FAITH
(Author's Note: This is not from the Hp & Naked Lunch universe, although there are similarities. For those of you who are Constant Readers of my HP fanfics, I have made some artistic representations of Snape, both as a grown man and as a teenage Death Eater. The Link to my deviantART account is on my profile page.)
Chapter One: Till Death Do Us Part?
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 1997
I: Snape
In his office, Headmaster Snape sat behind warded and locked doors.
He was a man torn from the breast of everything promising, weighed down by the burden of the Wizarding World that rested on his shoulders
An enemy in the land of his friends and a friend in the land of his enemies.
It was the stillest time of the night, and he sat with a fag dangling from his lips and his hand knotted in his thick, coarse, greasy black hair.
A letter had come, via owl post that day.
From the Snape-Prince family owl, a huge, ancient, venerable old duffer by the name of Gawaine.
It was a communication he had been waiting for.
Master Snape,
I apologize that have been unable to reach you all summer; to do so may have compromised your ability to survive, as well as mine.
I attempted to send a brief message, through your Mum, that I did not believe you were a murdering Death Eater bastard, and that I was waiting your instructions.
I have sent for Gawaine, in hopes that this letter will reach you.
He knows where I am, should you want to reply; I know he will not be followed.
To prove that I never doubted you for a second, I have taken the Acolyte's Unbreakable Vow of Service under the influence of veritaserum, and in the presence of your fellow double agent, who I will refer to only by his code name, the "Prince of Darkness".
At great risk to my own personal safety, and his.
Which may be a moot point, because I fear that my days are short.
We are very close to the end of all things.
I am so surrounded by death, by the certainty of fighting, killing and dying that it is life that seems remote and frightening.
Especially a life without you.
It is very probable that the next time one of us sees the other, we will meet in Hell, or one will be standing over the other's body.
We may appear to be on opposite sides of this war, but even if you are not, as I believe, a double agent serving Albus Dumbledore, and you really are a murdering Death Eater bastard, you and I both know that means nothing.
Not to those who follow the Five Disciplines, who follow the old ways, walking in the paths set by the likes of Gandalf and Merlyn.
Even their names, Magick of the Arts, Magick of the Earth, Magick of War, Magick of the Spheres and Magick of Sex, they speak to something arcane, something mystical, something outside and beyond the simple learning of spells, hexes and charms.
Something outside and beyond this stupid, petty war.
I understand now that you did what you did to serve both to your masters.
I am aware that very few witches and wizards who are not at least Half-Bloods take any interest in Cabals, High Ceremonial Magick and all the esoterica that goes with the Five Disciplines, but you saw within me an interest and an aptitude that without the invitation of a Master, let alone a Pendragon, one of five in the whole Wizarding World, a Master in the Third Degree of all Five Disciplines, I would never have hoped to pursue.
I have learned that a Master chooses his Acolyte as well as an Acolyte chooses her Master, and that the bond between Master and Acolyte can never be strained.
Never be severed.
Never be broken.
An Acolyte is bound to his or her Master, forever.
Beyond life and death, beyond space and time, for all eternity.
Before, I could only imagine the pain and the confusing that you must have felt, having two Master Magi, Albus Dumbledore and Tom Riddle.
The pain of an unyielding bond stretched, an unbreakable bond shattered.
Now I know it all too well.
A Man cannot serve two Masters, and neither can a Wizard.
Except you, Master Snape.
You have found a way to serve both your Masters, but at the expense of yourself.
Perhaps at the expense of your soul.
Whether you and Tom Riddle cooked up Dumbledore's death, or Albus, who must have been far more of a schemer than his students knew, plotted his demise, together, this doesn't matter to me.
You are my Master; I am your Acolyte; these are bonds which transcend war and politics.
I am Bound to you.
I know you have suffered, I know you are suffering.
I know I am suffering, too.
There is a great dead spot in my heart, a deep bloody wound in my soul, I feel the dull ache with every beat and the sharp pain with every step.
In every breath I take; my heart and my soul yearn to be reunited with my Master; there are times when your face is the only face I see.
Even if it means my death I want to return to Hogwarts, not just to fight the last fight, to see the war end, but to be reunited with my Master.
There is no life for me, in this world or the next, without you.
If you die, I will live only because I know that you would want me to continue on, to grow in knowledge, grace and power.
I will never be ashamed to say that Severus Snape is my Master.
If you live, and it is Tom Riddle you have served above all, I will fight for your life to the last drop of my blood; I will take a position at Azkaban so that I can be near to you, I will fight for the right to continue as your Acolyte.
If you live and Albus Dumbledore is your Master, I will be glad to share in your triumph.
Either way, I will not desert you.
I cannot abandon you.
If you are sick, I will nurse you.
If you are broke and homeless I will work, I will beg, I will steal to provide for you.
