teleidoplex (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
teleidoplex) wrote2006-12-01 02:19 pm
teleidoplex) wrote2006-12-01 02:19 pm
Entry tags:
TDD, Chapter 1 -- Resurrection
Title: The Devil's Due
Rating: NC17 (eventually)
Fandom: Harry Potter/Crow Crossover
Pairing: TBA (don't want to spoil it)
Summary: Six months after Voldemort's victory and the Fall of Harry Potter, an angry spirit rises from the grave to wreak bloody vengeance.
Spoilers: HBP and the Crow mythology
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the mythology. Just my sick imagination.
Archive: At Twisting the Hellmouth. If you want it, check with me first.
A/N: Many thanks to my betas, Selenya and Bneuensc. Thanks also to Selenya, who helped me conceive this bunny. On the night before her wedding, no less. Let’s hear it for dedicated Goff Grrls!
October 29, 11:30pm
Another night, another murderous revel, Snape thought with literal gallows humor, surveying a ballroom straight from Kubrick’s wet dreams by way of a snuff film. Less than six months since Voldemort’s victory and the final defeat of Harry Potter, and the Death Eaters’ revels had turned into the homicidal equivalent of Tupperware parties. What did it matter to torture and kill a few Muggles, or even a mudblood, if you were encouraged to do it all the time, and rather doubted that there would be any repercussions? The Ministry was a shambles, the Order disbanded and its few remaining members disheartened and on the run. The Aurors, with the pragmatism that most people in such professions came to posses, had for the most part joined with Voldemort and were now responsible for tracking down said mudbloods and any other sympathizers.
In any other despotic regime, he thought, this is where things would begin to topple. With the external threat removed, internal strife and power grabs should have quickly demolished any stability that might have existed in the face of an “Other”. But Voldemort was too savvy to let such a thing happen. Gone were the promises of power (a sure way to give your underlings notions), he now made no disguise that he ruled through fear and pain that only ceased if one consistently proved their loyalty. The most preferred way to do this was to report any dissent or unrest amongst your fellow loyals. The external enemy had been exchanged for an internal enemy. The Death Eaters were too busy turning on each other to unite against Voldemort. From a strategic standpoint, Snape realized, it was quite a brilliant ideological tactic, allowing--
The screams and begging pleas of one of the revel’s victims (a Hufflepuff fourth year whose name he couldn’t – didn’t want to – remember) disrupted his thoughts no matter how hard he tried to cling to them. Deadpan sarcasm and rational logic, as subtle and elegant as the most difficult of potions, were his only refuges since The Fall, and his mind grasped at them with desperation as the child recognized him and began pleading with Professor Snape to please make it stop, please, she’d be good, she’d do all her potions homework please and three feet of extra credit and he could take all the house points he wanted and please just make it…
The two Death Eaters torturing the girl seemed to find her pleas (and Snape’s disregard of them) vastly amusing.
“Oy, Snape, this one seems to want it from you bad.”
“Aye,” his friend agreed, catching on to the game, “you want ta have a go at ‘er?”
Snape gathered cold disdain around him like a palpable presence. Turning, he addressed them – fence sitters who had only joined the cause after The Fall, and therefore had much to fear from a long-term supporter such as himself – with a drawling sneer,
“And what makes you think I would ever condescend to picking at your leavings? I am not some dog at your table. I am one of His Lordships most valued supporters. I am the man who killed Albus Dumbledore,” a year and a half gone and he could almost say it now without wanting to vomit. His tone lowered to a whisper, “Best you remember that before I bother to learn your names so that I may drop them in His Lordship’s ear.” He straightened and surveyed the terrified looks on the men’s’ faces, smiling grimly. It would seem that the feared Potions Master had not lost his touch. The Death Eaters were as cowed as any First Years.
“Now get out of my sight. And leave your trash. I’ll clean it up for you, since I don’t trust you idiots to do it properly.” In moments, the two men had scurried off, leaving Snape with a sobbing, bleeding Hufflepuff.
“Get up”, he sneered, grabbing her arm and dragging her after him before anyone else tried to claim his ‘prize’. He led her out of the main room and through dim corridors, muffling her sobs with a quick ~Silencio~.
It was not until they had left the Grosvenor Square mansion and traveled several streets over to a narrow, dirty alleyway that Snape released the charm. The girl – the name Puddleswop…Matilda…Tilly, sprung unbidden to his mind – gazed up at him with surprise and fear.
