Chapter Fifteen

From his chambers near the bottom of Hogwarts, Severus strode through the old castle, brushing past students and colleagues alike, to reach the edge of the grounds and approach the Apparition boundaries. Once he crossed it, he thought of the coziest home dwelling it was ever his misfortune to visit, and with a sharp ‘Pop’, was gone.

A second later, he was standing in the Weasley’s modestly busy front yard. It was mostly the same as it was the last time he was here, on official Order business, with its cabbage patch and sturdy chicken coop. True, said chickens had a bit extra pomp in their step than he thought was strictly necessary (or possible), and the cabbage patch was a tad overgrown, but Severus told himself that the Weasley’s had simply become more lax with chores as their brood grew older.

The gnomes, however, were a different story.

About twenty pairs of eyes were staring out at him from within the shade of the garden’s various plants. Severus had never understood why people complained about gnomes, since they had always given him an extra wide berth. Much like they did now. He made his way to the Burrow’s front door under an intense, constant watch of beady little eyes, and for once he was truly thankful for his Dark Taint. Because Severus wasn’t fooled; he knew that if he had been even a slight fraction of a shade more of a Light Wizard, those gnomes would have swarmed him, then and there.

The door was unlocked. Clenching his jaw, Severus pulled his wand from its holster up his sleeve and ventured stealthily into the house. Small and cramped as the building was, he soon reached kitchen, and was not pleased by what he saw.

Molly Weasley sat at the worn, round table, a teacup and half-eaten plate of breakfast before her. Her usually fly-away hair lay flat and limp on her shoulders, and she looked as if she had lost her entire brood, thinning as she was.

“Molly.”

Three dazed blinks later, the woman’s pale blue eyes finally reached his. What he saw there nearly broke his composure. Guilt. Raw, uncontained guilt practically poured out of Molly’s eyes, and Severus had to strengthen his Occlumency shields against it lest he be consumed.

And, as such, he was in a fouler mood because of it.

“Stop this insipient wallowing this instant, woman!” he snarled in a roar, striding forward into the room and sending his robes snapping. “Blaming yourself for your aunt’s fanatical strictures helps nothing!”

She simply stared at im for a minute. Severus seethed. When he felt he could take no more, Molly finally spoke. “But, Severus. It’s my fault. Gin-gin,” she sobbed into the apron tied around her waist, “my Gin-Gin didn’t want to go, Arthur didn’t want her to go, but I made her, Severus. I insisted. And now, and now – “

But Molly couldn’t finish. She leaned forward to rest her head on the table and sobbed into the apron, and Severus clenched his jaw, calling on every shred of patience within his lean frame.

“Molly, you will stop it this instant.”

In the back of his mind, Snape was immensely pleased that his angry Professor voice still worked on parents. He didn’t allow himself to rejoice too much over this, simply because he wanted out of The Burrow as quickly as possible, at all costs.

Because really, all this emotional nonsense was too much for his newly defrosted heart to bear. In five minutes flat, Molly had changed from a near comatose pile of flesh to a weeping bundle of tears, and Severus was not pleased.

And so, he proceeded to tell her so. He reviled her for her carelessness, leaving the door to the house unlocked and having all the wards lowered. Suppose he had been a Death Eater, he demanded. How did she think she could defend herself if she sat weeping at the kitchen table.  He demanded to know what kind of Gryffindor sat back and let others clean up their messes. Did she think self-pity exempted her from the duties of a mother? Same madwoman had her daughter, her one and only daughter, first female born to the family in three generations, held captive in some distant moor, and she chose to weep? How dare she? HOW DARE SHE!

Twenty minutes later, Molly showed the Potion’s Professor to the living room. Hr eyes were red and puffy, but that was the only evidence of the sorry state she had been in less than an hour earlier. There was a determined glint in her eyes, and the old pep was back in her step. All around them The Burrow was alive. Curtains and rugs were shaking themselves out, rags were flying onto and through every imaginable surface and even the dishes were washing themselves. Severus couldn’t help but feel a bit satisfied, and smug, as he picked up the Floo powder from the mantle.

“You will remember what I said,” he intoned, eyes trained on the fire.

“I will, Severus.” She hesitated. “Thank you.”

With a shout of “Weasley Manor!” Severus was gone.

*&^*

In a swirl of green, he was standing in an overly decorated, stuffy room that housed the fireplace and not much else, a room the older, wealthier families referred to as the “Floo Room”. He immediately decided that he didn’t like it. For one thing, the rom was virtually empty, save the heavy rose colored drapes and the tall stand near the fireplace holding a glass urn full of floo powder, and yet the room was stuffy, the air thick with a musty, heavy scent that was greatly grating on his nerves.

Not even waiting for someone (usually a house-elf, but the Weasley Manor had none) to acknowledge his presence and escort him to his destination, Severus took quick steps out the room and then down the corridor, following a high, nasally voice that he knew far to well, for all the one time he’d heard it.

