For Freedom, the Wand and Absolution

A sliver of artificial light inched in through the non-window above. He felt the magic as it pulsated out in small shock waves, and wondered idly why they bothered with it at all, since their sunrise did not have the slow magic of a world awakening and their progressing day lacked the small changes in the spectrum of the light. Beggars couldn't be choosers though and he'd rather have artificial light and all it lacked than no light at all.

There were footsteps outside. Shrupp, shrupp, shrupp, shrupp, the turn of scccruppp, shrupp, shrupp, shrupp, shrupp, scccruppp... The same pace, four steps to every turn and he never got tired of counting every single one. One, two, three, four, turn, one, two, three, four, turn. The wall was cold against his back. It seeped moistness that slipped into his robes, sending a shiver down his spine, and into the bare mattress, then the freezing stones below. He did not move from there for sleeping, or eating, or living in general unless he was led around in figurative collar and chain outside.

Shrupp, shrupp, shrupp, shrupp... Water rolled down his ear where he had it pressed against the wall. The sounds resonated through the door and along the walls and floor. With wood that thick and magic that powerful it should easily leave him alone in the silence, but he heard every single step. He'd touched every centimetre of that wood, had felt the pulsing spells in it that were strong enough to flatten him against the wall when offended or draw him to them when they desired company of another lone soul.

Rasping shoes on stone. His interest piqued briefly when a different set of steps sounded outside. Those boots had an odd sound that followed the slide of sole on ground and a different rhythm to their pace. They came every day, if light gave any indication, and he had to acknowledge that it was perfectly plausible if it didn't. The voices that rose were too muffled to make out, while the steps rang out clear. It raised the question whether the flaw in the warding had been an honest mistake or if it was a deliberate attempt at irritation.

He counted the moments until the door opened soundlessly. Five that day. Brightness blinded him. He remained seated when he knew they wanted him to stand once the door was open. It was, while useless, the only scrap of pride he had left. He blinked owlishly into the strong Lumos. It filled his vision entirely.

"Get up!" The voice came from somewhere behind the light.

He kept his eyes trained on the wand point as the source of greatest brilliance and open, even as they watered with strain. A foot moved into his peripheral vision with the odd sound that followed the slide of the sole on the ground. A split second of non-thought, then he found himself lunging for it, conditioned well to the stimulus, ignoring the effective blindness in the centre of his focus. He bared his teeth as his stiff fingers closed around robed legs. He relished the muffled sounds of and the harsh hurried scuffle of feet as his thin frame crashed into the man and made him topple. He had to close his eyes against the dancing dots in them. Pain exploded in his lower back from a well-placed kick. The boot connected again and again until his fingers were forced to loosen their hold on the robe as his body arched in pain.

They never used magic.

He lay curled up on the grimy floor. Draughts of cool air floated in through the door. It moved in currents, fresh and moist, over his barely-clad body. He tasted dirt and blood on his tongue, and smiled around the taste. He forced his clenching eyes open, hoping against better judgment for a glimpse of their faces in a moment of unawareness, just so there was something to hate later. But there was only the unwelcome sight of his living quarters, he chuckled, behind grey spots of the after-image. They slipped the hood over his face before he could turn his head for details. Cuffs forced his wrists behind his back and he was pulled off his knees. His shoulders creaked dangerously with the harsh movements. The fresh bout of pain forced bile into his throat.
"Who are you?" The words were part of the ritual, lest he'd later tell himself he hadn't tried. He twisted in their grips, jarring his shoulder with every movement, until an arm closed over his windpipe and pulled him back into a body, cutting off his air. "...go through this everyday?" he only heard, doubly muffled now, once by magic and once by cloth.

He attempted to rid himself of the hood, rubbed his head on his shoulder, but he was stilled with a few cuffs to the back of his head that made it snap and jar his shoulder more. His hair hung into his face inside the hood. He breathed his own stale breath that wet the inside of the cloth with its warmth until it was clinging to his lips and nose and eyes with every shaky gasp. He was pushed forward, predictably stumbled, fell to his knees and cursed under his breath at their laughter. He had that much spirit left in him.

"Get up, old man," they hissed into his ears. Their voices were strangely clear as they wrenched him up and shoved him forward to walk on. He felt the invading prickle of magic seep through his skin and deep into his bones and out of them again as they passed through the door. The draughts of air outside the door, a hallway, maybe, tugged at his thin clothes. They steered him with their hands on his body. Their fingertips pressed into the skin of his elbows and hips. Some days they chose touches more invasive: as if a hand cupping his genitals posed the ultimate humiliation when he was led around like a dog or otherwise left to rot. That their fingertips were like molten heat gave the only indication to his body's perpetually chilled state.

They were talking again behind him, the odd-sound one slightly to the right, the other slightly to the left. Their boots gave the clear staccato beat of Muggle soldiers, and served to emphasise the maddening blurriness of sound that their words were in his ear. No matter how often he tried to fragment the silence, it remained one ball of undistinguished noises. He did not believe them to be the only living specimen left, yet he lacked the evidence to the contrary. If not the boots, then his own harsh breathing kept them just below the brink of awareness.

They turned left and then right, and the draughts of air intensified until they pushed him through that final door. He breathed in deeply. The hood plastered itself to his face. The air smelt of freedom, birds sounded and the sun felt real on his skin, but he did not trust them not to employ tricks to achieve the effect.

They pushed him a few more steps. He knew what followed and had already bent his knees, so the kick to the back of them did not connect with quite the strength it had been meant to. He crashed to his knees nevertheless. The tingles of pain shot through his kneecaps into his body as the stone ground proved unyielding and cool. He drew in a hurried breath through the obstructing cloth before a hand on his shoulder pressed his body down until he settled on his haunches. They stepped back, and the sounds of their boots ceased to exist. He was encased in silence.

At the beginning of everything, after the farce they had called trial, they had told him there would be minutes of exercise and fresh air every day. Apparently this is what they had meant; kneeling on cold stones where the hint of freedom was tickling his senses and yet he was deprived of the slightest sight or smell or even sound that showed him that anything existed beyond the walls of his quarters, those men and himself. It was a complete illusion of life.

They had grabbed him. The bodies had still been smoking with the aftermath of curses that had flown too fast for anyone to count. One moment he had seen the Dark Lord stumble, fall and go up in a cloud of green. One moment he had stood, triumphant over everything he had despised and watched the last of the Order and the Dark Lord's servants battle, throwing a hex at those still standing to finish up the dirty work. One moment a wave of euphoria had swept over him, and the next a stunning spell had hit him in the chest. There had been a split second of confused awareness as he had toppled with the strength of the spell. He had locked eyes with Potter's darkly calculating ones, wand still held pointed at him, before his vision had been filled with the smoked up night sky and the lights of hexes being exchanged in the distance. Wails of pain and execution had filled the air.

There had been a child crying for its mother in anguished tones before the sound of its voice stopped mid-word. There had been hurried footsteps off to his left, calls to follow someone and the feet taking off. There had been angry shouts accompanied by curses and someone's voice breaking on a scream. It had sounded like one of Potter's generation. People had stepped over him, stumbled over him and had not noticed him. Something had been pressing hard into his back, a wand or stones or someone's body. He had concentrated hard on the magic inside him. He had felt it curl and uncurl and thrumming with need to break free, wandless as it was, but the stunning spell had held all of him. His ears had been ringing with the aftermath of the explosions, but through it he had heard laughter, clear as it had been slowly advancing. Potter's face had moved into his vision, then his body.

Potter had crouched, awkwardly, the sooty clothes stretched over bony joints. His face had looked worn, like all of theirs, maybe more so, not only a hint of madness in those eyes. Crawling around his body Potter had knelt to the right of it. Potter's eyes had been empty. It had made him double his efforts to get away. He had tried to talk but Potter had taken that from him, too.

Potter's wand had jabbed into his throat. "Kill you now," he had whispered.

It had been so low he had barely picked it up over the ringing in his ears. He had tried shaking his head. His eyes had born into Potter's, bringing the images of his aid to Potter's side to the forefront of his mind, daring him to pick it up from his thoughts. He had felt the invasion as Potter had torn through strands of memories at that cue, before Potter's fingers had closed his eyelids with a last smirk and all that had been left had been the laughter in his ears and the image of cold green eyes.

He had prepared for death. It had not come.

Now he was breathing in the stale air of his own exhalations under the pretence of open space and sky, forced onto his knees like a common criminal. Potter's eyes still blazed in his mind and he could not fathom how the Headmaster could have possibly trusted that boy cum man.

A hand pulled him up. He had not noticed the steps creeping up on him. Apparently the ten minutes of daily humiliation had been successfully endured. They led him back into the building, warm pressure points on his elbows. He felt something slink in and out of him as the walls closed around and the door behind them. There were no currents of air and he focused on one foot before the other as they steered him back to his quarters. He could do without those minutes of stylized freedom but it got him to move his feet and kept the ghosts of the loss of mind at bay.

Twenty-three, twenty-four, turn left; he had counted them once, another fifteen to the right turn. The air got moister the deeper they went in and the mock-freshness of the outside slunk away. A slow downward slope, or something like it beneath his feet, the stone with the ragged edge and four steps until the turn. His body turned in anticipation, his weight on his right foot.

He was jerked to the other side and lost his footing.

His body stiffened. "Where are you taking me?" He twisted in the grip of his captors for control. A change to the usual did not bode well. Rapid breathing made the hood cling to his face. Angry jibes and pushes into his ribs forced him into their direction, away from the familiarity of day after day after day he had known.

Gears in his mind turned as notions for survival prevailed and he began to count the steps. Twenty-seven until the next turn. His mind catalogued it into the mental map of the place, limited as it was. Six more steps and then they stopped. His breath quickened. They were talking among themselves as one of them pressed him into a wall, his legs kicked apart for imbalance as if he would attempt to run. His muscles still burned with exertion from the earlier undignified scuffle.

Without a moment's notice he was grabbed again and pushed through a door. The magical currents passed through him like fire and familiarity. The room was distinctly warmer than the outside. The hands left him, and he swayed briefly with disorientation. He moved his head from the left to the right and back, mapping the aural focal points of the room. There were people in the room, more of them, their voices not so much muffled as speaking in whispers or gasps. He heard his name mentioned. He pulled at the bonds, involuntarily shrank back as he heard someone near.

"Move it, Snape." It was a hiss into his ear and he was pushed into a chair, almost toppling over with it. His bound hands dug into his back. He forced his breathing to calm from the near-panicked heavy inhales.

"What-," he said, then stopped and listened. He had known situations like this. The instincts lay dormant in a hidden part of his mind and only slowly seeped back into his bones like something you did not forget once learned. He sat still. There was only his own breathing and heartbeat in his ears. His back muscles protested the rigid posture, clenching painfully. He ignored his pumping heart, and part of him waited for the words of an uttered spell, invisible lights and the permanent silence of death.

No one spoke up. No one raised their voice in greeting or condemnation. Brief flares of fear made his heart beat high in his throat.

He blinked into his very own darkness. "The hood," he said. His voice was hoarse with dread. They couldn't have kept him alive for a murder like this. He caught cloth between his chapped lips. No sound, no movement. He waited. Eventually he shook his head with a snort and stood. He took a few steps towards his estimation of the door. His legs were shaking. "Thank you for the pleasure of allowing me to explore places unknown." His voice held both contempt and apprehension.

"Stop." The voice came from behind him.

He did.

"Towler." The same voice.

Steps closed in on him. He fought the impulse to step back. The hood was ripped from his head in one swift movement. Strands of hair caught in the cloth and were pulled out along with it. He shot the man, Towler, a glare. Gryffindor, doubleWeasley-generation. Towler turned and walked to the corner of the room. His boots made that odd sound that followed the sole on the ground.

"Snape."

The voice again, and Snape turned, tore his gaze from Towler. He took in the room. His eyes were met by faces that he had last seen unaged or never - it amounted to the same.

"Satisfied?" The voice was dressed in dark blue robes, clean-shaven, short grey hair. "Robards," the man supplied. "We have met." The self-satisfied smirk curled around the words.

Snape regarded him. They had met. It had been in one of the standard Ministry cells, minutes after the trial. Robards had come bearing the message that as long as he'd lived Snape would never see the light of day again. Snape thought of the magical light in his quarters and the hooded excursions to a might-be outside.

He nodded in grim acknowledgment. Next to Robards stood a Ravenclaw, Davies if memory served, a year or two out of school when the war had entered its high phase. He had not seen him on the battlefield. He looked unscathed now, a tight smile on his face. There was Towler, next to him Lee Jordan, same Gryffindor generation. They stood near the door. If Towler was the odd sound, then Jordan was the rhythmic pacer. They had seen him on his knees, they had put him there. The fresh flash of hate was not unexpected after years of endured humiliation. He had the faces to hate now. It served as a focus. There were a few in Auror robes, many he had fought alongside with, whose lives he had saved time and time again, some of whom he had taught in the last generation of seventh years at Hogwarts and later in a two-week seminar that had meant to be an introduction and had turned out to be their only preparation for the war.

He looked them over once more. The room was small enough to be crowded with nine, ten people and himself. The chair stood in the middle of the room. Robards was standing behind it now, his hands on the back of it, caressing the wood.

"Sit," Robards said.

Snape glanced at him doubtfully, raised an eyebrow at Robards' hands on the chair. Robards laughed, a harsh sound in the quiet room as he moved away, rounded the chair. It made Snape's skin prickle with distaste and no small amount of fear. Snape stared at their hands. They all had their fingers closed around their wands ready to draw and kill on command. He eyed the chair again, did not move, and considered the door.

"Sit, Snape." There was impatience in his voice.

Snape felt his fingers twitch, and idly wondered why they did not stage the execution in a bigger arena for the entire world to watch. Potter was missing, too, which was suspicious in itself. He would have thought that the Boy Who would take the greatest kind of delight at his broken down body clad in scraps, hair as greasy as ever sticking to his skull and fingers he could not hold still when not bound these days. He walked to the chair, execution or not, and sat, facing Robards who stood, all-imposing and reeking of grandeur, turning his wand between his fingertips.

"I trust you have had a pleasant-" Robards began.

"Spare me." Snape shifted on the chair to relieve some of the pressure on his shoulders. "Tell me why you dragged me up from isolation. I trust it wasn't for the exchange of pleasantries."

"Still the same old," Robards replied, snorting.

Snape ignored him. His eyes roamed the room, studying the faces of the Aurors. Branstone, Eleanor a fourth year Hufflepuff. She had been botching up the Calming Draught in class when he had last seen her, giggling with her girlfriends. Apparently she had made it to an Auror now, and a grown woman. It simplified fathoming years that had passed.

"Snape," Robards said.

Snape focused back on him, noted that the wand had been put away. Robards now stood with his arms crossed in front of his chest, the robes pulled tight around his body. His expression was grave. His eyes lay deep in his face, the skin grey, lines deep.

"We need your ... help." Robards' voice broke on the simple sentence. His mouth was pinched with distaste. Visibly uncomfortable he averted his gaze.

Snape looked at him. The corners of his mouth quirked up in disbelief. He chuckled low in his throat. Laughter rose in him. At Robards' mortified expression the chuckles turned into coughing, and his amused expression turned to stone. "Take me back." Snape drew the sentence out word by word and savoured the stunned silence.

Robards' head snapped up. His eyes narrowed. "You!" His wand was out and at Snape's throat in the barest of a second. The other hand was fisted into Snape's robe.

Snape smiled as Robards was pulled off him by three Aurors and pushed into a corner where he then stood, chest heaving. The other Aurors remained rooted to their places in the room. A few of them had drawn their wands. Snape snapped his gaze to Towler and Jordan. The hood was dangling from Towler's hand.

Snape stood from the chair and walked over to them. He sneered at their eager leers, and forced his face to a mask for effect. "Take me back to my cell." He nodded at them. Towler, confused stacked on top of stupid now, looked questioningly at the group of Aurors with Robards in their midst.

"You haven't yet heard what we have to offer, Snape." Robards spoke from behind Snape. He had recovered and shook off the Aurors.

"What could you possibly offer me? A house-warming gift for my quarters? Rather a bit late, that."

Towler twirled the hood in his hand. Jordan stared at his feet. The door was firmly closed. Snape felt no draughts of air from it, only magic. It was doubtful he'd get it to open for him without a wand, and eight Aurors behind him. He felt Robards' need slide into him.

"Freedom."

Snape turned sharply, searching Robards' face.

"Freedom, your wand." Robards stepped forwards and dusted himself off. "And absolution. I'd suggest you sit back down. I would judge that offer to be far preferable to your quarters."

Snape swallowed hard. His tongue mapped the dry lips. He knew the wooden door and the pulses of artificial light. Sometimes he smelt death on himself when he couldn't remember what time of the day it was or why he was supposed to care.

The smirk regained dominance on Robards' face. "Still want to leave?"

Snape sneered and walked back to the chair, sat down. "Elaborate." His voice came out barely above a rough whisper. He did not want to die in that cell.

"Call it a trade of goods," Robards replied as the twirl of a wand and an interjected murmur conjured a chair. He sat down opposite Snape. "You do something for us, and we do something for you."

"It must be meant to be fatal," Snape said as he leaned back. "That you offer me that on a silver platter ... freedom. Or you are just that desperate."

Robards' lips pinched again. "Not desperate, no."

"So, desperation it is," Snape interrupted triumphantly. "Why, to see you that low-"

"Stop it right there, Snape." Robards smirked dangerously. "Nothing keeps us from throwing you back where you belong-"

Snape laughed. "It made you drag me out of there. I think it is perfectly qualified to be the reason why you will not send me back there, too."

"You are wrong. This is the only offer of freedom you will get. Ready to throw your life away at forty-five?"

Snape smirked at him coolly. "Quite possibly."

Robards nodded. "Towler, Mr Snape declines. See him back to his quarters."

Towler smirked and pushed off the door. Robards moved out of the way. Towler lifted the hood and moved to draw it back over Snape's head.

"Wait," Snape said quietly.

Robards nodded at Towler. Towler lowered the hand with the hood but remained right there, the hood just inside Snape's field of vision.

"For freedom?" Snape's voice was incredulous. "The freedom I should, by right, have had years ago?"

"Absolution," Robards supplied. "You would prove that you are on our-"

Snape laughed. A mirthless laugh that rang out cold in the room. He leaned forward, until he felt Robards' robes brush against his own thin clothing. "To prove myself? To prove myself again, to prove again that I am one of you, on your side, on Potter's side?" He spat, his eyes wild with sparks and fire, spittle flying from chapped lips. "How many vile acts do I have to commit until one of you holy creatures accepts me into your fold? How many murders, how many despicabilities do you need out of me until I am good enough? How dare you ask once again, how dare you demand my help, and have the audacity to promise me absolution. You are all the same, Dumbledore, you, Potter. It is only the name of the good that changes. How often have I proven it in the past, and it amounted to nothing. How can you believe that-"

"Is that a 'no', Snape?" Robards asked, interrupting Snape in mid-word.

"Is there a choice?" Snape replied, his lips thin. He studied the wall behind Robards.

"There is always a choice. You help us, or ... you don't."

"Same kind of choice as usual, indeed," Snape replied under his breath. He shook his head. The same choice he had made time and time again since he had been just an adolescent, always 'a choice'. Indeed. "The terms," he said instead. He moved his head the angle it took to meet Robards' eyes.

"You get your freedom, your wand and a full clearance of all crimes past."

Snape laughed. "You would call them crimes of course. You won't bother me, you won't attempt to contact me, I am free to leave, there won't be records?"

Robards nodded. "Correct."

"What is it then that you want?"

Robards sat back down in his chair, rubbing his chin, then his eyes. He frowned, regarded Snape thoughtfully, then nodded at Davies. Davies stepped forward, unbuttoned the front of his robes. He pulled out a folded Prophet. After confirmation from Robards he placed the Prophet on Snape's knees.

Snape raised an eyebrow at Robards. "The hands?" he commented dryly.

Robards' nod at Towler sufficed to free Snape's hands of the cuffs. Snape massaged his right wrist, grimacing as he moved the wrist carefully. He looked at Robards who nodded at the paper. He looked at the Aurors, all of whom stood in the room with expressions of anxiety and apprehension. Eventually he focused his attention on the paper, picked it up and felt the rough texture of paper for the first time in years. He unfolded it. The first glance went to the date. 2003, it was, five years imprisoned for doing that which had been asked of him, for following orders even. He closed his eyes, briefly, then looked at the headline of the front page:

- Malfoy Says: He Screams Prettily -

He needed neither subtitle nor article, the photos in all their wizarding glory were graphic enough. One showed Lucius baring his teeth in the parody of a smile at the camera. The other showed Shacklebolt, head lolling back as the blood ran in small rivulets down his chest from cuts that were placed in an attempt to map every single bone of his body. He was naked, his genitals propped up for the world to see, and blurred out by the paper's editors. They had never been friends, but they had fought together. It was enough to make him grimace.

Snape scanned the article. It had been weeks then since the first photo had been submitted anonymously to the Prophet, more weeks since Shacklebolt had been noted as missing. Lucius did not ask for anything, he had all he wanted right there, and felt the most desperate urge to tell the world about it, too.

Snape folded the paper after another scan of the article and handed the Prophet to Robards who had been watching him avidly. "You want me to do what exactly?" he asked after a few moments pause of pregnant silence.

"Get him back," Robards replied. "Malfoy, too."

Snape regarded him, regarded the Aurors, even Jordan and Towler at the door. He had last seen Lucius the day of the battle, on the other side of the field. "You want me to retrieve Shacklebolt from the clutches of Lucius Malfoy in return for full reparations?"

Robards nodded jerkily, his hands clenched into the Prophet.

"Those are your terms?" Snape asked again, and upon Robards' nod began shaking his head, his face pulled into a mask of disgust. "I am not the magic rabbit you pull out of your hat when your team of so-called Aurors is unable to do their work."

"You are now," Robards replied, his face hard. "Rather, I do not care what you are, Snape. We have our deal: you get your freedom and I get Shacklebolt and Malfoy alive. That is all I care about. Stuff your dramatics or call the deal off, last offer, your choice."

"I cannot believe you leave me to rot in a cell you deign to call living quarters to my face that is barely big enough for me to walk two steps into every direction when standing in the middle, pull a hood over my face whenever your bullies take me for a walk and now expect me to act as if the 'offer', as you term it, is Merlin's gift to mankind in general and me in particular."

Robards smiled. "It is Merlin's gift to you, Snape. The alternative has you rotting in that cell until the rats nibble on your eyeballs. Take it or leave it."

Lucius grinned madly at Snape from the font page of the Prophet on Robards' lap. He waved his wand at Snape, gesturing with glee in his eyes. After the Dark Lord's death, after he had been introduced so warmly to his quarters he had wondered about Lucius, if he sat in a cell much like his own, or whether Lucius had managed to escape from the battlefield. Apparently the Malfoy luck had held once more.

Lucius eyes had never been quite as deranged, the set of his mouth never quite as uncontrolled in madness as on that photo. Snape thought of freedom at last, and a pang of longing stole through him before he could hunt it down and kill it ruthlessly.

"What are the details?" Snape asked eventually.

"We have a deal?"

"An initial agreement, yes." Snape nodded sharply as his heart jerked painfully in his chest. Paper floated in front of them. The words wrote themselves out from Robards' mind. He, Severus Snape, prisoner, would lead the Aurors to Lucius Malfoy. In Return, Gawain Robards, Head of Auror Division, promised freedom, the wand and a notice that all crimes were to be considered atoned for. Snape signed it with shaky letters as the paper was turned over to him. His name pulsed in black on the paper and dried.

"The details," Snape repeated.

Robards sat back in his chair, nodded at the Aurors who filed out of the room, including Towler and Jordan. It was curious that they had been there in the first place. Davies remained, his quill set to paper, apparently documenting the exchange.

"We do not have details of Malfoy's whereabouts, nor do we know if he is working alone. Every week an owl with a new photo turns up at the Daily Prophet. The owls are paid for anonymously at a service for discreet deliveries. The management proved to be uncooperative, even the use of a number of methods at our disposal did not give us viable information."

Snape rubbed his wrists absent-mindedly. "What leads you to believe that I will be more successful than you?" He stared at Davies' scribbling quill. His eyes shifted back to lock with Robards'. "Allow me a summary, the Ministry of Magic first off does not notice one of their heroes is missing for weeks, and once they notice they fail - they, who won the war, as I am sure it is being declared - they fail to find a lone man holding the hero captive? That is rather pitiful." A smirk played around Snape's lips.

Robards stared at him in silence for a moment. "Are you done gloating?" he asked eventually, his face grave.

Snape nodded, smiling.

"That is all we have. You know Malfoy, you were colleagues, friends, fuckbuddies-"

"Please," Snape interjected on a long sigh.

"You knew each other. You will find him, lead us there, we will go in. The end."

It sounded too easy. Even if Lucius had never managed to curb ambition enough to suitably pair it with cunning and ability, with the glint of madness that shone from his eyes anything was possible. Snape carded fingers through his hair. "Are you certain that he is in Britain even?"

Robards shook his head almost apologetically.

