Eighteen
There is an old radio at a small table by the window. It's not even a table-just a wooden surface for the device to rest on. Severus moves his wand, a flick, just for a sound to hide away the yells from above.
He doesn't really hear them, what they are saying, what they are arguing about this time. A long buried history of people who were born sharing blood and a name, and pretended that it mattered, until it did not. Until the blood stopped running thick and the world crashed with its views forcing them to pick a side.
Blood matters not. Severus knows it better than anyone. It's the effort that matters, not the name of which bonds are called.
Mother, father, brother.
Names that hold no meaning, if they're not supported by actions. And yet. Black loves his brother. And the blood which they share has nothing to do with that love. It's the memories of him, the person that shared them with. The person who Black thinks his brother is, who he can become. The sentimentality of it all, not obligation.
He flicks his wand again-perhaps he'll hear some news, learn something. Perhaps they will announce the dead, names of people Severus knows. It has no meaning for him. The only people that matter are hidden in a house in which no one can reach them.
He looks up. And Black is near.
"Are you feeling festive?" He asks, pointing at the device, the noise that comes from it. Severus scoffs. "So what did you learn so far?" He adds, shedding his casual posture aside.
An hour ago, he stormed out, leaving him to pick up the pieces of his attempt to make the diary talk. And now he comes, determined again, focused as if everything that troubled him vanished. It happened quicker than Severus anticipated. The realisation of the fleeting moment, of the meaningless act.
Touch me.
Severus presses his hand at his temble.
"How generous of you to assist." Severus says. "There." He points at the papers on the table. "Read."
Regulus had thought of writing down the answers for better examination, as pointless as they seemed, they might provide a clue that they initially missed.
"Who wrote this?" Black asks as he takes the sheets in his hands.
"Me." Severus tells him and Black half-smiles, half smirks. The helplessness in them is evident-the hesitation. A shot Black took-and proved right-so Severus continued it. "Imitating you."
"Poorly, I may add." Black says, shaking his head.
"I disagree." Severus tells him.
Black stares, then turns to the papers-a half-smile, barely there-before focusing on the words.
Severus wants to ask what is wrong with him. If truly the madness of his blood is a myth or it contains truths in some parts.
"So it wants us to do what exactly?" He asks, turning a page.
"Purify the space where your imaginary crush exists." Regulus rests his back on the counter behind Black's chair. "The school, if that wasn't already clear."
"Purify it how exactly?" Black asks.
"I am not sure." Severus says. He didn't want to push too much into it. He didn't want to seem like he had any control of the matter. A helpless boy in love doesn't ask too much questions.
"And you didn't think of asking?"
"Perhaps if you hadn't abandoned your task, you could provide your disagreement." Severus tells him.
"As if you would listen to me." Black says.
"I would not. But still. You would have your chance." Severus answers him back.
Black looks at him, a roll of his eyes, as they rest to the table. A breath.
"I won't." He says. He doesn't look at him as he speaks. "Abandon my task." He mocks, and it's too serious to be one. A raise of his gaze. Severus thinks, he will ask him okay again, in a quiet voice, a question and a tone unfitting for the moment, for any moment.
"Good." Severus says. "The situation doesn't require tantrums." He looks away.
"So what are we going to do?" Black asks. "It's a clue. Maybe not we wanted, but..."
"It bothers me." Severus says. "The way he phrases it. What danger might be waiting if we follow his instructions."
"Are you scared?" Black asks and Severus isn't sure if he's doing it on purpose.
"Not for me, Black." He says, staring back at him. There is a school full of children. He can't unleash whatever horror Voldemort though at sixteen, without thinking about them. Naive children that barely know how to perform the simplest incantation.
"Of course." Black replies. "Not for you." And he's more serious than before, more focused.
Severus wants to retort, to ask if he thinks he's lying. He wants to tell him to pick a mood, any mood, so he can work on that. This disarray he's displaying it's the exact reason they are where they are. It's infectious. If Black can't, he will set it for him.
The music stops playing, a moment of silence and then a long dragging sound, like sirens.
Severus sets the volume higher.
The Ministry is under siege. I repeat. The Ministry is under siege. All available wizards and witches of age are requested to help.
