ccxlix. a weak little girl
Time spent at the Tor had an intolerable, sticky feel to it.
It slipped by in thick, dragging increments, an ailing sensation like ichor inching its way from a toppled bottle. The more attention one devoted to it, the slower it moved. It became a form of gross, idle torture.
Severus leaned his weight into the wall at his back, allowing the heat to sink inexorable into his bones. The mezzanine sat exposed to the sun's unerring eye, but the conservatory and cultivated plants below were eclipsed and partly shaded, tempered below an expensive ward. If he cared to lean on the wrought iron railing and look down, he could catch glimpses of Potter in another lesson with Slytherin.
It was obvious to him and to Albus what Slytherin intended with his actions. He clearly fancied he would be Headmaster within the next five years, and he was grooming Potter to take his place as Defense instructor—or, rather, the Dark Arts professor. He was exposing her slowly to the ideology of spell-creation and innate magics, schools that often opened Pandora's box of Dark magic so to speak. Albus thought it a fool's errand on Slytherin's part; Potter was staunchly opposed to the practice and near allergic to the Arts. Slytherin would have to struggle against the girl's morals and thick skull.
Severus wasn't as certain of Potter's resilience as the Headmaster. If Slytherin applied just the right amount of pressure, Potter would bend. She would do anything to protect her foolish friends and that cur Sirius Black, and if Slytherin could convince her Dark magic would protect them, well–.
Severus listened to the muddled droning under his boots, biting his lip.
"What if he hurts you? Because of—because of me?"
He knew he'd been making…mistakes lately. Failing tests Slytherin set forth to observe him like a rat in his sick fucking maze. The only other option available to him was untenable. Was he meant to leave Potter to Slytherin's devices alone? Leave her sheltered among Knights and Death Eaters with only wretched Iris Sangfort as her point of contact?
Ridiculous.
He carded a slow hand through his hair, thumb grazing the scarring by his left eye. When he lifted his arm and held it out toward the light, the thin line ensnaring his wrist glowed pearlescent. Such a beautiful shine for a curse so terrible.
Slytherin did not and would never know of the Vow. He could play his little games and set the pieces how he desired, but Tom Riddle in any incarnation had never truly understood Severus. He could not comprehend what drove a man like him, and so it made the Dark Lord lesser. For all his power, he was weak.
Merlin's arse, I'm going to start sounding like bloody Dumbledore soon.
Footsteps approached, and Severus curled his lip at Iris as she came to stand next to him. The woman appeared properly sauced, as if she'd only just managed to drag herself from the bottle, tie back her hair, and shuffle out of her room into the light of day. She'd spent most of the holiday as far from Slytherin and Potter as she could afford to be, exerting considerable effort to keep Elinor quiet and out of sight.
"How's your little Death Eater in training doing?" she asked, not bothering to hide her clear derision.
"Adequate," Severus drawled. "At the very least she keeps our Lord entertained."
Iris scoffed and picked at her nails. "You're such a dull bugger. Don't you aspire to be more, Snape?"
"More?"
"Something other than a passable lapdog."
Severus smirked. "Oh, no. I aspire only to serve our Lord to the best of my ability."
A noise of disgust escaped Iris. "For Circe's sake."
Severus allowed the conversation to lapse, his gaze flitting over the pair in the conservatory once more. Slytherin had Potter attempting to inscribe runes on living material—an object lesson in the inherent difficulty of impressing foreign magic into something that had wild, innate magic of its own without a medium between them.
Severus' pale fingers pulled through wild black hair, grazing the warmth of her skin as he revealed the fresh, livid mark scorched into her flesh. It bore evidence of her nervous, anxious scratching
His hand twitched as if to rise, but Severus remained mindful of his audience and kept himself still. The brand's shape was incidental; runes were maladapted to living bodies, but Dark magic clung well enough to ink injected under flesh.
He hadn't lied to Potter when he said the brand was not the same as the Dark Mark. Neither he nor Dumbledore knew for certain why Slytherin had adopted a more facile calling card for his followers, but Severus—with his deeper understanding of Dark magic—theorized the brand issued by Voldemort contained more drawbacks than the Dark Lord had initially expected. After all, the Dark Mark allowed for greater control and communication, but Dark magic was often inconvenient, and cyclical. Greater influence over his followers opened greater chances of influence in turn. It was a motorway traveling in both directions.
Severus almost scoffed at the idea of the Dark Lord being influenced, but if such a thing were possible even in the theoretical, Slytherin would learn from his other self's failings and close that door before others saw it.
"What do you and Dumbledore hope to gain from all this?" Iris asked, breaking Severus from his musings. "It seems to me you've done nothing but feed another impressionable child to the wolf."
