~Year 5~
AN: Right! Shit 'bout to get serious. I'm not sorry for the song I chose for this Chapter...
Chapter 45 - "Zigazig ah!"
"Circe will you turn that bloody thing off?" Severus's voice hollered at her from the kitchen of Spinner's End.
"It doesn't have a power switch, Severus. You bought the bloody thing. You should know how to get it to shut up!" Circe shouted back, toying with a few of the buttons on her Cantuscope. Ever since she'd been required to move her things out of Hogwarts for the summer, it had been behaving a bit dodgily. This was the third day in a row it had now been stuck on The Chariot: the card of war, determination, willpower, forces beyond one's control driving you into a time of aggression and obstacles.
And the song it had chosen to repeat pretty much non-stop to encapsulate this mood was 'Wannabe'.
Severus emerged with two cups of tea in his hands, wearing a deep frown as he stared at the Cantuscope.
"God… I can't decide what's more exhausting. Trying and teach you ten plus years of occlumency skill in six days, or listening to this absolute garbage from sun up to sun down."
His expression soured as Mel B's laugh heralded in the start of the song again. And then the repetitive, ear-worm of a melody began, feeling like a power-kick in the ears.
"Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want,
So tell me what you want, what you really really want,
I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want,
So tell me what you want, what you really really want,
I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really
really really wanna zigazig ha."
Circe had sent a brief but informative note to her Dad, telling him that she had a few loose ends to tie up in Scotland before she came home for the summer. Little did Matthew know, but his daughter was actually less than half an hour's drive away from him in Cokeworth. Circe was too frightened to go back to her Dad's house now the Dark Lord knew who she was. She had originally asked Severus whether her Dad needed any extra protection from The Order, but given that it was unlikely that Voldemort would waste his efforts this early on in his return on targeting a muggle, he had advised against it.
"It seems that Voldemort is unaware that you are a half-blood, like myself." Severus had pointed out to her. "So let's keep his attention away from discovering that and keep you away from your father and step-mother... for the time being."
Since the two of them had returned to Cokeworth at the end of the school term, they had been concentrating on little else other than giving Circe a crash course in occlumency. There was nothing else to do in the old industrial town and it was just how Circe had remembered it from the few times she had visited before: it was a shit-hole. Rows upon rows of uniform terraced houses lined the littered streets. The unused, defunct coffee factory still sat like a great red-bricked scar on the horizon. The tall, crumbling chimney staring down on the town, visible from every street and corner like a looming tower of doom. Circe had only managed to find the bookies and the off-license since she'd been here, every other shop seemed to be closed down or boarded up. The locals too all seemed grizzled and sour, casting withering looks of suspicion and contempt at her and Severus both when they ventured outside. Still, Spinner's End was their sanctuary. The place where the two of them could lock themselves away and have a go at playing house. Despite the rather hostile and derelict outside world, in Spinner's End her and Severus had naturally fallen into something resembling a domestic, comfortable existence. Severus cooked for her in his old kitchen, they slept in his old bedroom on sagging pillows and damp-smelling sheets, he read to her in the evening when she took a soak in the bath, and most importantly, most of their time was taken up with the gruelling task of occlumency training in the living room. It was difficult. Much more difficult than Circe had imagined and Severus had been putting her through her paces in the rapidly decreasing days they had left until they were to present themselves at Pettigrew Manor. Circe had rather hoped that the first time she visited Spinner's End would have left her exhausted and sweaty for an entirely different reason…
Severus handed her a mug of tea and she took it gratefully. She hadn't quite managed to pull herself off of the living room floor and she was still rather clammy and warm from the exertion of Severus's training. Keeping somebody out of your mind that wanted to be there was both emotionally and physically tiring and the small little terraced home of Severus's childhood had her feeling even more boxed-in and cramped than usual. Severus didn't want to open the windows to let some air through the house in case any of the locals overheard their spells or saw them at their practise but the whole house now felt oppressively stuffy. Circe sipped her drink and leaned back against the sofa, trying to catch her breath, fanning herself with her other hand to cool down her slick forehead. Severus watched her carefully as he lowered himself into an old, floral patterned armchair. She'd stripped down to a small, strappy black vest and a short denim skirt, partly to cope with the heat of the summer, partly due to the taxing effort of her occlumency lessons. Severus wondered, marvelled at how she had come to be sitting here, in the rather run-down and damp smelling living room of his childhood home. How it was that Circe now sat amongst the peeling orange wallpaper and the dusty photographs hung to the walls. How it came to be that he was making her a cup of tea in a chipped old mug that his own mother had once drunk from. A perfect convergence of his past and his future. It was as if his two worlds had finally collided: the magical, hectic, charged world of his life at Hogwarts, and the solitary, mundane, quiet, lonely reality of his life every summer he returned back home to Cokeworth.
Not lonely anymore... He thought as a small smile pulled at his lips.
"What are you smiling at?" Circe asked as she kicked at his foot playfully.
"Smiling to save myself from crying." he replied with a shrug. "There's no way we will be able to get you to any kind of level of competence with your Occlumency before the conclave. We are, my love, royally fucked." He had meant for his summation to be a dark-humoured quip, but it ended up coming out a tad more maudlin than he had intended. Circe bit her lip and sighed, taking another sip of her tea as she nodded silently at Severus's prognosis.
