Title: Hurt
Author: Miss Erin
Rating: PG-13 for some bad words.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Author's Note: Thanks to Laura Smith for her beta job, and to Johnny Cash's version of "Hurt". The song inspired this, particularly the lines "Everyone I know / Goes away in the end". Feedback is very much welcomed.
There was no choir of angels, no symphony of nature; no thunder clouds gathered, beating rain and lightening to farewell him. It was as if the world just continued turning, not pausing in its eternal journey around the sun, not even for the likes of a man like him. In the end, he was just ash in the funeral pyre, the atoms of wand and wood and wizard now indistinguishable, the flames not caring to differentiate Dumbledore from Death Eater as they licked up their feast of flesh.
That death was the great equaliser was something that may have, on another day, passed for irony. They had fought and died for equality, hadn't they? But somehow, in his mind, equal would never be a word worthy of sharing a sentence with Albus Dumbledore. He was a king of kings, prince among men, mentor and Magi and martyr and man; and moreover, missing already in the Slytherin's heart, the newly exposed flesh quivering, wanting what it had back, longing for a completeness that would never return.
The sun had set in the last few minutes, leaving the flames dancing against the settling darkness, the mourners gathered by the pyre slowly drifting off towards the castle in dribs and drabs, returning their minds to their lives and turning away, for the last time, from the man who had made them all worthwhile, made them all better because he believed that they were better; made them all believe in this, whatever the fuck they were doing now, this battle or skirmish or Armageddon of hatred and bigotry.
He had lived through it all; Grindelwald, the first Dark Rising, the years of tense peace, Voldemort's return, and everything in between that the Muggles had managed to inflict on each other with detached deadliness that the Dark Lord would denounce. He'd seen them be born, grow, learn, marry, rear their children, and for too many, Albus Dumbledore had seen them from the cradle to the grave. It was almost possible to think that he would live forever, to forget that he, too, was merely a man, mortal, ruled by flesh and blood - the same as every single one of them whose sorry arses he had saved.
A sorry arse like his.
God fucking damn it, he was not going to cry, not here, not now, in full view of the very people who were relying on him to take up the mantle of the strong one, the all-knowing, so very sure one, to look at them and reassure them that it was going to be all right, was all right, and feel it through down to your bones that it would be, because if Albus said so, nothing of man or nature could prevent it. Despite rank and station, every child who had passed through the Great Hall under Albus's reign would tumble like a first year into the comfort of his reassurance; Albus, the last bastion of childhood, the I will take care of you I will not hurt you I will protect you unwavering devotion that you could not find as an adult, where strings came attached to everything and everyone.
Albus had played Geppetto to Snape's Pinocchio more than once, had made mistakes and used people for the greater good, but Snape would always forgive.
He had made Severus a real boy.
Albus Dumbledore had been the best and worst thing that had ever happened to him.
Severus was no Albus Dumbledore, never would be. No illusions there. He was only a Severus Snape - a poor substitute for even the desperate, like powdered eggs and war rations. He lacked everything - no certainty, no innate goodness, none of that bloody Gryffindor bravery to draw strength from for the long road ahead. All he had was a stained soul, bloody hands, and a mind full of nightmares that would never leave him, no matter how long he lived.
And that fucking mark on his arm, practically laughing at the death and destruction and honest to God pain in his heart that wouldn't stop, hadn't stopped since the words 'Albus Dumbledore is dead' had jumped out of Arthur Weasley's mouth and onto the hamster wheel of guilt and regret and what-ifs that Severus Snape specialised in in the early morning darkness, when his mind refused to stop and give him the kind of peaceful slumber other men took for granted.
The sound of children laughing floated down from the castle, and he almost lost it. How could they just waltz around like nothing had happened, like the tide of the war had just turned against them, like the best bloody man they were ever going to meet wasn't lying in a pile of dust not a mile from them and their Quidditch chatter and gossip and petty grievances and grudges?
He could feel eyes on him; McGonagall probably, always the mother bear, the right hand, even as the body to which she'd been attached to all her adult life lay smouldering and smoking.
No one had ever accused Severus Snape of being a patient man, but he'd been at least able to manage to put a mask on his emotions in front of the sodding little brats, but now - now, he was standing in a field of the only place he'd ever really think of as home, mourning the only man he'd ever thought of as his father, and he was tired of pretending to be okay.
He was not okay.
He might never be okay again.
The tears came as he turned on his heel, robes billowing behind him in the breeze, and ran and ran and ran like a boy playing at wizards and aurors, like a man hoping to outrun his demons, like a Severus Snape contemplating a world without an Albus Dumbledore.
His legs pumped rapidly under the heavy woollen trousers, his shoes not suited to the task, but his body not caring in the least. The salty taste of tears slipped onto his tongue as he ran, flowing more freely the further he travelled into the twilight.
Albus Dumbledore was disintegrating.
Minerva McGonagall was mourning.
Severus Snape was silhouetted against the dusk sky, sobbing as he sprinted away.
And before the few remaining mourners had time to respond, the slight, unathletic figure of Hermione Granger was running after him.