A/N: There will be a brief depiction of birth towards the end of the first half of this chapter. It won't be at all detailed, but if you'd prefer to skip it I totally understand. Just stop at the part where Remus comes to get Graihagh when she's sitting on the riverbank at the camp, and skip to the scene break where Snape's POV starts. I'll have a summary at the end (you won't miss too much.)
Thanks so much for reading, and thank you to PearlM21 for the lovely review!
November was as wet as any Graihagh could remember, rain drumming against the sloped roof, leaking through the cracks, dripping into tin cans like a dull drum-machine beat to the long days spent bent over a cauldron, mixing up potions and trying out antidotes. As the days passed by and November slogged into December she spent more and more time worrying over her family and Milo and Cate. Milo was still at the camp, as far as she knew, but she hadn't heard from Cate since August, and her dad and Emma hadn't written at all. Remus had been bound by the enchantments that protected the hidden room and hadn't told them where she was, and Aberforth thought it best not to send them any owls, in case they were intercepted.
She threw herself into her work, but tired as she was when she went to bed she'd started waking up in the middle of the night, unable to go back to sleep without a draught. She'd wake up groggy after, but it was better than nothing.
She was in the middle of mixing up an antidote when Remus knocked on the door.
"Be right there," she called, wiping her sweaty bangs out of her face and lowering the heat on the cauldron.
Remus was dressed in leaf green robes that fit him well, a bit faded but clean and without wrinkles or stains. His hair was shorter, carefully combed and parted down the side, still falling into his face but not as though he wanted to hide himself. He bore every sign of being cared for.
"Is this a bad time?" he said, with a glance at Graihagh's sweaty hair and the murmuring cauldron in the background.
"No," Graihagh lied. She'd never dealt well with interruptions, her brain didn't seem want to switch gears. "I was just finishing up. The potion just needs to stew for ten minutes and then I can set it aside."
She checked her watch and poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher on her makeshift table, a wooden box she'd turned on its side. "How is everything?
"Good. It's been good. She, er, banished me to the sofa for a week or two, but she's started using my actual name again, so I'd say that's a good sign.
Graihagh smiled and leaned against a barrel. "How far along is she now?"
"About six months."
"Wow. Won't be long, then."
"No, and I think we're in for it too, that child never stops kicking." There was something forced in his voice, in his upturned lips, but it wasn't, she knew, from indifference. Terror, more like.
"You'll be wonderful."
Remus scrabbled at the sleeves of his robes. He and Snape had the same quirk, keeping their hands half hidden up their sleeves.
"Well, we'll certainly try."
Graihagh checked her watch; five minutes had passed. She decided to change the subject. "So what's new? I've got more potions if you need them."
Remus started as though coming out of a trance. "Yes, excellent. Thank you."
Graihagh lifted up a crate she'd packed with potion bottles and handed it to Remus, and when he'd set it down she gestured towards the chair. "Would you like to stay for a bit? I could get some tea on."
"Actually I had another favour to ask of you, if you're willing."
Graihagh was so keen to get out of that room she would've scrubbed his floor with her face. "Sure, what is it?"
"A woman in the camp has gone into labour and we'd like you to assist."
Graihagh nearly dropped her glass. "What?"
"Oh, don't worry, we have a midwife to take care of the actual birth," said Remus quickly, realising what he'd said. "We just need someone to administer potions. It's difficult for us to brew our own, given how expensive some of the ingredients are."
"Oh," said Graihagh, as though she'd known what he meant all along. "Yeah. Of course. Erm, just tell me what you need and I'll do it."
Remus reached into his pocket and smoothed out a piece of parchment. "She's listed them all here."
Graihagh scanned the list and pulled five bottles off the shelf. She knew her creations intimately, but a few of them were uncommon, potions she'd never seen used. She hoped she'd know what to do. This wasn't something she could screw up. She packed the bottles into a valise and followed Remus out the door.
"We'll use side-along Apparition again," said Remus.
Graihagh followed him downstairs and into the alley. The sun had sunk below the mountains but it was still light out, so she supposed it was around four in the afternoon. Remus held out his arm and she took it.
The camp looked much the same as it had when she'd last seen it, except that the trees were bare, and the river ran higher from all the rain they'd had. There were fewer campfires and fewer people outside; most of them seemed to be sheltering inside their tents, which were comfortable and warm, if they were anything like other wizarding tents, and she didn't see why they wouldn't be.
"So is it safe?" she asked as they walked through the camp, her gently rising inflection cautious, tactful. "For her to give birth?"
"Well, as she's not a werewolf herself, it should be, so long as she has access to Wolfsbane."
"So it's her partner who's...?"
"She is. The two of them met at Hogwarts and they've been inseparable ever since."
They stopped in front of the same tent they'd been in before, with its raised wooden platform and comfortable camp beds and shelves full of bandages and gauze and other medical supplies. Graihagh heard the woman from all the way outside the entrance. She was crying out in pain, a primal, unselfconscious sound that made the space feel too personal, too intimate, like walking into someone's bedroom.
Remus nodded. "Go ahead, they're expecting you."
Graihagh pulled open the tent flap and stuck just her head and one foot inside the room.
"Are you the potioneer?" said a black-haired woman, partway through taking supplies off one of the shelves. She looked to be about fifty and bustled about the room with a confidence that commanded respect.
"Yes," said Graihagh, stepping into the room. "I've got everything right here."
"Set them down on the table, then."
Graihagh opened the valise and set the potions down on a table that had been set up beside the camp bed the woman was kneeling on. Another young woman was standing beside her, rubbing her back and murmuring words of encouragement, praise. Her partner, she was sure of it. Graihagh stole a glance at her, at the long jagged scar that ran down her face. She was the same woman she'd helped months earlier, when she'd been bleeding.
