PESTILENCE THAT WALKETH IN DARKNESS
PART I: SCHISM
CHAPTER XX: HIS NEW CHAMBER

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It had only been two weeks since the last time Severus Snape visited the Malfoy Manor, but as he stumbled up the road against the fierce autumn wind that opposed him, he could not help but notice that there was something peculiar about it. The dwelling itself appeared the same as it had always been, but the surrounding woods were nearly silent - far more quiet than usual, even with the Dark Lord's conspicuous presence haunting the immediate area.

As the sickly orange light emanating from within the Manor draped over his pale visage, a familiar face appeared in the window. The woman that peered out into the oncoming night started when she noticed him for the first time, and then disappeared from view. Severus reasoned that the Dark Lord had put her on post to watch for him, for he was an expected guest, having been summoned nearly half of an hour before.

Before he could reach the front door, it swung open to expose Narcissa. "Come in, Severus. You must be chilled to the bone."

He gave her a curt nod of thanks, and brushed past her as he entered her family's home, if you could really call it that, anymore. Ever since the Dark Lord had assumed the place as his new headquarters, the extravagance that the Manor once boasted lay in shambles.

Narcissa immediately shut the door against the cutting breeze, and joined Severus' side. "Follow me, then. He's downstairs."

It did not show, but this confused Severus. The Dark Lord tended to linger in the Malfoys' drawing room whenever he came here. What exactly was he doing in their basement, of all places?

"Ah, Severus," Lucius greeted him as the Potions Master entered the sitting room behind his wife. "Welcome to our home, once again."

Severus gave him a short bow, but paused in his gradual declination when he heard a deep thud resonate throughout the house. He looked off in the direction that it had come from, but could not see anything. He did not suspect that he would, for it seemed to him that it had originated from beneath his feet. He looked up at Lucius and Narcissa and, for the first time, he saw anxiety and distress written across their faces.

"What's going on here?" he asked as he stood straight again. "What was that?"

Narcissa crossed her arms, and looked to her husband to explain.

"The Dark Lord is ... renovating," Lucius shortly spoke after searching for the right word.

Severus inclined an eyebrow towards him. "Renovating? I did not know that the Dark Lord boasted interest in such an obviously Muggle trade."

"He's not personally doing it," Lucius elaborated, fighting the urge to roll his eyes at Severus' dry sense of humor. "He has some help. Come, we'll show you."

Severus followed Narcissa and Lucius as they led him down the hallway, further into the depths of their once beautiful home. Whatever the Dark Lord was doing, neither of them approved of it, and he did not have a difficult time in believing that. They had always taken great pride in their home, and he realized that it must have taken a lot for them to give it up as they had.

As they moved down the hallway, Severus became more and more aware of a stingy, earthy stench, and wrinkled his nose when it become too much for him to possibly ignore any longer. It was easily one of the worst smells that he had ever come across, but he recognized it. He had encountered the creatures that emanated the odor reminiscent of an open graveyard many times in his travels, and even in the hallways of Hogwarts, when Professor Quirrell had let one in on Halloween years ago.

They came to a break in the wall, and Severus reasoned that the smell could only be coming from within it. He knew where this passage led, but the entrance had never been this obvious, if at all visible, before. As he inspected the raggedly enlarged entrance to the lowest and most secret level of the Malfoy Manor, he couldn't help but notice that it had been made big enough to allow the entrance of the largest troll variety.

As he strained his ears, his suspicions were confirmed: amongst the scattered commands of a few choice Death Eaters, he could hear a dull grunting, accompanied by the occasional noise not unlike the one he had heard a few minutes earlier. But, what confused Severus was that it was not the sound of wood on rock, but metal on rock that he heard. Perhaps the Dark Lord had replaced their clubs with something that he thought would be a little more efficient in achieving whatever his new plan was?

Lucius read Severus' face. "Yes, he has trolls down there. There are only about twenty or thirty of them left now, though. They've been dying off pretty steadily. I don't think that they're accustomed to this kind of labor."

