The constructed Severus comes to sitting at the table, looking into the face of the genuine article. They eye each other with clear distaste.
Well, that answers that question. Of course they would hate each other.
"I figured it out," she says snidely over Severus' shoulder from her seat at the table.
"All on your own, I take it," the construct replies, condescension dripping from every syllable.
Lily scowls. "The other one is at least tolerable, even if it's a little dim. This one has an ego."
"The same as his," the thing says archly, jutting his chin toward Severus.
"Pity it still has a use," Severus muses, straightening from where he has been bent over the thing and moving to his seat.
"Which, the ego or the construct?" Lily asks.
Severus only raises an eyebrow.
Fair enough. She turns back to the thing. "Severus told me I'm not allowed to turn you into soup, if that's any comfort."
It grits its ugly teeth. "A decidedly cold comfort."
Lily smiles. "Clever boy." Because of course it can only mean one thing: that it has a use too dangerous to send the real Severus in for. "I've caught the real Severus up to speed, so we've brought you 'round to plot with us. Two and a half brains being better than two." She sounds confident, but her arms are crossed, legs crossed, and one toe won't stop jiggling to some manic beat.
"Infiltrating Hogwarts, then," it says grimly.
"She seems to think she's going with you," Severus adds.
The expression on the thing's face changes to mirror Severus' own: mouth downturned into a frown, eyebrows up, absolutely not writ clear across both faces.
"And what, we send the half-deer upstairs in with this one? That one won't work, and the other one-the one that was me enough-would probably try to set fire to a broomstick with your nose. They'll be blown in seconds, and it's not as if either is anonymous." Lily sets her shoulders. "It has to be me. You need someone who can do magic and this," she gestures to the construct with a flick of her fingertips, "can't."
"The dog," the construct says, which is also exactly what Severus said.
"Would sooner eat glass than work with any version of you, and you know it," Lily retorts. "Besides, do you want him to know you made this thing? He'll suss whatever it is you're up to, and then he'll probably throw it in the bin for spite. And we're going to come back round to the fact that both of you seem excessively willing to sacrifice Sirius' life."
"As a dog, you mean? That's not a life," the construct says.
"And neither is mine, but you seem to value it rather more," Lily says acidly to the thing wearing Severus' face. "Funny enough, I don't value yours at all, which is why you get to come with. I find you entirely disposable."
His expression flattens in a perfect imitation of the dismissive, cold expression Severus uses for people he finds tiresome. "You've made that quite clear."
It's less satisfying than it might be to throw barbs at the thing. She did share that sliver of misplaced intimacy with it. Severus hasn't been informed of that particular detail, but it could inform him, and that is a weapon she gave away.
But it doesn't use it yet. It merely looks at her as if he'd like to scrape her off its boot.
The three of them bandy ideas back and forth like a quaffle, but the best one rises to the top; they can plumb Lucius and the other Governors, perhaps, but the actual theft cannot occur openly while Severus is there, which means it's sneaking or nothing. The castle is vast, deeply magical, perhaps inimical to their goals; the search could take weeks, and there are a vanishingly small number of ways to shorten that time.
Severus is in the middle of a sentence when it happens, pacing behind his chair. "Perhaps the house-elves could be convinced to assist our search, but the story we would tell them would have to be utterly innocuous should it reach the ears of-"
Then he hisses and grasps his left forearm, fingers wrapping tight around it.
Lily's on her feet so fast the chair tips over backward, falling to the floor with a crash. She's sure it's happened before, in this house, even in front of her once or twice, but not since they started this war, not since she dragged him into it. Fear is iced rimed about her heart.
She doesn't mean for the words to come out a desperate whisper, but they do: "You don't have to go."
A crooked sort of expression, a sort of pained almost-smile paints his bloodless face. "You know I must." Before she can object, his wand points to the door, summoning his cloak, and then flicks it at the fireplace to kindle flames in the wood laid there. Lily is trying desperately to marshal her thoughts, to form a plan where he doesn't have to go, not like this, not mid-treason, but as the cloak swirls around his shoulders he throws a handful of Floo and says a place that is swallowed by the roaring in her ears, and he's stepped in without so much as saying goodbye.
The absence is a rung bell. The construct has moved behind her, righting the chair; the scraping of the legs behind her almost makes her jump.
Its voice is low as it lays a hand on her shoulder. "Are you all right?"
"Don't," she snaps, shrugging her shoulder out from underneath him and spinning round to face him. She's so keyed up and terrified she could strike the thing across its face for touching her.
And it seems to know she could strike it. "The Dark Lord does call occasionally at random to keep his followers on their toes. This is likely nothing."
"It feels like something." She rubs at the ache starting in her temples. "All right. All right. You're a bellweather, at least, if anything-if he-"
"If he dies," the construct finishes for her.
"Don't say that." Her heart seizes like a fluttering bird and she wraps it in ice faster than its wings can beat again. "Why do you think he was called?"
