If It Were Mine

The human mind has always longed for irrevocable power. We always hunger for something more than we have, something better than we can ever hope to attain. Wizards are no different; if anything these truths are more perfectly displayed in our culture. So who's to say that one man cannot ache for that which he will never obtain?

I can.

If there is one thing wizards crave, over anything we may possess, it is something material. We have the ability to heal and maim, create and destroy, build and reshape and weave the world and challenge fate...yet we long for things so simple and so inexplicably tangible that it is almost sickening. Why are we not content with the earth-shattering power we hold in our hands in a slender shaft of magical wood? Why are we not satisfied with Curses, salves, jinxes, and the glory we have through ages of struggle?

It is because wizards and witches are human, we are fallible and we are wrong occasionally, more often than not. We assume and take things for granted, we tread on the thin boundary between fact and magical theory and still cannot prove anything.

So when someone asked me if I wanted power, of course I did. It was how he went about asking me that left me in contemplative silence.

Professor Quirrel was a man whom I am elated to hear suffered his demise; and at the hand of Harry Potter, nonetheless. A fitting end: the boy whom we have come to depend so greatly upon has defeated the body the Dark Lord himself resided in for months, when he had finished off his former, solid self of flesh and blood eleven years prior.

I had always thought the plum turban to be an obvious hint that something was wrong with the jittery, nervous Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Which was why I cornered him in the hall late one evening. Remembering the fear and anxiety in his darting blue eyes satisfies me in a cold, sardonic way, but also gives me pause. Was he aware of his
plight?

I do not think so. I believe he knew he was walking on dangerous ground, with the soul of the Dark Lord feeding off of him hungrily and his cold voice whispering in his ear.

So when he asked me about the Sorcerer's Stone, I thought him to be rather bold and upfront. Quirrel may have been inquisitive, but to ask me when he knew perfectly well the Headmaster knew all about the Elixir of Life and the Stone showed not only his naïveté but his lack of intelligence.

I was sitting in my classroom one evening, perusing papers and making my customary black, spiky scratches across the parchment. When were these students going to learn? Aconitus is another name for aconite. Wolfsbane is the equivalent of monkshood. Is it honestly that difficult?

There was a nervous knock at my door, soft at first and then growing in intensity and urgency. I never looked up, I just stared at Vincent Crabbe's abominable paper about shrivelfigs. " Enter," was all I said, my customary greeting. No one attempting to cross my threshold should expect a warm welcome of any sort.

Quirrel came in, twitching in his left eye and clasping his hands at his chest, twittering on about the coldness and damp of the dungeon. I ignored him, naturally, thinking he had come down to ask my advice on the subject he was teaching, which he did more than once in his short span at Hogwarts.

" L-L-Lovely p-p-place you've g-got here, S-Severus," he stammered. " A b-bit d-damp, don't you th-think?" He smiled. " Hmmm," he said in a high pitched squeak. " Yes, yes, v-very d-damp and c-cold."

" It's how I prefer it," I returned coolly, hoping my tone chilled him as much as the dim and sudden draft from under my office door did.

" Of c-course," Quirrel nodded, thinning his lips and repeating his squeaking noise, which irritated me further. Where on earth did he pick up that annoying habit? " S-Severus, I h-have a question for y-you."

" Indeed?" I asked, bored with him already, despite the fact that my patience was waning fast with him standing there, in his violet and white robes, shivering when I felt nothing more than the usual coolness in my dungeons. " And what is it this time?" I stood, shuffling papers and setting them atop a cabinet, in which I had rows of vials and poisons.

How I ached to pour one down his throat as he moved forward, up the small terrace that separates my desk from the floor of the classroom. I narrowed my eyes at him, daring him to move an inch closer. Luckily for him, he didn't. And it would have been a pity to waste one of my poisons on such a worthless slime.

" What d-do you know ab-bout the S-Sorcerer's Stone?" he asked suddenly, paling then flushing as if his apprehension in the face of asking had drained, and was now replaced with a mix of embarrassment and horror.

I gasped faintly, stepping back. " What?" I hissed. He wasn't really supposed to know, after all, he was a relatively new professor. " Do I know anything about the Sorcerer's Stone?"

He nodded, biting his lip and curling his fingers together." Hmm," he squeaked again. " Y-Yes."

