Chapter Text
Nagini, kill.
Inevitable words reach ears, and though Severus had assumed it was coming, the terror is all the same; blackened heart beats wildly within his chest, thrums against his ribcage at the speed of hummingbird’s wings.
Claustrophobic was never something Severus had considered himself to be, for his childhood was an accumulation of hiding, a never-ending series of darkened corners and tight spaces. But as the sleek & scaled body of Nagini tightens around his form, squeezing his body in on itself, a panic settles into his bones and sets the air in his lung on fire.
Hiding away in the closet of his bedroom, shielding himself in shadow from the screams that set to destroy him, was nothing like this. Settling into darkened corners & narrow passageways of Hogwarts’ walls, holding his breath lest James Potter hear him breathing (and devote himself to ceasing that petrified panting), was nothing like this. Severus supposes it takes the greatest fear of one’s life to trivialise all else; and oh, how he wishes in this moment to once again be the boy with the shaking hands, the boy hidden and scribbling along the walls of his closet to drown screaming out with the scratching of pencil on wood.
The first strike is fast, giving way to the lagging of neural connections before pain comes pouring into his senses. It’s thick, hot, and fast; similar in the way it soaks everything, akin to the blood pumping from a punctured jugular & carotid artery. Sickening spurts accompany each and every beat of his racing heart and just as luck would have it, the stoicism that was Severus Snape’s being has long since bent under the weight of absolute terror.
This is it — Death at the age of 38, a life of cowardice, lies and cruelty, his legacy to all who knew him. For no-one truly knew him at all.
Nobody still gracing the mortal plane would ever come to know of the obligation that weighed upon Severus’ shoulders, of the ache for death, of the guilt that haunted every waking hour, creeping into nightmares to disturb what little sleep was possible. Nobody would know the way his soul had shattered upon murdering the only man who’d had faith in him, nobody would know the burden of playing the role of the enemy.
Not Minerva, the closest thing to a mother he’d had, who’d tried to kill him with all the fire, steel, and grit that she was.
Not Harry, with his familiar eyes, whom Severus had devoted his life to, suffered in the airless void between admiration and loathing for.
But none of that matters, now.
Severus is looking death in the face and having vowed never to be cowardly again, he keeps his eyes open, accepts it as an equal.
Coal and ruby lock onto one another as Severus’ form, weak from blood loss, slumps into the wall of the Shrieking Shack. The serpentine face of his murderer greets him with lipless mouth tugged into twisted grin, the twinkle in Voldemort's crimson hues filled will all the hope in the world.
A disgusting thing The Dark Lord is - and for the first time since the tingle & itch of the Dark Mark returning, Severus outwardly faces Voldemort as an enemy . He is unabashed in his hatred, knowing with a conviction there can be no further repercussions. In death, pride lives on; Eye contact is maintained, the fleeting fire in Severus’ eyes burning as brightly as it can through every bite, every thud of his failing form against the wall and every sickening pop! of fangs puncturing skin.
Though he fights it with everything he has left in him, the scream that leaves Severus’ open throat is a twisted, gurgling noise. It hitches with each of the final three blows : one to the leg, one to the side, and the final to his spine.
Voldemort only smiles at him, the snake giving one last display of feigned pity before black-clad form turns, and leaves.
Nagini, come.
And just like that, it’s over.
It’s a relief to be left alone. The freedom to collapse is given with the exit, and Severus takes hold of the opportunity the second billowing cloaks are out of view. Knees buckle, dead weight hitting wooden floors with a noise that would embarrass him if he weren’t in his current predicament. But there is hardly time to focus on the piteousness that has become him, not with the freedom to feel. Each of Nagini’s strikes had pumped his form with venom — cursed fire courses through his struggling veins, a pain surpassing the Cruciatus Curse having set every single one of his nerve endings alight.
Laboured breathing is the only sound left in the room, the spurts from severed arteries slowing with the failing of his heart. The floor is wet with crour, as are his clothes. Dark hair clings to the skin of his face, plastered in place by a mixture of sweat, blood, and tears. It’s disgusting - but in the warmth of his own blood, Severus finds a sliver of comfort.
He’d always known that he’d die alone, but he’d imagined it would go quite differently:
He’d imagined wasting away in Spinner’s End, having accomplished nothing by means of his self-assigned life purpose. Cold. Lonely. Guilt-ridden. This is not a better death, but there are more pros to cons in the scheme of his violent end. Though he wishes with all of his being that someone would be here with him in his final moments, sheds a tear for the loneliness of both his life and his death, he can at least say that he’d tried. He had tried so, so hard.
