August 12th, 1978
Lupin, James, Sirius, and Snape are eighteen
Regulus Black cursed the Potters' ancestors for building their estate in northern England. The sun seemed to be non-existent, the clouds hung heavy and forbearing, and rain threatened to pummel Regulus into the nearest Muggle pub, which, unlike wizarding pubs, refused to service anyone under the age of eighteen.
How ridiculous.
Because it was summer, the sixteen year-old had left home, a pilgrimage being his excuse, and he had trekked on foot for almost two months from his parents' home in Middle England to James Potter's estate on the foggy coasts of northeastern England.
His elder brother had run away from home a year ago, like the coward he was, leaving Dad to fend for Mum and her wasting illness.
Contrary to his parents' beliefs, saintly Regulus Black, the "good son", white sheep to the black sheep Sirius was, was not coming to the hated Gryffindor's sanctuary to claim his brother.
Rather, he was going to claim career advancement.
Regulus had no taste for the Slytherins' finicky politics, and this Death Eater branch he heard of was so unappealing in its blind obedience and indignity…he had no wish to join them. So what was he to do for his future?
Regulus was first jolted by this thought when Professor Slughorn, the head of his House, pulled him aside for career advice. The O.W.L.s had been upon them then, and such conferences were mandatory for each fifth year student.
Regulus had walked away from the meeting with the realization that he had no clear direction in life and why he had been excluded from the infamous Slug Club for so long.
After arduous research, it had pointed Regulus in one direction: clandestine operations. Really, it required of him all the traits that made him stand out—or rather, concealed him.
He was thrifty, a polyglot, sly, and he had friends in low places as well as high. The problem was finding a recruiter.
Apparently, the books had explained, the clandestine employers considered a possible recruit viable if the recruit had been talented enough to find the secret operation, seeking employment, in the first place.
It was common knowledge in the elite ranks of the pureblooded world that Aaron Quirinius Potter was the Grey Voldemort of the time.
He had seemingly unlimited power and resources, but he was neither explicitly good nor evil. His operations simply fell into a grey area, but always ultimately proved to be the best for the wizard and Muggle worlds alike in the long run.
Regulus wanted that job.
There! A great, black, iron fence had risen sharply from the ground; it was an advanced disillusion charm that had concealed the fence from Regulus until he was almost upon it.
Beyond the thick bars, a modest, stone castle jutted from a pebbly meadow elevated from a beach that was just below; the waves crashing loudly against the shore.
A large, fairly modern P was melded with the thick bars, just above a nasty-looking padlock with chains. Potter Estate.
Quickly, so he could be out of the almost-rainy weather, Regulus cast a specific charm his books had told him to once he thought he had reached a clandestine director's home.
Puruniondence sanctorium, I am Yours.
He let out a sudden gasp and jerked backwards. A thin, but impressive cloaked figure was standing in the shadow of a stone pillar the fence was running from.
His skin was pale, suggesting much time spent indoors and reflected the perpetually cloudy climate in northeast England. Quick as a blink, he moved fluidly, so that he was facing Regulus, his black hood casting a shadow on his face so that Regulus could not recognize him.
"Mr. Black," a cold voice sounded from within the shadow, "I am sorry to inform you that your journey has been in vain. Your brother is not here."
"I know he's not here. He has come into an…inheritance. However undeserving his character may be."
The cloaked figure, who Regulus now knew to be Aaron Potter, was silent for a moment.
"Then what ever are you doing here? I assure you that there is nothing for you here."
"I am seeking employment after Hogwarts. I came here to recommend myself to your clandestine firm in the year nineteen-eighty."
Immediately, Aaron Potter let a short exhale of laughter.
"You are sadly mistaken. Hiring you would bring strife to the firm: your family's political alliance being just one of them. Even if young Sirius Black came to me, I would refuse him however commendable he is. Mr. Black, it is admirable you have found me, but I refuse your recommendation."
Before Regulus could respond with anger, the cloaked figure shimmered and suddenly vanished into thin air. All that remained was the crisp summer air and the gloomy trails left from the overcast sky.
