Chapter 14
"The Tapestry"
"I never thought I’d come to this place, you know."
"What place is that?"
"Being led into a tree that’s holding worlds on its branches by Godric Gryffindor, after leaving a very cranky Salazar Slytherin behind, with a Potions Master on my arm."
"Yes, well."
The path had not grown any cleaner–if anything, it was harder to tread than before. Some time had passed since they left Salazar sitting on the stump to await their return, his shaggy head bowed as he meticulously cleaned his lovers knife. They hiked through what used to be a lovely walkway, but was now scraggly and overgrown with brush.
When they reached a fork in the road, three separate paths branched off from the one they were on, and Godric took the far left one.
Once, as they passed a very high root, Severus stroked the wood in passing, and the jolt of magic nearly made his hair stand on end. The tree wasalive, shivering with power–it made his entire body tingle as his core of magical energy shivered in delight. He kept his hands to himself after that.
They moved through the forest easily as Godric seemed to know just where he was going, and they only stopped twice, once to help Severus get his long hair untangled from a bit of vine, and another to discard their jumpers. Harry wore a t-shirt underneath, and Severus a shirt, which was much more comfortable to move in.
He’d forgotten he’d pinned the tyro pin to his shirt until high points of color touched Harry’s cheeks. They did not speak of it.
It was not difficult to find the entrance to roots. A cheerful trickle of water, too small to be called a stream and too large to be called a puddle dribbled into the entrance and disappeared down into the dark, cavernous black. It was almost like a cave made of wood, with shafts of light breaking through where the wood was thin, and it wasn’t at all frightening to take Harry’s hand tighter in his and step in.
The tunnel was deep, the ceiling high and the ground underfoot smooth, worn clean by the water that flowed around their bare feet. It was obviously leading to an underground pool, deep in the ground. Godric conjured a small blue flame that hung before them, lighting their way so they wouldn’t trip when the shafts of light became too far in between.
It was so quiet.
The Sorcerer’s Stone hung between himself and Harry, the chain clanking softly. Godric was a strangely quiet wizard, despite being of a pleasant temperament, and he only spoke a few times about nonsense things. "Look, see how the pear blossoms grow from the ground?" or, "The roots grow south-westerly, with the flow of the water," or, "Your sword speaks much about the wizard you are, Harry," while smiling at the boy as they shared their small joke.
Aside from the tiny levity, Harry wasn’t fairing much better then Severus.
He clutched Severus’ hand, linking their fingers, and when Severus experimentally loosened his grip, Harry’s tightened. It was reassuring, after a fashion–the calm Gryffindor bravery, though absolutely irritating, kept Severus afloat with his own annoyance.
But then the world turned upside down and Severus didn’t think anymore.
Darkness swept in along the corners of his vision like a raven, distorting everything he saw until his head felt viced in two and a scream wrenched from his throat. Head swimming, ears ringing, he thought that he heard Harry cry out but was too far gone to notice. His muscles ceased working as if he was a marionette with his strings cut, and he plummeted into the naked abyss.
He fell, the whistling wind whipping around him, roared in his ears, ripped at his clothes. The darkness around him was entire and absolute, so unnatural that he felt the hair on his arms and neck stand up. It was darkness without malice, but ripe with intent, though whether to harm or to help, Severus did not know–could not know, when his mind was racing with the wind battling him as a foe.
All he did know is that when he opened his eyes, he was no longer in the dark cave. He had stopped–there was no pain with landing, as he’d surely anticipated. Not dead. Not by a long shot.
His feet were in agony.
Underneath him rock cut into his feet, blood trickling down the grey stone. The stinging pain made him jerk back and hiss. It bloody well hurt, and–
He gave a short, barking cry and lunged downward, unmindful of the jagged stone cutting into his chest. He gripped the rock under him and held on for all he was worth, hugging the rock like a mother.
He was atop a great precipice. Sunshine streamed at them so brightly that it burned his eyes, made him stop and squint until his vision adjusted.
The wind. The bloody wind. It roared as if just aching to shove him off into the nothingness.
He was on a desert peak; he could, and would very likely, fall. There were thousands of miles to fall if he lost his footing. His breath exploded in his lungs as the panic set in, vertigo and nausea dulling his mind; it was so high up that the air was thin and he couldn’t seem to get a deep breath in no matter how hard he panted. Too high for even the birds, too high for anything other than Severus and the glory plunge if he let go of the rock. The stone underneath him was a strange, muddy red, unstable under his hands, but he held it as his lifeline.
The wind roared past his ears and made an already unsteady perch all the worse. He grasped the rock tightly, fighting the vertigo with all of his might Any moment he would be pitched over into the nothingness that went on for eons below him. Crushed into stone until he was nothing but a wet, shattered corpse.
"Severus. Severus! God dammit!"
