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HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY, late seveties:

Albus Dumbledore sat in his circular office, unpreturbed for the moment because he chewed, with bliss, a week-old Cashew Creme. His schedule had kept him from getting a new supply from Honeydukes, but luckily he found one at the bottom of some drawer. He didn’t mind that it was a little stale - the crunch gave it an intriguing new texture he rather enjoyed. And so Albus, blessed with the blood glucose of a champion for a man of his age, chewed.

“Phineas,” he said. “You must try these.”

Phineas sighed, idly stirring his cosmopolitan. “If you attempt to shove that vintage confection through my canvas I’ll be bloody pissed.”

“I’ll have a student paint one up for you.”

“For the last time, no.” Phineas downed his drink and yawned. “I’m off - perhaps the Fat Lady has some more of those chocolate liqueurs....”

“Watch yourself, ‘Fin,” Dumbedore said, winking.

“My dear friend, when you’re trapped in a frame, loaded is the way to be. I expect you’ll understand that when your day comes. By the way, that delightful little minx of a second-in-command is on her way to see you as we speak.”

“Minerva?”

“Yes, Minerva. Oh, I’d lick her off a spoon.” Phineas gestured to his empty glass. “Look who’s talking. Adieu.” He vacated the frame with a stumble as Minerva strode into the office, soaking wet and exhausted, feathered hair sticking to her face.

“What news?” Dumbledore asked.

She took a deep breath and slumped into an armchair in a most un-Minervalike manner. “Death Eaters. Killing people. As usual. Anything new here?”

He manifested some tea and set it before her. “Ministry’s trying to close the school. As usual.”

She nodded. “The Order is starting to lose hope, Albus. We need something, and we need it quickly. Some information, some...inside track.”

“How odd,” Dumbledore said. “I was just thinking something along those very lines.”

***

MALFOY MANNER

Dobby the house elf looked in the mirror and smoothed the white tailcoat and bow-tie he wore. With the white top hat set off with a red rose, he looked, in his opinion, rather devastating. He raised his eyebrow in an intrigued expression, holding an imaginary martini. Yes. Quite debonair.

This outfit had been given to him on a purely non-firing basis. He was to hand out the tenth set of invitations to the Malfoy-Vontaine wedding, after all, and no one wanted to accept anything from a stinky, dour house elf in a dirty tea towel.

How lucky that he had been selected for the job this go-round! These were the tenth, and last, set of invitations - reminders, really. The Malfoy’s had been sending them out once a week for the past ten weeks, lest people forget the date. As though any of them would dare. The wedding was a few days away, so the last set went out today with Dobby.

Dobby tilted the top hat so it offset his huge green eyes and knocked on the door to young Master Malfoy’s wing. After a moment his master opened the door, glaring at his disturber. Dobby held back a gasp. How beat upon his master looked! Master Malfoy sported a black eye and swollen lip, and looked nothing but irritated to find Dobby before him.

“What?”

“Dobby is here to fetch the invitations, sir.”

From somewhere behind Master Malfoy came a curling sound of female pleasure, which Dobby pretended not to hear. Master Malfoy rolled his eyes and glanced over his shoulder. “Merlin’s ass,” he muttered.

“Sir?”

“Oh, right, right, the invitations, right. Let me fetch them, hold on.” Master Malfoy left the door for a moment. He hadn’t indicated whether Dobby was to step inside so the elf remained where he was; from his vantage point he could see past the parlor to the doorway of the anteroom, where, slung over the arm of a couch, he could see the white thigh, calf, and foot of Mistress Vontaine. There was a giggle, and the leg stretched, toes curling.

“Oh, my my,” he could hear Mistress Vontaine whisper.

Dobby glanced at Master Malfoy, who was digging in a dresser for the invitations, than back at the limb of Mistress Vontaine.

“Narcissa?” Master Malfoy asked, having abandoned the dresser drawer, “do you recall where you put the invitations?”

“To what?” she moaned.

“To our wedding, you stupid cow!”

There was a high pitched giggle, and a long, delicate arm pointed to somewhere out of Dobby’s sight.

