Severus Snape and the Half-Blood Prince (33)
Yuck. It's not a lot of fun writing this chapter. But you know, you can't write about Snape without covering his Death Eater days. And then you have to decide what kind of a Death Eater he was--how long he stayed, how horrible he was, etc.
I'm not sure how anyone took the last chapter. I wanted to show Snape as making a choice to join up, rather than having him do it because, you know, all his friends were. Also, because I decided to write a Snape who has intelligence, I had a very hard time getting him to attend that Voldemort Self-Actualization Seminar in the first place.
I'm looking at the Wizarding World through the lens of American racism. In the old South, race was so codified that there were special names for half-bloods and quarter-bloods. If you had two African parents, you were black, or the N-word. One white parent made you a mulatto. Three white grandparents and one black grandparent made you a quadroon, seven white great-grandpaents and one black great-grandparent made you an octoroon. More than one black ancestor, apparently, made you black.
If you mix that level of racism with a small, status-conscious society (I think of the Black family as living in the Edwardian period), then you have a world in which a half-blood wizard would always be conscious of his status. So, Snape had to have more than the average reason to join a group that had all the potential of lumping him with the Mudbloods and cutting his throat.
(I know that, in DH, JKR seems to pull back from half-blood discrimination in favor of the idea of Mudbloods "stealing" magic from Wizards. But, like the Hallows, I have trouble buying this late plot development.)
Now, once Snape is in the group, how is he going to feel about it? They do horrible things. You can't get away from that. It's not like he doesn't know that, either. Is he going to be shocked the first time he goes on a job and--gasp!--people get hurt? Is he going to give in to his basest instincts and get off on the violence?
I haven't read a ton of Snape-Does-Death-Eater fics, but I've read enough comments to know that there isn't any take I can do on it that's going to be original. The best I can do is to get endure it and hope the other elements will keep people interested.
Are you excited yet? Here we go!
The Death Eaters
The next day, Snape stared at the mark on his left forearm for a good hour or more. He was mesmerized by the iconography of the skull with the snake protruding from it. The marking was nearly black. Apparently it faded after a few days and would be much less noticeable.
“But when it turns completely black, that’s a signal to come immediately,” Lucius told him. “You don’t want to ignore that--not ever.”
“But what if I’m asleep?” Snape asked.
“You’ll wake up,” Lucius said. “It burns like hell.”
That must cut into dating for the single Death Eater, Snape thought idly. Never free from the worry that, when you go to bed with a woman, you might have to stop in the middle and hurry off to some late-night meeting. In my case, he sighed, it’s not much of a problem.
Now that he was one of the Death Eaters, Lucius took him through the complicated structure of the Voldemort Organization. There were, apparently, Death Eaters, Favored Death Eaters, and Most-Favored Death Eaters.
By bringing Snape to Voldemort, Lucius had made it to Favored status.
“What does that mean?” Snape asked. “Do you get extra fangs on your Dark Mark?”
“No, it’s more fluid than that,” Lucius said. “It’s... it’s very individual. Sometimes you get little perks. It’s mostly about bragging rights.”
As far as Snape could tell from Lucius’s orientation session, the Death Eaters suffered from a similar lack of organization as the Ministry. He wondered if that was inherent in the Wizarding World. Then, with a pang, he remembered Regulus’s genius at strategy and management.
“Lucius, Regulus Black told me that he joined the Death Eaters a few months before he disappeared. Do you have any idea what happened to him?”
Lucius shook his head. “Not really. A few weeks ago, his parents consulted a seer. Someone named Trelawney. She did a crystal gazing and said that he was definitely dead, but she couldn’t locate the body.”
“And no one knows why he died?”
“I’m afraid not. She said something to the effect that he drowned in his sins. Reggie’s mother was furious. She’s been bad-mouthing the poor woman all over the place ever since, demanding that people stop consulting her.”
Lucius took another sip of Snape’s wine. “I tell you, Sevvie, you do not want to tussle with my aunt-in-law. Cross the Dark Lord and you’ll be dead. Cross Walburga Black and you’ll wish you were dead.”
“Was there a service for him?”
“Oh, yes,” Lucius said. “A private one. Just his nearest and dearest. The family. Close friends. People like that.”
Snape wasn’t back to his usual standard of Occlumency, but he was able to hide the anger that washed through him. No, of course he wasn’t included with family and close friends. He and Regulus had only been inseparable for the last two school years.
