Five
Snape is on the floor of his small studio. Drenched and unresponsive. He is breathing at least. They managed to escape somehow.
Sirius lights the fireplace, closes the curtains he always leaves open because he never cared if people watched. He searches the house because Snape would have commented on his intelligence if he hadn't.
The man is still on the floor. Sirius doesn't register that he should be the first priority. Or he does, and he's scared about the prospect of what he has to do.
He lifts him, trying to manage it somehow.
"You are a big guy now." He says to no one. To the walls of his empty flat.
He moves him to the bed, takes a breath. He looks at Snape, checks his pulse, checks that he's still breathing. He is. He is. It's okay.
"Well." He says. "Here we go."
He begins unbuttoning his robes. Snape will kill him. They escaped that cave so Snape can kill him himself.
Don't touch me. Too many warnings.
"It's the logical thing to do. You are soaked. You are always going on about logic or some shit -so own your advice."
His chest is too pale. Sirius isn't sure if it's from the cold, the poison or because he spends too much time in libraries.
He thinks, a little too late, that he should have removed his shoes first. So he does. His socks then. His feet are clean, taken care of. What a weird thought to have. Yet isn't this the weirdest fucking situation? Snape unconscious in his house, with Sirius the only one to take care of him. He should have been laughing. He should laugh when Snape wakes up. He should tell him that his whole operating alone doesn't work. That he would have died otherwise.
He almost died, even with Sirius there.
"A towel." He says, and his flat echoes the silence of that cave.
He searches for a clean one, in drawers with mixed clothes.
"There. I knew I had one." He smiles and he feels fake.
He removes Snape's trousers, throws the sheets to cover him, to give him a remote sense of dignity. He barely has any hair and there are scars scattered, old and new, striking throughout the paleness.
He moves him again, steading him in a sitting position. He has to take off his robe, the bed is starting to get wet.
"Come on. Almost there." He's glad he started the fire as soon as he got in. The place is cold. He remembers then, that he too, is drenched to his core.
A peel of the fabric, a hand first, then the other. And there with only a sheet to cover Snape, Sirius is faced with a reality he has circled around until now.
There is a back that he holds. A back covered with angry red lines, faded but still there. Ever there. There are so many that he thinks there is not a single part of the skin left unmarked.
I can endure it.
"Of course you can, you fucking bastard." Sirius says, sobs, stops because now it's not the time. He has to be quick, before the adrenaline leaves him completely. "Of course you can." He says as an afterthought.
He wipes him, holds his hair to the side. Maybe Snape should cut them, or braid them or something. He remembers a night when Remus had told him the same thing. He was puking the entirety of his stomach bent over the toilet, after he had drank their whole secret supply in a challenge. Remus was holding his hair like Sirius is holding Snape's now. James and Peter had gone to Madam Pomfrey's office -Pete to distract her with a fake stomach ache, James to steal a sobering potion.
They had started a rumour after, about Slughorn, because why else there was a sobering potion at a school?
For stupid students like him, he thinks now.
Snape's body shivers.
"Right. Right." Now is not the time to reminisce.
He searches his closet, the laundry that is left on the chair. Something warm. Something soft, his head provides. There is a sweater Remus had bought for him for some birthdays, or for the holidays, he doesn't remember, that Sirius never wore, because he said that it made him look like a lame professor guy from muggle movies. Remus had said that he should change it. He never did.
He throws clothes on the floor and there, at the back, is a bag, worn out and torn from the years and the pressure of piles of clothes above it.
"Aha." He turns, showing it to Snape, who still lies on the bed, eyes closed. Sirius must seem like a madman. He feels like one.
He dresses him like a doll -like a corpse, his head provides unhelpfully this time. He covers him with blankets, reinforces the fire. He doesn't know what time it is, but the curtains are thick and the place is coloured with a soft orange light from the fireplace.
"Okay. Stay here. Sleep." He says after he checking the place again. Snape makes him paranoid.
Yeah, okay. Okay. He needs a bath.
