Act I: Part II

Warning: This chapter contains character death.

Musical suggestions for Act I (Parts I-III): "Beyond Windows," Cyril Morin; "Time," Paul Cardell; "The Swell Season" by Glen Hansard & Marketta Irglova; "Cocoon" by Joydrop. All musical suggestions can be legally sampled via my Pandora profile, located in my profile link.

Part II

Five minutes. That's all it would have taken to prevent the terrible things that happened. If I had not been waylaid for five minutes, everything would have gone according to plan.

I felt the burn on my arm and a sensation like a finger sinking into my brain, petting the inside of my skull. "Severusss," he called, his voice filled with a malice I knew all too well. "Severusss, come to me. Come to the haunted house of your nightmaresss." The call went silent. I knew of the place he meant: the Shrieking Shack. I followed even though I knew that this time, this time of all times, it would mean my death. Something had happened, something huge. And I would die that night. In the haunted house from my nightmares. And fuck it all, I was ready.

I had everything I needed for death. A spell on my robes to repel bloodstains. A lemon drop in the pocket of my trousers to offer Albus when I saw him. More importantly, in a hidden pocket in my robes, I had a crystal vial of all the memories that proved my innocence, to be found on my person long after my death. Because I wanted to be buried with honor even if I did not live with it. Who knows? Maybe someone would even name a child after me someday. Ha! A child I'd never have to teach at least, and bloody nice it was to think of that. I could only hope that the cushioning charm I'd placed on the vial would hold if I fell. Pensieve memories couldn't be held in anything sturdier than crystal when it was outside of a Pensieve anyway, but it wasn't a nuisance I could get around.

So I flew there. It was quite a trick to fly without a broom. Mostly involved a complex charm cast on one's trousers. The words sound like a misspoken version of the, how shall I say it, Engorgio spell for men, which is likely why the Dark Lord has kept it from everyone but me. Rather embarrassing, that would be. To know that in order to discover the proper words for the spell, the Dark Lord not only tried to, ahem, enhance himself, but did it poorly? It would be the top story in Witch Weekly, to say the least. The learning of the spell was my "reward" for being the right hand of Slytherin's heir. How oddly fitting.

In any case, I was flying to my death when suddenly, a flock of birds strayed into my path. Strange, that. All of the other animals and magical creatures surrounding Hogwarts and Hogsmeade had flown from the smell of human warfare. But there they were, a flock of owls flying right at my face. For a moment I thought they were trained birds come to peck off my nose, and I flew backwards and up to avoid them, but they kept coming at me. I reeled away, almost lost my control and tumbled down for meters before I regained my balance. But rather than flying at me again, the owls continued to fly past, on some mission to which I'd never be privy. And then one last owl, a little white one, tried to keep up, with a pathetic high-pitched hoot that would have made my younger female students squeal. I noticed it was flying slightly to the left, as if its right wing was damaged. Sure enough, when I came closer, some of its right feathers were badly twisted near the ends. Not so badly that it couldn't fly, but it was a struggle to be sure. Seeing as though I was already on my way to death, I took the time to cast a quick spell to mend its wound before I went on my way.

I thought that maybe this would be the final good deed that kept me out of hell.

I flew back towards my destination and once I arrived, I witnessed... horror.

"Severusss. You're a tad late, but no matter, boy. It's over." The white face turned to me, its red eyes deep-seeing and triumphant. "You see, we've won."

Fresh blood spattered the walls of the old shack. Ronald Weasley was slumped against one wall, eyes closed. The blood wasn't his. Harry Potter laid spread out at Voldemort's feet. It wasn't his either. I turned to my left. There she lay, mouth open, wand still clutched in her hand. Her jumper was red. Her jeans were red. Her neck was gone. Hermione Granger was dead.

Instead of me, Hermione Granger was dead and gone.

I swallowed. I looked back up at the Dark Lord. When I was on my way here, I'd felt no fear. No remorse. Finally, I would be free. But now, as I absorbed the information from his deep red eyes, I grew cold from my fingertips to my heart, all warmth bleeding out of me. As his mind grabbed hold of mine, I watched what had unfolded in horrifying clarity.

