Chapter Text
He lay sprawled on his bed, staring up at the dark wooden ceiling with a smile he had never thought he would wear.
He took the locket between his fingers, playing with the cold metal and tracing its raised details. His smile grew despite himself. He must have looked like a fool, smiling over something so small that Potter had done.
Yet he could not force himself to feel otherwise.
“Do you like it?”
It was his mother’s locket, one of the few things he had ever allowed himself to want, something he had hoped—quietly, stubbornly—to have back one day. Of course he liked it.
“The boy, do you like him?”
Potter?
He had been… different from what Severus had expected. Not the savage, abusive creature he had imagined. At first he had perhaps been an idiot, spoiled and overbearing, imposing his wishes as though they were law and threatening punishment if they were not obeyed. But… that had been before. Potter was changing. Growing more mature.
The realisation that he sounded just like Lily made him shudder, and Circe forbid, like his mother.
“Do you like him?”
He did not know. His feelings were confused, he no longer understood them as he once had. Something had changed. His pulse quickened, his face flushed, and he felt strangely weak.
“Poor boy of mine.”
He had not realised it before.
But… who was speaking?
He turned towards the direction of the intruding voice, though the darkness of his room made it difficult to see.
A woman sat at the foot of his bed with her back to him, hunched as though she had no strength left. Her head hung low, staring at the floor. Her shoulders trembled as if she were crying. That long, straight black hair, slightly greasy from neglect, was unmistakable.
Severus knew her.
She was dead.
“My little one,” his mother whimpered, both hands rising to cover her face. “My poor baby.”
The wailing continued, sharp and trembling. Severus rose slowly from the bed, careful not to draw his mother’s attention, his pulse pounding so loudly he was astonished it did not betray him to Eileen.
“So weak… so fragile,” Eileen sobbed, her voice breaking in agony. “Please, not my baby.”
He was already near the door, his steps light and silent, his bare feet cold against the frozen floor. He wanted to run, to hide. The sounds coming from Eileen were no longer human, high, animalistic shrieks that made his ears ache.
A misstep made the floor creak.
He froze.
The wailing stopped with a sharp snap, making the silence that followed even more chilling, almost sepulchral. Slowly, he turned to see whether the corpse had heard him.
She was looking at him.
Severus had to swallow the scream rising in his throat when he saw his mother’s face.
It was horribly deformed, beaten beyond recognition.
“You promised me,” she whispered, though her lips did not move. “You promised you would not be like me.” Her body twisted in an unnatural way, folding in on itself like an accordion, every rib jutting outward. “You promised me!”
The scream, and the sudden lunge of the thing before him, snapped him back to his senses. He ran for the door, terrified by the sound of hands and feet slamming against the floor behind him.
He slammed the door shut and leaned against it, breathing in ragged, uncontrollable bursts. His teeth chattered as violently as his breath, his whole body trembling.
He had not even a second of peace before the thing crashed against the door.
He leapt back in terror, staring at it as though expecting the spectre on the other side to break through and reach him.
“He will destroy you, destroy you as he did me!” the creature shrieked, its fingers clawing beneath the door. “You are the same, you are the same!”
Severus bolted down the stairs in blind panic. He did not want to hear another word. He could not. He had to find Euphemia. It was strange that the noise had not already brought her running.
To his misfortune, the sitting room was empty, no Euphemia, not even Fleamont.
Only Potter.
He sat slumped in the armchair with a nearly empty bottle of cheap beer in his hand, sprawled as though exhausted from hard labour, as if the weight of it still pressed on his shoulders. He looked so deplorable he hardly seemed the same person.
“Why are you making such a racket?” Potter growled, taking another swig before looking at him.
“There’s something in my room,” Severus said, unwilling to come any closer to the foul stench of alcohol.
Potter only laughed, rough, raw, and bitter. The bottle tilted in his hand and what little liquid remained spilled across the carpet.
“Why are you drinking?” Severus asked, taking a cautious step back. “Is everything alright?”
“I can’t even do anything in my own house anymore!” Potter roared suddenly, leaping to his feet. “You complain about everything, always, always complaining!”
He stared at him with unfocused brown eyes, dull and distant, as though Severus himself were the source of all his problems.
“What’s wrong with you?” Severus hissed with a courage he did not feel. His arms still trembled from the lingering fear, now layered with a more familiar terror.
“You… it’s always you,” Potter slurred. “Nothing I do is ever enough for you. Nothing,” he said miserably. “But you’re my soulmate. We belong together. We will be together.”
He finished with a chilling smile stretching from ear to ear.
Severus did not reply. He took another step back as Potter’s smile slowly faded, as though the light in the room were dimming, turning a sickly yellow.
