Friday The Thirteenth Fiction Recommendation: "Il Vostro Destino Deve Vivere" by Damiana

For a while now, I've been wanting to recommend to the Dead Potter Society, those stories that have made particular impressions on me, and which have not received elsewhere the recognition I feel they deserve. I'll recommend one story on the thirteenth of each month, and see how long I can keep going.

Fittingly enough, this inaugural rec falls on Friday the Thirteenth. Also fitting, I suppose, though in a sad way, is the fact that only tonight I've found out that the site (and presumably the author) of the story I'd planned all along to start the recs with, has vanished from the face of the net.

I only know the author as Damiana; I have no idea if she ever had a Livejournal account, nor what has become of her or her fiction. This story was posted sometime in 2002 on darkregard.com, which tragically now holds only one of those odious domain-squatters.

If anyone knows what became of Damiana, please let me know, so I can pass on to her this rec and ask her forgiveness/permission for reposting her story.

---

Title: Il Vostro Destino Deve Vivere
Author: Damiana
Main Character: Snape
Rating: Adult (slash)

This is one of those rarities: a story that has haunted me for - quite literally - years: ever since 2002 (the fact that it pre-dates Order of the Phoenix will explain the treatment of certain characters).

I refuse to say too much in advance, for fear of ruining its impact, but this is an understated, elliptical, surreal story, dreamlike in its ambivalence. Snape's plight is painful, his ultimate fate beautiful; both are equally poignant and touching.

Because I know of no way to contact the author, and I know of no other place on the net where the story is still available, I am reposting the story in its entirety below the cut. I have corrected a small number of minor typos and have added footnotes containing translations of the Italian phrases.



Il Vostro Destino Deve Vivere 1

by Damiana

*
Ting. Thump. Scrape.

Two cowering students jumped into a stone niche in the lower hallways of the Slytherin dungeons, out of the path of Severus Snape, Potions Master.

"Ten points from Slytherin, Mister Conklin, for being out of bed after hours. And ten points from Slytherin for you as well, Miss Black. Get back to your dormitories."

Brody Conklin and Amelia Black voiced identical disappointed groans from their hidey-hole carved out of the ancient stone. They watched, shuddering in species of resentful fear as the Potions Master continued his painful navigation of the Slytherin Territories. The darkened hallway showed only the dark outline of the man, tall and thin as a reed, his robe flapping as he moved slowly past them down into the darker regions of the dungeons. When he disappeared around the corner, they returned to their respective dormitories and accepted the punishment meted out by their house Prefects with an uncharacteristic lack of complaint.

The shadow continued his rounds.

*
Severus Snape cursed the twisted mess of flesh and bone that had replaced his right foot as he scraped down a shallow flight of stairs. The errand he was on tonight was unremarkable, one might even classify it merely routine. His quest was to restock his supply of a certain type of lichen which grew only in the lowest reaches of the castle. No one but himself could be trusted to the task.

His wand shone wan light across the cobbles, winking brighter then darker when the empty left arm of his robes swept against the leather clutch in which it was holstered. The silver tip of his ironwood cane tapped against the floor, the resulting 'ting!' slightly musical in nature, if one were given to flights of such fancy. At each scraping step, Snape's frown deepened, further setting the deep lines already carved there. He paused in the silent gloom to adjust the packsack carefully draped over his right shoulder. He denied himself the satisfaction of a sigh and resumed his tortured journey.

After a time, a faint phosphorescent yellow glow began to present itself in the cracks of the building stones, like some sort of supernatural mortar. Snape chuffed at the folly of the idea and picked up his pace slightly. The evidence pointed ahead toward a trove of the bounty he sought. Quite unaware, he began to whisper.

"black-lupin-potter-weasley-weasley-fudge-sinistra-vector-creevey-fletcher-weasley-malfoy-thomas-prynne-abbott..."

