The Reprecussions of Victory
Chapter 1: Snape's Return
A tall black haired man swept sharply down the corridor. His long black teaching robes billowed out behind him. His face wore an expression of great urgency and he quickened his pace to a light run as he passed a large stained window. Lightning tore the black sky in two.
But Severus Snape didn't see this. He turned left down an empty corridor and then up some blackened staircase. He was now running and his expressionless mask had fallen away. His face showed panic. He streaked through the hall, lightning leading the way. He moved quickly up several flights of stairs, never stopping, ignoring his muscles as they cried out in pain. Thunder rang in his ears. He was running flat out along a narrow passageway. He approached the end of the passage and halted. There it was. He knew it was there - he felt it, because the darkness obscured it. An old oak door leading to an ancient chamber. Without pausing, Snape flung open the doors. He drew his eyes to the centre of the room.
Then he froze.
There lay the boy, his back to Snape. He lay on the cold stone slabs like he had laid there his whole life. Snape ran to him. He crouched beside him and looked fervently at the boy – this young man. He was sleeping. Was he sleeping? No, he wasn't sleeping. His eyes were closed. He looked calm. His raven hair spread out behind him and his mouth seemed to curve upwards. And he wasn't sleeping. Not asleep. His skin too cold, his body too limp, too relaxed.
"No."
How could his passion, his energy, his drive, his life, just be taken like that?
Snape realised why he had come. He turned and looked behind. Snape gasped in horror. He saw something so grotesque, so unfit to this world, something he had once willingly served. The Dark Lord. Such a horrific mutant, the likes of which had never been. This hideous creature - at once so intolerable yet so intensely charismatic that he found the souls he sought to serve him. And this boy. A lost cause from day one, surely? No. The Dark Lord hadn't taken the boy's life. The boy had given it.
He put his arm on the boy's shoulder, and now he felt he couldn't move it away. This boy had always been alone, yet this notion was deceptive, for he knew all there was to know about the miseries of love. Had known.
Snape realised his own cheeks were wet. He had a hollow feeling in his chest. He turned to look back at his former master. That face. He would never forget that face. A sick monster, a face frozen with horror and pain, and the furious yet accepting expression in this face said defeat. Justice had at last been served.
The Dark Lord also lay on the ground, but in a rigid position, inferior to his opponent in every way. His limbs had red blistering burns and they too were frozen. One arm was still suspended in the air, the burns seeping down to his elbow.
Snape looked away in severe disgust. He felt sick.
He crouched down beside the boy. Gently, Snape put his arms underneath the body and lifted him up. He started to walk.
Snape carried the limp form through the door and back along the corridor. The lightning had ceased but now rain was thundering against the windows. He trudged slowly down the stairs, the disbelief of this loss pressing down on him.
He had reached the bottom of the staircase. He walked steadily across the hall and down the black steps, sensing the objects around him in the darkness. Everything was a haze. He could feel the boy's weight – and the boy's death, in his arms, on his hands, in his mind, in his very soul.
The walls pressed around him as he walked the narrow corridor. It felt like the world had collapsed. All was now a black cave of torment. Everything was falling. Failing. Dark.
Snape's muscles were seizing up but he hardly noticed. He was only very vaguely aware of going to the hospital wing. Everything was so overwhelming. He entered the Entrance Hall. He stopped. Students were there. Many students of each house. A hush fell on the crowd as they realised what had happened. Many of them didn't understand. The crowd parted to make way for Severus Snape, as he held dead Harry Potter in his arms.
He knew he must get the boy to the wing, where people were waiting for him. Snape glanced at the onlookers as he walked. Some faces were wet. Others were bloody. Some held expressions of disbelief, anger, and terrible sadness at this tragedy. Yet all of them remained silent. In some distant past, but a memory now, Snape had tried not to let himself believe the boy deserved respect. Snape felt immediately sickened at this and pushed it from his mind.
As he ascended the staircase, he could feel every eye on his back. At the top of the staircase Snape turned and looked down on his students, their schoolmate in his arms.
"You know who and what caused this. What caused it has now ended, thanks to this boy."
Snape's voice caught in his throat as he ended the sentence, and immediately turned on his heel and walked with the heroic load to the hospital wing.