Up From the Dust
Chapter 10: Shattered Wards
Severus entered the second room of the basement to find Harry Potter standing motionless in the center of the room, his back to the door. Something about his rigid posture set off an alarm in Severus's head.
He walked over to face Potter, finding him transfixed, with a curious look on his face – the same look he'd seen on repeat torture victims' faces as they heard their torturers' returning footsteps. It was the look of remembered suffering and anticipated pain. It was the look of fear people got when they realized, without a doubt, that something horrible was about to happen to them.
"Potter?" he asked.
In slow motion, the boy raised a hand to the scar on his forehead, then brought it in front of his eyes. Potter looked as if he expected to see blood there. Then, soundlessly, Potter clapped both of his hands to his head. The boy gasped in sudden, intense pain, then fell to the floor, hands still clutching at his forehead.
Severus knew immediately what caused the boy's pain: He could feel it in a way that words could not describe – in a primal part of his brain that understood, and even spoke, the irrational language of magic. From the doorway at the top of the stairs radiated waves of Dark magic more intense than he had ever felt before: magic from a Dark wizard who had spent the last day preparing spells for an ancient and evil ritual, a Dark wizard universally feared even at his weakest, a Dark wizard who had been pulled from his altar when several of his helpers had failed to show up. A Dark wizard known to the world as Lord Voldemort.
Now, Severus was usually an articulate man, possessed of a wit as quick as his temper. He was capable of crafting sentences whose eloquence was matched only by their causticity. In short, he was a man of keen intellect and linguistic dexterity.
"Oh, shit," said Severus Snape.
- - - -
Hermione Granger had never thought that a wizard as old as Albus Dumbledore could move so quickly. Nearly out of breath, Hermione and Ron chased after Dumbledore, bursting into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom for the second time in an hour.
"Here it is," said Hermione, picking up the nearly-empty vial from the floor where she had dropped it earlier. "There's enough of the potion left to transport one person… but sir…"
"Yes, Miss Granger?"
"Well, the potion renders the user unconscious. If you appear next to Professor Snape and there's some sort of trouble… no offense, sir, but you'll be a sitting duck."
Dumbledore smiled at Hermione. "I'll take the necessary precautions, Miss Granger. After all, I may not equal Professor Snape at Potions, but I can hold my own in Charms, wouldn't you say?" As he spoke, Dumbledore filled one of Hermione's syringes with the remnants of her potion, then handed it back to Hermione. Hermione took it with a questioning look on her face.
"I've already cast a Wakefulness Charm on myself that should counter the negative effects of the potion," said Dumbledore. Hermione looked at him skeptically.
"But, sir, what about the- I mean, the potion wears off very quickly, sir!"
"Don't worry about me, Miss Granger, I assure you I can take care of that bit of magic without trouble." Rolling up his sleeve, Dumbledore held an arm out to Hermione.
"Would you do the honors, Miss Granger?"
- - - -
On the floor, Potter stopped writhing and lay still. The Dark Lord took a menacing step toward Severus, who stood almost in the center of the room. White-faced, Severus stood his ground.
He was going to die, but he had no intention of dying on his knees.
Pre-empting the Dark Lord, Severus spoke. "I've been against you from the beginning," he lied, pushing the lie into the forefront of his consciousness and Occluding the truth. Let him wonder, he thought. Let him have a little insecurity.
Voldemort laughed, a sound that was like the sharpening of knives.
"Snape," he said. "You hid the truth well."
Yes, I did, thought Severus, wondering at the bizarre turn his life had taken. Here he stood, at the very moment of his death, being complimented by Lord Voldemort on his own deception.
I suppose I never wanted to reach forty anyway, he thought. Severus reached for his wand, only to find himself suddenly frozen, a statue for all he could do. The Imperius curse rang in Severus's ears as Voldemort forced Severus's gaze to meet his own demonic stare.
"Do you expect me to kill you?" asked Voldemort, taking a few slow steps around Severus's rigid form. Severus remained silent, a prisoner of the curse Voldemort had so effortlessly cast on him.
"Answer!" he hissed. The command jolted through Severus's consciousness along the lines of the Imperius curse; unable to fight, Severus nodded.
"How does one destroy a traitor, Snape?" he demanded. Severus felt the control over his ability to speak released, but said nothing.
