Dark Star

"Severus…if you are ready… if you are prepared…"

"I am."

He had not been. What could have prepared him? How could he have felt ready? He had walked into that night knowing, deep within his bones, that there was a high possibility he would not live to see the morning. And he had willingly apparated away that night knew full well that the Cruciatus Curse was going to be the best outcome… the best.

Severus had always done everything in his power to obey everything commanded of him by Dumbledore; this had always been out of pure duty to the man.

But duty did not necessarily equate pure trust.

There was only one person in the world he had gradually, painstakingly learned to trust, trust wholeheartedly, trust without any reservation: and she was the sole reason he had deviated from his orders that night of the final Triwizard task.

He found her in the Astronomy tower. He had suspected that she would be there. It was Aurora Sinistra's sanctuary - a foreboding, looming tower she would often run away and escape up because it was so much of a physical effort to actually make it to the top that no-one else could be quite bothered with the whole ordeal. But, like most things that required some stamina and strength, the payoff was normally worth the pain.

The sky was positively glittering that night… the dark and shrouded moon had given way to thousands of twinkling pinpoints; one could almost forget that the earth on which they stood was about to be changed forever, that a bloody war was looming on the horizon. Being here, in this tower, had always made everything else seem rather stupid. Rather petty. Meaningless. He supposed that was why she liked to hide here – feeling small and insignificant was ironically comforting in such times.

The Astronomy mistress was sitting at one of her telescopes, robes of deep midnight blue spilling over her stool like waterfalls bathed in the night. Instead of an eye pressed hard against the optical viewpoint, however, she was merely gazing with her naked eyes - and he could tell by the way her chest systematically rose and collapsed in steady progression that the heart within his chest was not the only one beating madly against its skeletal prison.

This couldn't be the last time he ever saw her…

Severus had never prayed for the Cruciatus Curse so much as he had done that night.

"What does this all mean?" Aurora whispered suddenly, back still toward him. Obviously his footsteps could not be masked as belonging to anyone else – she had deciphered them immediately.

Severus closed his eyes and focused all of his available willpower on finding words… the best words he could use in order to provide her with a slither of truth and comfort. The wind howled around them like it too was awaiting an explanation.

"He has returned…" he said in return for her patience.

"I figured that much out for myself, actually," Aurora replied querulously, nodding her head so vigorously that one or two dreadlocks detached themselves from where they had been wrapped at the top of her head. "I meant for you?"

The pounding that had been thumping against his chest for the best part of the night radiated up to his throat upon hearing her voice her concern. He didn't know how to answer that particular question. Not because he couldn't find the right words to explain the heaviness that now weighed upon his shoulders - but because he was so blown over by the idea that his wellbeing was the very first thing on someone else's mind that it momentarily disorientated him.

Why do I mean so much to you? Why? Why? It doesn't make any sense, look at you… look at me! His mind screamed at her: this beautiful, intelligent witch in front of him, the most resilient and ferocious force Severus had ever known. Her heavy eyes were glittering now, mirroring the vast sky that cloaked them.

"It means that I have to go… tonight." He couldn't bear to look meet her piercing gaze. "Dumbledore -"

Severus couldn't finish the sentence before an angry scoff had radiated from her direction. Sinistra shoved the telescope away from her so aggressively that the tripod teetered on one leg, on the verge of collapsing to the floor.

"Dumbledore!" her voice emanated pure poison as she stalked away into the shadows. "Dumbledore, Dumbledore, Dumbledore…"

Aurora repeated the name continuously like a madwoman possessed until he had had quite enough of the dramatics.

"Borealis, for goodness sake!"

"Is it that hard for you to tell him and everyone else to go and get fucked?!" she turned toward him and his stomach almost dropped to the floor when he saw tears surging up in her eyes. It was almost indecent.

"Just run away, you stupid arse, get out of here, leave the country! We'll leave together. God knows the only reason I've stayed this long is to protect you. Just get-" she gave a great heave and held a shaking palm to her face… a makeshift trembling veil…

Were it that simple. Severus closed his eyes in a desperate attempt to quench the rising heat in his sinuses. He should never have come here; it had been a spectacular mistake. He was about to march right up to the Dark Lord and grovel for forgiveness, not knowing if he would make out a single word to him before he was killed at the offset, all the while having to empty and blacken every synapse in his mind to all emotion that would give him away.

And here he was watching her cry… knowing it could have been the very last memory he had of her.

