Remembrance and Renewal by Avatar Arkmage and Nigel Tatsuya
Chapter Nine: The War Within
Harry braced himself. If Severus was in total shock at Harry's proclamation, he expected to be dropped to the floor. If Severus were angry however, Harry knew he would be thrown to the floor.
To Harry's bafflement, he remained securely in Severus's arms. The only shadow of movement from his father being a barely perceptible shudder coursing through his body, stopping short of the man's right arm. Harry's uninjured neck and shoulders remained stationary, prompting the youth to marvel even more at his father's incredible control.
"Potter! You...you.." but the rest of what Snape had intended to say died against his soft palate.
"It's true, sir." Harry, seeing a safe passage, ventured onward, employing his most casual, yet respectful tone. "We may never have got on before, but I don't want you to die, Professor Snape. I don't want you hurt either."
Severus's mouth moved, but no words issued forth.
"I didn't think you would believe me. I wouldn't believe me either, as least not straightway given all the trouble I've caused over the years. And perhaps you've stopped believing that any one could care about you, Professor Snape. Well, I do."
Severus no longer found the space directly in front of him interesting, and judiciously turned his attention fully on Harry. He expected not to see even an iota if sincerity in those eyes, for this was perhaps the most ostentatious individual since James Potter to cross his path. This was, after all, the son of James Potter.
Yet, Severus thought, this is also the son of Lily Evans. Harry's green eyes reminded him of that fact more resolutely than any degree of logical reasoning ever could. His beloved Lily. And what Severus saw in her son's eyes, was the same unblemished forthrightness he had so often seen in Lily's.
It was curious, the boy's eyes looked different somehow. Older perhaps? More mature? Could it be that he looked drastically different without his glasses?
Severus was in awe at how much of the room's faint light was reflected in those eyes. Wait. Were those tears? It must be that the boy is in an exceeding quantity of pain. Or perhaps the boy is simply tired? Or his eyes might strained as a result of his accursed habit of staring?'
"Besides, you did save my life. Many times over." Harry went on, his gaze unfaltering. "I should at least try to return the favour, shouldn't I?"
"Potter, I will reiterate, since you seem to need things repeated to you for your brain to even absorb a fraction of the information." Severus had found his voice. "I did no more than Lupin, McGonagall, Hagrid, or even Professor Dumbledore would have done. It was certainly not a favour to you, and no gratitude on your part is warranted."
"Yes, sir." The ensuing silence, brief though it was, made Harry so uncomfortable that he quickly found another matter to discuss. "That day when my broom was being cursed in my first year, well, you didn't have to risk your life by muttering the countercurse, did you? I mean, Professor Quirrell, he wasn't very far from you, and so was Voldemort..."
"Do not say his name, dunderhead!"
"Okay, okay, sorry, Professor Snape. But what I meant to say, is that you could have ignored it all. Or you could have told some one else that Quirrell was hexing my broom, but you didn't. You uttered the countercurse on your own."
"Potter, had I known of your desire to fall from your broom, I would have been all too happy to oblige." Snape retorted, wondering why the infernal boy insisted on holding a conversation at all. "Besides, I hardly thought your spattered innards would improve the appearance of the Quidditch Pitch."
"You didn't have to save me yourself." Harry protested. "Weren't you worried about Quirrell sitting so close to you? Voldemort could have..."
"Do not speak his name!"
"Oh, oh of course, the Dark Lord then." Harry corrected himself. "He could have killed you outright! You could have told some one else to.."
"As I've said before, the spattered remnants of your internal organs would not have improved the aesthetical value of the Quidditch pitch." Severus said through his clenched yellow teeth. "In the time it would take to inform some one else, and for them to act, you would have plunged to your death."
"That does not make me any less grateful for what you did." Harry stated. "And what about the time you tried to save me from Lupin when he was a werewolf? Did you have to save me then?"
"Potter, I refuse to believe that even you could be so daft!" Snape's customary sneer found its way back to his face. "If Lupin had attacked you, Weasley and Granger, you'd either have died, or else I'd be expected to brew thrice the normal amount of Wolfsbane potions each month."
