LINER NOTES:
Other than the rating of T/PG-13 for homosexuality, violence, injuries, and adult language, there are none - I'm only going to answer reviews, then post, because this is REALLY long tonight!
DewNymph: I appreciate your Britpicking! I honestly do. I'm slowly revising all 20 chapters for formatting and text, but it's slow going. I hope you'll be able to help me in future, too. And incidentally, a friend of mine told me that what we call "dime novels" you all call "penny dreadfuls," so that'll be changed when I get there, too. Cows do milk in winter, just not as much - and I was sorta going for the old Sherlock Holmesy feeling with the helping-each-other-because-cash-is-a-commodity-out-here feeling. Remus' mother is the only Southern one, but she sorta blends right in with everyone else because they start unconsciously being like her! I'm considering the idea that maybe in a future chapter, Harry will try to make grits . . .
Yulara: Ahh, the joys of a school computer (don't tell Ma I said that, LOL). As I told DewNymph, I'm working on the Britishness, and as I'm telling you, some of Gram's basic pronounciations will be listed in the next chapter.
Eleonora1: You know Harry, he has NO logic! (Actually this comes from me . . . I would rather sleep in my underwear than wear summer pajamas to bed in winter. Why? No idea . . . but it's true.) And the Jacob's Ladder is a toy that can be moved in many different ways because it is nothing but a bunch of wooden blocks held together by ribbon. They're quite fun, try looking them up online. As I told Yulara, I don't have time tonight to "translate" Gram's speech but I will do so soon.
Vodevil: I'm pleased to meet you! LOL . . . I didn't "borrow" Severus-Scrooge from anyone, but I guess that goes to show that it's a pretty popular idea. I think the rest of your questions are answered above . . .
Have a great read!
Haruka Lune
Severus awoke, momentarily startled by the sheer intensity in difference between waking up in a stone dungeon and a wooden attic. It was a moment after this that he had to wonder why he had wakened - though not a sound sleeper by any means, he was certainly not in the habit of just waking up for no reason. He rolled over and quickly made an unpleasant discovery - the other side of the small bed was empty and Remus was most of the way across the attic bedroom, walking lazily, wearing no dressing gown (a very bad sign indeed), and without a light in his hand.
"Bloody sonambulist," Severus growled as he slipped quietly from the bed. The old wooden floorboards would creak and squeak loudly enough to wake a deaf man if he moved quickly, and he had forty feet of ancient planking to cover in a very few seconds before -
"Oh, shit, Merlin, no, no, no, no, no no no no no, this is not happening . . . " Severus increased his pace as much as he felt he could safely do, Remus already on the edge of the stairs and the door had been left open and the staircase was old and steep and -
Remus took four steps before the disaster came. The amateurly-repaired fifth stair he'd warned Severus and Harry about gave way under his weight. Remus hurtled forward. A sickening, gunshot snap echoed in the old wooden stairwell and Remus flew awake with a despairing cry, falling the entire length of the staircase before he stopped at the bottom. Severus hurried down it, skipping the broken stair and with only a half-uttered warning cry to Harry before he knelt at his partner's side. Remus whimpered and reached for his ankle. Severus looked down at it and tried not to gag. It certainly sent his stomach into an odd twist.
The bone had broken in Remus' ankle. His foot was already black, blue, and rapidly swelling, blood leaking out where the bone had pierced right though his skin. He'd collected several splinters, slivers, cuts, and bruises on his way down, and the T-shirt he'd worn to bed was ripped in six separate places by broken wood. Severus' still sleep-dazed brain was in the process of wondering what the hell he should do now when Everjoice bent down near her son's head (Severus hadn't even registered the banging open of several doors, nor yet the crying of recently wakened toddlers and kindergarten kids) and wiped his face with a cool cloth. "Now thayar, Remus, you just keep still'n'all 'n Ah'll go get -"
Everjoice Lupin never needed to finish her sentence. Catherine's husband, Stephen, was already at hand and examining the ankle - by a sheer miracle nothing else was broken. Severus gripped his partner's hand, not comprehending why he of all people should need comfort from someone injured because of his own negligence, when it was clear he should be the one doing the comforting. He heard several disconnected words, "- hospital in the morning - no way to tell - keep it wrapped until - he'll be all right if we only - anyone have a pair of tweezers and some peroxide? - No, no, that's not - we should - in the living room maybe -"
And then he fainted.
Severus was not a man, contrary to popular belief, who enjoyed blood and gore and violence. In fact he had chosen not to become a Healer for the single reason that he didn't think he could stomach it. Mass killing on a battlefield was one thing - you could turn off your emotions like a faucet and then later, safe and alone, shatter like a piece of fine china dropped on a stone floor - but blood, injuries, terminal sickness were all too much for him. He had killed his own father - entirely by accident, though he regretted only the fact that he didn't regret the death - when he was only seventeen and thereby earned himself a place among the Death Eaters, hiding in the back of the circle when people were being tortured and often throwing up afterward. He still had nightmares about those things, even though Voldemort placed such a high value on his resident Potions Master that Severus was no longer required to attend those grisly meetings. He still had even worse nightmares about the feeling of his father's hands around his throat, trying to crush his airpipe because his only still-surviving child was "defective," because Snape Senior had no tolerance for imperfections even as small as a birthmark, forget an alternative sexual orientation, and then of his own finally finding the strength to push the older man off him and right into a marble mantelpiece. The problem was that in these dreams Snape Senior didn't die instantly of a crushed skull; no, he would pull himself back up and the doors would disappear and Severus was left with nowhere to run, covered in his own father's blood and brains and the dread of a certain death. At this point he would wake himself up violently and in a cold sweat, often to spend the rest of the night trying to fall back asleep. The sound of that breaking skull had stayed with him for the next twenty years, and Remus' accident had opened the whole stinking hellpit back up again.
