In Spring of Youth
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this story, they belong to J.K.R.
What Sleeps Within
Snape suppressed a shutter as he and his fellow Death Eaters pillaged yet another muggle town. Voldemort was watching everything with sadistic interest.
"Severus this does not entertain you?" Voldemort asked not pulling his eyes away from the destruction. Snape, on sthe other hand, much preferred to look at the dark lord then at the traumatizing scene that was playing out before him.
"I like keeping my wits about me. The other Death Eaters lose themselves in excitement. Someone must stay alert and keep on guard, my lord" Snape inclined his head respectfully, hoping Voldemort wouldn't question him farther.
"Choose a house Severus." Voldemort seemed to hum the words. Snape didn't let the disgust show on his face. He looked around hoping that the lives he was about to destroy would leave life peacefully, though he knew they wouldn't. He pointed to a small house. Voldemort smiled like a cat would smile before pouncing on a mouse. Voldemort led the way and Snape followed trying to seem enthusiastic. The house was relatively small. It had plain green walls and a red door, giving its beholder a distinct Christmas feeling. With a flourish of his wand, Voldemort blew the door open. Red shards blasted everywhere. A tall broad shouldered man stood in front of the door. Voldemort shrill laughter filled the air.
"Do you think to stop us old man?" The man moved to launch himself at them Snape flicked his wand sending the man flying against the wall where invisible restraints held him. A very beautiful yet older woman stood before them her eyes were blazing with anger behind her a small child whimpered and cried. A young woman with pitch black hair and piercing blue eyes stepped before the older women.
"You will not touch my family, you filth." She hissed. Voldemort's curiosity was peaked. Rarely had muggle's stood up to him, specially such young ones.
"You are a fool to think you can stop us." Snape said. Pleading to the gods that the girl wouldn't fight him. He wanted to make this a quick kill. The girl straightened her back and held her head high.
"I am no fool." She snarled. Severus sent a jinx at her but it bounced off an invisible force which shimmered for a moment, like smoke in the air, before settling back into translucence. The girls staggered backwards hands suspended forward to protect her face. She looked up just as the last bit of her smoky shield faded. Her eyes widened in shock as her mouth parted in an expression of pure shock.
"what...how?" her voice shuttered but her ocean gray eyes were steady and calculating. The dark lord was now interested. Voldemort threw every dark curse he could at the girl they all hit a cloud of smoke and disappeared. Finally Voldemort lifted his wand in irritated resignation.
"Lucius" he said calmly. Within a minute the tall, once handsome, blonde wizard appeared. He bowed low his eyes never leaving voldemort's.
"Yes my lord" he said not getting up.
"Take these vermin to my dungeon, but leave the young lady here." Lucius smiled and with a flick of his wand the three people were being dangled by the ears shrieking as Lucius floated them away. The girl shrieked and made to grab them, but when Voldemort raised his wand she shrank back behind her ward.
"As for you Severus watch the young woman closely. Once her shield drops get her some witches robes, and bring her to your manor. You are not to return to Spinners End. You are officially dismissed from your mission there. Make sure she is kept in a secure location. You would hate for her to get away, wouldn't you" Voldemort said watching Severus, who showed no indication of understanding the threat behind the dark lord words.
"I will give you further instructions soon." The dark lord walked away without waiting for Snape's response. Snape sighed in frustration. This was all he needed. He threw the girl his most menacing glare, yet found himself gazing in worry at her already pail visage that was contorted into a white mask of pain and fear.
After two hours of fighting it became quiet outside. Snape watched the girl as she sat on the floor fidgeting endlessly with her blue T-shirt.
"What is your name girl" Snape asked trying to entertain himself with idle conversation, something he rarely indulged in.
"What's it to you." The girl glared up at him through her dark eye lashes.
"I personally mean you no harm, therefore I suggest that you remain civil. We do not know how long the dark lord will have you staying with me. I simply need something to address you by." Snape said with casual indifference. The girl blinked
"Sylvia Black" she said lifting her chin slightly to get a better look at Snape.
"What's your name?" she asked almost whispering
"Snape" Snape said simply.
"Well, Snape care to explain why you just barged into my home? And kidnapped my family? How this…..this guard thing got put up? And what's going to happened to me once the creep with the red eyes comes to check on me?" she asked all this in a hurry. Snape face softened into a look that almost expressed sympathy. It only took a second for Snape to catch his error and plaster a look of disdain on his face.
