Dedicated to Pesche realizing first that it was her anger that gave her the power to use her voice. Emotion, in my fic, is power. As Severus will state in this chapter, emotions were what gave humans their strength, so as she continues to mask her emotions, she loses the strength that she was naturally given. Once her anger reached boiling point, she was not trying to mask her emotions and was able to use those emotions to give herself power.
Here are some answers to the reviews. No, I am not in a writer's block; I have the entire fic planned out (but I am looking for ideas on See No Evil :) ) I am SO HAPPY that so many people have started reviewing (FINALLY)! For a while, I thought I was going to end up one of those writers who posts for two people. I also realized that people update most when I leave off with a cliffhanger... maybe I should make more of those. (Evil laughter). I have the next five chapters typed, so I'll update every time I get on the computer.
With only one week left until Winter Break, Severus could barely stand staying in school. Lily had just been confined to Order Headquarters; an old, deserted hotel in Muggle Liverpool.
He had to see her. She loathed him now, but he didn't care. Her safety, willing or not, was his sole concern. He had been watching her torn emotions eating her from the inside for months; raw feeling tearing at her very soul.
He knew from experience how it felt to be ever on your mental guard. Even around Severus, her one true friend, Lily was never able to be the Lily she had been before ever encountering Voldemort and the twisted world of magic. Though she never showed her guilt of being who, what, she was, Severus could only imagine how the stolen lives were weighing down her petite shoulders.
Emotions were what set humans apart from other creatures; by being able to feel guilt, to feel hate, to feel love, humans were given strength. In Lily's case, her emotions were always held at bay, and it affected her ability to be herself. It showed in her voice. It stayed blank and quiet until emotion consumed her, and then her voice was elevated back to human potential. Severus just wished that it hadn't been him that had sparked her flame of anger so fiercely. In gaining the trust of Dumbledore, he had lost the trust of the person he cared for most.
"Severus!" whispered Narcissa frantically, jolting him out of his reverie. "Do you think He will kill us?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, Narcissa. Now, what's wrong?" he asked, though he knew exactly what her fear was about.
"The Stunner's gone! We got a letter from… Marvolo Smith today asking for her. I thought she was with Him, didn't you? We were supposed to watch after her! What is Dumbledore caught her?"
"Narcissa!" Severus hissed. The blonde quieted, but tears were formed in her opaque blue eyes. "If something like that did happen to the Dark Lady, not saying that it has, but if it did, we could not have stopped it. The Dark Lord knows this," Severus drawled. "Now, wipe away your tears and quiet down. Talk to Bella, she'll tell you the same."
"But I can't find Bella either," sobbed Narcissa.
"What's going on here?" asked Bellatrix from behind them. As Narcissa turned to weep to her sister, Severus picked up his books to leave. "Oh, and Severus," said Bellatrix. "would you mind writing back to the Dark Lord and explaining this whole mess? You are the best with words."
Severus nodded and grabbed the letter from Bellatrix's waiting hand. He retired to his dorms to explain to the most evil wizard in the world that he and the other Hogwarts Death Eaters had lost Lady Velisna. He just hoped that Voldemort wouldn't take out his anger on the messenger.
Severus tapped his fingers on the desk as Professor Williams passed out the timed writing papers. "Okay, guys and gurls!" he said enthusiastically. "You have thirty minutes to finish the essay, which is part of 30 of your grade! Go ahead and start!"
Severus scanned the topic sentence and grinned. An essay on how Dementors performed their soul sucking duties. This would be easy. He heard Crabbe and Goyle groan behind him and could almost hear the stupidity radiating off of them.
Severus dipped his eagle feather quill into the black ink and began throwing words onto the paper, ever annoyed by the sluggish pace that his hand was making against his mind.
He let himself lose his thoughts in the meaningless essay, blocking out his worries for Lily.
"Time!" called the professor. Severus, who had simply been scanning for misspelled words, dropped his quill, only to pick up all of his troubled thoughts.
"Enjoy your break!" said Professor Williams jovially.
"You too," said the Hufflepuffs as they exited the room. Severus felt like wrapping their little yellow scarves around their cheerful little necks and going Phantom of the Opera on them. Stupid, happy, careless Flufflepuffles.
Severus slinked back to the Slytherin Common Room and ran right into Rudolphus Lestrange on his way up the stairs.
"Where are you off to in such a rush?" asked the large Slytherin lazily, leaning against the stone wall. Course hair shadowed his square jaw and his black hair looked as though it had never seen shampoo. Rudolphus was always the first Slytherin to send the new little first years on some frivolous errand just to prove he could.
"Just eager to get out of this place," drawled Severus. Rudolphus agreed heartily and Severus relaxed. He wouldn't be the one to realize the real reason Severus was in such a hurry.
"Oh yeah, and Severus... Better watch your back…. I hear Potter's scouring the whole bloody school looking for you."
Severus grimaced a smile. "Thanks for the warning, Rudolphus." The other Slytherins never helped Severus in his never-ending war against the Marauders; actually, they seemed to find it amusing.
He entered the dark seventh year boys' dormitory with a heavy heart. Bo Crabbe and George Goyle looked up at him for a second before returning to their invigorating game of Bloody Knuckles.
