Into the Mouth of Hell

Into the Mouth of Hell: Chapter 15

Somebody's Done For

Love is too young to know what conscience is,

Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?

He responded to the advert in the Daily Prophet as a matter of course, more to sustain the habit than with any real hope. And so he was almost startled when he received an answer back, asking for an interview later in the week, on September 22, Bella's birthday. Dumbledore had requested to meet in the evening after dinner, and Severus had sent back the school owl with his affirmative reply. Narcissa, of course, was highly pleased, and wished Severus luck. Lucius raised an eyebrow over the top of the newspaper, but said nothing. He had grown moodier over the summer. The death of the Prewett brothers had attracted a lot of attention in the press and the Ministry was bearing down harder on anyone thought to be involved with the Dark Lord or any known supporters. Mulciber had been taken to Azkaban while at lunch in a pub. Lucius was called in for questioning that afternoon, but quickly released after Narcissa sent a few owls to a few of the right people. But it had seriously jarred Lucius, and he had begun to spend more time at home during the day with Draco and Narcissa.

Narcissa was busily sending off invitations for a celebration the Malfoys were hosting in honor of Bella's twenty-fourth birthday. They were hiring a band and having the affair catered by Flora Fortescue, whose brother ran the famous ice cream parlor in Diagon Alley and who had been nominated best in her field in a recent Witch Weekly poll. Draco, as luck would have it, was entering his terrible twos seven terrible months ahead of schedule.

"Isn't there anything we can do?" Lucius asked dryly, surveying his son, who was yelling and beating his new toy broomstick against the cupboards. His new favorite word was "galore," and he was making loud use of it this morning.

"I'm afraid we just have to bear through it, dear," Narcissa said sweetly.

"You should be rather glad you missed teething," Severus said dryly, raising his teacup to his mouth. Lucius looked at Severus, who had become accustomed to tuning out the toddler, and without words turned the page of his paper and continued reading.

* * * * *

The morning of the twenty-second, Severus was startled awake by a nightmare. He rarely dreamed, and he very seldom had nightmares. He sat up, sweating, looking quickly around his room. His legs were tangled in his bed sheets as if he had been thrashing wildly, and his body was sore. Tearing himself free, he nearly fell out of his bed in his rush to get to his trunk, which still held all of the books he had with him at Jagermeister. He put aside volume after volume on potion making, until he found the book he was looking for at the very bottom. It had been his comfort book: the book he read before falling asleep every night during his first year abroad when his head had swirled with unpleasant images from his last year at home. He opened the back cover and pulled out the picture he had studied countless hours before sleeping. In it, he was thirteen, Bella sixteen. They stood at the Hogsmeade station near Christmastime in matching green and silver scarves, their arms full of colorful packages. Rosier and Wilkes stood behind them, laughing. They were both truly smiling as Avery snapped the picture. Somewhere outside of the frame, Roddy was sneaking up on the unseen cameraman with an armload of snowballs. Their photographic selves still stood smiling.

He put the photo aside and gently twirled the pressed ivy he had saved from his first night of Hogwarts, the day he had first met Bella. He tucked it back into the book, between the last two pages, and then read the inscription in the front cover Andromeda had made to him nearly a decade ago: There are more things in heaven and earth, dear Severus, than are dreamt of in our philosophy. He had pondered it for years why she would write such an inscription and give him such a book for being a friend to her younger sister. Severus had always figured Andromeda to be a little off, so he had never really tried very hard to understand. It was the "our" that troubled him.

In his nightmare, Bella had said those very same words to him. Well, her corpse had said them. For in his dream, she had drowned, and he stood above her, his hands around her throat, looking into her eyes through the murk of the water separating them. The mouth had opened, issuing bubbles which, when they broke the surface, released the words in sounds like birds singing. But Severus had understood perfectly, and Bella had risen, and then Severus was the one trapped underwater, Bella's skeletal hands holding him under. And then he had woken.

That entire day, he drifted through the rooms of Malfoy Manor as if he was lost. His stomach never settled all day, despite the large breakfast Narcissa served, and the luncheon, and the tea. He shook hands and exchanged courtesies with the decorator and the caterer, Lucius being nowhere to be found. He idly watched the gardeners trim the hedges and took Draco out into the yard under Narcissa's orders to burn off some of the toddler's energy.

Severus might have only looked away for a moment at the flight of birds overhead, but when he turned back, Draco was gone. Severus felt the uneasy flutter of panic as he looked 360 degrees, but still no sign of the little blonde boy. He stopped very still for a moment, trying desperately to think. And then he heard it: a splash.

