Twenty Steps

WARNING: Character death.

A/N: My third contest submission for Final Prophecy. It’s not slash, but I think it can definitely be interpreted as such, or not. It’s really up to you. No, this won’t be continued, so please don’t ask.

Anyway, this is my first HP piece that I’ve written from first person. It’s Harry’s POV. I know he sounds jaded, but wouldn’t you be after everything he’s been through? Anyway, here it is.
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Twenty Steps

It was strange that I had finally reached this place. It seemed like it took forever, but as I stared into the eyes of my vengeful enemy, I knew it had come too soon. Voldemort’s eyes were glowing and red. That’s something I won’t forget from that day. They were like poison to my own, but I didn’t turn away. Even as he uttered the curse that only one man in the world has ever heard twice when intended for him, I did not turn away.

I was frozen. I knew I would be too slow. No shield would protect me. I almost felt like accepting it, in a way; but I knew my friends, standing captured by the Death Eaters behind me, did not feel the same way. Even as I felt my heart swept away in fear and as my eyes began to water with tears that saw what was supposed to be my last moments of life, I still didn’t move.

It was the light, I think; the green light. My mind went back to the day when I had first seen it – one year old and already lost of my parents. I could hardly remember it now. It seemed so long ago. It was long ago. I was many years past it, but history seemed to be going in repetition as I stared down the same wand that I had once defied in blissful ignorance.

He was ten feet in front of me, maybe twenty, but magic travels fast. However, the human heart can travel much faster. Mine didn’t go anywhere though. In fact, it stopped as soon as I heard something; the second thing I will never forget. It was a voice; one I had vowed never to hear again without destroying it; but as I heard it shout, it did not say what I expected.

“Harry!”

With great force, I turned my eyes from the Dark Lord as he began to utter the last word of the Avada Kedavra. Severus Snape, that hated man, was running towards me, a good twenty steps away. At first I thought he was trying to help Voldemort somehow. It’s a silly thought, now that I think about it. Yet, at the time, with my memories of Dumbledore falling from the Astronomy Tower, it seemed logical that he was trying to once more smite me before my end.

Then, I rethought it. He had called me Harry; and it was in such a voice that it chilled my already frozen mind. I couldn’t make it out entirely, but it echoed in my mind. It was just my name, but he had said it. He’d never said my name; never. I understand that was quite a strange thing to be considering at that particular moment, but when you’re sure you’re going to die, things seem a bit more monumental.

Eighteen steps.

Time slows down when you’re almost gone. With such a knowledge that this will be your last moments on Earth, you manage to make it longer, even if it is only mental. I couldn’t help but watch Snape run towards me. I was enthralled. I was angry.

He’d done nothing but torture me from my first day at Hogwarts. From the first time he spat out “Potter”, I knew he really hated me.

Sixteen steps.

The green of the curse seemed to lighten up the world to such a point that all I could see was him; with his gaunt face and ugly nose. His greasy hair was swinging about him with every minute movement. His eyes were looking straight ahead at the light that was about to hit me; the light that was about to kill me. I wanted him to look at me, grab my eyes with his own like he always did. I wanted to see that venom that he had held for years. I wanted to see that hatred.

Thirteen steps.

Snape had always compared me to my father. Proud Gryffindor that I was, I remained furious of his implications. Even after I saw his memory, though I did feel shame, I was proud to have the father that I did. James Potter was a child, just like I was a child. Everyone makes mistakes. It made sense that I blindly followed the praise that Remus and Sirius gave me for being like my dad. I never knew them. I dreamed of parents when I grew up with the Dursleys. To hear that they ever existed at all was good enough for me. From what I’ve learned, my father was a good man.

Why should I be hated for a mistake that he made? It wasn’t fair, but Snape had never been fair.

Ten steps.

It was then that I began to wonder why he had killed Dumbledore, the only father I’d had left out of so many who had died. This had been the final straw with me. Out of all the years of insults and detentions and snide comments about me and my heritage, I’d grown to dislike him immensely. I’d rather have been locked in a broom closet for a month instead of one day in a class with him, but I did not hate him. I knew, even through all of the doubts and the anger, that he was a spy for Dumbledore. Dumbledore trusted him. I admit that even I trusted him a little. I really did.

Then came that fateful, terrible night. Dumbledore was weak, Malfoy was spineless, and Snape? Snape had come, and without a hint of hesitation, killed the only “parent” I had left. Then he had run.

The coward.

Seven steps.

I’d called him a coward and the rage that I had seen in his features scared me. It had hit him harder than any curse could have, but I had no idea why. I still don’t know why it had wounded him so badly, but I know now that he is no coward.

That’s impossible…. after everything…

Five steps.

He was nearing me. I could hear his footsteps hitting the unforgiving earth in soft, pushing thuds. He was still running straight forward, his eyes focused on the light that was now mere inches away from me, scalding my soul. I stared. I knew what he was doing, but my mind and my past would not let me believe it. It was unfathomable at the time. It still is.

Three steps.

