"Hey, Severus!" He turns on the stair, arching a dark eyebrow. Cecilia Hayworth is dressed in a leather overcoat coloured in an obnoxious hot pink, her elbows leant upon the bannister as she looks up at him. Her expression is serious, and Severus feels his eyes flit around the surrounding area of the hall, seeking out the lanky form of Lindon Sartorius, and not finding it. "I just wanted to ask, uh, teaching. McGonagall said you've been over to Eala Dubh, right?"

"The Irish magical school," Severus says, "Yes. I taught there for a term in 1986." He finishes his sentence, and watches her. She furrows her brow, leaning forwards slightly: he appends nothing to the statement. What is it, Severus wonders, that she expects him to say? For a term, he had traded places with their Potions Mistress at the time, Orla Delaney, primarily in order that they could exchange certain recipes and techniques within their respective infirmaries.

Impatiently, she asks, "How was it?"

"It was fine," Severus answers, mildly. "We may soon be at war, Ms Hayworth: this chit-chat seems misplaced."

"I've accepted a teaching position there, as their History of Magic teacher passed away a few months ago. Do you have any advice?" Advice? Severus rarely finds himself asked for advice from anyone not under his care at Hogwarts; it strikes him as strange, and surreal, to be so asked for help from an adult.

"No," he decides, and he makes his way up the stairs. The carpet, which is threaded with silver and shines in the candlelight, leads him easily on his journey; he takes another flight of stairs, and then another, before pushing aside a bookcase and revealing the door to yet another. These stairs are tight, made of stone and uncarpeted, and the soles of his dragonhide boots make not the barest of sounds as he makes his way up them, because he has long since taken to enchanting his boots and robes to silence. The staircase leads him out onto a wide balcony, with rows of plants growing neatly in small allotted casements. The runs are made of white marble, each the size of a coffin, and Severus reaches out, drawing his fingers over the lilac leaves of a Lightning Lily. He is rewarded with a tingle of electricity that plays over his palm, and he allows himself the smallest of smiles as he walks on. He comes to a stop at the edge of the roof garden, scanning the ground far below. The garden is enchanted, meaning it cannot be seen from outside the house itself, but Potter isn't looking up anyway: Severus sees his hand reach for those of the other boy's, and he feels a furrow deepen between his brows. He doesn't recognize the boy at all, but he is most certainly of a Hogwarts age...

A Muggle, then.

Severus lets out the smallest of sighs, allowing himself this small weakness in the isolation of the Grimmauld Place garden, laying his head in his palm: the love affairs of teenage boys are hardly to be analysed in detail, but it seems Potter engages only with those that will bring the greatest danger on him. First Zabini, with his arachnid mother keen with a bottle of poison at the slightest disagreement, and now a Muggle boy...

He hears steps in the stairwell, and he stands up straight, turning to the flower beside him. It is a tall rose, taller than Severus himself, and when he offers it his palm, it leans in and softly nuzzles the skin as a loyal dog. Severus has a Kissing Rose at home, a gift from several Christmases ago, but this one is much taller and broader than his. The Kissing Rose is used in some love potions, as well as Tinctures of Fidelity, but as a plant it is as gentle and affectionate as a puppy, laying soft touches and kisses upon anyone who comes close. They had always been a favourite of Lucius', and Severus remembers that when Lucius had left Hogwarts, at the end of Severus' first year, the most vibrant of the Kissing Roses in Greenhouse 3 had pined itself near to death, until Narcissa had taken up its care.

By all accounts, she read the plant the letters Lucius sent her twice a week, and it had flourished once more.

"Severus," Narcissa says. She stands framed in the archway like a painting, her hands clasped in front of her black mourning robes. Severus turns his gaze to meet hers. "That bruise..." Severus resists the urge to reach up and trace the blossom of bruises on the side of his jaw, instead keeping his own hands at his sides as he moves toward Narcissa. "The Dark Lord was angry with you?"

