Disclaimer: Characters and situations all belong to JK Rowlings, not me.  Caius the raven belongs to Draqonelle, who has kindly allowed me to borrow him (Vesta McGonagall is hers too).  She also owns Caligula Snape, "Moody's Angels," and McGonagall and Trelawney's patronuses.  In addition, I got the name Polaris Black for Sirius's sister from someone else's fanfic, but I can't remember whose (her character, however, belongs entirely to me and Draqonelle).

Posted by:  Elspeth (also known as L Squared)

Ships:  Professor Sinistra and an adorable black dog, hopefully hints at a future Snape/McGonagall

Warning: This chapter is rated R for language and character torture

Chapter Nine:  In Which Voldemort Displaces his Anger.

            Draco Malfoy was standing in front of the door to the Slytherin common room, wand out and feet braced, when the all clear sounded.  The majority of the population of Slytherin House sat motionless in the room in front of him, most of them completely cowed.  "Keep everyone inside the dungeons," Snape had told him before leaving with the seventh-years to defend the Great Hall.  "I don't want anyone racing to the scene of battle like some overly heroic Gryffindor."

            As the magical chimes that declared the end of crisis and threat rang liltingly through the room, Draco let his wand arm relax and the tension ease out of his spine.  The attack had failed.  He didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

            Tybalt Montague, lounging in a chair by the fireplace, stretched and cocked an eyebrow.  "Done showing off, Malfoy?" the sixth-year asked. 

            "I can see someone's jealous that he didn't make prefect," Draco drawled, as he tucked his wand back into his belt.  "Everyone stay here," he ordered.  "I'm going down up to see what's going on.  Crabbe, Goyle," the two larger boys moved away from their positions on either side of the doorway, "come with me."

            As the door to the common room closed behind them, Draco could hear Millicent Bulstrode's voice.  "He wouldn't have done it.  He was bluffing.  He wouldn't really have done it."

            "I didn't see you trying to leave." 

            Millicent's reply, if there was one, was blocked out as the heavy stone door slid seamlessly back into place.

            Upstairs, the Great Hall was in an uproar.  The seventh-year students were clustered around a pale but triumphant Harry Potter, talking excitedly and slapping him on the back.

            "That was abso-bloody-lutely brilliant!"  one of the Weasley twins was saying.  "I can't believe you managed to call up a patronus like that.  It's even better than the one you conjured at that quidditch match the other year!"

            "And to think Professor Trelawney's patronus was an emperor penguin," Angelina Johnson said wonderingly.  "Who would possibly have imagined it?"

            Crabbe and Goyle at his back, Draco made his way gradually toward the cluster of teachers gathered near the open door.  The victorious defenders of Hogwarts were returning, many of them noticeably the worse for wear.  Professor Flitwick was grey faced and looked even older than usual, Madame Hooch was limping, and Hagrid's knuckles were scraped and bloody.  McGonagall's dreadful tartan nightrobe was torn, and her hair, surprisingly long, was falling down around her shoulders.

            Dumbledore, Professor Lupin, and Auror Black were clustered around a stretcher on which an eighth teacher, one Draco didn't recognize, was lying motionless.  Maybe he was the Muggle Studies professor.  Professor Sinistra hung back behind them, biting nervously on one of her knuckles.

            "I will give you twenty-four hours to explain this, Headmaster," Auror Black said flatly, gazed fixed on the stretcher.  "Twenty-four.  And then I'm calling the Ministry."

            Draco had caught up with Snape and was about to ask him what was going on when a spear of fire lanced though his left arm.  All thoughts of the mysterious unknown teacher vanished.

            "Goyle, Crabbe," he gritted out from between clenched teeth, "go talk to the seventh-years and find out what happened.  I've got to go."

            As the two boys waded back into the crowd of students, Draco began edging toward the exit.  Professor Snape, lurking on the edge of the group of faculty members, began to do the same.  Unfortunately, Auror Black, preoccupied as she apparently was, still managed to notice his movement.

            "Where are you going, Severus?" she asked.  She reached out and clamped a hand down on Snape's left forearm.  "Stay and help us get things back under control.  I'd really like to find out how the dementors got around that barrier, wouldn't you?"

            Professor Snape's face had gone a sickly grayish white.  "Let go of me you bitch," he hissed, trying desperately to pull his arm out of her grasp.  Draco looked at the auror's fingers pressing hard into Snape's flesh and swallowed hard.  His own mark was burning as though the scarred skin had suddenly been transfigured into flame.  The Potions Master's arm must feel as though it had been dipped into molten lava.

