Snape reached down and placed Harry's holly wand into the robe pocket where Harry always carried it. Stepping back to his seat at the end of the ornately carved table, Snape removed his own wand from his pocket and held it out to McGregor on his open palm.
Moving as though he expected Avada Kedavra to be used against him at any moment, McGregor took the few steps necessary to do his job.
Once his wand was in the Auror's hand, Snape softly said to McGregor, "I realize that I'm in no position to ask for favours, but I respectfully request that you not hold Professor Potter's actions against him. We fought together in the war. Old loyalties are difficult to forget."
Those words hit Harry like Cruciatus. All he wanted to do was scream in frustration. He'd failed. And Snape was going to end up in Azkaban because he couldn't make this right.
As the potion master's wand was taken from him, Harry could clearly see the fear Snape was holding in check, could sense how close his former teacher was to losing his cool as well. He knew how disastrous it was every time Snape lost his temper, so Harry did his best to tone down his own anger and get his emotions back under control.
The sleepless night and exhausting labours of the day weren't making it easy, though. His emotions were all too close to the surface for his comfort. Standing frozen like an ice sculpture, for fear of what he'd do if he moved, Harry tried to work through the wild feelings coursing through him. He felt like Ron or Hermione were under attack. He was as pushed to his limits as he'd been that awful day when Voldemort had finally made his move on Hogwarts, and he'd learned firsthand why full-grown wizards feared to utter the Dark Lord's name aloud. The turbulent emotions churning through him and the power they called up weren't something he could control; they were something to be unleashed.
But for all their sakes, Harry couldn't unleash them. He had to control himself. For Snape's sake, he had to hold them together and get them through this, the same way Snape had held them together at the final battle once Voldemort had entered his mind.
Belatedly, Harry recognized that Snape was right. Cursing two Aurors wasn't the way to handle this.
Still uncertain as to what course to take, Harry took a deep breath and waited for the rest of the room to defuse.
Snape's actions seemed to have totally derailed the Aurors. Both McGregor and Martin turned to Ron for direction.
Ron looked as though he were about to be sick. He was obviously as upset by the idea of condemning Snape to Azkaban as Harry was himself. After another of those eternal, nerve-wracking pauses, Ron seemed to deflate. "I can't do this. There has to be another way." His best friend's troubled gaze turned where it always did any time the world got the best of him. "Hermione? Any ideas?"
Hermione ran a hand over her hair, which was beginning to escape from its braid. "The only way you can get around having to take him in is to prove beyond a doubt that Professor Snape is innocent and determine who the guilty party is."
"How do we do that when the victim believes Snape attacked him?" Ron asked, rubbing his worried face. Scarlet had never been his colour and his Auror robes were making him look particularly pasty at the moment.
"I don't know, Ron. The Veritaserum testimony is fairly damning. It's a pity we can't just read Professor Snape's mind to prove his innocence, but that's a Dark Art that hasn't been taught in more than two centuries."
"What is?" Ron looked totally perplexed, with reason. Few wizards even knew that the mental disciplines Albus Dumbledore had forced Snape to teach him in fifth year were more than legend. Like mage fire, they were abilities that had been intentionally forgotten throughout the ages.
Beginning to see a way through this, Harry met Snape's eyes.
Snape's emphatic "No," was voiced at the same instant Hermione answered Ron's question with, "Legilimency."
"No to what, Severus?" Minerva asked.
"It's not called Legilimency?" Ron questioned, massacring the Latin pronunciation as badly as ever. Their speaking at cross-purposes would almost have been funny had the situation not been so serious.
"That's what it's called," Hermione insisted. "I read three books that referred to it. None contained instructions on how to work the spell, but I remember its name."
"It's not a spell," Harry softly corrected, his crazed emotions calming as a plan formed in his mind. "It's a discipline, like Muggle yoga. It combines both a wizard's mental and magical abilities, enabling him to perform a type of telepathy. And Legilimency has been taught in the last two centuries. Professor Dumbledore insisted that I learn it."
Harry carefully refrained from mentioning who'd taught him the skills.