Severus sprinted through the yard to the fountain of Orion at the garden's edge. As he approached, he could see the puff of green robes above the surface. Severus jumped into the fountain, which was only a foot deep but several yards in diameter. He waded to the floating body of the toddler, pulling him up and into his arms. He pressed the body to him: Draco was still warm, though not breathing. He put the small boy down onto the freshly cut grass and fumbled in his robes for his wand. Finding it, he pointed it resolutely at the toddler and said the only spell he knew that could possibly help.

"Ennervate!"

Nothing happened.

He tried again. "Ennervate!"

Still nothing.

Severus put aside his wand, rolling Draco onto his back. He held the small chest with one hand, and slapped the back with the other. He did this several times. Finally, just as Severus was beginning to really panic, he felt Draco shudder and spit out a tiny lung-full of water. Severus slapped the back again, and more water came out. Draco was sputtering as Severus turned him over and pressed him to his chest. The boy did not cry, but held onto Severus fiercely as he made his way quickly across the lawn to the house.

* * * * *

When Lucius burst through the front door, Narcissa, still hysterical and clutching Draco, whom she had hastily changed out of his wet robes and wrapped in a thick cotton towel, ran immediately to him. Lucius pulled both son and wife into a broad hug. Severus watched, tea in hand, robes still dripping, from the hall. Finally quitting the embrace, Lucius strode to Severus, at first shaking his hand, then pulling him into a hug. "Thank you," he said softly. "I owe you my life." Severus shuddered, wondering if Lucius knew the binding effects of the words he had just spoken.

After Narcissa had regained her composure and set about the party planners to their chores, Lucius pulled Severus into his study. "I have some interesting developments to relay," he said.

Severus softly shut the door behind him. "What is it?" he asked, taking a seat in front of the fire.

Lucius stood behind his desk, leaning with his hands on the back of his chair. "The Dark Lord has made his decision to act on the target."

Severus at first was confused, then slowly, comprehension dawned on him. "You mean--the child spoken of in the prophecy?"

Lucius nodded slowly. "You will never guess who it is, although, perhaps you will say that you should have known all along."

Severus shook his head. "You would be better off telling me, Lucius. I have never been fond of guessing games."

Lucius grinned wickedly. "His name is Harry Potter."

Severus furrowed his brow.

"The son of James and Lily Potter." Lucius' grin spread into a malevolent smile, and he pulled from his bottom desk drawer a bottle of scotch. "The child is a mongrel, offspring of a Muggle-lover and a Mudblood."

Severus took the glass that Lucius offered him although he had no intention of drinking from it. "How old is the boy?"

Lucius shrugged. "Perhaps a year. It is of no consequence." Lucius took a drink from his glass. "Our spy assures the success of the plan."

Severus set his glass down on the desk. "If you'll excuse me, Lucius, I have to prepare for my interview."

Lucius waved him away with his hand as he consulted the bookcase behind his desk. Severus retreated from the study, terribly shaken by the news Lucius had just imparted. The events of the afternoon and Lucius' words had flooded Severus with the memory of the last time he had actually been in the Headmaster's office. It was the night James Potter had saved his life by pulling him out from beneath the Whomping Willow. Thinking on his school days, he was fortunate by Lucius' standards, as both furtive and forewarned. The little Potter boy was one of the doomed, then. His magic was being bargained, bought and sold as if it was a commodity. Severus' stomach gave a familiar turn. If Lucius owed his life to Severus, and Severus in turn owed his life to Potter, then Severus' life was knotted in the exchange between opposites. His life, too, was a commodity.

He winced at it now: the arduous service he had given to Bella and Lucius. For truly, they were whom he had been following since he first stepped onto the Hogwarts Express. His love for Bella had launched him down the path that led to the Slytherin Dueling Club, to that fateful night beneath the Whomping Willow, and into the service of the Dark Lord, who perhaps had the right ideas about things, but with whom all of his interactions to date had been rather anti-climatic. The Heir of Slytherin! A wizard so obsessed with immortality, which Severus was sure could not be attained, that he had sent Severus away from all he knew to the remotest part of Germany to act as a vessel for the scholarship of Heir Stolz. He had achieved nothing for himself in his twenty-one years in the wake of Bella and the shadow of Lucius.