Although Harry knew that he ought to feel hurt, or at least disappointed at Snape's reasoning, he laughed inwardly. It took a great quantity of sheer willpower just to avoid cracking a grin. The explanations, seemed too absurd to come from Professor Snape; a man who was expected to make false statements almost daily as part of his profession. Who could lie better than a spy, after all?
Harry took a moment to savour the warmth of his father's chest rising and falling against his side once more. The precious, soothing heartbeat within, seemed to have increased in speed ever so slightly. "You stood up for me to Cornelius Fudge..."
"I wanted to shock him more than 'stand up for you,' " Snape replied so rapidly that it seemed as though he had prepared beforehand for that very question. "He could not continue to lead the magical world into believing that you were merely seeking attention! The Dark Lord's return needed to be acknowledged."
"And it was you who followed Hermione, Professor Umbridge and me into the Forbidden Forest earlier this year." Harry recommenced.
Severus exhaled grumpily. "Had any of the creatures of the Forbidden Forest decided to make meals out of you three, Hagrid would be in the dungeons for weeks thereafter asking for potions to treat the creatures suffering from gastric disturbances! That is assuming that your big head hadn't become lodged in the creature's throat and caused its death outright!"
"Wouldn't Umbridge have poisoned the creature who ate her, though?" Harry succumbed to laughter as he spoke. "She was a bit toad-like after all."
Harry thought he saw the beginnings of a smile on his father's face. His obsidian eyes twinkled almost imperceptibly and the edges of his mouth curved moderately upward. "As much as you have been led to believe that Professor Dolores Umbridge is member of the family Bufonidae, I can assure you that she is indeed human."
Neither exchanged words for the next few minutes. The Dark Mark continued to burn intermittently on Snape's forearm, and Harry could feel the fluctuation in heat through his father's sleeves. He could not believe that the Dark Lord had the audacity to continue calling Severus, even after several hours must have passed. Surely the Dark Lord wasn't so obtuse as to think that Snape was merely stalling. After almost twenty years of service to him, shouldn't the Dark Lord have known better? If Severus did not turn up for a Death Eater meeting, wouldn't it be obvious that he was UNABLE to do so? It was he who ordered his Death Eaters to punish Severus to the point of almost crippling him, so what the hell did Voldemort expect?
Worried that Severus might have been spying on his thoughts, Harry quickly cleared his mind. Believing that one cannot practice legillimency whilst engaged in conversation, Harry tried once more. "Fa-Uh, Professor Snape?"
"What, Potter?"
"Are you okay sir? You've been holding me like this for hours, are you feeling uncomfortable?"
"Potter, even when I'm merely in the same room with you, you have the tendency to make me uncomfortable!" said Professor Snape, still holding fast. Harry noticed that Snape's voice completely lacked malice.
"It was you wasn't it?" Harry tapped his father's hand. Harry could see that Severus wanted to pull away, but his hand was connected to the arm holding him. "You were the one who told the order about my life at the Dursleys wasn't it?"
"You're babbling again, Potter. You ought to learn to articulate yourself in more effective ways." Snape made a respectable attempt to snarl, but the endeavour fell light years short of the normal standards one would expect from Snape.
"Professor Snape, it was you who told The Order about how the Dursleys treated me, wasn't it?"
"Exactly what led you to believe that?"
"When I stepped away from the Hogwarts's Express at the end of last school year, Moody, Tonks and Lupin were at the station." Harry said. "They warned the Dursleys not to mistreat me, and said they'd check on me if they heard nothing for three days."
"Your point?" Severus appeared to be contemplating all available methods to free his hand from Harry's without risking further injury to the boy.
"You saved me again, didn't you?" Harry watched his father's face grow redder as he brushed against the older man's supple fingers. "It was you who informed the order about my life with the Dursleys."
"Who told you..?" Snape uncharacteristically blurted out. "What I meant to say is, on what grounds do you base that assumption?"
"During Occlumency, you saw all those things that happened to me at the Dursleys." Harry averted his eyes. "I never told anyone about them. Ron and Hermione knew I didn't enjoy spending summers at Number Four Privet Drive, but I've never told them just how bad things were with my Aunt and Uncle. Not even Dumbledore knew."
