WHO: Severus Snape & Lily Potter
WHAT: Aw, he does have a heart. Sort of.
WHEN: Tonight
WHERE: VOLDEMORT'S SOOPER SEKRIT HIDEOUT
NOTE: You may think I'm joking, but this is only two tags long.
It had been more than 75 days since Severus Snape had been thrown from the Hog's Head, which meant it had been more than 75 days since Severus Snape had heard a prohecy dooming the Dark Lord, which meant it had been more than 75 days that Severus Snape had turned into a fugitive.
He wasn't being pursued in the literal sense, at least, so far as he knew. But the stroke of good luck, that the barkeep hadn't recognized him while throwing him out, was the rare sort of fortune that had smiled upon the Snape boy in his life, and if this was what good fortune meant--holding his breath every time he turned a corner, wondering if every large shadow in the shop was a figure watching him, fearing that every night when he went to his meager flat, he wouldn't be alone--he wanted no part of it. Snape felt like a fugitive, however, and was positive that the lack of pursuance was a tool of Albus Dumbledore's twisted and convoluted mind, to drive Snape into a state of such crazed paranoia that whatever threat he posed was eradicated.
And the manipulative bastard's plan was working perfectly, Snape thought with such tremendous regret. His outward demeanor hadn't changed in the slightest, but Snape's mind was a neurotic, jumpy, overworked mess. His nights were sleepless, he spent much of his days in an almost cataontic haze. His thoughts were constantly haunted by half-moon spectacles and red hair, which in turn sent his stomach churning.
Severus Snape was a distraught man.
As he approached the deserted house at the end of the row, he thought again of the girl with the red hair, thought to their last meeting. But now when he pictued her, as much as it was against his will, he tried to picture the swell of her stomach, the healthy, maternal blushing of her glowing face--he had to clench his teeth to keep the bile down. Though this time it was not contempt and disgust of her and her chosen suitor, chosen lifestyle (
chosen, he echoed grimly, momentarily flashing back to that cold, wet night in February), but the thought of whatever Death Eater had his hands on her, that dragged her here. His fisted hands curled even tighter, fingernails slicing into the palms. The amount of effort Severus Snape had put into keeping Lily Potter's pregnancy from the Dark Lord and the rest of the inner fold had been tremendous. To the best of his knowledge, no one was aware of it when the Potter's abode had been stormed. His teeth clenched, thinking back to that unfortunate oversight on his part.
Snape had done everything in his power to point the Death Eaters in the direction of the Longbottoms, upon discovering from Will Jugson that this child, too, was to be born as the seventh month died. Barty Crouch had proved to be a useful tool in Snape's manipulations thus far, and it was the boy that he had entrusted his suspicions that the child Alice Longbottom was carrying had been prophesized about, claiming to have overheard the Dark Lord engaged in a conversation expelling such worries to another Death Eater of high ranking. Predictably, Crouch had aimed to gather a collective team to both tail and capture Alice Longbottom on the Dark Lord's orders, also instructed to keep the knowledge that this involved a prophecy quiet.
But, Snape thought venemously as he turned the handle to the apparently-crumbling house, Crouch had obviously failed in his iniative and who should he bring back, but James Potter's pregnant wife. He hoped in vain that the news of her pregnancy did not reach the Dark Lord's ears, but that was impossible. The only thing Snape could depend on was that only he and the Dark Lord were aware of the prophecy's true existence, and that Crouch was aware that the Dark Lord believed the child the Longbottoms were carrying was a threat.
Making his way up the rickety-looking stairs, Snape tugged the ill-fitting mask tighter over his face, fingers slipping into the pocket of his robes to draw his wand. The state of the Dark Lord's captor would eventually be known, and Snape was not so much a fool as to believe he wouldn't be questioned as to whether or not he was aware that Lily Potter was pregnant. Snape already knew how displeased his master would be, but he would not be disgraced in vain. The thought of the girl being tortured, pregnant and having to submit to the cruciation these men would subject her to, and delightedly so, that was what had caused bile to rise in Snape's throat, his stomach to churn violently. If he could not aid in her escape, then he would kill her himself. The thought almost made his knees give out, his finger nails pushing further into his skin, but it was true; he would be the only person to allow her to die peacefully, with dignity--safely. In some twisted fashion, Snape would owe her this much, for being that light of beacon within his life, if only for such a short time.
He entered the room on the second floor, at the end of the hall, casting a soft glow from his wand. Her limp form was laying on the floor, tangled hair spread on the floor still gleaming a violent hue of red in the dim wandlight, the folds of her torn robes just barely concealing the swell of her stomach. Snape paused in his footsteps, taking just one moment to picture what life would have been like had she never left him, wondering if he could have protected her from all of this, any of this. A small voice in the back of his mind uttered a tiny
no, to which Snape nearly howled, blinking tears back furiously as he fiercely thought,
No! No, I
would have protected her better, I would have kept her safe! His knees buckled and he dropped to the floor beside her, the tears he tried to contain streaming viciously from his eyes, his chest constricting so painfully, he thought his bones would split through the skin. He had not protected her in school, and he could do nothing to protect her now; that much was obvious from her still form lying on the floor.
