All Our Yesterdays

'Malfoy. Deadline change.' Lucius Malfoy looked up to see Edward Avery brandishing a piece of parchment from the door. 'He wants it done by Friday.'

'Accio parchment.' Lucius caught it deftly and read over it, frowning as he did so. 'He'll be lucky,' he muttered, tossing it to one side and returning to his work. Remembering himself, he looked up again. 'Thanks, Avery.'

'Not a problem.' The stocky, ash-blonde man left with a casual stride, and a wave of frustration washed over Lucius.

'Shut the bloody door,' he called after him, rubbing his temples with long fingers. A word echoed faintly in the distance, and the door to the room closed with a bang. Lucius winced at the sound, and turned tired grey eyes back to the work spread out across his desk.

Not that it could really be called his desk. He had been sitting at it for nearly five days now, but it was far from the first he had worked on. He had rarely spent more than a week at any desk in Headquarters. The morning after each project was completed, he would arrive in the Entrance Hall to find his name scrawled in a different space of the living map sketched in green-glowing magic across the right-hand wall, and he would open the door of each different space to find his work laid out for him and a note of instructions in a bland, generic, character-less hand. It was always the same hand, recognisable in that it was unremarkable.

And again, the same hand marred the surface of the parchment he had summoned. Only a few words, no more than were necessary to inform Lucius that rather than next Tuesday, he only had until Friday to complete the task he had been set five days ago. The Dark Lord is optimistic, thought Lucius, as he stared at the parchments in front of him, some covered in his own elegant scrawl, some in the unreadable hand of Avery, some in meticulously printed lines and letters that looked somewhat more official. In the spaces between the parchments lay stacks of books, drawn from the gaps in the shelves that lined the walls of the room in which Lucius sat, which occasionally collapsed and made Lucius jump.

The idea was that Lucius had been given a blueprint of a single door in the Ministry, what lay behind it he had no clue. This blueprint detailed the exact specifications of every inch of the door, including what would happen to an unauthorised individual who decided to try and open it. Lucius had been asked to ascertain the exact combination of curses that lay on the door, and then produce some sort of spell that could disable them. The first part had been easy enough; the last was proving rather more difficult.

Of course, the exhaustion wasn't exactly helping. Lucius was perfectly capable of completing the task; he wouldn't have been given it if he weren't. He had proved himself to have something of a talent for spell synthesis, which the Dark Lord had quickly picked up on and made use of. But he was tired, more tired than he could ever remember being in his life. His concentration span had been whittled down to mere seconds; his eyes kept slipping in and out of focus. As either he or his surroundings moved he saw trails of motion blur smudging the air; every gesture seemed composed of a series of frames, invisible at normal working speed, but now isolated with nothing to fill the spaces between them. He felt fragmented as he moved; there was continuity in nothing but the pain festering behind his left temple, pulsating and swelling and spreading out tendrils that crept across his face, behind his eyes, tightening across the bridge of his nose and stabbing into the nerves of his teeth. Everything else was jagged and jarring, sharp shattered sounds that fell on him like a rainstorm of needles, but this pain was constant for as long as he sat in this room and looked at this work, this work that he couldn't do because he couldn't concentrate, and he couldn't concentrate because his head hurt, and his head hurt because he was still trapped in this room, and he was still trapped in this room because he couldn't finish this bloody work.

He wondered, briefly, if a change of scenery might help. This room above all the others he had been in had one fundamental flaw, in Lucius' eyes, and that was that there were no windows. He hated it, hated the dull and polluted light that seeped from the glass-covered torches mounted high upon the walls. He loathed the soft and muted edge that the room took on, loathed that rather than exposing and illuminating this light seemed to shroud and obscure. Living in a dungeon had almost killed Lucius at school; he had in the end been pushed to enchant windows onto his dormitory walls in order to see natural light when he was down there. Lucius loved the light that can only be found in the open air of the daytime, the pure light of that sharp and unique quality that can, like nothing else, render everything it touches real and absolute. This pitiful excuse for light was slowly and relentlessly driving Lucius insane with every second he spent contaminated by it, coating with its yellowish glow every day the same ink-stained desk, the same cushionless chair, the same towering bookshelves, the same Victorian décor, the same parquet floor and hideous rug, the same bloody everything and if Lucius had never been claustrophobic before, he was now.

The heavy door opened a crack, and Lucius considered making a break for it. In a second a thousand wild visions of escape flooded his brain, before a thin figure slipped through the gap and the floods subsided.

'What do you want, Nott?' Nott looked a little taken aback. For all the exasperation in Lucius' voice, the older man had never interrupted Lucius before, so was more than a little confused. Equally, however, he rather resented being snapped at, and so was hardly forthcoming with his reply.

