Unplottable

2 - Snape

There should be a law against any man having to face two ordeals a day, Snape contemplated as he walked up the path to the large, fake Tudor mansion. One ordeal per day - fine. Two or three ordeals might be a trifle too much even for the brave. He sighed, fanning himself in a feeble attempt to fend off the summery warmth. Of course, he could have breached his routine by putting off one of the two tasks scheduled for this day: Both were inherently urgent, but virtually unachievable and thus maybe not that urgent. It had been mostly his own decision to attempt both on the same day, perhaps hoping that one pain might drive off the other, he reminded himself. While he climbed up the steps to the front door, he cursed Dumbledore under his breath. Damn the wizard; he had burdened Snape with both of these ordeals. The second one, Snape conceded, was necessary; the first one was not, he believed: Dumbledore had forced Snape to go and visit his mother.

"Severus, I've received yet another owl from Lady Snape," the headmaster had said, repeatedly.

"Maybe you should start keeping them - stock up on the school owlery," was Snape's standard reply to this announcement.

"Severus, she's old. She's lonely, and you are her only son."

"Albus, I haven't talked to her in fifteen years!" Snape only wished the old headmaster would keep his hands out of Snape's affairs.

"No, indeed, you haven't. Your father has died, and you did not go to his funeral, and you haven't gone to see your mother," Dumbledore had nagged.

"The last time I saw them, they both said they wished the Death Eaters had tortured me to death before I could turn on my master," Snape liked to remind Dumbledore. This story usually came in handy in such discussions. It meant that Dumbledore let him have the last word, or had consented to let him, until things had changed.

Now Dumbledore was ill, resting a lot, or if he wasn't, looking like he should. Snape often came to his private quarters to read the Daily Prophet to him. At least once a day he asked the headmaster if there was anything he could do for him, desperately hoping that Dumbledore would recover soon.

"Yes, you can," the ancient wizard had answered firmly this morning. "Relieve me from your mother's owls. Go and see her."

"But, Albus...." This was blackmail, it certainly was.

The headmaster had fixed him with his stare. His body might be weakened, but his mind wasn't; neither was his spirit, or his willpower.

"If one of my children was still alive, if only one would come to see me now at my sickbed, it would mean the world to me."

Snape did not reply. Dumbledore never talked about his children; probably most people did not even know what had happened on that horrible night almost twenty years ago.

Dumbledore held his gaze; with a voice that would have cut through stone, he added: "Indeed, if my son came to see me, if he came right to my bedstead in his hood and cloak, I would be overjoyed to see him. I might even forgive him if he asked for it, because everything is better than this - silence."

"Alright, I will go and see my mother," Snape replied, just to cut the headmaster short. This conversation was truly unbearable.

"Go today, then," Dumbledore had urged him.

Briefly, Snape had wondered if he should remind the headmaster of his afternoon task, should tell him that he'd rather not undertake both on a single day, but had decided against it. After all, it was the perfect excuse not to stay for tea. So, pliable as he was, Snape had permitted Dumbledore to send an owl ahead of him so his mother could prepare for him whatever she thought fitting, or rather, have her house-elves prepare it. Now that he stood on the doorsteps of the Snape mansion, he would have to bear the consequences of his pliability. He rang the bell.

A house-elf opened the door and ushered Snape towards the upper 'drawing room.' While ascending the wide, carpeted marble staircase, Snape looked around. Nothing had changed in the house since he last had been there fifteen years ago. All the heavy, velvet brocade curtains, all the too-baroque ornaments, all the oil paintings in their ornate gilt frames, mute because the ancestors they displayed were inventions of the artist, hung or stood in their place as he remembered them. Only the oversized portrait looking down on him from the top of the stairs, his tall, black-haired and hook-nosed father, was able to greet him with the murmured word 'traitor.' Snape felt bile rise up in his throat; he fought down the feeling of having travelled back in time to that distant day when he had tried to convince his parents to give up their loyalty to Lord Voldemort.

"Please enter, Sir," the house-elf said to Snape and opened the door of the drawing room for him. Snape reminded himself that he wasn't angry at his mother, that he came here not for his own sake, but to achieve a non-committal and superficial reconciliation that might mollify Dumbledore.

"Good morning, Lady Snape," he said to the fragile witch in the antique brocade armchair. He had been required to call her 'Lady Snape' since he was physically able to utter such words, and saw no reason to call her otherwise now.

"Good morning, Severus," the witch replied with a slight tremble in her voice. She rose from her seat and walked towards him to greet him. Apparently, she found neither of the tasks easy. Snape wondered idly if he should be touched by her effort.

