Into the Good Night (Albus, Severus) - commentary
Commentary for Into the Good Night, as requested by quietliban.
Emotionally, this story is my favourite of my own writing. I wrote it in the wake of HBP, and put all of my reactions (both emotional and rational) into it; technically it's not that accomplished - in fact, there's a lot I'd change - but I really let myself relax lyrically, and from that perspective, I don't think I've written anything better since. It's also one of the few fics I've written where I started with the last line and then worked towards it.
Read the fic without commentary here: Into the Good Night.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Albus has many things to accomplish, and his time is running out.
Author's notes: The dialogue in the later sections is taken from chapters 26-27 of HBP. Written for Sioniann as part of the Dumbledore Ficathon on LiveJournal. Many thanks to Incognito for beta-reading!
Albus is fading. There's evil at work inside him, and he can feel it inching towards his heart. It's only in his hand at present - his left hand, thankfully - but he senses its progress day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute.
He isn't too worried, although he wishes he had just a little longer to complete his endeavours.
In his room, in the deserted castle, he continues to spin his plans.
Obviously, I am a proponent of the theory that Dumbledore's hand injury would have killed him anyway. And being Albus, he'll find a way to use that.
≈
There's a knock at the door, and Severus appears, his pale face waxen against the warm glow of the room.
"Albus -" He hesitates.
Albus waves his wand and two goblets appear. Leaning back in his chair, he says, "I've rarely known you at a loss for words, Severus. Do tell."
Severus seats himself but makes no move towards his goblet. Albus has never known Severus to accept a drink in these situations, but he preserves the ritual because he hopes that it maintains the distinction between Severus the child, summoned to answer for his sins, and Severus the adult and, in some ways, friend.
Severus fumbles with his cloak for a few seconds before looking up. He takes a deep breath, and comes straight to the point.
"I fear I've made a mistake. I had visitors yesterday."
He summarises the scene in a few words: a distraught Narcissa, a skeptical Bellatrix, Severus enticed, entrapped, realising an instant too late what he may be required to do.
When he's finished, he sits, ramrod straight, a muscle twitching in his cheek.
Snape was hard to write, but I had a lot more sympathy with him just after reading HBP for the first time than I do now. That's fandom's fault, that is.
Albus observes the younger man for a few seconds as he gathers his thoughts.
"Thank you for telling me this, Severus," he says finally, gratified to note that his voice sounds as serene as ever. "It is always preferable to be warned of these matters."
Severus stares. "Professor, Albus, perhaps my report wasn't quite clear." Another deep breath. "I believe - I strongly suspect - that I have promised to kill you if Draco fails to do so."
"And it is a promise you may well have to keep, Severus." Albus speaks gently, but his words are lined with steel. He takes a sip of mead to soothe his throat before continuing. "I am expendable; you are not." Severus' mouth opens, but Albus holds up an admonitory hand. "Circumstances are conspiring against us, it seems," he continues, "and your position is vital. You must keep your vow, whatever the cost."
Severus' voice is strangled. "How can my position - my life - be worth more than your own? You are the central force…all who hate the Dark Lord follow you!"
Gah, this conversation feels very awkward in retrospect. Such high-faluting prose - but it's JKR who makes them both speak so stiltedly.
Albus rests his withered hand on the desk, glancing down to ensure that it is mostly concealed by his sleeve. "The price may not be as high as you believe, Severus."
"You always play your cards close to your chest!" Severus is angry again; he is always so angry. "All I've wanted for fifteen years was to aid you, and you persist in keeping your plans hidden from me. Ever since Black tried…"
Albus isn't having that. "Sirius is dead now, Severus, and I had hoped that you had laid your grievances against him to rest along with his body."
The disappointment in Albus' tone only seems to frustrate Severus still further. "You don't understand!"
