From Spark to Flame

Chapter Eight: The Roar of Nemesis

In no mood to be stopped or questioned, Snape used Paidea's ring quickly. Following her instructions, he made himself invisible as soon as he found an unobserved position within the Muggle hospital's car park. His march through St. Mary's was direct. Forcing himself to stay calm, he located St. Michael's intensive care ward on the wall map and unerringly made his way through the maze of corridors.

Dodging doctors, orderlies, and visitors who came directly at the space his invisible self was occupying, he moved past the cluster of nurses by the ward sisters' desk. Their discussion of their upcoming summer holidays amidst the illness and pain around them seemed wildly out of place and set his teeth on edge.

The hot, sterilised air of the hospital was claustrophobic, and he could feel the beads of sweat breaking out upon his temple and the nape of his neck as he moved at a rapid pace. Looking into the ward rooms via windows and open doors, he worked his way swiftly to the quieter end of the corridor. Reaching out to yet another door, he pushed the white painted wood inwards and was immediately subjected to the intermittent sound of beeping.

Looking to his left, around the door, he stilled. Framed by her long black hair, his mother's bruised, bandaged face, almost as pale as the pillow she was lying on, came into view. Snape's stomach turned over as the dream washed through him again.

His eyes fell to her hands outside the covers. An IV drip snaked hideously from one to join the rise of wires that hooked her to the ghastly Muggle machines. Against the mint green weave coverlet on her bed, her fingers were clearly scraped and bruised.

Recalling the white hot feeling that had knifed through him time and again, he knew without seeing it the damage that lay beneath the covers -- the swathe of bandages covering the raft of stitches and the deeper injuries within her.

So that's what it felt like to be stabbed, an oddly detached voice said inside his mind while the rest of him remained rooted to the spot in horror. After a moment, the same voice reminded him rather forcibly to move. Telling him that -- invisible as he was -- the door was now standing open all by itself and even Muggles were bound to find that strange.

The heated air of the hospital and his fear conspired to make his mouth feel like a desert. Perhaps it was the memory of the dream, or maybe it was just a part of him didn't want this to be true, but everything felt surreal to him as he stepped inside. The door swung back to click shut behind him, cutting out all noise but the beeping machines and his mother's painfully shallow breathing. His hands clenched by his sides as he hesitantly made his way to her bedside, the sound of the heart monitor an odd counterpoint to his footsteps.

The crown of her head was padded and wrapped, and he remembered the flashes of light, the disorientation, and the nausea as his...her...head had been struck and struck again, smashed against...or with...something...or... Why? Why do this to her? She had nothing. Had done nothing!

"Appare," he murmured to himself, ending the spell cast by Paidea's ring on his hand. The same hand that reached for and closed gently around his mother's. "Mother?" he whispered. "Mam?"

A soft pained groan was his only answer.

"Mam?" He cupped her hand gently with his own. "Mam, it's me. It's Severus; can you hear me?"

After what seemed a lifetime to the teenager, the woman's dark eyes slowly opened, blinking as they tried blearily to focus, her mouth trying to work though no sound escaped. Her breath was laboured as she swallowed, trying to speak...to see her son. Her hand squeezed his weakly as her eyes focused on his face. "Sev...Severus..." she gasped, her voice soft and shuddering.

Leaning over her, he bent closer so she could see him more easily, a corner of his mouth quirking up. "Aye Mam...alreit?" he murmured softly, unconscious of his sliding into the language of his extreme youth.

Her lips grimaced as she tried to smile, a cough erupting as she tried to breathe. "My boy..." she gasped, reaching up a little blindly to touch his cheek, the surgical tape holding her IV in place barely standing out against her nearly white skin. "How...how I...missed you..."

"I'm fair capped to see thee, 'n all." He moved his cheek against her touch. "Are y'alreit, Mam? Would yeh like water?" She did not respond either way, causing him to frown. "Mam...wha' 'appened, Mam? Who did this t' yeh?"

If she heard him, it did not show, her eyes simply fixing on his face like an anchor as she stroked his cheek. "My son...so grown up..." Her soft breathy voice was filled with a mother's love. "I'm...so...proud of you..." She nodded slowly, a serenity filling her eyes and smile. "I...love you..."

