Chapter Fifteen: Immolation/Redemption

Erised grunted as Eddie pulled her by her hair to her knees. One of her eyes had begun to swell shut and the ringing in her head was now beginning to sound a lot like Carol of the Bells. She forced open her good eye and glanced around. One wand, the one that been held in her crippled left hand, was resting in two pieces next to the Mayon's corpse. She smiled and winced from the pain caused but she would take some grim pleasure from the fact that she had taken someone with her if she was to die tonight. Eddie jerked her head back to face him and since she could see three of him, she decided to address the middle one to be safe.

"Have you had enough?" She asked, quietly. "Ready to give up?"

Eddie laughed and looked at Ezra. "Can you believe this bitch? She's about to die and she's making cracks."

"Let her. She deserves to die with that." Ezra called from the distance. He was standing but barely so. There was a nasty looking burn that covered most of his right arm and he was glowering at her hatefully. The only one untouched was Choice who had stepped back and watched.

Erised's eyes met his with questions that could not be articulated even if she tried. She was too spent to really understand the depth of his betrayal or weigh the consequences of them for her and him. For her, unlike Severus, betrayals and consequences had long since lost their terror. In fact, those once unpardonable sins were now considered her greatest tool. As the powerful and elusive Saint Michael, betrayal had become her art and her weapon. She had done everything that would have made Severus reel and damn himself and she had done it gladly, masterfully and in truth, had reveled in it. That had been her sin throughout the war. She had betrayed and never felt remorse for it.

And now, she would die for the one thing she would never betray.

Erised laughed at this revelation and turned to her betrayal, her Judas who was refusing to her eyes at all. Suddenly this scene-this whole war in fact seemed very funny to her.

"Just answer me this, Choice." She laughed, gingerly. "Why…"

Choice looked up, and Erised could have sworn she saw tears in his eyes. "It's the only way to get Kaiya back…"

"Choice," She whispered, sobering. "Imre isn't the way, this isn't the way. All that lies down this path is pain…and death."

"And yet you lingered, knowing this." Isaiah said quietly as he stood. He had been against the corner, recovering from the hexes she had thrown at him mainly to keep him at bay. Both Erised and Isaiah knew her actions towards him had just been for show.

She could never hurt him.

"Don't you think it's odd, beloved," Isaiah said purposefully. "That you should fight so passionately against your equal? Against your very match..."

"I'm nothing like Imre."

"That's a lie you don't believe anymore." Isaiah said as he knelt before her. "All you know is death and pain, betrayal and rebellion and the truth is, you only feel alive when you can make these. Why else would you make your family among my kind?" He picked up her chin, and looked into her eyes as if he was reading her deepest fears and long guarded secrets. "You don't know how to live, or love. Those things are as foreign to you as the light and truth that the Dark Prince now seeks to fight for. And they will always be so.

"You are a solider, it's written on your skin in those scars you wear proudly. All you know is the pain and destruction you can mete out. I understand now, I really do. You haven't fought in this war because it's right or wrong, or because of the money you could make; it's so you can feel, can create something." He leaned closer. "This war is as much your creation as it is the Dark Lord's but do you know the difference? He fights so that he may rule in peace, you fight because without it, you are nothing."

"No! No, that's not true. No, I'm not…"

"Why else would you love me?" Isaiah asked.

She looked up, pulling her hands into her lap and swallowing down blood. Her entire body quaked from pain, terror and tiredness, but she dug deep inside of herself to focus whatever strength she had left in this. Even if she were to die tonight, she would have this last victory.

"You've saved my life, Isaiah." Her voice was a dull whisper, like a woman reciting her confession to a priest. "You took care of me, and sheltered me from myself. You showed me the world and, in the only way you could, you gave me a son." She looked up, "But I never loved you."

Isaiah pushed to his feet, hissing angrily. "You're lying!"

With the last strength she had, Erised took what would be her last victory. Reaching for the dagger she kept at all times, she slammed into Eddie's thigh with all she had. Eddie howled and lashed at her, throwing her body at Isaiah's feet.

Eddie fell to his knees, still screaming in pain and clutching at the dagger's hilt while trying to pull it out.

"Crippled, old drunk, am I?" She hissed, forcing herself to slouch over as a grim smile covered her face. She wanted to laugh as the silver ran it's purpose through the werewolf's veins but it hurt too much to laugh now. "I hope that hurts, you cocky pain in the ass!"

"Eddie!" Ezra screamed in desperation. He made a motion as if to rescue the younger wolf but dared not lest he suffered a similar fate. He watched helplessly as the young boy convulsed, choked and screamed for a mercy that would never come before finally laying still. Then, followed by a fearsome howl that seemed to shake Ezra's whole body with anger and blood thirst, he turned on Erised. "To hell with Imre's plans! Kill her!"

