Into the Fold, Chapter Forty
Title: Into the Fold
Author: Pasi
Rating: 15
Category: Gen
Fic Summary: Severus Snape is going straight to hell. The people he calls his friends are helping him get there.
Chapter Summary: Severus makes an unwanted acquaintance with death.
Chapter Index
Death and the Death Eater
Autumn 1980-Autumn 1981
The most important part, Severus soon learned, was to keep from getting confused. Dumbledore sent him to Voldemort, who wasn't to know he was the Headmaster's spy. Voldemort sent him to Dumbledore, who wasn't to know he was the Dark Lord's spy. Only one of them was right, and it was up to Severus to keep track.
One thing came as a surprise and a relief too: he vaulted upward in the Dark Lord's esteem. For one thing, Voldemort dismissed Bellatrix's complaints that Severus wasn't pulling his weight.
"Pay her no mind, Severus," said the Dark Lord. "She tortures and kills for me and thus believes that is the highest, indeed the only calling my service requires. Her vision is too narrow to see that different tools have different uses. That is one reason why she is a follower in this movement, not its leader."
That was a burden lifted from Severus's shoulders, for Dumbledore had made it very clear that he wasn't to kill.
"You shouldn't do any Unforgivable Cursing, but I suppose you can't escape it all. However, I absolutely forbid you to kill. That would damage your soul beyond reclamation, and I think we can agree you don't need that."
No one could have agreed more than Severus did. "The Dark Lord's right, then?"
"I'm sorry?"
"He doesn't want me to kill, either, because he said you'd see it in my soul."
Dumbledore smiled grimly. "I see Tom hasn't forgotten my preferences."
"Tom?"
"Voldemort's name, before he began putting on airs. I've always wondered whether he didn't realise taking an overblown alias like Voldemort was a thuggish thing to do, or whether that was exactly his intention: to be a thug."
"I think he wants more than that now."
"He thinks it's more."
Severus returned to the topic. "So the Dark Lord doesn't want me to go on missions with the other Death Eaters. But I'm afraid that may rouse suspicion," he added somewhat reluctantly.
Dumbledore frowned. "How?"
"Some Death Eaters think that the Dark Lord's pampering me. That I'm not doing my share of the work."
"Any Death Eaters in particular?"
"Bellatrix Lestrange," Severus said promptly. "And others, perhaps. She's never afraid to speak up, as if she's always had influence with the Dark Lord."
"Before you came along," said Dumbledore musingly. "And I doubt she's lost her influence with the others. She was always a leader in Slytherin House, although I never could see my way to making her a prefect." Dumbledore sat silent for a few moments, thinking. "Perhaps she's right, Severus. Perhaps you're not pulling your weight."
"I'd have to do what Bellatrix does, sir, to make her happy."
"I don't want that," Dumbledore said. "But perhaps you could accompany Bellatrix while she does what she does. Without getting your own hands dirty. Bellatrix or the others. Just to prove you're one of the lads. To keep suspicion tamped down."
"You mean join in," said Severus.
"Yes, I'm afraid so. I trust you to be able to manage that without going too far. I trust you."
****
Thus Severus joined the hunt for James and Lily Potter and their son.
He didn't know where they were hiding. Dumbledore, out of a healthy respect for Voldemort's power of Legilimency--or his powers of torture--hadn't told him.
Dolohov, an old hand, was heading up the mission to find the Potters. It was his idea to kidnap Petunia Dursley (Dursley, for she'd married some lump of a Muggle) and hold her hostage in an attempt to flush Lily out of hiding. But Severus forestalled him by warning Dumbledore, who advised the Dursleys to take a long trip abroad.
"How did they manage that?" Lucius said enviously, when Dolohov reported to a meeting of the Inner Circle that the Dursleys had disappeared somewhere on the Continent. "Their son's no older than mine!"
"What gave them the idea in the first place?" Voldemort asked softly, "when indeed their child is so very young?"
"I don't know," said Dolohov angrily. He'd looked forward to being the hostage-taker, to having prisoners of his own. "They made their reservations three months ago!"
"That's before we even though of using them for bait." Rosier said what Severus had carefully avoided saying, as he expected Dumbledore had been the one to get the reservations back-dated. The Imperius Curse, used on some clerk or other? It would have been Severus's first thought, but surely not Dumbledore's.
"But not before we heard of the prophecy," said Voldemort. "Can they know? Have they gone into hiding too? The time and manpower we must waste, hunting them down!"
"Should we bother, my lord?" said Severus. "I don't recall that Lily Evans ever cared much for her sister."
That earned him a few sharp looks from the Death Eaters, and a particularly malevolent one from Bellatrix. It was also not entirely true. But the mental mantle was in place, as was the Lord's disdain for Muggle relations. "Of course not. Friends, then. Wizarding friends. We know Potter's; his family are friends with every blood traitor in Britain. Lily's?"
Voldemort looked at Severus. There was nothing for it but to hand over a few names. It didn't matter. It wasn't as though he cared for these people. They've chosen their way, I've chosen mine. "Alice Longbottom, Circe Clearwater. But her best friend, in school, anyway, was Mary Macdonald."
"Find her," said Voldemort. "Bella. I'm sure she'll tell you where the Potters have gone."
"She will. But I'll want help, my lord. I can't do it alone."
"Of course."
"Rodolphus. And Snape."
Voldemort gave her a speculative look. Then "Why not?" he said, and smiling slowly they turned toward Severus, giving him the feeling that this had already been discussed. "Help her, Severus. Avoid killing--if you can. But do whatever needs to be done."
Occlumency gave distance, so that he could seem even to himself to be calm. "You're no longer worried about Dumbledore, my lord."
