Sometimes We Die

Chapter Two: Saloma

Author: H. Ashleigh

Disclaimer: I am obviously not J.K. Rowling, nor will I ever pretend to be. The views of the author and the views of the characters are often conflicting and are not equal. Please do not judge the author due to her character's failings, misjudgments, ineptitudes, and misperceptions.

"All I ever really wanted was a little piece of you." –Rachel Yamagata

Friday, June 13, 1975

Late Evening

Severus stared at the Fat Lady's simpering eyes as she glared down at him. Her triple-chin was topped by a pouty, glossy mouth, which may have seemed becoming on some, but on her was merely revolting. She smacked her lips together before shrugging at him, as if to ask, "What did you expect?" and then her eyelids drooped down slowly, and she settled into a light slumber.

And Severus still stared at the portrait, shell-shocked into absolute immobility. He probably wouldn't have been able to move if a tempest had come up from behind and accosted him. He had never felt this way before, never felt bits of reality falling from his slate-gray sky, and he had to admit to himself that it felt worse than anything yet in his life.

Her words echoed in his ears, her usually lilting, clear voice transformed into short, staccato bursts of harsh sound, and he suppressed the wave of cold chills moving down his body, transforming him into a being of numbness. His legs felt detached from his body, his lips and face were beginning to feel bloodless; he could feel the blood pounding through his temples, rushing around in his veins and arteries, setting his nerves on fire.

And when he realized that he had never heard her speak to anyone the way she had just spoken to him, not even Potter, the weight that had sunk down into his stomach increased ten-fold, and if he had been any other person, his knees would have given out, and he would have crashed to the floor in defeat. Darkness began creeping into the corners of his vision, his hands began sweating, and he blinked once, twice, to clear his eyes. His lips were dry and the tip of his tongue wet them, and then he was itching all over, his skin was crawling with invisible mites.

And then he heard the Fat Lady sigh in exasperation, and the Portrait Hole clicked open once more. Severus thought maybe, just maybe, Lily was venturing out again to genuinely make up with him…

But it wasn't Lily; it was Potter and his goons of friends.

"--so we need some firewhiskey and the seventh year girls wanted some Elven wine, isn't that right, Sirius?" Severus could recognize Potter's voice anywhere, and he shrank back into the shadows offered by a dirty old tapestry hanging from the ceiling. He never thought the hatred he knew for James Potter could run any deeper, but oh how wrong he had been. Before, it had encased his heart in a steel case that rang like a bell every time it was bothered, and now it had become embedded in his tendons, had etched its very nature into the core of his chest. This little boy standing in front of him was what had cost him the only being that had ever given him cause for life, had ever given him reason to believe there may be something worth living for.

Black grunted in acquiescence, and Severus almost couldn't contain a snort of contempt for the blundering fools. "Looks like old Snivelly scampered off right quick, although I think I can still smell his greasiness lingering."

"That Alizen has such a beautiful voice," he heard Pettigrew coo.

"Peter, you're such a little girl," Potter said teasingly, his right hand idly twirling his wand around like a Muggle girls baton.

Soon they were halfway down the long corridor, and Severus couldn't hear their voices anymore, so he stepped out from behind the heavy curtain, pointed his wand towards their backs and muttered the Deep Sleep curse he had been working on. Of course, he had to alter it slightly so that it could cater to the four of them, and not just one, and he also tacked a timer onto it, so that only when the first rays of sunlight peeked through the upper windows would they wake.

Severus chuckled to himself, having momentarily forgotten his devastation. He strode down the warm, carpeted corridor that was so unlike the dank, dripping tunnels that led to his dormitories and turned to look at the four of them. They, of course, couldn't see him, and had stopped completely and entirely in their motions. It was as if they had been petrified.