“Please,” she whispered, “please Professor Snape…don’t—”
“I have no intention of doing anything to you, Miss Puddleswop,” he droned, suddenly feeling the weight of his years, and of all the questionable things he had done to get to this point, “except to tell you that it is no longer safe for you to stay in Britain.” Spying an old tin can resting in the alley gutter, he drew his wand with a muttered ~Portus~.
“That Portkey will take you somewhere safe. Do you have any family left?” His gut clenched as she gulped and shook her head, “There are people at the other end who can help you. Miss Puddleswop,” he fixed her with his dark eyes, hoping the seriousness of his demeanor would indelibly fix what he was about to say into her brain, “Don’t come back here, to Britain. Ever. It’s not safe. And do not tell anyone that I helped you, or I may not be able to help anyone else. Do you understand?” At her dumb nod, he backed away, always the forbidding Potions Master.
“Go.”
Tilly Puddleswop hesitated a moment before her hand tentatively reached out to the Portkey he had just created. He could tell from her face that she half-believed this to be some cruel trick. He remained motionless. As she flickered out of existence, he saw her lips form a soft ‘thank you’.
After she was gone, he removed the Portkey enchantment.
And this was what he was reduced to.
All the years of spying, all the sacrifices he made, all the horrors he stomached so that he could remain useful. He had killed his friend and mentor, the only man he ever trusted, the only one who ever trusted him, so that he might be in place for the Endgame. So that Harry Potter might have the chance to do the impossible. So that Voldemort might be stopped. He had done everything he was supposed to do, passed information, made sure the Dark Lord was relatively unguarded and weakened through subtle potions…and overconfident, unprepared, impetuous Harry Bloody Potter had still failed – had died with a look of surprise in his young green eyes.
Now Snape was all that was left. The Weasleys, icons as they were for the resistance, were all dead within days of Potter. He didn’t know what had happened to Granger, but suspected that she would not have survived long either. Malfoy the younger, who had decided that he wasn’t a killer and ended up aiding Snape, had only lasted a week. He’d refused to kill one of his classmates, a Ravenclaw…Chang? He was forced to do so under Imperius, then Crucio’d for his hesitation. Snape had found him a few hours later, self-inflicted cuts along his forearms so deep and long that they’d gouged over the Dark Mark. He still wasn’t certain if he despised Malfoy for his cowardice, or admired him for his pragmatism. After all, discovery and death were inevitable. It was only a matter of time.
Snape was fairly certain that Tonks, Moody and Shacklebot headed whatever remnants of the Order still survived. Tonks could look like anyone (a useful survival skill, that), Moody was too paranoid and obstinate to die, and Shacklebot…well, Shacklebot was, to use a Muggle phrase, a ‘bad-ass mother fucker’. Snape was fairly certain that of all of them, Shacklebot would survive ‘til the bitter end. But so many others had fallen that it was hardly worth mentioning those who still stood. And none of them trusted Snape. They all saw the traitor who had betrayed Dumbledore and stood at Voldemort’s side. The memories that might exonerate him, memories of all the planning that he and Dumbledore had done, carefully stored in a Pensieve, were destroyed the night Potter died. They had mingled with and been lost to the murky waters of the Thames. Better to be thought a traitor by the Order, Snape had believed, than to be discovered a traitor by Voldemort. At least this way he could still do some good.
Good. He snorted. At most he saved one, maybe two a night without being discovered. And he wondered for the thousandth time why he even tried—what the point was. He wondered if Malfoy’s pragmatic solution might not be the best one.
Big Ben sounded the hour, pulling Snape out of his dour musings. Midnight. It was now technically October 30th. Devil’s Night was now upon them, and bloodbaths would rule for the next three days to celebrate the rise, fall, and triumphant return of the Dark Lord. The Devil ruled every night now, Snape thought morbidly. Savagely kicking the now mundane tin can, he stalked out of the alley and back towards the revel.
-------------------------------
Far to the west of London, a few miles from a sleepy village on the Devon coast named Godric’s Hollow, was a tiny, unassuming graveyard. It had the look of a family plot that had seen many generations of burials, but also a deal of recent neglect. Yet if anyone in that sleepy village had been asked about it, they would have denied any knowledge of the plot, the family line that it supposedly belonged to, or the hasty and secret burial that had taken place there six-months previous.
With the death of the last of the line, there was little call for anyone to remark on the Potter family plot, anyways.
