Warning: death related scenes in this chapter.

CHAPTER 25

STAY WITH ME

Sirius had returned to the kitchen with another blanket, the fourth one, and was carefully covering Snape with it. Sitting on the floor, underneath the many warm layers, Snape was shivering viciously; his whole body was trembling like he was out in a blizzard. His breaths, by now, were shallow rapid gasps.

"How long for the blood replenishing potion to take effect?" Sirius asked, still tugging at the covers to tuck them properly around Snape's midsection, leaving his arms out. Snape didn't like having his hands trapped under the heap of fabric, that much Sirius had figured out by now.

"It works gradually," Snape said.

Sirius nodded and got on his feet, done with arranging blankets.

"There. Better?"

Snape didn't answer, and Sirius knew what it meant — no, not really. He hadn't expected any different, to be honest.

"Well, you're hard to please," Sirius said. "Then again, pretentiousness suits you."

Sirius couldn't bring himself to fake the lighthearted chuckle, and his next question blurted out before he could hold back.

"Could it have been too late?"

Snape blinked blearily at him — looking vaguely confused — then across the room to the clock on the wall: half-past six in the morning.

"When did I take it?"

"At half-past five."

Snape contemplated the fact. He glanced from Sirius to the clock, staring it down for long moments as if it held some undeciphered mystery.

"How long since then?" Snape asked.

Suddenly weak in the knees, Sirius sank to the floor before Snape. He tried to not shake his head and not scrunch his eyes shut against this painful mess.

To watch Snape barely clinging to this world was hard enough; to see him no longer able to make out the simplest subtraction put Sirius to rout.

"One hour," Sirius said softly. "One hour and five minutes."

Snape nodded, absent.

By the time Snape spoke again, Sirius no longer expected an answer. He hoped his earlier question was already forgotten, lost in the sore haze of Snape's dwindling mind.

"The potion was one hour ago…?" Snape checked.

"Yes."

Snape nodded again in acceptance. He opened his mouth to say something, hazy eyes flitting over Sirius' face, then he pursed his lips tight.

And Sirius understood his silence — yes, it could have been too late.

Thinking of their exchanges in these last hours — everything that had been spoken, and not — it was overwhelming just how much Sirius had come to understand from Snape not saying anything — in the course of one night, which had felt like a lifetime.

It felt painful, unspeakably so, to comprehend that he might… would… might lose him.

He rested a hand on Snape's shoulder.

"We'll get through this. All right?"

Snape clenched his jaw to bite down on whatever he had to bite down to remain composed in these moments, and he nodded, shivering.

"Yeah…" he answered, though seemingly out of a wish to not contradict Sirius rather than anything else.

There was barely anything left of him.

Something in Sirius' chest clenched painfully, and he lowered his gaze to the floor between them, clasped his hands together, fought back the impulse to bury his face in his palms. To watch Snape like this — It hurt unbearably.

"Are you scared?" Snape asked.

Sirius glanced up.

Terrified.

Sirius was bloody terrified.

There was a trace of an expression on Snape's face: an almost-smile, and Sirius could tell it should have read pointedly sardonic. Instead, it looked heartbreaking. Or heartbroken. It was probably both.

"Want me to hold your hand, Black?"

It took a moment before Sirius could bring himself to chuckle.

"Don't be foolish, Snape. You're a bit chilly; maybe you'll catch a cold. It's not as if I'm gonna lose any sleep over it."

"Pity."

Snape returned the absent smirk and closed his eyes.

He was slouching uncomfortably to the side. It was rather visible that he was making an effort to hold his head upright.

"You should lie down."

Snape nodded vaguely, and Sirius inched closer to help him.

"Wait," Snape said. "Wait…"

Snape grabbed the blanket with a trembling hand, tugging at it weakly, struggling to pull it aside. He no longer had the strength to do so.

And Sirius understood.

Sirius pulled the covers aside and picked up Snape's wand from the floor. He put the wand in Snape's right hand. Then closed his own hand over Snape's so that the unsteady fingers could clasp the wand just right.

Snape glanced at the wand, their hands, up at Sirius — a sore haze of emotions was flitting in his eyes.

"Thank you," he said.

Sirius shuddered. He nodded, shaky, feeling as though, by now, he should have a hole in his heart.