And a young man trembling with indignation and a righteous desire to prove Aaron Quirinus Potter wrong one day. One day, he would be martyred, and Potter would have no choice but to acknowledge him. Then he would slight the damned fool.
The young man turned on his heel and stalked away, his dark figure rapidly becoming nothing more but a blur on the horizon, reflected in the glasses of a concerned, newly-graduated James Potter and his fiancée, Lily Evans.
Twenty days later
September 29th, 1978
Lupin, James, Sirius, and Snape are eighteen
A sallow, dark-haired young man carefully observed the woman at apothecary counter. The establishment was rather dank and gloomy with a vile stench of decaying ingredients taken from animals, just barely masked by the infinitely more appealing aroma of plants.
The woman was an atypical pureblooded witch, for she lacked the haughtiness and arrogance that usually accompanied those of such lineage.
Her hair was most appealingly long and wavy, if a bit on the bushy side. Her complexion was fair, setting off her brown coloring nicely, and the young man could detect a trim figure beneath her plain but expensive robes.
She wrinkled her nose slightly, but in a most attractive manner.
"Bohr, I said I wanted the essence of a newt bladder, and I realize essences are rather expensive since one has to sufficiently capture a certain quantity of the aroma in a small jar, but if you think you can cheat me with this—worthless—(Here, she defiantly slapped a glass vial into the greasy palm of the apothecary, Messer Bohr.) ingredient, you are a greater fool than I thought."
"Ma'am," Bohr wheezed, "My apologies. I have a vial in storage which may be of some…interest to you."
"I will be waiting here, most anxiously." Her expression was now taking on a disdainful countenance familiar to the young man.
He smiled, and before he silently whipped out of the apothecary, he caught her name scrawled in pretty, if a bit untidy, calligraphy:
M.o.P Jane Davenport
The young man reflected on the woman's capability. She was a Potions Mistress after all, and those were rare compared to Masters of Potions. He hoped that one day he would be able to encounter the woman professionally and perhaps even apprentice so that he could fulfill the requirements for the honorific, Master of Potions.
But he was here on business and business alone. Specifically, for the Dark Lord. His eyes involuntarily slid to his left forearm, concealed by his robe sleeve, where he knew the newly emblazoned Dark Mark was.
With a grimacing smirk of satisfaction, he entertained fanciful notions of being the Dark Lord's right hand, a powerful wizard, well-married and his confounded Muggle blood forgotten. He pushed away memories of his unwillingness to bend to Lucius' coercion just a year previously.
"Snape?" a young man's voice echoed.
"Ah, Black. Good to see you again."
A sixteen year-old boy stepped from one of Knockturn Alley's many shaded alleyways. It was, indeed, Regulus Black, younger brother of the reviled Sirius Black.
"Are they ready for me?"
"That is precisely what I was sent here for. Mufflatio." Snape flicked his hand, and instantaneously, everything they said was to sound muffled and distorted to potential eavesdroppers.
"The Dark Lord wishes to inform you that while he is very pleased with your interest, he wishes you to remain at Hogwarts until graduation. Upon which, you will receive the mark, granted, that you are on good behavior until then."
Regulus's dark brown eyes hardened.
"Two years? But my mother already suspects me as a Death Eater. I can not let her down."
"I wonder what you have done to plant that ungrounded assumption into her head," retorted Snape, sneeringly.
The eighteen year-old tugged his cloak's hood further, and stalked past Regulus Black, who was looking all the more stormy and baleful. He had been rejected by bothDark and Light forces,although he was infinitely capable.
That would not do.
One year and two months later
November 20th, 1978
Lupin and Snape are eighteen
James and Sirius are nineteen
Although James Potter had sunk to the lowest of the low in the pureblood high society, it would be folly to completely ignore his importance by affiliation (for his father was a most industrious man and was not one to get on the bad side of).
It was this reason that Lucius Malfoy and his young bride, the seventeen year-old Narcissa Black, extended an invitation to the Potters to their wedding reception, however unwillingly.
