War Dead

A/N: Quotes and paraphrases scattered liberally throughout. Most of these are from the Scholastic editions of the Harry Potter books.

****

War Dead

"If you are prepared..."

He wasn't prepared. Who ever was? Nevertheless Severus Snape, walking out of Hogsmeade on a bright summer's day, knew that he was going to die.

I am about to die.

"A Christian keeps his death like the fear of God before his eyes." So the dusty old minister, not far from death himself, had preached in the drafty chapel to which Severus's father had dragged him on the occasional Sunday. Severus was no Christian. But he knew his own death had been staring him in the face ever since he had served up death to Albus Dumbledore on the Astronomy Tower.

He didn't know exactly when death would claim him. The casting of the Killing Curse hadn't given him second sight. But neither had it split his soul. He wasn't disintegrating, like (to give only one example) Lucius Malfoy.

"He said he required a service from you....What service? I don't know, he didn't say. Just go, for God's sake, will you, Severus? Don't keep him waiting, I don't want him thinking I've disobeyed...."

Of course, of course, Severus had replied. There was no need to worry; he was on his way.

He and Lucius had reversed roles. It was Severus, now, who led and commanded in the Dark Lord's absence, who smoothed the way for his followers to the Dark Lord's forgiveness. Such as it was.

It was Severus who sat at the right hand of the Lord.

"Severus, here," said Voldemort, indicating the seat on his right.

The best seat in the house. You could see everything. Whether you wanted to or not.

"Do you recognize our guest, Severus?"

"Ah, yes..."

"Professor Burbage..."

Spinning like an upside-down top...

"Severus...please...please..."

"Severus...please..."

Like nightmare-mist, Burbage writhed into Dumbledore. Severus shoved the memories into the cupboard at the back of his mind and slammed the door. He smothered them as best he could, for Burbage and Dumbledore were among those whom he could not save.

"Avada Kedavra."

"Avada Kedavra!"

They were dead. They did not matter. They could not matter, now that Severus had left Hogsmeade and walked through a summer meadow shaggy with bright green grass, exuberant with flowers, toward the Shrieking Shack and Lord Voldemort.

What could the Lord want? What he had wanted all year, no doubt: for Harry Potter to be brought to him. A consummation devoutly to be wished, and no one could wish it more than Severus.

"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."

And the end of Severus Snape. He would be the Death Eater who, privileged to sit at the right hand of the Lord had betrayed his Lord by handing him over to his killer, Harry Potter. Or he would be the traitor ingrate, who after killing Albus Dumbledore had given Harry Potter to Voldemort.

Whichever it was, somebody would surely kill him for it.

He could dream, of course, and sometimes he had. In fancies, he'd seen Voldemort and Potter collapsing into death at once, then himself spilling out his story, begging Order members for mercy--McGonagall or Lupin, perhaps, someone he'd taught with, sat in the staffroom with--startling them long enough with the sight of him on his knees for them to hear him out.

He always left out the bits about Lily. The Order believed him anyway and spared him, in his dreams.

Only in his dreams. Potter was here now, at Hogwarts. The end was nigh. Someone very soon would send Severus Snape to hell.

The thought didn't trouble him. The dusty minister's hell was nowhere on earth. Severus doubted it differed much, otherwise, from the place he'd been in ever since the green light had shot from his wand into Dumbledore's heart.

The Headmastership of Hogwarts was simply a lower circle, that was all.

"Be sure to act your part convincingly....I am counting on you to remain in Lord Voldemort's good books as long as possible, or Hogwarts will be left to the mercy of the Carrows...."

The thing about the portraits in the Headmaster's office was that, while retaining the personalities of their dead subjects, they made the goals and values of the living Headmaster their own. Thus, though Dumbledore's portrait nattered on in oil and canvas much as Dumbledore had nattered in life, Severus found that, for the very first time since he had met Albus Dumbledore at the age of eleven, he was in perfect accord with him.

