So, after this chapter gave me trouble for two years, I finally managed to write it in less than two days. I had a bit written, but most of this I wrote from scratch.
It's finally time for Severus to go through the Asset's mind.
Looking at the so-called Asset, many would assume he is a serial killer. Severus himself has seen the detached, unemotional way he fights, has seen his victims bloody and destroyed.
His outward appearance is that of an unfeeling murderer, perhaps even more sociopathic than the Dark Lord.
Severus himself frequently hides behind a blank mask, so he is quite aware of what can be brewing under the surface of a stony face. Despite knowing firsthand, he expects to enter the mind of a serial killer- cold and without remorse. Severus doesn't think it was only the Veritaserum that had made the Asset report the murders he'd committed without a spark of empathy for his victims.
When he enters the assassin's mind, Severus isn't expecting the searing pain. His own mind feels as if it is on fire, a voice blares all around him, deep and reverberating. COMPROMISED. MISSION FAILURE. RETURN TO HARRY THE HANDLER.
The voice pounds, unrelenting into Severus's mind as well as the Asset's.
There is another voice as well, almost as loud but more human than the first. Get up, Harry needs you. You're the only thing keeping him safe.
Only Severus's expertise as a Legilimins enables him to quiet the voices, but even he cannot silence them entirely. They continue to rumble like a distant but fast approaching storm. He is sure they are as loud as ever to the Asset.
Once he is able to view the man's mind without the voices assaulting him, Severus sees there are shockingly few memories in the assassin's head. Almost as if he is the victim of being Obliviated.
The agents had mentioned the Asset being wiped, and the mind Severus is currently invading certainly supports that testimony.
Most of the memories the Asset does have are disturbing. One of the less disturbing ones of him entering a child's bedroom filled to the brink with broken playthings. Is this Potters bedroom? Severus would not have been surprised if a Potter brat was careless with his possessions, even if Lily was always so careful.
But something in the back of Severus' own thoughts doubts this is Potter's room.
The next memory shows the Asset looming over an obese child, smothering the young boy with a pillow. The boy struggles, his cries muffled. Watching the suffocation of a child in his own bedroom is almost more disturbing than seeing a body drop like a puppet with cut strings after being hit by the Killing Curse.
This scene flashes by, followed by a memory of the cold, metal hand brutally strangling Vernon Dursley as the flesh hand wraps around Petunia Dursley's bony throat.
In both memories, the Asset's face is completely void of any emotion as he commits his crimes. When Severus had interrogated the Asset, he had spoken of the Dursleys' deaths as if they had not mattered at all.
Severus has read about serial killers, how often they are quite unemotional about their killings. Some of the Dark Lord's followers- particularly Bellatrix Lestrange- had been the opposite, delighting in murdering muggleborns, muggles, wizards and witches alike.
The Asset is efficient, and does not seem to find any delight in his victims' pain or terror.
The memories of murdering the Dursleys pass quickly, shifting to a seemingly unrelated memory of a dark, underground lair, not unlike the dungeons Severus had just interrogated the Asset in.
The Asset is in some sort of chair, huge restraints clasped around both the flesh arm and the metal one. Some sort of metal lowers around the man's head, shooting an electrical current into the man's brain. The Asset is screaming as if he's being tortured by the Cruciatus Curse, chest heaving, fists clenched as his body spasms under the restraints. His screams are barely muffled by the rubber bite guard clenched between his teeth.
Severus wrenches himself out of the Asset's mind, chest heaving almost as hard as the Asset's had in that chair.
He is unexpectedly aghast at the memory. He's seen plenty of horrific sights during his time as a Death Eater, and later a Death Eater turned spy, including those subjected to the Cruciatus Curse.
It appears as if the muggles have somehow invented a machine that mimics the effects of a memory charm. Unlike Obliviate, this machine appears to add pain comparable to the Cruciatus Curse as it removes memories.
Severus stares down at the Asset, schooling his face into a blank mask again. The Asset's face is clenched as he relives the excruciating memory.
Part of Severus almost wants to release the man if that is what happens when he is restrained, but of course doing so would be unbelievable foolish. He knows the minute he frees the Asset, the Asset will go at him again.
Severus is not at all eager to delve into this man's mind again, but he needs information. The captured agents had been vague and uninformative, too low-ranking to be privy to the information they need.
Severus strengthens his own mental barriers before once again entering the man's mind. This time, the voices do not assault him, and are already muffled.
He bypasses the memories he'd already witnessed, aiming for what transpired after the man assassinated the Dursley family. He sees the man creep down the steps and stop at a small door built into the staircase.
And then, Severus witnesses something that makes his stomach flip, something that has him seething with both fury and shame.