The blackhaired man was now sitting in a chair next to a hospital bed, wishing that werewolf powers could heal broken bones as well as superficial cuts and bruises. Except for the cast to the knee and the extraordinarily pale skin, Remus looked completely normal. The Healer at St. Mungo's had insisted on running a secondary set of tests, just in case there were bone fragments stuck into important other parts, like veins or, worse, the Achilles' tendon, which they'd already had to do surgery on. If it were permanently damaged, Remus would never walk again - fortunately it seemed to be healing already. There was no fast and easy magical way to repair this problem - Remus' werewolf blood would just reject any potion fed into it for the purpose of healing him, because he didn't normally need it for one and he was allergic to witch hazel for another - and so Remus was going to have to haul himself around Hogwarts on crutches for Merlin knew how long until he recovered. Luckily the castle seemed to like Remus, and so he would probably have a fairly easy time of it. Severus was the one at a loss. He'd never thought of Remus, the survivor, the tough one, the perservering, as being vulnerable. The idea that the man could be injured was completely foreign to him.
He came to terms with it over the next week between New Year's and the return to Hogwarts, when Remus' injury was made known to the student body so people could adjust accordingly. His chats with Severus were moved from the dungeon office and quarters to the Defense classroom, where he'd started doing his office work (it saved him a climb up another set of stairs) (1). Luckily his quarters were also on the second floor, as was the Infirmary (2), and of course the Great Hall was only a staircase and a corridor away, so he wasn't too badly off. Students moved out of his way in the halls, often offering him a hand with whatever he might be carrying, and someone was always ready to help him down the Grand Staircase to the first floor and into the Great Hall. After two weeks Madame Pomfrey allowed Remus a joint brace instead of the almost full-leg cast, giving him even more mobility on his crutches. He started going outside again, occasionally sitting by the Forbidden Forest and watching for birds. It was in this way that Severus left him some time after noon on a rather warm Saturday (for January in England, anyway), returning to Remus' "office" (a small table in the corner of the Defense classroom) to pick up a double lesson plan he'd left there. It was while searching for the parchments that he found the second copy of the Marauders' Map, unwiped, which Remus had been using to track the movements of various people - nobody could hide from the Marauders' Map, so it could be used to follow the patterns of people the Order wished to keep an eye on. This copy, the master copy, extended the Map all the way into Hogsmeade and through the Forbidden Forest and the lake.
It showed every single person within those parameters, even the merpeople and centaurs.
It never lied, according to Remus.
You'd always show up, even if you were under an Invisibility Cloak or some kind of invisibility potion.
Which was why Severus dropped his books and went running for the Headmaster's office when he realized that Remus was no longer on it.
"I just don't know, you know?" Harry fiddled with his quill. He, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Luna were sitting in the library, pretending to work. They actually had been working until Harry brought up his Christmas night conversation with Remus, at which point everyone stopped working and started discussing.
"It's not like you're being disloyal to your parents by wanting a family, mate," Ron pointed out. "And it's not so uncommon. Percy's adopted too, you know."
Harry swiveled his head so fast it was a wonder it didn't fall off. "Percy is adopted?"
Ron nodded nonchalantly. "His parents were too young to keep him, or something like that."
Harry processed this new piece of information and fiddled with the blue and bronze prefect's badge Luna had taken off her robes and put on the table (3). "It's just - I don't know if I want to do that. I feel like I'd be losing some kind of link to my parents, or something. I mean, Remus is great, and I really like him, but he's my friend. It would just be so weird having him as a parent, too, and -" Harry broke off abruptly with a shrug. Hermione put a hand on his shoulder, and Luna spoke up. "Even if you choose to make him your family now, Harry, you're not losing anyone. They'll still be waiting for you."
Harry nodded, and then Hermione chimed in. "Do you love him?"
Harry stared at her. "Huh?"
"I said, do you love him?" Hermione waited patiently.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Harry willed away the anger boiling in his stomach. How was he supposed to know if he loved Remus or not? It wasn't like he had anything to judge against.
"What do you think?" Hermione was starting to lose her patience. "You know Mr. and Mrs. Weasley love you, and Dumbledore does, too, in his own way, and I think of you like the brother I never had, Harry. And we all know Remus loves you to death. What do you think it means?"
Harry considered that. He was trying to come up with a frame of reference, something he could judge by, when his mind flashed back to about a week before his birthday, at which point Remus had taken him ice skating for the first time.
"Skating is easy, Harry," Remus teased. "It's the falling down that's the hard part."
Harry stood on the edge of the ice, unsure. He'd had to retie his skates four times before he was able to stand up without either falling out of them or getting the blades caught on the laces. Why should he have any better success on the ice itself?
"Come on, Harry, it's fun," Remus insisted, holding his hands out in front of himself, palms up. "I'll pull you until you get the feel of the ice. All you have to do is find your center of balance. It's no different than when we went roller skating, really."
Harry shook his head and tried to let go of the barrier between the floor and the ice so he could move backward away from the edge of the ice and back to the bench, but his ankles wobbled. "This is a lot different. I'll just wait for you, okay?"
Now Remus shook his head. "Come on. I won't let anything happen to you." He gestured with his hands, indicating that Harry should step forward. Finally the teen reached for his guardian's hand hesitantly and stepped cautiously onto the ice. Remus grinned and started skating slowly backward, a feat Harry was certain he'd never master. They'd gone about a quarter of the way around the rink before Harry tried to move on his own and sent both of them toppling to the ice, landing squarely in Remus' lap. Remus started laughing. "Do you think I'm Santa Claus, you silly little boy?" he teased, sliding easily out from beneath Harry's weight and standing again, offering Harry his hand.
Harry tried twice to scramble to his feet before grabbing at Remus' arm and hauling himself up. "I'm never doing this again."
