St Mungo's Grim Reaper

by emptyword

[Oneshot] Originally posted to the Bring Back the Bastard fest at the Deeply Horrible comm on LJ. For margi lynn's prompt: "During the first war, Snape pulled shifts at St. Mungo's to make up for their overwork. Most of the time he does help the healers. But what about the times he doesn't? Why those people?"

Title: St. Mungo's Grim Reaper
Author: emptyword (e-witness)
Beta Readers: Wiski, Nahsiah
Word Count: 5370
Warning: descriptions of injuries, homicidal intent.
Summary: Originally posted to the Bring Back the Bastard fest at the Deeply Horrible comm on LJ. For margi_lynn's prompt: "During the first war, Snape pulled shifts at St. Mungo's to make up for their overwork. Most of the time he does help the healers. But what about the times he doesn't? Why those people?"
A/N: Huge, huge thanks to the deeply_horrible comm mod for her endless patience with my request after request for extensions! Also, enormous thanks to my betas, Wiski and Nahsiah, without whom this story would still be laying deformed at the bottom of a garbage heap. 3 All remaining mistakes are mine.

.

The two-story brick building was run-down and dilapidated, an aging relic in a sparsely populated neighbourhood, its shuttered windows and peeling door driving off even the most venturous of visitors. Built two hundred years ago on the outskirts of a farm, it had originally been intended for use as a machinery storehouse before an enterprising gentleman from Liverpool bought five hundred acres of the surrounding land and converted the storehouse into a small factory. Briefly, during the Muggle first world war, the building had served as an armoury, but its history had been fairly lacklustre until four decades ago when it was acquired by a distinguished wizard trailing a long list of academic accolades.

Constantine Flickerlight had created the Mandrake Restorative Draught at the age of twenty-three, won the Thaddeus Recognition for International Potions Excellence award (otherwise affectionately known as T.R.I.P.E.) that same year, and blown onto the Potions field with a series of books and a key address at the 1932 Global Potions Convention in Berlin. By 1938, on the eve of Grindelwald's crusade of madness, Flickerlight had gotten fed up with the never-ending social demands of urban life, so he bought a brick building in the countryside and "retired" to focus on his research.

Of the hundreds of young Potions students who had applied to apprentice with Flickerlight over the years, he had accepted only seven. Of those seven, he had rejected three by the end of the first week and lost one to an unfortunate explosion in the second month. Of the three remaining apprentices he had mentored, one had left for the Transylvanian forests, never to be heard from again, another had set up shop in Newcastle to make a tidy living for himself, and the current one - Severus Snape - was by far his favourite.

In Snape, he found an abiding passion for the intricacies of Potions, an admirable work ethic, and a depthless well of raw talent. Snape had come to him over a year ago, arrogant and presumptuous, with a list of modifications to the most cutting-edge Potions research of the time. "There's one more, an alteration of the Mandrake Restorative Draught to ease the transition into consciousness," the young wizard said, before casually adding, "but there was another Potions Master in Edinburgh who was particularly interested in that one." Flickerlight had been prepared to turn him down but decided to test the modified draught, which proved to not only ease the victim's waking process but also produced the effect in a third of the time the original draught required, the latter a feat which several of the most renowned potioneers in Europe had attempted for months.

In the fourteen months since, Snape had continued to turn out inventive concoctions with an offhand ease. The youth wielded his magic with a careful precision, fusing his potions with just enough to bring them bubbling to life. His creativity knew no bounds; a significant portion of his ideas went beyond even Flickerlight's scope. But Snape lacked discipline. His work, however skilled, however subtle, tended to taper off toward its end, receding not quite the entire way, still flickering with unstable magic. Flickerlight had been unsuccessfully trying to get Snape to recreate the exact same potion more than once for several months now. And for the past few months, Snape had seemed somewhat distracted. His apprentice was not the most forthcoming, but Flickerlight could tell something weighed on his mind.

Snape revealed nothing when he stepped into the laboratory. With no more than a cursory nod at his master, Snape headed toward the back alcove to pull out one of the two pewter cauldrons.

