A Wealth of Danger
Fandom: Harry Potter, Highlander
AU: Shadows and Shades
Series: Men of the Shadows
Word Count: 4663
Characters: Kronos, Severus Snape
Knockturn Alley is not a place to linger. There are people there most don’t care to meet.
Knockturn Alley is not a place to linger, even if you have influence – either with whoever the current Dark Lord is, or with the Ministry – and no one does who has anywhere to go. There are, though, differences for anyone with any ability at observation to notice. Those who scuttle, furtive and trying to hide, and edge out sideways onto Diagon Alley, sliding into the crowd as if they’ve never been anywhere else. Those who swagger and boast, and prefer to Apparate out or Floo out so no one actually knew they’ve been there.
And then there are those who make the locals hide, who don’t bother to hide what or who they are, nor try to project someone they aren’t. Those who assume they are right where they should be, who treat the alley like they do Diagon – just another place to shop, if with a different sort of shop. No one bothers them while they are in Knockturn, no one notices when they step from there into the more brightly-lit and socially-acceptable Diagon Alley. (Save perhaps one paranoid bastard who has more time on his hands than was strictly safe for anyone, and some far-too-suspicious dunderheads that Snape will be glad to be rid of as students.)
Rarely, though, does Snape see anyone truly new in that third category – either the flash-and-boast sort grow up, or the furtive sort stop trying too hard. The man who has stepped out of Borgin and Burke’s is unfamiliar, and behaves as if he belongs here, but he’s certainly not a local, nor any of those who inhabit the other two groups who frequent the alley. Snape wouldn’t forget the blue eyes that seem to miss nothing, nor the scar that bisects his right eye without the blow having destroyed the eye beneath. Or the clothing that’s more Muggle than not, worn properly and well.
He doesn’t bother to stop, or stare, or even to give outward sign that he’s noticed the man, and yet Snape has a suspicion the man has noticed him. Then again, half the people in the alley notice him – and most of those who do pretend not to. It will be interesting to see what this man does; if he does as most do, and pretends not to notice him, or if he attempts to make some sort of contact with Snape.
Snape continues down Knockturn toward the apothecary he uses to get some of the more exotic components of potions either one of his employers wants, though he can’t be certain the man will continue to remain in front of him – and therefore in Snape’s line of sight.
Not that he won’t be aware of him, as he’s not stupid enough to lose awareness of his surroundings, but there are subtle nuances to behavior that are not discernible when he can’t see the person he’s keeping aware *of*. Nuances that could warn him of danger before it became an attack, or perhaps other reasons, though he had little cause to worry for anything else. No one particularly cared to get that close to him unless it was to harm him – kill him, they likely thought, but it hadn’t been particularly successful on anyone’s part.
When the man turns down one of the side-alleys, Snape doesn’t bother to follow – the unnamed little alleys that branch off the two main streets of this part of Wizarding London create a warren that those unfamiliar with them can be lost in, and anyone, wary or unwary, can be ambushed in. Those who have a modicum of sense don’t stray down them without reasons that tend to involve dying if they don’t, even if the odds are even that they’ll be accosted or murdered in that warren.
The man, therefor, is either one of those who inhabits that warren and is one of the dangers, or he’s one of those foolish few who’ll go there without it being the absolute end of necessity. Either way, Snape doubts he’ll see him again any time soon, at least not in Knockturn Alley. And if he does see him again, he’ll have another bit of information to allow him to figure out what to do about the man.
Kronos doesn’t usually bother with wizards, not since he’d gotten the details of Methos’ sojurn among them ten centuries earlier. They annoy him, and his response to that irritation attracts attention that – at least for the moment – he’s trying to avoid. He’d needed them, though, to track down his wayward brother. That they’ve only succeeded in pinning down a country is even more annoying than their innate sense of superiority – but since they’d had to break through three layers of spells to do that much, and he might need them again, he’ll let them live.
Right now he wants something to eat, and maybe some bloodshed. Except that he’s being watched, and not in the furtive fashion that most of those around him are smart enough to adopt. At any other time he’d likely ignore the man, but he’s hunting Methos, and anyone doing that has to be stupid to ignore any watcher, no matter how well they blend in. If the man is his brother’s, then maybe he’s just found a shortcut after all.
