Note:

I'm seriously wondering if I can ever write Remus again. It's fairly obvious that I can't do anything until I stop mentally removing speech contractions from the places that need them most and then laughing hysterically at the horribly stilted result.

Yes, I really do this. Yes, HBP probably damaged me for life.

For people currently on a divers shore.

Finished 14 September 2005

No More Children Like Us

Initiation rites, Severus thought, were for the foolish. All this mysterious-black-robes rubbish was – playacting. Like Muggles pretending to be wizards.

Very ironic, really.

All the same, when it was time for the Dark Lord to inspect his newest recruits he panicked, froze, and it took a discreet kick from Lucius to send him down on his knees.

And when Voldemort stopped in front of him, Severus found that he was shivering.

"Ah. Severus. I recognise the name."

A pause; that could be good or bad, depending.

"Stand up, Severus. And take that hood off."

"Yes, lord." Severus pushed the ridiculous hood back, and then wished he had it on again. Instinct told him that having Lord Voldemort remember his face could be potentially disastrous. No, this was not a game, not at all a game. Voldemort had been handsome once, he could still see it in the elegant bones of his face. Severus didn't want to be part of anything that could do this to a man.

"You're half-blood." Voldemort said it simply.

Another statement that could mean anything – did that make him a Mudblood, then, or was Voldemort acknowledging a comrade?

"Yes, lord."

"Look at me, Severus." Severus stared up, blankly, at red eyes. Voldemort smiled at him, speaking in a faint, dreamy whisper. "You shouldn't exist."

Severus' breath caught, sharply. Damn Lucius! He should have known not to get me into this! And now he was going to set some kind of record as the shortest-lived Death Eater in history.

"You know that, don't you?" Voldemort continued, mildly. "How terrible it must have been, to live with a father who stole your birthright, and a mother who was such a fool she let him do it. Such selfish, selfish parents."

This was so unexpected that Severus almost forgot that he was going to die in a matter of seconds. He'd never heard it from anyone other than himself.

"You should never have been born."

Severus heard himself draw a ragged breath and say, softly, "No."

"Do you know what we are fighting for, Severus?"

Voldemort could be charming, Dumbledore had told him. Severus had thought it would never work; people said Dumbledore had charm, and it had certainly never worked.

"No, lord."

Voldemort smiled. "That there will be no more children like us."

Damn you to hell, Lucius.

.

"He does that to everyone," Lucius said, calmly.

"I know." Severus was lying across the Malfoys' couch with a hot flannel over his face. His breath puffed damp heat under his nose.

He had a dim memory of dropping to his knees and swearing allegiance between great racking sobs. In his opinion the memory wasn't nearly dim enough. Severus couldn't remember ever having lost control that badly before.

And to lose it now, when I need it most.

"Do you want something for the knees?"

Severus tore the flannel off. "Damn you, Lucius! You knew this would happen! And you had the – the nerve – to – "

Lucius blinked under the onslaught. "Don't be ridiculous, Severus," he said eventually. "You weren't as embarrassing as some of the others. And you know there was no choice."

Of course. If he hadn't been recruited he would have been dead for some time now. Severus sighed and slid back down the length of the couch. "This is a filthy business, Lucius."

"I know that." Lucius paused. "We're Slytherins. You couldn't have expected him to play fair."

Severus said nothing. Damn it all. He should have known better. Lord Voldemort would never have been able to rise so quickly with such an utterly crackpot scheme otherwise. Voldemort was a man who thought a personal grievance was something to fight a war over; he should have been a joke.

Instead he's figured out how to find the key. And when he twists, a thousand men march to his bidding.

That there will be no more children like us.

He knew. Damn him, he knew.

Severus shut his eyes. He'd intended to play it lightly, his loyalty nominally with the Dark Lord, ready to cross over the moment it became necessary. It would be difficult, now. Would get more difficult.

"It won't last," Lucius said.

"I know." He did know. As time passed Lord Voldemort would first be affectionate, then hurt, then disappointed, and finally blazing furious. He made people want to die for him and his stupid cause, first because they thought he actually cared and after that because they'd lost his confidence and wanted it back desperately.

And he could know all this, and it would still work.

The pureblood families weren't going to last; it'd eventually be a choice between dying of inbreeding and marrying into the impure bloodlines. What did Voldemort promise them? Did they think he was going to magick up some new ones?

Come to think of it, how was Voldemort planning to prevent bloodline-mixing?

Severus considered genocide, distantly. Not just ridiculous. Impossible.

"Lucius..."

"What?"

Genocide wouldn't be enough. After the Mudbloods would come the half-bloods... "You don't think he's actually going to succeed, do you?"

"I hope he does, actually. We'll all die otherwise."

"You're mad."

"Watch him for a few years. Then tell me what he can and can't do."

Then it's a possibility. That there really will be no more children like us.

It was unspeakably tantalising.

.

"So these initiation rites we keep hearing stories about... "

" – are a lot of tosh," Severus said, evenly. "Men in hooded robes chanting. Unnecessarily showy. Impressive, to a certain sort of observer."

Professor Dumbledore watched him over the tops of his half-moon lenses. Voldemort hadn't bothered to warn Severus about Dumbledore's charm. He didn't have to; he knew Dumbledore was no match for him.

"And you saw Voldemort."

Severus hesitated, fractionally. "Yes."

"What do you make of him?"

"He is... not quite right in the head, sir."

"And yet he has so many followers."

"They have the same goal, sir. Broadly."

"And once these goals begin to differ – "

Severus shrugged. "We are Slytherins, sir."

He didn't have to explain that one. Slytherins didn't stay on a sinking ship. Slytherins saved themselves and waited to garner enough power to try again. Gryffindors were the ones who perished bravely and stupidly.

Dumbledore blinked. "I see. Very well, then. Dismissed."

Severus smiled, faintly, as he left the office. Most people couldn't grasp the concept of Slytherins actually cooperating. No doubt Dumbledore was the same; certainly he'd seemed well under the public sway when Severus was a student.

Slytherins have no loyalty, no honesty, no integrity. Nothing of worth. Any group of Slytherins swiftly falls apart under its own weight. Not even a Slytherin can depend on another Slytherin.

Let him believe that. It would be his defeat.

Because we've found a leader. Who will spend our lives like water, on a goal that can't be accomplished.

Madness. But it was his madness too, now.

End

Notes:

Voldemort makes no bloody sense to me. I'm seriously not sure what he was trying to accomplish and what he would have done if he'd won. But, by all accounts, he was actually winning until deux ex machina saved the world.

Clearly, this presents a minor conundrum.

I think everyone plays Severus like a piano. Which is why I also like to think that Lucius got quite fond of him over the years, because otherwise he'd just be too sad.

To clarify: I've been getting reviews that argue that Severus isn't, actually, evil. As a matter of fact I believe that, too. Half-Blood Prince does not change my earlier characterisation of Severus, except for the detail about his family background. This is set before he crossed over to Dumbledore's; presumably he went on like this for a bit and then became utterly disillusioned.