If you are starving I will go hungry so that you can eat.
When you are old and grey, I will protect you and care for you.
You will not die alone, my Master, I will always be at your side.
I have long known that this is my fate, and it is a kind fate, a just fate.
I knew who you were when I accepted you as my Master; the only thing I fear now is that you would turn your back on me.
In my darkest times I search for the presence of our Bond, and when I find it strong as ever; I find joy and hope.
I want you to find the same.
I look forward to the day when we are reunited.
Whether here, in this world, in Heaven or in Hell, I remain,
Your faithful Acolyte
Hermione Jean Granger.
Alone, and very close to the end of all things, Severus Snape had a moment of peace.
He cried.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Night of the Final Battle, May, 1998
II: Hermione
Hermione didn't know what the other combatants were doing that night; but with the battle ended she had only one goal in mind.
To go to the Shrieking Shack, and retrieve the body of her Master.
Even though it appeared to all that he had become traitor and a murderer, the news of his death had been like the slow killing blow of a rusty, dull-edged sword through her heart.
Harry explained the truth to her, thinking it would make her feel better.
But Hermione had known the truth, all along.
In her pocket, she still had the brief reply Gawaine had brought her, all those months ago.
Granger,
Horcruxes are a red herring. Riddle's true nature & true plan too horrible for you, even for his followers to contemplate. Nonetheless, continue. All part of the plan. Have spoken to Prince of Darkness. Your Vow is accepted. Further communication dangerous & unnecessary. I know you have not betrayed me & never will.
Faithfully, your Master,
Snape
They had been her hope for the future, those few, cryptic words.
Now, the scrap of parchment was all she had.
Hermione was glad that Snape had chosen the right Master, but she would rather have had him evil and alive than good and dead.
Shit wipes off, repentance is always possible, forgiveness always an option.
But Death is immutable, and Snape, good or evil, was dead.
In the oldest of times, before the wars of the ring, a dire mourning was required of an Acolyte who had lost a Master before completing their studies.
The ritual of the Oath of Mourning.
First, the acolyte was to take the ceremonial dagger, given to her by her master, and cut herself on her forehead between her eyes, over her heart, and over her belly, in the form of the Master's choosing.
Snape's was a squiggly line, representing the Slytherin serpent.
Making sure to cut deep enough that the marks would leave indelible scars.
Then she was to take a vow not to bathe, shave, or trim her hair or even her fingernails for seven years.
For that seven years she was to wander the world, in the same magically protecting but simplistic robe worn by a mendicant druid, not speaking to anyone unless she was first spoken to.
The Acolyte was allowed only to take a bowl, a canteen of some sorts, her wand, a wooden staff, and a pair of mendicant druid's boots.
She was to eat only bread, water, and legumes, and to subsist on the charity of other wizards and witches.
At the end of that time, the Acolyte could return to a more regular life, but she was bound to forsake all other goals to continue her studies, from what her Master had left behind, and then, having achieved mastery in whatever level the Master had recommended, could resume a normal life.
The whole process, when all was said and done, tended to take about 25 years.
And once you took the Oath of Mourning, it was an Unbreakable Vow, you were bound.
I am already dead.
Hermione made a calm and quiet journey across the ruined courtyard, past fires of the battle still burning.
She went past Hagrid, who was supervising a burial detail of dwarves, giants, and goblins who would be working all night on interring the many bodies of the dead.
I am already dead, and my body lies at my Master's side.
Hagrid called to her.
I am already dead, and my body lies at my Master's side. My blood has mingled with his, and we go together.
She didn't reply.
Finally Hermione had arrived at the Shrieking Shack, where a more gruesome sight than even she had imagined, awaited her.
I am already dead, and my body lies at my Master's side. My blood has mingled with his, and we go together. As in life, so in death.
From the open door issued a it was a horrible trail of mud, blood, and drag marks, culminating in the body of the Headmaster , lying facedown on the ground, about two yards from the Shrieking Shack.
He had reached the end of a long, torturous passage.
Weeping openly, something she hadn't done since she was in second year, Hermione turned him over on his back.
I am already dead, and my body lies at my Master's side. My blood has mingled with his, and we go together. As in life, so in death. My life belongs to my Master.
The tough old bastard hadn't gone, easily.
I am already dead, and my body lies at my Master's side. My blood has mingled with his, and we go together. As in life, so in death. My life belongs to my Master. My soul belongs to my Master.
Snape had torn his robes to make a bandage around his neck, and had attempted to crawl, whether to find help or die fighting, she didn't know.
Hermione stabbed the dagger into the ground, and began the ritual.
"I am already dead, and my body lies at my Master's side. My blood has mingled with his, and we go together. As in life, so in death. My life belongs to my Master. My soul belongs to my Master..."