Sirius closes the bathroom door, the only room in this place that has one. He stands for a minute straight, unblinking.
They have to tell James about what they found. About what Reg found. Is he going to be okay? Will Voldemort know that they took his fucking soul? Will he kill Reg? James should stay hidden. The stakes are higher now, high enough that Sirius can't see them. How do you kill a soul? Snape would probably know. He will say something about how basic information that is and if Sirius wasn't so consumed in drinking and fucking back in school he would probably know it.
Is Snape a virgin? He probably is. He was back at school, sure. After? How would he find the time? Between being a bitter, snappy problem and fighting? He found time to fill an entire floor with potions.
The potions. They should take the potions. If they had, Sirius could give something to him to wake him up. He doesn't know what. But surely there must be something. Snape surely has little labels in that neat, overly elegant handwriting that seemed a bit too much for school books. Like he was trying to prove a point. Sirius used to tell him, how girly it was. And? And? Lily used to always yell back and James dragged him away.
Had Lily hated him? Has she only tolerated him for James sake? Does she hate him now? Probably not. She wouldn't agree to make him the godfather of her son.
Will she hate him if Snape dies?
Snape won't die. Logically speaking, he isn't injured -just exhausted. He needs sleep. And then...And then what? They should contact Reg. Reg who still lives in the fucking Ancient House of Black. In that shit hole of three stores and thirty fucking rooms. In theory Sirius should probably be able to go still. In practice he would probably die on the spot, as soon as he set foot there.
Could they trust Reg?
Probably. Snape will say that probably isn't a word he likes to use. He wants solid plans, proofs. Mistrusting of everything and everyone except Lily. I know Sirius, I have grown up with him. Does she know? Has she seen? Is there where Snape drew the line? How can anyone do that to a person? Since when? Forever? While Sirius walked around in corridors yelling Snivellus smells like a Flobberworm, he washes his hair with the mucus, Snape had yet a new line on his back? When Sirius returned to the homey Christmas atmosphere of the Potters, where he ate and laughed and learnt what a fucking family meant, what love from a parent is? Probably. Probably.
He bites his hand and he screams. Harder. Louder. It had been years since the last time he did that. Years that he felt the need, that he ought to hide. He tastes the blood, the metallic sense, the pain. Out. Out. He has to let his voice out. The stress. When the door opens again, he has to be fine.
_____
Severus opens his eyes and he jolts upright. A moment to scan his surroundings, a beat of his pulse to register his exhaustion. He searches for his wand, doesn't find it -wandless magic is still limited for him, he has to practice more.
"Welcome back to the land of the living." Black says, sitting on the floor in front of a fireplace.
"We have to go." Severus looks at the table, his wand resting there on top of it.
"Take a fucking breath first." Black is staring at a glass he holds.
"Are you drunk?" Severus strides, takes his wand.
"Not even remotely."
A step and he snatches the glass away.
"Are you juvenile? Relying on alcohol to suppress your problems?"
"I haven't even drunk one glass. I'm not stupid."
"Seems like it. One. And then it's two. And then you lose all sense of control. We can't afford..." Severus doesn't finish his sentence, because Black turns to him. He stares. And it's unsettling.
"Fine." He says. Too easy. Something is wrong. "The bathroom is there if you want to use it."
Severus wants a moment to think undistracted. He puts his wand inside the holder on his sleeve. He is in front of the bathroom door, when he realises that there is no holder and he looks down at himself. These aren't his clothes.
Black is already up, a step back as Severus marches towards him. As if he was watching, as if he was waiting for the attack.
It's futile, even if he was. The place is too small, too tiny to contain Severus fury. His wand is at Black's chest.
"You were wet." He says.
"There are spells for that." Severus replies. Crucio, he thinks and he believes he will manage it right now. Obliviate, feels appropriate enough.
Black swallows, his eyes widening. As if he forgot. As if Severus would ever believe that.
"That's the drink for, then? For celebration?" Severus says and Black tries to get away. There is a wall on his back, he won't go far. "Take a step, make any move and you will suffer. I promise you that."
