A/N: Chapter beta read by Forty-Two Dreams. All remaining mistakes are mine.
IN THE DARK
Snape opened his eyes slowly. The light was too dim for him to see where he was. The only things he could tell were that his head was hurting like hell, his hands were bound together in front of him, and Ursaglow was a dead man.
How could he have let himself be fooled so easily, as if he were a beginner? By Ursaglow of all people! Snape cursed a couple of times, but it didn't make him feel any better.
How much time had passed while he was unconscious? A few minutes? Several hours? A couple of days maybe? It was hard to tell. He was sitting on the ground in a dark room, with no window or opening on the outside, so he couldn't tell what time of the day it was.
While his eyes got used to the darkness, Snape tried to make out more of his surroundings. Bare stone walls. Rough floor. By the look and smell of it - foul air and a musty stench - it was some kind of a dungeon.
Where the hell had Ursaglow taken him?
Snape tested his restraints: metal chains, linked to the wall with approximately six yard long fetters. Even if his feet were free he wouldn't be able to go very far.
So he remained there, sitting still in the dark, not daring to even close his eyes, for several hours. He was beginning to wonder if anyone knew he was there when he heard the door click open. He was then blinded by the bright light of a lit wand. Snape quickly averted his eyes and frowned. The light moved inside and the door was closed an instant later.
"Nox," a male voice said quietly, and the room was dark again.
Snape could now feel a presence in the room, but his eyes were no longer used to the darkness and he couldn't make out any silhouette. It wasn't Ursaglow; he hadn't recognized his voice. Not to mention there was no way Ursaglow could give off so much power and charisma in the dark.
Who was it? Should he say something? No, better not. And what was the stranger doing? Was he examining him? Why did he remain silent? Snape suddenly stopped wondering who could be standing there at the stranger's next word.
"Crucio!"
Snape yelled under the violent pain. He knew that pain well… and who was dispensing it as well…
When the curse was lifted at last, the man began to speak. "It is useless to say I am extremely disappointed in you, Severus…"
Several seconds under the Cruciatus curse had left Snape breathless on the ground. "Master, I…"
"Crucio!" the Dark Lord exclaimed again with irritation, not restraining his fury a single second. "All these years, spying for Dumbledore! You must be a master at Occlumency to have managed to fool me all this time…"
When the pain subsided at last, Snape decided to stake everything. "My Lord, I don't know what you were told, but be assured that I am as faithful to you as ever."
Voldemort snorted. "Well that leaves me to wonder how faithful you've ever been…" He paused. "You were right about the new Defence against the Dark Arts teacher. He is a pathetic idiot. But an easily influenced one…"
Ursaglow? Ursaglow was a spy for the Dark Lord?
"Honestly Severus, you should have seen that coming," Voldemort teased. "He decided to join me for very much the same reasons than you did. An insecure young man, constantly rejected by others, looking for recognition by his peers…"
Snape closed his eyes. He remembered Ursaglow telling him he only wanted to be friends with him. He also remembered himself sending him packing over and over, quite violently. He recalled most of the other staff members rejecting the young wizard as well - politeness made it no less rejection.
"Not to mention his great potential," the Dark Lord continued.
Great Potential? Ursaglow? Were they talking about the same wizard?
"No need to be surprised, Severus, you saw the ceiling of Hogwart's Great Hall the day it bled…" Voldemort went on, probably with a smirk on his face.
What? It was Ursaglow who had managed that feat? How was this possible? Ursaglow always seemed so… pathetically hopeless! Well, he had managed to get out of the battle with the giants totally uninjured…
"Easily influenced, powerful and a quick learner… That's the way I like my minions…" Voldemort mused. "As for you… tsk tsk… Your attitude upset me greatly, Severus. You never knew when to stop playing with fire…" His calm tone contrasted with his words. After a pause, Voldemort continued. "Do you realise that Ursaglow joined me almost as soon as I approached him last winter, after I discovered there was a spy among my Death Eaters? I asked him to try to get close to Wilson, in the hope she would reveal to him the identity of the Death Eater who saved her… But it seems you managed to get much closer to her than he ever did…"
Snape jumped at this mention. Could he know? Could he know about…
"Oh, did I mention that the bright kid took that Pensieve of yours with him when he brought you to me?" Voldemort kept teasing. "Well, these memories were… instructive to say the least. I had no idea you could be so… flexible…"
He was just trying to provoke him, Snape reasoned, to make him angry. He just wanted a reason to Crucio him again. He wouldn't give him this opportunity.
"My Lord," Snape began, "it was precisely because I thought I might be able to find out who had saved her that I – "
"SILENCE!"
Snape immediately shut up.
"Do you think I did not take the time to have a look at the other memories in the Pensieve, the ones that mattered?" the Dark Lord exclaimed, irate. "The ones in which you spoke with Dumbledore about helping to defeat me? How foolish of you to think you would manage to escape my wrath! CRUCIO!"
Snape writhed under the excruciating pain, letting go an involuntary shout. Voldemort didn't lift the curse before several long seconds.
"Did you think it was your sociability that drew Ursaglow to you after you rejected him so many times?" Voldemort enquired. "I asked him to keep an eye on you when I began to have suspicions. Then when the right time came, I asked him to bring you to me."