"Don't make this harder for the both of us…" Severus said as forcefully and coldly as he could.

Aurora suddenly gave an almost manic laugh at his request.

"Oh, I'm very sorry!" she barked, a glistening trail of rivers running from the corners of her eyes to the tip of her nose. "Really, I truly apologise for being a tad upset that this might be the last time I ever see you!"

"I am not going anywhere. I promise. I promise when you wake up tomorrow, I will be here." Where the resolve suddenly came from, he did not know. But Severus found himself believing every single word that was coming out of his mouth…

I have to stay alive now... I've promised her, and she trusts me.

It was the most ridiculous, childlike thought he'd ever had.

Aurora viciously wiped the side of her face with her sleeve and gave an almighty sniff, she raised her head toward him defiantly, her eyes wide and ireful.

"I'm coming with you. I'll damn well join the Death Eaters too. If you can do it, how hard can it…"

She croaked; her voice had never sounded so shaky, as if it were on the verge of breaking beyond repair. Upon exchanging a particularly despondent look with him, the edges around her gradually appeared to soften. She pursed her dark lips and allowed a long train of ensnared breath to escape her body.

"If you don't come back," Sinistra whispered, a finger jabbed threateningly in his direction. "I will never forgive you."

Severus nodded, it was a completely reasonable conclusion. He would never forgive himself, after all, why should he ask anything more of her?

"I will also hunt You Know Who down and annihilate him for laying a finger on you," she continued. "And that's a promise."

His entire body was shaking now. Time was running out, Dumbledore would have expected him to arrive at the Dark Lord's side by now and here he still was, stark white, shaking like a leaf, eyes stinging, feet glued to the floor in the Astronomy tower.

"I have no doubt that you will, Borealis, but rest assured that I will be returning."

"And in what state will you return?"

"Don't…" he swiftly replied. He couldn't bear to think of tomorrow, of what any of the consecutive tomorrows would bring. He could barely handle the thought of what the next minute would bring, let alone tomorrow.

"I have to go," he had said, feeling the Mark burning hotter than ever on his left forearm. The Mark which, moments ago, he had presented to the Minister of Magic himself in order to prove his old master's return to power. The Mark which served as a constant reminder of his past, and his mistakes, and his regrets. Severus began to centre himself once more and allow the darkness waiting in the corners of his mind to infiltrate every synapse.

Aurora was surveying him through the clenched hands at her mouth. Oh, she would survive without him well enough… were it not for his utterly selfish desire to belong to her, to be completely hers, to be the one person who loved her above all others and to ensure that no one else would ever dare take his place, he would have gladly welcomed his demise in order for her to live a far happier life than the one which he could provide.

"I…" he started, though his voice had caught somewhere deep inside his chest and he could not get the words out. Severus could never quite get that word out.

The other professor shook her head softly, indicating that she need not hear it. The unspoken was enough.

He looked at her, right at her, before sweeping from the tower… finally mustering up enough courage. And it was all he needed.

It was enough.

True to his word, he had returned that morning, living but not quite alive. He had looked death square in its blood red eyes had just only just managed to evade it. He had apparated back just outside the grounds right before dawn had broken and almost immediately tumbled over onto the ground, his weight no longer able to hold him. Severus rolled over onto his back where he lay upon the dew-coated leaves and mud and waited for the earth to stop spinning so fucking fast; the gates ahead of him seemed light-years away and he would never be able to reach them in his lifetime. He would have to die here after all.

The next thing Severus knew, he was at her door, without any recollection of how he had arrived there. The corridors were cold, empty, deserted… the castle felt more like a stony tomb than a home now – remanets of last night.

Not that Hogwarts had ever felt like much of a home to him. It had been nothing but a constant and stark reminder that all of his hopes for a better life had been in vain.

Or at least Severus had thought so; until her.

Over the years, so slowly that the feeling had manifested without his knowledge, she had become his home, his sanctuary. Home was somewhere between her hair and her ribcage… her fingers and her lips… home was wherever she chose to rest, and he could only follow.

He had enough physical strength in his arm to raise it slightly, where he performed the complex series of movements in order to unlock Aurora's door. He had expected nothing more than to fall into the bed next to her fully clothed, unable to spare enough energy to even tear off his cloak – and hopefully merely feeling the weight and warmth of her next to him, perhaps that alone would soften every inch of viscous muscle and bone currently pounding in his body. Just for a few hours. He just needed to close his eyes and disappear for a few hours. Please… just one… one hour.

