PG-13 Methos takes a young Severus Snape under his wing.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters.

Death & Betrayal

by MarbleGlove

Kingsley had betrayed him. Severus was furious. He had lasted four years as a spy the first time and then another two years after the dark lords resurrection, only to be betrayed by one of the members of Albus' precious order. He knew he should have remained firm and refused to have his cover broken in any way, even after the war seemed over fifteen years ago. But he had wanted ... friends. Or perhaps not friends, but companions, compatriots, other people to interact with without having to constantly pretend to be someone other than himself. And that desire had cost him his position among the Death Eaters and had almost cost him his life.

Admittedly, Kingsley had not betrayed him willingly. The Auror had been tortured and the dark lord had used legilamens on him before killing him. None the less, Kingsley had held a secret that was dangerous to Severus and had given that secret to Severus' enemy. Willing or not, it was still betrayal. It was one more confirmation that no one was to be trusted. Kingsley Shacklebolt had been nice but in the end, not trustworthy.

Severus was a spy. He had hidden what he was doing for so very long. Nearly two decades from a man who could read his mind. And it was because he was very much not a nice man. It was too easy to think nice is equivalent to noble and that nasty or bitter or angry is equivalent to evil. Gryffindors always seem to think that way, Severus thought with a snort. Although members of his own house seemed to have the same prejudices. Slytherins tended to think that anyone with a noble cause must necessarily be naive, gullible, and generally stupid. Severus was none of these things.

Severus truly hated Harry Potter and all of the Marauders, both living and dead. He knew himself to be truly bitter about his fate and the way in which the world works. And he was not resigned to let it go on as it is, as so many wizards are who allow the war to be waged without them. He wanted to act and change things. And those are the feelings that Voldemort perceives when he looks at Severus. But woven through these feelings is also a purpose, a goal, that Severus hesitates to call noble, but the word does fit. Goals are much more difficult to read than emotions. Even harder to read than memories or surface thoughts. Being a spy meant that Severus had to rigorously control his thoughts, his very personality. He had to carefully balance his hatreds and his intentions, and he had to be careful to never, ever lie. Lies could give him away. Lies would get him caught. But the truth could be just as misleading, just as confusing, and the truth could be his camouflage.

Even if Voldemort could read Severus' purpose, chances are he would believe Severus was still loyal. His goal was to become powerful, to be acknowledged as great and to have those lesser than himself proven so in the eyes of society, but also to create a world in which those like him are allowed a way to greatness and not held back by the lesser masses.

It is only in his definition of "lesser than him" and "like him" that he differs from Voldemort. Those like him are the smart, the driven, the ones who feel the needed to succeed. They should be allowed a chance at success, no matter their family or their bloodlines or their finances. And those lesser than him are the weak-willed, the idiotic, the unmotivated. Those like James and Harry Potter who each had or have power and intelligence but seem to lack all motivation. Wizards and witches who are easily fooled into being followers. Those like Peter Pettigrew and the Lestranges who couldn't even see what they were become. Their failures should be obvious to all rather than have them elevated to artificial greatness by either hanging onto the coattails of a powerful slave master or being celebrated for a mere matter of birth that they had no control over.

In Severus view, people were either powerful or weak, and in the end, Kingsley Shacklebolt had proven weak. Even after torture and the use of legilamens, Severus had not broken as the Auror had. Voldemort had proof of Severus' betrayal, of his working with the Order of the Phoenix, but he never did find any disloyalty within Severus' mind.

Severus smirked. His discovery as a traitor to the Dark Lord had done just as much harm to the Death Eaters as his spying had. The Dark Lord would never again trust any of his followers. He had always depended upon legilamens to test his followers. Some were more loyal than others but the Dark Lord always had a sense of where they stood on the continuum and acted accordingly. But Severus had destroyed his faith in this knowledge. Even under torture, Severus had never broken down and confessed in either word or thought.

The dark lord had circumstantial evidence of his long term betrayal of the cause, and Adam had added confirmation by his rescue, but there had never been a confession. He had single-handedly changed the way wizarding wars would be fought from now on. From now until the end of eternity, all wizarding leaders would have to be wary of spies amongst their followers. It was a new weapon that Severus had created and it was not a poison or a potion of any sort. It was a weapon of terror against any leader, the knowledge that they might trust someone long past the time of their betrayal.

