Chapter 77: Whole Once More
There was a taste of anticipation in the air, one almost indistinguishable from the powerful magic that thrummed through the circular office in which Snape sat.
Snape braced his elbow against the dark mahogany wood, his arm braced upon a cushion-laid perch so the twisted flesh upon the end of his arm angled upwards. The wound had long stopped aching, the closed flesh resulting in a mess of white scarred tissue to round off the end of his shortened limb. The phantom hand that taunted Snape whenever he would reach out unthinkingly with the limb tingled even more tonight.
Anticipation manifest.
The headmaster sat bowed over a tome, its white pages thick with black ink. Carefully, he drew his wand across the page of his tome, magic curling the edges of the paper inwards. With his trailing wand tip, he lifted an image affixed to a page with a ritual of magic etched in ink.
A skeletal form lifted from the page. A hand stripped of flesh, lovingly crafted to perfect measurements and likeness of its true counterpart. Images that had been exactingly transcribed from medical tomes from the muggle world.
Snape had found this decision to source knowledge from the muggle world to be queer but Dumbledore felt nothing of the sort. The headmaster had explained that though healers too had their own knowledge of anatomy, it was far less in depth than that of their muggle counterparts. Those unfortunate souls who compensated for their lack of magic with diligence. They delved deep into the sciences behind the world so that they could form rationalisations that allowed them to explain the arcane away.
Of all his eccentricities, one could never accuse the man's thoughts to be lacking in reasoning.
That skeletal hand affixed itself to Snape's maimed limb, dangling without rigging and support. Then the flesh began to lace itself onto the fixture, muscle fibres and ligaments weaving a form around that skeletal scaffolding before a shimmering likeness of skin covered that meticulously replicated faux hand. One that had been slowly stitched together by weeks of trial and error.
But where those attempts had failed, Snape felt a difference this time. He felt it before the spell had fully takenanchor. The sensation of movement felt in a limb long thought divorced from that sensation. With an impossible ease, Snape watched these silver fingers curl into a fist, moved by naught but will and the flexing of muscles in his forearm seldom used in recent months.
He drew back his arm along the perch, feeling the sensation of the cushion's softness crawl slowly up his newly formed forearm, up his wrist and across his palms. His silver fingers trailed lightly across the object, tracing the form with such relish.
"You did it," Snape whispered under his breath, hardly daring to believe.
The headmaster gave a soft nod but his eye was bereft of his twinkle. "Without the need to carve it from your soul. This conjured hand encases it, giving it a place to nest once more. The magic was designed to bridge the soul and this magical manifestation of the physical."
Dumbledore set aside his wand, exhaustion seeming to take him. He removed his half-moon glasses and ran a hand across his eyes as if trying to dispel the weariness. "My finest achievement in the field of transfiguration, and my only contribution to the noble vocation of healing. And sadly, the only goodness in the world to have ever been born of Tom's brilliant mind."
Snape did not comment. His eyes would not leave his conjured limb, his silver fingers curling and flexing to his will. Though its motion was clumsy and its sensation was dull like it had been dipped in a numbing solution, it was a sensation long thought forgotten.
"I will need to rebind the spell once a week. Precautionary, for now, until we find out how long a conjuration of this complexity lasts," Dumbledore instructed, his blue eyes hard as crystals as he peered through the glasses he replaced onto the bridge of his crooked nose. "There are still a thousand improvements that could be made, a thousand possibilities to explore, but alas, no time to delve. There is one last task to be done before I commit to the final push." A soft smile appeared upon Dumbledore's lips. "The end of this war is but one Horcrux away, provided no more is created. And we both know one more is possible."
Snape's mind drew back to the present. His silver conjured fingers curled up with tension those words conjured in his mind. "Have you yet found a solution?"
"I may have. Though, it brings me little joy," Dumbledore uttered, his voice softened, hushed, almost as if the very thought bled joy from his world.
Snape drew himself up in his seat, bracing himself for the burden of his debts. "What do you require of me?"
