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“Has it seemed to that you that the Dark Lord has been acting strange?’

Severus turned around to stare at “Professor Dawlish” as he came to a stop in the doorway of Severus’s classroom. Barty must consider this serious indeed, to seek out Severus when he was still cleaning up after some of the dunderheads’ mistakes.

And to speak so outside a Privacy Charm was the height of foolishness.

But then Severus saw the shimmer of a charm around “Dawlish’s” head after all, and he managed to relax. “No,” he said. “That is, I did wonder why he has not been launching raids and announcing his return the way he did in the first war, but our Lord has made it clear to me that I am not to question him.”

“It bothers me.”

Severus blinked, and blinked again as he watched Barty prowl into the classroom. Barty poked at a long-lasting stain on a table with his wand, and it faded a little. Severus would have to ask about his nonverbal Cleaning Charms.

“He said something to me last night that was unusual.”

“Do tell. If our Lord would allow you to.”

“He said I could share it.” Barty raised his eyes, and at the moment, Severus could almost see the real, cold, gleaming blue color behind Dawlish’s brown. “He said he is considering how the real power lies in esoteric magic and rituals. Rituals that he can’t share with me, but that he’s spending all his time performing.”

“Oh.” Severus could think of little else to say.

“Do you think,” Barty whispered, leaning closer, “that the Dark Lord has—strayed from his path? That he might still be suffering from the consequences of the years he spent as a wraith?”

“It would be possible,” Severus said, and decided that he might as well throw out a guess of his own to see how Barty would react to it. “But I think it just as likely that he is seeking power to make his ritually-constructed body more natural and resilient.”

Barty paused. “Really?”

Severus nodded. “It cannot be comfortable to be bound inside such a construct,” he murmured. “But at the same time, our Lord would not seek a return to a mortal and vulnerable body. He would seek a perfect blend of both, one that would allow him to experience all the benefits of embodiment and immortality at the same time.”

Barty relaxed with a long sigh. “I should have thought of that. And he might not have told us because…”

“Because he is reminded of his own vulnerability as he contemplates it. Rest assured, I think he will involve us when he is advanced in his research and convinced of his own theoretical success.”

Barty half-smiled. “You’re good at this, Severus.”

“Good at reassuring you?”

“At being a Death Eater. At understanding our Lord’s mind. Why did you ever give it up?”

“I have told you why.”

“I just can’t fathom dropping everything that made you yourself for a Mudblood.”

Severus shrugged. He was deep in his Occlumency now, ice filling his veins as he reached out to cast his own Cleaning Charms on a ring that a Hufflepuff’s cauldron had left behind. “At the time, it felt like I was balancing my past against my present, and the past was stronger. Now they are one.”

“The kid.”

“Yes.”

“Who would you choose, if you had to? Harry or our Lord?”

Severus raised his head and looked slightly down his nose at Barty. “I cannot conceive of our Lord harming Harry,” he said coolly. “He has sworn an oath that Harry will never have to take the Mark. And Harry is…impressive, for his age, but nothing compared to our Lord in magical skill. There would be, could be, no contest between them.”

“So you say.”

“So I do.”

Barty lingered and needled him some more, but Severus ignored him and kept cleaning. In the end, Barty retreated, and Severus took a deep breath and allowed his own curiosity to come floating up from the depths of his Occlumency.

What was the Dark Lord doing? Severus believed his own guess could be the truth, but it was only a guess.

Could he perhaps fear another confrontation like the one that had destroyed his previous body? Could he be searching for some method to make sure that neither Albus nor Harry nor anyone else could ever harm him again? It would make sense with his having ordered Severus to develop a potion to keep his Horcruxes invulnerable.

But the Dark Lord did not have to make sense.

*

“Severus!”

Severus came flying out of sleep with his wand in his hand. The voice snapping through the Floo was Poppy’s. Other than Albus, she was the only one who had access to his private fireplace.

“Please, come quickly.” Poppy’s eyes were wide, with something that Severus thought was both fear and anger. “Bring Blood-Replenishers, Pain-Killers, the nerve regenerator that you invented…”

Severus swallowed, even as he nodded through the rest of her list and let his Occlumency capture it for him. Then he was standing up and striding towards the robes that he had had draped over a chair for convenience’s sake of putting them on the next day. He flung them over his head and reached for the door that led to his private Potions stores.

The nerve regenerator was only needed after a bout of Cruciatus.

If the Dark Lord tortured him…

But by the time Severus got to the hospital wing, he had once again settled himself into his normal cold. He would have to heal Harry first, and get his revenge on the Dark Lord later.

