The Watcher at the Gates

a/n – Firstly, the entirety of the world of Harry Potter is the sole property of JK Rowling and her various and sundry corporate partners. Anything recognizable from the Potterverse is their property.

This story just popped up after following an online discussion forum that was discussing the rehabilitation and repentance of Death Eaters, Severus Snape in particular. While both sides of the argument were very eloquent in presenting their opinions, I wondered if there was someone else who might have an opinion on this subject. Given the canon clues about how one becomes a Death Eater, and the fanon conventions about that, here's someone who might have an interest in the subject.

Chapter One – Waiting

2 May, 1998 – The Gates of Hell

Marybeth Cromwell never considered herself a vengeful or vindictive person. Growing up in Huntingdon and living in the figurative shadow of her famous, or infamous depending upon how you looked at it, ancestor Oliver Cromwell, she had lived a very ordinary life despite the fact that distinctly unordinary things seemed to happen around her.

It was a perfectly ordinary Sunday afternoon in the spring of 1973 when the doorbell rang and Marybeth's life was forever changed. The mystery of the strangeness that filled her life was explained on her eleventh birthday when a rather severe looking woman in an old fashioned dress appeared at her family home and revealed that she was a witch. Professor Minerva McGonagall, representing Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, explained to her and her parents that the things that had been happening around Marybeth since she was about six months old were actually the magic within her interacting with the world around her.

Especially at times when she was very emotional, she would instinctively cause things to happen, and it was all without conscious thought.

And it was normal, for her.

The professor, who was the Deputy for the school explained that witches and wizards lived alongside the world that Marybeth and her family occupied, and that they went to great lengths to hide, sometimes in plain sight. She talked about how there was a Ministry of Magic that supported those witches and wizards like the British government supported the rest of them, about Diagon Alley and other areas around Britain where people who could use magic shopped and worked, and about Hogwarts where she would attend, if she was willing, for seven years to learn how to control her magic and how to be a witch.

She explained how beings like elves and dwarves, unicorns and fairies, dragons and mermaids existed and how a goodly number of wizards and witches made their living keeping the rest of the world from noticing them. Professor McGonagall amazed the Cromwells by making flowers appear from nowhere, turned a truly ugly ashtray that Marybeth's Aunt Agnes had given them years ago into a delicate crystal vase, and even transformed herself into a tabby cat.

She talked about a great number of things, and Marybeth and her parents decided that this would be a golden opportunity for her, especially since she was a witch, she should learn how to control her abilities.

However, what she failed to mention, and what Marybeth didn't realize until she was on the Hogwarts Express the first of September, 1973, is that the magical world in Britain was at war with itself and that people like her, people they called 'the muggleborn' when they were being polite and other things when they were not, to indicate that their parents weren't a witch or a wizard, were at the heart of the war.

Marybeth spent her first four years at Hogwarts learning not only how to transform a match into a sewing needle, but that there was a war going on that made the Troubles in Northern Ireland look like a pickup football game at Riverside Park against the lads from Godmanchester or St. Ives on a summer Sunday afternoon.

Having been sorted into Gryffindor House, she watched as tensions mounted between Slytherin House, the bastion of the Purebloods, and Gryffindor House grew. And one night, coming back just before curfew from the library she witnessed firsthand the destruction of the one link between the two houses.

The only sign of normalcy between Gryffindor and Slytherin was the friendship of one Lily Evans, affectionately known as the 'Gryffindor Princess', and one Severus Snape of Slytherin House. Marybeth found out that the pair had known each other before Hogwarts; in fact it was Snape who explained to Lily the odd occurrences of accidental magic that had been happening around her well before Professor McGonagall made an appearance at her home when she turned eleven. Their friendship continued and blossomed for their first five years until something happened after their OWLS in her fifth year, Marybeth's second.

That night, Marybeth was returning from the library just before curfew when she rounded the corner near her common room and found Severus Snape standing outside the portrait hole, pleading with the Gryffindor guardian to tell Lily he needed to talk to her.

Viola's response that Miss Evans felt that since she was a 'mudblood', she wasn't worthy to speak with someone like Mr. Snape caused what little color there was in the pale boy's face to drain away as he turned from the door to leave.

The look of pure hatred on his face when he saw that Marybeth had witnessed the guardian's rebuke and Miss Evan's refusal to meet with him chilled Marybeth to the core. Shaken, she entered the common room to find Lily sitting on one of the davenports being comforted by two of her friends, Alice Churchill and Perri Lewin, both muggleborn witches in her year.

When Lily looked up at her, with a questioning look in her reddened tear-filled eyes, all Marybeth could say was, "He left."