In this minor solace Severus allows his eyes to flutter shut. He’d tried, and that’s all that matters now.
Each thud of the body on the other side of the wall shakes the building, making Lucius’ stomach churn with a vicious nausea. Hand pressed to mouth lest he scream, fast breaths are sucked into his nose, air failing to fill his lungs no matter how quickly they expand & contract.
Severus is dying, and it is entirely his fault.
That sick feeling had settled in the aristocrat's stomach the moment The Dark Lord had beckoned him to fetch Severus, a bone-deep feeling of dread following his every step, persisting through Apparation and lacing every syllable of speech as he’d stuttered out Voldemort’s decree.
Lucius knew it wasn’t his place to disobey nor to intervene in the Dark Lord’s wishes. He knew he would be killed for doing so, or worse: subjected to relentless abuse, the Cruciatus Curse, and torture of the likes; And just as he knew Severus did, — as he had taught him to when the dark-haired potions prodigy was no older than the age of 17, a fresh face in the Death Eater recruits — Severus knew the same. Severus had obeyed.
Despite the air-voiding terror in the knowledge of what would become of him if Voldemort were to discover his insolence, fear is a powerful mistress. Fear is the catalyst for action against all better judgement and fear had made Lucius follow his old friend as he set off to follow the serpentine leader’s orders.
The horror of what is occurring behind thin, peeling walls almost makes him wish he hadn’t given in to the whims of his terror. This wasn’t his place, this wasn’t his job.
For a fleeting, selfish moment, Lucius thinks it would have been better to remain ignorant. Better to not shed light on the reality of Severus’ gruesome murder, better to spare himself the terror listening in and being caught disobeying.
These thoughts disgust him, and though he’s hardly any time to think about it between each gurgling groan & thud, each of his own flinches and hitches of breath, he feels a self loathing flare up within the ashen pit of his stomach.
Severus was his friend. Severus had been Lucius’ friend since school age, when the scrawny dark-haired boy was the novel age of 11, sitting down beside him with shaking legs, having just been deemed their year’s first Slytherin. Lucius had watched Severus grow up! Had been the one to coax the boy into joining the crowd when he’d thrown his graduation ball, the one who had invited him for summers at the Manor : a makeshift shelter for a beaten dog.
Lucius squeezes his eyes shut against the noises, tries his damndest to fight off the acid & wine making its way up his throat. Make it stop, make it stop , he begs silently into the void, halfway hoping his mind’s eye will gatch the gaze of another & his plea would be answered. More noises, three blows —Like a deathknell— and a muffled voice is heard through plaster. Silence hangs heavy in the air, and to Lucius it is almost worse than the sound of violence.
Form is pressed to the wall as footfall makes its way in the direction of his hiding place, the empty room adjacent to the one occupied by what Lucius can only assume is the corpse of Severus Snape. But there is no creaking open of the door, no hiss of a greeting, no flash of light to signify his end . . . There is the sonorous sound of Voldemort descending the stairs, the familiar whoosh of Apparation and the deep thud of dead weight hitting wood floors.
Though every fiber of his being is screaming at Lucius to go to Severus, the aristocrat is terrified of what he may find. Perhaps The Dark Lord never truly left. Perhaps he’d known all along that Lucius was standing idly by, listening in, attempting to keep three meals worth of liquor within the empty pit of his stomach. Perhaps this was all an elaborate ruse, to weed him out as a defector, a traitor, an insolent.
Deep down, though, he knows that can’t be . . . Hopes it can’t be, at the very least, for all that Lucius had thought he’d known has shifted with the ravaging tides of war.
He knows within his heart that the cold, bloodless body of his old friend lies awaiting his greeting, so what would the point be in looking at it? In burning that image into his mind forevermore, another reason never to sleep again?
. . . Unless he’s wrong. Unless Severus hasn’t died quite yet, is struggling through his final moments, alone and in pain.
Fear is a powerful mistress, but Lucius doesn’t think he could live with himself if the latter is what is true. He can't live with himself now.
Guilt is the great thaw to a body frozen in terror, and with all the urgency in the world, Lucius breaks the seal between safety & discovery.
All is quiet, and peaceful. The mind flickers on as the body fails, the brain's final stand.
Giggles fill the warm summer air, float amongst the butterflies and mosquitoes, hidden within the thick flora of the forest, a sanctuary of humming bugs and greenery.
The joy twinkling in emerald eyes twists the corner of Severus’ mouth into a smile, dark eyes watching with intent as flowers bloom in the palms of Lily’s freckled hands, petals being kissed by the sun at the beginning of their lives, a warm welcome to the world.
