Certain Dark Things || Book Two

lv. a traitor's fate

The crack of Apparition faded into the sullen, misty climes of the surrounding moor when the two wizards arrived at the property's boundaries.

Severus' hand twitched about the handle of his wand. It was the only outward sign of his unsettled state of mind, the only sign he couldn't bring himself to still. It manifested as a rhythmic tightening and flexing of his fingers that most people never noticed. Albus knew of it, and maybe Minerva—though she might simply mistake it as his seething desire to strangle the little pustules they nurtured on a daily basis. The Dark Lord—and Slytherin—never noticed. For self-proclaimed geniuses, they had their heads so far up their own arses sometimes, they couldn't see what was right in front of their eyes.

He inhaled a slow, measured breath through his nose. Strained light gave form to the night, two men by the path's end, the gate beyond left unlatched, swinging free. Crickets resumed their chirping in the underbrush as the man next to Severus unfurled like the snake he was, the visible portion of his face blanched in the moonlight, his single eye as red as a garnet—red as blood. His wand moved in predictable ways, unraveling the wards with sharp, calculated motions, a whispered Revealing Charm showing a dim halo of yellow light lurking in the confines of the distant, rundown house.

Severus exhaled. His thoughts stilled and sunk in the dark, arctic tundra of his mind, the waters rising until everything but this moment ceased to exist.

Slytherin lowered his wand and his lips curled in the approximation of a smile. "At last. Go, dog, flush him out."

Bowing his head, Severus launched into action, Disillusioning himself even as he slung one leg over the garden wall and landed in the adjoining field. His robes hissed against the overlong grass, but his boots moved without sound. If he pretended, if he shut out the sounds of the moor and the smell of encroaching summer, Severus could almost imagine himself at Hogwarts. He could place himself there, striding down a lone corridor at night, starlight in the windows, hunting errant students out after curfew—but he wasn't at Hogwarts. Term had ended two days ago. He was in the County Durham, in the middle of bloody nowhere, and he wasn't out for tardy students. No, this was a different kind of hunt entirely.

He avoided the front of the house, skirting another ward anchored to the crumbling well stretching toward a ruined shed against a far wall. He considered triggering it; Merlin knew Otho Selwyn would need the head-start, the fucking moron—and yet Severus avoided the ward and continued toward the rear of the building. Slytherin would kill him if he botched this assignment; he knew no mercy lingered in the wizard, not after learning one of his supposedly loyal lieutenants at the school had sought to subvert him in Gaunt's favor. This was as much a test for Severus as it was a hunt for Selwyn. Should he fail....

A nebulous vein of panic touched his mind when he considered the notion, but it held no substance and disintegrated before it could even raise his pulse. The Muggle power lines leading to the conduit beneath the eaves hummed low and crackled where Selwyn's next ward edged too near the electrical box. Severus spotted no lights on within the house itself and doubted Selwyn knew how to turn them on even if he had the desire to do so. Magic and Muggle technology did not mesh, and he supposed the sheer inundation of it and the remote location had served Selwyn well in avoiding Slytherin and his overzealous followers over the past weeks.

He couldn't run forever, even if he managed to find a Portkey off the continent. Slytherin didn't brand his Knights of Walpurgis, but the Dark Mark called to him all the same.

With a soft click, the lock on the back door disengaged and Severus eased it open, eyes narrowed under the lowered hem of his hood, his wand extended. He crossed the threshold, his murky shadow dragging over the wall, and he breathed, "Homenum Revelio."