Catalyst

Chapter 36: Placeholder

Dumbledore sat across from Thenabar, both illuminated in the dim evening light. Dumbledore had taken to visiting the boy daily, something which was much easier as the summer lightened his workload. Unfortunately, Thenabar wasn't showing many signs of growing past Abathur's influence. He had become more and more withdrawn, barely acknowledging Dumbledore's presence. When he wasn't nose-deep in a runes textbook, he was staring out a window at the Forest. From what the house elves told him, Thenabar was barely touching his food. Even when Dumbledore entered the room, Thenabar barely gave him a glance before returning his stare to the window.

"Are you alright, Thenabar?" Dumbledore asked.

"Why wouldn't I be? I have access to adequate food and shelter. There are no immediate threats, aside from you. My stimulation is adequate. My mental state is..." Thenabar trailed off, before fixing his gaze even more pointedly on the trees.

"Your mental state is...?" Dumbledore prompted.

"None of your concern, is it?"

"I'd have to disagree. As the headmaster, I am responsible for the wellbeing of my students," Dumbledore said, smiling softly. "Even if they don't particularly want my help."

"Oh, yes, that was quite obvious. The dementors, deadly tournament, schoolwide death threats, deranged criminal, and deceased troll all just scream safety and wellbeing, don't they?" Thenabar shot back, finally turning himself to gaze at Dumbledore. "Your concern for them is extremely obvious. Hell, why do you even care that Aba-that we killed Snape?"

"Why wouldn't I care?"

Thenabar took a deep breath. "He was an incompetent teacher, his combat ability was obviously lacking, he wouldn't have known the difference between an element and a compound if you shoved both in his face, his behavior and physical traits would have degraded the human race were they perpetuated in any form, not to mention-"

"Did he have a family?" Dumbledore interjected.

"I...don't know," Thenabar said.

"What was his favorite color? How did he brew Veritaserum? What experiences did he have in school? What memories did he cherish?" Dumbledore asked.

Thenabars brow furrowed. "Why does any of that matter?"

"Ah, forgive my ramblings. I am merely trying to make the point that Severus, despite his faults, still had those things that made him unique, and that tied him into the world. When he died, those were all lost. Everyone has their hidden depths, and the loss of all of that can be considered nothing less than a tragedy, even more so when one is unaware of all they have lost."

Thenabar didn't respond. His gaze had returned to the Forest, and it looked like it would be staying there. But when Dumbledore looked closely, he could see a frown on the boys face. Perhaps he was getting through to Thenabar after all.

(Transition)

Abathur's first challenge was to make sense of the essence that had been collected from the summoner. Whatever process had dumped the essence into terran flesh had left it scrambled and all but incoherent, and the random chunks of human essence all over the sequence weren't helping matters. Abathur had to clone the sample thousands of times over before he had enough. From there, he proceeded to purify the essence, filtering out the human pollution bit by bit. After that, he was left with an unorganized mess of random fragments of zerg strains. Upon a cursory assessment, Abathur could see the strands of a dozen different species all clumped into one chaotic heap, possibly with more difficulty hidden beneath the mess.

The majority of the clump was made up of generic traits: genes that allowed Zerg to digest creep, proteins that created structures to grip creep and aid movement, various cellular structures that permitted burrowing, and other traits that were present in almost every strain. Abathur cloned individual copies of each traits and stored them separately from the rest. Most, he had reinvented on his own some time ago, but it couldn't hurt to study and reintegrate the originals.