But Dumbledore merely shook his head. "I have asked you to sacrifice much, Severus. Over two lifetimes. It is my turn to face my own burdens."
Slowly, the headmaster stood and turned, reaching out to stroke the crown of his perched phoenix. The crimson creature bowed his head into the headmaster's touch, a low trill emerging from its throat. Lush tones that stirred fires within Snape's heart.
"Courage has always been the emblem of Gryffindor." Dumbledore uttered so quietly he might not have intended it for anyone but himself. "Will that my own be worthy of that creed."
Lily wiped away the fog from the surface of the bathroom mirror with a muttered cast of a spell and a wave of her hand, revealing to herself the sum total of her new nightwear.
This is so risqué.
A nervous giggle escaped from her lips, both aghast and giddy at how brazen her attire was. A boudoir set ordered from a sensual shop in France, one of a less than reputable nature. Racy brazier and knickers adorned her form, a ruby coloured set barely hidden under an equally coloured lacy chemise that stopped short at her upper thigh. Clothes that covered just enough to toe the line of definitive nudity.
Lily had originally ordered this to wear as a Christmas gift to Severus. But after the initial unboxing of the attire, Lily's initial audaciousness faltered. This style was so out of step with her norm that she immediately shoved it all back into its packaging and banished it into the back of her underwear drawer.
But with their anniversary, and Severus' surprise in the form of that oh so sweet dinner date, Lily's thoughts turned to what she could contribute. And lo and behold, her mind turned to the saucy under-things she had hidden in the back of her drawer.
Tendrils of steam seeped into the winter's night air through the lacy white fabric she wore, her skin, flushed from the near-scalding bath was fully visible through the semi-opaque material. Outside a flurry billowed against the shuttered windows, its frosty draught cutting though the heavy steam and prickling her heated skin.
"It's too cold for this, isn't it?" she muttered to herself, trying to convince that was the reason she was losing her nerve and not the embarrassment that was prickling at her cheeks. As bold as she was in the bedroom, there was just something unreasonably lewd about hopping in dressed like a rent-girl. Not to mention how little Severus appreciated the comparison.
No, this really wasn't going to work.
But just as Lily came to that conclusion, she heard the grating sound of moving wall announcing the poorness of her decision-making and their timing.
"Who is it?" Lily called, scrambling for her bathrobes and cursing herself for not bringing herself a change of fresh regular underwear.
There was a pause in movement beyond her door before humour answered in the form of her husband's voice, "Were you not expecting me to return?"
Lily emerged from the bathroom in a puff of steam, her blush mercifully hidden by her still flushed skin. "Well you didn't exactly give me a timeframe." One of the reasons her little voyeuristic venture turned out to be so ill-timed.
Severus stood by the door to their bedroom, hovering awkwardly just beyond the frame. Lily paused too, a little confused by how Severus was holding himself.
"Is everything alright?" Lily asked, taking a hesitant step towards her husband, feeling the cold keenly around her bare legs. She couldn't quite place why it struck her as so odd but he looked as if he was trying to hide his wounded arm behind his back, despite his black cloak still slung about his shoulders shielding most of that arm from sight.
A strange smile touched Severus' lips, like he was privy to a little secret that nobody else knew. "I have something I wish to show you. But first I'll need you to close your eyes."
Lily did as she was bade, curiosity tugging at her eyelids.
"Don't peek," Severus admonished as she felt him step in close. She felt his palm brush against her cheek, the coolness of his wedding band pressing against her still-flushed skin.
She felt his lips on hers. A soft kiss, almost playful in its motion, his fingers trailing playfully into the still-damp hair tucked behind her ears. Something to show me, huh? Lily thought to herself as she smiled against his insistent lips. Feeling quite playful at this obvious misdirection.
But a second touch shocked that smile from her face. A cool brush against her hand, what felt like fingertips stroking the inside of her palm. Lily almost leapt away, eyes wide in disbelief but found her hand caught in a grasp.
An impossible grasp.
Holding her own was the silvery form of a hand, replicated in perfect proportions to what once was Severus' true limb. Silver fingers curled around her own, fingers upon a hand that should not exist.
