Chapter Seven

… leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double.

When Severus finally returned to awareness, he found himself chained in a position identical to the one Mary had been in before he had killed her. He had long ago trained himself not to automatically open his eyes when he regained consciousness, and so managed to gain himself a precious few moments of relative peace to analyse the situation in which he now found himself. He still felt woozy from the effects of the explosion. Probably that was due to the noxious effects of the potion that had splattered him, or perhaps because he had been hit by what he vaguely remembered as some rather large pieces of cauldron.

Voldemort sounded, unsurprisingly, most displeased at the outcome of Severus' attempt to make the potion. He could hear Thane and Pettigrew alternating suggestions of ways to punishing him with other ways they might sow death and discord among 'the Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers'. He suppressed a sneer at their ideas, and filed the suggestions carefully away to inform Albus of the possibility later. While it wasn't exactly precise information, having some indication of possible targets and tactics was still far better than no clues at all. From the evidence of his ears, most of the rest of the Death Eaters were also still present, although he couldn't distinguish Malfoy's voice. Considering the man's fondness for being the centre of attention, that probably indicated his absence.

After a few minutes, Severus finally allowed his eyelids to flicker open. From the direction the conversation was starting to take, he judged that if he did not, he would find himself most unpleasantly woken. At length he managed to make his eyes focus, and he found Voldemort almost directly in front of him, his face only inches away from Severus' own.

"Ah, so glad to have you back with us, Severus," he hissed quietly, menacingly. Severus forbade himself to gulp. "Now, would you care to explain something to me?" Voldemort's eyes gleamed with expectant malice.

It was obvious what he thought needed to be explained, but Severus asked anyway. Although there was nothing except perhaps for a few moments more of grace to be gained from stalling, he could not help but try. There was only one real possible outcome, and he would delay it in any way that he could.

"Yes, sir?" Severus said, ensuring that eagerness to please was all that showed in his voice despite the uncomfortable position he was in and his knowledge of what must come.

"What did you do wrong?" Oh, Voldemort was definitely not happy. It was rare for him to show so much open irritation. He was a pupil of the school that held cold menace far more terrifying than open rage. Severus was something of a follower of that discipline himself, though he admitted fury could often get good results too, when correctly applied.

Severus wasn't quite lying when he replied. "I… I did nothing wrong, my Lord. I was… merely not powerful enough to harness the potion's power," he almost whined, in a tone he had learned from Pettigrew. After all, in Voldemort's eyes ambition and power were very nearly the same thing. Severus' ambition, while admittedly great, as fitting a Slytherin, had never run to the extremes of sacrificing uncountable lives in the name of revenge and power. That, of course, spared nothing for the obvious facts – attempting to exterminate the Muggles would only end in the loss of the lives of wizards. Lives that could ill be spared. Even the most ambitious of Slytherins, had they any sanity at all, should have been able to see that. Besides, almost half of the children at Hogwarts now came from Muggle or mixed backgrounds. The lines between magic and Muggle were blurring, if slowly, and only fools stood in the way of the inevitable.

In any case, Severus did not expect the explanation or the unctuous tone to do much immediate good. With a little luck, though, it would make his act slightly more convincing, hopefully sparing him a little.

"Indeed?" Voldemort drew back a fraction. "In that case, you have severely misled me, Severus. I had thought you were skilled enough to complete any potion I wished for."

"I am most sorry, my Lord. It was not my skills, but my strength that was lacking." Every time he was forced to contemplate Voldemort with this much immediacy he felt a strange blend of disdain and fear. He had to fight hard to keep it away from his expression. The Dark Lord would read it all too easily at this distance.

"Perhaps." Voldemort was clearly suspicious, but the explanation seemed to have been convincing enough. Or perhaps he merely thought that even now Severus' abilities were too valuable to allow him to be killed outright. "Still, you have let me down, and will need to be punished appropriately. Unfortunately, I have other matters to attend to, and cannot do it myself. Do not worry yourself though, my faithful Severus, I will leave you in good hands."

The Dark Lord turned away from Severus fully, and beckoned to Thane, who stepped up beside him eagerly. "You know what to do," was all he said. The Death Eater nodded, and Voldemort walked away, muttering something to Thane just before he left. He and the rest of the Death Eaters dispersed, up the stairs or Disapparating according to their orders, and Severus was left alone in the dark, quiet, suddenly sinister room with Thane.

***

"So," began Thane. "The renowned Severus Snape."

Severus wondered abstractly why Voldemort and all of his more favoured followers felt the need to state the obvious, usually at painstaking – and painful - length. He caught himself, knowing that he was trying to distance himself from his situation, and fought back the urge to make a sardonic comment on the subject.

It would not do to antagonise the man, Severus reminded himself. Thane seemed to have enough reason to want to hurt him already. He had to concentrate on surviving and getting out. Thane would not kill him, but he would in all likelihood not be at all averse to damaging Severus in a permanent manner. Considering just how annoyed Voldemort had been by Severus' 'failure', he would probably have little objection to that as long as Severus' potion-making abilities were not overly damaged.

"Perhaps I should thank you," continued the other man. "After all, I had not expected to get the chance to… practice… on such a famous subject." Certainly reason enough, then.

Severus hadn't been optimistic about his chances before, but he had to face the fact that this boded most ill for him. He reached once more for his shield, hoping that this time it would turn out to be more resilient than the last. He had worked so hard at reinforcing it that it ought to be able to withstand almost anything.

The meetings he had attended at the end of last term, and over the holiday, had not had this particular result, and so he had not needed to test it. Instead he had, thankfully, been able to gather some useful information, without even the need to pay the price of pain that was so often required. It seemed he would pay for that easy time now.

