A Chance You Only Get Once

Chapter Twenty-Nine
Who Can Be Forgiven?

Mariella Goring had waited for this moment since she was seven years old. It was strange to think that however much you could hate what your parents had done, however clearly you realized that their death set you free, however much you could be ashamed to be their daughter, you still hated their murderer. When it came to the woman who had killed Anne and Eris Goring, it didn't matter that Mariella Goring's parents had been Death Eaters who tortured her with "training" until she was five years old. Bellatrix Lestrange must pay for killing them.

It was perhaps the least of the woman's crimes. It would be like those Americans convicting Al Capone of tax evasion. This would be the death of Bellatrix Lestrange.

And it would have been, if Severus Snape had not been in the party of Death Eaters that faced down Mariella Goring. Mariella was a young woman, but she had been bred through five torturous years to become a fighter, the Dark Lord's assassin. Her parents had given her gifts through a method that the Ministry had forbade for centuries. She could wield two wands at once, each completely independent of the other. She was never lost. She sized up opponents instantly. She understood every language spoken by human beings and could speak it back to them. She was nimble and graceful and had never had to speak a spell aloud to cast it. She was a natural Occlumens who had been trained by Severus Snape. She was virtually unaffected by Dementors. She could hide all emotions and thoughts and betray no outward sign. Her Animagus form (a talent she had not had to learn) was a post owl with all of the inherent abilities to find anyone anywhere.

The first ability made her a match even for four Death Eaters. Her instincts and natural ability made the advantage of being outnumbered less than it would have been with any other opponent. She also had them cornered, caught in her trap.

But Severus Snape had saved her life.

She knew him better than any other person in this world. She was perhaps the only one who could have found him when he fled Hogwarts after killing Albus Dumbledore, but she did not. She owed him a Life Debt. It did not matter that, as the prodigy that he had trained in potions, she had learned more from him and about him than anyone else ever had. It did not matter that she understood his thoughts and motivations absolutely. She could not help to find and kill him.

That was how the best dueler in the Order of the Pheonix found herself falling to her knees in defeat. She had known instantly when there was one man in the party that she could not fire a curse at who it had to be. She had dispatched the others in a quick but taxing battle, but she collapsed when faced with this man that she knew she could not fight. Her wands fell from her hands as she breathed deeply from her exertions. Her eyes were dull with defeat and helplessness.

"I suppose you are a stupid Gryffindor after all," Snape muttered in an amused sneer as he approached her calmly, not bothering to raise his wand. "I always wondered. But only a Gryffindor would value useless honor more than life and revenge. I suppose that I should have known when you allowed Damocles Belby to take credit for your work. But honor even to one who killed Albus Dumbledore? I always thought that you were at least half-Slytherin, but only a Gryffindor would be stupid enough to honor an enemy."

Hate, pain, revenge, all was buried under the cold defeat in her stomache. "I suppose you are what Dumbledore always wanted me to be. A Gryffindor with my talent and his honor, his convictions. His idiocy. He too was willing to die rather than betray his honor."

"You won't kill me," Mariella said softly. She did not look up at Snape as he circled her like a furious hawk.

"You have his delusions as well," Snape said calmly and coldly.

"You don't play with your prey," Mariella whispered. "I'd already be dead if you were going to kill me." Mariella could feel the hundredth of a second that Snape paused, startled that there was someone who knew him.

"You think, do you, that you know why?" Snape hissed malevolently. "Do you think that it is because I saved your life once?"

"For the same reason," Mariella answered softly. She was silent for a moment as Snape prowled around her. "Who was she?" There was a quiet pause where Snape stiffened again, this time easily discernible. He knew whom Mariella meant. "Who was Marissa Fletcher that she could mean something to you when no one else in this world does?"

There was a very long moment during which Mariella believed that he would not answer. She wasn't sure if she had expected one. Then Snape explained in an angry, accusatory snarl that betrayed the only emotional pain he had ever felt, "She was the only person in this world who ever cared about me. You do not spit on someone like that."