He took off his sweater and folded it to place it under Snape's head. Then he helped Snape lie down.

"Make yourself comfortable there, all right?" Sirius said, kneeling by Snape's side, leaning over him. "Look at all this — pillow, blankets, fireplace burning — it's as good as any five-star hotel, I'm telling you."

He covered Snape with the warm blankets up to his stomach, holding this strangest fear that the weight of the blankets would be too much, and the frail and frantic raising and falling of Snape's chest would stop under the added burden of only that.

"The potion works gradually. You'll be better soon, you'll see." Sirius kept glancing back and forth between Snape's chest, tremoring with the rapid shallow panting, and his face, holding an expression of — Sirius' heart sank.

"Hey…" Sirius said softly and took Snape's hand in his. "Hey, stay with me, okay?"

Snape looked him in the eyes, gaze fully unguarded. He was very quiet, and he was afraid.

"You'll be all right, I promise." Sirius squeezed his hand a bit tighter. He'd never broken a promise in his life. "You have my word you'll be all right."

What the fuck was he doing?

Uncertain and shivery, Snape nodded in response as though he wanted to believe him, almost. His breaths were quickening, and Sirius felt like he was battling to reassure a frightened kid.

"We're getting through this, I promise."

He leaned in closer and grabbed hold of Snape's shoulder, clutched him steadfast. He couldn't promise shit. What the fuck was he doing?

"I'm here. We're getting through this."

He was making oaths he couldn't keep — and Snape was trusting him. Or wanted to. It did Sirius in.

"We're getting through this."

Snape gave another almost-nod. Sirius would have done anything, anything to make it all right, to mend it all, make it go away.

He saw Snape frowning bleary and his expression evening out in a glimpse of clarity as though he'd just seized something: the futility of Sirius' promises, and the painful absurdity of it.

Then Snape averted his gaze.

"Stay with me; I'm serious about this."

Sirius held him tighter and couldn't tell whether Snape was holding on too; he was shaking too heavily for Sirius to make sense of that. Or of anything at all.

"Stay with me. I'm right here," Sirius repeated, over and over again, "stay with me," while Snape, shivering viciously and breathing in broken gasps, was looking not at him but anywhere else: ceiling, wall, sink, things lost in space — worlds Sirius couldn't see.

Sirius' blood ran cold.

"Look at me, Snape. I'm right here."

Bloody look at me!

"I don't care what you found to gaze at right now in this dreadful kitchen. I don't care about that," Sirius said. "I can't see it. Screw all that. It's just you and me, right here. Nowhere else and nothing else and — Just us two. Right here. Just look at me, and stay with me."

Sirius shook the hand in his, pressed it to his own chest, frightened senseless as Snape's gaze drifted hazily, lost in everything and nothing around them.

"Look at me, Snape, look at me. That's downright rude what you're doing, I hope you know."

He grasped him firmer, leaned in closer.

"Come on, this one time, no rudeness, no nonsense — just listen to me. Look at me."

He'd give anything by now to catch Snape's gaze — annoying and obnoxious and disturbing, and unsettling like hell. That gaze that gave him the fucking chills and made the blood throb madly in his temples.

"Look at me."

He would have pleaded, and he would have commanded, and he would have moved heaven and earth, and hell, too.

And all the while, all Sirius could do was cling on to Snape's hand that trembled wildly and keep it pressed to his own chest. He didn't know why. It made no sense. He just wanted to keep him close, somehow.

Nothing was making any sense.

"I'm here. We'll get through this."

No sense at all.

"Just stay with me. Do you feel my hand, Snape? Do you feel it? Holding yours? You must feel that — my fucking knuckles are turning numb — that's how tight I'm gripping you. Focus on that. Our hands. Nothing else. You might want to hold back; you're making me look clingy." Sirius clasped him stronger. "You're doing it on purpose, aren't you? Come on, this one time. I'm not letting go; don't let go. Don't bloody ditch out on me like this."

He intercepted Snape's wandering gaze and held it — "Stay with me. That's good, stay with me." — and watched the feverish drifting gradually abide.

Sirius didn't let go, did not loosen his grip, not for a fraction of a heartbeat, and Snape, through the hazy tremors and the hitched breaths, found his way to focusing on Sirius once more with everything he had.

