Chapter 16: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

The Selwyns lived in a sprawling, cottage-style house on the outskirts of Hogsmeade that looked as though it had been in the family for generations. An antiqued, crudely-carved wooden sign bearing the family name hung over the front porch, and the rest of the exterior was, in Severus’s opinion, unkempt in an equally ostentatious manner. The ivy and occasionally crumbling plaster looked to be deliberately cultivated to underscore the family’s ancient Wizarding roots. A tall wooden fence surrounded the property, offering privacy that would doubtless be appreciated by some on tonight’s guest list.

The House Elf who opened the door for Severus wore a pillowcase turned ivory with age, complementing the house’s appearance. Her hesitancy upon observing he had no invitation had vanished as he curtly announced his name.

“Professor Snape!” she said in a high, fluting voice as she bobbed a deep curtsy. “Master and Mistress Selwyn is most happy to have you, they is!”

Severus removed his cloak by way of reply, and she scurried off to leave it somewhere. It was his first visit to the house, but he had no difficulty finding his way. The hum of loud conversation and music on the Wizarding Wireless led him right into a vast room lit with numerous lanterns. It had doubtless been enlarged for the occasion, for if he was any judge, it ought by rights to have filled the entire ground floor of the house. The House Elf had outdone herself – the white plaster ceiling gleamed in contrast with the dark wooden beams, the brass fixtures shone, and little tables scattered around the sides of the room bore a variety of attractively arranged dishes of food. A large, magical fire roared in the great stone hearth, adding to the ambience, but, blessedly, not to the heat. At the back of the room, French doors stood open to smaller, stone walled courtyard, letting in an evening breeze, and allowing guests access to a fountain dispensing drinks.

As Severus stepped into the room and looked around, an unfamiliar, brown-haired woman approached him.

“Professor Snape!” she said, “Cissy pointed you out to me. I’m Irina Selwyn.”

The accent with which she spoke had betrayed her likely identity to Severus even before she identified herself. Selwyn had attended Durmstrang rather than Hogwarts by his parents’ choice, and had brought a wife home with him.

“Severus Snape,” he responded, shaking the hand she offered. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Selwyn.”

Mrs. Selwyn led her guest over Narcissa and her companions, all familiar faces for Severus. Bellatrix clearly found his presence an unpleasant surprise, judging from the frown she directed at Narcissa, whom she evidently considered responsible for the invitation. She responded to Severus’s polite greeting with a stiff formality that provoked a wry smile. Goyle greeted him with a vise-like handshake. Gibbon was more effusive.

“Snape! Glad you could make it. He really ought to have been a top Healer at St. Mungo’s by now,” he said to the others.” I’ve never had anything quite like his painkilling potion. He really must share the recipe!”

The exact mixture he had administered to Gibbon was not something he wanted to discuss, in present company. “It was nothing special,” he replied.

“It is such a pity, in this country, how the true wizarding talent is underrated,” Irina opined. “Purebloods languish in obscurity while Mudbloods and Half-Bloods-”

Irina broke off abruptly, and shot a confused look at Narcissa, who, it appeared, had jabbed her with an elbow. Narcissa hissed something Severus could not quite hear, but could certainly guess at, into her hostess’s ears.

“I am quite pleased to be of service to the cause at Hogwarts, at Dumbledore’s side,” Severus said into the awkward silence than ensued. “The time is coming soon when we will all reap the rewards of our dedication to it.”

“Well said!” Goyle exclaimed.

“My apologies-” Mrs. Selwyn began, looking flustered.

“A natural mistake, Madam,” Severus interrupted her silkily. “Think no more of it.”

“Oh, but it was silly of me!” she said, fluttering long, probably magically enhanced, eyelashes at Severus. “I know myself that sometimes the magical blood will out. After all, is not the star Chaser Vladislava Ivanova of my hometown Vratsa Vultures a Half-Blood? Her brother attended Durmstrang with me – their grandmother was Muggleborn.”

Mrs. Selwyn succeeded in moving the conversation onto a more neutral topic, to a discussion of the chances of various Continental teams in the European Cup and Quidditch more generally. Severus chimed in with some lukewarm comments regarding Puddlemere United and the chances of Slytherin’s team in the coming year, but his mind was on the other guests in the room. There were many familiar faces, as well as a few unfamiliar ones. People to whom he should try to gain an introduction….