Severus nodded slowly in understanding at Lucius' apathetic stance towards the creatures that the Dark Lord had employed to use for his gains. But, what gains? What were the trolls doing here, in the basement of the Malfoy Manor?

"Come, Severus," Lucius invited him into the hole that had been torn in his home's wall by the stature of the undomesticated creatures. "He is waiting for you."

Severus and Lucius went their separate ways with Narcissa as they descended into the deepest depths of the Manor. The basement had never been a place that Narcissa wished to venture in, for there had always been little hints here and there that served to remind her of its former usages in the past twenty-five years. Though it had remained abandoned for thirteen of those years, the stench of the dead had never quite left it.

Lucius had already spent countless hours assisting the Dark Lord in his new pursuit, and the sight and smell of the newly enlarged subterranean cavity no longer bothered him. He had grown used to it, as he supposed he should. After the Dark Lord would dispel the trolls upon his new domain's completion, it would never be the same, or be returnable to its previous state.

They came to where Severus thought the stairs would end and the floor would begin, but there was something different about it. The stairs did end, and this was the only recognizable trait of the basement's previous existence. It seemed that the entire floor of the basement had disappeared, to be replaced with nothing. As Severus peered over the edge of the last remaining bit of the basement's original floor, a sickening wave of vertigo washed over him, and he moved back towards the staircase that they had just descended.

"Magnificent, isn't it?" Lucius dully asked him as he then moved to where Severus had previously stood. He retracted his wand from the inside of his robes, and directed it at a marked point on the wall. Severus watched as a small burst of flame erupted, and then moved the length of the wall into the cavernous void before them along a line that only it appeared capable of seeing. His black eyes followed it as it made its way around the curved walls, and then back again. When it reached them, however, it did not make a full circle. It continued on its way below their feet, creating a helix of light as it slowly crept towards the bottom.

With the new light, Severus noticed the numerous pillars that plunged into the darkness for the first time, serving the purpose of keeping the entirety of Malfoy Manor from falling into this hellish oblivion. After all, now that he could see the far walls opposite him, this place was easily the same size, if not larger, than the Manor's floor plan.

"We still have more stairs to go," Lucius broke the silence between he and Severus, who still stood in awe, his mouth agape. "The Dark Lord is at the bottom. It's all nearly done."

Severus pried himself from the abyssal sight, and followed Lucius as he led him down a staircase that had been clumsily dug out of the wall and haphazardly prepared. Severus was relieved that, as they passed through the closed passage, he could no longer see the depths to which he was descending. He could not help but notice, though, that the foul stench he had detected at the beginning of their journey downwards, though momentarily forgotten at the sight he had just experienced, was stronger here, in unventilated quarters.

"The Dark Lord wishes to close off the top, where we just were," Lucius told him. "I think he fears that one of us may wander stupidly over the edge."

Severus tried to express his appreciation towards Lucius' small joke, but he could not. He was already trying his hardest as it was not to breathe in the vile scent of those who dwelled at the end of the path they followed.

"Lumos," Severus heard Lucius mutter beside him, and did not hesitate to follow suit. They had ventured away from the carrying glow at the top of the chamber, and would be obscured by complete darkness if they did nothing to provide their own light.

Severus quickly lost track of the time that he spent in this desolate tunnel as he followed Lucius with nothing else to do but theorize as to what he would possibly find when their trek ended. The cries and grunts were beginning to grow louder, and if Severus traced his long, spider-like fingers over the wall's boundary, he could feel the reverberations as a couple dozen twelve-foot-tall trolls discordantly assaulted that which they had been set upon.

"We're about halfway down, now," Lucius announced with a quick glance in Severus' direction.

"How far down does this - place - go?"

Lucius hummed in thought. "I'm not entirely sure. I think that it's somewhere around a kilometer deep."

Severus let out a low whistle.

"Narcissa and I asked for it to be further away from the main house, but this wasn't entirely what we had in mind," Lucius continued as a dissatisfied expression flitted across his face. "We were thinking that perhaps the Dark Lord could find somewhere else to keep his prisoners. It is, after all, very hard to fall into slumber with the screams of the tortured echoing throughout your chambers."

