A/N: Happy birthday to meeee! Upon the morrow—well, at about 5:20 am, actually—I shall be 25! And a special shout out to my friend Dan, and to Edgar Allen Poe, whose birthdays January 19th also is. Thank you all for your wonderful reviews and birthday wishes! I present this chapter to celebrate! Enjoy!

Announcement/Schmooze: Voting has now opened on the 2005 OWL Awards at owl dot tauri dot org! My stories "Harry Potter and the Battle of Wills," "Duel," "Dumbledore's Men," "Legilimens," and "Offensive Magic" are up for multiple categories, as are Mum's stories "Tea & Sympathy," and "Blanket!" Please register and vote between now and January 31st!

Chapter Ten: Heart

"Potter!" Severus shouted. His voice seemed to echo on forever. "Potter, where are you?" The words faded away into the darkness.

Frustrated, he looked around. The place looked more or less the same as it had during the Seeing…although perhaps it was somewhat darker still. The specters inhabiting the place had said that the darkness was due to Potter as well as the Horcrux. But what exactly that meant for them, Snape could only guess.

"Damn it." He started walking. As before, the shades moved around him without paying any notice, and he wove through them in search of some sign of where Potter might have gone. There was no door this time, no way out that he could see.

He looked around for Hermione Granger's likeness, who had given Potter the hint before, but she did not seem at all aware of him. Still, if he could not find his way out of here, he could hardly guide Potter in expelling the Horcrux. So he went toward Potter's friends. "Granger?" She did not so much as look at him. "Hermione Granger?" Nothing. "Ginevra? Ron Weasley!"

Still nothing. Growling aloud, Severus observed that the figures of Potter's friends did not appear as they had during the Seeing; they looked less glamorized, more as Severus himself knew them to be. Would Potter's absence account for that? And how the hell was he going to find the boy?

Glancing past the group, he started at the sight of Draco Malfoy wandering along. Well, Potter had known Draco, so it stood to reason—Draco looked at him. Only for a moment, but the boy, looking just as Severus remembered him, met his eyes.

"Draco?" Severus breathed. The shade stopped where he was, still gazing at Severus, though he made no move to come closer. Severus hurried toward him. "Do you see me?"

"You see me," Draco answered, in that hazy manner that Potter's friends had addressed him previously. "You're looking in the wrong place."

"I have to find Harry Potter," Severus told him. "Where must I go?"

Draco looked puzzled. "Go to him," he said, as if it were obvious.

"That's what I'm trying to do! Where is he?"

"Not here," Draco said.

"I KNOW that!" Severus shouted, and to his surprise, Draco stepped back, looking hurt. "Draco, I'm sorry, I…" Wait.

This was not the Draco Malfoy that Potter knew. Nor was this a Draco Malfoy who Potter would probably ever imagine. This was…

My Draco.

The Draco he had tried so desperately to protect, not only on Albus's orders but for the boy's own sake, and failed. This was the Draco he saw in his dreams and nightmares, in those last moments before the death he had not expected, a relatively merciful death by the Dark Lord's standards, but one that would haunt all who witnessed it for the rest of their lives.

"This place," he said to Draco, looking past him at the shades of Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy, who were not approaching but watched from a distance. "This is not Potter's soul. It's mine?"

"No, it's his," Draco said. "It's also yours."

"We've been joined somehow?" Severus frowned. This did not bode well. Keeping his mind and soul separate from his subject was one of the key requirements of the exorcism.

Narcissa came up behind her son, putting her hands upon his shoulders and drawing him to her in a way that reminded Snape of Lupin with Potter. "You have been joined for a long time," she said. "But this is the end. You must go back."

"Back…back from the end…to the beginning," Severus wracked his brains, trying to decipher this riddle. "The beginning of what?"

"Of the end."

Severus wished there was something handy for him to kick. Maybe if Granger or one of the Weasleys were closer by, but it would take too long. "What is the end? When was the beginning?" Balling his fists in frustration, he blurted, "Help me, Narcissa. I do not understand what you're trying to tell me!"

