Death Eater No More—Chapter Twenty-Nine (The Die is Cast)

(A/N: mottsnave--thank you for noticing the parallel between Nott, Sr. and Severus versus Theo and Jacinta!....Guilty--I forgive you and look forward to more reviews. Hermione only has a crush on Snape....Alex--Yes, there is more to Lucius and Narcissa, never fear! Thank you to all my readers and reviewers!)

December 23, 1998

Lucius and Severus arrived by apparition at the Florida farmhouse within moments of each other, in the field where so many bad memories lay buried. Pausing to collect themselves after the arduous journey, they both took a few seconds to quell the nausea, to prepare themselves. The place looked exactly the same as they remembered: dirty and forlorn, broodingly quiet…minus a Death Eater torture party or the dark lord's insane presence, naturally.

Wands drawn, they glanced around sharply in the partially overcast light of day. By now bedtime would have reached Great Britain, but here dusk had not yet settled in. It seemed odd, the reigning tranquility and silence when this place represented a bastion of evil, of torment. The silence now gripped at their guts like a vise. No noise too often meant no life.

Severus pointed off to the right and Lucius, taking the cue, nodded curtly and headed round back of the house. Slinking stealthily as a cat to the nearest window, Snape peered through the cracked, grime-encrusted pane. Nothing but an empty, filthy room. He slipped down to the next set of windows and the hair at the back of his neck stood on end.

Almost directly across from him, secured to the wall by invisible chains, was Bayly. His shirt was gone and his chest and stomach bore several shallow slashes that oozed a trickle of blood; they looked to have been caused by a tree switch, but Severus knew better. Dolohov wouldn't bother with a switch when a curse would be so much more painful.

"Recite it again—and this time get it right!" bellowed Dolohov, making Snape actually start. He'd been so intently focused on Bayly he'd lost sight of the whole picture. Mentally he castigated himself for the lapse.

The other wizard stormed into view, apparently from another room, and snapped his wrist, causing his wand to flick and leaving another whip-like mark on the boy's flesh. Bayly gasped at the sting of it.

"I—I mustn't be afraid to demonstrate my superiority," mumbled the boy. "Mudbloods will bow before me and Muggles will die by my hand."

Dolohov didn't get the opportunity to correct him if he'd gotten it wrong, for the windows behind him exploded into the room along with a good section of the wall. He whirled, casting a curse as he did so at the man leaping into the room through the gaping hole.

Anticipating the attack, Severus blocked the curse and threw one back at him. Dolohov sneered as he brushed it aside.

"That the best you've got, halfbreed scum?" he taunted as another vicious spell sailed toward Snape.

The other man diverted it as well, sending it ricocheting off a wall, then fired three hexes in quick succession. Dolohov narrowly parried the onslaught and cast back his own, but his sneer had dissolved. Faces grim with the realization that this duel was no game, it was to the death, the opponents flung curses as fast as they could think them while dodging all manner of hexes including avada kedavras, circling and sidestepping, bobbing and weaving. Chunks of plaster gouged from the walls crashed to the floor at regular intervals. For several long, tense minutes it went on, neither gaining the upper hand as multi-colored flashes of light illuminated their faces in frightful relief.

Hoping to distract Severus and give himself an edge, Dolohov purred in a rough voice, "What business do you have here? I didn't hurt your brat."

Severus slammed a blue curse so hard in his direction it cracked a stud inside the wall when Dolohov deflected it. "You tried, though, didn't you?" Severus hissed back. "Now you're torturing one of my students."

In answer Dolohov shot another killing curse that Snape simply ducked. "This is my kid, Snape. None of your concern." Another hex, then another flew from his wand to smack at odd angles on the walls as Severus turned them aside.

The hard black orbs of Severus' face pierced Dolohov like daggers laced with cyanide, his lips pinched into a tight white line. He'd been in plenty of duels over the years, many of them at the master's orders for his entertainment; not counting the dark lord and Bellatrix, he'd been bested by no one in a one-on-one fight from the time he learned proper dueling techniques. He had no intention of changing that now, not when the stakes were so high. For his own sake he couldn't let his guard down, but more for Jacinta and Bayly he had to win. If he so much as allowed the thought of defeat, the two youths' lives were in grave danger, and he'd be damned if Dolohov was going to touch his daughter or any other child again!

With renewed purpose he aimed a stupefy followed immediately by two dark spells. Dolohov scrambled out of the way after blocking the first and positioned himself next to Bayly, sneering once more. Snape wouldn't shoot at the kid he was trying so hard to 'save', would he?

