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The rain was making everything more difficult.
Not only were Evan’s boots slipping on the wet cobblestone, sticking to the thick streams of mud, but it was hard to see through the pouring rain, hard to track directions and angles of curses and ricochets when the water reflected if not the magic itself then its visible traces. He’d throw a curse and think it hit, only to realize that it had gone too far aloft, or misjudge the angle and width of a curse coming at his side.
Of course, the Aurors were having similar issues, but there were several of them, and only one of Evan.
At this point, in truth, there were only three: one was at their rear, busy with holding up the anti-apparition shield and the other was wounded, only good for sometimes setting off weak distracting curses to give Moody a second or two of breathing room. But those few seconds of time were golden this far along in the battle. Evan sorely missed having a partner.
They had trained most of their formations in pairs or threes. The point was to always have someone at your back. Dolohov was that kind of teacher – that kind of officer, that kind of man. It had served them well enough through the war, but less so now. Especially now that they were mostly scattered, the entire Organizations falling apart at its seams once beheaded.
He could not think about that. It was too distracting.
Evan feigned a throw, but dodged behind an abandoned crate instead to catch his breath. How long had it been since he and Mulciber had split up? Quarter of an hour? Half? Ashley had had the younger boys with him – the Unmarked ones – hopefully they’d made it away.
The crate went up in flames and Evan cursed, jumping back.
He threw a spell to dispense the smoke outward, to allow it to create a momentary shield for his retreat. Several curses shot through the swirling cloud, clearly launched at random. Moody could afford to do that, with at least one auror who could shield him while he fired blind.
All of Evan’s pride and upbringing and understanding of honor told him he needed to stand his ground.
Good sense told him to run.
The smoke was starting to clear and through it he glimpsed Mood’s ugly, self-satisfied face, his nose still bleeding profusely from where one of Evan’s slicing jinxes had taken a chunk off of it. Evan felt he was going to die here.
Run, someone in his mind whispered. A voice that sounded horribly like Severus’. Run, idiot.
But there was nowhere to run. There was an alleyway behind him that likely resolved in a dead end, a building with all of its windows several floors up and securely shuttered. The street was deserted, and the air was still thick with the anti-apparition barrier. He’d been fighting for an hour now, out of breath, wand-arm sore and his legs badly bruised. He’d taken a hit to the side – something that was bleeding. Several grazes had burned through his cloak on his left arm and there was simply a limit to how much magic one could expel and absorb all at once before it began to affect the nervous system.
Worse, even if he got out… Which safe houses were still safe? Which bases un-raided? Which friends not traitors?
Yet self-preservation instincts were greater. Taking the risk, Evan threw a curse, not at Moody, but slightly to his left, almost at a guess, aiming for wounded auror. A shriek of pain told Evan he’d hit true. The time he’d spent on the curse, however, cost him – a searing pain went through his side and for a moment, his vision became foggy.
Moody wouldn’t allow himself to be distracted for long, but his eyes flickered to the side, and it was enough time for Evan to throw up a confounding shield charm and run.
Curses bounced around him on the wet cobblestones, some singing the hem of his cloak, but he was able to slip into the side alley.
It was narrow, short and completely blocked off at the end as he’d suspected. Evan began to laugh. Hysterical, desperate laughter rushed up and out of his lungs. He pointed his wand up, raced through the enchantment – a faint Dark Mark appeared in the gloomy sky above. At least he would die under the symbol of the Cause for which he had lived.
Heavy boots came around the corner. Evan looked around for anything that might help him.
An old, rusty basement door stood out pale and decrepit in the brick wall. He blasted through the lock, tacking an edge of the door with it, made to duck in—
The dark and the wet were treacherous, the thin, metal staircase narrow. Evan tripped down in, falling the last few steps, coming to rest on the dirty, cold stone floor with a heavy thud in a graceless heap. A haze of pain shot through his body as he forced himself to turn onto his back and charm the basement door shut and sealed.
It would not hold for long, Evan was rather certain, even as he attempted to add reinforcement spells to hold it there. It was good, heavy metal, but Moody had the magic to break it. Evan could hear the muffled noise of curses beating against the door.
Then—raised voices. Moody calling someone an idiot. Must be one of his partners – perhaps the one upholding the apparition barrier – came to help. The air seemed lighter – perhaps the barrier was gone. But Evan knew he would not be able to apparate in his state – not without splinching.
He could feel the blood seeping through his robes and cloak, the lacerations in his side widening slowly. His only chance to hold the Aurors off was a blood ward. For what good? he thought bitterly. He didn’t think he’d be able to stand or walk, to try to find a way out. He’d like as not lose his senses on this basement floor and then die here from blood loss like a rat. They’ll say it’s a fitting death, Evan thought, just as bitterly. They think us all vermin, the sanctimonious fucks.