Movement caught his eye ten feet away on another precipice, right in front of his.
Harry was before him, hanging from the side of the flat, jagged peak. His wrists had been tightly tied together, bound in a horrible knot of rope that was cutting off all circulation to his blue-tinged fingers. The rope holding him upright was frayed where it was bent over the rock, and Harry’s weight was unraveling the rope, string by string.
The boy was furious. It was obvious from the way his hands were bound that there was no possible way for Harry to climb the rope, but the bloody idiot was struggling with all his might–clambering up the rope, trying to get up to the precipice alone, swinging his legs and attempting to reach any foot hold he could grab. Severus had no doubt that Harry would hang upside down by that damn rope if it meant he could wriggle himself free.
The single rope was holding Harry, Harry who was dangling above millions of miles of nothing, but because nothing could be simple for Severus Snape, the rope had not been tied to the rock. The rope had not been not been bloody tied to the rock. The rope was holding a school aged child, who--
"Emily!"
The little girl sobbed hysterically, caught in a net tied to the rope, squirming, grasping at the rock until her small fingers bled. The rope on her side was strong, but every time Harry twisted his side unraveled a little more. Emily screamed with each jolting break of the rope and Severus’ heart seized as the horror of the situation and the cold, hard truth finally dawned on him.
If the rope broke, Harry and Emily would plunge to their deaths. There was only one thing he could possibly do.
Mind racing, with only seconds to spare, Severus gathered his courage around him–it was only a short jump. Only a short jump.
The wind roared past his ears.
He was scared, Merlin save him, but he had faith. It wouldn’t snap until he got there. No one, not even the gods of this place, would let their mission be lost.
He met Harry’s furious, stunning green eyes, and made his decision.
Swallowing bile and terror down as far as it would go, Severus gathered all of his courage and leapt from the rock holding him steady. Wind roared in his ears, and he had a fleeting moment to wonder if he’d been as ready to die as he thought he was before he landed with a bone-jarring thud on the rock above Harry. With all the grace of a forty two year old man who was not physical by nature, he scrambled up the incline as fast as he could, cutting his hands and arms badly.
The Sorcerer’s Stone is not around your neck, Severus.
"Hold on! Stop moving, Potter!" he roared over the howl of the wind, Emily’s cries and Harry’s furious, yet colorful, curses. "It’s about to snap Harry, stop moving."
He’s going to fall. He’s going to fall, Severus. If he dies, so do you.
As if in a dream he watched as he grasped the tightly strung rope, cutting his fingertips and scraping back his fingernails.
The rope snapped just as Severus got a handhold.
He slammed forward, his shoulders wrenching in their sockets as he held the two ends of the rope, and for a fleeting moment, before the pain encompassed him, he thought idly, Please don’t let them die. One line held Harry, the other held Emily, and Severus’ face and body pressed into the rock against unbelievable pressure. Emily was screaming, Harry was bellowing, and Severus heard an odd ringing in his ears.
Terror shook him as the blackness fell again. He felt a chill work into his bones as unnatural gloom fell, gray and deep and ugly, covering himself, Emily and Harry in darkness.
And just when Severus thought that his fingers were going to give way, that his arms were going to be wrenched from his body, the darkness swallowed him whole.
Strangely enough, the darkness ended quickly, lightening almost as quickly as his arms were relived of the pressure tearing at them. He hit hard, smooth ground, and the wretched pain took his breath away.
He fainted. He was sure of it.
Because when he awoke, he was lying face-up in his work room.
He had expected to be agonized, his body a screaming mass of pain. Instead, his shoulders felt normal, his chest as well, his arms and hands free of blood.
And he was lying in his workroom. Or what looked like it, anyway. Jars and cauldrons were all around him, the ceiling was black and high, and several female voices were speaking in quiet murmurs behind him. A warm lump was pressed to his side, the curve of back and buttock nestled to his thigh, and he knew immediately by the steady breathing that Potter was alive.
Small mercy.
He’d learned the hard way long ago never to give himself away after being unconscious. His breath remained steady and even as he chanced another look through his long eyelashes.
A workroom, for sure, though not his. Beside him, the lump pressed to him sighed, and shifted, the clink of the stone between them strangely loud in the silence and the dig of the chain in his neck uncomfortable. Before he could elbow the stupid boy, Severus’ vision was filled with that warm face, exhausted green eyes behind silver glasses and a shock of unruly black hair. The face of the utter bane of Severus’ existence was filled with panic and concern, and a warm hand came to press against his forehead.
He almost sighed.
Instead, he opened his eyes, and said, quite clearly, "Do you not understand the term "stealth", Mr. Potter? Is it even included in your vocabulary?"
Harry gazed down at him, shocked, before rolling his eyes. "It’s what I’ve got you for, isn’t it? You be stealthy, I’ll run right into the situation."