Five minutes ago, the Golden Trio had spilled into the room, Harry Potter at the forefront, his friends at his elbows. They formed a triangle of strength and love, prepared to do anything to finish this. Harry Potter said that he would let no more good wizards die tonight. Voldemort had laughed. Three wands were raised, and one raised back.

And then Nagini, in one swift and easy movement, tore out Hermione Granger's throat. While Ron Weasley was crying in helpless agony over the sudden loss of his beloved, Voldemort spoke a quick charm and the boy was thrown against the wall, cracking his head hard against the splintered wood. Harry stood for a minute, looking over the devastation of his allies while the Dark Lord laughed.

And then the boy said something quite peculiar. "I understand now." And with fearless eyes, Lily's eyes, he turned to the Dark Lord and said, "Do it."

The green curse was cast. Then I had walked in through the front door. His eyes let go of my mind. A sickly smile was plastered on his slitted white face.

"I was going to kill you, you know," he said, prodding the child with the toe of his boot. "You were always my most loyal ssservant, but I was under the impression that the Elder Wand was not obeying me because as you took it from that old fool, you were its master. But now... I am uncertain." He held it up to the light, dim as it was, and rolled the old wood between his fingertips. "Perhaps I had to show it that I was strong enough to defeat my final opponent. In any case, Severusss, know that I would not throw away such a valuable tool as yourself, not if I had doubts."

"You are most gracious, my Lord." I gave a stiff bow, allowing myself a better view of the dead boy. Lily's boy. We had failed. Everything had failed. "Your orders?"

"Carry this carcass to the castle for me. It's time to end the farce our enemies call a battle." In a billow of robes, he swept out through the door and flew away. Nagini slithered after.

I knelt down in front of Potter and wiped the hair from his face. James' hair. Strange. He was pale, but still so warm. Warm as the blood from the girl's neck that had spattered down upon him. Had what Albus insinuated once upon a time actually been true? Had it worked? "Potter," I whispered. "Potter. Wake up, Potter." I looked over at the boy's spectacles, lying a bit away from his face. I picked them up and placed them on his nose before feeling for a heartbeat at his throat.

The air was thick with the smell of blood. I wanted to retch, but I didn't dare give into my instincts for at least a bit longer. Neither can live while the other survives... neither can live... "Bloody hell, Potter, for all our sakes, LIVE."

A breath. A choked cough. The boy was alive. I pulled his head to my chest, not from any sort of affection for the little brat, but I didn't want him to see her. Didn't want him to see Weasley. Not yet. I had no idea what had happened to him in those brief moments, and if Albus was right (and he'd always been right), Potter needed to be at his best. He needed to fight that last fight.

Hands too large to be a child's pushed against me, and he managed to sit up, fixing his glasses properly on his face. But when he saw who had held him, he snarled and grabbed his wand, holding it to my throat before I even thought to reach for my own. "Bravo, boy," I said. "But I'm not your enemy."

"No?" he asked. "You killed Dumbledore. You took over my school, the only place I ever called home. You work for the monster that just killed my best friends AND nearly killed me. Give me one good reason I should trust you, Snape. Give me one good reason I shouldn't kill you right now."

My mouth pulled up in a sneer, a retort right on the tip of my tongue... and then it hit me. The stench of blood and corpses. The near-end of my own life. Everything, pain on top of pain, difficulty on difficulty. Everything, and now a grieving boy was threatening to kill me for something I'd tried as hard as I could, for seven bloody years, to prevent. And I was worn right the fuck out. My sneer faded. I looked over at the girl, ignoring the wand at my throat. "I'm tired, Potter. I'm bloody well spent. And now I have to carry your supposedly dead body to the battlefield." I looked back up at him. At Lily's eyes. So beautiful, even in his face. Even when they were staring daggers into me. "My Patronus is a doe. Perhaps you've seen something like that before?"