"No, perhaps I don't." For how can he possibly understand this complicated, thorny man, always his most difficult protégé? He can look at the facts: the troubled childhood, painful adolescence, the apparently inevitable immersion in evil, and then emergence, pulled from the miasma by thin ribbons of hope and love. But he cannot hope to understand all the bitterness that lies in the heart of Severus Snape.
Because tell me, who can?
"Let me see that!" Severus' voice, suddenly sharp, interrupts his thoughts. In an instant, he has pushed back his chair and is leaning over Albus, examining the shrivelled skin. When he stands back, there is fear in his eyes for the first time.
"I didn't realise it was so serious."
"Surely you know that Voldemort would exact a high price for a part of his soul," says Albus mildly.
Severus' lips twist in acknowledgement, but he says nothing. It is time to come to the point, Albus decides. He tells Severus what he needs: potions to allow him to fulfil his duties over the next few months; Severus to talk to Draco and persuade him that he has "options, let us say"; and Severus to fulfil his vow to Narcissa Malfoy if it becomes expedient to do so.
Severus gazes at the desk for several seconds before meeting Albus' eyes. The warmth there appears to undo him.
"If you ask this of me," he says slowly, "then I will do it. But are you sure it's the best thing to do?"
"I have no idea what the best thing to do is, Severus," answers Albus. "If it makes you feel better, look at it this way: I am a selfish old man hoping that my death will serve a purpose, if I must die."
I can so imagine Albus putting the situation like that.
Severus looks queasy, and Albus takes pity on him. "Thank you for your report, Severus. Will you stay for dinner?"
"I have business to attend to," says Severus shortly. "I must be going."
He pauses in the doorway. "I'll start working on your potions as soon as I can, but they may be some time. Voldemort's tame spy is enjoying my hospitality at present." His face closes up once more, and he shuts the door behind him.
Another of my pet theories - that Peter is spying on Snape for Voldemort.
≈
Albus is fading, and he knows there's no time to waste. He spends days at a time away from school while he searches for Voldemort's soul, checking artefacts and searching the sites where those whom Voldemort is known to have killed personally were found. Mostly he's alone on these trips, although sometimes Fawkes accompanies him, providing light in dark places. Albus, a garrulous soul whom circumstances have always forced into secrecy, finds himself confiding in the bird's mostly silent presence all the details he's never told Severus Snape, Harry Potter and everyone else who's been part of his struggle to keep the wizarding world safe.
I like this bit - the fact that Albus likes a good cup of tea and a chat, but that there's nothing he has to say that he could tell anyone.
≈
Albus meets with Severus in the freezing forest, but the fresh air no longer rejuvenates him. He's too busy looking out for hostile centaurs and other creatures, and he has little time for Severus' complaints. This is what must be done. You must do it, Severus: you promised, and there is no other way.
Severus looks mutinous, and Albus wonders whether he is pushing him too far. It's the truth, though: this is the only solution that he can see. He reminds Severus of what he owes, why they are here in the first place, and watches the other man's face grow sullen.
"You are placing me in an impossible position," is all he says before he trudges into the darkness.
Poor Severus. I'm sorry. And obviously this is meant to be the bit that Hagrid overhears.
Albus wonders how much Tom hears of their meetings. A certain amount, he is sure, but he will never know precisely what is passed on and what Severus keeps to himself. As he limps towards the castle, he hears a boy's laughter just beyond the silence. He stares through the trees, but there's nothing there, only the unrecalled mischief of long-dead children.
Shades of the Marauders...
≈
Albus is fading: his forearm is completely useless now, and his dreams begin to betray him. They show him all those he has failed to save, among them Lucius Malfoy, James Potter, Sirius Black, Regulus Black, Peter Pettigrew, and always, always Tom Riddle. He thinks of those he is currently attempting to keep safe: Harry, Draco and all the others who will soon have to face responsibility beyond their years. Then there are those he has unwillingly sent into danger: chief among these at present is Remus Lupin, who gazes at Albus with embittered eyes, accusing in dreams as he will never be in life.
