For the Price of My Familiar

by Librasmile

Complete. The more powerful the wizard, the more potent his familiar, and the revered phoenix is the strongest of all. But nothing comes without a price. So what bargain did Dumbledore make to acquire Fawkes? And whose lives were trampled in the process?

FOR THE PRICE OF MY FAMILIAR

By Librasmile

Logline: The more powerful the wizard, the more potent his familiar, and the revered phoenix is the strongest of all. But nothing dearly desired comes without a price, even in the Wizard world. So what Faustian bargain did Dumbledore make to acquire Fawkes? And whose lives were trampled on – for the greater good, of course – in the process?

Author's Note: Reposting to correct grammar. This story takes place in the marauders era but focuses on Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape. It and the characterizations were partly inspired by Reive's Ghosts, Unfinished Games and especially Beltane as well as by Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon. The idea of the division between wild, unpredictable old magic and scholarly, predictable modern magic as taught at Hogwarts comes from Susanna Clarke's novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. The idea of the wizards having conquered the gods and goddesses of the old magic, and thus having effectively ushered in wizard versions of the enlightenment and the industrial age, is mine. The depiction of how Severus' relationship with Tobias Snape ends is my addition to the domestic abuse implied in canon.

This story has references to pagan rites. However, despite research, I'm not an expert. Also, some elements of folklore I changed to fit the story's needs. Apologies if I've offended anyone. It was not intentional. The title was inspired by the title of Alice Walker's novel, The Temple of My Familiar which I have NOT read.

Ratings Note: This story is rated M for frank sexual situations. You won't get an anatomy lesson but you won't be spared either. If this type of material offends you please do not read it. Thank you for your consideration and support.

Disclaimer: These characters, except for my originals, are the glorious property of J.K. Rowling. I simply borrow them, spin them around a bit, polish them up and hand them back. I make no money from their use.

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Chapter 1: Rites and Wrongs

His breath caught as he felt the girl's body give way to his. She was young and fresh and, until they'd given her to him, untouched. She wasn't pretty. She wasn't even interesting. But she was obedient and silent. With the exception of her cry when he'd torn away her maidenhead she'd made no sound. The hut was silent except for the wordless pants of exertion and the wet slap of sweaty flesh meeting sweaty flesh. Beyond the walls of their shelter, the muted roar of the revelers created a textured sonic counterpoint. But as the revelers were gathered to celebrate this coupling, he knew they would not be interrupted. That was all he required.

He was grateful for the ambrosia they'd given him; it had dissolved his inhibitions. His memory of modernity and civilization's rules had retreated behind the nectar-induced haze as he'd put this girl on her back. The drink had absorbed his shock blow when at last they'd brought her to him and her face had sparked recognition. As briefly as a year ago, he would have nodded distantly in her general direction from his position at the Great Hall's head table as she sat with her classmates. Maybe he would have noticed her. More likely he would not have. Nor would she have spoken to him. She'd been a quiet girl. Plain, with few friends and no boyfriends. He remembered that. Why did he remember that?

He surged forward, forcing her to cry out again. A second later, she'd bitten her lip to cut off the sound. He said nothing. He gave her nothing, no mitigating touch or word, but repeated the motion, noting how her body tensed. It couldn't be helped. He needed it and she was the way to get it. Not her precisely. He would have accepted anyone they'd brought him. Before they'd started, he'd thought he'd heard one of the attendants mention something about a substitution. It hadn't mattered to him. Not in the end. He'd made a show of demurral, as at least modern custom demanded. But when it came to the essentials, he knew how to get what he wanted. And he did it unapologetically.

In any case, she hadn't protested, hadn't spoken, had barely looked at him. She'd kept her head down and followed instructions. If she was disappointed that he was old enough to be her, her grandfather, she hadn't shown it. If she had expected to receive any pleasure from this other than the satisfaction of duty served, she gave no sign. When he'd first lain atop her, his lengthy beard had become entangled between her legs. She hadn't hesitated to shift and readjust beneath him so he could proceed. For one tangential, ironic moment, his thoughts strayed to the Biblical patriarch Abraham; he wondered if Hagar had been as accommodating. Or as distant.

The girl's action had actually given him time to look at her, something he hadn't intended to do. She had black hair and black hooded eyes offset by a sallow complexion that should have been unflattering, but which, in the light of the fire or the fog of the drink, was somehow not. She was of average height with proportionate limbs and absolutely nothing otherwise physically noteworthy about her. Except one. She had a hawkish nose. He'd had to consciously maneuver around it when he'd kissed her in an effort to induce in her the relaxation – for custom forbade her the elixir – he needed make this task as fluid as possible. And he found he liked that feature. It elevated her countenance from mere sullenness to hauteur.

Despite her otherwise ordinariness he found he was enjoying this. He hadn't expected to. He had told them what he wanted. They had told him the price. As there was no other supplier and no safe length of time for which he could delay gratification, he'd accepted the cost. They'd parlayed of course. Wined and dined together. Discussed each other's lives. But it was understood that, before he could close his hands around it, it would come down to this night, this congress.

Nevertheless, this was a business transaction.

But his body didn't know that.

Occlumency was useless here. She was obligated to offer him nothing but a physical presence and he had no desire to go beyond that. Between that and the ambrosia, any effort to maintain a shield was simply redundant. His body, however, responded with raw need. He tried not to recount the years, decades it had been since he'd gratified his desires. He'd forgotten the hunger he could feel. The pulse and hum of his body surprised him. The ruthless need to extract the last bit of pleasure from another human being's flesh shook him. He pushed and stretched and turned her body without compunction to make her give him what he craved suddenly. Her wishes were irrelevant. He asked for none, nor did she volunteer any. He knew he was stronger than he looked. The snowy hair and dignified robes created a useful camouflage for the vigor that remained intact beneath. He supposed it would have been better for her if he had been as frail as people believed. No matter.

They ended with her legs quivering and wrapped tightly around his hips as he pressed himself against the mouth of her womb. Her body convulsed with the rush of his seed inside her. Only after it was over did he realize he had forced her hands above her head and clamped his teeth down on her shoulder. Merlin. Thankfully, he hadn't broken the skin.

He pulled away and then, almost as an after thought, caressed the indentations of the wound. He noted silently as her head turned to the side away from him, her eyes – no longer hooded but shadowed now with emotions he knew better than to try to name – closed.

Irrationally, he suddenly wanted to hear her voice, hear her speak beyond the gasps he'd forced from her or the groans she'd bitten back.

But it wasn't his place, he knew.

Sighing, he tried to lift himself completely off her but his drained muscles refused. Sighing again, he let himself sink back down against her. He would have to move soon. Even at his age, he knew he was too much weight for her to bear for too long. To distract himself and riding the waning wave of intoxicant, he let his hands roam as he hadn't before.

She was not particularly rounded or muscular but she was soft. He let his hands slide along the turn of her hips and then behind to clutch the yielding flesh beneath. He savored the youthful pliancy of her skin and muscles beneath his probing hands. He moved his hands up to cup her breasts. They had passed the tender stage of adolescence and ripened into full womanhood. At least a woman who'd never had a child.

