The Witch's Hair Shirt

Damnation was neither heat nor the dreaded flame, he concluded. His eyes still closed, his cheek pressed into the hard ground; he had fallen onto his left shoulder, his knees splayed awkwardly beneath him. He was freezing, the blood in his veins sluggishly wending its way through muscle, bone and organ, his skin a searing enclosure.

He heard the ocean roaring beneath him and the cry of a bird. He decided to open his eyes.

He was still where he had been when he stumbled through the door of the muggle house. And where was that exactly, he thought bitterly. He remembered re-warding the door so that he could step out into this place, but what was this place. Slowly he knelt and swallowed a yelp of pain as his blood picked up its tempo and began to warm his icy skin and limbs. His bones felt as though released from a vise. How long had he lain there?

He was on a cliff, above the ocean, the ground beneath him rock smoothed over with a mossy growth. He saw no trees. The sky was a thick silver, midday. A bird hung suspended on an air current off to his right, her wings spread wide, stillness above the raging sea.

He stood. He reached for his wand and it was there, tucked into the Death Eater robe, in the same pocket as the mask. He fished out the slender wood and moved it into the front pocket of his trousers. With both hands he began to tear at the robe, ripping it from his shoulders, it caught around his neck and the clasp tore a gouge of flesh from his collarbone and still he ripped it from his body. He was like an animal tearing at a restraint and finally he was free of it. He rubbed fiercely at his mouth with it, rubbed at his hands, and then stumbling to the edge of the cliff he threw the robe over. A stiff breeze caught the black material, twisted it down through the air until it landed on the breaking waves below, and he watched as it was pulled under the dark green surface of the sea.

He stared out over the seemingly endless ocean and felt it call to him, he felt its age old pull, the insistent lure of its depths. Like the knife that wanted to cut him, like the poison that wanted to be drunk, he felt the sea request his drowning. He bowed his head and considered the option; to breathe water. He stepped closer to the brittle edge. The sea was now all he could hear, its voice roaring around his head, lapping at his ears with its salty tongue and pounding his eardrums with its wet promise of oblivion. He opened his arms wide, balanced on the balls of his feet, threw his head back and considered...

He could do it, he should do it, he heard the voices batter him inside his head, his mother, his father, schoolmates from his youth. But there was another voice now. Not his own, not the voice of the waves, but her voice. He could hear the silent plea that had been fed into his mind by the sheer will of the witch. The witch who was being tortured under the Dark Lord's command, the witch who had somehow chosen him. He realized that that was how he had come to be where he was, it was her will that had shown him this place.

But why.

He stepped back away from the cliff's edge and with his wand out,he attempted to transfigure the thin material of his shirt into a woolen jumper. He half succeeded and the additional bit of warmth pleased him. He turned away from the sea, and there was a woman standing in front of him.

A lifetime of tamping down his reflexes allowed him to remain still and straight, a small twitch at one corner of his lips and a slight widening of his eyes the only things revealing how startled he was. Her steady gaze betrayed nothing. She was older than anyone he had ever encountered, her face a weathered visage of flesh-gilded bone, her hair so white it seemed nearly transparent. She had her left arm raised; a dark grey gyrfalcon perched on her forearm.

She looked relaxed, standing easily, observing him and he decided that she must have been there since he came through the door.

"Would you have watched me jump," he whispered this, "Grandmother?"

She stared at him for a long time, then spoke clearly, "You did not choose to jump, Child."

"But if I had..." he pressed her. "If I had, chosen, then..."

"Then I could not have stopped you." She inclined her head to him and he pursed his lips together, scowling darkly.

"Why are you here?" she asked. "Who are you?"

"Who am I? Who am I? I would have answered you differently this morning." He covered his eyes with a long-fingered hand. "I do not know anymore." His hand dropped to his mouth and his fingers traced his lower lip absently, "I found my way here, through a muggle place." She flinched at the word. "A witch is being murdered. I think she sent me. I do not know why."

The old woman nodded and Snape's attention was drawn to the movement at her back, the white braid of hair trailing to the ground.

"She is from the Norn Coven," he said thickly.

"Yes."

Another silence stretched between them.

"Could you tell me where I am?" he asked.

"You have found your way to Hornbjarg," she answered him. "And to the Norn Coven."

They stared at one another.