A thorough, though surreptitious, scan showed that neither Selwyn nor Yaxley were present. Most likely, they were in the courtyard, Severus concluded. He thanked Mrs. Selwyn for her welcome and excused himself, pleading a desire for a drink. Goyle, indicating an empty mug, decided to join him.

Goyle and Severus stepped out into the relative cool of the courtyard and approached the enchanted fountain. It stood in front of the far wall, and next to it was a table on which stood pyramids of wineglasses and beer mugs. Severus took a goblet and placed it under a stream of a dark liquid, allowing it to fill partway. By the smell, a red wine, though he could picture Narcissa’s nose wrinkling over the vintage. He took a sip and stepped away from the fountain.

Goyle, meanwhile, had filled his mug with what appeared to be ale, and turned to grill Severus on his son’s chances to play another year on the Quidditch team. Severus answered absently in the affirmative, because Selwyn and Yaxley had come to the fountain behind them, and what he could hear of their conversation interested him far more. Having received sufficient reassurance on his son’s behalf, Goyle finally excused himself, and Severus walked over to meet with his host.

“Good evening, Snape,” said Yaxley cordially, as Severus approached him. “Getting time away from old Dumbledore, are you?”

Selwyn echoed the greeting.

“Good evening,” Severus replied. “Indeed, school is out, and I’m free of the old man.” He added with a sneer, and a delicate emphasis on the last words, “Except for the occasional Order meeting.”

Selwyn sniggered appreciatively. “I’m pleased you could make it,” he said. “We must talk later. You’ll have to excuse me now, I owe Irina a drink,” Selwyn added, indicating the extra glass of wine he held in his left hand.

Severus was not sad to see him go. What he had heard made Yaxley his primary target.

“I wish I had time to spare,” Yaxley complained. “Between the Ministry and the Dark Lord’s business, I could use a spell to create a double.”

“Yes,” Severus said, “I could not help overhearing. A plum opportunity to make a contact at the Ministry has dropped into your lap, but you’ll have to pass it up to go on a raid. It’s surprising your team cannot manage alone.”

“It’s the Carrows. Neither of them has the skill to handle the Dementors,” Yaxley said with a shrug.

Snape curled his lip contemptuously. “I see.”

Yaxley gave him a considering look.

“Say, you would have no trouble…” he observed.

“Certainly not,” Severus agreed, with a touch of indignation.

“And you have free time…” Yaxley said.

“And I certainly cannot butter up your Ministry contact,” Severus said with a little smile. “When is this raid?”

Yaxley guided Severus into the darkest corner of the courtyard, and then replied,
“Two days from now. The Dementors are moving into place, and I cannot keep them there for another night, they’ll be getting restive. I’d planned it for midnight, but that could be changed…”

“What is the objective?” Severus asked.

“A Mudblood, her blood-traitor husband, and their brats,” Yaxley said. “She’s trying to organize what she calls a “defense league” in her area, and mouthing off about the Dark Lord. She needs to be sent a message.”

“Sounds routine,” Severus said in a bored voice. “But as someone must do it, it might as well be me.”

He listened attentively to the particulars Yaxley gave him. What he really wanted to know, the identity of Yaxley’s contact, was, regrettably, not a reasonable thing to ask. But Selwyn knew the name also, Severus reminded himself – he just had to make sure his “later” talk with Selwyn somehow returned to that point….

And it was indeed much later that Severus finally left the Selwyns’ home, his head aching from a glass too many of the mediocre wine Mrs. Selwyn had insisted in pressing on him, and the strain of trying to remember as many of the details as possible to convey to Albus. He Disapparated, reappearing in the meeting place Dumbledore had designated.

The trees were taller now than during his first, nerve-wracking visit to this spot, and in full leaf, rustling gently in the night breeze, but Severus still did not like the place. It was, however, a wiser choice of a place to wait than Spinner’s End. He withdrew the Muggle coin Albus had given him and activated it. As he waited for a response, he paced back and forth between the trees, muttering as he organized the night’s catch of innuendos, names, and hints into a coherent narrative, and occasionally cursing Wormtail under his breath. His fists clenched in impotent anger as he considered that, were it not for Wormtail, he could write it all down while it was still fresh in his mind. But it did not do to dwell on what the world could have been like, were it not for Wormtail….

Abruptly, Albus stood before him.

“Good evening,” Severus greeted him.

“Indeed, it is a lovely evening,” Albus agreed, looking around as thought the matter had escaped him, previously.