There was much more to the oath, but Hermione was to the part where she was obliged to cut her forehead.
Prince's Potions, Crooked Lane, Wizarding Liverpool.
II: Snape
The appropriate age for a witch or a wizard to become an Acolyte was 15.
In days gone past, this was the age of majority.
The age of majority was now 17, but the age of consent was still 16, and you could still become an Acolyte at 15.
Snape, one of five living Pendragons, Master Magus Magnus, a Master in the Third Degree of all Five Disciplines had never expected, from the collection of fools and idiots he taught to ever find a student worthy of becoming his Acolyte.
Then came Hermione Granger.
Hermione, whose parents were originally from Vauxhall, the working-class neighborhood where Snape still lived, at Spinner's End, had worked for the Prince family business, which he ran with his mother, Eileen Price and his grandparents, Severus and Aphrodite Prince the previous summer, too.
Seeing her skill outside the classroom only served to further convince Snape that Hermione was not merely the brightest witch in her year, but the brightest witch of her generation.
Her mind was hungry for more knowledge, her soul and her heart for a greater discipline, a greater meaning than mere spells, charms and hexes.
Snape had not told Granger he therefore planned to make her his Acolyte, beginning with Magick of the Arts, which encompassed, among other things, potions and compounding, and the Magick of War, which encompassed both defence and offence.
Still, he was angry when she was late for work on the day he had intended to tell her.
"And just where the fuck have you been?"
"I'm only ten minutes late, Professor."
Like a flowing black shadow in his lab robe over his Muggle street clothes, Snape was across the laboratory in two strides, and he had Granger by the arm.
He pulled just a little, and she crashed into him as if he had heaved her.
Her hot little body in an old tee shirt and her school skirt.
Why did she have to wear her school skirt, and rub up against him, oh, why?
Snape tried to keep his interest in Granger cool and dispassionate, but, despite his frosty exterior, he was neither.
As a young man, sex, dope, and booze had almost been the death of him.
He had long since given up dope and booze.
As for Granger, she was only late for one reason and that reason was Viktor Krum.
Granger did not believe in either romance or sentiment, and certainly nothing like love.
She was an earthy, matter-of-fact Lolita who pursued her friendship with benefits with Krum openly and with a single minded intensity that put just about all boys and most men right off her.
Snape hadn't been a boy since he was seven years old, and he was certainly not most men.
Still, had she just come from a roll with that blunt-skulled yob?
Just what was it Humbert Humber had said about Lolita?
Something about the way her named just rolled off his tongue.
Lo-lee-tah.
Poor old Humbert.
He went mad for love, if that's what you wanted to call it, of his Loilta.
His Lolita.
All of the sudden Snape felt like a boy of twenty , teaching bored and horny young girls only three or four years his junior.
Don't stand…
…Don't stand…
….Don't stand so close to me.
"Ten minutes is ten minutes too long. Get to work."
She hesitated.
"Get to work, now, Granger. Look sharp!"
He pushed her away.
She didn't seem to want to go.
Humbert Humbert was a teacher.
A professor.
Not after his Lolita got done with him.
And he wasn't trapped in a basement laboratory with her for eight hours every day.
Eight hours in which Granger, a hard worker and a brilliant student, comported herself with the utmost skill and professionalism.
But, how she tortured him.
Mercilessly.
And if not intentionally, then innocently.
In her school skirt, with one knee sock pulled up and the other always falling around her ankles.
There was always an excuse to bend over the table too far so he could see her worn, multiply laundered cotton bikini knickers.
She was a mess, in her sloppy, lopsided pigtails, chewing her lip as she thought, swearing under her breath at the potions that didn't cooperate.
But, what an incandescently brilliant, gorgeous mess she was.
Every time she bent over that table, almost every other thought in Snape's Boeing 747 quad jet-engine mind going a million light years a second was crowded out by the intense visceral need to screw her right into the table.
Snape lit a cigarette, and as she was putting her lab robe on, Granger shot a wistful look at him.
"Erm, bum a fag, Professor?"
Snape shook another fag out of the pack, and gave it to her.
Poor little Lolita.
Maybe, Snape thought, I torture her, too.
He had caught her a few times eyeing him up, looking at him with the huge, desperate eyes of someone who was starving to death.
With friends like Potter and Weasley, she had to be intellectually suffocated, and though Krum was built like a bull and probably had the stamina of one, blunt-skulled, thick, sporting types like him were never known for being great lovers.
Krum's a rough looking yob; she must like ugly, rough-looking yobs.
Snape made himself quit thinking of such things.
He always made himself quit thinking of such things.
He had a standing date with a certain witch on Tuesdays and Thursdays and there were still plenty of them who liked a man ugly, snarky and mean to fill up the rest of the week, if he wanted.
