Faith for the Faithless
Chapter Five: The Transition
Peter Pettigrew knocked on the wooden door rather nervously, glancing over his shoulder as if afraid that Voldemort was going to appear out of the room at the very end of the corridor. What appeared out of the door in front of the rodent-like man was not much better; Severus Snape had his wand clasped quite firmly in his fingers and his shirt was only half buttoned which meant, Pettigrew registered with horror, that he had been interrupted in the process of getting dressed.
"Severus," he squeaked, backing away from the door, "our Lord wishes to see you."
Almost immediately Snape finished fastening the buttons on his shirt and turned his back on Pettigrew to gesture to someone within the room. Pettigrew, who had almost forgotten about the girl he had, craned his neck and stood on tip-toes to better see into the cramped room, but the arrival of a lithe, unclothed arm carrying a thin fur blocked his vision of whomever the arm belonged to.
"Well move then," snapped the dark man to Pettigrew, shrugging the fur onto his shoulders and clasping it in front of his neck.
"Of course," Pettigrew scampered off down the corridor with Snape behind him, long legs pounding out the rhythm onto the floor.
The room which Snape had to duck his head to enter was heated so highly that it was akin to strolling into a furnace. The floor was covered with an old, faintly threadbare, Persian rug, patterns meandering this way and that. A large bed, covered with thick furs, had a skimpy pallet of straw lying at the end with Pettigrew's wand lying haphazardly on it.
The Dark Lord himself was sitting in a large chair that Pettigrew had dragged from the kitchen, directly in front of a roaring fireplace. He was huddled in strings of clothing and fur; only his face was uncovered and red eyes bored into Severus' black ones.
"Ssseverusss," he hissed, "I have missssed you since we moved."
"My Lord," Severus dropped to one knee and held his face down so that he was studying the carpet, "I am afraid to tell you that I have had to step in to deal with some reactions to our new settings."
It was certainly truth; the Deatheaters had been significantly less than impressed to discover that their accommodation in this camp was simply the cattle sheds and vast quantities of hay.
"They do not like Norway?" Voldemort sounded faintly amused.
"Indeed no," Snape rolled his eyes a little as Voldemort gestured to him to seat himself in a chair opposite, "there have been strong words used and a little violence as well to convey their contempt of Scandinavia in general."
Before Voldemort could reply to Snape, a loud banging jumped through the room from the courtyard. Pettigrew, eager as always, leapt towards the window and opened it violently, allowing a freezing breeze to swirl through the room. The dark Lord shook and huddled into his furs.
"It's Farierr and Jetton!" he cried out, "They're casting curses at each other!"
"Shut that window!" Voldemort shouted suddenly and Pettigrew dropped it in his alarm, "Ssseverusss, go and ssstop that noissse anyway you pleasssse."
Obediently Snape stood and left the room. Before he shut the door he heard the reedy voice cry out 'crucio' and Pettigrew's screams of pain followed him into the bitter air outside. He followed the edge of the whitewashed house around to the courtyard where he found at least twelve men standing around, cheering on the offenders as they leapt and writhed. Their fur-clad bodies were pressed tightly together, but the bare feet or socks showed that the fight was hurried and probably over nothing more than a traded insult or scrap of bread.
The two combatants were dressed only in shirts and trousers; their robes and overcoats had been forgotten in their haste to inflict pain on one another. Breath and sweat rose like a cloud above them and the cheering amplified when Jetton stumbled over a loose slab of rock and seemed to fall. Farierr cast a red stream of crucio at him, grinning all the while – it was he who had initiated the argument against his slower comrade.
"What is the meaning of this?" Snape bellowed furiously.
The looks on their faces were mutinous and angry; lips sneered and eyes glared at him as he withdrew his wand. Farierr stopped almost immediately, wand up his sleeve before Snape could even be sure that he had seen the thing, but Jetton cast another hasty, angry spell which bounced off the wall leaving a small, black scotch mark.
"This is mutiny!" Snape incited them; that was clear, "You have disturbed our Lord!"
He barely saw the deed, certainly not in time to stop the spell from hitting Jetton, as a bolt of green magic flew from Farierr's vicinity and struck the other man. The body kneeled over onto the frosty ground and sagged unpleasantly. Snape sneered and drew out his wand with a nasty look on his face, and his eyes narrowed until they resembled nothing more than tiny beetles set into his face.
