Oh gosh! There has been a lot of junk happening and I'll just assume that you don't want to hear me moan about my RL.
Again I have not dropped this and the next chapter has already been started. I also strongly believe that it will be the fabled and much touted Last Chapter.
Please no suits and no annoyance over my use of the many characters, places, and phenomenon that I have been "borrowing" from movies, books, tv shows, and in a few cases Real Life. I make no money from any of these things. I DO intend to make money from my own inventions…but that is another matter entirely.
Gryffindor-320 Points- Romulus receives Ten Points for transferring back to my fic; Frogfoot receives Ten Points for listening for insinuation and expecting multiple meanings.
Slytherin-320 Points- if you reviewed and I didn't count you tell me, or review this chapter and get some points for your House.
Ravenclaw-40 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- if you reviewed and I didn't count you tell me, or review this chapter and get some points for your House.
Chapter 52:
The male lunged forward thrusting Snape back and reaching out with his knife. Swiftly he pierced the woman's back between two ribs. Sheathing the blade quickly he tried to ascertain whether or not his actions had been noticed and recognized for what they were.
Still very much alert to the dangers around him, the male relaxed from his subtle ready-to-fight stance. The other Death Eaters were too drunk on power, alcohol, and blood to have paid any real attention.
Snape had responded to the Dark Lord's summons. The usual activities that accompanied a Dark Revel had made it nearly impossible to stand by and watch without taking action. 'And so,' the male mentally lashed himself, 'what do I do? I add more blood to my hands! Another innocent dies because I decided it was the easiest way to handle the situation…'
The cloaked and masked figures who had made sport of the woman had been loosing interest in her. They were not even annoyed when she coughed up a bit of red froth and went still, it was easy enough to just move on to another, fresher Muggle.
Gritting his teeth behind the mask he wore, the male seethed with frustrated rage at the fact that he could do no better than end the suffering of a few of the more horribly abused Muggles. Making choices that resulted in the deaths of women and children he slipped through the merry crowd, largely unnoticed and not bothering to take the time to clean his blade.
His path was suddenly intersected by a scuttling, hunched over figure that was every bit as recognizable as any member of the Fates; Pettigrew.
"Our Dark Lord summons you," the small man wheezed. Leading the way back toward the stairs the unstably minded man didn't bother to make sure he was being followed. His days of squeaking for scraps of food and attention were over! He was important now! Even powerful, important men obeyed him. And secretly, he knew they feared him too.
The male followed, as he was expected to, busy all the while trying to awaken Snape. Obviously even if no one had noticed his actions his presence had been noted, and by Lord Voldemort at that.
Pettegrew led him down a red-carpeted hall with dark wood paneling adorned with gold-framed paintings. He wasn't looking at his surroundings so much as remembering the vague sense of the place he had gotten from Snape's many trips down the same hall, and matching those impressions with his current surroundings. It took less focus and less effort to see the place as a whole, rather than trying to analyze it all afresh.
Placing his artificial hand upon the door handle Pettegrew seemed to be waiting for something. The male made some, vague, and deferential gesture and the man seemed pleased- he opened the door at any rate.
'Of course, he'd be just as happy to escort us to our execution…' the male thought, hesitating another moment. 'Where are you?!' He stepped forward and entered the richly appointed private sitting room of Lord Voldemort. 'I can't wait before the open door, not with the Dark Lord expecting him to just walk in and bow, but then…he must already know that he isn't dominant. So, Voldemort purposely summoned…me? Not Good.'
"You are dismissed, Wormtail," Voldemort lifted one hand to emphasize his statement. When the door was respectfully closed, Voldemort remained seated before the large fireplace and watched the male with half closed, but observant eyes.
The male remained standing two steps into the room.
The dry grate of Voldemort's voice broke the several minutes of silence. "You…can not find him." It was not a question. Voldemort rose to his feet and slowly approached the male. "As you continue to fight, you are killing him…"
"No," the male shut his mouth fast enough to click his teeth. He faced forward into the room as Voldemort circled and nearly brush against him.
"You wish, to…protect him then?"
The question was spoken in his ear as the Dark Lord passed between him and the door. "I must. Even from himself." His voice was firm. But as Voldemort came around to face him again, he saw a strangely familiar glimmer of triumph in the man's ruby eyes.
"Even from, yourself?"
Starch kept pace with the female as she led him down a corridor in the dungeons of Hogwarts. The passage was oddly warm and had a thin ground fog that swirled lazily in the space ahead of them and puffed up when their feet hit the stones of the floor.
