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The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will Mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives… the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…
~
The Princes are an old family, Ancient and Noble, but nobody can deny that they are rather fallen of late.
The main branch has died out. The cadet branch, inheriting, produces no more august heir than the ugly daughter of a love match between Julius Prince and a foreign witch who hides her hair behind a strange headscarf. And then, to cap it all, the daughter goes off and marries a Muggle, and she can’t even be properly disowned because she’s the last member of the House. Furious with her family, she changes her name to the Muggle’s — making her even less acceptable in polite society, if that was even possible; really, she’s cutting off her nose to spite her face, although perhaps that would be a good thing with how unfortunately large said nose is — and nobody hears of her again until she’s dead at her husband’s drunken, violent, Muggle hands. And now all that’s left is a young halfblood with a Muggle name and a face as unprepossessing as his mother’s.
That is what everybody says.
Eileen Prince, before she dies, says other things to her son. She says that the Princes are a proud family, and noble. She says that they are set in their ways. She says that their downfall is the result of their failures, of their insistence on inbreeding and their resistance to new blood. She says that before her parents, no Prince had married outside of the Sacred Twenty-Eight in seven generations.
She says that her mother was a clever woman, and powerful. She says that they hated her for her skin colour and her clothing and her religion, all of them far too different for stuck-up pureblood ways. She says that leaving was the right choice, and if she never says that her marriage was the right choice— well. Her son, she knows, sees more than she would like him to.
She has never been as religious as her mother, and her son is still less religious than she, but she teaches him the traditions of both sides of her heritage. She reads him The Tales of Beedle the Bard, but hums lullabies in another tongue. She tells him that he is born in mid-January, but also near the end of Rajab — the sacred seventh month, a good month to be born in. She teaches him the Prince family’s favoured spells, but to hold his wand the way that her mother held hers.
As he grows older, his father grows cruller, and the lessons grow fewer and farther between.
The last thing she tells her son before she dies is to watch his friends, and choose them carefully.
He does not listen.
~
1978
~
Lord Voldemort stares down at the figure kneeling at his feet.
There are nearly a hundred people in the room, but the silence is absolute. He glories in it, basks in the visceral proof of his power. They do not dare to speak, not now, not in the pause before Lord Voldemort stands from his throne and steps towards his newest recruit.
He allows the silence to stretch, to elongate, for unending moments. Let them feel his power in the air, his magic in their arms, his strength in their silence. Let them feel it, and let them know who he is. Let them remember why they dare not speak his name.
He rises to his feet, eyes still fixed on the man before him. Long, dark hair, rather oily, hangs down to hide a sallow face with a rather large nose. Not a prepossessing face, no, not at all, but perhaps that is for the best.
The man is powerful. Lord Voldemort can feel his magic in the silence: it is a quiet strength, the kind that lends itself to cunning and speed rather than to a raw battle of wills, but it is strong regardless. He is a clever one, too, with a long list of innovations to his name — a list presented to Lord Voldemort by the younger Malfoy, in an attempt to persuade him to accept the half-blood into his ranks.
Half-blood he may be, but this man has invented an impressive repertoire of spells, none of them known to the Ministry and all of them remarkably useful. His duelling record is excellent — apparently, he spent his school years single-handedly fending off a quartet of particularly vicious Gryffindors, and the practice shows — but that is not where his real strength lies. No, potions is his area of expertise. Most of Lucius’ list was comprised of potions refined, potions altered, potions strengthened, potions invented. A creative and intelligent mind, clearly, and an ambitious one.
Potions, in Lord Voldemort’s mind, are rather useful but not particularly interesting. Best used outside of pitched battle, they are a resource rather than a passion. In school — in those long-ago days when he went by another name — they were a means to the end of retaining Slughorn’s interest and his own prestige as the highest-scoring student in living memory. His O on his Potions NEWT came as a matter of course; the exam did not send a thrill of power down his spine the way that the Defence exam did.
This recruit, obviously, feels differently. Lord Voldemort is faintly unimpressed by that, as he is unimpressed by anyone foolish enough to disagree with him. On the other hand, this particular difference of opinion is clearly an advantageous one — while Voldemort spends his time on more important things, his follower can brew and innovate and aid the cause from the background.
From what Lord Voldemort has heard, this man is the consummate Slytherin. Clever and cunning and ambitious, he is, with the raw power and the intelligence to back it up. A half-blood, yes, bearing his Muggle father’s disgusting name but with something to be proud of in his mother’s heritage… It is disconcertingly familiar.
No, it is a very good thing that this man is entirely lacking in charisma, in appearance, in any ability to sway people to his side. If he were as personable as he is powerful, he might be able to set himself up as a rival.
Might, of course, and Lord Voldemort would surely best him eventually… but the similarities are too telling to rest easy. Marking this man as his own is necessary if he is to remain unchallenged.