Potter's wand arced in midair, almost wholly unsupported, and his left hand was dug into the crown of his head, mussing his hair as was his defining attribute. Pettigrew looked slovenly, as if he were thinking about leftover roast from that evening's leaving feast that might still be warm in the kitchens. Lupin's mouth was half-opened, as if it had been his turn to give contribution to their conversation when they had all but frozen in their tracks. Blacks eyes were crinkled into a smile, and Severus wondered for a moment what sort of asinine joke he could have been laughing at.

Then he turned away from them, feeling even more disconsolate than he had before, if that was possible. He looked around himself, and noticed that this space was so unlike anything he had been privy too, and he didn't understand how he had never noticed before. All around him lay warmth and color, those things that would probably never be completely customary to him, he who grew up in the epitome of devastation.

He turned to his left and looked out the arched window. Gryffindor tower was the highest of all the points in the castle, besides the Astronomy Tower, and looking out afforded him a view like none other.

The moon was waning, the crest of it just rising over the tips of the tallest pine trees of the Forbidden Forest. It was two days away from a new moon, and so it was a sliver of cheesecake, a porcelain doll's pale cheek. It cast an exquisite ivory color over the grounds, illuminating even the smallest blades of grass, and set the lake on fire, the reflection of it wavering gently on the roiling waves. The sky was a lovely cobalt blue, and only the brightest stars had yet to show their faces. They stared down at him, piercing through his skin, flipping through his mind as though they were expert Legilimens, and he shuddered at the feeling of their brightness sweeping through his memories.

Severus turned and headed back to his common room.

Little did he know, the going-ons of Slytherin Common Room on the eve of summer holidays were quite different from those in Gryffindor. When he walked in, the common room was pretty full, but rather than a punch bowl floating around the tops of all their heads, the hum of intelligent conversation hovered around the low hanging lamps.

He spotted a few of his friends sitting in a far corner and hurried over to them. They immediately poured him some black rum from a thin, half-empty bottle and shoved the small glass into his right hand before he could even sit down.

"Haven't seen you since the Defense O.W.L.," Judas Avery stated in between sips of his drink. His rather bugged out eyes roamed over Severus' face, searching for an answer before Severus could even utter a word.

"Yes," Severus enunciated, running his finger along the rim of the glass slowly.

"Been with your mudblood friend?" Jezebel Rosier demanded, her eyes flashing. Her twin brother Evan was staring at him with equal indignation, wondering what Severus' excuse might be this time.

Severus just sipped his drink, the ice cubes butting up against his lips, making it rather difficult to drink smoothly. He squashed his irritation with a small bout of difficulty and continued ignoring the other sixth-year Slytherins.

"Leave him alone, you lot," Virginia Travers said politically, setting her empty glass down on the coffee table in between them all with a soft clink. "I mean really, as if this is headline news. Jezebel, you look like the Dark Lord just murdered your puppy, get a grip."

"What do you know?" Jezebel demanded again (she tended to do a lot of that), turning her head to glare at Virginia.

"You're even moodier than usual, Jezzy," Evan said, pouring himself some more rum. "Did you not do as well on the Defense O.W.L. as you had hoped?" He winked at Virginia playfully, but she was too busy scratching her chin and staring at the nail bed on her left hand to notice him.

Jezebel sneered at his use of her childhood pet name, but chose not to reprimand him. He was the only one who was allowed leniency in this area. If any one else so much as thought the name 'Jezzy,' they were sentenced to ten years in Jezebel Rosier's own Azkaban, which was almost worse than the real thing.

Almost.

"Speaking of the Defense O.W.L.," Severus interjected smoothly. "It was abominably easy, if any of you got less than Outstanding I will be eternally embarrassed for our house."

"Let's just hope you didn't get too distracted by the mudblood's stink, I'm pretty sure I could smell it in the Great Hall, and we were sitting on opposite sides of the room! I'm positively sure that's the reason I couldn't remember how to spell away a deranged marmoset." Jezebel's normally pale neck and upper chest were flushed with a rashy rose color, as was wont to happen when she got excited about something, and Virginia smirked, her minty green eyes infused with suppressed mirth.

