Chapter Thirteen: Two Marks

Nightmares filled those hours of darkness, and still, even asleep, she felt a burning surge through her body, flames licking up, tearing at her skin. In her fevered sleep, she twisted and moaned, and, on several occasions, whispered or mouthed the names of the specters haunting her dreams. Snape.

When she woke, the sun was stabbing at her eyes from a distant window. Artibius was curled up beside her under the sheets, his furry muzzle snuggled against her chest. As she stirred, he popped his head gingerly out, looking at her worried over his horned nose. He had no idea what had happened, but seemed to understand that it had been something exceedingly grave.

She sat up slightly, skin sliding through the sheets, slick with sweat. She rolled her swollen tongue through her dry mouth, and felt her muscles creak and groan as she moved. Artibius scurried up her, pushing at her cheek carefully, clicking with a thousand questions. Still too tired to offer a smile, she reached up to pet him.

Pain shot through her arm as she lifted it, dull and burning, and she jerked, causing Artibius to tumble off her and to the bed.

It came back to her in a violent wave of sorrow. It hadn't been a dream. It was real—horribly, heart-rendingly real. In a panic she pulled the robe sleeve of her left forearm up and eyed the pale, pink skin in terror.

There was no mark, and nothing but her unmarred flesh stared back at her.

But still, she could not fool herself. She could feel it like a weight on her arm. There, beneath her skin, it was hidden like a disease, waiting for something to jar it back to life. Remembering the burning and the static of sizzling flesh, she shuddered, fingering the now pristine area gingerly. I'm one of them. I've lost. I've lost everything.

Tears boiled, burning in her eyes, and, as if in habit, she pulled her knees up to her chest and held them there, cradled, body wracked with trembling sobs.

Her head reeled under the full weight of this. What could she do? She was a Death Eater--she didn't even know what that really meant. And what would she say when Voldemort called on her? What would she do when she was asked to kill? Her heart skipped a beat. She had been too great a coward to refuse him in their first encounter: would she be able to defy his wishes in a second? Could she stand strong even if it meant her own life? A weight settled heavy in her stomach, and she felt as if, once again, she might faint. It was simply too much to feel, too much to fear all at once.

Artibius nudged at the side of her neck once more, clicking consolingly.

"Oh, Artibius," she managed through heavy sobs. "I've been so stupid. I've been so stupid and look where I am. Look what they've burned into my skin!" She wrung at her arm madly, as if, somehow, she hoped to wipe herself clean.

The black bat looked between Lili's tear-streaked face and her arm and seemed to understand some part of it. He pushed himself into the arc between her neck and shoulder and rested, silent and frowning.

She sat for a long time, drifting in and out of tears, crushed by the weight of things now beyond her control. Filled with the numb sensation of hopelessness, she did the only thing she could think to do; she sank back down to the bed, limp and defeated. She would steal a bit more sleep, where, though haunted, she didn't have to face reality.

Sliding her hand under the pillow, her fingers discovered the tattered and rough pages of Notes. Her heart wrenched, but she pulled it out just the same, letting the leafs drift through her fingertips, praying for the words to distract her from the plague of thought.

They did not distract her, but rang in her mind with a thundering knell. She saw, in the yellowed pages that smelled of Snape's dungeons, a picture of her future laid bare, sketched out before her in the charcoal of black and white words.

Real life oppressed me. I was angry at myself. I stood before her crushed, humiliated, abominably ashamed.

It was as if the skin had been stripped away from my body so that even wafts of air caused pain.

Reading this, her body shivered once more, remembering the pain still hot on her skin.

She read on, in gasps.

It was as if it all had to be so. . "I am alone, and they are everyone." They won't let me…I can't be…good.

The book's smell drifted up and, in a second, she knew what she had to do.

She sprang up from the bed, ignoring the stiff muscles that protested and the sweat which still permeated every inch of her skin. She pulled a quill from her wardrobe, and, slipping on the shoes near her bed, dashed towards the door. She would need some paper—perhaps from the library...

She knew he had told her not to send him any more letters. It wasn't safe.

The frown that now felt set permanently on her lips deepened. The word "safe" no longer seemed to make sense to her. If anything worse could happen, her mind was still too exhausted to conceive of it.

She had just torn the door open and was barreling into the hall when she ran, headlong, into the tall and set figure of Lucius Malfoy. He was standing just outside her door, chin cradled in his hand, talking concernedly with the houself Geeti.

She gasped but was too scared to realize it.

