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Insidious by Grainne [Reviews - 11]

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Disclaimer:

I acknowledge J. K. Rowling as the sole creator of the Potterverse and thank her for allowing us to play with her creation. I make no money from this work.

Author’s Notes:

This story takes place during the timeframe of HBP and carries on a bit from there. Petunia Dursley is the other main character in this story.

This story was written post-HBP and pre-DH, and is now AU in various aspects, most notably in the assumption that "that awful boy" Petunia referred to was James Potter rather than Severus Snape (a founding premise of this story).

I am indebted to The Harry Potter Lexicon for maps and timelines (special nods to Ali Hewison, Jen Reese, Nik the Hermit and Hufflepuff Mel, whose essays and map work provided me with much food for thought regarding the Dursleys and the details of their environment). I am also grateful to my LJ flist and members of various LJ communities for taking the time to answer my questions during the researching and writing of this story. The beta crown (and my sincere gratitude) goes to Vaughn. All errors are my own.





Insidious

by Grainne





Prologue: After the Vow



Long after Bellatrix and Narcissa departed, Severus Snape sat in his armchair, staring down at his right hand. His face was, on the whole, expressionless, but every so often a tremor ran across it—lips pinched, muscles at the corners of his eyes twitched, and brows furrowed—belying his seeming idleness.

His black hair and robes blended so well with the dark furnishings of the small sitting room that, if one squinted, one might imagine the man to be nothing but a disembodied face, harsh in profile, and a pair of pale hands. As the night wore on, the illusion deepened. The candles in the lamp burned down to stubs, and the edges of objects were eaten away by shadow. Leather, wood, iron, and wool lost their individual colours and textures and became as one with the darkness. Snape’s sallow face and hands, however, caught and reflected the flickering light; they seemed to glow and to swell, assuming a disconcerting prominence within the room.

At last, when all but two of the candles were out, Snape clenched his right hand into a fist and stood. “He’ll let me now,” he whispered vehemently. “I daresay he’ll insist on it.”

There was now a flurry of activity in the sitting room. In the failing light, Snape moved quickly from shelf to shelf, selecting books and stacking them on the table. Occasionally, he tapped the spines with his wand. Dusty, dull-looking volumes transformed into fantastic works covered in gleaming symbols or trussed in heavy chains. One large and especially mouldy tome sprang open, revealing another book nestled within. It was a slim octavo, poorly bound in some scabrous, flesh-coloured hide. Snape hesitated at the sight of it. He put his wand aside and gently stroked the binding with one pale forefinger. The book opened, creaking and popping as if it were a knee or a shoulder joint that had long been out of use. Snape flicked past the flyleaf and the first few pages of elegant woodprints (oddly interspersed with dire warnings about misuse of the book’s contents) until he saw the familiar reddish-brown script—the copious (and elaborate) capital letters listing to the right like anchored ships beset by a fierce crosswind.

The Sire gave something, and also the Dame
Out of this joining, a Miracle came
Two Bloods united in one earthly Frame
Daughter or Son bound to Family Name


Snape closed the book, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. Not a minute ago he would have sworn that he no longer knew the words, but, as with many things learned by rote in childhood—grammars, creeds, schoolyard rhymes—Snape had only needed those opening lines to unlock the vault of memory. He mentally fast-forwarded to the prescriptive lines.

Something from Sire and something from Dame
If need be can stand in place of the Same…


The book itself, of course, was “something from Dame.” However, it was less a personal possession than a family legacy, and Snape’s instincts told him that the ritual would require objects that had belonged solely to his mother and father. At any rate, as the next line of the verse indicated that these stand-ins were to be placed in a basin of fire (along with his own blood), he thought a trip to the wardrobe was in order. It was never advisable to destroy the instructions. Snape conjured a flannel, wrapped the small book, and carefully placed it on top of the stack.

Upstairs, Snape poked his head into his childhood bedroom (now occupied by Wormtail), announced that he was going out, and informed Wormtail that he was not to leave or attempt to communicate with anyone on pain of further dismemberment, this time without the shiny replacements. He then went to his parents’ bedroom and approached the ancient wardrobe.

