“It’s still not that funny,” Severus said with a glare.

Alastor shook his head and took another drink from his flask. “Is to me.”

“Well, I suppose a questionable mental state does explain many things.” Just because Alastor had been hearing rants from Albus for most of the past five years about Severus’ continued dislike of Harry, there was no reason for him to break down laughing now just because Severus’ interests had happened to overlap with the boy’s. Bloody lunatic. At least Albus had retired to his rooms to consider what he wanted to say to Harry tomorrow…even Alastor’s lunacy was preferable to Albus’ glares.

“Have the youngsters come up with any useful ways to dispose of Horcruxes?” Alastor asked.

“Actually, they may have.” He pulled the piece of parchment that he’d borrowed from Harry out of his pocket and passed it over. “The ones with the X’s were particularly effective.”

Alastor gave the list a glance and then snorted. “Byron Maytag was killed when he smashed the Long’s Pier Horcrux, and I expect that you bloody well know it.”

Damn all Aurors. “It was worth a try. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be going back to my rooms now.”

“Ah. Sit.” Alastor stabbed a blunt finger at the chair that Severus had just vacated.

“I am neither a canine nor four years old.”

“I want a look at that eye.”

“Shall I detail a list of what I want?”

“A trip somewhere warm, yes?” He fingered his wand. “Be more than happy to oblige, but it may be a bit more permanent than you’d like.”

“And you like the staff room because it has a bigger fire…some sort of fixation there, perhaps? I’m sure Poppy would be more than happy to diagnose you.”

“Sit down, or I won’t tell you what we found in the Chamber of Secrets.”

Severus frowned. Given what had been said during their earlier conversation, Minerva probably wouldn’t be willing to speak to him again for several days, he doubted that Albus would be particularly forthcoming either, and as he didn’t know who else had visited the Chamber, he couldn’t precisely owl for the information. Assuming he was even in the habit of going about begging for news, which he most certainly was not. Of course, he could always wait until the next Order meeting where the whole visit would no doubt be discussed to death, but…. He dropped back down in the chair gracelessly. “Fine. What?”

“Aside from a lot of dust and rock? Not a ruddy thing. They plan to go back down this summer when there’s more time to explore those tunnels and no chance of students happening upon the entrance.” His wand reappeared in his hand, aimed at Severus’ eye. “Now, hold still.”

I am an idiot.

* * * * *

He once again considered the vast depth of his personal stupidity as he examined the craggy structure and tried to ignore the sound of waves crashing far too closely behind him and the smell of salt hanging heavy in the air. A rational wizard would avoid this place. He snorted. An irrational wizard would avoid this place.

Still, the students would be returning shortly, and it would be best to start laying the groundwork now if he wanted to get any useful information out of Malfoy before midsummer. The need for time—unless, of course, one could apply direct force, which unfortunately Severus couldn’t at the moment—was a definite downside when it came to dealing with men who were accustomed to strategy games within the Ministry. For them, a scheme that took months, or even years, to come to fruition was simply business as usual, and they liked extended periods of time for ‘consideration.’ He didn’t have—had never had, outside of a Potions laboratory—that kind of patience. But if he gave Malfoy a little information now, a little good news about the escape of his wife and child, and then let him spend a few more months in Azkaban with an uncertain future to contemplate…. Well, perhaps at some point the man would decide that even a slim chance to spend a little more time with his family rather than death or a lifetime of imprisonment in the depths of Azkaban carried more weight than his loyalty to the Dark Lord.

Severus snorted. Not that he was at all certain that Malfoy would ever be released, even if he did give up more information about the Dark Lord’s Horcruxes, but he suspected that Albus would be more than willing to use his influence to arrange such a trade. In the name of expediency, if nothing else, and particularly if there was some guarantee that Malfoy would leave England and never return.

Of course, Albus wouldn’t be happy about Severus going to speak to Malfoy without consulting with him about it first, but then Albus was already so irritated with him over the Horcrux debacle that he very much doubted that this would make things any worse. Alastor—and most of the rest of the Order—would probably be frothing at the mouth in fury, but that was actually a point in favor of the expedition in his opinion.