Severus stared around himself, taking in his common room. Regardless of the Gryffindor geniality that their common room conveyed, he would always appreciate his more. It was an elegant, refined area, located in the deepest parts of the castle, but it didn't go without natural light. The castle hovered on the edge of a cliff and was built directly into the craggy rocks. Slytherin common room, being in the dungeons, was built directly into the face of the cliff and so offered a spectacular view of the lake and dark forest.

The common room was blessed with two fireplaces, each on the two walls adjacent to the common room entrance. Directly opposite the entrance was a huge, mullioned window draped in envy green curtains. The window was flanked by two smaller bay windows. Next to each fireplace was a staircase leading down deeper into the cliffs, the left side leading to female dormitories, the right leading to male. All the couches and armchairs were upholstered in black leather, and the coffee and side tables were crafted in shiny, ebony wood. The floors were roughly hewn stone covered in most areas by plush, rich green carpeting. Green lamps hung from the ceiling by grey metal chains and bookshelves and portraits of famous Slytherins lined the walls.

By now, most of the common room had emptied out, all of the lower years having already retired. The only people left were those expected.

"Looks like the meeting's starting," Judas said, glancing over to the fireplace from his lounge-chair. Sure enough, a group of people were congregated there, clogging the sofas and armchairs, and some were standing around rather awkwardly with their hands jammed into their pockets or their arms folded across their chests, staring around glumly. In front of the fire stood two seventh year students, eagerly waiting to hold their last meeting.

Severus and his friends stood up and meandered over to the other students. When they got closer, they noted a few new faces that they had most certainly seen in classes and around Hogwarts, but never at these meetings.

Vespa Cormack and Sebastian Puckle, two seventh years, were the heads of the unofficial club that met once a month during the school year. The meetings were usually held in the Slytherin common room around 11 p.m., and it was generally common, although strictly unspoken, knowledge that those Slytherins not attending the meeting had better clear off and mind their own business.

Their club, for lack of a better word, had been put together probably ten years ago, unofficially banded when the Dark Lord had begun his ascent into power. Of course, he had only gone public in the last five or six years, but had encouraged his strongest supporters to begin instilling his rules and guidelines into their children before they even graduated Hogwarts. Typically, a Slytherin student was invited in to the club when they started their fifth year at Hogwarts, and if they accepted, they were sworn in to absolute secrecy. Of course, most invitees attended the first meeting of the year and decided they wished to participate, but those who didn't were subjected to a rather strong memory charm, and went along their merry way.

The club had such strict rules that it forbade anyone of mentioning it at all in passing, unless it was alluded to in the most obscure way, as only a Slytherin was capable of. Because of this, only Slytherin students were allowed to invite members of other houses to attend. Most often, the smartest Ravenclaws were those who expressed their interest or support of the Dark Lord, and so a Slytherin member of the USDL (Unofficial Sycophants of the Dark Lord) was dispatched to invite them to attend a meeting. The club had only ever played host to four Hufflepuffs during its entire running and no Gryffindors ever.

The Dark Lord was infinitely merciful to those underage students, and so while the students were unofficial supporters of him, they were allowed to waiver in their decisions and advocating of him. Students were always allowed to stop attending the club meetings, at the dispense of all of their memories of it, of course, but this was strongly discouraged by the club heads and the leading families behind the club's existence. Of course, this little courtesy was forgotten when the student turned seventeen and officially became a Death Eater.

Severus was jarred from his recollections by Jezebel, whose elbow had knocked him while she was handing over her wand to Vespa, and he quickly retrieved his as well and forfeited it. When all of the wands were collected, they were placed on the small coffee table in front of the fireplace and Sebastian activated a spell with a whisper of jumbled Latin. Immediately, each wand stood up vertically, balanced on nothing except for the magic flowing out of them now, and mercurial black light shot out of the tip of each, arcing up and pouring back into the heads of their owners. The spell was still for a moment, and then the beams changed direction, so that now the shafts of black light were pointed towards the ceiling, before collapsing down around the outer edges of their group in a slate colored waterfall of light. They were encased in a transparent, shimmering globe supported wholly by their wands.

