangers of his so-called plan.

"Albus, Harry is completely defenseless against a mental attack from the Dark Lord. I don't know if it's temporary or permanent, but these… these lessons that you wish to impart to him could easily be his death knell."

The headmaster simply leaned back in his thronelike chair behind his expansive desk, his eyes calm and composed as they followed Snape's frantic movements. The vision of the old wizard sitting so peacefully – as if he didn't have a care in the world, when he held Harry's fate literally in the palm of his wounded hand – irritated Snape to no end.

How can he be so God damned tranquil when the deaths of so many loom close enough to touch? How many must die before he realizes the gravity of his situation?! The Malfoys; myself; Harry… His steps faltered, and he speared a painful, desperate hand through his hair as he raged against that particularly horrific thought.

In absolute anguish, he turned toward Dumbledore. But as the man only continued to watch him passively, Snape's face hardened.

"Did you not hear me, headmaster?" he growled dangerously, flicking his wand into his swollen fingers with a flip of the wrist. Stalking slowly forward he continued, "I will not allow your lessons to endanger Harry in any way. Your obsession with sacrificing all for the 'Greater Good' will not extend to my son's life, is that clear?"

There was no fear in the crystalline blue eyes as the headmaster stared up at the dark man hovering over him. Instead he only steepled his hands beneath his chin, the black, charred skin of his injury in gruesome contrast against the paleness of his robes.

"Are Harry's circumstances really all that different than they were a year ago, Severus?" he asked calmly.

"YES!" Snape bellowed. "You are about to hand my son a loaded weapon and tell him to point it directly at his head! If the Dark Lord discovers what he knows–"

"Then he will be Tom's primary and most sought-after target, as ever he has been," Dumbledore interrupted evenly.

"You don't understand!" Snape cried, his anger rising. "His Occlumency shields are... damaged somehow… Either temporarily weakened by these nightmares, or fragmented somehow by the trauma he suffered over the summer, I do not know. But getting through his barriers was as effortless as it was last year–"

"Then Harry will have to continue practicing," Dumbledore answered simply.

"Damn you, you're not listening!" Snape yelled. "Harry knows how to Occlude! It's second-nature to him now! The problem must be with the shields themselves – and I haven't the faintest idea how to fix them!" He speared his swollen fingers through his hair, continuing his frantic pacing in a desperate attempt to figure out how to solve the problem. "We can't go through with this, Albus… It's too dangerous. The Dark Lord could easily peer into Harry's mind and see that Harry knows about the Horcruxes–"

"I'm sorry Severus, but that isn't an option. Since the moment Tom Riddle faced the Potters all those years ago and lost, Harry has been his primary objective. Time is no longer on our side. Nothing we do can change the fact that he will die–"

Without warning, Snape spun on his heel and charged the headmaster in a rage, raising his wand and suddenly finding himself more than willing to say the words that would free him from the Unbreakable Vow. Aiming directly at Dumbledore's heart, he eyed the bastard with a dangerous, narrowed glare and silently dared him to keep talking.

The headmaster's blue eyes flicked to the wand tip for only a moment, before seeking out Snape's dark gaze once more. "I am not your enemy, Severus."

"Is that a fact?" Snape bit out. "Sometimes I am not so sure."

"My boy," Dumbledore murmured sadly. "If we are to have any chance at all, you must accept the fact that Harry will die–" With a threatening hiss, Snape shoved the tip of his wand roughly into the headmaster's chest. Although the older wizard winced at the contact, his gaze never wavered from Snape's own as he slowly continued, "He will die – unless we arm him with the capability to permanently rid the world of the monster known as Voldemort."

They stared at one another for a long, tense moment, both still as the moor before a tempest. Dumbledore's eyes held no heated blame, no anger, nor even fear at the position he found himself in – only a deep acceptance and understanding of the possibility that Snape may still decide to say the words that would end his life.

With hard-won restraint, Snape slowly eased his wand from the headmaster's chest, but did not lower it completely. Dumbledore looked neither grateful nor disappointed, and instead simply accepted Snape's decision as the man took one step back, and then another, before collapsing into the chair on the other side of the desk. He allowed his head to fall heavily into his palms, his wand still clutched feebly within his grasp.

"What do I do, Albus?" he whispered, afraid to acknowledge just how lost he felt. "How do I get Harry out of this alive?"