"Dumbledore cared about - "

Snape cut her off by slapping her resoundingly across the face. Then he grabbed her chin roughly and forced her face up to meet his eyes. His fierce, hate-filled eyes bored into her own as he spat between clenched teeth, "Dumbledore cared about what I could do for him! Dumbledore cared about the information I was willing to tell him! Dumbledore cared about the leverage I gave him! Dumbledore cared about the proof that I offered that anyone could be saved, anyone could be redeemed! He didn't care about me until I was useful to him!"

Snape released her roughly, her head turning slightly with the force of his gesture. He walked a few paces away with his back to her. He had her measure now. He knew that he was safe in her presence. "And me?" Mariella said softly, voluntarily lifting her eyes to look at him, "do I care nothing as well?"

"You care," Snape said tightly, without turning, "because you have to. You care for the same reason that the Dark Lord cares for me. Because I had something to offer you. She cared for me when she had nothing but pain to gain."

"What would she say if she knew that you had killed Albus Dumbledore?" Mariella asked quietly, peering at her mentor of fifteen years.

To her surprise, Snape let out a laugh. It was a real laugh that shook him. Mariella tried to think of another occasion that had produced laughter from him. She couldn't.

"So like Dumbledore you are," he said, amusement in his voice. It was startling and frightening to see a mood and hear a voice she had never suspected from a man she had thought that she knew. "You think that my love of her should make me willing to do anything then? Live my life as she would have liked? She did not even have that power in life. She does not have it in death. She is perhaps the only person who ever understood that, thankfully for my little ruse."

Snape turned around to see hatred written all over Mariella's face. Snape was not startled to see the guarded, closed expression so perpetually on her face disappear. Gryffindors were so easily goaded. "She did not require me to change myself when she was alive. She trusted me despite the Mark she once saw on my arm. I would not do anything for Marissa Fletcher in the sense that I would have done anything that she asked. I refused many of the things that she asked of me.

"What Dumbledore saw and mistook for this all those years ago was that I would have done anything to keep her alive," Snape continued quietly. "I would have betrayed the Dark Lord, I would kissed Sirius Black and James Potter's feet, I would have died to keep any small part of her alive. She died, however. My slavery was done."

"Then why keep me alive?"

"For the same reason that Mundungus Fletcher is not dead," Snape replied immediately, taking a menacing step closer. Mariella did not flinch in the slightest. Then his voice took on a scholarly tone, "Did you know that your father's half-sister was a woman named Olivia Nelson? Who married a Muggle man named Jerome Fletcher and bore a daughter and a son."

He grabbed her wrist roughly, "It is not for the sake of your life or yourself that I keep you alive," he snarled. Abruptly, her veins were popping out of her skin, displaying her blood rushing through them to the open air. "It is this that I will protect until my dying day!" he screamed in her face. "A little of the same blood runs through your veins! In all this world, you and Mundungus Fletcher are safe for that reason! That in you is a small part of what was in Marissa! Nothing else!"

He dropped her wrist and it returned to normal. He turned away and said in his usual calm, measured voice, "And both of you are the last of your line."

"What will you do when we are dead?" Mariella asked softly.

"Then I will be free of her," he answered simply.

"You think so?" Mariella asked softly.

"Go home, Miss Goring."

"Go to hell, Professor."

"Hell, Miss Goring, is the knowledge that heaven exists. Marissa Fletcher sent me to hell long ago."

* * *

It was not until moonset that Sirius Black realized how badly he had screwed up. Seriously. Not until he saw the transformed Moony lose the feral yellow look in his eyes and fade into a sunken mess of despair. "Who - who did I - " he was choking on the words, crouched on his knees and head hanging.

He was pulling at his hair in a way that would have broken Marissa's heart. It did break Sirius's. He had thought that Remus (from his display on the train if nothing else) would not have regretted the guiltless way of killing Snape. It was not until that moment that Sirius really and truly realized that for Remus Lupin, nothing would ever be guiltless.