Enchanted vines scale a large oak, weave themselves into intricate patterns, tendrils reaching to tug playfully at fiery red hair.
“Hey— !” giggling interrupts scolding, hands swiping at serpentine vines. “Cut that out!”
“I thought it was funny,” the shrug of bony shoulders, Severus’ lips spread into cheeky grin.
“You’re an idiot, you know that, Severus Snape?”
“That is not correct.”
Blades of grass are ripped from the place amongst the dirt, thrown at the dark-haired boy, his lips still twisted into grin. The rarity that is a giggle sounds from Severus’ throat, and Lily lets a giggle of her own fill the air, musical amongst the hum of cicadas.
Digits adorned in rings make a hollow sound against Severus’ back as a pale hand pats him approvingly, the warmth of such an action putting the hope back into Severus’ heart, rekindling the fire previously snuffed out by the cacophony of boo-ing voices set off in hatred at the Sorting Hat’s decree of ‘Slytherin!’.
The older boy’s hand is warm against his back, the shiny golden patch upon his chest glittering in the light of one-hundred flickering candles.
“Pay them no mind. Keep your head high, back straight,” The stranger’s voice is so confident , so sure of himself. He speaks as though he runs the place, and though terrifying in his poshness, and demeanor, he makes Severus feel . . . Safe . The Prefect looks to the newest member of Slytherin house, a smile upon his lips. “Severus, was it?”
A nod of the head in confirmation, words caught in Severus’ throat. The other’s long, white-blonde hair is pulled back into a high ponytail, tied into a bow with a black silk ribbon. His eyes as such an intense shade of grey, like the gleaming shield of a mighty knight. He’s intimidating to look at, the picture of Pureblood society, or so the chatter on the Hogwarts express would have him believe.
Though he feels utterly trumped over, Severus lets his black-hole hue settle right into that grey, locked in place, for meekness will not do, or so he is quickly learning.
“My name is Lucius. Lucius Malfoy. I am your Prefect ,” A slender finger taps the golden pin fixed to the collar of his robes. “Stick with me, and you’ll be alright.”
“Alright,” Severus croaks, nodding again.
“Good,” Lucius , as his name is now known, slings his arm across Severus’s shoulders, and leans over. The wispy ends of his ponytail tickles the nape Severus’ neck.
Lucius offers him a piece of advice that would stick with the boy throughout his entire seven years: “Welcome to Slytherin, Severus. You’ll come to learn that our House is superior, and the jealousy that breeds can be utterly vicious,”
“Remember that you are better than them. Chin high, head up . Always .”
Slytherin camaraderie huddles in circular formation, sheltering the greasy haired boy in the middle from the prying eyes of the outside. The sun is set high in the sky, the warmth of noon settling upon the grounds, bathing the Courtyard in it’s warmth, feeding the chatter and laughter of noontime break.
Severus gives his draught a final stir, ladles the clear liquid into a smaller vial. Lucius Malfoy plucks a singular strand of silver hair from his head, and drops it into the vial. With a crackle, a sizzle, and a pouffe of smoke, the concoction shifts to a bright & gleaming gold.
The potion is offered to Evan Rossier, being shuffled to the centre of the circle, who downs it in a singular gulp. His body contorts and shifts, warps as his features change. Hair grows much longer, eyes relinquishing their hue to take on that gleaming silver of Malfoy’s. Skin pales in the imitation of the Prefect’s albinism, and with a final groan and a painful looking lurch of form, muscle, and flesh . . . There are two Lucius Malfoys among them.
“ Merlin’s Beard, it worked!” Regulus Black guffaws, expression of pleasant shock plastered to his face. They’d actually managed to brew Polyjuice Potion, the possibilities now . . . Well, they were endless!
“Of course it did,” Severus retorts, a roll of dark eyes ensuing, despite the smug expression on his thin face. “I brewed it, didn’t I?”
“You’re a real Potion’s Master, huh, Severus? Rearing up to give old Slughorn a run for his money, then?”
The Slytherin boys laugh, and though Severus had grown to despise the sound of laughter, as it was often directed at him, this was a different noise. This was happy, playful, and reverent. This was good.
Severus allows a smile to break out onto his own features, and for one of the first times since his education at Hogwarts began, bringing with it James Potter and the nightmare of existence, Severus laughs.
On the floor of the Shrieking Shack, the wand tucked neatly within the sleeve of Severus’ smock alights, a radiant silver glow suffocated by the black of fabric.
