Lord Voldemort’s Most Faithful Servant
There had been no hesitation. No words or looks exchanged between them before Severus had cried out the incantation, “Avada Kedavra”, and blasted Albus Dumbledore off of his feet. The green glow from his wand marred the darkness of the night like an eerie stretch of Northern Lights and surely someone had noticed from inside the castle or the spots in the grounds where the aurors were stationed.
“Hurry, Draco,” Severus called coldly to the nervously panting boy at his heel.
He then stepped over the body with a complete air of indifference for the man he had centered his life around for nearly seventeen years. Taking great care not to look at Dumbledore’s face as he did, because Severus knew if the headmaster’s eyes were still open or if he looked anything other than peaceful in death, that he would struggle to find the strength to keep moving.
It had been excruciating enough to watch from a distance as Dumbledore had fought to pull himself up to a standing position when he’d seen them coming. Preparing to face death on his feet, man to man, graceful and dignified until the end.
And Severus snarled angrily when he looked back impatiently to see that the boy had frozen next to Dumbledore’s form and seemed incapable of taking another step. It was almost like he couldn’t believe that Dumbledore was really dead. That Severus had really killed him. As if he'd been expecting this to be some sort of trick at his expense.
“The aurors are coming,” Severus snapped, as he reached out and grabbed Draco roughly by the collar of his shirt and thrust him aggressively in front of himself. Quite forgetting not to look down at Dumbledore while he did.
The greatest man that Severus had ever known lay flat on his back with mercifully closed eyes and arms stretched out at his side as though waiting to embrace. He could have been sleeping. The mouth of his wise old face was even curved up in a satisfied half smile. The last thing Albus Dumbledore had seen before he’d died was his most trusted ally and more - so much more - approaching to fulfill his final wishes.
“The boundaries,” Severus shouted. “We have to reach the gate, Draco. Go!”
Draco staggered clumsily as though too dazed to comprehend what he was supposed to be doing. The horrified expression on his face made it perfectly clear that he would never have been able to curse anyone dead. He wasn’t a killer. He was just a scared kid. But right now, he had no idea how much more afraid Severus was of him….
Xxx
“On your way, Potter. Now,” Severus had ordered Harry calmly, as though not frazzled at all about being caught showing uncharacteristic affection to his least favourite student. Whom Severus’s ridicule of in class had always been a source of great entertainment for his Slytherins and who he was supposed to want dead as much as all the rest of the Death Eaters did.
Severus had turned away from Harry before the boy had the chance to say anything foolish that would make their situation even more compromised. Then he’d made for the stairs and started to climb them like nothing unusual had just happened. Ignoring the way his lungs felt like they were being squeezed and therefore incapable of taking in enough air. Only halfway up them, he already felt winded.
“What are you doing, Draco?” Severus had said, looking back over his shoulder with his eyebrows raised in mock surprise for the boy not immediately following.
“What were you doing?” Draco had retorted, eyeing the Professor with deep distrust from the foot of the stairs. Harry had already fortunately fled the corridor, leaving the two assumed Death Eaters alone. “They told me not to trust you….”
“Who told you not to trust me?” Severus had asked curiously, with a glint of amusement crossing over his face despite the way he’d gripped onto the railing extra tightly. “Auntie Bellatrix?”
Draco had scowled at him, which had made Severus smirk. “Bellatrix has been trying to convince the Dark Lord that I’m really working for Dumbledore since she got out of Azkaban. If you choose to align yourself with that sort of drivel, then very well - I cannot help you anymore.”
And he’d turned to continue climbing the stairs under a guise of confidence that had come from meticulous acting and nothing sincere. The gears in his brain shifted as he’d worked to come up with an adequate solution to the mess he’d gotten himself into. Appalled at his own sheer stupidity at having quite forgotten himself as he’d behaved like a doting father to a boy he was supposed to be plotting to help destroy. And there was nothing he had been able to think of to explain himself. Instead he had chosen the route of pretending like it hadn’t happened at all.
“Where are you going?” Draco had asked in confusion.
“Must I repeat everything?” Severus had asked in exasperation, looking back at him once more. “I have a job to do. I made the Unbreakable Vow to your mother and I’m not about to die for you, Draco. However ungrateful and insolent you might be.”
Draco had looked like he was almost about to pout but instead he had pulled himself together just enough to take the stone steps two at a time in his hurry to reach the Professor’s side. “I just - I don’t understand - with Potter.”