"there is no explanation for why the death eaters attacked this village or why your family has been taken away. And I cannot answer you regarding what will happen when the dark lord comes back. However, your shield is impenetrable. You are quite safe from bodily harm so long as you remain behind it." Silence fell.
Five more hours of silence were excruciating long for Snape. He wasn't accustomed to sitting around and twiddling his thumbs. All he could think of was the danger he inadvertently put this girl in.
"Snape?" Sylvia asked tapping her fingers nervously.
"Yes" Snape answered, happy to have something to disrupt his thoughts.
"If I drop this shield can you promise me that you will protect me using what ever means necessary?" Snape was taken aback by the question. Why did the girl suddenly trust his word? She had no reason to.
Snape sat and considered the request. If he made such a promise he would risk everything that Dumbledore had been working toward for seventeen years. Snape could lie. He looked into the girls eyes. Yes, he would have to lie to her. He wouldn't do everything within his power. But he would not let her come to any harm if he could help it.
"Yes" Snape answered.
Sylvia closed her eyes, her forehead creased with concentration. Her shield slowly faded until there was just a shimmer left by her magic. Snape got up and held out his hand.
"We are going to apperate to my house. You need to hold my hand while I do this. It will feel a little bit..." Snape paused contemplating which word to describe apperation "strange" he finished lamely.
"Apperate?" Sylvia questioned
" Apperation is the word wizards use to describe traveling from one place to another, instantaneously, utilizing magic." Snape explained. Suddenly an owl flew in through the window and landed before Snape. An owler was dropped in front of Sylvia.
"Miss Black" Lucius Malfoys voice rang through the broken house.
"your family is being held as leverage. If you do not comply with the wishes of of the dark lord they will be executed in the most painful way I can think of. Sincerely Lucius Malfoy." Sylvia gasped and started shaking uncontrollably. Snape hadn't felt pity for anyone in many years, but this girl was getting under his thick skin. Snape shook off the desire to comfort her. This was no time for him to be weak. He simply held out his hand.
"Take my hand now." He said in his most commanding voice.
"this town is no longer safe for either of us." Snape said as he heard what was, undoubtedly Grayback and his pack coming for the raw meet that the death eaters left behind. Sylvia looked around in fear before taking Snape's hand.
"Take a deep breath." Snape said. He was aware of how it felt the first time you apperate. The pressure could knock a young which out even under good conditions. The last thing Snape needed was a passed out young women to carry to his manor. Sylvia did as she was told. Snape apperated with aloud pop. He felt his world spinning before his feet hit solid ground. Just as Snape found his balance, dead weight hit him in his gut and he wend tumbling down with Sylvia on top of him.
"Oh" Sylvia said blushing horribly. Snape couldn't breath. She was laying right on his solar plexus.
"I can't breath" Snape hissed.
"Oh I'm…I didn't" Sylvia pushed herself up. Snape followed her example.
"Where are we?" she asked scanning the area as though she expected to see a street sign.
"You need not know that." Snape said curtly. In truth the manner was gifted to him from Voldemort for his loyalty, but it's location remained a mystery even to Snape.
Snape lead Sylvia through the large black gates, at the front of his manor and up to the front door. He reached for his wand but to his surprise the door swung open before he even touched his it.
"Did you do that" Sylvia asked dread in her voice
"No" Snape answered
"I just thought about it opening. I don't know how to explain it, but I completed the though with a certain sense of conviction, and then the door opened." Sylvia said with a shaky voice. Snape looked at her. Magic, even silent and wand-less magic, needed some kind of a gesture to put it into effect. Sylvia hadn't moved at all. Snape didn't know if he actually had the magic to restrain the girl if he had to. He shrugged off the thought and walked through the door.
His manor was definitely old. It had the Prince family crest hanging in the entrance hall. The walls were a deep green, the floors a dark wood. He lead Sylvia up the spiral stairs, down along hall to a large room. It was painted blue and had a large oak bead in the center covered in black sheets and a black comforter. All of the furniture was the same oak. It had a desk and two book shelves full of first addition leather clad books and an empty wardrobe. Sylvia looked at Snape.
"This is where you will be staying. Help yourself to anything you want in this room. If you need anything there is a house elf named Coco that will help you." Snape paused at the look of confusion on Sylvia's face.
"A house elf is a little magical creature that by nature serves the rest of the magical world." Snape had forgotten that Sylvia didn't know anything.
"Coco will bring you some robes."
Snape needed to think. He turned on his heals and walked away just in time to hear Sylvia say, "But what if I want to find you." He pretended not to have heard her and walked out of the room. He stood outside of the door just long enough to put up a ward just in case she attempted to escape, or someone tried to get in.
