xxxviii. shattered
The agony struck before Severus could call an end to his sixth year N.E.W.T class.
The students were intent over their cauldrons, Volubilis Potions bubbling away, careful measurements of hellebore syrup being diluted and stirred while the withered faces of chopped up mandrakes dissolved in the brews. Between one step and the next, Severus gasped and stumbled as he brought his arm to his chest and very nearly knocked Lauri Lyons' cauldron to the floor. The freckled witch gawked at him and Severus sneered through the lank curtain of his hair.
"You have five minutes," he announced to the room at large, a slight roughness in his quiet baritone the only indication of the pain wracking his right hand. "By now you should be decanting your potion, and if you have not provided me with your sample at the end of those five minutes, you will fail."
Severus returned to his desk and dropped into his chair. In his lap, he attempted to unfurl his clenched fingers and failed as the muscles seized. What the fuck has she done now? he thought, loosening his wand from its brace so he could slip the stick into his left hand. Casting with a non-dominant hand could prove disastrous—and no matter how many contrary little dunderheads squawked "But I'm ambidextrous," magic did not flow in symmetry through the body—though Albus proved proficient enough. Albus Dumbledore wasn't a good marker for what the average wizard could achieve.
Concentrating, Severus whispered, "Fretum," and cool, green mist spooled around his wrist and forearm. By no means powerful, the numbing Charm blunted the pain enough for Severus to clench his wand in his proper hand and suck air through his crooked teeth. Shit.
He retained the proper, passive facade until the very last student—twitchy Lauri Lyons—all but dropped her vial on the desk's top. The bottle hadn't settled before Severus Vanished the lot to the storage cupboard and got to his feet. "Class dismissed."
The sixth years clamored to collect their possessions and didn't notice Severus dart out the door, his footsteps quiet but urgent, the numbness fading with every fiery pulse caused by the Vow. His heart thumped against his sternum like a small, shriveled hummingbird trying to escape. Damn it, wretched girl, where is she?
Severus rounded the corner and the common room's entrance came into sight—as did Elara Black and Hermione Granger, the pair deep in heated conversation, their expressions as taut as the body language suggested they were.
"Black, Granger—."
Before he could demand the girl's whereabouts, Black lifted her chin and demanded, "Where's Harriet?"
What?
Granger pursed her lips and huffed. "What she means, sir, is that Harriet left the common room about twenty minutes ago and she—. Well, she said she had a bad feeling about you know what."
"About—?"
"About the Philosopher's Stone," Black clarified, obviously in no mood for prevaricating. Severus' eyes widened. Hell. How do they know about the Stone?! "Parkinson came into the dorm and said the Headmaster has left the castle and Harriet popped up and said she needed to go talk to you."
Severus' mind worked quickly as the pain tightened in his wrist again, echoes of agony spiraling through his elbow and to the tips of his fingers. Potter never arrived at his classroom, which meant she had lied to her friends, or—.
Or she was taken.
He flicked his wand and the silver doe warbled into relief, almost transparent from lack of concentration. "Recall the Headmaster!" Severus ordered the Patronus, and it bounded through the solid stone wall, the two witches gawking at the spell as the silver light faded from their faces.
"Return to the common room."
"But—."
"Now!" Severus thundered. His voice echoed in the dungeons' narrow confines, and both Granger and Black grudgingly retreated. The entrance closed behind them and Severus rapped his wand against the wall's stone to activate the castle's wards. Technically, the power should be beyond him as a simple teacher, but Severus had been given the ability when he'd been Head of Slytherin House as Albus now turned a convenient blind eye to the forgotten permissions. It made things easier, what with Slytherin himself being utterly unaccountable half the time.
He flicked his wand again and an even weaker Patronus emerged, but it would suit his purposes. "Minerva," he said. "Lockdown the castle."
As the doe disappeared, Severus set off at speed, robes flaring, wand clenched in a white-knuckled fist as he ran up the steps two at a time. His arm quivered.
I've waited too long. Five minutes was too long. Let them blow up the ruddy classroom for all I care, I waited too long now, and she's—.
"Severus," Slytherin acknowledged as he came swanning out of the Great Hall, prowling for what drama and mischief he could capitalize on. He spotted the Potions Master and stilled, registering the other wizard's urgency, the rigidity of Severus' expression and the speed of his gait. The mocking smirk dissipated into blank awareness, not unlike a snake coiling in upon itself, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.
"He's called our bluff and taken a student," Severus said without slowing. Slytherin swore and fell into step with him.
The staircases moved to ease their passage, and a moment later Minerva's voice echoed through the halls and boomed across the grounds. "Students are to return to their dormitories immediately."
