Chapter Seventeen -
Yet you abandon me, leave me to my wretched solitude
Harry shivered as an icy chill skated across his bare skin, the frigid intrusion causing goosebumps to erupt across his exposed flesh and his heavy slumber to splinter, wakefulness threatening to arise within him. Seeking to delay that unpleasant wrench back into lucidity, he buried his face further into that place where smooth, sensitive skin met soft strands of fine hair, breathing deeply of the familiar scent.
Eyes shut tight and mind pleasantly muddled, Harry allowed his fingers to wander, sliding them beneath a barrier of bunched-up fabric to drift along heated skin. They flitted along the surface of a firm, flat stomach and then curled around the side of a slim waist, gripping the soft flesh and using it as leverage to draw closer to the beguiling warmth.
When another blast of unwelcome cold assailed him, his shivers intensified, prompting him to wriggle further under the comforter draped halfway up his back. He winced when the movement caused a sharp ache to race through several parts of his body – his back, neck and legs now pulsing with steady waves of gnawing pain.
"Mmmm... ah... shit," Harry hissed against Severus' neck, succumbing to full coherency at last.
Pushing himself up to a seated position and letting the comforter fall off of him, he placed his hand on the small of his back, rubbing and kneading the area to soothe the deep ache he felt there. He arched his back to pull the tight muscles from their cramped state and exhaled a sharp breath when a particularly intense jab of pain shot from his lower back all the way down to his toes.
A muffled groan jolted Harry from his own discomfort and he turned around to see Severus stirring in his sleep, shifting from his back to his right side now, his left hand groping for the comforter and then drawing it close to his chest, no doubt to counter the growing chill in the air. It appeared that at some point during the night, Severus must have woken as he was now wearing the same shirt he had tossed aside hours earlier. He must have taken the time to spell himself and Harry clean as well, for Harry could feel no sticky residue on his stomach or between his legs, his skin bereft of any lingering evidence from their lovemaking.
Ignoring the pleasant surge of heat coiling in his abdomen at the thought of last night's passion, Harry returned his focus to Severus, becoming concerned when he noticed the furrows lining his brow and the downward turn to the corners of his mouth, his eyelids squeezed tightly together. A rush of guilt struck Harry in that moment, realizing that Severus' current discomfort was most likely due to feeling Harry's own pain transferred through their link. Fortunately, the pain did not seem to be enough to pull the boy from his slumber and seconds later, the tension in that thin face dissolved back into relaxed repose.
Relieved, Harry pulled his gaze away and glanced around the cottage, attempting to gain his bearings and shake off his residual grogginess. His torpid thoughts soon drifted to the question of what time it was just as his gaze fell upon the open bay window and the curtains that were fluttering in the chilly breeze.
Beyond that open window, he could see nothing but a narrow sliver of dull light struggling to push past the tops of the towering trees, a hazy, overcast dawn smothered by an oppressive blanket of tenebrous night. The fledgling daybreak cast the cottage in eerie, dim shadow, an ominous murkiness pervading the quiet, sleepy space.
Harry released an anxious breath, feeling a rush of gratitude for the night's tarried persistence. This was one dawn he wished would never come – not when its inception would mean his magicked exodus from this time... and from Severus. That thought was enough to make his heart skip several beats, his stomach constricting in protest. He took a few deep breaths to calm his nerves before getting up from the bed and gingerly kneeling down onto the floor, grabbing his school bag and rummaging through it for the small tote of potions Madam Pomfrey had given him the day before. His back and leg muscles were still very sore and much to his embarrassment, so was his arse. He knew if he didn't take something for the pain soon, Severus was sure to wake from the echoing twinges of pain channeled through their link.
His hasty rifling soon produced the potion he was looking for – the one Madam Pomfrey had dosed him with several times during his stay in the Hospital Wing. Although Harry was certain the strict mediwitch had never intended for her potion to be used to ease the residual pain after penetration and sexual exertion, he was fairly confident the potion's effectiveness would extend to this specific application.
Downing the liquid in one go, he placed the empty vial back into his bag, feeling those sharp aches already beginning to fade as he fastened the zipper and stood up. Shivering once again, he crossed his arms over his chest for warmth and scanned the cottage floor for his clothing. His search didn't take long. Upon spotting his shirt and boxers lying in a crumpled heap beside the bedside table, he snatched them up and then, realizing he needed to relieve himself, walked the short distance to the washroom, pulling the door closed behind him.
After emptying his full bladder, putting on his clothes and washing his hands, Harry swept his still wet fingers through his tousled hair, yanking a bit to get them to go through the matted tangles near the back. He stopped short when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror above the sink. Even in the dim illumination issuing from beyond the room's only window, he had no problem making out the details of his own fabricated image, slate-grey eyes staring at their reflected facsimiles with something akin to grief or shame.
"He loves me," he whispered aloud, his hushed voice quavering with emotion as a new wave of fear forged its way into his heart, driving a deep fissure of doubt and uncertainty to fester within it. "He loves me so much, but... but he doesn't know who I really am."
Trembling fingers withdrew from those long, fallacious locks to trail a hesitant path down that part of his face that was still uniquely his own, the subtle contour of his cheekbones and the hard line of his jaw, and then further, along the outline of his neck as he swallowed thickly. Continuing their journey, his wandering fingertips slid down each silver link of the chain hanging from his neck and then grasped it, pulling it out from under his shirt in order to examine the miniature potion vial where a single black feather lay curled in on itself within the crafted glass.
"But he did know," Harry choked out, his eyes beginning to tear up. He laid the feather pendant on his open palm and stared down at it, an object so innocuous yet indicative of a fact so obvious it could be nothing but the truth. Severus had known in the Shrieking Shack that Harry was Gray after seeing the burn mark on his chest and the carved words on the back of his hand. Why else would he have pushed that image into his mind and left the pendant behind for him to find? He must have wanted him... Harry... to go back and fulfill his destiny... to complete this boundless circle... to go back in time, become Gray Skye and fall in love with the eighteen-year-old version of himself.
Harry let the pendant fall from his hand, grey eyes lifting to study its reflection in the mirror, his heart speeding up as he considered the overwhelming enigma surrounding the object itself. Severus had left it for him four weeks ago – or rather twenty years from this point in time – but now, it must to stay with Severus so that when Nagini attacks him two decades from now, he will be able to leave this feather... this clue... this symbol of cyclic fruition for Harry in order to inspire his journey back through time.
The sheer complexity of its purpose and necessary role in this entangled plot made Harry's brain hurt, but it paled in comparison to the puzzle of where the object had even come from in the first place.
No beginning and no end, yet intuitive of the journey there... and back again...
Resigned to his own bewilderment, or perhaps just compliant to the inherent magic governing time and fate, Harry sighed, releasing some of his anxiety along with the shaky breath. There really was no point in attempting to unravel this mystery. It just... was... and after four weeks of trying to decipher the enigmatic progression of fate and failing, Harry knew he had no choice but to acquiesce, trust and follow.
"Gray?"
Severus' voice shook Harry from his weighty thoughts. He exited the washroom and was met by the sight of Severus, still in bed and leaning back on one propped-up elbow, the fingers of his other hand running through his sleep-tousled hair.
"Are you alright?" Severus asked, his voice husky from sleep.
"Yeah," Harry answered, forcing a small smile.
Padding across the cool hardwood floor, he made his way back to the bed, finding contentment in crawling toward his love and then sliding under the warm comforter. He burrowed close to Severus and coaxed him to lie back, covering the boy's warm body with his own as he leaned down to kiss him.
"I have something for you," Harry whispered, his lips still pressed against Severus'. Lifting his right hand, he grasped the silver chain at the back of his neck and after withdrawing from Severus' soft lips, pulled it over his head. He then eased it over Severus' head, slipping it past the boy's ebony locks and under them, the pendant coming to rest on his chest.
"Your Chatham raven feather?" Severus breathed, his eyes narrowed in confusion. "Why...?"
