The Long Road to Damascus

THE LONG ROAD TO DAMASCUS
by Morrighan




PART 3: Self-inflicted Wounds

"... it is a monstrous thing, to slay a unicorn... You have slain something pure and defenceless to save yourself and you will have but a half life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips." (Firenze, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J K Rowling)

"To pick a flower is not a large thing. It is as easy as it is irrevocable. Understand what is being offered here, and do as thou wilt." (V, V for Vendetta, Alan Moore)




Snape climbed the stairs quickly, pushing himself onwards as he tried to keep his mind focussed on the task ahead. The spiral staircase passed him in a blur of rooms and faces, the orderly world of the Skower Corporation becoming a senseless spinning carousel as he passed, blinkered by a growing panic that left him with only the awareness of the few steps immediately before him, and the hard coldness of the iron banisters under his fingers. Those two facts were enough, for now, to keep him moving.

Somebody passed him in the other direction, automatically moving out of his path. They called out a greeting as they passed, but he never heard it. The familiar world around him seemed nothing more than a collection of indistinct, half-real shadows, ephemeral and irrelevant. Only the ground before his feet was still real, and the iron-hard awareness of what he was about to do.

Images flashed through his head, dancing mesmerically behind his eyes. Lily, cowering before him in some deserted alley. Lily, grey-faced and trembling from the aftermath of the Cruciatus curse. Lily, lying dead on the ground, her beautiful face as white and still as a porcelain doll. Lily ... long dead, her face half-eaten by crows and maggots.

He stumbled over one of the steps and nearly fell headlong - the shock jolting him abruptly back to the present. He steadied himself and started to climb again, holding on to the banister like some healing talisman, but its cold touch gave him no comfort.

He finally reached ground level, and plunged through the Reception area, its familiar front desk and low chairs a meaningless montage of light and shadow. Gertrude Mockridge was talking with somebody at the reception desk, and he was dimly aware of her light, flirtatious laugh, sounding fake and contrived in his ears.

He'd known it as long as he could remember - that the whole game of love was nothing more than a cheap, tawdry scam - self-interest masquerading in the threadbare cloak of affection, as intangible as moonshine, and as unreliable. And then there had been Lily, with her bright green eyes and her gentle face, and he had let himself be fooled. All his cultivated cold remoteness had just - dissolved away.

It hadn't lasted of course - Bertha Jorkins and her big mouth had seen to that. It probably wouldn't have lasted anyway. But Lily still cared! Without self-interest, without any possibility of gain and with much to lose, he still mattered to her.

And, God help him, he was going to kill her.

He flung open the door onto the street and passed through it, blinded once again by the brightness of the November sunlight as he descended the steps to the street. Turm Inn Alley was more crowded now - a group of people had just emerged from Kemble Cauldrons, travelling north up the street. He turned instinctively away from them and walked swiftly south, in the opposite direction to Fine Alley, with its Hit Wizards and Aurors and the inevitable ghoulish bystanders, turning down a narrow side street to the south of Bluebottle Broomstick Makers.

The moment he turned the corner the shadows closed over him. It was a dark street, narrow and dirty, the cobbles choked with rubbish. The overhanging upper storeys of the buildings each side almost blocked out all view of the sky above. A street sign was fixed to one wall, high above head height: Fate Alley.

Even the Aurors would hesitate to follow him down here - and if they did, they would quickly lose his scent. The denizens of Fate Alley feared neither God, man nor Voldemort. They helped nobody's enquiries and answered nobody's questions.

There were workshops here, too, grubby, dingy little shops whose trades were not specified, and whose windows were blackened to hinder watching eyes. Some had their windows boarded over, the dark boards painted with red sigils. Almost all had their doors locked and barred. The sounds of whatever trades were carried on within filtered through to the street, muffled by the closed doors and windows. Snape obtained some of his more questionable ingredients from one of these businesses by owl order. He'd never visited the workshop in person, and would not even have known which of the shops it was.

There were crowds here, watching him pass, but nobody accosted him: those who met his gaze let their eyes slide quickly away from his, as if they saw something disturbing there. When they passed him they sidled into doorways, hoping not to incur his notice. What did it matter? Let them run from him if they would. They were sordid creatures, down in their grubby little hearts, devoting their days to petty nastiness and trivial crimes. They were nothing. Whereas he -

I'm a dead man. I just haven't stopped breathing yet.

"You lookin' for a witch, dearie?" She was older than he, made up too heavily, and the skimpy low-cut robe did nothing for her. She was loathsome, skeletally thin, her skin covered in sores. Even Nero wouldn't have employed her.

Yes. But not for you. "No. Get out of my sight," he snarled, and stalked on, pushing roughly past her. She looked at his face as he shoved her out of his path, and recoiled from him, her painted eyes wide. He walked on, and as before he did not look back.

Why did it have to be her? The recurring question burned itself bitterly through his mind. Anyone else, anyone in the world, I could have coped with, but why her?

A pedlar selling dried newts scuttled hastily past him; a hag carrying a bundle of what looked like old newspapers dived into a doorway to avoid him. They both avoided his eye as he passed. A small girl sat in a doorway, cradling a dead cat dressed in doll's clothes in her arms. She tucked her bare feet under her as he passed, but didn't look up.

She should never have spoken to me, the stupid bitch. She should have kept well away from me, like these base-born morons. At least they have the sense to recognise danger when it's staring them in the face. Why didn't I have the sense to walk on and ignore her?

He turned down a side street, stepping over a corpse sprawled in the street. Its throat had been cut, the blood pooling around it on the cobbles. He should probably have been keeping alert for signs of trouble, but the tunnel vision of desperation was still showing him only the road ahead. The side alley was darker and narrower even than the one he had just left, the walls around him a grimy blur of dank stones. He walked quickly on, turning down another unnamed side street, and then another. It was not until he found himself unobserved that he disapparated.