There was sympathy in her eyes, and for a moment, he feared she would not be able to explain any more. But then, she said softly, "The end is darkness, Severus. For you, for him. You must return to where the darkness began. You will find him there. That is where he will fall, and hope will be lost for both of you."

"The end…you mean if the Horcrux takes us both," Severus murmured. She did not answer, but something told him he was on the right track. "If we cannot stop it, its darkness will destroy us. Where it began…" He struggled to think. Did she mean where the Horcrux had begun, when Potter was an infant? That would have been the first touch on the boy's soul, but what had Severus had to do with that? He had returned to Dumbledore to try to save the Potters, but…would that really be the beginning of the end?

He glanced at Narcissa and Draco, and suspected they could hear his thoughts. Well, if this was his soul, that stood to reason. "It would not be when the Horcrux was made then, when he was a child?" Again, no response, but he knew he was correct. "So the beginning of the end would be something more recent, something that affected us both directly. Something to do with the arrival of darkness.

The arrival…the spread…THINK, man!

"The second war," he whispered. "When the Dark Lord used Potter's blood to restore his life, darkness returned. I returned to him, he began attacking Potter's mind."

Memories flooded his head of Harry Potter three years ago—trying to teach him Occlumency and blocked by the boy's stumbling block of sheer fury, born of the resentment and fear of years. Born in the horror of the Triwizard Tournament and Cedric Diggory's murder, the Dark Lord's return…the boy's guilt. Severus had felt it. At the time, he had laughed at it.

Now, it all fit.

He turned around and saw light, as though at the end of a tunnel out of the dark. Without a look backward, he charged toward it. Wind swept around him, and suddenly he was no longer in the inky blackness, although the relative darkness of night still surrounded him.

He was in a cemetery. Specifically, the cemetery: Little Hangleton. This was where it had happened. Severus had arrived two hours late, under much suspicion, and nearly paid for the delay with his life, but in the end, he'd managed to convince the Dark Lord of his continuing loyalty.

The only problem was, there was no sign of the Dark Lord, or the Death Eaters…or Potter. And a glance at the moon told him that this was the hour when the Dark Lord had risen; he remembered that moment vividly, when the Dark Mark had burned in his arm as he sat in the stands at the Tournament.

So where the hell were they?

Help me…

He spun around. "POTTER!" His call echoed just as it had before, away into nothing. "WHERE ARE YOU?"

No response, except the voice that was more in his mind than in his ears. Let the police come…anyone…please, help me…

"Damn it, where the hell are you," he muttered furiously. If he wasn't here, why could Severus hear him? It sounded as if…those words might have been his thoughts at that moment…not the sort of thing that would go through Potter's head now, but back then, he was only fourteen.

He would have been terrified beyond measure. It wasn't all that difficult to acknowledge it; if Severus had been the one bound to that tombstone in the manner that Pettigrew and the others had described, watching the Dark Lord return, he too might have been all but paralyzed with sheer horror. And Harry Potter had been a child. He would have had even less of a fighting chance than Severus.

So why wasn't he here?

This could not be where the spread of the darkness had begun. So when had it begun?

At the death of Sirius Black, when the Dark Lord had possessed him? For Potter that might make sense, but that event had no real significance for Severus. Or was his fate tied to Potter's only through the exorcism?

He could not say exactly why or how, but he knew that was not the case. At some point before this day, Severus Snape and Harry Potter's destinies had become intertwined, irrevocably so. There was no doubt that Severus would share the boy's end, whatever that was.

But when?

Wait…perhaps the rise of the darkness would not necessarily be due to some advance by the Dark Lord. Perhaps it had happened when Potter had first tried to exorcise the Horcrux from himself.

Or…the day after, the day the Dark Lord had been destroyed. The day Severus and the boy had fought their last duel—and chose to endure a future together rather than one in the spotlight of the wizarding public.

Now that made sense.

