Severus Snape had not been expecting to be Called. It had been a very long day, and all he wanted to do was curl up with a potions periodical and maybe a brandy or three and try to forget the nice large stack of essays and even larger stack of exams that he had to grade, and the Wizarding etiquette club he had to supervise, and the Quiddich practices he had to referee, and the Hogsmeade weekend he had to chaperone.

So he was understandibly frustrated when right in the middle of supper, with a piece of venison halfway to his lips, his left forearm began to throb agonizingly. But you didn't just refuse a summons. So Snape gave a mental sigh, nodded to the headmaster, and stalked out of the Great Hall to the Apparition Point.

Riddle Manor was the Dark Lord's headquarters and main stronghold, and it certainly looked the part. Large and gloomy, it brooded over an equally foreboding landscape, a black fence and twisted wrought-iron gates inclosing grounds overhung with cypresses, a weed-grown courtyard, and a few flowerbeds supporting a wilting asphodel here, or a poppy there, all gone-to-seed. As Snape approached, he could make out the great mahogany doors, carved with dark creatures and shamelessly dressed young women. The only thing missing were skulls mounted on the fence posts, although Snape supposed there wasn't exactly a Hogwarts course called Evil Overlords 101.

The inside of the house was exactly what one might expect, and it always made Snape shiver, no matter how many times he had been here before. The wallpaper has probably once shown a floral design, but the house had been left empty for so long that the flowers had faded to blotches of watery blue and green, speckled with mold and a dark red substance which most likely was not paint. Shabby carpets stretched across the floor, worn through in places, as if the Dark Lord had never thought of casting a 'reparo'. Torches sputtered on the walls, shrinking in fear as Snape swept by, but the old muggle fixtures had never been taken out, and as Snape stalked through the sitting room, the old chandeliers trembled, crystal chiming like chips of ice in a glass at his footsteps.

Snape suppressed a shudder and entered what had once been a ballroom, joining the assembly of Death Eaters congregated around their master. The Dark Lord was already speaking.

"...at Hogsmeade, and we will attack. The Ministry will not be able to to scramble Aurors there in time- Avery, I believe, has paid Scrimgeour off well, and Amelia is...compromised. And I have other plans for when Dumbledore's order shows up. Ahh, Severus."

Snape flinched. "Yes my lord?"

The Dark Lord was smiling, and that never boded well. "I need you to answer...a few questions."

"Yes my-" Snape never finished.

"Crucio!"

Snape stumbled under the onslaught of the torture curse, ever muscle in his body screaming. "My lord-"

"You're late." The Dark Lord said very quietly. "What is more, I have been having doubts about your loyalty for a very long time. So what is this about you teaching the Potter boy occlumency?"

Snape was trembling now. He would have to tread very carefully, and the gods help him if he slipped. Damn the boy! "My lord, I had to follow Dumbledore's orders or he would suspect me. I did not actually teach the boy anything," not for lack of trying, thought Snape bitterly, "I merely broke into his mind repeatedly."

"So perhaps you would tell me what you found?" the Dark Lord said silkily

"Mostly pitiful teenage problems and quibbles," Snape responded, with his best occlumency shields in place. "The girl he was dating, for instance, and his talks with his dear, departed god mutt."

"I do not think it is advisable to lie to me," the Dark Lord said pleasantly. Snape did not like the look on his face. "Especially since I'll get it from you anyway." He made a quick, nearly imperceptible motion, and Snape found himself in a wandless 'petrificatus totalis'

The Dark Lord paused, then drew a small sealed bottle from his sleeve, and turned it, letting the light shine through the colorless substance. "Your own work, I believe."

Snape could only follow him with his eyes as the Dark Lord paced the room, spidery fingers tapping the bottle of veritaserum. At length, he swept to a stop in front of Snape and uncorked the bottle. Then he wrenched Snape's mouth open and poured the entire bottle down his throat, releasing the bind as he did so. It was a few moments before it took effect. Then the world grew misty and unfocused, and he heard the Dark Lord's voice, blisteringly loud, by his ear. "Where do your loyalties lie?"

"Lilly." Snape said, wondering why he felt like it was a bad idea to talk. Nothing could hurt him, could it?

"Who?" The Dark Lord sounded genuinely curious.

"Lilly Potter nee Evans." Snape replied dully.

The Dark Lord made an odd sound, which might have been a chuckle, if he were capable of positive emotion. "Which side are you on, mine or Dumbledore's?"

"Neither."

"Explain what you mean by that." The Dark Lord's voice had taken on a curious timbre. Something deep within Snape was panicking, but the potion induced haze prevented the fear from reaching his conscious mind. "Dumbledore is a controlling old bastard who uses his followers and consigns them to Azkaban when they are no longer useful. You are insane, your politics are sickening and your tactics will get us killed. "

"So who do you follow." The Dark Lord hissed.

"Potter," was Snape's quiet response.

"Why! WHAT CAN POTTER OFFER YOU THAT I CAN'T!"

"Potter has never offered me anything. He's never took anything either. And he's Lilly's."

The Dark Lord's anger was palpable, flowing off of him in waves, washing over his followers like boiling water. Had Snape been in command of his faculties, he would have cringed. As it was, he only lay there, struggling against the mist clouding his brain.

"What do you know about the prophecy?"

The part of Snape's brain that was yet unaffected tried to fling up occlumency shields, tried to fight the drug with all his strength. His lips betrayed him. "It was delivered by a True Seer to Albus Dumbledore at the Hog's Head in Hogsmeade-"

"Hurry up!" the Dark Lord snarled. "Did you report it to me accurately and completely sixteen years ago?"

