The Wrath of Revenge

Chapter Three: More Plans and a Foggy Memory

Snape landed with a slight thud in the fireplace of a dark abandoned shed. He brushed some soot off his robes and walked over to the dark figure in the corner. Voldemort was sitting in a large armchair facing away from the fire. Snape walked up to him and knelt down on one knee. His forehead brushed the ground. He bowed.

"Come, come. Rise," said Voldemort.

Snape got up. When he did, there were two Voldemorts. He looked around. There was one sitting in the chair by the fireplace and there was another one standing at the far corner of the room. There was a muttered curse. Snape staggered and his eyes glazed over. He fell sideways onto the floor.

The dark robed figure at the other side of the room unhooded his cloak. It was Lucius Malfoy. He was the first to speak.

"My Lord, what spell did you use?" he asked.

Voldemort laughed. "It is my own creation. A mixture of the Stunning Spell, the Cruciatus Curse and a Memory Charm. He won’t come to until I say the counter-curse." He smiled. The smile seemed to say that a Voldemort-created-spell was much more amusing than an Unforgivable curse.

Wormtail stepped forward with a pair of scissors.

"Too bad we didn’t have much time to think of a better plan to get some hair from him," muttered Malfoy.

"I gave you plenty of time," said Voldemort, his eyes burning with anger, "you could not think fast enough."

Wormtail began to cut some of Snape’s hair off. Snip. Snip. Snip.

"Is this enough, master?" asked Wormtail. He held up a very large handful of shoulder-length hair.

"Yes. That will do very nicely." Voldemort sighed. "I hate to let him go," he confessed.

"We can always keep him here and torture him with curses," suggested Malfoy.

"No. The idea is tempting but a simple Crucio does not begin to compare with what he has done to us. We need to torture him, yet be the last that he suspects. He will be taken by surprise. He won’t have any clue of what’s hit him," finished Voldemort gleefully.

"Although…I could Summon him, tie him up in ropes, paralyze his body, and then cut his eyes out…and then use one of those burning out curses and char his vision nerves forever…" he trailed off.

Voldemort shook his head to clear his increasingly nasty torture tactics that were distracting him from the task at hand.

"Wormtail! Come here and give me the hairs. They are of no use to you," he called.

His servant walked obediently towards him. When the hairs were in his bone white hands, Voldemort swiftly tucked them into his deep pockets.

"I think we can wake him now…" and without further ado, Voldemort said the counter curse in a clear voice.

"Reballatio Procudo Memoria."

***

After he was through with the whole bowing and kissing hand ordeal, Snape got up. He was never allowed to rise unless the Master asked you to. That was just one of the rules about being a Death Eater. He was very disgusted by the whole thing but he didn’t let any of it show on his face. When he got up, he looked around for a moment, and there were two Voldemorts. No, that can't be right, he thought and blinked. That was when Voldemort muttered a curse softly, aimed at him.

He stumbled, and then felt helpless as his eyes rolled up into his head and painfully lost cognizance.

***

He came to on the cold cement floor of the small storage room they used as a meeting place. The world around him blurred. He then became aware that Lucius Malfoy was kneeling over him. Malfoy Senior was smiling in that sick, sweet way of his.

"We were so worried, Severus. You probably tripped on the leg of that chair," said he, pointing to the leg of a chair lying a few feet away.

"You didn’t come to for a few minutes," he added placidly.

Snape got the point that he had only been gone to La-La-Land for a couple of minutes. Yes, he probably had tripped on that chair, he thought. He didn’t remember anything that happened before, only that he had landed on the floor. Snape tried sitting up. It felt as if every joint in his body was creaking. He tried not to, but couldn’t help groaning out loud. Lucius held out a slick hand to help him up. He thinks I'm groaning over a small bump on the head, but now that he thought about it, he did bang his head when he fell, didn’t he?

Severus Snape was not one to complain about minor pains or injuries. Yet, the creaking pain he experienced whenever he moved was agonizing. It felt like he had arthritis.

"It feels like I've banged up every joint in my body," he confided to Lucius in a low tone.

Lucius smiled a fake smile of sympathy and said, "It should go away after you've walked it off, I'm sure."

