Chapter 47 – All the Young Death Eaters

After the professor had settled Osiris with Professor Slughorn, he had gone to the Headmaster's office to discuss what they had not gotten to in their brief meeting earlier. Dumbledore once again refused to tell him where he was going on these trips, though he always seemed far more tired after. Nor could he get answers on what the headmaster was meeting with Potter about all these evenings either.

He did have things of his own, though, he needed to discuss and attention was focused on that instead.

"There is a further concern," Severus began. "Osiris' lie about having a Death Eater for a father who was killed by Aurors, rather than a Death Eater father who was killed by Death Eaters, may now lead the Dark Lord to wish to figure out which one."

"And you are concerned he will discover it is a lie?"

He pursed his lips for a moment. "Not particularly a mortal sin. If one was obligated to face the Dark Lord when the Dark Lord had killed one's father, one could hardly be expected to own it. Not intelligently," he replied. "If he feels Osiris' is useful before such a point, that detail is a small lie to forgive." After all, there would be no dominion to rule over and far less willing recruitment if that many winded up dead courtesy of their own side.

"Then the issue is?"

Taking a breath and letting it out, he said, "The issue is that there are not many who could fit Osiris' description of his father's situation, limited though it is. In those years, there were not many Death Eaters killed by the Dark Lord or the other Death Eaters. Those that were, well, perhaps only one if you consider other things about the boy."

Dumbledore caught on that whomever it was his spy suspected, it was not a good thing. "Who, Severus?"

"Only one of us was both young and even remotely a good person, and there was something that happened for the change in favor was instantaneous," he paused. It was actually a difficult memory for him. One of many terrifying moments that was 'compartmentalized' as the headmaster had coined long ago over his ability to push such memories behind a wall. The problem being nobody realized he was tall enough to still look over the wall himself. "One moment the Dark Lord wished to use Regulus Black's House Elf for some task, and the next moment Regulus disappeared. When he failed to show up at the next summons, those of us that had been at school with him were told to hunt him down."

"Sweet Merlin, do you think you killed the boy's father?!"Dumbledore gave a shocked whisper of anticipation.

Severus' eyes narrowed. The headmaster so quickly jumped to the conclusion that he would torture or kill Fleabag Black's only other victim in life like it was nothing.

Regulus was younger than Severus and disliked his brother just as much. If anything had been responsible for Regulus Black becoming a Death Eater and his subsequent death, it was his selfish, idiotic elder brother; when his brother chose Potter, Regulus had dug his heels in the opposite as firmly as they would go. They had that in common.

"No, I did not kill Regulus Black." He stared at Dumbledore, who thought killing far easier and simpler than it was for him. "Trust me, I tried to find him before the others. Like me, he never gloried in the reality of the senseless killing. I would have told you where he was. He was just gone. I thought Aurors got him. We all did." It would not be the first time Aurors covered up killing someone. When Death Eaters killed someone, it was not covert – the body and what happened to said person was most of the point. "We failed. All of us. The Dark Lord flew into an uncharacteristic rage. Regulus was not the only one that met his end because of it…" There were few left alive that he had gone to school with and even fewer wholly intact or in any way similar to their younger selves.

"You mean…nobody knows if he is actually dead, Severus?"

"Not without a body…nor knows why the Dark Lord wanted him dead. It must have been something very great. Some information Reg had that could not be risked. If the Dark Lord comes to the same conclusion about Osiris' parentage that I have…"

Dumbledore's eyes widened some, "Yes, I could see that would be most unfortunate. The Dark Lord would assume that you knew, that you protected Regulus and whatever he knows this entire time."

And again, the headmaster zoomed right over the importance to Osiris. "No. That would not be good because of what the Dark Lord would do to Osiris. You cannot even imagine. He has no issue visiting the sins of the father on the son, as we currently well know with Draco." And, he would admit, what the headmaster said was also true. There was only so many situations one could explain one's way out of before one of them had too many ends to tie up. "I already accepted the risk of the Dark Lord discovering I helped Regulus when I decided to do so, even if I never had the opportunity."

