Harry Potter One Shots

(4) 1 Bitter, 2 Sweet

All rights belong to the author, KellyChambliss

25 December 1997

The single package appeared at the foot of his bed on Christmas morning. Wrapped in green tissue. No card to indicate the sender.

Not that it needed a card. Only one person would have given him a Christmas gift of an academic journal from the 1960s: Magical Politics Quarterly, which opened automatically to an article called "Blood Hegemony and Resistance in the Grindelwald Era."

Of course, there was always the possibility that it wasn't a gift at all, but a warning.

6 April 1998

Snape stared out of his sitting room window, trying vainly to compose his thoughts. Not even the Prince book had been able to calm him once he'd seen the hasty, encrypted message brought to him by Lucius's emergency owl just an hour ago.

"Potter captured by Snatchers last night; brought to Manor," it read. "Master summoned but by indescribable bad luck, Potter and friends managed to escape, dungeon prisoners too. Wormtail dead. Dark Lord's wrath terrible to behold, punishments severe but survivable. DL's whereabouts now unknown."

In the course of his life and reading, Snape had sometimes come across phrases such as "wrath terrible to behold." They'd always seemed vaguely ludicrous, overwrought: the sort of biblical excess he associated with the religious fanatics of his childhood (a group had once come to preach on the corner opposite his father's local, at least until the landlord and a couple of his beefier patrons had chased them off sharpish).

But then in his arrogance and stupidity, he'd made himself lackey to a power-mad psychopath, and soon the notion of "wrath terrible to behold" was no longer a melodramatic cliché. It was simply a realistic description.

This setback with Potter was bound to destabilize things even further; the end could not be far off now. He should - -

Without warning, his dark mark flared hotly, the burn stronger than any he'd felt before. Snape staggered, catching himself on the desk, knocking his Prince book to the floor as a vivid image of the castle gates flooded his mind.

"Severussss. . ." came the whisper from everywhere and nowhere. "Meet me here at once."

Snape wheeled, heading toward the circular stone staircase as quickly as he could. Well, at least the question of Voldemort's whereabouts was settled for now. And it would be suicide to keep him waiting.

- - - / / / - - -

Twenty minutes later, Snape was back in the headmaster's office, standing before Dumbledore's portrait.

"Albus," he said, and the painted old man "woke" at once. "The Dark Lord is in the grounds. He did not say what he wants."

Dumbledore nodded, as usual not seeming the least surprised. "I expected this sooner or later," he said. "He will open the tomb, take my wand. Let him. Do not attempt to interfere."

Snape snorted. As if he would even consider it - - though he had no doubt that Albus would order him to make the attempt if he thought it necessary.

"The Dark Lord will meet me here in the office later," Snape added. He did not bother asking why Voldemort wanted Dumbledore's wand; if Dumbledore had wanted him to know, he would have explained.

"Ah," Albus said, closing his eyes. "Then I will be sure to be 'asleep.'"

Snape settled in to wait, but it seemed a very short time before inky smoke began to seep around the frames of the office windows, and Voldemort took form in the middle of the room.