            Auror Black looked down at her hand and suddenly seemed to realize that she was actually touching Snape.  She dropped his arm as though it had burned her, and wiped her hand off on her gold and black robes.  "I'm sorry," she said.  She didn't sound very sorry.  "I didn't realize…"

            "I'm sure," Snape sneered.  "Do I have your permission to step out for a bit, or would you like to manhandle me some more?"

            "Get out of here.  I have more important things to worry about."

            "Gladly."

            Draco was out the door the moment Snape started moving again, and within moments, the two of them were heading for the edge of the Hogwarts grounds.  As they walked—walked, not ran—away, Draco was sure he could feel that creepy auror woman's eyes following them.  She'd been so busy with Snape that she probably hadn't even noticed him, but something in her manner gave him the creeps.  She knows, a little voice inside him whispered.

^_~

            The rest of the Death Eaters were already assembled by the time Draco and Professor Snape apparated to the meeting point.  Draco's eyes went immediately to his father, and something inside him unclenched when he saw Lucius Malfoy standing to the Dark Lord's right.  His silver-blonde hair was abnormally mussed-up, but he was evidently unharmed.  Others had not been so lucky.

            Crabbe was nursing a bloody, mangled right arm against his chest, and Goyle looked as if someone, probably Hagrid, had used him for quiditch practice—as a bludger.  They, however, were still upright and alive.  Nott, who lay in an undignified sprawl on the outskirts of the Circle, was quite obviously and gruesomely dead, the better part of his throat torn complete away.  Draco swallowed, resolving never to go near Fang again if he could possibly help it.  Mrs. Lestrange, more wild looking than ever, was weeping hysterically over the still body of her husband, who was significantly less mangled than Nott, but every bit as deceased.

            "Fifty dementorss," Voldemort was saying angrily.  "Fifty dementorss, and you barely even caused any damage.  I am displeased."

            "My lord, we were betrayed," Macnair said.  "They knew we were coming.  They had defences planned, an auror waiting for us."

            Voldemort's eyes flamed red and his slit-like nostrils flared.  "Excusess. One auror should not have been able to stop you.  None of you are worthy servants.  The only two who were truly loyal to me have been losst."  His gaze swept over the assembled Death Eaters.  "Which of you revealed our ssecrets?  You were not to tell anyone of our plans.  Luciuss?"

            "Great Lord, I told no one, not even Narcissa."  Lucius looked distinctly uneasy.  "I would never betray our secrets."

            The other Death Eaters were quick to add their protestations of innocence.

            "I spoke of it to no one, Master."

            "My Lord, I would die before betraying you."

            "Ahh, such loyalty.  Where was your devotion when you thought me defeated?  All of you were quick to abandon me then."

            "We would never abandon you, Lord," Avery swore fervently.  "It was not I who let our plans slip.  It could not have been me. I know no one at Hogwarts."

            All heads immediately swiveled towards Draco and Professor Snape.

            "Draco knows better than to let his tongue run loose," Lucius protested.  "And Severus would never be so foolish."

            "Let your son speak for himself, Luciuss."  Voldemort turned his firey gaze on Draco.  "You were told to keep our plans secret.  To speak of them to no one.  Not your friends, not your Housemates, not even your mother.  I would be very…disappointed…if I thought that you had disobeyed me.  Did you speak of this to anyone?"

            Draco's insides turned to ice.  He had kept every facet of his Death Eater activities secret from the other Slytherins, even from Pansy.  But he had told Crabbe and Goyle about them.  He had left the details out, but he had told them.  Vincent and Greg went with him everywhere; he could not have kept sneaking out of the school without one of them eventually becoming suspicious.  It had seemed a safe security risk.  The two of them were completely loyal to him, and as the sons of Death Eaters, understood the need for secrecy.  And frankly, he had always assumed that they were not bright enough to be a serious threat.  But what if they had told someone about the invasion plans?  Not on purpose, but just bragging, by accident.  The failed attack might be his fault.  Draco felt sick with guilt and terror.

            "Answer me!  Did you speak of thiss to anyone?"  Voldemort raised his wand threateningly.

            "C-crabbe and Goyle.  I told Crabbe and Goyle.  But it couldn't have been them, Great Lord.  They are loyal to you; they would never reveal your secrets."

            "Crucio."

