from russia, with love
Title: From Russia, With Love.
Author: stiletto
Recipient: prurient_badger requested Zacharias Smith. Foriegn shores. Death by proxy. Sirius Black.
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Summary: “You’re right,” agreed Snape placidly, downing his own drink in a gulp. “Why should I speak my mind when you can read it?”
Notes: Thanks to Amanda and Moony for the betas. Any mistakes are mine, not theirs. Rowling owns the characters, Fleming owns the title, Orwell owns the cut text and most of the inspiration. MASSIVE apologies for the belatedness of this.
Zacharias had expected a kid just out of Gryffindor, still spouting off Dumbledore’s free-thinking nonsense and textbook scenarios. “I work alone,” he’d yelled at Potter.
Zacharias had expected someone all elbows and acne that would screw up before they’d even left the UK.
Zacharias had expected an idiot.
What he received was Severus Snape.
-
“Trainee?” Zacharias shifted his weight so the heavy backpack felt more balanced. Snape, three paces ahead of him, didn’t even turn around.
“I started late.”
“Why did-?”
“I was out of the country.” The issue was obviously not up for further discussion.
Zacharias thinned his lips and took a deep, strained breath. It had been like this since the London terminal, short bursts of attempted conversation beheaded swiftly by Snape.
The worst thing was, everyone had known. Potter had given him his new assignment with green mirth dancing in his eyes. Kingsley had absolutely insisted Zacharias be the one to brief Snape on material, of which there were five filing cabinets worth. This was mainly because Zacharias had just stolen his job, but it had still been an underhanded move.
The snow squelched and crackled under his boots and melted into his thick socks. He could no longer feel his toes. It wasn’t a difficult slope, but it was hard on the calves and every slip resulted in a cold, wet arse. “Bet you’re miserable climbing some bloody mountain for your first mission,” Zacharias remarked.
“Actually, Mr. Smith, I volunteered.” He must have caught Zacharias’ startled look, because he continued. “I knew Black in school.”
Zacharias quirked an eyebrow, stepping faster to keep up with Snape’s long strides. “Oh yeah? What was he like then?”
“As bloodthirsty as he his now,” grimaced Snape, and deliberately increased his stride.
Clenching his fists and cursing his father for passing down such short legs, Zacharias strode behind him, fuming. Mister Smith. Said as though he were some unruly schoolboy rather than the man’s superior. Certainly anyone looking at the both of them would get that impression; Snape was dark and determined - behind him, Zacharias was just a scruffy blond kid.
“Yeah, well, fuck you too,” muttered Zacharias, resolving to buy better boots at wherever they next stopped.
-
Britzka was an empty little cluster of buildings hanging precariously on the edge of the cliff. The tiny community made their living in goats' cheese and information. Several of the villagers looked up in alarm as they tramped into the town. Zacharias cornered one of them.
“Do you speak English?”
The man, no more than a young boy, looked up at him with fear in his eyes and said something rapid and frightened in Russian. Snape laughed.
“He thinks you've come to take his sister. Let me deal with this, Smith.”
“You speak the language?”
Snape’s smirk was anything but modest. “A little. Enough to get what we need, at any rate. I felt it would be prudent to come prepared.”
Zacharias ground his teeth, but said nothing.
After a short and hasty dialogue, in which Zacharias admired the fascinating cloud formations visible from that altitude, the boy grinned a mouthful of misshapen teeth and beckoned them over to... well, it was probably supposed to be a house, but it closer resembled a hut.
“There’s a man here who can give us what we need,” Snape said. “They call him the Tungus šaman, or shaman.”
“I guess you’ll be doing the talking then,” said Zacharias ruefully. A magic-man. The whole area throbbed with magic, and if this guy was able to draw from it Zacharias was going to have difficulty getting into his mind without making his presence there known.
The door rattled a greeting and they were ushered into the shadowed room.
-
Stepping out into the cold sunlight, Zacharias did the mental equivalent of wiping his hand on his pants. “That was one sick bastard.”
“Did you find anything?”
“What do you take me for, a trainee?” Zacharias sneered. “Of course. I found out plenty, but not much about Black. He passed through here, a while back, but didn’t stop to rest or eat or talk.”
“Then we’re on the right track.”
“Apparently so. Someone might want to keep a closer eye on that one is all I’m saying. Remind me to send out a small Legilimen delegation to this area.”
The lady who brought them water was dressed head to toe in red (“A custom,” hissed Snape) and Zacharias watched her from between slitted eyes.
Red always made him think of Gryffindor. His almost house. “All my friends are in Hufflepuff,” he’d said - God, he’d been whiny as a kid. Stupid and whiny. Hufflepuffs never did anything. Hufflepuffs never won anything. Hufflepuffs, he thought morosely, examining the flecks of dirt at the bottom of his bowl, were fucking pointless.
“Sickle for your thoughts?”
Zacharias looked up and his hand went immediately to his wand pocket - he’d been startled by Snape’s amused tones. “I didn’t think you did the whole talking thing?”
“Were you even listening earlier when I regaled that dunderhead with fabulous tales of wizarding England?” Snape’s lip curled. “Obviously not. But perhaps I should rephrase - a Sickle for someone else’s thoughts? That’s more your style, after all.”
Zacharias wasn’t sure whether he was joking or taunting. Either way, he could be apprehended for it. Harassing a Legiliman about what they did was criminal, at least on British soil. “Fuck off, Snape.”