"Yep, probably."
"A shame… I was just growing to like you too." He said with a sly wink.
"Pfft! Doesn't seem like it with the way you've been putting me through my paces these last few days. You are a brutal teacher, Sev."
"I was the one who suggested the tea break!" He retorted defensively.
"At seven o clock at night! We've been at this all day, Severus!"
"Good Lord, is it really that late? That's another vital day almost gone."
"... Until I get to meet all your friends." Circe muttered sarcastically.
"Well, with "friends" like the Malfoys and the Crabbes and the Macnairs and the Lestranges, who needs enemies ehh?"
The Cantuscope's tune seemed to chime in with their conversation:
"If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends
(Gotta get with my friends)
Make it last forever, friendship never ends."
Circe spluttered into her mug of tea as a laugh escaped her mouth.
"You know… I don't think this thing's broken at all." she giggled, pointing at the Cantuscope.
"Oh very funny…" Severus said derisively as if he were speaking to the Cantuscope itself. "Now could you kindly play something bloody else before I throw you in the skip!?"
The Cantuscope played on defiantly and they both groaned as the song almost seemed to grow louder.
God, I never thought 'Zigazig ha' would end up being my war cry… she thought with a roll of her eyes.
Circe looked exasperatedly back at Severus and he slouched further into the armchair. His loosely buttoned black shirt rooched up around his stomach as he slid down, exposing his white stomach and his small belly button. It had been a warm few weeks and Britain was in the middle of a rare summer heatwave. The evenings had been long and hot, but Severus slept through the night like a stone as Circe tossed and turned in the warm bedsheets beside him. Severus doggedly stuck to his traditional black, no compromises for the warm weather. But instead of his heavy buttoned doublet, he had traded it in for a rather light black linen shirt that he'd pulled out from the dregs of his old wardrobe. It hung rather flatteringly off his shoulders, contrasting rather brilliantly with his pale skin and Circe thought he looked rather delicious in it... even if it did smell a little of damp. All of Severus's clothes that he'd left here whilst he'd been away at Hogwarts smelt of damp. The bedsheets too. Probably from sitting in unaired and cold cupboards for the best part of a year. She smiled as she spied the smallest hint of his dark hair on his stomach through the tantalising parting of the shirt.
"You're the one smiling now." Severus said coyly.
"I was just… admiring how well you handle the heat compared to me."
"You will find it easier to keep your cool when face to face with the enemy when it comes to it, I'm sure."
"No, I didn't mean like that…" she laughed. She put down her tea and crawled over to Severus. He raised a brow, watching her move towards him on her hands and knees, her low vest exposing the tops of her breasts as she crawled. Circe straightened up as she reached him, tracing a finger over the light skin that had been exposed from beneath Severus's open shirt. He smiled as her touch tickled him, grabbing her hand as he chuckled. He pulled her into a kiss, feeling the warmth of her skin and her wonderful smell fill his senses. He lingered as he ran a hand through her hair, feeling the slick sweat on her brow.
"Are you sure you want this?" He asked, his expression changing to a mask of worry in a lightning-fast instant. "I do not enjoy punishing you like this just so I can have you by my side in this fight."
"This is my war as much as yours, Sev." She responded resolutely.
"I know, but being my lover carries a thousand and one dangers with it. If those "friends" of mine ever have reason to suspect that either of us are disloyal, they won't waste any time in torturing us both. Or worse..."
"I can handle it. I promise." Circe stated strongly, looking deeply into his eyes. "I just need to get a hang of this occlumency business."
"Before then, you need to ensure you give the Dark Lord no reason to suspect you or to read your mind, Circe."
"I know, Sev!" She responded shortly. "I'm not an idiot. I know how spying works. I know what's required of me. I just need to get my act together…"
Severus sighed, leaning back into his armchair. He knew Circe was being optimistic in asserting that if she merely "got her act together" she'd be able to fend off the Dark Lord's probing legilimency if he should choose to go exploring in her mind. It had taken him decades, and a natural ability to boot, to master defending his own mind from invaders. Circe did not have decades, she had days. And she was still very much a novice in the art of occlumency. But it was useless to argue the point. They needed to stay focused, busy, optimistic, otherwise they both risked sinking into a pit of despair.
"Are you ready to commence your lessons then?" He asked, draining his mug.
Circe sighed heavily, pulling herself up off the floor on shaky legs. "Tea break over so soon?"
"We don't have much time to waste if-"
"Alright, alright…" she interrupted with a quick hand wave. "It just feels like I'm hitting a brick wall again and again. Every time you cast a "Legillimens" at me it's like… I don't know what to do to resist…. what to do to stop you taking what you want."
"You need to fight. Imagine your mind is a fortress and build a huge, impenetrable wall around it."
"Could you… show me? How you do it, I mean." Circe asked cautiously.
"Learning through demonstration." Severus nodded slowly. "I am rather unpracticed myself in my own skills of occlumency, Circe…" he muttered nervously.
