AUTHOR'S
NOTE:
While this chapter is necessary for people wishing to pick up clues
that will become important later, it is not absolutely necessary that
you read it here and now, since everything in this scene will be
talked about more generally later on. This chapter contains graphic
gore, some violence, and character death (including a young child);
if you wish to skip over it, go on to the next chapter.
AE
Chapter
2: Golden Blood
Snape,
Lucius Malfoy, and four other Death Eaters stood before Voldemort in
a semicircle. The Dark Lord called one of the others forward: an
initiate who had received the Dark Mark but who had yet to prove his
worth. The initiate was tall and thin—and young. He had come to
Voldemort highly recommended and with a reputation for tenacity and
viciousness, but tonight he would have to demonstrate both once and
for all.
And, by a sick twist of fate, Snape was the one Voldemort had appointed to observe and critique.
That in itself was bad enough, but then Voldemort explained to the initiate the sixteen year history leading up to what he would be ordered to do tonight, and Snape felt a nauseating wave of horror wash over him. It was bad enough that he would have to oversee and approve a multiple homicide, but even worse, it would hurt someone he very much cared about—a friend he had done his best to protect for the better part of two decades. To the initiate, this intended victim and her family were just like any other potential victims; to Snape, observing these particular murders constituted one of the deepest possible betrayals he could ever commit.
The initiate, meanwhile, bowed until his head touched the ground. "Thank you, milord," he said quietly. "I will not disappoint you."
Voldemort smiled coldly. "I hope not."
There was only one thought running through Snape's mind as he, too bowed: Less than a week into this bloody war, and I've already failed her.
ooo
The appointed victims were Elizabeth Golden, a twenty-seven year-old Muggle who had never heard of the wizarding world, her husband John, and their four year-old daughter. All three of them had a very quick, very nasty, and very final catch-up course in the existence and power of wizards, beginning with the sudden appearance of six Death Eaters in their London flat.
Elizabeth's husband shouted for her to grab their daughter and run, but that was as far as he got. The initiate stunned him, and he dropped like a stone, drawing a shriek of "John!" from his wife. Two burly Death Eaters seized Elizabeth to prevent an attempt at escape. Snape himself managed to avoid direct involvement in these preliminaries by casting silencing charms over the flat, a task which kept him otherwise occupied—not that he found much comfort in that.
When he turned back, he saw two idle Death Eaters and only two Goldens. While it was the initiate's job to make all three kills, it was up to the others to assist him, and these two were falling short of expectations. It was Snape's duty as the observer to rectify that, so, though he had much rather disapparate away from the nightmare entirely, he looked sharply at the idle twosome and barked out the order, "Find the girl!"
The two of them snapped to it, leaving the room and returning soon after with a tiny blonde, curly-haired girl whose china blue eyes were flowing with terrified tears.
Elizabeth was turning hysterical, first screaming her daughter's name, then begging and pleading with each unmerciful mask in turn: "Please let her go. Do whatever you want with me, but please let her go!"
The initiate ignored her, turning instead to one of the Death Eaters holding the child. "I need your help for the moment," he said. "I think that one wizard is more than enough to hold a little, snot-nosed brat." His voice was tainted by a cold sneer.
Malfoy stiffened and pointed to Snape. "Why don't you ask him?"
"Because I'm here to observe, Lucius," Snape snapped. "Now do as he asks."
Malfoy wasn't happy with the arrangement, but he stepped away from the little girl and over John Golden.
"Now," the initiate told him softly, "I am going to make this as clear as possible. I will hold this thing up, and you will bind him, spread-eagle, to the wall. Is that understood?"
Snape had to struggle to breathe normally; the air froze in his lungs almost as soon as the initiate began speaking. Voldemort had made a splendid choice with this particular recruit, a better choice than even the Dark Lord probably realized. Such a casual disregard (or, if the initiate felt otherwise, such a skill at pretending to that disregard) did not come naturally in most people this young.
Malfoy, meanwhile, had narrowed his eyes to angry slits, but he nodded silently. The initiate looked evaluatively at him a moment, as if gauging the older Death Eater's stomach, then he bent over John Golden's still form.