'Well, if you don't want the curse that'll make your life easier, fine.'

'What the fuck do you know about what I'm working on, Nott?' Lucius questioned, wearily. The thin, sharp-faced man smiled unpleasantly.

'Avery sent it.' Lucius swore to himself. Although Edward Avery was not working with Lucius as such, Lucius had none the less asked him for help in a certain area, knowing him to have significant specialised knowledge of the subject. Which meant that regrettably, Nott probably did know what he was talking about. Although it wasn't as though he was going to keep it from him anyway. 'Accio parchment.'

Nott looked as though a minor victory had been stolen from him as Lucius caught and read the note. Lucius was not the most popular of the Death Eaters, he was among the most talented, and recognised as such; the Dark Lord's child prodigy at the age of just twenty. Most of his peers were well aware that Lucius' power, intelligence and skill meant that if rewards were coming to any of them, most would come to him. Lucius, however, ignored the sour look on Nott's face entirely as he read Avery's note, a smile spreading across his face and lighting up his eyes. This was exactly it, the unknown curse that had been his stumbling block so far. He laid the parchment carefully on the table in front of him, dismissing Nott with a careless 'Tell Avery thanks.' The other Death Eater left with an inelegant sniff.

'For Merlin's sake, Nott, shut the door.' The ensuing bang jolted every nerve in Lucius' body.

At least now, though, he would be able to make something approaching progress. Towards what, he had no idea. Which was a good point, actually, Lucius thought. He didn't know why he was doing this. In fact, he had been told pitifully little beyond the barest bones of instructions. Presumably, he decided, something important lay behind this door, something that the Dark Lord wanted to get his hands on. But it could have been anything. It had never before struck Lucius as strange that he didn't know. Certainly it bore little relevance to the work he was doing; the enchantments he had managed to isolate protected from intruders rather than contained any kind of force. But still. It was curious, maddeningly so. This strange and alien concept, this unknown and mysterious entity that lurked behind the charm-laden door - all Lucius could do was hold it in his mind's eye, regarding it with a blankness born of total and absolute lack of understanding. He would rather have known sketchy details and speculated to fill in the blanks than have no clue whatsoever as to what the hell it was.

But when all was said and done, it wasn't exactly important. Oh, it would slowly and persistently drive him insane over the three days he had left until his deadline, but then there was very little that hadn't been, recently. Of course, it wasn't as though he was grasping at every available distraction to take his mind from the task in hand. Of course not.

He couldn't understand why this was proving so difficult. It was nothing beyond what had been asked of him before. But then, perhaps that was exactly the problem. It was nothing new, nothing exciting, but moreover nothing that seemed to have a definite and concrete purpose. For a little less than a year now he had been taking apart and solving incidental annoyances that the Dark Lord wanted untangled, assuming all the while that he was contributing to some sort of coherent whole. But it had been a little less than a year now, and he had seen nothing to show for it, and frankly, he was starting to tire of it. What was the point in working around the clock if he wasn't going to see some sort of result? He had barely seen Severus over the last month. He would lie awake next to him every night, watching him sleep with wide, intent grey eyes, studying his face almost feverishly to make up for every moment he hadn't seen it over the past four weeks. And he didn't want to do it anymore. He didn't want to have to do it. He wanted to be able to see Severus, to touch his face and brush his hair out of his eyes whenever he bloody well felt like it.

He knew he was being petulant, just as he knew that it would probably all be worth it in the end. It might even be worth it before then. Perhaps this work would finally push the Dark Lord towards rewarding Lucius in the manner he had been so cryptically alluding to of late. For whatever he may have been in the eyes of his fellow Death Eaters, Lucius Malfoy was something of a favourite of the Dark Lord. He didn't know why, although he assumed it to be something to do with the skill and competence with which he had been performing every task his Lord had set him. He was something akin to a teacher's pet, he supposed, and while such sycophantic self-ingratiation hardly appealed to him there could be no doubt that it would come in infinitely useful. Lucius didn't know that to the Dark Lord, he was everything you could want in a Death Eater. Supremely clever without being dangerously so, an independent thinker while still impressionable, with a glittering façade to present to the world and, most importantly, the potential to be seduced by the promise of power. Not so submissive that his very presence grated on one's nerves, but willing enough to show servility to one who promised him remuneration for it. In fact, as far as the Dark Lord was concerned, Lucius Malfoy had just one flaw. While adept at concealing his emotions, he was inept at controlling them.

The door opened this time with a creak that shuddered through Lucius' temples.

'What?' he snapped, looking up, grey eyes shooting daggers towards the door. Avery smiled lazily in the face of Lucius' irritation.

'Tired, Malfoy?'