"All the more reason to get in some practice then."
Severus thought for a moment and nodded. He sat himself down on the old brown sofa and sucked in a deep breath, centering himself in preparation. Circe watched him as he took a moment to level his breathing and calm himself. He looked up at her with hard-set dark eyes.
"You know the spell?" He asked.
She nodded.
"Whenever you are ready, then."
Circe pulled out her wand from her pocket and pointed it at Severus's head. She paused for the briefest of seconds as she stared into Snape's stoic face.
"Legillimens!" she uttered. Severus groaned, pushed back hard into the rear of the sofa.
Circe's consciousness was catapulted forwards and she went spinning into a swirling void of darkness.
"Severus… Severus, it's happening again…" a woman's panicked, strained voice called out from within the darkness.
"It's alright Mum, just remember to keep breathing." Another voice answered back. Circe flinched as she recognized the cadence of the voice, albeit younger and not as deep as its modern iteration. It wasn't like being in the Pensieve, she wasn't watching the memory, it was her memory. It was as if she was the person speaking back to the distressed woman.
"He'll be coming back from The Malt and Shovel soon…" the woman's voice continued. Circe couldn't see anything, but she heard the pain and fright growing in her words. "I can't breathe… I can't breathe…"
Circe felt a pushing, a resistance growing as the voices grew distant and warped. She could no longer hear what they were saying to one another and it felt like she was being rejected from the memory. Like something was fighting against her being there. The force pushed against her again and she was sent reeling back through the darkness and back into the living room of Spinner's End. She staggered back, feeling as if she had just been spat out of a giant's mouth, watching Severus panting heavily from his seat on the sofa.
"That was you." Circe breathed, remembering the clarity with which she had heard the voice. Severus's voice, when he was a young boy. Severus did not reply, still too breathless to muster a word. "And that was your mother…" Circe stated.
Severus nodded, his face knitting together into a pained frown.
"I am seriously under-practiced if you were able to hear all of that before I pushed you out." He muttered.
"She was the one who had the panic attacks."
Circe paused, recalling how Severus had known how to help her when she had been suffering before the first challenge last year. Circe remembered how breathless she'd felt, how utterly fraught and hopeless she'd felt, like she was about to die from a heart attack. She still had panic attacks from time to time, increasingly frequently as the pressure of the coming war dawned on her. But Severus had been there to soothe her and calm her during the hot nights when he'd woken up to find her pacing the room manically and hyperventilating.
"You knew how to help me through them… because you helped her."
Severus's heart ached with the memory of his mother's panic attacks. He recalled the frightened, rabbit-like look in her eyes as she'd torn at her hair and scratched compulsively at her arms. He had been only eleven when she'd first started experiencing them, a young soul also frightened by what he was seeing. He wanted to shut out the pain of remembering, to put his walls back up and push the hurt away as was his instinct to do. But he looked back to Circe, waiting patiently for him to speak, and summoned his bravery for her. He swallowed his hurt and leant upon his love.
I won't shut you out. Never again… Never again.
"My father." He muttered with a small nod. "He was her trigger. When he was due to come back from the pub, drunk out of his head, or if he was just in a bad mood… That's when he tended to be the most violent and unpredictable."
"Oh Sev…" Circe sighed, gently lowering herself into the seat beside him. She took his hand and waited for him to continue.
"She'd be waiting and watching the clock from five o clock in the afternoon until gone midnight some nights…. just waiting for him to come home. She used to make me promise her that I'd pretend to be asleep when he came home. To wrap myself up in my duvet and roll over… so he'd leave me alone. But I couldn't help it some nights. I saw what he did to her. How the mere anticipation of him would send her into a panic. And I used to stand up to him when I'd seen her suffer and hyperventilate and tell me she was dying…" Severus paused as his voice grew thick with emotion. Circe squeezed his hand tightly. "He could beat me down pretty easily when I was smaller than him. Or lock me in the boiler cupboard in the kitchen if I was too lippy for his liking. He hated us, Circe. He hated us both, especially after he found out I was going to Hogwarts. And it was like he was jealous of how close we were and the magic that we shared."
"And when you weren't smaller than him?" Circe asked
"Well, when I turned eighteen and the trace charm no longer applied to me… One night, when he'd come home from The Malt and Shovel stinking of beer... Well, he ended up getting a pretty nasty curse straight to the chest."
Circe gasped. "And what happened then?"
"I went to the Malfoys for a while. My mother begged me to go, before he recovered from the gashes."
"Gashes? What spell was that?"
"Ohh, doesn't matter. I came back here after a few weeks with Lucius and Narcissa and by then they'd fully indoctrinated me into the Death Eater's ranks and I was ready to eviscerate any muggles if they were all like my father… But when I came home they were gone. Both of them. My mother and my father. Leaving this house empty and just for me. Why did she go with him, Circe?" he asked, looking at her suddenly, his eyes swimming with tears. "Why did she stay with him? All those years? Even after I'd put him in his place...Why did she stay with him until the day she died?"
"I.. I don't know, Sev." she uttered apologetically. "Maybe she felt that she didn't have any choice but to stay with him. To try and keep you safe from him, perhaps. Or she didn't have anywhere else to go, no other friends or family to ask for help."