Snape wondered if Georgina Mulciber that been at the service, sitting straightbacked in her mourning veil for the fiancé she hardly knew. He wondered if Kreacher had been allowed to attend.
Surely, Regulus would have wanted that. After all, he loved his possessions.
After Lucius left, Snape rolled up his sleeve again. The skin around the Dark Mark was still red and raw. It still hurt. He was glad it hurt.
***
At the next meeting, Snape received his first orders. He was put in charge of teaching the Death Eaters to fight. Once he began, he realized why. They were badly in need of instruction.
There were over a hundred Death Eaters and their levels of curse-throwing varied widely. A few of them he could recognize--even in their masks--as his former pupils. They were in the top tier. Every wizard has his own distinctive style of hexing, his stance, his choice of spells. He knew who Mulciber and Avery were, even behind their masks.
The only people who were better than his own pupils were the oldest Death Eaters--the ones who had been with Voldemort from the beginning. There were about a dozen of those.
The vast majority of the Death Eaters ranged from so-so to dreadful. Snape couldn’t help picturing them as middle-management officials in the Ministry, donning their white masks for a bit of fun on the weekends. But, under his tutelage, they made rapid improvements. Within a few months, they were able to challenge the Aurors directly, rather than rely on the hit-and-run raids they had been doing.
The Dark Lord was very pleased.
So was Snape. He liked going on the skirmishes against the Aurors. It was challenging and dangerous.
The raids, on the other hand, he hated.
The raids were intended to terrorize individuals and provoke the Ministry into harsh reprisals. To that end, they worked well. But it didn’t make up for the nasty taste they left in one’s mouth.
It reminded Snape of Dumbledore’s words about the Prank. Sometimes punishment punishes more than the transgressor. Whatever crime So-and-So committed, his family did not. Nevertheless, they shared in his terror and pain.
And there wasn’t a damn thing Snape could do about that.
His first raid had been executed against the Minister of Muggle Relations. The Death Eaters quickly dispatched the Aurors who guarded the man’s home and managed to bring down the wards before the family inside could escape.
The Minister had been a stout little man in pin-striped pajamas. His wire-rimmed glasses hung off his nose and he blinked nearsightedly. His wife was dressed in a sky-blue robe with feathery trim. He had two children, a boy of about nine and a girl of fourteen. Snape recognized her from Hogwarts. She was in Ravenclaw.
They pulled the Minister out of the arms of his family and cast the Crucio on him. His wife threw herself at the Death Eaters, begging them to stop. She was hexed for her trouble.
Snape glanced toward to children. The boy was seething; only his sister’s hand on his collar kept him from flying to defend his parents. Her other hand held the top of her dressing robe closed. Her eyes flickered fearfully from one white mask to the next.
The parents would be dead in a moment. Snape went over to the girl and grabbed her by the elbow. She immediately burst into tears.
“Where are you going?” Lucius asked him.
“To enjoy myself,” he replied. He hoisted the girl over his shoulder and started up the stairs. As he hoped, the boy followed, pulling at his black cloak and screaming his head off.
Snape found the girl’s room easily. It was the one with rainbows painted on the door. He carried her into the room and dropped her on the floor. The boy was clinging onto his ankle now. Snape kicked him into the corner and shut the door.
The boy scrambled between Snape and his sister. “Don’t you touch her!” he yelled. She had her face buried in her hands.
Snape leaned against the door. He folded his arms and listened. The screaming from downstairs went on and on.
The children were silent now, staring up at him from the floor. They clung together and their eyes were enormous. These things have to be done, he told himself.
There was a knock at the door. “When you’re finished,” said Lucius’s voice. “We don’t have all night.”
The girl started sobbing again. “I’ll just be a moment,” Snape replied. He waited until he heard the footsteps descend the stairway. “I am going to ward this door,” he told the cowering children in his coldest voice. “If either of you even tries to open it before morning, you will be very sorry.”
The bodies of the Minister and his wife were lying on the living room floor. Lucius gave him a disgusted glance. “The Aurors have arrived,” he said. “We’ll have to fight our way out.”
Snape didn’t care. Any chance to hex an Auror was welcome to him. He scored at least three good hits before they Apparated away.
Lucius gave a glowing report of the raid to the Dark Lord, but he grabbed Snape by the arm as they were leaving.
