ccxxvi. play the villain
A sudden crack broke the sleepy summer silence that lay thick upon the grounds of Hogwarts, and the black, staggering form of Severus Snape appeared before the castle's waiting gates. For a moment, his robes caught and eddied upon the passing breeze, then the Potions Master swayed, collapsing against the iron gates with a solid thud. He retched up his guts.
Really, it hadn't been any worse than Severus had expected. He'd seen worse—experienced worse. The vast majority of Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters were incarcerated and just as bloody mad as the Dark wizard himself, so Voldemort didn't have the option of turning away or slaughtering prospective followers, especially those as capable and well-placed as Severus. Both he and Dumbledore had known this before he went to the Dark Lord—just as Severus had known there'd be a price to pay for his "swaying allegiances."
It was the lot of a spy to sit on the fence, and they were always the first to catch the fucking backlash.
The pounding in his head had yet to abate. In fact, Apparition had only worsened it, a sick, swollen pulsation stealing through his mind, the pressure spiking until Severus tasted blood on his lips and vomited out the bile swirling in his stomach. His chest hurt. Merlin, it hurt—.
Without prompting, the gates swung in on their own accord, taking away what support Severus had, and he landed gasping on his knees. Agony bolted through his right shin—.
"Kneel, Severusss," spoke the high, shocking voice of the figure half shrouded in the dark, and Severus hesitated, hesitated too long, because the hex flew at his knee and he—.
Severus gasped again, louder, breathing in heavy, ragged gusts of air. The castle was there, just there, lights on in the mullioned windows, waiting for him to—.
"Get up," he whispered, spitting into the gravel. "Get up, get up—."
Again, the pain in his knee almost took it out from under him, but Severus held onto the feeling, anticipated it, welcomed it into his bones. He embraced the burning in his joints, in his nerves, the slick, sticky pull of cold sweat under the torn wool of his coat. His hair stuck to his neck—not sweat, not sweat, don't think about it—and Severus held his shoulders stiff, forcing one foot in front of the other until he was walking with some semblance of his usual dour aplomb.
He flexed his pale, trembling fingers, and they burned. He told himself it was a wanted burn, like that first pull of Firewhiskey straight from the bottle—Merlin, it felt like it'd been years since he'd had a drink. Had it been years? He couldn't remember. Severus laughed, voice echoing against stone—and he choked.
Oh, no.
His shields were slipping. Many a time in the past, years and years ago when he'd been little more than a snot-nosed brat himself, Severus had tried to explain to Albus that this was the most difficult and dangerous part of his double life, this liminal time after a violent interrogation in which he wandered and his shields began to pull back. Standing before Voldemort or Slytherin presented their own kind of thorny difficulty, but Severus thrived on adversity and took perverse pleasure in subverting their attempts to subsume his mind, like hammers falling against palace walls, battering the stones but never managing to break through. The Dark Lord had no trick, no tool in his torturous little arsenal that could break the ice of his thoughts.
It was now, when he returned—crossing into the perceived safety of Hogwarts' quiet halls, crossing the soft, feathery comfort of familiar wards—that his Occlumency began to fail, like a breath held too long, like adrenaline leaving one's veins when danger passes by. The danger hadn't passed—it would never pass—but even a man like Severus Snape could only bear so much before bending, releasing pressure from his own subconscious until it hissed through his thoughts like steam from a valve. Manic emotion roiled inside him, and he directed it as best he could, letting fury set in, then grief, then fear—fear for himself, for Hogwarts, his home, the girl, the war—.
He was in the entrance hall. When did he get there? Dungeons, go to the—.
"You dare show yourself to me, traitor?"
"I have and will always remain your servant, my Lord."
"Prove it."
Needles in his mind, the facsimile of emotion, broken images pieced together into something agreeable, something for the Dark Lord, the twisted musings of a madman—.
His foot missed a step, and Severus fell, the dark rising up—.
He was twenty years old, kneeling on a windy hilltop, withering below the gaze of the world's greatest wizard.
"You disgust me."
Disgust, yes, he understood disgust so well, after all.
"Yer a poncy little freak like yer worthless mother!" the Muggle boomed. "Feckin' devil-worshippin' bullshite—!"