And with a thought, he was there, on that blood-soaked pasture surrounding the ruins of the old Muggle manor house where the Dark Lord had set up his last headquarters. This was where Potter had been dragged after his capture; this was where the Order had caught up with him and engaged the Death Eaters while Potter fought and destroyed the Dark Lord. This was where Severus Snape and Harry Potter had thrown themselves into battle with each other…each hoping to destroy himself.

"So where…the hell…ARE YOU?" he shouted into empty space.

Where would Potter be waiting if not here? Would Severus just keep searching these memories until his body's strength ran out and he and Potter were found dead in that room, their energy sapped by the Horcrux and the exorcism magic?

Was the boy already dead?

He told me why he trusted you. You were the only one with the courage to do what he wanted. The only one with the courage to kill him.

He remembered Potter saying that. For some reason, it had angered Severus beyond all reason to know that Potter had learned the truth. He had not wanted Potter to understand. He preferred to hate and be hated by that boy.

You were Dumbledore's man all along; you came back to our side because you thought you had violated a Wizard's Debt to my father by telling Voldemort about the prophecy! You came back because of your HONOR! You, Severus Bloody Snape, actually had HONOR!

Potter had seemed just as angry as Severus to have learned those things.

Unsure of whether the voice in his mind was merely his own memory or some vague echo of the words that had been spoken here, he listened, trying to make sense of it all.

He made you promise to kill him, if it ever came down to him or me! YOU KILLED HIM BECAUSE HE ASKED YOU TO!

Such rage, Potter had expressed, as if the true nature of Dumbledore's death was more hateful to him than the belief that it had been ordinary murder.

I swore to give you the same loyalty I had given him, once it was over.

This was the first time he'd heard or remembered his own words. They had been bitter on his lips then, and were bitter in his mind now…as was the surge of emotion that accused him of breaking that oath he had made.

You did not deserve his love.

Neither did you.

How rivalrous they had been on that score.

He knew I was the only one with the courage and the loyalty to do as he asked.

That had been his only consolation in the days after Albus's death, after Draco, Narcissa, and Lucius had died. That had been his source of rage when the presumptuous little brat had called him a coward, never imagining what Severus had been forced to do for Albus.

He knew I loved him.

And yet…Potter had managed to come up with the one response that could counter it. Severus had known that he was beaten, by Potter and by his own conscience. It had been a bitter concession, that the boy's loyalty to Albus had equaled his own.

"Wait…" Severus whispered aloud. "Albus?"

Severus…Severus…please…

"No," he murmured.

Trust your instincts, Severus.

It made sense in a bitterly ironic way. There was one other place, one other moment in which Snape's and Potter's fates had been thrown together, a pivotal moment, exceptional in the sheer horror it had been for them both, unequaled in the pain its memory visited on Severus and the rage that Potter had expressed over it.

And it was the location of the one other key figure who was missing from that dark, lonely crowd in their souls. Or at least, it had marked an end there…

Never had I known such hate. I hated many things, many people at that moment, with more intensity than I ever had. I believed it was truly the end of my life as a redeemable human being.

Potter had been there, he had learned afterward. The sixteen-year-old boy had witnessed it, trapped under a Body Bind by Albus. Severus knew the boy had adored Albus…loved him. What must he have felt there?

My world has never been darker than at that moment. Perhaps for Harry Potter, it was the same.

Trembling with anticipation of a torture worse than any punishment the Dark Lord had ever visited upon him, Severus reached out in his mind and soul for the moment that had all but shattered his sanity, and stepped back into it.

The Dark Mark blazed green and terrible overhead, blotting out the stars.

The air at the top of the Astronomy Tower seemed even darker by comparison. Severus wished with all his heart to forget the whole thing, to turn away and flee this place, this living nightmare. But it was not possible.

For he had found Harry Potter. And Albus Dumbledore.

But the circumstances were not exactly as they had been that night; the wind was much higher, strong enough to unbalance a person. And there was only one person on top of the tower with the boy and the Headmaster.

