fic that ate my brain
Here we go! the fic that ate my brain for a whole WEEK, while i couldn't do anything about it!
Fandom: Harry Potter
Title: Betrayal
Rating: PG-13/K+ for disturbing theories
Warnings: OOC like woah (of the complete change-of-heart variety), torture, character death...I think that's it, actually. Rather tame, no? Spoilers for HBP, but if you haven't read it yet, shame on you.
Summary: Harry's been captured, but it isn't Snape that worries him...
Author's Note:
After two and a half weeks of nothing I decided to write this, the first non-challenge piece I've written in months. I was pleased with the idea. However, I kept trying to write this on two
different plot levels for the first few days, and that stumped me for awhile, but I figured it out.
So, here it is. I decided not to use Bellatrix, because she has a difficult personality that I wasn't quite grasping. So, I'm using Snape instead, and I keep thinking how dirty some of the
things he says soun, out of context. Quirkie!Snape (i.e., Snape as written by yours truly) has a definite bondage kink XD Of course, Quirkie!Snape would like nothing better than a threesome with James and Lily, and has, on occasion, feasibly continued to play both sides of the Light/Dark fence...
Watch for the Mistaken Idenity reference ;)
Somewhere around 2100 words, which makes it the longest thing I've written in ages, as well.
Betrayal
"Well, now, Potter. This is an unpleasant surprise. To what do I owe the displeasure?" Snape drawled from the depths of the dimly lit room. His tone was one of unmistakable
boredom, though Harry couldn't yet make out the hook-nosed visage the all-too-familiar voice belonged to.
Harry's bound form was shoved unceremoniously over the threshold by the pair of Death Eaters, their trademark impassive white masks sneering blankly down at him as he staggered
forward a few steps, then stumbled to his knees at Snape's feet.
"Who told you?" he snapped, glaring defiantly up at Snape, whose face was still mostly in shadow. "Who betrayed us?!" he snarled urgently, struggling against the magical
bindings that held his arms behind his back.
The visible part of Snape's mouth curled malevolently in the flickering light provided by the single pair of candles. "I don't believe you really need to know the answer to that, Potter," he
replied smoothly, flicking his wand and sending Harry flying across the room. He gestured a dismissal to the other Death Eaters, then locked the door behind them.
"Who was it? Tell me!" Harry demanded, laboriously dragging himself to his knees again.
"You ought to show me a bit more respect. Unfortunately for you, you are not in much of a position to be ordering anyone about, much less myself." Harry was certain that
Snape's unpleasant face was quirking in a cruelly satisfied sort of smirk right about now, and Harry was determined to allow him as little further entertainment from the situation as
possible.
Silence reigned for a few moments while captive and captor exchanged glares.
"What shall I do with you, Potter?" Snape muttered quietly, definitely more to himself than to his prisoner. "What shall I do..." he repeated in a rather sinister half-whisper, malice
glinting in his black eyes.
"You aren't going to kill me?" Harry's voice rang with sharp surprise, stunned by the possibility.
"No." His heart leapt a little--still a chance to escape--but plummeted again at Snape's next words. "Not...immediately. I've waited much too long to end it so
quickly." he taunted, adding, "I intend to savour this victory for as long as possible."
"You--" Harry began to growl, but Snape cut him off before he could finish detailing exactly what he thought Snape was.
"Crucio." he said almost lazily, leering derisively as Harry writhed against his bindings. "Quite as good as a Silencing Charm, don't you think? And I must admit, I've waited a long
time to hear you scream like that..." he laughed mirthlessly, and Harry resisted the urge to say anything, lest it earn him another Cruciatus. "And now, an old favorite..." The words had
barely registered before Harry was in the air, dangling by his ankle, and Snape was laughing again. "How do you like it, Potter?" For a moment, Harry wondered if Snape had gone
'round the twist; it almost sounded like he thought Harry was James...but then Harry recalled, with a wave of sickness, the dueling immediately following Dumbledore's murder, when he'd
tried to use this same spell--Snape had seen it in his mind.