The female had come to him in the early morning with the news that the male had returned from the Dark Revel much the worse for wear. The symptoms she had described did not bode well for his friend, 'And Sev has some medical training so it was a more accurate description than the observations of most…'
With no warning the relatively close walls of the hallway opened up, and out, to reveal a large cavern. Starch acknowledged the light but did not bother to note either it's source, or it's odd colour. His whole focus was on the large pool of dark water that separated him from the male, but he followed the female's running lead and charged straight at the rocky ledge/bank without slowing.
He accepted the narrow bridge that grew out ahead of them as just a part of the experience to be thought about later, when the male was fine and safe.
The rock slab island at the center of the lake was covered in a thick, soft moss, but the only thing Starch was concerned with was the figure huddled under the female's discarded cloak.
Dropping to his knees from a dead run, so fast he had to catch himself with his hands, Starch immediately focused his Vampiric awareness on the butterfly soft heart beat of his patient. 'Not good not good, too slow,' he thought, even as he shifted his focus to respirations and temperature.
As he pulled the cloak off the unconscious male a pale blue light fell over his shoulder augmenting the ambient light of the cavern. The female was leaning over his shoulder providing the light of her eyes for him to continue his examination by.
Without ceasing his actions, Starch vocalized his confused thoughts. "There are no injuries."
"If there had been I would have tended and told you of them." The female's response was as flat as the placid water that surrounded them.
"He's not in a classic shock." The male's eyes had to be manually pulled open so that his pupils could be seen. Under the light of both the cavern and the female's eyes Starch was troubled by the fact that not even an instinctive or programmed response was triggered by such potentially threatening contact. "It's nearly a coma…"
"When we Glammed back to Hogsmead he was disoriented and actually complained of being hungry. I had trouble keeping him awake and had to carry him this far."
The female's concern was well founded. So far as Starch could tell, the male was suffering from something like what Vampires experience if they do not feed for an extended period of time. Similar to being anemic, but because of the modifications done by the people who ran the Facility simple feeding would not be enough."He needs the blood of his Human Sire." Starch said as he pushed one hand through his hair, "I guess I'll have to go aboveground and try to reason with Dumbledore again." He received no reaction from the female. Looking at her he could see that little of what he had said had registered. "Of course none of that makes sense to you, charms and all…I forget he's not the only one sometimes, sorry." Rising to his feet, Starch realized that there was no bridge to cross the lake upon.
The female saw him hesitate and spoke up, softly. "She'll provide a bridge just show her where you want it. He- he'll be alright, won't he?"
Hogwarts kept a few paces ahead of the one going for help. The Early morning sunlight coming through her windows would harm him and prevent his getting aid to the injured one, so she drew the stones together; filling in the windows until he was safely past.
--'-,------
'There really should be a term for a Vampire's accelerated run,' Starch thought irrelevantly as he ran down the hall toward the stairs to the aboveground portion of the school. 'Dash? Rush? Runn with two'n's? No, that's silly. Something the Vampire Council would probably go for, but silly anyway...'
Darting around the few students in the halls as though they were moving in slow motion Starch stopped before the Gargoyle that guarded the Headmaster's office and living-quarters.
It was not a traditional lock; any Vampire could have passed it without slowing if it had been. Charmed locks took more focus and more strength to open, which is why there are more historic records of Vampire attacks on Muggles than on Wizards. Non-traditional locks though, locks that are but aren't locks, like a knotted rope or charmed door guardian, are opened only based on the Vampire's ability to perceive the 'Intention of Lock'. The ability to appreciate things differently, in their intended state rather than their current state, is one of the most basic differences between an old Vampire, and an Ancient.
Keeping himself Obscured, Starch stared at the Gargoyle. His eyes flashed a golden-yellow as the Gargoyle resisted such rough treatment, but it opened anyway.
Dashing up the spiraling escalator Starch's eyes sparked yellow as he flung open the Headmaster's office door and was stopped undead on the threshold.
Alastor Moody frowned his bishop forward five white diagonal squares to capture a rather disgruntled looking knight. "I did tell you that a Vampire was a bad idea," he grumbled to Albus, without looking up from their game.
Albus sighed, again, and turned from the game to face the outraged Ancient in his doorway. "Ignatius, what is it that brings you up so late in the morning?"
"Suicide?" Alastor offered, only half joking.