The man kneels properly — in the traditional, Pureblood style, except for the angle of his arm, which is turned so that his forearm is offered to Lord Voldemort in obedience and supplication. That is Lord Voldemort’s own variation on the pose: in a Marked follower, the position displays the Dark Mark; in a would-be recruit, it demonstrates his willingness to take the Mark.
Lord Voldemort draws his wand, the incantation whispering through his mind. The enchantment is second-nature, now, although he still recalls the effort it took to combine the branding spells used on cattle with a minor variant on the Cruciatus and tracking charms that activate upon his touch. A clever invention, he knows.
He wonders if this man could have come up with it. He wonders if this man could have improved upon it.
It does not matter. He has won the hypothetical battle before it has begun; this man will be his follower, his subordinate, his inferior.
Even if—
—he raises his wand—
—in another life—
—and recites the spell in his mind, ligare, cautere, vocare—
—he might have been—
—the wand touches skin—
—an equal.
Severus Snape does not scream as he is Marked.
~
July, 1980
~
The bubbling of potions is soothing.
This, here, is Severus Snape’s element. He is a skilled duelist and good at spell creation, but Potions is his joy and his passion. Without the Dark Lord’s influence and protection, he would likely be brewing mindlessly for St. Mungo’s in an attempt to fund an apprenticeship that might, if he were lucky, lead to a journeymanship, and thus eventually allow him to achieve a mastery. Instead, he is able to invent and experiment to his heart’s content, and he has been all but promised a mastery already for the more innocuous of his creations.
Some of the things which the Dark Lord requests are mildly disturbing, but some are quite simply useful. Some, even, are both — such as his current task, the alteration of a suite of potions to work through touch rather than needing to be drunk. In emergency situations, his alterations could save a life: applying a medical potion topically means no time wasted opening vials or forcing potions down resisting throats, or risking damaging its highly sensitive magical components by spelling it into a stomach. Pepper-Up, Skele-gro, fever reducers, blood replenishers — all of these are perfect for his mastery.
On the other hand, he’s also making topical Veritaserum and a series of topical poisons. That was the Dark Lord’s specific request, and the least Severus can do to repay his debts. It’s somewhat uncomfortable to think of his creations being used to kill, of course, but it’s not like spells can’t do the same thing. In any case, he’ll pacify his conscience by working on a touch-based equivalent of Draught of Living Death as well; that’s probably more humane than anything else his fellow Death Eaters are going to cast, and might well save the life of anyone hit with it. Although he’ll have to be careful to ward the Living Death from interacting with the Wide-Eye Potion. Those two can be remarkably explosive when mixed, since the stimulant fights the soporific with disastrous results. A Calming Draught can be nearly lethal when mixed with Wide-Eye; the Draught of Living Death would be far, far worse. Magical opposites do not like to interact.
The Veritaserum goes clear in a flash of sparks, and Severus lowers the heat immediately. Over-brewed Veritaserum is as lethal as under-brewed, that is to say, very. He summons a dropper and allows a single splash of the clear potion to fall on his wrist — a good place to apply the potion, although any bare skin will do and enough of it can soak through clothing. If he’s calculated his quantities correctly, which he has, then one drop of his topical Veritaserum should—
Yes. There it is, the enforced calmness and clarity of the potion. Severus raises his Occlumency shields, but not fully, allowing the potion to probe at them and test their strength. Really, Severus is the one testing strength; this variant seems about as strong as Ministry-issued Veritaserum, if not marginally stronger.
Still not strong enough to overcome Severus’s barriers, though. He shuts the potion up in a corner of his mind and is about to move on to the next poison when his arm burns, and he puts the potions into stasis with a sigh. The Veritaserum is still pricking at him — it’ll keep on doing so for a few hours yet — but it’s easy enough to ignore, so he simply disapparates, following the pull of the Mark on his arm.
~
Severus sighs again, this time soundlessly, as he lingers at the door. If only his debt could be repaid through potions alone — but no. The Dark Lord needs a spy at Hogwarts, and a spy he must have. Severus is to ingratiate himself into Dumbledore’s graces, and apparently spying on a hiring meeting is part of that. He suppresses yet another sigh.
Trelawney is trembling and gasping and generally being a fraud in Dumbledore’s direction, fluttering with scarves. Had she even a scrap of actual Sight, she might have been aware enough to notice the spy waiting at the door, but no. Soon enough, Dumbledore would realise the same thing, and Severus would be able to get back to his brewing.
Steps on the lower levels of the staircase behind him. Severus disillusions himself and stays where he is; there are still two flights between Dumbledore’s room and the ground floor of the pub, which means he has time to disapparate if the steps keep coming nearer.
It’s in that moment that he hears a shuddering, choking inhale from the room, and his attention swivels to focus on Trelawney, who has sat up straight. For a moment, he thinks it’s another attempt to gain the position, but then her voice sounds out, echoing and weird. No — this is a true Prophecy. A minor Seer Trelawney is not, but a true Prophet… perhaps.
“THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD APPROACHES.”
He is frozen, caught in the dark echoes of her voice.
“BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM.”
He does not hear the steps as they continue to ascend, nor does he notice his disillusionment charm fizzling out.
“BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES.”
Hands close on his shoulders.
“AND THE DARK LORD—”
He is pulled roughly down the stairs and out into the street, and hears no more.
~
He considers not telling the Dark Lord anything. Probably, the Dark Lord will figure out who his “fated vanquisher” is to be, kill them, and win the war. This information might be essential to winning the war — the prophecy only mentioned “the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord,” not “the one who will vanquish the Dark Lord,” so if the child is killed as soon as it is born, it seems rather unlikely that it could fulfil its destiny.
If Severus doesn’t tell the Dark Lord about the prophecy, the prophesied child might well grow old enough to make something of that potential. In other words: this knowledge could mean the difference between the success of their cause and its failure.
He owes everything to the cause and to his Lord — his Potions Mastery, his financial stability, his job, his laboratory. Without the Dark Lord’s — and Lucius Malfoy’s — influence, he would have been a nothing and a nobody. The Dark Lord protects him, elevates him, gives him the space to achieve his ambitions.
Certainly, the Dark Lord’s views are extreme, but Severus knows better than most how terrible Muggles can be. Tobias, of course, is the first that comes to mind, but even Petunia was hateful and cruel. Muggles can’t understand magic; when they know about it, they do not care who they hurt in search of it. While Severus disagrees with many of his fellow Death Eaters’ views on Muggleborns — nobody who knew Lily Evans could ever call them inferior , and Severus will forever regret the day that he allowed himself to call her that horrible word — he has never heard the Dark Lord himself express such views. The Dark Lord believes in the superiority of magic, in all its forms. Muggleborns need to be separated from their Muggle families, of course, for their own protection and even for the Muggles’ happiness (surely Tuney would have been less spiteful if she’d had no knowledge of her superior sister). The Dark Lord’s measures are for everyone’s good. His cause is just and right.
And yet, Severus is reluctant to speak of the prophecy. He wants the Dark Lord to win, yes, to have the opportunity to defeat his supposed vanquisher, but— but the Dark Lord will kill the child without mercy or remorse. Can Severus sentence a child to death?
In the alley outside of the Hog’s Head, he allows himself a moment to bury his head in his hands. His Occlumency shields are in complete disarray. To speak, or to be silent?
Until now, he has never directly caused a death. He knows, vaguely, that the other Death Eaters use violence to achieve their ends; he knows that some of his potions might be used to kill. But he has never been directly, completely responsible for a death — and a child’s death at that.
But he owes the Dark Lord everything.
He apparates into his master’s presence before he has fully made up his mind.
“What have you learned, Severus?” the Dark Lord asks.
Severus answers truthfully.
He will always wonder if, had the remains of the Veritaserum not burned in his veins, he might have chosen differently.
~
August, 1980
~
He thinks it’s about her.
What have I done?
~
December, 1980
~
Dumbledore, Severus decides, is moving too slowly.
He had assumed, when he offered his services to the Headmaster, that he would receive immediate orders to kill the Dark Lord by any means necessary. He had assumed that the Order of the Phoenix would make use of his insider knowledge to promptly destroy the Dark Lord’s forces. He had assumed that he was changing the course of the war.
Instead, Dumbledore insists on caution and restraint. Dumbledore does not trust his information. Dumbledore might even believe that they can’t win the war without Lily’s son; that would certainly explain why he is refusing to take drastic action in order to win. Dumbledore has put the Potters under Fidelius, but he has done nothing to eliminate the main threat.
Severus Snape refuses to accept it.
He has chosen his side, once and for all. There is no going back. He has betrayed the Dark Lord’s secrets to Dumbledore, he has maintained a pretence of being worse at Potions than he actually is, he has concealed his worst weapons when he can, including his new touch-based Draught of Living Death. (Dumbledore uses nothing that Severus gives him in some misguided ploy to maintain Severus’s position. It is infuriating.)
He will probably die in this war. His choice should at least mean something.
So he poisons the Dark Lord’s tea.
It’s a good poison, one of his own invention. He has no idea what protections the Dark Lord has on his person; judging by the malformation of his features, he’s practised a good deal of Dark Arts, and Severus cannot be certain that any normal poison will work. So he comes up with his own poison, designed to circumvent protections against the usual type.
He is certain that it will work. He can’t test it, obviously, but the Arithmantic equations agree perfectly with his intuitive understanding of what the potion will do; his theoretical knowledge has always been a strong suit, and he knows it has not led him wrong. The potion will not attack the body or the mind; it will not cause a heart attack, or melt the Dark Lord’s insides, or deprive him of the rational functioning of his brain. All of those can be defended against.