Lucius had to admit, he was quite eager to see the young Potter and his upstart, little Mudblood wife that Narcissa had spoken so vehemently of.
His bride had conceded that the "Evans girl" was very pretty, but it was overshadowed by her abhorrent, outgoing persona, and any self-respecting gentleman would find her very gross indeed.
Lucius, on the other hand, was eager to evaluate the young Potter since the last time Lucius had seen him; they were seventeen and eleven, six years apart at Hogwarts.
Also attending was Regulus Black, who, at seventeen, was worrying Lucius with his conduct. At the moment the hosts and the attendees were all gathered in a large, luxurious ballroom.
People were swirling about the dance floor most appealingly, while the more undesirable set were confined to their outlying tables, intimidated by the high-class wizards and witches who sneered at them if they attempted to join into the entertainment.
The previous weekend, Regulus had been caught sneaking into a Death Eater revel by the Dark Lord. He was most gravely punished for it, and Lucius was quite surprised to see that the boy was even well enough to attend the reception.
Although having grown much in the past year or two, the boy was still thinner than his elder brother, but decidedly of a more reserved character.
He was Lucius' favorite, out of most of the Death Eaters to say the very least, even more than Snape, while intelligent, talented, and completely loyal to the cause, was thoroughly tainted by Muggle blood.
At the moment, the youngest Black was pursuing the hand of the Mudblood wife of the young Potter. She was refusing him, Lucius could see, and he flushed with indignation and confusion on the young man's behalf.
Why was he pursuing a trashy Mudblood? For a brief moment, he wondered about Black's true loyalties, but his apparent eagerness (so eager that he would deign to sneak into a revel!) quickly overshadowed any doubts.
"Mr. Black," the Mudblood's voice echoed across the room to Lucius' sensitive ears, "I am quite happy with my husband, but thank you very much."
"Fine," Regulus said shortly. He stalked back, striding past Lucius, but then Lucius grabbed his arm tightly.
"What are you doing?" he hissed. Narcissa looked on the two young men with concern; she had no wish for her party to be ruined, and she was already anxious enough with the impending rituals of the wedding night.
"I had hoped to trample over the Mudblood a bit, but Potter was too quick. He signaled Evans and she declined me." This was all said with an air of self-importance and disgusted incredulity. Most befitting.
Reassured, Lucius released Regulus' arm. The boy visibly relaxed.
"Go dance with Narcissa, will you," Lucius commanded, "She's becoming restless."
Regulus had become transfixed once again with the Mudblood.
"Regulus," Lucius repeated insistently, gesturing towards Narcissa.
Startled out of his reverie, Regulus Black returned his attention to Lucius.
"Yes," he began hesitatingly, "Of course. That is, if you really wish it."
"I know what I wish, and you would do well to obey unhesitatingly. That is a skill crucial to being subservient to the Dark Lord."
"I understand," the younger man immediately said, hoping to defer Lucius from further admonishing. He quickly set off in pursuance of Narcissa.
A glint of metal caught Lucius' eye, and blinking, he slightly turned his head, his hands clasped behind his back in an aristocratic fashion.
The metal glinted again and he found the source to be in the crevice of Lily Evan's neck, where a golden, extremely old-looking locket was suspended from her neck.
James Potter was whispering affectionately in her ear, and she had her hand against his chest in a loving manner, but her eyes were watching Lucius, calculating and hardened.
Disturbed, he swung his head the other way and put some more distance between the unnerving couple and him. That locket was unnervingly familiar.
It clicked with something that had been stored in the deep recesses of his mind, something the Dark Lord had mentioned about preserving his immortality….
He also briefly wondered why Regulus Black had been so fascinated with the Mudblood Lily Evan's antique necklace and her startlingly green eyes.
Fourteen years later
August 19th, 1992
Harry is twelve
Black, Lupin, and Snape are thirty-two
Lucius Malfoy stared intently at the old, croqueted lace peeking from the edges of his fine, traveling frock coat, fingering it gingerly with his pale, aristocratic fingers.
