Ships in the Night

Disclaimer: Mine? Nope. JKR's? Yep.

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December, 1996

'It's not uncommon, Severus, as you well know. Filius relies on young Mr MacMillan to rehearse the beginning madrigal singers. Pomona has always had one or two young helpers. And since Minerva has been Deputy Headmistress, she has used a teaching assistant to mark papers for her First and Second Years...strictly supervised, of course, but it does give her some relief. Surely one of your sixth or seventh year students could be trusted that far.'

Albus let the suggestion trail off into silence. He sighed at the irate expression on his young colleague's face, and turned to the sideboard. 'More tea, my boy?'

Severus grunted his assent and went back to grinding his molars viciously. His long body was sprawled in a fat leather armchair before the Headmaster's hearth, but he was anything but relaxed.

Interference. Meddling. Bloody Albus. As if the Headmaster had no notion of the level of control it took for him to stay in this game. As if suggesting that he couldn't handle the pressure was at all helpful. He'd damn well better pray I can handle the pressure, the manipulative bastard.

Albus smiled almost tenderly as he handed Severus a fresh cup of hot black tea. 'I won't insist, Severus. I know your privacy is essential to you. I also know how difficult it can be to delegate when your own standards are so high. But I do urge you to consider it seriously. Perhaps Mr Malfoy would be an apt choice.'

Severus almost spat out his tea. But his scowl softened into a sneer. 'Really, Albus. You're losing your touch,' he observed, settling more comfortably into his chair. 'If you want me to take Draco Malfoy on as my lackey so that I can spend more time protecting his soul, just say so. Don't pretend a concern for my welfare that is both misdirected and unwelcome. You know perfectly well that nothing would drive me round the bend faster than having a young helper underfoot.'

Albus chuckled but said nothing further on the subject. He took a long look at the wizarding chessboard laid out on the table between them. 'Ah,' he announced. 'Queen to F2. That's checkmate.'

The queen raised her tiny sword in both hands and, howling like a berserker, rushed upon the fleeing black king. Severus snatched up his king before the enemy queen overtook him, depositing him in the vinewood box. The little king leaned over the top of the open box and made a series of very rude gestures at the queen with his hands and tongue. She slashed at the air with her sword, shook her fist, and generally pantomimed 'You are SO DEAD!' to her saucy foe.

Severus smiled grimly. 'Thank you, at least, for not letting me win. There's only so much jollying along I can endure.' He began to put the rest of his pieces back in the box.

'Really, Severus?' The headmaster looked at him over the tops of his half-moon spectacles, eyes twinkling. 'I shouldn't have thought you could endure any jollying whatsoever. I'm glad to hear you might not mind a very little bit of it.'

The younger man unfolded himself from his chair with fluid grace. 'Quite. Thank you for the game, Albus. I'll just go along to my rooms now. I have a number of papers to mark tonight.'

He glided to the door and, as it closed, Albus heard the clunk of the staircase beginning to move.

The old wizard put the white chess pieces in the box and closed the lid, blocking out the sound of the melee that instantly broke out between the losing and winning sides. He watched the fire in silence for a few minutes, and in due course it flared green and Minerva McGonagall stepped through it onto the hearthrug.

Minerva looked keenly around the room, and when she had satisfied herself that they were alone, she lowered herself into the chair Severus had vacated.

'How did it go?' she asked.

Albus smiled and reached out for her hand, clasping it in his on top of the chessboard. 'Oh, perfectly well, I trust. I planted the seed, then proceeded to dig it up. He thinks it was a clumsy scheme to get him to keep a closer eye on Draco Malfoy. Now that he believes he's spotted the manipulation, perhaps he will actually take in the suggestion and get some help.'

Minerva pursed her lips. 'I hope so. He is spread so very, very thin. Surely it would not kill him to accept assistance from a student? He doesn't hate them all. Perhaps Mr Nott? He's quite intelligent, and he's in Severus's House.'

The Headmaster shook his head. 'I agree that Theodore Nott would be a fine choice. But if Severus is to ask for help, it will have to be on his own terms, Minerva. I've done what I can.' He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles, smiling into her eyes with affection.

'Tea, my dear?'