He stilled. The shadows cast by the bonfires beyond the hut danced across his fingers. The sting of the ambrosia still sang in his veins. He had cast the contraceptive charm as a matter of course. Since he had not been asked, he'd felt no obligation to tell them. Yet even he could perceive his violation of the spirit if not the letter of the fertility rite.

But the wizards had conquered the gods long ago. Old magic, no matter how much faith his hosts had in it, had been subjugated; the old magic of the wild woods and streams had long since come under the wizards' heel of rational, scholarly, predictable magic. It might surge up again here and there in quirky, unproductive ways, but now it mostly lay dormant. It was prudent to honor it as one honored one's ancestors. But no one expected to see their dead relatives take a seat at dinner with them.

He laughed softly to himself, his strength returning. He truly was getting old.

He moved to lift himself up from his partner. As he looked down at her, he saw her eyes were open, focused on the door and filled with a faraway look. He felt a sudden kindness for her. She had always been a good student. Gently, he grasped her chin and turned her to look at him.

"Duty done," he said quietly. "Be free."

He leaned in to kiss her forehead and found her mouth instead. The kiss was full, lustful and not at all what he'd intended. Curious, he thought, then pushed the thought away. He was a man, he told himself, and men of all ages had always fought shy of relinquishing sexual possessions. He'd learned that hard lesson in his youth.

He pulled away and stood. Stumbling a bit on wobbly legs, she followed. Awkwardly, she ducked down to snatch up a swath of linen and wrapped it around her body. He finished fastening the clasps on his robe and looked up just as she reached the door. His eyes met hers and she stopped. Only then did he realize that hers were the blackest eyes he had ever seen, like tunnels or passageways.

"Will you be all right, my dear?" he asked, not even knowing why he asked.

She hesitated and he had the feeling she was only half here, the other half tuned into a conversation in her head. "It'll show you know," she said finally. "Because you did it here."

"What?"

"The mark." Her hand went to the crook where her neck and shoulder met, into which his teeth had sank.

He stared at her dumbfounded. That was what mattered to her?

"My apologies. I didn't mean to hurt you. If you let me I can heal it."

She shook her head, squaring her shoulders. "This way he'll know I was here."

He raised his eyebrows. He refused to contemplate who "he" was. He supposed his hosts would need proof he had followed through on his word. But he was reasonably sure that the anatomy on which her hand sat was not the place where they would check. He refused to let his eyes stray to the floor and the blood stains linens that remained there. Wouldn't that be all the proof they'd need, he thought.

Before he could find a decorous way to voice the question, she was gone.

The next day, he stood gathered in the fields surrounded by the villagers as he invoked the benediction. As he spoke, he narrowed his gaze against the rising sun and let his eyes discreetly searched the crowd. Now, his head clear from the effects of the enchanted ambrosia, he was embarrassed to realize he could not recall whether last night's rite required her to spend today in seclusion. Thankfully, his hosts hadn't required him to know. It would have been personally demoralizing not to mention professionally disastrous to admit his ignorance.

Still, he reminded himself, for him it had not been about the celebration of the Beltane Rite. It had been about this.

He stretched out his hands and gingerly took the black enameled box in his hosts' hands. Ah. Finally. Tenderly, he raised the ornate lid. There. Cradled in a nest of frankincense, myrrh and other fragrant branches, lay the large, delicately speckled egg. For one avaricious moment, he thought of its twin, for he'd known there were two, and briefly imagined both in his hands. But even he knew that any man fortunate enough to gain possession of one such egg, tempted fate to seek two. Even his aspirations could bow to that limit.

Carefully, he closed the lid and returned his gaze to his hosts. He bowed deeply still clutching the chest. His hosts puffed up grandly, as he knew they would, at the sight of such a great wizard bowing to them. He was touched when they and the surrounding crowd returned his bow just as deeply.

The next hour was whittled away in toasts, and further blessings as he struggled to make a gracious exit. Every so often, his eyes strayed beyond the parameters of whichever villager had accosted him at the moment to look for her again. He could not find the temerity to ask about her and she had given him no name. Nor had it been his place to ask it. In the ancient times, he would not even have known what she looked like for she would have been veiled throughout. Allowing curiosity to overtake his good manners, he allowed himself to eavesdrop even as he chatted amiably. As he exchanged inane comments about the weather and local folk remedies, he managed to catch repeated mention of the name "Eileen" although he could find no one answering to it. He congratulated himself when memory sparked. Eileen yes, one of the Slytherin students, he recalled, a recent graduate. And occasionally the villagers would attach a comment to the name. Among which he heard: "Finally managed to make herself useful" and "Although nowhere near the worth of her sister, rest her soul. Now there was a capable witch. Wouldn't have needed to call this one if she'd been alive." Sister, Albus thought. His memory yielded no recollection of a sister.

At one point, he could have sworn he'd caught sight of her, sitting in the distance in the shade of a covered wooden wagon. A figure with unfathomably dark eyes stared unflinchingly back at him, holding something in its lap. As he focused he realized that although the figure had the same dark hair, hawkish nose and sullen expression, it was in fact male. And the object in his lap was a box. He blinked and in the next instant, man, wagon and box were gone. The corners of his mouth tightened. Perhaps he was too far away to hear the telltale crack but he knew a disapparation when he saw one. Even if he could have tracked the man, he didn't want to. He'd gotten what he'd come for and at some point, when his hosts' overdeveloped courtesy finally wore down, he'd be free. At no point, however, did the chest leave his hands.

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The egg hatched a month later. Albus cooed softly at the baby chick nestled among the broken shells. The baby bird cooed back, ruffling his gold and crimson plumes. Gently, the headmaster stroked a finger down its tiny breast before leaving a nourishing bundle of myrrh and myrtle beside it.

Only a day later, the Daily Prophet blared, "Hogwarts Headmaster Hatches Rare Phoenix." Dumbledore archly wondered what had taken them so long.

Another month later, after Dumbledore had driven Herbology professor Pomona Sprout to distraction with his avian dietary requests, the bird had grown to full size. He sat serenely on the perch in the headmaster's office, preening his feathers as Dumbledore stared at the open book on his desk.

More precisely, he stared down at a photo in just one of the many newspaper clippings the book contained. Librarian Irma Pince had looked at him oddly when he'd requested the book but said nothing. He'd always found it odd how even a wizarding photograph could occasionally fail to capture the essence of a person, especially their eyes. He read the caption. Captain of the gobstones team, it read. He shook his head. Normally, the team captains had so much competitive drive they stood out, left an impression on the faculty's minds. But other than their ritualized tryst on Beltane night and the occasional images of her in the Great Hall for meals, his memory yielded nothing of her.

He frowned as his fingers brushed the faded paper.

There was no reason for recrimination, he reminded himself. Yes, there were stringent penalties for Hogwarts teachers who became involved with students. The Muggle world was equally adamant about protecting minors from intimate relations with adults. She had been neither. Nor had she, at least on his part, been coerced. And if, as he felt sure, his hosts truly believed in the old magic they still venerated, they would have been cursing themselves to select a woman against her will. No, it did not set well with him that she had been a former student under his headmastership. Nor was he happy that she had been so young. Had circumstances been different he might still have backed away when he'd recognized her. But then he would have forfeited his chance to obtain Fawkes.

And Fawkes was a protection he desperately needed.