"It's yours, Severus... yours and mine," Harry explained. "Keep it safe for me. And when you see me again... when you finally see me for who I really am... leave it for me." Harry's eyes once again began to tear up as the memory of the adult Severus, gasping for breath in the Shrieking Shack and looking at him with such love and regret and wretched anguish flashed across his mind.
"Leave it for me... and then I'll know."
Severus lifted his hands and placed them on either side of Harry's face, pulling him down to brush his lips against Harry's trembling ones.
"What will you know, Gray?"
"I'll know that you still love me even though I'm... even though I'm not who you expected me to be," Harry choked out, his tears breaking free from their confining lids to slip down his cheeks, his breath hitching.
"Gray," Severus said, his tone fierce with emotional resolve, "I will always love you. Always. It won't matter to me who you really are... or what kind of relationship we develop in the future before we realize our love for one another… before our link. It won't matter. And yes, I promise to keep the feather safe for you and to leave it for you when the time is right, just... just come back to me. OK? Just promise me you'll come ba–"
Severus' heartfelt words were cut off when an intense stabbing pain blindsided Harry, causing him to cry out. The blow hit him lightning-fast, sharp and precise like a honed stinging hex aimed straight to his chest. Acute pain exploded out from his core, shooting through his arms and legs and head where it pulsed like wild magic, feral and unrestrained. Gasping for breath and trembling all over, he rolled off of Severus, both arms clutching his stomach which was roiling and churning, nausea joining the encompassing pain. Disoriented and lightheaded, the room spinning and his vision darkening, Harry didn't even realize he had tumbled off the bed until his knees hit the floor with a reverberating crack.
"Gray!" Severus hissed through gritted teeth, his own breaths coming out in desperate, labored huffs. Scrambling over to the edge of the bed, he slid down to the floor and pulled Harry into his arms. "What's wrong? What the hell's happening?!"
Harry's heart clenched at the feel of the tenacious magic that was controlling him, pulling him, beckoning his compliance, its familiarity engendering a spark of dreaded recognition to stir within him. A tortured moan fell from his quivering lips when at last the undeniable truth sunk in – this was the Time Regression spell signaling the inception of his propulsion back to his own time.
This was the beginning of the end.
"No! No... I'm not ready to go back! Please no..." Harry cried out, his body shaking almost violently now as he fought against the powerful pull of magic.
A look of harrowed comprehension emerged on Severus' thin face and he drew Harry closer, wrapping an arm around the small of his back. His other arm lifted, one hand gripping Harry's neck with long fingers twisting themselves around strands of mahogany hair.
"Gray, it's OK. It'll be alright," he whispered into Harry's ear. "Stop fighting it... you're hurting yourself. Please... please, Gray... look at me..."
Severus' desperate pleas came to Harry as if from far away, his mind so engrossed in the seemingly impossible task of opposing the magic's tyrannical control. Despite his struggle, he obeyed the last three oh-so-familiar words, his gaze lifting to lock with tearful black orbs while his thoughts snapped back to those horrible moments in the Shrieking Shack...
Trembling, bloody fingers gripping his shirt...
Ebony eyes emanating pain and desperation and deep regret...
"It's OK, Gray," Severus repeated, his urgent words yanking Harry back from his flashback. In one quick motion, he removed his arm from around Harry's lower back and grabbed the school bag lying just feet away, dragging it across the hardwood floor and onto Harry's lap before resuming their tight embrace. "It's alright. I'll wait for you, Gray. I love you... just let go... it's OK..."
Harry released his iron grip around his churning stomach to grasp Severus' now tear-streaked cheeks, his fingers threading through ebony hair as he deepened their soulful gaze, his heart pounding in his chest harder than ever, his every breath fast and shallow.
"Severus..." he pleaded, narrowing the small gap between them. His fingers tightened around twisted black strands as he continued. "Promise me... promise me..."
Heartbeats raged like angry, frantic thunder blasts against Harry's ribcage, roaring in his ears and burning his clenching throat, the Time Regression spell's magic almost stealing the very breath from his lungs. Shaking in Severus' arms, he struggled to find his voice again, his every muscle tightening in defiance of the debilitating tremors wracking his body while he strove with every ounce of strength left within him to utter one final, urgent plea.
"Please, Severus... you have to promise me. If nothing else... promise me... promise me, Severus... promise me you'll live..."
Harry felt the final vestiges of his fortitude and fight draining from him, his fierce hold on this time slipping away even as his grip on Severus remained. Looking deeply into tear-filled ebony eyes, he watched, his own anguish and fear gutting him as those tears spilled from the barriers of their lids, rolling down those pallid cheeks with abandon. Unwilling to witness the raw pain radiating from those dark orbs another moment, Harry closed his eyes, his heart twisting with grief.
Severus pushed forward to press a gentle kiss to Harry's panting mouth, a whispered utterance brushing against his parted lips... faint and quavering... tremulous words meeting Harry's ears in a soft susurration of portentous faith...
"I promise, Gray... I promise..."
Harry's heart had but a fraction of a second to warm at Severus' pain-filled assurance, tentative hope suffusing his soul, when a brilliant flash of pure white light, blistering against his closed lids, assailed him. He gasped, the pain of the compelling magic ripping through him once more, stronger this time. The long fingers curled around the back of his neck seemed to melt away, his hair released from their taut grip. Harry's arms and legs felt heavy and numb, his whole body overpowered by swirling tendrils of intense magic wrapping themselves around him, wrenching him, contorting him, his every breath wrested from his starved lungs.
Head spinning and body wracked with tremors, Harry landed on a cold, hard surface as if dropped from a great height, his hands and knees making contact in a painful, audible thud. The rest of his weakened body soon followed, collapsing on the hard surface in a heap of quivering, battered limbs, chest heaving as he struggled to take in air.
After several raspy, labored breaths, his lungs slow to fill, Harry opened his stinging eyes and lifted his head, trying to gain some semblance of orientation. Blinking and squinting to chase away the echoing flashes and flickering pops of light, his vision began to clear at last, but the sight before him caused his already racing heart to leap into his clenching throat.
Filthy walls and splintered, warped floorboards...
Dusty, timeworn furniture, marred by deep scratches and decades-old claw marks...
Stifling air, thick with the stench of neglect, stale and dank...
A massive stain of dark crimson blood, dried and cracking beneath his splayed palms...
Ripped from Severus' desperate embrace and thrust twenty years back to the future, Harry had returned to the place where it had all started – the Shrieking Shack. And once again he was faced with the aftermath of war... the pain... the devastation... the grief and uncertainty... and the heart-rending possibility of Severus' demise.
"Severus..." Harry choked out, his gaze fixed on the indecent remains of dried life crusted under his hands. The stain looked older than the last time he saw it, whole patches of it flaking and chipping away like old paint on splintered wood, but its color was still that same sickening, vibrant red. It took all the strength he possessed to look away from the morbid sight and push himself up with trembling arms, his head too light, dizziness threatening to upend him even in a sitting position. Bringing his hands to his face, he squeezed his eyes shut and leaned forward, trying to take in more air, his breathing still shallow and tight. He ran his fingers through his hair, grasping the long strands and swallowing hard to forestall the urge to retch.
Several long moments later, his breathing became more even and his racing heart slowed enough for him to gain some measure of composure. He opened his eyes again, a wave of gratitude sweeping through him when he noticed his school bag on the floor beside him. Somehow, it had made the journey along with him.
Trying hard to suppress his escalating fear, at least for the moment, Harry grabbed his bag and ripped open the zipper, seizing the small tote filled with potion vials from its depths. He grabbed what he hoped was a pain-relieving potion and an anti-nausea elixir, yanked the corks from their mouths with quivering fingers and then drank them both down, exhaling a sharp, labored breath after each one.
He breathed a tempered sigh of relief when most of his pain and queasiness left him, but the absence of his discomfort brought about a new and frightening awareness, one that made his heart flood with terror.
