[From Samhain to the Solstice]: All Men Kill The Things They Love, Harry/Snape, R, 4/4

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Three.

Part One.

Title: All Men Kill the Things They Love (4/4)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Severus
Content Notes: AU (Severus survives), multiple character deaths, suicide, gore, violence, angst
Rating: R
Wordcount: This part 3800
Summary: After the war, the last thing Severus wants to do is help Potter. But Potter’s tale of a curse that has killed almost everyone he loves, and his plea for help to break that curse, stirs Severus’s intellectual curiosity, if nothing else. As he and Potter work side-by-side on the curse, however, Severus begins to suspect, uneasily, that Potter may want to do more than simply prevent the number of dead from increasing; he may want to bring them back.
Author’s Notes: This is the first of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” fics being posted between Halloween and the winter solstice. It is, as you can see from the notes, an extremely dark story. It should have four parts, to be posted over the next four days. The title is from Oscar Wilde’s poem “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” quoted below and at the end.

Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the end of the story.

Part Four

Severus came out of his bedroom the next morning just in time to see Potter press his lips to the Elder Wand and lay it on the kitchen counter. Severus’s spine prickled all over, and he stared at Potter until he turned around.

At least he’s wearing clothes this time, Severus thought as he stalked over to the other side of the kitchen and began to make himself tea. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“The Wand is listening to me.”

Severus let his eyebrows creep up, although he didn’t stop making the tea. “Then you think you can persuade it to let you go and break the curse?”

“Breaking the curse would do less good now than it would have done once.” Potter seemed to slump over. “I did think that I would break it before it could grab hold of Teddy.”

Severus grimaced to himself and reached out to pat Potter’s shoulder, although everything in him wanted to flinch away from the contact. “I’m sure that you-that you managed to-that his shade will forgive you.”

“I hope it will.”

Potter’s voice sounded oddly cheerful. Severus continued to eye him throughout the morning as he worked on the potions that would be-could be, if it was Potter’s actual intention-used in a curse-breaking circle, and watched Potter.

Potter hummed under his breath. Potter drew circles on parchments. Potter spoke to the Cloak and the Stone in the same way, holding out his palm so that the Stone dropped into it and cradling the Cloak in his arms. And the whole time, he had the black book by his side.

The black book that had nothing but nonsense in it.

Severus frowned and shook his head, fastening his eyes on his cauldron again. It wouldn’t do to get distracted by the nonsense from his conviction that Potter planned to bring back Inferi and even try to sacrifice Severus himself to do it.

But the emotion that primarily swamped Severus now was pity.

*

“And you have learned nothing from young Harry?”

Severus snorted bitterly, even as he checked over his shoulder to make sure that Minerva hadn’t come through the Floo. It was exactly like Albus’s portrait to refer to Potter as “young Harry,” even when Severus had told the thing of his convictions.

“I know that he is grieving,” Severus said. “He said that he didn’t intend to bring back his friends and family as Inferi and it didn’t register as a lie to me, but that only means that he has learned to speak in such a way as to fool my Legilimency.”

Albus’s portrait hummed and cast a mournful glance at Minerva’s desk, which had a bowl of lemon drops on it. Severus found himself hoping it was tribute, and not a way to torture the portrait, although, honestly, that would be most unlike Minerva. “Have you considered that he is telling you the truth?”

“But then why gather the dust and bones from his friends’ tombs? From yours?”Severus added, because he thought the man was too little disturbed by that.

“Perhaps he does need it for the curse-breaking, just as he told you. Wasn’t that his motivation? Breaking the curse, not bringing them back?”

“I can’t think of any curse that could be broken that way.”

“Ah, but you haven’t heard of everything that could be done, Severus, for all your expertise.” Albus’s eyes had an annoying tendency to shine even when they didn’t twinkle. “And you said that the necromantic circles he was drawing, the ones that you saw several days ago, were odd in some fashion. Perhaps they aren’t necromantic circles at all?”

“Then what are they?”

“I don’t know.”

“Old man,” Severus hissed, leaning close to the portrait and doing his best to ignore Albus’s smile, “if you know something, then you should tell me. Do you have any idea of the damage Potter could do by bringing those Inferi back? Surely not even you would smile if one of them got loose in Hogwarts.”

At least that did make the portrait lose his smile, but he sighed and shook his head. “I can’t believe it of young Harry, no matter how far gone in grief he is. That he would release one of them inside Hogwarts, I mean. I simply can’t believe it.”

“You may not have a choice if-”

“Albus? Is someone here?”

Severus had become too involved in the quarrel with Albus, and missed the moment when Minerva came up the moving stairs. At least he still had his Disillusionment Charm on, and he had been whispering harshly at Albus, not shouting. He moved around her while Albus chattered at her and asked about the lemon drops again, and only relaxed when he was on the moving staircase himself, heading down.

