LAST TANGO IN PARIS
Chapter Forty-Seven

As promised, Severus was up and out of the little library cubbyhole before dawn, only to be hit with an overwhelming and somewhat novel lack of immediate purpose as he stood in the hallway outside the library, squinting in the dim light from the pair of torches around the corner. The corner itself was the same as ever - same ancient footworn flagstones, same beveled-glass windows in the door, same scarred wooden bench with a nick out of one corner where Peeves had dropped a suit of armor on it, Severus' third year at Hogwarts.

For a moment, he just stood there and let the history of the place wash over him. Then he grimaced, shook himself, and headed for Dumbledore's office.

As he'd expected, Dumbledore was in - and Sal was with him, both of them bending over the walnut-sized sapphire on the desk. "Ah, Severus," Dumbledore said, straightening up. "Lovely morning, isn't it?"

"Not yet, it's not." Curious despite himself, he drifted over to the desk and touched the sapphire with the tip of one finger. "Nothing," he said, half-wondering. "You'd never know-"

"Ah."

"We thought the interrogation room in the dungeons'd be best," Sal said. He was using his wand to sift through the crystal bowlful of Bertie Botts' finest on Dumbledore's desk; a tiny rattling cascade of beans rose and fell within the bowl, pausing occasionally to hemorrhage a crimson bean into the pile by the ink blotter. "I only like the red ones," he said, looking up to find Severus watching him. "What?"

"You know that the cherry ones and the cough-syrup ones look exactly alike, right?"

"I'll take my chances."

"You do live on the wild side," Severus said, and turned back to Dumbledore. "Have those rooms even been used since the last time we were in them?"

"The house-elves are airing them now."

"And there's no way he can escape?"

Dumbledore hesitated, then laughed. The laugh was short and humorless and didn't sound like him at all.

"I've found, Severus, that Fortune is tempted by the absolute," he said. He'd picked up the sapphire and was rolling it between his fingers like a worry stone. "Let's just say - it's unlikely."

"Fair enough."

***

As it turned out, Dumbledore required his assistance in a Potions capacity. Severus spent a pleasurable three-quarters of an hour in his former classroom, stirring a simmering cauldron and reviling the delicious Professor Dessources' lamentable organizational skills, then funneled the results into the cleanest bottles he could find - washed, he dared say, by him, back in the day - and lugged them down to the subdungeons.

The house-elves had already aired both the cell where they'd held Malfoy and Sal's cozy adjoining suite, laying a fire in the latter and bringing in extra chairs to accommodate the expected crowd. There was coffee on the sideboard, Severus noticed. And Danish. He rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything - it was so like Albus to turn an interrogation into a tea-party that at this point it didn't bear mentioning. That new puppy they'd brought in to teach Defense against the Dark Arts was nowhere to be seen, he was pleased to say, but a thin grey-robed figure was already in the containment cell, methodically sweeping his scarred wand over the mortared cracks between the ancient stones.

Remus. Severus set down his bottles, pulled out his own wand and stepped through the misty wall to join him.

"Lupin," he said by way of greeting, and looked sideways at the disciplined line of pale-green sparks trailing out of his old schoolmate's wand. "What's that? Not a Containment Charm."

"That comes later," Remus said, not looking up. "Over the top of this. Albus thought it likely he'd know how to counter it, so he wants a double layer of something else under it." He finished his row, dropped his wand, and turned to face Severus, surreptitiously shaking a cramp out of his hand. "I've almost finished. You've got the Veritaserum?"

"I have."

Lupin nodded. "It goes in those," he said, pointing to a row of cauldrons in the opposite corner. "Minerva's idea. She'll be along any minute to do the Transfigurations."

"I'm here, Remus," Minerva said from behind his shoulder. She had the bottles of freshly-prepared truth serum tucked underneath one bony arm. "Severus. The pleasure's mine, I'm sure. Might I trouble you for a moment? We're behind schedule."

Biting back a smile - there was a bit more grey in the hair, maybe, but otherwise she hadn't changed in the slightest - Severus followed her over to the row of cauldrons. "What's all this about?" he wanted to know. She shrugged evasively, suddenly irritable.

"I've a nephew who married a Muggle, you know."

He hadn't. "Oh?"

"Silly girl. Bright but lazy. Lives in Yorkshire."

"Ah."

