"Maybe not, but you did clear Snape," Ron reminded him.
Harry gave a glum nod, unable to find any real comfort in that fact, not when the memory of that iron rod of a penis ripping into his, no, into Carl's unprepared body was so real in his mind.
"Are you ready to go back to the Headmistress' now?" Ron asked.
All Harry really wanted to do was crawl into his bed and never set foot out of it again, but he managed another nod, and then Ron was helping him to his feet.
To his relief, they walked the two stories up to the Headmistress' office. Harry knew he wasn't up to another floo trip right now. It was strangely calming to walk along the familiar corridors with Ron by his side. The slowly moving staircases and garrulous portraits all helped ground him, distancing him from Carl's memory of the barn.
Minerva, Hermione, and the two Aurors were all clustered together at the end of the long table furthest from Snape in the Headmistress' back room when they arrived. Everyone but Snape jumped to their feet as they entered.
A shiver passed through Harry as he took in the potion master's dark-garbed figure. Carl's memories, both true and implanted, were still too much with him. He could feel those yellow-stained fingers touching his, no, touching Carl's body. Just thinking about it made him shudder with revulsion.
"Well?" Minerva asked, sounding as tense and worn out as Harry felt.
She called Harry's attention away from the hypno session, returning him to the here and now.
Harry didn't even know how to begin to relate what he'd seen. It had been easy to tell Ron when they were alone in the hall, but all those eyes looking at him stopped him cold.
Ron spared him the trial of having to repeat the tale again, earning Harry's eternal gratitude as he supplied the grim details.
A long, shocked silence followed before anyone dared speak.
"Oh, that poor boy," Hermione finally whispered, her face white as a corpse.
"Yes, that monster made Voldemort look benevolent," Harry said, still unable to get past the inhuman coldness of their student's rape. "He wasn't even after the boy personally. It was all just part of his plot to incriminate Professor Snape. Raping Carl was simply a means to an end."
"But how are we going to prove any of this to Chief Lawrence?" Martin finally asked, running a hand through his sandy curls.
"And, more importantly, how are we going to hunt down the actual villain if Potter doesn't know who he is?" McGregor questioned.
"You didn't recognize him at all, Harry?" Hermione asked.
Harry shook his head.
"Maybe we could have someone sketch the man's features like Muggle detectives do?" Hermione suggested.
"There is another way," a deep voice interrupted from the far end of the table.
It was clear everyone had forgotten about Snape.
"Yes, Severus?" Minerva encouraged.
"Do you still have that pensieve of Professor Dumbledore's? Potter could extract what he learned from the boy. Chief Lawrence could then share the memory itself. Also, it's possible that someone else in this room might recognize the suspect. From the man's age, it's possible that either Minerva or I might have knowledge of him," Snape said.
"What do you think, Harry?" Ron asked.
"It makes sense, and, it would certainly convince Chief Lawrence of Professor Snape's innocence, only . . . ."
"Only?" Ron prodded.
Harry looked at the expectant faces turned his way. Sometimes it seemed he had spent his entire life with everyone looking to him for direction. Taking a deep breath, he explained the fact that no one in the room other than Snape would probably have considered. "If we use the pensieve, whoever looks into it will be taking Carl's memories of the brutal rape he suffered into themselves. While it might be helpful for the Aurors here to have as much detail on their suspect as possible, I'm not certain that it would be to everyone's benefit to be exposed to what Carl endured."
"I appreciate your concern, but Severus is right, Harry, I might recognize the man," Minerva said, straightening in her chair.
Everyone's gaze turned to Hermione. "I won't be the only one who doesn't look. I might know him."
Her tone made it clear that Hermione thought she had as much a chance of doing that as Harry did, but as ever, she had the heart of a lion. Recognizing the stubborn set of her jaw, Harry realized how useless further argument would be. His very soul feeling sore, he nodded. "All right, then. Where's the pensieve?"
"Where it's always been – in the top shelf of that cabinet across the room," Minerva replied, pointing out the cabinet Harry recalled from his first, unofficial introduction to the pensieve during his schooldays.
