His Twenty-Eighth life

10. Uncovered by the Bargain

"You must let me do something to reward you, Severus."

The Dark Lord's voice was all around him, chilling the room. When Severus breathed out, he was more surprised not to see a cloud of his own cold breath than he should be. He turned away from the stones that felt as if they should be rimed with ice and gave a short bow. "My Lord, you have let me have my privacy and my brewing. There is nothing else I desire."

The moment he said the words, he knew they were the wrong ones.

The Dark Lord's shadow shifted in the flaring light of the torches. He passed close to Severus, staring at him so intently that Severus felt warning prickles and shudders run up his shoulders. "You will tell me what you mean by that," the Dark Lord whispered. "Nothing else you desire? Then you have no desire to serve me, either?"

Severus immediately fell to his knees. He could feel the Dark Mark on his arm, shifting, ready to burst into flame. He bowed his head. "I have that desire, my Lord," he whispered. "I thought you might be tired of me voicing it." That had happened at the last meeting, when the Dark Lord grew bored of Bellatrix's pronouncements of loyalty and cursed her for them.

For a moment, he thought it wouldn't work. Then one cold white hand came down and stroked his hair back from his forehead.

"You have a wish you would not speak. Speak it."

Severus nodded at once. "There is someone I wish vengeance on," he said. "Someone who once came close to transforming me into a werewolf. And as far as I know, he is not hidden behind the walls of Dumbledore's protection the way the Potters are. Or Black is," he added. The last thing Severus had known, Black was living in one of his ancestral homes, a place Severus dared not pursue him.

"You are speaking of Remus Lupin."

Severus shivered, but in truth, he should be used to the Dark Lord's near-omniscience by now. "Yes, my Lord."

The Dark Lord was silent for long enough that Severus wondered if he'd had plans of his own when it came to Lupin. But then he laughed softly, almost under his breath, and said, "It would be fitting. Tell me. How close was Lupin to the Potters? Is he still close enough that they would march to avenge him?"

"He was, at one time, James Potter's best friend after Black," Severus said slowly, remembering as hard as he could the news in what he now thought of as the final year of the war. The year my Lord took the Potter child. "But I know that the Potters haven't worked with him or let him visit for a long time. I think they believed Lupin was the one who would betray them if he could at one point."

"Based on what evidence?"

"He is a werewolf, my Lord. A Dark creature. They might have heard word that you had recruited Fenrir Greyback, and assumed other werewolves would follow in his path."

The Dark Lord sighed with chill joy. "And that is all that it would take to persuade Light wizards and witches to turn on something Dark. Of course." His delight made Severus shiver again, but this time, he could almost enjoy it. It sounded as though the Marauders would get the brunt of that delight. Not Lily.

"That Light wizards and witches...And you are sure that the Potters and Black are Light? There were rumors about Black, at one point."

"I am sure, my Lord. Black was raised with Dark magic, but he rejected it and the rest of his heritage to run away and live with Potter and serve the Order of the Phoenix. I have heard Bellatrix bragging as well that no true Black could ever betray his heritage," Severus added, and lifted his head to look the Dark Lord in the face, greatly daring. "But I think she was only boasting to soothe her hurt ego. Black trounced her in the last battle they fought against each other."