Disclaimer: I don't own this.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Mark: A Book Five Crossover
Chapter 1: A Letter from the East, pg. 1-7, 4124 words
Severus Snape took the Tube to Islington Station, wanting the time to collect himself. He had had dinner with Lucius at a French bistro on Frantick Alley, upset with their meeting with the Dark Lord. Most things did; it was why he was such a good spy. No one could ever tell what made him so scornful, so sneering, so furious-but he knew, human stupidity, that always gave him ulcers. He closed his eyes against the fluorescent lights of the train and zoned into the rhythmic jostling of the car trundling along. The Dark Lord was hiring a second spy; he was hiring a fucking ninja-a ninja to apply for the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. It all sounded like a bad episode of Doctor Who. Lucius agreed, albeit ignorant of Severus' internal reference.
Lucius had been elegantly eviscerating a plate of foie gras. Severus remembered tension budding behind his forehead, as light flashed off his knife. Lucius had always been a hands-off sort of sadist, more crooning, manipulate-Slytherin. Bellatrix liked playing with knives. This sort of waste was uncharacteristic.
"I'm worried, Severus," he finally announced. "I'm worried for Draco's education. I'm worried for your position. The Dark Lord wants you to play the long game-but sending in a second spy, a mercenary, without proper conviction." His hand clenched around his knife, his pale fingers turned florid. "Who knows what sort of games she'll play? To get in with the Muggle-lovers and blood-traitors, who knows what she'll teach them?"
"The Dark Lord does what he deems right," Severus said blandly. He was craving a very fresh onion, plucked from his garden, some fennel-nothing overstuffed. His stomach was roiling. "And what he deems right is what we follow. His wisdom may seem inscrutable, but we will see that he was right. He," he looked Lucius dead in the eye, "always is."
The dinner passed quickly after that, Severus surrendered a ridiculous amount to the cheque, he walked Lucius to the apparation point, where Frantick Alley met Diagon. He grasped Lucius' arm.
"Slytherin House will take care of its students," he said. "Draco will know his Dark Arts."
Lucius almost smiled. They had known each other for nearly twenty-four years. Lucius had seen the scrap of potential in the half-Muggle millrat and taught him his manners; Severus had seen the love for his country and culture beyond the bigotry. They had been Marked together. They had survived the first few terrible years, after the Dark Lord's fall-and somehow they were braving his rise.
The train pulled into Islington Station and Severus climbed out of the station, wandlessly casting a Notice-Me-Not charm and letting his coat lengthen into his robes, striding out towards Grimmauld Place. Albus had to know, Albus probably knew already-but would he have to tell him in front of the others?
Muggle manner hidden away, Severus waited for the house to squeeze into seeing. He breathed, let the Occlumency mask adjust his face into stone, and walked into the fray.
The portrait of Walburga Black was screaming, apoplectic, at her niece's daughter, splayed out over a troll-leg umbrella stand. "BLOOD-TRAITOR, DIRTY-BLOOD, IN MY HOUSE, I ORDERED YOU OUT, NO BLOOD OF MINE-"
Roughly Severus drew Tonks up. "Thanks," she said shakily. "Never quite see it coming.
Severus grunted as they hurried to draw the curtains across: "CLIMBERS AND THIEVES OF THE BLOOD, UNGRATEFUL AND UNDESERVING, DESECRATING MY MOST NOBLE HOUSE-"
"Pleasant lady," Tonks remarked conversationally. Her hair was pink, blue at the tips, arranged into a mohawk. She looked like the punks he used to fear, walking home late at night in Spinner's End. She was trying to make good with him, probably read his file, did Moody prompt her? She was his student, one of his first, in the first few bad years, after Lily's death, after everyone died-though clumsy, adept with reasoning out theory. If he had enough energy to like anything those days, he might have appreciated her. "You ever meet her?"
Severus looked at her stonily, and gestured for her to enter the meeting-room, before him.
Tonks chuckled nervously. "Guess it's not something I'd want to remember, either-wotcher, Kingsley!" Hastily she made her way away. Severus, under the Occlumency shield, clinically concluded: Moody put her up to it.
The elder male Weasleys, Sturgis Podmore, Emmeline Vance, and Kingsley Shacklebolt were surveying a collection of scrolls outlining the basement levels of the Ministry for Magic. Albus wanted them proofing exits, in case of a coup d'etat. Severus thought the information was useful in the long term, but short term a bit too emphasized-the Dark Lord was pointedly trying to stay out of the news, consolidating his power base before letting terror loose. The Death Eaters had gotten too soft, slinking towards middle aged respectability. They would at least wait until Severus had trained their children. Fools, self-destructive reckless dunderheads, the lot of them.