“I was at Selwyn’s house this evening,” Severus said. “I have some names and information regarding the Death Eaters’ Ministry activities for you. And I have learned the details of the next Dementor attack the Dark Lord has ordered, in two days’ time.”

“Good!” Albus said. “The attack – will it involve Death Eaters too? I would not send people into an unequal fight, for this.”

“Only the Carrows,” Severus responded.

“Oh, Alastor will be pleased,” Albus said, his eyes twinkling. “He was wanted a success on that front – he’ll send people to take care of it. The specifics and the other information – you have them written down?”

Severus shook his head. “I came straight here.”

“Naturally. Perhaps you could provide a memory?”

“Yes, but it was a long evening. It would take hours to review,” Severus warned.

Albus sighed. “Sadly, time is a commodity I find in short supply, these days,” he said.

He stood silent for a moment, thinking. “You certainly cannot Owl me an account, under the present circumstances. I want no possibility that suspicion could fall upon you…Aha!”

Albus rummaged about his person and pulled a Galleon from his pocket.

“If you write the details down in my office, that will solve your problem, of Peter, and mine, that I haven’t the time to see the memory. I have matters to tend which your summons interrupted. Use the Quick Quotes Quill you will find in the top right drawer, if you please; I’ve modified it to replicate my handwriting. A useful device,” he said with a little wave of his blackened right hand.

Severus nodded his agreement.

Dumbledore drew his wand and tapped the coin, speaking the incantation “Portus!”

He handed it to Severus. “Good night, then.”

“Good night,” Severus replied, as he accepted the coin. As his fingers closed around it, the Portkey activated, jerking him abruptly off the hilltop and into a maelstrom of sound and color, away towards Hogwarts.

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Severus checked his watch – the Order should be arriving at any moment. He glanced across the lawn at his companions, whom he could make out dimly in the shadows of the tall hedgerow beyond. One of them gestured at the cottage with a wand and shouted, “Incendio!”

It was Amycus, judging from the voice. Alecto followed suit, with a shrill screech of “Incendio!”

In moments, bright red and orange flames had sprung up all over the house, and the terrified resident rushed out. With a flick of his own wand, Severus cast a nonverbal “Morsmordre”, so as not to give away his position. A glittering, sickly green skull with a snake issuing from its mouth appeared over the scene.

“It’s the Dark Mark!” yelled the tallest resident of the house, by his voice and paunchy figure, a middle-aged man. “Run for it, I’ll try to hold them!” he added as he drew his wand and looked around for Death Eaters. The woman and two children took off towards the wooded area in which Severus, and the Dementors, had concealed themselves.

A coldness that came from nothing natural crept up his spine, and Severus hastily focused, blocking his mind in a manner he would never dare use in front of the Dark Lord, but which would prevent the Dementors from deviating from their orders by attacking him. The Dementors had noticed that prey was heading their way, and it was past the agreed time. Where was the Order?

The witch was hanging back, a short-legged young child in tow, but she urged the elder of her children on. A Dementor glided out of the shadow of the trees towards the girl, and Severus cursed under his breath, as she fell to the ground, whimpering in terror. Her young, simple emotions, which she would not have learned yet to hide even from ordinary eyes, drew the monster like a beacon.

Her mother saw the danger, and, releasing the plump hand of her younger son, sprinted towards her daughter, placing herself between the Dementor and her child. As Severus watched in horror, it responded as he could have predicted it would: it glided on, preferring the target it had already selected.

“No!” the mother screamed, as she grabbed desperately for it from behind, attempting to stop it by main force.

Severus, surprised to find his wand raised, bit back the incantation that was nearly torn from his throat, as he saw a glimmer of silver light appear. But the Patronus dissipated rather than taking on a shape. In its light, Severus recognized Nymphadora Tonks, her face horrified, as she sprinted towards the girl herself and fought to produce a corporeal Patronus. A spell from behind flew past her face. She spun around to engage the Carrows, the source of the attack.

Meanwhile, Severus saw, the Dementor had stopped in front of the fallen girl. He raised his wand again, deliberately, as it knelt down by her side, the child’ mother still tugging ineffectually on its cloak. Suddenly, in a silver-white flash, the form of a lynx bounded towards the girl and sprang, its jaws closing around the monster’s neck. The Dementor fell back and the lynx Patronus harried it back towards the trees, followed by an enormous silvery shape that, finally, emerged from Tonks’s wand. With a shock of recognition, Severus identified the oversized, canine form, blunt snout, and tufted tail of a werewolf. Tonks’s odd behavior at the Order meeting was now made clear to him.

