Fic Post: Houses of Stone, 1/4, R
Apr. 6th, 2005 10:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ishafel(Prequel to "The Winter Prince." Gen. Lucius, Snape.)
Author: Ishafel
Title: Houses of Stone
Summary: Two roads diverged in a wood.
The second time he went to Azkaban he was prepared, as much as anyone could be. He had been a boy, that first time, and he had believed that Dumbledore would have him free within the day, and he had known that he was innocent. None of these things had helped him in the slightest. The second time he was a man, and he knew what it was he faced. And he believed that Dumbledore would have him free within the week, and he knew that he was innocent. Sixteen years had not changed very much. He was still more afraid of Azkaban than he was of death.
It was a common belief among those who had sent him that prisoners in Azkaban were tortured-and they were. But physical torture was relatively rare, and reserved for those who had committed the most terrible of crimes: rapists, murderers, child molesters, and traitors. And physical torture was bearable, if you knew it would end. The worst of Azkaban he could not explain to them; the small humiliations, the lack of privacy, warmth, proper clothing and food. They did not sound so terrible recited in the clean bright air of Hogwarts. Dumbledore had sent him to do this thing with a smile and a clear conscience.
Because he knew to expect it should have been difficult to react as if he did not, but when the Aurors had come for him he had fought as hard as any man threatened with Azkaban. He was vastly outnumbered but he came close to escaping, which would have ruined everything. Some of the Aurors sent to capture him were little more than ill-taught children; faces he recognized from the last decade at Hogwarts. He did not try to spare them.
Children or no they stripped him of his wand and bound him very tightly. And perhaps war was meant to be the province of children; perhaps one had to be young to believe in anything enough to die for it. He had been that young once, though he had his doubts about the man he traveled to Azkaban to meet. He was pleased to note they read him his rights, and observed procedure to the letter. There had been a time when suspected Death Eaters rarely survived the journey to Azkaban. But these children were both civil and cautious.
It was dusk when he came into Azkaban for the second time, and starting to snow. He had no coin to offer the ferryman, always unlucky, but Dumbledore had promised him passage back. They led him through the vast gate it took three wizards to open, and into the warren of dimly lit cells. They took his clothing and doused him with delousing potions and showered him with icy water. He was shivering by the time they cut his hair, and the thin robe of rough cloth that they gave him did little to warm him.
All of this they did without speaking to him, pushing or pulling him where they wanted him to go. Knowing that it was done for a reason helped, a little, to negate the effects. Knowing that he was on their side did not. They broke their silence only once, as they led him through the seemingly endless halls, to tell him that he would have a cellmate. They could not know how the news gratified Snape, or that he wondered what had become of Dolohov. He kept his head down, his eyes on the ground. They would expect that; they would know he had been here before.
He rather thought they traveled in a circle, passing the door to the cell he had been assigned and then returning to it. It did not matter; he had no intention of attempting to escape. But he had been a spy for so long that it was second nature to make note of such things. If one of his masters did not find such a thing of interest the other surely would. They opened the door and he fought them in earnest. They would be waiting for him to, surely; besides he could not help himself. Knowing what he faced only made it that much worse: in that moment he would have sacrificed anything to be free.
But they were too strong for him, and they had no interest in his loyalties-that would come later. They left him, and it was all he could do not to fling himself against the door and howl for freedom. Instead he stood and looked over the cell that was now his home. It was no different, in design, from the one he had been in before; he thought that one had been closer to the sea but he might have imagined it. It was small, and damp, with the same flickering lighting charms that were present everywhere in Azkaban. It held two narrow slabs of beds, one of them currently occupied, a flush toilet with a chain, and a leaking faucet. There was a small barred window in the door and a slot near the bottom to push plates through. Not, in short, a cage he would wish on an animal.
His first cellmate had been Bellatrix Lestrange, and in six weeks time she had worn a rut in the stone floor. Confinement had driven her mad; Snape had been nearly as glad to leave her behind, as he had been to leave Azkaban. She had paced, and screamed, and drawn Arithmantical runes on the walls in blood, and mourned Voldemort in the way most women mourn a dead child. The walls of this cell, too, were marked in blood; Snape recognized whole sections of musical compositions, fragments of poetry, names and dates and scratches meant to mark the passing of hours.
