Chapter 37

Once Again Into the Darkness

AN: Sorry it took a bit between this update and the last one, I had to work out a few kinks in the storyline that I just can't continue with knowing some things from Canonverse. When I started this fic on a challenge from friends, I'm not even sure OoTP was out. Anyway, by now it's ridiculously AU. It bent canon quite significantly now that we know a lot more about characters and their histories. Originally, part of the challenge from my friends was 1.) We all know Snape's not a vampire, what are alternate possibilities...2.) Egypt has the earliest wizard recordings, what do Egyptian wizards think of blood purity 3.) What makes the Dark Arts...Dark. I've covered #1 and #3, #2 is still unfolding and there's two other points I can't reveal ;) . The difficult part is now trying to reconcile this with a lot more canon, without going too far into la la land, which I just don't enjoy. I think I have as best a grip on it as I can get, tweaked around how a few things are going to happen and now have a course to bring the ending together. I hope you enjoy it! This story has been a weird ride!

A few days passed and while most of the wounds seemed to be healing, the bleeding nearly stopped, Osiris still seemed to be very ill.

Today, like every other morning, Severus took in the boy's skin tone. He was yet ghastly white, still with tracings of veins showing. In some sort of magical way, his apprentice was sick, and it was nothing with which he had further skill. Whether it was from too much exposure to the Dark Arts, the residual effects of the blood ritual, or something of the Dark Lord or Malfoy, he had no idea.

You could not very well take someone with the Dark Mark black as black could possibly be on their seventeen year old arm to St. Mungos, and Severus was quite sure they would sooner let him die than heal him. The Headmaster did not have the same experience with the Dark Arts, and the only other wizard that did was the one who had done this in the first place.

There was Narcissa and her strange knack for healing, but after what Osiris had done to Draco, that seemed unwise, no matter what favors he was doing for the woman.

While he'd briefly pondered the state of his apprentice, the boy sat down and began pouring himself tea.

Before he could ask, the boy said, "Perhaps a little better, sir." The gauze magically covering his forearms was still red. It was not said very optimistically.

"I have exhausted my expertise, Mr. Silver, and we both know where this will go, sooner or later."

To his credit, the boy swallowed his tea and replied, "If this next summons does not do me in, surely by the one after that, I will do us both in. I won't be strong enough physically or magically."

The professor opened his mouth to reply, but stopped when the boy suddenly added, "Of all things, I did not think it would happen like this."

"It shan't. There are still a few avenues left, with some level of risk. I have something to tell the Dark Lord about his plans, and I will bring you and complain that Lucius Malfoy disobeyed him."

Osiris stared for a long moment. "I do not understand, sir." The truth was he did not remember much of anything after the Mark.

"The Dark Lord told him not to do anything I could not heal, and obviously whatever is wrong with you, I cannot heal it, boy. I cannot sit by and continue on a course that will end in your death, or both of our deaths, if I can do something to prevent it."

Osiris had a hard time grasping the concept, but finally said, "You, you think the Dark Lord will heal me?"

"Incredulous though you might be, the Dark Lord has deep knowledge of magic and manipulating it, especially Dark magic. If it was something of the Dark Lord and not Malfoy, He can most certainly undo it. Whatever this is, I doubt it is Lucius."

"Do you think I am even strong enough, master?"

He knew what the boy was talking about. He was far weaker than he had been that first night when he had faced the Dark Lord. "He has already invaded your mind. He's not going to look there to see if you are truly ill. He will hopefully be looking at your body for that. Keep your eyes down or closed and regardless of your body, you should be able to focus and close your mind. Find the will, knowing what the alternatives are, Osiris. And regardless of how frightened you are of it, listen to your magic, it wants to protect you, don't fight it."

The air was just as stagnant. The permeation of Dark magic in the area hit Osiris the same. Right after the professor apparated them and a wave of nausea hit him from being weak, the sensation of darkness was like a sinister whisper in his ear. He felt it as if it was smoke that could permeate every blood vessel in his body, speaking to him.

It was not a pleasant feeling.

He was not sure this was the right thing to do, but he trusted the experience of his master, who grabbed his upper arm as he swayed.

"Breathe out slowly. Clench your muscles, it will raise your blood pressure." That whispered baritone made Osiris nod and do so. In his position, the professor had likely had to apparate in all sorts of condition.

Osiris had hoped not to repeat the experience of the Dark Lord so soon and that was not helping matters. Nevertheless he walked along with the hand on his arm steadying him a few paces before releasing him. The travel had taken a toll on him; he had apparated far too many times in the last few days after what damage had been done to him.

When they arrived inside, it seemed they were expected. The Dark Lord was seated in a high-backed arm chair awaiting them, or at least awaiting the elder one.