Powerful talismans against evil, phoenixes were exceedingly rare in the wizarding world and non-existent in the Muggle one. Rarer still was the wizard who could claim one as a familiar. He personally knew of only one other who could: Nicholas Flamel, the centuries-old creator of the sorcerer's stone. During Dumbledore's last visit, Flamel's phoenix had unexpectedly sung a wailing dirge, burst into flames and not been reborn.

A phoenix that died and failed to rebirth itself signaled the approach of calamitous evil. He and Nicholas had stared at each other, quietly aghast. They had been discussing Tom Riddle.

Days later, Dumbledore had begun his search.

It was no mean quest. A phoenix would only serve those with deep magical knowledge. Under Flamel's guidance, he had already studied for years to reach the level of magical understanding that would allow a phoenix to bond with him. Now in the wake of this omen, he began the active search to find one of his own. It took nearly two years. Those precious few he'd found along the way were inevitably already tied to a wary witch or wizard too possessive to part with even a feather let alone an egg. And all of their masters had been either in the vicinity of or traveled from Afghanistan, Pakistan or other lands in the windswept Central Asian steppes. Hence, when he'd stumbled across the knowledge of not one egg but two, he'd thrown everything aside in pursuit.

He had no idea how such treasures had come to a prosaic textile village in the drought-ridden fields of northern England. His hosts, a group of local witches deputized by their Muggle neighbors to speak for them, spun a tale of gypsies bringing the eggs with them from northern India. Apparently, the nomads had no idea of the value of what they possessed. How the travelers had preserved the eggs over such distance and time, they couldn't say. Had he not already spelled the village to check for the influences of dark magic and deception he would have suspected them of lying. They weren't. They may or may not have been speaking the truth, but what they told him they believed. Since he could find no threats, and phoenixes and their eggs were notoriously resistant to dark or other enchantments, he took them at their word.

He'd tried to convince them to give him both. They insisted on only one. That he'd expected. Their price, however, was…unexpected. They asked him to bless their Beltane Festival. In the old way.

He would never have responded as he originally had if he had been more…prepared.

Even in hindsight it was hard to see how he could have been. The village was not particularly isolated. Nor was it particularly ancient. Its economy had long ago passed from the agrarian, to the industrial to the post-industrial stage. Like towns and villages everywhere, the main business was tourism with a smattering of what the Muggles liked to call high technology. Abandoned factories and deserted mills marked the highways and train tracks as the young college students migrated out of town for a new life or into town for a rural weekend.

"Surely a simple vivification charm could renew your fields. I would be quite willing to teach you," he'd said simply. It was a perfectly innocuous statement to his ears.

The witches had walked out.

A day later when his humble apologies had been accepted and his astonishment at their prickliness put aside, he'd listened even more carefully to what they didn't say as much as to what they did. He realized that the witches, although undoubtedly magical and competent at the basic level, lacked the knowledge to restore their fields. And they cared about the fields because they were self-declared adherents of the old magic. The village may have housed a Muggle technology center, but its witches and most of its inhabitants adhered to the old ways. They kept Beltane faithfully, including the traditional deflowering.

What they did not say was how little they knew about predictable magic, the kind that was taught at Hogwarts and practiced by the mainstream wizarding world. They were little more than folk witches, he realized. Some things they knew. Some things they had backward. Some things they'd never even heard of. They'd bristled again when he'd tried to share his knowledge. Not only did they adhere to the old ways, they were deeply suspicious of the current ones.

And there was no way they would allow him to avoid the tradition. He'd tried to talk them out of it and failed.

They gave him a week to prepare. He'd spent the time in a frantic search for alternatives. The problem was not a lack of options but a lack of options that looked enough like what they wanted so that they could put their faith in it. He returned to the village in the same position as when he'd left it.

It had occurred to him that he could steal it but as his pride, honor and stomach all balked at the thought, he'd rejected it.

And so he'd done as they'd asked.

Now safely in possession of Fawkes, he studied the photo beneath his hand. He tried to match his memory of the silent woman with the fathomless eyes to this visual record of the sullen adolescent in her Hogwarts uniform. There were many students he kept track of after their time at Hogwarts. And there were many he didn't. There were too many to follow all of them.

He dropped his head into his hands.

His rationalizations weren't working.

"It's a barbaric custom, Albus! I don't care what anyone says!"

The headmaster's head jerked up as Minerva McGonagall burst through his fireplace. Clearly, she was in high dudgeon or she would have asked before storming into his office. She drew a breath to speak then skidded to a halt as she took in the look on Dumbledore's face.

"Oh—Albus! What has happened?"

The Headmaster stared frozen at her for a moment. "I believe," he said hesitantly, "that is what I should be asking you."

"Oh!" Minerva threw up her hands, her outrage in full flare again. "Professor Bluewing is telling the seventh years they can expiate their sins with libations – in blood! Of all the superstitious nonsense! He's got a group of students slipping and sliding in their own blood on Poppy's floors right now. This has got to stop, Albus –"

"Well it is an accepted custom of old magic," Dumbledore quietly.

"You – what?! What are you saying? Surely you don't condone this Albus? This is dark magic."

"No it is old magic," he repeated firmly if resignedly. "And sometimes the old magic does have its uses."

"Well unless its uses include stopping the students from bleeding each other to death I suggest you find a new home for Prof. Bluewing. First it was the fire jumping, without wands or charms I might add. Poppy ran out of Burn Relief Potion that time. Then there was dream walking. So many students fell down the stairs we had to express order more Skele-Gro. This has got to stop!"

Albus' eyebrows rose. "Are you telling me how to manage my staff, Minerva?" he asked quietly.

"No," she snapped, completely uncowed. "Just how to keep your students alive!"

Albus sighed, rose and took his irate deputy by the arm as he steered her toward the floo. "Come, professor, I think it's time to convince Prof. Bluewing of the need for an extra long sabbatical."

He left the book open on his desk.

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Chapter 2: Rage and Regrets

In the end he'd failed her. He could see it in the boy's dark, fathomless eyes, blacker than any he'd seen except once before as they glared warily at the Gryffindor table.

From his secure place at the head table, he watched grimly as James Potter, Sirius Black and the other two tossed cleverly camouflaged insults at the Slytherin boy. The Slytherin squared his shoulders and turned resolutely back to his own classmates, even as he fiddled with his wand beneath the table. Slytherins were not known for their compassion, Dumbledore knew, but they did have a reputation for sticking together. The boy had some measure of protection.

But protection was not the only thing he needed.

So why hadn't he found compassion for him?

Dumbledore sighed and watched, unsettled, as students at both tables relinquished their seats and headed for classes. As he watched them casually arrange themselves, he could clearly see that the cliques formed in First Year were still largely intact six years later.

He had let the Gryffindors off too easily after the incident in the Shrieking Shack. He could see that now. This boy would never forget that; the reality of it glittered within the obsidian depths of his eyes.

He'd been trying to do the right thing in the long run. Potter and his mates were going to be members of the Order of the Phoenix. Severus Snape and his Slytherin friends would be fighting for Voldemort, whether they'd already taken the Dark Mark or not. Dumbledore refused to lose potential Order members over a childish school prank. They needed a complete education if they were to be fully armed against the Dark Lord. And he needed numbers.

Nevertheless, he had made an enemy of this boy whose mother he…he once knew.

