Only a House

Thanks for coming this far! I've had the idea for this story floating around in my head for some time now, begging to be let out. It wouldn't let me sleep at night! Hope everyone enjoys it. Please let me know; reviews are always welcome and highly appreciated! And now, Chapter One titled,


Lay One Open To Pain


With a great gurgling gasp, the man on the floor jerked and shuddered back to consciousness. He lay there staring up, eyes blinking rapidly, his breathing shallow and wet sounding, as he struggled to remember where he was and what had happened to him. Slowly, numbness seeped out of his limbs, replaced by cold, and he began to shiver, his body trembling, his teeth chattering. He became aware that one of his hands was clutched to his throat, and with that awareness came raw and searing pain along with a gush of warm wetness. Suddenly, he remembered everything.

He coughed, he felt as if he were choking, drowning in liquid, and a thin spray of red showered up and rained over his face in a warm mist. Blood. His blood, he was choking and drowning in his own blood as it pooled in his throat. With a tremendous effort, hand still clutched to his burning neck, he managed to lurch himself over and onto his side, lying there gasping and gurgling until the room swam back into view.

His wand. He needed his wand. He closed his eyes, fighting down the rising panic he felt crowding his mind, and forced himself to recall.

He raised his wand, expecting to have the Killing Curse levelled at him, only to shout in surprise and terror as the magical cage containing that great filthy snake descended over his head and shoulders. He was unable to fend it off, and then came the fiery agony of the bite, and he dropped his wand, falling to his knees on the floor....dropped his wand...the floor....

He opened his eyes, spat out a mouthful of blood, and concentrated on heaving his body onto his back again, feeling the blood pool in his throat as he did, and ignoring the sickening wave of dizziness that engulfed him. The room wavered, and he closed his eyes again. He had to find his wand before he truly did bleed to death. As he fought to stave off returning to unconsciousness, his right hand scrabbled across the floor beside him, searching, until his fingertips brushed something slim and solid. He grasped hold of it and slowly raised his arm, bringing it before him. He opened his eyes and nearly sobbed in relief. He let the hand and it's prize fall to his chest as he panted shallowly, gathering his magic, setting his mind.

Ignoring the pain and the warm pulse of blood seeping through his fingers, he turned his head to the side, coughing and gagging out another spray of blood, gritted his chattering teeth and ripped the hand from his wound with a nasty sucking sound. He raised the hand holding his wand and concentrated. He was rewarded with the tingle of magic and the feeling of his throat being encased, and again nearly sobbed in relief. The hand holding his wand fell back to his chest and he closed his eyes once more, too weak this time to keep the blackness from swallowing him up.


*********************************


Look.....at.....me.....


His eyes flew open again, and he gasped painfully, his eyes darting about wildly until he remembered where he was. Pain, glassy and sharp, shot through him, radiating out from his neck, and he could feel the warm seepage of blood soaking into the bandages. As he lay there gathering his thoughts, he became aware of another pain, this one in his chest, the heavy ache of grief.....failure. He'd failed. Failed in his vow to Dumbledore. Failed in his duty to the boy. Failed the memory of.....


Lily.....I'm sorry.....I'm so sorry....


He closed his eyes again, letting his grief take hold of him, now wishing for death, begging for it. Voldemort had the Elder Wand. The Deathstick. The boy stood no chance against....

His eyes once again flew open. Voldemort had tried killing him for the Elder Wand, in the mistaken belief that he was the true master, but he was not. Dumbledore had intended for him to be, had held him to his promise to kill him to spare Draco Malfoy the burden of murderer, but the little monster had gotten there first and disarmed Dumbledore before he'd arrived, making Draco the true master of the Elder Wand. Therefore.....therefore the boy still stood a chance. The Elder Wand still would not perform for Voldemort the way he was counting on it to. As long as Voldemort didn't kill Draco Malfoy first, and knowing what a snivelling little shit Malfoy really was, he had no doubt the boy had evacuated the castle at the first opportunity.

So the boy still stood a chance.

Perhaps he had not failed after all.

This thought seemed to send a tiny spark of energy tingling through his veins, and ignoring the pain and numbness that threatened to overtake him, he heaved himself into a sitting position. Black flowers bloomed in his vision, but he ignored those too, and concentrating fiercely, somehow managed to push himself up off the floor into a standing position. He staggered against the table, his breath gurgling in his throat, spat out another mouthful of blood, and gripped the table tightly against the wave of dizziness and nausea that threatened to send him back to the floor. He could feel the blood seeping from his torn neck soaking the bandaging he'd conjured, and clutched a hand there again to try and apply some pressure.

As he stood gasping at the table, he became aware of distant sounds. Sounds that sounded like.....celebration? Clutching his throat, he stumbled over to one of the boarded up windows and tried to look out in the direction of the castle. He could vaguely see the outline of it in the distance, the sun rising behind it with blinding radiance, the sky above it a clear and deep blue. He slumped against the windowsill, biting his lip against the tears that stung his eyes.

There was no Dark Mark.


The boy had won.


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He shook his head to clear it of the encroaching darkness, but the fiery burn of his shredded neck more than sufficed to do the job. Gritting his teeth, he forced his mind to focus on a plan. He had to get out of here, that was certain, or bleed to death as Voldemort had intended. He was somewhat amazed he'd managed to survive at all, but even if he did not bleed to death, the poisonous dark magic of the snake's venom, or the resulting infection from whatever filth the monster had carried in it's mouth would kill him just as surely. Even if he managed to not succumb to either of those, he had no doubt in his mind that the remaining Death Eaters would be coming for his traitorous body. Lucius Malfoy had been waiting outside when he'd arrived here, and he was certain Voldemort had wasted no time informing him that he'd discovered and killed the Judas in their midst. He needed potions, and he felt a pang in his heart thinking about his dungeon lab in the castle. He remembered the boy appearing out of nowhere, remembered telling the boy to take the memories he'd let seep out along with his blood, but he doubted there had been time to view them. Therefore he was a traitor to both sides, which made apparating to St. Mungo's out of the question. Spinner's End then. He had a small cache of potions there, and hopefully would be able to reach it, get what he needed, and leave before the Death Eaters realised he was still alive and Bellatrix Lestrange thought to look there. With this plan in mind, he steeled himself, took a shaky step forward, turned, and......