"No one," Sirius said quietly.

"Don't lie to me!" Remus snarled at him fiercely. "I see the marks on you! Even now I can smell the blood!"

"No one," Sirius insisted. "I don't know how the blood got into the tunnel but - "

"Oh, Merlin," Remus groaned miserably. He burrowed his head deeper into his ball of misery. "I remember the trapdoor opening."

"He saw you," Sirius said quietly.

Remus's head snapped up. "He who?" he demanded sharply.

"Snape," Sirius said quietly, and his eyes burned with the hatred he still held for that boy.

"You did this," Remus whispered in a flash of understanding worthy of Marissa. Sirius opened his mouth, to protest or argue or deny he didn't know, but he never had the chance to speak. Remus had already launched himself at his best friend. He was already beating and pounding at him, and for the next several minutes, they were locked in the same fierce combat as the night before. Again, Sirius allowed himself to take the brunt of it, letting Remus pound at him mercilessly in his anger and grief.

When Remus finally rolled away from pummeling Sirius, he stared up at the ratty gray ceiling. "She won't be waiting at the base of the Willow this time," Remus said quietly. "She won't be there to forgive me."

Sirius had absolutely nothing to say to that. It was an uncomfortable but inescapable thought. Even if Snape had been killed, it would not have made Marissa be outside the Whomping Willow waiting to help them carry Remus to the Hospital Wing. Nothing would make her be there when they finally brought themselves to crawl out of the Shrieking Shack and back to Hogwarts to face their fate.

* * *

James Potter and Severus Snape both woke up early that morning within five seconds of each other. They sat up in their bed facing each other, staring at the boy facing them. James reached for his glasses and put them on. He touched his face carefully, remembering the curse, but could feel no mark. Snape just stared at him steadily.

These two opposites faced each other, neither happy about the bond that had formed between them last night. A pureblood who chose a Muggle name. A halfblood stuck with a Muggle name he resented. A Quidditch star. A bookworm. A hero. A Dark wizard.

The differences they knew. In truth, they had more in common than they liked to admit. They both were inventors and created new magic. They were both powerful and brilliant. They both hated each other. Generally, the last one was the most relevant.

"So, you finally figured out the Willow," James said quietly. But there was something wrong with that. Even if Snape did figure out how to get past the flailing branches (something he wouldn't usually bother with, devoting his time instead to inventing Dark curses like the one that he had fired at James the night before), what would possess him to explore it further? And he had spoken as if he had already known what they were hiding. "Or someone told you."

"Don't even pretend that you had nothing to do with it, Potter," Snape snarled. "Got cold feet in your little murder attempt?"

"You're awfully harsh when I risked my neck to save your life," James said coldly.

"If you're so innocent, explain how you knew where I would be," Snape crowed victoriously.

"Lily'll verify that. I saw you, well not you specifically you but a figure, go into the Willow from the roof," James shrugged with a triumphant smirk of his own. "If Lily'll ever speak to me again," he muttered to himself a moment later.

Snape still heard and suppressed the nearly overwhelming urge to roll his eyes. "All right, I'll play along, Potter," Snape told him condescendingly. "You might as well know what I will be telling the Headmaster when he arrives shortly. Sirius Black told me during our joint detention that if I wanted the answers to where you disappeared every month, I need only press the knot on the Whomping Willow. Imagine my surprise at just what I find - a heartless creature ready to murder me."

"That is one of my best friends that you're talking about!" James exploded.

"Who had already tried to kill me while not a mindless monster," Snape said calmly and coldly. "His track record is definitely against him on that score. I wouldn't have fancied having to explain that to the Ministry, personally."

James was rocked that Sirius could have been so careless ... but again, James could feel that that was wrong. "What happened at that detention?"

"Besides Black planning to have me killed by a werewolf?" Snape sneered. "We had a lovely little discussion about who was at fault for the death of Marissa Fletcher."

