The voice under all silences. Chapter 4
THE VOICE UNDER ALL SILENCES. Chapter 4
Author: [info]pekeleke Pairing: Severus Snape/Harry Potter Word Count: 6241 Rating: N-17 Summary: Four years after the final battle Severus Snape wakes up to HELL! Warning(s): Strong language. A/N: First snarry fic, ever. English is not my mother tongue so mistakes are to be expected. Beta: None Disclaimer: The characters used in this fiction are not mine. No money is being made from it.
THE VOICE UNDER ALL SILENCES. Chapter 4
He detested this vile creature with all his might. With whatever fragile wisps remained of his heart and soul. He despised him with his every breath. Loathed him with a murderous rage. Hated him so completely, so utterly, That he failed to think of an appropriate enough answer to that horribly accurate statement for a second or two.
Silence stretched in this cursed room like a blanket of fire and it felt to his senses like the first sickening quietness of a magical duel: it felt dangerous. Unwelcome. He'd been lethally threatened. Lethally! He'd been hit by this viper of a man when he'd expected a retreat and lay now before his enemy: destroyed beyond salvation, figuratively bleeding quite profusely from the kind of wound no man ever recovers.
It had been his own fault, of course. Within the private confines of his mind he could, at the very least, recognise his own failings in this debacle. -Constant vigilance, Snape!- The words seemed to mock him in the sharp, screechy voice of the, now deceased, Alastor Moody and he shuddered at the aptness of that thought. After years of being on his guard every waking second, he'd failed completely to protect himself before the very same child he'd so often found wanting in the past. He'd cried victory too early, underestimating this particular adversary in the very same unpardonable way that had cost the Dark Lord dearly and, just like his erstwhile master, he'd been challenged, demolished and defeated without any mercy. He'd been utterly crushed...
Black eyes zeroed on the victor as he stood, barely five paces away from the foot of his bed, like a frozen statue. He was young and seemed harmless, at least to a man like himself, who had spent so much of his life with the likes of Mcnair and Grayback, Rodolphus Lestrange or any of the Carrows... Potter, on the other hand, looked pale and... heroic. His eyes shone with the kind of fire only those fighting for justice ever seem to be able to call forth. His mouth was tightened into a determined slash that spoke of the kind of strength usually unwilling to bend. His cheeks were flushed with temper. His posture rigid. Unyielding. He was young and good looking. Clean shaved. Athletic. A perfect blending of golden muscled physique and fierce willpower.
In no way did the dratted brat remind him of Bella. Or the insufferable dog. Or the thrice dammed James Good-For-Nothing Potter, for that matter. He didn't even look like Albus. Yet he was worse than all of them in his own way. For none of the others had ever managed to deal him the same kind of crippling blow the man before him had just delivered: He'd been wounded. Truly wounded. Brutally stricken at the very heart of him, his core... This was a sin that only Voldermort himself had ever committed. One against which he'd rebelled so savagely that he'd turned himself from a murderer into a spy almost overnight.
He'd done that many years ago: For Lily. For love to her memory. To atone for a crime he'd committed against her and had never, not ever!, forgiven himself for... What wouldn't he now do for the child he had loved, as his own, since he'd first held him? For the son of his closest, most loyal friend? For the only person on Earth who'd never truly betrayed him. Never truly denied him? The one who had never, not ever!, given up on him...?
Draco had only ever loved him. Him! With his million faults and idiosyncrasies. He'd been accepted by his godchild and cherished so utterly, so completely, that he'd discovered peace, at long last, within himself. He'd come to accept his monstrous darkness because Draco had done so, and if his godson could love him as he was... Then he had no intention to prove that boy wrong or making him feel ashamed of him. Not ever...!
' You wouldn't dare...! ' He choked out at last and the words seemed to explode in the tense silence.
Potter's smile was vindictive. Hateful. Cocky.
' Will you risk it, then, Professor? Will you call my bluff and see him lose... his soul?'
The foul words hovered between them, taunting him with their terrible threat and he all but shivered. His black eyes turned to frozen chips of onyx-coloured ice and his right hand curled tightly into a frustrated little fist that ached for his wand.
' You are attempting to convince me that you, Harry Potter, defender of kittens and fluffy Huffelpuffs alike!, has the kind of darkness necessary to send an innocent boy to the Dementors? '
The emerald gaze did not falter. The smile froze, though, turning, in the blink of an eye, into a bitter, angry curve that spoke of virulent emotions.
