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Chapter 3
The Doulos Bond
"Wait!" Severus bellowed before he could stop the words from slipping through his lips.
"Crucio!" Voldemort cursed directly into Severus's chest. He held the curse for a couple of seconds before releasing it.
Severus crumbled to the ground but managed to pull himself up once again to his knee. Although he tried his hardest to not let the aftershocks affect his ability to remain upright, it was still difficult. It took many years of being exposed to torture to be able to maintain his façade, and he was not about to break now. Not with his plan about to vaporize right in front of his eyes.
Voldemort held up his hand to Lucius, demanding him to cease his attack on Hermione and seethed, "You dare defy my direct orders! You are walking on thin ice, Severus."
"I apologize, My Lord," Severus muttered as confidently as he could after being submitted to the Dark Lord's powerful Cruciatus Curse. "But I believe you are making an enormous mistake."
"Crucio!" Voldemort spewed at him once more.
Once again Severus crumbled to the ground. He shakily got back to his knee once more but this time was unable to hold back all of the tremors that threatened to shake through his body. But still his strong and evil façade masked the weakness, despite how his body shook on the inside.
"What should I do with her then, Severus?" Voldemort hissed as he quickly took two long strides closer to where Severus kneeled. "I neither have the time nor the resources to break her! My time is better spent tracking down and killing Potter. This one insignificant mudblood could not possibly make or break this war!"
"I can break her," Severus whispered quietly, but dangerously. This was his absolute last chance of saving her life, and therefore his own. If he was going to die, it was going to be right here and right now.
This made Voldemort grab Severus's chin and force his eyes to meet his own. Voldemort pillaged through Severus's mind searching for any sense of betrayal or benevolent intentions before pulling roughly out.
Severus dropped onto both hands and knees, gasping for breath at the strength of the attack. After a moment he risked a glance upwards to see if he had some how passed Voldemort's mental test. That was when he saw Voldemort grinning down at him with an evil smirk smeared across his snakelike face.
"And how do you plan on breaking her?" Voldemort questioned.
"I've known the bloody chit for the better part of a decade. It shouldn't be difficult. She's just a filthy mudblood after all," he chuckled cruelly.
The Death Eaters in the crowd began to chuckle along side Severus at his retort, before Voldemort held up a hand to silence the crowd, "It's not good enough. I need a real plan, damn it!"
Severus's heart immediately sank for the tables had turned quickly on this conversation. He no longer held the upper hand. For without a solid plan, the Dark Lord was going to execute the bloody girl.
'And probably me as well,' he thought to himself.
Severus began to sifting through his strategically built mind for any sort of plan. What would it take to convince him that he could take this task on and succeed.? Could he try to break her in front of the entire revel right now? But what if he wasn't able to do it? What if she was stronger than he originally thought? What if she refused to break? That would be a pretty typical Gryffindor move after all.
"May I kill her now, My Lord?" Lucius snarled, "Clearly Severus isn't up to the challenge, like usual."
"Enough!" Voldemort barked at Lucius, "I have the solution to Severus's little problem."
Severus was afraid to hear what the Dark Lord had to say. Any sort of plan he came up with on his own usually dealt with murdering and maiming. Nothing good could come of this plan. Maybe both of them were better off dead? At least then they wouldn't be subjected to whatever twisted sense of justice the Dark Lord had in mind. Why was it that he was fighting so hard to save her again?
But still Severus pretended to listen intently to what the maniac had to say.
"The Doulos Bond," Voldemort said loudly.
The murmuring around the crowd of Death Eaters indicated they didn't exactly know what the Doulos Bond was. They had never heard of it before and couldn't help but to wonder what it entailed.
But Severus knew exactly what it entailed. And he was right. Maybe he was better off murdered than sharing a Doulos Bond with the Granger girl.
The Doulos Bond, also known as the Servants Bond was used in ancient times to bind a servant to his master. It ensured the master had complete control over the servant at all times. The servant cannot disobey a direct order from the master under any circumstance. But that wasn't the worst part.
If the master died, the servant did as well.
Beyond those details he wasn't exactly sure of what the Doulos Bond encompassed. But he knew it wouldn't be pretty. Especially if the Dark Lord thought it was a brilliant plan.
"Severus, go over to the girl," Voldemort hissed at him. "We will bond you tonight."
Severus inaudibly gulped at this thought. He wasn't sure this was a good idea in general, let alone completing the task tonight. But it looked like he wasn't going to have a choice in the matter. What the Dark Lord wants, the Dark Lord gets after all. And no one would stand in his way.
Severus had come this far already, and he wasn't about to give it all up now.
He arose from his knee shakily before approaching the still breathing girl lying just strides away. Blood hasn't made him squeamish in a long time, so crouching in the pool of her blood to be next to her wasn't a problem. He grabbed her left wrist with his left hand before peering up from the ground and into Voldemort's eyes.
"Alligo me servum tuum ad te usque in finem saeculi," Voldemort began to chant, "Omni obedientia est momentum. Te obligo doulos!"
At once an unbearable burning erupted at the base of Severus's wrist. He knew she felt it as well because her breaths began to come in sharp gasps. He was on the verge of collapse at how great the pain was. It surpassed by far the pain which he endured during the revel tonight.
Maybe even ever.
He looked down at the Granger girl as the pain began to recede. He sincerely doubted that with the state her body was in before the bonding, that she would have survived this attack as well.
Alas, her chest maintained it's steady up and down rhythm. She was clearly still alive.
Next he looked to the base of his wrist which was the source of the previous excruciating pain. Instead of the pasty yet unblemished skin he was expecting to find, he found a mark in its place. The mark was a tattoo of two interlocking black circles. The mark of the Doulos Bond.
Hermione had an exact replica on her wrist as the one he had on his left wrist.
"It is done," Voldemort said, "She is yours to break now, Severus."
"Thank you, My Lord. You have bestowed upon me the highest honor," Severus said as he bowed his head close to the ground.
Voldemort looked pleased with Severus's gratitude before he said, "Remember Severus, you break her and get the information I need or it's your neck."
"Of course, My Lord, " Severus said vehemently, "I won't let you down."
"You had better not," Voldemort said dangerously before turning to his Death Eaters and screamed, "Get out of my sight!"
It didn't take long for the Death Eaters and Voldemort himself to clear out, except for Lucius and Severus.
Lucius approached Severus quickly with his wand extended out towards Severus's chest. It didn't take Severus more than a second to have his own wand pointed at Lucius in a defensive gesture.
"You may have won this time, Severus, but you will not beat me," Lucius seethed dangerously through clenched teeth. "I brought the bloody chit here and I will have that her killed if it's the last thing I do!"
Severus raised his wand more firmly before retorting, "Not if I have anything to do with it, Lucius. And you will do well to remember that I am acting under the Dark Lord's direct orders."
"Only if you succeed, which I will ensure you won't," Lucius sneered before turning on his heel and apparating away.
Severus was left alone in the large circular room with the barely conscious Hermione for company. He crouched back down to her side and lifted her into his arms.
"Merlin save us," Severus whispered as he carried Hermione back to his own quarters within the Dark Lord's castle.
A/N:
More details about the Doulos Bond will surface as Hermione and Severus begin to unveil them. What do you think the Doulos Bond entails?
Review and let me know!