Chapter Two: Puppetry
In which Severus is stubborn and old memories surface.
Morning dawned bright. Too bright. Pain spiked through his skull as soon as he opened his eyes. Severus groaned and rolled over in his bed, dragging the sheets with him. He’d had a restless night and his head felt heavy and Confunded. It was obviously the aftermath of drinking an entire bottle of wine and eating far too little to counteract its effects, he thought sourly. He fought with the rumpled covers until he freed his legs and perched on the edge of his bed for a moment, his head cradled in his hands, finding his resolve to start his day.
Staggering a little on his way to his private bath, a luxury afforded all Hogwarts staff members, Severus was glad that he routinely refreshed his stock of personal potions. He hadn’t had an opportunity to test his hangover elixir for quite some time. But it would be efficacious, nonetheless.
Sucking down the entire contents of a small dark green vial, Severus stared at his sallow reflection in the mirror – one he’d long ago hexed to prevent from making pitying remarks about his looks – and wondered what had possessed him to get drunk in the first place. It wasn’t something he did often. Splashing cold water on his face while the potion began to work, his mind cleared, and the events of the previous afternoon intruded once again It was all her fault. Granger. She’d breached his wards and left him a ‘gift.’ Including a declaration of love for him, if she was to be believed. The assured woman who’d graced his chambers the day before was capable of anything. She was so aggravating. Severus found himself having trouble reconciling his memories of the over-eager girl he’d known with the obviously highly competent woman he’d met the night before.
Angry with himself for dwelling upon a witch whom he’d fairly successfully dismissed from his mind for a decade, Severus found his robes and prepared for the day. Then he groaned. It was September 1, 2011. The students were due back at the castle today. It was one eternal constant in his life. Regardless of the day of week, if it was September First, the students would arrive at Hogwarts.
Oh, joy.
Walking through his sitting room, Severus glanced into the fireplace, certain that all would be ash. However, perched atop a pile of charcoal and soot was a small cedar box. Unblemished, unburned, and untarnished by the blazing fire of the night before.
Sodding, fucking hell! He hated know-it-alls. Bushy-haired – erm, brown-haired – dark-eyed, annoying, insufferable know-it-alls. Especially when their exotic fragrance lingered in the air of his sitting room. He’d have to get the house elves to fix that.
Severus snatched Granger’s ‘gift’ from the fireplace and stalked to his table to eat some breakfast. His hangover elixir had left him ravenous. While he munched his toast and inhaled his bangers and eggs, Severus took the time to examine the well-crafted, beautiful little piece of carved cedar. With one dexterous finger, he searched for a seam in the wood. None. With a quick wave of his wand he attempted the most obvious, “Finite Incantatum.” Nothing changed, save a small luminous glow from the embedded sigil on the lid.
That the box was of fine quality craftsmanship and superbly charmed didn’t surprise him in the least. Truthfully, he hadn’t expected less of the Granger witch. She was, he admitted, extremely intelligent and had always been highly capable. He grimaced to think that he was complimenting her, even in absentia.
“Revelato,” garnered no success. Ten minutes later, several other, more obscure, attempts at penetrating the warding on the small lump of wood produced the same negative results. The box’s wards were impervious to straightforward means of disclosure. The perplexing representation of Granger’s competence was like an itch, and he wanted to scratch it.
Refusing to give it more thought, and having no more time for idle speculation, Severus secreted the trinket in a pocket of his teaching robes. He’d study its secrets during a free moment in his day. Patting his pocket, feeling the hard lump reassuringly hit his thigh, he left his rooms. It simply never occurred to the Potions Master to leave the puzzling box behind. Severus had always enjoyed a good puzzle.
The gift remained a puzzle.
During the course of his day, meetings, rounds, and duties, Severus attempted to open the box and, during the course of his unsuccessful trials, deduced several things about Granger’s gift. The most obvious was that it was well-crafted. Secondly, he determined that the little box was impervious to the most blatant of revealing charms or methods of destruction. But by far the most interesting facet of the little trinket was the fact that, among the other wards placed on the box, it appeared to have a distraction charm. No one, other than himself, could actually see the small block of cedar, despite the fact that Severus placed it in plain sight during his meetings. He thought that, at the very least, its fragrance was noticeable. Severus could smell its scent even when it was hidden within the pocket of his robes.