"Who--told--you?" he tried again, the only thing he could think of to buy himself some time as he gritted his teeth and the blood drained to his head.
"Oh, shut up, Potter, before I change my mind about Silencing you. Even you should be able to guess who sold you out, given time and incentive to think about it. In fact," Snape
said, his eyes gleaming again, "we'll make a game of it--we'll see if you can figure it out before you go mad."
"Er--what?" Harry asked, having trouble thinking as even more blood rushed to his head.
"Idiot boy," the Death Eater spat. "Crucio!"
The agony stopped after what felt like an eternity, though it was probably only a few minutes, regardless of how badly it left him aching.
And still, he remained upside down, with Snape still gloating at him across the room. Certainly not an ideal situation, under any circumstances.
"Pathetic. How someone like you ever managed to defeat the Dark Lord even once--"
"Malfoy," Harry interrupted, having finally worked out what was going on. "It has to be Malfoy," he panted again, reassuring himself.
"Of course not. He's much too transparent to pull off any sort of double-agency. Crucio!"
When the pain subsided this time, leaving a smouldering kind of ache, it was hurting to breathe. Harry suspected at least one broken rib, if not more.
"Keep guessing like that," Snape observed mockingly, "and you'll never get it." He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the prospect.
"Shacklebolt--" Harry heard himself croaking. Kingsley had disappeared a few months ago, around the time the raids and stakeouts had begun to go so badly awry. They'd never found
the body, after all, and maybe--
"No. Bellatrix did away with him personally." This piece of information hit Harry like a blow ever before Snape uttered the Cruciatus; yet another life that loathsome woman had to answer
for. If it was the last thing he did, he'd make her pay.
When the curse receded this time, there was a horrible kind of give to his leg, and he'd dropped perhaps an inch closer to the floor, pain shooting up the leg and through his spine.
Judging by what he knew about anatomy, Harry guessed his lower leg had popped out of the knee socket, and he was relatively certain that continuing to hang by that leg was probably
ruining something important to his continued ability to walk. He grunted a little, but didn't say anything; he knew Snape would take a particularly vindictive pleasure in scarring Harry for
the remainder of his presumably short life.
He almost guessed Moody, as simply the next member of the Order that came to mind, but caught himself in time. It would be stupid to endure another Cruciatus on an utterly absurd
guess like that. After all, Moody had been fighting Dark wizards since before Harry was born, and after being captured and imitated once, he was the last person Harry
would expect betrayal from.
Likewise, Harry felt he could rule out Lupin. Not only had it been Voldemort's pet werewolf, Fenrir Greyback, who'd bitten Remus as a child, but Voldemort had also destroyed his four best
friends, and now killed his lover, as well. Tonks had disappeared with Kingsley.
Desperately, Harry ran through the ranks of the Order he'd trusted in his mind. McGonagall had been killed almost six months ago; Mundungus was in Azkaban; Fluer had been killed last
month, while trying to protect Molly, who, along with Sturgis Podmore, was now permanently damaged; Neville and Luna were in St. Mungo's intensive care and didn't know about
tonight; Dean, Ernie, Susan Bones, and Anthony Goldstein had all been wiped out in the last year; the rest of the old Order had been picked off, as well, and most the new Order hadn't
been trusted with raid information since they'd started going so badly wrong.
He'd already ruled out Lupin and Moody, and Hermione--
Well. Hermione's parents had been murdered by Voldemort last month, and Hermione herself had gone missing the week before last. That left Harry himself, and a handful of Weasleys.
Surely none of the Weasleys would cave, not after losing Arthur, Charlie, and George to the same attack that got Molly and Fluer! Unless--
"Percy Weasley," Harry guessed, wondering why he hadn't thought of Percy sooner; after all, he'd betrayed them once before. A feeble hope, but--
"Crucio!"
Harry felt another rib go, and his throat was long since scraped raw from screaming, but he was more worried about the fact that he was out of ideas, as well as out of suspects.
"Come on, boy, think. It isn't that hard..." Snape was prodding almost eagerly over Harry's progressively hoarser yells.