"She had me." Severus said forcefully. "She would have had me… If I'd have known where he'd taken her." he muttered as a small tear escaped his eye.
"When you heard about her death… When I found Dobby dropping off her death certificate for you. That was the first time you had any kind of idea of where they'd gone?"
Severus nodded silently, wringing his hands.
Circe felt her own eyes stinging with tears and she leaned forward, enveloping Severus in her arms and pulling him close to her. She had no words for him, she only wanted him to know that she was there. Completely his for him to lean upon. He stiffened initially with the show of affection, but eventually he relinquished and he buried his head in her chest. Allowing himself to weep.
Severus was waiting for her as she emerged down the stairs of Spinner's End, wearing one of his mother's old dresses. It was impeccably smartly tailored, floor length, and deep red. The front of the garment was bound tight to her with a beautifully embroidered corset, imbued with a staggeringly detailed interlocking pattern of black roses. The black rose, Severus had told her, was the traditional crest of the Prince family. But Eileen Prince had been quite a bit skinnier than Circe, and for a tense few days they had both wondered whether the dress would get back to Cokeworth with the necessary alterations.
"It suits you." Severus said with a small nod as she walked towards his outstretched arm. He too was back in his traditional wizarding attire looking as striking and imposing as ever.
"It still smells of damp though, Sev." She muttered as she sniffed at the sleeve.
"These old, pure blood wizarding houses only care for outward appearance, Circe. The whole lot of them are rotting and crumbling apart beneath the surface. At least you look the part now."
"Not big fans of jeans and Doc Martens either, are they?" Circe asked with a small smirk.
Severus chuckled. "Well if you want to get sussed out as soon as you walk in the front door of Pettigrew manor then we can get you back in that pervasive tartan coat of yours…"
Circe sighed and with a roll of her eyes she tugged him towards the door.
They linked hands and stepped outside of the sanctuary of Spinner's End, smuggling themselves away down a deserted back alley. Circe cast a searching eye around them, nodding as she made sure they weren't being watched.
"Ready when you are, my love." She muttered, standing before him and preparing herself for the apparation.
Severus withdrew his wand and lingered a moment, cupping a hand to her face. "Before we go "unto the breech", Circe… Whatever happens tonight, just know that I love you and the short time we've had together, here too, have been some of the happiest times of my life."
Circe's throat closed as a cry threatened to escape from her mouth. She leant into him and kissed him. "Together into the storm?" She whispered.
"Together. Always." He uttered back.
She took his arm firmly and nodded, and with a flick of his wrist they went careening off into the ether with a pop.
When their feet landed, they touched down in the midst of a wildly overgrown hedge maze. Circe shrank back as the twisting, vicious, overgrown thorns seemed to reach out to her, threatening to snag on Eileen Prince's dress.
"Ah, of course. Should have realized this place would be the worse for wear in terms of a bit of maintenance." Severus muttered. "Considering the owner has been missing in action for over fourteen years…"
"Are there no other Petrigrews?" Circe asked as Severus raised his wand and began hacking a way through the maze for them.
"Peter had a sister, but I believe she was a squib. She married a muggle university lecturer and the two of them were found dead in their home towards the end of the last wizarding war."
Circe shivered, thinking of her Dad and her step-mum, none the wiser, believing themselves safe in their own home. Had Voldemort invaded Peter's mind to learn of them? Had he stolen away into Pettigrew' head to leech the information from him? The idea made Circe sick to the stomach as a wave of nervousness rippled through her.
"We're still quite a way from the mansion." Severus muttered as he continued cutting a path for them. "How are you feeling about your… confidence in your new skill?" He asked, choosing his words carefully just in case anyone overheard them.
"Not… uh… not fantastic." She answered honestly.
Try as they might, Circe had rounded off their week at Spinner's End being able to only resist his legilimency for a few seconds at a time. A big achievement for a newcomer to the craft, but still worryingly falling short of what they had hoped.
"But I have a sort of backup plan…" she said with a small smile.
Snape raised a brow at her, tilting his head in curiosity. "A backup plan?"
"Yeah, turns out the Cantuscope's antics over the past few days have been good for something."
"Circe…"
She turned to him and with the smallest gesture of her eyes she invited him to look inside her mind. He drew close to her and pressed his wand to her temple and muttered the words of the spell. Immediately his own mind was filled with it:
"I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want
So tell me what you want, what you really, really want
I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha) I wanna, (ha)
I wanna really, really, really wanna zigazig ah!"
"Oh my God, Circe…!" Severus hissed at her when he let go of her mind.
"I can't help it. It's stuck in my head." she replied, the smallest hint of a smile on her lips.
"This is utterly ridiculous. The last thing the…" he trailed off and leaned in close to her to whisper in her ear. "The last thing the Dark Lord will hear before he exposes us is going to be the fucking Spicegirls!"
"So it won't halt him at all?" Circe asked, shrinking into herself.
"It might confuse the hell out of him for a few moments, but no."
"Right…" she muttered. "Back to plan A then."
"Which was?"
