Soul of Ice

1. Seduction

It was raining when Persephone arrived in Cokeworth. Her hand automatically covered her stomach, as if the tiny life inside her needed protection from the rain.

She wasn't sure she'd ever even seen the sun in this place - it was like the residents' gloom had gained physical form and created a permanent rain cloud overhead.

There was a light on in the living room, but when Persephone knocked, the pause between the knock and the opening of the door felt like an age. Finally, just as she began to shiver, the door swung open and there, tall and miserable as ever, stood Severus Snape. He was her friend, her mark, and now their lives would be forever intertwined.

Persephone Payne was an Unspeakable. She quite literally could not tell you what she did for a living, thanks to an Unbreakable Vow she made at the tender age of eighteen. She worked in the Department of Mysteries but that was all anyone could know. Even sectors within the Department were iffy on what other sectors did, but Persephone's speciality was information; more specifically, the procurement of information from unwilling sources.

At school, she loved to spy on her fellow students and even, once she got good enough at sneaking, the faculty. She found out all sorts of gossip which she used to her advantage. Got an assignment due? Do it for me or I'll tell your girlfriend what you really think of her kissing skills. Give me the last piece of shortbread, or do you want Professor Slughorn to know his favourite student cheated on his last test?

Unsurprisingly, Persephone had been in Slytherin, but few people could have told you that. She had perfected the art of anonymity, blending in just enough to be unnoticed except when she wanted to.

Except, somebody had noticed. Somebody far more skilled than her had been keeping an eye on Hogwarts students with potential, and straight out of seventh year she found herself recruited into the Department of Mysteries. Her job was to worm information out of people, not through interrogation, but through more subtle techniques.

Thus it was that Persephone Payne found herself assigned to befriend Severus Snape. He had been a year below Persephone at school and somehow the only person she couldn't hide from - perhaps because he slunk in the shadows just as much as she did. She'd never been able to get anything from him, which annoyed her because she saw him in the common room sometimes, scribbling away in his potions textbook. What on earth could he possibly be writing in a textbook? She tried her best to find out but he always managed to evade her, and then she graduated before she could get to the bottom of it.

When Severus finished his seventh year and Persephone was a year into her career, he promptly joined the Death Eaters. When Emmitt got wind of a Death Eater being recruited fresh out of Hogwarts - although the Dark Lord liked to groom them early, he usually did wait a few months before welcoming them into the ranks - he wanted to know what was so special about this boy, and Persephone's pre-existing 'friendship' with Severus - a very, very tenuous way of describing it, she reminded her boss on several occasions - was the perfect way in.

Build on that relationship, she was told. Don't spy on him, don't be sneaky - don't do what you usually do, in other words. Befriend him. Make him trust you. Make him show off. Seduce him, if you have to. This is a long-term assignment, she was told, and you may have to go deep into the Death Eaters' circle. But the Department needed to know what they were doing, what they were planning, and what dark magic the Dark Lord had a hold of.

That was it, in the end. It wasn't about the greater good, finding out the Death Eaters' plans so they could be stopped. No, that was the Auror Department's job. The Department is detached, dispassionate, not interfering unless absolutely required. The Department - at least, Persephone's sector - was all about gathering information about secret, hidden and ancient magicks so it could be understood. And the Dark Lord's rise had seen an increase in the use of dark magic not seen since Grindelwald, if not on an even larger scale. He had access to power that the Department didn't know about, and the Department didn't like not knowing.