Albus couldn’t help. Or, more to the point, wouldn’t help, given that he still had the best opinion possible of a Potter who had done such mad things as this one had done. Which left-what? What could Severus do that he hadn’t done?

And then it came to him, and he sighed. Such direct confrontations were foreign to his nature, but he had already directly spoken to Potter about his supposed plan to bring his friends back as Inferi. What was this but one more continuation of that?

*

“Professor Snape?”

Severus stalked around Potter, whom he had bound to the chair in the drawing room where he was most prone to sit while pondering over that black book. “I want answers from you. You said that you don’t plan to bring your friends back as Inferi. What do you plan to do instead?”

Potter stared at him with huge dark eyes that were more black than green and shook his head a little. “Nothing that requires this level of bondage,” he said, and eyed the ropes that were tying him.

Severus hissed. That wasn’t an answer. He moved closer, and put his hand around Potter’s throat, squeezing a little. Potter only looked at him calmly, and Severus supposed that he had the right to, given that such a thing couldn’t kill him.

“Tell me.”

“Break the curse.”

Severus cursed himself, and flung his hand away from Potter’s throat to stalk around the chair again. “You have answered that and answered that and answered that! I want you to tell me what specific things you are undertaking to break the curse.”

Potter considered him, and then nodded. “I suppose that you have the right to know.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Given that I’ve wasted so much of your time.”

“What is that supposed to mean, Potter?”

Potter smiled at him, and Severus saw the shadows bleeding away from his shoulders, stretching towards the walls, forming those great wing-like shapes that Severus had thought were the wings of an angel of death. Now, he saw them clearly, if only in silhouette, and he realized they were leathery-looking, like the wings of a bat.

Or a dragon.

“Having you brew the potions and look things up for me that weren’t really relevant,” Potter said softly. “But thank you for finding the inscriptions on the Hallows. I wouldn’t have thought to look for them there, and they did tell me how to move forwards.”

The wings fluttered, and all his bonds on Potter simply-vanished. Potter stood up, and he was taller, the way he had looked more than once before, and smiling with that rictus-like expression.

Severus reached for his wand.

Potter breathed out, once, and Severus’s wand broke in his hand. Severus was left staring at the splinters of ebony standing out around the wound in his hand for a moment.

Too long.

Potter’s shadows grabbed him, and the Cloak rose up around their heads like an awning, and the Wand settled into Potter’s hand, and the Stone hovered above his left hand, orbiting it when he moved.

Potter said something in a language that wasn’t Parseltongue or Latin or English, a language that sounded like someone choking to death on a lungful of soup, and the floor flared and shifted with light. Severus heard soft, sharp rustles, and looked down.

The drifts of black rose petals that he had found on the floor the other day-and it abruptly occurred to him that he hadn’t even cleaned them up, and why not?-were moving, rotating in circles. From the cauldron in the lab that Severus had shed his blood into, and hadn’t cleaned up, either, there came a deep bubbling. And there was a soft, deep calling underneath all that that Severus knew, without knowing how he knew, came from the symbol of the Deathly Hallows Potter had trampled in the nightshade.

“The circle is here,” Potter said gently. “It always was. It was simply too big for you to see it.”

And then the shadows scooped Severus up, and hauled him outside.

*

The circle went all the way around the cottage, from what Severus could tell, formed from black rose petals that he hadn’t even noticed, and centered on the smaller rings inside the house. And the cauldron with the blood in it stood in one section of the circle, and the nightshade symbol was in the center, and Severus was staked out there, bound with silver ropes of the same kind he had conjured the night he and Potter had sex. He was stretched, spread-eagled, bonds curled around his hands that held them open, his legs spread.

Severus was alive with rage and hatred and fear that made him throw himself against his bonds.

This did not a bit of good. The ropes against his wrists, in particular, were cold with something that Severus thought was the power of Death, and made him numb almost instantly.

“You don’t need to worry about me hurting you,” Potter said, pausing for a moment in walking around the circle to look at Severus with those bright, blank eyes. “Killing you is the last thing I want.”

Severus stared at him, and had to open his teeth, which were clenched shut on his tongue, before he could say anything. “You are going to sacrifice me.”

“Well, yes,” Potter conceded, as if it was a minor consideration.

Severus gathered up all the magic that had ever brimmed in his hands, the kind that he had used most often on brewing potions and creating new spells, and tried to fling it at Potter. It fizzled out and danced and dashed into the bonds around his wrists. Severus closed his eyes and tried to master his immense frustration.

“Mors,” Potter breathed, scattering more of the black rose petals over Severus’s chest.

