A/N: Please please please review/favourite - its so nice to know that people like reading Spark of Life! :D p.s. thank you to all of you who have already, you are all lovely stars :D
A wizened figure, doubled over, fell heavily from the fire and onto the unforgiving stone floor with a crack that would have made Snape wince, if he hadn't been so shocked. The figure lay motionless for a moment, before moaning and twisting violently on the floor, his long ordinarily white hair dirty and matted.
"Albus!" Snape exclaimed as he bent to his knees, grasping Dumbledore by the shoulders, freezing cold fear pumping through his insides. "Albus, what's happened? Tell me what to do!" He swept Dumbledore's hair away from his face and almost recoiled at the blood red colour of his irises, glowing impossibly large in his sockets.
"Severus…" the old man exhaled softly, "My hand…"
Snape's eyes flew to Dumbledore's hand, lying outstretched on the cold floor, and took a sudden, audible intake of breath. It was grey and black, as if rotting, and was peppered with deep craters in the skin. His bones were almost visible beneath the cracked, papery skin, his fingers gnarled and painfully thin, as if merely a mere touch to his fingertip would cause it to crumble into dust. The most alarming sight, however, was the steady speed at which the black decay was travelling further up the old man's hand, as if the rotting curse were an army, the mission of which was to lay waste to everything it encountered.
In that moment, as he took in the horror of what lay in front of him, Snape came to three difficult realisations. Firstly, this curse was beyond anything that he could counter; there was no hope of a counter curse; at least, not one that he had ever come across. Secondly, if he didn't act quickly, the curse would reach Dumbledore's chest in mere minutes, and destroy all of his internal organs, killing him within seconds. Thirdly, he hadn't the magical strength to prevent it from happening. His world swirled in an impossible tornado around him as he realised that he could do nothing but watch as the only hope of defeating The Dark Lord, his best friend and the only real father figure he had ever had, died in front of him.
"Severus…" Dumbledore rasped, his face contorted with the pain of his rotting hand. "Severus, I would not ask you to do this lightly, but you must cast Life Spark. I am not afraid to die, far from it, but I cannot leave Harry now…he is the only hope that the wizarding world has, and he is not ready for my departure yet. Please, Severus…"
Snape felt his heart drop, and stay dropping, guilt, anger, devastation weighing it down as he came to the worst realisation of the lot; that he must deny Dumbledore's dying wish, the only man that had given him a second chance, and that had loved him despite his very best efforts to push him away. "I-I can't, Albus," he whispered, his voice choked with emotion. "I don't have the strength. I…gave Life Spark to Hermione Granger, after the Ministry. I am so sorry…" He felt tears prickle his eyes, as he gripped Dumbledore's shoulders even tighter. He looked into the old man's eyes, still red, and almost saw the light go out as he realised that the situation was hopeless, and Albus Dumbledore accepted the inevitability of his own death, right here on the cold flagstones of the Hogwarts dungeons.
Snape broke eye contact, unable to look into his eyes any longer; waves shame, guilt and intense grief crashing through his chest.
"Is there any way to delay?" Dumbledore whispered again. "A potion? There are things that Harry needs to know, to help him..." Resentful despite himself that Potter was even stealing Dumbledore's last moments, he opened his mouth to bite out a negative answer, and then stopped as a thought crossed his mind. He sat stock still for a few seconds, slowly nodding, his mind whirring as he remembered a potion from long ago, one that had slowed death. He had not had the power to create it then, but perhaps now…but he wouldn't be able to finish it in time. He opened his mouth to say so, but Dumbledore interrupted.
"We may be able to stall the curse for a few hours…Simulare Mortem…it will give you time…find a longer-term solution…"
"But Albus, the risks! It might not stop the curse, and if your body is simulating death it cannot fight it any longer…"
"We have no choice." Dumbledore rasped authoritatively. "Harry needs my help…we can only try."
Snape nodded numbly, his heart hopeful but his brain practical. If the curse was fooled into thinking Dumbledore was dead, it might stop…or alternatively it may completely consume his body without his continued resistance. Dumbledore was right though: any chance of success was better than simply doing nothing, where failure was guaranteed.