Severus wondered how many of the Death Eaters understood what had happened. How many of them understood that they now stood in more danger from their lord than they did from the Aurors. The Aurors wanted their capture, but the Dark Lord would now be paranoid and suspicious of every one of his followers. The smart ones would run.

The idiots would stay and try to prove their loyalty in elaborate plans of attack. And when those plans failed as they invariably would, anyone capable of planning a successful attack would have realized their danger and run away, Lord Voldemort would see their failure as further proof of their disloyalty.

He knew, and he was sure the dark lord knew, that the final battle would have to be soon. If the dark lord waited for too long he would be sadly lacking in followers, having scared them all away or perhaps killed them.

The Order of the Phoenix was convened at Grimauld Place to discuss events. Severus was still furious, but the rest of the members were all mournful and regretful over poor Kingsley's fate. Severus wanted to yell at them all, rant about how Kingsley had failed. Instead he pulled out his wand and contemplated it.

He ignored Mad-Eye Moody who had pulled out his own wand in response and was staring at him, suspiciously as always.

The wand looked just like the one that he had first gotten at age ten. There were maybe three people alive in the world who knew that it was not. The number depended on whether Ollivander had ever happened to see it. Ollivander had a trick of being able to recognize any wand he had ever made and he would have noticed the fact that this wand was not his, no matter how similar the appearance.

He had been caught as a spy before this. Only once before.

It had been in the second year of actively spying, that Severus had first been caught out. He had felt adventurous and immortal and had snuck into the old Nott Manor and was going through the papers in the study. The elder Nott was one of Voldemort's top strategists and he had said something earlier that week that had roused Severus' curiosity but was annoyingly silent about the topic after that. Severus had decided to see what he could discover one night when Nott and another Death Eater strategist were in a meeting with the Dark Lord. The meeting hadn't lasted as long as he had expected and they had surprised him, still in Nott's study.

He had taken some rather severe wounds from various curses and had only managed to disable one of them when Nott had gotten his wand away from him. Nott's face had been white with rage as he slowly enumerated all the things that would be done to Severus for his betrayal. He had started out the list by snapping Severus' wand. He had punctuated the rest of the list with various curses and hexes.

Severus had burned with more than the fire that ate at his skin. Inside he was also determined to get out of this. If he could just make it back to Adam, everything would be all right. Adam was almost obsessive in his knowledge and study of healing potions. He just needed to hold on, remain conscious and await his chance.

Finally it had come. Nott had approached too closely and Severus had brought out one of the knives that Adam had insisted on teaching him the use of. Wizards almost never expected a physical attack and Nott appeared to not even notice what had happened before he collapsed. Severus had dispatched the other wizard while he was still unconscious from their previous scuffle.

With the last of his strength he had used Nott's wand to create a portkey to Adam's manor. It was more effort than apparating but less chance of splinching. He didn't remember arriving.

When he next woke up, he was better. He had all of his skin, and all of his teeth, as ugly as ever, and he didn't see any bruises. There were bottles of various potions lined up on the bedside table. Several of them were empty and none of them contained what they had when he had last seen them in the supply cabinet. He carefully eyed them all to see what exactly Adam had given him and in what doses.

He winced as the analyses let him know exactly how bad his state had been when he had first arrived. Most people never had to use quite that much of most of the individual potions and he thought it was rare for anyone to survive a situation that required some of these combinations.

None the less, he felt relatively good. The only thing lacking from his bedside table was a wand.

He wondered what he would say to Ollivander when he went to replace it. Ollivander was not kind to those who broke their wands. And wands were not exactly inexpensive items. And he would have to get to Ollivander's, walking through Diagon Alley without a wand. None of these were pleasant ideas and he decided that for the time being he would consider himself to be still recovering and in need of further mental rest and therefore postpone thinking about the situation. Adam didn't like him using his wand around this place anyway.

He put on the muggle robe and slippers that were set out at the foot of his bed and went off in search of his mentor.

It was after something of a search that Severus finally found him in a small workspace between several of the large laboratories that they generally worked in. He had a piece of wand-shaped wood, probably ebony, that he was carefully drilling a hole into down the length. It looked like the wood base for his old, now broken, wand.

