Chapter 36

Shattered hopes:

"Headmaster? What happened?" asked Harry confusedly, until what he just had witnessed fully registered in his fog-filled brain. "SNAPE!"

"Stay down, Harry," Dumbledore said soothingly, when Harry tried to sit up. "You have had a nasty fall."

"Fall?" Harry asked, still a bit reality-alienated by the vision.

"Oh, that," he answered absentmindedly, his memory not yet completely processing all that happened. "Professor Dumbledore, I had a vision," he pressed on.

Dumbledore nodded slowly. "So I already expected, the way you fell off the broom. Unfortunately for you, Draco has caught the Snitch and the Slyth...?

"Headmaster!" Harry interrupted Dumbledore's cheerful-sounding narration. "I saw Voldemort."

A shadow fell over the old wizard's face, but he kept on smiling, which, just like the unencumbered words about Quiddich, was probably only meant to reassure Harry. But he was not in the mood to be placated at all right now. "Voldemort first put Pettigrew under Crucio, since he brought bad news. Something about the dementors not being in Azkaban anymore, and then he called Lucius forth."

Dumbledore nodded and waited patiently for Harry to continue.

"Headmaster. Snape is alive."

The patient smile on the face of the old wizard vanished at once and he paled within seconds. "What?"

Harry did not have time to enjoy seeing the headmaster shocked once in his life. He only felt the urge to do something as fast as possible to right all that had gone wrong. "Snape lives. They talked about it. Lucius has the order to break his will, before they kill him."

Dumbledore let himself fall heavily on a wooden chair beside Harry's bed, and this time, didn't hinder Harry from propping his body up on his elbows.

Dumbledore had his eyes closed and seemed very strained. "Severus lives. Thank Merlin. We can still save him."

He looked at Harry. "Did they say where Professor Snape is being held?"

Harry considered briefly and sorted through the memories again, so that he wouldn't miss anything, but then shook his head in the negative. "No, Sir. Malfoy only said that Snape was weakened enough for them to influence him."

Dumbledore nodded sadly. "Yes, Severus will not make it easy for them and I fear for him, knowing what it would take to break him. I doubt that they'll succeed, but still…. Where were they in your vision? Was there a reference point to where we could possibly begin the search?"

Again Harry shook his head. " They were in a common looking forest. What will we do now, Headmaster?"

Dumbledore rose and stroked his beard thoughtfully. "You said that the last vision was in a large hall? We must try to find out, where this room is. And I have also put some members of the order on Voldemort's tail. Perhaps they will find something..."

He made another thoughtful pause, his glance lost somewhere in air before him. "We just cannot do a thing, as long as we don't know where he is being kept imprisoned. And even if we did know, it would be difficult. We are too close..."

Harry listened to Dumbledores preoccupied monologue. He had actually expected that Dumbledore would immediately draw an ingenious plan from his hat, but to see the old wizard as helpless was more than disillusioning and extinguished Harry's relief like a storm did a candle. It couldn't be that difficult to free Snape, now that they knew him to still be alive.

"Harry, I will instantly contact some members of the Order of the Phoenix. You will have to stay here for a moment longer, I'm afraid. Your arm has suffered a complicated fracture and you took a nasty bump on your head. Madame Pomfrey wants to keep you under observation for a few more hours."

Harry nodded disgruntled. He didn't like to spend any minute longer than was necessary in the boring, nothing-to-do-hospital wing but he did see the logic behind Dumbledore's words.

Dumbledore smiled again. "Keep smiling, Harry. We will find a way. Severus is still alive and that is all that's important at the moment. In the meantime; I know two friends of yours are standing just outside this room, waiting until they are allowed to see you."

Harry answered the smile, hesitating.

"We are not leaving Severus alone out there," Dumbledore said with determination, and Harry again was not sure if the words were directed at him, or the Headmaster himself.

Severus woke up, sitting on a hard chair. He wanted to rub his pounding temples, but something cut into the skin of his forearms and kept his arms immobile. With much more effort that it should have taken, he pried his heavy eyelids open and looked at his arms, which were bound to the armrests of the chair with a silvery chain. He blinked a few times and groaned, as a wave of pain washed over him. His head throbbed and every one of his muscles hurt.

He tilted his head back and found himself to be back in the larger darkened room, in which he had already been brought once. This time, however, he could make out more of it. The walls were of dark stone, the ceiling arching high above him and in an enormous fireplace at the far-off end burned a flickering fire, which filled the room with a crushing heat.