"I am never not worried about Dumbledore. But we're coming very close to the cusp of things. Once I kill this boy, I shall no longer need to worry about Dumbledore. And so it is very important to find him and the parents who are hiding him. So important that I've decided Bella is right--you should do some of the dirty work too."
As if lying and spying were clean.
"You'll be able to hide it from Dumbledore, don't worry. Your Occlumency's strong enough; you'd be in Azkaban by now if it weren't. It's not killing, after all." Bellatrix looked disappointed, and Voldemort laughed. "Or it shouldn't be, if Bella can control herself. A spot of Obliviation after the interrogation's over, that's all."
****
Severus had never liked Mary Macdonald, but he could pity her as she lay quivering, spent with sobbing after Bellatrix had lowered her wand.
"Why don't you just tell her?" he asked. The potion-induced hum disguised the tone of his voice. He had to work to disguise its weariness.
Face-down, she whispered into the hearthrug: "Please don't make me."
"Please don't make me!" mocked Bellatrix. "Or rather, do." She raised her wand, and Mary Macdonald screamed.
She made it harder on herself to betray Lily than Severus had done, but betray her, finally, she did.
"Littleton Road...." Mary's voice trailed off. She looked as though she'd lost her train of thought.
Bellatrix stuck her wand into Mary's face, inches from her nose. Mary moaned with terror.
"Littleton Road where?" said Bellatrix, her eyes lit with lust. Was it a lust Rodolphus would recognise? He didn't look at it now. He'd volunteered to stand guard and did so now, his back turned to them, staring resolutely out the front window, leaving Severus alone to observe his wife's passion.
Bellatrix's hand tightened on her wand. "Ottery--Ottery St Catchpole!" Mary blubbered in panic. She cowered to the rug again, weeping, shielding her head with her forearms.
Severus looked down at her shaking body. His face felt stiff, like a mask beneath his Death Eater's mask. Littleton Road, Ottery St Catchpole. He committed the address to memory.
"Well?" he said to Bellatrix. "Hadn't we better leave before someone notices--?"
A series of pops sounded just outside the window, like exploding firecrackers. "Someone's Apparating!" cried Rodolphus. "Moody, Black, Podmore!"
The curse leapt from Bellatrix's wand and bathed Mary Macdonald in green light. Her trembling body went still.
Severus threw himself back, avoiding the edges of the Killing Curse. "Let's get out of here!"
The door burst open and the Order members poured in, a wild-haired, infuriated-looking Black at their head.
Damn it, Severus couldn't Disapparate now, for he couldn't come back, he'd have to go straight to the Dark Lord. Besides, had Bellatrix even taken down the anti-Apparition wards?
He had to get outside. So, wand up, he rushed Black.
"Expelliarmus!" shouted Black, but the Stunner had already left Severus's wand, and his wand did not follow his spell toward Black.
Black shielded himself, and, "Help him!" shrieked Bellatrix. "Kill them, Rodolphus!"
"Rodolphus, is it?" roared Moody. Behind him Severus heard a sickening thud: the sound of Bellatrix kicking Mary's corpse aside.
Moody shot an Impediment Jinx at Rodolphus and their duel was on. Bellatrix, shrieking with laughter, fought Black, who clearly identified his cousin's voice beneath the potion-cover: "Here, do a dance for me, Bella!" he cried, casting a Tarantallegra which she easily dodged. Podmore stared white-faced at Mary Macdonald's sprawled body. Severus swept him aside with a dose of Firewhip. "Ahhh, it burns!" he yelled as Severus raced past him and through the open door.
He ran round to the back garden. Skidding to a stop, he closed his eyes and raised his wand. When he opened his eyes, his Patronus stood before him, her head slightly aslant, regarding him with her beautiful black eyes.
"Littleton Road, Ottery St Catchpole," whispered Severus, all his will and desire fixed on the silver doe. "Tell Dumbledore. The Potters. Voldemort knows where they are. Go!"
The doe blinked once. Then she turned, sprang into the air and bounded off into the star-scattered night.
Severus ran round to the front of the cottage. The door was still open. Podmore lay face-down across the threshold. The others duelled, on the steps and the garden path, in light spilling through the doorway. Black, his face manic, had taken on Bellatrix and Rodolphus. Moody ran down the steps, the body of Mary Macdonald in his arms, his wand extending from one clenched fist. A Stunning Spell leapt from its tip and headed for Bellatrix.
"Stupefy!" muttered Severus, and his own Stunner arrowed toward Moody's magic, intercepting it. The two spells collided and cancelled each other out, both disintegrating in a puff of smoke.
"C'mon, Alastor," panted Black, still deflecting Bellatrix's furious volley of spells. Flicking his wand back and forth, blocking curse after curse, he bent down and seized the unconscious Podmore's arm. Then Black and Moody, with their human burdens, Disapparated.
After they were gone, Bellatrix whirled on Severus. "Where were you?"
Severus shrugged. "Outside. Making sure there were no more Order members following the ones our mission leader didn't know were coming. Then, stopping Moody from Stunning you."
"You should have Stunned him, if you were too cowardly to kill him!"
"That wouldn't have stopped his spell from striking you. Oh, and you're welcome."
"Enough, you two!" snapped Rodolphus. "We need to report to the Dark Lord before the Order moves the Potters. The Lord will not be happy if Harry Potter escapes him again."
****
"You'll be delighted, as I was, to hear that James, Lily and Harry are safe," Dumbledore said later. "Your prompt action saved them. Thank you."
"You don't need to thank me," said Severus.
"Nevertheless I do."
You don't need to, Severus would have repeated, if he'd thought it would do any good. The Potters did. But they couldn't, so it didn't matter. What mattered was whether letting Bellatrix do Unforgivable things to Mary Macdonald was as bad as doing them himself. How badly had he damaged his soul? He was about to ask Dumbledore when Dumbledore said:
"There's nothing for it but the Fidelius Charm. Lily can cast it if James can't. It will be like putting them in prison, but what else can I do?"
