Seven of Wands
Title: Non Timeo Mortem
Author: eternaleponine
Type: Fiction
Length: 1072 words
Main character: Evan Rosier
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter and his world. I'm just borrowing them.
Warnings: Character Death
Summary: Evan Rosier faces off against six aurors in the aftermath of the fall of Voldemort.
Card Interpretation: A man defends himself with one wand against six others. This is the "under siege" card. The stakes are high, and the querent is under attack; even worse, the odds are against him. This is where the energy you've been using to create must be used to defend what you've created.
Author Notes: Thank you to tryslora and graeae for beta reading.
It wasn't supposed to end like this.
It wasn't supposed to end at all.
*
They'd stood side by side in line to be Sorted, Evan Rosier and Severus Snape, declared Slytherin one after the other.
At eleven, Evan had seen a kindred spirit when he looked at the skinny, pale, greasy-haired boy with the heretofore unknown surname of Snape. The rest of the house looked on him with varying degrees of suspicion. With no known heritage on which to judge him, he was a wild card that might topple the precarious balance of the house they had been building one club, diamond and spade at a time since birth. (Hearts didn't enter into it if one had any sense at all.)
Although he was not precisely shunned, the other first years gave Severus a wide berth. His face was fixed in a perpetual scowl, so perhaps that suited him fine. Evan, on the other hand, they did shun. His father was a social bumbler with no real power or influence. He was prone to making ill-conceived statements and even worse jokes at the worst possible times, and choosing the opportunities he pursued poorly. Evan doubted that there was a single child there who hadn't overheard the tale of one gaff or another. It put him at the bottom of the heap, and while he did not like it, he also knew better than to be seen to be trying too hard to change that fact. That was, after all, his father's biggest problem, wasn't it?
Mutually ostracized, it seemed natural enough that the boys would seek each other out. It started as a partnership in every class that required it, and grew to a complex tangle of rivalry and respect, constantly pushing themselves and each other to do more, and better. For Severus that meant coming up with new curses and mastering potions far above his expected level. For Evan, it meant maintaining top marks and winning a position on the house Quidditch team.
Evan had always thought of love as some silly notion dreamed up by the feeble-minded to give them something to aspire to when money, fame, and power fell through. Pureblood marriage, or at least the sort that he was familiar with, was about politics, not love. Certainly it had never entered into the equation with his parents; his mother hated his father and did not bother to disguise that fact except when there were others around to see. Evan's existence was a necessary evil, an heir to a name that dropped steadily in everyone's estimation the longer his father was responsible for upholding it.
As a result he'd been wholly unprepared when he'd fallen - unceremoniously, terrifyingly and irretrievably - for his best friend.
It hadn't mattered, of course. To Severus, Evan would never be anything more than a friend. So he'd pushed the feelings down, swallowed the words that rose to the very tip of his tongue sometimes, the ones that would have declared himself competition for his friend's precious Lily Evans. The last thing he wanted was to destroy the only true friendship he'd ever had over something so trivial as the desire for physical affection.
They'd stood side by side, shoulders pressed together against the pain as marks black as death were carved into their arms with the tip of a wand.
Evan had tried to stand at his friend's side when the world came down around their ears and all hope of the future they'd been promised was shattered by the infant offspring of Severus's Lily and James bloody Potter. He'd tried to comfort him in the aftermath of her death, but of course he wasn't enough. He'd never been enough.
*
No, this wasn't how it was supposed to go. With the Dark Lord gone, their fellowship was shattered, and all the faithful scattered and gone into hiding like so many snakes in the grass. It was every man for himself, and Evan Rosier stood alone, one man facing off against six, and knew he would die.
But not for himself. Not for the Dark Lord either, although he knew that was the assumption that would be made. If he'd gotten everything wrong up until this point, this, at least, he could get right. He only hoped that Severus would understand.
"Put down your wand, boy, and no one will get hurt."
Evan's eyes fixed on the Auror who had growled the words. It had to be the one that they called Mad-Eye, with a face like that. He laughed. What else could he do? They didn't actually think he was stupid enough to believe that he could come out of this unharmed, did they?
Even if he left the grounds unscathed - he'd met them in front of the house, the bulk of Rosier Manor at his back - they would do whatever it took to get the information they wanted from him. They wanted names. They were 'inclined to be lenient' with those who gave up their fellows, and many were doing so. Why else would he be in this stand-off? He wasn't stupid enough to get caught on his own.
It didn't matter that it was only one name out of dozens that mattered. It didn't matter that it was likely that someone else would spill it.
"There are six of us and one of you," Mad-Eye snarled. "Those aren't good odds, boy."
Evan could not disagree. They were very bad odds indeed, if one wanted to live.
"Non timeo mortem," he said, and smiled as the Aurors looked around, trying to figure out what spell he had invoked. He waited for them to realize that nothing was going to happen, to focus their attention back on him.
Slowly, deliberately, he pointed his wand at the center of the group, and uttered the words that he knew they had been preparing for from the beginning: "Avada kedavra!"
The spell shattered against hastily raised shielding charms, fragments slipping through cracks but most of it rebounding back, as he'd known it would. Electric green shards of light split the darkness that surrounded them, but lent no heat to the cold air.
Everything was perfectly still. There was no sound, no movement, nothing at all in that moment that stretched into an eternity. Evan Rosier spread his arms and did for Severus what Lily would never have done. Perhaps, finally, it would be enough.