"Nice of you to be joining us again, Severus."

He looked up at Malfoy, who stood before him, with Goyle at his side.

Severus let his head fall down upon his chest again. He wasn't yet ready for more torture. He only wanted to be left in peace. Why couldn't they just kill him and be done with it? He was so tired to put up with it all.

"You shouldn't have tried to escape, Snape," said Malfoy.

Snape didn't answer. What could he say anyway? Of course, they would be punishing him now. But this, they would do one way or another. Had he not tried to escape then they would simply have found another reason.

A hand seized his chin and brought his head up again. "We have a gift for you, Severus."

Malfoy waved at Goyle, not interrupting eye contact with Severus. Goyle walked to the rear part of the room and disappeared from Severus' line of sight. Malfoy smiled and held Severus' head, until Goyle returned, half carrying, half dragging a wide, knee-high tank with him, which he deposited before Severus' feet. Only then did Malfoy release Severus, but the Potions Master's eyes remained on the red-hot coals in the tank.

"Get hold of his legs," Malfoy instructed and Severus rapidly understood what they planned. All his instincts screamed for escape, but he knew it was senseless. Still, he tensed and flinched away, as Goyle bend down in front of him, took hold of his knees and lifted his feet off the ground. Malfoy pushed the tank closer, until the heat from it hit Severus like a bodily blow. His ankles were both gripped and lifted even further by a meaty hand before they were dropped and the arm around his knees pushed the legs down again, until millions of hot needles stung into his feet. Severus jolted back and cried up. The burning intensified and moved from his soles up over its feet and the seam of his trousers, robbing any clear thought from him. The smell of burnt flesh rose nauseating up to him, before his legs were pulled up once again and set on the soil besides the tank. Severus' stomach revolted and he started to dry-heave violently. His feet hurt like hell and he knew that they were badly burned without even looking at them.

"Now you cannot run away any longer," Malfoy said somewhere in the spinning reality before him. "But we still must do something against the fact that you may again slip out of your handcuffs. Perhaps we have to attach them differently?"

Something inside of Severus – pain, fear and hatred made him look up. "You will pay for this; Albus will destroy you. He will avenge me."

"And why should he want to do that?"

"He is my friend. He will make you pay for everything that you do to me." Severus had to hold onto the thought that Albus would avenge him. That Malfoy would be punished. He had no strength left to endure more torture, but unfortunately he had no choice. He couldn't stop them from doing just that. All he could still do was to hang onto the things that mattered to him; letting those thoughts make him endure the pain somehow.

"Albus? Your friend?" Malfoy laughed sardonically. "I believe you dwell in some illusions here. You think Dumbledore was always friendly to you? He is friendly with everyone. He is not your friend. You are only one of many who he knows. One among thousands of children, whom he had gotten to know in school. Dumbledore helps everyone who comes to him. He is a sentimental fool after all, but he is not a friend for that matter. When he sees the need, he helps if necessary and then forgets again. You don't even know what a friend is. You also thought that I was your friend, and now look at what I'm doing to you. I am enjoying this here, Severus. Do you think that a friend would enjoy torturing you? And I always was by far your closest and most trusted comrade. Now, just think about what you must mean to all the others who know you? They don't truly care a bit about you at all."

Malfoy raised his wand and murmured: "Pugio Lux."

The point of his wand exploded in a small flashing ball of shining golden-red. Malfoy seized Snape's wrist and held it. The glowing wand end descended towards Severus ' hand and as it touched it, a dazzling, burning pain, a thousand times worse than the peeling off of his nails, shot from the hand up Severus' arm. He cried out again and only when the agony turned into a constant burning pain did he manage to stop his scream and take a shuddering breath.

Against his will, his eyes travelled to his trembling hand where in the centre now gaped a round, large hole, through which shredded edges he could make out the burned sinews, torched bones and charred muscles. Again, the smell of burned flesh rose up to him and again he choked on it. Dizziness filled his head and he felt terribly ill. Slowly his view began to cloud over and he gratefully let himself slip into the hovering unconsciousness.

"Enervate!"

Brutally, he was brought back again. Back into a stinking cell, back to the maddening, burning pain from his feet and hand and back to Lucius' voice, which continued to speak unwavering and casually, as if he were discussing the weather with him.

