The Houses Competition (or THC)
House: Gryffindor
Class: Herbology
Category: drabble
Prompt(s) chosen: Song lyric "And I miss the way you make me feel, and it's real when we watched the sunset over the castle on the hill."
Word Count: 989
Beta(s): secretfanficlover, TheFrenchPress, MomoDesu
Disclaimers/triggers: canon character death, drinking, depression
He reached for the bottle of Firewhisky, savouring the burn that flooded his body. It seeped into his limbs, warming him against the frigid air outside of Hogwarts that surrounded him. Severus Snape was alive, but he was alone. Alone as he had ever been, which was saying something. He missed him, Regulus Black. A man who had not been his to have and hold for so long, yet he yearned for him. He needed someone, anyone.
The only thing that loving someone led to was pain. It was a monster that could never be killed.
The war just kept taking from him all of it. But so had Albus Dumbledore, Lily Evan's son, and even Regulus too. They all took a piece of him. They all wanted their share; a little shard of the man who had once been Severus Snape, but the only thing that was left was a war machine. All that remained of him was something to use and then throw out once they were done with him.
Severus had become a weapon and didn't know that it would ever change. He was Albus Dumbledore's murderer, and nothing was ever going to change that.
He stood upon the hillside with the castle behind him. Hogwarts. The place that had once felt like home, the only one he had ever known. Then everything changed, and it was entirely his fault. It was a living hell for him, worsened by his stubborn insistence on pushing anyone who tried to get close to him away.
He used to sit there and watch the sunsets with Regulus, laughing, dreaming, and planning about the life that they would have together.
"I don't want to do this anymore! I don't want to be like this anymore!" he cried, his voice cracking. Part of him wanted to cry, but there were no tears left. Even if his tear ducts hadn't been empty, Severus wouldn't waste them on himself. He was no better than the monsters he served.
A brief touch ghosted over his back, bringing him back to alertness. He cringed away from it, but then the man spoke. "You aren't a monster, Severus, and this isn't only your fault."
"Regulus?" he cried, hoping beyond hope that the man wasn't dead, that he had simply been in hiding all of these years.
Severus turned around to face the man he had loved more than anyone before or since. Regulus didn't look much different than the last time he had seen the man. Shoulder length black curly hair, pale skin, bright blue eyes that shone even in the starlight. But he also wasn't a day over nineteen, which meant he truly had died all those years ago.
Regulus nodded but said nothing.
"How?"
"You work at a school where ghosts roam the halls. Surely you know that they are real, don't you? I know you, Sev, and you are not a fool."
"Ghosts can't touch people, Regulus. They aren't solid either. So I repeat, how and what are you?"
"Time has changed you, hasn't it?"
"Your disappearance changed me. Lily's death changed me. This war has changed me. Killing…"
"I…I am sorry, Sev," Regulus cried. "I should have…"
"What happened to you? Did the Dark Lord kill you? Did the Order? Tell me, please. I need to know." Something broke inside of him. Something that had been held together by snark and sheer stubbornness had finally given away.
"It's a long story…"
The harsh Scottish wind whipped over the hillside, stinging Severus' eyes and causing his cloak to billow in it.
"I need to hear it," Severus said firmly, reaching out for the man that he had loved and lost. "Please, tell me, I have to know before…"
"Before you have to allow him to kill you," Regulus muttered, all semblance of decorum going three sheets to the wind. "I know about it, Sev, that's why I was allowed to come and visit you. When someone is so close to death, the veil is opened ever-so-slightly, and sometimes when someone is sacrificing themselves for others, they are allowed a small comfort. What happened to me doesn't matter, at least not now. I am here to make it easier for you when you—"
"When I die," Severus said sharply, crossing his arms around himself, trying to keep out the cold. "You don't have to beat around the bush, Reg, I know there is no other possible outcome. But I need to know what happened to you. It's all I need to have peace, nothing more, nothing less."
"I am dead because I too believed Voldemort shouldn't be able to live forever, that no one should. Because I was raised to believe that when death comes for you should face it like an old friend."
"You are far more than an old friend to me, Regulus."
"And I could say the same about you, Severus. But the people who told those old stories were rather prudish, don't you think?"
"The biggest of prudes," Severus sighed breathlessly. "I am sorry I am not as young as I used to be."
"You think that matters to me? I am beyond that, and soon you will be too."
"Is that a promise?" He could only hope for peace, and it seemed that was what Regulus was promising him.
Regulus whispered, "It is." And then he was gone as if he had never been there at all.
Though he was alone once more, Severus felt a glimmer of hope in his chest: he wasn't truly alone. He would have Regulus there waiting for him, the man who reminded him of better days when they used to watch sunsets over the castle on the hill together. That's all that mattered in the end. Not even death could defeat love.
He turned on a heel and climbed that hill back to Hogwarts and the fate that he was destined to face.