For all Joy wants Eternity

For all Joy wants Eternity

Chapter 6


"Ravenclaw!"

Slowly, Severus raised his hands to reservedly join the
applause that followed the Sorting Hat's call. A blonde
girl, beaming, ran over to the frantically cheering
Ravenclaw table and was welcomed by innumerable
Hands that reached out to squeeze her own or to clap
her shoulders. She had been the last of this term’s
First Years’ to be sorted, and when Minerva went tthe the right side of the Great Hall to carry away the Sorting
Hat, the Slytherin heard a chair being pushed back, and
then Albus's warm voice officially opening the feast - and
thus the new school year as well.

Severus greatly appreciated the fact that the Headmaster
had stuck to the Hogwarts rituals, including the
traditional banquet at the beginning of the school year.
There had been voices that had demanded a less cheerful
start into the term, as during the summer, the first noticeable
effects of the Dark Lord's return had taken place. The spy
clearly remembered the violent shock wave that had ripped
through the magical community when at the beginning of
August, the first victims had vanished from their midst, not
to return thus far, nor would they ever, nor had they
remained the only ones to disappear. So far, one witch and
three wizards had fallen victim to the Dark Lord, and still,
the Ministry was dwelling on pathetic attempts to set the
growing fears to rest. Still, a great part of the wizarding
community refused to see the truth and readily fell for all
the twisted explanations Fudge and his subalterns came
up with. And yet, even though only a minority was
courageous enough to face the horrible reality of the
Dark Lord's return to power, there seemed to be
something like a common, instinctive trust among most
wizards and witches in Dumbledore and the safety of
Hogwarts. Even though the Headmaster had repeatedly
and officially voiced his still uncommon - or rather
unwanted - confirmation that Voldemort had returned at
the end of the previous term, there hadn't been a single
pair of parents that would not have sent their child or
children back to Hogwarts this fall. Severus was quite
positive that deep inside they all already knew, although
the desperate hope for all this not to be true still kept
them from rationally accepting what their intuition already
had. This hidden knowledge was the reason why they
wanted their children to be in the safest place they could
ever be. Why they wanted them to be at Hogwarts,
especially now. Why they wanted them to be exactly where
Albus Dumbledore was, whether their sons and daughters
were in Hufflepuff, or Ravenclaw, or Gryffindor, or...

Involuntarily, the spy's gaze was drawn to the
Slytherin table. To his house. His house in so many
aspects...It had embraced him during his youth, during
the few years of mindlessness, before it had become
witness to his discontent, his inner struggles,
his disruption and momentous decisions. It had been
shelter to him afterwards, when he had been sure that
he was not able to deal with working for both sides
anymore, when the rejection had become unbearable,
when there had been nothing he had wanted more than
to shed his skin like the green and silver Serpent that
had helped him tremendously to deal with such times
of desperation

But Slytherin was also his responsibility. He was
responsible for every single one of those young
faces. He was responsible to the wizarding world. It
was his self-imposed duty, a deliberately chosen
additional struggle he had to fight and which he must
not lose. As he must not lose any of the combats he was
caught in, even though he knew that he was fighting
a losing battle here, as he did at all of the fronts he
was striving at in this desperate war. How was he
supposed to succeed against the doom of self-fulfilling
prophecy? How could he ever defeat the far-reaching
designs of the older Malfoys, Crabbes and Goyles?
How could he make those proud and self-assured
children see the abysses the Dark had in store for
them? How could he encourage them to open their
eyes to the alternatives, if those who were endangered
most were sure that their Head of House was on
Voldemort's side anyway?

Their Head of House, who didn't know himself for how
much longer he would be able to keep up the charade
that he had got himself into. Severus knew that the
summer months just past had been only a foretaste of
what was yet to come, and still, it had taken all of his
determination so far to let him keep up with the
demands of the Order's meetings, the time with
Voldemort and his Death Eaters, the time with
Voldemort alone, the hours of despair, the minutes of
fear, the moments of doubt...

Time had become a kind of fifth element for him. For
Severus, it wasn't only earth, wind, fire and water
anymore that gave birth to all that existed. His own
existence was evidence for that, now that it was
affected and shaped by time more than by anything
else. He counted the minutes he had to spend with
Dumbledore, minutes during which he could receive
the Dark Lord's call, minutes that could keep him from
arriving in time at Voldemort's side, minutes that
would provoke the Dark Lord's rage and that could
mean punishment, and pain. If the spy had been
aware of it, his unconscious need and urge to follow
Voldemort's calls as quickly as possible would have
frightened and shocked him, just as his secret wish to
unlimitedly extend every Death Eater's meeting would
have. The time he spent under the mask now
represented the most precious reprieve of all, before
hell would open again and the devil himself would rise
to take him for hours. Hours that became days, and
weeks, and months. Months that would turn into years.
Years that would grow to become decades. Decades
that would last forever...