“Thank you,” Master Malfoy hissed.

Narcissa suddenly sat up, so her head appeared in the frame of the doorway. Her long blonde hair was loose and mussed. Her eyes were yellowish and bloodshot, as though she had been up for days. She stretched and looked in Dobby’s direction, smiled, and gave a coy, flirty wave.

Dobby glanced behind so he could move out of the way of whomever she greeted. There was no one there, so he turned back. Mistress Vontaine beckoned him closer. “Come here, you funny little man in the funny little suit, look at you.”

Dobby did as he was told. “Can Dobby help Miss Vontaine?” Dobby could see now that something was not correct with the Mistress. She gnashed her teeth. Her eyelids fluttered. “Is Miss Vontaine sick?” he asked.

“Oh Dobby,” she purred. “I feel better than I’ve ever felt before.” She leaned over the arm of the couch to take his hat and put it on her own head. “What do you think?”

“Dobby thinks it quite lovely!”

Her eyes rolled up to the ceiling and she released a cry - a certain kind of cry Dobby knew was specific to human mating - he had never seen it done but knew the sounds. She flopped backwards on the couch, pressing her paint-chipped toes to his chest, using them to play with his bow tie.

“Oh Dobby,” she moaned. “Lucius never makes love to me like that.”

Dobby froze.

“Makes...makes love, Miss Vontaine?”

“Oh yes,” she said, winking. “You’re good.”

Lucius entered the room carrying the box of invitations. “Dobby, I-”

Dobby leapt away from Narcissa. “Dobby did nothing, Master, honest! Dobby is just standing here and - and - and-”

Lucius shoved the invitations into Dobby’s chest and shooed him from the room. “Never mind her! Go on now, get busy,” he said. “You’ve got a manor full of invitations to deliver, go.” He shoved Dobby out the door and slammed it behind him.

“Narcissa!” Lucius said. “Molesting the house elves? Really? We simply must get you off this shit.”

Outside stood Dobby, shivering and clutching the black box of invitations to his chest. He tried to take a step in any given direction and failed. He waited for banging, yelling, the sounds of an outraged lover - as far as Dobby knew, no other house elf in history had made love to his master’s fiancee, and he was set to die for sure.

***

Still stunned, but ten minutes later still quite unpunished for his heinous deed, Dobby decided the least he could do was execute his last given task and deliver the invitations. He started from the bottom up, as had been his plan; first stop was the potions lab down in the basement.

Dobby knocked on the heavy door. A moment later Master Snape opened it. He wore an undershirt and black boxers with red skulls on them. The remnants of a cigarette hung off his lip. His eyes were bloodshot and baggy. His hair, sloppily tied back, seemed extra greasy, as did his skin. There was something limp and strange about his manner. Music filtered out from the lab, hard guitar, now you’re messin’ with a, a son of a bii-iitch, now you’re messing with a sonofabitch....

Dobby tried to speak but found himself still too spooked, so he simply held the invitation out to Snape.

He didn’t accept it directly. “....fuck’s that?”

Dobby shook the invitation at him. “Is from Master Malfoy,” he said.

Master Snape bent down and grabbed Dobby by the collar. “You can tell Master Malfoy I don’t care what’s in that letter, I wouldn’t fuck him with your cock, understand? Think you can tell him that for me?”

“Y-yes sir! Dobby tells him straight away sir!”

“Good..” Snape threw Dobby down the hall, slammed the door, slid on a pair of goggles and got back to work.

“What was that about?’ Myra asked. Her hair was tied in a pouf above her head, and she held three or eight potions above a cauldron. She glanced at a timer and poured them into Cauldron C.

“Malfoy sent me a note of some kind, probably another order. I told him to-”

The invitation slid under the door.

“Persistent little cockroach,” Snape muttered.

Myra picked up the envelope.

“Watch it,” he said. “Might be a curse.”

“Too light.” She tore the envelope open and slid out the contents. “Oh, just another damn wedding reminder.” She handed it to Severus.

