Faster, Mudblood! Kill! Kill!

Been Faster, Mudblood! Kill! Kill!

Chapter 5: What Was Lost, Long Forgotten

July 26th 1996

Four Years Ago...

Severus sees the ruby-red mouth of Judy Garland tremble under the weight of her heavenly soprano, her ribbonedplaits and checkered frock belying the sadness of her smoky, up-held gaze. She seems to look directly into his eyes as she sings, her angelic voice somehow dissolving the decades between them, erasing her own inevitable death, bending film and magic until her world--a world of Emerald Cities and poppies--seems recognizable as his own. But then her lush mouth cuts off with a scream: Run Toto, Run! The landscape of emeralds and flowers and yellow bricks goes up in a cyclone--a whirlwind of black and white dust. And then Snapewoke up, wondering why he still dreamt of poor lost Dorothy, even all these years later.

The dreams had begun not long after Snape's sixth year at Hogwarts, the year during which he had taken Muggle Studies with Professor LaviniaMarlette--not because it was his choice to do so, but because during the 1970s it was required that all non-Muggle students take at least one term of Muggle Studies. This mandate was, at the time, one of the numerous ways in which Dumbledoreand the teaching staff tried to quell the rising tensions between Muggle-born and Pureblood students--tensions which were, at the time, only a reflection of the larger battles being fought outside the haven of Hogwarts.

Professor Marlette had several Muggle cousins and really knew only the basics of Muggle history and lifestyle. She instructed students about important events during World War I and II, and had them memorise a list of famous world leaders that included Franz Ferdinand, Mahatma Ghandi, and John F. Kennedy; these particular men being the only ones Snapewas ever able to put to memory, perhaps because they had all been killed--or assassinated, as the Muggles called it. The most fascinating unit in the class was, in Snape'sopinion, the two or three weeks they had spent studying the Muggleperception of the magical world. They had read several fairytales, Tolkien, Dracula, Alice in Wonderland, and one man's strange parable of the Salemwitch trials, titled The Crucible. The unusual reading matter inspired much heated commentary on how peculiar and off-base the Muggleperspective on magic was--particularly the notion of Fairy Godmothers, since every Wizard and Witch was well aware that all fairies were daft little blighters.

Overall, the class had been mostly unremarkable, if not slightly entertaining, excepting one moment when, in an attempt to illustrate the Muggles' imaginative take on the appearance and behavior of witches, Professor Marlette had brought in an old two reel copy of The Wizard of Oz, magically suspending the film in the air and beaming her wand-light so that the images played forth on the classroom wall, tinny song erupting on all sides of the room. At first, Snape had been quite taken with the film: the Muggle girl--Dorothy--had a sweet, crystalline voice, and he had almost....almost...felt a small smile play on his lips when she had stepped out into the colourfulworld of Oz, her mouth suddenly a dazzling shade of garnet as she was surrounded by those little munchkins who squeaked at her with their house-elvish voices. But his momentary delight in the film was promptly forgotten when the Wicked Witch of the West had swept down on her broomstick (not a Shooting Star or Cleansweep, from what he could tell), cackling like a banshee-in-heat. She might have been garbed in the proper black robes, but the mould-green face and long, hooked nose made her look more like a hag that any authentic witch. Snape had quickly touched his own too-hooked nose, his cheeks turning hot in the dark of the classroom. Was this what the Muggles thought of his people? Of his parents and friends? That they kept armies of flying monkeys? Or that a wizard's 'light' or 'dark' powers were always in accordance with which hemisphere he resided in? Dorothy's warbling tremolo was forgotten as Severus felt himself grow irritated...then angry at the Muggles' stupidity. At their....(insensitivity)...foolishness.

Anger had been Snape's primary emotion in those days. His mother had chastised him for it, bemoaning the fact that he'd been born with his Father's rash temper. During these moments, Snapehad always enjoyed reminding her that she'd fallen in love with his father despite his notorious temper, and that as such, she really ought to just accept her son's equally explosive nature. She'd always been easily swayed by this point, actually--perhaps because love between pureblood couples was rather rare, seeing how lineage, money, and power played such a large part in the arrangement of the marriage in the first place. But Claudio and Odile Snape had been lucky--they'd actually been inspired to celebrate on the day the dowry went through, meeting after dark to share a bottle of butterbeerunder a moon-dappled Rowan tree, kicking their shoes loose and burying their toes in the damp spring grass. This was the story Odile had told, at least; Claudio had never offered his own version of the event.

Perhaps it was that youthful romantic streak--light and foppish as Dorothy's famous song about rainbows--that had won Odile over, although in front of Severus, Claudio had always been a quiet, unassuming man--up to a point. When pushed in a direction he did not want to be pushed, his demeanor shifted, a mutinous wrath boiling beneath the surface of his dark, sharply-honed features. He once claimed--only once--that anger was one of the greatest catalysts for any man; it could make a man do what he would otherwise never consider. And all those other noble words that men used to justify their less-than-acceptable deeds--vengeance, justice--were really just anger all dolled up in fancy dress. Anger: it got things done.

Fear on the other hand, was far less predictable--depending of course on who was inflicting fear, and who, on the other end, was experiencing it.

