I haven't looked over this chapter as carefully as the previous three, because I am a terrible author lady. And such.

And watch as Lucius Malfoy manages to take over yet more and more of the story, even if he will never, ever make an appearance. It's a guy thing, I'm sure.

Old Places

Severus was not an uneducated man by any means, though some often took his cold indifference and unwillingness to discuss world matters to be indications that he was about as narrow-minded as you could get without suffering from some form of mental claustrophobia.

But Severus merely did not like to discuss his opinion on things; that was like asking to be hated. Especially since his opinions were, to be frank, less than acceptable among society. He stayed silent, and kept himself to himself, and that was good enough for him.

So he was clever, in many, many ways, despite outside opinion. He was well-read, but that was a given; he was introverted, a bit of a loner, and his schooldays had been fraught with about as much bullying and spite as was possible - it was only logical that he had spent much of his time reading. But Severus was not a man to stay at home; after he had lost Regulus, and after Bellatrix had been locked away, he'd traveled abroad during the summers when he was not brought down by his teaching profession. Sometimes, he was with Lucius; at other times he was by himself.

Severus traveled for one reason: curiosity.

One of his more memorable trips, which was a trip of a more serious nature besides pure fancy - back when he was still in his twenties, a fledgling professor and relatively new to being an adult - had been with Lucius, who had expressed an interest in the goings-on of Africa and its inner turmoil. Severus had visited Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Ghana - anywhere he could. It had been dangerous for them both, of course, but that never stopped people like Severus and Lucius from anything, especially not the prospect of discovery.

And there were things in Africa that one discovered and never forgot.

Severus didn't believe in evil - never had. It had to do with spending time with Lucius. As much as Severus wanted to rid himself of the other man, Lucius Malfoy still held sway over Severus, even though he was locked away. He'd looked up to the other man, when he was younger - and when you loved somebody like Lucius, then it was hard to believe in evil. Lucius had killed people, yes; Lucius had done all manner of nasty things.

But he wasn't evil. Nobody who had seen Lucius smile, the day his son had been born, could ever think that. No one who had been there when Lucius Malfoy had been shivering under the hot African sun in Sierra Leone could doubt him.

There wasn't any good and evil; Severus had spent years embroiled in the company of the Death Eaters, and working among the Order of the Phoenix, and sitting at the sidelines. He had studied medicines, and poisons; how to defend himself against the Dark Arts, and how to use them to his advantage; how to hate and how to love. Severus didn't believe in evil, and when Bellatrix asked him, he had been quite confident in telling her no.

And it wasn't that the Forbidden Forest was evil, and made Severus think dark thoughts as he stood with Bellatrix at its borders. It was just that the Forest came from long ago; and who knew, maybe evil had existed, back when the earth was young. Within the Forest, time had ground to a halt, and stayed there, menacingly low in the undergrowth, unseen until something suitably young and tender shuffled by. Within the Forest, things were as they should have been, if it had not all gone so very, very wrong.

For as the Dark Lord once said, We are men, so we are stupid; but stupidity has always had a hand in history. Even if it is a black hand.

The Forest shivered, and laughed like the Little Folk.

He was holding Bellatrix's hand. When he was younger - maybe six - both of their parents had gone into town, bustling and busy and noisy, and Bellatrix had reached out and taken his hand, cool as you please, because he'd been nervous. He hadn't liked Bellatrix that much before all of that, because she was a bit of a bully; once, she'd even hexed his broomstick into violence, and shrieked with laughter as he'd tried to get on. But that day she'd reached out and taken his hand, because she knew he was nervous, and maybe she was a little nervous too, he didn't know, but right then he figured she wasn't such a horrible kid after all, even if she was a girl.

And suddenly, several decades fast forwarding into the dull grey present, there she was, standing there, at the edge of the Forest, looking into its depths with wide eyes; so he'd reached out, and clasped her hand in his, and she smiled a trembling smile.

Bellatrix knew she'd end up walking in. It was just how she was; and that was just the way it was, as well. Regulus needed her, her Lord had commanded, and nothing could stand in the way of a Black when her duty called.

But she wanted to prolong it, for just a little bit; because the Forest was frightening, because she knew that the Dark Lord knew it as well, and he'd told her once, one winter night, when she was just a teenager. Don't ever go in there.

She was bad at following orders, though. Voldemort had known that; he'd known that as he was writing his last letter to her.

