Do I really need a disclaimer? Do any of you think I own any of the Harry Potter characters? Or what about any of the other elements from other universes that I've borrowed? And do any of you think I'm making money off this? If so then you're wrong. Sorry!
Gryffindor-220 Points- DnD4Ever receives 10 Points for sensitivity and insight; Frogfoot receives 10 points for lovely long reviews (I curl up and purr while reading lengthy reviews)
Slytherin-280 Points- Chay receives 10 Points and acknowledgement for helping with my confidence and beta work
Ravenclaw-10 Points- if you reviewed and I didn't count you tell me, or review this chapter and get some points for your House.
Huffelpuff- 10 Points Vicky….well, ok you didn't tell me which House you were in, but I decided that anyone who will trip upon a fic as leeding long as mine, and read the whole thing without first loving Snape and fanfic, must be a diligent longsuffering little Huffer. If I'm wrong just e-me and I'll change it.
Chapter 47:
Harry's actions, in leading the disastrous rule-breaking scheme, did not go unpunished. In fact Hermione was the only one to escape any sort of punishment, unless Ron's assertion was right and her detention for dropping a quill in Potions really was Snape's being petty, after the Headmaster had pardoned the girl.
Hermione, for her part, was concerned for a few days. The guys were uncomfortable around her and she worried that she had done something wrong.
Eventually though Harry, Ron and Aidan got used to the idea that Hermione really didn't remember nearly dying, and that she just accepted the story everyone else had heard; that Snape had caught them in the halls and had seen to it that they received draconian punishments for it.
Wednesday, after classes, when the rest of the Gryffindor team went to practice for the game on the coming Saturday, Harry and Ron trudged down to the dungeons. They had both been benched, with detentions, for the next two weeks.
Aidan was relatively happy to have detention with Filch. The guy wasn't Snape or Professor Moody, Aidan pointed out. Plus, he was used to doing chores without the aid of Magic, so he figured he had it better than Harry and Ron.
Rather anticlimactically, when Harry and Ron arrived in the Potions classroom, there was only a note on the chalkboard.
~~~ Materials have been set out on desks for you. You will copy the documents and when finished place them on my desk. Any smudging, miss spellings, sloppiness or other imperfection will require that you start the entire document over.
As a, precautionary note, I would advise that you not bleed on the parchments.
SS ~~~
"Well, that's simple, for a Snape detention," Ron cheered slightly.
Harry wasn't so sure. "But the warning at the end. Ron. Why would we bleed at all? The fact that Snape obviously feels strongly enough about it to warn us is not exactly comforting."
The desks that had been equipped with writing supplies and blank parchments were on opposite sides of the chamber.
Ron offered a wan smile, heading for the far desk. "Well," he chuckled. "Look on the bright side Harry. At this point Aidan has it worse than we do."
"Ron," Harry groaned, looking at the document he was to copy.
"Yeah Harry?"
"Can you read this? Cause I can't."
Ron looked at his own scroll then Harry's. "Well," he shrugged with resigned humor. "I was wondering why Snape was taking it so easy on us. It's gonna take for ever to make sure we get these stupid squiggles copied right."
Harry shuddered with the first stroke of his quill, a type of feather that he was unfamiliar with, tipped with a gold nib. The ink wasn't black but a deep red. Snape's warning came back to him. '"I would advise that you not bleed on the parchments."' Harry suddenly found himself unaccountably glad that he could not read the arcane writing.
@---'---,------------------
Blue eyes flashing, the male stared down at Sirius Black. They had met on the stairs to the dungeon, Sirius coming up, the male heading back down. It wasn't a chance meeting; the male could smell Black's scent thick in the passage. 'No, this was not an accidental meeting, this was an ambush.'
Muttering a non-Magic curse under his breath, the male closed his eyes and rubbed at them. He gave the impression of being very frustrated, but it was pain, not aggravation, that motivated his actions. With the doors open in the west facing rooms, there was a great deal of indirect sunlight in the hall, and all he wanted was to escape to the darkness of his dungeon.
