Round 11: for QLFC

BEATER 2 for Pride of Potree

Quote from "Hero": Would you swear that you'll always be mine?

My Prompts: (word) determined, (creature) Dementor

When Heroes Are Needed

"If you survive the final initiation, you must swear always to be mine."

The man sat behind a large, onyx table in a high-backed chair made of carved mahogany. The word throne came to mind, which was rather fitting, seeing as the aura and countenance of the man who sat in it were that of a king...no...a god.

Seventeen-year-old Severus Snape glanced nervously from side to side, but the two Death Eaters in their unsettling masks had mysteriously vanished without a sound. The room was silent other than the intermittent crackle of the fireplace behind the man before him.

"You will do as I ask without question or hesitation. Do you understand?"

The man...no...Voldemort leaned forward, his fingers steepled in front of his face as he looked at his potential recruit appraisingly. This was the first time that Severus had actually been given an audience with the man himself. There had been months and months of introductions and initiations to complete as Lucius had sponsored and vouched for his little Potions protégé.

Severus had only seen paintings and photos in the paper before. Seeing Voldemort up close was very different indeed. There was something about Voldemort's face that seemed...wrong. His skin gathered oddly on his body, as though he were wearing a human suit under his impeccable robes. The closely cropped goatee and salt-and-pepper hair helped to make him look less inhuman, but Severus could still feel the waves of power emanating from Voldemort's very skin. He could feel it even though he was on the other side of the long, black table.

Power had drawn him to this moment, and he was determined not to ruin his only chance to make something of himself in the Wizarding World. There were far too many mistakes in his past, each worse than the last, and he was tired of making them. If he became a Death Eater, he knew that he would be given access to information on using advanced Dark magic, not to mention the respect and fear it would give him once he could harness it as his own.

"Yes." Severus said, his voice clear and unwavering as he looked up into the eyes of the greatest Legilimens in the world.

He felt the brush of invisible fingers against his mind, flipping through the shame, the pain, the poverty of his past. It was unpleasant but not painful.

When he was done, Voldemort smirked, his eyes triumphant as though he liked what he'd seen. Severus already knew that Voldemort would take his deepest secrets and use them to motivate and control him. Like any true Slytherin, Voldemort knew that controlling people with idle threats was useless. In order to get results, one had to know the other intimately. Lucius had warned him about this, which was why he'd been inspired to learn enough Occlumency to hide his most painful secrets behind an iron-tight wall.

"Very well." Voldemort said, his voice as rich and intimidating as it had been the first time that Severus had heard it on the wireless. "I shall give you what you seek. But in return, you must give me everything I ask of you without hesitation. Even your life is forfeit if I will it so. It is mine to do with what I wish. You are legally an adult in our world and as such, I shall not treat you with the simpering disrespect you were afforded in the so-called hallowed halls of Hogwarts. You obviously know your mind, but you must not take your decision lightly. Once you are mine, you will never be able to leave. There is nowhere on this earth or beyond that you can run to that I cannot find you. Do you understand?"

"I understand, and I accept." Severus said, his voice ringing with conviction in the empty room. His black eyes were filled with fire.

"Your words are all well and good," Voldemort replied, his grin growing wider until his lips were spread thin in an almost reptilian smile, "but I require a bit more than that to seal the deal. There will be pain. When I am done with you, perhaps you shall wish that you answered differently, but by then it will be too late. Prepare yourself!"

With a rustle of heavy robes, the man who would be a god stood and began to glide towards Severus in the darkness. It almost felt like a dream, one that Severus had kept in his heart through the years of abuse and ostracism that had filled him to the brim with bitterness. It was the light in the darkness and the power to control his destiny.

He would give everything until there was nothing left if only he could grasp it.

Severus wanted to tell Voldemort that he was wrong, but he held his tongue as he'd held his tongue when his father had called him terrible things, had told him of the pain of living, had screamed late in the night when he was bloated with drink that he'd never asked for this life, and he'd never asked for such a disappointment of a son. He found that, as twisted as his father was, he was very rarely wrong.