The evil wizard thrust his wand against Bayly's temple, digging it in slightly, dimpling the delicate skin. "Stop now or he dies," he warned. "Let me out of the house so I can apparate away, and you can have him. That seems reasonable."

The notion that Dolohov wouldn't murder his own son never crossed Severus' mind. He knew the man too well to hope for a spark of humanity, and this situation only proved his point. Snape hesitated, fury boiling in his veins, his wand aimed at Dolohov. It was too easy for a spell to be knocked aside just enough to hurt or kill someone nearby; as it was they'd endangered Bayly's life multiple times with their duel. If he let Dolohov go, Bayly would live…for now that would have to suffice. He could spend the rest of his life hunting down the sadistic bastard, but right now he must do what was prudent to save the boy. Though it left a bitter taste in his mouth, he began to lower his wand.

"Just kill me, dad," Bayly said in a low, deadpan voice.

For an instant Dolohov's eyes flickered to his son; it was all Severus needed. The wand that had started lowering slashed savagely upward with his trademark sectumsempra, cutting from belt to chin in a brutal line that tore Dolohov nearly in two. He dropped to his knees on the floor gushing blood from the massive wound, his heart spurting in gusts the precious fluid of his life. Unable to speak, he gaped uncomprehendingly as he clutched at the unmendable rip. For the first time in a very, very long time he recognized his own mortality.

Severus raced across the room and crushed Dolohov's wand with his boot, snapping it in half, then he carefully removed the spells binding the lad to the wall. Letting the strangely quiet boy rest on him for support, he pulled Bayly out of the room of his torment, the room where his father lay dying, through the hole he'd blasted in the house. There he found Lucius standing silently, watching the spectacle with wand drawn.

"Thanks for your help," said Severus sarcastically.

"You had it well in hand," returned Lucius with a shrug. "If Dolohov had left the house, I'd have killed him. As it was, I was ready to block a spell from you if need be, but if I'd started sending curses while you two were dancing around in there I might have hit you or the boy." When he noted Severus raising his wand to Bayly's chest, he stayed him with a hand on his arm. Shaking his head in warning he said, "Leave it be. It's only superficial, and the aurors need to see everything exactly as it is."

The serious glint in his eye made Severus pause, then he acquiesced. He let Bayly slide to the ground where the boy crouched in a ball with his head resting on his arms and his eyes staring vacantly. Conjuring images of happy times with Jacinta—no small feat with a man dead by his hand and one of his students cringing at his feet—he managed to produce the patronus associated with her, a lovely white unicorn. "Go to the Ministry and bring aurors here. Tell them Dolohov is dead, the boy is rescued."

The unicorn bounded off and Severus looked down at Bayly; his back, now clearly visible in the fading sunlight, was crisscrossed with a mass of welts, some of them oozing pus and blood. If Dolohov weren't already dead or close to it, he'd have another go at the bastard.

"Severus, you should see this," Lucius said in a hushed tone. The gravity of the situation and the air being so still amplified every movement and word. He beckoned his friend to follow as he led to the back of the house where a shallow pit had been dug.

"Bayly, help will arrive soon. You must stay right here, don't wander off," cautioned Severus to the youth who seemed unaware of their presence. He glanced down at the motionless form before sighing inwardly and following Lucius.

Snape looked down into the pit, paled, and fought a sudden rush of bile as he spun away. Two bodies lay in the hole, a man and a woman, both nude and heinously mutilated, obviously tortured piteously, and he didn't need to ask whose handiwork it was. The bodies were fresh, as evidenced by their lack of decomposition in the warm air; the man appeared to have been skinned alive.

"If the boy witnessed this, and I'm supposing he did, it won't be an easy thing to forget," Lucius commented, vaguely worried about Severus. It wasn't like him to be so squeamish, it weren't as if he'd never seen tortured corpses before. Hell, he'd watched people die plenty of times, had just killed one himself.

"I need to get back to Bayly," Severus said tightly. Won't be easy to forget? When had Lucius become master of the obvious? The poor kid had lived a veritable nightmare over the past few days, he'd be lucky to be able to shove it out of his mind long enough to try to live a normal life. He strode back to the battered youth and squatted down beside him. "Are you alright?"

There was no answer, not even a raising of his blond head to look up.

Severus shifted his weight and lowered one knee to the ground. "Bayly, I'm sorry. I…there is no excuse, this shouldn't have happened." Unused as he was to offering comfort, he wrung his hands together before venturing to place one tentatively on the boy's shoulder. Bayly recoiled violently, shaking the offending appendage away.

