The Gilded Cage

neelix- Thanks m’dear. I wouldn’t argue with the man massaging me either, but then she gets a wee bit indignant from time to time.
Dragonfly 7- It’s not mine. It came from an Arts and Sciences research paper submitted for an SCA competition that I read. Unfortunately though the information stayed with me the research did not. I’ll see what I can find, and if I dig anything up, I’ll post a link.
wolfsoul- Silly girl. Didn’t you read this chapter months ago when you were giving me feedback? And you apologize for not leaving a review? Nutters.
cherripepsiisgod- Oh, UST is the best part. Don’t worry, status quo will eventually shift.
Hermione Snape- Cockblocking herself? I don’t think she realizes it. I wonder if she’s figured out he’s interested in her too?
catysmom- Thank you luv.
TQW- Big freakin’ brush, eh? I promise, you can smack her around later. You’ll probably want to throttle her anyway.
iamtherealmaverick- I luv Billy, and that he ate all the cookies.
le Valkyrie Snape’s got puppy-love. And you just have to read for yourself, I make no promises, I just hope you like it.
Slytherin-princess- I don’t know if coddle exists outside of Ireland. The reference was thrown in for a friend who extolled at length the virtues of the stew.
Gerti- Actually, it’s a Venti Skinny Tazo Chai – no foam. Come on, if you’re gonna be my psycho-stalker you’ve got to get these things right.
Lady Disdain- Almost human? I don’t know if that’s an insult to evil-git-Snape or a compliment to a fictional character. I’ll take it any way I can get it though.
HarryGinny4eva- You just expect them to bollocks things up at this point, dontcha? Hmm… I might have to fix things, I can’t have you anticipating my moves, now can I?
Phoenix- I know, evil cliffie. It wasn’t planned. Not originally, that’s just where the monster chp was logically split.
pittwitch- More revelations on horizon, I just hope they’re not too AU. Well, they’re just things that never appeared in canon, so I feel perfectly justified.
EleanorRigby- With a username like that you accuse me of giving YOU an ear worm? Hello pot, this is kettle. *smiles*
Snapes_Goddess- Female version of Snape, snark and all? There are worse things. I had to explain the pearl reference to someone as well, and yet you got it in one… dirty girl.
Elo- I’m off the Alcoa Hwy towards Maryville and haven’t explored Knoxville. They don’t drive around here, they play ‘Chicken’ with their vehicles. Going to Hana’s Sushi bar tonight, which is as close to exploring as I’ve gotten. Soggy place you’ve got here.
ripley- Evil. Sorry, what can I say? I’m a Slytherpuff to the core.
T Stevenson- Honey had better fess up the goods for you on V’day. Mine once bought me a bundle of balloons, and that was it. We addressed that issue real quick. He is affectionate, isn’t he? What a honey. Wikipedia can set you on Lupercalia, it’s fairly interesting stuff.
elladee- I’m just thrilled you are enjoying it, however you get your fix.


*

Chapter 30 - O Tempora, O Mores!


After a very long pregnant pause Severus spoke again, his voice even and exacting.


“I hate that wizarding children look forward to Halloween and not Samhain. I hate that proper wizarding artifacts are now being reproduced out of cheap plastic. That the three top selling broom companies make their handles out of Muggle fiberglass instead of traditional wood. That children graduate from Hogwarts knowing how to wave a wand about, but know nothing about our ways and our beliefs. And I hated being a Death Eater, but I never hated Muggles. I don’t…


Severus swallowed thickly, “I never wanted to be a Death Eater, but then I suppose I only have a wizarding holiday to blame for that.”


Hermione wrinkled her brow looking every bit like a tickle-brained Hufflepuff sitting in on a N.E.W.T. level course. “I don’t follow. I mean, what does one have to do with the other?”


Severus rolled his shoulders and Hermione could have sworn she heard a distinct popping sound. He switched feet and began to massage her other set of toes as he settled in to tell a story that probably few had ever heard. Hermione was touched by his level of candor and trust that she was allowed a peek into the life of one of the most guarded and private wizards she’d ever met.


“I suspect you assume I had teenage delusions of grandeur, and knelt before the Dark Lord out of some macabre obsession with the Dark Arts and lofty dreams of Muggle-born oppression. I’m sorry to disappoint you, my dear; I became a Death Eater because I was stupid, pure and simple. And you may quote me on that. Potter and Weasley should be pleased.


“I don’t have many complimentary things to say about the Dark Lord. Although he was wickedly funny at times. One just had to be careful when he was being ‘oh funny ha-ha’ and when he was being ‘oh funny Crucio.’ But regardless of what you may think of him and what’s been said about the man, at least when he was a man, he could throw a killer party. Malfoy never could quite out-do him, or capture the mood of them.”


