Of murder and mercy
Prologue
31st October 1981
London, UK
“Squelch”
The body made a pitiful wet sound under his soles. Severus Snape lifted his boot and looked down at the sticky substance staining the hide. Rain raged against walls and cobbles, clouds thicker than a Dementor’s cape darkened the late afternoon sky, plunging the crime scene into a fictitious night.
“A nuisance even in death,”
The more time Severus spent with the likes of him, the worse his mood became.
“Accio can”
The aluminium clanged on the pavement to Severus’ feet. The beast kept uselessly contorting and squeaking in pain.
The transfiguration and indestructibility spells always took more time than he would’ve liked, but soon enough Severus was levitating his next victim in a tight cage.
“I know your lot’s stupidity goes beyond my broadest comprehension,” he drawled in his usual ennuied monotone. It helped crack the hostages’ resolution, and although now it wasn't necessary, it was hard to act any more alive when one was continuously occluded as Severus had been since the war started. Fortunately for him, the Dark Lord didn't require a chipper disposition to welcome someone in his inner circle.
“But I'm going to repeat myself only once: If you try to transfigurate back to human, you will die strangled by this very cage, understood Pettigrew?” He waited for the lamest of the Maradeurs to squeak before entering his mind.
“Where is Lily Evans hidden?” the edge to his voice could not be tempered down by Occlumency or exhaustion.
“It's Potter now,” repeats the rat, with no more happiness at the statement than Severus felt.
“Crucio”
It was a small one, almost sweet. It slightly improved his mood.
Pettigrew couldn't say the same.
“Where is Lily?” He was losing his patience, time was running thin.
“I've already told the Dark Lord!” he shrieked in his mind. Truly, an unbearable creature.
“That I already know, Pettigrew,” he said with a slow smirk. Feeling Pettrigrew’s fear rise gave him a sense of control. “Why do you think I'm here?”
The rat didn't speak this time.
“I will hit you with a much slower version of the curse because I don't want you to die too fast,” Pettigrew was shaking and panicking, utterly confused about how he found himself in such a mess. Were it still Hogwarts times, Snape might have found this funny. But this wasn't a schoolboy’s jest. This was war, and his best friend was about to die because of her husband’s foolish judgment.
“Sectumsempra”
Pain
That was the only thought he could hear in Pettrigrew's tiny useless skull. Granted, thinking of Potter may have made him less gentle than advisable.
As Lily liked to say, “shit happens”.
“Where are the Potters hidden?” He couldn't keep the disgust out of his voice. Horrid name, that was.
Unsurprisingly, before the cuts started to bleed, Pettigrew ratted his life-long friends out. Pun intended. Weren't it for the Occlumency, Severus would have snickered out loud.
Salazar, he needed sleep.
“GODRIC’S HOLLOW! THEY LIVE IN THE POTTERS COTTAGE, IN GODRIC'S HOLLOW! NOW STOP THIS!”
Finally, Severus interrupted the Legimency, put a powerful concealment charm on the spasming beast and apparated to Godric's Hollow.
The dark Lord had planned his visit for the night, Severus needed to be quick.
Concealing himself and repeatedly casting Homenum Revelios he approached the cottage, at last visible to him.
The door opened with a simple Alohomora, and that was enough to tense his nerves, for the foolishly prideful man living in this house.
Said fool was in his face, once Severus opened the door. Panicked eyes looking around himself, not a single wand nearby. Idiot. Maybe killing him would be a saving grace to his family. Severus could accept being murdered by Lily in retaliation, but he had no certainty that he would be free of the likes of James Fleamont Potter in death. He should have done more research on the Afterlife.
“Snivellus??!”
Lack of sleep notoriously causes poor self-control.
Potter was slammed on the other side of the living room, with an elegant wand swish.
“Sev?!”
Lily was running down the stairs, with a flabbergasted expression. Unruly hair, wrinkled jumper, wand held tight in her left hand and eyes ablaze, emeralds under the scorching sun.
Her mouth was pressed in a frown of disappointment and betrayal. Was it for him or for their dear rat?
He wanted to taunt her, to point out all the flaws of the people that she called dear friends, the ones she chose over him and tell her: “See? I was better than them. I wouldn't have betrayed you”.
But the truth was that Severus had already betrayed her.
