On Christmas Eve Remus took the dried fruits and nuts that he had soaked in brandy and mixed up a fruitcake. He sent Draco out for supplies and put a chicken, potatoes and sprouts in the oven to roast, seasoning them with salt and pepper and a tin of apricots he'd found on a back shelf. He mixed up a punch of fruit juice and soda water, found some Muggle Christmas music on the ancient radio in the kitchen, and settled in the parlor beside the fire and the glowing tree.
He stared at the flames, feeling strangely content. The baby had survived the moon, the womb a smooth reassuring bump beneath his fingertips. Sev had told him he planned to arrive late at Spinner's End for Christmas Eve, after the traditional staff gathering in the headmaster's office. Remus was looking forward to seeing him, and sharing with him the celebration he had made for them. He'd had lonelier and much sadder Christmases, he mused, as he sat, sipping his non-alcoholic punch. Draco entered the room and sat quietly on the sofa.
"Punch?" Remus offered.
Draco shook his head, and kept looking into the fire.
"Not much of a Christmas for you," Remus remarked.
"No," replied Draco, hoarsely. His voice sounded creaky, unused. "Not much." They both stared at the flames.
"I never cared much for Christmas," Draco said, into the silence. "Never much saw the point of it. It's just.....my mum....."
"She'll be missing you," said Remus gently. "Worrying over you."
Draco nodded glumly. "I hate it that she doesn't know.......that I made a choice. That I'm okay."
"It might be dangerous if she knew," said Remus gently. "Voldemort looks routinely into the minds of his followers."
"Snape knows," said Draco.
"Sev is a gifted occlumens. Most people can't ........protect their mind the way that he can."
"Lucky for you," remarked Draco.
"Yes it is."
"And for me too, I suppose," Draco added grudgingly.
"Yes," agreed Remus.
"I did make a choice, you know," said Draco. There was a sudden fierceness in his usually languid voice. "I left because I hate him, not because I was afraid."
"I figured as much," said Remus quietly.
"You......you did?"
"I can tell you're no coward, Draco," said Remus.
The fire crackled. In the kitchen, the radio switched to a new song.
"I'll have some of that punch, I guess," Draco said off handedly.
"It's just in the kitchen," Remus replied. Draco got up to get himself a glass.
He returned , glass in hand and sat back down on the sofa.
"There's an old deck of exploding snap cards in the cupboard," said Remus. "If you'd care to play."
********
When Sev arrived at Spinner's End the kitchen smelled delightfully of the chicken, roasting in the oven and the freshly baked fruitcakes. The radio was playing a Muggle Christmas tune somewhat tinnily. From where he stood he could see into the parlour, where the little tree was twinkling bravely and he heard the soft slap of cards hitting the table.
The radio must have covered the sound of his entrance. Sev stowed his bag of gifts in an empty cupboard and stood in the darkened kitchen, taking it all in. He heard Remus and Draco's voices, soft and indistinct, in the parlour. How had he arrived here? he wondered. His life had been filled with darkness and loneliness, a loneliness that had become so habitual he had ceased to notice it. In the midst of war and Muggle killings and dementors on the streets, and fear, every moment of discovery and death, of pain and failure, how had he arrived in this kitchen, on Christmas Eve, fragrant with the smell of good things to eat, with a tree shining in the next room, and Remus, peacefully playing cards with Draco, waiting for him to arrive?
He got down the firewhiskey and three glasses. He walked into the parlour and kissed Remus swiftly and surely, before he had a chance to think better of it. He poured a round for the three of them, insisting that Remus take a small shot, in spite of the baby. And it was just as he was raising a glass to Remus and Draco, wondering what he could possibly say that was appropriate to the occasion, to the jumble of hope and fear that was pulsing in his heart, that he felt the mark burn on his arm.
He dropped his glass and clutched his forearm. The glass shattered with a ping, the whiskey staining the threadbare carpet beneath his feet. Remus looked up at him, his face suddenly pale. Sev could tell he knew at once what had happened.
"It's not his usual time," Sev whispered, still clutching his arm. "Something's happened." He shook himself. The tinny music from the radio in the kitchen suddenly sounded harsh, menacing. "I must go," he said. "The spell, Lupin."
Remus rose and went to him quickly. "Use the other one," he said.
