I DON'T REALLY WANT TO SEND YOU TO AZKABAN
Note: This story will appear as part of a later chapter of my fanfic subplot (http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1005790 - if you read it, be warned of slight spoilers). The story has been on my computer for too long now. It tells me it can stand alone and it wants out, wants to be online, wants your review.
Disclaimer: The usual: Don't own, don't earn, so don't sue.
***************************************************
It was one of these nights when he dreaded sleep, when he tried to put it off until fatigue forced him to lay down. Somehow he felt the nightmares creeping up behind him as if waiting for the minute he closed his eyes. If he kept awake long enough, he might sleep dreamlessly. Of course there were potions that might assure the same, but it was better to use them on occasions of special need only. For him the threat of nightmares was always there, so he did not dare use potions that might get him addicted to them over the time.
Snape sat down on the edge of his narrow cot, staring into the flame of a single magical candle on the table besides the bed. His room deep down in the dungeon was as plain as a cell, the only luxury in it, with exception of the grandfather clock he had inherited from a distant relative, were a couple of spells that kept it dry. Defying luxuries was just one more way of proving he had left his parents' influence behind him: They had constantly tried to appear as a wizard family older and wealthier than they actually were.
He had brought a mouldy old book from his office where he kept all his important things, hoping to kill time by a studying a complicated matter, but found he could not keep his mind on it. As rather often in the last few months, he fought to keep his thoughts off the memories that kept him awake at night - fought but lost. After all, he could not forget.
As a student he had always spent his time with his Slytherin gang. He would not call them friends; especially after Valerie had disappeared, he had come to realize he rather despised than liked them. He'd made a few attempts to get real friends outside the stiff hierarchies of the Slytherin house, but found his reputation prevented this. The rebuke he'd received from Potter, Black and their bunch after he had attempted - clumsily, he had to admit - to strike contact with his Gryffindor year mates, had hurt his pride in a way he had never truly overcome. His one or two tries to secure himself a girlfriend among the more eligible younger witches of his house had also failed, wounding him in the same way. By the time he got his top grade NEWTs, he didn't try anymore. He had never really broken with his Slytherin gang; when his connections got him a well-paid job at Avery Potion Making, he didn't think about it twice. His parents approved of his choice of profession, claming that it was truly in the Slytherin tradition of the family. Snape hung out with his old friends, and when they asked him to join the Death Eaters, he did. He let Lord Voldemort put his mark on him.
Snape never talked about his time as a Death Eater and did his best to forget it, but it haunted him to this day. Being a relative newcomer, he had never actually killed anybody. But he had stood by and watched; he hadn't interfered, and after a while they had taught him to torture people. There was no denying that he hadn't left the Death Eaters even though he knew he'd be expected to kill, too, very soon. He had helped other Death Eaters to break into the houses of their victims; he had conjured up the Dark Mark in the sky to let everybody know they had come to kill, and he had hurt people beyond the power of words. Some victims had been on their knees, pleading for their lives and for the lives of their loved ones. He could still hear the screams of terror, the voices of the tortured, and see the pain-distorted faces when he closed his eyes. They lurked in his dreams.
He could not tell why he had not done what was in his power to stop the Death Eaters, or, if too cowardly to die the death of a hero, why he hadn't tried to run. He remembered these days as a blur of terror and dark fascination with the power he suddenly had. And of course she had been there, dealing out the power, promising pleasure and pain. The torturer that had become the tortured in the end - he shuddered when he thought of her.