"Why on Earth not?"
"I was too ashamed to tell them."
"Foolish boy!"
"Professor Snape, would you have told your friends that your own family, people who are supposed to care for and love you, beat you?" Harry struggled to keep his tone respectful, knowing that he could very well be talking about Snape as well as himself. "If they forced you live in a dark cupboard under their stairs for years? If you had lived with a cousin, who should have loved you like a brother, who bullied you, would you have told Dumbledore?"
The dour potions master's face remained largely unchanged, but Harry did not miss the microgesture Severus's memories caused.
"What if your own father beat you with his belt, would you have told Dumbledore?"
"Enough!" Severus hissed. "Your point, Potter?"
"Until you informed Professor Lupin, Tonks and Mad-Eye Moody about how the Dursleys treated me, no one else knew. It must be that you saw it in my memories, and you informed the others so they would watch over me."
"One should feel safe in their own home." Severus whispered, his expression somewhat distant and forlorn. His cold expression returned shortly thereafter. "Potter, I'm utterly exhausted. I suggest you attempt to sleep as well, it is late, and it might be a considerable length of time before Madam Pomfrey, or someone else, sees to us."
Harry knew better to protest. The simple fact that Professor Snape had not insulted him, bunged him to the floor, or hexed him was enough for now. "Okay sir, good night." And Harry closed his eyes, feeling strangely secure to be in his father's arms at last.
The magical hostilities continued throughout the United Kingdom as the night wore on. In the Muggle World, mass hysteria ran amock, as images of robed vigilantes played across their tellies, to the seemingly blind eyes of the very reporters broadcasting them.
Minister Cornelius Fudge could no longer deny the magnitude of the carnage, and Voldemort's return to power. The presses at the Daily Prophet released special editions roughly every hour, each chronicling several new attacks. The reports of fatalities in the houses of half-blood and muggle born wizards rose exponentially with each special edition printed, and the violence just seemed to escalate.
"George!" Ron called, as he crawled from the grate in Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. "Mum said you're to close the books and come home straightaway.
"Tell mum, no!" George retorted. "She knows very well that Fred and I have our own flat upstairs. We'll visit The Burrow some other time."
"George!" not bothering to brush off all the suit, Ron seized his older brother's arm, "Don't you know what's happening? He-who-must-not-be-named's forces are in the Diagon Alley, it said so in the latest issue of the Daily Prophet!
"Go on then," George pushed Ron back toward the fireplace. "Off you go."
"George! Mum's going to kill me if we don't go home right now." Ron implored.
"All right then!" George said, keying open a safe and putting what appeared to be gold galleons on the counter. "Since either mum's going to kill us, or else the Death Eaters coming here will, let's prove to them that us Weasleys aren't going without a fight."
"Are you daft!" Ron gasped, his blue eyes widening.
"Come on!" George said, pushing Ron outside, and securing the doors to the shop. "This will be fun!"
George slipped the "galleons" into his pocket, and walked directly into the path of a group of advancing Death Eaters, yanking Ron along with him. George then pretended to panic, while Ron did indeed panic. The two boys took off running in the opposite direction of the Death Eaters, but not before George scattered the galleons on the pavement, making it look as though he had dropped the lot in a frenzy to get away.
Being familiar with the streets, George and Ron lost the masked figures after running for a few blocks, and took refuge in a garbage skip.
"Bloody Hell!" Ron rasped, recognising the austere gait of one of the figures, and seeing wisps pale blond hair periodically appearing from beneath the hood. "That's Malfoy's dad! How did he escape from Azkaban?"
"Perhaps You-Know-Who helped him escape? Or maybe he turned himself into a serpent and slithered out? Who cares about that slimy git anyway? This will be great!" George grinned to his younger brother.
As predicted, some of the Death Eaters stopped and gathered up the gold galleons. Lucius Malfoy, who Ron concluded needed more gold like Arthur Weasley needed a pet Buffalo, merely walked over the galleons.