"What?" Hermione yelped. "Professor Dumbledore had you taught a forbidden Dark Art?"
Harry hadn't known it was forbidden. "We needed it in the fight against Voldemort. It helped me keep him out of my dreams in fifth year."
Harry held his breath, praying that Minerva wouldn't volunteer the identity of the only teacher he'd had private sessions with that horrible year, but although Minerva's worried blue gaze darted to Snape, she didn't say anything.
"Does anyone else find this awfully convenient?" McGregor asked. "Just when we need a mind reader, the only person here convinced of the suspect's innocence suddenly remembers that he's a telepath."
"I didn't suddenly remember. It's a forbidden art, not one I care to talk about or use. It was taught to me for a very specific purpose and I haven't employed it since," Harry replied.
"You expect us to believe that you can read minds, but choose not to?" McGregor challenged.
Furious again, Harry met those malicious brown eyes. "I don't give a –" recalling Minerva's presence, he toned his response down to, ". . . damn what you believe. Unlike your accusations against Professor Snape, my claim can be backed by empirical evidence."
"What evidence?" McGregor shot back.
"With your permission, I'd be more than happy to prove my abilities," Harry suggested.
"Sure, prove away. What am I thinking right now?" McGregor demanded.
It had been so long since he'd used these arts that Harry wasn't even certain he could still do it. He looked into those flinty brown eyes, then calmed and cleared his mind as much as he could. It was shocking how quickly he remembered. He reached out from inside his own head and sank past McGregor's feeble mental guards.
Normally, it was disconcerting to enter another person's mind. The barrage of thoughts and emotions was always confusing, making it difficult to find anything specific. But McGregor was concentrating so hard on his test that Harry didn't even have to look for the answer. The Auror was practically shouting it at him. Once he got a clear view of the X-rated scene McGregor was projecting at him, Harry immediately pulled back from the images that filled his thoughts. "Choose something I can say in front of the Headmistress, please."
McGregor paled. "You could have guessed that. What am I thinking now?"
Harry made another slight mental probe into the Auror's thoughts. Once again, the answer was right there on the surface. Harry picked the answer up without even having to search. "You had a crup named Homer when you were six. She was eaten by a –"
"Merlin's beard, there's no way he could know that," McGregor whispered, taking an instinctive step back.
"Well, that seems sufficient proof of Harry's abilities," Hermione said, her tone relaying her shock.
McGregor nodded. "Okay, he can do what he claims he can, but -"
"What now?" Harry demanded.
McGregor looked to Ron. "How can we be sure that what he tells us is the truth? He's obviously Snape's friend . . . ."
Hermione, Ron, and Minerva all simultaneously made some type of protest along the lines of, "Harry/Professor Potter wouldn't lie."
Harry stared at McGregor until the man shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. Only then did he explain, "I'm not going to lie to protect a monster. You've got the wrong man. The only way we're going to find the guilty one is to prove Professor Snape's innocence."
"And if you look into his mind and find he's guilty?" McGregor asked.
"I'll take him to Azkaban myself," Harry promised. Only at that moment did he realize just how much he was banking on his faith in the integrity of a man he didn't even like.
At that point Ron seemed to remember that he was in charge of the investigation. "Go ahead, Harry."
"Am I to have no say in this? It is, after all, my mind that is about to be plundered," Snape said from the far end of the table.
All eyes once again turned Snape's way.
As ever, Snape presented a sinister image with his completely black garb and sour expression. If Harry didn't know better, he'd swear the man looked guilty as hell. It was little wonder McGregor was as suspicious.
But from his position at the other end of the table, Harry could see how tense Snape was. Snape sat almost at attention, his spine stiff as his straight-backed chair. Beneath the wings of his severe hair, he was white-lipped with either fear or fury. Harry couldn't tell which. But he knew he was the only one in the room who could tell how upset Snape was; to the rest of the world, the Potions master would probably seem his usual unpleasant, unflappable self. In fact, given his present reluctance to have his mind probed, Snape would probably seem guilty as hell to everyone.
But Harry knew the cause of Snape's hesitation to embrace the one chance he had at retaining his freedom. Feeling his own cheeks heat with shame, he remembered sticking his wand into a shimmering bowl of light and viewing sensitive events that were never meant for his eyes.