Thane looked him over with a speculative eye, as if wondering which tactics would be best to use, and what the responses might be. As if Severus were a particularly appetising meal with so many dishes he could barely decide where to start. A meal that he nevertheless had every intention of leaving nothing but scraps of when he was done. Severus fought back a shiver. This was, in any case, better than the alternative – Voldemort.

Wasn't it?

"I hear that our Lord prefers this spell for punishment," said Thane finally, seeming to have looked and anticipated enough for the moment. Or perhaps he was merely starting to become impatient with Severus' lack of reaction. "I suppose it will be as good a place as any to begin."

Severus braced himself. At least the man had informed him of the tactic he intended to use. He knew now what to expect. Thane would learn in time, but he was still new to this. Small mercies, Severus reminded himself.

"Anguiso."

***

"Ennervate."

Severus shuddered into consciousness with extreme reluctance, his control over his reactions broken enough that he opened his eyes automatically. Thane's smirking face was the first thing he saw, filling him with the desperate urge to close his eyes and fall back into the relief of oblivion once more. Unfortunately, it wasn't a viable option. He knew the man would simply 'Ennervate' him once more if that happened, and probably would not be best pleased at the need.

"So nice to see you back with me, Severus," Thane said facetiously, after a moment or two of menace, for effect. "If you're ready, shall we continue with the entertainment?"

Automatically, Severus began cataloguing his status. That the process allowed him to tune out the flood of stereotypical villainesque rhetoric was an unexpected benefit.

He was weak from multiple pain-causing hexes, and feeling the effects of a rather heavy beating. He had some internal injuries for certain, and knife wounds in several places – most light, carefully calculated to cause pain rather than permanent damage, but he would surely have a few new scars for his collection if he survived this. He told himself to stop being melodramatic. It hurt. An enormous amount. But he would survive, as he always did. He was too useful to one side to be killed, too useful to the other to be allowed to die. He reassured himself of that again. He might be hurt more, but he would not die.

Thane had used some rather creative hexes to ensure that the pain of the various injuries was maximised. He appeared to have a talent for this, if not much practice at it, and a rather heavy hand.

This was certainly one of the most… rigorous… punishments Severus could remember enduring. Even when he included his treatment at Voldemort's hands, there were few that compared. And it clearly wasn't over yet. From Thane's expression, there was a great deal more in store, and the worst of it hadn't even been approached yet.

His check confirmed his suspicion that the shield was distinctly weaker than it had been before the torture had started, but it appeared to be holding up for now. He automatically redirected what little energy he could spare into reinforcing it. He could at least be certain that Potter wasn't feeling this, and for that he could be thankful. The boy surely didn't deserve that, and Severus would do all he could to keep it from him.

While Severus had been unconscious, Thane had been busy collecting other items. Severus' breath caught as he caught a brief glimpse of some of them. Surely Voldemort hadn't intended Thane to use those on him! They were only ever used on Muggle prisoners. Only ever used on people that the Dark Lord wouldn't need alive at the end of the usage.

Thane smiled cruelly, anticipation and brutality clear in every line of the twisted expression. "Our Lord was most displeased with you, Severus," he said, as if it hadn't been obvious at the time to everyone in the room, and to Severus in particular. "He set no boundaries on me whatsoever. I am afraid you are entirely at my mercy. Although I do have to say I have been disappointed in your reactions so far," he added, as if reprimanding a child.

"Still, I have many more ideas to try," he sounded almost as if he was reassuring himself, although Severus did not find it so at all. "We will see just what reactions you are capable of when completely broken."

Shit. He rather felt he could be forgiven a curse in this situation. It wasn't as if he didn't have justification.

"Now, this is a most interesting little toy," said Thane, examining a charmed iron rod, its handle wrapped in leather like a sword-hilt. "I've never used it before, so you'll have to forgive me if I don't manage to do it quite right the first time." A quiet word from him and the end began to glow red. It could go up to white hot, Severus knew from experience. He had even used it, once; another of the memories that haunted him when he allowed them to. Thane, however, stopped it just as it crossed the line into orange.

"I think a little pattern on your back would do a world of good in reminding you that it is not a good idea to disappoint our master," he said, approaching. Another word rotated Severus to face the wall, exposing his bare back to Thane's tender mercies. Most of his clothes had fallen victim to the man several hours ago, leaving him not even their slender protection.

When he felt the first touch of the impossibly hot rod against his back, he screamed, long, low and agony-filled. There was nothing he could have done to prevent the reaction had he even tried, and he had ceased to care about his pride long since.

There was precious little rationality left in him, but he knew he needed a way out. Anything. Thane, he now realised with a chilling certainty, would care little if he died, as would his so-called master. Something in what he had done had not, after all, convinced Voldemort, or perhaps the mere fact of his failure had been enough. While he had not been denounced as a traitor – that punishment would have been even worse, as unimaginable as it seemed at that moment – he clearly was no longer seen as valuable enough for his failures to be so easily tolerated as he had foolishly hoped they would be.

There was only one thing left that could, possibly, help him, one last slim chance. In his sudden desperation to reach through the shield, he almost shattered it rather than lowering it correctly. That would have needed more energy and thought than he had to spare at that moment.

He prayed that the boy would hear him, help him as he flung all his pain and fear along the bond. Prayed that the distance between them could be crossed somehow.

//Harry!//

Severus didn't know quite what he was asking for. He knew that he did not want Harry to be there in the slightest. That, he was still able to understand, could only end in an even greater disaster, but he needed to escape. Had to get out somehow. Had to get away, before he was killed or crippled by Thane's idea of appropriate punishment.

He had no idea of how he would be able to do such a thing, or how Harry could help. He had to help.