IF YOU ARE WATCHING ME OR ANY OF MY STORIES, PLEASE READ!
I'm in the middle of clearing out my account. I am changing my username, and will be deleting some stories, rewriting some, and putting others up for adoption. PLEASE GO TO MY PROFILE FOR MORE DETAILS.
Hello everyone! I am sorry to say that this is not a full update! I am trying to clean up my account, starting with placing all my Harry Potter one-shots under one story as separate chapters, a sort of one-shot series. I have, edited this first one so it doesn't suck so bad as it did.
Title: Cry For Me
Summary: After being found out as a spy by Voldemort, Snape spends his last living moments accepting comfort from an unexpected source.
Disclaimer: All characters belong to JKRowling. I am not her, unfortunately.
Content: Angst/hurt/comfort. Language, violence, gore, and character death. Barest hints of slash. Set a few years after Order of the Phoenix. Non-HBP
I honestly didn't think they'd actually come. The Order, while I knew most of them respected me, did not exactly treat me warmly. I doubt my anti-social tendencies helped much. We had a sort of happy medium, a mutual unspoken agreement: They left me alone, and I never gave them reason to pay much attention to me, unless I was giving a report. So it really was actually sort of heart-warming that they all cared enough to show up.
The Dark Lord had found me out three weeks before. His sick, twisted brain came up with the brilliant idea of torturing me mercilessly for a few weeks before killing me. He also thought it might be funny to kill me in front of the people I had died to help. To show me, and them, just how weak and pathetic and helpless we actually were, how powerless to stop him.
So he sent them an invitation.
He invited the whole Order to come and meet him. He told them he had something of theirs that he was going to give back, though he didn't promise it to be in the same condition it was when he found it. The thing to be returned? Me, of course.
I was actually surprised I had made it this far. I honestly though that the Dark Lord would have found me out long before this. Every time I was summoned to the Dark Lord's side, my breath was stolen away, blood pounding through my veins as if trying to burst through my very skin. I knew what he did with those who crossed him better perhaps, than any of the Order ever could. I had been trapped in his sick little world, wrought with black magic and built with blood and poison-honey words, since I was sixteen. I've never forgiven Black or Potter for driving me into the welcoming arms of my most powerfully terrifying tormentor.
The Dark Lord had asked me a question during that last meeting, which I happened to answer wrongly, much to his…displeasure. Occlumency was not enough to stop him this time. Suspicious and paranoid and painstakingly observant as he was, and he managed to find the smallest flaw in my shields. It was not enough to let him through, but enough to learn that I was, in fact, shielding my mind at all.
Even more displeased at discovering my use of Occlumency against him, he started torturing me. I remember swearing to myself that I would not give him the pleasure of hearing me scream, only to have the other half of my mind point out that I was already doing so. Oh, so that's what that loud noise was. While my defenses were down, he used legillimency. In my agony, I couldn't concentrate long enough to throw off the spell. He saw. He knew. And from that moment, I knew I was dead.
He dropped the Cruciatus, staring at me in silence for a few moments as I lay panting on the floor. Then he spoke.
"He dies."
The Death Eaters tightened in around me, watching me hungrily like wolves, or sharks. Some of them started to reach for their wands, others had them already drawn. But the Dark Lord stopped them, saying he had a better idea. I was thrown into a dingy cell in the dungeon at Malfoy Manor, where the meeting was being held, to await my fate.
Three weeks later, the Death Eaters readied for battle. Really the only intent of this mission was to deliver me, or at least, my remains, to the Order. But they were ready to fight should the Order attack.
I was gagged and bound, and they levitated me out of my cell. We met Voldemort in the War Room of Malfoy Manor that the Dark Lord had had Lucius set aside for meetings. I was forced to my knees in front of the Dark Lord so he could play with me once last time before he returned me. It hurt. A lot.
Finally, after a few more unbelievably long hours of torture, the Death Eaters apparated to the appointed meeting spot. I was side-apparated with Malfoy Sr and Macnair. They kept such a tight hold on my arms, I couldn't feel my hands. Not that that was a bad thing by this point. With how mangled they were, and what I knew was coming, I didn't I want to feel anything at all.
We stood waiting for a few moments, then they came. The Order actually came. I almost wept at the sight of them. Almost. Even this close to my inevitable death, I tried my best to retain some pride and dignity, what little of it I had left.