"I am pleased to see you are so well," he said formally, taking in her bent back, her shrunken frame, her wrinkled face and her thinning white hair. His mother had born him aged thirty-four after heavy intake of pro-conception potions, he knew, but had never thought of her as old. He could well remember her towering over him, powerful and demanding. Now she looked tiny and at least as old as Dumbledore, which she wasn't, of course.

"I am pleased that you could be persuaded to visit me," she returned with a brittle little laugh in her voice.

Like a house-elf, he took her arm and helped her back into her chair. She scowled at him, or maybe only at her own weakness. He had mentally armed himself for this visit, had thought well about what he would say to her. The frailty that had come with her old age made things a little easier for him; she could and would employ emotional blackmailing to get him under her thumb again, but he in turn could humiliate her by kindly assisting her.

"I was sorry to hear about your husband," he said without a trace of awkwardness.

"Your father died peacefully, in full possession of his spirit, and without pain," she said as kindly, reminding him, surely not without intending so, of the last words Snape had exchanged with his father. Sir 'bought title' Snape had expressed his hopes that the last remaining Death Eaters might catch up with his son and cut him into pieces while alive. Snape junior, in return, had returned that he wished his father should have little time to enjoy the comfort he had acquired with blood money, that he should suffer from dementia, an assortment of painful diseases and regrets in his impending old age.

"I regret that I couldn't be here for the funeral," he said dryly.

"You were too busy, I know. I do hope you received my owls?"

He nodded absently; indeed he had. About three months ago, he had received a total of thirteen owls, six of them Howlers - as if he was a third-year old ignoramus who didn't even know how to defuse a Howler! Finally, he had replied, threatening to behead her owl if she ever dared to contact him this way again. Sly as she was, she had turned on Dumbledore instead. If she wanted something, she would not rest until she got it.

For lack of a safe topic of conversation, Lady Snape suggested they eat. With a small brass gong, she ordered her house-elves to serve 'luncheon.'

Lunch was an opulent affair which reminded Snape of his stomach ulcer, neatly witched away by Madam Pomfrey, but never quite forgotten. "I have changed the testament," Lady Snape told her son over the meal.

Snape nodded mutely; it was to be expected. His parents had disinherited him after their quarrel, but, he thought wryly, to whom else should the old witch leave her money and her ugly mansion? There were no other relatives - there was only her disappointing son, Severus.

"I wanted you to know that you have some financial background when you think of settling down and having a family."

Snape snorted. A family? She might have thought of that fifteen years ago, when he hadn't felt as unsociable, as infertile indeed, as he did now.

"I am too old for that now," he replied, hoping this might put her off the impending discussion about grandchildren.

"Nonsense, Severus, you're a man, and a man is never too old for these things," she snarled.

Snape almost grinned. Despite all pretensions of being nobility, his mother was a craftswizard's daughter and a craftswizard's wife, in her heart utterly practical and a bit common. Sometimes it showed, in spite of all her effort. It was one of the few things he liked about her.

"What about that new teacher at Hogwarts, Professor Varlerta? She's not quite too old yet, unmarried like any decent female teacher, and - well, her mother was a Rosier, so she might be an asset as far as lineage goes. I heard someone say you befriended her."

Snape clenched his fists under the heavy mahogany table, speechless for a moment. There he was, thinking his mother a senile, toothless old tigress, only to be hit where it hurt most. It must be mother magic, he decided - she had always known where to get him, and she had a knack for gossip.

"I can almost picture you in the Hall on Anglesey, in the robes that show off your noble ancestry, laying the foundations for a new generation of Snapes."

For a moment, her fantasy became his. He pictured the teacher kneeling at his side in the ancient, beautiful Ceremony Hall, her smiling face framed by her black hair and her flowing green robes, her sleeves sprinkled with - no stars at all; the virginity spell - well, never mind that. Valerie, who would not leave his mind, Valerie, who had taken Sirius Black for her lover. He resisted the urge to massage his forehead and his eyes and left his hands under the table, sure they were trembling.

"You probably know who her father was, so you will be aware of the fact that her grandfather was a Muggle. She can't get married in the Hall on Anglesey," he said to make the subject distasteful to his mother. "Moreover, I have the impression that she is - unchaste."

Lady Snape sighed. "A pity, really. What is the world coming to if the young witches of today act according to their indecent whims?" She arched her white eyebrows in disapproval.

Snape felt like asking her what she considered worse, a grown witch acting according to her indecent whims, as she called it, or a Death Eater who had tortured other humans, but resisted the temptation.

"Severus," his mother suddenly said in a voice that caught his attention, "your father cast you off, and back then, I agreed with him. Now that he is no longer among us, I have decided to re-establish the bond between us. We may not agree on everything, but I believe that the ties of blood, of pure blood all the more, should be stronger than the ties of politics. I would like to welcome you back into the family circle."