"Severus," Sturgis said, looking up. "Come look at this. Do you remember the Beltane raid?" Severus strode over; the Weasleys tensed, but Emmeline summoned an impatient chair. He liked Sturgis, to be honest. Sturgis had been a few years ahead of him in Slytherin, liked the same music, liked getting stoned. He remembered a few reckless nights in the Greenhouses with the Huff-Puff crew-Lily had hated it, thought they were all greasy creeps, but she was from the other side of the Cokeworth River, wasn't she? They had worked together in breaking some of the nastier curses the Death Eaters had left for the unaligned pureblood families, quietly of course, unofficially, but he remembered.
"Before my time," Severus said evenly, ignoring the seat Emmeline patted. The Weasley patriarch choked: as if he didn't think the spy's history would be useful, just shameful. Between Gryffindor self-righteousness and Moody paranoia, Severus was wondering if he would be pilloried before the Dark Lord even caught wind of his betrayal. Idiots: it would be so easy to plant a spy in the Weasleys, they would only have to be loud and Quidditch-mad and charmingly racist. Where was Albus? "The Lestranges led it. Brute force broke down the door and got them not much farther than that before the attack shrubs chased them out."
Emmeline snorted. "Hardly the spirit of Slytherin discretion." She had been Slytherin, two years below him, when Lucius was attempting to model House pride on the Roman model-she never had to deal with Bellatrix's decidedly byzantine fits.
"The House changed," Sturgis shrugged. "Anyway, Severus, take a look at this-Kingsley's suggesting lining the left halfway with Ogham wards, to power the shrubbery-"
"Lord Voldemort," enunciated Emmeline, and Severus' hand spasmed towards his arm, Sturgis' mouth jerked, and the Weasleys jumped as one, "would hardly use the same unsuccessful strategy twice. Let the shrubbery be, and focus on the lobby. The most efficient, the most ironic-humiliating to his enemies."
Sturgis scowled, his hard jaw jutting out like an angry cliff. "But he hates to be humiliated, and showing his strength and Ministry oversight-"
"Where there are twenty other basements and three different sectors to go through," Emmeline returned. "We need to have a general guard plan and then narrow to the specifics-"
"Better to be thorough than miss detail in the first place, find the weak points-"
"I wonder," Kingsley's deep, calming drawl curled into the spaces of the words, "how well-guarded the primary entrance is. If he wants the-"
Severus cleared his throat. "What," he enunciated, jerking his chin at a long, fleshy string snaking its way through the dusty chandelier, "is that?"
Arthur sighed and Bill looked grim. Loudly, spatially, Molly Weasley appeared. "I TOLD THEM TO GET RID OF THEM!" she bellowed, bustling towards the exit. "FRED! GEORGE!" Her screams echoed through the house, the string withdrew hurriedly, back up the chandelier through the rotting boards, and the rest of the Order looked up with interest. One took what entertainment one could get in wartime.
"Where's Albus?" Severus asked Emmeline.
"Kitchen with Remus. Debrief?" She quickly glanced at the Weasleys. Arthur was hurrying after Molly, Bill was sauntering towards Tonks, looking at the ceiling. Cannon fodder, Severus thought.
"I'll distract Sirius," Sturgis said. He swept a hand over the scrolls, rolling them all into one thin tube that shrunk as he tucked into his pocket.
Kingsley rose with him. "I'll fetch Remus."
Albus had named them the Janus Committee, all of them reputable enough with the rest of the Order and the public in general to save Severus from overt suspicion. Sturgis was a tolerated Ministry cursebreaker at the Improper Use of Magic Office, Kingsley was the rising star detective in the Investigation Department of the Auror Office, and Emmeline was a well-regarded Hit Wizard and activist in Dark Arts education, launching a pro-integration political campaign. Severus found all of them tolerable, even enjoyable, running into them at conferences, advising on the occasional case (his blasted students!), and dueling and training with them at the occasional tournament. Emmeline had even done a stint as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor back in the mid-80s, when everything was sensible, and they had had a good time while it had lasted. Contrary to popular belief, Lucius Malfoy did not make up the extent of his social scene. Regardless, they were generally supportive, and good to work with. They at least helped him balance the Order.
Severus sometimes wondered if Moody would have had him arrested back in June, for showing Fudge the Dark Mark, if Emmeline and Sturgis had not backed Albus up, if Kingsley had not been there to soothe everyone, during that second meeting. Between a rock and a hard place: at least here the only torture was Sirius Black's demented face.