Dumbledore's mind had obviously wandered far past Severus's concerns. So Severus did not bring them up.
****
Hogwarts might have been safe, but that was all. Severus hated his job. He hated children and he hated teaching them.
They were all thicker and all cheekier than they'd been when he was in school. Four years. Was that so very long ago, that kids could have changed that much? Take Wycliffe and Hansen, whom he was meeting for detention this afternoon for purposefully botching a potion. They'd have given Potter and Black a run for their money and not only because they were Gryffindors. They had the Potterian arrogance and disregard for rules and had doubtless been up in Gryffindor Tower (or even out in the grounds: Severus had his suspicions and wouldn't give them up, let McGonagall and Dumbledore dismiss them as they might), carrying on with Halloween celebrations long after curfew. Well, they wouldn't be napping in the dormitory after lessons today.
As Dumbledore's only Slytherin teacher (was that an accident, he couldn't help but wonder), Severus was Head of House and took full advantage of the amenities that the position conveyed. He used Slughorn's old apartment, which was attached to Slughorn's old office (now happily devoid of the rococo cabinet with the fluttering cherubs on top) and maintained Slughorn's owl-delivered subscription to the Daily Prophet. He hadn't stayed up late celebrating Halloween--he'd never done that--so he entered his office, cup of coffee in hand, at his usual hour of eight o'clock. There lay the Prophet, as usual, on top of his desk. Above the fold, he could see as he closed the door of his apartment, was the increasingly common picture of a house in ruins.
Another Death Eater attack. A familiar queasiness rose in Severus's stomach, which, out of long habit, he instantly quelled. He drew closer to his desk and saw the headline even before he snatched up the newspaper:
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Disappears, Presumed Dead after Attack in Godric's Hollow
GODRIC'S HOLLOW--Summoned by an anonymous tip, Aurors arrived at Number 15, Bagshot Lane in Godric's Hollow to find a scene all too familiar these days--a house destroyed and a young couple dead. A neighbour, retired scholar and author Miss Bathilda Bagshot, identified the couple as James and Lily Potter, saying that they had taken up residence at Number 15 in early summer.
Mystery surrounds Mr and Mrs Potter's life and the manner of their death. "I didn't know there was a Number 15, Bagshot Lane," says Mr Gerard Marvell, a resident, one street over, of Number Nine, Rose Way, suggesting that the Potters saw a need to use warding magic to disguise their location. Miss Bagshot had nothing to say about that, insisting only that not only was there a Number 15 where the Potters lived, they also had a one-year-old son named Harry. But although a baby's layette was found among the wreckage, the Aurors say they saw no other trace of a child, living or dead.
Miss Baghot also states that "a wizard alighted from the air" into the lane and entered the Potters' cottage around midnight on Halloween. When asked if she meant the wizard Apparated, Miss Bagshot replied, "No. He flew." On a broom? "No."
When reminded that only one wizard, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, has acquired the skill of broomless flight, Miss Bagshot retorted, "I know that, you young twit. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named came to the Potters' house last night to kill their son. And now he and the boy have disappeared."
No Dark Mark floated over Number 15, casting doubt on Miss Bagshot's claim. Yet rumours issuing from Azkaban Prison may support it. Anonymous sources there claim that the Dark Marks on imprisoned Death Eaters' arms have faded to near invisibility....
The newspaper slipped from Severus's hand, fluttering in sheets to the floor. Slowly he rolled up his left sleeve. The Dark Mark on his forearm, usually a gleaming black brand even when quiescent, had faded to the thin pale lines of an old scar. To near invisibility.
House destroyed...young couple dead.... Severus's mind went blank. He threw up a wall, nothing like his Occlumency, past which he admitted nothing. But it was too late. Drawing up the bridge only trapped the information inside, imprisoning it like so many Death Eaters in Azkaban.
The manner of their death.... Severus opened his office door and entered a dungeon corridor full of the beating of owls' wings and the murmuring of Slytherin students. The owls held letters grasped in their talons and the students were apprehensive.
"You-Know-Who...gone...they say he's dead, Professor Snape..."
"Professor Snape, what will happen to us now?"
Owls' wings brushed his head; the wind of their flight blew into his face. Students jostled around him. A couple even tried to grasp at his sleeve. He shook them off.
The news was spreading. That was the only information he allowed past the wall.
The owls continued their frantic flight, but the students, looking at Severus's face, fell back.
Severus found the stairs, climbed them, threw open the door to the entrance hall. He entered the hall and blinked in the brilliant morning light. Letter-carrying owls still whirred above him in flight, but here the students didn't murmur.
"You-Know-Who gone...dead! Hip, hip, hurrah!"
"Hip, hip, hurrah!" yelled a voice louder than the rest. Isaak Hansen, at the head of a knot of Gryffindors; Hansen, who was due for detention this afternoon. Tall, golden-haired, he put one in mind of Olaus Ruskin. Beside him was his best friend Moira Wycliffe, also sentenced to detention, red-haired like--
Gone...dead...
"Voldemort's dead!" shouted Hansen. "Yes, Voldemort!" he cried to scattered gasps. "I'll call him by his real name, like Dumbledore, why not...?"
Dumbledore. Yes, that was right. That was where Severus was going.
He climbed the stairs to the seventh floor, compensating by instinct for each vanishing step, remembering without thought where each staircase would lead on a Sunday morning. Hogwarts was in his blood, laid down in his nerves; it was his real home, after all, as he'd told himself since the day he'd learned he was a wizard and would go to a wizarding school far from Spinner's End. On the seventh floor, his steps took him to the corridor with the stone gargoyle at its end.
