Author's Note: Whole story follows canon, except the Epilogue. Never cared for that thing anyway. I am therefore adopting an "Anyone Can Die" approach. Consider yourselves warned.

Three Hours After

Ouch.

Snape finished wrapping the bandage around his neck. He hadn't been sure the antidote would work. It was a combination of a slow-burning stasis potion and the counteraction to Nagini's venom. Snape would slowly venture into a paralyzed state, mimicking death; the state would wear off after a few hours had passed – it had looked to be early morning by the time Snape awoke – and the taker would regain motor functions. Snape designed it this way so he would almost certainly appear dead to anybody but a skilled Potions master, and a skilled Potions master the Dark Lord was not.

I would guess that the antidote could be vastly improved, he thought, collapsing in exhaustion and pain on the floor of the Shrieking Shack (why did he always end up almost dying here? Why, for the love of God?) by the addition of a blood thickener and some painkiller.

BECAUSE THIS REALLY HURTS.

After a few minutes, Snape finally gained the strength to stand up shakily. He'd lost a lot of blood. He had accounted for the venom, but had failed to account for horrific blood loss. At least he could improve the potion. He'd almost not had a chance.

As he staggered forward and leaned against the wall, Snape considered. Why was he so worried about staying alive? The Dark Lord would just kill him anyway. Unless…

Snape rolled up his sleeve.

When he saw his arm, he let out a shuddering gasp and almost started crying.

It was over, then. The brat…no…the boy had succeeded. Snape hadn't even been convinced that the Potter boy would do it. Sacrifice himself like that.

But…if the Potter boy had done what was necessary, it was a shame he had to die like that, but Snape found that he had gained a great deal of respect for the boy. Potter had given his life to kill the Dark Lord. And someone else had finished the job.

Too bad Snape hadn't gotten to see it.

But what did Snape really have to live for now? The Dark Lord was dead. Lily's child was dead. He had totally succeeded on one front and completely failed on the other. And to think…the way he treated the boy…he couldn't even say that he'd tried to make his life as best he could.

His eyes burned with tears again. He had never loathed himself as he did now. He had had a chance. A chance to gain a faint light of redemption in the darkness of his soul. Lily was gone, the last bright light he would ever know, but her son offered a last chance. A chance to sustain her memory. And what had he done? Made every moment with the boy a living hell for him, and then led him to his death.

Why had he hated the boy? Potter? His father? Snape clutched his forehead. The way Snape had behaved…he had become what he most hated. And more. A hundred times worse. What Potter had done to him at school was not a blip on what he had done to his son. Where he could have been a mentor, he made sure the child knew that he loathed him, goaded his godfather to his death, and led the boy to his. Snape deserved to die.

He straightened. That was it. He deserved to die. And even then, Snape doubted that suicide was the way to go. He didn't even deserve the luxury of a quick Avada Kedavra. No, he deserved far worse.

He deserved the Dementors.

That was what he would do. He would go back to the castle and let them arrest him, jail him, convict him, give him to the Dementors. Nobody had known of his sacrifices for Lily except for Dumbledore, who was dead, and Potter, who was now also dead. No one knew. They would take him and the Dementors would eat his soul.

If there was any soul left.

Snape stumbled towards the entrance to the tunnel. He made it to the front steps of the castle before he collapsed.

He would have just been another body in a few hours if Neville Longbottom, of all people, had not found him a few minutes later.

Ginny Weasley left the Room of Requirement, shutting the door carefully. Interestingly enough, the Fiendfyre damage did not destroy the room – if she had to guess, it had only harmed that incarnation if it. So when Ginny, supporting Harry, had hobbled back and forth in front of it, asking for a place where her boyfriend could sleep undisturbed, she got it. He needed that rest.

As for herself…Ginny looked down and grimaced. Blood, dust, a small wound or two of her own. Of course, the greatest wounds she carried were not physical. Oh, but it hurt to think about that.

Because it happened right here. Right outside the Room of Requirement. Ginny knelt beside the hole that had been blasted in the side of the school. She knelt and wept. She wept for a long time. When she was done, after what may have been minutes or what may have been forever, she stood shakily and walked towards the Gryffindor dorms.

The Gryffindor Quidditch team had had a motto imposed by Fred and George for an after-game routine, the three B's: butterbeer, bath, and bed. Ginny smiled a little through her tears and decided that this was the best way to remember Fred: all the little jokes and pranks he loved so much.

No, not a butterbeer this time. Just something to eat. Anything. Ginny shook her head and made her way for the Great Hall.

She was in the entrance hall when Neville came in bearing Severus Snape.

Ginny, like everybody else, had heard what Harry said when confronting Voldemort and everything had clicked. She knew that Snape had been far more lenient than he had to be during their active resistance. And from what she discerned from the Trio's babble immediately after the battle, Snape had somehow slipped them the Sword of Gryffindor. Which was why he didn't want it stolen.

She almost laughed a little upon realizing that if they had succeeded, they might have accidentally doomed the war effort.

Funny, the way these things happen.

