Posted: 2/12/16

Beta: the artful scribbler

Feelings

17th October, 1998

6:30am

"Feelings."

They were in the Malfoys' sitting room and the Dark Lord seemed unable to maintain his usual composure. He was gripping on a tumbler of elf-made wine, clutching and alternately relaxing it in his long bone-white hands, and he seemed to Severus like a coiling cobra, contemplating his strike. Then sometimes he would put aside his glass, along with his attempts at equanimity, to prowl back and forth, back and forth, like some feline predator that's on the verge of pouncing. His face-mask distorted grotesquely as anger and contempt crashed over him – then ebbed. Ever on his guard, Severus watched the skin over the Dark Lord's protrusive cheekbones stretch and detract, his red eyes bulging and slitting. In the watered-down, morning light the Dark Lord's skin as was phosphorescent as that of a coral-reef fish, and Severus knew that his master was as angry at the anger as he was at the whole situation.

"Don't they just activate your gag reflex?"

Severus didn't say anything. He spent too much time in this position to be in any doubt about his role in the invective. All the Dark Lord truly wanted was an audience.

"Feelings will be the downfall of Wizardingkind if we're not careful. The epicureans and the carnal, rutting animals…they all make me want to vomit. Every vice, every fetish and the gluttonous indulgences of the flesh, even avarice: I put them all aside in my youth with stringent discipline and never looked back. Those…penurious wizards and witches lurking in the night-cloaked crevices of Knockturn Alley trying to procure the illicit, illusory potions. I've seen them you know. Smelt them. Loathed them. Even killed a few. They want to escape from their pain - I'll give them an escape!

"I'm trying to build something here, Severus. Something true and pure and powerful. I want an empire. But everywhere I look all I see are degrading…emetic feelings glaring out at me from everybody's eyes. Why don't the ruddy fools realize they'd be better off without them? These feelings only cling to people like barnacles. Weigh them down. Hold them back. Prevent them from accomplishing their purpose in life. Do you want to know what their purpose is, Severus?"

Severus had a feeling he was going to find out.

With leonine grace, the Dark Lord resumed his pensive loping; his long arms swung severely as he sauntered through his paces.

"It's to breed Severus. The muggle-to-wizard ratio is alarmingly lopsided. What I can't understand - will never understand - is how so many people - people who claim to believe that Pure-bloods are the epitome of magical strength, intelligence, and refinement - aren't doing their parts to replenish the population. There are examples of this everywhere I look; especially in the confines of my own followers. Take the Malfoys, for an instance. Lucius and Narcissa have always espoused a torrid credence of the superiority of Pure-bloods. So why haven't they done their part to people Britain with more of them? I'm certain that Narcissa could have made more than one little pure-blood baby. Perhaps she can still? She certainly looks young enough to squeeze out one more offspring. Lucius and she should only hope that a second child would be more valuable than that worthless boy of theirs. But when I contemplate how abysmally incompetent they all are, it's highly doubtful this is something that can be expected. Not reasonably.

"And what about Bellatrix? She probably isn't young enough to conceive and carry a child at this point, but she had plenty of opportunities when she was younger. She's so passionate when it comes to talking about the importance of the Pure-bloods being the indisputable pinnacle of civilization - and she's certainly adept at killing anyone who disagrees. But she's been unforgivably remiss when it has come to ensuring that the world has enough of them. I was on the point of telling her, seventeen years ago, that it would please me greatly if she and Rodolphus would have some children – she was young enough then - but then my powers were... Well, you know. And now it's too late.

"Nott. Macnair. Both of the Carrows." He gestured vaguely as he listed the perpetrators, as if they were standing present in the room. "Crabbe, Goyle, Rookwood, and many more. All of them have only bothered to have one or two children or none at all. Why?