“Don’t do that again,” Lucius warned. “I’m all for a fellow having fun, but it slows us down.”
“Don’t use me then,” Snape snarled. He pulled his arm away and Apparated back to his flat. He was shaking with rage.
These things have to be done, he told himself.
***
After the next couple raids, Lucius had Snape apply the Crucio. It was the first time Snape had ever cast the spell and he did it very badly.
“I tried my best,” he told Lucius. It irked him not to master a dark spell. They had captured a Minister from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and there was no reason he wouldn’t want to cause the man pain. “I’ll practice. Next time, I’ll do better.”
“I know what the problem is,” Lord Voldemort told him a few days later. “Your heart isn’t in it. You have to enjoy causing pain to cast the Cruciatus Curse.”
“I’ll work on that,” Snape said. It was his standard response now. The Dark Lord demanded excellence in everything and there always seemed to be something that needed improvement--yesterday.
But Lord Voldemort shook his head. “I don’t need another torturer,” he said. “I have enough followers who do enjoy it. You have unique strengths, Little Prince. I don’t want to waste you on trivial matters.”
“Thank you, my Lord,” Snape said. He couldn’t help the smile that crept over his lips. He liked being appreciated.
“I want you to take on a new task for me,” Lord Voldemort continued. “You have taught the Death Eaters extremely well. I would like you to start teaching a new generation of soldiers for me.”
“Are you talking about the Inferi?” Lord Voldemort had begun experimenting with re-animated corpses as soldiers. They had limited potential, as far as Snape could see. They were strong, relentless, and roughly as intelligent as the average earthworm.
“No, not the Inferi,” Lord Voldemort said. “I want you to start teaching at Hogwarts.”
That was a surprising development. Snape had continued to hold his job at Pestle’s Emporium, the dullness of his days providing a contrast to his evening classes and nighttime adventures. He fully expected to remain there until the revolution and had given up his schemes to climb up into the coveted first assistant position.
“The Defense of the Dark Arts teaching position will need to be filled soon,” Lord Voldemort continued. “I want you to apply for it.”
“As you wish, my lord,” Snape said, uneasily.
The Dark Lord smiled, causing his wattles to rise. “I know your fears,” he said. “You are worried that Dumbledore will resent the help you’ve given me these last few years. You also know that he is an accomplished Legilimens and fear that he will read your mind’s secrets. Don’t worry. We will take care of that. In the meantime, you will continue to train my troops. You are excused from the raids.”
Which suited Snape just fine. He enjoyed teaching the Death Eaters, especially the foreign fighters. He learned new spells from them, and, more excitingly, he learned the different schools of dueling--Beauxbatons, Combattimento, Sentou-Mahou, and Durmstrang, which was a catch-all for most of the Eastern European styles of combat. There were even a few American Death Eaters, but as far as Snape could tell, the Americans didn’t have rules about fighting. Which was an education in itself.
In addition, the Dark Lord undertook to teach Snape Occlumency.
“You have a great deal of potential,” Lord Voldemort said. “But you have never had a proper education. Your uncle merely taught you the basics. Albus Dumbledore gave you texts, but no direction. We must begin again.”
That Snape received special magical instruction from the Dark Lord created much envy among the most-favored Death Eaters. They would have been less envious if they had experienced the lessons for themselves.
It was a N.E.W.T.-level course in pain.
“Legilimens!” the Dark Lord called out, flicking his wand. After several weeks of sessions, Snape had strengthened the barriers of his mind long enough to withstand the Dark Lord for about five minutes.
But the Dark Lord always managed to break through eventually. When he did, it was both humiliating and painful. Thankfully, he only required these lessons twice a week, because Snape’s mind was useless the next day. Pestle was learning not to count on him to brew or make change on Wednesdays. Emmeline and Amy knew that they could expect decent dinner conversation only on Sundays.
Still, he was making progress. After strengthening the barriers, Lord Voldemort began teaching him the finer points of avoiding mind-intrusion.
“Dumbledore won’t come after you with a wand,” he said. “He fancies himself more subtle than that. He’ll use a non-verbal spell.”
“I know,” Snape said. “He did that when I was twelve.”
“Did he?” Lord Voldemort mused. “Well, well, Dumbledore. Poking into little minds again? It’s a habit he can’t seem to break.”
