NPOV
He was there on the night of the killing, on the night of the Battle of Hogwarts, and the very next morning, when the people woke up from the illusion and opened their eyes to the destruction around them. There was little left of the courtyard, rubble churned up and statues toppled, and little grey hands stuck out, palms upturned as if searching for light, that same thin thread of hope and glorious sunrise be shed on their mangled, crushed, or prostrate bodies. All of the dead, if they would rise again, would outnumber the living souls remaining in the school by the very next morning.
It was an inglorious sight. Enough to make the children wail and weep all over again, the raw wounds ripped open with stinging sensations, and to make them ask why. Why would they go ahead and live on, while their little friends had been killed, or worse, maimed horribly, and some were too far from mortality that even through the valiant efforts of Madame Pomfrey, the school's head nurse, all their little bodies would do was bleed, bleed and bleed though the night. She didn't have the hart to end their misery, and couldn't do anything anyway when the others were like hawks, guarding their dying companions. They had a little hope left, and with hope, she thought, all would be well. Those were the poorest ones, who suffered and died. But then the dead could all move on, if they chose, onto that theoretical dimension where white stained their blood soaked hands and eased them of all penalty and guilt. And the living would suffer, and the living would suffer.
This is a story of suffering.
This is a story of candlelit paper and inkwells, and words written in calligraphic handwriting, and later smeared with droplets of water. These were chaste little droplets, falling from bent-over eyes and coupled with stricken groans and fierce moaning. But eventually all the letters would be cast into the fire, because that was the only source of light in the cold London home, and the only source of heat. He would never send those letters, and by the time he wrote them and plummeted into sadness again, and drank it all away afterwards, and in the hours of the morning wept for all his profligacy and imprudence, and when he woke up later, sober and dead inside, the paper would be too tear-stained to read anyway. The ink would have bled through onto the dark-lacquered table and he'd have dried it clean with his wand, which was the one possession that was his, truly and totally his.
He felt he had very little time left. So he cleaned up, resetting the firewhiskey on the shelves, mending the broken bottles and righting the shelves. With curses abound, he left his bed neat and tidy, drawing all the shades. Righting his spilt ink, he dabbed the quill in it and left the pen, dry with another muttered spell, on the table next to the single page of stationery entitled with the date of a random day in June.
He was one of the survivors, a figure in the multitude, but he was also one of the forgotten. And his story would never be told if I were not here to tell it. And it would get better for him, oh, it very well would. But a tragedy is naught without suffering, a hero nothing without the struggle, be it inner or physical, or in some cases, astral.
There are those who see races, who find weaknesses, find flaws in every separate being and in beings collectively. We either watch or we tamper, and I have been known to do both. In the case of this downtrodden fellow, I did both. And I did more. All it required was a little bit of insight on my part. But let me tell you that by casting my gaze to the high heavens I altered the course of the history of Earth, and the course of one single, powerful, puny human life.
Ah, but I intend not to bore you. That would be no fun, no fun at all. So listen well to this story, and hold in your heart my words, and in your mind the belief that fortune will favor this sad man. Eventually.
Oh, and his "last words" were a tad bit cliché. But not the way he said them, as if he really meant them, had meant to say them for more than seventeen years.
They all thought his dying breath had been spent on words he'd never once uttered, a compliment to the boy.
He had stood in the boathouse, the gentle swaying of the lake rocking the floor under his shoes. Rocking, rocking, back and forth. The sea was so calm, like the porcelain face of a doll. His face was drooping, his thin lips and dark eyes calm and still, there on his visage.
The snake slithered around her master's legs. She let loose a terrible, ominous hissing noise. His face did not change; it never did. Just the same sulking frown. But inside, he simmered with disgust for the reptilian creature. The Dark Lord cast a glance at his feet, where Nagini's smooth body coiled around his leg. And then he stepped closer to Severus. His cloak billowed and shimmered in the moonlight, its illusory effect magnified through the glass windows. There was a beautiful view of the lake at night that could be seen through those windows. On a clear night, you could see the moon's reflection on the water and the hills in the distance, the trees dotting the landscape. The castle sparkled at night with its pointed shoulders to the sky.
However, tonight was not a night to marvel at the landscape. For tonight the light came not from the sky, clear and black as it was, but from the castle courtyard. A scene filled with mass destruction and anarchy, all of the Hogwarts regime left in tatters. Flashes lit up the sky overhead the grounds.
Snape's back faced the wall made of glass. His eyes tracked his Master, and his slither-like motion towards him. The Dark Lord moved with an eerie non-gait that, coupled with the lack of nasal extremity, made him look, act, and walk 'snake'.
"You killed Dumbledore, Severus." His gray eyes peered into Snape's, daring him to open them further, to break the mold of his mask. "While you live, the Elder Wand cannot, truly be mine."
The words hung in the air, but...Severus hardly registered them. He was thinking about other things. Voldemort's voice was slow to reach his ears; the Dark Lord's power made Severus weak in the knees sometimes. It was like listening through a pipe to someone on the other side of a wall. It was like trying to spesk underwater.