"‘I say this house is as dark as ignorance, though ignorance were as dark as hell; and I say there was never man thus abused.’"
"Huh?"
"You are chronically, unfeasibly lumbering, Mr. Potter."
"Thank you." And the little chit had the gall to grin.
Severus was saved from a terribly rude comment when a young woman in pale yellow robes and a gentle, knowing smile crouched down at his side. She couldn’t have been older than Harry himself, but Severus was oddly reminded of his dead mother, despite the fact that Mrs. Snape had looked nothing like this goddess beside them. "Wondering we when you would wake," she said, in a soft voice, and smiled.
"Welcome to our humble home
Ye two men who sleep along,
The great tapestry we three weave,
For life is what we most perceive.
I am Youth, the future yet to come,
Keeper of those who have yet succumbed,
To happiness, joy or virtue three,
The sister of children I shall always be."
"Oh. Fantastic. Rhyming. My favorite," Severus snarled under his breath.
The girl had the audacity to laugh at him, and he glared as he climbed to his feet. His back and legs ached as if he’d run ages, and as he straightened them, he glanced about himself. The room was much bigger then he’d originally thought. Harry climbed to his feet, his hand tight on the sword at his hip.
It was a work room, all right. There were tables made of heavy wood all around him, the floor laden with thick carpets. An enormous tapestry of the most beautiful colors he had ever seen was being woven quietly on one side by spindles obviously set to work with magic, while those same weaves were being undone along the other side.
It was cavernous, enormous, with thousands of tapestries leading off into the distance. A deep well was set into the ground, and around the water’s edge sat three large wooden chairs, more of the same fabric as the tapestries, and two more women. One of them was middle aged, her sweeping blond hair streaked with gray. She, like the girl, had a friendly smile, and she regarded them with an incline of her head when she rose. She took Harry’s hand gently in her own.
"I am Wisdom, and a greater witch you will not find,
One of sharp wit, intellect, and cunning mind,
The middle of these sisters I came to be.
You’ll find that although we are dearest three,
We each have a different thing to see.
Though I do not make things, I do not create,
I am still the best of these three fates.
I am sister of present day and time,
That which is becoming,
And though I am the sister of life,
I am not always forthcoming."
Severus felt utterly ridiculous and totally uncomfortable as Harry warily shook the woman’s hand. The old hag did not rise from her chair, though Severus didn’t think she could.
Her face looked as if it were made of dragon hide, melted into wrinkles that hung off of her skeleton like old flaps of elephant skin. They jostled every time she shifted in her seat, and how she could move in the first place was a surprise. She was older than Severus ever thought imaginable. Older than dirt. Ancient, really.
"Oh, don’t look at me like that, Severus," she said, and rolled her eyes as she continued to engrave rune stones in her lap. "I don’t have all the time in the world to be making up poems, now do I?"
"No, I suppose not, but why break the symmetry?" he asked, lips twitched at the glares the other two women shot him.
"Well, then. How about this?" She gently cleared her throat.
"A precarious lightning dance between,
Dark and light, pain like thunder,
Settles in the back of his mind, festering,
Rotten boils, insistent with fever,
Movement, scraped skin, flames,
Uncomfortable pulls on tender, imperfect body hair.
The raven that sits inside of his chest
Intent on his misery,
Scrapes out the bowels of his darkness.
Invisible, like locusts they swarm,
Settling when he makes them wait,
But trembling like whispering snakes to leap up,
And remind him again of his plight."
Severus listened to her finish speaking. The words were impatient, painful, full of sharp, quick jabs which left him strangely uneasy. "You are Age, then."
She inclined her head. "I represent what which has already gone by; the inevitability of life, Severus."
"Death."
"Yes, death." Her eyes were so piercing. "You are both on the most noble of quests, and your success will determine the future-- not only your world, but of every world. Voldemort is the blackest thread in our tapestry, blacker than night, blacker than death. He is a plague that runs through the threads of this life."
"Lizen Deegs!" Harry cried, suddenly.
The old woman wheezed out a cackle and Harry pointed most rudely. "I knew you looked familiar–you’re Lizen Deegs, from the Glass Emporium. I bought my glasses from you, that day in Diagon Ally."
Lizen Deegs? Severus frowned at the woman and looked down at Harry.
"Yes. You saw my likeness in Diagon Ally that day, Harry. Or rather, I am the likeness you saw. I put you on your path, by letting you see more clearly then you had before."
"You were a part of the plan to make me leave, then?" Harry asked, jaw ticking.
"No," she amended, carefully. "I simply guided you to me today. You both passed the first test."
"You mean to tell us that the little stunt from before, sitting us up on a mountain top with a broken rope, that was a test?" Harry snapped.
"Mmm. To test your physical endurance, the sharpness of your mind, and your faith. Both of you," she said. "You needed to know what you could withstand, because the battle that lies before you is difficult and perilous. Without knowledge of your limits you will not live."