Nevertheless, he was better off playing into his succinct persona.
“The Dark Lord is on his way. He'll come tonight to kill the child. The rat betrayed you. Twice.” He added at last. Spite was his true soulmate after all.
“Oh, Godric,”
“I DON'T FUCKING BELIEVE YOU!”
Severus was severely under-prepared for the burden that was being in Potter's presence.
The useless head of the family ran towards him, trying to topple him down. James Potter always was athletic, but he also always overrated himself. And Severus learnt a thing or two while fighting his way up the ranks.
For instance, how to cast Petrificus Totalus in his animagus form.
Once the statue of a yelling Potter touched the floor, Severus flew towards Lily and transfigured back.
“You need to find another place. I know a safe house in Wales. It's a Meadows property, the blood wards are strong.” Lily’s eyebrows rose at the name, but he didn't have time to explain what happened while she was in hiding. He needed to lay down the plan as quickly as possible. The sun had been down for hours.
“Don't say anything to Dumbledore, hopefully he will make his appearance here once I inform him of the Dark Lord's-
“Voldemort,” interrupted Lily.
“Yes, I know who he is” he drawled.
“No — she huffed — call him Voldemort. He's not my Lord. Nor is he yours.” She said it with the infuriating and permeating conviction of a Gryffindor: with a resplendent candour in her eyes, which saw through his walls, through his deadened eyes and his rotten heart. His Lily. She was still there.
“Okay” he huffed with fake irritation she could easily recognise, “once I inform him of Voldemort's plans.”
In less than fifteen minutes, the Potters were ready to go.
“This will take you directly to the floo parlour,” he told Lily while giving her the portkey, a Slytherin pin, “Dorcas should be there.” He pretended as if her husband didn't exist, an extremely easy feat after all, as she had silenced him to avoid waking her son.
“See you soon” said Lily as the portkey activated.
The three of them disappeared once again from the darkness of a world that wasn't blessed with Dumbledore’s protection. A protection he had to sell his mind, body and soul for.
“Hopefully not too soon,” he assured the void.
——————
At 6 to Midnight, Voldemort, Severus Snape, Antonin Dolohov and Lucius Malfoy entered the Potter’s house. His insomnia-addled brain was probably expecting a punchline.
Waiting for them weren't a wandless fool, a defenceless child and the Love of his life. But Albus Dumbledore and half the Order of the Phoenix. What remained of it, at least.
His former headmaster wasn't looking particularly cheery, nor was his current employer.
Unexpected, really.
The first hex was thrown by Dorcas, something so dark and vicious that seemed to actively be crawling towards its target. Severus didn't think that so far into the war something could have impressed him. Oh, was he wrong.
The purpure curse bubbled and sizzled on Voldemort’s face. The smell of burnt meat drenched the room.
And so began the battle.
Severus’ aim was horrible tonight. Fact completely uncorrelated to the Dark Lord’s temporary blindness. He figured that he should start making his case file for the end of the war. He didn't stand much of a chance of seeing said end, but it would be a real pity, having to do so from an Azkaban’s cell.
Dorcas was possibly more deadly than Lucius and Dolohov put together. She had been on the Dark Lord’s Wanted List for months now, after wiping out two safehouses and bombing a rally of recruits: following the McKinnons’ massacre, she became one of the Resistance’s primary weapons.
Definitely the most morbid one.
She was sparring with Voldemort tête-à-tête, while Dumbledore put up an anti-apparition ward. Dolohov was getting riled up: Fenwick's body already laid mutilated on the coffee table.
Severus should really make more of an effort. Thankfully the inner circle didn't show up, these Phoenixes though were expendable.
He sent a half-hearted curse at Dumbledore, who half-heartedly deflected.
Voldemort sent the last hex to Dorcas before concentrating on his real opponent. She slammed against the wall and didn't move again.
Colourful hexes and curses jagged across the limited space while other Order members fell. Luckily, the Dark Lord didn't feel like having too many spectators on this mission. Murdering an infant might have been an underwhelming performance after all.
Dorcas stirred and Severus engaged with her before she attacked Voldemort again or Dolohov took it upon himself to teach the blood traitor a lesson. He didn't spend six months putting her girlfriend back to use, for her to die here. He was sure Marlene wouldn't be so ready to forgive him for Dorca's death.
