80
A Startling Discovery
A week later:
Severus' mark began to burn just as he arrived home with Arthur that weekend. Lily was spending half her time at school with him and the other half here at the cottage. She preferred the cottage on the weekends, it was quieter without the students running up and down the halls and talking. She felt she could get more sleep and concentrate on the new life within her and right now she was tired.
She had made a beef and barley stew for dinner and was eager to see how Severus and Arthur liked it. It was an old recipe of her grandmother's and while she knew neither were picky eaters (in fact Severus ate nearly everything), she still couldn't wait to see their reactions. She had also baked some bread and then rested for the afternoon, so the house was filled with the smell of bread.
It was then that she received an owl from Bellatrix and she swore roundly before crumpling up the missive and tossing it on top the stove, where it crisped into ash. Why, of all the times, did she have to be summoned by that bloody bitch now? You'd think she'd have some sympathy because Lily was almost ready to deliver, but no. Of course not! She paced, waiting till she heard the Floo in the front room before calling, "Sev? Arthur? Is that you?"
"We're home, Zoey," Severus called back, rubbing his left arm surreptitiously. Dammit all! Why now? he thought irritably. I just got home and I wanted to spend tonight on the couch with Lily, not traipsing through the dark or brewing poisons. Bloody hell!
But he knew Voldemort's call could not be denied, so he swiftly formulated an excuse. He met Lily in the kitchen and he could tell from her eyes that he was not the only one to be summoned. "I . . . err . . .have to go back to the school soon. Dumbledore's called an emergency staff meeting. I'm sorry."
"It's all right, Sev. I can hold your dinner," Lily said, nodding. "Let me feed Art and then while you're in the meeting, I can go visit Tuney and baby Harry for a bit."
"Something sure smells good in here!" Arthur said, sniffing the air appreciatively.
Lily turned and hugged him, explaining what had happened.
"I don't mind eating real quick and then starting on an essay I have for Transfiguration while you're gone," Arthur said. He was starving and nobody cooked as good as Zoey, in his opinion.
Lily dished up a bowlful of stew and some fresh bread with butter, and Arthur sat to eat it.
Severus disappeared and Lily knew he had gone to get into his Death Eater attire and leave.
She waited long enough for Arthur to declare this was the best stew he'd ever had before giving him a second bowl and eating a little herself. Then she also changed into her robes and mask upstairs and Flooed to the place Bellatrix had told her, an old castle high in the Carpathian Mountains.
Page~*~*~*~*~Break
Several hours later:
Arthur had fallen asleep on the couch with his Transfiguration book over his nose, waiting for Severus and Zoey to return. He slept with the careless ease of a preteen boy, all sprawled in a tangle of arms, legs, and a fuzzy Slytherin blanket.
Severus and Lily came in through the Floo still wearing their Death Eater attire, and they were trying to be quiet, though the room was lit slightly by a lamp, they did not see Arthur curled under the blanket on the couch.
"We have to stop him, Sev!" Lily was saying passionately. "He's stealing away children to hook to his infernal device and drain their magic. That's . . . so horrible I can't even talk about it."
That was what this meeting had been about, the creation of Voldemort's infernal magic-sucking machine, and how it needed to be "fed" with the magic of innocents. He stole away the children of Muggleborns, half-bloods, and any malcontents with his regime, and placed them in a kind of stasis, using ten children at a time, he drained them of their magic, though not enough to kill them. He kept them in a special place where they waited until it was time for them to be hooked to the machine, which transformed their ethereal magic into a liquid which Voldemort consumed. The pure magical energy drink had restored much of the despot's looks and strength to him, achieving at last his vaunted "immortality" or at least an unending supply of magic to keep him young.
His orders to his Death Eaters on this night were blunt and specific—hunt down any children who were of mixed blood or Mudbloods and bring them to the castle for him to use.
Severus and Lily were horrified, as was Regulus. The couple immediately thought of Arthur, a Muggleborn, and his friends. Misty was a half-blood and so was Grimsby and Rhys. They could all be targets.
"I refuse to let that—that madman get his claws into Arthur, or any of my other students!" Severus hissed as they stepped from the fireplace. He would die under the Cruciatus before he would hand over any of the children, he vowed silently.
Before they could do anything save brush off the soot, Arthur woke and sat up. His eyes widened as he took in his guardians . . . with their Death Eater ash-gray robes and masks.
Too late, Lily saw and put out a hand, whether to comfort or to halt the boy she was unsure, but the look of betrayal and horror on his face scalded her soul. "Art, wait! We can explain . . ."
"Don't touch me!" he shrilled, backing up until his hand closed over his wand on the coffee table. "Get away from me! You're Death Eaters . . . both of you! I've . . . been living with you! All this time and I never knew you were . . . evil!" His hand clutched his wand in white-knuckled terror. His first instinct was to run and he started to slide off the cushions.
"Dammit, Mr. Stephens, stay there!" Severus ordered, freezing the boy in his tracks. "Don't force me to Obliviate you."
"Sev, no!"