But her living room was not empty as it usually was in the breaking morning, her bedroom door was not closed as it usually was - indicating that by no means was she to be disturbed after her many midnight Astronomy practical lessons. Instead, Severus had come face to face with a woman who was madly pacing the floor, still dressed in exactly what she was wearing the previous night: the very same deep wine robes that he had seen her in as she sat, laughing and smirking next to Professors Lhoridi of Ancient Runes and Vector of Arithmancy, awaiting the final results of the last task of the tournament. Before Potter had come back clutching Diggory's body. Before it all went to ashes.

Severus took only one look at her, his sudden appearance had stopped the Astronomy professor in her tracks and she turned to counter his gaze. Her eyes closed and her chest heaved. The sound of sheer and utter relief that diffused from her lips upon seeing him standing at her door rattled him to the core, and everything was suddenly too unbearable.

The next moment his knees had buckled and he dropped to the floor right in front of her.

Aurora's hands entwined themselves around his hair as she gently pulled him toward the warmth of her belly. All of the resolve and pretence he had worked so tirelessly hard to maintain crumbled to dust in her embrace, and he silently wept, his shoulders shuddering amongst her robes with every hushed sob.

He was not sure how long they dwelled in the very middle of that room… he kneeling, snivelling into her robes like an idiot (living up to the nickname he so despised); she, standing, painstakingly, soothingly stroking his hair… he did not care. He wanted her to hold him forever, melt into her embrace, and forget the whole blasted lot of them outside of these walls.

"Come to bed…" he heard her finally whisper after what seemed like hours of the cathartic release. It was the only thing she had said the entire time they had been there. Severus had nothing left in him to fight, to object, though he wished to do neither of those things. He allowed himself to pulled up into the cream bed sheets, underneath the sanctity of her four-poster bed, where they had so often spent many nights together, shared things they hadn't dreamed of sharing together…

Aurora lay him down, and suddenly all of the pangs of self-consciousness returned to him. He must've looked wholly pathetic. His eyes must've been red raw and his face flushed with the recent outpouring of his weakness. When she began to undo the buttons of his robes he gave a great heave away from her, and took the opportunity to bury his ugly face in one of the pillows.

"Don't," Aurora demurred, much softer than her usual commands. "You need to take that off. You can't sleep in it."

Sleep… as if he could sleep ever again.

She didn't press the issue. Not like she usually would have. Fiery exchanges were so often their ways of taking care of one another – ensuring that the other was taking care of themselves in the process. They lay silent for a blissful while; Severus closed his eyes and tried not to remember the curses tearing through his body, being face-to-face with the Dark Lord and having to explain himself after his absence, being welcomed back into the fold he so desperately wished with all his might to flee from. Aurora allowed him time. But without her fingers sweeping over his entire back and the pressure of her body against his, he was sure that he would have had another foolish relapse.

Eventually he opened his eyes, crusty and sticky with old tears and soreness and fatigue, and looked at her. Her eyes could have almost mirrored his own.

"I'm going to take this off," she whispered, resuming the soft stroking of his oily hairline.

Upon her words, the Mark that had been branded into his skin as a lost, lonely and misguided youth seemed to burn even harder than ever. Severus ripped his hand away from her and clutched at his left forearm, fighting back another onslaught of grief.

"No! I won't let you. You… I don't want you to see me…"

"I've seen you undress many times, my love."

"Not this…" Severus said, now clawing at his throbbing arm, pumping the purest of poisons through his body, he writhed within the clutches of its power. "You haven't seen this... I won't let you…"

No verbal objections, no words came from her. The only response was a singular, delicate hand that reached for his own. He allowed their cold fingers to intertwine as the edges of her fingernails scraped the palm of his trembling hand; they snaked around his wrist and shadowed his knuckles. When the fingers journeyed further into the caverns of his sleeves he gave a momentary jolt away – recalling how everyone in the hospital wing had shuddered, gasped, stared down upon the blackened and raw skull branded on his skin in utter horror and revulsion.

And while their revulsion was not particularly pleasant to witness, at least Severus could have coped with their judgement. He had been met with looks of disgust and contempt ever since he could remember - so much so that it had become the height of normality. Looks and sneers and hurtful insults were even welcomed in his childhood and school years: it meant that, at least for the time being, he did not have to worry for his immediate physical safety. (There was plenty of that, too).

