Reconstruction of a Death Eater

He's Alive, but Living?

Pretty dreams, my baby, wait
Just beyond the Slumber Gate;
Come, dreams,
Come to baby, come;
Come, dreams,
Come to baby, come.

*French lullaby by LAE Poulsson, adapted by Terry Kluytmans

http://www.kididdles.com/mouseum/c067.html

The soft voice sang low and sweet, smooth as silk and gentle as a kiss. He forced his eyes open and looked up into a dearly beloved face smiling down at him. Long black ringlets fell over one shoulder, smelling of strawberries and lavender. A broad, intelligent forehead rose above winged black eyebrows, and dark, laughing eyes sparkled above high, sculpted cheekbones. Smooth olive skin, flawless and perfect, was soft under his fingers as he reached up to stroke one delicately tinted cheek. A cascade of diamonds and emeralds glittered under the curls, catching his eye and his fingers, making tinkling laughter come from the perfect red lips as his small, clutching fingers were disengaged from his mother's earrings. She was so beautiful!

Her face was gone, another taking its place, a stern and bitter visage, all lines and angles with a thin, pale, almost lipless mouth set in an uncompromising slash. "Leave the boy alone! Put him down this instant! You are coddling him, Silvana. You are supposed to be preparing yourself for the reception which starts in less than an hour. This is far too important to be late for. You know the Minister expects all his departmental heads and their wives to be on time and in position well before the rest of the guests arrive, so we had better hurry up. He will be fine with the house-elves, they are perfectly capable of looking after a child, or they wouldn't be Snape house-elves."

That voice made him cringe, harsh and cawing like a crow on a branch. That man always came and took his dear Mama away, stole her from him. Unfair, unfair! One day maybe the man would go away, and they could be safe and happy by themselves, his mama and him.

He knew what was coming, knew it was horrific but was powerless to stop it as the scene unfolded.

The house-elf held him tight, but the tiny creature could not prevent Her from tearing him out of its arms and tossing him on the bed. He cried, terrified by this vision so like him but worse, much worse, tearing the clothes from his body, pinching and poking, stabbing him with a sharp blade. She swore, bad words that Mama did not like to hear, and she hit him and stabbed him again, forcing his mouth open until he could taste a funny taste in his mouth. She swore again, louder this time, and dribbled a really horrible drink into his mouth until he choked and coughed and swallowed between his screams. He couldn't spit it out; she pinched his nose and shook him until he could barely breathed, then she stared at him, her eyes just as sharp as the knife she had cut his hand with. Shaking her head, she tossed him down on the bed so that he bounced and tried to scramble away, but she caught his ankle and pulled him back again. Then the attempt to suffocate him came. The plump, soft pillow over his face, pressing down, was cutting off breath, blackness dancing before his....

~~*~~

Molly jumped awake as the alarm charm shrilled a warning. For a fraction of a second she was disoriented, wondering where she was, then she realised her charge was not breathing. The deathly pale man did not move at all, his chest did not rise or fall as she slammed a spell into him, trying to restart his heart and lungs. There was no response to the standard spell, no answering beat of a heart or the throb of life in the vein. Frantic, she worked like a Trojan to bring him back on life, a second pair of hands working with her as spells were cast and physical efforts made. Suddenly, the long, thin man began to gasp for breath on his own, dragging in great lungsful and whimpering.

"That was close," Roger remarked wiping his forehead as they both collapsed into chairs by the bedside. "Damn! He's gone into tremors again. Bloody Cruciatus Curse, no wonder it is on the list of Unforgivables! Its consequences are vicious and just never ending. Here, help me get this potion down his throat before he tears all our good spell work apart again."

The rigid shakes made it hard to prise the man's jaw open and force the potion down his throat. There was added resistance as if the man fought their efforts with everything he had, doing his best to keep his mouth firmly closed against their intrusion. Then Molly had to massage his throat to make him swallow rather than choke on the brew. As the tremors slowly faded, the Potions Master became limp and unresponsive again, sinking down into the mattress until there was barely a hump where his body lay. Such a thin man had little in reserve to help bolster himself against the damages that the residual curses continued to inflict and to assist in the healing.

Roger looked down at the disguised face and shook his head slowly. "If he doesn't start swallowing voluntarily in the next few hours, we may have to let him slip away, Molly, you know that," he remarked sorrowfully, meeting her shocked and disbelieving gaze with compassionate eyes. "If he has so few autonomous functions and cannot even swallow for himself, then what sort of life will he have? We can't put him into St Mungo's or they will take him, and you know what will happen to him then. Better he is allowed to die with a little dignity here than be tortured and mutilated, displayed and defiled by Death Eaters when he has no means of defending himself. You know that is what will happen, you know it!"

