Chapter Eight: Through the Styx
A/N: My second round of midterms ended yesterday at 6 PM; this was my post-midterm party all evening. I am very, very sorry that I don't post any faster. I hate it when other people do that and am unfortunately guilty of that myself. This chapter, for some reasons that will be very clear and others that I hope are not, was absolutely terrible to write but will hopefully be much better to read.
Many thanks to my idea-bouncer-turned-beta, fallenwitch, who tries to ensure that I don't take this experiment too far away from sanity, and to everyone who reviewed the last chapter…best guilt trips ever.
From the last chapter:
In the depths of the mire, the bitter, painful cold claimed Albus for its own.
There was nothing here but ice. Black ice, harsh and glaring, encased him a frozen prison. He had been tried, tested, and found wanting.
The cold burned, a bone-deep chill that scalded him from the inside out. Albus hissed and instinctively withdrew into himself.
Then it came, old and familiar, flowing up and around the ice to encircle his soul in the same frigid wind. It rose up like a black specter from within him, an inky darkness that washed through him and settled deep. It called up its brothers and they came, the dark avatars of his past. They circled around him like birds of prey, some diving down to attack, others waiting to pick on his remains. He shuddered violently as they passed through his chest, constricting around his heart, tighter and tighter until the blow struck home and he gasped painfully.
…red-haired, fiery young Lily Evans, laughing as she flung her chocolate pudding straight into the shocked face of her boyfriend, James Potter. Sitting next to him at the Gryffindor table was Sirius Black, nearly choking with laughter at the scene, until James emptied the pumpkin juice pitcher over his head…
…a broken home, a sharp-edged wreckage of glass and wood. A chill wind sweeping through shattered windows and fluttering the edges of a bloodstained robe beside a pair of broken glasses. Upstairs, fiery red hair surrounding an unnaturally pale face, a stiff body with a small hand still reaching out towards a screaming toddler…
...a young man, haunted, laughing hysterically as the Aurors dragged him away…a pale, gaunt face dominated by dark, sunken eyes without a trace of laughter…
…Cedric Diggory, gray eyes shining as he smiled down at the slender young girl in his arms, spinning her in circles around the Great Hall...
…Cedric Diggory, gray eyes gaping and sightless, pallid face wet with his father's tears…
…green-eyed, fresh-faced Caradoc Dearborn grinning impishly as he teased him, Minerva's laugher bubbling over them both as the sun smiled down on the green hills of Scotland…
…Minerva's face at the news that her favorite nephew had vanished without a trace…watching her, week by week, the same green eyes haunted as the desperate hope killing her slowly died…
…a young, vibrant Alastor Moody, winking at his girlfriend as she left the Ministry, brown eyes smiling as he turned back to his Auror's report…
…rushing the young Auror into St. Mungo's, his body horribly mangled, his visage a grotesque mockery of a once-handsome face…the wizened, crooked, broken man who had been rescued after a year of captivity in a trunk…
…Alice Longbottom shaking hands with the Minister as she was presented with the Auror's Award for Admirable Action; Frank's smile as he watched her and then received the same…
…a round-faced little boy, just six years old, standing tall as his parents floated by him without a single spark of recognition, silent tears streaming down his face…
…six-year-old Sarah Bones, Edgar's youngest daughter. Edgar. Arleen. Katherine. Piers. Marcus. Benjy. Marlene. Dorcas. Gideon. Fabian. Hagrid…
…Minerva, small and fragile in a way that he had seen only in his nightmares, pale and lifeless as she lay in the hospital bed, thick white bandages hiding the angry red lines across her chest from him, bleeding because Hogwarts had needed her, because he had needed her…
He did not realize that he was crying until the tears froze on his face.
…he had needed her…because he had needed her…telling her the truth, watching through her green eyes as his words hit and her heart broke…Tom's face twisted in hatred and pain he realized that she was lost to him forever…Voldemort, the dead thing fleeing death, red-eyed hatred and nothing more…
…Tom's Death Eaters, students who had turned away from Hogwarts…
…and Severus…
"Severus…" he whispered hoarsely, the accumulation of his greatest sins embodied in a name.
A knife of black ice ripped through his chest, missing his heart by inches.
He took a step towards Dumbledore.
"Sirius Black showed he was capable of murder at the age of sixteen," he breathed. "You haven't forgotten that, Headmaster? You haven't forgotten that he once tried to kill me?"
"My memory is as good as it ever was, Severus," said Dumbledore quietly.