"It's all right to fall, Harry. Everyone does it once in awhile, even the professionals. Here, just push your foot like this . . ." Remus demonstrated the short stroke that would propel him forward. "Don't push too hard or you'll fall down. Come on, now, small steps. Go ahead, Harry, I'm behind you."
Harry let his hand linger on the wall between floor and ice, wishing he could just launch himself over it and be out. Then he felt Remus push gently on the small of his back, and threw his arms out, startled. He lunged forward with his foot to catch his balance, and realized with a start that he was moving.
"I guess - I guess loving someone is trusting that they're going to be there for you, and knowing you wouldn't be the same if they weren't," Harry finally tried, hesitantly, and the girls all nodded.
"That's part of it," Hermione encouraged. "But there's more to it than that."
"What?" Harry started to feel irritated again.
"It's quite simple, Harry. Just think about it."
Harry did. For no apparent reason the picture of Severus placing a worn leather cord around Remus' neck flashed into his mind, and he was fairly certain he'd gotten the last bit. "And wanting the best for that person, right?"
Hermione nodded. "So do you love him?"
Harry considered. He'd certainly felt a good deal more than just gratitude when Remus had rescued him from Privet Drive. He'd been excited at the prospect of not being a slave anymore, the idea that he had someone to talk to and laugh with. And then there was some sort of comfortable feeling he couldn't explain, but he knew it was what had made him sit across from Remus in the McDonald's where they stopped to eat, so he could see his new guardian's face. He wanted to be able to talk, and listen, and learn. It was the reason he'd hoarded Muggle spare change for months, so he could buy a copy of The Phantom of the Opera in the original French because Remus wanted one. That wordless feeling was what had propelled him out of bed in the middle of the night to find out why everyone was gathering at the bottom of the staircase at the house in Devonshire, and what had prompted him to inch his way down the staircase to help his guardian. It was the reason the two of them had spent a day in August sitting on the balcony apartment, elbows-deep in paper-mache, making a volcano and laughing over the stupidest things in the world.
"I - I think so," Harry offered in response to Hermione's question. "I'm pretty sure."
Hermione smiled as Ginny added her two cents. "So you're really family already. It's just a matter of names and things, you know," she reasoned, but then Hermione frowned and cut her off. "Actually it's much more complicated than that, Ginny. You know how the Ministry is - if Harry was adopted, it would provide him with an extra safety net, so to speak, against being taken away from Remus on some trumped-up charge of incompetent parenting."
Ginny nodded. Harry frowned. "It's still so - " Ron cut him off. "Mate, you can't keep on thinking about what everyone else is going to think about it or you're never going to get anywhere, see? There's always going to be people who're going to say you took the easy way out or that you're being stupid or something. Remus doesn't care what people think of him because he's gay or a werewolf or because he doesn't really do what people think he should all the time, right? Don't you think he'd've given up long ago if it mattered to him what people were thinking?"
Harry grinned at his friends. "You know what, you guys, you're right. I'm going to tell Remus tonight that I want to -"
"ALL STUDENTS ARE TO REPORT DIRECTLY TO THEIR DORMITORIES IMMEDIATELY. STAFF IS TO MEET IN THE HEADMASTER'S OFFICE."
The five friends looked between each other and paled. Only Ginny and Hermione had never heard that announcement before - Ginny because she'd been in the Chamber of Secrets, and Hermione because she was Petrified at the time. Harry grabbed his books, suddenly terrified. "Come on. You heard McGonagall. Whatever's going on here isn't good, we'd better get out of here."
"Severus, you are quite certain that -"
"Headmaster, he showed me how this - map - works. If Remus isn't showing up on it, it's because he's not on Hogwarts grounds - or in Hogsmeade," Severus repeated, feeling perfectly irritated. Why would nobody believe him!
"And you're certain he couldn't simply have gone somewhere without telling -"
"With crutches and a broken ankle, Albus?" Severus shot the old man a withering glare. "I suppose next you're going to suggest he Apparated to London to buy chocolate. We're wasting time. The facts are quite simple: Remus is missing and there is no way he went to - wherever he is - under his own power. So what are we going to do about it?"
Minerva frowned at the Map. "Severus, we did tell the students to go to their dormitories, didn't we?"
Severus made an exasperated noise. "Of course we did, Minerva, why -"
"You have a student missing," she informed him, and pointed at the part of the map labeled "Slytherin Common Room and Dormitories." There was indeed a dot missing. Malfoy.
Severus paled as pieces snapped together in his brain, forming a macabre puzzle. He shoved his left sleeve up his arm and ran his fingers over the glowing Dark Mark. "There's a torture meeting going on."
"Are you quite sure, Severus?"
More aggravated than ever, Severus yanked his sleeve up even higher and showed the glowing, pulsing snake and skull to the entire room. "My so-called services to the Dark Lord are far too valuable - as is the knowledge I possess - for him to take my loyalty for granted. To him it is nothing but a small sacrifice to allow me to remain absent from such meetings, but to me it is far more, and he is well aware of the fact. Therefore he grants me the favor of staying away, but there is no way to stop the Mark from reacting, at least partially. There's a meeting going on, damn it, Albus, and we have a prime target for the Dark Lord who just happens to be missing, along with a certain student who has been repeatedly giving him trouble all year. Do you have any doubt what this means?"
Dumbledore sighed and looked around the room. "Professors, we have a serious problem."
"Serious problem my arse, Albus, we have to get him out of there - damn!" Severus swore as the Mark throbbed painfully. "Sod this, there's no time to waste listening to you lot talk at each other," Severus announced, jumping up from his seat and hurrying away, heedless of both Dumbledore and McGonagall as they tried to keep him from leaving.