"I... Oh God... I don't feel him..." Harry whispered aloud, his lips shaking as tears pooled in his eyes, panic twisting his heart, the empty vials dropping unheeded on the floor. "I can't... I can't feel his love... why can't I feel his love?"
Panicked to the point of hysterics, he clutched at his chest with both hands, trembling fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt as he curled them into a taut fists, placing them flush against his heart. Stampeding heartbeats thrashed like tribal drum strikes against his clenching fingers, pounding erratically, his fists shaking even as he sought to steady them.
Taking in a slow, shaky draw of stale air deep into his shuddering lungs, Harry focused all his energy on trying to gain some kind of control over his whirring, anxious thoughts and turbulent emotions. He was desperate to reduce his panic long enough to focus his mind and soul on their link. He had to calm down... had to find that pulse of love he had felt blazing inside his heart and soul only minutes ago while wrapped in Severus' grieving embrace.
"Please... please," he begged, his voice raspy and trembling as hot tears slipped down his cheeks, his fists tightening, pushing hard against his heaving chest, "Please let me feel him... please don't let him be de–"
Harry's desperate prayer was abruptly cut off when he was struck by a raw, grating emotional torrent, a tsunami of intense, ferocious anguish rushing through him like searing flames of dragonfire. The emotive onslaught of intense, agonizing pain and grief and devastating loss was like nothing he had ever experienced before. It barreled through him mercilessly, wrenching the weak, tremulous breaths from his lungs and leaving him gasping for air once more. He doubled over, his palms flat on the filthy, blood-stained floor again as he attempted to breathe through the harrowing pain that felt like his soul was being ripped apart, his stomach convulsing once more with nausea and his head pounding with fierce flares of pulsing pain.
Eyes clamped shut and mind reeling with renewed panic and confusion, Harry was startled from his frantic state as a loud, harrowing sob reached his ears, the heart-wrenching voice echoing eerily, its tone laced with deep sorrow and desperate panic, its baritone timbre hauntingly familiar...
"No! Gray... NO!"
"Severus!" Harry shouted, grey eyes snapping open at hearing his love cry out for him. He leapt up onto feeble, shaky legs, feet stumbling forward and arms held out as he whirled around, breathing raggedly, his gaze darting about the room, heart thundering in his tight, swollen throat. "Sev... where..? Where are you?!"
"Gray... Oh God, it hurts... no... no... I was wrong! I can't do this without you... please come back..."
"SEVERUS!" Harry screamed in delirious desperation.
Staggering aimlessly about the room, his whole body shaking, he grabbed hold of the back of a tattered armchair in the corner of the room to steady himself, his eyes still frantically searching the empty room. He almost toppled over the side of the chair he was holding onto when the scene before his eyes dissolved in a spiral of swirling, muted colors. Uneven, splintered floorboards, ramshackle furniture and filthy, paint-chipped walls were suddenly replaced with the image of an eighteen-year-old Severus lying upon the floor in the cottage Harry had just left, the faint projection appearing before him in pulsing, vibrating flashes. Distorted though the image was, Harry could easily make out Severus weeping with abandon, his arms wrapped around his middle as if in excruciating pain, anguish twisting his pallid features as he cried out in despair.
"No... please, Gray... don't leave me! Please come back! This... this is... too much..."
Bereft of your light, my haunted eyes dim and weep,
My heart, rent, shattered, screams for your spirit
Harry's knees buckled and gave way and he crashed to the floor with a painful thud, his heart nearly stopping in his clenching chest. He scrambled towards Severus on his throbbing knees, hands scraping across the decrepit, splintered boards and causing slivers of aged wood to pierce the flesh of his palms. But the shooting jabs of acute pain from the lodged splinters were nothing compared to the agony he felt when the scene before him dissolved the moment he reached it, vanishing in an ashen smoky mist of whirling dust.
"No... Sev... no..." he sobbed, his voice shaking and cracking with aching sorrow, arms outstretched as if to seize the faded mirage.
Silence pervaded the Shack once more. The only sounds fracturing the desolate quiet were Harry's distressed whimpers and his shallow, heaving breaths while his panic-stricken mind desperately tried to make sense of what had just occurred.
He had seen Severus... had heard his hysterical cries and had felt his harrowing grief. But even though it had played out right before his eyes, Harry knew it hadn't happened in the present; it happened then – twenty years ago to the teenaged Severus Snape – his Severus – and that horrible moment must have taken place immediately following Harry's departure from that time.
Desperate to extend his deficient understanding, Harry closed his eyes and tried to recall his conversation with Severus from the night before. He sifted through each and every detail Severus had mentioned regarding how their link worked, how it connected them. After poring over what seemed like a slew of confusing and unhelpful details, one specific aspect of their link resonated within Harry, the recollected words from Severus' explanation bringing greater comprehension to his current situation...
"It is even possible for the link to allow us to see each other when we are apart and are in need of each other… glimpse one another inside our own minds in those moments when our emotions are at their most intense… most urgent and desperate."
Harry knew the link was supposed to allow their emotions, especially their most intense emotions, to be shared, but it was supposed to be in real time... instantaneously. So how was it possible that he was only experiencing Severus' emotions now – emotions from a moment that took place twenty years ago?
"The link couldn't find me then..." he said, answering his own question, waves of tentative understanding coming to him now. He swallowed hard, his throat once again feeling tight with emotion as he realized the distressing truth of it...
Since the moment he left the past, though it was only minutes ago from his own perspective, Severus had experienced twenty years' worth of intense emotional surges, strong enough to reach out to Gray Skye through their link – not only emotionally and sensorily, but visually and aurally as well. But Gray Skye was unreachable for that entire duration, ensnared within the complex realm separating time and space. The link had no way of connecting with him then...
Until now.
"Oh God..." Harry choked out, realizing the full magnitude of the frightening truth at last, "the link's making up for lost time!"
As if wholly aware of Harry's sudden enlightenment, the link once again reached out to him through time, injecting him with an overwhelming, blinding fury that was not his own. This fierce emotion was like a tidal wave of caustic sentiment and he collapsed onto the floor again, quivering all over and straining for breath, his eyes clamped shut as Severus' voice, enraged and unbridled, blared like booming thunder in his head.
"Why, Gray? Why did you do this to me? WHY?!"
Even with his eyelids squeezed together in a show of willful and desperate denial, Harry was powerless to stop the onslaught of vivid flashes from assailing him – the hazy image of Severus shimmering into being inside his own mind.
It took Harry only a second to surmise that this new vision must have taken place some time after the one he had just witnessed as Severus was no longer dressed in a t-shirt and shorts. Instead, he was wearing his full Slytherin house attire, a silver braided honors cord draped around his neck and his prefect badge pinned to the front of his robes. He was standing in the middle of the cottage sitting room, his wand gripped in one trembling hand at his side. His other hand was clenched into a tight fist, long fingers wrapped around and crushing a rolled-up piece of parchment that was elaborately tied with a green and silver ribbon – a diploma, Harry realized. There was utter pain and barely restrained rage twisting Severus' features, pale cheeks flushed with angry color and streaked with tear tracks. Soulful dark orbs, once so filled with love and trust were now swollen and red-rimmed, narrowed and seething.
"How could you come here... make me fall in love with you... and then just LEAVE ME!?"
I ache, bleed, die, in the wake of your absence,
The memory of you binds me, torments me, as I grieve alone
All at once, Severus' ebony wand began to thrash about madly, slicing through the air with wild, indiscriminate resolve, each lash wielding complete and utter destruction in its wake…
Potion vials were flung across the room, reduced to a thousand glass slivers as they struck the walls and floor. Books were ripped to tattered shreds, their pages torn apart while the cottage furniture was upturned and sent colliding with the walls, each one exploding in a barrage of wood fragments and shredded fabric. Shards of glass rained down inside the cottage sitting room like deadly missiles as the bay windows shattered, the air crackling and hissing with wild, out-of-control magic. In the midst of the destructive scene, white-hot flames erupted from the end of Severus' wand in a blinding blaze that ravished everything surrounding its caster: the floorboards and all the fragmented remnants of furniture and bits of glass scattered about the room, even the cottage's stone walls were not impervious to the magical blaze's wrathful potency.