Later in his office, Dumbledore sat behind his desk, his folded hands clenched tightly. Beneath his hands lay Severus Snape's open file. His marks were, of course, monotonously superlative. The boy's admittedly more colorful disciplinary record he already knew. Oh it had nothing on the marauders but made for entertaining reading nonetheless. He wasn't reading it. He sought information not entertainment. He was more concerned with what he didn't know or hadn't bothered to learn.

He stared down at the gashes and gaping holes in the body. To the right of the head was a pool of grainy black blood. He thanked Merlin that, unlike the wizard world, the black and white Muggle photos didn't recreate the action that had resulted in the grisly scene. They were the actual police photographs. He fingered the newsprint to which the photos were clipped. No pictures had ever made it into the paper. The incident itself barely had. It had merited a meager 3 inches in the crime section, included because it involved a local family, kept short because so few, if anyone, in the neighborhood had cared about that family.

The Manchester Chronicle article summed it up as an instance of fatal domestic violence. Tobias Snape had come home drunk and started whaling on his son as usual. Only this time he had picked up a knife. The boy had defended himself. The father had died. No charges were filed. Nothing left to see.

But Dumbledore did see. He saw that, for all the macabre detail on the film in front of him, someone had cleaned up the crime scene before the police had arrived. And whoever had done it had used magic. For they had removed the candles, the bell, the book, the altar, all of the ritual objects except one.

He waved a hand above the photograph and softly chanted "Maxima." The photo enlarged to span his desk. He grabbed the now flexible edges and peered at the image. There, underneath the radiator was the athame. The handle stuck out oddly, as if the blade had been slung with violence, landed hard and skidded underneath the heater. Dark stains on the floor seemed to mark a trail to where the knife lay.

It had been planted of course. The police were meant to find it, pick it up and fall under its spell. Gloves would have made no difference. With magic that powerful, proximity was all. And once they had it, their entire report would be written on their gray matter for them. All they'd have to do was type what had been implanted into their brains. Case closed.

The image of fathomless, black eyes – one paired filled with detachment and resignation, another filled with bitterness and betrayal – arose in his mind.

Ignoring the slight tremor in his hand, he put the photo aside and turned to the other documents. He picked up the second article, also from the Chronicle.

Funeral services for Tobias Snape, former machinist at now closed Clothier Mills textile factory, were held Saturday, June 10 at St. Thomas Methodist Church. Mr. Snape, 39, was survived by his wife, Eileen, 35, and his son Severus, 16. Rev. Silas Snape, father of the deceased, presided.

Dumbledore's nose wrinkled slightly at the terse announcement. It was meager even by the working class' taciturn standards. There was no mention of burial services or a viewing. And the announcement appeared after the event, not before. It had all the markings of a hush up despite the conclusions of the police report. But then of course, what family, Muggle or wizard, would publicly admit to its assaults upon one another? On the other hand, the simpler, grubbier view was that the surviving Snapes simply couldn't afford to add anymore lines to the text.

He released the obit and turned the page. He noted with neither surprise nor regret the death notice a month later for Rev. Snape. He turned to the following page. Madame Pomfrey's handwriting scrawled across it. An incompletely healed throat laceration, superficial but too close to the carotid artery and so re-healed. Old enough to prove it had happened off Hogwarts' premises before the school year had begun so no official disciplinary investigation needed. Dumbledore's gaze lingered on her final line. Will leave a scar. I should think so, he thought, both inside and out.

Madame Pomfrey's entry had been dated September 6, 1977. Beneath Pomfrey's report was an addendum from Slytherin House Head Horace Slughorn dated June 23, 1978. It was a close one Albus but have no fear. There are no grounds for the Ministry to poke its thick head in. I had a chat with one of my contacts in Enforcement and he agrees: the boy wasn't involved – on the magic end at least. Funny enough he couldn't have been anyway. Somehow that Muggle had done something to the house. His magic wouldn't work. His mother's either. Which of course means the boy had to call for help. Three guesses who. In any case, no wizard laws were broken and as for the Muggle laws, who cares? We'd just obliviate them anyway. Well, that's all I've got. I hope it suffices. If you need anything else, of course, as always, I'm yours.

Horace

P.S. They fixed the house so magic can flow again.

Dumbledore smiled slightly at Slughorn's deceptively careless style. The wily potions professor never willingly gave up more than he had to. Not on the first round anyway. Slughorn's addendum was written just a few days ago. Dumbledore had asked him to use his extensive network of friends and associates to help the Order investigate current and potential Death Eaters. Slughorn had balked, as Dumbledore knew he would and only relented after the headmaster promised him more access to his pensieve. Afterwards, he'd happily beat the bushes for information. Dumbledore had given him only one target, Lucius Malfoy and digging around Lucius had turned up Severus Snape.

Dumbledore had no doubt that Lucius was Horace's "guess who." Severus had clung to Lucius' shadow from his first year at Hogwarts. Originally, it was because the boy was stunned that the handsome, wealthy, socially polished aristocrat had welcomed the working-class Manchester boy with genuine warmth into Slytherin. But now all evidence pointed to their continued closeness arising from Severus' intent to follow in Lucius' footsteps.

For, of course, it was Lucius who had saved him. That athame, combined with his own memory of the closeness of the two, was enough proof for Albus. Hogwarts did not make a habit of investigating its students but it did meticulously document all relevant information about their parents or caregivers. They knew which students came from married, divorced or alternately arranged families. They knew who had medical problems and what kind. They knew who could afford to pay the fees on their own, who forwarded those funds and from which bank as well as who required help. They may not have known every single detail but they knew the basics. And the basics of Severus Snape's life, as documented in this file, told it all.

The Snape family was poor, hanging on a string and, thanks to the late Tobias Snape, violent. His tuition was paid for in advance by Severino Prince, presumably Eileen's father and her inspiration for her son's name. But for books, uniforms and other necessities he had depended on the Hogwarts assistance fund. Tuition payments came out of a legacy paid out in drachma that had to be converted to Galleons. So presumably Severino was too far away, too long gone or both to have provided further support or to act as a buffer between them and Tobias. (The witches had said the phoenix eggs had come from travelers, gypsies, whose typically dark coloring bore close resemblance to Eileen's and her son's, he noted.) Judging by the state of Severus' non-Hogwarts clothes, his parents couldn't cope with even his basic necessities, hence the boy's strong streak of self-sufficiency. Asking for help and expecting to actually receive it were not usually options for him. (Except when it came time to address discipline for the marauders who'd tried to kill him. Then he had asked for help. He had asked, albeit not nicely, for someone to take his pain seriously. Dumbledore swallowed as he recalled how he had dismissed the boy's concerns.)

So in terror and rage the boy would turn to the Death Eaters. Why not? Unlike those who claimed to have his best interests at heart, they would act. They understood that it was first and foremost a question of power. The wizarding laws tied Dumbledore's hands in the cases of domestic violence – had he even taken the time to address the issue for Severus, which he hadn't. To be fair, Severus had never asked for help in this regard. On the other hand, he shouldn't have had to; the signs had always been there.