"I'll get it," Hermione offered, and quickly fetched the stone bowl.
Harry approached the dish, pausing as a minor detail presented itself. "I've never used a pensieve before." He looked to Snape. "How do I get the thoughts in there?"
Yesterday Snape would have given him a sneer and made some cutting comment about his ignorance, but this evening, Snape simply crossed to stand beside Harry and the pensieve.
"Come closer to the pensieve. Picture the thoughts you want to transfer in a golden bubble. Now, bring your wand to your temple and picture them running from your brain onto the wand tip. Stick your wand down into the dish," Snape instructed in that deep, cultured voice of his.
Something tensed inside Harry at Snape's proximity and he found himself unable to take a single step closer to him as his insides clenched tight with dread. The man looked so tall and sinister as he stood there beside the table with his homely face all frown lines and his black robes draping him like a dementor's shroud.
"What is it, Harry? Are you all right?" Hermione asked as he all but froze with terror. She moved closer to him and put a hand on his back.
"I . . . ." Shaken, he stared into her worried brown eyes, trying to understand what the hell was wrong with him now. His reaction to Snape was nearly a visceral one. Looking at that dark figure, all he wanted to do was turn tail and run. Just thinking about stepping closer to Snape had brought a sheen of cold sweat to his skin. His stomach was twisted in so tight a knot he was afraid he'd lose that beer he'd had earlier. And, for the life of him, he couldn't understand why the mere thought of getting within touching distance of Snape –
Comprehension hit the same way the fear had. Touching distance. Of course. This wasn't his reaction he was feeling, but a holdover from his contact with Carl. On a mental level, he knew that Snape hadn't molested their student, but he'd lived through that false illusion and the event was still too real to him. He was almost afraid of Snape, in a way he'd never feared the man before.
"Potter?" Snape asked, watching him with those unnervingly impenetrable eyes.
"I'm okay," Harry assured them all, though he wasn't sure himself. Giving Hermione's arm a pat, he took a deep breath, stepped closer to the pensieve, and rested his wand against his right temple as instructed. "What now?"
"You need to concentrate on the thought you wish to isolate," Snape instructed. "Picture it in a golden bubble. Now, imagine that bubble running from your brain to your spine, into your wand, and then move your wand into the pensieve."
Closing his eyes, Harry did as directed. It was difficult to isolate the entire hypno session he'd spent with Carl into a single thought, but eventually he managed it. Actually, he was relieved to wall that depravity off from the rest of his memories. It was fully as bad as his night terrors; only, this had been real – to poor Carl, if not himself.
"Are you concentrating, Potter?" Snape's irritated voice demanded.
Damn. How did the man always know?
"Are you reading my thoughts?" Harry snapped.
"Hardly. Anyone who has ever had the misfortune of trying to teach you can recognize the vacuous expression you get when you're not paying attention. This is important. Focus!" Snape snapped.
"I'm trying," Harry defended.
"Do not try, Mr. Potter. Do," Snape commanded.
Mister. Not Professor.. The bastard was making him feel like a first year again.
It was only as Harry angrily focused on the task at hand that he recognized how effective a tactic Snape's use of the word Mister had been. Within a heartbeat, he had the session with Carl encapsulated in an imaginary golden bubble. The instant he imagined that bubble leaving his mind to run down his wand and into the pensieve, he felt the terrible burden of what he'd learned from Carl lift from his mind and heart.
Stunned, Harry stared down at the shimmering light in the bottom of what had previously been an empty bowl. "What just happened? Is it done?"
"What do you mean 'is it done'?" McGregor asked.
Both Ron and Hermione moved closer to him again. Hermione took hold of his arm while Ron laid an encouraging hand on his back.
"Potter," Snape snapped again, his tone instantly gaining Harry's full attention, "what do you remember of your interview with Mr. Westfield this afternoon?"
The question confused him at first, but then he recognized that Snape was asking it to test the boundaries of his memories.
