A Merciless Affection

Chapter 59: Why, You Ask, Was I Bound and Chained?

Severus Snape opened his eyes. The pain that had been pinching him awake took on new intensity as his conscious mind revived enough to process both the source and the situation.

His hands were drawn up against the wall above his head, and the iron was digging into his wrists again. Even as he came fully awake, the chains tightened another notch, threatening to dislocate his shoulders if he did not rise to his feet, or at least to his knees. The chains were spelled to grow slowly looser or tighter over a period of time. The most probable reason for the device was to increase the prisoner's pain--his arms and hands would have mercifully lost much of their feeling had they remained pinned continuously over his head. But the near-constant demand for changes in position had another effect: it prevented the unfortunate captive from resting for longer than the loosest part of the chain's cycle--perhaps an hour at most.

How many such hours had passed, he no longer knew.

He had never had a chance. The thought still made him angry. The spell he had prepared to strike Connor with, the moment they reached their destination, had scarcely left his lips when he was struck from behind with a full Body-Bind. The caster of the spell--Bellatrix, he knew immediately from the laughter--had let him fall forward on his face. He had had his head turned just enough to prevent his nose from being broken, but his cheek had hit the rough stone floor of the dungeon with sufficient force to tear the skin open, not to mention the resulting bruises; his eye was swollen nearly shut, and it was impossible to lie comfortably on that side. Not that comfort of any kind was an option, after all they'd done to him so far--only varying degrees of pain.

And he understood, only too well, that pain was the absolute definer of his life now. As soon as it stopped pleasing them to hurt him, he would be dead.

Connor was dead already. Bella had disposed of him the moment he'd started demanding his payment--the payment that Nott had promised and Fiona had denied him: five-hundred Galleons and a recommendation to the Dark Lord for his advancement. The response was no more than Connor deserved for being such a fool as to trust Fiona twice, but Severus had found himself wincing inwardly at the sound of the man's body hitting the floor all the same. That death, he knew, was merely a forerunner of his own.

The only remaining question was how long Severus would be allowed to live before his continuing existence became too much of a threat to the women upstairs. If it were Bella alone who had kidnapped him, he suspected he would be dead already. The woman had more to lose than Fiona--any hope of Bella's return to the Dark Lord's favor would vanish in an instant if her involvement in Severus's disappearance became known.

Unless, of course, she had some way of proving him a traitor. But he did not intend to give her that. Nor was the Dark Lord likely to simply accept her word that Severus had confessed under torture. Most men would eventually say anything, whether it was true or not, to make the pain stop; more than once, Severus had seen it become a game--forcing the victim to confess to the most outrageous and degrading lies before being allowed the dubious mercy of death. But the Dark Lord had more reliable means for extracting the truth. Torture was typically reserved as a punishment, or to force a humiliating confession of something of which he was already sure. No, the only hope Bella had on that count was to take the risk of bringing Severus face to face with the Dark Lord, on the dangerous supposition that she had broken him sufficiently to prevent him from hiding his traitorous nature any longer.

Apparently it was a risk she had decided not to take. Not yet, at least. It might even be that, with his death--and, thereby, an end to his treachery--assured, the question of his loyalties no longer mattered to her. Thus far Bella had been bent only upon one thing: punishing him for his role in her fall. And for defying her.

The chains clinked another link tighter, and Severus tried, gingerly, to shift onto his knees. But the effort sent a jolt of agony through his groin, and a sharp cry escaped his lips. Severus curled over involuntarily, more pain tearing at his shoulders and wrists, the remainder of his breath hissing out in a string of ineffectual curses. Damned women!

Bella had begun it--it was the first thing she had done after they had bound him in this cell, with the chains at their tautest. Whether it was due to her perverse curiosity--a desire to sample the virility that had compelled Sarah's attachment to him--or whether Bella had intended only to mock him once she had aroused him, she had struck him with the Imperius Curse, then ordered him to couple with her. There had been a time, in their youth, when he would have taken delight in raping Bellatrix Black, highborn bitch that she was. But not now--not after all that had happened in the intervening years, not with the knowledge that Bella fully intended, sooner or later, to kill him. In his disgust, it had taken scarcely any effort to throw off the spell.

But she had approached him in the conviction that she had the upper hand. He had waited until she was close enough before spitting into her face. Then, as she stepped back in fury, he had sent a double-footed kick into her gut. When she had recovered enough to gasp out "Crucio!" she had used a very pointed aim to make him regret his resistance.

