A/N: This just might be the "darkest" chapter in the whole book, and not in a good way. Be prepared to skip it if it's too gross. Our Potions Master isn't fucking around. The good news is, now that it's done, I can continue with the love in the story. :-)
When Collin awoke, his relationship with his body was not the same. He would never walk again, even with magic, even if Snape allowed him to live. However, that information was hidden from him with masking spells that let him think he could sometimes feel his legs and body recovering. He needed to be given some hope, if he was to be cooperative enough to provide answers.
As he came to, his mind gradually made sense of bare concrete walls surrounding him. They were fitted with bars looking out into a dim room. A basement. Water pipes came down from a false ceiling and followed overhead until they disappeared into dim recesses of the room. Oil lanterns illuminated enough to reveal shelves reinforced into the bedrock, holding dusty dark jars, threadbare volumes, trays of growing things, herbs, mushroom planters, and various sizes of cauldrons and brewing accouterments. There were benches and tables topped with stacks of books and paperwork. He knew exactly whose basement he was in. And that he was so far off the beaten path of spying and medical crimes, of lies and luxury hotels, of proving his value until he could no longer convince the Organization not to put a bullet in his head, that for the first time in nearly three years, his body felt still. Not resting, but denied the ability to run. He didn't like it. The Organization didn't require the childishness of bullets to get rid of him, but if it came to that, better to make it look like another unfortunate muggle conflict.
It wasn't just the physical pain. Difficulty breathing had woken him up. He appeared to be under frayed, hand-made blankets, not department store synthetics. From what he could tell, he lay upon hardwood, cushioned by a crude mattress of potato sacks. Another sort of makeshift bed sat adjacent to his. Someone lay there, covered up to their head, not making any noise. It took waking up to the sight three times before he realized that a corpse lay there. Panic had him struggling to sit up, to bolt, but he couldn't seem to work his muscles right. His movement was limited and he had to lie there and wait out his hysteria. He lay there for so long next to the body, he had no choice but to return to his senses and observe his surroundings.
He soon smelled real food simmering somewhere. His body was warm enough. Someone was trying to make things tolerable for him. He was at someone's mercy, and he didn't trust that at all. What he remembered of his conversation with Snape, meant disaster. He was pretty sure that he'd been allowed to wake up in this isolation, this quiet, to come to terms with being a prisoner before the interrogation began.
He also knew that he was injured far more seriously than he could see. His brain told him that his body was lying. It was being forced to lie to keep him reasonable.
Where there was life, there was hope. He tried to think through his pain. How to convince Snape to let him go? They had never been close while serving Voldemort. There was no such thing among the ranks of the Death Eaters, for one never knew when the Dark Lord would vent his rage by murdering on a whim, or worse, by testing your loyalty and demanding that you kill the wizard he could no longer tolerate in his army. It wasn't wise to depend on friendship among them. But that's not to say that there was no concern for each other. He watched Snape's unique position as Voldemort's favored spy for twenty years, and didn't envy him. He could kill in an instant, but didn't think he could do what had been required of Snape all those years.
He thought of him, remembered him, and tried to look for an angle that would give him an advantage. Snape had already blown his cover when the truth came out that he cooperated with Dumbledore. So he did indeed have the liability of feelings. He had a weakness. People with feelings always want to be understood. Let's see, what did he remember about Snape?
That wizard had the misfortune of possessing a strange exotic note to his cold demeanor, especially when he joined them as a young man. His features were too contradicting. Rich and bountiful dark hair on a malnourished frame, a killer's gleam looking out from an uninterested expression, a defensive scowl on an otherwise tender surface. Lips as fine as a woman's. He came to them, tall and bold, yet coupled with demur deflection, not wanting anyone to approach him, but not able or willing to leave their ranks. He was an oversized beauty, slender in his robes but stout in his presence as he hovered, shoulders back, behind the Dark Lord.
Collin knew that looking that way could get a wizard killed, especially if it got Voldemort's attention. Severus had either been lucky or cursed in that respect. He couldn't recall the moment when it dawned on him that Snape shared a bed with Voldemort. No doubt on orders, whenever that icy reptilian devil remembered what human touch was like. Snape, the poor bastard. Nobody helped him. No one could. He was so good at executing the most sinister orders, that he convinced everyone that he didn't need any help at all. But he was just a kid back then, a teenager. There must've been a time when he would've run from that monstrous touch, before so many orders and murders made it necessary to climb ranks in order to stay alive. Whatever allowed him to adapt to that hell, Collin did not want to look at it. But maybe if he could appeal to the victim in Snape, he could find his way out of here.
Hell, if Voldemort could do that to Lucius's son, or to Harry, there's no telling what he put Snape through behind closed doors. None of them wanted to admit what must've been taking place right under their noses. Snape was young, younger than himself, but still old enough to make his own decisions. They all had their lives to think about. The fact that they would not've tolerated the same treatment to their own children, somehow went unacknowledged meeting after meeting, assignment after assignment. They stopped seeing the bruises and injuries long ago. Any sign of injury, was dashed away by the thought of another assignment risk.
Even when Voldemort was displeased and used the Crucio to attempt to humiliate Snape publicly, they rationalized it away by noting how that wizard endured it and would not break in front of them. Sitting around those tables, waiting in misty graveyards, they secretly willed him to be strong. Once he showed that he could, they as a group needed him to. It reassured them that they were not barbaric, not insane. Only the strongest signed up for these missions and their purposes were not for the weak. Snape never disappointed them. After writhing in pain, he always came back from it with quiet strength and unbroken resolve. That's how he'd won the respect of wealthy purebloods. That, and his talent for carrying out orders with precise execution and imposing coldness.
Anyone capable of that, did not need rescuing. That's what they told themselves as they watched Snape transition from a nineteen year-old's shock and bravery, to a twenty year-old's resignation that he had no more innocence to fear losing, to a forty year-old who had nothing left to fear at all. Criminals, all of them.