His throat closed, growing tight with emotion. "I love thi' too, Mam..." Turning his head, he kissed her hand, trying to push away what his mind was telling him, what was reflected in her eyes. He should have brought his potions, a voice screamed at him inside his mind. Stupid fool, you could have brought something...found something...to help her! Something these dim-witted, knife happy Muggle doctors might have missed! Or...or...you could have called St Mungo's asked them to transfer her there...brought a healer. Moron! Why didn't you bring a healer?

He wanted to reach up and rip off his jacket, it was so hellishly hot; why was it so hot? His hand clutched hers tighter as the fear swelled inside him. "Mam...Mam..." He called her attention to him urgently. "When yeh are feelin' better laike, ah'll teek yeh wi' me away oot ah here." He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, calm his voice, his words. But while his accent receded, the serenity didn't last long.

"You'd...like it where I am. It's sunny with clean fresh air. By the sea. Da said you'd wanted to get away, go on a holiday? You can come with us," he babbled for the first and only time in his life. "You and Da both...there...that's how much I want you to come. I don't even mind if he's along." He tried to smirk and failed. "You'll like it, you will. And you'll like Paidea. I think you'll like her a lot. You can talk and relax, and it'll be good for you. Uncle Steven will help. But you must get better first."

His heart clenched as she continued to gaze at him, seemingly unable to hear him or comprehend his words.

"A great wizard...always knew...I love you...Severus..." She coughed, her breath coming in great pained gasps.

"No," he moaned, the sound bubbling up from deep within him as he tried to deny what he felt was coming, what was inevitable and far too soon. "Mam..."

Her eyes fixed on his, blood appearing on her lips as it was expelled from her lungs. "I love...you..." Her tranquil eyes glazed over, she gave a deep shuddering breath, and her hand slipped from his cheek to fall limply to the blanket as the heart monitor squealed.

"Mam..." His dark eyes widened. "Mam!" Grasping her fallen hand, he raised it from the bed, clutching at it reflexively as he moved closer to her, staring into her fixed, lifeless eyes. "No, Mam...don't! Don't Mam...don't y' be goin' on me!" he ordered before desperation won out. "Please Mam...don't y' leave me! Mam!" His voice grew louder, more insistent. "Don't leave me aloon, Mam...not now...ah need thee...please Mam," he begged.

He couldn't lose her -- the one person in all the world he trusted absolutely, the only one he knew loved him completely -- he couldn't lose her. She couldn't be gone. Reaching out, he shook her gently, trying to wake her like the child part of him still was, his entire being anguished as he whispered, "Mam, please."

His eyes clouded with tears as she didn't respond, and it finally began to permeate that she wouldn't respond ever again. He'd never hear her rich, soothing voice or feel the protective warmth of her arms again, save in his dreams. Bowing his head, resting it on her chest, he lost himself to his sorrow, his body heaving with the force of the first of his sobs.

Only the sound of the crash cart being scraped against the wall outside saved him from being caught that way, loud, intrusive voices in the hallway jolting him upwards. His hand remained clutching his mother's, not wanting to let go, not wanting to leave her. He hesitated for a moment. Perhaps they could still save her? Perhaps they could bring her back?

"Cela," he whispered, releasing her hand.

If the first of the emergency team bursting in through the door caught a flicker of a dark figure by their patient's bed before it disappeared, they said nothing as they got to work.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Neither Dermot 'Motty' Brennan nor Matthew 'Sliver' Perkins had led what one might call benevolent or philanthropic lives. If their lives could be described as anything, it would be violent, devious, callous, and somewhat fortuitous. Fortuitous, in that they still had them.

At aged fourteen and a giant in the making, Motty beat up three boys who had failed to give in to his bullying and extortion, sending them all to the hospital. Contrary to the stereotypes about big, hulking boys, Motty was sharp -- sharp as they came. Facing expulsion from school and several years in remand, he cleverly pulled off a coup. Playing upon the good-hearted gullibility of the school headmaster and the stereotype of the drunken Irish, he had produced a sob story worthy of an Oscar.

This manipulation of an overzealous and bigoted system had ultimately succeeded in his having his unfortunate, teetotal, immigrant father from Cork banged up for drunken abuse that had never happened. Exonerating Motty from blame, the boy had merely been subjected to nothing more than six months of counselling, most of which he'd sat mutely through until it was over.

