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Chapter 7
"The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires
is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes."
- Swift
When they got home, a small bronze ball was tucked in Lily's pocket. Ellis was sleeping on her shoulder while Harry was stumbling with exhaustion at her side. She looked down at him, smiling at his messy hair.
He was so like James in many ways. But sometimes, he still managed to surprise her.
Must be my side of the family, Lily thought ruefully. She had never told anyone, not even James, but she had been adopted by the Evans as a young baby. Through her years at Hogwarts, she had tried to discover who her biological parents were.
She did find them in her sixth year, in a large book of genealogy of the highest pureblood families in Europe. 'Lily (Perdue) Evans' it was written at the bottom end of one branch of the Perdue family. Her parents were one Moira McKell, a squib daughter of the Irish McKells and her father Nicholas Perdue, the only heir to the Perdue fortune, acquired through their vineyards and businesses in France. Both her parents were deceased. And Nicholas had another wife and several other children, all residing in France and studying at Beauxbaxtons the wizarding school there.
So I was a love child. Lily chuckled at herself. It had all sounded so romantic, until she researched the McKells and the Perdues further at the Hogwarts library. The McKells were a large powerful family that destroyed itself a couple of years after she was born. A couple of patriarchs gambled away their fortune, and the rest of their scions feuded with one another for the remaining lands. They were famed for their skill as duelists, which only served to get them killed by each other faster. There were only a handful of them left, scattered all over Ireland and America, where they immigrated after losing everything they had.
The Perdues, on the other hand, were a small elitist incestuous group, growing even smaller as they kept producing children with disabilities--and killing them off. The family was known for their strict adherence to traditions. They were a lot like the Malfoys, but instead of breeding for beauty as the other line have done, they bred for brains and talent. Their ancestors were pioneers in spell creation and magical artifacts. One ancestor even claimed ties to Salazar Slytherin himself.
Lily shivered. She had been horrified when she discovered that, and vowed never to tell anyone about her findings. She rather preferred to remain Lily Evans, the gifted muggle-born, even though many students teased her about her ignorance of wizarding customs and called her mudblood behind her back. She never tried to contact any of them, not even the McKell who remained in Ireland.
The radio was crackling when she entered the house. Lily placed Ellis in his bed, and led Harry to his, before she took the radio to her room to listen to Remus or James.
It was Remus who greeted her on the other line. Lily was about to ask for updates when her husband's best friend interrupted gravely, "I am sorry, Lily. James was taken in the battle last night. Voldemort has him."
Lily tuned out the rest of his report. She didn't hear Remus talk about their victories, about their success in containing the dementors and Death Eaters, nor the horror they witnessed when the remaining dementors turned on their allies and bestowed to them the Kiss that would suck out their souls. Lily heard nothing apart from the thumping of her heart, and the ringing in her ears.
And she didn't see Harry's face peeking from behind the door, quietly crying.
Severus fell under Crucio several times that night. As did Lucius Malfoy, Igor Karkaroff, Vincent Crabbe and a couple of faceless others cowering under their mask and robes. They were the few that remained after the Final Battle at Hogwarts. Others either surrendered themselves or were killed or had found ways to escape.
Lord Voldemort was frothing at the mouth with rage. His wand struck again and again, red light flowing from it in bursts, until Severus could no longer stand.
They were holed up in what seemed to be a completely innocuous cottage at the bottom of the mountains north of Hogwarts. Inside the rustic and ramshackle house, however, there were several layers of dungeons, holding laboratories and libraries and hoards of dark objects that their young researchers had been 'tinkering with.' Most of them had been the first to die in the battle, including Vincent's younger brother David.
After the Dark Lord tired of his punishments, demanding that his incompetent followers leave him alone in his chambers, Severus followed the others' weary footsteps into their own rooms in the lower floors. At a fork in the hallway, the one he was sure to be Karkaroff turned one way while Lucius chose the other, and Severus was torn which of them he should follow. A chance word at this stage would certainly help, and the beatings they had taken would surely loosen a few tongues from behind the skull masks.
He had hesitated too long, and had no choice but to follow Lucius Malfoy, the man's gait still as graceful as ever, marking him different from the Dark Lord's other followers just as surely as if his long white hair were visible. Whatever Severus believes in about this foolish war, he still admired the older Slytherin's self-possession.
Lucius opened his door, and walked in without looking behind him. Severus hovered by the doorway, so the older Death Eater gestured impatiently for him to enter.
"The dementors were a grave miscalculation," Lucius murmured after he had removed his mask. He reached for a bottle of scotch, and poured the both of them a glassful of each.
Severus accepted his glass with a nod, careful to appear respectful and appreciative in just the right amounts. Among the Death Eaters he has had to fool, Lucius was the sharpest, more dangerous even than Voldemort himself, because their master was too preoccupied with the war to notice the tiny details. Severus found it an interesting if nerve-wracking challenge in restraint and quickness of wit.
"Such creatures have inscrutable loyalties, and would probably not even comprehend the simplest of commands," Lucius continued as if to himself.
Severus murmured in affirmation, settling himself gently in the forest green armchair. His nerve endings still tingled from the Cruciatus he had endured, and the scotch helped a great deal.
"You have been quite useful, Severus, for a young man. Your many talents have been quite unappreciated. I hope, wherever this war leads us, that you have made plans to ensure your survival." Lucius' tone was mocking and slightly inquisitive.
Severus took another sip of the scotch to cover his reaction to the shift in conversation; the burn of the liquid down his throat dulled his pain even as it sharpened his other senses. Was this the same Lucius Malfoy? Practically spouting treason at him?
"If only you have met our master at a younger age, you would be so amazed at the difference," Lucius wasn't even looking at him, but staring far away as if in remembrance. Then he suddenly turned and his gaze pierced Snape's. "He was a lot like you, Severus."
"You are not much older than myself, Lucius," Severus asked with a hint of curiosity. "Have you known the Dark Lord since childhood, then?"
Lucius Malfoy laughed with abandon for a couple of minutes, before turning once again to look at Severus whose face burned in half-real and half-manufactured indignation.
"No, don't be angry, dear serpent," Lucius reassured him with a smile. "I have a secret to tell you. No, better yet, I can show you."
Severus merely quirked an eyebrow, even as Lucius opened a small chest, gesturing grandly. "Behold, the diary of Tom Marvolo Riddle, our master's saner half."
Severus eyed the benign-looking book, and quenched the immediate thrum of excitement from showing on his face.
James Potter was surrounded by almost complete darkness. His sockets felt like they weren't even connected to his arms and hands anymore; they were manacled to the walls behind him. His every nerve end felt like it was on fire, from the curse that brought him down and the others that followed it here in this Death Eater lair.
He was rattling his chains restlessly, his mind racing with the need to do something, when a noise in the darkness made him go still. It was a tiny scratching sound, like nails dragging through the pavement.
James held his breath, but he let it out explosively when somebody appeared where there was nothing but that scratching noise. The figure turned towards him and he gasped.
"Peter?" He croaked out, his eyes widening. "What are you doing here?"
The missing marauder looked pale and thin in the light that seeped from a crack in the door. His face and hands sported several scars. He crept forward towards James, whose surprise turned into joy and not a little bit of hope.
"I've come to save you, my friend," Peter was smiling, as his hand reached out like a claw. "Everything will be alright, now."
