Shattered

Shattered

The first rose on my rose-tree

Budded, bloomed, and shattered,

During sad days when to me

Nothing mattered.


Grief of grief has drained me clean;

Still it seems a pity

No one saw,-it must have been

Very pretty.

-Song of shattering by Edna St.. Vincent Millay




Severus bit his lip to hold back the moan that he dare not let escape, as Sirius ran his hand down over his stomach, his hand buried to the wrist in the deep black folds of Severus’s robes. He tried, without success, to push the other boy’s hand aside. The truth was he wanted nothing more than to experience the wonderful and painful mystery of exactly where Sirius’s hand would travel next in it’s careful exploration. But this was not the place. The fear of getting caught finally prompted him to reluctantly but firmly push the hand away.

Sirius removed his mouth from Severus’s neck, looking at him in a vaguely pout-y way.

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong is that we’ve in a corridor that, although not frequently traversed by the Hogwarts population, does see occasional use,” Snape said in a faintly sneering tone.

Sirius dropped his eyes to Severus’s lips, licking his own.

“Merlin Snape. You know what it does to me when you talk that way.”
Sirius’s hand started to inch back into Severus’s robes and the other boy quickly batted it away before he could become distracted again.

“Get a hold of yourself,” Severus admonished in a firm if slightly breathy tone. “I swear if it weren’t for me we’d have been caught a million times by now.”

Sirius stepped back, his hand going down to his side and rubbing the material between his fingers in what anyone who knew him would easily recognize as a nervous gesture. And Snape knew him very well.

“Would that be so horrible?” Sirius asked bringing his eyes to meet Snape’s in a true show of Gryffindor bravery.

Snape, a Slytherin through and through, evaded his gaze and did his best to infuse his tone with derision.

“Of course it would be! Your precious Gryffindors would tear me limb from limb! And I’m quite attached to them.” His voice took on an edge that contained mostly anger, but also a small hint of fear.“And what my friends would do to you would be much, much worse.”

“I know. I know that. It’s just..,” Sirius trailed off. “Can we meet later?”

“I can’t. I have...I have to catch up on my studies. There’s a big test in Potions tomorrow that’s worth a third of our grade.”

Sirius scoffed. “Please. You know more about Potions then the Professor. You could ace that test with your eyes closed.” Sirius drew further back and narrowed his eyes. “Why are you lying to me? What are you really doing tonight? Or do you just not want to see me?”

The last was said with anger, but under the anger was hurt. And even though it was faint, Severus could detect it and it filled him with guilt.

“Of course not. I just...I have things to do.”

“Things that you have to lie to me about? Why can’t you tell me what you’re doing?”

Severus straightened. “Why can’t you tell me where you disappear every month? We both have our secrets so don’t act so indignant.”

“I told you...I can’t tell you. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that it’s not me secret to tell.”

“Well neither is mine.”

Sirius’s face slipped into hard lines. “Fine. I hope your secret keeps you entertained. I hope it satisfies you. I hope you have lots of fun tonight doing whatever it is you’re doing. I know I will.”

He started to turn away and Severus grabbed his arm. “Typical Gryffindor,” he practically hissed. “Fucking hypocrites the lot of you. You can have your secrets but I can’t have mine.”

“Somehow I doubt that your secret is about protecting a friend.”

“Oh it is. You have no idea you ungrateful, selfish, ignorant bastard! You have no fucking idea!”

“No. I don’t. So tell me. Just fucking tell me. I have to know. I just have to. I can’t stand it.”

Severus felt a small stirring of guilt, but pushed it aside. He had noticed who disappeared at the same time as Sirius. He refused to fell guilty about what he was doing. Besides, he had to do it, it was about survival.

Sirius in his sheltered Gryffindor world, had only a small inkling of what was happening in the world. What had seeped within the strong walls of Hogwarts itself. But Severus lived with the harsh reality of it everyday.

What he was doing was for his own protection, his survival. And although Sirius didn’t know it, Severus was doing it for his survival too.

But Sirius would never understand that. He didn’t understand that sometimes you had to make sacrifices. Sometimes you had to do bad things to ensure that you could keep the good things. He would only see it as a betrayal.

The truth was he didn’t want to know Sirius’s secret. Because if he didn’t know then he wouldn’t be obliged to tell his own.

And even though he suspected he knew just what it was that Lupin and Sirius were doing, he still didn’t want to loose what they had together. And he knew if Sirius found out what he was doing, he would lose him. Sirius would not be so forgiving as he was.

“This discussion is over. If you can’t deal with the fact that I have secrets, then maybe we shouldn’t be together.”

His chest tightened painfully as he made the threat. He’d sacrificed, was still sacrificing, so that they could be together. Their relationship was the one bright spot in his continually darkening life. The one thing that he had chosen. He didn’t know what he would do if Sirius ended it.