There had been one other highly useful side-effect to this masterly stroke of Motty's. With his father banged up, it had left the overgrown, muscular teenager free to assume his reign of terror at home. Exploiting and ill-treating his mother and two younger sisters, he had taken anything he wanted and had wrought retribution on anyone who defied him.

His bullying, cruel, scheming ways almost inevitably led him into the path of the boy who would become his best mate -- 'Sliver' Perkins.

The same age as Motty, tall, and lithe with a nose as thin as his name, Sliver was nicknamed for the unwholesome fascination he had had from a very young age with knives. The sharper, sleeker, and more capable of slicing cleanly they were, the better he liked them. And by the time he was eighteen, his collection of 'shivs' was without parallel in the northeast of England...his raging hot temper and his superstitious nature not far behind. The two boys had clashed continuously over territory around the school, but after one particularly bloody and filthy fight, they managed to develop a mutual respect for one another and an unlikely friendship had evolved.

Not long after, at age sixteen, Motty dropped out of school, and he and Sliver spent their time swiping what they could and fast-tracking themselves into a life of crime.

After five years, when Motty was nineteen, his father was released. In turn, Fergus Brennan freed his wife and daughters by obtaining a gun from a friend and throwing his son out. Not caring in the slightest about this change in events, Motty simply moved in with Sliver and his mate's seventeen year old girlfriend Sally and their baby. Apart from having to put up with the full extent of Sliver's superstitions -- wood-knocking, salt-throwing, ward-hanging bollox -- Motty quite enjoyed it.

It wasn't as if he cared that the arrangement was hardly wholesome. Sally was not only Sliver's girlfriend but also one of his main sources of income. 'Gentleman callers' were regularly taken upstairs while the lads watched Jimmy Armfield's Leeds F.C. hack the living daylights out of the other football teams on the telly below.

While obviously Sliver would've preferred to keep his mot to himself, the use of Sally was necessary to his mind. After all, someone had to feed their baby and pay for the drug habits both men had first developed at aged seventeen while in the employ of a local crime lord, Norman Lawrence.

Twenty-one, cut loose from their boss's largesse, and lucky to escape with nothing more than a bad beating for skimming profits from their drug dealing, the boys now had to learn to make their own way again. Something made more imperative when Sally had, inconsiderately, become pregnant again.

It was doubtful the baby was Sliver's, but then he wasn't even sure about 'their son' and he didn't really care one way or another for there were more important considerations. Firstly, it was another mouth to feed, and more importantly, it meant that Sally's appeal was pretty much nil to her regulars.

Ironically, it was this pregnancy that had provided the boys with the most lucrative form of self employment they'd ever had.

Shortly after Sally's announcement and in the early onset of drug withdrawal, Sliver had pulled his favourite blade on her. Pressing it to her belly, he had threatened to cut the baby from her womb if she didn't get rid of it and get him money for his fix. He'd almost done it, too, when Sally, normally docile to the point of being a doormat, was suddenly emboldened by a surge of protectiveness towards her child and back-cheeked him.

His drug craving fierce and his temper enraged, Sliver had chased her upstairs, roaring, only for Motty, who had a dangerous soft spot for Sally, to stop him by using his considerable brute force to drag him from the house. Outside, Motty had convinced him that if he wanted to slice someone open for money, he should pick a more productive target.

And so they moved into a new phase of their careers.

Their first 'mark' had been a drunk. Rolling out of the pub at one in the morning, the poor man had unwisely decided to take a shortcut home through the alleyways, the majority of his week's pay in his pocket. A quick blow to the head and it was easy money.

Other 'payday marks' followed. The area was depressed economically, but there was no shortage of men heading straight from the factories to the pubs on Thursdays and Fridays, their plan always the same -- get a feed of drink into you, feel like a king for a night before the wife took the remainder for the housekeeping and the kids. It took no real brains to pick one or two off of an evening. Most of the time, the marks never saw what hit them, thanks to Motty's strength doing the business.

Those who were a little quicker on their feet or not quite as drunk as they appeared, however, generally regretted any resistance they put up. Masked by Leeds F.C. scarves, the young men, quick-witted and aware of all the twists and turns of the back streets, often enjoyed the hunt, and Sliver took a great deal pleasure in finding ways to make their marks repent any such attempted escape. Their marks' screams as their flesh was sliced didn't often make their way to other human ears, what with an oily rag stuffed down their throat.