Snape merely sneered. “You should learn to expand your vocabulary, Mr. Smith.”
“Zacharias,” said Zacharias, unsure why he did so. He should have been used to Mr. Smith (he’d stopped using Agent after the second Muggleborn laughed.) “It’s Zacharias.”
-
On a bare outcropping of rocks some hours later, they stopped for a lunch of thick black bread and soft apples. In the cold blue sky, a distant bird wheeled towards them. It screeched piercingly as it landed on Zacharias’s hastily discarded backpack, and the sound echoed around the empty landscape.
The note was only one word in Potter’s thick scrawl: VIENNA.
Zacharias scrabbled in the deep pockets of his coat, and pulled out his wand and a tiny metal box. With a muttered spell it began to grow, until an entire filing cabinet was staring unconcernedly over the edge of the precipice.
The newspaper article was worn, and circled in thick red ink.
“Café Spassvogel,” said Zacharias.
-
CAFÉ SPASSVOGEL said the rusty sign, hanging at an odd angle from the dirty glass door it was stuck to. The entire building looked like it could collapse at any moment, and Zacharias wished he’d brought his pocket Sneakascope. Snape just pushed open the door.
Inside was a bustle of welcoming warmth and noise that belied the gloomy interior visible from outside. “Merely a precaution,” said Snape as though he’d done this a hundred times before, and slid smoothly into the crowd, nodding at acquaintances and searching out anyone who might prove useful.
Zacharias ordered a coffee and took it to the corner, where he nursed it and let his mind skim around the room. He touched on a young poet who was composing a piece on criminals and had been researching Sirius Black, and an old navy lieutenant who sailed on the H.M.A.S. Black, and Snape, who reeked of drive and anger and-
It slipped away under his touch, so Zacharias shrugged and moved on.
Snape. He’d already had his brain picked over by numerous specialists, of course, the last one being Zacharias before they had set off for London Terminal. It hadn’t been an official look, just his way of making sure he hadn’t been assigned a serial killer, or worse.
He remembered when he had first found out; the anger, the disdain, the anxiety, it all poured back into him as though he were standing in Potter’s office again, waving the parchment containing his reassignment and yelling fit to burst.
-
“Who brought down the Malfoys, then? Who got evidence from Albus fucking Dumbledore?”
“You know that was off-record, Smith.” Potter’s smirk was the same he’d had in Hogwarts every time he’d beaten Zacharias in Quidditch. “Or haven’t you learned yet what a thankless job we do?”
“Fuck you. I quit.”
“You are not going to quit, Smith. You are going to work with Snape, and you are going to like it.”
“Snape?” Zacharias recognised the name. “Weren’t they a big Death Eater family?”
“Severus Snape never knew his family. He was hand-picked to be a Legiliman trainee, due to a background in minor mind-searching and a talent for Obliviation. We’d know if he had any contacts out of the ordinary, he’s absolutely balls at Occlumency. He’ll merely watch as you do your-”
Zacharias wasn’t listening. “I’m being given a trainee? I’m not a fucking nursemaid!”
“The Department Heads have looked at your case records and deemed you an appropriate mentor to Snape in the subtle science and exact art of screwing with people’s minds.”
“Fuck the Department Heads!”
“Pretty much the only way out of it,” agreed Potter. He sighed. “Look, he’s done the courses and came with a recommendation from Dumbledore.”
“So that’s it.” Zacharias’s tone was resigned. “You’re fobbing off a spy on me.”
“We don’t know he’s a spy,” said Potter. “But if you felt the need to complete the mission...”
“Out of sight and mind? Jesus fucking Christ I hate bureaucracy. And just what is it that I’m supposed to spend my next year or so not doing?”
“Oh, didn’t I mention?” Potter was clearly enjoying himself. “You’ve been handed a manhunt.”
“No...” said Zacharias, comprehension dawning.
“Yeah. Yes. Congratulations, Mr. Smith, and I wish you the best of luck appropriating and convicting the infamous Sirius Black.”
-
His burst of pseudo-nostalgia was interrupted by Snape dropping into the chair across from him. “The article, it seems, was no more than a tourist attraction. I imagine Potter,” he spat the name, “Thought it amusing to waste our time and effort in a dying city filled with money-hungry imbeciles.”
“I imagine he did,” said Zacharias, who wasn’t feeling particularly warm towards Potter right now. “We’re going, then?”
Snape held up another piece of paper. SORRY, it said. CAIRO.
“Poor bloody owl,” remarked Zacharias, and they both chuckled bitterly.
-
Zacharias had never been to Egypt, and Cairo surprised him, with its boys on bicycles and dusty footpaths and teetering apartment blocks. The Old Relics Society guestbook listed that Sirius Black stayed there for three weeks when he was sixteen. Zacharias tore it in half. He then had to spend three hours in a local cell repenting the destruction of public property before he Obliviated the guards and broke himself out.
Penang surprised him, too: Muggles were so violent there. The roaring motos skidding wildly around corners gave Zacharias a headache. Snape spoke haltingly to a smiling Cambodian while Zacharias tried to spread his mind through the crowd as well as fend off the armless, legless beggars and the half-naked women who held out their limp babies to him, asleep or drugged or dead.
Absent-mindedly, he gave then a handful of Galleons and they bit into the unusual coins, and then asked in hesitant English for “American dollar.” Equally as absent-mindedly, he Obliviated them.
