"Professor Snape—"
The interruption came from the small, straw-haired boy in one of the front desks. It was a reedy but penetrating voice, and it had already been raised far too many times for Snape's liking. He had arbitrarily changed this morning's fourth-year Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw Potions class from a practical lesson to an exercise in theory in order to give himself time to think, and was not anticipating the ensuing pile of earnest compositions on 'The Use of the Bezoar in Muggle Persia' with any degree of enjoyment at all.
A glare failed to quell the questioner, who was now bouncing up and down in his seat, one hand waving. "Professor Snape — Professor Snape, how do you spell 'becunia'?"
"In your case, Mr Benham—" Snape's lip curled— "I would suggest very carefully. Sit down!" He rose and directed a cold black stare out over the rest of the class, most of whom appeared suddenly to have discovered serious faults in their work, and to be bent studiously over their scrolls in an attempt to amend them. "Five points from Ravenclaw. Any further interruptions will lose ten points for that House."
Two long strides brought him down to hover ominously over the shoulder of a lanky boy who had just muttered "Typical!" under his breath. "I beg your pardon?" Snape enquired very softly.
"Nothing." It was mumbled into the desk. The Hufflepuff didn't meet his eyes. "Nothing, sir."
"Ten points from Hufflepuff for insolence." Snape turned on his heel, robes flaring, surveying the room in a manner which reduced it momentarily to complete silence. As he returned to his place at the front of the class, the soft scratching of quills broke out again, accompanied by adenoidal breathing supposedly indicative of intense intellectual effort. There was no further sound.
Snape, who had woken late and then found himself obliged to spend his entire preparation hour in performing repeated Fresh-Air Charms to clear the betraying traces of the each uisge from the main part of the dungeon, eyed his class with immense dislike and closed his eyes briefly, trying to recapture his train of thought.
No-one knew, that was the trouble; no-one in any of the texts knew how the Unforgivable Curses actually worked. Those who used them cared nothing for scholarship and very little more for any abstract knowledge; those who might have made such things their study had been barred from research by the pusillanimous Dark Arts laws. There had been no study made of the effects of the curse on so much as a guinea-pig, far less upon the human brain.
Of course — a muscle twitched, high on Snape's cheek — of course, there had been a time when he'd had the raw materials for such a study literally spread out in front of him. When scores of Muggles and wizards had died under the effects of the Imperius Curse, leaping from buildings or flinging themselves under trains, their shattered skulls laid out like trophies at the Death Eaters' feet. A time when a younger Severus Snape had been seduced with undreamed-of freedom to carry out all the experiments that had been forbidden at Hogwarts, to nurture the talents they'd none of them been willing to acknowledge, to pay back every petty slight and self-righteous sneer—
A trickle of sweat slid down his temple.
And then, following the Death Eaters, gobbling forbidden knowledge from the remnants they left, like a bird bolting down the scraps from a stripped carcase, he'd come to Voldemort's own attention. To his personal attention.
Another bead of sweat clung...and slid free. And another.
His Dark Lord had been interested in his work; very interested. He'd had a taste of real power, with wizards three times his age hanging on his words, paying court to beg him to drop just a hint in his Master's ear on their behalf, eager to test as many poisons and potions and counter-philtres as he could give. More heady even than that had been praise from the Master himself.
Voldemort's favour had been a drug more intoxicating, more deadly, than any he could brew. A dangerous, exhilarating chasm to walk, between excruciation and dark ecstasy, as the inner circle schemed and vied one against the other to please their Dark Master's whim. Any day could bring a fatal slip: a word, a glance, a touch misplaced, that ran counter to Lord Voldemort's momentary desire. And yet nothing could equal those instants when the Master's presence washed over him like a burning aura, and that cold, cold voice spoke of talent, and of power, and of reward.
There were no curbs on his experiments now. No scroll forbidden; no substance prohibited, no test too inhumane. Prisoners were his for the asking, and his to dispose of — no need to ration his tests or calculate beforehand what the subject could bear. There were always more, as many and more than he could use; and if they begged and grovelled, if some of them were faces he had known and some had called him by name, then ascendancy was all the sweeter.
To roam with the Death Eaters across the land, laughing and killing and tormenting those who fled, borne along upon the wash of Voldemort's great wind, was a freedom beyond any he had ever known. He had done — Snape's hand clenched — he had done terrible things. In the name of knowledge, in the name of his own skill, he had plumbed the darkest abyss of magic and touched on sights that no man's sanity should be asked to bear. And his Master's laughter had followed him all the way.
The class shifted uneasily. The Potions master's sallow face had taken on an unhealthy greyish tint, and his breathing was fevered and harsh.
Ava Franklin, in the front row, traded a cautious glance with her friend in the next desk, indicating their teacher. "D'you think he's OK?" she pantomimed.