The woman on the bed cried out and Graihagh cringed.
"I've got something for the pain," she said, eyeing the woman's partner, who was the least intimidating person in the room.
"What kind of pain reliever is it?" said the midwife, rather sharply.
"It's a new kind of potion," said Graihagh. "It's not opiate-based and it should have only mild side effects." She held up the bottle, feeling confident for the first time since she'd arrived at the camp. She and Owain had contributed to its development, after their successful experiments with rattlesnake venom.
The midwife nodded and Graihagh measured out 10 mL and gave it to the woman, cradling the back of her head as she drank. Within minutes the woman's face smoothed over and she laid in the bed with her eyes closed as her partner wiped her face with a cool cloth and the midwife examined her.
"It'll be awhile yet, if you want to wait outside," she said to Graihagh. Get out, in other words.
"Sure," said Graihagh. She lowered her voice. "There shouldn't be any side effects to that potion, but let me know if she reports any dizziness or her blood pressure drops too low."
The midwife nodded and turned back towards the woman, Graihagh's cue to leave. She stepped outside, where Remus was waiting, staring into the trees.
He turned to face her, concern in his face. "How is she?"
"She's doing great. The midwife said it'll be awhile."
"Good, good," said Remus, almost absently. He stared into space a few seconds, then came back to himself. "Fynn and Milo are here, if you'd like to see them."
Graihagh looked round as though they might be standing right beside her. "Really? Where?"
Remus pointed to a tent at the edge of the camp, near the river. "See that beige tent over there? That's theirs."
Graihagh didn't even stop to thank him, just took off running, not stopping til she was just outside the tent. Only when she'd reached the entrance did it occur to her that she had no clue how to announce her presence, there wasn't a doorbell or any wood to knock. She slapped her palm on the canvas a few times.
The tent rustled and Fynn unzipped the flap and stuck their head out the entrance.
"Graihagh?"
Her face fell and she didn't even try to force a smile back on.
"I came with Remus. Is Milo here?"
"No, he's at the communal kitchens. We've been preserving food for the winter."
"Oh. Well, do you know when he'll be back?"
"Half an hour, maybe. D'you want to come in?"
She glanced around the camp. Remus had disappeared from view, and she didn't know anyone else there.
"Sure."
She followed Fynn into the tent, which was about the size of a tiny flat, with a kitchen and a sitting room and two flaps in the wall that must've led to the bedrooms. The place looked safe and comfortable but she knew it was only an illusion, knew the only thing between Milo and the war was a thin piece of canvas and a few enchantments. He would've left no matter what she'd done, but still, Fynn could've talked some sense into him, persuaded him to go back to Douglas and go into hiding. They didn't have to bring him here.
Fynn sat down on a threadbare floral-print sofa, the kind old people had in their houses, and Graihagh took a chair opposite, legs crossed, gazing at the front door as though hoping Milo would walk in any second.
Fynn leaned forward on the sofa, tapping their fingers together.
"So-"
"How's Milo?"
She cut to the chase, her curt voice making it clear that she was there for him, and nothing else.
"He's good," said Fynn. "Really," they added, when Graihagh shot them a skeptical look. "I mean, it was a bit of a shock at first, but I think it's been good for him."
Graihagh raised her eyebrows. "Living here, you mean?"
Fynn's eyes flickered downwards. She hadn't meant to imply that the werewolf camp wasn't good enough for Milo-but then again, maybe she had. Either way, Fynn took it as such.
"I mean having a mission," they said, with a hint of defensiveness. "Something to fight for, you know?"
"So what exactly have you been doing?"
"Fighting off the Snatchers, mostly."
"Snatchers?"
"They go after Muggle-borns and turn them into the Ministry for money."
Vague images formed in her mind, faceless people in cloaks and hoods rounding up Muggle-borns, rounding up Cate, and taking them...where? What were they doing with them? Throwing them into Azkaban, or something worse?
"So you've rescued some?"
"Yeah. Sometimes the Snatchers get away with them, but I reckon we've saved about twenty, so far."
She should've respected them for this, and maybe some small grudging part of her did. But mostly she was annoyed. Fynn had no business being so bloody noble all the time.
She supposed Fynn expected her to thaw at this, to praise them, but she didn't, just stared at the door while Fynn drummed their fingers on their thighs and picked at their robes.
"Have you gone after Rowle?" she asked.
"No, not yet. We haven't had the chance."
Another silence.
"Look," said Fynn, with that earnest voice she'd come to know, the voice of someone always on the defensive. "I would never do anything that I thought would hurt him, okay?"
"What does he do when you transform?"
Fynn's expression darkened. She was hitting below the belt now and she knew and she didn't care.
"I've been taking Wolfsbane the last two months," they said, and their was an edge to their voice. "We pack up when the moon's full, put some protective enchantments round our tent. He's completely safe."
So they were taking the extra Wolfsbane she had made, that she'd given to Remus. She couldn't even hate them for transforming.
"Why didn't you tell us before all this? How long were you going to keep it a secret?"
"Look, I wanted to tell you-"
Graihagh made a skeptical noise.
"I did! I just...I was waiting for the right time."
"When? When you were backed into a corner?"
Fynn's face was red now, forehead wrinkled anger, just what she'd been hoping for. "What would you know about it? You don't know what I'm thinking, you barely even know me-"
The canvas rustled and at almost the same moment they turned towards the entrance as Milo stepped through.
"Graihagh?"
She leapt off the chair and ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck and burying her face in his hair. He smelt like their old flat.
