*A/N* I always preferred Snape's death in the books. He pleaded a little more, made him seem more human... *A/N*
He heard voices coming from the room directly ahead of them, only slightly muffled by the fact that the opening at the end of the tunnel had been blocked up by what looked like an old crate. Hardly daring to breathe, Harry edged right up tot he opening and peered through a tiny gap left between crate and wall.
The room beyond was dimly lit, but he could see Nagini, swirling and coiling like a serpent underwater, safe in her enchanted, starry sphere, which floated unsupported in midair. He could see the edge of a table, and a long-fingered white hand toying with a wand.
Then Snape spoke, and Harry's heart lurched: Snape was inches away from where he crouched, hidden.
"...my Lord, their resistance is crumbling -"
"- and it is doing so without your help," said Voldemort in his high, clear voice. "Skilled wizard though you are, Severus, I do not think you will make much difference now. We are almost there...almost."
"Let me find the boy. Let me bring you Potter. I know I can find him, my Lord. Please."
Snape strode past the gap, and Harry drew back a little, keeping his eyes fixed upon Nagini, wondering whether there was any spell that might penetrate the protection surrounding her, but he could not think of anything. One failed attempt, and he would give away his position...
Voldemort stood up. Harry could see him now, see the red eyes, the flattened, serpentine face, the pallor of him gleaming slightly in the semidarkness.
"I have a problem, Severus," said Voldemort softly.
"My Lord?" said Snape.
Voldemort raised the Elder Wand, holding it as delicately and precisely as a conductor's baton.
"Why doesn't it work for me, Severus?"
In the silence Harry imagined he could hear the snake hissing slightly as it coiled and uncoiled - or was it Voldemort's sibilant sigh lingering on the air?
"My - my lord?" said Snape blankly. "I do not understand. You - you have performed extraordinary magic with that wand."
"No," said Voldemort. "I have performed my usual magic. I am extraordinary, but this wand...no. It has not revealed the wonders it has promised. I feel no difference between this wand and the one I procured from Ollivander all those years ago."
Voldemort's tone was musing, calm, but Harry's scar had begun to throb and pulse: Pain was building in his forehead, and he could feel that controlled sense of fury building inside Voldemort.
"No difference," said Voldemort again.
Snape did not speak. Harry could not see his face. He wondered whether Snape sensed danger, was trying to find the right words to reassure his master.
Voldemort started to move around the room: Harry lost sight of him for seconds as he prowled, speaking in that same measured voice, while the pain and fury mounted in Harry.
"I have thought long and hard, Severus...do you know why I have called you back from battle?"
And for a moment Harry saw Snape's profile. His eyes were fixed upon the coiling snake in its enchanted cage.
"No, my Lord, but I beg you will let me return. Let me find Potter."
"You sound like Lucius. Neither of you understands Potter as I do. He does not need finding. Potter will come to me. I knew his weakness you see, his one great flaw. He will hate watching the others struck down around him, knowing that it is for him that it happens. He will want to stop it at any cost. He will come."
"But my Lord, he might be killed accidentally by someone other than yourself -"
"My instructions to the Death Eaters have been perfectly clear. Capture Potter. Kill his friends - the more, the better - but do not kill him."
"But it is of you that I wished to speak, Severus, not Harry Potter. You have been very valuable to me. Very valuable."
"My Lord knows I seek only to serve him. But - let me go and find the boy, my Lord. Let me bring him to you. I know I can -"
"I have told you, no!" said Voldemort, and Harry caught the glint of red in his eyes as he turned again, and the swishing of his cloak was like the slithering of a snake, and he felt Voldemort's impatience in his burning scar. "My concern at the moment, Severus, is what will happen when I finally meet the boy!"
"My Lord, there can be no question, surely -?"
"- but there is a question, Severus. There is."
Voldemort halted, and Harry could see him plainly again as he slid the Elder Wand through his white fingers, staring at Snape.
"Why did both the wands I have used fail when directed at Harry Potter?"
"I - I cannot answer that, my Lord."
"Can't you?"
The stab of rage felt like a spike driven through Harry's head: he forced his own fist into his mouth to stop himself from crying out in pain. He closed his eyes, and suddenly he was Voldemort, looking into Snape's pale face.
"My wand of yew did everything of which I asked it, Severus, except to kill Harry Potter. Twice it failed. Ollivander told me under torture of the twin cores, told me to take another's wand. I did so, but Lucius's wand shattered upon meeting Potter's."
"I - I have no explanation, my Lord."
Snape was not looking at Voldemort now. His dark eyes were still fixed upon the coiling serpent in its protective sphere.
"I sought a third wand, Severus. the Elder Wand, the Wand of Destiny, the Deathstick. I took it from its previous master. I took it from the grave of Albus Dumbledore."
And now Snape looked at Voldemort, and Snape's face was like a death mask. it was marble white and so still that when he spoke, it was a shock to see that anyone lived behind the blank eyes.