"Veritas!" hissed Voldemort, adding a second curse. Severus relented under the Dark Lord's pressure.
"Kill him," he said numbly.
Voldemort laughed again.
"And what has always been my promised method of execution for traitors?"
"Torture," choked Snape. "Torture without the Cruciatus – without madness as an escape."
"Always a quick study, weren't you, Snape. You're correct, of course. Tell me… do you think I'll kill you now?"
"Yes."
Voldemort nodded, then smirked. "I thought I would, too, before I realized what a waste of good material it would be to kill one as talented as yourself." He paused in a moment of self-satisfaction before continuing. "No, Snape, I'm merely going to kill your soul, whatever… imperfection led you to betray me. I'll wipe out every memory of yours, every love, every hatred, every drive, every tie you have to everyone in the entire world, leaving nothing but magic and potions and numbers. I'll take the husk that's left over after every shred of humanity has been ripped from your mind, and I'll use the cold, dead, and brilliant automaton that's left over to do a thousand times more damage than you ever could have averted."
Voldemort continued to smile as Severus closed his eyes. Voldemort had indeed hit on the worst possible punishment; not to kill Severus, not to torture him for days or weeks or months, not even to kill those he cared about, but to use him to carry out such deeds, to undo any good that Severus had done in the past seventeen years. For the first time in that long, a desire to join the family and kill himself crept into Severus's trapped mind.
Anything but this, he thought, as Voldemort raised his wand again.
Anything.
Severus kept his eyes closed, but never felt the spell he was expecting to hit him. Instead, a burning light flooded into his self-imposed darkness, a red glow that must have been as bright as the sun on the outside. Opening his eyes, Severus saw what could only be an angel interpose itself between Severus and the Dark Lord – a figure in pure white, with white hair. The angel spoke, and it was in a voice deep with age and accumulated wisdom, a voice that had defeated an evil lord and taught children, a voice that could chastise or comfort, heal or destroy. It was Albus Dumbledore's voice.
"FINITE INCANTATEM!" he roared, putting over a hundred and fifty years of magical practice into the spell to end all spells. Severus felt the power of the incantation as it tore through the house and its inhabitants, shattering the wards, destroying the cage in which Severus's mind was trapped, severing the thread that the imperfect potion had woven between Dumbledore and Hogwarts, and leaving everyone but the old man momentarily stunned.
It was several moments before Severus could orient himself. "Albus?" he whispered.
Dumbledore had come for them. He'd really not had much hope.
Dumbledore took no notice of Severus's awestruck face, however, his back turned to his young friend and his concentration on the serpentine figure of Voldemort. In the moment of confusion after his appearance, Dumbledore had wrapped a light ward around Voldemort, freezing the Dark wizard within a wall of white light.
Severus could see the strain in the old man's rigid form. Holding back a wizard like Voldemort had to be like trying to hold back the sea.
"Go, Severus! Take Harry!" Albus managed to say.
"What about you?" cried Snape.
"GO!" repeated Albus. "I'll be fine here." The strain in Dumbledore's voice did little to support him.
"The hell you will!" yelled Severus. "You'll hold that ward until you're exhausted in order to let us get away, and then the Dark Lord will kill you! I won't go! I won't let you sacrifice yourself for us!"
"Severus… I'll be right behind you."
Severus balled his hands into fists. "You… you stubborn old Gryffindor!" he shouted. "You've just saved me and Potter from fates worse than death, and I'll be damned if you don't come with… us…"
Severus gasped in surprise as his uncharacteristically emotional speech was cut short. Neither the rapidly weakening Dumbledore nor the frozen Voldemort had anything to do with his sudden silence.
What stopped Severus was the dagger that pierced his back and sliced through his right lung, the point emerging from his chest mere centimeters from his heart.
Juliette, after all, couldn't leave without a parting shot.
- - - -
Severus Snape, after all, was a wizard: highly trained in magic, but poorly versed in anatomy. Severus had aimed for Juliette's heart when he stabbed her, but he had missed his target; although Juliette was mortally wounded, she had not died instantly. Juliette stood at death's door, but she was determined to take one more person across the threshold with her.