Gah, Remus breaks my heart in HBP, especially that Christmas scene where he's staring into the fire. And I can see Dumbledore making him do what he has to do, and yet still feel guilty about it. I imagine Dumbledore feels that he's failed a great many people over the years.
≈
The doorknocker sounds, and another slim, dark-haired boy enters; so many children have trodden this same carpet, and so few are left to his care.
Sybill talks herself out, and then Albus learns that Harry has failed him in what was, admittedly, a difficult mission. This is only the first of many tasks, however, and where will Harry be in a few months if he fails at the first obstacle? Albus allows himself an instant of irritation, but relents at the boy's obvious mortification.
After Harry has gone, Albus remembers the baby boy he left on a doorstep fifteen years ago, despite Minerva's pleading, and wishes with all his heart that he could give Harry a few moments of freedom from his burden. It has not been an easy life, but how could it be otherwise? If Harry is to confront Tom - and it is clear to Albus now that this is what the struggle will come down to - then he must be trained, must endure adversity, must become resourceful. And he needs luck, too, and luck is what saved him when his parents died; luck is what reduced Lord Voldemort to little more than a whisper on the breeze.
Waking now, the images pile up before his eyes: Dorcas Meadows, Lily Evans, her sister Petunia, now Emmeline Vance. Bertha Jorkins. Bellatrix Black.
I had to put Petunia in there, and Bellatrix.
So many dead and so many lost. He sips the latest potion that Severus has delivered, and the visions dissipate somewhat, but part of him is tempted to sit here forever and watch his ghosts parade past. All these he has tried and failed to save.
He's losing himself in guilt.
≈
Albus is fading; in his weaker moments, he sits in his office, no longer spinning his webs but imagining instead the poison as it seeps through his veins. Severus' potions enable him to simulate normality in daylight; but at night, at night there is nothing between Albus and the abyss.
He wakes unrested and continues to work. If his deductions are correct, most of Voldemort's soul is still at large, and so he persists in his search.
≈
Albus gulps down the first gobletful, and wonders exactly what the bitter liquid will do. Nothing good, he's certain, and for an instant he wishes he was with Severus and not a sixteen year old boy. But then he remembers that this is not just any sixteen year old boy
"I am with you, Harry." *sniff*
, and he holds out his hand for the next helping.
The second drink tastes worse than the first, and he has to fight off dizziness. Still, he muses, how bad can it be? Then he remembers Tom sitting in his office, features weirdly distorted by vicious experiments, and he knows that it will be terrible.
He drinks the third lot blindly, concentrating solely on the need to empty the bowl. During the fourth, the cave suddenly tips; Albus thinks it's the dizziness again, but then Harry is gone, and there's a little girl, her blonde hair in plaits, kneeling before a ten year old boy with eyes already too cold. "No, no, no…" she cries, "I can't…I can't, don't make me, I don't want to…"
Then a boy, about the same age as the other, but there is no doubt as to who's in charge here.
"It's all my fault, all my fault," he sobs, "please make it stop, I know I did wrong, oh, please make it stop and I'll never, never again…"
Part of me thinks that these words are Regulus's. But I also like the idea that, in the cave where Tom did whatever he did to those children, the ghosts of their experiences might be here, too.
In another cave, Harry is tipping the seventh gobletful into Albus' mouth, but Albus knows nothing of this, because the scene has shifted and now a young man with familiar features kneels opposite a grown-up Tom.
"Don't hurt them, don't hurt them, please, please, it's my fault, hurt me instead…"
But this bit had to be Regulus, from now until the end of this section.
Albus feels Regulus' terror; he is Regulus, he cannot do this but there is no other way, and -
"Please, please, please, no…not that, not that, I'll do anything…"
Pain, only pain, blinding deafening silencing and then he manages to scream again. "No more, please, no more…"
But there is more; he has only enough breath to plead, "KILL ME!" and then he knows nothing.