"No," Severus assures her, quietly. With a flick of his wand, the door to the stairwell clicks closed behind her, eliminating any potential for eavesdropping. Narcissa is the only one in the house, after all, who knows of his engagement with the Dark Lord, barring Albus himself, and it would not do for his espionage to be known to the rest of the Order. "It was Bella who was angry with me. The Dark Lord merely felt it amusing that I should keep the marks." He sees the conflicting emotions pass over Narcissa's face, the desperate wish to ask after her sister, the desire to demand that Severus never return there, the fear, the uncertainty... "Bellatrix took offence to a comment of mine as to Hogwarts' protections. Azkaban has taken what little patience she had away from her... She is more brash, now, and impulsive, even with such time as she has had to recover."

"The Dark Lord," Narcissa whispers. "He is displeased with her?"

"On the contrary," Severus replies, mildly. "She is, as ever, his favourite." The thought occurs to Severus that were he saying these words twenty years ago, they would likely be overlaid with jealousy, as if the favour of the Dark Lord was in any way desirable, and a twinge of self-loathing affects him to turn away from Narcissa. He picks up some gloves and a pruning shear, beginning to work upon some of the neglected flowers of the garden. Severus is neither a skilled Herbologist nor a gardener, but Narcissa hasn't the time to labour over these flowers, and no visitors to the house know anything about plants. "I don't believe he will kill her, Narcissa - and you know I would not lie to spare your feelings."

"You give me your word?"

"I do."

"Does she talk of me?" Severus hesitates, but Narcissa's gaze is severe, and while he could easily lie to her (it would not be the first vow he has broken), he does not.

"She does. She labels you a blood traitor, as she does Andromeda. Such things ought not surprise you."

"They don't," Narcissa says in the softest of voices. She slowly seats herself amongst some of the fruit trees, and at her proximity they burst in flowers, each leaning towards her and offering her pretty blossoms and sweet fruits from their young bows. In selecting the saplings for the garden, Lucius had chosen only the gentlest and most affectionate of plants, no doubt making up for the slaughter of his peacocks at Malfoy Manor, and the loss of his hunting dogs. In their friendship, Severus had witnessed Lucius take dozens of lives, but with children or animals, he absolutely melted, as a glacier in a hot bath.

The pain is dull, and Severus feels it behind the bone of his sternum.

Breaking the momentary silence, Narcissa says, "I don't know how Draco is to perform at school, Severus. He takes to his bed day after day, he speaks little, even to myself. He and Lucius, they shared a bond that I never..." She trails off, despondently, and then says, "Draco and I have a close bond, of course, but he and Lucius always spoke so much upon their feelings. Draco and I always spoke more of things, and people, and history. He feels so deeply! What sort of mother am I, that he does not tell me of his grief?"

"Have you asked him?" Severus asks. The ensuing silence speaks more on the matter than Narcissa's mouth might have, and Severus sees no need to break it. The past few weeks have flickered by at such a rate that Severus has found himself very rarely permitted a moment's peace: he has been called the Dark Lord no less than three times in the past fortnight alone, and there have been a barrage of staff meetings as they have reinforced the castle wards, increased the security of Hogwarts, and most crucially, hand-delivered Hogwarts letters to Muggleborn students by hand, that they might know of the situation they are entering into. Just last night, Severus had overheard Arthur and William Weasley speaking on the subject of the Granger girl's parents, who she has convinced to immigrate.

"I will ask him," Narcissa says, softly. Severus removes his gloves, laying them aside, and he stands beside her, watching her carefully. "We have to be strong."

"Yes," he agrees. His eyes close suddenly, his face crumpling, and he lets out a short sound of pain as incandescent heat flares in his left arm, sending a venomous thread through his every vein.

"He calls for you?" Severus inclines his head, and he moves past her, making his way fast down the four sets of stairs and out into the street. Potter is just coming back toward the house, his lips red and bruised, his eyes wet, and Severus forces his expression into impassiveness as he turns on his heel and Disapparates with a soft, near-silent pop.

Malfoy Manor, for nearly forty years, had been like Eden. Stepping upon the grounds, one felt like they were being transported to a legendary arboretum: sparing no expense, Lucius had hired a good many Herbologists to spend time in his expansive gardens, encouraging ancient trees to grow anew, and in the fields abounded flowers that no longer grew anywhere else. Lucius had done it partially for appearances, making his own home something of a wildlife preserve, but Severus knows that, in equal measure, it pleased him to be able to walk among plants that flourished under his hands in a way they did under no one else's. Lucius had always been a vain man, caring most of all for the appearance of his own power, but his paternity was always genuine, when he decided to offer it.