Time slogged on. His footsteps echoed, his breath grown ragged as he all but ran the bloody length of the castle, though he couldn't hear Slytherin at all. Agony surged through his skin, but Severus embraced the sensation and willed it to continue, because so long as he remained in pain, the girl lived, and that certainty was worth the torment.
Dumbledore's plan had been bound to fail from the beginning, Severus told himself. It was too complicated—and, in the same breath, too simple, and he should have known failure was imminent when Slytherin agreed with the idea. Naturally, he agreed; it fed his sense of the theatrical, and the rouse may have deterred him for a time, but the Dark Lord—in any iteration—was wily, capable, and only became more cunning as time progressed.
They were never going to win.
A small, self-defeating voice whispered, The greatest mercy you'll receive is ceasing to exist when the girl does. Perhaps, even in this, Lily was looking out for you.
Severus shook his head, furious with himself, as they came onto the seventh-floor corridor. The gargoyle leapt aside without prompting and he almost fell when he hit the spiral stairs at full pace. He thought Slytherin said something along the lines of "Where the hell is Dumbledore—?" but the blood rushing in his ears made it difficult to hear anything aside from his screaming pulse, his wand wavering, blood in his mouth, teeth buried in his tongue to abate the swelling fire gorging on his bones.
Then, the pain stopped.
The storage room's door was locked, as expected. Muffled sobbing broke the otherwise stilted, worried whispering of the portraits, who could hear the sound but had no vantage into the room itself. Severus tried the handle, then took a step back, bringing his wand down in a practiced slash. "Aperianuam!"
The magical seal on the door gave as it flung itself open, revealing the darkened room beyond. Potter sat on the bare floor, sobbing, blood on her lip, and before the shattered remnants of the Mirror of Erised lay the crumpled body of Quirinus Quirrell.
Minus the back of his head, of course.
Slytherin took in the scene with the dispassionate air of a casual observer, equally as irked by Potter's tears as he was bemused by Quirrell's shattered visage. Frayed ropes lay by Quirrell's leg, and in his hand he clutched a wand—Potter's wand, Severus recognized. "My, my," Slytherin said. "It seems the Muggle Studies professor was our little agent all along. I wouldn't have thought the stuttering fool capable of it."
Potter sucked in a shuddering gasp and looked at her Head of House, then turned to Severus. Her green eyes were raw with tears.
"Miss Potter, are you all right?" Severus asked. Of course she's not all right, you twit. A part of him wanted to scream at the girl out of sheer bloody relief. What happened?
The girl sniffled and wiped snot on her sleeve. Disgusted, Severus conjured a handkerchief and handed it to her, and Potter blew her nose like a trumpet before she answered. "'M okay, professor."
A sudden blast of hot wind and searing light brought Severus and Slytherin around, their wands raised, and the Headmaster appeared from nothing with his phoenix perched on his shoulder and steel in his blue eyes. Severus lowered his wand in an instant, though Slytherin's lingered, his lips pulled back in a displeased curl.
Dumbledore cast one cold look in the Defense professor's direction before disregarding the man entirely and going to Potter's side. "Harriet," he said, extending his hand for her to take. "Harriet, my girl, can you stand?"
She tried to, and Severus intervened before the chit could yank the elderly wizard right off his feet. He took firm hold of her skinny arm and the girl leaned into his grip, content to hang limp and shiver.
"He—he—," the girl choked between heaving breaths. "He cursed m-me, in the dungeons. W-with something red."
Stunner, Severus' mind supplied.
"A-and I woke up here. He wanted the Ph-Philosopher's Stone, wanted me to get it f-for him, but I didn't know how." Potter swallowed and shook so hard Severus could feel it in his own bones. "He—it was Vol—the Dark Lord," she whispered. "He had the Dark Lord with him, inside of h-him, on the back of his head—."
Dumbledore's brow furrowed and dread sung in Severus' veins. The Dark Lord. He had always thought Quirrell to be an odd character and his sabbatical on the continent had only exacerbated his eccentricities, but the Potions Master hadn't suspected this. He hadn't suspected poor fumbling, feeble-mouthed, Muggle-loving Quirrell of anything at all.
"H-he used a spell when I—when I tried to grab his wand." She pointed toward a cabinet, beneath which peeked the edge of a dropped wand. "He had mine and he said something, s-something I don't know—." The girl swallowed. "A spell. There was a green light, and then—."
The three men in the room froze. The portraits in the office continued to squabble among themselves and Potter's breathing remained ragged, but Severus, Slytherin, and Dumbledore said nothing at all. Slytherin traced the large cracks splintering what fragments remained in the Mirror's frame. "Well," he whispered. "Isn't that interesting."
Albus picked up the wand from Quirrell's limp, dead hand, and stared at it. "It is indeed…Tom."