' Malfoy is not a boy, Professor! Not any more! ' The rebuke was voiced harshly. Crudely. A cutting whisper that felt like the shout of an enraged banshee ' He is not truly innocent either! He was a Death-Eater. He saw plenty. He did little. And, now, he is free!'
Severus's mind recoiled. He felt dread for the first time before the stranger with Potter's eyes who seemed to have taken over the hapless child he had once known.
' If Peterssen is to be believed, the war has been done with for a long time! Four years should have been long enough for Draco Malfoy to craft a life, so far removed from the past entanglements of his elders, that “anyone” wanting to cause him harm should have to work very hard indeed to be successful!'
Potter's jaw squared. His shoulders acquired a newer, even more threatening, rigidity and his voice rumbled with disbelieving anger when he challenged:
' Are you calling me a liar, Snape? '
Severus's heart froze. His mind seized for a second in utter, terrifying indecision. He was gambling heavily indeed. He was playing with a fire that would burn Draco. His Draco... But then, he had fought for far less worthier prizes in his life and, even if he were remotely inclined to try it, the simple truth was that he didn't know how to stop fighting and surrender.... Surrendering was simply not an option he was willing to contemplate in this case, anyway. He'd have to risk everything...
He took a very deep breath before speaking. Every syllable a struggle to be uttered: ' The child Dumbledore cherished wouldn't have, Ever!, threatened another with Dementors! '
A smile curved the cold lips. It was a terrible, bitter thing. A touch of darkness. Those emerald eyes, so much like Lily's, shone like chips of green ice.
' Dumbledore was known to cherish the wrong kind of child, professor. I thought you, better than most, would have remembered that! '
' You have no right to touch Draco Malfoy! If it's me you want, Potter, then you have no issue with him whatsoever! How dare you attempt to blackmail me, using such foul means, against a man who has done nothing to you? Nothing! May I remind you that he actually saved your useless life when Mcnair brought you to the Manor? '
Potter suddenly paled. His shoulders hunched slightly forwards, as if mortally wounded. Eyes, so green that they resembled the very canopy of the Forbidden Forest after a good rain, widened in utter horror for a long, drawn-out second.
' Yes. He saved me then! and I saved him afterwards from being burned to cinders by Fiendfyre. I'd say that particular debt was paid with plenty of interest, Professor! He's been clean for a long time. His father as well. Those are men who can turn with the tide and remain constantly afloat... But I'll sink him if I have to. If you make me! '
There was a second: a horribly strained second, when he felt as if he'd been sucker-punched in the gut. He gritted his teeth as the bastard carried on, blatantly threatening to harm what his heart held most dear, certain that he'd throw up at any second. He forced his agitated breath under control, his burning eyes into a dry, hate-filled stare. His whirling thoughts into the kind of cold and calculating mind-frame that had, so many times, saved him from death. But the words, those awful words, continued to spill forth from the lips of Albus's pet hero:
' I can do it as well, Snape. So very easily. It won't be any trouble at all for the Head of the Auror Department, the Saviour himself!, to dream up a few dastardly plots of Malfoy Junior's and have him pay for them. Dearly. I'll do it for no other reason than the fact that he is your only weakness and: I. Want. You!'
He'd been turned to stone by that last sentence. Condemned so completely into puzzled immobility that he could not even blink in order to relieve the awful burning turning his eyes to scratchy, prickly torturing devices. His throat pounded with the effort of holding in the rather overwhelming wave of sheer rage threatening to erupt, into destructive reality, from the very depths of his being. His thoughts whirled and he wondered what had happened to the boy he used to know. Lily's child. Albus's boy. Minnie's pride and joy... How had THAT Harry Potter turned into THIS monster?
The silence that followed crushed him completely. It festered between them like the foul thing that it truly was: A weapon. A poison. The most elegant demonstration in the fine art of intimidation that had been directed at him in a long time. Potter waited him out. Emerald green eyes focused and merciless. He blinked very slowly. Breathed in and out as one second relentlessly slid by, became another...
There was something wrong with him. Something utterly flawed. Something that kept him from devising any effective scape plan from this deadlock. He knew there must be one, but his mind was gripped by terror for his godchild's safety. He could not think. He could not analyse. He could only feel... And what he felt was anguish. Desperation. Frustrated defeat.
