The Last Enemy by atypicalsnowman Title: The Last Enemy Author:atypicalsnowman Pairing: Snarry Rating: PG-13 Word Count: 2800 Warnings: None but some heavy angst. Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. The characters and their worlds belong to their original writers and no copyright infringement or offense is intended. No money was made from this story. Summary: “And to think he had almost thrown it into the forest...” A/N: Thank you to roozetter for beta-reading and hand holding when I couldn’t get a solid idea in my head. I literally only finished this fic a day ago (privileges of being a mod), and I’m glad I was finally able to sort the little plot. I’ll also add that one thing I did like in DH was Rowling’s use of this verse on James and Lily’s headstones. I always thought it was fitting, and thanks again to Roo for recommending it for the title.
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. I Corinthians 15:26
And to think he had almost thrown it into the forest.
Harry sat in the headmaster’s office, his mind wandering back to the Shrieking Shack where the body of Severus Snape no doubt still laid. Severus Snape, a man whom he hadn’t known at all, a man who had endured hatred and turmoil that made Harry’s life seem idyllic in comparison.
A man who had loved Harry, so it seemed.
Harry was still trying to wrap his mind around that last fact, his attempt at calming himself betrayed by a shaking foot and tapping fingers. He ran his thumb over the Resurrection Stone and looked towards the portraits of sleeping headmasters, where Snape was conspicuous by his absence.
Biting his lip and blinking back tears of confusion—anger, pain, loss, whichever—Harry thumbed the Stone again.
If Hermione knew the idea that was forming in his head she’d have him committed. Or at the very least talk him out of doing it, which would no doubt be the right thing for her to do.
He was glad she wasn’t there.
His thoughts in turmoil, Harry went again to Dumbledore’s pensieve, silver memories waiting for him. He watched the swirling mists as images of Dumbledore, of his mother, and the Forest of Dean appeared. He waited until he saw the image of Snape’s face in turmoil at hearing the news of Harry’s own necessary death before he really focused.
It was only now, after he knew what came after, that he was able to see the pain and loss in Snape’s eyes as Dumbledore told him Harry had to die.
He slowly lowered his face as the next memory—a memory Harry was certain Snape hadn’t meant for him to see—began.
Moody’s false specter of Dumbledore was vanished quickly enough, and Snape moved through Grimmauld Place silently, his heavy boots hardly making a sound on the old wood floors. Harry followed behind Snape as he quickly looked into the sitting room, then the library before pulling his wand and slowly ascending the stairs.
His steps never faltered as he walked to Sirius’ old room, and this time Harry could see the reasoning behind his assumption. After all, Snape had seen what the loss of Sirius had done to him.
Snape cast a spell and the door opened silently, his steps soft as he slowly entered the room where Harry slept.
The first time he watched, Harry had been looking at himself, looking to see what Snape had done to him. This time he couldn’t look away from Snape’s face, eager to see what he’d been missing all along.
Snape couldn’t help the way his eyes changed as he looked on the sleeping figure in the bed. With every step he took they lost more of their cold cruelty, his grim mask slipping to reveal his anguish. By the time Snape sat down on the edge of the bed, Harry hardly recognized him. Slowly, he reached a hand out and laid it upon Harry’s head, stroking his hair with the utmost reverence that it was no wonder Harry hadn’t woken.
“Harry,” he whispered. “Oh, Harry.” Black eyes looked lost as Harry watched Snape look at him, look beyond him. Hands that had always been ugly—yellowed, stained, spidery—became graceful as they slowly flitted around Harry’s face, moving away quickly when the sleeping Harry frowned and scratched his nose.
Harry watched Snape watch him for a few moments longer, the sheer concentration Snape gave to the sleeping figure confirming what Harry had known before.
“Harry, you foolish boy,” Snape whispered a few minutes later. “You foolish, hopeless boy.”
Harry watched as his sleeping self grimaced and whimpered softly, and recalled how his nightmares had plagued him this past year. Snape frowned, but kept watching as Harry began to moan louder, twisting in the bed sheets at what was no doubt a terrible nightmare.
Knowing what was coming, Harry watched as Snape closed his eyes, then placed his hand on the sleeping Harry’s shoulder. Softly, he whispered, “This is not the life I would have wished for you.” Harry watched Snape’s shock as the sleeping Harry stopped his groaning and curled into Snape’s hand, turning so he was fulling facing Snape before he settled back into sleep.
“This isn’t the life I would have wished for either of us,” Harry said, though he knew Snape could not hear him. Instead he watched as Snape gently extracted his hand and ran a hand through Harry’s hair.