* * * * *

The cloud hung low over An Cruachan, hiding its peak and resting lightly on the roof of the barn on its lower slopes. This was his home, if it could truly be called a home - a ruined barn standing exposed on a bare mountainside. To any passing Muggle (and they were few) it was a total ruin, obviously uninhabitable. To the passing wizard - and they were still fewer - the ruin was only partial, with the roof still intact over one half of the barn, and a door where a Muggle would have seen only a blank wall. The lean-to workshop, hidden in the mountain's shadow for most of the day, would have been visible only to the magical watcher.

There were warding spells on the barn, of course, and he checked (far more cursorily than caution demanded) that they had not been broken. They seemed undisturbed so he removed them and went inside, locking the door behind him.

The barn was as unwelcoming inside as out. The one habitable room was sparsely furnished with the bare necessities of living, and such furniture as there was was old and battered. The walls were unpainted, and the carpets and curtains had faded to a nondescript grey, full of tattered edges and pulled threads.

He pulled the Floo Directory from the book case, and flicked frantically through it in his hurry to find the information he needed, tearing the corner off one of the pages in his haste. He forced himself to stop, looking down at the torn scrap of parchment between his fingers.

Stop panicking, dammit, he told himself. It's just another hit. You know the routine.

He strode to the sink, turning the cold tap on to its fullest extent and then stuck his head under it. The shock of the icy water seemed to clear his brain somewhat, and the world came reluctantly back into focus.

He turned off the tap feeling slightly better, and wiped his face with the sandpaperish towel hanging by the sink. Then he returned to the Floo Directory, and quite by chance turned immediately to the correct page. Potter, J H and F L, 6 Godric's Hollow, Luccombe, Somerset. He summoned the Apparator's Atlas to the table alongside the Floo Directory and looked up Godric's Hollow. According to the map, it lay on the north side of Exmoor, (Godric's Moor, as the wizards called it) on the edge of the Muggle village of Luccombe. He magnified the sketchy map until the cluster of houses that was Godric's Hollow lay before him in comprehensive detail. He memorised the layout and then banished the books back to their places on the bookcase, and went to get ready.

Just another hit. You've done this before. You can do this in your sleep.

This was where his training showed. It was as if he could detatch himself from his feelings and prepare automatically, running through routines he had established years before. Almost without conscious effort his mind told him that Muggle clothes would be safest if anything went wrong, and selected the set most suitable for winter wear in a rural area The jeans were crumpled and slightly muddy, the boots very muddy. The shirt was an undistinguished dark plaid. He changed quickly into the uncomfortable garments, forcing himself not to rush. After a moment's deliberation he used a charm to add calluses to his hands.

It was probably grimly ironic that the Death Eaters were better at blending in the Muggle world than all but the most extreme Muggle-lover. The young Severus Snape had protested disdainfully at having to learn how to pass as a Muggle - it was low, it was demeaning. Electra, predictably, had been furious: "If you truly wish to become a Death Eater, Severus, you will learn everything I teach you, whether you like it or not. Do you expect your disobedience to impress the Dark Lord? Then do not attempt to question his will. If the Dark Lord wishes you to undertake any assignment in the Muggle world, you will undertake it, and you would hardly be doing him any favours by sticking out like a troll among house-elves." He had put aside his disgust and learned, though familiarity had never lessened his distaste for the task.

The well-practised routine of his preparations gave him a veneer of confidence. Whatever tricks his mind played on him he still had his training to fall back on - and that had never let him down. He gathered the minimum of necessary equipment and stowed it in various pockets, automatically running through a mental inventory in his head.

His preparations complete, he put a Muggle coat on over the shirt, replaced the warding spells, and then disapparated again. It was only nine minutes since he had left Skowers.

* * * * *

The moment his feet touched the soil of Godric's Hollow, Snape's fragile confidence vanished.

His chosen apparition point had been on the wooded hillside above the small magical settlement, and he edged his way carefully down the hill, checking constantly for any magical traps or warning spells. The slopes were covered densely with pine trees, and every footstep seemed to bring with it the loud cracking of twigs, and the more quiet crunching of pine needles under the uncomfortable Muggle boots. The seconds stretched themselves out as he descended - one inch at a time down the precipitous slope.

It had probably taken him only two minutes to reach the edge of Godric's Hollow - ten houses in a semicircle around a small village green. His apparition point had been behind the houses, and he could see only thin segments of the green between them. He moved slowly along the row of houses, under the cover of the trees, until he reached Number Six. It was the central building of the cluster, and the biggest, a Tudor brick building with cross-timbers and diamond-paned windows. A beautiful house, though it stirred no emotions in its silent watcher, except an unformed dread.

He'd taken so long that she must be gone by now.

She had not. There were a few flickers of motion at one of the upstairs windows, and once, briefly, the glimpse of a red head. He drew further back into the trees at this, annoyed to find himself feeling disappointed. Damn it, he'd had long enough to get used to the idea by now. He had been watching only a few minutes when a side door opened and Lily came out, still wearing her green cloak and carrying the baby. He moved into the garden, edging along the side of the house after her, wand in hand.

She walked quickly towards the front gate and the road, her head down and a hood over her hair, and then she changed directions and approached her right-hand neighbour's house, a tiny cottage surrounded with laurel bushes. She pulled the bell rope, and he heard the bell jangling inside the house. Snape moved further forward, edging slowly and silently towards her along the line of the laurel bushes, until he was level with her, hidden by the dark green foliage. She was directly in front of him now, standing at her neighbour's front door with the baby in her arms, scarcely ten yards away from him.

No assassin could have asked for a clearer shot. He could have killed her five times over in the short eternity before the door was opened.