At least the effects of Crucio faded within a short time, from the body, if not from the mind. And fortunately--if anything in his situation could be called good fortune--it was Bella's favorite spell. Despite her temporary urge to make him wish he were a eunuch, that particular target could only entertain her for a limited amount of time...chiefly because she could not continue for very long before he mercifully passed out.

It was Fiona Nott who had produced the lasting pain that made every shift in position a torture of its own. Whether she lacked the grit to perform an Unforgivable Curse, or whether she simply had no wish, as an ostensibly law-abiding witch, to weigh down her wand with such incriminating evidence, she had selected other spells to inflict Severus with.

"What made you think you were worthy to so much as touch my niece? You're nothing but a bit of Knockturn Alley trash that Lucius thought could be useful. You have no right think yourself our equal! You had no right to pour your filthy bastard seed into one of us!" She raised her wand. "Vexus Orchidus!"

It was not an unusual spell--among the boys at Hogwarts, it had been called "the Nutcracker," and had been used judiciously to inflict embarrassing pain in situations where the chances of being caught were minimal. Fiona, however, used it viciously and without compunction. And unlike Crucio, it had a lasting physical effect. Hence his inability to move without screaming.

Damned women!

And Sarah-- This is all her fault! his mind raged. He saw no chance that he would ever leave this cell alive, but if he did.... Throw her out? Take the child from her first and then throw her out? Regardless of her position of favor with the Dark Lord?

Beat her, then? Flay her with his tongue--oh, he would do that at least! Make her regret, every moment of her life, that she had....

But every time his thoughts tended in that direction, a picture of her face, as he had last seen her, swam before his eyes: a pale and terrified girl. A girl, for all that her belly was swollen with his child. A girl whom he had left all alone in the flat, neglecting his own earlier level of precautions, ignoring even the simple warnings the benighted Ministry had given. And Connor had taken that opportunity to deceive her.

And now she would be left a widow before she turned nineteen. A widow with a child, presumably yet unborn.

She deserves it, for her foolishness! But he could not be sure that the tears that came suddenly to his eyes were tears of pain.

* * *

He awoke later from some formless nightmare at the sound of someone approaching. Usually their little "visits" were timed to coincide with the tightest part of the chains' cycle. It was as satisfying a thought as the situation permitted that, even with him wandless and chained, they feared him too much to risk any chance of his getting his hands on them.

But these sounds were stealthy. Someone was sneaking towards the cell door. Severus felt a pang of hope shoot through his chest. Could Sarah have somehow realized what had happened? But then, how had his rescuer breached the wards of Notting Chase without raising an alarm?

The bolt was being withdrawn with painful slowness. Finally, the door swung open, just far enough to reveal a young man's face, weirdly illuminated by wandlight, but recognizable. He was not, perhaps, the last person that Severus had expected to see. Indeed, his presence here was entirely reasonable...even obvious. And yet Severus took a sharp inward breath. The youth was one of his own Slytherin students: Theodore Nott.

"My God," Theodore whispered harshly. "Professor Snape?" He began to rush toward the man on the floor, then stopped, as if fearing the possibility of some magical wards on the prisoner that could as easily harm a visitor.

"It would appear I will not be teaching Potions this term," Severus gasped out, grimacing.

"How...why...? I knew Mother had someone down here but..." Theodore shook his head, as if unable to believe what he was seeing. "Why would she do this to you?"

It was far too long a story, and one, in any case, that Severus could not afford for the boy to hear. "I seem to have crossed her." As he attempted to speak normally, he found that his throat was raw, his voice harsh.

"She isn't...keeping you here for...for the Dark Lord?" Theodore whispered, his eyes widening. Not a surprising supposition, with Bellatrix in residence.

"No," Severus croaked. "He would be very displeased if he knew." It was difficult to say more than a few words at a time. "Your mother and Bellatrix have a private...vendetta." At the last word, the roughness in his throat choked him. He tried to control the spasm of coughing that threatened, but the effort rattled his body and turned his coughs into screams.

When Severus was able to look up again, he saw Theodore with his wand raised, as if attempting to think of a spell that could help. But the boy's narrow face was slack and pale, and there was panic in his eyes.

"I just wanted to see who was down here. Not...."