≈
Albus is fading faster now. The ache that was in his arm has passed his shoulders and is insinuating itself into his chest; his mind is whirling with the effects of the potion, and he can feel the two poisons striving to combine inside him. He concentrates on what's important: he can save two people tonight, he hopes. Keep Harry safe; talk to Draco. He repeats this in his head, a mantra that allows him to shut out much of the mayhem that is raging elsewhere in his body.
≈
He hears a commotion at the door, and casts his last spell, the one that will keep Harry a silent, immobile witness to events. Then his wand is gone; he can do no more for Harry, and so he concentrates on Draco, who has brought evil into his school tonight, but who may still be saved.
After two minutes of negotiation, he knows he's done enough; Draco's hand is wavering, and Albus is certain that he won't go through with his task, whatever else transpires tonight. Others enter the arena and circle Albus like vultures, taunting and cursing him, but he's done all he can, and he accepts insults from these former pupils with equanimity. He can't save them.
Albus may have a saving people complex, and a guilt one, too, but he knows when to give up.
Finally, the door opens one last time, and Severus stands there, his expression unreadable as ever. Albus strains towards him with the last of his strength, but his mind is beyond reach, and so Albus is forced to use words to remind Severus of his promise.
"Severus…"
Severus pushes past Draco and stares at Albus for a few seconds, his features frozen.
Oh, Severus.
"Severus…please…" Albus says, and feels the younger man's mind open to him, a mass of boiling emotions that nobody else has ever suspected.
"I'm sorry, my boy," he flings silently at Severus.
His answer is a burst of fury and frustration and grief, and then nothing.
As I said at the beginning, I started with the last line (the last two lines, actually), and then basically tried to tell the story of HBP from Albus's POV. I'm quite proud of the ending.
≈
There - I hope that was of interest to somebody!
Also, I was kidnapped 48 hours ago and forced to attend a climbing festival. It was very interesting, apart from the fact that I don't do climbing. But anyway, I'm still behind on the flist, and anything fic-related has gone in a to read file for later. Sorry!
And now I have to do some work. Yes, I know it's Easter Monday.
Emotionally, this story is my favourite of my own writing. I wrote it in the wake of HBP, and put all of my reactions (both emotional and rational) into it; technically it's not that accomplished - in fact, there's a lot I'd change - but I really let myself relax lyrically, and from that perspective, I don't think I've written anything better since. It's also one of the few fics I've written where I started with the last line and then worked towards it.
Read the fic without commentary here: Into the Good Night.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Albus has many things to accomplish, and his time is running out.
Author's notes: The dialogue in the later sections is taken from chapters 26-27 of HBP. Written for Sioniann as part of the Dumbledore Ficathon on LiveJournal. Many thanks to Incognito for beta-reading!
Albus is fading. There's evil at work inside him, and he can feel it inching towards his heart. It's only in his hand at present - his left hand, thankfully - but he senses its progress day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute.
He isn't too worried, although he wishes he had just a little longer to complete his endeavours.
In his room, in the deserted castle, he continues to spin his plans.
Obviously, I am a proponent of the theory that Dumbledore's hand injury would have killed him anyway. And being Albus, he'll find a way to use that.
≈
There's a knock at the door, and Severus appears, his pale face waxen against the warm glow of the room.
"Albus -" He hesitates.
Albus waves his wand and two goblets appear. Leaning back in his chair, he says, "I've rarely known you at a loss for words, Severus. Do tell."
Severus seats himself but makes no move towards his goblet. Albus has never known Severus to accept a drink in these situations, but he preserves the ritual because he hopes that it maintains the distinction between Severus the child, summoned to answer for his sins, and Severus the adult and, in some ways, friend.
Severus fumbles with his cloak for a few seconds before looking up. He takes a deep breath, and comes straight to the point.
"I fear I've made a mistake. I had visitors yesterday."
He summarises the scene in a few words: a distraught Narcissa, a skeptical Bellatrix, Severus enticed, entrapped, realising an instant too late what he may be required to do.