"Simulare Mortem will drain you after Life Spark…you will need help with the potion…"
"I will find someone, Albus." Dumbledore nodded, his face white and contorted in pain as the curse crawled past his wrist. Snape took out his wand quickly, painfully aware that he needed to act now. He took a deep breath, terrified to cast the spell in case it amounted to a death sentence, but also terrified to delay. He slowly lifted his wand.
"Severus…should the worst occur…you must promise that you will guide Harry." Snape nodded shortly. "Also, you must not feel guilt for being unable to save me…you should feel no guilt for saving Miss Granger's life…" Snape looked away momentarily, unable to acquiesce to that particular plea. "Please, Severus." He nodded once again, before turning back abruptly and pointing his wand.
Snape took a last look at Dumbledore's open, trusting face, hoping against hope that this wouldn't be the last time that this man, the man that he had admired for so long, would look upon him. "Simulare Mortem!" Snape bellowed, mustering up every ounce of strength that he had left. An intense green light shot from the end of his wand, hitting Dumbledore between his eyes, which immediately closed as he stilled, his chest emptied of air, face pale and body limp and lifeless.
Snape almost didn't dare look at the arm; fear of seeing the curse still active and acting exponentially faster rendered him frozen. Eventually, he took a deep breath and slowly lifted Dumbledore's sleeve…
To reveal the hand, still cursed and withered, the contrast between the rotten skin of his wrist and the unmarked of his arm stark and ugly…
But thankfully unmoving.
Snape felt his whole body relax as he dropped backwards from his knees to sit sprawled against the armchair, relief rendering him as structurally secure as jelly. He looked on at the still figure of the man he most respected, the man who had saved him from complete darkness. And wept.
After a moment, however, he felt a surge of determination to do for Albus Dumbledore as Albus Dumbledore had done for him: to save him. With a click of his fingers, he summoned his own Hogwarts House Elf, Ebby, who immediately appeared before him, eyes widened as she took in the shocking sight of the headmaster lying to all appearances dead on the floor.
"Ebby," Snape began, his voice cracked from the sobs that had until recently been emitting from his chest. "Professor Dumbledore has been cursed. I have put him into a coma to prevent the curse from spreading, but I now need to brew the potion that will save him properly. Ebby, are you listening? He is not dead." The elf warily tore her eyes from the Headmaster, but nodded. "Good. I need you to take him to his quarters and put him to bed, then please find Fawkes. I want you, with Fawkes, to watch over him until the morning, when I will arrive with the potion to revive him. If his condition changes in any way, you must let me know immediately; if he looks to be waking up, fetch me without delay, and you must definitely fetch me if the curse that appears to be affecting his hand begins to spread any further. Do you understand?" Ebby nodded solemnly. "Now go." With a swish of Ebby's hand, Dumbledore was at once levitating several feet in the air.
"If Ebby can be of assistance then Professor Snape only needs to call!" The elf proclaimed, before clicking her fingers, vanishing both herself and the Headmaster.
Severus Snape rose to his feet, before leaning against the fireplace, exhausted from the effort of the spell that only a few months ago he could have cast in his sleep. Hobbling to his extensive bookshelf, he traced each title on the top shelf with long, thin fingers, before pulling out a series of small notebooks that had been placed next to each other in the centre of the shelf. Each notebook had a year inscribed in gold on the black spine, dating from 1976 to 1981; the only evidence he had kept of the darker potions that he had experimented with during the time he had been loyal to The Dark Lord. After Lily's death, he had almost burned them, however Dumbledore, who had happened upon him just before he carried out the deed, had persuaded him otherwise. He could still hear his words: A discovery is only as evil as the man behind it. And he had been right, because somewhere in one of these books lay the key to saving Dumbledore's life, at least for now. Flipping haphazardly through 1978, he snorted at his childlike optimism. "A Forgiveness Potion", intended as a last ditch attempt to induce Lily to forgive him for calling her a Mudblood. It had remained unfinished: he had left Hogwarts and walked straight into the arms of The Dark Lord before he had completed it, and after that he hadn't thought much about anything other than power and revenge. At least until he had learned of the plan to kill Potter, the last entry of the last journal had been made shortly before he had overheard the prophecy. Sometimes it occurred to him how ironic it all was; losing Lily had prompted him to join the Death Eaters, but then losing her had also caused him to leave them for good.