He was not sure, himself, of the exact time; he thought it must be somewhat after midnight. It had been twilight when he'd arrived, but in Azkaban it was always twilight; the lights grew no dimmer and no brighter and there were no windows from which to note the movement of the sun. On the left-hand bed Lucius Malfoy slept with his face to the wall, wrapped in his ragged robe. He had not woken when Snape had come in; he had been in Azkaban seven months, and grown used to the quality of the darkness and the quality of the silence.
Snape moved to take the other bed, only to find that the dark stain that covered it was still fresh enough to be wet. Whatever fate Dolohov had met, had not been pleasant. But Dumbledore had ordered it, and so it had been for the greater good. He found that the corner farthest from Lucius and the door was dry and clean enough and sank down with his back to the wall.
He had not intended to sleep, not until he'd spoken to Lucius, but he'd been awake and on his feet for more than twenty hours and the sudden stillness undid him. He slept fitfully for a little while, dreaming not of Azkaban or Lucius but of green fields and blue skies. The Cheering Charm Dumbledore had worked on him was clearly still in effect. He woke to Lucius coughing. A short time later there were footsteps in the corridor and he sat where he was, very still, while they came in and took Lucius to be interrogated.
The door slammed behind them and when he was fairly sure they would be gone for some time he used the toilet and then took Lucius' bed. He suspected it was nearly morning so he did not try to sleep. The bed was hardly more comfortable than the floor, and he stared up at the ceiling and thought longingly of his dungeons.
"He is hiding something," Dumbledore had said to him, and Snape had looked up at him and frowned.
"Surely you've used veritaserum?" he asked.
"Used it?" Dumbledore's eyebrows went up. "He has more veritaserum in his veins than blood! He's learned to resist it somehow."
It wasn't possible, and Snape knew it; he'd spent three years under Voldemort experimenting. Prolonged exposure to veritaserum simply increased its effectiveness. Dumbledore was wasting his time, wasting all their time. "Perhaps you're asking the wrong questions, Headmaster," he'd mumbled, bored, and Dumbledore had smiled at him.
Innocent words, but they had led him here; to learn the secret he was not even sure Lucius was keeping. He had not thought even Dumbledore would ask such a thing of him. He was cold and tired and stiff from sleeping in such an awkward position, and he thought it unlikely Lucius would welcome him with open arms. They had been friends once but the Malfoys had long memories for treachery.
It seemed a long time before they brought Lucius back but Snape suspected he had merely grown unused to such chunks of idle time. Voldemort had taught him patience long ago and his skill seemed to have atrophied from lack of use. He had not had much of his own company since he had begun teaching. As little as he was looking forward to the next portion of his assignment he was almost pleased when the door opened and Lucius was thrown in.
Snape watched him, trying to determine if he was breathing. If he were dead it would simplify a number of things. But Lucius rarely did anything to better the lives of others. After some time he rose and staggered across to the bed, where he lay down beside Snape without a word. They were neither of them big men but the bed was not meant for two. It was narrow enough that their shoulders touched and Snape could feel Lucius shivering. He almost said something then, began the inquisition. There was a chance that Lucius still had veritaserum in his system.
But he searched too long for the right words, or perhaps he had forgotten cruelty as he had forgotten patience. Lucius' breathing slowed and steadied; he pressed his face against Snape's shoulder and went to sleep. Snape waited, feeling the added warmth of Lucius' fever. For the first time since they had taken his clothes he was comfortable. It had been a long time since he'd trusted anyone enough to lie so close. Not, of course, that he trusted Lucius, or ever had. No one trusted the Malfoys, and history had proved them wise. He could not have chosen a more dangerous man to share his bed; more dangerous yet was the stirring of pity he felt despite himself.
