I own none of these characters
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Icarus
by MarbleGlove
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Dear Mr. Icarus,
Please forgive an old man for writing without a proper introduction. I have recently been made aware of your research into a cure for lycanthropy.
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Day One
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"Severus, stay after. I want your expertise."
The Dark Lord always mingled with his followers before a meeting as he waited for everyone to gather. The end of a meeting was always much more abrupt. The only exceptions were when a few people were asked to stay behind. It was an honor and it always involved a challenge of some sort.
For the first time in several years, Severus felt real excitement welling up inside of him. The Dark Lord was competent in potions. If he needed help, then it was in a truly masters level problem. Such problems were his one real joy in life.
Lord Voldemort and Dumbledore both referred to Severus Snape as their spy. Severus did not, however, think of himself that way. The term spy seemed to imply a person having loyalty to one side and tricking the other side. Given that both of his masters were accomplished legilimens, that just wasn't possible. And if he were capable of tricking one, then he would be capable of tricking the other and neither was willing to take his loyalty on faith. Thus his safety rather depended on him being a tool rather than a person. Severus considered himself something of a barometer. A useful way for both of his masters to keep up-to-date on the situation with the other side, but neither of them could or would trust him with anything they wanted to remain secret.
So Severus attended both Death Eater gatherings and Order of the Phoenix meetings and generally served as a semiofficial witness to the greatness of each side. All things considered, it was rather tedious.
For the time being, though, he was virtually untouchable by both sides, given his status as a Potions Master. While both the Headmaster and the Dark Lord had multiple masteries, masteries were rare, and potions masters were one of the most rare. It took time and dedication as well as ability to gain any mastery, and potions had a reputation as boring and a reality of being dangerous, often fatally so. Severus Snape was the only Potions Master in Britain and both sides wanted him around.
Of course, he would lose whatever protection his knowledge gave him, if he ever showed more loyalty for one side than he did for the other. He had had to be ruthless with himself to become a Potions Master, dedicating himself to it's study to the exclusion of all else, and now he had to be ruthless with himself to remain alive, dedicating himself once more to his potions, to the exclusion of all moral opinions. Sometimes he felt he was hardly a man anymore, merely a repository of potions knowledge.
After the meeting, he sat in a comfortable chair by a fire in some small parlor room of the Dark Lord's mansion and read the five letters that were given to him. Three were from a man named Icarus written to the Dark Lord, two of them were the Dark Lord's responses. They were obviously the most recent letters in a lengthy correspondence and several times he had to ask the Dark Lord to explain a reference.
It was times like these when the Dark Lord offered Severus the opportunity to stretch his intellect and his knowledge to it's extremes that he remembered why he had joined the Death Eaters in the first place.
Severus vented a long appreciative sigh when he finally set the last of the pages down in front of him. "Brilliant."
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If you read The Daily Prophet then you are aware that I have a great deal of sympathy for those who have been turned into werewolves. In fact, the man who created the Wolfsbane Potion is a close friend and colleague of mine. The prospect of a cure for this condition is quite exciting and I am anxious to hear what you have been researching.
I hope that I might have some expertise, either personally or from a member of my staff, that I might offer you in return.
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Day Two
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"So Voldemort has assigned someone to research Self-Transfiguration for him."
"No."
"No?"
"The Dark Lord doesn't know who Icarus is."
Dumbledore gaped at his spy. After a long moment he managed to close his mouth and then open it again. "What?"
"Icarus is not that common of a name. No one who bears that name wrote those letters. The Post Coop is good at keeping anonymity and the Dark Lord uses it enough himself that he doesn't want to hurt that in any way. While all the letters I saw were polite, none of them were chatty. The only personal information that the Dark Lord has is that Icarus' parents are still alive and have chosen, for reasons unmentioned, to live in the muggle world. Given the fact of this correspondence, I can only assume they wanted to be out from under the eye of any Ministry Aurors. Whoever Icarus is, he's keeping a very low profile."
"Except for the fact that he's corresponding with Lord Voldemort." Dumbledore's reply was unusually dry.
Snape nodded his acceptance of that caveat. "Aside from that." There was a glint of what might be amusement in his eye.
"Okay. What are the specifics of the research?"
"As best I can tell, it's a combination of transfiguration and potions, based on the fact that Icarus has somehow made a breakthrough in identifying the body map."
"Merlin!"
"Indeed. They seem to be working mostly towards a cure for lycanthropy on the premise that since the problem is obvious, the solution might be less subtle than anything needed to correct the Dark Lord's current body."
Dumbledore hummed his agreement.
"Also, there's much more opportunity for experimentation. It won't be that long before the Dark Lord starts trying to either capture werewolves or make his own."