Dumbledore sighed before replying, "By allowing me the chance to prepare him." Standing to move around the large desk, he stood beside Snape and placed a supportive hand upon the younger wizard's shoulder. "I'd like to show you something, if you'll permit me," he murmured after a moment.

Snape gave a curt nod without raising his head from his hands.

With a swish of the headmaster's wand, Snape heard the cabinet behind them open with a soft snick. Moments later, the large stone basin that Snape had used during Harry's failed Occlumency lessons the year before settled on the desk in front them, followed by a small vial filled with a swirling, silvery liquid.

Curious despite himself, Snape glanced at Dumbledore with a question in his eye. "You wish me to see a memory?" At Dumbledore's nod, he asked, "Whose?"

"Bob Ogden's," the headmaster replied, tipping the swirling, silvery contents of the vial into the Pensieve.

Familiarity niggled on the edge of Snape's consciousness. Why do I recognize that name…? And after a moment he suddenly remembered. "He worked for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I was brought in to speak to him after…"

"After the death of Lily and James, when Tom disappeared – yes."

A sudden vision drifted through his memory of a tiny, bleeding baby crying for 'Mama', repeatedly reaching his pudgy arm through the bars toward her lifeless body. Forcing the heart wrenching image away, he instead focused being interviewed by the man only days after. The plump little wizard with coke bottle glasses had been firm with the suspected Death Eater, but fair in all his dealings. When Dumbledore himself had appeared at the station in which he was being held and vouched for Snape's position as a double-agent, Ogden had considered the matter closed and ordered him released immediately.

"I remember him," Snape admitted with a furrowed brow. "But what does he have to do with Harry and the Dark Lord's Horcruxes?"

"Nothing," the headmaster admitted evasively. "And everything. He is, in fact, the reason I went looking for this." He held up his injured hand, on which he continued to wear the large, ugly black ring that still exhibited the massive crack down the middle from when he killed the living bit of the Dark Lord living within.

Thinking of the horrifying scene he had witnessed before Dumbledore struck it with the sword, Snape couldn't hide his revulsion when he asked, "Why do you wear that thing?"

"To remind myself," Dumbledore answered softly, gazing down at the ring with a mournful expression. "But now is not the time for that. After you, Severus."

Bewildered, Snape plunged into the silvery substance that was somewhere in between liquid and gas, falling through a lengthy whirling darkness before landing on a dazzlingly bright country lane. Blinking rapidly in the brilliant sunlight, he felt more than saw Dumbledore land beside him.

As Snape's eyes finally adjusted, he saw that the lane upon which they stood was bordered by high, tangled hedgerows. And there, some ten feet in front of them, stood Ogden. The man stood beneath a tall wooden sign, seemingly deciding on which way to go. He looked absurd in his chosen outfit of a frock coat and spats over a striped one-piece bathing costume, and Snape couldn't help the judgmental curl of his lip.

"We must be in Muggle territory for him to look that ridiculous," he quietly sneered. Dumbledore didn't answer.

Ogden set off at a brisk walk down the lane, and the two wizards followed. As they passed the wooden sign, Snape glanced up at its two arms. The one pointing back the way they had come read: Great Hangleton, 5 miles. The arm pointing after Ogden said: Little Hangleton, 1 mile.

They walked a short way with nothing to see but the hedgerows, the wide blue sky overhead, and the swishing, frock-coated figure in front of them. Then the lane curved and fell away, sloping steeply down a hillside so that they had a sudden, unexpected view of a valley laid out before them. Snape saw a village, undoubtedly Little Hangleton, nestled between two steep hills. Across the valley, set on the opposite hillside, was a handsome manor house carpeted by a wide expanse of velvety green lawn.

Ogden broke into a reluctant trot due to the steep downward slope, and Snape and Dumbledore lengthened their strides accordingly. As the lane curved suddenly to the right, Ogden disappeared from view. When they rounded the corner a few moments later, it was to see the very edge of Ogden's frock coat vanishing through a gap in the hedge.

They followed him onto a narrow dirt track bordered by higher and wilder hedgerows than those they had left behind. The path was crooked, rocky, and potholed, sloping downhill and heading directly for a patch of dark trees.

Ogden stopped very suddenly, and the other two wizards halted a few paces behind.

Despite the cloudless sky, the trees ahead cast deep, dark shadows, and it was a few seconds before Snape's eyes discerned the building half-hidden amongst the tangle of ancient trunks. A sudden wave of uneasy suspicion washed through him, his senses heightened from his many years as a spy. Ogden must have felt it too, for he drew his wand and gazed nervously around. Although only the sound of birds and bugs greeted them, Snape could swear that he felt the heavy weight of someone watching.