"Ahh, you're awake," he looked down at her wide-eyes with a strange mixture of concern and surprise. "We've been worried about you."

She felt the quill quivering in one hand, the other busy fiddling with the loose cloth of her robes. This had been the last thing in the world she wanted—what would she tell him? Would he ask her where she was going? Would he mention—the Mark?

"You've been out for almost a day and a half now," Malfoy continued, stretching himself taller. "Geeti and I were just discussing whether or not to send for a doctor. You've been running a high fever." He reached out and laid a heavy hand on her shoulder—a thoroughly Malfoy attempt at gentle concern.

The touch seemed to burn her skin in an uncomfortably familiar way. She swallowed, feeling a thick lump of fear in her throat. "No, I'll be fine. I knew I was getting ill, but I think the fever has broken." She felt at her forehead trying to back up the claim as best she could.

Geeti seemed unconvinced and tugged hard at Lili's hand, lowering the girl's body enough for the short houself to feel as well. "Miss is still warm, but not so bad. Miss should get back in bed, get more rest. Should be better soon."

No, she thought to herself, in panic. Not back in bed. Writing to Snape was the only thing keeping her from utter hopelessness: she needed it to stave off the crushing fear. "No, really, I think I'll be fine. I was just going to have lie down in the library, get some reading done instead of just lying about useless in bed." She was practically pleading and making no attempt to hide her desperation.

A loud tutting noise escaped Malfoy's pursed lips, and he took his hand from her shoulder with a wan grin. "You're academic tenacity is quite admirable, Lili, but you're still ill. Get back in bed, and Geeti will bring you up some lunch. We don't want to send you back to Hogwarts in worse condition than when you left."

Too late, Lili thought bitterly. Her heart sank down into her stomach, and, for a moment, she entertained the notion of arguing. But she suddenly felt very tired, and conceded to the defeat. Besides, it wouldn't do to quarrel with Malfoy mere hours after becoming a Death Eater. Who knew the consequences for such dissention now?

This thought alone made her feel weary in every bone, and, suddenly, going to sleep again and letting it all disappear for a bit longer sounded ideal. She turned back to the door and gripped the knob with a weak-fingered hand.

"Oh, I almost forgot."

She looked back at him over her shoulder. Her muscles ached.

"You have a visitor." Lili puzzled at the flat-lipped frown that crossed Malfoy's face as he said this. "Professor Snape has been waiting in the library for a few hours now. Apparently he heard you were ill."

She did her best not to let on that her heart had just threatened to jump up her throat and out her mouth. "Professor Snape?" The words barely seemed real.

Malfoy nodded, scowling. "Yes. You should feel honored. In all my years of acquaintance with him, I don't believe I've ever known him to give a damn about anyone." His pale eyes glared down at her over his nose, colorless and cold. "You must have really impressed him." This was clearly more an accusation than genuine conjecture.

Lili's mind was swirling with fears and doubts, but there remained enough Slytherin sensibility in her to understand the questioning and insinuation. Welcome to the games, she thought, doing her best to muster the forces in her head. Play it the way you would have back at Hogwarts. Play it the way you did when Millicent made lewd comments about your late hours in the Dungeons…

She pushed out a heavy sigh. "He's probably just afraid he'll lose the only assistant who can stand him." She quickly concocted a face that was half annoyed and half weary.

Malfoy nodded slowly, looking unconvinced. "Well, you needn't meet him in there. I'll send him into your room. Geeti will bring up your lunch in a bit."

For a moment the two of them watched each other. Lili stared back at him as he examined her reaction, keenly, hoping to detect even the slightest quaver.

"Actually, if you don't mind, I think I'd rather restrict our conversation to the library." She stood up straight, heart pounding wildly. What was Malfoy thinking? Surely he couldn't think—it was absurd and…She shivered. "I'm sure we don't have much to say to one another anyway." She wondered vaguely if she was overdoing it, trying to keep her face as flat and unreadable as Malfoy's.

You're first serious bluff, Lili. The thought made her stomach turn. But it won't be your last.

For the moment, she seemed to have won the stand-off. Malfoy pulled in a deep breath, and forced a lop-sided smile. "Very well. Geeti will bring you some pillows and a blanket and you can rest on the sofa for the time." He shot the houself a look, but it proved unnecessary as she had already scurried off to do this.

He turned his eyes back up to her, and she realized quite suddenly that, for the first time since her arrival on Malfoy Manor, he was sizing her up –no longer as a prospect, but as both a comrade and a threat. He feared her ambition, her prospects to climb far and fast. The idea gave her enough strength to meet his gaze squarely and brush past him towards the library door.