"The Kabbalah?"
"Yes. I'll say it with you, if you like."
Sev nodded. They stood together and chanted the Hebrew, and Sev felt the the spell take hold. Like smoke in his bones. He felt denser, heavier, his mind surer. He nodded at Remus. "It's going to work," he said. "Keep your wand at hand. I'll return as soon as I can." He kissed him, full on, trying to say the things he could not say, that he might never get to say, with that kiss. He grabbed his cloak and left, through the kitchen door and into the dark night.
*********
Severus apparated to a dilapidated building on the edge of a small picturesque town. The snow lay thick about him. He must be somewhere up north. In the distance he heard church bells tolling - midnight mass. He heard a snatch of drunken singing, laughter muffled as it traveled over the snow. Christmas revelers, going home from the pub. Sev recognized where he was. This was Godric's Hollow, the last place Lily had lived, and the place where she had met her death.
He heard a pop and Bellatrix apparated beside him. She stood tall, her black hair streaming behind her, her wand stretched out, ready for the battle. "Snape," she hissed in greeting, her dislike obvious. Sev knew she was angry that she had not been the first to arrive. He smiled back at her with grim satisfaction.
A moment later Lucius apparated beside her, with Narcissa clinging to his arm. Narcissa's face was white, terrified. Severus knew she was afraid that this sudden summoning meant that Draco had been captured. Then Pettigrew appeared, and then the air around them fairly exploded, as the rest of Voldemort's inner circle appeared with a series of pops. Most people looked as if they had been torn reluctantly from their cozy beds or warm firesides. Dolohov surveyed the gathering through half lidded eyes. Yaxley's hood was askew and he stank of stale whiskey. Alecto was rubbing her eyes sleepily. There was a murmur of confused whispering. Sev stepped up onto the front stoop, and raised his hand. The murmuring fell away. He opened the door, and led the way inside.
It stank, like a dead body. The hall was cluttered with an assortment of junk - old clothes and papers, coated in a thick layer of dust. To his left was a small sitting room, equally cluttered and dusty, lit eerily by several sputtering candles in old saucers. He glanced in, but it was empty. There were fresh prints in the dust on the stairs that faced the front door. Sev led the way up, the assembled Death Eaters falling into line behind him.
Upstairs the filthy cluttered bedroom stank, even more strongly than the downstairs had, of a corpse. The Dark Lord stood, his red eyes glowing triumphantly, over the inert forms of two people. Nagini circled around the bodies, her scales making a rasping sound over the broken glass which covered the floor. Sev saw the dark hair, the long gawky limbs of an adolescent who has recently reached his full height. The glasses, bent and askew on the downturned face. Potter! The Dark Lord had Potter! And beside him, bushy hair wild around her pale inert face lay Granger, her hand clutching Potter's arm. Sev watched the faint rise and fall of her chest, then Potter moaned and stirred slightly. Not dead yet, then. Probably just stunned.
"I have him!" Voldemort cried triumphantly. "Harry Potter!" In his hand he held two wands, one of them broken beyond repair. He handed them both to Sev. "The phoenix feather wand," he whispered hoarsely. "Guard it well!" Sev could sense the excitement rolling off him. Good. He tended to get sloppy, when he was this close to his goals. Sev put the two wands deep in his cloak.
He heard Narcissa gasp behind him as she ascended into the room and saw Harry and Hermione lying there. "It's Potter!" she whispered, turning to Lucius in obvious relief. He clutched her hand, and they melted together into the back of the group, as the rest of the Death Eaters ascended.
"Bind them!" Voldemort commanded. Sev pointed his wand and said "Incarcerous," softly. Silver chains appeared, snaking around the two prisoners and holding them fast. Bellatrix was right beside him, and pointed her own wand, but the spell was done and she stood there, furious, that Sev had got to it first.
Voldemort was pacing up and down, trembling with excitement, the broken glass on the floor crunching beneath his feet."Potter!" he exclaimed, over and over, "We've got Potter."
Sev's mind was moving fast. Voldemort was supposed to kill Potter, but not yet. Not until all the horcruxes had been destroyed. And not until he and Remus had ruled out every other possible alternative.
