Intermission: Now Comes The Night
Snape kept his eyes down as he listened to Regulus pacing in the next room. His hands never stopped moving, grinding the precise combination of crushed petals and leaves for the next step of the potion. The Glorious Fire potion was supposed to be difficult. In reality, Snape knew, the main difficulty lay in having patience with the liquid and how it needed to boil long enough to make it. Most brewers could not wait hours, watching like a lizard on a rock, and still apply the next infusion of leaves at the precise moment.
That moment arrived. Snape dropped in the leaves and stirred the potion with his glass stirring rod. The potion trembled, and then a tendril of white spread through the liquid, moving outward from the center, extending itself in gentle ripples until it was mostly pale with just a drop of blue in the corner, like a staring eye. Snape considered it. Not as thick as he would have preferred it to be, meaning the flames would not burn for more than an hour, but it would do. He moved to gather a cloth; the potion would need to be strained, a last step to remove any impurities, and something else that impatient brewers often forgot.
"Severus?"
He did not drop the cloth. He did not drop the stirring rod. He did not turn around. He only said, "Black," with as little welcome in his voice as the lizard watching on the wall might have given a snake.
"I need to talk to you."
That is not new, Snape thought, as he turned back to the cauldron and dipped the fine mesh into the potion. It clung, dripping, and Snape wrung it out with counterclockwise motions of his hands, slow and subtle, his gaze fixed on the size of the splashes the drops made when they hit the liquid in the cauldron, not on Regulus. What Regulus said would not be anything he wished to hear.
"So speak," said Snape, when some moments had passed in silence and he was certain at least an eighth of the potion had been properly strained. The thinner liquid was crowding to the top of the cauldron, floating above the thicker potion. It reminded Snape of the foam on a mug. And then he blinked, and the memories were safely tucked away, and it reminded him of nothing at all.
"I—"
And Regulus fell silent. He had been doing that often of late, Snape thought, as he picked up a vial and filled it with the thinner, cream-like Glorious Fire. It was not Snape's fault that he could not finish his sentences.
Regulus did seem to have a secret, from the way he stammered and hinted and flushed of late. Had Snape not known better, he would have said Regulus was working for the Order of the Phoenix, even as he was. But Regulus never spent long periods of time alone; he sought out Snape and had stunted conversations instead. Snape thought it much more likely he had a lover somewhere, or was convinced he had "sullied" himself by casting an unusual Dark Arts spell in the raid last week, and did not want to admit it.
"Yes?" Snape asked, when the silence had stretched long enough to pluck on his nerves like fingers, and looked up.
"Do you—" Regulus made a vague gesture at the Riddle house, and, Snape supposed, the other Death Eaters who were somewhere in it. "Do you ever feel like you're not part of them?" he whispered. "That you don't belong?"
Snape's eyes did not narrow, because he willed them not to. Regulus knew better than anyone the differences between Snape and the rest of the Dark Lord's followers. He had been the one to pluck at the beauty and grace in Snape, to force him to see himself as different from those buried under a rightful flood-tide of hatred and contempt, to make him go to Dumbledore. That Snape had not shared any of these conclusions with Regulus was irrelevant. The man knew his differences.
Which could only mean that he was talking about his own.
And Snape did not want to hear Regulus talking about that. Regulus was not that good an actor. In truth, Snape thought, he had joined the Death Eaters because his parents wanted one son who followed the Dark properly, and he was tolerated mostly because he was the heir of an undeniably pureblood family. Where someone like Snape, a halfblood, would have to work hard to prove himself, Regulus's heritage spoke for him. But he did not have that stable a position, and he could tip from it if he dared too much.
To hear Regulus questioning himself, trying to hatch a conscience that he had not so far indulged, was to have a vision of Regulus's future death when his acting skills ran out, as they inevitably must.
And so came the moment Snape had known would come, when he must conceal his changed allegiances from his—
Well. His. Trying to give a name to Regulus and what Regulus had done to him was beyond his abilities.
"I never feel that way," he said, and stripped his voice of tone, of emotion, of inflection that could possibly be taken as encouraging a confession. "I feel only that I must belong, and if I do not succeed in one spell or battle tactic, I will try another." His hand rested on the cauldron. "My potions are my belonging. You know what would happen if I failed with the Glorious Fire, or any other concoction that our Lord asked me to brew."
It was a warning, as clear as he could give without actually speaking it aloud, of what would happen to Regulus if he stepped outside the boundaries of his Lord's tolerance. And given that Regulus did not have even the leniency that Snape's "devotion" to Voldemort and his skill at potions had earned him, he would fall faster and further than could happen to Snape.
Regulus's face closed, and he nodded once. "You're right. Of course. My condolences for your lost time, Severus." He turned and shut the door behind him.
Snape stared at the place where he had been, and tried to soothe the small voice that whispered this had been a mistake. It had been a mistake for Regulus to start thinking. He was not intelligent enough to survive if he did that.
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"Morsmordre!"
Peter Pettigrew shivered as the snake and skull blossomed on his arm like a cancer. Snape, standing at his Lord's side—he had been the one to capture the Muggle Pettigrew had killed, and so he had a place of honor for the initiation—glared into his old enemy's eyes.
Pettigrew bowed his head. Of course, he would know now that Snape was a Legilimens, and he would want to avoid having his every secret read out of him. Snape took a deep breath, a slow one so as to avoid making his robes shudder and reveal his weakness, and locked his hatred in the back of his mind.
So Pettigrew had been among his tormentors at Hogwarts. What did it matter? They were all in the darkness here. And Snape stood higher in the Dark Lord's favor than this quivering, cringing coward could ever hope to do. And while he knew that he had become extremely important to Albus Dumbledore, even as he used the spying to forge his own path through the night, Pettigrew had only the very thin satisfaction of knowing his own fear had made him a traitor to his friends.