At the end of the long, door-less hall, Snape turned into a large, brightly lit room, clutching his wand in his hand tightly. His nerves, which were treacherous to tread upon on a regular day, were strung taut and strained.

There, sitting on a couch, face pinched and pale, back ramrod straight in a way that looked uncomfortable even to him, sat Ginny Weasley. Her eyes never left the patch of floor that she had devoted herself to, not even when the high-pitched, wheezy voice rose to screaming and a fat, be-ringed hand slapped down on the arm of an armchair facing the girl.  It took a minute for Severus to discern exactly what the hidden woman was screaming about, but when he did his disgust propelled him further into the room, into the flickering orange light of the fire.

“Enough!” he hissed in a way that made Death Eaters cringe. He would never admit it, but this particular hiss was what earned him an audience, and by extension, audition, with the Dark Lord and his Inner Circle. But that is a story for a different day, and so Severus firmly returned his thoughts to the disgusting matter in front of him.

Ginny’s eyes snapped up to gaze at him in horrified amazement, mingled with something he assumed was relief.  Before the girl could think to open her mouth to ask a rhetorical question that would only have irritated him more, Snape snapped out “Go and gather your things,” and gave the girl a look so fierce she popped up and scampered out of the room.  Muriel Weasley, large, round woman that she was with beady little eyes sunk into her flabby face, stared after the girl in amazement, leaving Snape to rightly assume that she hadn’t seen so much life out of the child in weeks, if ever.

But the old woman was soon enough over her shock and turned malevolent eyes towards the Dark Wizard before her, as if anyone could look malevolently up at Snape at his worst. Muriel gave it her best, however, and Snape sneered down at the sheer futility of the action.

“Muriel,” he stated, ice dripping off his words as they left his lips. “It’s never been a pleasure to see you, and I highly doubt it ever will be. Yet here I am, ye – “

“Just what rights do you and your filthy half-blood ways have to be standing in my parlour?” Muriel shrieked. Her flabby face was an awkward shade of puce, and Severus brain distantly wondered if she was in any way shape or form related to Vernon Dursely. As it would have been severely inappropriate (as well as potentially detrimental to his health and well-being) to ask this pureblood if she was related even convolutedly to a Muggle, Severus pushed the suspiciously Three-like thoughts away (again) and drew his wand.

“I think,” he said silkily, raising the ebony rod and gliding closer to the rapidly reddening woman, “that perhaps you should keep your mouth shut.” With a nasty slicing motion of his wand, Muriel’s mouth was gone. Eyes bulging, the woman grabbed at her neck, twitching and shaking her little legs, taking great lumps of air as she tried to scream, but to no effect. Severus smiled a nasty smile. “I beg of you, kindly desist these theatrical displays before I remove another vital cavity from your person.” He glided closer, so that he could lean ever so slightly over her chair and she would have to crane her neck to gaze at him. Predictably, she did, and Severus smirked, a frightening sight when you considered his history and miniscule temper.

“Can I correctly assume that you are prepared to comport yourself in a manner befitting a upstanding member of the magical community?” he asked, speaking in a voice that one would use with an errant two-year-old. For a minute Muriel did nothing more than stare hatefully up at him. Then she raised one flabby finger and pointed at her face. Severus’ smile widened. “Not just yet, you evil harpy. You’ve been a rather naughty little girl, haven’t you? And we still have a little matter to discuss.”

Just then, a flushed Hinny Weasley rushed into the room, and the look of utmost panic that lit her eyes from within have way a second time to relief. It irritated Severus to no end. Just what had this woman done to break this child so? “Go to the Floo room, and Floo to my quarters. Now,” he snapped. The girl didn’t need to be told twice, as she turned and disappeared from view so fast Severus very nearly began to doubt she had ever really been there at all.

Here Snape braced his arm against the back of Muriel’s chair, causing the woman to glower and shrink away from him. “From this moment on you will refrain from causing your nephew and his family undue grief and misery, or you will surely have me to answer to. And since I have no compunction whatsoever to have to deal with you in any manner after today, I’ve taken a few precautions in securing my will is done.” His eyes, usually bottomless pits of black, glittered strangely in the firelight, and something like fear flickered across Muriel’s face before the hatred once again was prevalent.

He flicked his wand, and a length of parchment unfurled from thin air in Muriel’s face, so close she became cross-eyed trying to look at it. “You will sign,” Severus enunciated. When the woman gave him a clear “I never sign anything if I don’t know what it is, you dunderhead” look, Severus cast on a veneer of patience and explained “It is a contract, binding and compulsory unto blood, that states that you, Muriel Agatha Weasley, will provide your nephew, one Arthur Weasley, with the sum of his inheritance in full and any interest accumulated since the time he ad been declared heir, before the last day of this month of the present year. In addition, you will remove whatever hexes and curse you have placed or have had placed on any member of his family, or else risk having them removed by an outside source and rebounded upon you. Now. Sign.”