The once-bright flare of hope within Severus began coalescing into a small, dark knot of despair. Theodore was a loner, quiet, never one to join up with the cliques that formed within Slytherin House. He was not a coward, and he was well able to hold his own. But as the youngest member of a family that had, over the years, suffered from the effects of displeasing the Dark Lord, Theodore was not eager to expose himself to undue attention from anyone. The chances that the boy would act in defiance of his mother were, Severus realized angrily, very small indeed.

"Let me go," Severus ordered hoarsely, knowing his only hope might be that the boy's respect for him as his Head of House might override his cautious inaction.

"Is she doing this because of my father?" Theodore's expression tightened. "Did you have something to do with his being caught, the way Mrs. Lestrange says?"

"Bella...doesn't know...what she's talking about." Severus forced the words out carefully, trying to avoid another attack of coughing. "Malfoy's fault...her foolish brother-in-law." There was no friendship between Theodore and Draco, even if there was no open rivalry either.

"I can't believe my mother would do this without a reason." But the boy's voice shook, as if he had some doubts about his mother's good sense.

"It was...Bella's idea." And it might have been; she, at least, had been taking the lead from the moment he had been captured. Better to make the boy believe in his mother's relative innocence. "Your mother...can't afford...the Dark Lord's...anger."

"If I let you go, you might tell him! Mrs....Bella said you'd fooled him, taken a higher place with him than you deserved...."

Severus felt a surge of anger. The highborn arrogance in the boy's voice and manner was abruptly evident. And whatever carefully cultivated doubts Theodore may have had before about whether or not his Head of House was a Death Eater had been swept away.

"I have...no quarrel...with your mother," Severus lied, his teeth gritting. "The blame will...be laid...on Bella alone."

"I can't be sure of that. She's..."

"I'm what?" asked a smooth voice, from the direction of the door, and Severus felt a chill in his soul even colder than the stone floor of the dungeon. Bellatrix had come down the stairs, catlike, and now she seemed to ooze into the cell. "Severus, are you corrupting this young man's opinion of me?" She touched the boy's cheek with suggestive fondness. Theodore flinched slightly.

Before she could speak or act further, a clear sound of clattering footsteps was heard. The door was thrust open all the way, and Fiona stalked in.

"Bella, I told you never to come down here without...." She seemed to lose her breath as she took in her youngest son's presence, but she got it back quickly enough. "How dare you sneak down here, Theodore! Or did you bring him?" She eyed the other woman sharply.

"Certainly not," Bella replied. "I may have just prevented your son from rescuing his dear professor."

"I didn't...." the boy protested. "I didn't even know who was here. I just wanted to find out...."

"You'll find out what you're given permission to find out!" Fiona's expression hardened. "We have enough troubles in this family without you interfering in matters that do not concern you! Go to your room!"

"Just a moment," Bella said. "Perhaps young Theodore could do with a little demonstration." She raised an eyebrow at Fiona. "This younger generation is so soft. Goodness knows I've been trying with my nephew. But even your oldest, a grown man, doesn't have much stomach...."

"Chester can do what needs to be done!"

"You'd better hope so," Bella said. "Or the Dark Lord may decide to wash his hands of the Notts altogether."

"You have no room to speak," Fiona said angrily. Severus, who had been bracing for an assault, relaxed slightly, hoping that their quibbling might end without another session of torture. Theodore, however, made a move toward the door, sending his Head of House a pitying look.

"Where do you think you're going?" Bella snapped, spying him.

"I...Mother's right. I don't belong down here," Theodore said, half-sheepishly, half-defiantly.

Bella raised her wand, and Severus stiffened again, even though the tension cost him an advance on whatever pain she was about to inflict.

"I'll do it!" Fiona raised her own wand. "Limaxus Vim!"

Severus was surprised by the spell--a relatively simple, if unpleasant, vomiting hex. There was little enough in his stomach to come up. Fiona had ordered him to be given bread and water: an earnest, perhaps, of the fact that she intended his end to be slow as well as painful. The sudden filling of his empty belly was, disconcertingly, pleasant for a moment, despite his knowledge of what was to come: an irresistible gagging sensation that culminated in the painful heaving of his stomach and the disgorgement of a gray, slimy mass that he knew, even without examining it closely, was the body of a slug.