Snape felt the Dark Lord stepping closer to him.
"At least he didn't fail me," Voldemort whispered in his ear.
Snape then felt him take a few steps back.
"You know," the Dark Lord began, "I wonder what would be the most suitable and worst fate for you: to have you endure the Cruciatus curse until you beg for mercy, or leave you to rot in this cell alone… Hmm… Probably a combination of both… CRUCIO!"
The intensity of the pain Snape experienced was like nothing he had ever known: it was like all the pains he had ever experienced combined together. The Dark Lord wasn't restraining his anger. He didn't care if it turned Snape into a useless minion - he already was one in his eyes.
When the pain stopped after what seemed like hours, there were small tears forming at the corner of Snape's eyes. It also seemed he had bitten his own tongue in his distress. Voldemort left silently as soon as he lifted the curse.
Snape turned his head to his side and spat some blood to the ground. Needless to say it was the worst situation he had ever been in, and he had been in some really bad ones. So to sum it up: he was being held prisoner by the Dark Lord, who had discovered he was a spy for Dumbledore, and there wasn't any chance that a member of the Order would know where he was.
And he had thought his day couldn't get any worse… If this wasn't a twisted way for fate to prove him wrong…
So Snape began to wait - as if he could do anything else. Wait for what he had no idea, since he fully expected to be left there to rot alone. When he felt tired, he slept, and when he felt hungry - which was beginning to be all the time now - he… well, he tried to think of something else, because there wasn't much to eat around.
The problem when you had nothing to do was that you had lots of time to think. And spending his time pondering over all the mistakes he had made in his life wasn't exactly Snape's favoured occupation.
As far as he could tell, several days passed by - his hunger increasing hour after hour - before someone came to his cell at last. Despite the sudden light, he quickly managed to recognise Crabbe, a fellow Death Eater he had known for years.
"Here's your meal for the week," Crabbe said spitefully as he put a plate down on the ground next to Snape.
"Looks appetizing," Snape commented sarcastically, even though he couldn't make out the plate's contents.
"Consider yourself lucky," Crabbe replied unconcerned. "If it were up to me you wouldn't get anything."
"I suppose inviting you to share this meal with me in memory of the good old days would be totally out of place, wouldn't it?" Snape questioned ironically. He didn't have anything to lose anyway.
This seemed to anger Crabbe, who took his wand out and pointed it towards Snape furiously. "Just give me one reason not to kill you right now…"
"Well, you're feeding me," Snape noted on a cocky tone. "Which means you want me alive."
After a second, Crabbe nodded. "True. The Dark Lord wants you alive for some special occasion."
"What occasion?" Snape asked.
"I wouldn't tell you even if I knew, you filthy traitor," Crabbe retorted with animosity and spat in Snape's face.
Snape waited until Crabbe was gone before wiping his face against his sleeve. This was getting just better and better.
Once he got used to the darkness again, he gave a look to the plate. The contents seemed to be cold, and it didn't look the least appetizing. It also seemed to be leftovers.
There was no way he would eat that, Snape thought with a sudden surge of pride, no matter how hungry he felt. So he took the decision not to touch any of this food. But having the plate right under his nose didn't really help…
After another day his resolution quavered, when he realised this was probably the only food he would ever get since Crabbe had said it was his food for the week. So he surrendered to his hunger, only to realise after finishing the disgusting contents of the plate that he still felt just as hungry.
After a couple of other days with no new sign from his captors, his hunger had become almost unbearable. He could barely think of anything else. His lips were now so dry from the lack of water they ached. One of his arms was getting numb from inactivity.
When he had lost all hope of seeing light again, after close to a week of imprisonment as far as he could tell, the door burst open and two Death Eaters entered. They freed him wordlessly and urged him harshly to a standing position. Snape was too weak physically to resist, and he let the Death Eaters lead him out of his cell.
After a few minutes walking through corridors, Snape was guided to a wide room where a circle of Death Eaters was waiting for him, the Dark Lord at their head.
Voldemort smirked evilly at his sight. "We can now go on with the last part of this ceremony," he said. "I don't usually hand my new followers their victims on a plate but… This is a special occasion, isn't it Severus? We have to deal with your treason, so why not kill two pixies with one curse?" Voldemort continued on an almost joking tone. "Step forward and reveal yourself to your victim," he then told to one of the masked figures of the circle.
The Death Eater took a step forward and turned to face Snape before taking his mask off. It was Draco Malfoy. Oh dear Merlin. This was Draco's enthronement, Snape realised. And he was the victim that had been chosen for the occasion…
"You know what you have to do," the Dark Lord told Malfoy. "Kill him. Now."
Snape suddenly remembered the advice he had given the boy: to do as he was ordered. And that was what Draco would do. He was a Slytherin, and in the end it was his own neck he would save.
Snape watched Draco lift his wand towards him, his eyes filled with indecision.
A/N: I had initially planned to make this chapter more gruesome to make it more realistic (imagine being traped in the same room for several days, I'll let your imagination fill in the gruesome blanks), but I chickened out and edited it. Just know that Snape's hands were initially bound behind his back (again, I'll let your imagination fill in the blanks).
Coming Next: A Wanted Offer