"No... Severus... Oh God, no..." Harry whimpered, his chest heaving as Severus' fury and his own suffocating sorrow roiled and churned inside him, the volatile emotional fusion stealing his breath, choking him.
Desperate to push past his skyrocketing emotions, Harry snapped open his eyes and scrambled on all fours back to the middle of the room, those glaring flickers of Severus' magical tantrum still exploding in his vision like blinding flashbulbs. Disoriented and partially sightless, he felt his way by scraping his already bloody hands along the jagged wooden floor, his breathing harsh and shallow, sweat dripping from his brow and into his eyes. When his groping fingers came upon his school bag at last, he slung it over one shoulder, securing it to his back as he used the nearest wall to slide up to a standing position, legs threatening to buckle beneath him, trying to catch his breath and settle his reeling, panicked thoughts.
He set fire to it... the cottage... Oh God, he destroyed it!
The awful realization felt like a stake to his heart, gutting his already weakened fortitude and withering resolve. A part of him had always imagined that if Severus had somehow survived Nagini's attack, he would be waiting for him at the cottage. Now Harry had to deal with heartbreaking fact that the cottage was no more. Severus had destroyed it years ago in an emotional outpouring of wild rage – an outpouring Harry was still feeling the effects of as he leaned against the wall, eyes clamped shut and breath held tight, waiting for the visionary torrent to subside.
The instant Severus' anguished screams faded back into silence and their accompanying images died away – Harry's mind and emotions once again solely his own – he took off like a shot, sprinting toward the narrow tunnel that led out of the Shack and into Hogwarts' grounds. Still bereft of that steady pulse of Severus' love inside his heart and soul, Harry knew he was incapable of locating Severus through their link, leaving him with no other viable choice. Leveled cottage or not, he had to know for sure – had to see for himself if Severus would be there... alive and waiting for him.
Body trembling violently, he staggered as soon as he entered the underground passage, his weak legs unable to support him while hunched over in the small, confined space. Only a few steps in, he hit the floor once more, fingers splayed on the muddy earth, bare toes slipping and sliding as they dug into the soil for purchase. Forcing himself to keep going, Harry dragged himself onward through the twisting tunnel on his throbbing hands and knees, his chest clenching, heart pounding in his ears and in his throat, his every emotion on edge, pulled taut with sharp panic.
Just as he exited the passage end through the narrow gap in the Whomping Willow's trunk and pressed the knot to immobilize its branches, he was once again hit with a powerful wave of jumbled emotions and sensations: anguish, heartbreak, regret, fear and... excruciating pain...
Harry let out a scream of agony, his whole body feeling as though it was on fire – inside and out. He choked and gagged, his lungs searing and constricting as he gasped for breath. His arms gave out, his body twitching with violent spasms as he rolled onto his side, curling up in a fetal position and whimpering through the painful attack.
"Sev... S-Severus..." he rasped amid wheezing coughs, terror at what this current agonizing pain might have meant for Severus' past flooding him in crippling waves of prolific panic.
Rolling over onto his back and staring overhead at the Whomping Willow's magically tamed branches, he felt his mind give in to the link's exigent control, those softly swaying leaves dissolving into a scene that was nothing short of a nightmare.
Severus was crawling out of the burning cottage, rampant flames consuming everything around him as he dragged himself bodily through the high arched doorway and across the front porch. One arm was outstretched before him, hand trembling and fingertips digging into the ground to help propel him forward. The other arm was wrapped around a thick, leather-bound book clutched to his heaving chest, fingers gripping a Muggle polaroid photograph.
His school robes were singed and smoking, huge rips in the fabric with whole sections burned away. Severus' right arm was exposed, the skin blood-red and blistered with the fingers blackened and shaking violently as they continued to reach forward in desperation. Both of his legs appeared to be useless, the material of his trousers stuck to them as if fused to his skin.
When he reached the gate leading out to the forest, the only part of the grounds seemingly untouched by the fierce blazing inferno, he collapsed, his breaths coming out in sharp, raspy drags, each one sounding more constrained and ineffective than the last.
Harry turned back over onto his side, his eyes squeezed shut now as he tried to control his own breathing. Each draw of breath seemed to burn him, his insides scalding as if he were the one breathing in flame and smoke, not Severus. The skin on his right arm and both of his legs seared with torturous pain and his head spun, his vision tunneling causing the images inside his mind to distort and dim.
"No… Severus…"
"Sev'rus! SEV'RUS… Where are yeh, boy?! SEV'RUS!"
The sound of Hagrid's familiar voice bellowed from somewhere in the deepest recesses of Harry's panicked mind and he held onto that booming voice as though it were a lifeline, desperate to maintain the link's proffered memory as long as he could. He had to make sure Severus was helped… saved… healed… obstinately ignoring the fact that this had all occurred years ago and Severus' survival from this event was assured.
"H-H-Hag-… Hagrid… I'm… I'm here…"
The last visual flash flickering in Harry's mind was of Hagrid's enormous arms scooping up a battered, burnt and trembling Severus, holding him close to his chest as he sprinted back through the forest's thick brush, the half-giant's reverberating footsteps not quite loud enough to drown out Severus' anguished groans of pain and labored breaths.
Then the connection was broken once again.
"Fuck… FUCK!" Harry screamed. He started sobbing, bringing his hands up to his face as he broke down.
He couldn't do this. It was too much. He couldn't keep being subjected to Severus' most harrowing moments playing out before him. It felt like destiny itself was exacting revenge on him for daring to try to tamper with time and it was absolute, pure and utter torture. It was hell on earth, watching Severus endure untold pain… this wretched suffering… this seemingly endless barrage of prolonged, intense mourning… it was… it was…
"Deserved," Harry heard himself choke out.
Withdrawing his hands from his tear-tracked face, he placed his battered palms on the soft grass and pushed himself to sit up. He took a moment to just breathe, drawing the cool morning air into his spasming lungs and closing his eyes. Something was stealing around his heart. It was a resigned deference, a profound realization of karmic understanding that absolved him of some of his fear and eliminated the sharpest edge to his relentless, prostrating dread.
Penance.
It suffused his spirit with an almost ethereal comprehension of wrongs rectified… of time and course correction… of a soul bond striving to amend itself from the damage inflicted by fate's cruel influence.
For twenty long years, Severus had suffered through unfathomable anguish and grief… two decades worth of crippling heartbreak over the loss of his one true love, his very soul deprived of its lifeblood and destined counterpart… day after day and year after year of perpetual pain and mourning…
It seemed that Severus' anguish had finally come to its long-awaited fruition – brought to a close by the tedium and endurance of the passing of time itself. Now however... engendered by the cyclic nature of this anomalous venture to the past and then back again… now it was Harry's turn. Regardless of Severus' ultimate fate, Harry would have to endure all that encompassed his love's pain in order to close this circle... right this wrong... complete this destined link.
This was his time to mourn. His time to bleed and ache. His time to cry and hurt and suffer.
This was no longer Severus Snape's mourning – it was now Gray Skye's mourning.
And Harry now realized that this was just as much a part of destiny's plan as the love that was still blazing, untouched and eternally enduring, within the depths of his heart and soul.
Calmed by this revelation, revived by adrenaline borne from determination alone and impelled anew by the depths of his love for Severus, Harry secured the loosened straps of his bag around his shoulders and then pushed himself up to stand on shaky legs, steadying himself with a hand against the Willow's trunk. He took another deep breath in and let it out a little at a time, willing his whirring thoughts to temper and slow while preparing himself mentally for the inevitable emotional onslaught.