He continued his mantra, enunciating clearly, if nearly silently, the emphasis on the downbeat of his still-whole left foot. Presently, he turned a corner into a small octagonal chamber and spied a yellow mass spilling from one of its corners. "Yes, there we are, my lovelies..." he said, still in that same sibilant tone.

Snape gritted his teeth in annoyance that the lichen grew so far down the wall, but as Muggles were wont to say, beggars couldn't be choosers. He allowed the packsack to slip from his shoulder and laid it carefully on the floor. With a grunt, he managed a half-kneeling position before his prize and laboriously undid the leather lacings of the pack one-handed.

From it, he retrieved a dull scraper, a tiny whiskbroom and dustpan, and a chocolate wafer tin pressed into service for this errand. Discomfort thinned his lips even further as he leant forward, scraper in hand, and began his tedious harvest.

Perhaps thirty minutes later, it was impossible tell, he traded scraper for whiskbroom and tidied the area of his invasion. He carefully swept the detritus into the dustpan and whispered, "Comburo." The small pile of sweepings blazed and were, in seconds, reduced to thin ash. He lifted the dustpan to his lips and blew, scattering the ashes across the chamber.

"Vada," he whispered, again not aware he had spoken. "Vada, allora e fertilizzi questo posto sterile della morte." 2

He carefully replaced the lid of the tin, insuring nothing could contaminate his crop, then packed up his tools, re-tying the laces by magic as he lacked the two hands required for the job. He checked the security of his wand, satisfied himself that it was safely seated in its small leather cup, then hefted the packsack back over his shoulder. He retrieved his cane from where it lay, then leant heavily upon it to stand erect, pressing his left shoulder to the wall as counterbalance.

Pins and needles coursed through his left leg as he rose, and he stood motionless waiting for them to subside. There were days they did not, but today, several minutes were all that was required.

When his traitorous pneuma allowed, Snape began the arduous journey back to his office, steadily rising like a blind fish from the deepest trenches of the Atlantic.

*
In the darkest hour of night, Snape was distracted from his bamboo evaporative screens by a wheezy shriek.

"Good evening, Sinistra," he said in a cool tone, without looking up from his work. His talented hand remembered its tasks well, though more slowly, as if in mourning for its mate. It hardly shook at all as it filleted the lichen into paper-thin strips and laid it upon the screens. He finished the current layer, fitted the screen perfectly atop the others, then replaced the woven cover. He carefully pushed the oval container to the edge of his worktable, with the others. Only then did his gaze leave the worktop.

A woman in black rags floated in the centre of his office, her feet hanging some two feet above the floor. The edges of her robes were unravelled and frayed, as if they had been torn at. Snape's eyes travelled up from the pointed black shoes to the pendant between her small breasts depicting the All-Seeing Eye, stopped a moment, then continued on to her face.

Snape had often admired Sinistra's effortless beauty - her skin was pearly-white due to her nocturnal nature, and clear as the cream of new milk. Pity battle had stolen her fine complexion. Her colouring was still pleasing, naturally death had only made her more pale and ethereal in appearance, but a deep cut marred her brow, and one still deeper flayed her cheek, affording him a view of the abbreviated stub of her mottled tongue. In life, the lady's eyes had glittered black, like his own, but now, like so much of the rest of her, they presented as a dim gray, floating in their watery sockets, the whites the colour of spoilt eggwhite.

Sinistra's most displeasing defect was now the gaping maw where her throat had been prior to being torn out by a rabid werewolf during the final battle with Voldemort.

Snape perched on his work stool with a slight grimace. The skin of his face stretched a bit tighter over the cheekbones and nose - the closest he ever came to a smile. "To what do I owe this pleasure, Sinistra? Has the Bloody Baron locked himself in his chambers again?"