"Honor your agreement, wolf!" Isaiah growled. Stooping down and grapping Erised like a rag doll, he hauled her to her feet. Erised screamed from the pain, but Isaiah ignored it. He bared his fangs with his own lustful hiss. "She belongs to death already, and therefore she is mine."

Through the haze of death, Erised thought for a moment she heard Choice screaming but recognized that it was her own voice cutting through the air, piercing the clam and cloud. Giving what she had left, she jerked in a feeble attempt to ward off Isaiah but succeeded only in amusing him. In response, Isaiah bit down harder, severing the vein and making Ari's body go limp in his arms before ebbing on his attack. She felt through her pain, the sensation of his arms firmly around her waist and was comforted by it.

There was a warmth and security that came with Isaiah and knowing that he brought an end that was not truly an end. He would bring her into a new world that she could be born into and therefore redeemed from anything and everything of this life. He would create and love her and perhaps by doing so, he would show her everything that she had lacked.

Her legs became heavy and so she allowed them to fail, and just like she knew he would, Isaiah compensated by holding on tighter. She exhaled quietly and stopped fighting.

She was being given a new life after all, all she had to do was wait.

~~*~~

Memory sparkled in the early morning light. The aging walls glistened from the pale light and made the messages, pictures and other scribble on the walls stand out like blazing testimonials to times and people forgotten. The gray light made the old beds that been left over from when the building was a dormitory gape out and gleam like bones from an exposed grave, made the half-filled liquor bottles shine their amber colors unto the walls and paint them new memorials. It made the very walls creep and call out silently to anyone who would dare listen, beckoning these listeners to pay attention and remember those fallen soldiers who had been inscribed on its walls and therefore made immortal in the only way they could be.

And in turn, Severus Snape listened and remembered. He could do that if nothing else, he could remember.

He was amazed at the way his feet remembered the paths in this place as if he had never left. Odd it seemed that he, of all the places he remembered in Hecate, would find this the most welcoming. Still, he wasn't about to complain as he walked, tracing his hands on the wall and reading the familiar names of those he had trained and lived with those many years ago. He walked and recalled, loved and mourned a span of twenty years in that brief walk until finally he came to his destination.

To a mural painted in the short, vivid strokes of bright and contrasting colors that seemed untouched by time or care. The mural was of a couple with their backs to each other and their heads bowed. Their clothing was nondescript and faces blurred, so that they could be anyone. There was something sad about the picture until you noticed one part of it…so easily overlooked on first glance people seldom noticed.

They were holding hands.

"I'm sorry I'm so late, guys." He told the couple. "But I'm finally back to see how you've been."

"Don't worry," Snape turned at the sound of the woman's voice. Alexandra Van Ness was walking towards him with a soft, sad smile on her lips. "There are some of us here that have kept them safe until someone came back to take care of them."

Snape returned her smile with a sort of quiet embarrassment. "Thank you."

"I trouble you." She said quietly. "Is it because of my name or my face?"

"Because of your name. I always felt that Sydney was disappointed in me." He blushed from being caught and thought it was amusing that, despite twenty years, he still felt intimidated by his father's protégé. "Truth is, Alexandra…I was always a little terrified of your father."

"Please, call me Lexa. And I'm not surprised. All of his faith rested on you, I can imagine he must have been hard to get along with at times. Sometimes, I wish I knew what he was like. Amissa rarely speaks of him."

"Your father was a great man, and good friend." Snape said, looking back to the mural. "He was trained in the old ways of things and I think that made people like me, Jude and Billy a little difficult to deal with at times." He laughed softly. "Sometimes I use to think he and Erised were tempted to kill us and blame it on the Dark Arts. They probably would have gotten away with it too."

"You think very highly of them all, don't you?"

"They were the best of us all." He said, rubbing his eyes. "They deserved a lot better then what they got."

"All of you do." Lexa said. Snape turned and watched her, confused. She smiled again and reached over, holding his hand. "You were all so young when you went to war. You were forced to grow up around it. That's no life. Those who died, they were lucky. You who were left behind were the ones that really suffered."

"We're all a lost generation." He recited, then laughed. "No, if it hadn't have been the war, it would have been the peace that destroyed us or something else. Every generation is lost by something. We're all left to discover truth and find the willingness to fight for it. It's the way of things."

"Spoken like a true teacher, Professor. I believe you shall be a romantic till you die."

"It has been many years since I've been described as anything remotely like a romantic, Lexa. If anything I would be called a cynic or pessimist."

"Are you?"

"No."

"What do you believe in then?"