Had he believed in what he was doing back then? He could not tell anymore. It seemed to him he had just followed orders, had run with the crowd, drifting in and out of evil deeds without putting his own judgement to use. That night at their group's headquarters they had been planning the death of several witches and wizards; he remembered vaguely that it had come to him as a bit of a shock that he knew some of the names on the death list as former schoolmates. While he was still staring at the names of the people in whose death he was to participate actively for the first time, a loud bang startled all the hooded and masked wizards in the room: Their security spell had violently been broken. For a second all of them stood as if Stunned, then a panic broke out. Everybody tried to find a way out, just any way. Somebody shoved Snape; someone else stepped on him. Before he knew what was going on, he was the only Death Eater in the room, lying on his back, aching all over and looking into the black protective mask of an Auror bending over him. A wand was pointed straight at his face. "Move an inch, and you're dead," a steely, high-pitched voice snarled. A gloved hand roughly tore away the mask from his face, then stopped dead in the middle of the movement. "Verus!" the voice said softly but intensely.
The Auror straightened and gave him a hand up, though not without pocketing Snape's wand. He knew her then for the friend he had once had at school. "Don't tell me you're one of them," she said with a sadness in her voice that hurt him in a place inside of him that he had considered dead for years.
After a moment's hesitation, she pulled him towards a window. "Let's get out of here. We're going to blow up the whole place!" Outside, she ran to a bush about twenty steps off, hanging on to his arm with an iron grip. He felt numb; even though he knew he was facing a life sentence in Azkaban, flight simply did not occur to him.
As they ducked behind the bush, Valerie blew a signal on the silver whistle that hung around her head. Others blew the same signal in response from further away. After the seventh signal, she said "alright" in a grim voice. Then she pointed her wand at the building, shooting a huge ball of fire at it. Others seemed to have done the same. With a deafening noise, the headquarter building collapsed into dust particles.
With a gasp Valerie pulled off her mask to reveal a beautiful face which Snape knew and did not know at the same time; her black hair was matted with sweat and dirt at the temples but fell over her shoulders like a sheet of silk. The light of the fire shone on her skin. He just said the first thing that came into his mind:
"You're too young to be an Auror." She looked him straight into the eyes.
"So? You're too nice to be a Death Eater, yet we are both here."
Her gaze seemed to focus on something beyond him for a moment, then she said: "I don't really want to send you to Azkaban, so you will have to change sides tonight. Are you prepared?" He nodded, unable to find enough breath to speak. "I'll have to rejoin the others. Hide until we are gone, then get rid of these clothes as fast as you can and go to Dumbledore. He'll know what to do. Maybe you can spy for us." Again he nodded, unable to take his eyes off her. "You promise?" she asked, holding his gaze. "I promise" he finally managed to croak. She reached into her robe pocket and gave him back his wand, squeezing his hand in hers for a moment. "We'll see each other again," she said, locking his eyes again. Then she was gone.
Somehow Snape managed to get to Hogwarts without being discovered. He told Dumbledore of the horrors he'd seen as a Death Eater, that he'd seen the errors his ways and would try to make up for it with any task as dangerous as the headmaster could think of. Somehow it would have sounded silly to say he had promised this to someone he had known years ago. Dumbledore believed his story and agreed to make him a spy. Snape told a grim-looking committee of Aurors all he knew and returned to the his day job as Potion Designer and to the nightly crimes of the Death Eaters, sneaking out to Hogwarts in secrecy to betray their names and plans. It was a dangerous job, but for some reason, they never suspected him until it was too late, maybe because they found it amusing to have him around. Helped by a tiny flask hidden in his sleeve, Snape had taken to vomiting at every scene of torture or death to avoid having to participate in it. The other Death Eaters never forced him to, but neither did they tire of chasing him around with cut-off limbs oozing blood, a sport that seemed to enhance their enjoyment. Of course, his abstention had not helped the victims one whit. He might as well have tortured them himself.
Never in all this time had Snape seen Valerie, or had heard anybody speak of her. Between some hideous and dangerous tasks that required all his attention, he started to think a lot of her. Had she tried to contact him? Was she alright? Not knowing who else to ask, he once more turned to Dumbledore, asking if he had ever heard of her again.
