Chapter 2: The Ivory Brush
Snape didn't immediately go back to his office after his talk with the Malfoy boy. He needed to clear his head. All that time building a rapport with Lucius's son and for what? The boy was just as full of himself as his father. Sure, they fell all over themselves calling him "friend" or "colleague" when they needed something from him- special words for special treatment. But they treated his half bloodedness like some kind of distasteful shriveled limb that their eyes couldn't help but wander to when he entered a room.
And for all his talk about pure blood, Snape didn't actually put much stock in the whole concept, and it was this aspect about him that the Dark Lord particularly appreciated about him.
"Ah, Severus," Voldemort had said to him only a few short months ago, his voice an imitation of warmth, at least as much warmth that could be mustered in his high, clear voice, "You alone understand the true aim of my unfortunately barbaric activities. Please do know that if there was any other way, I would explore it. This war I'm raging isn't about blood as much as it's about power. I could care less about the purity of a lineage as long as they can show me their capabilities to draw on their raw talents and in so doing, their usefulness to my cause.
Sure, the so-called "pure blooded ones" have what they think is power- they merely draw on the power of ages, family heirlooms, money and other trinkets that make them feel important, as though they have some kind of ridiculous legacy. There are many people who have a lot to lose by being exposed for the vile scum they truly are, muggle and wizard alike."
His eyes were intense but far away as he looked up and out the window from where Snape had been standing in Lucius's living room, as though he were in front of a roaring crowd of followers and not one man with a perpetually dour expression.
"That's what I'm here to do. To remove that artificial superiority built on the backs of the poor and the powerless while the so-called pure bloods go to seed and waste their time with displays of wealth and looking down their noses because of overblown stories about what their predecessors achieved. To languish in an indolent stupor like domesticated beasts that wait for their silver bells to be rung for supper. The true power, power developed from raw talent, will rise to the top, the inferior will die and only those who have the skill and cunning will survive and thrive under my undying watch."
He turned and his red, snake slitted eyes stared deeply into Snape's black glare.
"There is no honor or use in a gaudy exterior, Severus. Only in the power within. I regret sometimes that the Potter child must die, that my plans cannot truly be realized until he has drawn his last breath. A part of him reminds me of myself, to be honest. He might have proven useful in the coming times ahead if he could merely get over the death of his foolish parents and forget the futility and weakness in feeling love or emotion ."
He then drew his pale hand lightly across Snape's cheek in a reptilian imitation of a tender gesture.
"You have always been my favorite. The special one. A prince of talent, you are, and your dedication and raw ability shine through no matter how many others refuse to see it.
But I see you.
I see you as you truly are and if you remember nothing else, do remember that my fondness is a rarity that seldom few have ever stirred in me. You have the capacity for greater works still, and your loyalty is the linchpin that will destroy the last of the resistance against me and what I stand for. How lucky it is that you were able to visit me today."
The Dark Lord pulled a purple velvet bag from his robes.
"You may think me barbaric, but I know you have more need of this than its original owner. Take it and understand that I did not mean for things to turn out the way they did 16 years ago and ponder upon what I have told you. You are the only one I know who will be strong enough to see it through to the end."
Snape had been lost in thought but a stifled giggle pulled him out of his reverie. It was late afternoon but not yet time for the evening meal at the Great Hall, and a lot of students were still moving down the halls in an ignorant bliss that made Snape's stomach churn with disgust.
A flicker of movement in the corner of his eye made him pause mid stride. He pretended he hadn't noticed the four shoes sticking out of the bottom of the velvet curtains that lined the hallway. It might not have been all that noticeable except for the fact that all the other curtains were pulled back and tied with silk cords to let in the toasted amber autumn light.
He cleared his voice overly loudly, made a couple of artificially loud steps in the opposite direction and then swooped silently towards the curtain like a greasy black owl, sneer breaking across his face in such a gleeful and practiced manner that he forgot for a moment about his foul mood.
He ripped the curtains back and found a golden haired third year boy in Hufflepuff colors with his hand down the shirt of a Gryffindor girl a head taller than him. She still had a half glazed but surprised look on her face. Her lips were wet and deep red from snogging and her face as well as the top of her cleavage (did girls ever have cleavage like that back in Snape's Hogwarts days? Not likely, he decided) were flushed a lewd red.
The boy froze like a child caught with a hand in a cookie jar, his eyes widening from desire to terror in a fraction of a second when he saw Snape's glowering face stooping down inches away.
"And what might you be doing, then, Mr. Hughthorn?" Snape's voice oozed with contempt.
"I, uh, I just-uh, we were-"
Snape was secretly glad that he made a point of memorizing the names of all his current students and then mentally keeping a checklist of all of the mistakes they made throughout their years at the school. Nicholas Hughthorn was going to rue the day he had crossed Severus Snape in a bad mood.
"I am not blind," he said dispassionately, "Ten points from Hufflepuff. I mean really, what were you thinking, with a Gryffindor too!"
His eyes ran slowly over the girl and he scowled extra hard at her exposed cleavage as she kept trying to button up her shirt with shaking hands. She too had a similar look of white faced terror. He recognized her as a fourth year named Octavia Wildon.
