The Death Eater Years
So with curious eyes and sick surmise
We watched him day by day,
And wondered if each one of us
Would end the self-same way,
For none can tell to what red Hell
His sightless soul may stray.
Like two doomed ships that pass in storm
We had crossed each other's way:
But we made no sign, we said no word,
We had no word to say;
For we did not meet in the holy night,
But in the shameful day.
A prison wall was round us both,
Two outcast men we were:
The world had thrust us from its heart,
And God from out His care:
And the iron gin that waits for Sin
Had caught us in its snare.
War came faster than anyone had expected. When Albus invited her to join a resistance group, she had leaped at the chance. Minerva had not been placed in Gryffindor without cause. She was only now beginning to feel her age and wanted to fight while she was still strong.
Albus also extended an invitation to her recently graduated Gryffindor students. She had argued fiercely to leave them out of the fighting, but she had been overruled.
They were quickly losing this war. They could not afford to protect the innocence of their youth.
There had been a battle. They lost the Prewitt boys. Minerva disapperated with a severely injured Remus Lupin and took him to St. Mungo’s.
The boy was barely clinging to life after being hit with a compression curse; his abdomen distended as the cavity filled with blood and his chest was deformed by crushed ribs.
Severus Snape was assigned to be their healer on the emergency surgical floor. Minerva had been certain that Remus wouldn’t survive the operation if not because of the severity of his injuries, then because the hospital was severely understaffed, that Snape was performing the operation, and if not because of Snape’s lack of experience, then because the Slytherin held no love for Remus Lupin.
Somehow he pulled through.
Snape met her at Lupin’s bedside, his hair tied back and wearing lime green healer robes. They didn’t suit him.
“Why?” She asked him, trying to understand.
“He was assigned to me,” Snape answered, his expression strained and exhausted. “You should be grateful. I am already… aware of his condition. Dark creatures require a different protocol.” He seemed distracted, scribbling notes into Lupin’s chart with a crumpled quill.
Minerva was not satisfied. “Why did you save him? He is your enemy, is he not?”
Their intelligence indicated that Snape had taken the dark mark. At first they had not believed it, not because Snape was a paragon of virtue but because he was only a half-blood.
There were even rumors that he had taken the mark before leaving Hogwarts. Minerva was not certain she believed them.
Snape stopped what he was doing and stared at her coolly, his dark eyes boring into hers. “I took an oath.” He looked down dispassionately at Lupin’s sleeping face. “Here there are no allies or enemies, only broken things in need of fixing.”
Later, when Snape applied for the Defense Against the Dark Arts position, they knew it was a front. Snape would never willingly leave the healing program for a teaching position.
Voldemort was bold to make such an obvious attempt to install his own people at the school.
Still, Dumbledore agreed to interview him. Minerva wasn’t invited and Albus never spoke of what happened, but the next time the Order met, Albus told them that Severus Snape was very likely working for Voldemort and not to approach him without backup.
Minerva remembered the way Remus’ skin had stretched across jagged broken ribs, how pale he had become as blood filled his gut. She thought of the raw power it must take to magically heal such catastrophic injuries and shuddered.
No doubt his surgical training had only made him a more dangerous opponent.
James and Lily announced their pregnancy and engagement not long after that, and Minerva could never forget the way Lily glowed in the candlelight. Their child would be so loved.
A month later, Albus told her Snape had requested a meeting. She’d warned him against going alone, but his only reply was a terrible smile. Albus was not afraid of Severus Snape.
The headmaster returned from that meeting and immediately made plans to send James and Lily into hiding. They were married in a small ceremony and then they disappeared. It was the last time Minerva saw her former students alive.
A few weeks later, Albus sent her to meet Snape; she was meant to collect a package from him.
This time, he was in black robes and looked more exhausted than she had ever seen him.
“We are alone,” he reassured then attempted to hand her the parcel.
She stepped back and insisted on casting detection charms on it before she would allow it to touch her skin. He watched her expressionlessly until she determined it was only potions.
“Why?” She asked him again as she took the box from his hands.
Snape rubbed tiredly at his eyes with the heel of one hand. “We all have our reasons for doing the things we do, Professor. I am not obligated to tell you mine.”
Soon, members of the Order were targeted and killed at an alarming rate. There had to be a spy within their organization but even Albus couldn’t determine who it was. Minerva argued Snape’s treachery, certain that his appearance had not been a coincidence, but Dumbledore didn’t heed her and insisted Snape had no insight into their membership.
Those were the darkest days of the war.
They lost friends and family one after another. Minerva didn’t believe any of them would survive more than another year.
They lost Edgar Bones, then the entire McKinnon family. They hadn’t been killed quickly, not even the children. The werewolves had seen to that.
Benjy Fenwick was ambushed by Death Eaters. Dorcas Meadows had been burned alive. Giants attacked muggle towns and wizarding villages, leaving devastation in their wake.
