Title: If People Were Rain

Description: With the demise of Lord Voldemort, Severus knows that it is too late. (A little play in the fan theory that Harry could only be killed by Voldemort.) (Snape's alive. Everything else is pretty much canon as for who is alive and dead.)

A/N: I had Macbeth. Never read this story ever. Had to read various summaries before I got the gist of it but just barely. My prompts are (spell) Obliviate, (Dialogue) "That is literally the worst thing ever!" (Opening Sentence) He was too late.

o-o-o-o-o

He was too late. Severus Snape had known the minute the robes that had once belonged to a monster he had once worshipped fall in a heap on the ground. The Great Hall was almost unrecognizable and was as quiet as it had ever been. There were no more hexes being thrown, no more crying, no more screaming, and everyone including Severus was too focused on the pile of black robes that lay at Harry Potter's feet.

Severus held his hand firmly against his neck. It had been nearly shredded to bits when Nagini had bitten him; had he not been drinking his specially brewed potion for the whole year, he was sure that he would be dead. His neck pulsed rather fiercely and Severus was sure that if he were to remove his hand, his vision would slip away from him. His dark eyes could only concentrate on Harry Potter. The once foolish, ignorant, childish, selfless Potter was now nearly ten feet away just staring at the empty set of robes just the same as everyone else, everyone except for Severus who was staring intently at the boy, yes boy, who had just killed the Dark Lord.

It had only taken one look at Harry Potter's face to send a shiver down his spine. Severus had seen a lot of things. He had taken part in cruel, horrible acts. He wasn't easily uneased, not at all. It was, therefore, rather ironic that after all these years the very person he'd ridiculed and disparaged as worse than useless could make the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Years of working alongside the ruthless Dark Lord had made Severus privy to many murders.

He could recall two expressions that he saw the death eaters wear on the occasion that they had just murdered first,he had often seen mirrored on the faces of the Dark Lord and his fellow Death Eaters. Enjoyment. They liked it. From the way they held a grin upon their lips or how their eyes lit up with the exact opposite of the joie de vivre. The second was pity, had always been accompanied by guilt and despair soon afterwards. It had always been on the face of a person who valued human life.

As Severus stared into Harry's blank and staring expression, he realised there was a third expression that caused an almost visceral response in his gut: the blank expression that seemed to separate all emotion from the deed. Those who held this expression were the ones that Severus hated the most. To him, the only thing that disgusted him more than a killer who enjoyed killing was a killer who lacked all emotional response. . It was one of the many reasons Severus hated himself. He was the master of lack of unemotional response.

But, looking at Harry Potter was something else completely. The look that Harry Potter had held was just… emotionless. He just stared. His eyes held no fire, no tears, no shine, and that was when knew he was too late. Harry Potter was long gone. It was as if he had been Obliviated, like he had no connection to the people around him, like he couldn't remember what he had done.

He couldn't be saved.

"Harry!" A female voice cried out from behind Severus. He turned around with great effort to see Hermione Granger running towards her best friend. Her clothes were dirty, and her hair was frizzier than he had ever seen it before. Severus watched as the witch grew closer to Potter , and he watched Potter's face very closely. He watched as the realization of what he'd just done worked into his brain. The hero's wand made a plick as he dropped it on the ground and let out a psychotic laugh.

Hermione stopped in her tracks and stared at Harry Potter in horror. Her eyes were wide in disbelief as she took in the scene before her. Severus closed his eyes and looked away. He knew the boy was forever lost. He had seen everything leading up to this moment from the beginning, and he was too ashamed to look at what he, too, had had a hand in creating.

o-o-o-o-o

"Oh, Harry…" Hermione managed to choke out through her tears at her friend's outburst.

Harry tried addressing the girl in front of him but failed as he couldn't properly form words through his laughter. He willed himself to calm down.

"Hermione," he said. "I did it."

She stared into his face and into his eyes with both sympathy and relief. "It's finally over, Harry," she whispered softly.

Harry shook his head at her words and stepped away from her grip.

"But it's not over Hermione. Don't you see? I'm a murderer."

Conflicting emotions swam Hermione's face as she attempted to reason with him.

"Harry, no," she exclaimed. "No, you're not at all!"

"That is literally the worse thing ever!" Harry said sarcastically while chuckling, but his mood quickly changed as he spoke his next words. "But I am, Hermione. I just killed someone!" Harry seemed to lose his calm tone as he screamed the words. He shook his head and looked into his friend's eyes. "Hermione, I'm a murderer, and do you want to know the best part? I'd do it again! "

o-o-o-o-o

Severus watched as Hermione Granger took a step back with fear in her eyes at Harry's outburst in combination with his throwing himself back on the ground and laughing hysterically. There was a difference between not caring and not feeling anything, and Harry was someplace between mental breakdown and psychopathic fervor.