Milo clapped her on the back. "How did you-"
He broke off, and Graihagh pulled away to find him staring at Fynn, holding some silent conversation with their eyes. Fynn strode to the bedroom and closed the flap behind them.
"What's going on?" asked Milo. He wasn't smiling.
"Nothing," said Graihagh, face burning, grudgingly aware of what a twat she'd just been.
"Were you rowing?"
"We were just..." She picked her brain for an explanation that didn't put her in a harsh light. "I've been really worried about you."
"Because of"-he mouthed the word-"Fynn?"
Graihagh hadn't been expecting him to come to their defense so quickly. "No, because of all the things you've been doing. Fynn told me you were fighting off Snatchers..."
"Yeah, we have. And it's been fantastic, honestly. I feel like I'm actually doing something."
He sounded as though he meant it and maybe it was, maybe he did like it. But it wasn't worth the risk to his life.
"You were doing plenty before all this," said Graihagh.
"You know what I mean."
Graihagh crossed her arms and leaned against the back of the sofa. "No, I don't actually."
Milo stood beside an end table, picking up a figurine he'd made and playing it in his hand. "I didn't do shit to fight Rowle while we were at school. Don't think I don't remember."
"None of that was your fault."
"It was just as much my fault as it was yours."
"It wasn't though-"
Milo set the figurine down. "Yes it was."
He was so firm, so insistent, it as almost as though he wanted it to be. Graihagh knew it was pointless to argue. She said nothing.
"I'm not saying this is easy or anything, but I don't need you worrying over me, so just stop it."
Graihagh stared at the wall, straining her face to keep it flat, blank, expressionless. Making him think she didn't mind, that she understood.
"You know Fynn's been taking Wolfsbane?" said Milo, a note of accusation in his voice.
"Yeah, I know. I've been making it for them."
Whether because he sensed her defensiveness or because he appreciated the effort, he didn't say anything to this.
Graihagh's eyes flickered towards Fynn's room. Milo was different about them, protective almost, in a way he hadn't been before. "So are the two of you...?"
"Keep your voice down" whispered Milo. "And we aren't. At least I don't think so."
Graihagh softened at the uncertainty in his voice. "You don't think so?"
"I don't know, I just-" Milo glanced towards the bedroom. "I think we'd better discuss this outside."
Graihagh followed Milo to the riverbank and they sat down, knees drawn up to their chests, draped in heavy cloaks. They looked like two black boulders.
Milo stared at the rushing river. "I don't want to lose what I have with them."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh come on, you must realise how awkward it'd be if I came on to them and they didn't like it. Then what? We avoid each other all the time?"
"You still don't think they feel the same way?"
"I don't know. Sometimes I think maybe they do but then, I don't know, they pull back."
The sun had set and it was the blue hour, as her granny used to call that time in winter just before it got dark. Graihagh looked up at the bare trees and thought of Remus. "Maybe Fynn's afraid of hurting you."
"Maybe," said Milo. "But I'm the one with the problem, really."
Graihagh turned to look at him. "What do you mean?"
"You know."
His words took awhile to register. All those years she'd blamed herself for the attack; she had no idea that Milo was carrying the same guilt. She could've told him it wasn't his fault, but she knew he'd insist that it was, and maybe he was right, maybe they were both to blame, she didn't know.
"Have you told Fynn about it?" But she knew the answer before she'd even asked.
"No."
Their eyes met in a second's understanding before Graihagh glanced away.
"Did Remus bring you here?" said Milo, and she was relieved he'd changed the subject.
"Yeah. Someone's having a baby and they wanted me to administer potions."
"Oh yeah, that'll be Iris. How is she?"
"Good, as far as I know. They said she'd be awhile."
She tightened her cloak and stuck her hands up her sleeves. Now that the sun had set it was getting near freezing. "So do you know a lot of people here?"
"Nearly everyone. They've been really good about me staying with them."
"So you're happy here?"
"Yeah. I am."
His voice was even, calm, none of the heat that meant he really wasn't and didn't want to admit it. Graihagh didn't know what she felt.
"You didn't say anything really horrible to Fynn, did you?" said Milo after awhile.
"Well, I don't think it was anything horrible..."
Milo didn't believe a word of this, he knew her too well. "What'd you say?"
"I just asked them when they were going to tell us about, you know. Their condition."
Milo looked indignant. "What the hell Graihagh? You can't just ask them that, you know how hard it's been for them. And if they really wanted to hide it from me they wouldn't have brought me here."
"I know, I know. I'm sorry."
They sat and watched the river awhile, until muffled footsteps sounded behind them.
Graihagh turned round to find Remus hurrying towards them, red-faced and winded.
"They need you now," he said.
"Oh. Right," said Graihagh, standing up. Milo stood up with her.
"Listen," she said, lowering her voice so Remus wouldn't hear her. "Tell Fynn I'm sorry for what I said, okay?"
"Yeah," said Milo. "But perhaps in future you could consider not being a cunt to my friends."
Graihagh punched his arm and hurried through the grass after Remus.
She was so nervous her muscles seized up and she had trouble walking. She'd administered potions during emergencies sometimes, back in Douglas, but she'd never assisted with a birth.
"You'll be fine," said Remus, as though he sensed what she was thinking.
Graihagh nodded vaguely and ducked into the tent, where she let out a gasp so audible the midwife turned round and glared at her. "I need you to get these potions ready," she said, gesturing to three of the bottles on the table.
Graihagh strode over and prepared the doses, trying her best to ignore what was going on, but she couldn't bring herself to stop looking.
"I'm going to need another pair of hands here," said the midwife after a few minutes.
Graihagh gaped at her and turned round to see if there was anyone else in the tent, but no luck. She pointed to herself and mouthed the word. "Me?"
