Severus watches Lucius crumble.
"You have been a better father to Draco than I have. You protected him when he was sure to die, protected him even against the Dark Lord's wishes." Lucius is clutching the windowsill that overlooks his gardens, watching a peacock make its rounds.
"I only did what you would have done, if you could have."
"I couldn't have, that's the problem. I never could have."
"Please, stop worrying."
Lucius is beginning to realize, as he watches his world fall down, that Severus's back is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. A landscape of scars and bones pushing up through pale skin. The perfect place to place his hands as he thrusts, the perfect place to fall when he is overcome with pleasure.
They never talk about death. It's too close to both of them. But on those rare nights when they can curl up and fall asleep together, they are both trying to memorize the other's body, just in case.
Severus is afraid to bring up the letter, although he now holds the power in their relationship. The Dark Lord prefers him over Lucius, trusts him more, and allows him to sit in the seat that was once Lucius's. He has wealth he had never dared to desire previously, and his desk is in the Headmaster's office now. But he cannot imagine how terrible it would feel to say "What about your promises?" and have Lucius say "You have to understand, I wasn't in my right mind…"
Lucius is kissing him with purpose, squeezing Severus's waist with intensity meant to meld them as one.
"Traitor," he snarls, even as he kisses him deeper.
"Evil, evil man," comes the reply, even as their robes are shed.
The two are frantic, deep in the Forbidden Forest with a shield cast around them. They have revealed themselves fully to one another now, for there is no more time for secrets and no more time to doubt that they can trust each other. Each one has others they are meant to be with, duties they are meant to be performing. Outside their bubble, the world is reaching its end.
"Perhaps we will never see each other again," Lucius says as they both regain composure, straightening hair and brushing dust off their robes as if someone would be looking.
"Impossible," Severus says.
"You have to understand," Lucius sobs. "I wasn't in my right mind. I should have done it sooner, I should have done it 15 years ago, when the Dark Lord was gone and we had the chance. If you come back, we can be together."
They're in the Shrieking Shack. No, he is in the Shrieking Shack, with a corpse. It's all over, and as they were waiting for the final moments, Lucius heard Harry tell about Severus's bravery, and he realized he was speaking in the past tense, and his heart turned to ash. And then as his master and the boy fought, as everyone moved into the castle to see the end, he turned and ran.
"Don't do this, Severus. Don't repay my cruelty with cruelty." But Severus isn't moving, even as Lucius throws himself on the body.
He tears through the dead man's clothes, desperate for a touch of flesh upon flesh, and as he does a piece of parchment fall out. It's his letter, his promise of a better life, kept with him even in death.
Love (yes, Severus, love)
"Yes," Lucius says out loud, his voice hoarse but close to yelling. "Love, Severus."
He lowers his lips to Severus's bare chest, and wishes that in his life he had taken more care with it. What a lovely place to lay his lips, as he is doing now, and yet, how rarely he took advantage of such a thing. Now the spot is cold, and the heart there still, and yet his lips press on. If Lucius pulls his head away, he is sure that the world around him will go black, that he will die too. Maybe, he thinks wildly, he should die too. They can lie there together and be found together and Lucius will unfurl the folded letter and lay it between them as proof that love did once exist. But then Lucius realizes that although he doesn't know what happens after death, he knows for sure that if there is a division of good and evil, he and Severus will not be placed together. In that way, death would be the same as him going on living; they will be apart. There can be no respite. There is no saving grace.
For a long time, he stays just there, head on chest, hand on head. Almost peaceful, almost like they are asleep.