He had seen Lucius Malfoy in a number of painful situations, but Azkaban with no hope of escape was probably the most painful. He could be held without trial indefinitely, and it had become apparent that he would be. His only chance of release lay with Voldemort. Dumbledore had told Snape so. In the stillness Snape could feel both their hearts beating: his own, regular as the ticking of a clock, and Lucius', a little too fast, but still strong. He was ill, but Snape did not think it was very bad. In Azkaban rich men lived to serve their sentences and poor men coughed out their lungs. Lucius would live long enough to be given the Kiss.
At what Snape suspected was close to one in the afternoon, a slot in the door slid open and two trays of food were pushed into the room. Lucius, as conditioned as a dog, woke from a sound sleep and rolled to his feet. "Breakfast," he said hoarsely, splashing water from the dripping tap. Snape sat up, watching him closely for any sign of aggression. Predictable was not a word one could use to describe Lucius Malfoy, and he had reason enough to hate Snape.
But Lucius seemed intent on his meal. Snape waited until he began to eat before he moved to take the other tray. The food was plain, if edible, and in small quantity; Lucius was visibly thinner than he had been before his capture. He ate very quickly, and Snape had the sense that only centuries of Malfoy breeding kept him from licking his plate clean when he had finished. It was a fastidiousness he might come to regret, if he were in Azkaban much longer. Snape, better fed and assured of release, finished his own meal less rapidly.
He had just set down his plate when the door slid open. "Exercise," Lucius told him. "Hurry. The door shuts again, and if we're not out there's no second chance." He moved into the corridor and Snape followed. They went quickly past the first dozen doors and in the shadow of a turn Lucius put out a hand and stopped Snape. "Tell me what you are doing here," he said rapidly. "Did the old man send you or did he?"
"Random sweep," Snape answered him, meeting Lucius' eyes. "My usual damn luck, is all." He did not think Lucius believed him. The Malfoys were liars and so they expected everyone else to be.
But Lucius was nodding; either he believed or he'd decided it wasn't worth pursuing. "They did something to Antonin," and his voice did not quite tremble. "It was unpleasant. Just be careful, why ever you're here." For a moment they were friends again, frightened boys with dangerous fathers and a place to make in the world. But before Snape could soften too much, before he could say something Lucius would make him regret, the other man was moving again.
They walked very quickly in what Snape was certain was not the direction they had come, and somehow their cell was at the end of the corridor. When they were inside the door closed behind them with a bang, and Lucius leaned back against the wall and gasped for air. His breathing sounded a little worse but Snape thought that overall he looked stronger than he had that morning. There was a hint of color in his pale face. Azkaban had not yet left much of a mark on him. His hair was shorter than it had been since he was a child, and his chin was covered with the pale blond stubble that was as close as he ever came to a beard, but his silver eyes were clear and bright and sane. He looked like a man with a reason to live, but Snape could not fathom whether that was because he had a secret to keep, or because he was a Malfoy.
They spent three hours playing chess on a board scratched into the stone of the floor by some other occupants, using straw and bits of mortar as pieces. Lucius won, resoundingly and as he grew tired less decisively; he had an eye for strategy Snape had never been able to match. After the fourth game Lucius began to cough, and it took him a long time to stop. Snape suspected that it was evening, and that his fever was rising; such symptoms were typical. He brought Lucius water, cupped in his hands, and helped the other man stand and walk over to the bed.
Lucius sat with a sigh, slumping back against the support of the wall. "We grow old, Severus, we grow old," he said, but without any of his usual theatricality. "Oh, sit down. You certainly can't sleep over there. Not until that mess has dried, anyway. And I'm in no condition to ravage you."
After a moment Snape sat, facing Lucius. Aware that it was a foolish thing to do, he leaned forward and felt Lucius' forehead with the back of his hand. As he had expected, it was overly warm, but not dangerously so. Lucius would live, or at least this would not kill him. He could feel Lucius smiling against his hand, and he had to make an effort to stop himself from smiling back.
They were sitting on the bed, in more or less the same positions-Lucius was three-quarters of the way asleep and sagging-when the door opened and the guards came for Snape. They did not touch him; they did not need to: there were four of them, and all of them armed and carrying wands. They stood in the doorway and the one in the lead pointed to Snape. He got up, noting as he did so that Lucius was watching him through half-closed eyes, and went with them.