From their vantage point in the malodorous skip, George quickly drew his wand, waved it in the direction of the Death Eaters, and muttered an incantation just as Malfoy's boot came in contact with one of the galleons. The Death Eaters, along with the galleons vanished.
"Portkeys! That was bloody brilliant!" Ron gave George a firm pat on the back.
"They aren't true portkeys." George chortled. "We'd get in trouble with the Department of Magical Transportation if they were. The Galleon-Ship is one of our inventions, actually. Like portkeys, they transport its victim anywhere they've been charmed to, but they don't have the range that a true portkey has. The Galleon-Ship can't transport the victim more than fifty kilometres from the original location. We're still working on that bit."
"Wicked!" said Ron, as the brothers headed back toward the shop. "Do you have some for sale by any chance?"
"Do you have any money by any chance?" George mocked. "No they aren't for sale just yet, we still haven't worked out all the dangerous side effects. Even though those gits deserve it, I hope they don't turn out splinched like those poor students who first tested this product."
Ron gagged at the thought of random body parts amid bloodied white masks, and black cloaks.
George grinned smugly. "I didn't avoid following Fred to Beretaniashire for nothing."
Ron continued to stare into the now empty alley. There was no blood on the cobblestones at least. "So where have they gone? Knockturn Alley?"
"No." George was now barely suppressing giggles.
"The dodgy side of London?" Ron asked.
"Worse."
Ron's eyes widened, as did his mouth.
"I sent them...I sent..." George exploded into peals of laugher. "I sent them to Redneyckby!"
"Redneycksby?" Ron asked, furrowing his brows, he had never heard of such a place.
"It's a neighbourhood outside of London settled by Muggles called the Redneycks." George wrapped his arms across his belly as the laughter exploded from him in full force. "Fred told me that the muggles in Redneycksby are holding their annual Ms Riding Mower beauty pageant today. I've heard that the Redneyck women are bigger than their men!"
Ron's brows furrowed even more. What was a Riding Mower? It sounded like something the mythical Grim Reaper would use on a day he had too many people to fetch, and would be in danger of becoming fatigued.
"If I activated the Galleon-Ship correctly, Malfoy Sr. and his friends should be backstage at the Ms Riding Mower competition..." George fell over and rolled at the bottom of the skip laughing. "...in the female body builder section!"
"The Redneycks built their bodies? They aren't born like the rest of us?" Ron looked even more puzzled.
"That's what Fred told me! The redneycks must be a race of eclectric people, imagine how much fun dad would have collecting plugs for their bodies! I'm sure since ecelectric things need ecceltricity, the redneycks probably plug themselves in instead of sleeping at night. " Fred began laughing so hard that tears wobbled in his eyes. "I would kill to see Mr. Malfoy at the body builder factory though, perhaps he will return to Malfoy Mansion with some female body parts!" George chortled. "Imagine him trying to explain that to Mrs. Malfoy!"
Ron joined George at the bottom of the skip. The thought of Lucius Malfoy at the mercy of Narcissa with armfuls of female body parts was too funny.
"Remember how dad fought with Malfoy Sr. in Flourish and Blotts?" George said between giggles. "I don't think Mrs. Malfoy will go nearly as gentle with him as dad did!"
"God job Draco's mum isn't a Redneyck then!" Ron remarked.
The brewing of some potions was so second nature to Professor Severus Snape, that he hardly thought on them. He reached for ingredients behind him blindly, and added them to the caldrons, often without even needing to weigh them on scales beforehand. So much in this way did he spend many of his quiet evenings; his motions light, his spell casting tasks no more burdensome than to draw a breath.
But there was something different about this night.
"Severus!"
Disoriented, and having no control over his body, Severus spun on his heel and saw the silhouette of a woman at the entrance to his laboratory. Her face was in shadow, but the light from a nearby torch illuminated distinct red highlights in her hair.
"Lily?" As though watching the life of another man, Severus felt himself hastily extinguish the fire beneath the great pewter caldron and follow the retreating woman up to the main level of Snape Manor. Why did he put aside his duties so readily? What compelled him to answer Lily's beckoning in a manner more befitting of a beta-male animal, conditioned to submit to his alpha's every whim?
