The old synagogue was small and wooden, squashed between two more modern buildings of a nondescript nature - dull cement apartment blocks that dated back to the 1950s. Inside, it smelled of old books and dust. The light was murky, filtering in from a few windows high in the back wall, above the platform where the services were held. It was almost like being underwater, Remus thought, as they entered the dark, echoey space cautiously. There was a second platform, in the middle of the room, for reading the Torah. Low shelves lined the room, filled with prayer books. The benches were upholstered in ancient red velvet.
A door toward the back, beside the platform, creaked open. A stooped old man emerged slowly. He was tall and walked with a cane. He shuffled down the aisle to meet them.
"I have received your owl," he said in greeting. His accent was thickly eastern european. He looked over the two men in front of him. He extended a hand to Sev. "The son of Tobias Snape," he said in a gruff voice with a bit of a wheeze in it. His dark eyes were keen under his heavy brow.
"Yes," said Sev, looking at the old man steadily. "My name is Severus Snape, and this is my partner, Remus Lupin." Remus wondered briefly, if he meant partner as in partner in crime or partner as in boyfriend, but he was a bit too anxious to give the matter much attention. This was important. They had to get somewhere with this man, or they were going to get nowhere at all.
The old rabbi gave Remus an appraising look, then extended his hand slowly. It was cold and covered with brown spots.
"We have met before," he said to Remus. "Years ago. You were sent to arrange a meeting with me and your leader, Albus Dumbledore."
"Yes," said Remus. "I remember."
"I am Reb Eleazar Zussman," he said. "Welcome to Temple Kesem Shalom, Britain's only magical synagogue. Follow me." He led them back, behind the Bima, to a small dusty study, crowded with books. Portraits of old men, looking remarkably like their present company, were hung from the strip of wall between the top of the bookshelves and the ceiling. They snoozed in their frames with the exception of one fellow above the door, who stared down at Sev and Remus beadily. A crow in a cage gave a loud harsh caw, then ruffled its feathers and stood still as a statue. A small sneakoscope on the cluttered desk whirred and then went silent.
"Accio gafen," croaked the old man, waving his wand, and a wooden tray with a bottle and three dusty glasses came sailing toward them.
"I have never met you, young man," Reb Eleazar said to Sev, as the wine bottle uncorked itself with a pop and started filling the glasses. "But I knew your father well."
"I.....my mother never wanted me to come with him," said Sev hesitantly, looking down.
"I am aware of the.....controversy in your family," said the rabbi. He lifted an eyebrow and the tray rose from the table and came to a stop in the air beside Remus' left shoulder. He took a glass and tasted the dark red liquid cautiously. It was cloyingly sweet. The tray sailed over to Sev, who also took a glass. He took a sip and winced.
Reb Eleazer himself took a glass and drank with apparent satisfaction. He leaned back and surveyed the two men closely, with eyes that were dark and sunk deep in the ancient folds of his face.
"I know who both of you are, of course. You," he said, turning to Sev, "have risen to a position of great power. Trusted confidante of the Dark Lord, and head of Hogwarts, the position held by my old friend, Albus Dumbledore."
"Yes," whispered Sev.
"And you," he said, turning to Remus. "You are a wanted man."
"I am," said Remus.
"And expecting a child, if I am not mistaken."
At this Remus colored and nodded in affirmation.
"Yours?" asked the Rabbi, turning to Sev.
"No," said Sev.
"Might as well be," said Remus, which caused Sev to look at him sharply for a moment, with a question in his eye, and then shake his head and look away. They couldn't afford to be distracted by the baby right now.
"Children are a great blessing," commented the Rabbi blandly.
Both men just sat and stared at him. Remus took another sip of the awful wine.
"What can I do for you?" asked the rabbi.
"Reb Eleazar, we need you help," Sev said. "It......it seems obvious to say it, but we are here on a mission that requires the strictest confidence."
"You are both members of the Order of the Phoenix?" asked the Rabbi.
"Yes," they answered in unison.
"I am aware of the role both of you have played over the years," he said.
