Refuge Has Its Price

CHAPTER 3: FATE STEPS IN


Justin Finch-Fletchley sat wounded, bloodied, and slumped forward in exhaustion.


He clutched Hannah Abbott's rapidly cooling corpse tightly against his broad strong chest, tenderly rocking the body as he silently shook with barely contained sobs.


The darkly handsome, injured, wizard wept not only for the loss of his fiancée. He also wept for the loss of everything that the Wizarding World had so amazingly offered to an already privileged young Muggleborn aristocrat.


He'd been going for a Healer's apprenticeship next year. Hannah was to train as a medi-witch.


They'd been planning to open a Healer's office together upon completion of their studies in Haversack, the magical village her family came from.


Though shielded from Muggle view, Haversack was very near his family estates in Devonshire. Residing and working there, their children could have grown up knowing and being loved by both sets of grandparents, Muggle and magical alike.


From a short distance away, a sulfurous hot breeze blew aside a waft of putrid green smoke and Bellatrix Lestrange caught a glimpse of the tableau of love’s tragedy playing out.


The pair was only a short distance from where she'd blindly Apparated to escape Molly Weasley's ire and wand.


Her wandering interest was instantly caught, held, and intently focused on the young couple she did not know. The wounded dark male was tenderly cradling the dead fair-haired female, and was openly weeping, grieving for her.


He tenderly kissed the cold lips of the too-still female, and then ever so gently eased her body down onto the ground.


Something briefly flickered alive deep within Bella. She felt it, but instantly brushed aside whatever it might have been as unimportant.


Bellatrix Lestrange strode forward, insanely ignoring the curses that whizzed around her. Her twisted willow wand preceded her as she assumed full-dueling posture to fire her hex at the wounded, grime-covered, young man.


The dark-haired wizard knelt beside his fiancee in calm resignation, welcoming death.


Thanking her for cursing him. Thanking her, thinking that she'd kill him!


"Petrificus Totalus!" Bella suddenly screeched as she fired off her curse. He instantly froze, then teetered and fell over, board-stiff.


Now just why had she done that, and hadn't simply 'Avada'd him straightway? After all, he was one of the enemy.


Not any more he wasn't, not now. She licked her full red lips with greedy anticipation.


Now “They” were finally victorious.


The Dark Lord would certainly be awarding slaves and pets from among the survivors; at least those who were smart enough to accept the inevitable, and surrender, instead of choosing death.


Bella wanted to make certain that this particular male was smart enough. She wanted this handsome dark one for herself.


He had interested her.


It had been so very, very, long since Bella had been interested in anything, or anyone, except serving her Lord.


The seriously mental dark witch's garnet lips slowly curled up in an evil, satisfied, smile.

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Justin had seen Bellatrix Lestrange advancing on him across the battlefield as he was laying his dead love down. He had actually smiled wide at the vicious, darkly~mad, witch's approach.


"Thank you, my Lady," were the last words he whispered, with a blissfully peaceful smile on his aristocratic face, just before Bellatrix fired off her curse at him.


Justin welcomed death. He'd be with Hannah again, peacefully at rest, and not have to live in Voldemort's new world.


When the Muggleborn Hufflepuff hit the ground, he realized to his horror that he was still very much alive. His brain simply refused to process any more information, so it shut down.


Justin Finch-Fletchley fell gratefully unconscious.

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When Molly Weasley had fallen, Ron had gotten there almost in time to catch his mother's body. As he'd fired off that Unforgivable at Dolohov, the evil dark wizard had fled the scene like the coward he truly was.


Ronald Weasley had immediately taken off after the elite Death Eater with murder in his blue eyes.


The threat that Bellatrix had presented was no longer a problem, as she'd ran even before Dolohov had. Merlin only knew where the evilly dotty witch was, but it wasn't here, and for that small mercy Luna, Ginny and Hermione, three exhausted young witches, were duly grateful.


Ginny went down, landing on a large sharp stone, with a 'thump' that gashed both of her knees open down to the bare white bone. Closing her eyes, she threw back her head and howled out a primal scream of pure anguish at the forever loss of her mother.


It was an unholy keening of ultimate despair that erupted from the youngest of the triad of females, reverberating off the stone walls of what had once been Hogwarts.


The sound was eerily reminiscent of a banshee's wail, and it chilled the blood of all that heard it.


Her scream only drew more unwanted attention to the waves of uncontrolled, and currently uncontrollable, wild primal magic that undulated from the grieving young red-haired witch.


It even caused Lord Voldemort to turn his head and stare their way.