After crawling across the room where she had been left, she had managed to free herself from her bonds and get to her feet. As Albus Dumbledore shattered the magic field within the house, Juliette had been bleeding on the doorjamb, and when Severus began to speak, she had ripped the knife from her own chest and begun to stagger across the shabby basement room toward her husband.
With her final strength, Juliette had lunged at Severus, driving the same dagger into his back. With a terrible smile, Juliette sank to the floor, dragging Severus with her. The Potions Master, too shocked to scream, fell with her, twisting the dagger as he fell next to his once-beautiful wife. At that point Severus did scream, a choked sound escaping from his lungs; it was the sound of Severus's drowning scream that finally broke Dumbledore's faltering concentration.
As Severus lay gasping in a pool of blood, both his and Juliette's, Voldemort broke free from the spell that Dumbledore had ensnared him with. Enraged, the Dark wizard sent a killing curse at Dumbledore; Dumbledore dodged the ray of green light and retaliated with a Heartbreaker Curse. Just as easily as Dumbledore had deflected the killing curse, Voldemort shielded himself from Dumbledore's hex. Drawing magic from his nearly-dead lover, Voldemort sent a vortex of pure darkness whirling toward the old man; this hit Dumbledore head-on, but only stunned him. Forcing himself forward, Dumbledore cast a spell at the floor in front of Voldemort. From the floor sprang vines the thickness of a man's forearm and studded with white flowers; for a moment, they wrapped themselves around Voldemort, but they were quickly burned away in a blaze of red fire.
The light of the fire reflected off of the couple lying on the floor; the pool of blood shone an even deeper red in the light of Voldemort's flames.
Still wreathed in fire, Voldemort fashioned a great serpent of flame and loosed it on Dumbledore. The white wizard struck the beast down with a single blow, conjuring up an impenetrable cloud of white butterflies to surround himself. The butterflies flew in circles around Dumbledore, a few of them dying to protect Dumbledore as Voldemort once more tried the killing curse. Angrily, the Dark Lord turned the lot of butterflies to paper; they fluttered to the floor as Dumbledore conjured up another wave of the gossamer creatures.
However, as Voldemort destroyed the second cloud of insects and prepared to curse Dumbledore again, the older wizard summoned his strength and conjured an ethereal shield between himself and Voldemort. He faced Voldemort over the bodies of Severus Snape, his wife, and his student, the sudden calm after the flurry of activity disconcerting in the same way the eye of a hurricane is disconcerting. Breathing heavily, Dumbledore faced Voldemort.
"We're too evenly matched, Tom," he said, stepping toward the trio on the ground. "If we continue like this, one of us will eventually win… but at the expense of their lives."
It was true. Every heartbeat poured forth the lifeblood of Severus Snape and his wife. Both unconscious, the two seemed almost peaceful; the creases on Severus's face had evened out and the usual contempt had left Juliette's now deathly pale face. Midnight-colored strands of Snape's hair mingled with Juliette's blood-streaked blond, and Severus's left hand, heavy with its gold band, lay still upon Juliette's right.
They were dying, and were not taking their time.
Voldemort hissed at Dumbledore, but could not argue. For all his unholiness, Voldemort had retained a cold rationality; that rationality said that his child would soon die if he continued to fight.
"I'll kill you another day," he said, lowering his wand. Lifting his cold lover, Voldemort sneered at Dumbledore, then disappeared.
Dumbledore knelt down on the floor, pulling Potter over to where Severus lay. Dumbledore took each of their hands in his own, and then did something that few witches or wizards would ever have the strength to do. Holding fast to Harry and Severus's hands, Dumbledore Apparated all three of them to the Forbidden Forest.
- - - -
Poppy Pomfrey was sitting in the hospital wing, treating a fourth-year's outbreak of hex-induced warts, when Albus Dumbledore came bustling in, two stretchers floating behind him. On one lay a completely motionless Harry Potter, his black hair lying in tangles around is still, pale face. On the other lay Severus Snape, face-down, a dagger protruding at an odd angle from the middle of his blood-soaked shirt, his face veiled in dirty black hair, one limp hand hanging in midair, the other trapped beneath him.
Poppy's wart-covered fourth-year took one look at the blood-soaked Potions professor and ran out of the hospital wing, trailing something along the lines of "comebacklater!" Exhausted and oblivious, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger slept on in the far end of the wing.