Nothing happened.


He fell back against the wall again, his breath rasping harshly, and closed his eyes. He was too weak to apparate, and he was quickly dissuaded from trying again by the thought of splinching himself. Fear and panic sought to overwhelm him again, and for the first time in his life, he was at a complete loss as to what to do. Again, he forced himself to think, think, but all he could think about was getting out of his current location and reaching Spinner's End, although how he proposed to do that, he did not know. All he did know was that he would surely die if he stayed here, and although that prospect was looking more appealing every second, he didn't think he would be lucky enough for that to happen before the Death Eaters reached him. That they would desecrate his corpse wouldn't be surprising, but if they found him alive.......he shuddered to think of what fresh evils would be unleashed on him then. With that thought to spur him on, he silently gathered what little strength he had left, pushed himself up from the wall clutching his wand, and staggered from the room.


**********************************


He stumbled through the trees and underbrush outside the Shreiking Shack with no clear thought in his head other than to distance himself from it. When he tried to think of where he could hide, he could come up with nothing other than Spinner's End. He then tried to think of anyone who would likely help him, an Order member perhaps, but he knew that was futile as well. For all he knew, except for the boy, they could all be dead. How ironic, he thought bitterly, he had been so sure all these years that he would die beside the boy, protecting him until his dying breath. He had counted on it, knowing that only then would he be truly free. He slumped against a tree, weak and trembling, and considered crawling away into the underbrush. Finding a comfortable shrub to hide him from the Death Eaters, where he could tear the bandages from his throat and wait for that slide into blessed nothingness. He could see Lily again, beg her forgiveness, tell her how sorry he was for not listening to her when they were children. For letting himself be seduced away from her by false promises. For letting her son face that madman alone. For everything.

He had actually taken a step towards doing so, when shouts in the distance made him freeze in his tracks. Coming from the direction of the castle. And getting closer.

He set off, his hand clutched to his neck where he could feel the blood pulsing in sync with his stuttering heartbeat, lurching through the trees and underbrush, away from what he could now tell were escaping Death Eaters. His panic took hold of him, the sound of his labouring heartbeat pounding in his ears as he pushed himself to run, careening madly off the trees as his eyes searched frantically for a place to hide.

After what seemed like miles he thought he'd managed to run himself in a circle when the voices seemed to be coming from in front of him instead of from behind and he stopped, gripping a tree for support, straining his ears to hear and place the shouts over the horrible rasping sound of his own breath. His neck was a fiery column of agony, and the sopping bandages under his fingers told him the spell he'd used to try closing his wound had failed. He was vaguely surprised it had lasted this long.

The shouts were drawing nearer, he could hear feet crashing through the underbrush and realised he hadn't run in a circle at all. The voices and shouts were coming from either side of him. They must have split up. Looking about, he could see no place to take cover, and he knew he had no chance of outrunning them, but.....he'd be damned if he'd just stand here and wait for them.

Blindly he reeled forward, feeling the energy slip out of him as he did, tripping and floundering through the underbrush, spitting and dripping blood the whole way until he blundered through into a clearing, stumbling over his own feet and crashing to his knees. He tried making himself get up, but he was too dizzy and out of breath to do more than hang his head and gasp weakly. He heard the sounds of the other's approach on both sides of him, and the yelps of surprise before everything went quiet.

Slowly he made himself raise his head, the wound in his neck sending jolts of glassy pain through him, and might have laughed at the irony of it if his own blood weren't drowning him again. On one side of the clearing stood the Death Eaters, and on the other side stood the Aurors, and on his knees between them, sat him.

"He's alive! The traitor is alive!" came from one side.

"Dumbledore's murderer!" came from the other.

He watched with surprising calm as both sides raised wands, yet no curses or spells flew. It was a stand-off and he realised, with an inward smirk, that he was the prize. The Aurors wanted him alive. The Death Eaters, he knew, if they couldn't make him pay for his treachery, would use him as a diversion to escape. Both sides wanted him. The question remained, which would get him first. Damned if he did, damned if he didn't. Damned every way he looked at it. Death by torture from the Death Eaters, or the living death of the Dementor's Kiss?

"Crucio him!" one of the Death Eaters, Dolohov he thought, hissed.

"Severus," a deep voice sounded from his other side, "you cannot escape. Surrender yourself. Before you bleed to death."

He turned his eyes to the side and saw Kingsley Shacklebolt had stepped to the front of the Aurors.

"Traitor," growled Dolohov from the other side, "you'll be dead before you make it."

"Lower your wand, Death Eater," Shacklebolt snarled at Dolohov, "you're under arrest."

"You have to catch me first, Auror," Dolohov sneered, "and I think you want Dumbledore's murderer more than you want me. Move and he dies."

Yes, a stand-off. Only in a few more minutes, it would be a moot point. He could feel himself grow weaker by the second, his life draining away, the blackness creeping in again at the edges of his vision.

Marshalling the last of his strength and magic, he pulled himself to his feet, pointed his wand at Dolohov, cast the Protego Charm, and staggered towards Shacklebolt, collapsing into the Auror's arms before his eyes closed and he knew no more.