Author: eternaleponine
Type: Fiction
Length: 1072 words
Main character: Evan Rosier
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter and his world. I'm just borrowing them.
Warnings: Character Death
Summary: Evan Rosier faces off against six aurors in the aftermath of the fall of Voldemort.
Card Interpretation: A man defends himself with one wand against six others. This is the "under siege" card. The stakes are high, and the querent is under attack; even worse, the odds are against him. This is where the energy you've been using to create must be used to defend what you've created.
Author Notes: Thank you to tryslora and graeae for beta reading.
It wasn't supposed to end like this.
It wasn't supposed to end at all.
*
They'd stood side by side in line to be Sorted, Evan Rosier and Severus Snape, declared Slytherin one after the other.
At eleven, Evan had seen a kindred spirit when he looked at the skinny, pale, greasy-haired boy with the heretofore unknown surname of Snape. The rest of the house looked on him with varying degrees of suspicion. With no known heritage on which to judge him, he was a wild card that might topple the precarious balance of the house they had been building one club, diamond and spade at a time since birth. (Hearts didn't enter into it if one had any sense at all.)
Although he was not precisely shunned, the other first years gave Severus a wide berth. His face was fixed in a perpetual scowl, so perhaps that suited him fine. Evan, on the other hand, they did shun. His father was a social bumbler with no real power or influence. He was prone to making ill-conceived statements and even worse jokes at the worst possible times, and choosing the opportunities he pursued poorly. Evan doubted that there was a single child there who hadn't overheard the tale of one gaff or another. It put him at the bottom of the heap, and while he did not like it, he also knew better than to be seen to be trying too hard to change that fact. That was, after all, his father's biggest problem, wasn't it?
Mutually ostracized, it seemed natural enough that the boys would seek each other out. It started as a partnership in every class that required it, and grew to a complex tangle of rivalry and respect, constantly pushing themselves and each other to do more, and better. For Severus that meant coming up with new curses and mastering potions far above his expected level. For Evan, it meant maintaining top marks and winning a position on the house Quidditch team.
Evan had always thought of love as some silly notion dreamed up by the feeble-minded to give them something to aspire to when money, fame, and power fell through. Pureblood marriage, or at least the sort that he was familiar with, was about politics, not love. Certainly it had never entered into the equation with his parents; his mother hated his father and did not bother to disguise that fact except when there were others around to see. Evan's existence was a necessary evil, an heir to a name that dropped steadily in everyone's estimation the longer his father was responsible for upholding it.
As a result he'd been wholly unprepared when he'd fallen - unceremoniously, terrifyingly and irretrievably - for his best friend.
It hadn't mattered, of course. To Severus, Evan would never be anything more than a friend. So he'd pushed the feelings down, swallowed the words that rose to the very tip of his tongue sometimes, the ones that would have declared himself competition for his friend's precious Lily Evans. The last thing he wanted was to destroy the only true friendship he'd ever had over something so trivial as the desire for physical affection.
They'd stood side by side, shoulders pressed together against the pain as marks black as death were carved into their arms with the tip of a wand.
Evan had tried to stand at his friend's side when the world came down around their ears and all hope of the future they'd been promised was shattered by the infant offspring of Severus's Lily and James bloody Potter. He'd tried to comfort him in the aftermath of her death, but of course he wasn't enough. He'd never been enough.
*
No, this wasn't how it was supposed to go. With the Dark Lord gone, their fellowship was shattered, and all the faithful scattered and gone into hiding like so many snakes in the grass. It was every man for himself, and Evan Rosier stood alone, one man facing off against six, and knew he would die.
But not for himself. Not for the Dark Lord either, although he knew that was the assumption that would be made. If he'd gotten everything wrong up until this point, this, at least, he could get right. He only hoped that Severus would understand.
"Put down your wand, boy, and no one will get hurt."
Evan's eyes fixed on the Auror who had growled the words. It had to be the one that they called Mad-Eye, with a face like that. He laughed. What else could he do? They didn't actually think he was stupid enough to believe that he could come out of this unharmed, did they?
Even if he left the grounds unscathed - he'd met them in front of the house, the bulk of Rosier Manor at his back - they would do whatever it took to get the information they wanted from him. They wanted names. They were 'inclined to be lenient' with those who gave up their fellows, and many were doing so. Why else would he be in this stand-off? He wasn't stupid enough to get caught on his own.
It didn't matter that it was only one name out of dozens that mattered. It didn't matter that it was likely that someone else would spill it.
"There are six of us and one of you," Mad-Eye snarled. "Those aren't good odds, boy."
Evan could not disagree. They were very bad odds indeed, if one wanted to live.
"Non timeo mortem," he said, and smiled as the Aurors looked around, trying to figure out what spell he had invoked. He waited for them to realize that nothing was going to happen, to focus their attention back on him.
Slowly, deliberately, he pointed his wand at the center of the group, and uttered the words that he knew they had been preparing for from the beginning: "Avada kedavra!"
The spell shattered against hastily raised shielding charms, fragments slipping through cracks but most of it rebounding back, as he'd known it would. Electric green shards of light split the darkness that surrounded them, but lent no heat to the cold air.
Everything was perfectly still. There was no sound, no movement, nothing at all in that moment that stretched into an eternity. Evan Rosier spread his arms and did for Severus what Lily would never have done. Perhaps, finally, it would be enough.