Along the way, Severus recognised the sweet smell of pasties cooking in one of those muggle cookers which employed electromagnetic waves. He vaguely remembered arguing with Lily over the cooker's purchase, for he initially did not believe eating foods cooked with microwave radiation was entirely safe. The taste, ease of food preparation, and the fact that he could brew some potion ingredients more quickly than he could otherwise, quelled his misgivings shortly thereafter. Moreover, they were still alive after over ten years of dining regularly on electromagnetic wave foods. What muggle inventors could create without the use of magic still astounded Severus after many years of living with a Muggle-born wife.
He stopped cold in the living room. There, snoring softly on a settee in front of the fireplace, was a thin teenaged boy, laying amid amid parchments, quills and two large tomes opened to pages containing the descriptions of complex potions. His long, slightly-greasy black hair partially obscured the aquiline features of his face, and luminesced ginger in the firelight. The youth's pale skin was almost as colourless as Severus's, as though he never ventured out into the sunlight.
"Put our son to bed, love, he fell asleep whilst doing his revisions again," came Lily's voice.
Still feeling out of sorts, and at the same time feeling that things were strangely as they ought to be, Severus's reply of, "I'll wake him and order him to his bed," faded into the background of his thoughts. He carefully lifted the teenager into his arms, deciding that he would lecture the boy about better managing his time, and of retiring before exhaustion set in.
But that could wait until a later time.
White hot pain exploded from Severus's left forearm as he began to ascend the stairs. The heat startled the sleeping boy awake, his verdant eyes wide with horror.
The walls and floor of Snape Manor began to fracture, and morphed into the dark flagstones of the dungeons. Masked figures walked through the larger fissures that had appeared in the wall, and Voldemort apparated directly in front of Severus. He grabbed at the youth with his cadaverous fingers.
"NO!" cried Severus.
He turned an ran in the opposite direction, but Voldemort repeatedly appeared in front of Severus, blocking his escape route. Severus kept running anyway, until he nearly collided with a solid stone wall. There was no escape.
"SNAPE!" Voldemort hissed, "you ssshant esscape me again!"
The Death Eaters rose into the air, and descended on Severus from all sides. Each of them clawed and snapped at Harry, the Animalia potion's influence markedly evident. Willfully, Severus turned his back to them, bearing their fury with his own flesh. Now that his angel was somehow with him, and perfectly alive, Severus knew he would give his own life if that was the price he would have to pay to keep the angel living.
Voldemort reached around the slender man and forcefully made to pull the youth from his arms. Having no means of escape, and being in too close proximity to effectively cast spells, Severus clutched the boy protectively in his arms.
It was most unusual. The youth looked surprised, rather than frightened, even as Severus wrapped his arms more securely around his son, as much as to protect him from Voldemort as to selfishly keep him from death. No, not so much death, as to keep him from fading back into oblivion.
"Owwwwww!" The teenaged boy yelped.
The youth's long hair began to decrease in length, and jut in every direction but orderly. As Severus watched, his son's sallow skin developed a more rosy cast, and his green eyes became the very similar green eyes of Harry Potter. Potter!
As consciousness quickly reasserted its place, Severus realised with horror that he had been constricting Harry Potter! "Potter!" Severus loosened his grip so quickly that he almost dropped Harry to the floor.
Harry blearily remembered a dream where Severus had been attacked by the Death Eaters. He also remembered that Severus had been holding him in a similar manner.
Harry then noted that Severus's eyes looked markedly redder than normal, and there were tears clinging to the man's thick, dark lashes. "What's the matter? Professor Snape, what's wrong? Are you in pain or something?"
"An irritating substance lodged itself in my eyes." Severus retorted angrily, rubbing at his eyes with his free hand. "And you need not add your irritating chatter to make this situation worse, go back to sleep, boy!"
"Okay, I'm tired anyhow." Harry lied, not daring to challenge Severus. He did not go back to sleep however, and watched Severus discretely through his nearly closed eyes. For added effect, Harry began feign the sounds of soft snoring a few minutes thereafter.
