A Matter of Black and White

DISCLAIMER: This story is based upon the works of JK Rowling. Anything you recognize is hers. I’m making no money off this. I’m just having some fun adding my own little corner to the amazing world she has created.

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CHAPTER 4—THE FIRST TIME IS ALWAYS THE HARDEST

Aurora paced back and forth from gray wall to even grayer wall in her room in the Leaky Cauldron. Walking the warped and creaking floorboards was the only thing that kept her from running down the stairs and out of Diagon Alley, then jumping the first train back to the Continent. Each step seemed to tick away the seconds until a knock on her door would forebode her even deeper entry into this dark charade of becoming a spy.

She hadn’t been so nervous at the last meeting. It had only been her second time in the presence of Albus Dumbledore, but she had already come to trust the great wizard. (Wouldn’t that just kill her parents? An icy sense of irony told her it already had.) Her instant admiration for the man had only heightened the sickening wave of guilt she had felt when she had seen his newly-withered right hand and the damaged ring he wore on his left. A body had been destroyed in the creation of a Horcrux. Must one be harmed in its obliteration as well? Albus would not say—the less she knew for the time being, the better, he had maintained.

Aurora wondered how much of Albus’s secretiveness had been due to the fact that he had set someone to see into her mind. This idea did not lend her confidence in her new Occlumency teacher. He was, at the very least, a snarky fellow. No doubt he felt she was threatening his place with Albus, but his irritability seemed too practiced for it to have been an anomaly to which only she was exposed. She had feigned oblivion to this point at their first meeting, in part because she knew that pleasantries in the face of his rudeness would irritate him far more than any straightforward fight she put up. It had, however, been easier to be brave when Albus had been around.

But at any moment (would it be this pass of the room or the next?) she would be meeting alone with Severus Snape for the first time. What did she really know about the man? Just that he was a spy and that a spy’s allegiances might lie anywhere. How did she know he wasn’t really working for the Dark Lord and wouldn’t take his first chance to betray her? He certainly looked the part of a Dark wizard. She didn’t think she had ever seen so much blackness in one place, from his black boots shining with polish to his black hair shining with grease.

Oh, what was she kidding herself? Her real fear wasn’t where the veteran spy’s allegiances lay…not really anyway. He wouldn’t be so brazen as to Avada Kedavra her as soon as she opened the door…at least she didn’t think so anyway. What she was really worried about was what would happen after she allowed him in.

Today was her first Mentior Occlumency lesson.

Up until a few days ago, Aurora hadn’t used any form of Occlumency in twenty years. She had surprised herself when she had been able to fight the Legilimency of such a powerful wizard as Albus Dumbledore. Her childhood lessons with her father had served their purpose…up until she had deliberately dropped her Occlumens before the old man. Her father must be rolling in his grave.

But Albus at least had had reason to test her; she had expected nothing less. As for Severus, there was no excuse for him. What gave him the right to invade people’s thoughts without their knowledge? Except that she had known. The sight of him stumbling backward in shock when she had shut him out of her mind had almost made her proud of her Occlumency skills…almost.

She had not expected Occlumency to be such an integral part of her job as a spy. Perhaps she had been naïve about what she had been getting herself into. Perhaps she had imposed a bit of conveniently selective foresight upon herself in order to get across the Channel. Either way, she had imagined that Occlumency might be a handy trump card she might play at some dire moment. She had not expected the skill to be a prerequisite for her new position. She certainly had not anticipated having to subject herself to additional Occlumency lessons and definitely not under the tutelage of a most unpleasant man. No, she wasn’t ready for this.

At this moment (naturally), the dreaded knock sounded at the door.

He didn’t say a word in greeting. The scowl on his whey-colored face said all he needed to say. Aurora realized just how easy it would be to make his day, to tell him this was all a big mistake and send him on his way. He might even take the time to be polite enough to thank her. But of course that couldn’t happen—couldn’t on her part, wouldn’t on his. Ignoring her visitor’s sour and silent arrival, she gave him a warm welcome. “Good afternoon, Severus. Won’t you please come in?”