'Fuck off, Avery.'

'Charming.' Avery murmured a few words, and the parchment in his hands folded itself into a paper aeroplane. 'But I won't hold it against you,' he continued, taking careful aim at the bridge of Lucius' nose. 'This turned up on my desk from a new recruit. It looks like it might have some relevance.'

'You dare, Avery, and I swear I'll make you regret - ' The aeroplane hit Lucius on his left cheekbone, a little below his eye. He flicked his wand from his pocket and absently threw a streak of scarlet light at Avery as he read over the note, unheeding of the other man's yelp of pain as a long, shallow gash opened across his cheek. 'I told you,' he murmured, looking critically at his handiwork. Avery glared at him.

'If it wasn't for the fact that the Dark Lord is watching every room in this place, I'd hex you through the ceiling, Malfoy.' Lucius laughed. It wasn't a pleasant sound.

'I'd like to see you try. But we've already established that you're not going to, so it doesn't matter. Thanks for this, by the way, it's quite a useful little spell.' Lucius' airy tone felt dangerous, and Avery decided to proceed with caution.

'No problem, Malfoy.' Lucius didn't seem to have heard him.

'Although why everyone in this accursed place feels the need to communicate through letters instead of coming and bloody talking to me is beyond me.'

'No, I can't imagine why they aren't queuing up for the pleasure of your company,' Avery muttered under his breath, watching Lucius with trepidation. Again, the blonde seemed to be ignoring him.

'And why our Master can't organise a coherent group meeting so we'd all know what the fuck we were working towards remains a mystery to me,' Lucius remarked, voice keening up dangerously.

'I'll just be going, then,' Avery said, sidling through the door. Lucius watched him go. He paused for a second, beginning to count to five but giving up at two.

'Shut the bloody door!' he shouted, voice reverberating around the room. He twitched violently at the bang that followed before turning, heavy-eyed, back to his work.

* * *

'Severus. I've been expecting you.' The smile that greeted him was exactingly pleasant. Severus returned it carefully.

'I'm not late, am I, my Lord?' he inquired politely, stepping out from the doorframe. Voldemort laughed airily.

'Oh, no, Severus. You're pleasingly punctual.' Severus smiled a courteous response.

'I do try, my Lord.' The empty pleasantries did their job, Severus thought. And although he had spotted the Dark Lord as a Legilimens within minutes of meeting him, Severus had come up against far more powerful. Dumbledore, for one. Evan Rosier, for another. Evan in particular had been useful to him, having offered his services on numerous occasions to help Severus develop as an Occlumens, with the result that here and now before the Dark Lord he was confident that Voldemort could see no deeper than his practised manners.

It was useful, really, Severus thought. No one ever knew when he was lying, except Evan. And although his natural talents lay more towards Occlumency, he was a sufficiently accomplished Legilimens to spot a falsehood when he saw one. With the Dark Lord, though, it was difficult. Severus was a better Occlumens than Voldemort was a Legilimens, but regrettably, the converse was also true. It took concentration to penetrate the Dark Lord's mind, concentration that would leave Severus vulnerable, so he rarely tried. But sometimes, when Voldemort let his guard down, there were flashes that could be picked up on. It was all a matter of knowing what you were looking for.

'Come in, Severus, come in, please. Have a seat.' It was Tom Riddle, Severus thought, who flashed him that dazzling smile as he sat, that smile that lit up the features of the charismatic young man he had begun his career as. Still, to a point, he was handsome. 'I know I promised you the grand tour,' he continued, a disarming familiarity to his tone, 'but I just have to tidy up a loose end or two. If you'll give me a second, then.'

'Of course, my Lord,' said Severus lightly. Obediently, and as expected, he turned his attention from his new employer's scrawling quill. It was a lovely office, he thought, casting an appreciative eye over the well-cared for and equally well-thumbed volumes that lined the walls. The thin, long-limbed man on the other side of the desk was throned by full-length bay windows that looked out onto the Swiss Alps and diffused the room with a cold and brilliant light. Which was a little strange, given that Severus had arrived at the front door on a rainy day in Wiltshire. But a nice piece of enchantment, he thought, even if the postcard view was a little unoriginal.

'Done,' said Tom Riddle, with an air of satisfied finality. Severus' attention flickered back to him instantly. 'So,' he continued, sitting back in his chair and fixing Severus with his scarlet-shot eyes. 'I assume you had little trouble in finding us.'

'In a manner of speaking,' Severus said, smiling dryly. That morning, he had taken hold of the Portkey Lucius had left him and been jerked to the foot of a large and unnatural looking hill next to a sign reading Ministry of Defence Property: No Trespassing. It had taken him a good few minutes of searching, all the while glancing over his shoulder for anything that looked like a firing range, to realise that into the foot of this large and unnatural looking hill was set a small, grass-covered door. Voldemort laughed his affected laugh.