"Ron and I went to see Carl in hospital," Harry answered. "I used Legilimency to touch his mind to find out what really happened to him this afternoon and . . . and I don't remember anything else. Except whatever he showed me must have been bad because we were both very upset afterwards when we came back to ourselves. I know what happened to Carl from what Ron told you all when we returned, but I don't remember getting the images from Carl's mind."
Snape nodded. "It worked. His memory is in the pensieve. Who'd like to go first?"
Hardly surprising, there was no rush for the pensieve. After an uncomfortable pause, Ron said, "I'm in charge of the investigation. I should be first."
Taking a deep breath, Ron removed his wand from his pocket and stuck it deep into the pensieve. He stood frozen over the basin, with his eyes closed. The lights from the thoughts within the pensieve were reflecting off his freckled face. Harry watched the blood drain by slow degrees from Ron's skin as he absorbed whatever was in the memories. Finally, Ron pulled back with a gasp. "The bloody bastard!"
"Did you recognize him, Ron?" Hermione asked.
Ron shook his head, his face still white as chalk, his lips a tight line.
McGregor went next, with similar results, and then Martin. Martin not only blanched at whatever he saw, as soon as he withdrew his wand from the pensieve, he clapped his hand to his mouth and rushed off to the loo on the other side of the room. He was in such a hurry that he didn't even have time to close the door behind him. As the sounds of vomiting filled the room, everyone shifted uncomfortably.
"I'll go next," Hermione offered; although her face was already nearly green.
"No, as Headmistress, I should be next," Minerva protested.
Harry knew it was a totally sexist reaction and that both women present would skin him alive for feeling this way, but he really didn't want either Minerva or Hermione subjected to whatever had happened to Carl. But he'd already lost that particular argument.
To his surprise, Snape stepped in front of Minerva as she moved towards the pensieve. "Might I have the next try?"
"As Headmistress I should really -" Minerva began.
Snape cut her off with his usual poor manners; however, for the first time Harry suspected there was something other than rudeness motivating him. "We both know that there is a far greater chance of my recognizing the suspect. I was, after all, the person he framed. It's only reasonable that I should be next."
Minerva looked as though she might argue the issue, but then her better sense seemed to prevail. "If you insist, Severus."
"I do." Without another word, Snape stepped up to the pensieve, closed his eyes, and dipped his wand down into the memories trapped there.
Perhaps it was a testament to the trials Snape had endured as Albus' spy or perhaps it was simply due to the man's lack of humanity, but absolutely nothing showed on his face. Because he'd removed them totally from his mind, Harry didn't remember precisely what memories he'd placed in the pensieve, but he did know that it involved the debunking of Westfield's Veritaserum testimony, which meant that at least some of the memories down there should involve Snape personally. Yet, for all the reaction Snape gave as he absorbed those memories, he might have been watching a cloud move across the sky on an otherwise clear summer day.
Finally, the Potions master pulled his wand out of the shimmering light in the bowl, stepped back, and opened his eyes.
Harry caught the fleeting flash of some emotion in those nearly black eyes, but it was quickly suppressed.
"Did you recognize him, Professor?" Ron asked as soon as Snape stepped away.
Harry wouldn't have been surprised by a negative answer – after all, Snape was as infamous as he himself was famous. There were scores of Death Eater supporters and family members whom Snape would never have met who would be more than happy to see Severus Snape vivisected – but when Snape gave a slow nod, Harry supposed that it made sense that Snape would recognize the man who'd gone to such lengths to frame him.
"Yes," Snape answered.
When that single word seemed to be all Snape was going to say, McGregor sarcastically asked, "Would you mind sharing his identity with the rest of us?"
Snape turned to look at Ron. "His name is Cascius Burke."
"Never heard of him," Ron said. "I don't remember his name among those of the few Death Eaters still at large, or even remember hearing about him at the trials."
"No, you wouldn't have. He left the Death Eaters long before Voldemort became a true threat," Snape replied.
"Oh," Ron said while Hermione simultaneously reprimanded, "Not all villains were Death Eaters, Ron."
