Sonata of the Spellbound

As soon as the feast was over and the students left for bed, another had begun. A body feast. A feast of brutal sex. Three hundred witches and wizards all over Europe donned their killing cloaks and clutched the burning skulls on their forearms. Severus had barely been able to brush off the confetti before he was summoned. He could only imagine what was in store for tonight and briefly wondered if he would ever be free of the savage crimes. The meetings seemed even more frequent these past few months. Snape would return to Hogwarts, drunk and battered, and retreat to his rooms to wash the blood off his hands. He’d watch the red run down the porcelain, unable to think of anything but death, his own quite attractive in those moments.

His Death Eater robes were dramatic against the milky stones of the medieval gate. The white carnival mask was almost theatrical through the screen of his stringy black hair. The full moon lit the pathway to the East entrance, and the ballroom was already crowded with a congregation of identical masked-murderers, drinking and trying new hexes. Another villainous masquerade awaited Severus Snape.

* * *

“Well, it certainly brings new meaning to the whole… black and white and red all over jest…” Lucius Malfoy smiled drunkenly and leaned towards McNair, his greasy-faced pig of a companion.

The black and white checkerboard floor of the Malfoy ballroom was splattered with blood. The marble now glistened under the gory ooze and bits of flesh were scattered around. All in all, the surroundings of the place were nauseatingly obscene.

This was fuel for mirth among the death-eating crowd.

A metallic scent of blood was fresh against the Dark Lord’s nostrils. Malfoy’s ballroom had accommodated the festivities wonderfully. The inner circle of Death Eaters had—quite fashionably, in his opinion—raped, tortured, and killed four Muggle women.

Lucius was annoyingly drunk. His silver hair clung to his face and he slurred every other word. He made a great fool, lying haphazardly in his chair, red-faced and reckless.

Severus was silent. Alcohol did nothing for him but rouse sorrow. And so he was a brooding drunk. His eyes glazed obsidian behind his bloody mask. The ballroom chandeliers blurred until they swayed. His mind traveled involuntarily through the evening’s events, events that would surely transfer to the Pensieve later in the night. But, for now, he would not forget.

What had transpired was rotten. The Dark Lord wished to expose the black nothing that lurked within each of his miserable servants. They were demons consumed by darkness and these gore parties only served to prove this. The fouler the celebrations became, the more pleased Voldemort was. And Severus was dangerously close to believing he was the same. No matter if he was of the light. Where was this so-called light? His soul, it seemed, had forever been a void plagued by slaughter and rape.

Through his teary vision, the haunting melody of his ballad was buzzing in his head. For a moment he was back at Hogwarts, in front of the parlor grand, running his palms along the keys. The clock on the mantle was ticking unchanged, and the overwhelming emotions were flooded against the instrument, the chords created in an instant, erasing the pain for a time.

He splayed his bloody fingers on the cocktail bar, inconspicuously thrumming invisible notes as if a keyboard emerged from the wood. He imagined he was playing. He imagined to keep his sanity…

* * *

The woman tied to the wall had been sliced with barbed wire. As the only surviving rape orifice, filthy men massaging their groins crowded her. The wall behind her was adorned with her blood and the bits of her missing flesh littered the marble floor.

Lucius Malfoy had gouged her eyes out with a modified severing curse and was now violently raping her, complaining about the profusion of blood that soiled his expensive suit.

She wailed and screamed, encouraging her rapist even more. She could not cry without eyes, but Severus was sure she could smell his sour breath, and that her pain must have taken her sanity by now. When Lucius finished he turned to Severus.

“Her breathing’s slowing. You’d better hurry up and fuck her before she gets cold.” Lucius patted Severus on the shoulder. McNair could be heard close by, menacingly laughing. Severus squinted his eyes, attempting to relieve the pain in his head, knowing he had no choice in the matter. Not with Voldemort watching the whole show from the balustrade. He had to do this, just like every other time.

Separating his mind from his body, the steel toes of his leather boots clicked towards the dying woman on the wall. As he entered her he closed his eyes, careful to breathe through his mouth, so as not to make himself sick.

He wondered if the world would end, like he had so many times before. Muttering charms within his head to remain aroused, the room lurched before him. He was crying freely then, concealed by his revel mask, aware of his sexual assault and his identity as evil. Knowing the woman beneath him was dead and that there was no hope of redemption.

* * *

The Dark Lord had moved to sit and drink at the bar. Most of the festivities were dying down, and Severus noticed the two youngest followers mingling about the crowd. The first, Draco, the arrogant son of a bitch who was his favored Slytherin. The second, a girl from Durmstrang he hadn’t seen in years, and he knew she had returned for the war. He was pondering how tragic it was that children accepted the mark, when a grey hand lifted his tumbler, filling it with fresh liquor.

“My lord,” Severus acknowledged, shifting in his seat to abolish his reverie. He removed his mask to reveal his dizzy face. His expression was definitely drunk

“Severus, are you enjoying yourself?” Voldemort smiled, and Snape could swear a chill had taken over. The evil man plucked at his robe, removing something from his shoulder and distracting him. A shred of purple glitter that he clutched between his bony fingers reflected in the light of the chandelier.

“Party at Hogwarts?” His cold whisper was amused. Severus sighed.

“The Headmaster’s a queer lunatic. He might actually be good for something if he spent less time adorning the halls of the school and inhaling lemon sweets.”

The dark man laughed. “Still the same, old Dumbledore, still the same.”

“Indeed.” Snape took a swig of the brandy, clattering the tumbler on the bar top.

“It seems Malfoy’s elves have quite a mess to clean up haven’t they?” Voldemort cocked his head towards the sticky pool of gore, carelessly smiling as if it was the pile of purple confetti that had been cleared from the floor of the Great Hall.

“Mhm,” Severus mumbled.

The dark man moved closer to the professor. His eyes narrowed. “Down to business, Severus. How long until the elixir is ready?”

“M-my lord.” Snape finished his glass and straightened in his chair as much as possible. Inebriated as he was, his words made sense.

“My lord, the potion should be ready by spring. It must be stabilized, and I have yet to discover what ingredients will give it the desired effect.”

“Almighty power and endless strength.” The Dark Lord spoke the words with hunger. A gruesome glint in his eye showed his desire. Severus didn’t like it a bit and his head throbbed in pain.

“Yes my lord… All of that.”

“Excellent.”