'Yes, it's hardly the ideal location. But it serves its purpose admirably. All that was needed was to dispose of the Muggles working here, invest a little time and money in refurbishment, and here we are with a headquarters on which no one, wizard or Muggle, would be stupid enough to trespass.' Severus frowned.

'And does the Ministry of Defence not notice that one of their facilities is mysteriously out of action?' Voldemort laughed again, more unpleasantly this time.

'Severus, the Muggle fools that run the Ministry have tightened security to such an extent that not even their own men are allowed to know what is happening from base to base. It is ridiculously easy for my Death Eaters to publish a series of wordily abstruse reports full of meaningless code every now and again and keep the Muggles off our backs entirely. And of course, there are ways and means of dealing with the more irritatingly tenacious.'

'Of course,' Severus agreed, absently. Rather clever, really, he thought, vaguely impressed.

'But come, now,' the Dark Lord said, moving out from behind his desk. Severus stood awkwardly, standing slightly on the edge of his robes. 'A tour, then.' With a perfunctory smile and a slight nod of acknowledgement, Severus followed the Dark Lord out of his office and into a panelled corridor that looked somewhat familiar. 'I will show you the most important areas,' the Dark Lord said, with the air of someone who believed themselves to be doing a great service. 'But I wouldn't advise that you spend too much time wandering these corridors,' he continued. 'They tend to be awfully similar, and it is all too easy to get lost.' Severus stored that for future reference, and began mentally mapping the turns they were making. He noted, curiously, that some of the branching passages they passed were radiating unfriendly magic. Not ones to be walked down. They stopped for the first time outside an archway, through which Severus could see four men, all somewhere between twenty and forty, drinking coffee and arguing around a piece of parchment.

'My Muggle Relations officers,' Voldemort said with a nasty smile, waving a long-fingered hand in the direction of the Death Eaters. 'Responsible for such things as elaborating the Ministry of Defence reports I spoke of earlier. Essentially, they keep this underground organisation underground, if you like.' Severus nodded, but he wasn't really paying much attention. He had recognised one of the men as Rodolphus Lestrange, Lucius' closest friend and by default a good friend of Severus'. Hardly surprising, Severus supposed, that he would be here. Lestrange had winged it through most of his theory exams on the basis of a nice way with words, and his sharp brown eyes were finely attuned to detail, both of which would make him invaluable here. As Severus turned to leave Rodolphus caught his eye and winked a greeting; a touch of familiarity that made Severus feel strangely comfortable.

They walked on. Or Severus supposed they did. It was difficult to tell when the walls didn't seem to change from step to step. Every now and then the monotony was broken by a door, or a left or right turning, but besides that every panel of the walls was the same width, papered in the same heavy, expensive-looking, two-tone green striped satin, and every torch was positioned along it at exactly equal intervals, and the gold motif on the forest green carpet recurred in precise hexagonal patterns. Or triangles, Severus thought, as he looked at it again. Or even pyramids. Or diamonds. He watched his feet as he walked, eyes focusing, unfocusing and refocusing on the tiny gold shapes, tracing and binding them into different arrangements each time he looked.

Voldemort stopped again, this time outside a heavy brass-handled door that melted away at a touch of the Dark Lord's hand. He motioned for Severus to look through into the room that was revealed.

'Training,' he explained, as Severus studied the spacious chamber with an eyebrow raised in curiosity. There were two young Death Eaters, one male, one female, duelling clumsily along the room's length, hurling curses Severus recognised as highly illegal, and one, a little older, watching. The duellers' hexes only seemed to be successful about one time in three. 'Some of those who come to me have great potential, but very little, ah, formal instruction. This is where they receive the appropriate teaching.'

'Crucio!' The young woman had finally managed to produce an Unforgivable, after four or five attempts had sputtered and died. Her partner crumpled to the floor with a scream as the woman, dark-haired with heavy, hooded eyes, stepped back in triumph.

'Very good, Bellatrix,' Voldemort called into the room, smiling an indulgent smile. The woman, unheeding of her partner's agony, turned towards the door, eyes widening in awe as she saw the source of the compliment. She sank into an undignified sort of curtsey, flushing with an ecstatic pride.

'Thank you, my Lord, thank you,' she murmured breathlessly. Severus looked hard at her. He knew her name, although this was the first time he had met her. Bellatrix Black was the other half of the Black 'let's marry our daughters off as quickly as possible so we no longer have to live with the vile little things' marriage agreement. Though Narcissa's slightly older sister, the two were as unlike as siblings could be. Not merely in appearance, although Bellatrix's dramatic colouring and strikingly strong features were a far cry from Narcissa's pale and elegant delicacy. Bellatrix was, according to Lucius, anyway, that little bit more...fanatical, he had eventually concluded.

'She gets awfully worked up about things,' Lucius had said, wrinkling his nose a little. 'No decorum.'

'What do you expect from a bloodline that produced Sirius 'Subtlety? What the fuck is that?' Black?' Severus had replied, dryly.

'Narcissa managed to escape it, though.' And the subject had been abruptly changed.

Inbred, sycophantic idiot, Severus decided, looking at her flushed cheeks and gleaming eyes. He wondered why Rodolphus wasn't running for the hills at the mere thought of having to marry her. Strangely, though, Rodolphus usually spoke of her quite fondly. Perhaps it's the novelty value, Severus mused. It would certainly be interesting, at least, to be married to a nutcase.

'You are making excellent progress, Bellatrix. Keep it up.' Severus rolled his eyes as the young woman (was she a year older than him? A year older than Narcissa, Lucius had said) fell over herself to thank the Dark Lord, her benevolent master, her gracious sire. Severus shifted impatiently. This held no interest for him.

'Come, Severus. Let us continue.' The two of them set off again down yet another identical corridor. It was difficult to tell if they were actually moving, thought Severus, or if their feet were simply treading aimlessly the same carpet over and over again. The Dark Lord was talking but Severus wasn't listening, which he supposed could be construed as dangerous. It was one of those conversations, though, when all that is really expected of the listener are appropriate noises in appropriate places, but even they aren't really missed when they aren't there. And besides, Severus thought, allowing the light, pleasant voice to wash over him, what he was saying was hardly fascinating. Nor was what he wasn't saying. For all Severus tried to pick up menacing undertones, or veiled insinuations, he couldn't help but reach the conclusion that the Dark Lord really was just making small talk. Some twittering about the problems he had had with refurbishing the place.

This time, the door they stopped at was on their right. It creaked open at the Dark Lord's touch to reveal a room more cluttered than those he had seen so far, packed haphazardly with desks and every available surface, walls, ceiling and all, papered with maps and photographs.

'Reconnaissance,' stated Voldemort, waving a hand grandly at the mess. Severus nodded, leaning in for a closer look. Considering the place looked like a disaster area, the six or seven Death Eaters scattered around looked remarkably calm. One or two were working intently at minute squares of clean desk space, three others were huddled in conference in front of a large, wall-mounted map, two more looked as though they were playing Hangman, but Severus couldn't tell for sure. It could be Battleships, he thought, absently.

'What sort of reconnaissance?' he asked, genuinely curious. The Dark Lord looked pleased at his interest.

'These loyal followers of mine are paving the way for our success,' the older man declared. 'They look for strongholds and weaknesses within the Ministry, both physical and ideological. They seek out targets that we can attack and be reasonably sure of success. They also provide us with an idea of if and when the wind is changing as regards public attitude towards our current government.' Severus nodded, digesting this.

'Useful,' he said, finally.

'Invaluable,' Voldemort corrected. 'Shall we?' Severus nodded acquiescence, and they moved on.

They continued down innumerable corridors, Severus having given up any attempts at charting the paths they had thus far walked, until the Dark Lord stopped at a fourth door, again identical to all the rest.

'Experimental Curses,' Voldemort announced, pushing it open. This door, unlike the others, opened simply on to another long, identically decorated corridor, from which yet more doors branched. Severus looked curiously at the Dark Lord.

'Most of my loyal Death Eaters are employed in this field, and most work alone within it,' Voldemort explained, setting off down the newly revealed corridor with Severus in tow. 'It would have been unnecessary and impractical to throw them all into one big room and leave them to get on with it.'

'I suppose it would,' agreed Severus absently, his mind elsewhere. This was yet another corner coloured in of his mental conception of Voldemort's followers, his Death Eaters, this army being readied for battle. His quick mind held all he had gleaned so far that day in delicately arranged layers, carefully balanced into a coherent picture. With a blink, he let the house of cards collapse in on itself, turning his attention instead back to the Dark Lord, who was surveying the myriad of doors before him thoughtfully.

'I have found, Severus,' the older man went on distractedly, still contemplating the doors, 'that the magic widely known to wizardkind is not...extensive enough for my purposes. The Death Eaters behind these doors are working on extending it.' Finally, the Dark Lord had Severus' full attention.

'So you're actually creating new magics,' he said, eyes sharp with interest. The Dark Lord laughed his airy, affected laugh.

'Yes, I thought that might appeal to you. Don't worry, Severus. Though you will not be serving me here, rest assured the task I have for you is not dissimilar. My Death Eaters here work with wand, runic and arithmantic magic, but your skills, I feel, lie elsewhere, don't you think?' Voldemort trailed off as he narrowed his eyes in thought at a door to his right, hardly expecting the answer that Severus decided not to give. The older man looked at Severus shrewdly for a moment, as though trying to gauge something. Severus looked impassively back.

'Let me show you some of the work being undertaken here,' Voldemort said eventually. He turned to the door he had been scowling at and pushed it open, motioning for Severus to enter. A distinctly irritable voice snapped out a welcome as he did.

'What?' Severus started. He knew that voice better than any other voice in the world. Recognised that unique random blend of deadened tiredness, frustrated edginess, shattered sensitivity. Lucius Malfoy looked up from his desk and immediately cursed himself.

'Now, Lucius. What sort of welcome is that for our newest recruit?' came the Dark Lord's silky voice from behind Severus. The younger man just stood there, staring, eyes bright, face crossed by a reflexive smile and slowly relaxing from the jolt of recognition that jerked in his stomach and felt like a flame had ignited every time he saw Lucius. Staring at the reciprocation, the mirrored image of his own delight that sparked across the tired face of the man seated at the desk.

'My apologies, my Lord,' Lucius said smoothly, turning his attention to the Dark Lord. 'It was remiss of me to be so abrupt. Please accept my assurances that it will not happen again, my Lord.' Severus watched Lucius interestedly. His words felt so empty, and yet fell with the utmost sincerity upon the ears they were intended for. Even his practised smile glittered with candour.

But he was tired, thought Severus, concern twisting like a corkscrew in his gut. So very tired. His hair was dishevelled, fingertip trails rumpling it into tangled strands, his skin delicately fragile in its translucency. Grey eyes had softened upon looking up at Severus, but circled by deep shadows retained a painful hollowness.

'I should hope not,' replied Voldemort, though there was no threat in his tone. 'How are you progressing, Lucius?'

'Not as quickly as I would have liked, my Lord, but quickly enough,' Lucius answered, keeping his eyes resolutely off Severus, who he could see smiling out of the corner of his eye. 'Avery's help has proved invaluable,' he continued. He was lying through his teeth; Severus could always tell. Briefly the younger man wondered exactly how unhelpful Avery had been.

'Lucius has been attempting to disable certain security curses at the Ministry of Magic,' Voldemort explained, turning to Severus, who was caught a little off guard. He saw Lucius suppress a giggle as he hastily regained his composure.

'I see,' Severus said, somewhat irrelevantly. Voldemort looked sharply at him before motioning towards the door.

'I think we have seen enough here, Severus,' he said. 'Let us move on.' And he swept out of the room, leaving Severus no choice but to follow him. He shot one last glance at Lucius, who smiled softly at him. Severus smiled back and left, shutting the door carefully behind him.

* * *

Lucius Malfoy puts down his quill, never wanting to pick it up again. He doesn't know why the Dark Lord brought Severus to see him. But whatever his misgivings, whatever niggling worries unsettle him, he is glad that he did. It reminds him of Hogwarts, the early days when their relationship was made up mostly of those almost stolen interchanges, glimpses caught in corridors from lesson to lesson and bright-eyed smiles flashed across the heads of first years, heads turning at the slightest glimmer of silver hair or black eyes and breath catching slightly as gazes locked.

* * *

'I will await your arrival here tomorrow, then, Severus.' It was almost a request. Almost. Almost a show of consideration, or even respect. But the intonation wasn't quite there. Not that it made any difference, of course, Severus mused. Requested or demanded, he would come. It just would have been...interesting, he thought, to have been asked. No matter.

'Of course, my Lord,' Severus answered, smiling politely. There was a moment of silence, before he queried:

'How do you recommend that I get here, my Lord? Is Apparating likely to cause much...' He paused. 'Unwanted attention,' he finished. Voldemort nodded in understanding.

'Astute of you to ask, Severus. Naturally, it is impossible to Apparate or Disapparate inside the complex, and you are quite right in thinking that the sudden appearance of a flock of Death Eaters in a field in Wiltshire every morning could arouse suspicion in anyone who manages to get past Muggle Relations.' The expression on Voldemort's face suggested to Severus that he didn't think there would be many of these.

'Luckily, however,' he continued, 'I have managed to devise an alternative solution.' He looked rather pleased with himself, thought Severus. In an odd way, it was vaguely endearing. Severus graciously looked expectantly impressed. 'Hold out your arm,' Voldemort instructed. Naturally, Severus did so unquestioningly, unthinkingly extending the arm that bore his mark of loyalty. Voldemort looked at the Mark contemplatively, almost as though he had never taken the time to look at one before. Whatever he was thinking, however, it soon passed, and Severus watched as Voldemort narrowed his scarlet-shot eyes at the Mark in concentration. Wandless magic, he thought, still waiting for the spell he knew was coming. It was not the first time he had seen it, but it still impressed him. He wondered if the Dark Lord would ever be willing to teach him.

