youth to the professor was something way back in his recollections. filed away in the space of his mind that held the infantile memories. when times were happier & war was a whisper but he had no involvement. there was no obligation on his name, just yet. war would always be etched into his lineage. it was destined when lucius malfoy produced an heir, that draco would be raised to follow the ideologies of pureblood wizards. he'd be sorted into slytherin house when he came the age of eleven & he would marry a pureblood witch to produce his own offspring to carry on the legacy. a blueprint set in motion. 

a destiny he never quite asked for. 

the half-blood was intriguing at this point in time. as if he were plucked from a memory in a pensive. severus looked the same, however. cunning wit & dark circles to decorate below his sunk eyes. it was curious how he knew his professor at this age but he was far too small to have any substantial thought of him. draco would have to piece together what he remembered & what would be left to be discovered. 

it took but a moment for severus to recognize him. he wondered if he saw it immediately. the proper stance. the snow fallen hair that had darkened over the aging process. did i resemble him ? do you mistake me for him ? " you had a privilege some of us wished to be granted. " his response was telling of where draco had been at this point in his life. there was so much loss. so much death. it would've been easier if he followed suit. but alas, the world was not that kind to the malfoy heir. 

the text sat between them on the table. dull hues lowering to see the history & research that severus snape sought after in all the years that followed his death. draco held answers he needed. he could help & truthfully, he wanted to. for a professor that saw triumph in him when draco felt nothing but second handed. it was valuable. severus snape was honored by him. he would do what he could to find the answers he looked for. as the encouragement to be seated, the malfoy nodded once in understanding before he took the opposite chair. " can't say i'm young anymore, professor. looks as if time caught up with me whilst you were graced with a pardon, " he gave, cheekily. 

Severus looked the other man over at the morbid words. Lucius was an affable, unbothered man to the end. He treated the Dark Lord’s revolution like a fun extracurricular, and for a man who could lose nothing and had not a whole lot more to gain, it was. Lucius was a man of hubris and excess, he indulged in anything as long as it entertained him long enough.

This Malfoy seemed decidedly unentertained. He was positively dour. It wasn’t the most surprising difference between father and son, considering which side of the fence Draco stood on, but at the moment it stood out rather starkly to Severus. He hummed, watching the man take his seat, then huffed in amusement. “ Don’t be so hard on yourself. We can’t all age like Lucius. ” 

He crossed his arms and leaned back, recalling their last meeting. Severus had no interest in the affairs of children, especially ones too small to hold a conversation. Young Draco was as blank and uninteresting as any baby was to Severus, except for the fact that he was the child of two of Severus’ closest friends and allies. He caught himself more than once considering the child’s future, what guidance he could offer him growing up. He felt a misplaced sense of responsibility that he knew would lead to nothing good. Could not. And yet it grew, like a weed. A sense of helpless affection. “ You had just learned the word no, ” recalled Severus with a fond smile. “ Used it liberally, to the servants’ detriment. The house elves could not defy their young Master. It marked the end of peace as they knew it. ”

He didn’t want to ask, not at all. He didn’t know what the answer would be, and what it would mean for him to know it. But curiosity, and perhaps the vain hope that he left something of meaning behind him beyond the violent spells that circulated the battlefield still, pushed the question to the forefront of his mind until it was the only thing he could ask. “ Did we get on? You and I? ” Was I good to you? How do you remember me? “ What do you remember of our time together? ”

sirius scoffs. " yeah? and who's fault is that? " it's easy to lapse back into the old way of things even now — even when his head is spinning and time is crawling and all he wants is to lie down and sleep.

" well, " he says uncertainly, trying to recall and finding he may as well be grasping at smoke. there's no name and no place. no firm time, but rather a dozen or so refracted moments. his head thrums with the effort. where were you before the ministry? how did you get there? he should know, but when he closes his eyes to picture it, there's only rain. torrential rain unlike any he's ever seen before. a house in ruins. their house. peter, cowering. crocodile tears and blinding light and then screaming — merlin, the screaming.

but there's laughter too. wild and unrestrained. his, he thinks, but it's got about as much humour as a wake. it's more of a howl, if anything — like he's turned into a cold, north wind.

when he opens his eyes he's shaking. he turns to the side and wretches, but nothing comes up. he has neither the will nor the presence of mind to apologise. he simply brushes his hand against the corner of his mouth and whimpers when he smells blood.

