#pctioneer

Lucius sweeps into the room, his face fixed in a thin line. He sweeps his traveling cloak off of his back and onto the table the Healers use for treatment, striding directly towards the man in the middle of the room. Severus looks . . . fine. He's always peaky and pale. Lucius can ascertain no obvious damage or brutal maiming. That means something worse, of which there are any number of increasingly fatal options. "What happened?" He demands, getting close enough to get a good look. "I was told the situation was critical." He cancelled a meeting to be here.

The tall figure in the chair sighed and leaned his head forward to rub his forehead on his hands. His elbows rested on his knees and his hands were closed in front of him. He was frustrated, not at Snape, the fact that the man didn’t remember him wasn’t his problem. It wasn’t like his pride had been hurt because they weren’t actually friends. He only had one friend among them and it had never been this man. No, the annoyance was in the fact that people had been right about his memory being screwed and that he had been right by saying that it would make no difference if he saw him or not. 

But then the Dark Lord had insisted, had sent his best curse breaker to his favourite pet to check him out and see if there was something the healers had missed, something hidden that perhaps only he could notice. A silent string of curses left him, not spoken in English but in his native tongue of Russian before he leaned back in the chair and crossed one long leg over the other. his elbows now on the armrests and his fingers still interlocked. “I’m here because a mutual friend asked me to,” he said. Or rather insisted on. “I know you’ve had many visitors lately, claiming this and that, trying to force you to remember things. That’s not why I’m here,” it was not a false claim. he hadn’t come to force him to do anything, he’d merely come to observe and maybe put things right if he was able to.

           Taking the vial carefully, Arthur lets out a small hum as he stares at the liquid, uneasiness settling deep in his stomach. “Thank you, Severus,” he practically whispers, a frown forming on his face. “I know you’re busy. I appreciate your time for making this,” he adds. Ever since the snake bit him, he’s needed a potion since leaving St. Mungo’s. However, being unable to afford it --- well, he is thankful, indeed, even if his children do stare, distrustfully.

His skin was burning, it always burned. It was never-ending torment and it was all happening in his head. Theo knew, reasonably, that he was fine. He was alive. But staring at his arm, staring at the mark that laid there, made him want to scratch and claw at his own skin. When Theo closed his eyes, he was still there, screaming as his father offered him up like a lamb to the slaughter. It was the first time since he was a child that he ever screamed around his father and wasn’t silenced by a curse. 

The only thing that felt heavier than the mark on his arm was the Head Boy badge that Profes-Headmaster Snape had given him. Because his head of house was the Headmaster now.

“I can’t do this.” Theo murmured, running his hands through his hair as he paced in the Headmaster’s office. He looked calm, too calm. A mask was what he clearly wore, hiding his emotions from the world. Even from Snape, the person who he was trying to convince to take the badge away from him.

"N-not you."

"Nightshade," Narcissa says. "As you requested." There has to be someone else he could get it from, but perhaps he wants no record at all of the controlled ingredient she offers him in a small pouch. "I keep some here." With Lucius's darker artifacts, in case she needs it. It's an ingredient in quite a few of the poisons she brews from time to time.

Severus

“How long have you been down here?”

“I AM GOING TO BE A GOD, SEVERUS.” green eyes stare into onyx as he leans in, “you joined me in hopes of enlightenment did you not?” will you disappoint me like everyone else? he moves away and places his hands behind his back. “don’t act stupid, severus. it’s ugly on your face.”