Mulciber

"I’m not playing the hero, idiot. I’m getting her out and wiping her memory as soon as I get her to the door of the hospital wing — including the section where I got her out. Replacing it with an image of Potter saving her or something. If I wanted to play the hero, I wouldn’t be wiping her memory at all." He couldn’t really take the blame for Alek taking Lily, and Lily wouldn’t blame him if she knew, he was certain — but he didn’t want to risk it either. Not when it could get him expelled.

"If she remembers either of us, we could both get expelled, you great fucking idiot. You knew, you knew how I felt about her. We’re not even friends anymore.” Oh, how bitter those words tasted on his tongue — and they wouldn’t be again after this, he wouldn’t let them be. “We’ve not been friends for a long while now. It’s not about getting to be the hero. It’s keeping us — both of us — from getting expelled because of your stupidity. And to think, I was going to give you another batch of potion soon.”

"I wasn't doing anything stupid. If you hadn't gotten out of me where she's at, she would have died like the rest, and no one would have known a thing. No, it's you who wanted it to be this way, Severus. You realize that, right? I know I'm not the brightest wand in the bunch, Sev, but I see that this would have went down just as the others had- with no one finding her, and her dying by my hand, if you hadn't stepped in. You want to save her. You're not friends anymore, but she means something to you." 

He stood up then, staring his friend down before shaking his head. "What a shame. I thought you were better than this. Well, if you've had your fill of questions, I'm going back up to our dorm and get some sleep." He scooped up all of his belongings, and without waiting for Severus to even attempt to defend himself, he turned and went down the stairs to the bedrooms.

"If you touch her again, if you even consider touching her again, it won’t be Veritaserum that I mix into your tea next time, do you understand me? You will not see it coming, it will not be able to be traced back to me, but you will not wake up. You will not survive if you touch her again. Do you understand what I’m telling you?"

The words were bitter and angry, but they should ring true; Severus had no qualms about threatening Alek, not now that he knew what he had done to Lily. Not now that he knew how little he actually mattered to the other man. If he were less concerned over his other friendships, he would have hexed Alek on the spot, turned him in, admitted to making the potion that had lured Lily in — but Alek was not his only ally. And Severus would need friends soon.

"What will you do now?" he asked, letting his eyes slide back up to gaze at his friend. He knew he had made a mistake, but he didn't regret it. His friends were always angry with him, why not add one more to the pile?

"You'll save her, I assume. Be the hero. You won't let her know I had anything to do with this, because if she was aware, then you would also be in trouble and she would hate you forever. Then you could never be her hero, you filthy mudblood lover."

The question that followed, though, made him sigh, cross his arms over his chest and look away as though in consideration. “If I turned you in, I would go down just as hard as you do. The potions were from me, that makes me an accomplice, and I can’t afford that, Alek. I cannot afford you being caught, I have too many more things to do here. God, sometimes you’re an idiot, you know that?”

The question was rhetorical, but Severus kept speaking regardless, to keep Alek from needing to answer. “Is she still living? Are any of them still living at this point? If she is, I’m getting her out. I’ll mind wipe her, but I’m getting her out. You knew, you knew I wouldn’t want you going after her, what the hell were you thinking?”

"Yes, she's alive. She's the only one, but she's alive. I wasn't thinking about you when I chose my victims, Severus. I was thinking about the ones that needed to die. The ones that were proud of their mudblood status. I chose Lily because she's so damn proud of what she is, and she needed to die. She would have brought me some sort of fame, if I had killed her. The newspapers are already giving me fame from stealing her. I just really wanted her dead. I was tired of seeing her face." 

He shrugged. That was the best answer he could come up with. He was tired of seeing Lily Evans around, and he wanted the fame that killing her would bring him. He didn't care what Severus thought, even though they were friends. He had always been a bit of a loner, that one. 

"That, mate, was Veritaserum. You can’t lie to me now, no matter what I ask you, for the next, oh… Hour or so. If I have my timing correct." And, much like his potion making, his timing was almost always spot on. It was a talent he prided himself on, normally. Right now, though, quite a bit rode on his accuracy.

"Now. To the more important question. Where is Lily Evans. And exactly what have you done to her?"

"I left her in the Room of Requirement. I tortured her, Sev. A few cutting spells, a few bleeding spells, a few burning spells, a few torture spells, you get the drift, yeah?" He was speaking quietly, looking up at his friend as innocently as he could manage. 

"Are you going to turn me in?"

Anger leaked through in his words, as frank and simple as he meant them to be, and Severus took a couple of deep breaths to calm it before leaning his elbows forward on his knees. He needed to keep calm, test the potion, and ensure that only he heard Alek’s answers.

"Tell me your full name, birthday, and what you have hidden in the foot of your trunk, behind the robes and to the left of the Remembrall that your mother hides in your trunk every year."

But then Severus was talking again, not answering his question, but instead demanding answers of his own. "You already know the answer to all of that, though." Alek found himself sighing, "My name is Alek Mulciber, my birthday is in ten days, and that would be the stuffed cat I've had since I was a baby. My mother didn't even give me that Remembrall. I stole it from her. She would never give me anything." 

Swirling the clear liquid into the coffee cup in front of him, Severus tried to force the angry tension out of his muscles. He knew, as soon as he’d read the article; Alek was the one who had taken Lily, he was the one who had taken her just like he had with the rest of the Muggleborns. He knew that whatever Alek was doing, he had done to a half dozen other students already, and Lily wouldn’t be let to survive it in the end.

And Severus’s own potions had helped with that.

Getting to his feet, Severus walked out of the Potions dungeon, returning to the Common Room, where he spotted Alek working on his homework near the corner of the room. Walking over, he set the tea in front of his friend, taking the chair across from him. “Drink that,” he ordered, not giving a greeting aside from that. “The whole cup. Drink it. It’s a Pepper-Up Potion, I need to make sure it works. It worked on me, but I need a second tester.”

"What do those potions even do?" he asked, "Wait, it's not going to kill me, is it? I should have asked that first. But it doesn't sound like a bad potion." 

He pushed the cup back toward Severus and stared at him, not realizing until now that he seemed angry. "Oh no, you've poisoned me, haven't you? I'm going to die now. You're angry over something, and I'm going to die." 

Yes. Yes, Peter Pettigrew was too cowardice to stand up for himself (or anyone else, for that matter) and he was fully and completely aware of that. That was why he didn’t answer (as admitting would be only embarrassing and stupid, and denying pathetic and silly, as it was a fact), remaining silent with jaws squeezed together tightly. He lacked the talent, the guts, the everything one needed to duel someone who not only seemed more experienced, but also sure of his actions — confident (a trait he’d never really understood). 

However, he wasn’t too much of a coward to run. Or maybe he was coward enough to run, he didn’t really know nor did he care. A scream/cry/plead left his lips once again as the curse hit him, instincts kicking in, thoughts not completely sane but logical. Get up, get out, use a shield if necessary and just run. Don’t think about what James, Sirius or Remus would do. Don’t think about their situations. Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think.