“Shouldn’t be together? How..how can you say that?” Sirius stepped forward and gripped his arms tightly. “You chose this. We chose this. And it’s not something that you can throw away! Have your secrets if you like. But never, never, threaten to throw this away over nothing. Like it’s nothing. Because it’s something to me. And I damn well know it’s something to you too! You need me just as much as I do you.”
He said the last as if he could make it true by sheer force of will. Because it had to be true. He couldn’t stand it if he was the only one that had these overwhelming and sometimes frighteningly powerful emotions. He couldn’t stand to think that Severus didn’t feel the same way.

Severus sighed and lightly pressed his lips against Sirius’s in a soft kiss. “Of course it’s not nothing. It’s everything. Can we just..can we just not fight anymore? Let’s just meet tomorrow at the quidditch pitch. Okay?”

Sirius sighed in relief. “Alright. I’ll see you tomorrow. I..we should go,” he said as he turned his head slightly, “someone’s coming.”

Snape frowned. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Well..my hearing has always been better than yours.”

Sirius looked away. He couldn’t look Severus in the eye. Just one more secret he was keeping.

But this one he could share. Maybe it would bring them closer, and make him feel less guilty about keeping Reamus’s condition a secret. But now was not the time. He could hear a group of students heading their way.

“There’s something I want to show you tomorrow. Can we meet at the edge of the forest instead?”

Snape looked curious but he restrained himself from asking more. He knew to heed Sirius’s warning that people were coming. Sirius had an uncanny knack at knowing those kinds of things.

“Of course. I’ll see you then.”

The two shared a kiss, not so brief and not so tender as the previous one, before they parted ways.

And Sirius went back to his sunny bright tower with it’s breathtaking views of the grounds, and Snape returned to the dark and gloomy dungeons that despite all of the magic of Hogwarts were still infested with rats. And it all seemed terribly appropriate.




Later that night, Sirius tossed restlessly in his bed. Tomorrow night was the full moon and he’d completely forgotten when he’d made his plans with Severus. He couldn’t just blow him off when their relationship was already so tenuous. He’d have to go and see him. He crept out of his bed and tiptoed over to the end of Jamie’s. He opened the trunk at the end of it only wide enough so that his hand would slip through. He knew that any farther and the heavy joints would creak. This wasn’t the first time that he’d borrowed Jamie’s cloak to go and see Severus.
But this is the first time that Severus didn’t know you were coming.

He banished the traitorous thought as soon as it entered his head. He wasn’t going to spy. He wasn’t. He was going to tell Severus he couldn’t make it, not to see what he was doing. And that’s what he’d tell him when he got there. Assuming he was alone.

He crouched there for a moment, the invisibility cloak in one hand and the other holding open the trunk. He took a very deep breath and with careful concentration, softly closed the lid.

It wouldn’t do to think that way. Severus would never do that to him and he should be ashamed of even thinking it. The more likely scenario was that Snape in a fit of pique about Sirius keeping secrets, had decided to pretend that he had one. Yes, he assured himself. That was most likely it.

He continued to tell himself that all through the long walk to the dungeons. He used the password Severus had told him and slipped into the common room. It was thankfully empty and he made his way up to Severus’s door without encountering anyone.

He was about to knock the secret knock that they’d come up with to let Severus know he was there but he stopped with his hand a scant inch from the door.

He’d caught a scent coming from the room, and it was not Severus’s. It was familiar though and after a moment he remembered who it was. Malfoy. Malfoy was in Snape’s room in the middle of the night.

Which didn’t mean anything. They were house mates, and friends of a sort. Maybe they were just studying.

But even as he thought it, his senses were telling him differently. His sharpened hearing caught the sound of moans and of skin sliding on skin. Living in a room full of teenagers he had long become accustomed to the scent of sex. And that was the scent that was coming from the room.

He brought his hand to his chest as a sharp pain ripped through it. His breath seemed caught in his throat and it seemed an eternity before it finally escape his mouth in a quavering breath.

This couldn’t be happening. Severus couldn’t do this to him. But although he hadn’t seen anything he knew just as well that it was indeed happening. He heard another moan and he pressed his hands to his ears, trying to block it out. But he couldn’t. It penetrated his hands and seeped into his body, seeming to press a great weight against his chest. He had to escape. It felt as if with each moan a brick was laid upon his chest and if he heard another it would collapse.

He had no thoughts of barging in and tearing them to pieces. There was no room for anger in the sea of pain that engulfed him.

He stumbled down the stairs and out of the common room, falling to his knees in the corridor, the invisibility cloak still draped over him. He knelt there for what seemed like hours, his mind racing, trying to convince himself that somehow it wasn’t true.

But the final and incontrovertible realization that it was true finally hit him. When he felt the first tear wet on his cheek he dashed it quickly away, feeling anger rise and burn throughout his body.