He was stalling, he realized abruptly, and with a shake of his head he made himself step briskly towards the entrance desk at Azkaban. It seemed that things had become a bit more…bureaucratic…here since the Dementors had departed; there were ‘official’ signs with absurd warnings plastered all about—for example Severus failed to understand why anyone would expect loitering in Azkaban—and underneath the signs ropes cordoned off nooks and crannies that no sensible wizard would ever enter anyway. Then again, with Fudge nominally in charge, he really shouldn’t have expected anything else.

“Name?” a decidedly bored-looking wizard asked as he came to a halt in front of the large desk currently blocking the majority of the corridor. Judging by the man’s robes he was a hit wizard.

“Snape.”

“Purpose?”

Planning my next vacation. Clearly the wizards chosen to guard Azkaban weren’t among the best and the brightest. Of course, they’d never needed to be when the Dementors were here; the post had been something of a sinecure in which the only real ‘duty’ they’d had was signing people in and out and occasionally escorting visitors to prisoners if the visitors didn’t feel that their Patronus was strong enough.. Still, given that they now had to actually guard against things like escapes, he’d have thought the security procedures would have been tightened somewhat. He shook his head. Fudge. In charge. “I’m here to visit a prisoner,” he told the hit wizard, still waiting with his quill in hand.

The guard made a notation. “Prisoner’s name?”

“Malfoy. Lucius.” As last he’d heard, Lucius didn’t have any cousins or anything of the sort lying around the place, but it never hurt to be certain.

That got the first flicker of interest he’d seen, but the curious glance only lasted for a scant fraction of a second. “You’ll be required to leave your wand at the guard station and submit to a full-body scan before being allowed into the high-security wing,” the man told him.

“Understood.” This is Azkaban. Are you telling me in all serious that there is a low-security wing somewhere? Idiot.

The man waved his wand, and a moment later a younger man in the robes of a hit wizard-in-training hurried in. He looked familiar…a former Hogwarts student, Severus thought. Two, perhaps three years back; that would put him somewhere near the end of his training. Regardless, there was certainly recognition in his eyes when he saw Severus, but he turned first to address the older hit wizard. “Sir?”

“This is Snape, here to visit Malfoy, cell 204. Level three security precautions.”

“Yes, sir. Professor, this way please.”

Severus was torn between amusement at the quick glances the young man kept shooting over his shoulder at Severus in what he probably thought was a discreet manor and some amount of disgust. Apparently there were some security measures in place, but the Dark Lord and a dozen of his minions could waltz in here claiming that they were the Chudley Cannons and that dolt at the entrance desk would probably just wave them past. Well, perhaps not the Cannons—there was every possibility that he was the sort of dolt that followed professional Quidditch as though it were a matter of life and death—but really, was a simple scan to check identity before allowing a person into the prison proper so much to ask?

The young man looked back at him again, and Severus frowned as he tried to put a name to him. Gold, Grey, Green…some G-color, he thought, but which one he couldn’t be certain. For all that he was obviously intimidated by Severus, he couldn’t have been that bad at Potions—that sort Severus did tend to remember quite well, albeit generally against his will—but the students who were simply incredibly mediocre rarely stayed in his memory for long.

“Um, Professor?” the hit wizard-in-training leading him asked tentatively as he came to a halt.

“Yes?”

“I, um, I’ll need to take your wand now.”

And Merlin but he looked nervous about it. Severus held back a shake of his head with great effort. If this was the quality of the latest crop of hit wizards, he didn’t have much hope for the future. Still, there was no use in pointing that out now. He drew his wand with a sharp gesture that made the man flinch slightly—had he been at Hogwarts when Severus had tossed that idiot Lockhart off the dueling platform, perhaps?—and offered it hilt-first. “I trust that I will get it back undamaged?”

He managed to look vaguely offended, despite his nerves. “Of course.”

A flick of his wand, and part of the rock face slid away, revealing a line of wand-holders. The vast majority of them were empty, but Severus would have been more surprised if the opposite was true. Severus’ wand was tucked into the first unoccupied slot, and then the cover slid closed again.

“This way, please.”