"Is that a prosthetic?" Lily breathed, her eyes wide and unable to be torn away from this miraculous apparition.
"A gift from Dumbledore," Severus said by way of answer as he pushed up his sleeve and showing Lily where the scarred border of his flesh ended and where the silvery apparition began. He released her hand curled his fingers into a ball before unfurling and flexing them, showing the breathtaking mobility of this foreign limb.
Lily reached out to grasp a hold of it with both hands, turning it in her palm. It glowed a soft silvery white, painting her palms with its fey light. His glowing skin felt cool against hers, its form firm, but malleable. Like flesh, but also unlike it in every way.
"Is this a conjured hand?" Lily asked, wincing at how stupid that question sounded, for there existed no such thing in the realm of transfiguration. But even as she stared at its form, as she felt its unnatural texture paired with its flesh-like consistency, she could think of nothing else it could be.
But then his fingers moved in her grasp, brushing his fingertips gently across the palm of the inquisitive hand she held him with. A touch that sent a tingle up her spine.
"There's more," whispered Severus into her ear. He stepped back, slipping his ghostly, yet corporeal hand from hers. With a slow deliberate draw, Severus' wand emerged from his sleeves. Held between those silvery fingers, aloft in that impossible hand, poised so expectantly.
"Expecto Patronum."
That silver doe, their love moulded to the form of that graceful creature, bound forth and swept through their room. Powerful magic cast by a hand she thought no magic was to ever grace again.
Lily felt her heart shudder. Joy prickling with a myriad of emotions took her heart. Hot tears prickled her eyes as she leapt forth to take her husband in an embrace.
Severus, her Severus, was whole once more. The life she had feared taken from him by the cruelty that exised in this world was once again his own to make. More of a miracle than she could have ever asked for.
She laughed a husky laugh, so breathless with unfettered joy. She felt both his hands wrap around her torso, his newly formed fingers pressing into her back, causing the yet-to-be-properly-adjusted straps of the barely existent bra she wore to cut into her shoulders.
She flushed from that sudden reminder, a blush she could not dispel from her cheeks when Severus pulled back to meet her eyes once more.
His smile faltered, his demeanour changed, perhaps misinterpreting the colour in her face for a change in mood. With his glowing hand he lifted her hand to his lips, gracing the back of her fingers with a gentle kiss.
Lily couldn't help the small smile that escaped onto her lips. Coupled with her growing blush, she was sending off entirely the right signals to him it seemed. His hand left hers, his shimmering fingers brushing her damp hair behind her ear, causing the strands to light up with a fiery glow.
"Are you thinking about how these fingers might feel against your skin?" he asked, stroking those fey fingers down the back of her neck.
She shivered, blushing harder. "Well, now I am," she uttered, unable to fight off her mischievous smile.
With a flick of his hand, the one made of flesh, he threw off his cloak in one attractive motion. He leant forward, talking both hands to either side of her face as he took her in a kiss. Lily pressed forward, eager for the affection, but her hands flew nervously to the knot of her bathrobes.
"Umm," she murmured nervously when the kiss broke, not quite knowing how to subtly excuse herself from this situation to go change and still return to the same atmosphere.
But Severus seemed oblivious to her internal struggles. His wandering hands drifted down her body, playfully teasing her fingers away from the knot of her bathrobes.
"I should warn you… I'm not decent under here," Lily muttered, flushing as she spoke.
Severus pulled back, his black brows arched. "I would be disappointed if you were."
That earned a giggle from her and loosened the knot of self-consciousness in her stomach. But a metaphorical knot was not the only one loosened.
Though evidently unpractised in its motion, Severus' fingers were still nimble enough to undo Lily's loosely tied knot. As he met her lips once more, she felt the robes slip from her shoulders and the cold air hit her body. Nothing she was wearing protected her from the cutting chill of winter.
His hand fell upon her waist, no doubt expecting to find flesh, but instead the feel of unfamiliar fabric gave him immediate pause. Severus pulled back, eyes widening as he set them upon her.