She didn't say a word when she saw Neville. She immediately ran over and helped him. They redistributed the load between them, Ginny taking his feet and Neville taking his shoulders.

"What in the name of Merlin happened to him?" Ginny wondered, gazing at the bandage and the blood.

Neville gasped for air as they carried him. "Don't…know…Sectumsempra…maybe?"

"It would be fitting," Ginny muttered as they pulled him into the Great Hall. Few people noticed. Most of them were tending their own wounds. Which reminded Ginny of a nasty cut she had on her leg, courtesy of Bellatrix Lestrange, and what she thought might be a few broken ribs.

But her mom had put paid to Bellatrix Lestrange. And had almost embarrassed Ginny in the process.

Oh well.

As they laid him on one of the tables next to a fourth-year Ravenclaw, who was crying and holding a severely burnt limb, Madam Pomfrey bustled over.

"Another one? Who's…" She stopped and gaped for a second, before instinct took over. She whipped out her wand and crossed it over the fallen professor's chest.

"Is he…"

"Alive? Yes, but just barely."

Ginny missed on the rest of Neville's and Pomfrey's conversation as she stepped around the other people in the hall to look for her family again. She saw Hermione with an arm around a crying Dennis Creevey, and Ron helping several Order members round up the fallen Death Eaters.

She heard snatches of conversation as she went past.

"…why he did what he did. There's no…"

"…he left me. Why couldn't I…"

"…missing quite a few. Too many. Something's…"

"…Dolohov, Greyback, Rabastan Lestrange. Still unaccounted for. At least that bitch…"

Ginny finally found her family gathered around a small assortment of sandwiches, eating tiredly. She grabbed one and began filling the hole in her stomach.

Fred was gone. Tonks was gone. Lupin was gone. But the two great heroes of the war survived, and that was more than Ginny had really expected. There was always a small part of her that had believed that Harry would die, that there was no way he could face Voldemort and survive. But he had. God bless him, he had. And so had the man who had made her boyfriend's survival possible.

A lot of people would be lining up to thank Professor Snape if he recovered. The look her potion master's face would bear when that occurred brought a smile to hers.

Three Days After

Twelve men and two women. All that remained.

Only two members of the inner circle. Rabastan Lestrange.

And him.

Dolohov surveyed what was left of the Death Eaters. It was as he suspected. The Dark Lord's lack of logic, his fixation on Harry Potter, and his ego had brought about his downfall. And though a few of the Death Eaters believed he would rise from the dead again, Dolohov knew better.

Fat chance.

Dolohov had known few things about horcruxes, but knew their function. When Potter had announced that he had destroyed them, Dolohov knew the game was up. The Dark Lord would not return. Ever. Again.

And what did this mean?

It meant that in four years the Wizarding world would be smacked with something they would definitely not be expecting.

Five Grand Marshals. And with the Dark Lord's death – not disappearance, but death – nothing would unify them. Five Grand Marshals would become five Dark Lords. They would fight amongst themselves, and the world could very well shatter as a result, because these blokes were powerful.

Ever since they had been introduced, Dolohov had run background checks on the Marshals, using his operatives. They were all to be feared, and they all had different strengths and weaknesses. Far more of the former than the latter.

What place was there for the remaining Death Eaters in this? Not much. Even then, Dolohov was still bound by the Unbreakable Vow. He was forbidden to give away anything about them. There was nothing he could really do to stop it.

Were any of them single-handedly as strong as the Dark Lord? Dolohov could not imagine, but he could not imagine what had happened in the Second War either. For all he knew, they could be.

They were very strong, though. At least as strong individually as Severus Snape, who Dolohov realized by now was a traitor. Dolohov was not particularly enraged. Rage was not his way. But Severus Snape had his hands tied just like Dolohov. He was still bound by the Unbreakable Vow, too. He could say nothing for four years. It didn't matter if Bellatrix could, either. She wouldn't be saying anything in four years or a hundred. Or ever.

The Wizarding world would get the surprise of its life in three years and 362 days. If Dolohov was to have any hope of regaining a chance to take over Britain, he would have to wait. Build up his forces. Stockpile his resources. They were here in a secret place on one of the Channel Islands, called the Redoubt. It was warded from detection, enough that no Muggle or Wizard could ever find it. He was also the Secret-Keeper.

Dolohov knew that he was smart. He was not particularly strong. He would become stronger. He would gather more pure-blood activists from across the world, build the Death Eaters, and sow the seeds for his success in Britain. It would be careful. It would be intelligent. And it would be smart. In four years' time, a new Reign of Terror would begin.

Dolohov relaxed into a chair, and gestured for the other Death Eaters to do the same.

Even if he couldn't challenge the Marshals when they rose, he could wait for his opportunity, and side with the one that turned out to be most powerful. Who knew? He could have more than Britain. He could have all of Europe. And if he played his cards right with that Marshal, he could have the world eventually.

You had to start somewhere.

Three Weeks After

And if I do? Snape wondered. What if I do decide to tell them about the Marshals? I'll tell them, I'll die, and both objectives will be fulfilled.