And yet, he knew this day would come as soon as the dawn, if not sooner. His chin tipped upwards. He would not die a shameful man.
"You have been a good and faithful servant, Severus. But only I can live forever!"
Voldemort raised his wand and a sneer opened up a chasm across his face. Severus had hoped it wouldn't end for him like this. "My lord..."
Snape could not finish the sentence.
For the spell cut blood out of his neck; instead of spewing onto his Master's black, bleak cloak, it burbled softly and his dark-swathed body fell to the floor from the shock of the quick paralysing poison. His back rammed into the glass wall, forcing his teeth to clack painfully and the muscles in his neck to spasm. But, as was per limitations induced by the incantation, he was losing muscle control. His faculties, his breathing, they were slipping, sliding, slithering away...
HISSSSSSS.
Voldemort uttered something in the language called Parseltongue. Snape's mind was in far too much distress to understand it. Gods, his head must have hurt from the fall!
Hot blood bubbled from his wound; he could've screamed at the senselessness even more than the sting, the throbbing pain, the sharp prods of hot acid like suspense that prickled his body. But it did not hurt like he thought it would. Death's onset is surprisingly calm to a dying man.
In one moment, the seeping Snape felt the cold floor under his slack hands, the cold glass against his back, the warm blood that covered his chest as it rolled. The cold, staunch air froze his face.
Razors tore into his neck. He screamed, his illusion vanished, as the huge viper took his breath away. She landed heavily on him. She was a live, panting creature, and her slick body was engrossed in desire, for she wanted fresh blood. He yelled, having never done so in his life as he would ever admit, as her teeth snapped shut around a dangling strip of neck-flesh and tore it from him.
Beards and brothels, it should hurt so! It pierced the fabric of his soul, how it made him writhe in agony. Yet he could not move. Not even cry out. And he though he could not know it, all of his screams had been silent groans, bringing sadistic glee to his tormentor's face.
Nagini tore his throat up into pieces. She ripped at his flesh, leaving burning, broiling holes. His dark robes were no more their best black, but thoroughly stained.
The snake made a second full lunge. Snape's belly contracted; her writhing body atop him was too heavy to be real. It was then that he felt a huge pain in his abdomen, a lashing torture. The snake had ripped a gaping wound in his chest; the sting rendered him fully helpless. He could not cry. Could not move. Only grunt as the viper tore off his hanging, bloody flesh and writhed her way into his stomach. A slow, painful death this would be.
Nagini attacked him again. Nagini spliced his chest, cut near to his heart, near to his lungs. With each shallow breath, he found himself drowning. Drowning in blood. His own, his very own, as it poured down his throat, filling his lungs. Where is Potter? he surely thought. Where is Albus?
Lily.
Lily was gone, but that goes without saying.
They would all have left him; they had all left him behind. He would die alone. She, a mere woman, had proven him wrong again; she predicted he would. She said it made her sad, but it was his own fault. His choice.
And she was, Gods, so right.
Voldemort cackled-Snape saw a final glimpse of his Master's white, pearly teeth, smiling sadistically down at his agony. Master called his pet to him, and the loud CRACK of apparation deafened Snape, and sent him spiraling fast into a deep, dark hole. His vision began to grow spotty and black.
Moments later, Potter walked in and tenderly cradled his head, and slowly watched him die.
He awoke pooled in blood, which he mistakenly thought at first was water or sickness, and found that he could not properly breathe without adhering rapt concentration to the simple task. He was at first startled, and a swift intake of air through his mouth subsequently caused him to feel a very sunken, empty feeling in the cavity of his chest. He realized that his punctured lungs were drawing from nothing, and his esophageal tract was leaking copious amounts of his own blood.
He collected that quickly, he was losing blood, and memories returned to him a second later, having left for the moment of his leap into consciousness from near-death. He realized that dead he was not, but dead he very well should have been.
His vision began to collapse and fade into gray-blackness, but a strange insurgence of pride pushed him –he could nearly feel the pressure building on his chest, in his heart, in his brain- to summon magic, using those well-practiced skills.
Using nonverbal magic, he conjured a Bezoar stone, held it in his mouth as he recited from mind, from memory, a powerful healing spell used to counter deadly serrations and close deep wounds.
Enough of him was still intact to recognize the healing properties of the Bezoar. He lay still for perhaps several minutes as he waited for the stone to take effect.
He discovered that he could move his hands, though their progress was very slow, and they twitched mercilessly whenever he sought to grip that cloak, or reach up to touch his skin. He performed Accio, which expended quite a bit of energy. He was aware of the pain as he had been aware of little else before. When he lost control of his hand, and it fell onto his gurgling stomach, he was aware of the shots of pain all over his arm. But then he felt the little glass vial nudging his hand, and grasped it, uncorked it, and swallowed the Blood-Replenishing potion, drop by drop.
He apparated the next morning to his flat in…you know where it is. He slept, drunk with the pain that had induced a lightness in his own head.
And now, the plunge.
So this is installment one-Derision, the introduction. Review, like, critique, dislike if you must (but I hope not, right?!) but give your feedback please!
Coming up- some insight from the narrator on Snape's life story, and a revelation or two.