"Give him no reason to suspect. Of course..."
Severus cut through the last of the hedge maze and the two of them stumbled out onto an overgrown patio before a splendid, old Tudor manor. It too was in a considerable state of disrepair, with several of the windows smashed in or boarded up and ivy growing wildly over its facade. They approached the front door slowly, a great, heavy looking oak door scrawle with a myriad of sprayed graffiti and scratched messages. As soon as Circe's feet touched the stairs leading up to the entrance of the manor, the heavy door swung open with a deafeningly loud creak, slicing through the heavy silence of the night. A woman stood in the doorway, mostly hidden in shadow, but as she stepped forwards, raising a lantern high in front of her face, Circe gasped aloud and stood frozen to her spot.
"Odette?"
Severus looked to Crice's open-mouthed face, to the woman who bore the lantern in the doorway. She was tall and slender with almost waist-length raven black hair that had been meticulously plaited away from her face. Her eyes were the brightest, lightest shade of blue that he had ever seen in a human being which gave her a remarkably cold aura. Her features were clean and straight-lined, from the point of her chin to the high cut of her cheekbones but there was still a startling sense of youth about her. She was not like Narcissa or Bellatrix who wore their age on their faces gracefully, she was at least fifteen years younger than any Death Eater Severus could recall to mind. But as her rigid lips curled up into the faintest of smiles a hint of that youthful warmth seemed to emanate outwards and touch those icy eyes.
"Circe, ma cherie…" she spoke in a voice as low and beautiful as a cello. She placed down the lantern and stepped out into the night. "Will you not greet me?" she asked, extending her arms out.
Circe shook herself from her dumbstruck stupor and stepped forwards into Odette's embrace.
"You, ma cherie, have not changed a bit." Odette chuckled, regarding Circe closely under her gaze.
"You neither." Circe responded a little stiffly. It wasn't true. Odette had been warm and less sharp-edged when she had last known her. Now, there was a touch of hardship and ruthlessness about her. Like she had been beaten and shaped into a dagger over the years. It made Circe uncomfortable to imagine how she may have been hammered into that required shape, how it had come to be that she appeared unchanged, but felt like an entirely different person to her…
Severus cleared his throat. He had let one "ma cherie" go, two was another matter...
"Severus Snape." Odette surmised, looking him up and down.
"Mrs Lestrange." Snape replied coolly. "Circe and I were trying to figure out who we should give our rather overdue matrimonial congratulations to."
"Rabastan and I have been married coming up to twelve years now." she said with barely a hint of an accent.
Severus glanced to Circe, giving her a swift eyebrow raise, confirming his predictions had been right.
"So you did marry him after you and I were-"
"My father was keen that I should marry into a pure-blood, respectable family as soon as was appropriate. And Rabastan was in want of a wife. Arrangements were made." she interrupted swiftly, ushering them both inside as she fetched her lantern off the floor. Her matter-of-factness when describing her past engagement shocked Circe. When she'd been forced to leave Paris, Odette had been crying and screaming as she'd watched her be escorted away from Beauxbattons.
Who is this woman?
"Was that before or after his imprisonment in Azkaban?" Severus asked rather sharply. Circe poked him in the ribs.
"Before, of course. It would have been rather difficult for us to have conceived our sons with Rabastan inside a cell, surrounded by Dementors."
Severus blushed a little, looking at his feet.
"But you are correct in your thinking that our wedding had to be a private, quick affair. Once the Dark Lord disappeared and those who remained loyal still searched for him, we became hunted like dogs." Odette continued.
Circe had to stop herself from wincing. Odette said "we". "We", like she's one of them… she thought as her heart broke inside her. That girl I knew and loved in that Tri-wizard year at Beauxbattons was married off like some brood-mare... and now she's one of them.
Severus and Circe followed Odette as she led them further inside the mansion. It was dark, the floors filthy and the walls a crumbling mess. Perhaps Severus had been right in his summary of the pure-blood's tendencies to present outward grandeur but be internally falling to bits. The Pettigrew manor was a living monument to that sentiment, if so.
"But I also hear that you have chosen well in terms of a like-minded partner, Circe." Odette said as she grinned coyly back at her old friend and then to Severus. As he caught her face in the light of the lantern, smiling like that, it hit him again just how young she was to already be a Death Eater matriarch.
Circe took Severus's hand and smiled back at her. "Severus has taught me a great many things that I lacked knowledge in before: the superiority of the pure-blood race, the might and majesty of the Dark Lord-"
"And the pleasures of a man, non?" she again interrupted with a sly wink. When both of them fumbled for a reply, she continued. "Come now, Circe. I know lovers do not keep anything from one another, you must have told him about us… Oh, or perhaps I shall wager there were others before him, and Monsieur Snape is a jealous type?"
"You have no idea." Circe muttered. That time, she got a poke in the ribs from Severus.
"Ha! Well Monsieur Snape will have to learn to better his poker-face if you two are to be the Dark Lord's "espionnage a deux"." Odette laughed. "I could see him almost turn green with jealousy when I called you "ma cherie"."
