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Invictus	By : starcrossedkayla Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 13268 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
The wards shivered and a burst of light and sound accompanied the Portkey arrival of Avery Senior along with two young Death Eaters Severus didn't recognise. They landed in the middle of the kitchen, the youngsters craning their necks to take in the room as if the Dark Lord would be daft enough to keep Potter in the kitchen.

"Have you time to discuss the library?" asked Avery Senior, getting straight to the point. Although he'd never expressed dislike of Severus, he'd never shown any sort of emotion towards his son's friend other than apathy and occasional scorn. A short man, he was as sensitive of his height as he was to criticism of his son. The thick, heavy boots he wore gave him a more menacing step, but he'd gained his status by dedicated work and sacrificing his two eldest sons to the Dark Lord, rather than by any accomplishment of merit.

"I can make time," Severus answered. He'd been half-heartedly thumbing through his growing collection of cookbooks, waiting for his order to be filled. Closing the book in front of him, he stood and strode ahead of the others to the bedroom he wanted remodeled. He had no intention of sharing the house and, as he suspected, a library was too practical a request to be denied by the Dark Lord.

In the future library, Severus unfurled a copy of the blueprint he'd drawn up three days earlier and left on one of the dressers. Avery Senior stepped to his side, the two youngsters hesitantly following. Although he'd given Avery Senior a copy with the last work order, he wanted everything in the room to be exact, as it would likely be his primary living space outside of the lab.

"I want it exact," he informed them, giving a critical eye to the youngsters. "The fireplace must remain intact, and if you connect it to the Floo network, the Dark Lord will have your heads."

Unphased, Avery Senior showed no reaction, but the two young Death Eaters shot each other nervous glances.

Severus wanted to get Avery Senior away from the others, and gain what little information the other would be willing to part with, but neither of them could leave the workmen alone, and the Dark Lord hadn't given permission for Avery to be in the same room as Potter. After they finished reviewing the plans, he asked, "Have you need of anything else?"

When a curt 'no' came as the reply, he headed for Potter's cell. He needed to apply more healing salve anyway. Casting wards to bar anyone else's entry, Severus stepped through the door, closing it firmly behind him. The boy slept in his cage. Due to the potions and his injuries, Potter spent most of his time sleeping, only waking on occasion to eat. Waving his wand, Severus parted the bars with a wordless spell and stepped into the now brightly lit cell to examine his patient.

Potter was sprawled facedown on the sheets, his arms and legs spread so wide, it was as if he were clinging to the bed for dear life. Severus flicked him in the ear, but he didn't respond, the potions included in his last meal still in effect. No need to have the prat wake up and call him a pervert again. Casting Bewitched Sleep, he yanked off the rumpled bedsheet draped haphazardly over Potter's hips. When the boy didn't rouse, Severus levitated him, and stripped him of the clothing that he'd given him earlier. He'd found the articles in the wardrobe in his room. Originally garishly bright, he'd dyed them black. Once Potter was naked, he set the boy on the table and placed his hands flat on Potter's warm back, closing his eyes as he examined the body beneath him with magic.

Good. Potter had healed considerably since his last examination two days before. Severus could no longer detect any damage below the surface of Potter's skin. All the foreign bodies had been removed, and all the tears and fractures within muscle and bone had completely healed as far as he could tell.

Opening his eyes, he examined Potter's skin. The once ever-present bruises had faded until only a few marred Potter's back and hips. He prodded the biggest and darkest coloured one, just above Potter's left buttock. Most of the others had already turned a nearly-healed yellow, but this one still held a purple tint. The bone beneath it had been shattered and the muscles riddled with the shards. The Healers and he had cleaned everything out and regrown the bone, but the damage had been extensive. A little more time and it would be healed, but the colour was about what he expected, and the bruise seemed to respond well to touch.

He shook his head. It wasn't as if he had lots of experience with bruises, he tended to ignore his own. With his limited training, he couldn't be certain as to how healed Potter was in any category. Even if he'd had more training, he'd been busy brewing and, while he'd noticed through the viewing mirror a bit of shakiness remaining in Potter's movements, he hadn't the time to try to determine what caused it. Once the superficial injuries healed, the boy should be fine. In theory, anyway. If only the Dark Lord hadn't been such an idiot and gotten rid of both Healers! How the hell was Severus supposed to know if the skinny form before him was natural or not?

