The Choice

I saw the nest first. A single egg lay inside, and I thought it odd as I knew there was a dozen the last time I had seen it. Even from here I could see the egg was damaged, probably from when we fell on it. So, it was dead too. The others must still live if they weren't here.

The wet gasping noise drew my attention again and I turned fully around. Snape lay on the ground, dark eyes staring at nothing as he gurgled around the blood that was choking him. His belly was sliced open from naval to sternum and a pool of red stained the pristine tile around him. "Snape!" I gasped, horrified at the sight as I ran to him. My knees hit the ground in the quickly spreading pool, but his blood didn't soak into the fabric of my trousers. I gripped his cold hand tightly between mine, and his eyes focused briefly on me before they returned to staring at nothing.

"Professor!" I tried again, but he didn't seem to even notice me at all.

"He can't hear you," Death spoke from behind me.

I turned to her; his hand still held tightly between mine. It felt colder. "Do something!"

"I am," she replied, and the tears spilled from my eyes.

"No!" I shouted. "Not that!" Death was doing something alright, just not what I wanted her too. "You have to save him."

She tilted her head curiously, like she couldn't understand what I was asking her. "Why?"

"What do you mean, why?" I snapped, turning back to Snape. I brought one hand up to tilt his face towards me, but his eyes continued to stare off into nothing. I wonder what he saw.

"His time is up; he gets no choice."

"But why not?" I cried, trying to stop the blood flowing from his wound. It didn't stain my skin…I couldn't even feel it. "Why do I get a choice, but he doesn't?!"

"Because," she answered after a long moment as Snape's breathing became more and more shallow. "Your soul is intact as well as your body. His body is done, child."

"Snape!" I sobbed, fisting my hands into his robes and shaking him. He didn't respond. I sat there and cried over the one man I had spent most of my tutelage hating. But he had saved me in the end, more than once actually. He didn't deserve to die like this. "What of his soul?" I asked, turning to her with a glare. An idea was forming in my mind, one that Hermione would have immediately hated. "Is his soul done?"

Death stared at me quizzically, and then she shook her head. "You cannot carry his soul, child."

"But why not," I angrily brushed the tears from my eyes, distracted by the lack of blood on my fingers for but a moment. If I could get his soul back, maybe Dumbledore could do something about his body. I wouldn't like sharing with him, but I had shared with Voldemort most of my life and I hadn't even noticed. Perhaps this would be the same. "I carried two souls around for over a decade!"

"No," she replied, shaking her head sadly. Her face morphed into one of pity and I turned from her. I couldn't bare the thought of it pitying me. "You carried but a shard, no more. If you took his soul, his would burn through yours and you will both parish."

"But…" I glanced around the empty place desperately. My mind screamed at me to think of something, anything! And that was when I saw it.

Death's eyes followed my gaze as I stared at the nest. "Aren't you a smart one," she commented softly, her lips quirking up at the corner.

Hope filled my chest at the words, her amusement solidifying my idea. "Could you do it?" She shook her head and I felt despair settle over me like a well-known blanket. I was used to this feeling, but I persisted. This was my last chance, my last option. "Why not?" Perhaps that body was damaged too.

"No, not damaged," she replied.

"But then why is it dead?"

She crouched next to me, her green eyes fixed upon the egg. "The shell was damaged, and the harsh environment leaked in. Their souls were collected the moment the first crack appeared. It was kinder that way."

My mind got hung up on the plural use as it was only one egg, but I couldn't let myself get distracted. Even now, I could see the train I was meant to board starting to fade around the edges. The longer I spent in this place, the less likely I would be able to return. I had to think of something quickly if we were to leave.

"Then why won't it work," I argued, grabbing her hands, and drawing her attention back to me. "That body is intact, his soul is intact! Why won't it work?"

She eased her hands out of my too tight grip and covered both of mine with gentle fingers. "Oh sweetling, I wish I could do this for you. But his soul is too much for one so small as they."

I blinked away the tears, throwing my head back and willing them to stop as I sniffled. I didn't want to wipe my face, didn't want to relinquish her comforting grip. I was done, out of options. I would leave here on one train, and he would leave on the other.

"It's not fair," I whispered, bowing my head and letting my dark locks spill around my face.

"I know," Death replied, standing slowly and drawing me up with her grip on my hands. Her hold was loose, I could have easily broken it, but I didn't. I let her pull me up until my feet were beneath me once more, my shoes in his pool of blood and stainless. The crimson fluid only seemed to touch him or the tile. This was such an odd place.

She released one of my hands and started to pull me towards the train I had chosen. When I looked at it, I could see that some of the cars had already completely faded. My time was nearly out. I followed her for a step, but Snape's gurgling turned my feet to stone and I just couldn't move. I couldn't leave him like this…I wouldn't.

Death turned back to me, her smile still soft as she approached. Her free hand caressed my cheek and brushed a dark lock behind an ear. "Leave him, child. There is nothing you can do."