"I want to talk with you," Sirius stated.
Holding the bridge of his nose, the male made an impatient sound. "I don't want to talk. In fact," he slid past Black, turning sideways to do so. "I don't even want to listen."
Sirius let out a frustrated breath and dogged the male's steps to the Potions classroom. He had been about to speak again, when he reached the door and found Harry and Ron in detention. "What did you blame them for this time?" He growled belligerently.
"I can see you're going to be a joy at the parent teacher conferences," the male casually sneered back. "Mister Potter, this is unacceptable. Do pay attention to the accent marks." As an afterthought he pointed out the tiny curved line ending with a dot that rested above something that looked a little like an Irish knot.
Dropping the rejected parchment into the fireplace, the male stooped for a moment to watch his Expunge send out tendrils to twine about and dissolve the page. Then he left the room without further comment.
"I'm sorry Harry." Sirius smiled thinly. "I think he's taking a lot of our bad blood out on you." When his godson shrugged and muttered something about greasy Slytherin gits, he nearly laughed. But then the words, and their meaning, hit him.
"Harry, he-" Sirius shook his head. The green bead swung back and forth, reminding him of things he was not comfortable with. 'Like being owned by Something that isn't being very clear on exactly what I'm being owned for.'' "Harry, he does have a lot of reasons to be mad at me. I wasn't exactly nice to him." 'Either of them really, Snape or the Garom.' "Just, don't take things at face value, ok?" Sirius quickly left the room to chase down the male, again, and to get away from Harry's look of skeptical wariness.
~
The male left his door open. Black would be coming and he wanted every piece of advantage he could scrape together. The pain in his head was diminishing, in the soothing darkness of his dungeons, but now the burns on his back were calling for attention.
"What did they do to you at the Revel?"
He didn't even flinch with a suppressed reflex action; Starch's presence was more familiar than his own. The pale Exotic was sprawled over the duvet at the back of the sitting room, ever-present courier style bad on the floor at his feet.
The constant chaffing of the high collared shirt had needed to be ignored, not every Slytherin in his House was on his side. Letting his pain show a little, the male moved more hesitantly, more cautiously, than he had allowed himself to all day. Going into his bedchamber he informed Starch that Black would be joining them shortly.
"That's alright," Starch called. "He's just arrived." Rising to his feet he made a welcoming gesture, encouraging the man at the door to enter. "Have a seat," he invited.
"Why does everyone offer me the chair as soon as I get here?" Sirius asked as he closed the sitting room door.
Starch smiled, "Because you are less of a Threat Priority when you are sitting down. You require less attention and can't cause as much trouble." Leaving the Human to think in peace, Starch nudged the male's bedroom door open enough so he could lean against the doorframe. "You want me to dress those burns for you?" Even though the male still wore a black tee shirt, the blood and burnt flesh were perfectly obvious to him.
The male glanced up, "I'm fine. I mean- it's not what you came for. You don't mind?" He let the bloody over shirt drop to the stone floor. "Fenny…Fenny?" Before he could call a third time the little House Elf appeared at the foot of the bed. "Fenny, You know the routine, burn the contaminated things and try to get the rest clean."
She gave a wide-eyed and fervent nod, immediately setting to work. She knew what to do. Such requests had been common before Voldemort's first fall from power. She had hoped that these sorts of cleanups wouldn't need doing again.
Looking over Starch's shoulder the male could see Sirius standing awkwardly in the middle of the sitting room beside the table and chair. When their eyes met the male, for an instant, felt like he was about to panic. He was always pale, but his skin took on a grey tinge, as though the blood had literally been drained from his body. The stillness of his stance was more than just freezing in mid motion, he really felt unable to move. And Black saw it all.
Sirius tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. "What is wrong with him?" He addressed Starch and flinched at the way his voice croaked.
"He is-" Starch's grey eyes turned from the male to Sirius while he tried to find the right words. "This is a programmed response. He was conditioned to never let his wounds or pain show. Some of that was natural, he's part cat and all, but they heightened it. Turned it into a fear based response, one he has a lot of trouble overriding."
