| send an owl to grindylowe
| Fic: Death Eaters At The Malfoy Estate
| Fic: Not Death Eaters At The Malfoy Estate
| fan art
| links
| The Lab Message Board
DEATH EATERS AT THE MALFOY ESTATE
Episode 3: Puppet Mania, Part 2
"H-he is NOT lame!" Severus chortled. "He's still the best puppet at Hogwarts! Way cooler than...than that." A wave of ache passed through his chest as he realized how deeply, deeply weak that was. He ground his molars at the snickers.
"Bring Jackson out," Magurthy said, "and we shall see."Severus clutched for Jackson, dropped him. 'Smooth," someone in the crowd muttered, and everyone laughed. Severus felt his face flush. He shoved Jackson onto his hand and held him up so as to be eye to eye with Magurthy, though given his height this was not possible. Jackson's head was right at the level of Magurthy's gaping, shiny-fanged mouth.
"Why you be trashin' up my street, bitch?" Jackson said in his famed southern drawl.
A chorus of "ooooh"s.
"Such big language from such a little boy," Magurthy replied contemptuously.
"You can-"
"Only have one eye, I see? How pathetic. Did a mouse run away with the first one?"
"Pff. You ain't shit, honey-chile. Whatchoo think you are, Elvis or somethin' with your, er, movin' parts?"
Someone in the crowd made a noise of bafflement.
Magurthy smirked. He SMIRKED. Severus realized with an acidic lurch that Magurthy could also move his brows. Jackson opened his mouth to say something, the loose fang wiggling.
"I believe your tooth is falling out," Magurthy said contemptuously. "How very common."
"Bitch, you gotta make this a class issue, don't you? Das because you're WEAK, you know dat, you WEAK-"
"I'm weak? You're the tiny little hand puppet being controlled by, I say, a rather pungent Slytherin fart. Can you smell that?," Magurthy asked the crowd. "Ahoy-hoy, that's a sharp odor!"
A chorus of laughter. Severus was so frustrated he could barely breathe.
"You want to make it about class, fine - I am bigger than you, yes, and therefore higher on the food chain. Bigger than you, better than you, higher tech than you..." Magurthy's voice faded to James's, "and way, way cooler than you'll EVER be. So, Snape, why don't you just put your little puppet down, go back to your dorm, and we'll call this over. I think we know who has the better puppet. I'll let you leave with your dignity."
"At least I ain't - " Ain't what? Amazing? Perfect? Incredible? Severus tried to think of the worst thing he could possibly say. He locked eyes with James and felt a white hot fury. This wasn't about puppets anymore. He had to say something that cut and cut deep, and he had to say it now.
And, before he could stop to think, out came, "Lily Evans is an oozing cuntface."
The crowd gasped, someone whispered "what's a cunt?".
Severus wasn't entirely sure himself.
James's face suddenly turned bright red, and he jerked his head forward. Magurthy jerked to life and pitched, making Sirius yelp - faster than a bat's eyelash Magurthy had Jackson off Severus's hand and in his mouth, vigorously chewing.
"NOOOOO!" Severus screamed, flying at Magurthy, trying to jump high enough to open the mouth but to no avail. Instead to only managed to infuriate Sirius, who was trying to keep himself vertical against Severus's flailing weight. "What's going on? What's going on?" Sirius kept asking, trying to see out of the cloak.
"Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!" the crowd chanted.
Severus whipped around to James, who still held the wand., and was making chewing motions with his mouth. Severus moved on sudden instinct and rushed James, who was too stunned by Severus's sudden uncharacteristic aggression to move out of the way. Severus lunged and hit James, a good, solid punch across the jaw.
Severus had never heard, and would never hear again, a more satisfying crack of impact.
As James's fell backwards so did Magurthy, down and off Sirius's head. The punch had sent a mauled Jackson flying across the room to hit the opposite wall. Severus wanted to breathe a sigh of relief.
He didn't have time.
Sirius was upon him like bronze knuckled thunder. Nary had two seconds passed before Sirius had wrestled him to the ground, straddled him, and was, quite repeatedly, punching Severus in the face.
Severus tried to go for his wand - he felt it slip out of his belt just as he did. Between strikes and through blood he saw a bloody nosed, bruised-jawed James over Sirius's shoulder, tapping Severus's wand against the palm of his hand.
"Give me-" Severus said. Sirius's fist connected with his jaw. "Put it-" His eye.
"You. dumb. bitch," Sirius said, punching. Severus tried to breathe and felt blood go up his nose. He choked on it. "Say mercy," Sirius said. "Say mercy and I'll step off. Say mercy."
Sirius grabbed Severus by the collar, lifting his head enough so that more blood rushed up his nose. He scanned the crowd with eyes confused by red. By the looks on their faces it must have been bad.
Where the hell was Lucius?
Severus sneezed, sending blood flying into Sirius's face.
"Why you little-" Sirius readied another punch.
His arm was held back, however, by Albus Dumbledore himself.
"I think that will be quite enough," he said softly.
