In the Midst of the Night

In the Midst of the Night

Chapter 13 - Banished From the Light

Severus heard the alarms go off and immediately drew his wand, hoping the communication spells weren't cut. He took two steps forward when the great double doors of the living room burst open letting in a ferocious gust of wind. Stumbling backwards, he saw many of the objects in the room swirl in the harsh air stream and shatter upon the floors. Several dark robed wizards and witches entered, their wands drawn threateningly. One pulled his hood back and he recognized the familiar silver blonde hair of Lucius Malfoy.

"What is the meaning of this?" asked the potions master in his coldest tone. A trickle of fear made its way up his spine as he looked at the man before him with the utter loathing that he sometimes could not hide.

Lucius smirked. "We've a score to settle with a traitor, Severus," the man replied, his voice light with no trace of tension. His stance was relaxed as he held his wand in a hand not wrought by nerves, but dangling at his side in evident serenity.

Traitor... Severus' heart thumped wildly in his chest as he discreetly looked around, trying to find an escape. It was no use, however, for they were outnumbered three to one. How could they know? The professor sought to figure out who may have had suspicions about his loyalties. The person who trusted him the least would be Lucius Malfoy, but they were familiar enough not to express disloyalty to one another in public or even before the Dark Lord. He felt awfully hot all of a sudden in his light robes despite the fact that the harsh wind had not yet abated. DeMay...? He remembered the day long ago when he had had to meet the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Could Dumbledore have made a mistake when adding Lucas DeMay to the Hogwarts' staff? Perhaps hiring a man with loyalties to the Death Eaters was somehow Albus' purpose...

But if DeMay was innocent, how could the Death Eaters have known? Hadn't he been at the meeting? Hadn't he proved his loyalty by enduring curse after curse? He had tolerated questioning and the betterment of his Occlumency skills had proven priceless.

Then how could they know?

At the corner of his eye, Severus saw one of the three little boys step forward. "Father?" asked Draco in incredulity. "What's going on?" He looked awfully small standing there before the many witches and wizards facing him in such an ominous stance.

Lucius eyed the boy before motioning for him to come forward. "Come here, Draco," he told his son and Draco glanced back at Harry and Severus with fear flashing in his icy grey eyes before doing as he was told. He moved forwards until he stood before his father, and then he turned around, his face a mask of attempted stillness, but his eyes betrayed his unmistakable fear. In the years to come and in the many cruel lessons he would learn from his father, his attempts at masking his emotions would soon become infallible. Harry watched his friend move to his father's side, and then he backed up until he was standing near Severus, half hidden behind the man, holding tightly onto the professor's robes.

The man beside Lucius lowered his hood at the blonde man's nod and Severus noted the uneasy expression upon the handsome young man's face. Their eyes met and the man looked away. He looked tired and his face was gaunt. This one didn't carry a wand, but there was an air of sinister power that positively radiated around him.

"Ah, Thaddeus, it's been a long time since we've seen one another," said Lucius as if speaking of the weather, but there was an undertone of cold question in his voice. His eyes were flashing dangerously as he looked at his old associate, the silent inquiry boring deep down into Thaddeus soul, but the man in question stood his ground, staring back at him even as he felt his son move slowly towards him.

Adenslipped his hand into his father's and felt a jolt of fright run down his spine at how cold and clammy the man's hand was. Is Dad shaking? he wondered in horror. In their short time together as a family, Thaddeus had always been the father figure that the boys at St. Mary's Orphanage had always wanted. He was calm and collected...the exception of course was when Aden showed discomfort at anything at all. The boy turned to look at the robed figures that had spread out in a semi circle around Aden, his family, Draco, Severus, and Harry. "Dad, who are they?" he wondered softly.

Thaddeus sent a hesitant look towards the Death Eaters, and then he looked down at the wide chocolate brown eyes of Aden. He opened his mouth to respond, but a cutting voice broke in.

"Why, I'm hurt, Thaddeus old friend," said Lucius, putting a hand to his heart mockingly. "You haven't told your son about us? Why, we were the best of friends." He looked at Adenwith a smirk. "What's your name, boy?"

