Though his last thought had long since been reserved for Lily, beautiful Lily, who had defined his life to a point that neither of them could have ever predicted, his penultimate thought was for her husband.
He walked slowly down the tunnel, doubled over from the low ceiling with cuts still smarting on his face and arms. The thin cordlike branches of the willow had been merciless and quick. It had taken him longer than he would have thought to get past them.
The fading sun set shadows across the expanse of grounds around him. The brilliant hues of the setting sky had been fading, the colour leeched, when he first ducked under the hidden entrance.
The moon was set to rise any minute.
As he felt the thick course of blood bleed from his body he spared a thought, just a single thought, for the boy he was no longer indebted to.
It took longer he thought. It could have been hours or minutes since he first undertook his journey to confirm what he already knew about Lupin. This would be all the proof anyone would need to see him out of the school forever.
The light from his wand, though helpful, was not enough to illuminate his way completely. He stumbled over snags he had not seen and rocks that jutted from darkness only to hit his head on the low mud packed roof.
He bit back a curse as his head throbbed and waited for the screams to die in his ears.
...screams?
The sound was awful and something very old and very primal within told him to run. And he did. Just not in the direction it wanted him too. The screams grew louder until they didn't sound quite human. They' were quite splendid in their agony, really.
He couldn't help himself. He just walked forward.
In the end he saw what he came to see. Remus Lupin, soon to be ex-student of Hogwarts waited just long enough to transform that Severus saw everything. The bones that broke under the skin, some even breaking through skin before dipping back under. The face that became wild with pure savage intent. There was a horrible moment somewhere between when he stopped breathing and when he realised he was rooted to the spot that he saw the look on the creature's face. It was neither human nor beast. For a second this thing had the savage maw of a animal and the intelligent eyes of the man.
When it had stopped writhing it became unnaturally stilled.
Paused.
Turned.
Severus locked eyes with the beast and not for the first time he cursed Sirius Black, who was tonight to become a murderer. For a wild second as the beast appeared to evaluate him he wondered if anyone would miss him.
It struck him that it should bother him that he didn't have an answer.
Potter had saved his life and now he had saved the life of Lily's son. For the first time in since he was sixteen he no longer owed that man anything. He could despise him in peace and whole heartedly. There would be no downward turn to his mouth as he inevitably remembered the night that had placed him in so much debt.
"Go! Severus, go! Run, get out of here!"
There was a hand on his shoulder and the world came rushing back. His head whipped round to see James Potter, standing and sweating behind him. He looked as if he had run the entire tunnel at a dead sprint. Maybe he had. As they stood at the mouth of it for a second Severus knew it would be no use. This beast would kill them both.
It gave him a vicious joy to know that Black would have to live with the fact that he killed his best friend too. Black would not care for him, but Potter would be more than enough to break him.
Then everything happened at once.
Potter had never taken his eyes from what had once been Remus Lupin. It was he who saw the beast attack. With a strength that he shouldn't have been surprised at Potter flung his back into the tunnel from which he had only barely climbed out of. The door swung shut and Severus fumbled for his wand, the adrenaline making his hands shaky.
The last thing he had seen before the door cut him from everything was death.
James Potter had shut the door behind him without bothering to climb through himself. He was left to face down a werewolf alone.
James Potter had signed his own death sentence and effectively saved Severus from his.
Bastard.
He was cold now. Green eyes were locked onto his and the encroaching darkness meant that he could no longer see the features of the boy that had "Potter" stamped all over them. He was leaving this place now and he had been given a greater gift than he had ever hoped for in his final moments.
He could fool himself one last time into remembering the woman to whom those eyes had belonged. The green eyes, the red hair and the freckles that made the constellations want to do better. Lily Evans, perfectly preserved in his memory. Seventeen, smiling and alive.
He could only remember her for short times at a while before it became too painful, but he only had a short time left to him.
It was enough.
The worst thing was that Potter never acknowledged what had happened at the end of the tunnel towards the rancid shack of a house. Severus would have been happier with gloating or arrogance. He could stew in his own contempt then. In fact, Potter ignored him completely. There were no more hexes sent his way. No more covert jinxes or snide barbs.
It was like he didn't exist anymore.
It was, perhaps, a fitting punishment.
They said to die was to be put to peace but he thought that his peace comes just before his final moments. He held the memory of a dead woman close to his heart and banished the memory of her husband from his mind.
Death holds nothing so sweet as a victory so long in the making.