He would not cry over Snape. He was not worth crying over. Snape had obviously never felt anything for him. It had all been some sick joke. Some petty revenge for all of the times Sirius teased him in there first few years at Hogwarts.

Well Snape was about to find that when it came to revenge, Sirius was a master. He wanted to make Snape pay for what he’d done to him and he knew just the way.

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Snape waited anxiously at the edge of the forbidden forest. It was a chilly night and he shivered slightly, drawing his cloak more firmly around himself. As he had done for the last twenty minutes, he scanned the paths for Sirius.

He couldn’t wait to see him. He needed to see him. He always felt sad and dirty after being with Lucius, but it only took a minute with Sirius to make him feel clean and happy again. And when Sirius smiled at him, and touched him, it made his sacrifice seem a small price to pay.

After their fight and the momentary fear that Sirius might actually leave him, he’d been determined to find a way to break it off with Lucius.

He knew that he would have to tread lightly though. Attacks by the dark lord were becoming more frequent and more vicious. The all out war that had been threatening to break out all year was coming to a head, and Lucius Malfoy was deep in the thick of things, though he was barely eighteen. He held great favor with the dark lord and he knew how to use it.

When he’d woken, almost a year ago, to find Lucius standing over him with his wand pressed to his throat, he’d been sure that Lucius was going to kill him. But he hadn’t. Instead he’d made him an offer.

It seemed that the only reason he was still at Hogwarts and not at the dark lord’s side was because he’d had been told to spend his last year at Hogwarts recruiting. Apparently Lucius had told Voldemort of Snape’s potion making prowess and he’d been told to recruit him.

Before Snape had had the chance to answer yes or no, Lucius had described what exactly would happen if he refused. Everyone that he loved would be taken from him. His entire family could be killed before he could do so much as send an owl to warn them. Severus knew that this was no idle threat. There were stories in the paper everyday about entire family’s found dead with the dark mark floating over there houses. And when he’d seen the mark on Lucius’s arm he’d know that he had no choice.

He’d asked, having to clear his throat several times to get the words out, “Will I have to leave school?” He did not have to say, and indeed couldn’t say, what he meant by that. Would he have to kill people?

Lucius had understood. He had told him that the Dark lord had hundreds of wizards to do the ‘hands on’ work. He had said that he could see to it that all Snape had to do was make potions, and when the time came he would never see the front lines. But there was a price for his safety and he’d made it clear very quickly what that price would be.

Severus who had been terrified for his life, thought the price was..acceptable. He had no aversion to being with men, in fact he preferred it, and Malfoy wasn’t bad to look at. And he was quite attached to living. He found that he would do just about anything to survive.

But then one night an accidental meeting with Sirius behind the Quidditch shed, which had started with a fight and escalated into something else, changed everything.

As they grew closer it grew harder and harder for Severus not to feel guilty.

The fight with Sirius the other day had been the last straw. He’d come too close to losing him and he’d rather die than have to live without him.

And fired up by these emotions he’d foolishly told Lucius that he was through. He was through with Voldemort and he was through with him. He’d faced him and told him that if his only choices were being a deatheater or death, then he chose death.

He’d felt quite proud of himself. It was a brave and foolish thing to do and his only excuse was that Sirius must have rubbed off on him.

But his pride and his conviction had crumbled at Lucius’s reply.

“Prepared for death are you? Are you also prepared for the death of your little Gryffindor? Half-blood that he is, I’m sure I could still have some fun with him before I killed him.”

Severus had gone pale and Lucius had smiled at him and patted his shoulder.

“Not to worry. I’d be willing to forgive this little lapse. And as long as you continue to please me, I will let him live.” His voice had turned hard then. “Now, get on your knees.”

And Severus had dropped to them, indeed it had taken quite an effort to not do so earlier when Lucius had threatened to kill Sirius. And when Lucius had told him to please him he had. And he would keep him pleased. And he would keep Sirius alive.

A noise startled him and he turned to find Sirius only a few feet away. Snape had been expecting him to come from the direction of Hogwarts and instead he was coming from the direction of Hogsmede.

As Sirius drew closer, Snape had to fight the urge to touch him. Even after all this time Snape had never been the first to initiate contact. It usually didn’t take long for Sirius to do it, so it wasn’t a problem. But tonight Sirius seemed reluctant. He stopped a foot away and made no move to touch Severus.

Severus figured that he was still a little mad about the fight earlier and discounted it.

He waited for Sirius to speak, and when he remained silent, Severus awkwardly started the conversation.

“So...what was it that you wanted to show me?”

Sirius continued to stare at him silently for a few moments before he said abruptly and somewhat shortly, “It’s this way. Follow me.”

He then turned and started to walk away.

Severus stood there for a moment, confused by Sirius brusque manner.