She felt his hands travel down her thighs, his eyes following suit, his lips parted but no words came. She felt his fingers slide up her body, pressing against the cloth so it trailed up along with it.
"Umm, Happy Anniversary?" Lily offered with a shy smile and burning cheeks.
Those black eyes suddenly met hers, burning so intensely she was momentarily caught off guard. She felt herself suddenly upon the mattress, his lips finding hers in eager passion. Giggles tore forth, giddy from relief and amusement.
With that result she wrested control from her nervousness and his insistent hands. With one firm push she broke their kiss. He drew back, black eyes still glinting in the candlelight as his fingers paused upon the hem of her frock.
"Two things," she whispered to him, words he hung onto with undivided focus. "One; you're a bit over dressed." She breathed, her fingers tracing unsteadily a button upon his robes. "Two… I'm freezing." Severus drew back, his brows arched.
She giggled nervously as the tension popped, her fingers and toes numb from the cold. There were few things less sexy than shivering in a huddled ball.
Morning brought with it only a trickle of murky grey light spilling from the crack between the thick curtains, mingling with the gentle glow of embers from the banked fireplace. But where that touch of light did little to dispel the darkness of the room, Lily's waking motions brought a release of a soft silver glow from within the thickness of her shared blanket.
Lily stretched, rousing with the morning. She cracked open one eye, gazing across the bed at the still form of her husband and the soft glow that diffused from the gap in the blanket between then. It was a rare morning where she arose before Severus.
Peeling back the blanket slightly, Lily stared at the gentle light emanating from within. Her bleary eyes stared at the conjured hand, its existence unfathomable. She had been so frightened the whole night was but a dream that she woke repeatedly throughout the night. But then she would find that gentle glow when she peeled back the blankets and feel all that much more reassured.
She withdrew into the blankets as she observed his form, lit by the soft glow of his hand. His torso pale in the white light, more so than it ordinarily was. The gentle light that touched his skin reached only to his mid-chest and crept down to his dark shorts. He always insisted on wearing at least a pair of shorts as he slept, no matter the temperature or activities leading up to bedtime.
Thwarted my chance to perv. Lily thought to herself with a stifled giggle.
With a slow, softened motion, Lily reached for her husband's hand, pausing on the brink of contact. He slept so lightly she was certain he would wake at her barest touch. She could never truly tell if he was awake or asleep unless nightmares gripped him and he tossed and turned. In those moments she would stroke his hair and whisper reassurances in his ear, reminders that she was alive, and quickly he would settle to his stillness.
Surrendering to her morning ministrations, Lily arose from the warmth of her blankets and emerged grudgingly to a chilly winter's morning. With a silent wave of her hand, she beckoned the banked fire forth from the grate, eliciting a gush of warmth into the room.
She shivered as her bare feet touched the ground, the cold air cutting right through the lacy chemise that did nothing to keep the heat in. Somehow, she felt more naked wearing it than not. Severus, it seemed, had managed to work around it so that it was the only piece she had on.
He must be magic. Lily thought with a giggle.
She shrugged out of the garment and made a note to discard it in the laundry basket stowed in the bathroom. Though the elves did not need a basket to tell them which clothing needed laundering, Lily had always thought putting the clothes together in one spot for them was only the neighbourly thing to do. Not that any of the clothes from the previous night had found their way into that basket, yet they had still somehow found themselves laundered and folded upon the base of their bed. The thought of the state of the room the elves must have found them was worthy of a shudder.
It was as she was distracted by the thought that Lily felt an unexpected touch upon her thigh. One that sent her leaping forward in a half-hop.
"Oh Sev, You startled me," she huffed as her heart raced a mile a minute. She turned to find Sev sprawled across the bed, his silver hand reached out where he had touched her. But he had not turned his eyes upwards to acknowledge his lascivious touch. Instead he stared at her hips with such intent she had to glance down to confirm she hadn't sprouted a tail.
Instead what she found was a bruise, dark and angry upon her thigh, its positioning, as too the finger-shaped bruises that trailed onto her rear, suggestive as to why it might have been incurred.