There were two more hit wizards—or, more accurately, one hit wizard and one hit witch—relaxing in a side chamber barely five steps down the corridor, neatly concealed by an outcropping of rock. An outcropping that would provide adequate cover if it did come to a firefight in the corridor, Severus noted; perhaps not everyone stationed here was as incompetent as it appeared at first glance. Both of them came to their feet as Severus and his guide approached.

“Visitor?” the older of the two, a woman with long blonde hair going slowly to grey asked.

And then again, perhaps not. She obviously wasn’t young, and hit wizard wasn’t a profession in which one survived long without some sort of skill, but he had a very difficult time taking someone seriously when they asked questions like that. For a moment, he debated telling them that he’d simply made a wrong turn on his way to the Caribbean for a holiday, but since his visit here did have a purpose, it was probably best to refrain from antagonizing them. “Yes,” he agreed.

“Level three precautions,” Gold-or-Grey-or-Green said.

She nodded. “Sir, if you will remain still for a moment.”

Severus suppressed the urge to twitch, just to be contrary. At least the scans she performed were reasonably comprehensive.

“According to my scans, you have two magical devices concealed upon your person. I assume that your…arm…is one of them, but could you identify the second, please?”

It actually was possible that she hadn’t noticed the eye, Severus decided, after a moment. Unless he lost control of it, it was rather well matched to his actual one, and people didn’t generally go looking for false eyes as a matter of course. He couldn’t help but be…pleased…with that development. Of course, it might just be the low lighting. It probably was, in fact; he certainly shouldn’t count on it being overlooked on any sort of regular basis.

With a shake of his head, he indicated his eye. “I was in an…accident.” The Dark Lord accidentally maimed me, as opposed to killing me.

Her lips eyes narrowed. “Regulations don’t permit magical objects being taken into the cells with a prisoner. And I’m afraid that will apply to your arm as well.”

“The clamp has been permanently affixed at the elbow, and I guarantee that there are several mediwitches and mediwizards at St. Mungo’s who would not be pleased if you attempted to change that.” He paused. “Are you expecting me to pinch him to death?”

She flushed slightly, and then the younger of the two hit wizards spoke. “Well, the eye has to go.”

Severus frowned. This one looked vaguely familiar, and, judging by his expression, he didn’t care a great deal for Severus. Well, that was nothing new. “Why?”

He sneered. “You might be trying to help him escape.”

Severus did roll his eyes at that. Well, his good eye, anyway; his fine motor control wasn’t consistent enough to manage it with the new one yet. “If I wanted to help him escape, an exploding eye would not be my first thought.” And if he’s in a position where an exploding eye would work, your security measures need revision. Although I suppose that seems to be true anyway. He glanced around. Actually, if he wanted to break someone out, a corrosive would probably the best option. I’d need one that eats through stone, obviously…as long as the ingredients were primarily nonmagical, their scans would probably slide right past it. Of course, it would require a specialized means to transport it…perhaps a dragonroot base with— He shook his head sharply and returned his attention to the present. It would be an interesting experiment, but hardly relevant at the moment.

None of the three had looked particularly convinced by his statement, and he shook his head again. Being unable to speak to Malfoy privately would make what he wanted to do slightly more difficult, but as he hadn’t planned on any in-depth conversations for this visit anyway, it probably wouldn’t make that much of a difference. “Would it be acceptable if I simply spoke to him from the corridor rather than going into the cell with him? You’re quite welcome to accompany me.”

They exchanged glances again.

“I believe that would be acceptable,” the woman said after a moment. “Trainee Golden, you’ll accompany us.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed, although Severus thought that he didn’t look entirely happy with the order.

Well, despite the fact that visiting Malfoy in his cell was the objective of his visit, he didn’t feel entirely thrilled himself as they headed deeper into the prison. Thick stone walls, cold and clammy, that seemed to close in on them as they walked; deep shadows everywhere.... He frowned. If Lucius didn’t have enough light to see by, this plan was going to be a great deal more difficult to carry out than he’d thought.

He almost welcomed the distraction of devising a good backup plan; his memories of the last time he’d been in this place were making it more difficult than he’d to maintain a calm façade than he’d expected.