Swiftly, I took into account who all was there. Who had cared enough. There, in the middle of the surprisingly large group was the headmaster. Of course he would have come. To his left in the front row (several others were behind them, but I couldn't see their faces) stood Moody, Lupin, and the four eldest Weasleys. On his right stood Shacklebolt, McGonagall, Tonks, Vance, Fletcher, Potter…wait, what?
Potter? Why was he here? Firstly, the boy was only seventeen, and not yet out of school. Why would Dumbledore let him come on an Order mission? Secondly, why in the name of Merlin had the boy agreed to come?
"Ah, Dumbledore," The Dark Lord said, drawing my attention from the boy. "I'm glad you made it. Oh, no," he laughed as several Order members directed their wands at him, "No, I'm not here to fight with you. I just found something that I believe is yours." He sounded like someone returning a dropped quill or something. "You would like it back, wouldn't you?"
"Where is he, Tom?" Dumbledore asked calmly. From where I was positioned, none of the Order members could see me yet. The Dark Lord chuckled.
"A man who knows what he wants," The Dark Lord said, almost gleeful now. "Right! Bring the traitor forth, my faithful servants." Malfoy and Macnair tightened their hold and dragged me (my legs couldn't even support my weight anymore) forward next to the Dark Lord. They dropped me at his feet and stepped back into the ranks of Death Eaters. I tried to look as though I wasn't hurt too badly, for my image's sake, but I knew I was failing miserably. I knew how I looked to my colleagues.
I was beaten, bloodied, and broken, a dirty rag tied around my head and thrust into my mouth so I couldn't speak, my hands twisted up behind my back and tied. My hair was greasy, even for me, tangled and matted from my three weeks in captivity. If there was a spot on my skin that wasn't black, blue, and covered with blood and grime, I myself had yet to find it.
I could hear my colleagues, my…friends, gasp in shock and dismay at my appearance. I looked up at them, trying to glare but, once again, failing miserably.
My eyes met the emerald green ones of Potter, and I was surprised by his expression. Rather than the shock, horror, and that cursed pity like on the other Order members faces, his expression was one of great sadness, of grief and pain.
And…was that…heartache?
"So, what do you think?" The Dark Lord sounded like a child expecting praise from a parent for doing well on a test. Potter looked away from me, now staring with unadulterated fury and complete loathing at the Dark Lord.
"Severus…" I heard the Headmaster say faintly. He stirred and looked hardly at the Dark Lord. "Give him back, Tom." Yeah, right. Like he would just hand me over. "Alright." See, Dumbledore? I told you he wouldn't…wait a minute…
"Sure, I'll give him back. Of course!" I didn't like the tone of his voice. It was the slightly giddy one he used whenever he was about to Avada Kedavra some defenseless muggle or muggle born. I really didn't like where this was going. "Wormtail!" the snivelling traitor crept forth from his place at the back of the group of Death Eaters.
"Yes, m'lord?"
"Untie our present for the Order of the Phoenix, would you?"
"Yes, m'lord." He stepped forward and used a severing charm to cut the ropes that bound my wrists together, then loosened the knot on the rag and slipped the gag out of my mouth. He pulled me to my feet and I stood as Wormtail, like Malfoy and Macnair before him, drew back into the crowd of the Dark Lord's followers. I was swaying slightly. No! I refused to fall! I wouldn't! I…would. I fell to my hands and knees, and the Death Eaters laughed.
"No, no, Severus," the Dark Lord said laughing. "Stand! Stay standing strong, next to your true master!" He laughed again, and kicked me, striking a blow to my side, sprawling me forward in the mud, Death Eaters laughing again. The Order members winced, but none stood forward to help me. The Death Eaters all had their wands leveled directly at me. If one of them stepped forward to help me, I would be dead sooner than they could reach me. I had to try and reach them. I pulled myself to my feet once more.
"Oh, Sev-er-us!" The Dark Lord called in a sing-song voice after me. I stopped and stiffened when I heard his voice behind me. "I have something for you before we go and leave you with your friends."
I turned my head and looked back at him just in time to watch him flick his wand at me, sending forward a jet of violet light, laughing maniacally as the spell hit me.
