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SLYTHERIN BOY

Chapter Eight: Blood And Brooms

Severus seemed to be in a terrible mood after Potions. He was fuming, literally. Due to a hex between some third years quarrelling in the hallway, smoke was faintly puffing out of his nostrils and ears.

Hermione was watching him carefully. He seemed very distressed on the news that this man, Dizzy, was going to be visiting.

Severus didn't show up for dinner. She'd seen him walk down towards the dungeons right before, so after she'd eaten and he still hadn't shown up, she told Ron and Harry that she was going to the library.

She walked down to the dungeons, hearing each of her footsteps echoing off the stone walls as she went. She saw him, then, sitting on the floor, his knees pulled up to his chest and his head leaned back against the wall, gazing at the nondescript black stone ceiling.

His left arm was laying against the cold floor, the sleeve pulled up. She could see something dark on the flesh of his forearm, but she couldn't really tell what it was since the arm looked as though a hippogriff had shredded it. Blood was smeared on the ground next to his battered arm. She could see that the slashes had been mostly directed at the dark area on his arm.

She remembered suddenly the time he'd shown his dark mark to Fudge. The dark mark, the sign of a deatheater. Had he already had it when he was only fifteen?

"Um…" she murmured. He looked over sharply, his black, intense eyes narrowed at her. He yanked his sleeve down over the ruined arm, and she cringed inwardly as blood began to seep into the fabric.

"You shouldn't do that," she murmured.

"Shut up," he snapped. "Leave me alone! You don't know anything!"

She frowned. "Seems just yesterday that you were calling me a know-it-all in front of class," she said.

He didn't respond, simply leaning his head back, looking upset. He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger, and she wondered whether he'd been crying or not.

"What happened that made you upset enough to do that?" she asked.

"Dizzy," he growled, making the name sound like a swear word. "Dizzy is coming to visit." He rubbed his forehead. "Tomorrow,"

"So? Who is he, anyways?" Hermione sat down facing him, her back against the opposite wall. He looked at her suspiciously.

"I used to… work with them." He said. "Dizzy's a deatheater. I didn't know it then, though. I don't think Lila knows, either, I'm probably the only one. He never even told me, actually, I found out under other circumstances," he said. "We were part of a resistance group together. Against them. We sabotaged assassinations." He rubbed his forehead. "But a few months after Lila left the group, I saw him torture and kill four muggles at a deatheater meeting I was spying on. He was foolish enough to remove his mask." Hermione could see the look of betrayal in his eyes.

"I couldn't believe it. I left the group without saying goodbye, I never told them where I was going or why." He said. "I never wanted to see him again, and that meant I couldn't ever see any of them again." He said. "Lila knows that," he said. "And because of the bad blood between us, she's invited them to get back at me. She may not be able to tell them my 'condition' while contacting them, but she wouldn't forget my existence completely." He sneered. "She's a bitch."

"Oh," Hermione said. "Why didn't you tell the ministry he was a deatheater?" she asked.

"The ministry doesn't trust me enough to listen to anything I have to say," he said. "I was a deatheater once." He frowned miserably. "Biggest mistake of my life, worst thing I ever did. I'm so stupid," he clutched his head in his hands, looking very angst-ridden.

"But you're not anymore," she said. "You saw that it was a mistake. That's what makes you different from them, that's what proves that you're not really a deatheater. A real deatheater would stay with Voldemort, return to him and beg forgiveness. But you've stayed with Dumbledore and the ministry, even though the ministry doesn't really trust you and you're in grave danger because of it." She frowned. "I also know that you spied on them for a long time while Voldemort was still in power," she nodded. "I'd say you've made up for that by now." She smiled.

He didn't look at her, and refused to acknowledge when she stood and walked away from him.

****

Hermione told Harry and Ron what she'd found out. They decided that they should talk to Snape again. Hermione tried to convince them otherwise, but they wanted to hear for themselves what had happened. Whether there was a deatheater coming to the school or not. If so, they had to tell Dumbledore, it didn't matter if the Ministry didn't trust Snape, Dumbledore did, and they were ALL in danger if this Dizzy fellow was really a deatheater.

They went to the dungeons, but he was long gone. They saw a small smear of blood that had been missed when someone had obviously been cleaning up a larger mark.

"Well, it's not as though we could find him now," Ron said reasonably. "Let's go back to Gryffindor Tower, Harry. This was a stupid idea anyways, Dumbledore would know if this guy was a deatheater."

"I don't know, though, Ron," Harry said. "Sometimes it seems like he knows everything, but he's not omniscient." He frowned. "What if he doesn't and this Dizzy guy is a deatheater?"