Kronos slips down one of the side streets and waits. If the watcher is in Methos’ employ, he’ll follow soon enough. No mortal would be stupid enough to cross his brother, and Methos won’t have told the man who or what he’s following. There may be millenia between their last meeting and the present, but some things don’t change.
When a few minutes pass and the man doesn’t appear, Kronos smiles to himself. Methos is still unaware of his intentions, then. Good. He slips back out of the alley, and is about to start for the regular city when he notices the watcher again. Not looking at him, true, but the best spies don’t, and any man who goes hunting Death had best learn at least a touch of caution. The other wizards make way for Kronos after one look at his eyes, and it’s not long before he’s within reach of the watcher.
Snape is aware there’s someone behind him, and from the look in the eyes of one of the people who can see behind him, not someone that he particularly wants to have at his back. A wordless confusion spell, his wand aimed behind him, and he moves toward the doorway of the apothecary with a touch more speed, turning as he steps into it, so he can clearly see the alley behind him. It’s the same man as before, and he doesn’t look nearly as confused as Snape expects him to. Someone who’s fast on the uptake, then, or who maintains at least a low-level shield when he’s stalking someone.
Kronos has been tired of caution for days now, and having a spell thrown at him breaks the last of his always fragile patience into splinters. It’s easy enough to grab the wizard and slam him into the wall, and one look is all it takes to ensure that no one troubles them before Kronos gets what he wants.
“You were watching me,” he says, smiling almost pleasantly.
Being physically assaulted is annoying, and tends to happen with those incapable of using the modicum of magic that allowed them entrance to Hogwarts or some other school when they were children. At least when the individual is of age and not a Muggle or a Squib; though he suspects neither of the last is truly likely, not dressed as the man is. Nor, he thinks, is the second, which leaves his first and usual conclusion, something that brings a sneer of disdain to his face.
“I always notice new faces, however uninteresting those who bear them prove themselves.” Snape makes a subtle gesture with his wrist, the spell coming to the forefront of his mind, cast without a word spoken, barely a thought before he had it in play. Thick ropes wind out and around his assailant, and though they don’t appear to wind as tightly as they ought to have, it is enough for him to shove the man away.
Of course, the man isn’t truly as uninteresting as Snape has implied, but he’s not going to allow that to show, not without far better a reason than a couple spells going awry around him and a physical altercation.
“That was almost as stupid as it was irritating.” Kronos shrugs the ropes off, still smiling, though there’s an edge to the expression that hadn’t been there earlier. He pulls a dagger, one with a balance that will allow him to throw it if he needs to do so. “Your little tricks won’t work on me, wizard. Answer my questions, and maybe I’ll let you keep breathing. Where’s my brother?”
Snape sighs, looking down his nose at the man who is clearly deficient if he thinks he can harm Snape with a simple knife. Perhaps a lesser wizard, of the sort he’s clearly accustomed to assaulting, might be vulnerable to such an attack, but that’s not the case now, and while the man’s seeming invulnerability is irritating, it’s not going to help him in a direct attack.
“I don’t know who your brother is, but I assure you if he was foolish enough to attack my person, he is either deceased or, if particularly lucky, in St. Mungo’s.” He’s not entirely certain the man isn’t insane, in addition to stupid, but he’s not inclined to find out. He doesn’t like to be forced to Apparate – or use the Floo – to leave Knockturn, but if it avoids further confrontation with a man who will blow one cover or the other, he will. “Now, if you will pardon me, I’ve more important business to attend to than your delusions.”
He doesn’t turn enough to let the man out of his peripheral vision as he reaches for the door to the apothecary with his off hand, wand at the ready and a shielding spell to deflect the knife at the forefront of his mind. Snape’s almost certain the man’s going to throw it, or attempt to use it otherwise; it would fit the man’s prior actions.
It’s easy enough to grab the man and shove him back into the wall, the spell nothing more than a momentary discomfort that soon passes. Kronos drops his smile, and shoves the blade up against the wizard’s throat. He wants to use it, but he needs answers more.
“He’s my age, at least to look at. Dark-haired, with a nose almost as noticeable as yours. He might be using the name Slytherin. Tell me where he is, and maybe I won’t leave your corpse here for these other idiots to bury.”
Snape snorts, though he reinforces the shielding spell, focusing intently on the knife, and giving a purely mental smirk of relief when the blade doesn’t feel quite so cold or sharp against his throat. Keeping the spells from being about the strange man seem to do the trick.
