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DEATH EATERS AT THE MALFOY ESTATE
Episode 4: Brimstone Bridges Everywhere, Part DUCE!
“Hrm-hrm,” Myra said, clearing her throat into her fist. She and the girl were in a small, cold stone room so the sound echoed - this was the cool potions storage unit underneath the labs. Barty had all but lost his virginity to Lucius there. Myra exhaled and offered the pipe to Kid. “Want another hit?”
“No no, I’m really quite fine,” Kid replied. “More than enough for this little foray into the world of cannabis, I believe. I used to be so uptight, you wouldn’t believe it. If my parents knew they’d just drop their dental records.” She giggled.
“C’mon.” Myra shook the pipe at her.
“No, really. I’m fine.” Kid hiccuped and giggled.
Myra took another hit and rubbed her eyes underneath her glasses. “Okay, so, what were we talking about?”
Kid was rocking back and forth slightly, her arms crossed at her waist. “Your glasses are thick. What prescription are they?”
“What? These glasses? Oh, they’re like fuck-me-I’m-fuckng-blind, fuck..”
Kid considered this for a moment then nervously smiled. “Is that worse than ‘Hey, where’d everybody go?’”
“’Hey where’s everybody go’ is...is.....” Myra;s voice drifted off. “...is, like....worse.”
Kid nodded. She rubbed her upper arms and shivered. “Why don’t you have them fixed? Your eyes. I was thinking of having my front teeth done.”
“They are pretty obnoxious.”
“I know,” Kid said lowly. “I can’t even...it’s to the point where, in my everyday life, I’m incapable of even considering them. If I think about it I get, just...completely depressed and down on myself. I mean it greatly depresses me right now even to think about them.”
“Eyya hey, calm down. We all have...things.” Myra waved her hand sleepily.
“Oh, I know that. To each our own problems. You see, I’m smarter than everyone, that's my problem.” She sighed. “So what about your glasses? Why don’t you have your vision corrected?”
Myra shrugged. “Sentimental reasons. My parents where Muggles, kid.” She took off her glasses and twirled them around her finger.
“What does that have to do with it?”
“It means...these are kind of...Jesus, this is so stupid. You’re right, I should get rid of them.” She started to get up. “L:et’s go look in the book for a good ocular medwiz.”
Kid grabbed Myra’s arm. “No no. Tell me.”
“It’s boring.”
“If you’re a...a mudblood, how did you get to be a Death eater?”
“Jesus, would you mind your own bloody business! Jesus! You little snoop, I should turn you over to my bosses just to get you out of my hair.”
Kid looked uncomfortable. “I’m sorry.We don’t have to talk about it. It’s probably a long story and we have-”
“I killed a lot of people.”
Kid hesitated, swallowed. “That’s... not boring.”
“No,” Myra said. Her eyes were locked on the girls yet glaring through her. In the splotchy light of the cellar it appeared as if they were about to water. “It’s not.”
There was a brief, -little-too-intense-for-DEAT moment. Then Kid blinked. “Do you remember the name of the potion we were looking for?”
“Oh! Right, that’s why we’re down here. Um..Finore’s Breath, right? Isn’t what you said?”
She winked. “It’s what, from my modern Potions knowledge, I was able to deduce.”
“God,” Myra said as she scanned labels. “People are going to be calling 1993 ‘modern’ some day. That’s such a trip.”
Kid smiled. “I was born in 1980.”
Myra gasped, waved her hands, and mouthed “SO WEIRD.”
The Kid smiled. “Yes, here it is...Eye of Newt and distilled horse vinegar,” she said. “Both things you can get at any corner supply, mixed together with the proper sulfates...” She paused for a moment, then looked at Myra. “You know, I’m having some moral qualms about helping you invent what may be the most addictive drug in the history of man.”
“Is it? What’s it called?”
“Self-replicating diamorphine,” she said. “Known in the history books as Super-Stunner.”
“Oh. Oh dear God,” Myra whispered, nearly sliding off the green couch. She and the Kid had set up shop two hours ago, and Myra had just sampled the first batch.
