AN : So sorry for the delay in updates, I'm still here I promise, just not very well. I hope 1500 words of Not the Same girl will cheer you all up
"IF he aligns himself as a solider of the dark, then I will have vengeance. By whatever means necessary, not just for your own hurts but those he would continue to hurt unchecked, if not applauded by the Dark Lord"
With an incredulous noise of irony she settled back into his embrace.
"The Greater Good" she intoned dryly and he crinkled his lip in distaste too and the shared associations of the man that tainted that statement.
"Yes. The Greater Good Indeed"
After their conversation about Raoul Rosier they had gone back to bed for a few more hours, and proceeded to stay there for another couple of days. Despite Hermione's protests that she neither wanted sleep nor was likely to get any, Severus had scoffed and encouraged her to wrap her arms around his neck, and her legs around his waist and had carried her back to the bed thus.
It looked slightly ridiculous to carry her so, but it was intimate, warm and it made her both smile and laugh and run her fingers through his hair as she pressed her forehead against his, so he thought the trade off well worth it. Especially when she demonstrated how easy it was for her to kiss him from that position, which quickly skyrocketed it to one of his secret favorites. Internally he also considered how easy it was to be intimate from that position, and he pushed it to the back of his mind for when, and if, she ever was ready to experiment with such things. In the meantime, the smile, kiss and affection that flooded his senses from her, was well worth the slight awkwardness to his gait to carry her so. Despite her protestations about the improbability of sleep, once in bed they shared gentle kisses until her breathing slowed and despite her previous protests, she had slept soundly once more.
Severus was the one who did not sleep, as he held her gently in his embrace. What he wouldn't tell her was he had already been digging into those that had hurt her in Azkaban. Some were already dead, in the scuffle that arose from the breakout at Azkaban. One had died afterwards in the power struggles amongst the dark lord's ranks after the mass defection.
The guard who had strip searched her, the first one to abuse her upon her arrival. Severus had found him. The man had hence suffered a very unfortunate accident. While piss drunk in Knockturn Alley, the man had somehow ended up with the strange notion in his head to shove a Blast Ended Screwt down his trousers, and in doing so, the enraged little beast had managed to permanently disfigure all the fingers on his hand to the point they had to be amputated, and also burn off one of his testicles.
That reminded Severus actually, he owed Hagrid 10 Galleons.
As for the other guards who had raped her, most had already met unforeseen and unfortunate ends. It seems despite rigorous security at Azkaban, someone had managed to drop a confounding concoction into the coffee in the upper level guard's break room, most likely someone imperiused by Voldemort. It was widely assumed to be something that had been missed from the mass breakout, and only once a return to work and normalcy had happened, did they discovered the tainted coffee in the break room, which despite a faint taste of Jojoba from the confounding concoction, had been consumed by almost all the remaining guards. One of the guards simply walked off the edge of one of the lower skycells where he fell to a slow painful death upon the rocks below, and yet another managed to freeze to death when he decided to shower using the hose when the temperature was -3 degrees. A third had walked straight into the midst of the dementors, and promptly been kissed.
That reminded Severus actually, he was out of Jojoba.
There were two left , currently out of reach. The mediwitch who he'd discovered to unsurprisingly be a distant relative of Bellatrix Lestrange, and Raoul himself. Severus had on good authority both were now within the Dark Lord's ranks.
Desperate to refill his depleted ranks, Voldemort had been recruiting scum and desolates from all corners of Wizarding Britain. Those he would have previously turned down...or put down as the case may be, were welcomed with open arms and promises of riches and rewards. It was counterproductive though , and the real effects of the destruction of his soul were starting to show through his grievous errors. Voldemort was many things, many despicable things, but one thing he had never been before was foolish.
The man played life like a game of chess, not unlike their own disgraced admiral Dumbledore. Blood status notwithstanding, Voldemort turned down witches and wizards usually on two main precedents. They were either too stupid and reckless, in which case they were refused or offered lower level positions. Or , they were unpredictable and uncontrollable. Unpredictable could be worked with, provided it was the kind of unpredictability that Bellatrix displayed, wherein upon tasked to kill someone she might go for a straight up Avada, or she might spend the next four hours dis-articulating a person piece by piece like a human jigsaw puzzle. But what Bellatrix was, what Dolohov was, what all the other insane death eaters were... was obedient. Controllable. In his haste to refill his decimated ranks, Voldemort had opened his doors to chaos.
Death Eaters were fighting and killing each other since the Dark Lord first took reign, but these were few and far between and were usually for personal reasons such as one man fucking another man's wife. Now dissent in the ranks was constant, as with most of the inner circle defecting, power struggles raged as each man wanted to secure himself a seat in the inner circle , and in favour with Voldemort.
They had their spies in the ranks, thanks to the House Elves that had been officially admitted and sworn into the Order of the Phoenix, so they now knew Voldemort's movements better than they ever had, as the Wizard, like most, completely disregarded the presence of the house elves, as though they were merely part of the furniture. With the house elves' inside view from Voldemort's base, they knew that at least two death eaters were being killed by their 'brothers' every week. Lucius had joked they should just sit and wait and let them kill each other off and then they'd finish off the rest when they were down to one or two.
It had been said in jest, but the idea had held merit. At least until the news came that the Dark Lord was kidnapping and branding homeless denizens and other unfortunates, the mark on their arm effectively shanghai-ing them into his service.
So with the news that Voldemort was now stooping so far as to kidnap people to recruit them, they knew they needed to pick up the pace. He was also becoming increasingly erratic, Whereas the man had always been criminally insane he was now becoming unhinged and was frequently seen muttering and talking to himself as he paced one room or another as though searching for something he'd lost. That had been another development too, increasingly paranoid, Voldemort had been convinced that he had lost something, though was unsure what it was. It was clear he was sensing the loss of the pieces of his soul, though had been unable to identify the feeling and the unhinged wizard had convinced himself that one of his remaining death eaters had stolen something from him, so much so that he'd tortured a number of them, telling them to tell him the whereabouts of the item , though when they would ask him through the torture what item it was that he was looking for, he was unable to answer and in his frustration he'd killed half a dozen himself already.
The lack of structure and discipline meant that instead of orchestrated and deadly in their efficiency raids, untrained and uncontrolled young death eaters were ransacking up and down the country. Sometimes in groups, though often alone. Their carelessness had lead to much death and destruction, including deaths in their own ranks. One young death eater had managed to summon fiendfyre, which had consumed a number of homes before he'd lost control and it had consumed him. By the time the Aurors were able to bring the fyre under control, half the steet was ash. The statute of secrecy was stretched to its limits as Aurors and obliviators worked over time to clean up the mess the death eaters left behind them up and down the country.
Waking her gently with a kiss, he smiled at the wide yawn and stretch Hermione demonstrated before opening her eyes. When she saw him , her look became serious.
"Severus?"
The word was a question, and with a nod he answered , not missing the tension that flooded her frame.
"It's time"