The curses were dark, fast and continuous. The room was tinted with a lethal aurora. Dorcas was one of the best duellists of the generation, thus “pretending to fight her”, virtually translated to “fighting her quite strenuously”.
Dumbledore and Voldemort were duelling on the opposite side of the salon, the former seemed barely bothered by the duel; while the latter, the great and all-mighty Dark Lord, was losing more and more terrain.
Dolohov, on his right, had lost a leg fighting with one of the Prewett twins, while the other was crunching down while holding his bloodied stomach. One could suppose that his internal organs weren't strictly internal any more.
Malfoy was busy parrying with an old man Severus couldn't recognise.
Dorcas cast a hex and Severus redirected it towards an occupied Dolohov. He didn't know what hex it was, but it involved a lot of screaming. Severus raised an eyebrow at the woman. She shrugged and threw him her signature cheeky smile, before stunning Dolohov and tying him up.
Silence fell over the soldiers as Voldemort was blown towards the main door. He tried Avadaing Dumbledore and failed twice, the third time the sickly green jet was disturbed by the headmaster’s shield and penetrated the uninjured Prewett’s skull. He fell with a deaf thud.
Multiple wands were raised against Voldemort, a green light already emerging, eager to end his reign. Severus and Lucius inconspicuously moved backwards, shamelessly trying to run from the battle.
“YOU CAN'T KILL ME!” The Dark Lord screamed in a nasal voice. Severus noticed how Dorcas’ curse melted most of his nose.
Following Dumbledore’s lead, six Killing curses met Voldemort’s body. He fell. Something dark, wisping and sibilant shot out of this body and embedded itself in the closest living thing: Caradoc Dearborn.
“Oh, Fuck” whispered Lucius Malfoy. Too loud in the sepulchral silence.
The Dark Lord had fallen.
They raised their hands in surrender.
The wards fell.
They spun on the place at the same and disapparated, leaving the order to clean up and mourn their dead.
——————
“What was that?” He asked the retreating man.
“Lucius, what the bloody hell was that?!”
He had never seen Lucius Malfoy so frazzled. He just left a crime scene and was wandering in his library as if no one had seen him.
Severus followed him closely. He had a bad feeling about this: the magic that slithered out of the Dar- Voldemort’s body was the darkest he had ever seen. There was only one thing that could have compared to it. Something so dangerous and arcane that Severus only read of once in the Prince’s Grimoire.
“How many, Lucius?” He tried again. This time Lucius finally turned around, a black leather-bound book held tightly in his hand. “How many has he made?”
“Six, well seven now, I infer ”
This was bad. Bad and unplanned.
“Where are the others?”
He scoffed “Like he would tell me, Severus.”
Unplannedly bad and badly unplanned.
“What now?” He should have known better than to ask Lucius Malfoy for advice.
“Now, — he said in his typical haughty tone, raising a pale eyebrow — I hide whatever the Ministry has no business of knowing, and then I will call upon my lawyer before the Aurors call upon me. I suggest you do the same, Severus. I hope you don’t think Dumbledore able or willing to protect you forever.”
He didn’t pretend to be surprised at Lucius knowing of his double agent life. He always knew how to look for the right clues to use for leverage. Bribing was a refined art, or so he said.
“Now be gone, Severus. I shall put Draco to bed before organising the bribing schedule with my dear wife.”
Severus didn’t bother responding before apparating back into Godric’s Hollow.
Once again he carefully controlled his surroundings before flying around the neighbourhood. Not everyone could count on sheer dumb luck.
The house was empty, but behind it, Severus could spot flickering lights accompanied by a raucous multitude of voices. Gliding his way around the cottage he saw a mass of partying witches and wizards, inebriated with cider and the merry picture that Voldemort's hanged corpse painted on the porch. High on the chimney a flag had been hoisted; red ink on a golden background read:
“VOLDEMORT HAS FALLEN”
He heard him before he saw him.
The willowy wizard suddenly approached him and started talking, uncaring that he appeared to be talking to himself; his bat shape perfectly disguised in the darkness.
“Bellatrix Lestrange has been spotted in Hampstead Garden,” Dumbledore said in a jovial tone. “stopping her would assure your innocence in the trials.”
Of course, he wasn’t done for the night. He stopped hoping for reprieve long ago.
