Fantasy Fest: Fic: Dark Creatures -- Chapter 1 Title: Dark Creatures -- Chapter 1 Author:nehalenia Rating:NC17 overall and PG13 for this part Pairing: Lupin/Snape, Sirius/Snape, Lupin/Snape/Sirius Word Count: 1200 (this chapter) Challenge: Fantasy Fest 2008 Prompt:Snape has been cursed by Death Eaters and to avoid horrible pain, must be taken by a Dark Creature every day. Warnings: AU (There will be more later. ^___^) Disclaimer: All characters are the property of JK Rowling and are most definitely not mine. This is for entertainment purposes only and no profit is being sought. Author's notes: Blessings on ships_harry for her awesome beta skillz! To my unknown promptee, I will keep posting chapters until this is done. Shouldn't be too terribly long. Let this stand as a promise that, yes, your prompt will actually (finally) get written. ;-) And WOOO Chaptered Fics! Why didn't I think of this before?
“Why are you here, Potter? Come to gloat?”
Harry Potter and Severus Snape stared at each other through the bars of a cell. Potter was more dishevelled than usual – his hair longer and more unruly, his cheek shadowed with stubble – but not so much as the man behind the bars. Snape looked haggard and old beyond his years, his hair hanging in stringy locks about his sunken cheeks. He looked half dead – Harry supposed that was only reasonable, since he’d been more than half dead when they’d found him – but his black eyes were sharp and searching and very much alive.
“No,” Harry said evenly, his arms folded on his chest. “I’m here to make a deal.”
“A deal?” Snape pronounced. “With me? That would suggest that we each have something the other wants. How interesting.” Snape leaned his back against the wall and crossed his arms to mirror Harry. “What, I wonder, could the Boy Who Lived Twice possibly want from a man who has lost everything?”
Harry chewed on his lower lip. “Why don’t we start with what I can offer you, then?” he suggested.
“No,” Snape drawled. “Let’s not. I know what you can offer me, Potter. Why don’t you tell me what it is you want, and then we’ll see whether you have enough to pay my price.”
“You’re not exactly in a top flight bargaining position here, you know,” Harry frowned.
“And yet here you stand offering me ‘a deal’,” Snape replied in the sly, silky voice Harry had learned to dread. “Let’s hear it, Potter.”
Harry let out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. “I need your help. With an artefact. A Dark artefact.”
Snape raised an eyebrow at that. “In what way? Destroying it? Neutralizing it?” Snape paused there, and one corner of his mouth twitched. “Using it?”
“Yeah,” Harry replied, glancing down and carding a hand through his hair again. “That last one.”
Snape straightened on his bunk. “Just how Dark is this artefact?”
“I’m not sure, really.” Snape made a derisive snort at that. Harry pursed his lips and ignored him. “Pretty Dark, I think. It’s something we found in Bellatrix LeStrange’s vault.”
“If this item was in Bellatrix’ possession,” Snape opined, “then ‘pretty Dark’ is surely an inadequate description. Just what is it?”
“It’s a bell,” Harry said, moving up to the bars. “A big silver bell with a black cord looped through the top. I think you’re supposed to hold it by that, but you can’t ring it. It doesn’t have that thing inside that... makes it ring.”
“Perhaps you mean a clapper?” Snape deadpanned.
“Yeah, that. It doesn’t have one of those,” Harry grimaced, trying to ignore the smirk on Snape’s face. “But it does have some weird writing on it, inside the rim.”
“Which of course you have not had translated or transcribed....”
Harry pulled a folded piece of parchment from his jeans. “Here,” he said, extending his hand through the bars and holding out the slip. “Try not to die of shock.” Snape regarded him silently for a long moment, then pushed himself to his feet. Only three paces separated the two men. Snape plucked the note from Harry’s fingers, opened it and read. Now that he was standing closer to the light, Harry could see that Snape’s clothing was a mess, the shoulder of his coat torn open and the white shirt, ripped and blood-stained, showing through. The black fabric had a strange sheen, and he realized it was stiff with blood.
The color drained from Harry’s face. “You’re—you’re still in the same clothes,” he said before he could stop himself. Snape flicked him a glance but kept reading.
“Funny that,” Snape said softly. “I asked the concierge to send up a clean set of robes when I checked in. I can’t imagine what’s keeping him.”
Harry bit his lip, but before he could say anything, he realized Snape was looking at him over the edge of the paper.
“You’ve developed a gift for understatement, I see,” Snape said in a casual tone, “if you consider this sort of thing merely ‘pretty Dark’, Potter.” He refolded the parchment and handed it back, then turned on his heel and went back to his bunk. “You realize, of course, that you’ll be risking your own neck as well as what’s left of mine?”
“I know what I’m getting into,” Harry frowned, tucking the parchment into his back pocket. “So, can you do it?”
“I can,” said Snape, leaning back against the wall again. “But I think the question is whether or not I will.”
Harry swallowed and straightened. “What’s it going to take?”
Snape narrowed his eyes. “Full exoneration,” he said slowly, pronouncing each syllable. “Although that hardly counts as part of the bargain, since you were supposed to have taken care of that small matter directly. Isn’t that correct, Mr. Potter?” Snape shifted his shoulders against the stone wall as if he were making himself comfortable. “Does Albus know you haven’t turned all the evidence over to the Aurors yet? I can’t help but think he’d be a bit... disappointed in you.”
“He hasn’t mentioned you, actually,” Harry said in as cool a voice as he could muster, trying to counter the rush of blood to his face. “His portrait hasn’t, at least.” Snape’s expression went blank, but his unblinking gaze didn’t waver. “All right,” Harry sighed. “Full exoneration. What else?”
“Reinstatement as Hogwarts Potions Master and Head of Slytherin House.”
“You—you’re joking, right?” Harry stammered, blinking at him. “I thought you hated...”
“I despise ignorance, carelessness and laziness,” Snape said crisply. “While that means I despise most of the students floundering their way through my classes, it does not necessarily mean I despise teaching. Besides, the position has an element of respectability which I expect I’ll be needing, at least for a time.”
“Yeah, right,” Harry muttered. He scratched at the back of his head. “That’s a pretty tall order, Snape, but I’ll see....”
“I wasn’t finished,” Snape cut in. “I also expect to receive any and all honours and benefits awarded to other members of the Order of the Phoenix for service in this war.”
“You mean you want an Order of Merlin,” Harry replied flatly.
“Of course,” Snape said. “As well as any pensions the Ministry might be giving out.”
“Anything else?” Harry asked sarcastically. Snape pondered the question. His thin mouth twisted into a wry line.
“Perhaps you could see what’s holding up my change of clothes?”
“Don’t ask for much, do you?” Harry snorted. “Fine, then. I’ll see what I can do. I’ll be back to let you know what I can get.”
“Potter,” Snape said, the softness of his voice almost belying the granite behind it. “If you cannot meet my demands, then don’t bother coming back. They are more than reasonable, considering what you’re asking of me. I will not risk my life and sanity for less.”
Harry opened his mouth to say something, but Snape had already broken the connection, lying back on his bunk and turning his face to the wall. Harry stared at him in silence for a few moments, then shook his head and turned away.