In celebration, and to establish alibis, each evening's successful mark was followed by a trip to Motty and Sliver's former boss's club.

A business man to the end, Norman had held no grudges in the aftermath of exerting his authority. He was happy to receive his former employees as customers now they had money to spend. An evening in the backroom of the club was spent shooting up and partaking of the house girls if the boys felt up to it. This was followed by a satisfied wander home in the wee hours of the morning, a week or two's supplies and cash in their pockets.

That hadn't been the case last night, however. Last night, things had gotten messy.

The boys had been a little remiss in their work as of late, and had stayed at home smoking pot and doing smack. Before they'd known it, their money and, more importantly, their drug supply had been used up, and Sliver was feeling the pain rather keenly. It wasn't pay night, but something had to be done. After all, Norman wasn't in the habit of giving credit.

So they had headed out on the off chance of catching someone foolhardy or unfortunate enough to choose to take the back ways home.

Eileen Snape had worked a double shift that day, happily, eagerly even. Tobias had finally managed to land himself a part-time job working in an engineering shop of one of the factories. If he held it down and kept his drinking under control, there was the possibility of the hours being extended and even permanency. They had even begun to talk of taking a holiday if they could save enough, their first since Severus had been born.

Exhausted and dreaming of some time by the sea, she had unthinkingly taken her usual way home. A way which was safe enough at five-thirty in the evening, but not at eleven thirty-five, and certainly not when the likes of Perkins and Brennan were on the prowl.

Normally, Sliver played the decoy, the person who would step out of the shadows and distract the person long enough for Motty to grab them and neatly bash them over the head. Last night, however, to Motty's shock, neither their mark nor Sliver had reacted the way he would've expected them to.

As soon as the woman had frozen at seeing the sudden appearance of Sliver with his knife drawn, she had reached into her coat for...a stick of wood. That hadn't fazed Motty at all; in fact he had been on the verge of laughing. But to Motty's surprise, his normally cool partner had reacted as if the woman had pulled a live grenade from her pocket.

Sliver's knife flashed, and the woman cried out as the glinting blade slashed viciously across her wrist. The stick in her hand fell to the ground, while Sliver yelled in what sounded to his friend like panic.

Motty sprang forward to grab the wounded woman and cover her mouth with one of his meaty hands. Turning his head, he fully intended to let his friend have it for reacting so badly to something as trivial as a stick. But as he did, he heard the woman gasping incomprehensible words -- words that sounded like the language the priests used in Mass when his mother used to bring him as a boy.

The use of a stick and some Latin was nothing more than bizarre to him, but over the Leeds scarf wrapped around Sliver's mouth he could see his friend's eyes. And they were terrified. Before Motty could say or do anything, the knife flashed again in the moonlight. The muffled words trapped beneath Motty's fingers descended into a feminine grunt, the woman's body stiffening as the blade entered her stomach.

Sliver screamed at her to shut up as the knife struck again and again. Fearful of his friend's near shrieks alerting the neighbourhood, Motty, stunned until now, finally reacted.

In an effort to shut them both up, he pulled her away from Sliver and smashed her head into the wall, hoping to knock her unconscious. But as a light or two came on in the upstairs windows beyond the back entrances to the houses in the rain slicked alleyway, Motty, too, panicked. When she didn't slump down immediately, her hands scrabbling at the walls, Motty struck again and again, until finally, bloody and battered, she went down.

They never took her money in the end. Never even checked for any. Stumbling and slipping on the wet cobbles, they just ran for the safety of the club, hoping Norman's alibi and the fact that she hadn't been robbed would divert suspicion from them. It was only a half hour later, after Sliver had calmed and had cleaned his knife, hands, and jacket sleeve of the woman's blood spatters, that Motty shoved him up against the bathroom wall. Roaring at his friend, the bigger man demanded to know what the hell had gotten into him.

He could hardly believe the stream of gibberish that had come from Sliver's mouth. Something about the stories his mother had told him about a strange reclusive family that lived in Spinner's End -- a family with an odd, dark haired, pale woman and sour faced child with cold black eyes.

Motty gaped when the word 'witches' dropped from his friend's lips. 'Magic,' 'evil'...'unnatural,' and 'wand' followed as he tried to explain his fear before Motty knocked him flat in disgust at the superstitious drivel that had turned them from muggers into probable murderers.

