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To Be Someone’s Chicken
TOKYO FALLS, NEBRASKA
The early seventies
Voldemort sat back in his foldable lacquer lounge chair sipping at a pina coloda. He stirred it in its coconut, tapping his red-slippered foot to a tune in his head:
“Oh now go, doo doo doo, walk out the door, doo doo doo, just turn around now, you’re not welcome anymore...aren’t you the one who tried to break me with desire, did you think I’d crumble...did you think I’d crumble...Lucius!”
Lucius, trembling, smitten, and barely out of his teens, started. He brushed soft blonde hair out of his eyes. “Yes my lord?”
“Next line!”
“Oh, um...’did you think I’d lay down and die?’”
“Oh no not I! I will survive!” Voldemort clapped with delight, this weekend’s dragon nails sparkling in what was left of the moonlight. “But these people won’t. You there! How goes it?” He waggled his eyebrows and sipped, holding the straw neatly between his index and middle fingers.
About twenty feet away a teenage girl with a great head of frizzy black hair and mascara tear trails looked up. She crouched over a virulently bubbling makeshift cauldron, constructed from a saucepan on a hot plate. She wiped her eyes so the pale, effeminate stranger could not see her crying, then looked up at the moon just as a rain cloud covered it.
“It’s coming along,” she shouted over the great din of rushing water that was Tokyo Falls. “Just a few more minutes.”
A heavy raindrop fell on the part of her hair, sending chill reverb along her scalp.
“Lucius, umbrella,” Voldemort said. Lucius hurriedly retrieved the umbrella, opening it to reveal a repeating pattern of wet, red Rolling Stones lips. The Dark Lord bounced in his seat with joy. “Oh yay, that one. That’s my favorite one.”
Lucius grinned. “I know, my Lord.”
Voldemort took Lucius’s chin in hand and made kissy noises. “You are so good to me, my precious supple puppy boy.”
“Forever and always, My Lord.”
Voldemort gave him a smile. “Come on, come on,” he called to the girl. “Let’s start this show, shall we?”
“A few more minutes yet, my lord,” she called back.
“Hmmph. Lucius, another pina please, love.”
The girl pulled her hood over her head to protect herself from the rain, and the world.
***
MALFOY MANNER The late seventies
Severus smoked a cigarette, inhaling with luxury, holding an ice pack to his cheekbone. He sat on the stone floor of his room, leaning against the armoire, which was banging, because Myra was in it.
“You FUCK,” she screamed. “You fuck, you fuck, you FUCK!”
“Oh, me fuck,” Severus sighed, taking another long drag.
“WHAT did you SAY, you FUCK? Let me out of here, you PIECE,” bam, “of FUCKING”, bam, “SHIT!”
Severus looked at his watch. This had been going on for three hours. He wondered how she was banging. It must have been with her foot. That was the only thing he had left unbound. When she had awoken and started to withdraw she started convulsing and scratching at her arms enough to draw blood. When he tried to touch her she socked him in the face with a brilliant roundhouse, then ran around the lab screaming obscenities looking for the Stunner, which Severus had hid.
He put a binding spell on her. It didn’t stop her from screaming so he threw her in the cabinet, hoping that, like a parrot, she would shut up if he put her in the dark. No such luck. He considered putting a vocal silencer on her but couldn’t bring himself to do it: she was in some nether dimension of pain and to deprive her of that last outlet seemed cruel.
The banging and yelling paused. Severus turned toward the cabinet, eyebrow raised. He could still hear her breathing.
“Can I have a glass of water?” she asked, teeth audibly clenched. “Please? I’m so thirsty.”
“Do you promise to be good?” He ashed his cigarette on the floor.
“Yes.”
“Okay.” Severus held his cigarette between his lips and rose from the floor to fetch the water, wondering if he should perhaps put it in a sippy-cup so she wouldn’t spill it all over herself; thinking better of it since he had no idea where one would find a sippy-cup in Malfoy Manner where there were no babies that he knew of (except the dead ones crawling on the walls in the game room).
He finally decided on a big plastic cup with a bendy straw. Everyone liked bendy straws.
He opened the armoire to reveal Myra, writhing against her bounds. Her face was covered with the hem of one of Severus’s robes and her hands were claw like and white knuckled behind her back. She struggled free of the robe, raising her face to Severus with an unnaturally tight grin.