When he was certain his legs were capable of not only supporting his unstable weight but also of withstanding what was sure to be the run of his life, Harry turned toward the expansive Hogwarts' grounds and focused his gaze on the periphery of the Forbidden Forest's menacing depths, zeroing in on the narrow passage that led to the small clearing beyond the thick brush. His resolve and his destination now firmly set, he pushed off from the tree with all his might.
Harry's legs ached as he pumped them with vigor, running as though his very life depended on it, as though any minute his world would fall away and be replaced by the horrors of Severus' past once more. Although resigned to this warranted nemesis, he was still desperate to reach the cottage's burnt remains – and hopefully Severus – as soon as was humanly possible.
Just as he entered the dark, cool canopy of the forest, his vision became distorted again, the towering vertical lines of the forest's encompassing trees bending and twisting weirdly before him. Disoriented and lightheaded, he fell forward with a cry, arms outstretched and palms making contact with the damp earth with a muffled thud. The muted sound coincided with a loud crack as his left knee smacked hard against a jagged rock causing shooting pains to surge through him. He turned his head, intent on inspecting his latest injury, but was unable to view it. His gaze was now completely overtaken by the tense scene unfolding all around him, the vision seemingly transporting him from the ominous disquiet of the forest to the stale sterility of Hogwarts' Hospital Wing in a flash.
"Mr. Snape, you are not to leave this ward until I release you! Your burns are not yet healed and you lungs have only just begun to–"
"Leave me alone! You have no power to keep me here! I am no longer a student under your care – I can leave whenever I like!"
"Sev'rus, please listen ter Madam Pomfrey. If she says yer not ter go, then yeh should stay."
Severus was standing beside one of the hospital beds near the front of the room, his wand held tightly in his right hand as he turned toward the half-giant and then back to the mediwitch standing by his side, furious ebony eyes narrowed and blazing with reckless resolve. His lips parted as if to begin another angry tirade, but remained silent as the Headmaster strolled in through the double doors, approaching the trio with slow, measured steps. His aged hand settled onto Severus' shoulder when he drew near enough, his voice gentle as he spoke.
"Severus, my dear boy, you've been through so much pain already. There's no need for you to run off... no need for you to leave at all. I have spoken with Professor Slughorn and he has agreed to take you on as his apprentice. He has already left for the summer and will not return until next term, however he is overjoyed to begin your training starting September. In the meantime, Hagrid has consented to take you on as his assistant – just during the summer months, that is. It would be a way for you to earn a fair wage while still under the magical protection of the castle... a way for you to stay safe year-round until you achieve your Potions Mastery. You would be protected from all those wishing to harm you or pursue you with the objective of exploiting your talents for nefarious purposes."
"No!" Severus hissed in a soft yet dangerous voice, throwing off Dumbledore's hand and taking a step back. His eyes were narrowed in anger, even as tears pooled at their corners. "I don't trust you! Do you think I'm fool enough to think myself safe under your care? Do you honestly believe I possess any remaining faith in your word... your empty promises... your misguided actions?!"
Harry felt the venom behind Severus' words twisting inside him like the point of a sharp knife. The cold biting malice dripping from that barbed tone was like a slow, torturous slice to his flesh, the long-awaited declaration of forsaken trust like blood spilling from a deep, neglected wound. Blinding rage swam and churned inside Harry's gut, building in intensity and he knew... sensed... felt... that Severus' pain and terror and white-hot wrath was only seconds away from reaching its treacherous peak.
"Severus, please listen to me, my boy–"
"I AM NOT YOUR BOY!"
Once again, the air was filled with flying debris, shards of glass and bits of splintered wood hurtling through the ward. A sudden darkness snuffed out the room's candlelight as thunderous booms rung out like explosive blasts. The chaos lasted only a few seconds before the Hospital Wing's double doors were shoved open, bathing the darkened room in light from the corridor beyond. Severus stood in the open doorway, scanning the room's wreckage once before lifting his head. His enraged black eyes locked with Dumbledore's despairing blue ones for only a moment before they looked away, their owner turning around and then vanishing from view as the doors swung shut behind him.
Harry stifled the sob that was choking him, trapped within the narrowing passageway of his clenching throat. His nausea had returned with a vengeance and he fought the urge to be sick by biting down hard on his trembling lip. He stood back up, his body swaying as he staggered forward. He only managed to take a few unsteady steps, barely aware of his throbbing left knee before his newly returned vision swirled and pitched once more, throwing him head first into another vivid recollection.
"Get your filthy Muggle hands off me, you fucking prick!" Severus spat, his wand pointed ahead of him as he scrambled to his feet. Although his wand appeared steady, the arm holding it was shaking. There was a dark smear of blood streaked across one of Severus' pale cheeks and purpling bruises wrapped around his neck in the shape of long fingers.
"You DARE to speak to me like that, boy? I'm your father and deserve your respect!"
"You deserve nothing from me but my hatred!" Severus raged, his eyes suddenly wild, a dangerous, unhinged expression twisting his features, "You deserve... you deserve..."
Harry couldn't breathe, his heart pounding against his ribs, mind reeling with the pain and fear and unfathomable amount of anger coursing through him. He bit down harder on his lower lip, tasting blood and relishing the sharp stab of pain it caused, hoping it would be enough to distract him, but knowing it would not as he waited for the inevitable unleashing of Severus' retributive wrath to commence.
"Sectumsempra!" Severus howled, tears flowing down his cheeks though his eyes remained intense and focused.
Tobias Snape fell to the ground in a violent seizure of flailing arms and ragged breaths, blood blooming on his white shirt and spreading out in long linear stains. A savage, blood-curdling scream pierced the air like a bullet, reverberating throughout the small Muggle house as well as the anguished hollows of Harry's heart.
Severus staggered away from his father's demised form, snatching up a duffle bag from the floor and then opening the front door. He paused and then turned around, looking back once more at the morbid sight, his breath catching as new tears fell from his dark eyes.
"I hate you," he whispered, his voice cracking, quavering. He released his grip on the doorknob and brought his fingers up to trace the darkening bruises on his neck. Then he let them slide down to the feather pendant hanging from the silver chain around his neck, gripping the small vial in a trembling fist.
"I'm sorry, Gray," he whispered, the anger in his eyes softening to reveal nothing but miserable grief, heartbreaking and devastatingly deep, "I'm so sorry."
The breath that once ghosted over your lips, slows,
Hindered by your imparted agony, piercing, abiding
Severus turned away from his slain father, his long fingers releasing their white-knuckled grip on the feather pendant to grasp the side of the door. He leaned on it slightly, his eyes falling closed as he took several deep, tremulous breaths. When they opened once more, the anguish swimming within their fathomless depths was gone, replaced by a hollow emptiness, vast and impenetrable, as deep and dark as the blackness of the orbs themselves.
The vision dissolved in a whirlwind of swirling color, the fading image of Severus' empty expression fading back into the forest's wild, twisting vines and the shadowy expanse of endless trees. Harry released a loud, primal sob, the torture of witnessing what was undoubtedly Severus' first intentional act of violence against another human being almost too much to bear, too horrible to endure. He would never blame Severus for the act itself, as it was obvious that Tobias had just attacked Severus, just one of many in a long line of unprovoked and undeserved violent injustices doled out from father to son. No, he was not weeping for the death of the senior Snape, but for his son whose tendency to perform vicious and vengeful acts against enemies, whether perceived or real, had only just begun... for the boy whose emotive, soulful eyes had just drained of all their vitality in the space of heartbeat, stripped of every beautiful expressive kindness and hopeful sentiment and replaced by a hard, unfeeling mask born from aching despair and bitter unrest.
Harry felt hot tears stream down his cheeks and into his panting mouth, the taste of saline mixing with the coppery tang of blood from his bitten lip and the embittered pungency of sickening comprehension...
That vision might have started out with his Severus – for it could not have been more than a year following Gray's departure – but it ended with someone who resembled the adult Severus Snape far more than his younger counterpart.
