Warning: This chapter contains torture.

CHAPTER 8

THIS WAY…

Inspirational or not, Apparating was brutal. Severus clutched painfully at his injured side, nearly lost his footing, feeling almost lightheaded as he suddenly found himself standing on a paved pathway illuminated only by torches in the bleak dark night.

At the end of the path stood, sumptuous and ridiculously grand, a mansion he knew all too well, and halfway to it, was a man with blonde hair and fur robes, who, upon seeing Severus, strut up to him with well-bred elegance and a cordial greeting,

"Severus."

"Lucius," he returned the greeting, uncertain how to feel about seeing a friendly face in such dubious circumstances.

"You were… efficient. I wasn't expecting you before midnight, to speak honestly," Lucius said and flashed a smooth smile, which lasted about a second before it froze and dipped downwards slowly as he took in Severus from up close.

Lucius' pale, pointed face tensed in a frown, and he was about to say something when the cold air popped with the Apparition of Yaxley and Goyle, in tandem, since Goyle had lost his wand.

Bellatrix followed suit, and Lucius found himself glancing between the four of them, hastily at first, then, the second time around, meticulously, slow enough that Severus could follow his gaze as it landed on each of them: one—two—three—four—right, no fifth.

"Don't gloat," Bellatrix said and stomped past Lucius towards the manor.

Lucius' eyes darted to Severus, slightly wide in sudden apprehension, before he turned and shouted curtly, "Bella! It's not the house."

Bellatrix stopped in her tracks, her voice but a whisper. "Where then?"

"The old granary."

She cursed under her breath and cut through the grass to another path, narrow and dark, leading to a circular construction, not at all that large.

Yaxley and Goyle followed suit, leaving Severus alone under the scrutinising glare of Lucius.

Severus, calculating his bravado was better saved for soon enough when he would face the Dark Lord, was still clutching his injured side, and unsurprisingly, Lucius' gaze rested just there before drifting up to meet his eyes.

"It was your mission?"

Severus nodded.

And Lucius, not one to show emotions gratuitously, sucked in a breath and brushed a fisted hand over his mouth.

Yes, it would be quite a night.

"Shall we?" Severus asked.

"Mm-hmm… Need a hand?"

"I'm fine."

Lucius smiled, tensed and unamused. "Of course."

Without further small talk, Lucius pulled out his wand and pointed it at Severus. "Tergeo."

A soft current of air wafted around Severus' hand, and he realised that, in the haze of everything, he had forgotten to wipe his own blood, dried as it may have been, off his hands.

"It's better the Dark Lord doesn't know about that," Lucius said. "You wouldn't want to ignite his imagination for—"

No. No, he wouldn't.

He thanked Lucius silently for the cleaning charm and proceeded to hobble down the dark path. Lucius walked with him, not faster, not slower, just the same shambling pace.

It left Severus wondering whether to feel grateful for the courtesy or annoyed with Lucius' stare boring into the side of his face. It would seem people were making an uncomfortable habit lately of staring at him with very expressive mien.

They had nearly reached the small building when Lucius drew to a halt and called his name quietly, and Severus, stopping in his tracks, turned to him. An indescribable emotion was playing on Lucius' otherwise stern face. His eyes flickered unsettled, drifting between Severus and the round building behind him, several times. He seemed almost — was he concerned?

Lucius opened his mouth to speak, closed it again, looking Severus in the eyes for another long moment. He looked as if e was about to blurt out something, anything, at one point, but then he pressed his lips once more to a terse line, gazed away over Severus' shoulder, and presented the conclusion of his inner disputing.

"It's this way," Lucius said with a vague wave of the hand.

Severus, glancing in the direction of the gesture, found only the round construction, standing forty feet away from them, where they were heading anyway.

Right.

Just in case Severus had gotten confused, Bellatrix, Yaxley, and Goyle were waiting before the locked door, marking the spot.

Severus let out a breath, annoyed with Lucius, and turned around and crossed the distance to the building, figuring it was best not to dwell on what Lucius felt was so important that he couldn't share.

It wouldn't make a difference one way or another.

Lucius waved his wand at the entrance. The metal lock slid with a clink, and the door swung open soundlessly.