So he would turn to Lucius, who clearly had much better things to do than to listen to, let alone take seriously, the surly half-blood Manchester-born-and-raised ragamuffin whose own mother couldn't summon the energy or nerve to protect him. He would turn to Lucius, who had the power to make the police detectives stop asking questions permanently. He would turn to Lucius, who had the money – in Malfoy's world a paltry sum – to pay for the funeral and no doubt the medical bills. And having already graduated from Hogwarts, Lucius could do magic, saving Severus from risking expulsion – a fate worse than death to Severus for whom education, achievement and excellence constituted his only salvation.

Lucius had saved him.

And what of Eileen? Did she know what her son was becoming? Would it have mattered to her either way? When had anyone – other than at a gobstones match or at the Beltane ritual – ever noticed she was there? Did even her son notice? After all, it was Lucius who had come to his rescue not his mother. But then it seemed from the state of Severus' non-Hogwarts clothes that his mother barely noticed him. Certainly the boy was safer when Tobias ignored him so any care would have come from his mother. So why didn't his mother care to dress him properly?

Unless Tobias had forbidden it.

Dumbledore had had too much experience with varying degrees of evil to even doubt whether someone would be petty enough to do that to their own child. They would. That left the question of why Eileen couldn't stop it. He knew she was magical; her own record at Hogwarts was proof of that. Where had her magic gone? Why hadn't she stopped Tobias from harming her son?

Perhaps she was a traditionalist who believed the father's word was law.

Dumbledore sighed and dropped his head into his hands. It was not out of the ordinary. Even now with millions of Muggle women up in arms fighting for equal rights there were still just as many Muggle females determined to uphold patriarchal tradition. Such battles were not unheard of in the wizard world. Voldemort himself was a prime example of such thinking. And then there were the battles that broke out over magical heritage. The wizard world was dotted with numerous families with special magical powers whose inheritance was restricted to solely the male or female lines. Inevitably, a member of the disenfranchised gender would challenge the legacy and extended battles would erupt. Such problems could keep the Wizengamot occupied for generations.

Then again, the Beltane Rite honored a goddess as well as a god. He and Eileen had taken their roles in the ritually required re-enactment of the divine couple's sexual union. Never mind that he had restored their fields by disguising a simple incantation within the blessing. The villagers sincerely believed in the ceremony which required a woman strong enough to channel the power of the old magic. Though he set no store by old magic, he was learned enough to know it was a real if unpredictable and unreliable force. Eileen had the power to handle it if it had manifested. So she should have had the power to stop Tobias.

Why hadn't she?

Unbidden, the image of her wrapped in a sheet stumbling on shaky legs away from him flashed through his mind. She hadn't been a child then, he knew. But she hadn't really been a woman either, he realized. He thought of her eyes, startled again that he hadn't noticed the depths in them until she was distanced from him rather than when she'd been lying beneath him. For the first time, he wondered whether that fathomless gaze had been indicative of hidden depths of understanding or of a person suspended in freefall with no place to land that wasn't shrouded in darkness.

Like her son.

He dropped his hands from his face. Severus could have been his. It was not impossible. He could admit it now. Looking back on the way he had kept his arm's length from the boy, even when he'd needed help against Potter, Dumbledore could see now that perhaps he'd done so because he'd feared it might be true. The old magic still had life in it. It could still subvert the modern spells when it chose, neutralize them and substitute its own agenda. Never mind that he had long ago decided against his own fitness as a father in the wake of his sister's death.

Moreover there was the law of karma. He had bedded a former Hogwarts student. Never mind that the girl had been of age and was no longer his responsibility. Never mind that their sexual union had been magically required. Never mind that it had been legally and ritually allowed. His own conscience still quailed at the memory and he had done nothing to address this. He had failed to make or seek expiation, as former Prof. Bluewing had been so hell bent on teaching his students to do. And now he was seeing the seeds he'd presumptuously sown bearing their treacherous fruit.

He stared again at the crime photos, shrank the enlarged one back to normal size then gently closed the file.

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"Come here."

Severus stared warily at the headmaster. He had just left the potions lab with a number of ingredients jars that Slughorn had allowed him to take. He had been surprised the old man had let him since he'd never apparently made the cut for his Slughorn Club. He was in a rush to pack them in his trunk before heading to the train. With the marauders out on the Quidditch field playing one last pick up match he'd figured his passage was safe. He'd had no communication with the headmaster since the wretched incident in the Shrieking Shack. He swallowed as the bitter pain of that memory washed over him. Dumbledore had all but brushed the matter aside and Severus had all but blacked out with rage. From then on he'd felt safer behaving as if the event had never happened. It was easier when the headmaster ignored him. Clearly Dumbledore had washed his hands of him so Severus couldn't imagine what the old man could possibly want with him now. Then a horrible thought occurred: could Dumbledore be coming to tell him he wouldn't get his Hogwarts certificate?

"I haven't stolen these Headmaster," he blurted out, holding the containers before him so the elderly man could clearly see. "Prof. Slughorn said I could have them. If it's against Hogwarts' policy, I'll return them—"

"No, no Severus. It's not that. Your certificate is secure and on file with the Ministry. And teachers may give students whatever they wish – within reason – as parting gifts. After seven years of hard, and might I add, superlative work, I'm sure you've earned them. That is not why I'm here."

Severus' wariness only intensified. "Forgive me, sir, but did we have an appointment that I've forgotten?"

"No, I merely wished to see how you were getting on."

Severus stared at him incredulously. Deliberately he turned his gaze to the great clock. It read 20 minutes to eleven. In less than half an hour he would be on the train heading back to the Muggle world, his seven-year education at Hogwarts finished. He turned back to face Dumbledore with a disbelieving sneer. It was pretty damned late for Dumbledore to see how he was "getting on."

To Severus' further astonishment, instead of admonishing him for such blatant if non-verbal disrespect, Dumbledore sighed, his shoulders slumped the barest fraction. He spoke hesitantly. "Do…you have any plans once you're home?"

Now it was Severus' turn to squirm. Of course he had plans, just none he could share with the headmaster. Reflexively, he felt the hairs on his left arm stand up, like hackles rising. He saw Dumbledore's eyes gleam knowingly, sadly and Severus took a step back. The headmaster couldn't know, he thought anxiously. Then his features hardened. And what if he did, he thought? He thought of the tatty row home stuck on a dingy corner of Spinner's End. He envisioned his mother's empty bedroom and the living room chair that used to be her own. He thought of the cold chill in the hallway where he used to watch for his father's shadow on the wall, waiting to see whether he'd be left in peace or forced to dodge his fists. With a convulsive swallow he pictured the basement where he'd last seen his father. Like water skipping across stones, he saw image after image of blood – his own or his father's he was never sure – spattering the floors and walls. He felt the first risings of panic. Ruthlessly he forced it down. Don't think of it, he told himself, don't. Think of the Dark Lord and all the plans he has for you. He values you. He needs you. Think of Lucius. He befriended you when you were still a nobody and needed friends; who saved you when you could have wound up in the Muggle equivalent of Azkaban; who gave your mother a peaceful, beautiful home in which to die.

"Nothing specific as yet," he found himself murmuring, "but I expect I'll find my way."

Dumbledore nodded sagely. "I expect you will," he said softly.

Severus turned to go.

"However, if you shouldn't—"

Severus stopped, turned warily back.

"—remember that Hogwarts remains your home as well."