Dementors or no Dementors—and while there were certainly Deatheaters that deserved the Dementor version of Azkaban, personally he was just as glad that he wouldn’t have to face them again—this was simply a bad place. Which is the best place for Lucius and most of the rest of the creature’s followers to be, of course, but it doesn’t mean that I want to be here.

Eventually, when they had to be in damn near the center of the prison, they came to a halt in front of a thick door. Fortunately for his plans, like the cell he’d been kept in it had a small barred window in the center. Even more fortunately, there was enough ambient light—exactly where it was coming from it was impossible to tell—to make his original idea feasible.

He made sure that his face was an impassive mask, and that his new eye was still cooperating, as Trainee Golden knocked on the wood lightly. “Malfoy, you have a visitor.”

“How nice.”

Severus suspected that Lucius would much have preferred to respond with a good, solid ‘bugger off,’ but his manners were far too deeply ingrained for that. Severus stepped forward to look through the bars as Golden stepped back. “Malfoy, how nice to see you again. Are you enjoying your stay?”

“Snape?” Lucius lip curled. “Traitor. Come to gloat, I suppose?”

“Among other things.” Severus smirked slightly. “It seems that you should have taken that long vacation that you’d mentioned rather than continually acting the Dark Lord’s lap dog and skulking about the Ministry at absurd hours of the night. That sort of thing wreaks havoc with a person’s judgment.”

“As though you’re so high and mighty—your precious headmaster was there too, as I recall. Of course, Albus Dumbledore can do no wrong.”

“So it would seem.” He glanced around the small, dirty cell. “I was going to say that it’s a shame that your wife and son haven’t been to visit you lately, but I suppose that it’s difficult for you to let them see you so…reduced. Still, you’d think family would be a little more loyal.”

Lucius’ eyebrow rose slightly, and then he rose from his seat on the sleeping pallet and gave a lazy shrug. “I’m sure they’ve kept quite busy taking care of the family…interests. After all, it’s not as though I’ll be in here much longer, and I hardly want to find a mess waiting for me.”

“Really?” Severus didn’t attempt to hide his sarcasm, although privately he hoped that that was just Lucius’ usual arrogance and not anything based on fact. Considering that the man had been caught red-handed in the Department of Mysteries, he would think not, but given the influence that large quantities of Galleons could have on the justice system, it was always best not to assume. He settled for a sneer. “Ah, so you’re corrupting the Minister from prison, now. How very…proactive…of you.” Not to say ambitions, but then Malfoy had always been ambitious.

The hit witch cleared her throat at that and gave him a disapproving look, but Severus didn’t bother to acknowledge it. Instead, he reached out and tapped the bars lightly, not so coincidentally pushing a small, folded piece of paper that he’d held concealed in his palm through the bars at the same time. “Nice and solid, aren’t they? They did build this place to last.”

Malfoy’s eyes didn’t so much as twitch as the paper fell, but there was no doubt that he’d seen it.

“You think they could have improved the view, though; it’s a complete counterpoint to what you can see from the upper levels of Malfoy Manor,” Severus continued.

“I see you had your eye replaced,” Lucius said, rather than rising to Severus’ obvious bait. “You were looking rather piratical the last time I saw you. It didn’t suit.” He smirked slightly. “Although I’m afraid that restoring your original looks wasn’t actually an improvement.”

“Yes, well, brains before beauty.” Severus stepped back from the door. “Enjoy your stay; I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again.” With a wave of his hand, he gestured for his accompaniment to lead the way back down the corridor. Mission accomplished. Part one, anyway.

“That’s all you wanted?” Golden asked as they walked back towards the office. “To taunt him?”

“Among other things,” Severus repeated, and then added, in case the conversation was repeated to anyone else, “Hearing that an old adversary is in prison is somewhat different than seeing it for yourself.”

* * * * *

He apparated back to Hogwarts rather than Floo’ing into Albus’ study—no need to make it obvious that he'd been out running private errands—and he wondered idly as he made his way back across the grounds towards the castle just how long it would be before Albus found out about his little visit. His personal bet was less than two days, given the number of...informants, for lack of a better word...that Albus had scattered about, but…well, who knew?