"Yes, you. Wash your hands, put on these gloves, keep your mouth shut, and do what I tell you, understand?"
The midwife turned back to Iris. "That's it love, you're doing beautifully."
Graihagh didn't dare argue. She washed her hands at a basin along the wall and slipped on the gloves the midwife had given her, hanging back rather awkwardly.
"For Circe's sake, don't act so squeamish," the midwife whispered. "It's entirely natural."
"Of course," said Graihagh. She was lying through her teeth, it looked like something out of Alien.
Her adrenaline kicked in, made it easier for her to focus, but still, she didn't have a clue what was going on.
"Oh my God, is it supposed to look like that?" she murmured, completely forgetting to keep her mouth closed. She thought the midwife would murder her.
She did everything the midwife asked, and before she knew what had happened the tent was filled with high-pitched cries, and Iris and her partner were holding the baby between them, not half-laughing, half-crying, the way people did on television-they looked exhausted, really-but there was something there, something too deep and too strong for words. Graihagh administered the potions and watched them awhile, making sure the potions did what they were supposed to and that there weren't any side effects, and after half an hour or so she congratulated the new parents and ducked out of the tent.
Remus was sitting beside a campfire not far off. He stood up when he saw her.
"How'd it go?"
"It was brilliant," said Graihagh, mercifully forgetting the more graphic details. Whatever her misgivings, she'd seen defiance, hope, a fuck-you to the war, and she knew she'd take it with her and keep it a long time.
Remus looked relieved. "The new parents are doing well, then?"
"A bit tired, but I'd say they're doing well."
"And the midwife didn't make you scrub the tent down with a toothbrush?"
"I ducked out before she saw me or she probably would have."
Remus smiled in understanding. "Believe it or not, she's a lovely person. We're fortunate to have someone trained in midwifery." He checked his watch. "We should get going, I don't want to be out too late."
They Apparated back to the alley and Remus said goodnight to her, spinning into the air as the words left his mouth.
Graihagh went upstairs to her room and flopped down on her bed, floating in the afterglow of the night's events, thoughts drifting to Snape, as they so often did lately. She wondered what he was doing for Christmas, if he had any family to go to. She couldn't explain it if she tried, but she knew somehow he'd be alone and miserable. She wondered if she could make it any easier on him. Aberforth had been selling her potions down at the bar, and she had a bit of money saved up, enough to buy him something. She smiled a little at the thought. She must've been drunk on serotonin, if she was seriously considering giving that surly ass a Christmas gift.
The castle was as gloomy as the winter rain. The first Quidditch match of the season had gone off with grim efficiency, Gryffindor scraping a win and setting off to the changing rooms to a few scattered cheers, Longbottom and his friends mostly. The corridors hissed with whispers and nervous chatter, and the Great Hall was quiet even at mealtimes. No one smiled much.
Snape wondered if the staff would even bother putting up Christmas decorations that year. Wreaths and mistletoe and fairy lights would be strange, jarring, like yellow at a funeral. But decorate the castle they did, and not only that, they made it more beautiful than he'd ever seen it, draping the banisters with garlands, lining the corridors with enchanted ice sculptures, charming poinsetties to bloom everywhere, setting loose hundreds of soft white fairies among the trees and wreaths that filled the entrance hall. There was a striking defiance in that beauty, the way his mother's red hellebore flowers would mock the shit-smelling privies and soot-grey brick of Spinner's End.
The whole thing was a giant middle finger to the Carrows, and they took it as such, scowling when they'd scan the Great Hall with its twelve Christmas trees or when wreaths of mistletoe would appear above their heads. Snape draped garland around the stone gargoyle guarding the entrance to his office and bewitched the armour to sing the most obnoxious carols he could think of, most of which contained thinly-veiled insults to Amycus and Alecto, with various suggestions as to where they could stick their boughs of holly. As much as he hated Christmas he wasn't about to pass up the chance to be a thorn in their side. He understood something of how the students felt when they graffitied the walls and made up songs about the Carrows and threw up in their classes. Like they were free. Like there was something inside them that no one could stamp out.
But the Carrows were doing their damndest. Every day there were reports of students being slapped and spit on and tortured. Snape had narrowly saved the Weasley girl's skin after discovering that she'd organised some sort of meeting at the Three Broomsticks, giving her a dressing-down and banning her from Hogsmeade before the Carrows caught wind of it. Whenever a student was injured Snape would give a bit of Miss Corlett's potion to whichever elf popped into his office to deliver the news, instructing them to wait until they were away from the Carrows before they gave it to them. He'd already had to ask her for another bottle.
An imperious-looking stack of paperwork sat on desk but he could hardly sit down, he was so on edge. Any second there'd be a crack and-
"The Carrows has taken a student to an empty classroom sir! They is chaining him up!"
What the fuck?
"Which classroom?"
"Room 630, sir."
"Keep an eye on them," said Snape. "If the student appears to be in serious danger alert Professor McGonagall." The elf nodded and vanished, and Snape rushed out the room, hoping it wouldn't come to that. The Dark Lord was displeased with Minerva as it was. She didn't have much breathing room.
Snape took the corridors at a run, listening for the Carrows, but there was no sign of them anywhere, and the door to the classroom was locked. So they'd actually done it. They chained up a student, a child, and left them there to suffer in an empty classroom. He might as well have been working with Bellatrix. This was insane.
They hadn't bothered with any kind of advanced charms at least. Snape had the door opened in seconds. He knew what was coming but the sight of it made him suck in his breath.
The boy was no more than eleven or twelve. He sitting in a dark corner of the room, wrapped in heavy chains, keening softly to himself the way Snape used to do when his father had got through with him.