Potter's eyes went wide with understanding. He knew what Sirius could say and do when goaded, especially about something that truly hurt him. A crime of passion. It was not the first that Sirius had been guilty of and would not be the last.

Snape could not believe the words that were flying out of his mouth. He glanced at the Dreamless Sleep potion that had been forced on him the night before despite the fact that he had absolutely no injuries. He gave it an expert shake and a thin layer of clear liquid settled at the top. Dumbledore had drugged them with Veritaserum before their discussion began.

"Are you going to tell anyone?" James asked him seriously.

"That Lupin is a werewolf?" Snape said again, far too loudly for James's comfort. "I don't see any reason why not."

"You would do that to him?" James demanded. "Ruin his life?"

"Because he has shown such great concern for my life?" Snape added pointedly by way of an answer. "It is truly unbelievable. Every day Fletcher's choice becomes more unfathomable to me."

"She was a - "

"Oh shut up about what you don't understand," Snape spoke over him. His cold black eyes met James Potter's warm hazel ones for the first time in years. Oh, they faced each other down, but they never looked directly at each other in that time. They tortured each other, but they never gave the other the courtesy of looking their enemy in the eye.

"Someone like you," Snape continued, with a surprising amount of emotion in his voice, "who is fawned over by groupies, who has friends in spades, who never had to work for affection or loyalty from anyone in your life, will never understand what Marissa Fletcher was."

Snape looked away, off to the side where he stared vaguelly off into space. "Do it for her," James said quietly, carefully. "Don't tell about Remus for her sake."

Snape let out a hollow laugh. James couldn't remember a similar sound ever issuing from his body. "I don't think that I will have to, Potter," Snape said with an unpleasant smile curling his lips. "Miss Evans has been awake for at least the past five minutes. I suggest you try to convince her. I, after all, am a lost cause."

"Lily, please," James said quietly to the girl who had her eyes stubbornly shut very tight, "don't do that to him."

There was a short pause. Then Lily nodded quickly, still burrowed against her pillow.

"If you tell anyone," James said, returning his attention to Snape, "I may have to mention that spell that you cast last night."

It was not noticeable when Snape paled, but it happened that morning. That kind of curse would mark him for the rest of his life as a Dark wizard, as one to be hunted by the Ministry.

"If you press charges, Snape," James continued in a falselly calm voice, "the Ministry will be very interested in everything that occurred last night. Think about it."

* * *

Wormtail waited for Sirius and Remus to remember that he was here too. He had been in no hurry to join their little fight, but it would be nice if they realized that he was in the room as well. And for once, the close call wasn't his fault. That was wonderful news indeed. It was also very good news that Snape hadn't been killed. He would have had to answer for killing the Dark Lord's little potions prodigy.

But Wormtail didn't like to think of Snape for too long. He had tried to say that the Dark Lord had killed Marissa to keep her from turning Snape, but the letter had proved that untrue. Even before that, he had known that Snape was unconvincable. The Dark Lord knew it too. No Muggle-born was going to turn Severus Snape from the way that he had chosen.

Perhaps, Wormtail thought idly, Snape deserved to die just for that. That he could move on from Marissa Fletcher without great effort showed that he was a monster.

Wormtail did not think on that very long. It hit far too close to home.

But he could not fully repress the question that entered his mind a moment later, What would Sirius be willing to do to me if he knew that it was my fault?

* * *

When Lily could bring herself to open her eyes, they fell on the blood-painted robes James Potter. This was no spattering. His clothes were drenched. Lily rose slowly from her bed and walked over to the discarded robes, not able to take her eyes off of them. Very slowly, she raised her eyes hesitantly to the bed where James lay, probably in a coma if his clothes were any indication.

Lily had never been so happy to see that tell-tale smirk on James's face. She breathed out a sigh of relief. "I'm just fine, Lily," James said with a lop-sided smile.

