A/N: Thanks for all the very kind reviews.

I own nothing, as usual.

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The Auror stared.

The man was thin and pallid, like an invalid or someone who has been out of the sun for too long, with stringy dark hair. He was wearing robes that were so ripped and torn it was a wonder that they held together to cover him as he huddled on the bare stone floor beneath the window. Pale arms hugged pale knees, and his face was lowered onto them. He appeared to be sleeping. The reek of the room rolled out into the corridor.

The Auror could not hide her disgust. Turning away, she looked back at the guard.

"Is there a room where I can interview him?" She snarled.

Looking slightly taken aback, the guard pointed to a door at the end of the hall, and the Auror strode up to it, flinging it open and inspecting the room beyond. Although as bare as all the others she had seen, it was at least dry and there was an unlit fireplace at one end. A wooden table and two chairs were the only furniture.

"It will do. Light the fire, please."

The guard looked as though he would like to argue with her, but did not. Extracting his wand from the sleeve of his robes, he pointed it at the fireplace and muttered the incantation. Fire crackled in the grate.

"Fine. Bring me some tea, please."

At this, the little man visibly bristled, and opened his mouth to speak. The Auror silenced him with a slicing gesture of her hand, which although not magical, was threatening enough to make him think better of it, and although his eyes flitted to the still sleeping man on the floor of his cell, he looked to the table and pointed his wand once more. A china tea set appeared on the table. The Auror nodded.

"You may wait at the top of this corridor."

"Miss…! You must know about the regulations!" The guard appeared scandalised. "I cannot leave you with him! You don't know what he's capable of!"

The Auror turned, the hood of her cape swinging slightly. "I know exactly what he is capable of. Why do you think I am here?"

There was a pause.

"There are no other prisoners on this corridor. I am a First Class Auror. He will not harm me," her voice had softened. "He will not."

The guard shook his head, and turned away.

"Have it your way," he muttered. "It's not my neck on the line…."

The Auror stared at the wall next to the man's cell until the guard had walked the length of the corridor and exited it. Only then did she move to once again look inside, to gather her courage, and to step silently into the small room.

The man did not move, and did not show any signs of even knowing that she was there even when she crouched down a few centimetres in front of him, close enough to realise that he was in a worse state than she had first thought. Breathing slowly through her nose, she reached out a hand and placed it on the man's bony shoulder to give him a small shake. His skin was cold against her warmer fingers, and he stirred sluggishly. The Auror was about to rise to her feet when the man lurched from apparent sleepiness to total wakefulness in a handful of seconds.

A hand had grasped her wrist surprisingly tightly before she could prevent it, and she turned her attention away from that to see that he had lifted his head, too. Cold black eyes in a face that was all planes and angles were staring at her with feverish intensity and she instinctively pulled away, wrenching her wrist from his grasp and hurriedly rising to her feet.

The man did not move from his position on the floor, but stared up at her warily as she massaged her wrist and struggled to regulate her breathing.

"Snape…" she whispered his name, but she was certain he had heard her. "Severus Snape…."

"Who…are you?" the man's voice, when he finally spoke, was raw and broken from disuse, but still recognisable for what it had once been.

"I'm an auror. From the Ministry." She found her voice, and was relived to find that it sounded completely normal, despite her fright.

"I asked who you were. I can see for myself what you are." The voice was loaded with waspish annoyance, the Auror watched impassively and did not offer to help as he struggled to his feet and then winced.

"There is no need for you to know my name," she informed him, forcing an edge of coldness into her voice, but surprised all the same when he bowed his head.

"What are you…?"

"No more questions." She removed the set of robes from the bag she still carried and tossed them towards him. They landed in his arms; he clutched them to himself. "Put these on. Then we can talk. I'll wait outside."

Standing outside the cell and waiting for him to change into the new robes seemed to take an age, an age in which the Auror struggled to contain the hot bubble of rage and grief that was suddenly bubbling within her. For all of her training and preparation she was not sure she knew how to deal with the situation she now found herself in.

Knowing what the man, Snape, had done.

Knowing what she, herself, had been sent to Azkaban to do…

"What now?"

Snape had appeared in the doorway to the cell, and was looking cautiously out as if he did not quite believe that the door was open. He was wearing the robes she had given him but they were almost hanging from his thin frame. The Auror lifted her arm and pointed to the room at the end of the hallway.

"In there."

He walked stiffly towards the room, stopping once inside.

"Sit." She pointed to one of the chairs and he stared back at her, hesitating.

"Sit now or you can go back to your cell." The steel in her voice echoed off the walls. He sat. She shut the door behind her and moved to sit in the other chair. Producing the bread and flask of soup from her bag, she placed them on the table in front of him. "Eat."

There was no hesitation this time. Severus Snape fell upon the food as though he were starving, eating quickly and without finesse, tearing at the bread and slurping at the soup. The Auror waited until he was halfway through both and had paused before speaking again.

"How do you know that either of those haven't been poisoned?" She asked him quietly. Snape continued to eat, watching her with eyes colder and deader than she had ever seen.

"It makes no difference to me what you have done to it." He said between mouthfuls. "If you have poisoned it and I die then you are doing me a favour. If you have not, and this is just food, you are still doing me a favour."

She had no reply to that, and instead waited until he had finished eating, the tea pushed off to one side and forgotten. When all the food had gone Snape sat back in his chair and stared into the fire, carefully placing both hands upon the table as he did so. The Auror took a deep breath.

"Severus Tobias Snape," she began in a hard voice, and his head snapped back to the cowl of her robes. "It is my duty to inform you that last month, on the twentieth of December, the Ministry of Magic unanimously voted to repeal the anti-execution law for all known Death Eaters. A date for your execution has yet to be set. You will be informed accordingly."

In his chair, Snape was shockingly pale.

"You will be executed without trial and without ceremony. There is no opportunity for appeal." She looked at him closely, he was sweating. "Have you anything to say, for the official record?"

"What…" He seemed to be struggling to breathe. "For what crime am I to be executed for?"

The Auror found that she could not keep the fury from her voice.

"The murder of Albus Dumbledore, formerly headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy."