Transitory Regrets

Disclaimer: Characters, settings etc belong to J. K. Rowling and her respective publishers and associates.

Severus' POV.

The trick to being a dedicated academic, I've always found, is to be so utterly obsessed with your chosen area of research that you would willingly forsake health, wealth and happiness for it. And by 'happiness' I do of course mean these mundane presumptions of society that suggest that you should settle yourself down to a steady job, a steady woman and several academic sessions worth of offspring. It's a noble aspiration certainly. Parenting, that is. Though I've never quite figured out the trick to it.
You find a suitable mate, you raise your spawn, pack them off to Hogwarts or Durmstrang or Beauxbatons, and in a handful of years time they are qualified to work for the Ministry or Voldemort, as your preference may be. Or both, if they show a certain flair for it.

I never was particularly interested in the Ministry and of course subsequent encounters with certain members of its staff have rather put me off the idea. But on the other hand there are places such as Azkaban. It's not pleasant certainly but there might be something to say for the silence and the fact that your colleagues, and I use that term in the loosest sense of the word, are not particularly inclined to enquire after your health. Yes, they might want to consume your soul on an off day but working at Hogwarts will accomplish that one eventually.
Of course with distance and safety I have the leisure to be flippant about the matter. If one spends even the briefest of periods of time in the company of the Dementors I quite suspect that anywhere else might seem pleasant in comparison.

But Hogwarts does drain those who live here in its own insidious way. At least the Dementors give you fair warning of the matter, Hogwarts does not. And it is not the castle itself or the archaic House system or even the children themselves who fill these corridors. It is… the nature in which the Headmaster rules, for lack for a more accurate word. His incessant cheeriness, this pervasive hopefulness, this urging for you to do the right thing that you are bludgeoned with constantly, incessantly and in all the vastness of the Wizarding World it is impossible to escape. It was easer for me to hide myself from Voldemort than it would be to escape Albus' clutches.

"I know you will do the right thing, Severus."
"I knew that you always meant to be good…"
"I have every faith in you…"

I could probably run through the corridors wearing my old mask, brandishing hexes and screaming "I am a DeathEater!" and Albus would put it down to the strain of trying to do the right thing.
Of course I limit myself too, for even in my wildest imaginings I would be hexing people rather than throwing Unforgivables, which is quite telling really. I am a tame serpent these days and I have very much given up trying to do anything that is right or true or just. Because if I were so inclined to do the right thing, I should have been at the Ministry when the remaining DeathEaters embarked on that foolish raid. I should have stopped Bellatrix and hexed Black myself and when it did all go to hell as these things invariably do, I should have dragged Lucius out of there regardless of his curses and screams and reminded him that it would not do for a Malfoy to land himself in Azkaban.

But of course I didn't.
I sat in my dungeons and simmered and seethed and spat curses at nothing and hoped against all vain hope that Lucius had kept his wits about him.
But of course he didn't.
I sometimes wonder about that. That for all his crowd-pleasing ways and back-handed generosity, Lucius just needs to get angry and suddenly all his Slytherin cunning is forgotten.
It used to happen on raids before of course but I was always there to stop him doing something quite foolish. He listened to me as he did no other and somehow between the two of us, we kept each other sane. I have my own flaws in ample quantity but it was Lucius who kept me stable and forced me to remember that it wouldn't do to let myself fall.
Separated, we seem apt to become the worst that we might be. He, a foolish caricature of a villain; I, a petty schoolmaster.

I have little idea whether either of us may have been destined for greatness had circumstance permitted but what is certain, is that what we are now, what we have become, is something else entirely. Somehow, we have set ourselves upon a far distant path from which there will be no deviating. We, both of us, walk a road less travelled and will follow it to its end.
And for some reason I am left with the apprehensive imagery of Lovecraft, of the death of Yog-Sothoth torn asunder by a dog of all things. But the mutt is already dead and of the great and dark powers that be, I can only wish that they would leave me alone. I am no messenger or servant, not truly in the dark pit of my soul but perhaps somewhere, far beneath the armoured layers that life has forced upon me there stirs something, some faint regret. Not for Potter junior or senior, not for Black or Lupin or the children who reside here. It is a simple regret, a futile one in the end; I regret… that I couldn't keep dear, foolish Lucius out of a common gaol. Doubtless that will be something in which he shares my sentiment, since having the time now to contemplate his actions, it is most likely that he will… only work himself into further fury. The inclination is there somewhat, for him to drown himself in madness much like Bellatrix, whose devotion and fervour has blossomed into dire insanity.

Perhaps that may be part of the problem. These aged PureBlood families, so consumed by their own pursuit of a myriad of desires. They are absorbed and engrossed by the fragile dream of domination over the entirety of the British Isles and perhaps even the Empire that has long ago faded. They yearn for the halcyon days of myth and legend, when the Lady Morgause walked the land and all the world knew and feared those who could wield magic. But that is a lie too, this great myth, for even the great Lady Morgause was not free to do as she pleased.
Power does not come without some measure of responsibility.
Though that's a ridiculous sentiment really, at least it is ridiculous in the sense that I should be one of the few people who seem to acknowledge it.
I am not fit for much, even teaching in these weary days and in truth, my employ at Hogwarts is nothing but the begrudging time that all academics must give to some form of public service if they are to have their research funded. So I am left with very few options; attempt to teach these worthless generations to come or let my research linger and collect dust for lack of funds. It is a pity that there is no muggle university that might be of some use to me or that the Medical Research Council would be appalled at my work, if they could even understand it.

So I am left here, to my empty dungeons and echoing laboratories, in return for whatever it is that might be asked of me. It is… equivalent trade, the heart of every alchemical principle and as such, I will content myself to bend to its direction. Not the commands of either of my masters, or the coercion of that vapid philosophy of doing the right thing but to the indelible truth of the world; that you simply won't get something for nothing.
And my research is a true reflection of that principle because just as the Philosopher's Stone extends life and grants perfect transmutation, there should be a deficit, a way to undo and reverse all such benefits. A way to lose a thousand years in an instant, to wither into dust a false life granted by magic. Not an ageing potion or something to bring desiccated death but the prefect reflection of the extension of life and magic, a way to remove every magical benefit and defence, a way to negate everything.
I haven't found it yet and my research is still only beginning but if I am successful, if the possibility of such a potion exists… the Wizarding World may yet find that death is not the greatest equaliser after all.

Yog-Sothoth is of course the central character of H. P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror".

Morgause is one of the many versions of the name of Morgan Le Fey.

The Medical Research Council "promotes research and trains skilled people in all areas of medical related science with the aim of improving human health".

And Severus is apparently quoting "Hagane no Renkinjutsushi".