The Order responded as best they could. Minerva was part of a half dozen Order members and volunteers who apparated to the site of one of these attacks.
Death Eaters were already there, causing nearly as much havoc as the giants. She engaged one of them in battle, dueling with all of her formidable strength. Her opponent’s blank silver mask stared back at her, unrelenting and unfeeling.
The death eater didn’t attack her at first, only defended. They transfigured a fallen branch into a handsome glaive and Minerva prepared herself to duel not only with magic but also with weapons.
The death eater cast a spell on the glaive, sending it flying toward her at a terrific speed. She didn’t have time enough to dodge. The blade grazed her arm and hurled past her.
The glaive buried itself in the belly of a female giant and exploded as if it were made of dynamite. The concussive force of the explosion ripped the giant nearly in half and knocked Minerva to the ground. Blood and sinew rained down around them as the giant stumbled about, holding her organs in with her hands.
Minerva got to her feet and searched for the death eater, but they had fled, perhaps mistaking her for dead.
That battle ended in heavy casualties for both sides.
Minerva sobbed and held the broken body of her younger brother, Robert. He had been torn asunder by one of the giants; it took hours to find his lower half.
That winter, Minerva was assigned to spy on the home of Nasir Shafiq. She spent weeks coming and going as a tabby, watching from trees, under cars, and behind trash cans.
The Order had received word that the man was a death eater, and his home was used to smuggle ashwinder eggs into France and Germany. This money was used to fund their war effort.
She had been crouched under a bush, half frozen even as a cat. Shafiq, Snape, and an older wizard clad in furs exited the home, speaking quietly to each other. Her sensitive nose identified the fir as werewolf.
Their small group turned down the street and headed into the night. Minerva had crept to the house, searching for any opening to exploit.
It had been easy enough to scale a lattice to the roof and climb down a chimney. She’d ended up covered in soot but came out in a small, unused, library.
Minerva padded from room to room until she had located the eggs. All she needed to do was report back to Albus so he could coordinate a team to raid the house and take the supplies.
She had almost made it back to the library when the front door opened. Shafiq stared at the cat in shock, frozen momentarily, but then his wand was in his hand.
Minerva ducked into the library and ran for the chimney. A chair behind her shattered as a wayward spell blew it to pieces.
An animagus couldn’t apparate in their animal form. The home had anti-apparition wards, so she would need to escape the property before she could apparate.
She scaled the chimney, claws vying for purchase on the brick as Shafiq set the logs below her ablaze. The heat was sweltering but she climbed toward the cooler air above, careful not to slip.
Minerva ran across the roof and jumped, stretching her body wide to increase wind resistance and slow her fall. She landed hard, her joints protesting, but sprang ahead, ready to sprint to the property line.
Shafiq cast a summoning charm, and she flew backwards through the air into his gloved hand.
He had her by the scruff, but she would fight. Minerva would transform and hope that she could cast faster. It was a slim chance. His wand was already in his hand, but if she could take him by surprise…
Shafiq raised his wand. Then another voice spoke softly from the side, and Shafiq gasped as his throat opened in a grizzly smile.
Minerva transformed; even stepping away had not helped her avoid the splash of blood.
Shafiq turned to look at his house and stared at Snape with betrayal and accusation. The death eater fell to his knees and tried to stop the bleeding, wrapping his hands around his own neck.
The snow splattered red in places.
Snape walked to Shafiq cautiously, eyes on the wand he still held in his hand. The young death eater stood on Shafiq’s wand hand and bent over his fallen comrade.
For a moment, Minerva had thought he meant to help him. Instead, Snape gently, almost tenderly, pulled Shafiq’s hand away from his wound. His blood flowed without resistance. The death eater choked in the red snow.
Minerva wiped something hot and wet from her brow and stared at Snape, horrified. “Why?”
Her former student met her eyes; this time, she didn’t look away. “Because he would have killed you.”
“You can’t know that,” she had hissed at him.
Minerva was no slouch in a duel; she was powerful and fiercely creative with her wand work.
“Surely you’ve noticed.” The death eater spy smiled and spoke conspiratorially. “Your reflexes have slowed. You are getting old. Nasir would have killed you had I not intervened.”
Snape turned away from her, showing his back, dismissing her.
He cast a splendid patronus, a bright doe so silver she almost thought she could touch it. It bounded away and dissolved into mist, taking Snape’s message to the recipient.
“Dumbledore has been notified.” He pulled his hood further up around his face. “You should leave before he calls for aurors.”
“You,” she had called after him, her voice shook with anger. “Will learn that arrogance is ever accompanied by folly.”
He turned back and smiled, “And no one is more hated than he who speaks the truth. Good evening professor.”
The next time she saw him, he was in Azkaban.
Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!