Chapter 3: A Fitting Reward

As always, when answering a summons by the Dark Lord, Snape did not know where he would find himself when he Apparated. This time, he opened his eyes to find himself outside an old, deserted barn. Snape raised his hood over his head, then drew his wand and conjured up a mask to wear inside. As he waved the wand at the heavy, rusted door, it opened with a loud groan. Taking a deep breath, he walked inside. Behind him, he heard a pair of loud pops, as two other stragglers arrived.

Balls of magical flame floating just below the roof lit the interior of the barn. In the dim, green light they cast, Snape saw that only about ten others were present. Not surprising, since he knew Lucius had not received a summons. He strode over to stand in the circle. As the other two stragglers took their places, silence fell. Then the Dark Lord appeared suddenly in their midst.

Snape dropped to his knees, as did the others. The rustling of robes and murmurs of “Master” and “My Lord” broke the quiet.

“Ah, all are now here,” said Voldemort. “I have called you, a select few, here tonight for a purpose. Almost a year ago, a prophecy was made that a child with special powers would be born to my enemies. I have discovered his name. Your mission will be to kill the child and his parents, before he can grow to be a nuisance to us.”

Voldemort strode over to a group of eight Death Eaters. Facing the one who was kneeling in front of the others, he said, “I have chosen you to lead the mission. Make the necessary preparations and plans, and have your team assemble here again tomorrow night. You know where to lead them.” The slender figure rose and bowed gracefully.

“They will die, Master,” she said. It was unmistakably, as Lucius had said, the voice of Bellatrix Lestrange.

Voldemort approached a second, smaller group of three Death Eaters. “You three will also go. Bella may have need of your skills.” The three also rose and bowed.

Finally, Voldemort walked up to Snape.

“And you,” he said, stopping in front of Snape. It would not be much different from the McKinnon raid, Snape told himself. They would be a round dozen against two-surely his role would, again, be that of accomplice.

“I am honored to be chosen, Master,” Snape responded smoothly. His voice, at least, he had under control. His stomach was churning, though. Voldemort was a powerful Legilimens. Ever since the McKinnon raid, Snape feared to be near him, lest he sense Snape’s reluctance.

“You have served me well,” Voldemort continued, “for it was you who brought me word of this potential threat. It is fitting that you be there when that threat is eliminated.” Snape did not like the sound of that. What if Voldemort wanted him to eliminate the baby personally? He abruptly remembered Letitia McKinnon, shortly before her death. She had been begging them to kill her, her voice hoarse from screaming. Yes, he could kill the baby, he decided. Anything it took, to avoid that.

“Indeed, I mean it to be not just an honor, but also a reward for your service. For the father of the child is not only my enemy, but also an old enemy of yours. If you wish, you may be the one to kill James Potter personally,” Voldemort concluded.

Snape was thunderstruck. The Potters were the parents of the prophecy child? He knelt, gaping at the Dark Lord for a moment, incapable of speech. Not Letitia, not some unknown young woman, but Lily, was the mother of the baby?

“What…what a surprise, Master,” he managed to stammer out. Gathering his scattered wits about him, he rose to his feet and bowed deeply.

“I thank you, My Lord,” he added.

“Very well, that concludes our business. Report to Bella here tomorrow at ten for her instructions. I await the report of your success tomorrow night,” said Voldemort. Snape dropped to his knees and kissed the hem of Voldemort’s robe, and retreated to the doorway to leave.

As he walked out, Bellatrix grasped his upper arm. He resisted a furious urge to throw her off and draw his wand. His distress demanded a target, but starting a duel while others were still taking their leave of the Dark Lord was not going to change anything for the better. Instead, he relaxed in her grip.

“Severus,” Bellatrix said, “I didn’t choose you for my team. So you had better not cause any problems, understand?”

“You know how highly the Dark Lord values Lucius’s suggestions,” Snape replied silkily. “You will simply have to work with me, for the good of the cause.”

The reminder of Lucius’s influence did not sit well with her, apparently. She dropped her hand angrily.

“Tomorrow at ten, then, Bellatrix,” Snape said, before he spun on his heel and Disapparated.

He appeared, with a quiet pop, in his lodging at Knockturn Alley. He tore the mask from his face and threw it across the room. Removing his cloak, he bunched it together and heaved it at the age worn ladder-back chair next to the desk in the far corner. The force of the throw knocked the chair down with a clatter that did nothing to assuage his emotional turmoil. With a wordless cry, he flopped down on the edge of his bed, and stared across the room at the bookshelves on the opposite wall.

