Disclaimer: I do not own 'Harry Potter' or its characters. I write for the pleasure not the pay.
Warnings: DH spoilers. Mild violence.
What the Gods Thought
"But sire. What shall we know? Is the crow to fly to the liar, or the honest man?"
"Oh…Hm…"
"And what if it just flies around in circles?"
Then we'll know the gods are as confused as all the rest of us…
-From The Curse of Chalion
Lois McMaster Bujold
THE ANGEL stood patiently in a corner, its pearly white arms folded across its chest. To a human it would have looked like a very beautiful young man. Golden blonde hair, pale blue eyes, soft and kind features. It wore a white button up shirt and a pair of white slacks so as to appear less alarming to the human it had come for. THE ANGEL's eyes moved from the tortured man in the center of the room to the figure beside itself.
THE DEMON sat on the floor next to THE ANGEL because it was entirely too lazy to stand for this entire thing. It watched an ugly half-man-creature-thing pace back and forth with lazy dark gray eyes. Its black hair was slicked mostly back and a pair of sunglasses kept the bangs from falling into its angled face. Its skin was a dark tan, a sharp contrast next to THE ANGELS pure light. It was dressed in a dark red suit because it thought it looked rather good in that color. Occasionally THE DEMON liked to assign a gender to itself; strictly for sinning purposes it is to be understood. On this day it was a he.
"I wish they would get on with it." THE DEMON complained. The ugly thing was speaking to the slightly less ugly man. He couldn't even call the being human any more. The soul was too twisted and banged up. THE DEMON only hoped that when the ugly creature finally died someone else would be assigned to it. He had a bit of a sweet tooth that preferred pure human souls.
"…I took it from its previous master. I took it from the grave of Albus Dumbledore."
THE ANGEL made a small noise in its throat.
"What?" THE DEMON asked it.
THE ANGEL shrugged. "Oh nothing. I just heard it being said around that Albus is being quite the difficult ghost."
"What happened?"
"Well obviously we wanted to take him to Heaven. But for some reason he insisted on sticking around in Limbo for a while. He's still there from what I understand. Refuses to move."
"Strange chap." said THE DEMON.
"Indeed." Agreed THE ANGEL.
"My Lord…let me go to the boy…"
THE DEMON shook his head. "He knows he's going to die. Why is he arguing?"
"Because he still has something he needs to do." said THE ANGEL with just a hint of infinite wisdom to its tone. And now the ugly creature was speaking again. THE DEMON sighed and closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the wall.
"I'm going to take a nap." he said. "Wake me when he's dead."
THE ANGEL said nothing but THE DEMON knew it would listen. It was an angel after all, and incapable of doing immoral things.
THE ANGEL felt a sadness as the conversation between the two mortals continued. It shivered when the half human creature hissed to his snake in that awful language.
"KILL"Severus Snape screamed fell and THE ANGEL watched as he did so. It is tragic. It thought. All he ever did was love that nice girl and it's gotten him into all kinds of trouble. Voldemort turned and stalked out of the room. THE ANGEL gave THE DEMON a gentle prod with its bare foot.
"Wake up." It said. "He's dying."
THE DEMON snorted and opened his eyes. "Already?" he mumbled. "Go figure." He stood and brushed the dust from his suit. He smiled as he noticed it was the same shade as the blood flowing from the dying mortal. Definitely my color. "Well, let's get started." He took a step forward.
A young boy dashed into the room and fell beside the dying Severus. His black hair stuck up in all wild directions, like someone had just tried to incur wrath upon him with a holy wrathy wind.
Two more children crept into the room behind him. A girl and a red headed boy, whispering in small mortal voiced.
"Oh my." said THE ANGEL.
"Damn it." hissed THE DEMON. It was so much easier to catch souls before the bodies died. Now these stupid kids were going to stick around and make things difficult.
The black haired boy leaned over Severus. His face was confused. Severus spoke and the memory he'd prepared started leaking out. The girl conjured a bottle and they put the memory inside.
"Great." said THE DEMON. "He finished his last task. You three can leave now." But the three did not leave. The boy actually leaned closer, pulled by the weight of Severus's grip on his shirt.
"Look…at…me…" he whispered.
The boy obeyed and THE ANGEL gave a little sniff.
"Oh shut up." THE DEMON snapped at it.
"It's so sad." THE ANGEL insisted. "He still loves her."
Severus died. Both THE ANGEL and THE DEMON could see it the moment it happened. The small lights inside him went out, fading into nothingness. THE DEMON quickly held out his hands, trapping the soul in the body before it could do something stupid like drift out and get itself lost. He walked up next to the body, ignoring the boy who couldn't see him anyway. "So…now what? Where does he go?"