"Do it! Obliviate me or kill me like the rest of my family!" Arthur challenged, trembling slightly.
"Give me your wand," Severus said, still in that deadly calm tone.
"No." Arthur scrunched tighter on the couch, his wand still held defensively before him. Huge tears sparkled in his eyes, but he refused to back down. That insane Gryffindor courage was flooding him now and adrenaline was pumping through him. But it cost him to defy his professor, whom he had admired and respected. Until now.
Severus' mouth tightened. "Your wand, Arthur. Now. Don't make me hurt you."
"Art, it's all right. We'll tell you everything, just put the wand down." Lily said persuasively.
"No! It's all lies, isn't it? People like you killed my parents and little sisters!"
Severus sighed. "No. People like us tried to save them." He didn't want to hurt the child, but at the same time he didn't wish to get hit by a spell either. With a flick of his wrist, he cast a Disarming Charm. "Expelliarmus!"
Arthur found his wand blasted from his hand and suddenly he was defenseless. He stared up at his former guardians and half-snarled in fear, "Don't hurt me!" Then he shook his head. Pleading wouldn't do any good with Death Eaters. "Or if you do, make it quick."
Lily moved then, crossing over to him and grasping his hands in hers, her mask dangling from the opposite hand. She tossed it on the table, her green eyes grave. "Art, listen to us."
"Who are you? You sound like Zoey, but you don't look like her."
"I am Zoey. Or rather, Zoey is me. She's an alias I use. My real name is Lily . . . Lily Snape. This is my true appearance, the other is a Glamour I use to fool theDark One. We're not Death Eaters, we're spies for the Order of the Phoenix. This—" she gestured distastefully towards the mask. "It's just a smokescreen."
Arthur looked from one to the other. The explanation made sense, but . . . "How do I know you're not lying?"
"I'll swear upon my wand," Lily began at the same time Severus said, "You don't. But Dumbledore will vouch for us. It was his idea for us to be agents, long ago, back when we were students."
Poor Arthur was confused. These two weren't acting like any Death Eater he knew about. Those would have killed or tortured him first. He bit his lip. Could it be true, what they were telling him? He wanted it to be true, to know that his guardians weren't dark, that they didn't hate Muggleborns and wish them all dead. He had trusted them with his life, he didn't want to find out he had Death Eaters for guardians.
Severus tried again, his tone neutral. "Arthur, if we were what you think us, you'd be dead right now for discovering us. Dead or en route to the Dark Lord to use in his infernal machine. But you're not. You're alive and talking with us. That should tell you something."
Arthur suddenly grabbed Severus' left arm and pushed the sleeve up. The Dark Mark stared up at him and he cried, "But you have his mark on you, like the others!"
"Yes, so I could belong," Severus replied, his eyes meeting his ward's. "Like Lily's Glamour, the mark was a necessity. I almost died from it."
"He was so sick after they did it, I feared for his life," Lily said. "But why don't we start at the beginning? One day, when Regulus Black was forced to go to a meeting at Malfoy Manor . . ."
Arthur listened raptly as first Lily, then Severus, told their long convoluted tale of being spies, the eyes and ears of Dumbledore in a place full of dark dreams and desires, of innocents saved and lost, and sometimes evil thwarted.
Occasionally, he asked a question, but for the most part he kept silent, thinking.
"Of course, you don't have to believe us," Severus interjected. "Which is why I suggested you speak with Dumbledore tomorrow."
"Then you aren't going to Obliviate me?"
"That was a last resort. Will you promise to keep this a secret? No one else save Regulus and Dumbledore know the truth." Severus told him.
"Our lives wouldn't be worth spit if any of the real Death Eaters found out," Lily added.
Arthur looked at the pregnant woman. She seemed sincere, indeed almost relieved, that he knew about her. "All right. I swear I'll keep it a secret. But I would like to speak with Dumbledore tomorrow."
"I shall arrange a meeting for you," Severus said quickly.
Arthur felt somewhat better . . . if he could trust what Severus and Zoey . . . no, Lily . . . said. But actions spoke louder than words and so far he hadn't been beaten or tortured or taken away to become a slave to You-Know-Who.
Suddenly he recalled something Rhys had said last week. You will make a startling discovery, the Slytherin Seer had said one day over lunch, phasing out for one moment. It had shocked his mates a little, but the episode was soon over, and he had said it was a mere glimpse into what might be. But the vision had been directed at Arthur. He eyed Lily curiously. According to her, she was a Seer too, and had prophesied she, Severus, and Regulus would become spies together.
Spies . . . it boggled the mind.
And yet, it was the only explanation that made any sense. He recalled all the times he had seen Severus leave and wondered how many times it had been to answer the call of a depraved master. "How do you do it?" he asked suddenly. "How do you pretend to serve and . . . like . . . someone like You-Know-Who?"
"It's very difficult. But I am a natural Occlumens, so that helps," Severus explained. "And I am forced to look at it as information gathering that will someday save lives . . . even if I cannot save everyone. The lot of a spy is a harsh one. But I pledged myself to his destruction and this is the one way we can go about it that will ensure his downfall."
