Here the Stone Images are Raised

The tea had long since grown cold. Embers shifted in the fireplace, casting a shower of sparks before settling again into silence. The cat had come in from the garden earlier and slept now at his feet. The breeze through the open window was soft. Only the moonlight tracked across the floor, giving a silver sheen to his hair and reminding the cat of other dreams.

It was past full and waning. He found this appropriate, in the sections of himself that remained untouched. "I can't countenance this," he said, his voice rusted from disuse and unshed emotion. "But I must." His fingers found his eyes and pressed, gouging out memory and recollection.

Severus,
I regret to inform you that our fears have been confirmed.

It should, he thought, have been something less simple. Perhaps that would come later, when they had found some tale to give to the students, something they could believe. He felt the cat roll over and stretch, kneading his boot with its claws. He pushed the chair back, pushed the letter away, and banked the fire with a flick of his wand. This would wait until the morning, certainly. He had nothing now but time.

The sheets still smelled of Lucius, the pillows, and the ribbon that had bound his hair curled around the stem of an empty wine glass. Midnight blue velvet with the ends sharply angled. His limbs felt leaden and unfastening the buttons that held his robes and his dignity together was more complicated than he had the stamina to manage. The cat had formed a warm weight at the foot of the bed in its accustomed place.

He did not want to think of Lucius, but he was too weary to go home. Better to stay in this room, in a disused wing of the manor, and consider his return on the morrow. His clothes were a messy heap beside the bed now, and he could not find it within himself to straighten them or to even put them across a chair. The candle went with an exhalation that was more sigh than proper breath.

The last thought, as his mind gave way to the exhaustion in his heart: They were meant for more than this.

* * *

He woke as the sunlight poured through the window. In his distraction he had neglected to close it. He realized that he moved like a man shell-shocked, but could not disagree entirely with this observation. It seemed that he should have been more accustomed, now, to this idea. Perhaps it was the manner, or perhaps it was their youth. Regarding his hands (knuckles bony and too angular to be pretty; scars like pockmarks from caustic concoctions), he decided that it was more that they had never properly lived.

She had been . . . seventeen? Her hair swinging as she crossed the courtyard; the boy trailing behind as they hurried to class.

He stood and dressed mechanically, tucking his wand into his sleeve nearly as an afterthought. The cat yowled in protest when he lifted it to place it in the bag he'd purchased expressly for this purpose, but it was accustomed to their sudden travel and soon calmed itself. If he were religious, he would have prayed that he would encounter no one as he left. As it were, he considered going out through the window.

Lucius did not sleep late. Lucius rarely slept, to be more precise, and what sleep he had was often fitful. It was highly unlikely that any sort of confrontation would be avoided. As it were, he was vaguely surprised that no one had come to rouse him for breakfast.

He rolled the letter tightly, blotting out the single sentence, and stuffed it into the sleeve that held the wand. It too was a weapon.

* * *

Later, yes, and out the bloody window. Why had he brought the broom? Why hadn't he apparated? It seemed more enjoyable, before. Now, he could not quite say that he minded the solitude, or the warmth of the cat tucked close to his chest, nor even the official announcement (someone would have had to make one) that he would be spared.

It was too bright. The sun was unforgiving and it was earlier in the day than he had expected. While he had a perfectly good pocket watch stowed away into his robes, he felt that time would make all of this seem more real, and he was still comforted by the certain sense of illusion that things maintained. He wondered who would weep, how many students he would find in his office asking questions he did not believe he was prepared to answer.

Some of it began to crash through his gossamer distractions then, and he pushed it away. He was only ten minutes away. Surely it could wait that long.

* * *

Up the stairs to Dumbledore's office. He sank into the chair he had spent far too much time in over the course of his career, and even before, when he too was a student. Dumbledore regarded him over steepled fingers, the ever-present dish of sweets neglected in the silence.

"Severus," Dumbledore said, soft and lacking in hesitation. Perhaps he did this often.

"Sir."

"Severus, there was nothing you could do."

"That is something I cannot--must never--believe."

"Severus."

"Headmaster, you chant my name as if it will bring them back." He heaved himself up out of the chair, aware that he was too snippy and aware that it would be forgiven. He was trembling and not quite certain why. He turned and left without waiting to be excused. That, too, would be forgiven.

* * *

The dungeon: quiet and solitude and chill air. His room at the manor was bright and spacious. The cat made a small sound as he entered his bedroom at last. He unpacked it, setting it unceremoniously on a table where it proceeded to nose among his candles. There are better ways to live than inside cages. The broom found its place behind the door; his cloak went to a chair and he began again the process of shucking his robes. It could continue to wait until after he had a bath.