Edie took one look at Snape's expression and sought refuge in her scroll, turning one shoulder pointedly so that all her friend could glimpse was a curtain of hair hiding her face.
Ava stole another glance upwards and shivered. Edie had a point. Keeping your head down definitely seemed like a good idea....
Like all the others, Snape told himself bitterly, he'd thought he could use Voldemort. Oh, not in so many words; not in so much as a coherent thought, let alone any kind of conscious intent — those foolish enough to nurse any such ambition had lasted less long than any, and died the most horribly, at the hands of a Lord who outmatched their feeble understanding by more than they could dream.
Far, far more than they could dream. Loyal Death-Eaters — fools and minions — they'd all modelled a Voldemort after their own image: petty tyrant, manipulator supreme, icon of greed or of lust or of sadistic hate. And their Master, caring nothing, had let them play their little games, each using the Dark Lord's name to gain what he wanted for himself.
Severus Snape had been blind as all the rest. He'd sought to drink at Voldemort, as at a fount of forbidden learning. He'd clung upon his master's coat-tails to wreak paltry revenge. He'd acknowledged no constraints ruling even his slightest whim. And he'd abased himself before the Dark Lord as the embodiment of all the power and knowledge he'd ever worked for, the only worthy recipient of everything he'd learned.
He couldn't remember when the young man he'd once been had begun to recognise the truth; when it had dawned on him that the Dark Lord's only pleasure in his experiments was in wastefulness and wanton pain. When he'd glimpsed the ravening mindless hunger that was his master's soul. When he'd understood that Voldemort's grasp would destroy everything; not just the roses and puppies and flowers of spring which mocked at his own ugliness and hate, but the stones and traditions and deep quiet places of the world itself, until the darkest woods were ashes and the scrolls of ages no more than tatters blowing in the wind. What Voldemort could not use — had no value. What had no value — would cease to exist.
And he himself, Severus Snape, and all that he knew and all that he had gained, would be no more than a mote dancing in the breath of the Dark Lord's empty maw, for just so long as it should please those jaws not to close. Nothing left. Nothing but hunger, and naked power, and despair.
He had run. Not to save what he could, for he had no hope, knowing the length of Voldemort's reach. Not in search of escape, for in Voldemort's victory there would be no place to hide. He had run without thinking and without any plan, on instinct alone — and instinct, by some strange twist of fate, had delivered him into the hands of a man he'd hated, and who'd had more than enough cause since, in the years that had passed, to hate him in turn. The Headmaster of Hogwarts: Albus Dumbledore.
"Severus." Dumbledore's tone had been mild, almost pleased: as if, Snape had thought since, he had somehow been expecting their meeting. "I take it you've left the Death Eaters? Dear me, you look dreadful. Do sit down."
He had given him one of the piercing blue stares Snape had disliked so much at school. "You won't be needing that wand, Mr Snape," he had said softly. "You need help; and we need all the help you can give."
Somehow, Snape's raised wand had been slipped from his grasp. Dumbledore's hand had enveloped his shoulder, pressing him gently but inexorably downwards into a high-backed chair. "My goodness, you're very thin. We'll have to do something about that...."
The inconsequential words rambled on unheeded as Dumbledore busied himself about the room, pulling up a footstool, dragging over another chair from behind the desk, and settling himself down at Snape's side with two large cups of cocoa from the saucepan he'd been stirring with the tip of his wand when the younger wizard had stumbled in.
"Cocoa," he explained cheerfully, thrusting the second mug into Snape's unresisting hand. "Just the thing after an overdose of Dark Magic, I find...." But all the while, those bright, bright eyes were watching him, not inconsequential and not senile at all; less burning than Voldemort's gaze yet somehow piercing even deeper.
"We need all the help you can give, Severus," Dumbledore had said again, very softly, leaning forward so that their hands almost met. "For you can give help...."
And his eyes had met the black depths of the other man's own and held them there, stripping away layer upon layer of self and laying it bare for them both to see. Accepting him, for what he was. For what he had done. For what he could do.
"You have a place here, Severus." The words were almost too soft to hear. "You can come back. It's not too late. It's never too late — for those with the courage to learn."
A faint chuckle. "And however biased you may have thought me at school, young Slytherin—" his eyes began to twinkle— "oh, we teachers get to hear these things, you know — I hope you'll grant at least that, as a Gryffindor, I'm qualified to judge courage when I see it." He had touched the young man quietly on the shoulder, and stood up.
"Besides," he added cheerfully a minute or two later, between mouthfuls of cocoa, "learning is the one thing I've never known you shirk." His eyes had begun to twinkle again at Snape's expression. "Drink up your cocoa, Severus. Trust me, it'll do you good."