As he looked into her pale blue eyes, he remembered the intense gaze of the other witch. What had she filled him with? Snape felt at the hollowness inside him, the hollowness which had always been a part of his existence. It was different. This day had been a lifetime it seemed. Could he even remember awakening that morning? The summons to that house, seeing the pregnant witch, finding himself here. All of this day was pouring into him and like filling a cold glass with a hot liquid, he wondered if he could survive it.

She was watching him. "There is nothing for you here, Grandson. You must return."

"She will die. Her child will be sacrificed," his voice was pleading.

"She will die. Her child will be sacrificed," her voice was resigned.

"She sent me here."

"That was unexpected. And that is why you must return."

"I don't know what is wanted of me."

"Nor do I."

"I will be broken."

"You will be tempered."

He covered his face with his hands. And as he had stood upon the sea cliff's edge just moments before, he found himself, again, on an edge, but this time over a looming chasm and its shadowed depths. There were voices urging him, again, but this time the voices were spoken in tones of nobility and honour and courage. They were the voices of The Fates speaking the words of destiny. He spread his arms as wide as they would reach and dove.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He had apparated back to his rooms at University. He lay curled on the floor, a fetal ball of pain; he bit at the backs of his hands, grinding his teeth along his knuckles. His stomach was heavy again with a nausea that would not be released, his guts wanting to reject everything he had consumed that day.

His left arm felt as though scraped raw, the Dark Mark searing its request into his flesh, the Dark Lord demanding his return.

He pulled himself to his feet, a body memory assuming that he would heed the Dark Lord's call. He stood, unsteadily, and began to pace, slowly, laboriously, limbs reluctant to comply, his torso so weak with cramps that both his knees shook. And not for the first time in twenty-one years he wondered why his lot seemed to be that of punishment, his portion flayed? A snatch of something played over in his mind 'drunk on self-delusion and punished by desire" his feet stumbled it out almost rhythmically, the words became an accusing pulse in his veins, was that how he defined himself, explained the choices he had made?

Contemplation felt almost like a balm, if he could just sit and think and ponder. On what exactly? His childhood and youth, his choices, the unspeakable things he had been doing the past three years under Voldemort's reign over him. But he could not stop his pacing, could not fall into a reverie. Daily, he carried the knowledge that the only passion he had ever known had come with the taking of the Mark. Bitterly he had accepted that the spark of desire he had felt when the seemingly endless possibilities had been presented to him at his first meeting with the Dark Lord had never been fanned into the conflagration he had been promised. He pressed his balled fists into the tender spot below his ribs, he had neither the time nor the stomach for such thoughts now...

He would have to return, what was this journey and who was beckoning him to embark?

He stopped in the center of his small room, he was without robes, without mask, and his heart's journey was being illuminated by a dying woman. He grimaced to keep from laughing in the face of his unknown destiny. Swallowing a huge lungful of air, he reached out a tentative hand to the Dark Mark and let it portkey him back to Los Angeles.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Nine years away, Snape savagely leapt to his feet, up out of the chair, alone in his chambers at Hogwarts, Samhain eve upon him. He could hear the veil rending, but no, it was the gears of the ancient grandfather clock in the corner, grinding against the gear that wound the chime. Half-way through the witching hour.

He would have to begin a long day of instruction in less than seven hours

The fire lay spent and smoldering on the grate. The room was almost cruel in its chill and he wondered why his lot seemed to be that of ice, his portion frozen and he wondered, not for the first time, why he would never be thought to have possessed "some heart once pregnant with celestial fire." He spat into the fire, furious. Even his rage was frigid, frigid, frigid.

Unconsciously mimicking his twenty-one year old memory self, he brought both of his long-fingered elegant hands up to cradle his face. This was deeper into the memory than he had allowed himself to go for a long, long time. He was remembering everything. Pressing firmly against his brow with the pads of his fingers, massaging his clammy temples with the sides of his thumbs, he wanted nothing more than to will his head to clear, his mind to empty itself of the images.

He began to pace the length of the small room. Walk, and walk, and walk an all too familiar track. To keep from running, to keep from bolting out into the unknown. But he couldn't walk it off this time, wouldn't allow himself the escape. He felt something shifting within him, the brew was going to turn, the inner glass egg reached its point of dissolution and from some hitherto unknown part of him his emotions became a torrent and flooded the barren landscape of his memories.