Severus took a few steps inside.

“Fine day isn’t it?” Of course, it wasn’t a fine day—the weather had been even gloomier than usual for England since Aurora’s arrival, but that hardly mattered. Palm trees might have been sprouting up out of the pavement and Aurora imagined that Severus would have been unimpressed.

Sure enough, Severus remained deaf to such small talk.

“Would you care for some tea?” Probably not, but Aurora favored anything that might put off beginning the Occlumency lesson.

At last Severus reacted. He swept across the room to the window. “I am not here to discuss the weather.” He peered suspiciously down on the street below. “I am not here for tea.” He snapped the shutters closed. “I am here to teach you Mentior Occlumency. Don’t waste my time with pleasantries. I have far more important subjects to consume my time.”

“I certainly never meant to consume your valuable time, Severus,” she replied with all the compassion she could muster. This man seemed intent upon trying to intimidate her. Was this how he interacted with everyone? The only way to retain power in their exchanges seemed to be to kill him with kindness. “I never imagined having to inconvenience anyone else with these lessons.”

“Don’t tell me you expected Dumbledore to teach you?” he asked with silky condescension.

As a matter of fact, she had entertained the thought, if for no other reason but that she hadn’t expected the wizard to have anyone trustworthy and capable enough for the task.

A nasty sneer started to twitch at the corner of Severus’s mouth like the tail of a rattler. “That is was you expected, I see. If you were under the illusion that you would be spending pleasant evenings by the fireside learning from the great Albus Dumbledore, let me assure you that he is far too busy to make you his special pet. You are hardly the only pawn he has out on the board. If you were deceitful enough,” he continued, “to think you could use the lessons to steal the old man’s secrets straight out of his mind, allow me to disappoint you. Dumbledore is neither that weak nor that stupid. You are, in fact, stuck with me, and I can assure you that I am also neither weak nor stupid.”

“You’re just very busy,” she added helpfully.

He glared at her.

“And since I’d hate to distract you from your many important missions any longer than necessary, I’d suggest we move on to the lesson.” Not that she wanted to, but at least it was her decision.

Without further warning, Aurora felt a tug on her brain, like someone was pulling on a loose thread to unravel her head. There went the manicured gardens at Beauxbatons. There went the bells ringing from the Münster in Bern. There went the little wood behind her childhood home in Kent. It was time to tie these loose threads off.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

Severus stumbled backward into the closed shutters which rattled ominously. With a surprising amount of reserve, he collected himself in one smooth, graceful motion, as if nearly being knocked out the window were an everyday occurrence.

“What I was doing, madam, was Legilimency. You do understand that I will be performing Legilimency in these lessons?” His eyes glinted, no doubt anticipating the power she had refused him at their last meeting.

“Of course I understand.” Not that she was happy about it. “I meant, you didn’t even give me any warning.”

“A Legilimens hardly announces his attack,” he sneered, “but if you wish to receive notice, consider yourself forewarned.”

Unbidden faces floated to the surface of her thoughts. There was Madame Maxime, or at least Madame Maxime’s chin—it was always impossible to get her all into view. There was her Aunt Ebba with her laughing eyes. There was her mother with the sheets of blonde hair that she would brush one hundred strokes before the mirror each night.

Again Aurora rather forcefully removed the intruder from her mind. This time Severus had inched several steps away from the window so that he plopped into a leather reading chair. He had a knack for making even accidental actions look deliberate, and he stretched his long legs as if he had intended to give them a rest. “Perhaps, madam,” he said lazily, “you do not know what Mentior Occlumency is. Mentior—from the Latin ‘to deceive,’ to ‘mislead...’”

“...‘To invent,’ ‘to fabricate,’ ‘to lie.’” Yes, yes, she, of all people, hardly needed an etymology lesson.