The cold stones of the wall pressed hard into his back, and Severus held his breath against the pain.
Flecks of red on the floor of that rotten manor, dirty, bare feet circling him—.
Red, like red hair, like candied apples gleaming in the torchlight—.
"I'm so sorry, Lily—."
"Why are you sorry for calling me that when—?"
No, Severus told himself, forcing the images connected to his physical pain away, disassociating them, prying free the lingering sting of emotional agony, guilt, and shame. He needed something, anything else—.
Adrenaline fired through his veins, the crisp, electric burn of spellfire in the air as Death Eaters dueled and young Severus' hands shook—.
"You've done well, Mr. Snape. Or should I call you Ssseverus?"
Pride—sickening, hateful pride—welled inside him, and it morphed into terror—.
Heart thundering, he watched Apollo Goldstein from the Board of Governors step aside, ushering inside a familiar, hated face—.
A darkened hall, Stunned bodies at his feet, Severus stood alone as the Dark Lord approached and clapped—.
A familiar face at Hogwarts' threshold, a cold, boyish smile—.
"Faculty, I'd like to introduce you to your new Defense instructor, Mr. Tom Slytherin—."
"SLYTHERIN!" the Hat bellowed, and little Severus slipped from the stool, slipped from his hopes, delved into the dungeons where everything good goes to die—.
Dying, Voldemort's fallen followers were dying on the floor of the darkened hall in the wake of the melee—the trial, the audition—and the Dark Lord clapped with glee in his eyes—.
Eyes, red fucking eyes that looked down at him upon the abandoned manor floor with cool, unmoved clarity as Severus screamed—.
"Severus?"
Shite, the Potions Master thought as he registered the sound of McGonagall's voice.
"What in the devil are you doing? Where have you been?! Are you drunk—?" She touched his shoulder, and then—no doubt feeling the hot wetness soaking into the woolen fibers of his cloak—drew that hand back. "Severus!"
"Shut up," he hissed as his name echoed in the dungeons' narrow confines. The last thing he needed was Slytherin skulking by to investigate the noise, or one of the students. Were the students still here? What day was it?
"Och, don't tell me to shut up, Snape! You need Poppy immediately—."
"No."
"No? What do you mean, no—?!"
The wall cut into his back as he braced his good foot against the floor and tried to shove himself upright. Only Minerva's hands flying out to catch him by the forearms saved him from falling again. Agony ravaged his chest and his back and his face, and he must have turned himself toward the torchlight because Minerva cried out. "Merlin have mercy!"
"Shut up!" If he didn't get her to quiet herself, if Slytherin came—.
"Did you think your service finished?" the shorter wizard asked as he leaned closer to Severus. "Did you think the Dark Lord gone—?"
Severus pressed his flailing thoughts deeper into the iron-dark waters of his Occlusion until he felt as if he might drown with them. His vision swam, dipped, and he broke his nails against the wall behind him in a desperate bid to stay upright.
Magic swept past him, warm and bright as crystal, swirling like motes of dust in his wavering vision. His weight sagged forward, and he smelled Earl Grey and thistle and the slightest tang of whiskey—the expensive Muggle stuff, not Ogden's or Blishen's.
"Up you come, lad," Minerva said as his cheek settled on her shoulder. Her voice was breathless with the effort to keep a man much larger than herself from careening into the floor, though the strain didn't mask her fear. It shook beneath her thickening accent like something dying in a bush, trembling in its death throes. He hadn't heard her so broken up since—.
He heard the soft, muffled sniffling coming from within the staff room and paused. When he pushed in the door, he did so with enough force to announce his presence, and he caught the briefest glimpse of his old Transfiguration professor's face crumpled in grief, her ring finger freshly bare—.
"I'm sorry," Severus said into stiff silence, feeling awkward, wishing he'd not stepped inside—.
An arm pressed into his wounded back and Severus groaned. "Albus will be here. He'll know how to sort you out—."
Disgust distilled in a pair of hard blue eyes—.
Blue as the sky overhead as they walked the grounds and Severus winced in the harsh sunlight. "You can admit you loved her, my boy," Albus said, but the younger wizard could only say, "Not in that way—."