"You are?" asked Sev.
"Dumbledore kept me informed about those whom he considered his allies," the Rabbi said, with a wry smile. "You can trust me."
So Sev and Remus told him about Dumbledore's theory, of the horcrux that was lodged inside Harry. About Dumbledore's theory that Harry had to die. About their fruitless search for an alternative solution. About their hope that the Kabbalah could provide the answers that they were seeking.
"Does the boy know?" asked the rabbi when their tale was done.
"No," replied Sev. "Dumbledore did not want him to know, not until the other horcruxes had been destroyed."
"And how many are gone?" asked the rabbi.
"Three," said Sev softly. "The diary, the ring, and the locket. And we believe there are three others. One is probably Nagini, the Dark Lord's snake. The others are unknown."
"And you believe that a seventh horcrux resides within the Chosen One?""
"Dumbledore believed that," replied Remus. "And I think he was probably right. But we do not know if the Dark Lord is aware of that one's existence."
"And although you are the Dark Lord's trusted confidante, he has never told you about the horcruxes?" asked Reb Eleazer, turning to Sev.
"No," replied Sev. "He has not."
"And you have tried to get him to reveal...."
"Of course I have," replied Sev, sharply, cutting him off. "I haven't gotten anywhere, unfortunately."
"The world is a place of deep mystery, is it not?" commented the rabbi. He rose creakily from his seat, and went over to a wooden stand where an ancient looking scroll lay open. He touched it with his wand, and it rolled itself to the place he sought. He kissed the wand tip and then touched it to the scroll, his lips moving silently as he read a passage. He then went over to a glass encased bookshelf and removed a volume. He flipped through for a minute, then laid the book on the table.
The volume was an ancient copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Remus breathed in sharply, when he saw the title of the story the rabbi had turned to. "Of course!" he said, looking at the heading at the top of the page. "The Wizard's Hairy Heart. We were so focused on The Tale of the Three Brothers. We forgot about this one!"
"As you will recall," said Reb Eleazar, "this is the tale of a man who was afraid of love, so afraid that he removed his own heart and had it encased in a crystal casket in the cellar of his house. Of course, things did not go well for him after that. Do you remember what happened?"
"He.... he found a woman he wished to marry," said Remus hesitantly. "Isn't that right?"
"Yes," said the Rabbi softly.
"But when he went to show her his heart, in the casket, it had turned dark and hairy," said Remus, reaching back to his childhood, remembering his father reading these stories to him beside the parlour fireplace. "When he went to put it back in his chest, it turned on him, and tried to kill him. So he tried to take the heart of the woman he desired, instead. And....and they both ended up dead, the wizard clutching a heart in each hand."
"The good one and the hairy one," said Sev.
"That's right," said the rabbi.
"But.....but how can this story help us?" asked Remus confused.
"Think, young man." said Reb Eleazer patiently.
"Well...." said Remus slowly. "The heart was a kind of a horcrux, I suppose. It was a piece of the man's soul that was outside of his body."
"Yes," said the rabbi. "Good. Go on."
"But... but it had gone bad, hadn't it?" said Remus, thinking hard. "Sitting in that crystal casket....it became black......and hairy......and when he tried to put it back in his chest it tried to kill him."
"So if the story is true..." said Sev, picking up the thread of Remus' thoughts, "Then a horcrux cannot be reunited with the soul it has been split off from. That fragment of soul........goes bad. It can never go back and rejoin the whole. The soul, once split, cannot be reunited."
"And if you attempt it, it will kill you!" said Remus, excitement growing. This felt like a lead, like something they might be able to use.
"There is an ancient Hasidic tale," said the Rabbi slowly. "When the world was being formed the essence of life was poured into glass jars. The jars were beautiful, filled with the sparkling light of pure spirit. But the Lord made a mistake and overfilled the jars. In some versions of the tale the devil jiggled his elbow, causing his hand to slip and overfill the jars. In any event they shattered, filling the world with tiny slivers of broken glass. Each of these slivers contains just a glimmer of hope, of spirit, of love. They are all around us, hidden amidst the pain and suffering of our ordinary lives. It is our job, as humans, to repair the broken fragments and make the world whole again. Tikkun olam, as it is said in Hebrew.