            As the last syllable dropped from Voldemort's lips, Draco's body instantly became afire with pain.  His nerves were white hot metal, his blood molten lava.  He was burning, burning down to his bones, to a skeleton composed of jagged glass.  Every muscle in his body was being ripped apart, shredded into individual fibers, each a separate bonfire of suffering.  He could hear someone screaming.  He felt someone's foot—Wormtail's?—slam into his side.

            "Thiss is what happens to thosse who fail me, Malfoy."  Voldemort's voice rose above the screams, implacable.  Through a haze of blood-red agony, Draco could see his narrow, snake-like face, cold and empty of emotion.  Behind him, Lucius Malfoy stood, face twisted in agony.  Draco wanted to scream to his father for help, to beg him to make the torture stop, but he didn't dare.  Lucius was powerful, but not as powerful as Voldemort, and to get in the way of the Dark Lord's anger would mean death.

            "My Lord, stop!"

            The shout carried over Draco's screaming, harsh and desperate.  "It was not him!"

            Voldemort's head snapped around toward the source of the yell, and his wand hand dropped.  "Finite Incantatum."

            Blessedly, miraculously, the pain stopped.  Draco, collapsed in a huddled ball on the ground, lifted his head to see Professor Snape step forward from the ranks of Death Eaters, face dead white but determined.  "It could not have been him, Master.  He is right, Crabbe and Goyle's sons would never have spilled any secrets."

            "The leak wass someone at Hogwartss," the Dark Lord spat.  "If it wass not Draco Malfoy, it musst have been you!  Have you been disloyal once again?"

            "No, Master, never.  I must have let something slip by mistake.  It must have been that auror bitch; she's been suspicious of me for years.  She must have gotten wind of it somehow.  I swear, it was an acciden-"

            "Crucio."        

            Snape's body went rigid, beads of sweat springing out on his face.  His breath began coming in gasps.

            "It was—an accident—Master… An acc—i—dent… I am loyal—to you…I am not—a traitor."

            "Oh, I believe you.  I'm sure you wouldn't betray me on purposse.  You know what would happen to you if you did.  Crucio."

            Professor Snape collapsed to his knees, his entire body arching backwards, wracked with convulsions.  Draco felt himself shudder in sympathy, his own body still aching from the effects of Voldemort's curse.

            "I would never betray you, Master, never."

            "Crucio."

            And then the screaming started.  Draco felt sick, watching.  My fault.  All my fault.  It seemed wrong, somehow, to witness his teacher reduced to this state.  A terrible violation of privacy.  But he couldn't tear his eyes away from the scene unfolding in front of him.

            "Your loyalty has wavered before, Severuss," Voldemort hissed, his wand aimed steadily at the twitching body crumpled at his feet.  "I am willing to believe that thiss was merely an…unfortunate mistake.  But you will see to it that you never make such a mistake again.  Finite Incantatum."  Snape's body went limp, and the screaming died mercifully away.  "Avery, Macnair," Voldemort beckoned to the two Death Eaters.  "Perhapss you would be sso kind as to deliver a more…lingering…messsage."

            "Yes, Master."  Avery's face held an oddly avid look as he and Macnair hauled Snape roughly to his feet.  "With pleasure."

            "I know your idea of pleasure, Avery," Snape choked out.  "I'd prefer not to experience it."

            "The dark Lord's word is our command, Snape," Avery smirked.  "He said to deliver a message, so 'message' it is."  The moment he completed the sentence, his fist went smashing into Snape's face.

            Professor Snape sagged, held upright only by Macnair's vise grip on his upper arms.  Avery drew his arm back a second time and slammed a brutal looking punch into Snape's stomach.  Draco stood staring silently, not daring to move or protest, lest he draws Voldemort's attention back to himself again.  The dull, repeptetive thud of flesh striking flesh seemed to reach his ears from across a great distance.

            So that's why Avery wears all those big signet rings, a detached little voice inside Draco head commented calmly.  Just like muggle brass knuckles, really.

            Snape was hanging totally limp in Macnair's grasp now, blood running down his chin and seeping from the numerous cuts inflicted by Avery's jewelry.  Avery lifted his hands and regarded them for a moment, inspecting the red that glistened on them, some of it from his own scraped knuckles, but most of it from Snape.  With an odd, hungry glint in his eyes he lifted one hand to his mouth and began licked the blood off his fingers.

            I will not be sick.  I will not be sick.

            "Please… keep your tongue—in your—mouth where… it belongs, Avery," Snape managed to mumble.  "I don't… even want… to think—about… where it's been."