But Aurora's judgement, to see Aurora's face contorted in revulsion and horror and to know that he alone was the catalyst, for Aurora to be fearful to be in the same room as him… that he could not bear. Give him all of the physical threats against his life in the world, and it would be absolutely no match for the agony her contempt would inflict upon him.

He would rather die before he lost a shred of her trust.

Aurora's thumb was gracefully stroking the bit of trembling sleeve that he was attempting to keep at arms bay. She was giving him that look… the all-knowing and shielding look that had always ensure his safety in the past.

"You know what I'm going ask you, don't you?" she whispered.

Oh, he knew. They had been in this situation an uncountable amount of times. When an extremely emotionally and physically heightened occurrence was to follow – she had always given him this look, and proceeded to ask him what he knew she were about to ask him now…

"Yes…" Severus replied, so barely audibly that he hardly heard himself.

Aurora nodded.

"And so I will ask again, as I always will: do you trust me?"

Trust.

He had to look her straight in the eyes for this; despite it being a part of the rules, Severus also harboured an innate need to gaze straight into her – to assure the both of them that he never did, and never had, carried any doubt. That she was the only one he could look upon and say what he was about to say.

"Yes."

And it was the only word that needed to be spoken. He lowered his arm and watched on in agonising silence as Sinistra played with the buttons on his sleeve, unfastening each one so very skilfully and lovingly that each one might as well have been made of the most delicately crafted glass. Each little black button broke free, one-by-one, from the neighbouring material until there was nothing left but his white undershirt – the singular scrap of armour that now kept him locked in (or out) of the world. The one and only covering that separated the Dark Mark, that tangible reminder of his irredeemable failures, and the woman he loved.

And yet he watched… he allowed her to use him as she saw fit, as he had done countless times in the sanctity of her bed before.

Was it any different, really?

He recalled the first time she commanded him to undress completely in front of her, and despite the initial horror at imagining Aurora's face as she was forced to observe such a heinous and ugly sight such as his nakedness (something which he certainly could not stomach whenever he accidentally caught sight of himself in a mirror), he had done it without question; he trusted that she and she alone would never hurt or insult or laugh at him the way the entire school body had done that day after the unforgettable Defence Against the Dark Arts exam. The act of exposing himself to her after a lifetime of being hidden under all of those black robes and buttons and collars and sleeves had been one of the most emotionally intense experiences of his life. It had bonded them together in such a way that paved the path for the total and complete trust they now had in one another.

How dissimilar could this time be?

And yet, Severus could not help but cringe and clamp his eyes tightly shut in shame as Aurora drew up the last bit of sleeve; the Mark would still be there, as ever, burning black and waiting to be called upon by its Master once more. Oh, he had seen it far too many times. He had spent fruitless hours upon hours in vain attempting to train himself to unsee it and to ignore it – but how could he? He certainly could not look at it now. The blackness of his eyelids was far more preferable to the curves of the skull and the fangs of the snake…

After a few minutes, however, curiosity got the better of him as it always had done and he opened his eyes. Aurora was looking down upon the Mark with an unfathomable expression, her thumb delicately traced the outlines of the serpent in front of her, sending shivers down to the base of his spine.

When her lips dropped dangerously close to the skin on his forearm, Severus was met with a wild vision of her sinking her teeth into his flesh and ripping it apart… destroying all evidence of his Death Eater ties… he could not deny that a small part of his mind was willing her on to do it.

But her lips didn't bite, nor rip, or tear. Aurora gently skimmed the surface of the throbbing skin with the tips and proceeded to tenderly kiss every portion the Dark Mark. Soft, gentle, soothingly warm kisses made their way from the very face of the serpent, up its tail and around the dreaded cranium which encased the lot of them. Snape watched her from above in stunned and silent awe as she tended to him; he could feel the sting of the blasted tears again and it took all of his hastily diminishing strength preventing them from breaking through.

She hadn't blinked an eyelid. She hadn't gasped in revulsion. She hadn't said anything to make him feel ashamed. As always, he was stunned by her… an anomaly in the darkness…

Her lips hung upon his shame for eons. Pressing upon it so hard that it felt all-consuming.

"I don't just love parts of you," she whispered from the trembling landscape of burned flesh. "I love you as one whole. This…"

Aurora swept a singular finger down the Mark.

"… is no different to me than this…"

She pressed the same finger to his greasy temple.

"… or this…"

The finger arrived at the left side of his chest. Suddenly he had enveloped her in his arms without any recollection of attempting to do so.