Bellatrix, Yaxley and Goyle, already close to the doorstep, entered hesitantly, and Severus followed, feeling just as hesitant. Or even more.

He trod inside.

There was only one room inside, large and obscure and fitting for its purpose: thick walls, no windows, cobblestone flooring, easy to mop up. Lucius had a place for just about anything.

Yaxley and Goyle shuffled to the side; Bellatrix advanced forward, three guarded steps, and at the centre of the room, Severus saw him.

The Dark Lord, standing tall, shrouded in dark robes, with the face of a skull and the skin colour of just one. His red eyes drifted between the newcomers, unhurried, then, settling on the empty space between them, he frowned.

"Where is Sirius Black?"

CLINK. The lock behind Severus slid shut, the door securely blocked, and Lucius' footsteps prodded to a distanced spot in the room.

Standing along the wall, Severus now noticed, were a dozen or so silhouettes, half-covered in shadows. He hardly needed spotlights to recognise them, though. Greyback, the Carrow siblings, Dolohov, and the rest of the inner circle. Quite the welcoming committee. In all frankness, he had hoped there wouldn't be an audience for tonight.

"Where is he?" the Dark Lord repeated, and the silence in the room, already heavy, seemed to freeze over.

Severus stepped forward, failing to see the point in cowering behind collective fault — it would make no difference where he cowered. He advanced with measured steps.

His heart pounded like a drum; his mind was crystal clear.

He knew how the night would play out. He might as well take it on with some dignity while he still had that. Sure enough, there would be nothing left of it soon.

He lowered himself on one knee before the Dark Lord and bowed his head.

It was as if the silence in the room had descended upon his shoulders, weighing down like a curtain of steel.

"My Lord, Sirius Black has escaped. I regret my failure deeply."

Severus couldn't see his face, but he felt his power — dark, cold, savagely disfigured — surge in a flicker of rage before contracting back to its soulless core as though it had been pulled in by the magnetism of a black hole.

"You let him escape?"

Severus shuddered.

"Without my will, my Lord. I did."

"Mm-hmm…" was all the Dark Lord said, taking a moment, probably to size up the others who had arrived. Or so Severus assumed. He didn't look up from the floor. To look him in the eyes when called to answer was the utmost defiance. "And how did that happen?"

"My Lord," Severus said, "through the Floo Network."

"I see… You didn't cut off the connection."

He almost wished they'd skip introductions and get straight to it, whatever it was. Get it over with.

"It was a question, Severus. I expect an answer."

"I did not."

"And that's how he could escape... Now, why would you do such a thing?"

Severus' heart pounded madly, but his breaths were even. So was his voice.

"I assumed, My Lord — I knew the building to be abandoned for more than two decades. I didn't think it would still be connected."

"You didn't think… uncanny for you, is it not? Bellatrix. Do come forward — you've never shied from my company before."

"My Lord." She obeyed, her voice was composed, and Severus heard the heels of her boots clunk on the cobblestone as she walked past him. Toc. Toc. Toc. Toc. To stand close to the Dark Lord's side. Though, not very close.

"On a second thought," the Dark Lord said. "The back of the room is more fitting. Go take your place there, Bella, by Nott's side."

"My Lord," She bowed deeply; her voice was achingly tensed. "I would never—"

"Now."

"My Lord," Bellatrix answered in a whisper, and her footsteps trod far from the Dark Lord's side to her place of disgrace.

"So, Severus, you did not think to verify the Floo. How would you call that?"

"My Lord," he drew in a breath. Oh, for hell's sake, this was going to end badly! "Negligence, my Lord."

"Yes, we might agree here. Maybe we can agree further. You've always advised me closely, Severus, and… wisely. Tell me then, how should we go on about this negligence of yours? You understand it cannot happen again."

"It will not happen again, my Lord."

"No, it will not... not to you, nor to anyone else here. It was you who advised me how to ensure such inadvertence does not repeat, was it not?"

Ironically, it was. The Dark Lord had had a dilemma in dealing with failure: ' Punish too many, and you seed dissent; punish too feebly, and you give way to disobedience…'

'Punish as few as necessary as harshly as bearable,' Severus had presented his solution to the Dark Lord some while ago, and the Dark Lord had seemed ridiculously giddy with it.

"Do know Severus, I am not enjoying this."