'This,' the Dark Lord said almost abstractedly, 'will bring you to your workplace upon touching the Mark with your right little finger.' Severus looked at him. 'Specific, I know. But it minimises the chance of accidental transportation.'

Suddenly, Severus felt a deathly cold pierce the skin at his wrist. He shivered involuntarily as it wriggled beneath his skin, squirming a little at the uncomfortable tickling feeling it induced. As the feeling subsided, he saw Voldemort smiling slightly.

'Odd,' he remarked lightly. 'Most of my Death Eaters thus far seemed to rather like it.'

'I'm not fond of being tickled.' The almost childish honesty and utter inappropriateness of his instant response startled Severus. Luckily, the Dark Lord's smile merely deepened a little.

'Indeed?' The single word hung uncomfortably in the air between them for a moment, before Voldemort's tone became once again businesslike.

'As for leaving,' he went on, without ever having seemed to leave off, 'each office is connected to a modification of the Floo network.' Again, he seemed pleased with himself, although Severus couldn't help but wonder what part Voldemort had actually played in the development of this idea. 'Modified in that each fireplace can only take you to one other, namely, that of the home of the specific Death Eater who works in that office, and that you can only travel from here, to there.' He smiled at Severus. 'Ingenious, if I do say so myself.' Severus couldn't help but smile back. At that precise instant, he sounded just like Lucius.

'Indeed, my Lord,' he agreed. For a moment, there was something like friendliness in the air between them. Then it was gone, and Severus found himself under the close and uncomfortable scrutiny of one of Voldemort's most piercing gazes.

'Your workplace, however,' he began, a thoughtful furrow to his brow, 'does not currently have a fireplace. Something will have been done about that by tomorrow.' There was an odd, not entirely unpleasant pause. Severus waited expectantly for this train of thought to arrive at its final destination. Then, a look of finality crossed Voldemort's face and he nodded, evidently to himself.

'Tonight, then,' he said decisively. 'As I understand it, you are living at Malfoy Manor.' Severus merely nodded in concession; he saw no reason for an explanation. 'Then you may use the fireplace in Lucius' office to return home.' Severus couldn't help it; he visibly brightened. He had been hoping for a chance to see Lucius before he left, but hadn't thought he would be able to escape the eye of the Dark Lord. Although there was one slight problem, Severus realised, his heart sinking again. He had absolutely no clue how to get to Lucius' office.

Voldemort sighed with all the benevolent exasperation of someone trying to explain something very simple to someone endearingly stupid. Severus looked at him. For a second, the Dark Lord's eyes were unfocused, as glassy as bleeding emeralds, then the older man turned to look at Severus.

'That door, I believe you'll find,' he said, pointing to one slightly to his left. Severus looked at him with poorly concealed astonishment.

'You only have to - ?'

'It is not quite that simple, Severus.' The Dark Lord cut him off quite abruptly, although the same patient smile played about his lips. 'The inside of this bunker is entirely constructed from magic. One of its more important features is that if you think about the door you wish to open, it will appear before you. On one proviso, of course,' he added, with an unreadable smile. Severus looked at him, the unspoken question clear in his gaze.

'That your reasons for opening the aforementioned door are judged reasonable by me. How?' he asked, again reading the question in Severus' eyes. 'Simple. This place was conceived by me, therefore every inch of it bears the mark of my mind. I merely enhanced this in the basic wall and floor structure.' Severus was a little confused.

'Then why - '

'Why did I take you down so many corridors to begin with?' Voldemort finished. Severus nodded. The older man smiled unpleasantly. 'To give you an idea of the trouble you would find yourself in were I to find your intentions unreasonable.'

Severus understood. He also decided that he would learn to get around this obstacle if it was the only thing he did here. He nodded acquiescently at the Dark Lord, who clapped his hands together in satisfaction.

'Then that will be all for today, Severus. And inform Lucius that he has worked hard enough for today, and may leave when he wishes. Tell him I would advise him to make the most of this opportunity, I will not often be this generous.' Severus bowed.

'I will, my Lord.' And with that, he opened the door to Lucius' office.

Lucius didn't seem surprised when Severus walked in. Pleased, yes, but not surprised. Which in itself surprised Severus, a little. Not that it mattered, though, not at that moment. Lucius was smiling across the room at him with a muted and tranquil pleasure; for the first time all day, Severus felt himself relax. There was a moment of satisfied silence, then:

'Hello.' Severus held Lucius' gaze for a second, almost smiling. Then, unable to contain it, quiet hopeless laughter began to escape his lips. It just sounded so odd, so very normal in such a very strange place after such a very, very strange day. Lucius looked vaguely affronted.