This spell had three main purposes. The first was to ensure that none of the attendees had any sort of conspiratorial thoughts about the meeting. If they did, as soon as the black beam of light entered their head, it would turn a sanguine red. Secondly, the dome they were now encased in was more like a cage, forbidding anyone from leaving until the spell was deactivated. Lastly, any passer-bys who unwittingly stumbled into the common room late at night would not notice anything amiss, and they were discouraged from coming anywhere near the fireplace. It was a handy little ward spell, invented by the Dark Lord himself.

"Hem, hem," Vespa cleared her throat, stilling the murmuring voices around her. "I'd like to welcome our two newest members, sworn in this morning: Liam Titzel and Chantel Porter from Ravenclaw." She indicated the two of them with a sweeping motion of her left arm, and they smiled sheepishly. Everyone clapped half-heartedly, while Sebastian handed Liam and Chantel their official handbooks of USDL, written by the Dark Lord himself. (These, of course, were also protected by a series of powerful spells, and each book assumed the appearance of Clarus Punctum's Guide to Dissolving Stubborn Spots Forever when in public.)

"Does anyone have any particular discussion requests before we further tonight's meeting?"

Frederick Wilkes, one of Severus' other friends from his year, raised his hand and spoke, "Do we ever have summer meetings?" he inquired.

"No, never," Sebastian answered promptly. "It says it all in your handbook, but we never conduct summer meetings."

"Well, do you still want us to recruit during the summer?" Tori Shelsher, another Slytherin in Severus' year, asked.

"No," Vespa replied, slightly aggrieved. "You fifth years, if you ever bothered to read your handbook, all these questions would have already been answered. Now, would anyone else like to ask Sebastian and I more vapid questions, or can we get on with it?"

No one said much of anything.

"Great," she said shortly. "First things first, it's mine and Sebastian's last meeting, as I'm sure you all know, so we have to announce our successors. After great deliberation, we have chosen sixth years Rodolphus Lestrange and Saloma Yaxley who, out of all of the sixth years, have dedicated most of their time and energy to our cause." She paused and applauded Rodolphus and Saloma, who had stepped forward and given little bows of pleasure. "Good luck next year, I'm sure you two will do as good as any in the past. See Sebastian and I after the meeting for more exact guidelines of leadership."

Severus glanced across the group of people and met Rodolphus' eyes. He smirked slightly, and Severus inclined his head in a congratulatory nod.

"Okay, now I think we can discuss the book you all were supposed to read over the last month, or at least skim. You all can get into your little groups and discuss." Vespa shooed them away.

Severus turned to the other students in his year. They all took out one of the books on the fifth year reading list the Dark Lord had compiled. It was quite a simple book, detailing grade A level dark spell work.

"Okay, chapter one…"

Soon the meeting was over.

And Severus' eyes were hurting a rather lot from reading all of the extra notes Jezebel had passed around (she was, of course, the over-achiever of his Slytherin class). He dully noted Sebastian was performing the spells to end the meeting, and his wand was returned to him. He also recalled bidding good night to his fellow classmates. While Jezebel had been going over the book, he had fallen into a sort of stupor, with the layers and layers of gray matter he used to occlude filling the top half of his mind. He could behave as if everything were normal, could act and speak as if nothing were out of sorts, but underneath it all a pewter cauldron full of turmoil bubbled.

Severus couldn't stop thinking about Lily; her words were echoing in his ears; her voice had been imbued with cold, detached pain; her eyes had migrated towards the forest green color they became when she was livid about something. Severus knew she was absolutely right, that he had been changing, transforming into those people she had grown to abhor.

