Chapter Two
… Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow.
On the first night back at Hogwarts after the Easter holidays, Harry lay in his bed, the curtains drawn so tightly around it that even had there been any light, it would not have had a chance of penetrating through. The covers were half thrown off his body, a mere corner dragged over his middle. Tiny beads of sweat coalesced wetly at his hairline despite the fact that the dormitory could not be considered too warm by any stretch of the imagination.
Sleeping, though restlessly, he tossed and turned, first curled up on himself as if attempting to protect something infinitely precious in the hollow of his body, then splayed out, arms and legs everywhere, as if begging that protection for himself. His hands twitched, clenching on the heavy covers to seek support, curling around a phantom wand, patting or stroking the sheets under them soothingly in an almost tender gesture. Like a dog chasing dream-rabbits, the line between dream and physical action blurred almost to nothingness as he hovered in the twilight between sleep and waking.
He was dreaming again. He knew that was all it was, not true, not important, not real. It meant nothing, just like all the other dreams he'd had over the holiday. Dreams he always forgot until he dreamed again, dreams that told a story he didn't want to hear.
Yet despite all of that, it still swept him in effortlessly, dragging him down until he believed it wholly, until it was woven into the very fabric of his being, until he was the dream and it was all he knew.
***
He was standing in the place he had sworn so long ago to take in this battle. The oath had been taken unwillingly, it was true, but still he had sworn, with blood and magic to bind him to it. He shivered slightly, and told himself it was only because the night was so chilly. He was glad for the protection of his heavy robes, and even that of the mask.
He felt the presence of his Master somewhere in the ranks to the fore. His masked and hooded quasi-allies, at least outwardly, stood on either side of him. Farther afield roamed the shadowy creatures recruited to the 'cause', their growls and snarls carrying faintly back to the rest of the army.
He repressed a snort of incredulity at the thought of their motivations. The only cause they held was their own expansion, tumour-swift across the earth, and their only path straight through the bodies of their opposition, cunning serving only if it would help them kill.
Somewhere in the distance, drawing closer all the while, he could feel the presence of the Other. The one he had not even set eyes on for almost a decade, and had ignored for even longer, though they had once meant much to each other. The one who had once been his student – as well as his bond-mate, perhaps even his love. He ripped his mind away from those thoughts. Now was not the time. Never would be the time.
Perhaps he should have been there with him, with the witches and wizards who fought in the name of the Light. He knew that he no longer belonged there, no matter that it had been offered to him, several times, by more than one great wizard. He had walked in the Dark too long to step brashly to that place now, to act as if he had stood there all along. As if he had never seen the shadowed spaces within himself, and acknowledged them as they deserved.
He had done too much in the name of the Dark to walk towards the beacon that was the Other and shamelessly claim a position of honour at his side. No, here was his true place, among the others that had given their loyalty, and what had been their hope, to the Dark magics. Perhaps, if he was lucky, he would need no other place.
A hand slipped inside his sleeve to caress his wand. It was a gesture from his childhood, seeking reassurance that the reminder of his magic provided so generously. The rough, bulky wool was a contrast to the smooth, familiar wood, slightly warm under his stroking fingers.
As at the beginning, so at the end, he thought, remembering the countless other times he had done the same thing. Ashes to ashes and all that Muggle nonsense. Under the mask, an almost feral grin threatened to split his face. An appropriate metaphor, perhaps, for his life.
After this day, there would be no more hiding and pretending, no more crawling and enduring and almost-dreaming. No more need for the masks he had worn in quick succession over the years.
No more ridiculous hoping.
He could feel the Other moving closer. Damned creature, always creeping into his thoughts, dreams, desires, where he had no place. If the door between them had not been shut years ago, he would have slammed it now, callous and childish. He shrugged his shoulders fluidly to settle the weight of his robes more comfortably and prepared himself for battle, distracting himself from those thoughts.
Five minutes, no more. Then the world would be remade in a new image, and only time would tell whose it would be.
Once the task of the day, perhaps of his life, was well begun, he lost track of the many curses he cast. Taking them from behind, the preoccupied and hesitant ones, always aiming to kill, always ensuring there was an unmasked figure close enough to have done the damage. Knowing that it was the day of your death was no reason or excuse to be unsubtle. The dagger in the back was far more deadly than the sword threatening in front, and not only to morale.
So perhaps it was ironic that, distracted by the too-near echo of the Other's agony, the last curse he saw came from a figure he recognised, one he had taught, so long ago. One without a mask, with a still pudgy face and limp brown hair. He, overcome by that one. Irony would never die.
At least it was painless, as humane as a curse could be. A smirk writhed agonisingly across his face before it slipped away and darkness covered him under his final disguise.
Perhaps, just this once, he could allow himself something, in these last moments. Some small hope of comfort.
//Forgive me, Harry.// It was as much an order as fatigue and almost-diffidence would allow it to be. Even now, even for this, he would not beg or plead, especially not from him. Not even from him.
//No!// He was not lucid enough to sense the pain and denial that powered the exclamation.
Well enough, he thought. At least the end would be gentle. He would finally be alone, and it would not matter what the Other thought of him.
***
Heavy covers pulled up to his chin and tucked securely into their rightful place, Severus shifted almost imperceptibly and murmured quietly, fretfully, in his sleep. Disquiet seethed and boiled beneath the concealing surface of slumber, but it was not quite close enough to wake him. The dream pulled at him insistently, unforgiving. With infinite, ruthless, patience it whittled away at his feeble sleeping resistance until it was gone beyond any hope of recall.
Unsuspecting, unwilling, he gave in and let the dream use him as it would.