As always, the ghost of Professor Sinistra only repeated her wheezing shriek. Snape was interested to note that he could clearly see the remains of her vocal cords vibrating as she keened. Even if she had been inclined to speak (and in the seventeen years since she'd died, Sinistra had never given the slightest indication that she wished to do so), her lack of tongue prohibited it. Snape watched her through half-lidded eyes as she wailed, she, like the other, his wraith, his penance. The screams varied in emphasis and timbre, rather like music if one listened carefully. On these occasions he merely watched and waited for the ghost to tire of her otherworldly accusations. Tonight, as always, she eventually grew bored with the endeavour and glided from his office as silently as she'd entered.

Snape turned back to his dehydrating.

*
A week passed, perhaps two, in an unremarkable blur of classes and inter-house squabbles, with not even a rousing Quidditch match to break the wretched sameness. Snape dragged himself down the hallway to his classroom, and up to the Great Hall for meals, and visited none of the rest of the castle. Periodically, at night, he heard the plaintive mewling that must be Professor McGonagall, accompanied by scratching at the door to his private chambers. He always ignored these feral summonses, deciding instead that if Minerva wished to see him, she could post him a note like a normal person.

One afternoon, following a particularly gruelling session of seventh year Gryffindor/Slytherin Double Potions (in which the intractable Mister Conklin and Miss Black were in attendance, but paired with Gryffindors for Snape's amusement), Snape entered his office and unwittingly interrupted a prosaic family Scene.

His back to the door, Percy Weasley (missing a good bit of his amber scalp) wagged his finger at a transparent Fred and George. The twins stood hipshot and insouciant, their heads bobbing and nodding like overripe sunflowers atop their ruint necks. They sported identical willful grins, though each lacked a full complement of teeth. The gaps in their mouths reminded him strangely of Hallowe'en carvings, and Snape fancied a twin sparkle in their eyes when they noticed him standing motionless in the doorway. Snape ignored the lecture from the elder Weasley; he'd overheard enough of them when Percy'd been Head Boy, he certainly was not in need of reacquaintance with the subject matter. One or the other of the twins finally burst out laughing, and they both pointed over Percy's shoulder.

Snape noticed the elder Weasley was missing an eye in addition to his reduced scalp, and his head was strangely singed along the left side. "Messrs. Weasley?" He asked, his customary frown reasserting itself.

Percy Weasley glided over to the doorway - even rendered in a ghostly gray, Snape recognised the twin spots of angry blush on his cheeks. "Professor Snape," Weasley commenced in his fussy, nasal tone, tapping his left hand against his leg for emphasis, "My... brothers-" a wave over his shoulder in the twins' general direction "were plotting to vandalise your office. See?" The former Head Boy turned and pointed at the ancient work table.

A battered chocolate wafer tin sat in the exact centre of the table, its lid clearly showing evidence of new prying. Snape shot a sour look at the twins and retrieved the moss he'd battled dearly for not so long ago. He turned and faced the complement of haunting Weasleys, giving them his most imperious glare. It was, unfortunately, much less effective since he'd lost his arm; one couldn't very well execute a proper robe-fling one claw short of a lobster, but it would serve its purpose well enough for ghosts, he supposed.

"Get out." He nodded toward the door. One or the other of the twins looked as if he were about to speak, but upon receiving black looks from the remaining three inhabitants of the office, left off. "Contain yourselves to Gryffindor Tower or I'll speak with the Headmaster about an exorcism. Why don't you go haunt your family home like proper spectres?" The ghosts decided the last was safely rhetorical and escaped the office before Snape could make good on his threat.

Snape leant against the work table and hugged the tin to his breast with his good arm. He murmured reassuring nonsense to the container and stared off into a corner. The last sliver of sunlight faded from his office and he was left in darkness.

*
Severus Snape blinked into the gloom. He thought the surface upon which he lay was rather more comfortable than his office work table, so he must have, at some time, made the journey back to his private quarters. He shifted slightly, wondering what had woken him. It was still dark, though there was something odd about that as well, wasn't there?