With one last shudder, Snape tugged the robes binding her looser, and threw the wand he'd stolen against a wall. He started to step away from her, before his eyes fell back onto her abdomen, clearly outlined as it strained against her twisted robes. Before he was aware of what he was doing, his hands reached out to tug her robes properly in place, shielding the bump from conspicuousness. That was the extent of what Severus could do.
He turned to go, but paused just as he was about to exit. With a final look over his shoulder, he whispered, "
Ennervate."
Stepping into the hall, Snape checked to make sure no one was about and Disapparated.
It should not have been a surprise to wake up. And yet even through the grogginess that came with having been unconscious for---what? Days? Weeks? She didn't actually know--and the splitting headache and the stiffness that had saturated each and every muscle in her body, Lily Potter was
surprised to wake up. Surprised that she wasn't dead, and not in the least relieved.
Her body was screaming at her, but she didn't make the slightest effort to move from the hard floor, instead choosing to maintain her limp, lifeless position as she contemplated pathetically if it could come true if only she stayed this way for long enough. Because if this was how it was going to be, if she was to wake up here, then she would rather have been dead already. She did not want to see the next part; the part that she knew was coming, much better than any woman--
girl--of 20 years old should have ever known. It was the part where Voldemort noticed that she was awake, and where he sent his men in to throw their curses, their hexes, their jinxes at her until she had passed out again--just so that they could do it again the next time she woke up. It was something she'd already been through too many times in her life, something that
Harry shouldn't have to go through already.
It was that thought of her son that finally forced her out of her daze, as she realized----ignoring the pain in her joints, Lily jolted to a sitting position, her hand going to her stomach, and---and he wasn't moving. He wasn't
moving, she had known something felt different and it was the absence of the ever-insistent kicks, the fluttering as he shifted positions and---sleeping,
he's just sleeping, she told herself, but when she tried to remember anything that may have happened past being brought here she was coming up completely blank and that sent panic coursing through her veins because what if she
hadn't just been sleeping, what if they
had done something to her and her son and
her Harry was----
And then then she felt it. A single, soft twitch near her right side, and Lily felt herself deflate, dropping to her hands and knees breathing sharply, shoulders shuddering with sobs of pure relief. It was the tiniest thing, but it was the best feeling, and she didn't even know
why, because by all means knowing that Harry was still alive, that he would have to suffer through more than he already had and was honestly
better off dead right now, was an impractical thing to be thankful for. But Lily couldn't ever remember being so thankful in her life, so so thankful that despite having no help from her, he had managed to survive along with her. Whatever they had done--bloody hell, why couldn't she just
remember--that had her bones aching like this hadn't been enough.
But what would be enough?, came the grim thought when she could finally even her breaths again and sit up straight. What
would be the last straw? It would have been foolish to think for a second that they wouldn't keep going until both she and Harry were dead. It met so many ends, after all---not only would Voldemort have taken care of the threats they posed, but she had no doubt in her mind that with everything that had happened lately, something like that would be the last ingredient to driving James insane. That would be three major jobs that he could mark off his list, all with one swift spell.
She couldn't let it happen. If she let that happen it was all over, because the Order had lost enough people already and she couldn't let Voldemort get rid of she and James and maybe even a kid that needed to grow up and save them all---not yet. They could not have them yet.
How she was going to go about stopping him, however, she still did not know. Lily leaned forward onto her hands again, moving slowly and feeling out the ground because fuck was it dark in there and---what was
that? She furrowed her brow as her hand closed around a thin, wooden object, a... wand? There was a
wand in here with her? Lily straightened back out and felt it with both of her hands, before whispering a soft
Lumos and flooding light throughout the tiny, dilapidated old room.
Why was there a wand--
who would give her a wand? Clearly the wand worked, so it couldn't be blocked the way Voldemort had blocked their wands back almost two years ago. As quickly as her heart was suddenly racing with the excitement of what seemed like a miracle, the instincts that years of fighting the darkest wizard alive had honed were telling her that this was a set-up. Something was wrong here, because there was no way in hell any Death Eater would leave her a wand unless they planned to make her fight with it … right?
But what was she supposed to do, then, if not use it? Sit here, wait for them to come for her again? Or were they going to leave her here until she got desperate, until she began to starve or dehydrate and then use it as a last resort while all the while knowing that she was going to her death because if she could not defend herself if it got her caught in some sort of trap? No, she didn’t want that, she would not just sit around and wait and see what happened. If she was going to die, she had might as well get it over with, with the fervent hope that this was somehow,
some way some kind of bloody miracle.
Using a wall to steady herself, Lily slowly rose to her feet, and with a deep breath and a snap of the wand before she could think better of it, she Apparated.
The instant that her eyes set themselves on the entryway to the Order house, she collapsed in a heap to the floor.
