A/N: Uneventful week, folks. Not much to say.

Except,

As always,

Enjoy.

Disclaimer: All characters of the Harry Potter series (hereafter known as 'legal property') are the sole ownership of J.K. Rowling (hereafter known as 'owner of said legal property'). No infringement on any copyright of owner of said legal property of the legal property is knowing intended. Published by author (hereafter known as 'other') for entertainment purposes only. No monetary or personal gain was knowingly made by other with the publication of this story, which was based on ideas and characters created by owner of said legal property as they pertain to legal property. No plagiarism of legal property or of any ideas of the owner of said legal property was knowingly intended by other. This statement is fully transferable and is legally held binding for all chapters of the story Family Relations as they are presented under different chapter headings and titles for individual chapters.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: POTIONS AND LIES

An hour later exactly, Snape stood in his dungeon lab, leaning over a empty cauldron as he waited for Voldemort. As calm as he tried to appear, he had a white-knuckled grip on the rim of the cauldron. Potter had come to the Headmaster an hour before stating that he had agreed to help Voldemort and the reasons why. The boy had told him what the dark lord had said, verbatim, as Dumbledore had insisted.

Voldemort had called him a traitor.

Well, that wasn't much of a surprise. The dark lord knew he was a spy at that point. No need to try and deny that any longer.

But to now have to work with him.

Alone.

Dumbledore had at first bulked at the demand. The Headmaster wasn't about to leave Voldemort alone with a man he would no doubt take a great deal of pleasure killing. But Snape himself had agreed to the terms. He insisted that while Voldemort may be very good at waving his wand about, he was absolutely hopeless at brewing potions. He wouldn't hurt someone he needed. And at the moment what Voldemort needed was a potions master.

Snape was grateful for his tight grip on the cauldron when the door opened. It kept him from jumping a few feet into the air.

"I sent a list ahead of me of what I would need for this particular potion." Voldemort started immediately, coming into the room in a grand sweeping rush of black robes, not even bothering to look at the other man in the room.

"I have everything already prepared." Snape replied in an overly formal manner. "It should cut the preparation time down considerably."

Voldemort stopped as he looked over the ingredients, turning his eyes to the man across the table with the smallest trace of mischief in them.

"Very good, Severus. As efficient as ever."

Snape said nothing in reply. He had resolved to say as little as he could to his former master. Simply do the work and concentrate on nothing else. That was the way to get through this alive.

"Can we just get on with this?" Snape asked curtly.

Voldemort looked up from examining the items on the table. "What is it, Severus? Do you have somewhere better to be?" Voldemort straightened up and studied the man across the table from him again. "Or maybe you do? I mean, spies are always running off somewhere, aren't they? Does the old wizard have some secret mission for you? Or perhaps," Voldemort held up a finger, stopping Snape from responding, "perhaps you've already grown tired of serving your new master? What will it be this time, Severus? Have you betrayed us both to this other wizard? I mean, that is pretty much the way things seem to go for you, isn't it? First you betrayed Dumbledore to serve me. Then you betrayed me to go back to serving Dumbledore. Are you planning on betraying Dumbledore again by spying now for this other wizard?"

Just as Snape was feeling his fingers itching to grab his wand, a small black cat suddenly ran into the room and launched itself up on the rim of the cauldron.

Snape immediately turned to the door. If Diamond was there, someone else wasn't far behind. And Snape couldn't have been happier to see her.

"So," Analisa announced as she bustled her way into the room, "how is it going? I do hope I haven't missed anything."

Voldemort continued to stare at Snape for a few moments before turning to Analisa, as though he were looking for or expecting some reaction from him. "We were just going to get started." he replied in a formal but conversational tone. "I wasn't sure you were going to come."

Analisa settled a cold, even gaze on Snape. "I considered it." she replied. "But I rarely would want to pass up the opportunity to see Snape at work, my lord. He may be a traitor, but he is still a master potions brewer."

It was everything Snape could do not to stand there with his mouth hanging open. A reaction Voldemort did not miss in the least.