"The Pure-bloods are racing toward extinction. Everybody knows it. It isn't as though it's some big secret; our entire species has been waning terribly for the last century. And all of the wealthiest, most educated and influential wizards have such small families. It's absurd. Then there are the blood traitors. The Weasleys and ignorant swine like that servant Martha who works for the Malfoys - and they have more pure-blooded spawn than they can provide for!" He shook his head sadly – or as close to sadly as was possible for a raving sociopath.

"How has it all gotten so backward, Severus? I don't understand why the ones who can afford abundant families - who have the most to offer, the most material and magical advantages - aren't prodigiously breeding!

"Ministers for Magic have, for the past five decades, ordered a consensus report to be taken of all the magical citizens of England with notations of blood-status duly made in the margins. Painstaking charts and indices have been erected from this data, and then it's been calculated and tabulated by analysts and published in scholastic journals, the Daily Prophet, and even a variety of magazines. Certain concerned government officials - and even a couple of prominent citizens - have commissioned small books to be written, with compelling language which are meant to appeal to logos, ethos, and even invoke pathos. They've been illustrated with colorful, easy to read graphs so that even the most simple-minded wizards can comprehend them. I have seen several of these books residing on the shelves in the libraries of my servants. They all know, yet they haven't procreated.

"I tell you, Severus…" He nodded sagely. "I've been born in the nick of time. Perhaps it isn't even a random coincidence. Perhaps the heavens and the universe are weeping in the face of pure-blood extinction, and so have conspired to bring about a wizard who not only has the power to reverse the cogs of countdown but one with enough vision to recognize the courses of action that need be taken! A wizard who won't let ludicrous emotions, and namby-pamby notions of 'human rights' stand in the way of corralling the weak-minded. Everybody knows what needs to be done. But nobody - save me - has the strength to cut through the propaganda created by lofty philosophers and moralizers, those pedagogic professors of 'ethics'. It's all so much fluff and nonsense, and it sickens me.

"There's only one truth that matters. One law that rules every corner and species on Earth. And that law is power, Severus. Strength, intelligence, and the conviction of knowing that you - and you alone - have the right to lead, govern, and command every person who doesn't have the power to stop you.

"As far as I'm concerned the time for delicacy of mind and diplomatic entreaty is long past. As the pure-bloods have refused to grapple with their moribundity, haven't willingly accepted the onus for their own continuity then it's time for a blunt push in the proper direction. If I don't take the necessary steps, then in another one hundred years or less, all the magical blood in England will be too far diluted and polluted with mud to be called pure.

"Baddock was a pure-blood wizard. He was born with life's most valuable gifts and all he wanted to do was squander them by groping and licking that muddy-blooded whore. I magnanimously granted him a position in my precious ranks, gave him the opportunity to increase his material worth. Even more than that, I empowered him to exercise his rights as a wizard over the limoculous Muggles. But instead of repaying me by taking pains to swell the pure-blood population, he allowed his feelings to govern his actions."

Although the Dark Lord was referring to him in past tense, technically Baddock was still alive. But at this point that was mere semantics.

"Sometimes I think I'm too indulgent with my servants, Severus. Allowing them to have their debauched ways with the muggles. But how can I deny them their fun? I humour them their orgiastic appetites because I understand human nature. I'm well aware, you see, of how intoxicated people can become by the forbidden. And how could I even begin to control it? Now that I have Jane I suppose I could, but what a waste of a resource!" He sounded quite bored, as though he was reciting some tedious, meaningless litany he had long ago committed to memory and then whose meaning he had promptly discarded, as he said, "And then I would have to punish or kill them when they disobey me, which I know they inevitably would.

"I've seriously considered, more than once, creating a potion that would stifle and ultimately eliminate the parts of the mind which fabricate feelings, having it mass-produced, and making the daily consumption of it mandatory for all of my subjects. Every insubordination, every lie and vagary, and each act of perfidy that I've ever encountered can all be traced back to a feeling. Hatred, anger, fear, grief…" His upper lip curled in contempt as he spewed the last one from his mouth, "Love. Usually it's some toxic and pathetic combination of them all.