And now Snape was becoming reacquainted with fear--his biggest fear of all being that this time, there might not be any saving anger, any rage to propel him into action. "If you are prepared...?" the old man had asked, and damn it if Snape hadn't felt the tiniest bit of pride in the trust sketched out on Dumbledore'sface. He could try to back out. Could dig into his Gringott's savings and head for the hills of Siberia; could take a powder, just like Karkaroff. But Snape owed Dumbledore--just as he owed his own mother and father and the Snapes who came before them. Not more than fifteen years before, Snape had willingly entered into a pact that could not be broken, gladly pasing his fate over to a man he had never cared for. All to sate his hatred, his need for vengeance...his anger.

On this night Snape wore his finest robes, the ones inscribed with the ancient Death Eater Allegiance insignia on a patch just above his heart: a skull crowned by an ouroboros, the serpent devouring its own tail. The creators of eternity, the devouring of death to bring forth rebirth--all a bit dramatic in the pomp-and-circumstance department, perhaps, but purebloods rarely did anything halfway. Veri sumus in aeternum was the motto they had adopted hundreds of years ago, when it became evident that Wizards would no longer be able to live completely apart from the growing Muggle populous. The true ones forever. And so they were--or so they had hoped, anyway.

But then Lord Voldemort had made his first public appearance--back in the 1950s, before anyone thought to call him "You-Know-Who"--politely requesting that the Death Eaters hand complete Allegiance over to him. He swore to uphold their long-cherished purpose; promised a means of preserving the purity of bloodlines indefinitely.

He had ways of persuading even the most sceptical of individuals.

And so the power of the Death Eaters shifted hands, and their original symbol was re-drawn by the hand of another. A subtle change, really...a skull devouring a serpent: the consumption of death; the consumption of all those who bring forth its threat. Verendi sumus in aeternum.

We must be feared forever.

So the moment of fear was here: the Dark Mark burned, his second mandatory invitation to appear at the Dark Lord's side, occurring nearly a near after the last. The first had occurred on the evening of Voldemort'sinitial resurrection, just after the completion of the Third Task. He had not dared to leave the sanctuary of Hogwarts on that particular night: not with the Diggory boy and Potter having vanished into thin air, and the Bulgarian seeker guilty--or so they had then thought--of having performed an unforgivable curse. And the re-emergence of the dark mark on his arm had taken him by surprise--this despite the fact that it had been clear, all year long, that there was something sinister afoot amongst his former Death Eater cohorts. Funny how a mark that he had once been so accustomed to...had been so proud to bear...could now feel so foreign. Like something of a parasite worming beneath his epidermis. What made it worst was having no inkling of what lay in store for him if he returned like a loyal pet to Voldemort's hearth.

Not that Snape had much of a better idea now, a year later. He didn't know what had taken the Dark Lord so long to notice his absence--except of course that he had spent the better part of that year chasing after a useless prophecy. Now, though, it seemed that Voldemort was ready to take stock of his current Death Eaters and clean house.

He pulled his robes around him--they had been his father's, and his grandfather's before him--and stepped into a clearing just outside of Hogsmeade, simultaneously rolling up his sleeve. The mark, normally a translucent red outline, was now charry black. Snapedrew out his wand and reached around to tap the dark mark once, knowing that no matter what venomous place the Dark Lord happened to be squatting around, he'd be sent there in a stream of unspooled molecules, Apparating directly at Voldemort'sside. He closed his eyes and let himself go.

The slight breeze that lapped at his ankles subsided, and the sound of bent rushes was replaced by fire, crackling cheerlessly nearby. When he opened his eyes again, he was inside an ordinary Manor-home; there were no other Death Eaters to be seen. As he would have predicted, it was mostly dark. In half-shadow, he saw the white, spidery movement of Voldemort's hands as he stood and clutched the throat of his robes shut.

"Severus," he said, his voice whisper-quiet. "So you've come to me." His tone was off-hand, as if Snape had merely been standing him up at brunch or a bridge game. But Snape knew that casual tone all too well...nothing good would come of it.

"Sometimes I wonder why I ever put faith in the service of other humans," Voldemort sighed, moving a half-metreto the left. Light suddenly spilled forth, and Snapesaw that the Dark Lord had been kneeling before a low bed, and that the bodies of a man and a woman lay out on the top quilt, their skin already turning a low shade of grey. It was Igor Karkaroffand his wife, Mathilde. Mathildehad always possessed lovely, russet-streaked hair. It was disconcerting that it still managed to glimmer in the firelight, a glimpse of something once alive and friendly. At the sight of it Snape felt everything go cool and loose in the region just below his stomach.

"I came to see if Igor had anything to say to me," Voldemortsaid, his reddish eyes searching out Snape's own. "He was...as you can see...at a loss for words."

Snape kept his face expressionless; that familiar roil of fear was frothing at the back of his neck and he forced himself to sandbag it off. He couldn't afford to let that fear flood out the rest of his body. He must veil his thoughts from Voldemort's penetrating eyes.

Igor dead now, after successfully evading vengeful Death Eaters for months. How did this bode for him? And as for Igor--could Snape feel sorry for him? Should he? Karkaroff had fled in the events following the third task, and the rumours that mushroomed in his wake claimed that he had actually spent the entire previous year working for the Ministry itself, spying on the Death Eaters and reporting any juggle-the-Muggle mischief or criminal intent to resurrect Dark Lords. In exchange for immunity and protection, of course.The Karkaroff he had known would never have worked for the Ministry out of the goodness of his own heart. No...hehad wanted the protection of both parties, without having to actually choose a side.

