A/N: The wonderful world of Harry Potter is owned by J.K. Rowling. This little flight of my imagination into her world was done with no monetary gain in mind.
No disrespect to Christianity was intended by the writing of this piece, as the author is a devoted follower.
The idea for this was inspired by The Weeping Tree, a Holy Week cantata by Joseph M. Martin.
Inside the garden gates stands the weeping tree. In silence she lifts her weary arms against the darkened sky.
She is a gathering place for the sorrowful and a sanctuary for the grieving. Her shadows are a hiding place for the oppressed and a refuge for the lost. Under her graceful canopy there is comfort, and beneath her towering presence there is shelter from the storm.
Long ago, she was planted on a windswept hill where all could see her solitary silhouette, and though fixed in barren soil, her roots grew deep into the hearts of all who drew near to her.
Watered by a thousand tears, her sylvan branches once held a perfect harvest, for heaven had chosen her rugged frame to be the bearer of grace. She who was cut and fashioned by hatred and violence became a tree of life. Her arms are outstretched still. (Adapted from the forward of The Weeping Tree by Joseph M. Martin)
They caught him in the garden unawares, or so they thought. But she knew differently. Unmoving from her spot, she had borne witness to everything. The plotting. The planning. The passionate confessions of unending devotion from her boy and his witch sealed with kisses in the hours before this moment. The anguish of that young lioness as her friends carried her from the yard at his insistence. The screeched entreaties for him to survive, to live and come back to her so they could love for an eternity. The prayers for grace to be bestowed on the both of them lifted by all those who guarded their secret.
Then came the silence. The eerie calm she knew from youth heralded the arrival of a dangerous storm. Even her leaves refused to shift under the soft breeze's touch as her boy paced beneath them. He beseeched the heavens to allow the hurricane to pass over and leave his sanctuary untouched. To leave him unscathed. His shoulders hunched in defeat as acceptance came, and he finally confessed his willingness to make the sacrifice so long as it allowed the girl who carried his heart to survive.
It wasn't the first time she'd witnessed such a display of grief. She'd heard similar words before, back when he was little more than the toddler who'd sought shelter from his father beneath her spreading canopy. He'd begged for the man called Snape to change. To love him the way the flower sisters' father loved them. Then he'd petitioned for his mother's safety, his little voice haggling with the Creator to take his soul instead of the one belonging to the prince's spineless daughter. The Benevolent One had seen fit to acknowledge the deal by sending a woman dressed in tartan plaid. The lady known as McGonagall wiped his tears and swept him away to the safety of the Highlands.
She'd added over a dozen growth rings before he returned to her garden for more than an hour's adventure.
He was barely more than the child who'd played amongst her branches while the kindly cat watched through those square markings around her eyes by the time he'd returned in earnest. This time, it was pleas for the life of a friend who had tossed him aside because of his savage tongue unleashed in embarrassed anger. Bargains to become the offering laid upon the altar between light and dark if only this lily would remain unharmed. It was Merlin's descendent who came for him then. And she was certain it wasn't her beloved Creator who had sent the bearded wizard in answer to her boy's cries.
Yet, despite the familiarity in the air, this visit was different. This time her boy's love was returned ten-fold by the one he beseeched the universe to protect. This time, he was not only willing to sacrifice himself, but this sanctuary. This holy place, where only months before he'd knelt at the feet of the lioness named Hermione and asked her to be his bride, would be overrun by wickedness. This sacred chapel of nature where they'd vowed their love, bound their lives and exchanged their rings in the presence of the emerald-eyed Phoenix, the lady McGonagall and the scattering of others, like the wolf and his mate, her boy and his bride considered worthy of the title 'friend'.
The air hummed with magic. Lightning flashes crackled around her as men robed in raiment as black as a moonless night sky dropped to the earth around her boy. They pounced on him like rabid dogs, mauling him. His cloak was rent. His face glistened with their spit. Someone stripped him to his waist then lashed him to her trunk with glowing lengths of rope as another wielded a ghostly whip. The sizzle of magic against flesh underscored the murmurs of encouragement from the rabble crowded around her boy and his tormenters.
"Where are they?" demanded the whip cracker.
"Tell us and we will allow you to live," offered his captor.
But her boy bared his back willingly in silent sacrifice for his lioness and her friends.
She wanted to brandish her limbs. To flay those men and their minions with the teeth of her bark. To scream to his tormentors the answers that would stop his punishment. Yet, she stood unmoving. For even the winds fled in the face of such malevolence.
A dozen crimson stripes crisscrossed his flesh before a sudden chill rippled through the crowd. They hushed their droning, and the whip stilled in its course through the air. The Snake had entered the garden.
"Severus," he hissed. "Why have you betrayed me?"
Though his black eyes shouted hatred, her boy held his tongue.
"Have you no answer?" The hairless creature slithered in a slow circle around her boy. "Is it because of the young Mudblood? Because you have feelings for her?"
Her boy shuttered his emotions behind a blank stare, then lowered his head.
"Oh, come now." Evil came to rest in front of her boy. A skeletal hand landed on his shoulder. Her boy never flinched. "Had you only asked, I would have given her to you as a reward for your loyalty." The reptilian man bent lower. Had he a nose, it would have skimmed the top of her boy's ear. "Even after all this, if you would but tell me where the Chosen One hides, I will assure her survival."
Her boughs straightened in pride as her boy lifted his head. Black eyes met the red of depravity in defiance, yet her boy remained silent.