“ Don’t act like you suddenly forgot how to dodge, ” Severus rolled his eyes with a nasty sneer. An echo of their schooldays spent dodging hexes and throwing curses — good to know Black could pull Severus back into orbit so easily. Even now.

Severus watched Black’s face intently. Anticipation beat in his chest like a second heart. He could pinpoint the exact moment Black began to remember. Eyes shut with anguish, face pale with shock. Severus didn’t dare peer into Black’s mind to see what memory tormented him — he was sure if he looked, the emptiness would take hold of him and drag him to that moment again. The instant of peace, of blissful solitude. But he watched as Black whimpered and cowered, shaking from the weight of his pain. For the first time in all of their disreputable acquaintance Severus was not possessed by the urgent need to take advantage. He began to suspect now that he acted upon false information. He needed to retreat and reassess. 

Severus stepped forward and pushed Black against the wall, hand splayed on his sternum with even pressure. “ Don’t move, ” he said softly and pointed his wand to the bleeding wound. Severus crafted Sectumsempra following his attempted murder in the shrieking shack. I cut, in the same vein that I kill, I torture, and I rule cut through the ambiguity of language, it drew its strength from its inescapable simplicity. Black will kill me and get away with it, he’d thought. Nobody cares. Nobody will do anything. Nobody except me. Hateful, afraid, with unforgivables rattling around his brain, Severus clung to violence like a common man clung to hope. 

He crafted the counter years later, when violence became mundane and gave him no power and no hope. This time, it was Phoenix song that came to mind as he wove its magic together. “ Vulnera Sanentur, ” he whispered, song-like, tracing the lines of the cut. He repeated the spell twice more, flesh knitting back together by the third iteration. This was neither kindness nor pity, it was discipline. He did not cross a line that didn’t need to be crossed.

Severus peered up at Black through half-lidded eyes. Something unnamable cracked open in his chest and bled. “ You were the decoy. Weren’t you? It was Pettigrew all along. ” The rage he nursed for Black since Lila’s death vanished, and Severus felt its loss keenly. Robbed of his anger, left only with the emptiness of grief. He exhaled, weary, breath catching at the end from the tightness in his chest. The hand on Black’s breastbone had formed a tight fist without his knowledge. Lips pursed against a scream. 

There was a brief flicker of familiarity at the wizard that rejoined the room - but the Severus Snape she had known was worn down further by playing both sides of the war. He had also been notably more exasperated with her. Madam Granger had less distaste than when he berated Miss Granger in class. There was always something about him that had her hesitate to trust him; even though, in his post-mortem, he was discovered devout until the end. Still, she couldn't find it in herself to feel sorry for setting his robes on fire.

Severus watched the woman intently for a moment, black eyes heavy and discerning. Her shields were sound in theory, his feather-light touch did not go unnoticed. He placed an invisible hand against the library doors, and pushed them slightly open. Enough to catch a lie mid sentence, but not to sink into a memory. Not yet. He looked past the threshold into the shelves, familiarizing his mind with the layout, grasping stray thoughts as they fluttered past. If she lied, or omitted, Severus would chase the truth down the wooden aisles himself.

“ You’ve misunderstood me, Madam, ” said Severus, voice smooth and clear. “ I did not come here to offer a single vial of memories. I offer my services to the Stag as I did to the Phoenix: I will spy for you. I will lie for you. I will kill for you. If it becomes necessary, I will die for you once more. ” He nodded towards the vial in her possession. “ The memory contained therein displays my recent meeting with the Dark Lord. You may glean his state of mind as he interrogates returned Death Eaters, including myself, and their identities. The conversation between the Dark Lord and Orion Lestrange may be of particular interest to you. ” The memory contained Severus groveling, begging, and praising the Dark Lord as he underwent the Cruciatus and Legilimency by turns; it ended with Severus thanking his Master for his mercy and generosity and promising to make him proud. He did not share such moments with any sort of pleasure or pride. It was only the first indignity of many more to come that Granger would witness within the context of their newly formed acquaintance.

“ In return I ask for a position of trust within the Order, for full access to any resources I might need in the future, for safe refuge until I am able to acquire a space of my own, and for full transparency regarding the events of the second war, from beginning to end. ” He crossed his arms as he laid out his terms. He did not sit down, despite his exhaustion, only watched the older witch with barely contained anticipation.