            Avery's smile grew, if anything, more predatory.  Slowly and deliberately, he repeated the process with his other hand.

            Oh for Gods sake, Avery," Lucius Malfoy's aristocratic voice dripped disgust.  "We don't have time to stand around all night watching you indulge your little perversions.  Stop pretending to be a damned vampire and get on with it!  You can get your kicks with some muggle later."

            Avery glared angrily at Lucius and then proceeded to "get on with it" with a vengeance, launching into one of the most brutal and systematic beatings Draco had ever seen—not that he'd seen many.  Throughout it all, Macnair kept his grip on Professor Snape's arms, his face a study in boredom.  Eventually, he released his hold, dropping Snape to the ground and stepping back to allow Avery to go to work with his feet.  Snape was not making any noise anymore.  He wasn't reacting to the kicks either.

            "Perhaps you should tell Avery to stop now, my Lord," Lucius ventured with an air of indifference.  "If he gets carried away and kills him, who is going to brew poison for us?"

            "Avery, you may ceasse."  Voldemort bent down over the prone figure of Snape and tangled his fingers in the long black hair, yanking the man's head up to look into his face.  "I think our alchemist has learned his lesson."

            "Yes, Master…"  The words were little more than a moan.

            "I do not think that he will be sso foolish as to fail me again.  The punishment iss complete."

            "Thank you, Master.  You are merciful…"

            Voldemort released his hold on Snape's hair, letting his head fall back to the ground.  He straightened.  "Thiss meeting is over," he announced.  "Let this be a warning to all of you.  The next time someone is foolish enough to fail me, they will receive much, much worsse."  The eerie, high-pitched voice was heavy with implied threat.  "You may go."  The Dark Lord turned and swept away into the blackness outside the Circle, pausing only once to beckon to Wormtail, the plump, balding little man that seemed to serve as a sort of personal manservant-slash-secretary for him.  Draco never saw them apparate, but he could feel it in his mark—and in his wrenched and aching bones—when his master's presence was gone.  Avery, obviously disappointed at having his fun curtailed, stepped back slightly from Snape, glowering mutinously.  Lucius stared at him pointedly.  Avery turned back and, slowly and deliberately, stamped his heel down on one of Snape's outflung hands, smiling slightly at the resultant snap-crunch of bone.  He ground his heel down harder, than spun away and stomped out into the darkness, disappearing with an audible pop.  The other Death Eaters gradually followed suit, none of them looking at Professor Snape's crumpled form.  Eventually, Draco and his father were the only ones left.

            Draco, still half lying where Voldemort's curse and Wormtail's—at least, he was pretty sure it had been Wormtail's—kick had felled him, began to struggle to his feet.  His father was instantly next to him, giving him a hand up.

            "Are you alright?"  Lucius Malfoy's voice was hard, but Draco could hear the concern underneath it.

            "Yes," he lied, trying to stand straight and ignore the vicious aches throughout his body and stabbing pains in his side.  It was worse than the time he had fallen off his broom at fifty feet during a quiditch match because the Weasley twins had hit him with two bludgers at once.  "I'm fine, father."

            Lucius looked skeptical, but accepted the answer.  "Never disobey Lord Voldemort again," he ordered, voice low.  "The Dark Lord is very dangerous when he's angry."  Grey eyes as pale as Draco's own bored into him.  "Do you hear me, Draco Malfoy?  Malfoys do not fail in their duty.  Malfoys do not make stupid mistakes.  And I am not going to explain to your mother how I was forced to watch while the dark Lord killed you for costing him the war."

            Draco nodded mutely.

            Lucius inspected him a moment longer, then strode over to where Professor Snape's limp body lay sprawled on the ground and pointed his wand.  "Ennervate."

            Snape twitched slightly and groaned as Lucius took him by the shoulders and turned him face up. 

            "You idiot.  You should have been sorted into Gryffindor."

            Unfocused black eyes stared at Lucius dazedly, not tracking his movements.

            Lucius said a word that he would most certainly not have repeated in front of Narcissa.

            "How many fingers am I holding up?"

            Professor Snape blinked, his eyes coming slowly back into focus.  His face was dead white, and he was cradling his left hand against his chest.  "Three," he whispered hoarsely.