Snape let his eyes flick right and left, a tiny movement to let her know that there was no such thing as a circle, that there was just her and him, and that this time, she was the dependent party. He did not need her anymore; of the things she had to offer, things like money or maybe even connections, he wanted nothing.

"I will have to be back at Hogwarts at two o'clock, because urgent business is waiting for me," he said after a few moments of meaningful silence.

"What business?" she asked with a frown.

Snape was tempted to tell her the truth just to hurt her, but knew that it was much safer to keep her in the dark. "Politics, as you call it," he replied curtly. Of course, it was only politics in the widest sense of the word. There might be a few adequate names for the thing he was to undertake once more, but none of them was kind. Severus Snape had made arrangements to go to Azkaban.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He portkeyed from Hogwarts to the island in the afternoon as agreed. Thick, grey clouds hung low over the water; the cool breeze of the sea failed to remove the feeling of foul stuffiness that so often permeated the air around the infamous wizard prison. The dark fortress loomed against a sky that threatened to fall on whoever dared to challenge fate, to call upon himself the curse of coming here out of free will.

Snape reminded himself that the unpleasantness of the place - and indeed the place itself - was something created for a specific purpose; the whole isle, consisting of barren volcanic rock, had been moved here by magic, designed to be as unpleasant as possible. Climbing up the steep path to the small, pinnacled fortress, Snape tried to catch one last breath of fresh air. How could the wind manage to bite his very bones, but refuse to bring him refreshment, he wondered. Yet on the island of Azkaban, there was nothing cleansing, nor had anything cheerful survived the moment it had been brought here, the wizard mused. Not that it mattered to him: He had brought no happy thoughts with him, so he had nothing to lose even within the fortress, he decided, shaking his hair one last time in the ill-reeking breeze before entering the gaping hole that was the portal of the prison.

"I greet you, visitor." Lemurus, head of the front guard, had a voice as hollow as any of his kind.

Not many witches and wizards knew that Dementors could actually talk. They did not often use their voices, because although no Dementor's voice would ever have been a comfort to anyone, their ominous and threatening silence usually succeeded in filling humans with even more dread. Dementors liked to drain humans of all positive thoughts and emotions as effectively as possible, Snape contemplated as a slimy, scabbed hand ran along his front to check for charms. Around his neck, an amulet hung from a plain leather cord. The small piece of charmed metal told the creature to let him pass, and to let him out again after he had done his duty. Snape would not say 'after his mission had been accomplished,' because he knew very well that this would not be the case, not that day, not any day. The Dementor's hand groped for more amulets, emitting a low pant of satisfaction, if such word could be applied to a creature of his kind: Snape had come equipped with only one amulet, not two or even more as most visitors would.

If important witches or wizards visited the prison, they were usually equipped with anti-Dementor protective charms. Snape could have gotten one of them for himself: Dumbledore had even offered it to him when he had asked him to undertake this task on that fateful night more than a year ago. Snape had declined. Let Dumbledore believe he was refusing the protection out of pride - in truth he had purposefully decided to expose himself to the Dementors' powers. Never in all these years had he been able to forget that he had come very close to being sentenced to spend his life in Azkaban. He would have been buried alive in a cell far below the ground, slowly decomposing along with the rest of the guilty. He would have waited for mould to gather on his brain, for dry rot to enter his bones. A lucky accident had prevented this, but the feeling of being lucky had evaporated over the years. He had come to want more of life than just duty or even a bit of respect, forgetting that the hungry mouth of the prison was still waiting, only separated from this particular meal by a narrow strip of the slate-coloured North Sea. And yet, fate had sent him here in the end, not as a prisoner but as an interrogator, as a visitor pretending to stand on the side of the fair and innocent. The first time the slimy breath of the Dementors had grazed his mind, it had reminded him of the place that many considered his due. Well, he was here now, and he would not take a protective charm with him.

The Dementor guarding the portal gave Snape a nod to acknowledge his right to pass. Snape briefly wondered if it was indeed Lemurus, whom he had met on earlier visits - there were few clues which might help a wizard to tell one Dementor from the other. Whatever its name was, the creature opened the inner door to a light-flooded, tiled hallway that led deep down into the volcanic ground.

Most wizards believed Azkaban to be a dark place, but Snape knew otherwise. Light was a much more effective way of torture than darkness: Day and night, the merciless blaze never ceased, never lessened, never gave the prisoners a moment of peace. The light invaded the prisoners' brief hours of sleep, withholding the comfort of oblivion even then. In Azkaban, there were no hiding places, neither for the body nor for the soul.