When the door finally opened, it was by an old woman wearing a checkered head scarf and shawl. "What is it this -- ?" she began querulously, and then looked more closely at her visitor. She stopped and chuckled. "Sorry love, I thought for a moment it was that Icarus Diggle come back again. Been hassling me all morning, he has."

"Daphne, you wouldn't do me a big favour, would you?" Lily's voice was low and urgent, and the could see from his hiding place that her shoulders were tensed. He felt inexplicably guilty, and then angry at his weakness. Well, what are you waiting for? he asked himself furiously. Just get it done and get out of here. Every second increases the risk.

"Just say the word - miracles going cheap today." Daphne chuckled like the crone she was, showing gappy yellow-grey teeth. "'Ere, what's wrong, love? You're not sickening for something, are you?"

Lily smiled wanly. "I'm fine, Daphne. I've just got to see someone urgently, and I was wondering if you'd be able to look after Harry for me."

"No problem. No problem. It's a pleasure any time." The woman stopped and looked closely at her. "Are you sure there's nothing wrong, pet?"

She turned her face away slightly from Daphne's narrowed eyes, and he saw her face clearly for the first time. She was beautiful even in sadness, and he felt a moment of self-contempt that the sadness was of his making. His wand hand dropped to his side. You really didn't deserve this, Lily. You never hurt anyone in your life. There was a vague unfocussed nausea in the pit of his stomach, a dread that what he was about to do would damage him beyond repair. He pulled himself together, berating himself for thinking such nonsense. Beyond repair! What kind of superstitious rubbish was that? But what he couldn't banish so easily was the conviction that he was about to do something monstrous, as unnatural and foul as the slaying of a unicorn.

He realised he had been holding his breath and let it out slowly. What are you waiting for? She's a sitting target! This is no time to be getting worked up over petty scruples. Get the job done and get out. He raised his wand again his wand, and made ready to loose the spell.

Lily sighed, and when she spoke again she sounded upset. "I'm okay ... Well - no, I'm not ... I - I've just discovered that someone I used to know is involved with Voldemort." The old woman flinched at the name, but Lily didn't seem to notice. "It was someone I used to be friendly with - very friendly with - and I've got to go and turn him in. I - " She hesitated and then said softly. "I suppose I don't really want to do it." She sighed again. "But it's got to be done."

"Yes, love. Even if it's not pleasant - and I've never yet known you shirk something that needed to be done." You could always recognise the Gryffindor mentality, even in those who must have left Hogwarts over a hundred years before. They never lost that black and white view of the world, that unflinching integrity that was no respecter of persons. "But you don't need to put yourself through that on yer own. I c'n go with you, if it would make things easier."

"No," Lily said firmly. "No. I must do it alone, however much it hurts. It's going to hurt someone I used to like. I owe him at least my own pain."

His wand hand sagged again, the fingers stiff from gripping the wand so tightly. He shifted it to his right hand, clenching the fingers of his left to loosen them. Unbidden, the ache in his stomach twisted itself into words. I don't want to do this. I don't want to be the sort of person who would do this. The thought stared him in the face, naked and shameless - undisguisable. There were Death Eaters who would do anything in their master's service, no matter how extreme. Hadn't he thought himself one of them? No, more than that. He'd been one of them for almost five years. He'd taken part in the massacre at Ysgol Hud Myrddin, hadn't he? And now, here he was, getting ridiculous scruples over killing a woman who knew or guessed - she had no proof, after all, remember - enough to destroy him. He shelved the traitor thought, and forced himself to concentrate on the job in hand, aiming the wand once more. Come on. You know you can do this.

"Yer nuts, girl, I tell you. We're talking Death Eaters here. Nobody owes a Death Eater - you don't owe him squat."

"That's kind of you, Daphne, but I've got to do it. I won't hide from the consequences of my actions."

"I getcha. It's like you don't ditch a lover by owl. It hurts more doing it face to face, but you don't feel like an utter heel afterwards."

Lily laughed, but there was an edge of sadness in the laughter that tore at the heart. "You're very sweet, but I'm quite happy to go alone. I am, honestly. I keep wanting to put it off, but there's no sense in that, is there?" She shifted her grip on the bundle of blankets. "You're quite happy to look after Harry for me?"

"Anything, love. Does he need feeding?"

Now! Before it's too late. He blocked out the voices of the two women ahead of him, and lifted the wand a third time.

Aim ...

Focus ...

A pause. A wave of revulsion that he hastily thrust aside ... and then in a silent whisper he finally choked the foul words out - "Avada Kedavra."

...

No green light, no explosion. No corpse.

Lily was still standing there, handing her son over to her neighbour, leaning forward to kiss the baby's cheek. She shone as brightly as ever - as pure and unwavering as the evening star in the sky above. The spell had failed.

For a moment a wave of pure irrational joy swept over him, of wordless wonder at the miracle that had just been wrought - and then the realisation slammed into him that he was doomed.

* * * * *

Keep walking. Don't stop.

He didn't know where he was going. He had no idea what he was going to do, or what there was left that he could do. All he knew was that if he stopped walking everything would fall apart. He had somehow managed to get out of Godric's Hollow - he vaguely recalled stumbling through the forest, and onto the moor behind. At some point he'd reached a road and was following that, dimly aware that he had doubled back on himself.

It had been daylight when he had stumbled away from the tiny circle of houses; it was almost dark now, as the bitter wind off Godric's Moor battered and buffeted him, piercing through soul and mind and body. He pushed himself onwards, his one coherent thought his need to keep moving. Everything else was a seething, roiling whirlpool of warring feelings and ideas, a Pensieve in rebellion.

He had always found the Avada Kedavra easy, had grasped it the first time he'd been taught it - a remarkable feat, so they said. It was just a matter of focus, and that was easy - focussing on the intended death, and as the words were spoken reaching out towards it, affirming it. They'd said once you had the knack you never lost it. Well, he'd just proved them wrong, hadn't he?