Cold. Hard. Broken.
Forcing himself onward, Harry stumbled ahead, grasping onto low hanging tree limbs for support, his breathing still segmented and choppy, grey eyes clouded with tears. He managed to make it to the heart of the forest with a minute's respite from Fate's revenge, feeling only his own suffocating heartbreak and the lingering waves of pain from his injuries, before he was hit with another powerful stabbing pain, the intensity of which pulled a sharp gasp from him and caused his knees to buckle.
"Ahhhh... Oh God..." Harry cried out, clasping his right hand over his left forearm that was searing with unbearable pain. "No, Severus... no... I c-c-can't watch this... I can't..."
"Yes, Severus... my newest servant... it does hurt, doesn't it?"
The horrifyingly familiar voice slithered into Harry's mind like a rush of cold, biting wind, freezing his insides. He rolled onto his stomach, cradling his left arm underneath him, his face buried in the wet grass and rotting leaves as he tried to push himself up with his other arm. The moment he succeeded, those rotting leaves beneath his gaze disappeared and Harry found himself forced to bear witness to the monster responsible for his current echoed lashes of unendurable pain.
"You think this pain is too much, don't you? You think this mark burnt into your flesh warrants this appalling breakdown of weakness, don't you, Severus?"
Voldemort waved his wand with a lazy flick of his ghostly white hand and the crouched and curled up heap of black at his feet writhed and screamed, revealing Severus' thin face contorted in pain, his fingers gripping his bloody forearm as he was forced up to a kneeling position.
"You know NOTHING of pain, my dear Severus," Voldemort hissed. "NOTHING! But you will know now... now that you have finally come to me... now that you are mine for all eternity. You see, I don't like to be kept waiting. Consider this your lesson on pain retribution for your prolonged indecision... CRUCIO!"
Severus' blood-curdling screams of agony joined with Harry's own, both magnified exponentially inside Harry's panicked mind. The vision of Severus thrashing and flailing at Voldemort's feet soon fell away, melting back into the dull, muted colors of dead leaves and wet earth, but the screams echoed strangely inside Harry's head, the harrowing reverberations slow to subside.
He wasn't certain how long he remained where he was, crouched down on all fours and staring sightlessly at the forest floor, but at length, he became conscious of his own shaky forward movement. Forgoing his own two feet, he found himself crawling toward his destination, his hands gripping clumps of mud and decayed roots as he pulled himself further into the forest, his entire body trembling with reaction.
"Gone... dead."
Severus' voice once more infiltrated Harry's hearing, coming to him amid a haze of remorseful, suffocating pain. Slowing his forward progression, he sat back on his shins, his fingers still buried in the muck in front of his knees as he tried to stifle the powerful grief plummeting into his heart and soul like an avalanche of anguish.
"Is this remorse, Severus?"
"I wish... I wish I were dead..."
Severus was seated in a chair in Dumbledore's office, his body slumped forward with hands gripping his knees, his every breath ragged and trembling while Dumbledore stood over him, blue eyes stony.
"And what use would that be to anyone?"
The Headmaster's normally benevolent timbre was now hard, glacial to the ears as he continued his condemnation. "If you loved Lily Evans, if you truly loved her, then your way forward is clear."
"What – what do you mean?" Severus hedged.
"You know how and why she died. Make sure it was not in vain. Help me protect her son."
"He does not need protection. The Dark Lord is gone–"
"The Dark Lord will return, and Harry Potter will be in terrible danger when he does."
"Very well," Severus whispered in reluctant acquiescence, his face twisted in miserable sorrow, "But never – never tell, Dumbledore! This must be between us! Swear it! I cannot bear it... especially Potter's son... I want your word!"
Dumbledore knelt down until he was eye level with a hunched over Severus, his blue eyes piercing as they stared into pained black ones.
"My word, Severus? That I shall never reveal the best of you?"
Severus' expression of grief and pain seemed to deepen at the disappointment laced within those words and emanating from those cerulean depths, his hands coming up to cover his face as if shamed.
"If you insist," Dumbledore whispered, "but my dear boy," he continued as he grasped Severus' hands and pulled them away from the now tearful pale face, "I would like you to consider something."
"What?" Severus breathed through a stifled sob.
"I would like you to think about what Gray might say if he were to witness your projection of hate from flawed father to innocent child? Would he consider it just? Warranted? Fair retribution for the sins of a man who was at one time in his youth a thoughtless and arrogant bully? What would he think, not only of your behavior but also of your insistence to keep the best of you hidden and locked away from the rest of the world? If he were here–"
"No!" Severus roared, throwing off Dumbledore's hands and rearing back in his chair. "He is NOT here! And this… this has NOTHING to do with Gr–... with him... nothing... n-n-nothing..." His incensed outburst dissolved into heaving, hysterical sobs as he curled in on himself and slumped forward once more, his hands coming back to his face, his words of anguish now barely discernible, muffled and faint.
"He's not here... there's nothing left of him here… there's just… just nothing…"
And as the imminent tempest looms, I wait for you
In the hollows of despair's cruel chill, I linger
Harry brought a dirty, trembling hand to his mouth, pressing his palm hard against his pursed lips, whether in grief or to forestall the strong urge to vomit, he wasn't sure. He felt wretchedly ill after this latest memory, lightheaded and sick to his stomach, his body weak and his heart bleeding with a torrent of achingly painful emotions – grief, self-loathing, pain, regret and soul-deep despair that felt as though it rendered him nothing more than a shell of his former spirit and self.
He had witnessed this scene before, though not in its entirety. Its withheld ending, though brief, was devastating. It appeared that even then, just a short time after the Potters' murders, Dumbledore was already attempting to inspire Severus to empathize with Harry Potter, using his love for Gray Skye to guide him not only toward the righteous path, but also toward the path that would ultimately lead him to the shocking truth – that his long lost love and the son of one of his most hated enemies were one and the same.
But Severus was not willing to go there... was not even willing to consider Gray's heart and abiding love as a benchmark for his own actions and behavior. He ignored the Headmaster's attempt to dismantle his burgeoning grudge against the newly orphaned Harry Potter, regardless of the fact that Harry himself had tried to do the same thing, using Spera's newborn foal and her tragic death as an analogy to steer Severus away from the cold finality of retributive blame.
Now however, it was clear to Harry that his desperate pleas of don't blame the foal, along with Dumbledore's similar words of advice, had fallen on deaf ears. The tragedy of it prompted yet another surge of sorrow and deep despair to cut into his heart, his wounded soul crying out in silent anguish at Severus' apparent repudiation of the love they shared.
Reaching deep down inside himself for what felt like the last of his faltering resolve, Harry withdrew his hand from his mouth and placed it back on the ground, fingers once again grasping at the mud and muck as he crawled on, arms and legs trembling with each precarious movement. His breaths were heavy and labored, teeth grinding together as pain raced through his whole body.
When his vision darkened once more, Harry clamped his eyes shut and kept on going, using just his hands to feel his way forward, even as new images swirled and settled inside his mind. The sound of a quill scratching on parchment soon aligned itself with a hazy image, joined shortly thereafter by a harsh, shallow pulse of quickened breaths and faint crying.
Behind his closed eyelids, where darkness should have dominated, Harry could see an anguished Severus. He was wearing his typical teaching attire and sitting hunched over a desk in what Harry recognized as his Hogwarts office. Long strands of ebony hair concealed his face from view, but Harry could tell he was weeping, a tear emerging from beneath the curtain of black and falling to the desktop every few seconds. Secrets of the Darkest Art was lying open at a corner of the desk, a Muggle photograph atop one of its open pages, but Severus was not looking at either. He was writing. The rhythmic sound of the quill point skating across the surface of the parchment sounded almost hypnotizing, long fingers drawing slow and steady strokes with careful precision as their owner purged his heart out with each graceful gesture, each curve, each narrow loop, each meticulous line.