Almost no one made small talk with him and in hindsight, they thought they could all see the exact moment when he decided to turn on Voldemort. No one knew for sure, but it must've had something to do with living in such close proximity to Lucius' boy all those years, and knowing what was being asked of him as a father and Death Eater. Of course, there was Lily before that, and to know Snape at all, was to know that he could be as unforgiving as Voldemort. He'd learned it from the best.
He convinced everyone that he was against Harry, and fought to keep him alive the whole time. None of them were prepared for the pent up energy behind that kind of vindictive grudge. To lie to Voldemort's face for so long, suffering his touch, and thwarting his every intention while making it look like blind devotion, just who was the monster here? Is that what keeping silent when you want to scream, does to you? When there is no fighting Voldemort's filthy hands off, and no other recourse but to stand your ground and let the soulless thing do what he thinks is an enjoyment to you?
Collin had never dared to attempt to use legilimency on Snape, but he didn't have to stand in front of a train to know what it would do to a person, in order to learn that information. His guilt said it all. Now that he lay there, clearly a prisoner at the end of his line, he let himself remember Snape at twenty-five. He saw him, trailing into meetings behind Voldemort, almost graceful in his quiet acceptance. Certainly strong and young, with all the awkwardness gone. Unsmiling and masked, he hid his trauma well. But it oozed from him and spoke through an unwillingness to be common. That hair was still way too dark against that skin. No matter how indifferently he displayed himself, there was still too much appeal in his features. Where he had committed to brooding and repelling others, he still hadn't learn to downplay handsome qualities. He hadn't learned to project a crackling hardness that softer people would one day construe as ugly.
It dawned on Collin that being seen as frightening and ugly, was indeed a camouflage. It was safety. Snape had done everything in his power to convince even the people who had never met him of it. If his reputation could do most of the fighting for him, then there would be less battles. In truth, Snape had come to them, with very much the same adolescent beauty that marked Draco and Harry as inevitable victims. No wonder he turned against all of them. There was some kid in there that risked everything, rather than let evil feast on one more undefended child. No wonder, twenty years later, he wanted answers about that terrible curse. He was still trying to save those boys, because he was still trying to save himself. He probably thinks curing them is going to redeem him somehow, or sway the balance of his fate.
"You can't save them, my friend." Collin spoke to no one but himself.
But Draco did need saving. No father should've watched his son go through that, and if Lucius, that helpless coward, couldn't fight for his son, then at least Snape had wrenched justice from the situation in the only way it could be had. It seemed poetic justice that he would give Voldemort's worst enemy the help to defeat him. You don't ravish what isn't yours, and expect not to pay a price. The youth is forgotten, but his pain remembers, and has made damn sure that it doesn't happen again. Voldemort, you had no idea what you created when you forced him into your bed and made him a lead spy. He was capable of fear before then. Not after. And that was your downfall. Thank God.
Remembering those dark days took more out of Collin than he thought. He lost focus, succumbing to his body's miserable state. His residual magic told him that so much was wrong and out of place, he didn't have the strength to fight it right now. His cells were doing their best to restore connective tissue. The more pain he felt, the more he worried that this was the last place he'd ever see. When he awoke the second time, it was to a violent smell of rancid death. Fresh death, with evacuated bowels and explosive gasses festering like poison toxins steaming up through layers of human fat. He knew the smell of rotting blood and bacteria that feasted on it, all too well. Before he opened his eyes, he knew who the man under the cloth was, and why he was here.
Movement and clatter drew his attention to a small man straining to lift an iron pot over a cup. A goblin with rolled up sleeves grimaced to keep the pot steady as he avoided being burned by steaming liquid. Beneath the stench surrounding Collin, salty broth wafted as well as something that smelled like honeyed meat. The combined odors nauseated him so effectively, he wondered if the food wasn't a part of his torture. The little goblin saw him staring and proceeded to ignore him with a determined jaw. He wore a muggle suit with suspenders. Collin saw his tiny dress jacket folded on the table. Once he had the water poured, he set about stoking the grate of the wood stove to give the fire more oxygen. When he had things arranged the way he wanted, he set about spooning thick vegetables and meat from a kettle onto a waiting plate. When this seemed in order, he unwrapped a dark-grained bread, fixed it alongside the meal and slid everything to the end of the table, nearer to Collin.
Collin, who remained alert to the way the goblin put physical effort into things instead of using magic, looked on the offering with anger. "You are holding me prisoner and trying to feed me with this corpse laying right here? I assure you, I'm more civilized than that."
The goblin paused before climbing on the table to access a pulley system of hanging pots and tools. He bent forward. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't notice a thing. You cowards all smell alike to me. Thought you'd be grateful to spend time with an old friend."
Collin struggled between asserting his authority and knowing he was at this creature's mercy. "How much is he paying you? I'll pay more."
The goblin rolled his eyes. Collin could see now that he looked to be middle-aged in appearance, but that meant nothing when it came to goblins. He had short brown hair, faded by grey, around his large ears. His pointed teeth were mostly hidden behind an disapproving tightness to his mouth, but when he looked at Collin, he revealed them. "You can't pay me enough to work for you." Extra wrinkles appeared to pull the weight of his face down as he glared. Prickly, bushy eyebrows made his dark pupils all the more piercing.
Collin tried to move, but saw no result and couldn't figure out why. Some of this had to be damage, but some of it could've been a spell. "I see. Grudges will do none of us any good. How do you expect me to trust the food of a man who loathes me?"
The goblin jumped down to the bench and sat on the table. "I don't."
"What makes you think a man can even have an appetite with this thing in the room?"
The goblin picked up his bowl. "What makes you think this is for you?" He blew on his stew and sipped the broth.
Bitterness bloated Collin's stomach. "I see. You are going for maximum cruelty. At least I know where we stand, my friend."