The Potter boy was kept in the small cupboard under the stairs, not the room full of broken toys. As he watched the Winter Soldier pick glass out of the boy's hands and side, Severus realizes he's been wrong about the boy.
The boy is far from the pampered prince he'd expected.
Severus is aghast at himself as he continues watching the events following the kidnapping (including what looks to be accidental magic as Potter blows up several streetlights in panic). He's encountered a number of students who were victims of abuse and neglect during his time as a Professor, he knows how to spot them more than any other Professor at Hogwarts. Not to mention he himself was a victim as a child.
Yet he'd brushed aside the glaringly obvious clues due to his hatred of the boy's father.
Seeing the boy's green eyes- Lily's eyes- look so appreciative when he's given food, seeing the small boy treat essentials as gracious luxuries, as if he'd been given the most wonderful gift- stirs something in Severus's usually guarded heart.
Lily's child should never have been treated that way. Going back slightly, he sees the child forced to cook dinner for his so-called family, the family Dumbledore insisted would protect the boy from the Dark Lord's followers.
Watching Vernon Dursley beat the boy savagely over the broken plate, Severus can't believe how foolish Dumbledore- and himself- have been. What good is protecting the boy from Death Eaters if his despicable relatives kill him first?
Severus begins to wish the Dursleys were still alive, just so he could deal with them himself. How dare they do that to Lily's child?!
He flashes through his own fight with the Asset and then the Asset disappearing with the child and Severus's wand.
Lily would be turning in her grave if she heard how her boy casually refers to himself as a freak and mentions yet more examples of the abuse and neglect as if he deserved them. Severus always knew Lily was far kinder than her sister, and while he does not share Dumbledore's optimistic view of the world, even Severus is surprised at how far Petunia's petty jealousy twisted into such abominable treatment of her own nephew.
He sees the memories of the Asset and Potter at the ski lodge. The place is swarmed with agents, and one of them recites ten words in Russian that cause the Asset to be still and compliant.
That could be... useful, Severus thinks. Yet it would be just as unforgivable as the Imperius Curse. Indeed, it seems to have the same effect, but Severus is unaware of any specific Russian curse that is equivalent to Imperio. The agents seem to be muggles rather than witches or wizards, judging from the fact they are holding large guns rather than wands.
He watches the boy beg for help in the arms of an agent. Something seems to click and the Asset murders the agents he had just submitted to. Shots are fired, and the agents fall with bullets in their brains.
Severus seethes as he sees Potter start cleaning up the blood with more efficiency than any of Snape's students clean up in potions class. He has no doubt that, if he were to go in the boy's mind, he would see instances of the boy cleaning blood- most likely his own- at the Dursley residence.
The Asset suddenly seems to defer to the boy, almost treating him as a superior. Snape would ordinarily view adult obeying a child with contempt and scorn, but the Marionetka word in of itself seems to act as an Imperius Curse.
When the black dog charges at Potter and the Asset, Severus thinks for a moment that it's Black. The mutt is filthy and matted and looks as if it had emerged from the darkest, dankest cell of Azkaban.
But there has been nothing in the Daily Prophet about Black escaping. Upon closer inspection, this mutt isn't Black, just a stray eager for any master it can find.
At least one murderer is currently rotting in a cell in Azkaban, Severus thinks, before reminding himself that the Asset is only murdering under what seems to be mind control.
The Asset removes some sort of tracking chip from its prosthetic arm, something the agents had used to find him.
Potter uses accidental magic once again, forming a shield as the Asset leaps onto a moving train. Severus is grudgingly impressed at the boy's magical ability, but as the son of Lily, it is not particularly surprising. She was the most extraordinarily skilled witch Severus had ever known.
Severus watches the Asset thrash in the train car, in the throes of a nightmare, before waking up and lunging at the dog. Potter begs for the dog to be spared, clearly having inherited his mother's kindness and empathy.
Nothing notable happens for the remainder of the trip, until Severus sees the moment he and Dumbledore capture the Asset. Potter keeps referring to the Asset as Batman. Severus would deny knowing who Batman is to his dying breath.
Severus brutally shoves aside his own memory of wishing, as a child, that a tall, dark hero like Batman would rescue him. He'd learned the hard way that he couldn't rely on anyone but himself (and later Lily, until that terrible fallout in his later years at Hogwarts).
He doesn't even have to look into Potter's mind to know the boy dreamed of the same thing. From the way Potter looked at the Asset in nearly every memory Severus has seen, the boy clearly thinks his wish has come true. Even when the boy was his target and not his superior, the Asset treated the boy with care- albeit in a detached manner.
When he's done viewing what happened with Potter, Severus has nothing else to do but look at the man's remaining memories. All other memories are disconnected, singular entities floating in a black void that is normally filled with life experiences.
