Shadows Unfurl || Amycus, Bellatrix, Lily and Severus
“This shouldn’t take very long,” Severus said, guiding Lily towards the appointed chair near the front of the library. “They know they’re not supposed to harm you, but should anything go wrong I’ll be just just outside the door.”
Suspecting that either Bellatrix or the Carrow twin might think to search Lily during her interrogation, before they’d left his flat Severus had asked her to surrender her wand to lend believability to the entire façade. No jailer, no matter how seemingly benevolent, would allow his captive to remained armed, and given his general reputation there was no way either would believe him foolish or negligent enough to have allowed her to somehow reclaimed it from him.
Understandably, she hadn’t been happy about the idea, and Severus had been similarly uneasy about leaving Lily alone and defenseless in a room with powerful and malicious wizards who wished her nothing but harm, but he hadn’t been able to think of a way around it. But if they were going to do this, they would have to do it right; failure to convince the Death Eaters of his continued allegiance to them would result not just in his expulsion from the group, but in the torture, interrogation, and eventual execution of the both of them. There would be no mercy for a half-blood traitor and the mudblood who had corrupted him away from the cause. No, there was no room for mistakes here. Every aspect of their performance had to be believable, or everything would fall apart in an instant.
He’d have to trust that the savages involved would be able to restrain themselves from violent demonstration of their distaste of Lily and her kind and simply follow orders, leaving her safe and alive, ready to be returned home.
Bellatrix’s hatred of muggleborn wizards was great, but greater still was her devotion to her master; she wasn’t likely to go against his word. That the Carrow could behave himself was, perhaps, less certain, but Severus was fairly certain the man wouldn’t disobey a direct command to leave Lily unharmed. In truth, he had more confidence in a Death Eater to follow authority than a member of the Order of the Phoenix. If there was anything positive to be said about the Dark Lord’s reign of terror, it was that fear and intimidation better ensured the compliance of his supporters than did kindness and reward.
He cast her a final glance at her, and smiled weakly. “Good luck, Lily.”
Turning away from her, Severus raised a hand to his temple, closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, centering himself. Continuing with his controlled, steady breathing, he slipped into the familiar routine of emptying his mind, concentrating on the delicate flutter of his pulse against his fingertips until everything else dropped away, his entire world narrowing down to the even throb of the vein.
Over the past year he’d mastered a variety of techniques for clearing his mind, but always found this method the most effective. In a pinch he could simply focus his gaze on a single object for a few seconds to snap his thoughts back into place, but his defenses needed to be as impenetrable as possible for this.
When he opened his eyes, he adjusted his posture slightly to a bit straighter, schooling his expression into a carefully constructed mask of nonchalance. His jaw was a bit tighter, his gaze a bit sharper than when he was truly at ease, but only those who really knew him (and, he reminded himself, nobody really knew him these days) could tell the difference.
He pointedly didn’t look back at Lily as he walked away, eyes staring determinedly forward, his mind once again fortified and driven with purpose. He stepped out of the library, closing the doors behind him, and turned to face Amycus and the newly named Mrs Lestrange. As was his custom, he greeted them not with a smile or a proffered hand, but with a slight nod of his head.
He ignored the Carrow, looking instead directly into the woman’s eyes. “Bellatrix.”
“She’s inside,” he said in his usual drawl, gesturing a lazy hand towards the library doors, and curled his lip. “I’d appreciate it if we could get this over with as quickly as possible. I’ve a nest of toads picklin in my cauldron that rather urgently need tending to.”