"What are you going to do?" Elizabeth asked, her voice trembling. "Why are you doing this to us?"
"Quiet, you!" one of her captors snarled, slapping her soundly across the face.
The initiate whirled to catch the man's eye and wagged a chiding finger. "Manners, manners," he admonished coolly.
Snape felt his skin crawl and had to force himself not to recoil, not only at the initiate's casual manner but also at the look—or lack thereof—in his eyes. In place of calm collectedness, he saw an eerie detachment; the man had completely left himself.
The initiate turned suddenly again, and, in a single, smooth motion, he caught and lifted John by the throat and slammed him into the wall. Malfoy obediently bound the Muggle in place, freeing the initiate to release his hold and step back. His satisfied survey of the scene was interrupted by an increased volume in Elizabeth's sobs, and he slowly turned and glided over to her. She flinched at his approach, but her guards held her in place as the initiate took hold of her shoulders and lowered his head to whisper in her ear.
Whatever it was that he said, she whipped her head back. "No!" she whispered in horror. Her eyes widened and fastened on her weeping daughter. Satisfied, the initiate stepped away from her and turned his attention to her guards.
"Move her over by the fireplace," he ordered. "I want her to have a good view. Keep the brat behind me—she will have a good enough view from there." And then he looked back to John.
Snape was sliding his own eyes after the initiate when they met and locked with Elizabeth's. He wanted to look away, but she held his gaze, as if trying to see the face beneath his mask. He had been searched that way once before, and that person had, after a very long time, discerned his identity. He knew that it could happen again—and it could happen here and now because Elizabeth had met him once, long ago. He wanted to look away, but something held his eyes, transfixed, to hers.
And then she made it even worse—she started to plead with him.
"Please, sir, just let us go. You've more than made your point!"
Snape felt the eyes of all of the other Death Eaters fasten on him, and he played the role he must, staring back at her and replying silkily, "But Elizabeth, I don't believe we have."
Her eyes widened in astonished recognition, and Snape cursed himself for speaking. She might not have lived long enough to remember him, but his voice in that tone was distinctive, a dead giveaway. "Mr. Snape!" she whispered in shock. "No—you ate with us. You—you were a good man. You would never be involved with something like this!"
The words were a deep-slashing blade, but, maintaining his role, Snape tilted his head to one side and crossed his arms carelessly. "Do you really think this is the first time?"
Elizabeth shook her head in hopeless, bewildered silence. Seeing that she had said as much as she would, Snape waved his hand for the initiate to return to his grisly task.
The initiate looked back to John, drew his wand, and murmured, "Enervate." The Muggle woke with what might have been a terrified start, but bound as he was, he had nowhere to go. Once he figured out the reason for his immobility, he started to struggle frantically, to no avail. The initiate drew a wicked-looking blade from beneath his robes, drawing screams from Elizabeth and making John blanch; Snape, for his part, envied the Goldens, knowing as he did that they would not have to live long with these memories.
"Please, no…" John whispered, rivulets of sweat pouring down his face.
As if in answer, the initiate tore the Muggle's shirt off and raised the knife to his victim's chest. A single thrust would be enough to kill, Snape knew; then he would kill the other two, and this particular nightmare would end.
But that hope, which he hadn't even realized was unreasonable, was violently dashed. The initiate touched the tip to John's skin over the sternum and sliced him open from the notch at the top of the breastbone to the naval. The Muggle screamed in agony, but the initiate seemed not to notice; he cut John twice more, crossing the chest beneath the collarbones and his abdomen beneath the ribs.
The young Death Eater carefully peeled back the skin over John's chest and abdomen, and Snape saw that only the skin had been scored with the blade. The intact muscles beneath twitched in concert with the Muggle's screaming and writhing. The initiate stepped back and to the side to give the man's wife and child a clear view of his full, wretched figure.
Snape's eyes were drawn irresistibly back to the woman and girl. Elizabeth was sobbing and whimpering uncontrollably; the foul scent of vomit reached him, and he saw that she had emptied her stomach on the floor.
