The Choices That We Make

Harry stopped in the middle of the bridge. The fog was thick here, but he knew that if he walked only ten metres in any direction, the fog would lift. This weather was magical.

"Tom Riddle!" he called. He'd given up the other name a long time ago; the fear it caused was so set in the minds of the wizarding population that he could not change it. He smiled. Dumbledore would have been proud. He could remember the interview like yesterday. He'd said "Voldemort," then quickly tried to apologise. Dumbledore had held up his hands.

"Fear of a name increases the fear of the thing itself, Harry."

Harry frowned then; the memory of his headmaster was too painful. He'd hunted Snape down; killed the man in cold blood. Snape had never seen it coming. Harry had come in on his broomstick. Snape had not stopped running since he had killed Dumbledore, and he'd forgotten to do the full compliment of charms around his camp. It was a minor spell; looking dead at it, Harry hadn't seen it. But when he'd turned his head -

it had flicked into view; a momentary flash of dark brown in the deeper grey of the night. Harry had come down gently, hardly daring to breathe, hovering over the ground, every muscle in his body screaming at him to get off the broom, to resume a natural posture...

But he hadn't. He'd floated, ghost-like, into Snape's tent, hardly registering the settings he found himself in. He'd placed his wand lightly on Snape's head. The man's eyes had flicked open. There was no surprise there, only recognition.

"Are you going to kill me, Potter?" Snape had asked. His voice was quiet; there was no panic, and suddenly Harry felt irrationally angry. This piece of filth, this scum, was the reason Dumbledore was dead, locked in white marble. If not for this man, Voldemort would not have killed Hermione and Ron, murdered as they exchanged vows. Fred and George would be setting up Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, not rotting slowly in the cold earth. And Ginny would -

"It was not my fault, Harry."

Harry started. He'd been wrapped up in his own thoughts; Snape was a competent enough Occlumens to be able to pick Harry's thoughts out of his mind, and he wasn't exactly shielding his mind at the moment.

"Why isn't it your fault?" he asked, quietly, reasonably, as though Snape and he were discussing the weather.

"Let me explain, Harry. I can show you why - why I did what I did."

Harry cut him off short. "I don't care," he said, "I couldn't give a damn why you did it. There will be no more excuses; no more second chances, Severus. I have come to destroy you. You sicken me." He raised his wand.

"You will not use the killing curse, stupid boy." Snape looked very sure of himself, and Harry was glad that he could only read the top layer of his thoughts. "Even in revenge, you still obey the law. You will take me in. I will be sentenced. But that will be the end of it."

Harry smiled, but it was a smile without a single trace of humour in it.

"Sectumsempra," he whispered, and slashed his wand across the man's throat.

Snape gasped, his hands rushing to his neck, where the first spray had jetted up and splattered onto Harry's chest. He watched, curiously detached, as Snape writhed, blood seeping between his fingers and soaking the carpet. He reached for his wand, his fingers slipping on the handle. Harry Disarmed him, catching the wand easily and snapping it in two. He looked on, emotionless, as the man's struggles became weaker. Within a minute, they had slowed further, and after another two they had stopped.

Harry watched as Snape's blood seeped, slower and slower, into the carpet. The room he was in resembled a tower, and the view was that of mountains, cold and aloof.

Snape murmured something, his breathing so slow now that it was hardly there.

Harry walked slowly over, his boots making a squelching noise as they walked over the soaked carpet.

Snape seemed to be reaching out with the last of his strength.

"Li-" he whispered. "Lily...forgive me..."

His outstretched arms collapsed, and his body shook once, then lay still. Harry watched, suddenly afraid to breathe, as Snape exhaled for the last time.

Without warning, Harry felt a stabbing pain envelop him. He tried to fight it, but it covered him. His skin seemed to be full of needles, and they burrowed deeper, and as he fell to the floor, unable to breathe, he realised that this was his punishment. The human soul could be corrupted and tainted, but he had committed murder, murder in cold blood, and his soul was rejecting him. The needles, red-hot now, burrowed deeper, penetrating his mind. He scratched at his face, driven almost mad by the pain, and felt his skin tear, blood slicking his face and his fingers. His lips tore, and he spat blood, writhing in agony, unable to scream, next to the inert body of his enemy.

It stopped, as suddenly as it had started. Harry lay on the floor, unable to move, feeling blood soak into his clothes. He was shaking violently. Slowly, every movement hesitant, he rolled to his knees, then inched his way up, until he could stand and view the room he was standing in. The room where his old life had died.

For a full minute he stared at the walls in blankness; seeing but not understanding

And then he laughed

He laughed, spraying blood into the air, he laughed until he choked.

And then he sank to his knees and cried, blood and tears mingling on his face.

And Albus Dumbledore looked down from the wall, and his portrait had a look of
sadness so deep that Harry could not bring himself to meet it.

Harry was kneeling on the floor of the headmaster's study.

This was not Snape's tent.

It was Dumbledore's.