Minerva waved her wand at the empty cauldrons, which slimmed and heightened and squared off around the corners. Another wave, and Severus saw each of them sprout a false bottom, a foot or so above the floor. "I spend the holidays with them. Sometimes. They always ask, but I don't always go."

"Does this charming little story have a point, Minerva?"

She shot him a quelling glare, and Severus was surprised to see a faint tinge of pink at the apex of each aquiline cheekbone. "They haven't any idea what to get me as a gift, ever," she muttered. "Load of plastic nonsense, mostly. Or face cream, as if that's going to do me any good at this stage. But Albus was puzzling over how to get the Veritaserum into ... well, you know, into him, and it made me think of something Claudia sent me for my birthday last year."

She produced a small plastic object from a deep pocket of her robes, and held it out to him. "Oh," Severus said. "I've seen those before."

Actually he had one in the bathroom, back in Montana. It was a tiny bottle of scented oil that dripped into a motor-driven diffuser. They'd never been able to agree on the scent - Sal liked the apple-cinnamon, he the pine - and usually they ended up with the cinnamon, since Sal cared enough about the issue to cheat at Rock Paper Scissors, and Severus was generally too amused by this to protest.

"Electric, isn't it?" he said now. "Supposed to plug into the wall."

She tossed her head. "I'm not Professor of Transfiguration for nothing, Severus."

True, he thought, screwing in the Veritaserum bottles to the top compartment of each cauldron and watching her set fan blades turning below it. Whatever else you said about her, Minerva McGonagall was still at the top of her game. "Careful with that, Minerva," he said now. "A minute more of it and we'll start being brutally frank with one another."

She snorted, but stopped the fans all the same and turned her attention to creating vent grilles on the top and sides. "At this point, Severus, I'd welcome an excuse."

He would have come back at this with some witty retort or other of his own, but she was busy turning her improvised diffusers into wall sconces, and he didn't want to disrupt her concentration.

Besides that, Potter and Weasley had just come in. And Hermione was with them.

***

They'd all been weeping, he saw at a glance - Ron and Hermione the most - and Harry had his arm round her protectively. For a moment, they might all have been schoolchildren again; he even got a jolt of the mingled annoyance and outrage that they'd always brought out in him. And then she looked up and saw him, wet-eyed and pink-cheeked and lovely as she'd ever been, and smiled, and the illusion was shattered.

Real pleasantries, of course, were out of the question. For the sake of that smile, however, he forced himself to step back through the wall and walk over to them.

"Potter," he said. "Weasley."

They nodded. And then the four of them stood there uncertainly until Albus wafted over to them, beaming like an addled baby seal and brandishing the coffeepot. Ah, Severus thought. So that's why he ordered the pastries.

Hermione squeezed his hand encouragingly. Behind her, he saw his erstwhile Potions replacement slip in, towing Longbottom with her like a besotted toy balloon.

Remus and Minerva had finished their preparations. Severus watched Albus dig in his pocket and bring out a teardrop of shimmering ocean-blue, set it carefully on the floor of the containment chamber and murmur over it for a moment. He emerged with a serene look on his old face and a glitter in his faded eyes that didn't match.

"Ah," he said. "Everyone has a seat, yes? Do try the cider doughnuts, they're particularly good today." He plucked one from the tray, sank into the armchair Sal had been saving for him, and took a bite. The room sank to stillness.

"Remus," Dumbledore said. "Would you be so kind as to raise the barrier?"

The wall of grey mist shuddered, then righted itself at a word, clear and hard as the heart of a diamond. From the other side, Severus knew, it looked as solid and stony as the other three. Albus took another bite of his doughnut.

"Lovely," he said. "The diffusers, Minerva?"

The candles in the four corners of the cell flickered to life, only the slight flutter of their flames betraying the movement of air beneath them. Severus caught Minerva's gaze and raised an admiring eyebrow. The corner of her mouth twitched.

"Thank you, Minerva," Albus said, finishing his doughnut, and began to inspect his beard for crumbs. When he looked up again, he was looking at Hermione.

"Miss Granger," he said. "I believe the floor is yours. Whenever you're ready."

It wasn't until she dropped his hand to reach for her wand that Severus realised she'd still been holding it. The wand rose to the height of her waist, trembling slightly. Without thinking, he wrapped his arm round her waist, taking part of her weight onto himself, and felt her steady herself as she took a deep breath, then let it out again on a single charged word.

"Libero!"

A wash of blue light. The sapphire rocked and chattered on the stone floor.

Lord Voldemort was free.