The shirt had been his grandfather's, which explained the fading finery, but he wondered if he could simply burn every old garment and buy the latest styles. It was an idea worth considering, he conceded, and Narcissa would no doubt be very pleased with the idea.
His other fingers closed around the semi-precious book in his back pocket: the old diary from the fallen Dark Lord's school days. It would teach the Weasleys a lesson or two about blood treason.
There was a terribly unsightly crowd, and he was glad he refused to have Narcissa come with him to see the pathetic Gilderoy Lockhart make a spectacle out of himself.
Lucius knew for a fact that the so-called wizard was just every bit as incompetent as the Longbottom boy Draco so often cut apart during holidays at the Manor.
Lockhart had even been a few years ahead of Lucius at school, and from the little he remembered of Lockhart, he was horribly deficient at Quidditch and seemed to have a knack for memory charms.
He caught a glimpse of the tell-tale red hair and shabby clothes that clearly indicated the Weasley's presence. Lucius Malfoy smoothly started his approach only to pause.
A dark-haired, small, considerably skinny boy was lurking about the Weasleys, engaging the youngest boy in conversation.
An overwhelming sense of déjà vu struck Lucius, as the untidy back of the dark-haired boy's hair and his countenance forcibly reminded him of the Potter family. He was steeped in their blood, even the way he carried himself…Merlin forbid.
He wondered when Aaron Potter had the time to have another child before dying a most…untimely death…in nineteen-eighty. The child would be the right age.
Again, Lucius began his approach, and as the insufficient crowd turned to recognize him, the Potter boy's face locked onto Lucius. Scar, glasses, and—
Brilliant green eyes.
Harry Potter. Well, he never. He should have guessed immediately, what with Draco vehemently accusing Potter of all sorts of flagrancies and his friendship with the blood traitor and Mudblood. Another sense of déjà vu settled upon him.
He could've sworn that he was twenty-five years old again on the silent eve of his wedding reception.
He was powerfully reminded of a certain pair of green eyes that had gazed at him so condescendingly, seeing right through his inner self, one hand on James Potter and the other stroking an old, golden locket that struck his eyes painfully.
The book fell into Ginny Weasley's sack, and he instantly doubted himself. Lily Evans had suddenly spoken to him through Potter's inherited green eyes, and he knew that he had just done a favor for Lily Evan's heir.
Thirteen years earlier
September 19th, 1979
Lupin, Snape, and James are nineteen
Sirius is twenty
His nimble fingers flicked the glass vial delicately, his cold, black eyes examining the stopper intently. It was, most untastefully, a pewter skull with two garish rubies glued--glued for Merlin's sake--into the eye sockets.
It contained a powerful truth serum, his specialty as it were. Although the Dark Lord was an accomplished Legilimens and had no particular need for truth serums, he enjoyed delegating the task of creating painful concoctions of truth serum and poisons to Severus Snape. It made the interrogation process even more painful, before actually commencing with the mind-rape.
One year. It had been exactly one year since he had been recruited as a Death Eater. He still remembered the summer of 1978, how horrible and crushing it had been. Still uncertain about his future as a Death Eater, the eighteen year-old had spent nearly three nerve-wracking months working as an apprentice under the Hogsmeade's own little, run-down apothecary. Students rarely ventured there, and if they did, it was almost always to obtain illegal Potions ingredients or to replenish their stock with whatever they had forgotten to purchase at Diagon Alley.
The storekeeper was no exemplary Master, but the title stood, and Severus Snape required three years of apprenticeship under a Master before becoming one himself. Besides his talent and his dedication to research and learning made up for any teaching deficiencies the storekeeper had.
One useful thing, Snape conceded, was that the storekeeper exhibited no unwillingess to impart very useful tidbits and such about practical properties of Potions in storage...and opening Severus Snape's eyes to the utmost importance of Herbology.