And, as the hours of pain turned into days of torturous agony, Severus came to the realization that both Voldemort and his father had one thing in common.

They had not lied about the pain.

The Prophecy hadn't been the last straw, nor had the news of finding out that Lily Potter and her family were to become targets because of it. The Potters had already been targeted twice before, though they'd never been caught. No, the last straw had been realizing that, far from being a haven of power and strength, the Death Eaters were made up of murderers, perverts, and the criminally insane. This was not the group of noble knights fighting for a safe and free Wizarding World that he'd been led to believe he was joining. Voldemort was as glib and imposing as ever, but as Severus watched his master carefully, just as he'd learned from years of watching out for his drunken, abusive father, he realized that behind the mask of sanity, there was a cold, inhuman power. It made his blood run cold. This was not a man who wanted to usher in a new age of prosperity. This was a man who wanted to kill or subjugate all who could oppose him before sucking the rest dry and building a castle out of their bones.

Sure, Severus had let Dumbledore believe that he was doing it for Lily, for he knew that no one would believe a Slytherin without a self-serving purpose. In reality, though, he'd wanted them all hidden—all children and their families who could possibly have fallen under the rather vague prophecy's terms. In the end, he'd succeeded, but not without sacrificing his pride yet again.

Luckily, he'd had much practice in being dragged through the mud. One might say he'd turned it into an art of sorts.

Of course, becoming a spy had given him a number of benefits, though it was not without its perils. Voldemort had even begun to call Severus to sit at his side during meetings, displacing Bellatrix Lestrange from her customary space.

Only he had seen her raise her finger to her neck and draw it sharply across her pale throat. It had filled him with a sense of revulsion and, oddly enough, deja vu. Sirius Black had done the very same thing many times, with almost the very same facial expression. It was uncanny how similar the two Blacks were, though they'd probably be too busy trying to kill each other to notice if they found one another in the same room.

It didn't happen until more than three weeks later. Halloween was on its way, but oddly enough, Death Eater activity had been somewhat quiet. It felt unnervingly like the calm before the storm. Severus knew that whatever was about to happen was something he was not allowed to be privy to, but still he tried, receiving a round of the Cruciatus Curse for his troubles. So, in the end, he'd done what he always did in times of distress. He owled Lucius.

The return letter came to his dark, ugly home at Spinner's End, the words scrawled in messy, hurried handwriting, but Severus had no doubt that it was Lucius, for the seal on the parchment was from Malfoy Manor. It included Apparation coordinates, and a date- October 31st.

Severus did not tell Dumbledore about the letter. For once, he wanted to be the hero. He knew that whatever this was, it would be his chance to undo all of his wrongs. He glanced at the Mark writhing languidly on his forearm and winced. There would be nowhere to run if he betrayed them and lived. Much better to think of this as a suicide mission. What was it that Dumbledore always said?

"For the Greater Good." he said huskily, his voice sounding hollow and small in the darkness as he opened the book on Self-Destruction spells that he'd been studying.

Surely even the Dark Lord could not survive without a body.

With a loud crack, Severus appeared in the misty forest clearing, his wand out and at the ready.

There was no one there.

He'd been fooled.

Swearing loudly, he tried to Apparate back to Voldemort's large manor house, which was also the headquarters of the Death Eaters and their various activities, to no avail.

Casting a couple of quick Detection Charms, he swore again as large tiles inscribed with runes glowed blue in a circle around him. Someone had placed Anti-Apparation wards on the clearing. One could Apparate in, but not out, and there was no telling how far the effects spread. He did not want to risk Splinching himself, so he tried the next best thing. Muttering a spell under his breath, he rose into the air. Whoever had placed the Anti-Appartion wards likely did not know that he'd learned Voldemort's method of flying without a broom. If he was fast enough, he'd be able to Apparate once he reached a high enough altitude to get above the ward line.