What was the password? He'd forgotten. "Dumbledore," he whispered, at a loss for any other word. The gargoyle leapt aside and the wall opened. Severus stepped on to the spiral staircase and let it carry him to the Headmaster's office door. He knocked, and the door opened. He went inside.
Dumbledore was there, standing with his back to Severus, gazing out the window. Outside, Severus could see fountains of magical stars shooting up from the lawns. "It's not a school day, fortunately," said Dumbledore. "We can give free rein to our celebrations."
Severus couldn't speak.
Dumbledore turned. His face was calmer than Severus had seen it in a long time, but his eyes were red. "Severus," he said wearily.
Severus grasped after words. "The Prophet--" he choked.
"I know. Harry lives, if it interests you."
Severus began to tremble.
"Lily saved him. The evidence is clear that she was the last to die. It's also clear that your Dark Lord kept his promise. He offered Lily her life in return for the life of her son. She declined."
"How--how do you know?" gasped Severus.
"Because Harry lives. He bears a scar on his forehead that proves Voldemort struck him with a Killing Curse, but he did not die. Lily's sacrifice--the shedding of her own blood, when she could have stepped aside to let Voldemort murder Harry unhindered--saved him."
The shedding of her own blood, Lily's blood.... Why? The Prophet had said the house must have been warded; why had the wards failed? Why hadn't Dumbledore protected her? He'd promised; if Severus would give himself to him, and Severus had given himself, he'd promised to protect her.
He hadn't kept his promise. She was dead. Gone...dead.... Severus clutched his head in his hands and howled.
"Sit down, Severus," said Dumbledore.
Tears soaked Severus's cheeks. He bowed his head, gripping his hair so hard that his scalp hurt.
"Severus. Sit down."
Dumbledore spoke more firmly, and the words penetrated. Severus stumbled forward, groping blindly. He found a chair, sank into it and, slumping over his lap, covered his face with his hands. His sobs tore the air, until he could find no more breath for them. Panting, he looked up. Dumbledore had moved closer to him, and he looked pitiless, but that was the least of Severus's worries.
"I thought...you were going...to keep her...safe..." he got out.
"She and James put their faith in the wrong person," said Dumbledore. "Rather like you, Severus. Weren't you hoping that Lord Voldemort would spare her?"
No. He wouldn't be here now if he'd ever really indulged that pretence. He'd told himself a different lie: that he hadn't known whom the prophecy meant.
"He knows the members of the Order. And he will kill them. Every one." Ruskin, driving Potter mad with terror and fury. "We've got to fight them and carry on fighting them until we stop them...." Lily, just before she'd told Severus she was pregnant. With the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord.
"James wasn't home, and I surprised a couple of thieves trying to break in. They're on their way to Azkaban now, and when they get there, they'll still look worse than I do." Lily, on crutches, her leg twisted with a Bone-cracker Curse. Lying through her teeth, though no one around her, not her current Trainee Healer friends nor her former friend Severus admitted to knowing it.
But he had known it. He had known that if anyone could defy the Dark Lord thrice and live, it would be Lily Evans Potter.
"--not without cracking her bones to remember me by. But yes, I let her escape."
And Severus had known on the second of August that she had delivered a baby at the end of July. As the seventh month had died.
"It's a boy, born the thirty-first...."
He had known that, thanks to the ever-helpful Harding. And he had gone on to betray her.
"...thought we were supposed to be friends? Best friends?"
Not any longer.
"You've chosen your way. I've chosen mine."
Severus's breathing was shallow. He couldn't breathe deep; there didn't seem to be enough air in the room.
"Her boy survives," said Dumbledore.
Severus sloughed that off with a jerk of the head. Who cared, really, given the price?
"Her son lives. He has her eyes, precisely her eyes." How so weary a man could be so relentless, Severus did not know. Then Dumbledore gave the knife a surgical twist. "You remember the shape and colour of Lily Evans's eyes, I am sure?"
Severus found breath. "DON'T! Gone...dead..."
"Is this remorse, Severus?"
Remorse? It had been remorse long before this, and even then it had come too late. "I wish...I wish I were dead...."
"And what use would that be to anyone? If you loved Lily Evans, if you truly loved her, then your way forward is clear."
Slowly Severus looked up. Dumbledore's eyes were still red, but the lines in his face were like fissures etched in stone. "What--what do you mean?"
"You know how and why she died. Make sure it was not in vain. Help me protect Lily's son."
"He does not need protection. The Dark Lord has gone--"
"The Dark Lord will return, and Harry Potter will be in terrible danger when he does."
There was fear in Dumbledore's eyes despite his stony face, fear, guilt and buried secrets. Had he revealed himself willingly or had Severus caught him off guard? Or did Severus see, reflected in blue, red-rimmed eyes, what was in his own heart?
He stared, wondering, and found almost as an aside that his breathing slowed and his head grew somewhat clearer.
"Very well. Very well. But never--never tell, Dumbledore! This must be between us!" The old hatred spewed up in him with the new grief. If Lily hadn't married him, she'd still be alive! "Swear it! I cannot bear...especially Potter's son...I want your word!"
The aggression seemed to wilt Dumbledore slightly. "My word, Severus, that I shall never reveal the best of you?" He sighed. "If you insist."
"I insist." Severus rose, facing Dumbledore, taking advantage while he could. "I will do what you ask. But I will not be put on display as your tame Death Eater."
Dumbledore's eyebrows went up. "Very well. If that's how you see it."
"I do."
There was an uncomfortable silence. Then Dumbledore cleared his throat and said, "Well, then. As for Lily and James's funeral--"
It was unbearable. "Send me the details tomorrow," said Severus, spinning around and heading for the door.
"That's what I meant to tell you I'd do," said Dumbledore. "As I shan't be available until tomorrow."
If he had anything more to say, Severus, closing the door behind him, didn't hear it.
