The twenty year old Severus had been too shocked by the brutality and how fast it all had happened for him to even think about stopping it. They were in the house, and within minutes, five people were lying in pools of blood. While Severus stood in the doorway and watched the knives move.
As he replayed that grisly night, he let Harry see how shock had frozen him on the threshold to the master bedroom, too stunned to stop the murdering beasts before him. As Harry reeled under the grotesque savagery, Severus replayed some of the boasts he'd heard his colleagues make over the years, letting Harry see that none of these events should have come as a surprise to him. But, as he'd pointed out to Harry earlier, there was a difference between seeing something in the flesh, and just hearing about it. All those years he'd been making his questionable potions, Severus had been able to keep his hands clean. But there was no way to keep your hands clean when you were standing in the same room while a three year old had her throat sliced open.
He let Harry see how he'd broken down once they'd returned to Voldemort's headquarters. Alone, in his fancy Potions lab, he'd sunk to the floor behind the closed door and cried his heart out.
The door had nearly broken his shoulder when Lucius came to find him hours later.
"What the devil are you doing down there?" Lucius had snapped as Severus pulled himself up to his feet, rubbing his bruised shoulder.
"Nothing," Severus denied, turning his back to wipe his cheeks with his sleeve.
"What's got into you? What happened to you tonight? You were like a statue in that doorway."
Severus supposed it was too much to hope that his failure to act would go unnoticed.
"I . . . ."
"You what? They were our master's enemies. You heard his order to dispatch them."
"They were a Squib and a Muggle woman. Three of them were children," Severus said, still unable to believe what he'd witnessed. There was no blood on Lucius now, but Severus quite clearly remembered the spray of that three year old's blood splattering the handsome face that he'd adored for years. Severus had thought he'd known this man, thought he loved him, but looking at those perfect, pale features now, he realized that he'd never known Lucius at all.
"They were Voldmort's enemies. That's all that matters. All that should matter to you. You took an oath to support our lord in all he does."
"I know, but -"
"But?" Lucius interrupted. "There are no buts here. Only obedience."
"I swore I'd fight Voldemort's enemies, and I will," Severus quickly answered, "but . . . that wasn't fighting, Lucius. No one had a wand in their hand. We just . . . murdered them."
"They were Lord Voldmort's enemies and we dispatched them. That's all that should matter to you."
"Lucius, I . . . I'll duel with anyone you want me to. You know I'm no coward, but . . . I can't slaughter defenceless people like that -"
"Do you know how hopelessly Gryffindor that sounds?" Lucius sneered.
For the first time in his life, Severus began to understand that not all Gryffindor traits were weaknesses. Squeezing his eyes shut, he gave a hopeless nod.
"Do you know what our master will do to you if he hears you spout this kind of drivel?" Lucius questioned, something like worry in his eyes. "Don't be a fool, Severus. What does it matter if they have a wand in their hand or not? The minute Lord Voldemort orders their deaths; they are as good as gone. Are you going to sacrifice yourself for a Squib and a pack of filthy blooded Muggles? They're nothing but vermin. Killing them isn't the same as killing one of our own. It's like . . . using an extermination spell on the rats in your home."
Severus had heard that sentiment voiced hundreds of times by Voldemort's followers. When he thought of his Muggle father, he had no objection to that monster being exterminated like vermin. But that little girl tonight . . . she'd never beaten or mistreated a soul in her entire short life. She hadn't looked any different than any of the wizard children he saw in Diagon Alley. The white teddy bear in her bed was the same one Severus had seen in baby Draco's crib when he'd visited last week. Only, Draco's bear hadn't ended up soaked in blood before the night was over.
Just thinking about the splattered blood brought the bile up again. Swallowing it down, Severus stiffly denied, "I can't do it. Not like that."
"I can't protect you," Lucius warned.
"I'm not asking you to," Severus denied.
"You know what an absolute fool you're being? He'll kill you, Severus. You've seen how he deals with disloyalty."
"Then I suppose he'll kill me," Severus acknowledged. "Are you going to give me up to him?"