The wardrobe was, like many of the more interesting books downstairs, another Prince family relic. It was not ornate, but close inspection revealed that the piece was of good quality. The dark varnish lay evenly on the wood and was not pooled in crevices. The thick panels had not warped, and the hand-carved joints were still snug. As a small child, Snape had often crawled into the wardrobe to hide, to think, to read, to scheme. Sometimes he’d found a vast cave inside, with water running down its mossy walls, or the interior of a tent, with canvas sides that rippled and billowed in a silent wind. After his mother died, however, these enchantments disappeared. From then on there had only been an ordinary wardrobe interior on the other side of the heavy doors, and this is what Snape found now when he opened them. He had a suspicion that, as the Prince heir, he could have re-enchanted the wardrobe, but he’d never attempted it. As an adult, he had found other dank, cavernous places in which to retreat from the world (and wrestle with his place in it) and other billowing flaps of fabric behind which to hide; thus the wardrobe was needed only for the storage of his nightshirt, dressing gown, and a change of robes, which hung from pegs inside the doors. Snape ignored these and began to rummage in the dim, musty-smelling interior, where the last of his parents’ things had been left to rot, or not, as they pleased.

His father’s belt still hung on a nail at the back. That nail—or rather, the pounding of it into good solid Prince family furniture—had been the source of a great row between his mother and father. But it had never been removed. It had stayed where it was, new steel stuck into ancient wood, just like his parents had stayed in Spinner’s End, the upstart Muggle Snape stuck into the last of the once-noble wizarding Princes. Snape seized the belt, as well as a tissue-thin square of faded blue cotton that had once served as one of his mother’s headscarves, and returned to the sitting room. He fastened the belt tightly around the stack of books, the leather creaking with age. He then shrank the lot and tied them up in the square of cotton, a grim expression on his face.

“After all,” he said quietly (and for the umpteenth time, even given his relatively brief existence), “there are worse things I could do.” This was one of Snape’s unofficial mottos. Tonight, however, he was not sure that he believed himself, and he made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat as soon as he’d uttered the words. He donned his hooded cloak, tucked the cotton-wrapped bundle into a sleeve and slipped out into the gloomy night.

Wormtail, watching from his bedroom window, saw Snape’s cloaked figure striding down the street through the mist. The figure soon entered a patch of darkness created by a broken streetlamp. Wormtail waited and waited, but no one emerged into the light on the other side. Only then did the little man dare to leave the bedroom, creep down the stairs, and survey the scene in the sitting room.

In the dim light of the single remaining candle, he took in the gaps on the bookshelves, the wine glasses scattered on the table. There was some wine left in the dusty bottle. Wormtail snatched it up and, with a nervous giggle, perched on the edge of the armchair.

“To your health, my dear ladies,” he squeaked, raising the bottle and nodding to his imaginary audience. He then tipped the bottle and drank, a little of the blood-red wine dribbling down his chin. “I’m so sorry Severus couldn’t be here to greet you,” he went on, his watery eyes taking on a strange glint. “He’s gone out, you see—what? You think he’s up to no good? No doubt, Bellatrix, no doubt. Where, you ask? Excellent question, Narcissa—where, indeed?”

*******



Many miles away, in the master bedroom of number four, Privet Drive, Petunia Dursley lay flat on her back, clutching the edge of the duvet up to her chin as if protecting herself from some unseen terror as she slept. Her husband, Vernon—visible only as an enormous duvet-covered mound—slumbered beside her, snoring softly. All of a sudden, Petunia quivered. Her head began to thrash from side to side, silver and pink curlers clacking against one another. Just as her mouth opened to cry out, her hands jerked convulsively, and she awoke gagging on a fistful of fabric.

“Mmf…what’s all the ruckus? What’s all the ruckus, eh?” Vernon mumbled, tunnelling out from under the duvet.

“Oh, Vernon,” Petunia moaned, once she’d removed the duvet from her mouth.

“Eh? Petunia, what’s that? Are you ill?” He was fully awake now and was attempting to peer at her in the dark.

“Oh, no, Vernon, it was them.”

“Them?” Vernon said, clutching his wife’s arm.

