[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Chapter Forty of 'Adagio'- Summoned

[lomonaaeren]

“D’you think if he tortured Barty, he might torture you?”

“He might. But he has not so far. And I do not believe he would kill me, when his servants are so few. But I cannot resist the summons in any case.”

“I’m sorry.”

Severus blinked and looked up from the book he had been studying; it had a curse on it that made the spells bristle and slide out from under the reader’s eye unless they used intense concentration. “For what?”

Harry, who had been working on a scroll of his own that Severus suspected contained his next attempt at spell creation, bit his lip and smoothed his hand over the tabletop for a moment. “For trapping you in his service.”

Severus shook his head. “I was already trapped in Dumbledore’s. And you are the one who showed me there was some way to escape.”

Harry blinked. “You don’t resent me?”

“There were times that I thought you had damned the world for the promise of safety. But I no longer think that.”

Harry made a small incredulous noise under his breath. “Even if I had, why would you care? You know that the world has been nothing but cruel to the two of us.”

“Well. The world still has books and potions and rare ingredients that I would like to see preserved.”

Harry laughed and leaned back in his seat. His voice was gentle as he said, “I think you wouldn’t have been as badly off as you think, under the Dark Lord’s rule. But it’s just as well that we’re coming up with a way to win our freedom and get rid of him for good.”

Severus smiled helplessly at this pale, fierce child, who had his hand lying on top of the scroll and the firelight flickering in his deep green eyes. Severus had thought once that Lily’s eyes were a mystery, but she had never had anything like the wildness that Harry did in his own gaze, as if he had gone out wandering in a forest deadlier than the Forbidden one and come back with his hands dripping with blood.

“Are you studying for your OWLS?” he asked.

Harry blinked and then looked at him askance. “What?”

“That scroll you’re working on is obviously not part of your homework. I want to know if you intend to get good OWL scores. Even if you don’t think them worth much next to—everything else—they would be a first step in winning yourself a reputation beyond Britain.”

“People beyond it already know who I am.”

“Harry.”

“OWL work is boring. McGonagall told me in class the other day that no one can Transfigure one animal into another animal permanently! And Barty already taught me to do that!”

“That Transfiguration is long-lasting, not permanent. Even if it would last far longer than most people would live, that is not the same thing as permanence in Transfiguration theory. And she is Professor McGonagall.”

Harry stared at Severus with his mouth open for a minute, and then he groaned and snapped open the Transfiguration book that he’d brought with him earlier and not touched for hours. He flipped his pages huffily.

“Thank you.”

More huffy flipping of pages.

Severus hid his smile and went back to reading his book. He had the feeling that Harry would have liked to say something about the direction that Severus’s studies were taking him, but Severus was not studying for his OWLS.

Although in some ways, this will still affect my future.

*

He was alone with Harry a few days later, exploring the theory behind the spells Harry had created, when the Mark began to burn.

Severus took a slow, deep breath, and stood. Harry tensed, his eyes flickering for a moment between Severus’s arm and his face.

“He’s calling you?”

“Yes.”

“Do I need…” Harry turned to face the shelves behind Severus. Severus nodded a little.

“Have the nerve regenerator that I showed you standing ready, and perhaps the Blood-Replenisher.” In the days since Barty had returned tortured and bleeding, neither he nor Severus had heard from the Dark Lord. It was possible that his bad mood had passed off.

It was possible that it had not.

Severus reached for the set of black robes he kept ready with the white mask tucked in a pocket. He paused when he saw Harry’s acute misery, and reached out one hand to rest for a moment on his shoulder. “It will be all right, Harry.”

“I wish I hadn’t got you into this.”

“But I am into it now,” Severus said, and squeezed Harry’s shoulder once more before he turned to the door of his quarters. He would need to walk beyond the wards to Apparate, since it had been more than a month now since the Dark Lord had given him a Floo address that worked.

“I’ll stay here and wait for you.”

