Songs for this chapter: Hands of Time by Rachel Diggs and Raining in Baltimore by Counting Crows
Severus was lost in his grief, and that perhaps was why he was profoundly confused to wake up drowning in a terrible heat. When he was better able to take in his surroundings he realized that he was on their island, still wearing his full robes, and thus that was why he was hot. He stripped down and lay in the sand once more allowing the grains beneath his face to absorb a new round of tears.
He did want to be here, not when it was just him. Yet he couldn't bring himself to leave the place where Albus had always been the most alive. Time lost all meaning as he lay in the sand mourning. The only indicator that large amounts of time were passing was the sunburn that he could feel spreading farther across his skin, but still he did not get out of the sun. Somehow it didn't seem to matter if his body hurt when his soul was torn asunder.
He wanted to go to the funeral. He was desperate for the chance to say goodbye, and yet he knew that he could not hand such a scene if he were welcome there. It was thoughts of just how many people would attack him if he were to show up at the funeral that finally drove a bit of life back in to him. Severus pulled his now quite red body up out of the sand and staggered his way into the bungalow they occasionally slept in. He stood rigidly in the shower, forcibly refusing to wince at the pain caused by the water as it washed all of the sand away.
Eventually Severus began to function on a basic human level once more. With that came food and ablutions, and those he could handle. What he couldn't handle were the thoughts. He thought about Albus and how badly he missed him and it tore him apart again and again until he no longer wanted to try. He decided to simply stop trying, and then the worst of it came. A horrible burning pain erupted in his wrist, and with a dark bark that almost could have been a laugh he realized that Albus had been wrong. He was not free from his vow at all.
He watched in abject horror as every vein on his body began to turn black. He thought he could actually feel the life bleeding out of him, and he welcomed the idea that he could join Albus. But then those thoughts reared their ugly heads, and he realized that he was not free of his vow because the Dark Lord still lived. He thought perhaps that should make him cry, but as the resolution to return o the fight worked its way through him he lost the ability to feel any emotion other than determination.
Severus was very busy when he returned to England. Everyone had just left Hogwarts for the summer or it was likely he would have been unable to enter the grounds without being attacked. Still he arrived in the dead of night to be safe. He knew what Albus had put into his will and he needed to make sure that everything would get to the person it was intended for. The first step for that was to hide the Sword of Gryffindor as the ministry was sure to confiscate it rather than delivering it to Potter.
The second was harder. His hands shook as he broke the stone free of that blasted ring, and placed it inside the snitch that had been magically modified to ignore it's flesh memory and instead respond to a phrase with a certain meaning. It was a tricky bit of magic to get the snitch to tell Potter how to open it, and perhaps Severus should have been proud of that but he was trying desperately to hold onto the numbness he had felt when leaving the island.
That was an impossible feat when faced with the presences of a new portrait in the headmasters office that had horribly well done eyes that sparkled as brightly as the real man's had. Blissfully the portrait seemed to understand that Severus was not ready to be spoken to. Or perhaps it simply hadn't learned how to speak yet. Severus couldn't be sure, and he was too close to the edge of another breakdown to contemplate it too much.
When the portrait finally did speak, it was for business, and it was so familiar that Severus found himself looking to the desk for the source of the sound instead of up on the wall. He staunchly ignored the flare of pain in his chest and attempted to focus on the instruction he was being given. It took a bit of internal prodding to remind himself why he cared if a plan to have Fletcher provide a plan of escape while he himself provided the actual date of the attempt to rescue Potter from the Dursleys to the Dark Lord.
He heard his voice responding to the painting of his lover, but he couldn't seem to feel his lips moving. It was as if someone else was in charge of his body and he was simply watching it all unfold. That feeling didn't go away when he tracked down the thief and confunded him into providing the only plan that was likely to keep Potter alive.
The first time Severus felt remotely in control of his body again, was ironically the night that he somehow managed to miss his target, a previously unheard of happening, and severe the ear of George Weasley thus sealing his cover as a true bastard that everyone in the Order should hate. He promptly fled the scene as it would have been entirely impossible to explain how the sight of a 'blood traitor' losing an appendage had brought him to the brink of tears.
He disappeared from the night sky only to reappear at the gates of Hogwarts and sprint blindly toward the castle in an effort to find cover before the worst of it hit. It was only the portraits of former headmasters and headmistresses that witness his descent into a sloppy teary mess once more, and they were sworn to protect his secrets.
"Severus," Albus's portrait said quietly on night shortly before term was set to begin while Severus sat in the dark drinking himself into a stupor.
"Yes love," Severus grunted after far too long of a pause.
"I think you should go to the old headquarters and search around a bit," Albus suggested in a sad voice. "Things have been quiet, and unfortunately we need to Order to think you are a threat to them. I imagine security will be easier to break through now we've lost Moody."