“Lord Voldemort?” she stated in disbelief. “Big ugly dude? Pastey skin, no nose, and a horrible lisp? That Dark Lord? A party animal?”


“The one and the same, only we’re talking well over twenty years ago now. At the time, witches thought he was quite fetching. Back then he was like… I don’t know… he was like David Bowie and Elton John all rolled in together. Without the hair and rhinestone glasses, mind you. But it was all… cool. There were parties, and drugs, and a little mischief, occasionally some breaking and entering to mess with the Muggles, and it was all tied together with a bit of political philosophy to make it sound somehow more legitimate than a bunch of strung out groupies.


“I mean, it was the Seventies, for Merlin’s sake. That means the same thing in the wizarding world as it does in the Muggle one.”


“And the orgies?” she asked skeptically.


He shrugged, “Love-ins.” At her wide-eyed look he hastily added, “The rumors of rapes are greatly exaggerated. Willing witches have never been in short supply.”


“That still doesn’t explain how you became a Death Eater.”


“Oh yes, that. I had the good fortune of passing out at a bacchanalian styled Midsummer festival. It was all tits and spiked punch… I may have been the one to spike it; I can’t quite remember. I do remember waking up thankful someone hadn’t spelled off my eyebrows or pulled some other equally humiliating prank, only to later discover I had acquired a new tattoo. At first I was just happy it didn’t read ‘Mum’ or was some ugly tramp stamp, until it dawned on me - very slowly I might add - that I’d been branded. It was quite the common practice in those days.”


“Geez, I always imagined bizarre graveyard rituals and creepy ceremonies.”


Severus frowned, “That nonsense came later, although he always did have a flair for the dramatics -- hocus-pocus shit and all that. In those days it was quite common to get Shanghaied, as it were. It was just the inherent risk of hanging out and drinking with a bunch of disaffected Slytherin anarchists. Of course I was too stupid to believe I would be targeted. At the time I didn’t believe they’d want anything from a twitchy half-blooded train wreck.”


“And when you discovered this… tattoo, what did you do then?”


“I did what any idiot with two braincells to rub together did. I prostrated myself before him and said ‘Yes, Sir. Good Sir. May I have some more, Sir?’ Did you think there was some way to refuse? Hermione, if the Dark Lord wanted to recruit you, you were recruited.”


“Why?” she asked with a touch of awe in her voice. “I mean, why did he want you? Um, not that he wouldn’t, you know.” She pulled a face, “That didn’t come out sounding right.”


Severus chuckled, his expressive eyes filled with mirth, “Hermione, I was a Potions Master - well, Apprentice - back then. I had access to all sorts of Class A narcotics.”


“So wait, because I don’t get this. You’re telling me the early Death Eaters were just some harmless stoner groupies?”


“I never said that,” he frowned. “We were radicals back then. People were scandalized and outraged, but we weren’t as violent then. I'm not saying we were perfectly innocent. I'll never forget the night the Prewitt boys died. For a long time their deaths were the most brutal thing I had ever witnessed. And there was an awful lot of Muggle-baiting. But those nights were not as often as when he became reincarnated as Lucifer himself. Then again, everything was different in the Nineties, now wasn’t it? We were much more violent as a society than in the Seventies even without the Dark Lord. The Muggles were able to delude themselves that magic simply did not exist because homicides were up across the board.


“And that’s not how he operated anyway. Do you honestly believe the Dark Lord could engender trust and loyalty of an army through mindless torture, rape, and arson?


“Violence is unnatural; it goes against the grain of every reasonable human being. It’s a turn-off for even the darkest wizard. Perverting his faithful followers took time; a slow seduction if you will. I doubt he'd have hunted the Potters as viciously in the early days. Of course, those twisted fucks who begged to join him knowing full well the extent of his depravity were always the ones to keep your eyes on.”


“What was the Order doing during all this?”


He shrugged carelessly again, seemingly at ease in both massaging her foot and discussing murdering despots, “To be honest, we really didn’t give much thought to the Order at the time. They were merely an inconvenience, a speed bump to fun. They were a self-righteous concerned citizens’ group much like a neighborhood watch. We thought they just needed to get laid. Minerva especially. And when we caught one, well, it seemed like a sport to play with them. Of course what I couldn’t see at the time was the Dark Lord’s true aspirations and sphere of influence. It was too easy to get caught up in all the fun and mindless mayhem to bother with what was really going on. And it wasn’t like he revealed all the pieces to the puzzle to us either. In retrospect, Albus was brilliant to recognize him for what he was.


“But then I suppose that like calls to like, doesn’t it? Funny, it took me years of begging and debasing myself before the man simply because he said he was disgusted by me, before I learned how he spent his youth plotting the destruction and enslavement of Muggles.” Severus didn’t bother to hide the dry bitterness from his rasping voice, but shook his head to wipe away any poisoned thoughts about the Headmaster.