Severus stared at him through narrowed eyes.

Ignoring the boy's confusion, Dumbledore took a step closer. "And would you do me the honor of allowing me to present you with another memento?"

Severus looked down at the headmaster's outstretched hand.

It held a feather. A phoenix feather.

Severus stared back at him in shock.

"This is from Fawkes," he said wonderingly.

Dumbledore nodded. "So it is. Will you do me the honor of accepting it?"

Severus looked down at the feather and back up again. Above them the minute hand of the big clock ticked on, counting down.

No matter that Severus would not discuss his plans with Dumbledore, they both knew if only from his marks alone that he would become a potions maker. And as such, the boy would already be an expert on a dizzying array of magical ingredients. So he knew there were none rarer than the feather of a phoenix. Witches and wizards who owned them were known to permanently hex off the limbs of family, friends and foes alike for daring to pilfer the priceless quills.

Severus shook his head, dazed. "You're giving this to me?" Then his expression hardened. "What do you want?"

Dumbledore blinked at the boy's sudden aggression but he didn't back down. "Simply that you trust that you may freely return at any time as long as I am headmaster here."

Severus continued staring hard at him. This was a trick, some scheme of the wily old man's, he thought. He wants me to let slip some detail of my master's plans. Yet the potions maker in him couldn't resist the treasure Dumbledore offered. As if of its own volition, his hand reached out and closed around the crimson gold-tipped plume. For long moments he just stared at the curling quill in his hand. Without realizing it, he was breathing hard and fast as if he were running.

"Thank you," he said finally.

"You are most welcome, Severus."

The boy jumped as the clock stuck the three-quarter hour. Abruptly, Severus shook himself out of his reverie. "I must get my trunk."

Dumbledore waved him away. "Go, go dear boy. And safe journey."

Severus spared him one more puzzled frown before turning and sprinting down the dungeon steps. Dumbledore's gaze followed him until he was gone.

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Chapter 3: Resolutions

Hours later, Severus left his Slytherin-packed compartment to head to the bathroom. The phoenix feather was still on him. Inexplicably, he'd changed his mind about packing it in his trunk and instead carried it within the inside breast pocket of his robes. At the sink, he took a moment to unbutton his collar and loosen his tie. He swallowed as a lumprose in his was probably the last day he would ever wear these robes he realized. This was the last day he would ever wear the silver and green of Slytherin. He took a deep breath. Then another and still another before finally turning on the faucet. As he let the cold water run down his face he stared at himself in the mirror.

Dumbledore had asked him his plans. His thoughts wandered back to his traveling companions. He was to dine with Bellatrix and Lucius tonight. Instead of Spinner's End, he and his trunk would be installed at Malfoy Manor. It was the Dark Lord's wish that his new potions maker set up a fully equipped lab in Lucius' home to minimize the time between Severus receiving the Dark Lord's orders and then carrying them out. Clearly Spinner's End would never have served for that purpose. When Lucius had told him this, Severus had been overjoyed but Lucius had seemed…ambivalent. A frisson of unease had crawled along the base of Severus' spine when he saw that but he couldn't afford to examine it. There was nothing for him at Spinner's End. Nothing. His mother hadn't even died there. To his everlasting gratitude Lucius had allowed his mother to convalesce at his home after Tobias' attack. She had died early this year just before Severus' birthday. Lucius had paid for the funeral.

He stared a moment at his eyes, so like his mother's, he realized with a start.

He had told Lily none of this. She had no idea of what had happened to him this past summer before his seventh year. He hadn't told her when his mother died. To his gratified surprise, none of his family business had filtered out onto the school grapevine. So he had no idea whether she knew or not.

He took a towel to wipe the excess moisture from his face. As he did, he pulled his collar open wider. He'd never shown her the scar. He let his fingers trace the hardened, jagged slash that swept from the crook of his neck to his collarbone. It was a curse scar. It would never come off.

How his father – his Muggle father – had managed to inflict a curse scar on him he still didn't know. Just as he didn't know how the ogre had managed to temporarily kill his magic that day. He'd killed his mother's powers too. Severus swallowed as he remembered screaming and screaming for her as she'd never answered. Afterwards, he'd found her upstairs, sitting up in her bed, tucked under the covers as if she were going to do a bit of light reading before going to sleep. Her eyes were wide open. Her mouth was slack. She never spoke again. Nor did she ever know him again. He'd managed to get her to his father's funeral and back again. But no light of consciousness had flickered inside even then.

Only once had the light come back. The day she died, for the first time since he'd been a small boy, she'd stroked his hair. He'd been reading to her when he felt the feather-light touch of slender fingers against his scalp. For a moment he'd frozen, afraid to look at her as if looking would make her stop. Then he'd turned and sought her eyes and she was there. He'd felt her. Mesmerized, he'd placed his hand against her cheek. "Mommy?" he asked, even as he'd cringed inside at his own childishness. She hadn't spoken, of course she hadn't. But that hadn't stopped him from leaning into her hand as it had trailed from the crown of his head to the side of face to his throat. She'd rested her fingertips against his scar. As her fingers had traced it he'd felt his pulse leap. Would she remember, he'd wondered? But she'd given no outward sign.

She'd closed her eyes and died that evening. If he hadn't been sitting by her bedside, he doubted if anyone would have known she'd been there, he thought bitterly.

The Death Eaters had known. Of course they'd known. And when he'd gone back to Hogwarts after the holidays, he'd stuck even closer to them. Eileen had been pureblood. They'd felt her loss and told him so while maintaining his privacy with the cunning for which Slytherin was justly famous.

He had avoided Lily.

The summer before last he'd groveled at her feet, begging for her forgiveness for calling her what she was, a Mudblood.

She had slammed the door in his face over and over again. She'd torn up his letters or sent them back, sometimes both. He'd followed her around Manchester, pouring his heart out as she ignored him. Nothing had seemed to work. And then one day it did. One day when he'd found her alone at the playground they'd used to frequent, she'd stayed and listened to him. He'd confessed everything. How he loved her. How he needed her. How he'd give up everything, even his friends for her. She'd thought he'd taken the Dark Mark already but he hadn't. There was still time.

And then they were kissing.

He still couldn't recall who had moved first. All he knew was that she was in his arms, not James'. And consciousness was becoming an unreliable thing. He'd pulled her toward a copse of trees, he remembered that. He remembered pressing his mouth against her throat, her breasts, her stomach. He remembered lifting her skirt and finding her center. He remembered falling to his knees and relishing her wetness and her screams.

He'd practically had to carry her back to her house afterwards.

And he'd shaken all the way on the long walk back to his.

They made love properly two days later in her parents' house. They spent the summer skulking around coupling in whatever out of the way place they could find. Because her parents' home was never a sure bet and Spinner's End simply wasn't safe, they used whatever shelter they could find, including outdoors. It never occurred to him that what they were doing was risqué or even dangerous. He was simply grasping for any taste of her that he could get.

He hadn't told Lucius. He wouldn't have understood. Perhaps he could have told them that he was simply using her, taking what was convenient and screwing James Potter in the process. Their outdoor escapades would certainly have helped make his case.

But he had been unable to bring himself to tell him. He hadn't understood why but he would have felt like he was tainting their relationship somehow, tainting Lily. And he couldn't do it.