Adenstuck his chin out in reckless defiance. "Aden Nott," he replied and felt Thaddeus squeeze his hand. He looked up at his father and saw that the man's eyes were bright with unshed tears, his red hair a mess atop his head from the still swirling winds.

"AdenNott..." Lucius' smirk broadened and he turned to Jonas. "He says his name is Aden Nott, Jonas - what do you make of that?"

Severus looked at the man called Jonas with a mixture of curiosity, and unquestionable fear. Where his terror was rooted from, he didn't know and he didn't wonder about it either - it was merely present for there was a sinister air radiating from him.

Jonas averted Lucius' gaze and turned two smoldering black orbs to the ground in a scowl, feeling the all too familiar constriction of his chest as a second spirit fought to overtake him in his anger. He muttered darkly under his breath and Lucius laughed.

"Nothing? So you make nothing of it?" The young Necromancer's eyes burned with tears of fury and helplessness as the band upon his wrist glowed crimson red and burned ferociously at his skin. The runes began taking shape in the air and he looked up to meet the traitor's eyes. The other man was looking at him as if he had a sudden understanding of an unasked question.

"Bloody hell," Jonas thought he heard the man breath, his voice catching at the realization.

Jonas looked to his right just as he saw Lucius nod at someone at his right. The witch directed her wand towards him and his eyes swirled in rage. "No!" he yelled, shadows being created within the palms of his hands. Lucius was the only one who knew to move, but the witch could only stare in horror as the shadows and specters bound to Jonas soared towards her.

The room was deathly silent as the voices of the underworld creatures tore at her spirit and her screams echoed as she writhed in pain. No one dared to move a step towards her for one look at the young man whose aura was a blinding light of black stood like the epitome of power nearby.

His voice broke the silence and even the shadows and specters, blissfully preying upon the witch's spirit, silenced themselves for their master wished it so. "I told you once, Lucius Malfoy, I'm a slave to no one but myself," he said softly, but his voice seemed to resound around the room in deafening tones.

But even as he said it, Severus saw his lips pursed and beads of sweat upon the young man's forehead. If it was at all possible, he looked even gaunter than he had first been. The clouds of black hovering under his eyes were more pronounced as was his emancipated form under the loose robes that hung off his shoulders. The strangest thing was happening to the man's eyes for what Severus had first thought to be black were now swirling with sapphire blue.

"You are a slave to Mistress Death, Jonas," said Lucius in a fierce whisper, his eyes burning with triumph. "You are a slave to Derrick Bane." And as Jonas clenched his fists, fighting off an enemy none but he could see, Lucius raised his wand, crimson glowing at its tip. "And you are a slave to me."

And Jonas screamed as Derrick Bane took over his body once and for all.

~*~

The only thing Remus heard when he awoke was a constant blip nearby and he felt something large weighing down his bed. With a moan of discomfort and pain in his chest, he slowly sat up. There was a last bark before a blurry form helped him to sit up. Remus tried hitting the person away, but they merely held him tighter and soon, he was sitting up against newly fluffed pillows.

The werewolf rubbed his eyes with a huge yawn, and then he looked around dazedly. There was someone familiar next to him, but he couldn't quite place the face. The familiar eyes stared at him with evident concern and his black hair was astray atop his head.

Black. Hair.

"Sirius?" wondered Remus, but his voice came out in an incoherent slur. He looked at his blurry friend wildly, and then looked around again, feeling the spells and just making out the virtual monitors nearby. His heart began pounding and the constant blip sounded quickly with it.

The man beside him held his hand. "Moony," whispered Sirius urgently, "calm down, you're all right. You're all right." Remus took a series of deep breaths as his best friend calmed him, holding his hand for comfort. "These are just some after effects of the Veritaserum on your system. You were allergic...supposedly because of your lycanthropy."

Allergic? Lycanthropy? He thought back to the last thing he could remember.

A wave of nausea...dancing vision...red and black spots...black abyss...barking before he slipped away...barking?

