Title: And Death Once Dead
Summary: Someone has died, someone is shattered, and someone attempts to pick up the pieces.
Rating: R
Category: Angst/Darkfic
Author: A 29467
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Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth
[] these rebel powers that thee array
why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth
painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so great a price, having so short a lease
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servants loss,
And let thy pine to aggravate thy store.
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross
Within be fed, without be rich no more.
So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men;
And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.
-William Shakespeare, Sonnet 146
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A.D. 1998, June 8th
The night was cold. You would think that a night like this would have brightened through the work of the gods, the sun would have come streaming down, and it would have been day again. The world is not supposed to be saved in darkness.
Severus Snape walked over the blackened plain, past the fallen bodies of many of his comrades and even more of his enemies. The new dawn light was rising—he had been walking for two hours, and had not gotten to the center of the battlefield.
The battlefield. The plain once known as the forbidden forest, all trees and animals killed now, shadows cast over a endless plain. Severus hadn't really been aware of how large the forest had been, but the plain seemed to go on forever.
Severus came to a halt. Before him, on the ground, there was a black circle, sign of some deep magic, magic that called upon the powers of the earth and the sky and the gods. Magic that cried to serve its purpose, seared through the skin of lesser men.
Severus drew in his breath. There, in the center of the circle, were two figures, seated and huddled against each other. There was no movement---Severus knew not if they were alive or dead. The bodies were identical—skeletal, crowned with hair of the deepest black imaginable, faces dark and battle-weary.
Severus approached, careful to disarm the wards of the circle before crossing.
"My lord?" Severus halted, terror showing in his eyes for a moment as one of the figures moved.
"Severus." A voice croaked. One of the dark haired men turned his head. Severus knelt on the ground.
"My lord, it is done." Severus murmured, cursing the gods and himself and everything as he pressed his face into the ground.
There was an empty laugh, dry and bitter but resonant across the expanse. Severus dared to glance up.
"As much as it is….amusing, to see you, like that," The voice coughed out words. Severus raised his head. "I would r-rather you helped me out of thi-this wasteland."
Severus looked up. The eyes he met were black with desolation, but in the depths Severus could see a hint of green. He exhaled in relief, relief that would have been joy but for the emptiness of his soul.
One body stood, another fell to the ground, turning over, the man who would have been.
Harry Potter stood, leaving Tom Riddle on the ground, allowing Severus Snape to escort him off of the field.
A.D. 1998, June 15th
"You may see him now." The nurse said primly, opening the door of a bleak white room.
Severus stepped inside. "So, Potter, this is where they are keeping you."
The patient, curled on the sterile bed, said nothing. He had awoken that morning, after passing out a week before, moments after Severus had discovered him.
"Albus is requesting to see you. So are the dog and the wolf." Severus tried another tactic to get to Potter, whose expression was completely immobile. He'd been the only one to see Potter since the battle, besides the nurses and doctors examining his physical condition. No one was supposed to be alive after performing the spells he had performed, after calling upon the deepest demons and spirits of the earth. Yet here Potter was, physically untouched but for the coma he had been in.
"I never thought I would say this, but I actually feel sorry for Black." Severus sat down on the bed next to Potter. "His leg is still healing yet he's trying to leap out of the bed."
"Tell him to stay in the bed." A cracked voice scratched through Potter's throat. "I will not die."
"I don't think he'll believe that. He'll be climbing out of his own grave to worry about you on your deathbed, years from now." Severus replied.
"I will not die." Potter's voice was a monotone now, and his eyes had lost focus, gazing emptily at the white walls across the room.
Severus was chilled by the sight and found himself leaving, with the nagging feeling that Potter's words had deeper meanings than he could imagine.
A.D. 1998, June 16th
"I am sure you know what they are wondering, Potter." Snape was back in the room the next day, sitting on the floor in a swirl of black robes and gazing thoughtfully at the hero.
Potter seemed semi-lucid. Severus felt proud. "I will answer their questions to the limit of risking my security."
The voice was dull, but it had spoken.
"What is that limit?" Severus continued in the same tone.
"I gave up something that you could never imagine." Potter seemed to be practicing for the press conferences that would undoubtedly come.
"What did you give up?" Severus wrote Potter's answer down on his notepad.
"I gave up that which is most precious to me." Potter wound around Severus's question, and just from that instant Severus knew that Potter was wise beyond his years.
Severus drew in his breath. "You gave up life?" Severus asked, eyes wide. That would explain the behavior of the day before, he guessed.
"No." Potter's eyes, completely overtaken by the black, now turned to Severus, gazing hollowly. "I gave up death."
A.D. 3089, December 31st
The night was cold. You would think that a night like this would have brightened through the work of the gods, the sun would have come streaming down for the last time. The world is not supposed to end in darkness.
Though, the madman supposed, when you are the only living creature on the earth, the gods probably would not take such pains.
London and Edinburgh had been somewhere in the middle, after New York and Tokyo and Calcutta but before Nairobi and Dallas and Tripoli.
-flash, explode, burn, fire, flash, lightning, scar, pain, death, light, magic-
The winter had set in, and with it the last of the others had died, as the sun was obscured behind clouds of dust. He'd waited in the ruins of Tintagel, passing the days by bathing in the acid-filled sea.
-water, lake, mermaid, friend, light, death, magic-
Those in space had chances of surviving, but then he saw the edges of the universe come trickling inwards as the cosmonauts blew the astronauts up and the space stations collided.
-sky, broom, air, wind, ball, gold, catch-
The magic people had lasted longer than the others, but the barren world could not even support them now. The magic had evaporated from the ground and the trees and all of the living things, joining with the clouds and decomposing in the darkness.
-corridor, secret, wand, faces, eyes-
He sat now, alone, in the palace of Ludwig the Mad, in the mountains of Germany. He'd walked across the English Channel, tired of his surroundings, and come to the fairytale castle, with murals of majesty and views of the browned plains. It had taken nights and days, but he had plenty of those and didn't mind losing a few.
-day, night, fight, wand, death-
He was curled up in a windowsill, looking out upon his empire, his kingdom, the vast domain of nothingness that was his for the taking, until---as he sensed---the corners of the universe finally kissed and his world was enveloped into darkness and a complete emptiness.
Blackness appeared at the edges of his horizon, a blackness so definite that the madman knew nothing existed beyond those borders, a blackness so complete that the darkest of nights is gray in comparison.
The black rushed over the plains and the wastes, swallowing up the ruins and the mountains, approaching his castle. It lapped at the foot of his mountain.
He cried out in agony and penance as the blackness loomed over his head and beneath his feet but not on him, around him, taking him away.
In that moment something forgave him and something let go of him, and something heard his call for mercy and delivered.
The blackness swallowed hi----