The goblin swallowed. "Not everything is a plot. I'm just having my lunch."
"I see." He didn't, but if he could keep the goblin talking, maybe he could find a weakness. "How long does he intend to hold me here?"
"Until you die, the way I reckon it."
The flippant response triggered Collins's coping skills. He braced himself to deflect any psychological attack.
"So you need me alive. You require my cooperation."
"I don't require anything. I'm given a job, I do it well. No matter how this ends, I still get paid."
"And you don't mind eating beside dead men?"
To prove his point, the goblin tore at his bread. "It's not that bad. The boss is just playing with ya. Exaggerating your senses. Your condition's not gonna improve until you talk."
"So you're threatening that death will be an improvement?"
"If I was you, I'd be thinking about what the boss actually wants to hear, and forget about all this death stuff."
Collin tried to change the subject. "Tell me why you're not using magic to do the simplest tasks."
This seemed to remind the goblin of something. He stood and moved over to the sheeted corpse. He had a stout, squat body that maneuvered until it wrestled the corpse, still covered, into a sitting position. The goblin huffed and broke a sweat as he tethered the large dead body to an overhanging rope system which ran the length of the room. He attached it to him under his shoulders. He worked as if he didn't want to make direct skin contact with the person under the filthy sheet, let alone see him. Physical pulling brought out a disturbance of stinking gasses, causing Collin to wretch. Obscene sounds pushed out of the body.
"My god, just use magic, for hell's sake."
The goblin grunted. "Not around this fella. Not till the boss binds him back good and proper. He's already pissed enough that he didn't escape through death. I'll not lend him my magic to attack with."
"That's absurd." Collin couldn't help it. So far, he was doing a poor job at humility, even for his own survival.
"The boss says it's so, it's so."
Before Collin could reply, the cellar door opened from another room and Snape stepped through.
His gaze fastened tightly on Collin before turning to the body under the sheet. He spoke to his hired goblin, "Thank you, Grail. You may leave."
Grail took his plate, grunting. "I'll be upstairs if you need me."
Collin watched him take the kettle and leave. Snape's body filled his line of sight. "Are you ready to talk?"
Collin struggled to adjust. "Severus, I… I'm in so much pain. I can't move."
"All you need to do is talk. I have the ability to adjust your pain, but I need answers."
"Anything. I'll do my best."
As if in answer, Snape pulled on the sheet hiding Morell's body. "Make sure you do."
The state of the dead man caused Collin to press back into his make-shift mattress. Morell was going purple now, as if blood had simply solidified and darkened where it pooled from being face-down. Bloating and rigor mortis caused an unsavory expression of torment to the mouth and the eyes bulged open, ready to pop from their sockets. Judging by the bloated lips that couldn't close, internal gasses had already swollen the tongue to twice its normal size. How, exactly, did Severus expect this thing to talk, even if it could?
"Severus, we knew this man. We were sworn brothers. We looked out for each other. Can't you give him some respect!"
Snape went rigid. "I didn't bring this thing back with me to bow down to it. He will give me answers whether he chooses death or not. And so will you."
His arm shot out, wand in hand, striking one corner of the room. The ceiling illuminated in glowing cobalt webbing. They were magical strands that merely represented his real intention. He cast them in the remaining three corners, made tying motions with his wand, connecting them all, and reeled them towards one another. As Collin watched, those lightning-like fibers lit up his glasses. At first the room appeared to strobe under the effect, but as Snape pulled, visibly using effort, a dark shape emerged as that webbing ensnared it. Explosive discharge erupted from the bulbous mass and Collin saw correctly that it was a struggle. A resistance. Ionic dispersion left a burning stink as Snape wrestled the disembodied essence as close to its corpse as he could get it. Only the strands of magic revealed where Morell fought. His form was not that of a man any longer, but an amorphous absence of matter, seen only because the net-like strands captured it. Collin forgot to breathe as Snape broke a sweat corralling the entity until it could be tied using the same strands, to its decaying vessel.
Once done, the body jumped with a jolt of borrowed life. Its dead face remained slack, but its limbs kicked, demonstrating that it was Morell's only physical connection to this world. Collin understood what Snape had done. Morell was pure energy and consciousness now. Snape's magic was like wiring him back to his ruined body, forcing him to express through it. But just when Collin was trying to formulate the question, how was Morell supposed to use that closed throat and atrophied muscles, Snape made a slashing motion with his wand and burned a gash deep across the corpse's throat. He pulled his wand back, yanking out a plug of blackened fluid that oozed down the sheet.
Morell's body should not have felt any pain, but it shook nonetheless, in seizure-like jerks as those strands infused it. Collin looked on, horrified and fascinated by Snape's summoning power.
"Dash Morell, you will not leave this world with your deeds unaccounted for. There will be no rest for you until you give back what you took from those kids. Since you can't return their lives, you will pay with yours in excess. You will answer me, or you will stay bound to this bag of spoiled meat and endure its liquification until your bones are the only things left. If I have to, I will give you enough of my magic just to feel every worm digesting you from the inside out. And even when you are bones, I can see to it that you remain chained to all that you are attempting to escape from."
Though Morell's globular eyes were swollen open, their light faded to milky infection, something behind them screamed, in who's name do you dare to command such power? You're just as mortal as I am, you're no one's god.
Snape leaned towards those rotting pupils, as if to answer him. "You see, my fellow Death Eater, I have died many times. I have searched for the legendary hell and found that there is none. It only exists in the hearts of wretched people. You can imagine my disappointment. Therefore, as usual, I have to take matters into my own hands and construct a hell of my choosing in order to make you pay for your crimes against Harry. If that means exhausting my magic in an attempt to imprison you and making it certain that you and I are doomed to be chained together in the afterlife, I look forward to making you suffer, should we meet in another incarnation. I will never let you go until you help undo what you've done. You will answer me now. Out of all the Dark Lord's perversions, why did he work so thoroughly to develop the Unbearable Curse? Speak!"