"Fetch, wolf!" The Death Eaters weren't known for subtlety. Remus winced as someone wearing a silver ring slapped him on the back of the head, then pulled off the ring and tossed it in front of him. He wasn't entirely sure when his ankle had given out at last and he'd been forced to the ground - it had been somewhere between the kick to the back of the knee and the tussle ending in a Death Eater lying on the ground, holding his stomach and whimpering - but he knew he wouldn't be standing again for a long while - if ever. Voldemort wanted information - right after Malfoy, the little bastard, was inducted with honors into the ranks - and he was determined to get it. Remus was aware, suddenly, of a change in the air, a new piece of information to process, but his brain was about as useful as a sponge in the desert and he couldn't understand what was different. Then there was a hand held open in front of his face.
"You must see there is no other option, Remus Lupin," hissed a voice from above him, and he had to repress a shudder - how he hated that voice. "If you will only join me you will never go hungry again . . . " Remus looked up in disbelief. The man (was he a man? It was so hard to tell with people who'd mangled their bodies beyond recognition in efforts at immortality) was crazy. He had to be.
"You see, Lupin, my followers have discovered the secret the Ministry refuses to discover for itself . . . the cure, the cure you have waited for, all these years . . . join me, and know the life you have desired since your childhood . . . you will never want again . . . "
Remus bared his teeth in a snarl. "How stupid do you think I am to believe I'd listen to your lies?"
Voldemort laughed. The Death Eaters followed suit.
"On the contrary, Lupin, I believe you to be extraordinarily intelligent . . . which I why I cannot understand why you are still working for Albus Dumbledore, a meddling old fool who clearly does not understand or appreciate your many talents."
Remus cast his eyes around the circle. "And I suppose you're going to tell me all I have to do is give you every last bit of information I have about the Order, and then you'll give me this wonderful cure of yours."
"Correct."
"Prove it." Remus was stalling for time. It wasn't possible that they weren't coming -
"I do not abandon my followers when they are faithful, Remus Lupin. Where is Dumbledore for you now? You have done much, so much, for his cause and in return you get nothing. I reward those who are loyal to me. Turn for turn, Lupin. You will reap neither more nor less than you sow in my ranks. I do not give my word lightly."
"I don't need a reward for knowing I did the right thing." He struggled again to get to his feet.
"And yet - would you not give your life to wear a silver band on your finger? To eat with the same utensils as everyone around you? To run beneath a moon that bore you neither pain, nor malice, nor fear?" Voldemort bent, hooked a finger beneath a set chin, to look Remus more fully in the face. "Admit the truth, Lupin - you would gladly die to be able to live an ordinary life that did not involve being considered an animal by those too narrow-minded to understand the talents that are uniquely of your kind. You would give everything you own to be able to find employment without a struggle, to meet the parents of your students and shake their hands without that fear of taint. The life you are throwing away with your refusal, Lupin, is a life in which you could be one of the most trusted men in our world . . . your abilities fully appreciated for the first time in your memory . . . how can you sit in this circle, Lupin, and know you are discarding something you have wished for with every breath since you were four years old?"
Severus pushed his way to the front of the throng, seeking desperately to find out who was in that clearing. The sight of Remus' face sent his stomach into flip-flops. On one hand, Remus was alive and (mostly) well - on the other hand, it wasn't likely he'd stay that way for long. Severus stood behind the shoulder of Macnair, peering around the man's beefy arm to see what was happening. Remus was being propositioned by the Dark Lord. Well, that was - bad. Very bad. Catastrophic. Stronger men than Remus had fallen prey to sweet words and empty promises, and Severus could see from Remus' eyes that he was tempted - sorely tempted - and a single word, at this point, could be enough to drive him to the Dark Side with no hope of return.
"These people are all purebloods . . . " Remus looked round the circle, as though trying to confirm his belief in spite of the masks covering faces left and right. "How can you expect me to believe they would welcome me with open arms, after everything you've said? Fear of taint and all that?"
"I am fully aware that there are men among these, Lupin -" the Dark Lord swept the circle with his arm - "who have betrayed you, left you in the gutter, turned you away. Rest assured that they will be punished if you so choose. But know that they now are aware of your intelligence, your tenacity, your strength both mental and physical, and these are not foolish men. You were thrust from society by one among these -"
"Severus, lucky bastard," Lucius Malfoy whispered to the Death Eater standing next to him, and something in Remus' golden-amber eyes changed. They took on a steely glint.
"- but he will receive his own for that. All I ask in return for all this is a small favor, Lupin. You see, I offer you my hand as an equal, two men meeting in agreement . . . " the Dark Lord extended his hand once again. Severus took one desperate step to the side, not entirely sure what he would accomplish - and Remus threw his weight forward, grabbing - not the long white hand extended to him, but the wrist above it - hauled himself upward - and as the Dark Lord stumbled with Remus' weight, Remus spit on his outstretched hand.
"I don't grant favors to fork-tongued liars." Remus was breathing heavily with the effort of staying on his feet. Voldemort stared at his hand for all of about two very long seconds, and then wiped it on his robes, advancing on Remus with a snarl. "You dare to spit on me, you filthy beast, you - halfblooded - how can you dare, when I have offered you -"
"I dare," Remus announced, shoulders heaving with the effort of speaking in spite of his pain, "I dare, because with one breath you tell me how wonderful I am, how you're going to - I don't know - raise me up and practically make me a king, and in the next you call me a filthy beast and your pretty little facade drops to the floor and shows the snakefaced monster hiding underneath it, Voldemort."
A shiver ran around the circle at the name. The Dark Lord pulled his wand and waved it. Remus shrieked. Severus panicked. What the hell had been so bloody painful as to pull a scream from a man standing on a broken ankle and nursing extraordinarily agonizing silver wounds?
Well, there was his answer to that - Remus fell to his knees, scrabbling with his fingers at his right wrist, where an intricate band made of silver curlicues was digging into his skin, growing tighter and deeper the more he struggled. The Dark Lord looked up from his handiwork, cast his eyes around the circle, and rested on Severus.
"Severus, how kind of you to join us at last. I see you have abandoned your high ideals about the extraction of information."