* * *

As the stone staircase deposited him at the door behind the gargoyle's back, Severus pulled his watch from his pocket and illuminated its face with his wand. As always, he found it a bit absurd that he should have to check the time after having just left a room full of clocks. But each of the headmaster's clocks displayed a different time. Albus's collection was more in the nature of an art installation...no doubt the older wizard intended it as a reminder of the arbitrariness of clock time, the fleeting nature of human life, the primacy of the Now, or some such rubbish.

Curfew had already fallen, and the corridors were quiet and dim. Severus had long liked this time of day best. It was still early enough for him to feel wide awake, but late enough that all the brats were below the hatches, taking their noise and their puerile dramas with them. Between ten and midnight, Hogwarts felt most welcoming to him.

He eased open a heavy oak door at the end of the corridor and started down the staircase he found there. Two flights down, he stopped on a broad landing. A pair of mullioned windows were set in the wall here, sharing a single deep ledge.

Severus sat, swinging his legs up onto the ledge and setting his shoulders against the cold stone. The windows to his left looked out over the main courtyard, but iced-over condensation made the panes opaque. He swept his wand down from his lips to his chest and murmured 'Expedio.' He reached into his pocket for a packet of cigarettes and shook one out; lit it; took a deep drag; leaned his head back; closed his eyes; blew out the smoke.

How many times had he and Lily sat here during their fifth year, leaning against opposite sides of the embrasure, bent knees intermingled at the centre of the ledge, books propped in laps? Often they passed a cigarette back and forth in the filtered sunlight. It was the closest he ever came to kissing her...closing his lips around the cigarette that had just left her mouth. Fifteen-year-old Severus had been quite proud of the spell he'd invented that allowed them to smoke without dulling their senses of taste and smell.

This had been his corner of heaven, for a time. And it was one spot in the castle that still contained only good memories for him. Mostly because I never came across her snogging Potter here, thank fuck. Which was more than he could say about several dozen other places around the castle and grounds. Those two were always at it, seventh year.

The sound of a door opening echoed in the stairwell, and in a moment he could hear voices floating down from the floor above. Ah, yes, a patrol. Not all the children were snuggled away. He cast cloaking and air-purifying spells around his little nook, and took another drag on his cigarette. He'd be damned if he'd let a pair of prefects chase him out before he'd finished his smoke.

'It's stronger in the stairwell, Ernie...can you smell it now?' said a girl's voice. 'Someone's been smoking in here.'

The two sixth years, lit wands held aloft, traipsed down the stairs onto the landing. Ernie MacMillan and Susan Bones. Holding bloody hands.

'You're right,' said the boy. 'But whoever it was is gone now.' He drew the girl towards him, arms wrapping around her waist. 'It's just us.'

She melted, smiling into his mouth as he bent to kiss her.

Merlin's short and curlies, SPARE me. Severus moved his wand in a tight, spiky pattern, and a veil of frigid air drifted over the oblivious Hufflepuff pups.

Bones broke away, shuddering. 'Gah! Did the castle just turn inside out? It's freezing!'

'That is quite a draft,' MacMillan declared. 'Let's get back into the corridors and see if we can't find that smoker.' He tucked his girl's arm under his own and the two of them clattered down the stairs and out into the third floor corridor.

Severus cast a warming spell around himself and tapped his ash negligently onto the floor. He rubbed his thumb against a rimed windowpane and peered through it at the dark greys and blacks of the winter night.

* * *

By the time the last moronic essay was marked, Severus's eyes had the gritty itch of over-tiredness. He looked at his watch; quarter past three. He scraped back his chair and rose, stretching. As he reached out to extinguish the lamp, pins and needles pricked along his left forearm before exploding into the urgent pain of a summons. Perfect timing, as ever, he thought dryly, even as he clutched at his burning flesh.

Jaws clenched, Severus stepped over to a shallow, ceiling-high cabinet. He extracted two vials of Pepperup Potion and downed them quickly, hating the necessity. Thus fortified, he unlocked a drawer and, reaching into it, began to fill a narrow wooden box with bottles, pots, and sachets.

Among his many uses, Severus Snape was the Dark Lord's personal apothecary. He had developed any number of potions, powders, and unguents to help maintain Voldemort's physical strength. The Dark magic coursing through Tom Riddle's distorted body was very damaging to soft tissues, and the Dark Lord's kidneys, liver, and skin especially needed constant upkeep. He would be in need of some refills.