Once, as one walked up the main path from the edge of the grounds, one walked beneath an archway of silver aspen and weeping willows, and beneath one's tread, flowers bloomed in the marks of one's footsteps. Now, Severus' booted feet meet grey dirt, unable to support even a weed, and around him spans miles of nought but wasteland. No trees grow, no flowers bloom, and although scant patches of grass are holding on, he knows that they too will soon die away. Severus walks past the silver bandstand that had hosted Lucius' aviary, now spattered with the stains of blood: Bellatrix had made short work of Lucius' flock, making toys of the doves and targets of the peacocks. The Malfoy horses had been whipped into a frenzy, made to run about a single field until they inevitably stumbled, trampling each other or breaking their own necks: Bellatrix's harsh laughter had mingled with their screams and whinnies, and Lucius' dogs (he had always claimed they were for hunting, though Severus had never seen him so much as trap a rabbit) had been starved until they tore each other apart.

In the courtyard before the Manor itself, there is a tall statue in the midst of a beautiful, complex fountain. When it had been made, some centuries ago, it depicted some Malfoy ancestor kneeling as a dryad laid a blessing upon his head.

Now, the dryad is headless, and the fountain does not run.

It is dark inside Malfoy Manor. Severus' eyes easily adjust to the dimness of it, and he stalks with his head held high into the central hall of Malfoy Manor. He feels the gazes of his comrades upon him as he makes his way in, his expression haughtily neutral, and he takes his seat at the Dark Lord's left hand. Across from him, at the Dark Lord's right hand, is Bellatrix: she stares him down, her lip curled, and Severus offers her a small, pleasant smile. He finds himself wondering, vaguely, what it might take to affect Andromeda to look at him this way at an order meeting - but no, Dromeda looks less and less like Bellatrix Lestrange as each day passes by. The woman is a bean sidhe thirsty for blood, and Severus must wonder when their lord will allow her to go out and kill as she so desperately desires to.

Why else, after all, spend such time on eliminating every pet of Lucius Malfoy's, and hexing every pansy on the grounds of his family home into submission?

"Severus..." He turns his head, meeting the red gaze of his lord; the smile is replaced with a serious expression of careful attention; the Dark Lord looks Severus in the eyes, unblinking. In the past months, his inhuman form has been moderated somewhat, with his most snakelike features melting away. As he is now, he looks as he did when Severus first knelt before him, in the spring of '77: his jaw is now square and handsomely cut, his nose slowly growing to be more human as each day passes, and although his irises are a bloody red, his eyes are slowly changing shape, the pupil receding into a circular shape, and the eyes themselves less reptilian.

"Yes, my lord?" Severus asks. They sit at a long dining table intended for a banquet, the twenty-five other members of Lord Voldemort's inner circle straining to hear what might be said at the table's head, but Severus pays no heed to the others.

"We worried we might miss you. What were you doing?"

"I was gardening, my lord." Bellatrix scoffs, and Severus arches an eyebrow at her. She has some parody of the Midas touch in her, Severus thinks. He remembers when they were yet at school, and Rodolphus Lestrange, in his courtship of Bella, had attempted some florid description of impregnation, hoping to woo her. An elder Slytherin - Roswell - had taken the letter from him and laughed, declaring that Bellatrix Black's womb was no doubt as shrivelled and barren as the banks of the Styx, and that he might do better to put his seed within a corpse.

Roswell died that year - a terrible accident. His body had looked terribly dramatic sprawled beneath the Hogwarts staircases.

"What were you gardening, Severus? Flowers?" Her tone is derisive, as if the thought of flowers is one offensive to the ear, and he arches an eyebrow. "Oh, maybe you were watering a tree?"

"Bella," Severus says, very patiently, "Your tone would imply you have doubts as to the existence of gardens. Is that the case?" Soft chuckles and titters ripple through the chamber, but at a withering look from Bellatrix, every single mouth clicks closed. Looking around the room, it is hardly a surprise that Bellatrix is so irritable - as an Azkaban escapee, she cannot even walk the streets in daylight, but there are lesser Death Eaters who can, because they are not as proud as she is of her service. Severus has caught her twice now with her hands around the neck of Gideon Gibbon, a linesman for the European train service, each time motivated by the fact that he did not boast of his involvement with the Dark Lord as she did, after the war.