And yet, Evan raised his wand to attempt a blood ward, even as the arguing of the Aurors outside turned into shouting. He could not make out what they were shouting about, not with the ringing in his ears and the heaviness in his mind. His vision was getting cloudy, slowly fading.
The world spun, went silent. Went black.
*~*
Evan woke slowly, floating out of a black fog of unconsciousness. For a moment, his thoughts were scrambled – he registered the throbbing in his head and the jagged, slicing pain in his side, but not much else. The world seemed dark behind his eyelids, but he could not remember where he ought to be or what ought to be happening.
The battle came back in flashes, a sudden burst of adrenaline, and Evan gasped, fumbling for his wand and struggling to sit up.
His body protested his sudden movement and he growled in pain, still searching feverishly for his wand. His hands brushed cloth, and suddenly he realized his surroundings were too warm and too soft for the basement he recalled passing out in. The room was still too dark somehow, black spots blocking out his vision.
“Evan, fuck’s sake, lay down.”
“Ash?” he mumbled hopefully, even though he knew for a fact that wasn’t Mulciber. Where was his damned wand?
“It’s Severus. But you know that.”
Hands on his shoulders pushed Evan down and he found, to his dismay, that he was too weak and too nauseous to resist. So he lay still and waited for his body to adjust.
The room smelled like potions.
“Where are we?”
“One of the safe houses.”
“Ours?”
Snape paused. “What kind of question is that?”
Evan could tell him, but decided not to for the moment. He tried opening his eyes again and this time his vision came clearer. The room was dim but not without light. He could see an array of candles from the corner of his eye. The wooden, crossbeamed ceiling told him they were likely somewhere out in the country. He was lying on a bed, stripped to the waist, a woolen blanket thrown over his legs. Severus had taken off his boots and soggy trousers. He wasn’t exactly in a great position to make a run for it, even if he hadn’t been injured.
“You took my wand?”
“It’s on the bedside table.” Severus was trying to keep his voice flat but Evan knew him well enough to sense the note of exasperation. He looked over and let out a sigh of relief when he saw his wand sitting there among an array of potions, bowls and bandages.
On the other side of the room, Severus had two small cauldrons going – the potion in one was glowing a noxious green.
“How long have I been out? How did you find me?” Evan considered trying to sit up again, but the pain in his side made him think that perhaps he ought to wait.
Severus began to measure out the potions into two cups. “About a day. I’ve had a sleeping drought in you though for part of it.” He looked up and gave Evan a strange look. “I followed the Dark Mark.”
Vaguely, Evan remembered the Mark he’d sent up into the sky. He hadn’t meant it as a call for help, but apparently it had saved him. Severus was staring at him now, so Evan averted his eyes. He’d never had to worry about Snape’s legilimency skills before, but now… If he’d been alone, it might have been different. Not that he has any idea what happened to Mulciber after they separated.
“That was stupid of you,” Severus said finally.
This made Evan pay attention again. “What?”
“The Mark. You might have drawn more Aurors or even the Order. It’s unlikely our people would respond to it – I only did because I was looking for you already.”
Why were you looking for me? Evan wanted to ask, and yet the words got stuck in his throat somehow. He watched Severus make his way across the room, set the potion-filled cups on the bedside table.
“Try to sit up, but slowly.”
Evan’s body protested every movement, but he gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, pushing himself up into a half sitting position. Severus put a hand on his back to steady him for a moment, and then stuck a couple of pillows behind him, so that Evan could lie back against them, while still remaining half-sitting. His hands were cool, the way Severus’ hands always were, and painfully familiar. Evan did not dare look at him.
Severus handed him one of the cups. “Drink it. Then the other.”
Evan looked down into the fizzing potion. Outside of battle squad duties, Severus had been assigned to assist at the Lab but never with the medics. Yet his healing potions were as effective as all his other ones. Evan took a small, cautious sip.
Beside him, Severus let out a long-suffering sigh. “Rosier, come out with it already. What do you think is in there? Poison? Wouldn’t it have been easier for me to simply leave you to die if I wanted you dead?’ There was a note in Severus’ voice a little too close to hurt.
“Not poison,” Evan allowed. What he wanted to ask was somewhere closer to, you said our people wouldn’t see the Mark as a call for help, but who do you even consider your people these days, Sev? What he actually asked was: “Why were you looking for me?”
Severus scoffed. “You disappeared, Evan. I had no idea where you were, if you were arrested, if… Why did you even go like that?”
Did you betray us? “It wasn’t safe to stay.”
“In our flat?”