"Good," she said simply. "In that case, I'm going to kill you!" she cried, diving forward and beginning to beat at him. "You stupid, selfish prat!" she screamed. "Why did you leave me up there! Do you realize that I nearly died trying to get down! Do you realize what you put me through, you great prat! You idiotic prick!"

"Miss Evans," Albus Dumbledore said calmly and quietly as he swept into the Hospital Wing. Lily turned scarlet as she climbed off the boy that she had been punching mercilessly. "Are you all right?" the Headmaster asked as if he hadn't just seen her assaulting a student.

"Yes, sir," she said in a very small voice.

"That is very good news," the Headmaster replied with a small smile. "Perhaps you would then like to return to your common room?"

"Yes, sir," Lily said again, then turned and fled the room.

"Now," Albus Dumbledore continued calmly but gravely, "please tell me what happened last night." James shot a quick glance at Snape, then launched into the tale.

* * *

A week later, Sirius Black was back from his suspension. Suspension, Severus Snape thought with disgust for what felt like the thousandth time since that fateful night. That was the punishment for murder these days. A week's suspension spent with the Potters.

What infuriated Snape was the lack of even a decent excuse. A crime of passion was less of a crime? If Snape had died it would have been all good since Sirius Black had told him in a fit of rage? He had had plenty of time to recant once he came to his senses! He had had plenty of time to calm down and convince Snape not to do it.

But he hadn't. He had been willing to let Snape face a werewolf. He had been willing to put his best friend in danger of facing a Ministry hearing and condemned as a murderer. He was a thoughtless idiot, but did that make him less guilty?

"Are you too busy glowering at the newly returned blood traitor to hear the latest news?" Igor Karkaroff said, sitting down next to Snape at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall. If Snape had not been so well-trained, he would have raised his eyebrows at this action of Karkaroff's. Then again, his fellow Death Eater had been keeping a particularly close watch over Snape ever since Christmas.

It was unnecessary. Marissa Fletcher was Snape's last liability. Now she was dead. There was nothing else in the world that would compel him to betray the Dark Lord anymore. Yes, he had been lying about the fact that he would have stood aside if he had known that it was Voldemort after Marissa, but his duty to her was over now.

"I am in the process of deciding to give up a fruitless project," Snape replied curtly. "I have resigned myself to the fact that Dumbledore will get those pathetic Gryffindors out of any scrape, even one worthy of Azkaban, with little punishment. I have resigned myself to the futility of trying to earn them the expulsion that they deserve."

"Sounds like a healthy state of mind," Karkaroff replied calmly. "Just what happened to prompt the abrupt development of mental health?"

"The realization that my mind games with the Mudblood had caused those important to my future to question my loyalties," Snape told him, finally looking down at his food and giving up the death glare that he had been fixing on Sirius Black and James Potter. "Thus, I have decided to give less concern to meaningless school affairs."

"So you wouldn't, by any chance, want in on a mission with the intent of a little house-cleaning?" Karkaroff offered in a voice that clearly displayed that this was a test. Stupid bugger couldn't even hide when he was laying a "subtle" test before Snape.

"Of what nature?" Snape asked in a tone of indifference.

"Christmas Eve was the last straw for the Gorings," Karkaroff said, watching Snape closely. He displayed no emotion and only mild interest. "Not even killing the brother? Pathetic. And nearly bested by a sixteen-year-old Mudblood! It's embarassing."

Seventeen, Snape thought automatically and nearly said aloud. "That ridiculous turkey affair is everywhere now. It's terribly bad press that a not even fully trained witch, a teenage girl with no magical lineage whatsoever, nearly bested three Death Eaters. It gives people hope. They might even be beginning to wonder if they can do the same thing. Dolohov still has a strike, but the count on the Gorings is up."

"So what is ocurring tonight?" Snape asked, his mind completely blank and impenetrable. Usually, he would call forth other thoughts and memories to be more subtle about his Occulmency, but he did not quite trust himself at this moment.