Snape snorted. "You expect me to do the impossible. It has been years, Lucius is not likely to trust me, knowing where I have gracefully resided during that time. I am sure you made no secret out of having the big bad Death Eater detoothed and caged. Not to mention that he saw me on the field of the final battle standing on the opposing side. I won't be able to come within eyesight of him. That is ... insanity."

Robards regarded Snape thoughtfully, rubbed his eyes, then shrugged. "It is your part of the deal. Forgive me if I do not have any sympathy to spare."

"It's-"

"The deal," Robards concluded.

"Given it does not work that way, with me flaunting in there, reminding my friend of our joyful times together, strike up our friendship, save the world?" Snape's voice was dry. Clearly his own life weighed the least in the equation.

"If you fail," Robards laughed at the barely hidden grimace on Snape's face, "you will be spending your time in your beloved quarters again. It is rather simple, you do something for us, and we do something for you. You don't, then we don't."

Snape nodded in acknowledgement. He had only a limited array of options, none were ideal, and clearly the cell was less ideal than the alternative. "I don't suppose you'd be gracious enough to already return my wand to me for this little adventure?"

Robards shook his head. "It is impossible. As the agreement states, it will be handed to you afterwards."

"I see," Snape said shortly. His mind whirled for old contacts, all of whom might be long dead or similarly incarcerated. Chances were that they had blended in undiscovered, fortunate as they were. "Any wand?" he asked for good measure, but was not surprised at the reply in the negative.

"Two more things," Robards said, "first, the methods of contact. You report to us every day."

"That is ridiculous." Snape leaned back in his chair. Not only would it be a problem if he made contact with Lucius, he would not have another choke collar around his neck.

"It is not debatable," Robards continued, ignoring Snape's objection. "These are the apparition coordinates. It is in the Pennines. I expect you there for, let's say, tea every day."

"Tea?" Snape studied the paper with the coordinates. "Does four suit you then?" He crumbled the paper in his hand.

Robards nodded. "Four it is, then. Finally, to conclude our conversation, there is the matter of ensuring you do not flee into premature freedom and to call you to us should you find tea not agreeable after all." Robards gestured to Davies who set the quill aside and left the room. "There is the matter of secrecy, you understand." Robards pulled his wand out of his robes.

Snape eyed him suspiciously, keeping his arms crossed in front of his chest. "You are not tagging me like a stray animal."

"I am." Robards bared his teeth in a mock-grin. "I fathom you are familiar with this particular procedure. Bare your arm, please."

Snape pushed the chair back. Its legs scraped loudly over the ground. "You won't do this," he ground out, breathing hard through his nose. He stared at Robards' wand that wavered over his body. It held nothing of a Dark Arts ceremony, but the dread that cursed through his bones was the same.

"The left arm, Snape, you do not have a choice in this." Robards grasped Snape's arm, held it still despite the tense muscles and twitches, and pushed up the sleeve until the Dark Mark was revealed. He moved the tip of his wand to the eye of the skull, touched it to the blackened skin, and murmured a few words under his breath in wizarding Latin.

Snape shut his eyes tight. The searing jab of pain went up his arm and into his shoulder. It jarred memories of the ritual, and a pain more elaborate than that.

Robards released Snape's arm and moved back. "It won't be noticeable now."

Snape opened his eyes lifted his gaze in dark accusation. "I will know, that suffices." He pushed his sleeve back down to cover his arm.

Robards walked to the door and allowed Davies with his quill and parchment back into the room. He took the parchment from him and held it up to Snape. It was the same as earlier, the added point of the meetings and the smallest of mentions of a tracking charm for the sake of everyone's safety. Snape took the offered quill and set his name down below the first signature. There was the faint glow of ink until it dried. Robards did the same and handed quill and parchment back to Davies.

"Mr Towler will show you the way out. I will see you again at tea tomorrow." With that Robards and Davies disappeared through the door, leaving Snape in the room by himself.

The door did not fully close behind them. Snape sat on his chair in silence for a few moments and began to shiver. He pushed up the sleeve of his robe and traced the fresh brand. It was indeed not noticeable, obscured by the past. He got up and crossed the room to the door. He threw another look over his shoulder at the two chairs and walked out.

"Mr Towler," he nodded curtly at the man still holding the hood. There was not much left of the student he had taught in that face.

Towler lifted the hood, slowly, while sadistic glee played over his face. "Procedure," he said, "secrecy."

It sounded to Snape like a kick to the small of his back and a shove to push him down. Snape nodded. His eyes closed as he felt the too familiar constriction placed over him. They had lifted the muffling charm on the hood. He heard the sounds clearly now, not only the odd sound of Towler's boots on the floor, but the people he was greeting jovially in the hallway. The hand on his elbow, while not pushing and shoving, felt too close for comfort. He focused on their steps, the turns, and fell into the familiar cycle of counting them. They were walking through doorways that sent showers of magic over his skin.

Another doorway and a door closed behind them. Towler steadied him and pulled the hood off. Snape blinked into the light. There was a counter he was now leaning against, rows upon rows of shelves behind it. Towler was talking to another man, was handed a package and came back over to Snape, pressing the package into Snape's hands.

"Your clothes," Towler explained. His lips were pulled back into not quite a sneer as he looked Snape over. "Rooms are over there. They have showers. I suggest you use one." Laughing Towler turned back to the man behind the counter. They both stood grinning, watching him with gleeful expressions.

Snape turned in the direction indicated, felt their eyes on him until he had closed the door behind himself. He leaned back against the door for just a moment's peace, then gathered his wits about himself and walked over to the sink and mirrors. He set the package on the sink and looked at himself for the first time in years.

His skin carried a greyish tinge. It stretched tight over his cheek bones, paper-thin to the touch. He drew off his shirt. His upper body was a mixture of protruding bones and bruised skin. He had lost weight. The Dark Mark stood out. His gaze swept back over the bruises and there was the picture in his mind, unwilling, of who it was that had kicked him, pushed him and now dared to laugh in his face, who had seen him at his lowest and had put him there. Bile rose in his throat again.

He made short work of water to his skin and his new - old - clothes. They barely fit him now, those robes he had had on when they had brought him here. Fingertips brushed over fabric, taking note of bloodstains, of mud still clinging to them - memories of a battle long past, of people long dead.

He strode out of the room and into the jeering gaze of Towler. He had no mind to spare for him now. "The exit?" he forced out.

Towler nodded at the door on the opposite wall. Snape crossed the room and went through the door. The magic enveloped him in a cascade of colours. Unwanted tears pricked at his eyes. Magic swirled around him, he felt bent in double and crashed to his knees as it spit him out again.

The street was rough beneath his hands and knees, his hair hung in a puddle of unidentifiable liquid. He threw up. He did not bother to turn around. There would not be a door behind him. The stomach acids burnt in his mouth. Strings of it clung to his chin and he wiped at them with the sleeve of his robes. He stared at the puddle of bile right in front of his face and felt it rise in his throat again

"What in Merlin's name," someone exclaimed next to him.

Snape looked up through the curtain of hair hanging in his face, barely made out the silhouette of a wizard hurrying by, the shake of his head and the sneer on his face as he turned once more to confirm his disgust. There were others who walked in a wide berth around him, looks of horror on their faces.

He looked past them, at the houses framing the street, and felt a twisted sense of coming home as his eyes found Mme Malkin's straight ahead of him. He had last stood in this place, in Diagon Alley of all places, years ago, before the war had reached its zenith or maybe right then. There had been a small apothecary next to Flourish & Blotts. It was not there now, there was no house there at all. He darkly remembered a Prophet article on the disastrous destruction of the place. The pet shop of horrors to the left of Mme Malkin's appeared to have reopened. Screeching owls and other unidentifiables littered the shop window.

"Disgusting," someone hissed as they passed.

Snape turned at the voice. He did not know the face, and apparently the stranger did not recognize him either. They stared at one another for a moment that stretched far and wide. With a huff the stranger threw a Galleon into Snape's general direction. It bounced off his shoulder, hit the ground and toddled and rolled until it fell head-first into the puddle of Snape's stomach contents. The stranger laughed and moved on. Snape stared at the Galleon, then at the English sky above Diagon Alley. This was freedom.

"Scum," a voice said, and Snape noticed the hex only as it hit him, a split second of pain that paralyzed all nerve endings in his legs and sent him crashing onto his front on the pavement. Women yelped nearby. Hushed whispers started up around him as people stopped to stare. He grabbed the coin out of the bile and hobbled off into an alley to his right, his legs barely reacting to will again. It would be foolish to show his face in the crowds now with a situation ungauged. The coin felt heavy and warm in his hand. He looked back over his shoulder, no one had followed him.

The alley was not much more than the waste of the street proper. Shops had their backdoors let out into the street. The smell of damaged and rotten goods wafted as one thick fog through the gaps between houses. Rats scurried from one waste heap to the other. Snape stayed close to the wall and watched the pavement with shoppers passing by. He sank to the ground behind one of the trash cans, out of sight from the street and anyone who should choose to come this way. He massaged his legs, nerves still twitched periodically. He'd have to avoid the open street for the time being. He looked down at himself. The robes were tattered and torn in places. He drew a hand through his hair and over his chin. Despite the wash he had been allowed he still looked less than presentable.

Another few deep breaths and he pushed himself to his feet again and staggered down the alley, one hand in reach of the wall. He would need to find a wand first. Since Ollivander's successor was not to be considered for the sake of secrecy. He'd have to try his luck, and he'd no doubt need that, elsewhere.

Rain began to drizzle as he navigated the narrow streets, moving deeper into the web of back alleys where the stench of bad food and death took equal space. Occasionally someone would hover in the back doorways. Snape would hide his face behind the curtains of lanky air and move on, grateful that his legs had stopped shooting sparks of pain at him with every step.

The back streets eventually brought him around to Knockturn Alley. It was a surprise to see it still standing and not closed as part of the post-war clean-up that must have taken place. While the shadiness had remained the shops carried the look and feel of unfamiliarity. Where Knockturn Apothecary had stood, blankness now reigned. Most of the shops now lacked signs and even shop windows with displays. Word would travel by mouth here.

"Hello there, sweetie," a female voice slurred at him.

Snape turned quickly, and found himself faced with one of the Knockturn hags. The blackened teeth shone in her face. A dirty hand, fingernails long and ugly, shot out and pawed Snape's front. Nimble fingers felt along his robes. He pulled away rashly. His hand shot into the pocket of his robes and closed around the Galleon.

"I have no money for you," he told her, and walked off, leaving the screeching woman at the corner.

Wizards with hoods drawn deep into their faces and various unidentifiable half-breeds slunk through the street, one suspicious eye always on those passing by, fearing for life or money. One shop seemed as good as any for a question and more if offered.

Snape was climbing the steps to the next shop on his right, his eyes held averted, as a hand shot out to his breast and pushed him down a step. Dirty shoes and dirtier robes to his right, muddy shoes to his left adorned the wizards, as did their whisky breaths.

"I know you," dirty shoes said. There was a noncommittal sound from his companion.

Snape shrunk back and shook his head. "Not possible." He made to move past them, careful not to touch their robes.

"No, I know you," the wizard insisted. His grubby hand reached for Snape's face, and pulled it up by the chin.

Snape batted the hand away and found himself facing two wands trained on his body. One was poking at the soft pad of flesh beneath his chin. He steeled himself, ignored the wands and pushed onwards.

"Perme-"

"Stop that," a voice was booming from behind the wizards. "Down with those wands and you can go find another doorway to skulk in. What do you think you are doing scaring off my customers? Off with you, I say."

The wands lowered reluctantly and the two shoved past Snape. "I know you," dirty shoes called out again.

Snape nodded at the shop owner and followed him into the shop. The door closed with a damped sound behind him. There were a great variety of books on numerous surfaces. Rather than on neat shelves they lay on tables and chairs, stacked ten, fifteen books high. Some were open, ear-marked and written in, others were still enveloped by unopened sleeves. Snape scanned some of the titles he was able to make out from where he was standing. The innocently titled Potions IX was one of the rarer and more illegal books. He had owned it once. He had no mind to speculate about its current whereabouts, or lack thereof. One customer - dark robes, face hidden - sat in one corner of the room. He was thumbing through a book. Another stood at the make-shift shelves that were held together more by magic than anything else, on Snape's side of the room.

"The words are 'thank you'," the shopkeeper called gruffly from behind the counter.

Snape lifted his eyes from Potions IX to the wizard standing in the semi-dark. He wore tattered-looking, but clean, robes. They hung on his lean frame, his face was, maybe enhanced by the shadow play, sunken and mangled. Snape nodded in acknowledgment, then his eyes swept the titles of the books again, many of whom he had owned, others he had wanted. Now was not the time; after, it might be.

"Is there something you wanted?"

"Not from this shop in particular," Snape admitted. "I am looking for a wand."

"Diagon Al-"

"I would not peruse this neighbourhood if I could just as well walk down Diagon Alley for the same, would I?"

The shopkeeper's eyes narrowed. "Shifty dealing," he muttered to himself.

Snape gave a crooked non-smile. That wizard would know about shifty dealings, owning a shop in this part of the town, owning books the Ministry wished they had in their possession.

"Difficult times, these, for any shop," the shop owner spoke up again. "A wand maker? I am not sure I have seen one since before the war, what with the registration of the wands it has become a sight uglier with the dark wizards associations. They had everything closed and sent away, all of Knockturn Alley closed - can you imagine that? The shop owners have never come back, can you imagine that? Hard times for anyone."

"The wand maker," Snape prodded.

The shop owner stepped out of the shadows. "Wand making is an exacting trade," he said slowly as he stepped up to Snape, his foul breath ghosting over Snape's face. "Why would anyone have a need of one, in times as difficult as these?" Dry fingers pulled Snape's chin up, the fingernails digging into the skin, and pulled it into the light. "We do not give our own up for nothing, my boy, when you could be anyone. My, such passion in those eyes of yours, such passion in that chest." The hand slid over the chest and to the back of Snape's neck. The hand tensed and attempted to push down. "There is a price for everything." The shop owner leered at him, then an obscene gesture of tongue in cheek.

Snape tensed and twisted away, ignoring the sound of tearing robes. The door was right behind him and he got it to open. He threw the man a disgusted look and hurried down the stairs and back into the street.

The shop owner's laughter rang out behind him. "Two doors over, my boy, try it there but remember that everything has its price."

Snape watched the shady figures on the street, but no one paid him attention. Minding the shop owner's words, he tried the door two houses down the alley. There were sounds of laughing children in the background, clearly he was closer to Diagon than he'd assumed. This house held another non-descript shop front. The windows were hung with black drapes.

Snape opened the door. As he stepped into the shop the jingle of a bell rang out. Unlike the stack of books in the other shop this one held nothing. It was a blank room, held in surprising white. There was no counter, no shelves, no tables - essentially nothingness.

"With whom do I have the pleasure?" a bodiless voice rang out.

"Me." Snape grimaced as he rubbed his forearm. It still burned.

"Have I made your acquaintance before?"

"Unlikely," Snape replied. He squinted into the room for a sparkle of a disillusionment charm or anything but blankness.

"What service do you require of me?"

"I am in need of a wand."

"Wands are not part of the services I offer," the voice replied, sounding somewhat dismayed.

"So I see," Snape replied dryly. "I wasn't aware of ghosts dealing in anything," he added on a guess.

The ghost materialized in front of him. "Clever one, are you?" it said as it swayed around Snape. "And dirty one, are you? In need of a wash maybe." It held a bucket with water up, threatening to tip it over Snape's head.

Snape stepped back, shaking his head dismissively. "I lack the time for the friendly... banter." He inched out of the door, throwing it closed behind him as he faced the foggy bleakness of the Alley again. It left him back where he had started.

He walked a few steps uphill. His fingers were playing with the one coin he owned in his pocket when a hand grabbed him and pulled him into a narrow niche and off the street. The hand clamped over his mouth. Snape made the gesture of wanting to pull a wand out of his pocket.

The wizard laughed openly at him. "I know you don't have one, chap," he said.

It was the man from the book shop who had sat in the corner and thumbed through the books, seemingly unaware of anything that happened around him. The hood was still pulled low over his face.

"In need of a wand, are you? I heard you say so ... I know of someone who could get you one. Secret, you understand," the wizard whispered harshly, his head moving to check for listeners around them.

Snape nodded as he shook off the man's hand that clung to his arm.

"I can show you where," the wizard continued.

"What's the price?" Snape asked flatly.

The man pressed close against his body to whisper into his ear. "Price, there is a price, and it isn't money." The wizard nodded, his body rubbing against Snape's in suggestive manner, then laughter again terming it a joke.

Snape laughed. The price was never money. "Where?" he asked instead. "Where do I find him, that man of yours?"

"I can take you there," the wizard replied, and before Snape was able to agree or not, he had pulled out his wand and the tug of apparition pulled them both away. Snape's body, weakened from years of non-magic and practically non-movement, fell heavily against the wizard as they were spit out by the magic again.

"Come now, come now," the wizard called.

Snape rubbed his eyes wearily. They stood in a non-descript alleyway. He could not remember having been there before. "Where are we?" He stopped the wizard as he made to pull him into one of the doorways. The windows looked like that of a rundown bar; low glimmers of light shone from within.

"The wand, you wanted a wand." The wizard tugged at Snape's robe and opened the door.

The door held open Snape stepped inside. Magic passed over him. The door fell close behind him with a thud. The wizard stood in the next doorway to the left already, partly illuminated from the light that spilled out from the room. "Come, come," he called and Snape followed, eyes roaming the walls. There were no pictures in that part of the hallway, stairs led up but he turned left before them and stepped into the room.

"Sit," the wizard urged him and pressed Snape into a chair. Then he disappeared through the doorway and up the stairs.

The room fell silent. Snape ground his teeth, forced his hands to still and not betray anything by gesture or face. The room was a bar, albeit empty. He sat approximately in the middle of the room, his back to the doorway.

"You have come to my attention," a deep voice said from behind him.

He fought the urge to turn, and forced a smirk instead. "I have been here for not much more than a few hours," he said. "A lot of time on your hands?"

The voice behind him laughed. "Funny one, aren't you?" The laugh cut off abruptly. "You asked questions," he said in a low voice. "I have been watching you."

"I am in need of a wand," Snape answered frankly. "So I asked for one. I was unaware it constitutes a criminal act now. Except, you are not the Ministry, are you?"

The laughter again. "I am not," the voice said, "but maybe you are?"

Snape crossed his arms in front of his chest and sat up a straight in his chair. "I do not have time for guessing games," he said eventually. "Either you have a wand or you don't, and if you don't I will just leave again and you can stop watching me. So what will it be?"

"I might have a wand, but it comes at a price."

Snape snorted. "How imaginative. What is the price then?"

"No. Indulge me. Let's say, purely hypothetically speaking, you are the Ministry. What would happen?"

"To you if you sold me a wand?" Snape shrugged. "I honestly doubt they'd call for your head for it."

The voice tsk-ed. "Not for the wand, no, but maybe for the price, or maybe for something else altogether. So why are you here - when you reek of the Ministry?"

Snape thinned his lips, got up and turned to face the voice. He was not surprised to see the wand pointed at him. The wizard had elegant robes, an elegant haircut, altogether well-groomed. He did not have a face Snape had seen before. With the Dark Lord gone and the Death Eaters scattered or dead or imprisoned or imprisoning themselves it seemed that the power had shifted to someone else altogether. It was awkward, to say the least.

"Look," Snape said, "search me, scan me - and honestly, I thought you'd be intelligent enough to have done it before I saw your face and then, let's discuss the details of the deal. If I was the Ministry don't doubt that I'd have whisked you away when first setting eyes on you."

"I don't trust you," the wizard said, stretching, his wand idly circling in the air.

Snape sneered. "We are on the same page, then. The wand, and its price?"

"What can I offer you," the wizard said, and stood from his chair. The wand still trained on Snape he walked across the room to the bar, grabbed a glass and a bottle. "Firewhisky?" he asked Snape as he poured some into a glass.

Snape shook his head.

"Let's say, I have a broad selection of wands and I am sure we can find something suitable. May I ask what happened to your first one? Surely you have owned one before?"

"You may not," Snape said darkly, arms still crossed in front of his chest. He watched the wizard sip the Firewhisky while the wand kept up the irritating circling in the air.

"Fine." The wizard set the glass on the bar and walked around to Snape. He leaned against the bar casually and looked him up and down. "The price. What could you give me that I am in need of, an exchange of goods, I wonder. Are there any talents of yours you might want to share with me?"

Snape laughed. "No." He left it open whether he was referring to the talents or the sharing of them.

"In short," the wizard concluded, frowning, "you ask something of me, but have nothing in turn to offer other than yourself?" Eyebrows rose in question, blue eyes sparkled dangerously cold.

"I am not offering myself," Snape stated. He added 'never again' in his mind.

"We are at an impasse then, and it appears you will be leaving empty-handed, without a wand in that harsh world out there, where any random hex could aim to kill. The dramatics," the wizard said with a cool smile twisting his lips. "There is something about you," he added, "something. The wand in exchange for a favour to be called in later, nothing to bother yourself with now. It is the only offer you will get."

Snape looked at him a while longer, then nodded reluctantly, frowning. There was the distinct edge of owing someone yet again, a favour to be called in one indeterminable day, but the alternative was a quick death at a common mugger's hand, most likely before the day was over.

The wizard smiled. The blue eyes sparkled with coolness as he studied Snape. Despite the lips' cheerfulness the smile never quite reached the eyes. Both turned their heads to the door upon the sound of steps coming down the stairs and stepping into the doorway.

The wizard nodded at the man from earlier who had led Snape to the house. "We have an agreement. Mr-" the wizard broke off, laughing snidely. "I don't even know your name," he commented.

Snape raised his eyebrows in response. "Could we close this up now?"

The wizard smirked at him, then turned back to the other one. "Of course. As I said, an agreement has been reached. This fellow is to be shown the wands. He can take one, free choice." With a nod to Snape he continued, "I will leave you gentlemen to it then." He disappeared and Snape breathed just a little easier.

"Follow me," the one at the door said in an odd mixture of hiss and lowered voice.

Snape followed him as they left the room and passed by the stairs leading up. The one was in the lead, his robes trailing behind him. The house had an edge of darkness that came not from the lack of light alone, but seemed to stem more from something else, something magical. The wards on the walls were nearly oppressive. They appeared to part only to allow the two of them through, only to close behind Snape again. From a scientific standpoint it was an almost ingenious set-up. A few paintings adorned the wall in that part of the hallway, yet all of them were empty. Landscapes he could understand to be empty, but a room with a bookshelf up-close and yet no portrait to look down on him was rather curious.

"Down here." His guide indicated the steps that led down into darkness.

Shivers of apprehension prickled Snape's neck as they descended the stairs. Candles flared up alongside them to give just enough light to show the next few steps down. He held himself close to the other one. He did not quite trust the wards to allow him to proceed on his own.

The stairs led to a darker hallway and an illuminated room at its end. "Over there."

They walked along the hallway and entered the room. Positively medieval looking torches gave light to the room. Snape remained waiting in the doorway as he was motioned to by his guide. Shelves lined the walls. They held books, potion bottles and ingredients. His heart flared. He took one step into the room, instinctively, just to read the titles of the books in leisure, but as he set his foot on the ground inside the room sparks flew about it, and a small jolt of pain raced up his leg. He grimaced as the other one laughed from the far end of the room.

"Just a moment." He motioned Snape to step forward to the table that materialized in the middle of the room. He laid out a selection of wands, handling each one with care.

Snape was able to identify most of the woods on sight: holly and yew, willow and cherry. A few of them seemed oddly familiar, as if he had encountered them before, but then there were only so many woods and lengths wands were made of. He raised his eyebrows in question at the other one and upon a nod passed his hand over the selection of wands. He was the eleven-year-old again who chose his first wand at Ollivander's. How he had stood in that shop, breathing excitement and tried wand after wand until one swish and flick finally had the sparks shooting out of the tip, his mother ecstatic, his father his usual surly self. The wands fluttered now as his palm moved over them. The cherry wand jolted, but it was the one made of ivy that smacked into the palm of his hand when he did nothing more than pass his hand over it. A small fragment of wrongness remained.

"The core?" Snape asked as he examined the wand.

"Dragon heart string," the other replied.

Snape weighed the wand in his hand. He closed his eyes briefly. "Wingardium Leviosa." He inhaled deeply as the magic passed through him, through the wand and out of it, making the wands on the table rise. He murmured the counter spell and nodded at the other one. The residual magic was still coursing through him. It tingled in his fingers, and every last cell of his body was flooded with an odd kind of euphoria. His fingers were white around the wand. It had been so long. He absent-mindedly watched the other one store the wands again. His fingertips caressed the pliable ivy. It was soft and bent easy to the touch.

"I will show you to the door," the other one said. He crossed the room back to Snape and went past him.

Snape nodded and followed once more up the stairs and through the thick of the wards that were now like a caress on his body. At the door, he nodded his thanks and stepped out. He regarded the house one last time. He held the wand loosely. He concentrated on a place, and the tug of apparition was welcome this time, rather than surprising.

