The Eyes
Chapter Ten
A silence heavily muffled every word, every step, and every action around Severus' surroundings as he turned another dusty book back to its place. None of the books he had read could help him. There was nothing speaking of the strangeness inhabiting the place known as Hogwarts, nor was there any tip or helpful suggestion on how to deal with Mister Potter's case.
He stood in a corner of the dreary looking shelves filled to the brim with books, within the corner of the Ravenclaw's private library. Nobody had disturbed him there. Nobody had passed him by and asked how he was faring in his quest.
He bitterly thought back at Lily, and how he was failing her with this unfruitful research.
A murmur reached the back of his head. "Severus."
It was cold, a frozen breeze of putrid stale air that lingered at his nostrils for nothing more than an instant. Yet in that horrific smell of rotten flesh another perfume, hidden deeply in the cloying sweetness of iron blood and tender muscle, he recognized instinctively.
The years had passed. A decade and more had gone by, and yet he still recognized that unmistakable perfume.
It was Lily's.
"Severus," the murmur whispered. "Don't look behind."
He felt bitterness, not fear, at the voice. It was rotten. He could imagine falling teeth and forked tongues. He could imagine a hundred eyes and more. He could imagine tentacles, twirling masses, teeth and fangs. He didn't know why, but the counsel was sounder than it felt. If he turned, he would know if Lily talking to him, a ghost of hers that lingered at Hogwarts—and yet he had never seen her, and how much had he searched for her after her death!
Or maybe it wasn't Lily, but a thing beyond reality that Harry spoke of repeatedly, that his scared eyes saw with a clarity his own thankfully would never be able to.
He could feel the familiar smell overpowering the rotting flesh. He didn't know if he wanted to turn because it was Lily's voice, or because it might be Lily, or because the beast might have Lily's form, or maybe, even then, he wanted to turn in the off-chance that no matter how monstrous the form was, Lily's appearance or words would still shine through it.
He didn't know what he wanted.
"What are you?" he asked.
"Severus," the voice said again. "Don't look behind."
"What creature are you?"
"Severus, don't look behind."
"Stop saying that," he screamed. "Tell me who you are! What you want with me! What you want with Harry! What do you want with us!?"
"Severus," the voice said. "Don't look behind."
Or maybe there was Lily's ghost, pleading to him not to look at the monster creeping behind his back.
"Severus, don't look behind."
He didn't understand.
His lips thinned as his fingers grasped his wand's handle and slowly took it out. The dusty air felt heavier with each passing second.
"Severus, don't look beside."
He closed his eyes.
He closed his eyes sharply as the voice came right by the side of his ear.
He clenched his wand.
Sectumsempra.
The spell cut through the air, through the shelves and the books near him. Papers exploded, books screamed as they died clutching their bloodied stumps. Crimson ink fell from the sky as Severus lashed out around him, cutting, cutting, cutting repeatedly against the enemy he could not see. Blood fell in large splatters, red, and suddenly green, and then blue, and finally pitch black rotting and burning, sizzling away into nothingness.
The air thinned, and Severus breathed deeply.
Finally, he began to open his eyes.
"Severus, don't look ahead."
He closed them, curtly cussing as he attacked again. He could hear the wails and the screams of untold horrors dying by his wand. He remembered the time as a Death Eater, where nothing would stand in front of his curses. He used everything he had. Everything he knew and everything he simply theorized. The darkest of curses and the most powerful of spells; in his madness, he was sure he even summoned Fiendfyre.
Yet there was no burning flame at the end, when his breathing grew ragged.
There was no death.
He felt lighter.
He opened his eyes.
The library was untouched.
There was no destruction, no fire, no death, no blood and nothing even vaguely resembling the aftermath of his attacks.
In his hand was not a wand. There was a book. There was no title in it, but Severus knew the book he was looking for was this. There was no mistake. He could feel it.
He could feel the book's power. He could hear its whispers through the creaking pages bound to its hard back by something more than simple strings. There was more than just ink written on the pages.
There was more to it than it seemed.
A slithering, slimy mass of tentacles in the corner of the room watched with its lone green eye.
The Green Moon, The White Fire Which Is Darker Than The Night, The Winged Woman, The White Dark Which Is More Red Than The Fire and The Black Light failed years before. He was free.
Everything would end, given time. He would sleep, given time. He would murder, given time.
He would end, given time.
The Necronomicon, made of leather and bound in iron clasps, was now in the hands of an ant, an insect beyond his interests.
His lone green eye, nestled in the mass of his wriggling tentacles, watched the ant leave his refuge.
Everything would end.
Soon.
He would die.
Soon.
The world would die.
Soon.
The Galaxy would stop spinning.
Soon.
Everything would end.
Soon.
There was no hope.
There never was hope.
Author's notes
And the Necronomicon changes hands. Meet Cyäegha, The Destroying Eye, The Waiting Dark; he appears as a gigantic black mass of tentacles with a single green eye at the center.