"Avada kedara!" he called into the icy air, and Farierr joined his fellow.
There was a murmur around the courtyard and the remaining crowd vanished into the sheds to finish their sleeping shifts before guard duty called them, or some other onerous task befell them. Almost at that precise second, a Deatheater swathed in thick furs came running up and swerved seeing Snape, falling panting to the favorite's feet.
"Sir!" he called out, his voice reedy enough to identify himself as a recent Hogwarts graduate, possibly as young as sixteen, "Sir! Please, we've got Malfoy at the guard post!"
"Malfoy?"
"Draco, sir," the messenger collected himself and rose to his feet, "Draco Malfoy. He sent me to get you, sir, to check that it was alright for him to come up to the Dark lord and report."
Snape gave no response, but turned on the heel of his immaculate boot and marched down the muddy land which ran from the house to the perimeters of the protected property. Magical wards had been established, but guards were still posted in pairs at the gate leading onto the fields to arrest the progress of any inquisitive muggles or wizards.
Draco Malfoy was standing next to a small fire, which they had disguised with a concealment charm, when Snape arrived with mud tracked right up to his thighs. The blonde man had his arms outstretched to the warmth and nothing but the torn jeans and shirt he had left for Muggle London in covering him from the cold.
"Severus!" he called as the older man stopped beside the fire, "It's been a while."
"This is no time for jests!" Snape snapped, "Come back to the house and explain yourself to the Dark Lord, and then put some decent clothes on!"
They walked up to the house in silence, their breath misting before their faces as they puffed in exertion. The lights were on in the house as the dim dusk fell over the fields and wrapped itself around spindly, wind blown trees. Snape let them into the house quickly, breaking past the wards with several passwords and a specific spell which glowed violet for a second or two.
The kitchen was filled with Deatheaters, all standing around various items of battered furniture and carrying mugs filled with a kind of soup, highly alcoholic, which was neither filling nor tasty. They were dipping their bread rations in it as they spoke in low murmurs, all conscious that their Lord was a few meters down the darkened hallway.
"Good evening," Draco sneered at them.
"Feck us all!" one exclaimed, profanity spilling from his mouth, "If it ain't fecking Malfoy!"
No one else said anything as the pair strode down the hallway, candles bobbing behind them, until they turned the sharp left of the passageway and talk swelled up behind them.
"Missed me then?" he mused, and Snape rolled his dark eyes.
"Of course we did, Malfoy," a voice said from a doorway.
Hermione was standing in the frame, door open behind her. Dressed in a woolen jumper and a pair of knickers, her feet and legs were naked and her hair sprang, unhindered, from her head in wild directions. In her hands she held a vial of boomslang skin suspended in red Animatus potion.
"What do you want doing with this?"
Snape, to whom her question was addressed, looked violated by her lack of dress.
"Go and put something else on, girl!" he commanded.
"I'm trying to wash," she answered, eyes still on Malfoy, "and how was your little trip?"
"Pleasant," he replied with a sneer, "but it would be better if my bed was all warmed up tonight. What do you say, Severus, I'll do you a swap."
"You have nothing to swap," Snape was not amused by the banter, "and Lord Voldemort is waiting for you."
"Goodnight Malfoy," Hermione called out as they moved away, "don't get frostbite!"
Malfoy looked as if he was going to lunge at her, but the door shut behind her with a small slam and he was thwarted.
"Missster Malfoy," Voldemort called, Snape next to him, "come in and ssshut the door. I find it rather chilly."
"My Lord;" Malfoy dropped to his knees in front of the fireplace, "allow me to apologize for being away from your side for so long. It was not intentional."
"I am sssure it wasss not," his Lord replied evenly, "but it dissspleasssed me. Crucio!"
Malfoy was aware of Snape watching while Pettigrew attempted to milk Nagini, who was coiled in a corner baring her fangs at the hapless wizard. A fiery pain spread through his limbs while he shrieked, writhing in abandon on the rug. Within seconds it was lifted and he was prostrate before Voldemort once more.
"Now, tell me everything."