Sylvia felt the huge room closing in on her, not knowing what to think or feel. All she knew was the pounding of her heart in her chest and the intense feeling that seemed to be poring into her lungs and fuming out of her. Every pore in her body tingled. She was angry for the first time since she had first watched her parent and younger sister get dangled out of her life. Sylvia threw herself onto the large bead and started to sob though she tried very hard to hold it back. She held her breath in the effort but her lungs felt like they would collapsed every time a new wave of desperation hit her. How could this have happened? Yesterday everything was normal, and now she didn't know anything anymore. She would probably never see her family again, and the only person who was showing any signs of humanity was one of the coldest people Sylvia had ever met. Snape was so guarded Sylvia didn't know what to think. Her instincts told her that he was not really cruel or evil. Hours went by before Sylvia's breathing evened out and she fell into a deep but nightmare filled sleep.
Snape sat in the library cradling a mug of fire whiskey in his hand. Snape covered his face with his free hand and wished with everything in him the Dumbledore would come back to life. How would Dumbledore help Sylvia? The Dark Lord would definitely kill her once she had served her purpose. Sylvia was far more powerful then anyone Snape had ever encountered, she could do so much damage if she was lured down wrong path. Snape shivered at the thought of the young women. Everything about her made Snape on edge and primitive. She was beautiful, strong and (though she probably didn't know it) just as cold as Snape himself. When he closed his eyes he saw her with her black hair falling into her gray- blue eyes that always seemed to shift and change with the magic pulsing out of her, no overflowing from her depths. Snape let his head fall to the table with an audible thud. He couldn't think like that, couldn't picture her in that way. Snape would have to be very careful with her. She scared him and intrigued him all at once. His first instinct was lock her up in the manner and never let her leave his sights again but Snape had learned better then allow his behavior to be dictated by infatuation- no- lust.
Sylvia awoke as something next to her shattered. She jumped out of bed and looked around not remembering where she was. Then she saw it. It was some sort of a deformed dwarf. It looked like a cross between a bat and a human being. Its head was too large for its body, its eyes to large for its head and its ears just generally too large. Sylvia fought the shriek that was threatening to fight its way from her throat.
"where the fuck am I?" Sylvia yelled her voice shrill "what... what are you?" her voice cracked as she realized how dry her throat was.
"Now Sylvia, there is no reason to interrogate Coco." Snape walked into the room. The events of the last day came crashing down on Sylvia and she sat back down from its weight.
"Oh... I... forgot." She said shaking her head dramatically. Snape tilted his head and looked at her with obsidian eyes.
"The Dark Lord requires your assistance immediately" Snape barley whispered. Trying hard to be gentle because he knew that after this day Sylvia may never know kindness again. He shivered at that thought. Sylvia visibly paled but got up and stood straight. Coco handed Sylvia crimson robes. Snape turned away.
"Please leave" Sylvia said. Fear leaking into her voice. Snape begrudgingly obliged. He waited right outside. Sylvia came back out. She looked so pale and so poised that Snape was sincerely impressed. Snape glanced over Sylvia with approval before Snape showed her to the fire place to floo her to the Malfoy manor.
"Get into the fireplace and throw this dust down. Say in a clear voice 'Malfoy Manor'" Snape explained. Sylvia didn't look at him as she took some floo powder and disappeared into a cloud of smoke to what ever horrors awaited her.
Sylvia was twisting and falling. The air was sucked from her lungs as she hit solid ground and toppled over. Arms grabbed at her and dragged her to her feet pulling her. She tried to resist, but she was too dizzy to fight. The world swam before her, an ocean of black cloaked figures pressing in on her.
"Leave her." A chilling voice called out like leaves rustling over stone. Immediately Sylvia was standing by herself in the cool room swaying back and forth. It took her a minute to regain her balance, and another minute to realize that she was in a large hall surrounded by black hooded, masked figures. Sitting atop a stone throne was the Dark Lord with a snake coiling around his arm. His thin lips pressed together below where his nose should have been, but the most sinister and grotesque part of his face were his eyes. Red eyes like embers burning low in a pile of white ash. Sylvia shook despite herself. The Dark Lord smiled cruelly down at her.
"To think I thought her to be a muggle only to find that she was related to one of our purest families." The death eaters chuckled compliantly, just as their lord wanted.
"Now Sylvia tell everyone you full name." the Dark Lord crooned.