"He is going to die tonight!" exclaimed Voldemort joyfully. "But first..... My loyal followers, we shall have a little fun. Oh no, he shan't just go out like a candle. I want him to know, know that the Dark Lord cannot be opposed! I cannot be defeated!" he shouted and his eyes flared, for a moment, an even brighter, more fiery red. "Not by anyone!" He laughed a cruel, high pitched, triumphant laugh.
Sev felt the new Kabbalistic magic in him, dense, heavy and intense. He had never experienced anything quite like it. He felt it searching downwards, like roots toward the earth, seeking the source of it's power there.
He saw, in his mind's eye the candles sputtering in their saucers downstairs, in the filthy parlor. The stench of the corpse filled his nostrils. He imagined the flames rising. Pictures came to his mind, unbidden. He saw a heretic burned at the stake. He saw the the ovens of Auschwitz, the greasy smoke of burned human flesh rising from the chimneys. He felt an ancient anger flare in his bones. He saw a golem. He and Remus had been reading about golems only a few nights before.
He knew he could use those flickering candles to his advantage.
"Innervate!" Voldemort shouted, pointing his wand. Harry and Hermione startled awake. Sev saw them both reach instinctively for their wands, which had been taken from them. He saw understanding dawn. Harry looked at Voldemort, then at Hermione, then back to Voldemort. He reached for Hermione's hand and grasped it.
Then Harry saw Sev. He shot him a look of pure hatred.
It was easy to return the look, though probably a tactical error. "I'm here to rescue you, you little shit," Sev thought to himself. Hermione was glowering at him as well, equal parts fear and fury in her expression. "Don't do anything stupid, you two," Sev willed silently.
"Harry Potter," Voldemort's excited voice rang out in the small room. "And his mudblood girlfriend." Voldemort started pacing in front of the broken window, where the cold December air was blowing in. Strangely, it was not enough to dispel the rotten odor, which lingered. "So like his father, who also had the poor judgement to marry a mudblood. An unfortunate family pattern, but one that ends here, tonight." He laughed that high, mirthless laugh again, and several of his followers joined in nervously.
"They sense how off balance he is tonight," Sev thought "Off balance and.......dangerous." He thought of the little Christmas tree, shining in the parlour at Spinner's End. He thought of Remus, of his hands, his mouth, his face clenched tight with pleasure. Of the baby, the firm promise of new life growing within him. "I have to get out of here alive," Sev thought fiercely. "I have to get back to them."
"James Potter," said Voldemort thoughtfully. "He could have been a great man among us. He was from a very old and respected family line. The same for that friend of his, that Sirius Black. But they refused me, stupidly. And where are they now? Dead! The two of them! Fools that they were!"
"That was me!!" said Bellatrix eagerly, shoving Sev aside roughly to stand next to Voldemort! "I killed Black!"
"Yes Bellatrix," said Voldemort softly, his voice slowing to the condescending tone he always used with her. "That was well done. One of your finer moments, to be sure."
"I live only to serve you, Master," Bellatrix murmured, her dark face flushing darker at his praise.
"How would you like a chance to dispose of....... the mudblood?"
Bellatrix licked her lips. "Just let me at her!" she said, her voice gone husky with yearning, to please her Voldemort. "Just let me at her, Master, and I shall do you proud."
Sev spoke, his voice harsh and imperious. "My Lord, they must be questioned before they are killed. They were pets of Dumbledore. They were in contact with the Order of the Phoenix! They may have valuable information that we can extract." With another part of his mind, he was coalescing the dense new magic he felt in his blood. He could taste smoke in the back of his throat. He closed his eyes, just for a moment, and saw the flames flickering on the inside of his eyelids. He fanned those sputtering candle flames in his mind. They leapt. A curtain caught, the fire inching up the stained and dirty fabric.
Voldemort turned his attention to Sev. "Yes, Severus, you are correct, as usual." Sev gave him a brief nod, acknowledging the praise. "How do you propose we go about it?"
"Legilimency, My Lord," he replied. "I can read their minds."
"Then we are dependent on believing what Snape reports," Bellatrix objected, with scorn in her voice. "Master, let me torture it out of them." She raised her wand, pointed it at Hermione and shouted "Crucio!"
Hermione screamed. Her back went rigid. Her nails, clutching at Harry's hand, dug into the flesh and drew blood.