After that, Sliver laid low in the club the rest of the night, while Motty stormed off to work off his anger on one of the girls. They slunk home the following morning, and during the course of the day, it was confirmed to them via local news that murderers were what they'd become.

Agitated and unable to sit still, they decided to act as normally as they could. Leaving a curious Sally behind, they made their way to their local pub, staying as cool and sociable, as possible, though all talk around them was of the murderous attack. It emerged that many of those there had known Eileen Snape either by reputation or from working with her in the factory. And in the aftermath of her death, everyone was agreed that no one deserved such a fate, no matter how 'odd' she might have been.

The police had been in, asking questions as they did the rounds of all the pubs and clubs in the area, searching for witnesses. Who had been here? Who hadn't? With no robbery and no sexual assault, there was talk of an affair gone wrong, or a nutter on the loose. The boys relaxed a little. A nutter. That was good. And the police could ask all they liked, Norman would never turn them in. At least, not unless the police made his life enough of a hell so that he'd fess up to harbouring criminals, which was doubtful, considering Norman had a fair few of the cops in his back pocket.

They considered making their way back to Norman's club but thought better of it. Staying put and having a few bevvies amongst the locals was a far better idea, Motty thought. In fact, Motty took Sliver's breath away with his audacity as he supped on his pint, while talking over not only this murder but other murders in the past where bodies had turned up on the moors. Motty had a reputation for violence, and in some perverse way, it created a modicum of respect for his opinions in this forum. People listened and took heed while he created false links in their minds. He was calm and satisfied when he later switched topics, moving on to football and whether Leeds stood an earthly chance of winning the league next year.

When closing hour came that night, the boys, far more sober than they would normally have been, waited. When everyone else had cleared off, they made their way homewards on the same dark, back streets where they had attacked Eileen. Growing more confident, Motty was determined that they keep to their same routes and routines.

Sliver, however, wasn't in total agreement.

"We shouldn't a gan this way, Motty," he grumbled, his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets and shoulders hunched as he glanced about him uncomfortably.

"Ah hod yer mouth, y' daft gawp 'ead. Wha' are y' afeared of?" Motty growled. "Or is it ghosts too that makes yer crap yer pants laike a bairn?"

"Shurrup." Silver hunched lower, his pale blue eyes darting into the shadows. "She were a witch ah'm tellin' yeh!"

"Aye a witch...appen Sally is too...aye 'n me 'n all!" Motty scoffed.

"Yeh don' know!" the slighter man barked. "Me mam...she sez she saw stuff laike. Afore, when she were livin' anenst Spinner's End."

Motty was growing irritated, sick and tired of his friend's excuses for what were obviously drug related reasons for his overreacting. Reaching out, he shoved him casually, his brute strength driving Sliver against the wall. "Appen she saw 'em flyin' aboot on their besoms, did she?" he sneered, not remotely interested in hearing what Sliver's mother had seen when she lived alongside the Snapes' street.

Sliver flared, intending to answer him back, but felt a shiver run down his back as he was left alone, Motty marching on down the alleyway. Looking about him in the dark, he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Hurrying on after his friend, he caught up to him quickly.

"Motty."

"Wha'?"

"Ah want to go back on t' gate," Sliver muttered, eying the turnoff coming up in the alleyway that led back to the main street. The lure of the brighter lights of the street and the passing traffic was strong. He swallowed as he gazed into the dark shadows ahead.

"Aye 'n ah want t' ride Angela Rippon off TV, but tha's nut gonnae 'appen noo, is it?" Motty retorted, not about to give Sliver his way.

"Ah c'mon, Motty, it'll be better."

"Hod yer blather ah told ye!" The big man glared at him. "Ah don' know why I bide you. Yer soft in the 'ead, y' are. Soft 'n sackless!"

Something crashed in the alleyway behind them as they passed the turnoff to the street and Sliver spun around, hand on his knife. A cat yowled mournfully, no doubt lamenting some rat that had got away as it had chased it through the rubbish bins, knocking them over as they went.

"There's nowt there," Sliver muttered to himself, his eyes straying into the dark from which they emerged. "Nowt..."

"Ger a shift on, Sliver!" Motty snarled at him from up ahead.

Turning, Sliver realised his large friend had left him well behind again. Gazing longingly back at the turn to the main street, but unwilling to lose more face, he headed after Motty.