No bubbles in the water; only a blend of oils that smelled of greenery and spice. His nose—far too trained to acuteness by his art—could decipher the individual scents, but this was too tiresome now. It would be soothing, warming. The water was hot enough to boil his flesh from his bones, but he preferred it so. At times, it seemed that he had forgotten how to feel anything other than pervasive chill. The cat perched on the step of the tub. It groomed a forepaw while he shut his eyes and sank into the water to his chin.

She had been good at what she did. The boy hadn't so much, but he brought her the type of joy boys bring young girls before either of them learns that love is not so easily wrought. Potions, again, with children who could not tell one elixir from another, but then she would have been graduating regardless. He had considered approaching her to offer apprenticeship. He was far from old, but his job was fraught with uncertainty, and he would have preferred to look through potential successors while there was time to train appropriately.

He felt old, here, with the blood of children on his hands. Not directly, he supposed. Indirectly, through a lack of action, through too much and not enough of anything that mattered beyond his small and petty existence.

* * *

Lucius' hands on his waist, his lips against his shoulder. A glass of wine in one hand, and the warmth of the fire hot against his belly. The warmth of breath against the back of his neck. Only sensation: Lucius holding his hip, flattening a hand against his thigh.

* * *

Images dissipating, resolving: Voldemort in a chamber deeply underground—moss on the walls, cracked stone beneath his feet. It smelled of death and unopened tombs; he believed Voldemort found it vaguely amusing to deny death by surrounding himself with it.

Voice like a hiss, like a crackle of electricity along damaged wires: "Does it not seem appropriate that we should remind the old fool that there is no safety in sacred spaces?"

And his own answering, from beneath the hood, with teeth grit and his nails digging into his palm, "Yes, lord."

* * *

There were claws in his shoulder suddenly, the very tips of two paws’ worth. Curling his fingers over his own flesh, he withdrew no blood. The cat glanced at him with a tilted head before it stepped away from the tub to return to the bedroom, tail up and crooked at the tip. He said, tired and tinged bitter, "Perhaps, cat, we should name you Cruciatus. He finds it a useful device for divulging memories."

He stood and retrieved the towel from its hook, water sluicing carelessly from his body. The cat did not reply, though he heard it settle again at the foot of his bed. He considered it luck momentarily that he also spent much of his life underground. Few people came to ths section of the dungeons without adequate cause, and it was unlikely then that he would be disturbed today.

It could not wait forever.

* * *

His desk held mail, delivered while he was in the bath by one of the few house elves that refused to be intimidated away. His hair dripped into the collar of his robe, but he could not be bothered to care. He was occasionally preternaturally tidy; his hand fell immediately upon the letter opener when he pulled open the drawer. The top was a note from Dumbledore, the next from Lucius, and a handful of late homework and excuses from students. He cast those aside. If they could not be punctual, they hardly deserved his regard.

Lucius. The paper was so pale a blue that it seemed nearly white, shot through with gold. The Malfoy crest at the top center (as if he wouldn't know this scent, this absurdly expensive writing material, this silver-blue ink).

So early; you missed your breakfast, my dear. Was it something I said?

--- L.

So snide. He felt nearly ill. Lucius knew, had known, and knew even that he cared more than he should. It was a constant point of contention between them. He knew that Voldemort questioned his loyalty; he knew that this was a test of a sort. Sides are so easily blurred in love and war. Dumbledore wrote concerned missives and pressed lemon drops into hands that shook after nights spent ringed with Death Eaters, nights of feeling the Dark Mark ache in his bones.

It was a choice, once. Made in anger and apathy, and then grief and stricken remorse. Both sides played against the middle, with two more children dead. He wondered if he would lose count one day. Already their names and faces blurred together, among memories of lives and the particular flavor of their screams. Lucius enjoyed it. So had he, once.

"Do they not deserve it?" Voldemort was fond of rhetorical questions. Voldemort styled himself a weaver of nightmares, raking the most pathetic recollections again over the coals to fan the flame of devotion he required. Then the whisper, shared only private and among the two of them: "Did they mock you, Severus? Did they laugh when you went past?"

His first: a boy who had been in his class, a mudblood with grey-green eyes and unremarkable dark hair.

"What did he call you, Severus?"

So many memories cresting like waves: his hand, trembling as he raised the wand, so many memories cresting like waves; a burst of green (less pretty than his eyes, however cruel they were) and a body crumpling to the ground.

He set Dumbledore's note on the edge of his desk, away from his immediate view. Too much of the weekend had been wasted this way. He lifted the basket of potions essays to a small side table and began reading. The cat nosed in his disregarded lunch.

* * *

The cat was a tiger striped little tabby, black and brown. It had harvest moon eyes and drank from his teacup when it cooled. He did not remember how or where or even when he had acquired it as a companion.