"Ah Severus, what news do you have for me?"

Osiris stood back, not wanting to get close until he had to, and a deferential distance seemed safe as the professor moved forward and began speaking. Osiris did not catch all of it until Dumbledore's name was mentioned.

"Dumbledore is suspicious with these careless activities, my Lord. The Malfoy boy's name has already been brought up, and the boy refuses my cautions and council, despite my every effort."

"He will find his way, or he won't, Severus. I do not know if I even thought the boy would succeed, but if he does not, you know what must be done."

"Indeed, it will be a distinct pleasure." The ice in the silky voice never betrayed a hint of the fact that the Headmaster had already told him he must do it months ago.

Without so much as another noise, Osiris' vision narrowed, and fell to the floor on his knees.

The Dark Lord looked at the Potions master for an explanation with only a mild sort of curiosity or annoyance. He rather hated nosy interruptions.

"I am loathed to say that Lucius disobeyed you, my Lord. Whatever he has done to the boy, he is not healing. Precisely what shall I tell Dumbledore and the Ministry if my apprentice and a student at the school turns up dead of something Dark under my care? He risks exposing me."

"Today is a bad day for the Malfoy house, it seems." He turned those snake-like eyes on Osiris. "Come here, boy." It was almost said in an inviting way were it not for the hiss-like quality to it.

Osiris struggled to his feet. Either the trip or the place did not make him feel any better. His body did not want to cooperate well, so it was a blessing his master grabbed his arm and dragged him along a few feet before depositing him in front of the Dark Lord with a shove that appeared rougher than it was.

"He has a pallor more deathly than either of us," the Dark Lord observed, with might have been ironic amusement. Then again, suffering would be something amusing to him. He touched the boy's face. "And what direction did it move, the veining?"

"Cranially, I believe, my Lord, but he was wearing clothes, it would be hard to tell."

"His skin is very cold. Has it been so the whole time?"

They spoke of Osiris as if he were not there, or as if he were not wholly a person. The floor was hard on his knees, and he concentrated very hard on quieting the sensations from his body. In his weak state, no druidic meditation was going to be as helpful as before.

He listened on as his master said, "Yes, but he says inside feels hot."

"Curious. He is an entertaining specimen, Severus. You always did like research...I doubt Lucius would so deliberately disobey me, so it remains to be seen what had gone wrong and why."

Those spidery hands found their way to Osiris' face and two fingers pulled an eyelid open, but it seemed nothing curious was found there.

"Have you ever been blood cursed, boy?"

Keeping his eyes down with what he hoped was a sickly respect, he said, "No, my Lord."

"Ah, the boy who no longer calls me sir. You did say he was a quick learner, Severus." He let the boy's face go and then said, "His family has no identity, so we cannot know if his bloodlines were ever cursed."

"Indeed, my Lord."

"Let us probe, then, and see what is to be found. Take off your shirt and get on the table, boy."

The professor helped pull off his long sleeved shirt and grabbed his arm to help get him on the table. By now Osiris' heart was thumping hard and fast. His chest had a burn of apprehension. He had not enjoyed the feeling the Dark Lord gave him when he touched him the last time.

Those hands probably should have been cold but felt warm. Dread seemed to branch out from his seeds of apprehension, giving him an ache up his chest and neck, and then down his arms. Again, he tried to meditate the feelings away, swallowing with a barren stickiness to his mouth.

At first, he did not feel much else. He kept his eyes closed and tried to remember to breathe out slowly. It was hard to remember with how fast his heart was beating. The heat that had felt like it burned in his veins seemed to spread, invading his bones. By the feeling of his fingers against one another, he knew his skin was still cold.

The moment he felt his muscles tighten and almost vibrate, he knew most all his hopes of blocking anything out were gone. It felt like a bubbling within, like Polyjuice, but that was not entirely the sensation. It rippled with tension, like his body was fighting.

Osiris tried his absolute hardest not to betray the level of searing pain that then went burning through him. He was quite sure if he clenched his jaw harder that he might crack his teeth. He felt like his body wished to vomit. Not just his mouth or his stomach, like everything wanted to come out. His insides. Everything.

If there was doubt that the Dark Lord had a physical heart and that it beat, with blood, Osiris could have easily put that doubt to rest. I was unlike any other time he had ever had the sensation, though.

The cadence of discordant thumping repeating through his head seemed to set all his own rhythms gone entirely wrong. His own rhythm mixed with not his own, with the sound of an organ that beat in only the resemblance of a true body. Osiris heart skipped here, thumped so hard there that it rocked his chest, fluttered quickly, and then repeated as the sounds echoed in his head.