Severus’s eyes snapped open again. Maybe he could at least disrupt Potter’s ritual, even though he no longer thought he could save himself. He blew, as hard as he could.

The black rose petals trembled, but didn’t scatter. Potter shook his head and laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said. “In a few minutes, you’ll have all the breath that you could want.”

A few minutes? All the rituals Severus knew of took longer than that-

And then he remembered how long Potter’s ritual had been in progress, with the scattering of ingredients around the house and the building of circles that he hadn’t even been aware of, and the intense despair overwhelmed him again.

Potter clucked his tongue. “Look, despair isn’t appropriate right now,” he said, strewing more rose petals around Severus’s head and arms and then his body, outlining him. Severus had no idea what they were for, but then, he didn’t have to know. He supposed he would die with his curiosity unsatisfied. “Maybe after the ritual is finished.”

Severus laughed hollowly. “Do the dead feel despair?”

“Oh, yes,” Potter said very softly. “They can.”

Severus swallowed, wondering if he would be one of the spirits that Potter summoned with the Resurrection Stone. Would he have to watch as the Inferi that Potter had raised rampaged across the country and devoured Muggles and wizards alike? Would he have to watch as Hogwarts burned?

It seemed odd to him, for a moment, that he would care so much about that, but then he shook his head. He had fought long enough to keep the castle standing. It was natural that he would have an interest in what happened to it.

“Will you summon me back to watch the destruction?” Severus asked, craning his neck enough so that he could see Potter as he stepped away from the rose petals. “Or will you promise that you’ll keep the Inferi away from Hogwarts?”

Potter clucked his tongue again. The sound was deeper than it should have been, bouncing echoes from walls that weren’t there. “I told you before, Snape. I’m not summoning Inferi.”

“There’s nothing else you can be doing,” Severus snapped. Stubborn to the last, he thought, and he wasn’t sure if he was talking about Potter or himself. “If you won’t make the promise, will you at least tell me how you managed to sound like you were telling the truth when you claimed that you weren’t resurrecting the dead? I can usually tell when someone is lying, but it sounded like you were telling the truth.”

“That’s because I was.”

Severus shut his eyes. Fine. Potter was too deep in madness to make any promises, to tell the truth, to do anything but sacrifice Severus.

Potter began to chant, softly. The words were once more in that language he had used before that didn’t sound like Parseltongue or Latin or English. Now and then, however, Severus caught the edge of a syllable he understood. He supposed the black book couldn’t have been entirely in another language, or Potter, dunderhead that he was, wouldn’t have been able to master the incantations.

The thought of the book cheered Severus up a little. He decided that there was the chance the ritual wouldn’t work, even if he died, and he might get to watch from the afterlife as Potter raged. It was the only vengeance he could hope for after Potter tore his heart out of his chest, or whatever would really happen.

Maybe Potter would give him this information.

“Tell me how you plan to sacrifice me,” Severus murmured, keeping his eyes shut.

For a long moment, the chant mounted, and he thought Potter would ignore him. But then Potter whispered, “I plan to make you suffer.”

Severus flinched despite himself. He had hoped that the ritual’s short timespan meant that wouldn’t be so. He started to comment again, but something small and hard dropped onto him, startling him so much that he opened his eyes again.

The Resurrection Stone was sitting on his chest.

“I plan to accept what you said about my not being a master.”

The Elder Wand snapped into being above Severus’s eyes, and then dropped and covered his mouth. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t open his mouth under it.

Or stop his mind’s racing. What was Potter doing-

Potter stepped across the border of the circle then, and he was smiling. The black shadows flared above his shoulders, this time once again manifesting as giant hands instead of wings. They reached out and pinned Severus’s hands down more effectively than the bonds had done.

“I plan,” Potter whispered, “to die.”

The Invisibility Cloak appeared, turning and shimmering, beside him, as if draped over an invisible model. Then it flapped over and settled on Severus’s chest, over the Stone that rested-he realized it now-exactly over his heart.

Potter tossed back his head and howled, “It is done!”

The shadowy hands broke away from him, and hovered for a long second. Then they descended, and stretched out along Severus’s arms as if sprouting from his shoulders.

He screamed, despite the fact that the sound rattled in his throat, trapped by the Elder Wand. There was cold rushing over him, and horror, and pain, and the sense of something hovering just beyond sight, and the sudden glimpse of a long life, an immortal life, stretching away in front of him-

Potter had been telling the truth. He had never intended to raise Inferi.

He had transferred the curse.

Severus managed to open his eyes in time to see Potter smile down at him. “Congratulations,” he said, “Master of Death.”

And he took an iron dagger from his pocket, and cut his own throat.

