Intermission

(A/N Sorry for the long wait, I don't really know how to approach the next chapter. I promise smut is coming .... eventually.)

Severus Snape had never seen the Dark Lord's face so confused and conflicted. This, apparently, wasn't what Voldemort had been expecting when He'd gotten out of ..... wherever he went at night ..... this morning.

"You're telling me .... The boy .... disappeared, out from under Dumbledore's watch .... and hasn't been seen since?" The Dark Lord rasped.

"Dumbledore won't tell me what happened to him" Snape prepared his mind to be assaulted to protect this lie. There was too much of his dear Lily in the girl's .... Cassandra's face for him to ever let her be hurt again. "The order seems to think that Dumbledore planned it, to send Harry on some mission. As if Dumbledore would ever waste the golden child on some errand."

"And what do you think happened?" Voldemort asked his most trusted spy and confidant. Severus was the only person who knew what drove the Dark Lord to Godric's Hollow, and the closest person to understanding Dumbledore's plan itself.

Snape had to tread carefully now. "I suspect after last year's fiasco, Dumbledore's trust in the castle's walls is fading. He's probably placed the Boy into hiding using that precious fidelius of his, training the arrogant Boy himself." He **** the memory of his robes on fire from the five years ago to the top of his mind.

"That .... would explain his constant disappearances." Voldemort rasped. "Severus, I don't have to tell you to find what Dumbledore knows." He paused for a short while to think before speaking again.

" and Young Draco's task. How is it progressing?" Severus heard a hint of contempt in the Dark Lord's tone.

"I ... I fear my godson won't be able to complete your mission, my Lord. He won't talk to me, and I suspect he doesn't have the skill nor determination to successfully fix the artifact you requested."

"That would be .... most unfortunate for him. Go, Severus, you know your task."

Severus returned to Hogwarts thinking of plans, plans for his lessons, for the war, for Cassandra, and for what to do with poor Draco. "What am I to do? With two opposing masters and two children I have sworn to protect?"