One thing at a time. Severus examined the shoulder, running his fingers around the area where the arm met the torso, examining the tissue with magic. Perhaps the shakiness he'd seen was due to the flesh not being reattached quite right? Everything seemed fine... The spell they'd use to switch the limbs hadn't been Dark, so he couldn't imagine why the sinew wouldn't set right. Maybe Potter's unsteadiness resulted from the large amounts of potions in his body? If that was the case, they would have to be cut back.

Severus sighed. He did not look forward to spending more of his time watching over a boy who seemed determined to kill himself. Gathering up the clothes, he redressed Potter. It was disturbingly like redressing Lily's dolls, although with limbs far more floppy. He put the shirt on first, then pulled the bottoms up Potter's hairy legs and over his small, flaccid penis. It was childish and stupid, but a small measure of pride flowed through him at the proof that he was more of a man than Potter.

Releasing the Bewitched Sleep as he left the cage, he marched over to the bathroom and checked the Potions cabinet. Sorting through the vials, he made a mental list. He needed more healing potions, a few calming draughts, and perhaps some nerve tonics. Shutting it tight with spells warding entry, he then headed to the linen cupboard, only to remember that it had been turned into a small holding cell, a fact that he had only discovered on his tour of the home two days before. Summoning the dirty towels and flannels from the bathroom to float behind him, he unlocked and entered the laundry room. Crammed with jumbled cardboard boxes of odd knickknacks belonging to the family that once called the building home, the narrow room held no fixtures other than the washer, dryer, and a light bulb on a long string. The concrete floor and wooden walls left the room drafty. The cellar doors had been sealed shut with wards and presumably brick or concrete beyond the wood he could see. Later, after he'd gained more of the Dark Lord's confidence, he'd see just how secure those doors were and what lay on the other side.

He floated two of the boxes to rest against the floor near the cellar door, clearing room for him to work near the washer and dryer. He doubted the family would ever return to the home, but it didn't feel right to destroy their belongings. It wasn't the destruction of someone else's property that bothered him, but the idea that he'd be removing them because they got in the way of his items and his space. Although he was not so impractical to deny comforts to himself while he was forced to live in the prison, he figured the less like his home he made it, the more obvious it would be that he didn't intend to stay. He certainly refused to die there.

That line of thinking only angered him, which didn't help because he knew, logically, it was silly to be upset over how the Dark Lord didn't trust him when he was exactly the sort of man the Dark Lord ought not to trust. If their positions were reversed, he knew he'd never allow someone who knew such a dangerous secret to leave the prison alive. Even without the matter of the Horcrux hanging over their heads, Severus had never gone for the superiority of the Pureblooded mentality, and it was foolish of him to assume that the Dark Lord had never guessed at least some of his reasons for joining, if not all of them.

Did the Dark Lord see him the way he himself saw Lucius? A man driven by ambitions which could be shifted to the highest bidder? It was entirely correct from one point of view, but it still frustrated him because he'd worked so damn hard to demonstrate his loyalty; to give the Dark Lord gifts which no one else had ever been able to give, and after all this time, after all his work, he was still a liability, something kept around while useful, but always on a leash, to be discarded as soon as it was safe to do so. Dumbledore had done the same, to some extent, but at least he had acknowledged Severus's talents and abilities, even if in horror of them.

What more could he do to prove his worth, if not his loyalty?

He dumped the crimson sheets in with the blue towels, and poured in a capful of detergent. He'd left kitchen towels in the dryer the day before, and he took them out now to sort and fold on the table he conjured for the task.

Mother hadn't had a dryer, but it was an extremely simple device to operate, and much simpler than hanging up clothes on a line. He'd never learnt the household spells that most wizards and witches used, simply because what he knew served him well enough, and household chores were so tediously boring, he ignored all but the essentials.

"There must be loads of cleaning spells," she said, flipping through her Standard Book of Spells, Grade One.

"You're such a girl," sniggered Potter from two tables over.

Heat searing through him, Severus sent Potter a dark glare and snapped, "Shut it."

Sighing, she jumped to her feet and tugged on his sleeve. "Come on. Let's go study somewhere else."

"Bye, Snivellus!" Black yelled after him, his friends giggling into their hands. Potter gave Severus a nasty grin.

Once he got the chance, he would punch that prat.

He shut his eyes. Stop it. Nothing can be gained from re-living the past.