Lily. The baby was Lily’s son. He recalled his feelings after the murder of Letitia McKinnon: the revulsion he’d felt at himself for having been a part of it, the shame, that he had voluntarily sworn himself to a monster who would send others to do such things for absolutely no reason, and the knowledge of his own cowardice. That, with his new understanding of just how wrong a choice it had been to become a Death Eater, he would still do nothing. He had wondered, then, whether he could live with himself anymore. Over time, he had learned, to his disgust, that he could.

Would tomorrow really be any different? He wasn’t even needed, he told himself. With him, they were a dozen, against only two. Bellatrix, he had to admit, was a competent leader. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Surely if he could live with one murder on his conscience, he could live with four. Snape buried his head in his hands, his fingers unconsciously twining in the long, dark strands of hair that fell across his face.

But, Lily. Lily Evans. Leaning over a cauldron a few seats away from his, her beautiful face obscured partly by the fall of her dark red hair, suddenly turning towards him with a mischievous smile and winking, as she crumbled a sprig of peppermint into the Euphoria she was brewing. In the library, collapsing in gales of laughter as she read the notes he had made in his book about Golpalott’s Third Law. Outside in springtime, those eyes flashing, more brilliantly green than the fresh new leaves on the trees, as she confronted the boy she would marry on behalf of a nobody she barely knew.

Snape sat up. His hands had clenched themselves into fists and pulled painfully at his hair as he did so, but he did not care. He deserved the pain. Lily was the only person, aside from his mother, who had ever been kind to him with no thought of what advantage it might bring to her. Even after he had spit on her initial gift of kindness, because, coward that he was, he would not be seen by his housemates accepting the assistance of a Muggle-born girl. She had walked away from him, then. She should have kept walking. Now, here he was, about to participate in her murder, out of fear of those he called friends. She would not be coming back again.

He remembered last seeing her, in April it had been, while running an errand in Diagon Alley. Seeing her obviously pregnant with James’s child, he had sought to avoid her, but she had crossed the street to talk to him, wanting to share her excitement about her impending motherhood. She had remembered where he was working from a previous chance meeting, and had seemed genuinely to care how he found it. She had chuckled over the ‘ruined’ batch of Euphoria, her old trick. They could not have talked for more than ten minutes, but it had brightened his mood for days afterward.

To her, he had never been, and would never be, more than ‘just a friend’. Of course, a mere friend of Lily’s could be sure she would not break into his home with a group of his enemies to kill him. Something, alas, Snape’s beloved could not count on. He twisted his features into a horrible grimace, but the feelings rising within him burst forth in a shuddering sob.

Angered by his weakness, he propelled himself up from the bed and paced over to the window opposite the door to the room, and then back to the door. After a few of trips back and forth, his breathing grew more regular. Alongside his revulsion at what he had become, a resolve was growing that this final atrocity was one he would not commit.

But how to avoid it? He could flee, but they would eventually find him; more to the point, to flee now would be to doom Lily and her family as surely as if he had killed them himself. He had already marked them for death. To warn her first, that would be the thing. Unfortunately, Lucius had said that the Potters were in hiding. He would certainly fail to find them, with less than a day to do it. It seemed that only Bellatrix among the Death Eaters knew of their location, and she would not divulge it to him.

He could send Lily an owl! Would she believe him, though? He would have to reveal the source of his knowledge. At the least, he would have to admit that he was a Death Eater. She might, actually, and the thought of it cheered him even in the midst of his crisis. However, she would be wrong to, Potter would be sure to point it out. It could be a ruse, to draw them out. Even if he seemed sincere, he could be under Imperius…

Well, perhaps he could rescue her. That thought brought bitter laughter to his lips. Oh, sure. He could fight off eleven Death Eaters. Of course, she and Potter would join the fray, but there was the baby to protect, as well…no. It would rid the world of a few very unpleasant Death Eaters, but the Potters would all end up quite dead at the end, and it would solve all of his problems in the most permanent way imaginable. Yes, dying with Lily would be preferable to killing her, but Snape wanted her to live.

He needed to clear his head. There had to be a way, there just had to. He would find it.

Opening his door, Snape walked out and down the three creaky flights of stairs to the entrance foyer of the boarding house. The hag watching the front entrance barely glanced up as he walked by; she was engrossed in her copy of “Witch Weekly”.

It was quite chilly, and a light drizzle was falling. Snape realized he had left his cloak upstairs. Perhaps the cold would help keep him alert as he thought through the problem.

The heavy clouds overhead blocked out the light of moon and stars, so the street was almost pitch black. Snape pulled out his wand and cast a silent Lumos. He did not need to sprain an ankle on the detritus one might encounter in Knockturn Alley, on top of his other problems.