Down the table, the Weasley breeding couple appeared, Molly jabbering furiously, Arthur looking plaintive. Bill looked resigned and continued resolutely to joke with Tonks, Mundungus Fletcher, and Moody. The rest of the Order was still due to arrive: twenty more minutes. He needed to debrief with Dumbledore, to plan what he could tell them at large. They would have a longer discussion later, and then a planning session with Kingsley and Emmeline. Maybe he would have time to get a few drinks with Sturgis later, before he went off on guard duty. Mundungus lit up a particularly noxious blunt and resolutely Severus schooled his face as Tonks began to cough. She wasn't so punk, after all.
He had given Kingsley enough time to distract Lupin; Emmeline would keep them both occupied. He rose and rested his hand on her chair as he moved past. She moved to touch his arm. They had had fun that year, and intermittently in years since, but he withdrew, there was no time, she was enough of a target anyway, speaking so bluntly about the Dark Arts' poison, about the rot in the blood. Merlin he hoped Moody hadn't noticed that.
Albus was smiling serenely as Kingsley jovially steered Lupin out, Lupin was saying something-"in Russell Square, Black Books, but the proprietor wouldn't let a single one go, he actually clung to the Marquez, he reminded me a bit of, oh, hello Severus," his tone turned gentle and Severus restrained the impulse to wrap his hands around his throat and slam his skull into the molding wall.
"Lupin," he said silkily, and jerked away to let him past. Kingsley gave him an odd look as Lupin damnedly sighed and shook his head, did he expect Kingsley to comfort him? Poor little wolf pup with no teeth, everyone needed to chew his food for him. Contanient: Lupin made his skin crawl, he could never fight himself, just looked at everybody with amber wolf's eyes and drooped them into obedience, the monster in him needed to make a monster of everyone else. Don't look at me, Severus bit back, fuck off.
"Severus, my boy," Albus greeted him. "What do you have for me?"
"Is there time?" he stepped into the kitchen. Molly had the cracked enamel and marble finishings cleaning, and an endless shepherd's pie was sitting in the crockpot. "The D.A.D.A position-"
Albus raised a hand. "After the meeting." So much for drinks with Sturgis.
The meeting was insipid, as always, with the eldest Weasley whelp puffing his chest out at every opportunity, Elphias Doge's interminable giggle, and Tonks, Molly, and Hestia Jones falling into an argument about a woman's proper role at the front lines as Dumbledore raised the possibility of guard duty on the Potter brat.
"I don't see why we can't just bring him," Black said. He lounged dangerously in his chair, pushing it onto its hindlegs. Severus' eyes fixated on the floor-just the gentlest push of wandless magic, and he would be cracking his skull against the wall, but he caught a glance of Albus' horrendous purple robes, and tore his eyes elsewhere. "The wards would have set in by now, he needs to be around people who care about him. He needs to be prepared!"
"As much as I loathe to agree with the mutt," Severus drawled, in his best Lucius Malfoy impression, "the Potter boy ought to be trained for the future conflict. This detat will not last-"
"What, has Voldie been having you brew Weapons of Mass Destruction? Getting worried, Snape? Don't worry, he'll just have you target some filthy Mu-"
"The Dark Lord has had all his followers on reconnaissance," Severus snapped, "rather than risk open battle, and with the slime the Prophet has been publishing, seeks to discredit Vance's pro-Muggleborn faction. We cannot be complacent!"
"Has Lucius Malfoy been in to see the Minister lately?" Kingsley seized the opportunity to change the subject.
"Twice last week," Severus said shortly. "They're planning the campaign. Malfoy is the primary donor, with Smith and Nott supporting. There is nothing linking the Smith family to the Death Eaters; during the previous terror, Madam Smith sent her children to Miskatonic University. However, she is on the Prophet's Board of Trustees."
Black flared. "If you can call the first Voldemort," flinches and convulsions across the room, "terror-it was a bloody war your people were fighting, and a dirty war!"
Severus rather thought the Dark Lord's tactics were a rip-off from the Irish Republican Army, actually. Some of the more squeamish Death Eathers-Regulus Black and Evan Rosier in particular-used to claim IRA bombings as their own. Hostile glares pigeonholed him. Severus drew breath. He supposed he was doing his job well, if they all thought he was a double agent.
Albus went very still and very stern. The room's tension thinned. "Severus had been working for us throughout most of that terrible time, my dear boy. But I fear for Harry's innocence-he deserves to have as much as a childhood as possible. There is no need to put the weight of the world on his shoulders." Nods across the room. Severus felt sick-as if they weren't doing so, already. Lupin was staring at him curiously. Had he let his expression slip? He sneered.