It was a black card embossed with chrome. Upon it the Malfoy and Vontaine family crests were joined by a blood-red arrow. The border of the invite was thick silver chain. When he opened it there was nothing, but slowly red letters began to write themselves across the space.

Myra shrugged. “They’re going on a long honeymoon. We’ll have them out of our hair for a while. Make things easier.” She gave Severus a knowing smirk.

“I haven’t agreed to your plan yet. Don’t go assuming things.”

“I’m not assuming, I -” There was a loud, slumping sound and a tinkling from one of the boilers. Myra clapped her hands and rushed over to it. After a few jerks the boiler door opened, and out spilled what had to be thousands of galleons.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Myra said, scooping the coins up in her hands. “Ha ha! This is our take from the last two days alone! Severus, fucking LOOK at this!”

The more money Myra scooped out of the boiler the more kept flowing out of it - Severus realized that it must be stuffed all the way to the pipe out the ceiling.

“Good god! Myra put that away, before someone sees-”

Myra shook her head at him. “How can you possibly think it won’t work? We’ll be well on our way by the time they notice we’re gone, and we’ll have enough funds to last a lifetime, two! You can’t tell me it’s not worth a shot.”

Severus sighed and looked at the ceiling. “Maybe I’d like it better,” he said, “if it didn’t require our living in Nebraska.”

She shrugged. “Nothing to be done about that, I’m afraid.”

“I still need to think about it, Myra. Clean that up. We have a lot of work to do. Jesus that’s a lot of money....”

In his cage in the corner, Mr. Rigsby The Test Hamster wriggled and twitched.

***

Dobby crept up the northern turret in search of Barty Crouch Jr. It had not been a very good day for Dobby. Despite having the task at hand to occupy him, and the threat of imminent demise, the house elf found himself curious about the peculiarities of human mating. He had been running over and over in his mind what, exactly, had happened between himself and Mistress Vontaine. When did the mating itself occur? Perhaps when Mistress Vontaine took his hat and placed it on her head? Yes, this had to be it, the male gives the female his hat, and from it she makes a - baby.

Dobby, horrified at the thought that he may have impregnated his mistress, bumped headlong into the knee of Barty Crouch Jr., who sat quietly on a turret step eating a frozen yogurt. The boy giggled. “Wow, you just didn’t stop, did you?”

“Dobby is sorry, Master Crouch.”

“I like your suit. Look at your little hat, can I see it?” Barty smiled and reached for the hat.

Dobby’s eyes widened. He took the hat firmly by the brim, stepping back.

Barty giggled. “Oooh, okay.”

“Th-thank you, Master Crouch,” Dobby said, not taking his hand from the hat or his eyes off Barty. “Dobby has something for you.”

Barty watched for a moment as Dobby tried to remove an invitation from the box while clutching the hat. It was a rather pathetic and lengthy display wherein which Dobby finally had to place the box on the floor, dig through the invitations with cursory glances until he found Barty’s, then kick the box shut. He handed Barty the invitation, picked up the box and backed slowly down the stairs. As soon as he was out of sight, Barty heard his little footsteps break into a run.

Barty shrugged, opened the invitation, and upon reading it burst into tears.

**

Dobby ran in a blind panic. He skidded to a halt in front of a utility closet, opened it, threw the hat inside, and closed it. Thinking again he opened the closet door and stuffed the hat behind a mop and a water bucket. That should do it. There would be no more mating today.

After a few deep breaths, Dobby peeked at the next invite on the list. A Master Grindow Holland. He would be tending bar in the executive lounge about now. Dobby straightened his collar and headed down the hall.

The executive lounge was nearly empty except for Master Holland himself and someone in an armchair. Dobby crossed in front of it to give Master Holland his invitation. He accepted it very graciously in the midst of making a drink.

"Dobby,” said a voice.

Dobby froze. Turned. In the armchair sat a very sour-looking Master Malfoy, scowling and swirling brandy in a snifter.

Dobby closed his eyes and swallowed. “Y-yes, Master Malfoy?”

“How is it going?”