"You put an Un-Invite on your office?!" he choked out, once he found the words again. "Wait- you count this as part of your Private Quarters?!" Shaking his head of spiked grey not-quite-hair Starch refocused on what he needed to be saying instead. Holding up one pearl-pale hand he blurted in a confusing rush of words, "No, I don't care how territorial you are or aren't, Severus needs your help. I was wrong, it's not a solely triggered event, the Vampiric nature is also age- or development related, or they have a way to broadcast some sort of trigger. Whatever the case he is badly in need of blood."
'Lenore will kill me if I get blood on the carpet,' Starch thought as he slid the needle from Albus' arm. 'She'd kill me if she knew I was running the ground level halls at nearly seven a.m.…not to mention going up a tower.'
"I think I am goin' to fall athleep," Albus' speech was slightly slurred.
Starch was able to keep his reaction to the blood in check with a Blood pop in his cheek. 'After giving three pints he has a right to feel a tad under the weather, I suppose,' he thought as he moved to check Moody's bag. Passing the sitting room table that Lenore had insisted they (meaning he) have brought over from their London flat, he grabbed an apple from the fruit piled on the center of the table and tossed it to the woozy Headmaster.
Looking at the shiny green apple with mild confusion Albus tried to stand, but fell back into the seat before successfully rising to his feet. "An, apple? I thought you, Vampires I mean, only drank blood."
"We do," Starch replied with an unintentional half smile. "I am willing to put up with it because the smell and color make my wife so happy. Moody, I do think Severa is doing better than she would otherwise. You should consider releasing those last charms soon. If she can cope with it fast enough she may be able to help Severus."
"You've been giving blood?" Speaking around a bite of apple, Albus directed his question to Alastor.
"I may not like the Exotic…" The retired Auror applied pressure to the gauze as instructed, once Starch had removed the needle from his arm. "Through Severus he has a tie to Severa so I trust him when it comes to her care. And I don't have to like him to know he is trying to take care of Severa to the best of his ability."
Opening the bag he had just drawn from Moody, Starch poured the still warm liquid into a goblet and placed it on the table beside the fruit display. "I'll send her in when I get there. Make sure she drinks all of it, and quickly. It does her no good if it has time to loose more than thirty percent of it's Vita Content," Starch ordered. "Not that your kind have a clew about Vita Content," he added under his breath as he left with three bags of Dumbledore blood.
Crossing Smeagol Lake on the bridge that Hogwarts extended ahead of him Starch reached the male and female nearly fast enough to make him feel that it hadn't taken too long.
Speaking as he tore into the first bag Starch sent the female to her guardian. She left obediently, but quite reluctantly nonetheless.
Starch sat cross-legged on the moss-covered rocks of the island and held the male close. The white stick of a nearly spent Blood Pop bobbed as he moved the sucker past his fangs and from one side of his mouth to the other. Gently he rubbed the male's throat in the same manner he would have used to encourage a weak Fledgling to take its initial infusion of blood.
The rattling crackle that marked the removal of a wrapper from another Blood Pop, and an occasional –plop- as a fish broke the glassine surface of the lake, were the only obvious sounds in the chamber. Starch held onto the ghosting whisper of breath and thread of pulse beats as though his own existence depended upon them.
The male's throat constricted and some of the ruby drops were swallowed.
Starch tried to not count down how much time was left before the blood would loose enough Vita Count to make it a valueless red syrup.
---'---,------------------
"Severa," Alastor greeted her as he moved aside to let her enter his sitting room. Suddenly it seemed a much harder task than it had a moment ago. 'Where did my resolve go?' he wondered as he led her into the room and indicated that she should sit. 'I'm taking too long to start this, she already knows something is wrong….she's too smart to believe this is just a friendly visit.'
The female began moving with more caution the longer he remained silent. When her actions were noticeably guarded Alastor forced himself to say something. "Severa, drink this," he said, brusquely indicating the goblet on the small table near the sofa. 'Great, that was almost bad enough to count as small talk. Damn it Moody! Stop worrying over whether she'll be able to forgive you for it and try, thinking about her and what she needs!'
The female swallowed the contents of the goblet and placed it back in exactly the same location it had been moved from. She pulled her feet up so that she was sitting with them to one side while she leaned on one arm of the chair.
"I want to speak with you about something that has happened. It is not your fault and there was nothing you could have done to change the events around it or the events that have occurred since."