"Exactly!" Molly's shrill voice piped up. He caught Emmeline's eye; they looked away. "He's just a boy! He should be worrying about Quidditch, not fighting You-Know-Who! He doesn't eat enough, poor boy, thin as a rail."
Albus shifted almost imperceptibly. "And I am certain Hogwarts will fatten him right up, Molly, when the term begins. Sturgis."
Sturgis straightened up. "Yeah?"
"Would you guard the entrance in the mornings, as best you can?"
"Remember Augustus Rookwood," Severus said.
Again, the table stiffened. They hated it when he gave information. What else did they expect a bloody double agent to do? Anyway, Albus knew the name already-and the Dark Lord knew Sturgis had been in the Order.
Sturgis smirked. "Aren't I a Slytherin?"
Severus stared at him. Rookwood, with his reedy voice and greedy eyes, shone in his mind, prone to the same Aryan esotericism as the Nazis, as the Order of the Golden Dawn, good with a whip, ready with his hand, and always so curious that Muggles had the same color blood as the less mundane.
"So," Severus said slowly, "is he."
Albus allocated the rest of the guard: Tonks during the evening, where she could pretend she had gotten lost-Severus, for once in his life, bit back something snide, because he couldn't quite tell who he wanted to insult-and Hestia Jones would relieve Dung Fletcher in three hours for the Potter. Kinglsey would continue to mislead the Ministry on Black's whereabouts, and Bill would continue to liaise with the goblins. Molly bustled back to dinner.
"Stay, everyone!" she announced. "There's a Welsh rarebit for dinner."
Severus rose. "Headmaster…"
Albus waved his hand. "Do sit down, Severus. It would be lovely to have a home-cooked meal, don't you think?" His eyes twinkled. Severus felt the Weasleys' eyes burn his neck, and Tonks tripped over a chair.
"Present company excluded," he drawled. He refused to look at Black.
"I have had the most curious letter from the East," Albus said, "and I would like your perspective before I reply. An applicant for the DADA position."
Severus gestured at Tonks, who was eavesdropping unashamedly. Tonks flinched away, and tripped again, embarrassed. Sturgis Podmore, passing by, elbowed him and snorted. Severus raised an eyebrow. Albus was smiling.
"I'll meet you in my office in twenty minutes, then," Albus allowed. "Do order yourself tea."
"Headmaster," Severus nodded, and swept out of the house. Sturgis had already apparated away, and Emmeline was staying for dinner. Someone, besides Moody, had to play the Good Slytherin for this crowd of self-righteous goody Gryffindors. At least it was more easily manipulated than Lucius at his most patronizingly kind. Checking for Muggles, he apparated to the Gates, and entered Hogwarts' Domain.
Hogwarts: an old Iron Age settlement, added upon, built up, pirouetted onto the lake and onto the sky, how he not forgive the thrill in his stomach whenever he saw it cut against a black night, windows alit twinkling like the stars behind them? He had fallen in love with this castle as a scrap of eleven, dirty and tired and terrified, a millrat from a smoggy Muggle town, and the castle had taken him in, the grounds had hid him. How many times had he found a convenient nook or passageway when when Potter and his gang were chasing him? How many times had he come upon a painting so peaceful that it struck his rage dumb? Hogwarts hid Turners and turns, twisting for those caught so delicately in its web. Prowling these hall, he knew the castle was his, as much as it were Dumbledore's, as much as it were Filch's.
He stopped by his quarters, which he had made so practical, so-dare he even think it-stylish these past fourteen, fifteen years, including the time he was teaching half-classes and supervising the choir while he was getting his Master's of Potions and Doctorate of Thaumaturgical Philosophy. The coffee table held letters, the house elves had delivered them for him. He frowned and flipped through them quickly: one from his Welsh half-siblings, from his father's previous, well, teen exploration of his sexuality, Nia had been born when Tobias was sixteen-he wondered if Hywl had managed to find King Arthur yet, nevermind Avalon. Another was from his old master in Berlin, Elric von Hohenheim. One packet held a collection of papers from the Journal of Alchemical Potioneering to review-something worth his red ink. Unexpectedly he felt his spirits lift. Madam Pomfrey had wanted him on mood stabilizers since he was a boy, but though he was more often down, the uplifts were always worth the wait. He basked in his good mood, and opened his half-brother's letter, almost chuckling to himself as Hywl described the latest disaster with his Ten-League-Boots-always landing in a cowpatty, even if one walked them from Cardiff to York. Severus entertained the idea of visiting him before the start of term, checking the cobbler's glue himself rather than asking him to send a sample.
