Hi everyone sorry about the wait, heres a lil bit from everyone's pov-changes with-. Hope y'all are keeping safe and liking the story.
Chp 17
Severus stretched out further onto Alex's chest as the broader boy chuckled and combed a hand through his hair.
"Whaddya think eh?" Alex waved a hand around the room that'd he'd made materialize from a wall 'by magic' like he'd hand decorated it.
Severus hummed and buried deeper into his chest. "Hmhmm."
"You sleepy babe?"
"Hmhmm."
"You want dinner soon?"
"Mmm."
He dimly heard Alex laugh.
"So I can copy your homework then?"
Severus shot bold upright. "No you can not!"
"Thought that'd get your attention." The keeper teased, brushing a strand of hair away from Severus' face and letting his hand linger over Severus' cheekbones.
"M' sorry." Severus ducked his head sheepishly. "You brought us here-wherever here is-to celebrate and I'm falling asleep on you."
Alex kissed him slowly. "No bother, Severus love, you sleep if you're tired but maybe dinner first yeah? We trained for hours in the lashings of rain because our new chaser is shite and I kicked so much ass I'm now so starving I'd nearly eat you."
Severus scoffed and fluttered his lashes, smirking with the hint of a challenge flickering through his dark eyes.
He leaned forward, let his lips just brush Alex's ear before whispering. "Come get me then."
He leapt off the rudimentary hammock and abandoned his shoes and socks as he fled from his pursuing boyfriend who lazily chased him around the mysterious room.
Alex looked around in confusion when Severus had darted behind a corner and now was most definitely not around said corner. I mean invisibility was cool but how? He meandered around slowly, feet padding on the soft rug that had appeared with this utter joy of a room that was a new date location from now till the end of time.
"Um Sev, where- AHH jesus!"
Severus leapt from somewhere and landed on his back with an oomph and Alex automatically shifted his weight to account for the small mass that was his boyfriend. Severus pressed a kiss to his neck and murmured.
"Gotcha." It was easy enough for Alex to shift his weight and use the slightly off momentum to swing Severus around and bring them face to face.
He squeezed the Slytherins thighs as he purred, "You most certainly did. Little magpie can't hold off from the treasure."
Severus laughed against Alex's lips. "How very presumptuous of you."
Whilst their lips were otherwise engaged Alex clicked his fingers to summon up the meal he'd pleaded off the house-elves earlier. The arrival of food didn't disturb them until minutes later when the steaming dishes finally caught Severus' attention.
The quiet adoration that rested in his chest stirred up and remained that way for the rest of the night as they shared words and kisses over delicious food and the fancy kind of non-alcoholic wine cooler that Severus would forever deny to be his favourite.
-
Lily wiped her brow as she stumbled down the curving steps. Panic clenched her heart and stuttered her breathing. This wasn't working, Dumbledore was holding his damn kind image and if he called her his dear girl again in that tone she was going to vomit in his beard. This was it, she was who this plan relied on and if she failed-she couldn't it wasn't an option but as she sat there in the path of a harsh spring wind Lily really and truly didn't know what to do. She had thought it'd be done by now, that the façade would surely crack but they'd underestimated the wiliness of the old man. It was time to push things forward. Lily grabbed her bag and rooted around until her hands closed around the little red two-way journal she'd recently…acquired. Her hesitance didn't stop her and by the time she'd scribbled her note and read the reply, her hands had finally stopped shaking. A brush of her robes, a tilt of her head and a smoothening of her hair and Lily was ready. She straightened her back and readied her thoughts full of 'Murder' and walked, scrawny first-years nearly leaping out windows to avoid her determined stride.
-
"Perhaps, Fletchley, I didn't make myself clear." Marvolo hissed, slashing his wand as the man in front of him screamed again while his comrades trembled in terror.
"I d-don't know my lord, I swear-I swear I don't know! Please." The whimpering was starting to give him a headache and it had been so long since he'd really been so brutal with any of his followers, much preferring to remain diplomatic nowadays. But this… these raids had nearly cost him his whole cause, forever dirtying the name of Dark families and what they stood for.
"Perhaps if Fletchleys…whimpering has jogged your thoughts, one of you might like to volunteer the name of the person under whose authority you slaughtered innocent people and made a spectacle of our cause?"
There was a set of low mutterings in the negative as each of the men and women in front of him denied it, clearly thinking him a fool. He sighed. Clearly, he was better off without these morons if they hadn't even put the obvious together.
"Very well then. Let me give you a clue. Look around, say hello, wave to your fellow idiots and maybe one of you will finally, finally cobble together a reason in your sludgy minds as to why it is only you lot of all my followers I have called here." He sneered. "And it's not because you're special."
He saw it begin to dawn on the brighter few and wondered why they'd even bothered lying to him in the first place. He'd visited each and every location of a supposed Death Eater attack and had become familiar with the signature of each mage before him, such was the nature of the Dark Mark. Their magical signature had hung in the air even then, it's stench a long clue as to the nature of these attacks. If it had truly been some of his best Death Eaters out on a little jaunt, they would have hidden their signatures but given these fools had left it lingering in the ashes and corpses of their victims meant those certain wizards were chosen for the job specifically, hired deliberately if you will. And once Marvolo found out who it was, he was going to tear them limb from limb and never ever stop reading a newspaper just because it was mostly trash propaganda ever again. He, unlike some people, could learn from his mistakes.
He exhaled lightly and tapped his wand against his thigh as they flinched. The sweat in the room was palatable as Marvolo avoided wrinkling his nose. Soon. Soon one of them would crack.
