Fate Set Right

Chapter 31

"At least Yvonne agreed," Karkaroff boasted.

"Yes, for a price," Severus reminded him. "I may not be betrothed in an official capacity, but I earned Hermione's promise to wait with nothing more than a six-year-old scarf and a used textbook."

Nikola laughed, clapping Severus on the back with great pride.

"My wife, she'd have liked you," Nikola said. "Tried to take you as ours. Had we sons, she'd have wanted them to be like you."

"And how are your daughters?" Severus asked politely.

"Well," Nikola replied.

Severus knew better than to ask further. He'd gathered everything he needed together to know Nikola was the kind of Death Eater he wanted to be around. To emulate.

The revel where Severus confirmed that Nikola and Igor were indeed Death Eaters happened just before Hermione's birthday. When the burn pierced his arm, the other two men hissed, and then after a pause, they all summoned their masks and departed. When they arrived at their destination, it was a scene Severus hadn't expected: a celebration.

The man he watched burn in the woods the night he took his Mark had been joined in the afterlife by his family, and the Death Eaters had killed an Auror in the process. There were drinks, a feast, and most disturbingly of all, an orgy.

Severus had never thought he would be so repulsed by sex in his life.

"Will you not partake, Severus?" the Dark Lord asked as many of the younger Death Eaters and about half of the older leaped gleefully into the fray.

"If I may pass, my Lord. I wish to have relations solely with the woman I intend to marry. Not only to keep myself pure, but to prevent a possible problem in the future. One cannot trust that a child will not be conceived," he'd replied, happy to see that the Dark Lord accepted his answer.

"Wise, Severus. Quite wise. I, too, do not find myself straying from one lady," the Dark Lord had said, his eyes falling on a woman with dark curls who was more interested in watching than joining. Bellatrix Black, Severus recalled, though he thought her married now. "Your daughters must be of age now, Ivan," the Dark Lord said suddenly to Nikola. "Perhaps you would like to introduce her to some of your brothers? One of them might make a good husband. Or lover."

Nikola had paled. "They are ... not within my reach, my Lord. They have left to be with my late wife's family in Russia."

"That is a shame," the Dark Lord hummed. "Please, enjoy the evening."

"I do not wish to participate in such distasteful act," Nikola said when they were alone. "Nor watch. We go. Bar down the road, good for people like us, yeah?"

And so, Severus left with Nikola, the excuse of following his master on the tip of his tongue should it be needed.

"Vodka. We drink," Nikola announced.

Wizarding vodka, he had learned, was not something to drink lightly. It was potent, a little onion-y, and went to your head faster than Felix Felicis.

Which was why Severus had only downed two shots before he chased his second with a few drops of that wonderful potion when his master wasn't looking. He'd been carrying his winning bottle around for so long, he'd almost forgot he had it.

And then the trouble had started. Someone had walked in, Severus couldn't remember who, and took exception to a half-blood and non-British wizard drinking in what he deemed "his bar." His friends hadn't liked it either, and a fight broke out before Severus really knew he was participating in one.