Poppy was standing next to a figure tucked under blankets so Severus couldn’t see identifying features. But he could make out the size, and he relaxed. This was an adult, not Harry.

“You have them all?” Poppy asked, but didn’t even wait for him to answer before she snatched the vials from Severus and began forcing them down her patient’s throat.

Severus made some vague noise of concern, his eyes locked on the figure. The first potion Poppy simply spelled into the victim’s stomach, but she had to roll him on his back to pour the next one down his throat, and Severus saw his face.

He nearly swore.

Dawlish.

“What happened?” Severus whispered, even as he motioned a few of the vials he had floating in the air forwards so that Poppy could grab them more easily. He sat down on a chair not far away, staring.

“Something brushed the wards on the door to the hospital wing, and I woke up because I thought it was a student with a late-night stomachache or something of the kind.” Poppy didn’t look up from continuing to ruthlessly spell the potions into Dawlish’s—Barty’s—stomach. “When I opened the door, he was sprawled there. He managed to tell me that he’d been put under the Cruciatus before he passed out.”

“The curse on the position?”

“What else could it be? But he didn’t tell me if he was out investigating something in the Forest, or someone broke through the wards and cursed him.”

Severus grimaced. It would make sense that the curse could ensure Barty ran into an intruder or that the wards were weakened in a specific place he wouldn’t think to check.

But he did not think it was that.

The question remained, however: why would the Dark Lord have tortured his most loyal follower?

*

“I asked him one question too many.”

Severus lowered the old edition of the Prophet he had been reading. Since people coming and going from the hospital wing didn’t lend him the privacy or the silence he preferred to read books, he had thought to scour the papers for any signs of Death Eater attacks and the like that he might have missed.

“What do you mean?” Severus asked quietly, raising privacy wards around them with a wave of his hand.

“When did you start being able to do that wandless?” Barty followed the motion of his hand with feverish eyes.

“I have been practicing at it more often since I began tutoring Harry,” Severus said calmly. “And I had had the impression that our Lord would encourage you to ask questions, since you did it more respectfully than many.”

Barty laughed, a rasping noise that sank into silence after a moment, maybe because he heard how bad it sounded. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back against the pillow, his throat working. Severus Summoned one of the glasses that sat on a nearby shelf and conjured water to fill it.

“Thanks,” Barty rasped, and sipped from the glass. He sent a long look towards the back of the hospital wing.

“Poppy and all the students here are asleep,” Severus said softly. “I made sure of it.”

Barty nodded and then rolled over so that he could look at Severus fully. Despite the fact that he still wore Dawlish’s features, Severus could see Barty’s intelligence shining through as he had the other day when Barty was asking Severus what he thought the Dark Lord wanted.

The intelligence. And the pain, and the betrayal.

“He summoned me so that we could talk about more long-term plans to turn some of the students to our side. Harry’s done a good job, but Nott and Malfoy are the only ones who will definitely be taking the Mark so far. The others are wavering.”

“Go on.”

“I asked the Dark Lord what he ultimately planned to do with those students—for example, if he was going to have them try to start eliminating professors who were the most sympathetic to Dumbledore, or even Dumbledore himself. He told me that he didn’t want to answer, so I tried to ask the same question in a different way, about what I should tell Harry his responsibilities are. And he drew his wand and cursed me.”

“The Cruciatus first?”

“Yes.” Barty swallowed. “He’s—he’s never subjected me to it before.”

Severus controlled his reaction. Barty probably already knew how special he was, and the loss of that specialness would have hit him more than Severus’s questions or jealousy, in any case. He nodded slightly. “Please go on.”

“Then he tried a few minor curses that I suppose made me bleed. I don’t—really remember that part. Then I was stumbling towards the school, and I thought I couldn’t Apparate, but I suppose I managed. Or perhaps he Apparated me here.”

That might have been the case, Severus thought. It was hard to imagine the Dark Lord stricken by remorse, but he might not have meant to go as far as he did, or hurt Barty as badly. “I see. Do you believe that he will hurt you at your next summons?”

“I don’t know.”

Poppy came out to scold Severus for “bothering her patient,” but Severus stood and apologized and made his way out of the hospital wing, dropping every trace of the Privacy Charm as he did so. When he turned around, he caught Barty’s gaze, and he could hear the plea there as though the man had been standing next to him.

Find out why he did this. Please.

Severus inclined his head, knowing that he could promise nothing aloud and that Barty wouldn’t ask for such a promise in any case, and went his way.