Chapter One

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Author's notes: There are two pieces of music for this chapter, both coming from the same MP3 dot com artist. "Silence Dark Song" and "From the Heart" by Helge Krabye - I promise the music will get happier as the fic does!

Usual disclaimer: This is fanfic. I ain't gettin' rich off of it, 'cos I ain't Miz Rowling, y'all.

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It had been so many years...

She had started to count the days when she first saw the walls of her cell, crude chiseled marks for each slice of a sunset seen in her tiny window, confident it would be mere weeks before she would be out. In the end that plan failed, for with the first real torture session, she irrevocably lost count, days having passed while she laid there unconscious - and nobody would tell her just how many.

So she clung to her hope, and quietly forgot the supposed meaning of the marks on the wall. They would come for her, of course they would; they couldn't just forget... forget about her, as if she was dead...

And through the pain, there was one thing that helped her to keep her sanity. A golden locket around her neck, and the two rings - one, a wedding band, the other an engagement ring. Each night as the loneliness drummed into her with steely hard fists, she opened up the locket to stare at the picture - her only connection, now, to her dearest, her love, her husband - and hugged it tightly against her chest, as if some wandless magic could carry the affection to him. She made sure the wedding band and engagement ring never left her finger, faithful as she was.

And then...

It stopped.

No longer did she have to cower every time someone walked in the doorway of the dungeons - because nobody did. The castle, apparently, became deserted - at least by her tormentors. The house-elves, however, stayed, and were lenient, feeding her more than bread and water, occasionally letting her roam the upper halls.

But most of all, letting her see the sun in all its glory again.

But now... now they had come back. Worse than ever. She wasn't alone in the dungeons sometimes, which was frightening - old Aurors groaning that they should have never gotten out of bed, terrified Ministry workers crying until they could cry no more, whomever the Dark Lord could snatch up and torture on a whim. Even the house-elves were fair game, especially with Nikken...

Ah, Nikken...

Nikken was the strangest house-elf she'd ever seen.

He had a slim, narrow face, with a pointed, short nose and small, beady brown eyes that gleamed maliciously. However, the queerest thing about him was the fact that he wore clothing, usually a small velvet jacket and ruffled white shirt, occasionally trousers if the mood struck him. That was the thing about Nikken: he was free, so he did not have a master. He figured this out very early on, and so first started demanding pay in clothes, then in finer luxuries, then finally in galleons, and if anyone topped his current working price, then Nikken was your man of the moment. A greedy turncoat, he defied everything she had learned about house-elves before.

She despised him.

Not just for that, but for the fact that every time he passed, his eyes opened a fraction and settled first on her rings - which still gleamed after so very, very many years. She immediately put a protective hand over them, and his gaze traveled to the locket, hungry and greedy, wanting each piece for his own. Numerous times he had taunted her with fine meals of veal stew and wine in exchange for just one ring... each time she refused.

They were simply too dear to her.

But tonight... tonight, thunder rumbled overhead, a storm hard upon them. Ana had curled miserably up against the bars of her cage, the heavy drops of rain splashing in her small window and soaking that end of her cell. She was the only one in the dungeons that night - the one old Auror having been taken out later that evening by a smirking, fair-haired man. Her stomach twisted; she hated to think where he was now.

She kept her eyes closed, listening to the storm... and then, a moment later, the sound of Nikken grumbling and grunting as he shoved open the door. Surprisingly, he didn't stop to pester her, instead continuing to mutter to himself as he shuffled past.

Mutter, mumble... "Bad, bad Master Snape... never treats Nikken right... always is so mean..."

She jerked her head up at the sound of the name, eyes flaring open wide as her heart jumped. It couldn't be - could it? Could it?

"Always kicks... always yells..."

She grabbed the locket around her neck, turning to face the house-elf as best she could. "Psst! Nikken! Nikken!"

He turned, in the middle of unhooking a rather nasty-looking apparatus from a far wall, to glare at her. "What does Miss Ana want?" he said sulkily, obviously not in the mood to deal with anyone.

"Nikken - come here," she beckoned.

Thinking it was some sort of trick, he let go of the iron chains he was holding and came a mere three steps closer to her, still glaring.

"Please, Nikken." She reached around with her other hand to undo the clasp of the locket, and the golden chain snaked off of her neck to dangle from her fist. Nikken's eyes grew wide in glee, and he came running, a greedy smile of delight crossing his face.

"What does Miss Ana want?" he said again, now in his prettiest, most soothing tones, batting his eyelashes at her.

She felt as if she could retch.

After a moment she took a deep breath and questioned, "There is - a Severus Snape here - right now - yes, Nikken?"

He nodded yes furiously, his paws reaching through the bars to slowly snatch at the dangling chain of the gold locket. She frowned, eyes narrowing, and held it away from him.

"Now - Nikken - I want you to take this to him. Take - this - to - him," she bit out, voice shaking. "Don't - don't just keep it. Master Snape is a very generous man... if you show this to him, he'll let you keep it... in fact, he'll even reward you."

Somehow, the glib lie did not hurt at all when she delivered it to Nikken. Eyes widening, he finally snatched the locket away, looking now like a good little schoolchild than a greedy pig. He bolted out of the dungeons, other task forgotten, wanting the locket and the reward that came with it.

And as Ana Snape watched him go, she bit her lip, quietly twisting the bars of her cell as her shoulders shook in mixed fear and terrible joy. After a moment, she slowly bent her head against the iron and began to cry. She did not know quite what for.