“The…the foreigners,” Petunia whimpered, “taking over Grunnings. Oh, Vernon, it was horrible! They’d made you give up your office. Everyone had to go in early to do those funny exercises, and they told me that Dudley was no longer guaranteed a position when he left school because all of the openings were going to go to their own children—who were completely lacking Dudley’s natural executive qualities, by the way, but when I told them that they only laughed and tried to make me drink the most appalling tea—”

“Shush, Petunia, settle down,” Vernon interrupted. He’d relaxed his grip on his wife’s arm and was now patting it instead. He seemed relieved, somehow, by Petunia’s ramblings. “Just a bad dream. I told you not to worry about it.”

“But you said—”

“That there was some restructuring going on at Grunnings, yes, but they’ll not have my office, Petunia. As for making us do funny foreign exercises, by God, I’d like to see them try! I’m still the director.”

“But for how long? You said that they were reviewing all of the positions from the top down.” Vernon harrumphed and turned away, but Petunia went on, “I know you’re brilliant, dear, but drill sales have been a bit slow—you said it yourself—and if they’re set on putting their own man in, they’ll use any excuse to sack you.”

“No one,” Vernon said, sitting upright, “is being sacked!”

Petunia cringed, but she pressed on, driven by her own anxiety. “But you’re worried, Vernon, I know you are. You need that contract with Blye’s DIY. Why else would you ask me to start seeing so much of Kevin Blye’s stepmother?”

“Because,” Vernon blustered, “because she’s an old acquaintance of Marge’s, and because she’s a very important, influential woman—she’d have to be, wouldn’t she, given who she’s been married to at one time or another—and I thought you’d jump at the chance to be seen with her. But, since you bring it up, I don’t suppose she has mentioned—”

“Aha,” Petunia cried. “I knew it! You are worried; that’s why you’re having me cosy up to Mrs Mountbatten-Woolley-St. John-Blye, and that’s why you’ve been steadily reducing the household budget, isn’t it? Oh, Vernon, we aren’t in danger of becoming lower middle class, are we?”

“HUSH! Egad, woman, do you want the whole neighbourhood to hear? Or perhaps you’ve already been complaining to Yvonne?”

Petunia gasped. “Vernon, you know that I would never…would rather let stray dogs in the house…always going on and on about her precious holidays…never in a million years…wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.”

“Glad to hear it,” Vernon said. “Besides, it is only for a little while. You’ll see, Petunia, Grunnings is just going through a rough patch. Business will pick up, and those Japanese and American piranhas won’t be able to touch me without bringing the law down on their greasy heads. Then you can splash out on a new dress and treats for Dudders and whatever else you like, and we’ll finally get that vacation home in Majorca. All will be well, dear, but it doesn’t help, you panicking and keeping me up half the night.”

“I’m sorry, Vernon.”

“And I don’t think all this dreaming is entirely normal.”

“It must be this awful weather we’ve been having. I’ve never dreamed much before.”

“Success breeds success, Petunia, just remember that. And when it come to success, the single most important thing is—”

“—appearances,” Petunia finished.

Vernon grunted his assent, patted his wife’s arm once more, and promptly disappeared beneath the duvet. Petunia turned on her side and curled herself, as best she could, around her husband’s bulk, as if he were the anchor that could hold her firmly to their normal, respectable—and by all outward appearances, successful—life on Privet Drive.

When she managed to get back to sleep, however, Petunia dreamed once more, and this time of something far more disturbing than foreigners. She dreamed of her late sister, Lily—Lily with her freakish robes, Lily with her dratted wand, Lily with that horrid boy, Lily with her bright green eyes. Then the dream shifted, and Petunia saw those same eyes in another frame—that of a pale, sickly youth who stared accusingly at Petunia from behind the bars of a large birdcage. Petunia could not look away, although she very much wanted to; her mind was filled with terrible images of destruction and she distinctly heard screaming, which frightened her because the boy had not opened his mouth.

Come morning, Petunia either did not remember these dreams or wisely chose not to speak of them to Vernon. She dressed and made herself up with her usual fussiness. After her own family’s breakfast, she shoved a small bowl of watery porridge through the cat-flap into the room her nephew occupied. She did not give the slightest outward sign that she thought this treatment cruel or unusual—on the contrary, she snapped at the boy within to make sure and have a wash today, as his stench was starting to seep out onto the landing.

Insidious by Grainne [Reviews - 11]

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