Flickerlight contemplated asking outright if anything was troubling his apprentice before dismissing the thought. It was likely a personal affair, perhaps a young lady, almost certainly none of his concern. Flickerlight uncorked a flask of dungwort and frowned down into the half-empty flask. He could have sworn it had been full only a few days ago.

"Mr. Snape," he called.

His apprentice was busy sifting through a tray of goosegrass, dandelion root, and starthistle Flickerlight had set out to dry the day before.

"Have you been using the dungwort?"

Snape nodded in his direction, still focused on his preparations. "St. Mungo's asked for a few bottles of Draughts of Peace."

"Bloody Smethwyck," Flickerlight huffed, measuring out two pints of the syrup. "Always stealing the volunteers. I told you, you don't have to do anything for him."

Snape made a dismissive sound as he passed by on his way to the sink. "Not Smethwyck. One of the trainees. But it's little trouble, and they're always short on supplies."

"You're too kind, Mr. Snape," Flickerlight began, before catching the disbelieving look thrown his way. "Oh, you may have a sharp tongue, but you're too generous with your time."

"You were the one – "

"I know, Mr. Snape," Flickerlight said. "But I do wonder sometimes if it wasn't the best idea. You already have quite a lot to learn here."

Snape returned his look for a moment before resuming his task of slicing the dandelion roots with that small penknife Flickerlight noticed he always kept on his person. "I have the time to spare, Master Flickerlight."

Well, that was certainly a lie. Perhaps he ought to inquire after all. "You've been so distracted lately – "

"Only taking after you."

"What?"

"Only looking after you, sir, and those in the Potions ward."

Flickerlight shook his head, sighing philosophically as he moved into the adjacent storeroom to retrieve a bag of mint sprigs. He'd initially recommended his apprentice to the St. Mungo's administration with the hope that both would benefit, Snape from the experience, the hospital from the extra hand. He hadn't expected his apprentice to become so consumed by his hospital duties. But Snape was simply too well-meaning, and St. Mungo's did need all the help they could get. Flickerlight made a mental note to replace the dungwort sometime over the weekend.

.

"Healer! Healer!" shrilled a witch decked in a profusion of magnolias and trailing a cloud of pollen as she barrelled down the hallway.

Straight toward an unfazed Snape, who gave a lazy flick of his wand. A spell shot out the other end, enveloping her in a bubble, lifting her off her feet to drift a few millimetres in the air, and, most satisfyingly, silencing her piercing shrieks.

Snape watched smugly as she continued to scream at him, her mouth opening and closing in furious motions, the sound trapped, reverberating, within the handy little bubble. He strode past her into the room he'd been heading toward, with bed #11 – the Alihotsy Accident – and slid a parcel of herbs and tonics onto the nearby countertop.

"Take the Glumbumble treacle immediately, the valerian sprigs and star grass in a tincture once before sleep. You're discharged. We need the bed." Alihotsy Accident opened his mouth, possibly to protest, more likely to laugh hysterically, which was an unfortunate symptom of his condition, but Snape glared him into subsiding and nodding meekly. Interesting. Perhaps he wasn't glaring enough at the rest of them.

Satisfied, he sent a jolt of magic at the data display floating above bed #11, changing the detailed summary of diagnosis and remedy to a simple, blinking "discharged."

Next.

"I – ate a flobber – flobberworm," gasped out the bloated man on bed #12 in between exaggerated winces of pain.

Snape raised his eyebrows. "A lapse of judgment in a lifetime's worth of brilliant decision-making, I'm sure, Mr. – " Snape blinked at his data display, which clearly indicated consumption of far more than a single worm. An Annelid Aficionado then. " – Dittles. I'm afraid greater body mass does not equate to higher placement on the food chain, Mr. Dittles."

Annelid Aficionado moaned in response, fingers flexing in spasms over his sizable stomach.

"Honeywater, Mr. Dittles. Ground fluxweed for two days, if you can get your hands on any. Now get out."

