Unplottable

28 - Snape

"Listen, I have a job to do, and I was permitted to take you with me."

Snape looked up at Evnissyen from his half-shredded roots. "Oh, were you? What kind of job?" Getting out of the Slytherin Mansion for once was an exciting prospect.

"I was asked to meet someone in a Muggle bar. It's the kind of job that's traditionally assigned to a pair of Death Eaters, just in case something nasty happens, so I need a partner," Evnissyen responded while straightening the line of empty vials waiting to be filled with the poison they were brewing.

"Sure." Snape was curious - who were they meeting, for what reason, and why in a Muggle bar? However, he knew better than to ask unnecessary questions. If Evnissyen took him on a mission, it was a sign of trust. He had no desire to diminish that trust by inquiring further. All information he needed would be supplied in time, and everything he - or maybe the Dark Lord - considered none of Snape's business would remain undisclosed to him anyway. The only question he felt was safe to ask was: "When are we going? Do we have to adjust our potions schedule?"

Evnissyen shook his head. "I shouldn't think so. You said this will only take another forty minutes."

"You mean we are going tonight?" Snape fought to keep his root-shredding hands dead steady.

"Absolutely. I'll have some clothes sent to you so you can blend in with the Muggles. Now, the dried Belladonna leaves have to be boiled?"

"Soaked," Snape corrected him.

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Supper was taken early in the Slytherin mansion. Snape and Evnissyen had finished and bottled their work and would be at liberty to go about their mission, of which Snape knew no more than he had in the afternoon. When Snape entered the dining hall, his grey-haired partner was nowhere to be seen; perhaps he had preparations to do for their evening excursion. However, Snape bumped into Lucius Malfoy, who was carrying one of the small crates Snape had just packed with vials full of cauldron-fresh poison.

"Severus - I am overjoyed to see you are finally doing something useful," Malfoy said with his usual honey-glazed venom, a glance down at his crate indicating that Snape's usefulness was of personal relevance to him.

"Lucius - I am glad I can supply the tools you need for your post as Britain's Minister of Magic," Snape replied, equally glancing down at the crate of deadly poison. "I heard you are doing some cleansing at the Ministry."

Malfoy frowned; admittedly, the remark had not been made in complete innocence. To mollify him, Snape continued: "Please give my regards to your son - I hope he is still faring well at Durmstrang.

Without further warning, the crate exploded. Glass shards, wooden splinters and drops of corrosive poison showered through the air. Although he deftly sprang aside and tried to duck for cover, Snape was hit in four places; two of them burned like molten lead had dropped on his skin. Around him, screams of pain could be heard. Snape ran down to the potions dungeon as fast as possible. Knowing that a sick mediwizard was no good to anyone, he tended his own wounds first, neutralising the corrosive effects of the poison with one potion and achieving instant healing with another. Then he quickly packed his remedies and ran up again. He dished out cotton balls soaked in different potions to all those whose injuries were small; for young Rookwood, whose eyes had been in contact with the corrosive material, his neutraliser came just in time. Some Death Eaters looked upon his help with suspicion, probably still believing him a traitor, but as there was no other remedy available, they all accepted it in the end. Within fifteen minutes, order was re-installed in the dining hall. Death Eaters were sitting back down again to consume their food, knowing that the Dark Lord was not fond of any kind of disorder in his house: Even though the Dark Lord, who never ate, did not usually enter the dining hall, he would certainly hear detailed accounts of everybody's behaviour later.

Snape looked around for Lucius Malfoy, who had caused the whole commotion. The explosion of the crate seemed an odd case of uncontrolled, unwanted magic, an accident which was not supposed to happen to any decently schooled adult wizard or witch. It could hardly, if at all, be excused by an extreme fit of wrath. However, Snape did not understand how he could have possibly angered the aristocratic, controlled Malfoy sufficiently to cause such a reaction. For this reason, he wished to apologise to Malfoy - he did not know what he had done wrong, but it was never good to have Lucius Malfoy for an enemy. However, his cursory glance over the crowded dining hall only revealed Evnissyen, who had taken Snape's former seat and was tucking into some stew. Snape went over to him and bossed Evnissyen's neighbour into moving aside on the bench to make some space for him to sit down.

