"I don't like this," Molly Weasley said for what seemed to be the thousandth time. "Someone ought to have gone with her."
Remus rubbed a hand over his face and looked warily at the three pots of water boiling on the stove. Molly hadn't known what else to do, and so she'd begun making tea like a madwoman. "She wouldn't allow it," he said quietly. A derisive snort sounded from the corner and Remus turned his head slowly, fixing his eyes on Severus.
He'd been sitting in the corner all night, thumbing through a book. He'd not read a single word, his eyes too unfocused to absorb any of the print, his ears attuned for the slightest noise outside.
"Watch yourself, Snape," Charlie Weasley growled. "Didn't exactly see you all volunteerin' to go along."
"That would be, idiot Weasley, because it could hardly be wise for me to reveal myself as an enemy to, of all people, Lucius Malfoy." His voice was disdainful, mildly amused, but he felt acutely the sting of helplessness, the ache of having no particular purpose. He felt the sting that Sirius Black must have felt while cooped up in his ancestral tomb of a house, and Severus wondered if it wasn't a black sort of justice that he was feeling helpless now.
He had no time to ponder the matter, however; a loud thump had the front door rattling in its frame and the people in the house on their feet.
Remus reached the door first and jerked it open, sending an unconscious Dea spilling into the house. Her hair was tangled and matted, her eyes open and rolled back to the whites. Fighting his way to the front, Severus swallowed the bile that rose into his throat when he saw that one whole side of her robes was rent, scraped, raw skin showing through the gap. Even as Remus moved to pick her up, Severus stepped forward.
"Back, Lupin," he commanded tersely, all background noise fading to nothing, his heart speeding in his chest.
How many times could she possibly leave?
And how could something that wasn't his be taken away?
"Mobilicorpus," he said, coaxing his wand so she was in an even prone position. He floated her through the house with speed and ease, depositing her on the kitchen table. There was no time to maneuver the stairs.
Only Molly, Albus, Severus and Remus came into the kitchen; the other members stayed in the outer rooms, a hush over them.
"Her arm's broken," Molly said, looking up at Albus with worried eyes.
"So it is," he said mildly, though in his heart he already grieved. So much hurt for such a short errand. For such a small thing.
"We need Poppy," Remus said, fluttering his hands over the numerous scrapes laddering up and down her arms, blood oozing slowly but steadily from them.
I have potions back at the school, things I could use to help her… Severus was mute for a moment, however, watching her blood soak into the wood of the table. "I can go back to the school," he finally said with numb lips. "I can go back to the school and get her."
Albus laid a hand on his shoulder and he accepted the rare moment of comfort from the older wizard. "She will rouse before you get back. She has not fainted because of her injuries, but rather because of her exertion."
But how long? How long before she wakes up? The thought was simultaneous in both Severus and Remus, their eyes locking over the table.
For the moment, at least, they were unified.
Only a moment later, they were split apart by a chasm wider than physical miles as the Dark Mark on Severus's forearm started to burn. He let out a single, sharp hiss, then tried to ignore it. It wasn't easy, as the pain threaded through his arm, through his veins, straight to his heart and his brain in sharp, long wires. He stood firm, his eyes fixed on the woman he no longer knew.
Everyone else's eyes, however, were fixed on him.
"Go," Remus said, unable to keep the coolness from his voice.
"I'll not take orders from you, Lupin." Even as he said it, he grated his teeth against another onslaught of pain. Why now? Why when he most wanted to stay? It was the one moment of his time in the Order when he knew, inarguably, that his place was there, with them.
"You must answer the summons, Severus. It is not, as you know, a request. They will want to tell you of Miss Middlemarch's existence, and you must be surprised." Though Albus wondered how, exactly, they would lie to him. How they would tell him she came to be alive, since they'd lied to him in the first place.
With an inaudible hiss of frustration, Severus turned away from the table, wishing momentarily to cut his bloody arm off and have done with their summonses and orders.
He ran out the door, the hem of his coat flaring large and wide behind him, and Disapparated just outside the front door.
~~~
"Severus… so fantastically nice of you to join us. There was some difficulty getting away, yes? For you are tardy." Voldemort's voice reached his ears through the heavy, hot mask he wore, and once again tasting bile in his throat, Severus bowed his head to the man, the monster, he'd come to hate.
"Trouble, indeed, my Lord, escaping from the fools who daily surround me. How may I be at your service?" But the meeting was not a usual one. The Death Eaters were gathered around their Lord, masks cold and impassive. Severus wondered if they knew how obvious they were, how clear it was they'd been there for quite some time. They'd all been summoned before he had, summoned to cook up a lie.