His eyes closed for one second: a trembling, exhausted vulnerability that he bitterly regretted, even as it happened. But he had not the strength to... carry on with the impassive act any longer. He could feel the change in the atmosphere of the room almost at once. The slight motion of the predator watching him as it shifted it's weight from left leg to right. Relaxing it's stillness for the first time in minutes. Scenting weakened prey.
' Severus? '
His given name, pronounced once again by that foul mouth, was a sign of heart-wrenching defeat.
' What would you do, if I say I don't believe you? ' He heard himself ask through numb, echoing ears. One last shot, fired into the encroaching darkness of defeat.
' I'll walk away. It will take a few hours, a day at the most, but I'll make sure you receive front row invitation for the execution, by Dementor's kiss, of one Draco Malfoy. I'll watch you from across the aisle as you lose him forever and we'll both be thinking exactly the same thing '
Ebony eyes, widened in unutterable horror, zeroed on the fiercely glittering emerald gaze of the maddened Saviour and he shivered with dread. With the kind of terror not even the Dark Lord had managed to instil within his soul.
' Nothing will matter to me at that point, you see? Whether you sacrifice yourself for him and Malfoy lives or you let him fall and regret it, with every breath you take, after he is... gone... I still win, Snape! I'd have dealt you the harshest punishment there is. The only one that'd make you truly suffer! '
His heart halted there and then, because he... he found himself believing this vile creature! It was apparent to him that a man like Potter wouldn't have suddenly come up with a plan as vicious as this one, without having put a lot of thought into it. A lot of accumulated hatred... His chest rose in one last breath before he spoke once more. Every word a gift to his precious godchild, a reluctant acquiescence to the monster's dark plans for the sake of the boy who loved him without restrains. Without conditions.
' What are your terms, Potter? '
Surprisingly, the auror seemed even paler as the question hovered between them. There were shadows, horrible, bitter shadows, turning that emerald gaze into a muddy, washed-out green. There were lines of untold anger turning that jaw-line to stone. There was such a rigidity to those wide athletic shoulders that, for a wild second, he felt as if Potter's back might actually snap in two.
' So it is true, then. You... you'd sell yourself off for him in a heartbeat! All that attention that you gave him, back at Hogwarts... It was never an act to fool Voldermort! You... You love the little Ferret! '
Severus blinked in exhausted, wary affront. He could not understand what the Hell was wrong with the dammed bastard!
' What are you whining about now, boy? Wasn't that your bloody point? ' He growled through gritted teeth. He was not in the mood for the brat's stupid games. He was feeling utterly wretched. Devastated. Dizzy. There was an excruciating throbbing in the region of his wound that had begun to pulse almost continuously. His throat felt parched, raw, and his nerves were shot to Hell. All in all, he could not cope with any more ridiculous nonsense from the little jerk before him!
' I... Yes. Of course! That has been my point all along! It's just that... Well, one thing is to imagine that someone like you might care that deeply for another person but... To have it so suddenly and... kind of brutally... confirmed, is just a tad overwhelming! '
Severus's headache became a thing of nightmares. His eyes narrowed to thin slits as he attempted to surreptitiously avoid as much of the bright sunshine flooding the spacious room as he possibly could.
' Someone like me... ' he repeated the awful sentence very quietly. One word lowering into the next with pained resignation. ' Yes. I do imagine how shocking it must be for all of you, shiny heroes of our world, to be confronted with the fact that we, scoundrels, do love too! '
For some reason Potter's hackles rose. His eyes iced in the space between one owlish blink and the next and his lips thinned.
' My terms are very simple: while you are in public you'll conform to the image of you I have, so carefully, crafted while you were trapped in your coma! '
His senses reeled at the utterly incomprehensible nature of that request.
' Image? Of me? What on Earth...? '
The auror chuckled. Bitter mirth returning at once to replace the strange harshness that had invaded his features mere seconds ago.
' Ah, yes! I forgot you still don't know about that part... You've been very reluctant to fall into place with my initial design and so... I'll have to explain this to you from the beginning... '
He watched as the boy lowered his head, apparently to fix his gaze in gormless contemplation of those shiny boots he wore. There was something rather disturbing about the tense little silence that followed. A sad kind of quality that Severus, in his current state of mind, could not concentrate enough to ponder on.