"That's good." Sirius smiled. "That's right. That's just right."

He held Snape's gaze as it fixed him, once more steadfast and, just as always, maddeningly intense, as though there was nothing behind and nothing ahead, only them two and a world of nothing all around.

"That's right. Just you and me, huh? Nothing else. We're staying here a while longer."

They could get through it, a while longer. It would be better soon.

"Stay with me," Sirius repeated and saw Snape frown drowsily, as though struggling to make sense of things and thoughts. That was good, the thinking. It was. Better than the mindless drifting.

"Stay with me."

Snape must have found his thoughts somewhere along the way because his frown ebbed out and his expression settled into something more contained.

"Don't tell me," Snape said, through quivering breaths, "you'd miss me otherwise?"

Sirius laughed nervously, felt something inside him break. His voice wavered when he spoke.

"You ought to be kidding! These Order meetings would be fucking dull without you. So just stay here. Don't go anywhere."

For a flash of a second, Sirius had the weirdest sensation that the world around him was spinning askew. Sure enough, all sense of balance had swooshed from under him.

"I'm not your favourite company, I know, but — we make do with what we have. Can't be picky now, can you?"

His mind must have been playing tricks on him because Sirius thought, for the moment, there was something akin to a trace of amusement in Snape's expression. He imagined the convulsive shivering was dulling down, too.

"Yeah, I thought so," Sirius said. "It's not that bad, just you and me, is it? Turns out, after all — really — it's not that bad."

Snape regarded him for another second, slightly more collected than before. Sure enough, the hitched gasps were easing out; it wasn't only Sirius' mind. Then Snape turned his head to the side, glassy eyes staring past Sirius into the distance.

"The sun is rising," Snape said unsteadily, and Sirius followed his gaze to find he was looking out of the window.

It was. The sun was rising, the skies turning from black to dark-grey mist.

"Yeah," Sirius said. "It was about time…"

The foggy light of dawn shimmered dully through the shrouded clouds. And from far out in the distance, almost as if coming from another world, a single ray of sun, coppery orange, trickled through the murky greyness.

Snape, shaking like a leaf, watched the barely woken light filter through the glass into the room filling it with the blurred dew of a new day.

It seemed almost tranquillising to Snape — the strain in his irregular breaths was waning — as he regarded that tinge of orange touch on the frosted glass and sicker on the floor, where it cast coppery coloured speckles to twirl on the ceramic tiles now shimmering vaguely in the foggy light.

If he weren't still faintly shivering, he would have looked almost at peace, lost in the dance of coppery orange arrived from another world.

Sirius was shaking Snape's hand mightily, grasping his shoulder tighter, trying to pull him closer. He would have pulled him off the floor to his chest if he could. This fucking floor was cold and good for nothing.

"Don't do this to me. Don't—" He seized the hand in his stoutly, terrified to delirium. "I never begged, I beg you now — stay with me."

Sirius' heart was racing frantically, but the agitation all over was ebbing away — from Snape's breaths, from his gaze, from the air around them.

"I beg you."

It felt as though the entire room had sled unperceivedly in luling quietude by the time Snape finally glanced away from the flickers of orange — to take Sirius in — looking vaguely confused as though he had expected to find someone else and now had to make sense of Sirius being there.

He was calm now, rather too much so, shivering feebly.

Whoever Snape had expected to see must have been prettier than Sirius because Snape, finally acknowledging him, frowned, mildly disappointed.

"Black."

"That's me."

Snape considered the fact for a while, thoughtfully — Sirius didn't let go — lastly, Snape sketched a vague nod.

"Of all the places in the world, Black," he said, "it had to be your kitchen floor."

Sirius strengthened his clasp on Snape; he couldn't tell whether Snape had done the same, only that his hand was barely tremoring anymore. And it was very cold.

"Yeah." Sirius' voice faltered. "Take a good look at these floors; you'll help me mop them tomorrow. You're not getting out of this one so easily."

He clutched Snape's shoulder stubbornly, trying to pull him closer to himself. Squeezed tightly. Any trace of tension seemed to have faded from Snape's face. That should be good, right? That should be good.

"You're not getting out of any of this so easily. I was serious about the meetings. Have you seen the lot that gathers here? I need you to keep me on my toes."

