“Coward!”
Minerva’s voice thundered across the grounds, chasing Severus as he fled that old accusation.
Severus soared away, unsupported by broom or levitation, his cloak spreading out in the wind. The Dark Lord had mastered true flight. Invented it. This was Severus’ reward for doing what the Dark Lord had failed to do. Killing Albus Dumbledore.
As he crossed the perimeter wall, still gripped with the need to find Harry Potter, Severus’ thoughts drifted to Lily. It was impossible to think of Potter without Lily. It was the entire purpose of his life. Honoring her death. Protecting her son. All for naught if he failed to find the boy.
Severus alighted outside of the gates of Hogwarts, turning to look back at the castle. He was still the headmaster. Driving him from the school would not change that.
The castle’s protections continued to exist only because he allowed them to exist.
Severus briefly considered dispelling the various enchantments inhibiting apparition and disapparition, but his Dark Mark was burning and he knew that soon the Dark Lord would arrive. Soon, a battle would begin. Opening Hogwarts to apparition would only lead to more death.
Even if he were to miraculously appear in front of Potter, dueling Minerva, Filius, and Pomona, and all the other professors and any students who saw fit to join in, would not end well.
Severus had killed Albus Dumbledore. No one was inclined to listen to him.
Though his Dark Mark burned, Severus stayed by the gates, watching the castle. Watching as Filius cast the first protective charm.
There was a great rush of wind. It sped past Severus, encasing the entirety of the castle in a shield that shimmered briefly then subsided.
Of course. They knew he was the headmaster, knew he had the power and ability to eliminate the castle’s many ancient protections. They would establish their own.
Severus could not imagine what would make the situation more dire.
Ousted from Hogwarts.
Potter inaccessible.
Dark Lord approaching.
On the brink of destruction.
“If there comes a time when Lord Voldemort stops sending that snake forth to do his bidding, but keeps it safe beside him under magical protection, then, I think, it will be safe to tell Harry.”
That time had yet to come. The Dark Lord had been traveling abroad, leaving Nagini behind. Severus had not seen the snake for months.
That damnable portrait. Even now, at the end, Dumbledore refused to impart any more information than he had to.
Minerva had to be evacuating the younger students. Severus intended to wait to ensure their safe passage from the castle. The Hog’s Head was the most likely destination, that convenient tunnel the children thought was cleverly concealed within the Room of Requirement.
Severus wrapped his cloak around himself and turned, intending to apparate to the Hog’s Head, perhaps use the tunnel himself to reenter Hogwarts and seek out Potter.
A stillness overtook Severus, as if the air around him had vanished.
Silence.
The burning in his arm stopped.
Severus closed his eyes and bowed his head.
The Dark Lord had arrived.
“Severus,” the Dark Lord said, his voice high and sibilant.
Once, Severus had enjoyed the sound of the Dark Lord saying his name.
He looked at the Dark Lord and with barely suppressed alarm saw that the Dark Lord’s snake, Nagini, was draped across his shoulders.
“Explain,” the Dark Lord said, boring into him with blood-red eyes.
Severus explained.
Alecto summoning the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord’s response through their Dark Marks. Walking to Ravenclaw Tower. Encountering Minerva. Her attack, joined by Filius and Pomona, and even Slughorn. His flight. The likely evacuation of the students, the preparations of the other professors that were already underway. Giving as much information as he was willing to.
He had to buy time for the students to escape.
The Dark Lord continued staring across the dark grounds, to the castle that grew brighter and brighter, nearly blinding in the uninterrupted darkness of the world.
Now, Severus awaited the Dark Lord’s orders. His punishment for his failure to maintain his control over Hogwarts.
The Dark Lord raised his new wand. The Elder Wand. Difficult though that was to believe, it was true. The torture of Garrick Ollivander, a captive for almost two years. The Dark Lord’s search across the continent, chasing rumors, killing any who crossed his path.
Unbeknownst to the Dark Lord, Severus had seen Dumbledore’s tomb opened, the wand taken from his hands, the sparks pouring out to dance above the lake.
The Dark Lord was not subtle.