She was only 15, he was going to ask her to be his Acolyte, he was her Professor and, besides, what would she want with the likes of him?
She didn't know what she was doing; she probably acted like that around anyone who wasn't a stupid boy, without even knowing she was doing it.
"Granger, put that cauldron down. This is a very important day in your life. Today we go to see the goblins, and you get your first tattoos. You are going to be my Acolyte. I'll start you in Magick of the Arts and Magick of War. Please raise your left hand for the Acolyte's Oath."
Granger was a smart girl; she knew exactly the responsibility she was taking on, the bond she was accepting to Severus Snape.
Without so much as pulling up her socks, Granger ground the cigarette out under her feet and raised her left hand.
"You don't have to read my part, Professor. I know all the words." She said.
Harry Potter's Encampment, 1997
II: Hermione
Ron and Harry were in the tent, both of them sleeping.
Hermione couldn't sleep.
There was still a bit of a campfire going, and she sat in front of it, staring into the flames.
Unlike everything else in the world, the fire was lively.
Of course, Hermione knew that wasn't true; there was lots of liveliness in the world.
Even the Wizarding World, even in these dark times.
Death Eaters everywhere were merry in the certainty of their victory.
And their opponents?
Most of them had hope, hope that Harry Potter and his friends were doing something to save them.
They were at least happy in each other's company, happy in their homes, with their families in this time of war and terror.
Even at Hogwarts, occupied as it was by the enemy, well, people were safe, people were warm, weren't they?
Hermione felt as though she would never be warm, or safe, again.
Her hand flew to her right arm, where her Acolyte's tattoo, the first of many magickal tattoos was, and she pressed her hand against it, the way a more religious witch might have clutched at her pentacle, or a Muggle may have grasped his cross.
She searched for her bond with Headmaster Snape under the dark tumult of her emotions.
It was becoming harder and harder to find, but it was always there.
He was always there, himself dark, and tumultuous, but steadfast and certain.
On second thoughts, Hermione decided, Harry was probably not asleep.
Harry hadn't been able to sleep unless he was stone drunk since the end of 5th year, and he had cut back dramatically on his drinking for purposes of their mission.
He had only got sloppy drunk once, the day he and Ron had the fight culminating in them beating the snot out of each other after Ron reminded Harry that he had no family.
He drank two bottles of Hell's Horntail, straight, before falling into a stupor, and Ron refused to put him to bed or clean him up, so Hermione had to do it.
Typically, Harry put away three-quarters of a bottle a day.
And that was decreasing his drinking.
Hermione had no taste for firewhiskey, even the good stuff, but Hell's Horntail was the worst kind of rotgut swill.
It was pretty much just wormwood, dragon's blood and alcohol, comparative to the worst kind of cheap vodka.
The stuff was green, viscous and oily-looking, and Harry breathed green smoke out his nostrils after a long snort.
Snape, she thought, had been trying to help Harry with his drinking problem, but, maybe Harry was beyond help.
Maybe he was better off.
She poked the fire with a stick
Never be warm again, or safe.
"Well, Ron's asleep. Good old Ron. I wish I believed in me as much as he does."
Harry sat down beside her, and had a drink.
"I wish I believed in me as much as you both do."
"You're the best of us, Hermione. You think I believe me own press?"
Harry laughed, mirthlessly, and lit a fag.
"There isn't a toot or a drink or a pill or a smoke in the world to make me dumb enough to buy all that Boy Who Lived bullshit. I'm a shit wizard. My magical skills are laughable. Intellectually, I'm a midget, especially compared to you. I can fly, I can duel, I can fight and I can fuck. That's what I'm good at. I'm just Dumbledore's hit man. You're the brains of the outfit."
Harry took another drink.
"Oh, and I can drink, too."
Harry patted his pockets.
"Erm, bum a fag, Hermione?"
"Take the pack. I have another in me other pocket."
Harry put his arm around her, and Hermione rested her head against him.
"You're thinking about old Snape, aren't you?"
"No." Hermione lied.
"Sure you are. You think about the murdering bastard all the time. It only makes sense. He's your Master. You're his Acolyte. I know it hurts you worse than it hurts me. I witnessed a no-good son of a bitch I was never too fucking fond of murder a man who was to me like the last living member of my family. But you, you saw your mentor, your Master, a wizard you've come to know as well as yourself, a man who's got his bloody ruthless bastard name written on your heart and your soul, well you saw him kill a man like your own grandfather to you in cold blood. And you do it, sober. How do you cope, Hermione?"
Hermione shrugged.
