This hard-lined, dark-eyed face did not look like anyone's loyal and obedient servant.
He stalked along the rough stone passageways, black robes billowing behind him, dragging a blond teenager by the arm. Draco Malfoy stumbled beside him, his face a pale frozen grimace.
At last, he reached his destination. "I have brought the boy, Lord."
"Excellent," came a hiss in reply.
Draco's head snapped up. His eyes flickered back and forth, searching for the source of the sound. Then at last, in horrified realisation, blinked shut. There was nothing to see. He was not in a dark room without windows or doors. He was blind.
"Weak!" scolded the familiar voice of his aunt Bellatrix. "Worse than his father! Proud as a peacock, boasting and strutting, but he couldn't rise to it, could he?"
"Shut up!" And that was his mother, her voice strained and raw.
"He failed in his task." The wheeze gave the speaker away as Amycus Carrow. "Frozen and useless."
"On the contrary." The unseen smile that rolled along the smooth words made Snape's voice most frightening of all. "Young Draco was a complete success. He arranged your successful entry into Hogwarts quite on his own, refusing my aid. He set the wards and arranged the scene so that we could deal with the old man without interference. He has remained alive and uncaptured, unlike some of those who were involved in this venture. And, of course, he provided excellent motivation for me to arrive in a timely fashion. He has been very useful indeed."
The grip on Draco's shoulder was released, and the long fingers stroked once through his hair.
"Yes, he did freeze in the crucial moment. But this can be blamed on inexperience and... poor parenting. Which brings us to the matter of my reward."
"So it does," came the snakelike whisper. "And so at last your wish shall be granted. Step forward, Narcissa Malfoy, and bear the price of your Vow."
Draco twitched, but did not cry out. Blind, wandless... any action on his part would only make him seem more of a pitiable fool. At least if they killed his mother now, he would not have to watch.
But the next voice to speak was not the Dark Lord signalling an execution. It was Snape, bolder and more forceful than ever he had been heard before.
"From this day forward, Narcissa, will you accept me as your lord and master, your husband, and afford to me all the respect and obedience due that title?"
A whisper, "I will."
"Will you grant to me rights to all the property held in the name of Malfoy, including your wealth, your home, and your son, to do with as I please?"
"I will."
"And will you swear never speak the name of your former husband, Lucius Malfoy, nor make any attempt to seek him out?"
A brief pause, then a sob. "I so swear."
All around him, Draco could hear the echoes of mocking laughter. Bellatrix, of course, and the poisonous giggles of the Carrows, and deeper booms that he could not identify...
"What's the matter, Cissy?" someone jeered. "Don't you like your new husband?"
"Well, he's hardly a prize, is he?"
"Silence!" And the room instantly responded to the Dark Lord's command. "Severus Snape is a trusted and loyal servant, who has carried out a most demanding task. And he is now head of a respectable pureblooded family of pedigree and wealth. I will hear no more rumors against him." There was a heavy thud, as of an item being struck against the floor. "I give to you Narcissa and Draco of the family Snape."
The long fingers came to rest possessively on Draco's shoulder.
"I thank the Dark Lord for his generosity," replied Snape.
"I... I don't wish to interrupt," came a meek little voice, one that Draco could not immediately place. "But now that you have your new 'family'... well, you won't be needing me any more, will you?"
"Oh, but I beg to differ," drawled Snape. "I need you very close by indeed. As we all know, hesitation can be fatal. And, should we ever have a visit from a very foolish young wizard, what would be more likely to cause hesitation than having to choose who to strike first - the snake who struck down his mentor, or the worm who betrayed his parents?"
---
Hermione Granger sat on the floor of the empty Common Room, with individual sheets of paper representing a giant map of Hogwarts spread out all around her.
"So Ginny and Neville were here," she mused, dropping a sickle next to the Room of Requirement. "Which is where everybody came in, but they didn't get attacked, because Malfoy threw the darkness powder. Why did he do that? Ron, Ginny and Neville alone wouldn't have been enough to fight off all those people... Was Malfoy actually protecting them?"
She considered this, then shook her head. "No, more likely he wanted to make sure his strike force got further inside before the alarm was raised. If they'd only just gotten inside it would have been easier to block them off, although one of her friends might have been killed in the meantime... so maybe it was luckier for them that they couldn't fight."
"Luckier for them, but worse for the castle in general? We had luck potion, but the professors didn't... maybe that's why Snape hexed Professor Flitwick, but not Luna or I..."
She added coins for herself and Luna down in the dungeons. "Profes - Headmistress McGonagall heard the commotion and sent Professor Flitwick to fetch Snape, and he ran past us. Snape stupefied him, but he didn't kill him, and he didn't kill us. I suppose if he were surprised, he might not have had the energy for a Killing Curse ready yet..."
Hermione tapped thoughtfully on a coin. "Why was he surprised? A huge Death Eater attack, and he didn't know it was coming? Dumbledore out of the castle, everybody on alert, the professors patrolling the corridors - and Snape was in his office? Why was he alone?"
"What if... what if Dumbledore wanted him out of the way? Snape had to help Draco because of his oath. But if he didn't know what Draco was up to, then he couldn't possibly help... What if that was the plan? Snape wasn't supposed to find out until it was all over, and then he would be free of the oath? But then when Professor Flitwick burst in on him and told him, he had to go and help Draco... and that made him so angry that he stunned the Professor on the way? If we'd just left him alone, would none of this have happened?"
It was a terrible thought, but that didn't mean it was true - or false. Hermione frantically weighed the evidence. "No, when Harry and Dumbledore got back and saw the Dark Mark, Dumbledore was about to send Harry to fetch Snape. So the plan couldn't have been to keep him out of it. And that also means that he wasn't kept off patrol because Dumbledore didn't trust him. There must have been some other reason he was in his office."
Hermione glanced over all the maps and squiggles and arrows and sighed. "I need more information. I need a way to find out what Snape was up to. I need to be... sneaky. And I'm not very good at that."
But then, maybe a bookworm couldn't solve this problem, but the sister of two devious Weasleys could find a way...
Notes: Okay, so I didn't actually go to Snape's POV. That would require giving too much away! And since poor Draco doesn't know what's going on either, he makes a better subject...
So, Narcissa, Draco, and Wormtail will all be answering to Snape now. Poor Lucius is not Voldemort's favorite person anymore.
Also a word of warning - I have no beta reader. I am frantically cross-checking details against copies of the books and the HP lexicon, but I'm not perfect. When this story is finished, I may have to go back to the beginning and rewrite it to fix any errors.