And though this was not Severus' challenge, but he would come anyway. Men were stubborn like that.

She squeezed Severus' hand. Her palm was a little sweaty; his was dry and warm. "Right," she said, to herself. She was a lady of the House of Black. A Black never stood down.

And she had at her side Severus Snape; Severus who she barely knew anymore, save from little glimpses into his head. She only knew the boy, the teenager, the young adult; she didn't really know this man, who had grown up far away from her, beside Lucius Malfoy, who moulded the character of everyone he touched.

But she trusted him. She trusted them both.

"Right," she said again. She used her free hand to hike up her robes and, still holding onto Severus, who trailed behind, loyally, fearlessly, she led him into the shadows of the Forbidden Forest.

.x.

Interview #17
Lucius Malfoy
May 12th, 2001
Ministry of Magic (Britain) Royal and Governmental Archives

Summary (compiled by Bridget Oriole, Overseer, written May 13th, 2001)

We visited Mr Malfoy with the express wish to garner information on the Death Eaters that could not be found through any of our previous interviews with the purebloods of the First and Second wars.

Lucius Malfoy was a very hard person to contact, owing to his increased security and the fact that he was proven to be quite uncivilised when given the chance to speak. However, we managed to set up the appointment, and we arrived at the institute and were escorted into a room from which we could conduct our interview. Mr Malfoy was led in several minutes later, his hands magically bound, and his disposition calm.

In the beginning we garnered very little from Lucius, who, while appearing very polite at first, grew increasingly restless at our questions. He spoke little on how the Death Eaters operated, saying that he did not feel as if it was at all relevant. He also added that it was none of our damn business.

Our questioning went from the Death Eaters to Lucius Malfoy's relationships with other members of the war. He was much more cooperative at this stage, and was very frank with us. That is, until we stepped towards the subject of Severus Snape, and Lucius became very irritated. We moved on to Bellatrix Lestrange, and by that time Lucius refused to speak at all. Interesting. We reported this behaviour to the resident guard, who only said that Lucius became very hostile at any reminder of his erstwhile companion due to emotional damage he had received over the years.

Though our interview was over, we spoke at length with Lucius' attendants, of which he had many. They said that ever since his arrival seven months ago the keeper of the keys (Karen Olansk) was having Lucius' mental state judged weekly, due to his severe swings of perceptions. Lucius appeared both moody and unreasonable at certain times, and was given to fits of distemper and/or depression. Last week he was discovered burning himself upon the iron grate of an air vent that had grown too hot due to an overworked heater.

Lucius, however, still remains too sane to be introduced to the Longbottom institute.

.x.

The Forest shivered. The limbs of the trees shook, clawed twigs snapping at their robes, snagging on Bellatrix's long hair. She hissed through her teeth in frustration, pulling free, her thick robes rippling about her long legs and dragging eerily across brittle twigs and dead plants.

Severus' boots crackled against a dead bush. "Eerie, isn't it," he remarked, softly. Understatement. The atmosphere made Bella's skin crawl, and goose bumps prick up along her back.

Of course - a natural reaction from ancient times, she said in her head. The Dark Lord's voice had been soft and whispering, the day he'd said it to her. Whenever he had spoken, she drank up every word. Back when human beings were furred, the scientists think. When one was scared, or cold. In the case of fear, the fur would go up to make you look larger to frighten off enemies - when you were cold, the hair would be there to trap in air for more heat. Scientific reaction, they say, rendered useless through evolution; but no one's ever sure of anything when it comes to science, since it's all guesswork and assumption but no one wants you to know that.

The air was sharp but moist, and the light was muffled and soft, green and brown and black. Bellatrix was frightened, and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end and her spine prickled with thousands of unseen eyes behind every tree and under every scab of moss.

But Bella grit her teeth and kept going; because when you were scared, you did your best not to look it. Scientific reaction… rendered useless by evolution…

Mental reaction as sharp as ever…

She shoved her hand into her pocket and retrieved a wad of paper, and began to smooth out the wrinkles - it was the paper on which she had penned the directions from the original copy the Dark Lord had made. Severus had a copy as well - the original was safe at his home, under a suspiciously worn version of Austin's Pride and Prejudice.

Severus was glancing about him in an unruffled sort of way. Aristocratic calm, she called it. Severus may never have been the wealthiest pureblood around, but he had grown from an awkward boy into a graceful, intimidating man with a manner that befit a Manor lord. He technically was a Manor lord, but it was a Manor that had long ago started to crumble without the funds to keep it alive.