She said nothing, though she did hug her knees in a deceptively self-protective fashion. It was deceptive because, as he well knew, she could easily kick out with one or both legs in nearly any direction, roll away, or spring straight up with very little wasted motion to give warning.
Alastor took a steadying breath and stopped berating himself for his cowardice. "Severa, I need you to give me a briefing on what you think of Severus." As his emotions came back under control the female also relaxed, shifting her position so that she was more or less laying in the chair rather than huddled up in it.
"He is a leader and strategist. He tends toward covert action with minimal impact and minimal conflict. If there is a weakness he will exploit it and if there is none he will create one. His greatest strength is probably his ability to get others to want to do what he wants them to do." She made the assessment without conscious thought and there was no hesitation in her words.
Whatever she reported was not what he was really after so he was neither encouraged nor discouraged by her initial comments. "What do you think of him?" he asked again.
She sat up properly now, feet on the floor. "He has an incredible will to be free, yet is willing to be absolutely submissive for a leader he trusts. His Clan is an extension of his own self and his care of them is a substitute for the care he has never received. He is a broken thing trying to survive and knowing he has none of what he needs to live, but feeling that such is his proper state. He is dangerous because he is so efficient and because he is willing to suffer. A willingness to suffer is something in an opponent that you can not effectively strategize against."
Alastor recognized the answers as trained responses, the first was a strictly combat oriented analysis of the male's strengths and weaknesses. The second was a very abbreviated emotional/psychological profile. "What do you think of him?" Alastor asked a third time.
Severa blinked softly glowing eyes and thought for a moment. "I- I like him. He's been through things that I don't understand, and I admire the fact that he tries so hard to overcome those things…he has taken me in and never required a reciprocal, which is against his nature. I trust him. Completely."
Alastor wiped one hand quickly over his eyes and across his face. "Thank you Severa. I have one last thing to say. I love you-" She started to smile when he paused to take an extra breath so he hurried to finish, "Severa, 'You, are half on the wire ball.'"
'Stop touching him, it's just waking him up and he needs to rest,' Starch told himself as he again straightened the blankets and brushed at the sleeping figure's greasy black hair.
"Did he get enough?" Albus Dumbledore stood just outside the bedchamber door.
Starch watched as the male's too expressive face subtly shifted from controlled pain, to nearly awake, and back to almost soundly asleep. "They are fighting, wrestling for control. Voldemort made his move but he played it ill." Turning away suddenly, he couldn't stomach watching his friend suffer beyond his ability to help, he brushed past the Headmaster and closed the door softly.
"Ignatius-"
Starch interrupted more gently than he felt the man deserved. "While you were giving blood for him you were thinking about him, weren't you?" He paused, with his back to the great Wizard, his spatial awareness told him that a slight motion had been made, a nod or a shrug. "Through the blood you gave, you expressed things to him that you never told him outright. The pride you felt when he excelled at a class, the pleasure you felt while playing chess with him, simple enjoyment of him as a separate being, never expressed to him, never felt by him."
"I, didn't know how…"
Starch wanted nothing more than to run back to the male's bedside and forget about unresolved family issues. 'But those issues are all I can help him with now.' He raked his fingers through his bristling hair. "The struggle you can see, the struggle that has him so incapacitated now, is because of what Voldemort has done. He revealed his intentions. He never wanted Snape, he wants the Garom."
The Headmaster drew in a breath, but said nothing.
It was a nervous habit, running his fingers through his hair, Starch caught himself doing it again and stopped with his hand on the back of his neck and rubbed the tense muscles there. "And as you can guess, Snape doesn't like the idea that he is being played solely because of what he hides." Starch turned but did not look Albus in the eye. "The struggle you can't see is Severus trying to make the love you conveyed through your blood, come into line with the fact that he apparently never earned the courtesy of its expression."
"I." Albus began, hotly, but Starch looked up sharply and he could not continue his denial. "I, failed him."
The admission was self-revelatory and not meant for Starch at all. He had been around long enough to understand that, but he still had to struggle to remain silent instead of driving the stake home himself.
Albus sank down onto the only chair in the Potion Masters' sitting room. "I've lost him, haven't I?" It was not really a question.
"He drank of you." The resentment behind those words was so faint even Starch failed to hear it.
The male made a soft, mewling sort of noise but did not waken fully. The struggle to gain enough control to make even such a small and meaningless sound exhausted him.
That single, tiny cry was enough though; Starch's presence returned. And this time the Exotic did not leave his range of perception.