With a jolt, Snape realised that he had found what he was looking for, the page entitled: "Curse-Slowing". The Dark Lord had tasked him with this after Roland Karkaroff, faithful servant and elder brother to Igor, had been struck with a particularly nasty brain-wasting curse after a series of months with the Giants, before he could impart the required information. With Karkaroff losing memories with each second, and with no way of extracting the remaining memories without risking being caught up in the curse himself, The Dark Lord had set a newly graduated Snape to work on developing a potion to slow it, allowing Karkaroff to impart everything he knew before his death. This, however, did not go to plan. Despite Snape being sure on the formula of the potion, when tested it had instead accelerated the curse, and rendered Roland a vegetable immediately. The Dark Lord had killed him in anger, before subjecting Snape to four days of periodic Crucio. It still gave him nightmares, and sometimes on particularly cold nights, he could still feel the distant ache deep in his bones.
Despite never ascertaining where he had gone wrong, Snape now found himself in the desperate position of being six hours from Dumbledore's reawakening, whereby the curse would restart and lay him to waste within ten minutes. Another Simulare Mortem within one moon cycle would immediately stop his heart permanently. As such, the next six hours would be six of the most crucial of Snape's life. He had to succeed. And he found himself facing them with barely enough energy to cast a simple Lumos.
Frustrated, he found himself mentally running through potential candidates to help him with this mammoth task. McGonagall was somewhere in Aberdeen, where he did not know, and he did not have the strength to apparate. Pomfrey was Merlin knows where. Even Flitwick had taken the opportunity to leave Hogwarts while he could; it was obvious that once the students returned, they would be in need of constant protection, more so than ever before, and so staff absences during term could not be permitted.
Frustrated, and tempted to drag himself for the four miles to the Hog's Head on the off chance that Aberforth would be there, he swung around once more to rest his weight against the fireplace, mind spinning. He stopped abruptly, however, as his eyes came to rest on the small Thank You card sat on the mantelpiece.
Hermione Granger sat in the small yet comfortable living room, with its numerous ornaments littering each available surface. The squashy purple settee groaned as she shifted her weight; its many years of taking the heavy dropping of fully grown teenage boys into it had left it rather less structurally secure than when it had been purchased. She was having another go at The Forbidden Romance of Aradelia Mockett, depressingly badly written though it was; Ginny was unfortunately very sensitive to light when trying to sleep, and so Hermione had kindly left the room to read her traditional pre-sleep chapter.
The humid heat of the afternoon had for the most part disappeared after a storm earlier in the evening, leaving a mild chill in the air. Dressed only in her sleeveless flowery pyjamas, Hermione shivered and, noticing the lateness of the hour, she decided to quietly slip upstairs. Pulling on her Gryffindor slippers, it was as she rose to leave that she heard the whoosh of the fire in the kitchen, and footsteps making for the staircase. Tentatively, Snape's warning still fresh in her mind, she silently padded to the door and out into the hall, pulling her wand out of its usual home in her waistband. After whispering Lumos, she saw the shadow of a dark figure making its way up the stairs.
"Who's there?" she called, her voice braver than she felt. The figure stopped, and turned on the stairs, before beginning to quietly make its way downstairs again. Her heart in her mouth, Hermione raised her wand higher, casting light over Professor Snape, his face even more pallid than usual.
"Professor! Has something happened? Are you alright?" Hermione took a step towards him, aware that she should be checking his identity, but at the same time taken aback by the almost fearful expression on his face.
Snape blinked, as if surprised that she were asking after his well being, before quickly composing himself. "Miss Granger, in the missive that you presented me with at the end of last year, you offered your assistance, should I require it. Well, I find myself in a position where I do. Can I hold you to your promise?" His face presented its usual unreadable expression, but there was an urgency in his eyes that left Hermione uneasy.
"Of course, Professor Snape, anything." Hermione replied instantly. She had perhaps imagined it, but she thought she saw him relax fractionally.
"Very well. We must go." He turned on his heel and headed once more into the kitchen. Hermione briefly contemplated asking him if she could retrieve a coat from upstairs, but remembering his demeanour decided against it. Instead, she hurried after him, scrambling into the fireplace after him as he called, "The dungeons, Hogwarts!"