Again he took out the photograph of the smiling children. Rosier and Wilkes were dead. Avery had vanished. Roddy, it could be certain, was much worse off. Bella was all but dead, just a shell carrying out the orders of the Dark Lord. And it left Severus feeling vacant, numb, and dead. His life wasn't even his own: that he owed to Potter.

Severus kicked open his trunk and pulled out his finest robes. He glanced at his pocket watch. He had several hours before he was expected at Hogwarts, and several more before the guests would be expecting him at Bella's party. He needed to get out of this place for some time, to clear the mutinous thoughts in his head. The sudden swelling need to go home encompassed him. He longed for his father's library, for his mother's tea set. He pulled on his best robes and checked his watch again. He had plenty of time to pop by home, floo to the Hog's Head, then take a brisk walk from the village to Hogwarts. His mind made up on at least this one thing, Severus hastily descended the stairs and slipped out the front door without Narcissa or Lucius being the wiser. He tucked Andromeda's book into his robes and Apparated home.

The door of Snape Hall did not open at his bidding. Severus wondered vaguely if his father had changed the wards. He hadn't even seen his father or been home in three years. He honestly didn't know if he was even still alive. Severus tried the handle again, but it would not budge. So he knocked.

A moment later, the door finally opened. It did not appear as though there was any light on in the house.

Severus stepped over the threshold and was consumed by a chill. He walked further into the hallway, crunching dried leaves and other autumn detritus under his boots. The door creaked closed behind him, and Severus was left in the dark.

He pulled out his wand and whispered, "Lumos!" He walked into the drawing room, which was still furnished in exactly the same way he had last seen it. He pointed his wand at the fireplace and lit bright flames. In the new light, he looked around the room. It did not seem as if anyone had occupied the house in some time. Cobwebs hung from the chandeliers and candelabras, a thick dust covered the mantle, and the grandfather clock had stopped ticking. Severus thought he heard the scurry and buzzing of moved-in pests. He turned from the fire, although it was warm, and made his way, wand alit and aloft, down the hallway to the library.

This room, too, was dusty and vacant. Severus brushed off a shelf of what were his favorite books as a boy: histories of wizards and accounts of great wizarding inventions. He walked around the library, feeling waves of familiarity wash over him. He turned and walked further into the room towards his father's large desk. His childhood desk had long since been removed to an upstairs room, but his father's desk stood perfectly bare, except the blanket of dusk and an envelope addressed to Severus.

Severus curiously picked up the envelope and blew off the dust, which lingered in a cloud for a moment before settling back onto the desk. He turned the envelope over and tore open his father's seal. Inside, there was a single note of parchment, folded once in half, with his father's tidy handwriting covering the page.

Dear Severus,

It is my final hour, and perhaps past the time when a father can be honest with his son. I ask not for forgiveness, but just a moment to say my peace.

What you inherited from your mother, apart from her cleverness, is a dependence on truth. What you inherited from me, apart from your strong countenance, is lenience to deception. You perhaps have already discovered this, and I apologize that it was not I who told you: I did not, nor have I ever, officially worked for the Ministry of Magic. I did work for a time as an international diplomat of sorts, being dispatched to discharge problems regarding foreign ministries. Your mother never approved of my role as assassin, and I am afraid now that she judged the son for the sins of the father. If she was too hard on you, I only hope that you found a way to benefit from the experience.

I also hope that you do not hold against your father his transgressions. In my line of work, it is said that the strong of spirit fall at the hands of the strong of stomach. I hope that you are neither and both of these things; a wizard who finds peace in the gentle balance of idealism and pragmatism and the fragile equilibrium of strength and vulnerability. Your mother used to say that comfort is found between chaos and control. She would want you to find it.

With love,

Your father

After a time, Severus tucked the envelope in the back cover of Andromeda's book, and was surprised to read his pocket watch and discover that he was due at Hogwarts within the hour. Before leaving Snape Hall, he vanished the dust from the bookcases and gave the gears in the grandfather clock a good few turns.

* * * * *

Severus walked with his head down, one hand on his wand, one hand on his book. He was working it out in his head as he walked the road from Hogsmeade to Hogwarts, making it up as he went, more or less. When he reached the front steps of the castle and McGonagall threw open the doors, Severus thought that he had mostly worked out the best back-up back-up plan one could plot while walking against the wind on the day he had almost killed his friend's child, discovered his father was an assassin, and accepted that he would be cashing in a life-debt on a toddler he had never known born to parents he had never liked. From here on out, Severus thought as the stone gargoyle revealed the stairs up to Dumbledore's office, Severus Snape is in control of his own life.