The youngest sister, Youth, spoke up. "Fortitude physical both you had; Severus, in on time reaching Harry, and Harry, in freeing yourself trying." The other two sisters murmured their agreement and pleasure at her words.
Wisdom picked up where her younger sister had left off. "Mentally, Severus calculated the odds in mere seconds and used his very plentiful common sense. Harry’s wits were tested in that he tried to keep himself from falling, no matter the odds, instead of accepting his fate."
"Spiritually, you both knew you would survive–Severus knew he would reach the rope on time, and Harry knew Severus would save his life, as he has done many, many times before. You were tested, and you were true. It is an honor for us to help you," Age murmured, and all three women inclined their heads.
A hot flush ran up Severus’ face such as he hadn’t felt in quite some time, and he was sure he could have enjoyed the kindest words anyone had ever spoken to him more if Age hadn’t continued. "It is time for you to go. Before us lies the Fate Well. In it, we place the rune stones we engrave," she lifted a few from her lap, the same silvery objects in jars all over the cave. "You’ll have to answer one of our riddles from this well before you will be permitted past us."
Severus’ belly dropped out.
Well.
Would he and Harry be as Oedipus, trapped here trying to puzzle out a riddle of the sphinx until their time ran out and doomed all the worlds to hell?
Oh. Oh, the melodrama, Severus. Honestly.
"It is not melodramatic, Severus, though it would do you well to stop dithering. Are you prepared to hear your riddle?" Age asked. Severus felt a hot flush in his cheeks.
Harry shot him an exasperated look and nodded for them both. "Yes, please."
"Well, then." Age cleared her throat. "I give you a group of three. One is sitting down, and will never get up. The second eats as much as is given to him, yet is always hungry. The third goes away and never returns. Do you know what they are?"
For a startling moment, Severus thought they were alluding to themselves. "Can you repeat that?"
Age smiled, gently, and repeated the riddle.
A group of three. Three things. One sitting and never able to get up, one eating and always hungry, third goes and never returns.
Dear Merlin.
He turned to Harry, mind racing. "It’s a logic puzzle, Potter. You passed through my own your first year to get to the stone, you remember?"
"Yes, but Hermione helped me that time," Harry answered, panicked, eyebrows furrowed. "I solved one in the maze, during fourth year, but it wasn’t as difficult as this."
"In logic puzzles, what is given a human characteristic isn’t always human. Many times, it’s an object. For now, let’s consider this to be an object," Severus said. "A group of three things–either three separate things, or three things that compliment one another. One sits and will never get up–it is stationary, and will forever remain in that position."
"A chair?"
"Perhaps. The second eats what is given to him, and yet always remains hungry."
"Neville?"
Severus glared.
"Sorry." Harry had the decency to blush. "The third goes and never returns. What goes and never returns?"
"Object wise?" Severus thought for a moment. "Condensation. Water."
"Water. Yes, vapor disappears. All right. Let’s go from there," Harry answered, brow furrowed in thought. "What uses water vapor?"
"Tea kettles. A kettle does not sit and does not stand, however."
"No, it doesn’t. A shower?" Harry asked.
"A shower doesn’t eat, the last time I looked." Severus stopped for a moment, mind whirring. "Fire eats, and yet is always hungry," he said, and knew instantly he was right. "Smoke and fire. What things use smoke and fire?"
"Cars. Engines. Furnaces."
"You’re thinking like a Muggle," Severus chided, frowning at him. "What things that a wizard might use–"
Oh.
Well, didn’t he feel stupid.
He turned to Age, and said, "It is a fireplace, fire, and smoke. A fireplace sits and never stands, it contains fire that eats and is never sated, and gives smoke, that which leaves and never returns."
The three sisters stared at him, and for her part, Age looked incredibly pleased. Her wrinkles wriggled, as if she were smiling. "You are most correct, Severus." Reaching into the folds of robes nearly as wrinkled as she was, Age pulled out a pair of silver glasses, nearly the mate of the ones perched on Harry's face, and handed them to Youth, who tucked the earpieces behind Severus' ears. "You have insight, Severus Snape. May these help you to see the things that lie outside of your head and your heart."
Severus glanced around himself–oddly enough, everything somehow sharper and clearer with the glasses, and he noticed details he hadn't before.
Like the bright flaring light that illuminated an exit in the endless caverns. "You have both passed the test of faith and trust. May you both be on your journey, and good tidings to you."
Severus bowed to them and stood on Harry’s foot so he would do so as well. He tugged on the chain hanging between them to get Harry’s attention and gracefully he led his young companion past the bubbling spring well of knowledge and the three women. With all of the good sense and grace his mother had spanked into him so long ago, he offered Harry the first step into the exit.
Self preserving Slytherin, indeed.
OR
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