He showed rare and exotic plants that could be manipulated to transfer the most excruciating pain--mental, physical, or emotional--into what appeared to be a perfectly innocent, household potion. Dreamless sleep, for example, or even a wizarding version of dishwashing detergent.
He was eager, his passion and intensive study blinding him and closing his mind to think further than pleasing the Dark Lord.
He rarely skirted the edges of questions such as, Why did he have to continuously brew more of the concoctions? Surely the Dark Lord was not merely displaying or examining them out of curiosity? They were disposed of, weren't they, on unfortunate victims of the Dark Lord?
Instead he returned to his work with a new passion and fervor, never willing to dwell on the truth although a guilty twinge racked him.
He squeezed the glass vial tightly and thrust it into a crate. The light flickered in the completely stone storeroom, as Snape's robes provoked the candle flames to flare and then recede.
As if on cue, his Dark Marned started twinging. For one wild moment, Snape fantasized that the Dark Lord had caught the traces of his doubt and betrayal in the wind, from the outpouring recesses of his mind.
He quickly swept away the notion, placating himself with Enlightened reason: the Dark Lord had mentioned targeting a pureblood on this very day. Surely he would want his Death Eaters present, to make an example out of blood traitos, however pureblooded they might be.
Snape levitated the crate into his private storage and locked it so that the storekeeper wouldn't poke around, something he was notorious for once discovering Snape's aptitude at Potions. With another slicing motion of his wand, the storeroom-cellar went dark and a soft crack! was heard.
Moments later, he appeared between two Death Eaters, both just shorter than him. He felt singled out, even under his white mask and his preposterously terrifying hood. The Dark Lord was notorious for making all of his Death Eaters as uncomfortable as he could.
The Dark Lord in question was standing in the middle the circle of Death Eaters, unusually silent and unmoving. Snape had been the last Death Eater to arrive, but not by a large fraction of time. Still, it was best to be one of the first to arrive.
The air crackled with electricity as the Dark Lord's figure pounded through the air, his powerful body coursing as he seemed to surreptitiously glide to the radius' midpoint.
Snape heard a gentle knocking sound in his head. It grew louder, more insistent, until it had morphed into a throbbing, rapping sound that threatened to implode Snape's head with its sheer volume. His mind tore apart and memories, images of the last revel forced their way to the surface of consciousness.
They were corrupted by the underlying quintessential rage and disgust of the Dark Lord. Blood traitors deserved to bleed dry. And the perfect candidate had been brought here...to avert any sympathy his Death Eaters may have for mudbloods and Muggles.
Although Snape struggled with the invasion of his mind, his exterior remained calm, albeit rigid. To his growing horror, he realized that he was the only one experiencing the brunt of the Dark Lord's Legilimens.
This revel had been called for him. The sole purpose was to teach Severus Snape, half-blood and aspiring Potions Master only halfway loyal to the "cause", a lesson.
"This is the price of power," the Dark Lord hissed.
To any of the other Death Eaters' ears it was cryptic and didn't make sense. Snape understood perfectly.
When the Dark Lord had paced away from the center of the circle, the heaving, convulsing body of a pregnant woman lay.
Her screams were inaudible, silenced with a simple Silencio. Her legs were spread widely apart, her white nightshirt stained with blood, sweat, and broken water. Her long, brown curls lay in rags, plastered to her face, her white arms clawing at the grass at her sides. Her head lashed from side to side, her forehead drawn tightly with agony.
For the first time, Snape felt nauseous. He had seen fellow Death Eaters Crucioed senseless, he had seen puppets slashed with the Dark Lord's powerful dark magic, and in the recesses of the Hogsmeade apothecary, he, on a rare occasion, visualized how his strange, new concoctions would be utilized by the Dark Lord.
He had never seen brutal destruction and torture of a woman and her unborn baby. A pureblooded woman no less, being persecuted for sympathy and fierce independence.
Images of Lily Evans rose to his mind, unbidding. An icy coldness swept over him, a premonition surfacing. The woman's brown hair was replaced with the streaming, lovely red of Lily Evan's hair, andthe woman's soft brown eyes transformed into an emerald green.