Severus called his annoyingly disobedient brain to
order and leaned back in his chair. Try as he might, it
became more difficult with every day to follow his own
instructions and let the ritual and all its consequences
rest untouched somewhere in the back of his head.
His weariness that grew stronger all the time allowed
the despair and fear that were connected with the
three symbols on his chest to seep into his
consciousness and poison his thoughts much too often.
And with the beginning of the school year, now that his
life of being a doublent ent and physical slave to
Voldemort would be hampered even more by the duties
of teaching and leading Slytherin House, his mental
shields against the reality of the ritual would soon be
nothing but a pathetic, hole-riddled sieve.

It had been this damned summer. This summer, which
had almost been too much for him. Expectations too
high, too much tactical manoeuvring, too much unbearable
helplessness, too many painful accusations. It hadn't
just been Dumbledore expecting him to deliver useful
information or the fact that he had been forced to
witness the torture and death of four persons so far,
without being able to prevent *anything*. No, those were
aspects of being a spy that he would somehow learn to
deal with again. He had already done so when he had
first worked as a double agent after all. But now, he
also had to decide what he could tell the Dark Lord
about Albus's activities without raising suspicion of
concealing something, but without causing harm beyond
repair to the Order's case at the same time. Since he
now attended the Order's meetings as well, he had been
exposed to the silent and maybe unconscious reproaches,
contempt and rejection the other members of the Order
felt for the one they knew had passively watched the
killing of innocent witches and wizards. For the one who
had to submit and give his body over and over again. Who
had to surrender to the only mn thn the world who was
now able to touch Severus without sending him into
millions of boiling pieces. Into the fragments of glittering ice,
which that bright flash of painless violence always
smashed his consciousness into, as soon as he felt
anyone else's body encounter his own.

But quite fortunately, this was something nobody knew
about so far. And Severus was dead-determined to keep
it that way.

The spy knew that he was not able to entirely prevent
the changes in his life from showing. He felt that this
summer had taken years away from him, and the few times
he accidentally happened to look into a mirror confirmed
this suspicion. On the other hand, it wasn't too difficult to
blame the deepening lines at his mouth's sides, the
sunken eyes, bloodless lips and cavernous cheeks on
nothing but physical and mental exhaustion. And even
though Severus was very aware of Albus’s ever-growing
concern and unerring intuition that something was not
right *at all* with his spy, as clearly as he noticed
Minerva's sharp eyes that never quite left him as soon
as they were in the same room together, he knew that
only his telling would reveal his secret.

And he would rather die than do so.

There was one person, though, who was not fooled that
easily.

Even though Severus had no definite idea what it was
that the werewolf knew, it was more than clear that Lupin
was aware of a lot more than would suit the Slytherin.
They hadn't really talked again since the incident with
the mask at the beginning of summer, but it had not
been possible to entirely avoid the shape-shifter either.
During the holidays, they had met every day for the
meals that the remaining staff had taken together in the
Great Hall as usual, and the increasing number of
meetings of the Order had additionally contributed to
their seeing each other probably more often than they
had when Lupin still had been teacher at Hogwarts. And
since Severus had agreed to concoct the Wolfsbane
Potion again whenever necessary (just as it would be
tonight), there really hadn't been the slightest chance
to not see the werewolf on a regular basising ing
summer.

But now that school had started again, Lupin and
Black would need to be much more careful not to be
discovered than had been necessary without any
students in the castle. So facing the werewolf and
his probing gaze would only happen at the Order's
meetings, or when he had to deliver his potion, and
this was a remarkable improvement of the situation!
Severus knew that Lupin wanted to talk about certain
things he, Severus, was not willing to even think about.
It still was a mystery to the spy why the werewolf had
thought him to be somebody else when they had met
for the first time in a year in the Shrieking Shack,
shortly after the beginning of the summer holidays, and
he also wondered what Lupin had seen or perceived
the day after, when he had shown up at his door to
hand over the mask he had found. But Severus had
been able to tell from the shape-shifter’s horrified eyes
that his sharp and subtle senses had scented
something that Voldemort's ritual must have left upon
the body that he, the Dark Lord, now possessed.
Something that the spy didn't want to know about. He
knew all that was necessary by now…he had no
intention at all to go into the details of what had
happened to him. During their unequal fight in the
Shrieking Shack, Lupin had already managed to reveal,
although totally unintentionally, what it would mean
from now on if someone r thr than the Dark Lord
touched the twice-marked and claimed Slytherin.
Severus had no desire at all to come to know more
and less still should it be from the werewolf. Lupin
had told him enough. More than enough.