"It is strange that you should ask," the headmaster had pondered, his forehead deeply wrinkled. "She obviously trained as an Auror for a time under an assumed name. To be accepted for Aurors' training, she provided a fake Hogwarts NEWTs degree dated four years back. They found out who she was only when she was investigated after she let a Death Eater escape at a raid. She was to be sent to Azkaban, but managed to get away. I believe she has fled the country."
"That Death Eater was me! She sent me to you to be a spy or I would still be one of them. I know that she is not a traitor!"
Dumbledore had given him a sharp look. "You should have said that straight away - it might have helped her case. However, I am not sure whether we can trust her. I shudder to think it is in her power now to betray you to the Death Eaters."
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What would have happened if he had told Dumbledore the whole story straight away? He had been wondering all these years. Would they have believed her? Would they have permitted her to continue her training as an Auror? Would she have stayed in Britain, would she have come to see him at Hogwarts, would she have loved him? Would she maybe even have managed to exorcise some of the demonical memories that lived on inside of him? Snape stared into the flame of his candle, feeling that sleep would not come easily that night.
A sharp rap at the door startled him back into the present. It was way past midnight, when most people in this castle would be asleep. He was not used to being disturbed at night. With a frown he opened, only to find Valerie standing outside his door.
Still in the grip of his memories, he felt a strong urge to touch her face, to pull her into his cell and tell her all the things that were on his mind. Her burning eyes and her ashen face told him she had come to see him for reasons of her own, though. "I need to talk to you, Verus" she said.
He offered her a seat on his cot as there was no chair in his room, then sat down at the far other end, not daring to come closer. She had caught him at a moment when he had his defences down, and he found it difficult to collect himself. "Talk," he said curtly.
She took a deep breath; the faintest flush returned to her cheeks. "I thought about the things you said about my method a couple of months ago, that it's worthless if it can't be tested against Avada Kedavra, and I realised you are right."
Admittedly, the Strengthening methods of Professor Varlerta were not among the things preying on his mind right now. In his confusion it took him a moment to find the correct reply to her announcement. "Then you'll stop your silly research?"
"Oh no! What I mean is, I'm prepared. I want to test it tonight, so I need your help."
[...]
Note: This story will appear as part of a later chapter of my fanfic subplot (http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1005790 - if you read it, be warned of slight spoilers). The story has been on my computer for too long now. It tells me it can stand alone and it wants out, wants to be online, wants your review.
Disclaimer: The usual: Don't own, don't earn, so don't sue.
***************************************************
It was one of these nights when he dreaded sleep, when he tried to put it off until fatigue forced him to lay down. Somehow he felt the nightmares creeping up behind him as if waiting for the minute he closed his eyes. If he kept awake long enough, he might sleep dreamlessly. Of course there were potions that might assure the same, but it was better to use them on occasions of special need only. For him the threat of nightmares was always there, so he did not dare use potions that might get him addicted to them over the time.
Snape sat down on the edge of his narrow cot, staring into the flame of a single magical candle on the table besides the bed. His room deep down in the dungeon was as plain as a cell, the only luxury in it, with exception of the grandfather clock he had inherited from a distant relative, were a couple of spells that kept it dry. Defying luxuries was just one more way of proving he had left his parents' influence behind him: They had constantly tried to appear as a wizard family older and wealthier than they actually were.
He had brought a mouldy old book from his office where he kept all his important things, hoping to kill time by a studying a complicated matter, but found he could not keep his mind on it. As rather often in the last few months, he fought to keep his thoughts off the memories that kept him awake at night - fought but lost. After all, he could not forget.
As a student he had always spent his time with his Slytherin gang. He would not call them friends; especially after Valerie had disappeared, he had come to realize he rather despised than liked them. He'd made a few attempts to get real friends outside the stiff hierarchies of the Slytherin house, but found his reputation prevented this. The rebuke he'd received from Potter, Black and their bunch after he had attempted - clumsily, he had to admit - to strike contact with his Gryffindor year mates, had hurt his pride in a way he had never truly overcome. His one or two tries to secure himself a girlfriend among the more eligible younger witches of his house had also failed, wounding him in the same way. By the time he got his top grade NEWTs, he didn't try anymore. He had never really broken with his Slytherin gang; when his connections got him a well-paid job at Avery Potion Making, he didn't think about it twice. His parents approved of his choice of profession, claming that it was truly in the Slytherin tradition of the family. Snape hung out with his old friends, and when they asked him to join the Death Eaters, he did. He let Lord Voldemort put his mark on him.