Instead, it will attack the soul. Of the trifecta — body, mind, soul, the elements of life and of magic — soul is the least vulnerable, because it is intangible. It cannot be strengthened through training or practice; it does not decay with time. The Killing Curse comes the closest to attacking the soul, but really it simply severs the connections between body and soul, leaving the former to decay and the latter to move on. (Or not, in the case of ghosts.)
Severus’s potion uses some similar principles, but even he cannot recreate an Unforgiveable in potion form. No, his poison will sever the soul from the world, rather than from the body; it will cut the ties that hold the soul in place.
It will work.
And yet he drips it into the Dark Lord’s tea, and the Dark Lord drinks, and the Dark Lord lives on.
~
January, 1981
~
Severus did not make a mistake with his poison. Somehow, the Dark Lord has found a way to defend his very soul from being uprooted. The question is how to kill him anyway.
How did the Dark Lord protect himself? What spell can eliminate a poison from the blood before it goes into effect? How could the Dark Lord anchor his soul to the world?
The answers are elusive, hints and mysteries and whispers of horror stories.
He keeps looking.
~
April 21st, 1981
~
The McKinnons die. Severus will never know if he could have saved them, if only he’d killed the Dark Lord faster, if only he could find the answer.
He doesn’t know Marlene McKinnon, but he knows that Lily was her friend. At the next Order meeting, Lily’s eyes are red and shadowed. He sits in his usual chair in the corner and does not catch her eyes across the room, no matter how much he wants to.
He will find the answer, and he will kill the Dark Lord, and he will leave this country before anyone can prosecute him for all his crimes, and he will never see Lily again — but she will be alive, and that is the most important thing.
He keeps looking.
~
June 13th, 1981
~
The Durmstrang Library is large and extremely Dark, so he flatters Karkaroff into inviting him there for a tour. He is genuinely interested in the Durmstrang Potions professor’s work, and in the Potions books in the Durmstrang Library, but as soon as his guides are out of sight, he slips into Darker corridors.
The problem is that soul magic is forbidden in traditional Dark circles. While the magic is unquestionably Dark — all about intent and emotion — it is rare, difficult, and perceived as… problematic. He knows that shattering the soul is a thing, and that murder in particular damages the soul, but the references to intentionally shattering one’s soul are few and far between, because even the Darkest Pure-bloods have been raised in full awareness of the unfortunate consequences of a broken soul. Weakness, not magically but mentally; a certain amount of vulnerability to those of purer souls; the dangerous potential of that soul continuing to degrade after it has been broken once.
Durmstrang is traditionally Dark, and Severus is hoping that outside of England, the opinions on soul magic are less strict. It turns out that they are, if anything, even more so; the only books on soul magic are about its consequences. One volume explains that remorse can reunite the soul, but causes extreme pain; another cryptically references Basilisk venom and Fiendfyre as ways to destroy someone with a fractured soul, but gives no specifics. Since Basilisks have been extinct for several centuries, Severus makes a mental note to improve his control of Fiendfyre, although he’s pretty sure that the Dark Lord is far better at controlling the Dark flames than he could ever hope to be.
He leaves the school in disappointment.
~
July 3rd, 1981
~
The Dark Lord grows increasingly paranoid as he tries and fails — for now, at least — to find the prophesied child. He is pleased when Severus tells him that Black is the Secret Keeper, but infuriated by Severus’s repeated “failures” to capture Black.
Severus grows very skilled at Occluding through the Cruciatus. Black remains free, and thus Lily remains safe. Severus debates telling Black that he owes his worst enemy a life debt, since the Dark Lord would no doubt have eventually murdered a Secret Keeper who refuses to give up the Secret, but in the end decides that the victory isn’t worth suffering through Black’s presence.
The Order meetings grow increasingly tense. There’s some ridiculous division amongst the Marauders — Pettigrew is rarely present, Black and Potter are wary of Lupin, Lupin obviously suspects Black. Severus is pretty sure that both Lupin and Black are far too devoted to Potter to ever betray him, but it’s not his problem, so he ignores them.
Severus’s information is used rarely — to “preserve his position,” according to Dumbledore — but he does manage to warn the Longbottoms about a planned attack. The Dark Lord might be certain that the Potters were the greater threat, but he had not forgotten the second family of the prophecy. The Longbottoms move to a different safe house and put up a Fidelius. Lily comes up to Severus at the end of the meeting and thanks him. He manages to nod.
~
July 21st, 1981
~
Lucius lets Severus explore the Malfoy Library, but the Malfoys have always been the traditional sort of purebloods, too dignified for anything so raw as soul magic. As expected, he finds nothing of note.
The Dark Lord’s primary residence is Lestrange Abbey, so plumbing the Lestrange Library is simple. The Lestranges care a bit less for their reputation than the Malfoys, but their library is entirely devoid of any mention of soul magic — perhaps the family is too young to have acquired that knowledge.