Pakistan surprised him less, and they didn’t stay very long - many of the buildings were rubble and there always seemed to be the sound of gunfire in the distance. He had to Obliviate a small boy who threatened to report them to the soldiers if they didn’t give him all their money.
Sydney was a lovely change. The locals spoke English in thick accents, there was no-one to Obliviate, and Zacharias was finally able to have some decent coffee. He even dropped in at the local Auror base and sent off a few owls of his own.
When the sixth owl came, Zacharias swore loudly, and the vein in Snape’s temple began to twitch.
BIT OF A MIXUP, it read. BACK TO RUSSIA.
-
This time, they hired a Muggle to take them around Russia in a helicopter, all expenses paid by the Ministry. Potter said Umbridge would eventually use their case in her campaign, for publicity - not that the public had any choice in the matter of the Minister anymore, not really, but it was nice to keep them subdued.
So they spent extravagantly. Zacharias bought coffee and cigarettes and an unloaded gun in case he needed to threaten Muggles. Snape bought little bottles of what Zacharias thought was perfume. Perhaps he had a lover waiting for him back in England (or Germany, or Canada, or wherever it was Snape actually made his home.)
And of course, they both spent an evening getting thoroughly drunk. Somehow, the conversation swung around to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and their Legilimen.
“An ordinary man might think it was immoral.”
“...And end up in prison.” Zacharias shrugged. “The system works, Snape. Legilimen keep the peace, and get paid. Everyone’s happy.”
“Are they?” reflected Snape, and Zacharias heard the twinge of bitterness in slightly slurred words.
“Don’t say things like that. You’re training to become one of us, you can’t truly believe all that crap Dumbledore spouts about freedom of thought.” He slammed his fist onto the table, and the glasses rattled. “When you’re given a gift, you should use it.”
“Be it for good or evil?”
“Those are just words. Umbridge says evil is merely a point of view.”
“And yet you hunt down Death Eaters for a living.”
Zacharias rubbed his eyes. “A job is a job,” he said. “The law is the law.”
“The law wasn’t always the law,” Snape said, his voice barely audible over the clink of ice-cubes in vodka as he poured another round.
“The law always was, is and will be the law,” said Zacharias. “You’ll see. They’re going to revitalise the Obliviators.”
Snape almost dropped the bottle. It took him a moment to recover. “The government uses memory charms too freely.”
“The fuck they do! The government wants the best for everyone, Muggles and wizards alike, and I swear to fuck Snape that if you don’t shut up and give me that drink I’ll have you arrested for sodding thoughtcrime.”
“You’re right,” agreed Snape placidly, downing his own drink in a gulp. “Why should I speak my mind when you can read it?”
Snape’s mind moved effortlessly out of the way of Zacharias’s drunken fumbling. “I hardly meant it, Zach,” he said, suddenly sounding very tired. “Save it for your job.”
Zacharias scowled. “How’d you like it if I called you Sev?” But he couldn’t stay awake long enough to hear the other man’s answer.
&mdashl
In St Petersburg, they finally stopped pretending they were on holiday when the case started itself jarringly into motion. Despite spanning eleven timezones and two continents, Russia was merely a fraction of the world, and the world was a very small place.
“That’s him!” Snape cried, pointing across a crowded square to a flash of black hair. “Near the canal!”
“Are you sure?” Zacharias rocked back on his heels and let his mind verify Snape’s words. It surfed the crowd of people, all hungry and argue and cabbage and awe. And then-
“We’ve got him! We’ve fucking got him!”
“So close,” rasped Snape, as though he could taste the man’s scent on the air. “So close. Have you-?”
Zacharias held up his wand, something that was almost a smile smearing across his face. “Of course. You?”
“Of course.”
Shoulder to shoulder, they began to push their way through the crowd.
But when they got there, Sirius Black was gone.
-
They moved as one person in two bodies - Zacharias pooled into the minds of everyone around him and picked up surface thoughts and images of a man who made even his business suit look ragged. He tracked Black as he moved through the city while Snape held firmly to his arm and dragged him ever-onwards.
They came to a stop before St Isaac’s Cathedral, its massive gold and white form towering over the both of them.
“He’s in there,” said Zacharias, looking nervously around as though Black might have assassins waiting in the shadows.
Zacharias saw Snape stoop to pick up a tattered piece of paper. He scanned it, chuckling nastily.
“Show me,” Zacharias demanded, and Snape passed over the paper with an ironic flourish.
BEAST CAUGHT, shouted the headline. Head Executioner Walden Macnair today gave justice to what is thought to be the last werewolf in England. The werewolf, who had evaded capture until now, was brought in by Legilimen yesterday. After verification that he was a Dark Creature, the Minister decreed him to be shot with a silver bullet. Having insidiously wormed his way into ordinary society, this once again brings up questions of the moral-
He stopped reading and looked up. “Don’t see what’s so funny,” he said. Zacharias remembered it well, having been one of the Legilimen who had delved into the mind of Remus Lupin to verify his lycanthropy.
“Black must have been carrying it,” Snape said, as though this were enough of an explanation for the way he were smirking. Zacharias gave it up as a lost cause.
-
He came to them, rather than the other way around. After all their travelling, following police files and Auror reports and newspaper articles; after all their careful calculations and blatant mindrape; after crouching dismally in the cold searching for a footprint; after everything was said and done, he came to them on the steps of the cathedral and held out his hand and said, “I believe that belongs to me.”