"My Lord - let me go to the boy -"
"All this long night when I am on the brink of victory, I have sat here," said Voldemort, his voice barely louder than a whisper, "wondering, wondering, why the Elder Wand refuses to be what it ought to be, refuses to perform as legend says it must perform for its rightful owner...and I think I have the answer."
Snape did not speak.
"Perhaps you already know it? You are a clever man, after all, Severus. You have been a good and faithful servant, and I regret what must happen."
"My Lord-"
"The Elder Wand cannot serve me properly, Severus, because I am not its true master. The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who killed its last owner. You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live, Severus, the Elder Wand cannot truly be mine."
"My Lord!" Snape protested, raising his wand.
"It cannot be any other way," said Voldemort. "I must master the wand, Severus. Master the wand, and I master Potter at last."
And Voldemort swiped the air with the Elder Wand. It did nothing to Snape, who for a split second seemed to think he had been reprieved: but then Voldemort's intention became clear. The snake's cage was rolling through the air, and before Snape could do anything more than yell, it had encased him, head and shoulders, and Voldemort spoke in Parseltongue.
"Kill."
There was a terrible scream. Harry saw Snape'sface losing the little color it had left; it whitened as his black eyes widened, as the snake's fangs pierced his neck, as he failed to push the enchanted cage off himself, as his knees gave way and he fell to the floor.
"I regret it," said Voldemort coldly.
He turned away; there was no sadness in him, no remorse. It was time to leave this shack and take charge, with a wand that would now do his full bidding. He pointed it at the starry cage holding the snake, which drifted upward, off Snape, who fell sideways onto the floor, blood gushing from the wounds in his neck. Voldemort swept from the room without a backward glance, and the great serpent floated after him in its huge protective sphere.
Back in the tunnel and his own mind, Harry opened his eyes; He had drawn blood biting down on his knuckles in an effort not to shout out. Now he was looking through the tiny crack between crate and wall, watching a foot in a black boot trembling on the floor.
"Harry!" breathed Hermione behind him, but he had already pointed his wand at the crate blocking his view. It lifted an inch into the air and drifted sideways silently. As quietly as he could, he pulled himself up into the room.
He did not know why he was doing it, why he was approaching the dying man: he did not know what he felt as he saw Snape's white face, and the fingers trying to staunch the bloody wound at his neck. Harry took off the invisibility cloak and looked down upon the man he hated, whose widening black eyes found Harry as he cried to speak. Harry bent over him, and Snape seized the front of his robes and pulled him close.
A terrible rasping, gurgling noise issued from Snape's throat.
"Take...it...Take...it..."
Something more than blood was leaking from Snape. Silvery blue, neither gas nor liquid, it gushed form his mouth and his ears and his eyes, and Harry knew what it was, but did not know what to do - a flask, conjured from thin air, was thrust into his shaking hand by Hermione. Harry lifted the silvery substance into it with his wand. When the flask was full to the brim, and Snape looked as though there was no blood left in him, his grip on Harry's robes slackened.
"Look...at...me..." he whispered.
The green eyes found the black, but after a second, something in the depths of the dark pair seemed to vanish, leaving them fixed, blank, and empty. The hand holding Harry thudded to the floor, and Snape moved no more.
Harry remained kneeling at Snape's side, simply staring down at him, until quite suddenly a high, cold voice spoke so close to them that Harry jumped on his feet, the flask gripped tightly in his hands, thinking that Voldemort had reentered the room.
Voldemort's voice reverberated from the walls and floor, and Harry realized that he was talking to Hogwarts and to all the surrounding area, that the residents of Hogsmeade and all those still fighting in the castle would hear him as clearly as if he stood beside them, his breath on the back of their necks, a deathblow away.
"You have fought," said the high, cold voice, "valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery."
"Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste."
"Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately."
"You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured."
"I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, then battle recommences. This time, I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, and I shall find you, and I shall punish every last man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me. One hour."
Both Ron and Hermione shook their heads frantically, looking at Harry.
"Don't listen to him," said Ron.
"It'll be all right," said Hermione wildly. "Let's - let's get back to the castle, if he's gone to the forest we'll need to think of a new plan - "
She glanced at Snape's body, then hurried back to the tunnel entrance. Ron followed her. Harry gathered up the Invisibility Cloak, then looked down at Snape. He did not know what to feel, except shock at the way Snape had been killed, and the reason for which it had been done...
***************** *A/N* Everything from this point on is what I have written. Any recognizable characters belong to J.K. Rowling. *****************
Something rose out of the floor, a swirling silver cloud that reminded Harry of a Patronus. But it seemed to be forming into something else, not a animal, but a woman.
She was beautiful, in a ghostly sort of way. She was young, very pale, except for her hair, her eyes, and the familiar dark tattoo on the inside of her left wrist.
Harry snarled and drew his - no - Draco's wand, lowering it at the specter.
She turned to face him, her eyes angry. "Don't you dare threaten me, Mister Potter. I am more than I seem."
"Who are you? You aren't a Hogwarts ghost..."