Harry could feel his heart clench as his inner gaze fell upon the first few lines atop the parchment, the powerful feeling of deja vu not nearly as strong as the ache in his chest at seeing those words flow like professions of a wounded soul from Severus' fluid pen strokes.
Gray Skye Mourning
In the space sundering dawn's divining inception,
And night's acrimonious shade, you approach...
A pained whimper met Harry's ears and for the life of him, he could not tell if it had been voiced by the man from the vision, or by himself. It seemed as though he could no longer separate his feelings from Severus'. All Severus' pain... his anger... his tears of sorrow... his long, anguished sobs... were his too, and Harry seemed to have lost the ability to decipher where Severus' emotions began and his ended.
I can almost feel you here, love,
As the storm nears, drawing ever closer
The image of the poem receded from Harry's mind in a slow fade to black as the scratchy sounds of a quill tip to parchment dissolved back into the eerie silence of the desolate forest. Taking advantage of the momentary calm and quiet, Harry opened his eyes and looked ahead of him. His heart almost stopped and then sped up to a frantic pace when he realized he could see the gnarled aged oak that marked the entrance of the cottage grounds just feet in front of him.
With an almost superhuman determination and in utter disregard to his feeble, battered body, Harry bounded forward, pushing himself up on violently trembling legs and staggering forward on feet that were sliced up and bleeding from the forest floor.
He made it only about a third of the way there before he was assailed by another vision, this one like a speeding train, racing past the periphery of his mind at a dizzying pace. He was sure it contained Severus standing near the Black Lake, one hand wrapped around the feather pendant hanging from his neck, but the rest was a blur of color and painful emotion.
Where the wind gently susurrates,
Whispering its sorrowful lament
No sooner did the visual onslaught ebb into blackness did another take its place, this one passing just as quickly: Severus lying in a bed and curled up in a fetal position, his hand curled around a tattered Muggle photograph while pained sobs resonated around the small dark room.
Reminding me of your breath on my skin,
The warmth of your body against mine
Stumbling and sightless, Harry somehow managed to stay upright, his feet cautiously shuffling forward, his arms outstretched. The tips of his fingers had just made contact with a rough, irregular surface – the oak's wide, splintered trunk – when Harry's fleeting sensation of relief transformed into terror and panic. Pain ripped through Harry like a forceful explosion and he collapsed to the ground, his every nerve on fire, burning with intense, sharp stabbing jolts of agonizing pain.
"Already writhing in pain, Severus, and I haven't even begun your punishment for your wavering loyalty, I'm afraid. That one was simply for your tardiness."
"My Lord," Severus panted, a hand outstretched pleadingly from his broken position at Voldemort's feet. "I... I am loyal to you and you alone... I beg your forgiv–"
"CRUCIO!"
Severus' whole body twisted, his back arching up as he screamed.
"You felt the mark burn just like the others, Severus, yet you did not come to me!" Voldemort hissed, crouching down to deliver his message directly into his victim's ear. "Perhaps thirteen years of playing lapdog to the great Albus Dumbledore has spoiled you. Perhaps you think yourself above my servitude now."
"NO! No, my Lord... I was being watched... Dumbledore... the tournament... I could not get away... I..."
"CRUCIO!"
Harry gasped, eyes snapping open and lungs trembling as he desperately tried to draw in deep drags of air. His vision was blurring, blackness crowding the corners of his tremored gaze. Every cell in his body was burning with sharp bursts of searing pain, his mind reeling and panicked. He was flat on his back now, his arms wrapped around his middle to stall the severe shudders wracking his body. Feeling like he might be sick, he rolled over onto his side and placed one palm on the ground to steady himself, but ended up letting his forehead fall back to the ground when another vision took the place of its pain-filled predecessor, coming to him so fast he barely had time to draw breath. The projection assaulted his faltering vision in a series of quick flashes – flashes from a memory that Harry remembered all too well…
A weakened and frail Dumbledore, alone and unaided, leaning back onto the Astronomy Tower's railing… one aged hand, blackened and dead-looking, extended in a silent plea… Severus' face twisted in an expression of pure loathing as he raised his wand… a flash of brightest green following words to a deadly spell articulated in a shaky breath…
With no time to recover, pain and guilt and unfathomable self-hatred seething within him, Harry felt new memories infiltrate his mind, blazing through his consciousness in lightning fast succession, sight and sound and volatile emotions all melding and twisting together in blinding flickers of fragmented chronology, one right after the other...
Stomach-churning guilt and sorrow stifled deep inside, swallowed, held back and kept hidden as a woman revolved high above a long table in a dark, shadowy room… her pleading voice, desperate and sobbing,"Please, Severus… Please!" …
Wretched cries of hopeless despair echoed throughout a small bedroom decorated in Gryffindor crimson and gold… a suffocating soul-deep regret shed through inexorable tears that spilled onto one half of a torn photograph and a single page of a letter signed with love for an old enemy…
A high-speed chase on brooms in the dark of night… racing heartbeats and shallow breaths coming fast and harsh… an ebony wand aimed at a Death Eater whose own wand was pointed at a Harry Potter look-alike and his protective guard… blinding panic and choking terror… "Sectumsempra!"…
The luminous glow from a silver doe cast in the middle of a frigid forest in the early hours before dawn… the brilliant patronus produced from a memory of one blissful night of love and passion and true happiness so long ago… so very long ago…
Harry kept his eyes shut through the assertive surges of light and sound and abrasive, heart-rending emotions, his breath held tight, his throat constricting in grief and despair. A small reprieve in the assault allowed him just enough time to open his burning, tear-filled eyes – his hand pressing down once more onto the wet ground in yet another feeble attempt it to push himself up – when an excruciating, ripping pain forced him to redirect the same hand to his neck, fingers gripping the feverish skin hard enough to bruise as torturous jabs of agonizing pain exploded in that area.
"Oh God! Severus... no... no, no, no... NO!" Harry screamed, panic consuming him, his heart clenching in fearful understanding.
"I regret it."
The familiar sibilant remark made Harry's blood run cold, his mind unable to stop itself from snapping back to the last time he had heard that same callous hiss. Twin images formed inside his panicked mind unbidden, one from his own memory and the other from Severus', both battling for visual dominance. Duplicate flickers from the same harrowing event pulsed and flared within his consciousness and Harry was forced once again to witness Severus trembling violently on the floor of the Shack, his hand pressed against wounds that gushed crimson, skin colorless, black eyes glazed over with shock and fear. The wretched sounds of Severus' urgent, gurgling gasps filled Harry's ears, mingling strangely with his own heavy, labored breaths and strangled cries.
And your tears spilling onto my cheek
As you cry for my desolation
Harry startled when his own pale, sweaty face appeared in the vision, one hand gripping the Hawthorn wand, the other clutching his invisibility cloak dangling at his side. He watched as his memory self dropped to his knees before his most hated professor, all loathing somehow forgotten in a moment of shocked compassion. The clatter of his wand striking the warped floor of the Shack echoed as memory Harry reached out and covered Severus' wounds, his own hand taking the place of the slender one that was trembling and covered with blood.
"Take... it... take... it..."
In an unerring playback of that horrible morning, Harry watched himself take the conjured flask from Hermione and place it beneath Severus' leaking ebony orbs, opalescent drops of liquid memory filling the vessel to the brim. His heart ached when he heard the next desperate plea falling from quivering bloody lips, words breathed out amid ragged breaths drawn into starved lungs, an urgent command choked out in between wet, drowning gasps.
Look... at... me..."
In contrast with his memory self, Harry squeezed his eyes shut, his mind ablaze with the chronological flashes from the past that seemed to be speeding by more quickly now as if impelled by the ever nearing morbid climax. Great heaving breaths fought their way from his parted lips, pushing past the choked sobs burning in his throat. He wasn't even aware that he was gripping his own neck in some futile attempt to staunch the pain radiating from his phantom wounds, but nothing could soothe the panic and fear and utter despair stabbing at his heart as those unwelcome images raced by...