I took a step forward in what I hoped was my best menacing prowl. " The Sorcerer's Stone?" I asked, barely moving my lips. I hoped the moonlight caught the malice in my eyes. I wanted to intimidate him, make him produce one last annoying squeak and flee from the room in terror. I didn't want to talk to him about this. He didn't deserve to know. Not with my Dark Lord in the back of his skull listening the entire time.

" Y-Yes, hmm," he murmured, shrinking back.

" The Sorcerer's Stone and the Elixir of Life make the user immortal. He will never die, will live for as long as he possesses either. However," I added, when I knew Quirrel was transfixed by the idea of never dying and attempting to wrench him out of his reverie, which I did judging by his surprised squeak and widening of his eyes," there is a catch. One must get it first. One must find the stone and keep it."

Quirrel smiled weakly. " H-How does one g-go about th-this, S-Severus?"

I sighed. Was it possible for him to say my name without stumbling over the first syllable? " I don't need to tell you,
and you don't deserve to know, Quirrel." I turned away, sitting at my desk.

" Y-You want it f-for yourself."

I lifted my head slowly, feeling my raven hair fall in my face. I squinted, peering at him. " Excuse me?"

" You want the S-Stone f-for yours-self," Quirrel stammered anxiously, clasping his hands and walking forward. I eyed him dangerously. He was far too close to me than I preferred. " You w-want the p-p-power. You l-lost it, and n-now you w-want it b-back."

I quirked an eyebrow. " What power?" Of course, I knew what he was referring to. My days as a Death Eater had given me more strength and opportunity than anything else I'd ever done. I could kill people. I could save them. Or I could make others murder for me. It had been a glorifying feeling, holding the thread of someone's thin life in between my fingers, twisting it and pulling at them until they broke. But I had given that up. Long ago, I had left that legion of bloodthirsty maniacs for the solitude and relative safety of Hogwarts.

But Quirrel had unearthed something in my heart I hadn't thought about before. Did I want the Stone? Was I protecting it from him because I, secretly, deep-down, wanted it for myself?

" What power?" I repeated, leaning forward and hissing it in his face.

" The ab-bility to k-kill M-Mudbloods," Quirrel whispered, as if he did not want to admit what I'd done. " K-Killing Mudbloods," he repeated.

I savored his tension as he stood in the silence that followed, wringing his hands. I knew he wanted me to deny my past deeds, knowing the Dark Lord could hear me just as plainly as I heard Quirrel's voice. If indeed it was Quirrel's anymore. I looked down at my parchments again.

Suddenly, Quirrel lunged at me, grabbing my throat. His blue eyes were wild. " Do not lie, Severus!" he screeched. " You know of what and whom I speak! You know what the Stone promises! The power! The fame! The glory! AND I WANT IT! TELL ME WHERE IT IS!"

I tried to wrench his fingers off of my throat, imagining the horrible red and lavender bruises that would be left on my pale skin, the wondering gaze of Albus Dumbledore tracing my collar. " Get off, Quirrel! Damn you!" I shrieked." It's not
yours to have! It belongs to Albus!"

He let go, throwing me to the floor with surprising strength. He stood over me while I struggled to regain my breath and composure. " You are j-just s-saying th-that to p-p-protect your f-favorite Headmaster!"

I snarled, " He was my only Headmaster, Quirrel."

Quirrel spat at me, sneering, " I w-will f-find it myself. If y-you d-don't g-get t-to it f-f-f-first." He tried to whip his robes around in the same manner I do, with the tight flick and twist, but faltered, snagging his hand in his pocket and stumbling over the terrace. He stormed out, fuming.

I sat up, rising gingerly off of the stone floor and lowered myself into my chair.

Did I truly want the Stone?

To say I had never considered it would be lying, but to say that I salivated over it or dreamt about it constantly would also be perjury.

After six years of dutiful service, murder, deception, betrayal, back stabbing, bloodlust, cowardice...I didn't need to live any longer. I already had lived a thousand lifetimes and I wasn't even thirty. I had seen so much, what would living for
centuries more do for me? I had experienced so many things that ordinary wizards read of in leather bound books and wondered, in the wee hours of the morning, if they were true.

Many people say there are things one can gain by drinking the Elixir and maintaining control of the Stone. But I had gained power. I wanted to keep it. I yearned for the days when I would be summoned, I would literally ache for the Dark Mark to burn my arm. I couldn't wait to see the terrified eyes of the next Mudblood I would kindly administer the Third Curse to. I was eighteen and already I could issue orders to men fifteen years my senior, telling them what to do on the Dark Lord's behalf. I could kill, spare, torture...I was young. I thought if this is not power, then what is?