And as for sides, Snape had only chosen once. And he had chosen with absolute trust and confidence, though as the white mask was lowered over his face by his own father, Snape had glimpsed uncertainty in Claudio's eyes. Not the pride he was expecting, but concern....a far-off mulling over of fear. Those hands had trembled as he tied the mask behind his own son's head, but he didn't speak out, didn't say stop.

After Claudio's death, Snape decided to stop chosing sides. Let the sides chose him, instead.

***

Meanwhile...

"...Time for plan B," Hermione said, rebeltingher white robes, which were, Snape realised, not robes at all but a long, slim coat of sorts. She wore a pair of ridiculously tall white boots to match, and the right one tapped impatiently as he once again failed at giving her an adequate verbal response. He suspected she thought him frightfully rude by this point--not that it mattered...'frightfully rude' was more or less his usual modus vivendi, after all. Though at this particular moment he wasn't actually trying to be rude; no, he was too paralysed with images of himself, forcefully parting a crowd of Muggles while screaming his bloody head off. Reduced to a mentally disturbed uncle who nancesabout in a black nightdress. Perfect.

Hermione sighed and rubbed at her temple, as if she were suffering the beginnings of a headache. Snapescowled. The sigh-and-massage-temple tactic had been one of his own classic gestures--one that had come in especially handy whenever a grind like Hermione had started in on a long suffering, know-it-all diatribe during potions. He had the distinct sense that she was simultaneously mocking him and having a fair bit of revenge in the process.

"Yes, a plan," he said quietly, allowing a dangerous note to enter his voice. "You are never without an ingenious plan, are you Miss Granger? But tell me...how many of your plans have actually met with success?"

She blinked, a hint of shadow falling over her face. "What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that I find it....suspect...that you, a Ministry employee, arrive here at the Leaky Cauldron stuffed tight as a drum with useful facts, then flash your hellcat temper by slapping me at the breakfast table, and then just as quickly insist on helping me keep a look-out for Draco Malfoy...." He stared at her shrewdly, then continued, "...who we both know is one of your least favourite individuals--second only to me, perhaps."

She grimaced. "Actually, I'd put the two of you at a dead heat, if you want to know the truth."

"Not especially. What I do want to know is...what's in this for you? Has Fudge promised you a promotion? A few extra galleons a week?A new office next to his, with a fine view of--"

"Piss off!" she cut in, her face reddening. "I don't even work for the Ministry anymore--I haven't for over a year! Didn't you hear me when I said I'd rather attend beauty school than take orders from Fudge?" She glared at him and he realised that no, he hadn't heard her say that at all. When had that been? Back when he was drowning in his own self-pity, he supposed. Minerva McGonagall was right--there was really nothing quite so humbling as having a former student witness your precarious walk between nervous breakdown and paranoid delusion.

Looking annoyed by his silence, Hermione continued, "Fudge and his dirty shits fired me, as a matter of fact. Dumped all my things in a box and sent me packing. And no one would hire me after that...even though I'd been responsible for all that progress in computer-cauldron hybridisation ,and head girl at Hogwarts on top of that. And had excellent references from Arthur Weasley besides....but no one cared! I was fucking blacklisted..." as she spoke, her chin began to tremble. Snape saw her bite down hard to fight it, her throat constricting as she grimaced again. Before he could stop it, he felt a small grin develop on his face.

"What?" She demanded, balling up her fists. "You think it's funny? Right chuffed that a know-it-all like me ended up jobless and desperate, is that it?"

"I don't find it funny," he said, "It's just that you still haven't answered my question...."

She quieted, her face still red, but her breath calming. "Yes...you want to know why I'm interested in Malfoy. As you should have guessed, I'm here for Dumbledore. And for the Order. Indirectly, anyway."

He frowned. "How so?"

She started to speak, but closed her mouth abruptly, looking over her shoulder at the cluster of people who were gathering at the dining tables for breakfast. "Can we go to my room first, please?" She asked, making a subtle gesture at the back staircase.

"Very well," he said, nodding stiffly.

Her room ended up being directly adjacent to his own, and when Snapesaw a number of strange objects laid out on her dresser--including something that looked suspiciously like a drill--he shot her a dirty look. "Were you intending to spy on me, Miss Granger?" he asked, not bothering to veil his displeasure.

She shrugged, looking not a bit sorry. "I had to know that implant charm if I wanted to penetrate the magic that now separates Dracofrom the wizarding world."

"Right," he mumbled, longing to say something scathing, but finding that the words were just beyond his tongue.

She sighed and flopped down on the edge of the bed, reaching back to untie the ribbon that held back her hair. She twined the scrap of fabric between her fingers several times over--a nervous gesture if he'd ever seen one--and he inched toward the door, slightly on edge himself. He hadn't expected a confession, but it looked as if Hermione was coaching herself up for one hell of a delivery.

"Remember when Harry never arrived for our Seventh year?" She asked in a single, rushed breath, then followed it with a low, strangled laugh that didn't suit her at all. "Yes, I imagine you do, relieved as you must have been to be rid of him."

