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Chapter 5

(Snape)

Slipping through the house I knew I had limited time; while everyone was out, there was still the possibility of them coming back. Draco had been awfully quiet lately, and I was getting suspicious of what had happened when he had come here. What had been told to him or what he had seen? Soundlessly opening a door I glided in and looked at everything that was there: a bed, a chair, clothes strewn around…my Pensive. A hiss of anger escaped me, and I glanced around the room to make sure no one had been there to hear it.

How dare they steal my Pensive! There were things in there that were far more personal than they could ever imagine; how much of it had they already picked through? How much of my personal humiliation had they witnessed and laughed over? My stomach churned and I winced; I had to hurry. The stone only worked for so long, before death resulted.

Turning I was about to leave, when the House Elf Kreacher came in. I froze, knowing that the little buggers could sense magic better than any normal wizard.

He was in a terrible mood as usual and was talking to himself. He spoke of how much he hated having to serve Potter, and how his precious mistress must be turning over in her grave, knowing that a mix-blood brat was in charge of her household. He bemoaned how the people had ruined the house, took away all of his things. What really caught my attention was when he started in about Mundungus. He was nearly spitting as he recalled that the man had stolen the one thing he was supposed to be guarding for his mistress' son.

Regulus. That kid. Black's younger brother. The one who had run from the Death Eaters. He had spoken to me about his plans, but it had been so long ago. Narrowing my eyes I silently urged the twisted slave to leave. Dumping something underneath the bed, the House Elf skulked out.

Quickly I strode over to my Pensive and stirred it with the tip of my wand. It was easy for me to sort through my own memories because I was the one who had stored them, anyone else who picked through them would not understand the way in which they were organized. Selecting a long ago event, I brought it to the surface and entered.

I landed in a cold, dark hallway of the old headquarters for the Dark Lord. There was a younger me, leaning against the wall, my mind very far away. Curling my lip in distain I wondered at how stupid I had been, so completely wrapped up in myself; I had actually thought I could pull it off, live another life separate from all the espionage I did.

My other self suddenly perked up and swung his arm out perpendicular to his body. It connected with something, or more correctly, someone, who, in turn collapsed to the floor. Smirking he knelt down and whipped off the invisibility cloak that had been hiding the other man.

"Well, well, well," my younger self drawled as Regulus was revealed to me. "Looks like I found something."

"Silen-" the boy began but his wand was already being pocketed by me.

"What is it I wonder that was going through your thick skull when you thought that you could leave without anyone realizing?" Regulus opened his mouth to answer, but was overridden. "Oh, that's right, Black's don't think! How could I have forgotten?"

"Snape," the kid hissed. "I have to get out of here!"

"Why should I let you?" I remember what had been going through my head. I had two choices, I could turn him in to gain more respect from the Dark Lord, or I could glean from him information for the Order.

"The Dark Lord," Regulus muttered. "I know it, I can do it..."

"You know what?" I watched as Regulus was shaken hard. "What do you know?"

"His secret! I am the only one!" Regulus had never been a very brave person, if I ever had to compare him to someone else, I would say that he was like Pettigrew, except that he at one point had charisma.

"What secret?" I watched myself hiss in his face.

"The locket, it's the only one I know about, I have to get to it, destroy it before he gets me!" Regulus was on the verge of breakdown; he wasn't one to go against the grain. That had been his brother. While Black had been in Gryffindor and had left his birth home as soon as possible, Regulus had stayed. He had been at his mother's beck and call, and he had told me the night he joined that she was forever proud of him for it.

"What is the locket?" I stepped closer as I observed the interrogation.

"Him, the locket is his immortality!" Regulus said excitedly. "He will fall, and he will know it was because of me!" In the distance someone called my name, and the Pensive me shoved Regulus away and handed him his cloak.

"Run as fast as your pureblood legs can carry you, if you're caught and I'm connected, I swear I'll kill you!" The kid was already under the cloak and moving away at top speed.

