Mizumono

Upon returning to the past, his mind was a chaotic mess, a labyrinth of shadows where the echoes of the future still resonated, insistent and voracious. There was a purpose, yes — to prevent fate from fulfilling itself, even if death awaited him once more like an old acquaintance. To save the fragile lily from its cruel design, to rescue it from the clutches of a world that had crushed it with indifference. Lily and her family needed to live; his romantic love, once a blazing flame, had now turned to ashes, leaving behind only guilt—a thick fog that enveloped his chest, making each heartbeat a slow, heavy effort, as if the blood in his veins carried the weight of all his failures.

Mistakes. How many mistakes had piled up in his memory, like stones in a clogged river? Becoming a spy among shadows, dancing on the threads of Dumbledore's web — the old puppeteer, always smiling with cold eyes. Pouring his anger onto Harry Potter, the boy who carried his mother's eyes like a hereditary curse. And Draco… ah, Draco, turned into a puppet by a lord whose name echoed like a sinister omen.

Death — he remembered it with a clarity that tormented him. The pain of Nagini's bite still throbbed in his soul, a wound that had never healed, marking his neck like a seal of humiliation. Voldemort's eyes, golden and icy, shone in his mind: too human to be monstrous, too monstrous to be human. A perverse contradiction, like the war itself that ravaged the wizarding world, where Grindelwald, once a titan, would later wither like a broken toy in the hands of his lover-rival.

Severus reflected, his trembling hands clutching a goblet of bitter thoughts. Would he be capable of killing again, if necessary? Even while hating, even while craving vengeance, the ghost of love would persist, a faint whisper in his parched soul. Perhaps his interior was as icy as the whispers in the halls of Hogwarts claimed — the bat of Slytherin, the potions master whose gaze cut like a blade. Cruelty, yes, but how many of his students had learned to survive thanks to his relentless methods?

Now, however, he was no longer the feared professor. He was simply Severus Snape, the half-blood who had defied the blood and mud of his origins. Tobias — the father, the shadow who had once broken his nose and spirit — now lay subdued, like iron forged in flames. He had risen, yes, but the victory was cold, for he knew that the past, like an underground river, would always find cracks to flood the present.

Before him, Rowena's diadem lay broken, its fracture exposing the fragility of past glories, while the basilisk's fang — an object of strength wrested with great effort — rested like a relic of violence. A Horcrux destroyed by his own hands, a silent testament to his deed. He sat then, hunched over himself, arms wrapped around his knees as if trying to contain an internal collapse, while the shards of the jewel glittered against the oak floor, noble wood that now bore only ruin. His mind, however, wandered beyond that room, plunging into the shadows of the Chamber of Secrets, where Black's lips had devoured him with the fury of an ancient ritual — a cannibalism of souls, where the line between desire and destruction dissolved into mist.

He remembered, yes, that fall: the moment when, overcome by temptation, he had leaned over Black's lifeless lips, stealing a kiss that the other could neither feel nor refuse. An act of possession and desperation, as if through that inanimate flesh he could redeem himself of all unconfessed guilt. Now, returned to consciousness, anger throbbed in his chest — anger at himself, anger at Black, whose obsession had become a constant shadow. The man pursued him through the corridors like a hungry specter, his gray eyes gleaming with a hunger reminiscent of Muggle myths: the Wendigo, a creature that devours its own humanity to fill the void.

In the quiet of the intervals, when silence settled like a veil, Severus allowed himself to look — and in those gray eyes, he saw his own disorder reflected. What was Black seeking, after all? Redemption? Revenge? Or simply the living flesh of his attention, as if each exchanged glance were a piece of soul torn away?

He left the room hours later, the basilisk's fang — now inert, its venom spent — hidden once more among folds of fabric and secrets. He stopped in the corridor, watching the door dissolve into the brick wall like a sigh lost in the mist. When had magic become so arid, he pondered, when had it become nothing more than a pale reflection of his own cruelty? His footsteps echoed theatrically, as always, his cloak billowing behind him like a consenting shadow, a mockery of a gothic character — that spectral figure of Nosferatu he had watched with Lily, in times long past. The Muggle vampires, of course, failed to capture the true essence of the thing: the slow suffocation of immortality, the loneliness that corrodes even the bones.