Snape sat creakily up in bed, searching for the source of the wan light infinitesimally brightening his room from its customary perfect dark. His ancient eyes surveyed from left to right - above all things routine must be followed - sliding over hamper to bureau to mirror to Potter to-

Harry Potter sat easily in a side chair near the fireplace, one leg crossed over the other, his hands folded atop his knee. The boy's intelligent eyes never wavered as Snape glowered at him. When Potter didn't glide away, intimidated (as, Snape thought, any proper ghost would), Snape sighed and laboriously hefted himself from his bed. After a painful circuit of the bed, he slumped into the twin of the chair Potter occupied on the other side of the fireplace. Snape studied the chess match laid out on the narrow table before the cold hearth. He idly summoned a pair of reading spectacles from the mantel.

"You think too much," Potter said after perhaps thirty minutes of Snape's silent contemplation of the board. "You have to feel it."

Snape peered at Potter o'er the top of his half-spectacles, noting the sympathetic expression the boy wore. "I'll thank you to keep your strategies to yourself, Mister Potter," he retorted, rather more mildly than he intended. He sacrificed a pawn to Potter's knight, and disinterestedly watched as said knight bashed the pawn to its knees. Snape imagined he heard the pawn's minute chuff of pain, the shook his head as he watched the knight drag his adversary from the board.

Potter pressed a finger to his lips in a caricature of concentration, then executed a seemingly foolhardy advance of his rook, leaving the king exposed on two fronts. Potter settled back into his chair and regarded Snape with a mild smile. "Of course, Professor."

Snape nearly rubbed his hands together with glee - if he could only win, he thought, perhaps then this eternal game would end. He and Potter had been playing the same deal of chess for seventeen years. Snape tried different moves, tried the same moves, and some nights he advanced, or Potter did. More often, though, when Potter came the next night or after two or after three (as Potter claimed he was popular about the castle and couldn't visit with the Potions Master exclusively, more's the pity), the pieces would be back in their original positions, awaiting a fresh strategy from either player. Snape wasn't sure where the set had come from, only that it did not belong to either himself or The Boy Who'd Died. The pieces held to an equal-opportunity non-cooperation agreement with both players.

Snape tapped his knight on the head again, and flicked a finger. Two spaces forward and one over, in position to take Potter's king two moves from now unless the boy pulled a miracle out of his hat. Snape smirked and leant back into the deep pile of his chair. "Guard that, Mister Potter, if you can."

Potter's eyes softened and his expression grew sad. "I'm afraid I never was very good at guarding the king, Professor. I think I'll just go for now." Potter's eyes flickered over the lank mane of dull gray hair that had once shone an inky black. "I've got other places to visit tonight."

Snape frowned in annoyance, though whether at the state of the board or the company he wasn't sure. "Yes, of course," he answered dryly. "Go then, I'm sure there are more interesting worlds to see than this, Potter." He eyed the boy again over the rims of his spectacles. Potter sat quietly in his chair sporting his customary beatific expression, watching. "Go," Snape barked, his voice cracking a bit on the emphasis. "You're not wanted here."

Potter blinked, that unnecessary involuntary eyetwitch the only indication that Snape's words had affected him. Finally, he rose and glided into the cold fireplace, melting smoothly into the stones without so much as a word. "And don't return," Snape whispered, as he did on every occasion that Potter visited. He stared into the cold firebox for a while, then returned to his bed.

*
It was during a simple evening of reading by the fire that he was first visited by Lupin and Black.

Snape knew full well that all ghosts of the castle weren't visible to everyone - only those such as The Bloody Baron or that headless Gryffindor arse took the time and effort to illuminate themselves clearly. And Potter, of course, always Potter, shining like a beacon through the hazy gloom.

Tonight, Snape sat in his armchair before the fire paging idly through a slim volume (a pamphlet, really) of Potions theory published in the fifteenth century. He often read over such materials to satisfy himself of how little progress the wizarding world had actually made in the last six centuries. Without warning, Black's gray, translucent head appeared through the wall next to Snape's bed. The ghost paid no mind to him, of course, Black had always been less than observant, and in any case, his expression of rapturous bliss belied what must be occurring the other side of the wall. Potter's godfather had bitten his lip bloody.