His skin was crawling now as followed after his friend, trying to catch up with Motty's longer strides. He felt like there was something behind him in the dark. Something watching him from the shadows. Something blending...silent in the gloom where the weak light from the houses failed to illuminate the red brick, cobbled alley. Sliver's hold on the comforting feel of his knife tightened as he sped up. "Motty, hold up wi' yeh!" he called after him. Keeping his eyes on the silhouette of the big man ahead of him as he hurried after him, Sliver muttered an incantation his late mother had told him to ward off the evil eye. The black evil eyes that had floated in front of him ever since he'd stepped in front of Eileen Snape.

"Kaynahorah," he muttered, and spat on the ground. Why was Motty moving so fast?

"Kaynahorah." He spat a second time. Didn't the great lummox hear him? He broke into a trot.

"Kaynahorah!" He finished the incantation with the third and final spit, breaking into a run and after three steps, crashed right into the back of his friend who had come to a dead halt in the middle of the alleyway. "Y' great apeth!" Sliver swore, moving around him and rubbing his thin nose ruefully. "First yer gan like the hammers of hell his self, 'n now you..." He stopped as he gazed up at Motty's face, his expression as rigid as if he'd been stuck in the deep freeze down at Sainsbury's.

"Motty?" He swallowed, reaching up to touch his mate's arm, only to stop as the corner of his eye caught something moving in the dark.

All of a sudden, all Sliver Perkins could hear was the sound of his own breathing and the pounding of his heart in his ears. The effort to swallow seemed massive, his throat feeling like it had closed over completely. Fear coursed through every vein in his body.

His breath shuddering from his lungs, he turned his head, and then there came a whimper. It was so pathetically scared and childlike, it took him a moment to realise it was his own, the sight of those deep, black eyes gradually emerging from the shadows dragging the sound from him.

Ebony eyes, coal pit deep and harder, far harder than they had been before, the gaze of the young man in front of him was penetrating beyond belief.

It's not her; she hasn't come back, a part of Sliver cried in relief. But it was a muted, short-lived reprieve. Those eyes were unmistakable...as was the short shaft of wood held in their owner's hand.

He was too terrified now to move. Too terrified to even make another sound as he saw the boy's lips move, and felt something subtly moving inside him, inside his mind. All he could do was stiffen as, unbidden, the memories of the attack on Eileen flooded back, replaying themselves down to the last detail.

And then he was facing those eyes again, only there was a flicker in them now. A light, furiously bright, but icy and contained. "Thank you," the boy whispered to him in the manner of one who had been given what he needed.

"Who...?" Sliver croaked, unconsciously moving against the still form of Motty.

"You know." Silken words cut him off, louder now, the voice far older in timbre than a boy that age had any right to have. "Just as you think you know what is going to happen next, don't you, Sliver?" He took a step forward, those eyes filling more of Sliver's narrowing world. "But you don't know. You have no conception at all of what I'm going to do to you."

Move closer, one desperate part of Sliver called out silently to the Snape boy, his hand still on his switchblade in his pocket. Just move a little closer.

The boy obliged.

Sliver's hand moved, withdrawing the switchblade and flicking the button that sent the blade outwards with an audible, deadly click. He lunged to strike in one fluid upward motion, right on course for the heart. It was the cleanest, fastest strike he had ever attempted. And it wasn't remotely enough.

The words "Petrificus Totalus" were uttered almost dismissively, and Sliver could only watch his hand hover six inches from the Snape boy's chest, his arm frozen in place, just like the rest of him. Just like Motty.

The boy regarded him, his face awash with complete indifference to his efforts, and his expression barely changed as he looked downwards at the blade that faced him. "This is it, isn't it. This is what you used?" Sliver watched as the boy pried his fingers open with surprising gentility, turning Sliver's hand until the switchblade lay in his outstretched palm. "The knife you used to kill my mother."

"Wingardium Leviosa," the boy murmured quietly and the knife floated upwards untouched by him. Guided by the wand in his hand, it turned, blade point forward, to hover between Sliver's eyes. "You feared her; I saw that in your mind. That's why you hurt her...ripped the life from her. Just because you thought she was a witch. You were right, of course. She was. But you were wrong to fear her. She never would've hurt you. No matter how pig ignorant and backwards you were." The words coming at the captive man grew harder and more pointed. As if in response to that increase in sharpness, the blade floated nearer and Sliver could feel the cold steel tip press against his skin. "You. You're the reason we have to stay hidden. Why we have to lurk in a protected world unable to be what we are openly and proudly. Why we have to fear you. Why so many of us hate you."

