Seventh Betrayal

[queenoftraitors]

I have never heard such wailing and gnashing of teeth over the brief loss of a few simple luxuries. I wonder what you would all do if you found yourselves forever bereft of something of real value.

Private to Severus Snape//Unbreakable
At your leisure.

/Private

[ooc: Action for Snape, network for everyone else.

ETA: Action thread with Snape

Comments

[ action ]

[eduronox]

"There is no price too great for what we know," he says, his voice barely above a whisper - he knows he can capture people and hold their attention and he lets himself become stronger before her, pulling her in. "There is no suffering worse than failure, a miserable life. That pain, that blood - it is the proof of greatness."

He can speak of magic as one would a lover because it's how he does feel. Lies twisted with truth, making the perfect cover. So perfect that, while she leans to him and he keeps his gaze with hers, there's no spare set of eyes to realize he has his wand in one hand now - a conduit he highly doubts she even realizes he possesses.

"I would give my blood, and more. I would sacrifice my heart, even if I had to cut it out with my own hands... and... you see... I have.."

A barely-there pause. His raises his head, eyes still locked onto hers, wand pointed at her chest. Before anyone can move or so much as breath, he speaks a word, so powerful an incantation that the wizarding government in his homeworld has outlawed it and deemed it unforgivable. For it will steal her control away, making her his puppet.

"Imperio."

[ action ]

[queenoftraitors]

Jadis is prepared to agree with his words, to nod and smile and offer to share what she knows. Not all of it, of course, but desperate times mean stooping to measures you wouldn't normally consider. So if she has to share a little power to attain a greater one, then so be it.

His eyes and voice are captivating, but more so the possibility of getting something she wants, and it's not until that wand comes into her line of sight, pointed directly at her, that Jadis realizes what's happening.

She opens her mouth, breathes in, stretches out her hand toward the long crystal wand resting against the side of her throne...and finds herself under his power.

It is infuriating.

[ action ]

[eduronox]

And all at once, the helpless, subservient facade melts away, like it had never been there at all, and Jadis was just too conceited to have noticed. He straightens up and looks down at her, unimpressed and a little haughty.

"That," he announces, his voice still soft, but containing a very powerful edge now, "was almost embarassing in its ease. And you call yourself a queen?"

His tone contains a faint mocking, but he's got an objective at hand. Still, he takes a moment to really look around her citadel. It really is an impressive bit of magic, but the more he looks, the easier it is for him to translate her magic into that which is familiar to him.

Leaving her prone, he steps back to look at the ceiling - pausing only to look back and decide not to press his luck. "Accio," he says, almost lazy, indicating her wand. Can't be too careful.

Severus can probably melt the hell out of her place, but what purpose would it serve? She'll just come back. The wards are what irritates him the most, honestly. Arrogance makes even the most powerful of people sloppy. He walked right up to her home, despite her having enemies in the City. How foolish.

"I think I can skip the speech about how you've been liked to, don't you?" he says, walking back to her, all casual confidence and dark power, a complete invert of his demeanor not ten minutes prior. "Some wonderful rituals you have. Stabbing people. Turning them to stone. I'll be honest, I don't really care. I've done worse. I imagine they'd send me to hell ten times quicker than you." He smiles - it's a smirk, sharp and knife-like, and it doesn't reach his eyes. "But you chose poorly. One of your victims was a friend. And so..."

Closer, now, eye contact again. "You are going to dump that potion out and fill the vial with your own blood." He smiles again, and it's not comforting.

[ action ]

[queenoftraitors]

Outwardly, of course, Jadis doesn't move a muscle. But inside she's fuming, and plotting a hundred different ways to curse him and hurt him and rip him apart. If Snape thought her rituals were unpleasant before...

There's plenty she wants to say, too, and she will say it, even if the words have to wait until she's standing over him with a stone knife in her hand. It's not the inability to speak that brings a sudden flash of fear and then fury into her eyes. It's the demand for blood.

Against her will, Jadis holds out her hand and turns the crystal vial on end, the potion running out onto the floor and staining the ice. Her expression is blank, except for the cold fury in her eyes, as she pulls her dagger from her robe and draws it across one arm, letting the blood run in a red stream over hand and into the vial.

There will be revenge for this offense, she promises herself.

[ action ]

[eduronox]

"Oh, yes," he says, leaning in to watch her. "I know exactly what it is that I'm doing. I could cause you such pain.. but what's pain?"

He stands before her now, eyelevel. "It's something, and then it's nothing. No, I think I'd much rather take from you what I know you take from others. Not for symmetric vengeance... but because I want you to know exactly what I'll do to you if you ever bother any of mine again."

When that vial is full, he takes it from her and tucks it away in his robes, then steps back. The spell will keep until he mentally releases it, which he'll do when he's out of her territory. He knows she's furious, he can see it, almost feel it. And he knows she'll probably come after him. Oh, well. He gives her another cold, sadistic smile, and then a mocking bow.

A second later, he's vanished into nothingness, Apparated away.

[ action ]

[queenoftraitors]

Snape is already gone, and so can't hear the wrathful scream that echoes through Jadis's fortress. Nor can he feel the biting chill that rises in the air, covering everything with a fresh layer of ice.

Anyone who happens to be in the vicinity of that wintry space, however, will hear the wind howl, see the snow blow in a ferocious blizzard that almost buries the little cottages on the surface. It reaches no further than the edges of Jadis's territory, but within that invisible demarcation, the storm rages.