"I didn't mean to." Black says. He is present, focused. He should be. Severus will kill him. He is still searching for the proper way. "We had just gotten back and you were as good as dead."
"And you thought that was your chance to humiliate me more. Little Snivellus is not just ugly, he's scarred too. Let's undress him again, because once wasn't enough, let's see the extent of his ugliness, let's all laugh, make a joke about it. Send a letter to Potter, tell him all about what you saw. Go on. Laugh. I dare you."
"Do you see me laughing? Did I laugh when Lily's sister..?"
"Oh, no. I forgot. You need an audience. It helps you perform better. You need Potter to see how delightful you are, how clever, how funny. A clown on his feet, in the slightest chance he loves you back."
Black puts his palm on Severus's mouth. Close it. "Shut up." Severus bites him. Hard. Black doesn't back down. "I don't want to hurt you." He says, but his tone suggests otherwise. A fake virtue, that doesn't suit him. The pretence of heroics, just to fit.
He hits him with his elbow. Again. He's drained, otherwise Black would have backed off already. Again. It doesn't matter that he's drained. It never did.
"Would you fucking stop?" Black says and he pushes him back.
"You don't want to hurt me?" Severus says. There's blood in his mouth. "I do."
"Go on then. Kill me. Tell Lily that you killed me. Because you are so fucking paranoid, so deeply full of yourself that you can't see that you wouldn't survive without me. You would have died in that fucking cave."
"Oh, I owe you my life now? Let's say a debt is dealt."
"Fuck, Snape, shut up." Black rests on the wall. Resigned. "Shut your mouth for a moment." He closes his eyes. A mistake. Severus can kill him, just like that. Make him a black spot to decorate the tapestry.
"Obliviate me." He says.
"What?" He fears that Black is reading his thoughts. It's not true. He knows it's not true. Better wizards than him had tried, stronger, more persistent and they had failed. "I don't know what kind of trick this is..."
Black opens his eyes, crosses his arms.
"Obliviate me." He says again. "Erase the memory."
"I'm sure your mind is so chaotic..."
"Do it." He takes a step off the wall. "My thoughts aren't worth much, as you have repeatedly told me."
"There is a procedure, unless you want to be nothing, but a mindless puppet walking around -not that it would be much different from usual. A mapping. Otherwise it's a gamble and it takes incredible skill to..."
"I know you can do it." Black says. Half a grin. Feral. A challenge.
"I won't risk disturbing Fidelius. I don't know the complications that might arise, if I accidentally poke in that memory."
"Okay." Black says and that's a challenge too. "So you have to trust me."
"No." Severus tells him. "I just need to find a way."
"I'll leave you to it then." He sits down, facing the fire. His back on Severus.
"I will find a way." He warns, but Black doesn't respond.
______
Half a step.
_____
There are dark spots on the bathroom floor. Evidence of spells fired. A few tiles broken.
The locket rests on one of them, emanating the same oppressive energy as before. Yet, here, inside an ordinary bathroom seems less frightening than before. Or is it because Severus isn't drugged now, spiralling inside his mind with his worst fears.
It's because he has time to think.
It's because, he is alone for a moment, without Black's breath constantly at his side, watching him break down.
He should have let him drink the potion. It was a grave mistake, not to.
He blames himself for this predicament. Black has a weapon now in his arsenal. He knows, he's seen -a sight not Lily is aware of. She knows, fragments of it, she knows to an extent, more than an extent, but not all, never all. He never showed her. It would be devastating for her. A powerless girl standing against a man. And she wouldn't stop trying, reckless in her loyalty, reckless enough that Severus feared for her safety.
And then it hadn't mattered. Severus had dealt with it on his own. He had wielded his power, he had threatened, unafraid of the consequences, and it had stopped. The physical aspect of it, at least.
And now Black knows. Because Severus was reckless. Because his thoughts were consumed about Voldemort and immortality and a chubby boy with green eyes, who someone placed his life on Severus's hands.