"Overzealous, weren't you?" Lily asked, more amused than anything.
Severus could not look more bashful when he finally met her eyes. His silver fingers curled into a tightened fist before unfurling again, no words passed his lips.
"It doesn't hurt," Lily reassured him, before hurrying to her cupboard to find something to cover it. Shrugging on her thick woollen bathrobes, Lily grabbed a set of underwear. One that could keep out the cold and function as clothing.
"Sorry," Sev's voice lanced through the room. "My hand is new and I had been without its use for months. I should have known better than to trust my grasp."
"Oh stop being overdramatic," Lily answered with a roll of her eyes. She stepped forward and pecked him on the brow, brushing aside his hair so that their eyes could meet. "I appreciate your concern. Though next time I squeeze your butt."
She grinned so cheekily as she stepped through to the bathroom, knowing the exact look of mild scandal that would have followed behind.
Lateness was normal place for some, but so unusual for others that it was cause for alarm. Bartemius Crouch sat in the latter half of that assessment, such that when he was five minutes late to their appointed session, Snape immediately stepped to the door, ready to set out in search for him.
But instead he had found the boy standing framed in the door just on the other side, eyes widened in surprise as if he had not expected the door to open before he was well and ready.
Without a word Snape stepped aside and allowed the boy to hurry inside. "I had expected you here five minutes ago," the professor chastised despite rationality telling him to let it go, but thought was unable to win over instinctive annoyance that always reared when his schedule is meant by the tardiness of others.
"I didn't know if I was needed," came the mumbled reply.
Snape's brow arched, "I had not been aware I had said anything to indicate otherwise."
Crouch scowled as he unpacked his brewing kit, muttering under his breath.
"What was that?" Snape prompted.
Crouch, still unable to meet Snape's eyes, replied, "You have your hand now. Why would you need me?"
Snape glanced down to his new glowing appendage. Evidently it had been hard to miss even from the students' gallery at the breakfast table. The professors had certainly noticed, as Snape had been forced to field a number of questions at the high table. Kettleburn had a particular vested interest, having been whittled down to his last limb, while Poppy Pomfrey demanded an afternoon appointment and refused to accept his protests. There was ardent staring when Snape deigned to wield a spoon in his right for the first time in passing months. The lifelike voracity of his limb was beyond question.
Without even an upwards glance, Crouch trudged over to the table and began to unpack his equipment in a careless manner unbefitting the ordinarily meticulous young man.
"If you take issue with assisting me, do not by any means feel obliged," Snape said with an edge to his voice. There was just something about a petulant child that brushed Snape all the wrong ways.
Crouch must have noticed his professor's tone because he glanced up before quickly averting his eyes again, his demeanour suddenly nervous. "I just… I don't understand why I'm here. You don't need an assistant. With your hand back you're as good as Slughorn in potions."
"Better, I would think," Snape uttered, a little incensed to have been compared to that slothful educator whose jolly teaching manner was all a show to mask his lackaday in the subject. "But you are mistaken in one assertion." Snape raised his glowing silver hand and took Crouch's silver knife from his side of the table. "This hand is not my hand. My hand I could control by instinct. This hand still fights my will." He took the blade to a sprig of lavender, paring off the flowers with a motion far slower than he had ever done so in his life. His knife tip shook as he pressed its tip down into the stalk and splitting it across, wincing as the two parts came out skewed and uneven. "It will take time for me to master the fine motions but for the moment I am not half the potioneer I once was. I still require your assistance if you would be so kind as to give it."
Snape had expected to see pity in the boy's eyes, he had braced himself for that hated expression. But Crouch, instead, looked away. Shame, the only expression upon his features. He returned to his equipment, setting it up with far more care taken. Not even glancing up when his silver knife was placed back in front of him, freshly cleaned of recent use.