“Am I not enough for you?” Potter asked in a low, threatening voice. “Am I not?”
He roared the last words, hurling the bottle to the floor in a sudden, savage motion.
The sound of shattering glass was like a symphony from Severus’s childhood, so horribly familiar, so utterly unwanted. Something inside him snapped. He jolted as if ripped out of his own skin and began to sob the way he had as a child.
He knew that stance. That furious look. It was the same one Tobias had worn before striking.
Seeing it on Potter was wrong, unnatural. As though it did not belong there, as though it had been forced onto him. Nothing about the man before him resembled James.
“And you cry even when I love you,” Potter whispered, standing only a step away.
Severus had not even noticed when he had come so close. He had not seen him move, it was as though he had appeared in a blink.
That disgusting hand rose as though to strike him. Instead, it only stroked his face.
Severus thought he might vomit.
He shoved Potter with all his strength and fled through the door. No one inside that house could help him. He had to find help outside.
There was no snow, and a thick mist, taller than he was, blocked his vision. He plunged into it, hoping for the best, hoping someone would help him, that all of this would end.
But Severus, of all people, should have known how much fate despised him.
A howl rang out. Far too close for his poor heart, which had not stopped pounding like something deranged. It was not the howl of an animal.
“Please, not him… please,” he begged the empty air, his words carried away unheard.
Then he saw the eyes. Red. Hungry for blood.
They gleamed in the gloom, fixed on him as though they had found their prey.
The twisted face of the beast Lupin became every full moon stood before him, drooling and snarling, bloodstained teeth bared. At its feet lay a younger, lifeless version of himself.
There was no doubt, it was Lupin. Severus remembered that sharp howl, that savage face. He had seen it in every nightmare for months.
Now the tears spilled freely down his face, sobs tearing from his throat in helpless panic. He had hoped never to stand before this beast again.
The monster lunged.
Its crimson fangs flashed as it slammed him to the ground, claws ripping into the flesh of his shoulders while its teeth tore at his throat.
Severus screamed with all his strength.
—
Hands, there were hands on him. Grabbing him, shaking him. Voices too: one loud, repeating his name over and over, others softer, distant, almost drowned out.
The hands were touching him.
He struck them, pushing them away.
It took Severus a moment to understand his surroundings, the soft bed beneath him, the cold air slipping in through the window he had forgotten to close, the faint scent of cinnamon lingering on the hands that had touched him.
Potter. Standing a few steps away from the bed.
He shot upright, scrambling back with ragged breaths. A shiver ran through him, something instinctive he couldn’t suppress.
“Severus?” Euphemia asked, approaching carefully, each step measured and gentle. She sat beside him and took his trembling hands in hers. “Are you alright?”
Without thinking, he collapsed into her arms. He knew she wouldn’t push him away or reject him, and she didn’t. She immediately wrapped her arms around him, stroking his hair.
“It’s alright, you’re alright, dear,” she whispered softly.
When he lifted his gaze, all he could focus on were Potter’s eyes, full of guilt, glassy with unshed tears. Through the bond, he could feel it: the guilt, the shame.
But more than that, he felt the contempt. The kind a person reserves for themselves.
—
Seeing his mother comforting Snape was something he had never expected to witness, but it was acceptable. Hearing Snape’s screams, what he said between gasps, words torn from a nightmare in which he seemed to be the central figure, was something he never wanted to hear or see again.
The worst part was that things had been going well. Snape had been opening up, they had shared a great deal. He had even managed to make Severus laugh with a joke.
But now Snape had withdrawn again. And that was not what worried him the most.
Snape seemed absent at times, staring into nothing with unfocused eyes. He was there and not there at the same time, moments when Snape appeared untouchable, as though he were outside the ordinary plane of the world.
James tried to ask about it, but Snape simply ignored him, changing the subject or walking away.
It had taken a great deal of effort for James to approach Snape again, for Snape to stop flinching or letting fear seep through whenever he saw him.
That was why he was here. He had decided to cheer Snape up with something sweet, at least in theory. Dark chocolate cake was not the sweetest thing; it was bitter, but Snape seemed to love it.
The place was crowded at this hour. Tables were occupied, and people queued either to be served or to collect their orders, like James.
While they prepared his order, James wandered over to the small table of samples and took the last sweet. The child beside him looked at him with utter betrayal, his eyes watery and resigned at having lost the treat.
James laughed and dropped the sweet into the boy’s small hands.
The child lit up immediately, giving a shy thank-you before running back to his parents, waving the sweet triumphantly in the air.
“James Potter,” someone called from the counter. James went over at once.
