That is a matter between Severus Snape and myself
Chapter 2: Severus Snape
He'd really like a cigarette, because when you've got a two pack a day habit, thirty minutes is a long time to go without a fag, and he's been lurking in the same spot for over half an hour now, protected by Moody's spare Invisibility Cloak and a mild Muggle-repelling charm, waiting for anyone who's following him to get impatient, to make a move and reveal themselves – because he doesn't take any chances with the life of the Chosen One, the weapon against the Dark Lord. And who knows if the Dark Lord really trusts him? Even after what happened on the Astronomy Tower, there's still a chance that the Dark Lord might not really trust him, still a chance that the Dark Lord might be playing with him, might be one step ahead of the game.
The Headmaster could see through an Invisibility Cloak, and he suspects that the Dark Lord can, too, but the Dark Lord wouldn't be following him personally – the Dark Lord isn't the type to keep a dog and bark himself. And probably he's just being paranoid, he's the Dark Lord's favourite now, the Dark Lord's right-hand man, and his only real competitor is Bellatrix Lestrange, the Dark Lord's right-hand woman. But his rivalry with Bella is a lot less friendly than his rivalry with Minerva had been, and he can't afford to stuff up the Azkaban mission.
Azkaban! Although he's never been to Azkaban, he knows exactly where it is – in the Orkneys, right under the noses of the Muggles at the naval base at Scarpa Flow - and he's studied the plans and memorised the location of the cells that hold the Death Eaters arrested in the Department of Mysteries, because if he wants to keep his position as the Dark Lord's favourite, the Azkaban mission has got to be a success, the Dark Lord may be pleased with him because he killed Dumbledore, but the Dark Lord is a "but what have you done for me lately" kind of guy. And to tell the truth, he's looking forward to it, looking forward to letting loose, using some seriously Dark Magic, and settling some old scores – and the Metamorphmagus bitch, the werewolf's camp-follower, will have to take her chances with the rest of the Azkaban garrison.
He lets himself relax a little, he's sure that no one is following him now. It hadn't been too difficult to shake Wormtail off, and Wormtail wasn't under orders from the Dark Lord anyway, the rodent was acting, ha, on his own initiative, because Wormtail thinks that he's consoling grief-stricken Narcissa Malfoy in a smart hotel in Muggle London, and the little sneak had planned to run to Lucius with the proof as soon as Lucius is out of Azkaban - and that shows how much the dirty stinking little rat is out of the loop, how much he's being kept out of the Dark Lord's plans. And if the servant who willingly gave his flesh to revive his master is so much out of favour, perhaps the Dark Lord would like to be rid of the cowardly little creep?
Hell, the Dark Lord has pretty much given him permission to do what he likes to Pettigrew, and how could Pettigrew have been such an idiot, to try to beg off the Azkaban mission when the Dark Lord has made it clear how important it is to him? Smashing Azkaban open, killing the entire garrison, and freeing his followers is the opening gambit in the Dark Lord's new strategy, it won't just be terrorism now that Dumbledore is dead, as soon as Harry Potter comes of age it will be open war against the Ministry, and everyone is expected to do their bit - or to die trying. And Pettigrew had been stupid enough to try to talk his way out of it! That had been a fatal mistake, that had made the Dark Lord think that Wormtail feared the Aurors more than he feared his master's anger. The Dark Lord had been enraged, and more importantly, he didn't trust Wormtail's loyalty any longer – and loss of the Dark Lord's trust is fatal, as fatal as screwing up the mission to retrieve the prophecy.
So although he doesn't have any express orders, it's pretty safe to say that there'll be no punishment if Wormtail has a little accident. So, yes, Wormtail will have a nasty accident - not that Harry Potter needs to know the details, it will be enough for Harry to know that Wormtail is dead. And that will be a nice little birthday surprise for the kid, because Harry must have regretted a thousand times that he didn't let Black and Lupin kill the rat in the Shrieking Shack ...
Yep, Pettigrew practically signed his own death warrant when he went snivelling to the Dark Lord and tried to wriggle out of the Azkaban mission – didn't he have the wit to realise that no matter how terrified he is of the Auror Corps, that's nothing to the fear he should feel for his master! And Pettigrew has taken the Dark Mark, he belongs to the Dark Lord now, and he should know from what happened to Karkaroff that the Dark Lord is no more forgiving towards a coward than he is towards a traitor. Karkaroff was a lot smarter than Pettigrew - and to give him credit, the Durmstrang recruits have had a good grounding in the basics of the Dark Arts – but Karkaroff still hadn't been smart enough to realise that if he was going to run from the Dark Lord, he needed to run a bloody long way, to the far ends of the earth.
He thinks, Karkaroff spoke Russian, Karkaroff could have found somewhere to hide himself in one of the far flung corners of the old USSR. If he'd really wanted to stay alive, Karkaroff should have buried himself in some god-forsaken place like Sakhalin - a flyspeck on the map that he wouldn't know existed himself if he hadn't read about it some book he'd got out of the Muggle public library when he was a kid, Biggles Buries a Hatchet or whatever it was called.
He couldn't really feel sorry for somebody as stupid as Karkaroff, but the Dark Lord had taken his time killing Karkaroff, he'd seemed determined to prove the literal truth of that Muggle proverb, a brave man dies but once, a coward many times. And Wormtail had been a witness to how Karkaroff had died, Wormtail had seen the Dark Lord at work, so did the rat have a death-wish, to anger the Dark Lord by trying to get out of the Azkaban mission?
But thinking about the orders for the Azkaban mission makes him shift uneasily from one foot to another under the Invisibility Cloak, because Lucius must know that he's a half-blood, the whole of the wizarding world knows about his filthy Muggle father now - the Daily Prophet had a field day with that delicious little tid-bit. And Lucius must have watched his only son and heir being buried in the unmarked grave of a criminal, there on Azkaban, within sight of the windows of the prison.