It would almost have been laughable, if not for the terrible, helpless urge to heave again...and again. Fiona had not simply released the spell; she kept her wand raised, exerting control over the strength and speed of the vomiting her hex was causing. Soon it became almost impossible to breathe, as the spasms of heaving came successively quicker. As the heaves shook him harder and harder, his whole body became involved, and the pain that resulted brought a scream with every disgorgement. Soon he was writhing on the floor in the slime, choking, his vision wavering from grey to black. Fiona, sensing perhaps that he was nearing unconsciousness, eased the spell. In the miserable silence that followed, Severus could dimly hear someone else choking, as if trying desperately not to vomit in response.

"Don't you dare!" Fiona said. "Or I'll make you do this yourself!"

"Perhaps he should," Bella put in. "He needs to practice sometime."

Another icy chill touched Severus. He had been subjected, himself, to Bella's hunger for corrupting others, and although he had hardly been an innocent when he came within the sphere of her influence, the memory was not a pleasant one. And while no youth could grow up in a Death Eater's household entirely unmarked, Theodore was less corrupted than some. Certainly he had never openly displayed the ruthless urges that were so common in Slytherin House. It had always seemed to Severus that if Theodore had an ambition, it was to survive the situation his father and grandfather had placed him in.

"It's up to me to decide what he needs!" Fiona said.

Bella snorted. "Do you lack the will, boy? Are you too weak to do what needs to be done?"

Theodore mumbled.

"What did you say?"

"I said 'no,'" the boy hissed quietly. "But I don't understand the need."

Bella laughed. "Do you intend to ask the Dark Lord why he's given you an order?"

An uncomfortable silence followed. Severus had recovered enough to look up, and the expression he saw on the boy's face was troubling. It was, he realized, the same kind of expression that Sarah had worn when he gave his own corrupting orders.

"What do I have to do to prove myself?" The boy's voice was just on the edge of trembling, but shot through with iron.

"Let's see what you can do with the Cruciatus Curse," Bella said contemplatively.

Fiona burst out, "You want him to risk--"

"What risk?" Bella scoffed. "Why should they bother with the wand of a boy still at school? And let me tell you something: that Potter brat tried to curse me that night at the Ministry. Do you think they've done anything to him?"

"As if they would!" Fiona said.

"He didn't have the resolve to do me any harm. I want to see what you can do, Teddy."

The mocking note, twinned with the childish nickname, hardened the boy's face, and Severus felt a jolt of fear. He watched helplessly as Theodore Nott raised his wand.

"You have to mean it, you know," Bella said.

Ignoring her, the boy took a deep breath. For a moment, it seemed as if he met his teacher's gaze, pleading for forgiveness, but it passed too rapidly to be sure, and then, eyes blurred, Theodore cast the spell.

The pain was scarcely a tenth of what Bella could produce in her rage. But for a man already tortured, body and soul, unable to prevent what was happening to one of the children in his charge, it was enough to bring an unwilling sound to his lips.

"Again," Bella urged, breathless.

"Crucio!" The note of pain in Theodore's voice became physical pain for Severus, worse than before.

"Ah yes, that's better. Again."

"That's enough!" Fiona interrupted. "Theodore, go to your room, now!"

The boy fled, without a backward glance.

"Can't bear to see your baby grow up?" Bella mocked.

"He's sixteen years old!"

"You sound just like Narcissa," Bella said poutingly. "Boys do grow up, you know." There was an undertone in her voice that was just now filtering into Severus's impaired awareness. A hint that Theodore might not escape this summer without a more thorough initiation. The idea was so nauseating that he suddenly heaved up more grey slime: Bella, older than himself, seducing a boy of sixteen.... Then, without warning, his own hypocrisy struck him. Were your actions any less abominable? His soul writhed, while his mind tried desperately to pin down the substance of the difference he felt between himself and Bellatrix.

"You won't have the teaching of him!" Fiona protested. "You leave him alone."

"A mother hen." Bella clicked her tongue. "How predictable."

"I could order you out of this house, Bellatrix!"

"Ah, but you won't, Fiona. Because I could make things very, very uncomfortable for you...with what I know." The woman gestured mildly at the wizard on the floor.

Fiona's face darkened, but she seemed to shrink back. "Just leave my son alone!"

Bella shrugged. "Until later, Severus," she said, with cool malice, and strutted out of the cell, leaving Fiona torn between guarding her prisoner and guarding her child.

"This is your fault!" she shrieked at Severus. And for the next seemingly interminable period of time, she punished him for all his sins, real and imagined.