"Why, their discipline," Karkaroff said with a truly nasty smile. "So, do you want in?" Snape heard the unasked question very clearly. Do you want to help execute the murderers of Marissa Fletcher? So that was his test, was it?

"I believe that I am too closely watched at the moment to wish to put the mission in jeopardy," Snape replied honestly with great difficulty. "Are you going then?"

"Oh, no one from Hogwarts is invited," Karkaroff shrugged. "I was simply curious as to how willing you would be to turn on our own for incompetence."

"Incompetence is an unforgivable sin," Snape said harshly. "It cannot be corrected, thus it must be purged from his forces. Now, if you will excuse me. The Headmaster is looking in this direction, and I believe that a change of topic is in order."

"What else do we have to talk about, Snape?" Karkaroff sneered in amusement as he stood up from the table.

Just as he was turning, Snape asked mildly, "The Gorings have a daughter, do they not? What is to become of her?"

"What do I know or care of that?" Karkaroff shrugged.

"You know what she is, Karkaroff," Snape said quietly.

"Yes, she is none of our business." Then Igor Karkaroff was gone. He left Severus Snape with shifting and sliding thoughts. One dominated all the others. Marissa would have wanted the daughter of her destroyers saved. She had always been an idiotic Gryffindor that way.

* * *

Remus Lupin was not at dinner for Sirius Black's triumphant return. Sirius and James disappeared for a very long time, discussing everything while the others waited in the Common Room to confront Sirius Black. Everyone else had gone to bed when the two returned, both looking very sober and slightly angry.

Remus stood when they entered, looking as if he could find no words for the betrayal that he felt. He turned and immediately left the room.

Lily and Peter stood as well. For a very long time, no one said anything. "I can't believe that I gave up a friendship over you," Lily said quietly. "I can't believe that I ever thought that I loved you. Did you think that you were doing this for Marissa? Did you really think that this was what she would have wanted? Did you even know her?" Lily shook her head, tears in her eyes. "How could you?" She looked away from Sirius's uncomfortable face. "Why would you do this?" She shook her head again. "Boy, has my world been turned upside down. To think that the only decent one among you is James ruddy Potter who stranded me on the roof!"

Lily gasped against a sob, "I am alone, aren't I?" she whispered in a very small voice. She turned and hurried up the stairs, uncomfortably aware that she had always done that to signal Marissa that she needed her comfort. But she was not returning to their room to wait for Marissa's help. She was going up to her room to cry alone. That was something that Lily Evans had not had to do since she was eleven years old. Her very first night of homesickness, Marissa had been there for her, crying with her.

Lily closed the door behind her and sank down until she was curled up in a ball. She wasn't crying, but her heart was breaking all the same. She couldn't suppress the wild thoughts that if Marissa had been here, she would have known exactly what to do. If Marissa were here, everything would not be in such a frightful mess. Most of all, if Marissa were here, Lily wouldn't have to face all of this alone. If Marissa were here, everything would be so much easier to bear.

James started toward the stairs immediately when Lily started up them. "Where are you going, James?" Sirius demanded.

"I'm not going to lose any friends tonight!" James declared loudly. "You go apologize as you've never apologized to Moony. I'm going to tell Lily that she's not alone."

"If you go up to the fourth floor and through that tapestry of Merlin playing Exploding Snape with Agrippa, Nicholas Flamel, and that troll, you'll come to a passageway. There's a trapdoor halfway down it. If you insert this into the lock, you'll drop down onto the eleventh stair of the Girls' Dormitory stairwell," Sirius said just as James reached the entrance to the Girls' side of the tower.

James turned and looked at him in surprise. "Marissa left a series of clues for me as a Christmas present," Sirius said quietly, tossing him the pocket knife. "I want that back, by the way. She gave it to me, after all. I may not have known what she would have wanted, but she meant the world to me, James. You have to know that."

James nodded and started off immediately.