"No, it couldn't happen." Ron said stubbornly. They walked past a large window, and as they walked by, a jolt of movement caught Harry's eye. He stepped back to look out the window, and Ron followed suit to see what Harry was looking at.

Someone was on a broomstick out in the dark Quidditch Pitch. They were darting back and forth across the field, zooming expertly. Harry grinned as he saw the figure do a looping spiral and pull his broomstick upwards to spin higher and higher up, only to do a U-turn and plummet towards the ground. At the last minute, the figure pulled the broom up again, to play about more on the pitch.

"Who is that?" Ron wondered. "They're pretty good on a broom, almost as good as you, Harry,"

"I don't know. Let's go see."

****

They walked onto the dark pitch, craning their necks upward to watch the mysterious broom-rider. After a few minutes, the rider zoomed towards the ground, leveling and leaping off the broom. Harry's jaw dropped open. That was Snape? Who'd have thought he was anything but scary on a broom?

Ron suddenly remembered how he'd been wearing Quidditch Robes when he'd been changed back.

"Hey, Snape," Harry said. "I didn't realize you could ride a broom,"

Severus jumped at his voice and turned abruptly to face them. He looked embarrassed, even in the dark they could see that his ears had turned bright red. "Every witch and wizard who goes to Hogwarts can ride a broom. You do remember having broom-riding lessons, don't you?" He said snidely.

"Yes, what I meant was I didn't know that you could ride one well," Harry said.

Severus made a noncommittal sound.

"We heard about this Dizzy fellow," Ron said after an awkward silence. "Hermione told us."

Severus looked at Hermione, a helplessly betrayed look on his face, before he caught himself and glared at them. "So?" he ground out.

"We were wondering if it was true that he's a deatheater…?"

"Of course it is. I don't lie, you know. And if you think your friend is lying, then I'd hate to be her, not even trusted by her closest friends," he said snidely.

"We think that you should tell Dumbledore." Ron said. "It's dangerous to let a deatheater into the school! If you know it, you have to tell Dumbledore! It doesn't matter if the bloody Ministry doesn't trust you, you know that Dumbledore trusts you!" he snapped. "Dumbledore should know!"

"Dumbledore does know," Severus said. "I told him a long time ago. I'm not completely stupid, you know," they could feel his hard, hateful glare on their faces even though it was getting too dark to actually see it. "As far as I know he's not doing anything to stop the blasted man's entrance into the school. Perhaps Dizzy'll go haywire, and you can have yet another chance of saving the day," he snarled. "'Golden boys of Gryffindor save Hogwarts from murderous villain', I haven't heard that before," Severus promptly turned on his heel and stalked away.

Harry ran up to him, grabbing Severus by the shoulder and pushing him around to face him. "What have you got against us, anyways?" Harry shouted. "We've never done anything to you! All we do is try to do what's right, damn it!" He said. "Why do you hate that so much? We work hard to do what we can to make the world a better place! And it's not that much, we know, and we've just been lucky so far! But why is that a reason to stop? Why should we just sit by and let a dangerous man into the school? Not when we know that he's a deatheater, and we know what he could do!"

"You have no idea," Severus said, his voice suddenly dangerously low. "You have no idea what he could do!" His voice raised to a harsh shout. "I've seen what he is! I've seen what they do! What you went through last year is nothing. Don't you get it? He killed Cedric, yes, very well, he used the curse! Your friend felt no pain whatsoever! You've not seen what they do to muggles, to muggle-borns! You've not had to see them torture people to death, kill adults in front of their children, kill children in front of their parents! Cruciatus until they can't string two words together! You have no idea!" Severus shouted.

"That's because Harry wasn't stupid enough to go and join the deatheaters like you," Ron snarled, walking up behind Harry. Severus was wordless, an almost shocked look on his face, his eyes glittering strangely.

"You have no idea," he shook his head. He turned to walk away, a strangely defeated look in the way his shoulders were slumped. "Not everyone joins by choice, you know," he murmured as he walked away. "And there's nothing we can do about Dizzy,"

****

A/N: A sudden stroke of inspiration made me do this. Thank you all for the fantastic reviews! I think the last too chapters were too short, but I think this is a good one. More exciting than the past few, and one mystery solved. Now I just have to get to work on the countless OTHER mysteries I have to solve for you *blaaaaaaaaaah work :P*

Thanks all! L8r G8rs!

Time to go through the motions. REVIEW YOU POO-HEAD! Or at least a poo-head if you don't review!