Dobby’s mouth bobbed wordlessly.

“Come on. Out with it.”

“They are...being delivered on schedule, Master.”

“Good.” He sipped his brandy.

“Good?”

“Yes.”

“Then Dobby can go?”

“Yes...”

“Master Malfoy has nothing to say to Dobby?”

He looked slowly up from his snifter. “No....”

“Oh. Very well then, Master.”

Dobby made for the door. Just as he was about the escape, he remembered a duty. Dobby froze as every vein in his tiny body constricted. He gritted his teeth. All he had to do...was walk out that door. Just walk out the door, Dobby told himself, like Dobby remembered nothing. Just walk..out....

Dobby stumbled to the nearest dresser and closed his head in the drawer.

“What seems to be the problem?” Lucius asked.

The house elf whirled about. “Master Malfoy, Dobby has a message for you,” he said through clenched teeth.

“From whom?”

From M-Master Snape.”

“Well, out with it.”

Dobby’s lower lip quivered. He shut his great lantern-like eyes. “Master Snape says he doesn’t care what’s in the letter, he wouldn’t fuck Master Malfoy with Dobby’s cock, sir.”

***

Myra injected Mr. Rigsby with his daily dose of Stunner. He used to squeal when she did it. By now he had begun to crave the bite of the needle. The little rodent arched in ecstasy and chittered his little teeth. Myra gave his tummy a little rub with her index finger.

“Iddle wub-wub,” she cooed.

Severus, who had been doing a quick inventory of the rare poisons cabinet, turned and fixed Myra in a hot glare.

She took a moment before responding. “What did I do now?”

“If I’m not mistaken, I’d say you were getting attached to a lab animal. But you’re a professional and I’m sure you’d never fall victim to such nonsense.”

She scooped Mr. Rigsby out of his cage, petting him with overdone flair. “But he’s such a happy baby! Wookit dis ippy boo-bah.”

Severus made a face as though a cyanide tablet were dissolving under his tongue, and opened his mouth to say something scathing in reply when there came a rapping on the door.

“What?”

The door creaked open to reveal Lucius. He glanced at Myra. “Get lost, wench,” he said. “Severus, a word?”

***

They sat on opposite ends of the green corduroy couch.

“Chocolate?” Lucius offered, holding out a small green-wrapped box.

“No thank you.”

“Cigarette?” He produced a pack of fresh Devil’s Own’s.

“I have my own.”

“Light?”

Severus sprouted a flame from the tip of his wand and lit up.

‘All right,” Lucius said softly. “All right. Severus. Look. It’s an emergency. Perhaps we can...momentarily...put last week’s tiff aside?”

Severus was silent. He smoked.

“It’s Narcissa!” Lucius burst. “She’s hooked on that...whatever it is. That new super-drug. She’s got a stash hidden somewhere, I can’t find it...she’s turned into a great stupid lummox, Severus! All she does is lay about and writhe!”

“And this is unusual for her?”

Lucius rolled his eyes. “If she keeps on like this she’ll get fat. She can’t be fat for the wedding, not in the dress I picked out for her. She’ll be popping out through the eyelets in the lace, it’ll be horrific! You have to help me detox her, Severus, you just have to. The wedding’s in three days!”

Severus smoked. Silently.

“Not to mention that this...whatever-it-is is eating at our bottom line. We’re being edged out of the market. You have to get a sample of it, take it apart the way you do, find out how it works, make something better.”

Lucius waited for a response. There was none.

“Please, Severus.”

Severus fixed him in a cold stare. “Why?”

Lucius sighed, “We’ve known each other for what, more than ten years now?”

“Supposedly.”

“And we’ve been in rows worse than this, right?”

“Not that I can recall.”

“We can’t let a little spat ruin us!”

“If there’s one thing that ws made abundantly clear last week, it’s that there is no ‘us’,” Severus hissed, surprised and disgusted by the amount of ninnish hurt in his voice.