He wouldn't be able to stand living anymore if he became one of those people.

She couldn't hate you, a small voice in his head whispered, consoling him. She knows you love her. Even if she never talks to you again it isn't out of hatred, it is out of fear.

A cold fist of ice clenched around his stomach muscles, and he screwed his eyes shut in agony. The fire in the grate closest to him was emitting a sort of glowing warmth from its dying embers, but his insides still felt glacial, as if he had just ingested two pounds of ice mice.

He couldn't help but feel as if his whole infatuation with Lily had built up and rested on those few moments in which his course of action would determine if she could ever love him. He had always thought that she probably never would. What did he have to offer her? He used to think that if he could perhaps be slightly more understanding of those around him, perhaps not have a tendency to be so bitter, maybe she could be more inclined to see him as more than just an acquaintance.

A hollow tapping noise interrupted his musings, and he unlatched the window closest to him to let in soggy summer air and an auburn colored owl the size of his hand. In one of her talons she gripped a rolled up piece of paper tied together with several long, shiny strands of black hair.

Severus rolled his eyes and plucked the letter roughly out of the owl's talons, who looked vexed at his crassness. He just sneered at her, and turned back to the armchair he had vacated, leaving the window open behind him so the owl could exit silently.

He ripped the pieces of hair from the parchment savagely, and tossed them on top of a particularly hot looking coal, momentarily enjoying the way they whipped into ashes almost immediately. Then, he turned back to his post.

"Meet me outside, the usual."

Her excessively flourished signature followed the script. Saloma Yaxley usually overdid everything at least two-fold, if not three. Severus actually found himself wondering on several occasions how she had been sorted into Slytherin, for she was the opposite of subtle in every way. Of course, she was very wily where it counted, but needed severe lessons on impulse control. Severus thought she must have threatened the sorting hat with a shredding hex if she wasn't sorted into Slytherin.

Severus tossed the letter atop the cindered ashes of hair, waiting for the corners of the pages to curl up around the edges before turning to exit the Common Room.

He found her about twenty minutes later, halfway between the lake and the forest, nestled in a small grove of trees. She was leaning up against an old, dilapidated well, casually tossing pebbles in and enjoying the echoing song they chorused as they struck the water.

"Be careful of Mother Holle," he said, smirking slightly. "We all know you wouldn't crawl back out covered in gold."

She duly ignored him. She plucked the pile of pebbles waiting to be thrown up off the edge and threw them all in at once. They made a loud "puhlunking" noise, and she dusted her hands off in satisfaction.

"So," Severus said after a few moments of silence, drawing out the vowel. "What did you need this time?"

She wrinkled her rather long nose in contemplative thought, and reached into one of her pockets to pull out a folded piece of parchment.

"Rosey sent me this today," she said, referring to one of her family's house elves. "I needed to make sure we had the last artifact at my house, and that we had the book. She says my father keeps it in his study, which is nearly impossible to get in to. I will need to ask Tucker for the pass codes, he probably knows them."

Severus inwardly chuckled at her brother's ridiculous name. "He won't be suspicious as to why you want them?"

"No," she answered shortly. Severus supposed she must have her own reasons she didn't want to divulge, and he really couldn't care. "Here are all the ingredients for one of the potions we need in the meantime. I was able to find out what one of them was, so here. Some of the things are pretty rare, I think, that's why I'm giving them to you so early. I trust the summer holidays will be enough time to retrieve them."

He glanced down at the list quickly. Suma, hyssop, blood of hellhound and, oddly enough, honey, were what jumped out at him first, and the rest didn't seem too out of sorts.

"Any special requests the potion might have?"

"It needs to be brewed on the autumnal equinox, but it can be kept in stasis," she replied mildly. " The potion will need to be ready for the Dark Lord around the time of Samhain. Mark that on your calendar," she said in a pococurante manner, as if she were telling him the weather forecast for tomorrow, and that he should be sure to wear a rain jacket. "I should know when I can retrieve the item and the book with the rest of the four spells and potions, and I'll owl you with the date. Did you destroy my note?"