Having all that I needed I exited the Pensive and stood there for a moment. Everything inside me screamed at me to take it with me, but I knew that if I did, they would figure out that someone had been there. Instead I picked up the Pensive and placed it in the bottom of the inhabitant's closet. Carefully I placed a spell upon it that was very common for House Elves to use to protect their things, along with one to make it blend. I wanted my memories safe.

"Harry!" The door was flung open, and I slid my wand back into my pocket. While the stone was able to conceal my clothes, it was unable to do it for my wand.

"Harry, are you here?" It was the Granger girl. I was surprised at how she'd changed. She looked more like a woman than a girl, and she was headed for me.

"He's such a slob!" she growled, scooping up an armful of clothes and dumped them on the Pensive, before closing the door. "He should be back by now; he really needs to stop going off an brooding whenever he feels like it." She sighed and headed for the door. "He said he had to talk to me about something, but how are we to talk when he's never here!"

When I was sure she was gone, I left the house undetected, just as I had entered and Apparated back to my home. I landed in the middle of my living room and found Draco reading a book. He looked up when he heard the noise of my arrival, but soon went back to the text because he assumed that no one was there. Impatience rose in me, he was ignoring a direct threat. Raising my hand I silently uttered the spell that would tie him up, but Draco was already up with his wand drawn.

That was my student. I thought smugly, as I blocked multiple curses he sent my way. Pain flashed through me and I cringed, but I threw up a magical wall to stave off anything else sent my way. I was out of the room by the time Draco had destroyed that protective measure, the insistent pain that I had ignored burning through me, doubled intensity. I had to use the walls for support in order to make it to my room.

Collapsing on the floor, I whispered the spell to bring up the contents of my stomach. Fiery agony seared up as I forced the parasitic element from my body. Immediately I was able to see my hands which were braced against the floor, but that didn't mean that I was done. My body had still to rid itself of the byproducts and many toxins of the stone.

Sweat poured from my every pore, as it pushed out the waste that had oozed from them earlier to coat my body and turn me invisible. I could feel my stomach filling with blood and the fast solidifying poison. It wasn't long before I vomited again, and then again. When the heaving finally desisted, I summoned a glass to my side and filled it with water. Slowly I drained the cup, careful not to drink it all at once, because it would just make me throw up again.

Dragging my drained carcass over to the wall, I slumped against it and banished everything, but the stone. Summoning it to myself, I cradled it in my palm, remembering all the times I had used it. It was something called a Death Stone. I had discovered how to make it in my second year and had been both extremely grateful and terrified. The stone itself was really mercury that had been through magic turned into a solid and then was soaked in a potion. The potion was made up of a blending of nightshade, foxglove, hemlock, curare, aconite and a few other plants. All in all, it's one of the worst poisons known to the Wizarding community.

Mercury, the liquid metal that even at room temperature gave off deadly vapors that if inhaled could kill. The scientific symbol for it is Hg, which is from the Latin word hydrargyrum that means liquid silver. The potion has mostly poisonous plants in it, and, if not properly mixed, will kill instead of turn the user invisible. When kept inside the body for long periods of time, it will lead to death. In the potion is a curious fungi that attaches itself to anything; this allows the stone to slowly become part of one's stomach lining.

When the stone interacts with the stomach acids, it releases a compound that goes straight to the pores and turns everything it touches invisible, as long as the stone is still feeding off the stomach. The reason that blood is vomited after the stone is rejected is because it was just ripped out of the lining of the stomach, which obviously results in bleeding. What really causes the next wave of vomiting is the fact that the blood mixed with the acid draws the poison that has been slowly invading the system back into the stomach and causes the user to barf.

Dangerous. Extremely dangerous. I cannot count the amount of times the stone has almost killed me. Though it does have its uses, besides turning the user invisible it also can hide your presence, and unlike an invisibility cloak, it cannot be whipped off to reveal its master. I had first used in my third year, when the bullying had become unbearable, and I hadn't had enough money to buy a cloak like Potter's.

Sighing I cast the spell needed to keep the mercury solid and the vapors contained. I needed to find Mundungus and I had to find that damn locket if Regulus hadn't destroyed it yet.


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