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Reducto


”Dim your wand, Rosier.” Voldemort’s voice had been cold and urgent. “We do not wish to be seen before we are ready.” The boat wobbled as the heavy set boy muttered nox and the light went out. The only illumination was now the moon - a waning crescent in the sky, barely a sliver of light, reflecting upon the dark black water of the lake, a trillion stars surrounding it in the sea of inky sky. “We must move closer, Mulciber.”

“Yes, my Lord.” The even heavier-set boy, thick with muscle and wide shoulders, leaned over, nearly tipping the boat, and stuck his wand into the water. “
Acelerar,” he whispered and the boat moved forward through the water, rippling the surface behind them.

Severus Snape held onto the sides of the boat, hist stomach queasy from the rocking. He hated boats. He hated the thought of the depth of the darkness below him, of the ground being
so bloody far away and how many times over he could drown before he reached it if he were to fall in. He was glad he was seated behind the Dark Lord, glad that Voldemort could not see how ill he was feeling as the boat wobbled its way across the lake, toward the castle.

“Stop,” Voldemort whispered. They were close to the opening to the docks now, close enough to see the cave, but not close enough to be seen from within the cave. A gust of wind breathed over the lake, wrapping about the castle, cold and harsh. Voldemort pulled his cloaks closer ‘round his neck. “Rosier, Snape. You go on. Mulciber, stay with me.”

“Yes, my Lord,” Mulciber said, thankful he didn’t have to go into the water.

Rosier stood up and tucked his wand into his robes, grabbing a mask from the floor of the vessel.

“We aren’t yet inside, my Lord,” Severus said, “What if we were to move into the cave and --”

“And be detected?” Voldemort hissed, “I am surprised enough that Dumbledore hasn’t yet seen our approach. Any closer and he may take notice. To be enclosed is to be vulnerable. I stay here. If anything goes foul, we can depart and leave you and Rosier here.”

Severus looked at the dark water.

Rosier cracked his knuckles and, grinning at the apprehension on Severus’s face, he said, “Hope you can swim, Snape.” With that, he dove into the water and began swimming toward the mouth of the cave, nearly silently.

Severus shivered.

“Are we having second thoughts, Severus?” the Dark Lord breathed.

Yes, Severus thought deep in his enclosed mind, where the Lord could not see it. “No,” he said outloud.

“Good.” Voldemort whispered. “I know you are aware that your part in this is
absolutely crucial to my success.”

“Yes, my Lord,” Severus said.

“Do not disappoint me.” His voice was hard and low.

“I will not.” Severus took a deep breath and pushed thoughts of sharp-toothed mermaids and the giant squid’s thick tentacles out of his mind, and took the step over the side of the boat and into the water. He fell, a bit like a rock, right into the water and it closed around him over his head, his cheeks puffed out with breath pocketed within them. He kicked, his robes thick and heavy beneath the surface, his heart racing so hard he could hear it in his ears and he didn’t dare to open his eyes, didn’t dare to feel the sting of the water in them. He could feel his hair floating in every direction about his head, and he wondered fleetingly whether Voldemort would bother at rescuing him should he start to drown.

Briefly, Severus considered letting it happen.

But, if everything went according to plan, then he would be able to at least see Lily Evans soon.

And it was the thought of her, of her green eyes, that made him kick his legs.

He broke the surface with a gasp. He had gone a bit away from the boat. He could see Evan Rosier ahead of him in the dark, moving slowly, clutching the rocks at the base of the grounds of Hogwarts, the rocks that curved and went into the mouth of the cave.

Severus kicked and jostled his way through the water toward Rosier and was thankful to feel the firmness - albeit slimey and algae covered - of the rock beneath his grasp as he reached the edge of the water. They moved around, toward the cave, toward the darkness.

The plan was to use the entrance hall door to the grand staircase during the Yule Ball, when everyone was there, when everyone was busy, and to sneak up to Gryffindor tower. The plan was to imperius some first or second year Gryffindor for the password, sneak into the Marauder’s dormitory, get a bit of James Potter to use for the polyjuice, and wait for the Marauders to return. They would immobilize and obliviate the others so that they accepted Severus as their own James and Evan would use a bit of polyjuice to make himself look like one of them and leave with the real James Potter - imperiused, of course - back to the waiting boat, back to the Dark Lord.

Severus was looking forward to sending James Potter away to the Dark Lord. He only wished that he were one of the ones going back with the Dark Lord, one of the ones who would get to see James Potter tortured and perhaps even eventually killed.

He only wished he could have seen James Potter
suffer.

The water lashed them against the rocks and they moved quietly into the cave, the pale flickering of everlasting flame illuminating the small lagoon. Severus quickly pulled himself out of the water the moment he was close enough to the shore to do so and he stood, dripping and cold as Evan Rosier wrung out his own robes, water splashing against the pebble beach as it fell from the twisted ends of his robes.

They were walking toward the stairs to the door that opened out to the Entrance Hall when that very door opened.

“Quick. Into the water,” Rosier hissed and he grabbed onto Severus’s elbow and yanked him roughly into the water. The two boys swam silently as they could under the dock, hovering there, their heads bobbling like buoys.

Severus could hear footsteps on the stone.

“James. So… so we’ve known each other a long time.”

His heart nearly stopped.
Lily! he realized. It was Lily!

Rosier smiled, nearly as happy as Snape was to hear James Potter reply, “We have.” After all, what sort of luck was it that the very person they were there to take was the very person who had just arrived? And with nobody but a
girl to defend him? Taking James Potter was suddenly supremely easy. It would be nothing to obliviate the girl.