The mother dropped to her knees, sobbing and cradling the child in her arms. Had he seen the girl reach up, or was that just wishful thinking on his part?

Shaking his head to clear it, he saw the father had joined Tonks, and Severus cast a quick Shield Charm to stop the curse he leveled at Amycus, though he was much inclined to send one of his own curses in that direction. Damn the Carrows for the bloody-minded morons they were, anyway! They had no orders to engage in a fight.

“AURORS! Retreat!” he bellowed as he magnified his voice with a spell, counting on the distortion to prevent his voice from being recognized. Deliberately careless, he Disapparated with an explosive bang, back to the rendezvous point.

To his relief, he shortly heard twin bangs as the Carrows returned to the rendezvous point as well. Removing his mask, Severus stalked up to his companions. Before he could draw breath to tell them just what he thought of their exceeding of their orders, he was forestalled.

“What the hell did you mean, leaving us when we had the two of ‘em outnumbered?” Alecto asked sullenly. “All that hanging about Dumbledore has made you soft.”

“There weren’t any Aurors, Snape,” Amycus added. “Just a neighbor girl showing up.”

Severus fixed Alecto with a stony look. Coldly, he replied, “I hear some useful things, during ‘all that hanging about Dumbledore’. One of them, it so happens, is that the Patronus of Kingsley Shacklebolt takes the form of a lynx. But don’t let me stop you if you’ve a hankering to go back and fight him and his team,” Severus added, with a contemptuous sneer at Amycus. “I doubt there’ll be enough of you left to blow my cover with the Order when they’re done with you.”

“Shacklebolt?” Alecto repeated. The name of one of the Ministry’s top active Aurors clearly gave her pause.

“Why would he be there?” Amycus wondered.

“These Dementor attacks have been happening all summer,” Severus answered with a shrug. “I suppose the Ministry has to look like it is doing something. This must’ve been a random sweep that got lucky.”

“Lucky? Not for us, we’ve blown the assignment,” Amycus spat bitterly on the ground.

“Yaxley told me we were to send a message,” Severus disagreed. “I think it came through loud and clear, whether or not the Dementor got the girl.”

“Heh,” Alecto agreed. “Did you see the mother?” she reminisced, a delighted smile on her face. “She tried to wrestle the Dementor. That’s a new one on me!”

“Mudblood and rock-brained,” Amycus sniggered.

Severus essayed a smirk, his stomach twisting. She’d dared that, whereas he’d feared to cast a simple spell to help. Surely, he had not waited too long….

“You know, it’s lucky Snape here agreed to help Yaxley out,” Alecto said. “We might never have known it was Aurors in time.”

“I think I got that first Auror,” Amycus boasted. Severus refrained from pointing out that the curse had missed Tonks by a good six inches. “Too bad you didn’t try any before you took off, Snape.”

“The next time I see an angry wizard charging you, I’ll remember you’d rather I curse him after he takes you down,” Severus replied. “I had thought you’d prefer me to cast a Shield Charm.”

“I’m sure no offense was meant, Snape,” Alecto said, her voice conciliatory.

“None taken,” he replied insincerely.

Grudgingly, Amycus admitted, “Nice spell work, blocking that curse from across the lawn. I’d thought it was Alecto’s doing.”

Severus repressed a comment on Alecto’s skills in the area of nonverbal spell casting. He should part with the Carrows on good terms. He had made his points – anyone they told, would be able to report that he had extracted the three of them from an unfortunate brush with the Ministry’s Aurors, and saved Amycus from a curse. The lips of Death Eaters coming to Spinner’s End for clandestine treatment of injuries were likely to be that much looser, as a result of the night’s work.

Instead, he acknowledged the thanks with a cordial nod of his head. “It was nothing,” he said. “The two of you will let Yaxley know tomorrow how things went, I presume?”

“Right you are,” Amycus replied.

“Well, I want to wet my whistle after that bit of excitement,” Alecto said to Amycus. “Say, would you care to join us, Snape?” she asked.

That would mean listening to more of her revolting reminiscences, no doubt. What he really wanted to do was to return, oh so carefully, to the vicinity of the burning house and ascertain whether Shacklebolt’s Patronus had come too late. A description of the raid would be in the papers in the morning, he reminded himself sternly. Or the morning after, given the lateness of the hour….

With a shrug of his shoulders, he agreed. “I’ll have one drink, anyway.”