Summoned to serve up the lies they all willingly consumed, for there was no truth among the Death Eaters.
There was no honesty among the evil.
And then he snapped his mind shut like a trap, cleaning it ruthlessly and leaving it gleaming.
"Have you noticed anything unusual around Hogwarts? A woman, perhaps? Someone from your past?" Lucius spoke this time, and his voice was eager, rapt with thoughts of revenge on the woman who'd come to see him.
"I have not, Lucius. You should well know that all I see I report to our Lord. There has been nothing unusual at Hogwarts of late, lest you count the rising number of fools willing to support Dumbledore." It was the truth, though twisted, and it passed well enough through Voldemort's keen mind.
"Fools seem to run rampant at the school, Severus, as well you know. Even my own son is a fool, bound by his desire to excel at things that matter not in the greater scheme. Quidditch, academics…" Severus could hear the sneer behind the mask. "Trying to best that… that scarred Potter whelp! No, even the brightest of Hogwarts are fools."
Severus swallowed the nearly mindless fury that smoldered in him; Lucius Malfoy was no more a father than a mind-diseased rattlesnake would be. If there was any luck in the world, any kindness at all, his intelligent son would come out on the other side of the battles able to outgrow the malformed family fate had tossed him into.
"I have some mixed news for you, Severus." Voldemort spoke quietly, not out of any sort of respect, but for the simple fact that he enjoyed the quietude it forced among his followers. They were merely tools, things to be used. They needn't have voices lest he commanded so. "It seems a friend of yours has returned from the dead. The Squibs' spawn is back; however, she has chosen to align herself with the Mudbloods and sentimental fools. She paid a visit to Lucius this evening, spewing worthless threats and attempting to curse Lucius."
Severus was thankful for the mask for many reasons, not the least of which was that it hid the facial expressions he sometimes couldn't control. The lies spouted as easily from Voldemort's malformed lips as they did from Severus's thin ones, and the fact that they did angered the Potions Master.
"That is most unfortunate, my Lord. If the other side is recruiting warriors as magically worthless as she, then victory is sure."
"Yes," Voldemort said, ruminating. "Victory is sure." He paused for a few moments, then dismissed Severus. "I only wanted to dispatch the unfortunate news, my faithful servant."
"My gratitude, my Lord. Your discretion is invaluable." Severus bowed his head, and even as he did so heard the thoughts in Lucius's. Even though Severus was gone from the proceedings only moments later, he already knew what was being discussed.
The moment the Hogwarts teacher was gone, Lucius spoke. "Worthless or no, we are to find her, yes my Lord?"
"Yes, yes, yes!" Voldemort cried with unrestrained rage. "Find the surviving whore and make a lesson of her!" He stroked his fingers over the arms of his chair and then added something else, nearly too quiet for him to hear. "Crabbe, you are to stay here. It seems we have something to discuss."
Crabbe, the man who had been responsible for the execution of Amadea twenty years before, swallowed convulsively under his mask even as his compatriots left him.
By the time the screams started, they were out of hearing range.
~~~
They'd managed to slow the bleeding and were waiting on Madame Pomfey to arrive to heal the bone when Dea finally awoke.
She started with a gasp, cold sweat breaking out over her face and neck. Wide-eyed, she looked at those gathered around her, then fell back. Remarkably, she began to laugh, her voice breathless and weak, but there.
She winced as she felt the pain in her arm and let her head fall back to the table. "He… was so pissed…" she said, gasping as she shifted her arm.
"Pissed?" Molly showed genuine confusion at the term. "Lucius Malfoy?" The idea of the platinum-blonde drunk as a lord, though surely amusing in any other circumstance, only made things more muddled.
Remembering where, precisely, she was, Dea laughed again, ending it with a pained groan. "Mad. He was so angry." Feeling around with her left hand, she snagged her wand and pointed it at her right arm. "Sano os," she said, gritting her teeth as the bone healed. "Sano viscus," she said, watching with mild interest as the skin slipped back together, leaving it faintly paler than it had been before. And though all she really wanted to do was sleep, exhausted from the flight, she pointed the wand at her robes. "Consuo… vestis." And the split in the marigold-colored fabric was gone.
Laying her head back down, she rolled her eyes back to look at Remus and Albus, both upside-down in her vision. "He'll come," she said surely. "They'll all be looking for me now."
And as her eyes fluttered shut, she heard the door open and close, and saw Severus standing over her. Then she slept.