“Very good, then perhaps our foreign guest would like to consult a dictionary for the meanings of these English definitions?” he said silkily.

“I’m hardly foreign. I was born here in England.”

He pounced. “Then would you care to explain why you do not seem to know the difference between Pure Occlumency and Mentior Occlumency?”

“Excuse me?”

“I am perfectly well aware that you are a proficient Pure Occlumens. I’ve no desire to waste my time watching you perform that trick again and again. I am here to teach you Mentior Occlumency. For that you must stop showing off your capacity to give me a headache and must allow me into your mind. Mentior Occlumency does not shut the Legilimens out; it invites him in. It reveals those thoughts and memories that the Occlumens wishes the other to see. It makes him see what is not there.”

Aurora wanted to ask how in the world one was supposed to direct the Legilimens’s visions when she felt another mental onslaught. It was all she could do not to throw Severus so far out of her head that he really did end up a heap of black robes in the street below. But the one thing she did know about Mentior Occlumency was that she had to allow him in her head…even if she had no idea what to do after that.

Aurora recognized the memory immediately. She was eleven and it was her first day at the Muggle school near her aunt and uncle’s house. She was standing in the schoolyard dressed in what had for the time been stylish hip-huggers and a red T-shirt. From the way she hid behind her schoolbag, she might as well have been dressed in a pink bunny suit with a giant fluffy tail. She obviously hated Muggle clothes.

Two girls dressed in similar fashion came up to her. The one with a long brown ponytail said, “I’m Sabine. She’s Monika. You’re new.”

The expression on the young Aurora’s face said, “You’re stupid,” but the girls were undaunted. Monika asked, “What’s your name?”

“Aurora.”

“What eight-tracks do you like?” Monika asked.

“I don’t like sports.”

“Sports?” the two girls shrieked. “Have you ever seen anybody so lame?” They scurried off to a pack of girls, whispering behind their hands and throwing the bewildered new student scathing looks that only pre-teen girls can master.

It was obvious to the older Aurora why Severus had fished for this memory. Being made to feel two-feet tall by Muggles that she had at the time considered less than irritating mites had made that day even more awkward than the typical first day at a new school. No doubt Severus savored others’ embarrassment. The question was what memory she should give him instead…and how.

For the briefest of moments, Aurora felt freed from the scandalized stares of Sabine and Monika. They weren’t laughing at her; they were laughing at a boy hanging upside down in midair with his black robes hanging over his head.

“That’s enough.” Severus’s bark cut through the haze of memories. “You clearly don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Well, maybe that’s because you haven’t taught me what to do.” By Holda, what was the point of a lesson without a teacher? “Have you ever taught Occlumency before?" Had he ever taught anything before?

“Of course I’ve taught Occlumency before. It’s not my fault that I wind up with dunderheads for students.”

“Yes, well, it’s my experience that dunderheads typically have dunderheads for teachers.”

Verdammt, she’d done it. She hadn’t imagined that Severus’s eyes could get any darker, but there they were casting a shadow over the entire room. Well, there wasn’t much point in putting up with a bastard if he couldn’t even teach her anything. She met his glare and was damned if she was going to break it.

It was Severus that spoke first, though he refused to address Aurora’s slight to his teaching abilities. “Eight-tracks?”

Aurora grinned. “They’re an old Muggle music device.”

“Was that a Muggle school you were at?”

“Yes, I spent my first year there after my parents died.”

“How old were you?”

“Eleven.”

The thin black line of his brow arched disapprovingly. “You should’ve started your magical education by then.”

“It was my magical un-education my aunt was more concerned with. She thought I had a few bad habits to break after growing up in a Death Eater household.”

“Maybe if she had been more concerned with your magical education, you would know how to do Mentior Occlumency.”

Didn’t he just know how to ruin a half-way civil conversation? “I could’ve spent the rest of my life at Beauxbatons and would’ve never learned how to do Occlumency of any kind. It’s far too Dark for their curriculum.”

“And is it too Dark for you?”