"I do remember," he confirmed, his voice dry.

"That's good. That's good that you remember," she said, still absent-mindedly fiddling with the ribbon. "Because it seemed as if everyone else chose to forget him. Ron and I were...well, we were broken....but to everyone else it was just...." She trailed off and glanced up, her face white. She smiled uneasily. "....but that's beside the point," she finished lamely. "After the Ministry fired me, Ron and I opened up a private investigation business. Not the real thing, mind you--though we do take on cases from time to time just for show. We told Dumbledore that we'd help out the Order if they ever needed us, and last week he gave us news of Draco's upcoming Exile...this of course made us wonder if Draco wasn't really being released from Azkabanfor other, more sinister reasons, so we decided to look into the matter. That's all there is to it, really...."

Snape paused, shifting slightly on the balls of his feet. The Granger girl was only telling him half truths; she'd been on the verge of spilling something...something immense, no doubt...and then she had looked up and seen who she was about to spill to: the big, bad former potions master. And now he had the diluted, Cliff-notes version of events. Fine...she wanted him to swallow? He would gladly do so.

I don't want to hear her stupid, 'poor-me-I-was-so-lost-without-Potter' sob story, anyway.

Hermione stood up and gathered her reddish hair into a neat ponytail, re-tying the ribbon. When she dropped her arms and gave Snape a false, over-bright smile, he was struck with the nagging thought that her hair was all wrong. Almost everything about her seemed....too perfect. The white boots...the crisp white jacket. It was almost as if she were in--

"Disguise. That's what we need," she said, bending over and pulling her wand from the narrow column of her boot, shaking it a few times as if to warm it up.

"What." Snape said flatly, not bothering to make the word into a question. "A disguise for me? It won't happen. Find yourself a Metamorphmagus if you want to play dress-up."

Hermione made a sour face. "We still need to find Draco, you realise. And there's no way in cold frozen hell that I'm taking you out into MuggleLondon looking like that," she said, pointing in the general direction of his...well, his entire self, really.

"Our window of opportunity for tracking Draco Malfoy has passed, Miss Granger," Snapeintoned; an uneasy nausea was beginning to toy at his insides.

"Leave Draco to me," she said, looking entirely unconcerned. "For now...let's get you out of those robes, shall we?"

Snape stared. Then he shook his head slightly, like a man who suspected his ears were broken.

"Well? We're not playing peep show here," Hermionebarked, looking increasingly impatient. "This is a matter of business...so get to stripping, if you please."

He smiled crookedly. Very well then. Let's give the girl what she wants. With clumsy gusto he unbuttoned the front of his robes, tearing his arms loose from the sleeves and pulling the entire garment off in a flourish. Then he wriggled out of his white undershirt and slung it onto the bed. Finally, he unbuckled his trousers and swept them down to his ankles, leaving them puddled at his feet as he crossed his arms over his bare chest, simultaneously raising a single eyebrow in the process.

Hermione stared.

That's right, Miss Granger. Have a good long look. The sooner I scare you off, the sooner I can go back to hiding out in my room with my new best friend...brandy.

"You wear long johns?" She asked, tapping her wand against her thigh. "Bottle green long johns?"

"Yes," he said, his triumphant smirk wavering a bit. "You were expecting...?"

"I don't know. Certainly not long johns." She shook her head vaguely. "And when I said 'take off your robes', I meant only your robes." She stalked over to the bed and picked up his undershirt, balled it up and tossed it to him. "Put that back on at once."

With deliberation, Severus slipped the tee-shirt back over his head, then deftly bent over and hauled up his trousers. "Now what?" he asked, allowing a note of boredom to enter his voice.

She appraised him for a second or two. "Black trousers...white tee-shirt. Thankfully with no annoying, pro-Slytherin statements stamped on it. Okay, this will do," she said, nodding with satisfaction.

"I'll get cold," said Severus loftily, running his palms over his bare arms as if already chilled.

She frowned and fetched his robes from the bed, and with a single wand-wave transfigured the garment into a short, zip-up jacket. "Here," she said, rudely throwing the jacket in the direction of his face. "It's not couture, but it'll do."

"Anything else?" Is my footwear inappropriate? What about my socks, Miss Granger? Would you like to inspect them as well?"

"The boots aren't a problem," she said, barely glancing down at them. "Your hair, on the other hand..." and at this she quite clearly wrinkled her nose.

"What about it?" Suddenly self-conscious, he reached back and lifted a hank of it from his shoulders. His hair had been the same for the last fifteen or so years; Professor Sprout had forced a trim on him every term, but his last had been several months ago.

"When was the last time you washed it?" She asked, her tone oddly polite despite the fact that she was still quirking her nose.

"Last night," he said, unmasking the full boon of his glare.

"Ah well..." she shifted uncomfortably. "Everyone's pores are different...even in, ah, the scalp area. I just think...." She took a step closer, half-circling him, "...if we hacked off some of this unnecessary length, you might look a little less...well..."

"Quit your hedging," he snapped, experiencing a slight shudder of humiliation. "I might look a little less what, exactly?"

"Less spooky," she finished, wincing slightly.

