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“Severussss, remain behind,” the Dark Lord said at the end of the meeting that had previously been much like any other, just before the others were dismissed.
Severus steadied his breath and cleared his thoughts as the other Death Eaters filed out of the room, trying to recall anything he might have done that the Dark Lord would find objectionable, enough so that he would need to be questioned on it.
Once the room was emptied, Severus gingerly took the only open seat, positioned across from the Dark Lord where he was sprawled in his usual armchair, and folded his hands in his lap, willing himself not to show any signs of nervousness until he knew it was deserved.
“Is there anything you wish to tell me, Severus?” the Dark Lord started after a beat, an unusually mild train of questioning, depending what the Dark Lord thought he'd done.
“No, my Lord,” he replied, his voice carefully steady even as he felt the Dark Lord start to press in at the edges of his mind.
“Hmm,” the Dark Lord hummed, pressing the tips of his fingers together under his chin and leaning forward in his seat, his eyes still making unbroken contact with his own as his feet planted firmly on the floor. “Are you sure? You've seemed quite… distractible lately,” the Dark Lord continued. “Though you are young yet, I wish you to know that I find your skills quite valuable, to me personally as well as to our cause. If there is anything I can do to ease your burdens, I insist that you let me know.”
Severus’ breath caught and his hands tightened against each other before he could stop them, trying frantically to see the trajectory of this conversation and what would be best for him to say next.
He was already well aware that this was far outside the usual topics of private discussion with the Dark Lord. Lucius had been sure to brief him quite thoroughly on everything to do with properly greeting and conversing with the Dark Lord, both in public and in private, well before their first meeting, but nothing in that briefing had included anything about being questioned on his personal life, much less the Dark Lord actually showing an actual interest in his… his well-being. It was ridiculous.
His mind spun, flicking through possibilities and discarding them almost as quickly as he thought of them.
He absolutely wouldn't be saying anything to imply that the Dark Lord was wrong, first of all. He wouldn't say that nothing was on his mind, that he had no news of a personal nature, or that everything was fine, actually. Clearly, the Dark Lord had already decided that something was up, or he wouldn't have started this conversation, and he'd seen first hand what the Dark Lord's displeasure looked like when he thought he was being lied to. No, Severus had no desire to experience that first hand.
Also out would be any sort of a blatant lie. Even had the Dark Lord not invited himself to wrap comfortably around the entirely of Severus’ mind, the Dark Lord's skill with legilimency was legendary. Rumors from the wizards of Lucius’ father's generation and older told of the Dark Lord being capable in his youth of sniffing out lies at a crowded party from across the room while distracted with his own conversations, and Severus himself had witnessed the near-perfect constructs within the mind of one Edison Bones, meticulously unraveled layer by layer, live and impromptu during a meeting, as the Dark Lord exposed him for the spy that he was, his suspicion raised only by the faintest whisper of an untruth when Bones reported on his actions during the previous week.
Without a lie, and without telling the Dark Lord that he was mistaken, there were few options left for Severus to tell him, to explain away his supposed distraction. Frantically, Severus thought through the previous Death Eater meetings he'd attended, few though they still were, scrambling to come up with a topic that the Dark Lord would accept as suitably distracting, while also assuring that he would quickly become bored of the topic, so as to not invite further questions.
There was little to work with, as the Dark Lord seemed content to ask for the gritty details of absolutely everything in his followers lives, from the stores they shopped at to the meals they ate, perhaps because such lengthy accountings were how he'd discovered wizards such as Bones in the past.
But then, in a flash of realization, he recalled a moment from his very first meeting with the Dark Lord, before he'd even been Marked, in which Bellatrix Lestrange had attempted to detail what activities she and her husband had gotten up to in the privacy of their bedroom, and the Dark Lord had cut her off, moving on rather hastily to interrogating the next Death Eater instead.
Yes, this was it. Severus could do this.
With a flush of embarrassment, Severus let the shape of his most recent fantasy come to the front of his mind, let himself yearn for the feeling of a powerful, faceless wizard wrapped around him, pulling him close. He let the fantasy play out, of the wizard drawing him into his arms, towering over him. He let the unshakeable certainty only possible in such a fantasy fill him, let himself feel the knowledge that this wizard could do whatever he wanted to him, and Severus was powerless to stop him.
“I admit I may have been… distracted lately,” Severus said delicately, unsure when he'd broken eye contact with the Dark Lord. He dared to lift his eyes again, unsure what to make of the strange tension in the Dark Lord's posture that hadn't been there before. Nevertheless, he continued on, “I will endeavour to keep my mind focused on the task at hand in the future, my Lord. My apologies, I—”
“Don't apologize,” the Dark Lord cut him off. “Not for this. I find it most peculiar…”
As the Dark Lord trailed off in thought, Severus couldn't help but feel a rush of humiliation. He'd known he'd have to show something embarrassing, something real or else the Dark Lord would keep pressing until he found something, but his response didn't have to be like that. Somehow, no matter how much he learned of the Dark Lord's true character, it was still unexpectedly hurtful to have his private thoughts called strange.
“This wizard you think about,” the Dark Lord said at last, his eyes still far away in thought, “do you have someone specific in mind?”
“My Lord?” Severus choked, too surprised at the question to figure out how to respond more diplomatically.
“The wizard you fantasize about, is it someone specific?” the Dark Lord repeated, seemingly completely calm at the line of questioning.
“I— I'd never— I mean—” Severus stammered, no idea what to say. What answer was the Dark Lord searching for here? His plan of losing the Dark Lord's attention seemed to have backfired quite thoroughly, and he had no idea what the Dark Lord was looking for here; as far as he could tell, this was an unprecedented line of questioning for his followers, leaving Severus with no clear path of safe answers to give him.
“I only ask, because your thoughts have intrigued me, Severus, in a way I thought I grew out of in my youth,” the Dark Lord said, his voice far too calm, far too matter of fact for what he was saying.
Did he really—? Had he truly implied—?
“My Lord,” Severus tried, his face surely bright red by now. “I assure you that I have the utmost respect—”
“Now, now, Severus,” the Dark Lord tsk'ed, waving a hand to summon two glasses and a carafe of some dark liquor from a cart he hadn't noticed, tucked away in the corner of the room. “Take a breath, there is no need for such formality, now. It is simply… a conversation. Take a sip, gather your thoughts, and we will speak,” he said with finality, picking up his tumbler.
With shaking hands, Severus took hold of his own, and as he took a sip, he let his eyes rest on the Dark Lord's elegant hands, on the way his fingers looked ever so different when wrapped around a glass instead of a wand, and he let himself wonder, a new fantasy starting to run through his mind, of where things might go from here.