Author: Pasi
Rating: 15
Category: Gen
Fic Summary: Severus Snape is going straight to hell. The people he calls his friends are helping him get there.
Chapter Summary: Severus makes an unwanted acquaintance with death.
Chapter Index
Death and the Death Eater
Autumn 1980-Autumn 1981
The most important part, Severus soon learned, was to keep from getting confused. Dumbledore sent him to Voldemort, who wasn't to know he was the Headmaster's spy. Voldemort sent him to Dumbledore, who wasn't to know he was the Dark Lord's spy. Only one of them was right, and it was up to Severus to keep track.
One thing came as a surprise and a relief too: he vaulted upward in the Dark Lord's esteem. For one thing, Voldemort dismissed Bellatrix's complaints that Severus wasn't pulling his weight.
"Pay her no mind, Severus," said the Dark Lord. "She tortures and kills for me and thus believes that is the highest, indeed the only calling my service requires. Her vision is too narrow to see that different tools have different uses. That is one reason why she is a follower in this movement, not its leader."
That was a burden lifted from Severus's shoulders, for Dumbledore had made it very clear that he wasn't to kill.
"You shouldn't do any Unforgivable Cursing, but I suppose you can't escape it all. However, I absolutely forbid you to kill. That would damage your soul beyond reclamation, and I think we can agree you don't need that."
No one could have agreed more than Severus did. "The Dark Lord's right, then?"
"I'm sorry?"
"He doesn't want me to kill, either, because he said you'd see it in my soul."
Dumbledore smiled grimly. "I see Tom hasn't forgotten my preferences."
"Tom?"
"Voldemort's name, before he began putting on airs. I've always wondered whether he didn't realise taking an overblown alias like Voldemort was a thuggish thing to do, or whether that was exactly his intention: to be a thug."
"I think he wants more than that now."
"He thinks it's more."
Severus returned to the topic. "So the Dark Lord doesn't want me to go on missions with the other Death Eaters. But I'm afraid that may rouse suspicion," he added somewhat reluctantly.
Dumbledore frowned. "How?"
"Some Death Eaters think that the Dark Lord's pampering me. That I'm not doing my share of the work."
"Any Death Eaters in particular?"
"Bellatrix Lestrange," Severus said promptly. "And others, perhaps. She's never afraid to speak up, as if she's always had influence with the Dark Lord."
"Before you came along," said Dumbledore musingly. "And I doubt she's lost her influence with the others. She was always a leader in Slytherin House, although I never could see my way to making her a prefect." Dumbledore sat silent for a few moments, thinking. "Perhaps she's right, Severus. Perhaps you're not pulling your weight."
"I'd have to do what Bellatrix does, sir, to make her happy."
"I don't want that," Dumbledore said. "But perhaps you could accompany Bellatrix while she does what she does. Without getting your own hands dirty. Bellatrix or the others. Just to prove you're one of the lads. To keep suspicion tamped down."
"You mean join in," said Severus.
"Yes, I'm afraid so. I trust you to be able to manage that without going too far. I trust you."
****
Thus Severus joined the hunt for James and Lily Potter and their son.
He didn't know where they were hiding. Dumbledore, out of a healthy respect for Voldemort's power of Legilimency--or his powers of torture--hadn't told him.
Dolohov, an old hand, was heading up the mission to find the Potters. It was his idea to kidnap Petunia Dursley (Dursley, for she'd married some lump of a Muggle) and hold her hostage in an attempt to flush Lily out of hiding. But Severus forestalled him by warning Dumbledore, who advised the Dursleys to take a long trip abroad.
"How did they manage that?" Lucius said enviously, when Dolohov reported to a meeting of the Inner Circle that the Dursleys had disappeared somewhere on the Continent. "Their son's no older than mine!"
"What gave them the idea in the first place?" Voldemort asked softly, "when indeed their child is so very young?"
"I don't know," said Dolohov angrily. He'd looked forward to being the hostage-taker, to having prisoners of his own. "They made their reservations three months ago!"
"That's before we even though of using them for bait." Rosier said what Severus had carefully avoided saying, as he expected Dumbledore had been the one to get the reservations back-dated. The Imperius Curse, used on some clerk or other? It would have been Severus's first thought, but surely not Dumbledore's.
"But not before we heard of the prophecy," said Voldemort. "Can they know? Have they gone into hiding too? The time and manpower we must waste, hunting them down!"
"Should we bother, my lord?" said Severus. "I don't recall that Lily Evans ever cared much for her sister."
That earned him a few sharp looks from the Death Eaters, and a particularly malevolent one from Bellatrix. It was also not entirely true. But the mental mantle was in place, as was the Lord's disdain for Muggle relations. "Of course not. Friends, then. Wizarding friends. We know Potter's; his family are friends with every blood traitor in Britain. Lily's?"
Voldemort looked at Severus. There was nothing for it but to hand over a few names. It didn't matter. It wasn't as though he cared for these people. They've chosen their way, I've chosen mine. "Alice Longbottom, Circe Clearwater. But her best friend, in school, anyway, was Mary Macdonald."
"Find her," said Voldemort. "Bella. I'm sure she'll tell you where the Potters have gone."
"She will. But I'll want help, my lord. I can't do it alone."
"Of course."
"Rodolphus. And Snape."
Voldemort gave her a speculative look. Then "Why not?" he said, and smiling slowly they turned toward Severus, giving him the feeling that this had already been discussed. "Help her, Severus. Avoid killing--if you can. But do whatever needs to be done."
Occlumency gave distance, so that he could seem even to himself to be calm. "You're no longer worried about Dumbledore, my lord."
"I am never not worried about Dumbledore. But we're coming very close to the cusp of things. Once I kill this boy, I shall no longer need to worry about Dumbledore. And so it is very important to find him and the parents who are hiding him. So important that I've decided Bella is right--you should do some of the dirty work too."
