Disclaimer: Nothing you recognise belongs to me and I'm not making any money with this.

Set at the end of the 4th book after Snape returned to Voldemort.

Do Or Die

Severus stood in the middle of his office and looked around in search of something to do. He didn't want to go to bed yet; he didn't want to read a book, and he didn't want to grade homework. Very quickly he realised that apart from these activities, he wasn't going to find anything to occupy him, at least not here.

Dumbledore had said that there probably wouldn't be any need for him to come and see him right after returning from meeting with his fellow Death Eaters, and he'd been right; he had nothing of interest to report, so it could very well wait till the next morning. Though reporting to the Headmaster would at least have given him something to do. And for some reason, something to do was all he wanted at the moment.

His eyes fell on the magazine on his desk. It wasn't his, he'd borrowed it from Minerva over a week ago; it was definitely about time to give it back to her.

He crossed the room, picked up the magazine and then looked up at the clock on the shelf. It was just past ten o'clock, not really too late to pay her a little visit.

Severus reached the door to her quarters without meeting anyone else. Standing in the corridor, he hesitated for a moment, then he straightened his robes and knocked. She didn't call him in immediately, but instead, she walked up to the door to open it herself which made it obvious that she'd actually intended to get rid of her visitor rather quickly.

"Oh, you're back already," she greeted him, a surprised look on her face.

"Yes. I wanted to bring you back the magazine I borrowed from you," he said and held it out to her. "Sorry it's taken me so long."

"You really didn't have to," McGonagall replied. "Thank you. Would you like to come in for a moment?"

He wanted to, but he was pretty sure that she'd have preferred to be on her own. "No," he said and shook his head. "It's quite late already."

McGonagall gave him a close look, then she took a step backwards into the room and motioned him inside. "Come on, just for a few minutes."

Somewhat reluctantly, he followed her inside, and she closed the door behind him.

"So how did it go?" she asked.

Severus merely shrugged his shoulders. "Nothing special, nothing unexpected," he muttered. It was only half true, for he felt that he really should have expected everything he'd seen and heard at tonight's meeting with the Dark Lord, but for some reason he still hadn't been prepared for it.

"Why don't you take a seat?" McGonagall said, gesturing towards the fireplace. "I was just about to have a cup of tea, may I offer you one as well?"

Severus shook his head. "No, thank you," he said but even though he wasn't very interested in tea, he slowly walked across the room towards the sofa in front of the fireplace and sat down. He glanced around and then turned his head to stare into the brightly flickering flames, his thoughts quickly drifting off again.

"Now, talk to me," McGonagall said as she sat down on the sofa next to him instead of taking the armchair on the other side of the fireplace. "What was it like?"

"He's changed," Severus said slowly, his eyes still fixed on the bright flames. "He's not a man anymore. Finally he looks like the monster he really is."

"And what did he say?"

"Not much. Basically just that he'll punish all those who doubted him, and that he'll kill the ones who turned away from him."

"But he doesn't suspect you, does he?"

"No. I'm a talented liar; he still believes that I'm one of his most loyal servants. He thinks that my reason for remaining at Hogwarts was my waiting for his return, and actually, he's quite right about that."

McGonagall nodded slowly. Of course she'd always known why he was here, but over the years she hadn't thought about it anymore and had almost forgotten about the true reasons.

She looked at him; looked at how he was sitting there on one end of the sofa, half lying on the armrest and staring into the flames.

"You're worried, aren't you?" she asked softly.

"Yeah."

She put her teacup down on the table and reached over to place a gentle hand on his shoulder. He flinched when she touched him, but he always did.

"You yourself told me how worrying about things to come is no good and merely a waste of precious time, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember," he said softly.

"There's no reason to be worried anyway. You did it once, you'll do it again."

He sat up and lowered his eyes to stare at the ground instead of the flames from now on. "But maybe I've changed," he said softly. "Maybe I'm no longer the man who did it."

"Of course you've changed since then; it's been a long time. But do you believe that keeps you from pulling this off once more?"

"I don't know. I'm not as sure as I used to be," Severus replied. "Being a Death Eater today seems so far away to me; I don't know how to just go back to it now. And actually, I don't want to go back to it either, but of course, I know that I have to."

"No, Severus. Returning to them doesn't make you one of them again. It's just part of doing your job. You haven't been one of them for a long time."

"But it's getting me so close again to everything I left behind."

"That scares you."

"Yes," he whispered. "It scares me."

He took a deep breath, leaned back and closed his eyes. "It's like a drug," he said softly. "Power. That's all it's really about. And power brings out the worst in many people. It can show you who you really are. It showed me that I'm a killer; that I'm violent, unpredictable and dangerous. Now that I have to return to them, I'm just afraid of... losing control again. I'm afraid of doing something I don't want to do."

He turned his head to look at her.

"I understand you," she said. "I understand that you're worried because I know that you never quite trusted yourself. But I'm convinced that your worries are completely unfounded."

"You know what I can be like. You've had me yelling at you and everyone around me, you've seen me throwing things across the room and breaking my hand because I punched the bloody wall."

"You're underestimating the amount of control you actually have over yourself; at least as long as you want to," McGonagall said.

"Do you believe that you know me better than I know myself?" Severus asked softly, giving her a curious look.

"Maybe I do."

Severus smiled weakly. "I hope you're right."

"I always am, you should have realised that by now. We'll get through this. And the only thing you need to worry about is keeping up your defences and making sure they'll never find out what you're really doing."

"They won't," Severus replied. "Lying and deceiving have always come naturally to me."

They sat in silence for a while, and he felt the anxiety and restlessness slowly fading away. Only now he realised how tired he really was; he'd have to leave soon if he didn't want to risk falling asleep right here on this sofa.

"Feeling better?" McGonagall asked after a while.

"Yeah," he said. "Are you kicking me out?"

"You know I never would."

"I should be leaving anyway, it's pretty late already," he said and slowly got to his feet.

McGonagall stood up as well and followed him across the room. "Are you sure you're all right?" she asked once they'd reached the door.

"I'm fine."

"Maybe you should take something against the nightmares."

"Yeah, I'll probably do that." They'd come back to haunt him tonight, he had no doubts about that. "Good night."

"Good night." Minerva stood in the doorway and watched him walk down the corridor until he disappeared around the corner, contemplating whether she should really let him walk away like that.

Her feelings told her to go after him, but she knew better than to do so. She'd known him long enough to know that he was the kind of person you just had to let walk away when he wanted to. Often enough, she'd made the mistake of approaching him instead of waiting for him to come to her.

He wasn't all right, that was obvious. At least to her, it was obvious.

She'd expected that having to return to them would be difficult for him, but he'd looked as if it had struck him far worse than she'd thought it would. Maybe in all these years, he'd changed even more than she'd realised.

Minerva sighed and stepped back into the room, closing the door behind her. Gryffindor would lose points tonight; she'd put her money on that. There was no doubt that Severus would be prowling the castle, and there was also no doubt that at least one of her students would be out there as well to provide him with a reason for taking points from her house.

But she'd gotten used to it by now. Gryffindor had won the House Cup often enough nonetheless. And it would have been only half as much fun if he hadn't been around to take away all those points that had been justly awarded to her students for no other reason than simply because he wanted to.

-end-