Severus stood silently by as the Dark Lord made his presence known to all within Hogwarts, the creatures of the lake and forest, the cowering fools in Hogsmeade. Cold and clear, the Dark Lord’s voice swelled around them.
“I know you are preparing to fight…”
Severus listened as the Dark Lord gave his ultimatum. Give him Harry Potter. A simple request.
As the Dark Lord spoke, Severus avoided looking at the snake lest the snake look back, and once more tried to fit together the scattered pieces of Potter’s actions.
Breaking into the Ministry of Magic. Stealing a locket which Phineas Nigellus reported Potter and his two friends took turns wearing, eavesdropping whenever Granger opened the bag. Depositing the Sword of Gryffindor in a frozen lake for them to retrieve. Breaking into Gringotts to steal a small golden cup, at the cost of dozens of goblin lives. The Dark Lord warning them that Potter might attempt to enter Ravenclaw Tower.
Severus was missing something. A connection he failed to make.
“And while that fragment of soul, unmissed by Voldemort, remains attached to and protected by Harry, Lord Voldemort cannot die.”
Severus had found nothing in the Hogwarts library, nothing in Dumbledore’s private library.
A fragment of a soul attached to a boy.
If a boy, why not a locket? A cup? A diadem?
A snake?
“Give me Harry Potter, and you shall be rewarded,” the Dark Lord said. “You have until midnight.”
The Dark Lord lowered his wand, a strange smile on his face as he gazed at the castle.
“Your arm, Severus.”
“Yes, my Lord,” he said, unbuttoning his cuff and pulling up the sleeve of his left arm. Severus held it out for his master. The sinister red skull and snake which had stained Severus since he was eighteen, for twenty years, seemed to writhe under the unforgiving stars.
A single, pale finger pressed into his arm.
Severus clenched his teeth as agony seared through him. Difficult though it was to think through the pain, and the delight the Dark Lord took in causing it, Severus’ thoughts returned to Potter.
The boy was seeking something related to Ravenclaw. And while Potter was the sort of fool who had attempted to get himself killed through a variety of increasingly harebrained schemes from when he was eleven, there was no possibility the boy would hand himself over so easily, nor that anyone possessed of common sense would allow him to strut his way to a heroic death. Not when Dumbledore had sent him on this deranged mission.
“If I know him, he will have arranged matters so that when he does set out to meet his death, it will truly mean the end of Voldemort.”
Not unless the boy knew that to defeat the Dark Lord, he had to die.
“What now, my Lord?” Severus asked, his voice distant to his ears.
The Dark Lord’s eyes never left the castle.
“We wait, Severus.”
Moments later, the Death Eaters began to arrive.
As Severus watched an adolescent giant hurl Hagrid and his boarhound through a window, he wondered what had become of his life. If he could even call this tortured existence a life.
All these years later, he could still trace it to one moment. When he had watched in awe as a little red-haired girl flew.
“Why have you been spying on us?”
He had always been a spy.
With a dismissive flick of his wand, the Dark Lord blasted the gates of Hogwarts open.
“Capture Harry Potter,” the Dark Lord said, turning away from the broken gates and walking past his stunned Death Eaters, towards Hogsmeade. “Kill the rest.”
Bellatrix’s ululation shattered the night. She sprinted through the gates, leading the charge.
There was no room for hesitation. Severus ran after.
Spells were already being cast, bursts of light dazzling Severus’ vision. He had to be careful, so incredibly careful, not to show his hand.
Shouting, screaming, more flashes of light. Shattering windows, chunks of earth torn up, gouts of flame, torrential waters, lightning arcing across the sky. Explosions and screams of pain, terror, perverse delight.
A pot the size of a mandrake tumbled from a balcony. Severus immolated it before it reached the ground. He spotted Longbottom and Pomona lobbing more pots. The idiots would kill themselves with that.
Everywhere he looked, Severus saw fighting. Students fighting for their lives. The suits of armor, knights and mythical creatures, launching themselves at every opponent.
Severus retreated to the shadows, cloaking himself in darkness. He had to stay alive, had to get the message to Potter. He had to get to the boy before anyone else.