No fail, every time they met like this, she asked him.

"Yes, it should be burnt to a crisp now, along with your hair which, I find myself having to say this, is somewhat vile. Don't you have ribbon or wax or something? Muggles use rubber bands."

She shuddered slightly at the mention of Muggles. "You can always know it's from me when I do that. It's not as if I signed the letter in blood or something."

"Not a far cry off," Severus muttered, but she pretended not to hear him. "Congratulations on your newly appointed status," he offered, now that their formal business had been taken care of.

"So, did you and your little girlfriend have a fight?" she asked after a few moments of awkwardly toying with a torn string on her robes. She dropped her hands to her sides, and peered back down into the well, her long eyelashes casting shadows on the bridge of her nose.

Severus ground his teeth together in irritation.

"Does it have anything to do with what transpired down by the lake earlier?" she continued. He was sure she could smell his agitation, and yet she was just being Saloma. "I overheard some third-year Hufflepuffs gossiping about it, sounds simply dreadful."

"First of all, Lily Evans is not my girlfriend," Severus said through clenched jaw, "as I have reminded you on countless occasion. Addressing your actual, rudely worded, question, yes."

"Because you called her mudblood?" she pressed further.

Severus stood there, slightly irritated that Saloma, whom he never even spoke to during the day, had heard all of this gossip already, and it had barely just happened. "Among other things," he relented. "Like the controversial company I keep."

"You know, I'm going to offer my advice, even though most likely you do not wish to hear it. You are kind of closeted about the whole 'Evans' thing. We Slytherins have been very understanding, if not implicitly supportive, about the whole operation, and she can't offer you the same courtesy? I've been wondering for a while if you fancy the notion of love." She let her words hang suspended in the air.

"Saloma, I'm not going to talk to you about this sort of thing," Severus replied, piqued at her. "Quite frankly, I'm surprised the word 'love' is even in your vocabulary."

"Oh please," she sniped, waving her pale hand around gracelessly. "You're being positively juvenile. I just thought you would like to know that you are being weird about this entire situation. Is it really that big of a deal? You have friends in Slytherin, you're true friends, and she's a Gryffindor. I mean, honestly!"

Severus remained silent, and began contemplating heading back to his dormitory to get a few hours of sleep before the train ride home the following morning.

"It couldn't have gone on much longer, you know," she said, wasp venom infusing into her quiet voice. "You will be seventeen in less than two years, I hardly doubt the Dark Lord would approve of one of his supporters being sweet on a Muggle-born Gryffindor; he would forbid it. He has those powers, you know."

"There is nothing going on!" Severus yelled, balling his hands into tight fists at his sides.

"All right, if you insist," she replied serenely. Her eyes teetered on something for a short second, a small internal struggle, and then she shrugged her shoulders slightly. "Very well, I should be going. Adieu." And she turned on her heel and vanished after a few moments.

Severus rolled his eyes in slight chagrin. If he looked close enough, he could see the air in her general direction waver slightly as she slinked away. Saloma, intent on appearing as mysterious as possible at all times, insisted on Disillusioning herself whenever she saw fit. He turned away from the well, and began walking in the opposite direction, out into the heady summer moonlight.

Slivered patches of brilliance rained down around him, illuminating the landscape almost as clearly as daylight. Severus knew that if he ventured back to his bed, he would merely toss and turn, unable to sleep for thoughts of Lily would invade his mind, and so he set off around the grounds, paying very little attention to his surroundings. He was too lost in thoughts of despondency and despair to truly appreciate the beauty of the grounds in twilight.

A/N: Comments welcome and appreciated. Also, thanks a lot to my beta reader MRSSPICY!! She is working on an epic Sev/OC at the moment, check it out if you have a chance!