"I would think of him as a snake rather than a wolf," he corrected. "Wolves tear their prey to pieces and are pack animals by nature: they protect, feed, provide. Snakes either poison or choke the life out of their food. They then swallow it whole."
"Ugh, Merlin," she replied, wrinkling her nose. "Can you not be serious for a moment, Snape?"
"Do I strike you as a glib man, Sangfort?"
"No, but you have a certain tragic clown allure." Her smile reminded Severus of a shark, white teeth bright in the sunlight, ready to bite. "The girl's doomed. She's a weak little thing. Breakable. Anyone can see it. Dumbledore needs to get her out."
"You should be pleased. If Slytherin's preoccupied by such a weak target, he's not interested in Elinor instead."
Iris' smile vanished.
Below, Slytherin had meandered off on whatever new lark he chose to chase, and Potter had moved on. Severus turned, the edge of his robes catching the breeze and flaring outward like a bat's opening wing, and went to leave. Iris followed.
"Muggles are dying," she commented as if speaking on the weather. "In greater numbers than usual. Their Ministry has issued warnings against traveling alone and have set up task forces to search for the missing."
"How terrible," he drawled. The iron steps creaked as he descended into the conservatory proper, his ears popping as they passed through the temperature ward. He headed for the door through the foliage, and Iris kept pace.
"I've heard whispers at the bank," she continued. "Secretive as the goblins are, they lack circumspection when they forget humans can learn Gobbledygook. Our Minister has been inquiring about privately hiring a talented Curse Breaker. A discreet Curse Breaker."
That gave Severus pause. "Am I to assume you've stumbled upon a new job?"
Iris snorted. "Don't be daft. The goblins have so far refused his request. As they put it, the kind of work he wishes performed would be 'suicidal,' and the goblins hate wasting their trained resources."
Severus' shoulders relaxed half a centimeter. Doubtless, Gaunt would not cease his attempts to breach the Department of Mysteries, but there would be endless stumbling blocks, and it would give them time. In Severus' opinion, the Minister would inevitably get in, and he would inevitably hear the prophecy so long as his interest remained keen. He recommended to Dumbledore they seek the means of distracting him, but the Headmaster disagreed. He believed Gaunt would not be dissuaded, no matter what they threw in his path.
"And if he discovers the entirety of the prophecy? Including the parts I am not privy to?"
"He will share it with Voldemort, and I believe disseminate it to Slytherin. Whether or not he believes in prophecies, the revelation will put Harriet in terrible danger. We must keep any of them from hearing the prophecy."
They departed the conservatory, Severus barely taking note of where he was headed, so caught up in his own thoughts. "You should take the opportunity," he told Iris. "Better to lose your life in service of our Lord than to forsake duty."
It was risky, but Iris could potentially lead interference against Gaunt, perhaps obfuscate leads or encourage the Unspeakables to remain vigilante. She could be useful if she agreed.
As expected, however, the witch glowered. "Fuck you, Snape."
"No, not interested."
She said something in Icelandic, something uncomplimentary she undoubtedly picked up at Durmstrang that Severus chose to ignore. He kept walking.
"How do they put up with you at Hogwarts?" Iris demanded. "Do they hand out special service awards for surviving the Potions Master? Do students receive Acceptables in your class right alongside an Order of Merlin?"
"If they receive an Acceptable in my class, they are that much more likely to earn an Order of Merlin." He shot her a derisive look over his shoulder. "I don't give handouts to the unexceptional."
"Spoken like a true arsehole. Your students must simply adore you—just as much as they adore cauldron scrubbing, or being strung up by their thumbs to serve detention—."
Severus came to a sudden stop.
"What? Did something I say touch a nerve—?"
He hardly heard the witch, his attention fully on his right wrist—the wrist and the scarring prickling to life.
What has she done? His brow furrowed as he lifted his head, straining his ears for any noise that was out of place. Is she with Slytherin again? Or has something else happened?
"Snape—?"
He said nothing to Iris as he took off, increasing his stride, doubling back to the secondary corridor that came off of the conservatory on the other side. Many of the passages in the Tor's outer buildings sprawled like a spiderweb, and Severus didn't have any clue which way Potter had gone. He followed his instincts.
The stinging increased, and he sucked air through his teeth.
Severus rounded the corner at the corridor's end, and Iris collided with his back when he halted. Potter was in the hall, joined by Bonespell. If he was interpreting the scene correctly, Bonespell had stepped out from behind a tapestry of Grendel and had attacked Potter's back. Whatever the spell was had grazed the girl when she jerked around, leaving a livid burn across her cheek and brow on the her left side. Potter snarled, her green eyes flashing, and retaliated.
"Declinatio!"