'bloody fucks going at it in my office...' Snape thought, then recoiled a little when Black was abruptly shoved further into the room. His bare shoulders and chest materialised, the man seemingly bent over at the waist. Of course. Only the slightest lock of silvery hair passed through, floating slightly above Black's back, and Snape supposed correctly that his partner in this burlesque must be Lupin. Of a sudden, Snape began to hear Black's low, wordless moans.

One, two, three more thrusts had the pair of them into the room, Lupin bent over Black from the rear, his fingers sunk into the flesh of the other man's hips. Their incorporeal state facilitated their movement - Snape could clearly see Black's feet floating inches above the floor, the man himself bobbing like a balloon with each downstroke. Black's eyes remained closed in ecstasy, one of his hands working his erection in a rhythmic staccato. Lupin, however, caught sight of Snape cringing in his chair - the werewolf winked and flashed his eyeteeth. Lupin gave Snape a small, wicked smile and steered Black to the bed. Upon brushing against it, the pair solidified somewhat, and Snape could hear the wet slap-slap of their rutting. That it was on his bed was at this point only mildly troubling. Lupin bent Black over the side and pounded until they both howled like the canines they were. They collapsed in a tangle atop the sheets, and Snape stood up from his chair.

"McGonagall would probably have enjoyed this production more than I," Snape said. "I hear she's tolerant of this sort of thing."

Black looked up - Snape was surprised at the man's tired, sheepish smile. His lips moved, but he had discorporated to the point that Snape no longer heard the words. Black smiled almost shyly and closed his eyes in the inevitable slumber. Snape was amused to watch one hand creep up his chest toward his mouth, the thumb coming to rest just outside the security of his mouth. Snape was unsurprised to see his lips glowing a puerile yellow.

Lupin, however, seemed restless.

The lycanthrope gently petted his partner on the head then bounded off the bed (still nude, to Snape's chagrin) and began to pace the room. Lupin drifted in and out of solid form, his eyes flashing gold each time he attained solidity. Snape stayed in his chair; it seemed the safest course, until Lupin either explained the reason for this visit or left altogether. A quick glance at the bed showed him Black has disappeared already.

"...and so now you know why." Lupin said, interrupting Snape's reverie. Snape blanched at both the size and firmness of Lupin's erection.

"Why what?" Snape asked, unable to pull his gaze from Lupin's mottled gray member. The head of it was very nearly black, and it occurred to Snape that something might not be right about it.

"Why we're still here, of course, Severus." Lupin's voice held a teasing note. "Aren't you listening? Tsk tsk. Points from your House, were I allowed to take them."

Snape pointed at Lupin's furious erection. The veins stood out clearly, throbbing in the dim light of the fire. "That?" he asked.

Lupin flashed his teeth again. "Yes. I've been fucking Sirius in this afterlife seventeen years now, and it hasn't done me a bit of good. I have unfinished business, and so does he." He looked meaningfully at Snape.

"I think not," Snape answered, his mouth settling into a little moue of distaste. "I do not fancy men, alive or dead. I don't fancy anyone."

"Well," a new voice drawled from the corner. "Now, that's not exactly true, is it?"

Lupin and Snape both looked to the fireplace where Draco Malfoy shimmered. Harry Potter stood next to him, looking particularly sad, twirling a stray rook in his fingers. Potter said, "Remus, please, we've been over this..." Malfoy turned and whispered a word Snape couldn't hear, and Potter vanished.

"Better, wouldn't you say, without the killjoy?" Malfoy stepped lightly out of the fireplace, his robes snapping against the cold stone. He leant against the mantel and indulged in a long, slow perusal of Lupin's nude body, concentrating particularly on his monstrous prick. "Doesn't that hurt?"