“Headmaster,” Phineas Black said from his portrait. “Someone is coming up the stairs to your office.”
“Thank you, Phineas.” Snape waited until he left his portrait before he looked at the sleeping Harry one last time. Harry watched as he seemed to struggle with his desires, how he licked his lips and suddenly seemed so much younger than Harry had always pictured him. His eyes flicked back to the portrait before he quickly descended the distance between them and graced Harry’s forehead with a kiss.
“Goodbye, Harry,” he said, then stood up and the memory faded away.
*
Harry gasped as he left the memory and felt his heart ache after seeing Snape’s devotion a second time. He’d never thought of Snape in that way before—why would he?—but the more he thought about it the more he began to feel a sense of loss over what might have been.
What could possibly still be.
And to think he had almost thrown it into the forest.
Harry rubbed his thumb over the Resurrection Stone with his left hand, while fingering the handle of the Elder Wand with his right. He’d tossed his cloak across Snape’s desk, but he’d be needing that too.
There were so many reasons why this was a bad idea. If anyone discovered what he had done they’d destroy him.
No inquiries at the Ministry, no negotiations. He had just destroyed the darkest wizard in fifty years—perhaps the darkest wizard in history—and now he was able to control death.
They’d kill him where he stood, dead before he hit the floor.
And on top of that, what about Lupin and Tonks and Fred and so many other people who had died? The part of him that would always want life to be fair said that it wouldn’t be right to bring back Snape and not anyone else. How could Harry justify that?
He rubbed a hand across his forehead and thought of the life that was waiting for him, thought of revealing his true desires to the world. And what were the odds that some queer wizard would actually look past all his celebrity and see just Harry?
It was a poor excuse. But it was all he had. There was only one question left.
Eyes closed, Harry flipped the stone three times, held his breath, and then slowly opened his eyes.
“Hello, Professor.” He couldn’t help but smile.
“Potter,” Snape said. He looked younger than he had when Harry had last seen him. He looked around the age he had when he’d begged Dumbledore for Lily Potter’s life. Harry drew his eyes away from noticing the physical changes and instead looked at Snape’s eyes. Eyes that looked as though they were trying desperately to hide themselves and were unable.
Seeming to summon anger, Snape frowned and asked, “Have you called me here just to look at me?”
You wanted to look at me, Harry thought, but held his tongue. In all his wondering and justifying whether or not he should do this he never actually thought how to phrase the request. ‘Would you like to live again and maybe love me?’ didn’t sound exactly right.
“You shouldn’t have died,” he finally said.
Snape scoffed, but the anger left him. “Many people shouldn’t have died. I am...glad that you did not die.”
“My mother’s protection. It saved me again.”
Snape nodded and looked awkward. It didn’t help that his shoulders weren’t as broad and his face not as filled out as they had been when he was older. It made him seem lost and helped Harry with what he wanted to say.
Taking a deep breath, Harry nodded to himself and did what he did best: dove into icy waters head first.
“Did you really love me?” Snape looked shocked and then horrified. “Was it love or was it...attraction or...some misplaced affection for my—”
He stopped speaking before he could completely ask the question because Snape was staring at him as though his soul had been torn open and laid bare for Harry to destroy.
Snape didn’t bother lying. “I loved you as much as a miserable old man can love a...” He turned his eyes to the ground and said, “Have you used a priceless magical artifact just to torment me? And how exactly did you determine my...feelings?”
“You left me a memory,” Harry said. “I don’t think you meant to, but it was there with the others.”
“Ah.”
“I asked to speak with you to ask you a question.”
Snape’s eyes narrowed, as though he was readying himself to be mocked, but he nodded his head.
“Would you like to come back?”
“What?” Shock overtook suspicion on Snape’s face.
“If you could come back, if you had a reason to, would you?”
Now the anger returned, swiftly and looking all the more righteous than what had come before. “And what reason would I have to return? I am done, Potter. Finished. I made a terrible mistake when I was no older than you are now and I spent every day of my miserable life paying for it ever since.” He sneered, gestured to the room around them. “I played the part that Dumbledore needed me to play, I saved your arse when you were actively trying to elude me and now the Dark Lord is dead.”
“He is dead,” Harry said. “You can say his name.”
“Voldemort!” he shouted. “Voldemort is dead and I am done. I have done everything I set out to do, even the one thing that seemed impossible. You’re alive, Potter.” His anger subsided and he suddenly looked older, more tired. “You are alive, he is dead, and I am done.”
“Yes, but—” Harry’s hands were shaking. “What if you didn’t have to be? What if maybe you could have another chance? Actually be happy?”