Hands linked, the two children spun in the play park, laughing. He was nine years old and more patchwork doll than boy—clothes ragged, thin bones rising against dry skin, unclean hair and blue bruises—.
Blue as the gaze he found himself staring into now, Severus barely registering Dumbledore's voice above the ringing in his ears. A warm hand settled against his cheek.
"Stay awake, Severus," the Headmaster said. "Stay awake. Minerva, quickly—."
He could withstand the lash. He could tolerate the Dark Lord's cruel, thoughtless handling—but Dumbledore's warmth broke him every time.
The dark rose again, and this time nothing stopped the Potions Master from falling into it headlong.
xXx
The clock on the mantel chimed the midnight hour as Albus Dumbledore blinked away wayward thoughts and sighed.
The room was quiet, still. Severus kept no trinkets, no photographs. His bedside table held only half-finished bottles of sleeping potions and balms meant to ease pain. Albus picked up an unlabeled jar to study and deduced it was an unguent meant to counteract the Dark magic in his eye. Given the state of the dust on the lid, Severus hadn't been using it.
If not for the black robes hanging in the wardrobe and the boots on the shelf, one might think the unconscious man laid out in the bed was only visiting.
Albus studied Severus, his mouth forming a thin, grim line. Obviously, he did not often have call to see his colleagues or friends in their dishabille; the closest occasions would be when an emergency or wayward student brought one of them to his office in the dead of night, robed in pajamas. Even then, Severus was usually dressed, still fully suited in his day attire no matter the hour.
He had seen the younger wizard's chest bare once before. It had been years ago, when he was a boy, just after that unfortunate incident between Severus and Remus Lupin. Remembering the event itself forced a tired exhale from Albus, as often happened when he considered his past mistakes.
He hadn't handled the situation well. Severus had been an entirely unlikable Slytherin sycophant, and though Albus could now freely admit he'd had biases against the House thanks to Tom, Severus would have been a difficult child no matter where he'd been Sorted. Though, had he not been placed in Slytherin, perhaps the event in question would have never come to pass.
Albus hadn't liked swearing the scrawny, terrified boy to silence that evening—but he'd had little choice in the matter. To allow Severus free license would have cost Remus his enrollment—his entire future—when he had done nothing wrong. In retrospect, Albus could blame the young werewolf for allowing his friends to make light of his condition, but on the night in question, Remus had been exactly where he was meant to be. Severus had been the one out of bounds, and if he'd spread word of what happened that night, Remus would have lost everything, and Sirius Black would have been expelled.
Truly, beyond Gryffindor fraternity, Albus reserved no particular affection for Sirius, not when he'd been young and not in adulthood. The charm of boyhood antics had grown grating as Sirius had been constantly dragged into Albus' office for pranks, defacement of property, and breaking curfew. James and Sirius had shared a certain charisma that charmed most people in their acquaintance, but where James had been hard-working and ambitious, Sirius had been lackadaisical and too devil-may-care for his own good. It had been frustrating to watch him spoil his potential—just as frustrating as it had been to know that if Sirius had been expelled for his egregious and frankly stupid lark, the Black paragons would have rained retribution on Severus' head. Orion and Walburga might not have liked Sirius, but he had remained their son, and to have him expelled over a squabble with a poor half-blood boy would have encited their offended rage.
Albus had not liked Snape—Merlin forgive him, but he'd barely recalled the poor boy at all after he matriculated—but he'd done what he'd thought would not only protect Remus, but Severus as well.
No perfect choices.
Ah, that was long ago now, though it remained the singular time Albus had seen Severus so disrobed, as Poppy had checked him over for evidence of werewolf bites. He recalled the lad being too skinny, but otherwise unmarked. It was the typical body of a boy who'd only just tipped the scales into manhood.
The candlelight flickered, and Albus looked at Severus again.
He and Minerva had wrangled him into his quarters and done what they could to rectify the damages visited upon him by Voldemort. Minerva retained some experience in field triage from her time at the Ministry, and Albus flattered himself in thinking his spellcraft quite broad and varied, but neither were medical professionals. They couldn't call Madam Pomfrey in, as not only had she vacated the premises with much of the other staff when the summer holiday began, but she also wasn't a member of the Order. Severus could not afford to have the state of his health leaked into the wrong ears.