It was good.
It was really fucking good.
“So, uh...how do you feel?” Kid was wringing her hands.
“Like the universe just bought me diamonds,” she replied, writhing. “Oh, this is unREAL.”
“Are you um...going to be all right?”
“I’m gonna be fiiiiiiiiine,” Myra replied.
“Well um..you know how this works, right? Why it’s called self-replicating diamorphine? Right now it’s in your bloodstream, bonding with your red blood cells to make more and more of itself, kind of like a virus. It’ll hit a peak in about six hours and you’ll fall asleep, but if you take more you could die.”
“Ohhhhooo...I don’t think I could...take more of this...ooh.....” Myra panted and ran her hands through her hair. “Oh dear god. Hmmm.” She crossed her arms over her chest and fell back on the couch, purring.
Kid crossed her arms and sighed. “Well, if you’re all well and good, I believe I’ll be on my way.”
“Hmm,” Myra replied. “Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
“I’ll be careful,” she replied, and left.
About ten minutes later it occurred to Myra that she had no idea where Kid had gone. It occurred to her also that this was potentially bad. When the first full-body orgasm ripped through her nothing occurred to her at all.
Kid padded silently along the halls of what she didn’t know what Malfoy Manor in a barely contained panic. All she did know what that she was in some huge place rife with Death Eaters, that Voldemort himself was somewhere on the premises, and all she had to protect herself was her wand, two and a half years of magical training, and a broken Time Turner.
Someone was coming down the hall. She quickly hopped into a shadow behind a sculpture. All the shadows in the place were dark, inky, and good at concealing things. She crouched down and peeked out.
A tall, thin figure strode down the hall, leaving a trail of smoke. “Fuck,” he said. “Reformulate the metamorphine, he says. Fuck my fucking cock, Lucius. Who do you think I am, Christ Jesus?”
The figure, still muttering, turned down the hall and strode away. For a second Kid could have sworn the voice was familiar....
As soon as the coast was clear she crawled out of her hiding spot and started again down the hall. There was an impact and she gasped; she was tumbling over a small, warm body.
“Oh, miss, I is so sorry, I is not meaning to hurt you miss, I is helping you up!”
“Dob - Dobby!?”
The house elf cocked her head and looked at her strangely. “I is Dobby, yes...have we met?”
“We have! We will! Oh, I am so happy to see you!” Kid lunged forward and wrapped her arms around Dobby.
“Oh! Miss! Is is to small for that! You is hurting me!”
Kid let go. “Sorry. Listen, Dobby, I don’t have a lot of time but maybe you can help me.”
“Yes, miss?”
Kid’s eyes brightened. “House elves have magic, right?”
“Yes miss, powerful magics.”
“Can you fix things?”
He blinked. “I is supposing I could fix things. Like what things?”
“Could you fix this?” Kid asked, letting the Time Turner fall from her hand, dangle on its chain.
“Miss, I is finding somewheres to hide you!” Dobby insisted. They stood outside the door of the cool potions storage. It would take Dobby a few hours to fix the watch and he insisted that this was the best place to hide.
“But I was just in there!” Kid protested.
“Miss, you is must hurry! Go, go now! Before someone comes!” With unnatural strength he pushed her into the room. “Hide behind racks, in dark places!” he hissed, and closed the door behind her.
Kid crossed her arms, sighed, looked around. “Bloody hell,” she said. “I suppose this is what you get for hooking a Time Turner up to a car battery.”
She had settled quite comfortably behind a rack of vials and was nearing sleep when the door to the storage unit creaked open. A shaft of light nearly touched her toes. She tensed. A thin figure stepped in, momentarily blocking the light, and shut the door.
“Always dark in here,” he muttered. He help up his wand and said “Lumos”. There was a tiny light.
Quiet as she could possibly be, she watched as he stepped carefully along the rows of vials, considering them. “Where the fuck is Myra when you need her,” he muttered. “She would know this. Oh, what the hell am I thinking. Myra barely knows her ass from her elbow and her elbow from her eye.” He shook his head. “And I’m supposed to synthesize grousefrinkle HOW?”