Again, on repeat. For anyone that opens it now to hear it. Severus isn't sure how long it lasts -several minutes, he's sure- until it's dead silent again. This is an escalation. The murders, the attacks will multiply if the Ministry falls. There are records there, the very same that he had send Arthur to search about the wizarding world. Its people. Family records that prove of heritage, of which blood is pure enough to survive. Of who is deemed worthy. A proof so insignificant of a person's worth, so illogical like the colour of hair and skin, like a name given at birth.
"Fuck." Black says and his eyes are on him when Severus turns to look.
"This is a turn for the worse." Regulus adds.
Severus turns the next station.
Anyone that can come through...
Again.
If the Ministry falls, our pillar of...
Again.
Please, there are people inside...
It's night. The perfect time for an attack. The people inside are going to be few. An easy target.
The time period they got while they were at Malfoy Mansion. Four days for Voldemort would be gone. His attention turned to something big enough that not even the Potters' Keeper capture would shake it.
If the Ministry falls, the voice on the radio says, the embodiment of justice and integrity in our society, the very thing that keeps us safe, what will happen next? The wizarding world must do its duty to protect the Ministry. The Minister. It will be of great honour to...
Severus flicks his wrist, a little too hard. Silence.
The Ministry. As if a building is what keeps them alive. As if the lives lost are less than the Minister's. As if the reason they should defend it are vague words like justice and integrity.
If the Ministry falls, people will die. Thousands of half-bloods and Muggle-borns. Records of them, their addresses, their homes -invaded. There is going to be a blood bath.
Severus looks at the device, cursing the moment he opened it. He doesn't look at Black. He knows what he will say. The right thing, the moral reasons as to why they should go. As if Severus doesn't know already.
As if he doesn't have to choose with every breath, a cost that he carries in either direction.
"You should stay here." Black speaks, breaking the silence.
He glances at him, above his shoulder.
"If anyone is to stay put is you." Severus replies.
Black knows this. They have argued about it several times already. And that was before. A lifetime of choices ago.
If Black dies, Lily will be in danger.
Severus hasn't kept him alive for him to die now. He will survive until the end. Severus keeps his promises.
"Snape." Black says and he gets up.
Severus can't argue openly in front of Regulus. He can't remind Black, again, every time, that he holds Lily's safety in his hands.
A worn-out argument. A half-truth.
"If they get their hands on the records..." Black begins, and Severus wants to point out that there it is, the intellect, the moral of it all, the core of it, the core of him.
"I am aware of what will happen." Severus frowns. "I know." He says. People like Lily, like her parents, like her aunts and her uncles and cousins, all of them will fall by thousands.
People like himself.
He stares at Black. He is tapping two fingers on the table. He seems hesitant. Severus isn't sure as to what.
"I understand the stakes." Regulus says. "But the Dark Lord is still invisible. And if we don't finish the destruction of the Horcruxes, many more will die."
"Do you think he'll be there?" Black asks.
"He might." Severus replies.
Black drums his fingers again.
"You should stay here." He repeats.
"Whatever the choice, we are not to be separated." Severus answers him, an edge in his voice.
"If you get caught..." Black starts.
"If I get caught, I alone will bare the consequences." Severus cuts him off.
Black laughs, quick, dry and it's not a laugh in the slightest.
"And that's not true at all."
"Can I ask?" Regulus moves, standing in the space between them."What are you even arguing about?"
Severus presses his lips. He keeps dragging himself into pointless arguements. Always had. With him. Since the first day they met.
Black lights a cigarette. Severus wants to snatch it away.
A glare, a stare.
"If you are going to go there, you should go now. It's pointless otherwise." Regulus takes a breath. "I want to state that I disagree with it. We should focus on the lead of the diary."
Black exhales, ready to argue.
"But," Regulus continues, "there is no right choice here."
Severus stares at Black's cigarette as it slowly burns, a breath at a time. He moves. Black stares at him, parting his lips for a question, but Severus takes the cigarette out of his hand, resting his body on the table just enough. Black is at his side, watching as Severus takes a drag. An exhale and Black doesn't even flinch as the smoke comes out of Severus' mouth towards his face.