Too many people, too many spiders and giants and suits of armor and ghosts and magic and death choking the air. How could he even get near the boy in this, when he was trying to stay alive long enough to pass on a message Dumbledore had been too weak and feeble to tell the boy himself?
Narcissa appeared at his side like a wraith. Severus nodded to her, making no comment as to her lack of participation in the battle. Her sister was doing more than her fair share.
“Have you seen Draco?” Narcissa asked shakily. She didn’t have a wand. She had given hers to Draco.
Severus gestured at the violence consuming Hogwarts. “No.”
Narcissa paled, the shadows of her face washed out as spells flared and clashed above them. “He was not among the other Slytherins who were allowed to leave the castle.”
“That is unfortunate,” Severus said. He didn’t care about Draco Malfoy. His sole concern was Potter.
“You made a Vow, Severus,” Narcissa said tightly.
“The Dark Lord ordered us to capture Potter,” he replied. “My vow to serve him takes precedence. If you are so concerned for Draco’s welfare, I suggest you implore the Dark Lord directly.”
Severus turned back to the castle, searching for some point of entry. He knew any negotiation or compromise was unlikely. That was the nature of an ultimatum. The Dark Lord said he did not want to spill magical blood and yet the grounds ran with it, churned into a gore-soaked slurry.
When Severus looked again, Narcissa was gone. Presumably to wade into battle and crawl her way to her son, or perhaps to resume cowering with Lucius.
Things were already out of control, and were spiraling into a greater chaos. There was only so much Severus could do, so many children he could protect. If he dealt with the mandrakes, he missed a curse that rocked the castle to its very foundations. If he blocked a hex aimed at Colin Creevey—why the hell hadn’t a student that young been evacuated?—he missed Rookwood targeting a section of a corridor in which students could be seen running past. The Imperiused Minister Pius Thicknesse dueling Percy Weasley. Severus tried to cut him down with a Sectumsempra, but the chittering, gnashing, massive acromantulas surged out of the Forbidden Forest, and one was slashed into pieces as it blocked his spell. That blithering idiot Hagrid and his love for all creatures inimical to human life.
The explosion collapsed part of the castle wall, a maelstrom of fire and cracked stone. From the cries and shots of denial, Severus learned Fred Weasley was dead.
He kept running. It was madness, a chaos he hadn’t seen since the first war, and never on such a large scale. Howls and screams and explosions, violent curses, the air hot and thick, blood racing through his veins, crazed and frenetic, a deafening cacophony, scene after nauseating scene of horror and suffering.
Where was the boy? He was as insufferable as his father, skulking under that invisibility cloak of his. But those eyes, those damn eyes, haunted him in his waking hours, in every Potions class, at every meal, every chance encounter in the corridors. In his dreams, and his nightmares. He looked at the boy and saw Lily staring straight back.
More spells.
He had to keep casting, keep deflecting other spells from Death Eaters.
The Dark Lord was not on the battlefield. He was in the Shrieking Shack, watching the battle from above. If at all. The Dark Lord was indifferent. It was nothing to him who lived or died, so long as he got Potter.
Severus had to maintain his cover, balance on that knife’s edge. Everything was coming to a head. He could not risk it all now. Not when he was so, so painfully close.
Seventeen years. He had waited seventeen years to see every trace of the Dark Lord eradicated from the world, and it was all falling apart. He had waited too long, listened too closely to Dumbledore. He had to do something to contact the boy. Find him in this wretched pandemonium.
“So the boy… the boy must die?”
“And Voldemort himself must do it, Severus. That is essential.”
Harry Potter had to die.
Lily’s son had to die.
Severus took in a shuddering breath, implacable cold consuming his world.
Dementors.
A hundred dementors, marching to Hogwarts.
They were finally pushing into the entrance hall. Severus recognized face after bruised and bloodied face, none of them Potter’s. More acromantulas poured in through broken windows and broken doors. The ground bucked beneath them, and Severus turned to see the giants breaking through the forest. He turned back almost too late to stop a crystal ball from crushing Luna Lovegood’s head, only to miss Fenrir Greyback attacking Lavender Brown, tearing out the girl’s throat and tumbling from a balcony.