At luncheon, he placed the small trinket on the High Table, leaned back in his chair, deep in thought, his long hair falling to either side of his face as he stroked his goatee. He awaited the unfailing nosiness of his colleagues to assert itself. He was disappointed. Neither Mesdames Hooch nor Pomfrey mentioned it, and Albus’ eyes appeared to give the box a quick glance, but his sight seemed to skim past its location. It was decidedly odd. Neither Filius Flitwick nor Minerva McGonagall were at lunch, so Severus couldn’t tell if they were immune to it or not.
The ex-spy was intrigued in spite of himself, and he found his thoughts straying to the box and its giver throughout the day.
Dinner proved as fruitless as lunch; of course, most of the attention was given to the Welcoming Feast and the Sorting Hat’s antics. The only real distraction of the evening was when Frank Longbottom, Neville Longbottom and Hannah Abbot’s son, was sorted into Slytherin. Severus choked on his own spit, and Albus just turned his highly amused eyes in his direction and twinkled at him. Wretched old wizard, Severus thought scathingly.
After settling his new students into their dormitories, and after a brief Beginning of Term meeting with the Slytherin House Prefects, Severus retired to his chambers. He breathed in deeply… the exotic perfume was gone. He discounted a vague sense of disappointment as he settled in for the evening. Severus still had to reset the wards on his rooms, a precaution in case she decided to return. After an exhausting half hour in which he added three additional layers of wards, including the unlikely password of “Bushy-haired-know-it-all,” Severus crawled under the fresh sheets on his bed.
That night he left the frustrating cedar box on his desk, and dreamed about the final battle.
“Duck, Hermione!”
Ron Weasley’s voice screamed in his ear, attempting to get to his friend before she was hit with another hex. The young wizard hadn’t reached her before the “Diffindo” sliced open her shoulder. Severus watched, mesmerized, heart thudding in his ears as, in a bizarre time-lagging fashion, Hermione Granger’s blood sprayed the street and the wall of the nearest building, the impact of the curse from behind propelling her body’s fluid in a bright crimson arc, sunlight glinting off the thick liquid staining cobblestones and stucco. Weasley’s shout of “Stupefy” toppled Hermione’s assailant.
With a quick restoring spell, Hermione smiled grimly at Ron, nodded her head at Severus, sealed her wound and waded once more into the fray as she made her way to the open intersection in front of Diagon Alley’s Gringott’s Bank. For a long moment the streaks of green and crimson hex-trails illuminated the slender figure of the young witch, an aura of luminescence highlighting the fierce concentration of her expression as she turned her head to look at him once more. Their eyes met. Brown to black, youth to experience, innocence to debauchery. Severus’ eyes felt gritty from lack of lubrication as he remained locked into her gaze for what felt like eternity. External noise and sights faded into a swirling, muddy, indistinct background. Irrationally, he didn’t want to sever their connection. His heart clenched and his gut twisted with an unfamiliar feeling. Suddenly, motion began again as Hermione wrenched her head to the side and shouted, “Impedimenta,” and then was gone from his sight, the Death Eater she’d flung her spell at falling unceremoniously at his feet. From that moment, Severus was too busy fending off the attacks of his former brethren to wonder about her safety. He fought to reach the Boy Who Had to Win in order to add his own shielding to the others’.
A surreal, colorful mist obscured his vision; he heard muffled shouts and screams of pain in the distance. His own nostrils flared with the coppery stink of fresh blood and the vaguely sulfuric smell of misfired hexes. And then, oddly telescoping to what really mattered, the scent of a floral perfume overrode everything else, until he could smell nothing except the fragrance, laced with sweat, fear, and a unique cleanliness that he’d always associated with the witch who’d been the most demanding and irritating student he’d had in all his years of teaching. The underlying spice of her natural scent filled his senses until the only thing he could focus upon was smell. Her smell. He breathed in great gulps and, in his mind, her youthful fragrance morphed into a slightly exotic blend of neroli and ylang ylang; nevertheless, the witch’s scent replaced the foul odor of death and decay.
When the air cleared before his mind’s eye, mist and scent banished for the moment, Severus found himself shoulder-to-shoulder with the Gryffindor witch as she flicked her wand and shouted “Protego!” A translucent bubble of shimmering protection surrounded not only her, but him, and three others - a tight unit, central to the outcome of the wizarding world’s most recent fight to the death. Severus could feel the nubby texture of her robes where their bodies touched, as if it was skin-to-cloth, although he shouldn’t have been able to as, in his dream he was fully dressed. Anachronistically, it was the same silk she’d worn in his chambers before leaving the cedar box, but she was wearing it here, during the last battle, only two years after her graduation, not a decade later. As his blood pounded in his ears, Severus didn’t want to move, to sever their physical connection, it assumed an importance he couldn’t identify. The background once again faded into insignificance as he focused on the physical link between Hermione and him.
