Davina | hp. ✓

30 | The Contingency Plan

DAVINA WAS CONVINCED that this was possibly the most horrid thing she'd ever done. She had killed and tortured many people, betrayed her friends, and sided with evil in order to selfishly achieve her own end. She'd done so many things in her life that were worthy of turning her into a monster, but nothing was as terrible as what she did to Severus Snape. 

She saw it in flashes. She knew what had to be done now.

Exactly one week before the world as they knew it changed, in late April, Davina was summoned to Hogwarts for the last time. She Flooed in from Grimmauld Place at exactly six o'clock in the evening when Dumbledore opened access to his office for exactly sixty seconds, and once the green flames around her receded and she stepped out of the fireplace, she found herself in the company of a solemn Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape. She stood in front of the fireplace for a long moment, gazing around the room at all of the empty portraits of former headmasters that lined the walls, at the trinkets whizzing around on shelves, and at the grandeur of the room. 

"The last time I was in this office, I asked you how the fate of an entire war and the life of the Chosen One fell onto the shoulders of a disgraced woman like me." She began quietly, turning his gaze to the men. Dumbledore nodded. "Did you know back then, Dumbledore? Did you know what I am meant to be?"

Dumbledore's lips fell into a grim line. "When I was a little younger than you are now, I met a young man full of charm and intellect. He taught me about the Deathly Hallows, and showed me what they could do. We made it our personal mission to acquire all three in order to achieve our own ends. I must admit that even in my later years, I was afflicted by an incurable ambition to find them... I spent decades researching the Hallows, and along the way, I discovered secrets buried between the lines of the legend so often told as a bedtime story. I never imagined that I would live to see one of those secrets manifest before my eyes, even when I discovered your true nature. But you already have, haven't you, Davina? You've figured it out?

"That I am the crossroads between the death of both Potter and the Dark Lord? Yes, I know. I also know that you've known for a while." She paced the room slowly, "The reason you put me under the protection of the Order wasn't because William or Andromeda advocated for me, but because you knew who I'd grow to be."

Realization crept upon Snape and he looked at Dumbledore, aghast, "Did you honestly save the girl merely because of her blood, Dumbledore?"

Dumbledore was silent. He maintained a steady gaze with Davina as she met his eyes and nodded.

"You're quite possibly the most arrogant man that I have ever known, Dumbledore, and I've known many. Those I've known have never hidden their ambition or masked their arrogance, but you -- you hide it behind the pretense of love, compassion, and a desire to help the greater good."

"Like raising Potter like a pig for slaughter," Snape added in bitterly. 

"The ironic part is that I know you've come to care for Harry Potter. You all have. And through all of your faults and your duplicity, you've managed to scrounge up all of the qualities that make you fundamentally good in order to help him win this war." She smiled bitterly then as she halted in her tracks and braced one hand on the mantle of the fireplace. She turned her icy gaze to them, "But when it came to a young, misunderstood Slytherin girl who was abused by her father and and wrongfully imprisoned for years...you didn't think twice about helping her because she was born on the wrong side of the the war -- that is, until she had something you so desperately needed."

Snape didn't avert his gaze or bow away from the spotlight of shame she was shining on them, but Dumbledore nodded and turned his gaze to the floor beneath her.