"She is," the Dark Lord hissed softly, his red eyes boring into Snape's mask, "a Potions Mistress."
His stomach clenched, thinking to all the times he had taken detours to Knockturn Alley's apothecary, hoping for a glimpse of M.o.P. Jane Davenport.
When he had realized she was pregnant, an unbidding jealousy and rage had surfaced, her wholesomeness tainted by another man, claimed and ultimately forbidden to Snape.
After a mere week, it had subsided, and Snape's fascination with the pert, lovely woman and her sharp mind had reinforced itself with a vengeance.
Even if the Dark Lord had not realized who she really was, he was driving the dagger deeper home at Snape's heart, brutally murdering someone akin to him.
Intelligent, decisively cutting, talented in Potions, her blood worthier than his, and out of his league. He was being downplayed, his importance reduced in the eyes of the Dark Lord and Snape's peers.
"Jane Davenport, look at her." The Dark Lord's voice held a trace of wonder, of sick curiosity as he crooned. "This is as my mother looked. Poor Merope Gaunt, abandoned, tortured...her child left to die."
"I survived, and the child will not. It is weak...weak as I am strong. It does not deserve to live."
"BEGONE!"
The Death Eaters stumbled backwards, rapidly Disapparating. Snape remained; he could not help himself. The woman called to him, and luckily, so did the Dark Lord. He had not meant for Snape to Disapparate away like his other fellow Death Eaters.
"Severusss..."
"My--my lord." His voice was shaky, and immediately he hated himself for his weakness. He hated himself for daring to care--
No.
His mind went blank, and he completely shut down. He couldn't risk exposing himself any further. His face slackened, and his shoulders straightened. His chest was drawn tight, and it was more difficult to breathe now that his posture had stiffened and formalized.
He tried to relax, but the continuous pressure wouldn't allow him. Time, that tiny voice that shared his mind since his disastrous incident in the dark water of hisfifth year, told him that this moment was a turning point.
At this moment, Severus Snape became the man he would be. The sloppy movements and uncontrollable emotions of his youth were gone, replaced by indiffident coldness and severity.
His eyes closed. Where he continuously felt his heart pounding, there was nothing. He could never bring himself to care again, everything would be ripped from him.
"My lord," he repeated, his voice stronger. "Allow me to kill her."
If the Dark Lord was surprised, hedidn't show it.
"Very good, Severusss...You are learning."
The Dark Lord swept away, his pale, bony arm extended in welcome.
Without hesitation, Snape drew his wand back and he threw himself forward with all his might, his wand slicing through the heavy air. Neither his lips nor his mind spoke the word for the Curse. His mere want of the Curse radiated from his body and a brilliant green light, even more brilliant than the Dark Lord's, burst from the wand tip. It poured from the tip, the world shaking from the sheer, tremendous force, the dark night lit by the green light as if it werean emerald sun...like Lily's eyes.
The light enveloped the woman, and she stopped moving instantly, her eyes cold and glassy. Her body slumped and lay, unmoving.
Both the Dark Lord and Severus Snape were silent.
"Dispose of it," the Dark Lord sneered. "You have done well this night."
The Dark Lord Diapparated, leaving Snape alone with the lifeless body of the woman. It had been quick and painless, but the Curse Severus Snape had used was not the Avada Kedavra.
No, it was something of his own little invention.
Years later, he would scrawl it in the margins of his old, battered copy of Advanced Potions before throwing it into storage with all the other decaying textbooks in his new home, the Hogwarts dungeons. No one would think to look there for Severus Snape's last testament to his genius.
Repulsed, he checked the woman's birth canal. He had known that once she died, he would have to deliver the still-living baby that his Curse had protected while simultaneously killing the carrier. And he would have to do it quickly before the baby, too,died.
"Scourgify."