As his eyes searched the dilapidated cottage, he wondered whether it was inhabited. Its walls were mossy, and so many tiles had fallen off the roof that the rafters were visible in places. Nettles grew all around it, their tips reaching the windows, which were thick with grime. Thinking of the decrepit neighborhood of Spinner's End, Snape wasn't fooled into believing that no one lived there, simply by appearance alone. He knew firsthand that if a person was desperate enough, they could get by on next to nothing.

Ogden, however, must have judged the hovel unoccupied. When one of the windows was thrown open with a clatter, the man visibly jumped in surprise. Still watching the house, Snape saw a thin trickle of smoke issue from the tiny window as though somebody was cooking.

Ogden moved forward quietly, cautiously. As the dark shadows of the trees slid over him, he stopped again, staring at the front door. It was only then that Snape realized somebody had nailed a dead snake upon the wood.

There was a sudden rustle and a crack, and a man in rags dropped from the nearest tree, landing on his feet right in front of Ogden. Startled, Ogden leapt backward so fast that he stood on the tails of his frock coat and stumbled.

The filthy, rag-covered man standing before them had hair so matted with dirt it could have been any color. Several of his teeth were missing. His eyes were small and dark; one of them stared menacingly at Ogden, while the other gazed somewhere to the left. The man might have looked comical, but Snape knew immediately from his years surrounded by Death Eaters that he was anything but. He'd fit right in at the Dark Lord's side, Snape thought with immediate repugnance.

The filthy man made a low, strange hissing noise that Ogden did not seem to understand. But as foreign as the sounds were, there was no mistaking their intended warning, especially since the man was brandishing a wand in one hand and a short and rather bloody knife in the other. He was obviously dangerous, and Snape could not blame Ogden for backing away several more paces before he spoke.

"Er — good morning. I'm from the Ministry of Magic—"

The filthy man made those bizarre hissing sounds again, and this time Snape couldn't help but wonder, as his eyes found the dead snake on the door once more, if the sounds weren't actually a language. Parseltongue…?

"Er — I'm sorry — I don't understand you," Ogden nervously replied.

The man in rags advanced on Ogden, knife in one hand, wand in the other.

"Now, look—" Ogden began, but too late. There was a bang, and Ogden was on the ground, clutching his nose while a nasty yellowish goo squirted from between his fingers.

"Morfin!" bellowed a loud voice.

An elderly man came hurrying out of the cottage, banging the door behind him so that the dead snake swung pathetically. This man was shorter than the first, and oddly proportioned; his shoulders were very broad and his arms overlong. With his bright brown eyes, short scrubby hair and wrinkled face, Snape couldn't help thinking that he looked like a powerful, aged monkey.

The older man came to a halt beside Morfin, who was now cackling with laughter at the sight of Ogden on the ground.

"Ministry, is it?" he barked, looking down at Ogden.

"Correct!" Ogden angrily replied, dabbing his face. "And you are Mr. Gaunt, I take it?"

"S'right," said Gaunt. "Got you in the face, did he?"

"Yes, he did!" snapped Ogden.

"Should've made your presence known then, shouldn't you?" Gaunt grunted aggressively. "This is private property. Can't just walk in here and not expect my son to defend himself."

Defend himself against what, man?" Ogden objected as he clambered back to his feet, pointing his wand at his own nose to stop the copious flow of yellow pus.

"Busybodies. Intruders. Muggles and filth!" Gaunt cried. And then he spoke something out of the corner of his mouth to his son, in that same strange hissing language. Morfin seemed to be on the point of disagreeing, but when his father cast him a threatening look he changed his mind, lumbering away to the cottage with an odd rolling gait. He slammed the front door behind him, so that the snake swung sadly in his wake.

"It's your son I'm here to see, Mr. Gaunt," objected Ogden, mopping the last of the pus from the front of his coat as he watched the filthy man disappear over his father's shoulder. Ogden's shrewd gaze flicked back to the old man's. "That was Morfin, wasn't it?"

"Ar, that was Morfin," Gaunt answered indifferently. "Are you pure-blood?" he asked suddenly, aggressive once more.