            "Good.  I want to make sure that you understand what I'm about to say.  It's not that I don't appreciate what you did, it's just that it was the most blatantly un-Slytherin piece of ill-thought-out recklessness I've seen recently.  Let Draco face to consequences of his own mistakes. All you succeeded in doing was shifting suspicion onto yourself, and you're on shaky enough ground as it is.  It's fortunate that Voldemort was still pleased over your handling of the school's protective barriers, or we would be minus one poison maker."

            Snape closed his eyes again.  "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

            "You're playing a dangerous game, Severus, spying in the enemy camp.  I would hate to have to be the one to snap your wand in half and put the coins on your eyelids after you make one wrong move too many.  We need your information."  Lucius's face was expressionless, voice calm and matter-of-fact.  He pulled professor Snape to his feet, far less roughly than Macnair had done, but not as quite carefully as he had helped Draco.  Snape managed to stand—largely—on his own two feet, but it didn't look like he was going to stay on them long.

            "I'd like to know how you plan on getting back to Hogwarts," Lucius said.

            Draco jumped in.  "I can apparate with more than one person.  I've been practicing with Crabbe and Goyle in Hogsmead."

            "Good."  Lucius nodded at Draco.  "Do that, then."

            "I am perfectly capable of apparating on my own."

            Lucius ignored the remark as only a Malfoy could.  People with concussions, as all three of them knew perfectly well, tended to splinch themselves.

            Bowing to the inevitable, Snape watched as Draco drew his wand, then placed his good hand on the boy's shoulder.  It shook slightly.  He didn't complain any further either, which didn't seem right, somehow.  The whole situation felt wrong.  Adults weren't supposed to rely on him for help, especially not ones like Snape and Lucius.

            Draco took a deep breath, fixing his mind on the prospect of a long, hot soak in the prefects' bathroom, and the pain potions Professor Snape doubtless had somewhere in his office, and disapparated.

^_~

Yes!  Whoohoo!  The reviews have broken 100!  Thank you, thank you, thank you to everybody who reviewed! 

Alla, Giesbrecht, & Nicky:  Reasonable is not really a part of Pols's vocabulary, but yes, there is some brother-sister interaction coming up (and I promise, she won't call Fudge).

Ozma:  Thank you!  I wish I could take credit for the Moody's Angels bit, but a friend of mine made it up (she's actually working on a long fic involving them right now).  I feel sorry for poor Sirius too—the man's had nothing but a series of rotten breaks—and for Remus, who's sort of stuck in the position of  being the only emotionally stable one out of the previous Hogwarts generation.

Firebrand:  I'm on your favorites list?  Yea! *dances in glee *.  Hopefully this chapter answers your whether-or-not-to-pity-Draco dilemma (if it doesn't, next one probably will).

Faith Accompli:  Sorry; this chapter turned out to be something of a cliffhanger as well (resolution is coming, I promise).  Glad to hear that Sinistra is not Mary-Sueish.  As to your prediction about Snape—very, very on target (even as regards vocabulary—God knows what Avery would have done without Voldemort and Lucius holding his leash *shudder * ).

Erin, Leila C. Snape, chochang913:  Thank you!

Kit Cloudkicker, Child of Two Worlds, RADKA:  Don't worry, Pols is up for a bit of a paradigm shift in the next chapter.  I think her definition of  "criminal scum" is about to undergo a small revision.

Chary:  All eight chapters in one go?  Wow, I'd have a headache too.  I promise another dose of Caius in the next chapter (his dialogue is so much fun to write ^_^).  If you want more of him, read Draqonelle's "PMS"—that's where I snagged him from in the first place.

Luna Rose & raine dragon:  Thank you!  Such a great ego boost to see people that eager for more of my writing (if only my Creative Writing professor were that enthusiastic).  The next chapter should be up more quickly now that my midterms are over.

Demeter:  You hate Polaris?  Yea! That's exactly the reaction I was hoping for (and your analysis of her was pretty good, by the way).

Sarah-Dunleavy:  Thank you!  I'd been planning out the dialogue for that Snape-Polaris scene for a while.  The ease with which such lines are beginning to occur to me is starting to disturb me.  It's as though both of our grandmothers are coming out of my mouth at once (but exponentially more vicious).  Love you! (and by the way, I've got more Isle of the Apples as well—e-mail to come soon).

^_~

Chapter Ten:  In Which There is Much Patching Up and Tending of Wounds.

            Everybody who is anybody at Hogwarts can be found at the Hogwarts Infirmary.  Yes, the Hogwarts Infirmary, the answer to all your physical/emotional/psychological problems.

*Rating will be returning to PG-13 *