Collin tried to make a noise, anything to keep from seeing his dead friend attempt to talk through the corpse. But nothing came out and he remained frozen to the sight of Snape holding his wand in front of Morell's throat. He saw spindles of magic thread around the wound, sewing themselves like stitches and pulling lifeless skin taut until the slash swelled and puckered with creases. The wound looked like a drawstring purse at the opening and contracted in a sphincter ring, tightening and opening, that let out wet garbled noises. Out of that rancid fluid, a dripping bubble emerged. It remained intact as it grew to the size of a grape fruit. Poised at the tip of Snape's wand, it detached from slimy strings and lifted free of Morell's body.
Collin instinctively leaned away from it as Snape lifted it further into the air. A puncture motion , and the slimy orb burst, spilling odor with the sound of a tormented soul's voice.
I've paid with my life. You can't hold me. Crime against Creation.
Snape snarled, "Your life isn't worth the cost that you owe. And your suicide is a coward's turn tail and run. You'll fair better in your darkness if you give all that you can give to lift that curse."
Another bubble ballooned from the pursed throat.
Impossible. Five wizards cast. Five are dead.
Collin gasped, "Speak for yourself! I'm still alive."
This time, the throat aperture spit out an aborted green yolk instead of a bubble. And they heard Morell's voice anyway, in the air around them.
You're as dead as I am. Your time is up, Collin.
Collin turned to Snape, eyes frantic. "Severus, I'm perfectly willing to help you. That curse was inflicted against our wills. Now that Voldemort is dead, I can tell you everything I know, but I don't know how to undo it. You must believe me."
In spite of not being able to move his arms, his body shivered so visibly that it shook the make-shift bed. "Just don't kill me. Let me walk out of here. Morell was a coward in life, he's one in death. It's no surprise he's talking out of his ass."
Snape's chin lifted as he directed his words to Morell. "I have two of the five bodies and collected all of your wands, which retain stores of your magic, for the wizard who knows how to use them. Your wand is broken, Collin, but I will wrench as much service from you and those inept fibers as I can get. Give me the recipe of the curse and I'll lift it myself."
"I'm not a body!" Collin pleaded.
Hot wet air gushed from the throat. You will kill yourself and the boys trying. There is no counter.
Collin said, "Without the wizards involved, you'd need to override those wands with a master wand."
A master wand.
Snape's eyes narrowed suspiciously at this. "Harry destroyed the Elder Wand."
He'd seen it in Harry's trauma, from the vials he kept of those damaged emotions. He had studied dark vapor sliding in the tube as he held it up to the light. It mixed with Harry's blood. It had been drawn directly from the transmitting neurons of his brain, taking cells and tissue with it, to give Harry's mind a chance to heal. He'd sat for hours staring into those vapors, reading them with occlumency, to search for Harry amid the storm-like chaos he found there. In order to read it, he had to sidestep Harry's horror-filled night in a way that was impossible for Harry himself.
He looked around in those memories and experiences like a man searching an old house, going from room to room, doing his best to ignore all the things he couldn't change. Harry's screams shook every scene, every room, even areas that appeared to have nothing to do with that night. This surgically removed particle of memory, chemistry, and magic, was an epicenter, affecting all levels of Harry's holographic mind. Snape saw that even as a child in his crib, Harry as a baby, flinched from the young man's screams, which were far away in some probable future. In the endless nebulae of the soul, it was all happening outside of time, still unfolding.
While wandering in Harry's pain, he saw Lily lay her newborn and in his bed saw the child whimper from feelings that reached it from a future self. A self preparing it, telling it how to grow, what to watch out for, and what choices to make. As Lucius raped him, Harry's magic had radiated curses and warnings to all parts of himself, past, present, and future. He asked for help anywhere he could get it. Why hadn't he avoided that night? Why couldn't he? Who decreed that such an experience was not to be avoided?
With this question, his most private memories threatened to surface. He felt them before he saw them and withdrew his attention. Rather than look into his own past, he traced the flow of Harry's actions to the day Harry defeated Voldemort and broke the Elder Wand. He saw the spot where Harry and his friends stood at the broken rubble of Hogwarts. If he wanted to, he could even look out from Harry's eyes. He didn't want to. Just seeing the vision, brought him closer than he wanted to be to the school.
He told Collin again, "Dumbledore's wand was destroyed." What he didn't say, was that in his search for answers, he'd already collected the remains of that wand. They were useless splinters, blown among the rubble and rocks at the base of the castle.
Collin clamped tightly on the realization that Snape was jumping to the wrong conclusion. How much time would it buy him? He willed Morell to shut the fuck up and tried to keep Snape's attention on him.
He replied to Snape, "There are many powerful wands in the world, however, none like that. Let alone wizards who can win them. I would think that a wand like that leaves behind some trace of its power, even if mere mortals can't make it work. If you can find that wand, you may be on to something."
Snape looked from him to Morell. Suspicion marred in his expression. He knew that precious artifact was no longer an option, but something in Collin's statement rang true, even if Collin didn't know it.
Collin continued, "If you can tap the residual magic that lies in the wands of their deceased owners, perhaps there is a way to tap into the essence that once lived in that corpse of a wand. I mean, raising the dead is what you do. You're obviously good at tracking down wands, and whatever else you choose to hunt. I'm not saying this is the solution, but magic of that caliber doesn't just disappear because it can't be seen. With what you need to affect the curse, even if I could recover the dust of the Elder Wand, I would do it. I would try it. Find the wand and resurrect the power. Hell, you could even try harnessing the raw magic and giving it a new instrument to reside in."
The corner of Snape's mouth pinched. "How very horcrux of you."
Collin took a second to linger on Morell's swollen body. "If it works, it works. Your deeds are truly terrifying, Severus, but great. No one knows what might be possible if you could recover the remnants of that wand."
