A Dark Time For The Light

70

The winter continued apace. There was a deep blanket of snow that fell over a period of four days, that made the pavements deep with brown churned up ice and the streets ankle deep in evil brown slush. Snow in cities was just so ugly. But in the parks the kids loved it and the odd exuberant snowball was thrown in the street and life continued.

Hermione had yet another client as her reputation for accuracy spread. Ginny was hiked up the scale a bit, becoming senior instead of junior sales agent. Harry, Dean and Seamus had a week off at the end of February, that coincided with Draco’s next break. Terry took a few days off to be with his lover. Colin was highly excited at the bookings he was looking forward to at Easter and Remus came out of hospital. All were on tenterhooks as he went through his first change since the operation, which, with his beloved and Poppy at his side, passed without a hitch. He was left more exhausted than usual and his white blood cell count was lower than it should have been. His Mundane doctor gave him a new drug to help.

The classes were, by and large, going well. One or two, having divined the purpose of the training, decided to dip out. Hermione kept their details on the database for better times, then cast a gentle obliviate as they left. Not everyone was cut out to be a warrior. Hermione simply contacted the next people on the waiting list. She had thought about charging for the lessons, but as a Hogwarts education was free, she simply asked for donations to be placed in an honesty box by the door. The money flowed in, with those who had found a wand to suit donating the most.

Nearly all of the wands had gone. Some of the newcomers had melted away when there wasn’t a wand available for them to use, ideal or not. Partway through the term, Hermione was running angry fingers through her hair, “We’re losing valuable people, because we have no weapon for them, I mean no wand. We need more to choose from”, she paced agitatedly at the end of a class. Alice collected the wands at the door. None of the students was allowed to remove their new wands at the door and the wards Hermione had laid made sure of this. It wouldn’t do to have some over-enthusiastic students running home and practicing in the garden and bringing the attention of Death-Eaters.

Severus divided his pile of essays and dumped half into his lover’s lap with a biro, “Look these over, would you, love. These are the Bunker students. See how keen they are, and they are finding good sources on the Internet. I think we need to get a computer in here. We need to check these out, could even turn out to be more of our own”. The teachers were working their students hard. They mostly had jobs and families, busy lives, but still found the time to do their homework with scant resources, some having to resort to waiting in queues at the local library but it was all handed in on time with no excuses. Severus was really loving teaching adults, He felt he had finally found his calling.

Remus had to agree as he read the essays, that showed they got the principles behind spell-casting. One even turned in an excellent essay on thje Crucio curse versus the taser that the police used to subdue escaping criminals, summing up, “Less damage, more humane”. Remus’ eyes widened in horror as he imagined such an implement. Another turned in an incredible inner debate between shielding charms which made one intrinsically insensitive to touch could, if it had to be used a lot in defensive Magic, ruin a marriage. Remus was stunned.

“How can we mark these?”, he asked. Severus perched on the arm of the sofa wherein his lover was ensconced, threaded an arm around him and sank kisses into his hair, “D’you know, love, I haven’t a clue. Some of these essays have been deeply thought about. Some of these folk have been trying to get a Magical education since Hogwarts, erm, didn’t take them on as they’d hoped, but have somehow still picked up bits and pieces. It’s amazing”. Remus grinned as he budged up and let his beloved spread out beside him on the couch. Severus kicked off his shoes, toed off his socks and wiggled his toes. Remus laughed as he threaded his hand into that amazing thick hair, then pulled Sev down to him for a deep kiss, the rest of the world telescoping away until it was just the two of them.

Severus turned them until his was Wolf on top. Then bit his ear delicately and hissed, “Fuck me, my sweet Wolfie, fuck me hard”, and Remus slowly stripped him nd his lover and complied, opening, preparing, entering, fucking, coming, then collapsed over his lover’s back, breathing hard and fast into his ear, his beloved a sticky mess beneath him.

Because Alice worked next door, she was able to take most of the classes on offer, and did, slipping a tenner into the box as she left each one after assisting whichever teacher to tidy up the motley selection of objects used to be Summoned or Transfigured. One day she found herself chatting to Minerva after a superb class on the principles behind Transfiguration. “That was truly exciting. Minerva, isn’t it?” The woman held out her hand, “Alice. Harry’s told me lots about you. You were his head of House, were you not?”. The older woman looked a little misty, then took the hand offered, “Minerva, my dear, and I believe you are the one responsible for planning the forays into Diagon Alley, am I right?”. The other woman blushed slightly, “Well, I helped out and made sure I wore a microphone so everything I heard could be heard by my back-up”. The elder’s brow quirked, “Using Mug-Mundane technology? And it worked?. In Magical territory?. I must confess to being surprised. I was under the impression that radios and the like would not work around Magical spaces. I always longed to bring my transistor radio to School but was always told that I would not receive signals so refrained from doing so. Perhaps it was the wards Albus established after he became headmaster that prevented this, I’m not sure”, her voice tailed away.