Long fingers reached inside the dark robes and pulled out the wand.

Severus' stomach clenched.

If he had thought of himself as a brave man before, he had been wrong. He was terrified. It was as if the fright was creeping out of the cold stone floor into his body, trailing up his spine. His stomach was contorted in fear, his chest a block of ice.

Everything inside him shivered in terror. He glanced at his own hands — they were steady, still.

"I see it as a waste of my magic," said the Dark Lord. "But it must be done. "

The blood in Severus' ears drummed so loudly, he barely heard the next words over it.

"I cannot dwell in — negligence ."

The wand went up, and the Torture Curse came down, and Severus' world went black and mute, and the pain erupted, shrill and scorching, coursing his body in palpitating jolts. He felt it tear up his flesh, drill into his bones.

Someone screamed a horrific scream, and it wasn't until after another two or three or four — or how many were there? — of the violent jolts that Severus realised those were his own screams. They were nauseating. And frightening.

When the maddening pain receded, he was suffocating. He struggled for breath, but it felt as if his chest had been squashed, and his throat scrunched, and the air couldn't possibly flow further down into his lungs, and when it finally did, it hurt like hell. He gulped it down regardless, desperate and greedy.

Shivering, he panted on the cold floor, on his knees and elbows. He hadn't writhed on the ground, but only because the curse had caught him already kneeling.

"Come again," The Dark Lord spoke, his voice unperturbed, "how many men did you have with you?"

Severus pushed against the floor to straighten himself back up to his knees. "My Lord," he said between heavy breaths, "three men."

"And you confronted how many?"

"One."

"And you let him escape?"

Severus breathed heavily, eyes fixed on the cobble.

"I asked a question. I expect an answer."

"Without my will, yes," he answered quietly.

When the curse hit again, he screamed, unable to do anything else. At some point, the Dark Lord must have grown annoyed with the noise because he made it stop, not by relieving the pain, though, but by crushing the air out of Severus' lungs.

And Severus, suffocating — he'd somehow ended up not on his knees but on his back — clutched at his chest compulsively. He clawed at the collar around his neck, pulled, ripped. It didn't help with breathing. Of course it didn't.

The pain dimmed at some point enough for him to roll on his side. His movements were achingly sluggish; his mind, by contrast, reeled in panic. He still had no air. His lungs felt drenched in tar.

Scrambling to his knees and forearms, he coughed, retched, expecting to expel water — nothing came, the spastic retching continued, still nothing. It wasn't until some sore moments later that his airwaves finally cleared. He drew air into his chest, breathed, gagged and coughed again, drew in another breath, and another one — and another one — breathed — just breathed.

He let his forehead rest on the stone floor.

"Tell me, Severus, you know Dumbledore closely... and his men."

The Dark Lord's voice, almost conversational, drifted lazily through the haze of everything else.

"Tell me, how will they rejoice in the news? One of theirs besting four of mine? How will that make me look?"

The Dark Lord was pacing, circling him, Severus realised.

He tried to bring his tired mind in order, pull his thoughts together from the fog.

"My Lord, it's a defeat for them," Severus replied, choking again at some point. "They must give up on the Pearl Beak."

"I see… Do sit up, Severus. You're slouching."

Severus lifted himself up on his elbows, then on his knees, straightened his back somewhat. Whoever said the pain went away when the Torture Curse was lifted had never spent quite enough time under it.

"It's a defeat for their side, you say… And for mine? How would you call it for our side?"

The Dark Lord's next words were no longer shrouded in conversational mockery but left bare and cold as shards of ice.

"Would you call this a win?"

Sluggish mind and all, Severus wasn't an idiot. He recognised the dare.

"My Lord, I have failed you. That the Beak —" he struggled to catch his voice, "will no longer make it to their hands is but a modest consolation that will weigh in this war."

"Win or defeat, Severus. Win or Defeat?"

Reasoning that to call this mess a win would only add insult to the injury, Severus admitted to his only option.

"Defeat, my Lord."

"As thought I."

Up went the wand, down came the curse, and the night went on.

AUTHOR NOTE

*Fanfic author trying out telepathic abilities*

Do review, do review, do review.

No? Not working?

F@*#

Come on, just review, please? :D

No need to brush my ego, simply let me know how you find the chapters (the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between).