"I know he's not what he seems. I know him better than you do, Harry. Better than almost anyone at Hogwarts. I know his family, I know the place where he grew up. I'm a Scouser, too. You can take me out of Liverpool, but you'll never take the 'Pool out of me. I lived in Vauxhall with my parents until I was eight, and we moved to Woolton. Spinner's End was only a few blocks from our house. Snape's ten years younger than my father; they knew each other growing up. But even in his best moment, Snape's a pitiless bastard, a real villain. He's a man of very little warmth, a rough-looking, tough, merciless, two-tone son of a bitch. Diamond hard, a ruthless, vicious, snarky brute. But, where we come from, that's what a man is supposed to be. If he isn't, he doesn't survive. Only cream and bastards rise, where we come from. Snape's both."
Harry coughed and chuckled, wryly, at the same time.
"Is that supposed to mean something to me?"
"Yes. It is. Snape's a good man. A brave man. He's saved your life many times, and he was the only person on the faculty to notice or care that you were becoming a drunk and a degenerate. This is all part of the plan. Albus' plan. Which included his own death. I'm sure of that.""
"I wish I could be." Harry replied.
He finished his smoke.
"What are you doing out here, Hermione? Hoping the cold air seeps into your knickers? That's not going to help. I know. I've tried."
"What are you on about?"
"Don't play dumb with me! I know all about you and Viktor Krum. And this weird fatal attraction you have to the old Snape. I'll tell you one thing. Running blindly into Ron's arms isn't going to fix things for you. The sooner you let him down, easy, the better off he'll be. Not that you'd be any warmer in there with Ron than you are out here in the cold. I can hear him snoring away. And I can hear what you're doing, over there in your bunk."
Hermione pulled away from Harry, flinching as if he'd slapped her.
"You drunken bastard, is that why you've come out here? Because you miss having at least three witches hanging from the end of your dick every day, and you figure, well, maybe Hermione's good for a blow through! It's war, after all, and we might all be dead tomorrow, and nothing matters, really, so, why the fuck not? And there's nothing between Snape and I, he's never touched me!" she snapped.
"That's about it." Harry agreed.
"You're lucky I don't smear your neb all over your boatrace! Go fuck yourself!" She told Harry.
She left the warm fire and went off into the woods, where it was cold and dark and feral.
Harry followed her.
In the woods, in the night, under the chill, pale moon, it didn't seem important, whether she screamed, or not.
Not in the woods.
Cold and dark and feral.
Snape had once told her that the idea of a taboo was a dangerous thing.
"A little thing like a taboo can be a powerful tool in the hands of an enemy. Because once he's seduced you into breaking a taboo, and showing you how easy it was to do, he's got a hook in you. To invite you to break some more. Remember this, Granger. Nothing is taboo. That's not to say that everything is permitted. There are many perfectly logical, rational reasons why you should not steal from your friends, commit murder, eat the dead, or commit incest. But, if you can think of no logical reason why you shouldn't want something, or have something, other than you're not supposed to, it's a meaningless taboo. Meaningless and dangerous. Break your taboos before they are used to break you."
"Nothing is true. Everything is permissible." Hermione muttered, gathering her clothes in the dark.
"Huh?"
"Nothing, Harry. Put your kit on, then."
"No, you said 'Nothing is true, everything is permissible?' Is that what you and Snape did together, then? Chain-smoke, quote the Beats, and congratulate yourselves on how fucking liberated you were? Snape doesn't strike me as the type. But you do."
Harry reached for his pants.
"Are you going to be nasty to me now, is that it?"
"I'm sorry, Hermione. I can't help it. I'm jealous."
"Of Snape? We never done it. I told you that."
"Of both of you. Regardless of whether you done it with him or not. You have something to live for."
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, A few nights later
III: Snape
Snape was alone in his dungeon rooms, staring into the roaring fire when his reverie was interrupted by a knock on his door.
He ignored it.
"Severus?"
He ignored that, too.
"Severus, open this door! I know you're in there. Brooding. Thinking dark, evil thoughts. The very blackest. Let me in."
His visitor was not going to go away, so Snape took the wards off the door and the locks, and went back to his chair before the fire.
The wizard who entered the room had made his way through the castle without being recognized, per se, but he had certainly been noticed.
He was a tall, angular, distinguished looking fellow in the prime of life, immaculately dressed in clothing that combined the nattiest and most fashionable aspects of Muggle suits and wizard's robes. He had exquisitely barbered black hair greying slightly at the temples, and a neatly goatish Van Dyke beard. His face was blandly handsome, but for the eyes which were greenish-yellow, and his pupils very black indeed.
On nine of his ten fingers, there were Nine familiar golden Rings.
A gift from his father.
Everyone who had seen the wizard had to look twice, because they were sure they had just seen the Devil, himself.
Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, disguised himself as a noseless, smoke-faced monstrosity, and posed as some kind of comic-opera Hitler, because he knew that his true identity, and his true mission would have horrified even the most black-heated of his ardent Death Eaters.