Snape held up the newspaper article, his eyebrow raising with it. With a sadistic flick of his wrist, he tore it in two.
Zacharias managed to cast Petrificus Totalus before Black began squeezing, but Snape still had red half-moon marks scattered around his throat.
“I told you,” said Snape. “Can’t trust him as far as you could throw him.”
Zacharias rolled his eyes and began to casually Obliviate curious Muggles who had gathered to watch the scene. “Are you going to stand there and gloat, or are you going to cast Mobicorpulus and get us the fuck out of here?”
“I believe I shall gloat a little longer,” said Snape - but then performed the spell.
-
In a luxurious five-star hotel room, Zacharias locked Snape in the bathroom and gave Black the use of his limbs again.
He lay on the duvet cover, breathing harshly. “It’s all right,” he said, when he noticed Zacharias was still holding his wand. His voice sounded like it wasn’t used to sounding reassuring. “I give up. I’ll come quietly.”
“Why?” It was part suspicion, part relentless curiosity.
Black shrugged. “You and yours know bloody well why, especially if that bastard’s got anything to do with it. I’m an innocent man.”
“Innocent men don’t kill heroes,” said Zacharias.
“There’s no such thing as a hero,” retorted Black.
Snape chose this moment to break past the locks on the door. “Don’t bother,” he sneered as Black began to lunge for him, “I’m merely passing through.” He shot a dirty look at Zacharias and moved off to clash around plates in the well-equipped kitchenette.
Zacharias took a deep breath, and with a trembling hand performed a Silencing spell. “Start from the beginning. And remember, I’ll know if you’re lying.”
-
He allowed Black to have some of the dinner Snape had prepared for them if he promised to behave civilly, but the man declined. “That bastard was top of Potions the entire time he was at Hogwarts. Potions and Dark Arts.” He grimaced. “And he’ll be trying to poison me, of course.”
“Why?” asked Zacharias, for what seemed the thousandth time that night.
“Because he’s a greasy git and he’s hated me ever since school. He doesn’t need a reason.”
So instead, he spent the rest of his evening showering and brushing his teeth as though he hadn’t been clean in a long time. Zacharias, who knew a little something about Azkaban prison, reflected that he probably hadn’t.
-
The next morning, Sirius Black was dead.
“Fuck,” said Zacharias when he found no pulse. “Bastard must have committed suicide.”
“Such a shame,” said Snape smoothly. “I suppose he wanted to evade questioning.”
“No, I read him yesterday, he was perfectly co-operative,” said Zacharias, his brow crinkling. “Jesus fuck, this is going to make things difficult...”
“You what?” snapped Snape. “I thought we were meant to return to England before-”
“Well, it’s a goddamn lucky thing I did, isn’t it?” Zacharias interrupted him, pinching the bridge of his nose and trying to take clear, deep breaths. “Bastard was an absolute well of information, and it was like he’d been waiting for years to give it. Probably had. Did you know Peter Pettigrew was the Potter’s Secret Keeper?”
“Their what?” Snape was significantly paler.
“Secret Keeper - it’s a kind of blood magic, very powerful. Not many who still know how to perform it.” Zacharias stared hard at Snape. “Sirius Black is an innocent man. It was Pettigrew who betrayed the Potters to Voldemort.”
“Don’t be facile. Black still killed Pettigrew, and Pettigrew still killed Voldemort. Sirius Black was a murderer and a Death Eater. Whatever information you found in his head-”
Zacharias interrupted him ruthlessly. “Reveals enough about Voldemort’s downfall to implicate fucking Dumbledore!”
“You can’t mean to break the peace with no proof.”
“No proof? It’s all in here.” Zacharias tapped his temple. “Jesus God, Snape, you don’t understand. Voldemort can’t actually be dead. There was a prophecy... he’s out there! That’s why he wanted the Potters so badly. When Umbridge gets her hands on this everything could change. The media will have a field day. We’ll probably have to work overtime to keep the populace quiet...”
Snape wasn’t listening.
“All these years,” he muttered. “That manipulative bastard.”
“Who?”
“Dumbledore.”
Zacharias closed his eyes. This was about more than just an escaped prisoner. “This could bring about another war,” he said numbly. “This - what’s in my head. Fuck.” His eyes opened again and he found himself staring at the end of Snape’s wand.
“Snape. Severus. You’re- er, not going to do anything stupid, are you?”
Then Snape reached for him, twining his mind intounderaround Zacharias’ and showing him-
A mark. An understanding. A house and a hideout and a home. A mission. A cauldron. A seething, purple-bruised resentment.
“You don’t need training. You’re an Occlumens,” Zacharias said, feeling like he’d swallowed a tennis ball. “You’re - you’re Dumbledore’s man. Traitor!”
“You’re not the first person to call me that,” said Snape.
“Please, Severus,” said Zacharias. The wand was shaking under Snape’s white-knuckled grip.
“We could run away,” said Snape. “I have a house in France. Unplottable. I’m good at hiding, I’m used to hiding. We could hide.”
“Or you’ll kill me,” said Zacharias.
Their eyes met, and Snape slowly lowered his wand. “I am not sure anymore.”
“Coward.”
“Yes,” said Snape simply.
Outside, the storm broke, and the rain on the roof above them was like the beat of a thousand heartbeats.