'Trust me'.... Snape's mouth twisted rather bitterly. It had been the theme of the next few years; but only Dumbledore had offered him absolute trust in return. It had been almost pleasant, for once, to be on the receiving end of that unquestioning defence from which Dumbledore's Gryffindors had so often benefited, in Hogwarts. Almost. If it had not been for the relentless suspicions and hostility of their other so-called allies, which had so often required it.
"No-one need face Voldemort alone," Dumbledore had promised him when he had woken screaming, those first few nights. "Listen, Severus. No-one — no-one here — need face him alone...."
But Snape had gone back, as they had both known he must. Back, to do the task that no-one but he could do, where none save one who bore the Dark Mark could go. Back into the inner councils of the Master he had betrayed.
"You have no idea, Alastor," Dumbledore had exploded finally on one occasion, "how much Severus is risking, every day, every hour he spends in there! You have no idea what just one slip in his cover could cost—"
"Much the same as it costs innocent men and women every day," the Auror growled, glaring at Snape. "Only it's a touch harder to trust that turncoat spy of yours when him and his Death Eater friends are riding out masked-up and none of us know which of the bodies to lay to his account."
"It's as well for your side," Snape cut in coldly, "that some of us can do what's expedient. I doubt your scruples would weigh very heavily with the Dark Lord...."
Alastor snorted. " 'Dark Lord', is it, now? You slip into that other rôle of yours very easily these days, Snape. Too easily, some might say."
Snape drew breath with a sudden hiss; but Dumbledore was before him, one hand gripping the Death Eater's arm hard enough to inflict a Dark Mark of his own.
"Severus." Only the one word. But it was enough.
"One slip out of that rôle at the wrong moment, Alastor," Dumbledore said softly in warning, "and we lose the best source of information on Voldemort's intentions that we have. The one advantage we have that he does not — a friend in the enemy's camp."
"Yeah — unless what you take for a 'friend' is a spy in your own camp." The Auror coughed, and fumbled for his hip-flask, pointedly ignoring the glitter of fury in Snape's eyes. "Once a traitor, always a traitor. You know what I say—"
"And you know what I say." Dumbledore's tone was uncharacteristically sharp, and his grasp bit into Snape's arm like a vice, compelling silence. "The only way to get trust is to give it. Distrust a man, and he'll live down to your expectations."
Alastor coughed again, and drank. "I know what I expect." But it was growled under his breath, and after a moment he turned, and stumped out.
Snape wrenched himself free, snarling. "I can fight my own battles, Dumbledore."
"Yes." Dumbledore had been smiling rather sadly. "Yes. That's what I'm afraid of. I need you both, you see."
And so he'd swallowed his pride. A vein was throbbing painfully, high up on Snape's temple.
And so he'd grovelled to both sides. Kissed the dust before the handful of holier-than-thou Aurors delegated to take his information, and abased himself at Voldemort's feet, fawning for favour, begging to be allowed close once more. And all the time, at the last, he'd been searching: searching for a place and a way to set up the triggers for Dumbledore's final spell. The spell that would trap Voldemort where he was weakest, in his vanity and his pride, and then spread outwards, fuelled by sacrifice, to shred away even immortality, undoing the Dark Lord as if he had never been. A spell, Dumbledore had explained calmly, that would also destroy the caster, powered by his life-force itself.
"Sacrifice — willing sacrifice — is the most powerful force of magic that we know." Dumbledore's voice had been as matter-of-fact as if he had been discussing the theory of Transfiguration. "More, it is the one thing against which Voldemort cannot defend. There is no doubt at all in my heart that it will work."
He sighed. "I shan't be aware of much beyond the first few moments, of course. But I hope I'll live long enough to witness a great evil pass from the world."
A smile, at Snape's expression. "I've lived a long time, Severus. When you reach my age, you'll find that death is not so fearful a prospect after all. If my last few hours can serve to rid the world of Voldemort, then I'm entirely content."
"And the trigger spell?" It had come out more harshly than Snape had intended, but Dumbledore had simply nodded, accepting.
"There will be some risk for the caster, yes, if things go badly. If I lose control." Blue eyes met black across the gulf of a lifetime. "That's why I won't order you, or any man, to take that risk, however slight."
He held up a hand as Snape began a sharp movement of protest. "But I will ask.... Severus, we both know you're the only one with even a chance of getting in there. Will you do this for me?" He had scanned the younger man's face for a moment, as if searching for something unspoken. "Will you set the spell?"
"We don't have a choice. You know I must." Snape turned away from those eyes, impatiently.
"If it goes wrong, Voldemort is going to know almost instantly who set the spell that trapped him," he added over his shoulder after a moment. "Under those circumstances, I doubt that endangering my survival is likely to be much of a problem."
"No," Dumbledore said softly. "No, I don't suppose it would...."