"But how...how can this help Harry?" asked Remus, huskily.
"There is an ancient Hassid prayer, to reunite the broken fragments of the world. It is a complex prayer. To say it properly requires focus, and study. It requires a withdrawal from attachment, as God had to withdraw into himself, in order to make a space for creation to occur. But perhaps, when the time is right, it could be used, to reunite that shattered fragment of soul to the place where it came from, and to rid the world of a great evil."
The small study was silent. Reb Eleazer poured himself another glass of the awful wine and drank deeply.
"What can we do?" asked Sev at last. "Reb Eleazer, how can we use this?"
"Bring the boy to me," the Rabbi replied. "He will need to learn the Hebrew, the right inflections, the right wand movements. His intent must be focused and pure. But I believe this prayer may offer your best hope. To repair this particular broken part of the world. Tikkun Olam."
*********
Sev and Remus stood in the chilly foyer of the synagogue. The floor was of filthy white marble, a chilly breeze came in through cracks in the wooden slats. Before going out to the street they put on the glamours they had used before, Sev in Muggle jeans, with spiky yellow hair and dark sunglasses, Remus as his pregnant girlfriend with a flowy black dress, purple hair and doc martens. They blended into the crowds outside the building seamlessly.
"Let's get some food," said Remus, taking Sev's arm. He was elated by the progress they had just made, and thrilled to be out on the streets of London. Dirty snow was melting all around them, making the streets wet and shiny. A fine rain was misting and the streetlights were all on, though it was lunchtime.
"It's not safe," said Sev at once, looking around nervously. "And I should be getting back to school."
"Just a quick bite," said Remus, leading him up the street. "I know a place near here."
Sev was amazed as Remus in short order steered him through the crowded sidewalk to a small cozy pub in a side street, which glowed invitingly in the mid day gloom. He maneuvered them to a back table inside the busy room, flirted shamelessly with the bartender as he ordered them tea and sandwiches, then sat down and looked about him happily.
"I miss London," he said with a sigh.
"You certainly......know your way around."
"Well, I've lived here most of my life." Their tea arrived. Remus stirred in a generous amount of sugar and drank with great satisfaction. "Except, for well, all the trips to Albania and Transylvania that Dumbledore sent me on. And, of course, I lived in Paris for a year."
"You.....did?" asked Sev. He found it startling that Remus had lived a life out in the world all these years, traveling, going to pubs. In the same time period he had been sequestered at Hogwarts, teaching potions to an endless river of sullen adolescents.
"Oh yes," said Remus. "I was a research fellow at the Institut de Lycanthrope. But of course," he added with a shrug, "that didn't work out."
"Why not?"
"Well, it was great at first. It's an amazing place. All the best research on werewolves in the world happens there. But after a while my lycanthropy caught up with me, as usual. My 'furry little problem' as James used to say. I've never had an employer who didn't eventually get tired of my.......frequent illnesses." And he laughed a short bitter laugh.
They ate sandwiches and chips and talked quietly about all they had learned from Reb Eleazar, and what to do about it.
"We have to tell him, Sev," said Remus, gently.
"Albus didn't want him to know, until the end. He wanted him to find and destroy all the other horcruxes first. There's supposed to be an order to it. It's all part of the plan."
"Dumbledore's dead, Sev," said Remus. "I know he had a plan but now we have new information."
"It's going to frighten the boy," said Sev. "I think Albus was worried he might not handle that particular piece of information well."
Remus shook his head in frustration. He looked around the crowded pub, thoughtfully.
"It's strange," he said. "Dumbledore both overestimated Harry and underestimated him. He left him with a near impossible mission, but he didn't trust him with one of the most crucial facts."
Remus' eyes fixed on a tall handsome fellow, his dark hair pulled into a small bun at the top of his head, as he made his way across the crowded room to the loo.