For a moment, Lucius stared at him as though he were some creature from another planet. Then, his oldest friend turned on his heel and stormed out of the Potions lab without another word.
Severus had spent the night curled up on that freezing floor, waiting for the other Death Eaters to come and finish him. But they hadn't come. In the nerve-wracking days that followed, it became clear that Lucius hadn't mentioned their discussion to anyone.
For a few weeks after that, things returned nearly to normal. Voldemort allowed Lucius to pick who would join him in the raids that would eliminate the Dark Lord's enemies, and Lucius consistently chose others to accompany him. Severus did his best to be in his lab when they returned victorious.
But he couldn't hide in his lab forever. Nor could he pretend ignorance any longer. There wasn't a potion he could brew in his fancy lab that was ever going to be able to remove the stain that night had left on his soul.
While Lucius never again asked him to join the raids, the bragging he heard from his fellow Death Eaters over the next few months showed Severus that slicing a three year old's throat was a clean death. Clean, when compared to the torture and rape his companions graduated to, as their lust for blood grew exponentially. Every attack seemed to grow in viciousness. The Death Eaters vanished their victims' bodies, so no one ever knew what truly happened to the people who disappeared, but Severus knew, and . . . it became increasingly impossible to live with that knowledge.
Sleep became a thing of the past. Severus let Harry experience his disgust at what his comrades were doing, and the utter helplessness he felt in his inability to stop it. He knew he might be able to take out Lucius in a duel. But it wouldn't be just Lucius. The other Death Eaters would be involved, and even if they weren't . . . he wouldn't last a minute against Voldemort. That kind of power knew no match.
He went from depression to despair. Suicide was often on his mind. The surest way to commit it was to try to stop his comrades. He'd grown so disgusted that he might even have tried standing up against them, if he hadn't seen how their opponents, well, victims, died. No matter how much he might long for death, he didn't want to go that way.
It seemed to Severus that he might have continued on in that state of helpless complicity forever, but, finally, Voldemort once again ordered his Potions master to accompany Lucius on an especially important assignment. It was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.
Letting everything go, Severus showed Harry the incident that every curious nosy body had badgered him about for twenty-five years. Albus Dumbledore was the only other person Severus had shared this nightmare with. He hadn't even told Penbroke about this incident in his therapy sessions.
As hellish as the facts of the Death Eater raid he'd shared with Harry had been, there had still been a certain . . . anonymity to it. The Muggles, Squibs, and even the wizards the Death Eaters had attacked had all been strangers. But the playing field shifted dramatically the night they visited the Longbottoms.
Severus had sat in the same classroom with Alice for seven years. Though two years his senior, her husband, Frank, had pulled the Marauders off him half a dozen times when Longbottom had been the Gryffindor prefect. They weren't strangers.
Severus hadn't known where they were going that night. Had he known beforehand, he would have given warning, no matter the personal consequences, but he hadn't known. When they'd broken into the Longbottoms' sitting room and surprised the couple, Severus had been just as shocked as their victims.
Severus had barely seen the Longbottoms' faces when Lucius ordered, "Severus, go guard the front door."
In spite of his claim to the contrary, Lucius was clearly trying to protect him.
To this day, he was haunted by the mistake he made at this point. He should have taken his chances and confronted his comrades. Frank Longbottom was an Auror. He might have managed some wandless magic, but . . . but Severus had followed Lucius' order.
As horrible as what he'd seen in that raid on the Squib and his family had been, it wasn't until Lucius and Bellatrix cast the Cruciatus on Frank and Alice that Severus had realized what kind of people he'd pledged himself to. These weren't some faceless strangers who'd committed Merlin knew what offense against their master. These were people Severus knew. People who'd shown him the occasional kindness.
Severus could feel Harry's fury at what he was showing him. He made no attempt to hide his own cowardice. He let Harry see how he'd stood in vestibule, trying to block out Alice and Frank's screams while his comrades slowly tortured them insane.