' Four years ago, when I discovered that you'd survived, I decided that whatever fate the Wizarding World chose to grant you would probably never, ever!, come to match my own idea of what you truly deserved! '
' Yes. I had that point. You've been, so far, nothing but generous with your opinions regarding the matter! Why don't we skip ahead a bit, Potter? '
Golden toned fingers curled in two white-knuckled fists that shook with temper. ' Do not interrupt me again! I'll say my piece and I'll do it in my own time and with my own words! You don't get to rush me along and bully me into making a stupid mistake just because you can play the scornful, irritated bastard of a professor so well! I have now lived four years without you, Snape! I have met far worse characters than you could ever fake! I've grown up while you've been sleeping and, now, your old tricks are nothing but pathetic little smoke-screens I can see through! '
Something cold and quite, quite frightening shivered down his spine upon hearing that fiercely gritted rebuke and his brow broke out in uncontrollable sweat. His lips thinned as he forced himself to swallow down the insults that had risen to the tip of his tongue and he stared, straight into those glittering green eyes, with undiluted hatred.
' I see. Please... Do proceed, auror Potter! '
' I've spent a considerable amount of time, and resources, into convincing everybody of the fact that you: The rightfully despised professor Severus Snape, have been nothing but a sickeningly self-sacrificing little hero all along! I spun a tale of almost Hufflepuffian loyalty to Albus Dumbledore. Told everyone about the tragic passion you felt towards my mother. About the unrelenting bullying you were subjected to in school that led you down your dark path, at the worst possible time...! '
A vein began to pulse in his sweaty temple. It's painful throbbing increasing to devastating intensity with every single word that was pronounced. His heart froze into a cold lump as his mind shorted.
' You... You did WHAT? ' He could feel the scream rip through the healing tissues of his damaged throat but there was nothing, nothing of the absolute fury rampaging through his every cell, that was either controllable or even appeaseable at that particular second.
' Severus...! '
' You!... You took my life, once more!, and KNOWINGLY made a MOCKERY out of it? '
Potter's face was chalky. Ghostly white and frantic, like the visage of a panicked, fragile child's.
' You must calm down, Severus! Your throat needs to rest or it might close off again! Last time you almost died! '
' Die? You think I won't welcome such an outcome? Rip you off the opportunity to shred my dignity to ribbons, in your ill-conceived need to seek revenge? I'd rather leave you hanging than give you the satisfaction of turning me into some kind of... What exactly Potter? A tragic hero of your own devising in public and some kind of pathetic little house elf at home? '
The boy flushed to the tip of his ears. Emerald eyes lowering in shame back to his shoes. ' Something like that! '
Severus laughed so hard he hurt his neck. His throat burned. His lungs seized. His heart ached so much that he... he would have gladly just... given the bastard the satisfaction to see him cry if only... If only he'd believed that it would be over. All of it: The paying. And the regretting. The eternal, gruelling awareness of his own lack of worth in the eyes of those he'd tried -so hard- to keep away from harm...
' You think that I want to be... held in high esteem by the bunch of brainless twits that find nothing wrong with turning your every word into some kind of Holy Truth for the masses? You think that... what? That I crave that kind of attention, like some kind of pathetic little nobody who can find nothing of value within himself? I don't need your conjured image of me to add fake worth to my existence, Potter! I know my exact value to the very last knut! '
The fierce, brutally combative glint was back with blinding force in those eyes, so much like Lily's... ' Do you? Really? Well! Allow me to disagree on that bloody point, my dear Severus! I don't care for your scorn about my reasons. I don't even care for your outrage. But I do care for my word! I gave it to create the illusion of a man above reproach. Of a man able to die!, able to kill, for an ideal! I gave it before witnesses!. I've have been continuing to give it, for four long years, and I'll be hexed to Hell and back before allowing you to destroy all of my effort, with the first bad tempered comment falling thoughtlessly from your foul mouth!'
Severus floundered. He gapped like a landed fish as his ears rang with the humiliation of having been so utterly brought to task by the child. He could not bear to look into those eyes. He could not trust his lips to remain tightly closed around every hurtful retaliation he could certainly deliver in response. He had been chastised, in the most debasing manner he could conceive, and he was raw with the shock of it all. He closed his burning eyes. Painfully throbbing neck drooping slightly, as if fatally wounded. Regulating his agitated breath took all his concentration for a second or two and he attempted, truly attempted, to bring his almost volcanic ire under control. But it was a struggle: a battle he was losing.