He turned on his heel and marched through the door that Fudge was still holding, his jaw clenched painfully tight.
Albus shuddered. He could feel himself bleeding, and as the warmth poured out of him, he knew that he was lost.
He could feel the ice sliding into him now, a bitter chill that invaded and pervaded all of him. It was his punishment, a shard for every person he had ever failed…alastorbellaharryjameslilysiriusseverusseverussev--
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pain.
again.
again.
It blazed down with a fierce intensity, burning bright streaks across the black canvas of his vision. He screamed as it struck, immolating his chest in an explosion of pain. Three more times, three more bolts, three more searing lancets of light struck him before his eyes snapped open involuntarily, and he gasped a loud, long, life-giving breath of cold air. The lightning ceased instantly.
After his first incautious breath left his lungs burning, Albus was careful to breathe shallowly for a minute. When he no longer felt as though he was drowning and the blazes had faded from his eyes, he glanced up and looked around. He was still completely encased in black ice, but now a warm, familiar aura of clear violet light surrounded him, a cloak against the cold. It almost tickled as it brushed his skin and then spread outwards, flowing over him like the warm caress of spring. And the ice around him melted in face of the light's advance, even as that light faded away. With the final dissolution of his prison, the light vanished, leaving only the memory of its warmth for Albus to keep.
Blinking, Albus stepped forward shakily and shivered. Without the warmth of Minerva's magic, the air around him seemed even colder than the ice had been. Still, he smiled a little. Even here, it seemed, Minerva came to save him.
Now it was his turn to save Severus. Albus looked up and frowned a little. The ground beneath him was a grayish brown, rocky and hard. His vision here was perfectly clear, and yet he could see nothing. The gray-brown of the land ran on until it met the lighter gray-blue of the sky, but try as he might, Albus could not discern a single object between the two of them. Total in its desolation, this was the ultimate desert, devoid of even shape and color.
It was the absolute silence, however, that bothered Albus the most. The halls of Hogwarts always seemed to echo with the sounds of children, even in the summer months. But here, here there was no trace of anything, alive or dead, anywhere. The unnaturalness of it made his skin prickle.
He scanned the area around him slowly, searching for any indication of which direction he ought to go. Finding no markers of any kind, Albus simply set his shoulders and began to walk forward.
He moved forward determinedly, his steps quick and purposeful. He had no idea how much progress he was making or even where he had begun. The terrain around him did not change in the slightest. His only companion was the sound of his own footsteps.
He kept walking.
…
Albus had no idea how long he had been walking, only that his legs were long past the point of tiring. The waste seemed infinite. He paused for a moment, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. Then, for the first time in what seemed like hours, he felt a tiny flutter of air brush past him. Struggling to conceal a smile, he put one foot in front of the other, and continued walking.
…
Some time later, he noticed that the ground was gradually dropping away. His heart racing, Albus followed the slight slope downhill to find a rickety old boat beached on the shore of an immense black sea. He could have sworn that both had just appeared out of nowhere.
Albus walked down to the boat, a weathered little vessel barely large enough to fit two people. He glanced around, puzzled, but there was not even a stick with which to try and propel the craft, though it appeared to have been recently used.
He looked out across the dark waters and frowned, unable to shake a strange feeling of unnaturalness as he gazed out over the perfectly still, obsidian ocean. It was a seemingly infinite pool of darkness, almost beautiful in its silent tranquility.
"But always dark," he whispered sadly, "always dark."
So bring him light.
The startling clarity of the thought stunned him into immobility for a moment, but he recovered quickly. Within moments he was making his way down to the water again, buoyed by a renewed sense of purpose. Perhaps the oars had been left inside the boat, or maybe there would be some other kind of clue, he thought as he neared the craft. He leaned forward andreached out a hand to steady himself againstside of the boat as he peered inside.
He was not prepared for the memory he was thrown into.
He opened his door two inches, looked out, and resisted the urge to slam the door shut again. "What do you want?" he growled, glaring at her. Minerva only looked at him pointedly, then inside at his sitting room. When he continued to scowl at her from the doorway, the infernal woman reached her hand up as if to push his door open herself. He stepped back and allowed her entry with an ill grace, shooting her a baleful glare as she pushed past him.
Minerva seated herself on his couch gracefully, leaning forward slightly as she clasped her hands together. He sat opposite her, reclining in his favorite armchair, and raised a practiced eyebrow. "Well?"
"Severus…" Minerva hesitated for a moment, shook her head a little, and then continued on determinedly. "I came to ask you for a favor."