Severus's winter cloak flapped about him as he strode down to the Apparition point outside the school gates...though with the adrenaline rocketing through his system, he hardly felt the cold. He turned on the spot, fixing his mind on Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange's house.

There had been a Death Eater meeting tonight at the Lestranges', where the Dark Lord was currently residing. Voldemort had excused Severus from attending, on account of his prior engagement with Albus Dumbledore. 'We can't let your other master grow jealous of your time, can we, Severus? Lucius can tell you later if there's anything you need to know.'

This was part of the Dark Lord's game...singling him out for favour and distancing him at the same time. When he made a showy point of excusing him so he could dance attendance on his other master, he underlined their mutual awareness that Severus was a double agent and that his loyalty would always be in question. When he told Severus dismissively that Lucius would fill him in, the subtext was that Lucius was poised to be his right-hand man, and that Severus was losing status and access.

This was absolute shite, of course, and they both knew it. Unless and until his betrayal was detected, Severus' position as Voldemort's inside man at Hogwarts was unassailable. No other Death Eater could ever get as close to Dumbledore, or to Potter...whatever the Dark Lord might lead the Malfoys to hope.

Voldemort managed all his followers with this kind of pushing and pulling, and in most cases it was exceedingly effective. He constantly kept each of them feeling on the edge of utter disgrace and destruction on one hand and ultimate power and pleasure on the other. Pitting the Death Eaters against one another, playing their weaknesses, granting and denying them favours and mercies...these manipulations came as easily to the Dark Lord as breathing. Easier actually, given the current state of his lungs.

The Lestranges' Apparition chamber was dark and deserted. Now that Severus had answered its call, the pain of the Dark Mark on his forearm had subsided considerably. He made his way towards the library. The whole house was quiet. Severus deduced that whatever scenes of ecstasy and cruelty had unfolded during and after the meeting were mostly played out. He knew bedrooms and dungeons would contain the spent bodies of Death Eaters and their victims or accomplices.

The Dark Lord used these meetings both to demonstrate his own power over his Death Eaters...someone was always punished for something...and to give them a taste of what the world would be for them when they were victorious. It would be a world where they could indulge whatever intoxicating desires they wished, whenever and wherever they wished.

Severus knew now his own attendance at the meeting had only been deferred. He would soon discover whether Voldemort planned pleasure or suffering for him tonight.

Fireglow lit the planes of the Dark Lord's skeletal face. He was at ease in a high backed chair before the hearth, Bellatrix crouched beside him on the floor like a favourite hound. Voldemort's left hand was entwined in her wild black hair, and her expression looked drugged, her mad eyes heavy-lidded and a slack smile curving her beautiful mouth. Clearly Bella has been a good girl, thought Severus acidly. He laid the box of potions on a table and fell to his knees.

'Severus, my boy. So good of you to join us,' hissed the Dark Lord. 'I trust your evening was not too demoralising. We missed you.'

'My lord,' murmured Severus, kissing the hem of Voldemort's robes. 'You know I would have been here had you desired it. Tea and chess with the Headmaster was, if not demoralising, certainly tedious.' He tilted his face to let his master gaze into his eyes, offering up scenes from his recent conversation with Dumbledore.

'How touching,' smiled the Dark Lord. 'And would you not like a little friend to play with, to ease your troubles, Severus?'

Voldemort lifted his hand from Bellatrix's head and grasped Severus's left arm, pushing the sleeves of robes and shirt up to reveal the Dark Mark. He touched the tip of his wand to Severus's skin, and green light pulsed around the outlines of the skull and snake.

Severus sagged down to the floor. So it was to be pleasure for him, tonight.

Surges of heat engulfed his body. His brain fired with the most delectable images and sensations. Soft, pale skin flushed at his touch, lush lips parted to him, urgent hands buried themselves in his robes, begging him, needing him... 'Fuck me now, Severus. I want you,' she moaned. It felt, tasted, sounded so real... his heart's desire...

Mine, he triumphed inwardly, panting as his climax neared. Mine, she's mine at last.

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A/N: Love and gratitude to greenstuff and lifeasanamazon for all your excellent advice and encouragement.

'Expedio' is Latin for 'clarify'...it's Severus's spell for smoking.