“Severus.”
He looked away from the girl’s mauled corpse. Lucius, still battered from the Dark Lord’s punishment, hobbled out of the forest. The Dark Lord’s fury at Potter’s escape from Malfoy Manor had been glorious to behold, to hear Bellatrix tell it. And his rage at Gringotts. Severus was fairly certain that the Dark Lord had killed more of his own followers than the Order of the Phoenix had.
“The Dark Lord desires your presence,” Lucius said dully. He was not looking at Severus but at the castle.
Lucius did not have a wand. There was no way for him to join the battle and protect his son.
“In the Shrieking Shack,” Lucius added, flinching at another explosion. “He requires a… a service from you.”
Silver-blue lights flashed around them, the patronuses of students charging out to meet the dementors.
The orders were to capture Potter. No Death Eater was suicidal enough to try killing the boy. There was still a chance, a chance for this to not end in complete tragedy.
“Very well,” Severus said, turning away from the battle.
Capturing Potter grew more and more unlikely as the battle raged on. Perhaps the Dark Lord would see reason, put an end to this so that Severus could extract the boy.
A service.
The sense of unease that had stalked him all these months reached a crescendo. Severus hurried towards the Shrieking Shack, hoping desperately that there was still time.
Severus did not crawl through the tunnel this time. He knew where that path ended.
The Shrieking Shack.
He walked through a door open and hanging from its hinges. The battle was far away, a world apart, flickering lights and flat noises. Dying students. Students he should have been protecting.
Severus found the Dark Lord in a desolate room, all boarded windows and peeling wallpaper, broken furniture and stained floors. A single oil lamp illuminated these dismal surrounds, and the grimy corners of the room were shrouded in darkness. The Dark Lord was seated at a table, tapping it lightly with his fingers.
Severus’ pulse quickened when he saw what hovered at the Dark Lord’s side. A sphere made of glimmering stars, a magic Severus had never seen before. Nagini coiled within her protective orb, undulating with a grace the immense serpent had rarely shown on land.
No normal snake would be afforded such a protection.
It was time. He had to tell Potter. Tell him everything.
There still had to be time.
Would the boy have been able to complete whatever quest Dumbledore had set him on if he knew that only death awaited him in the end?
Severus did not linger on the snake. The Dark Lord feared for her life, so the natural assumption was that the snake too had to die.
“Severus,” the Dark Lord said.
“My Lord,” Severus said, bowing his head deferentially. “We have yet to capture Potter. I have been attempting to locate the boy amongst the fighting. His defenders are rather…earnest. If I may return to battle—”
“That will not be necessary,” the Dark Lord said coldly. He was toying with his wand—the Elder Wand—rolling it between his fingers.
“We have breached the castle, my Lord,” Severus pressed on. “Their resistance is crumbling—”
“—and it is doing so without your help,” the Dark Lord said, in a tone suggesting he would not tolerate further argument. “Skilled wizard though you are, Severus, I do not think you will make much difference now. We are almost there. Almost.”
Severus could not fathom what the Dark Lord wanted with him if not to use what powers he retained as the headmaster of Hogwarts to capture Harry Potter. If the Dark Lord suspected his true loyalties, he would already be dead.
Still, Severus had to push. The snake was under protection, bubbled for her own safety. He could practically hear the sands of an hourglass trickle their last few grains.
“Let me find the boy,” Severus said.
He was desperate. He didn’t care if he had to beg. The longer the battle went on, the more risk someone other than the Dark Lord would kill Potter. He had to trust Dumbledore, and the knowledge passed on via his portrait.
“Let me bring you Potter,” he said. “I know I can find him, my Lord.”
Severus paused. He could not allow himself to go out of control. Even as the world fell apart around him, Severus had to hold himself together. He had asked the Dark Lord for a favor once before. Just once. In not so many words, he was asking again.
“Please.”
The tapping stopped.