"Take Baddock for instance. He was in love with a Muggle. He hated her too, you know." And then pretending that this revelation had educed a shocked response from his one-man audience he continued, "Oh yes, I can assure you, Severus. There was plenty of loathing layered in with the love. The moment he scented detection, he was so overcome with fear he had to eliminate the source of his shame and then he was awash with grief and rage; and it was in this fecal stew - this tempest of feeling - that he made all of his decisions regarding his revenge. You see the dilemma? The irrational coil of emotion which bound up all of his good sense and his capacity for logic?

"What am I to do with the Malfoys, Severus?"

Severus was silent for a few moments until he realized that the megalomaniac's soliloquy was apparently over.

"Well, my lord. They did save her."

"Did they, Severus? Did they truly save her? How long will it be before my little spy is…emotionally ready to work again? The Malfoys have proven so utterly worthless to me of late. Worse than useless, really, when I consider how much they've managed to bungle. I gave them one task, Severus. One simple task: protect my mudblood.

"How many of their failures must I suffer before I just put them out of their misery? It would be a mercy on my part, really, as I doubt they'll ever recover their former level of nobility. The worst of it is that I'm now forced to wonder whether Lucius has ever been as dedicated as I imagined him in the beginning. You know I've never seen him kill, Severus? It's true," he reiterated, as though Severus had signaled to contradict him. (Severus was perfectly aware of this fact.) "Even torturing the unworthy and the unfaithful does not give Lucius the same level of pleasure as it does so many of my satellites. You don't seem to enjoy violence that much either, and in the past I merely relegated his reservations to the same level-headedness that I do you. I assumed he had all of his emotions firmly in hand, but now…I don't know, Severus. The way he cleaves to his wife and son is worrisome.

"If only I could combine and bottle your equanimity with Bella's unsurpassed dedication and dispense these two supreme qualities to all of my servants."

Ascribing his temerity to his exhaustion and the currant wine he was imbibing at the Dark Lord's insistence, Severus said, "My lord, my stoic disposition would hardly unite with Bella's fervor, for their dichotomic natures, I'm afraid, preclude them from coalescing.

"I think that killing the Malfoys might prove even more disruptive to Jane's delicate disposition. You may want to take her…feelings on the matter into account, before you make your decisions regarding them.

"And I know that Lucius is in a slump lately, my lord. Everyone can see his wretchedness and it is unsavory, to say the least, to see how subdued his myopic decisions have rendered him. But when I consider the sort of spells that Baddock used to muffle Jane's screams, it's amazing – miraculous really – that the Malfoys even managed to preserve her life let alone her virginity."

The Dark Lord resumed his diatribe. "Lucius didn't even reapply the spells of protection around her door and windows, Severus! He could have used his wife's wand, but he didn't do it because he simply didn't care. This is nothing to do with luck, but rather a simple case of negligence! He has an appalling apathy in regards to my spy. Don't think I haven't noticed their attitude toward her position and her…her whole existence. She works for me now! I value her and the information she provides me. That's all that should matter to those imbeciles, not her blood-status or her lack of magic and hygiene. They should undertake every assignment I give them with vigor and resolve. They are allowing their feelings for her hereditary to obscure their judgment. It's inexcusable.

"When I think of the leniency I've granted those idiots, it enrages me to see how reluctantly they care for my spy. They have to marginalize her at every possible opportunity. I think the time has come for me to find a new home for her. The Malfoys be damned!"

Severus couldn't counter much of this reasoning, as all of this was too accurate. Lucius, who in the past had always seemed so dauntlessly pragmatic, had been careless, once again, with what the Dark Lord had charged to his safekeeping. He should have been more diligent with spell-casting around Jane's door and the windows. Severus and the Dark Lord had, with their magic and their wands, done a thorough sweep around the room to detect the spells Badddock had used to gain entry, stave off interrupters, and stifle Jane's screams. Baddock's spells had been ill-executed for the most part. But they had felt vestigial spells, neglected, deteriorated protections spells that had been cast around her bedroom door months ago. Lucius had never bothered to strengthen and renew these spells. Not for ages. Baddock needn't have bothered going in the window. A simple Alohomora to unlock her door, and he would have had total access to his prey.