Sirius released Severus, whose head lolled to the right. Before his eyes shut he spied Jackson, now missing his good eye, mangled, laying in the curve where the ceiling met the floor.
The next night, in the dorm, Lucius brought Severus some of the gauze Pomfrey had sent down, with which he re-bandaged his eye. "Here you go," he said jovially, his face still smug.
"Hrmph," Severus muttered, snatching the gauze out of Lucius's hand. That day had been hell. He had to walk around Hogwarts looking like a mummy while James gloated about the brave victory of Magurthy, marketing it as a defeat of Gryffindor over Slytherin - they could not show him off, however, because Filch had put Puppets on the contraband list, and they'd all been confiscated till the end of the year.
Nevertheless, the stigma held. James was exalted, while Severus heard whispers at his back in the halls, giggles as he walked by. Sybil had tried to comfort him, sappy with sympathy, which only made him feel worse. Young Brenda Black avoided his eye completely. He had gone from the school's most popular novelty to the school's biggest, most bandaged loser.
But what was worst of all, what made it sting the most, was that he had started the whole puppet thing.
Lucius sighed. "Leave it to the Faggot Foursome to use a puppet that requires teamwork,' he snickered. "Hey, cheer up. You got a good punch in. Sirius just got a whole lot more!" The blonde boy laughed.
Severus turned away. Rosier, Wilkes, and Lucius certainly were not making this any easier. He hated their feigned sympathy, which only gave way to cruel jokes. Wilkes had even gone so far as to crown him King Pussy, which Severus felt was unfair. He HAD gotten a good punch in, after all.
Severus took a look at Lucius's smug face and told him to get off his bed. "I'm going to sleep," he said, drawing the green curtains around so completely not even a crack showed through.
"Careful the blood doesn't run up your nose and make you sputter," Lucius said. "It wakes me up."
Severus cast a glare in his direction, then reached under his pillow, where he felt the cool roundness of Jackson's yellow glass eye, which Rosier had somehow managed to find in the hall after the incident. In an uncommon show of kindness, Rosier had given Severus the eye without first playing some kind of awful keep-away.
Damn James Potter. Damn him. Damn him and his high and mighty attitude, his stupid thug Sirius, his goddam fucking amazing puppet. Damn him straight to the dirtiest ghetto in the seventh scalding ring of hell.
He'd get revenge one day. He'd show all of them. He's show James, if it was the last thing he ever did.
Severus rolled the eye in hs palm for a moment before drifting into a sweaty, tense sleep frequently interrupted by his inability to breathe through his nose.
He slept though breakfast the next morning, whereupon he missed Pettigrew, with the excuse of grabbing a platter of sausages, walk to the Slytherin table and stand next to Lucius. Had Severus been sitting at just the right angle, he might have spotted Pettigrew slip something into Lucius's lap - a catalogue of theatre props. Expensive, lifelike theatre props.
"Thanks," Peter whispered as he walked away with the platter.
Lucius winked, then called out, 'What're you planning on doing with those sausages, Gryffindor?" at which the whole table laughed uproariously.
"Hey! Hey Deploria!" Lucius said. "Have you seen my new cufflinks? Look!"
He displayed his wrist for Deploria. "Wow, ruby snakes!" she exclaimed. 'Awesome!"
He grinned.
***
Present day, or rather late seventies Severus and Lucius were startled out of their reverie by a crash in the hall, followed by a rather loud obscenity. Severus opened the door to find Myra Psue quickly stuffing various bottles into a Pieter's Poisons shopping bag.
"Just dropped this, no big deal," she said.
Severus scanned over the bottles he could see. Some of them were metamorphine supplies, but the others weren't. Was she re-stocking? They weren't out of anything.
"What do you need all that stuff for?" Severus started to ask, but he was cut off by Lucius.
"I loved your happy accident.," he said to Myra.
'Wh-what?" She was taken aback. Lucius had never directly addressed her before.
"Whatever you did to the last batch, since Severus doesn't seem to know what it was, was a wonderful improvement. I applaud you."
"Really?" Myra seemed delighted.
"What did you do?" Severus asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Nothing," she said smoothly, rubbing her nose. "I used fresher grousefrinkle this time. I'm glad you liked it, Mr. Malfoy."
"The pleasure was all mine, Allysa. Glad to have you on the team."
"Myra, actually," she said as she gathered up her bag. "My name's Myra."
"Yes yes," he said dissmissevly. Myra scowled and left them.
Lucius turned to Severus. 'You still haven't answered my question."
"Which?"
"What does the J stand for? Your middle initial."
Severus sighed, lit a cigarette, idly wondering why he was about to subject himself to yet more mockery.
He inhaled.
"James," he said in a cloud of smoke.
He walked down the hall to the sound of Lucius's high, ringing laughter.
Severus went back to his spartan room, shutting the door a litle too hard. He took one last drag, then looked at the old, scarred dinosaur puppet that sat on the knob of his headboard. The golden eye stared at Severus, having been glued back in long ago.
He put his half-finished cigarette in the puppet's mouth.
"You don't be messin with Jackson," he said softly.
FINI
...until next time....