'Another damned Weasley!' the Dark Lord thought to his disgust, as he picked his way through the bodies piled up around him.

The Dark Lord still coveted power, even in the midst of basking in his triumph. He turned and began to approach this raw new source of unbridled magic that reverberated in shimmering waves from the redhead.

Severus saw that Snakeface's attention had been caught by three of his female former students; three that he personally knew.


He quickly fell into step slightly behind Voldemort, being careful to always walk where his Master could see him, even as he mentally cringed at the knowledge of what the schoolgirls' fates would surely be.


'Sweet Merlin, bless you! She's still alive! Now let's see if I can keep her that way,' Severus thought desperately, as he warded off another stray hex aimed at the Dark Lord's back, ducked and parried another aimed at himself, and hurried to keep pace with his Master.


Voldemort switched over to 'Levicorpus Locomotus', and no longer had to contend with an obstacle course of mangled corpses as he flew toward the trio of young witches.


Unfortunately, Severus did have to contend with littered ground as his weakened state left him enough strength for self-defense, but not the added magical reserves to call on for the luxury of flight.


He still moved like a man possessed, leaping over the body of a fallen Order member, only to have his black dragon-hide boots slide in the smoldering pile of entrails he'd landed in that oozed from a dead Death Eater.


That slip had nearly taken the Potions Master down, but he miraculously managed to keep his footing.


He kept on moving forward, all while doing his damnedest to avoid pissing Voldemort off any further. That would only serve to bring certain doom and destruction swiftly down upon them all.


Severus schooled his face into his most misanthropic mask and began to re-shuffle his thought processes.


That the Dark Lord would check his emotional state and rape his thoughts over this matter was a given, but it couldn't be helped.


'Merlin, give me the strength to keep him from going too deep,' was the only thought that flew through his mind.


He could do this.


Voldemort obviously didn't have a clue that he'd ever been disloyal. If he could only save one of the three girls, then Severus selfishly wanted it be Her.


He had already made up his mind earlier to save as many as he possibly could, and still preserve his 'cover'. Severus Snape was, after all, a true Slytherin; secrecy and self-preservation were high on his list of priorities.


Until the Potions Master could see which way the wind of change was now blowing, he would carefully bide his time and continue to play the consummate Death Eater before the Dark Lord.


Nothing less would save him; and to be in a position to save anyone else, Severus Snape bowed to the grim reality that first he had to save himself.


A painful stitch caught in his side causing him to sharply gasp, but still Severus pressed on. Only a few seconds could have possibly passed, but it seemed to the Professor that it took him an absolute eternity to catch back up to Voldemort's side.


The Dark Lord had just reached the three girls and now stood towering over them.


The odd-looking fey girl formally saluted him with her wand, knelt before him beside the already kneeling, now silent, Weasley chit, and carefully placed her wand on the ground at his feet.


She let her nonjudgmental gaze roam across the Dark Lord's reptilian visage with open curiosity, but not the usual revulsion of other witches.


That was just Luna Lovegood's normal way.


She could even find the beauty in Thestrals. Besides, she'd seen something that no one else had even noticed when Neville had killed Nagini with Godric Gryffindor's sword.


Luna had seen a tiny, softly glowing, silver-blue mist slowly drift up from the serpent's severed throat and gently whisper back into Voldemort's mouth and nostril slits while his attention had been elsewhere.


Voldemort's eyebrows would have shot into his hairline, if he'd had either, in his surprise at the pretty young witch's reaction.


A slight blush, of all things, tinged the Dark Lord's cheeks at her slow open perusal of his features, but mysteriously he somehow allowed it.


When she'd seen whatever it was that she'd been looking for, Luna confidently met Lord Voldemort's eyes and softly smiled at him.


‘Dear gods! Just how long has it been since any woman has looked at me like this? Open . . . honest . . . like I don't repulse her? Not madly, like that crazy cow Bella! But still, calm, quiet; like the idea of my very touch doesn't make her cringe away in horror?’ he thought in a moment of shocked disbelief.


Perhaps there was still a bit of humanity left within the man who'd once been the devilishly handsome Tom Riddle after all.


To his amazement, Voldemort suddenly realized that this young schoolgirl had soothed a faint masculine vanity he'd long forgotten that he'd ever had.


The Dark Lord honestly had a human frisson of pride slide down his spine from her gaze. He felt like a handsome man again within this pale young witch's eyes.


Voldemort leant forward, took her wand, and then stepping closer to the fair girl, he lifted the tip of her pointed chin with a single finger. "What's your name, child?" he purred at her, then was instantly uneasy at the amount of pleased desire he'd subconsciously felt at her look.