It really was good that the teenager made himself scarce, for Poppy instantly transformed from role model to bad example in a string of diverse curses, many of which hadn't seen the inside of the hospital wing in decades. Lowering Potter onto a bed, Albus pulled Severus's stretcher in front of himself, the unconscious man's still form hovering between them. Severus was still bleeding, although Poppy could barely see how after all of the blood he'd lost already. Potter would be fine – here in front of Poppy was the priority case.
In an instant, Poppy shredded the shirt from Severus's back, revealing Malfoy's blade and a jagged wound. Severus's pale skin was drenched in red.
Poppy looked up at Albus questioningly as she took in the blade, her wand held ready in her right hand. With a deft motion, Poppy pulled the dagger from Severus's flesh, sealing the wound a split second later. Carefully, she checked over the wound to make certain that it was no longer bleeding; she then gingerly felt for Severus's pulse. Weak, fluttery, but there. Poppy let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
Albus was standing as still as a statue on the other side of the stretcher.
"Albus?" Poppy asked gently, not wanting Albus's concentration to falter and the stretcher to fall. Albus raised his blue eyes to meet hers.
"He'll survive," she said, motioning to the purple-and red aura that she had conjured around Severus's body. "He's out of immediate danger now."
"Thank the gods!" muttered Albus, sinking back onto a chair. He pushed a lock of white hair from his face, leaving a red streak across his white features. Poppy deliberately averted her gaze from Albus's red-stained hands; Albus didn't seem to notice that he was covered in Severus's blood. As Poppy carefully levitated Severus to a bed of his own and began to clean and bandage his wounds, she turned to look at Albus. He looked more shaken than she'd seen him in a long time. I wonder what happened… wherever they were? she thought to herself.
"Albus, I think I should check you over," she said. Dumbledore looked positively ancient, drooping against the chair he sat in.
"I'm all right, Poppy," he said, a faint, slightly sad smile taking hold on his face. "I'm just spent. I didn't even have the strength to help Severus when we Apparated here – that's why I left him… the way he was." Albus looked down at his bloodstained hands. "Actually, I think I was more frightened by Severus's wounds than battling Voldemort!"
Poppy jumped at the name, then spun around to face Albus in disbelief. "You fought… You-Know-Who?" she asked.
Albus sighed. "It's a long story, Poppy… I'll tell you tomorrow." Once again, he directed his gaze toward Severus. Poppy had him levitated upright and was trying to get a clean shirt over his lolling head.
"Aren't you going to replace the blood he lost?" asked Dumbledore. Severus's face was ashen.
"I just did – to a small extent. Potions work better for that, and anyway, he needs the sleep," Poppy replied. As if in support, a slight tremor ran through Snape's body – the tell-tale shaking caused by a long dose of the Cruciatus.
"I think he would be better off to spend this night unconscious. I'll give him a blood-restoring potion in the morning."
Albus nodded, then gave a start as Poppy shot a cleaning spell at him.
"I could have taken a bath, Poppy," he said. She smiled in reply.
"Go to bed, Albus," she said. "We'll sort this all out in the morning."
Deferring to Poppy's wisdom, Albus got out of his chair. He looked over at Potter; the color had already returned to the boy's sleeping face. He then stepped over to where Severus lay on his side, back and chest bandaged under the linen shirt Poppy had put on him. His left hand and forehead were bandaged as well… Poppy was nothing if not thorough. Albus gently placed a hand on Severus's forehead, brushing a lock of dirty black hair behind one of his ears, revealing his prominent nose and dark-lashed, closed eyes. Poppy had never seen anyone display such affection for the surly Potions Master. The fact that Severus would not even remember this moment somehow made Poppy sad.
"It's good to have them back," she said softly.
"It is indeed, Poppy. It is indeed."
A/N: One chapter to go… I've got one more bump in the road to toss at you. Many thanks to nana-hedwig (nice to see a new reader!), Sarah (love your analysis), SiddaBJR (yep… you were right about her not being dead, weren't you… hee hee hee), Silverthreads (glad you liked the last chapter), and Suzuki-chan (you may be pleased to know that I'm drafting a new fic). Thank you all!