Odette placed a hand upon a set of huge double doors that were some thirty feet high, pausing as she placed her lantern on a nearby table. Circe suddenly felt a chill pass over her and she registered the subtle twitch in Severus's tattooed arm as they both drew nearer.
"Are you both ready to present yourselves to our Master?" Odette breathed.
They nodded.
"Then you are both welcomed to the first conclave of the Death Eaters of the Dark Lord…" she pushed open the massive doors and Circe's blood ran cold as she lay her eyes upon the room within.
Circe grabbed tightly on to Severus's arm and the two of them strode into a great, crumbling ballroom. The very ballroom of Circe's nightmares. The walls were still lined with blackened mirrors, the ceiling above swam with a yellowing fresco of angels and demons, their feet echoed off the marble floor beneath them as they walked on towards the room's center where a great long table had been laid out for all those gathered. Circe saw, as she drew nearer, the faces of the others present at the conclave. Those she knew and recognised and those who were complete strangers to her. As the two of them passed by the gathered Death Eaters, Severus leaned in close to her and whispered their names into her ear.
"That's Calcifer Crabbe, father of Vincent Crabbe in my House at Hogwarts." he gestured towards a squat, toady-looking man.
"And he beside him is Odoacer Goyle." Severus stated as a lanky, drawn-looking man continued his conversation with Crabbe. "They were always thick as thieves. Guess the apples don't fall far from the trees there, hmm?"
"No, funny that…"
"And there, they are the Carrow's. Alecto and Amycus." Severus and Circe passed by two dark and stocky looking siblings eyeing them up cautiously from over their goblets. "They fled to Hungary for a while after the Dark Lord's downfall, believing him to be dead."
"They look like a friendly bunch."
"And of course, you know the Malfoys…"
Circe sucked in her breath as her eyes settled on Lucius. He lay a long, slender hand on top of a woman sat beside him, who she assumed was Narcissa, drawing her attention to her and Severus. She locked eyes with Mrs Malfoy and Circe thought she saw the very faintest twinge of fright in her eyes before it disappeared and was buried behind a steely veneer.
"Pettigrew." Severus continued, unable to keep himself from uttering Peter's name without strongly clenched teeth. Peter screeched as his eyes fell upon Severus and Circe, throwing his hands up before his face as if they were going to strike him.
"S-Severus?! You have returned to us!" Peter cried out. He looked at Circe suspiciously tucking in his feet under his chair as she strode by, remembering the last time he had met her, when she had planted her heel firmly into his toes.
Shame I didn't plant it into his crotch. Circe thought bitterly.
She noticed the shining chrome mould where one of his hands ought to have been and she frowned at Severus. He shrugged at her and gave Peter a withering look, silencing him dead.
"Walden Macnair. He's the man inside the Ministry. He was the one who pushed to have Buckbeak executed." Severus continued, ascribing his summation to a sallow-skinned, greasy man in a blue pinstripe suit. Macnair stood up sharply, gliding over to Circe with a strange grace.
"I know you." He hissed, pointing into her face. He was rather spotty up close. His breath smelt like rancid coffee and Circe shrunk back. "You are the one who hit me with that bluebell flame at the Quidditch World Cup."
Circe's eyes bulged but she maintained her cool. The Death Eater she'd battled at the beginning of last year had been something she'd neglected to tell Severus about. That had been the night she'd met Karkaroff and Krum, after defending the Quidditch player's little brother from Macnair's attacks. But it had all happened during a time of difficulty between Circe and Severus and it had been swiftly forgotten about once the trials of the Tri-Wizard tournament began.
"Y...You were giving me as good as you got." She replied back, summoning her courage. Macnair was shorter than her by a few inches, but his long, dusty brown hair and his stubble beard gave him a rather feral quality. But Circe was determined not to be intimidated by any of the underlings here tonight. "Thought I'd give you a decent opponent to take on, as those kids you were targeting weren't going to put up much of a fight."
Despite himself, Severus snorted as he watched Macnair's face contort into a snarl.
"Oh Walden, targeting children were you?" Narcissa asked with a frown.
"I did as I was instructed, Narcissa." he spat back. "Like anybody loyal to the Dark Lord should. Without question."
"Indeed, but the boys you chose to pick on were from a wizarding family of good stock and… well… Severus had not yet brought me into the fold when we had our little tete-a-tete. Can you forgive me, my brother?" Circe asked, extending out a hand to Macnair.
"You do not yet possess the right to call any of the gathered here "brother" yet." a voice called out to Circe from the shadows at the ballroom's edge. The voice made Circe's skin ripple into goosebumps and her blood seemed to halt its pumping in her veins.
And from out of the darkness stepped The Dark Lord, Voldemort.
Circe gripped tighter on to Severus's arm as she felt her limbs grow weak and begin to shake with fear. A terror grabbed her unlike anything she had ever felt before, unlike the drag of the Dementors, unlike the Basilisk, unlike her nightmares. Voldemort regarde them both silently, snaking his silvery-white, skullish head from side to side like a cobra eyeing up its next meal. He wore a huge, billowing black cloak that rippled around him, making it appear like he was clad in smoke or the night itself. But in the blink of an eye, Voldemort's cat-like pupils narrowed and Severus was yanked from her grasp as he went flying off towards the Dark Lord, as if he had been pulled by an invisible tether.