As life leaves his struggling form, that little spark of magic threatens to fade, fickers with the barely beating heart of its conjuror. Though it seems like that light may very well go out entirely, taking with it Severus Snape, and the relaying of memories flickering through his dying mind . . . That little light shifts, and changes, breaks free from the confines of blood-soaked robes to morph into a shining silver doe.
The Patronus circles the room once, it’s light dim and faded, though it manages, still, to bathe the room in a soft glow. It looks as though it’s searching, an aimless venture in a room reeking of iron.
Feet clumsily take him into the hallway, Lucius’ heart beating within his chest so hard that he feels he may be sick. The feeling of urgency is suffocating, the feeling of complete and utter dread even more so.
He’s dead. He is dead, and it is entirely my doing.
Hyperventilation gives way to tears: Hiccoughing sobs that wrack his form, shake his shoulders and sting his eyes. Knees buckle with every attempted step forward, lungs screaming for air regardless of how many times Malfoy gasps for air.
Oh, how he longed for a drink. Something, anything to take the edge off of this situation. Perhaps he could handle it better under the comforting blanket of utter inebriation, the ail-clouded mind unable to truly grasp the horror he expects to meet. He craves the warmth in the pit of his stomach; the burn, rather than the nausea.
Of course, this is unattainable. He is here, and now, and there is no choice but to face it head-on. He squeezes his eyes shut against the knowledge, hot, fat tears rolling down pale cheeks as they break away from tear ducts.
He must be brave. He must. He owes Severus that much. This is his punishment for the idiocy of his childhood, punishment for his bigotry, his war-crimes, his involvement.
Though Lucius had previously thought Azkaban was the worst experience one could face, the blood of your childhood friend on your hands, fully aware of all circumstances, is worse. The horrors Lucius faced in Azkaban were as much delusions of the mind as they were the reality of his situation — And though none could say that Lucius could ever, or would ever be the same after his incarceration, he knows, painfully so, that he is not mad. Not anymore.
This is reality, stark, and bleak, and true. This is happening, and he owes it to Severus to face it like a man — Not only because Severus’ presence here today is his doing, but because the fact that Severus should even be amongst the Death Eaters to begin with is another weight upon Lucius’ shoulders.
He never should have told Severus about this little secret society, about his friend who had all the answers, the key to power, confidence, and anything in the world one could possibly want.
Lucius had known that Severus was struggling. He had received each and every letter detailing the torment of his school life, the hell that was Hogwarts, following Lucius’ graduation. He had taken advantage of that pain, fed into it with the promise of superiority, though everyone who knew Severus Snape was already aware he’d have no need for that.
He was better than them in his own right, already: More intelligent than any of them could ever be.
If a Time-Turner were thrust into his hands, Lucius would go back to the first of many times Severus had denied him.
I will not devote my life to a man playing God, he’d said. I value my autonomy, and I’d like to keep that. I will not have my pride be owned by anyone but myself.
That should have been the end of it. If it were, he’d be alive. He’d be well, possibly happy, and if nothing else —— healthy .
Open your eyes, you fool. Lucius forces himself to look as shaky steps take him down the hallway, eyes puffy and bloodshot. Vision is blurred with tears, the sting of liquid agony as it bubbles up & spills down his cheeks catalyst for the odd sob that hitches his breath, throws his lungs for a loop.
The only sound greeting him is the sound of his own shaky breathing, the hammering of his pulse in his ears. As the scent of iron floods his nose, he cannot help the gag that dares to interrupt his sobbing.
The pooling of silver light beneath the doorway snags his gaze, hope, fast fleeting, swells back into Lucius’ empty chest. A gasp fills the silence as he runs towards the light, pushing the door open with a force so urgent it bounces off the wall behind it, threatening to break right off of its hinges. Severus lies face down on the floorboards, surrounded by a pool of crimson. A shining silver doe laid beside him, looking peaceful, as though sleeping.
Lucius can hear those faint, gurgling breaths as air struggles to bypass the open wound in the Potion Master’s throat, and without regard to anything else but his friend, the older throws himself towards the other, knees bracing the floor, white fabric drinking in the blood.
“Severus!” He exclaims, his shaking hands pawing, grasping, desperately attempting to turn the other over. “Severus, please—-” Fear creeps back into a form just as quickly as relief had. He fears he won’t be able to turn Severus over, won't be able to cup hands against the wound in his neck, still bleeding. “Please. Please , wake up,” And what is he to do if he does manage to turn him over? He is wandless, powerless .
“Severus, I—— I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do!”