"Ah, Severus." The one-time master stood. "Must you make everything so difficult?" he sighed. He whirled to face the spectators. "Given our Potions master's reluctance, I believe it is time to apply a persuasion technique perfected by the Romans in the days of the one heralded as the Christ."
The knees of her roots trembled in response. The Messiah had been her ancestor's boy. One who was loved, and mourned, as vehemently as the boy being untied from her trunk.
"Lucius." The Snake stepped away from her boy. "Cover our esteemed colleague while preparations are made."
Despite the mask, she could see the wisps of snow blonde hair the soldier tried to hide. It was the traitorous friend her boy had brought to the garden a few times. He had deceived even her with his charm and suave manners. He bore a robe of darkest black on his outstretched arms. With a flourish, he draped it over her boy's shoulders, then led him away, covertly offering comfort.
Perhaps it wasn't her boy who was the betrayed.
"Our dear Severus deserves something grand, don't you think?" The Evil One turned from the loud assent rolling through the crowd. They were as thirsty for her boy's blood as this madman was.
Her leaves shivered as his cold eyes swept the garden. When he rested them on her, she knew. How could she not? Her fate had always seemed bound to that of her boy's. It was fitting that it be her arms to offer him comfort in the final hours.
"That one," the man once known as Tom hissed. He moved across the ground with serpentine finesse until he was inches from her trunk. He placed a palm flat against her bark. Her sap froze at his touch and the heartbeat of nature deep within her stilled.
"You are magnificent," he wheezed, selfishly breathing in her scent. "More than worthy of the task." He turned swiftly, the hem of his cloak disturbing last year's sacrifice of leaves at her feet.
"Peter." He waved a dismissive hand in her direction. "If you would."
She'd felt the gnaw of his kind before, this rat man standing before her with a sliver of one of her kinsmen clutched in his fist. They had nibbled on her fruits and sharpened their teeth on her twigs. They were sly and cowardly. And she would fall at this one's hand.
The man unworthy of the mask and robes adorning the other soldiers pointed his shard of wood at the base of her trunk. One downward slash, and she felt the ancient magicks bite in to her flesh like the sharpest axe blade. It rang through the dank air like a thousand hammers against a thousand anvils. Another followed. Then another, until her pulp was rent and she tumbled to the ground with a resounding crack.
Others joined the rat, pecking at her injured carcass like vultures on carrion. Some attacked her limbs, leaving them to lie rotting in the grass. She mourned their loss. Never again would she feel the embrace of her boy as he climbed them. Some laid siege to her bark, their spells peeling it from her in large ribbons. Some stood in the shadows, their wicked intent already forming the saw that would cleave her trunk and the thick bands woven by their sorcery that would complete her transformation.
In mere minutes, their worst was done and they brought her boy to her. Jeers and angry shouts were his processional as she lay there, awaiting the cruel embrace between wood and flesh. Two burly men caught her boy under his arms and placed him against her. They stretched his arms out along her crossbeams, each placing a knee on his forearms just below his elbows. Two more unfurled his fingers and held them flat against her as others placed the nails against his palms.
Her boy knew those nails. The hands that picked them up from the floor of his father's workshop were larger, calloused from working with the tools of his mastery. In another flash of magic, they were sharp against his skin. The hammer cried out as iron met flesh and bone, wounding both her boy and her as the spikes came to rest in the splintering wood.
Surrounded by the maniacal cackles of the Dark One's concubine and her handmaidens, she and her precious burden were lifted from the ground. Spells and enchantments righted her and slid her into a hole dug a little farther up the hill than where she had grown. Cut from her roots, she slowly began to die, along with her boy, who hung cursed upon her.
Blood flowed from her boy's hands and feet. With every drop, she felt him weakening, his thirst growing. Hour after hour passed. Her boy's life poured out with every heartbeat. She wept for him, her sap flowing into his wounds even as his fled his veins. Darkness hung like a shroud over them until...
The earth trembled. Lightning bolts streaked toward the earth leaving the sons and daughters of the Light in their wake. She saw her boy's witch, flanked by the emerald-eyed Phoenix and their red-haired friend, lead the charge. The wolf and his wife followed. Then came the lady McGonagall, the earth queen Sprout, the elemental Healer, and a thousand others.
The air around her and her boy sizzled with the ancient spells until only Evil remained. The Snake glared at the Phoenix. He lunged forward, but the emerald-eyed one held his ground, deflecting each hex. Green light arched from the knobby rod in the Snake's hand, its flight straight and true towards the Phoenix's chest. With a wave of his hand, the Chosen One spun the malicious light. Death screeched victory as wickedness shattered into ashes.
The universe howled in relieved celebration, whipping the four winds into a frenzy.
Then all was silent.
Picking their way across the garden, her boy's witch and their friends approached. With great care and reverence, the emerald-eyed Phoenix, the father of the gingers, and the wolf lifted her boy from her arms and laid him on a clean, white linen cloth the lady McGonagall and the earth queen Sprout spread at her feet.
His witch knelt as his side, her tears mingling with his blood. Her boy's eyes fluttered open. His breath was ragged in his chest, and his lips trembled as he tried to part them. A moment of struggle, and his cracked voice finally broke the stillness. "Hermione."
His Hermione took one of his bruised and broken hands into hers, cradling it against the place where her heart beat. "Severus. Oh, my Severus." She gently brushed his hair from his eyes. "You can rest now, my dearest one. It is finished."
Her boy smiled and closed his eyes.
And the tree cried.