"That's neither here nor there," Ogden replied coldly. Apparently Gaunt felt rather differently. He squinted into Ogdens face and muttered, in what was clearly supposed to be an offensive tone, "Now I come to think about it, I've seen noses like yours down in the village."

"I don't doubt it, if your sons been let loose on them," asserted Ogden. "Perhaps we could continue this discussion inside?"

"Inside?"

"Yes, Mr. Gaunt. I've already told you. I'm here about Morfin. We sent an owl—"

"I've no use for owls," said Gaunt. "I don't open letters."

"Then you can hardly complain that you get no warning of visitors," Ogden chided tartly. "I am here following a serious breach of Wizarding law, which occurred here late last night—"

"All right, all right, all right!" bellowed Gaunt. "Come in the bleeding house, then, and much good it'll do you!"

The house seemed to contain three tiny rooms. Two doors led off the main room, which served as both the kitchen and living room. Morfin was sitting in a filthy armchair beside the smoking fire, twisting a live adder between his thick fingers and crooning softly at it in Parseltongue.

A scuffling noise in the corner beside the open window drew Snape's attention, and he realized with unconcealed surprise that there was somebody else in the room. She was near impossible to see in the dim light, for her ragged gray dress was the exact color of the dirty stone wall behind her. As she stood beside a steaming pot on a grimy black stove, the girl reached for the high shelf of squalid-looking pots and pans above it. Her hair was lank and dull, and she had a plain, rather heavy face. As she glanced nervously over her shoulder at Ogden, Snape saw that only one eye gazed toward them. The other, like her brother's, stared in the opposite direction.

She looked a little cleaner than the two men, but Snape had never seen a more defeated-looking person. His heart gave a little twang of sympathy for the girl, although he couldn't for the life of him explain why he cared.

"M'daughter, Merope," Gaunt answered grudgingly when Ogden looked inquiringly toward her.

"Good morning," Ogden greeted her politely.

She did not answer, but with a frightened glance at her father turned her back on the room and continued shifting the pots on the shelf behind her.

"Well, Mr. Gaunt," said Ogden after a moment. "To get straight to the point, we have reason to believe that your son, Morfin, performed magic in front of a Muggle late last night."

There was a deafening clang. Merope had dropped one of the pots.

"Pick it up!" Gaunt bellowed at her. "That's it, grub on the floor like some filthy Muggle! What's your wand for, you useless sack of muck?"

"Mr. Gaunt, please!" cried Ogden in a shocked voice.

And suddenly Snape's compassion for the girl made perfect sense.

Because for some ungodly reason, every syllable that Snape heard the old bastard scream at his daughter was like listening to his own reviled father, back from the dead.

Merope, who had already picked up the pot, flushed blotchily scarlet and loosened her grip so that the pot clanged loudly onto the floor again. Without raising her humiliated gaze, she drew her wand shakily from her pocket. However, as she aimed at the pot and muttered a hasty, inaudible spell, the thing shot across the floor away from her and bashed against the opposite wall, cracking in two.

Morfin let out a mad cackle of laughter. Gaunt, red-faced with rage, screamed, "Mend it, you pointless lump, mend it!"

Merope stumbled across the room, but before she had time to raise her wand again, Ogden lifted his own and firmly announced, "Reparo." The two halves of the pot instantly jumped together and fused.

Gaunt looked for a moment as though he was going to launch himself at Ogden, but seemed to think better of it. Instead, he turned to his daughter and mockingly jeered, "Lucky the nice man from the Ministry's here, isn't it? Perhaps he'll take you off my hands, perhaps he doesn't mind dirty Squibs…"

Without looking at anybody or saying a word of thanks to Ogden, Merope picked up the pot with trembling hands and returned it to its shelf. She then stood quite still, her back against the wall between the filthy window and the stove, as though she wished for nothing more than to sink into the stone and vanish.

"Mr. Gaunt," Ogden began again, looking slightly unnerved. "As I've said: the reason for my visit—"

"I heard you the first time!" snapped Gaunt. "And so what? Morfin gave a Muggle a bit of what was coming to him — what about it, then?"

"Morfin has broken Wizarding law," said Ogden sternly.

"'Morfin has broken Wizarding law,'" Gaunt imitated Ogdens voice, making it pompous and singsong. Morfin cackled again from the filthy armchair. "He taught a filthy Muggle a lesson. That's illegal now, is it?"

"Yes," replied Ogden. "I'm afraid it is." He pulled a small scroll of parchment from an inside pocket and unrolled it.

