Cheers broke out around Snape, and Draco was standing there looking stunned. He didn't know why but he had to get him out of there, the Ministry was coming. He didn't know why but they were going to show up and they'd all be in trouble.
"Out of here, quickly." Someone else was speaking and moving his body. Hands that weren't his grabbed Draco by the collar and pulled him away. Snape didn't know where he was.
And they ran and ran down the corridors, why were they running, why were all those people shouting?
Dumbledore was holding up a book. "Joy in the Morning, have you read this Severus? It's simply delightful."
It looked like a lot of nonsense to Snape but he took it and read it. He liked it. A bit. He'd forgotten to give it back though.
That idiot Rowle was shooting jets of green light everywhere and Snape shielded Draco with his own body because what did it matter if the green light hit him?
But why were they running?
Dumbledore was standing with him in front of the Mirror of Erised.
"I cannot tell you that it does no good to linger on regret, because I have spent most of my life doing so," he said.. "But you must find some means of making peace with it."
But what did he mean? How could he possibly make peace with everything that had happened? Why was he always speaking in bloody riddles...
He was running through the grounds now, the wind hitting his face.
"Stupefy!"
Snape spun around. Potter. What was he doing out in the grounds this late at night?
"Run, Draco," said his voice.
Potter raised his wand and Snape knew what he was thinking without having to even look into his thoughts. As though they were two halves of the same mind. He blocked the curse.
There was crackling and heat and orange light. Hagrid's hut was on fire and Snape didn't know why but he knew he couldn't put it out.
Potter raised his wand again.
"Cruc-"
Snape couldn't believe the filth coming out of the boy's mouth. That reckless, arrogant bastard, defiling himself like that after everything he'd done for him. Snape blocked the curse.
"No Unforgiveable Curses from you Potter! You haven't got the nerve or the ability."
Snape knew what he was going to do before the spell even left his mouth. He blocked him again. The fire lit the boy's face, exaggerated his rage until he was demonic, inhuman. Why was he like this?
Snape blocked another curse, and another and another.
The boy fell to the ground, screaming and writhing, had one of his curses backfired? Snape turned and saw Rowle standing over the boy, sneering. That sadistic bastard, torturing a child.
"NO!" he yelled "Have you forgotten our orders? Potter belongs to the Dark Lord-we are to leave him. Go!"
Rowle had never liked him much, but he took off running and didn't look back.
And Potter was his father and he was jeering at him and pointing his wand-"Sectum-"
"No Potter!" Snape blasted him back to the ground. "You dare use my own spells against me? It was I who invented them-I, the half-blood prince. And you'd use your inventions against me like your filthy father would you? I don't think so-no."
Snape blasted the boy's wand out of reach.
"Kill me then!" yelled Potter. "Kill me like you killed him, you coward-"
Killed, the boy said he'd killed...how dare he be the one...Snape couldn't think...someone screamed and his throat was fire.
"DON'T CALL ME COWARD!"
Snape slashed his wand and ran, ran until he was outside of the gates, why couldn't he run out of his own skin, fly away?
He spun into the air.
The manor house was mocking him. All the downstairs windows were lit as brightly as though with electricity, a defiant spiteful lustre. Snape wished he could smash them open and burn the whole place down until it was lifeless and black, no trace of mockery in the defeated rubble.
He couldn't take another step but he had to, they were all waiting for him.
Nothing happened. Just the usual business. Just another day.
He said it over and over again until he believed it and took a deep breath.
The noise hit his ears the second he walked inside. Alecto cheered and Amycus clapped him on the back and even Rowle gave him a nod.
Bellatrix raised her glass. "The man of the hour," she said, and he hated the way her eyes were smiling, was she mocking him?
Snape looked straight at the Dark Lord, who was standing by the fireplace in the drawing room.
The corners of his mouth turned up. "So the old fool got what he deserved? Well done, Severus. Well done indeed."
"Thank you, my Lord," said Snape. He forced his lips into a smile.
The Hogwarts grounds were beautiful this time of year, bluebells and thistle popping up everywhere. He ought to go for a walk later, see them in the moonlight.
"Celebrate with us, Severus," said a voice. The Dark Lord was gesturing around the room, which had turned into a party, everyone talking and drinking and toasting each other.
"I thank you for the invitation, my Lord."
The Dark Lord was watching him. Snape mind wandered back to the Hogwarts grounds and the mist over the lochs.