When he's finished, he sits, ramrod straight, a muscle twitching in his cheek.
Snape was hard to write, but I had a lot more sympathy with him just after reading HBP for the first time than I do now. That's fandom's fault, that is.
Albus observes the younger man for a few seconds as he gathers his thoughts.
"Thank you for telling me this, Severus," he says finally, gratified to note that his voice sounds as serene as ever. "It is always preferable to be warned of these matters."
Severus stares. "Professor, Albus, perhaps my report wasn't quite clear." Another deep breath. "I believe - I strongly suspect - that I have promised to kill you if Draco fails to do so."
"And it is a promise you may well have to keep, Severus." Albus speaks gently, but his words are lined with steel. He takes a sip of mead to soothe his throat before continuing. "I am expendable; you are not." Severus' mouth opens, but Albus holds up an admonitory hand. "Circumstances are conspiring against us, it seems," he continues, "and your position is vital. You must keep your vow, whatever the cost."
Severus' voice is strangled. "How can my position - my life - be worth more than your own? You are the central force…all who hate the Dark Lord follow you!"
Gah, this conversation feels very awkward in retrospect. Such high-faluting prose - but it's JKR who makes them both speak so stiltedly.
Albus rests his withered hand on the desk, glancing down to ensure that it is mostly concealed by his sleeve. "The price may not be as high as you believe, Severus."
"You always play your cards close to your chest!" Severus is angry again; he is always so angry. "All I've wanted for fifteen years was to aid you, and you persist in keeping your plans hidden from me. Ever since Black tried…"
Albus isn't having that. "Sirius is dead now, Severus, and I had hoped that you had laid your grievances against him to rest along with his body."
The disappointment in Albus' tone only seems to frustrate Severus still further. "You don't understand!"
"No, perhaps I don't." For how can he possibly understand this complicated, thorny man, always his most difficult protégé? He can look at the facts: the troubled childhood, painful adolescence, the apparently inevitable immersion in evil, and then emergence, pulled from the miasma by thin ribbons of hope and love. But he cannot hope to understand all the bitterness that lies in the heart of Severus Snape.
Because tell me, who can?
"Let me see that!" Severus' voice, suddenly sharp, interrupts his thoughts. In an instant, he has pushed back his chair and is leaning over Albus, examining the shrivelled skin. When he stands back, there is fear in his eyes for the first time.
"I didn't realise it was so serious."
"Surely you know that Voldemort would exact a high price for a part of his soul," says Albus mildly.
Severus' lips twist in acknowledgement, but he says nothing. It is time to come to the point, Albus decides. He tells Severus what he needs: potions to allow him to fulfil his duties over the next few months; Severus to talk to Draco and persuade him that he has "options, let us say"; and Severus to fulfil his vow to Narcissa Malfoy if it becomes expedient to do so.
Severus gazes at the desk for several seconds before meeting Albus' eyes. The warmth there appears to undo him.
"If you ask this of me," he says slowly, "then I will do it. But are you sure it's the best thing to do?"
"I have no idea what the best thing to do is, Severus," answers Albus. "If it makes you feel better, look at it this way: I am a selfish old man hoping that my death will serve a purpose, if I must die."
I can so imagine Albus putting the situation like that.
Severus looks queasy, and Albus takes pity on him. "Thank you for your report, Severus. Will you stay for dinner?"
"I have business to attend to," says Severus shortly. "I must be going."
He pauses in the doorway. "I'll start working on your potions as soon as I can, but they may be some time. Voldemort's tame spy is enjoying my hospitality at present." His face closes up once more, and he shuts the door behind him.
Another of my pet theories - that Peter is spying on Snape for Voldemort.