Her daughter had gone silent and deathly pale. She stared, wide-eyed, at her father, an awful, haunted look shadowing her face as John writhed and screamed in agony. Her innocence was more than tainted by this; it was destroyed irrevocably, and where Snape had been able to help the last child he'd seen tormented this way, this time he had stood by and allowed it—all for the sake of keeping his cover as a spy.
Self-loathing welled up in him, and he again envied the Goldens their coming deaths. If no lives had depended on him serving as a spy, he would have been sorely tempted to end his own. If Voldemort's second rise began like this, what would happen before the end?
"Enervate."
Snape tore his eyes away from the child. John had lost consciousness and had been just as quickly revived. The new Death Eater put away his wand and made two more sure strokes with his knife, cutting John's muscles along the sternum and opening his abdomen, disemboweling him. Young he might be, but every move he made demonstrated experience, and Snape had the sickening epiphany that this newest Death Eater had killed in this way before.
And he wasn't finished yet.
He tucked his knife into John's trouser pocket, then stretched and cracked his knuckles before what was probably his grand finale.
What more is there for him to do?!
The initiate took a deep breath and reached forward, underneath the pectoral muscles, to hook his fingers around John's ribs. Then, with a surging jerk upward, he split the sternum and opened his victim's chest. John screamed, his voice rising in pitch beyond the ability of vocal cords to handle or human ears to hear. Elizabeth fainted with a shriek, only to be enervated by one of the Death Eaters holding her.
The initiate paused briefly, then retrieved his knife and, at long last, mercifully plunged it into John's heart so powerfully that the blade embedded itself inches deep in the wall beyond.
Snape watched, stomach roiling, as the initiate stepped back from his kill to survey it… and then came the last thing he would have expected. The initiate stiffened, almost imperceptibly, as if he had come back to himself and actually realized what he'd done—
And then it was gone. The initiate detached again and turned to look at Elizabeth.
He walked slowly over to her and regarded her thoughtfully. "What shall I do with you?" he asked softly.
"Please don't hurt my mummy."
The initiate turned to gaze coldly at the child behind him then turned back to her mother. "You asked me to spare your daughter's life, did you not?"
He's toying with her. He can't spare her—the orders are clear.
Elizabeth, unaware of the Death Eater's orders, nodded frantically, still sobbing too hard to speak.
"Perhaps I will," the initiate mused. "If you amuse me enough." He brought his wand around, resting its tip on her forehead. "Beg."
And she did beg, but not effectively enough. The initiate cocked his head. "You need to be more convincing. Let me help." He seemed to be smirking derisively behind his mask. "Crucio."
Elizabeth thrashed and screamed for about twenty seconds, until her tormentor lifted the curse and leaned forward. "Try again."
"You've already killed my husband, and you're going to kill me!" she implored hoarsely. "You don't need her blood, too—she's been terrorized enough. Please, somewhere inside you, you know this is wrong. Just let her go!"
All her pleas earned her was another round of the Cruciatus. The initiate glanced at the clock and lifted the curse to idly twirl his wand between his fingers, while Elizabeth crawled agonizingly toward her daughter.
She never made it. The initiate brought his wand to bear and hissed a new curse: "Sangrio poros."
Oh, God no.
Elizabeth dropped once more to the floor, blood pouring from every pore in her body and the pitch of her screams rivaling her husband's from a few minutes before. She somehow struggled doggedly onward, reaching out to her daughter.
The initiate watched the scene for a few minutes, and then it seemed to Snape that he was actually growing bored. He glanced briefly at Snape then turned back to Elizabeth, who was in agony and yet still entertained some hope for her daughter's survival.
"You cease to amuse me," the Death Eater flatly informed her.
Snape saw the last light die in Elizabeth's eyes as the initiate turned now on the child. The mother's wail drowned out his words, but the flash of green light and the little girl's immediate fall told him all he needed to know. Elizabeth threw herself at the child's body, bleeding out and dying shortly after, never having reached her daughter.
The silence that reigned for a few moments afterward was oppressive. At last, though, Snape had to speak; he was, after all, the one in command on this raid.
"Our lord is expecting a report," he said, surprised at how calmly the words came out.
The initiate sent up a Dark Mark, and all of them disapparated, leaving the spectacle to the Aurors and whoever they brought in to identify the bodies.