"Fine, Miss Granger. Do what you will. I'm willowsap in your hands. Mould me into the very image of the Muggle you imagine lurking within me...let's just get this over with fast."

Because I don't think I can go back to my room now, brandy or not. Because within the hour Fudge is likely to come through my fire and send me off on a new and entirely ridiculous wild goose chase. Because at this point I don't really care. And because the only thing I do care about is the fact that I don't really care...

"Are you sure?" she asked, blinking nervously.

"No. But do what you will," he sighed, collapsing into the nearest chair, and she beamed like a child who just been given permission to crayon obscene words all over the walls.

Within a few minutes she was brandishing her wand at the tangled length of his hair. And she wasn't taking off a neat half-inch, as Sprout always had. Instead, she squinted with the concentration of one grooming a stubborn jungle plant. "Really, you won't regret this," she said. "This arse-length drape marks you as either a weirdo or a hopeless fashion victim. And our goal here is to look perfectly ordinary, Snape. Yet hopefully different enough so that if Draco Malfoy does spot you, he won't immediately high-tail it in the other direction."

"I'd rather he did high-tail it, if you don't mind..." Snapemurmured, shaking bits of loose hair from his ears.

Hermione let out an audible snort. "You seemed quite eager to catch up with him this morning, if I recall."

"It must have been my pavlovian urge to deduct house points resurfacing," he retorted. He noted with mild interest that Hermione had stopped calling him 'professor'. It seemed that she had developed a pointed disdain for her elders since her seventh year, though Snape supposed that her seventh year had, in fact, been partly responsible in instigating this particular change in attitude. Potter himself may have disappeared, but his anger and cynicism had been left behind to thrive inside his best friends.

"You're all set," she announced, eyeing her own rather swift and unceremonious handiwork.

Snape stood and walked uncertainly toward the vanity mirror, long clumps of hair raining from his shoulders as he did so. The man who stared back at him had uneven, chin-length hair, so straight that it had a slight fly-away effect. The look wasn't far-off from what he'd sported back during his own Hogwarts years, and he cringed to see that having less hair around his face had the unfortunate side-effect of making his face that much more noticeable. Noticing Hermione'scurious glance in the mirror behind him, he straightened up and shrugged nonchalantly.

"No one will look twice at you now," she assured, handing him his new jacket.

He nodded tersely. No one ever looked at a doomed man twice.

***

Back at the Pink Bishop...

Draco couldn't take his eyes off Potter's cowboy hat. Why the fuck is he wearing a cowboy hat? Why!? hismind babbled incoherently, all the while dimly aware that his jaw was slung open like a Venus fly trap.

"Ha," Varda said, smiling with very white teeth. "Should I leave you two alone?"

Draco shut his mouth at once, but Potter only grinned absently, his brow faintly wrinkled in confusion. "This is the bloke who wants the phone?" He asked Varda, thumbing in Draco's direction.

Varda shrugged. "So he said."

"Yes," Draco blurted, stepping forward. "Phone," he mumbled thickly. "If you don't mind, that is?"

"Not a bit," Potter said, looking quite businesslike. "Vardawill show you to my office. No long distance, if you don't mind."

"Okay," Draco said, his voice barely above a whisper. Potter disappeared through the building's door, Varda's bag in hand, not bothering to shoot him a second glance. How is this possible? Draco swallowed thickly. He had recognized Harry Potter at once. Beyond the obvious green eyes, even his walk--the light, careless trot of a former Quidditchseeker--had betrayed his identity. But Potter hadn't recognized him in return at all. Draco didn't know whether to be relieved or nervous...but so far, nervous was winning out.

"Are you coming in or what?" Varda said, reaching out to tug at his shirt sleeve. "I'm Varda, by the way. Varda Venezuela...and before you ask, no, it's not my real name, but that's what the boys call me. Got it?"

"Yes," he said dumbly, allowing Varda to steer him into the dark building. She held on to his elbow as they walked, and Draco'seyes widened as they stepped out of a back room and into...another world.

There were lights everywhere. Flashing, whizzing lights, like something from a Filibusters' fireworks show, and music was pounding the walls and floors. The large building was bathed in neon but seemed mostly empty, though a handful of men were running around frantically in various states of undress, most of them shouting questions at Potter himself, who stood behind a long counter lined with glasses and liquor bottles.

"Radney wore my loincloth without asking again. I can't wear a used loincloth onstage! Would you please tell that little snot to quit stealing from wardrobe?" a very tan, very muscled man complained loudly, shaking a scrap of fringed leather in the air as he did so.

"So wear your hot pants instead," Potter said, not bothering to look up from the paperwork he was studying.

"But it's Cowboys and Indians night! I can't wear hot pants and be an Indian!"

At Draco's side, Varda was giggling. "Don't look so shocked, poppet. You did know this was a queer club, right?"

"Not exactly," Draco stammered, trying to mould his face into an Oh yes, I attend queer clubs all the time sort of expression. Problem was, he wasn't entirely sure what a queer club was...but he was fast getting the idea. A man much taller than him walked by in leather chaps, his bare arse hanging out the back, and shouted "Hey Billy, where in buggery is my bronzing cream?" over the deafening music.