Five minutes later, the door to Lily Evans's room burst open. She had moved to the bed, but that was the only change. She looked up and saw James Potter standing just outside of her door. She scrambled up from the bed and ran forward to launch herself into his arms.

She let him hold her, not caring that he was in her bedroom, not caring how he had gotten there. She clutched at him as proof that she was not alone after all. She stayed in his arms, gathering strength. From that moment on, James Potter and Lily Evans were friends so close that the duo of Potter and Black became a trio. She forgave Sirius over a shorter amount of time than James had taken to regain her forgiveness and trust.

After all, as Sirius had pointed out long ago: she had always held James to a higher standard than the rest of them.

* * *

Three hours after his conversation with Karkaroff, Snape could not believe what he found himself doing. He could not believe that he was voluntarily returning to the Whomping Willow, prodding the knot with a stick he found, and again descending into the dark, dank tunnel as he had a week ago. He could not believe that he was again heading on a fruitless, thankless mission with little chance of success.

He reached the trapdoor and threw it open, despising himself for the thrill of fear from the memory of a werewolf springing out of that same door. He pulled himself up into the Shrieking Shack of all places. Snape would have laughed aloud at the sheer audacity of Albus Dumbledore were he not better trained.

Without another thought, he Apparated to the small cottage that the Gorings had set up as an Apparition point. There were only two ways to exit this house once one entered it. The first was to ring for the house elf using the small silver bell on a table by the door and ask him to present a card with his or her identity written on it to the Master or Mistress. This was the only way that most of the wizarding population knew.

The second was to press the Dark Mark to the door knob. Then the door would spring open and allow a fellow Death Eater access to the grounds and leave to approach the house from the side door. Snape quickly did so and made his way through the door that the Death Eaters who were (judging by the screams vaguely in the distance) already here had left open.

Snape arrived just in time to immobilize the young girl who was dragging a large, decorative sword behind her as she ran towards the source of the screams. The screams stopped with a final wail as Snape approached the small girl. She looked terrified but determined. Snape took the spell off of her and grabbed her by the shoulder. "I am the Sitter this evening."

The girl turned to look at him at that. "Where's Aunt Cissy?" she asked quietly. "If my parents have to work tonight, why isn't Aunt Cissy or Auntie Bella even -"

"Come, girl, do as you're told," Snape snapped, pulling her along with him. Snape wanted to snap that he had better uses to the Dark Lord than Narcissa Black babysitting the children of Death Eaters to allow them free time to terrorize. He refrained, however. He had nothing but self-control. Then he noticed that the house was buckling in several key places.

Snape cursed aloud. So, that was how they were planning on handling the daughter? Simply leave her in a collapsing house? If she survived, perhaps allowing her the chance to continue living? You had to admire the sheer simplicity of Death Eater thinking at times. Who cared if this girl was the last of her kind, the last of the Bred? If she couldn't survive a collapsing (and burning, Snape saw a moment later) house, what use was she anyway?

At least they wouldn't be looking for her any time soon. At least, if he played his cards right, he would be able to deny all responsiblity for this suicidal mission. He pulled the girl along after him mercilessly, not caring how she fought. It was not for her sake that he was doing this. Snape doubted that he would do this for the sake of anyone else but the girl he could not freely admit that he had cared for. After all, it didn't matter anymore. There was no more payment that she would require. His debt was paid.

When they were out of the house, Snape latched her arm with his and attempted Side-Along Apparition for the first time in his life. Luckily, he was successful.

Ten minutes later, he led a very confused Mariella Goring to Dumbledore's Office and deposited her there without another word. He was out the door before the old fool of a Headmaster could say anything. He could make anything he liked of it for all that Snape cared.

* * *

Mundungus Fletcher woke up that morning in an orphanage with no idea that Sirius Black had attempted to avenge his sister's death. He woke up with no idea that Voldemort himself had punished the servants who had nearly foiled her assassination.

If he had, it might have soothed his own burning need for revenge. However, considering what she was to him, nothing on such a small scale could satisfy him.