Kid quickly computed the answer in her mind but said nothing. His voice was so weirdly familiar. Very eerily, oddly familiar. Something about the drawl, the lilt, the contempt.
“If there is a bloody way to do this my name isn’t Severus J. Snape.”
Despite herself, Kid gasped.
The tiny light whipped about. “Who’s there?”
She didn’t dare to breath.
“Perhaps,” he said softly, in the same tone he would use years later to frighten confessions out of unruly students, “you didn’t read the little bulletin I put up in the Taskmaster’s office about boffing in the storage unit? About how the sexual energy produced can ruin some elementary poisons? And about what I would DO to said boffers?”
Kid drew her knees tighter to her chest.
“Come now, where are you? You can either say something now or I’ll find you and see all your bits.”
Before she knew what she was doing, Kid spoke in a tiny voice. “Is just me, Master Snape. Just me, a little house-elf.”
Severus cocked his head. “A house elf? What are you doing in here?”
“I, uh...I is doing maintenance, Master Snape. Polishing bottles.”
He seemed to accept this. “I thought I knew all the house elves. You new?”
“I is, um, on loan.”
He had gone back to looking for his ingredients. “You can be loaned?”
“You can do most anything to a house elf, Master Snape. House elves is no better than slaves. House elves is very persecuted if you thinks about it. Someone should be taking up the humanitarian cause of freeing them, one of these days.”
This put him at pause. His eyebrows raised every so slightly. “I never did give that any thought. I believe I’ll stop now. Awfully bitter for a house elf, you are.”
“I has seen better days.”
“You too, eh? What’s your name? Oh, this might work.” He selected a bottle from the rack.
“My name is Herm - Hermi.”
“Hermi?”
“Er - yes. Hermi.”
“Isn’t that a name for a boy house elf?”
“My masters are cruel.”
“Yours too, eh?” He was quiet for a moment. “I find it unsettling how much I have in common with you. A house elf.”
Kid paused, unsure of whether to respond. Finally curiosity got the best of her.
“How so?”
He shrugged, bending down to look at a bottom rack of black, sludgy vials. “Cruel masters. Practical slavery. Hiding the the dark. You know.” He sighed. “Sometimes I just look at my life and think, ah, Snape, you are nothing but a house elf after all. I’m treated as one. No offense.”
“I is taking none.”
“It’s just....well, what do you do? This was really the only place I had to go after Hogwarts, after all, and I am very good at what I do. I’m the best potionsmaster in Britain, you know. I could have worked for the Ministry. But all that paperwork and bullshit. And no use of the Dark Arts allowed, of course, which makes everything that much harder. Do you have any idea the amount of shortcuts evil intent allows you? It’s like building little brimstone bridges everywhere.”
“I is-”
“And the people here, Jesus. Having to deal with Lucius every damn day, and his little appetites, and I swear, Hermi, if I didn’t owe him so damned much I’d cut off his ears and use them as zwiebacks for baby trolls.”
“What is you owing him?”
“Heh. What is I owing him? If he hadn’t befriended me at Hogwarts I don’t know what would have become of me. I would have been eaten alive. I owe him, oh, my job, my shelter, the clothes on my back, my affiliation with the Death Eaters and my subsequent life, etcetera, etcetera, fuck fuck fuck.”
“I is seeing.”
“And to say nothing of Myra. She...augh, she irritates me. For your own sake, don’t get into a conversation with her, she’ll call you on everything you say, constantly making stupid little comments. Makes me want to smack her in her big fat bloody face.”He sighed. “But, no. No. Myra. I don’t know. What do I know about Myra, really...she’s capable. Enough. Usually. Nice teats. And she’s considerably less annoying than Barty Crouch.”
“Oh?”
“Oh. How I despise Barty Crouch. How I deplore his...him. How I hate his...self. I could just take his nice yellow hair and just rip it out of his skull. How I could just tear his stupid little babydoll tees right off him, rip them to shreds and just grab him and just...” he paused for a moment. “Jesus! What the fuck!?”
