Dying Your Death

I know it's been just about forever since I updated this, but the feedback I got for the first chapter of this was so disheartening that I had to put it aside. After three years, I was apparently ready to put my little trilogy to rest and give it the ending it deserves.

I'm very sorry to those who wanted this done sooner, but I not only lost the motivation, but all ideas for it, as well. I'm not sure it came out quite perfectly, but I think the effect is right.

After three long, diverse years, I give you this ending, and I hope it is satisfactory.

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A few days later Poppy releases both Harry and Severus to return to Severus’ rooms in the dungeons. The pair feels fine and nothing is medically wrong with them beyond the curse, but they don’t feel that yet.

As they sit in the private kitchen eating dinner, Severus can feel that his younger lover wants to ask a few questions. Finally, becoming fed up with his keeping them inside while they obviously are causing him distress, he asks, “What’s on your mind?”

Harry looks up with wide eyes, shocked at the end of the silence, “Just thinking.”

“About?”

It’s a stupid question that Severus already knows the answer to, and it makes Harry angry to hear it.

“About? What do you think? We’re dying, Severus, what the bloody hell do you think I’m thinking about?”

Severus winces slightly before answering quietly, “I know.”

Harry sees the sadness on the other man’s face as well as feels it through their bond, “I’m sorry…I’m just scared.”

“It’s understandable to be afraid, but we’ll get through it together, and once it’s over…” he trails off.

“What? What’s going to happen once it’s over?” He wants to know. He hasn’t really thought that much about the after-life; it never seemed important even though he never thought to survive the war like he did. But did he really survive it? The battle, yes, but Voldemort still got him in the end.

“We’ll be free,” Severus says.

Not knowing what else to say about it, they go back to picking at their food, not really eating much of anything. Suddenly, Harry speaks up again: “When do you think it’ll start?”

“It’s hard to tell, but I would say in the next day or two.”

“Me too.”

“Which of the two ways do you think it will go?”

Harry is caught off guard by the question but has an answer already in mind, “Knowing Voldemort, I wouldn’t doubt the ‘less gentle’ way, but I’m hoping for the nice one.”

“Come on,” Severus says after a few seconds of thought as he stands up, “let’s play a game of chess,” and begins to walk away as though they hadn’t been having a conversation, much less one about their mortality.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Have I ever been a particularly funny man, Mr. Potter?”

“Well you certainly haven’t ever told any knock knock jokes, but your snide remarks can be kind of funny.”

“That’s wit, not comedy, and what the heck is a knock knock joke?”

They walk into the living room and Harry starts a fire while Severus sets up the board.

Harry laughs at the question, “it’s a stupid form of joke that muggles enjoy.”

“Such as?” Severus asks as he motions him to sit down opposite him.

“Ummm…okay…knock knock.”

Severus makes his first move on the board and then looks up, waiting for the younger man to continue. With a raise of an eyebrow he asks, “Is that it?”

Harry moves his piece and smiles, “No, you say ‘who’s there?’”

Severus glares as he makes his next move, “Who’s there?”

“Boo.”

Harry is plotting out his next move until he hears his older lover clearing his throat impatiently. “What?” he looks up.

“Well what happens next?” Severus asks.

“Oh…right, you say ‘Boo who?’” He makes his move.

“Boo who?” He says it in such a way that Harry can’t help but laugh; he’s never heard such contempt go into a knock knock joke before.

Severus gives him an inquisitive look and Harry delivers the punch line, “Don’t cry, it’s just a joke.”

Severus stares at him before saying, “I’m not crying,” as though he was mentally ill.

The young man bursts into laughter, nearly falling out of his chair. After he regains his composure, he says, “No, it’s the end of the joke. You said ‘boo who’ which is the sound of mock-crying. Get it?”

“What an idiotic joke. Why would people enjoy telling that rubbish?”

“It’s mostly little kids that do because it makes them feel intelligent and witty.”

“I see.”

The rest of the game goes on in silence, with only random snippets of conversation. When Severus finally wins, as he usually does, it is nearly 9:30 and both are ready for bed.