There was an energy or simply an adrenaline that jolted through him that he had not had before, but it was matched by his mouth opening. He was sure he screamed, but he did not hear it. His eyes pained him they rolled ever so further upward. It even felt like he was being sucked upward with them.

The ripples of pain coursing from the inside out grew so violent that he felt they now pursued him out of his body, passed the outline of his skin.

And then suddenly he jolted up, hearing his own screaming, fell off the table, and staggered until he hit the wall and fell down it, the sensations slamming back within him as that urge for his entire body to vomit suddenly surrendered. An eerie silence preceded him flopping onto the floor, motionless.

Severus Snape had seen many things in his service of the Dark Lord, and he had read about many further Dark things that he had never seen. He had never before seen a body purge magic like this. Though there was no heaving - in fact the opposite, a completely still, crumpled body on the floor - Osiris' mouth spewed a thick, shimmery black substance, followed by the same dripping out his nose, and seeping through the gauze on his arms, puddling on the floor as if it had a course and mind of its own to come together.

Dark Magic had a sort of sentience that was strangely horrible and beautiful in its awe-inspiring power. You had to close your mind to it like an addiction.

He watched as it rested before swirling into wisps of smoke-like blackness. Some of it returned to the Dark Lord's yew wand in a meandering course. The rest seemed to be inhaled back into his apprentice, which had the jerking effect of jolting him with a great gulp of breath, though his eyes did not yet open.

"There is Dark Magic rooted deep within him, Severus. He had been touched by something powerful before." It was said as if this clearly should have been obvious and easy to deal with, not a near-death experience.

Those words, of course, could have no greater meaning to the Dark Lord than their surface meaning. It merely meant that either the boy or someone in his family had probably been cursed by powerful magic before. To Severus, it made an entirely different sort of sense, but he was careful not to think about it then, banishing his thoughts away, unless the Dark Lord caught any flashes of anything.

"His color improves, check his skin."

Holding his wand, because after the last time something like this had happened, he was not taking any chances with the boy. He squatted down, reached out and put his hand to the boy's face. For the first time in days, heat radiated back against his skin. He nodded as a cover while he swallowed down a brief feeling that might have been relief.

"Warm again, my Lord. Your abilities know no bounds."

"And the wounds?" It was asked as if the answer was already known.

Without looking at the boy's face, which he would find difficult after hearing the screaming mere minutes before, the professor used his wand to cut off the magical gauze bandaging that had covered each forearm.

The gash the Dark Lord had given him was merely an angry, scabbed red line. The Dark Mark no longer weeping blood, no longer blistered. As his fingers touched it, though, something was...off.

Again, he could not think of it in the moment. He took his hand away.

"Improved. Dare I say, healed, my Lord." The act was fully in place.

The Dark Lord motioned him back away from the boy, who was still crumpled and seemingly unconscious on the floor. "I see why he is a novelty to you, especially if his skill in Potions is enough to inspire you to deal with an apprentice. You will not often find such things in Hogwarts."

"Indeed."

"Have you ascertained how far the rest of his magical knowledge goes?"

If it was possible in that moment, Snape would have been pleased. While he had thought it something of a risk to bring the boy, it seemed it only served to pique the Dark Lord's interest. Like any megalomaniac, novelty and ability was a commodity. The boy had novelty, and now the Dark Lord was asking of his ability. It reminded Severus of a time past, and not in a good way, but that was gone as soon as it came.

What had seemed potentially deadly for them both seemed to turn, in the span of a few minutes, into something in their favor, which proved how unpredictable his true profession could be. Preparing was very little; much of it was thinking quickly on the fly.

"The other professors find him competent as did his OWLs. The extracurricular subjects of his former school and his file speak to him knowing of plenty of other things Hogwarts does not espouse learning. I have not been able to test him, with Dumbledore watching. Explaining such things would be difficult. Dumbledore would not to expect to find me teaching my apprentice the Dark Arts, my Lord."

"Very inconvenient, but your information is invaluable while your true allegiances remain undetected." The Dark Lord finally put his yew wand away. Then he added, "We shall see soon enough anyway."

There was no surprise to show on his face, for it was not a surprising declaration. Anyone new would always be tested on way or another.

"You might try to wake him, Severus, make sure he is...unaddled."

Whatever Dark Magic that was, it was no little thing, and it was no surprise Osiris had yet to awaken.

While they had watched him bolt up, stagger, crumple, and then spew magic as if some sort of healing had taken place, Osiris experienced something far, far different.

As that adrenaline and pain coursed through him, he heard...voices...through the sickening, warped symphony that had become blood beating in his head. Many voices, near and far.

And in the recesses of himself, a whisper of his own rose up and said in his ancient native tongue, "In Sa-a...(Help me)." He could not move as magic rolled through him, scraping its way through his body.