Snape braced his silver hand upon the desk, feeling the abstract smoothness of lacquered wood under his metaphysical fingers. The sensation of touch was… muted, that was the best way to describe it. Pressure, heat and cold were all present, though like looking at a scene through frosted glass, the sensation was somehow divorced from his reality. The movement in the limb, though perfectly adequate in terms of gross motor function, would tremble when finesse was required.
But despite Snape's complaints, simply having a limb was already a vast improvement. Everything else could be learnt with time and patience. Qualities within the possession of a Slytherin. The fact was, the basic Wiggenweld potion Snape had tasked Crouch to brew for him would have been a good place to start. He would have been able to practice his fine motor skills on a potion that was difficult to bungle and had an indicator of error distinct enough that should he bungle it, he would not humiliatingly poison himself.
Without any more preamble, young Crouch had the cauldron on the flame, the water slowly bubbling up to a workable temperature as he finished off prepping the relatively short list of simple ingredients that was destined to go into this Stomach-Settling tonic. The young Ravenclaw was efficient in his craft, able to juggle several proficiencies in the craft Snape could immediately pick and appreciate.
"I still believe your talents lie with the cauldron and the vial. Do you truly have no interest in this path?" Snape asked, his assertions genuine if not the reason why he had asked.
The whole point of this potioneering exercise was not about crafting these simple items for use. Snape's personal stores had been well cared for by Lily, who had taken her role as teaching-aide in the potions department with as much dedication as Slughorn had for his drinks.
Opportunities to converse became easier to find with potions that did not boil over at the bat of an eye. Though well versed in the art of conversation, having had to navigate a social scene of far higher class in his lifetime, those interactions had had purpose, every word carefully constructed and ladened with double entendre. The game of the snake pit taken to a grand fore.
Before now, Snape had had little cause to learn the art of benign chit-chat, his initial conversations with Crouch displaying that fault distinctly. Especially on topics of home-life, his own childhood experiences in his home life groomed an inexpert tact. Several severely awkward starts later, Snape had learnt not to lead with that topic, rather leaning into it if it emerged in the conversation by natural means.
Thankfully, Crouch was not as evasive a soul as Snape was. He settled easily into conversation, almost eager to share his thoughts. Eager, even. As if he had been waiting for a person to show the slightest interest in him.
Crouch raised his eyes, a small smile tugging at his lips. "I've been thinking about it since the last we spoke. I don't… hate the idea..."
Well, that would be the first time Snape's managed to sway someone's thinking without any need of subterfuge.
"It's just… not very glamorous."
Well that answer deserved several raised eyebrows. "Is it fame you seek?"
"No. Not really, no. I mean… not fame. There are famous potioneers after all. That's not what I was after." Crouch glanced up, his grimace awkward. "They just… I want to be an Auror."
"Does your father wish it of you?" Snape asked, for every oddity that spouted from that boy stemmed from that source.
Crouch set down his silver knife and released his bundle of lavender sprigs as if centring himself for the explanation to come. "No, not wish it. He's never said anything of that sort. And I'm not trying to impress him or anything. I'm just…" He trailed off.
"You wish to stand equal to him." Snape finished in an even voice.
Crouch flinched, "I know. It sounds stupid…"
"It sounds like your frustrations with your father are spurring your decisions."
The young man winced, ducking his eyes as if turning back to his work, but the clumsy fashion by which he handled his tools belayed the direction of his mind. But Snape had not meant his words as a chastisement.
"I would not call that stupidity. I'm not one to comment about such struggles, given what I had done rebelling against the memory of my father." A gentle nod to that far-spread misinformation about his own dalliance with the dark side.
A cunning ploy to reinforce this shared association of their past, and an attempt that was not lost on the young man. "Right. Yeah, I get it. I don't want to go that far."
"Then, take a step back for a moment and consider this for yourself. Do you actually want to take on the mantel of an Auror? There is no career more seeped in danger," Snape urged, uncertain as to why he was attempting to dissuade Crouch from this path. Though ill-advised, the decision does not affect Snape in any way shape or form.
"You sound like my mother." Those muttered words fell from Crouch's lips unbidden it seemed, for he blanched, realising he had no way to take them back.