If the books are in any family’s library, it’ll be the Black Library. Old enough to have the knowledge, and while they are likely intelligent enough not to use it, they are also well-known for accumulating all sorts of books. Know thine enemy and all that; although the Blacks are all Dark, aside from the Mutt, the Light books in their library are said to rival even Hogwarts’. In other words, they’re almost certain to have something on soul magic.
The question is how to get in. If Regulus were alive, it’d be a simple matter, as easy as exploring the Malfoy and Lestrange Libraries had been. But with Regulus vanished-and-presumed-dead, the easy way in is gone. (The Dark Lord is particularly incensed about this fact.)
Bellatrix and Narcissa were both Blacks, but having married outside of the family, they’d given up their right to enter Black dwellings uninvited. Grimmauld Place was home to Walburga Black alone, and she’d backed off of the Dark Lord’s cause since Regulus’s death — enough that she wouldn’t let either of her nieces into the house, much less a friend that they introduced.
But there has to be a way. Severus Snape is the youngest Potions master in six centuries; if anyone can break in, he can.
~
August 16th, 1981
~
The key, he realises, is that Walburga Black is not the only person with full access to Grimmauld Place.
Her son would never voluntarily set foot in his childhood home, but he was never properly disowned, and so he could.
Severus spends two weeks modifying the Polyjuice potion to change one’s magical signature as well.
~
September 30th, 1981
~
He steals a hair from Sirius Black’s head at the end of the September Order meeting. (Meetings are always on the 30th and the 15th. Severus has told them that predictability is a bad idea, but Dumbledore laughs him off as always. The fool.)
Black doesn’t notice that one of his curls is a tad shorter, nor does he spot Severus’s hand tucking the piece into his pocket.
Lily does.
She pulls him into a side room and asks him why. He stares at her. Other than the brief thanks in July, they have not spoken since that terrible word at the end of fifth year.
“Severus. I’m sure you have a reason. What is it?”
He sighs. She is as stubborn as ever, obviously. “To sneak into Grimmauld Place. I need access to the Black Library.”
“Modified Polyjuice?” she asks, curiosity lighting up her eyes.
As clever as ever, too. “Indeed.”
She considers him. He can see the question in her eyes: who ordered you to do this?
Nobody, he thinks, and perhaps she understands, because she does not ask him any more.
“The transformation is less painful if you decrease the mass of boomslang skin by two milligrams,” she says instead, and smiles, and turns away.
~
(The transformation into Sirius Black is painful to Severus’s psyche, but not his body. Merlin bless Lily Evans.)
~
October 9th, 1981
~
Horcruxes.
Horcruxes.
The pages of the books are dog-eared, the way that all of Regulus’s books were. Severus pauses, staring down at them.
On a hunch, he casts a Visibility Charm tied to the Dark Arts and is almost blinded by the glow of what he eventually determines to be a locket a few hallways away — specifically, Salazar Slytherin’s locket, whose magical signature feels a good deal like the Dark Mark on his arm.
Horcruxes. Soul pieces. And Regulus found one.
Severus thinks of the Dark Lord’s claims that he is closer to immortality than any man before him, and thinks of the Dark Lord’s near-insanity, and compares his complete deformation to the minor changes suggested as possible side-effects by the book. The Dark Lord made more than one.
Well. Time to invent a new potion.
~
October 15th, 1981
~
Soul Arithmancy is impossibly complicated, and while Severus has always been good at Arithmancy — O’s on his OWLs and NEWTs — he’s never been a genius at it. Nevertheless, the calculations are necessary to provide a theoretical grounding for his potion, especially since he can’t do too any trial runs in case the Dark Lord notices what’s going on.
The good news is that he’s come up with Arithmantic formulae that should allow him to brew a potion that can trace the soul-bindings between Horcruxes. The bad news is that it only affects Horcruxes, not the main soul piece, which means he’ll then need to actually kill the Dark Lord. The other bad news is that he’ll need to tie the Horcrux-hunting potion to something that can destroy Horcruxes, and he has neither access to Basilisk venom nor any idea how to turn Fiendfyre into something potion-like. The soul poison won’t work, because the other Horcruxes will anchor each other and render the poison as ineffective as it was against the Dark Lord. He needs to make something new.
Or perhaps that’s actually good news. He’s always liked a challenge.
(At the first Order meeting in October, Lily waves her son’s chubby fist in his direction and smiles. He smiles back at her.)
~
October 25th, 1981
~
The answer comes in the form of the cauldron of touch-sensitive Draught of Living Death that he left under stasis in August of last year and completely forgot about until now. And also in the form of the new cauldron of Wide-Eye that he’s making by rote while thinking about Basilisk venom and how utterly impossible it is to get access to. And wondering about “damage beyond magical repair”, which is never explained properly by any of the books that he reads — the closest thing he’s come to a definition is “anything that cannot be fixed with anything less than phoenix tears”, which is frustratingly imprecise, to say the least. He wants a list!