"He abhors weakness," he once confessed to the Headmaster. "Any kind of infirmity, disability, or prolonged illness—he finds them all signs of unacceptable deficiency. His followers won't even visit St. Mungo's, lest someone bring their medical issues to the Dark Lord. He won't accept acknowledgment of any wound unless he allows it."
Albus wondered if it had anything to do with Tom's mother, if he perceived her death following his birth as a sign of inferiority in her magic. Really, Albus was inclined to think it had much more to do with the watered-down genetics in the Gaunt family tree—.
He huffed, passing his hand through his beard. Still Severus lay listless and unconscious, bandages peeking from behind his loose shoulders. Half of his torso rested above the sheets, and Albus beheld a terrible history written into Severus' very skin. At sixteen, he'd been unmarked—and now, at thirty-five, few spots on Severus hadn't been scarred in one manner or another. Cuts and burns, spiraling punctures and bites, gashes, pitting from acidic potions, lines from a flaying older than the one he'd just endured; few injuries could be thought of that weren't represented on Severus' body.
How many times had Severus walked around with a wound untreated? His was not a canvas painted in one go; the scars told a horrid, repetitive story of suffering debilitating blows day after day, year after year, and Severus had never told him. Had never said enough. Why did he never tell me—?
It was one thing to know in the abstract that Tom hurt his followers and another to realize that title included Severus, a person whom Albus had long since stopped considering a Death Eater. A person whom he'd come to value not just for his brilliance or courage, but for his friendship as well. He knew Tom was cruel, but this went beyond the pale.
Albus lifted his head to look again at the room. No photographs. No trinkets. A row of black robes, starched white shirts, an extra pair of shoes, and one threadbare Slytherin scarf.
As a young man, he would have said it was for the greater good. The sacrifice of one life for the betterment of many. He could still rationalize the difficult choices, the unfair ones, but Albus couldn't stomach the losses he could prevent. This—the life of Severus Snape—was something Albus had traded away without considering the true value, and he could have changed that. He'd settled for having the boy come back to him breathing—sneering, snarking, prickly as a porcupine—but he hadn't fully grasped what Severus gave in exchange for survival.
A choked gasp disturbed the unsettling quiet as the Potions Master stirred in his bed. He woke as one might anticipate a spy wakes—all at once, from unconscious to lucid in a single, rattled moment. His gaze darted across the empty ceiling, alighting on Albus with singular intensity.
"Minerva found you in the corridor," Dumbledore told him without prompting. "And retrieved me. We moved you to your quarters and have done what we could to heal your injuries. I sent Minerva off to find her bed and have stayed with you here. I believe it's just passed one in the morning."
Some tension leached from Severus' body, though he winced when his shoulders pressed more firmly into the mattress. He reached up to prod at the potion-treated gauze secured to his lingering wounds.
"Were you discovered?" Albus softly asked. "Is that why—?"
Severus snorted—then coughed, clearing his throat. His usual baritone sounded coarse and ragged. "Had that been the case, I would not be here. No, as we expected, he cannot afford to turn away followers at the moment. Especially not one as well placed as I am, loathe though he is to accept any of the old crowd. He masks it as well as he masks anything else, but he resents the Death Eaters who failed to search for him." A low, exhausted sigh left his parted lips, his fingers twitching with discomfort. "He's hideous."
"Yes, so Harriet mentioned."
Albus subsided into contemplative silence as Severus cataloged his injuries. It was only when he attempted to sit up that the Headmaster spoke again.
"You need to rest."
"I cannot. If Slytherin learns I've returned and didn't go to him first—."
"Severus, see sense. Your eye—."
The younger wizard paused and passed a hand over the left side of his face as if only just realizing the eye in question was missing. Given the bruises and abrasions, Albus guessed the boy's face had been propelled into something solid and rough, such as the floor, and the orb had been dislodged.
Severus' hand jerked, the motion irritated, pained. "I have a spare." He grunted and cursed at the bandages pulling against his skin. "We should count our blessings it didn't cause the Dark Lord to finish me off."
Guilt poured through Albus like rain through a gutter, the sensation just as cold, just as gutting.