When he finally did start to follow he had to jog a little to catch up.

They walked in silence, Severus desperately trying to think of something to say. But he was sure Sirius was still mad at him and he had no idea what to say to make it better.

Finally when they were a few yards away from the Whomping Willow, and it became obvious that it was there destination, Snape stopped.

“Are we going to the Whomping Willow? Because if we are, I think we should stop here. If we go any farther I won’t be able to properly appreciate the view. I’ll be concentrating to much on my broken bones.”

Sirius looked at him with flat eyes that scared Severus, and said, “There’s a secret knot.”

Sirius started to walk forward again and when he realized that Severus wasn’t following he turned back.

He smiled and it was as lacking in true emotion as his eyes. “Don’t worry. I would never hurt you.”

Severus felt a flutter of unease in his stomach but ignored it. He walked forward and joined Sirius. Together they walked toward the tree and as it started to move, Sirius ran forward and touched his wand to the trunk. The tree became still and Severus’s jaw dropped in amazement.

“How did you ever find out about it? This is just amazing.”

Sirius smiled. “It gets better. There’s a door that leads to the shrieking shack.”

Severus smiled back. “This would be the perfect place for us to meet. No more meeting in dark corridors and empty classrooms. We can be together without having to worry.”

Sirius tensed and slowly flexed his hand. “Yes, it would be the perfect place for your secret assignations.”

Severus sighed. That was it then. Sirius was still angry that they had to meet in secret. He opened his mouth to speak, but Sirius spoke first.

“Come on let’s go. You first.”

Snape reluctantly went to the door and opened it. He wanted to talk, not go traipsing down mysterious tunnels. But Sirius obviously wanted him to see it.

He had just stepped through the door when someone yelled Sirius’s name. It was Potter and he was running towards them.

Severus turned quickly toward Sirius and was puzzled to find a slightly relieved expression on his face. “What is going on Sirius?”

Sirius didn’t answer and before Snape could ask him again. James had joined them.

“Sirius what the bleeding hell are you doing? Why would you bring him here? I know you hate him, but Merlin, think of Reamus at least! Come on Snape,” James said grabbing a hold of his arm.

“ Lupin? What does he have to do with anything?” When he received no answer to that, he folded his arms and said, “I’m not going anywhere until someone explains to me exactly what is going on.” He looked at Sirius and flinched at the hateful expression on his face.

Forgetting that James was there, Severus reached forward to touch Sirius’s arm, but the other boy stepped back swiftly.

“Sirius?”

“Merlin Snape. I always knew you were pathetic and stupid, but I’d never suspected it went to such depths.”

Severus looked confused and stricken, and for a moment Sirius felt the stirrings of guilt, but he pushed it firmly aside. It was Snape who had betrayed him. How dare he have the nerve to look hurt, when he’d torn Sirius’s heart out?

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the fact that the only reason I’ve brought you here, the reason I’ve done everything,” he drew the word out to make sure Snape understood exactly what he meant, “is to use you for Werewolf bait.”

“Werewolf?” Severus looked more confused, but he was having trouble thinking about anything other than the way Sirius had said ‘everything.’ Surely he couldn’t mean it. It couldn’t have all been some kind of joke.

But then he remembered all the cruel pranks Sirius had inflicted on him in their first six years of school.

He felt like he couldn’t breath. It had all been a lie. All of it. The ultimate prank. And it had been successful. Snape couldn’t imagine anything worse than the awful pain in his chest.

He was so wrapped up in it that he didn’t hear the low growl coming from a few feet inside of the tunnel.

Thankfully, James heard it, and he pulled Snape quickly out of the doorway. As he slammed it shut, Snape heard a thud and the sound of nails scraping at it.

The realization that Sirius had actually been going to feed him to a Werewolf, had actually planned to kill him, finally sunk in.. And if he’d been willing to kill him, that meant that it was all true. Sirius had never felt anything for him. It had all been a plot to hurt him.

Snape stumbled and only James’s hand on his arm kept him from falling.

James, thinking that Severus was weakened with fear of the werewolf, tried to reassure him. “Don’t worry. Dumbledore has spelled the door so that it can’t be opened from the inside. You’re safe.”

James would normally not be so compassionate to Snape, as he had hated him since childhood, but he was afraid for Sirius. If Snape went to Dumbledore, Sirius could be expelled.

Snape straightened and tore his arm from James’s grip. He ignored James and locked his eyes with Sirius’s. “I hate you.”

“Not as much as I hate you,” Sirius returned in a vicious tone.

And it was true for both of them. They had both loved, and had their love betrayed, and that was the wellspring for true hatred.

And from that day on their hatred grew, and when Sirius died, the truth died with him. He died loving Severus, and hating him for it. And many years later, when Severus was hit with the killing curse, he died the same.


The End