Ok. Poppy's back, and in one hell of a bad mood. The Order should be giving her a wide berth... If only they were so smart. So lets play, boys and girls. Oh, and I apologize in advance for the language in this chapter. Normally, I don't approve of cursing at all, even in M-rated, but it was sorta necessary here. Sorry.

Disclaimer: HP not mine.

Chapter 10

Promises

The rustle of movement at the table alerted her to her husband's return. Poppy sat up in the chair, and watched hawklike as Severus and Madeye stepped shakily back from the pensieve. If Moody so much as looked at him funny ... But she needn't have worried on that score. She could see the easing of her husband's stance from here. An easing that would never have shown unless some element of trust was there. She smiled grimly.

'So. Alastor Moody. Are you satisfied of his innocence now?' Severus turned and granted her a weary but mischievious grin. Her heart leapt at the spark of hope in his eyes. Alastor, if you've put that there, I'll even go easy on you. Hell, I might even forgive you. She turned her raptor's gaze on the shuffling Auror, who bobbed as if ducking a spell. He obviously had gained a healthy fear of her. All to the good, since he was the one who determined Severus' future with the Order.

Alastor cleared his throat. She raised a questioning eyebrow. He shuffled once, then squared his feet and looked her straight in the eyes. A snide question caught in her throat at the sadness she caught there. 'No,' he said. 'I'm not satisfied.' Severus stiffened, and her hand slid to her wand. Moody's shoulders hunched slightly, but he continued doggedly. 'I'm not satisfied with things at all. I've just witnessed more brutality, more cruelty, than even I believed existed. And I am disgusted that we ... that I have participated in it. I have always been willing to do the "dirty work", to do things that others find distasteful. Now I find that not only have I been a rank amateur, but I have completely misdirected my zeal, and almost alienated one of the bravest and most loyal members of the Order. I ask your forgiveness.'

Her mouth was open, but she barely noticed. Grudging acceptance, she had thought possible, with luck and some well placed threats. This, she wouldn't have dared hope for. She turned to look at Severus, to see how he was taking this, and saw something very rare. Severus Snape, imperturbable man of mystery, completely gobsmacked. Abruptly, laughter bubbled up inside her, unstoppable and hysterical. She'd spent these past few days preparing for battle, ready to fight tooth and claw to defend her husband, and now that need was suddenly lessened. Now, she didn't have to hold herself so rigidly, and the shocked laughter just poured out of her.

In two seconds, Severus was across the room and by her side. He pulled her into a fierce hug, just holding as the shuddering laughter ripped through her and turned to tears. She was vaguely mortified, but she couldn't have stopped for the world. She'd thought she'd lost him, thought he'd finally succumbed to the horror that was his life, thought that he'd be brutalised no matter what side found him, thought she'd have to throw her meagre resources into a hopeless fight to save him, and now ...

'What makes you think your resources are so small?' he asked softly, and her panicked weeping halted in shock. She'd said that aloud? All of that? 'Severus ... I don't ... I didn't ...' He shushed her. 'You have far more than you think you do. Do you know many times I wanted ... wanted to push my masters past safe limits, push them to do what they forbade me to do, and end my life? And doesn't that sound pathetic? Suicide by slavery. Hah!' She trembled. He tightened his grip around her. 'But I didn't. Never. Because you were waiting. Because you cared. Because even after ... even after Lucius discovered the darker pleasures, you didn't despise me. You didn't hate me for what I was.'

She pulled back to stare at him. She trembled still, but now it was from fury. 'Why the hell would anyone hate you for what those bastards did to you? And why do you persist in thinking you're worthless! What do I have to do to drill it into your head that what I do is not out of pity, not out of duty, but out of love!' He stared, and a tear trembled over his eyelid. 'I know,' he whispered. 'It was all that I had. It was the hope that brought my Patronus to life. And it's what I have now. It's what makes it so that I could fight my way out of here if I had to. Because you are here. So don't ever think that you are worthless either. Understand?'

She stared right back. 'Oh.' His mouth twitched. 'Oh?' She blushed. 'Nothing. I love you.' He smiled, slowly. But before she could steal that smile, Alastor coughed pointedly. Blushing, she pulled back from her husband, and turned to glare. Moody had the decency to look embarrassed. 'We should .. um .. we should call the Order together. Get the rest of the confrontation out of the way.' She had to laugh. The grisled old Auror looked like a boy caught spying on his parents. She nodded, smirking. 'Why don't you take care of that, then?'

Familiar faces, gathered around the room, staring at her husband, Moody, and herself. Poppy shifted self-consciously. Expressions ranged from confused (Dung), to supportive (Molly and Remus), to hardened (Shacklebolt), to downright hostile (Tonks). She was surprised by that. Surely Remus would have explained things to Nymphadora? But then, maybe he hadn't had the chance to. Moody and herself had kept the poor man rather busy lately.

Alastor cleared his throat. Gazes swung in his direction. 'I suppose Remus has filled some of you in?' He glanced around. 'Doesn't matter, really. But I've reviewed the "evidence" the boy brought. I've been through hell in a pensieve, and concluded ...' They leaned in eagerly. '...That Severus Snape is indeed innocent. Albus Dumbledore did indeed order him to kill him, and owing to being bonded to the old man, Severus had no choice but to obey. He is, and has always been, on our side.'