Shit. He'd forgotten to put on a mask, and now he'd just stepped right into the circle without one. Well, he hadn't put much store in them when he was seventeen and unbelievably stupid, either. Things hadn't changed too much, only the numbers, it seemed.
"The Muggle-loving fool was concerned. How am I to convince him of my intentions if I were to stay away, my Lord?" How he hated saying that . . .
"So you join us out of service to your . . . superior, is it? Look what our trap has caught this time, Severus - a most curious dog, isn't it?"
Severus allowed his eyes to rake over Remus to assess his injuries, though he tried not to betray his intentions. Serious damage to the broken ankle. Two silver burns on the back of his head and his lip. Blood from numerous scratches and scrapes. A hideous dark bruise on his cheekbone, surrounding a gash that was still bleeding a good deal. His bottom lip looked chewed, split, as though he'd bitten it to keep from screaming. He was shaking far more than would be expected from someone with so high a pain tolerance - the Cruciatus, then. Severus forced his mind back to what his "master" was saying.
"Young Draco Malfoy brought him to us, Severus, along with a rather strange tale."
Severus inclined his head and raised his eyebrows, hoping he looked surprised instead of dread-filled. An icy lining of fear formed around his stomach and twisted.
Sadly, he wasn't disappointed.
"Young Malfoy claims that you have been seen working rather - intimately - with this," the Dark Lord stated, executing a short kick to Remus' thigh. Remus clenched his teeth. "Yet in spite of the close relations you have been sharing, you have been unable to bring him to me - and the same goes for the Boy. Explain yourself."
Severus locked his knees beneath his robe, thanking every deity he could think of the name of (and a few he couldn't and so just called "and you, you know who you are") that he wasn't wearing the dragon's tooth necklace, or he would have been dead by now - protection from dragon magic aside, such a valuable artifact could not be "trusted" in the hands of someone who had made so serious a "blunder" as allowing this prime target to escape time and time and time again, never mind that he'd bought it himself, it would have been taken from him and he executed. In the meantime, he began placating those same deities, all but begging for help. He'd noticed that if he just trusted to Fate, he usually came out, if not on top, then high enough to avoid being crushed. While his brain ran along those lines, he opened his mouth and prayed something passable would come out. It did.
"The Boy is still far too protected to be removed, my Lord - not to mention I have no way of becoming close to him. What am I to do, give him a detention and tell him he will be serving it with me in the Dark Forest? He would go straight to the Headmaster and offer himself up as nothing more than a slave for every night remaining of his schooling rather than walk into those trees next to me. The wards on the castle cannot be changed by only one person - I can assure you I have tried. Dumbledore does not place so much trust in me that I could take the boy to Hogsmeade as an assistant. I have examined every path and found nothing clear. And the werewolf - my Lord, would even you dare to pit yourself against an unweakened werewolf? You see what he can do, even when he is injured. I think I have done my part by leaving him in the open, unprotected, and allowing someone unsuspected to remove him from the school. The members of the Order of the Phoenix are not so unintelligent that a double disappearance - that of two Hogwarts teachers, especially, and two members of the Order itself - would go unnoticed, as I assume you can tell by my presence. We would be found within mere hours, I executed, the werewolf removed to a place of so-called safety, and far too many people removed from our cause. I felt it more . . . prudent . . . to make one small sacrifice of information instead of dozens among our numbers, a far larger sacrifice that could have been prevented."
Most of the Death Eaters murmured in varying stages of agreement. The Dark Lord, however, did not appear moved.
"And yet you chose not to commune with my faithful within the school, to arrange, to plan? You squander your greatest strengths on hapless idiots who straggle through your classroom rather than use those talents to aid us? I begin to wonder, Severus, for whom you are truly fighting."
"My loyalty has never wavered from you, my Lord - there has never been so much as a shred of evidence that I ever -"
"-did anything against our cause beyond squirming into the Order of the Phoenix and using that as a pardon when I was forced to flee, working for fifteen years under the thumb of the Great Fool himself, choosing so many times to leave me to my own devices instead of aiding me, and hindering or harming my servants when you discovered them. No, Severus, of course I should not have doubted you. My apologies."
Severus stood his ground as the snakefaced bastard approached him. "You disappoint me, Severus. I pulled you from certain death at the hands of the Ministry (4). I secured you a job in the Department of Mysteries. I offered you a way to conduct your work unhindered by idiotic restrictions and laws that have no purpose save to hamper the efforts of those ambitious enough to attempt true progress, and yet your efforts for our cause grow less and less. I have no use for a traitor in my ranks."
As the last horrible word left cracked and bloodless lips, the Dark Lord - no, Voldemort, he didn't need to be afraid of the name when he was going to die anyway, right? - placed both thin hands on Severus' chest and shoved. Severus stumbled heavily backward and landed in the arms of Lucius and Draco Malfoy. One held his wrists behind his back and slid an iron-strong arm around his waist. The other clamped a soaking wet pad of cotton over his nose and mouth and a sickly-sweet odor like rotten mushrooms, like charnel pits (5), like overfermented wine - chloroform - filled his brain, not ceasing as he tried to throw off the hands of his assailants.
Before Severus slid limply to the ground, he wondered vaguely if it were possible to kill someone by forcing them to breathe chloroform. That was one thing I didn't study when I did my work on poisons, damn it, he thought muzzily as darkness claimed his mind.
The first thing Severus did when he awoke was to register the fact that he was laying mostly naked on a stone floor - his robes had been taken, leaving him in a thin shirt and trousers. The next thing he did was to make the stones considerably warmer - vomit would do that. God, he hated chloroform. If he'd ever become Minister of Magic he would have outlawed it. Instead, he just groaned, loudly. Then a warm hand came to rest at the small of his back, encouraging him to pull himself off the floor. Severus looked up to see golden eyes gazing concernedly back at him.
