A few weeks after the Battle of the Ministry, Dumbledore visited Snape in Spinner's End. It had been an interesting few weeks. A significant faction openly mourned the Potter brat's death, but a large – and growing – group of wizards were beginning to support the Dark Lord.
As per his Lord's request, Snape appeared to follow Dumbledore, and seemed to be one of his key supporters.
He would continue to maintain that illusion as long as it benefited him.
Dumbledore felt comfortable with him, and often asked him for advice. He had shown up in his home over the last few weeks for impromptu war-planning sessions. Sometimes, he brought McGonagall or Moody, sometimes other Order of the Phoenix members.
Tonight ,Snape's eyes were immediately drawn to Dumbledore's right hand. He was wearing a ring on his ring finger. It was a gold ring, with a black stone setting. The stone had a curious pattern on it, a circle drawn over a triangle with a line through it.
The tips of Dumbledore's ring and middle fingers were withered, the dried-out skin resembled a burnt husk of corn more than living flesh. Tendrils of black followed his veins down to the palms of his hands and had begun to spread to his other fingers and up along his wrists. This was a strong Dark curse, and Dumbledore had undoubtedly come to Snape to help him remove it. Snape, however, had never seen a curse quite like this one before.
Luckily, all he needed to do was fake to Dumbledore that he possessed the knowledge and skills that Dumbledore required. That way he'd seem to remain useful. But Dumbledore would not survive this. Snape would make certain of it.
"Will you tell me what happened?" Snape asked. "The more information you tell me, the more I can do to try to limit the damage."
"I touched a Dark artifact that I believed would help the Light win this war," Dumbledore said, raising his right hand a bit. "You will understand if I cannot tell you any more details."
"Of course," Snape said, doing his best to keep a placid expression on his face. Snape wondered just how Dumbledore ascended to the posts of Headmaster of Hogwarts and Chief Warlock of the Wizenmagot without learning that a wizard should never, ever, touch an unidentified magical artifact whose properties were not fully understood. If Dumbledore had such little understanding of Defense Against the Dark Arts, it was no wonder that he continued to hire completely inept individuals to fulfill the DADA teaching position. He did not possess knowledge that every first-year should have. He was completely unqualified to judge a potential professor's competency for the post.
"I've tried Vulnera Sanentur," Dumbledore said. "But as you can see, it has not helped the healing process."
Snape shook his head slowly. "This is a serious injury, and standard healing spells will have little to no effect on it. I will be honest with you. I don't know if I'll be able to heal this. I will, of course, do my best to contain the rot as much as I can, but I do not know if I can cure your body of it completely."
Dumbledore nodded. "I understand."
"I will have to put you under a Stupefy spell in order to heal you," Snape said. "The spells I am planning to use have painful side effects, and are most effective when the patient is unconscious."
"I'm ready," Dumbledore said.
Snape pulled out his wand, and pointed it at Dumbledore's chest. Snape considered himself a strong wizard, more powerful than most people, but he knew that he wasn't in the same class as Dumbledore. This would be the first, and probably only, time he would ever be able to Stupefy a powerful wizard without fear of repercussion. For the first time, he'd be able to gauge the strength of his magic against that of a wizard like Dumbledore.
Or that of Voldemort. It would be a useful thing to know, just in case he ever decided to turn against him. Just in case.
"Stupefy," Snape said. A jet of red light emitted from his wand and hit Dumbledore's torso, right over his heart. He tumbled over onto the bed.
Snape took a deep breath. It had taken surprising amount of power to overwhelm Dumbeldore's magic, almost more than Snape had expected. It was a simple, school-age spell, but Dumbledore was simply too strong for it to have much of an effect on him without Snape expending a significant amount of magical energy. This, at least, explained why wizards like Voldemort and Dumbledore only ever dueled amongst themselves. Wizards of that class were simply too powerful, and could defeat worker wizards, even ones as powerful as Snape, without too much effort.
Voldemort was about as strong as Dumbledore, and Snape knew that he would not be able to fight him in a fair duel. Of course, ideally, the duel would not be fair, but even then, Snape believed a major power upgrade would be required to defeat Voldemort. Snape did not think he would want to support Voldemort forever, and it was useful to know approximately how much power his opponent had so that he could plan accordingly.
But for now, until a better opportunity presented itself, Snape was on Voldemort's side. So he got to work.
Snape conjured a pint of Dumbledore's blood, and placed it in a vial he had specially prepared. It had been spelled to preserve its contents indefinitely. Dumbledore's blood would keep for months, if not years, in this vial.
It would definitely last long enough to fuel Voldemort's resurrection ritual.
The bone of the father, the flesh of the servant, and the blood of the enemy. At the height of his power, his Lord had had the foresight to secret away his father's bones. His Lord alone knew where his father was buried, and had his father's skeleton – minus one bone - at his disposal.
The last time his Lord had 'died,' he had done a poor job of communicating with his servants while in his undead state. This time, he was much more prepared. His Lord now possessed the body of Wormtail, who was living in Malfoy's home. It was funny to watch the Malfoys bent themselves over backwards to treat that spineless bastard like a king. They did not want to risk offending their Lord by mistreating his choice of host.
The Dark Lord required that his servants attend to him there. Each one of his supporters was required to meet with him at least once a week to update him and to receive new orders. And of course, if the Dark Mark burned, they hastened to him as well. The Dark Lord's network of supporters was efficient, and growing. His message and ambitions were especially popular amongst the Slytherin cohort, and they were flocking to his side. Even some Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws had seen the inevitability of Voldemort's victory, and were joining him.
There was a whole host of people who would give of themselves to regenerate their Lord's body, especially if this gift could get them into his good graces.
And the ideal person to fulfill the 'enemy' role would have been the Potter brat, of course. The small fact that he was dead precluded him from fulfilling this role. But Snape felt that Dumbledore would be an adequate replacement.
And judging by this injury, it seemed that Dumbledore would die soon, within months, if not weeks. His hand was cursed, and even if Snape tried, he didn't think he'd be able to prevent the rot from spreading to the rest of his body.
And when Dumbledore died, Voldemort would stage his return.
a/n: I guess I'm basically writing a series of drabbles that depict important scenes in this AU I'm developing. I've got the next few planned out, and hopefully will write them over the next few weeks. It looks like this AU is going to get pretty dark, if it isn't dark enough already!