Snape was standing by the shore of the black lake and Dumbledore's head popped out of the water. His robes were bunched up in a heap by the shore.
"Care to join me, Severus?"
Snape just stared at the nutter with his mouth open. He couldn't see the old man but he knew his eyes were laughing.
"I do enjoy a good swim in the morning."
Snape's body was moving about the room, being congratulated, patted on the back. But he was hovering above them like a beam of light, looking down.
Time passed, he didn't know how much, when his thoughts wandered to Draco. Snape hadn't seen him since he got to the manor. He excused himself and walked up and down the halls until the laughter and shouting grew too distant to hear, looking into all the rooms he passed. He found the boy in the family room, slumped on the sofa with his head in the hands.
Narcissa was standing at the doorway. "He won't be punished," she whispered. "But it's been so hard on him."
Snape gestured to the boy. "Can I-?"
Narcissa nodded.
Snape sat down on the opposite side of the sofa, fiddling with his hands and looking at the photographs on the shelves. Lucius and Narcissa and Draco in front of some white stone houses, Greece maybe. He didn't really know what to say.
Draco sat up straighter and Snape was startled by his red, swollen eyes. "What are you doing here?"
Snape bristled. He'd just saved the boy from something, he couldn't really remember what. "I thought I'd see how you're holding up." The words came out harsher than he'd intended.
Draco scowled. "How could you just sit there like nothing's happened? Don't you ever feel anything-"
"Draco, enough!" snapped Narcissa, stepping towards the sofa. "Do you have any idea what he's done for you?" She leaned in closer and lowered her voice to a whisper. "And for Circe's sake, don't act like you're in mourning. Do you have any idea how that makes us look?"
Draco stood up and pushed past his mother. "Better than you."
Narcissa watched him walk away, looking stricken. Her eyes darted towards Snape on the sofa and she recovered herself, sucking in her breath and straightening her back as though on cue. "I'm sorry Severus. He's been under a great deal of strain. But you know that."
Snape didn't know what to say to this. He didn't know why Draco should be so distraught.
Narcissa's eyes turned sharp, scrutinizing. "Is everything all right?"
"I'm fine. Just tired." He wondered if Narcissa believed this.
She put a hand to his arm and Snape flinched as though she had burned him.
"Perhaps you should get some rest then."
"I think I will."
"You're welcome to use one of the guest bedrooms."
"Thank you," said Snape. But he had no intention of staying.
He stood up and made his way to down corridors and staircases until the singing and shouting and laughter grew louder. Likely they'd all be so deep in their revelry they wouldn't notice him.
He walked until he was outside the gates and he'd just begun to spin when he thought he saw two figures in the distance, one so enormous he could only be Rowle. They were up to something, but he didn't care just then, he had to get out of there.
When he stopped spinning he was on the edge of a cliff that dropped sharply to the sea below. He didn't know why that particular spot had come into his head, maybe because it was as far away as he could Apparate, the northernmost point in Britain. He felt as though he were on the edge of the world, like he could just hurl himself off.
He sank to the ground and screamed until his throat hurt and vomited on the rocks. When everything was out he seized a fistful of hair and pulled it out but it didn't hurt enough. He pulled again and again and again until his head ached.
He ignored his aching head and the stale acid smell of his vomit and listened to the sea crashing on the rocks below the cliff. He could get a running start and throw himself off the edge, not a bad way to go really. Just like flying, and then nothing.
He wondered what everyone would think when they found his body. Was he important enough to make the front page of the Prophet, or would he get a bare-bones obit on page B5 under an adverstisement for Skele-Gro?
Severus Snape, 37, late of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, predeceased by Eileen and Tobias Snape, mourned by no one.
He imagined the rest of the Order, Minerva's grim satisfaction, Potter's smug vindication.
He couldn't do it. He lay face down on the rocks, waiting to waste away there, where no one would think to look for him.
Get up.
He only ever heard her voice when he was at his lowest. Never when he was just sitting and reading a book or something. The way it had been when they were children, high-pitched and pleasant and just a bit nasally.
"I can't."
You can.
Two words, just two words, but they were a talisman against his own despair. You can. He could. He had to.
He flattened his hands against the ground and pushed himself up and took a step, then another. He stood and stared out at the sea.