They worked until Snape was able to detect even the lightest brushing of another person’s mind against his. By now, he was able to withstand the full assault for up to fifteen minutes.
There was one notable session when Snape even managed--although he wasn’t sure how--to slip around the Dark Lord’s stream of thought and mentally project himself into Lord Voldemort’s mind.
He expected to be overwhelmed. The Dark Lord had traveled farther and experienced more magic than anyone living--even Dumbledore. Or so they said. He was responsible for unequalled acts of cruelty and power. Those memories had to be scarring--horrifying.
But there were no memories--none that Snape could see. There was only a cold, unbroken darkness, all about him.
Snape held out his arms and stumbled through it. Was it in his head or Voldemort’s that he seemed to hear eerie, ghostly noises? The rattle of a hollow shape. The tearing of cloth. A high-pitched laugh. A baby’s hiccupping wail.
It was numbingly, bone-chillingly cold. If there had been a speck of light, he would have seen his breath, Snape felt sure of that. But there was no light. There was nothing. Nothing but echoes.
He felt a sudden push at his chest and he fell backwards. He tumbled over and over through the air, with no idea of up or down, until he landed with a whump back in his physical body. He had fallen to the floor and the Dark Lord was towering over him with a look of pure anger on his face.
“Did you enjoy your excursion?” he asked. “Was it enlightening to you, my Little Prince?”
Snape had no words. The only thought in his head was the certainty that he would die soon. Hopefully soon. Without too much pain. Looking into the Dark Lord’s hellish eyes, he knew that Voldemort could read his fear plainly.
Then lids flickered contemptuously. “Get up, Little Prince. We are finished for the night.”
Snape rose, pulling his robes back into shape as he did so. He missed the swish of the wand.
“Crucio!”
Snape screamed with pain, falling back again with his arms cast out in a futile attempt to defend himself. The curse ran through his body like fire. He lay limply upon the floor. He had never felt the Crucio curse before. No wonder he couldn’t cast it.
“I like your initiative,” Lord Voldemort said. “But you are learning Occlumency, not Legilimency. And you only managed to breach the very outer defenses of my mind. I’ll see you on Friday.”
Leaving Snape to wonder, as he pulled himself off the floor again, whether he had been punished for attempting to enter the Dark Lord’s mind, or because the attempt had failed.
***
Before he went to see Dumbledore, Snape was sent on one final raid.
“You are not to indulge yourself this time,” Lucius told him. “Stay with the group and don’t wander off.”
Snape was very well aware that this was a test. He was told that they were targeting the home of one of the new Aurors. He didn’t know until they got there that the Auror in question was Irene Hastings, his old classmate and Vance’s elf.
Hastings acquitted herself well, Snape noted. He had trained her, after all. She did a respectable amount of damage. But she couldn’t fight off a half-dozen Death Eaters by herself and they finally dragged her, bound and bruised, into the living room. Her parents had already been captured and sat on the couch, their arms bound behind them.
Irene’s hair was falling out of her braid, falling into her eyes. She stood in the center of the room, with one of the Bulgarians holding on her arms. Lucius circled her, clucking his tongue.
“Such a naughty girl you’ve been, Hastings,” he said. “Joining up with the blood traitors. The Dark Lord is very angry with you.”
“The Dark Lord is a petty criminal,” she said. “With disgusting ideas. And no talent at glamour charms.”
Lucius slapped her across the jaw. Irene gasped at the blow, but swung her head back and spit directly in his face. With a hiss, Lucius grabbed her braid and pulled it back painfully.
“You’re a fool to have done that,” Lucius said. “We might have left you alone, if you had agreed to leave the Auror force. Now, you are going to suffer.”
“You’re the fool, Malfoy,” she said, “if you think I’m going to give in to your threats.”
He blinked and she laughed. “Did you think I wouldn’t recognize you behind the mask, Malfoy? I had to listen to your poncey voice for three whole years.”
Snape couldn’t help wincing. She’d done it. They might have let her live if she hadn’t identified Lucius. Now, she was doomed.
Kill her they did. After a long time, and after she begged them to. They killed the parents, too. Snape had no love for the Aurors, but Hastings had been his pupil. He took no pleasure in witnessing her fate.
But it was a test. He couldn’t leave, couldn’t blink. The slightest bit of emotion and he would fail. You don’t fail the Dark Lord.
