The Hidden War
By JalendaviLady
Timeline: A few years after "The Mistake". If you haven't read it, you will be lost.
Summary: In October 1981, Severus Snape's cover was blown, the Potters escaped, and history took a very different turn. A chance discovery is about to change the flow of events again. And just what does the Prophecy mean with no Boy Who Lived?
Characters: Severus Snape, Lily Potter, James Potter, Sirius Black, Albus Dumbledore, and assorted others
Pairings: James/Lily (story is not pairing-focused)
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Chapter 9: Basilisk Venom
Severus was surprised when James entered the room looking worse than he felt.
"What happened?"
James didn't answer. He simply cast a patronus, ordered it to tell Albus 'Get back down here, it's nothing medical', and then collapsed against Severus' wall.
"That bad?"
"Really bad. Really really bad." He was clutching a bag as if the future of the world depended on it.
Albus dashed in, and Severus wondered how he could have moved so fast.
James pulled a smaller bag out of the one he was clutching. "Tell me this isn't what I think it is. And you'd probably better not touch it."
Albus looked inside and immediately the skin of his face matched his beard. "Where..."
"I was led to Voldemort's personal cache from when he was a student. That was next to it."
"What is it?" Severus asked.
"Rowena's diadem," James told him. "Layered in recent dark magics I know she didn't enchant it with."
Albus cast a few spells and closed his eyes.
Severus looked between them, not quite understanding.
"He's not quite mortal yet, I think," James whispered to him.
The blood sang in his ears.
The next thing he was really aware of, James had forced him to lean forward and was holding him up with an arm around his shoulders.
"Not doing it again," Severus finally managed to get out. "Bad enough the first time."
"I rather think you should be out of the room entirely when we manage to destroy it, Severus," Albus told him gently. "Best that if he felt the effect through you that he think we only found one."
"And how can we destroy it?" Severus felt himself getting frantic. "I can't cast Fiendfyre again, basilisk venom costs more per ounce than my salary and he'll know if we buy any..."
James was grinning. "I can confirm he was the one who opened the Chamber Of Secrets. And that Salazar's own basilisk familiar is apparently still down there."
"How..."
Severus trailed off, feeling his eyes grow wide, as James pulled a vial out of the bag he still held. "He stockpiled it, outside the Chamber. I think there's more than a pint here, all under a century old and milked from a positively ancient beast."
He handed the vial to Severus, and he gently rolled it in his hand.
A thin translucent rock cylinder, carefully sealed in ways that would prevent the venom from eating through the plug, containing enough death for all the students and staff at Hogwarts.
Or, in combination with the right substances with reversing effect qualities in very particular ways, enough life to save them from Death's own doorstep.
And from Slytherin's own personal familiar...
"Keep it," James said quietly.
"No. We need it to destroy that thing."
James chuckled. "Hold the bag."
Severus stared at him, before finally extending his hand.
The unexpected weight jerked his arm down.
Severus couldn't help staring at the bag.
"They're all roughly the same weight and volume, so I don't think giving a former head of Slytherin a bit of a relic of his founder is going to be too much of a problem."
"Safer, actually," Albus offered. "Hopefully he stopped at two. If he did not, best our hopes of destroying them are distributed so that no one disaster forces us to use Fiendfyre ever again."
Severus stared at it in his hand, mind perfectly willing to find anything else to focus on besides the Dark Lord's continued immortality.
Venom from the familiar of the very first potions instructor of Hogwarts, from long before the official mastery system had been instituted.
I know potions originally formulated using you, he thought with awe. Not that he'd ever been able to afford brewing them himself.
Then, he grinned. "James, unless you really want her to throttle you in your sleep if or when she finds out I've got one, you really need to give Lily one of these."
Albus seemed deep in thought. "Perhaps this time our potions mistress should be the one to have the honor," he suggested.
It would mean letting her in on the secret, but Severus nodded. "I've killed one, and James has seriously wounded him in the flesh."
"And Sirius gets the next one," James added. "If, Merlin forbid, there is a next one."
Severus stared at him, and from the corner of his eyes he could see Albus' eyebrows migrating toward his hairline.
"Two is as many as have ever been completed successfully, James," Albus told them with the authority of being the only one in the room actually educated on the subject. "They require splitting the soul and sacrificing some magical potential."
"I know. I read." James still seemed sure, and Severus shivered. "But he's controlling, and determined, and still strong. I think he's got more control of his total magic than most ever learn. And he's been having the Death Eaters do all of the actual fighting."
"He's still strong," Severus told him. "He can still cast Unforgiveables multiple times without resting for long."
"Including the Imperius Curse? Or just killing and torturing?"
Severus thought about it. "Only for a few minutes, in punishment. And not over distance. He has... specialists for that. He prefers the Cruciatus Curse."
James wrapped an arm around his shoulders again, and Severus knew the next question wasn't going to be one he'd like answering.
"And you told me when we all got trapped here that he prefers short-bursts of the curse, rather than a sustained session?"
Severus nodded. "Counted in seconds, not portions of a minute. Still feels like forever."
James nodded, and there was satisfaction in his eyes. "When Crouch allowed the Aurors to start using Unforgiveables against Death Eaters," he began, "we were all told that multiple short uses of that curse actually use less power than maintaining one use of equal length. But that's only usually a concern in active combat for someone with the kind of power and potential he showed as a student. Out of combat, he shouldn't feel the difference."
Albus was nodding grimly. "Unless he no longer has that power and potential left."
"And there's something else," James added in a voice that made it very plain he'd only just realized. "He learned how before the books left the library. We don't know how young he really was when he made these. If he was young enough, he'd have learned to compensate more easily than someone with more magical experience. According to that book, most who try are middle aged or older and feeling their mortality at the natural time for it. How young did he commit his first murder?"
Albus looked away from them. "I wasn't headmaster until after he took his NEWTs and left. I wasn't his head of house, and I never had the sort of proof Dippet would have accepted..."
"How young?" Severus repeated.
"Fifteen," Albus Dumbledore breathed. "Here. At Hogwarts. Myrtle, the ghost in one of the girls' lavatories. At least, I believe that was the first time. He didn't show the emotions even the darkest of wizards tend to show after a first kill." He thought for a moment. "There's one other possibility. I'll have some research to do into his background, quietly. It's been a long day for everyone. Perhaps it will do no harm to wait a few days before explaining everything to Lily."
"Make it a week," Severus whispered. "The latest Wolfsbane attempt will be over and analyzed by then. Having two distracted potioneers in one laboratory is asking for a disaster."
"I'm giving her a vial tonight, though," James said. "I don't have to tell her exactly how we came into it yet. That will spread it into three locations. It should only take a drop or three for each, so any one vial should be able to destroy all he could possibly make without killing himself outright."
Albus nodded his agreement.
