Six months earlier…
Dumbledore paced the expanse of his study before his Potions master, his typically calming demeanor momentarily at a loss. Black eyes followed the to and fro progressions of the Headmaster, hidden behind an even blacker curtain of greasy hair. Snape let a small breath escape before silently taking in another, his face a stoic mask of disdain that would never to betray the truth. Not that it mattered, Dumbledore knew everything; the one wizard that knew his true motivations.
“The final confrontation is coming, Severus. I can feel it. Young Malfoy becomes more desperate by the day. When that moment comes and his conviction fails him, I must have your word that you will carry out Narcissa’s Unbreakable Vow. I must have your word that you will be the one to kill me.”
Wincing mentally at what was being asked of him, Snape answered with a curl of his lip, “As you wish, Headmaster.”
Dumbledore halted mid-pace to give Snape a pained look, his blue eyes no longer twinkling.
“It is for the best,” he said softly.
The voice that spoke these words sounded tired, and in that short moment in which the Headmaster let his resolve falter, the deep wrinkles and long, white hair that usually reminded one of ancient wisdom merely spoke of profound age. He truly looked like an old man. Snape remained silent. Neither of them wanted this, but both knew it must be done. As quick as the look passed between the two men, Dumbledore’s eyes snapped back to the direction of his pacing.
“Once I am gone, you must always be on the lookout for the signs, Severus. Your part in this is the most crucial. You are the only one that is close enough to notice if he may have found out they have gone missing.”
He had heard it all before, dozens of times. No one could possibly want to follow through with this plan more than he; his chance for redemption was close at hand, his last chance. As Dumbledore’s words blurred into a drone at the front of his mind, he noticed the Headmaster absently rubbing his decaying right hand with his good one, a sure sign that his potion was wearing off.
“Please, sir,” he interrupted Dumbledore’s train of thought, eager to change the subject, “Allow me to brew you another batch of your potion. Without it, you are merely causing yourself unnecessary discomfort as the curse spreads.”
Waving off the gesture with his good hand, the Headmaster circled his desk to sit and rest a moment. Pacing took a lot more out of him than it used to; Snape knew there was little time left for him. At that moment, a searing burn radiated from Snape’s left forearm as if touched with a red-hot iron. The pain was brief, but he grabbed his arm in an attempt to dampen to feeling. A heavy dread stole over him, as it always did when he when he had to continue this charade, the only prize being his continued existence.
Raising his eyebrows expectantly, Dumbledore spoke in a careful voice.
“If he is calling, you must go,” he said simply.
Shooting a look of pure contempt at the Headmaster, Snape’s arm snapped back to his side before he turned on his heel. Fighting the familiar wave of nausea, he used the time it took to exit the castle to mentally prepare.
Present Day…
The first sign came as a general mood shift. The Dark Lord was constantly angrier than usual and could never be pleased. He became paranoid, sending out curses left and right. Unwilling to ask what distressed him, most of his followers attempted to stay clear of his smiting path.
It was the second sign that Dumbledore had warned him of that really took hold of Snape’s attention. Voldemort began to carry Nagini everywhere with him, never letting her out of his sight during the last couple of days. He killed Travers for seemingly no reason at all when the snake slithered up to the Death Eater during a meeting, and Travers allowed his hand to run over its scaly head.
Then Voldemort simply disappeared for the entire day, after which he brought back a souvenir. The Dark Lord never took prisoners, which could only mean he intended to trap someone. So this was how he planned to lure Potter.
Little Ginny Weasley was brought in by the Dark Lord himself, much to the amused and hungry stares of those watching her being roughly thrown at Snape’s feet in the main assembly room. She remained on the floor, motionless and breathing rapidly. Snape spit on her for good measure, and then bowed to acknowledge this gift from its bearer. Voldemort narrowed his red eyes at his right-hand man, his white face stoic.
“Keep careful watch over this filth. And Severus,” Voldemort lifted the snake from around his neck and handed it to Snape, who promptly set it around his own shoulders without hesitation, “do keep her safe. I will not be long.”
Without another word, Voldemort swept back out the way he had come. He had handed Nagini over to Snape for safe keeping, the one indisputable sign that he had discovered the absences of his Horcruxes and intended to kill Potter before any more of them were destroyed.
“Hello, pretty.” Greyback was the first to approach their victim. He crouched next to her, running a long nail harshly across her face. Her breathing quickened audibly as a soft squeak escaped her throat. The werewolf threw back his head and let loose a throaty howl that sounded like laughter, the surrounding Death Eaters joining in as they drew in closer around Greyback, Snape, and Ginny. This was going to be tricky.
“Enough!” Snape snarled, pulling Ginny to her feet with a fistful of her hair. A louder sound of pain left her lips as she reluctantly climbed to her feet, her hands coming up to pull at the fingers tightly wrapped into her red tresses. She kept her eyes tightly shut. “I should hardly think our Lord would want a disgusting animal to ruin my gift.”