"Where did Malfoy go?" Snape asked without further greeting.

"He steamed off," Evnissyen replied, frowning at Snape over his stew. "He told me I should keep a close watch on you, and I don't think he was worrying about your health."

Snape was confused. He still didn't understand what exactly had been his perilous mistake, but he knew that the dining hall was no place to discuss this matter. Therefore, he pulled over the bowl of stew - obnoxious stuff if you asked him - and filled his plate.

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

"We are meeting an informer at the Muggle bar," Evnissyen at last briefed Snape after supper. "A Death Eater has disappeared, and we fear that he was last seen at Hogwarts. Our informer has hinted that he might have heard of his whereabouts."

"Why meet at a Muggle bar?" Snape asked, trying to keep the curiosity out of his voice as well as possible.

"We have a custom of meeting informers on neutral territory - usually the Pentagram Bar in Knockturn Alley. Only lately, certain troublemakers, League members and the like, have started patrolling Knockturn Alley. Our informer is well known in certain circles; if he was seen in Knockturn Alley, especially the Pentagram Bar, he might -" Evnissyen paused for a moment to find a fitting euphemism, "stop being useful to us."

"What is my job during the mission?" Snape asked.

"Lookout wizard, bodyguard -" Evnissyen shrugged. "You really don't have to do much - it's rather being there that counts. It's supposed to be safer with two of us present. Of course, if it is a trap, two aren't nearly enough for a good and solid fight. Luckily, Muggle bars are relatively safe places. You know the lot of the enemy - they love their stupid old Muggles and are always afraid they might get hurt, so they don't stage their fights at Muggle places."

Snape nodded. He supposed he had learned all he would learn about the mission beforehand.

"We are leaving for London in about an hour and a half," Evnissyen told Snape. "Make sure you are dressed and ready by then."

Snape nodded and went off to clean the cauldrons in the potions dungeon. After about an hour, he went to his room and took another look at the clothes Evnissyen had sent him earlier in the afternoon. Without a trace of enthusiasm, he put them on. Trust his partner to find something that fitted him like a glove, he thought wryly as he pulled the tight black denims over his hips and struggled with the unfamiliar zipper. At least Evnissyen had had the decency of choosing a long-sleeved t-shirt for him: Sure, it was another piece of black Muggle clothing which revealed more of his body than it concealed, but at least his Dark Mark was covered. Well, it could be expected that Evnissyen knew better than to overlook such trivial points. There was no point in dressing up as Muggles for a secret mission at any rate if you were planning to rub your Dark Mark under everybody's nose.

After pulling on his heavy black boots, he braved a first look into the floor-length mirror which hung in the bathroom for reasons formerly unbeknown to him. It was even worse than he had feared. Although all essential parts of his body were covered by some kind of textile, he felt as if he was naked in the alien Muggle clothes. The tight Muggle trousers hugged his narrow hips tightly, mercilessly revealing how thin he was. Used to his billowing black robes, Snape found the t-shirt clinging to his body incredibly tight. He looked like a scarecrow nearing starvation, he found. Whenever he moved, some muscle on his chest stuck out in a most unbecoming way. It seemed as if the whole point of these clothes was to show the world he had a body, something Snape had done his best to forget throughout his whole life.

A last look in the mirror convinced him that he could not possibly leave the room in these clothes, let alone show himself in public looking like this. He would have to apologise to Evnissyen, but nothing in the world would make him go to the Muggle club in such an outfit. Secret mission or not - he would wear the clothes he had worn all his life on it, or he would not go.

"Hey, Sev - looking good, I see." Evnissyen seemed in the best of moods. Like Snape, he was wearing black denims, biker boots and a black t-shirt; he had also donned a black leather jacket. Although he was almost six years older than Snape, he looked quite distinguished in Muggle clothing, Snape noticed - slightly alien, but, in contrast to him, not utterly ridiculous.

"I'm not going to wear these things," Snape said with insistence in his voice.

Evnissyen laughed, a deep, rolling laugh accompanied by an ice-blue twinkle in his eyes which almost painfully reminded Snape of somebody else.

