Chapter 2 -- The Crow Descends
Title: The Devil's Due
Rating: NC17 (eventually)
Fandom: Harry Potter/Crow Crossover
Summary: Six months after Voldemort's victory and the Fall of Harry Potter, an angry spirit rises from the grave to wreak bloody vengeance.
Spoilers: HBP and the Crow mythology
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the mythology. Just my sick imagination.
Archive: At Twisting the Hellmouth. If you want it, check with me first.
A/N: Many thanks to my betas, Selenya and Bneuensc. Thanks also to Selenya, who helped me conceive this bunny. On the night before her wedding, no less. Let’s hear it for dedicated Goff Grrls!
WARNING: Massive HBP Spoilers
author’s notes: I only own my ideas, nothing else. The characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and the Crow mythology belongs to J. O’Barr. I’m just playing, promise. No profit, no lawsuit, please.
This is the revised second half of the original first chapter. I've decided to break the story into smaller chunks for easier and quicker posting.
Chapter 2.
False dawn was teasing the night sky when Snape finally returned to #12 Grimmauld Place. On Potter’s death (the boy hadn’t even had the foresight to leave a will), ownership had reverted to Draco, Narcissa’s son and the only surviving male descendant of the House of Black. In true Slytherin style, he and Malfoy had ensured that the house would remain undetected by Voldemort, and therefore a haven for those who fought against him. When Malfoy died, Snape was not surprised to find that he was now the owner of the unplottable house. He would have been amused by the irony of himself owning Sirius’ house, if he hadn’t been disgusted by the needlessness of it all.
Dragging himself up the stairs, Snape went into the bathroom, turned the shower taps and began mechanically undressing. He hardly flinched as he stepped under the scalding water…just bowed his head and let it wash the horror and the memories away.
He’d managed to save another this night. A wizard around his age and a purported member of the resistance. After Snape got him out, after he took him to another safe alley and charmed another Portkey, the man had begun ranting about how Snape had betrayed them all. His words still cut at Snape’s soul,
“It’s your fault, all of this. You betrayed us back then, dooming James and Lily to death, and then betrayed us again, killing Harry and dooming us to this. And for what? Because James was mean to you in school?” the man had spat in his face, but Snape stood still and silent, “What did Lily do to you to deserve this? She was only ever nice to you! And Harry, What did Harry do? He was only a boy! And now you think that saving a few lives - lives that you’ve condemned in the first place - makes up for it? When we all know that you’ll only betray us again, Slytherin slime-”
Snape had barely controlled his fury, only obliviating the man so that he wouldn’t give Snape away, rather than performing the more dire curses that Snape so desperately wanted to perform. It had been an ugly scene, at least in part because Snape wondered how much of the man’s accusations were true.
Oh, yes. He hated James. Always had. More than he hated Sirius, when it came down to it. Because at the end of it all, Sirius had just been a petty tormenter, but James had been…
Snape sighed and began scrubbing at his skin.
He’d held out on joining Voldemort and his Death Eaters until after he graduated from Hogwarts. He wasn’t an idiot, and even then he knew that no matter if Voldemort’s side won, it was ultimately the loosing side, especially for a half-blood like himself…but then…well, soon after graduation, all hope was lost, wasn’t it? And so he gave in to the promise of power, gave in to the only hope he had for…and in the irony of all ironies, the linchpin for proving his loyalty, for gaining the power that he needed to attain his one desire, ended up being the true end of all his hopes.
He turned his face to the spray, washing away any trace of tears that may or may not have been there.
He hated James, true. But he never meant to hurt Lily. He’d only wanted…
Seventeen years ago Lily Potter had died. Because of him. The night that he learned she was slated for death, the night he signed her death warrant by revealing that bloody prophesy to Voldemort, was the night he went to Dumbledore and told him everything, swore an oath, began his penance. But it hadn’t been enough.
It had been easy for so long. Voldemort had been defeated by the Boy-Who-Lived, many of his Death Eaters rounded up (although many others remained free). But then Harry Potter came to Hogwarts, and Snape had to look at Lily’s eyes in James’ face every day, and it was almost more than he could bear. Then Voldemort returned, and he had to turn spy because he knew better than almost anyone how terrible the Dark Lord’s reign would be. And as much as he hated the boy because Lily chose to die for him, Snape had to protect him, to prepare him because…well…Lily chose to die for him.