“ I suppose you do, ” Severus hummed. Not everyone here is an enemy. Severus watched Longbottom watch the crowd. The lines between the Order, the Knights, and the Erinyes seemed as blurry as he expected. It was prudent on Longbottom’s part to keep these channels open. Not so much on the Order’s. Longbottom and his people have been growing in strength and number, but Severus had the impression they were still small enough for the Order to dispose of neatly before they grew out of control. Instead they let the problem fester, unaddressed. Their operation was still confined within Hogwarts grounds, but he did not expect that to last.

“ I’m here to catch up, ” said Severus. “ I’ve been dead for 30 years, or so I’m told. A lot’s changed since 1985. Back then, one vigilante group was enough to fight the Dark Lord and his ilk. It seems the people of today disagree. ” The crowd of attendees grew by the minute. Severus caught a flash of red hair and pointedly did not look. Instead he leveled his inscrutable gaze upon his companion. “ Catch me up, will you? What are you and yours hoping to accomplish? ”

maybe that’s why she notices him so quickly, he’s a dark smudge in what’s become a technicolor world. something old in all this newness; all dark clothing, light skin and an inky sheet of hair that sticks out as much as it always did, as it used to. maybe it’s why she finds herself trailing after him, after something old in so much new.

she stops, lingering just before him, close but just out of reach. those piercing thorns, intended to stave off predators, will just as easily slice a friend as they would a foe. you still have the scars from where you cut yourself reaching in to those sharp edges. "flirting with death again so soon?"

‘ Lila – ’ voice cracked at the name. He cleared his throat. Blinked rapidly, horrified at the heat that burned behind his eyes. What a pathetic display he made. He dropped his gaze to his feet and brought a trembling hand to his face. Breathe. In and out. He didn’t want her to see him cry. Nevermind that she saw him through his most pathetic lows, snot-nosed and tear stained, face red and splotchy. She was the place he went to when things got bad at home.

When he was sure he had everything under control he looked back up. He cleared his throat. ‘ Sorry, ’ he said. ‘ This last week’s been full of surprises. ’ A shallow laugh. ‘ To me, you’ve been dead for nearly a year. ’

severus is unguarded. it would be cheap and rotten work, but he could do it. and there's a fledgling part of him that wants to — wants to press the tip of his wand against severus' throat and whisper it like a prayer. he tried to kill me first, he imagines saying — and it wouldn't even be a lie. he grips his wand tight and almost does it, almost licks his forefinger and thumb and extinguishes that last glimmer of hope that he's any more virtuous than the worst of them, but severus' accusation stops him cold.

you're dead, aren't you?

sirius stares at the man like he's lost his damn mind. for all his faults ( and make no mistake, there are many ) severus is a practical-minded sort. how many times has he endured that grating tone of his, drawling on and on in an effort to prove how smart he is — how very above them all he feels, despite being no more extraordinary than shit on a shoe?

" apparently not, " sirius grins. spreading his arms wide like he's just performed some spectacular trick and wincing, gasping aloud, when his abdomen flexes and the skin around the wound tears, easy as parchment. he doesn't know the name of the curse he's just weathered, nor it's intended effect, but he knows he needs a healer — or perhaps some temporary means of preventing his innards from becoming outards.

The Latin was pretty fucking simple. Avada Kedavra. I kill. Severus had poured over the language of the spell, the numbers behind its construction. Its strength lay in its inescapable simplicity. It implied only one thing: the target was alive. How else would it be killed, if it was not alive? And despite Black’s impressive lack of sense, he was not empty between the ears. He must know this was the only explanation.

“ Idiot, ” Severus scoffed contemptuously. “ Stop moving or you’ll spill your guts out. ” His eyes flickered towards Black’s side, the trembling hand pressed uselessly against it. His grip on his own wand tightened, slick with Black’s still-warm blood. Severus killed before, many times, but he never left a man to bleed to death in an alley. Nevermind a man who would bleed on and on without dying, until the wound was seen to.

He killed Lila, Severus thought. But what he saw in Black’s mind did not align with what he knew.

Severus’ lips pursed with indecision.

“ Where were you before you got to the Ministry? How did you get there? “ Severus himself certainly wasn’t in London. He thought back to the moment between the pub and the battle … there was the light, the noise, the curtain parting with a flutter. And before that … before that …

Severus wanted to sink into Black’s mind and find the endlessness. The Empty. The guiltless, fearless place, the place without blame. He wanted to cup the memory of that lonesomeness like a flickering candle and stare into the flame until it became the world.