Snape closed the buttons of his winter cloak with its wool lining. He had carried it over his arm while portkeying here; at Hogwarts, summer was spreading its sickeningly pleasant rays, and cloaks were not needed. In the underground cells of the prison of Azkaban, cloaks did not help much either, as the cold of the dungeons was not of a physical nature. However, it was better than nothing.

Another Dementor, nameless and foul-reeking, opened another door for Snape. He had come to the first cells. Here were the temporary prisoners, those who still could hope to see a velvety black sky spread with stars again - only that they could not feel hope anymore. Some eventually came out to return to their families, Snape knew, while others were sent straight to St. Mungo's ward for the mentally disintegrated. A sentence of two years was usually as good as a death sentence here; if you got less, you might get away with a minor psychosis, but none that were imprisoned here came out unscathed.

"Snape, help me! Help me to get out of here." Snape knew the voice; he did not even turn his head. Behind bars, witches and wizards crouched or lay in their bare, grimy cells, tearing at their hair or scratching open their skin with their fingernails. The wizard calling out after him, one of Gordon Nott's younger brothers, might not even be a follower of Voldemort: As far as Snape knew, he was just one of the fools who had tried to skimp off from Gringotts by means of a magic computer scam, a rather new branch of wizard crime. Of course, the culprits had been caught and sentenced to serve time in the fortress of Azkaban. The financial power of the goblins supported a lobby to be reckoned with; trust the ministry, trust the wizard courts to utterly destroy those who tried to mess with Gringotts.

"Snape, Severus Snape! Stay a while to talk to me. Tell me some news of my daughter, just a word, she was sent to Hogwarts - is she still alive?" Snape closed his ears to the voice of Barbara Bulstrode while he passed her cell without looking at her. He did not even know for which crime she was sent here, or for how long, but knew from experience that once he started talking to the prisoners, insanity lurked around the corner. Half a dozen Dementors were gathering behind him like vultures, waiting to feed on any feelings he might permit himself to have; if he ever overstepped any rule in this prison, they might very well run amok and suck out his soul without further provocation. Snape clutched his wand tightly and quickened his steps. It was bad enough that he had to talk to one prisoner, he thought, closing the door with a thump! to leave the frenzied screams behind him as quickly as possible.

He saw no sense in coming here, but dreaded the alternatives. They would either have to give up, or resort to methods which would make them no better than the Death Eaters they were trying to fight. Dumbledore was against using such methods. He was against it as well, though he could not say why. Was it really a remainder of the worst, the most despicable of his personal weakness, or was it just plain stupidity that let him try the impossible again and again? His sense of futility, he tried to remind himself, was enhanced by the Dementors. That was what they wanted - to suck up the last grain of hope he still had. Yet was there hope? And if so, what could it be but an empty promise?

After another revolting security check by a Dementor called Cerberus, Snape was allowed to descend a spiral stair that led deep down underground. When he opened the door into the next hall, a wave of cold, musty air hit him into the face. At least this hall was much quieter than the first one. These prisoners had long ago given up any hope of re-establishing contact with the world outside, or of ever coming out again themselves. Most had forgotten who they had once been, and what they had been fighting for. Some were quietly blubbering to themselves; others were just staring into nothingness. Wherever their minds had gone, the Dementors would make sure it wasn't a pleasant or peaceful place. While the faces of the prisoners in the first hall looked haunted, those imprisoned here had dead faces. Suicides were rare among those who had been at Azkaban for more than two years; killing yourself essentially meant you had some willpower and energy left, some vague sense of being able to end your own sufferings by your own hand. At times one or two of the prisoners just dropped dead, however, something the Dementors might not even notice for a while. Snape wrinkled his nose: As often, a most sickening stench of decay and rot was in the air. Among the motionless prisoners, Snape saw some faces he recognised from his own days as a Death Eater, though in the mercilessly blazing light they looked more like waxen death masks than like the faces of living witches or wizards.

Before entering the dungeon's high-security wing, there was one more ordeal to be faced: He would be searched by the two guarding Dementors, called Urd and Skuld, if Snape remembered correctly. Of course, names were of little consequence in the fortress of Azkaban: Scabbed, grey hands brushed along Snape's arms, chest and back, trying to find any forbidden item that might help the prisoners locked in there. They searched the pockets of his robes, taking out the potion phials adorned with Braille labels stating their content and purpose. Again and again, the hands of the Dementors strayed to his amulet, obviously pleased by the visitor's lack of protective charms. It took all of Snape's strength to remain upright, not to close his eyes and not to throw up during the vile procedure. Slimily cold fingertips ran up his legs under his robes. Snape took a deep breath, inhaling the stench. He told himself that by now, he should have gotten used to the procedure. Finally he was admitted; when he crossed the threshold, he almost stumbled, but caught himself in time.

