A Tasteless Victory

A Tasteless Victory

Prolog

The war was for all intents and purposes over. Severus Snape sat in his small study nursing his scotch and failing entirely to listen to Draco drone on happily about his bright future in the wizarding world. The was no reason for Snape’s melancholy, but that fact didn’t diminish it even slightly. It had all gone exactly to plan. His betrayal has been timed to perfection, the killing blow had been delivered, and the final battle had destroyed the majority of the opposition. All that was left was to track down and try the remaining Death Eaters.


Thanks to Albus, Snape would not need to face trial. Just as the old man had promised, his pensieved memories were held in a vault for the members of the Wizengamot to receive at the end of the war. He had been praised publicly and given the Order of Merlin first class in the same ceremony that had granted the great Harry Potter with his own first class honors. Potter was the recipient of a number of awards and honors. He had been knighted by the Queen, presented with the Order of Merlin first Class, placed on the board of Governors for Hogwarts, given a permanent seat on the Wizengamot, and was voted hottest and most heroic wizard by witch weekly.


Severus jerked slightly when he finally noticed the silence. Looking up, he found Draco staring at him intently. Feeling that he had nothing to add to the continued lack of conversation, Snape stood and excused himself, taking the bottle of scotch and his tumbler with him. Draco made no comment as he left.



Pouring another drink and settling back in front of the fire in his bedroom, Snape looked back at the events that led to the final moments of the Dark Lords life. The final battle was held, just as Voldemort had planned, at the Ministry of Magic. He had enough supporters hidden in the ministry and within the Aurors that he was confident that things would go his way. The rumors had spread, just as the dark lord had intended, and the key order personnel were on hand, including the boy who lived. It was perfect. The Ministry’s own wards would prevent boy wonder from escaping when everything went south.


The potion that he had commissioned from the greatest potion master in Briton was complete and waiting for the right moment. The book containing the potion had been found by Lucius in his vast library. It was a very complex recipe and required the skill of no less than a master. Snape had commented that the user would need to be much more powerful than the intended victim to successfully use the magic that they would absorb, and was handed a full minute of the cruciatus curse as a reward for his insubordination. It was, of course, not simple providence that allowed Lucius to find the book at such an appropriate moment, Draco had planted the book at Snape’s request. Draco being ever the clever Slytherin changed sides right after planting the book in an area, where he hoped his father would find it.

It took four long months after that for Lucius to finally stumble upon the tome. Snape had begun to worry that he would have find the book for Lucius. It would have been more suspect had it come to that, but the potion was a necessary part of the potion master’s plan. The plan itself was ridiculously simple, convince Lord Voldemort that this potion would allow him to virtually suck all of the magic out of Potter rendering the boy useless and Voldemort so powerful that even Merlin himself couldn’t stand against him. It was not a difficult sell.

When Draco sent him word that Potter had destroyed the last Horcrux, Snape let Voldemort know that the potion was finally ready. The actual effects of the potion were somewhat difficult to predict, but the overall effect would be to weaken the magic of the user and channel that energy into the earth. Potter would no doubt still absorb some of the leaking magic when he killed the bastard, but with the potion it should be a manageable portion. It had worked just as Severus had hoped and Potter had little difficulty killing Voldemort and sending what remained of his soul to hell.



Snape had missed the end of the final confrontation between the two most powerful wizards in the world. He had been knocked out early into the conflict by a stray hex. He had Draco’s rendition but he knew better that to believe that it was an accurate version of events. He did believe Draco, when he said that he had never before understood the raw power that Potter possessed until that moment. What he had seen was enough to inspire a fierce respect for Potter that he would never have believed was possible. No one but Potter would ever know what the Dark Lords final words were as the entire conversation between the combatants had been held in Parseltongue. A series of hisses exchanged in between hexes and curses. Red eyes glowing only slightly more sinisterly than the emerald green of his nemesis.

Potter had spent the last three years hunting down the Horcruxes and training for this one battle that would decide the fate of all of mankind. He had forgone nothing that might give him an advantage. Muggle martial arts and weapons, offensive and defensive spells from around the world. Nothing that might be useful was below his notice. He had blocked and dodged Voldemort’s curses with a speed and grace that was awe inspiring even to someone as jaded as Snape. He had allowed himself to watch Potter and had left himself open to the hex that knocked him out. Draco claimed that the end was almost anticlimactic as Potter slit the self proclaimed Lord’s throat with a dagger that he pulled from his boot. His own life would no doubt have been forfeit had Draco not intervened by standing between the angry hero and himself.



Knowing the events surrounding Dumbledore’s death did not appear to make Potter think any better of his former potions professor. At the Order of Merlin awards ceremony Snape had walked into the small honoree waiting room to find Potter reading a magazine. When the Boy Wonder looked up at him, the words he might have spoken died a painful death. He had wanted to, comment on the vanity that had finally driven the boy to rid himself of those hideous glasses, to ask if he was enjoying all of the attention he was receiving for becoming a murderer, to ask if he was going to bare it all in playwitch like the rumors stated, to ask how he was getting along, to find out if he could forgive an ex death eater for killing the man who had been his mentor, to tell him thank you for saving him from the psychotic madman that he had vowed at one time to serve. One look into those dark almost lifeless eyes and he was rendered speechless. The look lasted less than a second before Potter returned his gaze to the reading material in his hand without acknowledging the other man’s presence. Snape was shown as much interest as one might a non threatening insect. After watching Potter’s acceptance speech, Snape’s opinion of the boys acting skills increased dramatically.



Staring listlessly into his fire the potions master wondered, not for the first time, if anyone was close enough to their little hero to stop him from going over the edge. He tried to tell himself that he only cared because of the dept that he owed the brat for freeing him, but he was honest enough to admit, at least to himself, that he didn’t want the boy to suffer anymore pain.

tbc