Author: Ishafel
Title: Houses of Stone
Summary: Two roads diverged in a wood.
The second time he went to Azkaban he was prepared, as much as anyone could be. He had been a boy, that first time, and he had believed that Dumbledore would have him free within the day, and he had known that he was innocent. None of these things had helped him in the slightest. The second time he was a man, and he knew what it was he faced. And he believed that Dumbledore would have him free within the week, and he knew that he was innocent. Sixteen years had not changed very much. He was still more afraid of Azkaban than he was of death.
It was a common belief among those who had sent him that prisoners in Azkaban were tortured-and they were. But physical torture was relatively rare, and reserved for those who had committed the most terrible of crimes: rapists, murderers, child molesters, and traitors. And physical torture was bearable, if you knew it would end. The worst of Azkaban he could not explain to them; the small humiliations, the lack of privacy, warmth, proper clothing and food. They did not sound so terrible recited in the clean bright air of Hogwarts. Dumbledore had sent him to do this thing with a smile and a clear conscience.
Because he knew to expect it should have been difficult to react as if he did not, but when the Aurors had come for him he had fought as hard as any man threatened with Azkaban. He was vastly outnumbered but he came close to escaping, which would have ruined everything. Some of the Aurors sent to capture him were little more than ill-taught children; faces he recognized from the last decade at Hogwarts. He did not try to spare them.
Children or no they stripped him of his wand and bound him very tightly. And perhaps war was meant to be the province of children; perhaps one had to be young to believe in anything enough to die for it. He had been that young once, though he had his doubts about the man he traveled to Azkaban to meet. He was pleased to note they read him his rights, and observed procedure to the letter. There had been a time when suspected Death Eaters rarely survived the journey to Azkaban. But these children were both civil and cautious.
It was dusk when he came into Azkaban for the second time, and starting to snow. He had no coin to offer the ferryman, always unlucky, but Dumbledore had promised him passage back. They led him through the vast gate it took three wizards to open, and into the warren of dimly lit cells. They took his clothing and doused him with delousing potions and showered him with icy water. He was shivering by the time they cut his hair, and the thin robe of rough cloth that they gave him did little to warm him.
All of this they did without speaking to him, pushing or pulling him where they wanted him to go. Knowing that it was done for a reason helped, a little, to negate the effects. Knowing that he was on their side did not. They broke their silence only once, as they led him through the seemingly endless halls, to tell him that he would have a cellmate. They could not know how the news gratified Snape, or that he wondered what had become of Dolohov. He kept his head down, his eyes on the ground. They would expect that; they would know he had been here before.
He rather thought they traveled in a circle, passing the door to the cell he had been assigned and then returning to it. It did not matter; he had no intention of attempting to escape. But he had been a spy for so long that it was second nature to make note of such things. If one of his masters did not find such a thing of interest the other surely would. They opened the door and he fought them in earnest. They would be waiting for him to, surely; besides he could not help himself. Knowing what he faced only made it that much worse: in that moment he would have sacrificed anything to be free.
But they were too strong for him, and they had no interest in his loyalties-that would come later. They left him, and it was all he could do not to fling himself against the door and howl for freedom. Instead he stood and looked over the cell that was now his home. It was no different, in design, from the one he had been in before; he thought that one had been closer to the sea but he might have imagined it. It was small, and damp, with the same flickering lighting charms that were present everywhere in Azkaban. It held two narrow slabs of beds, one of them currently occupied, a flush toilet with a chain, and a leaking faucet. There was a small barred window in the door and a slot near the bottom to push plates through. Not, in short, a cage he would wish on an animal.
His first cellmate had been Bellatrix Lestrange, and in six weeks time she had worn a rut in the stone floor. Confinement had driven her mad; Snape had been nearly as glad to leave her behind, as he had been to leave Azkaban. She had paced, and screamed, and drawn Arithmantical runes on the walls in blood, and mourned Voldemort in the way most women mourn a dead child. The walls of this cell, too, were marked in blood; Snape recognized whole sections of musical compositions, fragments of poetry, names and dates and scratches meant to mark the passing of hours.