There were probably a few minutes left if he wanted to take lunch in the Great Hall, but he wasn’t particularly hungry. The last thing he needed to accomplish before the students returned was re-opening his laboratory, and there might be enough time today to at least do the shield reinforcements on his quarters in case—

“Professor?”

Severus didn’t jump at the unexpected voice as he stepped into his quarters. If anyone said otherwise, he was obviously lying. “Mr. Potter, may I ask you what you think you’re doing inviting yourself into my quarters when I’m not even here?”

“I wanted to talk to you,” Harry said. “I was planning to leave a note and then go.” He held up a piece of parchment with a few lines of his usual near-illegible scrawl as though it were some sort of excuse.

Severus scowled for a moment and then shook his head and sighed. “Well, I suppose as long as you’re here, you might as well tell me what you wished to speak to me about. I’m not in the habit of making visits to Gryffindor Tower.” Not unless it was after curfew and he was looking for rule-breaking students, anyway.

“Professor Dumbledore talked to me this morning. I mean, about the Horcrux thing.” He frowned. “He talked to Ron and Hermione too, but that was last night, and they didn’t really say much about it after they got back to the tower.”

Severus suspected that that was because there probably hadn’t been much to say. Although there had no doubt been a few questions to determine just how much the two of them knew, Severus had no doubt that the majority of the ‘conversation’ had been a long and impassioned speech on Albus’ part about doing their duty and supporting Harry and so on. And probably a few pointed words about the ‘appropriate’ authority to go to should they have questions. He snorted. No matter what his colleagues seemed to think, Albus had never been beyond manipulation when it suited his purposes. Regardless of the age of the one being manipulated.

“What?” Harry asked.

Severus shook his head. “Nothing important. I expect that he was simply exploring the depths of their knowledge. Did he have anything useful to say to you?”

Harry made a face. “Not really. A lot of stuff about duty and destiny and being prepared and that kind of thing, but only a couple questions about what we read.” He shrugged. “I think he wanted to talk to the three of us together later and go over the notes we made, though.”

“That would seem the next logical step. He may be aware of volumes with more information that I simply don’t have access to.” Severus paused. “Is that all that you wished to speak to me about?”

Another shrug. “I guess.”

That was convincing. He frowned. “Have you eaten?”

“Hm?” Harry looked startled. “Oh, no, not since breakfast. I didn’t realize that it was that late.”

“Well, lunch is nearly out, and I don’t need Poppy’s accusations of starving you, so I suppose you’ll have to join me.” Harry seemed a bit too pleased at that, and Severus scowled again. “Don’t make this a habit.”

“I won’t.”

The house elf that appeared at Severus’ summons—fortunately not the manic one that seemed to think Harry was Merlin reincarnated—was more than happy to serve them some of the leftovers from lunch in the Great Hall, and between the two of them they made them disappear on short order. Severus had been rather more hungry than he’d realized, the few pieces of toast that he’d managed this morning before his visit to Azkaban obviously not enough to sustain him through the day, and Harry ate like the sixteen year old that he was.

“What happens if we can’t?” Harry asked suddenly, as they began to stack the empty dishes.

“Excuse me?”

“If they can’t get the Horcrux out of me. What happens? I tried to ask Professor Dumbledore, but he acted like he didn’t hear me.”

“Because it’s a ridiculous question—or at least the answer that you’re expecting is. I thought we’d been over this.” He did not feel like listening to a list of reasons why sacrificing a child was a good idea.

“No, it’s not ridiculous, you just call it ridiculous and change the subject,” Harry retorted.

“That’s because it is, and there are far more important things for you to focus your attention on. For example, have you finished the Potions essay that I assigned yet? Judging by the last brewing assignment, you are sorely lacking in your understanding of the differing effects of runespoor egg yolks and runespoor egg whites on the various classes of memory potions. Given that you don’t have long until OWLs, I suggest you put your focus there.”

Harry muttered something under his breath, and Severus raised an eyebrow.

“Would you care to repeat that?”

“Nothing, Professor.”

Severus glared for a moment. “If you aren’t planning to do anything useful with your time today, I suppose you might as well assist me in reopening my lab.”

“What do you want me to do?” Harry asked.

“At the moment, I’m considering sending you in first in lieu of a canary.”