Snape stepped out the room and into the next one without a single glance at the bubbled witch in the corridor. He delivered the antidote to a fool who had ignored his Floo powder allergy to rather itchy consequences and cast a diagnostic spell over his poisoned and unconscious roommate. Normally, he would be responsible for no more than delivering the remedies, but the war had stretched the hospital staff thin, and he was more often than not the only semi-professional personnel in the Potions ward.

Which worked in his favour, all things considered.

As he was about to enter Pampered Periwinkle Prince's room, occupied by the currently blue-hued nephew of the richest wizard to turn a profit in London, he caught sight of a flash of green in his periphery.

"Severus, oh thank Merlin!"

A harassed-looking young witch in lime green Healer robes rushed toward him in perfect imitation of the flowery bubbled witch, with less of the flora and more of the familiarity - Snape preferred the flowers - grinding to a halt and groaning at the sight of the witch floating off the ground.

"Not again?"

Snape had to repress a smirk. "I believe the vegetation on this floor appeals to her."

The Healer – Val Hesper, second-year trainee, Dai Llewellyn Ward - rubbed her fingers over her eyes. "Merlin's bollocks on toast. We've got seven of them just leaning against the walls, waiting for someone to croak so they can hop in before the sheets have been changed. And Admissions keeps letting in more, supposedly on Ministry orders. Why doesn't the Ministry get us some more beds, I ask you. Some more staff."

"Some more Blood-Replenishing Potion," Snape muttered.

Everything was in short supply, and there was an endless stream of patients. Admittedly, he wasn't required to work the heinous hours the Healers-in-training were saddled with, nor was he required to work anywhere beyond the relatively peaceful Potions ward on the third floor where the worst injury was a half-blind centenarian who'd mistakenly ingested baneberries instead of blueberries (and who had likely already been skirting the edge of death). But he was constantly being called to separate wards to lend a hand.

As the magnanimous soul he was, Snape even volunteered himself to the busier floors when occasion called for it.

"I'll take her back," Snape offered. "I'm nearly finished here." There were still sixteen more patients to go through, of course, but it was certainly less than the twenty-four patients he'd started with. It wasn't like flower witch was going anywhere in her bubble, and bringing her back down to the Dai Llewellyn Ward would mean passing by the Potions lab.

Hesper was sagging in relief. "Bloody hell, you're a life saver, Severus, thank you." She paused, shifting awkwardly for a moment. "Er, I know you get off at four, but if you could do me a favour...?"

Snape raised his eyebrows in question, running through a mental list of potential ingredients.

"Smethwyck's out in the field for the rest of the week, and Pinkerton got called away to the Janus Thickey Ward – rumour says they're trying to reverse a Memory Charm on an Unspeakable. It'll probably take the whole night, if they manage it at all. So it's just Bickers and me, which really amounts to just me. Could you help me hold the fort? Just for tonight."

Snape considered. Staying after hours would afford him time to visit Splinched-Something-Serious in the spell damage ward on the fourth floor.

"I'll speak to Administration about upping your stipend," Hesper added with a hint of desperation.

He nodded his assent and swept into Periwinkle's room before Hesper could crumble into effusive gushing.

It wasn't the first time one of the overworked trainees had asked a favour of him, nor would it be the last. No one had expected a surly Potion's apprentice to volunteer so much of his time, but, against every expectation, in barely three months, he had become indispensable.

.

On Mondays and Tuesdays, Snape was on duty at the St. Mungo's Potions ward. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, he had day-long sessions of training with Master Flickerlight. On Fridays and Saturdays, it was back to the Potions ward. Sundays were his and his alone, the one day of the week he could relax and recuperate for the next week.

Which was why he was lurking in the shadows of an alleyway behind a rubbish skip in the middle of Muggle London.

Snape scowled. Travers was never on time. They'd been meeting for six weeks now, once a week, to take the Portkey together, and Travers always arrived at the last minute, very much literally. Admittedly, punctuality was a characteristic that seemed to elude Death Eaters in general, but Travers seemed to take particular delight in making Snape wait.