' Severus?...'
There was a note of concerned inquiry in that anxious rendition of his given name, but he could neither trust it nor address it. He resented the familiarity with which the boy referred to him. Distrusted the false worry. Shied away from the horrible certainty that this... this confusing mix of unreasonable hatred and instinctive consideration would be his lot in life when things were done. Potter would be to him... what his father had been to his own mother: a disturbing, frighteningly inconsistent master. Violent one second, shatteringly gentle the next... He... he didn't know if he could survive such a thing. Not when he'd seen: in painful, heart wrenching detail, the exact results of those kind of mind games.
' So I am to play the hero while in public. Anything else, master? ' He challenged scornfully, so brutally rebelling against that barely-there thread of gentleness in the auror's tone that the man himself took a single, uncertain step backwards in surprised disconcertion.
Green eyes raked through his features, as if digging for lost treasure. Examining him with careful, focused attention in order to asses him further. Analyse his every response. Gather even more ammunition to be mercilessly used against him from his own ugly features. -Well!- He was done with this game! He was done with giving the blasted jerk exactly what he wanted! The man wanted him to fight. To suffer. To drown in the pit of mortification he'd so carefully created for his benefit!... Well, from now on, Potter was going to become intimately acquainted with the reason why he'd been such a successful spy, for over twenty long years!: He could play the servile little toe-rag like the pro he truly was. He could play it so faithfully that there would be no satisfaction to be had by the great Saviour! He could show Harry Potter that, even in submissive acceptance, there is rebellion to be delivered. Hatred to be allowed to fester...
' Do not call me master! ' The request was as incensed as expected, of course, and he felt like smiling through the lump in his throat as he allowed his dark eyes to lower in a perfectly respectful little bow.
' As you wish, auror Potter '
' You will accept my invitation to spend the rest of your convalesce at my home, when I decide to voice it, and you'd expressly insist -to your godson in particular- that this development pleases you! '
There was a thread of belligerent challenge present in those words. An almost contemptuously gleeful expectation of rebellion that he had no intention of providing. Not any more.
' As you wish '
He offered the same little sentence, once again, without lifting his eyes. Without flinching at all. Without allowing the poisonous rage, filling him completely, from so much as being hinted at in his own tone. Blankness... He has blankness once again. And obedience. He was nothing but a servant: a devoted, brainless entity with no heart to feel, no mind to think, no pride to be injured... for as long as his detested new master remained before him. He would do this again! For Draco. He'd become this once more. And he'd survive! Somehow. Just to spite Potter!
' You will reside at my house and -while you do- you shall, not ever, leave a question of mine unanswered! You will not disobey a direct order! You will treat me and those I call friends with the respect we deserve and you will never, not ever!, abandon my roof in order to live somewhere else! '
He was so relieved that he could have snorted at the absolute stupidity of the creature. These directions were so vague that even a half blind, totally dumb and deaf first year Slytherin could find a way to circumvent them in most circumstances! He was not blind. Nor dumb or deaf. He was no first year either. But he was Slytherin...
' As you wish! '
There was a sigh: frustrated. Impatient. Pleasantly irritated. ' Will you stop that already? '
He did not dare smile. Vindictively or otherwise. ' Stop what, auror Potter? '
A couple of footsteps echoed forwards. There was sudden pressure on the edge of the mattress as a pair of tightly clasped, golden coloured fists, appeared at the very edge of his field of vision.
' Look at me, Severus! '
He took a deep breath before complying. Mentally waving goodbye to peace of mind. To rest. To the simple enjoyment of allowing himself the respite of being hated by people he'd never cared for, never protected. People like Petersen and the million and one others just like him... His gaze rose. Fixed on Potter's affronted visage with blank politeness.
