Keeping The Dark Lord (on his toes)

Chapter - 32. Blood of red and gold ( 31 July 1995 )

~Severus~

Cold fear pulsed through him as he saw Dimitri collapse, but he ignored the need to rush to his godson’s side and forced himself to remove the threat first as he saw how Voldemort held him close. He silently cursed himself for not checking Dimitri over after the woman bumped into him. He’d known something wasn’t right, but like a fool, he’d believed that Dimitri would handle it or that Death had warned him. Dimitri himself had once warned him that he didn’t know about everything that would happen.

He hurriedly removed his potions kit after pushing the woman to her knees and fell onto his own next to Dimitri. He tried to place a bezoar in Dimitri's mouth, but whatever it was that had been injected into his body had made his saliva almost acidic and the bezoar didn’t last long enough to counter it.

He knew that potions wouldn’t work so he tried another one, but that one disintegrated even faster and he frantically reached for another before a hand on his wrist stopped him and his head snapped up with a cutting remark, only to catch the look on Sirius’ face.

The man was looking in Salazar’s direction and Severus felt his breath catch as he turned his head to do the same. Salazar’s gray eyes now looked stormy and Severus watched in awe as his power manifested around him as streaks of electricity that danced in the air around him.

Salazar lightly hovered a hand over Dimitri’s chest and closed his eyes as he visibly started guiding his shadows into Dimitri’s body to try and purge the poison. There were gasps of amazement at the show of power and Severus would have been tempted to block the image of his mate from the rest of the people in the room if Dimitri’s life hadn’t been in danger.

At first, it looked like it was working, but after 20 minutes it became clear that it was only slowing the poison down and Severus watched in worry as perspiration started to form on his mate’s skin. He stepped forward and grasped the man’s hand, only to grit his teeth as pins and needles rushed up through his arm and into his body. It wasn’t painful, but only just barely.

Salazar seemed to be in some kind of trance as he didn’t seem to realize what to was doing. The feeling became even more intense until Sirius hurriedly placed a hand over Severus’ to help. This effectively seemed to bring Salazar out of his trance and Severus saw the elder man glancing between him and Sirius in horror as he paled and quickly pulled his power back in.

For a moment, it felt like the very air itself had been deprived of oxygen, and Severus and Sirius quickly leaned forward to catch Salazar as he fell forward.

~Sirius~

He felt hopeless as he watched as first Severus and then Salazar tried to heal Dimitri, but nothing worked. He mentally rushed through every scrap of knowledge he had, but it was a painful realization that nothing he knew would be able to help Dimitri in any way. A cracking sound echoed through his ears and he looked down to find that the protective bracelet around Dimitri’s wrist had snapped in half.

A furious growl followed by an anguished scream made his head snap up and he felt pure terror mixed with awe as he watched Voldemort visibly tear the witch’s soul from her body.

He knew a similar curse. Had even stumbled upon it once during his days as an Auror. It allowed the caster to remove a person’s soul from their body so that their minds wouldn’t seize under great amounts of torture done to their body, while they still feel every single moment of it, but what Voldemort had just done, was through pure anger and magic alone.

He watched as Death grasped the witch’s soul by the throat before an eerie whistle echoed through the air and a red portal opened up in the middle of the room. Everything was silent for a few moments before a howl echoed inside the room and two monstrous hounds appeared. They seemed to be held together by fiery sinew and blackened bones and Sirius’ gaze snapped to the witch’s soul as she started begging for her life to be spared but to no avail.