He dug through the dumpster to locate the tattered teddy bear they'd left there last week. The stuffing was leaking from the seams, and its left arm was stretched beyond recognition, resembling more a grotesque monster from horror stories than a child's comfort toy.

He reached into his robes for a tiny black vial and tipped a single drop onto his tongue. He cursed the Muggle blood his father had gifted him with for his Portkey sickness. It'd taken several weeks of research in his second year at Hogwarts, experimenting with various ingredients in combination with silverweed, to come up with a preventive potion.

A little under a minute before the Portkey would whisk him away, a cloaked figure finally ducked into the alley, straightening at the sight of Snape, lips already curled in dislike.

"Why do we meet here again?" said Travers in lieu of a greeting. "It's nasty."

"You have forty seconds," Snape responded with raised eyebrows, holding up the teddy bear, not bothering to respond to the question. Travers would find something to gripe about no matter what Snape said.

"Not that it doesn't suit you, skulking about in filthy alleys," Travers continued without missing a beat, grabbing one of the bear's ears. "I understand it's the sort of environment you thrive in, but most of us are accustomed to a certain standard of hygiene.'

"Shut up," he snapped.

Travers shrugged, a faint smirk curving his features. "Just my luck to be paired with you. No idea how Rookwood managed it without carrying a bar of soap around everywhere."

Snape's snarl was swept away as the Portkey jerked to life, yanking the two of them through that dizzying, disorientating space between locations, and then dumping them onto the ground somewhere in Yorkshire.

It was one of several locations the Dark Lord routinely cycled through to hold their weekly gatherings. With the Ministry and, more dangerously, Dumbledore's Order intent on hunting them down, it was never a good idea to remain at a single site. Last week, they'd met in East Surrey. Also in the interest of avoiding detection, most of the Death Eaters were exempt from these meetings, and only those with ongoing assignments were required to attend.

He had originally been paired with Rookwood, before the man had been pulled off St. Mungo's duty onto a special assignment – something at the Ministry. All details of his assignment were kept secret, but Snape had his suspicions. Travers, on the other hand, was easy to work out. He was patrol duty. The lowly foot soldier. He was on the streets to gather intel, the general ambience of the population, the whispers about the Dark Lord, the mutterings about the Ministry.

Whatever the man liked to pretend, Travers was no higher in the ranks than Snape was. That fact was small consolation when the man had made it his life's mission for the past two months to condescend to him.

"Avery told me about you, you know," Travers was saying, as they made their way to the arranged meeting site. "Months ago. Before I got assigned to you. Told me you were a gloomy, paranoid git."

Snape tried not to rise to the bait. Giving Travers any sort of response would only fuel the fire. Besides, Snape had never given his temperament an enormous amount of thought, and the only person who had ever cared enough to analyze him had long since given up on him entirely.

"Never told me you were a brown-nosing leech riding on the coattails of Lucius Malfoy," Travers continued with a sneer.

Snape nearly snapped at that but shut his mouth in time.

A gleam of satisfaction appeared in Travers' pale eyes. "Your sense of entitlement is ridiculous, Snape. You're new, and we all have our place, you got that? And right now you're the bottom-feeder."

That was so patently false he had to retort. "At least I am entrusted with a specific assignment."

Travers scoffed. "Oh please. You're just good at skulking in shadows, cleaning up other people's rubbish. It's no wonder the Dark Lord's appointed you St. Mungo's personal Grim Reaper."

Something hot and gnarly shivered in Snape's chest.

"Surely you didn't think the Dark Lord actually trusted you." Travers' grin was nasty. "He's heard the rumours just like everyone else, that you spent all your Hogwarts years moping pathetically for a Mudblood – "

Snape's vision went white, and the tip of his wand was pressing into the soft, pliant flesh at Travers' throat before either of them could blink.

"It is a mistake," Snape bit out, fury simmering beneath his control, "to provoke me."

The initial shock on Travers' face had worn off into a hot anger. "Don't forget who between us is a part of the inner circle, Snape," he snapped.

Snape let him go, and Travers led the rest of the way to the meeting point, neither of them uttering a single word more into the tension between them.

.

