WARNING: Once again, hinted-at gore.
Intermission: Rebirth
The graveyard breathed around him, and it was true, it was real, what he had denied for so long was alive around him again, and the thirteen years he had gone without feeling this had been the time he was dead, not the years when he walked in the company of it.
His Lord's power was everywhere, roaring, restored to a body now, leaping and pouring like black water over the headstones, shaking its head in the mad gladness of a chained beast with its bonds snapped at last. Snape tossed back his head and let it bathe him. He laughed, or found that he was laughing, and did not know how long he had been doing that.
He walked with quick but unhurried steps towards the center of the graveyard. His Lord held court there, still mighty though he was without his throne and his snake. The other Death Eaters drew back slightly when they saw Snape coming.
"Severus." Voldemort's voice hissed the sibilants more than Snape remembered from the last time he had seen him alive. "My faithful servant."
Snape dropped into a kneel, which hurt his knee. He was no longer as young as he had once been. But it did not matter. What mattered was the painful awakening of life inside him again. Merlin, how had he lived without this, this circle of darkness that pulsed around him and sang wildly in his brain and found its echo in the darkness within his own soul and the darkness on his arm?
"Have you held true to me, Severus?" the Dark Lord asked. "Have you served me even when the fool Dumbledore thought you were true to him?"
He already knew the answer. The wiser ones among the Death Eaters gathered here would already know the answer. But Voldemort wanted it said aloud. For the sake of the less wise, Snape knew, and for the sake of sealing their bargain anew with the words.
He lifted his head and caught his Lord's gleaming scarlet eyes. Once, he nodded. "I have, my Lord," he whispered. "Dumbledore holds me close to his heart, and gives me custody of his precious children, and denies me nothing. But I have always been yours." He dipped his head to kiss Voldemort's robes.
And he knew the Dark Lord's joy, fierce and feral, echoed his own. Even Voldemort could grow tired of those who cringed and whined and did nothing else, or those, like Bellatrix and Evan, too mad to know the difference between respect and fear. Snape's willing surrender was something he craved, because Snape had made the choice to bow before strength, and, in this case, to return to his Lord's side.
"Then rise to your feet, my faithful servant."
And he did, and he let his mouth part in an expression half-sneer, half-laugh, to see how the others drew back from him. He saved the best glimpse for the last, as his eyes traveled the half-ring of Death Eaters and fell on the face of the boy tied to the red-black rock, staring at him with utmost betrayal.
"Professor," he breathed.
Voldemort rested one hand on Snape's shoulder. "Oh, dear, Harry," he said, with a mocking tone in his voice that Snape would ordinarily have found too heavy, but was, now, just right. "Did you think Severus was on your side? Did you believe that he was a wizard of the Light? Your adopted father, perhaps?" He laughed, and the other Death Eaters joined in, though Snape doubted they truly understood the joke. "As if Severus Snape could ever be an adopted father to James Potter's son!"
Harry's face crumbled with something more than betrayal, then, and Snape rejoiced. He could see his enemy's face doing the same thing. Harry looked so much like James, especially when he shut his eyes, which weren't the same color, and cried. Snape had won one victory over his enemies, and those long days of tipping between hatred and something like a wavering affection for Harry were settled now, decisively, in favor of his loathing for the Marauders. His Dark Mark rang like a beaten gong with Voldemort's pleasure and his own.
"Stop!"
The voice was shrill with fear, and high with hatred, and it was one that Severus knew all too well. He pivoted smoothly, lifting his wand. Remus Lupin had Apparated in to stand in front of the outer ring of Death Eaters, his own wand clutched in a shaking hand and his face pale.
Looking at him, Snape could not imagine why he had ever feared the werewolf. Tonight was not a full moon night, and Lupin could not transform. His hair was gray and shaggy, though he was the same age as Snape. His shoulders were hunched. His eyes were tired, bearing the strain of transforming again and again for month after month. He had never been more than a passable wizard, with much book learning but without much magical strength.
"I've come to rescue Harry," Lupin said, leveling his wand.
"You've come to die," Snape corrected softly, and then glanced at his master. He would nearly die if he could not play with Lupin, but it was true that Voldemort had first choice about assigning prisoners to their torturers. If he gave Lupin to Bellatrix or Evan, then Snape could do nothing but stand back and only join in as his Lord told him he could.
Voldemort's smile was horrible, and exactly what he had hoped to see. His Lord had not forgotten what he had seen in Snape's mind the first time they met, then, and the hatred that had driven Snape to his side.
"He is yours, my servant," he said.
Snape lifted his wand, and struck Lupin's away with a simple Expelliarmus. He heard Harry scream, but that was a small thing, sour even, beside the chance to wreak vengeance on the body of the man who had nearly killed him when he was in his sixth year at Hogwarts.
When he pulled bones from sockets, when he drained Lupin's body of blood and charmed new liquid to fill his veins as fast as they emptied, when he broke Lupin's elbows with a single, simple spell, then the sounds could mingle with Harry's screams and make a sweet music indeed.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Snape sat up, breathing hard and touching his forehead. Almost—almost he thought he had been dreaming after he had finished his dream of Regulus's torture, even though he should be near the end of the visions the Sanctuary had provided him by now. Joseph had already expressed surprise that the nightmares had lasted so long, but then said that Snape must have had dozens of years of pain to heal, which was quite true.
Slowly, his breathing returned to normal, and he shook his head. No, he had not dreamed after the dream of his repudiation, or, if he had, he could not remember it. He had a headache, but that was probably from grinding his teeth as he slept, an old habit. His left arm tingled uncomfortably, but he'd been sleeping on it.
He rose and walked slowly towards the far corner of his room in Silver-Mirror, in search of a headache potion. If he had dreamed, he was almost certain it was a dream about the Marauders, an old nightmare, full of gleaming amber eyes down a hallway and a bubbling snarl.
There were still times he wished he could pay Lupin back for that. Peter did not deserve his vengeance, and Potter and Black were beyond it, but Lupin—
Snape drank the headache potion. Harry would never forgive me if I hurt Lupin.
But still, it would be sweet, if he turned against the wolf and permitted that to me.
