Chapter 2
Severus paces anxiously in the headmaster's tent with a scowl, feeling dread bubbling up within his center.
It's been over an hour since the two Hogwarts champions had disappeared from the maze, and it's been nearly thirty minutes since he'd felt his dark mark burning for the first time in more than a decade.
He tucks a strand of his greasy, dark hair behind his ear and sighs loudly. The girl is undoubtedly dead. He knows it as well as he knows the ingredients in a pepper-up potion. Lily's child, the one child that he had sworn to protect, is gone. He has failed.
Albus, the bumbling idiot, hasn't done practically a thing since the two students had vanished.
The crowd of students, parents, and ministry officials had been watching the progress of the champions through the maze on a massive screen hovering in front of the stands. They had been understandably upset when the two dots labeled Harriet Potter and Cedric Diggory had approached the Triwizard Cup only to be erased from the map. As time passed, the onlookers grew increasingly irritated, and Albus had the gall to stand in front of them all and tell them that everything was okay.
Severus sneers. Everything is certainly not okay.
Not only had the old man refused to acknowledge that there was a problem, he had expressly forbidden Severus to apparate to the Dark Lord when he'd felt the mark searing his skin.
"Give it time, Severus," He'd insisted.
So, Severus had waited. And waited. And he was still waiting. But waiting for what? He does not know.
At this point, his Dark Mark stands out so starkly against his pale skin that it is impossible to ignore. His forearm is a violent shade of red, and the mark is growing increasingly painful. But still, he is forced to wait in the tiny tent.
Finally, Dumbledore enters and stares at Severus with a grave expression. The Potions Professor greets him with a nod and then watches him curiously, searching for some sort of explanation for his behavior. He knows that the headmaster has returned from speaking with the Minister for Magic, but it's clear from the old man's body language that the conversation must not have gone well.
"Cornelius has agreed to keep everyone for another hour," the old man begins.
Severus doesn't understand what the headmaster is plotting. Why does he insist on keeping the crowd around waiting? He must have a hidden agenda.
"What good will that do, Albus? You know as well as I do that the Dark Lord isn't going to let them go. If only you'd let me go to him, perhaps I could-"
Albus cuts him off. "No, Severus. You will go to Voldemort, but not yet."
"When?" He asks irritably. "The Dark Lord will notice that I am missing."
"You must tell him that you were with me at the time, that I forced you to stay. You couldn't get away without blowing your cover. It would have been suspicious if you had been able to disappear on a moment's notice. This will only increase your credibility as a spy. It is all part of the plan."
"But by the time I get there, Potter will be dead. Is that part of your plan?" He asks scathingly.
The old man pauses to take a deep breath, as if preparing himself to deliver bad news. His light blue eyes teem with darkness.
"Severus, no matter what state she is in when you arrive, you mustn't intervene."
What the bloody hell does that mean? Has the old coot finally gone mad?
"Are you telling me not to save Potter?"
The elderly man had placed Potter on a pedestal above all others for the past fourteen years, and now, suddenly, he doesn't care. It makes no sense.
Albus lets out a sad sigh. "Alas, if you are able to save her with little risk, then you should do so. However, I do not want your position as spy to be known. If it comes down to one or the other, then you'll have to let the girl go."
"You'd just let her die?"
His words come out much harsher than he intends, but his question is genuine. Is Albus Dumbledore, leader of the light, condemning the death of a child that he claimed to love? Does he honestly not care?
"Trust me, my boy, there are things that you don't yet know. Before the course of this war is over, the girl must die anyway."
Severus gapes at him. He is unable to even ask why.
Albus seems to sense his inability to speak and answers his unspoken question. "I believe she may be a horcrux, Severus."
Albus explains about the diary found two years earlier. He describes the Dark Lord's affinity to achieve immortality. He rationalizes Potter's strange ability to speak Parseltongue. But still, with all the evidence presented, Severus can't get past the fact that Lily's child must die.
"Surely there is a way to spare her, some way to expel the horcrux and destroy it," he insists desperately. "There must be a solution."
"No, Severus. The girl must die. It doesn't have to be today, but I fear that it may already be too late for her. We shouldn't sacrifice your valuable position as a spy to prolong her inevitable death. You must vow to me that you won't intervene. You must make the unbreakable vow."
As much as Severus doesn't want to, as much as his brain screams at him to turn and run from the tent, he knows that he must follow the old man's orders. He reluctantly performs the unbreakable vow, feeling far more disgusted with himself than he has ever felt before.
After his vow, he is free to go. Severus rushes to the edge of the grounds, dons his death eater apparel, and apparates, appearing a moment later in an unfamiliar graveyard. He is immediately assaulted with the sound of gut-wrenching, adolescent screams.
It's her. It's Lily's daughter.