Author: stiletto
Recipient: prurient_badger requested Zacharias Smith. Foriegn shores. Death by proxy. Sirius Black.
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Summary: “You’re right,” agreed Snape placidly, downing his own drink in a gulp. “Why should I speak my mind when you can read it?”
Notes: Thanks to Amanda and Moony for the betas. Any mistakes are mine, not theirs. Rowling owns the characters, Fleming owns the title, Orwell owns the cut text and most of the inspiration. MASSIVE apologies for the belatedness of this.
Zacharias had expected a kid just out of Gryffindor, still spouting off Dumbledore’s free-thinking nonsense and textbook scenarios. “I work alone,” he’d yelled at Potter.
Zacharias had expected someone all elbows and acne that would screw up before they’d even left the UK.
Zacharias had expected an idiot.
What he received was Severus Snape.
-
“Trainee?” Zacharias shifted his weight so the heavy backpack felt more balanced. Snape, three paces ahead of him, didn’t even turn around.
“I started late.”
“Why did-?”
“I was out of the country.” The issue was obviously not up for further discussion.
Zacharias thinned his lips and took a deep, strained breath. It had been like this since the London terminal, short bursts of attempted conversation beheaded swiftly by Snape.
The worst thing was, everyone had known. Potter had given him his new assignment with green mirth dancing in his eyes. Kingsley had absolutely insisted Zacharias be the one to brief Snape on material, of which there were five filing cabinets worth. This was mainly because Zacharias had just stolen his job, but it had still been an underhanded move.
The snow squelched and crackled under his boots and melted into his thick socks. He could no longer feel his toes. It wasn’t a difficult slope, but it was hard on the calves and every slip resulted in a cold, wet arse. “Bet you’re miserable climbing some bloody mountain for your first mission,” Zacharias remarked.
“Actually, Mr. Smith, I volunteered.” He must have caught Zacharias’ startled look, because he continued. “I knew Black in school.”
Zacharias quirked an eyebrow, stepping faster to keep up with Snape’s long strides. “Oh yeah? What was he like then?”
“As bloodthirsty as he his now,” grimaced Snape, and deliberately increased his stride.
Clenching his fists and cursing his father for passing down such short legs, Zacharias strode behind him, fuming. Mister Smith. Said as though he were some unruly schoolboy rather than the man’s superior. Certainly anyone looking at the both of them would get that impression; Snape was dark and determined - behind him, Zacharias was just a scruffy blond kid.
“Yeah, well, fuck you too,” muttered Zacharias, resolving to buy better boots at wherever they next stopped.
-
Britzka was an empty little cluster of buildings hanging precariously on the edge of the cliff. The tiny community made their living in goats' cheese and information. Several of the villagers looked up in alarm as they tramped into the town. Zacharias cornered one of them.
“Do you speak English?”
The man, no more than a young boy, looked up at him with fear in his eyes and said something rapid and frightened in Russian. Snape laughed.
“He thinks you've come to take his sister. Let me deal with this, Smith.”
“You speak the language?”
Snape’s smirk was anything but modest. “A little. Enough to get what we need, at any rate. I felt it would be prudent to come prepared.”
Zacharias ground his teeth, but said nothing.
After a short and hasty dialogue, in which Zacharias admired the fascinating cloud formations visible from that altitude, the boy grinned a mouthful of misshapen teeth and beckoned them over to... well, it was probably supposed to be a house, but it closer resembled a hut.
“There’s a man here who can give us what we need,” Snape said. “They call him the Tungus šaman, or shaman.”
“I guess you’ll be doing the talking then,” said Zacharias ruefully. A magic-man. The whole area throbbed with magic, and if this guy was able to draw from it Zacharias was going to have difficulty getting into his mind without making his presence there known.
The door rattled a greeting and they were ushered into the shadowed room.
-
Stepping out into the cold sunlight, Zacharias did the mental equivalent of wiping his hand on his pants. “That was one sick bastard.”
“Did you find anything?”
“What do you take me for, a trainee?” Zacharias sneered. “Of course. I found out plenty, but not much about Black. He passed through here, a while back, but didn’t stop to rest or eat or talk.”
“Then we’re on the right track.”
“Apparently so. Someone might want to keep a closer eye on that one is all I’m saying. Remind me to send out a small Legilimen delegation to this area.”
The lady who brought them water was dressed head to toe in red (“A custom,” hissed Snape) and Zacharias watched her from between slitted eyes.
Red always made him think of Gryffindor. His almost house. “All my friends are in Hufflepuff,” he’d said - God, he’d been whiny as a kid. Stupid and whiny. Hufflepuffs never did anything. Hufflepuffs never won anything. Hufflepuffs, he thought morosely, examining the flecks of dirt at the bottom of his bowl, were fucking pointless.
“Sickle for your thoughts?”
Zacharias looked up and his hand went immediately to his wand pocket - he’d been startled by Snape’s amused tones. “I didn’t think you did the whole talking thing?”
“Were you even listening earlier when I regaled that dunderhead with fabulous tales of wizarding England?” Snape’s lip curled. “Obviously not. But perhaps I should rephrase - a Sickle for someone else’s thoughts? That’s more your style, after all.”
Zacharias wasn’t sure whether he was joking or taunting. Either way, he could be apprehended for it. Harassing a Legiliman about what they did was criminal, at least on British soil. “Fuck off, Snape.”