Before Snape could make things more difficult, Harry extended his hand and laid it over Snape’s. There was no sensation. His hand hovered over Snape’s and their fingers overlapped each other, but the look in Snape’s eyes told Harry he’d been understood.
Snape shook his head. “What hell is this? Am I to be tormented in death as well?”
“Just tell me,” Harry said, wanting to draw Snape’s chin up so he could look at his eyes, “if you’d want this. If you had lived, would you have wanted to try?” At Snape’s continued shocked silence he said, “You said it yourself, you’re done. You’re finished. Wouldn’t you have wanted to actually begin living now?” He waited until Snape did look up, saw his shock and disbelief. “You were living all those years for her. Wouldn’t you consider living now—”
“For you?”
Harry shook his head. “For you.”
He saw the second Snape began to consider it, how he looked Harry up and down before he focused on his eyes, as though he could still perform Legilimency. He shook his head. “The possibility of something going wrong—”
“It won’t.”
Snape scoffed. “How do you know? No one in all of history has ever been The Master of Death before.”
“I don’t know how I know,” Harry said. “I just know that this has to work. Life—the universe, whatever—it owes us.”
“I was sure it had not escaped your attention, but even you must realize that life is not fair.”
“Oh, I know,” Harry whispered. “Believe me, I know. But I have done everything that’s been asked of me, just like you.” Harry bit his lip and grasped the stone harder. “And I’m asking for this. This is what I get. I get you. So, yes or no, Snape?” Harry asked, holding his breath. He watched as Snape tried to say no, it was written there all across his face.
But he couldn’t say anything, Harry thought. He said nothing, but he looked at Harry like he was the one thing he wanted, like he was terrified to ask for it because no good thing had ever come to him.
Harry shivered. This was really going to happen. “Okay then,” he whispered, then reached across the desk to gather up his cloak. “I’ll see you in the Shack.”
“Harry,” and Harry couldn’t help but smile at hearing his name from Snape’s lips, “if anyone found out—”
“I’ll just tell them you weren’t really dead. I went to collect your body, just happened to have some healing potions, and you survived.” Harry shrugged.
Snape said nothing to this. He just looked at Harry like he was afraid to even consider the possibility that any of this could be happening.
“I’ll see you in the Shack,” he said again and put the stone in his pocket. Snape disappeared with a ghostly ‘Potter!’ and then Harry was alone.
*
He thought it would be more difficult navigating through the hallways and past the Entrance Hall. He thought he’d be stopped by dozens of people—Ron and Hermione at the very least—but it was late and there were so many injured. Harry took as many healing potions as he could from Snape’s own stores and went out towards the Shack to face Death itself.
Perhaps sensing something was about to happen, the Whomping Willow didn’t even try to upend him. He passed through the long tunnel and into the Shack and saw Snape’s body on the floor.
Of course no one had bothered to come retrieve him, but it still shocked Harry upon seeing the body lying forgotten on the floor. He had, after all, just had a conversation with him. A part of him watched Snape carefully, half expecting him to try to talk him out of this.
Donning the cloak, Harry held the stone and pointed his wand at Snape, then realized he had no clue as to how he’d begin.
“Rennervate,” he said, then shook his head. Snape hadn’t been hit with a stunner.
Realizing he had no idea what to do, just the tools with which to do it, Harry began to panic. What if he wasn’t able to bring Snape back? What if he would be alone forever and Snape dead without ever being happy?
“I am the Master of Death!” Harry shouted—sobbed, perhaps—with far too much force. “And I co—command you, Severus Snape, to live!”
Nothing happened.
Harry sighed, then lifted the Elder Wand again.
A whimper escaped from his throat. It’d been such a stupid idea, and he was stupid to think it would work. He felt his heart break, different than it had before. It felt like Snape was dying a second time, but this time he was leaving Harry. As though hope was dying with him.
“Snape, I—”
He cleared his throat, closed his eyes, and got a grip on himself. Steadying his breath, he grasped the wand one more time and thought of Snape hovering over his bedside. He thought of how both of them were so tired and neither of them had ever truly lived.
Snape deserved to live.
“Severus...” Harry breathed. He nearly choked on the word. “Return to me.” He leaned down and placed a kiss on Snape’s forehead.
The entire world was silent for a moment, and Harry held his breath.
He bit his lip and refused to open his eyes as the pause grew longer, the silence dragging on for an eternity in the musty air of the Shack. There wasn’t a sound, not even his own breath until he heard a strangled gasp, a person struggling to breathe.
His body was shocked still for only a moment before he took a breath and opened his eyes.