Severus closes his eyes, his palm resting on his forehead.
"If we don't come back in a few hours, you will leave this house and you will go straight to Albus." Severus says. "You will take the Horcruxes with you, but you will not give them away. You will tell Albus everything. From the moment you approached me to the messages the diary wrote. But firstly, you will tell him that the Potters' are in danger. You will tell him to search for them and remove them from where they are hiding." A side glance at Regulus. "You will trust no one except Lily."
He looks like a boy, Severus thinks. It's funny really. He, himself might look like a boy. He doesn't feel like one.
"You are smart. Go take your elf if you need him."
Regulus frowns, a nod that feels like disagreement.
"I still think that going there is futile in the grand scheme of things." He says.
Severus takes another drag.
"Yes." He says and he straightens his posture. "It is."
Black catches his wrist. A physical line that he keeps crossing. Always. That Severus lets him to. Futile. Inevitable. A choice that was never really one.
"Follow." Severus says, as the smoke travels down his throat, to his lungs.
A slow kind of death. He knows it. An infection that he can't point its start, but he can see its end. The process of it, the aching that it's sure to come, that has come already.
A fault that belongs only to him.
A pretense of choice.
____
They land a block away, and it's already chaos. People are running in all directions—left, right, between them—and for a moment, they lose each other in the wave of bodies searching for shelter.
They collide again, arm to arm, and stay close—Snape’s hand gripping his wrist.
There's no distance here, no awkwardness, no retreat.
Every step they take follows an ominous trail toward danger, toward death. The only choice—the only reasonable way to survive—is to stick with people you trust.
For Sirius, the list is short. In this time and place, it’s just one person.
For Snape, perhaps not even that.
He is walking, steady steps, eyes focused forward, his wand an extension of his fingers. He doesn't look at Sirius, not even a glance, like he forgot about him entirely, like Sirius himself is another thing that he carries.
The air is thick with magic, overwhelming. Screams echo with incantations—some in words, some just raw sound. A single turn, and they'll be there.
Snape’s fingers tighten around his wrist, a breath escaping his lips. A reflex, perhaps—a grounding gesture he always performs. So subtle it can be missed, so he appears unaffected.
"I know I'm wasting my breath saying this," he starts, as if he's aware of Sirius without looking at him, "but don't do anything reckless."
"We're walking to a fucking mess and you're lecturing me?" Sirius asks, amused, on edge, irritated, as every time Snape speaks, as everything that's happening as long as he exists in the same space as him.
"Don't worry." Sirius tells him. "I'll survive. Someone has to keep you alive."
Snape turns, stares at him. A frown, an indication that he's about to argue, to disagree, but the battle is right there, a step away and they begin to move again.
A step. A turn. A long forgotten scene. It comes back to him, instantly, like a second skin, like he never left the front lines.
Black robes and masks, spells firing in all directions.
Parts of the building have fallen, windows shattered, dark spots of destruction everywhere.
He raises his wand. He thinks of destruction, of the bodies on the stairs—still or screaming. He thinks of the injustice of it all.
"Protego," he says, spotting familiar faces—faces from meetings in a living room too small to contain them. He casts again and he takes a step following the heat of the battle. A glance to ensure that Snape is there.
He is, a move for each one Sirius makes, a falling into step without even looking.
A raised wand, body straight—a subtle flick of his wrist, and the body he hits convulses, then collapses.
It's accelerating, Sirius thinks. To fight with a man like him by his side—it’s liberating in its control. Sirius feels like he sheds his restraints. He casts, quick, too much, like he's flying, like he punches, like he breaths and lives.
He casts, taking down as many as he can, because it doesn't matter that he'll leave again, that the glory in which he believed is false. What matters is to win this battle, to protect what can be protected. His name doesn't matter, the name of people fighting for people that they'll never meet. That's what this is. That is what it always was.
For the skulls above houses not to increase.
Sirius casts,fire, restraints, dull sounds that he never stops to look, because Snape is there. A stare at this blind spots. A matching of pace. A different force.
Fast as him, precise, aware so Sirius affords not to be. It's like they're dancing around each other, an understanding that comes from proximity, from danger, for vulnerability shared.