His hands were rubbed raw and red. Disinfected, he slashed the canal carefully with a well-muttered Sectumsempra, silently asking Jane Davenport for her forgiveness. Closing his eyes with revulsion, he used his hand to spread the slit canal apart further and carefully pulled the infant from its lodged position in the canal.
Thankfully, it had enough sense to start pushing head first, so the difficulty was greatly reduced to quickly guiding the infant from the canal. The baby's shrill, screaming cry cut through the air, but Severus Snape, while normally sneering at uncontrollable babies and inadequate parents, shared the baby's pain.
It had been born in the worst circumstances Snape could imagine. He would be lenient with it.
He transfigured a pebble into a sharp blade and quickly cut the long, stringy worm that connected the baby to its deceased mother. Not wanting to use a harsh cleaning spell on the infant's fragile body, he tore a piece of Jane Davenport's cloth and wiped the infant with it. He noted that it was a girl.
A sentimental part of him that had survived the purging of his youth struck the now-adult-man.
Jane Davenport's significant other had failed to protect her and her child. Snape had spared her torture and now was in the process of saving her child.
Unchecked jealousy and rage surfaced once again.
This child was not his, but he claimed her. He was nineteen years old, and she, just a babe, but the age difference was slight in the wizarding world. He would mark her so he would recognize her one day, in the far and distant future.
Time whispered to him.
Time took him years past, to when he was eight years old.
Eileen Prince, his mother, had taken him into her arms, in a rare moment of affection. She had read Shakespeare aloud to him, and he remembered fixating on one of the bit characters, a female, Hermione.
Hermione. It sounded beautiful as he said it aloud, and there would be no other witch her age that would bear the same name and--a Muggle name.
He would set her apart as a Muggleborn to exact his final revenge on Mr. Davenport, whoever he was.
This had to be done. And quickly.
He Disapparated with the screaming infant still in his arms and appeared at the outside of a Muggle orphanage.With his wand, he exploded the door and left the baby at the entrance. And performing the last bit of magic he would do that night, he transfigured a shrapnel from the imploded door into a piece of paper.
A green ink flowed out of his wand, and the paper glowed, incandescent. When the light receded, two words written in Snape's spidery, green scrawl remained:
Hermione Jane
They couldn't miss that.
Snape Disapparated, not waiting to see that the infant was safely taken in. He returned to the body of the late Jane Davenport, and without betraying a flicker of emotion, he buried the body by agentle stream not a great distance from where she had been murdered.
One month later
October 25th, 1979
Lupin and Snape are nineteen
James and Sirius are twenty
He was suffering heavily from shortness of breath. There was nothing more daring, nothing more terrifying than what he was about to attempt. No one, not even Dumbledore, knew of this horrible, senseless scheme of his. Again, he wondered why he was doing this. Justice?
He didn't particularly care for sanguinary prejudices. He wasn't righteous, and he knew that a score to even with Aaron Quirinius Potter simply wasn't enough provocation to be a valid reason for what could possibly be the stupidest thing attempted on the earth.
Or bravest. Godric Gryffindor himself would have looked on admiringly, while Salazar Slytherin shook his head in horrified amusement.
He steadied his breathing, not daring to adjust his heavy cloak as he lay hidden among the trees, quietly observing the Death Eaters' meeting, making sure that he was not too close that the Dark Lord would easily pick up on him with his Legilimens skills.
He was witnessing a reprehensible act, one that made his skin crawl for it was a deep betrayal taking place before his eyes.
His better judgment told him that he should anonymously pass this information along to the Potters, or to Dumbledore at the very least. Still, his own selfishness propelled him to wait until the perfect opportunity.
Wait until the squeaky voice of Peter Pettigrew diminished into the smoky night, slightly illuminated by the green firelight crackling in the center of the Death Eater circle.
Wait until one by one, each of the Death Eaters Disapparated.
Wait until the Dark Lord himself slowly turned to his right hand man to disappear to Merlin knew where. It was at that moment, just as the Dark Lord was in that space between his starting point and his destination—the cold, pressurized infinity—that Regulus Black struck.