His aim was off, one of the three Ds, no doubt. He ended up just a few steps too far in the middle of the woods, cursing as he noticed his robe to have torn at the elbow by a tree that could have almost splinched him. Fog lay over that place.

He stepped out from the line of trees and followed the path that stretched out from his feet. There were voices somewhere in the distance. He passed high crosses that pricked the fog as silent monuments and small stones that were flat in the ground. He read names in passing that felt familiar due to their mere commonality and some he thought he might have known when he had been a boy and living there, women who had given him sweets and men who had yelled at him to help with the work outside. He walked by hedges and trod on carefully raked paths. His boots left imprints as he wound his way between people long forgotten and decayed.

Things had changed, even around there. Years read different numbers, those with the fresh flowers and those without. Every few minutes Snape found himself startling at a name he read in passing, and the thought of them gone. Towards the outer edge, where carved stones kept the hill from sliding onto the street, he found her place. He was walking in the row behind it. His hand trailed over her darkened stone.

He walked around the plot, along the hedge that sprouted green and wild brown twigs to the front. He knelt at the small opening of the hedge. Fingertips caressed the dry earth, and the aged carcasses of once-flowers that stood in vases off to the side. The old rose beds had looked for and found their own to spread and join the edge in the outgrowth. He rubbed one of the rosebush leaves between thumb and finger and it broke to dust in his hands. He smiled grimly, wondering if anyone had been there when he had not.

Snape grasped one of the rose bushes by its stem. There was blood but he did not feel the pain. His other hand digging into the soil he pulled the rosebush out entirely, shaking off insects that had found their places in the roots. He threw the bush to the side and turned to the second one, then to the third, pulling and digging, showering himself with in dirt and scratches. The skin at his fingertips tore.

Snape sat back on his haunches and grabbed one of the rosebushes off the heap. He fished for his wand in his robes and concentrated on the magic. It was flowing through him as dry twigs turned to green stems and small buds and petals erupted, roots turned juicy and full. He smiled at the white petals and the yellow centre and planted the daisies carefully in the centre. His hands moved to smooth the earth over it.

He nodded and spent a few more minutes kneeling in silence before he moved to stand up, banishing the rosebushes with a word. He walked back around the plot, past wild hedges and bent down behind the stone. Digging in the soil behind it he pulled out the golden key, dusted it off and slipped it into his pocket alongside the Galleon. He looked around himself. There was nothing but fog. He disapparated, his destination visualized.

Diagon Alley. The sun had broken through the clouds over London since his quest for a wand. Smiling faces were milling around him. He stole into a side alley again, murmured a few spells to straighten his robes and shave off his beard, a freshening charm to his hair and face, a few healing words for the scratches on his hands. He squinted into the sun reflecting off one of the shop windows across the street. It would have to do.

Snape stepped back onto the main street. He stayed close to the shops and kept his eyes averted. He held his new wand clutched in his hand inside his robes, ready to whip it out should need arise. He needed lodgings for that night and more nights after, some food and a quiet place to think on a way to proceed.

"Mom, it's him," a whisper caught Snape off-guard to his left. A small boy, five or six maybe, pulled repeatedly on his mother's sleeve, his finger pointing at Snape. "It's him, Mom, it's him," the boy exclaimed again. A few passers-by turned their heads.

Snape hurried on as the mother told the boy to stop the nonsensical pointing and pulled him away. Gringotts was gleaming in white ahead. The scorch marks it had taken in the war, some of whom he had delivered in person, were gone and the bank stood as gracious as ever. Knockturn Alley was lurking just off its side. His head held low he navigated the streets, careful not to run into anyone, or give anyone reason to remember him as more than one of the figures.

He crossed over to the entrance of the building and pushed the bronze doors open, a few more steps and silver ones opened for him. The hall of Gringotts bustled with business. Wizards and witches talked in hushed whispers and loud voices. Goblins screeched for keys or information on throne-like seats. Keeping his head low and on the patch of ground just before his feet Snape walked to one of the free goblins. He fingered the key out of his robe.

"Vault 159," Snape said under his breath. It had been hers, to be used in situations such as these. His own money was more than likely lost to the world.

The goblin eyed him, his finger raised in accusative nature, but a few moments later shrugged and admitted Snape to step through. They rode in one of the trolleys to the vault. Snape fitted the key into the lock himself. The vault opened to him. A small sack sat in the middle. He stepped in, picked up the sack and opened it: one hundred Galleons, maybe less. It would have to suffice until he found alternative means of obtaining money, maybe a chance at his own once he had done what was asked of him. He stepped back into the trolley and spent the ride through the myriad of tunnels clutching the sack to himself. It held her Hogwarts name tag, 'Eileen Prince, Slytherin'.

When he exited Gringotts he pushed the sack into his robes. He stood blinking into the sun for a few moments, contemplating the question of lodgings. He walked slowly back along the street. The simplest appeared to be the Leaky Cauldron, cheap rooms for rent and a warm meal as part of the offer.

"It's him," someone whispered behind him. He forced himself not to turn or speed his steps. "I tell you, it is the one from the photo everyone has been talking about," a girl's voice continued.

Dropping his head lower Snape walked on, frowning as he did. One of the nonsense shops materialized in front of him and Snape ducked between the newspaper stands, finding himself face to face with The Quibbler: Grumpy Growlies And Their Mating Rituals. He sneered. What the Wizarding World had come to with more changed than the same and that rag still declaring its insanities.

From the corner of his eye he saw the girl pass. She wore Gryffindor colours and hung onto her boyfriend's arm. He turned to the newspaper stand, grabbing a Prophet. There was a chance of Lucius in it, and minuscule fragments of information might be gathered from it still. He folded the paper and took it to the counter, fished out a Galleon from the sack and put it down on top of it.

"That makes ten Knuts," the shop keeper drawled lazily. He grabbed the Galleon off the counter, counting out the remaining sickles and Knuts for Snape.

Snape swept up the money and took the Prophet with a nod and left the shop. He opened the paper, still standing in the shadows between paper stands and frilly postcards. The front page had his photo under the headline 'Escaped'. He dared one look up, almost expected a horde of Aurors and closed his hand on his new wand. He tucked the paper under his arm and walked down Diagon Alley, breathing a first sign of relief when Knockturn Alley loomed in the distance, and a second when the dark shadows sucked him up.

He pressed into a niche just off the street, not unlike the one where the other had found him just hours ago. He opened the Prophet to the front page again. His photo snarled at him. They had pulled him in front of a camera just after that last battle. For publication they had said. Certainly this was rather publicized now. The photo spanned half the page, the accompanying text was no more than a few lines.

S. Snape, known Death Eater, murderer of Dumbledore and on the Side Of Dark during the Wizarding War II has escaped Wormwood Institute for Confinement and Correction of Erratic Delinquents (WICCED) earlier this morning. Every sighting of S. Snape is to be immediately reported to your local Auror station or directly to the Aurors Devision c/o Ministry of Magic. A reward of 10.000 Galleons is offered for information that leads to the murderer's capture.

Snape folded the paper back up and pushed it into the pockets of his robes, alongside the sack of Galleons and the one lonely coin. The Leaky Cauldron was now not to be considered any longer for obvious reason.

He had thought they would support his mission, one that they had sent him on, instead of attempting their best to hinder every attempt he made. The world began to look bleaker by the minute. He looked down Knockturn Alley and the prospect of spending this night or any in one of its corners seemed undesirable at the first and plain foolish at a second glance. Knockturn Alley was not exactly known for its caring establishments of a nightly nature, you paid by the hour and not only got a bed but also an armful of whore for your money. There were no questions asked even if the body turned up dead the next day in one of the many dark corners so unsuited for sleep. The Alley provided for the most exclusive of tastes.

Snape pushed out of the street corner and kept his wand at the ready as he stalked down Knockturn Alley. Apparating to any of his old homes and semi-secret safe houses was now out of the equation, too. They had interrogated him after the battle. He had sat in that chair, apparently it was Wormwood now - he could not fathom what had happened to Azkaban - and they had forced Veritaserum into him, past any sensible estimate of potion needed for the scraps of truth they were looking for. They had squeezed every last bit of information out of him: whom he had killed, whom he had fucked, where he had stayed, who had supported him and who hadn't, and he had bled that information, until blood was the only thing left. It had dripped from his lips and slid down his throat to be coughed up again. There was nothing they had not asked and now nothing they did not know.

When everything had been laid out for them, all the truths, all the testimonies they had grabbed him and pulled a hood over his head that had muffled all sound except for the scrapes of shoes on the ground. They had put him into his quarters, as Robards had lovingly called them. All his truths had been worth nothing, yet now they knew, and anything he might have tried under these circumstances was out before it could be honestly considered.

He rubbed his arm anxiously, part of him waiting for a searing pain as he looked down the alley he was walking along. The windows were barred and the house-fronts non-descript. Borgin & Burkes which should have been right there at the corner was replaced by a murky-grey house front, windowless and lacking any sense of mystery. He kept his head down, unsure how much Knockturn Alley's familiar thought about money to be granted for a word or two. The Alley appeared empty enough. The rats had crawled back into their holes.

A man jumped out of the shadows in front of him, his wand held outstretched, the stance to attack. A spell flew at Snape. Snape barely managed to duck, drawing his wand as he did and sent the first curse that came to his mind in the man's direction. He missed, and cursed under his breath as he looked for his options of flight.

"The paper has your picture, Snape," the man said. They circled one another, careful for a shift of muscles, a dip of wands and gleam of eyes.

Snape snarled in reply. His mind catalogued the rustiness of his own joints and the stiffness of his fingers on the wand, clutching it with unpractised ease.

"I have you, Snape," his opponent called again, gleeful and scathing. He advanced on Snape.

Snape saw how a spell hit his opponent from the side and his eyes whipped to the alley on the right that was curving off Knockturn. A dark-hooded figure hid in the shadows. The cry of pain whipped his eyes back to his opponent who lay on the ground, clutching his legs. Regarding the black-hooded wizard a moment longer, Snape turned and fled. There was no telling if that one had meant the action in his defence or in an offence himself.

Snape stopped by the house whose windows were hung with black drapes and figured this to be as good a chance as any in case he had been followed. He heard steps pounding down the street behind him just as he slipped in through the door. There was the jingle of the bell, and he found himself back in the room of nothingness, white enough and bare enough to make the distinction between floor and wall, and even corners, non-existent.

Snape felt the swish of air around him before the ghost materialized in front of him. It was one of the translucent and non-gory kind, no head falling off, no ugly gashes of red on a naked body. In fact, it was dressed in business robes of dark green. The once-brown hair was cut short and fell into its eyes.

"Clean now, are you?" the ghost tittered as it swept around Snape. "Have used water for once, have you?"

Snape huffed impatiently. "I-"

"Don't you remember me," the ghost exclaimed. It twirled in front of Snape like a heart-broken ballet dancer. "Don't you know me now?"

"I don't believe we have met," Snape replied darkly. He studied the ghost. There was something familiar about it, but it might have been the robes, or the hair that looked too much like Lupin's for his taste.

"You don't know me?" the ghost went on, his face crest-fallen. Heavy ghost tears dropped to the ground.

Snape ground his teeth at the sight of the bawling translucent ball. "I am afraid I don't. Maybe if you gave me your name?"

The ghost wailed, then snapped its head up and was nose to nose with Snape in a rush of movement. "You may not know my name, but I know yours," the ghost said conspiratorially. Its index finger was a non-pressure against Snape's chest.

Snape pulled the paper from his robe and threw it through the ghost to land on the ground behind it. "Since today I expect everyone does," he said dryly.

"Not nice, not nice at all," the ghost said as it turned idly, rubbing the part of its body the paper had passed through. It hovered over the paper and pulled, faces at Snape's photo.

"I require your services," Snape admitted in a harsh whisper.

The ghost reared back from the paper and swung gently in front of Snape. "My services?" it pronounced pointedly. "You do not even know my name."

"Indeed."

"You were with him, earlier," the ghost stated boldly. It picked up the ghost-equivalent of pacing around Snape again.

"With whom?" Snape asked.

"Him!" the ghost replied forcefully. It passed through Snape from behind and sent a shudder of cold and creepy through Snape. "So why do you not go to him now? Why do you require my palsy services when you know him?"

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose, thumb and finger rubbing his eyes. He glanced at the ghost again. "What do you need an explanation for? I am here, rather than there. For any record you may keep, I know his name as little as I know yours."

"Is that meant to impress me?" the ghost huffed as it sped off through the whiteness. "Well," it called from farther back, "what is it you require?"

It passed into nothingness itself and Snape was left facing a bare room again. "I want a room for a few nights, maybe longer."

"Does this look like a guesthouse to you?" the invisible ghost huffed indignantly somewhere to Snape's right.

"No," Snape replied for good measure.

"Exactly," the ghost exclaimed. It appeared in front of Snape, puffed up and screeching.

"Now do you have a room or do I have to go to him?"

The ghost stopped in mid-breath. "To him?"

Snape nodded, and half turned. "I do not have the time for this."

"You pay for the room," the ghost stated.

That stopped Snape in mid-movement. "Of course." Snape snarled.

"Fine," it said and floated off to the side of the room. Stairs appeared where there had been blankness before. "Two Galleons a night, more if ... there is trouble," the ghost clarified as it pointed up the stairs. "There is a separate entrance, no need to bother me down here while I am working."

Snape chuckled mirthlessly, and handed over two Galleons. They dropped through the ghost's hand and onto the floor. Snape laughed at the ghost's scowl and proceeded up the stairs.

"Wait," the ghost called.

Snape stopped on the stairs, but did not turn around.

"What makes you think I will not contact the Ministry about your whereabouts?"

"You are a ghost."

The ghost floated up the stairs to settle in the air in front of Snape. "You think they wouldn't listen to me, wouldn't gladly know that the killer they are looking for is right in this house? Oh you are wrong, they would listen."

"You haven't done it yet," Snape replied coolly. He stepped around the ghost, carefully avoiding any of its cold eeriness. "You won't do it now. I'd hazard the guess you would rather not have the Ministry poking their way into your ... services." He nodded. "Good day." He walked through the door at the top of the stairs, looked over his shoulder just long enough to see the stairs disappear and then shut the door.

The room was sparsely furnished. A bed stood under a window that, while letting in sunlight, prevented the view to the outside. There was a rack for clothes, a table, a chair. There was a sink and an oven looking almost muggle. He strode through the room. The toilet was behind a garishly coloured curtain. The door, presumably leading to the outside, was opposite the one leading into the ghost's shop. He attempted a few spells on the window but it remained blind. It was not luxury but it was a definite improvement to the last few years.

Snape sat on the bed with a sigh. He pulled off his boots first and stretched his feet from their strain. He deftly unbuttoned his robes and pulled them off until he was clad in his undergarments. He lay back on the bed. His eyes fell close on their own volition as the softness of the bed stretched around him in gentle waves. The linen and mattress accommodated every tensing of muscles and every turn of his body. He pushed at his hair a few times that lay uncomfortably on his face or had managed it between his lips. There was utter silence in the room, and he fell asleep.

Snape could not fathom what woke him, the lack of footsteps or possibly the lack of moisture. Casting a sleep-filled Tempus he yawned at the time and sank back into the softness of the linen. The sun should break in a few hours. He had slept through the night without a nightmare plaguing his mind or a set of hard hands and well-placed kicks to his body. He assessed the room, making sure the shadows were only that and that nothing had changed in his absence from consciousness. Forcing himself out of bed he stood in the make-shift kitchen after a piss and a quick wash. He fingered the toast. It felt sloppy but solid, two bites and it had vanished. He ate another one, dry for the lack of jam in the kitchen, then got dressed in his clothes from the day before, a freshening charm applied.

It crossed his mind briefly to pay another visit to the ghost downstairs for nonsense conversation and maybe more information about the wizard, yet, there were more important things than silly curiosity over someone he would not bother with in the future. The paper restricted his movements in the most despicable way possible. Open inquiries were as useless as attempts to gather information in one of the bars of Knockturn Alley. There would always be the danger of a stray pair of eyes picking up on him.

He sat on the bed, slowly eating another toast. It slipped down his throat dry. The Ministry had been on Lucius' trail before they had offered this wondrous change to him. They might still be looking for him now, even with Snape in the picture, or - who knew how the Ministry worked at its core - looking both for Lucius and Snape. Had Lucius been hiding in any of his known haunts, Malfoy Manor for one, the Ministry would have certainly found him. The last time he had heard it mentioned the Manor had served as one of the headquarters of Death Eater activity. Later, the flow of information had thinned to a trickle. There was a small house somewhere in Gwynedd, Wales not too far from one of the castles, and another one near Torquay. They were the ones he had heard of and been invited to when the war had still been a faraway dreamscape. He had never been privy to the location of any others. Lucius was no imbecile, he would not hide in any of those publicly known. Yet the Manor was as good as any place to begin looking, if only to erase the minuscule chance of him using it.

Snape pushed the last of the toast into his mouth and finished getting dressed, grabbed his wand off the floor. He pocketed the money, left the last day's Prophet on the bed. He went through the door leading outside and found himself deposited in the backyard by a wave of magic. The houses stood high around the small bit of cracked concrete. Not bothering to fight his way into the alley Snape concentrated and apparated right away.

The magic spit him out near a line of trees. Gravel crunched under his boots. The sun was just rising behind him. Its first orange rays were reflected by the winding iron stakes of the fence. The gate stood open and rusting. A bird was chirping in the distance, a flock of them took flight and crossed over the high standing trees that held Malfoy Manor hidden. Snape listened to the morning sounds for a moment. Nothing seemed out of place, no harsh shouts or stray tendrils of magic slunk their way into his direction. He began to walk towards the gate. He touched the wrought iron. The dirty orange of the rust clung to his fingertips. He moved the gate to step through. It gave a screech, but opened for him. It was likely that the house was in a similar state.

He advanced along the former driveway, stones replaced the dry gravel. Grass had found its way between them, and had broken single stones out of the array. They were toppled over and the freed space was populated by maggots and other crawling insects that preferred the dark over the dawning day. Wild bushes lined the driveway. He remembered them as they had been when he had first come this way, a doe-eyed Hogwarts 2nd year invited to one of Lucius' legendary soirees. The bushes had been cut into the most intricate of styles, and animals that almost seemed to breathe and would bound away at the slightest touch. Now the bushes stood wooden, their leaves trailing over grass and mud. The forest lay further off the road. The thicket that had been cut down to the barest now stood almost as high as the trees themselves. Impenetrable.

As he advanced up the steep hill the trees parted and left a narrow gap for the road to pass through. Malfoy Manor came into view, its greenhouse off to one side, the stables off to the other. The elaborate garden went to the back, hidden from view. Not much of its beauty remained. Snape shook his head as the full extent of the Manor's disintegration came into view. The roof of the West wing had collapsed and reduced three floors to hip-high rubble. The windows of the East wing were gaping holes in the front. He caught a glimpse of back fronts through them, abandoned chairs and table in the dining area on the ground floor. Glass shards of former windows lay at the foot of the walls, never cleaned up, never cared for. Steps still led up to heavy oak doors that only magic could move, as he had once been told. The columns, reminiscent of Greek architecture, that had held the roof of the entry had collapsed and brought down more of the front with them. The broad stairs inside still led up, only to a floor that existed no longer. They ended in the air, awkward as a bone close to snapping.

Snape walked on towards the house. His hand closed around his wand in precaution. He entered the ruin somewhere to the left of the front entrance. There were still stray prickles of magic, but their strength did not come close to that of the wards that had once protected this place. Snape stepped through the rubble of the entrance hall. Picture frames lay broken among stones. The walls were creaking ominously. They had held the ruin for years. It was unlikely they would choose that moment to give away.

He walked into the East wing. The door to the dining room stood partly open. He looked out through the windows that no longer were. The destruction of the grounds mirrored the one in the room. The table was still standing, as were the chairs that had not gone or fallen over. A thick layer of dust coated everything. It seemed ironic almost that nothing had been stolen. Those chairs that had been worth a hundred Galleons apiece once stood like proud testaments to a time before the war.

He half expected ghosts to tumble his way or the smell of rotting food that no-one had cleared away to waft over but nothing of the sort happened. The house looked sterile if for the dust he took note of as he advanced through the rooms, and the mud rain had made of dust and walls as it had fallen. The house had been abandoned long before its destruction. His steps left prints on the floor, the only ones he could see around him. The last room of the East wing had served as Narcissa's parlour. It, too, held a touch of clinical removal. He contemplated the first floor and whether it would hold his weight for longer than a moment, as well as the methods of magic necessary if it didn't.

"Hey you!" a shout sounded through the half-fractured outside wall.

Snape turned slowly. His hand tightened on his wand. An elderly man advanced on the house from the stables that stood maybe 200 yards away. He proudly carried his potbelly that bulged his braces to the utmost. His flannel shirt was open at the front, and an expanse of reddened pale skin was visible. Snape waited for him to walk closer.

The man gestured with his finger. "Hey, you! Private property," he yelled. He proceeded to step through the outside wall of the Manor, cursing magic as he drew back, possibly licked by some of the unpredictable currents. He did not hold a wand.

Snape nodded absent-mindedly, studying the man for threat or any magical potential to begin with. "And you are?" he eventually asked. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, and assessed the state of the ceiling from the corner of his eyes.

"None of your business, is it," he stated boldly. "Get off the grounds. You need official permission from them to look around, private property, you understand."

"From whom?" Snape asked impatiently. There was no safe way to tell how much weight the ceiling would carry before breaking through entirely.

"The Ministry," the man spat. "Useless fuckers they are."

"I could not agree more," Snape chuckled. His gaze drifted from the ceiling to the man in all his glory of braces and greased half-baldness. "They control this now?" he asked conversationally.

"They do. Took control of the grounds during the war when everyone had gone and chased the remaining house elves off. Surprised you have not heard." He assessed Snape now.

Snape shook his head. "I have been away," he put delicately. "Mr Malfoy, the previous owner, has been an ... associate of mine. I meant to catch up on old times, came here, found this. Colour me speechless."

"Must have been away for long," the man said, doubt colouring his voice dark. "He has been all over the news, the paper, everywhere, lately."

Not unlike Snape himself, the day before. The man had not given any indication of having seen him there. Foolish, though. He nodded to keep the man talking.

"Things he has been up to lately, can't say I think them all too good," the man continued. He was oblivious to Snape's distraction.

"When did this happen?" Snape asked. He indicated the structure of the house with a nod.

"Years back, during the war. The Malfoys had moved out by then, no strange visitors any longer."

"Strange visitors?" Snape smirked.

The man beckoned Snape closer, his voice a harsh whisper. "Wizards, magic, in cloaks, they would apparate here. Strange things happened around the house, there were screams and funny light and ..."

"The Malfoys?"

"I am not saying anything, sir," the man said, his hands lifted defensively. "They always paid me good money, made sure my wife and I were in good health and in need of nothing. I am not saying anything."

Snape nodded grimly. "You wouldn't happen to know where they went?"

The man shook his head exasperatedly. "Don't you read the paper? The boy died in the war, final battle. They said something about them Death Eaters but I am not saying anything about the Malfoys, I am not. Good money they paid me. They say he has someone captured, hiding away. He never appeared the type of man to hide anything, but you never know, do you."

"Has he been back here, afterwards?"

The man shook his head again, a slow movement as he glanced up at Snape suspiciously, then stuck out his hand. Snape snarled at him but fished for the money in his pocket. He pressed the coin, a Galleon and sickles into the man's hand.

"Once. He woke me, it was the dead of the night and I heard knocking at my door. So I jumped out of bed and opened the door and there he stood, his clothes all ragged and me in my nightshirt and he asked for the Ministry, and whether they had been around and he made sure I would not say anything I shouldn't," he told with shattering teeth. His arm had wound around Snape's shoulder, drawing him down so he could whisper into his ear. "And he made sure I had not taken anything from the house, and I said I hadn't, so he left and went in right here through this bit of wall and disappeared in the house. I listened to him move around at first, then decided to go over after. Wanted to make sure he would not kill himself, just the day before a bit of the ceiling had come down in the West wing. So I followed him through the rooms and then he disappeared down the stairs, into the basement. First time I had seen those stairs - I had not been in that house myself since it had still stood all proud and erect, and he went down those stairs and glanced about him as he did. So I hid behind one of the walls, did not want him to see me and get angry, now did I. And later, minutes later, he came back out. He did not seem to carry anything, not that I could see and he apparated right there, and I have not seen him since."

Snape knew the stairs and he knew what had been down there: family memorabilia mostly, ancient Black paraphernalia no one had use for and Narcissa was too proud or sentimental to give away. Years before that Lucius had had his rooms in that cellar, an act of teenage rebellion that had cost him endless ridicule and punishment from his father. Lucius must have been sixteen at the time. He had invited Snape, along with others, to celebrate. Snape, a pale cheeked first year at Hogwarts, had tasted power and firewhisky for the very first time when he had sat in that circle of older wizards who reeked of darkness. As time progressed they had come together for less innocuous activities. Besides a healthy dose of alcohol the meetings had then involved animals, and the occasional Muggle woman, obliterated to insanity later and sent to perish in the woods. Lucius' father had turned a blind eye on their activities, maybe because it had served as a reminder of his own youth.