"Severus," he said with gravity, reaching out to grasp the other man's arm. His skin felt clammy and chilled. "If this is the condition Lord Voldemort sees fit to return his followers home in, we will need to reevaluate sending you to his side—."
Severus recoiled, his eye widening. "That is precisely the Dark Lord's intention," he snapped. "It's a test. He knows you're soft, Albus. He knows you'll offer salvation, and so he tests my loyalty to see if I will return. He will do so again. Only a loyal servant tolerates the whip."
"He nearly killed you. If Minerva had not happened upon you after leaving the kitchens, you wouldn't have survived the night alone. I cannot in good conscience ask you to continue this."
"Then do so in bad conscience!" Severus yelled. His voice broke and angry color bled into his pale face. "Do not do this to me, Headmaster."
"It is precisely because I don't wish this upon you that we are speaking of this now, Severus. We will make do with what we can glean from Slytherin and those Death Eaters willing to speak with you."
"This is ridiculous. We need information from the inner circle—it's the whole fucking point of me being a spy, Albus!"
"And if he kills you? What purpose will that bring?" Dumbledore's voice rose to match his. "That will simply be another good man dead at Tom's hands. Yes, we need information, but there is so much else you can do, so much else you can become—."
A harsh exhale left the Potions Master, and when he spoke again, his voice was softer, almost pleading. "It is hard enough to crawl before him and pretend obedience when I am ordered. Do not make it harder by forcing that choice upon me, Albus. Do not make it my choice to endure. I am not strong enough for that."
Albus shut his eyes and passed his hand across his brow, fingertips pressing at the lines of stress found there.
The information Severus provided by spying among the loyal Death Eaters had often proved vital in the past—and now, with Tom's full return, Dumbledore knew it would only be more crucial in deciphering Voldemort's plans and saving lives. There was also Slytherin to consider. The Defense professor had demanded Severus bring details about Voldemort just as Albus had; should Severus stop spying, he would have to flee not only the Dark Lord, but Slytherin as well. He would have to leave Hogwarts. He would have to leave the country, and in doing so, he'd have to forsake helping Harriet.
Albus knew Severus would not leave. No matter how he might protest, Albus understood Severus wouldn't abandon Harriet to her fate. A promise to a dead woman had kept him at his post for years, but Severus had stopped serving guilt and Lily Potter years ago.
But, the question yet remained of how much the wizard could withstand before it simply killed him.
"You let him go," Harriet Potter croaked from her hospital bed. "You let Snape go. He's going to die."
Albus opened his eyes. "Very well," he said into the quiet, an invisible weight pressing upon his chest as he considered his words. Severus watched him closely. "Very well."
"You understand?"
"Yes. We will continue the path."
What Albus truly understood was that Severus needed his strength. He needed someone to blame, someone to hate. The younger wizard had made his choice, but that didn't lessen what he must endure, what he must experience. The pain would only worsen if Severus had to shoulder his own decision and forsake the easier path. If the choice were taken away—even if only in illusion—it lessened his burden.
Albus could do that for him. The Headmaster could play the villain, the cruel man ordering his men to march, if it meant Severus didn't need to suffer more. He could take the blame for the Potions Master's suffering and inevitable death, even if the grief of it destroyed him.
Clearing his throat, Albus straightened in the padded armchair he'd conjured at Severus' bedside. "Tell me, my boy, what you were able to learn, and we will plan our next steps."
Gratitude glittered in Severus' black eye, there and gone before he hardened his expression once more. He started to speak.
A/N: Occlumency and Legilimency have always really interested me, and for all that Canon!Snape reprimanded Harry for thinking of it as simple "mind-reading," I feel like it comes across just like that too often in the books. I like to think of as a kind of suggestibility, with Legilimency being the ability to suggest, interpret, and trigger specific emotional stimuli, and Occlumency being the ability to both organize and protect the mind, and control emotional responses. I've probably already mentioned this before, but it's eventually an area that gets its own dedicated arc, though not necessarily where you might expect.
Not-so-fun-fact: McGonagall's husband, Elphinstone, died in 1985, a time when I imagine her friendship with Severus was still very tentative and unformed.
Albus: "Well, might as well snoop while I'm here."
Albus: *finds Snape's diary*
Albus: "…"
Albus: "It's all drawings of me getting stabbed."