Tom Riddle, his eyes red and malevolent, a mocking smile upon his face. It was he who controlled the wind, making it stronger, swirling around the tower until it threatened to sweep both Potter and Albus into the sky.

If he falls…

Don't let him push you over, Ginevra Weasley's shadow had said during the Seeing. And her brother's shade had said something about Potter being "on the edge."

This was what they meant. This was the night that had destined Severus and Potter to duel again after the Dark Lord's demise, to each loathe the other beyond anything else, even the Dark Lord.

He started to move forward, out of the shelter of the doorway where he had stood a year ago, and the wind instantly buffeted him, causing him to grab for the wall. And then he heard Potter crying out.

"Give me your hand! Please, just hold on!"

The boy was clinging to the wall, somewhat shielded from the gale, but he was reaching for Albus, whose position was by far the most precarious on the edge of the tower; he looked seconds away from being blown off. Blown off in much the same manner that Snape's Killing Curse had thrown him, Severus realized.

But Albus could not reach Potter, and the boy was far too small to last more than an instant in the wind's full force. If he let go of the wall, he would die. Severus noticed that Potter looked different: he was sixteen again. Come to think of it, Severus felt different himself; he too was exactly as he had been the night Albus…died. The Dark Mark was back, burning on his arm.

"You can't get to me, Harry!" Albus called out to him, as calm about his peril as he'd been that night. "You must stay!"

"NO!" the boy shouted, stubbornly trying to scuttle across the stones to Albus, but the wind nearly picked him right up.

"Harry, don't!"

"POTTER!" Severus shouted, inching along the wall toward him. "Stay where you are!"

And Tom Riddle spoke for the first time, his voice carrying easily over the wind. "Oh, look who's here, Harry! Better look sharp, it's the assassin himself!"

Potter twisted around to look, and Severus thought he saw red in the boy's eyes, but somehow he knew that it was not due to any presence of Riddle or the Horcrux inside Potter at this moment. It was sheer fury, hatred in its purest form.

"GET AWAY!" Potter practically screamed, trying to draw his wand, but the wind pulled at him each time he let go with even one hand. "STAY AWAY FROM HIM!"

"I'm not going to hurt him, you stupid child!" Severus bellowed over the growing roar of the wind. "I'm trying to keep you BOTH from ending up dead!"

"He's lying, of course," Riddle said casually, strolling back and forth across the Tower as if to show off how easily he could move. "He'd kill anyone to save himself."

Breathing heavily, clutching at the wall, the boy gave Snape one more poisonous glare as the wind grew still stronger and looked desperately over his shoulder at Albus. "Professor, hold on! I'm coming!"

"You can't, Harry!" Albus cried, sounding genuinely anguished. He had never grown so distressed over Severus no matter how imperiled or injured he was. The observation rankled even now.

But that stupid, stubborn boy was determined to get himself killed trying to save an already-dead man. He inched slowly away from the wall toward the overlook, eyes tearing in the gale, fear naked on his face, but still he persisted. Severus tried to inch over after him and yank the little idiot back, but he was too far away; another moment and Potter would surely be swept off the Tower before he could even get close to Albus.

What came next, he should have seen coming. Albus looked despairingly at Harry, and then turned toward Severus. "Severus?"

What could he…oh my god, no. Not again. No, never…

"Please, Severus…" The words were deafening in his ears, echoing over and over until he wanted to scream out denial at the Dark Mark, and at Riddle. Albus looked as if he wanted to let go, but he did not seem able to. "Please, Severus…save Harry."

Potter paused in his approach, shocked. But Severus was not so much. Those words, although they had not been spoken, had hung in the air between them that night as surely as the ones Potter had heard.

The real motive. Not Draco's salvation, not my work. Harry Potter.