"You seem surprised to see Analisa here, Severus." he inquired. "Or are you simply surprised to see her alive at all? She did, after all, reveal my plan to use Black's body to Dumbledore. That alone would have earned my most faithful follower an instant dead sentence. As it would have been for Analisa," he added, turning back to Snape, "had she not told me of your part in that."

"My part?" Snape inquired, casting a brief glance at Analisa.

"Yes. You are an excellent potions brewer, Severus. But you lack any real skill in spell casting."

Snape kept his gaze fixed on Voldemort, not missing at all that Voldemort had just turned his own earlier insult back on him. But currently he was more interested in trying to stay one step ahead of where the conversation was going. Analisa had woven out some tale to the dark lord to explain her actions, but she hadn't had the time or the opportunity to apprise him of it. So he would have to simply listen and let Voldemort spell it out for him instead and play along as best he could.

"When Analisa told me of your Imperious Curse, I was duly suspicious. One can, after all, easily say one did things under such a spell's influence. But the traces of the spell were still there. And it was painfully clear someone had tried to cover them up." Voldemort shook his head slightly. "Very poor work overall, Severus."

Analisa turned to him with a slight sneer. "I'm surprised that getting me to betray my lord was as far as you went."

Snape pulled himself up as he stared down at her. "Why would I result to an Imperious Curse for something you gave away so freely, my dear?" he replied.

The insult hit home as Analisa gave a small gasp but recovered herself quickly as she huffed at him. "Of course, Severus. After all those years I spent in Evan's shadow while you pined after her, never even giving me the time of day, I just couldn't wait to start humiliating myself by throwing myself at your feet? Not likely."

"Black's time is growing short." Voldemort cut in, not giving Snape time to answer, for which he was actually grateful. He had found out all he needed to know in less than two minutes. Analisa had apparently told Voldemort she had exposed his plan to Dumbledore under an Imperious Curse, having had someone work one on her very close to the same time she had spoken to Dumbledore, then had them try to remove any traces of it, but leaving just enough behind to show some tampering was done. All in all, it wasn't a bad plan, but still extremely risky.

What he wasn't sure of was why she had used him as the perpetrator of the act? Was it part of her plan or pure coincidence? That was something he would have to leave to finding out later. For now he turned back to beginning his work, reminding himself how he was going to get through this alive.

"And do be sure to explain things, Severus," Analisa spoke up suddenly in as condescending a tone as he had ever heard her use with him. "I wouldn't want to miss anything important."

Snape considered the request somewhat odd. Knowing him as she did, Analisa knew he hated talking while he worked. But a sudden idea struck him as to the reason for the strange request, which he decided to test as he worked.

For her part, Analisa at first stood simply observing as Voldemort continued to work over the ingredients. She didn't ask so much as a single question, but her attention seemed positively riveted to taking careful inventory of each of the ingredients and their amounts. But the minute the actual brewing began she became a veritable book of questions. Why did they add the ingredients in a certain order? How long was it necessary to brew each one when it was added. What could go wrong if to much was added or it cooked too long?

Everything Snape expected her to ask to prove his assumption right.

She wasn't there to watch him. She had been sent to watch Voldemort. To watch, to learn, and to remember. All of which he was certain she would be reporting back to Dumbledore before morning.

Once the potion was finished Voldemort filed a small vile with the green liquid and sat it on the table. For several moments he simply stared at the bottle. After a few moments the liquid inside started to bubble as though it were being heated, then settled down again. After a few more seconds past it slowly began to change color. Starting at the bottom, the color gradually changed from green to blue.

When the transformation was complete, Voldemort took the bottle and handed it to Snape.

"Take that to Dumbledore. Tell him they are to give it to Black in three equal measures over the course of three hours. Once that is done he should start to show improvement over the next twenty-four hours."

"And if he doesn't?" Snape ask.

Voldemort gave him an unconcerned smile. "Then we were too late." he replied calmly. "And Mr. Black will die."

Q&A

Family Relations

Skahducky:

It seems to me that things are going to start happening very quickly in the next few chapters. I knew Harry was going to decide to help Voldemort, but I wasn't sure how long it would take. Please update soon!