"Afraid that the Muggle women will molest you too much if you go to a club looking that sexy?" Evnissyen asked. There seemed to be no malice in his voice, but Snape was sure that the joke was at his expense.

"Evnissyen, please spare me this," Snape implored. "You know I hate Muggle clothing, and you know that I - that I look nothing short of ridiculous in these clothes. There's got to be something less - drastic for me to wear. If I can't go with you in normal, sensible robes, please let me wear one of these moderate black suits which Muggles normally wear."

Evnissyen laughed again. "Sev, our mission isn't taking place at a funeral, but at a club. Don't fuss about clothes - vanity doesn't suit you. Here, put on one of these, and maybe pull your hair back and put on some sunglasses, and you will feel like a different person." He handed Snape the leather jacket he had brought for him.

The jacket was slimly cut, but had a minimum of padding in the shoulders; Snape thought that it helped at least a little. Then he accepted a hairbrush and a rubber band from Evnissyen. Although he was not used to the garish Muggle custom, he managed to pull his black hair back into a ponytail tolerably well. Then Evnissyen reached into his jacket's pocket and took out three more hideous Muggle fashion accessories for Snape - a wristwatch, a pair of black sunglasses, and an oval silver pendant displaying a Celtic pattern, hung from a leather cord.

Snape turned the cheaply made piece of silver jewellery between his fingers. Then he looked back at his partner:

"Skin-tight clothing, a necklace and a ponytail, for evil's sake - are you sure you are not trying to make me dress up as a Muggle woman?"

Evnissyen chuckled. "You know virtually nothing about fashion, Sev," he simply replied. "See - I'm wearing a pendant, too." Snape could see a leather chord disappear into the neckline of Evnissyen's partially buttoned-up leather jacket.

Snape shrugged; complaining seemed of little use. He strapped the watch around his wrist, put on his sunglasses and hung the silver pendant around his neck. While his leather cord ran through his fingers, it seemed to Snape that he had once worn a similar thing around his neck, a kind of powerful talisman which he had lost somewhere, but he decided he had to be mistaken.

Before leaving the room with his partner, Snape cast another glance at himself in the floor-length mirror. He hardly recognised the person he saw. While at first, he had only seen a scrawny fool in ugly and unbecoming clothes, now he saw both of them, Evnissyen and him, two slim, dark figures looking positively dangerous in their black leather and denim. For the fraction of a second, the thought caused a pleasurable jolt in his stomach, but he suppressed the odd feeling.

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

Snape and Evnissyen Apparated in the men's room at the Camden Palace, a Muggle club not overly far from Diagon Alley. Noisy and dark, it was a perfect place for meeting someone who was not supposed to be seen in Knockturn Alley, especially not in its slightly sleazy Slytherin hangout, the Pentagram Bar.

Snape could hardly suppress his excitement at the unexpected outing. In a way, it was like being on leave from prison. During the six months spent at the Slytherin Mansion, he had only been permitted to leave it twice before. In spite of all his apprehensions, he was curious: Never before had he been inside a Muggle club. Maybe they would even have a live rock band there. Snape faintly remembered that in a former part of his life, he had liked Muggle rock music. The sounds coming through the toilet's door sounded promising.

Evnissyen and Snape disentangled their limbs from each other, straightened out their clothes and left their cubicle. A Muggle in his late twenties, who had just been washing his hands, cast them a knowing glance. Snape raised a worried eyebrow at Evnissyen, but only received shrug for an answer. So what if the guy found their behaviour strange - he was only a Muggle, after all.

Leaving the men's room, they found themselves in an old theatre converted into a club - a huge, dark room telling tales of long-lost red velvet grandeur. Snape took off his sunglasses so he could take in more of his surroundings. The room's tapestries and draperies, its gilt statues and hints of stucco, had suffered the abuse of countless rude club-goers; an ever-present feeling of has-been hung in the smoky air. On the old stage, a metal band Snape didn't recognise was thrashing out their set; due to their substandard stage sound, he found it hard to tell whether they were any good at all. People were largely ignoring the band; they stood in groups, hid in nooks and theatre boxes for heavy kissing, or just leaned against walls, nursing drinks, staring into nothingness. Snape saw black leather and lace, heavily made-up faces and dyed hair done up with tons of hairspray; he saw silk corsets, heavy silver jewellery, tattoos and a wide array of pierced noses, eyebrows and lips. His own clothes, which he had assumed to be highly extravagant, if not deviant, were moderate, almost bland in comparison; even the Muggle males had done themselves up with great effort and imagination. Fascinated, Snape stared into the crowd.