"You were a dog..." he tried to say, but his tongue felt like a mound of Drooble's Best Bubble Gum in his mouth. His words couldn't seem to get around the blasted thing.

Nearby, Sirius laughed softly, just making out the meaning of his friend's words. "Yeah, Padfoot, remember?" And Remus felt a strange prickling sensation behind his eyes as he rubbed his temples in fatigue.

The problem was that he didn't.

A dog? How could Sirius be a dog? He was...Sirius...He shook his head, looking in the direction of the dark shape he had learned to be his friend.

"It's all right - I heard the Healer say that you're suffering from mild to not really severe memory loss, but it will undoubtedly come back. You're going to be perfectly fine in a few days - don't worry." Remus opened his mouth to speak, then thought the better of it and touched his eyes. I can't bloody see! The hand in his squeezed again in reassurance. "Blurry?" Remus nodded, trying to swallow the lump that had formed some minutes ago. "That won't stay for long - the Healer said your sight should recover in a few hours to a day. Your tongue should loosen up in a short while as well."

He sighed and relaxed, finding that he had stiffened his back until he was sitting up, straight as a board.

"Albus visited - our beloved headmaster," said Sirius and Remus noticed that the last definition was added with ease, as if they had been speaking for a while. Had he awakened before? If he had, he couldn't remember it... "He told me that I should probably tell you what happened when you woke up again. Don't worry, he also told the doctors not to come in to this room unless it was an emergency - said you liked your privacy," Sirius told him with a small chuckle. "The cunning bastard," whispered the escapee from Azkaban brokenly.

When you woke up again...so I woke up before? Remus rubbed his eyes, feeling dizzy, and then he closed them. Perhaps it would be better not to see fuzzy things for a while. Why shouldn't doctors come in? Is it because Sirius is a dog?

"It turns out that you're severely allergic to Veritaserum... they say it's because of your lycanthropy, but I doubt it. Other werewolves had suffered from Veritaserum usage and they didn't react the way you did. Merlin - you were out like a light! I wasn't the only one panicking. The aurors were having a field day." Sirius shook his head, his voice near a growl. "It turns out that they didn't even have an authorized warrant for using the blasted potion - Sorenson was laid off, but it was really someone deep in the Ministry that illegally authorized their use of Veritaserum to question you." He pushed a strand of hair from Remus face and the tired man lop-sidedly grinned. Sirius wasn't sure that his friend was smiling like that because of the anesthesia charms or just because, but he shrugged the thought away.

"Anyway...I suppose that I'm lucky that you're allergic to Veritaserum - they were going to question you about me..." Sirius broke off, the monitoring spells catching his eye and he ran a hand through his hair in guilt. "Merlin - Moony, I'm sorry about all this. If it wasn't for me -," but Remus hit his hand. "Ouch! What -," but he cut himself off when he saw his friend shifting position.

He transformed back into Padfoot, noticing that Remus was awfully exhausted. Hopefully he would wake for a fourth time actually knowing himself again - knowing what happened, for it was tearing Sirius apart to tell him over and over again.

~*~

Luke ran a hand through his dirty blonde hair. His hazel eyes were tired after long nights of writing a curriculum for the school year. He had just finished fifth year's and felt like doing away with this whole teaching thing.

Only two more to go...he thought desperately, pulling a piece of parchment towards himself. Inadvertently, he knocked over the ink well and he swore under his breath. Standing up, he looked around the room and spotted another one on his bedside desk. He picked it up and noticed a note card upon the desk.

He dropped the ink well in his hand and didn't even hear the sound of the glass shattering or the tiny pieces digging deeply into his skin. He didn't feel the ink frostily touch his toes as he looked at the neat yet masculine scrawl upon the dreaded note card.

Lucas DeMay took a step forward, the glass piercing the soles of his feet but getting no response. He took the note card in his left hand, absently rubbing the spot where the hated mark that branded him to his past and his most hated acquaintance.

It had been so long...so long since he had been at a meeting...