"Don't touch me!" croaked Bayly. His arms tightened around his legs.

He deserved that, didn't he? He'd failed to protect the boy, allowed him to be kidnapped and hideously abused, then topped off the horror by killing his father in front of him. It would be a wonder if Bayly weren't angry. "I am very sorry."

"Just don't touch me," repeated Bayly, his voice rising in a shaky plea.

"If that's what you want," intoned Snape, getting stiffly to his feet. He walked away a short piece, then out of the blue slammed his fist into the side of the house. He clenched his teeth against the pain shooting up his arm and looked down in fascination and rage at his skinned, bloodied knuckles and shattered bone.

From seemingly nowhere Lucius appeared. "He doesn't blame you."

Severus couldn't make eye contact, it was too painful, much more so than the throbbing in his hand. "Yes, he does—and he should. It was my responsibility to protect him. I have no business being Headmaster."

"You saved his life."

"Which I wouldn't have had to do if I'd done my job!" snarled Severus.

Without invitation Lucius reached over and stretched his friend's hand out in front of him, shaking his head and clucking his tongue. "That was very stupid."

"Who are you, my conscience?" sniped the other.

"In a manner of speaking," replied Lucius. He waved his wand over the fractured paw while chanting one of the many spells he'd heard his father use. The bones snapped back into place with a grunt from Severus. He pointed the wand again.

Severus yanked his hand away, grimacing at the pangs accompanying his tantrum. "I can do it myself." He proceeded to do just that while Lucius watched blandly through half-lidded eyes as the bones mended, the bruises receded, the wounds closed, and Severus flexed his hand a few times.

"Show-off," smirked Lucius before becoming serious once more. "You're not the only one who carries a burden of guilt, Severus. I nearly destroyed my family, my son could have been killed because of me, because of who I served. Wallowing in anger or self-pity isn't going to change that, is it? I can't alter the past any more than you can, but I can make things better for the future."

He noted with satisfaction that even though Snape was staring down and digging the toe of his boot at the ground pretending not to listen, he wore a pensive expression.

"That boy over there has been appallingly traumatized, he's going to need your support, your strength. Don't think me a sycophant when I say you're the strongest man I know."

"In case you happened to miss the show, he hates me," Severus stated, jaw clenched, eyes searching the dirt as if he found it enthralling, or perhaps thought he might find something valuable.

Lucius glanced over at Bayly huddled against the building, sobbing quietly into his arms, and his heart tightened in his chest. This kid was younger than Draco; how would Draco have fared under these circumstances? This was so wrong, everything about this scene. "I highly doubt that. He's overwrought and terrified; can you fault him for that?"

A unicorn burst into the field followed by six aurors apparating together, back to back, wands drawn. Seeing only Severus, Lucius, and Bayly—none of whom were brandishing weapons—they warily approached. Lucius led three of the men to the pit in the back garden where the maimed corpses lay, while Severus motioned for the rest to follow him inside to Dolohov's body.

The leader of the group, a gentleman of fifty with silver-brown hair, unstuck Bayly's wand from the table and came outside to present it to him. "Bayly, I'm Charles." He nudged the boy gently in a friendly manner, careful to avoid the wounds, but Bayly shrieked and shuffled away, trembling against the house and throwing one arm up over his head.

"Please leave me alone!" he cried hysterically. If he could have pressed himself any tighter into a ball, he would have imploded.

The auror held the wand out at arm's length. "I just wanted to give you your wand," he said softly. "I'm not coming closer, I won't hurt you."

Bayly lifted his head barely enough to look over his knees, his tearstained face red from crying and dirty from lack of washing, the expression in his eyes leery…haunted. Cautiously he reached over, snapped up the wand, and clutched it in a near death grip to his chest.

"You need medical attention. Why don't you come with me—"

"No!" blurted Bayly, shaking his head frantically. His wand began to rise.

Charles raised his hands in surrender, slowly got up, and went back inside where he pulled aside the only woman of their group and spoke softly to her for a bit, every so often gesturing outside. She got a troubled look and nodded, then came out to where Bayly sat. She crouched down next to him and touched his hand; he started but didn't jerk away.

"Bayly, my name is Davina. I need to take you to St. Mungo's for treatment so you don't get infected." From the looks of it, she was a little late for that. "Will you let me apparate you?"