The truth, however, had always been known to the evil Pendragon's Acolyte, Severus Tobias Snape.
And his enemy, the Pendragon Albus Dumbledore.
Who also had as his Acolyte, the Pendragon Severus Tobias Snape.
Tom Riddle was not actually the Devil, but he was of Hell and from it.
Tom Riddle's father was not the Muggle his mother briefly married.
Her family, though not aristocratic, was prominent in the circles of those were deeply involved in the Dark Arts.
In Tom's case, from as far back as the Age of the Rings, to preserve their ties in blood and Black Magick to their Hellish masters, once in every seven generations they performed an obscene and forbidden ritual, involving the seventh daughter of the seventh son of the main branch of the family line and a demon.
Tom was the direct result of such a union, and as Merope's branch of the Gaunt family was already thoroughly infused with demonic blood, he was quite probably more demon than man.
No one, not even Tom Riddle, himself, could be sure of the particulars of his own parentage, but considering the stature of his mother's family and their long history of practicing the Dark Arts, his father, may indeed have been Lucifer, himself.
His mission was far more horrifying than the enforcement of crackpot neo-Nazi racial theories.
For more than one reason, Hell would hold no surprises for Tom Riddle.
It was not enough for him to be a at least half a demon, the spawn of Hell, and a Pendragon by the time he was 25.
Like every son of a famous or infamous father, young Tom Riddle wanted to surpass him.
If he truly was the son of Satan, that was a tall order.
Of course, he could have achieved it by turning his back on his demonic nature and embracing that part of him that was man rather than demon, good rather than Evil, but that was not the direction in which Tom Marvolo Riddle wanted to proceed.
For he was both profoundly evil and completely mad.
He was never a sane or a decent man, but he was rather in the same faintly ridiculous league as his good friend and companion Crowley until around World War II.
Riddle spent the whole of the Thirties in Egypt and the Far East looking for an original copy of the Necronomicon, and, unfortunately for him and the rest of the world, he found what he was looking for, in the Mad Arab's own handwriting.
Whatever beings he called upon or realms he visited or obscene knowledge he gained put him right around the twist.
He came back to England, applied to be Hogwarts DADA professor, and fell in love for the first and last time in his perverted and twisted life, with his best friend Severus Prince's s 13-year old daughter, Eileen.
After they became engaged, she was the first one he outlaid his mad plan to, and in the same gruesome and horrifying detail he would to her son, years later.
It would be enough to make Severus Snape turn his back on the man who might have been his father, a man he was closer to than anyone else on God's Green Erath, even his original Master Albus Dumbledore.
It was enough to send young Eileen Prince her fleeing into the Muggle world to abort Voldemort's child, rush into the dubious but understanding arms of Tobias Snape, and become a junkie for the next fifteen years or so.
She was only 15, herself at the time.
Needless to say, Tom didn't get the DADA job, either.
He came up with the "I Am Lord Voldemort" scheme after finding the phrase in one of his old schoolbooks, and began to finance his plot with pureblood money and ill-gotten gains from the worst kind of vices.
Of course, when you mix Black Magic with the rackets, hard drugs, murder, sadism and white slavery, then the real fun begins.
People started to die in appalling numbers, until Harry Potter stopped the old demon in his diabolical tracks.
Severus Snape and Eileen Prince were the only people Tom Riddle had ever outlaid his mad plan to bring a sort of cosmic, interdimensional, existential Hell not just to Earth, but to the Universe, itself.
The metaphysical core of his mad rantings haunted both of them.
Every minute of every day of their lives.
They had ever spoke of it, not even to each other, because both Eileen Prince and her son were determined that what the son of Satan found in that obscene book in the ancient desert, and the unholy marriage of evil that he imagined needed to die with the old sinner
The sooner, the better.
As for Tom Riddle, he knew that his heir had finally managed to do the impossible, and serve both his Masters when he killed Dumbledore.
What he was not sure of was if Snape continued to serve him, if he was serving Albus Dumbledore beyond the grave, or if he was just serving himself.
In the end, Voldemort didn't care.
If Harry Potter defeated him, Snape would be welcomed as a conqueror into the bosom of the Wizarding World.
And if everything went according to Tom's plans, then Snape would be welcomed as a conqueror into the bosom of the New World.
Even if he failed, his Heir would still triumph, so, either way, he won.
And the ends do justify the means.
Severus, however, did not look triumphant this evening.
"You look wretched, Severus. Every time I see you, you look a little more wretched. And it's becoming impossible for you to hide the hateful looks your give me."
The Master sat down in the chair opposite his Acolyte, and poured himself a cup of tea.
"D'you expect me to believe that you are frightened of me, Tom?"