"Luna Lovegood, my Lord," she softly whispered, meeting his ruby stare with an openly admiring one of her own.


The Dark Lord carefully nodded, and filed her name away in a special place in his mind. This one he'd take for his own.


Her pedigree made her worthy of his notice; she was a Pureblood, after all.


Voldemort didn't believe in all of the "love clap-trap" that Dumbledore had always espoused but he'd need a Consort, a Dark Lady.


Love wouldn't be required between them, just procreative sex. Sex wasn't love, and the Dark Lord truly enjoyed sex; an abundance of sex.


His gaze shifted to the now silent and unmoving young redhead. The Master recognized the Weasley chit for just what she was: a fertile, desirable, most fuckable, although now quite probably squirrelly, Pureblood female.


Ginny Weasley had completely shut down now, pulling herself deeply into herself, since he'd approached them. Even Lord Voldemort's awesome powers of Legilimency couldn't reach into her mind from wherever it had retreated to in its savage pain.


It didn't matter. Even unhinged she'd make a fine healthy broodmare for some lucky Death Eater; one who would never question things, should his attentions ever wander elsewhere.


It was the third young witch that Voldemort now focused all of his gloating red-eyed scrutiny on.


He instantly recognized her from viewing young Harry's deepest, most forbidden, secret thoughts, and his darkest desires.


He'd bet Malfoy's last sickle that the silly Mudblood bitch hadn't even the slightest clue.


The Dark Lord smiled grimly down into her still defiant face. He'd seen the brief exchange of glances between his Potions Master and the upstart chit; she'd turned her nose up at his loyal servant!


He'd be more than happy to enlighten her about just how life stood for her now.


"Miss Hermione Granger," he began with a mocking bow. "I know who you are from watching young Potter's wet dreams."


Voldemort let his red eyes slowly rake over her as he appraised her face and body, then he sadly shook his head as if he'd found her somehow lacking in the required feminine attributes.


His lips pursed in a moue of distaste as he 'tsked', then continued, "You truly didn't know that young Harry was deeply in love with you and that he desired you as his lover; that he'd even wanted to marry you? You never saw him stepping aside, again and again, for his friend, the youngest Weasley lad? My, my, my. How . . . interesting."


A grim smile slowly stretched the Dark Lord's lips wide at her shocked, open-mouthed, expression, just before her brave Gryffindor foolhardiness kicked in.


Hermione spit at Voldemort's face but missed. She still managed to hit his robes, though.


"Crucio!" the Dark Lord screamed, pointing an infuriated wavering finger at the defiant girl.


Hermione tried desperately to hold back the scream that tore her throat raw on its exit, and attempted to stay on her feet.


One dose of the Cruciatus Curse as administered by the Dark Lord, however, had brought her humbly down on her knees within the first thirty seconds.


Hermione began drily retching as the Dark Lord suddenly released her, and the pain finally receded, only to begin convulsing on the ground with the after-effects. The inner thighs of her low-slung jeans were soaked with her piss. She hadn't been able to control her bladder while enduring such unbelievable pain.


That curse was aptly named for a reason; it was excruciating in the truest sense of the word, both mentally and physically.


Severus stepped the three steps closer to the heaving girl and snatched her wand away. He'd have snatched her to his chest and healed her right then, if he could have.


Voldemort gave him such a look, that for a long moment the Potions Master was certain that he'd blown both his cover and the whole damned situation.


'How to cover the faux pas?'


Severus schooled his features into a savagely gloating sneer and drawled, "Not such a know-it-all now, are you Mudblood?"


Hermione cut blazing amber eyes up toward her former teacher and glared her defiance at him.


'Gods! Didn't the chit realize that her certain death stood only a few feet from her? Submit, you foolish silly little girl! You brilliant, brave, foolhardy witch.'


Severus Snape hadn't as much as twitched a single facial muscle at the girl's openly displayed hostility.


Instead, he arched a single inky eyebrow up at her, and grimly smiled. Thank the gods this was the moment he felt Voldemort's heavy-handed entry into his mind.


At that very moment, in the his mind, the spirited young lioness snarling before him was dressed in her little schoolgirl's uniform, knickerless, and bent akimbo over his Headmaster's office desk.


In Severus' very visceral fantasy, the "naughty little schoolgirl" was being most thoroughly "punished" by her teacher's large "rod" of correction.


Voldemort slyly grinned, and withdrew from Severus' mind.


He'd just decided on the Potions Master's reward.

END OF CHAPTER 3


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A/N: Poor Justin. Poor Severus. Poor girls. What does fate have in store for them all?

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