Clearing his throat, Harry took a step closer to Snape. "I'm not fifteen anymore, sir. I've learned to respect boundaries."
Harry had rarely seen indecision in those obsidian eyes, and therefore had difficulty recognizing it.
When Snape said nothing, Harry continued, "It's up to you. I won't do anything without your permission, but . . . if we don't confirm your innocence, Ron will have no choice. He'll have to arrest you."
"So, it's either you or the dementors violating my mind – is that the choice?" Snape sneered.
Defeat was another thing Harry had never before seen in this arrogant man.
"I'm afraid so. But it is your choice," Harry said.
That it was such a difficult decision to make startled Harry. The idea that anyone would actually have to choose between him and a dementor hurt. Were he in Snape's shoes, he would have jumped at any chance to prove his innocence.
Or would he, if he were Snape? Were their situations reversed, Harry wouldn't hesitate to allow Snape to probe his mind, for Snape had done it repeatedly during their Legilimency and Occlumency lessons and he trusted Snape's proven integrity, but he was painfully aware that his teacher had had a radically different experience during those lessons than he'd had. Snape hadn't been dealing with an honourable man, but a headstrong, mistrustful teenager who'd violated his privacy and trust in the worst way imaginable. In retrospect, Harry couldn't blame Snape for his reluctance.
"Only a guilty man would refuse the chance to prove himself," McGregor commented, a malicious, triumphant glow lighting his Goyle-like face.
Harry hated him at that moment.
"Or someone who's been victimized by these abilities," Harry snapped back, tired of the Auror's prejudice.
"What do you mean?" McGregor asked.
Everyone knew that Snape had spied for Albus Dumbledore. Was the man an utter moron? But, no, looking at McGregor, Harry realized that the Auror was a full five years his junior. Not stupid, just young, and dedicated. McGregor would have only known of Voldemort through hearsay, after the Dark Lord had been conquered. McGregor would have had no concept of the risks Dumbledore's most trusted agent had taken by walking right into their enemy's court. Doubtless, all McGregor could see was the victimized child up in the infirmary. The Auror was right in that the child needed justice, but justice meant finding the guilty party, not arresting the most convenient suspect.
"Voldemort knew how to use Legilimency. Why do you think Professor Dumbledore had us learn how to defend against it? Every time Professor Dumbledore asked him to, Professor Snape walked alone into that serpent's nest, and every time he did, he had to hide what he was from the Dark Lord, either by placing his thoughts in a pensieve before leaving Hogwarts or by taking a chance and concealing them through his own mental disciplines. You've never had anyone digging through your mind for a secret, McGregor. Be grateful for that. Professor Snape has endured that, and more," Harry explained.
Harry looked back at Snape in time to catch a fleeting expression in his eyes. It was quickly concealed, but Harry saw his surprise.
"Have you decided?" Harry asked Snape, and then threw the potion master's own words back at him. "Will it be me or the dementors?"
The grimace that twisted that homely face was classic Snape as the older wizard spat, "You, I suppose. Get on with it before I change my mind."
Trying to block out his awareness of the other people in the room, Harry stepped up to Snape's chair, as reluctant to read Snape's thoughts as Snape was to have them read. It didn't help that Snape looked like he was braced for a a hostile assault. Muscles tensed, Snape was perched on the end of his seat as if he were ready to flee. Stepping close, Harry could see a glowing sheen of sweat breaking out on the brow visible between the dangling black hair. He could hear how rapidly his former teacher was breathing.
Harry didn't waste any time. He once again cleared his own thoughts, dropped his mental guards, and reached out from the inside as this man had taught him to do years ago.
The sensation was akin to leaving his body behind. For an instant he was nowhere, then he became physically aware again. It was disconcerting to feel the differences between Snape's body and his own: the long hair veiling most of his face, the press of Snape's layered, heavy dark clothes against his skin. The most noticeable difference was the muscular tension; the stiffness in all parts of this body that was completely alien to Harry. It almost felt like Snape were holding himself at attention.