Snape looked up at his master. It seemed as though he were smiling. He blinked. Although when he looked more closely, Voldemort seemed incapable of showing any emotion. He was not laughing; he was more in the way of frowning.

"I have a private task for you Severus," said Voldemort.

"Private?" asked Snape.

"Yes, private. Your own sort of "secret" mission, shall I say? To show where your loyalties lie."

"Whatever you say, Master," he said in a slave-like way. He disgusted himself. The way Death Eaters had to go about talking to Voldemort. Like he's some sort of hero or something, thought Snape.

"There's a Mudblood family in Edinburgh. The mother is a half blood Squib, and the father is a Muggle. Their daughter looks like she's getting magical powers. I want you to go eliminate them. Filthy things. They're last name is Bates. I'll give you a week to come up with a cunning plan and follow through with it."

"Thank you, My Lord," he said. Usually he springs a mission on us right away. Although a week is plenty enough time, it isn't like him. I bet he gave me a lot of time so I could come up with something painful and gory. I used to enjoy killing and he remembers. He knows that when I go on his missions, I don’t take pleasure in it. He doesn’t like that. He wants me to become greedy again for the pleasure of killing, like I used to be… his train of thought was broken after Voldemort said one simple statement.

"Now its time for some fun and games, Severus," Voldemort purred.

Oh, not this again,

thought Snape, although he does do it every time he Summons me.

"Crucio!"

There was some unique quality about every spell or curse that Voldemort inflicted. In this case, the victim of the Cruciatus Curse was sent flying upward until he hit the ceiling.

"Why haven't you broken the magical barriers at Hogwarts yet?!" he screeched.

Voldemort kept at it.

"Why haven't you poisoned that fool of a Headmaster?"

Voldemort was getting hysterical.

"WHY! WHY! WHY!" his shrieks and cries resonated in the small shed.

Voldemort finally lifted his wand after 30 minutes of pure torture. He didn’t want Severus Snape to go mad, yet.

Snape was dropped mercilessly from the ceiling with a thud.

"It's not over yet my friend," cooed Voldemort.

He unsheathed a sharp butcher's knife.

"Lets see, where shall we start?" he asked himself.

Voldemort started by making two long vertical cuts on Snape's legs. The sound of ripping flesh echoed in his ears. And he swore he heard the sound of the sharp blade scratching his bone. After that, Snape was in such pain that he couldn’t think about anything else.

During the Cruciatus Curse, Snape had gritted his teeth and stopped himself from screaming out. It was not wise to show weakness in front of the Dark Lord. But this time, he was not able to control his reaction and let out a scream of agony.

Voldemort smiled. He then proceeded to make two sharp nicks on the sides of Snape's forehead.

"You may go now," said Voldemort calmly.

Bloodied, and in extreme pain, Snape weakly grasped a handful of purple powder, threw it in the fire and managed to gasp out, "Severus Snape's office at Hogwarts."

As he stepped into the flames, he tried not to fall. His legs were injured to the point where it was becoming almost impossible to stand upright. His elbow hit something and sent waves of pain through his arm.

When Snape landed in his own office, he barely got out of the flames before he collapsed onto the floor. His office was, as usual, dark and gloomy with lots of jars and vats of pickled Potions ingredients. He crawled over to the shelf crammed with useless books that were only there for decoration. He didn’t notice that he was leaving two wide trails of blood leading from the fireplace to the bookshelf. He didn’t care either. He took out his wand and tapped out the first three bars to "Valse Op.64 No.1: Petit Chien". It had been his wife’s favorite song. The bookshelf fell into the wall to reveal a hidden staircase leading to an airy, spacious chamber. As he headed down, he didn’t bother to close the door behind him.

He was unable to physically walk down the stairs, so he ended up falling down in a very un-Snape-ish way, head first with his legs in the air so as to not injure them more. It took a lot of physical exertion for him. His head thudded against the door leading into his room. He shoved and the door opened to a very large chamber. He didn't feel like shutting the door. When he entered the room, he shuddered. It was freezing because his rooms were at least five stories below the Potions classroom. He had also made the mistake of letting the fire die out. The torches flickered on uncertainly. He heaved himself over to his bed. When he was lying down as comfortably as possible in the condition that he was in, he pointed his wand at the fireplace.