Bitterness surged through him, blood from an old wound reopened; he was disgusted. After all he had done, all he had tried to do, he had wound up here again, forced to relive the worst moment of his life, all for the sake of Harry Bloody Potter! Hate and revulsion churned in his insides. He had risked his life for the boy's, now he was risking his soul for Potter's as well. Not to mention his sanity.

"Oh dear, such a dilemma," Tom Riddle said. "You didn't know that was the real reason, did you, Harry?"

Potter was looking from Albus to Severus, then back again, slowly shaking his head in disbelief. "No," he whispered, the words snatched away by Riddle's storm. "No, Professor, please…don't…"

"I have no choice, Harry," Albus said softly. "You would never understand. You have always been more valuable to the Order than I, but your feelings have a way of blinding you to that. If it becomes a choice of my life or yours…"

"No!" Potter pleaded, trembling. There were tears on his face, but not from the wind anymore. Severus was startled by the intensity of the boy's grief. "Please…not for me, I can't!"

He truly would prefer to die than to let Albus go.

And Albus knew it too. "Severus!" he cried as the boy lunged forward. "Please! Now!"

He had never refused Albus. He had never been able to. Not even now.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Technically, Severus supposed he shouldn't have to hex a shade in a memory, but it didn't really matter now. Whether a symbolic representation or not, what would happen if Potter fell from the Tower would mean the end of both of them. So he threw the curse, saw it fling Albus over the edge just as before, and also just as before, launched himself at once into fulfilling the Headmaster's wish. To do so now, just as before, had the side benefit of forcing him to concentrate on matters other than the sight of his only friend dying by his own hand.

Potter wasn't Petrified this time, and his scream seemed like a part of the cyclone, containing enough grief and rage to consume him. He let go of the wall entirely and tried to surge over the edge after Albus, but Severus skidded across the Tower, driven by the wind, and grabbed him. His weight was enough—just enough—to pin the two of them down where the overlook wall met the floor, and the top of that wall suddenly seemed far too low and easy to fall from. Beyond the Tower, his brief glance warned him that there were no Hogwarts grounds, no earth to land upon that would fully snuff out their lives. There was only darkness, nothingness.

Something far worse than death.

Riddle must have sensed Snape's horror, because he was laughing. Potter, on the other hand, seemed completely oblivious to their peril; he was screaming like a mad thing, thrashing and clawing at Severus, either trying to buck him off or tear out his eyes.

"No! NO! You bastard, you murdering—I'll KILL YOU! I should've—you—god, you murderer! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! GET OFF ME! GET OFF!"

Small as he was, Potter was dangerously strong when deranged by grief, and Severus could barely keep a grip on him. "Damn it, Potter, STOP IT! You're going to kill us both!"

"I don't care!" the boy screamed, trying to wrench away. "I don't care! I hate you—let me go! You killed him, you killed him! He TRUSTED YOU! YOU KILLED HIM!"

"He ASKED me to kill him, you stupid brat!" Severus shouted. "I was doing what he wished, not following my own selfish desires!"

"You're a liar!" Potter hissed. "You've never tried to protect anyone but yourself!"

Fury built up from somewhere deep inside, and Severus hauled off and hit Potter in the face, as hard as he could. "Did you miss what Albus said, you stupid, selfish brat? He died for YOU, because you were too bloody STUPID to save yourself! I had to kill him to save YOU! ALWAYS YOU!"

He was half-blind, hate burning him up inside, his heart blazing with rage at this creature who had been the cause of so much misery for so long. He wanted Harry Potter to suffer as he had suffered, to pay for what Albus had forced Severus to do…Severus pulled back, baring his teeth savagely, and wrapped his hands around the boy's neck.

To be continued…

Coming Soon: Trapped at the focal point of all their anger, their fears, and their pain, in the memory of a place that lives on as a never-healing wound in both their souls, both Severus and Harry of letting their future be destroyed by the demons of their past. There is still a chance of casting out the remnant of Tom Riddle, but for these two people who so loved and grieved Albus Dumbledore, survival will mean doing what now seems impossible in Chapter Eleven: Darkness!

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