“Here’s your order, the house gift and a surprise candle,” the girl said, handing him the box. “Have a sweet day.”
It was the moment he took the box into his hands that the chaos began.
He couldn’t actually see how the chaos started. He had been facing away, and a second later he was on the floor along with everyone else.
The impact of the spell destroyed the counter beside him and made the ground tremble. A layer of smoke and dust from the debris rose until it covered the entire room in a dramatic, sinister haze. The cheerful, lively atmosphere from minutes before vanished, replaced by tension and terror as fear seized everyone present.
James struggled to see. One lens of his glasses had cracked, leaving everything blurred and distorted. His ears rang from the shock of the blast and from the terrified screams that grew louder with each passing second. A terrible premonition settled in his chest as he watched people crawling in panic away from the door.
And when he saw the reason, a cold terror froze his veins.
Death Eaters.
They entered the shattered shop as if they owned the place, kicking aside rubble, and what James hoped were not bodies.
An expectant silence fell.
Then another wave of screams erupted, shrieks of pure agony and choking gurgles.
A pair of Death Eaters approached the bakery’s owner. The man, covered in dust and bleeding from several cuts, argued with them while beside him a woman and two little girls cried and screamed in terror.
Instinctively, James reached into his pocket for his wand. He was not yet of age to use it legally, but this was an emergency. He needed to help.
Only, a Death Eater was already pointing a wand at him.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, dear,” a shrill, syrupy voice sang before breaking into unhinged laughter.
Helpless, he raised his hands.
She laughed again, then suddenly snapped her head towards something behind James. Her wand moved, and a woman’s strangled scream echoed sharply through the room.
James clenched his teeth and fists, barely restraining the urge to attack.
His attention was drawn back by the family’s piercing cries. His eyes caught the exact moment the shop owner fell backwards, stiff and weightless, as a sickly green light enveloped him.
The Death Eaters began to leave, but the woman in front of him remained, waving her wand while the screams continued. She was enjoying it, laughing loudly as she tortured someone else.
He could not bear it.
James lunged at the Death Eater and knocked her to the ground while she shrieked in surprise. He pulled out his wand instantly, ready to curse her, but his wand flew from his hand as another spell hurled him across the room and into the wall.
Pain exploded through his back, his head throbbed, and the air was knocked from his lungs by the impact.
“How dare you!” the Death Eater shrieked, rushing at him wildly with her wand raised.
“We’re finished here,” another voice interrupted irritably. “Let’s go before the Aurors arrive.”
The woman huffed in fury. As she left, one of her boots stamped hard on James’s hand. He swallowed his cry and curled his injured hand against his chest.
The other Death Eater stayed behind.
He looked down at James, tilting his head. James heard a murmur, then a sharp laugh.
A moment later the air was knocked from his lungs again by a brutal kick to his stomach. He doubled over as another followed. Then he groaned when a hand yanked his head up roughly, pulling his hair and sending a dull pulse of pain through his skull.
“How pathetic you are now,” the Death Eater mocked, the mask hiding any expression. “I suppose you weren’t very lucky.”
Then his head was slammed back against the ground. The pain shot from his skull through his entire body, down to the tips of his toes. Somewhere inside him he felt a thread of worry, confusion, fear—emotions that undoubtedly belonged to Snape, because in that moment James felt nothing but pain.
Pain… and betrayal.
Rosier.
That was Evan Rosier.
—
St Mungo’s was in chaos. People rushed back and forth in a growing, uncontrollable uproar. The emergency ward was steeped in desperation and simmering fear, like a living organism kept alive only by terror.
People arrived constantly through the fireplaces and the doors, both staff summoned in haste and victims of the attack. Their shop had not been the only one targeted. Two other stores had been reduced to rubble.
Those who arrived writhed in pain, screamed, or sobbed helplessly for aid, begging for their torment to end. They were lined up and separated by the severity of their injuries, many of them being taken to the far end of the ward where nurses gathered anxiously.
And James sat in a corner, simply watching it all.
He was perched on a narrow cot, his head and hand wrapped in bandages. They did not hurt much anymore.
He wished he had left when three more victims were brought in and placed on separate cots.
It was the boy. He was trembling and screaming, clawing at his own skin.
The suffering was so palpable it left James shaking.
He recognised those symptoms, or at least a variation of them.
“James!” his mother’s voice cut through the spiral of his thoughts. “James, my son!”
Euphemia came running towards him, her nurse’s apron stained, her face tight with worry. Her red eyes showed she had been crying.
Behind her came Snape. Pale and sweating, glancing around uneasily.
“Merlin, are you alright?” she asked, checking his head and his hand, looking with dismay at his scorched and filthy clothes. “They told me you were involved in the incident.”