“Slytherin’s been dead for most of a thousand years; what makes you think he’s even <i>alive</i>, much less your brother, or somewhere I might know where he is?” he asks with no little disdain in his voice, and a sneer on his face. It’s clear the man’s delusional, though still dangerous with his ease at shedding magic directed at him. Annoying, but for him, something he could handle. Not so much for others, and if Snape were a more altruistic man, he’d probably kill him for the sake of protecting the public. As it is, he’s still tempted to kill him, if only for the indignity of having a knife to his throat.
“To you people he may be dead, but I’ve heard whispers about an heir. We only have one sort of heir – ourselves – and a thousand years is nothing. Tell me where he is, and you’ll get to live out your little life in safety. He can’t give you Immortality, and nothing else is worth dying for.”
Going very still, Snape studies the man holding the now-harmless knife to his throat with an impassive expression. “You’re looking for Slytherin’s Heir?” he asks quietly, a silky note to his voice that any of his students, and many of his erstwhile and current compatriots on either side of the conflict would recognize as a danger sign. “And why would you want to find Slytherin’s Heir?”
The answer he’s given is important, one that will allow him to either step aside and let the man waste his life, or destroy him now, and ensure that he’s no longer a threat to anyone, or perhaps some third option. But he has to know why this man – no matter his delusions – wants to find Voldemort. What he intends to do when he finds him.
“If that’s what he’s calling himself this century.” Kronos smiles, satisfied by the man’s reaction. “I want my brother back, mortal, whatever name he’s using. I’ve waited two thousand years for this.”
It’s not at all a reassuring answer, though Snape thinks the man will get a nasty surprise if he goes after Voldemort. And then there’s the risk of him being exactly what he says he is, and finding himself stripped of his secrets, which is not one Snape’s willing to take. He meets the stranger’s blue eyes with his own black, and without speaking, dives into an unprotected mind that’s older than he expects.
Snape knows only the most disciplined wizards ever master Legilimancy, and as he drags himself out of the disjointed maelstrom he’s made of the man’s thoughts simply by being there, he thinks he understands a bit more of why. Someone with less control – and with less strong a sense of self – could get lost in a mind like that. Ancient, and yet with the sense that he’s not nearly as old as the brother he seeks – Kronos, the man in front of him, <i>Methos</i> the name of the man he’s seeking. Not looking for Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort.
“Slytherin’s Heir is a mortal wizard, not the brother you seek,” he says very quietly, watching his now-disoriented attacker with a carefully controlled expression. “Your brother isn’t here, Kronos. Hasn’t been here for a thousand years.”
Kronos shakes his head, pushes the past back where it belongs with an effort. It still feels as if he could look over his shoulder and find Methos there, with Caspian and Silas flanking him. It’s disturbing, and makes him wish he’d followed Methos’ lead and learned the wizards’ tricks.
“Then where is he?” he demands, tightening his grip. “And who’s this mortal who claimed his name?”
“I don’t know where your brother is.” Other than not anywhere in Britain, if he were involved in the Wizarding world; Snape is fairly certain he’d have heard of him before this if he had been. “The other matter is better discussed elsewhere.” Somewhere that the eternally curious and dangerous eyes of Knockturn Alley aren’t watching them for some sign that they can move in to pick at the remains, as it were.
For a moment, Kronos is torn between listening and using the dagger in his hand. Someone claiming to be Methos’ heir, though, is the best lead he’s had since learning that his brother still lived, and he wants the details. He lets the wizard go, and even puts away his dagger for the moment. His smile is deceptively pleasant. “Lead the way, then.”
After being in Kronos’ mind, Snape has a better idea just how much of a lie that the smile on his face is, and his motives – and after the last twenty years and more of his life, Kronos isn’t particularly frightening. Even with his plans for driving the Muggle world back to the dark ages, and his drive honed over millennia, he’s still far less complicated in his methods than either of the employers Snape answers to, and avoids telling the whole truth of anything to if he can avoid doing so.
“First, I’ve an errand to complete.” He still requires the ingredients the apothecary can supply him, although it’s not a terribly long piece of negotiation once he’s inside, either for the supplies or for the use of their Floo connection. He gives Kronos the Floo address of one of his safehouses that he doesn’t worry about giving away, and that neither Voldemort nor Dumbledore is aware of yet. It will be safe enough there for their discussion, and there’s access to both tea and stronger drinks as well as food, should it take long to conduct their conversation.