“Your gift?” Greyback exclaimed in his raspy voice as he stood up, his rank breath hissing around the yellow teeth he now bared. “She’s hardly just for you!”
Immediately drawing his wand, he sent the werewolf flying backwards, slamming him hard against the wall, a canine yelp emitted through his fangs. Greyback then lay quite still on the floor.
“I’m sorely disappointed,” Snape said gravely as his eyes scanned the crowd. No one else dared to stand up to Voldemort’s most trusted servant, not when the Dark Lord was on such a violent rampage. “I was willing to share some of my oldest mead in celebration.” He shook his fistful of hair to indicate what they would be celebrating, causing Ginny’s body to wobble unsteadily on her feet, and she whimpered.
“Don’t let that thing ruin your fun, Severus!” Avery exclaimed heartily. “Come lads, we’ll drink to your good fortune, now won’t we?”
There was a murmur of agreement, for they all knew it was best not to disagree.
Snape smiled wickedly. He released Ginny from his grip and the girl promptly fell to the floor, tears leaking from beneath her closed eyelids. With a wave of his wand, he summoned a bottle of mead from his private stores. Pouring each of them a small amount into their individually conjured goblets, he visibly poured a generous amount in his own before turning to set the bottle on the nearest table. What the mindlessly trusting Death Eaters couldn’t see with his back turned was the swift way in which he waved his wand over his cup, making every last drop of the dark liquid disappear before turning back around. He raised his goblet high, and then looked down at the girl cowering before him.
“To you, my dear,” he announced sardonically with a sneer, and then pretended to drain his empty goblet.
Twelve more goblets found lips to empty the fatal liquid into, and almost instantaneously, twelve lifeless bodies hit the floor. As Greyback began to stir from unconsciousness, Snape promptly put a stop to his movements.
“Avada Kedavra!”
Ginny’s eyes finally snapped open as the deadly green light crossed her line of vision and the werewolf was struck before he had even begun to stand, put to sleep forever. Snape’s black eyes, so conditioned with malice it was hard to soften them in hopes to calm the terrified child, found Ginny’s and he stooped to help her to her feet. Opening her mouth to let out a scream, she flinched as he quickly moved closer. He clamped a hand over her mouth hastily before any sound escaped, hardly wanting the rest of the house alerted to the disturbance.
“Quiet, Miss Weasley, we’re very short on time!” he snapped in a stern voice more fitting for a Potions professor of a primary Wizarding school.
He pulled her to her feet, and then proceeded to procure from his robes a special blade that he kept on his person for precisely this moment. Ginny watched with wide eyes, shocked into stillness, as he lifted the heavy snake from his shoulders and rested it onto the table. Slithering in protest of being moved from her comfortable perch, Nagini lifted her head high in the air in question. In one swift movement, Snape lopped off her head with the sharp steel laced in Basilisk venom, and a loud scream seemed to escape the stump of her neck before her long body fell looping around itself, the head landing with fangs bared and eyes open atop the mass of scaly coils.
The Weasley girl continued to stare with her mouth agape, running far away apparently the furthest thing from her mind. He took her arm tightly and Apparated them as close to the gates of Hogwarts as possible. Sending his silver doe Patronus running to the castle with news of Ginny’s presence outside the gate, he then Disapparated away without a second look at her.
Now was the time. There was no turning back.
When he was released from the suffocating darkness, his black eyes swept the area.
“Here Severus, here is where he will most likely draw him to. It is where he was most in control as a child; it is where he will tie his earliest memory of power.” Dumbledore’s words from months before guided him on.
Walking slowly towards edge of the cliff, he attempted to make out a few figures in the thick mist. Suddenly, a loud boom was heard, so amplified that he had to cover his ears. He ran towards the source of the noise in time to glimpse Harry falling over the edge of the cliff and Draco attempting to hold him up. Before his eyes, he saw a mass of blackness enter Harry’s body through his forehead.
“Once Nagini is destroyed, the essence of what remains of his soul will be drawn towards the only part of himself left that is trapped inside Harry. You must allow the essence to enter Harry’s body and rejoin that last bit of soul that must also be destroyed. Tom Riddle will not be able to withstand it for long, for I know that Harry’s mind is too deeply concerned for those that he loves. You must wait for him to be forced out.”
And so he waited, watching from a distance as Draco attempted to pull Harry up, afraid that his sudden appearance would startle him so that he would drop the boy inadvertently. He waited anxiously, for it looked as though Harry was going to fall at any moment. Then, with a sudden burst of red sparks, the dangling boy disappeared from view.
Snape Apparated quickly to a particularly large, flat rock below the edge of the cliff, and then whipped his wand around as rapidly as possible.
“Arresto Momentum!” he cried, his eyes stinging in the violent spray of sea water all around him as he kept his sight on the dark haired teenager.