So he stayed. In body. In mind, he was far away. In his mind, he was in a place where nothing could touch him. He was in the darkness he’d found in Voldemort’s mind.
I'm not sure how anyone took the last chapter. I wanted to show Snape as making a choice to join up, rather than having him do it because, you know, all his friends were. Also, because I decided to write a Snape who has intelligence, I had a very hard time getting him to attend that Voldemort Self-Actualization Seminar in the first place.
I'm looking at the Wizarding World through the lens of American racism. In the old South, race was so codified that there were special names for half-bloods and quarter-bloods. If you had two African parents, you were black, or the N-word. One white parent made you a mulatto. Three white grandparents and one black grandparent made you a quadroon, seven white great-grandpaents and one black great-grandparent made you an octoroon. More than one black ancestor, apparently, made you black.
If you mix that level of racism with a small, status-conscious society (I think of the Black family as living in the Edwardian period), then you have a world in which a half-blood wizard would always be conscious of his status. So, Snape had to have more than the average reason to join a group that had all the potential of lumping him with the Mudbloods and cutting his throat.
(I know that, in DH, JKR seems to pull back from half-blood discrimination in favor of the idea of Mudbloods "stealing" magic from Wizards. But, like the Hallows, I have trouble buying this late plot development.)
Now, once Snape is in the group, how is he going to feel about it? They do horrible things. You can't get away from that. It's not like he doesn't know that, either. Is he going to be shocked the first time he goes on a job and--gasp!--people get hurt? Is he going to give in to his basest instincts and get off on the violence?
I haven't read a ton of Snape-Does-Death-Eater fics, but I've read enough comments to know that there isn't any take I can do on it that's going to be original. The best I can do is to get endure it and hope the other elements will keep people interested.
Are you excited yet? Here we go!
The Death Eaters
The next day, Snape stared at the mark on his left forearm for a good hour or more. He was mesmerized by the iconography of the skull with the snake protruding from it. The marking was nearly black. Apparently it faded after a few days and would be much less noticeable.
“But when it turns completely black, that’s a signal to come immediately,” Lucius told him. “You don’t want to ignore that--not ever.”
“But what if I’m asleep?” Snape asked.
“You’ll wake up,” Lucius said. “It burns like hell.”
That must cut into dating for the single Death Eater, Snape thought idly. Never free from the worry that, when you go to bed with a woman, you might have to stop in the middle and hurry off to some late-night meeting. In my case, he sighed, it’s not much of a problem.
Now that he was one of the Death Eaters, Lucius took him through the complicated structure of the Voldemort Organization. There were, apparently, Death Eaters, Favored Death Eaters, and Most-Favored Death Eaters.
By bringing Snape to Voldemort, Lucius had made it to Favored status.
“What does that mean?” Snape asked. “Do you get extra fangs on your Dark Mark?”
“No, it’s more fluid than that,” Lucius said. “It’s... it’s very individual. Sometimes you get little perks. It’s mostly about bragging rights.”
As far as Snape could tell from Lucius’s orientation session, the Death Eaters suffered from a similar lack of organization as the Ministry. He wondered if that was inherent in the Wizarding World. Then, with a pang, he remembered Regulus’s genius at strategy and management.
“Lucius, Regulus Black told me that he joined the Death Eaters a few months before he disappeared. Do you have any idea what happened to him?”
Lucius shook his head. “Not really. A few weeks ago, his parents consulted a seer. Someone named Trelawney. She did a crystal gazing and said that he was definitely dead, but she couldn’t locate the body.”
“And no one knows why he died?”
“I’m afraid not. She said something to the effect that he drowned in his sins. Reggie’s mother was furious. She’s been bad-mouthing the poor woman all over the place ever since, demanding that people stop consulting her.”
Lucius took another sip of Snape’s wine. “I tell you, Sevvie, you do not want to tussle with my aunt-in-law. Cross the Dark Lord and you’ll be dead. Cross Walburga Black and you’ll wish you were dead.”
“Was there a service for him?”
“Oh, yes,” Lucius said. “A private one. Just his nearest and dearest. The family. Close friends. People like that.”
Snape wasn’t back to his usual standard of Occlumency, but he was able to hide the anger that washed through him. No, of course he wasn’t included with family and close friends. He and Regulus had only been inseparable for the last two school years.