"What's that, then, his sentence?" challenged Gaunt, his voice rising angrily.

"It is a summons to the Ministry for a hearing—"

"Summons! Summons?! Who do you think you are, summoning my son anywhere?"

"I'm Head of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad," replied Ogden unflinchingly.

"And you think we're scum, do you?" screamed Gaunt, advancing on Ogden now, with a dirty yellow-nailed finger pointing at his chest. "Scum who'll just come running when the Ministry tells 'em to? Do you know who you're talking to, you filthy little Mudblood? Do you?!"

"I was under the impression that I was speaking to Mr. Gaunt," answered Ogden, looking wary, but standing his ground.

"That's right!" roared Gaunt. And for a moment, Snape thought Gaunt was making an obscene hand gesture. But then he realized that the old man was showing Ogden the ugly, black-stoned ring he was wearing on his middle finger.

Snape's eyes widened in surprise. It couldn't be, he thought, his wide-eyed gaze flicking toward Dumbledore. It couldn't possibly be the same ring.

But before Snape could compare the ugly black ring on the headmaster's dying appendage, Gaunt was in motion again. Waving his ring before Ogden's eyes, he raged, "See this? Know what it is? Where it came from? Centuries it's been in our family, that's how far back we go, and pure-blood all the way! Know how much I've been offered for this, with the Peverell coat of arms engraved on the stone?"

The blasted Peverells? Snape thought in horror. What in God's name was Dumbledore thinking…?!

"That is all quite beside the point, Mr. Gaunt," Ogden quipped, blinking as the ring sailed within an inch of his nose. "Your son has committed—"

With a howl of rage, Gaunt ran toward his daughter, and the girl pressed herself firmly against the wall with a petrified cry. For a split second, Snape thought he was going to throttle her as his hand flew to her throat. But the next moment, he was dragging her toward Ogden by a thick gold chain around her neck.

"See this?" he bellowed at Ogden, shaking the heavy gold locket at him, while Merope spluttered and gasped for breath.

"I see it, I see it!" replied Ogden hastily, desperately attempting to ease the old man's temper on his daughter's behalf.

"Slytherin's!" yelled Gaunt, paying no attention to Merope. "Salazar Slytherin's! We're his last living descendants. What do you say to that, eh?"

"Mr. Gaunt, your daughter!" Ogden cried in alarm, but the old bastard had already released her. Merope staggered away from him, back to her corner, massaging her neck and gulping for air.

"So!" said Gaunt triumphantly, as though he had just proved a complicated point beyond all possible dispute. "Don't you go talking to us as if we're dirt on your shoes! Generations of purebloods, wizards all — more than you can say, I don't doubt!"

And he spat on the floor at Ogden's feet. Morfin cackled again. Merope, huddled beside the window, her head bowed and her face hidden by her lank hair, said nothing.

"Mr. Gaunt," retorted Ogden doggedly, "I am afraid that neither your ancestors nor mine have anything to do with the matter at hand. I am here because of Morfin, Morfin and the Muggle he accosted late last night. Our information—" he glanced down at his scroll of parchment "—is that your son performed a jinx or hex on said Muggle, causing him to erupt in highly painful hives."

Morfin giggled.

Gaunt snarled at the boy in Parseltongue, and Morfin fell silent again.

"And so what if he did?" the old man said defiantly to Ogden. "I expect you've wiped the Muggle's filthy face clean for him, and his memory to boot—"

"That's hardly the point, Mr. Gaunt," snapped Ogden. "This was an unprovoked attack on a defenseless—"

"Ar, I had you marked out as a Muggle-lover the moment I saw you," sneered Gaunt, and he spat on the floor again.

"This discussion is getting us nowhere," Ogden sighed. "It is clear from your son's attitude that he feels no remorse for his actions." He glanced down at his scroll of parchment again. "Morfin will attend a hearing on the fourteenth of September to answer the charges of using magic in front of a Muggle, and causing harm and distress to that same Mugg—"

Ogden broke off. The jingling, clopping sounds of horses and loud, laughing voices were drifting in through the open window. Apparently the winding lane to the village passed very close to the copse where the house stood. Gaunt froze, listening, his eyes wide. Morfin hissed and turned his face toward the sounds, his expression hungry. Merope raised her head. Her face, Snape saw, was starkly white.

"My God, what an eyesore!" a girl's voice rang out, as clearly audible through the open window as if she stood in the room beside them. "Couldn't your father have that hovel cleared away, Tom?"