Harry’s body slowed to a less fatal speed, but one of his legs struck a protruding rock at an odd angle, and Snape could faintly hear the crunch of a breaking bone. Levitating the now unconscious boy to his flat rock, he could feel the cold presence emanating from him. Crouching down to mend the broken bone quickly, Snape then revived the boy as the cold waves crashed around them, soaking their clothes to the skin.
The eyes that opened to him were not the brilliant shade of green that had created so much guilt and torment within himself the first time he had laid eyes on the arrogant eleven-year-old. His eyes… her eyes… were gone, covered in an ugly expanse of blackness. The fiend had taken her life so long ago due to Snape’s own stupidity and cowardice, but he would not let him take her son, not when he could still see so much of her through his eyes. It was a pity the boy had so much of his father’s face, but Snape could not bear it if he had to watch Lily Evan’s eyes disappear before his very own.
“Potter! Wake up, Potter!” he yelled as he smacked the boy on the side of his face.
“Severus,” the voice that came from Harry’s mouth was much higher than usual, and created a chill that ran down the length of his spine. “What happened to Nagini?”
“Snape?” a completely different voice, the voice of a scared, young child then followed, the black eyes staring lifelessly upward into nothing. “I can’t get him out. I can’t remember them–”
“You’re a fool, Harry Potter! Give up, there is nothing left for you here,” Harry cut himself off in the higher voice as his eyebrows involuntarily contracted in rage above his empty eyes.
“If Tom is strong enough, he will attempt to block Harry’s memory of his friends. It will be up to you to help him remember, so that Harry might find the strength in his memories to fight.”
“Ronald Weasley!” Snape yelled into Harry’s vacant face. “He has red hair, and a large family. The two of you constantly disregard school rules. Hermione Granger! She’s an insufferable know-it-all and always has her nose in a book. Ginevra Weasley! Mr. Weasley’s younger sister, she is safe and back at the castle–”
“Ron,” Harry responded mechanically in his own voice. “He’s my best mate, always there for me. He loves Hermione, but he pretends he doesn’t. Ginevra…” He trailed off for a moment. “Ginevra… Molly… Weasley. She’s okay, she’s safe. Ginny.” Harry’s eyes closed as a small smile crept across his face. Snape began to panic.
“AAAAGGGHHHH!” Harry screamed so suddenly that Snape nearly fell off the rock, the haunted eyes remaining closed.
Out of his open mouth came a torrent of black smoke, and Snape stood to ready himself for the moment he had been waiting for. As the last of the smoke cleared Harry’s body, Snape struck.
“Everto Anima!” he shouted, the power of his spell encircling the dark mass, encasing it, compressing it smaller and smaller until it was crushed into oblivion. It was done.
Snape heaved a deep sigh of relief as he collapsed onto the rock beside the boy, who had opened his eyes again. They were back to his mother’s shade of emerald green, but Snape refused to let the elation filling his chest to be seen on his sallow face. Harry sat up slowly, eyeing him with apprehension.
“You couldn’t have known everything you needed to know to destroy him without Dumbledore’s help, could you?” he asked loudly over the waves crashing noisily around them.
Snape looked away, wiping the dripping water from his face with one large hand.
“And you couldn’t have stayed alive this long with the Death Eaters unless you had really proven yourself,” Harry mused to himself, since Snape felt no need to answer as long correct observations were made.
“He wasn’t begging for his life, was he? He was begging for you to kill him.”
“Dumbledore was dying,” Snape finally spoke up at this blunt remark, his features tight and his eyebrows contracted in discomfort. “He insisted that I kill him, said he wanted to make his death useful for me.” His chest felt tense; it was awkward talking about these things aloud after all this time, especially with the seventeen-year-old that he had despised for so long, that he had been appointed to protect by the remorse in his black heart.
“Is he gone… from me?” Harry asked tentatively, putting a hand on his own chest.
“Try speaking Parseltongue,” Snape suggested impatiently; it was rather obvious.
After making a few hissing noises, Harry allowed a large, relieved grin to spread across his face.
“I can’t do it! He’s really gone!”
Snape climbed to his feet, trying not to slip on the wet rock. “Can you Apparate?”
“Yea, I’ve had some practice,” Harry announced smugly.
Snape wrinkled his nose in annoyance at the comment. “Then good luck to you.”
The two figures on the rock disappeared from sight, and the waves continued to thrash about, oblivious at having witnessed a scene that would be marked in Wizarding history books for hundreds of years to come.
Author notes: See? I didn't kill off Harry! You think I'd make it that easy for Ginny to stay with Draco? :-)
BTW, everto anima came from me using a latin dictionary, everto meaning destroy and anima meaning soul. The spell destorys souls outside the body, so it can be used to destroy ghosts; I imagine it to work much like the Dementor's Kiss.
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