Snape wondered if Georgina Mulciber that been at the service, sitting straightbacked in her mourning veil for the fiancé she hardly knew. He wondered if Kreacher had been allowed to attend.
Surely, Regulus would have wanted that. After all, he loved his possessions.
After Lucius left, Snape rolled up his sleeve again. The skin around the Dark Mark was still red and raw. It still hurt. He was glad it hurt.
***
At the next meeting, Snape received his first orders. He was put in charge of teaching the Death Eaters to fight. Once he began, he realized why. They were badly in need of instruction.
There were over a hundred Death Eaters and their levels of curse-throwing varied widely. A few of them he could recognize--even in their masks--as his former pupils. They were in the top tier. Every wizard has his own distinctive style of hexing, his stance, his choice of spells. He knew who Mulciber and Avery were, even behind their masks.
The only people who were better than his own pupils were the oldest Death Eaters--the ones who had been with Voldemort from the beginning. There were about a dozen of those.
The vast majority of the Death Eaters ranged from so-so to dreadful. Snape couldn’t help picturing them as middle-management officials in the Ministry, donning their white masks for a bit of fun on the weekends. But, under his tutelage, they made rapid improvements. Within a few months, they were able to challenge the Aurors directly, rather than rely on the hit-and-run raids they had been doing.
The Dark Lord was very pleased.
So was Snape. He liked going on the skirmishes against the Aurors. It was challenging and dangerous.
The raids, on the other hand, he hated.
The raids were intended to terrorize individuals and provoke the Ministry into harsh reprisals. To that end, they worked well. But it didn’t make up for the nasty taste they left in one’s mouth.
It reminded Snape of Dumbledore’s words about the Prank. Sometimes punishment punishes more than the transgressor. Whatever crime So-and-So committed, his family did not. Nevertheless, they shared in his terror and pain.
And there wasn’t a damn thing Snape could do about that.
His first raid had been executed against the Minister of Muggle Relations. The Death Eaters quickly dispatched the Aurors who guarded the man’s home and managed to bring down the wards before the family inside could escape.
The Minister had been a stout little man in pin-striped pajamas. His wire-rimmed glasses hung off his nose and he blinked nearsightedly. His wife was dressed in a sky-blue robe with feathery trim. He had two children, a boy of about nine and a girl of fourteen. Snape recognized her from Hogwarts. She was in Ravenclaw.
They pulled the Minister out of the arms of his family and cast the Crucio on him. His wife threw herself at the Death Eaters, begging them to stop. She was hexed for her trouble.
Snape glanced toward to children. The boy was seething; only his sister’s hand on his collar kept him from flying to defend his parents. Her other hand held the top of her dressing robe closed. Her eyes flickered fearfully from one white mask to the next.
The parents would be dead in a moment. Snape went over to the girl and grabbed her by the elbow. She immediately burst into tears.
“Where are you going?” Lucius asked him.
“To enjoy myself,” he replied. He hoisted the girl over his shoulder and started up the stairs. As he hoped, the boy followed, pulling at his black cloak and screaming his head off.
Snape found the girl’s room easily. It was the one with rainbows painted on the door. He carried her into the room and dropped her on the floor. The boy was clinging onto his ankle now. Snape kicked him into the corner and shut the door.
The boy scrambled between Snape and his sister. “Don’t you touch her!” he yelled. She had her face buried in her hands.
Snape leaned against the door. He folded his arms and listened. The screaming from downstairs went on and on.
The children were silent now, staring up at him from the floor. They clung together and their eyes were enormous. These things have to be done, he told himself.
There was a knock at the door. “When you’re finished,” said Lucius’s voice. “We don’t have all night.”
The girl started sobbing again. “I’ll just be a moment,” Snape replied. He waited until he heard the footsteps descend the stairway. “I am going to ward this door,” he told the cowering children in his coldest voice. “If either of you even tries to open it before morning, you will be very sorry.”
The bodies of the Minister and his wife were lying on the living room floor. Lucius gave him a disgusted glance. “The Aurors have arrived,” he said. “We’ll have to fight our way out.”
Snape didn’t care. Any chance to hex an Auror was welcome to him. He scored at least three good hits before they Apparated away.
Lucius gave a glowing report of the raid to the Dark Lord, but he grabbed Snape by the arm as they were leaving.
“Don’t do that again,” Lucius warned. “I’m all for a fellow having fun, but it slows us down.”