Snape turned back to the man, nodded to him. The lack of a wand suggested he might be a squib, barring evidence for the contrary. Lucius had employed a squib to work for him who stood loyal to the end. Impressive.

"Have you been down there?" he asked, the first floor now forgotten.

"Never!" the man exclaimed. "When he had still been living here, even then we were telling rumours of those cellars downstairs that no one had ever seen. Dark rumours. I would not go down there, never would I do that."

"Has the Ministry been down there?"

"Maybe," the man replied evasively, gauging Snape. "Doubt it though. 'Too many dark spells,' I heard them say."

Snape nodded. "Thank you." He pressed another Galleon into the man's hand.

"Will you," the man stuttered, "will you go down there now?"

Snape smirked. "I might."

"Private property, I have been telling you that, the Ministry, I say."

"Think of those Galleons." Snape turned toward the other end of the room, fingertips trailing over one of the low tables. He stood waiting until he heard the man scatter away, then strode back through the East wing towards the Entrance Hall. Time was precious.

Back in the entrance hall he stopped only for a moment of consideration then stalked to the broad stairs and moved around them. The door that had hidden the stairs down for many years stood open, inviting if not for the darkness past the first few steps and the odd remnants of magic in the ruin that sprang up when least expected and found lacking when care was taken.

"Lumos." The tip of his wand glowed in a white green, illuminating sparsely more than before. He turned his head once more, thought he detected a shadow near the dining room door, but stepped onto the first of the stairs nevertheless. There was an odd creak beneath his weight, despite the stairs' structure being stone and magic. He had been there last at age fourteen. Lucius had called them together during Christmas Break for a legendary 'Against Authority And The World' toast before he had married Narcissa Black and proceeded to become part of said society he had loved to loath as a youth and later had invested his life in to protect. These stairs had appeared holier back then. He had felt honoured to receive the invitation every time as the youngest of the group. It had served as the preparatory course to everything that had happened years later. Certainly at the age of nineteen Lucius had not seemed to pay such thoughts any mind.

Snape moved his wand in somewhat of a circle at the bottom of the stairs. He remembered the hallway, the room to the left had been Lucius' boyhood bathroom, the room opposite his self-chosen quarters of so-called sanctuary. He had expected this to be used for storage, the doors sealed and wards of the highest protection melting around them after all he had heard from the adult Lucius. The doors stood open, as had been the one at the top of the stairs. The spells were not much more than erratic electric currents that carried some strength but did not maim or decapitate. It should not have been enough to keep out the Ministry.

He looked back up the stairs and saw a glimpse of the orange sky fading into morning grey again amidst the remnants of two ceilings and an upended chair on the second floor. He inched forward, further into the Lumos-lit darkness, aware that every movement of his foot might cause a trap to snap, akin to ancient pyramids for Muggle deities and cause him to die a pitiful death in yet another prison. He reached the doors without incident.

The bathroom looked as it had been described by Lucius on numerous occasions. A thick layer of dust coated broken tiles, sink and toilet bowl. Various creatures of the night were lurking in the corners and the mouldy water. The middle of the room housed an antique chest, the drawers partly missing, partly broken, partly closed. It, too, had become part of the mould and not worth further investigation.

Snape turned to the door opposite. The hallway ended in a dead end with more abandoned furniture as useless decoration. This door stood slightly ajar. His wand did not work its illumination too well, the gap he could catch a glimpse of was still more undefined shadow than light. He prodded the door lightly with his wand. The light slithered off along the wood, illuminating part of the cracked ceiling. The door did not budge, nor were there sounds or sparks. He slowly extended the wand into the room, still nothing, then followed with his body, squeezing through the small gap. Countering all of Lucius' past assertions the room did not appear to have ever been used to store memorabilia. There was no furniture that appeared antique, or other stacked or boxed paraphernalia that was kept hidden and unused. The room looked surprisingly like the night Snape had last seen it: the ugly couches of the mid-seventies adolescent generation and the psychedelic posters that the Wizarding World had not been spared.

If he squinted he could still see the boys perched on the edges of the couch, tumbling off it to the floor and the laughter of insanity at something mindless, him in the midst of it, laughing the loudest at jokes his barely pubescent mind could only process logically. There was the armoire that all of them had carved their names into. He walked over there now, tracing his own name on the left side of it with shaking fingertips. It had been before the war, when the Dark Lord had become a name to be tossed among them, long before Potter and a second war, long before the end. They had been young men, barely out of boyhood, who had enjoyed adolescence, their only issues the dramas that came with being a youth, with bullies and crushes. It had soon turned into a miserable game of life and death that they had all jumped to gleefully as the next great adventure. They had been fools, now an undeterminable number of them were dead, the others incarcerated or possibly still on the run.

There was nothing in the room that hinted at anything Lucius might have wanted the night he had been watched, or anything he might have taken. There was the bed and the couches, the tables and chairs, the chest and the posters on the wall, yellowed now with thirty years of exposure to the air. They still moved in their patterns, eerily, like the last evidence of a time long forgotten.

Snape opened the drawers of the armoire arbitrarily. There was the off-chance of displaced dust to tell of something taken or an obvious hint to Lucius' present whereabouts. Lucius' reasons were moderately obvious. If Draco had died on that battlefield, he'd died by the hand of an Auror, possibly Shacklebolt himself. Lucius had lost, now Lucius was taking back. Snape had not been able to keep Draco in sight for long after the battle had started. He had seen Draco between the Lestranges and Lucius on the other side of the clearing, his small hands balled to fists, his face hidden behind the mask; children playing the games of the grown-ups again.

The drawers proved to be empty save for the dust of too many years of non-use. They offered no insight into Lucius' reason to come back there in troubled times, other than for a walk down memory lane, catching happy memories before the bad managed to eat him up.

Snape checked the room once more. He did not need to stay any longer. He would not put it past the squib to have notified the Ministry. This had proven the theory at least that Lucius would not hide in the Manor.

Snape thought of the house in Wales first and found himself caught up in the magic to take him there. Just as he flickered out of view he noticed a stain on the couch that was not part of the original pattern. Magic had swept him away already and landed him on his hands and knees, less than graceful, in the downward slope of a hill. The grass was morning-wet under his knees.

Snape knelt heaving for a moment longer. His mind swirled with the picture of that stain on the couch that had appeared, unlike everything else, surprisingly dust-free. It could have been nearly anything, had it not carried the brown tinge of dried blood. It raised the question if the Ministry had searched the rooms and found the same.

He rubbed the mark on his arm, now fresh and blazing on his mind again, and wondered about the summoning charm it had, and the tracking charm it might contain. As he knelt in the dampness he almost expected the familiar searing pain to shoot from the smallest of marks up to his shoulder.

He looked around himself, a ram was staring back at him, blinking stupidly at the human on his grass. Snape glared at it and got up. The small Muggle town lay at the foot of the hillside. For as long as he had known the Malfoy family they had never set a foot into the town, leaving the locals to themselves.

The ram walked off. Snape turned into the opposite direction. A roof was visible just on the opposite side of the hill, protected from prying eyes. The mountain range lay behind it. Mr Malfoy's words came to mind that every man should own a house near the governmental centre, a house in the mountains and a house at the seaside. The house in the mountains had not seen many visits during Lucius' time as the head of the family. He had preferred Wiltshire and the means of political influence close at hand over the abandoned area that even Muggles fled from rather than enjoyed.

The house came to view as he rounded the hill. It had been magnificent once, dating from around 1900, a testament of its time and the area. The chapels in town carried the same turn-of-the-century tinge. Made of stone and slated roof, it was bigger than the seaside house, and in a worse state than the Manor, not through a deliberate destruction of magic and anger, but rather through time wearing down a house unused. The windows looked thrown-in, probably by the youths of the area. Fragments of stone and glass crunched under his feet in the high grass as he walked closer. He ventured a look into the house. There was a wardrobe still stacked against one of the walls, a table in the middle of the room. Everything else was gone and littered with mud and leaves. There were beer bottles in the far corner, empty spaces on the walls that had once held paintings.

Snape walked around the house. Garbage had been dumped in the former garden among the rosebushes and the apple trees. The rooms all looked the same, abandoned and ravaged. He entered through the backdoor that hung on its hinges. The wood moaned pitifully as he pushed it open far enough to enter. The door bumped into the wall with a dull sound that echoed through the empty rooms. Newspapers lay strewn over the floor. Insects and mice disappeared into their holes as he stepped in further.

He walked across the ground floor. Apparently a fire that became too big to contain had darkened the fireplace, its mantle and the walls surrounding it. The floorboards creaked under his steps. The house reeked of human wastes. The stairs that led up to the top floor appeared intact and stable enough to still carry a person. He walked past it and the bathrooms on both sides of the hallway and the kitchen. The sink was non-existent. He turned. There was no sign of anyone having used any of the facilities lately.

Snape left the kitchen and walked back through the hallway, past the baths and into the combination of dining room and living room with its blackened fireplace. The wardrobe was empty, he had seen that from the window, the table grimy and no touch of fingers on it either. A few more years and the hillside would have reclaimed the house and it'd cease existing, leaving a ruin in its wake.

He went upstairs. The stairs groaned under him but held his weight. He pushed the first of the doors open. The stink of bodily wastes increased. There was a bed, its mattress positively shredded. He walked into the room. His teeth clenched at the sight of maggots in the soft bedding, their slick white bodies crawling over one another. The room did not offer more than that bed and a sizable hole in the ground.

The second did not look any better. It lacked the maggots. There was one more door at the end of the hallway. He pushed it open and found himself in the master bedroom. The bed stood opposite the door. Its curtains were shredded. The bare remnants of the wooden bed frame were the only thing that remained, no mattress, no linen. A mouse hurried under the bed when he stepped into the room. The room stretched the width of the house, yet, not quite. There was another door at the right of the room, more than likely leading to a closet. He regarded the bed for a moment then walked to the closet and opened the cardboard door.

The room was bigger than he had expected, and dark. Snape murmured, "Lumos," and his wand began to glow. His heart skipped a beat. The wide open eyes of a dead house elf regarded him. The house elf stood against the wall as if petrified. A maggot crawled out of its mouth and over the grey-rotting surface of its skin. Half of one ear was bitten off, other parts infested with various insects. Its stench declared death. Snape prodded it with his wand, it fell sideways to the floor. A house elf death, what joy. The cleanliness - the lack of blood and pained expression - pointed to the Avada Kedavra or a happy death by weakness. The later appeared unlikely given its location. A house elf murder then, he could barely contain himself.

He left the house elf in the closet and walked back over to the bed. The mouse hurried past him from under the bed and disappeared in the closet, to feast on the house elf one would think. The bed springs were rusted.

He studied the room. His eyes focused on the corner below one of the windows. Scraps of clothing lay in a heap, bloodied. He stalked over and crouched, fingered the dry blood. A mouse squeaked past as he lifted the cloth. The clothes were arranged on a pallet of sorts. It seemed less surprising after that stain in Lucius' boyhood room, but did not fail to fill him with a sense of trepidation and anger. The Ministry could not have not known about this. They had known about the house, they would have searched it.

The blood was too old, almost faded to nothing for it to have been a recent occurrence. Another look around the room. He ignored the scratching of the mouse feasting on the house elf body. At some point Lucius had been in that house. He clearly wasn't anymore.

Snape leaned against the bedpost and twirled his wand absent-mindedly between his fingers. Lucius had been at the Manor at some point, he had been here at some point, and probably disposed of the elf as he went along. If logic permitted, he had been at the house in Torquay, too. There would be a stain there, and nothing else to tell of his current whereabouts. There were no other houses Snape knew of, no friends Lucius might hide with that Snape could think of who wouldn't be dead or imprisoned themselves. He pinched the bridge of his nose, rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. Torquay was not worth the apparition if it turned out to be just another dead house with a stain.

Birds were chirping all over the hillside, a stray ram bleated in the distance. He thought of the maggots that were eating the elf from the inside and shook his head at the notion of having agreed to this kind of mission for a scrap of bound and tethered freedom. There were the birds, and the sun was outside. He could not take another Malfoy ruin. He closed his eyes and apparated.

The sun was shining there, too, as he touched ground. The place lacked the fog of the day before. The sun was glinting off the headstones and people's hair. They moved occasionally between the graves, bowing and kneeling and then they walked away again. No doubt he would catch a peculiar glance if he walked out now, wizarding attire was likely to turn heads. He turned and walked into the forest, away from the sunshine for a moment. They had built the cemetery on the outer edge of the village with the deaths of the first inhabitants. One could have expected that houses would rise around it with time and population as they had in other villages and cities. Here the cemetery had always remained at that edge, bordered by thicket.

The old folks used to refer to ghosts and omens when talking about those trees, and maybe some core of truth existed in that. He remembered the strange noises when he had crossed this forest as a child of eight or nine. He had walked by himself, crossing over the fields near the village. He had watched the tadpoles struggling in a stream and walked into the forest, not noticing how the day had grown steadily darker around him. He had heard the whispers then, calling him deeper inside. The trees had talked to him. He had run.

His mother had chided him for staying out so long. The first time he had gone back after that was when he had already been a Hogwarts student. Lucius of all people had invited himself 'to visit the noble abode of the Snape family'. Embarrassment had him drag Lucius out of the house after his father had cursed the Tories and their 'newly-found nancy antics' with his mother's casserole flying from his lips. They had ventured into the forest then. He had been eager to show Lucius the magical voices, but the trees had been silent and made him out as a fool.

The sun was glinting through the tree tops and while he heard the birds and the soft sound of leaves he did not hear them whispering now either. He remembered the forest as thicker, too. They must have removed the undergrowth entirely. The fields were shining through from behind the trees. It seemed foolish to have been spooked by this as a child.

He squinted into the sun as he stepped out through the last line of trees and endless stretches of open field lay before him. He looked for the path he had walked as a boy, and for the small stream. It still existed between the too-high grass and weeds, overgrown almost. Snape followed it for a while, then stopped and watched a fish in the water, flitting between the stones, as he sat down on the rocks. He sat back. His fingers were splayed over the ground just off the stone, slightly moist. The blades of grass were the slightest tickle on the palms of his hand. He looked up into the English sky, and with the clouds there was the sun, the very real and non-magical sun, peeking through. He inhaled deeply with his mouth open to take in the fresh air. He could have wept, since this was freedom.

Snape pushed up the sleeve of his robes. The Dark Mark flared bright still. In the sunlight it appeared less magical, and almost of less importance. Only when he squinted at it was he able to make out the new mark, still red and swollen. He rubbed it, expected an electric current to pass into his fingertips, almost, and feared the hour it would flare with heat.

He leaned back again and allowed the sun to soak into him. This was the place he had spent most of his childhood, happy with himself and the world of imagination he saw in the grass. Tragedy and happiness had played out in the scripts of his mind. He had dreamt of being the hero who saves the world. He frowned. He had still had dreams then, now dreaming was for fools. Now it was the potential of freedom that threatened to sink into his body and stay there, infest everything else with a glow of hope. He would never stand inside his quarters again. He would be able to sit out there at the stream and allow the sun to shine on him. This was freedom, and yes, this was happiness as he knew it.

He sat in the sun for a few minutes longer, soaked up the sounds of a world he had not seen in too long. The cry of a bird startled him out of the reverie and he left the rocks and followed the stream back to the house he had lived in all his life. His mother had never told him why she had followed his father into this village, as Muggle as it got where every stirring of strangeness was despised, where queer little boys were chased into the forest everyone knew they hated, and where funny men were still spit on years later by the bullies who had grown into their bodies.

Spinner's End had always been his home, even if he had never particularly enjoyed the time he spent there. The dark coal flavour hung heavy in the air as he came around the back of the street. The house rose up before him. The backdoor was open just like his mother had always left it and he never had when he had lived in that house later. A child came running out of the door, stopped dead in its track when it encountered Snape. It gaped at Snape, its small mouth moving soundlessly.

Snape nodded at the child, futilely attempted to see into the house through the open door.

"Who are you?" the child asked. It took a careful step back in precaution. It looked at Snape from under its eyelashes, foot toeing the cobblestones.

"I lived here once," Snape replied hoarsely. The door opened a bit further with the wind and he saw the hallway. Photos decorated the staircase wall now. Photos of people he did not know, people who lived in his house.

"Oh," the child replied and wandered off.

Snape thought of his books, his furniture, his life in that house. Had they taken everything and burned it? Had they destroyed it entirely? Had they gone through it first, dissecting it for clues, for inanities? There had been the journals, of course, careful notes on potions experiments and calculations. There had been his private stores. There had been books he had collected over the years, rare prints that he would never recover. There had been memories of his mother, his father even, of times when he had been young enough to live. It had been his. They had taken everything. He had expected this, but then, he had not.

"You okay, sir?" the child asked. It studied him curiously.

Snape nodded, turned on his heel and walked back over the fields and along the stream. He only turned when the child was a mere blot in front of the house, the chimney of the old mill reaching into the sky behind it. They had taken everything, and now thrown the freedom back at him. The house was a mere greyish spot in a life that was not his anymore. The sun gave the ironic counterpoint.

He walked back along the stream and into the forest. He listened for the whispers of the trees and their tales but encountered resonating silence. Maybe he had lost the magic that had made them talk those years ago, and they now only saw him as yet another tainted creature. His mother's grave called for him to step closer, just a look at the daisies, but he closed his eyes and thought of Knockturn Alley instead.

The magic almost knocked him off his feet as he touched ground again. He stumbled forward a few steps, then caught himself on the wall of one of the houses. A cautious look around but no-one seemed to have noticed his awkward stumble.

The day was progressing. The sun was chasing some clouds over a blue-tinged sky. Diagon Alley was beckoning for a visit just out of sight. The noises carried over to where he was standing. Ice-creamed children and excited parents were not at all desirable though, as wasn't the prospect of imprisonment on sight as the article had proclaimed.

A dark-cloaked man passed by him. His eyes bore into Snape's. Snape sneered at him and turned on his heel, striding down Knockturn Alley.

"Snape," the man called.

Snape stopped in mid-stride, his hand moved to his wand.

"I wouldn't try that, if I were you," the man hissed into his ear. "I wouldn't try that." He dug his wand into Snape's back, a sharp kind of pain that, too, felt too familiar, like the man's voice and the man's breath. "I could get money for you, traitor." The man dragged Snape into a niche off the alley and pushed him against the wall. The wall scraped Snape's cheek, the man's weight held him there.

"Remember me, traitor?" the man snarled into Snape's ear.

"Macnair," Snape spat out. He moved his fingertips ever so slightly in his pocket to close around his wand.

"Wouldn't try that if I were you," Macnair hissed. His fingers closed hard around Snape's wrist, bones were ground together in that grip. "Fancy meeting you again, traitor. Here I figured you'd have crawled into your hole and died, and what does my tired eye see this fine day: you bastard are still walking this earth. Fancy that."

Snape stilled his movements, briefly, then pushed his elbow into Macnair's stomach as Macnair's hand closed around the wand in his pocket. A grim smile flittered through Snape at the sound of Macnair's harsh intake of breath. He tried to turn out of the hold Macnair had on him, but Macnair held on, laughing into Snape's neck. His fingers pressed tighter on Snape's wrist until Snape's finger lost their hold on the wand. Macnair snatched it out of Snape's pocket and pointed it at Snape's head.

"Turn around," Macnair commanded.

Snape turned slowly, too aware of Macnair's barely controlled madness.

"Now I have you here, traitor. There I read the Daily Prophet, rag that it is, yesterday and see your face on its front page. Imagine my surprise: Snape, number one traitor of all our ideals and the Dark Lord himself, still alive."

Snape glared at Macnair, his lips compressed tightly. The glint in Macnair's eyes made any reasoning seem useless and potentially dangerous. "Good to see you, too, Macnair," Snape replied smartly, then lunged for his wand in Macnair's hand.

"Crucio," Macnair whispered even as he took a step back to avoid Snape's attack.

White hot pain ripped through Snape, collapsing him onto wet cobblestones. Then awareness stopped and all he felt was the pain, pounding in his head and searing the nerves in his limbs. Somewhere in his peripheral awareness he heard Macnair lift the spell, but for seconds afterwards he could not move, pain shooting through him with every tensing of muscles. His trousers clung to his thighs, wet with his own piss.

"Not so brave now, traitor," Macnair hissed at Snape as he crouched down next to his twitching body.

The tip of his wand pushed Snape's sweaty hair off his face. Snape opened his eyes blearily, recoiling at Macnair's face so close to his own.

"We died on that field, Snape, we died like rats. And you stood there, that smug grin on your face, having fucked all of us over. You have betrayed the cause, you have betrayed every single one of us, you have betrayed the Dark Lord himself. We died because of you, all of us dead because of you."

Macnair got to his feet. Snape moved awkwardly to his knees, his head turned at an extreme angle to see Macnair, his wand still pointed at him.

"Macnair," Snape tried, coughing as his voice failed.

"You don't deserve to live, Snape!" Macnair cried.

Whilst the spell did not register with Snape, the wave of all encompassing pain did. He saw Macnair through a haze, his one eye, his ragged appearance until Snape's sight gave out and even the pain in his body refused to register any longer.

Snape woke expecting the grimy alley ground under his hands, or nothing, and felt cotton instead. He stiffened, then cracked his eyelids open to a room he did not know. His blurred sight cleared by the moment. He moved his head carefully, splitting pain shooting through his skull. An aborted groan made it past his lips.

"I think it highly unwise to try and move already," a voice said from behind him.

Snape groped for his wand despite the raw pain in his fingers and shoulder.

"I regret we had to remove it temporarily. Concerns of safety I am sure you understand, Mr Snape."

Snape's head whipped around. Blinded by the white shock of pain he groaned audibly. Footsteps sounded on the floor. He opened his eyes slowly against the nausea that threatened to swirl him away with it. It was the one who had graciously granted him the wand in the first place. The nausea intensified.

"You will find that you will feel better with a few hours of rest, I believe."

"I am familiar with the effects of the Cruciatus," Snape bit out.

"Is that so, indeed," the wizard said softly. "Come downstairs, please, when you have rested. It will allow us to catch up and possibly get better acquainted." Irony twisted his lips. He walked towards the door. "Oh," he threw over his shoulder, showing Snape's wand to him, "I'll be keeping this safe until then."

The door closed behind the wizard, leaving Snape in the silence of an unfamiliar house. Snape allowed the silence to fill the room for a moment then pushed himself up on his elbows. He had been used to the pain of the curse then. It clearly had been a long time. Someone must have cast Scourgify on him. He did not reek of piss or even sweat, and he had been graciously allowed the dignity of keeping his clothes. The room looked to be a basic guestroom, no paintings, no windows. A shiver ran down his spine. Ignoring the cramped back muscles he pushed himself into a sitting position on the bed. His heart beat hard and fast. He coughed a few times, then levelled his legs out of bed and sat on the edge of the mattress.

A pitcher of water and a bowl sat on the drawer just across the room. His face felt grimy from sweat and tears even after the superficial effects of the cleaning charm. There were effects no charm managed to erase completely. He pushed himself to his feet and wobbled unsteadily across the floor.

Every step loosened the tension in his legs more, until only his knees were shaking as he reached the drawer. His knuckles were white on the dark surface of the wood. He poured water into the bowl, then shrugged out of his clothes and washed himself with cold water and shaking hands. He used the towel to dry himself and dressed again. He willed his heart to stop its erratic beating and gave up when it beat faster in response.

His limbs felt like they almost belonged to him again as he made his way to the door and strode out. There was no need to draw out the necessary evil. Macnair had been out for torture, maybe eventual death, with that glint in his eyes. Lucius had not been mentioned. It was curious that they had had no contact what with both of them out for similar ideas.

Snape closed the door behind himself. The hallway was undecorated, the stairs led down. Standing at the top of the stairs he was able to look into the bar he had been in the day before. It was the same dark, smoky silence there again. It begged the question whether it was in fact a bar or served only for conversations such as these.

He walked down the stairs, aware of the sounds of his steps on the wood. The man who had brought him there the day before was not in sight. It was as quiet as it had been then, no sign of a house elf or any magical gadgets that he would have ordinarily expected of a wizard wielding, if not power, influence and intimidation. The wards were still strong but admitted him through. He knocked on the doorframe of the open door to the bar.

The wizard looked up from where he was pouring whisky behind the bar. He gestured with the bottle in his hand. "One of these?"

Snape shook his head and walked into the room. He sat at one of the tables, crossed his arms in front of his chest and studied the wizard. "Would you do me the courtesy of giving me your name, now that it is obvious you know mine?"

The wizard laughed. "Everyone knows your name. A face in the paper does that to people. Clearly I am not the only one who has made your acquaintance via the Prophet since yesterday if your recent interaction is anything to go by."

Evasion. "Your name," Snape prompted, eyebrows raised.

The wizard chuckled as he sipped on his whisky. "Tom Hagen. You are sure you do not want any of this?" he said gesturing at the bottle again.

"Rather," Snape replied. Nausea returned at the thought of alcohol. Hagen did not sound familiar, Tom did more than he cared for. He had to shake the feeling of dread that curled in the Mark on his forearm, black and bitter and detested.