As if lying and spying were clean.
"You'll be able to hide it from Dumbledore, don't worry. Your Occlumency's strong enough; you'd be in Azkaban by now if it weren't. It's not killing, after all." Bellatrix looked disappointed, and Voldemort laughed. "Or it shouldn't be, if Bella can control herself. A spot of Obliviation after the interrogation's over, that's all."
****
Severus had never liked Mary Macdonald, but he could pity her as she lay quivering, spent with sobbing after Bellatrix had lowered her wand.
"Why don't you just tell her?" he asked. The potion-induced hum disguised the tone of his voice. He had to work to disguise its weariness.
Face-down, she whispered into the hearthrug: "Please don't make me."
"Please don't make me!" mocked Bellatrix. "Or rather, do." She raised her wand, and Mary Macdonald screamed.
She made it harder on herself to betray Lily than Severus had done, but betray her, finally, she did.
"Littleton Road...." Mary's voice trailed off. She looked as though she'd lost her train of thought.
Bellatrix stuck her wand into Mary's face, inches from her nose. Mary moaned with terror.
"Littleton Road where?" said Bellatrix, her eyes lit with lust. Was it a lust Rodolphus would recognise? He didn't look at it now. He'd volunteered to stand guard and did so now, his back turned to them, staring resolutely out the front window, leaving Severus alone to observe his wife's passion.
Bellatrix's hand tightened on her wand. "Ottery--Ottery St Catchpole!" Mary blubbered in panic. She cowered to the rug again, weeping, shielding her head with her forearms.
Severus looked down at her shaking body. His face felt stiff, like a mask beneath his Death Eater's mask. Littleton Road, Ottery St Catchpole. He committed the address to memory.
"Well?" he said to Bellatrix. "Hadn't we better leave before someone notices--?"
A series of pops sounded just outside the window, like exploding firecrackers. "Someone's Apparating!" cried Rodolphus. "Moody, Black, Podmore!"
The curse leapt from Bellatrix's wand and bathed Mary Macdonald in green light. Her trembling body went still.
Severus threw himself back, avoiding the edges of the Killing Curse. "Let's get out of here!"
The door burst open and the Order members poured in, a wild-haired, infuriated-looking Black at their head.
Damn it, Severus couldn't Disapparate now, for he couldn't come back, he'd have to go straight to the Dark Lord. Besides, had Bellatrix even taken down the anti-Apparition wards?
He had to get outside. So, wand up, he rushed Black.
"Expelliarmus!" shouted Black, but the Stunner had already left Severus's wand, and his wand did not follow his spell toward Black.
Black shielded himself, and, "Help him!" shrieked Bellatrix. "Kill them, Rodolphus!"
"Rodolphus, is it?" roared Moody. Behind him Severus heard a sickening thud: the sound of Bellatrix kicking Mary's corpse aside.
Moody shot an Impediment Jinx at Rodolphus and their duel was on. Bellatrix, shrieking with laughter, fought Black, who clearly identified his cousin's voice beneath the potion-cover: "Here, do a dance for me, Bella!" he cried, casting a Tarantallegra which she easily dodged. Podmore stared white-faced at Mary Macdonald's sprawled body. Severus swept him aside with a dose of Firewhip. "Ahhh, it burns!" he yelled as Severus raced past him and through the open door.
He ran round to the back garden. Skidding to a stop, he closed his eyes and raised his wand. When he opened his eyes, his Patronus stood before him, her head slightly aslant, regarding him with her beautiful black eyes.
"Littleton Road, Ottery St Catchpole," whispered Severus, all his will and desire fixed on the silver doe. "Tell Dumbledore. The Potters. Voldemort knows where they are. Go!"
The doe blinked once. Then she turned, sprang into the air and bounded off into the star-scattered night.
Severus ran round to the front of the cottage. The door was still open. Podmore lay face-down across the threshold. The others duelled, on the steps and the garden path, in light spilling through the doorway. Black, his face manic, had taken on Bellatrix and Rodolphus. Moody ran down the steps, the body of Mary Macdonald in his arms, his wand extending from one clenched fist. A Stunning Spell leapt from its tip and headed for Bellatrix.
"Stupefy!" muttered Severus, and his own Stunner arrowed toward Moody's magic, intercepting it. The two spells collided and cancelled each other out, both disintegrating in a puff of smoke.
"C'mon, Alastor," panted Black, still deflecting Bellatrix's furious volley of spells. Flicking his wand back and forth, blocking curse after curse, he bent down and seized the unconscious Podmore's arm. Then Black and Moody, with their human burdens, Disapparated.
After they were gone, Bellatrix whirled on Severus. "Where were you?"
Severus shrugged. "Outside. Making sure there were no more Order members following the ones our mission leader didn't know were coming. Then, stopping Moody from Stunning you."
"You should have Stunned him, if you were too cowardly to kill him!"
"That wouldn't have stopped his spell from striking you. Oh, and you're welcome."
"Enough, you two!" snapped Rodolphus. "We need to report to the Dark Lord before the Order moves the Potters. The Lord will not be happy if Harry Potter escapes him again."
****
"You'll be delighted, as I was, to hear that James, Lily and Harry are safe," Dumbledore said later. "Your prompt action saved them. Thank you."
"You don't need to thank me," said Severus.
"Nevertheless I do."
You don't need to, Severus would have repeated, if he'd thought it would do any good. The Potters did. But they couldn't, so it didn't matter. What mattered was whether letting Bellatrix do Unforgivable things to Mary Macdonald was as bad as doing them himself. How badly had he damaged his soul? He was about to ask Dumbledore when Dumbledore said:
"There's nothing for it but the Fidelius Charm. Lily can cast it if James can't. It will be like putting them in prison, but what else can I do?"