After getting changed and washed, Severus joins Harry in the bed, who had entered mere minutes before. Once under the covers, Harry wraps his arms around Severus and snuggles into his chest, taking in the man’s unique smell that he always knew he’d never get enough of.

Severus runs his left hand through the rough jungle that Harry calls hair as the other runs up and down his back. As he feels the slighter body begin to tremble, he lowers his lips to Harry’s left ear and whispers calming words of comfort and asks, “What’s wrong?”

After pulling away slightly, Harry looks into onyx eyes and says, “this is the last time we’re going to feel normal.”

“It may not even start tomorrow, much less right when we wake up.”

“It’ll be tomorrow, don’t you feel it?”

He wishes he could lie to his younger lover to make him feel better – to make himself feel better – but there is no use denying it, so he answers truthfully: “yes.”

As they both lay lost in their own thoughts, Harry comes to a decision: “make love to me tonight. Make me forget.”

The echo of Severus’ own words from the night they were cast into exile in the dungeons come back and hit him full force.

“You can’t mean…”

“Yes I can, I know what I’m asking. Make me forget, Severus, you’re the only one who can.”

And what starts with a simple loving kiss turns into a night both will cherish. Until the morning light, neither remembers that their numbers are soon to be up, because it doesn’t matter when they’re in each other’s arms.

Upon waking the next morning, both already feel it beginning. As Harry stands to head to the bathroom, he groans as the effort takes the wind from his lungs and makes his legs shake. He slowly makes the trip to relieve his bladder, and then falls back onto the bed.

“Now the real question is,” Harry pants, “is this the curse working or is it residual from you pounding me into the mattress last night?”

“Which time?” Severus chuckles.

Harry swats him on the shoulder, “oh bugger off.”

Severus attempts to appease him by drawing him into a close-mouthed kiss, which works surprisingly well. After ending the kiss and caressing his cheek for a few moments, Severus gets off the bed, wincing slightly at the discomfort – it feels as though he was hit by a train and had it back up over him.

“Well,” the older man says as he heads to the bathroom, “let’s hope this is the curse.”

“Why?”

“Because I think this would be the nice one.”

Harry waits until the door is closed to quietly say, “if this is the nice one, I don’t want to know its idea of mean.”

During the breakfast that Harry ordered from the house elves, a knock is heard at the door.

“Enter,” Severus calls, and in walks the Headmaster.

“Good morning, my boys,” his eyes don’t twinkle as brightly as usual, but his smile is just as big, “how was your night?”

Harry blushes while Severus answers with a cryptic, “it was a fine night.”

His smile slips a little as he asks, “And how are you feeling today?”

“Like I’ve been mauled by a bear,” Harry states.

After casting a curious look at the younger man as if to say ‘And how would you know how that feels, exactly?’ Severus replies with “same.”

“Well I think that’s a good sign, very favorable clue towards this going the calm route.”

“That’s what we’re hoping,” Severus says.

“Well I came down to check on you and let you know that Poppy will be down shortly to do some more scans and such. I wouldn’t be surprised to see either of our faces many more times throughout the next few days.”

“As is to be expected,” Harry says.

“I have some pressing matters that I’ve been putting off, but if either of you need me, I’m a fire-call away and will drop everything to come.”

“Thank you, Headmaster,” Severus says calmly, though the offer means a lot to him.

“For now,” he says, inclining his head and turning to leave.

The rest of the morning the boys play chess and read, welcoming Poppy in to check on them. After lunch, they decide to take a nap since the exhaustion seems to be getting worse, causing them to nearly sleep through dinner. If it wasn’t for a house elf bringing the food into the room, they never would have known. Though neither eats much, it gives them something to focus on for awhile.

By the time they lay down for the night, both are having troubles breathing, causing them to wheeze, and they can barely move from the bed. The curse has set in quickly and neither expects to live through tomorrow.

Sleep is not easy for either of the men, both waking up in cold sweats or from lack of air many times through the night, so when the morning comes neither feels particularly rested.