Snape would murder the Carrows. He'd poison their drinks and watch them die, but first he'd chain them up and Crucio them within an inch of their sanity, make them feel some of what they'd been inflicting on his students. What they'd been inflicting on him. They were humiliating him, going behind his back like this.
He took a deep breath to calm himself and knelt down beside the boy, working the padlock open. The boy struggled against the chains and stared at Snape's hands, the way people used to stare at the tip of his wand when he'd curse them. Tunnel vision. He was in shock.
"No...no..."
"It's alright," Snape murmured. "I'm going to help you."
"No..."
Snape worked the lock open and the boy, far from being relieved at his freedom of movement, thrashed about and shouted himself hoarse
The door creaked open. "What is going on here?"
Snape stiffened. Not her, not now.
Minerva gasped and ran to them, her voice husky, dry. "My God, Severus. What have you done?"
And what could he say? That he was setting the boy free? She'd never believe it anyway.
"Get out of the way Severus. Get out of the way now or I swear I will use this." She drew her wand and pointed it straight to his chest, the tip just touching his robes, singeing them like a lit cigarette.
Snape stood up, his face impassive, betraying neither anger nor fear. "You wouldn't get away with it, Minerva."
"I don't care. Now out of my way."
Severus stood aside to let her pass, watching as she knelt down beside the boy and untwisted his chains.
"There, now, it's alright," she said in the gentlest voice he'd ever heard her use. She put her arm around the boy and he buried his head in her arm. Minerva allowed him a few seconds comfort and ushered him out of the room. "Come with me, we'll see Madam Pomfrey. Everything will be alright."
Snape waited until their footsteps had faded down the corridor and locked the door, flicking his wand at the room to stifle the noise. He kicked over desks, smashed glass jars, ripped open books. Spent, he slumped against a wall and sat in the dark.
Snape did his best not to think of the Corlett woman. But he couldn't stop himself dreaming about her, or hearing her voice as he fell asleep. Remembering the way she'd stroked his face when she'd found him at the gates, the way she'd run her thumb along his palm.
He was being stupid about her. There was still no reason to think she wasn't spying on him, and even if she wasn't, she'd never want anything to do with him if she knew who he really was. He felt different around her; normal, human almost, but why should he? He was a machine, going through the motions until he'd done his job.
He couldn't afford to think of her that day. Entertaining was Narcissa's art and the Malfoy's annual Christmas parties were her masterpiece, extravagent affairs that went on for days in a haze of colours and potions, the rooms hot and thick with people. They were about as fun with as having a wisdom tooth extracted, but every few years Snape humoured her and kept a stiff upper lip while Crabbe or some other idiot draped an arm around him and spouted nonsense into his ear and Lucius insisted he dance. Narcissa, to her credit, always partnered him, and never protested when he left early.
Snape had half a mind to skip the whole thing and hole up in his room, but this wasn't an ordinary celebration. This was a Death Eater revel and he'd better show up.
He shut down every thought of Miss Corlett, every thought of Minerva, every thought of himself. He didn't know who he was. He'd always been a chameleon, changing himself to become whatever it was people wanted, or expected him to be. And as he stopped at the front door of Malfoy Manor and closed his eyes he was one of them. And it wasn't even that hard.
A new servant was there to usher him inside, a young man he didn't recognise. He must've gone to Durmstrang, or had a tutor. Snape said nothing.
He stepped across the threshold into an enchanted forest, winding his way through a maze of ice-covered trees and sparkling fairy lights. Narcissa and the Hogwarts staff must've been on the same wavelength, but whether Narcissa had the same motives-whether this was a middle finger to the war-he couldn't say.
"Severus," said Narcissa, when he'd emerged from the maze. She was dressed in a green silk gown, a string of diamonds glittering around her neck, and her eyes were shrewd and wary in her thin, tired face. "So glad you could join us. Everyone's in the Great Hall."
She turned and led the way and it was all so formal, so...perfunctory. No sign of her usual warmth.
The hall was so magnificent Snape just stood in the doorway and soaked it all in. The Aurora Borealis snaked across the ceiling, the soft light flickering along the ice covered walls and the polished black floor, which reflected the room like a bottomless pool. Tall pillars of ice stood in every corner of the room, glowing from their own light. Had it not been for all the people he could've been in the Artic on some beautiful winter night, far away from everything. And in that moment he was a wide-eyed kid from the Muggle slum and he understood what they were fighting for.
The floor was a mess of people, Death Eater and high-society sympathisers alike, clustered in groups or dancing to the ten-piece orchestra perched on a raised platform at the far end of the hall. He recognized the song-a slow waltz by the wizarding composer Drozdova, he thought, and as well-played as he'd ever heard it-but he thought the cello player had a rather glazed look in his eyes, and they all looked rather spacey, now that he'd noticed. Like they'd just been Imperiused. Rather amusing, really. Lucius was classy that way.
His comrades, not so much. They'd been tramping through the manor like it was a military base, muddying the floor with their boots and roughing up the place, but they'd cleaned up and put on their good robes, all except Amycus, who hadn't even bothered to change into dress shoes. He left a trail of mud behind him as he walked over to Alecto, visible only in the way it blocked the the light on the smooth floor, and when he'd reached her she smacked him in the arm and made him clear it away with his wand. Snape didn't usually give a shit what people wore, but he couldn't help but notice that she'd compensated for her brother's crudity by wearing the most ostentatious outfit she could think of, a green and gold sequined number that assaulted his eyeballs.
Narcissa raised a deadly eyebrow and shot her a scathing look over her wine glass. She could overlook Alecto's cruelty, perhaps, as long as it didn't effect her son, but she drew the line at tacky ball gowns.
"Alecto must be dedicated to her teaching job," she said, with a voice like an ice pick.
