xcv. a traitor's fate

The crack of Apparition faded into the sullen, misty climes of the surrounding moor when the two wizards arrived at the property's boundaries.

Severus' hand twitched about the handle of his wand. It was the only outward sign of his unsettled state of mind, the only sign he couldn't bring himself to still. It manifested as a rhythmic tightening and flexing of his fingers that most people never noticed. Albus knew of it, and maybe Minerva—though she might simply mistake it as his seething desire to strangle the little pustules they nurtured on a daily basis. The Dark Lord—and Slytherin—never noticed. For self-proclaimed geniuses, they had their heads so far up their own arses sometimes, they couldn't see what was right in front of their eyes.

He inhaled a slow, measured breath through his nose. Strained light gave form to the night, two men by the path's end, the gate beyond left unlatched, swinging free. Crickets resumed their chirping in the underbrush as the man next to Severus unfurled like the snake he was, the visible portion of his face blanched in the moonlight, his single eye as red as a garnet—red as blood. His wand moved in predictable ways, unraveling the wards with sharp, calculated motions, a whispered Revealing Charm showing a dim halo of yellow light lurking in the confines of the distant, rundown house.

Severus exhaled. His thoughts stilled and sunk in the dark, arctic tundra of his mind, the waters rising until everything but this moment ceased to exist.

Slytherin lowered his wand and his lips curled in the approximation of a smile. "At last. Go, dog, flush him out."

Bowing his head, Severus launched into action, Disillusioning himself even as he slung one leg over the garden wall and landed in the adjoining field. His robes hissed against the overlong grass, but his boots moved without sound. If he pretended, if he shut out the sounds of the moor and the smell of encroaching summer, Severus could almost imagine himself at Hogwarts. He could place himself there, striding down a lone corridor at night, starlight in the windows, hunting errant students out after curfew—but he wasn't at Hogwarts. Term had ended two days ago. He was in the County Durham, in the middle of bloody nowhere, and he wasn't out for tardy students. No, this was a different kind of hunt entirely.

He avoided the front of the house, skirting another ward anchored to the crumbling well stretching toward a ruined shed against a far wall. He considered triggering it; Merlin knew Otho Selwyn would need the head-start, the fucking moron—and yet Severus avoided the ward and continued toward the rear of the building. Slytherin would kill him if he botched this assignment; he knew no mercy lingered in the wizard, not after learning one of his supposedly loyal lieutenants at the school had sought to subvert him in Gaunt's favor. This was as much a test for Severus as it was a hunt for Selwyn. Should he fail….

A nebulous vein of panic touched his mind when he considered the notion, but it held no substance and disintegrated before it could even raise his pulse. The Muggle power lines leading to the conduit beneath the eaves hummed low and crackled where Selwyn's next ward edged too near the electrical box. Severus spotted no lights on within the house itself and doubted Selwyn knew how to turn them on even if he had the desire to do so. Magic and Muggle technology did not mesh, and he supposed the sheer inundation of it and the remote location had served Selwyn well in avoiding Slytherin and his overzealous followers over the past weeks.

He couldn't run forever, even if he managed to find a Portkey off the continent. Slytherin didn't brand his Knights of Walpurgis, but the Dark Mark called to him all the same.

With a soft click, the lock on the back door disengaged and Severus eased it open, eyes narrowed under the lowered hem of his hood, his wand extended. He crossed the threshold, his murky shadow dragging over the wall, and he breathed, "Homenum Revelio."

Yellow light bloomed pestilent in the dark, nasally breathing breaking into a snarl, and then—.

"Reducto!"

Red-light shimmered and crashed into the wall where Severus had stood a moment ago, the blast thickening the air with dust and debris as footsteps pounded the rotting floorboards. Severus jumped forward, his shield flaring into being, a milky-white barrier catching and repelling three other curses before collapsing in upon itself. Glass shattered, and Severus double-backed out the door again rather than following through the broken window. A figure bolted from the house. Severus knew Selwyn had tried to Disapparate—he must have—but any fool with an ounce of magical intuition could sense the tell-tale sting of Slytherin's Anti-Disapparition Jinx hovering above his skin.