Finally the male forced enough movement to breathe. 'He'll see me! I can't go out there, what if he- he's my Mark I can't even hurt him to defend myself!' The ointment that had been hastily applied a few hours ago was loosing its pain relieving effects and the burns on his back really did need to be treated.
Necessity finally forced a decision. The emotional turmoil was waking him up, and that was to be avoided at even the cost of being vulnerable in front of some one he wasn't certain he could trust. Staying very close to Starch, he timidly reentered his own sitting room.
'Black is staring and I haven't got enough clothes on to hide.' His stomach muscles clenched in anticipation of a fight, but Black made no move, threatening or otherwise, aside from relinquishing the straight-backed chair at Starch's request.
When Starch told him to sit he broke eye contact with Black to turn the chair around, and sat, straddling it. About to remove his tee shirt he hesitated. Glancing over his shoulder, to again make sure that Starch wasn't leaving him, he used both hands to pull the bloody undershirt up and off. Starch took the ruined tee and tossed it to Fenny. Bare from the waist up, the male crossed his arms over the chair's back and braced himself for any pain that Starch's ministrations might bring.
"This'll burn like hell," Starch murmured in his ear. A jar of something that smelled like a kind of herbal enhanced soap, was opened. Fenny silently brought a bowl of warm water and set it on the table. Starch dismissed her. Once she was gone he dug into the messenger bag he had left beside the sofa. Pulling out a scrub brush he set to work removing the charred skin and debris from the male's back.
"What happened to you?" Black gasped, horrified. Even looking away the wet, rough, sound of the brush against the male's back was nauseating.
"I saved your life." The male grunted then dropped his head to rest on his crossed arms. "Someone on the team that had carried out the –failed- retaliatory attack on Hogsmead saw me aiding the Orderlings. His assertion that killing them in so blatant a way, on top of the resent skirmishes, would have forced the Ministry to become openly involved, was accepted, but I still needed to be punished. 'For not thinking of a way to kill them without raising the Ministry's ire.' According to the Dark Lord." His lips twisted into a rueful sneer. "Just another chance to prove they can control me."
Black tore his eyes from the sickening mess that had been made of the male's back. "The wrist irons in the wall…an interesting choice in decor." He really didn't care what they talked about; he'd be willing to babble about anything to cover the hiss of pain the male had let out just then.
"You've got the armory, if I remember correctly. Not the best layout potential there either." The pain was bad, but with Starch at his back and Black too sickened to be any real threat, he was beginning to relax again, and as he did, he settled back to sleep.
"Armory?" Black had been looking over the sitting room while they spoke, and his attention was drawn to something odd about the male's bedroom door. "Why do you have an extra handle in your door?" He asked.
"It's not an extra handle." He tried to focus on what Black was doing, what he was saying, where he was looking, anything but the pain. "Slide the bolt to the right," he instructed.
Black stopped himself from glancing back at the male. Instead, for once, he did as requested. It was obvious that no one had performed the whole bolt sliding thing for a long time because it stuck, terribly. When it did finally move, a panel just a bit lower than shoulder height, and large enough to send 'Hogwarts, a History' through, opened. "Ok," Sirius was newly puzzled. "Then why do you have a window in your bedroom door?"
Starch had rinsed out the brush, and cleaned it as best he could, in the bowl, but he had to get fresh water. He rose from where he had ended up kneeling, and moved in front of the male. Carefully placing a hand on the male's greasy black head he waited for a sign that the male felt safe enough that he could leave, if only to go to the next room. The male nodded, and silently he went to the bathroom for the water.
The male mumbled, "It's a ration slot Black." He did not open his eyes. "The chains on the walls and the rack in the closet are original. I actually turned the water chamber into a shower, wasn't all that hard really. The bedrooms were isolation chambers. This was the dungeon Black. You know. Castles. Dungeons. Torture." He dragged one eye open, just enough to slant a look at the shocked face of Sirius Black.
