A short ficlet implying things that might have been and the inevitability of facts.
Warning: Character Death.
Sky blue eyes.
He had sky blue eyes.
Severus' throat tightened painfully under the cold clutch of Death as he watched the bright sun and endless expanses of sapphire blue stretching just outside the headmaster's office. He wasn't in danger, not this time. Today, the death that hurt him so wasn't his own, although he would have preferred it to be this way.
His left hand clutched the thin slip parchment in his grasp, smearing fresh ink across it. The dark liquid erased words, details of the past, atmospheres and phantoms of laughers and smiling faces, making him wish it could take away the reality they had brought forth along with them. In the end, he thought, everyone was meant to suffer.
They always did.
He heard the cries and shouts of the Boy who Lived without actually listening to them, they stood raw and exposed against the decrepit silence hanging around Dumbledore's office. Again, he wished he would have been able to be the one screaming his throat raw. He stood still against the mocking beauty of the scenery down bellow as a tall, curved shadow, and he was tired. A very tired, worn out old man who would never stop waiting. So much for the dreams of his school years, for the Slytherin ambition. There was nothing left to expect of this existence aside from duty, repentance. Because, he wished many things, but they never were granted. Not when he was child, nor a young man, nor as the walking drone he had become.
One more deception would only add another crease to his brow and another hole in his heart.
People eventually began filling out, Lupin looking closer to death than ever as he pulled Lily's son outside. He eventually realized Potter was accusing him, the death eater, throwing the fault of death to his face, and despite his reason, he could only heed the words and agree. In the end, he left the office to flee the intense gaze of their headmaster before his mask slipped.
The empty spot next to the Griffin statue left a cold emptiness in him when he brushed past it, deep inside his chest and down to the core of his bones, along with the stinging pain of a stab. He laughed when Bastard, the fate, twisted the blade, but also bled while cursing his humanity.
His course led him back down to his dungeons, leaving him standing before the door of his headquarters with the grim realisation that no filthy mutt would be waiting there either. He realized he was crying when a drop trailed down length of his crooked nose and landed upon his stretched palm. Next, he remembered he was supposed to unlock his door at this point.
Because, this time, Black would not come back. Not anymore.