Immortal. How someone could want to live endlessly escapes him. He must be too happy, or too insane. And he knows in what category Voldemort falls.
He sits on the floor. Undignified. Proper people don't sit on the floor, they consider themselves too worthy. Yet the gesture comes to him easily, a pull of his legs until they touch his chest, and arm around them. Still. It was important to be still. Silent.
Was it important or did he make himself believe that?
It doesn't matter. Neither that, nor that Black knows. He will use it eventually, in some way. It doesn't matter. Whatever crude joke he will say, he can tell the world if he wants to, Severus Snape was born unlovable, here, look, his backspeaks of it. A sight to behold.
Obliviate me.
It doesn't matter.
What matters is, for them to find a way to kill Voldemort and his followers. Severus doesn't want imprisonment. He wants death, a reassurance in finality. He wants to give what they are throwing at them, at Lily, at Harry.
He rarely thinks of his name. He never says it. It's Lily's son. Because Harry will die.
He gets up, opens the door. Black lies on his bed, smoking.
"I will explain the logistics to you." He says.
"What?"
"Of what the object is. Try and focus. I will only say it only once."
Black is sitting up, cross-legged the ashtray on his side. Severus sighs. He will explain the nature of the darkest act, wearing a loose sweater, barefoot, to a man-child.
"What is the problem now?" Black asks.
"Nothing." Severus answers. He looks around, spots his socks on the chair in front of the fire.
"If you're cold..." Black taps his cigarette on his lips.
"I'm not cold." Severus tells him, sitting down. A black sock in hand. "And if I was, I would warm myself up. There are charms for that, too."
"Fine." Black throws the ash from his smoke in the ashtray. He misses and it falls on the covers.
"An item that contains a soul can be anything." Severus starts. "Even another living being." He has his attention now. Severus begins to cover his left foot. Woolen socks, a remnant habit of forgotten winters. "It's called a Horcrux. For creating one, you essentially need three things. A container, like the locket, a spell for transferring the soul and a way to break your soul into pieces." He looks up, Black is ready to interrupt him. "I'm not finished." Severus tells him. "If you're wondering if there is a way to break your soul into pieces, there is. Learn to be patient."
"Will you retract points from me next?" Black is annoyed, angry under the surface, the quick inhales of smoke, the rhythmic tapping of his fingers on his thigh.
"If I had ever been your professor, Black, you would have been expelled."
Severus sets his foot on the floor, raises the other.
A roll of the eyes from across.
"The way to tear your soul apart is through murder." Severus states. "Intentional, a will to kill. The purpose of the act to be only that. Murder itself. Then your soul is broken."
Black looks at him. He understands, Severus doesn't need to ask -the malicious intent needed to end a life with that goal as your only motive.
"Next, you use the spell to extract the piece of your soul and put it into the container. It's a meticulous process, meticulous and painful. But I imagine it serves its purpose. The container becomes the anchor to the living, even if the body receives fatal damage. You can't die."
There is a stillness in the room. The theory is horrific, yet for them it's not just theory. The reality itself is worse. The impossible task to kill an immortal man.
"What is the limit?" Black asks, as Severus pulls up his sock.
"What do you mean?"
"The number." Black says. "If you go to such lengths, why stop at one? Why not ensure that even if one is found, there is still safety."
"That's impossible." Severus dismisses him. "One is the limit. The book clearly states it."
"Forget about the book." Black gets up.
"Forget about the only resource of my information?"
"Yes. Okay. The book told us what we needed to know." Black moves closer. He seems frantic. "I'm asking, what do you think?" He points at Severus.
"My knowledge is based..."
"Fuck the knowledge." Black says and Severus crosses his arms. "Okay. Okay. You have the knowledge. You read words in a book. All I'm saying is, do you believe that Voldemort would stop at one? We retrieved that one. We. You and me. That's it? Is it over? We find a way to destroy the soul and that's it?"
Severus looks at the floor. He needs a moment to think, but he answers anyway.
"There is a limit. Even if he wanted to cross it. Everything has a limit."