Snape's head snapped to his direction. "Don't push your luck. I know perfectly well that the broken pieces of that wand are useless. You must find another way to stall your death."
Desperation shook Collin's confidence. "Snape, it isn't like you to pass up an opportunity to excel where other wizards have failed. Yes, I want to live another day, to come up with a way to convince you that I'm worthy of life. That I regret what I did to survive. But the power of the Elder Wand is undisputed. Especially when it's new master is alive and well."
Here, he almost said Harry's name, but something in Snape's stare stopped him. He went around it.
"I would not listen to the rumors and disappointments of wizards who had no hope of wielding it. I would not let hearsay tell me when to give up, until I exhausted the possibility of resurrecting the life of the wand. It was alive, you know. Wizards used it and it used wizards. The most powerful exchanges. All of that had to go somewhere when the materials could no longer hold it."
Something flickered behind Snape's black eyes. Collin, in all his cowardice, struck at just the right angle, and made a spark of flint-stoned determination to live another day. Snape's jaw jutted. He let Collin assume that he was tempted for exactly the reasons he spoke of.
Collin interpreted his lowered eyes as a lapse in vigilance. A softening of hope. He proceeded to wedge his foot in the door. "You were Voldemort's closest confidant. I daresay, closer than Nagini."
He realized his wrong move when he saw bile discolor Snape's complexion. He added quickly, "No offense. It's just that you have a similar genius. I see why he chose you."
Now was not the time to compare the similarities between madness and ambition, so Collin chose his next words very carefully, risking a glance at Morell to make sure his disgusting bubbles weren't activated by speaking to him. "You were only a teenager, Severus, when he got his hands on you. We didn't know how to help you. We weren't even as smart as you. To look at you, one would never know what he put you through. You still have your looks, even."
Snape stood perfectly still, tension clipped his shoulders like coiled steel. Collin was going to lose his life in the next second if any of his jabbering invoked one boarded up memory of being touched by that reptilian madman.
Collin sensed he'd gone too far. "I'm just saying, you outlived all of that. You have another chance, where so many don't. So many are dead or in prison. You actually were the closest to the destruction of the Dark Lord, yet you're alive today. Don't waste that miraculous blessing on any more revenge. On me. If you kill me, you stain your slate all over again. You never leave the circle of hell. You stay one of us. Severus, you could actually have a life now. A new identity."
Lifting one arm, Snape slammed a silencing hex into his mouth. "Don't waste your last breath trying to manipulate me." He saw through the diversion, but connected a new idea to the thoughts of Harry and the Elder Wand.
Weeks ago, he had recovered the broken pieces of the Elder Wand at the same time that he hunted for the dead wizards and their wands. He'd stolen onto the grounds at Hogwarts, disguised and compromised to outwit the school's wards. He'd taken potions to suppress his magic, hoping to trigger no more of a disturbance than a stray rabbit. Under a bleak, overcast dawn, he dug through the rubble at the bottom of the ravine with bleeding hands, cut on sharp rocks, to keep from using a level of magic that would've set off alarms. He could still smell burnt timber and the chemistry of magic and explosives from the night of the battle, whether real or lingering imagination. He pushed thoughts of the snake, lopping its thick body against him and attacking, out of view. He cursed as he remembered lightning striking across his throat and spat Voldemort's name back into hell as he searched.
On that chilled morning, the Black Lake spewed thick mist that soaked into his clothes. He did nothing to repel it, so that his cloak hung heavy and damp. It pulled against his trousers, making his steps awkward and as murky as the bed of the lake. Darkness would've required more light, more magic. This way, he ghosted across the moors with the fog and hoped to be counted as one of the many shadows haunting the area after the war.
His eyes scoured the rubbish, trying to determine the texture and likeness of every splinter and shard of wood in the vicinity where Harry tossed the wand. In the end, he saw a raven land on a remnant of broken stones. He closed his eyes and focused himself inside its mind. There was nothing magic about it, just sheer concentration. The ability was an inherent cousin to occlumency and far easier with animals. The bird had a quality of seeing that humans did not. Its eyes were designed to find minuscule prey. Those lenses scanned whiled Snape determined what to look for. He couldn't use magic, but he could recognize it if those properties were still around.
He found the mangled pieces of the wand. They spread over muddy sediment, over a wide radius, having been blown further apart during their fall over the wall. He could only discern them from the rest of the clogged, dirt encrusted debris, because they gave off a faint, purplish vapor. Lots of ruined magic and traces lay among the rocks. Most of the school was cleaned and repaired, but the roughest parts of the foundation, were neutralized and left in mostly the raw state it was in before the battle. Those wand pieces were hulls forever affected by what they once contained. When the pieces finally rotted, only then would that stained magic become indiscernible, if it didn't taint the ground.
He had collected the pieces then, not in hopes of restoring it, but in hopes of returning it to its former owner's grave. Giving it back to Dumbledore was not any kind of atonement, but a gesture. He somehow wanted it to be his final act before letting go of all the crimes riding on his shoulders. A restoration. A symbol of it anyway. He was a guardian. He'd done his job, and it cost everything. All the lives and magic his mother supplied him with, was used to the fullest, used up. This was more of a feeling than accuracy. He felt that every day he had left of life, wasn't really his. His chance was over, just as over as Collin's and Morells, but as long as he was breathing, he would invest that breath in Harry. He wanted to be able to say that his job was finished. To justify his having such an excess. He wanted to tell the old bastard, 'I'm done. I've done all that you asked me to. Your plan has come full circle and there's no more to give to these children.'
He spoke this out loud, with only the bird to cock its head and wonder at him.
Now, facing Collin, with the frightened wizard's preposterous suggestion that he could transfer the powers of the most capable wand in existence, to a lesser one, came the urge to see Collin choking on his own blood. He swallowed his annoyance and reminded himself to be patient. He leaned forward to give Collin a better look at his contempt, and said, "I trust that you know how to conduct yourself the minute I turn my back on you."