Hagen wandered over to the table Snape had chosen, set the glass down and seated himself across from Snape. He leaned back, looking Snape over. "The second time in as many days I find you in my house," he commented conversationally, "the second time in as many days I find you in need." He placed Snape's wand on the table between them.

Snape snatched the wand up, the thought of a curse flitted through his mind, and pocketed it. "You could've let him torture me instead," he stated, regarding Hagen coolly. "What interest do you have in me?"

Hagen smiled, his eyes didn't. "You know you are an intriguing man, Mr Snape, I don't need to tell you that."

Snape snorted. "First the wand for a favour to be named, now you save me from torture? I repeat, what interest do you have in me?"

Hagen chuckled. He picked up the glass of whisky and moved it in slow circles. The liquid inside clung to the walls for a moment then slid down to the centre of the glass again. Hagen took a sip, held the alcohol in his mouth then swallowed. "I have to admit my surprise at having seen your name in the Prophet, listed as a fugitive, no less, when the grapevine has it that those who have imprisoned you have been the ones you have worked for in the end. Isn't that so?"

Snape narrowed his eyes suspiciously for a fraction of a moment, then smoothed his features and gave a non-committal shrug. "What grapevine would that be?"

"Let me say, I have my sources."

"Hypothetically speaking, say, your grapevine has fed you the right information, it does not explain very much yet, about your insistence of making my acquaintance in the first place and to remain prominently featured in my days."

Hagen smirked. "You do sound rather bitter, Mr Snape, with my reaching out and saving you from dire situations."

Snape raised his eyebrows wryly in reply and did not comment.

"Isn't it a funny kind of coincidence, too, that you ... escape a prison built specifically for people like you in mind-"

"People like me? Do explain," Snape interjected.

"Death Eaters," Hagen replied in a low voice. A strange glint showed in his eyes, lips quirked up in a conspiratorial grin.

"Really?" Snape replied laconically. He leaned back, gesturing Hagen to go on.

"A coincidence, I was saying, of you escaping that prison just when a certain, let me call him, acquaintance, or maybe even friend," the voice lilted into a question but did not raise a reaction in Snape, "of yours is the focus of the Aurors Department and the media." He pulled a Prophet out and slid it over the table for Snape to look at.

It was that day's Prophet. A censored photo of Shacklebolt made up a great part of the front page. He lay bound by muggle methods on a cot, blood was seeping from his wrists and ankles as well as various cuts on his body. It looked eerily similar to the one Robards had shown him. They had also blurred out Shacklebolt's face, possibly to spare him the humiliation even if he was in a position to care little enough about that at the time.

"So?" Snape prompted after he had looked his fill and sat back in his chair.

"One could believe it to be a coincidence, like I said before, but I have to admit I choose to think it is not."

"Amusing as your theorizing is, you fail to name the reward for your undesired heroics that I am sure, you planned to play as the final hand in your narrative. Unfortunately I am losing my patience, and am rather kindly asking you to make your point since I'd hate to encroach on your hospitality any longer."

Hagen sobered. The false cheerfulness was wiped off his face and the lines around his eyes hardened. "I want what they want. You owe me now, Snape. I want him - Malfoy."

Snape smirked. Mocking laughter rose to his lips. "I am a fugitive, Mr Hagen," he stated. "I escaped a prison. There is money on my head. You have what they want. You have me. Kindly deliver me to them, if you are so eager." Snape paused, waiting for a reply. It did not come. "No? I believe I will be taking my leave then. If you are so very interested in anything I might offer you, maybe you will approach me with something more than a wild theory. I have escaping to do, if you will excuse me."

Snape stood and grabbed the Prophet off the table. The smirk still plastered on his face he moved across the room towards the doorway.

"What did they promise you for his head?" Hagen shouted. It stopped Snape.

"I am not out for anyone's head," Snape replied, leaning against the doorjamb.

"You owe me now. You asked what I want. I want him! You owe me." Spittle flew from Hagen's lips.

"Mr Hagen, I prefer you carefully controlled. I do not deal business with people who allow their emotions to run their lives. Good day."

Snape disappeared out of the bar and the house. He half expected Hagen to follow behind, but there was nothing but blessed silence. He unfolded the paper for another look at Lucius' victim, then pocketed it. Hagen as an added player in the charade was most disturbing. Snape did not doubt that Hagen would find him again in due time, and repeat his request.

He considered the time of the day and his options and apparated back to Knockturn Alley. He caught himself well in the swirl of magic that time and ignored the hag that was making eyes at him as he appeared out of thin air. A calculating look around for Macnair, but he was not in sight.

Snape strode up the stairs into the house containing his room. He stepped into nothingness and the jingle, closed the door behind him. He searched the room for the stairs leading up to his room, but they were invisible or not even existent.

"Haven't I told you to leave me in peace?" the ghost said into Snape's ear.

Snape stiffened at its sudden appearance, forced himself to relax. "The stairs," he said on an exhalation. His jaw tightened at the somersaults the ghost used to catapult himself through the blank space, mad laughter accompanying each twirl and pirouette. "The stairs," Snape repeated, raising his voice over the ghost's laughter.

"Not a happy fellow, are you?" the ghost shouted as it swooped at Snape, letting out another cackle of laughter at Snape's frozen expression. "Scared you, have I?" the ghost whispered. "Boo!" It swooped off laughing again, then hung in the air upside down and regarded Snape thoughtfully. It whisked its hands at the general direction of the non-wall and the transparent stairs appeared.

Snape nodded his thanks and walked up them.

"Two Galleons a night," the ghost shouted.

Snape fumbled two Galleons out of his pockets and dropped them onto the stairs, not bothering to turn around.

"Not afraid I am going to tell the Ministry?" the ghost shouted as Snape opened the door to his room.

"No," Snape replied shortly, stepped through the door and closed it behind him. The conversation was getting old already. He rubbed his eyes tiredly as the door clicked into the lock. He fumbled out the Prophet and the bag of Galleons as he walked to the counter. The toast was still out and he took a bite as he turned to the room he called his now. He chewed the toast slowly.

A sickly sweet smell assaulted him.

His eyes moved to glance over the curtained bathroom, then the bed. He could not prevent the lurch of his heart and throat. He promptly choked on the toast and coughed for a few seconds, not taking his eyes off the bed. He swallowed the toast, his face set in distaste. He pushed off the counter, pulled his wand out and advanced.

The house elf from the closet of the Wales house was now splayed across his bed. A maggot was crawling out of its ear and flopped onto the bed, joining its kind that had clearly found the bedding to their satisfaction already. The smell of decay hung heavy in the air. Snape swallowed hard on the toast. Whoever had placed the elf on his bed had even taken care to draw the cover over its body. His stomach turned at the thought of the maggot pests below the sheets.

Something white peeked out to the right of the elf. He stepped around the bed. It looked like an envelope. He grabbed the edge of it and shook off the stray maggots over the house elf's body. They plummeted down and crawled back into its open wounds.

'Snape' the letter said. He opened it delicately. Nothing exploded, a simple muggle envelope. Ingenious, almost. A piece of parchment had been tucked inside. 'Stay away' it said. It did not need to be signed. He knew Lucius' hand, both in writing and actions. The warning would have been unmistakable even without the clarifying letter. It raised the first question of how exactly Lucius had found out about his trespassing. He had felt neither wards nor magic on him as he had searched the house for a sign. It raised the second question then how he had been found out here and how exactly it had been managed to place the elf in his bed.

Snape dropped the parchment on the bed, threw another disgusted look at the house elf and opened the door to the nothingness that was the ghost's shop. The stairs appeared beneath his feet the moment the door was open. He stood and surveyed the room, then slowly stepped down the stairs. The ghost popped up right in front of him.

"Don't you have another door? Told you I wanted my privacy, haven't I?" the ghost said. It puffed its chest out and tapped its translucent finger against Snape's breastbone.

"Something curious has passed," Snape said thoughtfully, ignoring the ghost's irritation. "You wouldn't have, quite accidentally I am sure, allowed someone to enter he rooms I am using?"

"Never," the ghost replied emphatically. It raised its hands in defence, eyes opened wide in mock-innocence. "You pay me."

Snape's expression froze. He advanced on the ghost. "Clearly then someone else paid you more. Who has been in there?"

The ghost flittered back, keeping a careful eye on Snape. "You, no one else," it replied quickly on a squeak.

"Who?" Snape bellowed, thunder in his voice, as he followed the ghost's hasty retreat.

"No one," the ghost whimpered then vanished in a puff of nothingness.

Snape turned and waited for it to appear elsewhere in the room but the ghost remained hidden wherever it was hiding when it wasn't there. He called for it twice more but it did not lure the ghost to reappear. He drew his finger over his mouth in thought as he walked up the stairs to the rooms again. It did not matter in the slightest, when it came to it. It was clear that Lucius had sent the message, and that Lucius was aware of where he was.

The smell of the carcass drifted into his every pore immediately as he opened the door. The maggots had dropped off the bed and were crawling across the floor, clearly hoping for something other than the house elf to nibble on. Snape picked the letter off the bed and a few spells later he at least knew that it had not been cursed. He considered keeping the house elf for evidence but then just vanished it with a wave of his wand. The soggy sheets and maggots were all that remained. He dressed down the bed, the maggots safely caught in them and brought them into the back alley his other door let out to. He left the bundle in a corner where a few maggots more or less did not disturb the scenery.

Back in his room he disposed of the other maggots and sat on his bed to study the letter. It was nothing but that one line of writing that was staring at him. He unfolded the Prophet from his robe. Shacklebolt was still writhing on the front page. It came as somewhat of a surprise that pictures that explicit were even printed. He had Lucius to thank that his own picture was now old news. The text that ran over one neat column accompanying the photograph: a message from Lucius, short and to the point. He spoke of 'his due' and 'exacting justice'. The reward for information that led to his capture was set to 1.000.000 Galleons.

Snape turned both letter and Prophet over and set them down on his bare bed. He stared at the kitchen, unseeing. Contact had been made then, easier than expected, now it merely needed to be maintained. He could deposit the message in this room, or, he smiled grimly at that, give it to the ghost for delivery. Alternatively there might be another method that proved more secure in his intended recipient receiving said message.

It was most intriguing that he been found out that soon, and rather telling that both Hagen and Lucius had smelled the rat if Lucius' message was any indication. He'd notch this down to shoddy planning on the Ministry's side.

He shuddered as he remembered the small quarters. He cringed as he remembered how they had first led him there, and how he had not believed them saying it would be forever. He had waited for the door to open and someone to call it a misunderstanding, to tell him of a testimony post-mortem, but nothing ever came. Until the day before, until they had been desperate enough to whimper for help.

He got up and walked to the counter, eating another slice of dry toast. A maggot made its way across the floor, a slow, mopey crawl from the bed to the general direction of the toilet. He crouched and picked it up, scrutinized its wriggling motions as it was clasped between his fingers. It was literally gasping for breath. The little mouth opened and closed. He put it out of its misery and threw it into the toilet. It swirled away with his piss.

His forearm began to burn when his robes were still open, the last of the piss dripping into the toilet bowl. He pushed up the sleeve of his robes and the eye of the skull was blazing in a bright red. The pain was numbing. He had forgotten then, how it had once been, if this seemed all-encompassing already. Clenching his teeth he buttoned his robes and pushed the sleeve back down. He grabbed the Prophets, the one from the day before and the one whose front page was filled by Shacklebolt, as well as the note for good measure. He looked around for the room for something else. The pain intensified. He made sure he had his wand, thought of the coordinates and apparated.

He landed more gracefully than he had the previous few times, only stumbling slightly in the high grass of the riverside. He assessed the situation quickly, his wand out and pointed at Robards and Davies as he regarded the bridge above them that was spanning the river, and a street just behind them. The river was flowing quietly in its bed. The two Aurors had pulled their wands themselves, a stand-off in the making. Snape noticed the papers still clutched in his hand.

"Lower them," he shouted, louder than strictly necessary.

Robards and his lackey communicated silently. Robards slowly lowered his wand, a careful eye on Snape. "Now you," he shouted back.

"Expelliarmus," Snape shouted instead. The two wands came hurling at him. He dropped the papers in the grass and caught them in his left hand. A smirk settled on his face. "Thank you," he said with mock-politeness. He took a few steps towards them. Birds were chirping around them. It would have been a quite idyllic spot if not for the cars on the street.

They stood looking at one another. Snape felt the burn of anger and hatred well up at the sight of Robards, the infuriating smirk on the man's face and the empty-handed gesture that was ridiculing him for the rash spell on his lips. Snape's wand hand was shaking with suppressed fury, his mind was rolling off hex after spell after jinx to incapacitate, maim or at least kill. Then the evening sun shone into his eyes. He felt its warmth roll off his skin and forced himself to relax.

Snape gestured with his wand and the Prophet with his picture on the front page smacked Robards in the chest before it dropped to his feet.

"Care to explain?" Snape asked icily. He kept his wand trained on Robards.

Robards bent to pick up the paper, eyebrows raised. He moved his hands in placation. "I assure you, it was not our ... decision," he said. He nodded at the photograph.

Snape pocketed the two spare wands he now had and advanced on Robards until his wand was hooked under Robards' chin. "Not your decision," he asked in a low voice, taking care not to let Davies out of his sight, "you tell me to do something for you, and you say it is 'not your decision' when a photo is publicized for all of Wizarding Britain to see, making sure I cannot take one step unguarded into Diagon Alley, that even in Knockturn Alley I am assaulted?" He jabbed the wand under Robards' chin, ignoring the man's gasp. "It was not part of the deal you had drawn up," he said finally and pushed Robards' back. He watched him stumble and Davies help hold him up. Snape kept his wand trained on them both.

"You got a wand, didn't you? Just how did you acquire one, Snape, I am curious, what with the photo and taking 'no step unguarded'?"

Snape laughed mirthlessly. "You are one cocky bastard, aren't you Robards? It is none of your business. Sit." Snape gestured. He waited for Robards and Davies to drop onto the damp grass with looks of wrath and anger.

"This is not what we came here for," Davies threw in. He shifted in the grass in an attempt to get comfortable.

Snape shifted his wand to him. "Do tell, Davies, what did you come here for? What, exactly, is the purpose of these inane meetings? Control? Anything else, at all? And do tell," he pointed his wand at Robards, "who of you acts as the Dark Lord with control over the mark you have so conveniently given me? You, Robards? Does it feel good to have me at your beck and call? Does it?"

Robards sighed tiredly, snorting in irritation. "Cut the dramatics, Snape, this is no Potions classroom."

"How dare you?!" Snape cried, jabbing his wand forward. Robards eyes widened imperceptibly. They stared at one another, then Snape lowered the wand in a carefully controlled gesture.

"Malfoy," Robards prompted. He relaxed on the grass, the wand still uncomfortably close to his eyeball.

Snape nodded. He weighed the benefits and drawbacks of relating Lucius' ingenious message, the stain that previous knowledge must have existed about, and his actions in general.

"Shacklebolt has been kept at the houses," Snape said eventually, his tone neutral, the question not implied.

Robards nodded. Snape smiled grimly. They had known then. "It has been a few weeks, months perhaps given the state of the blood and various ... items."

Robards nodded again.

"Has he been at the house in Torquay also?" Snape asked.

Robards shifted in the grass. "Torquay ... no, he hasn't."

"No?"

"Narcissa Malfoy was killed in Torquay. We assume that is why Malfoy has not gone back there, to our knowledge."

Snape stared at Robards. Lucius must have hidden her there, of course. He had always boasted on the house's security, on its untraceable status, Fidelius and secret keepers. They had found her, they had killed her.

They had slunk away for a smoke at hers and Lucius' wedding. He remembered her drunken laughter as they had pulled smoke from one cigarette. He had felt like the hero on top of the game, a fourteen year old with the girl he thought of when tossing off at night. That she had just been married to Lucius did not count. A stolen smoke and a brushed kiss on his cheek had been the most intimate moment he had experienced with her.

She was dead then, killed where she had been sent for safety. His wand trembled, both Robards and Davies were staring at it. He steadied his hand and set his jaw. He nodded in acknowledgement. Maybe it had been too much to have expected anyone to survive that war.

"Was there any reason in particular," he cleared his throat as if the image of Narcissa was lodged there, "why you didn't inform me of those facts prior to this insane charade? Is there anything else you'd wish to share now that we are sitting here?"

Robards shook his head. Snape nodded, searching Robards' eyes for the lie. He did not find it, either because it didn't exist or because Robards was too accomplished a liar for it to show.

"Have you made contact with Malfoy?" Robards asked instead.

"What did you expect, the bunny-hat trick? That I had him in my pocket all along and only needed to get away long enough to send a friendly hello? May I remind you that I betrayed the cause he believed in?"

"The jury's still out on that," Davies said vindictively.

Snape ignored him. "No, I have not made contact yet. I spend a considerable amount of time procuring a wand, without which I would not have been able to come to this wonderful tea we are holding currently. I am sure I do not need to mention who thought it wise to send me out without one of my own, and to have my photo appear in the Prophet the same day."

"Not our decis-"

"So you have said," Snape said shortly. "Anything else? Any other missions you see fit to saddle me with?"

Robards shook his head. "Tea time tomorrow. Do not miss it this time, Snape."

Snape smirked. "Here I thought you got some perverse enjoyment out of playing Dark Lord, Robards." He pulled out the wands and threw them a few yards, then apparated from the spot and back into Knockturn Alley.

Knockturn Alley was quieting down that time of the evening. The last rays of the sun were gracing the bleak cobblestones and grey house fronts. Snape walked up the steps to the shop, the jingle sounded and he closed the door behind himself. The stairs appeared a moment later, the ghost never did. Snape plucked the Galleons out of his pocket and left them at the bottom of the stairs. He had not expected the ghost to have the grace either.

He led himself into his rooms. The smell had gone, the house elf had not reappeared. The bed stood bare against the wall. The ghost's inane insistence of knowing him came back. It was difficult to decide if it was a ghost's quirk on the quest for identity or a statement based on fact. Certainly, it could have been someone Lucius had associated himself with prior to the war, or possibly during. He'd have recognized it if it had been a Death Eater when alive.

Snape chewed another dry toast when his stomach began to rumble. A few slices of toast would not sustain him the next day, so likely a change of plans was in order. He washed up and lay on the bed, stared at the ceiling. The Ministry, Lucius and Hagen as an entirely unexpected factor that could not be discounted anymore. He fell asleep hours later when the countless variables had been turned again and again in his mind.

Snape woke to a pale morning, his back stiff. He stretched to work out a few of the kinks. The morning wash and piss, and with a slice of toast in his mouth he regarded himself. There was the option of muggle trousers to disguise himself but in wizarding circles those were more likely to attract attention than his regular robes. He'd take his chances.

He left the room and walked down to Knockturn Alley. That time of the morning the alley was empty save for the late night stragglers who leaned on corners, the smell of bile heavy in the air. He'd have much preferred the Leaky Cauldron for food, but given the circumstances the Knockturn Alley equivalent appeared to be the safer choice. It wasn't until he stood before it, half catching a staggering drunk to prevent him from falling, that he noticed that this one, too, had fallen into bricks and ashes during the war. The name sounded unfamiliar, the smell that poured out through the open doors did not.

He stalked in, sidestepping another drunk on the way out. The place was dark, sun threaded through the dirty window panes in the front. Dustballs collected under the tables and chairs in the back.

"Another one," a drunkard on his left called out. The bartender, face resigned, filled one of the mugs with beer of the adult variety and hauled it over. He gave Snape a cursory once over and an absent-minded nod.

Snape slid into the bench at the far wall. He was able to overlook the room. The drunkard was the only guest, on the last beer of his evening or his first of the morning. The bartender spoke with him in hushed whispers, a pat to the shoulder, then he sauntered over to Snape, bored expression on his face.

"So?" he said.

"Porridge and a regular black tea, if you have either," Snape replied.

The bartender nodded in acknowledgment and walked off, his shoes catching on the floor. They made sounds that sounded like the pace and turn on stone, or almost. He brought the food a few minutes later, set the plate down in front of Snape without a word. Water pooled on the top of the greyish mass, yet Snape ate with relish, paying the quality of the food no mind. He had not had porridge since the day before the last stand-off. He eyed the teabag in the cracked mug before he took a sip, but even that surpassed anything they had fed him at Wormwood.

The drunkard stumbled out halfway through his breakfast. He left a chair that had clattered to the floor in his wake and a rude gesture in the air. The bartender moved to clean up, before he approached Snape's table.

"Closing up here in a minute. Be done then?" he asked. His wand made a towel swipe over the exposed part of Snape's table.

Snape nodded as he brought another spoonful of porridge to his mouth. He downed the black tea and stood. With a nod he placed two Galleons on the table.

"Do I know you?" the bartender called out after him, his voice suspicious.

Snape didn't look over his shoulder. "I doubt it." He walked out. The door fell into the lock behind him and clicked shut. The morning sun stood higher now. Some clouds inched closer from the West. They looked like Dementors, but clouds usually did.

The day young and the shops still closed Snape apparated and stood before the rusted gate of Malfoy Manor moments later. He stole through the gap in the gate, took care not to jostle it for fear of sounds. Just inside the gate he listened for noises, ready to apparate at a moment's notice. It was unlikely that Robards had Aurors lying in wait after the meeting the day before, but there was always the possibility of overzealous citizens out for money or fame. The morning remained silent, only his own steps sounded on the cobblestone road leading up the Manor.

As Snape stepped over the hill his first glance went to the stables. The adjacent house looked asleep still. The windows and door were closed, the squib was not visible anywhere near the house. Snape walked up to the house and drew his wand as he ducked into it between the remains of wall and door. The house was empty. Reflected slivers of sun illuminated the entrance hall shaggily. He crossed the hall to the hidden stairwell.

"Stop," a familiar voice sounded.

The person's wand dug into his back. Snape swivelled around. His wand flew out of his hand as he crashed into the wall behind him. The house shook dangerously with the impact, small stones and dust rained down from the cracked and broken ceilings above him.

"Lucius," Snape said. He shifted on the rubble that cut into his hands. Lucius had that glint in his eyes, not quite sane but not yet gone. His clothes hung in little more than rags from his body. How the mighty had fallen.

"Traitor," Lucius replied. He studied Snape's wand, twirled it between his fingers, then snapped cold eyes back to Snape. "Here I thought my message was clear enough. Again, stay away." Lucius threw Snape's wand to the side. It flew into the wall inside the dining room, clattered to the floor.

He did not see Lucius lift his own wand, he only heard the word. "Crucio."

Snape crumbled on the rubble, his nerves on fire. The spell ran white-hot through him, a scream tore from his throat. Warm wetness spread in his trousers. When the spell's effects lessened he opened tear-crusted eyes to Lucius who was staring at him coldly. Snape snapped his gaze to the dining room. His wand had rolled under the table, untouched.

"Traitor?" Snape said. He laughed. He pushed himself up. Small cuts from stones and glass were the sharp nicks of pain on top of the underlying current of Cruciatus aftereffects. "Wormwood is no housing accommodation for the so-called good side. I thought they had published that much in the papers."

"Silence!" Lucius roared. His wand shook as he pointed it at Snape. He licked his lips, greying hair hung into his face. He pushed it back with an irritated jerk of his hand.

"Lucius," Snape said again. He moved up, his hands held high in surrender.

"Lucius what," Lucius mimicked. "Lucius what? What are you going to say, Snape? What platitudes are on the tip of your tongue? Lucius, I'm sorry I betrayed you. Lucius, I'm sorry about your son. Lucius, I'm sorry about your wife but you knew all about that, didn't you."

"No, actually, I didn't."

"Why are you here, Snape? Why are you following me? A fair guess: they promised you your freedom, didn't they. Do you believe them? Believe their filthy little lies?"

"I don't." He paused. "Obviously that is exactly what they promised."

"And so you are here, will they come any minute now? A horde of Aurors apparating around us to what - to arrest me for doing what is my due? For exacting justice? You never understood that, never understood what it is like to have a child. They killed him, he died in my arms. And now, here you come, believing I will what - buy your ruse? How easy are you to be bought that way, for a promise of freedom you will not get and a pat on the back."

"Lucius-"

"Which side were you ever really on? Playing both sides, playing your own side? Feeding everyone information that killed people? You killed my wife, you killed my son, you killed our cause, Snape. Remember the nights we sat up with a smoke and talked about our futures when we were just boys? You had a standing invitation to my house, were welcome to my family, you were a part of it, and you betrayed all of it for a few minutes of fame. You killed them, Snape, you killed all of them. And now you are prepared to kill me for a promise from them! From them of all people, how can you believe anything so obviously a lie?"

Snape walked closer. "I do not - Lucius, listen to me - I do not believe their promises."

Lucius' wand was pointed at Snape's chest. "Why would you be here, if not to do their bidding? Don't play me for a fool. I am not that gullible, traitor. They write of escape and you speak of promises. I bet they are lurking just around the corner, ready to pounce upon a clue to their Auror's whereabouts. I survived a war, so do not try to trick me with your cheap words. You killed him, don't you see that, like any of them, you killed him." He stared hard at Snape. "Crucio," he said under his breath.