He did not answer.
He could only look at Snape.
“We don’t know what happened or who did it. Did you eat anything?” Euphemia asked anxiously. “James, did you eat anything there?” she repeated more sharply.
“No,” he replied on a breath.
His mother exhaled in relief, one hand rising to her chest as her shoulders relaxed.
“Something was put in the food. They were all poisoned,” she whispered, pulling him into an embrace. “I came as soon as they called me. Severus came with me.”
He saw it, the shiver that ran through Snape when his name was spoken.
“Why would someone do this?” his mother murmured, shaken by the suffering around them. “Who could do something like this?”
James knew why.
Those shops had belonged to wizards born to Muggles. Mudbloods, as those monsters called them.
“Death Eaters,” James said, staring at Snape, waiting for him to say something, anything, or at least look at him.
But Snape lowered his gaze, hiding his expression behind the curtain of his hair. James could not feel his emotions through the bond, his own sense of betrayal was too overwhelming.
“I have to go,” Snape muttered in a hurried whisper, leaving without waiting for an answer.
Did he not want to see what he had helped bring about?
Did he not want to witness the triumph of his Death Eater friends?
“I’m leaving too,” James said, rising to follow Snape, ignoring his mother’s calls for him to stay.
—
The feeling of being hunted like prey was Severus’s everyday reality, he was so accustomed to it that it had become second nature. And yet, Potter’s presence behind him made the hairs on the back of his neck rise just as they had that first time.
He wasn’t surprised when he was cornered in the first room he tried to escape into. The door slammed shut with a hard, echoing bang.
Potter’s expression was raw, desperate, he looked like a wild animal, and Severus did not feel much different. He had seen what had happened, he knew why he was being confronted.
“Did you do it?” Potter asked, looking at him as though the answer were already clear. “Were you involved in this?”
He didn’t reply, instead positioning a table between them.
“Answer me, Severus,” he demanded, raising his voice, desperation and fury bleeding into his tone. “I saw the effects, they were the same as that potion.”
“I didn’t… know they would use it that way” he admitted, holding Potter’s gaze. “I didn’t think that was its purpose.”
“And what did you think it was for?!” Potter exclaimed, indignant, a hand running through his hair. “What did you think would happen if you gave them a potion like that?!”
Potter was agitated, his eyes narrowed in fury. His arms seemed to tremble with the surge of emotions he was struggling, and failing, to contain.
“If I hadn’t done it, someone else would have,” Severus said firmly. “You can’t blame me for that.”
“So now you’re the martyr?” Potter replied with a disbelieving, sarcastic laugh.
“I was only doing a job, Potter,” he reiterated, ignoring the way his hands trembled just as much as his convictions. “What they chose to do with the order has nothing to do with me,” he added, though even to him the excuse sounded weak.
Potter’s gaze burned with something unhinged, almost feral, his clothes dishevelled and singed, his hair a dull, tangled mess. He took two steps forward before stopping, beginning to pace restlessly.
The feelings Potter had experienced during the attack had been intense, Severus had felt them as if they were his own. But now he felt nothing but his own panic; the bond had shut down any sense of the other, overwhelmed by the volatility of them both.
“They attacked a bakery, Severus,” Potter exclaimed, dragging both hands through his hair in despair. “There were children there. They killed a father in front of his family—Merlin, they tortured and terrified people.”
“I didn’t tell them to do that,” he defended, stepping back as Potter’s pacing grew more frantic.
“You made the potion, people are suffering in St Mungo’s because of you!” he accused, pointing a trembling finger at him. “You saw them, don’t you feel even the slightest bit of remorse?!”
Severus swallowed hard. He felt himself beginning to spiral, yet he fought tooth and nail not to fall. When Euphemia had taken him to St Mungo’s after Potter’s accident, he had no idea it would be because of a Death Eater attack.
“I had no choice!”
“Yes, you did!”
“And what was it?!” Severus shouted, feeling his control slipping through his fingers. “Tell me! I want to hear you say what else I could have done!” he demanded desperately, waiting for Potter to answer, but receiving nothing. “Refuse the Dark Lord? Desert? Sabotage the potion?!”
He stopped, staring Potter straight in the eye, waiting—daring him to respond, to offer some solution with that arrogant mouth of his. But silence reigned, heavy and unmoving.
“You know what would happen to me if I did any of that,” Severus whispered at last, restrained, but no less furious.
“That’s why I never wanted you mixing with them. I knew this would happen sooner or later.” Potter looked at him with pity, as though Severus were the victim now. “I always knew joining them would be a mistake for you.”
“Don’t speak as if I can’t make my own decisions, Potter,” Severus sneered, his lip curling in distaste. “You’re no better than they are.”