"Like it?" Evnissyen grinned widely. "Go for it, Sev - it's never too late to enjoy puberty, if you ask me."

Self-consciously, Snape closed his mouth. He desperately racked his mind for a fitting response, but could come up with none.

"Let's get something to drink," Evnissyen suggested and steered into the direction of the bar, a blackened structure equipped with bar staff which looked positively dangerous. "What can I get you? Have you reached drinking age yet, Sev?"

"Cut it out," Snape snarled.

"Cider, then?" Evnissyen asked, clearly enjoying himself.

Asking for mead was probably pointless. "Pint of stout," Snape replied curtly, unwilling to give Evnissyen another chance to amuse himself at his expense.

Both made their way through the heavily crowded space in front of the bar. Evnissyen shouted his order over a couple of Muggle shoulders until one of the women behind the bar, characterised by Egyptian eyes and a large silver spike sprouting from her chin, took notice of him. While they were waiting for their drinks, a Muggle woman approached Snape. She had shiny red hair and was wearing a black, decidedly low-cut blouse revealing half of a dragon tattoo. The woman seemed to take Snape's measure with her eyes; then, completely unexpected for Snape, she touched his leather-clad arm.

"Hi, sweety - have a drink for a thirsty girl?"

Snape just stared at her. What in the world did she want from him? "We - we are getting our drinks over there...." he stuttered, looking helplessly in Evnissyen's direction. Was he really supposed to buy her a drink now? He didn't have any money; should he ask Evnissyen?

The woman laughed, a high, pearly sequence of sound that made Snape feel even less at ease. "Oh, you are the naïve type. Don't worry, I love shy men." And with these words she disappeared into the crowd.

Smirking, Evnissyen gave Snape his stout and motioned for him to follow him. Confused as he was, Snape was intrigued by the mass of people, of warm, breathing bodies brushing against him, of kohl-rimmed eyes staring shamelessly into his. The smells of many perfumes and sometimes of sweat, the smoke of tobacco and cannabis tickled his fine-tuned nose. Over all these sensations lay the music, which due to its bad sound was largely characterised by its volume and throbbing bass drum. The whole room seemed to pulsate with it, with a beat of life that Snape had never tasted this way before.

Evnissyen lead Snape through the room to a small theatre box equipped with velvet curtains and gilt stucco. Inside the small, darkened space, a Muggle couple were caressing each other in a way that, in Snape's opinion, should have been confined to the privacy of a bedroom. Evnissyen frowned for a second; then he cast a quick spell Snape had never heard before. The Muggle man and woman jumped up; they stared at each other with utmost loathing. The woman adjusted her top; the man angrily wiped his mouth. They shared another look of mutual disgust; then both left the box in opposite directions.

"That's better," Evnissyen said and put his leather jacket on the box's empty seat. Snape followed suit; it was hot in the room. Then both wizards leant against the wall just outside it, glancing over the crowd of drinking and sometimes dancing Muggles.

A woman leaning against a pillar not far from Snape caught his attention. Her long black hair and her way of dressing reminded him remotely of Valerie, although their faces were not very alike. Noticing his glances, she gave him a luminous smile. He must have smiled back or at least given her some kind of encouraging look, because she came over to him, bringing a half-drunk, green cocktail with her.

"Hi," she said, ignoring Evnissyen, "all by yourself tonight?"

Receiving a slight kick against the ankle from Evnissyen, he replied: "I'm afraid I'm waiting for someone."

She pouted; without another word, she strode off.

"Are these - are these Muggle prostitutes?" Snape asked Evnissyen. He could think of no other explanation for the women's behaviour towards him.

"I shouldn't think so," Evnissyen replied. "It's not that kind of place."

"So why do they talk to me like that?" Snape asked, completely at a loss.

Evnissyen grinned again. "They seem to think you are attractive, Sev."