"Don't stare, Lupin," said Severus, his voice suddenly gone tense.
"Oh, sorry," said Remus, startling back to the conversation.
"You're........ogling. "
"Force of habit," said Remus ruefully.
"It's unseemly."
"I was single for a long time."
"So was I," said Sev. "But I don't go around undressing every hottie I see with my eyes."
"Don't be jealous," said Remus. "I'm sure you're much better in bed than he is."
"How can you possibly tell that?"
Remus stared up at him for a moment and grinned. "Don't you even realize it, Sev?" he said. "You're a stud." And Remus had the supreme pleasure of watching Severus Snape blush a deep purple red across the table from him.
"I know what I'm talking about," said Remus slyly, wondering if he could deepen the blush. He grabbed Sev's thigh under the table and squeezed. "I've slept with a lot of people." Sev just sat there, staring at him.
"Let's get pudding, shall we?" said Remus lightly. He rose from the table and walked to the bar, moving gracefully. The long hair of his glamour swung about his shoulders, his pregnant belly, under his black dress, preceding him as he walked. He returned with an apple tart and two forks.
"Harry needs to know," Remus said decisively as he handed Sev a fork and dug into the tart. "He deserves to know what he's up against. All of it."
Sev sat there, watching Remus eat, fork in hand.
"Aren't you going to have any?" asked Remus,looking up at him from under his long purple tinted bangs. "It's good." He picked up Sev's other hand and kissed it lightly, then set it down.
"I like going about in this glamour," said Remus. "We could sit here and make out in public and no one would blink an eye."
"No," said Sev. "We couldn't. I couldn't."
"Are you sure?" asked Remus, He took another bite of the tart, and licked his lips seductively, and when he bent in for a kiss Sev did not resist.
"I like these jeans on you," Remus whispered, grabbing for Sev's hip under the table in a way that made his breath grow fast and his pants feel tight. He brushed his own hand down the round curve of Remus' belly toward his crotch and felt his hard cock pushing against the fabric of his black dress.
"Fuck," whispered Sev. "Why are you so goddamn sexy all the time?"
Remus just grinned up at him, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
"We were having a serious conversation," protested Sev.
Remus pulled his hand away and took another bite of the tart. Then he fed Sev a bite. Sev ate it couldn't help laughing.
"You're a complete idiot," he said, smiling at Remus.
"I know," said Remus, smiling back.
"But I agree with you about Potter," said Sev, using his own fork to take another bite of the tart. "He needs to know. Everything. We'll tell him tonight."
*********
That night, Sev and Remus took Harry aside and told him the awful truth. That there was a horcrux lodged within him. That Dumbledore had planned in the end, that he sacrifice his own life in order to destroy it.
Harry sat there in the upstairs bedroom, staring at the two wizards who sat side by side on the bed. He was in the chair by the fire, which burned brightly in the hearth, warming the room. Harry sat for a long time, not revealing what he was thinking. At least, thought Sev, he wasn't shouting, or stomping off, or running away.
"I can show you," said Sev at last, "I still have the pensieve here."
Harry just nodded once. Sev went to the dresser where the pensieve sat, a swirl of grey mist rising gently from the stone basin. He removed a smoky tendril of memory from his temple. He brought the bowl over to the bed and the three of them entered the swirling memories together.
It was a short memory - Dumbledore, explaining that a piece of Voldemort's soul had lodged in Harry on the night his parents had died, on the night the killing curse had rebounded onto Voldemort. Dumbledore explaining that, in order for Voldemort to truly be finished, Harry must die, and that Voldemort must be the one to kill him. Harry watched as Snape and Dumbledore discussed his fate, and argued over it. He watched while Snape cast a patronus that looked like a doe, with tears in his eyes.
After they had emerged from the pensieve Harry sat back in the chair while Sev returned the memory to his temple and put the stone basin back on the dresser. The silence in the room was heavy.
"I thought he cared about me," said Harry at last, hollowly. "I always thought.......he liked me. Hermione always said he.......loved me."
"I know he cared about you, Harry," said Remus gently.