Graihagh threw down her quill and rubbed her forehead. Owain had left for the night and she was sitting at her work table in the back room of the shop, Cate's letters spread out in front of her. The first and second ones had been short and to the point. Just wondering how you are and have you made a decision yet? By the time she wrote the third letter she didn't even care any more if Graihagh wanted to join.
I just want to see you.
The writing was messier than usual and Graihagh wondered if she'd been upset when she wrote it, or just in a hurry.
Graihagh had no idea what to write, because she wanted to see her just as badly, but how could she look her in the face and let her down?
Dear Cate,
I want to see you too. Sorry I'm such a bloody coward.
She crumpled up the parchment and threw it against the wall.
She slumped into a chair with her head in her hands and sat there a long time, until the dark and the quiet made her so nervous she couldn't stay any longer. She locked the door behind her and hurried back to the flat.
Milo was sitting at the little table in the kitchen eating some takeaway fish and chips, but Graihagh went straight to her room. She waited until Milo's bedroom door closed and changed into a short-sleeve top and jeans, slipping the bollan cross into her pocket. She grabbed some Muggle money and walked out of the flat as quietly as she could, because she knew Milo wouldn't like where she was going.
The pub was packed and Graihagh stood in the entrance a moment scanning the tables for familiar faces until she found some, sitting at a far corner. They beckoned her over and she was happy enough to go join them. This wasn't like in the wizarding world, where just about everyone her own age had gone to school with her. They didn't know her well enough to judge her. She could hide in her own anononymity.
They stayed there until closing time and when she'd set her glass down and stood up the woman next to her raised her eyebrows just slightly and nodded towards the door. Graihagh followed her outside. She wouldn't get anything too strong, just a few sleepers maybe, something to take the edge off.
She didn't do this very often, and she didn't know why she bothered with it at all, when she could easily make herself a potion. Maybe because it was more dangerous this way. More pleasurable and more punishing.
Someone seized her and pulled her off the pavement. Graihagh cried out.
"It's just me," said Milo. He narrowed his eyes at the woman Graihagh had been walking with and the woman gave Graihagh a questioning look and left with the others.
"Why didn't you tell me where you were going? I've been looking everywhere for you."
"I was just going for a walk, I didn't think I'd be gone that long-"
"And you just happened to walk to this particular pub and stay til two in the morning?"
"Yeah, well..." Graihagh's voice trailed off rather stupidly.
Milo let out an exasperated noise. "Merlin, Graihagh." He glanced around the street. "Let's find a place where I can Disillusion us."
"Fynn not with you?"
"No," said Milo, and Graihagh supposed he didn't want to bother them this time of night.
They walked until they couldn't see anyone, and Milo pulled his wand out of the pocket of his jeans.
Something jumped in front of them.
"Incarcerous!"
Graihagh went so rigid she couldn't cry out, couldn't even struggle against the invisible ropes. She just stared ahead at distant figures down the street and watched as they went into a house, where they'd never see her.
She thought they were moving, being dragged along the pavement to a narrow gap between two buildings. She turned her head so she could look at the two hooded figures.
Thorfinn Rowle was staring straight at her. She couldn't move.
The second figure reached up to scratch his head and his hood fell back.
Milo's face contorted in shock. "Evander?"
"I take it he's a relative of yours?" said Thorfinn, voice edged with impatience.
"Cousin," said the figure. He was thin and slight and looked vaguely like Milo but his voice was much different, rougher.
"You're not backing out on me are you?"
Evander couldn't seem to look at them. "No."
"You have the Portkey?"
Evander pulled a woman's shoe out of his pocket and tapped his wand to it. Graihagh wondered where it'd come from.
"Portu-"
"Wait!" Graihagh had shouted out of panic more than anything. She wracked her brains for some way to stop them.
"That's not a legal Portkey, is it? The Ministry'll be after you in minutes."
Thorfinn let out a derisive huff. "Half the Ministry is on our side now."
"Not the Manx Ministry."
"Yeah, but we'll be gone by the time they get here, won't we?"
"Portus."
Graihagh's chest ached and she couldn't move, couldn't think, could only stare at the building in front of her. All she could see were the cracks and gouges like scars in the flesh-coloured stones.
Thorfinn and Evander walked behind them, pushing them towards a wrought-iron gate. They stopped and raised their left arms and the gates creaked open.