In the end, that caution had proven to be his one saving grace.

For Lily had betrayed him.

He had seen her, during a visit to Blackpool. She had gone on holiday with her parents. He was traveling as a guest of former classmates, none of whom had yet received the dark mark. He had spotted her on the walkway, hand in hand with James. He'd thought he'd started hallucinating. Her parents were following not far behind. When James kissed her and Lily kissed him back, they'd smiled.

After he'd ducked into the alleyway behind a closing shop, it had taken him a full five minutes to empty all the contents of his stomach. After he'd regained some control, his pride told him to walk away. His heart put him on her trail.

The two couples had gone to a dance hall with an outdoor bandstand and pavilion. Huddled in the shadows, he felt his hands and jaw clench tighter and tighter as he watched them dance. He'd almost snapped his wand in two.

He'd followed them back to the hotel.

Perhaps he had been wrong, he rationalized. Perhaps she was simply humoring her parents. Lily was not like him after all. She'd had a loving family and a secure home. Her parents naturally would want to make sure their daughter found a man who could give her the same for herself. Severus had talent, ambition and brains but no money. He couldn't even offer her a decent name. The Snapes were nothings, nobodies from the wrong side of the tracks with a predilection for family violence. His mother's blood though pure was next to non-existent. The Princes may have descended from powerful magical and royal blood. But by the time the family had survived three centuries of witch hunts, civil wars and religious wars*, there was next to none of them left. What remained was too paranoid and secretive to ever stay in one place. He couldn't even tell if his maternal grandfather was dead or alive. Years ago, he'd given his mother enough money to assure payment of his tuition at Hogwarts. That was it. He couldn't hold him up to praise or contempt. He simply didn't know enough about him.

Potter on the other hand…Potter was the epitome of the golden boy. The pampered only son of wealthy wizards, Potter was used to getting what he wanted. Whether it was the captaincy of his house's Quidditch team, the favor of the headmaster or the prettiest girl in school, they all fell into James' hands.

But not this time, Severus told himself, frantically. Not this time.

He'd almost conjured a disillusionment charm before he'd remembered Hogwarts' policy of disallowing students the use of magic away from school. Cursing under his breath, Severus glided silently through the lobby and to the back stairs. Magic ban be damned, he wasn't a Slytherin for nothing. Cunning and deception still had their uses. It had taken nothing but elementary ingenuity to wrangle the room numbers out of the hotel staff. Finding an empty room on their floor, he'd picked the lock, settled in and waited.

He'd spent the entirety of the trip home blind, stinking drunk. At some point during the journey, Bellatrix' friend Maya Wardly had amused herself by pulling Severus into the bathroom and fucking him senseless. They'd stayed in there for hours, to the hoots and catcalls of their traveling companions, as she rode him to limp exhaustion. Weeks later he'd remembered to be grateful and sent her a note telling her so. At the time however, the sound of Lily's screams had overridden hers. It was Lily's body he felt writhing beneath his hands. He'd all but cursed her because her hair was brown instead of red. And at some point he knew he'd punished her because even her knowing hands couldn't banish the sight and sound of James Potter screwing the love of his life. The bruises and bite marks he'd left on Maya's body were ugly, dark and angry-looking. Not surprisingly for a friend of Bella's, Maya hadn't minded. In fact, she'd later responded to his note with an invitation to a private party. He hadn't said no.

At home, the chill descended. He went numb. His insides seemed to freeze. He couldn't figure out what to do with himself. He couldn't find the courage to face Lily and he couldn't find the power to push her out of his mind. Finally he found himself standing in a sleepless daze on Lily's doorstep in the dead of night. Her parents yelled at him to go away but he couldn't move. He couldn't speak. He glared at them so balefully that they backed away in terror. Finally, afraid her parents would call the police and generate a worse scene, Lily came to the door.

She'd stared at him with wide frightened eyes as she'd carefully stepped out into the night air.

He'd stared back, unmoving as she shivered in her nightdress, his expression a cipher.

Finally he spoke. "Why. Him."

She'd hugged her arms around herself and glanced nervously at the window behind her. He could see the faint shadows of her parents hovering as they listened in. He didn't care. Not anymore.

"Because he would never land on my doorstep in the middle of the night asking me stupid questions," Lily snapped.

His eyebrows rose as his voice dropped. "Stupid?" he asked.

"Yes!" she hissed, then swallowed as he came forward. His height forced her backward as she tilted her head to look up at him. He could see the pulse fluttering madly in her throat and the white around her irises increased. Her eyes flicked guiltily over to the window and back again before she whispered, "Normal people don't have sex in playgrounds, Severus." She shook her head as if trying to clear it. "Normal people don't have sex outdoors. They do it in a room with furniture and comfort and privacy. Where strangers can't find them."

She groaned and dropped her head in her hands. Her fingers slid up into her hair and clutched at the roots as if trying to tear it out.

Startled, he stepped back from her. He blinked. For some reason, halos were forming around the lights. Nevertheless, he said coolly, "You couldn't have told me this before we began?"

She lifted her head to look at him. His stomach turned as he registered the anguish in her eyes. Then he watched in amazement, as he felt as much as saw her eyes travel over his body. She wanted him. Still. Right now. Even after a weekend in James' bed. And she hated herself for it.

He ground his teeth together as his body flushed with an answering rush of desire – and rage. He could take her here. Right now. In front of her parents. He could try. It was an ugly, revolting thought and he knew it. At his sides, his hands opened and closed compulsively. The muscles in his shoulders tensed. What would she do if he tried? What would she say? After the playground and the park and her parents' house what could she say?

I want James Potter, that's what she could say, he thought. Instead she said, "I want a man who doesn't skulk around in the dark, dragging me into the shadows with him and making me feel things I'd be – I…am…ashamed to admit to…even to myself."

It took supreme effort but he didn't flinch or wince as she spoke those damning words. After a moment he said quietly, "And all those tender nothings you said to me afterward, they really were nothing weren't they?"

She drew a shuddering breath that ended in a sob as she started to cry.

He felt the ice return. It prickled along his limbs, making them feel heavy and stiff. It drove frigid shards into his heart so that every beat hurt. He tried to think of alternatives, ways to salvage this but nothing came. His lips parted to speak but no sound came to fill the space.

He turned and walked away.

They'd gone back to school and stayed out of each other's way. In the rare, unguarded moment when he let himself – when he couldn't resist letting himself – see her, she was on James Potter's arm. On even rarer occasions when he suddenly felt eyes on him, he'd turn to find her watching him as he was surrounded by his Death Eater friends. But mostly they avoided each other.

So he'd told her nothing of what had happened this summer. There had been no point. And she had already made plain her yearning for normalcy. No moment of his summer had been normal. He thought once that he saw her staring at the high collars he had adopted. It was a new style chosen for utility but which had unexpectedly turned out to be flattering. At least Maya Wardly had thought so. To his surprise, so had Bellatrix and Lucius. Lucius of course was the only one who knew precisely why he wore it.