Severus stared at him. He'd had no idea, in all the years that he had affiliated himself with the Death Eaters, that the Malfoys could actually hear the Hell below their feet. His thoughts went momentarily to Draco, who he considered lucky to have been born late enough in the Dark Lord's early years of tyranny to not experience what he most likely never did learn had transpired within his family's home. He was quite certain, after all, that Draco did not even know that his home boasted a lower level.

"Tell me, Severus," Lucius' voice penetrated the thin air. "How is Draco adjusting to the marital agreements with Ms. Parkinson?"

Severus hesitated to tell Lucius the truth. Draco made it seem, very convincingly, that he was satisfied with the bride his parents had chosen for him in Christina's stead. However, as a Professor and an observant introvert when he himself was a teenager, he could recognize unhappiness without any difficulty whatsoever.

"He is making do to the best of his ability," Severus finally spoke after searching for the right words.

Lucius sniffed in disapproval, but then instantly regretted it as the foul smell filled his nostrils. His sneer intensified. "I would certainly hope that he is. She will do well for him, and will willingly provide him with a large number of offspring, if he so chooses a large family. She will also make a suitable Death Eater."

The longer Severus thought about Lucius' words, the more confused he grew. "Weren't you and Narcissa leaning towards forging a connection between the Malfoy family and the Murrays, though? I've heard Narcissa say more than once that she would rather see your son with Cynthia's daughter, rather than Helga's. Surely you feel the same, seeing as how you went to the Dark Lord, who called upon me, with your problem?"

"Narcissa would much rather have Draco marry Christina, yes," Lucius nodded resolutely. "Narcissa personally cannot stand Helga and Ralph and is, as you know, a long-time friend of Cynthia's. As for myself ... I am conflicted."

"How so?"

Lucius thought about for a moment before he began to speak again. "I will admit, there would be many advantages to be made if Draco and Christina were to wed. Her family has a very noble history with the Dark Lord, as do the Black and Malfoy families. It makes sense to me on these grounds that the three families come together. But, on the other hand, Christina strikes me as someone who is not yet ready for the monumental responsibility that would be thrust upon her if she were to become a Death Eater. In my eyes, she is very foolhardy, immature, and a loose cannon. The Dark Lord does not have room for someone like this amongst his ranks, no matter what their heritage."

"Cynthia and Eric proclaim that Christina needs this marriage, though," Severus countered as he expressed the family's primary worry when it came to their daughter. "They fear that if she does not marry Draco, she will pursue a life with Potter, instead."

"Is this true, though, Severus?" Lucius snapped. "You've seen them at school. Do you think it likely that Christina will choose to go against us?"

Severus pondered Lucius' question. "I don't know. There is an argument for both ways. I spoke to her after Potions class on Monday, and she tells me that she is trying to mend things between she and Draco. She is hesitant to go through with the marriage though, as you know. I do not believe that it is anything against your son, Lucius, and I merely think that she is just overwhelmed by what will come to be if she chooses to go along with the path that her parents have laid out for her."

Lucius glanced over at him, impressed. He had never thought of Severus as someone with such insight to human emotions, having never properly displayed them himself. "Tell me more. Tell me what you know about her and Potter."

"From what I can gather, they are strained," Severus shortly replied. "The Dark Lord has had me watching over them at Hogwarts, and I think that the summer vacation may have driven a wedge between them."

Lucius was silent as he stared ahead, fixated. "Do you think, then, that she will choose him in the end?"

Severus did not have an answer for this question. "Like I said: it could easily go either way."

"Do you see what I mean?" Lucius spoke without hesitation. "She's a loose cannon! We cannot trust her, and neither should the Dark Lord. Shame on Cynthia and Eric for raising her the way that they have. They have given her far too much leeway in how she makes her decisions. If I were her father, I would have pulled her from Hogwarts mere seconds after that sordid Sorting Hat put her into Gryffindor, whether she said it was her fault or not that it failed to place her in Slytherin. And, not only that, once I had learned about her ties to Potter, I would have stamped that nonsense out right away-"

"But the Dark Lord needed a tie such as this between himself and the boy-"

"It was never thought of perceiving her in that way until after he had returned," Lucius sniffed in disapproval. "It was far too risky for my liking. I opposed the notion when he mentioned it. I told him that there was a chance that she would turn on Potter in the end and help hand him over, yes, but there was an even greater chance that she would forsake him in the end. He did not listen to me."