And the Malfoys were, in many ways, neglecting Jane. They provided her the basic elements she needed to not die: shelter, warmth, food. But from his brief glimpse into her private world, Severus knew that, like any human, Jane craved kindness and affection. The Malfoys were dismissing her emotionally.

It was a conundrum. Severus couldn't say, or even imply, what he really thought about the impossibilities of the whole situation. It wasn't simply the paradoxical nature of Jane and what she represented to magic, because it was also intrinsically linked to her as a person; a feeling, thinking person. She was intriguing to the pundits, an object to be experimented with – drowned in potions, immured in magic, parsed, anatomized, vivisected; she was merely baffling to the ignorant; and invariably infuriating to any pure-blood supremist who might be asked to give a damn for her; but the invidious Jane could never be a simple, feeling child who only and truly needed to be loved. Not to any Death Eater. From an objective distance whatever enigma she was, confounding or fascinating, all any Death Eater could see when they scrutinized her at close range was a Muggle. A Muggle with a unique power, which had given her a measure of status. It was neither a high nor low one – for her status had no level within the Death Eater spectrum. It was separate, too other. But even so, to all of them, even to an extent Severus, it seemed too warped to be allowed.

"Whom were you thinking to care for her, my lord? If not the Malfoys?"

The Dark Lord returned to the mantle and took up his tumbler for a brooding sip of his liquor and then idly ran his chalky index finger across the marble shelf. "The Yaxleys perhaps. Or even the Goyles." After he'd done speaking he turned to Severus and surveyed him.

Severus didn't move or speak.

The Dark Lord's face twitched minutely and then Severus responded with, "Well, I think Jane will be completely miserable with either of them. You should consult her preference."

The Dark Lord looked a bit surprised when Severus said 'miserable'. He turned away from him again, was thoughtful for a moment, and then he resumed his pacing before the fire. "Miserable. Think you? She seems miserable here as well. Or at least not happy.

"What to do with that amorphous child! That… little Muggle. What is she? What do you think about Jane, Severus? What conclusions have you reached about the unnaturalness of her being?"

Severus chose his words as carefully as he could when he answered, "She is… an enthralling creature to be sure, my lord. I've longed for a closer inspection of her since the first day that you brought her here." This was the complete truth. "However, for all of her…incongruity, I see… a child when I look at her. A helpless, miserable child. Have you considered… My lord, have you thought that the best home for her would be with some Muggles? A family perhaps."

"Of course I've thought it Severus! And then I discarded it. It's so unappealing to think of my spy living in that sort of squalor.

"Do you have any idea what's she done, Severus? What she has given me? In a few short weeks the Wizengamot will pass a law that I've written, one long overdue, to restore the balance and invigorate our kind. I could have achieved it months ago, without Jane's assistance, but it's through her work that I've done this without… bloodshed, without stripping prominent members of the magical community from their positions of influence! To the public eye, these people, who have staunchly supported the rights of Muggles throughout their political careers, have made revolutions in their ideologies. Without overt displays of coercion and foul-play, they simply seem to have been… persuaded."

The Dark Lord laughed with so much sepulchral glee it brought to Severus's mind an undertaker, and he felt all the muscles in his back, neck, and shoulders stiffening to the sound of it, like the onset of rigor mortis.

"You would think from hearing Jane's rigmarole that she would prove inutile, but she can be quite voluble when the need arises. True, she blunders her pronunciations indiscriminately and she often transposes her tenses and inverts her pluralisms, but, all in all, I am more than pleased by her communications. You see, do you not Severus, the brilliance of her ability? What she has done?"

Severus gave a rigid nod, not knowing whether he should be pleased that her life – insofar as the Dark Lord was concerned – was so safe, or worry about what sort of histrionics her power might engender in the future.