A few months in the orphanage would only serve to further sour Mundungus Fletcher toward the wizarding world that would find no place for him. When he arrived at Hogwarts and saw that Mariella Goring had become the Ward of the school and had not been banished to an orphanage, that would only drive the wedge further between him and the world that had killed his sister.

It didn't matter that Mariella Goring was the Ward of Hogwarts because no one would take her. Death Eaters she had counted as "aunts" and "uncles" refused her on Voldemort's decree. All "decent" families refused her because of the darkness of her long family line. Not even the Ministry would look after her, only Albus Dumbledore. The Muggle world obviously wouldn't take her as she did not exist in it.

It didn't matter that only four people in the world were directly responsible for the death of Marissa Fletcher: Voldemort, Eris Goring, Anne Goring, and Antonin Dolohov, two of whom were already dead.

Now, Mundungus Fletcher had a very skewed sense of right and wrong, as Molly Weasley would be quite eager to point out years later. He had a deep-seated devotion to justice, but he defined justice far too harshly for most people. The way that he saw it, the entire wizarding world was at fault for the murder of his sister.

Everyone. From Voldemort who had ordered the killing and the Death Eaters who had carried it out, to the weakling pure-blood and half-bloods who hadn't stood up to stop him, to the Ministry which hadn't cared enough about her to try to protect her even after she had been personally threatened by You-Know-Who, to Albus Dumbledore who hadn't thought she was in danger and hadn't tried to save her.

So everyone would pay. That he vowed. After a few years of observation at Hogwarts, he would conclude that the only way to truly hurt the ancient, heartless group was through their pocketbooks. That was when Mundungus Fletcher went from magician to thief. That was when he went from a surly Hufflepuff to the Hogwarts bookie with a ring of enforcers. He used the same gifts that Marissa had used to make people happier to cheat them out of what they all seemed to hold so dear: gold.

When he graduated, he set out to cheat as much as possible from as many as possible. The ruin of the family fortune of the Weasleys, the Gorings, the Lupins, and the Carrows were his masterpieces. The Princes had also fallen on hard times under his direction. Only the Gorings and Carrows had been Death Eaters, of course, and Mariella Goring did not deserve the pauper's fate she had been condemned to by any stretch of the imagination. Or rather, by the stretch of any normal imagination.

One trait that Mundungus did share with his sister was a larger than normal imagination. The Weasleys who hid their large family from the War were as guilty, in his mind, as those who had fired the Killing Curse at Marissa Fletcher. Remus Lupin was obvious, as he was so close to her and should have noticed that something was going to happen. He would be disinherited on Mundungus's discovery. With no male heir eligible to inherit, the ancient estate would dwindle quickly.

The only ones spared were Muggle-borns, like he still considered himself, who had entered the wizarding world after his sister's death. But no pure-blood or half-blood was safe from his plots. None of the wizarding world could be forgiven for the treachery that they had done to Marissa Fletcher.

She had thought that their world was a magnificent place. She had thought that good always triumphed over evil. She had believed in the good of all men. She had trusted their world. She had given up her old one to be part of it. She had loved the wizarding world and given it all of herself.

And it had gotten her killed. It had betrayed her. It had cheated her. It had murdered her.

And so it must pay. As it obviously had no heart, gold would have to do.

* * *

Until this moment, little has been said about Remus Lupin. There is a very simple but inevitable reason for this. Focusing on his part of the great play would exclude all other players and happenings to a great degree. Remus Lupin during this period lived in a world of his own making. It was structured out of dreams and memories. He spoke little. He slept a great deal. Most of all, he saw her everywhere.

He didn't care for revenge like Sirius. He didn't try to hold their group together as she would have like James. He wasn't trying to latch on to someone else to fill the void like Lily. He wasn't trying to ignore guilt and blame like Peter.

None of that mattered. He was in his own world. With her.

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©KatyMulvaney8-5-05