The high-security wing, colder and brighter than the other parts of the prison if such a thing was possible, contained six cells, all hewn into the volcanic rock of the island and partially covered with broken white tiles. The three cells on the left were empty; one of them had been Black's, Snape knew. To fight down the hatred that burned inside of him now more than ever, he focussed on the task ahead. While passing the silently vegetating figures of Kenneth Murkin and Charles Lestrange, he wondered very briefly whether today's visit would be any different from his past ones, whether his enhanced potions would have more effect on the prisoner than last time. Snape kept his eyes averted until the last moment, looking up at the cell only just before she could see him. The sight of her still hit him in the chest like a blow in spite of all his mental preparation. He always tried to stay calm, unaffected, aloof, but once he faced her, he knew he was on shaky ground.

Dolores Lestrange did not show any visible sign of aging for all the fourteen years she had been imprisoned in Azkaban. Snape had done a little research in genealogy; he knew that she would turn fifty that very year, but her unlined face and hands looked much younger than his. Framed by heavy, black hair and a remarkably well-preserved black robe, her pale complexion shone in the blaze. At the sight of him, a hint of recognition appeared in her inanimate face. "Severus," she whispered. Snape tensed his shoulders to keep himself from shuddering: While Dolores looked as young as ever, her voice, once low and sultry, now sounded broken and ancient, as if she was a hundred years old.

"I've come for the usual reasons," he said, taking out the potion phials. Dolores did not respond. If not triggered by magic, her memory was almost inaccessible even to herself, or so everybody believed: When sentenced to a life service at Azkaban, Dolores had swallowed her wedding ring, a small gold object that must have been charmed to more or less destroy her mind. Thinking about the utter naivety her guards had displayed in 1982, Snape cursed inwardly: If they had only thought of removing this little piece of jewellery, there would be no need for him to come here again and again. A simple Veritaserum would have sufficed to make Dolores Lestrange tell them all she knew - knowledge they needed desperately, as Dumbledore was convinced. Snape in turn needed no convincing; at the headmaster's bidding, he had taken upon himself the dreadful task of dealing with Azkaban's most infamous prisoner. He would do everything in his power to make her talk, except torture her, he had sworn. Even when he had come here for the very first time, the night that Voldemort had regained his power, he had doubted his own success. The mind of Dolores Lestrange was a fortress, impenetrable and deserted. Memory and Truth Potions sometimes brought fragments of her former self back to the surface, but the knowledge she had once claimed she held was probably destroyed forever. Of course, they still had to try to wring it from her mind. Snape took a pewter cup from his pocket, poured her a cocktail of different potions and handed her the cup. "Drink," he said.

Dolores Lestrange drained the cup without resisting. If she had struggled, if she had cursed and spit on him, Snape might have found his task easier; her wordless submission seemed nothing but ghastly to him. Try as he might, he would never forget the splendour of the Dolores Lestrange he had once known - Queen of the Death Eaters, they had called her, a title uttered with admiration and dread alike. Many years ago, she had been the one in command, the one who had even Lucius, Walden, her brother Evan and of course young Barty at her beck and call. The Queen of the Death Eaters would have found a way to refuse such a potion cocktail even under force, Snape was sure of that. Of course, her submission could also mean that she knew the futility of his undertaking: She would never reveal her secrets to him, whatever bizarre and dangerous potions he would cook up for her.

In the years of her power, Dolores had been a witch with many faces. While he observed her, waiting for the potions to act on her, he wondered which of them would come to the surface this time. Thinking of the one he dreaded most made him feel physically sick. He hoped for a haughty Dolores, commanding him around in her delusion of grandeur. He hoped for Dolores the hyena, baying for blood. Yet, thanks to Murphy's law, the potions turned the witch into the creature Snape feared most in the world, the one he feared more than the Dark Lord, more than death, maybe even more than he feared himself.

"Severus," she breathed, running a smooth, long finger over his sleeved arm. "It is a pleasure to see you here." In her own, cold way, she actually looked pleased, leaving Snape to wonder if the Dementors had any effect on her at all.

"Don't touch me," he hissed. "I've come to question you. What is your name? When and where were you born? Tell me the names of your parents and your siblings." It was a test, of course; he always asked her a couple of questions to which he knew the answers to see how well she reacted to the potions he had given her.

