Dedicated to FrancineHibiscus for her being the first one to ever offer ideas and theories about the plot, giving me inspiration and so many great reviews that really made me think!
WARNING: Non-graphic character death in this chapter.
CHAPTER 53
Severus had spent every free moment in the last few weeks researching and planning - the centers and objects of both now following him close by, disillusioned, squealing and bouncing excitedly. House Elves; his best hope for saving the Savior of the World. Fuck him backwards.
He knew the Big Bastard had a tendency to underestimate them, never fully considering or understanding their strengths and powers as most megalomaniacs did. It took HIM over a month to discover they might be able to get through the wards outside the cells as long as they belonged to a branded Death Eater, his or her mark pervading into the magical signature of their servants. He did not have any House Elves so he hoped - and now felt it just might be right - that it would be enough to take along the Elves who had formerly belonged to Death Eaters, currently employed at Hogwarts and therefore at his command. Dobby and Winky they were called.
Thus, it should be enough to reach the right place and extract the two brats, the old man and the Goblin out of the cell; in the morning it seemed like a suicide mission. Not any more though... Even as member of the Inner Circle, he did not have the permission to enter the most secured cells; but the two selected guards entered it on a daily basis and never had any either; they had the keys...
If he started disentangling the wards to open the lock magically, Voldemort would be alerted immediately - he believed he could manage it, but then he would have to fight the freak and all the summoned reinforcement. Plus he would waste a lot of time, endanger the prisoners and reveal his identity. He had surely offered to help to destroy the Horcruxes and then to single out and kill the monster when it is finally vulnerable many times already, yet Dumbledore had been adamant about the attempt to be totally hopeless, insisting he left it all to Potter; the boy who did not know more than 5 proper curses and had no balls nor skill to cast even half of them...
Anyway, like that it would look like a guard simply came to heal or feed the prisoners. The Bastard would know only as they would exit the cell, somewhat mended up at least and having instruction for what to do. Then it would be up to the Elves to carry them out while he would stay to pay the price...
The first guard who noticed him not being authorized to enter this part of the Fortress got a fist to his face which knocked his wand out of his hand and him to the ground. It was unbelievable how this always worked so well with wizards; Death Eaters or not, they never seemed to expect a physical assault His father had taught him at least this one useful thing in his whole miserable life...
Summoning the wand with a twitch of his fingers, he killed the man with no hesitation. There were no sentiments to spare; they had chosen their side already...
Some quick dodging and collecting of wands, twelve more killing curses and the path was free. Nothing happened to the House Elves - he could feel them not a yard behind him, probably scared to death. Yet they followed. Luck was with him today...
Fuck, he would not recognize the boys if he did not know they would be here - he would not even notice the cell if Lucius had not described its location so well. Both the people and the place were a mess...
The keys fit in this lock. He knew they would. Still, a great weight was lifted from his shoulders...
Several potions and few spells later, all of the prisoners were on their feet. Except from Potter, who kept staring at him as if he were a ghost, a dumb look in his eyes. Lily's eyes... What a waste to put them on that face...
He tried to call and rouse the boy, yet the brat only stared at him as if he had three heads.
"Potter, wake up finally! Do you understand me?"
Finally, Potter nodded. He was not deaf at least...
He had not moved yet, though.
Fuck, they had no time for this. He was NOT going to cuddle the brat to get him out of the shock or whatever mental state he was in...
Deciding to give the boy a while to collect what hopefully remained from his wits, he went to Griphook instead, making him promise to hide, help and protect the three people in exchange for being set free and carried away. The negotiation was quite easy once the goblin realized that Severus' assistance came only as a business deal, not an act of good will by far...
Then he addressed the wandmaker.
"Mr. Ollivander, I need you to inform the boy of the Deathly Hallows, especially of the matter of Elder Wand's allegiance that he will have from today on. He needs to understand that they are real and the cause for most that happened to you there; he would not figure it out himself, I suspect. I guess you know by now that the Dark Lord owns the wand now. I am rather sure Potter has the cloak. It's only about finding the stone... Just make sure he understands that," he said quietly. The old man nodded slightly, his eyes wide. At least someone in here understood him...
When he turned around, Potter was still slouched uselessly on the floor.
"Potter, stop gawking around and stand up finally! I need to talk to you!" he barked at him, getting rather desperate by now.
Fuck, if the idiot had lost only about 10 IQ points during his stay in here, there was surely nothing left at all in his head now to work with...
Fortunately, the brat moved then, standing finally. He wasted no time and gave him one of the wands he had collected from the guards and a bag containing all his life savings in cash, the cell keys and the spare wands to get rid of them and various survival necessities. Afterwards, he pressed a wand into Weasley's and Ollivander's hands too.