He regarded her apprehensively, his mind racing in confusion. At last he bobbed his head mutely. She smiled and stroked his hair, wishing she dared hug the piteous child to her chest, but he was too emotionally fragile for that, she knew. She stood up and motioned for him to do the same; as his lithe form unfolded to reveal the scars of his captivity, it took all she had not to scream in outrage at the multitude of marks disfiguring him. Carefully placing his hand in hers, she disapparated.

Inside, Charles wandered over to Severus, ignoring Dolohov's twisted corpse. He'd seen more than his share of mangled bodies, and Dolohov had caused who knows how many of them. Good riddance to the filth. "We'll need to take a statement from you and Mr. Malfoy."

"Of course," Severus replied.

"Are you the one who took out Dolohov?"

"Yes," said Snape curtly. He was really in no mood to discuss this, he wanted to know that Bayly was being taken care of, he wanted to assure himself the boy was alright.

"Nice job! I hear he was quite good at dueling," commented Charles.

"Well he isn't anymore," growled Severus.

As if sensing the conversation turning ugly, Lucius came sauntering in with the rest of the aurors, looking like a regal commander. "Gentlemen, it's been a trying day for all of us. You've got your work cut out for you in disposing of the Muggle bodies and of that despicable person." He stopped short of stomping Dolohov's lifeless body, mainly because it would entail stepping in a puddle of blood to get close enough. "I see no reason for us to remain here in your way. Would it not be possible for Mr. Snape and myself to present ourselves at the Ministry tomorrow to answer any questions you may have?"

"I don't see why not," answered the leader. "We've got a lot to do, as you pointed out. Mr. Snape, since you found the boy and you know him, would you mind speaking to Bayly's mum about what went on here?"

Severus gave a slow, solemn nod. Miss Young ought to be informed of the conditions under which he'd found and rescued her son. Though he felt peevish thinking it, he felt she ought to be aware of the ways her depraved lover had tortured him.

Then Charles added, "Be prepared, though—it's not an easy thing for a parent to hear their child has been brutalized and raped. If you prefer, we'll take care of it."

Time seemed to come to a grinding halt as Lucius and Severus gaped together in horrified incomprehension at the wizard. At length Lucius clamped his jaw shut and rapidly collected himself, ever mindful of his public persona, but his eyes retained a vestige of revulsion and dismay. Snape's face took on a hard edge he didn't try to hide.

"Why would you think that?" demanded Severus when his voice finally agreed to cooperate. Was that high tone actually him?

"I've dealt with a lot of rape victims, Mr. Snape, and this kid acts like one," said Charles simply in a weary, jaded tone. He'd seen so much evil and suffering in his career as an auror that at times it broke his heart—when it didn't enrage him and spur him on to instituting justice. Here, justice had already been done. "I could be wrong."

But you're not, Severus thought as a wave of despair crashed over him. An unseen force like a kick to his stomach nearly knocked him off his feet. This explained Bayly's despondency, his evident fear at having Snape near him! It fit, didn't it? Dolohov wouldn't be satisfied with breaking his son physically through barbaric torture, he'd seek to break him mentally and emotionally as well, and he'd go to any lengths to accomplish it.

Stony faced, Severus spun on his heel and stalked out, ignoring Lucius calling after him and the aurors staring at him. This was all his fault. It had been bad enough to find Bayly tortured, but at least he was alive, he would heal; to realize the additional misery the kid would endure for probably years to come was too much to take. And to think it was all his doing, his lack of guarding his ward that had permitted this to happen!

He stomped across the field heedless of where he was going. He was a useless sack of shit who didn't deserve to be in a position of authority over youngsters who depended on him! And to make matters worse—if indeed that was even possible—Dolohov had abducted his son to punish him for sending the aurors after him, which in reality was Snape's doing! All of it, from Dolohov's desire to kill Snape for his treachery to this very moment—every bloody part of it was his fault, and Bayly had been the one to pay the price.

It was time he resigned and let someone worthy assume leadership at Hogwarts. Who did he think he was kidding anyway? Not only did he suck at defending the children, he wasn't Dumbledore, he wasn't cut out for coddling a bunch of needy brats. This situation clarified that point all too acutely.

He owed it to Miss Young to explain what had happened here today. No doubt the doctors at St. Mungo's would inform her of Bayly's injuries and tend to them appropriately. Beyond that, everyone would be better off if he never showed his face again. Certainly he couldn't expect Bayly to forgive him, nor dare he ask for absolution. He deserved only the utmost contempt and revilement for his pitiful performance.

It was in this wretched state of self-loathing Severus disapparated on his way back to Britain.