A loud thump sounded. Throwing the towel down on the table, Severus quickly left the room, shutting the door behind him as he strode over to check on Potter. The boy still slept, laid out in exactly the same position he'd been in when Severus had left. Storming into his new library, Severus hissed, "Be quiet."

"Uh, we're finished, sir," said one of the youngsters. Severus shot the youths a scowl. They'd cut away the dividing wall between the spare bedroom and the hallway, leaving a wide, open carpeted area with softly tanned walls that were far more cozy than Potter's stark cage. The stone fireplace remained, now gracing the wall opposite Potter's room, and deep book shelves covered nearly every inch of free space along the walls, the dark wood contrasting nicely with the tan paint.

"Leave," he ordered and Avery Senior, with an arch of his eyebrow, led the way. Once Severus was certain they were off the property, he examined the room. He hadn't asked for furniture, and they'd brought none, but a trip upstairs and a few spells had the room decorated perfectly. The lighting was poor, although that could be improved by candlelight and lamps. He liked the dim light though -- it reminded him of the dungeons. He positioned the plump sofa in front of the fireplace with small tables on each end. He never worked in sofas - they didn't provide proper back support - but he might need to sleep in the room next to Potter if the boy became severely injured again, and the sofa was large enough to comfortably transfigured into a bed.

Fortunately for the young Death Eaters, they'd remembered his orders not to connect the fireplace to the Floo network. But Severus still set up wards around it just in case some imbecile might try to later on. Once he'd determined that the bookshelves were sturdy and the light fixtures safe, he fetched the boxes full of books from his room. Earlier, he'd begrudgingly requested everything from his rooms at Hogwarts, even though the thought of others pawing through his things sent bile to his throat. It was necessary, however. He hadn't left anything of true value, personal or otherwise, at Hogwarts, and with the Dark Lord eager to purchase him anything that could solve the Horcrux problem, it wouldn't be difficult to replace the books that were damaged by incompetence.

Levitating the boxes over to the shelves, Severus set about organizing them into categories. He found something calming about sorting books and, even though they'd been sorted at Hogwarts and packed together in their orderly rows, he reorganised them slightly. He placed the most important and most dangerous ones in one section near the fireplace and charmed them to appear boring and conventional, while the second level of magical importance were stored around the room at a height out of Potter's reach. As of right now, he couldn't see any possible reason Potter would have to visit the library, but who knew what sort of idiotic plans the dunderheads constantly surrounding him would put in place. He grouped the Muggles ones together next to the trite romance novels he'd found in his bedroom. Although he loved books, he wasn't the sort of literature snob that viewed each tome to be worthy of existence, and he would've destroyed the silly feminine nonsense at any other time. As of now, he thought that he needed a moment or two of entertainment. Picking up one titled 'Love On The High Seas' Severus gave an amused snort at the cover image. It featured a busty blonde woman falling out of her dress while being embraced by a well-muscled pirate. Lily would have loved to have snickered at it with him. He slipped it into a spare pocket in his robes and, after he'd properly organised everything, he returned to the kitchen.

In the past, his 'cooking' had mostly consisted of warming the contents of tins; however, now time in the kitchen, where few had the Dark Lord's permission to go, was all too precious time alone. He had to arrive in the lab at set times in the morning and the evening if he was to place orders and receive packages outside of the incompetent waste of feathers that was Strix, he'd been spending most of his 'freetime' learning how to cook.

Cooking was nothing like Potions brewing. He supposed that if he were a professional cook it might be different, but as it was, it required no thought at all. He looked up recipes that had nice pictures or sounded tasty, and he followed the ingredients exactly, pausing between dishes to read the tips in the front sections of his growing cookbook collection. Provided he had all the ingredients and knew where everything was in the kitchen, he could bake an entire dish whilst staring at the cookbook. However, he preferred to do everything by hand. There was something profoundly relaxing about chopping up a bunch of carrots by hand and not caring if each one was the exact thickness of the one before.

His hands worked methodically at cutting up the vegetables, leaving his mind free to wander, hopefully towards answers to pressing questions such as, "How can I get the Dark Lord to kill Potter knowing he'll bring himself closer to death if he does so?" So far, he'd only developed three answers: Convince the Dark Lord the Horcrux has left Potter. Convince the Dark Lord the Horcrux threatens him. Convince the Dark Lord the loss of the Horcrux in Potter is necessary, or at least, won't cause him any harm.