The ghost turned her head to look at the fallen Potions Master. "Be gone from this place."
Harry said angrily. "Answer my question first."
And then she was in his face, her black eyes alight with rage, flashing with loathing. Her hand was on his throat, as if prepared to strangle him, and Harry felt his blood run cold. Then there was pressure on his throat, squeezing, cutting off his breathing, making his body turn to ice. He started to struggle, choking on his own tongue. "I'm the Chosen One! I have to k-k-k..."
She snarled, her hand clenched. "I care not who you are. I care not what your task is." She released him, and Harry fell to the floor as if he had been pushed. "Be gone from this place." Her eyes were on Snape, and Snape alone.
Harry propped himself up. "B-b-but..."
She looked up at him and screamed. "Now Potter! Leave now!"
Harry fled, back down the tunnel from whence he came, Invisibility Cloak in hand, the shining silver specter watching him with her cold, dark eyes.
She turned back to Snape, and her eyes softened, glinting with a trace of long-forgotten pain. The ghost knelt next to him, taking one of his pale hands between her own, gently holding it to her cheek. He was not yet far gone, and his task was not yet complete. The Wizarding World still needed him. She started to gather what seemed to be pale, gold threads from his dark clothes, from his torso, weaving them together with the skill of a seamstress. The wounds on his neck closed, the poisoned blood oozing onto the dusty wooden floor of the Shrieking Shack. The Potions Master's tired, tattered soul and his shattered heart was sewn back together by the glittering strands of gold.
When she sat back on her heels, the job was done to the best of her ability, and all there was left to do was wait and see if she had started in time.
In the wee hours of the morning, in the time darkest before the dawn, when all hope has faded and the world waits in a heavy, pregnant silence, Severus Snape sat up with a jolt and a scream of terror. Justice had been served, the Death Eaters scattered, and the victorious slept soundly for the first time since the Dark Lord had returned to power. He was inches from death, weak and struggling - but alive. Miraculously alive...
The silver apparition appeared behind him, her back pressed to his. She whispered so softly he barely heard. "How are you feeling?"
"Sick." The professor coughed, for once sticking to simple, mono-syllabic words. "Weak. Tired..." He turned his head, looking down at the small weight that pressed against him. His black eyes turned remorseful. "Sad..."
She looked up at him, and sighed. "Sev..."
He whispered softly, his tone sad and pleading; oh, if the students could hear him now, his entire façade would fall to shambles. "Please?"
The ghostly girl sighed. "I'll stay until the sun rises. Then you have to head for safety."
Severus wrapped his arms around her, feeling the cold weight of her as he pulled the girl against his chest. He lay on the brink of death, and was determined to spend some time holding onto her, clutching her close. He was shaking. "Twenty long years, Nox... Twenty long, lonely years..."
She kissed his cheek. "They didn't have to be, Severus." She brushed a solitary tear off his cheek. "You deserve someone who lives and breathes. I no longer do that."
"I only want you. I only ever wanted you."
Her dark eyes looked up into his. She knew she was a tangible solid, and knew her weight was true weight, her hands able to touch, manipulate. She sighed and looked away as he touched her forehead to his.
"Please..." he pleaded, "Please, Nox. One last time..."
"It's always one last time. Then I manifest and you ask for more."
"You can always say no..."
"I can't Severus. It breaks my heart to see you so sad, so lonely..." She lay her head on his strong chest, listening as his heartbeat grew louder. "So cold..."
He tilted up her chin, and for a moment, he was a foolish teenager, drunk on new-found power and high on what had been a hesitant love. She was alive again, breathing, warm. She sighed and they exchanged a kiss. It spoke volumes, being tender and soft, whispering of a relationship lost to time, and one that would never exist again, no matter how solid Nox was.
The sun was rising.
Nox whispered. "I have to go."
"Must you?"
"Yes. If I hang around any longer - it's just going to hurt you."
"You've already hurt me. It is as if an arrow has pierced my heart."
She was suddenly angry, cold and unforgiving. The tattoo on her arm stood out vividly. "If you'd moved on when I told you - you wouldn't have that problem! I'm DEAD, Snape! People don't come back when they go through the Veil!" She was choking back tears.
He stood shakily and hobbled toward her. "Nox, I..."
She looked at him darkly. "The sun is rising."
"B-but Nox, you have to listen to me. Please stay..." He lunged for her hand, but just as he closed his fingers around hers, the first light of dawn pierced through the window and the silver girl vanished.
Snape stood in shock for several minutes, watching the sun rise, staining the purple clouds shades of pink and yellow before chasing them away entirely. The beauty escaped him.
He turned away from the window as the village of Hogsmeade began to wake under the warm caress of the sun. His face was set in a scowl, his eyes dark and cold as two cavern pools. He had gone from the teenager of twenty years past, to the cold, unfeeling Professor Snape. He was in danger, even though Voldemort was gone.
Azkaban was still a dark, desolate place.
He disapparated with a crack like a thunderclap.