***
He was looking for someone. A hopeless venture whatever the outcome, he had realised, but still he must. He'd felt the deed, he knew it had happened. Yet, to not see it himself would shatter him. To see it might well do the same. Unconsciously, he touched the cool silver bracelet around his left wrist, the one Severus had given him so many years ago and which he had never quite been able to make himself dispose of. The charm that hid it from other eyes was still secure despite his utter exhaustion, a testament to how often he had reinforced it during the long years.
He barely registered the twisted lunar landscape he moved stiffly through, horrendously warped by the harsh collision of Dark and Light magics. If nothing else had, the land itself would have convinced him that technicalities were all that stood between the two definitions, but he had realised it long ago. The murmurs of other people – people he knew – gathering, watching, searching, were as the whisper of the chill morning wind that blew hesitantly through his wild, roughly cut hair. It, so natural, knew it had no place here.
'Victory?' he thought distractedly. It was a strange thing, that left winners just as fractured as losers, that left bodies as crumpled and broken as the ground they lay on, like a child-giant's voiceless, abandoned dolls. An immense regret threatened to crash over him as his eyes swept the field, searching. He refused it, for the moment. Now, it would only slow him down. Time for regret – and for mourning, and for repenting that once more he had lived and others had died – later.
It was always later. There was never enough time to do all that had to be done, let alone spare some for self-pity.
There! His eyes caught on a black robe crumpled in the midst of a group of others. So similar to those that surrounded it, and yet he knew that was the one he needed. Some residue of their bond still remained, perhaps, or perhaps the debts that stood between them were finally being called in. Far, far too late, for the both of them.
His steps hesitant now, he approached, a leaf from one of the few trees left standing, blown by the cautious wind. Apprehension and fear and sorrow and guilt swirled inside him, threatening to drown him. He resisted their temptation as he had refused all other emotion this day, choosing duty instead. He had this duty still to fulfil, then maybe he could have time to feel.
Three steps, two, one remained. He knelt in a patch of space beside the crumpled robes. Some distant part of him noted the advantage of a wizards' war – no blood and gore to litter the ground. The deadliest spells were the cleanest, and quickest. That analytical part cracked a cynical smile. Irony, like little else in his world, was as healthy as ever.
One hand, lacking a tremble, reached out, hesitated and reached again. Brushed a shoulder hiding beneath the prickly wool of the robes, then clutched and pulled slightly. The body flopped onto its back, all the natural stiffness gone, the face still masked with blank white. He rested his hands on his knees once more and took a deep breath.
When he reached out his hand again, a tremble had crept in. He knew what he would find. It didn't restrain the phantom hand clutching at his heart and gut and mind. His eyes followed his hand as it plucked the mask off with one smooth motion and laid it in his lap, then they flicked back to the face. Peaceful as it had never been in life, the sneer-wrinkles around the mouth gone. No breath marring it with even the gentlest movement.
//Severus!//
No reply, as there had been none all these years.
The hand returned to brush the somehow still warm face. Severus had always craved warmth. He closed the staring eyes, hiding them from the intrusion of his gaze. Sacrilege, to see those eyes without life and focus and assurance, and the simmering, well-hidden passion.
//I'm sorry. I guess it really was goodbye after all, all those years ago,// he thought, though there was no one to hear it.
Nothing more to be said, he arranged the dusty robes about the abandoned body. The mask went into a fold of his own stained robes. He drew the body's former dignity about him like his Cloak – lost years ago, of course, but still a treasured memory – and went to find his friends, those that were left. There was a world to rebuild and no one to share his mind. Finally he was alone. Perhaps he should have been used to it.
***
Harry woke to a hand on his shoulder, not quite shaking him, and a concerned face hovering above him, his name just dying on its lips. A slender slice of cloud-filtered sunlight reached him through the part in the bed's curtains, although it was partly blocked by the body that belonged to the familiar, freckled face. He felt suddenly cold, and realised it was because the majority of the covers were on the floor. It seemed he'd had a restless night, though he now had nothing more than tangled impressions left of what he'd dreamed.
He stretched and yawned, taking a moment to gather himself. Finally he asked, "What's the matter, Ron?" Distracted as he was by the worry in his friend's expression, the feeling that he was forgetting something vitally important faded faster than fog in the midday summer sun.
"You were… well, whimpering." Ron's voice was barely more than a whisper, although Harry could clearly hear the movements of the other boys hauling themselves out of bed. It must be later than he'd originally thought when he woke. He caught Dean's voice replying to a question from Seamus, and he wasn't usually up until the last possible minute.
"I was?" His brow creased as he tried to recall what in his dream might have caused it. Memory slipped through his fingers like blood and scurried for the safety of the dark recesses of his unconscious, leaving nothing behind but a faint, sticky sensation of aversion.
"Yeah. Don't remember what you were dreaming about?" The redhead moved away a little, giving Harry room to sit up and begin the laborious process of getting out of bed.
"No," Harry frowned more, arching his back and feeling unexpected stiffness throughout his body. "Just a bad dream, I guess. It's gone now, though." His hand went to the bracelet he wore, the action and the feel of cold metal sparking a tiny flare of memory that vanished before he could grasp it. A shadowy sense of melancholy lingered however, though he could not give it any name or reason.
"Well, you'd best get up anyway. Breakfast is soon," continued Ron, moving back towards his own bed to pick up the towel and clothes laid out there. "Hermione'll be waiting for us." Not only that, thought Harry, she'd probably have an hour's worth of work done by the time they got down there.
Despite having had a full night's sleep, he felt completely unrested. It was an awfully familiar feeling of late. Harry pried himself out of bed to collect his things and follow his friend's lead, mind still preoccupied, emotions hopelessly and inexplicably snarled.