"Adam?"

"Ah, Severus. How are you feeling?" Adam turned his face to be more or less pointed at Severus though he kept his eyes focused on his work.

"Much better. Thank you."

"Good. Look at the table beside you. I've put my collection of wands there. Take them individually and test them out in the hallway. Be careful not to point them at anything fragile."

"You have a collection of wands?"

"As you see."

Severus coughed with impatience and noticed that Adams eyes crinkled in amusement. "Why do you have a collection of wands? How do yo have a collection of wands? Did you make them all?"

Adam finally laughed and looked up, putting his little hand drill aside. "No. Most of them I've simply kept from the various wizards that I've killed."

Severus was silent at that.

"Go try them out. If none of them work, I'm making another one here."

As Severus went into and out of the room with the various wands he tried not to think of the previous owners. Nott and his companion were the only two men he had ever killed. While he didn't feel guilty precisely, he did regret it. He knew he was emotionally fragile at the moment because of it and he watched himself carefully for fear of breaking down. And it was unnerving to have his mentor mention killing so casually. And it was a large collection of wands. He wondered whether he had the personal strength to ask about the previous owner if one of these wands chose him. He rather thought that Adam would answer the question if he had the courage to ask it. Adam would probably describe the wizard just as dispassionately as he had mentioned their deaths and just as insightfully as he could describe any other person Severus asked about. He would be forced to think of the previous owner as a real person rather than a more shadowy figure. Nott was a real person to whom he had talked and whose son had been a classmate. His companion was someone that Severus only vaguely recognized in passing. It was easier to deal with the second killing than the first.

Over all he was rather glad that none of the wands were perfect. A few of them worked well enough to make do with should Adam's creation not work either. They would work well enough to get him to Ollivander's at least. He kept those separate from the rest.

Between wand trials he had watched Adam work on the new wand and had seen Adam cut himself and bleed into the wand, allowing the blood to soak into the unpolished wood of the core in the hole that was drilled there.

When Severus had finished trying out all the wands Adam had left on the table, he came sat on the table with them and watched Adam finish with the wand he was making.

"Human blood can't be used as a wand core."

"Severus, who do you think I am?"

"It is not something I have thought much on."

"You? Not curious?"

Severus flushed. "I have tried not to infringe on your privacy."

"But if you had to guess?"

"I have sometimes wondered. And now that I know you can't be human. Your eyes. And your vast hoard of stuff, the incredibly rare and precious mixed in with the complete trash. There have always been rumors of some dragons capable of becoming animagi. Human animagi. And you have power, magic, but you are not a wizard."

Adam seemed positively delighted with this analysis. "No. I am not a dragon." The laughter left his eyes and voice as he continued. "Voldemort knows who I am. Or at least he has a good guess. He sent eleven minions to steal from me. Eleven replaceable minions. And while he was upset at the failure, he tried nothing further. With a war going against the wizarding world, he could not afford a war against me. Who am I that I can warn him off like that?"

"I don't know."

"Who am I that you first saw me in robes of white?"

"A killer and a betrayer. A teacher and a guide."

Adam just looked at him.

"A teacher and a guide." Severus said firmly. "And a killer and a betrayer." He was silent for a moment and then looked at Adam something like horror and something like awe. "Not a killer or a betrayer. The killer and the betrayer. You really are Death and you really are the Beloved Traitor, aren't you."

"Yes."

"The scholars who believe that the Betrayal of Death was an actual event believe it happened over three millennium ago. Another faction of scholars believe that it is merely a metaphor for the development of modern wizardry and the spells to prevent wizards from dying due to famine, pestilence, or muggle war."

"Yes."

Severus couldn't think of anything further to say. He knew he should be terrified of his mentor, but then, he had known that even before this revelation. After a moment Adam looked back to the wand he was working on.

Severus silently watched Adam finish the wand. When he tried it out, it fit him perfectly.

Whenever he contemplated his wand, he thought about how it's core contained the blood of Death and Betrayal. Sometimes he tried to think about how it was made by Death and Betrayal. But it just didn't stay in his head like that. His wand was made by Adam. Adam, his mentor. Adam, who was Death and Betrayal and whose blood resided in his wand. Severus shook his head.