Graihagh sucked in her breath. She knew these grounds. She'd pruned these hedges, planted some of the trees, eaten dinner at the manor house. She didn't understand why they'd taken them there. The Malfoys were blood purists, a bit strange, maybe, a bit too interested in Thorfinn and Milo, but they were nice enough people. She'd heard something awhile ago, about Mr. Malfoy breaking into the Ministry and attacking the Potter boy, but she wasn't sure she believed it.
They walked past the mermaid fountain and Graihagh half expected to see Draco flying his broom through it the way he used to do. Graihagh closed her eyes and listened to the trickling of the water. It was midsummer and she was sitting there with Milo, drinking cold pumpkin fizz after a long day of work...
Thorfinn pushed them off the path and into the garden, among the hedges and trees. The light of the fairies was warm against the deep blue sky and the gardens were full of music, the steady chorus of crickets and frogs. They were just there for the evening, just there to stroll around the gardens, just like old times. Nothing else was happening. She breathed in the night air but her breath was sharp and shaky. Thorfinn stopped and Graihagh wondered if he was going to let them go.
They were outside a stone garden shed, large enough to be a small cottage. The windows were pitch black, staring, like endless empty tunnels waiting to suck her in so far she'd never come out. She couldn't move. Milo's breathing was fast and shallow but he'd gone rigid and stopped shaking.
The door squeaked so loudly she wondered if someone might hear it. Maybe someone was in hearing range, Mrs. Malfoy or someone. She wanted to cry out but she knew Thorfinn would silence them.
She was working on a new potion, to stop muscle cramps, and she was so close. She just needed to tweak a few things and then she'd have it. And she'd never written that letter to Cate. She didn't want to go, not now.
Thorfinn shoved them inside the shed.
"Evander," said Milo, voice so hoarse she could barely hear him. "Please."
Evander lowered his eyes and Graihagh saw a ghost of a chance in the way his jaw tightened.
"Please-"
"Shut your fucking mouth," said Thorfinn. He turned to Evander and nodded to the door. "I'll take it from here."
Evander gave Milo one last look and turned towards the door.
"Wait!" said Milo.
Evander turned to look at him.
"My father's going to find out about this. He's on the Wizengamot."
"Not anymore," said Evander.
Thorfinn snorted. "Didn't you hear? They paid him off, sent him packing to an early retirement in the Caymans so he could get strung out on his potions in private and stop being an embarrassment."
Milo looked so stricken Graihagh knew it was the first he'd heard of it. He hadn't spoken to his parents in years, there was no way he could have known, really. She reached out for him but her arms wouldn't move.
Evander hesitated by the door with his hands in his pockets, shifting on his feet like he couldn't make up his mind, and Thorfinn made an impatient noise.
"Get going, Selwyn."
Without another look at them Evander turned and closed the door behind him.
He'd sold out his own fucking cousin. Who were these people?
Graihagh couldn't see a thing, but she heard the swish of fabric and the dull shuffle of footsteps on the dirt floor. She struggled against the ropes but they wouldn't give.
"Lumos." The blue-white light made Thorfinn's body ghostly, exaggerated, comical almost. Sharp points of light reflected off the shovels and trowels and seceteurs hanging on the walls. She wondered if they were the same ones they'd used when they'd worked in the garden all those years ago.
If she could just reach them...
Thorfinn stood and stared at them so long Graihagh wondered if he'd just throw his head back and laugh and tell them it was all a joke, it was all good, did they want to join him in a bit of fun?
"I spent eight fucking years in Azkaban," said Thorfinn, his voice quiet, controlled, as though he'd been rehearsing. "Do you have any idea what it was like?"
Graihagh didn't know what to say, but he didn't seem to expect an answer.
"They put you in this cramped, dirty cell, probably an eighth of the size of this shed here-" he gestured around the room-"and do you know what's standing there right outside the bars? Fucking dementors. I had to sit there for eight years and relive all my worst memories and do you know what the worst one was?"
He stared them down, waiting. Graihagh shook her head.
"It was the two of you turning me in, getting me expelled. You were my friends, I trusted you with my life, and you went and betrayed me like the filthy little cowards you are. I lost everything, I couldn't even find a job. Do you have any idea what that's like?"
"I'm-I'm so sorry," said Graihagh, but that was a complete lie, and Thorfinn knew it.
"You lying little bitch," he hissed. His voice grew louder, more heated. "You're not sorry, either of you. You have no idea what it's like. But you're going to feel some of it now, aren't you?"