"Oh, I know 'Cowboys and Indians' isn't exactly culturally-sensitive," Varda said, fanning her hand in a dismissive sort of way. "But you should see my Pocahontas number. Or Poke-a-hot-ass, as the boys call it..."

Draco made an incomprehensible sound in his throat.

"Ah, here we are," Varda said, pulling open a door near the bar where Potter was reading paperwork. "Harry's office."

Draco stepped inside the sparse, white room. "Harry? Your boss is named Harry?" he asked, keeping his tone casual.

"Of course," she said, shutting the door behind them, the music cutting off abruptly. "Most people just call him H, though. He lets me call him Harry 'cos we go a long way back, we do..." She leaned against the wall and flipped her hair over one shoulder, reaching up and stretching in a way that was at once careless and seductive, her generous breasts rising as she did so. Draco shifted nervously and reached for the telephone on the desk.

"Oh," he said, pausing with the receiver held half-way to his ear. "I'm not sure what...number I need to push."

"You don't know your own mother's phone number?"

"Not off hand," Draco said, his teeth gritted.

She grinned; not a sly, seductive grin, but a goofy grin that revealed a tiny smear of red lipstick on her two front teeth. "I don't know my mother's phone number either," she laughed. "She could be dead and buried, for all I know."

"Um..."

"Don't sweat it, blondie. I'll call up information for you." She snatched the phone from his hand and used a very long fingernail to tap out a number that Draco couldn't quite catch. "What's your mother's name?"

"Narcissa Malfoy."

She made a face. "Weird name."

"Uh...if you say so, Varda."

She laughed heartily. "Touché," she said, thenfrowned, listening intently at whatever she was hearing through the phone receiver. "There's no listing..."

"Oh..." Draco felt disappointed, but then again, what had he expected? Now that he thought about it, his mother certainly didn't own a talk-box--telephone--so why had he counted on using one to get in touch with her in the first place? It seemed like a dumb-yet-desperate idea, in retrospect. But now he was warm and, thanks to the ear-splitting music, not quite so sleepy and incoherent. And there were no longer strange crowds of Muggles swarming around him...just this Vardawoman, Potter, and a bare-cheeked man in cowboy chaps. Compared to the rest of his day, things were looking up.

Varda slowly lowered the telephone receiver, staring at him in a calculated way. "Do you have anywhere to go?" she asked, her voice low and brittle.

"No," he said. To lie seemed pointless.

She nodded. "I thought as much. Look...we've had your kind here before. Boys who've been kicked out by their fathers for crimes no greater than owning girlie knickers and a hot pink lipstick. Trust me...you're not alone," she said, reaching out and placing a firm hand on each of his shoulders.

"I'm not alone," Draco repeated hollowly, silently wishing that he could disappear.

"Right," she said, patting him in a motherly way. "So let's see if H. can't find a place for you tonight, shall we?"

"I'm not so sure that--"

"Oh, pfft..." she made that now-familiar hand wave again, hushing him with a single gesture. "H. may talk trash, but deep down he's a softie. He'll let you polish the martini glasses if you really want to repay him. Just let me do all the talking, all right?"

Draco thought fast, but not fast enough. The office door swung open and Potter's ten-gallon hat rounded the corner just a few beats before the rest of him appeared, a clutch of paperwork still hand.

"Harry!" Varda beamed, widening her eyes for effect.

"Ah...how did that call turn out?" Potter asked, his mouth smiling but the rest of him unreadable.

"It didn't," Draco said.

And why don't you recognize your fucking arch-nemesis when he's standing right in front of you, Potter? Or are you actually as daft as you've always seemed?

"That's right," Varda continued. "And I'm not really sure our little lost sheep wants to find his way home, if you know what I mean...." She nodded in Draco's direction, and he suppressed a private scowl. The woman was as subtle as a badly-timed Bludger.

Potter squinted at him, and Draco felt an uneasy shiver lace its way down his spine. He'd been on the receiving end of this stare before, usually just prior to Quidditch matches, and in his experience nothing good had ever come of being measured up by Harry Potter. Draco's own assaults might have always been issued by mouth, but Potter had an uncanny knack for speaking volumes with his eyes, even while the rest of him remained perfectly expressionless.

"So you've been kicked out by your parents," Potter confirmed. "I might have known...."

Draco mentally slapped himself--Are you BLIND Potter?--while still managing to gaze down at his shoes in aI'm-frightened-and-have-nowhere-else-to-run sort of way.

"Well, you must be at least sixteen..."

At least?! I have a BEARD, you idiot. And just where are your glasses, anyway?

"....troubles with your father, perhaps?"

Draco looked up sharply. Potter was pacing the room, re-arranging paperwork as he spoke. He moved self-assuredly, in a manner that prompted Draco to assess the way in which he'd filled out since their sixth year. He wasn't any taller, not really, but he would certainly never be mistaken for a sixteen-year-old. Then again, Draco was garbed in prison clothes that more or less resembled a toddler's pyjama-ensemble, while Potter got to wear the bloody kick-arse cowboy hat. Some things just weren't fair.

"Blast, I need to get into wardrobe," Varda announced, studying the clock on the wall. "Hope you'll be at my show tonight, sweets." She stood up and ruffled Draco on the head before exiting the office.

Now it was just him and Potter.