Things continued to worsen, both in the school and in the world at large. The Death Eaters, the followers of the lead terrorist who called himself 'Lord Voldemort', which Marybeth and some of the other muggleborns thought sounded just as pretentious and overblown as that madman in Africa who had declared himself, 'His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular', seemed to strike at will and there was rarely a morning her fourth year when an owl didn't swoop down and deliver a letter wrapped in black silk to a student, the Ministry's official notification that someone in their family had been killed the night before.

For Marybeth, it all came to a head during between terms in the spring of 1977. Having gone home to Huntingdon between the terms because her parents were celebrating their twentieth anniversary that year, she was awakened abruptly early on a Sunday morning by the sounds of explosions and screams coming from within the house.

Grabbing her wand, she was making her way to her bedroom door when it suddenly exploded with a thunderous crash and a flash of light. Having been thrown across the room, she looked up in a daze to see a trio of Death Eaters come rushing into her room.

Trying to focus enough to use her wand, she decided that the piercing hex she had learned to help her father with his woodworking hobby, would be a better weapon than the disarming hex they were taught in DADA, she managed to take one of the bastards through the eye in his mask before being battered with a couple of bludgeoning hexes and disarmed.

As she was dragged from the room, bloody and in great pain, they two that carried her stopped in the hallway as a hand grabbed her hair and pulled her face up.

Staring down at her was the malevolent gaze of Severus Snape, in Death Eater robes but without a mask, with the same look of hate and disgust that she had seen the night Lily Evans had rejected him.

As she was brutally dragged down the stairs, she was made to watch as her entire family, mother, father, older brother and two younger sisters were sadistically tortured by a witch who cackled and capered around the room like a madwoman.

When her youngest sister had died, having bled out after being brutally raped and tortured, the witch who had been leading the proceedings pushed up her left sleeve and exposed the Dark Mark. Pressing her wand to the disgusting tattoo, everyone in the room was silent for almost a minute.

The crack of an apparition broke the silence as a tall imposing figure, wrapped in a black cloak appeared in the center of the room.

All of the Death Eaters, with the exception of the two who were holding her with her arms painfully pinned behind her back, knelt as the insane witch prostrated herself on the ground and said, "Welcome, my Lord."

Realizing that she was in the presence of Voldemort, something that didn't bode well at all for her, she gathered up what courage the Sorting Hat had seen in her years ago and studied him carefully.

While handsome, she could see where the Dark magic that he had used had begun to take its toll on him. While still an imposing man, Marybeth could see that whatever rituals and rites he had participated in had begun to make their presence known.

His eyes seemed to almost glow, and the texture of his skin didn't seem natural.

Voldemort looked around the room and pointed to the only other person, besides himself and Marybeth, who wasn't wearing a mask.

"Arise, Severus Snape. You have comported yourself well in everything I have set for you. Tonight, you pass the final barrier. Tonight you go from being merely a wizard in my service to being a Death Eater."

Without turning to look at her, Voldemort simply stretched out his hand and pointed in her direction. "Amuse me with this mudblood whore who dares to defile magic."

As Snape stood, the look of loathing and hatred on his face intensified, but it was tinged with something else, something that chilled Marybeth to the bone. As he approached her he waved his wand once and Marybeth felt magic wash over her. While unable to see exactly what had been done, she saw that her hair, formerly blonde and curly, had become auburn and straight, and she knew what he had done to her.

She didn't need the drawled comment she recognized as coming from Lucius Malfoy urging Snape to "break the Gryffindor Princess for our Lord's amusement" to know that in his bitterness and hatred, Snape had given her the form of the witch who had rejected him.

The pain, from the abuse and assault along with the spells was horrific, and Marybeth kept chanting in her mind that it would soon be over, that she would soon be with her family. Trying to blot out the encouraging catcalls and jeers from the Death Eaters who watched as someone whom she had gone to school with brutalized her, it finally came to a head as Snape ordered her, "Look at me."

The fear and loathing in his soulless black eyes was the last thing she saw as he cast the Killing Curse and ended her suffering.

The next thing Marybeth knew, she awoke to find herself flat on her back in what appeared to be a field. Sitting up, she looked around as she tried to get her bearings. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the flowers were in full bloom, and if she didn't know better Marybeth would have sworn she had fallen asleep in Riverside Park back home and had a nightmare after watching one too many Hammer films with her father and had a particularly vivid nightmare.

Gingerly standing, and finding that nothing hurt, even the nagging pain from where her broken shin didn't quite heal properly after a sledding accident when she was seven that Poppy Pomfrey was always reminding her to schedule a weekend for the Hospital Wing so she could repair it properly, she saw what appeared to be an information booth on the far side of the field.

Deciding that while "Gryffindors to the Fore" wasn't always applicable, in this case there was nothing to be gained by staying put so she walked over to the booth.