Severus was rendered silent as the Dark Lord rose. In the years after Lily’s death, he had forgotten how… how deformed the Dark Lord was. The colorless flesh, those dreadful red eyes, the flat affect and featureless face. The Dark Lord looked like a nightmare. Like someone’s greatest fear.
“I have a problem, Severus,” the Dark Lord said in a strange, soft tone that immediately put Severus on edge.
“My Lord?” he said.
The Dark Lord raised the wand and Severus understood, in that moment, that he was the problem. He remained still, his expression neutral, his mind clear.
“Why doesn’t it work for me, Severus?”
Severus Snape wasn’t a martyr.
He wasn’t going to die in the Shrieking Shack. If he was, it may as well have been when he was sixteen and could’ve taken Potter, Lupin, and Black, hell, even Pettigrew with him. Perhaps not in spirit, but his tragic death would have at the very least got them expelled.
Lily would still be alive.
Lily.
He would give anything to see her one last time. To see her eyes.
As the Dark Lord prowled in front of him, caressing the Elder Wand and explaining in depth his thoughts and feelings about the wand he had prised from the hands of a dead man, Severus’ mind raced.
He had to tell Harry Potter about the piece of the Dark Lord’s soul attached to his own. That he had to die at the Dark Lord’s hand. Severus had been told explicitly to wait until the Dark Lord’s snake was under magical protection and kept at his side. It was a good excuse to avoid confronting Lily’s son with the truth. To tell the boy what Lily meant to him, and that he had lived past her death only to protect her son.
Severus never thought of an alternative. He accepted at face value what Dumbledore said. Accepted that the boy had to die, and that yes, he was a coward for keeping everything to himself for so long. Both he and Dumbledore, cowards. So much so that the opportunity had run its course.
There was a way out of this room alive. Severus had to find it. He had to live, had to warn Lily’s son. Had to let him know.
“You made a Vow, Severus.”
The Elder Wand. The legends, its bloody history. Wand of Destiny. Wandlore. Wand laws. Transference of ownership. To master a wand.
The wand chose the wizard.
“The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who killed its last owner,” the Dark Lord concluded, finally getting to his point. He did like dragging things out. “You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live, Severus, the Elder Wand cannot truly be mine.”
“If I may, my Lord,” Severus said evenly. “I believe you are mistaken. Killing me will not give you complete mastery of the wand.”
The Dark Lord came to a stop in front of him, his eyes narrowing.
“Will you, Severus, watch over my son Draco as he attempts to fulfill the Dark Lord’s wishes?”
He had watched over Draco as he made his feeble attempts.
“And will you, to the best of your ability, protect him from harm?”
He had healed Draco’s wounds from a curse of his own invention. For all he knew Draco had been killed during this battle. And the implication was that the protection would be during his attempts to kill Dumbledore, not in perpetuity.
“And, should it prove necessary, if it seems Draco will fail, will you carry out the deed that the Dark Lord has ordered Draco to perform?”
Dumbledore was dead.
His Vow to Narcissa had been fulfilled.
If this was violative of the Unbreakable Vow, that didn’t matter. Severus was dead either way. The Dark Lord would kill him or the Vow would
He would take his chance. This was the only one left.
“I did kill Albus Dumbledore,” Severus said. “But I was not the one to disarm him.”
The Dark Lord’s expression froze into a remote mask. “What do you mean?”
“Forgive me, my Lord, if I did not communicate the full events of that evening,” Severus said. “When I arrived at the Astronomy tower, I found Draco and Dumbledore at an impasse. Draco had disarmed Dumbledore, but was… hesitant to kill him.” Severus paused, but the Dark Lord only kept staring at him in silence. “Dumbledore did not have his wand when I killed him.”
“Yes,” the Dark Lord said in an eerie tone. “You have made that perfectly clear.” The Dark Lord began moving again, restless, fingers still running across the Elder Wand he apparently had no right to. “Dumbledore did not kill Grindelwald.”
Famously so, but Severus kept that to himself. The Dark Lord had evidently spent the entire night thinking on this, and yet failed to think of that particular facet.