The bare light of a sickle-moon shone faintly between the branches of the trees surrounding the plot. Yellowed leaves, turned gray in the darkened night, skittered across the grounds and caught in the long, unkempt grasses. Most of the stones were old, some crumbling, others bleached white with green runners of moss where rainwater had trickled and gathered. But there were three, huddled near the south fence, that looked newer. Two had already begun sprouting lichen growth, while the furthest one, the smallest one, still had the scoured clean look of a new gravestone.
The branches rustled as the wind began to pick up and more leaves blew free. In the distant village the church clock sounded midnight, and a flurry of motion exploded into the graveyard as a large black crow flapped down, landing on one of the newest stones. Its eyes gleamed like onyx as it began pecking at the stone, intermittent caws breaking the muffled night. The wind grew stronger, and the meager light dimmed as clouds quickly crossed over the sickle moon. The crow’s feathers lost all sheen as the night darkened and drops of rain began spattering the stone, the leaves and the long grasses. Thunder rumbled lowly in the distance and the crow continued cawing and pecking, the intensifying rainfall lending an odd urgency and purpose to its actions.
The skies broke as lightening flashed with a crack of thunder, and the crow cawed in counterpoint. The rain came in torrential sheets, the branches overhead whipping about in the wind. There was a sudden disturbance at the base of the gravestone, and the black bird flapped its wings, hopping and cawing in a frenzy of movement. A pale shape worked its way out of the disturbed grass and dirt, then another pushed out, both fumbling frantically at the ground, pushing away the dirt that was quickly becoming mud. Arms emerged, then a head, eyes clenched against the mud, mouth open with a desperate gasp.
Shoving dirt, grass and leaves to one side, the mud-covered figure pulled itself from the grave, collapsing onto the ground in an exhausted, trembling heap. Rain sheeted down, quickly washing away the worst of the mud, leaving the figure pale and shivering, covered in tatters that might once have been clothes. The crow cawed and the figure doubled in pain as memories, too harsh, too bright, too painful for all that they were disjointed, flooded back.
Friends, love, betrayal, death, battle, sacrifice, the green fire of the Avada, and then nothing. And then…a pecking, a raucous caw, a summons. Things left undone, deaths that needed avenging, an evil that must be destroyed. And suddenly more pain, pressure, cold…and…the memories.
A tortured scream rent the air above Godric’s Hollow, but in the raging storm, no one heard.
Rating: NC17 (eventually)
Fandom: Harry Potter/Crow Crossover
Pairing: TBA (don't want to spoil it)
Summary: Six months after Voldemort's victory and the Fall of Harry Potter, an angry spirit rises from the grave to wreak bloody vengeance.
Spoilers: HBP and the Crow mythology
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the mythology. Just my sick imagination.
Archive: At Twisting the Hellmouth. If you want it, check with me first.
A/N: Many thanks to my betas, Selenya and Bneuensc. Thanks also to Selenya, who helped me conceive this bunny. On the night before her wedding, no less. Let’s hear it for dedicated Goff Grrls!
October 29, 11:30pm
Another night, another murderous revel, Snape thought with literal gallows humor, surveying a ballroom straight from Kubrick’s wet dreams by way of a snuff film. Less than six months since Voldemort’s victory and the final defeat of Harry Potter, and the Death Eaters’ revels had turned into the homicidal equivalent of Tupperware parties. What did it matter to torture and kill a few Muggles, or even a mudblood, if you were encouraged to do it all the time, and rather doubted that there would be any repercussions? The Ministry was a shambles, the Order disbanded and its few remaining members disheartened and on the run. The Aurors, with the pragmatism that most people in such professions came to posses, had for the most part joined with Voldemort and were now responsible for tracking down said mudbloods and any other sympathizers.
In any other despotic regime, he thought, this is where things would begin to topple. With the external threat removed, internal strife and power grabs should have quickly demolished any stability that might have existed in the face of an “Other”. But Voldemort was too savvy to let such a thing happen. Gone were the promises of power (a sure way to give your underlings notions), he now made no disguise that he ruled through fear and pain that only ceased if one consistently proved their loyalty. The most preferred way to do this was to report any dissent or unrest amongst your fellow loyals. The external enemy had been exchanged for an internal enemy. The Death Eaters were too busy turning on each other to unite against Voldemort. From a strategic standpoint, Snape realized, it was quite a brilliant ideological tactic, allowing--
The screams and begging pleas of one of the revel’s victims (a Hufflepuff fourth year whose name he couldn’t – didn’t want to – remember) disrupted his thoughts no matter how hard he tried to cling to them. Deadpan sarcasm and rational logic, as subtle and elegant as the most difficult of potions, were his only refuges since The Fall, and his mind grasped at them with desperation as the child recognized him and began pleading with Professor Snape to please make it stop, please, she’d be good, she’d do all her potions homework please and three feet of extra credit and he could take all the house points he wanted and please just make it…
The two Death Eaters torturing the girl seemed to find her pleas (and Snape’s disregard of them) vastly amusing.