“You received Dumbledore’s pardon.” Evan looked around sharply, finally finding it in himself to look Snape in the face. “What was I supposed to think of that?” He gulped down the bitter potion and allowed it to burn through him, not wanting to see the answers in Severus’ eyes.
Severus pried the mug from him and handed him the second. “I should have told you,” he admitted, his voice low. “I know that. It wouldn’t have come as such a shock at least. But it’s some nerve you have to suspect me of all people when you know the way Avery and Lucius are going.”
Evan stared down into the second potion, glowing faintly green, the way the lake would sometimes through the common room windows on a nice day. The grief that filled him at the memory was almost more than he could take, but he was too tired for the anger that ought to follow. “Lucius has a family to take care of. Avery…” He gave a small, bitter laugh. “Jack was never brave. And anyway, I don’t think he expects Dumbledore’s personal pardon, does he?”
“I wish I could tell you.”
“You can but you won’t.”
Severus was quiet for a moment, then said, “Drink the potion, Evan.”
Evan could feel his body slowly relaxing from the first potion he’d downed, the pain in his side and his burned arm, the ribs he probably cracked falling down the basement stairs, slowly fading away, dissolving. At this point, he cared less whether Severus was helping him or not, and more what kind of harm he meant if he meant harm at all. It wasn’t death Evan feared so much as being made into a traitor.
When Severus suddenly took his hand, Evan nearly startled. When he looked up, the boy that looked back at him was the same he’d gone to school with for years, the one he’d fallen in love with somewhere around sixth year, as though the war had never had a chance to truly touch them. “I know how it all looks. I’m sorry. I wish I could explain to you… But you must believe me when I say that I never lied about loving you. Believe anything else you will, but you cannot think I ever lied about that.”
Evan remembered training together, laughing together, long nights sprawled across Evan’s bed in his childhood bedroom during the summers – just talking, much shorter nights kissing and making love in their shared London flat. He remembered Severus coming to him when his father got too handsy and when he got accosted by Potter’s gang of morons at school and needed help cleaning up but didn’t want to go to the hospital wing. He remembered the desperate way Severus held him before and after missions.
He remembered, too, a girl with flaming red hair and the besotted way Severus used to look at her.
I don’t know what I believe anymore. Evan closed his eyes and drank the potion. It burned all the way down his throat, but after his body seemed to feel lighter, his muscles more relaxed. The intense burning and aching in his side faded some more. He felt dizzy, but not in a bad way. Just another healing potion, probably laced with a magic purger. Severus had always been good at those sorts of blends.
Evan allowed himself to relax back into the next of pillows. Through the fog in his head, he felt Severus brush loose strands of hair out of his eyes, then clean the sweat from his face and neck with a moist cloth. His touch was so familiar that if Evan closed his eyes, he could almost pretend they were back in London, in their shared flat, that he simply had the flu or some other pestilence, and that the world wasn’t slowly tearing apart at the seams.
“You should rest, Ev. Moody used his share of battle magic, that cunt. It will take a few cycles for the magic to purge and the healing process to fully take over.”
Evan forced his eyes open even as he began to feel sleep crowding up on him again. “And you?”
Severus shrugged. “I’m not going anywhere. Maybe to get us something to eat. Here, before you sleep.” He held a glass bottle to Evan’s lips, but when he drank it was only water, sweet and pure. Maybe next time he’d stay awake long enough for tea.
“And after that?”
Severus let out a small huff of a sigh, began to run a hand through Evan’s hair, playing with the tips of the curls at his temples. “You should leave the country. Go to the continent, or America better if you can manage it. I’ll try to find out what’s the best way for you to leave.”
Evan swallowed. “Come with me?”
Severus’ hand in his hair stilled, but didn’t disappear. After a pause, he said, “I can’t.”
Evan thought of telling him it wouldn’t feel right to just leave. What about his family? What about everyone else? Barty had said he and the Lestranges were going to find their Lord and bring him back, that he couldn’t truly be gone. But that sounded too much like Barty’s crazy talk.
Truth was, Evan didn’t know what he’d do abroad alone, living under an assumed name. Even if he could get word to his parents, get access to the family accounts abroad… It wasn’t all about the money or the status. How much of a point was there left to living after all this?
As though sensing his thoughts, Severus began to comb through his hair again, voice sad and soft as he said, “Don’t be stupid, alright? If you loved me before…give me the peace of knowing you at least are safe.”
The dark fog was slowly taking over and pulling Evan under. All he was aware of now was Severus’ hand in his hair, Severus’ voice saying, if you loved me before, and a dreadful need to have some sort of purpose again, even if it was for the benefit of someone else. Perhaps someone he ought to hate. “I’ll go, Sev.”
Just before finally tumbling headfirst into sleep, Evan felt Severus press a gentle kiss against his lips.