The pain was excruciating. I could feel my organs spilling out of the gory gaping hole that used to be my stomach. The spell was gutting me like a fish, flaying me alive.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The broken, pain filled scream made me look up even as I lay dying. I knew I wouldn't pass out from the pain. The Dark Lord would've seen to that, wanting me to suffer for my last moments.
I looked up at the Order to see Tonks, Lupin, and Shacklebolt restraining a near hysterical Potter. He was trying to get to me, his face horror-struck. It was he who had screamed.
"NO! NO! LET ME GO!" but they didn't let go. Potter's eyes locked with mine, panicked Avada Kedavra green boring into my own mystified black. His anguished face contorted into rage and his struggles grew wilder as he swung to face the Dark Lord. "TOM! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU! I SWEAR TO GOD, I'LL KILL YOU!"
"Well, my work here is done," the Dark Lord said smugly, giving us all an evil grin as he and his Death Eaters disapparated.
The Order members holding Potter released him and he threw himself over to where I lay on the ground. The others followed swiftly and stopped a few feet away from me, only Lupin, McGonagall, and Dumbledore coming to kneel by my side.
I barely noticed them, however, my hazy attention still locked on Potter. He practically flung himself down in the bloody mud next to me. "Professor Snape, sir…oh dammit! This isn't how it's supposed to be! DAMMIT!" He angrily pounded the ground, splattering a puddle of blood and mud and my gory innards all over his robes. Something seemed to break in him then, and his head bowed down, breaking our eye contact. A shudder broke over the teen like a wave. "Dammit…I should've stopped him. I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" He choked on the words and his hand slid over to grasp mine, slick with mess.
I stared at him, feeling light-headed and slightly numb from blood loss and confusion. Or was I confused because of the light-headed numbness? I watched with weak incredulity as he shuddered again and something dripped down to the ground under his face. It looked like rain, pure and clear and clean as it fell only to blend into the filth spread over the ground around my body and disappear. Other raindrops followed. Typical. Just my luck that I would end up having one of those drawn-out tragically melodramatic deaths, complete with rain. I vaguely wondered why it was only raining near Potter.
I tried to say something, to growl at Potter to stop that whimpering, after all, I was the one dying, not him. But the words were interrupted before they could even form when I coughed, feeling the blood rise and bubble in my throat, and suddenly I was saying something else without realizing it. "You swear…?"
He looked up at my words; the mud splashed on his face was streaked from the rain. "What?" he choked out. I frowned. Damn him! His pathetic emotional breakdowns were what caused half of the trouble he got into. I wanted to scream at him to man up already, but I vaguely knew in the back of my head that time was short.
"You swear…" I managed to slur "That he'll die next…"
I saw his eyes harden. "I swear I'll kill him." Then he blinked, and his seething determination was followed by a ghost of terror. He was a Gryffindor, though, it wasn't a fear of facing danger. It was a fear of becoming dangerous. A fear that he could so resolutely swear death for another human, as perverse and deranged and evil as that human may be, and actually follow through with it.
My vision was starting to blur, like I was underwater. Damn that rain. I wanted to see, to look Potter in the eye. I needed…
Needed to tell him…
The hand he wasn't holding strained and weakly lifted to flop near him, and he caught it with his other hand. My breath came in ragged gasps at the exertion…so tired now…not yet!
With a last burst of energy, I swung my hand up until it smacked against Potter's cheek as hard as I could…which admittedly wasn't that hard. Somehow his startled face barely swam into view over me. I glared. "Not him…"
He looked confused and I struggled to clarify. "You're…not'im…" I saw comprehension dawn and relaxed, my hand slipping down from where it lay against his cheek only to be caught in a warm hand, smaller than mine and callused. He drew both my hands up to him, holding them against his face. His skin felt so warm.
I could feel my heart slowing down. I had little more than a few seconds left to live…
I felt more drops fall down and land on my knuckles, and just barely managed to get out a slurred, "'s rainin'…"
His skin felt so warm on mine…
End.
Oh I like the new ending MUCH better now. :D
IF YOU ARE WATCHING ME OR ANY OF MY STORIES, PLEASE READ!
I'm in the middle of clearing out my account. I am changing my username, and will be deleting some stories, rewriting some, and putting others up for adoption. PLEASE GO TO MY PROFILE FOR MORE DETAILS.