Sirius couldn't have missed the sliver of blue shine; the male was looking at him, gauging his reaction. Uncomfortable under the scrutiny, he followed Starch to the bathroom. "What's your relationship with him?" Sirius looked away from the sight of bits of flesh being pulled from the bristles of a scrub brush. "I mean, you've got a wife, right? So…"
"You're an awfully cute nibblet, when you're trying to think that hard, but I suggest you find something else to question. My fidelity to Lenore is not open for discussion."
Sirius fidgeted, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "You said he was programmed."
"Ah, now that would be what you should have started with. I have no real idea why but the older I get, the less I appreciate coyness in thumpers."
"You're not going to explain it are you?" Sirius stepped back so that Starch could carry a fresh bowl of water and the clean brush to the table. "He hasn't got a clue, and even though you do you're not going to tell me anything."
"Black, you used to be fond of riddles, just treat this like a really strange riddle." Starch ruffled the male's hair and wet the brush. Lathering the cleanser into a thick foam, he let the sudsy water drip onto the flaking and pealing skin on the male's back. The soap had minor anesthetic properties and he wanted them to have a chance to take effect before starting again.
The male arched his back, trying to get the water to run over as much skin as possible. "Last time I let someone hurt me this much was getting the burns in the first place."
"When I'm done here you're going to take a shower." Starch set his jaw and closed his throat before raking the brush over the male's right shoulder removing the grey ash and layers of dead skin beneath. "No arguments?"
"Showers are not my responsibility," the male gripped the chair back and rested his forehead on his hands. "But, anything for you Starch, you know that."
When Starch was done the male shakily rose to his feet, resting for a minute, braced against the chair. Taking the bowl of dirty water and the brush he carefully made his way to the bathroom.
Starch dug into his bag and fished around until he found what he was after; a deep red lollipop. Stuffing the wrapper back into the bag he closed his eyes and sucked the candy.
"That's a blood pop isn't it," Sirius hadn't really meant it as a question.
The low hum reverberating from Starch's chest wasn't really meant as an answer. Pulling the sucker from his mouth, Starch's words were slurred because his fangs had dropped. "It'th a bit like thelf medication. All that blood…all, hith…" He kept his eyes closed. The heaviness in his chest was settling lower in his abdomen as the hunger increased. "I haven't tathted Human in more than eight hundred yearth. And I haven't tathted live for more than five hundred. If there were a drug that would dull the hunger, I'd get thtoned. The only thing I've found that helpth, ith a very good imagination." He resumed sucking on the poor substitute.
Sirius felt an uncomfortable pity for the Vampire who lay limp, and obviously unsatisfied, on the sofa. He couldn't exactly offer his own arm. The fact that the idea even occurred to him, even if it was just so it could be refused, was unnerving. He would have sat on the straight-backed chair, but he couldn't look at it. So he sat on the edge of the table, well away from the water rings that had been sloshed from the rinse bowl.
The male was careful to rinse off all traces of blood. The falling water sluiced the loose bits of skin off, but he couldn't really feel it. Aware that he was still mildly numbed he had kept the water temperature low, no sense in making things worse. Shivers, mild but annoying, told him it was time to get dried off. Returning to the sitting room wearing a bathrobe over his boxers, he approached the Vampire on the small couch.
Sirius stared for a moment, then, in an outraged voice shouted, "That's my bathrobe!" The plaid was that of his family and only the bizarreness of seeing it on the male had made him doubt his recognition.
"It was yours." The male smirked. "You lost it and never reclaimed it. It's been mine for over ten years now."
"What?"
"I've collected all of this," he motioned to include the bookcases and furniture. "Forgotten quills, discarded parchments, I had to start somewhere."
Starch quirked one grey eyebrow and entered the conversation. "Is that where you got those monochromatic Victorian clothes?"
The male ducked his head and walked the rest of the way to his bedchamber door, before answering softly. "The frockcoat and rest were from his father. Only thing the git ever did for us." As though he feared interruption, he hurriedly added, "I know you feel different Starch, but I've spent a lot more time holding back his tears because of something my Master wouldn't, or couldn't give us-him, than I have doing anything else involving the old fool." Forcing his eyes to meet Starch's for a moment he let a harsh laugh drop from his lips. "You're one to talk, grey and black. Not even any white except your hair."
