00sevvie (00sevvie) wrote in severus_rp, @ 2009-07-11 02:31:00 |
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He is already at Spinner's End, laying out his robes, when the Mark begins to burn. It is two days since term ended and it is His habit to have Severus, among His favorites, dance attendance on Him at Yuletide. Perhaps to make up for his enforced distance at other times, he'd once theorized to Regulus.
This year, however, he finds that for once he does not resent this duty.
He continues his work calmly, pulling each piece of his costume from the wizardspace compartment in the oak chest and setting it next to the others on the bed. Black wool robes; leather gloves; the heavy black wool cloak and hood. The bone-white mask. A piece of gauzy grey fabric, like a swath of mist in his hands.
He clasps the fabric tightly for a moment as he feels the warmth of the Mark edging into pain. It has become a strangely dear pain, this pull towards his Lord, and he closes his eyes, letting it spread through him. A small part of his mind still protests at this growing closeness to such a creature – out of habit more than anything – but he ignores it. He has trained himself well these past months, taught himself to bear what was unbearable and to desire what had been hated, once it became clear that the only way to achieve the world he still wished was to give himself over to his new-found empathy and follow it wherever it led him.
Perhaps he has been too successful, he thinks occasionally. But he cannot now summon the same hatred for the man he could before; he knows too much of the man and too well how close he himself came to becoming Him. He does not know when compassion turned to affection. But he knows that it is no longer duty alone that drives him now to follow the warm pull of his Mark inside, to that deep-down place where another flame is burning, burning white…
He loves his Lord. He does. And if, when he tells his Lord he lives to serve Him, he means it in a way He does not, cannot, understand (for He cannot, will not, understand what it means to save someone from themselves, that love is not only obedience and that true loyalty can look like treason) – well, he has known all his life that the wages of love are usually sorrow, hasn’t he?
He holds himself in the flame (he has nurtured it so carefully this way), lets it engulf him until he cannot distinguish it from the burning pain in his arm and his every thought is directed toward the red-eyed visage in his mind. His fingers find the button of his collar.
Surrender. He must surrender to this, he tells himself. Even as the surface of his mind rebels, he pushes his resistance down again. And if he cannot do this alone, he knows the Voice that guided him at that critical moment before (this Voice that sounds like himself but is so much wiser than he) will show him again how to do it. It is always with him, and now he again submits to Its (Its, not His, though He cannot tell the difference) will.
And so he begins to remove his everyday robes, slipping one button free after another without opening his eyes. All the while his mind, too, he starts to gradually divest of its accustomed trappings. Piece by piece, as he pulls off his robes (retaining only trousers and boots), he sheds as much as he can of the person who wears them. Memories, attitudes, habits of thought – everything that conflicts with the image the Dark Lord expects to see of His devoted servant and slave he strips away and mentally lays aside.
Dumbledore’s face, turning grave as Severus recounts His attack, the Voice that counseled compassion, the freedom he found when he obeyed
A pair of green eyes in a spectacled face, filled for once with understanding
Memory after memory of truth freely spoken, something no slave could do
Voices, faces, speaking
Severus
The Mark burns.
He is not Severus.
Black cloth pools at his feet, is kicked away.
His will is not important. Only what must be done (to pretend, to conceal himself, to serve Him) is important.
Voices, faces, memories, thoughts, things he knows, things he has learned to forget
He cannot hide these things as he used to; now that He has broken through Severus’ shields there is no region of his mind that He cannot inspect for insincerity, should He choose to. This last is his only protection, the lies the Dark Lord tells Himself the only ones He cannot (will not, dare not) see through. Severus (when he is Severus) thinks of it as a glass floor, below which all his stripped-away secrets are stacked up and hidden in plain view, with only the reflections of the white flame and His own face to distract Him from them; the glass hinged and locked in place with a few carefully-chosen words.
Service. The Dark Lord does not understand that it is a word with multiple meanings, or that he is a servant who merely masquerades as a slave. He simply must act the part so well that he (half, three-quarters?) forgets it is not real.
Love. A word and a concept the Dark Lord does not understand at all – the reason Severus loves Him, and the reason he can hide things from Him.
When his secrets are all piled one upon the other, he begins to lay the floor in place. He opens his eyes, takes up the other set of robes, feels the wool glide over his skin.
This is what he is, this sign of devotion.
Service, he murmurs to himself. He is a servant. He wishes nothing more than to serve that Voice, that vision…
No. He wishes to be a good servant.
A face, His voice, amused, pleased: “Severus, you” – no, he pushes it away.
He serves.
Pleased: “You are devotion itself.”
He must, desires to, serve Him (serve Him, save Him, there can be no difference in his mind. Not any longer.)
Service. Cloak, hood – more black wool settling around him. With every piece conviction grows stronger, things become simpler. Service.
The chant crackles like flames at the back of his mind, dampening all other sounds. The Mark is burning hot still. But he hardly feels it, so intent is he. White flames are swirling at the edge of his vision. He loves his Lord.
He loves his Lord, and obeys Him.
Smooth leather of gloves against his palms.
Service; service; service.
Last of all, the mask. He does not know if it is a general meeting tonight or a smaller affair, so he chooses the white one. He pauses briefly, eyes fixed on the empty sockets in the hard, blank face. Then he raises it and slides it carefully down over his own. The thin ceramic is cool against his skin. The grey fabric he folds and stows carefully inside his cloak. The oak chest is shut and locked again. One last glance around, his burning forearm pressed to his chest – then he slips down the stairs, out the door, around the corner into the shadows…and with a muffled crack! is gone.
He arrives in the smaller throne room, deep inside the former Riddle mansion, to find only a single robed figure awaiting him. He drops to one knee and bows his head, removing his mask and letting the final vestiges of self-consciousness slip away into half-forgetfulness as he does so. Nothing now can be hidden from this master; He can see what He wishes.
He is devotion itself.
“Lord.”
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