"You don't just love me for my insanely brilliant mind, my astounding sense of humour or my insane amount of physical appeal do you?" Sinistra quipped from the kingdom of black robes around her. Severus felt an unexpected pang of amusement through the pain.

"What do you take me for?" he answered defiantly.

He drank her all in… loving every single facet about the witch whose life had been unexpectedly (and for the most part – secretly) entwined with his own: how insufferably stubborn she was, how he had often wished to wring her tenacious neck in the past, how she could insult and aggravate him like no other person alive, how they had used to fight with the ferocity of werewolves…

How her face lit up with the luminosity and beauty of a thousand spinning galaxies when she was out at night, in her element, researching and stargazing into the unknown… how funny she was… how logic and art and magic all came together and danced within her like no-one else he had ever met… how she was the most academically gifted witch he had known… her ferocious passion… her biting, silver tongue…

Just her. Just Aurora. His Borealis (though she would probably deliver him several stinging hexes in extremely uncomfortable places if ever she caught him referring to her as 'his'). He loved her goodness, her loved her badness, her loved her.

Their bodies shifted after a while of silence, and now she was holding him in turn. Oh god, he wanted to stay here forever. Perhaps not here, no, here was too dangerous and harboured too many depressing reminders. He wanted to be anywhere else but here with her forever… and it shook him to the cold core to know that this would never be possible for them. His duties were too immense, and he was buried in too deep.

But, just as always, just as it always was for them… this was enough. It was just enough.

After what seemed a blissful forever, she wriggled up closer to his neck. Her mouth crackled down his ear as she opened up her lips to speak.

"It's easy to fall in love with all of the bright, pretty, twinkling stars" she said. "The ones that exude nothing but light and goodness. Anyone can appreciate them, can love them. It takes no effort, nor any struggle to adore them. They may be nice to look at, but eventually I tend to find them rather analogous; sometimes even tedious."

Her hand swept up and down his pounding forearm as she spoke the strangely poetic words to him, words that were very much out of character for her.

"But the Dark Stars…" Aurora whispered, almost ominously. "The Dark Stars are the ones that are truly beautiful. They intrigue, perplex, madden me in my quest to explain them when I know I cannot. I will never have all of the answers I crave to get from them. The Dark Star is the most mysterious and destructive force in the known universe and certainly not something most people can comprehend and appreciate… and that - that is why I fell in love with them. That is why I love you - intriguing, perplexing, maddening, vicious force that you are. I wouldn't love you if you had the darkness cut out of you and thrown away as if it were worthless rubbish. Who would that be? Certainly wouldn't be my beautiful arsehole of a Gitface now would it?"

And for the rest of this life, these would remain the most heart wrenching words ever spoken to him. The shame he had always felt that he had cast upon her seemed to be melting away, thawing like colossal glaciers after a 35-year-long ice age. If he had been a wreck before it was nothing like he was now. He crumbled into a trembling heap beside her…

"Why?" he implored desperately through the clenched hands at his eyes. "Why do you even - do you even bother? You are so incredibly… and I'm just…"

He was quite unable to finish any full sentences this morning, it appeared. He trusted that Aurora would have gotten the general gist of his complete and utter confusion that had now replaced his shame.

Does it really matter, though? Would I ever be able to find the answers that explained every facet about this woman and her bizarre reasons for loving me of all the people she could love? Far, far less damaged people…

But then the image of a demolishing, colossal black hole suddenly materialised in his head. He recalled every word Aurora had just spoken to him, and it was only now that he truly realised that he could stop asking these questions of her. She had let his words run dry until the realisation had hit; patiently knowing that it would, like the immeasurably self-assured all-knowing being that she bloody well knew she was.

They lay in silence together for the rest of the morning, until burdens and duty once again forced separation between them, not talking because talking was no longer enough. He occasionally turned merely to stare into her eyes… subconsciously desiring to bask and bathe himself in her soul, to desperately separate himself from his own…

With his last shred of physical and inner strength he kissed her.

Oh, in very many ways she was just as damaged and tainted as he was. Harbouring a past full of misery and mistakes behind those slumberous eyes of hers. But Severus supposed that was why they were here… bodies entwined around one another. Two lost, imperfect, broken pieces of the same material. Two dark stars that had once merged catastrophically and ended up forging a sanctuary within one another.

Let the simple fools have their shining, pretty, twinkling dots in the sky... he thought.

Wild hair and bony ribcages. Healing fingers and venomous lips. Her all-consuming destructive and sacrosanct force.

This was where he would be found.