Starch waited until the male had closed his door. Then called, loudly enough to carry through the wooden obstruction, "I haven't got soul deep blue eyes to accent, you git!"
Dressing quickly the male came back out holding a clean tee shirt, white this time. "You said something about dressing the burns?"
Starch picked up his bag and moved to stand beside the chair. The male sat as before, straddling the seat and facing the back. Sirius swung his legs, a bit nervous about possibly having another, obviously pain filled procedure, go on. The Vampire brought out a new jar, filled with a pale yellowy-green, gooey substance. He scooped out a fair sized puddle and began spreading it over the male's shoulders. "Head down," he mumbled. "Your hair is getting in this stuff."
The male silently complied. "Doesn't hurt," he made it sound like a question.
"It shouldn't. "
Closing his dusky blue eyes, the male relaxed under the touch. "Will you be alright," he whispered. Starch shifted the lollipop to his cheek and asked what he meant. "Your hands are so cool, feels so good… When I'm gone. Will you be alright?"
"Your skin is still hot from the burns. I won't have to worry about doing anything if you go, because you're not going anywhere. I know it makes no sense to you right now. Trust me on this; you're never going to leave me. They made a mistake when they made you, and another when they saved you. None of that was within your control. Saving me, taking Tala to safety, protecting the child, those things were choices you had control over. You chose right."
"It's not enough," the male squinted his eyes shut. "It's never enough, I owe so much. Every thought every action, I can't be good enough to earn forgiveness for the evil. I killed innocent people- I scare children for Merlin's sake!"
Starch wiped his hands on a rag, "So, you've made some bad choices too? So what?"
Dazedly the male looked up. "You don't understand Starch. It's all wrong. All of it." With one hand he began to scratch lightly at his chest, his fingernails trailing pink lines on his paler-than-could-be-healthy skin. "Just, wrong." The scratching became more intense and tiny pricks of blood welled up along angry colored scratches. "Wrong color, wrong shape, wrong size. Why is it all wrong?!"
The blood hit the air and Starch reacted instantly; grabbing the male's wrists while trying to keep from touching the just bandaged back. "Shhhhh, there." He cooed. "Don't do that, it's going to be alright."
"It's all wrong!" The male raked open his own skin spilling his own blood. "Let me out! It's so small in here Starch why can't I get out?!" He sounded hysterical to his own ears, but the cage was so small…
Starch had lost his patients and used the Vampiric strength to pull the male down to the floor and force his hands to still. "I know it's wrong, shhhhh." He forced the male's dark head down against his shoulder and continued to whisper nonsense in his ear while stroking the black hair with his free hand.
"It's because of what I am," the male whimpered. "He can't ever forgive me for being what I am—but this isn't me!" The soothing noises and gentle motions Starch was making calmed him some. "I should have killed them sooner, or found a way to not kill them at all, I owe too many blood debts, I've made people hate and fear, I deserve this."
"No." Sirus spoke up for the first time since things had gotten scary. Now, though, he knew what was going on. What his part was. "I thought so too," he fought to keep his voice steady. The idea was still painfully new to his own mind, "All of that is the way you learned to think after they, after they hurt you. I looked for a reason, but that was the problem. There was no reason behind it, they wanted to so they did it. It wasn't your fault. I couldn't have done anything to prevent it. What you do after they are done, that's what matters."
The male pulled in sharp tiny breathes; there wasn't enough room to take in more air. There wasn't enough room for his blood to circulate properly, and even if there were, it still tasted wrong, still smelled wrong.
Sirius got off the table and came as close as he dared to the tangled pair on the floor beside the chair. "I don't know what you did or what was gong on, but even of you killed these 'innocent people' in cold blood and enjoyed it, what you do now is more important than what you could have done then. Snape, he doesn't want to purge the guilt from his conscience and he sure doesn't want to atone, those are your goals. You're the one that wants forgiveness."