He made Potter disarm him then - it was one of the most crucial things to do. If it worked as he thought it would, he needed to be 'defeated' by the boy, passing the Elder's Wand allegiance to him, even though it hurt his ego to suffer through it. Yet, the Wand could not belong to the Dark Lord, giving him even more power - and it would if he now did anything else than that, as the monster was surely about to kill him today. The boy needed every bit of advantage he could get anyway, hopeless as he was.
"As soon as you exit the cell, the alert will be raised. Never talk about this to anyone. Don't ask or question anyone. Not even the House Elves," he said, knowing that the longer his involvement in this remained secret, the longer Hogwarts would be spared the Dark Lord's wrath. The fewer people knew, the better.
That dumb look in the boy's eyes again. Fuck.
"I don't know what's happening!" Potter spoke up at last. At least he was not lying and still able to speak. Somewhat.
"You are not supposed to. You will be moved away as soon as you exit the door. Then I expect you to do what you are meant to do, as soon as possible. Do try to not get captured again," he instructed him briefly, hoping it was idiot-proof, even against Potters.
Judging by the boy's expression, it wasn't.
Fuck, what had he done to deserve this?!
Still, the Weasley survival instincts kicked in then and the redhead directed Potter into the door, probably understanding that time was essence now.
Potter did not move though. Cretin.
"I can't. I must free one of my friends first. A girl. Hermione Granger. She is somewhere here too. I know she is alive..." the boy stammered out, making his brain freeze. Her name. The woman he parted with forever by ordering her to follow him. The woman that he would never see again, although he wished to spend the rest of his life with her...
The brat was concerned about her too. Maybe he was not THAT worthless after all...
"She was taken care of already." He pushed the words through his constricted throat. Hopefully he was not lying...
It was the right thing to say in any case obviously as he saw Potter finally giving up and letting himself be wheeled by Weasley out of the cell.
One of the Elves squealed something out excitedly as soon as he was made visible again and saw the boys.
Surprisingly, he is happy too in a way, he thought as he watched the four of them disappear. Hermione would approve. He had promised her he would do it and he had... Luckily she never wanted him to promise her he would survive too...
She did not give a damn about him, surely; it was probably her who wanted him dead the most. Still, he could be at least useful to her and try to make up for what he had done in this way. Maybe she would even forgive him then, one day...
The four former prisoners disappeared from his view and he breathed out in relief.
It worked. They are safe now.
Severus allowed himself a smile and headed to the potion lab that was set up here for him, knowing it was the right place to be when the Dark Lord would arrive to discover the prisoners gone.
He knew he wouldn't outlive this Sunday - he had not even planned to - yet it did not mean he did not want to take as many Death Eaters with him as possible. The fewer remained in this world, the fewer could be sent after Hermione. The fewer could threaten her and the school... And the thing that was most efficient in exterminating huge numbers of servants of the Dark Lord was the Dark Lord himself - preferably enraged and in a fit of desperate paranoia. And for that to happen he would have to play innocent so that the monster would turn on everybody around him in its fury...
It worked out perfectly - the fortress began to shake in only minutes after he had arrived to the lab, making a show of starting a required potion. Loud bangs and screams penetrated even the three floors that were between him and the cells now. His Mark started burning then and he knew he had to answer the summon - not to do that would only mean to point out himself as the guilty one. So he arrived at the usual place for major gatherings, the free space in front of the Fortress, as required, knowing it would be the last thing he ever did in his life.
He had been thinking of Hermione the whole time - no matter whether he was being interrogated, cursed, thrown around or beaten up at that moment. He had stopped to register that long ago. He knew he was far from alone in that; about half of all the Death Eaters were dead by now after 'enjoying' the same treatment he had, the black clad bodies pilling up in one big heap in the middle of the fortress' grounds.
Lucius Malfoy got the biggest part of the blame though and it made him feel... Something. The man was the reason for him to join the ranks, recruiting him and bringing him to the Dark Lord, the cause for the biggest mistake in his life. Yet he was a sort of a friend too.
Now Lucius was dead. At least it was a quick and clean death unlike what many others reaped; the Dark Lord simply cast the killing curse at him as soon as he detected the magical signature of one of the Elves who took the prisoners away through the wards. Barty Crouch's magical trace was a different matter altogether - it was the perfect trigger for this fit of madness, paranoia and ire that had cost so many bad lives already, making the inhuman creature slip into a tantrum of unprecedented magnitude. Everyone was a suspect now. Everyone needed to be punished...