Dolores lowered her heavy lids over her all too familiar grey eyes; she spoke mechanically as if under hypnosis. "My name is Dolores Lestrange, née Rosier. I was born on December the twelfth, nineteen-forty-six, in the Rosier family mansion on Anglesey. My parents were Evanus and Theresa Rosier. I had an elder sister, Rose, and an elder brother, Evan." Her voice faded into nothingness. Then she gave him a sly look. Before he could prevent her, she had pushed up his left sleeve and run a gentle finger over his Dark Mark. The sign reacted to her touch by burning very slightly. Her broken voice sounded altogether differently from the voice she had used to reply to his questions.

"Why do you come here as an interrogator, Severus? You are still one of us, and you always will be. You cannot run away from him, or from me, no matter how hard you try."

She gave him a cat-like smile that painfully reminded him of someone else. Snape violently thrust her finger off his arm, repeating 'I will not harm her, I will not harm her' to himself like a mantra. Before he had known that Dolores Lestrange was the aunt of Hogwarts' current Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, he had not noticed a family resemblance between the two witches. Now it seemed so obvious that he wondered why he hadn't ever made the connection before. They had the same black hair, the same chin, the same eyes and the same way of hiding their emotions by unfathomable smiles. Snape tried to take his mind off these similarities by getting back to business. He would do this by the book, would not put one toe out of line.

"Where are you, and why are you here?" he asked.

"I am in the fortress of Azkaban, imprisoned for life because I participated in torturing and interrogating the Longbottoms to find out the whereabouts of the Dark Lord," she replied without a sign of remorse or pride, without any visible trace of emotions in her ancient voice.

"Who is your husband? Where is he now?" Snape went on.

"His name is Charles Lestrange. He is in there." She idly pointed at the next cell where Charles Lestrange lay on the floor as a motionless heap. If the Dementors' reports could be believed, the wizard had not stirred in years; he was force-fed and kept alive by magic only. Snape bit his thin bottom lip.

"Why did you marry Charles Lestrange?" he suddenly asked. This was not exactly a test question, because he did not know the answer himself.

"I married Charles because the Dark Lord asked me to. I always did his bidding, and one day he will reward me," Dolores said in a low, broken sing-song. "Charles came from an old wizard family; the Dark Lord was craving a close tie to him. My husband is a weak creature, though, not a fitting tool for the Dark Lord."

Snape averted his eyes for a moment, contemplating this reply. He did not know very much about the Rosier family, but her reply confirmed his suspicion that Voldemort had used the old witch and wizard dynasty in every way he possibly could. Rose Rosier was dead; Evan had died in Voldemort's service, and Dolores abode here, still waiting for her reward, whatever that might be. Only Rose's daughter had somehow escaped the grasping hands of the Dark Lord. Snape made a mental note to re-think this particular thought during some sleepless night spent in this dungeon at Hogwarts to find out whether or not the thought would be pleasant to him then. When he turned back to Dolores, he saw a hint of a spark in her eyes.

"The mark on your arm is not the only mark you bear, Severus. I remember you, and I am sure you remember me," she said in her other voice, the voice that reminded him of the terror he would have liked to forget forever. Snape pried off her fingers which were touching the rough material of his robes a few inches below his navel and jumped back a step, biting back the urge to scream. 'I will not harm her, I will not harm her,' he repeated to himself.

"How many Death Eaters did you have?" he snarled, regretting the utterance the second it left his lips.

"Twenty-six," she said as mechanically as she had replied to his other questions, as if this was no more than a part of the test.

Snape gripped the wand in his robes' pocket until his knuckles hurt. It was time to end this thing, to finish this business before it would get even worse. He wanted to get out of Azkaban, to get out as soon as possible, and never to return.

"Dolores Lestrange, do you know the key to the Dark Lord's immortality? Do you know how it was brought about, and can you tell me how to end it?"

"I cannot tell you," she said softly. "I do not remember."

How resistant could a person be towards Veritaserum? Snape knew that Dolores had altered her own memory, had barred doors in her own mind which no sane person would ever close. During his time as a Death Eater, Snape had witnessed the brutal destruction of people's memories several times, but the thought that someone would mutilate his or her own mind still scared him beyond the boundaries of reason.

"You know about these things," he reminded her. "You once told me. You bragged about it. You said that you were the only one who held this key in her mind. Remember! Tell me now!"

"I do not remember," Dolores repeated calmly, as if she had not heard the command in his voice.

"Tell me about the key, Dolores. What is it, and where is it kept?"

"I do not remember," Dolores insisted, her voice as old as the rock into which her cell had been hewn.

Snape felt fatigue wash over him. He had agreed to question her, to use his knowledge of potions to extract the information even from her barred-up mind. Each time he returned, he brought a combination of potions more powerful and more dangerous than ever, hoping against hope that it might help her remember, that it might force her to tell him what she knew. He could not go on like this much longer. The dose and combination of potions he had given he today went far beyond what was legal or healthy. He might very well kill her with his potions some day without learning her secret. Whatever magic was protecting her, it was stronger than any spell Snape had ever come across; it was certainly stronger than the feeble tie that held Dolores' mind in her body.