His own stomach feels cold as he watches the Asset pushed into a metal chamber, the small window filling with ice as he's frozen alive.
There are some memories that seem older, fuzzier. In one, Severus sees the Asset beat up a man in an alley, a man who had been beating a short, skinny blonde man who'd refused to back down no matter how many times he'd been punched.
The small guy would undoubtedly be sorted into Gryffindor, Severus thinks scornfully. Fighting a fight he won't win, going in with his fists instead of his brain.
The Asset in this memory looks vastly different with short hair and a muggle suit instead of tactical military gear or that ridiculous Batman sweatshirt Severus had seen Potter point to at the store. This memory seems far older, fuzzy around the edges.
"I had him on the ropes, Buck." the scrawny guy says after the cleaner-cut Asset has knocked the attacker out. Buck slings his left arm- which is not the metal one he has now- around the shorter man's shoulder as he leads him out of the alley.
"Course ya did, Steve." Buck's voice is an even more shocking difference to the Asset than his appearance. It's human, with a drawl that Severus places as American. New York, perhaps?
In fact, it is the same voice that's still shouting in the Asset's head, the one that is not barking out orders but is just as insistent about getting back to Potter.
There's a similar memory from the man's childhood- a young Buck facing down schoolyard bullies who'd been picking on Steve. They looked to be about eight years old.
That is the only childhood memory Severus sees, but the fact it exists makes him think the man's mind hasn't been completely wiped. That, and the voice in his head. Clearly, the muggles aren't completely effective with their versions of Obliviate or the Imperius Curse. But viewing Asset- now an adult with a metal arm- being chained and whipped by agents, Severus realizes they don't need the Cruciatus Curse.
There are a few more from the man's adulthood, fuzzy like the rest of them. Crouched with a sniper rifle, a snowy mountaintop. Soldiers, gunfire, a Muggle war.
And then, Severus spots Captain America in one memory.
Despite growing up in England, Muggle Children in Spinner's End had heard the tales of the hero who helped defeat the Nazis and HYDRA. Severus himself had learned of the man at muggle Primary School, before he and Lily were sorted into Hogwarts.
The memory is of Captain America, Steve Rogers, reaching out of a train towards "Buck".
"Bucky!" Captain America shouts to the man clinging to the side of the train. "Hang on!"
It is only then that Severus realizes the Asset- Buck- is no other than Bucky Barnes. He'd heard the tales of Cap and Bucky, how they helped end the Second (Muggle) World War.
This isn't adding up. How did James Buchanan Barnes become the Asset. According to all historical accounts, the man had died falling from the train Severus is witnessing, and Captain America had perished in the ocean not long after.
How had he survived? Had he been a double agent the whole time, working for HYDRA? Severus has some experience in joining terrorist, genocidal groups and later regretting it.
Whatever had led James Barnes to become HYDRA's asset, it is pretty clear that the voice in his head is battling with the voice issuing HYDRA's orders. Had that voice come from the machine?
Severus tries to find something else in the void, some clue as to how the man survived falling, but nothing is forthcoming.
At last, he pulls out of the man's mind, his own mind reeling with everything he's just learned. He needs time to process everything. He needs to inform Dumbledore of what he'd seen.
Severus looks at the Asset- no, Barnes- still restrained on the floor. He needed a healer years ago, judging from the state of his mind, as well as the angry scars Severus had around the prosthetic in a memory where the man had been shirtless.
Madame Pomphrey does not specialize in mind healing- Severus doubts even St. Mungos could completely heal this man's mind, considering there is a ward for those hit by memory charms, but he thinks she might be able to help a few of the man's other injuries. Although, from what Severus has seen, Barnes heals quickly already. Does he have any magical abilities?
Severus doesn't release the man from his magical restraints. Not yet.
As Severus's mind is whirling, he levitates Sergeant Barnes from the floor and makes his way to the hospital wing.
So, the secret of Nighty is finally revealed. I actually thought I made it kind of obvious, but I guess it was a little cruel throwing in a black dog that wasn't Sirius. I had fun reading your speculations.
This chapter was actually ended differently from how I'd originally thought I'd end it. At first, Bucky was going to be left in the dungeons, and Harry would meet the house elf from a few chapters ago. He'd ask about his Batman, and the elf would apparate him to Bucky.
But then I figured they could just be in the Hospital Wing together.
I actually have any idea as to where this story might be going. Before now I'd been making it up as I went along, and another reason I hadn't updated was I didn't know what was going to happen.
I'll say this. We might be seeing some more Marvel characters soon.
I can't guarantee a two day update again. Next semester is going to be really busy, I'll have student teaching all day every day. So I'm not sure how frequent updates will end up being, plus I'll have to juggle this with my original stories, which I don't want to give up on.