I don't know that the pace will pick up much in the next three chapters. But a lot of information will be imparted in them.

Well, let's face it, if Harry hadn't agreed to help, I wouldn't have had much of a story. And Voldemort isn't much for the 'patience' thing. So he wasn't going to let things drag on for too long. He set up a situation and then began to hammer away at Harry's resistance at ever opportunity.

Blanca Rosa:

Did someone actually do that? If they did it sounds that they have not read any of the Harry Potter books or actually understood them. I didn't even know we could actually abuse a book with little information from the said book, I mean there are loads of other stories ( no offence to anyone) that don't follow the story barely at all. Anyways please update soon!

It's not the book or its theme they were accusing me of abusing, Dear. It was the regulations of the site. The person felt that I had too much 'chat' and not enough story. I felt that with just a little over 400 words of a 2800 word story dedicated to talking to my readers, I did not violate any rules. And as that to my knowledge I was not sanctioned, apparently, FFN agreed with me.

Thank you for your concern though.

MasterLupin:

I will support you fearless leader! but anyway this was an interesting chapter, starting to see Harry step up for himself and all that. However I think I found an inconsitancey with your story. "Me?" He all but laughed at the question, throwing himself against her as he hugged her, happy just to see her again and know that she was all right. "The last I heard of you, you were headed for Azkaban."

Didn't Harry met up with her outside of the adoption center in London when Orion intercepted him from Sirius/Voldermort?

Dang!

Dangdangdangdangdang!

OK. Fairs fair. Have your gold star, Dear. You earned it. (Gold star that keeps getting erased when I try to download it).

Yes, indeed. You are right. Harry had met up with Katlin before in an earlier chapter and I forgot.

Fever

Maegwin:

I loved the story idea (Sirius and Lupin and Snape all being concerned over Harry, e! Hard to go wrong there.) But there were a bunch of jarring things in the fic itself.

First, the writing. There's a constant mistake in the way you do dialog. For example, this is the way you do it: "Lupin is so hot." She said. Here's the way it should be: "Lupin is so hot," she said.

Another thing was how strangely lenient and understanding Lupin was towards the Dursleys. Vernon had beaten up Harry, after all. That really threw me off.

I'm a fan of Severus/Lupin friendship. But here it was like boom, here's the backstory, now voila, they're friends. It wasn't convincing. It needed more buildup.

First off, I'm glad you enjoyed the story, Dear.

Second, I guess it's a matter of how you were educated. I was taught different. If it was a comment in quotations ended in a comma, the descriptive phase to follow (he said, she said, they said, etc.) was not capitalized. If the comment ended in a period, the descriptive phrase that followed was always capitalized. But on that note, I usually don't bother much with things of that nature. After all, my editor needs something to do. And if you read my bio page, grammar is not something I ever claimed to be an expert at. You, on the other hand, are showing strong tendencies towards editorship. Ever thought about it, Dear? Pays well.

I don't know, Dear. I just always saw Lupin as something just short of almost ridiculously lenient towards people. 'Benefit of the doubt' and all that.

Well, Dear, I only had so much time to write this story. It is, in fact, wracked with things that could have been made better. But I do this for fun and entertainment. It is not my job, per say. When I am working on a piece for actual publication, I have to put a great deal more work into it. And it actually starts to become tedious to me since I am no great wiz at grammar. This site is one of the few places I can write as myself, as free as I want to be, and not have to worry about whether or not I got every little thing right.

Does this mean you are getting less quality from me than my professional writing? Myself, I would say no. I think my readers here are actually getting something my professional readers (people who pay for it) don't get. You are getting me at my very best, without the restrains placed on me by the professional world of writing. It requires a bit of leniency and perhaps a little extra work to sometimes sort out what word I was trying for, but I hope I make it worth the while.

All reviews are as of 06/04/2006.

And remember;

Hurricane season started four days ago, folks. PAR lives in Florida. We all know what THAT means. (Possible delays. Keep watch on my biopage for updates.)