Chapter Text
Severus realizes he’s in too deep on a Saturday evening, when the Dark Lord is as angry as he is charismatic, rage oozing through the air in a dark sludge, spells flying in rapid, flashing succession towards the object of his ire.
At this point, the Muggle is almost unrecognizable, more a mess of groaning flesh than human. It’s a testament to the Dark Lord’s skill that he’s still alive, remaining hand clenching uselessly at the wine-dark rug.
Severus nurses the deep, stinging cut on his upper arm, punishment for his failure to brew enough Draught of Living Death – among other, more unsavory potions. He knows this, the show, is punishment for him too. No matter how much the thin silver of the mask hides, the Dark Lord manages to peer into his eyes and see the truth, despite the carefully constructed and Occluded walls around his mind.
This is a punishment. This is a threat.
His stomach turns, and he gnaws at his cheek to quell the rising tide of bile. His hands, though, are carefully steady. Warm blood carves a trail down his arm, sticking the thick robes to his skin, dripping off a pale fingertip to the same dot on the floor.
Eventually, though, the Dark Lord has had enough. With a careful flourish and a final spurt of blood, the Muggle goes limp on the floor; in the next breath, he’s been Vanished, the slowly growing stain on the once-pristine carpet the only testament to his existence.
“Severus,” the Dark Lord purrs, “Look at me.”
Only then does Severus lift blank eyes from the floor, meeting his Lord’s. His flinch is mental, not physical, but the Dark Lord’s upper lip curls in a dark sort of amusement, anyway.
His eyes glimmer, a dangerously keen wit layered under a thin veneer of madness. “You will have what I need next time we meet, yes?”
“Yes, my Lord,” Severus says, loud in the silence. He doesn’t know how he’ll get the ingredients, expensive as they are. He doesn’t know where he’ll find the pure copper cauldron he needs, with his job at the bookstore barely enough to cover his rent. He doesn’t even know the next time the Dark Lord will call. It could be next month, or it could be tomorrow. There’s a threat in the Dark Lord’s eyes nonetheless.
The Dark Lord hums. “You’re all dismissed.”
With that, he is gone with a sharp crack, and the anti-Apparition wards fall. The swish of robes on cobblestone is muted, but loud enough to snap Severus’ eyes from the spot where the Dark Lord was just a moment ago.
His throat works without sound. He knows that if he turns around, eyes wild, to ask for help, he will be rejected.
The Dark Lord’s punishment for failure is steep. The Dark Lord’s punishment for assisting a failure is even steeper.
He turns sharply and reappears in his dingy studio. He can’t suppress a shiver as the cold of the night air finally reaches through the thin veil of indifference that has settled across his mind.
The darkness in his flat is oppressive and threatening. He fumbles blindly for a switch before realizing that he hasn’t paid the electricity bill in three months.
That, like a mallet to a crab shell, is what shatters his numbness.
His mask clatters to the floor as he falls to his knees in front of the toilet and retches. Nothing comes up but bile, tinged pink – he’s torn his throat screaming again.
He rests his head on the cool porcelain. Sweat has begun beading his temples as adrenaline fades and shock sets in, but his stomach is turning too violently to risk leaving his post.
He retches twice more before it settles. His throat burns.
Laboriously, he drags himself to the sink. It’s not more than a step and a half; his flat is barely big enough to spin in a circle once he’d put in a bed and a dresser. He swishes his mouth with the cold, metallic water twice before peeling the blood-soaked sleeve off of his arm, lighting his wand to assess the damage.
He grimaces. A quick healing spell isn’t worth the Dark Lord’s wrath, should he discover that Severus has undone his work. It’ll need stitches.
He fumbles in the mirror cabinet for a second before pulling out his suture kit with a trembling hand. At least the Dark Lord had the mercy to slice his right arm, but then again, maybe he hadn’t known Severus was left-handed.
Either way, small mercies.
The prick of the needle is minor, but the rough pull of thread through skin has him gritting his teeth. It takes eight sutures before the wound is closed and he can rinse the remaining flaking blood off his arm.
He shrugs the rest of the robe off. It pools on the floor, gathering dust in the wet hems. He’ll get to that tomorrow. For now, he toes off his shoes and rummages through the dresser, pulling out something clean and black, tying it around his arm.
He doesn’t really register collapsing on the bed, but he does register looking up at the ceiling. Water damage stains it red in uneven whorls.
Exhaustion tugs at his eyelids, but when he closes them, his racing mind forces them open again.
He’s already cut his diet down to instant noodles. He has no hobbies to spend his time or money on, and his meager savings, squirreled under his bed in a magically-sealed tin can, won’t be enough to cover the ingredients he needs.
His eyes fall shut. His boss is stingy with shifts, and he’s already begged all the extra ones he can this month. None of the other followers will help him, even the ones who currently bask in the Dark Lord’s tenuous favor.
He’s got no friends to speak of. Even before he was sworn to servitude, his classmates had shunned him for the patch on his robes and his Housemates had turned their noses up at his greasy hair and patchy robes.
Only Lucius had been willing to help. It was Lucius who had bought him Potions tome after Potions tome, who had plied him with ingredients and robes that didn’t let the dungeon chill in, who had turned the sneers on his peers’ faces into razor-sharp grins.
His pride had reared and snapped at him, at the time, but it was such a welcome relief to be useful that he had shoved it away. He bore their barbed little comments and Lucius’ weaselly, condescending smile with a thick skin and hunched shoulders, hidden behind a cloud of colored vapor from whatever potion he was working on.
With Lily gone and Potter’s torment more frequent than ever, he’d lost himself in his work. And eventually, the Dark Lord had noticed his wicked little potions and sharp little spells and the way he stayed at Hogwarts every break.
And so Lucius had delivered him unto evil.
And then Lucius, as much the Dark Lord’s dog as Severus was Lucius’, had slunk away when the Dark Lord had demanded Severus learn independence until he had either the name or the money to contribute to the cause.
And without Lucius, without money, without any kind of support system, Severus slowly began sinking.
On a Saturday evening, silent tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes, hand shoved into his mouth muffle sobs as his arm stings and burns, Severus hits rock bottom.