When Lucius barked his name out, it had been all Severus could do to enter the blood splattered sitting room. Frank seemed to have lost consciousness where he lay by the hearth. Alice's black and blue bruised eyes were still open as she twitched by the couch.
Severus had thought her too far gone to understand anything, but when Lucius yelled at Severus, "Go find the brat," Alice had started screaming again.
"No, Severus, please . . . not my baby. Don't hurt my baby . . . ahhhhhhhh!"
Her shrieks followed him as he'd hurried upstairs to the bedrooms.
The master bedroom was empty. The door next to it revealed a nauseatingly pleasant nursery.
Severus entered the moonlit room to stare down at the sleeping baby in the crib, one of the two children who fit the damned prophesy that had sent the Death Eaters on this unholy errand tonight. The boy was perhaps six months old. He was chubby with ruddy cheeks, and a face that was the picture of innocence.
Severus needed no imagination to know what would happen to that innocence should he bring the child downstairs.
The boy's mother was still pleading with her murderers to spare her baby. How the child could sleep through that, he didn't know.
At that moment, Severus became reacquainted with both his conscience and courage. He knew he couldn't save either Frank or Alice. But this child . . . if this were the child who would slay Voldemort, he would do everything in his power to protect it.
Thinking fast, Severus summoned a sleeping draught. He opened the sleeping baby's mouth and drained half the bottle down its throat. It was probably enough to kill the baby, but given the alternative, Severus thought it was a chance worth taking.
Once he was sure the baby was unconscious, he picked him up out of his crib and quickly left the room. Opening a cupboard at the end of the hall, near the loo, he moved a few buckets aside with one hand and laid the child on the floor, replacing the pails. He cast a glamour over the floor, the strongest he'd created, one that showed a closet filled with only cleaning supplies.
Shaking at the chance he was taking, Severus closed the door behind him and raced down the stairs to tell Lucius that the Longbottom baby wasn't in the house.
Alice met his eyes as Severus' companions were distracted by his information. The naked gratitude in her bleeding brown gaze was unbearable. At that instant, Severus had fully understood that his soul was forfeit, that there was nothing he could ever do to erase the evil he'd been part of. But he knew at that instant that he had to try, even if he had to die the same way Alice was.
Alice seemed to surrender to her fate without a fight after that, as if the only thing that had mattered to her was that she knew her baby was safe. She didn't die that night, but Severus always regretted that he hadn't granted her that kindness.
Because he could feel Harry's curiosity, he followed the memory through, letting Harry see how he'd crept back into the Longbottom house before daybreak, passed through the sitting room where Alice and Frank lay drooling in their blood-drenched, urine-soaked clothes, how he'd taken the still-sleeping baby out of the cupboard, and cradled the child in his arms as he'd stepped over the baby's mindless parents and flooed to Albus Dumbledore's private chambers at Hogwarts.
Even as he'd stepped out of the hearth, he hadn't known what to expect. Were it anyone else, Severus knew that the crimes he was about to confess would bring him straight to the Ministry, but Albus Dumbledore had never played by anyone's rules. If there were anyone who could keep the child in the prophesy safe, it was Dumbledore.
Forcibly pulling himself out of the past, Severus drew a shuddery breath and said, "You're familiar with the rest of the story."
It felt as if a spell had broken as his words recalled them to the present. Harry withdrew from his mind as gently as he'd entered it.
Alone with his memories, Severus could only wonder how much tonight had cost him. He felt like he did after one of his sessions with Penbroke, like every nerve he owned had been exposed and jolted with electricity. This went beyond feeling naked.
Harry's face looked pretty much the way he'd expected it to, like he'd bitten off more than he could chew. In fact, he looked as if he might actually be sick to his stomach.
To his shock, Harry met his eyes. Venting a shaky breath, he said, "Well, we knew it wouldn't be pretty."
"You have a flair for understatement," Severus forced himself to respond. The Hat might have wanted to put Harry into Slytherin, but the Harry he knew was all Gryffindor, and Gryffindors were judgmental. He knew what had to be coming.