"Incarcerous!" Severus snapped at Selwyn's retreating back—but the man dodged the spell and returned one of his own, breaching the tree line. He neared the limits of Slytherin's Jinx.

Severus didn't run. Though ratty elms impeded his sight of Selwyn, he still flicked his wand in the rune of Ingwaz and incanted a spell of his own devising. "Incarcerous Herbivicus!"

Magic rushed down through the soles of his feet and into the earth itself, churning the grass and dirt as it surged toward the trees. Silence hung, a held breath, until—the earth burst in the distance like a gasping diver breaking the surface, the twang of roots coming alive, and—finally—the heavy, damning thud of a body falling down echoed back to the Potions Master's ears. A muffled curse floated on the breeze.

When Severus found him, Selwyn lay partly submerged in a pit of clay and mud, trussed in wet, creaking roots, smeared in mulch. "Half-blood scum!" Selwyn screamed when Severus came into view. Cracks spider-webbed his spectacles and saliva coated his bruised lip. "Spawn of a Muggle-loving whore! Your mother should have smothered you in your crib—!"

Severus waved his hand and the roots snapped around Selwyn's mouth, sealing in the vitriol. "Accio," he intoned, the former History professor's wand wriggling free of the earth to fly to Severus' open hand. Another spell cut the roots from their trees and kept Selwyn bound—bound, furious, and thrashing, trying to bite his way through the fibrous strands even as Severus squared his shoulders and levitated the wizard into the air.

Slytherin waited in the place he'd been left, leaning upon the garden wall, half-hidden in the dark shape of his cloak and the arching branches overhead. Severus dropped Selwyn on the ground at Slytherin's feet and bowed, taking a step back. He wanted to leave; Slytherin didn't require his aid in locating Selwyn or capturing him. His presence served no other purpose than stoking Slytherin's vanity, than assuaging a self-aggrandizing need to debase his followers and put them in their place.

I've debased myself enough for this lifetime, Severus thought, though his expression remained stoic and calm. Slytherin stood.

"Ah, a marvelous offering, Severus. Thank you." He flicked his hand and Selwyn landed hard on his knees. Bones popped and the roots did little to stifle the resulting screams. "Let's make this quick."

Another flick had the roots tearing free of Selwyn's mouth. He yelped, his ragged breaths short and choppy, the bindings too tight to allow his lungs expansion. Suddenly, he spat at Slytherin, though the spit didn't have a chance to land, dismissed by a swift, irritated Impervius Charm.

"Go on then," Selwyn sneered. His pale hair came forward over his brow and fluttered with every breath. "Go on then, my Lord. Finish it."

"I never did take you for a melodramatic traitor, Otho. My mistake."

Selwyn laughed, cold and hysterical. "Better dead than to spend another day in that bloody school among the filthy curs and that blighted, half-blooded Headmaster!"

Slytherin's red eyes gleamed with repressed malice, but Severus sensed it building, surging against his Occlumency like the tides of a deep, ugly abyss. Selwyn must have felt it too because he shivered, but he didn't shut up.

"You're nothing compared to Gaunt. Nothing! He's going to change our world and you—! You've done nothing but break promises! Oath-breaker! You are no Lord of mine!"

Slytherin stepped forward and bared his teeth, freezing Selwyn in place. "Nothing?" he whispered. "You dare call me nothing, Selwyn? You kneel before the Dark Lord, boy—the Dark Lord, and I care not for what paltry political squabbles Gaunt chooses to embroil himself in. Every day I draw nearer to a victory only I, in my grand vision, can comprehend. It is too bad you won't live to see it, Otho." He stroked Selwyn's head, heedless of the mud or perspiration, soothing the man's lined brow. "The only thing awaiting you is a cold, empty grave. Severus."

The Potions Master stiffened. Again his hands twitched behind his back, and oh how he longed to curse the pair and be away from here, to be anywhere but here with the weight of what must be done now coming to roost upon his shoulders. I should have known; he never likes getting his hands dirty. Forgive me, Albus.

Slytherin retreated, allowing Severus to take his place before a genuflecting Selwyn. It seemed a cruel, ironic fate to condemn a man to die in a pose of worship for what Slytherin considered to be a crime of blasphemy. Even more ironic for one traitor to execute another.