Sirius was rambling, he couldn't stop. The eyes staring back into his were glazing over, losing their focus.

"Stay with me, Snape. We still have a long way to go, you and I."

Snape's frail breathing had relaxed and evened out and dulled down to almost nothing.

"Someday, this war will be over, and my name will be cleared, and I'll tell them about you, and you'll be a hero. A war hero. Well, you already are, only no one knows about it. The Ministry'll award you the Order of Merlin for this and for everything else you did and I know nothing of. Order of Merlin, you always dreamed of it, I know. It suits your pompousness." Sirius let out a broken chuckle, but it felt like a sob.

He squeezed Snape's shoulder firmer and his hand. And felt Snape's grip on him weakening.

It didn't matter. If Sirius held onto him tightly enough, he couldn't go anywhere, right?

He couldn't.

Sirius would hold on for the both of them. This one time. How hard could it be?

"Order of Merlin, Snape. Second Class. First, maybe. You'll have to pull some strings for First Class — you know that, right? Imagine the look on Moody's face when he sees you with the medal pinned to your chest. Golden disk, green ribbon. Imagine the look on my face! Oh, how you'll rub that in my face. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Perhaps it was a figment of his imagination, but Sirius saw the corner of Snape's mouth draw up in the hint of a smile, or a sneer. With Snape, you could never tell.

"Just stay with me. All right? Just you and me. It isn't that bad… is it?"

It wasn't Sirius' imagination, it was a smile, the trace of one; it only lasted for a second.

"We'll get through this," Sirius said. "Just another bit."

He bowed down closer over Snape. "Hey," he said softly. "Hey, stay with me." His own words were coming out hardly above a whisper. "Stay with me. I'm begging you. Stay."

Snape was barely there anymore, and Sirius was very cold. It was as if the distant world Snape was drifting into was with them present in the room, the empty coldness diffusing around them and through them, enfolding them both.

He held Snape close, however he could, and Snape's glassy eyes found their full focus in Sirius once more, for a single heartbreaking moment. "Just you and me," Sirius repeated quietly, "nothing else." He felt Snape's hand tightening the grip on his, steadfast, unwavering, and Snape said:

"Black" — his tone was for this one time steady, and sober — "it's all right."

Sirius gripped him tighter. "It is. It will be." His own voice was shaking. "You'll be all right, you'll see." Sirius clung onto him with all he had, trembling like a leaf.

It was Sirius who was trembling.

"Stay with me. A while longer."

"A while longer…" Sirius was pleading like he had never pleaded in his life. He'd give anything. Anything… But Snape's gaze was no longer seizing him, and Snape closed his eyes, and the hand in Sirius' was slack.

"Stay with me."

Snape would open his eyes again. He had to. It was not the end. Sirius had not let go. Snape couldn't go while Sirius held him gripped so tightly.

Could he?

"No,"

He couldn't.

"No… no…" Sirius blinked, again and again, as if he could close his eyes and open them to the sight of Snape looking back at him.

"No, stay with me."

Sirius hadn't let go. How could it be? He still couldn't let go. He was shaking with all his body; his hands were shaking, his stomach was, his mind too, his heart in his chest was trembling like a leaf.

"No."

He blinked away the watery blur, tried to. There was too much of it — too much of the blur and too much of the water, and he simply couldn't, and he didn't care. It wasn't like there was anything he wanted to see anyway.

He sunk forward over Snape and rested his forehead on the still chest, and closed his eyes. "I'm sorry."

He let out a long breath that felt like breaking into a sob.

"I'm so sorry."

There was a crash in the hallway, a loud bang that left Sirius indifferent. This whole place could crash down and crumble to nothing, he wouldn't care.

Half of him hoped it would.

"Sirius!"

Sirius lifted his head, feeling like he was moving through a mist of lead, and looked behind.

Remus was standing in the doorway, frozen and uncomprehending, glancing from Sirius to Snape, and back again, the look on his face morphing in mere seconds: concern—shock—realisation.

"Pull him up!" Remus said loudly. "Pull him to sitting."

Sirius did, before he could understand why. He scrambled half-up and knelt behind Snape, grabbed him under the arms and pulled him up.

Snape's head lulled inertly against Sirius' chest.

