Title: Love, Loyalty, and Loss

Ch.Title: Death?

Rating: T

Pen Name: LyknScribe

Pairing: Lucius/Severus & Severus/Lily & Lily/James

Summery: When hearts are young, they rule the mind. Severus is under the ice…can Lucius reach him in time?

+Start+

Lucius shouted back before turning back to the stubborn mare, as he tired to tug her forward she refused to move forward. Moving in front of her by a few feet he tried to pull her forward to no avail. The sound of something cracking caught his attention he looked at his feet at froze. It was ice. He jumped back to where the mare was standing wisely enough on the ground, he spun to warn Severus who was half way across the deadly ground, but as soon as he opened his mouth he heard an awful sound. The sound of cracking, but in a much louder way, a shout and then the sound of splashing water…

The next moments passed far to swiftly, the whole lake seemed to come part jagged bits of ice jutting up left and right. His mare spooked and the pulled the reins from Lucius' hands racing off in the opposite direction. Lucius could careless, all he managed to do was race along the side of the now obvious water trying to spot Severus somewhere in the frigid and deadly water.

"Severus!"

The response was deafly loud as it echoed by in a shrill silence. Those keen crystal blue eyes tried desperately to spot the dark haired young man amongst the ice. He paused hoping that if he stopped shouting Severus might answer back. One second passed then another until a full thirty seconds had passed and that damned silence was the only sound to touch his ears.

Out of the silence came a struggling gasp and the sound of something floundering in water. Lucius' eyes fell on a small black dot almost midway across the water. Severus. For a half second his heart rejoiced and he managed to remember why breathing was an important function to the human body. Once the half second passed Severus' disappeared under the ice once more.

Lucius couldn't just stand on the bank and watch his best friend die. He slowly began to inch across the ice after about three feet he moved to his belly and began to slide. The eyes cracked against his weight but he couldn't just leave him out there. The sound of whining caused him to glance back at the bank. The hounds weighing a lot less than a horse had made it safely to the other side and now paced and whined for their master now once more out of sight.

The ice at his feet gave always and he scurried forward now wet from the knees down but still safely perched atop the unsteady ice. It seemed like hours by the time be reached the last path of stable ice closest to where he had last seen Severus.

He couldn't see him, He struck the ice below his hand.

"Damnit. SEVERUS?"

The ice below him rocked hard to the right, at first he thought it was just from where he had struck it until it happened again. Looking down he saw to his horror, Severus' face pale and blue. For a horrid second he thought he was dead until the face blinked and raised a hand once more to strike the ice he lay atop.

Lucius just about had a heart attack before moving to the next somewhat stable peace of ice and with effort reaching into the frigid water grasping in the water trying to catch a hold of Severus. A desperate effort of fingers trying to close on his hand failed and he saw to his horror Severus had begun to sink. Three more attempts to grab him and his fingers closed on nothing. Severus' eyes had closed and his head had tilted back, looking blank and cold…dead. One last lunge and Lucius fingers found Severus' hair with a death grip. He wrenched him from the water pulling more than one strand of Severus' hair from his head -- oh well, he'd say he was sorry later.

When Severus finally broke the surface of the frigid water there was no reaction, he wasn't breathing. ..

+END+

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