He replayed the failed spell in his head for the hundredth time, each movement, each thought halted and dissected. It hadn't been the wand technique: that had been perfected years before. And the focus had been there, and, shamefully, the intention. But his mind had shied away from contemplating the result he was trying to achieve. He'd let himself lose that focus, and so the spell had diffused, been lost.

There had been five seconds - five interminable seconds - after the spell had failed. It wouldn't have taken much to try again. The urgency and the pressure of a second attempt might have achieved what the first could not. But he had made no second attempt - he knew he could not have done even if he had wanted to.

He had remained where he was for those five seconds - crouched in the shelter of the laurel hedge - as his last hope of deliverance drain away. He had watched Lily thank her neighbour again, kiss her son and hand him over, and for the second time that day, disapparate to safety.

Ironic in a way, that the murder that's going to destroy me is the one I couldn't do. He stumbled on a stone on the verge, and lurched onto the road, just as a tractor came rumbling slowly past, narrowly missing him. Very funny, Severus. Let's hope the Aurors catch you before the Death Eaters do. At least the Aurors kill quicker, if you push them hard enough.

He was panicking again, and that annoyed him. He forced himself to walk more steadily, slowing and deepening his breathing in an effort to calm himself down. He was nearing a village now - there were street lights and pavements just ahead, with houses along the other side of the road. He felt a moment's unease about entering a Muggle village, and it took him a moment to remember that he was, in fact, dressed correctly. He saw the lights of a building directly ahead of him, and when he approached it he found it to be a Muggle pub. The pub's sign, swinging in the wind to the accompaniment of an eldritch creaking sound, proclaimed it to be The Green Man.

A refuge. Somewhere sheltered to give him space to plan, before he became a fugitive. He pushed open the door cautiously and went in.

It was bright and clean, but not noisy, filled with the soft hum of conversation. It smelt faintly of old cigarette smoke and new beer, and a feeble fire burnt in the fireplace. A game of darts was in progress at the far end of the bar, but the rest of the pub was quiet. It was still very early, he realised, only six o'clock. A few heads turned to stare at him as he entered, with the incurious interest of a herd of cows. Were they used to strangers here? He shrugged mentally. No matter. It wasn't like he'd be coming back again.

He went to the bar and asked for a glass of water. As an afterthought he asked to borrow some playing cards as well, and a pack was handed over. The young barmaid looked at the cuts on his face questioningly but he made no attempt to explain them.

He took the water and the cards over to a dark corner table, and sat down, staring blankly down at the table. So what now? The bright lights of the pub were making his eyes sore, and he put his head in his hands to hide them from the light.

What now? What in Merlin's name do I do now?

His mind, which had been so tumultuous only minutes before, was now a barren void. It struck him suddenly how unbelievably tired he felt.

He had nowhere to go. Nobody who would help him. Turning to any of his fellow Death Eaters was out of the question - the few (John and Electra) that he could trust were unswervingly loyal to the Dark Lord; the rest had no reason to help him once he was out of favour. As for outsiders - well, there was only his family. There was none of them he would ask for help - not since his mother -

He shelved the thought angrily. Suffice it to say that his family would be of no use whatsoever.

The need for sleep was becoming overwhelming, and he sat up again, and picked up the cards, starting to shuffle them, in the hope that the simple activity would help him stay alert. It seemed to work - his hands were shaking, and it took all his concentration to keep control of them. The familiar actions were unsteady at first, slow and clumsy, and he had to be careful not to drop any of the cards.

Whatever happened now, he had one consolation. At least Lily was all right. There was at least that small mercy - that, whatever else happened, Lily was alive. She'd be okay. He could feel his hands becoming steadier, as they always did when he kept them occupied. He cut the cards and started to deal.

He had only put down three cards when somebody placed a hand very firmly on his shoulder.

The playing cards flew from his hands, scattering in all directions, but his wand was in his hand before they hit the floor, and the first syllable of the Avada Kedavra curse had escaped him before he even remembered that he was among Muggles.

"Touch paranoid this evening, are we?" said Paul Wilkes.

Felix Lestrange was with him, looking down at Snape with a thoughtful expression on his face. Like Wilkes he was dressed in Muggle clothes, though his were a little too well-cut for a rural area. "Put it away, Sev, you'll scare the natives," he said in a low voice, and Snape complied immediately, annoyed by his wand-happy reaction. It was fortunate that the game of darts seemed to be reaching its conclusion, and nobody had taken any notice of the three strangers in the corner.

"What are you - ?" Wilkes began and then broke off. "Circe's tits, Sev! What have you done to your face?"

Snape brushed the question aside. "Nothing important. Just an accident at work."

"Well, you're certainly not going for inconspicuous, are you? You've got mud all over you as well. What are you doing here anyway?" Wilkes took the remaining seat at Snape's table; Lestrange had already sat down, putting his pint of lager on the table.

"I was having a quiet drink before you two arrived, Wilko. What are you doing here anyway? Have they chucked you out of the Hexing Hag already?" They had obviously been drinking already - the smell of mead hung undisguisably about them.

"Nah. Just a spot of light Muggle-bashing."

"What, here?" It was a stupid thing to say, and Wilkes sniggered softly.

"Sev, you are such an innocent sometimes. This place is right on the doorstep of Godric's Hollow, innit? The biggest collection of Muggle-lovers and Mudbloods in the whole of wizardry. It's ... wossname ... pserkological warfare." He tasted the words, rolling them around his mouth like some choice morsel. "Makes them feel powerless, see?"

"It's more likely to make you look stupid, Wilko," Snape said with disdain. "There's two of you. Do you really think that you can deal with - ?"

