Diagon AlleyII forum Grand New Year Battle: The Death Eaters vs. The Order.
This was written for the Diagon AlleyII forum Grand New Year Battle between the Death Eaters and The Order. (Down with the Order!) The two teams are battling it out, so to speak, by writing stories based off of prompts. We have a great many number of prompts to choose from, each with their own point value. Below are my chosen prompts and their point tally.
This story is for Round 2 of the Marauder's Era. See my profile for my Round 1 submission, Of Secrets and Hope. Round 1 saw a staggering victory for the DEs!
Dialogue Prompts: You may choose one.
3. Are you sure you're not on the Quidditch team? Because you're definitely a Keeper. 4 [If you choose this, you have to choose Lily Evans or Remus Lupin to use it.]*
5. Pureblood, Halfblood or Mudblood, we all have red blood. 3
Character Prompts: You may choose up to three.
2. Lily Evans 4 [If you choose her, you may not choose ANY Spell Prompt that is more than 5 points.]
6. Severus Snape 5 [If you choose him, you may not choose ANY Marauder Pairing Prompts.]
11. Lucius Malfoy 4 [If you choose him, you may choose ONE extra Creature Prompt less than 3 points.]
Pairing Prompts: You may only choose one.
4. Severus/Lily 9 [If you choose this pairing, you may not choose ANY Marauders Character Prompts.]
Creature Prompts: You may only choose one. A Creature Prompt more than 2 points will not allow you to use more than TWO Word Prompts.
1. Hippogriff 4
2. Merperson 2
Word Prompts: You may choose four. Each scores 1 point.
3. Resuscitate
5. Knickers
Spell Prompts:You may choose two, unless it is an Unforgivable Curse or you have chosen a Creature Prompt, in which cases you may choose one.
5. Rennervate 5 [If you choose this, you may choose TWO Spell Prompts less than 5 points even if you've choosen a Creature Prompt.)
8. Accio 2 [If you choose this, you may choose TWO Dialogue Prompts.]
Total Points: 44
Snape's Story: The Evolution of a Death Eater
Love had been a commodity thin on the ground of Severus Snape's childhood home. It had essentially been a foreign concept to him for much of his early childhood, so he hadn't had a name for what he'd felt the first time he saw Lily Evans.
Eventually he'd been able to put a label on the feelings that would swell inside his chest and set his stomach churning whenever he saw the pretty redhead, but for those first few years all he had known was that, when he was with her, his heart would beat abnormally hard and fast, which would often make it difficult to breath.
Those sensations should have been unpleasant, but somehow they weren't. As long as he got to sit with Lily and study her red hair and green eyes and hear her lilting laugh, he'd happily endure all manor of discomfort. For many years before Hogwarts, Lily and Severus had been all but inseparable. She'd provided him with an escape from his bleak home life and taught him that there was more to the world than anger and fear, and for that he'd always been grateful.
When they'd finally gone to Hogwarts they had been sorted into different houses and everything had started to change. They each began to make new friends within their houses and, with the time their classes and homework and outside activities occupied, had less and less time to spend together. For the first time since they'd been very small Severus and Lily were being exposed to all the thoughts and opinions of the world while apart from each other.
It was something that hadn't sat well with Severus, who found that he would often feel a little sliver of unexplainable anger when he saw Lily talking and laughing with anyone else, especially that prat, James Potter.
There was a great satisfaction in knowing Lily despised Potter. His antics exasperated her and she would often tell Severus about his pathetic bids for attention and failed pick up lines.
Are you sure you're not on the Quidditch team? Because you're definitely a Keeper. If you were a Dementor, I'd become a criminal just to get your kiss. You don't even have to say Lumos Maxima to turn me on. And dozens of others. For many years Severus could hear Lily's voice in his mind, recounting the attempts she'd found most ridiculous.
Sneering at the pathetic attempts, Severus would find any and every reason to pick apart Potter and his cohorts, hoping to cement Lily's dislike of the entire quartet who called themselves The Marauders.
He would also try his best to make sure that Lily would want to spend time with him by doing little things, like saving her his dessert when he'd been younger or, as he'd grown and matured, teaching her new spells, which he'd learned by reading ahead in the library.
Sometimes he would help her with things that she struggled with. They had mastered the Accio spell together when he had explained how to focus her mind in order to make the objects zoom toward her. Knowing that some of these things might not come easily to someone who had basically grown up as a Muggle, even someone as naturally talented as Lily, he tried to be understanding.
On one occasion he hadn't been able to hold back the snickers when Lily had continually cried 'resuscitate' rather than 'Rennervate' while working on the reviving spell, but he'd only laughed for a minute.
Each time he found a better way to brew potions he would correct the recipe and instructions in his own textbook and would share the information with Lily, helping her to gain her reputation as a prodigious potion maker.
When he'd discovered the mer-people who lived beneath the inky black waters of the lake, he'd taken her there and they'd managed to get one to pop it's head above the surface so it could yell something unintelligible at them in Merish.
He'd even scraped together every last knut he'd been able to get his hands on and had bought her a spectacular miniature working model of a Hippogriff for her birthday one year, because he'd known that it was her favorite magical creature.
