"Is this the end?" I murmured, more to myself than Harry. "Is this is end of everything I've ever known?" He didn't answer me. He couldn't; no one could. Because no one could understand what I was going through. My entire life was falling down around me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. All I could do was stand back and watch as the world I knew collapsed.
Voldemort had made the decision I dreaded. He had decided to go after Harry, regardless of the consequences, and he had ordered me to secure Harry's downfall. Which left me in a very difficult position. I could give Harry to Voldemort and doom my world; or I could refuse, which would have the same effect in the long run. My job as a spy had become more and more important, and it was only by using my information that we had averted all-out war for so long.
I had been a fool, it seemed so obvious now. I could not have hoped to never have my true loyalties discovered. That was what it came down to, really. If I didn't give Harry to Voldemort, the Dark Lord would figure out where my loyalties lay, and that would be the end of that. The end, in fact, of me. No one had betrayed Lord Voldemort before; he was not about to let his followers start double-crossing him now.
And it came down to one question. The one question I couldn't answer. Should I save myself? Or save the one person who had a chance of preventing this needless bloodshed? Did I even have a right to make that choice?
"Professor?" Harry's voice was very soft, but I felt the tension in his tone. And I knew he was wondering whether he should trust me. I thought that he had already made his choice. He couldn't trust me, for both our sakes.
"Severus. My name is Severus. Quit with the 'Professor' stuff. I haven't got the patience for that right now."
"Do you ever?" Under ordinary circumstances I would have thought that he simply being annoying. But now I knew that he was asking more than what he was saying. I sighed. Maybe I was just reading too much into things. I did too much of that these days.
"I don't know." It was a simple answer to a simple question, but it suddenly struck me that those three little words could totally sum up my life at the moment.
"You know what Voldemort has asked me to do, don't you?" I asked him, watching him carefully. I needed to see his reaction. I needed someone to be sure, because I couldn't be.
"Yes. I know."
"And?"
"Why are you asking me? It's entirely up to you."
"It's not," I sighed, sinking into my office chair. "It's never up to me. It can't be."
"Why can't it?"
"Stop with the questions. You're starting to sound like Dumbledore. You tell me. I can't make this decision on my own. It's your life. Tell me what you want me to do." He snorted derisively.
"Are you kidding? You don't even want to hear what I want." I leaned forward in my chair.
"Hey, tell me. Might be interesting."
"Okay," he agreed, and began ticking the things off on his fingers. "One: I want Voldemort gone, done, out of here. Two: I seriously don't want to be the famous Harry Potter. Oh, yes, I almost forgot: I want my parents back too."
"Lily," I whispered, and he nodded.
"Yeah. I hate you and Sirius and Remus for that, you know. You at least remember them. I don't even . . ." His voice trailed off into silence, and I finished his sentence for him.
"You don't even remember them." I said it flatly, but I couldn't entirely keep the bitterness out of my voice. This was why my hatred for the monster we called Lord Voldemort went beyond even Dumbledore's. And for a moment, I even hated Dumbledore, as I remembered his words of only a few nights before.
'Perhaps he is evil, now. But we can't sink to his level. And he wasn't always like that. I remember him when he was Tom Riddle, one of the most brilliant students I have ever taught. He's got some good in him, never forget that.'
For a moment I wished I could show Albus this. Because Harry was always so cool, so in control, so calm. Even that night Voldemort rose, when his world was turned upside-down, Harry never lost control like this. Albus didn't have to see this; he didn't have to watch Harry cry for the parents he never knew. All because perfect Tom Riddle couldn't take the pressure.
"I'm . . . I'm sorry, Harry." Even to me, the words sounded inadequate, but I couldn't think of anything else to say. What could you say at a time like this? I couldn't protect him from Voldemort, and I wasn't about to start making promises I couldn't keep, especially to Harry.
"It wasn't your fault," he mumbled, looking extremely embarrassed.
"It wasn't yours either," I said carefully.
"I know."
"Do you?" He looked over at me. Our eyes met for a moment, then he looked away.
"I'll take that as a no."
"Does it matter now?"
"Yes," I said, with an intensity that surprised me. "Of course it matters. Not everything that happens in our world is your fault, you know."
"Why isn't it?" he demanded furiously. "How can you say that? Voldemort used me to bring him back to the kind of power he lost fourteen years ago, and you say that it isn't my fault? And you--you're only in this situation because you want to protect me. You're all wasting your time anyway. Whether you try to protect me or not, it's gonna wind up the same way. Why risk it? Why risk your lives trying to save someone who's already doomed?"
"You are not!" The sound of my own voice startled me. I sounded panicky, and I didn't need Harry to know that I had my own fears for his safety. But I honestly believed that Harry was the only person who could ever completely free our world from the Dark Lord, and he couldn't give up now, not when we needed him the most.
Harry, needless to say, looked a bit shocked after my outburst. I don't usually yell like that, particularly at him.
"Okay, okay, maybe I'm not a hopeless cause after all," he amended. "But I'm warning you: I'm not gonna back down every time you start yelling, so don't even try."
"I won't," I promised. Harry, seeming to think that he'd spent long enough in 'enemy' territory, left a few minutes after that. He'd never given a real answer to my question about what I should do about Voldemort, but I didn't really need it.
I knew now that I had to risk it. I had to fight Voldemort until we either won or died trying. If I backed out now, and Voldemort won, what kind of life would I have then? What would happen to Harry?
No. I couldn't give up. Not now. Not ever. I'd spent my life running from a past I'd tried my best to forget, but I swore to myself that whatever happened, happened, and I wouldn't spend my life trying to run from the inevitable. What had to happen would, whether I wanted it to or not. But I could fight for what I believed in, and that was all you could expect from anyone.
And I'd never look back.