A moment's shocked stillness, then uproar. Albus rushed in to float ecstatically around Severus. Molly came over to clap her solidly on the shoulder, Kingsley's grim expression softened slightly, and Tonks strode forward to back-hand her husband across the face. Severus stumbled back, a red mark on his pale cheek.

Everyone froze. Herself and Remus moved to their respective partners, but Severus raised a hand, and they pulled back. Severus straightened, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. He turned to a trembling Tonks. 'Quite the strong arm you got there, Nymphadora. Care to tell me why you just used it on me?' Poppy saw him brace, not for battle, but for punishment. Of course, he wouldn't strike back, not here. Oh ... shit! Tonks squared up to him.

'You ... you bastard! How could you let it happen? If you were goddamn on our side, then why the hell did you let Remus get taken? You murdered Dumbledore, and then you let slip who Remus was, just like you let slip what he was at Hogwarts, so he wouldn't tell us where you were! You're on their side! Tell me I'm wrong! I dare you!' Remus looked striken. 'Nymph ...' She swung on him. 'Shut it Remus. He's not getting away with this!' 'Getting away with what?' Severus asked quietly. Poppy stiffened. There was that cold tone to his voice, that meant he was on the attack. A good offense is the best defense. He was angry.

'Well, Nymphadora? What is it you think I have done? Or failed to do? Do you know how he was taken? Do you know why?' She shifted. 'Of course not. He could never have borne to tell you. Remus would never hurt you that way.' He moved up into the young woman's face, cold fury marring his features. Poppy winced. 'But I'm not Remus. I am a murdering Death Eater, am I not? So I don't really feel any need to spare you.' Poppy grasped Remus' arm, stilling his involuntary jerk of reaction. He couldn't know that both were hurting. He couldn't see the pain riding beneath the anger in Severus' eyes. He only knew that his mate was threatened. But he couldn't interfere. Not now.

'Remus Lupin has been known as a spy for two months. They chose then to take him because of me.' Triumph flashed over Tonks' features, but faded at his next words. 'They needed a replacement toy, since the Dark Lord decreed that I die that night. For such open defiance as I had shown him, Voldemort could not let me live, but if I died, who would he have to play with?' His trademark sneer flashed, then faded into an expression of loathing, and fear. 'The Dark Lord wanted a fuck slave, a toy to chain to his bed and use whenever he felt the need. He wanted a living, writhing body to abuse, to torture. He wanted your mate on his belly under him, screaming and begging, giving him the pleasure of raw fear that I tried so hard to deny him. That in the end, I failed to deny him. And when your mate had screamed himself hoarse, when his body grew so used to the pain that it no longer struggled, when he had lived in fear so long that he could no longer hide it, when he had suffered so long that hope was forgotten, then the Dark Lord would have disposed of him as he did me. A broken toy is useless, after all.'

A ringing silence claimed the room. Tonks was so pale she looked bloodless, held up only by the painful grip Severus had on her arms. Remus wept softly, echoed by Albus' ghostly tears. For herself, her sadness couldn't be lessened by the fact that she had known, always, what he lived with. She could only watch as the pain tightened her husband's face, as the horror that lived in him rose in his eyes. She could only silently will him her strength, as she had done every time he left her to face the unending horror he had just described.

'Murderer you call me,' he continued softly. 'Murderer I am, for if we had failed, if I couldn't make it so that he could escape, then I would have killed your mate. I would have cast an unforgivable to end his life, rather than leave him there. I did the same for Albus, though none but I knew it. By the time I found out, it was too late, far too late, to find another way out. It was the only mercy I had to give. Do you understand?' He shook her, hard. 'Do you see? I have lived that life every day for the past twenty six years, and I will kill to spare another that existence! I'll be your murderer, your Death Eater, your sacrifice, but I will never suffer to see another used so! I will never allow that to happen! If the Order is the best chance I have to prevent the Dark Lord from taking another, then I will be your goddamn slave, I'll live and die and fight to serve you, but I will not spare you should you fall! Do. You. Understand?'

Cautiously, Poppy moved forwards and gently pried his taunt fingers from the girl's arms. She wrapped his shaking form in a gentle embrace as Remus did the same for his mate. Severus bent his neck to bury his tearstained face in her hair. 'I promise,' he whispered softly in her ear. 'I will never let him have you. Never.' She closed her eyes in pain. 'Oh Severus. I know. I've always known. Hush. I understand. I understand.' And she rocked him, this fierce desperate child who gave so freely of a wounded heart, and loved him that little bit more.

A respectful distance was granted by horrified Order members. Many wept. Others, older, more versed in the horror of war, merely turned pained eyes away, to dwell on private horror. Albus, hovering near his old slave, gazed striken at his bowed head. 'Ah child,' he whispered. 'Ah child, I'm so sorry. I never thought for you, for what I asked of you. Severus, forgive me.'

The front door burst open, shattering the frozen tableau. A piercing scream filled the house, but it wasn't Mrs Black. It wasn't fury that drove it, but pain and terror, a girl's voice lifted in agony and fear. The Order spun to attack or defend as the sound grew closer, then froze in horror as a desperate Harry and Ron ran into the room, a struggling, screaming, terrified Hermione between them. Bloodied, clothes ripped, with identical expressions of desperate determination, the two boys opened their mouths to plead for help, and saw Severus.

Well, I thought it was about time the 'Golden Trio' showed up. And the Order needed to know exactly what Severus went through for them, and why. What do you think? R&R?