The trouble was, remaining in Voldemort's good books had largely meant leaving Hogwarts to the mercy of the Carrows. Thank God, Dumbledore the portrait had been more helpful than Dumbledore the wizard had often seemed to be. No sooner had Dumbledore's portrait been affixed to the wall in the Headmaster's office than it had taken command of the rest of the portraits in the castle.

So like him. But Dumbledore's lingering influence on Hogwarts was the only reason Severus could think of for the report which had come to his office about Amycus Carrow torturing Michael Corner for releasing the first-year whom Carrow had placed in shackles. The news must have taken a circuitous route from portrait to portrait before reaching Dumbledore's portrait, for the only portrait Carrow had hanging in his office was one of Salazar Slytherin. Hardly a wizard for whom Dumbledore had ever expressed much fellow feeling.

Severus had rushed to Carrow's office (arriving none too soon, by the look of things), surreptitiously put Corner into a faint and had him carried to the hospital wing.

It was all Longbottom's fault. Mousy little Longbottom, the new leader of Dumbledore's wretched Army! He had to be channeling Potter: he had Potter's luck along with Potter's gall. How else to explain that no one had noticed him, Lovegood and the Weasley girl breaking into the Headmaster's office and walking off with the Sword of Gryffindor? They'd very likely be dead now, if anyone but Severus had caught them.

"What luck for us, Severus!" Dumbledore's portrait had said afterward, beaming. "With everyone believing the Sword of Gryffindor is locked up at Gringott's, we can do as we please! With the real sword, that is..."

He was entirely too cheerful for a Headmaster maneuvering a beloved student to his death.

Though, during late nights spent in the Headmaster's office, Severus had wondered even about that. The place had an effect on you, once you'd been there awhile, staring out the window at night at the massed blackness of the Forbidden Forest, watching the portraits slumber in their frames or musing over Dumbledore's instruments, whirring on merrily in his absence. The office seemed imbued with the enigma which had been Albus Dumbledore, the man whom Severus had both sickened and moved to tears.

"You disgust me."

His eyes were full of tears.

"After all this time?"

Always, of course. Always. Severus had thought it would be obvious to Dumbledore if to no one else. But perhaps Dumbledore, that knotted ball of cunning, sentimentality and half-buried guilt had been unable to perceive that the purely good could also be complex: that Lily Evans Potter had been well worth Severus's lust and his love.

Had he not known, even as he had begged the Dark Lord for Lily's life, that he'd never had a hope of consummating either?

In his way, Dumbledore was more maddening than Voldemort had ever been, for in the sheer relish of his plottings, he gave Severus a completely unreasonable hope for the life of Lily's son.

"Good! Very good!...Now, Severus, the sword! Do not forget that it must be taken under conditions of need and valor--and he must not know that you give it!...He will know what to do with it. And Severus, be very careful, they may not take kindly to your appearance after George Weasley's mishap--"

"Don't worry, Dumbledore," Severus whispered. "I have a plan."

And thus he carried Lily's picture, felt it resting against his heart as he reached for the door of the Shrieking Shack, for he still clung to the hope that he might help Lily's son survive.

"Neither can live while the other survives..."

Severus opened the door and went inside.

The Dark Lord was seated at a battered table, looking at his wand, which he spun between skeletal fingers. When Severus closed the door, he looked up.

"Ah, Severus. There you are."

Severus did not answer. He looked at Nagini. She was neither draped around Voldemort's neck nor coiled at his feet. She was suspended in midair, above and to the right of the Dark Lord's head, writhing sinuously inside a transparent sphere that glittered with starry points of light.

"She is safe there," said Voldemort, still eying his wand. But Severus already knew that.

"There will come a time when Lord Voldemort will seem to fear for the life of his snake....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."

Voldemort looked up.