Lupin had the sense to look embarrassed. In a blink, he was clothed in a plush dark dressing gown tied at the waist. "You know we don't feel pain like people, Draco." Lupin rolled his eyes at Snape, who still sat, rather dumbfounded. "It's the frustration that's the problem."

"You might just have taken him," Malfoy answered, still ignoring Snape. "You know there are ways."

Lupin shook his head. "I tried that once, you see." He pressed his lips together and glanced at Snape. "It didn't end well."

"Gentlemen, if you please." Snape said from his chair. He gripped his cane and rose unsteadily. "I am going to get into my bed, close my eyes, and go to sleep. When I wake, you will be gone." Snape made his way to the bed and made good his statement.

Lupin sidled over to the fireplace where Malfoy stood and whispered, "Will he ever understand, do you think. Or agree?"

Malfoy shook his head. "There's no mercy in him, Lupin. You should know that as well as I."

"I can hear, you know," Snape said testily from the bed. He rolled over and feigned sleep.

Malfoy tugged at the tie of Lupin's robe. "Care for a go, then?" Lupin hesitated, then nodded.

Snape watched their coupling through slitted eyes. Frustrated tears fell, but he didn't notice, even when the pillow became wet with them.

Thereafter, Lupin and Black and Malfoy haunted him relentlessly, in his rooms, his office, his classroom, at meals. Snape seemed to be the only person who could see them, though Harry Potter often stood off to one side watching mournfully. Snape didn't speak to him of it. He'd seen Black's erection, after all.

*
One Friday, McGonagall finally got in.

"Severus, please," she pleaded whilst he sat silently in his chair. "I realise you think you are being haunted, but it's been eighteen years. No one else has ever seen them."

Snape merely glared mulishly at her.

"You haven't been to class in a year - we replaced you, did you know? Do you even care? And we've made Ashcroft Head of House, surely you remember her from..."

"...you stalk the halls clutching that ridiculous piece of rubbish..." Her nostrils flared and she narrowed her eyes. "You've been eating it, haven't you?"

Snape tuned out the rest of the diatribe and waited for her to leave. Instead of doing so, she took him by the shoulders and shook him. "Wake up, man!" she bellowed into his face. "The Headmaster is thinking of committing you."

Snape turned to the empty chair on the other side of the fireplace and said quietly, "Do you suppose she's right?" He cocked his head, listened, and grimaced slightly. He nodded, then turned back to McGonagall. "Whatever you think is best, Minerva. They'll follow wherever I go."

One week later, they took him away to St. Mungo's.

Two months after that, they brought him back. McGonagall convinced Dumbledore to allow Snape permanent residence in a remote area of the dungeons. He would be allowed no interaction with the children. His meals were sent down for him.

*
"Have you ever wondered why you lived?"

Snape glanced at Potter over the chessboard. Snape had been encouraged lately - both he and Potter were within two move of a win, though they had been stalemated for six months or more. It was the summer holidays now, and Snape hadn't minded so much, being haunted. Such things were always made more difficult by the presence of students. He wasn't allowed near them, of course, but just their energy seemed to feed his ghostly visitors.

"So you could, I suppose," Snape answered mildly. Removed from the daily demands of teaching, he found it difficult to keep his ire stoked to its previous levels. He advanced on the board. He sat still a moment, in intense concentration, then leant back in his chair. He seemed to deflate, to become somehow smaller. He looked up at Harry Potter with a face more like a deathmask. "Checkmate."

Potter rose to stand before him. He pressed one cool palm to his cheek. "I have to give Sirius what he wants now. Perhaps that's for the best." Snape closed his eyes and felt an inexplicable tear strike his nose from above. Snape nodded.

When he opened his eyes, Harry Potter was gone.

*
Snape shivered.

The cold, cold finger trailed along his neck again, and he opened his eyes to the dark room. A mild, cold light filled the place, filtered down a cobblestone passage to the outside, reflecting the full moon. He turned laboriously over to where Lupin lay.

