Title: Ideals
Genre: Drama/Angst
Dedicated to: Froggy, for finding "The Spot"
Rating: PG-13.
Disclaimer: I just own a bunch of ideas and because I'm cobbling some of them together with the fruits of someone else's imagination I can't make money off of this bit of blithering.
Authoress's note: Last chapter.
-Thank you so much Froggy, I had the idea but couldn't figure out where to put it. Your suggestion of 'twisting the knife a bit' (my words not hers) at that point turned out to be exactly where my idea needed to go.
Severus wasn't expecting me tonight. As I continue to not talk and stare into the traditional shallow glass of whisky he glances over occasionally, as though he were concerned.
It seems strange, assigning an aspect of basic human compassion to the Head of Slytherin House. But then why?
A puff of air that isn't really a laugh escapes me.
I'm here to decide who I'm going to betray and I'm side tracked on the feelings of the man whose legacy will be several generations of Wizards and Witches who order out for dinner because cooking at home reminds them too much of his Potions classes. Can't help chuckling at that image.
Severus looks decidedly concerned now and he is not bothering to hide the fact that he is watching me. His eyes are only half open but they are focused on me taking in everything that I'm doing, or not doing. His brows are drawn together slightly. He is holding himself 'casually-tense'; I know because even though there is no visible rigidity to his form I can no longer tell when he is breathing in or out. He taught me to keep a similar posture so that I can be ready to kill or run without warning.
I wonder what I would have thought, if I had seen this expression on his face when I was a student. Probably would have assumed that someone had earned a painful death from mishandling some ingredient, or that a Vampire Lord was telepathically speaking to him. It's not just Gryffindor House that thinks he is at least half Vampire, the whole school does. Even some of the staff, at least, that's how the rumour goes.
Severus isn't half or even part Vampire, he is just very good at controlling his body. It's something he has been working on since he was a child spy. He can even nearly stop his own heart, which scared me spitless when he 'played dead' during one of the few skirmishes I've been in.
I can't remember which side I was on, let alone which side he was on, it was definitely night though and I remember seeing him take a hit and trying to convince myself that it hadn't been as on target as it seemed.
But then he'd gone down, and hadn't moved.
The Witches and Wizards from the Order were checking the field for survivors after the Death Eaters had made a 'strategic retreat' and I hid in something that was designed to have little children climb on it and not kill themselves if they fell off, because I couldn't afford to have people from both sides realise that I was hanging around still...but I couldn't leave either.
Someone checked his throat for a pulse. Then moved on.
Invisibility cloaks are great things; I've gone through three of them so far. Nice and light and easy enough to pack out of sight when you've done what you needed it for. Though, if someone is looking for you while you're using one there are ways to…detect, them. Nasty painful ways. Ways that most members of the Order -or even most Aurors- wouldn't use, so I slipped back onto the battle field/children's play park and 'stole' Severus' body.
I checked his throat, both sides. I checked his right wrist and his left and put my ear against his chest. I just knelt there, with my head on his chest, on the floor of an abandoned tube station we used as a safe-house and didn't move because I couldn't remember how to. There was no reason to move. Without him I had nothing, no one to trust or tell me which side I was on. No one to let me cry or scream or laugh just because I could. So I stayed. That's the only reason I knew he wasn't dead. His heart was beating so slowly that I had missed it before. Thankfully, so had the Orderling.
I can remember how unwilling I was to believe that I was hearing correctly even though his pulse continued getting stronger. He put one hand on my head to hold me tight to his chest so I couldn't miss the beating of his heart and when I finally picked my head up enough to look into his eyes he sort of smiled at me –well it was a smirk, I mean, he is a Slytherin after all.
I'm willing to bet he had played that trick hundreds of times before, fooling whichever side he had to avoid getting caught by at the time. Looking back on it now I wonder, how many times did he wake up alone surrounded by dead bodies that were going to be sorted out after the sun rose?
"If you keep brooding like this," he breaks the silence with a tone that can only be described as an oily purr, "I will have to go back to prefacing your name with 'Mister'."
"Anything but that," I return with a nearly sarcastic groan.
He raises an eyebrow and there is a gleam to his eyes that would have worried me when I was a child. Now, though, I'm not frightened of anything that might be chasing its way through his brain.
When did that happen? When did I stop fearing him, as a threat or as a potential rival, or…at all? When did I begin to read him well enough to really know that he is aware that I'm not just here to loll about and drink his whisky?
I've come to my decision and it is very nearly where I started, funny that.
Licking my lips I lean forward slightly, stand up, put the empty glass on the little table beside the lamp, all are natural easy to overlook signs that are as loud as Guilderoy Lockheart's latest crime against fashion, to the man who trained me to be a spy.
At his feet I kneel (like a Death Eater) but on both knees. My right hand forward (like they do in the Order) but with the tips of my fingers touching the carpet in front of his square toed boots.
"I, never asked for your loyalty…" He says as though he is reminding me –as though he is afraid that I'll turn this around and accuse him of something later.
But he has taught me too well. I know what I am doing. This has never been a matter of choice; it has been a matter of acceptance. The ability to see what is really going on is a spy's most valuable asset. A spy can live or die by reading the situation accurately or allowing appearances to cloud his sight. This war doesn't have two sides; it has three.
"I pledge myself to your service. This I swear above all oaths of loyalty or fealty. Your enemies are mine, those who would do you hard do harm me also and none shall divide us." Fealty? Hell, it's just a bad jumbling of the vows I think Knights used to say and I'm making this up as I go but, fealty? He knows what I mean, even if I am going to be too embarrassed to look him in the eyes ever again.
Totally in keeping with his character Severus doesn't say a thing as he pushes his chair back. He comes to his knees instead of standing up. His hand tentatively rests on the back of my head for a moment then his long skilful fingers twine into my hair. I can't help but think that maybe we're both making this up as we go. I don't resist as he guides my head so that my ear is against his narrow chest. Again.
I hear his heart beating, slow and soft and deceptively calm. One hand presses the side of my head so that I'm very aware that I'm not supposed to move, his other arm hesitantly wraps around my shoulders. A slight tremor goes through his body. His breathing isn't so even any more. His head tilts down and long greasy black hair blots out the world and he might have just been gasping but I think he whispered something like 'Us'. And it hits me, hard.
All this time, thirty years -most of his life- he has been fighting in this three-sided war the same way I was…alone.