Not that Potter seemed to notice. He was too busy rifling through a file folder on the desk, tapping a fountain pen against his chin. "If you need a place to sleep there's a couple of cots in the dressing room that you can use," he said, studying his fingernails. "But we don't let anyone stay longer than a week...it's become a house rule ever since Radney showed up and never bothered to leave."

Right. Radney was the loincloth thief.

Draco rose to his feet, uneasy. "Is there a place I could wash up? I...haven't had a bath in a while."

Potter finally looked up. "The toilets are straight to the back. There's a shower in the dressing room, but Varda will be using it right now."

"Okay," Draco said, moving towards the door.

"One more thing, Malfoy..."

Draco froze. Swallowed. Or tried to.

Suddenly scared as hell, his balls drawn up so tightly into his abdomen he thought he might soon taste them, he pivoted around to face Potter, absurdly wishing that he had a burly Crabbe or Goyleat his side. If Potter's expression had been unreadable before, it certainly wasn't now: Potter glared at him, his cheeks faintly burnished, the fountain pen now clutched in his white first.

"You're wearing Azkaban grey..." he said, his voice a shade softer than Draco was prepared for. "I don't know how you got here, or what you've done, but the minute you piss me off will be the same minute I stop showing you feigned hospitality. You follow?"

"..."

"Well, do you?"

"Yes," Draco said, wishing his voice didn't sound so small to his own ears. Potter immediately dropped his eyes back to his paperwork, and there was a stony quality to his silence that sent Dracotip-toeing towards the door, horrified to realise he was cowering away from Potter as if expecting him to lay one of those old jelly-legs hexes on him at any moment. A wave of harsh, hammering music buffeted him as soon as he opened the door, but he welcomed it...practically rejoiced in its ability to obliterate even the most uncomfortable of silences.

Once in the men's toilets, Draco padded across the yellow tiles and found himself facing a mirror for the first time in weeks. Or was it months? He'd lost count. Like the rest of the club, the bathroom was flooded in hot pink lights, and Draco'sface looked so stretched and red in its glow that he had to hold up his fingers and wave to himself, just to be sure that the face staring back at him was his own.

It was. He inched forward, pressing his hands against the sink for support. He was amazed that Potter had managed to recognize him at all; he was frightfully thin, and though pale, as usual, was so matted in dirt that he appeared grey from head to toe, his hair falling like a sheet of fine dust over his brow and ears. His eyes appeared larger than usual, and they glimmered strangely in the neon ether of the club. Reflected in them he saw a veritable smorgasbord of new and unfortunate emotions: anxiety, surprise, and, worst of all, clouded doubt. He stared at himself silently, hoping the mirror might offer a well-timed ego boost.

No such luck. Muggles had to rely on their own eyes for self-preservation, it seemed.

Behind his left shoulder, though, a sliver of blue caught Draco'seye. He turned. There was a giant-sized poster of the Rivera hanging on the wall, a rather gauche, over-done scene depicting the white sands and hazy Mediterranean, though most of the water was blocked out by several flexing men garbed in skimpy swimwear. Draco reached out and touched the poster; it was covered in glass, and he was disappointed when the swimsuited men didn't part at the sight of his approach. He wished they would move so he could see the water. So blue...

He snapped back and pulled away from the poster. What was he doing? The confines of the bathroom were making him retreat into his head in a manner similar to the effects of Azkaban itself. He went back to the sinks and splashed icy water on his face.

There now. You won't be so bad once you've been cleaned up.

He started to reach for the soap dispenser, then paused. Why bother to do this the hard way? Potter was in the vicinity, and was sure to have his wand handy. A cleansing spell or two and he'd be back in good form.

His mood slightly lifted, Draco sauntered back to Potter's office and, without bothering to knock, let himself in. Potter was just as he'd left him: slumped over his desk as if he had something important to do.

Hearing Draco enter, Potter looked up sharply, then frowned. "I thought you were getting cleaned up?"

"Yes, well..." Draco started, clearing his throat. "If you can patch me up with a cleansing spell, Potter, I'll be on my way and out of your hair. Mind giving the clothes a scrub-over, too? Had an incident with a rubbish bin..."

Potter tipped back in his chair a bit, inclining his head so that Dracocould make out the flintish quality of his eyes. "You want me to what?"

"Give me a cleansing spell? Oh...right. Will you please give me a cleansing spell, Potter?

"No." Harry rolled his chair over to a filing cabinet and stuffed his paperwork inside, then slammed the drawer shut with a loud metallic clang.

"What? Why not?" Draco's mind boggled. It was true that he and Potter had never been on good or even neutral terms--not even close. But what had happened to that Gryffindorsense of generosity? Or loyalty--whatever it was that made them act in that Gryffindor-ish way. And why was Potter willing to let Draco kip on a cot in the wardrobe room, but unwilling to spray him with a weeks' worth of cleansing spells?

"Because I already offered you use of the facilities," Potter replied, his face irritatingly expressionless.

"But a spell is so much faster...I won't tell your little nancingfriends that you're a wizard, if that's what you're worried about."

Harry shook his head. "I'm not worried."