Snape merely sneered. “You should learn to expand your vocabulary, Mr. Smith.”
“Zacharias,” said Zacharias, unsure why he did so. He should have been used to Mr. Smith (he’d stopped using Agent after the second Muggleborn laughed.) “It’s Zacharias.”
-
On a bare outcropping of rocks some hours later, they stopped for a lunch of thick black bread and soft apples. In the cold blue sky, a distant bird wheeled towards them. It screeched piercingly as it landed on Zacharias’s hastily discarded backpack, and the sound echoed around the empty landscape.
The note was only one word in Potter’s thick scrawl: VIENNA.
Zacharias scrabbled in the deep pockets of his coat, and pulled out his wand and a tiny metal box. With a muttered spell it began to grow, until an entire filing cabinet was staring unconcernedly over the edge of the precipice.
The newspaper article was worn, and circled in thick red ink.
“Café Spassvogel,” said Zacharias.
-
CAFÉ SPASSVOGEL said the rusty sign, hanging at an odd angle from the dirty glass door it was stuck to. The entire building looked like it could collapse at any moment, and Zacharias wished he’d brought his pocket Sneakascope. Snape just pushed open the door.
Inside was a bustle of welcoming warmth and noise that belied the gloomy interior visible from outside. “Merely a precaution,” said Snape as though he’d done this a hundred times before, and slid smoothly into the crowd, nodding at acquaintances and searching out anyone who might prove useful.
Zacharias ordered a coffee and took it to the corner, where he nursed it and let his mind skim around the room. He touched on a young poet who was composing a piece on criminals and had been researching Sirius Black, and an old navy lieutenant who sailed on the H.M.A.S. Black, and Snape, who reeked of drive and anger and-
It slipped away under his touch, so Zacharias shrugged and moved on.
Snape. He’d already had his brain picked over by numerous specialists, of course, the last one being Zacharias before they had set off for London Terminal. It hadn’t been an official look, just his way of making sure he hadn’t been assigned a serial killer, or worse.
He remembered when he had first found out; the anger, the disdain, the anxiety, it all poured back into him as though he were standing in Potter’s office again, waving the parchment containing his reassignment and yelling fit to burst.
-
“Who brought down the Malfoys, then? Who got evidence from Albus fucking Dumbledore?”
“You know that was off-record, Smith.” Potter’s smirk was the same he’d had in Hogwarts every time he’d beaten Zacharias in Quidditch. “Or haven’t you learned yet what a thankless job we do?”
“Fuck you. I quit.”
“You are not going to quit, Smith. You are going to work with Snape, and you are going to like it.”
“Snape?” Zacharias recognised the name. “Weren’t they a big Death Eater family?”
“Severus Snape never knew his family. He was hand-picked to be a Legiliman trainee, due to a background in minor mind-searching and a talent for Obliviation. We’d know if he had any contacts out of the ordinary, he’s absolutely balls at Occlumency. He’ll merely watch as you do your-”
Zacharias wasn’t listening. “I’m being given a trainee? I’m not a fucking nursemaid!”
“The Department Heads have looked at your case records and deemed you an appropriate mentor to Snape in the subtle science and exact art of screwing with people’s minds.”
“Fuck the Department Heads!”
“Pretty much the only way out of it,” agreed Potter. He sighed. “Look, he’s done the courses and came with a recommendation from Dumbledore.”
“So that’s it.” Zacharias’s tone was resigned. “You’re fobbing off a spy on me.”
“We don’t know he’s a spy,” said Potter. “But if you felt the need to complete the mission...”
“Out of sight and mind? Jesus fucking Christ I hate bureaucracy. And just what is it that I’m supposed to spend my next year or so not doing?”
“Oh, didn’t I mention?” Potter was clearly enjoying himself. “You’ve been handed a manhunt.”
“No...” said Zacharias, comprehension dawning.
“Yeah. Yes. Congratulations, Mr. Smith, and I wish you the best of luck appropriating and convicting the infamous Sirius Black.”
-
His burst of pseudo-nostalgia was interrupted by Snape dropping into the chair across from him. “The article, it seems, was no more than a tourist attraction. I imagine Potter,” he spat the name, “Thought it amusing to waste our time and effort in a dying city filled with money-hungry imbeciles.”
“I imagine he did,” said Zacharias, who wasn’t feeling particularly warm towards Potter right now. “We’re going, then?”
Snape held up another piece of paper. SORRY, it said. CAIRO.
“Poor bloody owl,” remarked Zacharias, and they both chuckled bitterly.
-
Zacharias had never been to Egypt, and Cairo surprised him, with its boys on bicycles and dusty footpaths and teetering apartment blocks. The Old Relics Society guestbook listed that Sirius Black stayed there for three weeks when he was sixteen. Zacharias tore it in half. He then had to spend three hours in a local cell repenting the destruction of public property before he Obliviated the guards and broke himself out.
Penang surprised him, too: Muggles were so violent there. The roaring motos skidding wildly around corners gave Zacharias a headache. Snape spoke haltingly to a smiling Cambodian while Zacharias tried to spread his mind through the crowd as well as fend off the armless, legless beggars and the half-naked women who held out their limp babies to him, asleep or drugged or dead.
Absent-mindedly, he gave then a handful of Galleons and they bit into the unusual coins, and then asked in hesitant English for “American dollar.” Equally as absent-mindedly, he Obliviated them.