Albedo. At last, at last.

He felt his face bathed in tears and with a howl of grief so piercing that it hung ringing in his ears long after his lungs expelled the rage and pain he let himself be washed clean. The man he had become felt his heart break for the boy he had once been. The boy who had known only castigation and grew into the young man taking the Dark Mark to assuage the guilt of his stain free conscience. That young man had found a crime to fit the punishment.

He stopped in front of the hearth, two large hands splayed on the mantel; he stood spread-eagled there, staring down at the cremated remains of his shirt. The glowing embers shimmered like red jewels, not enough warmth to dry his face. His heavy gaze to become a stare and he followed it back down into the dank cellar of his memories.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

All conversation ceased immediately as Snape appeared in the front room of the small house, now a transfigured torture chamber. Their silence hung like a heavy accusation, weaving its wicked denouncement in and out amongst the gathered Death Eaters. Snape let his eyes become hooded as his face closed in a guarded expression of self-assurance. He warded his mind against any thoughts which could be read and construed as traitorous, but his heart leapt up as he quickly realized that Voldemort was not yet there.

A hooded figure stepped forward, Snape swallowed back the rising bile as the other threw back her hood revealing the perfectly coiffed black mane and exquisite sneering face, "You've returned." She paused and stared at the young man in front of her, "And where, if you please, is it that you're returning from?" Her hostile, searching eyes taking in Snape'sunrobed appearance, the bizarre half-transfigured shirt, willing the younger man to strip himself of the careful veneer he was wearing.

"I will not answer to you, Bellatrix." Snape spit this out with enough controlled volume for all present to hear him.

Lestrange's eyes widened and just as quickly narrowed dangerously. With a sudden movement of cruel grace she slapped him, rocking his head back and watched with satisfaction as his thin upper lip wept a dark drop of blood and began to swell.

Refusing to touch his bruising face in front of her, Snape hissed "You dare to strike me?" flicking his wand down out of his sleeve.

Faster than lightening Lestrange had the blunt tip of her own wand pressed into Snape'sbelly, "I dare to strike you; I would just as soon kill you. But you are yet too valuable, I'm being told." Her eyes glinting like two daggers. "Do not think for a moment that you can best me. It will be a most fatal error. And one that I lie awake at night dreaming of."With her wandless hand she grabbed for Snape's testicles and brutally closed her fingers around them. "You are half a man, Severus. No fire, a dead thing. You disgust me. Book-learning and skulking through your laboratories." She shoved him hard and Snape went sprawling backwards, twisting in his fall, landing hard on one knee. "You have yet to prove yourself to me, and I daresay you will soon enough become a tiresome indulgence to our Master as well."

Snape stood, his chest heaving, his mind swallowing these revelations, the world narrowed to him and Lestrange. He had known that she did not like nor trust him, but he hadn't known to what depths.

"What is the meaning of this?" the drawn-out sneering tone of Voldemort's voice froze everyone in the room. He stood in the doorway, towering over all present, his face a closed aspect of fury. A short figure shook beside him, his hood thrown back revealing the mottled pudgy face of Peter Pettigrew.

Snape bowed his head at the Dark Lord, taking the proffered hand and as he bent low to kiss the long, thin fingers, the hand was pulled out of his grasp. "You are bleeding, Severus Snape." Voldemort's tone was accusing and poisonous.

Snape rubbed at his lip. "My apologies, Master."

But he had already been dismissed, Voldemort turned on Lestrange releasing a hiss of displeasure. "Crucio." She fell to the ground at his feet and crumpled into her robe, her face hidden from them all. Voldemort crooked a finger at another figure who walked forward and hauled Lestrangeback to a standing position, her hair untidily hanging in her eyes now, spittle flowing from her mouth. The Dark Lord reached out and grasped the woman's face, pinching it between his impossibly long thumb and forefinger. "Do not ever touch him." He shook her face in his hand, "Ever." With an inhuman strength he threw Lestrange away from him, she fell heavily against the wall, unconscious.

Snape watched this peripherally, his mind was whirring trying to deduce a reason for Pettigrew's presence there. He despised the mewling coward. A Marauder. His crooked, jowly face brought too many unpleasant recollections to Snape's mind, memories of a time and place he had actively worked to forget.