Though young, Bonespell was older than Potter, and she had earned her place at the Tor and among Slytherin's retinue. The spell swerved mid-cast and would have taken out a lesser duelist, but Bonespell dodged and shielded, keeping her feet under her. She rallied.
"Diffindo Mallum!"
Potter's wand twirled between her fingers, blocking the spell. The girl did not lack for grace in her day to day life, but seeing her in a duel truly exemplified why Slytherin had taken such an interest in Potter even at an early age. She moved as if she knew the steps already, as if the entire confrontation had been choreographed beforehand. Were Severus inclined to be cliche, he would called it dancing.
"Contero!"
As she spoke, her wand rose and twitched to match the rune for water to the most relevant chakra in her body—svadhisthana. It took a spell that should have eroded a scant foot of rock and enhanced it, melting several meters of solid stone into liquid scree under Bonespell's feet. Bonespell struggled to get out of it and could not move before Potter's lightning-quick reflexes hexed her again.
"Flipendo!"
Severus stepped to the side to avoid being struck by Bonespell when the older witch flew through the air, slamming hard to the ground and skidding several meters. Sangfort looked down at her, and then at Potter, her mouth open and slack in apparent shock.
A weak little girl indeed, Severus thought, mouth twitching.
"Hmm."
He couldn't say where Slytherin had come from. Too many corridors adjoined that central passage, many hidden by portraits or tapestries, allowing the shorter wizard to simply appear as if from midair, taking in the scene with a manic gleam in his crimson eyes. Oh, he had definitely be waiting for and anticipating an event such as this since their arrival.
"Very well done, apprentice," he said to Potter as she hurried to tuck her wand inside its brace. Her cheeks flushed, and she looked away, nodding at nothing in particular. A simple wave of the hand from Slytherin fixed the ruined floor. "Very well done indeed. But I'm not convinced Bonnie's learned her lesson yet."
"P—Master?"
Bonespell struggled to her feet, having nearly been knocked senseless by the sheer force of Potter's spellwork. "Pro—professor," she stuttered past a split lip. "I didn't—I didn't mean to—."
"How about it, Miss Potter?" he asked without listening to a word of Bonespell's meager fumbling. He bore most of his teeth in a smile that made Sangfort's look timid and friendly in comparison. "What curse will you use on her?"
Clearly Potter had no intention of using anything on Bonespell, and she choked in her rush to dissemble.
"I, erm, I don't think that's necessary? Sir! We were just—practicing, y'know? That's all, Master. I asked her to help me practice, and—and she was really helpful. Really."
Slytherin's smile slid from his face like slime, and he hissed—a low, threatening sibilance that Potter responded to in kind. Whatever she said didn't appease the foul wizard, and his upper lip curled over too-sharp teeth. Bonespell tried corroborating Potter's lie, and she found herself at the end of Slytherin's wand.
"Oscausi."
Bonespell's hair-raising shriek cutoff like a door slamming shut, her fingers scrambling over the blank stretch of flesh where her mouth should be.
"Remove yourself from my presence and I might reverse the damage later. Might."
Distressed though she may be, Bonespell had enough wits about her to disappear, clutching her wand to her chest as she wobbled out of the passage. Slytherin glared at Harriet like a child who'd been denied his fun, and Potter met his glower with stoicism. Her shoulders relaxed in relief.
He slapped her.
The blow connected with the injured side of her face and Potter recoiled, though she remained silent. Electricity shot down Severus' spine, curling through his bones, revolving like a blade through his scarred flesh. Behind him, Sangfort yanked hard on his robes—and he realized he'd very nearly stepped forward.
Stupid, he told himself. Stupid, stupid—.
"Lie to me again at your peril," Slytherin coldly said, looming over Potter as she hunched. "The next time you do so, I will not be so lenient."
"Yes, Master."
Slytherin departed again, and Potter was not far behind him. She lingered only long enough for her glassy eyes to meet Severus', and he couldn't rightly decipher the emotion behind that glancing look. She left, and he knew she would not seek him out for assistance. She would rather suffer.
The fool.
Iris released Severus and stepped back, clearing her throat. "What in the Hells was that?" she intoned.
He didn't answer immediately. He walked forward and brushed his hand against the wall, feeling the gritty, greasy texture of Dark magic that had only grazed Potter's face. He should have been more vigilant. Several people at the Tor would delight in her death, if only to free the position she so unwillingly held at Slytherin's side. He needed to do more. Do better.
"Would a budding Death Eater spare her attacker punishment?" he asked.
Iris took a breath, but what words she had remained her own. Time slipped, slow. Dragging. Irrefutable. Severus closed his dirtied hand into a fist and departed, going in search of Potter.
A/N:
Iris: "Haha, weak kid."
*ten minutes later*
Iris: "…"
Iris: "I may have misspoken."