She wondered if he was as scared as she was.

She held the paper in front of her eyes, and squinted in the dim light.

"Forward through the yew," she said aloud. The yew trees stood, gnarled and menacing, at their backs; entrance and blessed exit to the forest. "And continue on until the roots become hands."

"Either he was being metaphorical," Severus said in the stillness of the wood, "or I am going to walk out of this place with an eternal fear of tree roots."

"Shut up, Severus," Bellatrix said. "The next line says, Turn to the west, and pace forward for five minutes. Shit. I don't have a watch, Severus."

"I have my pocket watch, Bella," Severus said. He touched a finger between her shoulder blades, urging her onwards. She sighed, and stepped forward. She had let go of Severus' hand almost immediately after they had entered; now she wished she hadn't.

"Continue until the roots become hands," she murmured to herself. Here and there the roots of the trees twisted out of the loamy earth, alive with juices and beetles and worms. There was a crackling sound - the sound of something crawling through the undergrowth - to her right, but she ignored it. She felt more than heard the rustle of cloth that signalled that Severus' hand had dipped to his belt, where he kept a knife hidden within the folds of his robes. Death Eater robes; even he had admitted that they would be useful for this venture.

"Continue on, then," he said.

"This is really pissing me off, Severus," Bellatrix said, trekking forward. She ducked under a low-hanging branch. Green, brown, green, green, brown, more green, black. The forest was vibrant and colourful, but muted with its mystery. "It's too quiet in here. I can hear things. Well. More so than usual."

"Pity." Severus said. "As a note, you keep stopping in your tracks, and I request that you cease it immediately. It is causing me to believe you have just seen something that horrifies you beyond all comprehension."

"I have," Bellatrix said. "You."

"My sides are splitting with laughter." Severus said dryly. "You do realise light-hearted banter isn't going to make you any braver than you are now?"

"It eases the muscles a bit," Bellatrix said, "and makes me pretend you're human."
"You're doing it again. The stopping."

"Sorry. Right." Bellatrix fingered the dull golden wedding band on her ring finger and kept moving. She kept hearing more rustlings in the wood. She didn't care.

.x.

Interview #32
Severus Snape
July 17th, 2001
Ministry of Magic (Britain) Royal and Governmental Archives

EXCERPT

Anita: What was your first impression of Lucius Malfoy?
Severus: I thought he was a woman.

.x.

Bellatrix had been walking for fifteen minutes before Severus slammed her into a tree.

Her first instinct was to fight back, but her mind registered the circumstances and told her, no, because it was not some unknown enemy, but Severus, whose breathing had suddenly become fast and light and quiet.

She stilled, her eyesight full of bark and soft black cloth. Severus was effectively covering her. The moist bark smell of the tree filled her nostrils, and her head was heavy with the beating of her own heart and the crackling sound that was less than two metres away, pushing through the undergrowth.

Bellatrix shuddered, because her instinct was to fight and not to hide, but Severus just pressed her harder to the tree, keeping her under control, and his mind - soft and velvet and dark - touched hers and calmed her, begging her to hold her ground. She did.

The crackling sound stopped, and everything was heavy, and still. Bellatrix had no idea if Severus had cast a glamour over them both to shield them from preying eyes, or if he was relying on pure dumb luck that maybe if they didn't move they wouldn't be noticed. She hoped it was the former.

After a few minutes, the sound started up again, moving steadily away from them. Finally, Severus relaxed and stepped back, glancing over his shoulder. Bellatrix slumped against the tree.

"Did you get a good look at it?" She asked.

"No."

"How did it get so close to us without us noticing?"

"I'm not sure."

Bellatrix hadn't, to her surprise, felt any fear. She'd just felt… raw. Instinctive. Predators never let fear control them; they just did what they had to do.

She straightened up and turned to him. "Did you cast any spells?"

"Not really," Severus admitted. "I lifted up a bit of a mind shield, but I couldn't do anything stronger without catching its attention."

"Well," Bellatrix said, and sighed, "it was good enough. Unless it just came to stake us out, figured it needed reinforcements, and wandered off to fetch its crew."

Severus shrugged. "It could have been anything, Bellatrix. It could even have been a unicorn."

"Severus," Bella said, teasingly, "You might be maiden enough to attract a unicorn, but my aura would ultimately frighten it away. Besides," she added, "unicorns are bloody vicious."