On His Terms

Look… at… me.

Those eyes were everything to him. His life began and ended with those eyes.

Everything and nothing, he now lay on the borders of both.

“What tides of strange chance and circumstance brought me here? What distant shores await my body as it’s carried cross vast and deep unknown seas?” His eyes shut heavily, his mouth parted in a constant chatter, trying to speak the words as the cold crept in. “Devils will suck on my bones and no angels will weep for me. Surely that is where I am going.”

The darkness was so complete in this world – the silence so definite – that Severus Snape was lost in his own thoughts. Each word was precious to him, for it was all he had. He could feel the chill that surrounded him, yet he could not move to shiver. Eternity in his own mind was not a kind prospect for this man. When he’d been struck down, Severus had expected to simply be wiped out of existence, not tossed into this strange embryonic tomb of emptiness.

“Lily… Lily…” Sometimes he would say nothing but her name for what could have been hours or days, perhaps even years. Time was endless and without measure here. “Lily… Lily Evans. I am… why am I… not with you?”

“This is not the end.”

Severus felt his mind rejoice. Another voice had joined him in the void.

“Who are you?” He listened intently.

“I am the one who can give you what you want… Another chance. Only, it will be on my terms. Are you prepared for this?” These words were spoken in a voice without tone or gender. He knew what it was saying, yet he couldn’t call it what he understood as ‘hearing’.

“What do you mean?”

“You are in no position to ask questions.” There was no anger present, yet these words spoke of finality. “Yes or no, Severus Snape?”

As if frozen in place, he said nothing. He was battling with his logic and his heart.

“You have one minute.” The voice chanted, and stayed silent in the stillness.

“Lily…” He whispered, searching this empty nothingness for a sign of her, wondering what this entity was offering him. What if…? “Yes. Yes I am prepared.” It couldn’t have been a minute yet, but he didn’t want risk losing the chance to live again, perhaps change things.

“Very well.”

The void was disrupted and a great melting collapse of sound and color, the feeling of falling took his once nonexistent body. He thought he might scream, but nothing escaped his lips. Further and further he fell until he felt a sturdy wood surface beneath him.

“Oi, you. Gonna order something or not?”

‘Sleeping on the job…’ The dank bitter smell of bodies and alcohol of the old Hogshead reached his nose as the gruff voice of the innkeeper roused him. His face felt compacted as he lifted it off the bar’s surface where he’d laid his arms and head to rest. Black eyes opened and closed in confusion. His ears were full of noises – clinking glasses pouring liquids and buzzing chatter of sour characters.

“Listen ‘ere. I know what you are, and personally I’d have you kicked out if I could.” The keeper barked when Severus didn’t answer. “Now either you buy a drink or you leave. Are we clear?”

Snape’s lip curled and he reached inside his robes, pulling out a sickle. “Firewhisky then.” He whispered coldly, placing the coin down with one finger before retrieving the shot and silkily taking it down, barely wincing as the foul liquid reached his stomach with a distinct burn.

“Welcome to the Hogshead, my most treasured customer.” The barkeep growled, his eyes full of irony.

Looking away from the man, Severus saw Avery in the far corner of the room, his face half-covered by his robe. His wild eyes met Snape’s and they shared a moment of recognition while Snape idly touched his left forearm.

He’d come here for a reason, and he was slowly remembering it now. Dumbledore was in a room overhead in someone’s room, waiting for some witch, and Snape himself had been assigned to spy on the old coon. Wiping his eye of the last remaining sleep, he glanced at the staircase, waiting for her to return.

After a few minutes of becoming impatient, the entrance door opened, letting the chilly rain from outside reach the inhabitants for a moment. An eccentric woman with beads and ribbons in her hair, and glasses that magnified her eyes to an entomic degree stumbled inside, rubbing her wrists looking paranoid. She began ascending the staircase that led to where his subject sat, her scrawny legs practically jumping up each step in her inability to reach them.

Again Snape looked to where his fellow Death Eater sat, and Avery gave him an important nod as if to answer the unspoken question. Severus got to his feet and slid gracefully to the stairs, dark eyes looking left and right before following the strange woman. He’d made it just in time to see the door close behind her.

Silently he reached the door and pressed his ear against a crack, brows furrowed in his struggle to hear.

“… abilities are up to par I assure you.” The woman sounded shaky and he heard her sit down. “And my knowledge of the higher realms are most satisfactory. It is the year of the Monkey and the moon is nearly gibbon and-“ She sneezed loudly and groaned miserably. “I’m so sorry, my dear Dumbledore… I… I’m not feeling so… so well… not well at all…”

“Sybil?” He heard the man speak and his chair creak against the floor as he got to his feet.

The woman’s voice changed as if she was speaking with both sets of vocal chords – as if something was speaking through her. “The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…born to those who…”

Having been hanging on every word through the door, Severus found himself falling back, collapsing on the second terrace of the stairs in a pile of black robes and sallow skin, his mind’s eye showing him a strange vision. In the bowels of night, in a happy home, Lily was crouched over a small breathing bundle to her chest, her mouth agape in the green light that bathed them. The monster who cast the killing curse was unmistakable – his own master. Her life was gone from her, and along with it, every ounce of happiness Severus ever knew.

He was thrown back into reality like a giant kick to the chest, those unused tears beginning to well up in his eyes for the first time in years. Since… since she’d gotten married.

“Snape?” Dolohov’s rough command came from the bottom floor, staring up at the dazed man from below, his voice hushed and alarmed. “What did he do to you?”

No answer.

Soon he was hauled out of the bar by a nervous Antonin Dolohov and on to the curb. “Come on, man… Wake up.” He seemed more annoyed than concerned.

“It’s nothing, Antonin.” Snape shut his eyes and let the cool breeze shower his face, trying to keep his body from rocking. “We… We shall start again tomorrow.”

His ‘brother in arms’ spat a vile liquid into the ground and sniffed gruffly. “Very well.” He disapparated into the air. Severus was now alone, sitting on the pavement in the dodgy end of Hogsmeade. There was no doubt Antonin would report this infraction to The Dark Lord, only to make Severus look bad. Everyone knew how much their master was partial to him and they were all jealous. Yet these thoughts were hardly paramount.

Snape’s stomach was still twisted, as was his face in the visions that had played in his mind. Lily. His one and only love. At last, one tear slipped down his cheek and he swiped it away like an obnoxious mosquito, sneering down at nothing as if the ground were to blame for his distress.

“Severus? Is that you, young man?”

Snape lost all breath in his lungs. His jaw dropped as his subject’s voice came from behind him. He wasn’t supposed to be seen on his mission. “Albus.” He tried to stop breathing so hoarsely as he got to his feet and began wiping off his robes of the dirt that had collected. They met gazes for a moment as rain began to fall. Dumbledore had one of those insolently presuming looks in his eyes that had always sent Severus’ teeth on edge. It always seemed like the man knew everything – or at least thought he did.

“What brings you here, Severus? That is…” A smug yet sad smile touched the old wizard’s mouth. “That is if you don’t mind me asking.”

“I could ask you the same question, Albus.” Snape smirked. “Now if you’ll excuse me…” He turned on his heel, his robes spinning about him as he marched off in another direction.

“Of course. Duty calls… I understand.”

The bitterness in Dumbledore’s voice was so apparent that it drove Snape to turn back and glare, opening his mouth as if to say something but deciding against it. He could feel Albus’ stare and wizened smile burning in the back of his head as he strode into disapparation for his home on Spinner’s End.