' You might have to rethink this new... creepily docile thing you've got going on... It won't work with me, you see? I know you. I grew up under your shadow, endured your temper, have been on the wrong end of that cutting wit of yours more times than I can count! I've been inside your head. Inside your pensive. I saw those memories you gave me: your very worst, I'm sure, again and again before I decided to return them to you! I know who you are and I know what I'm doing! Nothing you can try will mess with my head, Snape. Nothing! '
He blinked right into the idiot's flushed face very slowly and the weary, bored drag of eyelids that conveyed, without words, how utterly unimpressed that ridiculous speech had just left him, was an absolute work of art: ' Your point being? '
Potter was so incensed his jawbone crunched audibly. Those fists dug into the mattress as if attempting to burrow right into the filling and the eyes, those beautiful emerald eyes Lily had given him, flashed cold fire for a second or two before the brat took a seemingly calming breath: ' All right! Have it your way! ' The response was angry, yes. And quite as frustrated as Severus had been expecting but it lacked, somehow, in viciousness. The auror's face scrunched in pained concentration, as if listening to his own thoughts through a thick, wide-spread fog. His lips thinned and his shoulders all but shook as he shot back a step. Straightened himself. Looked down towards his feet for a very long time.
When he finally came to life it was to walk around the bed with forceful steps. He stopped suddenly, right in front of the bedside table, and quite rudely decided to sit on the mattress itself. Severus's whole frame became rigid stone from head to foot. He resented the boy's proximity with every single fibre of his being. Potter was just too close to his own body. So close, in fact, that he could feel the heat of the auror's body starting to warm the left side of his own through the thick layers of bedding covering him!
He lifted his own legs up, in a clearly defensive motion, with difficulty. Stubbornly applying as much pressure as he could infuse into the move, in order to release the trapped blankets from underneath the boy. His chest swivelled slightly to the left, as he forced himself to face the child when he felt ready. A defiant ebony stare glared daggers of pure hatred across barely any distance at all from behind a flimsy fortress -built from nothing but trembling, knobbly knees and crossed of arms-.
' If you are planing on accepting my terms, then, I'm afraid you'll have to swear a Wizard's Oath ' The little bastard smiled at him before blatantly daring to plop his unwelcome hand over Severus's barricading knee, as if to mock him for the effort. He shuddered with repressed ire and his gaze lowered to those golden tanned digits upon him.
The weight of that hand bothered him totally. Unnerved him and challenged him to shake it off as soon as he could possibly manage it. He stared at it with so much dislike that the appendage twitched. Relaxed, uncurled fingers slowly curling against his thin kneecap into a tense claw-shape that dug, very slightly, against the mound of bedding keeping their skin apart: a flimsy barrier maintaining that inappropriate contact from finally tipping into the wrong side of decency. He so very dearly desired to be able to strip that tanned skin off those offensive fingers that his dark, ebony eyes flashed sheer poison.
' Severus? '
' A Wizard's oath does not require your loathsome touch upon my knee, Mr. Potter! ' He intoned frostily. Pale, drawn face raising at last to offer the other man a glimpse of his unconsciously discomfited expression. The hand tightened around him for an intolerable second before finally pulling away. A wry smirk twisted the lips of the little jerk as his head shook from side to side as if in wonder. Short, spiky dark hair fell into that strong profile, obscuring the expression painting shadows in those bright green eyes from Severus's scrutiny.
' You'll swear, then? '
' I shall keep to your public story. Accept living in your home with delighted glee in front of my godchild. Respect you with bovine fervour, obey your direct orders and remain under your roof, at all times, in exchange for Draco's permanent protection from overzealous auror investigations. Is that it, Potter? '
Lily's child turned towards him then. Facing him once again and studying his own features with uncomfortable intensity. ' This deal remains a secret between us. Nothing that ever happens within the confines of it is to be discussed with any other. At any point. '
He gapped at the idiot. ' You think that I'd ever confess I'm to be your house elf of my own free will? '
There was an angry flush slowly spreading across the frustrated young features of the lauded hero. The lips opened as if to deliver some kind of scathing remark but then, at the last possible second, snapped closed once again. A tense silence reigned in the room: Heavy and tension-filled. Expectant.
' I do swear to comply with those demands, Harry James Potter! I do swear it upon... what? My magic? My Life?... What would you like exactly? '
Emerald eyes widened in what, impossibly, looked to him like dazzled disbelief settled over him. The boy blinked very slowly as his whole face turned pale. He seemed ready to bolt, for an utterly bewildering second, and then he swallowed. Shoulders determinedly squaring, as if readying himself for a fierce battle.