“You first,” Kronos insists. He may not have Methos’ natural caution, but he’s not an idiot either. “And if this is some kind of trap, I promise you, you’ll die as slowly as I can manage. And I’ve seen mortals last for months at a time.”
Snape snorts, unimpressed. He’s seen Bellatrix at work, and Voldemort feeling creative, and they’re both more vicious, for all that they’re less students of the human body than Kronos. At the moment, he’s actually more frightened by just how much of Kronos he’s still holding onto, for all that Legilimancy doesn’t involve true theft of the memories. It’s still difficult, with the press of centuries – millennia – and he needs to sort it out before he goes near Dumbledore, much less Voldemort.
“I intended to go first. I don’t trust you alone there.” Snape takes just enough Floo powder to initiate the connection, and steps in, making certain of his pronunciation of the address before it whirls him away in a blaze of green sparks.
The part of Kronos that still mistrusts cars and airplanes wants to balk, but this is how he’ll find Methos, and it’s Methos he needs. He follows because there’s no other choice, but his hand is on his sword hilt before he does so.
The house is small, but clean beyond the grime on the windows and the exterior shabbiness that is more a disguise than any magic would be, for most people. Magic that is conspicuously absent here, save for the Floo, and the tiny, subtle wards that help distract would-be house-breakers. Nothing that any wizard can track until they’re right on top of it, which is the entire point of the place.
Snape moves away from the hearth, brushing soot from his robes with a small grimace of distaste. He won’t use more magic than he absolutely must here, for all his disdain for those who use physical means when they’re supposed to be trained wizards; something which he only realized Kronos wasn’t when he delved into his mind.
“There had better be a point to this,” Kronos says. He doesn’t bother to brush the soot off of his own clothing, not until he’s certain that this isn’t an attempt at trapping him somehow. “I had other brothers, and I learned from them as well.” Caspian had once made a man linger for nearly six months, and Kronos remembers exactly how it had been done. “Who is this mortal calling himself my brother’s heir? Would he know where to look?”
“If he knew where to look, I suspect the world would be a far less populated place.” Snape waves a hand at the worn, but still decent-looking couch against the inside wall while he goes to get a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. Not that he intends to drink much, but it would be polite. “The Dark Lord is skilled in his own brands of torture, and would have likely have ensured Methos was once more Death before he was through attempting to steal the secret of Immortality. He certainly wouldn’t believe there was no way to achieve it without it being an inborn trait that he didn’t have.”
Voldemort didn’t like being denied anything, rather like certain spoiled children he knows and knew, and Snape wishes he’d seen that before he’d done something youthfully stupid. His younger self, indeed, is a person he’s grown to dislike, if not to hate.
The wizard is entirely too far into Kronos’ head for comfort, but there’s no point in making an issue of it until he’s gotten what he wants from the man.
“And he’d have died for trying it. That name is no idle boast – and Methos is no more susceptible to magic than I am. Even if he were, anything that will end can be endured. This so called heir of his will never know how lucky he is not to have gotten his hands on my brother. I’ll be happy to educate him as much as I can, though.”
Snape gives Kronos a small smirk, handing him a glass of whiskey before he sits on a chair that matches the couch, and is pushed against another interior wall. No one at his back, no windows behind him. “That would be appreciated.” It will certainly keep Voldemort busy, perhaps long enough for Potter to stop being a prat and learn enough magic to survive his confrontation with the Dark Lord. Since the irritating boy has to be the one to kill him.
“There is an annoying prophecy, though, that dictates he cannot actually be killed without the assistance – or direct action – of a particular individual.”
Kronos takes a sip from the glass in his hand. “Prophecies and laws are mortal concerns,” he says. “Mine are more personal. If you know where Methos isn’t, maybe you can find out where he is. That seems a fair trade for whatever I might do to his so-called heir.”
Raising an eyebrow, Snape wonders if Kronos has ever heard a real prophecy before, the sort that is bound up tightly enough into a person’s life that they cannot escape it. Given the impression he had of Kronos’ lack of knowledge concerning the Wizarding world, he suspects he hasn’t. Although, if he does manage to destroy Voldemort’s current body, it will likely be years before he returns, which will have the desired effect. If matters appear to be going poorly, though, he’ll have to inform Kronos of that little fact – and make him believe it.