It was almost alarming anyway to think about the
immensely meaningful role the shape-shifter had so
far played in the spy's life. Aside from Voldemort
himself, the werewolf had been the only man who had
managed to teach him about true fear, and he had
done so *twice*. And even though Severus knew that
Lupin was not to blame for the first, nor for the second
time, the angst that had always been part of the
feelings that awoke inside him when he thought of
the werewolf had increased remarkably this summer.
He would never forget about the night that he had first
stumbled through the tunnel beneath the Whomping
Willow as a school boy, nor when he had done so only
a few months ago. Both times driven by purest panic
and fear for his life. Both times caused by Remus Lupin.
The first time because he had seen, the second time
because he had touched, him.

So far, this man, who had left his marks upon his life
as only very few others had, had meant nothing but
hurt.
As too many others had...

"Some mashed potatoes, Severus?"

The spy didn't even look up.

"I'm not hungry at all, Professor Fletcher."

Obviously, neither the negative answer nor the
Slytherin's more than exasperated voice seemed
to put his left neighbour at table off. Unfortunately.
Mundungus Fletcher, new teacher of Defence against
the Dark Arts this school year, went on as cheerfully
as he had begun the conversation.

"Really, Severus, if I remember correctly, you've been
among those who have strongly recommended the
annual opening feast to take place. And now you're
simply missing out on all of the magnificent food?
You can't be serious!"

It was only then, exactly at this moment, that
Minerva leaned forward to ask for the potatoes,
and thus kept Severus from getting rid of the acid
retort that had been waiting on the tip of his tongue,
more than ready to be voiced. Forcing himself to
calm down and remember that it would *not* do to
spoil the opening feast by losing control, the spy
took a very deep, deliberate breath and tried to
relax - something that had always been a rather
difficult task for him. With the events of the summer
gnawing at his mind and soul, it was impossible.

The aggressive irritation he felt continued building
during the rest of the banquet. When Dumbledore got
up to address the students with a short, but impressive
speech about the demands and likely dangers of the
school year they were facing, the petulant uneasiness
that had taken hold of Severus had become physical, a
maddening prickling crawling through his veins; and by
the time Albus dismissed the students to their common
rooms, the Slytherin's muscles were twitching and
ticcing, pressing against the pall of burning, itching skin
from the inside. He owed it only to his iron will that he
managed to remain on his seat until the last student
had left the Great Hall; and nothing but his invincible
pride made him take his own leave with almost the
same degree of dignity and arrogance he usually
displayed, instead of simply jumping up from his chair
and *running* down to the dungeons. He certainly felt a
most absurd urge to do exactly that! To kick the suits
of armour that he passed, to tear down at least one of
those unnervingly grinning portraits, to yell at *anybody*,
to smash anything into countless pieces...

If he had thought that moving through the cool air of
the castle’s corridors would help, he had been wrong.
Only when he had slammed the door shut behind him,
coming to a halt in the middle of the room, surrounded
by steaming, gurgling flasks, familiar cauldrons, vials,
bottles and the smells he knew so well and realized that
he had already begun to work with abrupt and violent
movements at the potion that he would have to deliver
tonight to grant the werewolf a painless full moon, did
he start again to think properly. The awareness that
the mood he was in now was anything but a promising
precondition either to dependably concocting the complex
potion or to dealing with meeting Lupin later slowly
prevailed against the swirling haze of anger. With a sigh,
Severus let go of the roots he had just started to chop,
put away the knife and, after a brief appraisal,
left the laboratory again. And the dungeons. And
the castle.

He had lost about half an hour when he closed the door
to his laboratory behind him for the second time this
evening. Half an hour that he had spent walking down to
his secret place by the lake and watching the dark, velvety
surface of the waters, so very soothing in the constant
recurrence of their gentle movements. Half an hour, after
which he now finally felt ready to deal with the demanding
task of brewing a correct Wolfsbane Potion. Half an hour
that had been worth spending in the attempt to regain
control of his emotions. Half an hour that would hurt no
one.

If he had only known how *very* wrong he was about
that!


--------------------------------------------------------


The sudden pain in his left forearm made his hand stop
moving in midair. Five fingers clenched around nothing
as he swallowed hard so as not have to scream during
the first, and always worst, blaze of the bright,
summoning fire that the Dark Mark had burst into.

No!
Oh no, not now! For the Sirens' sweet voices, not
now...

Instinctively, his right hand took on the task his left
was unable to do anymore remoremoved the cauldron
from the fire. Severus absent-mindedly registered the
boiling liquid inside of it, saw how the bubbles it
formed became smaller and smaller, just as they
were supposed to, while dark thoughts raced behind
his dark eyes.

He wasn't finished yet! The Wolfsbane needed to cool
down for another five minutes, and then to be stirred
for the same length of time again. Otherwise it would be
effect- and thus worth- less. But that meant ten more
minutes. Ten minutes he didn't have! A delay of ten
minutes he couldn't afford! Not to think about the time
it would take to get the potion to Lupin's quarters in the
East Tower...No, it was impossible; he wouldn't be
able to do it and make it to the Death Eater's meeting
on time as well. Impossible, simply impossible,
impossible...