The boy went over to his long-packed trunk and cast a spell to make it float obediently behind him. He walked upstairs calmly and was almost out of the Common Room when Bellatrix called him back. "The train doesn't leave for another hour, Severus. Come over here," she said imperiously.
Severus slid over and stood vigilantly behind Narcissa's armchair. "That spell of yours really worked," said Antoni Dolohov lazily.
Severus nodded, accepting their gratitude. "Be looking out for my owl," Bellatrix said. "I think we'll be having a meeting soon… once the Dark Lord learns that we lost Lady Velisna. It's your fault, you know."
"My fault?" repeated Severus, nonplussed.
"Your fault the Dark Lord knows now," said Bellatrix matter-of-factly.
"You told me to tell him," said Severus.
"Huh?" said Crabbe, Goyle and the newest recruit, MacNair, together.
Bellatrix, however, just shrugged. "And, you were the first one of us to realize that she was who she was, so she was your responsibility."
Realizing that Severus could never argue with Bellatrix's twisted logic, he gave a small bow and left the Common Room with his suitcase trailing humbly behind him.
He scowled at nearly every portrait he passed and felt like kicking the innocent suits of armor. He had been so busy worrying about Lily that he had almost stopped worrying about himself. The Dark Lord would be on the rampage looking for his daughter, and Severus wouldn't be at the Snape house, where Voldemort might expect him to be. No, the deserted Snape house would remain as such and Severus would be having a jolly old Christmas with the jolly old Order of the Phoenix in an entire house's worth of people who don't trust him and one girl who hates his guts.
As his thoughts drifted once again to Lily, he didn't even notice that he was about to run into a tall, black haired boy.
"Why, hello Sni- Snape! James, Remus and I were just looking for you!" said the boy, pulling him back up to his feet.
"Black," he said shortly by way of greeting.
"Let's get to the point," said Potter.
"Ah, yes, the point. Always a good place to start, don't you think so, Moony?" said Black happily.
Looking at him closely, Severus noticed that Black had a bright red Santa's hat perched on his head in place of his wizards' hat. Severus forced himself to look away from Black and back at Potter, who was glaring at Black.
"Right. Well, we know that you're on the good side now, so I think we should call a truce. You are going to be staying at HQ with us over the break, right?" Potter said.
Severus blinked, and swayed on his feet, feeling slightly nauseous. Christmas… with the Marauders. Was Dumbledore trying to kill him? Nothing could have made his day weirder.
It was at that moment that Peeves shot by overhead, arms full of parchments. "Peeves!" hollered Professor Williams. The bald professor raced by. "Give those here!"
"Nuh, uh! I get lots of money for doing this!" Peeves cackled.
"Peeves, are you the one with the robes and no hair? No! So, gimme those papers!"
"Look out below!" the poltergeist said before snapping his fingers, causing the timed writings to shoot up in flame.
"NOOOOOOOOO!" cried the professor. Severus blinked as the man leapt up off his knees and said, "Well, off to Mexico!" he conjured a broomstick that was painted to look like a parrot and turned his wizard hat into a sombrero. "Adios, boys!" he called the frozen Marauders and Severus before throwing a bag of Galleons to Peeves and zooming out the window. Okay, that was one thing that added the weird cherry on his weird day.
Turning his attention back on the boys, eyed them curiously. "A truce?" said Severus warily.
"Just until we get Lily back on her feet," said Lupin calmly, not at all fazed by the Peeves incident. "I mean, we shouldn't act like we hate each other in front of her, right? She's mad enough as it is without blowing up the hotel to get revenge against because of some prank."
Severus took a deep breath and met each of their eyes. "When working with the Dark Lord, I have to pretend to feel things that I don't and pretend to like people I don't. When I'm working with the Order, I am not going to continue acting. You pretend all you want, but I am never going to call a truce with you. No matter what happens between us, I will always hate you, and nothing is going to change that," he finished. He left the boys standing there and got on the train early, planning what he was going to say to Lily when he finally saw her.
Now, the thing about Williams and Peeves is sort of an inside joke and comic relief to the serious tone of the story. Please review and gimme your thoughts!
Also, I decided to add a little question to push your minds at the end of most chapters, so here's question number one. If it was a choice between saving yourself and ONE loved one (spouse, sibling, parent) andsentencing one hundred other people to death, which would you choose
You can give me your answer in a review, or you can just think aboutit to yourself. I want my fic toopen thoughts for you, so, choose your answer thoughtfully.If you don't want to answer, I would love to see predictions of where you think this fic is going. I already have it planned out, but if there's a really good scene you have in mind, let me knowand I can incorporate it into the story. If yourguess is completely off,then I get a good laugh. Just kidding. I really want to know what you think.
OH!I also wanted to clarify something.One reviewer said that this was the climax of this fic. Not quite right. If my plans work out, this is about half-way through the fic. This story will either gountil Lily and James get married, or when they announce their engagement. No, I will not go into all those details of before the wedding/engagement. Maybethe last two chapters will skip ahead in time a bit to theproposal and ceremony. Trust me, I have big plans for this; I will try not to let it get to dull! PLEASE REVIEW!