* * *

In the morning, he entered the great hall at his accustomed time. It was Monday and classes had not been canceled, though there was a subdued air and many of children (though none, of course, were Slytherin) had red-rimmed eyes or frightened, furtive looks covering their faces. The majority of the Slytherins came from old blood families, many of whom were already indelibly tied to Voldemort. This would be viewed by their parents as a sort of coup, and they would be expected to be similarly pleased. Enlightenment by imitation, he thought sourly.

The young Malfoy in particular sneered at the Gryffindors. Potions this afternoon would accomplish precisely nothing beyond wasting two additional hours of his life. He was not entirely sure that he could bring himself to sympathize with Potter, who sat at his house table between two empty seats and stared into his pumpkin juice as if it contained the mysteries of the universe. Friends and close relations are a liability. His liabilities were the cat and the students as an entire body.

Perhaps he protected them because no one had protected him from himself and from too many nights spent alone and unwanted. Next year, half or more of the graduating class of Slytherins would have a dark mark emblazoned on their arms. It had slowly worsened each year. It had been a decision made because the alternatives were, at the time (still?), worse. Now it was a symbol of status. The Death Eaters had infiltrated the Ministry to the point that it seemed futile to rely on it as any sort of protection or even a proper governmental agency. Dumbledore had become, even years ago, the only thing the side of Light felt they could rely on, and now his children were being snatched from beneath his nose.

They were brought back in pieces. A good thing there are spells to identify bodies, though they had been kind enough to leave a lock of her hair bound with the same ribbon she wore to class. The boy was slightly more ambiguous, though there were not many children so unfortunate as to wear the precise shade of maroon sweater that found its way home with him; a frayed and burnt scrap to mark the end of a life too shortly lived.

Empty eyes; the children were empty eyed. Perhaps they had believed too much in the power of Dumbledore, and the untouchable sanctity of young things. Death is only common and a friend to those old and worn past completion. He had seen it too much, too often. He was only now their fathers' age.

This did not matter. The mark on his arm ached in a quiet and dull way. He found himself clenching his fist in the sleeves of his robes as he walked head down and silent. The world dwindled to pinpoints of action and reaction.

There would be a meeting in another night at the most. In this day, at the most inopportune time, the mark would flare and burn and brand his soul anew. He would excuse himself, though he rarely had a cause for excuses. Even as an adult, he was not well liked among his peers. He would don the robe, the mask; press his fingers against the mark. A ban on apparation, but Voldemort never needed such petty things.

Tiresome. The day passed more quickly than he would have expected. The children were distracted and he found himself largely ignoring his lesson plans. He rewarded and deducted points by default. He had been capricious enough with it in the past that it was unremarkable. He considered brewing dreamless sleep potions, then deadly concoctions, elixirs of forgetfulness. It had been a pity that there was no forgiveness to be found in a draught--nothing to cleanse the stains that remained upon his heart. In the end, it was something negligible: another round of healing potions for Poppy. He supposed she would need them.

* * *

He had found, accompanied by vague annoyance and the resignation that all things deserve ritual that magically heated water did not taste quite the same as something boiled properly in a kettle, and even then, that it was superior when heated over a fire. He did so, toward late evening, alone in his rooms. A trio of thick beeswax candles and the fire were the only light. This was his one luxury.

The pot was acquired quite some time ago, on an otherwise business trip to China. British tea, with its related memories of his aunt and her large and monstrous floral incarnation of a teapot, had never appealed to him. The concepts of teapots in China were small and elegant; molded in only the tones of the earth itself. Of the few that bore designs (carved with a careful hand into the clay itself), he was forced to note that the Chinese had a far greater sense of style than his aunt.

The one selected finally for himself was plain and fairly small, though somewhat more generous than many of those he saw. The man instructed him, in broken English and with a fair amount of gesturing, on the proper use of such a thing, and also provided him with a selection of Chinese teas.

It amused him, this tiny teapot, the careful explanations, the rosewood box full of tea. He opened the box now and took the scoop, measuring with the same careful eye he applied to his potions. Next the water, cooled slightly in the space of his reminiscence, enough to cover the leaves. It sat for a second or so, and he poured it off, adding more water and allowing it to rest. Less than a minute (the space of ten breaths) and then he poured it into the larger of the two cups, and then from that into the smaller.

He sighed, now, the aroma filling the room. Some tension, unnamed properly in his thoughts, though possessing white-blonde hair, slipped from his shoulders. He lifted the small cup to his lips, more comforted by the smell and the associated memories, than he was by the tea or the time taken. He raised his other hand to his face, brushing his fingers over the lines cut too deeply and too prematurely, the evidence of secrets and the perpetual scowl that was a varying portion true and the remainder a wall to stay behind.

He supposed he would be summoned soon. Until then: the tea.