She’d only ever been nice to him, even when he met her with the surly responses of a homely, bookish boy who didn’t understand why a pretty, popular girl would bother being nice to him. She of the green eyes and red hair and inquisitive, heart-shaped face had been nice to him, and he’d loved her for it even through his surliness, and he’d hated James all the more when she chose him. Out of a petty, juvenile wanting to win her away from James, he’d betrayed them both. Ultimately he’d even failed their son.
That was the point. That was why it mattered, and why Draco’s pragmatic option wasn’t an option at all. He couldn’t betray her again, even if it meant playing the bloody hero in a fight that was already lost.
Severus Snape shut off the water and stood dripping in the steaming shower, lank wet hair falling around his face, normally pale skin red from the scalding.
-----------------------------------
False dawn found the pale, dripping figure creeping towards an old Quidditch shed near an abandoned house. Misting rain still drizzled from patchy clouds, though the moon had long set. Ahead, a large black crow lighted on the shed’s roof, cawing once before canting its head to one side and regarding the figure steadily. The lock on the shed was rusty, the damp wood around it was rotted and ridden with insects. When the figure tugged on the handle, the fasteners and wood crumbled and the door opened with ease. Inside were the hoops, markers and other paraphernalia for a pick-up game of Quidditch, including the crate that held the quaffles, bludgers and the snitch. Everything was covered with a layer of dust and cobwebs, turned to mud in places where the roof of the shed dripped.
In the corner, protected from the worst of the weather, were the brooms. A pale arm reached forward, lean fingers grasping the smooth, polished handle of the nicest. Even with the dust, the wood gleamed softly, the script Firebolt in mellow gold along the handle. The figure pulled it out, hand stroking lovingly down the length, and flashes of memory flooded to the surface. A grand pitch, banners of red and gold, black and green, cheers and shouts and jeers and boos, a rider on a broom, long face capped by messy black hair, a flitter of gold…
The figure shook, face crumpled in pain. The broom clattered to the floor. Calling on the memories was too difficult, too agonizing yet. The crow cawed, and the figure straightened slightly, breathing heavily. Another caw sounded from outside and the pale figure bent to retrieve the broom, hand hesitating with a slight tremble before it wrapped around the wooden handle. The memories stayed mercifully quiescent. The figure moved back into the rain, broom in one hand. The crow perched on the lintel of the abandoned house, regarding the figure with a strangely patient urgency. If you’re done here…it seemed to be saying. The figure nodded, calling the broom to life with a ragged ‘up’.
The crow launched itself into the air as the figure on the broom swept aloft, both becoming diminishing dark blots as they headed east and north. Behind them, the abandoned house sat forlornly, windows broken, door hanging open, the rain beading on a sign above the lintel that read “The Burrow”.
----------------------------
With his skin scoured as clean as his sins would allow, and his most painful memories pensieved so that he might glean a few hours sleep free of nightmares, Snape still found himself prowling the house, setting a chair to rights, dusting off a curio. Dawn was probably threatening in the east, but sometime during the past hour a deadening rain had moved in from the Irish Sea. Weather, Snape thought as he picked up his Death Eater’s cloak and mask from the floor of the front hall, where he had shucked them in disgusted haste an hour earlier. As changeable as it was, it did make a good topic to fixate upon, when all others seemed too dangerous. One could expound for hours on British weather, and not exhaust the subject. He was brushing dust off his Death Eater’s cloak when a faint shuffling sound from the porch made him freeze.
It couldn’t be the Order, yet no one else knew of the unplottable house…no one but a member of the Order could find it. But they wouldn’t come back here, would they? They’d abandoned this place after Snape’s ‘betrayal’, sure that the traitor would give up their whereabouts. Yet, really, what was there to stop them from trying to use it now, a year and more after? They were Gryffindor enough that they might think the place would be left unwatched and unguarded after such a time. Or perhaps, in an emergency, they might try it anyways.