Wilkes laughed disdainfully. "Sev, old son, it's only just past six - it's not even started to get busy here yet. There's, what? ten people here - fifteen tops. It'll be a cinch. Me and Felix may not be members of the elite like you, but we're still pretty damn' fine at this sort of thing. You just sit back and watch, and we'll show you how it should be done." Wilkes had probably had several pints of mead already. It didn't show. His capacity for drink was famous among the Death Eaters, and he had even been heard to boast that he could out-drink the Dark Lord himself. Tonight it looked like he was just starting out on one of his legendary benders.

"Perhaps you'd like to join us," Lestrange said. He had a knowing, superior smile on his face that Snape did not trust an inch. It was a dangerous question. Wilkes may not have spotted his earlier evasion, but Lestrange would not have missed it. Severus Snape, one of the most prominent of the younger Death Eaters, in a Muggle pub near Godric's Hollow, 'having a quiet drink'! That would make quite a tale by the time Lestrange had finished with it, especially as the same Severus Snape was said to consider Muggle-bashing beneath him, in spite of the Dark Lord's encouragement of such activities.

"I came here for a drink, not a cabaret," he snarled. This is not the moment for your petty games, Felix. Go away and leave me alone.

"That so? So what does bring you to Godric's Hollow then? You're not fraternising with the Muggle-lovers, I hope?"

"It's professional. Nothing to do with you, and in any case I've finished the job. I was just about to leave when you walked in on me."

"Oh, c'mon, Sev! Two's too small for a Muggle-bashing party." Wilkes sharpened his voice into a wheedling whine. "You know you want to."

Lestrange laughed sardonically. "Or would you rather we told James Potter that you're sleeping with his wife?"

You what - ? His first reaction was overwhelming astonished outrage. Whatever suspicion he thought Felix Lestrange had been nurturing, it had not been this. It took Snape a few seconds to recover the power of speech. "If you dare..." He rose to his feet, almost incoherent with rage, his eyes narrowed. Lestrange laughed again and pushed him easily back into his seat.

"I knew it!" he crowed, and then lowered his voice as he noticed that they were starting to attract attention. "Calm down, Sev - you're embarrassing us."

"You mean you really are poking Potter's bird? Well, of all the - I never thought you had it in you!"

He choked down his rage, annoyed at having let Lestrange get under his skin. "Look, just get on with it, will you? Before I strangle the pair of you."

Lestrange slapped him on the back with totally gratuitous heartiness. "That's the stuff, Sevvikins. Let's get started, shall we?"

With practised ease Wilkes sidled over to the door, and Snape saw the ripple of air that marked the passage of the warding spells, just as Lestrange strode to the centre of the pub and set his wand off with a bang. He had their attention now - what followed would not be pleasant.

A few seconds later the screams started. The despoliation of the Green Man had begun.

* * * * *

Just another Muggle-killing. Just another scene of unnecessary carnage - he'd seen so many. There was nothing special about this one. Nothing at all.

The screams had ended now, and a pall of silence hung over the pub, as Wilkes, his wand back in his belt, dusted off his hands and then picked up a half-finished pint from the bar, draining it in one gulp. Lestrange was seated on a table, humming a snatch of melody, as he absently threw darts at one of the bodies, trying to hit it in the eye.

His friends had enjoyed themselves.

He would have been glad of the mask now, because Lestrange, who always saw too much too clearly, was looking at him penetratingly, even accusingly.

"You weren't much use, were you?" he said, with the same knowing, superior tone he had used earlier. "And you're supposed to be the man who made the best first kill the Death Eaters had ever seen. They ought to put you out to grass."

"Yeah. I noticed that" Wilkes chipped in, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt. "What's biting you? Losing your nerve?"

Snape picked up his wand. It had lain on the table amid the scattered playing cards for the entire duration of the massacre. "Say that again, Wilko," he said softly, "And you'll never speak again."

Wilkes laughed nervously. "Oh c'mon, I'm not serious, mate. Just thought you were usually more of a psycho, thassall. Don't take it personal, like." He looked around at the ruined pub disdainfully. "Anyway, the fun's over here - time we went for a real drink. Which d'you prefer, folks?" he asked them, "The Giant's Head or the Hexing Hag?"

"The Giant's Head for me. I feel like some really good strong mead tonight. You coming, Sev?"

Snape shook his head, as much to clear it as anything. "I'm going home. I'm not feeling well."

Lestrange laughed. He still had that superior expression on his face. Wilkes misinterpreted it completely. "Come on. You'll feel better for a drink. A proper drink, not that weak rat's piss you usually have."

"I'd rather not. I've got an early start in the morning."

Wilkes shrugged again. "Your trouble is, you're too damn' boring. Well, it's your loss. If you change your mind, you know where to find us. Come on Felix, I need that drink." He opened the window of the pub and fired the Dark Mark into the sky, and then disapparated. A second later, Lestrange left also, but not without a last curious glance at his sometime friend.

Snape did not move. He stood, feeling disoriented and bewildered in the middle of the pub, looking around at the wreckage - at the bodies that littered its floor, the smashed beer glasses and overturned tables, at the scattered playing cards he'd borrowed, cards that were spotted with blood now, cards that would never be returned to their owner.

Escaping justice seemed irrelevant now.

And what of your glorious career now, Severus? Is this what it amounts to?

It had all been Lestrange's doing. He had been watching Lestrange merrily despatching the panicking drinkers of the Green Man with refined skill - Lestrange, who always used to be so nervy and awkward - and had recognised in his eyes the same exhilaration that he himself had always felt when killing.

His thoughts were pulled inexorably back to Lily Potter, and his own recent failed kill. Would he have enjoyed Lily's death? Would it have given him that rush of euphoric satisfaction? He tried to tell himself it would not, but a nasty little voice kept saying Oh, but it would, it would. Can't help yourself, can you?