“I’m no better than a band of Death Eaters?!” Potter shot back, outraged, his voice rising again. “They’re just using you, Snape.”
“Just like you are with this ridiculous bond!” Severus shouted, livid. “Have you forgotten everything I went through because of you?! Tell me!” he accused, his throat aching. “Have you forgotten how Black nearly got me killed with his pet? Or how you humiliated me in front of the entire school, or—!”
“I know, Severus, you don’t need to remind me what a bastard I was. I know.” Potter’s face crumpled, his eyes glassing over as if he might cry. “I was a monster to you, and I accept that.” He stepped forward, forcing Severus back. “But take it out on me, hurt me, not innocent people who have nothing to do with this!”
“This isn’t some schoolyard feud anymore, Potter. It’s a war, it's not just you and me.” Severus stepped back, his leg hitting the sofa. “My life doesn’t revolve around you. My actions have nothing to do with you.”
“They do now!” Potter shouted, desperate. “What you do, say, or who you’re with, it affects me.”
“Are you going to forbid me from seeing my friends again?!”
“You call those Death Eaters your friends?!”
“They are not—”
“Your little friend was there,” Potter cut in sharply. “Rosier was there, Severus. I saw him—he was part of it, and you’re still defending him. I told you they were all Death Eaters, you know they are.”
Evan. Evan had taken part in a Death Eater mission, Potter wouldn’t say that lightly. If it was true… if Evan had really gone… then that meant—
Severus gripped his arm, the one still unmarked, the one the Dark Lord had yet to claim. The chill that ran through him made him tremble from head to toe, numbing his arm as though it had been frozen solid.
“Regulus isn’t,” he insisted, but there was desperation in his eyes as he searched Potter’s face for confirmation.
“But he will be,” Potter replied, accusatory, yet the words brought a strange, fleeting sense of relief. “I know he will, Snape. He’s just like his family, he’ll end up a Death Eater like the rest of them.”
“He’s a child, Potter, you don’t know him. You can’t blame him for something he hasn’t even done.”
“Yet!” Potter snapped. “Sooner or later he’ll take the Mark and become one. Is that what you want for Regulus?!”
“I can’t control his choices,” Severus hissed through clenched teeth. “I don’t decide for Regulus, and you don’t decide for me.”
“I’m your soulmate!” Potter roared, furious and desperate, as though Severus had somehow forgotten.
Another step forward. A sharp, careless movement of his hand. An obstacle in the path of what had been a thoughtless gesture. The vase beside the cabinet tipped, falling in slow motion, almost weightless in how drawn-out the moment felt.
The crash of shattering glass exploded through the room. Severus felt the sound against his skin, heard it as loudly as a scream, a lament from the past. And the cold seized him.
There was nowhere left to retreat; the wall pressed against his back, cold and unyielding, freezing him in place. He was trapped. His pulse surged, pounding in his ears, urging him to run.
But he couldn’t move. All he could do was watch Potter, brace himself for what his instincts told him would be pain. He realised, too late, that he was trembling, and no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t force his body to reach for his wand.
“Damn it,” James muttered, seeing the shattered vase on the floor.
He hadn’t meant for the argument to escalate this far. But his whole body was still shaking from the terror he had felt. He could still hear people screaming, the smell of smoke still stung his nose, that sickening green flash reappeared every time he blinked.
Even now, he could hear that woman’s laughter, Rosier’s voice ringing in his ears, clear, gleeful, and it made him nauseous.
He looked at Severus, and his heart dropped at the sight of him.
He looked… terrified.
He wanted to step closer, to apologise, to try and find some way to fix this disaster. But Snape recoiled with a shudder, pressing himself against the wall, frightened. Dark eyes looked at him with panic—like that time—glassy, resigned.
James felt like crying too, his vision blurred as he stood there, not knowing what to do or say.
The door opened, drawing both boys’ attention to the small gap where his mother appeared.
“Is everything alright?” Euphemia asked, her gaze moving from James, to the broken vase, and finally to Severus. “I heard shouting, and something break.”
“Everything’s fine, Mum,” James replied, his voice rough and unsteady.
The woman nodded and turned her gaze to Severus, asking the question in silence.
And if Severus had been stronger, if he could have torn out that wretched feeling that made him feel so powerless, so weak, he would have asked her to stay. He would have accused Potter, or fled without looking back, taking refuge somewhere else.
He couldn’t. His throat would not allow him to speak, and his body refused to move; it was as though he were trapped there.
Euphemia’s eyes were pleading, asking something of him that Severus knew he could not give, even if he wanted to, desperately.