Molly opened her mouth to refute but then closed it with a snap as she couldn't. Every word Roger spoke was the absolute truth, and there was no real way to refute his prognosis. "I'll look after him, I'm good at looking after people," she muttered, not meeting the healer's eyes. "He just needs a chance for some peace, a little time to rest and recuperate without anyone forcing him to do anything, including wake up, that's all. Off you go now, sorry to disturb your rest," she muttered mutinously.

Roger shook his head sadly and squeezed her shoulder as he passed out of the privacy curtains. Molly was the kindest and most cooperative of souls until she got a bee in her bonnet, and then she was as stubborn as any witch ever born. Usually he thought that stubbornness was a good thing but now that he was knocking his head against it, he was somewhat annoyed that she didn't accept his diagnosis. After all, he was the resident medical authority, wasn't he? And she was just a glorified nursing assistant. Sighing at his uncharitable thoughts, Roger returned to his bed.

~~*~~

"He is human! The useless brat is absolutely and completely human, without a glimmer of hope or a trace of bloodlust, and therefore is of no use to anyone!" The scream of fury tore through the room, blasting the small family assembled before the throne-like chair in the Great Hall. The riding crop slashed the air and cracked resoundingly on the side of the throne where the Matriarch sat in state.

Clutched tightly in his mother's arms, Sevvy hid his face in her sweet smelling hair and whimpered a little. He knew that voice and that face, and it utterly terrified him. "Bad lady hurt Sevvy," he whispered in his mother's ear with a sniffle that was almost inaudible.

"Shut that squalling brat up!" Madam Veraline Snape snarled pointing a long bony finger at the younger woman she had hand-selected to be her heir's wife. What a mistake that was proving to be. Maria Silvana le Toya had the perfect bloodlines to match with the Snape family line breeding programme, but for some reason she had failed to share the genes Veraline most coveted. Veraline knew she could breed a perfect vampire who felt the need to feed without having a bite infection and all the problems that brought with it. A perfectly uncommitted vampire who owed loyalty to no one but himself was a thing to be desired above all others. "Thaddeus, my son, you have failed to breed the perfect heir and that is not good enough. I want a real Heir, a vampire to open the vault without encumbrances, not that puling brat, so see to it!"

"Yes, Mother," the crow man cawed, backing away and taking his wife and son with him, out of the hall, out of the presence, out of her reach for a few blessed moments. He would barely admit it to himself, but his mother terrified him with her single-minded drive to create the perfect Snape vampire. "Keep him quiet or she will hurt him," he hissed a warning at his young and frightened wife.

"Sevvy says she already has. I told you those bruises I found on Sevvy after the Reception last month were not made by any house-elf's hands," Silvana hissed back, holding her baby close and muffling his terrified whimpering with her shoulder. The baby struggled as if he could not breathe properly, and she eased her hold on his head, letting him look up at her as she gazed down in worry. "What is it, Sevvy? Did I hurt you?"

"Bad lady didded it," Sevvy gasped, fear retreating until the man peered at him over his mother's shoulders. Then he keened and purposefully buried his face in his mother's shoulder again.

"How can he look like that and not be a vampire?" Thaddeus Snape demanded angrily, the baby was a carbon copy of him and growing more like him every day. Unfortunately, Thaddeus was not a vampire either and the child was exactly like him, almost in every way. "Mother wants us to have another child so we had better be prepared to do it," he added, kissing his wife's neck on the other side, away from his eldest and only off-spring.

"Yes, Thaddeus," Maria Silvana Snape said submissively, but her arms tightened around her baby tightly enough to raise another protest from the fifteen-month old child.

~~*~~

Three times in the next hour Severus Snape stopped breathing completely, twice his heart stopped beating and he was all but dead. Molly brought him back again and again with the dogged determination of a pit bull with a bone. Roger stared at her when she raised a hand as if to hit him for suggesting once again that it would be a kindness to let Severus go the next time he stopped breathing.

"NO! He isn't getting even one more of mine, do you hear?" Molly screamed at the healer in a fury of denial, her wand extended and quivering to the beat of her anger. "Severus is as much a part of this Order as any of us, and you have no right to deny him a chance of life, none at all! I will not give up, ever! How dare you even stand there and suggest such a thing to my face. How dare you!"

Arthur wrapped his arms around his distraught wife and held her close as she began to sob in overwrought exhaustion, stroking her hair and murmuring soothing noises in her ear. "There, there, Molly Dearest, just rest now, it will be alright, you'll see. I promise I will keep watch over Severus and make sure he is alive when you wake up again. If I can't keep him alive, I'll wake you before he goes so you can be here. Deal?"

Molly sniffed and nodded, the years of trust in her eyes as Arthur kissed her brow and made her rest on one of the cots close by. She went reluctantly and lay down fully clothed, but her days of stress and magical outpourings came home to roost, dragging her down into sleep before her head even touched the pillows.