"Severus!" Circe shouted as Snape was brought to a sudden halt, hovering in the air before the Dark Lord, his feet suspended off the ground. He groaned as Voldemort squeezed the air from his lungs.
"The one too cowardly to return…" Voldemort hissed in a cold, high voice. "All of you. Leave us." he demanded, and without a word's argument the other conclave attendants stood from the table and shuffled out of the ballroom. Severus gargled as he hovered in the air, unable to mutter even a word.
"My Lord…" Circe muttered desperately. Voldemort's narrow pupils settled on her and Circe felt her stomach drop inside her. "Severus and I have answered your summons. Is that what a traitor, a coward, would do?"
Voldemort looked to Circe and then to Snape, and without a word he relinquished his control of Severus's body and he fell to the floor in a crumple. Circe rushed to his side, barely concealing a whimper as she touched a hand to his shoulders.
"Severus, you have some explaining to do…." the Dark Lord whispered, sweeping about the room, gliding over the marble floor without making a single sound. "You did not present yourself at the graveyard. You did not search to find me in my lost and forgotten years. And, perhaps most damningly, you stayed in the comfort of Dumbledore's pocket all these years."
"My Lord…" Severus uttered as he sucked in a long breath. "You ask why I did not attempt to find you after your disappearance. For the same reasons as the Carrows or the Malfoys. I believed you finished, and I am ashamed to admit that to you." he cast a wary eye up into Voldemort's face, still on his knees before him. "But you seem to have forgiven others in your cohort of followers for their loss of faith."
"Indeed. Or I would have very few followers left!" Volemort replied, a spike of anger lancing through his high voice.
"And all these years I have remained at the very post where you commanded me to be. At Hogwarts. Spying on Dumbledore…" Snape continued hurriedly. "A cuckoo in the nest of the phoenix." Severus's eyes met with Circe's for the briefest moment as he raised his head.
That's my line. Circe thought, recognising the turn of phrase she had used when they had spoken to Barty Crouch Junior.
"A cuckoo or a fledgling?" the Dark Lord spat, pushing his noseless face into Severus's pleadingly upturned one. "You don't want me as your enemy, Quirrell." he quoted, sending a shiver of panic through Severus's bones. "It was I who Quirrell worked for. I was pitifully weak, sharing a body with a mediocre wizard. Yet it was me who guided his actions, latched on to him like a leech as he strove to procure the Philosopher's Stone for me so I could return. And you got in my way. Why, Severus?"
"In all honesty, my Lord, I believed Quirrell to be a buffoon. A greedy, unworthy man who was attempting to steal the Stone for his own ends. I admit, I did all I could to thwart him. If I'd only known that you were so near, my Lord, we could have heralded your glorious return three years earlier!"
Circe marvelled at how effortlessly Severus lied. He had been forced to come up with that one quickly. And still he held his composure together. Circe wondered whether she was managing to do the same. She prayed she was, otherwise all of their preparations leading up to this night would be dashed to the winds. All they had to do was make Voldemort believe.
If Voldemort didn't believe them, they would both die that night.
Voldemort went quiet for a long while, looking at Snape cautiously with his yellow eyes. Circe felt like she was holding her breath.
"I believed you to be Dumbledore's stooge…" he muttered. "I could not risk revealing myself to someone whom I suspected of wavering loyalties."
"Never, my Lord… Never!"
Voldemort scoffed, nodding sagely to himself. "And you?" he asked, fixing Circe in his sights. She almost shrank back from the horrific gaze of the skeletal man. Never in her life had she wanted to turn and run more, but she rooted her feet to the spot, desperately trying to focus on presenting as cool and unphased.
"My Lord, you know me. You and I have been in this ballroom together several times."
"I do know you." Voldemort murmure gently. He extended a thin, spidery hand out to her and passed his fingers through her hair. Circe tried her hardest to repress a shiver. "I must admit, as each day passes in my new corporeal form, the memory of our shared dreams grows fainter. But I recall your wants, your desires. I remember your ardent, deep affections for Severus."
"And it was Severus who tutore me in your ways, Master." she said calmly, walking to Snape's side as he pulled himself up off his knees. "Severus is loyal, he has brought you another disciple this night."
Voldemort's face contorted into something resembling a smile, and he laughed. Slow and low at first but eventually growing loud and obnoxious. The tension in the room lightened considerably.
He believes us... My God, I think he believes us. Circe thought as her heart beat triumphantly in her chest. For the first time that night, Circe began to hope that they both might have just managed to lie themselves into Voldemort's inner circle...
"I am beginning to understand why you did not present yourselves at the graveyard that night." Voldemort stated. "If you had disappeared together from Dumbledore's sights that night, it would have appeared suspicious. Both lovebirds should not desert the nest at the same time…"
"Dumbledore is not aware of our… connection, my Lord." Circe said with a small smile, hoping her lies were as effortless as Severus's and taking his hand. "Nobody in The Order or at Hogwarts is. Only you and the other Death Eaters are aware of our true relationship."