Lucius grinned but quickly suppressed it. “Oh Sev,” he sighed. “Sev darling. Really. Come to your senses. I was just playing when I kissed you. I was a little tipsy, and you were wearing the Pants of Erised, to great effect I might add. I just couldn’t help myself. Please don’t be angry.”

Severus was silent.

“Are we all forgiven?”

“No.”

Lucius gave an exasperated sigh. “What? What do you want? You should be thankful I haven’t had you flayed for this.” He pointed at his black eye. “I look like a bloody dockworker thanks to you.”

“Serves you right.”

Lucius looked riled, but closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Fine. May the black eye be unto me as the scarlet letter was unto Hester, yes? Are you happy now?”

Severus took a deep, thoughtful drag on his cigarette, exhaled, and looked up at Lucius with a sudden odd grin.

“No,” he said. “But it’s a start.”

***

Back in the lab an hour later Severus told Myra of what transpired with a smug air.

“I told him there wasn’t anything I could do about Narcissa,” he said. “Only that he had to find her stash and she’d have to cope with the withdrawal.”

“Oh dear,” Myra said. “We’ll have to sandbag ourselves in for that. What did you tell him about Stunner?”

“Almost nothing. I told him I’m good but not that good. Trying to make a more efficient drug than Stunner would be like trying to out-symphony Mozart, but why would Lucius care? I’m just a machine that makes potions to him.”

“You’re not going to do it, are you?”

Severus blinked. “Do what?”

“Analyze it and make something better.”

“Of course not. Didn’t you hear what I just said?”

“Yes. And if it were coming from anyone other than you I’d believe it.”

“...really?”

She shrugged. “I’ve seen you do some pretty amazing thing with a cauldron, my friend. I bet you’ll grow up to be one of the best potionsmasters in Britian one day.”

“Oh, pshaw,” Severus said, waving the comment away but looking pleased.

“I’m dead serious. You know your shit.”

“Well...yes, I’m rather familiar with my shit now that you mention it.” Severus examined his nails.

“But don’t you dare touch Stunner or it’ll interfere with our plan.”

“You mean the plan I have yet to agree to?”

Myra crossed her arms. “I don’t know what’s taking you so damn long about it either.”

“There’s considerable risk involved! The Dark Lord doesn’t just give up his followers like party favors at a bar mitzvah! We supply the Death Eaters with over eighty percent of their potions, it’s not like our absence will go unnoticed for long. What will the Dark Lord do when we’re not here to supply him with his god damn decongestant!” Severus sent a fist into the table. A beaker fell to the floor and shattered.

“You’re still in a strop about that?”

“Of bloody course I am!”

“Well that’s it, isn’t it. Don’t you see why we have to leave?”

Severus started at Myra for a moment and shook his head. “That kind of thing is par for the course. I knew that when I joined, Myra.”

“You did not! In all honesty, what were you expecting when you became a Death Eater? Because I’m betting it wasn’t this.”

“I...” Severus said. “I expected....you know, glory, fame, power, all that, but-”

“Do you see any Goddamn glory in what we do? Holed up in this lab all day with barely a spot of time to eat, sleep or shit, making potions meant to torture people we don’t even know? Who aren’t even our enemies?”

“Not directly our enemies, but enemies of the cause.”

“What’s our cause? The further promotion of Voldemort? Face it, Severus, the guy is bloody batshit! What does he think he’s going to do, kill every muggle in the world? They only outnumber us twenty thousand to one.”

“He wants to purify wizard blood! It’ll make the wizarding world stronger, and once that happens who knows what we’ll be capable of, what we can achieve. That I can see, Myra.”

“Do you have a personal problem with mudbloods?” Myra asked, eyes afire.

“It’s the way I was raised.”

“I’m not asking how you were raised. I’m asking if you, Severus J. Snape, have a personal problem with mudbloods.”

“What are you, a bloody philosophy major?”

“Answer me!"

Severus glared. “On a conceptual level-”

“These aren’t concepts, there a fucking people! Have you ever talked to a mudblood? Been friends with a mudblood? Been close to a mudblood?”

“Not...really, no.”

“Well you’re talking with a Goddamn mudblood right now.”