“How much longer do you think it’ll take?” Harry wheezes.

“With the way it’s been progressing, I would say we have slept through our final night.”

“Do you have to sound to bloody academic even when we’re about to die?”

“Just as you cannot stop being a Gryffindor, I cannot stop being an intellectual; we are who we are.”

A knock at the bedroom door cuts off any reply that Harry may have had.

“Enter,” Severus says as both men work to sit up on the bed, backs against the headboard.

Both Poppy and Albus walk into the room, trying to hide their grateful looks acquired from knowing the two men are still with them.

“How are we this morning?” Poppy asks.

“Fan-bloody-tastic,” Severus says sarcastically, and Harry doesn’t even have the energy to scold him for being insensitive to those trying to take care of them.

“That good?” Albus asks without a hint of a smile.

“Just going to check over you both, make sure nothing else is going wrong,” Poppy says, starting the scans.

“What’s the point?” Harry asks, “I mean, even if there is something else, how is it going to help anything by fixing it?”

But he knows it’s not to make him better, it’s to give her something to do if there’s something she can control.

“You don’t need more pain than you’re already in,” is all she says before returning to her work.

After a successful check up, both people leave with the promise to come by after lunch. A house elf attempts to bring them their mid-day meal, but neither has any appetite left, so they turn the food away, along with a very self-loathing elf.

The time just draws the end closer, neither noticing much difference in their state as it progresses beyond the big things. At one point Harry begins to convulse slightly, only being able to be categorized as a minor seizure, if that, but calms down within three minutes. Severus begins to have more severe pains in his chest before dinner after Poppy and Albus leave for the third time that day.

The lovers spend most their time simply holding hands for comfort, the hot flashes making it too uncomfortable to be too close to one another. As the evening draws on, Harry gathers his strength and turns on his right side so he is facing Severus.

“Severus.”

“Yes?” he turns his head to gaze at him.

“Will you hold me?”

Severus closes his eyes at the memories those words bring back before gathering his strength to turn on his side. He reaches out and somehow pulls their bodies so they are flush against each other before whispering, “If only for this one last night.”

As a heat flash hits them but neither one cares, they only care about feeling the other so close to them while they can. The pain in both their chests increases and their breathing becomes more labored.

“Knock Knock,” Severus manages through the pain.

Harry, shocked at the statement, breathes in deeply before replying, “Who’s there?”

“Love you.”

Both whimper as the pain intensifies a little more.

“Love you who?” Harry struggles to get out, but through the pain it sounds more like ‘love you, too’.

The pain subsides to a manageable level, and Severus says, “Love you forever.”

Harry wants to cry, but he doesn’t have enough energy, so he merely chuckles slightly before saying, “I think we need to work on your knock knock jokes.”

“What? No good?” he pants.

“No, could have been funnier, and your timing was all wrong,” he pretends to critique him.

“Maybe later,” Severus struggles to say before the pain becomes unbearable.

Both men groan and struggle to breathe, feeling their hearts slowing down even though they’re panting and nervous. They hold on tighter to each other as their last breaths are drawn and they slip into their sweet, welcomed oblivion.

Next to the bed, the spirits of the lovers stand looking down at their bodies.

“Look at us, you’d never know we were in pain,” Harry says.

Severus comes up behind him, wrapping him in a protective embrace, “No, I’d dare say we look happy.”

Harry sighs contentedly, “I’m glad it’s over.”

“Me too, love.”

After standing there unmoving for a few minutes, Harry finally looks down at his hand, “Oh no, Severus, please tell me we’re not stuck here as ghosts.”

“Only those with unfulfilled ties to this world are ghosts, and I for one have none of those.”

“I don’t think I do, either. You are the only thing keeping me anywhere.”

“Then let’s go home,” Severus grabs Harry’s hand, lacing their fingers together.

“And live happily ever after?” Harry smirks.

Severus pulls the younger man to him and kisses his lips chastely, “Yes, brat, live happily ever after.”

The two hold on tighter to the other’s hand and walk towards the door of the bedroom, disappearing before they can come out the other side.