Helleborus foetidus, commonly known as dungwort, was a particularly intriguing species of the Helleborus genus. It was an unassuming plant, small and fastidious, its solemn green flowers tipped with a ring of purple only ever visible in April and May, and it brimmed from tip to root with poison. If consumed by beast or human, the affected victim would immediately experience a series of seizures and a weakening heartbeat until eventually, on the third day, the heart stopped contracting altogether.

The deadly sap could be extracted through forced transpiration, drop by meticulous drop, and when treated with a tenth its weight of elderberry juice would then become viscous nonpoisonous syrup the shade of sapphire with a vast array of healing properties. Snape had first started experimenting with Syrup of Hellebore in his fourth year at Hogwarts. By the time he graduated, the list of hellebore-based antidotes he'd invented was longer than his arm.

His most interesting discovery was that when heated for fourteen minutes over a copper cauldron, stirred clockwise every other minute, the dungwort's poisonous attributes returned with an insidious enhancement. The seizures vanished, leaving only the dwindling thump of an exhausted heart.

.

It was just his luck that Hesper had come down with a debilitating case of Scrofungulus and left him alone the entire week with Bickers, the most incompetent buffoon he'd ever had the misfortune to meet.

So he was already in an understandably foul mood by Friday morning as he walked in to see his first patient of the day and stopped short at the sight of two badly mangled girls and a rail-thin freckled young man asleep in one of their beds.

"Who allowed you in here?" he snarled, jolting the youth awake. "Get off that bed!"

The teen – "Sanders, please, call me Sanders" – launched immediately into an explanation chopped up with liberal "erms" and "ahs." Snape moved to examine the two girls while picking up the relevant details in the verbal torrent of meandering nonsense.

Amber and Audrey Ceres, bed #22 and #23 respectively, had been admitted at 2 a.m. the previous night after suffering serious burns in an accidental cauldron explosion. They'd been sent straight to the Dai Llewellyn Ward, where the Healer on night shift had cast a diagnostic spell followed by a stasis spell and promptly left the room.

There were nasty, open burns along both their faces and arms, some of the wounds open and bubbling with a dark blue-green liquid. The stasis spell had done absolutely nothing.

Snape frowned and checked the floating data displays, which indeed both read "cauldron accident" like pet cockatoos trained only to reiterate a spoken statement. No further details or descriptions. No suggested management plan. Familiar anger roared in his chest, and Snape resolved to hunt Bickers down during the lunch break.

"What was the attempted potion?"

Sanders blinked. "Can't you tell? By, you know – " he made a flapping gesture at the two girls.

"Those wounds could be the result of a thousand different concoctions gone wrong. I need to know the recipe or, at the very least, a list of ingredients."

"Oh. Erm. I don't," said the teen haltingly, "I don't know what the potion was. Sorry."

Snape had always prided himself on using silence to perfection. He arched an eyebrow and waited.

Within seconds, Sanders was sputtering again. "I'm just the babysitter. I don't – They never told me – "

"They?"

"Er. The parents." Sanders visibly reined back more words, mouth clicking shut.

"And where are the parents?"

"I don't know."

Snape studied the miserable expression on Sanders' face a moment before ordering him out the room and then waving his wand at the data display to erase the evidently false diagnosis. It would probably take less than ten minutes to break Sanders and reveal whatever the teen was withholding, but, if the fluid leaking from the girls' bodies were any indication, those were ten minutes he could not afford.

He cast a diagnostic spell to test the waters for a vanishing spell, which did not always react well to certain liquids. Then, with the fluid vanished, he went through the default stock of burn salves and panaceas, none of which yielded any results.

He left the room briefly to make a Floo call at the end of the corridor for someone to see to the rest of his morning rounds and for supplies. He harboured little hope for a spare hand – so much for his lunch break – but at the very least, he needed a few strengthening solutions.

Back in the room, the oddly-coloured fluid was already seeping from the girls' wounds again. He reached into a personal pouch hidden beneath his robes, pulled out a packet, and unwrapped it to reveal a crystal phial. He bent toward the older girl in bed #23 to collect the fluid when she released a distressed moan.