"Is the limit one?" Black says. "That's what I'm asking."
"The only recorded case dictated..."
Black kneels. Severus is forced to look at him instead of the floor.
"You are the most mistrustful and skeptical man I know. Tell me that one is the limit."
It is, Severus argues to himself. All evidence points to that. Not only the written ones. It was only one other case. But still. The man who invented it should know better than him.
But also the cave. Well guarded enough to kill anyone that dared to step inside. They found it, by chance. Because Voldemort made a mistake, by taking Regulus' Black elf. For multiple reasons.
It is. One is the limit.
He stares at Black's eyes.
"I can't." He tells him.
_____
"We should tell James." They are emptying Snape's room, since he refuses to keep it, after Reg's visit. "We should send him an owl."
"Letters can be traced." Snape replies evenly. He does that thing where he speaks while he has an entirely different conversation in his head.
"They need to know." Sirius says. He should have send a letter to him when Snape was out.
"They don't. We will not say anything. Not to them, not to anyone."
"Are you serious?" There is noise the stairs, steps, they both still, until they pass by the door and their sound is lost at the end of the hallway.
Snape turns. Stops whatever difficult discussion he had in his mind. He focuses on Sirius.
"You want to say to two people -who I may add aren't the best in staying still- that are confined in a house, without any solid proof of the amount of time they have to spend there, that the man that hunts them is immortal. When they can do nothing, but wait. And you think that's a brilliant idea."
"We have to tell someone." Sirius retorts. Maybe James not knowing is for the best. He would want to leave, to fight. He is at his best when he's moving, a constant energy that fuels his surroundings. Sirius doesn't want that fuel to end. He doesn't want to think about it.
"Your brother suspecting it, is enough. If we come to a halt, we will confirm his suspicions." Snape puts the last bottles into the suitcase. Months of work stuffed into a square box.
"We should tell Dumbledore at least. He might have something to offer. A plan."
Snape raises the bag from the floor, hugs it.
"There's a handle, you know." Sirius tells him.
"It's broken." A shake of his head. "Let's go."
Sirius doesn't offer to help. He knows it will start another argument. They already have too many of those. For more important things.
They land to his flat. They have to leave it too, Snape says. It's too familiar, too exposed. They don't know where they should go yet.
"So. Dumbledore." A conversation in parts. On going, between bites of food and apparations.
"Not yet." Snape scans the room. He wants to tear his floor too. Another hiding place.
"We don't trust Dumbledore now. If he wasn't on our side, we would be doomed."
"It depends on what you consider our side."
"Ah." Sirius lights a smoke. "You exhaust me."
"Intelligence does that to some people." Snape opens his bag, checks if anything is broken.
"Pretentious bastards too." Sirius adds, gets a glare in response. "So why not Dumbledore? Where do our sides differ?"
"Albus main goal is to win the war." Snape says. Another lesson. Sirius looks outside, behind the closed curtains.
"Our main goal is to win the war." Sirius replies.
"My main goal is Lily's safety." Snape tells him and Sirius turns to him. "I don't care about the war. If I could ensure her safety, her son's safety, I wouldn't ask for anything else."
Sirius' face contorts.
"The way to ensure that, is to win the war. Albus doesn't care about Lily or Potter or you specifically. He views a grand picture. The light's prevalence against darkness. Grand plans and grand schemes. By whatever means necessary. If you need to die, it doesn't matter to him, if in the end the fight is won. Do you understand?"
"You make the old man sound so..."
"Clinical? He is."
"Bad."
"It would be bad if he didn't have any remorses. He has. It's still true."
"You talk about a man that gives his all into this fighting." Sirius says.
"How did your friend Lupin got involved in that mission?"
Sirius face falls. He grabs the fabric of the curtains.
"Remus is risking..."
"Yes, yes. Lupin is risking his life, while the rest of us do what?"
"You don't know what it's like. You don't get to talk about it."