Severus threw back the last of his drink as he tried not to think of yet another person they had lost in this bloody war.
"As you wish," he said in a numb voice as he stepped into the fireplace, drawing his wand and conjuring a fire that would send him to the house that no longer belonged to Sirius Black.
In the end he found nothing but a scrap of paper that gave him just a little bit more fuel for the fire that illuminated the tragic story he was creating that would convince Harry Potter to martyr himself. He took care to cataologe every sensation as he tore the bottom of the letter written by Lily and saved it. He didn't bother to hide his tears, and Potter would never know who they had really been for. That fact was sealed when he found a picture of Lily and stole that as well.
Severus had thought that he wished he were dead as he lay in the sand on the island, but he grew to understand what it truly meant to wish for your own death when the students arrived and Hogwarts became a nightmare even he had been unable to imagine. He counted himself lucky every time he made it through a meal without one of the other professors murdering him, and yet he almost wished that they would.
He was dying on the inside a little each day as he saw the Carrows terrorizing the student body, and was forced to do it himself in order to keep his cover. To many evening were spent with the sound of children screaming filling his ears, and all of his nights were filled with drinking and crying after he had locked himself away in his office.
It was only his ability to accept torture without complaint that kept the Dark Lord himself from setting foot on the school grounds. Severus frequently bled for his students if only to protect them from the worst of the torture that might come their way should their 'prestigious' leader decide to make an appearance at the castle.
Severus had almost forgotten that he was trying to get the real sword of Gryffindor to Potter and his friends after having hidden a fake one in Bella's vault. He was reminded rather forcefully on a night that he could hardly determine the number of after so many drunken nights, when Phineas began shouting at him about the Forest of Dean.
He laid his little trap that would force Potter to play the hero, and once he was certain that the boy would indeed get ahold of the sword he abandoned the forest and returned to the castle where his brand new bottle of whiskey was waiting for him. He'd grown numb enough that he no longer noticed the sad blue eyes that watched him from their portrait.
His life became an unending torture where one moment blurred into another. He stopped telling day from night or one day from another. He couldn't be sure if he was sleeping or if he had passed into some strange realm where he simply didn't need to sleep anymore. He never did seem to find respite from consciousness.
There were tiny blips on his radar that sent spikes of pain through his heart. A student died. A curse upon his own body went so far that he nearly bled to death. Bellatrix swore up and down that she had her hands on Potter. None of it had seemed to matter, until suddenly the Dark Lord was in a blinding fury and so many people were slaughtered that Severus was forced to pay attention.
It was only then that he understood the magnitude of what Albus had been hiding from him, and the depravity of the situation he found himself in. When he learned of the break in what was left of the Dark Lord's sanity, he knew he would not be able to keep him away from the castle any longer, and he feared trying to stop him now that he knew of the horcruxes. He didn't even have any tears left to shed when he stared at that blasted portrait with all of the betrayal he could muster written clearly on his face.
Things happened quickly after that, and Severus was grateful. All of the different agents in this fight simply came to him, and all he had to do was wait for the end. He tried desperately to get one of his students to hand Potter over to him, so he could give the boy the memories he would need to do what he had to, but he instead found himself in a duel with Minerva McGonagall.
He had no fight in him when he saw the hate in her eyes. He simply deflected what spells he could that she sent his way and then he ran. He felt the burning that told him his vow was being triggered as he hadn't yet given Potter the information he needed, but there was nothing else he could do. He stayed clear of the fighting as all-out war broke out on the grounds of the castle he had once believed to be his home.
Eventually he opted to hide in the shrieking shake, with the desperate hope that Potter and his friends would find their way there while trying to avoid the worst of the battle. What he did not account for was anyone else finding him there. He was torn between shock and amusement when the Dark Lord appeared and rather dramatically revealed his intention to rid himself of Severus.
The words didn't even reach his ear, and he had no idea what came out of his mouth in response. All he could think about was that the burning had faded from his arm so Potter must be close, and yet he was still going to fail. That was what he was thinking of when he felt the fangs tear into his throat. He was vaguely aware of his own voice screaming, but his mind kept repeating that he had failed.
His blood was drenching him rapidly when Potter appeared, and he fought against the blackness that was threating to take him as he hoarsely demanded that the boy take the memories he was forcing out of his eyes. He wished he could move his arms to ensure they were caught. He had spent far too much time editing those memories to have them drip onto the floor and be lost for eternity.
At the last minute Granger produced a vial and the memories were saved. Severus was honestly only thinking of Albus, but he used his last words to seal the impression in Potter's mind that it had been about Lily when he begged him to look at him.
He stared into green eyes, but all he truly saw were twinkling blue ones. His body was betraying him, but all he felt was the warm embrace that Albus would be giving him if he were there. He heard a horrible rasping breath that must have been his, but then finally everything stopped and he was free.
THE END