"Very good… very good. So you wish to follow Severus in his role of spy then, my dear?"
"I do." That much is true, at least, she thought.
"Then Severus, your price of re-admission into my conclave is paid… with her." Voldemort whispered, pointing again to Circe. "Present your wrist."
Circe swallowed hard, peeling back the sleeve of Severus's mother's dress and holding out her arm tentatively towards the Dark Lord. In all her worrying and obsessing over this night, the fact that she would become branded like Severus was hadn't crossed her mind.
Dad hates tattoos… she caught herself thinking and almost laughed aloud with the strange, misplaced concern that had passed through her mind. Voldemort's cold fingers latched around her wrist and he pulled her close. He smelt of a sweet scent... Of the odour funeral parlours often used to disguise the scent of death. He pressed his wand into her flesh and with a hissed mutter of "Morsmorde!", Circe felt a burning sensation blooming across the surface of her skin. The burning grew into a searing and then the searing turned into an acute agony. She screamed and stumped back, clutching her wrist to her body.
And then it was gone.
When she cast her eyes down onto her wrist, there sat the Dark Mark. Black and red. Burnt onto her. Tender to the touch.
"Thank you, my Lord." she whispered, tears in her eyes.
"Severus, fetch Madame Lestrange." Voldemort commanded. He nodded curtly and turned to his task.
"Odette?" Circe questioned.
"Indeed. Severus's penance for his years of inactivity have been repaid by bringing you to me. But you, my dear, still have to prove yourself in order to earn the rank of Death Eater."
Circe frowned as she heard the steady approach of Odette's heels on the marble floor behind her. She could smell that ethereal jasmine and bergamot on her skin, a welcome respite from the waxy sweetness of Voldemort.
"I have known for quite some time that you have been Severus's instrument, thanks to my most loyal servant Barty Crouch Junior." Voldemort continued. "Yes, he told me all about your growing affections when he and Wormtail were the only disciples at my side. My other followers were rather shocked to learn that Severus had coupled with someone else, but I knew whoever Severus agreed to pair with, he would bring them to me…" he laughed cruelly.
Severus resumed his position at Circe's side and bowed, whilst Odette maneuvered herself to her other side. She stood in between them both, waiting for Voldemort to deliver his sentence for her. What would he ask of her? An initiation of sorts? A task? She had been rather naive to assume that she would be indoctrinated into Voldemort's inner circle if she just asked nicely enough…
"It warms me to learn that we have gained a Death Eater tonight. But as you are aware there are many still who are not here. Like Madame Lestrange's husband. Like her sister in law, Bellatrix. Dolohov, Mulciber, Rookwood… All of them fester and rot in Azkaban because of their loyalty to me."
"For over a decade now, my Lord." Odette muttered sadly.
"Indeed. And so if you wish to be counted amongst them, Circe. If you wish to call them "brother" and reap all the benefits of being at my side when I take this world for the pure-blood wizarding race, you have got to give a little something. Taking is too easy."
Circe coughed nervously as the song she'd had in her head all evening came screaming back into her consciousness.
"If you wanna be my lover
You have got to give.
Taking is too easy, but that's the way it is."
She almost wanted to laugh aloud with the absurdity of it and Severus noticed the very faintest of strained grins pulling at her mouth. He recognised the phrasing of Voldemort's words too, having heard the same song on repeat in his living room for the past few days. The Dark Lord didn't know what he'd said, but he and Circe certainly did...
Why? Why the hell can I only think of this bloody song when this is happening around me? This awful, nerve-racking situation and the only thing I can think about is that song!
Severus gripped her arm tightly, squeezing as hard as he dared. Wishing he could commune with her telepathically and scream at her, "Don't you dare!".
"Tell me Circe…" Voldemort continued, seemingly oblivious to her stress-induced hysterics. "Did Barty manage to leave his little present with you before the Minister murdered him?"
"Present?" Circe aske, just about able to swallow a wildly inappropriate giggle. "The… the hair? His father's hair?"
"Yes."
"I… yes, I have it. But what is it for? I don't understand."
Odette turned to her with a glint in her icy blue eyes. "Polyjuice potion. I have been brewing some for the past few months under our Master's request. You know Barty Crouch Senior was once the head of the Department of Magical Law enforcement?"
"I do. He was the one who… Who parted you and Rabastan. He sent all of the Dark Lord's followers to Azkaban."
"And his visage would make an excellent disguise to infiltrate the prison, would it not?" Odette asked, a wicked grin spreading across her face.
"Infiltrate Azkaban?" Circe asked, utterly flabbergasted.
It's impossible… No. It can't be done. Azkaban is a fortress armed to the teeth with the nastiest, vilest guards on this Earth… Only one person has ever managed to escape from it. And an Azkaban prison-break has never successfully occurred in its entire history.
Severus too stared at Odette and Circe both with a shocked look on his face. His heart hammered in his chest, a part of him knowing what Voldemort was going to demand of her next.
"Yes, my dear." Voldemort uttered gently. "To prove yourself to me, to guarantee yourself a firm position amongst my closest Death Eaters, I wish for you to break all of my languishing loyal from the hell of that prison and set them free so they may return to me."