Not too long ago, he had seen Severus Snape - a man he had hated only because he was related to the past that Lucas so desperately wanted to forget. In their years knowing one another, their relationship hadn't been as cold as it was now, and Luke felt that the frigidity of their association was his own fault - but what was he to do when the man only brought back memories that he wished with all his might to somehow fade away?

He wondered vaguely if Severus went to the meeting...and then he remembered that the man was teaching at Hogwarts as well, as a potions professor. Merlin, the two seemed so different, yet they were so much alike. Luke knew that Severus hated him with a passion for almost the same reasons that he himself hated the potions master, but there was a cold and almost sinister cloud in the man's eyes that said he knew something that Luke himself did not know. There was a dignity to the man that seemed to make him superior and Lucas could not forget the expression upon the other professor's face that had made him feel so low.

That day in the hallway, Severus had said something that had etched itself in Luke's mind.

"I've been to hell and back many times, DeMay...in fact - I suggest you take a trip. Satan himself would like to see you again," said a man with ice dripping lethal drops of venom with every word.

There was a knock on the door, but Luke didn't hear it as he lost himself to the memories he fought so hard to forget. He didn't notice the door open, nor the exclamation of surprise.

"Luke!" cried Skye, she walked over in her fuzzy pink slippers, her hazel eyes so like his wide with horror. "Lucas DeMay, what have you done to yourself?" She shook him, snapping him out of his daze and he lashed out with his hand but she blocked the blow and slapped him in retaliation.

He stood there, blinking in surprise, and only then did he seem to see his sister standing there. "Skye? What are you doing in here? This is my private chamber."

She rolled her eyes and asked the heavens to save her from imbeciles before taking the note card from him and throwing it into the fire. "Forget about it," she told him softly. "It's all in the past." Luke looked at her for a long moment before nodding. He took a step towards his desk and winced, looking down at his bloody feet where bits of glass pierced angrily at his skin. "Merlin, Luke, what you do to yourself..." Skye shook her head and told him to sit upon his bed so she could heal him. She had just finished studying at a Healer school and now worked at St. Mungo's part time. "You ought to be more careful - one of these days you'll walk off the cliff because you didn't notice that the road ended a mile back!"

He merely rubbed his eyes in response and her gaze softened. "I'm sorry, Skye," he mumbled. "I don't know what's gotten into me lately," he lied.

She noticed the shifting of his eyes as he said his last sentence and sighed. "It's all right," she replied and after she cleaned his cuts and extricated the bits of glass, she healed them. "Look, you have three months to write those blasted curriculums. Spread the wealth, eh?"

Luke looked up at the younger woman and smiled. "Sure, Sis," he said.

Skye rolled her eyes, throwing her hands into the air in exasperation before taking her leave. She stopped in the doorway to say, "Don't forget to clean up the mess. Do it now before you forget about it," she ordered and he laughed, complying with the command.

Sometimes he really just couldn't think. Perhaps it was all those times at the meetings when...

But he shook his head quickly.

"Forget," he muttered. "Forget about it."

And he turned to look at the fire where the note card had been reduced to mere ashes.

~*~

Severus fought the urge to take many steps backwards as he saw the sapphire blue triumph over the obsidian color of the screaming man's eyes. Crimson light enveloped the man called Jonas and the potions master glanced over at Lucius to see a familiar smirk of victory, yet there was an odd expression of unease swirling in the grey eyes so alike his son's.

All of a sudden, the screaming came to a sudden halt and the loud voices that melded together like a whirl of chaos coming from the shadows and specters slowly dispersed from the fallen witch. She lay there against the wall looking very much alive, but there was an emptiness in her eyes that made everyone in the room shiver. And Severus suddenly knew what fate had befallen the unfortunate witch - her soul was gone.

Is that the way I will go? thought Severus, his mind strangely blank and tranquil.

The underworld creatures hovered back towards Jonas who stood erect, yet lingered just above the ground, the crimson light fading from him like a dissolving cloud. Truth be told, the power that had radiated from the frightening young man increased a hundred fold and seemed to smother all occupants in the room. His pained expression had slowly melted away with the red light and the runes on the wrist band that had glowed blood red began to wither away to nothingness. A slow smile of dark perfection smoldered upon his face like a sinister flame and his eyes twinkled with laughter at a joke only he could understand.