"Bella, Severus," the Dark Lord speaks softly, in the voice of a father bemused at his children's squabbles; there is an undertone of steel to his words, and immediately Severus leans back in his chair, turning his gaze to the Dark Lord and only to him. "With the death of Evan Rosier, we have neglected a crucial alliance. Who here will seek out the den of the Acromantula?"

"We'll do it, my lord!" says the deep voice of Alecto Carrow, and immediately, her brother begins to nod beside her.

"Yes, my lord! We hunted with Evan as children." The Dark Lord seems to appraise the Carrows and their eagerness for the job, and then he gives a small inclination of his head.

"Very well. Alecto, Amycus: seek out their nest, and return to us with their location. Of course, it is crucial we send a contingent." There's a secrecy to the Dark Lord's smile that Severus files away, to mention to Albus. He seems to feel amusement about the Acromantula, and why, Severus could not venture a guess. "Now, on the matter of Lockhart's group of ne'er-do-wells, it is--" The double doors of the hall burst open, and the room is abruptly quiet. The silence rings from one stone wall to another, and Severus immediately moves to stand, turning on his heel to face the shaking form of Maximilian Caine.

He's little more than a child himself, having left Hogwarts that very year, and with high grades on his NEWTs - but not as a result of magical ability. Every year, Severus has sat with the other four heads, and they had discussed whether it was fair to allow Maxie to continue his schooling, given that the boy was barely more than a squib. Young Maxie - and it is difficult to think of him with any other name, so small and shy a creature as he is - has flourished academically only once he had reached his NEWTs, and could study subjects that required no practical magic at all.

"Mr Caine," Severus says, his lip curling. "How dare you interrupt us? Come, with me--"

"No, no, Severus," Lord Voldemort whispers. His fingers dance over the fabric of Severus' robe, gesturing for him to sit down. Anger flares in the other man's eyes, but his expression is kind, and this is the reason Severus had wished to usher the boy from the room: the Dark Lord's response is unpredictable, and he may well elect to torture Caine here and now. "If Maxie has interrupted us, he surely has reason."

Caine stumbles forwards, shaking like a leaf, and the Dark Lord's lips, which are beginning to look more pink and plump with every day that passes, quirk into a small smile. He gestures Caine to come closer, closer, until the Dark Lord grasps at his robe, pulling him closer and forcing him to sit on the arm of the Dark Lord's throne-like chair, a parody of a boy on a father's knee.

"I-- I do have reason, my lord, I'm so sorry, I would never have... I'm so sorry, I--" Lord Voldemort's holly wand is in his right hand, flicking from side to side as he plays with the length of it, and the silence in the room is so great that barely any man in the room is even breathing. Every single Death Eater, even Bellatrix, is utterly silent as they look to their lord and to Maxie, who lacks a Dark Mark, and is little more than a pet.

"Please, Maxie. Don't beat around the bush so: tell us!"

"The Wizengamot has called an urgent meeting. They're meeting tonight, at midnight, and... And my relatives have just received their summons: the meeting has been called by Narcissa Malfoy and Sirius Black."

"And the motion?" the Dark Lord asks in a whisper. Caine bites down on his lip.

"That if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named doesn't turn himself in by September 5th, with his followers or without, that the Ministry will declare a state of emergency, with the potential to be followed by a declaration of war." Bellatrix gasps, her eyes wide, and she isn't the only one: shocked sounds and intakes of breath echo around the chamber, and Caine is staring resolutely at his own knees. Not one of them dares look at the Dark Lord directly; even Severus himself looks at him with care, from the corner of his eye.

Lord Voldemort's expression is impassive for a long few moments, and then he smiles, his fingers tracing the line of Caine's spine as if the boy is a Kneazle or a cat. Caine shivers, but doesn't dare to recoil away from the Dark Lord's touch: he's a lanky boy, tall and thin, but he looks small balanced on the arm of the chair as he is. The Dark Lord's smile shows teeth and is almost handsome, although the expression makes Severus feel a twinge of fear, deep within himself, behind the shadows of his Occlumency shields.