“I think if human beings were meant to read minds, we would all have a sixth sense.”

“And how do you plan to move amongst Death Eaters if you can’t stomach Dark Magic?”

Aurora set her jaw. “You said I wasn’t doing the Occlumency correctly?”

Severus studied her. He seemed reluctant to drop his list of reasons why she shouldn’t be a spy, but he wasn’t about to give up an opportunity to critique her. “You’re supposed to show a different memory.”

“But there was a different memory…I think. That boy at the end, that wasn’t me.”

“Unless you’ve undergone a sex change spell, I imagine not,” he answered dryly. “You were supposed to show me your own memories.”

“But I didn’t….” Wait, what had he just said? Surely that boy hadn’t been Severus’s memory? “Oh.” Shut your mouth, Aurora. You’re gawking.

He was suddenly keen to turn the attention back to her. His dark eyes contemptuously scanned her white robes, and he said, “At what point did you develop that horrid fashion sense? The Muggle clothes I can understand, appalling as they were, but now you seem fixed on dressing like a Healer. Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer a position at St. Mungo’s?”

Aurora shook her head, though she was hardly surprised that he did not know what her robes signified. There were few British Holdahexe. Nevertheless, she answered with pretty disbelief, “Why, Severus, I can hardly believe that someone as worldly as yourself does not recognize the robes of the Holdahexe.”

He squinted at her as he allowed the name to process. Recognition dawned on his face and was immediately replaced by suspicion. “That’s the group that fed Grindewald all his old magic weapons,” he said accusingly.

Aurora bristled. It was a common allegation and one that the Holdahexe resented. “Grindewald hardly got all his weapons from us, and it wasn’t really ‘us’ to begin with,” she indignantly replied. “It was a handful of dissenters who forgot that old magic is not necessarily Dark Magic. They were de-Robed as soon as they were found out.’

“You’re trying to tell me that the Holdahexe is not a Dark organization?”

“Do you honestly think Albus would have taken me on had he believed I was pledged to a Dark society?”

Severus “humphed” as if he could believe quite a lot from Albus Dumbledore.

“Ask him yourself next time you see him,” she insisted. “He knows the Überhexe herself. Besides, I thought we had already established that I am a horrible failure at anything remotely Dark.” Yes, that was the trick. Her self-deprecation was his triumph.

“That much is certainly true,” he said smoothly. “At the moment I’d doubt your ability to Nox a candle. Your Mentior Occlumency is going to require a great deal of work. We should try again.” Then he added with a sneer, “Unless, of course, you require a pot of tea while you can contemplate your preparation? Maybe some mediation and a massage before we proceed?”

“Oh, are you offering?” she asked eagerly. “Because my right shoulder has been awfully tight. The beds here are horrible.”

How could she not laugh at the look of utter horror that crossed Severus’s quickly flushing face? Her stifled giggles, however, only turned his cheeks an even darker shade of crimson. Really, she shouldn’t subject him to such misery. Really.

She bit her lip and got down to business. “What do I need to do to perform Mentior Occlumency?”

“You need to divert me to a different memory, one that satisfies what I’m looking for.”

“But what are you looking for?”

He didn’t answer. Instead he launched another mental attack. She was back in the schoolyard surrounded by snickering children. But repeating old mistakes was an exercise in futility, and Aurora had had enough of wasting Severus’s oh so valuable time. She threw up her barricades and the memory was gone.

Severus shook his head. “I thought we had established that Pure Occlumency serves no purpose here.”

“What serves no purpose is repeating this exercise again and again without you actually giving me direction. Now, you said I should show you something you were looking for, but how am I to know what you’re looking for when you haven’t told me?”

“You’re to know what the Legilimens is looking for with instinct and deductive reasoning and all those other skills upon which a spy relies.”

Heavenly Holda, not this again. “Well, I’m a beginning spy. Why don’t you humor me until I work my super spy skills up to par?”

“It is really so difficult? I was looking for an embarrassing memory. You just need to protect that one and redirect me to a new one.”