Harry hung there, simply gasping in the wake of the Cruciatus and trying to think over the aches that were intensifying with every new casting. Who's left?
He knew Bill and Fred wouldn't, not after losing their life-partners; he was also sure that Ron and Ginny wouldn't. It obviously hadn't been Harry himself, and no one had seen
Hermione in two weeks, there was no way--
Snape still watched him, something akin to glee surfacing in the gloating sneer flickering across his face again as Harry racked his brain.
"You still don't get it, do you, Potter?" he murmured silkily, looking smug and rather amused by Harry's internal struggle.
"You know, Snape, I really don't think he does." stated a new, yet horribly entertained and horribly familiar, voice from the shadows, and Harry was suddenly afraid to look for the source,
afraid of what--or who--he'd end up seeing, afraid he already knew.
"Her...Hermione?" he rasped as she emerged into the dim light, surprised to see her alive. "C'mon, help me! We've got to get...out..." He paused; the other two were laughing, and
as he looked closer, he noticed that something had wrought a terrible change in Hermione. Her face was paler and sharper than he remembered; someone he didn't know peered
back at him from her dark, no-longer-so-soft eyes.
"Hermione?" he repeated, more uncertainly.
"Silence, Potter." There was no sign of familiarity in that chilly tone. The fact that she'd called him 'Potter' hurt far more than any of the other changes, more than anything so far.
Even the pain left by the Cruciatus faltered in the face of this.
"You see, Potter," Snape was saying as those thoughts were running through Harry's head, "desperation changes a person. Transforms them, makes them capable of becoming
more than they would otherwise be...Just how far do you think Granger would go, now, to cleanse that dirty blood of hers?" He laughed softly at the dawning horror clearly
scrawled across Harry's face.
"Hermione? That's not..." Harry gulped, "that's not true, is it? He's got you under the Imperius, or something, right? You haven't really..." He was babbling and he knew it, but he
only managed to stop the flow of words when Hermione yanked up the sleeve of her robes, revealing the Dark Mark. The stark realization finally hit him at the sight of the Mark.
"Does this answer your question, Potter?" she smirked with a kind of vicious satisfaction in her disdainfully curling lips.
"But what about your parents?" Harry choked, the revulsion making it hard to speak. How could she be doing this? They'd been best friends since first year! How could
she have changed so much?
"What about my parents? Want to know who killed them?" Harry had a sneaking suspicion that he didn't, but was going to find out anyway. "Want to know who murdered those
filthy Muggle parents of mine? I did, Potter. I did." She was laughing again now as Harry's mouth hung open in disbelief.
"Hermione..." he mumbled, "you didn't...tell me you didn't...just listen to yourself, you sound like Voldemort...you don't mean that...I know you don't...What about your capture?"
"You really are a joke, aren't you? I let them 'capture' me--I couldn't let you catch on, could I? But you know why I let it happen? Because Snape, and Lestrange, and the Dark Lord,
and all the rest are right. They showed me the truth.
"Wizards have been hiding in fear of Muggles for centuries, Potter! If Muggles were really those harmlessly foolish creatures that some of you idiots seem to think, why would we still be
hiding, why would we be afraid of being found out? It's because they aren't harmless, as even the weakest and most deluded of us know, in our hearts. We both know that if they
found us, it wouldn't be any different than last time; the Hunts would return. Sure, you boast that no real witches were killed in the Hunts, but that certainly wasn't through a lack of effort
or hatred! Muggles are viciously uncivilized--any one of their wars has killed more than our last three put together! They're bloodthirsty; they can't be taught with patience. They
continue killing each other, just as they would kill us if we re-emerged peacefully. They must be shown who is in control with force. It is time for wizards to return to the open world!
"The time for hiding is over. So you see, Potter," she finished quietly, her eyes blazing with her convictions, "that is why the Dark Lord must win. We must take back what is ours.
And you must not be allowed to stand in our way."