He moved on, passing students who wandered like sleepwalkers after dinner, ghosts who whispered forgotten verses, paintings that exchanged gossip in brushstrokes of paint. The path to the dungeons was familiar, but something diverted him.

Then, the familiar touch — fingers gripping his wrist, rough with scars and years of Quidditch. He allowed himself to be guided, his eyes fixed on the ground, as those hands pulled him into the shadows. He closed his eyes when warm lips met his, chilled by the eternity of a heart that refused to beat fully. A gasp escaped him, involuntary, fragile, as Black's tongue advanced like a conqueror in hostile territory. His hands, once steady in potion-making, now gripped the man's broad shoulders, trying to balance amidst the whirlwind. He had never been kissed with such urgency, as if the world were collapsing beyond those moments and only the bitter taste of desire and ruin remained.

He feigned indifference, of course. But how could he deny the cracks in his armor? Sirius Black—the man who had poisoned his first life, who had dragged him into the abyss even after Azkaban, whose obsession now pursued him like an echo of unpaid debts — was also the flame that melted the ice in his veins. And there, in that collision of fury and hunger, Severus allowed himself to collapse, if only for a moment. Until the memory of Bellatrix pierced his mind, sharp as a dagger: she, who had torn Black from the world with a shrill laugh. A pang of grief welled in his chest — not for the man, but for the paradoxical void his absence had left.

Instinct yielded to consciousness in a sudden awakening — as if his mind, until then submerged in primitive mists, emerged to the surface of the dark lake of reason. Severus pushed Sirius away with brute force, his eyes wide at the absurd scene, while the slap of his hand against the other's face echoed through the corridor, reverberating like trapped thunder. Black stepped back but did not retreat; he remained there, a predator in suspension, Snape's wrist still clutched in his grip, while a mocking smile played on his lips.

“What do you think you’re doing, Black?”

Severus’s voice was a serpent’s hiss, sharp and cold, but Sirius laughed — a rough laugh, laden with cynicism and something more, something that vibrated in the invisible strings between them.

“What do I think? Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it. You kissed back, after all… like in that chamber forgotten even by Merlin.”

“Silence!” Severus’s black eyes flashed, his tongue sharp against the unwanted memory. “I will not mention that again.”

“Why? Afraid to reveal that you’re an ambitious Death Eater and…”

The wand pressed against his throat before the sentence ended, its tip digging into his Adam’s apple like an icy dagger. Snape’s eyes, black and merciless, burned with a coldness honed by hatred.

“One more word, Black, and I’ll show you what I’m capable of.”

Sirius, however, stepped forward, defiant, the heat of his body invading the glacial space of the Slytherin. His fingers, calloused from Quidditch, gripped Severus’s thin wrist like manacles.

“I could report you to Dumbledore. He wouldn’t hesitate to expel someone like you.”

“Ah, yes! Your surname grants you privileged ears, doesn’t it? Tell him everything, then. Expel me. Nothing will change.”

Severus’s voice was subtle poison, but Black did not retreat.

“My surname? My family hates me. I’m in Gryffindor! Dumbledore listens to me because I’m right!”

“Right?!” Snape’s laugh was a blade. “Ah, Black… You’re drunk on ego, blind to your own hypocrisy. You’re not so different from the lunatics in your family. A lion, not a snake? That doesn’t erase what you are.”

Sirius roared, his gray eyes blazing, and slammed the other against the wall. The impact shook his bones.

“You’re just like the other snakes — venom on your tongue, arrogance in your blood!”

“And you?” The former potions master laughed bitterly, pain throbbing in his shoulders. “What do you know about flesh-and-blood people like me? Nothing!”

“I’m flesh and blood too!”

“Yes, but you… you were born under the golden moonlight of destiny. A beloved hero, even when you fail. Me?” His voice broke, involuntary. “I come in through the back door. I hurt myself, I fall, I get up alone. I hurt others when I’m afraid, Black. You were lucky to be born. I was lucky… to be born at all. I was lucky to still be breathing — do you really think we’re the same?”

Severus’s voice echoed like a torn whisper, his words hanging in the air like smoke from an internal fire.