“Don’t use me then,” Snape snarled. He pulled his arm away and Apparated back to his flat. He was shaking with rage.
These things have to be done, he told himself.
***
After the next couple raids, Lucius had Snape apply the Crucio. It was the first time Snape had ever cast the spell and he did it very badly.
“I tried my best,” he told Lucius. It irked him not to master a dark spell. They had captured a Minister from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and there was no reason he wouldn’t want to cause the man pain. “I’ll practice. Next time, I’ll do better.”
“I know what the problem is,” Lord Voldemort told him a few days later. “Your heart isn’t in it. You have to enjoy causing pain to cast the Cruciatus Curse.”
“I’ll work on that,” Snape said. It was his standard response now. The Dark Lord demanded excellence in everything and there always seemed to be something that needed improvement--yesterday.
But Lord Voldemort shook his head. “I don’t need another torturer,” he said. “I have enough followers who do enjoy it. You have unique strengths, Little Prince. I don’t want to waste you on trivial matters.”
“Thank you, my Lord,” Snape said. He couldn’t help the smile that crept over his lips. He liked being appreciated.
“I want you to take on a new task for me,” Lord Voldemort continued. “You have taught the Death Eaters extremely well. I would like you to start teaching a new generation of soldiers for me.”
“Are you talking about the Inferi?” Lord Voldemort had begun experimenting with re-animated corpses as soldiers. They had limited potential, as far as Snape could see. They were strong, relentless, and roughly as intelligent as the average earthworm.
“No, not the Inferi,” Lord Voldemort said. “I want you to start teaching at Hogwarts.”
That was a surprising development. Snape had continued to hold his job at Pestle’s Emporium, the dullness of his days providing a contrast to his evening classes and nighttime adventures. He fully expected to remain there until the revolution and had given up his schemes to climb up into the coveted first assistant position.
“The Defense of the Dark Arts teaching position will need to be filled soon,” Lord Voldemort continued. “I want you to apply for it.”
“As you wish, my lord,” Snape said, uneasily.
The Dark Lord smiled, causing his wattles to rise. “I know your fears,” he said. “You are worried that Dumbledore will resent the help you’ve given me these last few years. You also know that he is an accomplished Legilimens and fear that he will read your mind’s secrets. Don’t worry. We will take care of that. In the meantime, you will continue to train my troops. You are excused from the raids.”
Which suited Snape just fine. He enjoyed teaching the Death Eaters, especially the foreign fighters. He learned new spells from them, and, more excitingly, he learned the different schools of dueling--Beauxbatons, Combattimento, Sentou-Mahou, and Durmstrang, which was a catch-all for most of the Eastern European styles of combat. There were even a few American Death Eaters, but as far as Snape could tell, the Americans didn’t have rules about fighting. Which was an education in itself.
In addition, the Dark Lord undertook to teach Snape Occlumency.
“You have a great deal of potential,” Lord Voldemort said. “But you have never had a proper education. Your uncle merely taught you the basics. Albus Dumbledore gave you texts, but no direction. We must begin again.”
That Snape received special magical instruction from the Dark Lord created much envy among the most-favored Death Eaters. They would have been less envious if they had experienced the lessons for themselves.
It was a N.E.W.T.-level course in pain.
“Legilimens!” the Dark Lord called out, flicking his wand. After several weeks of sessions, Snape had strengthened the barriers of his mind long enough to withstand the Dark Lord for about five minutes.
But the Dark Lord always managed to break through eventually. When he did, it was both humiliating and painful. Thankfully, he only required these lessons twice a week, because Snape’s mind was useless the next day. Pestle was learning not to count on him to brew or make change on Wednesdays. Emmeline and Amy knew that they could expect decent dinner conversation only on Sundays.
Still, he was making progress. After strengthening the barriers, Lord Voldemort began teaching him the finer points of avoiding mind-intrusion.
“Dumbledore won’t come after you with a wand,” he said. “He fancies himself more subtle than that. He’ll use a non-verbal spell.”
“I know,” Snape said. “He did that when I was twelve.”
“Did he?” Lord Voldemort mused. “Well, well, Dumbledore. Poking into little minds again? It’s a habit he can’t seem to break.”
They worked until Snape was able to detect even the lightest brushing of another person’s mind against his. By now, he was able to withstand the full assault for up to fifteen minutes.