When he jolted up, what he saw was not Lord Voldemort & Severus Snape. He saw his body lying on the ground in a world that seemed cast in greys, surrounded by cloaked figures who seemed shrouded in a grey, shimmering smoke. Something rubbed his hand as he stood watching them lean over his body, and when he looked down he saw a skinny, spectral-like dog, and he realized his hand was not a normal hand either. It held a slightly different appearance, it was not within his body nor a form of his body like a pensieve.

Am I dying?

He stood displaced, and somehow now incapable of pain, incapable of fear, incapable of even happiness, and lost only outside himself, watching. He could not hear them, but they said things. He watched as they made his body leech a spectrum of grey and black smoke, blurring the edges of what he could see of his prone form.

The dog pulled at him in a non-physical way, toward where he was on the ground.

They spoke to him words he knew but he did not hear. Although he could not see them, they looked upon him and he upon them; they touched him, but he felt nothing, a breathing balance, and he somehow knew it was fleeting, without any thought.

With their hands that were not hands, they took him, and laid him down. One let out a breath of shimmering grey smoke that combined with the lingering grey swirls of smoke around his form, the figures seemed to do something to him. He felt again. He thought again. He breathed in.

They spoke more words he knew but he did not hear. He answered but he did not speak.

When he felt a sensation for the first time, it was his eyelids sliding open over scant lubrication of his eyes. While the room was not very bright, it was very bright to him.

"He does not yet hear me, my Lord," came his master's voice.

"Does he oft speak his native tongue?"

"No, my Lord. I have never heard it."

For long moments, he saw and heard, but everything felt so stiff and yet so fresh that he could not think to move, not even his tongue. The first movement he tried to make with his limbs sent a searing pain through him like he was full of lactic acid in his muscles. He stilled.

"I h-hear you, master," he finally managed to gasp out.

It was not his master's voice that answered him, but the Dark Lord's. "What does sahbabawey Kapairsema mean?"

Osiris blinked, laying there unable to move. It sounded rather like gibberish to him. "I do not know, my Lord," he gasped.

"You do not know, but you said it?" There was a danger in that unnatural voice.

"I said it?" He licked his lips and then looked to his master, confused, pushing himself up on an arm. So far as he knew, he had just woken up from either dying, hallucinating or, if it was not that, he did not know what he had woken up from.

"Sahbawee kapair semah," his master repeated for him very similarly. "In your language, what does it mean?"

Osiris frowned, having a hard time trying to figure out what he had said that they were repeating to him very poorly. His lips moved as he sounded the words through his lips. It took him a few repetitions before he thought he knew what he might have said. It was forbidden, though, to translate their language to outsiders. Thankfully translating a word here and there could never give much insight. Words were very symbolic to them and most have a handful of different meanings or went along with body-language.

"Kheper means 'to form' at the root, but it can mean many things. Sem is 'to unite'. Gratitude for healing me, my Lord? It does not have an English translation." Not to mention that was if they were repeating it correctly to him.

"And 'tea seru asoot younin sammy, sakekua mis enket, sent oof.'"

From his place sitting on the floor he again repeated what he was being told through his lips, and then he shook his head. Instead he tried to pick words out of the mess of syllables.

"Sami means dark. Te'seru means blood. Does that mean anything, master?" He asked, looking between the figures hovering over him. Those were the first words he picked out.

"You spewed black fluid out of your orifices."

For a moment, Osiris could not breathe. "I...what? Master? Black...fluid?"

"You purged magic, boy, into a pool. Whatever was causing you such weakness that is now gone," the Dark Lord's voice came.

"My Lord, that at least explains the strange words. The boy was half-conscious. He probably had no idea what he was saying at the time."

"The last one, Severus, what was it."

"Mess a do ray."

Osiris' jaw clenched and he hurried grabbed his chest and let out a groan of pain and a long shaking tremble. There had been no pain, but he had to cover his shock at hearing that one word said aloud. That was never said aloud. Never.

"Ahmosedure is a, well, master, it does not have an English equivalent that would make sense. It is a blessing of the Sun and Moon." Ahmosedure was not what had been said, and he very well knew it, but he was not translating the other word.

"I may have thought I was dying...I do not remember saying any of it."

He felt lighter in his body but heavier in his head. Mesadure. They needed to get out of there so that he could think freely. Whatever it was, it was not a good sign, and for now he had to control his mind while his body felt like a large bruise and his head was starting to pound. He might be 'healed, but something was very, very wrong with him. Nevertheless, he pushed through showing the necessary gratitude for saving him and pretended he was not there for the rest of the business that the Dark Lord had with his master. It could not conclude soon enough, even moreso than that first meeting, and he was not a mostly dead and bloody mess this time.

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