“Either Dumbledore was not the master of the Elder Wand,” the Dark Lord said, his choler evident now that he was thinking aloud, “and Grindelwald was, thus by killing Grindelwald I should be. Or, one does not need to kill someone for the wand to change loyalty, in which case Draco is its master.”
Insanely, Severus was tempted to say, Well reasoned.
This was the man who sought to rule over the magical world, thwarted by a simple deduction.
He could only hope the Dark Lord would not kill him for the inconvenience.
Since he had made an Unbreakable Vow, and couldn’t be entirely certain the conditions had been fully met, Severus said, “Perhaps you could disarm Draco before resorting to killing him. Unless he has already been killed this evening.”
This was to the best of his ability.
The Dark Lord’s face twisted with rage, and Severus gripped his wand, prepared to defend against any tantrum or to apparate to safety. Long seconds passed as the Dark Lord visibly struggled to control his anger.
“Severus, with me,” the Dark Lord snapped, sweeping out of the room, Nagini floating in his wake.
“Yes, my Lord,” Severus said, hastening after him.
“It seems Lucius will get his wish,” the Dark Lord said, gazing at the cracked and smoldering towers of Hogwarts. “He will soon see his son again.”
Severus had condemned another boy to death, but he was still alive.
He was still alive.
It was a ceasefire.
All combat came to an abrupt end when the Dark Lord’s voice cut through the anguished cries of the dying.
“You have fought valiantly,” the Dark Lord said, devoid of emotion.
Severus stood next to the Dark Lord, under the ancient and ominous branches of the Forbidden Forest, hidden from sight.
He listened as the Dark Lord commanded the defenders of Hogwarts to see to their dead and wounded, as he ordered his own forces to retreat. Ordered Draco Malfoy to join them. Severus knew the boy’s Dark Mark was burning. He could feel its echo in his own arm.
An hour. He had one hour.
For the first time since Potter had arrived at Hogwarts, it felt like Severus could breathe.
Narcissa and Lucius emerged from wherever they had been hiding, their robes torn and caked with blood and dirt, faces pale, strained. Hopeful.
Death Eaters in black robes and blank masks passed under the trees, converging at the clearing where their master would lay in wait.
Severus crossed his arms, impassively watching as Draco stumbled across the destruction that had been wrought. He looked completely stricken, and badly damaged from the fighting around him he could not defend against.
Draco had lost his mother’s wand too.
Narcissa reached for Draco, crying as she pulled her son into her arms. Lucius held both of them and looked at Severus, gratitude plain in his eyes.
“There is something I must discuss with Draco,” the Dark Lord said. All three Malfoys trembled with fear, but there was no denying the Dark Lord.
The Dark Lord placed a hand on Draco’s shoulder and led him deeper into the Forbidden Forest. Nagini, still in her enchanted sphere, quietly floated at the Dark Lord’s side. Narcissa and Lucius joined the other Death Eaters, though their eyes never left their son.
Severus followed at a more sedate pace. The Dark Lord had commanded him to not seek out Potter, convinced that the boy would turn himself over. Severus knew better. Those in Hogwarts would die to the last man to protect Potter.
He had one hour to save the world from the Dark Lord’s continued reign. One hour to tell Lily’s son why he had to die.
Severus came to a stop under a tree.
Lily.
It ended with her.
Severus reached into his robes, pulling out scraps of Lily. An old letter.
Lots of love,
Lily
A torn photograph.
Lily smiling. Laughing. Alive.
Severus took out his wand and thought of a memory.
It was an old memory. Bittersweet. A memory he should have let Potter see, when they still thought something as simple as occlumency was an answer to their problems.
“Does it make a difference, being Muggle-born?”
“No. It doesn’t make any difference.”
A tear ran down his face. Severus took a breath and whispered two words.
She would find him.
She would always find him.
“Expecto patronum.”
When he had said what he needed to say, as much as he dared, the silver doe walked away from him. She paused and, for a moment, looked over her shoulder.
Severus stared back, his eyes dry and his heart heavy.
There was nothing left to say.
The doe leapt gracefully away and vanished among the dark trees.
Severus waited until the light of her passing faded away. He walked deeper into the forest, until the darkness swallowed him too.