"What a pleasure it will be," Lord Voldemort whispers, his voice resonant within the room and bouncing from wall to wall to ceiling, "To face opponents who know the value of strategy. Disperse! Those of you with political links in the Ministry Magic, go forth. See what influence you might have against this motion, and put it into effect. None of you carry votes in the chamber yourself?"

"Canton did," says Huw Selwyn, quietly. "But only he, my lord. He and--" Selwyn seems to remember himself (to mention Lucius at a time like this!), and says quickly, "Only he."

"And you feared me, Maxie," the Dark Lord murmurs, pulling Caine to face him, and he cups Caine's cheeks in his white hands, his fingers drawn over the clean-shaven, fear-flushed skin. "Such important news, and you brought it here to me, risking my... Temper." Severus sees the relief in Maxie's every feature, in the loosening of his shoulders and the shift of his position, and as the Dark Lord draws his thumb over Caine's cheek, Caine has the enchanted smile of a boy in love on his features. "You are each dismissed. Bar you, Maxie."

There are grinds and whines of wood on stone as everybody stands to leave, but Severus hesitates. He waits, his hands behind his back and his form to attention as he waits for the others to leave, and he says, "My lord, if I might ask a query of you... Lockhart. What is to be done about him? I know he cannot truly undercut us, but with his attack on Rosier--"

"And what is it you suggest, Severus?" the Dark Lord asks, seeming amused at this seeming grasp for power. "Or is this another request that I hand command of my lieutenants to you, as opposed to Bellatrix?" This is stupid of him. This is oh-so-stupid of Severus, to go to such a risk, to argue with Lord Voldemort - and for what? To spare Maximilian Caine the man's undivided attention, that he knows not to flee from?

"With the deepest of respect, my lord, Azkaban has left Bella unstable. My mind, however, remains--"

"I will retain Bellatrix, Severus. Until she sees fit as to disobey me, I see no reason to distrust her." Severus allows some small bit of betrayal, of sadness, to show in his face; both are artfully constructed.

"You would distrust me, my lord?"

"Not at all," is the easy reply. But Severus' gambit, it seems, has worked; the Dark Lord pushes Caine from his knee like a disobedient dog. "Leave me, both of you. I would be alone."

"Yes, my lord," Severus and Caine say as one, and they each leave. Severus carefully closes the doors behind them, and he turns to look at Caine, who is standing there, hypnotized.

"Professor Snape," Caine asks, in a whisper. Caine bites his lip, worries it beneath his rather prominent front teeth.

"Yes, Caine?"

"I really thought he would kill me," Caine says. "But I felt that— I thought if I waited until the meeting was over, and he discovered I had not interrupted..." Caine is talking more to himself than to Severus himself, so Severus says nothing: he turns on his heel, and he makes his way from the grounds, Apparating home, to Hogwarts.

He thinks of Caine in Malfoy Manor, sleeping in the bedroom that the Dark Lord has taken for himself, though whether he sleeps, Severus does not know. He knows that Caine sleeps, likely at the foot of the bed, or on the chaise long in the bedroom, but as for Lord Voldemort himself... Such things can hardly be guessed at. Severus would never have believed it, that of the four Caine children, Maximilian would be the one supplicating himself at the Dark Lord's feet...

"Severus?" Filius Flitwick stands in the entrance hall, a dozen rolled-up posters in his arms. "Are you quite alright? You look rather ill."

"I've just seen an animal on the road. Injured, you know, Muggle cars..."

"Did you put it out of its misery?" Filius asks, one of his white, bushy eyebrows raising. "It's only cruel to do otherwise, Severus, if the thing couldn't be saved." There is a second's pause, and Severus gives a small nod of his head.

"Yes, of course I did. Have you need of assistance, Filius?"

"With these? Oh, no, no. They're for Georgina!"

"Who is that?"

"The new accountant," Filius says, and he grins like a fiend. "She's a wonderful girl, Severus."

"I'm going to go to my quarters now, Filius," Severus says, mildly, "And pretend we haven't had this conversation."

"Very well, very well!" Severus begins to walk down toward the dungeons, and he thinks of Caine. When he reaches his quarters, he pours himself a cup of coffee, takes his cauldron off the boil, and promptly vomits into his sink.

Did you put it out of its misery? It's only cruel to do otherwise, Severus...