He had never understood why Adam had first decided to mentor him, but apparently the decision was a true one. Or perhaps even his blood was capable of betrayal. Even before he had changed wands, he hadn't really liked charms or transfiguration. After having been chosen by this new wand, he was even more wary of "foolish wand waving." A wand and the magic it allowed was not something that should be taken for granted.

This knowledge had made him an ever better spy as it made him aware of things that most purebloods never noticed and to which even mudbloods became accustomed.

Severus wondered how many of these implications Adam intended with his various revelations. For all of Albus' act of omniscience, he was nicely blunt in comparison to Adam at times.

The conversation around the table had apparently changed while he was contemplating his wand. It had turned to Adam, the man that only the Hogwarts contingent and Lupin had met, but of whom all of them were now aware. He had to prompt Albus to repeat the question he had asked before. It was, as usual, an odd question to start off.

"All those books you've placed orders for over the years, they've been for Adam, right?" Severus knew he should have expected Albus to have contacts with all the good book stores and be aware of his odder orders. Though most of those had taken place during the previous war. They would have looked even odder then, since he had no money to spend and was still purchasing large quantities of books using an unknown Gringotts account. He wondered why Albus had never asked him before.

"Yes. His library was woefully out of date when I first met him."

"Why would anyone want ten copies of the Monster Book of Monsters?"

Severus knew he didn't manage to suppress the wince that this question brought. "Adam thought it would be amusing to have a, er, pack, of trained attack books guarding his library. I had to get them young and right off the press for him to train. They are quite effective."

Most of the other members at the table winced at this thought. Madam Pince however looked rather thoughtful, which should probably worry Albus.

After this he was bombarded with questions that he answered briefly. Yes, Adam had been his potions master as well as his mentor in spying. Yes, Adam had always struck him as being a powerful being, but he had never actually seen him perform any type of magic other than potions brewing. No, he had no idea what kind of spell had allowed Adam to survive the death curse or create the violent response that the Potter boy had seen in his dreams.

It was more or less accurate. Severus was careful to stick to the truth. He didn't know of any spell that would have those results. However, he didn't mention that he had a pretty good idea that it wasn't a spell at all but merely an aspect of the sort of creature that Adam was. None of the people asking him questions thought to ask him whether or not Adam was human and he didn't tell them.

Eventually the questions tapered off and the others started discussing their opinions and beliefs about how useful Adam would be in the coming battle. Severus knew that he would have to let them know that there was very little chance of Adam participating and even less of a chance of him doing so in any way that they directed. However it didn't matter if they discussed it now and wore each other out. Then when he did tell them, they might be less inclined to argue with him.

He settled back silently to watch them all discuss the impossible and to await his cue to burst all of their dreams.

Severus smirked.

Remus Lupin had, deep in his heart, thought that he was better than his friends. He was a werewolf and extremely violent on the nights of the full moon, but he wasn't malicious in the way that Sirius sometimes had been. He had never picked on Snape in the way James had. He had even tried to stop the other Marauders from taunting Snape.

It was only now that he realized how great it had made him feel to have someone that he, a werewolf, could look down on, for whom he could feel pity. He hadn't spoken up very loudly to stop the others from picking on Snape. It had felt too good for there to be someone who was treated worse than he. He might be a werewolf and derided for that, but people liked and respected him when they knew him and maybe he didn't have a job, but when he did, he was liked and respected by his students and colleagues alike. Unlike Snape.

Now he felt small and dirty and nasty, because it was only now that he realized this about himself. For the first time he realized how comforting that feeling of superiority had been because suddenly it was absent.

For the first time in either of their lives, Snape had something that Remus wanted. He had the attention of Adam.

Adam had fought Remus in his wolf form. Adam had claimed prime alpha status and had forced Remus to accept it. And now that Remus had accepted it, Adam had gone away again leaving Remus without his alpha. For a few short hours, Remus had been a member of a pack, not just of equals or of non-prey types as his school friends had been, but a pack that had a leader, another to take care of him. A pack of two, but a pack none the less. And now he was alone again.

In this meeting there was a chance of getting his alpha back. He truly believed that, given what information they had, Adam could be a great ally in the coming battle, but in the end, he wanted Adam back for personal reasons. He needed to let the others know that while he desperately wanted the man back he was not unbiased.

