Looks like this summer has not been easy for both, me and my wonderful translator Cecelle, but things are slowing down a bit. I'm also back on track translating her wonderful English fic 'Mist and vapor' into German. Go check it out. It's really good.

Big thanks to her and also to all those wonderful reviewers and readers and the patience you are showing with this fic. I can tell you that I'm back writing and that this fic WILL befinished.

And then everything's different

Severus looked back at Lucius' outstretched body. Even in death, his pale, sightless eyes wide open, the man had managed to preserve a certain dignity. As he lay on his back, arms splayed at his side, the expensive fabric of his robe flaring around him, he still looked like a fallen angel. Noble even in death. Severus had thought that the death of the man who had sent him through hell would be a cause for rejoicing. That it would make up for everything that had been done to him, but nothing of the kind had happened. There was no satisfaction, no justice.

He still felt a hopeless emptiness inside of himself. An emptiness that swallowed even the faintest hint of satisfaction immediately. While staring at Lucius' corpse -- at the mortal remains of the man who had once been his friend, only to later become his demon, who had humiliated him again and again, who had even cheated him out of getting his revenge – he felt absolutely… nothing.

It didn't matter, he realized all of a sudden.

All his glorious dreams of revenge, his longing to make the man pay, had brought a certain purpose to his life, a goal that was worth fighting for. But that was over now, all at once, and now he simply felt tired.

He heard the joyous shouts of the victors. They were cheering Harry Potter, celebrating Voldemort's demise with loud exclamations, but even that left him cold. Once, long ago, there had been a time when he had longed for this day, but now he couldn't quite comprehend why any more. He looked up and saw how friends and brothers-in-arms fell into each other's arms and cried for joy. Tonks hugged a tired but happy Dumbledore, and Weasley pressed a quick kiss on the lips of a surprised Granger. Potter, grinning broadly in spite of the thin trickle of blood that ran from his forehead across his face, was carried on the shoulders of the Weasley twins and an Auror he didn't recognize.

The victory over the Dark Lord had turned even strangers into friends, united in their joy over a happily overcome threat. There was no reason not to celebrate.

No reason at all…

They were all happy… friends… united.

His gaze sank back down to Malfoy's body. This had been his friend, since earliest childhood. No one else seemed inclined to include the aloof, hated Slytherin in the festivities. Not that he would have wanted to. He had worked hard at being left alone. His whole life. The only man who had never let the act impress him, neither when they had been friends nor when he had been Lucius' prisoner, had just been killed. By a damnable, miserable house-elf with a frying pan.

His hatred for the man had flickered out with his life. There was nothing left. Neither anger nor joy, just emptiness. Potter had seen him stripped of all dignity, had seen how weak he was. Not even the thought that this was James Potter's final triumph, even though he had been rotting for years in his casket, bothered him now. Nothing mattered. He knelt down and gently closed the dead man's eyes. "You won, Lucius. I hope that makes you happy, wherever you are."

He stood up and looked once again at the jubilant throng. As always, no one paid attention to him. Voldemort was dead, and his work for the Order was finished. His life had been snatched away from him years ago, when he had joined the Dark Lord. When he had realized that fact, he had transferred that life from Voldemort to Dumbledore, and now, in the end, Malfoy had succeeded in ripping even his soul from him. Now he had nothing left. He felt completely drained and old. He was tired, so tired, and all he now wanted to do was sleep.

He turned away his gaze and vanished from the grand salon.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Sirius finally pulled out of a tight embrace from his old friend Lupin, but he left his arm loosely around the werewolf's shoulder. He could have shouted for joy. For the first time in twenty years, he felt truly free. Voldemort was dead, the constant danger to Harry had been banished, and Peter's body would once and for all prove his innocence. And the whole thing, thanks to Dumbledore's elaborate plan, had been executed without much loss of blood on their side.

Life was good.

Of course most of the Death Eaters were still on the run, but now that Voldemort was dead and Malfoy's financial tab had been turned off, it would only be a matter of time until they ran off for good or were caught. Since Snape now would also receive a full pardon for his sins, the Slytherin was now free to deliver to the Ministry an exact list of all Death Eaters known to him.

Instinctively, Sirius looked around for the former spy. A bit off to the side lay Malfoy. Whenever Snape had talked about the man, there had been so much hatred in the Potion master's eye that it didn't take much guesswork to figure out that the blond man had something to do with the torture the he had been submitted to. Sirius was still convinced that there was something about the way Snape was acting which proved that he had not really processed all that had happened. Maybe Malfoy's death would mean a return to normalcy for him.

But where was Snape? Why wasn't he celebrating with them? Oh well. A celebrating Snape was something that the world would probably never experience (and probably didn't really need to, for that matter.) But in that case, why wasn't he standing around somewhere, casting dark and disapproving glances at everyone else?

"Have you seen Snape?" he asked Remus.

"He was just standing near Malfoy, but after that, I can't remember seeing him. Maybe he wanted to go see Draco, to give him the news in person? He is the Slytherins' Head of House, after all. "

Sirius furrowed his forehead. He couldn't really believe that. An uncomfortable feeling was starting to spread inside of him, making him uneasy. Since his sojourn with Voldemort, Snape had shown no interest whatsoever in the affairs of his school or his House.

"I'll go and check," he said as casually as possible, getting more uneasy by the minute. Remus just nodded, and moved to rescue Harry from a horde of overly boisterous congratulants.

Sirius walked over to the corner where Malfoy's corpse lay completely ignored by everyone. 'Only serves you right, you snobbish bastard,' he thought with a disgusted look at the dead man.