"Certainly I do! You killed Albus, didn't you? You can off me, join forces with Potter, set Malfoy at your right hand and Lupin at your left and rule the world, while you train your Heir, Granger, to replace you once you've died. You've no passion for my goal, the real one or the pretend one, and no compassion for almost any living creature that walks, crawls, or flies over the surface of the Earth. Whether you've never forgiven me for your precious Lily Evans, who left you flat for not just another man, but your worst enemy, or you're looking forward to avenging her rejection of you by delivering her son to death at my hands, you'd still kill me and step over my bones on your way to the dais to take your position as Emperor of the Wizarding World. I know you, Severus. I was very nearly your father. And I chose you to be my Acolyte for a reason."
Snape didn't argue.
"It will only be a little while longer, you know." Tom assured him.
"You do know, Tom, if this war you've instigated harms my Acolyte, you had better run back to Hell, because I'll come for you. If you're not dead I'll kill you, in the old way, the only way to kill a demon. If you are dead, I'll descend into Hell to revenge myself on you. And if we're both in Hell, I'll steal the sword from your father, the Devil's hands and cut your head off with it. But not until after I've cut off your limbs, eviscerated you, torn out your beating heart from your bloody torso and finally, cut off your screaming head."
"After which you'll burn the lot to ash and then throw my head in after it into the fires of Mount Doom, itself, listening to my head scream all the way down until I return from whence I came? I expect no less from you. Severus. No harm will come to your Hermione Granger. And I will not kill Harry Potter, either. Dead, he's a martyr to Dumbledore's cause. Alive, and turned to my way of thinking, his followers will lose their last hope, and soon fall in line."
"If you turn him, or Granger, I'll kill them both, myself. And you'll be next." Snape growled.
"Did I say I would turn them? They'll turn on their own. In the end, everyone will. Goodness is a rape. Evil is always a seduction."
Tom Riddle finished his tea, and lit a cigar.
"You know where she is. Go and see her. I won't follow you. All that business about horcruxes, we know that's a red herring. I can promise you I won't kill your Acolyte, but I do not speak for every combatant in this war."
"And you haven't promised me that you won't kill me first before I have a chance to kill you."
"Come to think of it, Severus, I haven't."
Snape laughed.
"And they say I'm a wicked old screw."
Tom Riddle laughed, too.
"Oh, but you are, Severus. Sometimes I think you're even more wicked than I am."
"What about a fucking cigar, then?"
"Certainly, Severus. Anything for my Heir. How is your mother? Is she well? Is that pirate of a father of yours treating her decently? How are things at the shop?..."
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. 1995
III: Hermione
Hermione found that Snape was always exhausted by his Occulumency lessons with Harry.
Harry couldn't clear his mind, and not just because clearing your mind was impossible for a 15 year old.
It also had something to do with the disturbing transformation that had begun to overtake Harry in 4th year.
He had started to become something of a yobbo.
He started using the Marauder's Map to occasionally sneak off to Knockturn Alley, and he'd bring back a six pack of Merlyn's lager, or something.
Or ask Hermione to use episkey on him, after he'd got into a fight.
Shortly after he fought the dragon at the Ti-Wizard Tournament he went bragging to her and Ron that he wasn't a virgin, anymore, and while he was working on his last clue for the Tri-Wizard cup, Hermione saw him taking nips of firewhiskey from a mithril flask.
He explained that he had won the flask in a duelling contest.
Wizards Harry's age were not permitted to undertake duels, and it was illegal to duel for prizes or money.
Over the summer, Harry had only honed his bad habits.
She went to visit him at the Dursleys only to find he and Dudley in Dudley's room, drinking beer, smoking weed and listening to the Rolling Stones.
Hermione did not object to the Rolling Stones.
Even after she sat beside Ron, on an August outing to a pub in Knockturn Alley, and watched Harry beat the fuck out of a wizard he'd beat in a duel who was a sore loser and broke a bottle over his head.
To the tune of "Gimme Shelter" playing in the background.
Nasty stuff.
By this point, Harry was self-medicating with firewhiskey and beer and also weed and pills to keep his demons at bay, and he was out almost every night, in the pursuit of wine, women and song, with Ginny Weasley riding shotgun.
Hermione worried about Ginny, too.
She had changed after the affair in the Chamber of Secrets and not for the better.
The Killer Queen of the Quidditch pitch, while a serious student and a drug free teetotaler was an unregistered lioness animagus who was both promiscuous and ultraviolent; rumor had it that she was fighting the war all on her own by bloodily murdering Death Eaters in the street.
All in all, Harry's lifestyle made Occulumency difficult for him.
Snape knew what was waiting for Harry at the end of the road.
He was a chain smoker and a heavy drinker when he arrived at Hogwarts in his first year, and an alcoholic and opiate addict who funded a cabal for hard-living young Acolytes in Sex Magick when he was Harry's age.