“You’re the saint stained with glory; I’m the tainted to the core of my soul. You judge me out of prejudice; I judge you for what you’ve done. You think that because I pretend not to feel, I have no heart? But I feel, Black. I feel with an intensity that would consume you.”

His body trembled — not from fear, but from the silent fury eating away at his insides. The pain in his shoulder, a phantom scar from Nagini’s bite, throbbed like a second heart, pulsing in sync with the memories of a death that had once swallowed him. Sirius’s gray eyes widened, fixed on him, as hatred and desire intertwined in a perverse dance. Severus bent slightly, one shoulder lower than the other, trembling fingers clutching his sleeves as if seeking an anchor within himself. His face, pale as the moon under fog, contorted into a mask of pain and bitterness — black eyes, bottomless pits where tears glistened like shards of glass.

“In the end, I’ll remain nothing,” he whispered, his voice breaking into shards. “I can conquer everything, but nothingness will pursue me—that’s the burden of those born like me: fools who believe they can dig dignity out of the mud.”

He gasped, the air failing him as if the castle itself were compressing his chest. Tears streamed silently, mingling with the blood dripping from his nose to his lips — a metallic, bitter taste, like the life he had always been given. The pain in his shoulder sharpened, turning into a knife that sawed at his nerves. His head throbbed to the rhythm of distant drums — echoes of a war already fought but never forgotten. For a moment, he plunged again into the limbo between breath and silence: Nagini, the serpent with shimmering scales; Voldemort’s golden eyes, fixed like beacons of an abyss; the cold of the wooden floor, rough against his face, as the world collapsed in screams, spells, and shards of memories.

“You…,” Black began, but the words disintegrated in his mouth, fragile before the spectacle of ruin before him.

Sirius watched Severus as if seeing, for the first time, the crack in the perfect marble of his facade. The Slytherin writhed in silent agony, his black eyes darting from shadow to shadow, like an animal cornered by nightmares. His gasps were hoarse, almost inhuman, and his body — once so rigid, so controlled — now bent like a branch in a storm. Sirius touched his shoulder, cautious, pulling back the sleeve of his robe. The skin there was marred by a black, pulsating stain, as if something alive writhed beneath the surface.

“What is this…?” he whispered, his anger dissipating like mist in the morning sun, replaced by a cold that gnawed at his insides.

Severus did not answer. His eyes, glazed, fixed on a point beyond time, beyond space. Sirius leaned in, his fingers trembling as they touched the other’s face — pale as the moon in a winter sky — forcing him to meet his gaze. He blinked, slowly, like someone waking from a deep dream.

“What is this?” Black repeated, his voice now a sharp blade.

“I hate you…”

“Severus. What is this?”

“I hate you.”

“Answer me!”

A sigh escaped Severus’s lips, as light as the fluttering of a moth’s wings. “A gift… from a Maledictus,” he murmured, the words dragging like blood over stone. Sirius’s fingers on his chin were warm — a cruel irony, for they reminded him he was still alive.

“You were infected by a Maledictus… Severus, this is—”

“Don’t feign concern while you revel in my ruin!” Severus interrupted, pushing Sirius’s touch away like a beggar rejecting alms. “I’ve carried this for years. I don’t crawl like a rat, nor do I bite my elbows in agony.”

“You need to see a healer. Now.”

“A healer?” The laugh that escaped his lips was bitter, tinged with disdain. “I could be better than any of them, if they’d let me. But there’s no cure.”

“You’re too proud to even save your own skin!”

“Silence!”

The shout echoed off the stone walls, but it was already fading as Severus gasped, his body pressed against the cold wall like a shadow about to detach. The torches flickered, though there was no wind — the pain in his head intensified, turning his skull into a cathedral of buzzing. His vision darkened: first the gold of the flames, then the gray of the stone, finally absolute blackness. His limbs, once tense like violin strings, dissolved into ethereal lightness. He closed his eyes, and time stretched — an eternity compressed into seconds, like sand slipping through the narrow neck of an hourglass.

Sirius watched him, his hands still hovering in the air, as if the space between them were an insurmountable abyss. Severus’s pride, as sharp as his tongue, had crumbled there, revealing the raw flesh beneath the armor. The black stain on his shoulder pulsed, alive, an organism apart.

“Why do you insist on being so…,” Black began, but the words failed him. So human? So fragile? So strong?