As she approached, she noticed that it bore a remarkable resemblance to a booth she remembered on the border between Holland and Germany on a back road her family had come across while on holiday last summer as they were heading back from visiting her older brother who was stationed at RAF Bruggen in Germany.

The young woman, who looked remarkably comfortable despite the fact that the large white wings she had wouldn't actually fit in the booth and were flexing occasionally in the warm summer air, smiled brightly at her and greeted her.

"Good morning Miss Cromwell, we've been expecting you. My name is Muriel and I'll be sorting you out today." Looking down at the large tome that was in front of her, Marybeth saw that the young woman/angel traced her finger down the page and tapped it twice.

"You're scheduled for the right-hand path," she continued. "But before you go, I'm required to ask, do you have anything to declare?"

Trying not to giggle as the concept of smuggling oranges from Spain or avocados from Israel into Heaven, Marybeth was about to answer when her questioner interrupted her.

"Goodness, I don't mean produce. We haven't had anyone show up directly with physical baggage since Elijah showed up." Shaking her head, Muriel sighed, "Ever try to parallel park a chariot that's fully engulfed?"

Pointing over to the side of the booth, Marybeth looked and saw what appeared to be scorch marks on the ground. Shaking her head, she turned back to the angel in front of her.

"Well, if you didn't mean produce, what were you asking about?"

"Do you have anything left undone? Any unfinished business?"

Just as she was about to make a cheeky comment about her OWLS, she stopped for a moment before becoming serious.

"I'm dead, correct?"

"Well, yes," Muriel replied with a curious look. "With the exception of Enoch and Elijah you don't end up here without having died." Looking thoughtful for a moment, the angel amended, "Well, there was that John bloke, but he was more on a day pass sort of thing. Sorry ducks, but as the saying goes, you're truly and sincerely dead."

"Does anything I do now get held against me?" Marybeth questioned, trying to pull an innocent face.

"Normally, no," the angel replied cautiously. "However, if you're planning on hatching a rebellion and trying to take over, that's been tried once before and it really didn't work out well at all." Staring intently at Marybeth, she lowered her voice and asked conspiratorially, "You're not an agitator, are you?"

"No, Heavens no," Marybeth replied before clamping a hand over her mouth and looking around quickly. Hearing her companion start to giggle, Marybeth shrugged sheepishly and grinned.

"Don't want to get on anyone's bad side before I even start."

Looking to her right, Marybeth could see a path that ran straight off into the distance. To her left, however, were a foreboding set of massive iron gates that were closed. Every once in a while, when the breeze shifted, she could faintly detect the distinctive smell of brimstone that she remembered from the lesson in Care of Magical Creatures when Professor Kettleburn had brought in a pair of hellbats for the class to observe.

"I was wondering if it would be held against me if I didn't go up, right away," Marybeth asked in as neutral a voice as she could manage. "There's someone I think I need to wait on and have a word with before I go on up."

"It's been done before, especially with folks who are fairly certain that the other person would be travelling right behind them." Looking down at the page, she tisked sadly.

"Your family went on ahead of you a few hours ago. Was there someone else in danger of dying at your house that you want to wait on?" Trying to look reassuring, the angel pointed to the right hand path.

"If you just go on up, you can tell Peter at the inner gate to buzz you when your party gets there, so you can come down and greet them."

Trying to keep her face composed, Marybeth simply said, "Actually, the person I wanted to speak with most likely won't be taking the same path." Gazing over at the Gates of Hell, she added, "Do you think anyone would mind if I conjured a bench over there to wait?"

"Oh, that's not good," Muriel hastily replied. "And, as you know, there's always a chance someone will repent and end up on the right side," the angel quickly added.

"I was his initiation for becoming a Death Eater," Marybeth answered in a very controlled voice. "While it's possible, I'm really not seeing how one comes back from pledging one's soul to a Dark Lord."

"You're right, we don't get many of those," the angel replied cautiously. "Why don't you just head up and talk to Peter. He was a mortal; he can give you a better perspective on this."

"Anyone ever comes back down that path," Marybeth asked cautiously.

"No, but it'd be better for you if you'd just go up now."

"Have people waited before without getting into trouble?"

"Well, yes, but it's officially discouraged. Besides, you never know who's going to drop by here; you don't want to get the reputation of a looky-loo before you even get there."

"And yet, you just said that anything that happens after death doesn't really count," Marybeth countered with a slight smile. "As long as I don't try to take over, of course."

"Well, I suppose it couldn't hurt," the angel replied. Tapping her finger on the book, she looked shrewdly at the witch who was standing in front of her. "Who did you say you were waiting for?"

"I didn't, but his name is Snape. Severus Snape." Thinking, she added, "He was born in 1960, I think."

"Gracious, ducks. We've got almost two hundred calendars we can use," the angel commented as she closed the book." Looking up sharply, she asked, "You're after that Gregory fellow mucked around with it, correct?"