Their backs touch, then away. A pull of an arm, because Sirius will make sure Snape survives.
"Protego," he says as Snape breaths at his face.
"Confringo," Snape mutters above his shoulder.
Sirius feels the sweat at his back, at his forehead. His mouth is dry.
Someone screams.
"You're burning your energy." Snape tells him.
"It's how I fight." Sirius replies.
"I know." Snape says and he moves away from his hold to push some more. Sirius follows the movement.
"Stupefy." Sirius says at a man on Snape's path.
He misses the spell that comes his way. It hits him on the arm. Heat explodes sharply around his entire hand. His palms are getting wet, the grip on his wand slipping. Only it's not sweat, it's blood dripping inside his sleeve, down his fingers, at his wand.
Snape turns—just a glance, just a scan.
"I'm fine." Sirius answers the question before it rises.
"Don't lie to me, Black. How bad?" He asks, a voice levered in the centre of the chaos.
"I can keep going," Sirius responds. "I've had worse."
Snape frowns, Sirius thinks that if it the sky wasn't dark, he would be able to spot the vein on his neck.
A grab, a pull, a hasty healing spell.
"Focus." Snape says and Sirius almost leans into him.
He doesn't have time for that, they have reached the marble stairs, stained now, a building that if Sirius didn't know it, he wouldn't recognise it. Half-ruined, the effort to keep it pristine nowhere to be found.
Snape clenches his wand, then is up, long pale fingers. Steady.
The door and the wards are almost breached.
_____
Amidst all the chaos that erupts at the Ministry's entrance, he hears the questions.
Where are the Aurors? What is the Ministry doing?
He grabs Snape's sleeve as he's finishing taking down a man Sirius knows—an Auror whose name he doesn't remember.
They are here, Sirius wants to say, fighting for either side. Or they are away, hiding for themselves.
"Have you seen any of ours?" Sirius asks him.
"Mad-eye is here," Snape replies. A pause. "I think I spotted Lupin."
Sirius fights the urge to ask where, to search for him.
"Andromeda Tonks was at the far left of the stairs." Snape stares at him. "Why?"
Sirius feels the shift of the battle, the pushing that never stops. They're already inside, the hideous fountain just a few feet away. It was a coordinated attack that they missed—a failure on their part.
They will lose. He doesn't want to say it. It feels like surrender. Like hiding and cowardice.
"It's a battle already lost." Snape says it for him. And it's a statement, an assessment when it comes from him. Resilience in the form of a new plan.
Where's Dumbledore? A man asks desperately.
He's fighting you-know-who. Don't worry. He will keep him away.
Voldemort's here. Dumbledore is fighting him. For how long, Sirius doesn't know. How many will be sacrificed for it?
If he comes, if he slips away from the old man's grip, if he sees Snape...
A fate worse than death, Reg had said.
"Do you think we'll lose?" Sirius asks him. His clothes are torn, the sweater he had given him, ready to be tossed in the trash.
"Yes," Snape replies. Then, "Incendio." A scream as the fire hits her.
"Let's go to the Records department." Sirius suggests. A glance away from Snape, three hits, then back at him. "Let's burn it down."
At first, it seems as if Snape hasn’t heard him. He moves around, takes hits, fights back with the same precision and focus that got them here.
"At least.."Sirius starts.
"Yes." Snape tells him. "Clear a path." Because Snape heard him, he has already agreed, his hits are targeted, not on the entrance, on the enemies coming in, but on the few ahead, further inside the Ministry.
Sirius thinks as they run, that a lifetime ago, not only he would never suggest a plan like that, but he would fight nails and teeth with whoever proposed it. Cowards, he would say, stay, fight, and idiotically, we can win this.
He would never suggest to turn his back on the enemies squirming in, he would never imagine to yell to others to control the casualties and to hide, run, their lives worth more than the fake glory.
A lifetime ago, it would have felt like defeat, a crushing of self. Now, he thinks it's necessary. Now, he thinks that denying Voldemort the power to track down those he considers lesser and dirty is a victory of its own.
The lifts work still, there's still time, little, but that's what they got, that's the hand that was dealt to them from the start. A constant chase of small victories. Insignificant on their own, but valuable as a whole.