Snape paused, phial poised. She shifted slightly, only half-lucid, and made another pained noise. And then her eyes were slitting open to reveal a sliver of green so heartrendingly familiar he nearly dropped the phial.

Audrey, he told himself sharply. That was her name. Her matted hair was too deep a brown, her nose too flat, her chin too pointed, and there was nothing about her that reminded him of a girl who had once smiled at him under the summer sun.

She moaned again, agony distorting her face, and without another thought he was reaching for her like the fool he was, his free hand running soothingly through her hair, his eyes searching under the sweep of her eyelashes and sliding effortlessly into her mind.

He was not an accomplished Legilimens by any means, but he knew enough to ease physical pain.

He focused on gathering his strength, grasping at the flickering energy in the unseen corners of his mind, trying to weave it into a blanket for her pain, but the edges kept trickling away from him, replaced by a thrum of something else, something coloured green and blue, something that tugged at his memory. His concentration unravelled, and he was abruptly tumbling through a dizzying, disorienting space, bile rising in his throat, before crashing to the unforgiving ground, the echo of an annoying teenage voice repeating "Bloody hell, shite, bloody hell" fading in his ears before the darkness descended.

.

"One among you has greatly pleased me and gravely disappointed me."

The Dark Lord's voice shivered down his spine, and Rookwood quickly averted his gaze. He thought he had canvassed every escape route, but he had not anticipated the children having a Portkey at hand.

He looked carefully around the circle of summoned Death Eaters, cataloguing each expression. Most were curious, some mystified, a few blank. Lucius returned his gaze with sharp suspicion, and Snape darted a look at him. Whatever they guessed, none of them, not even those of the inner circle, knew the specifics of his assignment.

"None other," breathed the Dark Lord, "has come closer to penetrating the Department of Mysteries."

It had taken nearly a year to confirm the identity of the Unspeakable, and then two months more to uncover the location of her children. He might have accomplished the task faster had she not proven adept at resisting the Imperius Curse.

He felt the weight of the Dark Lord's eyes settle on him, and the air shifted against his ear as though the sibilant voice were whispering directly into his ears. "None other has been thwarted by two infants."

The cold that slammed into him drove him to his knees. Catching his breath, head remaining lowered, he proffered his wand in supplication, tip pointed toward himself.

"I will find them, my lord."

.

By hour thirty since their admission into St. Mungo's, both girls were nearly translucent from the loss of fluids and shivering so hard the beds were nearly rattling. Sanders had disappeared when Snape had awoken from his untimely nap the previous morning, and the supposed parents were still conspicuously absent. Snape was no more fond of squealing little monsters than Avery, who'd once lit a pair of nine-year-old Muggle twins on fire, but even he wouldn't let his daughters die alone in a hospital.

Having done all he could, Snape was on his way out the door when the parents walked in. Or rather, burst in amid a fume of dust and rushed straight to the girls' bedsides.

Snape stared in astonishment. When the squat man finally turned to face him, glasses fogged with emotion, Snape heard himself say, "Are you the criminally derelict, reprehensible excuses for parents of these two girls?"

Mr. Ceres pursed his lips. "Will they be okay?"

Snape tucked his disbelief beneath a glower. "No," he said in the tone he had once reserved for Potter. "They will not. How could they be, when I have not received a shred of the information I require to begin the healing process."

Mrs. Ceres looked up at him from her bent position over Au – Bed #23. Lines of weariness dragged at the edges of her eyes and lips, but her eyes were clear and focused. "What information?"

"Explain to me what happened. How did the injuries occur?"

The man darted a glance at his wife, but Mrs. Ceres didn't miss a beat. "A potions accident. Cauldron exploded."

"Ah," said Snape without expression. "Well, I'm certainly glad you have your stories rehearsed to perfection."

With that, he turned dismissively and walked out the door.

Or he would have if it hadn't slammed shut in his face.

Snape spun around to find Mrs. Ceres on her feet, trembling slightly, but wand firm in her hand.