Time stopped for Snape as he crashed hard to the ground amidst rubble and glass, dust and stones. He writhed in the agony that took over his coherent thoughts and replaced them with the white flare of all-encompassing pain. He wet himself again under the onslaught of the curse. He kept on twitching on the ground even as the curse was lifted. His eyes opened to a wand pointed at his forehead.

"Give me one reason to let you live, traitor."

Snape coughed. His arms and legs twitched, his skull was exploding with pain from where he had hit his head on one of the bigger stones. He closed his eyes, his throat clogged up. "I am sorry, Lucius." Feet shuffled next to his head, the birds were chirping outside. The ground was hard beneath his back.

There was the soft sound of apparition, then silence. Snape swallowed hard, slowly opened his eyes. He was alone in the room that was bathed in the soft glow of the sun above. He vomited into the rubble, then dragged himself up to lean against a wall. He caught his breath and waited for his limbs to feel like they belonged to his body again. Either some of the warding of the house still held, or the Ministry had chosen to ignore the Unforgivables.

It was then that Robards' words had sunk in, that Draco was dead, and that Narcissa was dead, both victims in a war that by right neither of them should have been involved with. He coughed up more bile and hauled himself to his feet. He staggered along the wall into the former dining room. His wand lay below the table. He sank to his knees with a pained groan that made it past his lips and retrieved the wand. It looked unbroken. He gave it an experimental wave. He cleaned himself. Ignoring the danger of being splinched when he apparated in that state of mind, he concentrated on the mental image.

His room above the ghost's shop came into focus. He staggered to the bed and lay down, his arms wrapped protectively around his stomach. His feet still gave random muscle twitches. He fell into uneasy sleep, seeing Draco and Narcissa in his mind and then Lucius, holding his dying son.

He woke disoriented. The dying sun showed mid-afternoon. He sat up. His leg muscles clenched as he moved them. Small shocks of pain ran through his body at the movement of arms, shoulders and legs. He sat on the bed for a few moments. His skull pulsed with a low-level pain in beat with his heart. He felt along the back of his head. His hands came away dusted with dried blood. He felt for his wand on the bed and pointing it at his head he muttered a healing charm. It did not stop the pain, but it would staunch any remaining blood flow.

Snape stood on shaking feet and walked to the sink. He held his head under the flow of water until some of the muddiness in his mind had receded. He did not bother to dry his hair. It dripped cold water on his robes. He leaned against the sink, the encounter with Lucius was playing through his mind again. He did not believe in their filthy lies, maybe he really did not - but what else was there to believe in?

A few more charms and a desperate wish for a headache potion later he apparated to the meeting with Robards. It was still time until tea, but it would serve to be early, for once, given that Robards and Davies had most certainly learned from their folly.

The sun turned the river a cascade of yellows and oranges with an underlying blue tint. A motorcycle roared by just as Snape appeared at the riverside. He was alone. He studied the bridge, then walked over and sat in its shade, the coolness of the stones a relief against his back. He held his wand pointed at the spot he assumed Robards would appear in, a strategic advantage. It remained to be seen how much use he could make of that.

The pops of apparition were not audible over the street noise. The two figures materialized with their backs to him. He allowed himself a private smile before he stood and whispered the word, then caught their wands in one hand. They swung around, features schooled to calm after a split second of unease.

"You call yourselves, Aurors, do you? I have to admit, I am not impressed," he drawled and stepped closer. He dangled their wands from his hand.

Robards scowled. "News, Snape?"

Snape schooled his features to indifference, and while he doubted that Robards had perfected even mediocre legilimency, he carefully closed his mind. He shook his head. "None of importance."

Robards glared at him, a suspicious gleam in his eyes. "I trust progress is being made. You do remember just what you are doing this for, don't you?"

Snape nodded, Lucius' face flashed through his mind.

"I trust you remember what you were asked to do."

"Find Shacklebolt, find Lucius, give them to you," Snape recited, his voice just on that side of boredom.

Robards stepped closer, almost into Snape's wand. "I don't believe a word you say."

Snape smiled. His quarters at Wormwood crossed his mind, and Robards' visit early in his imprisonment. "Not to worry, I feel the same way."

Robards looked pointedly at the wands in Snape's hand. Snape looked past him at Davies who stood at the apparition spot, uneasily looking at his feet, then shading his eyes to look over to them.

"What do you plan to do with Lucius once I have delivered him into your capable hands?"

"None of your business," Robards said. "I'd be a fool to tell you about it, too."

"Death then," Snape concluded. He threw the wands into the water with a grim smile. "As if we have not had enough of that to last us a century." He apparated without a look at either Robards or Davies, no doubt missing a comical scene of them scrabbling for their wands in the river.

Knockturn Alley welcomed him in its cool darkness. In more ways than one Knockturn was the shadow of Diagon. Things were a shade darker there. When the apothecary in Diagon Alley contained potions to heal one could well guess that its shadow off to the side would contain those that killed. There was a small stand carrying papers, tobacco and various forms of other narcotics. It sold the darker side of the news stories, the headier drugs.

"The Prophet," Snape said as he stepped up to the stand.

"Prophet?" the man behind the counter laughed. "I am certain I have something pertaining more to your tastes." The man grinned, reaching for the erotica magazines, young girls and boys gyrating hips and genitals at him.

Snape's lips thinned, eyes narrowed. He put the Knuts on the counter and pushed them over. "The Prophet," he repeated firmly, his voice no-nonsense dark. He did not spare the magazines a glance.

The man pushed the paper over with a scowl. Snape left without thanks.

The Prophet's front page held neither news of him nor of Lucius but an article on the Minister of Magic's position on mixed-species laws that were undergoing an upheaval. Snape folded the Prophet after scanning the article and walked across the street to the pub he'd already enjoyed his breakfast at. An already drunk man pushed past him into the pub.

Snape hesitated briefly at the door, then walked in. He was enveloped in a cloud of tobacco and alcohol fumes within moments. To his right a couple of wizards were playing Cards and Stones, pushing the small pebbles between them. Two men sat at the bar, holding onto their beers. The right side was mostly unoccupied. No one paid him any mind. Snape chose the table in the shady corner he had sat at in the morning, with view of the door and everyone else in the establishment.

The bartender came up to him just as he moved to sit in the small booth. Snape nodded at him in greeting. "Black tea," he said over the noise of the bar. "Some toast."

The bartender nodded without a comment but a sideways glance and walked off into the kitchens. Snape opened the Prophet and perused the main story. Mention of both Lucius and him were made on the second page, together in one article no less: speculation on the New Dark, as they called it. The Minister of Magic had an opinion on it, of course, promising that the 'murderers' would be found and prosecuted swiftly and with due harshness. Snape read torture and death between the lines.

He had signed with Robards, a magical contract no less, that did not show holes or even much room to manoeuvre for either of them. Robards as the Head of the Auror Division surely had that much power at least. Then there was Lucius, half-mad and grief-stricken, thirsting for blood and soon dead, without a doubt. 'Against Authority and the World,' seemed to be a true description even then.

Snape nodded in acknowledgment as the tea was set down beside him and took a first sip. He ignored the tremor in his hands.

"Mr Snape."

Snape clenched his jaw as a wand moved into his periphery. He looked up pointedly, part of him expecting an Auror. It was Hagen who tucked his wand away now, having caught his attention.

"Mr Hagen," Snape replied. He took another sip of the tea, willed his hands to obey him.

Hagen sat down on the chair opposite Snape. After a moment's thought he shucked his coat and reclined in his seat. "It is a pleasure to meet you again."

Snape nodded and slowly folded the paper to push to the side. He moved his tea to sit in front of his body, and leaned forward ever so slightly.

"I apologize in all formality for the manner in which our previous encounter ended and would like to pursue mutual interests further."

"Accepted," Snape said without hesitation. He lifted his gaze to the bartender who came up behind Hagen. The bartender set Snape's toast down in front of him. The bartender's hands shook as he took Hagen's order of a black tea; he bowed a little too deeply for it to be mere courtesy. If nothing else that alone ensured some fellow visitor's notice of them. They were sitting in a dark alcove, clearly dealing business of some kind. All of them dealt business occasionally, and they tended to turn a blind eye as long as they had nothing to gain. Snape moved his face further into the shadows. They clearly stood to gain something from him in case of recognition.

"I want Malfoy," Hagen said, his tone urgent. He leaned forward, his stale breath ghosted over Snape's face.

"I do not have him, Mr Hagen," Snape said. "You read the paper yourself. They describe him as 'elusive and in hiding.' What exactly gives you the impression that I would know his whereabouts, and closing the circle to our last meeting, why I would share them with you if I knew?"

"You owe-"

"Please." Snape sipped on his tea. "Let's not insult my intelligence, Mr Hagen. It does not bode well for future associations."

"Mr Snape, you and I both know that you did not 'escape' a high security prison built after the fall of Azkaban solely for the purpose of keeping you there." Hagen paused as the bartender brought his tea. "They want you to find Malfoy. I dare say it is rather convenient that I want the same."

"Why?" Snape asked. "Given the impression you have that the escape was staged and I am on the lookout for Malfoy, designated to hand him over to the Ministry, why should I go behind an agreement I must have then drawn and give him to you instead? Purely hypothesizing here, I trust you understand."

"It would rather depend on the agreement you might have been offered." Hagen bid his time, took a sip of tea and a careful look around the pub. "Given they kept you in prison, if they did, they now offered you freedom for your troubles? It seems like a sound theory."

"Does it now."

Hagen nodded in the affirmative to the rhetoric question. "I can offer you more than that."

Snape raised his eyebrows in doubt. "Indeed. What would that be, being indebted to you for life? I'll graciously decline that." His lips twisted around the rim of the tea cup.

Hagen ignored him. "Wealth, influence and power."

"What makes you think I have need of any of those?"

"You do," Hagen said. The smirk was ugly and hinted at the confidence that Hagen had only shown in the first of their meetings. "How many did you kill? Ten? A hundred? More? I am afraid the notes are not awfully clear on that."

"You think I did that for pleasure?"

Hagen leaned forward. "I know you did, Mr Snape." His voice was a harsh, companionable whisper. He pulled out a journal, torn at the edges. An assortment of letters had been pushed into it, the black satin bookmark was unravelled and greying. "June 06th," Hagen read. "Exp.: Blood curling potion (IV) initially successful. Death after 27 minutes (29, 35, 30 respectively). Stretch to an hour (subtract A?). Procure new subjects." Hagen set the journal down.

Snape lunged for it. Hagen snatched the journal away before Snape's fingers managed to close around it. Hagen glowed with self-satisfaction. He picked it up again. "September 17th. Note: O.P. requests Potion II, D.L. dissatisfied with Potion VI (too specific, non-human?). Notify O.P. for permission. Exp.: II worked to satisfaction, 10+ dead (1DE, 9+ civilians. Pain level 8 - screams, begging)."

"Where did you procure those?" Snape's voice was flat. He stared at the tattered book. Something from Spinner's End had survived then.

"I have my sources," Hagen said. A smile played around his lips. "You were the Executioner, may I say so, for both sides. Power and influence. They writhed in pain by your hand. If not for the sadism, and I am willing to grant that you lack the sadistic personality streak, you revelled in the intellectual fulfilment it provided."

Snape stayed silent.

"I can offer you that. I have laboratories you will find stocked to your satisfaction-"

"Where did you get that?" Snape interrupted. The question repeated in a hoarse whisper. He still stared at the book, watched Hagen play with the satin bookmark, his fingers running over the paper edges. "Do you have more?"

Hagen nodded, the false smile stuck to his face. "I have them, and as I said, a laboratory, subjects if you so wish. You would be paid for every successful project. Do you realize what I offer you here? They want to grant you your freedom, but would they be able to give you this?" He paused for dramatic effect, then continued in a low whisper, shaking his head. "No, they could never give you that. I can."

Snape reached for the book again. Hagen pulled it just out of his grasp. "May I?" Snape forced out, bringing his eyes up to stare into Hagen's, eyebrows raised in indignant impatience.

"Of course." Hagen pushed the book over, bestowing another saccharine smile on Snape.

Snape closed his fingers around the opened journal. He slid out the bookmark. It was one of the wartime journals, the potions experimental at best. They had been brewed in substandard Order headquarters in days that never ended, nights non-existent. If anything they documented the warfare both sides had used to try and set their victory. He thumbed through it to the last page. There had been others following this one, one or two, he did not remember the number or even what they contained, save for the fact that all of them had brought death, and that they were his.

"You have them?" Snape asked to confirm once more. He shut the book and fingertips drew over the non-descript cover.

Hagen nodded

"What else do you have?"

"Everything." Hagen smiled. He sipped his tea slowly. "Your house, I understand, was sold. Its contents were widely distributed after they went through the Ministry hands. I managed, I am sure you understand the difficulty of that, to gather most items. The journals, the books, your potions utensils, family memorabilia..."

Snape swallowed hard. "Why?" He cleared his throat for a semblance of control "Why take on that most arduous task in the first place? What am I to you?"

Hagen sobered. The smile seeped off his face. "You are one of them, like he was." He looked to the side, shame tinting his cheeks red.

"Who?"

"That is not of relevance." The moment of weakness had passed and Hagen looked at Snape out of cold eyes. "It is a trade of goods. You get me Malfoy and I give you your journals and books as well as an occupation, the possibility of spreading your intellectual wings if you so desire."

Snape leaned back, considering Hagen with a careful eye. "I want to see the items," he said, a note of finality in his voice.

Hagen nodded in acquiescence. "I am sure it can be arranged." He sipped his tea delicately.

Snape ate his toast. The journal lay closed between them. Loose pages peeked out at the sides, scrawls of numbers and abbreviations that were done for his own eyes. Eventually Hagen cleared his throat. At the rise of Snape's eyes to him he stood and put on his coat. He took a Galleon out of his pocket and put it onto the table.

"I have business to attend to," Hagen said. "It's been a pleasure meeting you again."

Snape inclined his head. "Likewise." He gestured at the journal, eyebrows raised in question.

"Call it a token of my affection, and a promise of more," Hagen said with one of his forced smiles. He turned and walked out through the pub, more than a few pairs of eyes on him.

Snape caught the bartender staring at him as he looked after Hagen. He met the man's eyes who dropped his gaze fast, busying himself cleaning one of the tables. He kept his eyes on the man while his fingers caressed the journal absent-mindedly. He gave an up-nod to the bartender when he met his eyes again. The bartender hesitated for a few seconds, then slowly shuffled to Snape's corner of the room. Snape gestured to the chair that Hagen had just occupied.

The bartender looked over his shoulder into the pub, then pulled the chair back and sat. "So?" He put the rag on the table: dirty water leaked out of it into the marred wood below.

"Why not use magic tonight?" Snape pointed at the rag.

"It keeps the hands busy," the bartender replied. "Is that all?" He moved to get up.

"Wait," Snape called.

The bartender settled in the seat again. "Look, I have a pub to attend to-"

Snape pushed a few Galleons to the bartender. They made a rough scraping sound on the table top. The bartender nodded. Snape leaned forward slightly as the bartender pocketed the money.

"A few minutes of your time," Snape said. "What can you tell me about the man who just sat here with me?"

The bartender broke eye contact and looked at the rag between them. He shook his head. Snape sighed and produced more coins. The bartender still did not meet his eyes. Snape glared at him and huffed with impatience.

"We do not talk about him," the bartender said eventually. "We- He- Just don't ask."

"Who is he?"

The bartender looked up. "Look, you have been away. Everyone here knows that. You do not know how things are being run here now. You do not talk about these things, not anymore. Things have changed."

Snape bit back the sound on the tip of his tongue and drummed his fingers on the table. He leaned in closer. "It is obvious to all involved that you know me. You certainly know I am not a patient man. Who is he?"

The bartender shook his head. "His name is Thomas Hagen." His tone was off-hand. "That is all anyone knows. And that his enemies have a habit of turning up dead, as do his friends, or those who believed they were, or those who were found discussing him," he whispered and looked over his shoulder. A few of the men in the pub quickly averted their eyes. He pushed off the table and sat back. "For a few minutes of my time let me give you one piece of advice: do not think you can play with him. You will lose." He stood. The chair scraped over the floorboards. "Good day."

Snape finished his tea, a frown on his face. He threw the Galleons on the table and walked out of the pub. The other men pretended to ignore him in favour of yelling at each other over a card, or money, or both. He felt the bartender's eyes on his back until the door closed behind him and he stood in the street.

The evening left the streets of Knockturn empty. There were only those out who were going somewhere or those you'd want to avoid since your wealth and life depended on it. Snape held his wand inside his robes as he strode to the ghost's shop. Magic sizzled under his hand and the door opened for him. The bells sounded above his head and the stairs materialized. The ghost was absent. He waited a few minutes for it to materialize, then plucked the coins out of his pocket and put them on the first step of the stairwell. He walked up the stairs and into his room, closed the door behind himself. There was no surprise on the bed.

Snape laid the Prophet and his journal on the bed and undressed. He washed up for the night, regarded the now mouldy toast on the counter with distaste. He settled on the bare bed in his undershirt and pants, thumbed through the paper once then pushed it aside and reached for his journal.

He opened it to the first page and scanned the entry. He remembered writing it. It had been a cold January morning and that had had him spending his hours refining a potion the Order had requested. That potion had later been named VIII in his notes and gone by the name of DEADI among the Order members.

The journal still carried the faint whiff of Potions Laboratory in its pages and ink. He had written many of the entries with his left hand, holding the ladle to the cauldron with his right. Those entries were scrawled in too big letters. The others, especially the correspondence notes with both the Order and the Dark Lord, had been done by candle light, when his body had been too weary to stand much longer and his hand had been shaking too much to stir in proper figure-eights. The night time entries had the cramped tiny handwriting of a nose stuck too close to the paper, while the light offered barely enough illumination for the words.

Snape closed the journal and lay back on the bed. He fell asleep with his fingers clasped around the journal, and he woke with a wand pointing between his eyes. Before he was able to move for his own it was summoned. His head snapped around to the one holding the wand.

"Good morning." The man drew small circles into the air with his wand. It was the one who had brought him to Hagen that first day, one of his men, then, no doubt. The man looked pointedly at Snape's lap and the tent in the sheet, a hideous grin on his face.

Snape snorted indignantly. "What do you want?"

"You. Mr Hagen expects you. Get going." The grin was gone, replaced by hostility.

Snape shivered in the morning air wearing only the undershirt and pants. He struggled off the bed and into the curtained bathroom corner. A piss later he drew on his robes. He threw a long glance at the journal that lay on the bed and cursed himself for not having put a minimum of protection on it the night before, as well as the room on a whole. It seemed people could come and go as they pleased. He took the journal and pocketed it.

"The wand?" Snape stood in front of the nameless wizard, arms crossed in front of his chest.

"You won't need it now. Anything else?" He pointed at the room at large. Snape stomach rumbled. The other wizard laughed. Snape shook his head. The other one grabbed his arm and the apparition whirled them away.

Rather as expected they materialized in front of Hagen's house.

"Move," the other one hissed into his ear.

A current of magic caught Snape in his back before a hand pushed him forward. He straightened himself after the stumble and walked through the door that had opened to them. It was the darkly warded hallway.

Snape turned to the other wizard. "My wand?" he repeated the request.

The wizard ignored him and pushed Snape forward and into the bar to the left of the hallway. Smoke still clung to its ceiling. The morning sunlight filtered in lazily through the dust. Hagen sat at one of the tables, sipping a drink.

"How good of you to join me, Mr Snape," Hagen said. His voice was cold, his face set in stone.

The spell caught Snape from behind before he had time to react. He was propelled into the chair opposite Hagen. He expected a whispered Incarcerous next but the other wizard just walked up to the table and put Snape's wand down next to Hagen's hand. Hagen's fingers curled around it. He lifted it almost playfully.

Snape bit back a sound of distress. "What do you want?"

"So impatient." Hagen chuckled. "Have you not slept well with your precious journal finally in your hands again?"

Snape glared at Hagen, not answering the obvious non-question.

"Mr Snape," Hagen said. He swirled the drink in his glass. "Last night when I arrived back here I found John, the bartender of the pub, on my doorstep. He told me of something that had happened upon my leaving the pub. He related that you, Mr Snape, inquired quite baldly about me. Is that so?"

Snape laughed now. "I was not aware that it constituted a crime to inquire about you."

Hagen smiled briefly in honest amusement. "It does not, but I have to admit to being unpleasantly surprised by it. I thought that any inquiries you might have about me you could direct to me."

"Mr Hagen. I am one of them, as you put so accurately yesterday." Snape pushed up the sleeve of his robe. The Dark Mark lay pliant on his skin. "Do you honestly believe that I am cowed by the likes of you? You have a lot to learn." Snape smirked.

Hagen nodded at the other wizard behind him. Snape barely heard the first syllable uttered before the Cruciatus tore through his body. It lasted only long enough to give him the barest of its tastes. "Cowed by this then, Mr Snape?" Hagen leaned back.

Snape took a few breaths and moved his fingers as he recovered from the snapshot pain. "What are you so scared of, Hagen, to keep them from talking? What could they share that you do not want out there? Your father was a Muggle and you are a filthy half-blood? You are a few years late for the bloodline to be a scandal," Snape mocked.

"Nice try," Hagen replied. He smirked back at Snape then sobered into ice. "Don't play with me, Mr Snape. You will live to regret it."

"I am a fugitive, do you think I have anything to lose?"

Hagen steepled his fingers. "You pay your host two Galleons a night. Yesterday a dead house elf found itself on your bed. You met with the Head of Aurors in Aysgarth, need I go on? You have your life to lose, Mr Snape, so I suggest you keep your curiosity curbed."

Snape bit back a retort.

"My father was a wizard. Just so one of your questions gets an answer." Hagen pushed back his chair. "Now I believe I promised to show you what you stand to gain should you agree to this. How convenient that this morning finds you here."

Snape scowled at Hagen and stood. "My wand?"

Hagen handed it to him. "I think we have an understanding now, don't we."

Snape nodded with hesitation.

"Follow me," Hagen said. He walked ahead of Snape out of the room and motioned the other wizard to stay put.

They stepped out of the bar and walked along the hallway to the stairs leading down. The wards were thick around Snape, their magic tentacles slivered over him, assessing his state of magic. He followed Hagen down the stairs. The torches sprang to life around him. They illuminated each step as they took it. The hallway in the cellar was dark, the only flare of light came from the room at the end of it.

Hagen strode ahead into the room and motioned Snape to follow him closely. The table still stood in the middle, a few chairs had joined it.

"You have been here before," Hagen said. He turned expectantly to Snape.

"I am well aware of that." Snape grimaced and looked around the room. "May I?" He gestured at the shelves that held a few of the books.

Hagen shrugged. "You might as well."

Snape stepped up to the shelves. His wand moved over the spines of the leather-bound books and threadbare paper journals. He pulled one of the journals out. It was a publication that dated back to 1512. It was impressive not for its content since it dealt with household magic, but certainly for its age. Publication in those years had not counted its copies in thousands but in tens, if even that. The book next to it was a Dark Magic textbook that had been used in private households of certain inclinations to further the children's education at a most tender age. There were a few Potions texts, but also Divinations theses and generally a broad spectrum of historical texts. He frowned at Hogwarts, A History. It pulled up too many memories within the blink of an eye.

Snape walked along the shelves, eyes taking note of the titles, cataloguing the books for levels of danger and illegal possession as well as age.

"Intrigued?"

"Quite," Snape said. "They are not the most common volumes to have. May I ask where you found them?"

"Say, much like I found your books."

Snape stopped, eyes fixed hard on one of the books, a random volume on House Elf Treatment written centuries ago. Tea marked the lower part of the book in darkened stain. He had seen that one before in Lucius' library. He walked on, a cabinet closed up with the shelves. A door stood slightly ajar. He knew the robes inside, and he knew the masks. A glass casket with wands sat on one of the shelves in it. They had seemed familiar before.

"Memories?"

Snape turned at Hagen's voice. Hagen stood right behind him, a rapt expression on his face. Snape nodded faintly. Hagen stepped back and spread his arm to indicate the table. A few days ago it had held the wands in the casket; now journals, books and pictures were laid out. Snape swallowed hard and stepped around Hagen towards the table. He reached out for the closest item, a book on protective warding, when the magic sizzled around his fingertips.

"Each of the items carries its own charm." Hagen moved his wand slowly over the items and sparks flew up at every contact of wood on protective layer. "Of course you could take them down easily enough, but ... I trust you won't."

"They might not be real."

"Please."

Snape looked down at them. He walked around the table and his mind catalogued every item. His books were there, not all of them by far, but the more expensive and more outstanding volumes by age, subject, monetary worth and personal interest. There was a small collection of personal items, a photo of his mother, the wedding photo of his parents, himself as an infant. Snape drew his fingertips over them all, sparks sizzling in their wake.

"The journals?" Snape's voice was rough as he caressed the one he carried in his pockets.

"Kept safe. Call it a piece of insurance. It would be untimely to find myself dead and you disappeared." He laughed. "Or something like that."

"You could be lying."

"I believe your fingers are closed around one of them in your robes pocket now. That should be proof enough. I do not deal crooked business."