Wrenching himself from his desire to remain transfixed by her touch, his mind screaming at him, Severus added his not inconsiderable magical strength to her shield, and Ginny Weasley, on the opposite side of the Hero of the Day, added hers. Their merged shields created a pulsing, living entity, repelling any and all curses and hexes thrown at the tiny group consisting of Harry Potter and his most dedicated and loyal protectors. The three shield casters were sucked into the sinuous, protective bubble, hearts, minds, souls. Although he knew that Ginny Weasley was in the gestalt, Severus could only discern one other being. Hermione. The thudding rhythm of their conjoined hearts comforted him amidst the maelstrom of battle. He could almost taste her, the flavor of her saliva, the pulse of blood through her veins, the purity of her soul. He didn’t want it to end.
All things come to an end.
Brought back to the reality of battle, redheaded Ron Weasley protected the Boy Savior’s back and their group surged, unscathed toward the malevolent, red-eyed thing, standing center stone in the street, directing the Death Eaters in their frenzy to win. So great was the Dark Wizard’s enmity toward the traitor at his breast - Severus - that he paid no attention to Potter.
“Severus…. You have betrayed your kind… you have stabbed your brothers in the back. Stand alone and be held accountable for your actions.”
The sibilant, hissing voice was icy, and one skeletal finger pointed in Severus’ direction. A tingling sensation in his arm, negligible, if you didn’t know what it was, threatened to distract Severus’ attention from the shield. He ignored it.
The vicious, once-human effigy stood swathed in black, his red eyes narrowing as they focused on the betrayer of his inner circle, a minion he’d trusted, who’d practiced an effective deception for twenty-five years. Voldemort hissed and viciously grabbed Peter Pettigrew’s left arm. The portly, balding, nervous Death Eater was never far from his master’s side. With a deliberately malicious grin, the Dark Lord poked his bony finger into the center of the tattoo on Wormtail’s forearm. The sad little man screamed in pain. Voldemort grinned in vicious satisfaction, and then looked directly at his former Potions Master.
“This is for you, Severus. From one betrayer to another, the kiss of death.”
Red eyes stared in his direction; and Severus felt his Dark Mark begin to itch with the greater power being focused through the link between the Mark on his arm and Pettigrew’s. Severus began to breathe more rapidly, his heart to beat faster. The evil being he’d served, followed, and betrayed was focusing his ire upon him. For years Severus had strived to remain out of the harsh light of recognition by the Dark Lord, to fly beneath Voldemort’s searing glare. Surreptitious subterfuge had always been his specialty. Being the focus of Voldemort’s rage was uncomfortable, utterly panic inducing. Severus’ attention wavered from the shield, and then, she altered his reality. With her free hand she grabbed hold of his arm, creating skin-to-skin contact. Hermione’s heart overrode the erratic beating of his own, slowing down his rapid pulse, until his was again joined with her. He felt calmer, more focused and able to resume his attention to maintaining the gestalt shielding. He sent her his gratitude through the merge, and, felt the warmth of her reaction.
A cold scream of fury distracted Severus, and, once again, his eyes turned to the blood red glare of his former master. His breath caught in this throat, his pulse escalated as he realized the full breadth and scope of the phrase, ‘if looks could kill.’ The Dark Lord shimmered as a palpable mass of power gathered around him, the air eddying and swirling as the currents reacted to Voldemort’s power focus on the tall, lean figure of his traitorous Death Eater. Severus knew that Voldemort couldn’t allow him to live, to stand there and taunt him, to show other faithful Death Eaters that resistance could be successful.
Wand out, the former Tom Riddle gave up any pretense of paying attention to the battle surrounding him. He had a duplicitous traitor to swat. He pulled Pettigrew’s arm to his chest; the little man had collapsed at his feet, writhing and moaning in pain. Voldemort, his entire being focused on punishing Severus, stabbed his wand into the center of Pettigrew’s Dark Mark, piercing the skin and causing the man’s blood to drip freely onto the thirsty cobblestone street.
Severus heard a harsh, gasping sound and realized it was himself. He was terrified. His palms were slick with sweat as he gripped his wand tighter. He’d seen what Voldemort was capable of, and the idea that he was the focal point of the Dark Lord’s considerable power sent his heart rate skittering out of the dynamic rhythm of the shield merge. This was it.