Dumbledore's mind had obviously wandered far past Severus's concerns. So Severus did not bring them up.
****
Hogwarts might have been safe, but that was all. Severus hated his job. He hated children and he hated teaching them.
They were all thicker and all cheekier than they'd been when he was in school. Four years. Was that so very long ago, that kids could have changed that much? Take Wycliffe and Hansen, whom he was meeting for detention this afternoon for purposefully botching a potion. They'd have given Potter and Black a run for their money and not only because they were Gryffindors. They had the Potterian arrogance and disregard for rules and had doubtless been up in Gryffindor Tower (or even out in the grounds: Severus had his suspicions and wouldn't give them up, let McGonagall and Dumbledore dismiss them as they might), carrying on with Halloween celebrations long after curfew. Well, they wouldn't be napping in the dormitory after lessons today.
As Dumbledore's only Slytherin teacher (was that an accident, he couldn't help but wonder), Severus was Head of House and took full advantage of the amenities that the position conveyed. He used Slughorn's old apartment, which was attached to Slughorn's old office (now happily devoid of the rococo cabinet with the fluttering cherubs on top) and maintained Slughorn's owl-delivered subscription to the Daily Prophet. He hadn't stayed up late celebrating Halloween--he'd never done that--so he entered his office, cup of coffee in hand, at his usual hour of eight o'clock. There lay the Prophet, as usual, on top of his desk. Above the fold, he could see as he closed the door of his apartment, was the increasingly common picture of a house in ruins.
Another Death Eater attack. A familiar queasiness rose in Severus's stomach, which, out of long habit, he instantly quelled. He drew closer to his desk and saw the headline even before he snatched up the newspaper:
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Disappears, Presumed Dead after Attack in Godric's Hollow
GODRIC'S HOLLOW--Summoned by an anonymous tip, Aurors arrived at Number 15, Bagshot Lane in Godric's Hollow to find a scene all too familiar these days--a house destroyed and a young couple dead. A neighbour, retired scholar and author Miss Bathilda Bagshot, identified the couple as James and Lily Potter, saying that they had taken up residence at Number 15 in early summer.
Mystery surrounds Mr and Mrs Potter's life and the manner of their death. "I didn't know there was a Number 15, Bagshot Lane," says Mr Gerard Marvell, a resident, one street over, of Number Nine, Rose Way, suggesting that the Potters saw a need to use warding magic to disguise their location. Miss Bagshot had nothing to say about that, insisting only that not only was there a Number 15 where the Potters lived, they also had a one-year-old son named Harry. But although a baby's layette was found among the wreckage, the Aurors say they saw no other trace of a child, living or dead.
Miss Baghot also states that "a wizard alighted from the air" into the lane and entered the Potters' cottage around midnight on Halloween. When asked if she meant the wizard Apparated, Miss Bagshot replied, "No. He flew." On a broom? "No."
When reminded that only one wizard, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, has acquired the skill of broomless flight, Miss Bagshot retorted, "I know that, you young twit. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named came to the Potters' house last night to kill their son. And now he and the boy have disappeared."
No Dark Mark floated over Number 15, casting doubt on Miss Bagshot's claim. Yet rumours issuing from Azkaban Prison may support it. Anonymous sources there claim that the Dark Marks on imprisoned Death Eaters' arms have faded to near invisibility....
The newspaper slipped from Severus's hand, fluttering in sheets to the floor. Slowly he rolled up his left sleeve. The Dark Mark on his forearm, usually a gleaming black brand even when quiescent, had faded to the thin pale lines of an old scar. To near invisibility.
House destroyed...young couple dead.... Severus's mind went blank. He threw up a wall, nothing like his Occlumency, past which he admitted nothing. But it was too late. Drawing up the bridge only trapped the information inside, imprisoning it like so many Death Eaters in Azkaban.
The manner of their death.... Severus opened his office door and entered a dungeon corridor full of the beating of owls' wings and the murmuring of Slytherin students. The owls held letters grasped in their talons and the students were apprehensive.
"You-Know-Who...gone...they say he's dead, Professor Snape..."
"Professor Snape, what will happen to us now?"
Owls' wings brushed his head; the wind of their flight blew into his face. Students jostled around him. A couple even tried to grasp at his sleeve. He shook them off.
The news was spreading. That was the only information he allowed past the wall.
The owls continued their frantic flight, but the students, looking at Severus's face, fell back.
Severus found the stairs, climbed them, threw open the door to the entrance hall. He entered the hall and blinked in the brilliant morning light. Letter-carrying owls still whirred above him in flight, but here the students didn't murmur.
"You-Know-Who gone...dead! Hip, hip, hurrah!"
"Hip, hip, hurrah!" yelled a voice louder than the rest. Isaak Hansen, at the head of a knot of Gryffindors; Hansen, who was due for detention this afternoon. Tall, golden-haired, he put one in mind of Olaus Ruskin. Beside him was his best friend Moira Wycliffe, also sentenced to detention, red-haired like--
Gone...dead...
"Voldemort's dead!" shouted Hansen. "Yes, Voldemort!" he cried to scattered gasps. "I'll call him by his real name, like Dumbledore, why not...?"
Dumbledore. Yes, that was right. That was where Severus was going.
He climbed the stairs to the seventh floor, compensating by instinct for each vanishing step, remembering without thought where each staircase would lead on a Sunday morning. Hogwarts was in his blood, laid down in his nerves; it was his real home, after all, as he'd told himself since the day he'd learned he was a wizard and would go to a wizarding school far from Spinner's End. On the seventh floor, his steps took him to the corridor with the stone gargoyle at its end.