Peering closely at himself in the bathroom mirror, Severus turned his jaw to get a better look at the scar. Over the holiday break he had camouflaged it. He'd taken himself to a tattoo parlor and paid the artist to turn it into a feather. The scar served as the spine and the artist had inked in the each feathery outgrowth. Instead of having the illustration fully inked in he'd requested a subtle pattern of crosshatching. The artist had looked at him oddly but Severus hadn't cared. Once it was done, the feather seemed to shimmer delicately under the light as if it had a life of its own. He was satisfied with the result. Hogwarts however did not allow visible body markings and so he'd kept his collars high.

He'd gotten the idea from his mother's pendant. Eileen had had precious few pieces of jewelry and only one of value. That prized piece was a gold pendant delicately wrought in the shape of a curling phoenix feather. She wore it rarely although it was connected to one of his earliest childhood memories. He remembered being held on her lap as he had meddled with it, ultimately breaking the clasp. He had cringed in horror and started to weep but his mother had only clucked at him as she plucked pendant off her blouse. His tears dried and his cries ceased as the expected blow didn't come, for Tobias wasn't home at the time. She'd whipped out her wand, the first time he could remember seeing a wand, and chanted Reparo. And like that the gold hook had repaired itself. He remembered staring at it in fascination for the rest of the day.

He'd made sure she was wearing it the day she was buried. He'd pinned it on her just before the casket was closed to make sure none of his Snape relatives could confiscate it.

He trailed a finger across the feather image on his throat. It looked nothing like Dumbledore's feather. He slid his finger into his inner pocket and pulled it out. With a shock he belatedly realized that the gold-tipped crimson was the same color as Lily's hair. His hand shook. He stilled it by grasping it with the other. He let the feather drift toward his face. He let it skim from the tip of his nose to trace along his lips. The only conversations he had had with Lily this final year had happened in his dreams before he'd awakened hot and hard and frustrated with longing.

He signed, returned the feather to his pocket, and wearily rubbed his forehead with his hand. Whatever Dumbledore had meant by giving him this feather he couldn't fathom. He knew what the gift was worth. Each individual silky projection along the shaft could be used to make a powerful potion in its own right and the potion sold for any price he chose to name. If he set to cannibalizing the feather he could make his fortune in no time.

Of course such a potion was utterly illegal. A corner of his mouth ticked up as he thought of the mark on his arm. As if illegality were an issue.

But he was reasonably sure that was not Dumbledore's intent.

Of course the headmaster couldn't know its rich, vibrant color would also be a reminder of his one disastrous experiment with love. Nor would he have cared to tell him.

Perhaps the message was simply as straightforward as the headmaster had seemingly delivered it. Severus Snape would always be welcomed at Hogwarts as long as Albus Dumbledore was the headmaster there. He laughed humorlessly. Albus Dumbledore was an avowed enemy of the Dark Lord and Severus Snape was a newly minted Death Eater. There was no way in hell, frankly, that Dumbledore would ever, under any circumstances, shelter him.

And yet…

He thought of the Spinner's End house of nightmares that had been his lifelong home. It, in fact, legally remained his home since it was hardly worth his Snape cousins spending the money to challenge Eileen's will in court. Until Hogwarts, there had never been an alternative for him. Tobias' tyranny had been largely based on his ownership of the house and Severus and his mother's dependence on him. He remembered asking his mother about his Prince relatives. He'd asked especially about his grandfather, the man who'd made his escape to Hogwarts possible. It was an escape his bigoted and broke father never approved of and could never have achieved for his son even if he'd wanted to.

His mother had told him that the last time she had seen her father was the day after she'd conceived Severus. He had given her the pendant. How his mother could know so quickly that she was carrying him he could only ascribe to her powers as a witch. But since he had no sisters, or any other source of info on magical female biology, he could only take her at her word. His grandfather had given his mother all that remained of his wealth to hold in trust for her child's education and vanished. His mother meanwhile, had dutifully opened the account at Gringotts' Bank and resolutely held it until his letter from Hogwarts came.

His father had tried to bully her into turning the money over to him. But, to his everlasting relief, she had refused. This infuriated Tobias and was the cause of more than one knockdown drag-out argument, especially when the mortgage payment was due. But she never yielded and because Tobias was a Muggle there was no way he could even find Gringotts let alone get access to it. So he'd tried to get her to pawn the pendant. It was solid gold inlaid with pearls and would have brought a pretty if only temporary penny with his father's drinking habits. But his mother refused to give him that too. Tobias had tried to steal it and so his mother had magically concealed it. This led to yet another series of rows that frequently had Severus finding refuge in the nearest corner. But Tobias never got his hands on the pendant. And never would, Severus thought with grim satisfaction.

He took one last look at his tattoo. He felt the phoenix feather tickling against his chest. If anyone had told him that a feather could symbolize safe passage to a safe home, he would have told them they were crazy. He thought about the look in Lucius' eyes when the older man had told him of the Dark Lord's order to make a potions lab for Severus at Malfoy Manor. He could not imagine a day when he would not be grateful to Lucius Malfoy. The man had saved him when he had no one else. And yet the look in his eyes…

He needed something of his own in this world. In a split-second flash of bitterness he forced the image of Lily Evans from his mind.

He needed some place safe that he could trust. He was under no illusions with the Death Eaters. They were predators, some simply more cunning and more refined than most. He'd grown up with a beast so they didn't intimidate him. Nor did they lull him into relaxing his guard. They would offer him much in the way of fulfilling his ambitions. But they would extract just as much in return. The trick was to not wake up dead before the transaction was completed and its fruits fully savored.

If he thought about it honestly then, even with the marauders, Hogwarts was the safest place he had known.

Perhaps Dumbledore had meant what he said.

If so he was a fool.

But fool or not, Severus would hold him to his word.

He refastened his collar, covering his tattoo. He tightened his tie. Checking his look in the mirror, he nodded once, mask in place, the barest sliver of hope in his heart.

He opened the door. Down the hall he could hear the vicious laughter of his Death Eater playmates. Bellatrix' peal rose above the rest punctuated by Maya Wardly's lower, throatier tones. They were returning to Lucius' where Bella and Maya would play host for his latest fete. He smiled darkly and strode confidently toward his destiny.

THE END

Author's End Note: I wrote this story as a side bar to the Severus fiction I'm currently working on, Well Done, My Good and Faithful Servant. In that story, I give Severus a love of his own through my original female character, Ophelia Broomall, a Hogwarts student who is "given" to him by Voldemort. As I began to write Chapter 4 of that fic, I realized I needed to put some heavy-duty background material in place for Severus before I could proceed. This is the result.

Author's 2nd End Note: I 've just realized that according to canon, the phoenix feathers at the core of Harry and Voldemort's wands both came from Fawkes. So just consider this an AU story and in this universe the feathers in their wands probably both came from Nicholas Flamel's deceased phoenix.

I also forgot to mention H.L.B.'s poignant And Yet He Flinched as another inspiration. This is one of those stories that just stays with you long after you've read it. After having read it, I can't imagine not incorporating at least some of its ideas into whatever depiction of Severus I create.

*Additional Historical Note: It might seem a bit far-fetched, but I postulate that the Princes gained their surname via illegitimate descent from the Plantagenets. A hitherto unknown bastard of Richard III escaped the carnage of the king's fall at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 and fled to Italy where he married into the Medici family via a bastard daughter. Hence, the family tendency toward Latin names. As I note above, they have been decimated over the centuries, reduced to the status of wanderers and hence unable to help Severus in any reliable way.