"Potter and his gang have already proven it to you back then. Everyone laughed at you, whenever you became victim to another prank. They pointed their fingers at you, and laughed about the deplorable loser you were, isn't that right, Snivellus? But when you tried to seek revenge, which was mostly just pathetic anyway, the four were much better in their pranks then you were, then everybody got furious at the greasy git. Because everyone thought you were evil you seemed only coming to you what you'd deserved. But not only that; Potter and Black were popular, good in Quidditch, got the girls and were better in class. I well remember that. Didn't Black even beat your score in potions at one point?

"No, this world will not be grateful, when you're gone, it will not even notice it. You are nothing and less important then the dirt in Hagrid's garden."

Severus tried to tune out the voice, yet he knew that Malfoy was right. Why did he resist his words in such a way? Lucius did not exaggerate. He had always been degraded and used as a class clown. And if, on rare occasions, someone had gone through the trouble to defend him, it had been more out of dislike for Potter, then for Severus. In all his years in Hogwarts, Lucius had been the only one who had ever paid attention to him. Lucius, who had no problems at all now to torture him and send him through hell. Towards Malfoy, he had let his wall of bitterness and partitioning fall and what had it gotten him? He should never have trusted him. Malfoy was his friend just as little as Potter and his gang had been. Something like friendship did not exist and each attempt to prove the opposite only ended in pain.

Lucius bent down to him, until Severus could feel the other Death Eater's breath on his cheek, before he spoke. "If you thought that I am your friend while I only used you, what makes you so sure that Dumbledore is your friend? Would a true friend, above all such a powerful wizard as Dumbledore, not already have found, or at least have searched for you?"

Severus eyes burned, but the tears were not coming forth. He told himself that the mission had always brought the risk of imprisonment or death and that he had himself told Dumbledore not to look for him in such a case. Yet for the moment he wished that Dumbledore had not listened to him. That at least one single person would remember him, that someone worried about what happened to him and didn't only mourn the lost chance and then moved on. The plan had failed altogether and so Dumbledore could look for him, didn't he? He was so powerful and seemed to always have a plan or an answer to everything. Why not now?

Because he doesn't care, answered a traitorous voice in the back of his head. Because he did not mean more to anybody than the reason for a party, that his death gave. As soon as he was out of sight, he was forgotten.

"I heard that they have found a new potions master. Crabbe writes only good things about him and Draco as well only talks about him with the highest respect. He wrote to me that they had never had such a good head of house and that the man is a genius in the field of potions. He is always there for them and also defends them successfully against Dumbledore. Draco says that this year they have good chances to win the house cup."

Severus closed his eyes and tried to tell himself that Malfoy only invented all of this, in order to hurt him, but it was hard. What if it was true? He had no possibility to know, whether all Malfoy said was true. But it would hardly be difficult to find a teacher with whom it was easier to get along with than him. The other teachers too, were probably glad that the bitter and insufferable potions master had been replaced.

"You don't believe me?" Again Lucius' soft voice directly in front of his face. A solitary finger brushed his cheek light as a feather and Severus pulled back instinctively. "If that is the case, then why are you crying?"

Severus' eyes shot wide open. He had not even realized the tear, which in the end had managed to free itself and run down his cheek, where Malfoy now gently wiped it away.

"You know that I am right, don't you?" the Death Eater whispered with a triumphing smile. Then he took a step back and raised his wand once more.

"Pugio Lux!"

The sharp, reddish-golden light spot again exploded into existence at the end of the wand and Severus tried instinctively to withdraw his, still to some extent undamaged, other hand. The chains, however, gave him only freeway to move a few millimetres and Lucius ' hand again took hold of his wrist and pressed its forearm against the armrest, effectively restricting this little possibility of movement too. Severus' hand clawed into a fist, as he in vainly fought against Malfoy's hold.

"It won't do you any good to resist, Severus. Haven't you understood that by now? Goyle?"

The massive Death Eater stepped beside Malfoy and reached for Severus' hand, whose strength was by far not great enough, particularly in his current condition, that he could do anything against Goyle, as the big man forcefully pulled his fingers apart, until the hand lay flat on the armrest. Immobile and without any possibility to evade the lowering wand-tip, Severus only stared at it, as if he could thereby turn the inevitable away.

The closer the wand came to his skin, the greater was the heat emanating from it, until it finally made contact with the skin and with a small cloud of smoke and a sickening hiss bore it's burning destruction into the flesh. Again, Severus arched in his chair and screamed. The agony shot up his arm, overruling the one of his other hand, before his sight exploded and everything turned black.

T.B.C.

Betaed Slytherin's silver snake and Sadistra