Casting Shadows at Noon

Casting Shadows at Noon

Chapter 1: Staring at Sunlight

Severus Snape stared out at the sunlight pooling on the stone floor in the hospital wing. He always seemed fascinated by sunlight, and Albus Dumbledore was sure that in it, he saw the reflection of his own brilliance, though that was clouded by the eternal night of the past he was never able to forget. And still the question hung unanswered on the air.

In that moment, Severus would have been willing to look anywhere but into Dumbledore’s piercing eyes. He stared at the sunlight instead, at the tiny creases that sunlight was never able to penetrate. In any time and place, there were cracks such as these, people and secrets never shown to the world, whether through their own choice or through the tides that changed worlds and men.

Dumbledore. In the moments between question and answer, Severus hated him with every inch of his body, every feeling he possessed devoted to hating that man. “You know what I must ask you to do. If you are ready... if you are prepared...” He wanted nothing more than to spit in the old man’s face and follow Fudge out of the hospital wing, but knew he would not. No one ever did. The power this one man had over an entire generation of witches and wizards had astonished him many times, but it was not a force that could be fought. Especially since Harry benighted Potter had joined the long list of people who only trusted Snape as far as Dumbledore said.

No one but Albus Dumbledore and Minervra McGonagall felt the tension as Snape raised his head. Even Harry Potter only saw the strange glitter in the potion master’s eyes as he said, “I am”.

And again, Severus found himself back in the dungeon, raging at shadows and striking the roughhewn walls with hands both fragile and deadly. Lashing out with an anger all the more frustrated because it was directed at the one thing he could never escape: himself.

Chapter 2: The Light at the Keyhole

Dumbledore returned to his office and lowered himself wearily into a chair. Voldemort had returned. The future unfolded itself before him; the endless cycle of fear and mistrust, hopelessness replacing the weeds of spirit and faith that sprang from his first ruin. And one pale, miserable face saying ‘I am’.

The old man had always had an affinity for Severus. He had felt the brilliance of the young Slytherin as his transfiguration teacher, felt his cold contempt for weakness and needless feelings. He was an aristocrat in every sense of the word, proud for the bloodline he never flaunted, putting Lucius Malfoy to shame with his cool disdain for the older boy’s boastfulness drawing attention in a house inclined to follow its leaders. He could have been the guiding voice of the school then, but he had passed that power over, then and always. It was not power over men that Severus Snape had desired, but over books, cauldrons, and the emotions that moved armies. Not to conquer, but to devastate was his goal.

And he could have. In some ways Severus Snape was just as deadly as Voldemort, and it was for this that Albus trusted him, would always trust him, over the cries of McGonagall, over the rebellion of Sirius Black, the mutterings of Madame Pomfrey and the insolence of Harry Potter. For the knowledge he had given up, that had changed his alliance and ruined his life, Dumbledore would always love him.