He smiled cruelly, and felt a red hot prickle run from his throat to his groin. Her skin was so smooth and unblemished. It reminded him of...no, there would be time to think about her later.
"Miss Wildon," his voice did not betray any emotion beyond his fathomless disdain, "You are old enough to know that such things are not permitted on school grounds."
There was no written rule about consequences for students fraternizing in such a manner, but as most students never even read the list of Hogwarts rules for student behavior, Snape relished the fact that he could be extra severe even if there was no written punishment outlined on parchment.
"Thirty points from Gryffindor," Snape said slowly, like he was still thinking about it, daring her to mouth off at him, to question his authority, "Yes. I do think that explaining to your fellow house members why you're lower than all the other houses by a significant number points will remind you to keep your clothing in its...appropriate place..."
He paused, and Octavia flinched as though he was about to strike her.
"...This time," he finished, and he locked his piercing gaze on the two of them until they had scurried around a corner and out of sight.
'Serves them right,' he thought bitterly, his thoughts straying to his own youthful flailings and Lily, always Lily, close enough to touch but never really substantial to him. By the time they had graduated, they were in separate worlds, and it would only be a few years later before she would be beyond his reach forever.
He was so lost in thought that he completely missed out on catching a couple of Gryffindors running in the hallway adjoining his, their shoes slapping against the weathered stone in a cacophony of joy.
By the time Snape had reached the door to his office ("Severus Snape, Professor, Defense Against the Dark Arts", read the golden plaque on the door, kept polished to a shiny glow by the house-elves), he was in a particularly morose mood. The anger and irritation from earlier had whittled down into a hard sharp point of misery and he felt more alone than ever.
He almost couldn't bear solitude but the thought of having to be around other people made the bile rise to the back of his throat.
He drew his wand from his cloak and muttered, "Severus Entrus," with a quick twisting motion. A deep metal clicking, as though many tumblers and latches were rolling into place, filled the hallway and then all was still. He gently pushed the door and it opened silently as though lined with silk.
It was dark inside, but small green lamps lit for him as he walked back through a narrow entrance hall into his office. He passed a dark room that appeared to have some ambient light in the background, though there were no visible lamps or torches inside. The outlines of glass bottles and beakers as well as a thick rectangular object that was most obviously a storage for various ingredients lay quietly as his robes whispered quietly down the hall. He reached a small unremarkable wooden door at the end of the hall to his left and paused. The door seemed more like an oval wooden shape than a door, as there were no hinges or knob to turn.
Again, he drew his wand from his cloaks.
"Entradata aluminous!"
The door glowed faintly and golden leaves and patterns began to etch themselves into the grain in the wood. In the center, a golden doe with large, watchful eyes formed, and from her feet pooled a metal door latch where previously there had been nothing. Two golden hinges had looped into existence on the right.
The door opened and a soft golden light bathed the room as though the door was giving off light of it's own. Inside sat a large mirror attached to a vanity with several drawers on either side. An assortment of bottles were strewn on the table top and something was draped over the chair.
Snape carefully entered the room as though it were a sacred place, and indeed it was for him. The door slipped shut behind him, but the glow remained, leaving his vision soft around the edges. He sat down and bent down, pulling up a small glass bottle with a softly glowing green liquid inside. The label read "Wyrm&Woode's Ambient Absynthe."
He unstoppered the bottle and took a long draw of the liquid, his head bent back baring his pale white throat. When he was done, he placed the bottle back under the vanity again, and looked darkly into the mirror. He looked deep into his own dark eyes, the corneas so black that he appeared to only have a giant black pupil in each eye. Perhaps it was a function of the effectiveness of the drink, but the whites of his eyes seemed to glow a little green. The nose was getting more hooked each year, he thought to himself, not sure whether or not to be proud of it. Salazar Slytherin had a similar sort of nose, after all, what many men called the nose of nobility. But it still looked a bit out of place with his pale, pinched cheeks and sallow, marble-like skin. And his nose had not nearly been as prominent when he was younger, when he spent hours with her, and a part of him wanted to rewind his own time so that he could live it over again.
He opened a drawer on the right and pulled out a bundle of dark red silk. It was a handkerchief, one of the old ones from Gryffindor. He unwrapped it slowly, and the fabric slid away to reveal a small white ivory colored brush. He turned it over, running his fingers down the length of the handle shivering slightly with pleasure. He traced the grooves etched in a looping cursive in the back of the brush from memory.
"L.E." He mumbled without realizing it and he turned the brush over to reveal a few strands of reddish hair caught between the bristles of the brush. He realized with a twinge that soon, he would no longer be able to use the ingredients from the brush, an old possession of Lily's that he'd found on the train in her sixth year and half forgot, half simply didn't want to return it.
He pulled a coppery strand from the bristles and slid his fingers down the hair. He knew that even though he knew he shouldn't do it, that it was wrong and terrible of him, of her memory, another part of him was screaming with need, with decades of unfulfilled longing and he decided before even admitting it fully that he was going to do it again.
He gently set the brush down on the wrinkled silk pattern of a golden lion and began gathering the materials together.
"Soon," he said, turning his piercing gaze over to the half torn picture that had been slid between the mirror and the wooden trim around it. The woman smiled and waved from the picture as though in reply.