Ah, said that nagging little illogical voice in the back of his head, but is death what you really desire?

"Of course it is," Snape muttered to himself, sitting in the dank office that had been his workplace for years. Oh, they called him a hero. They put him up in the castle. They attended to his needs. They'd fixed the wound in his neck and the ones on his body. They looked at him adoringly, except for maybe a few of the Gryffindors and a few of the Slytherins, but those made sense in their own ways. Bugger it all, Potter even looked at him with respect and approval now. What he would have given to see that look coming from Lily…

And yes, James Potter. Better respect than scorn.

But had any of them given him what he really wanted? What he lacked for the first time he could remember?

Purpose.

Without purpose there was no reason for life. If by telling the forces of Light his last secret, Snape would die, that would fulfill his purpose and give him no need for purpose anymore.

To give himself something to live for, Snape would have to die for it.

Ha. Catch-22. He had read that book once. That was actually pretty funny. Snape chuckled.

"I really shouldn't be considering a life-or-death situation like this when I'm drunk off my arse," he considered out loud. There were a number of flasks of firewhiskey lined up on his desk, and a half-empty one in his hand. "Nothing else to do, though."

He sat there thinking about it for a few minutes more.

Maybe he should tell them now. They could go ahead and hunt down the Grand Marshals and get rid of them.

But Dolohov was still alive…somewhere…and he knew, too. He was too smart to tell. Snape didn't know where the Marshals were, and certainly didn't know where Dolohov was. The man could be anywhere. And besides those blokes, Dolohov would almost certainly be giving Wizarding Britain a nasty surprise come four years.

Hm. Snape could at least tell them about that.

But no, dammit. No, the four-year thing itself was included in the Unbreakable Vow.

Oh well. Snape doubted Dolohov was even still in England.

He was still thinking about these things. He was not close to drunk enough yet.

Of all things, Snape tended to get friendlier when he got drunk. It was probably the only time he was friendly. Which was why he didn't scowl when he heard a knock on his door.

"Enter," he shouted in a voice that was entirely too peppy for him.

Despite his inebriation, Snape still had to fight the urge to roll his eyes when Potter, of all people, entered. Great. This night was just getting better and better.

"Am I interrupting anything, sir?" The boy was half-smiling, dammit.

Snape looked at the bottle in his hand. "Nothing important, Potter." He tucked the half-filled bottle into his desk drawer, glanced at the other two bottles perched on his desk, and took both of them as well and put them on the shelf behind him. Then he interlocked his fingers behind his head. "What do you want now?"

Potter blinked. "Sir, if you'd like me to go…" So he was uncomfortable around a relaxed, relatively chill, drunken Snape? Would he rather have the sarcastic asshole back? If he really wanted that, he could come back tomorrow morning for what was sure to be a double dose.

"No no. Best have it out now, while I'm in a good mood. An artificial good mood, but a good mood nonetheless."

Potter blinked again, shrugged, and entered the room fully, closing the door behind him. He clasped his hands behind his back, shifted his feet, and cleared his throat.

Oh great. He wants to…

"If you're going to tell me how much of a hero I am, I've heard enough of that to almost make those seventeen years of my life not worth it," Snape growled.

"Or if you want to throw in my face the ill-treatment you and all your friends suffered at my hands, fine. But I'll probably just start weeping again, being as drunk as I am.

"Or you want to hear about the last Death Eaters. I don't know where they are, I already told the Aurors that a million times."

"Or if you want to talk about potions, you will have earned maybe not my everlasting adulation, but certainly my everlasting surprise."

The Potter boy shook his head. "I didn't want to talk about any of that, sir."

Snape waved his hand. "And drop the sir. I don't deserve it."

Potter raised a hand to his forehead and muttered something incomprehensible. Then he shook his head fiercely and looked up again to meet Snape in the eyes.

Snape scowled at the ceiling. "Only things people want to talk to me about these days fall in four categories. How much of a hero I am, what a terrible person I am, Voldemort, and potions. It's always either information or a personal issue with their perception of me. Why should you be any different, Potter?"

"I wanted to know about my mother, sir."

Snape's face froze. Then it melted into an expression of puzzlement. "That's it?"

"I never knew her, sir."

So it happened that a very drunk Snape turned to the only thing he could think of that would cheer him up. Memories of Lily. He told Harry about Lily until his throat went dry, sometimes seeming to forget that the teenager was in the room. Harry didn't mind, listening with rapt attention until Snape started snoring.

The next morning, Snape woke up, grumpy as ever, to find a breakfast with tea, several hangover potions, and a note from Potter assuring him that Granger rather than he had made the potions. After Snape had recovered from his hangover, he sighed and stretched.

Maybe the news of the Marshals, and his imminent death, could wait a few more days.

Maybe.

And until then, he'd see if Potter wanted to hear more stories about Lily.

And if he couldn't tell the wizarding world, he could teach its most famous Dark Lord destroyer a thing or two.

Only a few more days.

Once it had turned into a week and a half, Snape started worrying, even if he still hadn't admitted his desire to live to himself.