The Harry Potter that everyone knew up until the point of Voldemort's demise was not a killer Severus knew that for certain, yet when he looked into the boy wizard's face, he didn't see the same boy that he taught for the last six years. He saw none of the innocence, blatant Gryffindor bravery, or even the sense of arrogant self-righteousness that often mirrored his father's. There was nothing. Even his words calling himself a murderer seemed empty and hollow.

Severus felt sick his stomach, a sense of foreboding growing in his gut. Harry Potter had lost his parents at the age of one and everything had gone downhill from there. His family was gone. His godfather was killed by his own inadvertent hand. Lupin, his only living connection to his father, had died in the war. Every connection Potter had with the family that had sacrificed their lives to save him was gone. Even the murderer of his family was gone.

Severus winced as he straightened his posture and attempted not to wobble while standing. His left leg felt numb, and he tried not to think of both the pain he did have and the numbness that was stealing it away. There was something he had to do—for Potter and for himself.

He limped over to where the two teens were standing.. Granger turned her head at his footsteps, and her eyes widened as he took a few tentative quick steps before stumbling..

"Don't come any closer you foolish girl," Snape snapped at her.

"But, Professor, you're hurt," Hermione cried as she eyed the hand he held clasped onto his neck.

"Potter," Snape growled as he ignored the still crying girl. "Potter, look at me!"

The boy seemed to just notice that the Potions Master was there and even with his attention on him, his eyes seemed unfocused, like he wasn't really he wasn't. Severus let his wand slide down his sleeve into his hand. He watched as Harry Potter's eyes dropped down just to look back up, and he just stood there. Severus knew that Potter knew exactly what he was doing, yet he didn't even try to reach for his cast off wand to defend himself.

Instead, he smiled.

'He will be with you soon, Lily,' Severus thought to himself in a silent apology before raising his wand.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Granger screamed, and Harry Potter just stood there. The green streak hit Potter straight in the stomach, and Potter fell to the ground.

Severus heard a chuckle coming from Potter.

No!

"You see, Severus," Harry said in a voice that was not his own. It was calm and calculating, strangely low and utterly unnerving. It was familiar, and it wasn't Harry's. "I was told a prophecy long ago. Maybe you would remember this quote?"

Severus flinched at Potter's uncharacteristic use of his given name watched as Potter raised his head to stare at him. His glasses had fallen off and lay cracked on the ground. He didn't even bother to pick them up. His eyes, which had always been the bright living and vibrant green of Lily's eyes, had a strange, almost yellow tint to them, as if crimson had started to seep into the green of his eyes. Slowly, as he watched, the yellow turned a familiar and terrifying shade of red.

"Either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives."

Severus felt the world shake beneath him. No. That can't be right. Why wasn't he dead? He didn't use a wand that would reject Potter. He was supposed to die, he was supposed to be put out of his misery.

"Surely, you know what that actually means," Harry said as if he were lecturing him. "You're a smart wizard, Professor."

Either must die at the hand of the other…oh. Severus fell to his knees in disbelief. How could he have been be so stupid to miss that? How could he have not thought deeper enough to realize what it all truly meant?

"Once the boy killed someone, and you see, I tried to get him to kill dear Bellatrix back at the Ministry, but he resisted, " Harry said in a strangely compassionate tone that did not fit the situation. "Once he killed someone, his soul fractured, and I was there to fill in the cracks. There were many, many cracks, Severus. So many shattered soul pieces from his shattered life."

Harry gave an uncharacteristically cruel smile. "I'm sorry you didn't realise it until now, Severus," Harry said in a consoling tone. "You've been a faithful servant, but only I can live forever."

Severus stared at the ground of the Great Hall beneath him. He was too late. He could just feel the power emitting from the once pure boy. It was tainted and dark. It was familiar. It wasn't Harry Potter at all.

Harry had called his wand to his hand without a sound. His expression was placid and expressionless.

"Harry, don't!" Granger pleaded as she threw herself in front of her ex-Potions Professor.

Harry's mouth twisted upward into a smile— a knowing, arrogant smile.

"Avada Kedavra!" he hissed.

Hermione Granger's lifeless body fell backwards into Severus' arms, and the Dark Wizard stared at Potter with true realisation of what had just been released upon the world.

"May you join his mother and all the others he once loved," Potter said serenely. He pointed his wand level to Severus' face.

"Avada Kedavra."