His jaw dropped. Before he could react, I took the crystal vial of my memories from my robes and shoved it into his hand. Moments passed, but I could hear the pieces clicking together in his head. Once he was finished, once I could tell that he was ready, I gathered him up. "Play dead," I whispered, and we flew out of the door. Leaving his friends behind us.

When I arrived, the boy limp and acting as well as he could be expected to in my arms, there were two lines, a stand-off between light and dark. I settled on the ground right next to the Dark Lord, and as requested, placed the boy at his feet. What happened afterwards was a blur. It was so strange and unreal, watching it all take place. I didn't feel like I should be there. It was exciting, no doubt, watching Nagini's head roll across the field. Watching Harry Potter "come back to life." But I was so tired. I cast spells by rote memory. Dodge, parry, shield, cast. Dueling was something I was comfortable with, something I could nearly do in my sleep, even when I was dueling like a Death Eater trying not to kill anyone. And if my concentration lapsed a bit in my casting, well, I had already prepared for my own death, so as long as no one died by my hand, who gave a shite?

And then Potter did something that caught my attention and my interest. He declared to the Dark Lord, and to both sides, that I was never Voldemort's servant. That I had been "Dumbledore's man" all along. It was more than true, and it caught my opponent (a severely wounded Nymphadora Tonks) by surprise for long enough that I was able to cast a quick charm that shed my Death Eater robes.

Thank you, Potter. Let him gaze upon me. Let him stare as I walked right up to him. Let him cast the final blow to end my life and all my endless waiting.

But the final blow did not come. The Dark Lord screamed and raged and something like "How could you do this to me, blah blah," but at that point I didn't give a fig for rage. So fucking tired. I walked over to stand next to Potter, unharmed and unblemished. Unlike anyone else in the room, I had not a scratch on me. Like a miracle.

We must have made quite a sight. Severus Snape and Harry Potter, standing side by side, wands extended toward the Dark Lord in the final moment of the final battle. And then we won. I barely remember the event, it happened so quickly.

Without speaking a word to each other, much less to anyone else, Potter and I left the castle to collect his friends' bodies. I picked up Miss Granger, and he picked up Weasley. He was devastated, of course. But then, miraculously, he found a pulse on the boy and rushed him off to the intensive care unit on Hogwarts' grounds. Weasley was unconscious and certainly had a concussion, but if that was the majority of the damage, he escaped much more intact than any of Tom Riddle's other victims, save Potter himself.

Granger, of course, had no neck on which to take a pulse.

I cast what spells I could to stop the spread of the blood, not difficult since she had lost almost all of it. When I picked her up, she was stiff and sticky and cold against me. That was always the most disturbing thing for me about touching a corpse. How quickly they stiffen, how easy it is to mistake a human body for an object once the soul has left it. Her hair hung down over my arm, the only part of her that had any life left. It rustled quietly as I moved.

I wanted her to look up at me. I wanted her to say, "All right, Professor?" And if she could, then I would have said, "Better than I have been in all my life, now that I am free." But of course, I wasn't better. I was free, but I was not all right.

The only girl that had shown me such kindness, ever since Lily Evans called me friend, was dead. The only girl that had ever shown a lasting attraction to me, that could have grown into love eventually, was hanging stiff in my arms. She was nothing more than a husk covered in dried blood.

I carried her to the castle, to that hall of dead bodies and mourning survivors. Closed my eyes. Everywhere, the sound of tears. Tears of joy that we were all free. Tears of sorrow at what we'd lost. I hadn't wept for anything but the loss of Lily Evans. Not for years.

I sat down at the table where I'd laid the corpse of the girl who had a silly little crush on her Potions professor since she was eleven years old, and I wept.

I wept until the sun rose. I wept at the massive funeral the next day. I wept when Harry Potter turned and called me the bravest man he had ever known. I wept when Kingsley Shacklebolt, Temporary Minister of Magic, granted me full pardon. I wept because instead of saving them, I had saved my own useless life by arriving five minutes too late.

And the day after the funeral when we began rebuilding the castle, I stopped weeping.

And I began, instead, to plan.

As always, criticism welcome. Thanks to those of you who have read and reviewed. You're in my heart as I write. I always aim to please.