He fixed Severus with a piercing gaze, and with practiced speed Severus shut down his mind. But he closed it to Legilimency only. He was not kept from seeing in Voldemort's cold and bloody eyes that he would be lucky to leave this place alive.

I am about to die.

"If you are prepared..."

He wasn't prepared. He had not told Harry Potter the last thing Potter needed to know.

"Lucius said you required me, my Lord," said Severus. "I had intended to return to the school to search for Harry Potter. I am certain he is there."

Voldemort's eyes returned to the wand balanced on the tips of his fingers. "Potter? He does not matter at the moment."

Potter didn't matter? The Lord had been obsessed with Harry Potter since Severus had delivered the first half of the prophecy to him eighteen years before. "He is all that stands in your way, my Lord, their resistance is crumbling--"

"--and it is doing so without your help." Voldemort lifted his eyes. They were hungry, the serpent's pupils wide in the half-gloom. "Skilled wizard though you are, Severus, I do not think you will make much difference now. We are almost there...almost."

Yes, almost, and Severus was unprepared. Who would--who could--tell Potter if he did not? He strode agitatedly about the room, as if the secret trapped in his mind sought release through his body. "Let me find the boy. Let me bring you Potter. I know I can find him, my Lord. Please."

Voldemort rose, and Severus stopped in his tracks.

"I have a problem, Severus," said Voldemort softly.

Severus watched Voldemort's eyes, his hands, the wand. "My Lord?"

"Why doesn't it work for me, Severus?"

With his question, Voldemort raised the wand he had plundered from Dumbledore's tomb. The Elder Wand, he called it. As if, just because it was made from an elder branch and had belonged to his nemesis, Dumbledore, it had to be the wand of a fairy tale come true.

Severus had never opposed Voldemort's notion, having adopted a policy never to oppose Voldemort when he didn't have to. He realized now that he had made a mistake.

"My--my Lord?" Lightheaded with fear, he sought his bearings. "I do not understand. You--you have performed extraordinary magic with that wand."

"No," said Voldemort. "I have performed my usual magic. I am extraordinary, but this wand...no...."

Severus rarely dared it, but this time he did: he sent out a wisp of Legilimency to touch Voldemort's mind. Anger met it, a ferocity of rage belied by Voldemort's calm exterior, that struck Severus like physical pain. He drew back at once into the confines of his Occlumency-shrouded brain, looked away from the Dark Lord's face and set his own features in an expressionless mask.

Now Voldemort paced the dingy room. His robe swirled around his emaciated body like the mists in a burial ground flowing around an exposed skeleton. Severus stared at Nagini twisting in her starry sphere, as if she were a safe reference point.

"If there comes a time when Lord Voldemort...keeps it safe beside him under magical protection..."

"Do you know why I have called you back from the battle?" Voldemort asked as quietly as ever.

Severus knew who had killed the last man who had owned Voldemort's wand, and so he did not look into Voldemort's eyes. "No, my Lord, but I beg you will let me return. Let me find Potter."

Voldemort strode back and forth across the room, before the crate blocking the passage through which Lupin had used to enter the shack every month, so many years ago. "He does not need finding." Voldemort reached a wall and turned so sharply that Severus could hear the swishing of his robe. "Potter will come to me.... It is of you that I wished to speak, Severus, not Harry Potter."

"Let me go and find the boy, my Lord. Let me bring him to you. I know I can--"

"I have told you, no!" said Voldemort, and Severus stopped gabbling. "My concern at the moment, Severus, is what will happen when I finally meet the boy!"

"My Lord, there can be no question, surely--?"

"But there is a question, Severus. There is."

Severus stared at Nagini, restlessly and sinuously moving. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Voldemort's swinging robe fall still.

"Why did both the wands I have used fail when directed against Harry Potter?"

"I--I cannot answer that, my Lord."

"Can't you?"

Severus felt tendrils of Legilimency snaking into his mind. Voldemort sensed a lie and mistakenly believed that it lay in the words Severus had spoken.