The first solution was the easiest in principal, the hardest in practicality. The Dark Lord was not a fool, and a lie would have to be absolutely convincing.

What if he could actually succeed? It was a thought he tried to ignore, but when his mind was free, it kept returning there. What if he could take the Horcrux out of Potter? The boy wouldn't need to be sacrificed. The Horcrux could be destroyed and the Dark Lord thereafter. It was an outcome so perfect, he knew it was impossible simply because nothing in his life had ever gone perfectly, and certainly something as important as this would not. Still, if there was a chance he could get that Horcrux out of Potter...

He set out the dishes. Two sets for himself, two sets for Potter. But how to separate it out? How could he even figure out where in Potter the Horcrux resided and how deeply intertwined it was with Potter? The Horcrux did have its benefits. It could make the boy speak Parseltongue. It gave him a way to see inside the Dark Lord's head without his knowledge. Souls were a tricky business and, although Severus had ordered every single book he could find that dealt with the subject, the literature didn't even fill a shelf.

Pouring juice for Potter and tea for himself, Severus proportioned their food on their plates. Reaching into his robes he withdrew vials of a healing and a calming potion, but not sleeping potions, not for now, and added them to Potter's pumpkin juice, as the sweetness would mask the taste. Sticking Potter's lunch in one of the warmers to be sent to the table below, he placed their dinners in the other warmer, and returned to the table to eat lunch, setting the mirror on a conjured stand. His fingers itched to pull out the Marauder's Map and examine Hogwarts to keep watch on the students and staff, but he couldn't cut his lunch out of the day in case the Dark Lord examined his memories, and he certainly couldn't show him the Map.

The Map had been created for trivial foolishness, but it was an impressive bit of magic, and as much as Severus hated to admit it, he was jealous that the Elder Potter and his insufferable friends had helped each other create a wonderous magical device beyond their years. Part of the reason he'd never gone for the Pureblooded supremacy nonsense was that most Purebloods were non-inventive when it came to magic. The Dark Lord was one of the few exceptions, and Severus had sneaking suspicions about that of which he didn't even let himself think.

No, while Gryffindors were dumb and stupid, they were at least creative -- precious few of them, but there they were. It was odd that more Ravenclaws didn't develop spells and potions, but one did have to be willing to take risks, unless magical theory was properly understood and practised, and even then, unexpected surprises still popped up. A map like the Marauder's Map in the Dark Lord's hands could destroy a place like Hogwarts or the Ministry of Magic, but maybe that was why the fatuous Gryffindors had been able to create it. Hogwarts knew they meant no harm and mischief was the only intent of it.

Severus suspected that the default state of the universe was magical, and non-magical individuals were simply cut off for some reason although wizards, especially Purebloods, liked to think themselves inherently magical and changing a non-magical universe to their will. It explained why Hogwarts still regarded him as Headmaster and granted him all the powers of such, even though he'd not held his post for long, and had vacated the castle the week before. It explained why he felt this ever pressing need to return to the castle and make absolutely certain that the children were safe. He had never been so heartless as to destroy or to allow a bunch of innocent children to be destroyed unless it was absolutely necessary to the cause, and there wasn't any other way way around it. Even then, it was not something he did gladly.

Still, in the past, his duty to her had always overridden everything else, to the point that if keeping Potter alive meant the destruction of Hogwarts, the only place he ever felt to be his home, and everyone in it, he would make that sacrifice for her. Maybe it was just that he'd already resigned himself to Potter's death, but now, he found that he didn't really care what physical harm or mental harm they caused the boy as much as he cared about the fate of Hogwarts.

Severus needed to find out what was happening at the castle. The urge to know made it impossible for him to focus on Potter's sleeping form, or the post he was pretending to read. He downed the rest of his food and strode off to his bedroom. Once inside, he set up the wards and pulled out Albus's portrait. "How is Hogwarts?" he asked.

"Everything is fine," said Albus soothingly. "The house-elves have steadily removed the students who are in danger and now most of those who remain are related to Death Eaters or loyal to Lord Voldemort. Whilst several youngsters remain in the castle and cause mischief, most have gone into hiding elsewhere. I've heard that Miss Granger and Mr Weasley have met up with a few, but they've been given strict instructions to avoid the castle at all costs."

"Good," said Severus, and he meant it.

It was due to this relaxation that he was caught unprepared for Potter's escape attempt.
- 6
- 7
- 8
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Invictus