He couldn’t perform Legimency on Dumbledore, nevertheless, he didn’t need to. His smile was too tight, his eyes distant. There was more at play than simply catching Bellatrix.
“Who lives in Hampstead Garden?”
“The Longbottoms.”
——————
Unsurprisingly it started raining again.
The wind was roaring in his ears as he approached the seemingly muggle establishment. The wards had fallen but the Repello Muggletum and Disillusionment charms still worked. As Severus entered the garden, the mundane facade gave way to a distinctly magical house: big bushes of dirigible plums, chanting vines growing on the brick walls and glowing flowers peeking through the foliage.
The first thing he saw entering the house was Barty Crouch Jr. shaking like a baby. Admittedly, the kid was barely of age and found himself on a crime scene with the Lestranges.
“Severus!” Barty’s eyes lit up in recognition.
Severus hated it when the younglings did that. when they looked up to him as if he could have stopped anything ugly coming their way.
He could hear a manic cackle in the distance. Probably Rabastan. Bellatrix would have rather buried her husband alive than hear him make such an undignified noise as a cackle.
“Barty, why are you here?” The Lestranges went after muggles and blood traitors for sport, but Barty was probably the most unwilling Death Eater in Voldemort’s short reign.
“They took Evan with them,” Ah, yes. Barty Crouch Jr., Daddy’s disappointment, Mama’s boy and incurable romantic. Severus wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he joined the ranks just to be with Evan Rosier, probably the second most unwilling soldier of the lot.
“Does he live?” Rosier was cunning and knew how to play the game, but even Severus had his limits when it came to… whatever was happening here. He reinforced his occlumency walls. He had never been close to Alice and Frank, or been particularly queasy about murder, but when he joined the Death Eaters he thought of killing his father, not his former schoolmates.
“Yes!” Barty was panicking, what a rare and unwelcome sight, “Yes, Evan is alive, but they’re torturing the Longbottoms! They weren’t supposed to! We just had to scare them. But Then-” He was hyperventilating, fear, disgust and sorrow clear on his young face. “Then they heard the news that the Dark Lord, that the Dark Lord is-” he looked like a scared kitten, unable to even pronounce the word.
“The Dark Lord is dead, Barty.”
He did an abysmal job of hiding his delight.
“You should go, Aurors are probably on their way”
“I can’t leave Evan”
Of course, you can you stupid kid. That is why Severus kept his acquaintances strictly intra-house. No Slytherin would be so dumb to give up his safety for some infatuation. Except for when they sold their soul to expiate their mistakes. That was reasonable.
Severus, unfortunately, remembered that the other child born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies was in this house. Oh, how long he hoped for the Dark Lord to just kill the Longbottom offspring and leave Lily alone.
“I always listen to my loyal followers’ wishes” Voldemort’s voice hissed in his memory.
How ironic.
“I have to catch the Lestranges” Barty was nodding his head before Severus finished the sentence. Good, the kid was exceptional at defensive magic.
The house was dark, but it was sufficient to follow the screaming.
Frank and Alice laid in an unnatural position on their bloodied carpet, their shrieks guttural.
“Well, well, well — singsonged Bellatrix — the half-blood decided to get his hands dirty”
“Good evening” Severus answered as if merely calling on his acquaintances for an afternoon tea. He knew better than to openly disrespect his superiors.
Severus took quick notice of the room: Rodolphus and Bellatrix were standing in front of the two seizing bodies, while Rabastan was sitting on a plush armchair. Rosier was in a corner sipping on an amber liquor, pretending not to be on the verge of puking.
Severus needed a diversion.
Said diversion promptly came in the form of three popping sounds of apparition.
Not caring for getting caught by Aurors with the merry lot, he fired the first hex hoping against all odds that Barty would be able to focus his brain cells on something other than his charity case of a boyfriend.
Surprisingly, he did.
The shield covered the two of them from Bellatrix's enraged curse. Rosier took his sweet time to join them and attack Rabastan. Always one to shoot a sitting duck.
I
“THE ANTI-APPARITION WARDS ARE IN PLACE. GET THE ALL!” A strong voice boomed from what Severus supposed was the entry.
“Is that?” asked Barty.
“Yes.” Answered Severus, more annoyed than usual. There went his Plan C: “Beg for Mercy”. Not a single one of Alastor Moody’s three eyes had ever seen something as “worthy of mercy”.