What was the password? He'd forgotten. "Dumbledore," he whispered, at a loss for any other word. The gargoyle leapt aside and the wall opened. Severus stepped on to the spiral staircase and let it carry him to the Headmaster's office door. He knocked, and the door opened. He went inside.
Dumbledore was there, standing with his back to Severus, gazing out the window. Outside, Severus could see fountains of magical stars shooting up from the lawns. "It's not a school day, fortunately," said Dumbledore. "We can give free rein to our celebrations."
Severus couldn't speak.
Dumbledore turned. His face was calmer than Severus had seen it in a long time, but his eyes were red. "Severus," he said wearily.
Severus grasped after words. "The Prophet--" he choked.
"I know. Harry lives, if it interests you."
Severus began to tremble.
"Lily saved him. The evidence is clear that she was the last to die. It's also clear that your Dark Lord kept his promise. He offered Lily her life in return for the life of her son. She declined."
"How--how do you know?" gasped Severus.
"Because Harry lives. He bears a scar on his forehead that proves Voldemort struck him with a Killing Curse, but he did not die. Lily's sacrifice--the shedding of her own blood, when she could have stepped aside to let Voldemort murder Harry unhindered--saved him."
The shedding of her own blood, Lily's blood.... Why? The Prophet had said the house must have been warded; why had the wards failed? Why hadn't Dumbledore protected her? He'd promised; if Severus would give himself to him, and Severus had given himself, he'd promised to protect her.
He hadn't kept his promise. She was dead. Gone...dead.... Severus clutched his head in his hands and howled.
"Sit down, Severus," said Dumbledore.
Tears soaked Severus's cheeks. He bowed his head, gripping his hair so hard that his scalp hurt.
"Severus. Sit down."
Dumbledore spoke more firmly, and the words penetrated. Severus stumbled forward, groping blindly. He found a chair, sank into it and, slumping over his lap, covered his face with his hands. His sobs tore the air, until he could find no more breath for them. Panting, he looked up. Dumbledore had moved closer to him, and he looked pitiless, but that was the least of Severus's worries.
"I thought...you were going...to keep her...safe..." he got out.
"She and James put their faith in the wrong person," said Dumbledore. "Rather like you, Severus. Weren't you hoping that Lord Voldemort would spare her?"
No. He wouldn't be here now if he'd ever really indulged that pretence. He'd told himself a different lie: that he hadn't known whom the prophecy meant.
"He knows the members of the Order. And he will kill them. Every one." Ruskin, driving Potter mad with terror and fury. "We've got to fight them and carry on fighting them until we stop them...." Lily, just before she'd told Severus she was pregnant. With the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord.
"James wasn't home, and I surprised a couple of thieves trying to break in. They're on their way to Azkaban now, and when they get there, they'll still look worse than I do." Lily, on crutches, her leg twisted with a Bone-cracker Curse. Lying through her teeth, though no one around her, not her current Trainee Healer friends nor her former friend Severus admitted to knowing it.
But he had known it. He had known that if anyone could defy the Dark Lord thrice and live, it would be Lily Evans Potter.
"--not without cracking her bones to remember me by. But yes, I let her escape."
And Severus had known on the second of August that she had delivered a baby at the end of July. As the seventh month had died.
"It's a boy, born the thirty-first...."
He had known that, thanks to the ever-helpful Harding. And he had gone on to betray her.
"...thought we were supposed to be friends? Best friends?"
Not any longer.
"You've chosen your way. I've chosen mine."
Severus's breathing was shallow. He couldn't breathe deep; there didn't seem to be enough air in the room.
"Her boy survives," said Dumbledore.
Severus sloughed that off with a jerk of the head. Who cared, really, given the price?
"Her son lives. He has her eyes, precisely her eyes." How so weary a man could be so relentless, Severus did not know. Then Dumbledore gave the knife a surgical twist. "You remember the shape and colour of Lily Evans's eyes, I am sure?"
Severus found breath. "DON'T! Gone...dead..."
"Is this remorse, Severus?"
Remorse? It had been remorse long before this, and even then it had come too late. "I wish...I wish I were dead...."
"And what use would that be to anyone? If you loved Lily Evans, if you truly loved her, then your way forward is clear."
Slowly Severus looked up. Dumbledore's eyes were still red, but the lines in his face were like fissures etched in stone. "What--what do you mean?"
"You know how and why she died. Make sure it was not in vain. Help me protect Lily's son."
"He does not need protection. The Dark Lord has gone--"
"The Dark Lord will return, and Harry Potter will be in terrible danger when he does."
There was fear in Dumbledore's eyes despite his stony face, fear, guilt and buried secrets. Had he revealed himself willingly or had Severus caught him off guard? Or did Severus see, reflected in blue, red-rimmed eyes, what was in his own heart?
He stared, wondering, and found almost as an aside that his breathing slowed and his head grew somewhat clearer.
"Very well. Very well. But never--never tell, Dumbledore! This must be between us!" The old hatred spewed up in him with the new grief. If Lily hadn't married him, she'd still be alive! "Swear it! I cannot bear...especially Potter's son...I want your word!"
The aggression seemed to wilt Dumbledore slightly. "My word, Severus, that I shall never reveal the best of you?" He sighed. "If you insist."
"I insist." Severus rose, facing Dumbledore, taking advantage while he could. "I will do what you ask. But I will not be put on display as your tame Death Eater."
Dumbledore's eyebrows went up. "Very well. If that's how you see it."
"I do."
There was an uncomfortable silence. Then Dumbledore cleared his throat and said, "Well, then. As for Lily and James's funeral--"
It was unbearable. "Send me the details tomorrow," said Severus, spinning around and heading for the door.
"That's what I meant to tell you I'd do," said Dumbledore. "As I shan't be available until tomorrow."
If he had anything more to say, Severus, closing the door behind him, didn't hear it.