Snape struggled desperately. "No," he rasped at last.

"Why not?" The Dark Lord's aura was swirling out of control, shaking the windows and banging the cherry wood shutters. Several of his Death Eaters were edging away, unnoticed. They all knew that when the Dark Lord got angry, wizards started dying.

"First because I had heard it incompletely, and second because Dumbledore did not allow me to."

The Dark Lord made an incoherent, bestial noise. "Tell it to me in full."

Snape shuddered, biting his tongue until thick dark blood seeped from his mouth. It was no use. "The one...with the power...to defeat the Dark Lord approaches. Born to those who have thrice defied him...born as the seventh month dies..." That was the limit to what Snape had first told him, and he struggled bitterly a few more seconds before something inside him snapped and he continued. "...and the Dark Lord...will mark him...as...his equal-"

Here the Dark Lord snarled.

"-but he shall...have power the Dark Lord...knows not, and either...must die...at the hand of the other...for neither...can live...while...the other...survives. The one...with the power...to defeat...the Dark...Lord...shall...be...born...as...the...sseventh...month...dies." Here Snape broke off wretching from the attempt to resist the veritaserum overdose.

If the Dark Lord had been angry before, he was now incandescent with rage. His burst of accidental magic pulverized the throne-like chair upon which he was wont to sit, and every single window exploded. The Death Eaters, except for Bellatrix and a few others, had already departed, perfering to grovel and appoligize later rather than to stay and risk death.

But when the Dark Lord turned back around, he had a terrible, unhinged smile on his face. Snape, almost sobered by fear, attempted to rise, reaching for his wand. He was still, however, only half aware of his surroundings, and by the time he had languidly drawn his wand, the Dark Lord had already pulled it from his hand and snapped it. Snape might have been able to cast something wandlessly, but he was still too disoriented, and could only kneel there, expecting a crucitus at the very least. Instead the Dark Lord only leaned back and called lazily: "Bellatrix...I think I owe you a birthday present."

It was four hours before Bellatrix grew tired of her new toy, and another before Snape could move sufficiently to take the phial of painkilling potion hidden in has lapel.

Snape had no time or energy for subtlety. He had to get out and he had to get out now, before Bella dearest decided to put him out of his misery. When she next came, bending over him to check his pulse, or perhaps to try out her new knives, he struck her in the back of the head, desperation lending him strength. She fell soundlessly, and he grabbed her wand and his broken one, smashed the window in, and climbed out, glad for the painkillers when he saw the red smears he left behind.

He had no strength left to apparate, nor would the wards let him, but the anti-portkey ward was only around the house proper, and as soon as he was outside, he murmured the password for his emergency portkey "Pop Tarts" (seriously, Dumbledore?) and vanished.

Taking the portkey in his condition was a mistake. The whirling motion aggravated the damage done to his body, and the aching in his head was so severe he could barely swallow his nausea. And because of some intricacy ofthe Hogwarts wards, he was on the portkey landing in the middle of the Forbidden Forest. He managed three steps before he collapsed miserably.

Someone had removed his mask. He opened his eyes, only to look into a pair the color of emeralds, the color of avada kadavras. "Lilly?" he breathed. Was this it then? He shifted to get a better look, and the sudden starburst of pain sobered him.

It was Potter. Not Lilly. He was too tired even to take off points from Gryffindor because the boy was out after curfew in a restricted area. "Get...Dumbledore." he gasped, seizing the front of the boy's robes in a desperate grip, his whole body shuddering with the effort. "He'll want a report...attack on Hogsmeade...must warn him...Voldemort knows my- everything..."

"Dumbledore's at the Ministry." Potter responded, wide eyed and hyperventilating, "And we need to get you to a mediwitch."

"No...time..." Snape gasped. Was the boy deaf or stupid? He had to give his report now, he was probably going to die before he could get to a healer! "Too late for me...floo the Headmaster...maybe Aberforth..."

The boy stared at him again, as if he were speaking Mermish. What did he not understand about "Floo the headmaster"? He glanced around as if expecting someone to pop out of the bushes and explain what was going on, and then all of a sudden he shoved his wand into Snape's hand. Before Snape could ask him what the Hell He was doing, he said rapidly, "Here, I'm getting Madame Pomphrey," as if Snape could stop him, knelt, and melted into the form of a white and gold phœnix, with green eyes, purple tail feathers, and his scar denoted with a zigzag of bronze on his head.

The phœnix trilled and then vanished in a burst of blue flame, and at this point Snape fainted.

The rest of the night was lost in a feverish mist. Once or twice Snape felt the rim of a potion bottle pressed to his lips, tasted a potion that he knew he ought to have been able to identify. He felt small hands trying to bandage his cuts and a soothing liquid soaking into his wounds.

And then, just when he felt as if he about to cross over, a burning sensation began to dance across his skin. It was agonizing but oddly comforting, and as it passed over his skin, the wounds stopped hurting even as the burning increased. Silent tears of pain sizzled down his cheeks, and he writhed and twisted.

And then it had stopped hurting, or perhaps it had only gone numb, and Snape opened his eyes to see a phœnix perched on his chest, and blue flames wreathing around him. As he stared at the bird in awe it warbled at him, and the flames rose higher, like some supernatural funeral pyre, and all at once his Dark Mark burst into excruciating pain. And suddenly it was simply too much for him, after his ordeals, and the world faded into exploding stars shimmering in his vision, and then...nothing.