≈
Albus is fading, and he knows there's no time to waste. He spends days at a time away from school while he searches for Voldemort's soul, checking artefacts and searching the sites where those whom Voldemort is known to have killed personally were found. Mostly he's alone on these trips, although sometimes Fawkes accompanies him, providing light in dark places. Albus, a garrulous soul whom circumstances have always forced into secrecy, finds himself confiding in the bird's mostly silent presence all the details he's never told Severus Snape, Harry Potter and everyone else who's been part of his struggle to keep the wizarding world safe.
I like this bit - the fact that Albus likes a good cup of tea and a chat, but that there's nothing he has to say that he could tell anyone.
≈
Albus meets with Severus in the freezing forest, but the fresh air no longer rejuvenates him. He's too busy looking out for hostile centaurs and other creatures, and he has little time for Severus' complaints. This is what must be done. You must do it, Severus: you promised, and there is no other way.
Severus looks mutinous, and Albus wonders whether he is pushing him too far. It's the truth, though: this is the only solution that he can see. He reminds Severus of what he owes, why they are here in the first place, and watches the other man's face grow sullen.
"You are placing me in an impossible position," is all he says before he trudges into the darkness.
Poor Severus. I'm sorry. And obviously this is meant to be the bit that Hagrid overhears.
Albus wonders how much Tom hears of their meetings. A certain amount, he is sure, but he will never know precisely what is passed on and what Severus keeps to himself. As he limps towards the castle, he hears a boy's laughter just beyond the silence. He stares through the trees, but there's nothing there, only the unrecalled mischief of long-dead children.
Shades of the Marauders...
≈
Albus is fading: his forearm is completely useless now, and his dreams begin to betray him. They show him all those he has failed to save, among them Lucius Malfoy, James Potter, Sirius Black, Regulus Black, Peter Pettigrew, and always, always Tom Riddle. He thinks of those he is currently attempting to keep safe: Harry, Draco and all the others who will soon have to face responsibility beyond their years. Then there are those he has unwillingly sent into danger: chief among these at present is Remus Lupin, who gazes at Albus with embittered eyes, accusing in dreams as he will never be in life.
Gah, Remus breaks my heart in HBP, especially that Christmas scene where he's staring into the fire. And I can see Dumbledore making him do what he has to do, and yet still feel guilty about it. I imagine Dumbledore feels that he's failed a great many people over the years.
≈
The doorknocker sounds, and another slim, dark-haired boy enters; so many children have trodden this same carpet, and so few are left to his care.
Sybill talks herself out, and then Albus learns that Harry has failed him in what was, admittedly, a difficult mission. This is only the first of many tasks, however, and where will Harry be in a few months if he fails at the first obstacle? Albus allows himself an instant of irritation, but relents at the boy's obvious mortification.
After Harry has gone, Albus remembers the baby boy he left on a doorstep fifteen years ago, despite Minerva's pleading, and wishes with all his heart that he could give Harry a few moments of freedom from his burden. It has not been an easy life, but how could it be otherwise? If Harry is to confront Tom - and it is clear to Albus now that this is what the struggle will come down to - then he must be trained, must endure adversity, must become resourceful. And he needs luck, too, and luck is what saved him when his parents died; luck is what reduced Lord Voldemort to little more than a whisper on the breeze.
Waking now, the images pile up before his eyes: Dorcas Meadows, Lily Evans, her sister Petunia, now Emmeline Vance. Bertha Jorkins. Bellatrix Black.
I had to put Petunia in there, and Bellatrix.
So many dead and so many lost. He sips the latest potion that Severus has delivered, and the visions dissipate somewhat, but part of him is tempted to sit here forever and watch his ghosts parade past. All these he has tried and failed to save.
He's losing himself in guilt.
≈
Albus is fading; in his weaker moments, he sits in his office, no longer spinning his webs but imagining instead the poison as it seeps through his veins. Severus' potions enable him to simulate normality in daylight; but at night, at night there is nothing between Albus and the abyss.
He wakes unrested and continues to work. If his deductions are correct, most of Voldemort's soul is still at large, and so he persists in his search.