A wand Severus could not recognise was pulled off from it's holster and pointed at him with unwavering purpose. ' You'll swear on Malfoy's life, Professor! ' He growled so viciously that Severus felt like flinching. Only a lifetime of practice hiding his reactions kept his gaze blankly emotionless. Utterly empty of any thought. Any fear.
' I do swear, then. As a wizard: On Draco Malfoy's life, that you shall have your God-damned revenge! I'll give you the obedience, the cohabitation, the cloak and dagger secrecy and the sanctity of your public word respected, just as you've demanded of me, Potter! ' He spat the words with scornful venom. With all-pervading hatred come to life in his dark tone.
The wand glowed as the bastard held his forearm fast. Linking them together with a grip as strong as iron.
' I do accept your Wizard's Oath, Severus Snape. On Draco Malfoy's life! ' The auror intoned through some kind of utterly incomprehensible fury and, even though he narrowed his black eyes in puzzled disconcertion, he had no time at all in which to contemplate that bewildering development before the magic of the oath began to pulse.
He'd expected the unwelcome binding magic to become ferociously negative. Had prepared himself to suffer, once again, the unbearable sharpness of pain that had usually enveloped his arm, whenever he'd been stupid enough to agree to a Wizard's Oath in the past... The feeling currently cursing through his arm, though, had nothing in common with any experience he'd ever been on the receiving end of. There was unfamiliarity to the magic. Yes. But also a... Puzzlingly recognisable warmth. A touch of something that his own magic, somehow, trusted. It felt warm and... welcome. Like the long absent touch of a friend, finally returned home after a great absence... The binding itself coiled around his arm in threads of gold. Of red. Of gently pulsing white. It did not rip across his flesh with searing, ever-darkening, harshness painted in greys and blacks and purples. His eyes widened in shock as the thickening tendrils of the spell coiled and coiled around their clasped arms. Weaving them together with the kind of delicate gentleness he'd only ever read about in books that he hadn't cared to touch in a very long time: Books about oaths that pertained to other things. Gentler things. Emotions that had their opposite in hatred...
' Potter! ' The bond grew and grew and grew. It went past their clasped arms to coil around their shoulders. Constantly spreading inwards, towards their chests and heads. He felt it reach deep inside him, and it's almost... affectionate... nature made him panic. He rebelled against it with all his might, attempting to reject it, and the colours turned brighter, fiercer, stronger...
His face paled as his eyes rose to clash with the boy's and he saw the smile that curved the auror's lips in awed wonder. Terror gripped him, as he attempted to disengage himself, and was stubbornly forced to hold on by the tanned fingers of his enemy.
' Potter something is not right! ' he barked in frantic desperation. Pouring his considerable will against the bond. His head started to pound and the muscles in his arm began to experience, at last! The unendurable pain of a proper forceful oath. Sweat began to bead in his ashen forehead and a cramp, so powerful it threatened to cripple him, seized his trapped limb from wrist to shoulder.
' Severus, what are you doing? Don't fight it! '
As if through an ever-darkening tunnel, he heard that ridiculous advice and felt like crying. What was the idiotic child thinking? Didn't he realise that the nature of the spell was... corrupted...? His teeth ground in stubborn concentration as he set to repel the fiercely glowing tendrils that, now, seemed so intent on tying them together in the most threatening manner. Things would have been so much easier if the bloody Potter had bothered to help, but judging from his ridiculous advice...
' Oh, Hell...! ' he croaked weakly when he felt his mind finally give. His arm succumbed to the strength of the magic pushing against him and he felt his bones shatter. Awful pain flooded him completely. Bringing his concentration in an out of focus, to hear his own heavy breathing and the panicked screams of the young auror.
' Severus! Severus! You have to go with it, you idiot!'
-No!- he thought to himself: A savage, uncompromising rebuttal. A rejection. A resistance against the intent of the magic that surrounded him. ' No! ' he heard his breaking voice utter the thought aloud. Turn it to reality. Voicing his objection.
It was then that the magic turned violent. Ferocious in it's own determination to force him into accepting the purpose that had brought it forth. He was nothing against it. Nothing! He was a mere human being. A single, wounded wizard. He had no chance to win the battle he had picked and, as he felt the shockingly strong energy coursing through him with implacable might and realised that his traitorous body was irremediably succumbing to it, he believed, truly believed, that he had played his last foolish card and that this time... This time nothing and no one, not even Harry Potter, could save his worthless hide...