"Remus . . . "
"Shh. Here." Remus handed him a small flask that seemed to contain water - cold, pure, and completely untainted. "I don't know what they're playing at, I really don't. They've been in four times since we ended up in here last night, but they haven't done anything, really." Remus pointed across the cell at a wooden table with a tray on it. "They gave me a few pieces of bread and a cup of tea when we came in - I was still conscious - they left more food about an hour ago, and they even - look at this." Remus held up his hands. The torn up fingers on his left hand had been carefully bandaged, as had the burns on his right wrist. "It's so - odd. You'd expect them to milk this for all it's worth."
Remus stood and walked back to the table, where he crossed his arms over his chest and looked broodingly down on an object sitting near the tray. "Voldemort himself was in here twice. The second time - look here." Remus returned to Severus' side, carrying - Severus blinked incredulously - their wands. "He even performed finite incantatem on them to prove they hadn't been tampered with. There's something I don't like about all this. It's too easy."
Severus shook his head. "Remus, how many Unforgivables do you know?"
Remus considered. "I'm all right with Imperius - Dumbledore insisted I learn it in case I was attacked, I could force the attacker to leave - but that's it."
"The same. And almost everyone we're likely to be up against - the Malfoys, for example - can throw off Imperius. And there's not too much else they'll be vulnerable to."
Remus looked at his partner in surprise. "You don't know all the Unforgivables?" Instantly he redoubled. "You know what, I'm sorry. Forget I said that. I mean -"
"I know what you meant. I used to be able to cast the Killing Curse, although I never used it on a human being - but after the Triwizard Tournament -" Severus shook his head to clear it of the memory of blank gray eyes and a boneless body slipping through his arms as he helped carry Cedric Diggory back to the castle. "I couldn't do it. And Cruciatus just always hit too close to home for me."
Remus nodded in silent understanding. Snape Senior was not well known for his mercies.
"Clever on their part, then, really, leaving us our wands. We're tonight's dinner show, so to speak."
Severus nodded. "It's a rather clever piece of psychology, in a twisted sort of way - they give us all the tools for our own defense, and leave us to torture ourselves to insanity when we realize we simply don't have the skill. They'll wait until sundown before - wait a minute, what day is it?"
"We were brought in here sometime last night - damn! I don't have -" Remus jumped up and began tearing at the lock on the door. "We have to -"
"Remus?"
Remus stopped his fruitless mauling of the door handle so he could turn to look at his partner, still sitting forlornly on the floor. "Yes?"
"I - I'm sorry."
Remus looked puzzled. "For what?"
"Dragging you into all this." Severus waved a hand around in a manner that seemed to suggest he was the one who'd pulled Remus into the cell in the first place.
"It's not your fault, Severus. I would have ended up here sooner or later anyway. Apparently a werewolf who's a member of the Order of the Phoenix is considered a highly sought prize in these parts." Remus shook his head. "It's lucky you showed up, really."
Severus asked with his eyes for an explanation. Remus hurried to elaborate, moving to sit next to his partner.
"Last night - I've been thinking about it a lot today - I almost accepted his offer, do you know that? I really felt like I was just going right off my head. And then he pushed it just a bit too far when he mentioned you - and I realized you were there, I could feel it - and it sort of - brought me back to my senses. I couldn't believe I was honestly going to -" Remus shook his head again.
"Far stronger men than you have succumbed to the Dark L- to - Voldemort."
Remus eyed him suspiciously. "And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?"
Severus scooted backward on the floor, holding his hands up in supplication. "I suppose I should have worded it better if I had said there are many men with far less reason to turn to him than what you have, and yet they've done so all the same. I thought for a moment that - we - had lost you for good. Would have been a damned shame, really. People like you are hard to come by."
"And since when have you called him Voldemort?"
Severus half-grinned wryly. "I can stand up and die like a man, or I can die being afraid of Voldemort's name like I'm some kind of spineless little worm."
Remus looked dismayed. Severus shrugged.
"I always knew I'd die at Voldemort's hand, one way or the other."
"And yet it may not come to your death, Severus," a new voice interjected, and the two men in the cell scrambled to their feet (Remus had been supplied with a new brace at some point during the night).
"Indeed." Severus didn't bother adding a qualifier to the end - it seemed quite pointless. Voldemort stood in the doorway looking rather anticlimatic, somehow.
"Indeed, Severus. It occurs to me that I hold your life or death -" here the bastard dangled a small crystal bottle hanging from a chain - "quite literally in my hands. Your pretty little wolf can't hurt you with this, can he? And after all . . . everyone may fall astray once in awhile. I am ready to forgive if you are ready to forget, as the saying goes." The high laugh that followed was highly mocking.
"I didn't have the Wolfsbane yesterday. Drinking it now is pointless," Remus pointed out, trying to remain both calm and neutral, and also wondering in some small and absurd part of his brain how he could be so abysmal in Potions and yet clearly know more about them than the man in front of him. He could harm someone under the influence of the potion - it was only just that drinking the potion allowed him to have a choice in the matter.
"You fool. It was in your food. You wonder why we allowed you no sugar in your tea?"
Remus was stunned, to state the case mildly. Such a thing would never have occurred to him, especially after Voldemort's last statement. It struck him as somewhat hilarious that he knew more than one of the most powerful wizards this century. Voldemort turned to him.
"I require answers, little wolf," he stated, dangling the bottle again. Remus overlooked the insult in favor of trying to get everyone involved - except, perhaps, Voldemort - out of this alive. Remus set his jaw. He would give answers. Whether or not they were the answers Voldemort wanted was another matter.
"What do you want to know?" Behind him, he could sense Severus' dismay, but he had no way of informing his partner of his true intentions. Damned if he didn't want to strangle Voldemort immediately for putting them through this. Voldemort's smile widened triumphantly.
"Where are the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix?"
Remus shrugged. "No idea."
"You lie!"
"I'm not the Secret Keeper. I don't know where the headquarters are."