Selwyn just stared at him and spat again, though Severus didn't stop the sputum from landing on his boots. His hand twitched about his wand as he leveled it at Selwyn's head. "How long before you're in my place, Snape? Huh?"

Never too soon and not long enough.

He knew what Slytherin desired, the spell he wished to see—that halo of green, a monster's salvation, another nail in Severus' coffin like the Sword of Damocles dropping another fucking inch toward his naked neck—. He summoned every memory he had of Selwyn and forced himself to relieve them, all those bitter, hateful conversations, every utterance of the word Mudblood in his presence. He embraced that hate, let it burn in his belly, in his eyes, and yet—.

Severus hesitated.

He'd agreed to this. He'd agreed when he fell on his knees before Dumbledore and said, "Protect her, protect them, I'll do anything, anything!" He'd agreed when he took Lily's hand in his own and let James Potter bind him to his word. What was another stain on his worthless soul? What was another crime, another body to bury—?

Steeling himself, Severus hissed, "Sectumsempra."

A slash tore open Selwyn's throat; the arterial spray hit Severus' front and Slytherin's, too, who sniffed and dismissed it with a lazy gesture. Selwyn sagged, and the roots loosened, losing energy until the body collapsed entirely. Severus looked away.

Tom Slytherin gave his wayward servant one final, spiteful glance before showing him his back. "Clean this mess up."

Severus released a breath and the ache in his chest lessened, if only slightly. "Yes, my Lord."

"Oh, and Severus?"

Slytherin turned and Severus waited, unwilling, but still he waited with every muscle tensed for what he knew would come. Red eyes watched him with unrivaled savagery.

"For your hesitation. Crucio."

x X x

It was quite late now. Moths ensconced the street lamps lining the parkway and not a single curtain twitched in the dozens of windows facing the street when Severus arrived at Grimmauld Place. He made steady, if laborious, progress through the desolate park and then across the paved road, his shoulders hunched inward, his boots dragging on loose grit and gravel. The wards surrounding the dilapidated townhouse pulsed as he entered their borders, their presence malignant and dubious, centuries of Black ancestors curling their lips at the filthy half-blood now dirtying their neglected stoop.

The patter of raindrops followed him into the dark foyer. No, not raindrops—blood, perhaps? Or water, soaked into his cloak from his writhing on the wet grass. Severus doffed his hood and let the cloak drop from his arms without ceremony. He walked down the unlit hall below the leering elf heads and managed not to stagger for the entirety of the way, though he kept his right hand braced on the wall. He could see the Vow's scar. He didn't know why he could always find it, unerringly, even in the weakest of lighting, a line no bigger than a hair caught and coiled about his wrist and palm. It seemed such a tenuous thing—like a man's word. Like a man's life.

Severus slumped into a chair by the table once he reached the kitchen, his knees too weak to take him farther. Silence reverberated as the gongs of a bell do long after the noise disappears; the vibration of it quivered, taut, and made the sluggish, pulsating beat of his heart all the louder. He braced his forearms on the table and leaned over them, fixing his blank stare on the ancient grain of the wood, and his wet hair coiled about him like the limp bodies of dead snakes.

Blood stained his cuff—Selwyn's blood. There was blood on his hands, always blood on his hands—.

"Professor?"

Severus forced himself to straighten despite the pain riddling his body. There, next to him, the girl stood dressed in an overlarge Muggle shirt and flannel trousers, a cup and saucer extended toward the Potions Master as the smell of chamomile and spice wafted off the curling steam. How long had he been here? How long had she—?

Severus numbly took the offering. Potter said nothing; her slippered feet shuffled against the dusty floor and carried her away through the door and up the basement stairs.

He held the cup in his hands. The warmth soothed his trembling fingers.

"…thank you, Miss Potter."


END PART TWO


A/N: I always felt there was a reason Avada Kedavra wasn't used prolifically in canon, except by Voldemort, who's a powerful wizard. It's my head-canon that it is—or should be—and incredibly difficult Dark spell to use, and one with lasting consequences upon the caster.

That's it for Part Two! Phew! Are you excited for Part Three? What do you think will happen? If you enjoyed the story, think about dropping it a favorite / kudos! It's much appreciated!

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