* * *

The chains had tightened and slackened again--mercifully without the reappearance of his tormentors--when Severus roused unwillingly to the shaking of his shoulder.

"Snape?" It was a man's voice. That alone was surprising enough to prevent Severus from striking out blindly. Although he scarcely had the strength to fight back anymore. "Rennervate!"

Severus gasped as vigor came back into his limbs. The lingering pain was undiminished, but it was suddenly easier to bear, as if any number of hours had been added back onto his fading lifespan. He had expected them to resort to healing spells, at some point, to keep him fit enough to survive another round of torture. But--he looked up into the dimly-lit face of the man--he had not expected them to involve Chester Nott.

"Doing Bella's dirty work?" Severus croaked out.

Chester grimaced. "You would think so," he replied, with mild matching sarcasm. "Look here, can you walk?"

Severus's heart began pounding so rapidly that he feared for a moment it would fail him. "Where?" he gasped.

"Damn it, you're not fit to walk, are you?" Chester frowned deeply, looking around, as if an answer lay somewhere in the darkened room.

"You're not truly suggesting," Severus said hoarsely, "you're about to let me go?"

"Do you really want to die here, Snape? They won't let you live; surely you must know that?" Chester snorted. "Although, goodness knows, most of your students would be just as glad if I let you rot."

A sharp retort hovered on Severus's tongue, but he did not have the strength to put due sarcasm into it. And under the circumstances, it hardly seemed wise to antagonize a possible rescuer. Although Chester Nott's motivation was as dark as the cell itself. "Why would you let me go?"

"Ted...you know, it isn't like him to come to me...but he told me what happened." Chester was frowning again, his voice very low. "Bellatrix Lestrange is a bad influence on my mother. I hoped they would have a falling out before now, especially after...well, the last time. But the prospect of damaging you--that was too great a temptation."

"No doubt," Severus breathed, wincing. His head was pounding. If the man intends to do nothing but talk, he should let me go back to sleep while I can.

"That woman is dangerous to everyone in this household," Chester went on, in an urgent tone. "We've already come under suspicion from the Ministry. Sooner or later she's going to egg my mother into doing something that will put the nail in her coffin, from one side or the other. And put us all at even greater risk than we are already."

It was only as he began trying to untangle the web of connections Chester was drawing that Severus realized how difficult it had become to think clearly from one moment to the next. But as far as he could determine, Chester had no less cause to wish him dead in the end than Fiona and Bella. "Where do I come in?"

"Bella is here now because you are here. If you escape, Bella will flee at once, so she can pretend she had nothing to do with it. She...I don't know how, but she managed to twist things, when the Dark Lord called her to account for what happened when my father brought Sarah here. She lied to him, told him it was all my father's fault. I was always warned that wasn't possible." Chester's voice took on a querying note.

"You believe she's a traitor?" Severus murmured warily; that was the conclusion that a faithful Death Eater might draw.

"It hardly seems likely, does it? After she went to Azkaban instead of pretending to be guiltless, like the rest of us. No, I have more doubts about Sarah's loyalty than I do Bella's."

"What?" Panic stabbed Severus, and he struggled to control it. "How dare you question Sarah's loyalty!"

"I am not questioning it," Chester said. "But I knew Sarah. And the girl who came here this summer is not the child I knew then. People change, I know. But the change would make more sense if she'd grown up in another household than with her mother's family."

"Do not doubt her loyalty to me," Severus snarled weakly.

"There are those who doubt your loyalty, Snape. And if Bella can lie to the Dark Lord...."

"If you doubt me, then why let me go?" Severus was too innately suspicious to trust in this plan to free him. "Why not finish me yourself?"

"The Dark Lord trusts you," Chester said, quietly. "Curiously enough, Albus Dumbledore also trusts you, or so it would appear. You are, in some way, at the crux of this conflict. Whoever wins in the end, you may survive to serve the victor. And to put in a good word for those who have helped you."

So, that was at the root of this rescue attempt. It was unsurprising that Chester had proven to be a man who cared more for his family's and his own survival than for any cause. But it was a feeble and foolish hope--that Severus might live long enough for Chester to collect on the debt. There must be more to the matter than this, unless the man was a fool altogether.

"How can you be certain what will occur, if you let me go?"

"Bellatrix will leave at once, and she will say nothing unless an accusation is made. My mother cannot afford to say or do anything, no matter how furious she may be. And you won't say anything either."