"For good reason," Severus replied, speaking a little louder. "He knows what he is doing, Lucius. Have some trust in the Dark Lord, wouldn't you?"

Lucius was silent for a moment. "I have plenty of trust in him."

"Then exercise it," Severus hissed through the darkness before he and Lucius desisted their conversation and descended into a strange awkwardness.

When Severus was sure that Lucius would not express the bitter comment that he surely held back, he turned his attention back to what the Dark Lord had accomplished here, in the deep recesses beneath the Earth's surface. So the Malfoys had suggested that the Dark Lord keep his detainees at a good distance away from their home, and he had only responded by deepening the basement. It was a nearly comical concept.

He strained his eyes when he thought that they'd caught the first hint of light ahead in the tunnel that he steadily moved through. For the first time, he noticed his perpetual claustrophobia. He dully realized that it had been present during his entire journey, but he had been too distracted to acknowledge it. He hoped that this was a stepping stone in being rid of it, for he had been plagued with it ever since it'd first manifested itself in his third year as a student at Hogwarts. He had been shoved into far too many dark, inescapable places to emerge unscarred from his schooling.

'Damn Potter,' he hastily thought as the light of the cavern fully greeted him.

He blinked his eyes profusely, for the sudden brightness, even though it would have been considered relatively dull in comparison to midday, caused them to water. He squinted as he tried to take in the full measure of what had occurred here, but the rods and cones in his eyes apparently desired to take their time in adjusting to their new environment, for it was nearly a full minute before he was able to see again.

Since Lucius had taken the time to briefly explain what was coming to fruition down here, it did not shock him as much as his first glance had. Severus counted how many trolls there were - twenty-two alive, and two who were either unconscious, or had expired.

"A part of the wall detached itself," a voice greeted Severus and Lucius as they gazed at the dead trolls. "It landed on them. They did not suffer, I do not think."

There was a hint of amusement to Rodolphus' voice, and he greeted the two newcomers with the smallest smirk he could manage. Then, without further hesitation, he turned towards the wizard in the midst of the chaos, who oversaw Bellatrix, Alecto, Amycus, Eric, and himself as they in turn presided over the trolls. Every few seconds, one of the trolls would slow in their ambition, either from exhaustion or, quite possibly, lack of memory as to what they were supposed to be doing. However, that was when one of the five Death Eaters would send them their reminder, and they would set back to work, in fear of receiving another dose of the painful spells.

"My Lord?" he called out over the sadistic scream of his wife as her curse hit a lackluster troll, causing him to stumble. "Severus has arrived."

The Dark Lord glanced back over his shoulder, and his scarlet eyes scanned over the three men that stood at his new dominion's entrance. Without the slightest change in his expression, he tore himself away from the sight before him and approached his distraction.

"Get back at it, Rodolphus, and you too, Lucius," he spoke as he reached them, his eyes unwavering from Severus.

They both bowed in respect, and then slinked away to join Bellatrix, Amycus, Eric, and Alecto in their tedious plight.

"What do you think, Severus?" the Dark Lord asked as he glanced around at the cavern that they stood in.

"Quite the accomplishment, my Lord," he gave him a short bow, trying his best to avoid eye contact.

"Does it inspire fear in the heart of mortal men?" he inquired, his voice growing higher as he did so. "Awe? Both, perhaps?"

"If I were your enemy, it would plague me with nothing less than fear," Severus answered his question. "But it would not matter if I was a Death Eater or a member of the Order of the Phoenix in order for it to fill me with awe, my Lord."

He glanced up at the Dark Lord to find that he had answered correctly. A small smirk slowly spread across his mouth, and almost gave him the impression of actually possessing lips.