Remus was already crouched by their side — something in his hands; he popped the cap off a purple vial and brought it to Snape's mouth.

Sirius watched on distracted, his mind numbly lethargic, trapped in this hallucinatory nightmare that wouldn't end. He saw Remus cast aside the vial, which broke empty on the floor, then pull out his wand and point it at Snape's chest, mumbling words that made no sense.

Then he lowered his wand and glanced up at Sirius, "revival potion," he said and returned his attention to Snape.

They waited for seconds and seconds and seconds, and more seconds on end, which lengthened to a godforsaken eternity.

Silence hung heavy and unbearable upon them, and Sirius hoped a sudden breath would break the sick stillness, a gasp for air, a word, but nothing came, and he could hear nothing else but the pounding of his own heart.

It wasn't his heart that should still be pounding. It should have been the other way around.

He'd never asked for this.

Never.

Remus put his fingers on the side of Snape's neck. And Sirius looked away.

To the fucking kitchen sink.

He didn't want to see Remus shaking his head, hazel eyes shimmering in final acknowledgement.

He sank in the incessant drumming of his own blood in his ears, as if that could shut out Remus' voice when he would lift his gaze to Sirius and shake his head and say, 'I'm sorry.'

What the hell did he even know about all there was to be sorry for?

"Hey..." It was Remus' voice, soft and gentle, as always. "Hey..."

Sirius didn't look.

He didn't want to. He couldn't. He felt he'd been broken too many times in one night. He simply couldn't take Remus shaking his head. Just don't shake your head. Don't say 'I'm sorry'. Just leave. Leave.

But Remus' voice continued to murmur, "Look at me," he was saying. "I'm right here." His tone and his words were filled with warmth, like they had always been. "Look at me, Severus."

And Sirius looked.

To find Remus talking not to him.

"It's me, Remus." He smiled gently to Snape. "Lupin. It's alright. You'll be all right."

Remus had moved his hand from Snape's neck to his shoulder, squeezing, though perhaps only lightly, as Sirius had done moments ago.

Moments that now felt like hours.

Remus frowned slightly, then looked up at Sirius.

"He passed out," he told Sirius. "But he's safe. He'll be all right."

Sirius found himself nodding shakily, unable to form words or thoughts or anything, really.

"Are you sure?" was all he could bring himself to say.

"Yes."

"Sure?"

"Yes."

Sirius should have felt the weight of the world lifting off his chest. Instead, he felt numbly disjointed, disconnected from everything around him and inside him.

It was as though he had spun in a madman's carousel for hours, and the carousel had crashed to a halt, and now he stood frozen and broken in place while the world still wheeled and reeled in circles around him.

"We should get him in one of the beds," Remus said.

Sirius found he couldn't even nod.

They did as Remus said. Remus did. Sirius remained kneeling on the kitchen floor, where he had held Snape in his arms as he thought him dead.

Sirius felt cold.

Terribly cold. As though frost had crystalised in the marrow of his bones and was now seeping out into his flesh and into his blood. He sensed the air around him fully quiet and glacially void of anything, and that other world, which seemed still present, was blending into everything, whirling dizzily around.

It lacked any kind of sense.

When Sirius finally pulled himself to his feet, his world hadn't stopped reeling. But it had slowed down considerably. He was still cold beyond reason.

He picked up Snape's wand and walked up the stairs to the only bedroom where the door was open and the light burned softly.

"He'll be alright," Remus said when he saw him standing in the doorway. "He just needs to rest."

Sirius nodded, gazing over Remus' shoulder to Snape, lying in bed unconscious, looking from a distance no different than he had some long minutes ago when he had been dead, or close to.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," Remus answered. "The revival potion was brewed by Patrolcho. It works miracles."

Sirius nodded again, not taking his eyes from Snape.

"How are you?" Remus asked.

It took a while before Sirius could form words in any other sequence than the one obsessive question.

"You were right," Sirius finally said, vaguely bemused that he could speak normally. "He warned me. Robert Marcan — that was him."

Remus rested a hand on his shoulder and, for a long moment, looked him in the eyes.

Remus always knew what to say — and when to say nothing. He let go of Sirius' shoulder and walked past him, out of the room.

Sirius couldn't shake off the cold.