Chapter Two
A/N: I know this chapter is short, but I should be posting another longer one sometime tomorrow....Thank you to all who reviewed!! Everybody else, please, please review! Let me know what you think!
Severus wondered how long it would take the dark lord to summon him. It had already been two days since their last meeting, when Voldemort had decided to subject Severus to this supposed test. The whole situation made him extremely nervous. What if the dark lord called on him to do something that he simply couldn't do? What if he wanted him to kill a member of the order, or a fellow professor? If he couldn't complete Voldemort's task he would be branded a traitor, and in the doubtful event that he somehow survived, he would have outlived his usefulness as a spy. The thought alone was enough to make Severus feel sick to his stomach.
Worst of all in Severus eyes, he had as of yet to share his dilemma with Dumbledore. Beyond the specific information that Severus supplied the order, he rarely shared anything personal with them. With Albus alone it was a different matter. Of course, he always left out the especially gruesome aspects of life as a supposed death eater. All that would earn him was either pity or disgust, and Severus wanted neither. He did tell Dumbledore more than he should have, things just had a way of slipping out around that man. Now he felt like he was paying the price. He felt guilty for keeping this from the aging headmaster, the one who had trusted him when no one else had. But a nagging voice deep in the back of his mind was insistent that he keep this to himself. Who knows what he could be forced to do? And bringing it up now might result in difficult questions later.
'Maybe I'm letting this get the better of me.' Severus contemplated as he worked in alone in his potions lab.
He had not been able to sleep well in months, and the lack of sleep combined with this new stress had nearly catastrophic results on Severus's demeanor. Thankfully school was not formally in session until tomorrow night, or else it would have been some unfortunate student who received the full blunt of his wrath. As if was, Madame Promfrey had spent a better part of the morning in tears, and professor McGonagall was no longer on speaking terms with him.
Just as Severus began to wonder whether Promfrey's hysterics would carry on over in lunch, a familiar burning pain engulfed his arm. He hissed and fought the urge to tear at the offending source of pain, his dark mark. Voldemort was summoning him, the time had come. Severus cradled the source of pain to his chest, and rushed through the empty corridors until he reached his chambers. He produced his dark black cloak and his white death eater's mask from their hiding places, his hand shaking as he did so. They were the heavy chains that could drag a drowning man to the bottom of the ocean.
Severus had been in such a hurry rushing towards this new sense of doom, that he had forgotten to inform Albus that he had been summoned. It would turn out to be just as well, for that truth may have been enough to undermine his greatest lie yet.