When Severus believed Harry was sleeping once more, he turned his face toward the ceiling. His dark eyes scanned the room, and his lower lip trembled, before Severus clamped on it with his yellowing teeth. "Why?" Severus whispered, barely audibly. "Why torment me with things I can never have? Why show me what never existed? Bloody fool!"
It required all of Harry's willpower not to intrude on Severus's hushed conversation with himself. When Harry had heard enough of Severus's self-loathing diatribe, he took a deep breath to speak.
The Dark Lord Voldemort caressed Nagini's coils absently as he watched Bellatrix Black Lestrange instruct three of the newest Death Eaters in the finer methods of torture. They had attacked a newlywed couple in small flat just outside of Leeds, and although Bellatrix was in top form this night, Lord Voldemort could not give his full attention to the festivities.
"Please!" screamed the young wife, her light brown curls flailing about her head as he struggled against her bonds. "Let us go! We've done nothing to you!"
Bellatrix moved so close to the bound woman that she was sure the woman could feel her breath on her ashen face. "On the contrary, you have indeed done something, muggle-filth! You exist!"
The woman screamed as Bellatrix moved across the room to the woman's husband who was tied spread-eagled to their marital bed. She leaned over the young man, her attractive, dark locks spilling onto his face. "Your kind has done too much." Bellatrix began unbuttoning the man's shirt, being so rough about it that some of his buttons shot like small projectiles off of the garment. "Although we're supposedly the same species, your muggle reproductive prowess allows the lot of you to breed like insects, or lagomorphs in comparison."
"NO!" screeched the blond haired man as Bellatrix began to undo her new husband's belt buckle. He shifted away from her grasp but was immediately immobilized by the other three hooded figures.
"My wife and I, we have no children of our own! How can you say..."
"Fear not, blondie."Bellatrix derided, slapping him first across one cheek and then the other. "When we conclude our work here tonight, you'll not be siring any more filthy whelps... even if we feel charitable enough to let you live!" Bellatrix motioned the three Death Eaters recruits nearby to take their turns with the couple. "Choose your targets wisely, young charges. The area and method selected must neither cause a quick death nor fatigue you too quickly.
Bellatrix paused briefly and cast the cruciatus on the bound man, then lifted it less than two seconds later. The man continued to scream for at least several minutes afterwards. "Although the cruciatus curse is most effective at causing pain, it is taxing on the caster and can result in your victim not giving you the information you seek...:"
"BUT YOU ASKED US NOTHING!" screamed the man, struggling so hard against his bindings that his wrists and ankles started bleeding.
"Then I ask you to refrain from speaking without having first been asked to!" Bellatrix hissed in the man's ear. "Or I shall remove your tongue."
The young Death Eaters surveyed the bound man's bare body in the same manner as a pack of carnivores would a fresh kill. The man's wife screamed without ceasing, but it had the same effect as if she'd only whispered. She remained tied in the corner of their master bedroom watching the macabre festivities. She was seemingly forgotten, no more than an afterthought, if even that.
Even as the sounds of screams emanated from the bedroom of the flat and spread into every crevice of the floorboards, and were barely contained by the fragile silencing charms cast on the property, Voldemort's attention drifted. Nagini had coiled around one of his master's legs, apparently disturbed by the shrill cries coming from the couple, yet The Dark Lord seemed to take no notice.
The attacks across the U.K. were going better than Voldemort had anticipated this evening. Spurred on by the string of ministry denials, then later the ministry's downplay of the seriousness of the second rise of the Dark Lord, the dark forces had grown exponentially, while the number of new Aurors, and ministry officials, had grown only arithmetically. With Voldemort's troops attacking at full strength tonight, the side of the light was greatly outnumbered and easily overpowered.
But, Voldemort remembered, the Dark Forces were not at their full strength tonight. Not entirely. The black snake, Severus Snape, had still not answered the summoning. He had wanted to send Snape to lead the attack on the Muggle Universities in and around London. Knowing Snape, the man would not do the job by halves. He'd in all likelihood poison the food in the cafeterias, tamper with their medicines, render the water supply unpotable, and maim or kill anyone who dared oppose them.