Severus left the letters on the table and swept out to the Headmaster's office. He had one more month until the term began, and it was best to stick close to Dumbledore, for the Dark Lord-and Merlin knew what either wanted with the ninja-even mentally, he scoffed-teacher. Would they show up all in black waving fancy knives wrapped in silk? It was one way to instill constant vigilance in Potter, he supposed.
"Cockroach clusters," he intoned to the gargoyle guards.
"What I'd do to taste one," grumbled the one on the left, but they moved aside to let him pass.
"He's not there yet!" called the one of the right.
Severus grunted and took his time up the stairs. Albus' technomancy tools chirped, recalibrating to account for his presence. The aletheiometer attempted to calculate veritrametrics on thoughts unspoken, whirling through its pressure gauge. The thaumameter blew gray spoke. He scowled at it.
"Severus," Phineas Nigellus' voice wafted down. "You must do something about your hair."
Severus glared at the portrait.
Phineas shrugged, and stroked his admittedly-luxurious beard. "Such promise, and you only ever clean up during vacations! Surely my more dazzling descendents taught you the power of appearance."
"Yes," Severus ground. Sirius Black had stuck his head into a toilet on more than one occasion, in their first few years of school, and Regulus had tried to be so Slytherin about leaving shampoo in the shower. A brewer's hair would never be manageable, though, not without a specially-charmed hairnet-and he did have some pride about his appearance. A remembrance of Longbottom's boggart seared him: damn Lupin.
"Oh, let the boy be," piped up another headmistress, a charmingly dishevelled Hufflepuff. "Let him play his own games, as long as it makes him feel happy. Ignore him, Severus."
Phineas leaned forward in his frame. "What's the latest from the war?"
"You could be more subtle," Severus told him.
"Bah! I'm dead!" Phineas threw himself back in his chair. "I can be crass."
Severus snapped his fingers. A house-elf appeared, in a neat Hogwarts pillowcase: Jinky.
"Tea, Master Severus?" he quavered.
Severus nodded sharply. With barely a crack, the elf disappeared.
"Do add some lemon," added a Ravenclaw headmaster wistfully. "I do so miss lemons." Was that why Albus had those sherbet lemons? Severus suspected much of the Headmaster's office was spent carrying out the habits of living for a vicarious portrait audience. Minerva could take it; he wanted a few more decades of living by himself, before performing for a bound audience. If he had even six months left. The alethiometer chimed. He glared at it. Arithmancy was not necessarily prophecy.
A stand bearing a teatray appeared next to a welcoming winged-back armchair. Severus settled, and pulling a book from a pocket, began to read and drink tea-a history of the wars in the North, the Pagan King, from whom both his mother and Muggle father claimed descent. There was nothing in old stories but comfort, but the lies were comfort nonetheless.
Severus had read through two hundred pages by the time Albus arrived with a whirl of neon fire. Severus raised an eyebrow. He was often late at Grimmauld Place.
"Dementors at Privet Drive," Albus informed him tersely.
Severus snapped the book shut. "The Dark Lord? Is the boy-ensoulled?" Lily's protection-had Petunia so weakened it? What had she done to the boy?
"Harry is fine, Severus." Albus wearily sat himself in his chair. "Fletcher fled. I set Hestia, Remus, and Alastor to organize a team to take him to Headquarters. I had not thought the Dark Lord's negotiations would work so quickly."
Severus felt his heart thrum in his chest. The Death Eaters would soon take Azkaban. "He would wait. He does not want to reveal his hand so quickly. He wants to make you worry, he wants to worry you into complacency. Not until the public becomes accustomed to Rita Skeeter's trash."
"He's been expelled."
Severus did not say I told you so. He felt it was the wrong moment.
"But Mafalda Hopkirk is willing to reconsider, with a trial. Fudge wants a full Wizengamot."
"When is the hearing?"
"Emmeline is to find out. She is...friendly with Mafalda."
Severus supposed that was a Victorian way to put "fucking her on alternate Tuesdays since 1993."
"We'll certainly know if it's on a Tuesday night," Severus said meditatively.
"What?" Albus looked at him curiously, over those half-moon glasses. Severus remained impassive. "Nevermind, Severus. Let Lucius do what he wants with this. Find out, if it is reasonable, whom he bribed for this, and who is negotiating on the inside. But, to a more immediate concern-the letter from the East."