"Potter and Black must be gone. Have you come for me, then?"

Lupin nodded silently. Snape lifted his head slightly and spied Draco Malfoy sitting crosslegged at the foot of the bed wearing an expression that was at once both satisfied and inexpressibly sad.

Snape shifted uncomfortably on the bed. In his reduced state, he had not the first idea of how the act would be carried out, but he suspected Malfoy was there for a reason.

Lupin waved at Malfoy and the boy crawled to the head of the bed, his clothing melting away as he progressed. Snape was unsurprised to note that Malfoy seemed no paler in death than he had been that one glorious time Snape had seen him such in life. Malfoy took Snape's head in his lap and threw one leg over Snape's remaining arm. Lupin blinked, and Snape's clothing disappeared.

Snape shivered again, and closed his eyes against Lupin's frightening erection. He breathed deeply and regularly, his head cradled in Malfoy's hands and did not flinch even at the first violation. He supposed some part of himself had been preparing for this since his sixteenth year. A finger, then two, sheathed in some cold stinging jelly, invading and seeking, pressing the gland that no longer held any pleasure for Snape. Snape endured it all, but was unable to stifle a sharp intake of air as Lupin pushed the thick, blunt head of himself in.

Malfoy leant over Severus and kissed him deeply. The boy's mouth was very cold and tasted of the sea. Snape took no pleasure from it, and when Lupin pushed still further in, he withdrew and bit deeply of his own bottom lip. Malfoy's tongue tasted the salty offering and found it good. Thus Lupin plunged below, holding Snape's right leg over his shoulder, and Malfoy from above, holding Snape's shoulders steady, sucking at his wound, running his cold tongue along it. The boy's saliva stung.

As he was filled from above and below, Snape heard the voice of Harry Potter in his ear. "You. Can choose. Open your eyes."

Snape pressed his eyes further shut. He felt his own penis, still now the last eighteen years, begin to stir. Lupin keened wordlessly, and Malfoy plundered his mouth, mapping tongue, teeth, palate, stopping now and again to taste Snape's life from whence it welled up.

Snape felt one finger press along his cheek. "I can show you the way - open your eyes."

Snape moaned Lupin and Malfoy echoed him, though not for the same reason. Potter continued whispering in his ear all through that long, terrible night of copulation, whispering of other worlds and other ways, that this was Not Required, that Snape might be free.

Toward daybreak, the last sliver of moonlight shifted over the trio on the bed. Lupin buried his fingers in the scant flesh of Snape's hips and howled. Malfoy's fingers grasped at Snape's face, and the boy bit down on Snape's tongue hard. New blood began to flow.

In the privacy of his own ear, Snape heard Harry Potter say clearly, "If you don't open your eyes right now, I swear I'll summon everything I am and burn you out of this sarcophagus of a room." Snape remained petulantly still, accepting what he knew was both his punishment and his freedom.

When the cruel bite of smoke reached his nostrils, Severus Snape opened his eyes.

*
He felt rather than heard or saw the uneasy commotion around him.

He looked up into the hazy blue sky, tendrils of oily black smoke periodically marking the skyscape. He lay flat on his back, and was curiously bemused to find he couldn't move his limbs. He felt something... wrong with his left leg, and one of his arms wasn't exactly normal, either, yet he worried about nothing more than the leaves above swinging gently back-and-forth from their charcoal limbs. He saw the tree above him was afire, and wondered idly whether or not the largest bough might kill him if it fell directly onto his forehead. Fine ash and larger clumps of vegetation sprinkled onto his face from the blazing limbs, and he was unsurprised to recognize the saffron uniqueness of phosphorescent lichen.

A fuzzy, grainy oblong floated before him, haloed in black. Snape blinked, trying to clear the smoke from his eyes. After a moment, the oblong resolved itself into a face and he felt himself fall into reality with a physical thump. All at once, he could see and hear everything around him, too much, and was very nearly overwhelmed.