Severus cast a glance over his shoulder, ready to snap at Harry, and then stopped and sighed a little at the expression on his ward’s face. He looked mulish. Severus raised his shoulder and then let it fall. “If you wish.”

Harry nodded, eyes blazing for a moment before he dropped them back to the scroll in front of him.

Severus walked quietly out of the school, listening for some call or command to stop that didn’t come, and Apparated the moment he was clear of the wards.

*

“Severus.”

The Dark Lord’s voice was low, and flat as a plain of ash after a forest fire. Severus dropped to one knee in front of him, head bowed. He waited with his heart beating no faster than normal.

Occlumency had some benefits for the body as well as the mind.

They were in a large room inside a house that Severus was sure he had never seen before, unless this was a forgotten cellar of Malfoy Manor that even the house-elves didn’t know existed. Dust lay on the floor everywhere around them, and the stone walls were bare except for ancient torch sconces.

The Dark Lord sat in a chair that was clearly Transfigured, and had, for some reason, huge cushions with golden tassels. Severus wondered if he had been trying to impress other, more reluctant Death Eaters.

“My lord,” Severus responded, when his name had fallen into silence, and the silence simply continued.

The Dark Lord shifted back and forth, and tapped his fingers. Severus maintained his serenity, his equanimity, staring at the Dark Lord’s shifting bare feet.

Scales scraped along the floor behind him. Severus did not allow his hand to edge towards the robe pocket where he kept a bezoar. He was not entirely sure that such would be effective against Nagini’s venom, but that was no reason not to carry it.

“Do you know what Barty did to displease me?” the Dark Lord asked suddenly.

Severus calmed and centered himself in his Occlumency, paying attention only to the Dark Lord. “No, my lord.”

The Dark Lord leaned nearer to him. His eyes seemed a deeper red than Severus remembered them, and his skin paler. Severus stared in silence at the scales that ran under the surface of the Dark Lord’s skin, and which he did not remember seeing from this close before.

“He asked too many questions,” the Dark Lord whispered.

Severus remembered Barty asking him what Severus thought the Dark Lord was doing, and hid a wince of sympathy.

“I like that you do not ask questions, Severus. I like that you see your Lord’s actions as beyond question, and accept them.”

“Yes, my lord. Thank you.”

The Dark Lord shifted to stare off into the darkness. Severus didn’t follow the gaze with his own eyes, the way he thought Barty would have done. He remained kneeling in the exact same position, and heard Nagini slithering past again.

“I will accept no attempts to undermine me or overcome me.”

“No, my lord.”

“And I will not accept questions on who I choose to call. Who I choose to reward. Who I choose to make aware of my return.”

Severus smothered a flinch before it could be born. Yes, he could see why Barty would have questioned that. He was so loyal to the Dark Lord himself that he despised all the other Death Eaters except the ones who had actually gone to prison for the cause.

“You are remarkably quiet, Severus.”

“I agree with you entirely, my lord.”

The Dark Lord eyed him, and then moved back in his chair with a grunt that was perhaps the most human sound Severus had heard him make. Harry’s granting of stability to him was a good thing, Severus thought. “You are not to tell Barty of this conversation. And you are not to give him any more details of the potion you are brewing, or the future projects that I may ask you to take up.”

Barty will hate that perhaps more than being tortured. All Barty wanted to do, sometimes, was ask questions.

Severus bowed without letting a trace of his opinion cross his face. “Yes, my lord.”

“I wish that all of my servants were as obedient as you are, forced as that obedience is.” For a moment, the Dark Lord’s hand feathered across Severus’s hair, and he held his breath; those pointed nails were remarkably close to his eyes. “You will not even tell Barty that you were summoned.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Leave me.”

Severus did, bowing and backing up, and bowing and backing up again. The Dark Lord ignored him entirely. He held out a beckoning hand, and Nagini slid towards him and settled against him. The Dark Lord began to speak to her in Parseltongue.

Severus did not dare turn his back until he had crossed beneath the archway that marked the entrance to the room. Then he turned around, closed his eyes in the dusty corridor, and breathed.