The Day the Phoenix Died
(part one)
The old man tossed and turned in his sleep, his face hardening as slumber turned into a nightmare. His head jerked on the pillow, his greasy black hair, streaked liberally with gray and white, framing his sallow-skinned face as he curled in on himself, as if to hide form his own thoughts, his own dreams—his own memories.
For the nightmare was a memory, every tedious minute of it, every heart-wrenching detail exact and sharp and as crystal clear as it had been that night, all those years ago, that night on top of the tower.
"Severus…"
That voice, that old voice he so suddenly detested, cut him like a knife to his heart, sending the icy venom of regret to freeze his thoughts, his resolve, his soul.
"Severus… please…"
Bile rose in his throat. And at the moment he hated that name and the person who called it, himself for his cowardice and for his actions, revulsion for the gloating faces around him and the battle within him, the battle that could not stop his arm from raising his wand, could not stop his harsh voice from echoing the vision of death he saw before him.
And as he stared into the eyes of the man he had condemned to death, Severus even hated the fleeting farewell he could read there, a flash of insight and—his breath caught, his anger flared, the connection wavered—a hint of song and warmth and crimson, beating wings… and then it was gone, the eyes were distant, empty, and this small gift was buried under rage and a cover of self-inflicted cold heartedness.
Inside the battle raged, drowning out all else. He could not be distracted… he must not be distracted…
But then, at his own clear incantation, the silver-bearded man before him rose, was thrown back, and fell, and all hell broke loose around him—yet within the battle had stopped, was over, and in its place was an awful, frozen stillness he had felt before, would always feel, could never escape…
He was running. Running as though the life he no longer cared for or believed was truly there was in danger, running from the broken fragments of a fragile peace and vows kept and promises broken and terrible, terrible mistakes, and he was running from the young, terribly young boy who chased him, who was their legacy.
In his sleep, the old man tensed and jerked, his conscious mind struggling against what he knew was coming next, trying to awake, to stave off the moment of utter collapse—
—and yet as always, it came, the cry, the accusation, the feared secret set loose to destroy—
"Coward!"
And he froze, everything stopped, and it echoed, this cry, in his mind, and the stillness erupted into a fury that surprised him, shocked him, tore away what was left of feeble control—and he screamed, and kept screaming, and couldn't stop screaming, not inside, even though he was running, running for the life he no longer believed in, with the life he had to save, from those he had destroyed and those who would now destroy him—with his blessing. The horror overwhelmed him, obscuring, overloading his senses, suffocating him in fear and hate and rage and pain… oh, that familiar, aching, tearing, pain, augmented and enhanced by crimes so much greater… so much greater…
The accusation echoed through his screams, worlds shattered, dream-reality dissolved and a concrete here-and-now took over. With the strangled gasp of a dying, drowning man the old man awoke, drenched in sweat, wide-eyed and staring into the impenetrable darkness of his room and of his mind, hands shaking and soul trembling.
And for a long, long time, all was silence.
Then gradually, in the warmth and stillness of the room, the softening presence of time pushed back the immediate horror of the dream-memory, his breathing slowed, and his hands stilled. He sat quietly, empty, sick-feeling and alone… blessedly alone…
Yet the echo of that scream never truly faded; never could, never would, he knew. His eyes were still haunted with the old accusation and the old revulsion, and he knew again it would never be the same, could never be the same, that he would always be running—from the past; from himself; from the memory of what he had done and what had been done to him, from the echo of a scream and from tears that had never come, tears that would not come now had not fallen on the day the phoenix died.