“Somehow I still have a difficult time imagining you in with the drugged out hippie crowd. You don’t seem the type.”


“Why? Because I’m wound too tight?”


“Well, yeah!” she blurted. “I mean, well… not wound tight, straight-laced maybe, but just not the sort of person to um… go to love-ins, or get involved in drugs. You seem, uh… too smart for that.”


He raising an inquiring eyebrow at her statement, knowing full well she was fishing for answers. Of course she would want an explanation; when did Hermione Granger not expect answers?


“You seem to want excuses for things, reasons I murdered Albus…” he held up his hand to hold back another one of her futile arguments that it wasn’t murder, which was no doubt on her pink pouting lips.


“Tell me Hermione, what excuse do you want to hear this time? That I had a difficult childhood, that my Mother didn’t hug me often enough? Do you want to hear how I was bullied and made an outcast even in my own House? Or how I humiliated myself for a girl who couldn’t bear to look at me even though I worshipped at her feet?


“I hated myself, Hermione. That’s something that’s never gone away. I couldn’t stand to be such a foul loathsome git, so I tried to kill myself. I let myself become weak and self indulgent. I allowed myself to lose control of my damn mind,” he sneered with such a look of disgust and self contempt that she shuddered from the force of it.


“Do not idolize me. A coward deserves no pity.” He took a brief moment to gaze far over her shoulder in the wide distance of his mind, and she could plainly read his grief. Despite his protestations, Hermione wanted to reach out for him, wrap her arms around the grown man, and rock him like a small child. Soothe his hurt.


“Hermione,” he said with a pained voice. “All I need is twenty five minutes, a size 2 cauldron, and 15 knuts worth of ingredients to make a potion that’ll blow the back of your head off. I can put your mind and body into orbit. You’ll touch the stars and taste colors that don’t exist, and when your feet finally hit the ground again, you’ll beg me with every fiber of your being to brew it again.


“I’m an addict. A recovering addict, but I’ll always be an addict. Perhaps that explains why I appear to be wound tight. You have no idea how much discipline it took to work around potions knowing all I needed was a few minutes and some spare ingredients to get stoned. I could have pocketed just a small bit of what got thrown out or destroyed on a daily basis and nobody would have been any wiser. I can’t describe to you the pain and hunger I felt every time I walked into that classroom. Even now I itch. It tends to put me a much fouler mood than the Dark Lord ever did.”


The flesh was weak and oh, so willing. Azkaban was a mixed blessing as he had no opportunity to be tempted. His drug of choice was sweet and milky and so satisfying that he had long ago stopped adding anything to his breakfast tea lest he be reminded of the siren that called to him and fall back into her arms. Severus trembled slightly beneath his robes, but years of carefully maintained discipline nearly kept Hermione from seeing. Nearly.


“I really had no idea.”


“Of course not, you silly girl! No one knew!” he seethed, his disturbingly cruel face contorted in fury. For a thundering heartbeat Hermione feared for herself; her close proximity to those terrible dark glinting eyes horrified her.


Hermione’s recoil penetrated the thick fog of rage that surrounded his vision. Realizing he was a hair’s breath away from losing his humanity, Severus took a calming moment to gain back his lost composure. Severus calmly and civilly apologized for the outburst as if he hadn’t been ready to throttle her. Hermione. His Hermione.


“I see,” she said thoughtfully, as it explained why he went flippin’ psycho over just a few harmless doses of anti-depressants. Well, maybe they weren't so harmless...


Clearing her thoughts, Hermione turned her attention back to Severus’ confession. “Though I never expected to hear this from you. Why are you telling me all this?”


“Well,” he said with a deep sigh. “You already know the truth of my humbling shame. What’s the point in keeping anything else from you now? You’ll just nag me with questions til my ears bleed anyway.” He smiled weakly as Hermione shot him a dirty look. How was he supposed to say he no longer wanted to keep it bottled up? That he finally had realized confession was good for the soul?


*


A/N:
Chapter title: O Tempora, O Mores! - Oh, the times! Oh, the morals! (Cicero)

You did get the part where I said this fic was firmly AU, didn't you? Also, I don’t know about Brit slang, but a ‘tramp stamp’ is one of those hideous tattoos that stupid chicks on spring break get, usually on the small of their backs. You know, the dolphin, mangled kanji, butterfly, or god-forbid the worst offender; the ‘meaningful’ tribal art design, which begs the question ‘And your tribe is?’ I am, unapologetically, an American writer.

Thanks for all the well wishes. No, the ice storm hasn't hit here. It's just soggy.
Kisses (and more ponies) to Christev20 for her awesome beta skills. You're mad woman!

Thank you for staying with this, even after the evil cliffie. -AV