Kid jumped. “What is it, Master Snape?”
“Nothing! No! I just! God damn it!” He closed his eyes for a moment, sighed, collected himself. Kid noted that, just for an instant in the wandlight, he was almost attractive.
“It’s just,” he began. “My god, I can’t believe I’m about to confide to a bloody house elf. What I have been reduced to. Hermi, I am placing you under a strict order now, and that is never to tell anyone, ANYONE, what I’m about to tell you. If you do, I’ll find out, and bad, bad things will happen. Understand?”
“I is understanding.”
“Okay. Good.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “I think I might be attracted to a young man who lives here, Barty Crouch. In a very, er, non-heterosexual manner.”
Kid was utterly, utterly silent.
“Ah, nothing from you! Is it that shocking! Am I that disgusting and shameful that even a wise-ass house elf like you, Hermi, cannot say a thing in response to such a pronouncement? Perhaps I’d be better off just hanging myself now to save coming out of such a big dark be-spiderwebbed closet! I-”
“Master S-Snape, I-” Kid thought fast. “I is just surprised at your confession, Master. I is not finding you disgusting or shameful. Is is finding you completely normal.”
He turned. “Normal? How so?”
“Well,” Kid began, “though you is not striking me as gay, at all...well, on second thought, actually, that would explain quite a bit ...well. Yes. Anyway, it is normal for human peoples to have feelings for each other.”
“Feelings, yes, but this is...this...this is just wrong.”
“Is not wrong. You feels what you feels.”
“I don’t like what I feels,” he spat. “I’d like to feel it for girls. What’s strange is I used to feel it for girls. All my life. This is sudden. A sudden occurrence of...gayness. How does that happen?”
Kid shrugged. “Maybe...maybe you is just curious. Everyone wonders. Is nothing to be ashamed of.”
“That’s what Myra said,” Severus replied quietly.
“Myra is a good friend, then.”
“Myra is a frizzy bespectacled beast,” he said, snickering. “But yes...a good friend, I have to admit.”
“Is not as bad as all that. You is giving it time, you is working it out. You is behaving in a natural and healthy manner. You is doing fine.”
“Yeah, well...”
“I is proud of you.”
“Oh, QUIET with you!” He snapped. “Proud of me! What are you, a therapist? I can’t believe I just told you all that. You, a house elf. Shut up, will you, I have work to do. I have to find something that will allow me to make a synthetic. fucking. GROUSFRINKLE. Fucking Lucius fuck!” He struck the side of a potions rack, making it rattle.
“Try Burning Root and Crahfthaus Stink pressurized at three hundred and eighty g’s for seventeen minutes followed by a slow yeast burn with an infusion of wheatgrass and Chanel No. 5,” Kid said softly.
There was a long silence.
“I actually think that would work.” Severus said.
Kid hunched, sure her cover was blown.
“What are you, some kind of... genius elf?” Severus asked incredulously.
“I is smarter than the other elves. Is giving me problems sometimes,” she replied softly.
“Well, I - I order you not to patent that!” he said suddenly.
“House elves can’t hold patents, Master Snape.”
“Good. Because I will be. On that.” He quickly collected the necessary materials. “Good day, Hermi. Thanks for the sweet little tete-a-tete. Don’t ever change.”
He blew a kiss on his way out the door.
“I’d tell Harry and Ron,” Kid whispered to herself a few moments later, “but I don’t think they’d believe me.”
Upstairs, up in some far away part of the castle, Voldemort spun slowly in front of a mirror.
“Never a bride, never a bride, never a bride,” he said softly, over and over, like a mantra, watching the china circumference of his wedding gown as it glided over the marble floor.
There was no particular reason for it. He was just feeling angsty.
Severus kicked open the door to the lab, his arms full of bottles, holding a cigarette between his lips.
“I finally got a fucking break,” he told Myra, whom he barely noticed was writhing on the couch. “You would not believe my bloody day today, it was surreal. First Lucius rags on me about some bullshit, shit YOU apparently put in the stuff that’s getting us in trouble.”