"I daresay you know what you have to do, Granger." Snape inserted, the cold, detached tone returning. She nodded, raising her wand without a trace of hesitation or emotion.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Fandom: Harry Potter
Title: Betrayal
Rating: PG-13/K+ for disturbing theories
Warnings: OOC like woah (of the complete change-of-heart variety), torture, character death...I think that's it, actually. Rather tame, no? Spoilers for HBP, but if you haven't read it yet, shame on you.
Summary: Harry's been captured, but it isn't Snape that worries him...
Author's Note:
After two and a half weeks of nothing I decided to write this, the first non-challenge piece I've written in months. I was pleased with the idea. However, I kept trying to write this on two
different plot levels for the first few days, and that stumped me for awhile, but I figured it out.
So, here it is. I decided not to use Bellatrix, because she has a difficult personality that I wasn't quite grasping. So, I'm using Snape instead, and I keep thinking how dirty some of the
things he says soun, out of context. Quirkie!Snape (i.e., Snape as written by yours truly) has a definite bondage kink XD Of course, Quirkie!Snape would like nothing better than a threesome with James and Lily, and has, on occasion, feasibly continued to play both sides of the Light/Dark fence...
Watch for the Mistaken Idenity reference ;)
Somewhere around 2100 words, which makes it the longest thing I've written in ages, as well.
Betrayal
"Well, now, Potter. This is an unpleasant surprise. To what do I owe the displeasure?" Snape drawled from the depths of the dimly lit room. His tone was one of unmistakable
boredom, though Harry couldn't yet make out the hook-nosed visage the all-too-familiar voice belonged to.
Harry's bound form was shoved unceremoniously over the threshold by the pair of Death Eaters, their trademark impassive white masks sneering blankly down at him as he staggered
forward a few steps, then stumbled to his knees at Snape's feet.
"Who told you?" he snapped, glaring defiantly up at Snape, whose face was still mostly in shadow. "Who betrayed us?!" he snarled urgently, struggling against the magical
bindings that held his arms behind his back.
The visible part of Snape's mouth curled malevolently in the flickering light provided by the single pair of candles. "I don't believe you really need to know the answer to that, Potter," he
replied smoothly, flicking his wand and sending Harry flying across the room. He gestured a dismissal to the other Death Eaters, then locked the door behind them.
"Who was it? Tell me!" Harry demanded, laboriously dragging himself to his knees again.
"You ought to show me a bit more respect. Unfortunately for you, you are not in much of a position to be ordering anyone about, much less myself." Harry was certain that
Snape's unpleasant face was quirking in a cruelly satisfied sort of smirk right about now, and Harry was determined to allow him as little further entertainment from the situation as
possible.
Silence reigned for a few moments while captive and captor exchanged glares.
"What shall I do with you, Potter?" Snape muttered quietly, definitely more to himself than to his prisoner. "What shall I do..." he repeated in a rather sinister half-whisper, malice
glinting in his black eyes.
"You aren't going to kill me?" Harry's voice rang with sharp surprise, stunned by the possibility.
"No." His heart leapt a little--still a chance to escape--but plummeted again at Snape's next words. "Not...immediately. I've waited much too long to end it so
quickly." he taunted, adding, "I intend to savour this victory for as long as possible."
"You--" Harry began to growl, but Snape cut him off before he could finish detailing exactly what he thought Snape was.
"Crucio." he said almost lazily, leering derisively as Harry writhed against his bindings. "Quite as good as a Silencing Charm, don't you think? And I must admit, I've waited a long
time to hear you scream like that..." he laughed mirthlessly, and Harry resisted the urge to say anything, lest it earn him another Cruciatus. "And now, an old favorite..." The words had
barely registered before Harry was in the air, dangling by his ankle, and Snape was laughing again. "How do you like it, Potter?" For a moment, Harry wondered if Snape had gone
'round the twist; it almost sounded like he thought Harry was James...but then Harry recalled, with a wave of sickness, the dueling immediately following Dumbledore's murder, when he'd
tried to use this same spell--Snape had seen it in his mind.
"Who--told--you?" he tried again, the only thing he could think of to buy himself some time as he gritted his teeth and the blood drained to his head.