Pakistan surprised him less, and they didn’t stay very long - many of the buildings were rubble and there always seemed to be the sound of gunfire in the distance. He had to Obliviate a small boy who threatened to report them to the soldiers if they didn’t give him all their money.
Sydney was a lovely change. The locals spoke English in thick accents, there was no-one to Obliviate, and Zacharias was finally able to have some decent coffee. He even dropped in at the local Auror base and sent off a few owls of his own.
When the sixth owl came, Zacharias swore loudly, and the vein in Snape’s temple began to twitch.
BIT OF A MIXUP, it read. BACK TO RUSSIA.
-
This time, they hired a Muggle to take them around Russia in a helicopter, all expenses paid by the Ministry. Potter said Umbridge would eventually use their case in her campaign, for publicity - not that the public had any choice in the matter of the Minister anymore, not really, but it was nice to keep them subdued.
So they spent extravagantly. Zacharias bought coffee and cigarettes and an unloaded gun in case he needed to threaten Muggles. Snape bought little bottles of what Zacharias thought was perfume. Perhaps he had a lover waiting for him back in England (or Germany, or Canada, or wherever it was Snape actually made his home.)
And of course, they both spent an evening getting thoroughly drunk. Somehow, the conversation swung around to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and their Legilimen.
“An ordinary man might think it was immoral.”
“...And end up in prison.” Zacharias shrugged. “The system works, Snape. Legilimen keep the peace, and get paid. Everyone’s happy.”
“Are they?” reflected Snape, and Zacharias heard the twinge of bitterness in slightly slurred words.
“Don’t say things like that. You’re training to become one of us, you can’t truly believe all that crap Dumbledore spouts about freedom of thought.” He slammed his fist onto the table, and the glasses rattled. “When you’re given a gift, you should use it.”
“Be it for good or evil?”
“Those are just words. Umbridge says evil is merely a point of view.”
“And yet you hunt down Death Eaters for a living.”
Zacharias rubbed his eyes. “A job is a job,” he said. “The law is the law.”
“The law wasn’t always the law,” Snape said, his voice barely audible over the clink of ice-cubes in vodka as he poured another round.
“The law always was, is and will be the law,” said Zacharias. “You’ll see. They’re going to revitalise the Obliviators.”
Snape almost dropped the bottle. It took him a moment to recover. “The government uses memory charms too freely.”
“The fuck they do! The government wants the best for everyone, Muggles and wizards alike, and I swear to fuck Snape that if you don’t shut up and give me that drink I’ll have you arrested for sodding thoughtcrime.”
“You’re right,” agreed Snape placidly, downing his own drink in a gulp. “Why should I speak my mind when you can read it?”
Snape’s mind moved effortlessly out of the way of Zacharias’s drunken fumbling. “I hardly meant it, Zach,” he said, suddenly sounding very tired. “Save it for your job.”
Zacharias scowled. “How’d you like it if I called you Sev?” But he couldn’t stay awake long enough to hear the other man’s answer.
&mdashl
In St Petersburg, they finally stopped pretending they were on holiday when the case started itself jarringly into motion. Despite spanning eleven timezones and two continents, Russia was merely a fraction of the world, and the world was a very small place.
“That’s him!” Snape cried, pointing across a crowded square to a flash of black hair. “Near the canal!”
“Are you sure?” Zacharias rocked back on his heels and let his mind verify Snape’s words. It surfed the crowd of people, all hungry and argue and cabbage and awe. And then-
“We’ve got him! We’ve fucking got him!”
“So close,” rasped Snape, as though he could taste the man’s scent on the air. “So close. Have you-?”
Zacharias held up his wand, something that was almost a smile smearing across his face. “Of course. You?”
“Of course.”
Shoulder to shoulder, they began to push their way through the crowd.
But when they got there, Sirius Black was gone.
-
They moved as one person in two bodies - Zacharias pooled into the minds of everyone around him and picked up surface thoughts and images of a man who made even his business suit look ragged. He tracked Black as he moved through the city while Snape held firmly to his arm and dragged him ever-onwards.
They came to a stop before St Isaac’s Cathedral, its massive gold and white form towering over the both of them.
“He’s in there,” said Zacharias, looking nervously around as though Black might have assassins waiting in the shadows.
Zacharias saw Snape stoop to pick up a tattered piece of paper. He scanned it, chuckling nastily.
“Show me,” Zacharias demanded, and Snape passed over the paper with an ironic flourish.
BEAST CAUGHT, shouted the headline. Head Executioner Walden Macnair today gave justice to what is thought to be the last werewolf in England. The werewolf, who had evaded capture until now, was brought in by Legilimen yesterday. After verification that he was a Dark Creature, the Minister decreed him to be shot with a silver bullet. Having insidiously wormed his way into ordinary society, this once again brings up questions of the moral-
He stopped reading and looked up. “Don’t see what’s so funny,” he said. Zacharias remembered it well, having been one of the Legilimen who had delved into the mind of Remus Lupin to verify his lycanthropy.
“Black must have been carrying it,” Snape said, as though this were enough of an explanation for the way he were smirking. Zacharias gave it up as a lost cause.
-
He came to them, rather than the other way around. After all their travelling, following police files and Auror reports and newspaper articles; after all their careful calculations and blatant mindrape; after crouching dismally in the cold searching for a footprint; after everything was said and done, he came to them on the steps of the cathedral and held out his hand and said, “I believe that belongs to me.”