"Please, my lord, please forgive us."
Ah. Here we go. Marvolo stood and rolled his head to stretch out his neck and in one swift movement launched a kick at Averys begging mouth.
"Enough!" He hauled the man up by the hair and raided his mind with the sort of brutality every polite ligilimens chose to avoid. The boring details of Avery's life rushed by in a blur, including the more unsavory parts that Marvolo had absolutely no desire to see until an interaction of the most peculiar kind caught his eye.
"That man, in the pub, who was he?" He demanded, shaking him roughly though Avery deigned to answer but in droves of salvia as his eyes rolled back into his head.
"Useless." Marvolo muttered dropping the man like a sack of rotten potatoes and prowling amongst the dreading followers still remaining upright and not collapsed in fear.
"W-we never saw his face my lord but-"
"Well spit it out Mucliber unless you'd like to spit out your tongue instead!" Marvolo's eyes were flashing vivid red as Mucliber whimpered, tongue flapping in his panic.
"I-I knew his voice but I didn't-" Marvolo had no more time for excuses and dove into his mind with startling accuracy, now he knew what he was looking for.
The moment he heard the man talk, heard his croaky voice plant the idea into their gullible stupid heads, greedy and slow with firewhiskey as a veil, Marvolo felt rage spit up in him, like a child's slowly brewing temper tantrum. Of course, Dumbledore would get Doge to do his dirty work, he would never risk being caught inciting violence himself.
His own rage only tripled as he realized how close Doge had been to his child, how close the old wrinkle-bastard had come to ruining Severus' life and getting him expelled. Marvolo was all for doing things by the book these days but well…if he scribbled a little appendices relevant for personal revenge in the Ministry's constitution in invisible ink nobody would notice.
Mind made up and wand in hand, Marvolo dropped all the traitorous fools in front of him right into Madam Bones' office. He was sure she would appreciate the anonymous donation wrapped in a bow. Literally. A bright pink double knotted bow. Just for effect.
He strolled from the bloodied meeting room, ambling down the corridors without the weight of impersonating fools on his shoulders. Given that it was nearing late evening and his house-elves would become near homicidal if he didn't show up for dinner, he spent only a moment peeking into the room he had designated for Severus. It was only in case of emergency evacuation of course, he told himself, though that still didn't explain why he had decided to listen to the impulse and go ahead to decorate the room in shades of green and grey and personalize the wallpaper and ceiling projections full of constellations that corresponded with their current position in the sky. And make the bed large enough for three in case sleepovers were still a thing that teenagers did. Why he'd done it, he didn't know. No explanation at all. Simply unfathomable…
While Marvolo sipped wine and threw daggers at the already existing holes in his walls, Lily paced the floor anxiously, glancing towards the borrowed fireplace in Ravenclaw tower. Any minute now the fire would glow green and she could finally wrestle a semblance of a plan into place. A small hiss made her jump and whirl around, wand in hand and ready to fire any of the nastier curses in her new repertoire.
"Calm down there sugar, you always so high strung?" A curly mass of hair greeted her in the fireplace and Lily dropped to her knees.
"Hi Bella." Her voice wobbled despite her best efforts and Bellatrix's face lost its smirk to fierce concern.
"Whats wrong baby-girl?"
"I don't know if I can do this." Lily whispered into the empty night, the words feeling sour and blasphemous on her tongue.
"That's perfectly ok sweetheart." Bella answered gently. "If you don't want to, you don't have to, we can stop right now."
Lily sniffed, wiping her tears with her sleeve. "R-really? But I thought you would want me to…because of the professor."
"I'd follow my lord into hell without a second thought but I am first and foremost a big sister and from one older sibling to another I know Severus would find very creative ways to end me if I even thought about steering you wrong. So c'mon Lily honey, talk me though what's goin on in that ginger head of yours eh?"
"He's not budging Bella, not even a little. I've tried every possible way to get him on the wrong side of angry but…I think-I think it might be time for Plan R. Or else I really don't know what to do."
Lily could see the hesitation etched in Bella's face. "Plan R is a very different plan than giving up, Evans are you sure you want to do this? Once I spread those whispers it really won't be long till he calls you and if you're not prepared…"
"I am. I have to be. I can't just give up."
"There's no shame in giving up Lily."
"Severus would never give up on me, I know it. And its only right I do the same."
Bellatrix rolled her violet eyes, the action making the green embers spit uselessly onto the worn carpet. "Bloody Gryffindors. Alright then, but only if you're sure."
"I am." Lily nodded, her faith renewed.
"Show me your switching spell again. If his habits involve potion-dosing like we think, you need to get that one down and get Severus to consolidate your Occlumency stat."
Lily grimaced as she cast the wandless spell obediently. "I'm shite at Occlumency Bella, you know that."
"Then get good sugarplum, you're gonna need it. Write me if you need me ok? But I think it's well time for little lions to go to bed because I have some rumors to spread that'll rile that ol' man juuuustt right." The grin on her face was nothing short of evil and Lily found herself glad she would never face the older woman on a battlefield because her hair alone was enough of a weapon nevermind her wand or words.
The trap had been set, the bait had been laid and now all they had to do was wait until Dumbledore blundered right in like they hoped. And Lily also had hope that Severus wouldn't kill her when he found out exactly what this plan entailed. That hope was definitely not as high, she thought as she slipped past her sleeping dormmates and burrowed her freezing cold feet into the duvet.
Oh well, he could yell at her after she got their Headmaster arrested. Now if only Hogwarts had a yearbook, wouldn't that be an achievement for the records…