"The Dark Lord is capricious. There are any number of reasons."
She wants to punch a wall. "Best guess."
"I've told you, there's nothing. There's nothing the Dark Lord expects but potions for the war front, the same I've-" it catches itself, gives its head a small shake, "-he has been making for over a year."
"There's no reason, then. No reason at all, unless-"
"Don't."
"What am I supposed to do, then?" she cries, slamming a tight fist into the top of the chair. "I can't just sit here and talk to you. You're not Severus."
His eyes glitter strangely. "You might be surprised."
And isn't that the invitation of the year. As if she'd clear her busy social calendar (ha) for-for-
A secret. Kept.
No, it isn't an invitation; that would be disgusting in the extreme. It's much more sinister than that. It's a promise. It comes into horrible focus that it knows something, something much bigger that the real Severus doesn't know or can't see, something that Lily barely is willing to know for herself, and she wishes the floor would swallow her up.
She can't bring herself to say it, though. She sits down and puts her forehead, miserably, onto her crossed arms and shuts her eyes. "What are you going to tell him?"
By the sound of his footfalls and the sound of the chair, he's gone back across from her, reestablished a distance. It would be comforting if she weren't at the thing's mercy. "I will tell him nothing."
"Good. Because I'll turn you into soup if you do, no matter who you look like."
Seconds tick past, and then: "This is the issue with constructs," the thing says finally. "Particularly human-formed constructs, ones of intelligence."
"Explain."
"What you did to the precise construct of yourself is highly unusual. Most do not have the stomach to dissolve something with their own face and mind. It suggests certain... dangers in your character."
Her head rolls back and forth against her forearms as she shakes it. "You think I'm going insane."
"No." The thing looks pensive, the same way Severus does when they debate the finer points of magic. "There is an argument to be made that your reaction is the wiser of the two, rather than allowing it to form its own thoughts, opinions, entanglements. They are capable of becoming confused. There are several historical cases of a construct attempting to destroy or imprison and replace their masters."
She isn't going to play along with it, this revealing-all, the kindness and open-handed information. Cracking open one eye and craning her neck to peer at him, she says, "And is that in your plan?"
It fixes her with a withering look. "Obviously not. It is very clear that none of this is about me."
Which is worse. And might suggest a danger in the character of Severus, if she thinks about it, which she doesn't want to. Lily has been chewing on the inside of her lip but she forces herself to stop as she tastes the faintest hint of blood. The thing sitting across the table from her isn't stupid or homicidal. It truly is exactly like Severus, just without magic, without the Dark Mark, and with vanishingly little to lose. Which is to say, without all the things that made Severus who he is. Which is to say, entirely unlike him. But it's capable of seeing things even she and Severus-
Actually, there is something this thing could help her with, come to think of it. "Where has Severus been going? We debriefed but he came back with a stranger's face. I asked in a couple different ways but he saw straight through it and wouldn't tell me what he's up to, which is bloody splendid. He didn't give up anything, not even when I got very cross about the fact that he's using the Potter Estate for whatever the hell it is. He's shut like a clam."
"Naturally. But he hasn't shared his work with me. It would be a liability." His hand moves toward her, long enough to be clear, not far enough to touch. "Obviously."
The table is big and old and very beautiful, and when her forehead connects with it it makes an almost musical thunk. "Why am I not surprised. I'm just as useless as you. Might as well go upstairs and eat violets."
And then that soft little laugh comes again and she wishes with an almost physical pain that she could hear Severus-the real Severus-laugh like that, like it's something joyful that's escaped the iron trap he's fashioned himself into. Like they are best friends and she's said something funny and he hasn't learned to Occlude so hard that sometimes she doesn't even recognize him.
"Do you think he knows," she says, trying to sound genial and failing utterly, "that if he dies I'm going to go completely spare?"
It's voice is careful, but not cold. "I haven't the faintest."
They sit there like that, woman and the shadow of a man who might have been, in silence punctuated by the crackle of the hearth until Lily has finally managed to unclench her jaw and calm her breathing. And it can hear her do it, can hear the panic she hadn't planned for, hadn't even considered, which is the worst kind of tell, but it doesn't say anything about it-a small mercy. Once she's under control it says something about the plan for infiltrating Hogwarts, and she pulls her head off her arms to poke holes in the idea. It knows as much about Hogwarts as anyone who has worked there for two years but the information is three years and one major regime change out of date. If she doesn't think about it too much it is very close to what planning with Severus is like anyway, so they might as well work and wait for bad news. It is, at the end, very much like him: brutally efficient, uninterested in kindness, and completely at her mercy.
When the fire burns green again, they are both hunched over a hastily sketched map of the grounds of Hogwarts. Lily's wand is out and pointed before the dark head emerges.
"What's my favorite holiday?"
Severus steps out of the hearth, brushing soot until he notices her wand. "What?"
"There are too many people who look like you in this room already and I don't trust your master. What's my favorite holiday? When we were kids, I mean."