Collin nodded eagerly. "Of course, I'll behave myself. I can't move. What can I do? Find the wand and we'll sort out what to do with it."
"Then you won't mind if I leave Morell here, in charge?" With three meters of space between the tip of his wand and Morell's corpse, he pulled the rotting body into a standing position. It swayed like a top, emitting a squishy array of pressure gasses that noisily exited through all orifices, artificial and natural.
Collin wished he could hold his nose, but busied himself trying not to scream as the large body was made to walk and collapse its entire mass on the bed. Morell's dead weight crushed his legs, pinning them. The wizard wretched, understanding that he should've felt more pain than he did. He shivered in his sweat and hid his fear the best he could.
"W,what about that Grill fellow? I thought he was your hired man." His voice cracked.
"I've more important tasks for Grail. I will leave just enough magic with our friend here to keep you company. Perhaps you two can come up with better answers if given some time to collaborate. Isn't that how you came up with the curse?"
Instead of shutting Collin's mouth, terror did a funny thing. It slipped out, like a grin at the most inappropriate time and place. "You were the inspiration for that curse, my friend. After what Voldemort discovered about you, he could think of no greater punishment for the enemies he enjoyed enough to let live. It wasn't the sex he lusted after, it was the humiliation of others. What men fear most. I can only speculate what he learned from you in that regard."
Snape's wand trembled with suppressed adrenaline. It lifted slowly, bringing with it, a slice of Collin's face. The edge of the cut followed the wand's movement and peeled back with a flick, lifting the fatty layer off between skin and skull. Collin screamed, feeling every nerve this time. There were no severed connections where that was concerned.
In an instant, Snape's wrist bent the other way, sending skin back against skull and staunching the pain instantaneously. Against a blood-soaked pillow, Collin gasped and shuddered. This time, when he looked at Snape through a film of tears, he saw unforgiveness staring back at him and didn't say another word.
Snape apparated to his lab. There, he studied the shattered husks of the wand alongside the vial of Harry's worst memory. He cautioned himself not to let the two get too close, but then knew that was the only way to test the theory smoldering in his mind. As a precaution, he charmed a shield to cover the objects, quarantining them under a dome of magic. When this was reinforced multiple times, he unstopped the vial and stepped back. He held his wand ready for surprises. Harry's vaporous trauma instantly climbed the walls of the vial and snaked into a mist that lapped the air like a tongue. He had opened the vial before, but he never saw it behave like this. The pieces of the Elder Wand twitched. After a moment, when nothing else appeared to happen, he gave into the temptation and removed a bit of the memories without touching them. He placed them on the remains of the wand.
A bomb of darkness exploded in the front of his skull. His vision filled with empty darkness, to the point that he felt himself falling. With nothing to hold onto, nothing to see, he was thrown into a vacuum of outer depth. It was like being thrown into a pitch black sky, filled with space and nothing. Instead of struggling through disorientation, he waited it out. A series of indiscernible scenes surrounded him and went away before he could determine they were battle scenes. A dome of magic covering the school, shattered into pieces and fell out of the nighttime sky in blazing plates that sparked like fire. Students ran for their lives, chased and hunted by masked followers. Death Eaters scoured the grounds like an infestation, scuttling to please Voldemort with a show of chaos and killing. Then there was Harry, facing Voldemort. There was Neville tipping the scale as he cut Nagini's head off. A thrilling ripple send cold spikes into Snape's back.
There was the last strike, the last arch of magic that proved to be superior. Even in memory form, its streaming momentum pulled magnetically on Snape's magic, as if Snape's magic wanted to be a part of Voldemort's defeat. As if it had to be. Snape resisted this effect until it passed and Voldemort was reduced to ashes. He lingered on this sight, having missed it in person. It was a rewarding sight.
He missed a few more scenes because he stared at those sticky ashes a bit too long. Harry's memories snatched him, projecting him to what he needed to see most. He thought the pieces of Elder Wand had extended the emotional range of Harry's trauma. Or the trauma was empowering the wand. They somehow functioned together, to show Harry standing with his friends. Ron and Hermione looked confused to see Harry break the Elder Wand so decisively and toss it away like a useless irritant. He heard their conversation and Harry's reasoning. It passed by in a blip of encapsulated information. There was no time in this space, only emotional conveyance, translated into instant understanding. While Harry looked satisfied at his decision to destroy the wand, he didn't see how magic exploded to be thrust from its storage place. He didn't see that it lifted around him like a thing exposed, and immediately wrapped itself around him like another cloak. In this space, it looked like flashes of lightning were lighting Harry up in broad daylight.
Harry's body was still filled with adrenaline and endorphins from his victory with Voldemort. His limbs must've been infused and leaking so much magic, that he mistook this extra trauma as one of the many already affecting his body in so many ways. He'd been living with pain for months and fighting for days. Not feeling right was his normal. He'd just died and came back to settle the score. The relief of breaking the wand was so much more palpable to him than any added weight of desperate magic.
As Snape looked on, Harry played down the act of breaking the most powerful wand in the world. His deadpan eyes and flat-lined mouth betrayed nothing of his erratic magic. Snape knew that he was looking at a person well-versed in hiding his overwhelment. From the parentless child who lived knowing this closest relatives hated him, to the scrutiny of his peers and constantly proving himself worthy of his reputation, to moments ago, accomplishing the murder of the most infamous wizard of the age. Harry was used to functioning while immersed in pain and distraction. As long as his legs could move, he just kept going and rationalizing the stress down to coping levels.
The magic of the Elder Wand engulfed him. Mediwizards would later deduce his symptoms to be those of shock, naturally.
Snape swallowed his regrets. This was his fault. His and James's. He had left this child alone, to fend for itself. How could he think or dare to hope that anything from him, produced of his magic and quality, would have it easy in this world?