“Oy, Snape, this one seems to want it from you bad.”
“Aye,” his friend agreed, catching on to the game, “you want ta have a go at ‘er?”
Snape gathered cold disdain around him like a palpable presence. Turning, he addressed them – fence sitters who had only joined the cause after The Fall, and therefore had much to fear from a long-term supporter such as himself – with a drawling sneer,
“And what makes you think I would ever condescend to picking at your leavings? I am not some dog at your table. I am one of His Lordships most valued supporters. I am the man who killed Albus Dumbledore,” a year and a half gone and he could almost say it now without wanting to vomit. His tone lowered to a whisper, “Best you remember that before I bother to learn your names so that I may drop them in His Lordship’s ear.” He straightened and surveyed the terrified looks on the men’s’ faces, smiling grimly. It would seem that the feared Potions Master had not lost his touch. The Death Eaters were as cowed as any First Years.
“Now get out of my sight. And leave your trash. I’ll clean it up for you, since I don’t trust you idiots to do it properly.” In moments, the two men had scurried off, leaving Snape with a sobbing, bleeding Hufflepuff.
“Get up”, he sneered, grabbing her arm and dragging her after him before anyone else tried to claim his ‘prize’. He led her out of the main room and through dim corridors, muffling her sobs with a quick ~Silencio~.
It was not until they had left the Grosvenor Square mansion and traveled several streets over to a narrow, dirty alleyway that Snape released the charm. The girl – the name Puddleswop…Matilda…Tilly, sprung unbidden to his mind – gazed up at him with surprise and fear.
“Please,” she whispered, “please Professor Snape…don’t—”
“I have no intention of doing anything to you, Miss Puddleswop,” he droned, suddenly feeling the weight of his years, and of all the questionable things he had done to get to this point, “except to tell you that it is no longer safe for you to stay in Britain.” Spying an old tin can resting in the alley gutter, he drew his wand with a muttered ~Portus~.
“That Portkey will take you somewhere safe. Do you have any family left?” His gut clenched as she gulped and shook her head, “There are people at the other end who can help you. Miss Puddleswop,” he fixed her with his dark eyes, hoping the seriousness of his demeanor would indelibly fix what he was about to say into her brain, “Don’t come back here, to Britain. Ever. It’s not safe. And do not tell anyone that I helped you, or I may not be able to help anyone else. Do you understand?” At her dumb nod, he backed away, always the forbidding Potions Master.
“Go.”
Tilly Puddleswop hesitated a moment before her hand tentatively reached out to the Portkey he had just created. He could tell from her face that she half-believed this to be some cruel trick. He remained motionless. As she flickered out of existence, he saw her lips form a soft ‘thank you’.
After she was gone, he removed the Portkey enchantment.
And this was what he was reduced to.
All the years of spying, all the sacrifices he made, all the horrors he stomached so that he could remain useful. He had killed his friend and mentor, the only man he ever trusted, the only one who ever trusted him, so that he might be in place for the Endgame. So that Harry Potter might have the chance to do the impossible. So that Voldemort might be stopped. He had done everything he was supposed to do, passed information, made sure the Dark Lord was relatively unguarded and weakened through subtle potions…and overconfident, unprepared, impetuous Harry Bloody Potter had still failed – had died with a look of surprise in his young green eyes.
Now Snape was all that was left. The Weasleys, icons as they were for the resistance, were all dead within days of Potter. He didn’t know what had happened to Granger, but suspected that she would not have survived long either. Malfoy the younger, who had decided that he wasn’t a killer and ended up aiding Snape, had only lasted a week. He’d refused to kill one of his classmates, a Ravenclaw…Chang? He was forced to do so under Imperius, then Crucio’d for his hesitation. Snape had found him a few hours later, self-inflicted cuts along his forearms so deep and long that they’d gouged over the Dark Mark. He still wasn’t certain if he despised Malfoy for his cowardice, or admired him for his pragmatism. After all, discovery and death were inevitable. It was only a matter of time.