Dumbledore winced. "What were you needed for?"
"If the Wolfsbane Potion is made incorrectly, it calls up the werewolf and makes it even more violent. Or, of course, it kills the recipient. They have an idea to modify the potion, however, apparently to be taken in the dark of the moon, rather than at the full moon. It would still suppress the violent tendencies as the current potion does, but it would call up the physical form without quite forcing a change. Then the recipient would cast a variation of the animagi transformation on himself. I couldn't follow the spell work outlined, but they are doing some very interesting things with the potions work. I spent most of the night answering questions, making suggestions, and helping compose the Dark Lord's next letter."
At the thought, Snape yawned. It had been a very long day of classes with only three hours of sleep the night before. Later he would use his pensive to remember exactly what was said and written that night and work further on the many ideas that whirled through his head. For now, he just wanted to get this meeting with Dumbledore out of the way and go to sleep. Dumbledore had started speaking again though.
"Despite everything, I was pleased when Riddle decided to try to take over the wizarding world rather than delve further into researching and developing the dark arts. They are a hard field to master and thoughts of what a brilliant wizard like Riddle could do kept me up at nights before he became Lord Voldemort. His followers hedge him in."
Severus suppressed another yawn and tried to look attentive.
"How in the name of Merlin have I not heard of a brilliant dark arts researcher before now? Someone who found the map of man and is using it. There's only so low profile a researcher like this can be. If nothing else, he has to have a good wizarding library available to him and those are not readily available. Lord Voldemort has one, I have one here at Hogwarts, the Malfoy family library, the Bone family library, and not much else within the British isles."
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To avoid putting you in an awkward position, I will also admit that I am aware of your correspondence with Voldemort, who I have a public stance against. However, given the direction of your research I am forced to believe that a good deed in the name of evil is still probably good.
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Day Three
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Hermione received mail rather frequently. Not only was she corresponding with the Dark Lord, but she had also asked her parents to sign her up for a muggle correspondence course in basic genetics from the local community college. Given that she had never taken any biology courses before, it was tough going; her parents frequently sent her reference books to help her catch up.
To avoid suspicion by her class mates, Hermione treated all of her mail the same way. She opened it up as soon as she received it at breakfast in the Great Hall, scanned the contents and then placed the letter in her bag for further study later. She didn't think the Dark Lord was intent on cursing her in some way via his letters, and if he was, she didn't think any curse would manage to slip by the goblins who ran the Post Coop and had strict instructions not to forward anything containing even the least bit of magic. However, if she were wrong, and if she were going to trigger some booby trap, she would definitely prefer it to happen in the presence of as many people as possible to increase her chance of rescue.
Thus it was that on a particular day in April, while listening to Harry and Ron discuss some girl in Hufflepuff, Hermione opened a letter. The letter was not one from the dark lord and she didn't expect anything else to particularly trouble her. She soon realized her error.
Hermione recognized the handwriting but didn't immediately place it. When she looked at the signature at the end of the letter, though, she started giggling nervously. She quickly scanned the content of the letter and the laughter continued to bubble up uncontrollable. She could certainly feel more than a tinge of hysteria contained in the laughter and given the looks the people around her were giving her, they could hear it too. Oh Lord, she was in so much trouble.
It was like going fishing for trout and catching a shark. Except in her case and she had been fishing for shark and she wasn't sure what she had just caught but it more resembled a great blue whale than it did a trout. The image made her laugh even harder and she gasped for breath.
Laughing, she clutching the letter in her hand, holding onto her aching stomach as the rest of the Great Hall fell silent and turned to stared at her in bemusement.
When Professor McGonagall tried to usher her out to the infirmary, or to at least get a look at the letter that had affected her in such a way, she finally got a modicum of control over herself. She tucked the letter into an inside pocket of her cloak and, still burbling slightly, stood and climbed up on the bench where she had been sitting. She raised her glass of pumpkin juice high. Everyone waited to hear what she had to say.
"I propose a toast. To Fred and George Weasely, may their spirits live on forever."
"Forever." "Fred and George" "George and Fred" "Forge and Gred" "Gred and Forge" "Pranks forever."
Practically the entire student body joined in the toast. The first years, most of whom had never me the twins, looked confused. The teachers looked disturbed as they foresaw and outburst of pranks in the near future. Headmaster Dumbledore merely chuckled to himself thinking that after the disturbing news he had heard from Severus, some amusing pranks might be just what he needed to raise his spirits.
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Sincerely yours,
Albus Dumbledore
Master of Transfiguration
Master of Alchemy
Master of Defense Against the Dark Arts
Order of Merlin, First Class
Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards
Headmaster of Hogwarts