“Here’s your water, Creepy.” He sat down on the floor next to her. “Here, look,” he said, bending the straw with a c-c-c-crick.
“Ooh, a bendy straw,” Myra choked. She squirmed like a scorpion had crawled into her chemise. “You make me feel special.”
“Yes.” He extended the straw to her lips. “Drink.”
Her eyes darted from him to the glass and back again. She lunged, snapping at his lip and cheekbone. He ducked away, pushing her off him, too hard, to the floor, then scooted away from her as quick as possible. On her side she tried to wiggle towards him, to no avail.
“You promised to be good, you bloody psychotic bitch.” He lit another cigarette, rubbing his forehead.
“Fucking bendy straw, fuck you!” Myra drew in a sharp breath and arched her back in pain.
“Interesting.” Severus nodded. “I know you had it in your head to sell this stuff, but how could we if the comedown is this bad?”
“There’s not supposed to BE a comedown, you faggot. Do you know how much money I would give you for another dose right now? That’s the whole principle of the thing.” She flipped on her back, sweat suddenly beading on her face. “It would make us a fortune.”
Severus lowered his cigarette. “Did you venture so far as to call me a faggot?”
“What?”
“Was the ‘faggot’ comment really nessacery?”
Myra strained. “You prissy little shit. Do you understand what I’m GOING through right now? I feel like I’m going to barf little Ethiopian children and all you can think about is your latent homosexuality? ” She curled in a fetal position, wracked with chills. “I hate you and I want to die - hegghkh. Heegghkpuutpah -” she spat something. Something small and white.
“My...my tooth! Severus, my teeth are falling out!”
He picked up the tooth between his thumb and middle finger. “So they are.”
“How do I keep my teeth from falling out!”
Severus shrugged, exhaling. “Don’t do drugs.”
***
Three days and a Skele-Gro session later, when Myra could properly function, she returned to a very busy lab. Eight cauldrons were going and Severus was backed up at least twenty orders. He was in his work trance so she tried not to disturb him, but he glared up at her anyway.
“Look who’s back. Pull up a cauldron, Ms. Stardust. Not only have I not slept the past three days, I haven’t ate or shat.”
“Really? I woke up in a puddle of vomit.” She grabbed and ticket off the line and gathered ingredients from the weed cabinet.
“Delightful. Was it yours?”
“Most decidedly so.”
“Ah.” He jerked his head vaguely to the left; Myra tried to see what he was gesturing to but the lab was too much of a mess for her eye to settle on one thing.
“Our little friend in the cage there,” Severus said, referring to a hamster in a little portion of habitrail. “I’ve been dosing him with Stunner. Check him out.”
The hamster was flipped on its back, eyes rolled into its skull, little pink feet in the air.
“Happy little fellow, isn’t he?”
Myra drooled.
“I take it you sympathize.”
She bit her lip, eyes watering. “Severus, it was so incredible, you don’t understand-”
“Shut it. No more for you. Not till we test it on Mr. Rigsby. You know not enough about this substance to make it a lifestyle choice.” Severus poured an oozing gray sludge into an oozing green sludge to produce an oozing greenish gray sludge. He smiled and extended it to Myra. The smell was foul.
“But-”
“I said no!”
“Oh, fuck off,” she muttered under her breath, taking the mixture. Too tired to argue she got to work.
***
Myra was going slowly about her work and Severus was tempted to yell at her, but wouldn’t. He would never admit it but the state he found her in that night disturbed him greatly. He had seen many a friend in the throes of chemical bliss but this was something else. Even after she passed out she still writhed with pleasure, as though stuck in some impossibly ecstatic dream, her face flushed and smiling. She fell into a dead sleep later. Severus, watching her, was sure at some points she had breathed her last, but always another breath came. The intervals, too far apart, were what worried him.
His feelings were so mixed now, and there was so much work to be done, that he had to compartmentalize and allow the rest of his brain to be a function of potions work; in the small portions of time which he allowed himself to open that compartment all he found was an undesirable mess of unallowable arousal (Myra’s body pressed against him, it kept coming back).