Before his thoughts became too strong, he stamped them out with anger. He could not undo the past, but he could fight for Harry's future, and that of Iece. He watched long enough to see why no one suspected the magical take-over in Harry. Explosive white surges around him receded until they lit Harry's skin from within. Ron and Hermione didn't have the vision to see it with. They would've been the only witnesses. No doubt they too, were reeling from the aftermath. But Snape sidestepped his physical vision and saw the essence of the Elder Wand on the plane of spirit and the blueprint behind all physical things. It wound around that former spell that connected Harry to another life and another set of parents. In a parasitic fashion, the formless off-shoots of energy wrote themselves into Harry's life-code, his signature, and camouflaged itself as the natural matrix of magic he was born with.
It was a very insidious display of survival, not unlike something a dark lord would think of. How many ambitious wizards had actually influenced the wand, just as it had influenced them? It had its own life-force and was determined to stay viable in this world.
Snape's confusion raced along the sides of his skull. Was that magic evil? Would it harm Harry? Was it just another horcrux refusing to die? Had so many powerful wizards lost a part of themselves to it, that now its magic hid, personified, in Harry, creating a symbiosis between itself and Harry's life? Was it really alive and functioning to survive independently of Harry?
Or, did Harry's magic simply claim it as an acquisition? Even natural magic expands that way in certain strains. It absorbs the available power around it, not consuming it, but learning from it and replicating in strength.
So that's how a Backaal might become pregnant after eons of being unable to do so. That's how Harry did it. He was, in effect, the Elder Wand. That queen that Collin spoke of, collected magic, unable to produce it herself. Harry emitted the essence of the Elder Wand as well as Snape's mother's store of power. Eileen's contribution can't be forgotten. How much the two were intertwined, was unknown. Could Harry be persuaded to tap into his hidden powers? Could he fix all of his problems if he had the right guidance? How to teach him safely, were he willing? How to let him know that his instability goes deeper than anyone thought. His troubles, his challenges, they weren't his fault.
The idea of approaching him caused Snape to retreat into a dark silence. He would not expose himself for anything. That was a bad idea. If Harry were to see him alive, it might set him back years. There was so much that couldn't be helped, and Snape was prepared to take that blame to his grave. No, Harry will have to be helped another way.
He pulled out of the vision, and found the substances under the dome changed. Black vapor in the vial had transformed into a silvery liquid sheen. And the pieces of wand had tiny slivers of tinsel light zipping through their ruined fibers. Instantly, Snape calculated the two were on the same magical frequency. There was more to learn from them, but now other questions were more important and time was running out. Carefully, he separated the two items, plugging the vial and relocating the remains of the wand to a warded cabinet. Within minutes, Harry's trauma returned to black vapor. He pocketed the vial.
While turning the possibilities over in his mind, he leapt to the conclusion that he would need assistance in guiding Harry to the appropriate actions for causing his cure. Someone would have to act in his stead. Someone would have to get Harry's attention for him. It would be best if this were a magical person, but there might be an advantage to having magic go undetected in a non-magical person. The only non-magical person he knew to have proven himself that helpful, who would want that job, was imprisoned dimensions away, right in front of him.
He looked at the tiny ball of red quartz locked behind glass. It sat across the carpeted cave floor, amid mahogany shelves and cabinets with wrought iron grills. Supported by a ring of brass at its base, the crystal was strategically placed between illegal first editions of necromancy. The books, as well as the crystal, were heirlooms of this mother's. He grimaced. When he sent Ash into the crystal, he knew there would be a dimensional distortion. There was no danger of physical harm, for the object held a vibration of affection. Eileen had cherished it, a gift from her courting days, and had made a point of teaching Severus to read crystals with it. Ash, while imprisoned inside, would not age or feel hunger, but neither would he know what to do with a world not meant for human habitation. His human subconscious would kick in to protect him or drive him mad, depending on his decision to survive it.
Snape intended for the shock to frighten him away from ever approaching Harry again, or their Wizarding world. He would live longer if he didn't interfere with wizards. That time-out should be doing what it was meant to do. Force Ash to rethink his choices in companionship. How annoying that he might have to be recovered early and enlist him in playing a key role in getting Harry to cooperate with his own healing. There would be no getting rid of him after that.
Snape tsked under his breath. Harry was worth it. Even if it came to that, which it hasn't, Ash would have to be dealt with in other ways.
With a strong expectancy of what he would find on his return, he apparated back to the cellar of his old home. His eyes went dull with the predictable sight before him. Collin lay blithering beneath a mound of steaming Morell, whose entrails had apparently self-eviscerated. That could only happen if there were an attempt to hack into and control the magic left to keep the dead body animated. There was not enough magic to allow Morell's full psyche through, to express any vengeance or animosity with any effectiveness, just to keep him chained to his body, with only the smallest expression available. Now he lay on top of Collin like a ruptured sac of intestines. Mucus membranes drizzled around Collin's suffocating whimpers, shiny dark from decomposition, and draping him like some kind of melted, inflated octopus tentacles. Morells gelatinous colon and small intestine shook beneath Collin's sobs.
Snape tolerated it for less than a second before vanishing the sight by restoring Morell's body and designating it back to its post. He then turned to Collin while the body finished pulling its parts back in.
Snot, tears, and smears of Morell's filth deformed Collin's traumatized face. He could breathe properly again, but he choked on the stench and his own vomit. His terrified eyes quickly averted from the sight of his colleague's body reassembling itself, and making the most horrid noises as it did so. Like a meat grinder in reverse. The process took seconds, but Collin was thoroughly green by then and humbled to never attempt to manipulate any magic left behind by Snape.
"Please… please…" A different wizard pleaded to Snape. His glasses were broken and filthy as they hung off of his face.
Snape let him sob for another minute before resuming questions. "The pieces of the wand are destroyed. I have them and they're not helpful. Did you tell me to look for the wand just to give yourself time to escape? Or is there a real master wand?"