"Now, little girl," said Bellatrix, lowering her wand, and talking to Hermione in fake, simpering tones. "Tell us what you know. Where are your friends in the Order hiding out? What task have they set you? What are their plans against us?" Hermione responded by clamping her lips shut tight, and turning her head, away from Bellatrix into Harry's shoulder. She shook with silent sobs. Harry put an arm protectively around her, and glared at Bellatrix.
"Leave her alone!" he said, his voice hoarse.
"Or will you tell me, Chosen One?" Bellatrix asked, that fake simper still in her voice, her eyes glittering maniacally. "It would spare your little girlfriend a great deal of pain."
Downstairs, Sev saw that the curtain was burning properly now. The heat caused an updraft, pulling a fluttering piece of paper toward a second candle flame. It caught fire and drifted onto the sofa, where it smoked for a long moment, then burst into flame.
"We'll never talk," said Harry in a low whisper. "Torture us all you want! It doesn't matter."
"Fine with me, Chosen One," whispered Bellatrix menacingly, and raised her wand once again.
"I'm sure Bellatrix is enjoying herself, Master," said Severus, his tone controlled, his voice cool. Downstairs, the flames were leaping higher, feeding on the clutter of books and papers. The taste of smoke was thicker in his throat. In a few minutes the smoke would start to come up the stairs and someone would smell it. "But surely veritaserum would be more efficient and less.....messy."
Bellatrix looked at him with hatred. "Have you some in your back pocket then, Severus?" she asked sarcastically.
He looked back at her with scorn. Downstairs the flames were coalescing now, forming a mass in the center of the room, consuming the furniture hungrily. "I do not, Bellatrix," he said. "But there is a vial in my office at Hogwarts. I can easily fetch it."
"That will not be necessary, Severus," said Voldemort in a cold voice. "I can read the boy's mind myself without difficulty." He turned his hard, reptilian gaze to Harry and looked him directly in the eye.
Harry closed his eyes. The room fell silent. Severus heard the flames crackling down below, so faintly that only someone who was aware of what was going on down there would notice it. He remembered the miserable failure of his occlumency lessons with Potter last year, and prayed that the boy had retained something of what he had tried to teach him. After a long silence, Voldemort staggered and fell back a step, putting his hand to his forehead.
"Something impedes me!" he cried out, bewildered. "I cannot enter the boy's mind! There is a wall, a blockage......" He started pacing up and down again. Downstairs, a creature was forming, a creature made of fire, with arms and legs of orange flame, and gaping holes for eyes. "Perhaps the twin cores is preventing..... But no.....his wand is broken.....Give it to me," he said, holding out his pale hand to Sev impatiently, eyes flashing red again.
Obediently Sev reached inside his robes and handed Voldemort the broken wand. Harry gave a gasp of dismay when he saw it. It was a pathetic sight, the wood snapped, the two ends held together by a narrow thread of the phoenix feather core.
"Ha!" said Voldemort, in triumph, rounding on Harry. "It is destroyed, your wand! You no longer have the protection of the twin cores! And you are weak without that! So how.....how can you defy me?" He went over to Harry, and waved the broken wand in front of his face. "Give up your secrets to me, Potter!" he said. "You nearly destroyed me when you were a mere baby, and now you close your mind to me! Me! The greatest legilimens the world has ever known! How do you do it? How Potter?" Voldemort's eyes went dark "Unless........he said. "Unless......No! It is not possible! They are hidden! Hidden far, far away! They are safe. You are only a boy! You could not...."
"I smell smoke," said Alecto Carrow suddenly.
"Master look out!" screamed Bellatrix, throwing herself in front of Voldemort to shield him from the fireball that came pouring into the room.
There was plenty of fuel. The pile of dirty rags on the bed burst into flames, and the chill breeze from the broken window quickly fanned them. The fire leapt higher, the ragged curtains and piles of books and papers started to burn. It was complete pandemonium, everyone was screaming, cursing, beating the flames that caught on their robes, jumping out the open window, apparating away. Into this chaos Sev's golem reared up, tall as two men, a fierce creature made of flame. He grabbed Harry and Hermione. The chains that bound them snapped as if made of paper. He rolled with them down the stairs, into the parlor fireplace and away.