In his distraction, he doesn’t notice the magical tension in the air until the Wide-Eye explodes in his face. Only his reflexes save him from the blast; it takes about half a second for him to remember about the Living Death, realise that he had not put up the proper wards between the two volatile substances, and vanish the remains of the Wide-Eye before anything worse happens.
It takes four more seconds to realise that he very nearly died. Living Death forcibly subdues the body’s functioning, compelling sleep; Wide-Eye forcibly reactivates the body’s functions, compelling wakefulness. The magical leakage from the opposite functions is an explosive combination, but if he’d ingested either of them while in the vicinity of the other — or even just touched them, what with his contact-based delivery methods — he would have died on the spot, his magical core ripped in two by the warring impulses. Not even a bezoar could save him then. Arguably phoenix tears could, but those were rare enough that—
Phoenix tears. Beyond magical repair.
The solution to his problem is a potions incompatibility that half the Wizarding World learns as part of a standard first-aid course.
~
October 30th, 1981
~
He is so close.
All he needs to do now is find a way to combine the Wide-Eye with the Living Death, the latter already having been combined with his Horcrux Hunting Potion. If he leaves the mixtures as-is, they’ll both blow up before he can mix them properly, and the Horcrux will only be in contact with one of them. He needs to keep their magical signatures from interfering with each other until they actually touch, which means essentially doing the opposite of his contact-based delivery method. It’s just a few more hours of work; he’s almost there.
But nooooo, the Order must keep to their schedule of meetings on the 30th of every month. Why they have such a regular schedule, Severus cannot begin to fathom, but regular it is, regardless of any attendant dangers. The Dark Lord may be insane enough to create Horcruxes, but at least his meetings are scheduled randomly.
On the other hand, those random meetings mean that he now has a Death Eater meeting right after the Order meeting, which just adds more hours away from his potions. Worse, the Dark Lord has been murmuring about a potential way to access the Potters, but without giving any specifics — probably because he doesn’t want anyone to know about it if the plan doesn’t work out, but in Severus’s case, it is incredibly irritating.
Nothing for it, though; Severus Apparates to the Order’s safe-house-of-the-week.
Dumbledore calls on him to give reports — Merlin, he feels like a schoolboy, next thing you know he’ll be raising his hand for permission to speak — and he warns of the Dark Lord’s apparent plans. The Potters glance at each other and assure the gathering that their Secret Keeper is safe and better protected than the Dark Lord knows; they whisper with Black for the rest of the meeting. Pettigrew and Lupin are both absent, Lupin on his werewolf missions while Pettigrew is probably trying to back out of actually having to fight in a war. Severus sits in silence and boredom.
At the end of the meeting, he screws up his courage and approaches the Potters. This is, after all, the only reason that he even came, rather than blowing Dumbledore off in order to finish his work.
He holds out a bracelet towards Lily and wishes he knew how to speak less brusquely, but this is all he can manage. “It’s charmed to light up if the Dark Lord or anyone with a Dark Mark comes close to you.”
Black glares at him. “How do we know you haven’t put a tracking charm on it and are planning on leading You-Know-Who to their house?”
Severus ignores him.
Lily smiles and takes the bracelet. It lights up as soon as she puts it on, which makes her frown for a moment, her eyes darting to Severus’s left arm. He suppresses a flinch and apparates away.
The bracelet on his own wrist stops buzzing, signalling that Lily’s bracelet is no longer activated. It works. Good.
Then he heads to Lestrange Abbey, where he receives a Crucio for no reason except the Dark Lord’s apparently very good mood. Severus finds himself praying, incongruously, for Black’s safety.
He returns to his lab, and experiments through the night.
~
October 31st, 1981
4:00 PM
~
Tentatively, Severus lowers the wards dividing the two halves of his workroom, his wand held ready to re-erect them if anything blows up.
The two potions simmer, unexploded. Thank Merlin.
Severus doesn’t have the faintest idea if the Dark Lord will notice the destruction of his Horcruxes, so better safe than sorry. Worst-case scenario, the Dark Lord not only realises that his Horcruxes are gone, but also figures out where it’s happening. The Mark’s tracking capabilities can go both ways when he wants them to, which means that the Dark Lord can Apparate through any wards Severus puts up. He needs to be ready if that happens, with all the advantages he can muster to fight the most powerful wizard in the country with the possible exception of Dumbledore.
He takes a deep breath in, and begins to arm himself.
~
October 31st, 1981
5:00 PM
~
The potions are ready. The Horcrux is on the verge of destruction.
His wand is in a battle holster up his sleeve. In his pockets are an array of potions, most of them hitherto unseen by the Dark Lord: touch-based poisons, touch-based Living Death in case some Horcruxes remain, a full suite of healing potions for himself. (With a private chuckle, he wards the Wide-Eye and Living Death carefully, and puts them in opposite pockets.) Silencing spells lie thick as syrup on himself and on the potions vials. He can’t ward them against breaking, since that would defeat the purpose of contact poisons, so he downs their antidotes first.