“It will take time to locate him.” Snape has his own connections that should make it easier, but he doesn’t anticipate it being truly easy. If the Founder of his House doesn’t care to be found, he’ll have hidden himself well enough that simple spell-work will not be sufficient to locate him. Nor the unimaginative application of greater magics, as Kronos has already discovered. “But I can do so.”
“I hope so.” Kronos leaves the threat unspoken, but he knows the wizard will hear it all the same. “I’d tread carefully if I were you. Carefully, but quickly. Methos won’t be any happier to hear about his heir than I was, and he’s always been better at making plans.” If he can get Methos here, can pull him into this fight, then pulling him in the rest of the way should be easier.
Snape supresses the urge to snort at the unspoken threat, or to sigh at the predictability of those who think themselves dangerous to think threats – spoken or unspoken – are necessary. Of course, he does much the same in his interactions with students and those who think themselves his compatriots, though he prefers to think of it as an exercise in deception. The threats wouldn’t be necessary if he didn’t have a persona to keep up.
“I would imagine he is,” he says dryly instead, taking a small sip of his own whiskey. He has an inkling of the danger Methos could pose even without intent – the sort of threat he could be if he wished someone harm is enough to make Snape actually worry. Then again, Methos is probably one of the few people Snape would take seriously as a danger, between his reputation as Slytherin (in his own House, anyway, as Snape wouldn’t trust anyone else to not exagerrate the flaws and ignore the strengths) and the memories he’d caught from Kronos.
“When the four of us rode together, the world was ours.” And will be again, if Kronos has anything to say in the matter. He has the tools – he could unleash the virus and find Methos afterward – but it will be better, sweeter, with his brother at his side, where he belongs.
“And yet you couldn’t keep a hold of it.” Snape watches Kronos with an unreadable expression for a long moment. There’s a memory fragment of darkness, close walls, and dampness that follows that observation, and a slightly amused smirk crosses his face briefly. “Methos broke you apart then, what makes you think he’ll want to keep you together now, when he’s had so long to grow accustomed to his solitude?”
“Because I know him.” Methos will be reluctant at first, true – but what they were, what they will be again… no, Methos won’t be able to walk away from that, not if it’s offered up to him the right way. And once he has his brother again, he can deal with this irritating wizard and the rest of the world as well.
“You know who he was, and who you want him to be.” Snape doesn’t have much patience with people who can’t see the obvious, and right now, it’s clear that Kronos is missing an obvious piece of whatever plan he wants. “Do you want the information on who he has become as a textbook or a lecture, when I have that information?” Whichever Kronos will grasp, if he bothers to look beyond his own idealized version of Methos.
Kronos laughs, genuinely amused. “Whatever he’s become, he’s still my brother. Still Death, no matter how many layers have been piled on top of him over the years. Even we only change so much. But I’ll take your information. It should help me to remind him of what he was – and is.”
Clearly not nearly as intelligent as he thought of himself as, or at least as blinded by idealism as any Gryffindor, no matter that the ideals he holds to aren’t the lofty ones of those chivalric morons. Never imagining the world and everyone in it might not bow to his demands and his view of how it works just because he is who he is. It’s what makes Gryffindors who have a dark view of the world all that more dangerous in the short term, though they never last as Dark Lords for long if they take it into their mind to attempt it. They’re far more useful as minions than as the mastermind.
Snape doesn’t bother to try to correct Kronos again, taking another sip of his whiskey instead. “As you say.” He waved a hand in a controlled gesture to encompass the entire house. “You have use of this, if you need it. I’ve business elsewhere, and will not be able to remain for any appreciable length of time. If you wish to confront the Dark Lord at any point before I return with the information regarding Methos, I would advise you look to the old Riddle place in Little Hangleton.”
“I believe I’ll wait.” Unless he gets bored, or irritated, or impatient. “It won’t do me much good to kill your Dark Lord, only to have you come back claiming that you couldn’t find my brother. I have other irons in the fire at the moment.”
“As you like.” Snape pushes to his feet, finishing the whiskey he’d poured for himself, and setting the glass back on the sideboard before he headed for the fireplace and the Floo. “Don’t kill too many of the brats around here; I still have a use for this house.” He tossed a pinch of Floo powder into the flames, and stepped in, telling it Hogwarts without hesitation, smirking at Kronos as he vanished.
Originally Posted: 14 January 2012
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