If anything, his expression soured. "What?" he snapped.
Again, Minerva hesitated. "I was hoping that you would speak to Miss Cooper. As you know, her father—"
"—failed the Dark Lord and got himself killed for his trouble," he replied harshly.
"Yes," she said softly. "The girl hasn't been eating. She hasn't slept more than a few hours without nightmares, and I was hoping that—"
"—that I could somehow say something to her that would make the fact that her father was incompetent as well as evil all right?" he said sarcastically, his voice rising.
"Well, yes," she snapped back. "Her mother died a few years ago, but she's never felt comfortable talking to me so I—"
"Merlin forbid that one of your precious little lions feel 'uncomfortable' speaking with you," he sneered.
"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked sharply.
"Only that you must be feeling quite desperate for you to come to me." It was her turn, now, to raise an eyebrow, and somehow the motion infuriated him. "Then again, it's not that hard to believe that Minerva McGonagall failed as a surrogate mother. Nothing touches you. Merlin grant that you never have any children of your own if you can't even handle your charges."
Albus physically recoiled in shock at Severus's words, momentarily jerking him out of the memory as he stumbled away from the boat. He gasped once before an unseen force tossed him bodily against the boat, forcing him back to watch Minerva's reaction with a horrified despair.
Minerva blanched violently and for a single moment her expression was entirely unguarded.
Her green eyes were wide, shimmering with the slightest sheen of tears and shadowed with a pain deeper than he had believed himself capable of causing. The Legilimens connection was unintentional but instantaneous. There was an echo of a soul-deep scream in his mind, of a raging, howling blackness…and then nothing. Minerva's face had gone utterly, frighteningly blank.
"Well, I suppose that settles the question," she said coolly after a long moment. "I apologize for my intrusion, Professor Snape. I'll leave you to your business, then," she said before rising stiffly and heading towards the door. A moment later, she was gone.
Albus took a few wild, drunken stumbles away from the boat before sliding to the ground. The impact reoriented him and he stiffened instantly, eyes darting about to identify further threats. None came. In fact, it seemed as though the invisible force around him was almost hesitant to approach him.
Oh God, Minerva…Albus recalled painfully. Minerva had never mentioned the incident to him, which led him to believe that it was probably within the first few years of their reacquaintance with Severus; the young man could not have known at the time that his employer and the Head of his rival House were married. I could have hated him for that, and she knew how badly I wanted to save him…but dear Merlin, Minerva…
He closed his eyes, recalling the tiny, bloodstained bundle that the nurse had placed in his arms. A son. Connor Aberforth Parsifal Dumbledore, who never took a single breath in this world. The single, shattered cry from Minerva that followed when she realized what had happened echoed in his mind. A similar cry: a low, mournful sound of loss, when they were told that they would never have another child. Albus choked. Minerva, choked with tears, shuddering with the force of her sobs as her body rocked back and forth, her knees pulled up tightly to her chest as she quietly screamed out her grief…
Albus's entire body shook with the force of his emotions, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists of impotent fury. The very air around him trembled.
"NO!" he roared, and the sound seemed to echo even in the dismal, endless plane.
Connor. Minerva. His swift descent into sorrow swept away his anger like the rush of the tide.
Albus took a deep breath, and then another, his hands falling limply to his sides. Minerva had clearly forgiven Severus. If she had done so already, then he could do no less. Severus's transgression had been made in ignorance, after all, and despite all their protests to the contrary, it was clear that the two rival Heads of Houses had become very good friends.
Well, old man, I am your better half, she said lightly, and as her lilting voice washed over him, Albus found a fragile peace.
We lost one son already. I will not lose another. After all, he thought with a slight smile, I have a promise to keep. Absolutely certain of what he needed to do now, Albus pushed the old boat as far into the water as he could without touching it himself, lifted one leg into the boat and shoved off the shore hard with the other. It took him a while to stabilize himself in the flimsy little craft, but he finally found himself firmly seated in the boat and drifting very slowly out into the black water.
Albus settled his hands in his lap and looked up.
"Let me in, Severus," he said quietly. "Let me help you." Let me save you this time, Severus.
There was a shiver in the air around him, and then the boat moved forward. Albus did not look back as the black waters faded behind him.
A/N: This chapter was evil and requires more work, but I hope you liked it. Questions, comments, criticism always appreciated. Thanks for reading!
For those who have asked what's next, this fic was inspired by the following: Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.