He checks his alarm bracelet, which is silent as it has been since last night, and picks up the locket.
Drops it into the Living Death.
Waits.
Picks up the modified Wide-Eye.
Pours it in.
Collapses to the ground as the blast knocks the breath from his lungs.
The last thing he sees before passing out is a thick cloud of black smoke that screams and then dissipates.
~
October 31st, 1981
6:30 PM
~
An electric shock from his wrist brings Severus back to awareness.
His wrist — the bracelet. Charmed to buzz if a Death Eater is near Lily’s bracelet; charmed to shock him if the Dark Lord is near to it.
Severus focuses on the link to the Dark Lord in his arm, scrambles to his feet without a care for the delicate vials in his pockets, and Apparates.
The Dark Lord’s wand is trained on Potter. “AVADA KEDA—”
“Sectumsempra.” The spell rises easily to his lips, as easily as the Dark Lord bats the curse away. Nothing more than an irritant, a fly.
Lips pull back into a sneer. “Severus. I should have known you were a traitor.”
Severus Occludes away every fear, every hope, every dream.
“I do find myself wondering, though,” the Dark Lord says, soft and seductive, “why it is that you defend the blood-traitor, when you really care about the Mudblood. Isn’t he, ah, in your way? I do seem to recall you begging for her life, and hers alone… kill the son, the husband, anything, so long as she is spared… I can still grant you your wish, Severus.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Severus shrugs, careless as he can only be while Occluding. “Lily would give her life for them. I would give my life for her. Begging for her life alone was a ploy, idiot. You knew we’d been friends; I needed to convince you that I only cared for her selfishly, for my own gain.”
The Dark Lord snarls. He does not like being wrong, nor being insulted; belatedly, it occurs to Severus that Occluding away all of his fear is, perhaps, a bad idea. “You mean to say that you love her? Love is an illusion, Severus, a dream that will never be realised. She loves another. If you want her, you can have her; leave the rest to me.”
“I love her, yes, but not in the way you think.” Severus shakes his head. “Your failure to understand that is quite the blind spot, you know.”
“And so you seek to defeat me,” the Dark Lord murmurs. “Me, the greatest wizard who has ever lived. Me, your mentor, your protector, your saviour. All for the love of a woman who has turned away from you.”
Behind them, Severus is vaguely aware of Potter climbing the stairs, presumably in search of Lily and their son. There are strong anti-Apparition wards on the building, he felt them burn as he arrived although his Mark allowed him to circumvent them. Probably anti-Portkey wards, too, and no doubt the Potters are completely disconnected from the Floo. Hopefully they’ll figure out a way to escape; if not, Potter had better obtain a wand and come to Severus’s aid—
Occlude.
The irritation towards Potter fades, along with the terror on Lily’s behalf and a bit of horror at his daring in coming to confront the Dark Lord.
He has a task to do. Distract him, wait for the Potters to either get away or call backup (or, preferably, both). Avoid dying if he can, but more importantly, do whatever it takes to protect the inhabitants of this house.
“I’ve already done a good deal towards defeating you,” Severus retorts. “There was this most intriguing locket, you see…”
The Dark Lord growls, surprise flitting across his face for the briefest moment before his confidence reasserts itself. “No matter. I have more. I have gone farther than anyone—”
“—along the path to immortality, yes, I know, you’ve said,” Severus interrupts. He really has Occluded away a bit more self-preservation than he’d meant to, but the Dark Lord really did get repetitive at times. “In fact, I’ve heard you say so frequently enough to guess that you’d perverted the laws of magic more than once.”
The Dark Lord hisses, and Severus hasn’t the faintest idea if he is speaking Parseltongue or simply expressing his fury. “How many? How many have you found?”
Severus raises his eyebrows. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“What?” True confusion is a rare thing on the Dark Lord’s face, but it is clear now.
“I modified a few potions to destroy them all.” Severus forces himself to shrug lightly, despite the corona of power glowing around the Dark Lord. “You are mortal, now — as mortal as anyone else.”
Fear, again, and then it vanishes. The Dark Lord lifts his chin. “And so you will defeat me? I have a prophesied vanquisher, yes, but he is scarcely old enough to pose a threat to my power. You are nothing but a foolish child who thinks to rise above your station, and I will crush you as I have crushed every one like you.”
Severus feels himself falter. In all honesty, he had not thought of the prophecy at all since learning that Lily’s son fit its requirements — born at the end of July, to parents who had fought the Dark Lord. He reaches for the wording of the prophecy — was it simply speaking of someone who could defeat the Dark Lord, or someone who would defeat the Dark Lord, or the only one who could defeat him?
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, his mind supplies.
“Avada Kedavra,” the Dark Lord says, and Severus barely dodges the green streak of light.
What is he doing? He can’t do this, he can’t win, he doesn’t have the power—
Another curse, and he can either fight back or die here, pointlessly. Severus begins casting in return, drawing liberally from the wide array of curses that he’s studied, forcing the Dark Lord to deviate from Unforgivables in favour of shields and silent casting.