He was going to die.
His focus shattered, the shield no longer provided a buffer between him and Voldemort’s curse. Severus screamed in agony as his left forearm blazed in a crucible of pain. He struggled to maintain his support of the shields surrounding Potter and their little group. He attempted to fend off the punishment meted out through the ineradicable link to his former master. He had no doubt that he’d reached the end. Severus dropped to his knees, losing his place in the merge, curling in upon himself, the searing, rending, agony in his forearm merely the point of origin for the burning of every nerve ending in his body. His muscles began to spasm as they responded to the stimulus of inflicted pain.
Sound, smell, vision all began to blur… to fade. Oblivion was calling him, narrowing his consciousness into the welcoming gray embrace, one he’d never wake from. He was so tired; he’d fought for so long, but he could no longer keep the fierce burning in his body at bay. Death would be his reward.
As if in a tunnel, he could hear Hermione’s frantic pleading as she shouted at him, “Fight it, Professor. Don’t let him win. He’s a parasite! Fight him!”
Dimly, he felt fingers threading through his hair, a small hand cupping his head, the chill of her skin a healing balm to the charred agony of his scalp. He mentally focused on the feel of her hand, keeping death from taking him. Anchored in time and space to the here and now by the touch of a hand. Severus attempted to slow his heart, to slow the racing blood in his veins. He felt himself leaning against something. A leg, a thigh. Hermione’s thigh. He could hear her chanting at him, “Don’t give up! Don’t die, Severus!” She was panting raggedly in her effort to maintain her focus in the shield surrounding them, and dividing her attention to help him.
It was her voice that called him back, that urged him to find the last reserves of his willpower, his strength. He couldn’t hear anything else. All extraneous stimuli faded into insignificance as the only thing in existence was his pain and her voice. Her voice calling him, refusing to let him go. His only reality narrowed to sound. The sound of Hermione Granger screaming his name. Somehow it was the most beautiful noise he’d ever heard, and the cascade of emotions that it initiated couldn’t be helped.
A burst of feeling threatened to swamp him. Perhaps these were his dying moments. Perhaps these were the wizarding world’s dying moments. If Potter didn’t succeed, Voldemort would win. Severus’ twenty-five years of suffering would be for nothing.
He couldn’t let that happen.
Damn it, the stupid girl needed to focus on keeping Potter safe so the little wanker could rid the world of the foul excrescence of a wizard who was deriving such pleasure from prolonging the agony in Severus’ abused body. Suddenly, he was furious with her. And he used his rage as a catalyst. Shutting out her screeching exhortations, and fighting back against the immeasurable pain, Severus Snape staggered to his feet – ignoring the fact that he practically crawled up the witch’s body to do so – although, for one brief moment he longed passionately and with every fibre of his being to latch onto her forever - he summoned every last ounce of free will and magical reserve he had, and gulping down air to focus, Severus Snape once again melded his shield with the two young witches.
“Protego!” his stentorian voice rang across the field, and the remaining power at his command was flooded into the shields protecting the small phalanx surrounding Harry Potter.
So effective was this additional surge of support that Voldemort’s link to the Traitor was abruptly severed, and it rocked the Dark Lord’s focus. So intent had he been in his quest to obliterate his betraying servant that Voldemort was completely adrift for one crucial, decisive moment.
That was all that was necessary. Bolstered by the support of his closest friends and one steadfast Slytherin, Harry Potter eradicated the former Tom Riddle in the middle of Diagon Alley, in one magnificent, incendiary ball of flames.
Severus never saw the final moments of the battle or the ‘Avada Kedavra’ that struck Ginny Weasley down. Inky blackness had finally, inevitably found him, and the cobblestones rushed up to meet his face as he fell, unconscious. The last sound to grace his ears was the anguished, heart wrenching cry of Hermione’s, “Professor!”
Jolting upright in his bed, covered with sweat from the fear and anxiety the dream had filled him with, Severus gasped and shuddered. Shakily, raking his long fingers through his black hair, he attempted to regulate his breathing. His heart was pounding, and his blood racing. He hadn’t dreamed about the final battle in years. What cruel twist of fate could’ve wished to visit it upon him now?
He laid back down on the bed, staring into the pitch black of his room, his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness surrounding him as he allowed the weight of his subconscious meanderings to wash over him.