"Do you know where we're going?" Sirius asks as they step inside the elevator.
"Arthur said that he has to travel three stores down, that it takes forever, because...Why are you smiling?" Snape stops, staring.
"Nothing." Sirius tells him. Snape crosses his arms as the lift moves slightly to the right and down. "It's just..." They move too quickly, a shake and Sirius holds the side of the wall as they stop.
"Just?" Snape asks.
The door opens, announcing their arrival.
"It's odd, the attention you're paying, for a man who behaves as bothered by every human interaction."
"The attention I'm paying to specific..." Snape starts.
"The attention you're paying to everything." Sirius interrupts him.
"You're looking at it the wrong way, Black." Snape says, taking a step outside.
"Yeah? And what is the right way to see it?"
Their feet echo through the vast corridor.
"It's a means of survival, not empathy." Snape replies.
His voice is low and yet it feels too loud for this silence.
"You could fool me." Sirius says, when he shouldn't, because this conversation feels too foreign for the battle raging above them, for what they're about to do.
"I have no such intention." Snape replies. A statement like all, like he's saying look at me, this is who I am. No false pleasantries, no forced softening his rough edges.
A truthful presentation of self. Yet not quite. Not a whole -a part, the worse of it only.
They find the first door. Sirius counts at least four before they open it. A dark room lighted by three spheres on the ceiling.
"We have to be fast." Snape says, as Sirius casts a Lumos.
The place is bigger than it seems. Drawers atop drawers, names and bonds catalogued in single lines.
The walls of the building rattle. The fight has moved inside in full force.
"Bombarda," Snape casts, and the drawers splinter and explode, sheets of paper flying around. It's so unlike him, this spell, so vast, so messy.
"Close the door." He commands, and Sirius nearly does before some rogue sheets fly out of the room.
"So, destruction?" Sirius asks and Snape nods.
A confirmation—that's all he needs—as every explosion shakes the walls, his or Snape's, both, until there's only white in front of him. It's like he's watching a nightmare of his from the time he was eleven, when he feared the upcoming exams, that he would fail, and he would be forced to be send home again forever.
He was trapped in a room and every Hogwarts teacher came to pass him an exam sheet, until there were too many, and the time was up and McGonagall would say, I'm sorry mister Black, and his mother would open the door urging him to move at once.
"Cast when I do." Snape says, pressed by the wall. "Wait until they all catch on fire and then open the door and leave." A side glance. "Do you understand?"
"Yes, I'm not an..."
"Incendio." Snape interrupts him.
"Fuck off," Sirius says and he moves his wand too, a moment later.
The fire catches on, rises, but they wait, they have to be sure. A full destruction. An erase of any evidence. A small win.
Sirius sees the papers falling down one, by one, he sees as they try to leave, as if they are traitors to the very names of the people written above them, he feels the heat.
"Now." Snape says and Sirius touches the handle with one hand, Snape's wrist with the other as he's dragging them both out of the room.
He closes the door, quickly and only then he thinks to ask.
"Won't the whole building burn?"
Snape looks at him, annoyed and disbelieving, all at once.
"The doors are charmed. The walls as well." A close of his eyes, a breath. "It amazes me that you have managed to survive so far." He says and they go to the next room, as noises from above are almost heard.
By the fourth, they've nailed it—quick, efficient, just how Snape likes it.
"What now?" Sirius asks him. He has blood above his right eyebrow. A cut at his cheek. A moment of breath, while Sirius registers the previous battle in the face across him.
"Now we leave." Snape responds. He press a finger at the cut, a red line that he ignores.
"Do you think we can win?" Sirius tells him.
"This battle was lost from the start. The..."
"Not here." Sirius says. "Not this." He swallows. "Tell me we can win." He steps closer, demanding Snape look him in the eyes.
He does. A black stare—boundless, bottomless.
"There is no other choice." He says.
____
One of the side walls of the hall is gone. People are entering, are fleeing, running, running.
The enemies are more numerous now, or too close to be seen as such.
Sirius hits three, but Snape is urging him forward, towards the exit, any exit.
He shifts—his wand, his focus. He casts spells to protect, to help his comrades—the nameless mass—flee, to give them a chance for another day.