His thoughts were interrupted by a light scratching, as if a bird were scraping its talons against the wood of the door…or as if someone injured was there and couldn’t manage much else.
With a muttered curse, Snape strode to the spyhole near the door. It would be just his luck to have to tend to a wounded and self-righteous Order member this night. Peering through, he saw nothing but shadows at first, then as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, a shape slowly emerged. It was leaning against the doorway, arms clutched around its middle as if wounded, shivering and wet in the rain.
Snape hesitated, then a part of him - the part that had led him to go to Dumbledore in the first place - stirred. No matter how painful or inconvenient, he couldn’t just leave that person out there to die. With a muttered curse, he let the spyhole cover drop, pulled out his wand from the pocket of his night robes and opened the door to #12 Grimmauld Place.
The slight figure stood drenched, hand clenched around a dripping Firebolt, head bowed. Then the head raised, and Snape found himself staring into vivid green eyes that he never thought to see again. His breath caught, and his wand clattered unnoticed to the floor.
“Snape…Severus…” the figure rasped, the name like an accusation and a plea together. One pale, mud-streaked arm unwrapped and reached out trembling, “cold…so cold.”
Half in shock, and against all better judgment for he knew that the Inferi still walked and served Voldemort, Snape swallowed his fear and reached forward, leading the soaked, trembling figure inside. As he snatched up his wand, a large crow fluttered to land on the bevel post, cawing loudly. Although he thought he had left superstition far behind with other childish things, he shut the door quickly against such a bad omen. Taking a shuddering breath, he turned to face the figure now dripping in the front hall.
In the (marginally) better light of the house, he could see the figure more clearly, but still his mind refused to process what was before him. The slight, pale form was dressed in tatters of what he could only assume were its burial clothes (not having been invited to that particular funeral). The figure gazed at him and again he was arrested by those eyes that had haunted him for so long. Vivid emerald green, set in a heart-shaped, inquisitive face, and framed by hair that, when wet, turned the color of rubies…or blood.
“Lily?” he whispered, barely aware he’d spoken at all.
“Harry,” her voice rasped, as if it were painful to speak…as if even being was painful for her, “Where is Harry? Severus? Where is my son?”
Rating: NC17 (eventually)
Fandom: Harry Potter/Crow Crossover
Summary: Six months after Voldemort's victory and the Fall of Harry Potter, an angry spirit rises from the grave to wreak bloody vengeance.
Spoilers: HBP and the Crow mythology
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the mythology. Just my sick imagination.
Archive: At Twisting the Hellmouth. If you want it, check with me first.
A/N: Many thanks to my betas, Selenya and Bneuensc. Thanks also to Selenya, who helped me conceive this bunny. On the night before her wedding, no less. Let’s hear it for dedicated Goff Grrls!
WARNING: Massive HBP Spoilers
author’s notes: I only own my ideas, nothing else. The characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and the Crow mythology belongs to J. O’Barr. I’m just playing, promise. No profit, no lawsuit, please.
This is the revised second half of the original first chapter. I've decided to break the story into smaller chunks for easier and quicker posting.
Chapter 2.
False dawn was teasing the night sky when Snape finally returned to #12 Grimmauld Place. On Potter’s death (the boy hadn’t even had the foresight to leave a will), ownership had reverted to Draco, Narcissa’s son and the only surviving male descendant of the House of Black. In true Slytherin style, he and Malfoy had ensured that the house would remain undetected by Voldemort, and therefore a haven for those who fought against him. When Malfoy died, Snape was not surprised to find that he was now the owner of the unplottable house. He would have been amused by the irony of himself owning Sirius’ house, if he hadn’t been disgusted by the needlessness of it all.
Dragging himself up the stairs, Snape went into the bathroom, turned the shower taps and began mechanically undressing. He hardly flinched as he stepped under the scalding water…just bowed his head and let it wash the horror and the memories away.