And who wants to live with those memories? Who wants to? I don't. I don't want the Stone, I don't want what it promises me, I don't want immortality, dammit. I want...

I don't know what I want.

I've lived so long not knowing what I'm here for and who I really am. My father molded me into the cold, angry man I've become...the Dark Lord made me a serial killer...Albus Dumbledore reformed me in the best way he possibly could...and Hogwarts transformed me into a heartless, greasy bastard.

Transformed? Merlin, who am I kidding? I always was. I have found myself. A heartless, murdering, betraying bastard. Well, it is so painfully obvious that I am my father's son. Beyond the nose, I mean. Beyond the black hair and the sallow complexion and bony frame, there is something in me that reflects him. Something I don't approve of, and no one else does, either. But pity for them, no, pity for me, because I have to live with that "something."

My fellow professors don't have to wake up every morning and scowl at themselves. They don't have to ignore the mirrors and panes of glass, because every time they look at themselves they don't burn with red shame and look away, their hearts skipping. They don't wash their hands at irregular intervals, swearing in the back of their mind that there is blood on them. They don't scratch at their skin until it is raw, trying to scrape off the Dark Mark. They don't huddle in the corner and rock on their heels, willing the pain to go away because they're playing both sides, for Dumbledore and Voldemort.

Enough of this. It is time to get back to the matter at hand:

The Stone.

What made Quirrel suddenly think that my attention would be solely devoted to contemplating the Stone? Why would he even think that I have enough time to think about Nicholas Flamel's creation? Do I honestly come off as relaxed? I spend so much of my day flipping through ancient texts, mixing cauldrons, slicing "D"s across disgraceful parchments, disciplining my students...I haven't a spare moment to think for myself about anything but Potions.

Unless he figures the weekends into the equation.

For on the days when my students--how I loathe them--do not have to attend my classes, and how I cherish those days, I...

Well, what do I do?

I sit in my office, the dungeons, my chambers...sitting. Thinking, writing, reading, sneering...The solitude is the most perfect place, my sanctuary...no one can find me there. No one knows what goes through my twisted mind.

But does Quirrel?

Does he know of the nights I sit awake, swirling my glass of absinthe, thinking about the years I threw my life away? How much I want to redeem myself and move on? How I hold my head in my hands and sob in the quiet and dark of my room, knowing you only live once? That I had ruined my last chance?

My only chance.

What if the stone could be used as a form of redemption? What if...what if I was to live, redeeming myself through deeds to other people?

No. I haven't the interest nor the patience. I can wait. I can burn. Throw me in prison, at least I'll die there. Not happy...but who wants to live forever? Not I. I am the last man on earth, the last pitiful excuse for a human, that wants to live longer than is absolutely necessary.

Yet, think of all I would see! All I could endure, become, influence. Potter's children's children. Hundreds of generations of Malfoys and Potters and Longbottoms.

Oh, Merlin. Not Longbottoms. The Elixir may gift one everlasting life unnaturally, but if they are killed...What a horrible way to die. The shards of an exploding cauldron tearing into me, a poison slowing my blood, alcohol poisoning from my inability to cope with dunderheads any more. And it comes back to the haunting, lurking question, like a boggart in a
cob webbed coffin.

Do I want the Stone?

How can I decide now? I will never get the chance, anyway. As soon as Dumbledore is informed of Quirrel's intentions, and I shall tell him, because infiltrating, informing, and destroying is what I do best, after all...I can sleep easier. As easily as a tormented Death Eater can.

Dreams do not come easily to me, they are all nightmares. Rare are the moments I have of lucidity, of beauty and serenity in my subconscious. Even my slumbering mind awakens demons I had so long ago thought dead. Some things are not meant to be resurrected.

Then again, all things are meant to die.

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, settings, plots, themes, quotes, events, ideas, props, and other assorted items are property of J.K. Rowling. There is no money being made from the reading, writing, posting, correcting, listing, printing, or any other actions in connection with fan fiction of this fic. Any original characters not previously seen in any of J.K. Rowling's books, the movies related to the books, or in any other related medium are my property. If it any time there is another character utilizing the same name, spelling, etc., there is no connection unless verified by the author. Any attempt to use my characters must result in the author questioning me for permission before writing their fic, art, or other medium.