Strike one for Voldemort. "And who is the Secret Keeper?"
"I was informed by no less than four of your so-kind Death Eaters that I'm not to name the person in question, on pain of a most torturous death." Remus chuckled inwardly. There were at least four people he'd been told not to name. Strike two.
"Name him now with no consequence, then."
Well . . . there had to be a way around tha- oh, right. "I can't."
Voldemort's eyes narrowed.
"Well, you said 'name him with no consequence.' How can I name him when the person in question isn't necessarily male?" Brilliant stroke of Dumbledore's, splitting the Secret-Keeping among three different people - he Kept the location, Tonks Kept the secret of getting in, and Mad-Eye Moody - well, Remus wasn't quite sure what exactly Moody was doing, but it kept the Order safe, so far be it from him to ask questions.
"Name her, then."
"I never said the Secret-Keeper was female."
Voldemort drew his wand.
"I also never said there was only one, did I?"
A pause. Strike three - and a half, if Remus did say so himself. The wand was slipped back inside a deep pocket, and Voldemort chuckled. Of all things, Voldemort chuckled. "I seem to have underestimated you, little wolf," he mocked. "And yet - you learn quickly the ways of the Death Eaters, do you not? You give what is asked . . . " Voldemort unwound the chain from his fingers. "And I give what is offered. You see, I hold to my word . . . " He offered the small crystal bottle to Remus, who eyed it cautiously.
"How do I know it's not poison?"
Voldemort raised his eyebrows. "It was removed from the stocks of the Traitor himself, little wolf . . . unless he has been poisoning you for the past week, I should suggest it is genuine." He shook his head in mock-sorrow. "Again you prove your worth . . . your answer is the same?"
"It's not changing," Remus replied, taking the bottle slowly, as though afraid it, too, was some kind of trap. He pulled the glass stopper, and then offered it to Severus. "All right by you?"
Severus examined the liquid in the bottle critically, even smelling it before offering a verdict. "It seems all right. It's the concentrate I've been making the potion itself out of." He passed the bottle back to Remus, who hesitated a few moments more before drinking it. A sort of relief flooded his veins as the wolf retreated back into its mental den, cheated of blood, harmless.
"Now, Severus . . . you see I offer you one last chance. You know what I ask."
Severus stood firm. "I see no reason to give you any favors."
Voldemort drew his wand and pointed it steadily at the black-haired man. "I think we could agree on a reason or two, could we not, Severus?"
"Not likely."
Voldemort's eyes narrowed. "Even now you walk the edge of a very narrow precipice, seconds from death, and you say nothing?"
"What's to stop you from killing me after I tell you what you want to know?"
Years afterward, Severus would be hard-pressed to try to explain the curse that answered his statement. He knew only in some mechanical part of his brain that perhaps Cruciatus should be replaced on the Unforgivables list. He thought perhaps this curse was slitting his veins with a knife that had been first soaked in some kind of semi-frozen fluid that was causing a terrific stinging and throbbing. He remembered vaguely touching a hot iron poker as a child, and decided that there was one cauterizing the wounds left by the knife. Abruptly the torture ended, and he found himself on his knees, unable to recall how he had gotten there. He stared defiantly up into amused red eyes.
"Ah . . . I see . . . " Voldemort chuckled. In a movement so fluid as to make water green with envy, Voldemort jerked Remus toward him and spun the blonde round to face outward, one arm round Remus' waist and arms to keep him from getting away, the other resting lightly at his throat.
"You would rather die and hope your lover gets out alive than you would to betray him, would you not? But you underestimate me once again, Severus . . . " Voldemort shook his head. "I had hoped you might be persuaded to join our cause, little wolf, but it seems too late . . . " Voldemort slid his hand up over Remus' nose and mouth. Immediate panic set in, and Remus began tossing his head wildly, trying to breathe.
"Stop!" Severus scrambled to his feet and took two steps forward before Voldemort's wand was aimed at Remus' neck.
"Two little words, Severus, two little words and I remove what you are trying so shoddily to protect. You would do better to confess your guilt and give what I ask, would you not?"
Remus stared at him, desperate, pleading, for a single moment. Severus stood firm.
"I won't."
The hand pressed tighter. Remus struggled again - Severus stared in disbelief. He'd always thought it to be naught but a legend -
Remus' hair grew longer, his hands turned upward and gained claws - and he wrenched his mouth free, sinking long white fangs deep into a wasted chalk-colored hand. Voldemort screamed - a high, keening sound that would haunt the nightmares of both other men present for many days. Remus pulled away, looking horrified, his entire body now returned to its normal human state, blood dripping from his front lip. He backed away slowly, breathing heavily - Severus reached to pull him away - and the door to the cell opened. In walked an oblivious Wormtail, clearly sent, most likely by some other, higher ranking Death Eater, to remove the food tray. Voldemort shrieked at him.
"You fool, kill him!" A hand dripping blood pointed directly at Remus Lupin. Wormtail turned and lunged. Severus drew his wand.
"Imperio!"
Wormtail stopped, silver hand about two inches short of his goal - Remus' throat. His eyes clouded. He swiveled, slowly . . .
Slowly . . .
And began walking away. Remus sighed in relief. Voldemort screeched at his miserable minion, who seemed completely heedless of the noise. Wormtail was now nothing more than a small, stout tin soldier set into animation by the only Unforgivable Curse Severus Snape had ever cast, and certainly the one of the longest duration. Severus struggled to keep his wand steady. He knew what he was doing, and it wasn't an accident this time.
Voldemort's eyes widened in sudden comprehension - and fear. Severus' mouth twisted into a sardonic smile.
"I, too, repay my debts, My Lord," he murmured.
He raised the wand.
Voldemort screamed as a silver hand wound round his throat.
Severus collapsed.