Professor Sinistra stood above him, her white face frozen in a horrified rictus even as she opened her mouth to voice another of her wheezing shrieks. A garish splash of blood (it didn't seem to be hers) painted her forehead, and its twin marked her cheek. Snape supposed she must have screamed herself hoarse; she looked as if she'd been at it a while. All at once, Snape felt another of those curious thumps and slid a little further into his present circumstances.

"...lupinblackpotterfuckingidiotshe'sdyinggetsomeonenow!... " Sinistra's words all ran together. Snape tried to turn his head, tried to glower at her, and choked weakly on the trickle of blood that ran down his throat. Sinistra's white face turned to his again, and she leant in closer, trying to speak to him. Her voice was so damaged and cracked he couldn't understand the words. He tried to answer but could not seem to catch his breath. She abruptly stood, and he found the strength to raise one arm weakly to the hem of her robes. He gripped his prize tightly, and as Sinistra turned away, the charred, gauzy fabric rent into wispy tatters.

Sinistra's face was replaced by those of Lupin, Black, and Potter, the trio reminding him for all the world of young children out late at night, nervously approaching a handy stranger who'd offered them a ride in his cunning motorcar. Snape saw their mouths moving but his hearing had gone tinny again, and he couldn't make out the words. Potter and Black sported twin black eyes and their noses were oddly canted; Snape supposed they'd been broken during whatever had taken place here. Lupin was unmarked, at least about the face, though Snape only at this very moment noticed how white and pointed were his eyeteeth. The sight of Lupin's teeth filled him with dread, why he did not know, and he supposed he must have succeeded in some type of recoil as Lupin's face disappeared from his field of vision.

Snape heard other mutterings around him, complemented by louder moans and the occasional pained shriek. Potter's face disappeared from his view as well; a moment later Snape felt his head lifted and propped against something soft. Harry Potter's face again appeared to him, though upside-down and somehow looming. Snape worked his jaw in a fruitless attempt to speak and felt a cool hand against his cheek, encouraging him to stop. He flicked his eyes to Black, who brushed Snape's lank, matted hair away from his eyes and commenced looking sorrowful. Just like Black, sorry when it was too bloody late, as always.

Too bloody late for what? Warm hands cradled his skull in what he supposed was Potter's lap - now that was unexpected, that the boy would offer him comfort in any circumstance - though Snape was mercenary enough to take what was freely given. Harry Potter leant low over the Potion Master's head, and whispered softly in his ear. Despite the melee, despite the processional of faces before his own and in the periphery of his vision (he saw them all weasley-weasley-fudge-vector-creevey-fletcher-weasley-malfoy-thomas-prynne-abbott-), he heard only the sibilant private lecture of Harry Potter. A flashbulb lit the gloom and Snape blinked, momentarily blinded.

"...die, won't you just die, you don't want this, sir, we've won, you're dead already, please, you're half-gone, I can see it in your eyes, what are you hiding, you were maginificent, you've died, you're forgiven, you must let go, please, you can have all the House Points, you're forgiven, let go, you're forgiven, you're forgiven-"

Severus Snape's last sight was seen through the hazy filter of an eyeful of blood; the Weasley Twins standing above him, weeping, heads bent and hands linked together. Their lips moved, but Snape heard nothing but the urgent absolution of Harry Potter. Black's hand, now red as if it had been dipped in blood (and Snape supposed it had), wavered in front his eyes like a broken, panicky bird.

"gothenthereareotherworldsthantheseanddon'treturnyou'renotwelcomehere-" A tear splashed Snape's nose and began its short journey to his cheek.

He died.

*

---

1 Il Vostro Destino Deve Vivere - Your Destiny Must Live Return

2 Vada, allora e fertilizzi questo posto sterile della morte. - Go... Go then, and fertilise this sterile place of the dead. Return