She jumped, finding his touch once more on her shoulder.

He was standing straight, looking down on her with piercing, severe eyes. "Lili—let me give you a bit of advice."

She felt her new found strength trickle away.

Malfoy paused a moment, his steel eyes sliding back and forth across her face as he tried to find words. "Professor Snape—" But he stopped, pulling his hand from her shoulder and lacing it with his other.

The silence of the hallway seemed to ring cold in her ears.

"Just be careful to whom you tell certain things," he said, at some length, pursing his lips and trying to smile in what she assumed he thought a fatherly way. "I'm sure I needn't tell you that some people just aren't worth trusting."

Lili watched the jagged edges of his smile with a deep shudder. No, she thought, you don't need to tell me that. She reached out and took the door handle with a rough turn. I've found that out the hard way.

The light in the library was, as always, more subdued than elsewhere in the Manor. The tall bookshelves cast long, comforting brown shadows across the floor, and Lili scurried under them, waiting for the door to shut behind her.

There was a light click, and she felt her muscles sigh and unwind.

It took her several moments to crawl out of the shadows, taking small and quiet steps towards the couch where Geeti was busy stretching out sheets and fluffing pillows. The room seemed unnaturally warm, and she wondered if it was a lingering bit of fever or the violent churning of her insides that caused beads of sweat to rise under the bends of her knees.

He was standing before the only window in the library, back towards her, silhouetted against a sun that was beating fierce enough about him to obscure all but the darkness of his form. He gave no sign of hearing her enter or of concern over the houself flipping down a light quilt on the sofa just behind him.

Lili felt a squeezing at her heart. He doesn't know.

He knew she was ill, no more. How could she tell him? Could she yet find the words? And even if she could, what in the world would he say? Her eyes flicked over him, a shadow stretched loose and thin across a plane of shining sun. If he couldn't help her, she thought, feeling tears threatening at the backs of her eyes, there'd be no one who could.

"Miss Lee."

The voice was jarring, but not severe. It was low; so low it seemed to blend in with the gentle buzz of heated air in the room about her. She was shaken by a strange mixture of relief and anxiety. "Pro-fessor Snape."

How on Earth can I tell him? Her legs wobbled and she steadied herself on the sofa, taking a seat and letting her eyes dart perfunctorily to Geeti who was straightening the quilt at the opposite end.

Snape didn't move but shifted his weight, letting sunlight bounce and stab past him manically. "You seem to be feeling better."

"Yes. I think my fever's broken." At the moment, actually, her stomach was roiling and her entire body had begun to perspire again. "How did you hear I was ill?"

His head seemed to sink slightly, but he remained facing away. "Word gets around."

She considered this for a moment, unable to understand.

He offered no further explanation, and they sat again in silence. The room seemed to shimmer with heat, and she wished with all her heart he'd say something. She tried several times to speak, but, though her lips opened and her breath came forth, she simply wasn't sure what to say. She fiddled with the ends of the sheets and resigned herself to the awkward quiet. She wasn't even sure what to think herself—how could she begin to explain anything to him?

Geeti scurried up beside her, still looking worried. "Miss is still quite sick. She should be resting. As soon as Master leaves, must get back in bed. I will bring you some lunch in a while."

"Thank you, Geeti," she said, trying to force a smile at the overly concerned houself. "You really don't need to make such a fuss." Geeti seemed to disapprove of the effort Lili was putting into the politeness, but scampered off without a word.

There was another click, but this time it was Snape who seemed to relax. He turned from the window, his skin completely bleached in the light. He pulled his wand from his robes and, waving it, muttered a charm so quietly that Lili couldn't place it. "Sound-proof charm," he explained, his voice sounding somewhat hoarse.

Then his face met hers. She felt her throat go dry.

His gaze was dark, as always, but this darkness was a storm, a torrent of something so black that even the intense sunlight seemed unable to penetrate it. His eyes were rimmed in red and met hers with a shame so deep, she felt her own eyes burning with tears. His thin lips were pale and pushed tight together. He had been crying.

"You know."

He was standing awkwardly, unsure how to move or act. He seemed to want at first to wipe his eyes and turn away but instead faced her full on and took several deep breaths. He spoke slow, painstakingly composed. "Yes. I know." Flat and quiet.