Somewhere deep in the bowels of the Ministry of Magic, the distant gods laughed and smiled at Remus Lupin. He had proven his own worth once again. They rewarded him with a darkhaired figure that stood in the exact centre of a Colluseum-type room. The figure looked all round himself, bewildered, and then made the kind of profound statement one rarely heard, except from men of that sort.
"What the bloody hell am I doing back here?"
The first thing he realised upon awakening was that he was in a room that smelled rather musty. Unused. Old. Then he realized that there was a thin hand resting in his own, and he scrambled to sit up before another, identical hand pushed down on his chest and forced him to lie back in the bed.
"Glad to see you've decided to rejoin the land of the living, then," a disembodied voice said. Well, it seemed disembodied. Severus wasn't seeing too well. But it sounded like Harry.
"What the hell happened to me?"
"We're not entirely sure, but Sirius found traces of arsenic in your bloodstream. We think there might have been poison in that water you drank."
"I would have tasted it," Severus protested, thinking muzzily that something Harry had just said didn't sound quite right.
"He said white arsenic doesn't have a taste."
"He?"
"Sirius."
There it was. "Black?"
"How many other Siriuses do we know?"
"But Black -"
Even with his eyes closed, he could feel the grin on the boy's face. "We don't know how he got back or where he came from, but Dumbledore questioned him under Veritaserum and it's definitely him. He doesn't remember anything since June, though . . . "
"Then you think he was really dead."
"Or something like it, anyway," Harry answered, and Severus opened his eyes to look at the boy. Unbelievable.
What he saw next was worse - he was sure now that he was hallucinating. Sirius Black stood in the doorway, and then walked right through it, shaking his head. "It's no good, we had to tie his hands down. He kept tearing at his arms." Black spied Severus half-sitting in the bed. "It's about time you're awake," he announced, checking Severus' pulse, vision, breath, and so on.
"What the hell is going on with Remus?"
Black took a deep breath. "He has Lunatic's Fever. Those bastards put silver dust in the brace on his ankle. It was eating away the skin just barely enough to be noticed. The idea, we think, was that if he joined Voldemort, they could change the brace, remove the dust, and nobody would be the wiser, but otherwise he'd end up with a hefty dose of silver to the brain. Brilliant, really, in a twisted sort of way."
Lunatic's Fever - a lycanthropic disease caused by excessive contact with pure sterling silver. Highly dreaded by the werewolf community, a bad enough case could cause its victim to become blind, deaf, or even - in many cases - hopelessly insane. Hence the name. Severus shivered. At one time he would have laughed over the dastardly ingenuity of the idea, and the realization made him hang his head in shame. Black put a hand on his shoulder.
"Snape."
Severus looked up.
"Remus told me - before he became delusional - what you did for him in there."
Severus waited.
"I just wanted you to know - I'll make sure you're the first to know, when he's really awake."
Severus considered. "Is that - likely - at this point?"
Black shrugged. "We flushed his bloodstream. If all goes well he should be fully aware again within twenty-four hours."
Severus nodded. He could wait.
(The not so long this time) REFERENCE NOTES:
(1) If the information in Chamber of Secrets (the book) is carefully followed, the DADA office would appear to be on the third floor, with the classroom on the second floor (although it's also common to see these inverted, I use the one that seems to be correct according to the book). The movie shows the office as being inside the classroom, but based on the first chat Remus has with Harry in PoA, this is not possible as Harry is walking in the corridor and Remus "stuck his head out of his office" to ask Harry in. If the office could only be accessed from the classroom, as shown in the movie, Remus would not have seen Harry (this was "rectified" in the movie by that nauseating chat on the bridge, and again later by a walk in the woods they were mysteriously taking for no apparent reason).
(2) Information taken from the Harry Potter Lexicon.
(3) I think this is self-explanitory, but just in case: In the books, we only ever see the Prefect's badges of Percy, Ron, and Hermione - all Gryffindors. Malfoy's badge is mentioned but not described, as is Ernie MacMillan's. However, since the badges we see are described as being red and gold (Gryffindor colors), we can assume that the badges will also identify the house said Prefect belongs to (yellow and black for Hufflepuff, silver and green for Slytherin, bronze and blue for Ravenclaw, and red and gold for Gryffindor). Luna is in Ginny's year (one year behind Harry) and in Gryffindor, therefore she is, in this story, a first-year prefect with a Ravenclaw prefect's badge.
(4) A friend of mine didn't understand the "certain death" bit, but I loved this rant, so I kept it and simply inserted this note. Although Severus' killing of his father was accidental, he was a scrawny seventeen year old with a bad track record already (remember when Sirius said Severus started school knowing more Dark curses than most of the seventh years?) and so there would have been no reason for the Wizengamot to acquit him, accident or not. Voldemort is saying that he, in some way I didn't bother going into (assume he sent an agent who acted as some kind of witness - that'll do well enough for our purposes), was responsible for Severus not being imprisoned or punished for his father's death. The idea that he saved Severus "from certain death" refers to the fact that Severus would probably have been sentenced to death (if the Wizarding world has the death penalty) or to a lifetime in Azkaban, which would essentially lead to death via mental torture and madness (and probably suicide). Also, his reference to Severus' first job implies that he probably used an inside source to land Severus a position in the Ministry.
(5) The term "charnel pit" comes from Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot and this scene in general is adapted from Why Didn't They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie (excellent books, both of them), but "charnel pit" as a term is not defined on dictionary(dot)com, which I use for all my definitions. "Charnel," however, brought up the following:
n. A repository for the bones or bodies of the dead ; a charnel house. adj. Resembling, suggesting, or suitable for receiving the dead.
Although the two do not appear in the thesaurus entries as synonyms for each other, I believe that many people refer to a charnel (house) as defined as a noun, with the term "mausoleum." This would be one of those huge above-ground graves you see in some cemetaries.
Thanks to the previously listed authors and to dictionary . com for this awesome (in my opinion) scene.