Severus, his eyes still fixed on the snake in the star-scattered sphere, listened to Voldemort's tale of the three wands. It was not a story he enjoyed, yet he did not want it to end. For he now knew the conclusion Voldemort was talking toward: that he, Severus Snape, having killed Albus Dumbledore, was master of the wand Lord Voldemort held.

I am about to die.

"Don't be shocked, Severus. How many men and women have you watched die?"

"Lately, only those whom I could not save."

He was not among the saved. He knew that now. And yet, still, he tried.

"My Lord--let me go to the boy--"

Voldemort did not even insist that Severus look at him, as if he were quite certain what Severus hid from him. He continued to complain of his wand. "The Elder Wand refuses to perform as legend says it must perform for its rightful owner...and I think I have the answer."

Severus was about to die. For the failure of a fairy tale to be anything other than what it was: a children's story, a fantasy, a lie.

Voldemort droned on madly. And why had Severus thought, why had he assured Dumbledore that he could manage that madness?

"You have been a good and faithful servant, and I regret what must happen."

"My Lord...." Severus could hardly keep the quaver out of his voice. He did not dare look into Voldemort's eyes, did not even dare to move his head, but darted glances as best he could around the shabby room, looking for some escape. He was about to die, here in this bleak place where the moldy paper hung in shreds on the wall, where a child werewolf had broken the furniture and bled from his own bites into the scuffed floorboards.

And he would die in vain. He had neither saved Lily's son nor assured the defeat of Lord Voldemort.

"You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live, Severus, the Elder Wand cannot be truly mine."

"My Lord!" On instinct, Severus moved at last: raising his wand, he twisted to face Lord Voldemort. As he did so, his eyes swept the wall, passing over the crate, the crack where the crate met the wall, a flash of emerald, an eye--

Lily's eye. Lily's green eye. Lily.

No, not Lily. Lily was dead long years since, through his fault. Not Lily, but Lily's son.

Potter. Harry Potter was here.

The perception took one instant, the decision another.

I am about to die. And Potter would see it. If the boy's astounding, incredible luck held, if Severus could share in but one piece of it, if he could keep the vow he'd made himself on the night Lily had died, if he could follow the silver doe to the end of her winding, inscrutable path...

A third instant brought the act. Severus ripped the shroud of Occlumency aside and threw open the doors to that cupboard in the very back of his mind.

Accio Memories!

They poured forth. Lily in sunlight, walking the streets of the town with him, Lily in shade, lying beside him beneath the trees by the river, Lily at school, doing homework with him in the library, Lily on holiday, showing him her Christmas gifts, sharing Christmas confections her Muggle mother had baked, treats which Severus's witch mum, with all her magic, had never made.

And in all the memories, always, Severus looking at Lily, dreaming of what never was and never could be.

Many of the memories, Severus put back. Potter didn't need them and Severus would be damned if he ever saw them, and at this late date, the decision for damnation was already made, wasn't it?

Severus kept the memories which would tell Potter the story he needed to know and the thing he needed to do, the memories which would convince Potter that Severus was showing him the truth. He sent those memories to a safe place in his mind, hidden from Voldemort, yet not out of reach.

"I must master the Elder Wand, Severus. Master the wand, and I master Potter at last."

Some memories were reluctant to leave Severus, or he was reluctant to let them go. Their silvery wisps clung to him, so that he followed the odd movement of Voldemort's wand a second too late for comprehension. He did not see the snake's sphere rolling toward him until it was inches from his face.

Nagini no longer coiled and writhed. She was quite still, staring at Severus out of amber eyes, the pupils slitted like those of her master. Her thin, forked tongue flicked hungrily toward him, touching the transparent surface of her glittering magical cage.

Thought left Severus. Brute terror rushed in to fill the void. He yelled like the cornered prey he was. The sphere rolled over his head and shoulders; the cage caged him.