But it did not work. The impulse to attack was still there. Snape could not even decide which torture he would use, should Pettigrew suddenly be handed to him; there were too many poisons, too many painful spells, and he would use each one with the knowledge that he really wanted James Potter or Sirius Black to be writhing in front of him. But their pet would do. He would do very well.
"Severus, stay."
Snape fell into a kneel beside the throne as the other Death Eaters left, Pettigrew among them now, scurrying along with his head lowered and his shoulders hunched. He felt Voldemort's hand slide along his skin, lingering to trace the outsides of his eyesockets. He did not flinch at the touch. Long practice was the most of that, but his own rage and hatred had their part to play.
"You are displeased that I have accepted this one into my service, Severus," the Dark Lord whispered.
"It is not my place to say that, my lord," said Snape. A breath. "He is yours, and I will not touch him." A breath. "I hated him, I hate him still, but I should have left such feelings behind when I entered the darkness and gave my loyalty to you." A breath.
"You should have," Voldemort said. "And I should punish you for threatening our poor, frightened Peter simply by your glare, and making his arm tremble a bit when I was casting the Dark Mark."
"Punish me, my lord," Snape said. He would use the pain the same way he always did, to steady his body and clear his mind, and remind himself of who he was and why he was fighting. "My own disloyalty shames me."
Voldemort was silent for a time. Snape wondered if he meant to use nonverbal spells. It wasn't a common tactic for him, since he wanted his victims and his enemies to be able to anticipate what he was doing, and make it that much sweeter for him.
Then the Dark Lord said, "No, Severus. Not this time, I do not think. I will ask that you watch Peter instead. A traitor may betray twice. If you see one step out of line, if you see one twitch of the little rat's tail that I have not ordered, then you will report to me at once."
Snape felt an enormous peace sweep over him, soothing his hatred with the coolness of foam. Intellectually, of course, he knew this was a tactic the Dark Lord often used, setting his own followers to spy on one another, compete for his favor, and channel their aggressive energy into overthrowing each other instead of him.
Emotionally, he did not care. He at last had one of the Marauders within his grasp. And should Pettigrew twitch his tail not to Voldemort's orders, then Snape would perform the torture fully, happily, gladly, and in such a way as to convince any doubters of what he really was—because, with Pettigrew, he would be a Death Eater, not Dumbledore's spy.
"Thank you, my lord," he whispered.
There was a look in Regulus's eyes, later, that said he might have lingered by the door of the room and overheard. There was a look in Snape's eyes that warned him not to try interrogation.
Regulus never did.
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Severus!
Groggy, disoriented, Snape woke. He had been awake for more than two days, first brewing, then confirming that the new variation of the Black Plague spores Adalrico Bulstrode had tried really left none of their victims alive, then slipping away to report to the Order of the Phoenix, and then engaging in a "mock duel" with Rabastan. Rabastan would have been just as happy to kill him, Snape knew, and he could return only small curses that were practically love taps, since showing his full strength would have confirmed his hatred for the man, and confirmed that emotion as a weakness. It was no wonder he had collapsed into bed the moment he could.
But it was a wonder that the Dark Lord had called to him mind-to-mind, a technique that even a very skilled Legilimens didn't often practice. Snape stumbled to his feet, made sure he had a robe on, and then hurried out of his room and towards the throne room, where he knew instinctively the Dark Lord was, thanks to the call throbbing in his mind like a sore tooth.
Severus!
Snape ran. His mind was clearing of fog as he tucked the weariness in his Occlumency pools, and he knew something was wrong.
He entered the room. He had no warning, nothing more than Bellatrix's snarled "Crucio!" Then he was on the floor, spasming with pain, and the Dark Lord was bending over him, flaying his shields away, looking for evidence of—Snape didn't know what.
He had been prepared for this, of course. The secrets he needed to protect the most, including his true loyalties, were already sunken to the bottom of his mind like stones. The rest was foam and water and light, and free for Voldemort's taking. Those claws raked through his mind, taking indeed, scraping and stirring and seeking.
Then his Lord drew back with a snarl, and, somewhere beyond his screams, Snape heard him say, "That is enough, Bella. He did not know."
Reluctantly, or so it seemed to Snape, Bellatrix let him go. He sat up, gasping with pain, but controlling himself as soon as possible. There were other people here, masked and moving restlessly, and he did not know who they were. He could not reveal weakness in front of them.
"My Lord," he whispered, and winced. He had bitten through his lower lip in his attempts to control the screams, and blood made his words sound slurred. He waited a moment, spelled it away wandlessly, and spoke more coherently. "What has happened?"
"Regulus Black has turned against me," said Voldemort, precisely and implacably. "I wished to know if you had joined him in his treachery, Severus." His scarlet eyes narrowed. "But you did not," he said. "You are still my most loyal servant."
Snape sat still. They did not have Regulus yet, he thought, or he would be here and screaming. He might have fled. But he would not keep ahead of the hunters for long, especially since he would probably go to one of the Black houses. Snape knew much about Regulus, Regulus was his his in an odd way, but Regulus was not that intelligent. And the Black houses were warded. He probably felt safe there.
And he even would have been, had not Bellatrix, born a Black, also served the Dark Lord.
The darkness came for Snape then, for the first time, true night, lapping him and swelling around him, as he saw what was going to happen—something horrible he had not caused and could not stop without revealing himself, or, at the very least, losing his position as Voldemort's trusted second-in-command.
Regulus would not live past this.