"They're dead. The dead never forgive." The male sounded defeated, he stopped struggling against Starch's hold and faced the emptiness Sirius' words made him aware of. "It really is pointless, isn't it? I'll never atone…I've lived in vain. I just want out of this cage."
Starch held the male tighter to him, 'No, you can't earn it. Forgiveness is a gift, freely given freely received." 'Please let him understand something! I can't watch him suffer much more…it hurts so much.'
"He's waking up," the male whispered.
"Ill take care of everything," Starch whispered back. "I'll get Black out and clean up the mess, I'll be here when you get out again."
"My eyes hurt," he was so tired, could hardly keep his eyes open. The pain wasn't as bad as it had been earlier, the light wasn't a problem, but he remembered how it had hurt.
"That's right, I got something for you." Starch chuckled. "Got them when I was in America, t'other day." Reluctantly he stopped stroking the male's hair and reached for his bag. When Black nudged it within his reach he flashed a grin of thanks. It was forced, but he couldn't take time to dredge up real appreciation. It had settled to the bottom of the bag, of course. Eventually his fingers closed around the soft band of stretchy material and he tugged it loose from the rest of the junk he usually carried. He held it up for the male to see; a loop of soft black material with two, black, disks.
"I can't repay you for all of this," the male sighed reaching for the goggles. "I can't repay you for any of what you've done for me." He pulled the strap over the back of his head and adjusted the lenses over his eyes. Starch's arm then settled around his waist, the cool weight letting him know that the Exotic wasn't leaving now that his mission was accomplished. "Starch," he darted his head around trying to see everything at once. "Starch, where are the colors?! What happened to the colors?!"
"shhhh."
The male tried to calm himself as the arm around his waist tightened for a moment. Exhaustion was pulling him under and the adrenalin shooting through his system wasn't helping any.
"We'll talk about it later, he's going to wake up and we need to get you to bed. I'll wait and explain everything to him don't worry about it."
~
Starch closed the door and motioned for Black to precede him down the hall toward the side passage where their rooms were located. Snape hadn't woken while they were cleaning up but he had heard the Human heartbeat speed up to a rate that indicated consciousness. One hand in his pocket, the other holding the courier bag to his side, Starch tried not to think too much about how he would explain to Snape about his latest gift.
"So," Sirius broke the silence. "What was with the sunglasses?"
'Leave it to the Human to avoid everything that really should be talked about,' he smirked in an oddly gentle way. Those sorts of characteristic behaviors were, after all, what made Humans so interesting. "They are called Shutters, and their most widely publicized feature is their extreme cost. Aside from that, they work a bit like sunglasses, but block all light from entering."
Sirius thought for a moment. "But, wouldn't that make it impossible for him to see? I mean, light has to get in for the eye to see. Is that what he meant about the colors?"
Starch smiled and it showed in his voice. "He said you were smart. Yes, Shutters would make you blind while you're wearing them, but they have a sort of charm on them that translates everything into outlines. I understand it looks a bit like the reverse image of a child's coloring scroll; black filled with silver outlines."
"Will you tell me why he lost it?"
Starch glanced over at the Human. Deep brown eyes stared back into his own for a moment. "Do you expect an answer?"
"Not really. Doesn't seem your style."
"Then, why ruin my reputation?" He smiled, showing his blunt teeth. The Human suddenly realized he had been staring down a Vampire and looked away. Before they parted to head to their separate doors, he spoke again, not teasing this time. "You were a help." Black paused with his door half open. "He heard you, and…well…thanks."
Entering his own rooms before Black could come up with a pointless response, Starch set his bag back down by the door and went to make coffee for Lenore, she'd be waking up soon.
'I really am blessed,' he thought with wonder, catching sight of his wife while passing their bedchamber door. He knew guilt should have been eating him undead, but she knew. 'And she chose me anyway.' He smiled when she finally stirred, smelling the perking coffee. "Good evening luv. Java's near done."