Death Eater - Death Addict.

How many people had he killed? Tens? Hundreds? He'd never even thought to keep count. It had never mattered enough.

Perhaps it should have.

The silence in the pub seemed thick and oppressive, broken only by the ticking of the clock, a dry mechanical sound that rang out clearly in the silence. Every now and then a drip of beer would fall from one of the pumps with a soft thud, but between these sounds there seemed to stretch acres of heavy silence. He reminded himself that he had to get out of here before the Godric's Hollow crew came swarming over it, and picked up his wand, wondering where on earth he could possibly go.

The slight motion from the corner of the pub startled him almost out of his skin - a shifting of one of the bodies. For a long instant he hesitated, and then went over to investigate. The impossible had happened: someone had survived.

He was a young man, this Muggle, probably no older than Snape. His body was broad and muscular, a labourer's physique, and his thick hands were covered with smears and spots of oil, grey with the ingrained grime. Snape dimly remembered Lestrange torturing him, while Wilkes enchanted one of the bar stools to fly, so that it slammed into him again and again. He was slumped on the floor, blood soaking through the dirty shirt, which stuck to his ribs, showing clearly where the rib cage had caved in. His eyes flickered feebly when Snape moved closer. He tried to move his head to look up and let out a high keening sound.

Snape knelt by the young Muggle and stared down at him. A pair of dark brown eyes stared back up at him, full of pain and fear, with the dumb expressiveness of a wounded dog.

"Help ... help me ... For God's sake - don't leave ... me like this. If you have any pity left in you ..."

Snape stared down at the young Muggle, feeling useless and pathetic. There seemed nothing he could do. Why had he never learned the healing charms? He sat there, motionless, as the seconds passed, marked by the slow ticking of the clock.

The telephone started ringing abruptly, and Snape tensed. The bell seemed unusually loud in the unnatural silence, a discordant jangling that set his teeth on edge and his head reeling, drowning out all thought. It took him a moment to realise that answering it would be a stupid thing to do, so he stayed where he was, his shoulders hunched against the sound as if it were a physical assault. He did not relax when it stopped ringing.

He continued to sit there as the seconds dragged on, listening to the young Muggle's shallow breathing.

"Help me," the young Muggle said again, the expressive brown eyes still boring into Snape's. "Hurts ..."

Snape drew out his wand and stared helplessly down at the pitiful broken body, for what seemed like an age, amid a silence that was now deafeningly loud. There was only one way he knew of taking away pain.

"Somnus," he whispered, and the boy's eyes closed gently. And then, almost inaudibly "Avada Kedavra."

This time the spell did not fail. There was the merest spark of green light as the young Muggle died.

Snape sat there for a moment, staring into the empty face of his victim. Then he disapparated. He did not look back.

* * * * *

So here he was, back at the barn at An Cruachan. Back home, in the first place the Aurors would look for him. A sitting target - it was a wonder they weren't here already.

And what would it matter if they were? he asked himself in a rush of cold anger. It would be no more than you deserve.

He hadn't gone to the workshop. There could hardly be any point in refuges now. He looked around the cold barn, examining critically the home he usually ignored. He spent as little time here as possible. It was a comfortless room - bleak and Spartan, shoddily furnished. He looked around again, his eye falling on the chipped, handleless mug that anyone with an ounce of self-respect would have replaced long ago, at the one easy chair, a battered wicker thing standing island-like in front of the empty fireplace, at the cobwebby grey curtains.

"And can you honestly say you never realised?" he asked the empty room bitterly. "Can you have the nerve to pretend you didn't know what you were doing?"

There was no answer. The barn's rough walls did not return so much as an echo.

Oh, I knew all right. I knew all along, right from the start. Yes. He had known. The moment Travers had first spoken to him all those years back, Snape had suspected that his business would be something shady. It wasn't merely the subtle inflexions of the Knockturn Alley accent - though Snape had recognised them instantly, of course. It was his whole demeanour that had spoken of some special purpose. Nobody who was about honest business would be so casual and yet so watchful. Yes, he'd recognised all that, he'd seen the danger signs - and he'd followed Travers into the shadows with his eyes wide open. Why? Was I that debased already?

Because I was bored.

Bored. Oh you stupid bastard. Such an inadequate reason to destroy or sublimate every ounce of humanity he possessed, as he had gradually learned the art of murder. Such a pathetic justification of the years spent in the service of a subhuman master.

They had started him on it gradually, cautiously at first, and then more thoroughly, but the killing had never been a big deal to him. He'd seen his first murder when he'd been only seven - a Colombian drugs baron who had once been one of his father's firms key suppliers, and was now merely just another annoyingly persistent creditor, or so his father had said. There'd been others, too, before he'd even started at Hogwarts. It had merely been something that happened - just another part of the way the world worked. It had hardly even mattered.

But not even old man Tiberius had ever killed as many as his son had. No. He had no right to blame the old bastard. He'd always had the choice.

What had he become now? What kind of abomination would attempt the murder of a loved one out of petty self-protection? He'd even had the nerve to call it duty.

It must have happened inch by inch, one death at a time, so subtly that he'd never noticed the gradual mutilation of his moral sense. Every murder he had committed had been a self-inflicted wound, willingly administered and misnamed obedience. It had been a death by a thousand cuts, as the scars he left on the world were mirrored by the deeper ones on himself. Every innocent life he had taken had been the slaying of a unicorn - the destruction of something unique and wonderful, deforming the killer - and he had let himself become so accustomed to that tainted half-life that he had never even noticed it.

And what, if he had killed Lily Potter, would have been left of him?

Nothing. Nothing worth having.