Vaguely, Severus felt Harry clutching his hand tightly, but the man couldn't take his eyes from the man called Jonas.

Lucius turned to his fellow Death Eaters with a smirk that covered his unease. "I'm sure you remember Derrick Bane?"

There were murmurs of assent from the other wizards and witches, but there were dark whispers of malice laced with fear that caught Severus' ear as he looked at the new man Jonas had become.

Lucius squeezed his son's shoulder as the boy shivered upon sighting the change in the young Necromancer standing before him. Derrick seemed too perfect to be real, and the sinister aura that hung so freely around him seemed to radiate, the power increased ten-fold.

"We haven't come for no reason," Lucius proclaimed to all those who stood in the room. The air was thick with tension and fear and Derrick's smile broadened as he drank up the dark emotions that swirled around him. Jonas' shadows' and specters' voices increased in volume as their hunger for new souls intensified. Harry shivered as he saw the faint shapes of the shadows hover near the man called Derrick Bane. They were just perceptible for the sunlight outside began to fall into the room against the walls making the dancing specters perceivable. He tightened his hold on Severus' hand and buried himself deeper in the professor's robes, trying to make himself out of sight.

Severus' pounding heart almost deafened him to Lucius Malfoy's next words which were cold and laced with venomous drops of poison. "There is a traitor in our midst, and it is due time for an example of what we do to traitors."

Adenfelt his father shiver and glanced up at Thaddeus, his chocolate brown eyes alight with fear. He turned to look at Lucius, but the man's wand was no longer drawn.

Lucius turned to Derrick and only then did Severus see the dark shadows swirling and growing in his palms. "Stop this taunting, Lucius," said the potions master, drawing himself to his fullest height and using the cold indifferent expression he wore at the meetings he always attended so long ago. "Let's get this over with now or leave my home."

The blonde headed man smiled, but the expression held no trace of mirth - only malice. "Why, what is it that you want us to 'get over', Severus?"

"I know why you're here," replied the potions master in his most acidic tone.

Lucius' eyes narrowed and his eyes hardened into the coldest of ice. "I don't know how you would - I never told you." Severus didn't reply, but watched as his old friend exchanged a weighty glance with Derrick Bane. "Would you confess about being in league with our traitor?"

At this, it took all of Severus' control not to look at the other man skeptically. He vaguely felt Harry's hand tighten in his. He could feel his heart painfully pounding against his chest - could actually feel it and his breathing was hitched by the constant pulsation.

"No," said the Death Eater with disappointed distaste, "you wouldn't, would you. Ever the loyal Severus Snape that our Lord loves." Here, Lucius' lip curled with revulsion and something akin to envy - but what he was envious about was an unsolvable puzzle for Severus because Lucius had always been the top man in Lord Voldemort's ranks. "No - you really wouldn't know who the traitor is, my dear Severus. For you who never were publicly questioned, never questioned anyone else either, did you? But you will see now what I think, even if you don't believe that any of use could ever become traitorous. Derrick?"

The Necromancer smiled and held forward a sphere of malicious shadows and specters that stared nastily around at everyone in the room, hungry for a new soul to prey upon. "This is for the traitor," whispered Derrick with a small, satisfied smile before launching the array of dark creatures forwards.

And Severus could only watch in helplessness as it soared across the room.

~*~

Done! Finally! Why this was such a grueling chapter to write, I have no idea. It could be that I don't do well with writing plots or developing them or building up tension and suspense...but, I suppose shall never know. Yet again, I've left you all with an ugly cliff hanger - I do LOVE these things! Lol, I'm sorry though. The next chapter is extra long and, personally, my favorite. It will be coming out sooner rather than later. :o)

This will inevitably be a long story so don't worry yourselves - unless you like short stories for this will not be one. The chapters are longer though, HURRAY! Though this one is shorter than the last. This one was only nine pages. Sorry!