The Slytherin tried to force his brain back to working
coherently. There had to be a way to get out of this.
He knew there was one.

Hadn't the werewolf been assigned to those rooms in
the highest floor of the rarely used Tower because
Dumbledore wanted to keep history from repeating
itself - and because of emergencies exactly like this?
To make sure that Lupin would have no chance to
endanger anyone again if, for whatever reasons, he
was unable to take the Wolfsbane Potion? This
was why those quarters had been chosen: because of
the heavily trellised and very high windows. This
was why the room's door locked itself with some of
the strongest magical wards known to the wizarding
world with the rise of the full moon; this was why
soundproofing spells had been put up and why Black
spent all the full-moon nights with his werewolf friend
up there, in his Animagus form.

The Wolfsbane wasn't vital to disarm the wolf in Remus
Lupin. Not this time. Dumbledore had seen to it.
Severus pulled himself together. So what was he waiting
for? Why was he still standing here? The only thing that
was more important than to not provoke the Dark Lord's
rage by being late was not at stake! So why, in
Slytherin's name, wasn't he already on his way to
prepare for the meeting, if the safety of the castle did
*not* depend on him?

Because Lupin's only chance to avoid suffering did.

Severus could not believe that this particular thought
had just crossed his mind.

Now, that was simply ridiculous. No, it was worse! He
lacked the scruples to look after his own entirety first,
because Lupin would have to spend some moments of
pain if he did so, right? How soft had he gone during this
summer? So the werewolf would have to do without his
potion for once - so what? He had done so for a year
now and he had survived without it before he had come
to Hogwarts as a teacher, so what was the point?

That Lupin had been forced to endure those times
without the Wolfsbane because there had been no one
who would have been able to concoct it for him.

But now there was.

The Slytherin closed his eyes in mental agony,
unable to believe that it was as simple as that, that it all
really did come down to *this*. Could it indeed be about
nothing else but the question whether he was ready to
finish the potion that was still cooling on the table in front
of him or not? Was it really a simple choice between the
consequences that would embrace pain and horror in
any case, no matter which way he'd chose to proceed
from here? Had he truly just to decide which of them,
Lupin or himself, he preferred to hand over to suffering
tonight?

With a raw cry that vibrated with fierce frustration and
blind rage about the painfully hopeless situation he was
in, Severus grabbed the first thing close enough to hand
and smashed it into the closed door with all the violence
and force his helpless anger came up with. Watching the
small bottle erupting into a fountain of glass droplets
that rained down to the floor in a glittering cloud, he took
one hissing breath - and turning around to the table,
ignoring the still forceful flames burning his left forearm,
reached for the ladle that laid to the left of the still
steaming cauldron.


--------------------------------------------------------


It was Black who opened the not yet spell-locked
door to him exactly seven minutes later.

Two scornful glances, the one as cold and forbidding
as the other, collided in mid-air and wedged against
one another. The air between them was shivering with
aggression from the first moment of their confrontation –
obviously, Severus hadn't been the only one consumed
with irritability this evening. And maybe only the fact
that Remus Lupin showed up immediately after Black had
opened the door kept the Animagus from doing more than
growling "You're late!" in Severus's direction.

As far as the spy was concerned, he had no interest at
all in getting involved in a time-consuming fight with either
the dog or the wolf. The pain of the Dark Mark's call had
been renewed just moments ago, a clear sign that
Voldemort had grown more than merely impatient by now.
Ignoring Black, he turned towards Lupin, holding out the
already familiar mug to him.

He was greeted by two questioning, worried eyes.
Cursing the werewolf's sensitive perception in all the
tongues that he knew, Severus steeled himself against
the profound concern he could read in Lupin's gaze.

"It's a little more than usual, Lupin. You know you
should drink it while it's still warm, so don't waste any
time. Tonight, I...there won't be the possibility of getting a
second helping tonight, so try for once not to spill
anything and better drink all of it, just to be on the safe
side."

Another sharp rip of pain in his arm. Another flash of
sympathy from the werewolf, who was gently taking
the mug from his hand, hit him almost simultaneously.

"What's wrong with you, Snape, added miserliness to all
those lovely attributes of your benevolent being?"

Severus wasn't able to return Black's gibe; the pain
went on and on and forced his teeth down onto his lower
lip. Oh yes, it was time to go; it was more than past time
actually...

The werewolf's compassionate voice.

"Thank you, Severus."

"Not at all, Lupin."

The almost traditional dialogue that always ended the
potion's handing-over between them escorted Severus back
down to the dungeons on his way to his quarters, to the
hidden closet, to the meeting for which he would be much
too late. He tried very hard not to think about the punishment
that he knew the Dark Lord would have in store for him.