Give him a new moment of humiliation to add to his ammunition? Sorry, she’d take Plan B, thank you very much. “Actually, if someone’s out to discover my most embarrassing moment, that one you just saw is hardly it. They can take that memory. You’ve already shown that it is meaningless to most wizards anyway. Even the Muggles have forgotten what eight-tracks are.”

“Fine, then direct me to that memory,” Severus answered shortly. His black eyes widened as he prepared to use Legilimency again.

Aurora didn’t allow him even the tendril of a thought. “No! We’re not doing anything until you tell me exactly how I’m supposed to direct this or any other thought.”

Severus rolled his eyes as if such explanations were beneath him. “Once I reach a thought you don’t wish me to see, you must stopper it.”

“Like with Pure Occlumency?”

“Similar, but don’t knock me out of your mind, only out of that thought. Then you must will me to see the memory you desire.”

Aurora nodded. She had heard better lectures, but this seemed as good as she was going to get from Severus Snape. She braced herself. “Alright. Let’s try.”

Severus must have been drawn to the memory he already knew was there because Aurora felt the familiar tug back to her old school. She was ready for him, though, and wouldn’t allow him back into the schoolyard, not yet anyway. He just needed a taste of another memory before she could send him back to the Muggle school. Nevertheless, it went against her better instinct to allow him to roam her mind. It was almost a relief when he settled on a memory. Almost.

She was a student again, but this time older and now at Beauxbatons. Her fourteen-year-old self was surrounded by a pack of gloss-lipped girls and a few strapping boys, all of whom were laughing and pointing at a buck-toothed girl who had fallen into a fountain in the palace gardens.

The adult Aurora tried to think of her previous memory, to will Severus back to it, but this one seemed stuck in her brain as a badly as the water plants entangled in the hair of the girl in the fountain.

The younger Aurora’s laughs blended with the shrieks of the pack of teenagers until a girl with sleek chestnut hair turned to her. “Look, Aurora, Gourgane finally decided to take a bath!”

The present-day Aurora tried to pull Severus back toward the memory of the Swiss girls laughing at her, but it was like heaving on an untethered rope.

The teenage Aurora faltered as the Beauxbatons-blue crowd turned its attention toward her, expecting a response to the chestnut-haired girl’s comment. Even Gourgane, who was slipping on some slime as she tried to pull herself out of the fountain focused on her with a pleading gaze. But the moment of indecision passed, and her younger self said, “Her hair certainly looks better. What are you using on it, Gourgane—eau de Pond Scum?”

As the last bit of dignity sank from Gourgane’s face, her feet slipped out from under her and she landed with another splash in the water.

The other students howled with laughter and then sauntered off in their reaffirmed bubble of popularity.

Not that it mattered much now, but Aurora finally got some traction with the memory she was supposed to be showing Severus. The fountain memory lost its hold now that the worst of it had passed, and she was able to pull her thoughts back to the scene in which she was the subject rather than the instigator of schoolyard taunts.

Unfortunately, Severus wasn’t much impressed by her last-minute redirection to Monika and Sabine. He broke their connection with a shake of his head. “Pitiful.”

She was not sure whether he was talking about her Occlumency or the behavior he had just witnessed in the memory.

“It appears you only disapprove of teasing when you are on the receiving end…as golden children so often do.”

Bastard. Had he forgotten that this memory was catalogued with the rest of her embarrassments? Still, she kept her composure and answered wryly, “And I’m sure you have no appreciation of situations where the tables are turned.” If that boy with his robes hanging over his head was the man before her, he had certainly managed to make other people pay for his embarrassments since then.

Severus glared at her. “We’re finished for today,” he said abruptly.

“So soon?” she asked, though the promise of the lesson’s end made her feel as if a serpent had loosened its constrictions around her chest.

“I’ll be back on Monday,” he said, halfway out the door. Before snapping it shut, he added, “I’ll expect better progress than you showed today.”