"Sylvia Black" Sylvia whispered more to herself then to anyone. After everything perhaps that was all she had left now.
"Your full name Ms. Black"
"Sylvia Bellatrix Black" Sylvia all but yelled. The room was silent
"You always knew you were a witch didn't you?" The Dark Lord hissed.
"No" Sylvia squeaked desperately. She would not give him the satisfaction of taking away what was left of her normality.
"Don't lie to me" he said every syllable vehemently.
"I never knew... I knew I was different. I knew I had magic but I never knew there were others like me." Sylvia pleaded. She closed her eyes. She was Sylvia Black she was born on July 29th and spent every birthday camping with her dad. They couldn't take that from her. They couldn't.
"Liar!" Voldemort voice cracked through her thoughts like a whip through smoke. She opened her eyes and gazed up at Voldemort unable to hide her fear, anger and hatred.
"The dark lord punishes those who lie to him" Voldemort sang his voice promising carnage.
"Bring him out." the Dark Lord yelled to some faceless figure with a silver hand. Second's later Sylvia's father was dragged into the room. He was covered with bruises and his lips were sewed shut.
"His mouth!" Sylvia cried out.
"That is what happens to those who refuse to speak. It teaches them some appreciation for the ability. He is lucky we didn't cut out his tongue." The Dark Lord said. Glee obvious in his tone.
"Cut them open" Voldemort hissed.
Someone motioned with his wand and the threads tore from Sylvia's fathers lips, blood spilled from his mouth. Too much blood. Sylvia shrieked.
"Now tell us or we will cut out his tongue." Voldemort said
"Fine I knew. My fathers a squib that's all I know. That's all he told me. He told me that I was a witch, and that there is a world of magic but he didn't want me to be a part of it. I don't know why. I never asked. That's all I know. I swear." Sylvia said so quickly and quietly that only Voldemort heard.
"Take this piece of filth to the dungeon and torture him until he begs for the pain to stop, but don't relieve him until he openly confesses to his crimes." Voldemort said.
Sylvia screamed with rage. She tried to run to get to her father, but she was held back by what felt like hundreds of hands.
"You bastard! I told you what you wanted to know! Let them go! This is between me and you now." Sylvia was in hysterics she was hitting everyone trying to get at the Dark Lord.
"Now, now Miss Black, let that be a lesson to you of the power that I have over your so called family. So much as a lie will have them dead. I have been tolerant of your untactful dishonestly and your noncompliance until now but my mercy ends here." Voldemort turned away from Sylvia and looked at a tall lean death eater.
"Take her away, but bring her back the time tomorrow" Voldemort hissed the death eater bowed and graceful walked over to Sylvia. He pulled her upward. She fought as he tried to drag her from the room.
"Don't be foolish. Do you want him to kill your father?" Snapes voice said knowingly. Sylvia heard his voice and sagged into his body defeated. She expected him to push her away especially under so many eyes. Instead he lead her to the fire place allowing her to lean on him. As he threw the powder down she locked eyes with Voldemort who for a split second smiled as only a truly crazed tyrant can smile. Then they were spinning again but this time she had Snape to hold her steady when she hit the ground. As the world spun around her Sylvia let out a uninhibited sob. What did it matter anymore. She was no longer the Sylvia. Sylvia went skinny dipping with friends, got straight A's through out high school and seen anyone die. She had somehow become someone quite unrecognizable. Sylvia was now a girls who could do magic, who had seen her town burned, her friends slaughtered, her family taken hostage and her father tortured. There was no going back. She would never again just be Sylvia.
Snape tried to calm her down with words but she didn't hear him. Panic was starting to rise up in him. What if she became so impassioned that her magic became uncontrollable? He had to distract her. He had to distract her without causing more tension. He would have slapped her, but a violent act might end badly. The thought had barely formulated in his mind when he pressed his lips against Sylvia's and kissed her. He instantly regretted it and pulled away. Sylvia was staring at him wide eyes and open mouthed. Snape started to walk away too ashamed and prideful to say anything.
"Wait" Sylvia pleaded.
"Please, wait" She said.
Snape turned around and studied Sylvia wide gray eyes. Underneath the pain and anger something much more deadly was stirring.
"Anything that could happen between us, you will regret the moment you are emotionally stable. The last thing you need is for the Dark Lord to pick up on your insecurities and use them against you. I would suggest that you learn to think things through. Our world unlike yours is as dangerous as it is wondrous and one must maintain full mental capacity at all time if they wish to survive" Snape said leaving a very confused and upset Sylvia behind.