He lowered his head, letting his blurred gaze fall to the floor, his hair hiding his weakness.
“Alright,” Euphemia said softly, before closing the door.
And for a second, everything fell silent. James looked at Severus, and Severus simply resigned himself. Then the door opened again, wide this time, as Euphemia stepped inside without asking for permission.
“I know I shouldn’t interfere, and I don’t know what you’re arguing about,” she began, carefully stepping around the shards of the broken vase, “but this is not the way to resolve it.” She approached Severus, slow, gentle steps, until she stood before him and took his arms with delicate care. “You’re trembling, dear.”
Her hands, rubbing warmth into his arms, chased away the cold seeping in from his memories. She guided him gently to the sofa, sat him down, and draped a blanket over his shoulders. Warm hands enclosed his cold ones, holding them.
“I don’t know what could have happened, James, how serious this must be to leave you both like this.” Euphemia looked at her son, who stood on the verge of tears, then back at Severus, who seemed on the brink of complete panic. “Go and fetch some tea, James.”
“Mimsy can—”
“Go, James,” his mother said firmly.
Without further argument, Potter left.
And Severus was alone with Euphemia.
“Severus,” she called gently. He didn’t want to look at her. “Severus,” she repeated, and he forced himself to meet her eyes. “Tell me what’s going on, love,” she pleaded, taking his hands firmly. “Is everything alright?”
What would happen?
What would happen if Severus chose to reveal everything? If he spoke of how the bond terrified him, of these new feelings. Of how her son had made his life miserable, and now seemed only to search for an impossible solution. That he did not believe in love simply because it had been carved into his skin, and yet it was hard not to cling to those few, fleeting, perfect moments.
How would she look at him? With that same warm, concerned gaze, or with disgust, with disappointment, for not being able to fulfil it?
How would she look at him if he told her what he had done? Would she reject him, force him to be “saved” by James, cast him out for being undeserving of love?
Or would she understand? Would she see why he had done it, accept that he had had no choice?
He didn’t want to find out. He couldn’t. His feet still felt frozen, the cold creeping up through him.
Instead, he curled into her, taking comfort in the warmth, allowing his body to relax, letting the tears fall.
He wanted to forget, just for a moment, that tomorrow, he would have to go back to them.
—
He left early, avoiding both Potter and his parents. He didn’t want to see them, nor did he want to lie to them.
He went first to Lily’s house, just a brief visit, he needed someone else’s help to fix his mistake.
He knocked on the door, waiting a few minutes before it opened and Lily appeared. He might have been grateful for that, but her expression was bitter and tense, her eyes refusing to meet his.
“Come in,” she said, turning away and leaving Severus standing alone in the doorway.
She already knew.
He followed her into the dining room, sitting down and pointedly ignoring the Daily Prophet lying on the table. The atmosphere was cold—glacial, in the way Lily stood, arms crossed, leaning against a piece of furniture, her head slightly bowed.
“It was you,” she accused at once. “There’s no one else who could make a potion like that but you, Severus.”
“I did,” he admitted, with no desire to argue, the previous day had been more than enough. “And that’s why I need your help.”
One of his hands slipped into his pocket, fingers closing around the vial in a small, fragile comfort.
“My help?” Lily hissed, her voice low. “Why would you need my help? You’ve already done everything.”
“Judge me if you like, Evans, but I only did what I was asked,” he said, enunciating each word slowly. “I didn’t decide how they would use the potion, I merely delivered it.”
“You must be joking,” Lily spat, disgusted. “Do you think you can wash your hands of it that easily? Pretend you didn’t know what they’d use it for and keep your conscience clean?”
“What they did has nothing to do with me, Lily,” he lied, the knot in his throat tightening with guilt.
Silence settled for a few seconds, Lily’s face hidden behind her hair, preventing Severus from reading her expression. But the tension in her body made it easy enough to guess.
“Nothing to do with you?” Lily repeated, offended, when the silence grew too heavy. “You’re saying that a group of psychopaths who murder people like us has nothing to do with you?”
Severus clenched his jaw at his poor choice of words. He didn’t want to fight, he hadn’t come for that. He just wanted to reach some kind of agreement.
“I have a purpose.”
“A purpose?” Lily cut in, incredulous, clearly misunderstanding. “Do you really think they see you as an equal? That you’re any different from the other half-bloods or Muggle-borns?”
He didn’t answer, staring at the floor as his cheeks flushed with shame.
“You’re nothing more than a tool to them, Severus,” she pressed, firmly, forcing him to meet her gaze. “They don’t care about you. You don’t matter to them, you’re only worth what you can give them.”
“I know, Lily,” Severus replied sharply. “I know… but at least there, I’m worth something.”