"Please," she said, fear husking her voice before she cleared her throat and continued, "Surely, there must be something you can do."

Her husband came to stand beside her, an arm bracketing her not in comfort but in support. "It was a curse. Not a potions accident. But we honestly don't know the specific circumstances."

Snape listened with dawning comprehension, watching the pieces slot into place, one by one.

None other has come closer to penetrating the Department of Mysteries.

The woman's sure-handed grip on her wand.

None other has been thwarted by two infants.

The sickening whirl of the Portkey in Audrey's memory.

Rookwood on his knees. I will find them, my Lord.

Green and blue bubbling from the girls, magic that he recognized, that he'd seen in the month he'd partnered with Rookwood.

"I – " he started. Swallowing hard, he forced himself to gather his thoughts and continue, "There may be – a cure. I can't be sure." He cleared his throat. "I've just remembered there's a storage of herbs in the Potions lab I've yet to search through. There may be something there. If you'll pardon me."

He forced himself to wait, skin clammy with realization but holding himself casually still, waiting through Mrs. Ceres' – the Unspeakable's – searching gaze. He was not an accomplished Legilimens by any means, but the endless hours of his Hogwarts years he'd spent practicing Occlumency meant he would never unknowingly give himself away.

He waited for her nod, and only when she had accepted his lie did he leave.

.

In the end, it was almost ridiculously easy. Both to make his decision and then to execute it. Only two things gave him pause.

One, he understood this had been Rookwood's assignment from the beginning, and he respected the man enough to consider offering him the victory first. However, after mulling this possibility while he stirred in careful increments, he concluded Rookwood had had his chance with the girls, had not only failed but had also sent them, grievously injured, straight into Snape's hands.

Rookwood was also too important a piece on the Dark Lord's chessboard. He would almost certainly be allowed the opportunity to redeem himself, and this time, facing the Unspeakable with her daughters' lives as bargaining chips, he would undoubtedly succeed. (She would not know of course that their lives had been forfeit the moment Snape knew them for what they were: the turning point in the Dark Lord's war.)

Two, when Snape returned to the Ceres' room to tip a barely cooled potion down the girls' throats under their parents' watchful gaze, the knotted strands of Audrey's hair beneath his hands yanked to the forefront of his mind memories he'd locked away when he took the Mark. But she was all wrong, she was not her, and he remembered too that she was a Potter now.

"It may take a few days," he warned the Ceres, and it would.

At precisely eleven-forty the next day, when most of the staff and family made their daily rush to the cafeteria, he slipped into a quiet room, empty but for its two sleeping occupants, and disillusioned both girls before levitating them to the Ground Floor queue for transport to the morgue.

When Snape later asked Rookwood if dittany would have reversed the effects of the curse, Rookwood nodded and added, "But the Dark Lord would have killed them anyway. And not nearly as peacefully."

After he'd spirited them out St. Mungo's, after he'd laid them at the Dark Lord's feet, Snape stayed with Amber and Audrey until the last beat of their hearts faded away.

.

On Monday morning, Flickerlight trekked into his laboratory and stopped short at the sight of his apprentice standing motionless over a cauldron. Blinking in surprise, he asked, "Don't you have a shift at St. Mungo's?"

His apprentice shook his head, uncharacteristically subdued. "Not anymore. I lost two of my patients."

"Ah." And this was why, when his peers had extolled the rush of triumph in saving a human life, he himself had never considered hospital work. Unnecessary emotional entanglements. "Well, lad, sometimes you do all you can, and it just isn't enough."

With that, the two of them got to work, Snape lighting the fire, and Flickerlight setting out the ingredients they would need. He peered at the depleted flask of sapphire liquid, utterly befuddled. Hadn't he just replaced the dungwort last weekend? Well, if Snape was no longer working at the hospital, there was no more reason for Draughts of Peace to be doled out like free samples. And perhaps his apprentice could finally concentrate on his Potions making.

Out of the blue, Snape said, "Their parents accused me of murdering them."

Flickerlight started, and then, catching up, laughed outright at the thought. "What rubbish!"

.

Fin