Mend Me

Thirty-One

Shortly after dark Severus walks slowly through the grounds, Albus by his side, the swish of their robes around their ankles the only sound to be heard. The night is bitterly cold for late February; the rain they had experienced earlier in the week had since turned to snow and froze the puddles of mud that littered the ground. A cold wind cuts through the valley, chilling them to the bone. Severus feels Albus shudder next to him as he pulls his robes tighter around his body.

"What are you doing with Potter, all these evenings you are closeted together?" Severus asks abruptly as they come to a stop before the Forbidden Forest.

"Why? You aren't trying to give him more detentions, Severus? The boy will soon have spent more time in detention than out." Albus sighs slightly as he looks up at Severus above his spectacles, his blue eyes tired and weary.

"He is his father over again-"

"In looks, perhaps, but his deepest nature is much more like his mother's. I spend time with Harry because I have things to discuss with him, information I must give him before it is too late." Albus looks out into the depths of the forest.

"Information." Severus repeats, a pit deep in his stomach. "You trust him, you do not trust me."

"It is not a question of trust. I have, as we both know, limited time. It is essential that I give the boy enough information for him to do what he needs to do."

"And why may I not have the information?" Severus implores, suddenly anxious as to the fact that Albus simply did not trust him as he once had. He had told his wife that he trusted him more than any living person, yet, here he is telling Potter all of his dirty little secrets, and leaving him in the dark, once more.

"I prefer not to have all of my secrets in one basket, particularly not a basket that spends so much time dangling on the arm of Lord Voldemort." Albus replies bitterly, cutting him like a knife.

"Which I do on your orders!" Severus sneers. "And what of my wife? Does that snide remark not also include her?"

"And you do it extremely well. Do not think that I do not understand the constant danger in which you both place yourselves, Severus. To give Voldemort what appears to be valuable information while withholding the essentials is a job I would entrust to nobody but you." Albus sighs, his head leans back as specks of snow glisten in the starry sky.

"Yet you confide in a boy who is incapable of Occlumency, whose magic is mediocre, and who has a distinct connection in to The Dark Lord's mind, instead of coming to my wife, whose mind is blocked to the three of us?"

"Voldemort fears that connection," Albus sighs before looking back at Severus. "Not so long ago he had one small taste of what truly sharing Harry's mind meant to him. It was a pain such as he never experienced. He will not try to possess Harry again, not in that way. I assure it."

"I do not understand." Severus raises a brow at Albus, his hands clasped behind his back.

"Lord Voldemort's soul, as maimed as it is, cannot bear close contact with a soul like Harry's, Like a tongue on frozen steel, like flesh in flame-"

"Souls? We are talking of minds!" Severus snaps, his patience growing thin. It is freezing, he is hungry, and his lips were pried from his wife's with Albus' knock on his bedroom door.

"In the case of Harry and Lord Voldemort's souls, to speak of one is to speak of the other." Albus explains as he glances around to ensure no one was near. "After you've killed me, Sev-"

"You refuse to tell me everything, yet you expect that small service of me!" Severus snarls, his nostrils flare, his lips pursed in rage. "You take a great deal for granted! Perhaps I've changed my mind!"