Perhaps that meant he could put his fears of gaiety to rest? All he needed was to be attacked by a drugged woman? But it was Myra. She didn’t count. Even she called him a faggot! There was no hope for him. Momentarily convinced that his penis was good for nothing but trouble, he entertained the thought of devoting himself entirely to work - maybe get a job far away somewhere where they needed a theoretical potioner, leave the Death Eaters somehow....
Leave the Death Eaters?
“How the hell am I supposed to do that?” he asked aloud.
“Two parts bitters, two parts rum,” came a voice from the door. “What do you think, Narcissa?”
Severus turned, pushing his goggles up. Lucius and Narcissa stood in the doorway, Lucius with arms crossed and a smirk, Narcissa holding a stack of folded, iridescent fabrics. His gaze met with Narcissa’s only for a moment before he looked away. He felt her cold stare boring through him like she was trying to extract a core sample with her eyes.
“I think they’ll fit,” she said. “He’ll need a belt, though, he’s scrawnier than you are.”
“A shrinking charm, then.”
Severus took off his goggles and slammed them down on the counter.
“What now?”
Lucius took some of the fabric from Narcissa, unfolding it to reveal and pair of maroon velvet hip-riding bellbottoms. He walked up to Severus and held them against his hips.
“What are those? Get those away from me.” Severus pushed away Lucius's hands. Lucius looked up and met Severus’s eyes, then wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Oh, look at you,” he said. “All greasy. Be sure to take a shower before tonight. Narcy-poo, do you like the maroon?”
“Try the gold,” she said, pulling a pale shimmer from the stack.
“With his coloring?”
‘What the HELL is going ON?” Severus roared.
“Settle down, will you?” Lucius said. “So on edge, all the time, you are. Hold still.” He pressed the gold fabric against Severus even as he backed away. Lucius rolled his eyes. “Well it’s not like you own anything stylish, I’m just trying to help you!”
Myra toddled in from the adjoining cold storage unit, rubbing her eye and holding a wriggling vine in a terra cotta pot. “Sev, I got the murdleweed. What are the- oh. Mister Malfoy, Ms. Vontaine.” She watched Lucius attack Severus with the pants for a moment with a flat, expressionless face, as though there were no more room in her head for unusual things, they no longer registered.
“You never used that coconut compress, did you?’ Narcissa asked Myra from the door. “Help is on the way!” She gave the pile of pants to Lucius.
“Severus, my darling, we’re taking you out on the town,” Lucius said, holding up a pair of touquoise satin with a “southwestern” design. He cringed. “Don’t worry, I won’t inflict these on you.”
Severus balled his hands into fists. “Lucius...” he began very evenly, doing his best not to scream, “I don’t have time to go out on the town. I have twenty five orders to be filled by midnight, not including starting your next batch.”
“Oh, yes, the trials of Severus, poor plagued Severus,” Lucius said absently, fondling a pair of opalescent white silk bellbottoms. “Try these on, will you? I got them in Antigua from a rarities shop some years ago but they-”
Before he knew what he was doing Severus grabbed the pants and threw them into a burner. They went up in a great explosion of flame and a very loud POP, gone in an instant, leaving behind only the scent of cocaine and strobe lights.
Lucius's eyes widened. “You gamey little bitch, those were made of silk straight from the ass of Shelob! Do you have any idea how much those cost? You can’t go around destroying things people just want to SHARE with you. That’s what I get for being generous. See, Narcy-poo, that’s what I get when I try to be nice.”
“Why be nice to people who laugh at inappropriate times?” Narcissa replied, delicately rubbing under-eye cream on a subdued, sniffling Myra.
“I couldn’t tell you,” Lucius turned to Severus, shaking his head. “Spark me up a fag, will you? Thanks. So, on the menu for tonight. You and Narcissa and I are going to a sweet little soiree at Bob’s Big Boomshanka.’
“What in gods name do you need me for?”
“Oh, just a kiss-the-cook thing. We have a big buyer who wants to meet you. It’s going to be like a swap meet there tonight, everyone will have their little inferior goods out, but they all want to meet the man behind the meta, as it were.”
Myra glanced up from her makeover.
“Lucius...’ Severus waved his hand at the lab. “What part of ‘I have to work’ don’t you understand? There is no way in hell I can go out tonight, there’s no way in hell I can go out ANY night, there’s far too much-”
Lucius held something up that made Severus stop in mid-sentence. A fabric thick and dark as desire. Lucius let it unfold slowly to reveal a pair of black bellbottoms. There was nothing overtly stunning about them, yet they withheld something. Some seductive possibility, some secret.