'But I'm ugly,' Snape wanted to respond, but he didn't - it would have been pathetic to state the obvious. Both wizards stood in silence for a minute.

"Malfoy surely was in a bad temper today," Snape said, partly to turn the conversation to a less threatening subject, partly because his fellow Death Eater's earlier outbreak had scared him. "I know he's got a lot on his plate, but to me it seems he is really cracking now."

Evnissyen gave Snape one of his knowing looks, but he did not reply.

"There is something wrong - something nobody is telling me, because I am not to be trusted," Snape commented. That was how it had been these past months, and how it probably would be until the day he died: He could work for the Dark Lord, he could help put some of the Death Eaters' plans into action, but many things were kept secret from him. As an ex-traitor, he was simply not trustworthy enough to know anything important. He was used to that, had had to get used to it during the last months. Sometimes, however, he wished his curiosity could be satisfied.

Evnissyen sipped his drink, looking the other way. So there really was something he was not telling Snape. It would be best to leave things alone, Snape thought, but before he knew it, he was needling his partner:

"I suppose it's none of my business, but what had me worrying was the way Malfoy made the crate explode when I was asking about his son. You know, I used to teach Draco, and he was one of the most talented students I ever had. He certainly had an aptitude for potion-making. I would hate to hear that something has happened to him."

Evnissyen gave him a strange stare, the kind of stare that rather confirmed Snape's suspicions: There was something wrong, something involving Lucius Malfoy's son, and Evnissyen wasn't telling him about it. Snape shrugged as a kind of reply, signalling that he accepted Evnissyen's refusal to talk.

For a while, the two wizards just sat there without talking. Snape lost himself in the throbbing music, wondering when their mysterious informer would show up. He expected the subject of the Malfoys and their secrets to be closed, so he was quite surprised when Evnissyen suddenly said:

"You know, you are right, there are things I am not permitted to tell you. You may serve the Dark Lord all you like, but you will always retain the status of a traitor among us."

Snape just nodded. It was to be expected.

"How can I know I can trust you?" Evnissyen asked, studying the bottom of the glass he had just emptied.

It was almost as if Evnissyen wanted to be persuaded, Snape thought. However, he wasn't truly buying this. Trust among the two of them was a fragile thing; Snape was never sure whether Evnissyen would not, one day, use Snape for his own ends. Come to think of it, Snape might one day use Evnissyen for the same purpose. On such a basis, it did not seem suitable to plead for the other's trust - it seemed a matter of bad taste, in fact.

"It depends what trust is all about," he finally replied. "You know what my aims are, and you know how much I'm willing to sacrifice for them. I've been a traitor a couple of times in my life, and I wouldn't swear an oath that I will never be one again. However, if you look at the facts, you see that I have very little to gain by betraying you or the Dark Lord ever again, that it would most likely be my death if I did. Now, judge for yourself whether you want to disclose some information you were told to keep from me."

Evnissyen's ice-blue eyes narrowed at Snape. "Your utter lack of loyalty towards anyone and anything sometimes awes me," he said.

Snape emptied his glass. He felt that there was something that should rather scare him, but he wasn't sure what it was. So he just said: "I sometimes wonder why you should bother with me."

Grinning boyishly, Evnissyen replied: "Treachery fascinates me, that's all. I always thought I was the world's biggest traitor, but you, with going back and forth, and then back and forth again, easily surpass me."

"Why did you do it?" There, he had done it at last, Snape realised. He had asked the question he had never wanted to ask, but had always craved the answer - a potentially fatal question, he realised as he held Evnissyen's eyes. Why, why had Evnissyen Dumbledore joined the Death Eaters? Why had he tried to capture his own father for the Dark Lord, and why had he, when failing his task, participated in the brutal slaying and abuse of his own mother, his sisters, his brothers-in-law and his little nieces and nephews? It wasn't the kind of question Snape ever wanted to ask anyone, and now he had simply asked it over a drink. Any moment now, the Death Eater might raise his wand and kill Snape, right here, in front of a club of dancing and drinking Muggles. Then the moment passed. Snape realised he was not going to be cursed to death; when Evnissyen spoke, Snape was surprised to actually get some kind of answer.