"We need him. I, I need him." Remus felt ashamed, but still admitted that he longed for the presence of the man who had controlled him when he was in wolf form; who had given him the control that he couldn't give to himself.

"No!" Severus response was sudden and violent and brought all of their attention to him. He continued in a softer voice but it was still intent and his eyes bored into those he looked at. "No, we do not need him. You will not need him. You, we, whoever, may want him, may like him, may desire him, may find him useful, any of those things. But you will not need him. The instant you need him, he will turn on you. If you are lucky, he will simply disappear and you will never see him again. If you try to constrain him, to demand of him what you feel you need, he will destroy you before disappearing. Don't. Just don't. Don't need him." Severus laughed and it was not a pleasant sound. "His brothers once needed him."

"His brothers?" Albus asked, but Severus waved off the question.

"Surely if he knew that we needed him to help us ... ?" Remus asked.

Severus snorted. "If you try to use guilt as a tool, he will laugh in your face."

Minerva spoke up. "I barely met the man, but there are certain creatures that you cannot control. Most cats refuse to be controlled. Instead you have to ask them and convince them of their desire to do some activity."

Dumbledore took this as his cue to speak up. "What do you suggest we do, Severus?"

Severus sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I think we should make our plans without any thought of having Adam's help. However he is a powerful person and he had demonstrated his willingness to act under certain circumstances. So I suggest that you, Albus, write him a letter letting him know of all your plans and providing him with a portkey to Hogwarts. Ask nothing of him, but let him know that he is welcome to participate should he wish. Make no assumptions and try no manipulations."

"You want us to send all of our plans to some stranger?" Mad-Eye Moody was sure his suspicions of Snape were now confirmed. "You traitor!"

Snape looked down his long nose at the other man and sneered. "Of course, I'm a traitor, you schizophrenic idiot. Have you not noticed me betraying the dark lord for the past twenty years? Or perhaps your constant vigilance failed to notice my recent torture because an Auror gave me away?"

"Maybe it wasn't you who was betrayed. Eh, how did Voldemort get his hands on Kingsley? Maybe Voldemort has convinced you to go back to him and you want to hand deliver all of our plans to him."

Severus turned red with anger and Albus decided to intervene. "Moody, that's enough. Kingsley tried to take on too many Death Eaters on his own and was caught. It's a risk all aurors take and it doesn't mean there was a betrayal. You know that. And I trust Severus implicitly. However, I do want to know why Severus has suggested what he has. I don't mean to doubt you or anyone you trust, however, isn't there a chance that Adam might betray us?"

"Yes." Severus looked unconcerned. "That has always been a concern. However, I don't believe that he will. More importantly, I think if he were to decide that he strongly supported one side over the other, the side of his choice would win. At the moment, he doesn't have a strong opinion. If we try to force him to make a decision he will most likely act against us. However, we can invite him to help us, as a friend, and I believe if it is done simply and openly we will not be harmed and we will possibly be helped."

"Why not ask him, and then give him the information if he agrees?"

"Do you remember the meeting we had right after the dark lord had been resurrected? What you said to me at that meeting?"

Dumbledore remembered his own thoughts when Voldemort was newly resurrected and he was giving orders to all of the members of the Order of the Phoenix with the sole exception of Severus. In the end, he had known that he could not order Severus to do anything. Apparently that was a trait Severus had acquired from his mentor. "Very well. I will do as you suggest. Would you like to take the letter to him, or should I owl him, or perhaps stop by myself?"

"Owl it. It should come from you, and Adam does not react well to sudden visits by wizards."

A/N: I know that various people finding out about Adam and Death would be wonderfully dramatic. It's one of the few dramatic scenes Methos does in Highlander canon. I even mapped out a great scene taking place during a ball in the Great Hall with reactions from Snape, Dumbledore, Flitwick, Trewlaney, Harry, Ron, Hermione, as well as various Death Eaters and Cassandra who all happen to be hanging around, go figure. There were students fainting all around, and righteous and impassioned speeches from practically everyone with Methos coming out the ultimate winner. - Then I remembered how I've been trying to keep this fic rather simple as my first multi-chapter attempt, and my current Methos characterization just isn't right for it. However, I'm keeping the plan on the off chance that I decide to do another fic just to include those impassioned speeches and fainting students.