The look in his eyes as he died was joyous.

*

The bonds had melted the moment Potter had died, but Severus had still lain on the earth for a long time before he could stand.

He limped to his feet and stared down at the body. Potter’s chest was motionless under the flow of blood, dark in the moonlight. His hand was still flung out as though reaching towards someone, but the other coiled underneath the dagger.

Severus stared down at him, and understood so much that he hadn’t before.

The words about death that Potter had spoken as Severus had bedded him, and his statement that some of his inaudibly muttered words had been Severus’s name. That made sense if he had been invoking part of the ritual even then, part of making sure the curse transferred “cleanly” to Severus.

The drifts of black rose petals had been part of the circle, of course, and the blood in the cauldron, and the symbol in the garden. Severus had been fully entangled in the ritual by then. He could recognize that, now. He had thought they were strange, but made no move to clean them up. He had only thought that Potter had been lost to madness.

And for that matter, his failure to understand the book and the fact that he hadn’t stopped helping Potter even when he thought Potter was going to sacrifice him were probably part of it, too. The ritual had calmed his mind, made him a more willing victim, drawn him further down and down the path.

Have any of my thoughts since the day Potter first came to visit me been my own?

He hadn’t been able to persuade the Elder Wand because Potter had already persuaded it.

Something draped over his shoulders. Severus glanced to the side, and of course it was the Cloak. In his right hand rested the Wand, and Severus knew without asking that if he tried to buy and use another wand, or repair his ebony one, it would no longer function for him. The Stone was turning, spinning in place in the air, over his left shoulder.

Severus drew a deep, painful breath, and remembered the words Potter had spoken when he had explained why he’d come seeking Severus’s help.

“The curse takes people I love. No chance of that here, Professor Snape.”

Potter had hated him. Or had had an unchanged opinion of him. Or had been so far gone into madness and desire to die, by that point, that he hadn’t really cared who he used as victim, but it had to be someone who would both agree to research further into the curse and wouldn’t have a large network of people who cared for him and would notice the ritual’s odd effects.

And no, Potter had not been lying when he said that he wasn’t trying to resurrect his friends as Inferi.

The fact that Severus had no one who lived nearby meant there was no to hear the maniacal laughter arising from his throat, either.

*

In the crowd that attended Potter’s funeral, it was easy to be one more anonymous, black-cloaked figure at the back.

In the end, it had been easy to deposit Potter’s body on the steps of St. Mungo’s, where he had left the body of Andromeda Tonks, and include the dagger that he had slit his throat with. Death’s Invisibility Cloak had provided Severus abundant protection to pass unnoticed, and he had learned something when he was in the Death Eaters about arranging bodies to look as if they had died in some other way.

And, well, it wasn’t a surprise that Harry Potter had killed himself, was it, after the deaths of all his friends and most of his adopted family?

Severus stood and watched as Potter’s body was lowered into the ground at Godric’s Hollow to rest between those of his parents, watched as people wept about Potter and announced that they wished the “great hero” had turned to them when he became suicidal, watched as everyone stormed and cried and got it wrong.

None of the surviving Weasleys were in attendance, although Severus had heard that the strange disease consuming George Weasley from the inside had vanished as quickly as it had begun.

Severus, himself, was still caught in a frozen tangle of emotions, but one thing was standing out to him. Perhaps the curse was not so bad. He could use immortality as a chance to research all the potions and create all the spells he would never have had time to perfect with a mere mortal lifespan. And it was not as though he had had the abundance of loved ones that Potter did. What could the curse take from him? No one.

It happened as the final wand-flick of dirt descended on the top of Potter’s coffin.

A soft laugh sounded in the back of Severus’s mind. He tilted his head towards it, convinced it was the laughter of the Elder Wand which he had heard once before.

But it sounded higher-pitched and colder. The Cloak trembled on his back, and Severus realized where it was coming from.

Nothing we can take? Are you sure? asked a voice in the back of his head

Severus hadn’t heard it in years, but he knew it immediately. That was Lily’s voice.

A sharp, twisting pain up his arms made him gasp. Severus stared down at his hands, and saw an illusion spread over them, transparent and dancing like St. Elmo’s fire at sea.

He saw his hands twisted with arthritis, knobbed with pain, incapable of brewing.

The grating laughter of the Stone echoed in his ears, and then he heard Draco’s voice, distant but panicked, saying, “Severus? Something has-happened to Scorpius. We don’t know what, we don’t understand what disease this is. Can you help?”

Then there was what he knew for the Wand’s laughter, this time, and in his head, Albus’s portrait burned.

Cursed be he who holds this with the loss of all he loves.

Severus closed his eyes.

*

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
--Yet each man does not die.

The End.