"How do you mean?"
"She seems to have lost track of time. Hallowe'en was two months ago."
Snape smirked. "I think I have permanent eye damage."
Narcissa smiled slightly, but only with her mouth. Her eyes were as wary as ever. "If you'll excuse me."
She seemed anxious to get away, and Snape didn't know why. Was it possible she still resented him? The thought was too terrible...he had precious few allies among the Death Eaters, in spite of his status, or maybe even because of it.
Alecto was watching him. Whether she knew he'd just been snarking on her or not he didn't know, but she wasn't smiling.
He stepped towards the crowd and as it parted for him he caught a glimpse of Miss Parkinson, who was holding a champagne glass in both hands, tapping it with one finger as she listened to Rololphus prattle on about something.
"Professor Snape," she said in an animated voice, turning away from Rolophus, who broke away and started up a conversation with someone else.
Snape inclined his head to her. "Miss Parkinson."
He glanced around the room. The only other student there was Draco, who was standing by the drinks table and staring off into space. They didn't seem to have come as a couple. Someone must've invited her.
"I wasn't expecting to see you here," he said.
"I've joined up, sir."
Her eyes were shining and her excitement was unsettling, jarring, like a photograph he'd seen once of a soft toy in the ruins of a bombed-out building. She searched his face, waiting for the recognition she'd always fought so hard for in school. But he was one of them and he was fine with it. Why wouldn't he be?
"We could always use recruits, I suppose. But your schoolwork must come first, do you understand? You'll be useless to them without it."
"Of course."
He glanced at Alecto, who was absorbed in conversation with Bellatrix, and lowered his voice.
"You'll want to associate yourself with the right people, if you wish to get ahead. Professor Carrow is something of an upstart. Draco can show you the ropes."
Miss Parkinson's smile faltered. "I suppose." She glanced at Draco, who was drinking alone beside a window and looking as though he'd rather be anywhere else. He was on thin ice, acting that way, but he supposed they'd make excuses for him, at least for awhile. And perhaps the boy could talk some sense into Miss Parkinson...but really, what did he care?
Bellatrix stepped towards them, followed by Alecto, who rested a hand on Miss Parkinson's shoulder. "Has she told you her good news?"
"She has," said Snape. "I suppose the midwives will start handing out recruitment pamphlets at birth before long."
Bellatrix nudged his arm. "Hark, who's talking? You were what, sixteen, seventeen?"
"Eighteen," murmured Snape.
"Now don't you listen to them," said Alecto, who still had her hand on Miss Parkinson's shoulder. "Talent like yours, you'll have your Mark in a few months."
Miss Parkinson smiled and glanced towards Bellatrix, who looked her up and down.
"We'll see," she said, voice neutral, eyes appraising. Snape supposed she'd set the girl some task for her intiation, they didn't Mark just anyone. And this was a good thing. They were an elite, and he was very near the top, high enough to crush everyone who'd ever looked down on him.
"If you'll excuse us," said Bellatrix. "I'd like a word with Snape."
Alecto nodded and struck up a conversation with Miss Parkinson, and Snape followed Bellatrix to a quiet corner of the hall, away from the crowd.
"What is it?" he said in a bored voice, scanning the crowd for more interesting company.
"You know what's in that vial, don't you? The one you took from that traitorous little bitch Warrington?"
Snape turned to face her. He was unnerved and she knew it. The corners of her lips turned up in a smile.
Snape smiled back. "You must've paid a fortune for it. But it'll all be worth it, I suppose?"
Bellatrix glanced at Narcissa, who was dancing with Lucius. "She didn't mean to be so careless," she said, her voice as close to earnest as he'd ever heard it. "If you were to give the poison back to me, the Dark Lord need not know how potent it is, do you understand?"
"And just what am I supposed to tell him, Bellatrix? He's not stupid, he knows it's no ordinary potion."
"He's not stupid, but that doesn't mean Warrington wasn't. She might have simply misunderstood what it was, do you know what I mean?"
Snape sauntered over to the nearby drinks table without answering and took a long sip of cider. He had the poison, Bellatrix wanted it, the Dark Lord was too preoccupied with whatever it was he was looking for to care very much either way. The decision was easy.
"I'll think about it," he said when he'd walked back to Bellatrix.
Bellatrix leaned in closer. "Think of Cissy," she said. "She'll be the one who gets punished if the Dark Lord finds out. I know you wouldn't want anything to happen to her."
"It seems to me she brought it on herself."
Bellatrix ran a finger up his arm "Don't play games with me, Snape. Cissy practically begged you for help last summer, and you couldn't stand the sight of her tears could you?" She lowered her voice to a whisper, her breath against his ear. "And quite the coincidence isn't it, that she knows where you live during the summer..."
Snape snatched his arm away. "What are you implying, Bellatrix?"
Bellatrix smirked and put her lips to his ear. "You wouldn't let her suffer."
Snape shivered in spite of himself, but it was the kind of shiver he felt when someone hummed too loudly in his classes. "Watch me."
Bellatrix pulled away and puckered up her lips, sliding a finger down his stomach. "Oh look, they made the timid little professor headmaster and he found his bollocks."
She poked him in the abdomen, just above the area in question, smirking. Snape kept his face bored, impassive, but his fingers gripped his glass so hard they slipped.
"Alright then," said Bellatrix, pulling her hand away. "You want to do this the hard way? I take it the the Dark Lord doesn't know about that Unbreakable Vow you made last summer?"
He didn't, but that particular bit of treachery would earn him another round Cruciatus, at most. He'd promised to kill the old man after all, and he'd done it. He sipped his cider with bored lips. "Really, Bellatrix, if that's the best you can do..."
