Title: The Last Grain
Author: Keppiehed
Disclaimer: This all belongs to J.K. Rowling.
Summary: His world is ending.
Warnings: character death
Prompts: character death, "that ... that looks like magic"
A/N: Written for week #4 at Snarry LDWS.
By rights, it should have been him. He'd always expected to go first. He had prepared himself long ago. For fate to switch plans at the last moment was incomprehensible. Cruel.
Severus shifted in his chair. It had come on so quickly, the blindness. By the time the Healers had diagnosed the tumor, there was nothing to be done. Weeks, they'd said.
Severus' world, his life, had trickled down to moments that could almost fit in an hourglass. There wasn't time to get used to the idea—as if he could—before Harry had slipped into a sleep so deep none could follow. His Harry, who through the years had been a shining light. Who could have known that this boy who held his heart would have saved more than the world? He'd saved Severus from a life of being alone, of quiet desperation. He had brought joy and all things good.
And now he would take those very things with him in such a short time.
Harry stirred. He hadn't moved in nearly a day and hadn't woken in three. He mumbled something.
Severus sat up and took the limp hand in his own. Veins showed through the thin skin. Harry would have hated to see his own fingers looking so weak and wasted. He would have laughed sheepishly and tried to hide them.
Severus blinked. There was no time for tears. Not now.
"It's beautiful," Harry said.
Severus moved the hair from his forehead. "You can't see, Harry. You're delirious."
"No! Sev… I wish you could… I can see something that... that looks like magic."
Severus sat forward. "Harry?" It was the most alert he had been in days. Was he coming out of it? Waking up?
With a long sigh, Harry let go of his life.