Snape frowned, his silver hand curled into a fist unbidden. Ordinarily he had a firm grasp of his tells but he and his new hand had a lot to become acquainted with. "So you have spoken of this with your family."
"Yeah. And mum's not exactly thrilled by the danger," Crouch muttered. His one loving parent still holding sway in his heart.
But she was not the parent Bartemius Crouch hinged his decision on. "And what of your father?" Snape asked, watching the sheepishness flicker from the boy's face and a low simmering anger bubble from beneath his blank expression.
"He couldn't give a murtlap's arse," the young Ravenclaw muttered, barely able to suppress the scowl from beneath his façade. "Not proud. Not worried. Just looked at me and scoffed. Scoffed. Like he didn't think I have it in me."
Belittlement. Snape knew the feeling. He knew what it was like to have a father that made him feel small.
"Do you actually want this path in life, or is your desire purely to spite your father?" Snape asked, unable to stop his silver hand from tapping nervously upon the table. A tell that no doubt caught Crouch's attention for the boy's grey eyes drew to the ethereal limb. "It's one thing to pursue this path by your own drive, but spite will not be the motivation that will carry you across that difficult terrain."
"You don't think I can do it either," Crouch accused, his voice colouring with the anger that had been simmering.
Taking a metaphorical step back, Snape recomposed himself. This was not the approach to take, not the right fight to pick, this matter did not involve him.
Except that it did.
Despite all that he knew of what this boy would become, perhaps due to it, Snape had found himself far too invested. That the boy might choose to enter the war on the side of the light should not have rang any alarm bells, but it had, and perhaps not for the right reasons.
"I don't doubt you could stand your ground as an Auror. I know that you could, for a fact, do very well as one." Not in the least spoken with a hint of irony, knowing exactly how well the young man had passed off as Mad-Eye Moody. That he had somehow subverted the legendary vigilance of the Auror and caught him unawares spoke volumes of the potential that he held. "You have a quick duelling hand and I know firsthand you have notable ability in both potions and defence. I do not stand with your father in my objection, I stand with your mother. I do not wish to see you wasted on a path you do not even truly wish for yourself. And one that leads too often to an early grave."
The fight drained from the student's face, along with much of his colour. In this moment, he was nothing more than a lost young man. A man barely past childhood, struggling with the expectations of the world, of his mother, of his father, and of himself. Snape could not see in him the monster he would become, yet he knew it lurked in his future.
The boy's turn to the darkness could have been nothing more than an act to spite his father. A far more cynical Snape might have thought that Crouch's hatred of his father was not the only bridge that linked the young man to the monster that he would become. Change had instilled in him far more hope than was wise.
"Perhaps I am speaking out of place, for I am not your family, Mr Crouch. If the path of an Auror is truly what you wish of your future, I will make no more mention of this. But if in any way your reason is more about your father than yourself, then I beseech you, take pause and think. Think long and hard about your future, and whether you're ready to throw it all away in rebellion. Your father is an inexorable part of your past. Do you wish for his memory to chart your future as well?"
Snape fell silent, unable to find any other way to drive the message in any harder. He had expected in the ensuing silence that the young man to return with his own rebuttal. But none came. Crouch had turned away, his eyes turned insistently to the bundle of herbs he had sat down before him taking back up his silver knife. The silence that followed gave pause to any thought of Snape's to broach the topic once more.
Empathy was a terrible thing. To know the future but not whether anything he did made a difference in the least…
To watch a bright young man set upon a path that lead deep into the darkness and be unable to do a damned thing about it…
Snape had found a brand new appreciation for what Lily must have felt.
Irony, too, was a terrible thing.
A/N: Tadah~ I think everyone by this point had expected the silver hand to appear. Some eagle-eyed readers might have expected it since the title page went up all the way during the beginning of this fanfiction journey.
A thank you to my Beta readers Sattwa100 and cookeroach for your work on this chapter.
Next Update: Saturday 1st February 2019
Chapter 78: Closing a Chapter
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter universe and do not seek to profit in any way, shape or form from this fan work.