The Last Lieutenant

Dumbledore

She's given up trying to cure him.  Now, its a simple manner of halting the contagion, of keeping whatever poison that Dumbledore had exposed himself to confined to his hand, settling for a prolonging instead of an ending and watch the rot creep further and further and further up his hand, inch by unnoticed inch.  

"Does it hurt?"  It's one of the rare times she has gotten to be alone with him without Snape or McGonagall, where he lets her control the conversation.  She supposes its her payment for coming her and brewing potion after potion to try and stop the infection.  

He flexes his fingers, and Audra can feel the motion travel up to the part of his arm that she was dabbing her smoking concoction on.  "Often."  It doesn't look like it should hurt.  It doesn't look like it should be something that could feel anything at all.  "But not always."

"I'm sorry."  He doesn't answer to that, and Audra doesn't blame him- they o not have time to apologize for every scrap of pain the other is feeling.  "Have you heard from Clary?"

That was the real reason that she had told Snape she would come here tonight, even if she hadn't told him.  Snape's patience with her continued faith in her friends was wearing thin, but she could not let go of the idea when Clary might be out there, needing help.

"As far as we know, she's safe."  He peers at her over the rim of his glasses, and even though Audra is one of the few people who know how frail he really is, she wants nothing more than to let him be strong enough for the both of them.  "There is no reason to believe anything to the contrary."

"So you don't know anything at all, is what you're saying."  Audra had expected something, even if it was only in the form of a letter that made no sense or Clary letting her catch a glimpse of her from the back of the dueling club, but maybe even Clary was immune to that level of stupid sentiment.  "She could be in trouble."

"Clary's very good at what she does.  She has hidden countless others.  There is no reason to think that she could not have done the same thing with herself.  In fact, the only reason that she had been caught at all was a certain attachment to your friend Emmeline."  He was looking at Audra like he knew too much again.  Remembering Snape say that he was an accomplished legimelins, she looked away.  Not, of course, that she thought that Dumbledore would read her mind on purpose.  "The circumstances now are very different."

"It was stupid."  The anger that Audra had been repressing since that night at the party with Fred two weeks ago was rising to the surface.  "Stupid for both of them."

"And they both paid dearly for that price."  He was watching her again.  "But don't you think that in some respects, it might have been worth it?"

"Is this where you lecture me again on how love conquers all?"  She had sent through more than one explanation of how the tie between Voldemort and Harry works, and each time, she came away with the feeing that Dumbledore was more than a bit disappointed with her disbelief.  "Because I hate to break it to you, sir, but not this time."

"Not exactly."  He inclined his head like she had made a worthwhile observation even though Audra was sure she hadn't.  "Though it does seem like a chance worth taking, wouldn't you agree?"

She hadn't, but more and more, she's starting to.