A blood red quill appeared in the air next to the agreement, and Muriel’s nostrils flared with repressed rage and she fought to control her breathing. Disgusting as he found the site, it was also quite amusing, and Severus was hard pressed not to snort in laughter. After an indeterminable amount of time, pudgy fingers grasped both the quill and parchment out of the air, and Muriel sketched her name in wide, awkward script. As she finished the last loop, the parchment disintegrated, fine white ash falling to cover the woman’s lap.

Severus straightened up, satisfied. Or, at least, half-satisfied. He still had one more piece of business to attend to with Muriel Weasley before he could leave these halls forever.

“You won’t recognize this, I know, but I feel like taunting you with the bottle nonetheless,” he said, twirling a small glass bottle between his thumb and forefinger. “What I am about to do is highly unethical and illegal if not expressly decreed by the Wizenmagot, but that hardly matters to me; I just want you to feel the helplessness of your situation.” He smirked. “Now, you may be thinking to yourself, ‘he’s going to poison me with that potion, but I have to drink it, and in order for me to drink it he has to give me back my mouth, throat and vocal cords, and when he does that I’ll just whip out my wand and stun the bastard, then hustle him downstairs to torture later.’ Don’t look at me that way, Muriel, I know it’s true; I am the foremost Legimens on this side of the planet, after all. But the flaw in your plan, Muriel, is this; I do not have to return your oral cavity to your person to administer this potion. I can simply do this.” Three sharp tapping motions later, the potions bottle was empty and Muriel wa s green with fear. Or perhaps she was already beginning to feel the change.

“Be thankful that this was just a harmless personality altering potion, and not the poison I had originally intended. Either way, however,” he smiled, “your time on this earth is limited. Unless, of course, you invent a magical means of introducing sustenance into your system without your mouth. Muggles have a way of doing that, but I doubt you’ll be interested.” Already Muriel’s face was relaxing into something that wasn’t entirely evil looking, and her eyes gazed at Severus with intense dislike instead of burning hatred.

“I shall take my leave if you, Muriel.” Snape said, already striding towards the door. “Do try not to pitch yourself over and unsuspecting balconies will you? Life as a pleasant Weasley is not as bad as you think, I promise.” And with that, e was gone, stalking down the long door-less hallway towards the Floo room, leaving a different Muriel to contemplate potentially murderous options by which to rid the world of Severus Snape.

*&^*

The Floo room was not empty, as he had anticipated. In one fell swoop, Severus was simultaneously relieved that he would not have to worry about a Weasley poking around his quarters and anger that the last of an irritating brood had the all to disobey him. Hinny must have sensed the fire in his gaze as it settled on her bowed head because she rushed to explain. “I couldn’t touch the Floo powder. Nor the Floo, Professor,” she said softly, still bent over what Severus could now see was her hand.

Not giving the briefest thought to what he was doing, he stalked across the room and took hold of her arm, pulling the limb up until the badly burnt digit was clear enough for him to see. He nearly swore. Second degree burns, at the least, and all he had on him was basic burn salve. It would heal the skin and tissues, yes, but nerve damage was what he was worried about. Shaking his head angrily, more at himself for not being properly prepared than at the way Ginny was burned in the first place, Severus conjured gauze and made sort work of wrapping the girl’s hand. It bothered him slightly that she hadn’t made a sound throughout the ordeal, not even the slightest whimper in pain. One close look at her eyes showed why: she’d slipped into shock.

Agitated, he spun his gaze around, lighting on the fireplace briefly, before they spun once more to latch onto the exposed skin of Ginny’s wrists. What the –

And suddenly a fit of impotent rage gripped him, his vision flared red and then black and before he knew it he had spun around and was stalking towards the entrance of the Floo room, chest heaving and wand clenched tightly in his hand.  How dare she, that repulsive, ghoulish excuse of a woman! How DARE she –

He was cut off however, by the sound of a small, pained gasp. He spun around, and his anger dissipated. Ginny was crouched on the floor, shakily and painfully trying to regain her footing. Cursing himself a fool for dropping the obviously damaged child, Severus retraced his steps and helped the slight girl to her feet. “Hold onto me, Miss Weasley. We’ll have you at Hogwarts shortly.”

He caught a glimpse of the thick, black rune drawn on the girl’s skin, and in the resulting spike of pique, Severus cast his Dark energy out to grasp the wards Muriel Weasley had on her Floo and tear them down. With whipping winds rather like a hurricane, the spells all fell, and, not giving himself the opportunity to turn back to the parlor and show the elderly woman just why he was a death eater, Severus picked up his student and Flooed home.