Walking briskly down the street, he reviewed the options he had discarded. Flee- useless. He had already ensured that Lily was a marked woman. Warning Lily- not a reliable option in the limited time available. Protect Lily - Snape smiled bitterly. Not unless he could transform into the Dark Lord or Albus Dumbledore…Snape halted abruptly.

Dumbledore was powerful enough! He had considerable resources at his disposal, as leader of the Order or the Phoenix, and from what Lucius had told him, he was already taking an interest in the Potters’ safety. It would be necessary to convince him of the danger, but Snape could do it. He had the rest of the night to think of the best approach. Dumbledore was easy to find. He was almost certainly at Hogwarts.

His decision made, Snape hastened back to his room. Tossing his rumpled cloak onto his bed, he picked up his fallen chair and seated himself at his desk. From one of the drawers, he extracted a fresh piece of parchment and laid it out in front of him. After a couple of moments’ thought, he dipped his quill into the inkpot and began to write a note in his best handwriting:

Dear Professor Dumbledore:

A matter has come to my attention that I believe to be of considerable interest to you. I am therefore taking the liberty of writing to request a few minutes of your time today (Wednesday) during business hours so that I might discuss it with you. It is urgent, else I would not presume to request an appointment with so little advance notice.

I am entirely at your disposal. Please indicate the time and place of your choice by return owl to my Hogsmeade Post Office Box (Number 773). (As I reside in London, an owl to me is likely to arrive too late). You may rely upon my attendance.

Yours sincerely,

Severus Snape

Snape waited impatiently for the ink to dry, before folding the parchment carefully to place it inside an envelope. He sealed it, and then addressed it to Professor Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Hogsmeade, Scotland. Snatching the envelope up, he walked back down to the entrance. The hag eyed him with disfavor as he stopped in front of the overstuffed chair in which she was sitting.

“Mrs. Hartsock, I wondered if I might make use of your owl this evening,” he inquired.

“Evenin’?” she cackled, setting down her magazine. “It’s bleedin’ two o’clock in the A. M., it is!”

“Indeed,” Snape agreed, reining in his impatience. “Might I borrow your owl now?”

“Arr, the pore thing needs her sleep,” said Mrs. Hartsock, composing her features into a maudlin expression of pity. Snape refrained from pointing out to the hag the obvious fact that owls are nocturnal creatures. He recognized an opening move in a bout of haggling when he heard one.

“The boarder next door mentioned once that you let him send a letter for a Galleon. Since it is so late, could we agree to a Galleon, three Sickles?” Snape asked.

“Make it a Galleon, eight Sickles, and you have a deal,” Mrs. Hartsock countered.

“Done, thank you, Mrs. Hartsock,” said Snape, digging for the coins in his pockets. He handed them to her, and then added obligingly, “No need to bother yourself to get her for me…I believe I’ve seen her in the attic, where you have been kind enough to let me store my trunks?” For an additional fee, he did not add.

“That’s right. You can let her right out the winder,” the hag said, looking pleased to have avoided a trip up to the attic. She picked up the article on beauty advice and resumed her reading. Snape was also quite pleased with how this had gone. He rather doubted the landlady’s owl would make it from London to Hogwarts by morning.

“Good night,” he said politely to the cover of the magazine. He strode to the back stairwell and walked up the five flights of stairs to the attic. Sure enough, the owl was where he had remembered seeing it, its cage hanging in front of a dormer window with a view of Knockturn Alley. Taking the entire cage down from its hook, he focused and Disapparated, with a rather louder bang than he would have preferred. If asked, he could always claim to have bumped into something; the attic was certainly disorderly enough to make that story credible. Although, one of the charms of life in Knockturn Alley tended to be that the neighbors did not ask those sorts of questions very often.

He reappeared, as planned, on the outskirts of Hogsmeade. Quickly he let the owl out and tied the letter to her leg, then released her. As she flew away, he Apparated back to the attic and replaced the cage on its hook. He unlatched the window, so that the owl would be able to get back in when it made the trip back.

Returning to his room, Snape started to plan his day. The Hogsmeade Owl Post Office would be opening at seven, in little more than four hours. He would check for a response then. Madam Sophronia might find it odd, but he could make short disappearances throughout the morning. What if he received no response, though?

If he had no response by eleven, or was turned down, he would simply show up at Hogwarts, he decided. Even if the Headmaster did not open his mail until after breakfast, he was sure to have seen his note by ten or so. How he would talk his way into the office he did not know, but he would. He had to.