"He could have told me," said Harry. "Why didn't he tell me himself? If he knew about it? He knew he was dying. Why did he leave it to you?"
"I don't know, Potter," said Sev. His voice was very quiet, barely above a whisper. "He left a great deal to me, as you may have noticed."
"He loved you," Remus said, and Sev was not sure if he was referring to himself or to Harry.
"No," said Harry decisively. "No. This isn't love, what he's left me to do. It's........it's using. I was a tool, in his plan. Nothing more." And there was a bitterness so deep in Harry's voice it was painful to hear it. Sev thought of all the ways he himself had been used by Dumbledore, and he had to agree with the boy.
"Harry," said Remus gently. "We have an alternative plan."
"You do?"
"I.......I'm not going to just let you die Harry," said Remus urgently. "As soon as I found out about this part of the plan I knew we had to find another way."
"And......have you?" asked Harry, a note of hope creeping back into his voice, and Sev saw, in that moment , how young he still was, and how scared.
"We've been doing research for months," said Remus urgently. "We've been studying horcruxes, hallows, delving into dark magic, ancient celtic spells, Kabbalah, anything we could find that we thought might be useful. The fire golem, well, he came out of the Kabbalistic magic we've been learning about. And we've found someone who thinks he can help you."
"Who?" asked Harry. "Who is it?"
As succinctly as he could, Sev explained about Temple Kesem Shalom and Reb Eleazar, the story of the hairy heart, and the story of the broken vessels,
"He wants to meet you Harry," said Remus. "He knows a spell. A spell for mending the broken vessels. A spell for healing the world.''
"Voldemort's in me," said Harry touching his chest. "He's been in me, all along."
"Yes," said Remus, meeting his eyes.
"As long as I can remember."
"Yes. I'm sorry," said Remus and his voice broke with emotion, but he didn't look away. "I'm sorry it has to be this way for you."
Harry grabbed at his chest, as if he was trying to grab onto the sliver of Voldemort's soul that was lodged there, then turned away from Remus, and his shoulders were shaking. Remus put an arm around him, and Harry let him draw him close. He turned into Remus' chest and Remus held him and let him cry. He looked up at Sev, and their eyes met, over Harry's dark head, and Sev saw that Remus' eyes were also wet with tears.
"I remember that night," Harry said looking up at Remus, brokenly. "My dad' s voice. Her screams. The green light. I remember........"
"I'm sorry," said Remus again.
"That was the night he........got into me."
"Yes."
"And you......you came to see me........after."
"Yes."
"Mr. Moony."
"That's right."
"Dudley reminded me," said Harry, breaking free from Remus's embrace and sitting on the bed heavily. He put his hand to his scar. "You were kind to me."
"I tried, Harry. I......I know I could have done more for you. I should have done more. I......wanted to Harry, you must believe me. I was blocked, in various ways."
"By Dumbledore."
"Yes. But Harry........ He acted as he thought was best. I still believe that."
Harry turned to Sev. "He treated you almost as badly as he treated me," he said.
"Albus saw the world as it was," said Severus quietly. "He didn't feel he could let his emotions get in the way."
"And you don't hate him? " asked Harry. He was looking at Sev steadily, more openly than he ever had before.
No," said Sev. "I do not hate him. He was a man with many flaws, haunted by many demons. There were times he infuriated me, or frustrated me beyond belief. But he saved me, Potter. He saw the good in me, just as your mother had. I was drowning, a lost soul. He offered me a hand, a bridge to become a person I could live with. So no, I do not hate him."
"Don't run off again, Harry please," said Remus. "Stay and work with us. Meet with Reb Eleazer. Hear what he has to say. Your parents were my best friends. Your godfather was the great love of my youth. Your happiness and safety are my first priority, above all else. I understand that you have a great destiny on you. Albus saw that very clearly, from the beginning, and he arranged things according to that understanding. I know I can not keep you away from all danger. But I have never accepted the idea that you have to sacrifice your life. I will not accept it, as long as I am alive and breathing. There is another way Harry, and we are going to help you find it."