Lucius swung the pants with a tantalizing smile.
Severus was spellbound.
Narcissa stood. “Lucius! You can’t let him wear those!”
“Nonsense. Just look at him.”
“They’re...they....” Severus said, reaching for them.
“Oh, I think we have a winner,” Lucius said. He carefully folded the pants and handed them to Severus. They felt warm in his hands. “I entrust these to you, dear friend. Wear them well. Meet us in the parlor at ten all spiffy and fresh.”
***
“Oh Narcy-poo, please don’t pout,” Lucius said as they walked along the halls of Malfoy manor. “What’s wrong, what’s wrong? Aren’t you happy, my sweet crystal?” He stopped and took her by the shoulders, lifting her chin.
She couldn’t help but smile. Lucius never failed to melt her heart, and her smile made Lucius feel like some sort of gallant, heterosexual knight, a fiction he enjoyed enough to support a marriage of convenience.
“I’m very happy, Lucius,” she said, pecking him on the cheek.
He gasped. “Ah, the touch of your cool lips! Don’t tease me so. How I long for our wedding night.”
Narcissa giggled. “Now now, sweet man, behave yourself.”
He put her arm through his. “Come now, we have a while yet before it’s time to go. What do you say we take a peek at our registry? Or better yet let’s look at the chinaware catalogue. I still can’t decide between the obsidian filigree or the gold.”
“Ugh, not the obsidian. It’s a wedding, not a black mass.”
“Can’t it be a little of both?”
Arm in arm they walked back up to Lucius's rooms to put away the remaining pants.
And around the corner was Barty, sipping a peachapple-pineberry smoothie and looking stricken. He hated it when Narcissa commanded Lucius’s attention so, and soon she would be commanding it all the time. He watched their retreating backs, chatting and laughing; they were a gorgeous couple. A gorgeous couple, soon to be married, soon to bear children, soon to no longer carry on amorous affairs with young sweet houseboys.
“Woe,” Barty said meekly. “Woe!”
***
“I just...will you LOOK at these?” Severus, freshly showered and dressed, wiggled in front of a mirror.
“You’re smitten,” Myra said.
“I am utterly smitten.”
“They just look like pants to me.”
“Shows what you know.” How could they possibly look like just pants? Couldn’t she see the way they made his ass look like some ass of legend, an ass discussed in hushed tones in times of lack? They way they made him look even leaner and taller, with Leggy McLegs?
He topped the pants with a black, wide collared silk shirt also obtained from Lucius and a pair of dark sunglasses. The overall effect was understated coolness, the kind of understated coolness you feel on the blade that’s slitting your throat.
“Fuck,” he said, looking at himself in the mirror.
He lit a cigarette.
“That looks even better.”
Myra eyed him. “I still don’t get it,” she said. “They’re just pants.”
“I can’t believe you,” he said, twisting so as to better view his magnificent behind.
“I really don’t.”
“Try to imagine yourself wearing them.”
She thought for a minute. “I can’t.”
“No?”
“They’re men’s pants.”
Severus grinned. “That they are, and aren’t you jealous.” He patted her on the head and made for the parlor. He turned and eyed her suspiciously. “Don’t go brewing up any more Stunner while I’m gone, you hear me?”
She raised her arm, extended her middle finger, and turned it to face the ground. “Death Eater’s honor,” she said.
“Yeah,” Severus said, “Because that’s worth a lot.” He made his thumb and forefinger into a gun, shooting an imaginary bullet at Myra and winking. He left Myra to commander the mirror. She leaned in, examining the skin under her eyes. Narcissa was right. The coconut compress did work.
Myra sighed and smoothed her smock. Had she lost weight? A little, maybe. She didn’t keep close track.
“What to wear, what to wear,” she sighed.
***
“Oh oh oh, you absolutely murder me, you great slinky snake of a man,” Lucius exclaimed as Severus climbed into the limo. “Look at this sexpot, Narcissa. Mmm.”
“Ho. Hum.” She replied, looking into a compact to pick dried lipstick from the corner of her mouth.