Snape turned to leave, closing the door behind him without any word of parting. He forced himself not to look back as he walked down the short hall to knock on the door that would lead out of the high-security wing.

"Your place is with us, Severus," Dolores said behind him in a low sing-song. "Your place is with the Dark Lord, and with us, in the fortress of Azkaban. If they do not let you out this time, you can always share my cell."

Snape banged both fists against the closed door, feeling panic rise in him. Trust Dolores to know his fears, to know that he was never really sure whether they would really let him leave the wizard prison once he had stepped through the barred doors.

After what seemed an eternity, Urd and Skuld opened and let him out after fingering and re-fingering his visitor's amulet. Snape tried to hide the fact that he was shaking, all the while aware that he was offering the two of them a tasty snack, if not a feast. Both accompanied him to the spiral staircase, obviously reluctant to part with him. Snape shook their cold, slimy fingers of his shoulders, suddenly unsure whether he could ever bear to return to this place without protecting charms. He forced himself to walk slowly even though something in his feet urged him to run towards the exit. 'I will not run, I will not scream,' he repeated to himself. He knew he would soon reach the portal and step into the open, but felt as if he was imprisoned here forever, as if he would never see the sky again.

As he passed the cell of Barbara Bullstrode near the exit, he mumbled as if to himself: "Millicent is doing well at school. At Hogwarts she is safe." While he uttered these words, he could not help wondering why in the world he was silly enough to offer false comfort to a prisoner of Azkaban, a witch who would not even be able to feel any comfort. It seemed that the madness of Azkaban was already destroying his capacity to make reasonable decisions, Snape thought. He rushed on and through the next door.

Finally, his hands touched the rough wood of the portal. He banged his metal amulet against it. "Let me out," he croaked. Behind him, a group of Dementors were gathering, aroused with his emotions. Then the door opened a tiny crack. Outside, the air was stuffy, smelling of death and decay. Snape forced the door open with both hands and pushed his body through the narrow gap, wondering mutinously whether maybe he was getting too old for doing Dumbledore's dirty work.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When he returned to Hogwarts, he was sticky with cold sweat; the stench of Azkaban had woven itself into the fabric of his robes. Snape craved the cool darkness of his sleeping chamber, but first he had to write a short report about his interrogation of Dolores Lestrange. He kept meticulous notes on the potions he had given her, how she reacted to them, and whether she had said anything that might be of interest. The last column would remain empty today, as always. Snape sighed, tossing his quill on the roll of parchment. Briefly he ran a finger along some of the mementos he kept on his desk - the Jade Serpent of Slytherin he had inherited from his long chain of predecessors, the tiny golden cauldron that reminded him of the Snapes' honest roots, the skull of an embryo unicorn, a fitting symbol for the death of innocence, and a miniscule crystal phial filled with a shimmering black love potion. The latter, he mused, was a token of his folly, of a longing that burned inside of him even if he deluged it with reason. He ran a gentle finger along the curves of the phial, wondering why he still kept the dangerous substance it contained and deciding that it was merely because the potion was too powerful to dispose of it - even poured into a neutraliser, it was not safe.

Snape blew on his notes to dry the ink, then pushed the scroll into its place on the shelf. He left and locked the office, glad to get down into the lowest dungeon where his sleeping chamber was.

Snape's set of rooms was traditionally assigned to the Potions Master of Hogwarts, who was usually the head of Slytherin House, too. More than a decade ago, Dumbledore had offered him his choice of vacant offices and teachers' accommodations; there was no need for Snape to rot in the dungeons for tradition's sake, he had said. Snape had thanked Dumbledore for his offer, but had declined. He had kept his rooms not only for tradition's sake. As a Slytherin, he had lived in dungeons all his life, and he had learned to appreciate them: In the months of the brief Scottish summer, they were cool. When all around the castle life bloomed and obnoxious little birds sang, his dungeons were quiet.

He slammed the heavy, wooden door behind and double-locked it for his own comfort. Then he stripped off every garment he wore and disposed them in a wooden box - the house-elves would take care of it. As an afterthought, he cast a quick spell so the stench of Azkaban could not spread into his room. He stepped into his pleasantly modern shower and let many gallons of cold water wash over him, hoping it might alleviate the feeling of being tainted and diseased. A good dose of Roary's magical shampoo eliminated the smell in his hair. Snape turned off the tab leant against the cool tiles for a moment. Merlin's beard, that was better!