There was one notable session when Snape even managed--although he wasn’t sure how--to slip around the Dark Lord’s stream of thought and mentally project himself into Lord Voldemort’s mind.
He expected to be overwhelmed. The Dark Lord had traveled farther and experienced more magic than anyone living--even Dumbledore. Or so they said. He was responsible for unequalled acts of cruelty and power. Those memories had to be scarring--horrifying.
But there were no memories--none that Snape could see. There was only a cold, unbroken darkness, all about him.
Snape held out his arms and stumbled through it. Was it in his head or Voldemort’s that he seemed to hear eerie, ghostly noises? The rattle of a hollow shape. The tearing of cloth. A high-pitched laugh. A baby’s hiccupping wail.
It was numbingly, bone-chillingly cold. If there had been a speck of light, he would have seen his breath, Snape felt sure of that. But there was no light. There was nothing. Nothing but echoes.
He felt a sudden push at his chest and he fell backwards. He tumbled over and over through the air, with no idea of up or down, until he landed with a whump back in his physical body. He had fallen to the floor and the Dark Lord was towering over him with a look of pure anger on his face.
“Did you enjoy your excursion?” he asked. “Was it enlightening to you, my Little Prince?”
Snape had no words. The only thought in his head was the certainty that he would die soon. Hopefully soon. Without too much pain. Looking into the Dark Lord’s hellish eyes, he knew that Voldemort could read his fear plainly.
Then lids flickered contemptuously. “Get up, Little Prince. We are finished for the night.”
Snape rose, pulling his robes back into shape as he did so. He missed the swish of the wand.
“Crucio!”
Snape screamed with pain, falling back again with his arms cast out in a futile attempt to defend himself. The curse ran through his body like fire. He lay limply upon the floor. He had never felt the Crucio curse before. No wonder he couldn’t cast it.
“I like your initiative,” Lord Voldemort said. “But you are learning Occlumency, not Legilimency. And you only managed to breach the very outer defenses of my mind. I’ll see you on Friday.”
Leaving Snape to wonder, as he pulled himself off the floor again, whether he had been punished for attempting to enter the Dark Lord’s mind, or because the attempt had failed.
***
Before he went to see Dumbledore, Snape was sent on one final raid.
“You are not to indulge yourself this time,” Lucius told him. “Stay with the group and don’t wander off.”
Snape was very well aware that this was a test. He was told that they were targeting the home of one of the new Aurors. He didn’t know until they got there that the Auror in question was Irene Hastings, his old classmate and Vance’s elf.
Hastings acquitted herself well, Snape noted. He had trained her, after all. She did a respectable amount of damage. But she couldn’t fight off a half-dozen Death Eaters by herself and they finally dragged her, bound and bruised, into the living room. Her parents had already been captured and sat on the couch, their arms bound behind them.
Irene’s hair was falling out of her braid, falling into her eyes. She stood in the center of the room, with one of the Bulgarians holding on her arms. Lucius circled her, clucking his tongue.
“Such a naughty girl you’ve been, Hastings,” he said. “Joining up with the blood traitors. The Dark Lord is very angry with you.”
“The Dark Lord is a petty criminal,” she said. “With disgusting ideas. And no talent at glamour charms.”
Lucius slapped her across the jaw. Irene gasped at the blow, but swung her head back and spit directly in his face. With a hiss, Lucius grabbed her braid and pulled it back painfully.
“You’re a fool to have done that,” Lucius said. “We might have left you alone, if you had agreed to leave the Auror force. Now, you are going to suffer.”
“You’re the fool, Malfoy,” she said, “if you think I’m going to give in to your threats.”
He blinked and she laughed. “Did you think I wouldn’t recognize you behind the mask, Malfoy? I had to listen to your poncey voice for three whole years.”
Snape couldn’t help wincing. She’d done it. They might have let her live if she hadn’t identified Lucius. Now, she was doomed.
Kill her they did. After a long time, and after she begged them to. They killed the parents, too. Snape had no love for the Aurors, but Hastings had been his pupil. He took no pleasure in witnessing her fate.
But it was a test. He couldn’t leave, couldn’t blink. The slightest bit of emotion and he would fail. You don’t fail the Dark Lord.
So he stayed. In body. In mind, he was far away. In his mind, he was in a place where nothing could touch him. He was in the darkness he’d found in Voldemort’s mind.