She scoffed, bitter and mocking. “For how long?” she asked, with a cruelty that didn’t suit her. “The moment you’re no longer useful, they’ll throw you away, get rid of you like what you are.”
The unspoken insult stung. It was a blow clearly meant to hurt. He didn’t even feel offended, just… hurt.
“I know,” he admitted, defeated, his teeth clenching. He didn’t want any of his own pain to turn into something cruel.
Lily’s heavy exhale filled the brief silence. The tension had stretched taut, fragile and unstable, ready to snap at the slightest provocation.
“You don’t have to resign yourself to this,” she began, her voice softening slightly. “I’m sure that if I explain it to James, he wouldn’t let them force you—”
And that was enough to break the tension. To unleash chaos.
“Why do you have to be so insufferably self-righteous?” Severus spat, his lip curling.
Lily’s face shifted into disbelief, her eyes widening, her mouth parting. Her shoulders seemed to stiffen further.
“Excuse me?” she snapped, offended. “I’m only trying to help you.”
“I don’t need your help,” he shot back harshly. “From Potter, I can understand it, Lily. I can understand his ridiculous saviour complex, his accusations, his desperation, his lectures.” He went on, “He doesn’t know anything about me, he doesn’t know what I’ve been through, what I’ve endured… but you do, and you still don’t care.”
“Of course I care,” Lily defended. “But I can’t ignore the path you’re taking, what you’re doing.”
“So that means Potter gets to decide for me?”
She didn’t answer. She swallowed and looked at him with a regretful expression. “He’s your soulmate,” she said, with difficulty.
Severus rose from the chair, hating how he suddenly felt smaller, more vulnerable than Lily. He tightened his grip on the vial in his pocket until his hand hurt, then let it go.
She was no different from the others.
“If that’s what you want to believe, fine,” Severus said curtly.
He headed for the door, conflicting emotions coursing through him, making his heart pound and his body tremble.
He took the handle, the cold metal biting into his bare hand, when Lily’s voice reached him again, soft and fragile.
“Mary was at the attack. She was there, Severus, and now she’s in St Mungo’s,” she revealed.
He shouldn’t have turned to look at her. He shouldn’t have seen that disappointed, cold expression. He shouldn’t have felt the betrayal, the pain—the last remnants of a friendship he still clung to slipping away. He shouldn’t have let those emotions drive him to strike back, to make the hurt mutual.
But he did. Because Severus was cruel, a monster, just as his father had always told him.
“My condolences,” he replied, feigning indifference, turning his gaze away at once so he wouldn’t have to see her face.
He closed the door behind him, staring out at the street, breathing hard. He could hear Lily’s soft sobs through the door, felt his own caught painfully in his throat.
He wiped away his tears as he hurried as far from the Evans’ house as he could, heading towards his mother’s grave, where Narcissa would be waiting for him.
—
Severus was not permitted to enter the meetings, he remained outside the dining room with the other Death Eaters who had not yet received the Mark, simply waiting for instructions from Lucius.
But this time, he had been summoned. They had called him in.
“Come, Severus, sit here,” the Dark Lord gestured to the chair beside him. “Your efforts in aiding our cause have borne fruit, my boy. The first attack was a success.”
He sat down carefully, ignoring the envious looks from those still standing, and from those at the table who did not think him worthy of being there.
“The next attack will be very soon,” the Dark Lord announced, a chilling hiss lacing his voice.
They began to talk. Everyone at the table spoke, boasting of their exploits, cruelties Severus had not even imagined. Narcissa was not present at the meeting, and Severus wondered whether she would revel in it all, or remain as silent as Lucius.
To his relief, it ended quickly—as though in the blink of an eye, the voices fell silent and the Dark Lord left the dining room, Lucius at his side.
“You should be grateful to sit at this table, Mudblood,” Bellatrix snarled once the doors had closed. “You won’t always be so fortunate.”
Severus did not react at once. He took his time, glancing at the door before finally looking at her, as though she were nothing more than a mild inconvenience.
“It isn’t fortune, Bella,” he replied slowly. “It’s the Dark Lord’s will. Some of us actually do what he asks.”
Bellatrix’s smile widened, her eyes gleaming with amusement, and something more unhinged.
“Is that about your little soulmate?” she mocked, her voice shrill, almost childlike. “You should have seen his face, it was adorable. The way he screamed and tried to save that girl.” Her smile grew sharper. “I’d have loved to shatter that arrogant look,see how long he’d last before begging for mercy.”
Calm down, calm down, calm down, his mind whispered, as he felt his blood begin to race.
“And then what, Bella?” Evan cut in, watching her with scepticism. “Let the Aurors catch us because of your childish behaviour?”