His teeth clicked shut around the want.

He kept an arms length between them. Air caught in his lungs. He watched Black’s face intently for any hint of recognition. “ Try to remember, ” he whispered. “ How did you get to the Ministry? ”

Severus watched the other man sit with undisguised hostility. Not for any detected malice but precisely due to its absence. For as long as Severus had known him, Lupin was an insolently affable liar. It did not matter how often Severus reasserted the distance between them, he was always greeted with an easy smile and a ‘ Severus, ’ with disregard to the circumstances that contextualized their acquaintance. Severus could never ascertain if the pity that creased Lupin’s eyes was really there or if he only saw what he expected. It set his teeth on edge.

‘ I don’t suppose we will, ’ Severus said, chin up at the clear challenge. He did not brush against Lupin’s defenses, of which he was aware. Instead he let his mind creep in like smoke, by increments. The tea’s effects should make themselves known any moment now. Severus waited patiently, poised to tease Lupin’s defenses apart.

Now where would the fun be in that? ‘ I’m afraid I must disappoint you —  it’s a secret family recipe. Mum’s favourite. ’ That wasn’t even a lie. Mum passed it down to him along with everything she knew about magic. He could still remember standing atop a stool and a stack of books to peer over the counter and watch her work. 

It was a potent brew, made more effective with his mother’s modifications and then his own. Meant to discourage fear, caution, and suspicion. To his knowledge, it was never tested on a werewolf. Severus leaned forward, chin resting on the back of his hand with a soft hum. The purpose of this outing was to gather information — an unexpected fish wandered into his net. How could Severus turn him away? ‘ You must’ve had an exciting week with all these reunions and revelations. What have you been up to? Don’t tell me you’ve just been lying about playing house with your young wife. ’

sirius' head hits the wall and his vision erupts into stars. the pain is hot and dizzying, and it's everywhere. he's dimly conscious of yelling out in pain, of bile rising in his throat, but the sound is cut short by an arm against his jugular and a whisper against his neck. he reaches to pry it free with blood-soaked fingers, leaving streaks of red on the sleeve of his assailant's coat, and only then does he reclaim the presence of mind to know who he's looking at — who he's hearing.

you’re a coward and a traitor. you’ll die as you lived. word travels fast then. sirius opens his mouth to retort, but severus' next words bring time to a standstill. this can't be how it ends. the world around them is engulfed in brilliant green light and then ... nothing. not nothing as in the end of all things, but nothing in the more literal sense of the word. nothing happens.

and in the beat after, alight with new-found adrenaline, sirius brings his knee up and reclaims his wand from where it had fallen at his feet. " you fucker, " his chest heaves as he stares at the other man, one trembling hand resting back against his side, his lips peeled back in a snarl.

Black eyes trained on grey in the fading light. His mind, expanding, enveloped Black’s own, like a final caress, closing the lids on sightless eyes. It’s the only reason he saw it. Black’s final thoughts, quick as flashes: a living room, a vow. Polat’s trusting face. A name, red as blood: Wormtail. Then a peaceful, quiet, endless nothing. Untroubled. Achingly familiar. I was here — once — I know this pla ——

This is the end.

“ You fucker, ” Black said. Severus blinked. 

What?

Black kicked up his wand and heaved. Severus stepped back, wand up, mind sweeping through the possibilities. Nothing clicked. This was impossible. Except for the plain fact that it was.

Black growled some insults. “ Shut up for a minute, I’m trying to think, ” Severus said, mind running a mile a minute before the words caught up to him. “ And fuck you! ” He reassessed the situation quickly. Black was injured, back to the wall, and alone. No backup was rushing in. Their enemies, clad in red and purple, were not the Death Eaters. The snow crunched under his feet — it was not mid July anymore. And the peaceful nothing called to him like an old friend.

Something was terribly out of order. Severus looked at Black and decided he still had the advantage. He pressed on. “ I just killed you, and you’re not dead. You know what spell that was. ” His eyes narrowed. He held Black’s gaze with his own. Wand raised, but for what purpose, he did not know. He couldn’t kill Black, that much he knew. “ How did you get to the Department of Mysteries? Where were you before? ” A theory began to form in his mind, unbidden. “ You’re already dead, aren’t you. ” 

If Severus pointed his wand to his own neck and cast, what would happen?