Dec 2 | for @frnklymrshnkly

Severus still didn’t know how it’d happened, but as time passed, he realised it was the one gift the gods had ever deigned to give him.

The Wiggenweld Potion and blood clotting potion he always kept to hand as a spy should not have interacted as they had. They should have cleared the poison from his skin, clotted his neck long enough for him to escape and tend to it properly, and then put him in a healing sleep for a few days to a few weeks.

They should not have turned him into two people.

Two completely separate and unique versions of himself, both having agency and separate thought processes.

Severus had diverged that night in the Shrieking Shack, and only one version of himself had needed tending. The newer (and Severus was convinced he was the original) had not been affected by Nagini’s bite. New Severus had sprung fully formed from Severus’s mouth as soon as he’d downed the second potion, whole and vibrant, just like Venus.

And instead of Severus having to figure out how to move his soon-to-be rotting carcass somewhere safe to heal lest the Ministry or random Order members found him, New Severus had done it for him—moving him directly to Spinner’s End once he’d staunched the bleeding on Severus’s neck.

“Tea?” New Severus asked.

“And a splash of the good whiskey, if you don’t mind,” Severus replied, flipping the page in his potions journal. Ars Alchemica had not yet figured out he was, legally dead, so they kept sending him issues.

The Gringott’s goblins had figured out he wasn’t dead, but didn’t care to inform the Ministry of the same, so they continued to let him into his vault when he came (under Polyjuice, of course) and they continued to collect the Ministry’s “symbolic gesture of gratitude” in the form of a twenty-thousand Galleon payout to his estate on his behalf.

New Severus handed him a tumblr, hearty dose of whiskey with a splash of tea instead of the other way around. Severus smiled as he inhaled the lovely scent. New Severus knew him so well.

“Thank you.”

“Of course.”

The Ministry had thought they were paying out a slush fund that they’d just seize back in a few months. The Gringott’s goblins refused to turn the vault over lacking habeas corpus.

“I’m considering submitting our findings to Ars Alchemica,” Severus said.

New Severus glanced up from where he’d been stood by the fire, periodically stoking the logs. He smirked. “Oh?”

Severus shrugged delicately, turned another page. “It could be stimulating.”

New Severus smirked at him, finally returning to his own chair by the fire, matching tumblr of tea-and-whiskey in one long-fingered hand. He smirked wickedly at Severus before settling in to give the idea proper thought.

“We could use the proceeds to fix this old place up,” New Severus said, sneering at the peeling wallpaper. “It’s dreadfully dreary, but a good airing-out, a fresh coat of paint, perhaps some modern appliances might brighten it up.”

Severus rolled his eyes. “You are such an optimist; it’s disgusting. We should get out of this dreadfully dreary country instead. Let this place burn.”

New Severus shrugged. “Whatever you like. So long as, whatever we decide, it’s something that allows us both to create new memories together...something we share from different perspectives, and not the same.”

Severus frowned. That was a concern of his as well. “We’ll begin drafting up the experiment’s design tomorrow, then. Names changed, of course.”

New Severus smiled. “I do so look forward to another long, sweaty day in the lab with you.” He tipped his tumblr in Severus’s direction, then took a long, slow sip, his eyes’ never leaving Severus’s own.

Severus felt his face heat. He hoped, soon, he would learn to get used to the idea of someone desiring him as strongly as New Severus did. It was a heady feeling. He was sure he’d been waiting his whole life to feel it.