He lined up the bottles on the counter. “ But then by some freak miracle slash act of Jesus slash completely fucking bizarre shift in reality, a house elf - are you listening to me? - a house elf tells me how to make was looks like a completely revolutionary synthesized grousefrinkle, after an odd session of elven therapy. Do you fucking believe that? Completely surreal day.”
“Severus,” Myra said.
Something about the way she said it made shivers run down his spine.
He turned to her. She was breathless and flushed, eyes half closed, arms tossed wantonly over the armrest.
“Are you quite all right?” he asked.
“Come here,” she whispered.
“Are you drunk?”
“Just come here.”
He did.
“Closer.”
He tilted his head towards her.
“Closer.”
He bent over her. “You don’t look so good,” he said.
“You look sogood,” she said, and leapt up, seizing him with freakish strength. Severus cried out and tried to push her away but it was of little use. She had him on his back on the couch quicker than he would have thought possible.
She pressed herself against him, writhing, pressing her face into his neck, growling. “Ohhh, Severus. God, excuse me. But I really, really fucking need you right now.” She violently shoved her hands up underneath his cloak and shirt.
Severus jumped, trying to push her away. “Myra, what the hell has gotten into you?”
“Hopefully you. Very soon,” she purred. She ground her hips against his, rubbing her warm hands along his ribcage. Severus gasped. “God,” she breathed. “God you’re delicious. Mmmm. God. I could just eat you. I want to just taste you.” With that she took the soft flesh of his earlobe into her mouth. He cried out, either from surprise, pleasure, or surprise at the pleasure.
“You like that?” she whispered, giggling. “You like that?”
“I, uh...huh...I ...hmmm-” Despite himself, Severus let his eyes close a little. Some little voice chided him for it, but she was...warm....
She kissed his jaw, the soft skin underneath his chin, his neck. He let his hand trail down to her behind, the other up, through her hair. She nipped the tip of his nose. He snickered a little bit, letting his hands roam, beginning to move with her, follow her lead.
Hm. She felt nice. She just felt...so...nice....
Just before all semblance of rational thought left him something cold fell on his face and blurred his vision.
Glasses. Myra’s thick, circular glasses, which had slid off her nose.
Myra’s glasses.
“Oh good god!” Severus cried out, pushing her away with all his might. She gave a little yelp when she fell off him and onto the floor. “Jesus! No! What’s wrong with you! You’re on something! Tell me what you’re on, Myra, NOW.”
“I’m high on life,” she said, lying on the floor.
“No! Dammit, you’ve been doing way too much substance lately. Tons of fucking Hype, I can see it in your eyes. What are you ON!?” Severus was screaming. He was surprised at his own concern.
“I’m on what the history books call Super -Stunner,” Myra said, reaching up and stroking Severus’s calf. “And we are going to be so fucking rich.”
With that she gasped, arched her back, and passed out.
“Oh, Dobby,” Kid cried as the elf handed her the repaired Time Turner. “How can I ever thank you? I do believe you’ve saved my life.”
“Miss...is you thinking, maybe, one day, I might be able to be a watch repairman? For pay, maybe?”
She hugged Dobby. “You can be whatever you want,” she whispered, and smiled. “I have to go back to my own time now. Farewell!”
“Wait! Miss! I is sorry I has to do this, but you must understand, it is for plot purposes. I is apologizing. Nothing personal.”
With that, Dobby made a quick grab for her wand, pointed it between her eyes, and exclaimed, “Obliviate!”
Kid went limp and dumb.
Dobby sighed, put a little charm on the Time Turner so it would spin her forward to her time, and put the wand back in her lap. She disappeared.
“The things I does,” Dobby sighed, “in a day’s work.”
Wiping his brow and stretching his arms, the elf trudged down the dark halls of Malfoy Manor, wherein which, somewhere, a Dark Lord smoothed out his veil, and a potionsmaster had an urgent reunion with a long treasured image of a beautiful feline enthusiast.
THE END