"Have you ever heard the story of my name?" Evnissyen asked.

Snape shook his head, strangely eager to hear it.

"My parents had longed for a son a long, long time," Evnissyen started his narration, which sounded like a legend and an autobiography at the same time. "Of course, they loved my elder sisters, and they were not sexist or anything, either, but I think especially my father had always wanted a son. When my mother found out she was pregnant with me, she wasn't exactly young any more, so she saw my birth as a bit of a miracle. This must have impaired her common sense, because I suppose she tempted fate by calling me Nissyen. You know who Nissyen was?"

Of course, Snape knew the famous Welsh legends. "Nissyen is the good son from one of the branches of the Mabinogion. He is inherently good, selfless and flawless, a bringer of healing and love."

"He's also an illegitimate son, by modern standards, and he's got an evil twin," Evnissyen reminded Snape, "two features which didn't apply to me, I am afraid. Maybe that's why the name backfired. You do not give someone a legendary name unless you are sure it fits, I suppose."

Snape nodded, although he was not exactly sure at what Evnissyen was aiming.

"My father was extremely proud that I was born, and just after I was named, he was tempted to look into Hogwarts' Book of Students, where all children born magical are recorded to be accepted at the school eleven years later. Maybe he wanted to make really sure that I wasn't a squib, that my name really was in there. He found me, too, but not under the name Nissyen."

Snape understood. "The book listed you as Evnissyen," he said.

"In the Mabinogion, the bringer of destruction, the bearer of pointless hatred, the traitor to his people and to his family," Evnissyen added with a pleasant smile.

"So they re-named you," Snape suggested.

"Did they have another choice?" Evnissyen asked. "Don't get me wrong, they loved me and cared for me, but they knew I would bring my family death as my name foretold. I always knew I would betray them one day, as I was marked a traitor from the moment I was born. Now tell me, where do you see cause, and where do you see effect? Did the Hogwarts Book of Students sense that I was a traitor by nature, marking my evilness by giving me that name, or did the name make me evil?"

Snape found no reply for that. The whole idea made him dizzy. Suddenly, he fiercely wished the awaited informer would show up, so they could end this conversation, finish their business here and go home to the peaceful world of cauldrons and potions. However, whatever strange, destructive force was at work in his partner, they would take it back to the Slytherin Mansion with them. Therefore, he just stared into the crowd of drinking and dancing Muggles for a while, trying to forget who he was, and why he had come to the club.

"That chick, the one you risked it all for - is she worth it?" Evnissyen asked quite suddenly.

Snape was at a loss for a moment: "That chick?"

"The Dark Lord's daughter," Evnissyen half-sang, his eyes widening with curiosity.

Snape did not know what to reply. Was she worth it? Finally he said: "I suppose I never questioned my actions in such terms."

Evnissyen laughed, though his eyes remained serious. "It seems you've got it bad, partner, if you never even ask yourself such questions. Tell me, what has she done to you that you both desire and hate her so much?"

Done to him? Snape wasn't sure. "She's chosen someone else for her lover, someone I detest," he answered after giving the question some thought.

"Vicious, indeed," Evnissyen commented with a slight, ironic smile. "So for that hideous crime, you will let the Dark Lord's hordes enjoy themselves at her expense, to use a slight euphemism?"

Suddenly, Snape saw Valerie's face in front of him like a vision, distorted in pain and fear, the light in her eyes destroyed. "We'll see about that when the time comes," he said in a choked voice.

"You know what's wrong with Draco Malfoy's son?" Evnissyen said without any transition. "They are going to use him and a few other students from Durmstrang for a certain curse - the Eliminatus curse. The Dark Lord's got a big project planned, and the students will be asked to channel quite a lot of energy for us. As you know, the Eliminatus curse involves flooding something with anti-matter, and in this case, many minds are required to control such a large amount of it."

Evnissyen's explanation made Snape deeply uneasy. "If you say it's a big project, you probably mean 'bigger than eliminating a single human being,' right?"

Evnissyen nodded. "Considerably bigger."

"Then such a plan is pure madness!" Snape broke out. "Nobody can channel such an amount of energy and retain his sanity or even his life. If you ask children to deal with such an amount of anti-matter-" he stopped short and then asked abruptly: "What does the Dark Lord want Eliminated anyway?"

