Things Fall Apart
Severus
Snape ran his hands through his hair for the twentieth time. He always did that when he was nervous or
worried and right now, he was both.
It had been just a week since the Dark Lord
had come back to full power and Potter had duelled him, then walked away
bringing Cedric Diggory's body with him.
Snape still couldn't quite manage to believe that Potter had
survived. There had only ever been one
other person to walk away from a duel with the Dark Lord, and that person was
Albus Dumbledore.
Snape
leaned back in his chair and gazed around his classroom, lost in thought. A week ago he had felt the Dark Mark burn
with an intensity he had long ago forgotten, but he had ignored it. He had
continued to stand with Dumbledore, instead of returning to Voldemort.
'Was that the right
decision?' He had asked himself, and since that day he had been constantly
re-asking himself that. He had stood in
the Hospital Wing listening to that fool Cornelius Fudge deny everything he had
heard about the Dark Lord's return.
Then, to Snape's horror, Dumbledore had revealed Sirius Black and forced
them both to shake hands. Dumbledore
then asked him to do something that they had discussed a few months
before. Snape now had the 'privileged'
role of trying to get information out of his former Death Eater
companion's. Which definitely was not
going to be easy, as Potter had reported that Voldemort had remarked on missing
Death Eaters and then declared:
"One
is too cowardly to return…he will pay.
One, who I believe has left me forever…he
will be killed of course."
Dumbledore
had told Snape this and then asked him which out of the two remarks was about
him. He had been unable to answer, as
he just didn't know which remark was for him and which was for Karkaroff. However, it was a safe bet that it was the
latter. After all Snape had been
Voldemort's second and he had betrayed him to Dumbledore and as every one of
his followers knew…Voldemort does not forgive.
Snape had begun his
new role two days ago. He hadn't
actually decided that he would, but since Lucius Malfoy had taken it upon
himself to visit him, Snape had thought that it was a good time to start. He hadn't gotten anything out of him though;
instead he had ended up in an argument about why he was continuing to be a
traitor. In the end Snape had agreed to
attend the next Death Eater meeting and Lucius had promised that he would tell
Voldemort that Snape was sorry, and deeply regretted his decision to
defect. Snape didn't see the point in
this, as Voldemort would clearly be able to tell that Lucius was lying. Voldemort could always tell when somebody
was lying, but Snape had thanked Lucius anyway. Snape could still remember being at school with Lucius. Even though he had been a year below Snape,
Lucius had always seemed older and because of there 'mutual interests' they had
become good friends. Snape was even
made Draco Malfoy's Godfather, a position he took very seriously.
After this encounter
with Lucius, he had gone straight to Dumbledore to tell him what he had agreed
to. Dumbledore had been very worried by
this and Snape remembered feeling quite flattered as Dumbledore rarely showed
his emotions.
Snape suddenly say
bolt upright, his thoughts on the past few days forgotten, as he looked down at
his burning arm. Voldemort was calling
him to the meeting that would decide whether he would live or die. He slowly got up and reached inside his
pocket for some Floo Powder. With
shaking hands he through it into the fire and called out the name of his
home. He would have to apparate from
his home to the meeting.
As Snape stepped
into the green fire a hundred thoughts swirled through his mind. 'What was going to happen to him' and 'would
he make it back to Hogwarts' were just a couple of them. Then as he felt the spinning begin, a piece
of a Muggle poem he had once read by W.B Yeats came into his mind:
'Turning and turning
in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot
hear the falconer;
Things fall apart;
the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is
loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed
tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of
innocence is drowned;
The best lack of all
conviction, while the worst
Are full of
passionate intensity.'
Snape allowed himself to be immersed in
the spinning and as he waited for his grate to appear he found himself thinking
'things do fall apart'.
The End
A/N: What do you
think? If you like it check out my
other stories and my BIG Fic 'The Danger of Truth'