There was a reason he was known for stalking the hallways late even though he was always up early. Nothing made sleeping easy after witnessing such things, especially when you knew you were asking for far worse than had even ever happened before.

"Does the boy know?"

"No. The boy does not have the first clue there is even a further risk." A further risk that would easily get them both killed in a way Osiris could not yet imagine, but Severus did not need to imagine. "He does not even know I've been thinking about who his father might be." He had certainly never expressed an interest in it to his apprentice.

"Does he have any memories of his father that you've seen in your training with him? Have you looked?"

How capricious Dumbledore thought he was with his abilities that he would look at memories of Osiris' childhood just because he could. In truth, it would have been unpardonably cruel to do that considering the boy's mother was dead, and there was already enough of their charade that was necessarily cruel. He was not going to add to that burden. Thankfully, it was also not easy to get early memories.

"No, he was too young. It is difficult, dangerous, and excruciating to see memories that early – the mind changes too much. He had said the only memory he has is of his father's laugh, but that is not very useful even had I heard it. Regulus did not spend much time laughing."

Finding something so specific was near impossible unless he asked the boy to show it to him, and he had no explanation for why he'd want to know or hear that, and it was far too personal for him to trick the boy. He did not feel kindly about that either.

Somewhat mistrusting of Albus these days, the headmaster was still the only person he had to talk to about this. Even if he dismissed what the headmaster said, he needed to voice this aloud to someone. He had mulled Osiris' parentage around his head long enough and if he did nothing with it, there was a risk of it becoming too prominent of a thought to hide well.

"And this is the only candidate you can think of that fits?" Dumbledore asked, interrupting the younger man's thoughts.

"Regulus had dark wavy hair and hazel eyes. The boy has the same. The Blacks do have Egyptian blood far back they say. That condition strikes through anyone else I can think of."

"If Osiris' story is true. If he was even told the truth by his mother." One often did not tell children the truth.

"But if it's not a lie…and Reg is the boy's father, Osiris both deserves to know but is put in far, far more danger by knowing if I tell him of my suspicion."

Dumbledore only puzzled for a moment. "Ah, I see. You have far more years of skill Occluding such a secret than he does, Severus. If you tell him your suspicions, you make it far more likely that Voldemort will find out. That risk, that risk to you both, you know is far too dangerous. You double the likelihood of you both being found out."

And yet again he was asked to keep a secret of great weight. This one more personal than many of the other things he had never told a soul.

"Do you ever contemplate the other burdens of what you ask me to do?" he asked. "The burdens beyond the acts themselves."

"You have always been good at compartmentalizing, Severus." The headmaster paused, mirroring his earlier thoughts in an unintentionally knife-like way. "Do you now have a better appreciation for why certain information cannot be for certain ears, regardless of trust?"

He huffed and looked away.

Dumbledore continued, "I need you, Severus. They need you, and I need you to be here – in the Dark Lord's good graces – when this all happens. You have promised."

But he was beyond wanting to respond to that. He had promised, given his word, as he always had, that he would do what needed to be done. He would still do so. What concerned him now was entirely different than this same song and dance.

Instead, Severus Snape asked, "When I was young, as he is, did you feel the same way about me as you now treat him?"

The headmaster might have lied to someone else, but instead he just said, "Yes, and it is for that same practicality of protecting our information, but also to protect you, Severus. You know I have grown very fond of you. No one of us is more important, not even me. Surely you can see that."

He looked forward at nothing. Secondarily fond, perhaps. The moment Potter had started school and there were whispers of Dark Lords, his life had once again been forfeit. There were secrets, orders, and other things which always took precedence. What was between them was not truly friendship. It was a long history shared of keeping each other's confidences out of position; at least in Dumbledore's case. There had never been a loyalty toward him. How could there ever have been when, these days, he was not sure there was a loyalty between the headmaster and his Chosen One.