"Oh, just your old school," Evnissyen replied, his face completely good-natured.

"Hogwarts?" Snape could not believe his ears. "A plan of this magnitude would certainly -" Realising what had made Lucius Malfoy snap when at the mentioning of his son this morning, Snape finished his sentence, somewhat deflated: "It would certainly result in the death of the children used to channel that kind of energy - although, if they are very lucky, they might get away with just going mad."

Evnissyen nodded. "That's what most people think. Of course, the Dark Lord told his followers that he had an expert at hand, one Petrodent, formerly know as Peter Pettigrew, who had everything under control and would make sure none of the Durmstrang students would be harmed in any way. The trouble is, I haven't seen Petrodent in a while, and I've heard some nasty rumours that he's disappeared. As a matter of fact, Petrodent is the wizard of whose whereabouts we are hoping to learn from our informer tonight."

Snape shook his head in disbelief. "I knew Pettigrew in school, and he was about as talented as a block of wood. I can't see him organising a curse of that magnitude, let alone organise it in a way which will not harm his channellers."

"Well, that's what the Dark Lord told us, though," Evnissyen said, raising his eyebrows in challenge. "Hogwarts is supposed to be eliminated, and a whole bunch of Death Eaters' children will help to carry out the plan. I wasn't supposed to tell you that, of course."

"Why did you, then?" Snape asked without thinking.

"I told you, I have a thing with treachery," Evnissyen replied, amusement in his eyes. "I suppose I just don't like things to run too smoothly, to become too stable. Maybe I was just curious about your reaction."

"Well, first of all, I am amazed that Lucius Malfoy is willing to sacrifice his own son for this," Snape said, a bit evasively. "However, I suppose if Peter Pettigrew oversees the whole thing, nothing much will come of it anyway."

"Petrodent wasn't the only one working on the curse," Evnissyen told him. "I heard that the Dark Lord had quite a few people working on the Eliminatus. Presently, the whole thing is said to be supervised by Ludmila Davies, who teaches at Durmstrang and knows a lot about such curses. If you ask me, I'd say the students will most likely be gravely harmed, but that does not mean the plan cannot be carried out. I suppose that by the end of the summer, Hogwarts with all its teachers and students will be no more."

"Hogwarts..." For some reason, Snape suddenly felt nauseous. Something inside of him was urging him to some kind of action, but he could not figure out what kind of action that might be.

"Do you mind?" Evnissyen said, idly pulling at the leather cord that hung from his neck. Snape looked down at his partner's fingers and felt a sudden jolt in his stomach. He knew Evnissyen's pendant, he had seen it before somewhere, and he also knew that it was important somehow. It was a bulging small clay amulet which had a few holes in it; obviously it was hollow.

"What's that thing around your neck?" he asked.

"So you know it?" Evnissyen's eyes were full of mischief. "I thought you might, because I found it in your cell down in the dungeon, hidden beneath a broken tile. Maybe you can tell me what it is."

Snape felt a strange fear, and a strange desire, both connected to the clay item dangling from Evnissyen's fingers. He did not know what to answer, but he knew that refusing to answer would look suspicious. When Evnissyen suddenly half-turned towards somebody else, Snape felt as if he had been snatched from the frying pan just before starting to burn to charcoal: He saw Gavain Lothing, Hogsmeade's omnipresent greengrocer, whose presence in the Muggle club could only mean that the tradesman was the informer they had been waiting for.

"Lothing," Evnissyen greeted the wizard. With a sidelong glance at his wristwatch, he added: "I'm glad you could make it."

Lothing made a face at him. He was dressed in blue denims and a t-shirt; although the clothes were sufficiently Muggle-like, they looked out of place in the club, or at least decidedly underdressed. "I came as quickly as I could - I had a meeting with the head of the Hogwarts house-elves about vegetable supplies during the next month, and it would have looked suspicious if I had hurried away before we could have reached an agreement."

Looking over at Snape, he added: "Oh, so you did go over to You-Know-Who, Professor." The last word was slick with irony, showing Snape that the days where he had been a teacher at Lothing's biggest customer, namely Hogwarts, were over for good. "I've heard the rumours, but it's something else altogether to see it with my own eyes."