"Oh, shut up, Potter, before I change my mind about Silencing you. Even you should be able to guess who sold you out, given time and incentive to think about it. In fact," Snape
said, his eyes gleaming again, "we'll make a game of it--we'll see if you can figure it out before you go mad."
"Er--what?" Harry asked, having trouble thinking as even more blood rushed to his head.
"Idiot boy," the Death Eater spat. "Crucio!"
The agony stopped after what felt like an eternity, though it was probably only a few minutes, regardless of how badly it left him aching.
And still, he remained upside down, with Snape still gloating at him across the room. Certainly not an ideal situation, under any circumstances.
"Pathetic. How someone like you ever managed to defeat the Dark Lord even once--"
"Malfoy," Harry interrupted, having finally worked out what was going on. "It has to be Malfoy," he panted again, reassuring himself.
"Of course not. He's much too transparent to pull off any sort of double-agency. Crucio!"
When the pain subsided this time, leaving a smouldering kind of ache, it was hurting to breathe. Harry suspected at least one broken rib, if not more.
"Keep guessing like that," Snape observed mockingly, "and you'll never get it." He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the prospect.
"Shacklebolt--" Harry heard himself croaking. Kingsley had disappeared a few months ago, around the time the raids and stakeouts had begun to go so badly awry. They'd never found
the body, after all, and maybe--
"No. Bellatrix did away with him personally." This piece of information hit Harry like a blow ever before Snape uttered the Cruciatus; yet another life that loathsome woman had to answer
for. If it was the last thing he did, he'd make her pay.
When the curse receded this time, there was a horrible kind of give to his leg, and he'd dropped perhaps an inch closer to the floor, pain shooting up the leg and through his spine.
Judging by what he knew about anatomy, Harry guessed his lower leg had popped out of the knee socket, and he was relatively certain that continuing to hang by that leg was probably
ruining something important to his continued ability to walk. He grunted a little, but didn't say anything; he knew Snape would take a particularly vindictive pleasure in scarring Harry for
the remainder of his presumably short life.
He almost guessed Moody, as simply the next member of the Order that came to mind, but caught himself in time. It would be stupid to endure another Cruciatus on an utterly absurd
guess like that. After all, Moody had been fighting Dark wizards since before Harry was born, and after being captured and imitated once, he was the last person Harry
would expect betrayal from.
Likewise, Harry felt he could rule out Lupin. Not only had it been Voldemort's pet werewolf, Fenrir Greyback, who'd bitten Remus as a child, but Voldemort had also destroyed his four best
friends, and now killed his lover, as well. Tonks had disappeared with Kingsley.
Desperately, Harry ran through the ranks of the Order he'd trusted in his mind. McGonagall had been killed almost six months ago; Mundungus was in Azkaban; Fluer had been killed last
month, while trying to protect Molly, who, along with Sturgis Podmore, was now permanently damaged; Neville and Luna were in St. Mungo's intensive care and didn't know about
tonight; Dean, Ernie, Susan Bones, and Anthony Goldstein had all been wiped out in the last year; the rest of the old Order had been picked off, as well, and most the new Order hadn't
been trusted with raid information since they'd started going so badly wrong.
He'd already ruled out Lupin and Moody, and Hermione--
Well. Hermione's parents had been murdered by Voldemort last month, and Hermione herself had gone missing the week before last. That left Harry himself, and a handful of Weasleys.
Surely none of the Weasleys would cave, not after losing Arthur, Charlie, and George to the same attack that got Molly and Fluer! Unless--
"Percy Weasley," Harry guessed, wondering why he hadn't thought of Percy sooner; after all, he'd betrayed them once before. A feeble hope, but--
"Crucio!"
Harry felt another rib go, and his throat was long since scraped raw from screaming, but he was more worried about the fact that he was out of ideas, as well as out of suspects.
"Come on, boy, think. It isn't that hard..." Snape was prodding almost eagerly over Harry's progressively hoarser yells.