"My Lord, Potter was at the train station as Snape had said, but there were…complications. He was obviously expecting an attack – there were at least thirty wizards and witches with him in the guise of muggles. As soon as we attacked Potter, they sprang on us. I was knocked unconscious by Potter himself within a few minutes; that is how unprepared we were!"
Pettigrew, transfixed, had stopped milking the snake and now she sat, hissing, on the bed.
"They carried me back to Hogwarts and bound me. My Lord, they have wild dragons there! One of them escaped, and while they were trying to regain control of the foul beast, I managed to escape. Luckily my party was still on the grounds; else I would not have managed this small feat."
"Dragonsss?" Voldemort's nostrils flared and he turned to Snape in fury, "Ssseverusss, why did you not tell me of thisss?"
"My Lord," Snape began, panic riding in his eyes briefly, but Voldemort stopped him:
"Crucio!"
He left Snape under the curse for longer than he had let Draco linger under its effects, so that when the red light faded Snape was bleeding heavily from his nose and mouth.
"I ssshall keep you here," Voldemort told him angrily, "for you did kill the old fool, and I do not forget the good deedsss of my ssservantsss easssily. However, the girl, the apprentice, ssshall be taken away from you."
"My Lord!" Snape choked out through a mouthful of blood.
"Sssilence!" Voldemort barked, "Return to your room immediately. Malfoy, you have done well. Sssnape, essscort the girl to Draco'sss room – the unusssed one opposssite yoursss."
Snape staggered to his feet and left the room with Draco following immediately on his heels. Both were surprised to see the girl standing out in the hall with a thick fur robe wound around her thin frame and another in her arms. On top of this robe was arranged several items of clothing and a few other knick-knacks she had stolen from Snape as cookery tools.
"I heard," she announced, gaze steadily focused on Malfoy.
As Snape whirled past her in a flurry of blood and fur she caught his eye, and thought she saw that the lines around his mouth had lessened a little in remorse. However, he pushed past her so quickly that it was difficult to say for certain.
"Looks like I'll have a warm bed tonight," Malfoy smirked and stamped into the room.
His room was smaller than Snape's; for he had no potions equipment, but his belongings had been transported over from Russia (some might accuse the Dark Lord of nostalgia). There was the traditional double bed, spread over with thick woolen blankets in a variety of bright colours. A few pillows lay at the head of the bed, and Malfoy's precious books and tomes spread over most of the narrow strip of floor.
Almost immediately there came a knock at the door, and it opened to reveal the timid face of Peter Pettigrew.
"My Lord invites you to sample a little fire-whisky with him," he stuttered, face crimson from suddenly coming out of the hot room and into the freezing hallway.
"Get that bed warmed up," Malfoy barked over his shoulder as he vacated the room.
Hermione paid him no heed as the door shut behind him, but dropped to her haunches and set up the cauldron she had carried over. The stew was still there; she had added another bird to it that she had caught by its round neck when transmitting to Ginny Weasley earlier, and a few turnips. She lit a fire underneath it and watched as it bubbled happily away, releasing warmth and steam into the room.
There was a bowl that she had taken from Snape's room and she dipped it into the hot broth hurriedly; wiping the rim as she hurried across the hallway and opened his door.
He was lying on the bed, underneath the covers, watching the ceiling and holding a freezing piece of cloth to his face, which was still bleeding. He cast a brief glance towards her as she shut the door and then announced, in a heavy sort of voice:
"You oughtn't to be in here. Where's Malfoy?"
"Having a drink with Voldemort," she answered, sitting on the edge of the bed once she had picked her way through the clouds of cauldrons.
He took the soup gratefully, turning on one side and propping himself up on an elbow to sup it straight from the bowl. As he drank and ate the covers slipped down and revealed a pale, sickly chest and a sparse covering of black hair. Hermione had slept alongside him every night for the last week and knew this, but it made her breath catch in her throat once more as she watched him eat hungrily like a small child.
Compassion overwhelmed her and she left the room, leaving Snape with his hunger abated and an odd feeling of regret in his stomach.
Malfoy returned to the room some time later, smelling of fire-whisky. Hermione, who had been sitting on the edge of his bed reading a novel about something she had no interest in, looked up when he came in and stood, watching him with wary eyes.
He crossed the room in two quick strides and enveloped her into his arms.
"God above," he whispered, "You're a sight for hopeless eyes."