THE ANGEL came up next to him and peered down at the body. "I…I don't know. Heaven I think."
"What?!" cried THE DEMON. "You're joking right?" THE ANGEL blinked at him. "Right, of course you're not. But how do you figure Heaven? This guy murdered and tortured people!"
"Yes, but only because he had too! He did those things completely against his own nature! And he was in love with Lily! That has to count for something. Evil people can't love."
THE DEMON bit his lip. "Maybe it was lust?" he suggested.
THE ANGEL gave him a suffering look. "You know it wasn't. Or he would have given up after she died."
"Okay fine!" THE DEMON threw his hands up in the air. All around them there was noise, and that ugly thing was talking again, and the kids were crawling away. He just wanted to get on with his day, damn a few souls; maybe corrupt a couple while he was here. "But you know that your people aren't going to be pleased if you try and bring him into paradise."
"True." said THE ANGEL with a frown. "But I don't think your people will want him either."
THE DEMON ran a frustrated hand through his hair. Knocking the sunglasses askew. THE ANGEL was right. "Okay…so what do we do with him?"
"I don't know…we can't just leave him in Limbo. That wouldn't be fair."
"And with that stubborn old man still there it would only cause more trouble anyway."
THE ANGEL sighed. "Well he deserves something. Maybe a second chance…" THE ANGEL froze. "Why don't we just send him back?"
"What?"
"Yes. Give him a rebirth, he could use a another go at life don't you think?"
"Well…I suppose so. I mean, it would certainly take care of our predicament. He can't be this confusing the second time he dies."
THE ANGEL was nodding excitedly. "And he gets a chance to be happy for a change! Okay, so where do we put him?"
THE DEMON shrugged. "I guess we just hold the soul in stasis until we find somewhere."
THE ANGEL beamed at him. "Excellent idea. Hold onto him. I'll come find you when I've found a mother for him."
"Now wait a minute. Hold on!" but THE ANGEL was already gone. THE DEMON grumbled to himself as he extracted the frozen soul and put it in his left pocket. "You're just gonna have to sit tight until Mr. Feathers McDo-Right gets back. Meanwhile, I've got a whole battlefield of work to do." And THE DEMON left the Shrieking Shack in favor of the carnage outside.
Eight years later THE DEMON had completely forgotten about the contents of his left jacket pocket. He was busy poking a few bubbles of insincerity into the mind of the Minister of Magic while the man drank his tea when someone had the nerve to poke him in the shoulder. THE DEMON whirled, ready to unleash hell, or a small part of it at least, on his disturber.
THE ANGEL stood there, tall and proud. A shining smile dominated most of its face.
"I've found it!" it announced.
"Er…found what?"
THE ANGEL's mouth fell open. "The soul's new mother. The soul of Severus Snape? I found the perfect place for his second chance."
"Oh…right."
"Come on." THE ANGEL grabbed a hold of THE DEMONS wrist and they were standing outside of a house looking in the window. Two mortals stood inside looking over a sleeping child. The woman had her red hair tied back out of her faced and was leaning into the embrace of a man with tousled black hair. THE DEMON squinted.
"Hold on. Isn't that…?"
"The boy who watched him die? Yep! Grown quiet a bit hasn't he. Anyway, he and his wife are talking about having another baby. And here's the best part,"
"I can hardly wait," THE DEMON mumbled.
"They're thinking of naming it after Severus! Isn't that great! So the soul gets to keep some of his name!"
"Yeah but…didn't Severus hate that kid?" THE DEMON asked.
"Oh I don't think he really did. And he won't remember anything from his last life anyway. And he'll be happy."
THE DEMON reached into his pocket. "Whatever. As long as I don't have to carry it around with me anymore." THE ANGEL held out its hands.
"Here. Give the soul to me, I'll go wait out its conception and sneak it in."
"Ah…ew." THE DEMON gladly handed the soul over. "You know that humans generally don't like being watched when they do that?"
THE ANGEL blinked. "Why should they care if I watch? We're all His creatures."
"…Never mind. See ya ANGEL."
THE ANGEL nodded, half distracted by the soul in its arms. "DEMON." it said by way of goodbye.
And they parted ways. And the man who had been called Severus Snape woke up again nine months later with an almighty wail that could have woken the dead if the dead hadn't already been awake wailing. He didn't know that he had seen the face of his father before.
And, eleven years later, he would express his fears about being sorted into a certain house, never aware that he'd already been a Slytherin; and done quite well despite…