"Why?" Draco asked, fighting the urge to shout. Why did Potter have to be calm when he wasn't? For that matter, why did Potter have to be here, in this horrible Muggle world, fully comfortable and polishing bar glasses for a living, when he was supposed to be off in some secret training facility, battling Hungarian Horntails and learning the secrets to deflecting Avada Kedavra or something equally preposterous? Draco'suniverse had been thoroughly shaken when his father had died, and it had damn near crumbled when he'd been sentenced to Azkaban. But the fact that Harry Potter was living in Londonand working with men who wore fringed loincloths--not even clean ones, at that--suggested that something was profoundly wrong with the world.

"It wouldn't matter if you told them I was a wizard," Harry said, shrugging. "Because I'm not. Not anymore."

***

The girl was still polite enough to open doors for her elders, apparently. She asked him if he was coming and he nodded. Words were beyond him these days, it seemed. Downstairs there were faces, a blur of them lifting from breakfast bowls and gazing out at them as they crossed the length of the pub, heading for the doors that led to Charing Cross Road. A loud rustle of fabric sounded--him zipping up his jacket. He missed the billow and swish of robes, felt slow and clumsy without them, but allowed his feet to fall into time with the girl's despite this. No Apparition, she said. Walking meant they still stood a chance of running into a certain blond Slytherin. The girl twitched her fingers in a come-hither gesture, leading him to the street. White sunlight flooded out most of the details.

"Severus, do you know how much Judas was paid for his betrayal?"

"No," Snape admits. There is light in the room only because of the fire, enchanted to cast cold flames, platinum-colouredand smelling of sharp, pungent anise.

"Thirty pieces of silver," Voldemort says,his own voice low and rusty, as if from extended disuse. Snapehas no reason to doubt this claim; he's been told of the Dark Lord's childhood spent in a Christian orphanage. He had rejected the Muggleworld that raised him, then later sought to conquer the wizarding world into which he fit but would never truly belong to. Slytherin blood tainted by the blood of lies. Dumbledoremight have called it irony, that Slytherin's heir would himself be of half-blood, a child that the great founder himself would have rejected.

From his position a few metres away, Snapecan detect a discernable human emotion struggling its way to the surface of that inhuman face. He tries to imagine the face of the orphan he'd been, once upon a time, but finds that he can't even begin. . .

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

They walked until his feet began to blister, until she herself looked weary and ready to collapse. She suggested they take the train, and he found he had no reason to argue. A train was a train, whether fuelled by magic or science, and he hadn't known about the dim, watery lighting, or that the odourof other humans would be so overpowering. He began to sweat, moisture trickling down the slope of his newly-bare neck. The girl stood calmly between two businessmen, swapping a political joke with the one nearest her own age. She smiled at the punch line but didn't laugh, her eyes lightly skipping back to his own as if to update herself on the state of his emotional weather. She looked at him a lot, as if on edge or prepared for a scolding. She seemed to think them alike: both exiled from their professions, both equally wrapped up in the hunt for a meddlesome boy who wasn't worth half the trouble he left in his path.

But they weren't alike. He wanted to tell her this as she leaned against the political jokester, suppressing a laugh with the back of her hand. She would always have this world waiting for her: a world of stuffy and crowded trains, where ills were cured by pills rather than spells, and where magic was nothing more than a few buttons and levers obscured by a velvet curtain.

The price for betrayal comes in pain rather than silver. This Snapelearns as he bleeds--not from any outer wound, but on the inside. Always on the inside. Voldemort is working the truth out of him bit by bit--literally. He clamps his teeth down, willing his tongue to plug up his throat, to make words impossible, to empty out his mind. But it seems there's a spell for everything.

He gives. Tells. And now Voldemortknows the truth behind Dumbledore's Order: that it is the cover for a resistance that exists to expose what the Ministry--those men who prefer to keep the public blind to the Dark Lord's growing threat--will not. He comes close, so very close,to admitting what Voldemort must already know is true: that the Order is Harry Potter's protector. Snapethinks it may be only his lingering hatred of James that shrouds this fact from Voldemort's penetrating sweep of his mind.

"Why, Severus?" Voldemortasks, rising. "What did the old man give you that I couldn't?"

Snape keels over and spits blood. From here he can see the wizened soles of Karkaroff's feet, the toes curled over as if the dead man still shudders in agony.

"He gave me the same things you gave me," Snapecroaks. "But he never expected to own me."

Voldemort's pacing slows, then stops. "You lay there in your own blood and tell me that you are not owned?" A white hand reaches down, tipping Severus's chin upward. "The Severus I knew wouldn't have pledged his loyalties to Albus Dumbledore. Yes...he must own you. Some way...somehow."

"Guilt owns me. The old man doesn't."

The white fingers skip away, retreating once again to the folds of muted-red robes. There is a faint snort of amusement; the Dark Lord has heard Snape's words and has promptly dismissed them.

"That old man comes later," Voldemort says. "For now...you will bring me the boy."

The one thing he had figured out about her was this: Whenever she said she was looking for him, she really meant Harry, not Draco. He verified this in the way that she tilted her ear toward the voices of strangers, and the manner in which she scanned her peripheral vision, as if expecting his familiar face to exist there, its shadowy presence somehow overlooked until just now.

Tell me, where dwell the thoughts forgotten until we call them forth?

He wanted to tell her to give up. That there was no use looking back for what's lost. Harry Potter would not be the boy that she remembered.