He’d managed to save another this night. A wizard around his age and a purported member of the resistance. After Snape got him out, after he took him to another safe alley and charmed another Portkey, the man had begun ranting about how Snape had betrayed them all. His words still cut at Snape’s soul,
“It’s your fault, all of this. You betrayed us back then, dooming James and Lily to death, and then betrayed us again, killing Harry and dooming us to this. And for what? Because James was mean to you in school?” the man had spat in his face, but Snape stood still and silent, “What did Lily do to you to deserve this? She was only ever nice to you! And Harry, What did Harry do? He was only a boy! And now you think that saving a few lives - lives that you’ve condemned in the first place - makes up for it? When we all know that you’ll only betray us again, Slytherin slime-”
Snape had barely controlled his fury, only obliviating the man so that he wouldn’t give Snape away, rather than performing the more dire curses that Snape so desperately wanted to perform. It had been an ugly scene, at least in part because Snape wondered how much of the man’s accusations were true.
Oh, yes. He hated James. Always had. More than he hated Sirius, when it came down to it. Because at the end of it all, Sirius had just been a petty tormenter, but James had been…
Snape sighed and began scrubbing at his skin.
He’d held out on joining Voldemort and his Death Eaters until after he graduated from Hogwarts. He wasn’t an idiot, and even then he knew that no matter if Voldemort’s side won, it was ultimately the loosing side, especially for a half-blood like himself…but then…well, soon after graduation, all hope was lost, wasn’t it? And so he gave in to the promise of power, gave in to the only hope he had for…and in the irony of all ironies, the linchpin for proving his loyalty, for gaining the power that he needed to attain his one desire, ended up being the true end of all his hopes.
He turned his face to the spray, washing away any trace of tears that may or may not have been there.
He hated James, true. But he never meant to hurt Lily. He’d only wanted…
Seventeen years ago Lily Potter had died. Because of him. The night that he learned she was slated for death, the night he signed her death warrant by revealing that bloody prophesy to Voldemort, was the night he went to Dumbledore and told him everything, swore an oath, began his penance. But it hadn’t been enough.
It had been easy for so long. Voldemort had been defeated by the Boy-Who-Lived, many of his Death Eaters rounded up (although many others remained free). But then Harry Potter came to Hogwarts, and Snape had to look at Lily’s eyes in James’ face every day, and it was almost more than he could bear. Then Voldemort returned, and he had to turn spy because he knew better than almost anyone how terrible the Dark Lord’s reign would be. And as much as he hated the boy because Lily chose to die for him, Snape had to protect him, to prepare him because…well…Lily chose to die for him.
She’d only ever been nice to him, even when he met her with the surly responses of a homely, bookish boy who didn’t understand why a pretty, popular girl would bother being nice to him. She of the green eyes and red hair and inquisitive, heart-shaped face had been nice to him, and he’d loved her for it even through his surliness, and he’d hated James all the more when she chose him. Out of a petty, juvenile wanting to win her away from James, he’d betrayed them both. Ultimately he’d even failed their son.
That was the point. That was why it mattered, and why Draco’s pragmatic option wasn’t an option at all. He couldn’t betray her again, even if it meant playing the bloody hero in a fight that was already lost.
Severus Snape shut off the water and stood dripping in the steaming shower, lank wet hair falling around his face, normally pale skin red from the scalding.
-----------------------------------
False dawn found the pale, dripping figure creeping towards an old Quidditch shed near an abandoned house. Misting rain still drizzled from patchy clouds, though the moon had long set. Ahead, a large black crow lighted on the shed’s roof, cawing once before canting its head to one side and regarding the figure steadily. The lock on the shed was rusty, the damp wood around it was rotted and ridden with insects. When the figure tugged on the handle, the fasteners and wood crumbled and the door opened with ease. Inside were the hoops, markers and other paraphernalia for a pick-up game of Quidditch, including the crate that held the quaffles, bludgers and the snitch. Everything was covered with a layer of dust and cobwebs, turned to mud in places where the roof of the shed dripped.