He turned to walk away, but she wasn't finished with him yet.
"Be a shame if anything happened to your students."
What were the lives of a few children to a Death Eater? Only he couldn't understand why his chest tightened.
"Rather presumptious of you, to think that I care," he said without turning around.
He went straight to the food table and filled up a plate, his go-to method of avoiding people at parties without looking stupid. He stared out the window as he ate and imagined he was sitting up on the moon, looking down at the earth from the cool white rock.
"I sometimes thought about being an astronaut."
"Did you really? You would've made a good one."
Snape shook her off with a twitch of the shoulder and stared out at the crowd to anchor himself. He was one of them. The room was magnifcent. This was power. He'd loved this, when he first joined up, that he was here, in this manor, surrounded by powerful people, respected by them even.
The drinks and the potions were flowing now, the voices louder and faster, the hall thrumming with energy. He was keyed up, excited almost. He stuffed a carmelized fig into his mouth and soaked it all in.
Mulciber sauntered over and clapped him on the back, nodding towards Avery, Lucius, and a few others. "Join us?"
Snape stuffed another fig into his mouth and followed them out of the hall, to a sitting room deeper in the manor.
Five people were standing in the centre of a small crowd, their hands tied behind their backs and cloths stuffed in their mouths. Mulciber undid the bindings on one of them, a man in his fifties by the looks of him, and pointed a wand to his head.
"Imperio."
The man got on all fours like an ass, braying and kicking. The crowd around him roared with laughter, all except Lucius, who'd always found Mulciber's methods rather boorish. Mulciber ignored him and soaked it in, subjecting him to ever more humiliating positions before lifting the curse. The man stood up on shaky legs and bolted for the door.
"Oh, you want to run do you? Imperio! That's it motherfucker, run. "
The man lifted his arms to his sides like a sprinter and tore around the room, over and over again, his cheeks puffed out and face strained. Mulciber wouldn't lift the curse this time, and Snape watched the man with the curiosity of a scientist, wondering how long he'd last. Fascinating this, all these experiments in dark magic.
Rowle shoved someone else forward, a young woman.
"Tarantellegra!" he bellowed. The woman danced like a badly handled marionette, frenzied and jerky, and one by one the others stepped foward to shoot hexes and jinxes at her.
"Get that bug out of your arse and come join us, Draco," said Bellatrix.
Draco set down his drink and got up off the sofa where he'd been sitting. Snape glanced at Lucius. His expression was hard to read, but he wasn't smiling.
"Locomotor Mortis."
The woman's legs locked up and she toppled to the ground as laughter broke out around her. Draco turned and walked back to the sofa, scowling.
"I don't think you've had the pleasure yet, Miss Priss," said Bellatrix, gesturing to Miss Parkinson. "Unless you think you're too good for it?"
Miss Parkinson glanced at the watching crowd and stepped forward with a stretched-out smile that looked slightly forced and pointed her wand at the woman. Her mumbled incantation did nothing.
"You need to feel it," said Bellatrix. "Look at her, look at that jumped-up bitch. She'd burn you at the stake if you gave her half a chance."
Miss Parkinson raised her wand again, but her second spell was as useless as the first.
"I'll do it," said Snape stepping into the circle. The thought came easily, everything was coming easily, like putting on old clothes and finding they still fit, that they were downright comfortable. Was this acting?
Levicorpus
The woman swung upwards as from an invisible hook and dangled in the air, scrabbling at her top to keep it falling to her shoulders.
Mulciber roared with laughter and clapped him on the back. "Just like old times, mate."
And it was. He was numb to everything, and it was better this way.
Rowle stepped into the circle, gesturing wildly, his eyes wide and excited. "Let's do the rest of them then, shall we?"
Snape was back with the crowd as they cheered and raised their glasses, and the group of Muggles huddled near the entrance were pulled forward by Mulciber, bound by the invisible ropes he'd cast with his wand.
The crowd circled around them and Snape eyed the woman on the floor. What did he care? She'd mock him if she saw him on the street, she was just like everyone else.
She must've sensed him watching her, because her eyes flickered towards him, pleading, and there was something about it, something familiar, something he'd buried. He wanted to keep it there, didn't want it surfacing. He didn't want to fucking feel anything. But he couldn't stop it.
What was this, that he was feeling? Who was he?
He couldn't stop himself. He pushed his wand up his sleeve with the pad of his thumb and raised his hand as though to scratch his face, turning his wrist until the tip of his wand pointed to Rowle's chest. He knew the signs-the wide alert eyes, the reckless excitement. Rowle had taken venom-infused Felix, a strange, potent concoction that enhanced the euphoria at the expense of the luck.
"Imperio."
Rowle was too fucked up to know he'd been cursed. His eyes went slack and he grabbed the woman by the arm, lifting her up off the floor and dragging her towards the entrance. The others barely even noticed. There wasn't anything remarkable about it.
Snape waited a few minutes and followed them, on the pretext of going to the lavoratory, ducking inside a minute or two before heading to the staircase, where he'd told Rowle to go. He Imperiused the woman and pointed his wand to Rowle's chest.
"Stupefy!"
Rowle slumped to the ground at the foot of the staircase. Snape pointed his wand to his head. "Obliviate."
Rowle's eyelids fluttered. Snape pointed his wand to him again.
"Confundo. Graihagh Corlett has left the country. Her family has fled to America. There's no point in looking for them."
His eyelids fluttered and closed again, and Snape kicked him in the stomach and left him there. He'd come to in a few minutes and think he'd passed out.
He pointed his wand to the woman. Out. And be quiet about it.
She walked to the door and slipped outside, Snape following behind her, but they weren't alone. Someone was retching into a juniper bush.