So what is left of you now, then? Hardly more, I think. Were those other deaths worth less than hers would have been? He nearly laughed at that, his face twisted into a sardonic sneer. Well, why don't you ask the Aurors about that? They'd tell you fast enough - particularly when they hear you were there when Ysgol Hud Myrddin was destroyed.

Ysgol Hud Myrddin (Merlin School of Magic, as it was called outside Wales) had been destroyed two years before, in the most extreme massacre the Death Eaters had ever carried out. The Welsh-language magical school had less than a hundred pupils, and only a handful of staff - most of whom had died one night two years ago, when the Dark Lord, and seventeen of his most trusted Death Eaters had stormed the place.

Hogwarts itself, which the Dark Lord would have destroyed if he could, was far too well-protected for such pyrotechnics, but the tiny Welsh school, situated in a manor house at Bodorgan on the island of Anglesey, was an easy target, and a fitting reminder to all who considered their children safe. It had horrified the entire magical world, and when, two weeks later, the Ministry had authorised the use of the Unforgivable curses on suspects, it had met with almost unanimous support. The school had never reopened.

There were those even among the Death Eaters who had been shocked by the extremity of the massacre. The five Welsh-speaking Death Eaters had all refused to take part in the raid, even after torture so extreme that it had led to the death of one of their number, and the descent into madness of another. Many of the other Death Eaters had also drawn back from involvement. Snape had not been one of them.

One hundred people, most of them children, had been killed in that one night, slaughtered like sheep with the businesslike efficiency that only the Dark Lord's most competent servants could provide. They had herded everyone - staff, students, house-elves - into the school's chapel, and systematically killed every last one of them.

Snape had not slept for three nights afterwards.

And did that tell you nothing? The sleeplessness that the raids brought on, the memories and visions that haunted him with almost hallucinatory vividness, the way his victims' words had returned repeatedly to him - they had all been warnings. All gadflies trying to sting him into life. It had taken so much to get him to listen, and by then it was far too late.

There was no amends that he could make. As if some trite apology could cancel out five years of bloodshed! Even to mention reparation was to trivialise the crimes he had committed, an insult to their victims.

A debt like this could never be repaid, only written off by the death of the perpetrator.

Breathing heavily, he took a knife from one of his pockets and looked down at it. It was ordinary enough to the naked eye - a folding scalpel of the kind that potioners ordered by the dozen. He touched a screw on the hilt and the short blade sprang into place. This was the knife - the last resort - that he always kept with him. He'd treated the blade with his strongest poison, and then heated it in a furnace, to bind it permanently to the blade. The tip had only to break the skin to kill, and death would be almost instantaneous. It would very easy. It probably wouldn't hurt.

He stared down at it, and knew that he didn't have the courage.

What choice do you have, Severus? he taunted himself. A quick death by your own hand, or a slow and nasty one at someone else's. Hand yourself in if you will, and spend your life with the Dementors. Do you want that? Or try to run away, and wait for the Dark Lord to catch you. He'd give you a messy, painful death. Is that what you'd rather?

He opened his hand and let the knife fall, watching it bounce once, twice, before coming to rest by the empty fireplace. He stared at it in silence for a moment, and then stood up, pacing the length of the unlit room.

"Oh yes," he said out loud, his voice harsh and bitter in the silent room. "You happily helped kill all those others. Too much of a coward to do the same to yourself, aren't you? Too contemptible to settle the matter cleanly." He could feel a cold fury welling up in him, an icy loathing for the creature he found he'd become. "You don't even deserve a painless death. You deserve to feel it, every bit of it, like McKinnon did - like all those others before him. Like you would probably have made Lily suffer, you sick, pathetic bastard. You talk so glibly about self-inflicted wounds - as if your own pathetic pride mattered more than your victims' lives. But you knew, all right - yes, you knew," he snarled bitterly. "You always had that choice, damn you, and you threw it away."

He brought up his hands and raked his fingernails across the skin of his face. They caught on the cuts from the exploding potion, and he felt a rush of savage satisfaction as he felt the skin tear. Oh yes, you knew all right. And you spent all those years hiding from the knowledge - hiding behind your anger and your hatred, making masks of cruelty and callousness. He dragged the nails across his skin again, harder, and felt more of the fragile covering give way. And now, like the snake you are, you want to throw off those skins - as if there was anything left underneath. It's too late for you now.

The room spun around him, careering wildly and uncontrollably as he clawed at the torn skin. He could feel pressure building up in his head as if it was being crushed under great weights, and it spread to his chest, forcing him to fight for breath as the voices rang out like fanfares in his head.

If you have any pity left in you ...

(The pub with its brightness and warmth, as the screams of its customers and staff echoed around the walls. The young Muggle, tortured and battered by the combined efforts of his friends. Lestrange's boyish giggles as he tormented and killed the Muggles around him. The screams and sobs of the young barmaid, raped hurriedly by Wilkes. The scent of blood and sweat and human fear overlaying the normal smell of the pub. Himself watching, feeling sick and confused, but doing nothing. The scene changed abruptly: another raid, another pub. Himself, newly branded, escorting a scared young cat burglar from the bar of the Hexing Hag at wandpoint to be interrogated by Electra and John. The burglar's body, nine hours later, (the lad had been brave, or at least stubborn) discarded on a pile of rubbish in Carne Alley. More changes of scene: an old Auror, killed defending his Muggle-born daughter-in-law. One of his unfaithful colleagues, tortured into insanity by Electra and himself. A half-blood baby, butchered by Travers...)

If you ever cared about me ...

(The chapel of the Welsh school, its echoes ringing with the screams of the children, its shadowy recesses lit periodically with flashes of blazing green light. The Dark Lord at the centre of the room, his arms folded as he surveyed the work of his faithful, who killed with even greater vigour when they sensed his eyes boring into their backs. The white faces of the children as they clung together, and the futile resistance of their teachers. The frightened eyes of a little Welsh girl with a heart-shaped face and curly black hair, staring at him from the corner she was crouched in as he had prepared to kill her, her petrified whispers of "Iesu ... Iesu ...", and oh my God, did I really do that? her corpse, its throat slit, seconds later, and another, and then another and ...)