In the corner, protected from the worst of the weather, were the brooms. A pale arm reached forward, lean fingers grasping the smooth, polished handle of the nicest. Even with the dust, the wood gleamed softly, the script Firebolt in mellow gold along the handle. The figure pulled it out, hand stroking lovingly down the length, and flashes of memory flooded to the surface. A grand pitch, banners of red and gold, black and green, cheers and shouts and jeers and boos, a rider on a broom, long face capped by messy black hair, a flitter of gold…
The figure shook, face crumpled in pain. The broom clattered to the floor. Calling on the memories was too difficult, too agonizing yet. The crow cawed, and the figure straightened slightly, breathing heavily. Another caw sounded from outside and the pale figure bent to retrieve the broom, hand hesitating with a slight tremble before it wrapped around the wooden handle. The memories stayed mercifully quiescent. The figure moved back into the rain, broom in one hand. The crow perched on the lintel of the abandoned house, regarding the figure with a strangely patient urgency. If you’re done here…it seemed to be saying. The figure nodded, calling the broom to life with a ragged ‘up’.
The crow launched itself into the air as the figure on the broom swept aloft, both becoming diminishing dark blots as they headed east and north. Behind them, the abandoned house sat forlornly, windows broken, door hanging open, the rain beading on a sign above the lintel that read “The Burrow”.
----------------------------
With his skin scoured as clean as his sins would allow, and his most painful memories pensieved so that he might glean a few hours sleep free of nightmares, Snape still found himself prowling the house, setting a chair to rights, dusting off a curio. Dawn was probably threatening in the east, but sometime during the past hour a deadening rain had moved in from the Irish Sea. Weather, Snape thought as he picked up his Death Eater’s cloak and mask from the floor of the front hall, where he had shucked them in disgusted haste an hour earlier. As changeable as it was, it did make a good topic to fixate upon, when all others seemed too dangerous. One could expound for hours on British weather, and not exhaust the subject. He was brushing dust off his Death Eater’s cloak when a faint shuffling sound from the porch made him freeze.
It couldn’t be the Order, yet no one else knew of the unplottable house…no one but a member of the Order could find it. But they wouldn’t come back here, would they? They’d abandoned this place after Snape’s ‘betrayal’, sure that the traitor would give up their whereabouts. Yet, really, what was there to stop them from trying to use it now, a year and more after? They were Gryffindor enough that they might think the place would be left unwatched and unguarded after such a time. Or perhaps, in an emergency, they might try it anyways.
His thoughts were interrupted by a light scratching, as if a bird were scraping its talons against the wood of the door…or as if someone injured was there and couldn’t manage much else.
With a muttered curse, Snape strode to the spyhole near the door. It would be just his luck to have to tend to a wounded and self-righteous Order member this night. Peering through, he saw nothing but shadows at first, then as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, a shape slowly emerged. It was leaning against the doorway, arms clutched around its middle as if wounded, shivering and wet in the rain.
Snape hesitated, then a part of him - the part that had led him to go to Dumbledore in the first place - stirred. No matter how painful or inconvenient, he couldn’t just leave that person out there to die. With a muttered curse, he let the spyhole cover drop, pulled out his wand from the pocket of his night robes and opened the door to #12 Grimmauld Place.
The slight figure stood drenched, hand clenched around a dripping Firebolt, head bowed. Then the head raised, and Snape found himself staring into vivid green eyes that he never thought to see again. His breath caught, and his wand clattered unnoticed to the floor.
“Snape…Severus…” the figure rasped, the name like an accusation and a plea together. One pale, mud-streaked arm unwrapped and reached out trembling, “cold…so cold.”
Half in shock, and against all better judgment for he knew that the Inferi still walked and served Voldemort, Snape swallowed his fear and reached forward, leading the soaked, trembling figure inside. As he snatched up his wand, a large crow fluttered to land on the bevel post, cawing loudly. Although he thought he had left superstition far behind with other childish things, he shut the door quickly against such a bad omen. Taking a shuddering breath, he turned to face the figure now dripping in the front hall.
In the (marginally) better light of the house, he could see the figure more clearly, but still his mind refused to process what was before him. The slight, pale form was dressed in tatters of what he could only assume were its burial clothes (not having been invited to that particular funeral). The figure gazed at him and again he was arrested by those eyes that had haunted him for so long. Vivid emerald green, set in a heart-shaped, inquisitive face, and framed by hair that, when wet, turned the color of rubies…or blood.
“Lily?” he whispered, barely aware he’d spoken at all.
“Harry,” her voice rasped, as if it were painful to speak…as if even being was painful for her, “Where is Harry? Severus? Where is my son?”