Harry hung there, simply gasping in the wake of the Cruciatus and trying to think over the aches that were intensifying with every new casting. Who's left?
He knew Bill and Fred wouldn't, not after losing their life-partners; he was also sure that Ron and Ginny wouldn't. It obviously hadn't been Harry himself, and no one had seen
Hermione in two weeks, there was no way--
Snape still watched him, something akin to glee surfacing in the gloating sneer flickering across his face again as Harry racked his brain.
"You still don't get it, do you, Potter?" he murmured silkily, looking smug and rather amused by Harry's internal struggle.
"You know, Snape, I really don't think he does." stated a new, yet horribly entertained and horribly familiar, voice from the shadows, and Harry was suddenly afraid to look for the source,
afraid of what--or who--he'd end up seeing, afraid he already knew.
"Her...Hermione?" he rasped as she emerged into the dim light, surprised to see her alive. "C'mon, help me! We've got to get...out..." He paused; the other two were laughing, and
as he looked closer, he noticed that something had wrought a terrible change in Hermione. Her face was paler and sharper than he remembered; someone he didn't know peered
back at him from her dark, no-longer-so-soft eyes.
"Hermione?" he repeated, more uncertainly.
"Silence, Potter." There was no sign of familiarity in that chilly tone. The fact that she'd called him 'Potter' hurt far more than any of the other changes, more than anything so far.
Even the pain left by the Cruciatus faltered in the face of this.
"You see, Potter," Snape was saying as those thoughts were running through Harry's head, "desperation changes a person. Transforms them, makes them capable of becoming
more than they would otherwise be...Just how far do you think Granger would go, now, to cleanse that dirty blood of hers?" He laughed softly at the dawning horror clearly
scrawled across Harry's face.
"Hermione? That's not..." Harry gulped, "that's not true, is it? He's got you under the Imperius, or something, right? You haven't really..." He was babbling and he knew it, but he
only managed to stop the flow of words when Hermione yanked up the sleeve of her robes, revealing the Dark Mark. The stark realization finally hit him at the sight of the Mark.
"Does this answer your question, Potter?" she smirked with a kind of vicious satisfaction in her disdainfully curling lips.
"But what about your parents?" Harry choked, the revulsion making it hard to speak. How could she be doing this? They'd been best friends since first year! How could
she have changed so much?
"What about my parents? Want to know who killed them?" Harry had a sneaking suspicion that he didn't, but was going to find out anyway. "Want to know who murdered those
filthy Muggle parents of mine? I did, Potter. I did." She was laughing again now as Harry's mouth hung open in disbelief.
"Hermione..." he mumbled, "you didn't...tell me you didn't...just listen to yourself, you sound like Voldemort...you don't mean that...I know you don't...What about your capture?"
"You really are a joke, aren't you? I let them 'capture' me--I couldn't let you catch on, could I? But you know why I let it happen? Because Snape, and Lestrange, and the Dark Lord,
and all the rest are right. They showed me the truth.
"Wizards have been hiding in fear of Muggles for centuries, Potter! If Muggles were really those harmlessly foolish creatures that some of you idiots seem to think, why would we still be
hiding, why would we be afraid of being found out? It's because they aren't harmless, as even the weakest and most deluded of us know, in our hearts. We both know that if they
found us, it wouldn't be any different than last time; the Hunts would return. Sure, you boast that no real witches were killed in the Hunts, but that certainly wasn't through a lack of effort
or hatred! Muggles are viciously uncivilized--any one of their wars has killed more than our last three put together! They're bloodthirsty; they can't be taught with patience. They
continue killing each other, just as they would kill us if we re-emerged peacefully. They must be shown who is in control with force. It is time for wizards to return to the open world!
"The time for hiding is over. So you see, Potter," she finished quietly, her eyes blazing with her convictions, "that is why the Dark Lord must win. We must take back what is ours.
And you must not be allowed to stand in our way."
"I daresay you know what you have to do, Granger." Snape inserted, the cold, detached tone returning. She nodded, raising her wand without a trace of hesitation or emotion.
"Avada Kedavra!"