FIC -- Ars Magica: Bellum Umbrae, part the first

[cthulhuchan]

Title: Ars Magica: Bellum Umbrae
Rating: M+ for language, violence, and sexual situations over all, M for this section
Pairings: HP/SS, HG/VC, AD/MG, Others
Characters:
Overall: Harry Potter, Severus Snape, Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonegall, Hermione Granger, Vincent Crabbe, Pansy Parkinson, Draco Malfoy, Others.
This Section: Severus Snape, Albus Dumbledore
Warnings: None, really, except Albus is kind of scary.


This starts out a bit before the ending feast and the whole second part will be from Severus' point of view.

The fight with Voldemort is over. The fight for the Wizarding World has just begun.





Ars Magica

Secundus
Bellum Umbrae

“Harry Potter will remain my husband over my putrescent, moldering carcass!”

“Really, Severus, don’t you think that’s a bit extreme?”

Severus Snape glared at his erstwhile friend and mentor. “Extreme? Extreme? You marry me off without so much as a by your leave or a do-you-mind and you call this extreme? You, Albus, need to examine your priorities a bit more carefully.”

“Oh, honestly, Severus, can you not accept that what was done was done for your own good?”

“For Potter’s, more like. Magus Lucis Noctusque, for the love of all holy things! Protecting him is little better than bowing down to Voldemort!”

“Oh, and becoming Magus Umbrae Crepcusculique doesn’t suit you?”

“It’s hardly something I would have attempted on my own.” Snape snapped. “Christ, Albus.”

“Language my dear boy.” The mad twinkling of Dumbledore’s remaining eye faded slightly. “There’s no reason to blaspheme.”

It took iron control not to gape at the old man. “You must be joking.”

“Not at all, my dear boy.” A tin appeared out of nowhere, floating next to him. “Lemon sherbet?”

Snape swiped one from the exquisite little box, hating that Dumbledore knew of his small addiction as he popped it into his mouth. His eyes crossed and he spat it back out again, his mouth forming what he knew to be an extremely unattractive pucker.

“What in the seven hells was that?”

“Something Takahashi-san sent me from Japan. They’re called Super Lemons.” The old man grinned merrily behind his long grey beard, popping one into his mouth. “Coated, I believe, with some kind of acid.”

“No doubt,” Snape observed dryly as the hard candy was firmly crunched up by the headmaster’s carpet. “Quite the gift for the unsuspecting.”

“Oh, Minerva quite enjoyed them, really.”

“Imagine my utter astonishment.” It was no surprise that the bitter old hag would enjoy such a thing.

“There’s no reason to sneer, Severus. Filius nearly came unglued when he tried them.”

“You are a sadistic old bastard.”

“You’ve only just noticed?” Dumbledore laughed. “Your observational skills are a bit lacking then.”

“Oh, I’m well aquatinted with that particular aspect of your personality, Headmaster, although it doesn’t explain what was going on in that puerile assemblage of abscessed neurons you farcically call a brain when you sodding married me off to Harry fucking Potter. ”

“I believe, Severus, that you were the one doing the fucking, although I must admit that Harry seemed to enjoy it as well.”

“Albus!”

“Well, really, Severus, what were we supposed to do? Harry’s fury was all that stood between us and the Aurors and frankly, my dear boy, I do not see that sending you and your House to Azkaban was a viable option.”

“Much good staying here has done me!”

“You feel that you’ve gained nothing, dear boy?”

Snape hissed. “Harry’s gift to me being quite beside the point, old man --”

“I should hardly think so --”

“-- how could you condone him --” anguished green eyes “-- raping --” inexorable pleasure “-- me?”

“How indeed?” That remaining blue eye became shadowed. “How indeed could I condone him assaulting you and violating himself? How could I justify allowing you to brutally violate a child’s mind with bestial glee? How could I possibly absolve myself for training an ignorant, abused, untaught infant to be a weapon of war? How indeed, Severus?” That eye pierced him to the soul. “I don’t.”

Snape could not prevent the glittering astonishment that flared through him like the tail of a comet. He gaped openly at the Headmaster.

“There is no forgiveness for the things that I have done in the name of Light, my child, not when I have waded in blood and tears nigh unto drowning. Nor do I expect any.”

“That’s it? No prevarication, no excuses, no explanations?”

“What explanation would you like me to give you? There were few enough options at that moment and Harry’s power flowing in a riptide around him. I doubt he even realizes just how close he came to leveling the castle. I took the only one that would save us -- and save him.”

“The golden boy,” Snape sneered.

“My offering on the altar of the Fates. Blood for blood, a child of Gryffindor for a child of Slytherin.”

“It was not you who ripped away my choices.”

“No, I stole his instead. I could have silenced Cornelius and did not -- because I knew that he would force the issue.”

“You buggering whoreson! ”

“On whose behalf are you offended, Severus? Yours or Harry’s?”

“Bastard!”

“I assure you that my parents were wed, in much the same way that you married young Harry.” Dumbledore chortled. “You do know that for Irregular Marriages to bind there must be intent on both sides, do you not?”

“I certainly had no intention of marrying that dithering dunderhead.”

“Did you not, Severus? I seem to recall you confessing a certain attraction to the young man.”

“You got me drunk, you wanker.”

“I was under the impression that you quite enjoyed the faculty game of Truth or Dare at New Year’s.”

“I was obviously out of my sodding mind.”

“Well, I’ll admit that the Inhibition Inhibitor I added to the firewhiskey might’ve had something to do with it.”

“I thought you just wanted to see Minerva in her knickers.”

“My dear boy, I can see through more than just Invisibility Cloaks you know.” Dumbledore gestured at his new eye. “I have to admit that it is a great deal easier now, though.”

Snape paled. “Thank you for that startling insight into your painfully adolescent thought processes. I shall have to obliviate myself this evening for fear of that unsolicited image breeding nightmares in my subconscious.”

Dumbledore chuckled.

“It would serve you right if I told her.”

“Dear boy, do you really want to know the frequency with which she eschews essential parts of her wardrobe to make trysting all that much easier?”

“No.” Snape shuddered, trying to expunge the notion of Minerva McGonagall traipsing around the castle sans undergarments so that the Headmaster could toss her down upon the nearest available surface, or possibly up against a wall.

“Pity.”

“Do not tell me that you feel the need for testosterone-induced bragging about... shagging... the eminently proper Head of Gryffindor House.”

“All right, I won’t.” Dumbledore popped another Super Lemon into his mouth, grinning. “Filius is generally more amenable to such things in any case.”

There were things, Snape considered, that he really did not want to know about his colleagues.

Comments

[cydah.livejournal.com]

I love that your Albus loves playing with Severus' mind. So glad to see you continue this!

[mightierthan.livejournal.com]

*grins* Thank you. Glad you like it.

[joannindiw.livejournal.com]

*falls over laughing* The dialogue. The startling sincerity and acknowledgement of his cupibility (ok, you're inspiring me to use words I rarely do and can't really spell.. um, sorry?). The snark. Wonderful.

[mightierthan.livejournal.com]

Any inspiration to expanded vocabulary is, of course, a compliment of the highest order ;) I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[kateri-e.livejournal.com]

Oh my this is a great begining to the next part. I really love the whole series so far, its just so compelling and the writing is excellant

[mightierthan.livejournal.com]

Thank you :) I'm glad you liked it.