Sirius hunted around for Snape, but the Potions master was nowhere to be found. With a sigh he transformed into his dog shape, to use his sharper senses to search for the man, but regretted the act immediately. The acrid smell of blood, burned flesh, and death hung in the room. Even so, he forced himself to keep his shape, but moved away a few steps from Malfoy's dead body. Snape's scent trail lay heavy in the air, and Sirius was able to follow it easily. The trace split, one part trailing off towards the direction where Snape and Harry had entered the room, the other leading to a small door.

He followed this trail through the door into a corridor, no less pompous than the grand salon. The floor was covered in marble tiles, arranged in elegant patterns, polished to mirror brightness. Cathedral ceilings rose to more than twenty feet above his head. Every few yards, bright light flooded through the tall windows, illuminating many larger-than-life, richly embellished paintings of angry and disdainful men and women, an unnatural number of which had platinum-blond hair.

Sirius followed the trail down the corridor, ignoring the occasional cuss words and arrogant remarks made by the people on the canvasses.

He held down his head, nose almost touching the floor. That the rooms in this house were so scrupulously clean made it a lot easier for him to follow the trail, as if it were a brightly glowing thread, and he immediately noted when it took a sharp right turn and seemed to disappear behind a painting on the wall.

Just fantastic. A hidden doorway. How on earth was he supposed to get through that?

"The damned house-elf killed Lucius. Mireille from the grand salon told us, and now I even had to let the traitor Snape into the secret laboratory, just because he knew the password," a voice complained petulantly above him. "And as if that wasn't enough, now here comes this dirty beast, about to slobber all over my frame. – Get out of here, you beast," screeched an old man with a heavily wrinkled face and light blue, misty eyes that lay deep in their sockets.

Sirius took a step back and re-assumed his human form.

"An Animagus?"

Sirius looked at the old relic in the picture. In spite of his old age, the man had the trademark Malfoy arrogance in his posture. He seemed to be more injured in his dignity than truly sorry about the fact that Lucius had been killed.

"Who are you? A friend of Snape's?" the old man sneered, spoiling for a fight.

Sirius could smell the chance of getting through the passage without knowing the password. He could only hope that the portrait had not heard of him personally, so he glared at it with the most arrogant sneer he could muster. "My name is Sirius Black. I am tracking Snape down." That part was not even a lie.

The old man leaned forward slightly, trying to get a better look at him. "A Black, then. An old, pure, and honorable family. I knew old Marcos Black quite well. Was always a useful ally." His thoughtful face hardened again. "But so was Sixtus Snape. And yet, the youngest scion of this family turned out a despicable, ill-begotten mistake."

"I can assure you that Snape and I have been enemies for years," Sirius dissembled. Even that wasn't a lie, he noticed with amusement, but he banished the smile before it could show on his face.

"Will you do away with him if I let you through? That misbegotten freak should have been drowned immediately after birth."

"I'll take care of him," Sirus assured him.

'Very well then…" The old Malfoy stretched out the words, and then finally the portrait swung off to the side, revealing the entrance to a dark staircase, lit every few yards by magical torches, disappearing into the depth.

Sirius followed the stairs, which soon turned into a passage. This led on another few yards, and ended in front of a half-opened door cobbled together from rough-hewn boards.

Sirius stepped through it and entered a laboratory very similar to Snape's Potions office. Just like there, shelves lined the walls, filled to the ceiling with books and mason jars. Curious, he pulled an especially ancient book out from a stack on a small stone table.

"Potion Efficacy Enhancement through Human Organ Use."

Sirius dropped the book as if it had burned him. This publication was pure Dark magic. Human organs hadn't been used in potions since the Middle Ages, when it was discovered that animal organs had nearly the same effect, even if the efficacy was occasionally slightly weakened.

It shouldn't have surprised him to find such a book here.

"Snape?" he called into the room, returning finally to his reason for being here. He didn't receive an answer; neither could he see the Slytherin anywhere. But he had to be here. The room was not particularly large, and only had the one door. Even though it would not be hard to miss a human shape in the overstuffed chaos that reigned in the space. Systematically, he walked along the bookshelves, past the stone sink and the cold fireplace with its cauldron, over to the massive desk that stood about one yard from the wall in the back corner of the room. He walked around the desk, and there, crouched against the brick wall, was Severus Snape.

"What are you doing here?"

Snape looked up as if in slow motion. The Slytherin looked very tired, Sirius thought. His eyes were dull, and he was paler than usual.

"Leave me alone, Black," Snape said, letting his head sink down again.

Sirius was taken aback. He had never heard Snape's voice this weak and empty.

"What is wrong with you? You should be glad that You-Know-Who is dead."

Snape didn't react at all, and Black exhaled in exasperation. But then he saw something that made all his alarm bells go off shrilly. Where Snape was sitting, a wet, red trickle ran out from under his cloak and spread out slowly over the floor. Next to him, half hidden under the fabric of his robes, he saw the hilt of a knife. A small phial of amber liquid lay next to it, stopper still in place

"Snape? What did you do?" Panic seized Sirius. He knelt down next to Snape and grasped his arms, buried in the fabric of his robe. Snape didn't fight him, but just looked on listlessly as Sirius lifted his arms by the hands and stared at them in shock. The leather strap that had secured Snape's wand was still tied loosely around the wrist, even if the wand itself was gone. The short, elegant leather gloves only reached up to the wrist, and as the sleeves of Snape's robe slipped back, the Animagus had a good view of the ugly wounds on Snape's wrists. A steady stream of blood still flowed from deep, lengthwise cuts.