“Off to the Hog’s Head, then?” Amycus suggested.

“As long as we pick a dark corner,” Severus replied. “The barman once threw me out of there. I doubt he wants me back.”

Amycus gave him a long, odd look. Finally, he clapped a meaty paw on Severus’s shoulder and said, with a broad grin, “Thrown out of the Hog’s Head, eh? I think I may have misjudged you. Let’s go.”

They all Apparated to the road outside Hogsmeade, and walked to the Hog’s Head together. Severus and Alecto sat down in a corner, while Amycus fetched a pitcher of ale and three glasses. The conversation proved no more pleasant than he had expected, and turned up nothing of immediate interest. Amycus’s admission, after two glasses of ale, that he fancied joining Severus at Hogwarts, did nothing to improve his mood. Severus was grateful when the pitcher was finally empty, and he could excuse himself.

After leaving the inn, Severus Apparated from the street in Hogsmeade, to the bank of the river. He stood looking out at it, he knew not how long. There was not much to see. The moon glinted on its dark, oily surface, and occasional bits of debris floated by. At least it was familiar. And, while he was thus occupied, he was free of the need to maintain his act of callous indifference to the loathsome acts of which he had been a part that night. Eventually, he turned towards home and the final obstacle that stood between him and the temporary oblivion of sleep. The sitting room was dark, but Severus did not allow himself to hope on that basis. But once he ascended the staircase to his room, the door opposite it remained closed. The time spent at the Hog’s Head with the Carrows, and on the riverbank, had, at least, spared him the necessity of dealing with Wormtail for tonight.

Severus changed into his nightshirt and climbed into bed. Through habit so ingrained it might have been seared into his mind as the Dark Mark was seared into his forearm, he lay back, his eyes staring up at the ceiling that sloped down towards him. Taking deep slow breaths, he made himself relax his body, and made his mind a blank. Then he recalled to mind the worst of the night .His stomach twisted, and his fear of what might have happened, and his shame at his inaction, came flooding back as he remembered the little girl and her mother. This was not a memory he could hide – others shared it. But the emotions – those he had to hide. Painstakingly, he held the image in his mind, and strove for a mask of indifference. Only when he was satisfied with the results did he permit himself to drift off to sleep.

He was standing in a forest alone, at night. In the clearing beyond, a child lay on the grass, screaming her fear in a shrill voice as a Dementor knelt over her. A woman tugged desperately at the Dementor, but it paid her no mind. He struggled to raise his wand, to shout an incantation, to scream, but nothing happened. As the Dementor rose and glided away, the woman turned to face him. Her eyes were the green of sunlight streaming through new leaves, her hair a fall of molten copper, and her expression purest contempt as she looked straight at him. As he struggled again to move or speak, she vanished. Where the child had lain, Severus now saw Potter lying on the grass. A dribble of saliva ran out of the corner of his mouth, and he looked blankly up with an expression Severus had seen before, most recently on the face of Bartemius Crouch, Jr.

Severus awoke sitting up in his bed, his nightshirt damp with sweat. He wondered whether he had screamed, for at the very end of the dream, his paralysis had lifted. Tensely, he listened for any sign Wormtail had heard him. When after a few minutes there was no sign of movement from the other room, Severus put his head back down on his pillow and pulled his blanket over his head in a vain attempt to block out the early morning rays of the sun peeking in around the shade on the window. He drifted in and out of sleep and the minutes seemed to crawl as he waited for the usual time his newspaper was delivered. When it finally arrived, he got up and tossed his old bathrobe on over the nightshirt to go downstairs.

Wormtail was in the sitting room, drinking tea as he perused the morning paper when Severus entered. Dread and relief warred in Severus as he saw the banner headline: “Aurors Halt Dementor Attack”. At least he did not have to wait another day, to learn what had happened.

Lowering the paper to look up at Severus, Wormtail smirked unpleasantly. “I was sorry to read of your rotten luck,” he said insincerely.

“I don’t recall asking for a news update,” Severus replied coldly, and snatched his newspaper from Wormtail’s hands. As he seated himself in his armchair and turned to the story, Severus added, “I’ll thank you to bring me my tea.”

While Wormtail busied himself in the kitchen, Severus skimmed rapidly through the article on the front page and turned quickly to Page 5, where the article continued. A teary-eyed girl still clinging nervously to her mother’s robe waved shyly up at him above the caption, “Stasia Briggs, 8, smiles for our photographer”.