Snape nodded, face resigned as he regarded the table again. "A laboratory you said?"

Hagen nodded and motioned Snape to follow him as he walked to the other side of the room. "It is not fully stocked at this point, since your agreement has not been given yet but the basic set-up exists already." He opened the door, hidden in one of the darker corners of the room, with a grand gesture and stepped aside to allow Snape to enter.

Snape catalogued the tables, shelves and drawers set-up carefully. His eyes swept in one long arc from the left to the right side of the room and then back taking in the details. It was an almost uncanny imitation of the Wartime Laboratory at Grimmauld Place. Instead of the more modernized metal tables that had certainly gained in popularity in the years he had not exactly had an eye on the market, that laboratory contained the traditional wood and stone set-up. How others thought to work around any metal's influence on their potions remained a mystery, in any way. Some books were stacked high on a shelf.

He turned to Hagen. "This would be ... adequate."

"You have now seen what I have to offer." Hagen stepped into the room and leaned against one of the preparation tables. "All of it could be yours, for Malfoy."

"For Malfoy, indeed. So you can kill him for a nefarious reason that I am sure you will tell me I do not need to concern myself with?"

Hagen's smile was cold. "You are right, you do not need to concern yourself with that."

Snape narrowed his eyes at the cold gleam in Hagen's. "What did he do that you want to be the one to kill him?"

"This conversation is over, is it not, Mr Snape?" Hagen pushed off the table and walked so close to Snape that their robes were touching at the hem. "Do not pretend you care about someone you have betrayed ten times over." Hagen turned to walk away.

Snape's wand shot out. "Do not pretend that killing him is not personal to you."

Hagen stopped, turned. "If it was not personal I would be perfectly willing to leave him to the Ministry."

"Why?" Snape took a step closer. His breath ghosted over Hagen's ear. "Why do you want him dead so bad? Whom did he kill? Your mother?" Snape smiled. The corners of his mouth curved up in a grimace.

"Don't-"

"Did he kill your mother, Tom?"

"Snape." Hagen choked on the word, his eyes screwed tight for just a moment, before he opened them again. They gleamed with coolness as they turned on Snape. "He killed her, and he killed my father, too."

"How?" Snape's voice matched Hagen's, detached and cold. The wand still pointed at Hagen's throat.

"My father was one of them, one of you." Hagen grabbed Snape's arm and pulled it out. He pushed the sleeve of the robe up with hasty movements. His index finger traced the Dark Mark. "He used to laugh this off as a prison time tattoo whenever I asked him about it. He never explained. They suddenly stood in the doorway, one day, my father and a man he called Malfoy, holding wands. I had never seen the wand before. My mother was screaming out to my father as they stood in the rooms. Malfoy pointed his wand at my mother. My father screamed something about 'not her' and 'innocent.' Then Malfoy looked at me, and back at my father and called him a blood traitor. My mother, she was a Muggle. He killed him, then he killed her. He walked up to me and waved the wand in the air, and he said, 'This means I am your better, and will always be.' He disappeared and left me with their bodies." Hagen looked up at Snape, his eyes gleaming. "It is personal."

Snape pushed the sleeve to cover the mark again. Hagen's hand fell off his arm. "A half-blood." He smirked. "My my, revenge, then."

"Don't." Hagen turned.

Snape's wand scraped over the skin of his throat, teasing a scrape of red into the pale skin. He stepped up to Hagen. His hair smelt of summer forest. "How do you plan on killing him?" His voice was soft, while his body was thrumming with excitement. "A stray curse, or even, your bare hands?"

Hagen turned abruptly, smirking, back to Snape. "You have no idea." He laughed, then his expression froze in cool indifference. "You bring him to me, alive. That is all you need to concern yourself with." He motioned Snape out of the laboratory. Snape stepped away from the wall and back into the other room. He walked to the table where the items were still spread out. Even his NEWTs results lay framed next to the family photos that still had his mother laughing at one of his father's jokes. The first person he had shown his NEWTs had been Lucius who had given him a pat on the back and a smoke in the Manor's park.

Snape turned to Hagen. He fingered the wand in his robes. "What house were you in?" He kept his tone conversational. His eyes roamed the room, fixed on Hogwarts, A History and moved back to Hagen's face.

Hagen coughed. His eyes flittered away from Snape's. "Gryffindor," he said eventually.

"Indeed." Snape smirked and pushed off the table. "You struck me more as one of my own, given your family - a Death Eater for a father, certainly you would have- When did you take your NEWTs?"

Hagen looked up sharply. "1982."

The liar caught - Snape remembered September of 1981 and he remembered the students he taught first in his career, more than any who followed them. Hagen was not among them.

"Is that so?" Snape advanced on Hagen. "You should have done your research, Mr Hagen. I would remember teaching you in your NEWT year had you been there." He smiled in victory at Hagen's sharp intake of breath. "Despite the trials I spent most of the school year eighty-one/eighty-two teaching nitwits, you included, I repeat, had you been there. But you weren't, so where have you been?" Snape forced his wand under Hagen's chin. "Who are you, Tom? A piece of the Dark Lord's Soul? Or something much more mundane? Who is your father, who is your mother, and who are you?"

Hagen swallowed around the wood digging into his windpipe. "My mother was a Muggle, my father a Death Eater, I told you as much."

Snape dug the wand in harder. He had known that much indeed. "Have you ever been to Hogwarts, Tom? Or did someone never get his letter, a mudblood offspring without any magic whatsoever."

Hagen laughed coldly. "You apparently know I didn't, so drop this farce."

Snape stepped back, wand still pointed at Hagen. "A squib then - Wizarding London bows to a squib. The so-called Dark has sunk to a new low."

Hagen stepped forward. He pushed Snape's wand away with his hand, a gesture not lost on either of them. He sneered at Snape's aborted gesture of a curse. "Mr Snape, squib or not, I have your journals still, and trust me on this, none of your magic could squeeze their hiding place out of me. You drag Malfoy to my doorstep and you get what is yours. You will not get it if you kill me now, rest assured of that."

Snape stepped to the side and out of Hagen's personal space. He pocketed the wand, any pretence of its usefulness mere posturing under the circumstances. "I won't be played by you."

Hagen laughed. "But you will be, Snape, that is the beauty of this. You will be because you do not have a choice in this. If you walk away now, me dead or not, you will be plagued by the knowledge of what you gave away for the rest of your miserable life."

He felt the weight of the journal in the pocket of his robes. All he had ever researched and experimented on was catalogued in them. In short, his life's work. Hagen must have pawed through those journals, collected them for the sake of having them, unable to comprehend their value in and of themselves, but sure of the personal value they constituted, sure of the weight they would carry in any negotiation. It bordered on predictability that he could be jerked around by that prize like a mindless drone. It bordered on predictability and predictability bordered on death, but not having them when they existed still bordered on madness.

Snape shrugged noncommittally, irked by the smirk on Hagen's face and his wand's impotence given the situation. "Mr Hagen, make no mistake - I could take your life and walk out of here unscathed."

"Of course." Hagen smirked more. "You are one of them." He gestured to the arm. "You could kill me like Malfoy killed my father, but let's be honest, you do not have anything to gain from that. It all could be yours again," Hagen said conversationally. He gestured for Snape to walk out of the room. Snape followed the implied command, teeth grinding as he caught a last look at his possessions. Hagen closed the door. "Or not." He walked ahead in the dark hallway. Snape followed him until they reached the upper hallway again. Hagen turned right and walked into the bar. "Good day, Mr Snape. I hope to see you soon."

Snape walked out of the house without a glance back. He strode off to the left. The narrow alley curved to the right, turn of the century houses stood in tight rows. He fought for intakes of fresh air as his throat was tight with the choke collar of yet another master to serve. Hagen's collection of items flickered in his mind, not only his personal possessions but Death Eater paraphernalia that was probably thought lost by most. He was effectively caught in the net.

He passed by an older woman, almost brushed against her. His footsteps were loud on the cobbled stones. He was caught in cycles of death and avenging death once more, it seemed, where black and white both faded to grey. He was caught between past and future, negotiating the present as he walked along. He was caught, in short. He turned and apparated when the woman he had passed by had vanished around the corner.

The gate of Malfoy Manor welcomed him with its now familiar rusting iron bars, the sun reflected on them. He squeezed through the opening left in the gate and walked up the hill along the walkway that led to Malfoy Manor. If in any way possible the house looked more broken down every day. One of the closets on the second floor pointed into the sky where the roof had given way to the storms. Narcissa's dresses moved with the wind, mostly stripped of their colour and grace.

He entered the house via the front steps, ducked under the low beam of the entrance and around the former front door.

Stunning Spell. He saw Lucius for only a moment before he crashed backwards into the rubble of the entrance. He hit his head on one of the protruding stones. The world went blurry. It came back into focus as Lucius leaned above him, the wand pointed at his head.

"The rat tried to sneak back in." Dirty blond hair stung Snape's exposed eyeballs and irritated his nose. His lungs contracted painfully to sneeze but no brush of air left them. Lucius plucked the wand out of his pocket and retreated a few steps. His lungs were balled tight in his chest. "Finite Incantatem." The spell lifted Snape exhaled on a low groan. He rubbed his nose and eyes, waited for fluid to coat his eyeballs again to make blinking less distracting.

Lucius looked out through the broken wall. "Brought anyone this time, traitor? Someone to take me in and lock me away forever?"

Snape pushed himself into a sitting position, shifting on the stones of the entrance hall. "You know I haven't."

Lucius swivelled around to face Snape. "Do I know? We were fools to have ever trusted you, allowed you into our circle." Lucius gave a bellowed laugh. "You were here, smoking our fags and fucking our girls and drinking our drinks and bathing in our fame. I thought you a friend of the family only to find you had been an enemy kept too close all along. Does that satisfy you? To know Narcissa dead when I thought her safe, to have Draco dying at not even twenty on a battlefield?"

Snape shook his head.

Lucius advanced. "How many of us died for your treason - how many dead look in on your dreams when you are sleeping, calling for a revenge on your unsuspecting body. Am I the last one left you need to kill, too? Are you the Bearer of Death who now walks the old circles and lures us in with your words, fed by promises?" Lucius' voice held the whine of personal disappointment rather than any objective sense of loss. Lucius turned abruptly, falling silent as he looked around the house.

"I did not betray you, or the cause, or the Dark Lord." Snape shifted on the rubble.

Lucius turned back to face Snape, a smirk on his face. "You did not? How outrageous then that I acquired that impression from your standing between the werewolf and the Aurors on their side of the field."

"I had my orders." Snape paused. His head began to ache from the fall he had taken against the stones. "The orders never changed. They were supposed to believe me a spy for their side while I spied for the Dark Lord."

Lucius snorted. "Convenient story. How many of us did you kill on the battlefield, Snape?"

"None." Snape eyed Lucius coolly.

"And I'm to believe that is proof of your loyalty? If I even believe you," Lucius said.

Snape sighed audibly, weighing his words. "I can't force you to believe anything, Lucius. I am not a fool. I can't convince you I'm here to help you, either."

"Help me?" Lucius, wild-eyed, shoved his face into Snape's again. His stale breath came rapidly. "What makes you think I need help?"

"You're here now, aren't you? Looking for something? Is it me you are looking for? I am the only one who still knows what it was like, who knows what it is like to lose and to kill and to lose more. Or do you trudge these ruins regularly waiting for a certain death at someone's hands, just so you can be put out of your misery and the mishmash of guilt and revenge you seem to have accumulated?"

Lucius said nothing, but jerked away with a snarl. He began to pace. Snape kept quiet, watching him. Draco had run through that hall at full-speed to greet him for years before he became old enough to learn the dignified way Malfoys greeted their guests, however close friends they were. He had not seen him before the battle, had not been privy to the Dark Lord's plans of offence but it seemed likely that Draco had been an expected, if not intended casualty. Narcissa had never been meant to be a part of the war. He remembered her as the young woman of noble standing who had raised the Malfoy name to something more respectable. There had been times when they had joked about just that out in the gardens, with the elder Malfoy out of ear shot.

Lucius' face was gaunt now, his hair stringy, his body a bad mirror image of the man Snape had known. He grimaced at the pity he felt, or the twinge of something akin to compassion, maybe more, at the circumstances they'd found themselves in yet again. Too many had died for lost causes already. Lucius would be yet another number, and once more blood was on his hands.

"Do you want to put me out of my misery, Snape? Kill me here and now, is that what they sent you to do, even when you claim you have no intention of performing their tricks like a good little dog?"

Snape shook his head in the negative, hesitant. His eyes twitched nervously. It came close enough in its barest version, either for the Ministry, or for Hagen. His fingers clasped around the journal in his pocket. His freedom and more, for another death.

Lucius erupted in mad laughter again. "Wouldn't I have noticed treason, I wonder, you saw everything, I saw you all the time, how could it pass me by if you had, truly, but then - you stood there with them, your wand held high, no mask on your face. You saved Draco, why would you have killed him later, or helped kill him, or kill him or..." Lucius trailed off. He stood staring into space for a long moment while a bird erupted into a song outside. "They took everything, did you notice?" He pointed at the former dining room and upstairs and downstairs with rapid movements. "I was always there for you, wasn't I? And you were here and we served him, the cause, together. We did right. Did you? How could you have betrayed me, when I gave you so much? How could you have killed him when you had seen him grow up. How?"

"I didn't," Snape said. His voice cut into the momentary pause.

Lucius paced, then whirled on him. "You know what I have. Or rather, who."

"It is in the Prophet, every day. I couldn't have avoided knowledge of it."

Lucius snorted. "Indeed. Looking for yourself, I know. The dogs are on your trail, Snape. They want you to find me. I can imagine what they promised, but we already had that little discussion, didn't we. Your life in miserable freedom in exchange for mine, my death for your freedom, or do you honestly believe they can stand the thought of me alive."

"I repeat, I do not believe their promises, nor do I have the intention of following through with their ideas."

"Why are you here then, Snape? If not to kill me or hand me over to be killed, why are you here? Sentimentality gripping you in your old days, forcing you where you spent the happy days of your childhood when your miserable father had beat your mother half to death once more? They took my son, Snape! They took him from me, a mere child, and called it war. They killed our children, our wives, our friends in their quest to vanquish us. They just killed them both. So if you came to kill me, Snape, then kill me, if you came to gloat, then gloat, I do not know what else could be your purpose here than either of the two."

"They told me you were still alive, they sent me to find you in exchange for my freedom. I found you now."

Lucius laughed, loud and mad. "Take me then, Snape, take me to them."

"I won't." Snape avoided Lucius' gaze and looked out through the broken wall where the sun was standing high on the horizon and trees waved in the wind. "I can't, and that is why I am here. Where else would I go?" His thumb rubbed along the pages of his journal.

The pacing began again. Lucius brushed the hair out of his face, behind his ear, only for it to fall again and the gesture repeated. "Snape faithful to the cause to the end, they'd have us believe. Snape imprisoned for his crimes. Snape didn't escape, he was released. Why? To find me. Why? Shacklebolt, of course." He grinned, nodding as he paced, the hair falling, tucked back, falling again. "Snape in the papers, Aurors hot on his trail. Didn't bargain on that, I suspect." He laughed, shaking his head. "Who's more the fool, he for believing them, or me for believing him not believing them?"

The man was positively mad.

Lucius whirled on him; his wand whipped out, and in a split second, Snape's world went dark, after only the first syllable of the spell had registered.

Time had passed, though Snape could not tell how much. Nor could he tell where he was other than that he was in a room, windowed but shuttered. Sunlight filtered through a few cracks in the wooden planks. Dust rose in the sun beams. The air in the room was stale and reeked of death or sickness close to it. The quietness was punctuated by the muffled sounds of birds outside and an occasional moan. Animal or human, he could not tell.

Snape was laying on his side on the hard stone floor. His head was splitting even worse than before due to the second crack against the wall. He sat up. His hands were free, and he patted his robes down but a quick check reminded him his wand had been removed. He searched his robes a second time. His journal was missing in much the same way his wand was. There was no sign of Lucius, but looking around in the dim light he found the origin of the moans: a dark lump perched precariously upon a chair.

Shacklebolt. Or rather, what was left of the man, a groaning bit of living flesh tied to wood. His head lolled back on his neck, throat bared. Naked, much like in the photos, the wounds on his body were exposed to the room. Deep scratches and cuts ran in long lines from the collarbone to the genitals. The genitals were scorched, a blackened mess of pus and blood and skin dripped over thighs and hips to the chair and from there to the ground. Snape retched, then took another look to catalogue the rest of the injuries. Wartime and Death Eater raids should have prepared him for Shacklebolt's state, but reality never ceased to be worse. Shacklebolt stank of rotting flesh, no doubt the genitals. Bacterial infection might have set in already. He could not keep the image of insects and maggots out of his mind. The cuts extended down to the arms. The wrists were cut where they were tied to the chair, no doubt from a fight to get free.

It was surprising that Shacklebolt was still alive as it was.

Snape stood with a groan and looked around the room. The room was bare except for the chair that held Shacklebolt. There was a door to the right of him. Wooden floorboards creaked with age as he moved closer to the chair. He expected Lucius to appear any moment but the room stayed silent. Monitoring spells then maybe, or something else. He walked closer to Shacklebolt.

Shacklebolt moaned at the sound of Snape's steps, clearly expecting someone else and new torture. He lifted his head in a painfully slow movement, his throat working, and opened encrusted eyes to the room, blinking into the dim light.

"Shacklebolt," Snape said. His voice was flat and uncompromising.

Shacklebolt's mouth opened but no sound left it. A frown was set in his face, eyes moving over Snape. They filled with the spark of recognition moments later, closely followed by hope.

Snape smirked. "Colour me delighted to meet the front page model in person. Your picture entices all of Wizarding Britain several times a week, Shacklebolt. Too bad really that you prove to be so elusive." Snape watched the door from the corner of his eye but it still did not open.

"Snape." Shacklebolt's voice was weak. Confusion set on his face. "Help?" Shacklebolt coughed and winced as the cuts on his lips split. Sun light was spilling clear across his thighs, illuminating the dried and cracking blood on them.

Snape moved closer to the chair. "I am not here to help, my friend."

Snape reached out and cradled the hairless scalp and thin face with one hand. His fingertips stroked along the warm skin, the cheek fit into the palm of his hand. He lifted his hand and brought it down against Shacklebolt's face. The crack resounded in an echo in the empty room. He almost recoiled from it. Shacklebolt's head was thrown back. His spine gave a crunching sound. Shacklebolt whimpered.

Snape leaned down. His lips brushed Shacklebolt's ear. "I am not here to help. I am here to watch how life leaves your broken little body, just like it left theirs." He stood back and caressed the spot that carried his hand imprint. His hand slid down to Shacklebolt's shoulder and with a push of the hand the chair toppled over, drowning out the sounds of shock and pain. Snape stepped around the chair. Shacklebolt was still breathing. Not dead yet, then.

Sunlight spilled into the room as the door opened. Apparently he had been monitored. Snape turned at the influx of light and smirked at Lucius who stood in the door, clapping his hands at a slow pace.

"Most impressive, I have to admit," Lucius said. He walked into the room and came to stand next to Snape, clapping him on the shoulder.

Snape nodded in thanks. He turned the chair with his foot. Shacklebolt's head was dragged over the rough floorboards with the movement. It gave a small hollow sound over every bump in the wood. Shacklebolt forced his eyes open in a painstakingly slow movement. He looked from Lucius to Snape and back, frowning, until fear slid into them. Snape kept his eyes hard. Shacklebolt had saved him once, during the war, pulled him out of spell-fire when a curse had taken the movement from his legs. Snape laughed and kicked the chair for good measure, jarring Shacklebolt's body and forcing a groan out of him until his eyes fell closed.

"I had my doubts, I had my doubts," Lucius said, smiling brightly. "Half wondered if you would disappear while in here by some means or other, but this ... so ready to give up your promised freedom, Snape?"

"For the cause," Snape said mechanically. He swallowed thickly and thought of his journals, and of freedom. There was blood on his hands again. Shacklebolt's this time. He rubbed his fingers on his robes but it still stained them. "For everything we ever believed in."

Lucius forced Snape's face around. Fingers dug painfully into his jaw as Lucius studied his eyes. "Yes," he said eventually. "Yes." Lucius pulled Snape's wand from his pocket and pressed it back into Snape's hand. "Apologies for that, but I trust you understand. You do, don't you." Mad laughter again.

Shacklebolt, at their feet, was twitching at the sound, then retching. He brought up some fluid that dribbled from his slack mouth down his cheek and from there onto the floor.

Snape pocketed the wand. He forced himself to remain calm. Lucius still had an arm slung across his shoulder and they stood like that, looking down at their prey. Lucius grinned like a madman. It was a situation most surreal.

"They have to know now. Have to know that they couldn't buy you with that ploy. They will open the Daily Prophet tomorrow and know." He drew his wand. "Go ahead." He pushed Snape lightly towards Shacklebolt. "A spell, any spell and they will see it all tomorrow. Prove it to me, Snape, prove that you are doing this."

Lucius moved his wand and murmured the incantation for the photograph. Snape grinned into the camera, his stomach in knots. He felt madness spread in him. Madness and the definite knowledge of what they had taken from him. He had stood at Dumbledore's side, killed him on his orders. He had fought with them in the war, risked his own life time and time again for a boy's. They had taken everything from him, without a word of thanks. And then they had taken the rest for punishment. Rage curled inside like a snake ready to strike. He regarded Shacklebolt. The man caught his eyes. They were begging, pleading with him. A man was begging him for mercy. Again. His rage abated. It had nothing to do with the man whimpering at his feet.

"Severus!" Lucius called. He gestured with his wand. An angry frown was building on his face, and doubt crept into his eyes.

Snape lifted his wand. "Sectumsempra." He put little force into it. It had been the first that came to his mind. The blood pumped out of Shacklebolt's body in low pulses and small rivulets. An invention perfected. He swallowed the bile. Shacklebolt screamed, his voice cracked and hoarse, it was the keening wail of a dying man.

"Severus," Lucius said through the sound.

Snape snapped out of the fascination, stared at the pools of red on and beneath Shacklebolt's body. He began to murmur the spell to seal the wounds, until only the smallest of blood flows still wet dark skin. His fingertips ran over battered skin, his lips murmured the apology. He did not meet Shacklebolt's eyes. His hands were shaking. Lucius' laughter drew him out of the haze and made him blink into the sunlight of the open door and at Lucius behind him.

Lucius held the photograph. Snape saw himself standing over Shacklebolt's body. Shacklebolt's eyes were wide, head moving from side to side as the lips spilt a litany of pleading. The wand movement and all the blood.

Snape looked down at the floor beneath his feet. It was coated in red. His boots were painted a faint brown of drying blood. Shacklebolt gave groans of pain, his blood-encrusted eyes now closed, lips still moving in motions of 'please' and 'help.'

"Come now." Lucius turned and walked towards the door. He looked over his shoulder. "The Prophet needs to have this by tonight." He chuckled to himself.

Snape followed and left Shacklebolt on the floor, coated in his own blood and helpless. He twirled his wand, thought of the Ministry and Hagen and then Lucius, and walked out of the door, closing it firmly behind himself to leave Shacklebolt alone in the dark again.

The hallway was low and narrow. Odd, Muggle-style photographs of landscapes and people hung on the walls. He heard voices up ahead and followed their sound. He passed by a living room on the left, crocheted clothes on a sofa and the table, white curtains the sun shone through. The laughter came from a room on the left. He walked into it. It was a kitchen. Lucius sat at the table talking to a man. The ruin of Malfoy Manor stood outside the window. Lucius' companion looked at Snape and nodded. It was the squib caretaker.

"You were here all along," Snape said. He rubbed his forehead and thought of his visit to Wales, his search of Malfoy Manor and the Aurors that must have combed the grounds.

Lucius nodded. "It was the most convenient place, I have to admit. Trevor has been working for us long enough to know the values of secrecy and loyalty and the measures taken when either is betrayed. As have you, Severus, haven't you?"

Snape smiled coldly. Lucius had turned a maid inside out once for having slapped a petulant eight year old Draco who had hurt her with a few immature, yet painful, hexes. He had seen worse happen to those who had betrayed loyalties of the family. He nodded, and waited for pain to wash over him as punishment for much the same, but Lucius turned away and stared out of the window at a house that had once been his. The photograph of Shacklebolt and himself lay in front of him.

"They never thought to look for me here. You have met Trevor. He can be most convincing. I must admit I was not much pleased to have found you snooping around on my grounds, hence the gift on your doorstep. I trust it has not upset you all too much." Lucius laughed, amused.

Snape shook his head and clasped his hands in front of his body, his wand held loose between his fingers, as he leaned back against one of the counters. "You know the ghost?"

Lucius shook his head. "In passing. One of those who would kill for money, if one can believe that. I never understood such blood lust. I hope you did not trust it with anything. It would sell its transparent soul for a few Galleons on its doorstep."

Snape shrugged it off. "How much longer, Lucius? It is a cat-and-mouse game, and as advantageous as your position is, I can't very well imagine you keeping at it forever."

