::A Prologue::
He was walking. And it was so very hard. With each forced step his feet became slightly heavier; his knees a bit more wobbly. The closer he came to the site whose silhouette he could see in the distance the more light-headed and hollow he felt. He was numb.
The night was reasonably chilly, clear, and quiet-- aside from the sound of the grass yielding to his weight and the pounding of his feeble heart inside its flesh hewn walls. He could hear it, loud and clear, with every pulsing rush of blood. He was nauseous with adrenalin, high on fear. Alone.
Out here like this, he truly felt like the last person on Earth. So he pretended, for a short while as he walked, that he really was alone, in every sense of the word. And though he could feel content and comfortable in the fantasy of it, he knew if it were true he'd be lost and afraid. He'd wish for its contrast, even if the opposite meant the reality of now and he'd still be walking toward his death.
It would be a fitting end to a tragic and misdirected life, one he'd prepared himself for with confession and subsequent enlistment into the 'Just' war. Perhaps saddest of all however, the realization that he, Severus Snape, would not be missed, his behaviour these past eighteen years had made sure of that.
However, he was ready. An unstable and wavering sort of ready that threatened with every fluttering breath to bottom out and send him reeling. But that was as ready as he'd ever be. There was no alternative that wouldn't hold dire consequences for numerous other innocents and he, he was far from innocent. Soon he'd be just another casualty in this underground war.
He was much closer now, the uneven, ruinous rim of the once monumental stone circle clear enough to discern individual rocks against the blue-black of night. The moon a glowing crescent sliver in the darkness, barely there. He shivered in a cold sweat, thinking of all the things he would change if he'd gotten the chance to do it again. So many things, so many mistakes. A few steps later he realized it was bullshit and that everything would turn out the same because at every important juncture he'd made a certain choice because of certain reasons that seemed right at the time to a mind with less perspective the farther back in years he went. And one day, when the universe in all its galactic vastness spiraled and collapsed completely in on itself and began anew in a burst of subatomic light and energy, he'd live again. Time would start at zero and the same processes that had occured so far in this cycle would occur once more. Always the same, down to each speck of dust and rock, and down to every living cell. He'd be this Severus Snape for always, for the pattern had neither a discernable true beginning or ending, it was creation and destruction, it was infinite, and so was he.
Had he not been a mere few yards from the meeting stone, beyond the point of no return, he would have surely collapsed in on himself and sobbed at that final realization. And only his pride and will to not show anymore of his weaknesses to the figure standing next to the stone kept him upright. He pulled the hood of his robe up over his head, wishing to hide himself away, he didn't want to see the smug smile he knew would be on that bastards face, or look into those glittering inhumanly grey eyes. Just keep walking, up to the stone and past it. Ignore his prescence, ignore it all. Keep going, just keep walking.