Tom…? Snape thought, aghast, looking sideways at the headmaster once more.

"It's not ours," answered a young man's voice. "Everything on the other side of the valley belongs to us, but that cottage belongs to an old tramp called Gaunt, and his children. The son's quite mad. You should hear some of the stories they tell in the village—"

The girl laughed. The jingling, clopping noises were growing louder and louder. Morfin made to get out of his armchair, but his father barked something in Parseltongue, and he sat back down.

"Tom," said the girl's voice again, now so close they were clearly right beside the house, "I might be wrong — but has somebody nailed a snake to that door?"

"Good lord, you're right!" said the man's voice. "That'll be the son, I told you he's not right in the head. Don't look at it, Cecilia, darling."

The jingling and clopping sounds were now growing faint again.

Morfin hissed something at his sister with a cruelly amused look in his eye, and whatever it was gained their father's attention like a wolf catching the smell of blood. He growled something sharply at his son in Parseltongue, and what little color was left in Merope's face quickly drained away.

With a vindictive look at his terrified sister, her brother answered the old man with a vicious smile. Merope shook her head jerkily, imploringly, but Morfin ruthlessly continued. Their father listened in deadly silence, his face going pale, then splotchy purple with rage.

All three of the Gaunts seemed to have forgotten Ogden, who was looking both bewildered and irritated at this renewed outbreak of incomprehensible hissing and rasping.

Gaunt snarled at his daughter in a deadly tone, advancing a step or two toward the terrified girl. Merope shook her head frantically, pressing herself into the wall, apparently too afraid to respond. Her brother did nothing to defend her, merely cackled in a way that finally made Guant snap.

"You disgusting little Squib, you filthy little blood traitor!" Gaunt roared in English, losing control as his hands closed around his daughter's throat.

Snape launched himself forward, forgetting for a moment that the scene was only a memory as he and Ogden yelled "No!" at the same time.

Ogden raised his wand and cried, "Relaskio!"

Gaunt was thrown backward away from his daughter; he tripped over a chair and fell flat on his back. With a roar of rage, Morfin leapt out of his armchair and ran at Ogden, brandishing his bloody knife and firing hexes indiscriminately from his wand.

Ogden ran for his life. Snape wasn't far behind, and he hurried out of the cottage with Merope's screams echoing in his ears.

Ogden hurtled up the path and erupted onto the main lane with his arms protecting his head. Unable to see where he was going, the wizard collided with the glossy chest of a horse ridden by a very handsome, dark-haired young Muggle. As he bounced off the horse's flank and set off again, his frock coat flying, both the Muggle and the pretty girl riding beside him roared with laughter at the sight of the ridiculously dressed Ogden running pell-mell up the lane.

"I'm done," Snape growled, watching the tails of Ogden's frock coat disappear behind the bend. "I don't want to see any more." And without waiting for a response from the headmaster, he was soaring weightlessly through darkness until he landed squarely back in Dumbledore's office.

The moment his feet touched the floor Snape began pacing again, and it was only a few seconds later that he heard Dumbledore land somewhere behind him.

"I assume I just witnessed the foundation of the Dark Lord's existence," snapped Snape, halting his frantic pacing but keeping his back to the older wizard. "Those were his parents, were they not? The muggle on the horse – Tom," he spat the name, but then softly added, "and the girl?"

The headmaster was silent for a long moment. Snape heard his robes rustle as he sat in the thronelike chair behind the expansive desk, but as the silence lengthened, he could feel the shrewd blue eyes watching… assessing.

"Yes," Dumbledore finally answered. "Those were his parents."

Snape gave a curt nod.

"What happened to her? Merope?" he quietly asked, turning around and making his way to the chair in front of the headmaster's desk.

"Obviously, she survived. Ogden apparated back to the Ministry and returned with reinforcements within fifteen minutes of that encounter. Morfin and his father attempted to fight, but both were overpowered and removed from the cottage, and were subsequently convicted by the Wizengamot. Morfin, who already had a record of Muggle attacks, was sentenced to three years in Azkaban. Marvolo Gaunt, who had injured several Ministry employees in addition to Ogden, received six months."

Marvolo… The mystery of his name revealed. "So how did they end up married, I wonder?" Snape mused. "She hardly seemed the type to Imperious anyone… A love potion, perhaps?"