Still, the Dark Lord is stronger. Severus doesn’t know how old he is, but his reflexes have not weakened with time, and he knows far more spells than any twenty-one-year-old can.
Shields, and curses shot out behind it, and more shields. Dodge, duck, redirect a wave of fire into a jagged strike of lightning.
A half-step forward, two steps back before he can regain his equilibrium. The Dark Lord is fast .
The Potters’ hallway is cluttered with detritus. Severus, forced to move backwards as he is, has the disadvantage. He fires off a quick spell chain — simple, Light-leaning spells tied to one another, forcing the Dark Lord to duck or shield — giving himself enough time to erect a shield of his own… which promptly shatters under the Dark Lord’s vicious curse.
That curse is followed up by a vicious series of them, and Severus can barely catch them all in time. Counter, shield, block. He’s running out of breath. He needs to end this soon. Before he dies and the Dark Lord turns on the Potters.
Counter, shield, cast his own curse. Step back to avoid a return fire. The Dark Lord is even faster than he’d expected. Block, duck, reflect a Blasting Curse into the wall. Duck, shield, counter, shield, step back, block. Almost trip over a chunk of wall sitting on the ground.
He can’t last much longer.
And then there are footsteps on the stairs, and Lily joins the fray in a blur of red hair and a rainbow of spells.
The Dark Lord snarls, vicious and cruel, but there are two of them now and Lily may never have beat Severus in Defence class, but she came pretty damn close. Auror training has evidently agreed with her. Back and forth in the entryway, half the walls blasted to bits, all three breathing hard but casting as quickly as ever.
There’s a twist of the Dark Lord’s wrist, a silent, solid black curse that Severus hasn’t the faintest idea how to block. He ducks, ducks again at a jet of bright green light, and then Lily hits the Dark Lord with a Cutting Curse.
He bleeds as red as any mortal.
Then he releases a concussive wave of force that knocks both of them to the ground.
Severus grunts, the breath driven from his lungs by the impact, and the Dark Lord hits his wand hand with a Bone-Breaking Hex before Severus can recover enough to dodge.
His wand shatters along with half the bones in his hand.
Across the remnants of what was once a room, Lily’s chest rises and falls, but there is blood mixed in with the red of her hair and she doesn’t leap to her feet to reenter the fight, which is terrifying. Severus glances down at himself and notes that nearly all of his potions vials have shattered.
Left-handed, he scrabbles for anything left in his pockets. The Dark Lord steps towards him, smiling now, cold and cruel in his victory. Desperately, uselessly, Severus inches backwards.
“A fine attempt, Severus,” the Dark Lord murmurs. Soft and sweet and terrifying. “But the prophecy was really quite clear. Your birthday was in January, was it not? The first month, the seventh month — half a year really does make all the difference. Crucio.”
The last is almost an afterthought. Severus does not permit himself to scream. Occlumency shields are useful for a good many things, and compartmentalising pain is one of them.
You were born in the holy month of Rajab, his mother’s voice whispers, echoes from the past. The seventh moon of the year.
“Foolishness,” the Dark Lord goes on, his voice dark with amusement. “I might have spared her, you know, had you not defied me…”
Defied him. Thrice.
Severus’s fingers catch on an unbroken vial. He throws it at the Dark Lord, who laughs and catches it out of the air. Then he laughs some more, because the vial that came to hand was apparently Severus’s touch-based Wide-Eye — more likely to strengthen him than hurt him, even if it had connected. Still laughing, he drinks the contents and straightens, refreshed.
One time: when Julius Prince married a foreign witch, known to have adopted her Muggle religion from her Muggle relatives.
Every other vial is shattered, its contents soaking Severus’s cloak. Enough poisons to be rather lethal if he hadn’t used their antidotes beforehand, but Severus knows for a fact that the Dark Lord had the same set of antidotes on hand at all times, kindly provided by Severus himself, and that for all that the Dark Lord is insane, he was still quite intelligent and would have taken precautions. None of his poisons will have any effect.
A second time: when his daughter Eileen married a Muggle.
Fortunately, Living Death isn’t exactly a potion, and the Dark Lord doesn’t know about Severus’s touch-based variation. Severus lunges forwards; the Dark Lord does not anticipate a physical attack, and does not dodge.
A third time: when she told her son to choose his friends carefully, and meant that he should not join the man who now stood before him.
The Potions-soaked fabric of Severus’s cloak makes contact with the Dark Lord’s own robes as they both fall to the ground in a tangle of limbs.
A moment of stillness, as Living Death seeps through another layer of robes and comes into contact with skin that has just recently imbibed another potion, and then Severus is blasted back again. He feels something crack in his ribcage.
The Dark Lord staggers to his feet—
—and stumbles—
—and falls.
~
(The next seventeen years go very, very differently.)