Snape is covering his back.
He's almost out, when he sees Remus. He's outside the broken wall, guiding people to safety.
"The employees are out." He says. "Go, go, there is no point in..." And then he spots him too.
Sirius tries for a smile. He survived today, they both did, but Remus's expression is haunted. The same one he had the morning before a full moon, like he's waiting for a tragedy to happen.
"He's here." He says, before a question is even asked. And Sirius knows he doesn't mean Voldemort.
Sirius turns absurdly and there among the crowd, it's a body, small and fragile, insignificant in its normalcy. A man that can pass between enemy lines, because nobody can tell who's side he's on.
He's walking towards the building, he's trying to get inside, the Death Eaters the group that he now chose as his protectors.
Because he, James and Remus fulfilled their purpose at school, discarded to the side for a better chance, a better deal.
Remus is talking, but the battle is here now. The ground shakes. Sirius turns just enough to see that Remus is safe. He is. Away but safe. He pleads Sirius thinks, he's angry because he wants to follow. But the crowd swallows him and it's better. It's better if he doesn't come.
"Black." Snape grabs his shoulder, but Sirius tears it away.
Peter has just smiled to an injured woman.
"Black." Snape says and his voice is drown by the screams.
Sirius is moving. He thinks he does. Peter is closer with every step.
He chose safety, he said. Everyone does what they ought to survive. That's his take on life. He chose wrong. Sirius is about to prove that to him.
He's almost there, when Peter looks up and he sees him. He freezes, just enough, just for a moment.
But people are moving and he inevitably moves with them.
Sirius is blocking his path. There is no retreat for him now, no blending, no safety.
Peter, the coward that he is, turns around and he leaves. It's pointless, he will not lose him now, he will hunt him, until he tells him when, why, why. Until Sirius is satisfied, until he has an answer to give to Remus, to James. Until he kills him.
He will try to transform, Sirius knows, so he does it first. There is a beast in the middle of the crowd. People are screaming, running away from him—an opening Sirius takes, because he has always been a beast. He follows Peter as he turns, looking helpless, because he's cornered. Because he's Sirius’s only target. A beast at his trail.
He smashes a door to enter a house, a shop, something to hide his treacherous face, his unworthy existence.
Sirius jumps through the glass, transforming again immediately. He's always at his best when he's unleashed—wand pointed at Peter, who raises his hands.
He needs to look him in the eyes. He needs for Peter to hear his voice as he's killing him.
"Don't even think of moving." Sirius warns, stepping closer.
Peter stumbles back instinctively, trips, falls, and shakes.
"Please, Padfoot, let me explain, let me..."
"I'm going to kill you." Sirius feels his voice erupt at his throat. "You almost did last time. Fair’s fair, Pete."
"I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I panicked because Snivellus was there." An almost smile.
"Don't you dare speak of him." Sirius breathes fast from the chase, from his rage. A step and he's lifting him by the fabric around his neck.
"If we've had been alone, I would have explained to you." Peter says after a moment too long. Sirius had always thought that he spoke that way, because of his shyness, because he was afraid. Turns out it was because he was searching for the right thing. The best outcome for him.
"Fucking liar." It's all Sirius can say. For now, for the last. A bond built out of convenience. A betrayal. A punch to the gut.
"He threatened me." Peter pleads. "He forced me. Please Padfoot, you know, I would never...But the Dark Lord is..."
"You fucking tried to slice me open." Sirius yells, standing above him. "You tried to sell James out." He feels the banging behind his eyes, at the side of his head, his veins that are ready to explode.
"I...I had to...I..." Peter says, cries, a clenched hand around his arm. "Padfoot, please, you were my favourite."
Sirius punches him. Hard, and Peter is bleeding. Another punch for the lie, for the filth Sirius feels because of it.
His blood feels hot at his fist, between his fingers.
"I fucking trusted you," Sirius says as Peter pleads, cries, screams, "you were my friend."
A crack, and he's sure he broke his nose. Another scream.
"Don't kill me." He manages and Sirius feels like crying. He might. He is. Peter doesn't deserve it.
"I would have died for you." His throat feels rough, scorched. "Why? Why? Fucking answer me." He will kill him. He has to. He has to. This dread will not stop otherwise.