"You have cause to think so?" Severus felt a sneer twist his mouth, as a desire for revenge, fueled by a growing spark of hope that he might possibly survive this incident, boiled up inside him.

"Yes, I do. If for no other reason," and Chester's voice grew suddenly hard, "than the fact that I have been made the guardian of your child. And I haven't sworn any oath."

The sudden threat, from such an unexpected quarter, trapped Severus's breath in his throat.

"If you have learned to lie to the Dark Lord, perhaps you might convince him that I was in on the plot. I know how little I am trusted. But I know the truth will be in my eyes. Is it worth the venture, to make him consider which of us is lying, and how?

"Besides," Chester went on, when Severus stared at him, dumbfounded, "do you really trust any of the others enough that you would prefer to see your child placed in their hands? Without the protection of the Vow my mother made, or the natural affection I must feel for my cousin's child?"

"Your mother was forced to make that Vow." Severus tried to speak with his normal force, but the effort made him dizzy. "Can I believe you uninterested in revenge?"

"My mother brought that upon herself. Or, at any rate, my father and Bellatrix brought it upon her. Sarah did not ask for the Vow; should I blame her for fearing for her baby? I know what my mother is, even if I care for her too much to let you bring about her death. Seek your revenge on Bellatrix if you like. But leave my mother out of it."

There was, of course, no other choice but to agree. The only alternative was a slow and painful death. He was too far gone already to quibble about whom he would and would not take revenge upon. And--the thought came to him suddenly, in opposition to Chester's threat--Sarah might have something to say about what Fiona should suffer in return. But even as he thought this, it troubled him: it was the girl's error that had brought him here; surely to trust so much in her love was a mistake? And yet...the thought of her hands soothing him, her skill in potions bringing him back to health and strength, her eyes flashing in defense of him....

"Snape!" Chester shook his shoulder again.

"Yes, yes, I agree," Severus said, blinking. Damn, even his eyes hurt.

"I thought you'd see it that way," Chester said, too smugly for Severus's taste, but there was nothing to be done about it. The younger man stood and looked around the cell. "I don't like to leave you here, but it's clear that you're in no condition for what I originally had in mind. I'll have to brew some potions to get you on your feet. And by that time, my mother may be awake and ready to pay you another visit."

"What time is it?" Severus was not even sure what day it might be, by now. The sense of disorientation made him suddenly nauseous.

"Early Sunday morning," Chester said. "My mother and Bellatrix had it out again, late last night. Bella finally left--I don't know whether she slept in the house or not--but I'm sure she'll be back." He began pacing. "The biggest problem, of course, is the wards. You can't Apparate out. And the Floo is blocked. I think Bellatrix added a Portkey preventer. I can't do anything about those. The only way in or out is to walk physically. Or to fly--that was my original idea. The wards are weakest on the roof."

Severus winced. "Your mother has made the idea of sitting on a broom...rather unpleasant, you realize?"

Chester grimaced in sympathy. "I was afraid of that. We had a ratty, old flying carpet, but the Ministry confiscated it when my father went to prison. I'm afraid," he sighed, "that the best solution may be to hide you inside the house until the opportunity arises to smuggle you out."

"House-elves?" Severus queried. It was always a house-elf who brought his meager ration of bread and water.

"Well, that's a problem as well. I might be able to keep the house-elves away from a hiding place for a day or two, but with my mother looking furiously for you, suspicions will arise very quickly. And I would really prefer to avoid being accused of having helped you. On the other hand, I would rather not leave you down here to be tortured again." Chester rubbed at his chin thoughtfully, frowning. "The problem is getting you fit enough to run, and then getting you out unseen. They may not come down again until the early afternoon, although we can't depend on that. The longer you're missing, the longer they have to look for you. And once they start looking for you, I can't count on any orders I've given to the house-elves to be kept secret. It would be best to slip you out in the twilight. That's why I came down so early this morning. But obviously that isn't going to work."

"So I will be forced remain here until dark tonight?" Severus breathed tightly. The prospect of enduring another visit, let alone another entire day at the mercy of his captors, was nearly unendurable. But a failed escape attempt would almost certainly prove fatal, within hours if not within minutes or seconds; indeed, the best he could hope for then would be a sudden Killing Curse in the back.

"I don't like it, but that would be the safest course. I'll bring down some potions this morning, and more when they've left you for the while. When it's twilight, I'll help you out a window, and hopefully you can get past Bella's nasty protections...far enough to Apparate, at least."