"He tells you all his secrets, do you mean?"
"Sometimes."
"Then why . . . why couldn't you save my family?" Arthur questioned plaintively. "If you knew what he was doing . . ."
"That's just it. We didn't," Lily said softly. "The Dark Lord rarely reveals all of what he plans, even to us. So it's hard to say what he might do. Those we could, we warned, if we knew that a raid was about to take place. With your parents, there was nothing."
"I think it wasn't planned," Severus said. "I think one of his lieutenants acted on his own initiative. The Dark Lord wouldn't care if he killed a family of Muggles anyhow. I'm sorry. If we could have, we would have saved them."
Arthur could hear the sincere tone of regret in his guardian's voice and he knew immediately that what Severus said was true. He did truly regret the death of the Stephens family. A thing which no true Death Eater would feel. They considered everyone beneath them, and Muggles mere ants to be crushed whenever they happened on them.
"There were so many we couldn't save . . ." Lily murmured sadly. "And others that we did, by remembering and listening. We had to learn the hard way about casualties of war." Her eyes grew dark with remembered sorrow. She put a hand over her abdomen. "I just want my child to grow up free of the shadow of war."
"I thought you might be going into labor when I heard you," Arthur admitted.
"No, not yet. But soon," Lily laughed. "Why don't you go to sleep, Art? Severus will call Dumbledore tomorrow and he can explain further about us."
Arthur agreed, though by now he was wide awake. He bid his guardians good night then went upstairs to lie awake, thinking on all he'd been told, before falling into a fitful sleep just before dawn.
Page~*~*~*~*~Break
Arthur walked out of Dumbledore's office the next morning a little wiser than he had been when he entered it. At first he was not inclined to trust the youngster and only Severus' interference had kept the Headmaster from Obliviating him. But once Arthur swore an oath on his wand to forever keep Severus, Lily, and Regulus' secret, Dumbledore told him that yes, it was true they were his personal spies, and had been since they were a little older than Arthur himself.
Arthur had asked a few questions and received answers similar to the ones Severus and Lily had given him. Dumbledore had also told him to speak to James Potter and Sirius and Regulus Black if he needed more conformation.
Arthur had been satisfied by talking with Dumbledore and said if he needed something clarified, he would talk to Aurors Black and Potter. It was too bad he could not share the information with his friends, but a promise made was a promise kept.
Severus had taken the time to inform Dumbledore about Voldemort's infernal device and plan and said he meant to try and rescue the children captured if possible. But Dumbledore cautioned him to be careful, and simply knowing of the device was good, because then they might thwart the evil beast in his plans to kidnap more children.
He instructed his Defense professor, Nicholas Morhaven, to put up stronger wards about the castle and grounds, and also an alarm if the wards happened to be breached by some Death Eaters. Morhaven, who was a wardsmith and had apprenticed to Mercurius Longbottom along with Orion Black, though Morhaven was younger, set to with a vengeance. He bore no love at all for Voldemort or his followers and would have become an Auror like Orion had he been able to afford the Academy fees.
Arthur, Misty, Rhys, and Nate had been meeting for lunch almost every day for weeks now since the picnic on the grass. They found that with Rhys joining the group, many older Slytherins left them alone now, because Rhys' ability as a Seer was well-respected and everyone in his House knew he was the nephew of a teacher, and so walked softly around him.
They watched curiously as Professor Morhaven patrolled the perimeter of the grounds besides the Forbidden Forest.
"I wonder what he's doing?" Misty asked as she bit into a piece of fruit.
"Maybe casting some spells?" mused Rhys as he ate his sandwich.
"Yeah, something to keep the monsters away from the grounds," Nate said, only half-joking.
"Or something else. Like followers of You-Know-Who," Arthur remarked darkly.
"I've heard there have been more missing kids in York and London," Misty said.
"Yeah, like the ones nobody cares about," Nate remarked caustically.
"What do you mean?" asked Rhys.
"You know, the orphans, the street brats who have no real homes, the kids without parents or family."
"And they have magic," Arthur clarified.
"How do you know?" asked Misty.
"Why else would the Death Eaters take them?" Arthur demanded.
"That makes sense," Rhys agreed. "And if they have no family, or an older wizard to protect them . . . they're easy prey."
All were silent for a time, thinking about the awful things Voldemort was perpetrating.
Then they heard a shout from Professor Morhaven. All four children turned to look, thinking he might have been stung by a wasp or something. Instead they saw him raise his wand against four dark-cloaked forms that came out of the Forbidden Forest.
"Death Eaters!" Arthur exclaimed. "Quick, Rhys! Go and get Professor Snape or Dumbledore. The rest of you, let's try and help Professor Morhaven."
"How?" cried Misty.
"By serving as a distraction," Arthur replied grimly, as Rhys stood up. He knew the Defense professor was good, but could anyone stand against four Death Eaters without help?
A/N: What do you think will happen now? Thanks to Alethea27 for helping me out with Arthur and his reaction.