If anyone was the right one for the task of trying to divert Harry from the road of excess, it was Snape.
Because, if Harry was a yobbo, then Snape, he was a right villain, covered in magical tattoos and battle scars to prove it.
That night when Hermione was finished with her homework, she went to visit her Master in his private rooms in the dungeon not so much for instruction, but just to keep him company.
When she arrived, he was parked in front of his illegal telly, with a book in his lap, smoking, dressed only in his favorite pair on ancient black Levis.
In them, Snape was more substantial than you would have suspected.
He was about six feet tall, maybe a little more, and although he was thin, he had a wiry, rawboned build, with broad shoulders and long, flat muscles.
Built like a welterweight boxer, he was all bone, muscle and sinew.
His arms and legs were very long, and he had very large hands, with long fingers, he had a long, beaky nose, of course and a long lantern jaw.
Some of the witches who had secret dreams about the Potions Master imagined that his hair was silky rather than greasy, but they were wrong.
Greasy, thick, coarse and straight.
Not only that, Snape also had coarse black hair on his arms, his chest, his belly and she figured, probably on his legs, as well.
When he saw her, he closed the book and smiled a little, revealing a mouthful of wayward teeth and gold crowns that her father had done for him, over the years.
Snape's arms were heavily tattooed with magical symbols and signs, all of them Goblin tattoos.
He had one tattoo on his left breast, and another, of a dragon, that wrapped up around his waist and belly and disappeared down his waistband.
Some of the symbols were so arcane Hermione was surprised anyone but her knew them, and a good deal of them did prove that Snape was indeed a practitioner of all of the Five Ancient Disciplines of High Ceremonial Magick.
Such esoteric relics of the days of old, dating back to the days before even the Wars of the Ring were not readily taught, anymore, but there were witches and wizards who still did things the old way, who knew the old secrets and the ancient mysteries.
Snape was a Master in the highest Degree, the Third Degree, of all Five Disciplines.
After all, the man could fly.
The general effect of it all was that it made him look like a wily, ugly old Pirate King, Hermione always thought.
He was an ugly man, true, but men weren't supposed to be pretty and smooth and flawless like little girls, were they?
"I've got you something. A prezzie for your birthday. Let me go and find it." He muttered.
Hermione was touched.
She had gotten an owl from her parents, but other than that, in the confusion of the Umbridge Occupation and the organization of Dumbledore's Army and all the rest of it, everyone, even Harry and Ron, had completely forgotten that it was Hermione's' birthday.
Her 16th birthday.
She had been planning to spend it with Viktor, good old Viktor, who never put Hermy-own-ninny last, and had been looking forward to spending their first legal night together in some swank hotel, where she'd maybe have a glass of champagne, and a nice dinner and then all night it would be shag, shag, shag, in some insanely ornate and enormous bed.
That was what Viktor had planned for her, but his Quiddtich schedule was changed at the last minute and he had to play a game in Novgorod, which was in Siberia.
Maybe Snape wasn't going to take her tripping merrily through the garden of carnal delights, which as a Third Degree Master of Sex Magick, he could probably have done even better than Viktor, but at least he remembered her birthday.
"What are you doing? Fucking turn off the telly and get in here, then!" Snape snapped from his bedroom.
Hermione had been in said room several times, to fetch this or get that, so she followed him in.
"Mind, it's heavy." He said.
Hermione unwrapped the green and black iridescent wrapping paper and sucked in her breath.
Inside the box was a mithril cauldron, a mithril mortar and pestle, a mithril mixing wand, and a little mithril cauldron-stove.
They were obviously Elvish made, and probably dated back to the 1500's.
"Snape, I can't accept this gift. These are priceless objects."
"Yes you can. You're an Acolyte of a Pendragon, one of Five in the world, you had better start using the best tools."
"But it must have cost you two years' salary!"
"It didn't. Potter isn't the only one who knows where a wizard can make good in a dueling contest. And no one can beat me. It was a good job finding an idiot with an antique supply shop who was willing to try. Go on and put them in my lab. I don't want you using them in class, they're too good for the likes of those yobs."
"They're too good for me, Snape."
"Nothing's too good for you, Granger. You're my Acolyte."
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. May, 1998
IV: Harry
"Hagrid, has Hermione come this way?"
"That she did, 'Arry. I called aht t'er, an' she didn't hardly turn 'er 'ead."
"I think she's going to the Shrieking Shack. For…the Headmaster. I've got to stop her! If she takes that Oath, she can kiss 25 years of her life goodbye!"
Hagrid put his hand on Harry's arm, and spoke as gently as possible.
"'Arry, lad, our 'Ermione's life is lyin' dead on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. If she takes the Oath, she'll find the strength to go on living. Best to let her go, and do what she has to do."
