The Alchemist's League
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters of Harry Potter; they all belong to J.K. Rowling.
The Alchemist's proposal
Upon his awakening Severus Snape finds himself in a hospital wing, not unlike the Hogwarts infirmary or St. Mungo's, with the difference that there are large windows through which not only the sunlight, but also birds' singing pours into the room. His vision is still blurred so Severus cannot make out more than vague contours that give no indication as to where he is.
Slightly disorientated Severus tries to recall how he could have ended up here, obviously alive, if the pain in numerous parts of his body was any indication. Well, at least it's not Azkaban.
Carefully he tries to move his head to get a better view than just the ceiling, as suddenly a sharp pain spreads through his body coming from his neck. In a rush the memories of the past events come back to him; how the Dark Lord had set Nagini after him, the snake's piercing teeth boring into his jugular, the rush of pain and weakness as he bled to death on the door of this god forsaken shack, where he had already narrowly escaped death once.
After several dreadful moments of panic, when he started to think that his antivenin potion had not been effective enough to let him at least for a short amount of time close the wound and survive long enough to find Potter and deliver his message, the brat suddenly stood over him.
In the first moment Severus thought he was hallucinating and his desperate wish to see the boy made his mind play tricks on him, but he soon enough realised that the Golden Boy had actually managed to find him, when he most needed him. Carefully the potion master concentrated on each memory he intended to give the Gryffindor and then perform the wandless incantation to bleed them out along with the rest of his blood. Sure enough Potter was too confused to actually know what to do, had he had the strength, Severus would have sneered at him. Thank Merlin, the Granger girl, always the brain power behind the dream team, came up with an idea in time and handed an empty flask to Potter to put in the memories.
Finally his job was done, all his obligations to Lily and to Albus were fulfilled and he could die in peace. With his last strength he grabbed the boy's robes and harshly whispered 'Look at me', seeing these emerald eyes, his mother's eyes, one last time, was all he wished for, before he died. Slowly his vision began to blur and his consciousness left him.
Only to find himself waking up in an unknown location with Albus Dumbledore of all people standing over him, smiling his insufferably jovial smile, while his eyes twinkled merrily as always.
'Ah it's good to see you again. How do you feel, Severus?'
The nerve of the man, to pretend nothing was wrong, when Severus has just had to send Potter to his inevitable death. Annoyed beyond measure, he snarled back, 'well, how do you think I would feel, after the bloody snake just bit my jugular, and my last job on earth is to tell the Boy-who-live that he must die for 'the greater good', as the cursed prophecy by this worthless fraud foretold.
Of course I'm feeling delighted over it, didn't I make this clear to you already?'
All his sarcasm could not drive the twinkle out of the late Headmaster's eyes, a fact that greatly unnerved him. 'You must know, Severus, that this is not the full truth. If everything goes as planned, and I have great confidence that it will, the only one dying is the part of Voldemort's soul that has been placed on Harry 17 years ago.'
'Potter a Horcrux?', Snape was incredulous.
'Indeed, after hunting down the rest of them all year, while I wanted to keep Tom occupied with searching for the Elder Wand, this was the final step in my plan.' The old man intoned with an air of self-satisfaction.
'So tell me, headmaster', Snape sneered, 'Was the Dark Lord killing me to gain control over that Elder Wand also part of your great plan, or do even the greatest of strategists make mistakes, when it comes to their more expendable followers?', although he had not meant to say this with so much harshness, his words sounded cruel and accusing even in his own ears.
A bit of sadness was actually visible in the old man's eyes, as he looked upon the younger wizard, before answering in a slightly strangled voice, 'I'm truly sorry, I had not foreseen this. I never meant for you to die.'
Snape snorted at that statement, 'Don't be ridiculous, it was crystal clear from the first moment you assigned me the task of the spy and double-crossing traitor that I would not survive the war. If not the Dark Lord or his Death Eaters had killed me, it would have been a vengeful member of the Order of the Phoenix or an overly eager Auror. But I had at least expected to be able to fight back, to die with my wand in my hand, … .' his voice trailed of.
'Well, we cannot always get what we want', Albus told him with an air of self-righteousness.
Rolling his eyes, he hissed back, 'Spare me you wisdom, Albus. Where the hell do you have that triviality from, King Salomon?'
'I found it in a fortune cookie, actually.'
The Potion Master grimaced, but did not reply. His thoughts drifted back to the memories he had given to Potter. Now that he had done anything he could do, as he had once pledged, he could take the time to study the image of Dumbledore, who had told him that he, Snape, disgusted him, who had kept him at a short leash to have his pet Death Eater spy available anytime, who had bullied, threatened and finally stooped as low as pleading to kill him, who had known he was a willing instrument and therefore never seen fit to actually trust him.
The voice of the person he was just fuming about broke him out of his reverie 'If you'll excuse me Severus, I will have to attend to Harry soon, when he arrives. Unless there is anything else you want to put straight right now, I will leave you. I suppose you can make it onward alone.'