Inwardly, Snape cursed Evnissyen, who was bound to have known that Lothing would recognise Snape. Their informer's loyalties seemed a bit dubious. Of course, if Lothing told everybody he had seen Snape among the Death Eaters, he would incriminate himself. However, Snape was uncomfortable with someone so close to home witnessing his renewed Death Eater status; it made everything just a little more final. Close to home.... What was home, anyway? His imagination conjured up a black hole of anti-matter.

Evnissyen bought Lothing a drink at the bar and exchanged a few meaningless phrases about the weather and the Quidditch League with him. After the second drink (Snape's third, he was going to have to watch it just a little bit), they finally got down to business, when Evnissyen asked pleasantly:

"So, have you seen Petrodent around at all?"

"Oh, you mean Peter Pettigrew, the Dark Lord's spy number one?" Without waiting for confirmation, Lothing went on: "It was brought to my ears that two spies have been caught at Hogwarts - one of them assumingly the brother of Remus Lupin, one of them the long-mourned Peter Pettigrew."

Evnissyen made a face. "Are you sure of this?"

"Talking to house-elves, you can never be too sure of anything," Lothing replied evasively. "However, several of my sources report the same thing."

So Lothing was using the house-elves as sources of information; that was smart of him, Snape mused. Dealing with them in matters of fruits and vegetables, he came into regular contract with them, and they probably trusted him. Of course, the little creatures were too loyal to their master to willingly act against Dumbledore's interests; however, they could be easily deceived and coaxed if they did not know they were doing any harm. The greengrocer had probably made a habit of chattering with them about everything and anything, and he was probably sly enough not to arouse their suspicion with his occasional questions about life in the castle.

"When and how did this happen?" Evnissyen asked.

"About the 'how' I can't tell you much, as my sources didn't know themselves," Lothing replied. "As for when, I suppose it was something like a week ago."

"Do you know what they are going to do with the spies they caught?" Evnissyen wanted to know.

"No, I don't," Lothing replied.

"Where are they kept? At least that should be known to the house-elves." There was a touch of impatience in Evnissyen's voice.

"It seems they are kept in something like prison cells in the dungeons of the castle, but I could not very well ask my sources to draw me a map or something, as that certainly would have aroused suspicion," Lothing answered.

Evnissyen sighed. "Anything else you can tell me - maybe something useful?" he asked.

"Don't get too rude," Lothing answered, making a show of being offended. "I have given you information no one else could have supplied."

"You could simply have sent us an owl to spare us the trouble of coming down here," Evnissyen complained while a bag of gold changed hands.

"Too lazy to Apparate, Smith?" There was a challenge in Lothing's voice; Snape realised that Evnissyen must have kept his real name from the informer. Then again, maybe Lothing had long ago recognised Dumbledore's son; he was almost bound to know him from Hogsmeade, where Dumbledore's family had resided up to that horrible night when most of it had been eradicated. There was a bond of mutual distrust between the three of them, Snape mused; none could trust the other, but each was bound to silence by his own crimes.

Lothing pocketed his gold, drained his lager, curtly bid them goodbye and left. Evnissyen waited until he was out of earshot. "Now, where were we?" he asked as if the whole conversation hadn't really happened, as if they hadn't just been informed of Petrodent's capture. "Oh yes, you were going to tell me where you got that clay amulet."

"Oh, it's just something I found in the cell," Snape replied, knowing that as he had been searched upon his imprisonment, it was the only reasonable explanation he could give. "I have no idea how it got there, but I don't think it's anything magical."

Evnissyen nodded. "Neither do I. It's not exactly fancy, so I might as well crush it, don't you think?" He bent down and laid the clay pendant on the floor. Then he raised his booted heel as if to step on it with full force.

"Hey, wait," Snape said. "If you don't like your pendant, why don't you give it to me and take mine instead?" He took off the leather cord hanging from his neck and held the oval piece of silver in his outstretched palm.

"You want it, then?" Evnissyen asked. He bent down to pick up the ocarina from the floor and let it dangle in front of Snape's face, his eyes alight with knowledge.

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