The blue-white tip of his wand was right in front of her, like a single star in the sky. Graihagh stared at it.
"Libero."
The ropes binding her and Milo vanished. Graihagh looked at her hands. He'd set them free, she couldn't believe it.
"Crucio!"
Graihagh broke her wrist once, when she was seven. She hadn't felt anything at first. She didn't think it would be so bad until the pain came, in waves and waves that made her throw up. This was worse, so much worse, and it didn't stop. She was ripped open. Her throat was fire and her eyes were screaming and it had to stop, she was going to kill herself if it didn't stop.
And then it was gone and she was on her hands and knees on the dirt floor, limp and wrung out. So that was it. He'd gotten his revenge, he'd let them go.
"Crucio."
Waves of pain spread through her. She threw up in the dirt. Someone was screaming.
"Stop!"
The pain left and Milo was in front of her, shielding her from Thorfinn.
Graihagh sat up on her knees and pulled at his shirt. "Milo, no-"
Thorfinn looked from her to Milo with a coldly amused expression, as though they'd done something daft. "You're fucking her, I suppose?" He raised his wand.
"Bet she's shit. Crucio!"
Milo's screams were unreal, a desperate trapped animal sound that was as bad as the pain.
The words tore their way through her throat. "Stop! Just stop!"
Thorfinn blasted her back against the wall and kept on going. His eyes were alive, excited, just the way they'd been all those years ago when they'd first learned how to do the curse. She never could've imagined it would lead to this. She should've known.
Milo kept on screaming, and Graihagh kept pulling him away, only to be blasted back against the wall again, and still Thorfinn didn't stop. Graihagh threw herself in front of Milo, shielding him.
"Crucio!"
She fell face-first into the dirt and the pain was back, she couldn't keep going. She just needed it to end, needed to black out.
And then it was gone. She collapsed on the floor and threw up again.
There was a long silence and Thorfinn just stood there as though deep in thought. She prayed he would kill them already.
"Lumos."
The shed was filled with blue-white light and she looked up.
"Follow me," said Thorfinn, and his voice was calm, strange.
Graihagh didn't question it. She glanced at Milo, who was lying next to her with his eyes closed.
"Milo," she whispered. "Get up."
Milo didn't move. She checked his wrist for a pulse and found one, weak, rapid. He was still alive. She shook him.
"Milo, we can go now."
He was as still as though asleep. Graihagh shook him harder but he still didn't move.
"Come," said Thorfinn's voice. Only she didn't think it was Thorfinn speaking.
"I can't. I can't move him."
Thorfinn knelt down and slipped his arms under Milo's, lifting him so gently that Graihagh knew it wasn't really him, and she understood-the Imperius Curse. But who had done it? Evander, maybe? But she didn't think so.
"Get up."
Graihagh was too weak to stand up. "I can't."
"You can."
The voice was so certain she almost believed it, and anyway, she had to. She spread her hands out on the dirt floor and pushed herself up. Her legs were shaking so hard she fell over.
"Try again."
She rested a minute and raised herself up on her legs, bending at the knees to get her balance and shifting her weight until she was standing. She took one step, then another.
"Good," said the voice. "Now follow me."
The door creaked open and the Thorfinn who wasn't Thorfinn carried Milo through the garden, back to the path and out the wrought-iron gate. Graihagh heard more footsteps, but she couldn't see anyone.
When they were well outside the gates the Thorfinn who wasn't Thorfinn slipped Milo into Graihagh's arms. "Take him to the Hog's Head Inn in Hogsmeade. Go to the back entrance and knock seven times, slowly."
Graihagh nodded. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
The figure just looked at her without speaking. She didn't know if whoever it was controlling him had heard her.
She slipped her arms under Milo's, draping his limp arm across her shoulder. Her legs were so weak she didn't see how she'd ever be able to do it.
"Concentrate," said the voice.
Graihagh nodded and balanced herself as best she could, looking over Milo's shoulder at the gate they'd just come through. She couldn't see who it was from that distance, but it was enough to know someone was watching out for her. She spun into the air.
A/N: Thanks so much for reading! I'm going to be a little looser with the POV switches in this fic-some chapters will be either just Snape or Graihagh, and some will have Graihagh's POV first. I'll make sure to be clear about whose it is, but if it gets confusing, please let me know:)
There's no way I'm going to be able to update every single week, but as long as I have something, I'll post it :)