“And you didn’t want to come tonight, silly you.” Severus climbed over Lucius to get to his seat, and as he did so Lucius took the liberty of slapping his ass.
Severus jumped. “Excuse me!”
“They fit great!”
“I was well aware of that before the inappropriate touching, thanks.” Severus settled down and poured himself some whisky.
“Oh, pishposh,” Lucius said as he reached behind him for something. “Drink some more of that and there’ll be a lot more inappropriate touching. Here’s your script, love.”
“My script?”
“Well I wouldn’t want you spouting off your normal idiocy to everyone at Boomshanka’s, now would I?”
“My normal idiocy?”
Narcissa gave a nasal snicker.
“Oh, you know. Severus speak.” Lucius pulled the skin of his cheeks down with the tips of his fingers so his face sagged. “I’m Severus Snape. I’m gloomy and persecuted. I whine about things. Blah blah blah potions.”
“My name’s Severus J. Snape, the J stands for junk, like the junk that I make,’ Severus read from the script. “When I cook up I don’t play games, ‘cause I’m the best cooker this side of the Thames.” Severus slammed the script down. “You want me to speak in rhymes? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Lucius rolled his eyes. “It’s part of your image.”
“As what? Linguistically challenged?”
“As a beatnik! Here, I even brought a beret.”
“I’m not a bloody beatnik! Whatever in god’s name makes you think - no, I don’t want it! Take it back.” Severus shoved the black beret back at Lucius. “I will not do this, Lucius.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s stupid.”
“It was Narcissa’s idea.”
“Since you already display a love of poetry,” she said.
Severus ignored her. “I’m sorry, no. If I’m good enough to make your meta I’m good enough to talk to the buyers about it. In normal cadence.”
Lucius crossed his arms. “Severus, it’s very important to me. On an aesthetic level.”
“Aesthetics? Fuck aesthetics, we’re selling drugs, not running an ad campaign.”
“It’s a little of both! We’re trying to build an image here.”
“Fuck off!”
“Both of you, stop it, you’re giving me wrinkles,” Narcissa said. She turned to Severus. “Severus, you will either speak in rhyme like a good little beatnik or I’ll tell Voldemort about your spoken word talent. I’m sure he’d love a performance, and afterwards....”
Severus’s jaw twitched. Voldemort always had his entertainment killed after their performance was over, so influenced was he by the Impressionist movement. Severus heard rumors about an entire Mariachi band beheaded before The Dark Lord got to his second clap.
“Bollocks to both of you,” Severus said, crossing his arms.
“Rhyme that, please.”
“Flinging poo.”
***
Bob’s Big Boomshanka was hoppin’. The dancefloor, which lit up in rainbow occult symbols, was jam-packed with drugged, sweaty dancers. Witches in scanty outfits materialized smoky, sparking drinks while the disco pumped away in the background, filling the place so completely as to make thought impossible. Witches doing strip spells writhed to the beat in their suspended cages while pixies sold bags of their dust. At the tables in the upstairs area deals were obviously going down; this was where Lucius, Narcissa, and a cross Severus were led to and seated.
Severus noticed that, as he walked by, he got strange looks. Thus rather surprised him, seeing as he was wearing all black and thereby rendered practically invisible. The looks stuck to him and followed as he crossed the room; looks, he noticed, given by mostly male members of the throng. He couldn’t quite place it. Smugness? Hostility? A weird glint in the eyes. It made him uneasy. Perhaps they were looking at the beret and thinking him quite lame.
They ordered drinks. Lucius recognized and summoned someone from across the room. Severus slumped in his seat, determined not to speak if at all possible. Suddenly the amount of work he had waiting for him back at the lab calculated itself in his head. He winced.
Lucius stood to greet his guests. One of them was a very large, very obese black man, his tiny polynesian girlfriend, and a skinny, strung-out looking character in some kind of chicken suit. Severus puzzled at this; he wore a suit covered in white feathers and a chicken mask that left his entire face open to air. The beak and eyes of the chicken sat atop his head.
“Severus, Narcissa, this is Loverboy, Tricky, and El Pollo. Loverboy, Tricky, and El Pollo, this is my fiancee Narcissa and my cook, Severus.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Narcissa said, extending her hand to Loverboy, who kissed it with a lot of tongue. “Oh my, I see where you get your name,” she said, flushing.