Snape was fairly certain that Tonks, Moody and Shacklebot headed whatever remnants of the Order still survived. Tonks could look like anyone (a useful survival skill, that), Moody was too paranoid and obstinate to die, and Shacklebot…well, Shacklebot was, to use a Muggle phrase, a ‘bad-ass mother fucker’. Snape was fairly certain that of all of them, Shacklebot would survive ‘til the bitter end. But so many others had fallen that it was hardly worth mentioning those who still stood. And none of them trusted Snape. They all saw the traitor who had betrayed Dumbledore and stood at Voldemort’s side. The memories that might exonerate him, memories of all the planning that he and Dumbledore had done, carefully stored in a Pensieve, were destroyed the night Potter died. They had mingled with and been lost to the murky waters of the Thames. Better to be thought a traitor by the Order, Snape had believed, than to be discovered a traitor by Voldemort. At least this way he could still do some good.
Good. He snorted. At most he saved one, maybe two a night without being discovered. And he wondered for the thousandth time why he even tried—what the point was. He wondered if Malfoy’s pragmatic solution might not be the best one.
Big Ben sounded the hour, pulling Snape out of his dour musings. Midnight. It was now technically October 30th. Devil’s Night was now upon them, and bloodbaths would rule for the next three days to celebrate the rise, fall, and triumphant return of the Dark Lord. The Devil ruled every night now, Snape thought morbidly. Savagely kicking the now mundane tin can, he stalked out of the alley and back towards the revel.
-------------------------------
Far to the west of London, a few miles from a sleepy village on the Devon coast named Godric’s Hollow, was a tiny, unassuming graveyard. It had the look of a family plot that had seen many generations of burials, but also a deal of recent neglect. Yet if anyone in that sleepy village had been asked about it, they would have denied any knowledge of the plot, the family line that it supposedly belonged to, or the hasty and secret burial that had taken place there six-months previous.
With the death of the last of the line, there was little call for anyone to remark on the Potter family plot, anyways.
The bare light of a sickle-moon shone faintly between the branches of the trees surrounding the plot. Yellowed leaves, turned gray in the darkened night, skittered across the grounds and caught in the long, unkempt grasses. Most of the stones were old, some crumbling, others bleached white with green runners of moss where rainwater had trickled and gathered. But there were three, huddled near the south fence, that looked newer. Two had already begun sprouting lichen growth, while the furthest one, the smallest one, still had the scoured clean look of a new gravestone.
The branches rustled as the wind began to pick up and more leaves blew free. In the distant village the church clock sounded midnight, and a flurry of motion exploded into the graveyard as a large black crow flapped down, landing on one of the newest stones. Its eyes gleamed like onyx as it began pecking at the stone, intermittent caws breaking the muffled night. The wind grew stronger, and the meager light dimmed as clouds quickly crossed over the sickle moon. The crow’s feathers lost all sheen as the night darkened and drops of rain began spattering the stone, the leaves and the long grasses. Thunder rumbled lowly in the distance and the crow continued cawing and pecking, the intensifying rainfall lending an odd urgency and purpose to its actions.
The skies broke as lightening flashed with a crack of thunder, and the crow cawed in counterpoint. The rain came in torrential sheets, the branches overhead whipping about in the wind. There was a sudden disturbance at the base of the gravestone, and the black bird flapped its wings, hopping and cawing in a frenzy of movement. A pale shape worked its way out of the disturbed grass and dirt, then another pushed out, both fumbling frantically at the ground, pushing away the dirt that was quickly becoming mud. Arms emerged, then a head, eyes clenched against the mud, mouth open with a desperate gasp.
Shoving dirt, grass and leaves to one side, the mud-covered figure pulled itself from the grave, collapsing onto the ground in an exhausted, trembling heap. Rain sheeted down, quickly washing away the worst of the mud, leaving the figure pale and shivering, covered in tatters that might once have been clothes. The crow cawed and the figure doubled in pain as memories, too harsh, too bright, too painful for all that they were disjointed, flooded back.
Friends, love, betrayal, death, battle, sacrifice, the green fire of the Avada, and then nothing. And then…a pecking, a raucous caw, a summons. Things left undone, deaths that needed avenging, an evil that must be destroyed. And suddenly more pain, pressure, cold…and…the memories.
A tortured scream rent the air above Godric’s Hollow, but in the raging storm, no one heard.