“Let's kill them all before they get here” getting rid of two of the strongest followers of Voldemort in 30 seconds give or take, child's play really.
Rosier was duelling with Rodolphus as Severus tried to wear down Bellatrix and Barty kept them alive with some archaic defensive magik.
Bellatrix was incredibly fast and persistent at killing curses, and the duel with Dorcas had already tired him out. But the only person more apt and dark curses than Severus Snape was probably the Dark Lord. And as of now, the Dark Lord was no more.
“Cerebrum Seco”
Bellatrix and her husband fell down together and for a second he truly believed that it was over.
As the Aurors blew into the room, Bellatrix got up, stumbling on her feet, a manic look on her crumpled face. Severus didn't know what part of her brain he cut, but evidently, it wasn't an important one. He started to think that maybe she had made a Hocrux too.
She wiped two Aurors off their feet and laughed at the loud crunch their bones made. Then she leapt out of the window to run across the garden. The chanting vines were shrieking in retaliation.
Severus didn't look back before following her, the last thing he heard was Barty’s pleading voice.
——————
The house was distinctly muggle. Warm decorations adorned the bookshelves, a small fire crackled in front of two blue sofas, the long flames coloured the inhabitants' faces in bright light, making the blood coagulating on their necks appear almost black.
Bellatrix was crucio’ing the man. Severus never thought it was possible to torture a corpse.
The madwoman turned around as he entered the room, her wand pointed at his heart, her lips curved around the curse.
And then the house exploded.
Part of the roof fell, making the witch jump out of the way. Severus stunned her before he had time to wonder what was happening. He took her gnarly wand and tied her with three Incarcerous. He took three steps toward the stairs and then turned around and petrified Bellatrix, just to be safe.
He already knew what to expect as he went upstairs. A traumatised child he had to relieve of the worst night of their life. He doubted the Auror Department was in good enough shape to take care of it. Obliviating muggles had been a common occurrence in the past years. He had to be quick. The house could have crumbled down abruptly, Bellatrix’s damage was extensive.
What Severus didn’t expect was the sight of the child’s room. What once had been a spacious and clean room, everything he dreamed of as a kid, now was a mess. The cream upholstery was aflame, the windows had clearly been blown out from the inside and on the smoking bed a sobbing baby was glaring at him, uncaring of her charred hair: she set her own house on fire.
Severus hosed down the fires with some Aguamentis and cleared the air from the smoke while keeping his distance from the girl, she was creepily still.
Before he had to interact with the pyromaniac child, definitely not his area of expertise, Moody limped up the creaking stairs and pointed a wand and a menacing blue iris to his head. His leg was copiously bleeding, yet he didn’t seem to notice.
Severus talked before the Auror could start an impromptu interrogation. “Have you taken Bellatrix in custody, Alastor? I would hate for her to get away after all my hard work.”
Moody didn’t look particularly grateful for all of Severus’s hard work. “What are you playing at?”
“Right now? firefighter,” he responded with sufficiency as he cast another Aguamenti. “The girl throws quite the incandescent temper tantrum.”
The glaring girl glared harder. Her fingers emitted tiny yellow sparkles.
“Have you petrified her?”
“I’m not an Auror, Alastor, of course I petrify serial killers who want me dead before occupying myself with house reparations.”
“The girl, I meant” Moody huffed.
“Well,” Severus looked back at the sparkly baby and then at the Auror, “as of now, she’s only an innocent pyromaniac who wants me dead, had she moved at all I would have petrified her too, though.”
Finally, Moody lowered his wand and turned toward the small girl. Severus was admittedly an idiot to follow his lead and get distracted by the crying child. He didn’t see the magical shackles that were thrown his way. That bloody prosthetic eye with its bloody perfect aim.
“Seriously?!” Stupid question, really. He was only hoping not to get stunned too. It gave him horrible headaches.
“Severus Tobias Snape you are in arrest for your service in Voldemort’s army, the suspected participation in the torture of the Longbottoms and the murder of the Grangers, you have the right and the most heartfelt recommendation to keep your mouth shut and wait for your solicitor.”
“Who the hell are the Grangers now?” the tiredness was shortening his temper.
A small yet commanding voice spoke up, flames rising from her tiny fists.
“I’m the Grangers.”