Recognition blooms, and he scowls at it. "My birthday. Because you got to embarrass me and I couldn't do anything about it."
"That's not how I'd describe it," she says, though it is. She lowers her wand. "What did he want?"
He doesn't look at her. Rather, he looks to the construct. "Leave us."
The thing starts, as if ready to fight back at being spoken to thus, but then reconsiders. It straightens, gives one sharp nod, and leaves. The door swings heavy behind its retreating steps.
Only when it's gone does Severus step toward her, toward the table, removing his cloak and draping it over the back of a chair. "What is this?"
"Plans. What, do you think the shop closes up when you leave?" She blows a breath across the parchment to finish the ink drying and then rolls it. "Mostly the thing's fault, really. I was ready to wallow but it thought we should work." She gives half a smile, thinking something ridiculous. "It's almost like it's trying to impress me."
Severus' mouth twists into the most unpleasant shape yet, which is a kind of confirmation.
"You have got to be kidding me. Really? You too?"
He's confessed two personal things in two minutes and it's clearly excruciating, if his terminally dour expression is anything to go by. "You are difficult."
"You are an idiot," she sighs. "Do you honestly need me to say it? You've always been-" Lily spreads her hands, helplessly. "I mean, even that thing is enough of you to be-I can't believe I have to say it."
"Then don't," he said shortly. "It is the impulse of a child."
Why must he make everything ten times more difficult than it has to be? She crosses her arms, feeling like a child herself. "Fine. I won't."
"It isn't why we need to speak privately." He sits across from her. "We have perhaps a month of safety left."
All joviality is wiped away. "What?"
"We have," he says slowly. "One month. If the Dark Lord's patience and trust holds."
"Until what?"
"He has asked for you." His face becomes clinical, cold, his voice smoothed of inflection, hands steepling before him. "He has heard that you have recovered from your illness and are now serving more publicly and capably. He wishes to see my work upon you. I suspect he wants to evaluate if any of the rumors are true, or possibly to evaluate my methodology to see if it could be replicated on others with similar allegiances. Likely both." His mouth goes thin. "I believe can delay him for a month, but no longer."
Lily's blood turns to ice. Her hands become fists and she only has the wherewithal to put her the map down before she crumples it. "Are you going to give me up?"
He glances at her sharply and the bottomless look blazing there in his face is too fierce by half. There's a deep offense and worse, the other, bladed thing that she cannot bear to look upon. She looks away and still feels the heat of it.
"Sorry." She rubs her temple. "I wasn't thinking."
"Clearly not." And she deserves the biting tone that comes along with it.
But there's a calculating voice in the back of her mind, a fragment of an idea. This, too, can be an opportunity. "What if you did, though? What if we do as he says and that's when we do it." Her voice descends to a whisper, as if anyone night have their ear pressed to the walls. "That's when we kill him."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"It's a shot. It's the only shot we might have."
"It's too dangerous."
"There's no other way-"
"Be sensible," he demands, his voice so forceful he manages to cut off her retort. He holds up one finger. "We do not currently possess the diadem. We have a lead on its general but not specific location, provided Dumbledore and Flamel are correct, but we do not possess it, and therefore cannot destroy it." Two more fingers. "There are, as of now, two other horcruxes we have yet to discover." Another. "We have no plan to destroy any of them and no assurances that any ideas to destroy them will successfully do so."
"What we do have is a month, which is not nothing."
His patience is fraying. It always did when he felt he wasn't being heard. "It is not enough."
"It could be. We managed to make a construct-managed to develop a whole new technique for their creation-almost overnight." She rakes her hand through her hair. "You're brilliant and I'm too stubborn to quit and between the two of us I think we could have him dead inside a month. I really do."
And how little he thinks of hope. "I never took you for a fool," he sneers.
From the vast catalog of filth, she takes a selection to tell him exactly what she thinks of that opinion and where he can stuff it, finishing with the greatest barb: "If you want me to cut you out of the whole thing, just say so."
It's crude leverage, but it works. The sneering, imposing creature crumples slightly into the more familiar, resigned man: both are him but one is easier to contend with. "I should send you away."
"And leave you to face him alone? You'd have to kill me first."
Something odd and almost soft happens to his face, and he opens his mouth to speak, but she doesn't let him go on. "What we are going to do," Lily speaks over him, "is infiltrate Hogwarts, find the diadem, figure out what the other two are and destroy the lot in a month, stab Tom Riddle in the back with a potions dagger, and what the hell, go out for a single malt and ice creams after. How does that sound?"
For half a second his lip quirks, almost like he might laugh even without hope, because she is absurd and smiling and sure of herself to a fault and he does like that about her, he must; and they know each other so well that he must know how scared she still is, he must know about the brave face she's putting on things. And he could almost laugh for it all.
-Almost. It never makes it that far. His face goes smooth once more and the tiny flame of hope is extinguished. He sighs, and then says, "It sounds inevitable."