"I don't need to. I don't care. And yet, who approached him, who convinced him? Albus." Snape gets up. "The same man that convinced me to turn into a spy. Whatever is necessary. I respect him. But I find men without an attachment to anything particular, men without actual grounding, without something precious to lose, terrifying."
Snape takes a step forward. He's terrifying, Sirius thinks. He can't stop looking at him.
"The remorse is what separates him from Voldemort. So no, Black, I don't trust Albus. I find him necessary."
"The way you think..."Sirius says, and how that sentence ends?
"Scares you?" Snape mocks.
"Yeah, yes." A scratch on his jaw. It's not exactly true.
"Don't worry, Black. It's how you will stay alive."
_____
The problem is though, that they don't know where to begin. They have to leave, but they don't know where to go. They have to destroy the artifact, but they don't know how. They believe there are more, but not where or how many.
Snape is driving him crazy. He proposes an idea, then he rejects it himself. He stays silent for hours, thinking, always thinking. Mute in the face of Sirius restlessness.
He stays in the chair, broken states of sleep and every time he opens his eyes, he is moodier than before.
Snape is in the bathroom. Sirius puts on some music. It helps him think. Lower than usual, because Snape finds his music choices appalling. One song ends and Snape exits the bathroom. Drops of water fall on his clothes. Borrowed clothes. Sirius clothes, that he reluctantly took, because he values sanitary more.
"I think we have to go to a muggle place for now." He says. He is wiping his hair, a mundane moment in contrast with his suggestion, in contrast with everything they have been discussing so far.
Sirius wants a break. A five minute break. James would crack a joke once in a while, whatever the circumstances, Remus would share a story he had read in a book, a romantic, in love with the concept of love and Peter would ask about one thing or the other, eager to learn about experiences he had yet to live.
Snape doesn't take breaks. He bathes and he eats and he wipes his hair, while working. Thinking. Calculating.
"Why didn't you wash your hair at school?" Sirius asks. Five minutes. He wants five minutes.
Snape stills. A moment. A breath. He is ready to fight.
"You should." Sirius speaks fast to prevent him. "They look alright."
"Have you hit your head?"
It's a solid question. He wonders if James feels like this, trapped in another house. If he wants a break too. It's possible. But James has Lily and Harry.
"Muggle place." Sirius says. "Where?"
Snape is in front of him. Privacy crumbles in the face of survival. He smells clean. He seems clean.
"Have you finally lost it?" Snape asks, but he searches his face, his eyes. He is searching like a medic for the reason of his patient's discomfort.
"I think we should talk to Dumbledore." He doesn't make any sense, he knows. But they have to do something.
Snape touches his forehead. A turned palm. A movement Sirius has seen Lily make.
"I'm not sick." He says. "No. I am sick. I can't spend another day in here."
"Is this a tantrum?" Snape face can't seem to decide if the reaction should be amusement or irritation. "What are you, a child?"
"If we spend one more day here doing nothing, I will finally owe my name and turn mad." He thinks, he already is. He thinks that's the best five minutes he had in a while. A back and forth with Snape within reach, a mindless quibble.
And then it happens. A tap on the window. Not now, Sirius thinks. His break is not over yet. Another tap on the glass.
He groans. Snape has his wand already out and he's looking at him.
"Be car..."
"Be careful. I know. I fucking know."
It's an owl. A brown, insignificant bird like the ones used by the post office. Sirius opens the window, takes the letter. He searches the drawers for a treat, but he finds none and the bird leaves disappointed.
He holds the envelope. Elegant handwriting with a single name on it.
"It's for you." He says and he starts casting spells, gathering things even before they open the letter. Before they see the message inside. Before he gives it to Snape.
It's quick. They have already discussed an exit plan. Throughoutly and Sirius had felt exhausted. He isn't now. Now, he is thankful with the efficiency of it all.
"What does it say?" And then. "From who is it?" Sirius asks, but he's already beside Snape, looking over his shoulder.
The Dark Lord has placed a jinx on his name. A Taboo. NM
"You won, Black. We are going to see Dumbledore."