To make matters worse, the reserves of potions at the Death Eaters disposal were rapidly dwindling, especially with the way minions like the Lestranges used them so liberally. The injured death eaters from heavily defended towns had used virtually all of the healing potions and salves within the first four hours of the attacks.
Bored with watching Bellatrix Lestrange's tutorials on causing pain without causing death, Voldemort coiled Nagini around his neck and apparated back to their current hideout in a dank hall in Chillingham Manor.
"Where is Snape?" Voldemort asked the shuddering figure nearby.
"He has not yet arrived, your excellency," Peter Pettigrew dropped to his knees as soon as he had heard the faint pop.
"Surely Severusss isn't so injured that he can't manage a simple apparition?" frowned Voldemort, walking over to the throne and sitting hard in it.
Although Peter's face still darkened upon hearing the name of one of his childhood enemies mentioned, the dark lord saw nothing of this. Peter willed himself to keep his head bowed low.
Voldemort could not understand what could have kept Snape from answering the summons. The Dark Lord refused to believe that the injuries he had allowed the Death Eaters to inflict on The Black Snake less than two days ago were the cause, for Severus Snape had reported to him in worse condition before. No broken bones, contusions, bruised testicles, sprained extremities, internal injuries, torn rectal tissues, or head injuries had kept Snape away in the past.
It was often with great amusement that Voldemort watched the younger man hobble to their meetings, trying his best to hide his injured state. He'd especially like it when Wormtail, or some other Death Eater, tripped Snape as he limped by. He had literally laughed the day when Lucius Malfoy gave Severus Snape a hearty slap on the back, knowing full well that the potion master's back was covered with lacerations. Snape had kept his blank mask firmly in place, but he had barely managed to keep himself from fainting, and had to lean on a nearby stone collumn for support.
The Dark Lord had received no such satisfaction tonight...
"Severus is too headstrong." Voldemort hissed. "He needs to be punished, to be broken."
"Yes sir." Pettigrew cowered.
"Tell me, Wormtail." The Dark Lord said, scowling in his own reptilian way. "Is Snape's mother still living?"
"Yes s-sir." Wormtail responded, daring to look up at last. "She is still on the Fourth Floor at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. In the Spell Damage department."
"In the Janus Thickey Ward?" Voldemort inquired. "Where the Longbottoms also reside?"
Peter Pettigrew's head bobbed up and down.
"Pity the woman went insane. She would have been most helpful in applying leverage to our cause. No boy wants to see his mother tortured after all. Or perhaps forced against her will to bear an offspring which will not be entirely human." Voldemort hissed so much as he spoke that the untrained ear would have perceived him to be speaking in parseltongue. "How ironic that Snape has determined the target of our next raid by his very absence." Voldemort patted Nagini on the head. "He needs to be broken, as do too many in the wizarding world. Furthermore..." Pettigrew's eyes grew wide. "Snape will join the assault on St. Mungos as will I! If he tries to save the whore who gave him life, as you and I know he will, we will be there waiting for him!"
Wormtail jumped with glee. The next raid was going to be so good.
"Killing the one who bore the Black Snake right before the Snake's very eyes will surely break him down completely." The Dark Lord made a gesture of snapping a person's neck, "...and assure his continued subservience."
"Begging your pardon, sir." Wormtail asked, kissing the hem of the Dark Lord's robes.
"Sssspeak."
"Since Snivel--Severus w-was forced to drink the Interventio Interferus potion," Peter began, "how was he supposed to get here if he can't apparate? And how much damage could he do if he can't use his magic?"
"You question me?" Voldemort turned his red eyes on the cowering man.
"No sir, never sir...just wondering."
"We are not far from Hogsmeade, The Black Snake should have run here. We did not break his legs, after all." Voldemort said as casually as if he were commenting on the weather. "And you know Severus is a proficient fighter with only his fists. No doubt you and your childhood friends know that well."
Wormtail cringed.
"But first..." Voldemort hissed out loud, as he drew his wand. "CRUCIO!" his voice was soon drowned by Peter Pettigrew's shrieks.
After several minutes, Voldemort touched a finger to his left forearm. "SNAPE!" End Part Nine