Bella’s curls snapped like a whip as she turned to glare at him, her grey eyes blazing with fury.
“You nearly ruined the mission,” Evan continued, folding his arms as he leaned back in his chair. “You’re lucky I didn’t tell the Dark Lord.”
Both of Bella’s hands slammed down onto the table, making those beside her flinch. She shot to her feet, her chair nearly toppling with the force of it. She remained there for a moment before storming out with a huff, the sharp click of her heels echoing behind her. With Bella gone, the other Death Eaters wasted no time in leaving.
Severus headed into the sitting room, where the others were receiving instructions from Lucius. Regulus stood near the corner, glancing around until his eyes met Severus’s. With a small gesture, he signalled for him to follow, slipping through another door. Severus hurried after him.
“You didn’t come to the last meeting,” Regulus began, watching him with a mix of unease and restrained reproach. “Narcissa said you were… elsewhere.”
Severus didn’t answer at once. He knew what that question implied.
The door suddenly burst open, slamming against the wall. Evan strode in without bothering to hide it, shutting it behind him with the same careless force. His eyes fixed straight on Severus.
“You were with Potter,” he spat, as though the name itself left a foul taste. “You went to stay at his house and didn’t tell us.”
“That’s none of your concern, Evan,” Severus replied coolly. He paused, then added more quietly, “And it wasn’t my decision.”
Something in Evan’s expression shifted. The tension in his shoulders eased, almost imperceptibly.
“If he forced you…” he began, more controlled now, “you don’t have to go back. You can stay at mine.”
Regulus dropped his gaze, uncomfortable, but said nothing.
“That won’t be necessary,” Severus dismissed, stepping closer until he stood only a pace away. His eyes hardened. “Why did you do it?”
The question settled heavily in the air.
“So you know,” he murmured, studying him closely. “War’s coming, Sev,” he added, as if that explained everything. “Barty did the same.”
Severus ignored him.
“A bakery?” he said quietly, looking straight at Evan, knowing it had been his idea. “That’s what you call war?”
Regulus frowned faintly, shifting where he stood. “Severus—”
“Is this about Potter?” Evan cut in with a slight tilt of his head, a hint of scorn in his voice. “Because if it is—”
“Of course it isn’t,” Severus dismissed at once, a low hiss in his tone. “It’s about what you’ve done.”
“We can’t let them think they’re more than they are…” Regulus said, though his voice lacked its earlier certainty. “It isn’t… favourable.”
“For whom?” Severus shot back, his gaze turning sharply on him.
Regulus shrank slightly and fell silent.
“You know how this works, Sev,” Evan said, quieter now, almost coaxing. “We’re a team. We look after each other.”
His hands found Severus’s before he could pull away.
“No one else matters,” he added, tightening his grip just a little. “Just us.”
One of Evan’s hands slipped free and rose slowly to his face. His fingers brushed his cheek with a softness that didn’t belong in this conversation, pausing just beneath his eye in a lingering touch.
“You’ve been crying,” Evan murmured. “Was it him? Did he do this to you?” he asked, though he didn’t wait for an answer before continuing. “You don’t have to endure it, Sev.”
Severus leaned, just slightly, into the touch, soothed despite himself by Evan’s concern.
“Come with me,” Evan urged, his voice dropping to a near whisper.
And it would be easy—so easy—to disappear, to never have to return to Potter, to be free of the conflict tearing him apart. He could forget the mark, the tangled mess of his feelings, the sense of falling into something he couldn’t escape.
It would be so easy.
“I have to go back, Evan,” Severus said at last, stepping away, breaking the contact. “Running won’t change what’s happened… nor will it fix anything.”
Evan didn’t reply. His eyes shone with a trace of hurt and reluctant resignation. He didn’t press further, only accepted it with a faint, dissatisfied pout.
Severus was quietly grateful for that, for the simple respect of his choice.
—
Severus’s steps were heavy and slow, as though he could delay the moment simply by dragging it out. He knew Fleamont had not yet arrived, his coat was absent from the stand. It was better that way, he did not want to see the moment that proud look turned on him.
He knocked on Euphemia’s door. He hadn’t dared approach until now.
She opened it, wrapped in a thick, comfortable dressing gown, her hair loose, ready for bed.
“Severus, is something wrong, dear?” she asked softly in the quiet corridor. He wanted to take it back, to close his throat and retreat, to go to bed and pretend none of this had happened.
The weight of his actions, the proof of his betrayal of the side he had sworn to follow, sat firmly clasped between his fingers.
“I—” he faltered, the knot in his throat stopping the words. He swallowed hard. “I need your help.”