Snape never talked about his time as a Death Eater and did his best to forget it, but it haunted him to this day. Being a relative newcomer, he had never actually killed anybody. But he had stood by and watched; he hadn't interfered, and after a while they had taught him to torture people. There was no denying that he hadn't left the Death Eaters even though he knew he'd be expected to kill, too, very soon. He had helped other Death Eaters to break into the houses of their victims; he had conjured up the Dark Mark in the sky to let everybody know they had come to kill, and he had hurt people beyond the power of words. Some victims had been on their knees, pleading for their lives and for the lives of their loved ones. He could still hear the screams of terror, the voices of the tortured, and see the pain-distorted faces when he closed his eyes. They lurked in his dreams.
He could not tell why he had not done what was in his power to stop the Death Eaters, or, if too cowardly to die the death of a hero, why he hadn't tried to run. He remembered these days as a blur of terror and dark fascination with the power he suddenly had. And of course she had been there, dealing out the power, promising pleasure and pain. The torturer that had become the tortured in the end - he shuddered when he thought of her.
Had he believed in what he was doing back then? He could not tell anymore. It seemed to him he had just followed orders, had run with the crowd, drifting in and out of evil deeds without putting his own judgement to use. That night at their group's headquarters they had been planning the death of several witches and wizards; he remembered vaguely that it had come to him as a bit of a shock that he knew some of the names on the death list as former schoolmates. While he was still staring at the names of the people in whose death he was to participate actively for the first time, a loud bang startled all the hooded and masked wizards in the room: Their security spell had violently been broken. For a second all of them stood as if Stunned, then a panic broke out. Everybody tried to find a way out, just any way. Somebody shoved Snape; someone else stepped on him. Before he knew what was going on, he was the only Death Eater in the room, lying on his back, aching all over and looking into the black protective mask of an Auror bending over him. A wand was pointed straight at his face. "Move an inch, and you're dead," a steely, high-pitched voice snarled. A gloved hand roughly tore away the mask from his face, then stopped dead in the middle of the movement. "Verus!" the voice said softly but intensely.
The Auror straightened and gave him a hand up, though not without pocketing Snape's wand. He knew her then for the friend he had once had at school. "Don't tell me you're one of them," she said with a sadness in her voice that hurt him in a place inside of him that he had considered dead for years.
After a moment's hesitation, she pulled him towards a window. "Let's get out of here. We're going to blow up the whole place!" Outside, she ran to a bush about twenty steps off, hanging on to his arm with an iron grip. He felt numb; even though he knew he was facing a life sentence in Azkaban, flight simply did not occur to him.
As they ducked behind the bush, Valerie blew a signal on the silver whistle that hung around her head. Others blew the same signal in response from further away. After the seventh signal, she said "alright" in a grim voice. Then she pointed her wand at the building, shooting a huge ball of fire at it. Others seemed to have done the same. With a deafening noise, the headquarter building collapsed into dust particles.
With a gasp Valerie pulled off her mask to reveal a beautiful face which Snape knew and did not know at the same time; her black hair was matted with sweat and dirt at the temples but fell over her shoulders like a sheet of silk. The light of the fire shone on her skin. He just said the first thing that came into his mind:
"You're too young to be an Auror." She looked him straight into the eyes.
"So? You're too nice to be a Death Eater, yet we are both here."