"Those are my thoughts, as well. I am sure that her magical powers did not appear to their best advantage when she was being terrorized by her father and brother. But once Marvolo and Morfin were safely in Azkaban and she was alone and free for the first time in her life, I believe she was finally able to give full rein to and explore her abilities. More than likely, she also began to plot her escape from the desperate life she had led for eighteen years – and apparently that plan included the handsome Muggle for whom Merope cherished a secret, burning passion."

"Apparently," Snape agreed. "But the Dark Lord is an orphan, like Harry. So what exactly happened to her?"

"Within a few months of their runaway marriage, Tom Riddle reappeared at the manor house in Little Hangleton – without his wife. The rumors flew that he spoke of being 'hoodwinked' and 'taken in.' What he meant, I am sure, is that he had been under an enchantment… though I daresay he did not use those precise words, for fear of being thought insane. When they heard what he was saying, however, the villagers guessed that Merope had lied to Tom, pretending that she was going to have his baby, and that he had married her for this reason."

"But she did have his baby."

"Not until a year after they were married," Dumbledore answered sadly. "Tom Riddle left her while she was still pregnant."

"And never troubled to discover what became of his son," Snape growled, feeling an odd stab of fury on Merope's – and strangely enough, the Dark Lord's – behalf. To think that the Heir of Slytherin actually–

But then he remembered. His eyes narrowed dangerously as they flicked suspiciously toward the headmaster. "Lucky that she had such valuable heirlooms to sustain her when the Muggle left."

Dumbledore looked sorrowfully across the desk at him. "Unfortunately, Merope did not plan for such an eventuality. She did bring the locket with her when she finally fled the Gaunt cottage, which I am sorry to say she did not get much for when she sold it at Borgin and Burke's. She was an unworldly girl, pregnant and alone, and suffering from a broken heart. How could she possibly know the locket's true worth? The ring, however, she left behind on purpose – perhaps as a peace offering for her brother, or an apology of sorts to her father. Alas, we shall never know, for she died only minutes after Tom was born."

"You seem to be very knowledgeable on the subject," Snape growled, unable to keep the sneer completely out of his voice. "Too knowledgeable to have ever put that God damned ring upon your finger!" A look of pained regret fell across the headmaster's face at his words, but Snape ruthlessly continued, his voice rising uncontrollably in volume. "And with the Peverell 'coat of arms' on it, as well. I'm not an idiot, Albus – you knew it was a Hallow! You must have been pleased as punch. Your childhood dream, finally within your grasp. But you were too much of a stupid, arrogant fool to consider what evils the Dark Lord could have implanted within the God damned thing!" Snape's chest was heaving in anger by the time he was finished, and he found himself on his feet – although somehow he didn't remember actually standing.

Dumbledore simply gazed up at him, looking crushed. As his uninjured, long-fingered hand came up to scrub his face, he gave a sigh of defeated exhaustion. "You're right," he answered in an agonized whisper, and there were tears glittering upon his crooked nose. "Of course, you're right. When I discovered it, after all those years… I lost my head, Severus. I quite forgot that it was a Horcrux and that the ring was sure to carry a curse. When I finally put it on, I was convinced that I was about to see Ariana, and my mother, and my father, and to tell them how very, very sorry I was…

"I was such a fool, Severus. After all those years I had learned nothing – nothing but that I was unworthy to hold power. I had proved it time and again, and here was final proof." His eyes were heartbroken when he met Snape's gaze once more. "Please, my boy. Can you ever forgive me?"

Suddenly deflated by the night's events, Snape slid back into his chair. "What does it matter how I feel?" he muttered dispiritedly. "It doesn't change anything."

"It matters. Of course it matters. And if we are going to give Harry any sort of chance…"

They gazed at each other for a long, silent moment. Snape's eyes flicked down to land upon the ring still on the headmaster's injured, dead-looking hand. And he finally understood how vital it was that Dumbledore pass this knowledge on to his son. How else will the boy understand the way the Dark Lord thinks, so he can protect himself as we attempt to kill the snake bastard?

As he watched the stone on the ring wink dully in the candlelight, he knew it was true what the headmaster said: time was no longer on their side… And although he'd have to discover why his son was having troubles with his Occlumency shields, he finally understood that he couldn't protect Harry forever. Not without getting him killed in the process.

His nod was curt when he met Dumbledore's gaze once more, but his eyes had softened considerably.

"Good," Dumbledore murmured. "Then Harry and I start tomorrow."