He knows the answer. Remus has told him already. Peter never cared for them as they did for him. Simple as that. And yet Sirius wants something more. Something different. He wants to hear that he did something awful, that he hurt Peter without knowing, that until then, Peter loved them. He asks, knowing already.
Someone pulls him away, hard and Sirius is fighting back, a grab of a neck, his wand at a cheek. Snape.
"Incarcerous." Snape points his wand elsewhere, at Peter, restraining him there, a pig ready for slaughter.
Snape's cheek is bleeding at the spot Sirius wand touches him.
He turns his gaze at him. The blood moves along with the tip of his wand. Sirius has still his hands at his throat. He registers it then and Sirius pushes him back. Like he's afraid. He is. He has already hurt him.
"This has nothing to do with you." Sirius yells as Snape steps closer again. "I will kill him and be done with it."
"Please, please." Peter is begging. Sirius isn't sure whom his pleadings aiming to.
"Shut your fucking mouth." Sirius yells without looking at him.
"I'll...I will work for the Order. Let me go and I'll be your spy...I'll ensure James..."
Sirius turns. "Crus..."
Snape grabs his jaw. Stops him.
Sirius wants to bite his hand. He wants to make him leave, to stop looking. He has to stop looking.
A hold of Sirius face, there, unable to move, even as he fights to.
"I warned you, Pettigrew," he says and it's hard, focused, "imagine it and it will still be worse."
"No, no, no.." Peter cries out, just by the threat, the weight it carries.
"Sectumsempra." Snape casts, and it's just as hard, just as focused as his words. Peter's screaming is ringing all around them.
Snape’s eyes turn to him again.
"I will be the one who kills him." He says like it's final.
"It's none of your fucking business." Sirius frees himself of Snape's hold, only for Snape to grab him again.
"I will hurt you." Sirius breaths out. "Don't make me hurt you."
"Listen to me." Snape tells him.
"He betrayed me. I am the fool who believed him, I almost put James' life on the line. Fuck, you almost died, because of him, because of me." Sirius screams at his face. "I must fix it. It's my responsibility."
Snape yanks him forward, spinning him around.
"Look at him." He says.
And Sirius watches as Peter skin cuts itself open, torn in lines, bleeding in his robes, at the floor. He shakes from the pain, from the agony, but it doesn't stop, it gets worse, slowly, easily.
"I told you, he will suffer." Snape keeps him still, forcing him to stare at Peter. "He is suffering now. And he will die. As I promised he would."
"I must..." Sirius feels like he's on fire, he feels like he's thrown into a cold lake.
"Look at him." Snape tells him again. "This is a sight you will never forget." A warning. "This is the man that betrayed you, this is a scum and he will die suffering, as he should, as he deserves."
Sirius agrees. He has pictured it many times. He chased him down to do exactly that.
"As you won't forget the ten years you spent trusting him." Snape tightens his hold, as Sirius tries to get away.
"As you won't forget his dead body, knowing that it was you who took his life."
Sirius shakes. He wants to. He has to.
Peter tried to put a knife in his gut. He showed his Dark Mark with satisfaction.
Peter had once raised his hand, shakily—a hand clean of blood and betrayal—as he said, hello, I'm Peter, I want to be in Gryffindor too.
Peter called Voldemort's name with ease.
Peter decorated the common room after they won their first quidditch match.
"Killing him is a weight that you have to carry."
"I want to." Sirius says. "He deserves it." A hand on Snape's wrist. "He does." A tight grip. "I have to." A breath. "I want him dead."
"I will kill him." Snape tells him. Like he's carrying the burden. Like he's sharing Sirius turmoil. His need for justice. His helplessness, because once Sirius had loved Peter. Had sheltered him, had laughed and slept and talked about the future with him.
"You don't have..." Sirius feels like a coward, he feels guilty. He feels protected. Safe.
"Yes. I do." Snape says.
Peter is choking on his own blood. Once he had drunk from Sirius glass thinking it was water, the burning of alcohol had caught him off guard. He had chocked like that then.
"Avada Kedavra." Snape says and it sounds like justice. It sounds like mercy.