A/N: I beg your forgiveness for my unusual delay in updating – conflicting deadlines conspired against my writing time. This chapter is short, but I wanted to give you all something, and to thank you for your patience. My time is again my own; Dies Irae (II) and the rest of the story will follow soon. - Ariadne


Dies Irae (I)

They were hungry. They were his.

And they were here.

A cloud of darkness swirled over the rooftops of Grimmauld Place, dozens of ragged shapes blocking a sickly, failing sun.

In the shadows under dusty trees, a pair of dead red eyes flicked from the circling figures in the air to the buildings below.

To the house marked "number eleven."

To the house marked "number thirteen."

And back to the hovering starvation above.

"Severusss…"

Severus stiffened in Hermione's arms and he stared at the Mark on his forearm. It was dormant.

The voice in his mind should not have been there.

"Severus?" Hermione looked at him questioningly.

But her low voice was lost in the darker hiss of the voice before which he had accounted himself strictly, rigidly, a mirror of lies, for most of his life…

"Severusss…"

Severus' hands closed tightly on Hermione's arms, his fingers leaving bruising imprints, as his thoughts retreated before the Dark Lord, before the invasion of his mind. Fleeting questions abandoned, buried, before the Dark Lord could sense them - How? Where is he? How is this possible! - his mind breached across space, across distance – rushing panicked backwards through his own mind, half a thought ahead of the Dark Lord, leaving his thoughts a flowing stillness, smoothing one path barely in time for its rippling to stop before the Dark Lord was on it, in it, advancing to the next…

A sudden turn. Stifling a gasp. Anticipating the Dark Lord's next turn. And the next. And the next. A sudden backtracking. Circling around. Behind him now.

He should not be in my mind…

"Severus?"

Her voice was lower. No time now –

"Severusss…"

Schooling himself to stay one thought ahead; the Dark Lord's progress taking another sudden turn; Severus' mental patterns shifting, each complex pathway smoothing quickly to a singularity of loyal servitude…

"I am here, my lord; all is as it should be…"

…but behind the shifting surface, frantic - all of his skill, his experience, pressed into service of one goal: Retreat.

One thought away from detection, his mind concealed within the shadows that had ever been his playthings, his companions, the servants of his own continued existence, the practiced darkness that was Severus Snape was terrified.

"Severus?"

He scarcely heard Hermione's whisper. No time –

Inside his mind, sweeping around corners, advancing, circling around, the Dark Lord's mind moved smoothly in his own, gliding in an almost random almost-pattern; the pattern of the Dark Lord's movements, traversing his mind, touring his purpose, the pattern, the pattern…

The same pattern.

… and Severus discerned the pattern of Voldemort's movements and the surface of his mind was stilled, smooth once more.

He exhaled, slowly easing his death grip on Hermione's arms.

She did not say his name, merely reached up to touch his sleeve, knowing that something was terribly wrong.

"Severusss… you are close by… my children are circling above you… tell me the Secret, Severusss… I wish to taste this new force of chaos you have prepared for me… You are well concealed, between eleven and thirteen, Severusss… I cannot see it… tell me the Secret, Severusss…"

The Dark Mark flared, searing his arm. He gritted his teeth, and his eyes bore into Hermione's in wordless command, supplication, panic, and burning, aching control. "He's here. He knows. Floo Minerva – I will stall him as long as I can."

Hermione's eyes widened slightly, and deep within them Severus saw a smoldering flare, alight, alive. His eyes flashed in response, and, their hands buried in each other's hair, one final, brutal kiss.

"He felt that."

"Good," Hermione hissed.

A flash of dark laughter in Severus' eyes, a deft wand motion, and his mask and cloak settling on him, a silk-wrapped parcel flying to his hand, and he was gone, the echo of his mental laughter a steel shield around Hermione's mind as she raced for the Floo.

Hermione's tone pierced the haunted silence of the headmistress' tower. "Minerva – Minerva!"

"Go, child! Phineas told me – GO!"

/x/

Voldemort withdrew from Severus' mind as Severus Apparated to the park at Grimmauld Place.

Strolling easily, confidently, to stand before Voldemort, his Death Eater guise a slash of emptiness in the hazy green of the dusty park, Severus felt the Dark Lord's mental departure. Whatever would happen, however it happened, he would soon draw breath as a free man – freed from bonds courted in malice, embraced in sacrifice.

His first breath of freedom in over 17 years.

And although he knew that that first breath might very well be his last, his eyes glittered in anticipation as, inwardly, he smiled.

It wasn't a nice smile.

"Severus," Voldemort said, his arms flowing open in a gesture at once a command and a mockery of an invitation to intimacy. "Their excitement will be contained no longer. Share, Severus. It is time to share."

The spaces between the trees filled as masked, robed figures Apparated to form a semi-circle around the Dark Lord.

At the center of the circle, Severus inclined his head. "She comes, my lord. Even now, she comes."


Note on chapter title: The phrase "Dies Irae" is from the Requiem Mass (the Mass for the Dead) and is usually translated as "Day of Wrath," but the connotation is that of "Judgment Day."