There was something of a mounting rage inside of him. It was difficult to speak the words he spoke next, but he found them and delivered them in a deadly quiet, "I find it…objectionable…that you treat him the same way that you treated someone who willingly made the choice to be a Death Eater and greatly enjoyed Dark Magic. Someone whose ambition hurt a great number of people; the trickle-effect of which is ongoing."

The headmaster looked across at him without replying. Did he not understand?

Severus continued spelling it out, "He willingly made a choice to save someone else's life who he barely knows, enduring torture and risking his life. And he is afraid of the fact that he is exceedingly skilled with Dark Magic despite no desire to cultivate it or truly use it that I have seen. Have you even stopped to think that he and I are not the same, and you sound like you worry more over my well-being than a seventeen-year-old boy that you have wrangled into heinousness."

"You have grown fond of him." The headmaster sat back and appraised him over spectacles.

There was something of a tone of surprise there, and it further grated the Potions master. "Yes, do you think me incapable?!" Letting out an angry breath, he said, "Do not treat him in a way that you no longer even treat me. My innocence was long gone before I came to you. You've taken his and then treat him as if he has done something wrong."

The silence that engulfed the moment lingered and then swirled slowly down the drain of discourse between them. The headmaster was not going to account for his actions. He never did with his treatment of Slytherins.

Changing the course of the topic, Dumbledore asked, "Have you not stopped to think that the name Regulus Black does not give the boy a father regardless? You have done more for him than the name Regulus Black could ever do for him. If it is even true, which you do not know for certain."

"Done more for him?" He scoffed, entirely incredulous. "I am the cause of his life being ruined. Me. Not some grand cause. Not saving us from the Dark Lord. Me. Alone. That was his reasoning as I knew it would be, and you have done that to us both. I did not have a choice. You removed it." As he always did.

"You mean to tell me now, Severus, knowing that Mr. Silver is alive and well, that you still would rather have gone without him. That you would rather have died? Left us all without any way to protect Harry until he is strong enough to defeat Him?"

Instead of answering that specific question, he replied, "Do not pretend that with my death and without my position to worry about, you would not have instantly approached Draco Malfoy. You've already confessed to being concerned about his soul. If I had done as I wished or if I had told you nothing, Osiris would be un-Marked and you would save Draco. That does not sound like a bad death to me."

But the headmaster had never been particularly concerned with saving Slytherins. Perhaps after the fact, once the damage was done, he pretended to have always had a patient benevolence, but as far as Severus had been able to tell over many years the only Slytherin Dumbledore had ever done a thing for was him, and it had been at immense gain to Dumbledore and far after his own life had already been forfeit.

"And what, precisely, do you think would happen to Mr. Silver without you? He is worse than Draco Malfoy has ever been."

The headmaster very clearly had no estimation of Osiris' actual character or perhaps he was only remembering what was convenient as he was wont to do.

"Mr. Silver would never give a random girl a cursed necklace in an attempt to murder you."

"No, I have no doubt he would be able to kill me outright if I allowed it."

"And that's a short-coming? It is what you have asked me to do. Better Draco's inability to be direct to the point for all the collateral damage? You cannot be serious."

"You were able to slow the curse on my hand. You were able to save Miss Bell so that we could get her treatment."

"Is there absolutely no end, Albus, to your refusal to acknowledge what happens when I expose myself to that? Or that we were lucky? Or that Miss Bell will be changed forever from the experience?"

He thought of that change in sensation from the Dark Mark from his trip, and he was even more convinced that all this magic had far more consequences that he even realized, and he was fairly intimately acquainted with such magic and its consequences.

It reminded him of what Mr. Silver had said of their special incense when they were in Egypt. That there was much magic, especially Dark magic, and that the power of the incense was in keeping you out of the conversation. It was a living, sentient thing.