There was a moment's silence. Snape swung round. "And if you do win?" he shot at the old wizard. "If you do win? Had you planned for anyone ever to know?"
Dumbledore blinked at him, briefly; then grinned, looking suddenly fifty years younger. "A true Slytherin question, Severus. Salazar would be proud of you. Yes, I have sounded out my plans with two or three of my intimates — all of whom," he added with a twinkle, "have been absolutely horrified — but on the whole, I rather thought I'd leave a letter. At the Ministry might be best; I'm not quite sure what effect the spell will have on my possessions."
He had smiled at Snape. "But I promise you this, Severus. For as long as Voldemort is remembered in the wizarding world, my name will be spoken in the same breath — as will yours." He'd walked over, touched Snape briefly on the arm.
"You'll need somewhere to go, when all this is over. If you can bring yourself to return, there will be a place for your talents at Hogwarts — I think I can make sure of that." He held up a hand in the familiar gesture, forestalling a refusal. "No need to decide now. We still have time...."
Time.... Snape's mouth twisted savagely, now, remembering. Oh, indeed they'd had time. Months and months of it, wasted on trying to find some way, any way, to get under Voldemort's guard without arousing his suspicions. Carefully constructing the perfect set-up on which to risk the one throw that would win all. Setting up the vital triggers, step by step, in secret...while Voldemort's confidence grew, and day by day his burning eyes seared deeper into a certain Death Eater's heart, seeking out the betrayal he could not quite sense.
While someone in Dumbledore's camp, it became increasingly clear, was passing information to the Enemy; and while Snape risked his life every day, unseen, unthanked, just to send warning, that someone had betrayed the biggest secret in his pitiful power and sent Voldemort down to Godric's Hollow, to brush aside a potential threat. And in so doing — Snape's breath was coming in great harsh gasps through clenched teeth — in so doing had destroyed not only the Master he claimed to serve, but everything for which he, Severus Snape, had spent a year and a half in hell.
Everything he'd risked, everything he'd suffered, and every insult he'd endured had all been rendered useless — pointless — in the course of one night. Because thanks to Sirius Black — thanks yet again in his life to the unthinking petty malice of Sirius Black — it had not been Dumbledore's great spell, in the end, that had brought Lord Voldemort down. All the glory that should have been Snape's, the recognition at last that he'd always deserved and that had finally been within his grasp, had gone, because Black had stepped in his way, to a baby. A howling, stinking, dribbling, helpless, useless baby—
The hoarse sound that had forced its way from Snape's throat was more akin to an animal cry than a groan. Someone was pulling at him, tugging his arm. A face full of cow-like concern, looming over his shoulder.
"Sir — Professor Snape — are you all right?"
"Get away from me." A ragged snarl that sent Ava Franklin stumbling back. Every student in the classroom was staring openly, their eyes unbearable. Curiosity — pity — glee—
"Get out." He took a deep breath and channelled it into icy control. "Out. All of you. Now. Out!"
"But sir—" Someone in the middle rows was holding up a scroll uncertainly, and Snape turned on him.
"I'll expect an extra six inches of essay from all of you to make up for the rest of the lesson. Ten points from any pupil, and that includes you, Mr Benham, who fails to hand it in on time. Do I make myself quite clear?"
He stalked over to the door, flung it wide, and hovered there, holding it open, like a bird of ill-omen, while Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws alike shuffled quills and books hastily into bags and ducked for the exit. Only when the last echoes of the fourth-years' feet had died away up the stairs did he permit himself to approach that other, locked door, and test the strength of the spells laid there.
Locked and warded, as he had left it. Snape's mouth thinned. No trace of the Dark Arts — nothing could have got through, nothing to have had such an effect—
Eyes narrowing suddenly, he stripped the spells back strand by strand, to the bare wood; but there was no resistance. No hidden trap. The door yielded to a single touch.
In the disused classroom beyond, everything was as it had been last night, with no sign that so much as a grain of dust had been stirred since he or the boy Lovell had left. Nothing out of the ordinary at all, save for the imprisoned shape of the each uisge cringing from the light of his wand; and the faint, faint scent of stale water.
Snape dragged one sleeve of his robes roughly across his face, where a sheen of sweat still clung, and played the light all around the room, sending shadows fleeing up the walls. But he was already certain that he would find nothing. Nothing, but that accursed horse-thing, huddled there behind its bars like a starving cur....
He would not allow that creature to manipulate him. He would not allow anything to deflect him from the research he had sworn to McGonagall that he could achieve — and he'd been exploring an idea, back before he'd let himself be caught in memory's trap. Skulls — heads — brains — minds—
Snape's eyes glittered suddenly. All at once, he had a very good hunch as to which books in the Restricted Section, unpromising as they might seem, might just prove to hold exactly the information he was looking for.