Sobs once again overtake Lucius’ form, shake his entire body with each and every agonized wail & hiccough. “Please,” The Patronus at Severus’ side lifts it’s head, peers into the blonde’s pleading expression with vacant, ghostly eyes. “Please!”
Pure grief seeps from Lucius’ very being, every syllable spilling from his pallid lips. He hangs his head, forehead pressed to the blood-wet back of his friend.
At this, the doe rises to stand, circles the pair, the half-dead & the desperate, as though observing the grief, the want, the pain. It settles itself adjacent to the blonde, pressing its forehead to the crown of Lucius’ head.
The emotion that washes over him is, perhaps, the oddest feeling he’d ever experienced. It voids him of tears, bathes him in a serenity laced with pure understanding. Lifting his head, he stares the Patronus in the face, and watches as it dissipates, venturing up, and into the sleeve of Severus’ smock.
Oh. Yes. Yes! Severus, ever the witty, seldom goes anywhere without his wand tucked neatly into his sleeve. A concealed weapon, just in case. He’d been doing it since childhood, the first good use of it spoken about with all the excitement his 13 year old body could contain — How at the very last moment , seconds away from a hex & yet another bout of public humiliation, he’d pulled it from his sleeve and slashed James’ ugly, spectacled face with a curse he’d crafted himself.
Lucius can’t help but let out a rueful chuckle, both at the memory, and the habit.
Reaching up into Severus’ sleeve, he finds it right where he’d expected to, though dread once again fills him. This isn’t his wand, there is a very large possibility he won’t be able to channel his magic through it.
Still, he wastes no time attempting, and with desperate whispers, and his free hand nestled between Severus’ shoulder and jaw, pressing against the gash in his neck, he works to mend the wounds on Severus’ body.
“Lacerati Restorius, Lacerati Restorius, Lacerati Restorius … Please, Lacerati—”
Flesh pulls together and mends with each and every dragging of the wand across the wounds, the bleeding ceasing at once. A heavy sigh of relief pushes past Lucius’ lips, a sniffle and the barest hint of a smile spreading across his lips as he mends the potioneer’s wounds.
“I’m so sorry, Severus,” Whispers are soaked up by the air hanging over them, black-hole anticipation eating up each and every apology. “I’m sorry.”
The wound on Severus’ neck is the hardest to mend, a stubborn thing, determined to reopen following each and every incantation. It seeps crimson and black, stings the flesh of Lucius’ hand where residue of blood and poison lay.
“Come on. Come on, please ,”
It seems like an eternity before that gash is mended, and though the potioneer is no longer bleeding, his breathing has ceased right along with it. “No,” Carotid artery is stubbornly still against the pale fingers that press into it, searching. “No! No , no,”
Pressing his cheek to the floor, Lucius places his face mere inches from the other. “Vitalum Vitalis,” A heavy exhale of breath . . . Nothing. “Come on, Severus. Vitalum Vitalis,” Another blow, another few dreadful seconds where death hangs over Severus Snape like a looming shadow.
“Renervate.”
—--
Dark eyes snap open, a desperate gasp filling his empty lungs with air. Everything hurts, every nerve ending in his body in absolute agony as his mind returns to consciousness. Even the nerves below the waist, which no more than 5 minutes ago had been unfeeling, rendered dead with the severing of his spinal cord, scream in pain.
The first image to greet him in the face of his friend, shock painted across his deshevilled features, blood dried on the skin of his forehead and cheek. He doesn’t mind the way the aristocrat jumps back at the sight of him: startled, it seems, at the loud gasp for air & the quick breaths, trying each second to get more air into his lungs, desperate for the oxygen.
What does unsettle him, though, is the fact that he’d never before seen so much emotion on the face of Lucius Malfoy. He had seen that crease between pale brows only a few times before, had never seen that terrified urgency in his steely eyes. It’s enough to beckon Severus to pick himself up —— To try, with trembling limbs, to lift himself from his lying position on blood-soaked floorboards.
Each movement sparks shooting pain throughout veins, muscles, bones —- And though typically he’d refuse Lucius’ help with bitter remarks, and scathing insults, he’ll allow the blonde to aid him, will lean on the form of the older man as he’s raised to seated position.
“Luciu—”
His voice dies out in his throat with the throwing of the aristocrat’s arms around him, a hug that is as shocking as it is painful. “ Severus . You’re alive! You’re alive, ”
Loosely, Severus lets his own arms wrap around Lucius’ form, rests his chin against a trembling shoulder, and closes his eyes. “Dear Lord, you’re alive,”
“. . . Yes.”
“I'd thought— Merlin— Are you in pain?”
“. . . Immensely.”