≈
Albus gulps down the first gobletful, and wonders exactly what the bitter liquid will do. Nothing good, he's certain, and for an instant he wishes he was with Severus and not a sixteen year old boy. But then he remembers that this is not just any sixteen year old boy
"I am with you, Harry." *sniff*
, and he holds out his hand for the next helping.
The second drink tastes worse than the first, and he has to fight off dizziness. Still, he muses, how bad can it be? Then he remembers Tom sitting in his office, features weirdly distorted by vicious experiments, and he knows that it will be terrible.
He drinks the third lot blindly, concentrating solely on the need to empty the bowl. During the fourth, the cave suddenly tips; Albus thinks it's the dizziness again, but then Harry is gone, and there's a little girl, her blonde hair in plaits, kneeling before a ten year old boy with eyes already too cold. "No, no, no…" she cries, "I can't…I can't, don't make me, I don't want to…"
Then a boy, about the same age as the other, but there is no doubt as to who's in charge here.
"It's all my fault, all my fault," he sobs, "please make it stop, I know I did wrong, oh, please make it stop and I'll never, never again…"
Part of me thinks that these words are Regulus's. But I also like the idea that, in the cave where Tom did whatever he did to those children, the ghosts of their experiences might be here, too.
In another cave, Harry is tipping the seventh gobletful into Albus' mouth, but Albus knows nothing of this, because the scene has shifted and now a young man with familiar features kneels opposite a grown-up Tom.
"Don't hurt them, don't hurt them, please, please, it's my fault, hurt me instead…"
But this bit had to be Regulus, from now until the end of this section.
Albus feels Regulus' terror; he is Regulus, he cannot do this but there is no other way, and -
"Please, please, please, no…not that, not that, I'll do anything…"
Pain, only pain, blinding deafening silencing and then he manages to scream again. "No more, please, no more…"
But there is more; he has only enough breath to plead, "KILL ME!" and then he knows nothing.
≈
Albus is fading faster now. The ache that was in his arm has passed his shoulders and is insinuating itself into his chest; his mind is whirling with the effects of the potion, and he can feel the two poisons striving to combine inside him. He concentrates on what's important: he can save two people tonight, he hopes. Keep Harry safe; talk to Draco. He repeats this in his head, a mantra that allows him to shut out much of the mayhem that is raging elsewhere in his body.
≈
He hears a commotion at the door, and casts his last spell, the one that will keep Harry a silent, immobile witness to events. Then his wand is gone; he can do no more for Harry, and so he concentrates on Draco, who has brought evil into his school tonight, but who may still be saved.
After two minutes of negotiation, he knows he's done enough; Draco's hand is wavering, and Albus is certain that he won't go through with his task, whatever else transpires tonight. Others enter the arena and circle Albus like vultures, taunting and cursing him, but he's done all he can, and he accepts insults from these former pupils with equanimity. He can't save them.
Albus may have a saving people complex, and a guilt one, too, but he knows when to give up.
Finally, the door opens one last time, and Severus stands there, his expression unreadable as ever. Albus strains towards him with the last of his strength, but his mind is beyond reach, and so Albus is forced to use words to remind Severus of his promise.
"Severus…"
Severus pushes past Draco and stares at Albus for a few seconds, his features frozen.
Oh, Severus.
"Severus…please…" Albus says, and feels the younger man's mind open to him, a mass of boiling emotions that nobody else has ever suspected.
"I'm sorry, my boy," he flings silently at Severus.
His answer is a burst of fury and frustration and grief, and then nothing.
As I said at the beginning, I started with the last line (the last two lines, actually), and then basically tried to tell the story of HBP from Albus's POV. I'm quite proud of the ending.
≈
There - I hope that was of interest to somebody!
Also, I was kidnapped 48 hours ago and forced to attend a climbing festival. It was very interesting, apart from the fact that I don't do climbing. But anyway, I'm still behind on the flist, and anything fic-related has gone in a to read file for later. Sorry!
And now I have to do some work. Yes, I know it's Easter Monday.