“Say hello, Severus,” Lucius said.
“Hello.”
Lucius cleared his throat.
“Um. Yellow.” Loverboy was still hard at work on the astonished Narcissa’s hand, so Severus went to shake with El Pollo, who grasped Severus’s hand with a karate grip and shook it so vigorously he thought he might tear it off at the wrist.
“Hi hi hi. Hi hi hi,” El Pollo said, teeth chattering, face waxen. “Love your w-w-w-work.”
“This is Loverboy’s taster. He’s been instrumental in getting the product around,” Lucius said.
“Glad you liked it,” Severus said, darting his eyes at Lucius to see if he could get away with the non-execution of a rhyme. No such luck. Lucius glared at him.
“Glad you liked it,” Severus said, “’Cause I spiked it.”
El Pollo let loose with a high-pitched squeal of laughter that made Severus’s teeth hurt. He glanced down for a moment at Severus’s legs, and got the look in his eye, the one Severus had been getting from lots of men in the club.
“Well hey hey hey,” El Pollo said. “I’ll sit n-n-next to you.” The chicken pulled up a chair next to Severus, so close their thighs nearly met.
It was going to be a long night.
***
Loverboy’s words consisted of unclear mutterings; he and Lucius were heavy into small talk. Severus remained silent, trying to scoot away from the cuddly chicken as much as he could without being rude. Though the state El Pollo was in, Severus doubted he’d notice.
“Yeah yeah yeah,” Loverboy said, lighting a cigar. “Hugnubba bunbun widda Tokyo Falls bigga bubum hum.”
“I recall that massacre, yes! Tremendous victory for our side.”
“Mugga boodacown?”
“As in muggle body count, yes.” Lucius raised his glass. “Here’s to that.”
Loverboy made a vague gesture in Severus’s direction. “ Dassaw mook?”
“That’s our cook, yes.”
Severus snapped to attention. Loverboy looked directly at him and said, “Temme bouda muffpuh jon megha liddle moot.”
“Uh,” Severus said. He looked desperately at Lucius, who, smiling, offered no help.
“Liddle moot,” Loverboy repeated.
Severus swallowed. “Um...My name’s Severus J. Snape, the J stands for junk, like the junk that I-”
“Tell him about the new formula, Severus,” Lucius said.
“Oh! Yes. Well. It’s an infusion of tindermill and aspofunk at six hundred kelvin, tendered by a bit of murdleweed and spank for nice legs and a long, happy discharge. Should be out by next week, and, um...rhyming is the way I...speak.”
Loverboy snorted. El Pollo gave a crooning giggle and rested his head on Severus’s shoulder.
“Get your damned head off my shoulder or else your body will start growing colder!”
El Pollo, looking a bit hurt, lifted his head. “M’sorry-sorry.”
Lucius clucked his tongue. “Be nice.”
“You can shove it in your face, I don’t like chickens in my personal space!” Severus snapped.
“Severus! Honestly.” Lucius turned to Loverboy with a reconciliatory grin. “Please excuse my friend. He’s not much in the way of social graces.”
“Muhhugga bumbum,” Loverboy said. “Ew Poyo zashit. Eeso ew poyo!”
El Pollo looked ashamedly at the table.
Lucius laughed. “Severus is a shit, too, believe me. But you know what he does really well?”
A cold rock of dread materialized in Severus’s stomach. “Oh dear, oh my, my bowels ache; I must take a bathroom break.” He quickly rose from his seat.
“Do it for us before you go!” Lucius said.
“Do what?” Narcissa asked.
“Why The Robot, of course.”
El Pollo squawked and clapped. ‘D-d-o it, d-d-d-oo it!”
“Fecal matter nearly emergent, the situation is quite urgent,” Severus said through gritted teeth.
“Come now! Loverboy wants to see.”
Loverboy was, in fact, looking at Severus with some interest. Narcissa made eye contact with Severus, drawing a long, ice cold nail across her throat and mouthing Voldemort.
Severus glared, drew in a breath, and proceeded to execute a Robot so incredibly lithe, studied, and flawless that the entire upstairs area fell silent in awe.
“That’s all the time I have for today, show is over and I’ll be on my way.”
The room burst into applause, and Severus promptly went downstairs before Lucius could demand another parlor trick of him.
Six men followed him down.
***