"Forever is too big a word. He has not suffered enough yet. Do you understand that, Severus? Truly understand it? He had my boy kneeling at his feet and begging for his life and he took it, ruthlessly. It is not nearly enough yet, not nearly enough. I want him to suffer, I want his family to feel my pain, to know their husband and father is not safely in death but in pain day after day after day again. He needs to suffer for all he did to us, to our families. It is not nearly enough yet."

Snape nodded slowly and thought of Tom Hagen whose mother and father had been taken from him by Lucius' hand for a cause someone believed in. Lucius' child had been taken from him by another's hand. And now that one's family had to suffer much the same. The circles were always spiralling and never closing on such misery. How many had he killed in that war, and how many had he seen die?

Snape nodded. "Tea?" he asked. The squib pointed at one of the cupboards. He took the cup and the fresh tea and poured water into it. He used his wand and magic to boil it. He sipped the tea still hot and barely matured. It scalded his lips, and tongue and throat, and the pain brought him back to the reality of the kitchen. The low thumping sounds and wails made him swivel around.

Lucius laughed. "He does that sometimes."

Snape nodded and sipped more of the tea that burned his fingertips and mouth. He left red stains on the porcelain and averted his eyes. He imagined Narcissa's broken body and relished Shacklebolt's wails for mercy, if only for a moment. "Silencing charm?"

Lucius nodded. "That and wards, low-level. Just enough to keep him undetected." He paused and pulled out Snape's journal, set it on the table between him and the squib. "This is yours, I believe. I have to admit to my surprise at finding something personal in your possession."

Snape grimaced. "It was given to me recently."

Lucius flipped it open and turned the pages forcefully. One of them ripped with a loud sound but Lucius did not slow down or stop to check. "I am surprised you did not write down whom you fucked when you catalogued everything else so neatly." He picked up the journal and tossed it at Snape's feet. "That is what the war was for you? Taking notes?"

Snape sneered as he picked up the journal, the paper soothing under his fingers, and pocketed it. "It kept me alive. It kept you alive, too."

Lucius looked out through the window where birds were circling over Malfoy Manor. "It did not keep him alive, though. He always looked up to you, Severus."

Snape nodded, throat tight. Draco's had been a sure death on both sides' lists. Shacklebolt's wails sounded again. Lucius scraped his chair back and stomped out of the room, a murderous expression on his face. Snape and the squib remained in the kitchen in silence while the sounds of pain intensified for a few seconds and then died down.

"Your wife is well?" Snape asked. He sipped his tea as if he enjoyed it. His skin was crawling with too many forces at once.

"She is, she is."

Lucius footsteps sounded back towards the kitchen. He stormed in, hair wild and eyes blazing. "You may go on to your wife now, Trevor. I expect you back here tomorrow. Severus will keep me company for the rest of the day and the night."

Trevor nodded and left. The door fell close behind him. The sound echoed in the relative silence of the house. It slunk through the hallways and crept into them. Lucius moved to the cupboard with the tea ware and took out a bottle of firewhisky and two glasses. He set both down with a clang and poured a liberal amount of whisky into both. He gestured for Snape to sit and slid onto the chair he had occupied before.

"Against authority and the world," Lucius said. His lips twisted on the adolescent words before he downed the drink.

Snape gestured in cheers and sipped his drink more slowly. His eyes watered at the heat of the alcohol. His stomach warmed, he leaned back in the chair. "How long have you had him now?"

Lucius waved his hand dismissively. "A few weeks, I did not count the days, only made sure the Prophet got its photo every other week. It pays to remain in people's minds."

Snape nodded. He pulled out the photograph Lucius had made of him and Shacklebolt from under Lucius' fingers and studied it. There was his grin, then the slashing movement of the wand. Blood shot up in small fountains and darkened the floor under the body. That was where the photograph cut off and began anew, the grin, the slash, the blood. He turned it over forcefully and smacked his hand on top of it.

Lucius laughed. "Do you feel it in you, how it urges you on and wants you to pounce? I have missed you at my side." Keening wails rose from the room down the hallway. Lucius nodded. "Do go on."

Snape clenched his teeth, stood and walked out of the kitchen. Lucius trailed behind, laughing in the hallway and only falling silent as they entered the room.

Shacklebolt was beating his head on the floor. Every time the skull cracked onto wood, a wail rose from his throat. His eyes were clenched. He did not react to their presence in the room, but kept on the siren of sounds.

"Silencio," Snape cried. His wand moved through the air.

The wail cut off, only the thumping sound of bone on wood was left. Every few seconds it went thump thump thump. Snape took a breath. Thump thump thump. Shacklebolt's face was distorted, mouth still open on the wail but no sound left his throat. Thump thump thump. Snape turned and stumbled into Lucius.

"Look at him." Lucius took Snape by the arm and propelled him around, forcing both of them onto their knees. Snape's breath ghosted over Shacklebolt's open lips. Thump thump thump. Every time the head moved up Shacklebolt's nose brushed Snape's cheek. Snape inhaled the stink of death. "Look at him. He is almost dead, almost there, almost."

"And then?" Snape forced Lucius off his body and sat back on the floor where Shacklebolt's head was still bumping on wood. Visions of years upon years spent in the house hiding crept through his mind, of bloody bodies and bloody souls. He sat in the blood of the Sectumsempra spell. It soaked into his clothes and skin and mind.

Lucius shrugged awkwardly, standing against the wall. "And then, we will be someone."

Have a life, have an identity, have a past and a future, be someone. Snape snorted and lifted his hand from the floor drenched in blood. Everything to gain at the cost of everything else. Thump thump thump. He pushed to his feet and rubbed the blood into his robes. He fingered the book inside his pocket.

"I need to go," Snape said.

Lucius pulled his wand, pointed it. "Think you can leave now and go to them? Now that you have seen him? Think it will be that easy, don't you? Are the Aurors knocking at the windows yet, asking for entrance?"

"I could have apparated had I chosen that." Snape rubbed his forehead. His fingertips were red. He stared at them, then back at Lucius. He walked to the door. "I need to get out for a while, Lucius."

"Think it is this easy, don't you? They killed them, Snape! They killed them. They made Draco go up in smoke and they took Narcissa's last breath until she suffocated. I have her bones. Do you want to see them? I went to the house and I collected them. Can you imagine her face, the fear in her heart upon seeing their wands? Can you, really, can you can you can you-"

"I see NOTHING but HER!" Snape yelled, voice desperate. "Her FACE, her SCREAMS, his face his screams. I see nothing but them, and you, half-mad with all of it, and him." He pointed at Shacklebolt, then strode out through the door and into the hallway. "I need to go out for a while, I need to." He waited for the hex but it did not come. He walked out through the front door. It screeched on its hinges. "What happened to us, whatever happened to make us into this," he muttered to himself as he walked a few more steps and apparated.

The cemetery lay in sunshine. The line of trees stood silent behind him. There was only the sound of the slight breeze that carded through the leaves. He stumbled forward, then composed himself into a more controlled walk, as he stepped out from beneath the trees and walked along the pathways. He saw the daisies from two graves away. They shone brightly in the dulled greens and greys of the gravestones and low hedges.

Snape stood looking at the headstone, then sank to his knees. His blood-red hand traced his mother's name in the polished granite of the stone that reflected him and the sun in its surface. He left powdery red marks on the name, then drew his hand back to himself and clenched it in his lap.

They had meant to conquer the world, ensconced in Lucius' boyhood home where politics were discussed above them and the pulse of time was right there. He had sat there as the fifteen year old among wizards years, later decades older than him. They had dreamt of being someone, of raising wizardry to levels barely reached in darker times of the past. They had the means, and they had the power. They had not thought of the reality of death until later. At those times it was a glorified spectacle and the feeling of the invincibility of youth. The Dark Lord had brought them into his fold at the brink of adulthood when all of them had had their vices to deal with, the family, the expectation of a future life and the bleakness of mediocrity.

They had killed for loose words, and killed again, and again. He traced the blood on his hands. They were still killing for a cause lost long ago, and for a drunken, juvenile idea, and now they were also murdering for revenge of circles closing in on them.

He had committed sins enough, and he had been made to pay with years of servitude, with his life and mind.

"They have offered me freedom, Mother. They have led me out of the cell and promised me freedom if I gave them the man who has been everything to me as a boy. They promised me absolution for sins committed."

It did not feel like much compared to the acknowledgment of a friend or the transcripts of his life's work. It was the bare minimum of a repayment for everything. He studied his hands. If he closed his eyes and forced his mind to inaction he could almost believe that what would happen to Lucius was not murder but justice. With his eyes open it became one and the same, it had always been as long as it was for the right cause.

Snape pulled the journal out of his pocket. His fingerprints in Shacklebolt's blood were on it now, the pages drenched with the blood of those who had died by his hand, causes or not. It had been the war and too many had fallen victim.

He opened the journal to a random page and read. It held his memories, it held himself at his best and worst. Countless hours had been spent compiling notes and researching poisons and antidotes, and curses and healing charms. He shut the journal, and caressed it with longing. Memories of happier times rolled through his mind, of standing in the laboratory and creating for the sake of creation. He blinked up into the sun. It warmed him. Once he held freedom and Lucius held death, Hagen might be amenable to some money for the others, just so he could thumb through them and hold them again.

He brushed the petals of the daisies one more time before the familiar pain of summoning burned his arm. With a last nod to the grave he stood and pocketed his journal. He cast a cleaning charm on his hands. It was time for freedom. A last glance around the cemetery and meeting the eyes of an old woman before she turned away and he apparated, the bridge over the river set in his mind.

The patch of grass came into view. The river ran to his right. The sun was reflected in its small whirls and waves. He had his wand at the ready to counter any hex, but none of them came.

Robards smirked at him from a few paces away, moved slowly closer. "I am improving with this summoning business. I hope you are impressed." He raised his voice over the sounds of the water.

Snape sneered. "Are you quite done with your posturing?"

"Would have thought you'd enjoy the zap given the time you spent happily kneeling for the one who gave us the idea in the first place." Robards walked over to Snape. Davies stayed back, eyes roaming the dangerous river and the trees on the other side of it, as well as the cars on the bridge. Robards looked Snape over once, eyebrows raised in questions. He weighed his wand in his hand. "Any news then?"

Snape smiled without humour. One hand closed around the journal in his pocket, the other held his wand. "Shacklebolt is alive, barely. I have seen him. I have met with Lucius, too."

Mock amusement bled out of Robards' face. He went rigid, face taut with anticipation. "Where?"

Snape blinked up into the sky, then watched Davies prowl the riverbank. "I want to discuss the contract first, if you do not mind."

"You-" Robards grabbed Snape by the lapel and pulled him close. He breathed his coffee breath into Snape's face.

Unfazed Snape stepped back and brushed Robards' hands off his robes, glaring at them pointedly. "Humour me."

Robards, jaw clenched and eyes spitting fire, nodded shortly. He gestured impatiently for Snape to go ahead.

"By giving you the location I hand you Lucius, therefore fulfilling my part of the agreement." Snape looked at Robards questioningly who gave a sharp nod. "In return you hand me my wand, a scrap of parchment saying that my so-called crimes have vanished from any register and you allow me to walk free. Am I correct?"

Robards nodded, impatience making his movements jerky. "Where, Snape!"

"There are stables off to the side of Malfoy Manor. A caretaker has his apartment adjacent to them. Lucius is there. Shacklebolt is in one of the back rooms."

Robards choked on his inhalation and gasped for air for a few seconds. He frowned as he straightened himself out. "Does he acknowledge you as enemy or as friend?"

"Friend," Snape ground out. Fingers clenched around his wand.

"How long have you known?" Robards eyes gleamed with suspicion. "Did you warn him?"

Snape smirked. "It would be rather inconvenient, wouldn't it. A flaw in your plan, now aren't you ever the careless one." Snape laughed at the look of murder on Robards' face, then sobered. "I have known for a few hours, and I have not informed him of the agreement, not any more than he managed to work out himself anyhow."

Robards nodded with another jerky movement and waved Davies over. "You will go in with us," he said to Snape. He turned to Davies, not waiting for a reply. They conversed in hushed whispers that were impossible to understand with the flow of the water. Half a minute later Aurors appeared around them. Snape drew his wand in an instinctual movement, much to Robards' amusement. The Aurors stood, wands at the ready.

Robards stepped into the middle of the half circle to hand out instructions. Davies stood behind Snape and literally breathed down his neck. Snape took a step forward, glaring at the boy over his shoulder. The Aurors disapparated and Robards turned back to Snape.

"You need to go in, first. They are waiting outside." Robards said. "We need to avoid disapparition of the suspect."

"How am I supposed to keep him from doing just that once all of your fools begin to pop up like garden gnomes in the house?" Snape frowned.

Robards grimaced a smile. "You will think of something, I am sure. Aren't you impressed with our trust in you at all?"

Snape shut his eyes briefly. It would be over soon and he could walk away then. "Now?"

Robards nodded. "You will go in. We will be in two minutes later. See that you have him away from Shacklebolt at least."

"I am not-"

"It is all part of the agreement, Snape. Don't play coy with us now. Whenever you are ready, please."

Snape apparated and appeared behind the Manor. It was the North side of the building. The grass was moist there in the shade of the house. He breathed in deep. It was too much like the raids for either side. He'd enjoy living at Spinner's End again, having his books and small experiments for company and the odd cat to wind between his feet when he stood in the backyard overlooking the field. Maybe an arrangement could be reached with the family living there. He steeled himself and walked out of the shadow of the house, towards the small extension of the stall. The white curtains shone in the distance. He kept his wand in his pocket.

The door opened with the same squeak it had closed with. The wand was at his throat. He forced himself not to draw his own in defence.

Lucius glared at him from bloodshot eyes. "You!" He lowered the wand and peeked around Snape at the outside world. "No Aurors."

Snape sneered. "Surprised?"

Lucius laughed and gestured for Snape to follow him into the kitchen. The photograph still lay upside down on the table. On its underside Shacklebolt was writhing again and again and again with the force of the spell. Snape remained standing in the doorway. There were no sounds from the other room, maybe his silencing spell was still effective.

"He might be dead, I did not check," Lucius said. He sat down at the table and threw back a shot of firewhisky.

"Indeed," Snape replied. He stared at Lucius until the grey-haired man in front of him had nothing in common anymore with the friend he had had. His eye drawn by peripheral movement he lifted his gaze to look out the window. Aurors appeared on the grass between stable and Manor. They ducked and ran immediately, without sound. Snape looked at Lucius again. This was it then. The last chapter of the War was closing. "I am sorry," Snape said into the silence of the kitchen.

Lucius snapped his gaze up to him, confusion on his features. Sounds of apparition. Snape saw how Lucius made to draw his wand but before he could use it an Auror had stunned him. Lucius stiffened on the kitchen chair and stared at those assembled with unmoving eyes. It was anti-climatic at best, but war was more often than not a chain of insignificants. Aurors took Lucius' wand and pocketed the photo on the table. Lucius looked right at him. Snape turned away. More Aurors apparated and moved around in the too small room.

"Where is he?" Robards called from the door.

Snape pushed through the throng of people and pointed down the hallway. He followed on Robards heels. The door to the room stood open already. Shacklebolt lay as he had left him a few hours ago. The blood around his body had dried to brown. He was still. Robards' gasp of surprise was the only sound before he called for mediwizards and knelt next to Shacklebolt, touching him carefully to assess the extent of any damage.

Apparition of the white-clad mediwizards broke up the Aurors standing in the room. They whisked Shacklebolt away, to St Mungo's presumably. The Aurors cleared out of the room. Now there was only the stain left. Snape heaved a small sigh of relief. Orange light filtered in through the shuttered windows, painting odd shadows on the floor and on Robards' face as he turned.

The door flew shut behind Snape. He swivelled around, then drew his wand as he turned on Robards again.

"Expelliarmus," Robards said. Snape's wand flew out of his hand to smack into Robards'. Robards smirked, an ugly twist of his lips.

"What-"

"Quiet," Robards said.

The stunning spell hit Snape before he could blink another time. He toppled over and slumped in the blood. There were birds outside, and the sun was warm on him through the gaps in the wood. Robards whispered another spell and the world went dark and silent around him.

Snape's head pounded with every beat of his heart when he came to. He opened his eyes, and closed them again upon recognition. He knew those walls. They had stood crowded around him, those children who called themselves Aurors. It was the room where the agreement had been made and signed. He sat on the chair, the same one, undoubtedly. A table stood in front of him, bare and polished. He opened his eyes again, and reached for the wand he knew he would not find in his robes. They had taken the journal, too. Confusion spread in him.

The door opened. Snape's eyes snapped around. Laughter sounded from the hallway, a quick 'until later', then Harry Potter walked in, an aged and more worn Potter than he had been at school or even on the battlefield. The eyes were still blazing with the same green fire. The twist of the lips was bitter, not honestly amused.

"Professor," Potter said with a sneer. The title sounded like an insult on his lips. He closed the door behind himself and walked through the room to stand on the other side of the table. Snape had to look up to meet the spitting eyes. "You look, frankly, as disgusting as ever."

Snape smirked. "Taken to noticing my looks, Potter?"

Potter laughed and moved from the table to the wall opposite Snape. He leaned against it, lips twisted. "Did you have a good time, Professor? Out in the town and all?"

Snape did not comment.

"Shacklebolt will live."

Snape nodded in acknowledgment.

"Malfoy was executed after a swift trial." Potter's eyes gleamed as he delivered the news and studied Snape for a reaction. "The stunning spell still on him they cast a simple heating spell that increased by the minute. His brain just sizzled-"

"Enough!" Snape's fists were clenched on the table. He stared at Potter, willing the condescension at Potter's obvious pleasure to show on his face.

"Did I offend your delicate sensibilities? Aren't I ever the sorry one now." Potter laughed again. It sounded fake and hollow.

"Cease your posturing. My wand and my freedom, Potter, as agreed on." He shifted himself to full height in the chair and fixed a glare on Potter.

Potter smirked. "'As agreed on'? There is no agreement, Snape."

Snape froze. Cold sank into his body. He clenched his teeth. "Robards signed it himself, kindly inform yourself of the on-goings before meeting with someone."

"Gawain Robards, Head of the Auror Division." Potter produced the parchment. "This one?"

Snape nodded once. He forced his fingers to uncurl and lay flat on his robes.

"Robards quit an hour ago, transferring his desk and its content to the new Head of the Division, namely - me."

"No-" Snape half moved out of the chair. A lazy wand movement forced him to sit back down.

"As such things go, magical contracts cannot be withdrawn, only by death, etc. etc. - I am sure you know more about this than me, Professor, but please, spare me the lecture." Potter smirked at Snape. "We found a photograph with Malfoy."

Potter reached into robes and withdrew a paper, threw it on the table. It slid towards Snape, open to the front page. Snape saw himself grin and slash the wand through the air. He saw the blood shoot out of Shacklebolt's body as the magic opened the skin. It was in the Daily Prophet, Wizarding Britain held it in its hands.

It was a death sentence.

"You cannot do this," Snape ground out. His hands shook with suppressed anger.

"I am doing this, Snape." Potter's mouth was drawn into a hard line.

"Why?" Snape bellowed. "You know that it was an act to convince Lucius of my intentions. And if you do not find it in yourself to believe me, there are magical methods available, as you well know. Use Veritaserum, use legilimency. Why this, Potter? Why this again?"

Potter turned away, fumbled in his pocket for a moment, then pulled out the journal. He tossed it on the table. It toppled over twice and opened to a random page. Snape's bloody fingerprints were on it, staining half the words to illegibility.

"Yours?" Potter asked. He shook his head. "Of course it is. Read."

"I don't see how-" The wand was pointing at his face within a split second.

Potter stared at him with a hint of madness around the eyes. "Read it, Snape!" His voice made Snape's ears ring. Magic crackled in the room.

Snape pulled the journal closer. He hid the grimace at the page it was open to, and the red smears. His fingertips ghosted over the edge of the pages, feeling the tear that Lucius had made into it. "May 10th. Exp: Blood curling potion (IV). 10 subjects, range 5 - 67, mean 31.2, weight follows Gaussian distribution. Applied estimate at 9 sharp, first effects for subject 4 (108cm, 2.5stone) after ten minutes. Effects: Blood from nose (10' a.a.), blood from ears (10'30''), blood from mouth (11'45''), death (12'20''). Pain level 4 (due: unconscious 5' a.a.)-"

"Do go on."

"May 11th. Note: O.P. at 6. Topics: D.E. Raid, D.L. HC, D. pensieve (in P.'s possession), M. unpleasant, L. sympathetic. L.M. at 8, birthday (D.L. not in attendance, surprised). Talked to N. about D., comment on safety (knowledge?). Prepared experiment for tomorrow (minimize pain in testing stage? Subjects don't look well). Been to Cemetery before O.P. - the usual."

Snape fell silent. He clutched his fingers around the journal. His nails dug into the soft binding, leaving imprints. He thought of the daisies and grasped the journal tighter. "Why, Potter?"

"How often have you gone to see your mommy?" Potter grinned and tugged the journals out of Snape's hands. He thumbed through it. "One." There was a calculating gleam in his eyes as he looked at Snape. He set his fingers to the page he had open. "'Visited the cemetery, remember flowers next time'." He tore the page out as he read and let it drop to the table.

A wave of anger swept through Snape. He lunged for Potter but Potter danced out of his grasp. Potter drew his wand and the stunning spell sent Snape back into the chair.

Potter turned back to the journal with a satisfied smile. He turned a few of the pages. "Two. 'Met mother's aunt, discarded her flowers'." The page was torn out and fell to Snape's lap. "Three. 'Snow - could not set flowers down'." Potter laughed into his face, set the fingers to the page and ripped.

The page tore right in front of Snape's eyes. The words he had written were ripped apart. It was a record of a life that seemed hazy at best, looked at from a future far progressed and changed to that past. Potter muttered unintelligible words to himself and tore page after page from the journal. They rained down on Snape's lap. He read single words as they moved by his eyes, single numbers, single names. He knew the others in safety. It was a small consolation.

Potter shucked the binding at him. It bounced off his chest. "How many times have you gone to see your mommy? Twelve times, every single month. Voldemort? Sixty-three times. The Order? Twice!" A finger shot at Snape in accusation. Potter drew his wand. "Finite."

Snape frowned, confusion on his face as his fingers shifted through the paper on his lap.

"Your journal says you killed 186 people that year. 754 total, as recorded in the others. You killed them and called it science. You killed Dumbledore, and called it an 'act of mercy' and 'fulfilling a request'."

Anger whirled in Snape. "How do you presume to know? And how do you presume to judge the blood on anyone's hands, Potter?" He stood from his chair, only the table between him and Potter.

Potter laughed. He stood back against the wall. "John Avery senior, Death Eater, and a Muggle called Irene Hagen conducted an affair, quite hidden from any influences that held on to Avery senior. During the first war, read 1980, both of them were killed during a Death Eater raid by Lucius Malfoy. Their son Thomas, aged fifteen, survived. He was born without innate magical ability, he never attended Hogwarts, but he knew of wizardry and he knew of the Dark movement in it. I believe you have met, recently?"

Snape stared at Potter, suspicion burning in his guts.

"After the second war, in an attempt to list the Death Eaters' crimes in total, Thomas Hagen was contacted by the Ministry. He wished an integration into Wizarding society which was granted to him. Ever since he has worked closely with the Ministry of Magic, overseeing Knockturn Alley and the movement of the Dark we expected to reappear. It is mainly due to his efforts in recovering his father's and his murderer's past that we now have a full record of the Death Eater movement centred around Voldemort."

Snape's lips were white. "He worked for you. The collection of books, wands, my-" He broke off.

"Do you think we would have been foolish enough let you, a proven murderer, go without ensuring first that Malfoy would not pose the greatest lure away from fulfilling your part of the 'agreement'?"

They had been part of the ruse. The photos of his family, his books, the offer of a future, and the offer of his past had never existed. Snape's mouth went dry. "I had an agreement with Robards." He coughed and tasted bile.

Potter pulled out a wand. Snape recognized it as his own. The magic in him pulsated in slow, thrumming beats of something long lost and found again. Potter grasped it at both ends. He broke it with a slow downward movement. It splintered into fragments, until only the core held the dangling ends together. Snape's magic screeched inside him, then curled up on itself and fell silent, barely existent.

Potter laughed, long and hard. He moved his face unbearably close to Snape's. "You really believed that freedom would be yours, didn't you?" he whispered. He fumbled in his robes and drew black cloth out.

Snape shook his head. "No," he whispered on an exhale.

Snape tried to move away but Potter had grabbed him by the neck and murmured a binding spell. Snape felt his hands bound at his back. With an ugly smile Potter drew the hood over Snape's face. Snape's world fell black. He shook his head in vain, kicking and shouting incoherently.

Potter's laugh was muffled through the cloth of the hood. Snape's stomach turned as the chair tipped. He hit his head on the floor. Blood, and blood on his hands. He writhed until a kick to his ribs stilled him and made him curl up on himself. A draught of air passed over him. There were sounds of feet, the odd sound that followed the sole on ground and the pacer. He knew their faces, but as they pulled him up by the elbows, jarring his shoulders, it was not them, but the daisies on his mother's grave that filled his mind.