For all of his faults, the Dark Lord had not lied when he'd told Severus that he would give him access to power he'd always dreamed of having. Though it was true that there were some skills that even the Dark Lord would not share, Severus found that there was still much that he could learn.

The moment he broke free of the treeline, he could feel the air growing colder, puffs of breath forming like clouds as they poured from his mouth.

It was then that he saw them, hovering in the air like wraiths.

Dementors.

There were three of them. They turned their shroud-covered heads in unison, even though he'd made nearly no sound, and began to float silently towards him, their clawed hands extended.

He could feel his power draining from his body as they approached and lowered himself slowly back to the ground. Near the end, they were descending upon him so quickly that he could no longer hold the spell. He hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of him and sprawled on his side trying to catch his breath. Luckily, nothing seemed broken, but Severus knew better than to feel optimistic. One dementor could suck the soul out of a wizard in several minutes, but three… he was lost.

There was only one hope, but it was a long shot. Everyone knew that Death Eaters could not cast a Patronus. The last Death Eater that had attempted it had been devoured alive by maggots, which had spewed from his wand uncontrollably. Severus would never forget those screams. Nor would he forget how everyone else had laughed, other than his master, who had merely watched with faint amusement.

The dementors were sucking energy from him, feeding off of his body, his very soul. Dark visions danced in front of his eyes. Lily, lying on the plush carpet of an infant's bedroom with sightless eyes. The Wizarding World falling into silence as one man sucked the life from it and became an undying god. His body rotting to nothing, forgotten in a forgotten place.

It was futile. He was dying.

But then, as he closed his eyes, a light seemed to fill his line of sight. A figure walked towards him, a girl. Not Lily as she was now, but the Lily she'd been when they'd been friends.

Best friends.

Always and forever.

"You have to promise, Sev! We'll always be best friends, right?" Lily's voice was soft and kind.

"Yes…." he croaked, hearing his higher, younger voice echoing in his mind.

"You saved me. I want to save you too." She was next to him, now. Her skin smelled of strawberries and sunlight. "Be strong, Sev. There is much you still have to do."

He knew she wasn't there. He knew he was just hallucinating. But he could swear that he could feel the warmth of her lips pressing against his forehead, and it spread through his body as though thawing him from the frozen terror brought on by the dementors that swooped down again and again, sucking his vitality from his bones.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" His wand was out and the words were bursting from his lips before he knew what he was saying.

A glowing doe poured from the tip of his wand and she was so beautiful that he nearly cried at the sight of her. She turned her head back to glance at him before turning her attention on the dementors, her tail flicking from side to side as she looked up and charged at them, fierce and fearless as a lioness. With a horrible set of screams, the dementors retreated, the doe flying on their heels like a hound.

Severus collapsed against the ground, his chest heaving as he recovered. He never heard her land, but the doe's glowing feet suddenly touched down next to where he lay, and he turned his head to look up at her strangely intelligent eyes. She brought her pearlescent head down, then, and nuzzled his cheek softly.

And then, she was gone.

It took him awhile, but Severus finally was able to reach a part of the forest that was out of the influence of the Anti-Apparation wards and collapsed upon the front steps of the house on Spinner's End.

It would not be until the next day that he would hear the news of Voldemort's defeat and the death of both Lily and James Potter.

But as he lay in bed, drawing his arms around himself in the dark, he realized that he'd never truly given himself to the Dark Lord after all. In the end, what had saved his life hadn't been Dark magic at all. It had been, ironically, the opposite. It had been love, the love that he'd promised to a girl, who'd promised the same to him all those years ago—before Hogwarts, before everything.

And, now that he knew that he had it inside of him, he, too, knew, that he had been wrong about everything.

"Would you swear that you'll always be mine?" Her voice was soft and low in his ear and he could feel her fingers stroking his hair gently in a way that his mother had never done when he was a child.

"Always." he replied softly to the empty room, his breathing evening out as he fell into a dreamless sleep.