Chapter Text
There is a stillness that comes with life once its caring touch has been lost. Things that are taken for granted when roaming the realm of the living. The trees no longer sway, flowers no longer jump in bloom. Animals look with apprehension, the adoring eyes of the day before nowhere to be found. Humans are slow to realize the possibility of threats and harm that may surround them, but mother nature warns her brethren instantly. The difference between the two ways of living is disparate.
Severus stand still amongst the sudden rush of forest life. It shocks him, his eyes taking in everything and nothing all at once. The forest turf under his bare feet inches away from him, the glowing eyes of predators hidden behind the trees growing warier for each second he stands.
He can sense the lull of all the heartbeats that surround him, the ba-dum ba-dum of blood pumping through veins, the thundering orchestra of life that has replaced the silent sounds of nature he had grown used to in the past 20 years. There is a rustle, a foolish soul who ventures a little too far into his territory and he is halfway across the forest before he realizes. There is a rush of intense delight as the most delicious taste fills his mouth. He knows nothing. When he comes to, there is blood on his hands, blood dripping from his mouth, smeared across his bare chest and thighs. The remains of his victim lay before him, tail twitching with the last dreads of life. The decapitated head of the rabbit rolls to a still, disfigured, lifeless eyes staring directly at Severus.
His head falls into his hands, the perverse pleasure of blood running through him. Curled into himself on the floor of the lonely forest, Severus sobs.
***
The Dark Lord had fallen. Vanquished in the darkness of the night by a mere babe.
Severus sat in the home of his childhood, nursing a drink slowly. The room was bleak, the light emitting from the dim fireplace the only source of warmth or life. The armchair he sat in was threadbare, a wayward string catching his eye as it floated beside him. Severus twitched his fingers slightly, and watched as a book floated from his bookcase to perfect eye level in front of him. He began drumming his fingers against his thigh, a constant grounding tha-tha-thump against his skin. This was what he had wanted. A life free of the master he had foolishly bonded himself to. No more grinding away in grimy dungeons, brewing potions of all caliber, day and night.
Severus blinked away the moisture in his eyes, eyes flying across the book to find something to distract himself. A small note he had evidently written years prior in the margins of the book caught his attention, his cramped writing making him squint. He had been reading this book during the few months he had spent scouring a way to rid himself of the mark. His research project before he had been tasked with the burden that had caused him to lose everything he had once lived for. He had been too deep in the fantasy of freedom and an escape from the thralls that he had leaped at even the smallest of ideas, not realizing that he was affixed to his position, running in place while he believed himself to be making progress. What was the point of his existence now? His freedom or his happiness, one or the other, for they could not co-exist.
The mark branded into his arm would prevent any semblance of normality from continuing, and it was only a matter of time before his involvement in the assistance of the deaths was brought to light. His wrongdoings have caught up to him, the chains of his evils clamping his wrists together once and for all.
Severus knew he should be savoring the mere moments he had left of his freedom, he should be scrambling to get his assets in order. But an emptiness had begun to reside in him since that fateful day, his limbs heavy with guilt and his bones filled with despair. It hit him not long ago, sitting in this same threadbare armchair, the wood on the handles chipping with old age, that he had now lost the last person he lived for.
Severus tilted his glass slightly, watching the amber liquid fall at a forty-degree angle, his distorted reflection staring back at him through the clear glass. His eyes strayed to the note he had written in his youth once again. Perhaps, the small thought he had dismissed so easily years ago was not so foolish of an idea after all.
***
“And what will you give me in return, Severus?”
The grass was damp between his knees, the morning dew clinging to his robes. The silence unnerved him, uneasiness settling into his bones with the fabricated quiet only an imperturbable charm could create. Bare branches writhed behind him, the hazy gray sky filled with a swarm of birds circling above his head dark and ominous while Severus remained unaware.
His gaze was affixed to the coldness in his companion’s gaze, the storm clouds swirling in his companion’s iris’s the only giveaway that he was not pleased to be here.
He could stay quiet no longer. The Dark Lord had set his sights on the annihilation of Lily and her unborn child. Severus would never have dared to relay his findings if he had known the consequence would be so dire.
His eyes welled with unshed tears, looking up at Dumbledore with unbridled regret. The man’s face betrayed no emotion, so unlike what he was used to seeing whilst feasting in the Great Hall. He could not not recall the last time he had seen Dumbledore look so disappointed. Severus felt the urge to break eye contact and hang his head in shame, but resisted with the last dregs of determination that resided in him.
Severus has known since the day he spoke his decision to Lily in his Fifth Year that he had fated himself to a damned life. That he had made the wrong choice, had turned towards the wrong side. His introduction to the Death Eaters had only settled that conviction; the sight he had been met with was one he would never forget. Nary a day went by where Severus did not contemplate what his life would have been like if he had only accepted Lily’s offers for help, had listened to Lily’s warnings.
His mind had been clouded by the tales of a powerful man who would bring about change, who would bring back the traditions of wizardry that his mother had so fondly spoken of. It had been thrilling, being in the face of such immense power that you felt it down to your core, brimming and vibrating due to the sheer magnitude of simply being in the presence of greatness.
He had been swayed by promises of that same power, of opportunities to learn how to be just as great. Voldemort had whispered sweet assurances that Severus would be able to pursue whatever he chose, his service in the making of a few simple potions for his mastery in potions to be fully covered. He had been naive, his young mind filled with pain and anger leaping at any chance to show his worthiness.
He wanted ⎯ no, he needed ⎯ Dumbledore to realize that he was no longer the same foolish child.
“Anything. I will give you anything.”