"Back to the point, Severus. Arguing backward in time is of no use. You are alive. He is alive. Do you not think it best to now keep you both that way? I have not seen you be so fiercely protective in a very, very long time. Do you think a name, which might not be true and is very dangerous, means more to Osiris than both of your lives?" The younger man had not been this protective since his family had been killed. Since Lily had been killed. "I think you know the answer given that his initial decision was to save you. Would he exchange that for a name? And risk his own life as well as yours? I know that you know it is your responsibility to protect him from what he cannot be caught with, just as it is mine to do the same for you. You see it is oft unpleasant and involves difficult decisions that we must ignore our emotions to make."

What came out of his mouth next was from instinct alone. "Do you know who the boy's father is, Albus?"

The headmaster's head jolted back and he blinked, "No, I don't. However would I?"

"There are a lot of things that you know, Headmaster, that oft defy explanation." But in this case, he did not think Dumbledore was lying. "You do think I may be right that Regulus Black is most likely the boy's father."

He could tell Dumbledore thought about the answer before he said, "Yes, I see the merits of the idea, but I might also say that Mr. Silver's personality traits are not dissimilar from any other teenaged Slytherin boy I have ever met, so ascribing those to Regulus Black is not as easy for me as perhaps for you. I also think it's a great assumption that his father would not be from any number of countries. I assure you, his former headmaster did not reach out to me because of our location." Stangle had, in fact, helped him in a matter he had needed to resolve to defeat Grindelwald a long time prior, so it assuredly had nothing to do with them being British.

"There is no gain in his knowing my suspicions. His life is more important than a father who must already be dead." It did bother him to come to that conclusion, but if protecting the boy was the goal, it was the right decision. Truth be told, Osiris seemed far more impacted by the death of his mother than not having had a father.

"Perhaps it is best if you do not travel down that road of investigation, Severus. It seems knowledge best not to be known if his father truly was a Death Eater who was not in favor, especially if he was a younger man and you may have known him." The number of core Death Eaters was not so large that an acquaintance could have been escaped in same-aged peers. "The more emotion surrounding an event or knowledge, the more roads lead to it, as you well know."

"You doubt my skills at fooling the Dark Lord?" Interesting that the Egyptians said the exact opposite to him. Almost the exact opposite to the letter. The Egyptian Minister had said that he should not fear that the emotion he felt would make it more dangerous for them. Perhaps now I know why they seem to hate each other.

"I do not wish you, either of you, to be in more danger than is necessary," the headmaster replied behind half-moon spectacles. "If you truly do not know, it is harder to hold you responsible for knowing. And why would you want to learn something that you have already decided you cannot tell the boy?"

"Because I am his buffer if the Dark Lord does find out, and as you've already pointed out Osiris can have no plan for what to do if his parentage comes out. He is somewhat absurdly unaware of some of the dangers of this because he trusts me." Then he added, with a sigh, "Rather blindly."

"It is not better for Mr. Silver if you get killed and he does not. You know he will not last very long without you."

"I did, without anyone."

"And you've already pointed out that this boy is not you."

Convenient, now, that the headmaster wanted to use that and believe that because it was useful in the moment against him.

"I do not like being unprepared. It would not be terribly hard for the Dark Lord to test theories of where the boy might come from if he decides it would be interesting." Like the Muggle world, blood was an easy determinant of relationship.

The headmaster had no idea why the Dark Lord might find Osiris so very interesting, and Severus had no desire to tell him of any of the healing that had taken place for the boy where he had purged magic and seen things in the Dark Lord's presence.

The reality of the matter was that while it was good to be seen as novel and useful, they might have unintentionally oversold that in Osiris' case. The boy's natural Dark magic was, perhaps, too interesting for the Dark Lord.

"Let us hope that Tom does not find such an idea interesting then, Severus."

AN - Snape's suspicions about Osiris' parentage were briefly mentioned earlier when Osiris explained seeing a black spectral dog to the Egyptians.

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