Chapter 22
After the door closed, Severus looked at the gold for a moment, thinking.
I only caught the surface of his thoughts, but that is not surprising. Lucius is a capable Occlumens, and I would not be shocked if he had other artefacts on him specifically to block Legilimency. He moved the coins into his pouch and headed upstairs. Even so, Lucius. you really do think in straight lines.
In the moment Malfoy had lost his composure, Severus had been there to catch it. The plan had surfaced clearly: steal the recipe, produce the potion independently. In a war like this one, that was the fastest path to a fortune, and Lucius was not too proud to take it. But he also did not want to damage his relationship with Severus, so he had let the thought go almost immediately and settled on the next best option: analyse the samples Severus had given him and try to work backward to the formula. Severus had of course anticipated exactly that and had added something to both potions to make the ingredients unidentifiable.
The Strengthening Potion he had not even considered protecting. One dose would not change much in the broader picture, and it would teach Malfoy a useful lesson about trying to be clever with him.
By the time Severus was heading to his room for the night it was close to ten. He had not even crossed the threshold when he registered someone entering the building below.
"What is it with all of you, showing up at night?" He turned around and went back downstairs toward the kitchen, since that was where whoever it was had decided to make themselves at home.
He walked in and his right eye twitched.
"You cannot be serious."
A large greenish-brown snake was draped across the floor in front of him, head buried in the open refrigerator, which ran not on electricity but on the Thermo Charm.
The snake pulled its head out at the sound of his voice and hissed at him, showing its fangs.
"There are too many snakes in my life lately." He muttered it to himself as a kind of observation, waved a hand, and turned back toward the stairs. "When you are done, close it and leave the way you came in."
And he genuinely did go back to his room, leaving the snake to stare after him in what could only be described as stunned indignation. After a moment it hissed something under its breath and returned to the refrigerator.
The next morning began, as had become normal, with a large breakfast. In the company of the snake.
He had not thrown it out. Partly because he felt sorry for it, but also because one look had been enough to tell him it was not really a snake at all. It was a person under a curse. Even in his old world, transformative curses were not unusual, and most of them eventually became something the wizard could work with, even use to their advantage, once they understood the change. This case was different. She had been in snake form for too long. Her thinking was shifting, her magical core adapting to the new body, and even Alan in his prime might no longer be able to fully restore her.
The other reason he let her stay was the loneliness that had been quietly gnawing at him lately, which he was just beginning to acknowledge. And she was unobtrusive: she found a corner of the room and watched his training without interfering. He did not relax completely around her, because he had no reason yet to trust her, but he did not send her away.
Closer to lunch, after finishing a set of sword movements, he tossed the blade back into his bag and sat on the floor, pulling out enough food to properly replenish himself.
"Come here." He beckoned the snake over. She narrowed her gaze and slithered toward him, eyes on the roast chicken. "That is for you." He nodded, and took a leg for himself. "I almost forgot." A necklace with a small black snake appeared in his hand, and he put it on. She watched him with a puzzled expression that was entirely too intelligent for a snake. "Tell me, how did you end up like this?"
She had clearly not expected to be here long. This man is completely out of his mind. What kind of wizard practises with a sword instead of spells? But instead of a hiss, Severus heard a voice, distinctly female and rather pleasant, and he smiled as she recoiled sharply.
"He is completely insane," she said, baring her fangs. "Stop looking at me. And do not come any closer."
"There is no need to be nervous. I am quite normal. I am only a little surprised."
"Now he is pretending to understand me."
"I do understand you, actually." He said it evenly, and nodded toward the necklace. "Thanks to this."
She went absolutely still and stared at him.
"You are not lying?"
"No. So calm down." He reached out and patted the top of her head. She narrowed her gaze and hissed in immediate reflexive displeasure, but after a few seconds she forced her animal side back down.
"I want to talk!" Her eyes were bright with it.
"Then let us talk."
Between sessions he spoke with her, and what he learned was not very much, at least not the things that mattered. She kept herself guarded and could not quite open up yet. He understood and did not push.