"Incendio," he said in a hoarse voice.

The fireplace was instantly lit with a large fire that filled the whole room with warmth. Snape looked down at his legs. He could see some of the bones as well as the raw flesh of his calves. They were oozing and he realized that there was a trail of blood across his room. The pain was excruciating. He grimaced and bit his lip, except there was nothing left of his lip to actually bite.

A small pop in the room announced his house-elfs arrival.

"You is back, Professor Snape!" exclaimed the house-elf in relief.

It was Lecai. Snape’s own personal elf. Each professor had been assigned his or her own house-elf to "relieve stress", and amazingly, Snape had gotten on extremely well with Lecai.

As Lecai took in the Potions Master’s grave injuries, she started crying.

"Dark Lord do this to you! One day he will kill my Master," Lecai was used to the Potions Master coming back from Death Eater meetings, battered to the bone by Cruciatus Curses. But this. She had never seen the playful torture that Voldemort inflicted, go as far as this.

"Lecai? Don’t summon Poppy or Albus…" said Snape in a gentle, yet anguish filled voice.

"Lecai Bad House-elf! Master got hurt. I is supposed to protect my Master…Master almost died…Bad Lecai…Lecai…Lecai failed…"

There was a thud. Lecai had fainted. Oh fuck, thought Snape.

"Dammit Lecai. Just when I need you most. You can’t help me. No one can help me. I don’t deserve to be helped. You’re just like everyone else…" muttered Snape softly.

Snape wracked his brains for the spell that would wake up Lecai. He couldn’t remember it. Yet, he was sure that there was a spell that conveniently woke her up. What was it? Snape held his head in his hands and then winced. He had touched a nasty looking blow on his head. There was a slight indentation on his skull. The injury was all matted hair and blood. It was a wonder he hadn't collapsed on the way to his rooms. His thoughts couldn’t dwell on that notion for long.

He had managed to keep back most of the pain for some time now. He was a master at control. Or so he thought. The pain was seeping back, threatening to take over his entire body due to his ever-growing weakness.

He had to heal these wounds.

His eyes located the small glass phial of Sanatio Restitutio Potion. It was a light yellow color. It would heal his wounds, no matter how deep they were, but it would take around ten minutes of anguish as his skin regenerated.

"Accio Sanatio Restitutio Potion!"

***

There was no light... well there was, but it was very insubstantial. There was a hint of the moonlight that crept in through the cracks of the boards on the walls and the fire’s brilliant flame cast shadows across the room.

Athwart from where he stood were two men... wearing identical dark black cloaks, their faces masked in the shadows. One of them pointed a long dark finger at him and suddenly he felt an ethereal force push him down to the ground.

He felt part of him go numb, as if injected with morphine, but willed himself to look on. A slightly chubby man emerged from a corner in the room steadily holding a sharp and shiny object. He was overwhelmed and heard the slight snip of scissors. Soon the man and the numbing sensation left.

One of the men nonchalantly slid across the room towards him, while the other lay upon a chair. As the figure came closer he realized that it was Lucius Malfoy. He kneeled over him, smiling. Suddenly Harry realized where his nemesis had gotten that look from.

Lucius worded something and pointed to a chair that had fallen only a few moments before. He felt his head nod and tried sitting up. No success. It was as though a ninety-pound weight had landed upon him. He groaned under the stress of it.

He felt his mouth moving and his hand twitching, as if it wanted to rub a wound. Lucius looked sympathetic and said a few more words.

He felt his eyes turn towards the man in the chair. After a few minutes the man once again lifted his abnormally long finger and his body was wracked in the torment of an Unforgivable curse. He flew to the ceiling and heard a sickening crack. The man kept at it with no mercy. Harry stared at him and saw he was mouthing the words, "why" in a most hysterical fashion. After what seemed like years the man stopped and he was thrown onto the ground. He reached into the shadows of his robe and unsheathed a knife; the moonlight reflecting off it. The man turned to him and proceeded by making two long gashes in his leg. The pain was unbearable, and he winced when he felt the knife touch the front of his bone. He could almost hear the muscle being ripped away. He bit his nether lip in order to stop himself from screaming, but soon the flesh on his mouth was reduced to almost nothing and he felt himself scream. He brought his hands to his face, only to find that there were two sharp nicks on the side of his forehead. He brought his hands down and looked at them, they were covered in deep red blood.

