A/N: My my, you guys must be shittin' bricks right now, eh? Two, count 'em, two, new chapters and or stories in as many days.
Amazing. Yes, yes I am. Please, hold your applause for the moment.
So I came up with the idea for this story Christmas Eve, when I was driving with my dad to go to my aunt's. On the radio they were talking about how on Christmas Eve back in WWII, the Germans and the Americans sang Christmas caroles together. And that reminded me of how I'd once heard that soldiers were fighting for so long that they felt a kinship towards their enemies and shared cigs and stuff. ...Which, inevitably, lead, as do all things, to Harry Potter.
I started writing this with a different goal in mind, but I can't say that I'm really bothered with the way it turned out.
...So, Merry..uh...Christmas... /hopes no one notices she's three months late/
There was a lull in the fighting.
For a moment, weapons were put away. Wands were placed in pockets, swords sheathed, axes and clubs leant against a wall of mud, and, in a few cases, guns and other Muggle-made arms put into their holsters.
It was a wretched time, these periods of non-fighting. You could hear the screams of the wounded, the moans of the dying, the terrified bleets of those out in the field, too hurt to move, but crying all the same for someone to save them.
Better to have the roar of battle in your ears, to hear the shouted curses and hexes and spells, the sounds of weapons whistling through the air, than the shrieks of those damned souls.
Yes, better.
Snape shifted, uncomfortable on his seat of mud and broken grass. For some reason, this Last Battle, this continuous, never-ending hell between the Dark and the Light, was taking on odd characteristics of the Muggle wars. Particularly, World War II.
He found it strange. Wizards had never before fought like this, in a continuous state of war, with little skirmishes breaking up long periods of nothingness. Wizards had always fought once. One fight, and then it was over. Usually, they weren't even terribly long. You hexed and cursed and killed quickly, and whichever side had the most people standing, at the end, won.
But this…
The Last Battle had been going on for months. Tearing apart wizard families and lives until finally, the fight had spilled over onto Muggle ground.
Of course, the Muggle leaders were hiding it best as they could, but most of them were furious at the wizards. In fact, they were so angry that any former allies they might have had refused to send troops. Dumbledore had tried bargaining, but the President of Magic in the United States had told him flat out that this was "the Brits battle, and the Brits could damn well hash it out amongst themselves!" And it appeared that everyone else felt the same.
The Battle had been dragging on for so long that even Voldemort had started pleading with other countries to send troops. Germany, Russia, Vietnam, Japan; all had been willing to help Grindewald, but now the Magical Governments were refusing to even receive a Floo-call from Voldemorts' representatives.
And now the British Muggles were as intertwined in this war as everyone else on this cursed rock of an island. At first, they had tried their best to fight back, but most of them had been so bewildered at the sudden and instantaneous appearance of magic that they had ended up outright killing anyone practicing magic, or under suspicion of being a Magic folk. The Prime Minister had been silent on all fronts, hidden as he was in secret underground barracks, planning and worrying and shouting with all the other leaders of the country. So the Muggles had become confused, lost without their leaders telling them what to do, and hid in their houses, as best they could.
Sometimes, when they went scrounging for supplies, Severus saw them. The anxious flicker of a curtain, the gun barrels protruding from half-cracked doors, the fearful, shining madness of their eyes.
He tried to ignore them. It pained him to see them reduced to half-crazed rodents, squealing and hissing, barring their teeth and living like animals, squatting in their own filth, too terrified to move from their own houses.
He wondered how his father was. The last he'd heard of the man, he'd still been living in the old house, working his way through bottle after bottle.
He was probably thriving.
The battlefields…
They were fighting in trenches. Actual ditches dug in the dirt. Like the soldiers of World War II. Severus could still only half believe it.
Down in the ground, where you could hear the earth groaning and sighing, if you listened hard enough, if you blocked out the screams.
Where the dirt was dark and moist, thick like blood; and the bottom always filled with stagnant, muddy water, water clogged with things best not thought of.
Severus thought about it.
He couldn't help it. He thought about everything, eventually, down in the timelessness of the Pit.
He thought about Dumbledore, and Voldemort, their assurances that any day now, the other side would fall, the other leader falter. He thought about how the two seemed to grow closer and closer, more alike to the other, every day.
In the beginning, he'd skipped from side to side, hopeful that he'd find his place somewhere, he'd find more comfort somewhere.
He didn't.
He wasn't even sure, quite honestly, which side he was on, right now. After a while, he'd stopped keeping track. Dumbledore and Voldemort, Light and Dark; after a while, they'd blended to a nasty sort of gray. He didn't think anyone knew which side they were fighting on anymore.
Severus looked around him, for clues to which side he was fighting for. He saw Lucius, looking miserable and dirty, but right next to him, passing a flask, was Minerva. Remus and Avery were sharing a cigarette, a little ways down.
War did this. It tore people apart, put them back together differently. After a while, it stopped mattering what you were fighting for, who you were fighting for. You fought, because you'd been told too, and after so much time, it just became a habit, and the only people with any feeling left were the leaders; everyone else was just a numb lump holding a weapon.
He wondered where Potter was.
He hoped Potter was inside, somewhere warm, drinking a glass of Butterbeer and discussing war tactics with his friends. Potter and the Golden Duo. He hoped that they were safe, away from all this. He hoped that all his students were. They were too young for this, too innocent.
They didn't deserve to see this, to live this. To be in the mud so long that you felt made of it, felt it caked into your hair, woke up with it in your eyes and ears and nose, tasted mud when you ate, when you drank.
And then, to kill. The take out your wand, your trusted, beloved wand, and have to ask your magic—a part of you that was made up of your soul, your heart, your spirit—to kill, to take another life.
It was hell.
Severus feared only one thing now. Pain, torture, they held no secrets for him.
Death, though, death frightened him.
He was afraid that he would be killed, here, before he had a chance to repent, to make up for all the evil he was causing here.
He was afraid that he would be sent to hell.
He was afraid that it would be just like this.
Except for eternity.
A/N: My, but that turned out darker than I expected. :D I'm cool with that. This the only dark!fic I've ever written where at the end I'm not squinting and wincing because it seems so faux-angst.
...I like my one-shots.