Snape had saved my life countless times, but it had always been indirect. I’d never thanked him. I’d never acknowledged these favors. I’d never seen him actually do it. I’d only hear of these things weeks, even months and years, later. His deeds seemed evanescent. They weren’t real.

This was too real.

Two steps.

It was that moment that came the third and final thing that resounds strongly in my mind from that day. His head turned, painfully slow in my new realm of time, and he looked at me. It wasn’t a kind look, nor was it comforting, but he looked at me without malice. That was what really scared me. He had no ill will, not hate, not anger, just a resolute acknowledgement. I saw hope --I really did-- in those eyes. I don’t know what he was hoping for, but it was there.

And I realized with some sort of delayed horror, that I couldn’t stop him.

For some reason, I wanted to.

I don’t know why.

One step.

Voldemort recognized it at this point to, but he made no effort to change anything. That angered me, but just a bit. I was still comprehending. I was still unbelieving.

No more steps.

When the curse hit Snape in the middle of his chest, I could have sworn it went right through and hit me too. Snape was not the only one who collapsed to the ground, but he was the only one who did it a dead man.

Ashen eyes were closed, but that didn’t seem right to me. I didn’t want it to look like he was sleeping. It was just another lie.

I was on one knee, trembling and shaking like a newborn. I heard a dry sob of shock from behind me. I don’t know who it was from. Hell, maybe it was from me.

I turned my eyes away from him. I didn’t want to look at him, but somehow this action brought me only shame. I didn’t look back, though, at Snape’s still form. When I think about it now, I wish I had. Somehow, I think it would have settled things, if only a bit.

Instead, I stood, realizing that my end had not come and instead my destiny had been given to another, one who I had wished it upon for months, and one that I now could no longer bear to think his name.

One moment, and Voldemort would cast the curse again, in realization that he had been distracted, but I was too fast.

I did it first, and the demon fell.

But I still felt wronged.

I passed out after that.

…

I’m standing here, right now, staring into a pensieve. I’m thinking about that day again –those eyes, that shout, Snape. I think about him, but I often force the thought away. It brings me a strange pain, deep within my chest, and I do not recognize it. It’s not sadness. I don’t even think it’s regret. No… it’s something else. It’s darker than that.

Understanding.

That’s what it is. Not comprehension; just understanding. I still don’t comprehend why he sacrificed himself for me. It seems like I should have been the one to die.

Yeah… I feel guilt too.

I understand now, though, that he died not for me, but everything. At least, that’s what I’m told. That’s what I’m supposed to be comprehending now. This pensieve holds the answers to my questions. My arms are stretched out, placed firmly against the table holding the cauldron of mysteries before me. I’m leaning forward, gazing silently into the shimmering silver pool of thoughts.

It had been weeks before they had decided to tell me that Dumbledore left behind a pensieve, but I think if they had told me right off, I wouldn’t have looked. A few of the others started to look through it, but when they came upon a particular memory, they withdrew. They told me it was one of Snape.

They told me it would explain what I was dying to know

They told me he was a good man; that he was on our side.

It still doesn’t seem real to me.

None of it does. I don’t know if I even want to look. What’s the point? He’s dead. They’re all dead; Voldemort, Dumbledore, and Snape.

What’s the point of looking for reasons of the deceased? Would it make me feel any better that they were gone?

Of course it wouldn’t.

Harry! His shout echoes in my mind again and I wince. I hate hearing it. I feel like he’s mocking me even now, but that’s an unfair thought.

After those twenty steps that he took without hesitation, it’s wrong of me to curse his memory, but it haunts me, and I do curse it.

It’s almost if I can see those steps within the pool of twisting silver. Every step hits me in the chest; hard. He hated me. I hated him. He died for me. He died for all of us.

It just doesn’t seem right.

I clench my fists and turn away from the pensieve, biting my lower lip in indecision. Nothing was right. Why should his sacrifice be any different? Taking in a deep, steadying breath, I turn back.

Severus Snape is dead, but I do not owe him anything. That’s not why I’m here right now. I’m here because I need to clear the air between myself and a ghost that is lingering behind me in my every breath. His face, in those last two steps, glows inside my eyes every waking and sleeping moment. I don’t want to understand why he did it. I have no desire to know. All I want to know is why it effected me so much. I loathed him in the end, yet I fear that I have mourned him the most, and I don’t know why.

That’s why I’m here, standing in front of this pensieve in a moment of clouded confusion.

I just want to understand myself, not the man who lived and died in the vanity of my hatred for him.

All I want to know, is why that man, someone who I had come to feel disgust at the sight of, now made me quiver at his memory. It seemed such a cruel irony that his last word was my name; that the last face before his eyes was my own.

I lean forward into the pensieve without fear or expectation. No matter what I see, I will feel the same. I will still feel that gnawing understanding and grudging guilt.

I don’t expect any of that to change.

I just want to know why.

It’s not fair.

The intention was to save my life.

Yet it did the opposite.

Why?

Why, with just twenty deadly steps, did one man kill my soul?

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