If he had been able, Sliver would've flinched, but all he could do was silently bear the prick of pain as the knife pierced his skin in tandem with the growing venom in the boy's voice. The thug felt a warm trickle down the bridge of his razor sharp nose and knew before it ever touched his lips that it was blood.

"She gave up everything to live in your pathetic Muggle world," the boy hissed in his ear as he walked around him. "Her family, her good name...and all Muggles ever did for her in return was use her up. Break her heart, break her will, and now her body." The boy's eyes moved back into view as he returned to stand in front of Sliver. "Now I will break you.

"Finite Incantatem!" he spat, his wand arm shooting out towards Motty, who lurched forward as motion flooded his body again. Having been aware of everything had been said, Motty spun quickly, his eyes fixing onto Sliver and taking in the floating knife pressed to his friend's forehead.

The big man's mind tried not to dwell on it, on how what he was witnessing could possibly be. Instead, he snarled, focusing on the threat, and turned his eyes to the slender boy that he could snap like a twig. "Yeh freak..." he growled. "Ah'll shoo yeh who'll break who!"

Sliver watched as Motty lunged at the boy, feverishly praying for his friend to connect, to grab the scary little bugger by the throat and choke the life out of him. But the boy spun at the last minute, a lithe, ridiculously graceful movement that spoke of years of honing such tactics of evasion. By the time the dark haired teen came about, his wand had risen up again, his face disconcertingly serene. "Imperio."

In front of Sliver, Motty stilled again, but not as before. Instead, he merely rose up, chest rising and falling smoothly, his snarl slipping away to be replaced by an expression of utter blankness. Sliver groaned deep inside, his fear increasing as he saw the look on the boy's face as he returned to examine his work. There was a hint of hesitation on the Snape boy's face as he stared up at Motty. Sliver knew that look, had seen that look.

It was the look of someone who had just crossed a line and was considering his next step.

The terror was suffocating the thug from the inside out as he begged and pleaded with the universe to make the boy recant. To step back from what he was doing. For Sliver knew that if someone with his power had broken a boundary, then what was to follow could only be...

The wand moved.

Motty moved.

With unrecognising eyes, Motty Brennan turned to face his friend, a huge hand rising to grasp the floating knife still pricking Sliver's skin.

There was nothing Sliver could do but scream inside as the blade sliced a bone deep line along his forehead above his eyebrows. And then Motty, carefully, began to carve letters in his skin.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Snape's form was a black shadow framed against the inferno behind him as he walked away from the burning club. Far in the distance, the sound of fire engines' sirens joined the screams and shouts of the men and women on the streets. Men and women who could only watch the raging blaze that had been their place of work or recreation.

The teen's mouth was a thin, hard line, his shaded eyes skewering the world around him as he silently dared it to approach him, stop him, question him over his actions.

Norman Lawrence would never pimp another woman, sell another drug, or harbour another murderer again. His blackened, dead body would be found seated in his cracked leather chair in the ruins of his back office. His safe open, the charred remains of the money he had accumulated ruining people's lives would be discovered scattered like confetti around him.

The Muggles would find some way to explain it. They would figure out Norman was dead before the flames or smoke could have done it. They'd attribute his death to a stroke or a heart attack. Say he convulsed, or had a fit, somehow accidentally starting the fire. They'd have to, because they would certainly never accept it when the autopsy revealed that there was absolutely nothing wrong with Norman when he died. They would come out with something...anything...to fit their limited view of the world.

The rictus on his face would be ascribed to a heart attack or the force of the fire retracting his muscles. Not to fear, or the force of the Killing Curse as it had struck him full on -- the final piece in Snape's work this night.

He had used every single one of the Unforgivable Curses now.

He could spend his life in Azkaban. Could be given to the Dementors. But he didn't care. Not at all. The hatred coiled inside him like a hissing, spitting snake smothering all fears. All that mattered was that he'd paid them back, avenged his mother, and he'd do it again without a second thought.

Norman had been the lucky one, though he'd never known precisely why he'd died. But that was apt as according to Sliver's thoughts, Norman had never known precisely who the men he harboured in his club had killed.