He paused to think on this, watching the way the light played on the mural and thinking of many things. He thought of this war and the ones before it. He feared the ones after this and saw in his mind eye's a vision. He knew it must be one and it seemed to stretch to eternity. In this vision, he saw the dead and dying. He saw destruction and pain and sorrow and fear. But even as he watched this terror unfold before him, as he saw the young dying and the old mourning this- he saw life and truth. He saw redemption and rebirth. He saw sacrifices that sealed the life that seemed so fragile it was liable not to survive at all. He saw the sacrifices and knew they would make the life take root and grow. He knew that such a powerful lost for a cause would not be in a vain. He saw the dead at peace and those who were so wounded begin back on a journey of restoration.

A journey he was taking now.

Smiling, he turned to Lexa and whispered. "Hope."

"Sometimes hope isn't enough, my Prince." Snape and Lexa both turned at the arrival of this newest voice. Lucius Malfoy stepped into the light, and pulled back his hood. He stared at Snape intently, and when he spoke, it was barely above a whisper. "Sometimes you can hope all you want for the best results, and death will still come."

"Why are you here, Lucius." Snape asked, hand dropping to his wand.

"To talk." Lucius turned to Lexa. "Go."

Lexa looked at Snape who nodded. "It's alright. He's a friend."

"Are you sure?" Lexa asked, warily.

"I'm sure." He assured her and offered her another smile. "Go on and enjoy the off day we're getting."

Lucius watched as the girl walked off with distaste. "Have they made my Prince a guidance councilor?"

"She's not your concern."

"But is she yours?"

"Is this what you've come for, Malfoy?" Snape asked, hand still comfortably resting on his wand hilt. "To check on my new vocation?"

"I've come to see if the rumors are true." Lucius countered, walking towards him and kneeling at Snape's feet. "I refuse to believe that any man has conquered he who made the nations tremble."

"Get on your feet, Lucius." Snape said, leaning down and hauling him up before turning away. "I am not that man. Not here." He said mindful of the mural before. He cast his head down, refusing to look on it while he was being referred to as Prince.

"But you are that man, every part of you is. This place…" Lucius made a gesture around Memory. "…is your past, not your present. We're your present and your future. Why are you here fighting this war instead of with your people?"

"I am where I belong." He said. "Mordred is your Prince now."

"Your son will kill us all!" Malfoy hissed. "I joined the Death Eaters because I believed in the sanctity of my blood and the right to protect it but in doing so, so much pureblood has been lost. The Dark Lord has gone mad, my Prince, he has placed a child where a warrior belongs- where you belong! How much longer will you stand by while that which is rightfully yours is taken from you?"

"You don't know what you're saying…"

"I speak the truth, Severus!" He walked towards Snape and swung him to face him. "The Dark Lord can no longer protect our kind. He has become unfit for leadership. The Death Eaters demand a leader who will fight for what we have died for- for our blood and ours lives. You are that person, Severus, even if you don't want to admit it- you are. The same passion that beats in my heart beats in yours. How can you abandon us when we need you most?"

Snape pulled away from him but held him at arm's length. "Do you understand why I am doing this, Lucius? Has this war taught you nothing? I am doing this for every reason you said and even more. This is where I belong, at least…for this battle, for this time. I am fighting for my blood- for my son's sakes…for all of our sons. I can't continue this war as you would want me to Lucius, and I hope one day you'll understand why."

"No…" Lucius whispered, betrayed. He tore away from Snape and repeated himself, shaking his head and struggling to understand. "No! I betrayed my brother for you, Severus…because I believed in you. I let you kill my brother and now you betray me? You betray all of us that would have followed you to our death and why? Why, my Prince, why! If nothing else, you can answer me this!"

Snape closed his eyes, and bowed his head. How could he explain this all to Lucius and make it understandable? Could he make the world anew and show Lucius all the joys and sorrows and trials and tests he had gone through to understand now- in what could be the twilight of his life- why he would be compelled to chose his past as his battlefield?

Truth is, he couldn't. Lucius' loses had been so complete that they had harden his heart to anything outside of revenge and hate for the Aurors, and everyone else he thought had taken his love ones from him. People like him and his brother Silas would never understand the true cost of sacrifice because they never accepted their role in it. For them, they would always be the victim, always the wronged.

"Because it's time." He said simply, and hoped Lucius would understand one day.

Lucius frowned and shook his again. Then, inhaling and coming to his senses, the last, 'true' Malfoy rose his head and stared coldly at his former Prince. "Let us all be wise enough to accept our time when it's comes then."

"Would you have this be my time?"

"No." He said, plainly. "Tonight belongs to Saint Michael."

Snape looked up, startled. "What do you mean, Lucius?" He took a step forward, tensing his voice. "What do you mean!"

"Mordred has ordered her death." Lucius said, watching Severus' face twist into disbelief before the Auror swept pass him with thoughts of salvation and redemption. Lucius sneered. "Tell me, Prince, will all your hope and beautiful dreams be enough to conquer even death?"