Puppets

Star: Nope, twasn't at all offended. No worries. Glad some things have been cleared up, though what they are I couldn't begin to imagine. I'm still confused.

Pure Black: Weird is my middle name you know… Well, actually it's Charmaine Denise, but in a figurative type of way.

Yana: Pretty much…

Kat: Only this is the last part of the 'Puppets' arc, I'm afraid. There is, of course, follow up, but it isn't ready for posting yet.

Luna: My husband doesn't check for spelling and grammar, he's more of a note taker. The world I've created is kind of extensive and I get distracted/confused easily so he keeps it in order for me.

Lis: Um. A while. Because Dumbledore would behead Snape if he caught him screwing around with his Golden Boy and Snape likes his head just where it is, you know?

Buttercup: Yeah, making you want more is all part of my sinister plot! Draw you in then string you along. Cause I'm evil. Yep.

Dani: …eh. Soon is a very relative term you know.

Debz and Sevvie Fan: Uh. Thanks. All interesting suggestions that, perhaps, you should try to write. I doubt Harry will ever be a vampire in this series.

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Part the Fourth

Darkness

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Snape paced the length of his office, considering the events of the past year. Things had more or less gone to hell in a hand basket. Sirius Black was very much dead, Remus Lupin was in the first stages of the Withering, Siri Lupin had vanished from sight, and Lord Voldemort was starting to call his allegiances into question.

Which was stupid, because he had no allegiances and Voldemort should have known that some time ago. He did what was best for him because he was an inherently selfish man. He cared very little, if at all, for who won in the short term as long as he came out on top in the long term. He had too much common sense to think for a second that the fight between 'Light and Dark' was ever going to end. Hell, he knew there weren't even really a light and a dark.

That was Dumbledore's greatest lie. The myth of Light and Dark, Good and Evil when in fact there were only various shades of gray. Yes he'd been versed in so called Dark Magics, but what made them dark? The ability to harm, to kill or the fact that he drew on darker parts of his soul to make the magic work perhaps?

Was being in touch with your less 'inspiring' qualities an evil thing? Was knowing that you held darkness in your heart and sometimes wanted to hurt others a bad thing? Did that make one evil?

Not really. A true wizard, one who knew how to wield their power to the fullest, understood that you had to truly know yourself. And not just the Ministry approved self who did benign magic so as not to alarm anyone, but your inner demons as well. If you didn't understand, control, and wield your demons correctly they could consume you.

Instead of controlling them they would control you. And then what the hell were you? Some pathetic…being, ruled by what you feared and hated instead of what you could achieve if you could just harness your ability and wield it like something other than a sniveling fearful coward.

That was Dumbledore and Voldemort's real problem. They let their demons control them; Dumbledore's fear of anyone more powerful than him destroying his perfect lie and Voldemort's desire to prove that his heritage didn't make him unworthy. Their fears made them who they were and that was why they would forever be weak.

Weakness was a big thing in the wizarding world. Everyone was so ready for a quick fix; a flick of the wand and everything would be better again. No one appreciated the slow burn of a potion, the effectiveness or herbs and plants, or the quiet, but very real, power of a ritual.

He knew he had darkness inside of him, bubbling away and twining around his soul. He was far from a fool and, as such, knew it was better to accept what he was and let the darkness flow through him rather than burn through him like a poison.

Pettigrew was a fine example of darkness like poison. His stupid friends had made him shun his darker urges, forced him to lock part of his soul in a deep dark corner and, eventually, it seeped out, breaking down his walls like a tidal wave and pulling him under, only to pull him away in the current.

It was like the Forbidden Curses. Most people couldn't really wield them correctly, even if they weren't forbidden from using them. You had to have the urge, the drive and will, behind your spell to make it work. If you didn't truly want to do harm, control, or kill the one you cast against the effect would be rather uninspiring.

But that was the thing they didn't teach you in school. No one mentioned harnessing rage and using it productively, because Rage was dark and black and a sickness.

"Father." Chase was standing in the doorway of his office, a strand of two-toned hair falling into his face. Chase wasn't big on rebellion so when he'd decided to turn his hair white he'd simply snorted and allowed it, finding the contrast of cinnamon and blond interesting. When he'd started piercing his ears he'd just allowed it.