She is sprawled on her back in the grass, looking straight up with unfocused emerald eyes, Lily's eyes. Her dark, tangled hair is fanned out around her face and its filled with grass and debris. Though her mouth is letting out wails of agony, the rest of her body is tense and motionless. It's as if she's been frozen. If it weren't for the screaming, he'd think she was dead.
She is completely nude, and Severus feels so uncomfortable that he forces himself to look at the Dark Lord instead. It's not a pleasant sight. He is partially covered by a black robe, but it is clear that he is naked beneath it. The man hovers over the body of the teenage girl, violating her in the most inhumane way. With each shriek from the girl, he lets out a shout of glee.
Bile rises in the back of Severus's throat, and he wants more than anything to intervene. He needs to save Lily's child. But he can't. He knows that he'd be struck dead the second he chose to take action.
Noticing his presence, The Dark Lord's head whips to the right to smirk at Severus.
"Ah, Severus Snape," he hisses. "You've nearly missed the show."
A flash of recognition appears in the girl's eyes at the mention of his name, but then the spark is gone, and her gaze is dead again.
"I apologize, My Lord. I was unable to escape without prompting suspicion to my loyalties."
"I understand, Severus. But you know the punishment for being late. Crucio."
Severus's screams join Potters as he flails uncontrollably beside her. It's been years since he was subjected to the torture curse, and it is no easier to withstand than before. But after what feels like hours, the spell is lifted, and he struggles to get back to his feet.
When he is finally able to stand, he sees that the Dark Lord has finished with the girl. Even after he gets off of her, she continues to wail, although, she has gone hoarse from the yelling, and the only sounds emitting from her throat are high-pitched wheezes.
"Harriet?" The Dark Lord croons wickedly. "I hope you enjoyed our fun together. I have one last gift for you. Bring me the dagger, Wormtail," he commands.
A portly man that Severus hasn't seen in over a decade wobbles unsteadily toward the Dark Lord, holding out a small silver knife.
"I know you're familiar with knives by now, Harriet, but this one is special. It's enchanted so that any cut made will never heal. It will forever look as fresh as the day you received it. I hope you weren't intending on having an open casket funeral, but I suppose you can wear a sweater," He snickers. "I thought it would be nice if you had a new scar to remember me by."
With those words, the man makes the first slice into the girl's pale flesh. He starts near her collarbone and makes a long gash down her chest. Then he adds a horizontal line, and it is soon clear that he is spelling something. It only takes the first two letters for Severus to decipher what he is writing.
The words LORD VOLDEMORT are being carved across the girl's chest and torso in grotesque, capital letters. He is branding her.
Surprisingly, Potter doesn't even seem to notice the cuts. She just stares blankly at the sky, ignoring everything around her, even as the blood runs from her chest in thick rivulets. She doesn't even bat an eye.
The fact that the girl has become so used to the pain that she is immune to someone carving out her flesh is extremely disturbing. How much can one child take?
The Dark Lord seems to realize that the girl isn't conscious enough to pay attention to him any longer, so he begins to speak to his Death Eaters instead.
"So now you see, you see that the girl-who-lived is nothing but a story. And soon, the world will see as well. They will see that I have returned, more powerful than ever, and they will see that Harriet Potter is dead. Her body will be hanging from the door to the Ministry by morning."
The surrounding crowd begin to clap and Severus joins in. He knows that the end is coming for Potter, and he is grateful. The poor girl deserves some peace.
"Are you ready, Harriet?" The Dark Lord asks merrily.
When Potter doesn't respond, he seems to realize that she is incapable and smirks. He lifts his wand in the air and, still grinning, sings, "Avada Kedavra!"
A flash of green light erupts from his wand and strikes Potter's already motionless form with such force that her corpse rolls down a steep hill and rests at the bottom near another body. Severus recognizes the boy bathed in blood beside her as Diggory.
I'm sorry Lily, Severus thinks. He wishes more than anything that he could have spared her daughter all the pain that had been inflicted before her death. He had never liked the girl, but no child, not even Potter's, deserved to be tortured in such a barbaric way.
And now she lies on the damp earth, abandoned like trash. Her pale skin is covered in red and her body is exposed for all to see. It's abominable.
The Death Eaters are laughing and congratulating the man with the red eyes, and Severus forces himself to join in, but then he calmly excuses himself, insisting that Dumbledore will be suspicious if he is gone much longer.
The Dark Lord doesn't seem to mind, he is still basking in the glory of his triumph over a defenseless teenage girl.
Severus takes one final glimpse at the girl lying limp in the grass, noticing that her glasses have fallen off, making her resemblance to Lily much more apparent than he had ever realized. The lifeless green eyes are forever burned into his mind.
He disappears on the spot, thinking as the blur of images swirl around him. Is there really nothing that he could have done? Deep down, he knows that he should have done something.
He should have opposed Dumbledore and came on his own terms. He should have attempted to overpower the Dark Lord and gone down fighting. He should have died for her.
By the time he arrives back at Hogwarts, he feels as though he's already dead.