Snape held up the newspaper article, his eyebrow raising with it. With a sadistic flick of his wrist, he tore it in two.
Zacharias managed to cast Petrificus Totalus before Black began squeezing, but Snape still had red half-moon marks scattered around his throat.
“I told you,” said Snape. “Can’t trust him as far as you could throw him.”
Zacharias rolled his eyes and began to casually Obliviate curious Muggles who had gathered to watch the scene. “Are you going to stand there and gloat, or are you going to cast Mobicorpulus and get us the fuck out of here?”
“I believe I shall gloat a little longer,” said Snape - but then performed the spell.
-
In a luxurious five-star hotel room, Zacharias locked Snape in the bathroom and gave Black the use of his limbs again.
He lay on the duvet cover, breathing harshly. “It’s all right,” he said, when he noticed Zacharias was still holding his wand. His voice sounded like it wasn’t used to sounding reassuring. “I give up. I’ll come quietly.”
“Why?” It was part suspicion, part relentless curiosity.
Black shrugged. “You and yours know bloody well why, especially if that bastard’s got anything to do with it. I’m an innocent man.”
“Innocent men don’t kill heroes,” said Zacharias.
“There’s no such thing as a hero,” retorted Black.
Snape chose this moment to break past the locks on the door. “Don’t bother,” he sneered as Black began to lunge for him, “I’m merely passing through.” He shot a dirty look at Zacharias and moved off to clash around plates in the well-equipped kitchenette.
Zacharias took a deep breath, and with a trembling hand performed a Silencing spell. “Start from the beginning. And remember, I’ll know if you’re lying.”
-
He allowed Black to have some of the dinner Snape had prepared for them if he promised to behave civilly, but the man declined. “That bastard was top of Potions the entire time he was at Hogwarts. Potions and Dark Arts.” He grimaced. “And he’ll be trying to poison me, of course.”
“Why?” asked Zacharias, for what seemed the thousandth time that night.
“Because he’s a greasy git and he’s hated me ever since school. He doesn’t need a reason.”
So instead, he spent the rest of his evening showering and brushing his teeth as though he hadn’t been clean in a long time. Zacharias, who knew a little something about Azkaban prison, reflected that he probably hadn’t.
-
The next morning, Sirius Black was dead.
“Fuck,” said Zacharias when he found no pulse. “Bastard must have committed suicide.”
“Such a shame,” said Snape smoothly. “I suppose he wanted to evade questioning.”
“No, I read him yesterday, he was perfectly co-operative,” said Zacharias, his brow crinkling. “Jesus fuck, this is going to make things difficult...”
“You what?” snapped Snape. “I thought we were meant to return to England before-”
“Well, it’s a goddamn lucky thing I did, isn’t it?” Zacharias interrupted him, pinching the bridge of his nose and trying to take clear, deep breaths. “Bastard was an absolute well of information, and it was like he’d been waiting for years to give it. Probably had. Did you know Peter Pettigrew was the Potter’s Secret Keeper?”
“Their what?” Snape was significantly paler.
“Secret Keeper - it’s a kind of blood magic, very powerful. Not many who still know how to perform it.” Zacharias stared hard at Snape. “Sirius Black is an innocent man. It was Pettigrew who betrayed the Potters to Voldemort.”
“Don’t be facile. Black still killed Pettigrew, and Pettigrew still killed Voldemort. Sirius Black was a murderer and a Death Eater. Whatever information you found in his head-”
Zacharias interrupted him ruthlessly. “Reveals enough about Voldemort’s downfall to implicate fucking Dumbledore!”
“You can’t mean to break the peace with no proof.”
“No proof? It’s all in here.” Zacharias tapped his temple. “Jesus God, Snape, you don’t understand. Voldemort can’t actually be dead. There was a prophecy... he’s out there! That’s why he wanted the Potters so badly. When Umbridge gets her hands on this everything could change. The media will have a field day. We’ll probably have to work overtime to keep the populace quiet...”
Snape wasn’t listening.
“All these years,” he muttered. “That manipulative bastard.”
“Who?”
“Dumbledore.”
Zacharias closed his eyes. This was about more than just an escaped prisoner. “This could bring about another war,” he said numbly. “This - what’s in my head. Fuck.” His eyes opened again and he found himself staring at the end of Snape’s wand.
“Snape. Severus. You’re- er, not going to do anything stupid, are you?”
Then Snape reached for him, twining his mind intounderaround Zacharias’ and showing him-
A mark. An understanding. A house and a hideout and a home. A mission. A cauldron. A seething, purple-bruised resentment.
“You don’t need training. You’re an Occlumens,” Zacharias said, feeling like he’d swallowed a tennis ball. “You’re - you’re Dumbledore’s man. Traitor!”
“You’re not the first person to call me that,” said Snape.
“Please, Severus,” said Zacharias. The wand was shaking under Snape’s white-knuckled grip.
“We could run away,” said Snape. “I have a house in France. Unplottable. I’m good at hiding, I’m used to hiding. We could hide.”
“Or you’ll kill me,” said Zacharias.
Their eyes met, and Snape slowly lowered his wand. “I am not sure anymore.”
“Coward.”
“Yes,” said Snape simply.
Outside, the storm broke, and the rain on the roof above them was like the beat of a thousand heartbeats.