Severus stopped short, blinked. “What did you say?”

“I said you’re talking with a Goddamn mudblood right now.”

“.....What!?”

“You heard me.”

“How the hell is that possible?”

Myra inhaled sharply and rose to her full height, eyes narrowing. “Two muggles fuck and produce a kid with magical abilities they neither understand nor wish to cope with, so they lock her up in the basement like a cretin for most of her life, until she gets an owl from Salem Witches Academy when she’s eleven. One summer they go too fucking far, and said child poisons their evening merlot with one of many noxious mixtures learned in Potions Three. The Dark Lord hears about this through one of his contacts in the American Ministry, and decides that I, despite my muggle blood, would be good recruitment material.

“My parents were dead in the living room, and I was sitting on the front porch waiting for the Ministry officials to arrive. I didn’t even want to run, Severus, I was just so tired. So I waited. But he came first.

“He was wearing a big llama fur coat with huge sunglasses and a parasol. He sat down next to me and put his hand on my shoulder, and he said - he said- “ Myra stuttered. “He said, ‘You poor girl, you must be in so much pain, aren’t you?’”

“And I said ‘Yes’”

Myra stopped and took a shaky breath.

“And he said that my actions were right and good and justified, and that he knew first hand the horrible cruelty of muggles, and didn’t I agree that they were scum, vermin that should be eradicated, so girls like me should no longer be made to suffer and I said yes, Severus, and I meant it.”

She began to speak faster, words tumbling out of her. “All I ever wanted was to be a pureblood witch. I hated my muggle blood. I hated that I’d never be entirely welcome in the Wizarding world because I’d failed to be born into it. I hated that I’d always be a fucking second class citizen here when I’m already a fourth class citizen there. I’d never be good enough anywhere. I told him that. And he took my chin in his hand and said -

“’You’ll be good enough with me.’

“He admired my deeds, my understanding of his cause. He thought I had the right idea and, if I joined his fold and helped him destroy filth like my parents, not only would he keep me safe from the Ministry, he’d - he’d -” Myra took a deep breath, “He’d make me a pure-blood witch.”

“But that’s impossible,” Severus interjected.

Myra glared up at Severus with a rage that made him take a step backward.

“I. Know. That. Now. Don’t. I.”

Severus went wide-eyed and silent. He waited for Myra to continue her story.

She took a deep breath.

“He asked for proof of my allegiance.

“’I asked him what more proof he needed. I’d already killed my parents.

“He said, ‘Don’t be smart, missy. You may have killed your mum and dad in a teenage hissy fit, and you may say pretty things about bloodlines and hatred, but you’re still a muggle. You’ll have to go the extra mile to prove yourself. I don’t want anyone who’s with me less than one hundred and fourteen percent.’

“I asked him what he wanted me to do..

“He said ’I want you to brew up a nice big cauldron of that whatever-it-was that killed your parents and dump it into the nearest water supply. The, er, what do you call it...Tokyo Falls. And I want you to do it now.’

“I tried to mention in an offhand sort of way the number of people that would kill.

“’Well, that’s kind of the objective. Get your rear in gear, Miss Psue. I want to smell dead muggle by sunrise or we’ll see what the Ministry thinks of your parents’ deadness.’

“I packed the ingredients for the potion and a few of my things, and off we went. I tried not to think about what I was doing, tried to disconnect, tried not to feel Voldemort’s eyes on me as he sat there drinking margaritas and singing to himself. It was just a test. I’d just finish the potion and pour it over the side and it would be over.

“And I did. And it was. I could feel the pride he took in me when I did it. He gave me the mark right there in the rain, and that rush of pleasure and heat - you remember - that was the best feeling I’d ever felt. I was real. I was powerful.

“We portkeyed back here, and he had Barty give me my robes and mask. A few days later I was assigned to work down here with you. And a few days after that I got an owl from Voldemort with an American newspaper.”

Myra stared at him before going limp and slumping down hard onto a stool. “Seven thousand people, Severus. Seven thousand people.”

|  part two  

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