The man was smiling. He looked into his eyes. It was so dark, and deep, like a shade of red rum...

Harry immediately sat up on his bed. He felt cold sweat upon him. He looked down to his hands expecting to find them coated in blood, instead they were pale, his veins clearly distinguishable. He tried calling out to Ron, but found that his lips felt oddly numb and he was only capable of slurred speech, as if there was a ball under his tongue. His head was still pounding with the reminiscent pain of his scar.

Harry pulled on one of his school robes over his pajamas and headed towards the Hospital Wing. He wanted to make sure that he was still sane in the morning. If he got a Dreamless Sleeping Draught and slept for the rest of the night, he was sure that he would feel better in the morning. He desperately hoped that he wouldn’t remember the "silent" dream the next day.

He swung the portrait of the Fat Lady open and started walking towards the Hospital Wing. Several long corridors later, Harry could hear the gleeful cackle of Peeves the Poltergeist echoing off the walls of the silent school.

Oh no,

thought Harry, he’s blocking the way to the Hospital Wing. It’s a good thing that I’m wearing my-- He had been in such a hurry to get to the Hospital Wing, that he had forgot to wear his Invisibility Cloak. Harry turned around. He meant to go back to the Gryffindor Common Room and get his cloak, but he realized that he had gone too far and the trip would only exhaust him further. He decided to take another route he knew that lead to the Hospital Wing. To get to the Hospital Wing via the new route he was taking he had to go through the dungeons.

He was careful to look around each corner and tried to avoid Mrs. Norris and Filch. He instinctively flinched each time a ghost passed through the walls or whenever a shadow moved. He passed the Potions classroom and wondered whether or not Snape was still grading papers in his office. His curiousity got the better of him and he crept past the empty cauldrons standing in rows and slowly opened the door to Snape’s office. The sight that greeted Harry made his stomach lurch. There were two wide trails of blood leading from the fireplace, which had no fire, to a small bookshelf that had been swung inward to reveal a set of stairs. There was the occasional spatter of blood now and then, alongside the two gory trails. When he reached the bookshelf to examine more closely he noticed that there was a bloody handprint on the side of the shelf. It seemed as though the owner of the handprint had grasped the side of the shelf and gone down the stairs.

Suddenly, he heard a loud shatter of glass coming from somewhere below. It was then followed by a long, tormented scream.

Harry ran down the stairs two at a time. At the end of the stairs, he met a door which he banged open. For a moment, Harry just stared at the person lying in the bed in front of him. The person had blood running down his face from two cuts on his forehead and a pair of legs that were brutally cut open. This man had almost no lip left; it was mostly bitten off. There was shattered glass all over the bed and the glass had made new cuts on the man. Only the eyes of the man before him seemed to belong to the Potions Master Harry knew.

No, this looks like a monster that has lived through hell

, thought Harry. Then something clicked in his mind. The man in front of him had the exact wounds that Harry experienced in his dream.

The man was still screaming his terrible scream. As their eyes locked, Harry started screaming as well. The eyes in front of him held so much pain, anger and fear at the same time. No one should ever have to have so much pain in their life. No one. Not even Snape.

As Harry screamed in fear and horror, the man before him shrieked in pain.

~~~~~~

A/N: Sorry about the short Chapter…All questions shall be answered in the next chapter, I hope. And EVERYTHING will make sense once the WHOLE story is done. Thank you for being patient. Luv ya all. Please R/R.

Here’s a poll I wanna take:

Minerva McGonagall

Good - Bad

Poppy Pomfrey

Good - Bad

Please choose good or bad for each of them, and you can only put one good and one bad. This will affect the story in some way. But, no I am not telling you specifically what its going to be. ::evil grin:: *cough* sorry.