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The moment they enter the building, Severus knows they’re expected.
A flash of blue light slams into the ancient wallpaper behind them. He dodges, and from the crashing noise and the loud curse, he is reasonably sure Lucius has done the same.
There is no time to talk, or to regroup. He pushes off the dusty floor and launches himself into combat.
There are at least five of them – all of them looking the same in their masks and dark robes. Lucius moves to his back and together they take on one after the other – block, parry, curse. They take down one of them, two, easily, but the last three prove to be harder nuts to crack. The ones down are probably new recruits, he doesn't recognise them or their casting. Severus dodges behind a table that splinters as it is hit with a bone-crushing curse. These ones though – he knows them.
A loud crashing noise. “Aha!” Lucius yells from the other end of the room. Severus throws his own bone-breaking curse at the Death Eater in front of him and looks over for a moment. In the middle of the rubble of what used to be a grand piano lies Avery, unmasked and bleeding sluggishly. Lucius whirls around as if he was a model on a catwalk and takes on the last opponent, who throws himself into the fight with a scream and a Bombarda that takes off half the living room wall.
A cutting curse whizzes past his ear. Severus dodges at the very last second, but the hot dripping on his neck and the burning on the side of his head tells him that he hasn’t emerged unscathed.
He needs to be more careful. She will never forgive him if he dies tonight.
A well-placed Sectumsempra has his opponent’s leg folding beneath him. He finishes the man with a freezing spell and a strategic kick to the chest. The Death Eater’s chest cavity folds like an old cardboard box.
“That was positively brutal!” Lucius yells, delighted, and sends his own opponent flying through the hole in the wall he created. Outside, the loud splash of a man falling into the Thames.
Severus wipes his sweaty forehead. “Poetic.”
Lucius grins at him, looking beautiful and half-mad, as is the way of the Malfoys. “What can I say,” he says, “I’m an artist.”
Then they get to work – tidying up the house, searching through the pockets of the dead men, searching through the minds of the dying. There’s a reason the Second Order sends them on missions like this – they cannot condone torture, cannot stomach the details of what they do, but they cannot do without them, either. And Severus is used to doing the dirty work.
“Originally six people,” Lucius says and disentangles himself from Avery’s mind, who falls into the pile of dark wood and strewn around keys with a dull thud and empty eyes. “The sixth one was the one we disposed of before we went in here.”
Severus hums as he collects the wands. “Meant to take us hostage to find out about headquarters?”
Lucius nods. “So it seems. The entire thing was a trap, like we thought.”
“Isn’t it lovely to be right.”
There is nothing else they can do here. They throw the remaining bodies into the Thames and close the hole in the wall. Severus even puts back the dust and creates a new rug to cover the blood stains they couldn’t get out.
Then they Disillusion themselves and sneak back into the street. Voldemort’s soldiers are everywhere – just smalltown criminals, dressed up in black uniforms, feeling like patrolling the foggy streets of Wizarding Britain will be their big break in the dark place their world has become. Or, as Severus thinks on dark nights when Hermione is asleep and he watches her curls paint patterns on her smooth skin, maybe the world has always been this way, and Voldemort has just turned it inside out for all to see.
They dodge a patrol, pressing against the grimy walls of an alleyway. Severus wants to cast a Muffliato on the entrance, but these days, Voldemort’s foot soldiers are outfitted with magic detection bracelets. The house was far enough out of the way, but they cannot risk it here. He watches the mouth of the alley where three former students of his, barely out of childhood, skulk past with raised wands and bared teeth. One of them has the tattoo, three small skulls on the inside of her wrist. If she does well, she will get the big one soon, he knows. Voldemort likes to reward loyalty with the demand for more.
Not unlike the Second Order, really. Except Severus gets to choose his own tattoos.
They are past. A quick jerk of Severus’ head, and they slip out of the alleyway.
They take twists and turns for what feels like years but is probably more like twenty minutes. They keep their heads down – both of them having cut their hair weeks ago, when they were almost assassinated in broad daylight thanks to Lucius’ white locks and Severus’ greasy hair. Severus hates how his hair tickles his ears now, and he wears it slicked back, feeling like a tosser. Lucius will not stop complaining about how washed out his new black makes him look. What they really need is Polyjuice, but they do not have the resources to spare it on a mission like this.
At some point, they exchange a nod – two more streets, and they duck into another alleyway. Out of view from Muggles, Severus transfigures their clothes. Long cloaks become short winter coats, dark waistcoats become Christmas jumpers in sludgy brown shades. He even layers a disguising spell over their faces. They wait with bated breath for a second or two to see if an alarm rings.
Nothing.
They leave the alley and head for the Tube.
There is no safe place in the world anymore. Severus knows this, but he feels almost safe these days when sitting in a compartment with Lucius after a mission, watching London rush past. Deceptively colourful. Full of lies.
“You fought well today,” Lucius says, apropos of nothing. “More carefully than usual.”
It is absurd that he should be nervous now. He just fought for his life, the only thing between him and certain death being desperation, his own skill, and a good amount of luck. But here, at this moment, telling Lucius feels scarier.
“I made a promise,” he starts slowly, staring out of the window. It is only marginally helpful, since he can see Lucius’ watchful gaze reflected back at him. “To come back to someone.”
The reflection smirks. “You did, huh?”
Severus frowns grumpily. “If you know already, why are you making me say it?”
“It’s fun watching you suffer,” Lucius says and the train jerks to a stop. Severus sulks for as long as it takes for the compartment to fill up again, but even he cannot contain the need to talk about it – the only light he can see in this messed up world.
“She lost patience with me,” he says, and he knows he looks happy while saying it. The way his face feels is unfamiliar, but it felt the same when he looked into the mirror after waking up next to her for the first time. Happiness, written into the sallow creases of his cheeks, the seldomly used, ever so faint laughing lines next to his eyes. “Accosted me after the last briefing and informed me that I belong with her now, and I am not allowed to make a widow out of her before I even got the stones together to propose.”
Lucius chuckles. “You got yourself a good one, you know.”
Severus smirks. “I did.”
Later, when they finally arrive at headquarters (the basement beneath what used to be Grimmauld Place, before it was discovered and razed to the ground), the first thing Severus sees is Hermione, sitting in the middle of the kitchen. Potter, jagged burn scar dissecting his face, is disinfecting a nasty-looking cut on her shoulder. The sharp rush of panic is only subdued by the smile she sends him – large and sunny in a place so dreary, it hurts his soul.
This is what we fight for, he thinks and approaches her. She kisses him then, in the middle of the kitchen, in front of all the Second Order members milling around. A lifetime of fighting is nothing if it is for a moment like this.