'As I always have', Severus growled darkly. Dumbledore did not appear to heat that as with another jovial smile the old headmaster disappeared, leaving Severus to himself. The latter still had the feeling of having been betrayed that Dumbledore had never told him anything even close to the truth, but always had demanded blind faith and trust, when, as Snape now realised, he had never really trusted him back.
He suddenly felt a tugging at his navel that reminded him of travelling via Portkey, as all went black again.
The first difference he realised was the pain, maybe the enlightening statements of the headmaster had only been the foretaste of hell. Slowly he opened his eyes, but almost immediately another jolt of pain flooded his whole body and he gasped loudly.
A hand was placed on his shoulder and instinctively Severus flinched, realising the close proximity of another person, who most likely had no good intention for him. Who the hell would call him back from the dead only to torture him?Maybe Bella, but she had neither the skill nor the imagination for necromancy.
'I can see you are awake, Severus Snape.' A male voice with a slightly foreign accent told him: 'Don't answer me yet, I have a proposal to make to you, I will only require your answer afterwards.'
This sounded not only strange, but also highly suspicious in Severus' ears and the fact that he lacked the ability to properly see his partner of conversation did nothing for his ease.
'You are probably wondering, who I am … my name is Nicolas Flamel.'
Snape gave a curt hiss of surprise upon hearing that, had not Dumbledore told them that the legendary alchemist had passed on? But you should know better than to trust anything the old man told you, he never gave away information that might be useful in some twisted way, but only if as little people as possible knew about it.
Flamel's voice interrupted his musing, as he continued, 'Throughout the centuries many stories and rumours have been created about me, but what nobody but a trusted few knows, is that I have gathered apprentices and during the last one and a half centuries followers of other disciplines than alchemy as well, to fulfil a duty I have taken up a long time ago: guarding the Book of Abraham, also known as the Codex. This book, of which I have until now only discovered a small part, holds the secrets, not only to everlasting youth, but also to the destruction of humanity and the world as we know it. It has fallen upon me to keep this book from falling into the wrong hands, of powerful dark wizard, but also of many other creatures, which have during the centuries shown great interest in the ancient tome.'
Flamel's words were as interesting as surprising, if Severus had not been at death's door and been feeling how his life force slowly ebbed away, this would truly have interested him in an academic way. As it was his whole body ached, the wound on his neck burned like fire and his head felt like it would explode any moment, so that it took hi all his willpower to even stay conscious. His partner of conversation seemed to realise as well that he had better hurried up, lest Severus died, before the actual proposal was made. So he skipped further intentions of his, to get straight to the point.
'You might wonder what this has to do with you. My followers as I have mentioned are a handpicked few and the requirements to be admitted to join us are quite rigid.
Firstly you have to be a talented and experienced person on your field of expertise with abilities that will aid us with guard the Codex. You clearly have more than one such quality, being an excellent potion master, a more than passable magical dueller and above all an experienced spy, which is the ability most rarely to come across.
Secondly you need to leave all family, friends and the life you have led before completely behind you, never contacting anyone again, something I doubt you will find overly trying, even though it is the main problem for most of my candidates, especially female ones, they have a much stronger affection for their loved ones and find it almost impossible to stay away forever.
I'm not ready yet though, hold on a little bit longer, you need to understand this fully, it is a life changing decision after all.
Thirdly you are required to swear an oath of your loyalty to my cause and its followers, answering to my command and that of your superiors in my organisation, to keep our cause secret and continue it, even if something happened to me.
I believe that this will be the hardest part for you, given how much you have been used and manipulated in the past. Let me guarantee to you that I am neither a Voldemort nor a Dumbledore, my organisation has strict ranks, which have to bee earned by accomplishments and skills, but nonetheless I am always inclined to listen to my companions' suggestions and even step down from my decision, if overruled. You would definitely have more possibility to speak your mind and be listened to than you have had in any of your prior companies.' He put a strange pronunciation on the last word. Briefly Severus wondered how he could know that so well, whether Flamel just had extremely good informants in the Order of the Phoenix or being so close to death had truly weakened his occlumency shield so much that he could not keep the alchemist out of his mind completely.
More gravely Flamel finally asked, 'So what is your decision Severus Snape, do wish to join our dear friend Dumbledore already and listen to his unending whining or would you rather put off death a little longer and dedicate yourself to a noble cause?'
Had he not felt the betrayal implied by Dumbledore's words and his resulting anger so freshly, he might have reconsidered and just have taken the easy way out, to die. But like Voldemort and Dumbledore, Flamel was an expert of manipulating people, who had 600 years of experience on his side, and had known perfectly how to play his obvious emotions against him. Indeed what good would there be in dying, only to either burn in hell with his fellow death eaters or to have to watch the love of his life and afterlife still being attached to his arch nemesis, which was hardly any better than hell itself.
Severus had to spit some blood from his mouth, before he could formulate his answer, which would have been longer and wittier, had he not been fighting with all his strength and willpower to keep conscious, 'I'll accept.'
'Excellente', Snape heard Flamel answer in French, before he finally lost his battle for consciousness and blackness overtook him.