Now it was Severus and about twenty of others. He did not care too much until he had lost the cloak and her smell with it. That one hurt in a different way. Still, she could be not torn away from his mind...
Her, reading in the library, the little frown creasing her delicate features. Her, smiling at him from his bed and after he had joked with her. Her, wielding the fork and knife to point out numbers in an imaginary Arithmancy equation to explain her opinion to him...
Everything hurt so fucking much he could not move a finger. And everything was quiet and dark too.
Crap!
He had somehow survived the punishment.
Fucking shit!
It was Sunday night. Judging by the stars that he was faced with, it was something around ten or eleven. There was no guarantee that he would die in time, poisoned Liquid Luck or not.
Fuck, it was probably the bloody potion that was keeping him alive now. He was still 'lucky'; only it did not know that being fortunate for him at that moment meant to die before the day was over so that Hermione would live.
He had lost his outer robes with the poisons somewhere along the way. His wand was nowhere in sight too.
He tried to wandlessly summon both - to no avail.
Shit!
He tried to bite at his wrists to make himself bleed faster; he had lost most of his teeth while being tortured though, managing to inflict only pathetic shallow scratches on his dirty skin.
Fuck!
The only other possible option was to try to crawl behind the Apparition wards and get to the poisons he had hidden somewhere else. Spinner's End, preferably - the distance from the boundaries of the wards to the cabinet that held the poisons was much shorter than the one between Hogwarts grounds' gates and his office.
Turning on his stomach with immense effort, he started the most excruciating and demanding journey of his life, crawling and groveling as fast as he could, yet likely not fast enough...
After an eternity, he felt he had passed through the wards. Then it took a while to collect some strength and focus on the Apparition.
Bloody Hell, Hermione needed him. She needed him gone.
Clenching his eyes shut, he imagined her at the old house, waiting for him. She needed him to do this...
The pull of the Apparition, squeezing him through a tight unseen tunnel. A loud crack.
He landed hard, the breath being pushed out of him, but there was no time to rest. He did not know how long he had.
So he started to crawl towards the door. Fuck, he really did not want to die there - in the house where he had grown up, desperate and depressed. The ghosts of his mother's and father's presence still around. Abandoned, with Hermione gone, so desperate to leave it - and him - too...
Someone took him by his dislocated shoulder and broken ribs that were only barely hidden underneath his mangled flesh, obviously trying to help him to his feet, and he startled at that, flinching.
WHAT THE FUCK?!
There was a slim figure crouching next to him in the dark, still trying to pull him up. Was it one of his former students who were guarding the house? Or a stranger who saw him injured and wanted to help? That would be very rare in this neighborhood...
"Merlin, what happened to you?" the person asked, full of worry, and he knew he was hallucinating then - it was Hermione's voice.
Oh fuck, he so wanted to close his eyes and indulge himself. Accept this fantastic creation of his imagination and die happy in her arms... But Hermione needed him gone - quickly, not happily. He had no time to waste.
So he just clenched his jaws together, took a deep breath to steady himself and continued in his pursue of the poison. The Hermione that was not Hermione followed close behind, giving him strength.
Fuck, he was some really lucky bastard today to be able to imagine something like that... She even SMELLED right, damn!
He was inside of the house now, he realized, the door was open.
Who did that?
The unreal Hermione couldn't surely. Maybe it was Longbottom who decided to exit the house this way in spite of being advised otherwise and left the door open...
Be what it might, it was good for him now. He couldn't have opened it himself in any reasonable time...
There were some voices around him, saying something. Speaking about him. The ghosts of those he had killed, most likely. The souls that were so very eager to torture him and drag him to Hell to pay for everything he had done...
He collapsed to the dirty floor and focused all his remaining magical power into summoning the poison wandlessly to him. No need to keep the ghosts and Hermione waiting...
He felt the small bottle land into his hand then, the sharp glass edges cooling his skin. He struggled to uncork it with his broken fingers when he sensed himself being lifted and floated somewhere.
Fuck, what was that?!
Probably another hallucination. It did not matter.
But then someone tried to wriggle the bottle he so badly needed out of his grasp.
NO!
He fought with everything he had left to regain it. Fought like a dying animal that had nothing to lose. But he was so very fucking weak and feeble...
"Stupefy!"
Darkness of unconsciousness swallowed him at the exact moment when he realized that he had failed. Failed Hermione. Yet again, the woman he loved would die because of him...
A lone tear slid from behind his closed and swollen eyelid, rolling down his dirty and bloody cheek. Nobody ever noticed it.
Thank you for reading, guys!
Review? Please? Pretty please?