His quick, clean death had been more than he deserved, but the dank, squalid pit that Norman had inhabited had been too full of Muggles to risk more. So he'd escaped the fate of Motty and Sliver.

He'd been fortunate to find those two...or perhaps, as his Divination teacher would have had it, it had been fate.

After watching the doctors fail to revive his mother, he'd turned and walked, still invisible, from the room. Trembling, he'd curled up in an out of the way corner at the end of the corridor. His head on his knees, he'd just sat there trying to cope, trying not to cry, until the arrival of two more Muggles. Wearing Macintoshes and with a vaguely weary air, the two men were stopped as they headed for his mother's room.

Police detectives.

On hearing she was dead, they had turned and walked back down the corridor, and he'd risen and followed after them, listening to them as they walked to the canteen and fetched themselves some swill-like tea. They spoke quietly of names, of possible suspects, thrown them out and more often than not, crossed them off in the same breath. But he'd clung to them, taken them all in. Something solid, something practical to focus on in a world suddenly turned on its head.

His aptitude as an Occlumens was exemplary, he knew, but he was a passing fair Legilimens. And certainly more than capable enough to get what he needed from a Muggle. An encounter with one of the detectives alone in the hospital bathroom before he left was all that was required. Extracting the information about where he could find some of the names mentioned, Snape had Obliviated the man's memory and moved out onto the streets to begin his hunt.

That pattern was repeated over and over as he moved from name to name -- Apparate, find, isolate, investigate, modify their memory. Paidea's ring and his wand were all he needed to safely track and find the varying men the police had spoken of. Until finally, he'd stumbled across the quarry he was after, breathtakingly close to the scene of the crime.

His lip curled into a sneer as police cars raced past him. He wondered what the police would make of the two muggers when they found them. What 'Muggle rationality' they would apply for the condition of the two young men and why no one had heard them during the night.

Would a bad trip or overdose be used to explain it all?

Would it be enough to explain the slack-jawed, horror-filled stares, and the tangled tortured mess that was all that remained of their minds? Enough to give a reason for the agonised curl of their limbs as they lay there on the cobbles, their muscles spasmed iron tight from the prolonged application of the Cruciatus Curse?

And what of the words they had carved deeply into each other's flesh? Words that would brand them forever, tell anyone who came across them what they were.

Scum.

Filth.

Muggle scum. Muggle filth.

He hoped they lived until ninety, prisoners in the memory of what he had done to them and made them do to each other. Unable to hear anything, see anything, feel anything but that forever, their own private hell before death took them to the fiery pits of the real one. He pulled his jacket tight against the chill of the night, dawn just around the corner.

For it would be a cold day in that hell before he'd ever pity them.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Brecon Beacons, Wales

The sound of the lorries filled the air between the trees, smoke belching from their exhaust stacks, as they left the compound on this clear, star-filled night. The worker crews had long since gone for the day, talking cheerfully amongst themselves, their minds on their dinners, the football match that would be broadcast later that night on the television, or making plans to meet up with their mates at the pub.

The gate that usually clanged shut behind the nightly lorries as they drove off down the dirt road failed this time to do so.

Not that anyone noticed.

No more than they'd noticed the dark brown shape that had been sitting for hours amidst the branches of one of the many trees surrounding the half-moon shaped compound.

The silence now was broken only by the light boot tread of the cloaked figure, hood over his head, his covert path leading him to the rock face opposite the corrugated steel shed and the just too perfect log cabin.

Pausing beside the shed, he scanned the compound quickly, his senses alert to any potential danger. Ascertaining that all was quiet on this Welsh summer night, he returned his attention to the now quite evident gaping maw in the cliff face. Something he'd only seen just enough of from his vantage point in the trees to even know that it existed.

A cave.

A cave into which two men had slipped last night and, moments after the lorries had pulled out, had disappeared into again tonight. And they were not just any men, but the supervisors. Left alone after seeing their crews off, they had made their way to the cave and entered, emerging only minutes before their crews returned the next morning. Now, unless that was the most unlikely hotel in history, or those men were conducting a particularly odd and uncomfortable affair, that opening was his goal.

In there lay all the answers to his questions -- some mission related, some deeply personal.

Wand in hand, his mouth set in a grim line, and his green eyes darting around one last time, Steven Prince set his shoulders and took the last ten steps into the cave and the point of no return.