"Come now, Severus," the Dark Lord invited him to walk alongside him as he made his way back towards the tunnel. "Walk with me. Surely you know that I brought you here for more than your ever-so-humble opinion."

"Of course," he nodded jerkily as he pulled his wand out once again, and lit its tip with the previous spell he had used. "I apologize for the fact that I was unable to come here on Friday, as I had planned. I was interrupted on my way out of the castle, and then had to deal with a couple troublemakers."

"As you explained in your brief letter, yes," the Dark Lord acknowledged that he had received the owl Severus had sent. "So, tell me. What transpires within the castle?"

Severus thought of everything that had happened in the first week of term, and wondered how much of it the Dark Lord would truly deem as worthy to know. "Nothing, my Lord."

He could sense the Dark Lord's angry curiosity with this answer. "Nothing, Severus?"

"Hardly," he shrugged. "A student disappeared, a couple of students from my house got into a fight over it-"

"What's this?" Severus could not help but notice that the Dark Lord sounded almost entertained. "Tell me more."

Severus studied the Dark Lord in the dim light of the tunnel. Something was different. He did not know if it was the unavailability of light, but there seemed to be a small gleam within his eyes that Severus, try as he might, could never remember being present before. Perhaps he was just in a good mood from the prospect of all the torture that would soon be done in his newly build chamber.

"Blaise Zabini disappeared, and Draco was convinced that Marcus Flint was responsible for it," Severus glanced away quickly as the Dark Lord countered his stare. "I am not entirely sure about what's going on, but since all three boys are in Slytherin, Dumbledore has entrusted me to get to the bottom of it."

The Dark Lord let a small hiss escape him as Severus spoke the name of one of his longest enemies. The - whatever it was - that Severus had seen in his eyes disappeared. "I see. You know, Severus, I had always thought that they would join me, as their grandfathers did. However, when Zabini's concubine of a mother betrayed me and took him with her, along with the Flints, I could take no chance that his father would not eventually follow them."

"I know, my Lord," Severus replied, with full memory of when he had personally seen to the murder of Blaise's father.

"But I always wondered if they would come back," the Dark Lord lamented. "Not Francesca, or Annika and Sebastian, but their children. I assume that Lucius thinks the same, seeing as how he has not poisoned Draco against them."

Severus nodded, but did not see how this could possibly be of any importance to either of them. "Well, my Lord, that is all that has happened since the last time I spoke with you."

They came to a slow stop in the tunnel. Once again, Severus had lost track of where he was. He hoped that he was near the exit, for he could feel his fear of cramped quarters sneaking up on him, once again.

"Very well," the Dark Lord dismissed him. "Come to me next week with more updates. If Fridays do not work for you, we will have to find a better time. I like consistency, as you know, Severus."

His eyes narrowed dangerously, and Severus took a cautious step back. "Of course, my Lord. And if something should get in my way, I will be sure to give you more notice than I did two days ago."

"I would hope so," he descended down a handful of steps before speaking again. "Oh, one more thing, Severus: Lucius, Narcissa, Helga, and Ralph have warned their children not to speak to any other students about their arranged marriage, just in case word of it reaches Dumbledore's ears. Do make sure that they maintain their silence. Especially the girl. You know what she's like."

Severus nodded in understanding, and wondered why the Dark Lord made no mention of keeping an eye out for progress regarding Christina and Draco, instead. Perhaps he really didn't care about which Death Eater children were married, as Severus had once concluded. After all, why should he care? He could not imagine why the Dark Lord would bother himself with such inane matters of business. But, then, why did he come to Severus on behalf of Eric and Cynthia? And, while he was in the spirit of wondering, what was that - that spark of life that he had noticed within the Dark Lord as they walked side by side?

He slowly turned back towards the tunnel's exit, and shed the questions from his mind. It wasn't right. Something didn't add up. Whatever it was, though, he had a feeling that Dumbledore could possibly have an answer for him. At this thought, and as he felt the walls pressing closer in on him, he quickened his pace.