Alice offered her tea in her own Bunker and Minerva accepted. She was glad to be meeting people nearer her own age. She quizzed her on life at Hogwarts. “Minerva, would you have taught me?”. The older woman smiled, “No, I didn’t go back to teaching until I was widowed in my mid forties. If you don’t mind me asking, which year should you have started at school?”. Alice told her, “Then Albus would have been your headmaster and both Professors Flitwick and Sinistra would have been your teachers too. I believe that Rosalba has agreed to a short stint teaching here in the summer, you may meet her then”. They parted amiably as Alice saw Minerva into her taxi.

She was thoughtful as she locked the Bunker for the night and headed home. Why were mobile phone signals able to penetrate the wards when radio signals purportedly could not. Surely radio was stronger, she couldn’t remember. One for Tony when she got home, only she forgot as she had a shudderingly close call with a speeding van and had to stop for a moment to shake before finishing her journey.

Severus swept into the bunker as if he were wearing robes and handed out the essays. He winked at Alice as he placed hers in front of her. An A+. She beamed. He moved to the front of the class. “This evening, Ladies and Gentlemen, we will begin to build our own personal defences. Tonight you will begin to learn the principles behind Occlumency or the art of keeping a determined Legilimens out of your mind. A Legilimens can ruthlessly sort through the contents of your mind and memories in a mili-second and it is one of his most powerful weapons. If you are to play a useful part in this war, then you have to learn to keep him out of your heads. This will be a brutal lesson on your minds and I suggest any of you with a weak constitution or harbouring dread secrets leave now”.

A couple of people did actually leave, looking extremely nervous, one handed her wand in at the door. They were sealed back in again. Severus turned to his class and scrutinised each in turn for a moment, then asked Alice to step to the front. She rolled her eyes and cautiously came forward. “Now, this woman, although untrained is actually the strongest Legilimens I have ever met. Alice, if you could try and read someone for me, if you don’t mind”. She winced as she sat down facing the class. She let their faces fade to a blur in her vision and opened her mind wide, probing and searching. All at once thousands of jumbled images rolled around in her mind, the bald guy at the back of the class lusted after his secretary who didn’t return his feelings, the mousy woman in the centre worried that her brother may be abusing his children, the young blond guy on the left was trying to convince himself he was straight, the frowsy brunette woman to her right was cheating on her husband with a guy half her age. The images just piled up until her eyes rolled back in her head and she keeled over sideways in a dead faint.

She came round to an arm beneath her head and a hand gently patting her face. Severus. She started and tried to sit up on her own but felt woozy still and settled her head back into Severus’ arm, “What the hell happened?”, she asked. “I don’t know”, he murmured, “It looked like you were opening your mind, then you were overwhelmed and then passed out”. He helped her into a sitting position. She raised her knees and gingerly placed her elbows on them and raked her hands through her hair. “I heard them all, Sev. You included”, she whispered. “I don’t understand”, he muttered softly. She smiled shakily, “I thought we were becoming friends, Sev, it’s not a nice way to find out that your new friend has cancer and that your other new friend hasn’t told you. I could relate many secrets of this group right now. It was so easy. It was the fact of so many that made me black out. It was like, in a single instant I could read the entire room”.

She ventured shyly, “I saw him in your mind, then your love and concern for Remus, then a strange thing in your teens being hung upside down and showing your underwear, then you proposing to Remus. I’m sorry, I really didn’t try to pry, I just opened up and let it come to me”.

Severus was equally shocked and appalled. “Alice, I have been practicing these defences for years and I snapped them in place as soon as I felt you touch my mind. I have defended myself against him in this manner for many years”, he hesitated, then took a deep breath, “But you just ripped through it like so much cobweb”. He looked out as his class to see them equally discombobulated.

He cautiously and with her permission cast a Legilimens back at her only to feel her mind shut like a steel trap with only the faintest mutterings as it closed, nothing to interpret or hold on to. He had tested her and she was strong. Stronger than him. This thought shook him to his core. He rose and helped Alice to her feet. She sat out the reat of the lesson, preferring to observe from the sidelines.

Severus stormed into the flat, the phone at his ear, “But Harry, she’s stronger tham him. Merlin!!, she sifted through my mind like so much flour. All the stuff I’ve kept hidden, and I mean really hidden, she just dug out. Fuck!, she’s dangerous. She really scared me tonight”. Harry and Draco were round in a matter of minutes, all four men putting their heads together. Harry related the story of the gun and the first meeting of Alice and the Kilmarnock crew. Then Severus related in detail his evening. “She held nothing back. It made her pass out, but she read everyone in that room tonight including stuff I’ve kept locked behind my shield wall forever. It was the first time she’s ever tried her limits and it scared the bejesus out of me, not to mention everyone else”. They all fell silent.

What was amongst them? Perhaps the Wizarding world’s greatest weapon after Harry himself? Only time would tell. Harry noticed Remus start to melt against his lover and the boys took their leave, kissing their hosts and heading home. Severus got them both to bed and held his beloved Wolf. “What does all this mean, Wolfie? I’ll admit, she’s a bit damn scary, Alastor admitted she was his most difficult dowse to date. Aaah what does it all mean?”. A light snore was his only reply. He sank his face into Remus’ hair and he kissed his scalp and inhaled his lover’s essence until sleep took him.