“Six years,” the girl said.

“Nearly seven,” James answered her.

“Right.”

There was the sound of Lily’s shoe on the end of the dock - nearly directly over them, and dust fell from the docks as they walked overhead. “Careful love. Don’t fall.”

Severus’s lip sneered when he called her
love.

She is not your love, he thought hatefully. She is not yours to have.

“Thanks,” Lily replied.

She didn’t correct the word love. Severus, who was already cold from the water, felt even colder. What had chanced since May, when he’d seen her last?

“James, I’ve been a troll to you.”

“A troll? Nah. Well. Maybe a little.”

“Especially this year. In September. You were so kind to me about Jasper, and you took care of me… that couldn’t have been easy for you… Especially when you… when you said you liked me, and I… didn’t answer you. Or when I told you we could only snog as friends ---”

Severus almost threw up. He heard nothing more of it because she’d said that she had snogged James Potter. The boy who had strung him up like a bit of meat before the entire school, who had hung him by his ankle and let his underpants show to everyone in the school, who had threatened to strip him bare if he’d gotten enough cheers for it. If it was possible to
loathe James anymore than he had after that incident, he did now.

Lily was going on and on and on, a long list of things that had happened and feelings and the like and Evan Rosier took out his wand, thinking of silencing her, thinking of just getting on with it, but Severus reached out to still his hand. This information was important. If he was to become James Potter, knowing just how close he and Lily had become - however much it wrenched his heart… it was important to know.

It was not lost on Severus Snape that she forgot to mention him leaving.

“...your dad was sick, and you were sad and I - I lost your - your address and -- and the Death Eaters, they -- to your house -- and the fire -- the -- explosion….”

Evan Rosier smirked, remembering the praise he’d gotten for finding that slip of paper.

James Potter’s voice trembled. “Evans.”

“And all the - the things - I did… the things I didn’t say to you… they were because… because James, all these people… all these things… what it all has in common is… is
me.”

Rosier motioned for the pair of them to move, to follow as Lily and James stepped further along the docks. They were nearly to the end of them and peering through the small gaps in the wood, they could see that Lily was standing closer to the shore, James nearly at the end of the docks, his back to the lagoon. The water stirred around them as they moved.

“None of this rubbish is your fault, Evans. None of it. Not a tick.”

“I’m a
jinx, James. A curse…”

Severus Snape wanted to rise up out of the water and take hold of her and shake that thought out. He wanted to draw it out of her and stop her ever thinking it again. It made his stomach turn with illness at the thought of her feeling like that. A curse! No, she was the most beautiful, most wonderful, most precious thing in the world. She was the only thing that made resisting the Dark Lord from penetrating his mind worth it. She was the only thing he could ever imagine himself fighting for.

“I’m afraid that if I let myself… care… for you… then… then I’ll just jinx you, then I’ll hurt you, then you will suffer like… all the others I’ve hurt.”

And for a brief moment, Severus Snape considered hexing Rosier and stopping the plan right then.

But then…

“Evans, do you? Care for me?”

“What if I am a jinx?” she asked.

James Potter’s voice was thick with emotion, with desire, with… pleading. “I don’t care. Do you care for me, even a smidge?”

And through the boards of the dock, Severus Snape saw Lily Evans face. The answer was there already. Her lips parting to answer, curling into the word
yes and he couldn’t stand to hear it.

REDUCTO!”

Rosier’s face was one of pure shock as the dock directly above them exploded - a piece of wood hitting Severus Snape in the forehead - and James Potter flew through the air. Rosier looked at Snape, “What the hell are you thinking!” he hissed and he dove after him as Lily started screaming his name.

Severus went after Rosier and James Potter, he had to get some of James’s hair for the polyjuice or the whole plan would fall apart. He struggled to swim the meters to where they were, Rosier tugging Potter up out of the water, James struggling… and Severus Snape reached up and with a little dagger that had been in his pocket, he cut a fistful of James’s hair right off his head, a great clump that he shoved into a small purse and into his pocket. He pulled out the bottle of polyjuice and shoved a small bit of the hair into the bottle and drank it quickly, swallowing a great amount of it all at once in one great gulp, and feeling rather funny about his stomach as the potion went down.

Rosier hissed, “Go!” as Lily Evans was screaming “
accio James!” over and over, and waving her wand and she leaped into the water when he didn’t come to her and Severus swore as she disappeared beneath the surface and, forgetting his own fear of the water, he dove after her…

His features changed as he swam… he felt as though the water was melting his skin as it happened… it was the strangest feeling… and as the water pressure increased, he felt about for Lily and under the water she was feeling about for James and their fingers met and Severus grabbed onto her and she kicked off the ground, underwater reeds and plants wrapping about them, lashing at their legs… and they shot upward out of the water to the shore and onto the pebbles, dripping wet… Severus’s robes heavy and tight, buttons threatening to burst on his chest, which was much broader than it had ever been, and his hands… splayed upon the rocks beneath him… they were tanner than usual, his own pale pallor gone, replaced by James Potter’s healthy glow.

She was blurry… he could barely see her…

And then her face screwed up in concern, “James, you’re bleeding.”

“I’m what?” he asked, his voice sounding funny. Like James Potter.

“Bleeding.”

He reached up… felt the blood on his forehead… a cut from the exploding docks…

And the world went dark.