"If he dies, you know she is going to blame herself," Arthur said flatly, pulling the thin cover up to her chin and smoothing it down. A wealth of love shone in his eyes as he stared at the woman who had been his wife for over thirty-five years.

Roger stirred restlessly, uncomfortably in the face of such naked emotion. "I know, but, Arthur, he is hovering on the brink, he may slip over at any moment. I can do no more for him, it's up to his own resources now and he has very little in reserve. If he lives or dies, it is by his own will."

"Severus may not be very fit or strong but he has a great will to live, if only to make sure that You-Know-Who dies before him."

"Noble ambition," Roger mused, not at all facetiously as he settled down near the Weasleys. "I suppose it won't hurt to keep a bit of a watch on him, will it?"

"Not at all," Arthur agreed with a grateful smile.

~~*~~

"Day is done and night is near,
Off to sleep now, baby dear;
Come, dreams,
Come to baby, come;
Come, dreams,
Come to baby, come."

Sevvy snuggled down in his mother's arms, the bulge of her stomach moving protestingly under his weight. Silvana laughed at both her children's indignation. "This is your baby sister," Silvana whispered in Sevvy's ear making him giggle and squirm when it tickled. "You will be a big brother, and you must look after your little sister. You will watch over her, my big boy, won't you?"

Sevvy wrinkled his nose in thought then nodded vigorously. "Will she play with me?" he asked curiously, patting his mother's dress with a small, gentle hand. He knew what 'gentle' was, and he knew what 'hurt' was, and he always made sure he was gentle; he didn't want to make hurt for anyone. He knew what hurt was, and he didn't like it at all!

Silvana smiled painfully into the silky soft hair that smelled of baby potions and little boy. "When she gets big enough she will play with you, and you can sing her the song, if you like. You have a good voice for singing, my little one."

"Weary you must be with play,
Running, running, all the day;
Come, dreams,
Come to baby, come;
Come, dreams,
Come to baby, come."

The child's thin treble and the woman's rich contralto voices blended sweetly and floated out of the nursery to where Thaddeus Snape hovered in the hallway, fearful, grieving and angry. It was all for nothing, everything was for nothing! The new baby in his wife's belly was a stupid, useless girl! His mother had cast the spell herself, despite Silvana's protests and attempts to foil the magic. It revealed that the unborn child was a daughter, not even a boy, and even less desirable than the current heir who was at least male. Veraline had given him very specific orders, both mother and child were to be put down immediately and the boy was to be present. He was to watch what happened to anyone who thwarted the orders of the Matriarch in any way. Steeling himself, Thaddeus thrust open the door and entered the nursery, making Silvana jerk around and the boy to sit up abruptly, wide black eyes suddenly narrowing as they stared at him, hatred already blooming there.

"Silvana, stand the boy over there on the hearthrug. Severus, you are to stay absolutely still, hands at your side, chin up. Good! At least you have learned to obey me in that much!" Thaddeus glared at the child then cast a quick, silent spell over the boy, making sure he could not move or even shut his eyes.

Severus tried with all his might to move but could barely make his feet shuffle as his father moved closer to his mother and sister. Jealousy flared in Severus' heart as he watched his father, wishing the man would disappear for ever and leave him and his mother alone!

His mother stood equally still, only her head moved in a tiny negating motion. "Will you not at least wait long enough to spare our daughter?" she whispered but read the answer in her husband's bleak and soulless gaze. "Then let Sevvy go. He does not need to be present for this, does he?"

"He must learn the price of disobedience," Thaddeus said flatly, placing his hand on her cheek and running it gently down to her long, white throat in a parody of a loving caress. Silvana shivered fearfully, held in thrall by the man's snake-like gaze. "I loved you and I will miss you, but I must obey the Matriarch, you know that, my beautiful, useless wife."

Sevvy screamed, a soundless, wordless wail of horror as his father calmly and efficiently crushed his mother's throat, the pale, pale skin growing blue and mottled, the terrified eyes bulging out of their sockets as she clawed at his hands in terror. His little sister kicked too, making his mother's dress move for some minutes after his mother fell bonelessly to the floor, utterly still. Thaddeus turned to glare at the child who had caused his mother to order his wife's death. The useless, worthless, human child who stood at rigid attention, his eyes glued open and horror pouring from his skin in palpable waves.

"This was all your fault, you pitiful excuse for an Heir, you caused their deaths and so on your head be it!"

He whirled away, leaving the child to shuffle painfully toward his mother's body, unable to mourn or cry or rage, held helplessly to attention in the thrall of a cruel and unending spell.

Now it's time for you to sleep,
Hush now, baby, not a peep;
Come, dreams,
Come to baby, come;
Come, dreams,
Come to baby, come.

Big and strong you're sure to grow,
If to sleep you'll quickly go;
Come, dreams,
Come to baby, come;
Come, dreams,
Come to baby, come.