And, despite every effort on her part not to, Lili burst into sobs, pulling her knees up to her chest and rocking slowly. Somehow, hearing him say this, she felt quite abruptly how true it was. It had happened: she was irrevocably one of them. And now, Snape seemed incredibly distant, and she was left alone with the full weight of it pressing the breath and the tears from her in a monstrous fit of sobbing.

Snape stood, watching her. He made no attempt at comfort.

She was unsure how long she sat there, curled up against herself, crying. She wanted to forget that he was standing right there and turn over into sleep, but she couldn't. He said nothing and didn't move, looming over the back of the couch like a gaunt and stony sentinel. What could he be thinking? Was he as disgusted with her as she was?

Slowly, the tears refused to keep coming, and she merely remained bent and rocking against the pain.

"Lili." He said this on a weak, exhaling breath, but it still seemed to cut through her skin with a shameful sting.

She refused to raise her swollen eyes to his, and remained silent.

"Lili—" His voice was a bit louder this time. "I'm sorry."

By some miracle, this gave rise to even more tears, though her body was now far too exhausted to sob. She jerked her shrink-wrapped eyes to his in shock. "Sorry? What are you sorry for? You haven't done anything! It's my stupid fault. I should have listened to you. I never should have come here, and I certainly never should have said--" The word choked in her throat, and she felt unable to hold Snape's eyes any longer.

Snape bit at his tongue, visibly trying to keep himself composed. "But you did. And you had no other choice." He lifted a hand and, in a stiff and graceless motion, laid it on the back of the sofa. "The question now is, what to do about it."

It was the last thing in the world she had expected to hear. She had imagined he would either tell her off or try in some way to comfort her. She pulled her knees from her chest slightly and looked up at him, doing her best to wipe the tears from her eyes. He was standing, gaze on her, his own swollen eyes meeting hers without pity but with a great swell of understanding. And suddenly she realized that it was that understanding she had craved—that she had needed. He was not looking at her as if she was some lost and tragic case. Slowly, she found herself able to sit up, breathing in deep and full. "Yes. You're right." And he was. She hadn't allowed herself to lie about crying when she was sorted into Slytherin: and to do so now would be twice as foolish. She pushed the remainder of the sorrow to the side and pulled up her left sleeve, thrusting it towards him.

He recoiled at first, as if he had not expected her to be so forthright. But slowly, gingerly, he reached his thin fingers forward, wrapping them about her slender arm lightly. His touch was cold on her hot skin. He pressed the spot he knew the Mark would be. She jumped at a sudden bone-deep pain.

He swallowed deeply. "It won't be sore like that for long. In a few days, you could forget it was there." He snorted.

She watched his lips as his dark eyes slid over the skin of her arm. They parted slightly, pulling in air in a tragic hiss. It was the way a veteran looks at the wounds of scarred and jittery private. Hand shaking, she reached out towards him, laying a gentle hand on his left forearm. She met his eyes questioningly.

For a second he looked back at her, wide-eyed, dismayed, and, after a moment, drew away, cradling his own arm, disgusted.

Her hands were trembling. "You—you're—" Her voice shook almost as fiercely. "You have the Mark, don't you?" It was the only way she could bring herself to ask.

He didn't answer, but she no longer needed one. That was the darkness in his eyes, it was the violent jutting of his cheek bones and his thin and frail body. It was every bit of hate and anger that dripped from his tongue: and it was every bit of emotion he was trying so desperately to hold back. He turned away again.

The silence that followed was the most uncomfortable Lili had ever endured. It was made even more difficult by the quiet sound of swallowing and gasping breath that echoed off the ceiling. The sound wrung her heart in a way that seemed unbearable.

She reached out again, trying to lay her hand on his arm, but he stepped away.

"Pro-professor, I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

"No," he barked, in a voice that seemed entirely strong and weak at once. "No, it's true. And you have a right to know that. I—At a very young age… And it is a dark thing, a dark life." He looked over his shoulder at her, a glance free, now, of tears. "And you should not have to know it." His eyes were now filled with the cold disgust she had always associated with him.

It was only now she realized that disgust was for himself and no one else.

She pressed her lips together and, taking a deep, hot breath, mustered all her composure. "I—I think I have to leave England."

"What?"

Another breath. "I have to leave. I'm going to go back to China and stay with some of my friends there. I can't afford to stay here anymore."

His eyes closed, brow furling in pain. "Lili—You can't."

"No," she insisted, feeling the words tumbling out desperately. "I have to. If I stay here, he'll ask me to kill someone. Or to do something horrible. I'm not that person, and I refuse to be. I have to leave Hogwarts, and I can't come back."