How can you do these things and live with yourselves? How can you look the world in the eye, knowing what you are? Give it up, for your own sakes. Nobody is forcing you to do evil, or to be evil, except yourselves ...

Ailsa McKinnon's words rang out in his head like the still, small voice of a distant trumpet as he felt the walls of his mind come crashing down around him. He never even heard himself scream.

* * * * *

What do you do when you wake up and realise you are a murderer?

What is there left when you have broken every legal and moral code on earth?

The fury had passed away, and left only a hollow emptiness in its wake. He lay slumped on the floor feeling drained and exhausted. All the forces that had borne him along for so long - the in-born savagery, the relentless drive and the tides of bitterness and anger that had spawned it - they had abandoned him, and he was left, beached on a barren shore after a change as natural and as inexorable as the turning of the tide.

The blood on his face was starting to harden, encrusting round the many cuts he had inflicted on himself. He felt no pain from the cuts. He could feel nothing.

He stood up slowly and walked unsteadily to the wicker armchair and collapsed into it, staring unseeing at the fireplace, his eyes fixed on the dead ashes in the grate. Perhaps they were the ashes of his life. Perhaps the ashes of those he had killed, or helped to kill. Was there really a difference? No. They were just ashes - from a fire that had burnt itself out. He didn't have the energy for anger or passion any more, just a kind of dull despair that closed around him, dragging him down into some uncharted darkness, filling him, heart and soul and mind. It was like drowning.

For the first time in years he felt cold.

He didn't light the fire, just continued to sit numbly before it, staring into the grate. The barn felt damp and he could hear the hushed sounds of the rain on the roof. The cold was beginning to make him sleepy, and he felt his eyelids grow heavy. He drowsed for a while, letting himself drift along in the grey territory between sleep and waking in an unsatisfying half-sleep that was neither. Very soon, he knew, his future would catch up with him.

The Aurors would be here soon, and then everything would be out of his hands. All he had to do was wait for them.

He wouldn't resist arrest. He'd go with them without any trouble. He'd accept the sentence they gave him, and go willingly to Azkaban. Gradually the earth would forget him, and time would mend the wounds his actions had caused. At some stage, no doubt, he would die, and the world would not even notice his passing. Five hundred years from now it would be as if he had never existed.

It was nearly dawn now - a grey, colourless dawn, damp and still, that fell shroudlike over the mountains around the barn, leaching them of colour and life. The world outside was silent and motionless. He felt almost calm, having made a decision, and sat there in a kind of mindless lethargy, watching the world outside the window lighten as the day crept up on him.

The rattling of a window, amplified by his tired mind, jerked him abruptly back to the present. He looked up, but the only visitor was his owl, Alleatha, returning from the dawn's hunting with a mouse hanging from her claws. She ignored him and flew up into the roof of the barn.

Alleatha had always been wary of him, never approaching him unless she was carrying messages for him. She was a short-eared owl, born not far from his home and wilder than most trained owls. He had raised her himself from a hatchling, and had never tried to discourage her from her wild self-sufficiency.

"Alleatha." His voice sounded hoarse and unfamiliar to him, and the act of speaking stretched the skin on his face so that some of the cuts started to weep anew. Alleatha laid aside her mouse and flew down to him, perching on the arm of the wicker chair, her enigmatic eyes fixed on his. He reached out a bloodied hand towards her, and, unusually, she did not fly away, but stood there motionless, letting him stroke her head as she continued to watch him impassively. "I'm going to have to go away, Alleatha," he said softly, "Probably for quite a long time." Was her stillness comprehension or merely bored fortitude? "If I don't come back go to Eeylops in Diagon Alley. You'll be looked after there, and they'll find you a new owner. I hope it's a better one." She remained quietly on the arm of his chair, letting him stroke her head, as he waited passively for the inevitable. The softness of her feathers under his hand was comforting, and he imagined he saw approval in her enigmatic face.

All he had to do was wait for them.

It was almost fully light now, shining dimly in from the colourless world outside. Waiting. That was all there was to it, and the whole thing would be taken out of his hands.

At least Lily will be safe. He had at least that small consolation, the single redeeming grace of his whole disgraceful career. Lily would no longer be in danger.

But would she? Was anybody? He knew as well as any that there was at least one spy inside the Ministry and probably more. When they heard that she was to give evidence when he was tried -

No - I can't take that risk. Suppose he gave himself up now, told them everything. Lily's suspicions would pale into insignificance beside his own testimony. They'd have no reason to trouble her then.

He could go to the Ministry, tell them he had information. Would they believe him, once they knew what he was? He doubted it. The Dark Lord had already sent plenty of fake 'informants' that way. He'd just be another one. Then where else? To Dumbledore then? Would he believe him? I don't know. Possibly.

It had to be better than nothing.

At length Alleatha ruffled her feathers and flew gracefully up into the rafters of the barn. He watched her shuffle into the shadows of the roof, and sat there limply a moment longer before standing up slowly. His face was stiff with dried blood now, and the Muggle clothes were crumpled and blood-stained. It was strangely reassuring to know that the blood was only his own.

He pushed back the hair that had fallen over his face, freeing some of the errant strands from the dried blood. It was no longer straight and stiff, but hung in loose straggly curls around his face. Of course. The Sleekeazy would have worn of completely by now. He went over to the sink and picked the bottle up, and then changed his mind. There was no point in pretending any longer. It could hardly matter, where he was going.

He slung his cloak round him and picked his wand up. From force of habit he looked around to check that he'd left everything tidy. Then he disapparated.