He was not sure, himself, of the exact time; he thought it must be somewhat after midnight. It had been twilight when he'd arrived, but in Azkaban it was always twilight; the lights grew no dimmer and no brighter and there were no windows from which to note the movement of the sun. On the left-hand bed Lucius Malfoy slept with his face to the wall, wrapped in his ragged robe. He had not woken when Snape had come in; he had been in Azkaban seven months, and grown used to the quality of the darkness and the quality of the silence.
Snape moved to take the other bed, only to find that the dark stain that covered it was still fresh enough to be wet. Whatever fate Dolohov had met, had not been pleasant. But Dumbledore had ordered it, and so it had been for the greater good. He found that the corner farthest from Lucius and the door was dry and clean enough and sank down with his back to the wall.
He had not intended to sleep, not until he'd spoken to Lucius, but he'd been awake and on his feet for more than twenty hours and the sudden stillness undid him. He slept fitfully for a little while, dreaming not of Azkaban or Lucius but of green fields and blue skies. The Cheering Charm Dumbledore had worked on him was clearly still in effect. He woke to Lucius coughing. A short time later there were footsteps in the corridor and he sat where he was, very still, while they came in and took Lucius to be interrogated.
The door slammed behind them and when he was fairly sure they would be gone for some time he used the toilet and then took Lucius' bed. He suspected it was nearly morning so he did not try to sleep. The bed was hardly more comfortable than the floor, and he stared up at the ceiling and thought longingly of his dungeons.
"He is hiding something," Dumbledore had said to him, and Snape had looked up at him and frowned.
"Surely you've used veritaserum?" he asked.
"Used it?" Dumbledore's eyebrows went up. "He has more veritaserum in his veins than blood! He's learned to resist it somehow."
It wasn't possible, and Snape knew it; he'd spent three years under Voldemort experimenting. Prolonged exposure to veritaserum simply increased its effectiveness. Dumbledore was wasting his time, wasting all their time. "Perhaps you're asking the wrong questions, Headmaster," he'd mumbled, bored, and Dumbledore had smiled at him.
Innocent words, but they had led him here; to learn the secret he was not even sure Lucius was keeping. He had not thought even Dumbledore would ask such a thing of him. He was cold and tired and stiff from sleeping in such an awkward position, and he thought it unlikely Lucius would welcome him with open arms. They had been friends once but the Malfoys had long memories for treachery.
It seemed a long time before they brought Lucius back but Snape suspected he had merely grown unused to such chunks of idle time. Voldemort had taught him patience long ago and his skill seemed to have atrophied from lack of use. He had not had much of his own company since he had begun teaching. As little as he was looking forward to the next portion of his assignment he was almost pleased when the door opened and Lucius was thrown in.
Snape watched him, trying to determine if he was breathing. If he were dead it would simplify a number of things. But Lucius rarely did anything to better the lives of others. After some time he rose and staggered across to the bed, where he lay down beside Snape without a word. They were neither of them big men but the bed was not meant for two. It was narrow enough that their shoulders touched and Snape could feel Lucius shivering. He almost said something then, began the inquisition. There was a chance that Lucius still had veritaserum in his system.
But he searched too long for the right words, or perhaps he had forgotten cruelty as he had forgotten patience. Lucius' breathing slowed and steadied; he pressed his face against Snape's shoulder and went to sleep. Snape waited, feeling the added warmth of Lucius' fever. For the first time since they had taken his clothes he was comfortable. It had been a long time since he'd trusted anyone enough to lie so close. Not, of course, that he trusted Lucius, or ever had. No one trusted the Malfoys, and history had proved them wise. He could not have chosen a more dangerous man to share his bed; more dangerous yet was the stirring of pity he felt despite himself.
