Disclaimer: I do not own anything Harry Potter.
Chapter 1
It fucking hurt.
Oh God! The blood was gurgling out of his mouth and neck and he could feel himself shaking as he desperately clutched at his neck. The damn bastard used his fucking snake and it fucking hurt!
Fitting way to end a painful existence, he thought bitterly. Hating life for its consistency.
Pain and failure. His legacy.
Oh God, oh God! Who would tell the boy? He had one more fucking job and-
Something moved to his right and fear lanced through him like an even more painful electric shock and for an instant he thought that the giant-ass snake was back to finish him.
Potter! He hadn't failed…not quite. Oh piss, he didn't want to die like this. He at least wanted someone else to know that. To see what he had tried to live for. Even if the boy was to join him soon behind the veil, maybe he would think that he…
Piss! Fucking piss.
He hated everything that had brought him to this and he just wanted to make excuses. The boy was collecting the memories now and he couldn't feel much anymore. The room was getting darker and suddenly terror of dying completely disconnected from every other soul gripped him.
He made one last request. And the boy obliged.
And things went dark…
…
Most of his life, Severus did not derive comfort from normal things. Sleep was nice enough right up until his thrice damned alarm went off, food was tasty he supposed, but certain Dark Lords tended to give him stomach ulcers.
He had friends. Kind of. Sometimes.
When he wasn't murdering beloved headmasters, and subsequently, his kind of friend and mentor.
No, his life was piss and he supplied the vinegar himself.
Students joked that he enjoyed making them feel like crap, like worthless dunderheads. The older ones joked that he wanked off to the sounds of their tears, but he knew that both ideas were shite.
Especially the latter!
Jeez! He hated vulgar little shites that thought that the world revolved around dicks and tits.
He hated little shites that didn't pay attention.
And ones that could not be damned to what they were told.
He hated children.
But he also hated himself for not being able to control his anger around them.
He was the adult. The teacher. And they were only children.
They behaved like children and he could never seem to keep his temper when they were only being what nature had intended them to be.
Children.
He would watch them scurry away from him and flinch when he spoke and he knew that he was at fault.
They were only children.
He hated himself.
Wait…the hell…? How was he having epiphanies when he was dead?
A limb spasmed dramatically.
HOLY FUCKING HELL, HE WASN'T DEAD!
Why wasn't he dead?
No don't question it, he might just be on the brink of death and about to pass any second now…
That was his right leg twitching! He fucking knew it!
But it was still dark, his eyes must be closed and he concentrated on getting something else to twitch…
The process was slow, but things kept moving and the room was getting lighter. But feeling was also returning and it was a horrifying burning that he realized that his eyes were not closed. They had been open the entire time and it felt like someone had up-ended a salt shaker in them as he tried to blink and cry as much as he could. The only time he would cry on purpose.
He suddenly realized that he had a gaping wound to attend to and fumbled for a good five minutes to find he secret emergency healing potion, and his secret emergency blood replenishing potion and to thank every deity he could name that every morning with his morning coffee he drank his secret not-emergency-but-bloody-necessary all-purpose honey-badger anti-venom.
He threw the empty vials to the side and absently realized that Nagini's neuro-toxins must have been mostly neutralized except for those pesky paralyzing one's. That also might have been what stopped him from bleeding out and his bodies functions fell to undetectable levels.
He took a deep breath and sat up despite the pain. That was not a new practice after-all; everything must be done regardless of the horrible pain it caused.
He flexed his blood covered hands, now dry, stiff and flaking and realized that Voldemort was probably still out there. Or if he wasn't, a young man, that shouldn't have had to, was lying down next to the corpse. Equally as dead.
All the "joie de vie" that had filled him at finding that he still had "vie" flew away, like a startled bird and he covered his face with his hands. He wished that it had ended.
No, maybe not. But he steeled himself for returning to the world full of piss and stood up like the adult he was.
It still hurt. He figured it always would.
He slowly walked through the tunnel and across the grounds towards the castle. Parts of it were smoking, but it mostly seemed silent. Probably meant that one side or the other had won, but he kept his wand firmly in his hand because neither side particularly liked him at the moment.
He took a side entrance that no one noticed much and quietly made his way towards the Great Hall. It took a while though as steps turned out to hate him and send a stabbing pain straight from his foot to his neck. He was no medi-wizard, but he could not reasonably think of how those two parts of his body should be connected in any way…well except for by the rest of his body. Dammit, he needed more blood replenishing potion.
He reached the teachers side entrance of the Hall and took a second to try to cast a disillusionment charm on himself. His body sputtered in and out of sight before failing and he suddenly did not care. With arms that felt like lead he opened the door and walked in, wand held loosely in his hand.
No one noticed him anyway.
And what a happy little scene he stumbled upon. Well, not happy. There were dead everywhere, but there was relative peace.
Plus, Voldemort's dead body was lying three feet away. Snape found himself drawn closer as he looked at the snake-man's surprised expression and glazed over eyes. He wondered where Potter's body was. Walking from body to body with a tired but determined shuffle, he searched and ignored the people around him that had now definitely taken notice of him.
Someone yelled Expelliarmus and Snape let his wand fly away as he paused in front of Remus Lupin's body. He expected some sort of righteous elation and he realized that he had been a spiteful bastard. The last marauder was dead and he only felt hollow in the place that his hate had been. By instinct his mind immediately began to list all of the things that made his hatred justified and he had to tell himself to shut the fuck up.
They weren't all excuses, but very few were valid points. That was just another thing to add to the list of things he bitterly hated about himself. Vindictive.
"Snape!" someone yelled. Someone that suspiciously sounded like a boy that he knew to be dead. His head shot up and he say that dead boy standing about twenty feet away from him and looking like death warmed over. But, well… not dead. Potter took a tentative step towards him, emotions warring on his face.
"Well, Mr. Potter," Snape rasped, "It appears that, once again, you have failed to listen to your betters and to do as your told…Five points to Gryffindor."
With that he sank to the ground and sat Indian style and went back to staring at the dead man that he had hated all of his life and now wished wasn't dead.
Well, if wishes were horses, a stampede would be the death of them all. Or however the saying went.
Some of Snape's most fervent wishes had come true. His "enemies", every single fucking one, was dead, and the boy-bloody-well-lived was standing right there. Snape was overwhelmed by the fact that he had never had one single fucking clue of what he had actually wanted in life.
Whatever his heart's desire was, and he did not care much anymore. He would live with whatever came next.
Piss and all.
A/N: ...What do you think? Please leave a review!