"I would need my wand," Severus pointed out, his confidence in the younger man's ability to actually pull off this escape slipping further and further as he listened.

"I know. Mother put it inside a vase on the mantel in the library...so she can gloat without risking discovery, I imagine. I can get it without any difficulty. I was going to pop in for it on the way to the roof."

Severus dragged up a sneer. "You could have brought it with you."

"Well, until I knew where things stood, that didn't seem the best of ideas, did it?" Chester shrugged. And there was, unfortunately, no point in arguing the matter.

"I know which potions I require," Severus said weakly. Just thinking of his injuries brought the pain into throbbing focus again. "Ignatius Tonic, for one. And an Invigoration Draught."

"Murtlap Essence?"

"That wouldn't come amiss. Although," he took an unsteady breath, "if you have enough aconite, a bruise-healing paste would be better." Severus shut his eyes. "You are, I hope, capable of making these potions correctly?"

"Well, I suppose we'll know who to blame if I'm not." The smile was so evident in the man's voice that Severus forced his eyes open again. The grinning face that swam before him was strangely at odds with the defensive teenager who had been his student at the very beginning of his teaching career. He had a vague recollection of the boy eventually doing well in Potions, but after so much time and in his present foggy haze, he did not trust the memory.

"Don't worry," Chester said. "Not about the potions anyway." And with that, he left Severus alone again in the dim cell. It took only moments for the incident to seem like a passing dream, and Severus tumbled rapidly back into unconsciousness.

* * *

"This way," Chester whispered harshly. He took a left turn as they came up the dungeon stairs.

Severus followed him in a haze of potion-diminished pain. Two more sessions of torture--one less than an hour past--had done little to aid the effects of the healing potions. In his hand, still scarred at the wrist by the shackles, his wand trembled. If he survived this....

"I'm taking you to the Morning Room. No one's there, even house-elves, at this time of the day. I'll let you out from there." Chester's voice was barely more than a breath.

Severus just hoped that he had the strength and concentration to Apparate once he was outside. And Chester had mentioned other defenses, set in place by Bella.

This will not work.

It seemed miles to the Morning Room, through other rooms and passages that might, at any moment, yield up someone determined to stop them. When they finally reached their destination--a room lined on three sides with windows that ran from floor to ceiling, revealing the manor grounds, bathed in twilight--Severus leaned heavily against the back of an delicate-looking armchair. Chester moved quickly to the windows; a pair of them appeared to open like doors, but when Chester turned the handle, nothing happened.

"Damn it! Locked?" Chester murmured. He hurried over to a desk that sat in the far corner and rummaged in a drawer, then returned with a key in hand. The faint sound of metal on metal, as the tumblers clicked over, was nearly as loud as their breathing in the silent dimness of the room.

"What the--?" Chester jerked repeatedly at the door handle, but to no avail. "Alohomora!"

Just break the damned windows, Severus thought, panic rising in him. He tried to muster up sufficient energy to raise his wand.

Chester, however, seemed more mindful of the house he would one day inherit. When the unlocking spell failed to work, he turned from the glass doors in search of another solution. "There's a guest suite nearby," he urged in a tight whisper. "Only the French doors open in here, but the windows themselves will open in there, and they may not have been tampered with."

Irritated beyond measure, Severus took aim at one of the glass panels. "Vitrum peri!"

Regardless of his weakness, the glass should have at least shattered, if not disappeared altogether. But when Chester reached out a hand to check the results, he found the glass still solid. More than the doors had been tampered with.

"Come on, now!" Chester insisted.

It was difficult to leave behind the very sight of freedom, and more difficult still to leave behind the support of the chair back, but Severus lurched after the other man, cursing silently.

Chester led them back the way they had come. But whether the man intended to try the guest suite, or whether he had given up altogether on the idea of windows as a possible exit, Severus would never know.

"Stop!" shouted a female voice, from further down the hall in front of them, as its owner emerged at a run from the doorway at the end. It was Bellatrix. The game was up.

If Severus had been whole and well, he would have stood and fought her. He knew himself to be as least as good a duelist, although whether or not he was better had never been put to the test. Chester, however, apparently had no such confidence in his own abilities. Dragging Severus by the elbow, he turned and fled.