He had seen Lucius Malfoy in a number of painful situations, but Azkaban with no hope of escape was probably the most painful. He could be held without trial indefinitely, and it had become apparent that he would be. His only chance of release lay with Voldemort. Dumbledore had told Snape so. In the stillness Snape could feel both their hearts beating: his own, regular as the ticking of a clock, and Lucius', a little too fast, but still strong. He was ill, but Snape did not think it was very bad. In Azkaban rich men lived to serve their sentences and poor men coughed out their lungs. Lucius would live long enough to be given the Kiss.
At what Snape suspected was close to one in the afternoon, a slot in the door slid open and two trays of food were pushed into the room. Lucius, as conditioned as a dog, woke from a sound sleep and rolled to his feet. "Breakfast," he said hoarsely, splashing water from the dripping tap. Snape sat up, watching him closely for any sign of aggression. Predictable was not a word one could use to describe Lucius Malfoy, and he had reason enough to hate Snape.
But Lucius seemed intent on his meal. Snape waited until he began to eat before he moved to take the other tray. The food was plain, if edible, and in small quantity; Lucius was visibly thinner than he had been before his capture. He ate very quickly, and Snape had the sense that only centuries of Malfoy breeding kept him from licking his plate clean when he had finished. It was a fastidiousness he might come to regret, if he were in Azkaban much longer. Snape, better fed and assured of release, finished his own meal less rapidly.
He had just set down his plate when the door slid open. "Exercise," Lucius told him. "Hurry. The door shuts again, and if we're not out there's no second chance." He moved into the corridor and Snape followed. They went quickly past the first dozen doors and in the shadow of a turn Lucius put out a hand and stopped Snape. "Tell me what you are doing here," he said rapidly. "Did the old man send you or did he?"
"Random sweep," Snape answered him, meeting Lucius' eyes. "My usual damn luck, is all." He did not think Lucius believed him. The Malfoys were liars and so they expected everyone else to be.
But Lucius was nodding; either he believed or he'd decided it wasn't worth pursuing. "They did something to Antonin," and his voice did not quite tremble. "It was unpleasant. Just be careful, why ever you're here." For a moment they were friends again, frightened boys with dangerous fathers and a place to make in the world. But before Snape could soften too much, before he could say something Lucius would make him regret, the other man was moving again.
They walked very quickly in what Snape was certain was not the direction they had come, and somehow their cell was at the end of the corridor. When they were inside the door closed behind them with a bang, and Lucius leaned back against the wall and gasped for air. His breathing sounded a little worse but Snape thought that overall he looked stronger than he had that morning. There was a hint of color in his pale face. Azkaban had not yet left much of a mark on him. His hair was shorter than it had been since he was a child, and his chin was covered with the pale blond stubble that was as close as he ever came to a beard, but his silver eyes were clear and bright and sane. He looked like a man with a reason to live, but Snape could not fathom whether that was because he had a secret to keep, or because he was a Malfoy.
They spent three hours playing chess on a board scratched into the stone of the floor by some other occupants, using straw and bits of mortar as pieces. Lucius won, resoundingly and as he grew tired less decisively; he had an eye for strategy Snape had never been able to match. After the fourth game Lucius began to cough, and it took him a long time to stop. Snape suspected that it was evening, and that his fever was rising; such symptoms were typical. He brought Lucius water, cupped in his hands, and helped the other man stand and walk over to the bed.
Lucius sat with a sigh, slumping back against the support of the wall. "We grow old, Severus, we grow old," he said, but without any of his usual theatricality. "Oh, sit down. You certainly can't sleep over there. Not until that mess has dried, anyway. And I'm in no condition to ravage you."
After a moment Snape sat, facing Lucius. Aware that it was a foolish thing to do, he leaned forward and felt Lucius' forehead with the back of his hand. As he had expected, it was overly warm, but not dangerously so. Lucius would live, or at least this would not kill him. He could feel Lucius smiling against his hand, and he had to make an effort to stop himself from smiling back.
They were sitting on the bed, in more or less the same positions-Lucius was three-quarters of the way asleep and sagging-when the door opened and the guards came for Snape. They did not touch him; they did not need to: there were four of them, and all of them armed and carrying wands. They stood in the doorway and the one in the lead pointed to Snape. He got up, noting as he did so that Lucius was watching him through half-closed eyes, and went with them.