He dug into the Dark Lord's mind for that almost invisible fraction of time and got the last coordinate. The last coordinate to the cave where he would destroy another vestibule of the Dark Lord's immortality without his Lordship even noticing…he wanted to laugh with astonishment.
How could the Dark Lord be so blissfully unaware of his fast approaching mortality…?
Three and a half months later
February 13th, 1980
Lupin is nineteen
James, Sirius, and Snape are twenty
He Apparated, soaking wet, pale, and shaking with unbridled terror. He was still a Hogwarts student, in his seventh year, just eighteen years old, and he was sure he was going to die.
He had been mauled by grisly corpses, chased across a lethal lake, and nearly killed himself trying to destroy the golden locket that was Lord Voldemort's Horcrux.
The locket proved to be indestructible however, and he was left with no choice but to wildly bury it in some remote location in the forest, heavily concealed with undetectable, ancient magic he had ripped from a page in one of Dumbledore's heavily guarded books.
The job incomplete, but almost finished, he stumbled through the dark forest, clutching his sides in agony. He had been injured heavily by the Dark Lord's defenses, but he was convinced that it was in a good name.
After seeing an "authentic" replica of Salazar Slytherin's locket hanging from the neck of the Muggle born Lily Evans, he had been thoroughly convinced that it was one of the Dark Lord's Horcruxes.
It made perfect sense. It explained why he favored her so and was hesitant to order an outright attack on her. Regulus Black still didn't know why Evans possessed a thousand year old replica of Slytherin's relic, but it was a deeper mystery he felt he could leave unsolved. It didn't matter anyway.
There was a green light shining in the distance, and with Regulus' defenses completely gone, the Dark Lord was sure to pick up on him within a few moments. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly.
At least one day, someone would find the Horcrux. One day, that person would manage to destroy it and then perhaps—perhaps his mission would not have been carried out in vain. He had realized one thing about himself.
This whole thing was about the Potters. It was about him and his family, and most of all, it was about his insatiable guilt.
His guilt about his elder brother, Sirius, his guilt about his reprehensible, shrill mother, the emaciated house elves, the stricken looks of terror and grief on the Hogwarts students he had seen ridiculed for their Muggle descent for the first time in their lives, his guilt about the lying, the cowardice, the selfishness, the cunning manner he had spent the better part of his life under…
Most of all, his score with Aaron Potter. Aaron Potter would have no choice but to lament the loss of Regulus Black after all he had done for the Potter family.
He alone would have to mourn Regulus and martyr him, celebrating his memory and goodness, when everybody else would have just considered him the Black who joined up with the Death Eaters and gotten his foolish self killed.
He gasped as he was pulled away into cold, crushing space. The green fire was so close now, that he could touch it…a high, cold voice echoed from somewhere….
One month later
March 14th, 1980
Lupin is nineteen
James, Sirius, and Snape are twenty
"Such terrible tragedies," his wife sighed, her voice small and profoundly sorrowful. "I am so afraid, James. What is going to happen to us, to all our friends, and…Harry?"
The beautiful, dark red-headed woman lightly placed her hand on her slightly protruding stomach. She was already five months pregnant, but her black dress robes slimmed her down nicely. Unfortunately, she was dressed to mourn death.
James said nothing. The event of his parents' death and the turning up of Sirius' younger brother's corpse had shaken him to his very core.
All deaths were products of Voldemort's reign of terror, and every day his fear heightened, the fear of coming home one day from work, expecting to relax in his wife's arm and only finding ruins and a Dark Mark.
Lily stood from her dresser, having finished polishing her formerly tarnished locket.
"Are you ready?" she said gently to her husband, placing an arm around his shoulder to steady him as they sat on their bed's precarious edge.
James stared at the floor for only a moment longer and then crisply nodded in agreement. He had to be strong for his wife.
This story is undergoing intensive reconstruction due to several factors some of them being, quality of writing, factual/canon evidence, chronological listings, etc. Your patience is greatly appreciated, and be sure to read through the entire story once this author's note is taken down.