Except…perhaps there was. "What do you mean his soul is too much? How much?" She looked at me quizzically, tilting her head and scrunching her brow. I wonder if that was how I looked when Hermione lectured me, hopping between subjects so quickly that I was barely able to follow. "How much is too much?"

She glanced back at the egg and then at the man dying at our feet. She chuckled, her smile turning up at the corner coyly. "Oh, you clever girl."

"Will it work?"

Death turned to looked at me, really look. Her face went slack, and she seemed to be staring at me, into me. Perhaps she was. "You would do this?" She asked, her confusion coloring her words. "You would share a part of yourself for him?"

I took a moment to think, to really think. This…this thing I was contemplating was crazy insane and even I could recognize that. There was a large chance, massive chance that Dumbledore wouldn't be able to fix what I was about to do. But it was the only thing I could think of, the only plan I had left.

My decision was made. If the body was too small for the soul, then perhaps it could be shared. I had a soul fragment within me before and it didn't affect any part of me as far as I was aware. What would another fragment change? "Will it work?" I asked again, slower.

"Yes," she replied after a long moment. "But not how you think."

"Nothing is how I think," I replied quickly, remembering her earlier words.

She laughed loudly, her head thrown back as her joyous peels echoed around the dead space. "Very well," Death giggled, her eyes glowing in a way that was distinctly the entity and not my mother at all. "You are not what I expected."

"No," I replied to her, watching as the humanity was stripped from it and she became a thing no longer representing my mum. It still wore her face, but now it looked like a death mask. "I never am."

It bent down, its limbs suddenly longer and thinner than they were a moment ago. I could see the color leaching from it with each second until it was as pale as the rest of the station. A clawed hand reached around me and into Snape's chest. I inhaled sharply at the ghastly sight of it, and almost begged it to stop as the man started screaming, but it ended almost as quickly as it had begun and in its clawed hand was a bright glowing light.

I was enthralled by it, mesmerized by the wispy strands that danced along its surface. The being reached for the egg and then it pressed the two together. I stared at the pale hands tipped with ebony claws as the bright light within its grasp became smaller and smaller. Finally, it separated the two. In one hand lay the egg, the cracks along the shell glowing with the same light the soul had. In the other was a much smaller wisp of light, tendrils still curling from the main piece like tiny solar flares.

Death approached me and I fought not to move, forced myself to be still with each step it took. I was a Gryffindor, god damnit, and I would be brave. My head tilted up sharply to stare at its face. It didn't look like her anymore, not really. Her hair was darker than mine, so black it seemed to suck in the light around it and it curled and shifted as if gravity had no affect on it. The eyes that looked back at me weren't hers anymore either. They were purple and glowed with an inner light.

"This is your last chance to change your mind," the voice that spoke still sounded like hers, but also more. I only jutted my chin out and gritted my teeth.

I'm a Gryffindor, god damnit. I reminded myself, repeating it like a mantra.

"Very well," it sighed. It sounded almost sad.

I thought to prepare myself, but there wasn't any time to do so. Death moved so quickly, one moment standing before me with an egg in one clawed hand and a fragment of a soul in the other, and the next I was looking down at the arm that was plunged into my chest cavity.

I may have screamed, but I don't remember. Perhaps I didn't and I only thought to do so. It was over so quickly that the pain was a distant memory that I wasn't sure if I even recalled actually happening. I frowned, eyes pressed closed as I rubbed at my chest where the arm had been just a moment ago, but I didn't feel any different aside from an ache that had settled deep into my chest.

When I opened my eyes, Death still stood before me. It was pulling its long-fingered hand – the one it had plunged into my chest – from a white pocket I hadn't noticed, before those fingers reached up to touch my chest where it ached. Its skin was cold, I could feel it even through the layers I wore, but a moment later the pain was gone, and I sighed in relief.

My eyes scrunched close as I tried to internally search for the soul part…but I didn't know what to look for or even how to look for it and gave up after a moment. Death looked amused despite the lack of muscles beneath the veneer that was my mum. It didn't look a thing like her now, it just looked like something had peeled off her face and put it on a skeleton like a mask. There didn't seem to be any muscled or fat beneath the flesh.

One hand reached out and presented the still glowing egg to me and I took it with hesitant fingers. "Take care, sweetling," Death rasped out, my mother's voice overlaid with a thousand others as its claws gently brushed my hair behind my ear once more.

I clutched the egg to my chest, my eyes welling up once more. I knew it wasn't my mother, but still I launched myself at it. I think it was surprised by the hug since it stood there as I wrapped my arms around it, but after a moment the hug was returned. "Thank you," I whispered into its white robes. A rumbling chuckle had me pulling away, and I didn't even flinch when its pale fingers with black claws reached up to wipe my tears from my cheek.

"Don't thank me yet, sweetling. It would have been a kinder fate if you would board the other train. It's not too late to change your mind."

"Yes, it is," I replied, finally pulling fully away and moving to the doors.

"Ah," Death replied as I boarded the train. "So it is," and I turned to look back once more as the doors closed behind me, but all I saw was an empty station.