"No, I mean you can't," he sighed, wilting onto the sofa back. "You can't run from him. It doesn't matter where you go: with that Mark, he'll always be able to find you, eventually. People have run before—none have survived. Once you've entered into his service, there's little chance that even thousands of miles can help you hide."

She felt the tears stinging once again, but refused to give into them. "Then—what—" She swallowed deliberately. "What can I—do?"

He turned away from her and did not speak.

"It's that hopeless, then?" A pain deep in her bones seemed to have been resurrected. Her skin burned hot. "I mean…" She fell quiet, then, remembering, whispered, "They won't let me…I can't be…good."

Snape snorted again, keeping his back to her and his face turned towards the blinding sunlight.

"Is that—how your life has been?" she asked, tremulous and terribly afraid of the answer. "Is that how you feel about your past?" Added, silent; Is that the fate that lies before me?

The question seemed to make Snape cringe, and, in the sunlight, he shrunk like a wilting flower. "My life, Miss Lee, does not matter."

She could imagine his face, the way it had met hers so often in the Dungeons, drawn taut in shame and self-loathing. "Professor—I—I think it matters a lot." She kept talking, quickly, before she had time to think better of it. "I mean, you've really—been very—helpful to me and—"

"Some help," he said, turning violently, but still keeping his back towards her. "I should have known; I should have seen this coming. I should never have left you here on New Year's Eve." His hands were tight at his sides, gaze pointed hard at the ground. "I of all people should have known not to leave you to these—these jackals."

She could hear sorrow rising in his throat and reached out desperately trying to curb it. "No—Professor, it's—"

He turned towards her, eyes slamming her with such ferocity that she fell off. "No, Miss Lee, please." He carefully side-stepped her hand, moving closer. "I should have seen this coming. But I didn't—" He swallowed. "And for that I'm sorry."

Tears finally won over and bubbled in her eyes. She shook her head. "No, Professor, it's my fault, please." The words emerged almost as whispers.

He seemed not to hear her. "But please, believe me. I will do anything I can to get you out of this. Anything."

There was a veracity in his eyes that caused her, immediately, to stop crying. His gaze was at once boring into and cradling her. He meant it. He was going to help her. She was overcome with the urge to reach out and embrace him—to hold him and be held. She could imagine his arms around her, strong and comforting, like a father's.

But she merely remained, rooted in her seat, staring back at him, breath shaking in her lungs. "Th-thank you." It was a weak and impossible way to express her gratitude, but she knew of nothing else he would accept.

"Miss' lunch is ready," Geeti called, the door bursting open and room suddenly flooding with the smell of hot meats and spices.

Snape, looking surprised and embarrassed, pulled his wand out and, hiding it behind the sofa, muttered an end to the sound-proof charm.

"Oh, thank you, Geeti," Lili barely managed, hoping no tears remained on her face. "Just lay it down over here."

"Actually, I was just leaving," Snape said, his voice, to Lili's amazement, back to its normal calculated indifference. "Why don't you take Miss Lee and her lunch back to her room. And be certain she gets her rest."

Geeti looked up at Snape, curious and distrustful, but nodded all the same.

Lili stood, allowing the houself to bundle up all the sheets and pillows. She met Snape's eyes.

She found them back to normal as well, though still somewhat swollen about the edges. He looked at her, and, for only a split second, let his mask slip, revealing once more a warm and strong rush of understanding. She allowed herself to give him only a slight and quick smile in return.

"Thank you for your concern, Professor," she said, doing her best to drench her voice in apathy and mock-politeness. "I suppose I'll see you in four days."

Snape nodded, pulling on a cloak he had draped across a short bookshelf, and looking at her with only a brief and cool smirk. "Yes, and remember those potions I told you to look over. I expect you to know them at the start of term."

She nodded.

"And let me know if you have any questions or problems. Through Artibius."

Understanding, she nodded again. Apparently, he too agreed that "safety" could perhaps be gambled somewhat in the situation.

Snape turned and, walking out the door, asked the houself, in a tone far more commanding than Lili had thought possible from him, "Is Mister Malfoy available? I need to speak with him."

Lili did not hear the response as, once again, the door clicked shut.

And once again she was left alone.

At least this time, she told herself, with a sigh, you're strong enough to remain standing. She walked quickly out of the library, careful not to let her eyes go seeking for Snape's distant figure or any false hopes.