“My work on behalf of the Order of the Phoenix is none of your business,” Severus had said coldly. “Those are matters between the Dark Lord and myself, which, in case you haven’t noticed, have gotten us this far. So I suggest that you forget what you think you saw, unless you’re deciding to make an unwise habit out of questioning the Dark Lord’s decisions.”
Xxx
It hadn’t been a perfect alibi and it would fall apart completely if the Dark Lord was enlightened to the strange encounter, but Severus thought that he had planted enough seeds of doubt in Draco’s mind to at least make him question what he’d witnessed with his own two eyes. Followed by Severus’s assassination of Albus Dumbledore, how could his allegiance be called into question now? Though Severus knew that the worst thing any spy could do was get too comfortable or too confident. He had screwed up back there in the corridor with Harry and it was enough to potentially ruin what he had spent nearly all of his adult life establishing.
“Run, Draco,” Severus ordered, his hand twitching in earnest as he slipped his wand inside the pocket of his robes, next to the watch, so that he would not surrender to the temptation to point it at Draco’s back and Obliviate him right then and there.
What seemed like the most obvious solution was actually the most dangerous when an accomplished Legilimens could easily detect when somebody’s memory was modified. While well aware that he was playing with fire right now no matter what decision he made, Severus believed the riskier choice would be drawing the Dark Lord’s attention to the fact that Draco Malfoy had been in possession of a secret that Severus was desperate to conceal.
Though an absolutely terrifying prospect, it seemed safer to allow Draco to keep the memory in his mind. It would never be what the Dark Lord was looking for and therefore might possibly wind up buried rather quickly in the wake of so much other excitement tonight. However, that option depended on Draco not actually having the desire to expose him, which Severus knew better than to count on. If Draco chose to, he could hand his aunt the sort of information she was starving for and Severus would be finished.
“I don’t need your help,” Draco said haughtily, stepping backwards to put some distance between them once they’d reached the Apparition point and Severus had had the gall to offer his arm to him like he so regularly did for Harry.
“Very well,” Severus said in a clipped tone, aware of a bright beam of light stretching across the grounds behind him in the distance as the front doors of the castle were thrown open. “I shall see you there.”
He turned on the spot with the balls of his feet pressing into the hard earth, as a cry of grief carried across the wind and he knew that Dumbledore’s body had been discovered. Certainly by Minerva McGonagall, whose responsibility tonight had been to stand guard and ensure that Severus was given enough time to flee the scene.
Severus’s stomach clenched tightly in revulsion for all the more that was to come. He was pulling himself away from Hogwarts now, squeezing his eyes shut until he felt himself landing on the firm concrete outside of Malfoy Manor. With a loud crack, Draco arrived right beside him and the job was only half done.
“I believe he’s already inside; but if he isn’t, I’ll let you have the honours of calling for him,” Severus said softly, staring up at the impressive house that was illuminated through the windows by chandeliers in every room. Despite the late hour, it still seemed to be alive with activity. Narcissa was surely waiting up for news, but with the time drawing nearer and the Dark Lord ever more impatient, Severus knew that she was unlikely to be waiting alone.
“What are you going to tell him?” Draco asked in a hoarse whisper.
“The truth,” Severus said simply. “You always tell the Dark Lord the truth, which is that we caught Dumbledore alone in the grounds tonight and acted accordingly. Dumbledore was killed from a distance before he even had a chance to raise his own wand in defence. The rest is unimportant. Don’t ever waste his time on irrelevant things because you want to appear more knowledgeable than you actually are.”
“Is he going to be mad that I didn’t kill him myself? Draco sounded so frightened that Severus would have felt terribly sorry for him, if his own life wasn’t on the line right now.
“He might not reward my interference, no,” Severus agreed softly. “I was supposed to wait for you to fail and then step in, but I stepped in earlier. However, both means achieved the same end, did they not? Dumbledore is dead. This should be a happy occasion.”
Or at least that’s what he was hoping it would be. Although a pleased Dark Lord was terrifying in an altogether different way, Severus would hopefully be able to pretend to enjoy an evening of drink and amusement with himself in a place of favour for a change - but that all depended on Draco. As they quietly let themselves inside the house and Severus wondered how he had ever possibly enjoyed time spent here before.