Draco raised his head and stared at them, eyes darting between Snape and the woman. Dammit. He should've Disillusioned himself; he doubted Draco would've stopped the woman escaping.
"What's going on-what are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" snapped Snape. "I'm finishing her off."
Why was it so easy to lie, to keep his cover? Who was he, really? He jabbed his wand into the woman's back and marched her down the steps. He could finish her off, if he felt like it. He could do anything he wanted. And part of him had never stopped loving it.
Draco's breathing was heavy and laboured, from the drinks maybe, or from fear. "You're disgusting."
Snape turned round to face him.
"I know."
Draco thrust a hand into the inside pocket of his robes, fumbling for his wand. He pointed it to Snape's chest, his hand surpringly steady given the circumstances.
"Really, Draco," said Snape, not even bothering to take his own wand from the woman's back. "I know you've been unwell lately, but they didn't tell me you were suicidal."
"I'm not-I could stop you if I wanted to."
The fool. His family was in enough trouble as it was, they didn't need this idiocy. Snape glanced at the windows to make sure no one was watching and lowered his voice. "Put it down before someone sees. You're making a fool of yourself."
"Stupe-"
"Expelliarmus!"
Snape caught the wand with the very tips of his fingers and threw it back to him. "Go inside and sober up. You're acting like a child."
He jabbed his wand into the woman's back and walked away, down the drive, all the way to the gates, too far away to be seen by Draco, or anyone else at the manor. Some distant branches rustled but there wasn't anyone around, as far as he could tell. Just a rabbit maybe, or a fox.
He raised his left arm lifted the curse off the woman. "Get as far away from here as you can. Don't stop until you've reached the village."
He needn't have said anything, she was already halfway down the drive by the time he'd finished the sentence.
He watched her til she was out of sight and took the path at a run. He'd been gone a long time, for someone who'd just needed to take a piss.
Draco wasn't at the front door, and Rowle wasn't lying beside the stairs, so there was no one there to disturb him as he stood in the silence and cleared his mind, burying the part of himself that did stupid things like try and save people.
Three of the remaining Muggles were slumped on the sitting room floor, their faces disfigured from all the hexes and the jinxes that had been put on them. The middle-aged man had collapsed beneath a window.
Rowle prodded him with his foot. "Dead," he crowed.
Snape could've saved him...but he'd chosen someone else...and the others, they were still alive, maybe he could...
Bellatrix raised her wand. She'd play with them awhile before finishing them off and the others would let her. He'd look strange if he tried Imperiusing someone again, something was bound to go wrong.
But none of that mattered anyway, he was being stupid. He watched without feeling anything.
He had a few drinks and some potions and wandered through the manor, away from all the people, from the screams sounding from the back room, but they were nothing, it didn't matter. His feet led him to the drawing room, where he slumped down in a high-backed chair and stared at the wall, away from the long table by the fireplace. Lucius was putting Draco to bed, any moment he'd come downstairs and they'd play another game of chess. Snape would lose on purpose this time, so he could go home and sleep.
He wondered if Lucius had any calming draughts in his cellar, he felt he could use one. He'd been a guest there so many times he'd lost count, he'd even lived there on and off in his late teens, he knew Lucius and Narcissa wouldn't mind if he popped down there to check. He opened the door and climbed down the stairs to the cool, quiet cellar, away from everything.
There was a loud grunting snore and Snape started. What the hell...?
"Lumos."
Blue-white light reflected off flasks and bottles and wet stone, until it reached the far corner of the room, where it illuminated two people huddled together under a thin blanket. Snape stepped closer to them.
An old man was sitting up sleeping, his arms wrapped around a young woman.
Ollivander and Miss Lovegood. But what was she doing here?
Snape Disillusioned himself and flashed the light over them to see if they'd been tied up, but their bindings had been cut loose. So they'd managed that much, but Snape there was no escaping that cellar. Lucius had thought of everything. He had to. If Ollivander escaped, Lucius would take the blame, and that would be it.
Ollivander gasped and shifted his position, drawing the blanket in tighter. Miss Lovegood stirred and shivered herself back to sleep. They were freezing, but he watched them without feeling anything.
Miss Lovegood stirred and stared at him with wide silver eyes that reflected the dim light of his wand.
"Are you a watcher wraith?
"I-what?"
"Oh you know, a spirit warden. They watch over people."
Snape slipped into his Black country twang, the way he did when he needed to disguise his voice.
"Ar," he whispered.
"Oh good, I was hoping there would be one here." She glanced around the cellar. "Can you help us get out?"
"No."
"No, I suppose not, you're bound here." She shivered and huddled back down against Ollivander, clutching the blanket tight.
Snape stepped closer and examined it. He couldn't give them a new one, everyone would think they'd stolen it, or somehow got hold of their wands. But if he made it just a bit thicker...
He tapped his wand to it and added a few more layers. Then he conjured two woolen hats.
The first hat he placed on Ollivander, the second on Miss Lovegood. She stirred again and reached up to touch it.
"Oh, thank you. It's very cold down here, you know."
"Better hide them hats in the morning," he whispered, his voice gruff, thick.
"Oh we will," whispered Miss Lovegood. She rested her head on Ollivander's shoulder and closed her eyes.
Snape sat beside them with his head in his hands.
A/N Summary: Graihagh administers potions and very awkwardly helps the midwife. When she's sure the couple is okay, she goes back to the Hog's Head with Remus, where she lays on her bed and thinks about Snape, sure he'll be alone and miserable over Christmas. Aberforth has been selling some of her potions so she has a bit of money saved up and is thinking of buying him a gift.
I know that was a bleak place to leave off but the next chapter is mostly done and should be up in a week or so!