Now the stars Severus had seen encased in the sphere flitted around his head. Their light glinted on the snake's fangs when she opened her mouth wide.

Then Severus heard hissing, a sibilance on the edge of language, a sound he knew well did not come from the snake. But he knew the snake would act upon it. And so, since Severus had seen Nagini bite, had seen her feed, he screamed.

He screamed in horror, despair and fear of the pain to come. He fought the cage, but it was too secure; he fought the snake, but she was too fast. Nagini's jaws snapped shut on his neck. Her fangs pierced skin, vessels and muscle and tore his throat.

Severus's fear came nowhere near the fact. He had never imagined such pain. Nor could he express it. His screams trickled with his breath from his torn throat, bubbling weakly in the blood that surged from his arteries and veins.

An eternity of perhaps two minutes passed before Severus's agony softened around the edges and a gray fog began to close around his sight. His blood had soaked through his clothing. He could feel it wetting his chest, doubtless ruining Lily's picture. His knees buckled then, and he fell to the floor. He was about to die, and in vain. Harry Potter was not here. That was not his eye Severus had seen in the crack between wall and crate. He had imagined it.

He saw Voldemort move, a black shadow through the gray mist. "I regret it," said Voldemort coldly.

So did Severus. Blood trickled into his lacerated throat, choking him. With trembling fingers, he scrabbled at his punctured neck. He shuddered as shock washed over him in wave after sickening wave. He had failed, and he was about to die. He regretted it very much.

The hem of Voldemort's robe flapped, then disappeared. Severus heard the door open and close. Voldemort was gone.

Consciousness ebbed, which was good, for pain went with it. Severus cared about nothing else, not even the hallucination he was having of the crate that blocked the tunnel rising into the air. He heard the tap of footsteps; then, in the gathering gloom of death, as if the veil parted before him, James Potter appeared.

No. Not James Potter. Not with those brilliant green eyes.

"Tell Harry....Tell him."

Severus stared at the wild-haired figure and struggled to speak, but words drowned in the blood filling his throat. The figure bent over him, and Lily's eyes locked on his.

"It is real, isn't it, Severus?"

Oh, yes. It was real, all of it, and Harry Potter had to know. Severus called the memories forth, and blue-white fire flared in his brain, burning off the mists of death. His shudders turning to a convulsion of strength, he seized Potter's robes and dragged him close.

And saw Lily's eyes through circles of glass, bordered by thin black frames.

"Take...it....Take...it...."

Silvery-blue memory lit the pathways to Severus's eyes, ears, nose and mouth; he saw, heard, smelled and tasted them all again, in one last, shining burst of life, before he sent them out to Harry Potter. It was up to that young idiot now, to work out what to do with them.

A memory flask held in a girl's hand shot into Severus's line of sight. The tributaries of his memories joined in one thin stream and flowed into the flask.

Good enough. Severus sought the eyes again, hungrily, as if life hadn't left him yet, as if the eyes of a dead woman drew him back.

"Look...at...me...."

Potter looked at him, and Severus found Lily's eyes behind spectacles in the dirt-streaked face of a young man. Not Lily's eyes, then, for she'd been no man. Languor crept over him, and he was no longer sure that any of it mattered.

But then the face above him changed. The spectacles fell away. The wispy boy's beard faded from the chin and jaw. The face softened and the filthy, unkempt black hair turned straight, smooth and richly red. Lily smiled that smile, that meant she was ready to run out into the snowy school grounds after a long day of classes or steal away in the summer holidays to their favorite shady clearing by the river: "Come on, Sev, let's go!"

Her face changed again, flowing into the blue-white light of memory, re-forming into the silver doe. She gazed at Severus out of long-lashed eyes, so familiar to him and so beautiful. Then she turned and bounded off.

Severus rose and ran after her to the end of that path winding through dark forest on which she'd led him all his life, raced beside her into a high spring meadow filled with golden sunlight.

1