Wet Blankets
Severus had been ordered to stay in The Manor, an assignment that twisted low in his stomach. It was unusual for the Dark Lord to ask Severus to stay anywhere, usually, he was ordered to ping between locations like a muggle pin-ball machine.
Not to mention things had been . . . different since Draco rose to favor. It had once been Severus at the Dark Lord’s left hand, but he couldn’t find any relief at no longer having to act so closely to his master.
No, instead there was only dread.
Where once, Severus had taught Draco complex charms and potion making, now he dedicated any and all time with his godson to nerve damage potions, dittany, and frankly unsubtle memory exercises.
It worried him in a way he hadn’t thought possible, when he looked to his godson and found a grown man in his skin. Sharp where he had once been soft, calm where he had once been raging with fury.
Selfless, when he had once been selfish.
So yes, Severus was worried sick about Draco. All too often he’d found the boy slumped over in some study, eyes vacant and fingers trembling faintly.
But it was worse when there was no blood, no bruising. That was the truly horrifying fact of it. Severus worried more when he found Draco with no new gash to sew up.
It had been embarrassing, humiliating even, to ask the Dark Lord to cease his regular use of the curse on Draco. It made his mood sour further even to think of it, knowing that one small display of weakness would henceforth be preyed upon at every opportunity.
Once again, he’d turned a charge to protect into a target to strike down.
Ever one to brood silently, Severus was in his chambers when the book fell from its shelf. Looking up sharply from the cauldron he was stirring, he eyed the book wearily. Old muggle habit told him to dismiss it as paranoia, a small shift in the foundations, but Severus now knew better than to dismiss anything even remotely out of place in the Malfoy Manor.
Leaving the cauldron, Severus placed a quick stasis charm to ensure nothing blew up, and crouched to examine the book.
It was then he felt it, like his world tipping sideways. He stumbled to the side, catching himself on the wall as his throat constricted.
His chest tightened, and no matter how many deep, frantic breaths he took, the feeling didn’t lift. It felt as if he’d been wrapped in an impossibly heavy wool blanket, every sense dampened to the point he felt blinded.
Severus reached for his wand, only to find the wood cold and unresponsive.
No. No no no no-
He scrambled for a spell, a simple lumos, and nothing came. His chest didn’t warm with the familiar rush of magic, his wand didn’t so much as spark.
And for the first time since he’d felt his godson’s heart stop beneath his hands, Severus felt true devastation.
His magic, it was gone, totally and completely, like a nightmare from his childhood.
Distantly, he could hear several other panicked shouts, the lingering members of the Death Eaters apparently experiencing something similar, but Severus couldn’t lift himself from the floor. It was as if his heart had been torn from his chest, a physical emptiness gnawing at his energy and sapping his strength, both physical and mental.
Severus forced himself to slow his breathing, a hand clutching at his chest as he forced a calm he didn't feel. The shouts continued, but they took on a new tone, and there was the vague sounds of crashing.
Pulling himself up from the floor, Severus dusted a hand over his robes, an awkward flinch stopping his hand when the instinctual vanishing charm didn’t flick the dirt away on its own.
Gritting his jaw, Severus drew another deep breath. Millions of muggles lived without magic, so could he.
Manually dragging open the door of his potion chambers was a foreign task, and more difficult than he’d expected, but he didn’t let himself pause on it too long.When he got to the main portion of The Manor, he was forced to pause again, this time shocked for an entirely different reason.
Standing in the foyer, wrestling with the few lesser Death Eaters that had been left behind, was the Order of the Phoenix. Unsurprisingly, Lupin and Black seemed to be the only ones actually succeeding, but Molly Weasley was holding her own shockingly well.
Severus stayed out of sight for a few moments, letting the Order bodily knock down the young Death Eaters as he cursed every choice he’d ever made. Once the fighting seemed to come to a stop, he stepped out of the shadows, letting his heels click upon the marble and alert the Order.
“Well, it seems I’ve been left out of multiple plots today,” he drawled, the strange absence in his chest already fatiguing him.
Lupin’s head snapped up a fraction slower than Severus would have expected it to, “Did you do this?” He demanded, his face pained, though more accepting than the others seemed to be.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Severus snapped, “I have no power over The Manor.” Imbeciles.