With its cavernous walls and absence of any familial warmth, Malfoy Manor was as far removed from the house that Sirius had built for them as it was possible to be. Though laughter could be heard in the room above, it promised nothing good, and it was slightly overshadowed by the consistent sound of somebody moaning from beneath their feet.
Severus glanced curiously over at the stairs that led down to the cellar where he suspected a prisoner was being kept. Just as Wormtail locked the door to the cellar and began coming towards them. With his watery eyes and the too tight jacket that concealed what Severus understood to be his silver hand of the Dark Lord’s design. A replacement for the one he had sliced off in sacrifice for the Dark Lord’s rebirth, though his value in the Dark Lord’s eyes had diminished ever since.
“Another guest?” Severus asked him calmly.
“Yes,” Wormtail answered squeakily. They stared at one another and Severus’s lip curled with displeasure. He enjoyed the way that he saw Wormtail cower at his scrutiny and relished in the power he now had over the squat little man who he hated like no other. The one who had betrayed the Potters to the Dark Lord by revealing their hiding place and getting Lily and James killed.
“Well...who is it?” Severus asked coldly, ignoring how Draco had crept over to the cellar staircase and was teetering on the edge like a diver waiting to plunge himself down.
“The wandmaker, Ollivander…he was relocated here yesterday,” Wormtail answered reluctantly, not daring to ignore Severus’s direct question or even pretend that the tables had not turned between them because they had.
The once least liked and least talented member of Potter and Black’s gang back at school had now become the least satisfactory member of the Dark Lord’s ranks. Treated by all of them as lesser and with cruelty, but none more than Severus, who savored the authority he now had over the pathetic lump of a boy who had gone to great lengths to humiliate and torment him when they were students at Hogwarts. Wormtail now had to jump whenever Severus spoke his name.
“Show us to the others and then go get me a drink,” Severus commanded lazily, reaching out to grip Draco by the shoulder - more gently this time - before following a sniffling Wormtail down a corridor and listening as the jeering voice ahead grew louder.
“Shrivelled in on himself like a squashed spider!” Bellatrix Lestrange was laughing, her back to the door as Severus, Draco, and Wormtail stepped inside.
The Dark Lord looked up immediately at their approach. His red eyes shone dangerously with excitement as Wormtail backed out of the room to make for the kitchens with his head bowed submissively. While Severus, on the other hand, stood still and proud. With his face impassive to the revolting scene of Bellatrix on her knees in front of the Dark Lord with his grey and curled toes on full display. Like she’d been massaging or caressing them out of sheer adoration with no other desire in her heart, only to be interrupted by their impromptu arrival.
“Why are you here, Severus?” Bellatrix demanded, incensed by his intrusion and behaving exactly as he would have expected from her, and no less.
It actually made him smile as he dropped down to his knees before the Dark Lord. Narcissa was in the room with them as well, sitting in a chair off to the side like she'd been trying her best to blend into the scenery. From the corner of his vision Severus could see that her eyes had begun to water at the sight of him bringing her son into the room. She opened her arms and Draco rushed to her side, while Severus spoke the profoundest words that he knew would rattle even his most vocal critic.
“Dumbledore is dead,” Severus announced, and the taunting smile was immediately wiped off Bellatrix's face.
“Is that so?” Voldemort asked jubilantly, rising to his bare feet at once and kicking Bellatrix out of the way as he did. Intentionally stomping over her as if she’d become the spider to be squished from her story. The Dark Lord ignored her yelp of pain and took hold of Severus’s shoulders in his long skeletal hands. Pulling him off of his knees to face him like almost an equal.
“Yes, my Lord,” Severus said, opening his mind to show those piercing red eyes the way Dumbledore’s body had been thrown backwards by the force of the curse that had struck him square in the chest. How Severus had stepped over Dumbledore’s corpse with an indifference that should solidify the side he was supposed to always have been on. While also fairly showing him Draco staring down at the body, disguising his fear and horror but letting it be known that he had been there too.
“Draco and I confronted him together,” Severus said, giving the boy more credit than he should out of sheer compassion. From behind him he could hear Narcissa whimpering with emotion and he wished he could stun her to silence. The last thing he wanted was her to draw the Dark Lord’s attention away from himself. He needed to prevent Draco’s mind from being looked into right now, in case Severus’s goodbye to Harry was where he still chose to focus.
But for now, at least, the Dark Lord only seemed to have eyes for Severus. “He didn’t see it coming?’ he asked with a malicious smile.
