Safe And Sound
What if Severus had a secret lover? Someone who brought him back from his grief after Lily's death? Someone who loved him enough to war with him when he thought he didn't deserve love? Someone who loved him so much, that love fought to drag him back from Death's gently coaxing hands?
AU after final battle. Songfic based on Safe and Sound by Taylor Swift
War. War raged around them like a hurricane. Like a tornado so big, it went beyond an F5. Flashes of light and lightning lit the Scottish valley.
In a rotten, filthy shack at the edge of the village of Hogsmeade, a man tried to writhe, tried to speak. His eyes rolled frantically until they locked on the stricken face of a woman who rushed to his side mere breaths and moments after the Golden Trio had been and gone.
"Rus? Rus! Oh, God. Oh..." The woman moaned in agony at seeing her lover on the ground, his throat ripped open, and blood... She gripped his hand as tight as she could with one hand and with the other, dug through his long coat's pockets for the potions she knew he kept there.
"Damn it, Severus. Don't you leave me here alone. Don't you dare fucking leave me." Brown hair, once lustrous, was caked with mud, blood and the gore of the fight and framed a face whose eyes were wet with tears. Like golden stones in a shallow, clear creek as the sun sets orange on the horizon...
It hurt. It hurt so much. A tear trickled over his cheek and he felt it sink into his hair.
"Percuro!" The woman snarled, her wand aimed at the grotesquely ravaged flesh that was his throat. The healing spell tried, got a foothold, slipped.
"F-fern...Love..."
"Don't. Don't talk. Rus, for the love of Christ, please!" Fern's voice broke and she bared her teeth, screaming through clenched jaws. "Open your fucking mouth, Severus. Open...There you go. Let me get these in you." She'd found his vials of potions; There were so many and she knew each of them. Most she spelled right into his stomach, others... Others she had to pour directly onto his wound.
He was getting tired. So tired. He thought he lost too much blood. He tried to swallow and stared at Fern hard as he could. "I-I'll n-never let...let y-you go, Fern. Never."
"You better not. You don't get to leave me now. Not after everything." The sounds of the war outside the Shrieking Shack seemed to rise but she heard voices coming in, coming closer. Fern bared her teeth and crouched over the man she loved.
Two Death Eaters stumbled into the room. They barely had time to get their bearings when an unearthly scream thundered around them and a massive mountain lion was on them, ripping and tearing both men to pieces.
Their bodies were just scraps by the time the big cat faded back into a shaking Fern.
She whimpered and crept back to Severus' side and huddled beside him and began to keen. His neck was beginning to heal, though slowly. She gripped his right hand with both of hers. She watched his eyes rove to gaze out the nearby window and saw his eyes turn slightly vacant.
She jostled him. "Don't you dare look out that window, darling. Everything's on fire. That war outside our door keeps raging on. Look at me. Look at me! There you go. See me? I'm right here. I'm here." Tears streaked over her dirty cheeks.
"It hurts, Fern." Severus whispered, his lips cracked and bloody.
"I know." Her voice was low and gentle and she leaned forward, pressing her lips to his forehead. "But you can't sleep yet. Not yet. It has to heal a bit more. Just a bit. I killed them, love. Dolohov and Mad Bella's husband. I killed them for trying to run. They were going to flee." She looked around nervously, her body twitching like a nervous squirrel at every sound, every flash of light.
She lifted her eyes to the window and stared out, her body beginning to rock as she crouched beside her lover. Beyond the raging battle, she could still see daylight, like light at the end of a storm. Over the distant mountains, the sun was setting despite the fighting and dying.
Gulping, Fern cast her eyes down on Severus' neck sobbed in relief. It was starting to knit back together. "Rus. My Rus. You're so brave. So brave."
Those dark eyes were watching her under half closed lids and she raised his right hand to her cheek, rubbed her face against his knuckles. She conjured a roll of bandaging and so carefully, so gently wrapped it around his neck. Minutes passed and the spy's fingers began to weaken. "Rus, we're going to make it. Listen to me. Hold onto this lullaby, even when you think the music's g-gone."
And his Fern, his fierce, gentle contradiction began to sing, her voice high from fear, pain and exhaustion. "Just close your eyes. The sun is going down. You'll be alright; No one can hurt you now. Come morning light, you and I'll be safe and sound." She twisted around and, never letting go of his now limp hand, she lay down beside her man.
Then the sun vanished behind the mountains and as the last rays of light sank beyond the horizon, the two figures inside the Shack disappeared.