A Different Kind of Magic--UNDERGOING EDIT

Chapter 1: Back From the Brink

Severus was on his back in the Shrieking Shack staring up at the Dark Lord in utter horror. Voldemort threw back his head and cackled insanely.

"You didn't think you were special, did you, Severus? What? Do you have nothing to say? You look so utterly... mortal, lying there with your life's blood spilling out of you. I would love to stay for death's debut, but I can hardly be late for immortality, now can I? Good night, Severus!"

Nagini uncoiled from his body to slither after the Dark Lord. The right hand of Voldemort lay prone on the filthy floor. For a moment, everything was like crystal: the thundering roar of his heartbeat gushing out his life like a fountain from the two holes in his neck; Nagini's paralytic poison rendering his nerves inert; visions of lost opportunity, a wasted life and empty bitterness wreaked havoc upon his soul. Is this what the coming of death was supposed to feel like? Severus felt a single tear leak from his eye as his vision blurred and consciousness started to slip away. At the back of his mind was a sound like a thousand people shouting, trying to tickle him back to coherence, but he was so tired. Oh, so very tired. The blackness seemed golden as he reached to embrace it. With a great sigh, Severus Snape let himself slip into the void and into eternity.

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Sounds and smells invaded his dreams. Hushed whispers, gentle touches, and pain, oh bloody hell, the pain! At first it was just a gentle tug at the edge of his dreams, a ghost of a touch frothing behind his awareness, a slim, tenuous thread that refused to break, hanging on in desperation and stubborn finality. Dreams that were so vivid flashed on the movie theatre of his mind. Nagini was striking him over and over, not just in his neck but hitting his arms and legs, biting his torso and sinking deadly fangs into his eye sockets. Midnight poison oozed from every pore while the Dark Lord screeched his victory over Harry Potter, dooming them all to an eternity of strife as the living dead. Muscles trembled involuntarily, minor convulsions that sent a flurry of unheard footsteps and silent voices rushing to inject him with medicines to calm the body, soothe the nerves, and dull the pain.

Time passed. He was blessedly unaware of the changing of seasons. For a long time there were no dreams, only pain that came and went in the grey nothingness that was eternity. An awareness of something beyond the nothingness started to take shape. It was soft, like downy feathers, caressing and soothing at the edge of his periphery. He tried to brush it away, to return to the nothingness in which he floated, but it persisted, always there and droning, gentle, persuasive.

Severus got bored with the nothingness and turned his awareness to the gentle hum that persisted at tormenting him. A soft voice was suddenly with him in the grey. It was telling him about roses and thorns, silver fountains and the moon, men's sins, love and hate. It went on and on, varying naught in speed but a mesmerizing singsong quality that slowly drifted away and left him back in the peace of nothingness.

Cold, so very, very cold. A jackhammer was pounding at the nothingness, pushing him out of the grey and into a blinding white light. Severus opened his eyes and squinted at the harsh glare of a weak winter sun lifelessly filtering through a frost-tinted paned window surrounded by prim, white lace curtains. ‘No wonder it's so fucking cold!' he thought with irritation. ‘Some dolt left the fucking window open!' The jackhammer was his teeth chattering violently in the frigid air. His breath was visible as he exhaled and tried to turn his head. With great effort, he was able to do so and view the rest of the room.

A modest brick fireplace was directly opposite where he lay, stone cold. He snorted and choked, bringing on a coughing fit that wracked his lungs and made his teeth chatter even more violently. Snape felt like his teeth were going to break his skull open. The furnishings were sparse, with only a table sporting a small brass lamp, a blue mug of what he presumed was a drink, and a small book. Situated next to the table was a large, overstuffed, antique chair that had seen better days. A drooling woman in a nurse's apron lay slumped over the side of the chair, snoring unceremoniously. The wallpaper was a hideous shit brown with ugly orange and yellow flowers. ‘Obviously a Muggle dwelling.' A plain, nondescript brown door was off to his left. The only thing of interest in the room was the bookcase in the far corner crammed with gilded volumes.

Taking stock of the situation, Severus ascertained, however unlikely, he had survived the war and had somehow ended up in a harsh winter climate with Muggles. For the life (or death) of him, Snape could not imagine the sort of events that would have led him to be in such an idiotic situation. He was sorely disappointed he wasn't dead. At least that would have been tolerable compared to what he was sure was to await him in a Muggle house surrounded by imbeciles.

Somebody had obviously been caring for him, as his arm was attached to a strange-looking device that had liquids dripping out of bags into tubes. He tried to lift his arm to look where the tubes disappeared into the crook of his arm and found he couldn't. In fact, except for being able to turn his head, he was unable to move at all. ‘Just fucking great.' Not only was he freezing in hell, he was powerless to do anything about it.

Severus opened his mouth to shout at the stupid woman snoring in the chair, but nothing came out of his mouth except a weak croak. There wasn't even a clock in the room to tell him the time. The lack of movement heightened his other senses. The frigid room reeked of alcohol. He surmised that the fat cow in the chair was passed out, stone bloody drunk.

The torture of the day wore on as he wondered if he was going to freeze to death and how that bloody infernal woman could sleep through such blasted, mind-numbing cold, even if she was pissed into oblivion. He stared up at the bags of liquid. Drip. Drip. Drip. Three bags, one clear, one amber, and one blue. ‘Curious.' He wondered how much time had passed from his initial injury to his present state and the mysterious journey that had brought him to this place. The Potions master knew one thing: as soon as he was able, he was going to find out what the hell was going on. He needed to get the bloody hell out of this room and away from that horrid, fat Muggle that continued to slaver away while he turned into a solid.

Desperately, he tried to lift his limbs, only to meet a maddening deadness in each of them. He was unable to move. He tried to concentrate on levitating the book to smack the woman in the head but was unable to summon his magic.

The sun outside the window started to dip lower in the sky. It was actually quite stunning how the light sprinkled miniature prisms through the ice crystals on the window panes. The violence of his chattering teeth combined with the splitting migraine and numb extremities made him smile in a warm delirium. Severus was inconsolably happy he would get to see this one last innocent and beautiful thing before he froze to death. Nagini and his former Master had not robbed him of that. He dimly thought he could see Dumbledore's smiling face amidst the prisms, dancing before his bleary eyes. Soon he would have peace, such sweet, dark, warm... and his eyes closed once again to acquiesce to the oblivion.