Voldemort strode purposely out of the room, leaving Pettigrew to blanch, his tiny eyes darting like moths against a flame. Snape watched the little man's eyes squeeze shut and his mouth parch open as a scream rent the air of the house and climbed and climbed and climbed the scales of human voice until it seemed to become a sound that only nature could make, and yet Snape knew it was the witch.

A form in the hallway motioned to him and Snape followed it back to the room where the witch now hung from the arms of a hooded Death Eater, standing behind her, his hands vised under her upper arms, her body dangling, thighs splayed. Her eyes rolled in their sockets, more blood on the floor than could be believed possible to have been let from a single human form. Voldemort stood to one side, observing the pregnant body with the steady eye of a hunter mesmerizing its prey.

"Severus, we are so close. So close, my loyal alchemist," the Dark Lord whispered. "Is the potion ready for its final ingredient?" His hand reached out and caressed the jerking roundness of the witch's abdomen. Another scream climbed to the Heavens.

Snape trusted himself only to nod and was surprised to hear his voice, "Yes, Master, it is ready."

"You will be rewarded. You will be remembered." Voldemort'svoice caressed him. He turned to the others in the room. "We shall wait until midnight to cut him out of her body. Not one minute before not one minute after. Do not disappoint me." The three men smiled like rabid skunks.

Snape closed his eyes, shaking his head as the path beckoned, the journey was begun. There was a presence in the small, cramped room and it was reaching out to him, entering him. It was the dying witch. He thought of the Icelandic cliff, the Norn Grandmother. The presence began to fill him and he saw this younger woman full of life immersed in a different reality on that frozen plain. He had never known a pregnant woman but he could see this one counting down her days to be delivered, aching with a mother's love, willing to endure nature's opening of her body, stepping into the stream of evolution, washing herself in the waters of all womankind, ablutions to the Goddess.

And now she would not survive her child's murderous birth, would not see the dawning of the new day, and he had been playing a vital role in the horror. Yet, that seemed somehow pushed aside, emptied from his body and he felt the presence of the witch inside of him. A fine point of light pierced through the membrane of his heart and anchored itself there.

"Tom Riddle."

A woman's steady voice.

Snape's brain seized at the sound of this unmentionable name. His eyes snapped open. The room seemed to shimmer, magic swirling around the hanging figure, eddies of it flowing from her body. She had one swollen eye prised open, fixed upon Voldemort, her other eyelid twitched under a thickening of dried blood, her lips were parted revealing teeth broken at the gumline, but from this mouth she had uttered the Dark Lord's halfblood name.

Snape felt his life force spin out of him in a fine line of tension, spinning, spinning away from him. His focus followed the threaded energy as it flowed into the witch's orb. He felt something within him pull the thread taut and it vibrated between them, strumming within the chambers of his heart.

Voldemort stood stiff, his mouth gaping. But before he could move, before a breath was drawn by any of them, the mother brought her broken hands up to hold her belly and with a whisper of love she spoke the killing curse.

"Avada Kedavra."

"NO!" Voldemort's scream ripped through the air, severing the tie between Snape and the witch. Snape fell backwards and watched as Voldemort leapt at the witch and threw her hands off her swollen form. With a crushing blow, he brought a hand across the front of her face, still screaming, "No! No! No!" He pummeled her again. And again.

The Dark Lord vaulted over her falling body and onto the Death Eater, with vicious blows and screeched curses he brutalized the man. The other two Death Eaters scrambled away from his insane fury, tripping over their dying comrade, slipping in the blood, tangling in robes, and then they were out the door. The Dark Lord spun like a spider with one too many flies in its web, his long arms reaching out, and disappeared into the hallway.

Snape heard him screaming in the front room, the noise of the house a deafening din of rage. Then words broke through, the Dark Lord's voice clear, "I want her rent, limb from limb, send her hands to Bagnold! Send her head to Crouch! Wrap her heart in her veil and deliver it to Dumbledore!"

Faster than he had ever known he could move, Snape was on his feet. He scooped her up, her broken body heavy; he was out the door of the room, casting a quick concealment charm upon them both. Then he was at the same warded door he had stepped through just hours before.

And holding the dying witch in his arms, the life-force of her child gone from her, he returned to Hornbjarg.