He dried off with a coarse linen towel; as always, he avoided looking down at his body. With a moan of relief, he cast himself on his narrow cot and half-covered himself with a sheet. The Potions Master of Hogwarts was not available this evening, not for anyone!

For a while he contemplated the round plastic Muggle device on his bedside table, berating himself for his weakness. He should throw the whole lot away and never think about it again. Then he sighed and pulled the thing towards him, dragging its strange cable tentacles over the sheet.

The device was a Muggle CD-player powered by magic, something Florean Fortescue sold 'to good customers only.' He'd been to Diagon Alley a week ago to talk to Florean on 'order business.' For their talk, Florean had led him into his back room where his impressive stock on enchanted music equipment and CDs were displayed. Witch and wizard musicians were his specialty, so the CDs of the Magic Mushrooms hung in a conspicuous place. Florean had followed Snape's gaze and remarked that the band was quite cool, and that he had gotten the new album that very day, recorded and mixed in New York City in the breathtakingly short period of two and a half weeks.

Snape had bought on impulse, something he hadn't done very often in his life - a magically powered CD player, two CDs of the Magic Mushrooms and Florean's other recommendation, a Portishead album, hoping the focus of his interest was not too obvious to the ice cream salesman. Now he ran a gentle finger over the translucent plastic of the jewel box. Valerie's band - Valerie's music.

Of course, he did not care for Valerie anymore, he told himself, toying idly with the disgusting little earphones. How could he feel anything but contempt for a witch who took Black for her lover? Snape took out the little booklet with its strange, immobile photographs of the band and its alien-feeling paper. Valerie had once explained to him that the reason most Muggle paper felt strange to him was because it was made not from hemp, but from trees - once and for all, Muggles were incomprehensible. Snape sighed - that conversation had taken place ten months - had taken place a lifetime ago. He took another look at the picture of the witch he despised and put the disgusting little buttons into his ears.

He had always believed that Muggle music, much more Muggle popular music, was shallow and meaningless, one of the numerous soulless comforts for the people deprived of magical power. When Valerie's band had played at Hogwarts, the music had touched something inside him. He wasn't sure whether Valerie or whether the music was responsible, but while he had stood there on the side, listening, he had realised what a fool he had been. He had done his best not to love her, and now he had to see that his efforts had failed. Consequently, there was only one sensible path of action - asking Valerie whether she would be his, on that very night, right after the concert. No matter at what personal risk, no matter what kind of humiliation would follow - he would swallow his pride, and at least ask her.

Then the sky had fallen on them - the feared Icy Fingers curse had hit them with unprecedented strength. He had tried his best to save Valerie - after all, she and her music magic had saved them from the Death Eater curse the last time it had hit the school - but both of them had failed. If the Potter Boy (again, the Potter Boy!) hadn't Countered the curse, they might all have died.

In view of the terrible events, Snape had put off his courting until order had been installed, until the imminent danger had been averted and until Madam Pomfrey and a group of mediwizards had taken care of the injured. Then he had seen it: Over the sickbed of Dumbledore, of Lupin, of the Potter Boy (again, the Potter Boy!), the Weasley brats and whoever else had fallen ill, Valerie and Black had tearfully held hands, cuddling for comfort.

Snape could not describe his feelings on that night - he had done what had to be done in view of the outward emergency, moving like one under an Imperio curse. He had not commented, had not bidden Valerie goodbye when she left for the States, had just hoped that this particular part of his soul would die off soon and consequently stop aching. The reasonable course of action was never to think of Valerie - er, of Professor Varlerta anymore. It certainly wasn't reasonable to listen to the CDs of her band.

On the new CD was a song - he pushed the forward button to reach it - a song written by Valerie, it said in the booklet. When the band had played it at the concert, he had felt addressed, unlikely as it might be. Even then, he had heard Valerie's unobtrusive background vocals over Roary's voice. "Come to me," she had sung over the basis of a strange, uneven bass line, of the gentle but unsettling drums, of her own slightly laid-back guitar chords. It was the moment he had decided he would follow her invitation, misled as he was that night.

Judging from the lyrics, the song could not be called a love song. Snape ran a finger over a particular mean verse as printed in the booklet, thinking he would have never felt addressed by words more sweet or kind.

are you the man you would like to be?
does the shell where you hide give security?
are you afraid of the physical world?
does your body make you uneasy?

To him, the brutal de-masking of these lines held a vague promise, awakening in him the bizarre hope that someone might know him for what he was, would know all his faults, would look into the abyss and still love him.

Snape's finger violently hit the stop button. She couldn't have meant him, she couldn't. She loved Black, after all. Angrily he pulled the little plastic devices out of his ears. Come to me, she had written in her lyrics. He should have, at least he should have tried. Now it was too late.