"Severus..." Collin coughed on the clog in his throat. "You are a cruel bastard! That was the most insufferable thing I've ever felt. I could've died from disgust alone. You goddamn bastard."
"Lie to me again, and we'll see what you die from."
"We weren't lying. More like hoping that wand could help you. I can't move, there was no reason to let that thing come at me like that."
"Morell could only stagger onto you if you pulled on the magic I left behind. You activated the results, not I."
"I wasn't going to escape, how could I? I just barely pulled on the strands of your magic. I'm helpless. Now I can hardly see. I've never been so disgusted in my life."
"Really? That's the most disgusting thing you've ever seen? I would think that seeing a boy robbed of his manhood and raped, while a room full of adults look on without helping him, would've been the most disgusting thing you've ever experienced. Perhaps this is why I thought my little booby trap would be the perfect match for your stomach of steel. After all, you must be able to withstand anything, after that night."
Collin had no reply. Remorse had him sobbing anew. "You did things too. You bastard! Harry wasn't supposed to survive those injuries. Why haven't you killed Lucius? Why not go after him? We put some thought into Harry. All good people leave their pain behind when they die. We followed orders, but we wanted Harry to die mercifully. We didn't intend to ruin him for life. We didn't know what else to do. There were people praying that he go quickly. Severus..."
"The curse doesn't respond to a master wand, does it?"
Before Collin could answer, a wet sloth burst behind Snape and words exploded into the air.
The sixth wand is the master wand.
Snape turned and looked at Morell's body, which sat back in its place, covered by stained wrappings. The wound at the throat spit out a spray of air.
It is the only master wand.
"Are there more than one? If the Elder Wand isn't the master wand, then what is?"
There was no point in telling them that Harry had absorbed the power of the Elder Wand.
The sixth wand is the wand to undo all others.
He looked at Collin. "There are six wands? This has nothing to do with an Elder Wand at all?"
He knew Morell's replies were limited, but Collin was deliberately holding back on him.
"Perhaps you and Morell have spent enough time together, to convince me that you're willing to tell me everything you know. Shall I leave him on top of you for the evening?"
"Severus, God-no! Please, I'm not lying to you. Not on purpose. A master wand would make more sense than a sixth mediocre wand. I really thought the master wand was the key. The sixth wand he's talking about, isn't a master wand at all. It's the weakest wand in terms of the curse. It had nothing to do with creating the spell. It was just there to add a flaw, to keep Draco alive in case it could be undone later. It's not an actual counter. It's a piece of tape painted under a masterpiece. Rip it off, and the entire painting is ruined. The entire illusion falls apart. But the curse is meant to take root in the cells of the body, in the DNA. However much the painting is ruined, what's left on the canvas remains. It may not be a masterpiece any longer, but neither is it anything worth looking upon. The Unbearable is a masterpiece of a curse, but if you ruin it, that doesn't mean that Harry and Draco will be fully recovered. It could make things worse."
Snape rushed the bed, grabbing him. "Why didn't you tell me this earlier?"
"I tried, but I guess I didn't try hard enough, because I don't believe that anything can fix those boys. Like I said, it's not a counter curse. That sixth wand is just something we threw in, to give a desperate man hope."
"Spill it!"
"We swore upon death never to betray that information. It's part of the curse."
Snape pointed his wand at Morell, who stood on squishy feet and stumbled forward.
"No, wait! Please, I'm trying to help, Severus I really am. He begged us for the counter curse. We were forbidden to create one. But we pitied him and left a flaw, a lock you might say, in the design."
"Who asked for this?"
"You can guess. The thing is, it's untested, unstable, and snuck behind Voldemort's back. We worked it in without his knowing. Once it was fixed with Draco, it only became a matter of replicating it with Harry. It's a hidden door, based on a sixth wizard's magical signature."
"Who?"
"The five of us could only create the curse. We swore to Voldemort. If we had added one iota more, our betrayal would've been exposed. But it's a genetic spell. And purebloods are born with ancestral magic protecting them like totems. We couldn't alter the curse itself, so we let a sixth wand remain neutral and cast our design around it. The wizard it belonged to, wasn't even in the room when it happened. He wouldn't know the logistics of it. He wouldn't even know how to manipulate it. It's just a faulty wire, a bad thread. We disguised it as a mutation of magic, were anyone to go looking."
Snape let him speak, to glean as much truth through the lies as he could, since Collin might not be alive to take advantage of his fear in the next few minutes.
"Under scrutiny, the spell looks as though Draco's magic, tried to fight back. Nothing more than an immunological response to attacking magic. But beneath it, is access to the sixth wand. Not a cure, just a back door with a weak lock. We were almost certain that the one who could use it, would be dead soon and never get the chance. But he begged us and we could not ignore the cries of our friend, the poor bastard. We may be evil in the eyes of the world, but we are not without mercy. That could've been any of our children.
"We had orders and wives of our own to protect. We were torn. So we gave the idiot hope and took his wand, effectively making it a part of the spells. By writing his neutrality into the curse, we gave him hope that it could be undone with the unraveling of his key thread. If everything hinges around his link, then when his thread is pulled, it might all fall apart. We gave him hope, but in our hearts we didn't really believe it could work without serious problems and no one around to take measures against them. Time was not promised to any of us."
"Who's wand? Who?"
"He was losing his mind. Maybe we did it to shut him up. He was a fool by the end. We all were. I suppose he was waiting to get his family to safety before trying to unravel the curse. All he had to do was revoke his magic. It couldn't collapsed the curse. But maybe even he wasn't sure of what to do even after Voldemort was dead. Draco was too adapted to the curse. I'm sure, with all that he was facing, he dared not even try."
"If I have to ask you again..."
"Lucius Malfoy. Only his wand stands any chance of helping Harry and Draco. If there is a cure, he has it. Only Lucius has the means to undo the curse. His is the sixth wand that you need. In effect, it will act as a master wand."