Lupin rolled his eyes while Black slumped against the wall behind him, already looking paler and sicker than he usually did, “Snape’s right,” he forced out, his voice thin, “He’s not a Malfoy, only one of them could do this.”
Lupin turned, his face softening a sickening amount at his husband's pain, “Do you know what's happening?”
Black scoffed, dropping to sit, “This has Draco written all over it. Where is the little bastard?”
Seveus stiffened, keenly aware most of the Death Eaters, and the Dark Lord himself, were away. It was no doubt Draco who had done this, though Severus still wasn’t quite sure what this was, and it was no doubt entirely intentional the Order were here.
“Draco is out,” Severus said simply, “why are you lot even here?”
“We were told everyone was out,” Nymphadora cut in, “Seemed a good time to stop by.”
“Of course,” Severus sighed, “And did you bother verifying this information beforehand?” Taking an unwilling page from Black’s book, Severus swept over to a nearby lounge chair, dropping more heavily onto the chair than he had intended.
“Well obviously it was true,” She huffed, dropping to sit with Black, a barely noticeable sheen of sweat on her forehead.
“Draco,” Severus drawled, trying his best not to succumb to the tiredness pulling at his eyes, “Has lured you all into a trap.”
“Obviously.” Molly snapped, leaning heavily against her son.
The Weasleys, plus Fleur, looked just as bad as Black did, though they seemed keen to put up a brave front. Severus could only guess how ill the part-veela must be feeling if the purebloods were already on the verge of collapse.
Thinking over what he knew about magical biology, Severus guessed the majority of them had maybe a few hours before they were bedridden. Being a half-blood himself, his body could use the muggle parts of his biology to compensate for the lack of magic, but the pure-bloods would have no such luck.
There were a few magical maladies he’d read on as a young boy, in his darker moments, that dealt with stripping a wizard of his magic. The results were never pretty.
In muggle born and half bloods, there was enough non-magical genetic material to survive without the magic that stitched together a wizard’s body. But purebloods, after years of carefully designed bloodlines, relied almost entirely on their natural magic and magic of the land to maintain themselves. This was the price of a strong magic bloodline, Severus had come to understand. It was ungrounded, prone to sickness and weakness if deprived of magic entirely.
Black, Weasley, and DeLacour would frankly be screwed, if this problem continued for long. He wasn’t exactly sure of how Lupin would fare, being technically a magical creature, but still half-blood.
It seemed, once again, Severus must save the day.
“We don’t have time to argue, if this is a ward issue, it’s not likely to let up soon, and you'll all face rather painful deaths.” Pushing himself up from the lounge with great effort, Severus moved toward his chambers again. He needed to see if existing charms sustained themselves, or if any of his potion ingredients retained their properties.
If his potions were ruined, he was going to kill his godson, Dark Lord’s favor be damned.
He heard Lupin mutter tiredly, most likely reassuring his colleagues, before steps sounded behind Severus.
“So, you do know what’s going on?” The werewolf asked, drawing up next to him.
Severus let out a pained sigh, his hand jerking in a half-aborted motion to charm open the door before he remembered. Pushing the door open manually, he disregarded the irritation at exposing his private sanctum to another’s eyes, “I have some idea.”
“And?” Lupin pressed, shuffling himself out of Severus’ way. Smart man.
Severus looked over his cauldrons with a disappointed eye, “it seems Draco has activated a magic-suppressing ward.”
Lupin sighed, a long, drawn out sound, “And I’m guessing that’s more of a problem than it sounds?”
“Obviously,” Severus scoffed, his hands on his hips as he studied the un-magical remains of his current potions experiments. It seemed this was more than skin deep, as even the warming charms had cancelled themselves, his usually bubbling and swirling concoctions no more than dull and lifeless lakewater.
If he didn’t have bigger issues to worry about, he’d have been distraught, but thankfully, Severus was quite used to brewing magically sensitive potions, and thus had non-magical brewing setups.
At the very least, some non-magical remedies would be needed until Severus could chew out his godson properly. Draco would certainly rue this day.