Ebony eyes widening in hesitant understanding at the sight of a circular burn on Harry's exposed chest...
The thin, white scars carved into the back of Harry's hand – I must not tell lies – solidifying Severus' realization and deepening his anguish...
A mind intrusion, the memory of Gray's and Severus' final moments together, forced into memory Harry's consciousness...
A quavering apology spoken in a tremulous, hoarse voice, lamented words pleading for understanding... for forgiveness... for permission to let go of the promise made to Gray two decades earlier...
"Gray... I'm sorry... I... tried..."
So I await your foretoken return,
As I slowly perish, wither, fade
"NO! NO!" Harry screamed, realizing only now the significance of Severus' words. Severus was giving up... letting go...
"No, Severus... please... please don't give up... please... I need you. Oh God, Severus... I need you..."
"Harry... we have to go."
"No..."
"Harry! Come on... we have to get back."
"There's nothing you can do, Harry. He's gone. We have to go... we have to end this!"
A deafening silence befell the Shack following Ron and Hermione's urgent words, the faint sounds of three sets of retreating footsteps the only infringement upon the strained quietude. Harry's breathing seemed to die inside his chest, his heart thundering madly while he stared through tightly clamped eyes at the vision of Severus' unmoving form, praying with every ounce of hope and faith and trust that remained within him that movement and breath and some semblance of life would return to his love.
"Please, Severus... please..." he sobbed, tears choking him, his hands still gripping his throbbing neck, "Please, love... please fight..."
A desperate gasp suddenly issued from Severus' bloodied lips, a grating throaty inhalation that seemed to pull the inherent vestiges of life right out of the stagnant air. Ebony eyes flew open as another gravelly draw of breath echoed throughout the small space. Severus' entire body seized up and then shook with tremendous force, his battered body sliding down the surface of the wall to land on his side on the blood-drenched floor. Both of his hands came back to his neck, grasping it in desperation as tears ran down his face, mixing with the filth and blood smeared across his pale cheeks.
"Gray... I c-c-can't hold on... and I don't want to live with this pain anymore... I n-need to let go..."
"No... no," Harry breathed, his voice failing him, faint and quivering, heart pounding in his throat, "no, Severus..."
"I'm sorry... I just... don't deserve you... d-d-don't deserve... your love. I wasn't strong enough... I'm still not strong enough..."
"You promised... Sev, please! You promised me!" Harry cried in desperate anguish, agonizing words released in a reverberating, despairing sob that he knew could never reach Severus' ears.
A soft chink of glass broke through the reverberating echoes of ragged breaths and stammered utterances as the tiny glass vial housing a single black feather slipped from the ripped collar of Severus' robes and thudded to the ground. Long fingers immediately released their tight grip around his neck to wrap around the fallen pendant, holding it close to a heaving chest. The black eyes were closed again, breaths becoming shallower as blood flowed undeterred from grievous wounds.
"SEVERUS!" Harry screamed again, his throat on fire, blinding pain assaulting every part of him. "YOU PROMISED ME!"
Your desperate plea still
Echoing in my mind...
Survive Severus
"But I promised you. I... I promised to s-survive. And I would do... anything... for you, Gray," Severus choked out in a rush of sharp breath, blood now leaking from his mouth, his body shuddering and convulsing with violent spasms. "Anything for you... always for you... my love... my forever..."
Encroaching darkness edged Harry's vision, girding the periphery of Severus' memory with a swirling haze of formless shapes and nebulous shadows. Severus' quivering body began to fade into a blur of black and white and red, dissipating within the foggy recesses of Harry's mind as his consciousness teetered on the brink of forced insentience.
Harry pushed hard against his mind and body's dwindling control, desperate to stay in the memory, but the mangled and distorted image vanished. When he opened his eyes, breathing fast, his heart hammering against his ribcage, the forest appeared before him once more, coming to him in a whirlwind of spinning colors and blurred shapes, but it was brief as darkness edged the corners of his vision again, his sight clouding, blackening.
A single, high-pitched quavering note met his ears, his hearing tuning in and out as the sound quickly faded back into the soft rustling of wind through leaves and low brush.
Fighting to stay conscious, lying flat on his back, Harry blinked furiously, trying to focus on the image of the massive oak's twisted limbs overhead that seemed to be revolving and pitching, spinning out of control.
Another shrill, ethereal note pierced Harry's ears, his vision now flashing with impossibly quick glimmers of jumbled, blurry images that were forcing their way through the penetrating dark...
A flicker of bright scarlet...
Promise me...
Drops of translucent liquid falling onto bloody, torn flesh...
Promise me...
Long, blood-smeared fingers caressing an expanse of gold and scarlet...
Promise me...
You'll live.
"S-Sev... Sev?" Harry whispered weakly, his mind trying to hold onto reality... or memory... or anything... but failing as the encompassing blackness eclipsed those flickered memories, shutting out the Shack, the blood and the desperate gasps for breath. All that remained were the sounds of his own shallow breaths, the quiet susurrus from the morning breeze pushing through the towering trees and the welcome feeling of... of...
Warm breath caressing his neck...
Gentle hands sliding under his back and legs...
The sensation of being lifted into the air and held close...
Soft strands of fine hair grazing his cheeks and forehead...
The faint aroma of old books and peppermint flooding his senses...
"Sev..." Harry breathed, too far gone to decipher reality from fantasy, truth from fiction but unable to stop the hope and longing blazing within his heart, unbridled and irrepressible.
Desperate to know... to understand... and now daring to cling to some seemingly irrational dream-like hope, Harry forced his heavy eyelids up once more and through the bleary haze of his detached cognizance, could just make out the murky, indistinct image before him – jagged lines of faint pink, crisscrossing the length of one long column of pale skin framed by thin strands of jet-black hair.
"S-Sev...?" Harry whispered, then stopped when his voice caught in his throat, his heartbeat speeding up as a very familiar and potent feeling swelled and flourished inside his chest, blazing hot and sultry and breathtakingly intense as it pushed its way through his entire body. He trembled reflexively, huddling closer to the warmth surrounding him as the assertive energy settled, fusing with his spirit and his soul and melding with the very core of his magic. Its familiar suffusive warmth soothed him, beguiling him to surrender to his own body's desperate needs, urging him to release the last of his fear and regret and pain and let go completely.
Pushed far beyond his endurance, Harry gave into the transcendent request, letting his mind and body fall into the awaiting arms of slumbrous nihility while the familiar energy re-established itself in a steady pulse deep inside him, thrumming its rhythmic cadence of love once more. Each pulse felt like a timeless echo of renewed love, past and present, old and new, damaged and healed.
And as Harry drifted into unconsciousness, that pulse of love blazed inside his heart and mind like a beacon of hope emerging from a sea of oppressive darkness, its echoed message never before this clear... this real... this true...
forever...
forever...
forever...
always...
Chapter End - TBC
A/N: Yay – I made my deadline! (though just barely). Pretty good considering I was almost certain this one would be late! This chapter was quite a challenge for me, but I think the struggle I endured during the writing process was worth it in the end. I do hope you agree! :)
Just a quick note about the "memory sequence" containing Albus and Severus in the Headmaster's office. As you may have noticed, it is mostly canon. Almost all of the dialogue was taken directly from Rowling's magnificent chapter, The Prince's Tale, in book seven... my only additions were description, some action and of course, all the dialogue about Gray Skye (obviously).
As always, I would like to recognize YenGirl for all her beta magic. She has outdone herself on this chapter and I appreciate her help, advice, edits and suggestions more than I can say. Thanks, girl! :)
I had originally planned on setting my next chapter deadline for Halloween, but I fear that might not give me quite enough time (since I may be writing the final chapter and the epilogue at the same time). So, I'm going to go with November 10th. I know that seems like a long way off, but in my busy world, it's like a blink of an eye.
Please stick around for the exciting conclusion... and I will do my best to make it worth your while.
Please Review.