"Well, yes, by four centuries," Marybeth replied, a bit amused at the question.

"You never can tell," Muriel replied. Leafing through the book, she tapped one page with her finger and peered closely at the page.

'Hmmmm, was all Muriel said for a couple of moments, but it was the sort of 'hmmmm' that one heard from a doctor who was preparing to give you unwelcome news.

"Your Mister Snape is certainly digging himself in deep. At the moment he's firmly making a left turn when he gets here, but I'm not quite certain when that is." Seeing the exasperated look on Marybeth's face, she simply shrugged and said, "Blame it on free will."

"The same free will that saw me tortured and raped after watching my family done the same way," Marybeth countered in a controlled voice.

"Well, yes," Muriel cautiously answered, looking around to see if anyone else was coming up for directions. "It's part of the price of being mortal, I suppose. Though I do say that most of you do better with your choices than we did."

Seeing the look of confusion on Marybeth's face, Muriel leaned over the counter and whispered, "The agitators. Remember? They decided they were due a choice and they 'chose' themselves right out of Heaven."

Shuddering a bit, despite the warm sunshine, Muriel closed her eyes as her wings drooped a bit. "Bad business all the way around."

"I'm not going to do that, but I am choosing to wait until I've had a word with Mr. Snape. After that, I promise I'll be a good girl and head right up."

A brilliant flash of light surrounded Marybeth as her promise was recorded, and Muriel knew that there was nothing to do but to allow the young woman to do as she requested.

Marybeth moved over to a spot, just outside the Gates of Hell and conjured a small bench. Her spot was a bit out of the way, since she didn't want to interfere or encourage the folks taking the left hand path to speak, and began to wait.

Waiting is a curious thing in a place where time, essentially, has no meaning. She conjured up copies of her school texts and revised for exams she would never sit while the occasional soul passed her on their way to their 'just rewards'.

Occasionally, she'd look up and watch Muriel as she manned her booth, giving folks direction as to which way they were to go. She found herself taking to watching the reactions of the folks who came up.

She found it funny the surprised looks on the faces of the folks as they were told the news. She got so she could tell the magicals from the others, and, for a while, it seemed that someone was showing up every few minutes who was a witch or a wizard.

When James Potter, her former Head Boy showed up, quickly followed by Lily Evans, former Head Girl, Marybeth was pleased to see that they were still together, even though she realized that it meant that they had died together, and most likely Voldemort was involved.

Time passed, and began to blur itself as she patiently waited until she heard Muriel's whispered, "Its beginning." Putting down the copy of an ancient Sumerian scroll on the roots of potions brewing, which spent most of its attention on beer, of all things, she looked up and saw that a steady stream of witches and wizards began coming to Muriel's booth. Most of them young.

As they moved past Muriel and most of them heading up the right hand side, though one young witch who looked disturbingly like the Rosier girl who was sorted into Slytherin the night she was sorted was disbelievingly sent towards the Gates, Marybeth stood and moved closer to the road.

Then she saw him.

As Severus Snape approached Muriel's booth, Marybeth studied him. He looked a few years older than he had the last time she saw him, but she had noticed during her time waiting that most adults all looked to be somewhere in their mid twenties when they showed up. She had gone over and asked Muriel about it during a lull one day and been informed that, unless there was a Divine curse involved with a person, they showed up for their sorting 'in the prime of life' unless they had died before they got there. And for most people, that was sometime in their mid twenties.

The occasional soul would show up sporting the body they had in the thirties or forties, and Amelia Bones had shown up looking exactly as Marybeth had remembered her from pictures in the paper, monocle and all, but for the most part people's ideal was somewhere in that first decade after leaving school.

Snape's face carried his customary sneer as Muriel greeted him and made a show of checking her book. Marybeth was surprised that Snape was dressed in the robes of a Hogwarts professor and wondered how bad things had gotten that a marked Death Eater was on staff there.

As he approached, Marybeth could see that he recognized her. In fact, his stride faltered for a moment just as his eyes went wide with the shock of recognition. As he got closer, Marybeth stepped into the path and held up her hand.

As he halted a few paces away, Marybeth stared him in the eye for almost a minute before she began.

Eternity wasn't exactly what she had been told growing up, but one thing it had was plenty of time to practice and master things, if you were properly motivated. And the one thing that Marybeth had had in spades since her death was time and motivation.

Willing the transformation she had practices very diligently to begin, her body began to shimmer and flowed into the form it had at the moment of her death.

Staring at Severus Tobias Snape, imperiously looking into his soulless black eyes with eyes of emerald green, she saw him take in the gaping wounds and evidence of the torture he had inflicted upon he the night she died and she smiled coldly.

"Look … at … me."