The clearing was scorched.
Trees stood like charred bones, the ritual stones shattered into ashen shards. Not a sound remained—no wind, no birdsong. Just a ripple of silence carved by magic too old for names.
Lucius stood alone.
His hands trembled, barely. His face, untouched. But inside, he was unraveling.
Severus was gone.
Taken.
And not the way he had planned.
The counter-binding had been ancient. Buried. Older than the castle's founding wards. He hadn't even known it was in the runes until they flared beneath his boot—until the blood bowl shattered and Severus vanished in a blur of darkness and screaming light.
The Dark Lord had not spoken.
He didn't need to.
Lucius had failed.
Or so Voldemort believed.
But deep in his pocket, pressed against his ribs, Lucius felt the brand Lillian had given him flare.
A fallback plan.A debt.A promise.
Severus hit the stone floor hard.
The room was unfamiliar. Cold. Black stone walls etched in cursed runes. The smell of ash and rot.
And Voldemort.
Watching him.
Still. Silent. Burning with fury so deep it was quiet.
"You're his," the Dark Lord said.
It wasn't a question.
Severus, breath ragged, didn't deny it.
"I was never yours," he answered.
The air snapped.
A hex slammed into his side, seizing his muscles, tearing into nerve endings like razors. But Severus bit back the scream.
Beta or not, he had survived worse.
"You let me use you," Voldemort said coldly. "All these years. And you belonged to an Omega boy the whole time?"
"You used what I allowed," Severus spat.
"I created you."
"No," Severus growled. "He did."
Lillian wasn't in the dungeons.
He was on the roof of the Divination tower, where the sky split around him and runes shimmered beneath his bare feet.
The Binding Mark across his chest glowed faintly through his shirt.
Not gold.
Not red.
But something older—deep violet, braided with silver.
The mark of an Omega not claimed, but cloaked. Hidden from alphas, untraceable to pheromone charms, undetectable unless he allowed it.
He had let Snape smell it.
He had let Voldemort think it was weakness.
He smiled.
Snape was free-falling through chaos—and yet not alone. Because in every rune Voldemort touched, in every binding sewn into Severus's spine—
Lillian was already there.
Flashback.Third Year.Lillian and Severus sat in the library, hours after curfew.
"You've heard of scent-lock spells," Lillian said, fingers stained with ink. "But what if scent itself was a language?"
Severus blinked. "That's… theoretical."
Lillian grinned. "So was wandless magic once."
He leaned closer.
"Let me hide myself in you."
"What?"
"Not sexually, you absolute bat. Magically. Let me braid part of my scent into your blood magic. Just enough to confuse anyone looking too close."
"Why?"
Lillian's eyes darkened.
"Because someday, Severus, someone will try to take you from me. And when they do, I want them to choke on the taste of it."
Voldemort was choking now.
Not visibly. Not with sound.
But with sensation.
The more he hexed Severus, the stronger the magic pulsed back at him. Not deflection—recoil. The Omega binding hidden in Severus's aura was warded in languages only the dead still spoke.
He tried to pull magic from Snape.
And tasted Lillian instead.
Meanwhile, James Potter was losing his mind.
He'd traced Lillian to the Tower.
"You're going to kill yourself," James hissed, grabbing his arm. "What are you doing?"
Lillian didn't look away from the sky.
"I'm summoning him back."
"You don't even know where he is!"
"I don't need to."
James blinked.
Lillian finally turned. And for the first time in years, his scent broke through—calm, cold, lethal.
"I branded a path into him," Lillian said quietly. "He can follow it home. But he has to choose it."
Back in the fortress, Severus lay still, magic rising like smoke.
Voldemort stared down at him.
Something shifted.
Not in anger.
But understanding.
"You were never meant to be mine," he said softly.
"No one is," Severus whispered. "Not truly. But I chose him."
And that choice—
Lit the rune beneath his ribs.
A howl tore through the walls.
Wind screamed.
And then—he was gone.
He landed in Lillian's arms.
Literally.
Half-conscious, torn robes, bloodied mouth—but alive.
Lillian collapsed with him, onto the cold roof stone.
James stood, stunned.
Severus blinked up at the Omega cradling his head.
"...Lillian?"
"I told you," Lillian murmured, brushing hair from his eyes. "You don't belong to anyone."
He smiled.
"But I'll always let you belong with me."