'I've said much stranger things to you in greeting than that,' he pointed out.

'I know,' Severus replied, still smiling with that odd air of resignation. 'It's just...' he looked at Lucius again, then shook his head. 'Not important,' he finished. Lucius shrugged.

'If you say so.' The smile was beginning to die on Severus' lips. He felt...not distance, exactly, he thought, not as though Lucius wasn't all there, but more, perhaps, that he wasn't all Lucius. Every emotion he saw in Lucius' face and heard in his voice seemed to have had its sharp edge blunted; he lacked a vitality to which Severus had become accustomed.

'Long day?' he inquired.

'Recently I've come to redefine my concepts of "long" and "short",' Lucius replied with a grimace. He suppressed a yawn. 'And to be fair, by my usual standards, today falls somewhere between "lengthy" and "prolonged".' Severus laughed, a sound of genuine amusement that seemed to animate Lucius somewhat.

'Of course, if you hadn't arrived,' he continued, 'it might have edged closer towards "painfully drawn out".' Severus' laughter was contagious, and Lucius went on with a bright-eyed smile of his own. 'It could have been worse, though. The other day I reached a new upper limit: "seconds away from suicide". This was nowhere near that.'

When some people are less than themselves, it takes the wit of a friend to cheer them up. Lucius Malfoy always felt better when given the chance to exercise his own wit. And he always felt very much better when it was Severus laughing in response. It was odd, he supposed, but he just liked watching Severus. Laughing, crying, thinking, sleeping, anything. There was a lot he would have said he liked about Severus, but of everything this was the most inexplicable, this pleasure derived from his very presence. It confused Lucius no end. But he rather liked it.

Severus looked across at him with twinkling eyes. Oh, he could still see the tiredness that clung possessively to his lover, dull and grey and heavy. But now, at least, it had faded, lightened, loosened its grip; at least now it didn't look like it was choking him.

Lucius watched as Severus came to perch on his desk, arranging his feet on Lucius' lap. Then, with a sigh of release he sank forward, resting his forehead on Severus' knees. He felt Severus' long fingers in his hair and smiled.

'Do you know,' he murmured, voice muffled by the folds of Severus' black robes, 'that I've never been so glad to see anyone in my life as I was to see you just then?' From somewhere above him, he heard a murmur that sounded like 'I know what you mean.' Severus, however, was far too engrossed in Lucius' hair to bother with enunciation. Which, in Lucius' opinion, could only be a good thing. The fingertips gently twisting curls in silvery hair were slowly turning his brain to a state of pleasurable mush; his breathing was slowing; his eyes were closing...

He sat up abruptly. It startled Severus, who looked at him quizzically.

'It was sending me to sleep,' Lucius explained. He smiled, suddenly and brightly, at Severus. 'I don't see enough of you as it is,' he went on, a note of bitterness all but imperceptible creeping into his voice. 'I certainly don't intend to sleep through an opportunity that I can't help but feel won't come up again very often.'

'He's given you the evening off,' Severus informed him, in an attempt to stop him becoming overly maudlin. Lucius smiled at this, evidently pleased, but his cynicism was unshakeable.

'Like I said,' he repeated, 'an opportunity that won't come again any time soon.'

'I don't doubt that,' Severus conceded. 'So let's make the most of it.' He leant forward, lips brushing the top of Lucius' head, the bridge of his nose, finally reaching Lucius' mouth. The older man closed his eyes, relaxing into the kiss; Severus' hands were on his shoulders, his touch sending shivers down his spine; Lucius was reaching for Severus, fingers tracing the lines of his hipbones; Severus slid from the desk onto Lucius' lap...

And then, in an instant, Severus found himself looking, disgruntled, into Lucius' over-bright eyes, two feet of empty air between them where a second earlier there had been barely two inches, and wondering, hurt and confused, why Lucius had pushed him away.

'I'm sorry, Sev,' he murmured, eyes pleading for understanding. 'It's just - ' he broke off, visibly troubled. 'Here - it feels almost as though he's watching us.' Severus had got no such feeling. But Lucius looked genuinely disquieted, and it wrenched at something deep inside Severus to see it. And Lucius, after all, knew better than he did to what extent it was wise to be wary of the Dark Lord. His year spent here must have shown him something, Severus supposed, that he himself had not yet seen.

He nodded, shaking the vague feeling of resentment and smiling at Lucius, who looked visibly relieved. It felt late in Lucius' room. There was no way of telling; it just felt it.

'Home, then?'