It was a mildly productive way of harming himself at least.

Chase was a dark creature, as was he. They were born in touch with their darker halves, scratching away at their surface and demanding release. They couldn't deny what they were even if they wanted to. But at the same time he wasn't all darkness, he had overwhelming light inside of him as well.

Sometimes Severus swore he could feel the boy shattering from the inside as the light and darkness warred inside of him, unable (or perhaps unwilling) to find a balance. Why that was he didn't know. He wasn't the only Daywalker to be born, 'Walkers being the product of vampire unions with light non-dark creatures or humans, but for some odd reason there was simply no ability to achieve harmony inside of him.

He suffered for it. More than just his body slowly but surely failing him, with each increasingly powerful vision, and the images that controlled his mind. No, his soul suffered as well, falling apart at the seams with every moment. And he hurt himself. And what could Severus do but watch him wither away now, unable to do anything other than watch it?

He'd tried potion after potion to stave off the images and heal his son's body but they all proved to be temporary at best. The unconscious periods lasted longer, becoming comas. He could be unconscious for a month now and it wouldn't have been surprising.

Feeding was more difficult than ever. His body tried to heave anything that came in contact with it and he was just so…fractured.

"Chase." He said mildly, eyeing the teen. Small, he was just so…small. His jumper and jeans hung off of his thin frame almost obscenely. This wasn't the body of the child of a master vampire, but of a sickly child. "What's wrong?"

"Why do you watch him?" His voice was soft, barely above a whisper. Not to create some kind of air but because his throat was too torn to withstand much else. It seemed he was always trying to rid himself of what he put in, heaving until his throat was raw and he was crying from the pain.

"Who?"

"Potter." He muttered, frowning. "I can hear you leave each night and you come back smelling of…England. They tell me where you go; I can see it."

"I go…because he intrigues me." Wasn't that it? The darkness in his eyes, the blood that followed in the wake of 'Harry Potter', the illusion of purity he put up around himself and the faux happiness he constructed to show to others.

The subtle but obvious way he pushed others back as if there was a psychical presence around him, and the way the shadows on his face grew longer at night. The purse of his lips, pink and almost untouched, when he thought…

It was all intriguing to him.

"His darkness reaches for you. The taint in him." Chase said, eyes lighting up in understanding. "It wants you to reveal it. True power awaits the combining of light and dark. To triumph you must…get under his skin, crawl inside."

He arched an eyebrow, ignoring the less than pure implications of his son's words. "How…delightfully cryptic."

"I try." Chase said lightly while walking towards him. He leaned over his desk, eyes shadowed, then inhaled sharply. "I can almost taste the tears he leaves. You hold him when he cries and then you wipe his memory away."

He just sat back in his chair. It was true. He would creep in through the window, as if he was in some terribly cliché Muggle vampire movie, and sit on the edge of the teen's bed, usually just in time to see a nightmare begin. The first nights he'd watched. Then he'd begun to weave his web, setting the teen at ease. It seemed almost painful to watch him twisting and whimpering in some invisible terror.

A few nights ago he'd woken up and stared at him with green eyes so dark they were nearly black and…he'd faltered. The web had shattered like thin spindles of glass, sparkling in the moonlight around them. Potter should have screamed or cried out or at least asked him what the hell he was doing.

But he'd done none of that. He'd just cried. Curled up against his side, unaffected by how stiff he was, and sobbed until he was once again sleeping. And he'd let him. Night after night he allowed it because…because it made him closer.

Made him apart of Harry's life, the routine, the norm. It gave him something…leverage perhaps, or an insight if one wanted to call it that.

It was like manipulation, taking advantage of the naive boy who only thought he knew of the creatures that bumped in the night. Wouldn't know that Severus longed to see blood on those pale lips and sip the life from him… Had no idea that lips, colder than that of a human, touched his cheeks and carried away salty tears, not completely unlike blood.

Not now anyway.

He nodded slowly. "And what of it?"

"Voldemort knows." Chase's eyes slipped to half-mast and seemed to almost glow in the darkness. "He knows and he's coming for you and for him and for me."

Severus sighed, lips quirking bitterly. "Brilliant."

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Shall be continued in 'Mad Season', which will…pop up eventually.