Knowing that the people in his House would never understand his fascination with Lily, to them she was simply a Mudblood, someone to scorn and wish off the face of the earth, he kept his true feelings to himself. If anyone commented on the amount of time they spent together or the things he was willing to do for her, Severus would point out Lily's beauty and claim that his interest was skin deep and something of a guilty pleasure. These instances always filled him with a uncomfortable shameful feeling, but if he waned to survive in Slytherin house, it wass what he had to do.
Deep down, being a half-blood himself, he would often wonder why it mattered so much to some people. 'Pure-blood, Half-blood, or Mudblood, we all have red blood', he would often think to himself despite the sly comments house mates like Lucius Malfoy would make.
For two years Severus had sat in the common room and listened to Lucius' thoughts on the state of the wizarding world. Even after Lucius had moved on from Hogwarts, Severus would occasionally receive a letter from the older Slytherin. The letters were full of the same thoughts he'd expressed while in school and Severus would write back, hoping that he was saying the things that Lucius wanted to hear. After all, the name Malfoy held great sway in the Wizarding world and being friendly with Lucius would help him after he graduated.
Occasionally, at school, he would be forced to agree with some of the pureblood ideals out loud and, to his ever growing chagrin, it always seemed like it was at a time when Lily was within earshot. As the incidences piled up, their friendship had started to show the strain and Lily began to question him on his thoughts and feelings about blood purity. He would assure her that it didn't matter to him, but there would always be another instance of overheard lip-service to his house mates in order to keep them off his back, and then he and Lily would have the same fight all over again.
Severus began to sense that Lily was slipping away from him and he was unsure what to do about it. The more distant they grew, the more Severus' longing for the ease of their childhood friendship had grown. He wanted Lily all to himself again and his fevered adolescent mind had alighted on, and stubbornly clung to, the idea that he had to make her his.
One day he had screwed up all his courage and pulled her aside, away from her friends, into a private shadowy alcove.
Shaking with nerves and anticipation, he'd poured his heart out to the young woman that he'd loved since before he'd known what love was. She was the girl who had sat under the trees of their glade by the river, listening raptly as he'd told stories of magic. The friend who had huddled over old spell books with him when they'd been too young for wands, practicing the movements with sticks so they'd be ready when their letters came. The companion who, during their first years, had roamed the hallways and grounds by his side, marveling when they found something that they'd only heard about.
She was the person who had shared all that and more with him, his first and only real true friend, and she had gently touched his cheek, telling him that she didn't think of him as anything more than a very good friend and, while she was flattered and surprised, she didn't feel the same way.
Severus had been crushed, but had tried to hide his disappointment, accepting Lily's hollow offer to stay friends. They never spoke of it again, and acted as though it had never happened, but suddenly there had been a new awkwardness staining their friendship.
Over the next few months he found himself sliding down the slope of depression. Lily had been his one beam of hope in his otherwise horrible life and now that hope had been snuffed out like a candle in a draft. He had started to seek out companionship within his house and suddenly the attitude of his house mates hadn't put him off so much anymore. Some of what they were whispering about had started to sound alluring to Severus' young mind.
The promise of strength and respect and power became very hard to resist. He began to think that maybe Lily might change her feelings toward him if he were considered a powerful and respected wizard, so he started to study the Slytherin approach to life in earnest. While he might not have fully agreed with all their ideals, it couldn't be denied that many graduates of Slytherin house had gone on to high ranking, powerful positions in the Wizarding world.
Lucius had caught wind of Severus' new zeal for advancement and had started hinting that there might be a place for him in the organization with which he was involved. He advised Severus to continue his pursuits and perhaps he would be able to put in a few good words with the people who someday might just lead the Wizarding world, so that was exactly what Severus had done.
In between his studies and experiments, his most common pass time became following around the dubious foursome of Potter, Black, Pettigrew, and Lupin, because he had known that they were up to something, and that Potter still had his sights set on Lily. Severus had still been doing his best to voice his distaste for the group, hoping that his opinion still held weight with Lily, but it seemed that not only did Lily not fancy Severus in the way he would have liked, but her disapproval of his house and friends was growing deeper and pushing her further away from him.
Severus began to get frustrated. What did Lily want from him? Did she expect for him to stay isolated within his own house simply because she didn't approve of the people within? It had seemed like she constantly had her knickers in a twist about something and a bitter resentment had started to fester in the back of Severus' brain as he had begun to wonder why she was always so critical if she was so keen on staying friends.
Severus' resentment and Lily's disapproval had started to drive a greater wedge between the two former fast friends, straining the already delicate fabric of their relationship. So much so that, one fateful day, Severus had suffered a great humiliation at the hands of Potter and Black, which Lily had been there to witness and, in his anger, frustration and embarrassment, Severus had given into the niggling resentments, and called her a Mudblood.
It had been a move born of mortification and burning disgrace. He had immediately regretted his actions and had tried to apologize, but it had been too late. She would have nothing to do with him from that day on. He'd driven her completely away from him and he spent the rest of their time at Hogwarts being able to see her, but not interact with her in any way. She wouldn't even so much as glance at him.
Eventually she'd started seeing Potter and Severus' misery had been complete. So much so that, at the end of his seventh year, he received a note from Lucius and met the older wizard in Hogsmeade.
Lucius had offered him a position working with the strange and sometimes brutal new order of wizards that had been gaining strength in their world and Severus had darkly agreed to accept. If he couldn't have the woman he loved with all his heart, he could have power and the respect of great witches and wizards instead. Wasn't that just as good? After all, what did he have to lose?