“Not soon enough,” Severus replied with a small smile of his own. “I never gave him any reason to question me, my Lord. He never even took out his wand when he saw me approaching.”
“Excellent,” Voldemort praised, as Wormtail simpered back into the room with a bottle of wine and five glasses on a tray. “I think this calls for a toast, do you not Bella?”
“But, my Lord, was it not your desire to have the boy do the job?” Bellatrix sounded perplexed, an angry red bruise already forming on her face from where he had kicked her.
Severus could practically smell the desperation off of her as she approached them wantingly. Desiring nothing but closeness with her master, which had just been seriously undermined by Severus’s assassination of Dumbledore. Bellatrix had spent the better part of a year insisting to the Dark Lord that Severus really was a traitor and now she’d been taken for a fool. Draco was the only one in the room who might still harbor some skepticism as to Severus’s true motives now and he was the one who would decide what happened next.
“Severus, did you not give the boy a chance first?” Bellatrix asked patronizingly, shooting a furtive glance at the Dark Lord, while behind them Wormtail struggled to uncork the bottle of wine with shaking hands. Narcissa let out a little moan of despair as she rocked her son in her arms, horrified that her own sister would just simply not let this be.
“I regret, my Lord, that I didn’t,” Severus said apologetically. “It was I that Dumbledore would not be alarmed to encounter alone on the grounds at night; and even so, if I hadn’t reacted immediately when I had the first chance, then he might have become suspicious and the opportunity would have been lost.”
“The important thing is that he is dead,” Voldemort said dismissively, accepting the first glass of wine from Wormtail and then surprising all of the room by handing it to Severus, like he wished him to be served first. Bellatrix had angry tears in her eyes but did not dare to speak another word.
“There will be other chances," Voldemort said considerately. "Will there not, Draco?”
Draco nodded his head rather quickly and opened his mouth to respond but no words came out. The Dark Lord smiled and raised the second glass he was given high above his head. Severus copied him and once the others had received their own servings from Wormtail, they did the same. While the now empty-handed Wormtail backed himself into the corner as though uncertain about whether he was to participate or not.
“A toast to Dumbledore,” Voldemort said sneeringly. “As the insects feed on his withering corpse, we shall celebrate the beginning of a new era.”
Bellatrix nodded her head enthusiastically, tentatively drawing closer to the Dark Lord’s side before bringing her glass to her lips with the rest of them. She still seemed desperate for approval. Petrified that Severus had just usurped her position at the Dark Lord’s immediate right and that she couldn’t possibly recover it. For who could be more indispensable than the servant who took the life of Albus Dumbledore?”
“Wormtail, where is Nagini?” Voldemort asked suddenly, whirling around to demand an answer of his most lowly servant.
“She - she’s exploring the house, My Lord,” Wormtail stuttered nervously. “Pe - pe - perhaps the garden….”
“Hmm,” Voldemort mused, considering him carefully before turning his back on the trembling man in the corner.
“Well it is now that our real work begins,” he told the others. “The Ministry and Hogwarts are our next endeavours and we shall have everyone returned to us before I take those into my control. I think it is time to break open Azkaban again. What do you say, Draco? Would you like your father back?”
The boy nodded his head again but still seemed reluctant or incapable of speech. The Dark Lord was watching him very closely right now as the wine sloshed around in Draco’s shaking grip and his mother still held him tightly. As Voldemort drew closer, Draco blinked and nervously looked down at the floor and obstructed the access of those all-knowing red eyes to his mind. While Severus pressed his feet firmly against the floor as though to ground himself and prevent a collapse if he was about to be called out for treason.
“Professor Snape did everything tonight,” Draco said in a shaky voice, looking briefly into the Dark Lord’s eyes before looking away again. “I want to serve you and I’ll do better next time, but this was all him.”
Severus worked to hide his own surprise. While the boy spoke the truth, he had not expected him to be so forthcoming with credit where it was due. He had not expected his help to be acknowledged. He had not expected Draco to show him any grace and he had. Perhaps Severus’s earlier words had been convincing enough for Draco to accept unquestioningly, but he doubted it. What was more likely was that Draco simply had enough integrity in him to not intentionally cause harm in exchange for the Dark Lord’s favour. If Severus was discovered, it would not be because of him. After all, Draco would never have killed Dumbledore either.