Her gaze seemed to focus on something beyond him for a moment, then she said: "I don't really want to send you to Azkaban, so you will have to change sides tonight. Are you prepared?" He nodded, unable to find enough breath to speak. "I'll have to rejoin the others. Hide until we are gone, then get rid of these clothes as fast as you can and go to Dumbledore. He'll know what to do. Maybe you can spy for us." Again he nodded, unable to take his eyes off her. "You promise?" she asked, holding his gaze. "I promise" he finally managed to croak. She reached into her robe pocket and gave him back his wand, squeezing his hand in hers for a moment. "We'll see each other again," she said, locking his eyes again. Then she was gone.
Somehow Snape managed to get to Hogwarts without being discovered. He told Dumbledore of the horrors he'd seen as a Death Eater, that he'd seen the errors his ways and would try to make up for it with any task as dangerous as the headmaster could think of. Somehow it would have sounded silly to say he had promised this to someone he had known years ago. Dumbledore believed his story and agreed to make him a spy. Snape told a grim-looking committee of Aurors all he knew and returned to the his day job as Potion Designer and to the nightly crimes of the Death Eaters, sneaking out to Hogwarts in secrecy to betray their names and plans. It was a dangerous job, but for some reason, they never suspected him until it was too late, maybe because they found it amusing to have him around. Helped by a tiny flask hidden in his sleeve, Snape had taken to vomiting at every scene of torture or death to avoid having to participate in it. The other Death Eaters never forced him to, but neither did they tire of chasing him around with cut-off limbs oozing blood, a sport that seemed to enhance their enjoyment. Of course, his abstention had not helped the victims one whit. He might as well have tortured them himself.
Never in all this time had Snape seen Valerie, or had heard anybody speak of her. Between some hideous and dangerous tasks that required all his attention, he started to think a lot of her. Had she tried to contact him? Was she alright? Not knowing who else to ask, he once more turned to Dumbledore, asking if he had ever heard of her again.
"It is strange that you should ask," the headmaster had pondered, his forehead deeply wrinkled. "She obviously trained as an Auror for a time under an assumed name. To be accepted for Aurors' training, she provided a fake Hogwarts NEWTs degree dated four years back. They found out who she was only when she was investigated after she let a Death Eater escape at a raid. She was to be sent to Azkaban, but managed to get away. I believe she has fled the country."
"That Death Eater was me! She sent me to you to be a spy or I would still be one of them. I know that she is not a traitor!"
Dumbledore had given him a sharp look. "You should have said that straight away - it might have helped her case. However, I am not sure whether we can trust her. I shudder to think it is in her power now to betray you to the Death Eaters."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What would have happened if he had told Dumbledore the whole story straight away? He had been wondering all these years. Would they have believed her? Would they have permitted her to continue her training as an Auror? Would she have stayed in Britain, would she have come to see him at Hogwarts, would she have loved him? Would she maybe even have managed to exorcise some of the demonical memories that lived on inside of him? Snape stared into the flame of his candle, feeling that sleep would not come easily that night.
A sharp rap at the door startled him back into the present. It was way past midnight, when most people in this castle would be asleep. He was not used to being disturbed at night. With a frown he opened, only to find Valerie standing outside his door.
Still in the grip of his memories, he felt a strong urge to touch her face, to pull her into his cell and tell her all the things that were on his mind. Her burning eyes and her ashen face told him she had come to see him for reasons of her own, though. "I need to talk to you, Verus" she said.
He offered her a seat on his cot as there was no chair in his room, then sat down at the far other end, not daring to come closer. She had caught him at a moment when he had his defences down, and he found it difficult to collect himself. "Talk," he said curtly.
She took a deep breath; the faintest flush returned to her cheeks. "I thought about the things you said about my method a couple of months ago, that it's worthless if it can't be tested against Avada Kedavra, and I realised you are right."
Admittedly, the Strengthening methods of Professor Varlerta were not among the things preying on his mind right now. In his confusion it took him a moment to find the correct reply to her announcement. "Then you'll stop your silly research?"
"Oh no! What I mean is, I'm prepared. I want to test it tonight, so I need your help."
[...]