He looks at his watch, decides that it's safe to move on, and he's running late for his appointment with Harry Potter - and he needs to see him, he's got something to give Harry, something a lot more useful than Peter Pettigrew's head on a pike.
Harry-bloody-Potter, his head really gets into a mess when he thinks about Harry Potter, and it's hard to believe that it was only a month ago that Potter called him "sir" or "professor", only a month since Potter served his last Saturday morning detention in his office, only a month since his old life at Hogwarts ended – and it seems like a dream now, seventeen years of teaching at Hogwarts seems like a dream from which he's been woken, like Sleeping Beauty – but not with a kiss.
Harry Potter, he'd hated James Potter's spoiled, arrogant brat, but now he doesn't know how he feels about Harry Potter. He was wary around the boy, because even if the kid seems to be just another gormless teenager, he isn't – Harry Potter will have power the Dark Lord knows not, and that has to be something really toxic, something really deadly. Harry Potter is a walking time-bomb, one day he's going to explode and somebody is going to get very, very badly hurt.
Yes, now that he knows that Harry Potter is a Horcrux, he watches his step around the boy - because any wizard who doesn't mind their Ps and Qs around someone who shares their soul with the Dark Lord is an idiot. But he feels a little bit sorry for Harry Potter, too, because while that damned prophecy has made a mess of his life, it has really screwed up Lily's son. And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, he knows what that means now, he knows what the lightning-shaped scar on Harry Potter's forehead means, and it's a lot worse than the Mark on his arm that brands him as a servant.
And he can't stop brooding over that business in the kitchen of Number 12 Grimmauld Place, when he'd opened the door to Kreacher's grubby lair, searching for Slytherin's locket, and the Dark Lord had stepped out, fixed his pitiless red eyes on Harry Potter, and said, "Truly, Severus, you are my most loyal, my most faithful servant – and you have led me to the boy."
It was only a Boggart, but he hadn't known it at the time – and neither had Potter, the boy hadn't Apparated away to safety, even when he'd shouted at him to get out of it. The kid had raised his wand, he'd been ready to take on the Dark Lord – but why? The boy had tried to save him, Severus Snape, and that made no sense at all, because the boy must hate him - Harry Potter would have to be seriously warped if he didn't hate the wizard who'd betrayed his mother to the Dark Lord and who'd killed Albus Dumbledore before his very eyes. He'd been furious, fucking Gryffindor heroics, how could the boy be so stupid! And he won't let Harry make the same mistake again, so he doesn't miss an opportunity to remind the boy that he's a nasty bastard – and quite capable of looking after himself.
And the kid is hopelessly soft-hearted alright, because he actually seems to care about what happens to Lily's bitch sister, her husband, and their lumpish son - even after the way they've treated him. When Harry had asked him if there was anything he could do for the Dursleys, he'd had to hide his fury behind a mask of boredom, because Harry was asking him to risk his position with the Dark Lord for the sake of the worst kind of Muggles. The Dursleys knew the boy was powerfully magical, but they'd still tried to beat the magic out of him ... and how dare a filthy Muggle raise his hand to Lily's child!
The filthy Muggles are swarming all over the pavement and blocking his path, his heart starts to race a little, because he's running late, and Harry is under instructions to get the hell out of it if he's so much as five minutes late - and Moody will see that the boy does as he's told, Moody is a hateful bastard, but he's competent ...
He's outside his destination now, a bus pulls up and disgorges half a dozen Muggles, he slips off the Invisibility Cloak, and steps inside. The place is still half empty, he chooses a table in a dark corner next to the fire exit, and orders drinks. The Muggle waiter doesn't worry him, even though his photograph has been in all the Muggle newspapers - a quick Confundus Charm will take care of a nosy Muggle. It's wizards who scare him, wizards who'd run to either the Ministry or the Dark Lord if they saw him, but a Muggle pansy bar in Soho is about the safest place in London for the second most wanted wizard in Britain to meet the Chosen One.
Harry drops into the chair opposite him, he nods to him, greets him with a single word, "Harry", pushes a drink across the table to him, tosses a pack of Muggle playing cards - the ordinary cheap kind you can buy at any newsagent, the sort of thing you'd expect to find in the pockets of a Muggle-raised half-blood - on to the table, and flicks them with his wand.
Harry fans the cards out in his hands, and they don't show the King of Spades or the Ace of Diamonds, they're photographs, mostly of wizards, but some witches – it was rather a tricky little piece of Charm work, and he's pleased with the results. He's not too proud to admit that he got the idea from the Marauders' Map, but the spell required to get them to reveal their secrets is a bit harder to crack – a combination of a wand movement and a non-verbal incantation. He leans back, enjoying his cigarette, and watching Harry scrabbling through the cards - is he looking for familiar faces, kids he'd known at Hogwarts, perhaps?
Harry lays the cards back on the table, looking somewhat shaken at the names and faces he's seen, he taps the cards with his wand, and they're ordinary Muggle playing cards again.
He looks across the table at Harry - a little disappointed that there's no word of thanks or praise - and he's surprised by the question in the boy's eyes, is the kid more observant than he'd given him credit for?
He says, shortly, "You know what Lucius Malfoy looks like," but he keeps his face expressionless, hides his feelings, and he's glad when the boy loses interest and starts shuffling the cards, because his friendship with Lucius Malfoy is none of Harry Potter's business – and Lucius won't be walking free from Azkaban prison with the rest of the faithful. His orders from the Dark Lord are to kill Lucius, to do it himself - and the only kindness he'll be able to show Lucius, the only mercy, is to kill him quickly, and before he kills him, to whisper into his ear, Draco lives, your only son and heir still lives.
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