It was fortunate that the woman's fury was strong enough to keep her running; it made her aim poor. A Stunner crashed into the wall beside them, flaking off plaster. There were other crashes--more distant, strangely. Then, unexpectedly, but not surprisingly, another woman's voice joined the fray, from further back.

"What is it? What's happening?" Fiona called shrilly.

"Your traitorous son. He probably alerted--" Bella spat. Her voice was cut off as Chester slammed the door of the Morning Room behind them. There had, apparently, been no other way to retreat. And now they were trapped.

"Colloportus!" Chester sealed the door, although both of them knew it would not hold long. "I'm sorry, Snape. I didn't intend for things to go this badly wrong."

Severus had collapsed against the chair again; his legs felt like water, and he was not sure that even the chair would keep him standing for more than another minute. "Must be...another solution...." he gasped. Like blasting the walls down altogether. But Chester was unlikely to concur. Severus felt a sudden surge of sympathy with the Dark Lord's disgust with the Nott family.

"Look," Chester said, his voice betraying his hesitation, "I can make it quicker than they will. If you want."

Severus looked up in surprise, meeting the younger man's eyes, almost as dark as his own in the half-light. He thought he had come to grips with his own death, but he realized, as he considered the offer, that he had not. Or at least the recent hope of survival had taken away any possible peace he had made with the idea. Beside, he thought wryly, could this pampered son of the gentry do what he was suggesting? On the other hand, the sudden iron that Theodore had found in himself might well be present in his older brother. Chester's expression had hardened, and Severus felt a cold chill run through him.

The women's voices, coming nearer, reached comprehensibility. "--the windows!" Fiona shrieked.

"You fool!" Bella said. "I've secured every part of the exterior against magical attack! The only way in or out is the front door. And the roof, from which I plan to leave. We just need to take care of this little problem, first."

"Magical attack?" Chester mouthed, but he was in motion already, before the thought was completed, before Severus could speak, before Bellatrix could blast the door open. He took his wand between his teeth and with both hands snatched up another of the fancy armchairs and threw it. It went through a section of the glass, splintering mullions and all, with a satisfying crash.

Unfortunately, the crash was followed almost instantly by another. The door to the Morning Room flew open, blown nearly off its hinges. A cry of protest burst from Fiona, but Bellatrix overrode her.

"So you thought you could escape!" she howled. "What did you promise this fool for helping you? Expelliarmus!" Chester's wand, only back in his hand for a moment, flew toward her, although she did not bother to catch it.

"Get Snape!" Fiona yelled. "There's no time! Petrificus Totalus!"

It was fortunate that Severus was braced so heavily against the chair. His body snapped rigid, but the chair prevented him from falling; he leaned there like a misplaced statue, wishing that he had accepted Chester's suggestion more quickly. The escape attempt had failed before it had properly begun, and Severus' sympathetic helper was known and disarmed. Fiona had no reason not to follow her original plan to take her time about torturing him to death. But then, he thought dully, why was Bella talking of fleeing?

A light flashed suddenly outside the windows, and a shout was raised. One of Bella's little surprises? That made no sense, unless it had been triggered by the breaking of the window. But there was further movement in that direction, and out of the darkness, a young woman on a broom appeared in the gaping hole.

"Why, thanks, Snape. You're under arrest, Aunt Bellatrix!" said Tonks, pointing her wand. Then, "Damn it! Stupefy!" Behind Severus, in the direction of the door, there was a scuffling of feet, the blasting sound of a spell that missed, and then Tonks shouted again, "Expelliarmus!" A wand flew into her outstretched hand, but it was not Bella's wand. Severus had not known this wand for so many years, although he had become horribly familiar with it over the last few days. "Colloportus!" Tonks, apparently not wanting to take the risk of both her prisoners escaping, slammed the battered door closed.

"You won't take me alive!" Fiona shrieked, followed by a soft thud, as if she had dropped to the floor.

"Mother, please!" Chester shouted, lunging toward the door.

Tonks seemed to hesitate for a moment, unsure, perhaps, whose side the man was really on. But then, she had no reason to know that Chester had been trying to help--only the split-second assessment (if she were capable of making it) that Chester had been unarmed and standing apart from the two women. And that moment was enough for Fiona.

"Incendio Totalis!"

What followed was like an explosion--a blast of intense heat that hit Severus in the back and knocked him from his balancing point against the chair. But even as he fell, he seemed to turn feather-light, or at least, the expected impact never came. The crackling of flames rose to a roar, covering Chester's screams of dismay.