Her name was Nagini. She had been human once, but a hereditary curse from her mother's line had worked on her gradually, changing her into what Severus was looking at now. Before finding her way here, she had lived at Hogwarts for a time, but eventually grew tired of it and spent decades wandering. A few days ago she had arrived in Diagon Alley, hungry, and let herself into his house. She was not lying, but she was holding something back. He left it alone.
After another set of movements, he decided to call it a day. It was late, and maintaining a proper routine was essential for the potion to work at its best.
"You still have not told me why you train with a sword," Nagini said, following him with evident curiosity.
"I am going to have to face a creature whose skin nearly completely blocks magical attacks."
She said nothing for a moment, though something moved in her voice when she finally did.
"But why does it have to be you?"
"Because it does," Severus said, and carried on, ignoring the disgruntled hiss that followed. "Are you going to follow me everywhere?" He added it with a smile as he reached up and pulled off his shirt, and Nagini's gaze narrowed, moving across his broad chest in a way she clearly had not intended to make obvious.
"Are you embarrassed to undress in front of an ordinary snake?"
"That problem has never troubled me," he said, stepping out of his trousers, and barely kept his laughter in as he watched her slide rapidly to the other side of the room. "You have spent a long time in that body. But inside you still think of yourself as human."
A few days later, in the evening, after a training session that had been considerably less boring than usual largely because of Nagini, Severus was heading toward the shower when someone began hammering on the front door.
He sighed and went to answer it. He already knew who it was, and Nagini followed at his heels.
"All right, all right. I am coming." He opened the door, and Lucius swept inside, grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and put his face very close to Severus's.
"What have you done to me?!"
"Lucius. What happened?" Severus asked, taking in the gaunt, hollowed face, which bore an uncomfortable resemblance to his own reflection after the baptism.
"You lied! You never said it would hurt LIKE THIS!"
"I mentioned pain, did I not? Or have you already forgotten: 'Me, the future Head of the Malfoy family, afraid of pain'?"
"Not that kind! And have you seen my face? How am I supposed to be seen in public looking like this?"
"Eat more and train through it. Two or three weeks and you will not only be back to normal, you will be better. You can see the results, surely." Lucius squinted at him and then actually noticed, for the first time, that Severus now stood as tall as he did.
"You genuinely think you get results like this for free?" Severus said easily, slipping out of his grip and sitting at the bar. "Besides, it will do you good. Spells can be blocked, but they can also be dodged. Did that never occur to you?"
Under Lucius's expression, Nagini slithered up and rested her head in Severus's lap. He scratched behind where an ear would have been, as casually as though this was something that happened every evening.
"Something wrong?"
Lucius stared.
"Oh, forgive my manners." Severus smiled. "This is Nagini. My companion."
Nagini hissed.
Goosebumps moved down Malfoy's back.
"I. I see. I should probably be going." He met Severus's gaze for just a moment, and cold sweat broke across his spine.
"Lucius. Stay. I will make tea. We can discuss whether you managed to work out the formula."
Lucius shuddered.
"I have no idea what you are talking about. Why would I do that?" He fumbled, caught himself, and pulled a small notebook from his pocket. "Here are the test results."
"Thank you. Though you should stay for tea anyway."
"I think I should—"
Nagini's gaze locked on him and she hissed, long and low.
"Of course! Tea sounds wonderful! I happen to have a completely free evening!" Lucius said immediately.
"Excellent. Sit down. I will get the set."
"Can I come with you?"
"Nagini will not bite you. I think."
It was a full half hour before Lucius was finally able to leave. The moment he was outside he Disapparated to Malfoy Manor.
Why was I afraid? he thought, standing in the familiar entrance hall, trying to make sense of it. It was Severus and a snake. One of them is someone I have known for years. So why, for just a moment in there, did I see something else entirely?
He could not let go of it: Severus's gaze, cold and absolutely unhurried, with Nagini completing the picture in a way that had reached somewhere deeper than thought. Even standing hundreds of kilometres away, he still felt it.
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