The voice under all silences. Chapter 3
THE VOICE UNDER ALL SILENCES. Chapter 3
Author: [info]pekeleke Pairing: Severus Snape/Harry Potter Word Count: 2583 Rating: N-17 Summary: Four years after the final battle Severus Snape wakes up to HELL! Warning(s): Strong language. A/N: First snarry fic, ever. English is not my mother tongue so mistakes are to be expected. Beta: None Disclaimer: The characters used in this fiction are not mine. No money is being made from it.
THE VOICE UNDER ALL SILENCES. Chapter 3
' Severus? ' -There was someone calling him...-
' Severus? ' -Who on Earth could it be?-
' Severus? ' The voice seemed annoyingly familiar. Almost as if he'd heard it all the time or most of his life... He frowned. Why would someone have come down to wake him? Had he forgotten to set up his alarm charm? Was he late for class already? He panicked. Arms flailing in the heavy tangle of bed sheets as he attempted, in vain, to rouse himself.
' SEVERUS! '
His eyes opened. Brilliant sunlight burning his pupils as he blinked weakly: Too weakly for his taste. Where the hell was he?... These... These were not his dungeons! Wait! That wasn't right... He... He was not meant to be in the dungeons, wasn't he? There were no dungeons any more...
Hogwarts... Hogwarts had fallen! The wards had been forced to accept the Death Eaters... The castle had been... Invaded. Conquered. Besmirched!. He'd been forced to leave... Minerva!... Minerva had finally given up on him. She'd tried to kill him! She hated him now! They all hated him now! He'd been shown as a traitor...
' Severus? '
Black eyes shrouded with pain, he looked up. Towards that strangely familiar voice. Towards whoever still felt he deserved the kindness of a gentle awakening.
' Severus, is the light hurting your eyes? ' The question caught him unawares. It was unexpected. Undeserved. Caring... His brow furrowed as he blinked something fierce. Trying to force his dilated pupils into early contraction so that he might be able to actually see more than flashes of coloured shadows.
The legs of some kind of chair noisily dragged across the floor: Granite and wood colliding in screeching, ear-cringing disharmony. Footsteps echoed around the room before he heard the loud twinkling of heavy rings running across metal. A curtain, then, being closed on his behalf... Soothing darkness flooded his reeling senses and his eyes opened wide as his head turned.
There was a man standing by the window. Swirling shadows frustratingly silhouetting his form, due to the orange-tinged light attempting to break in behind the beige barrier of the still fluttering curtains.
The room was uncannily similar to the infirmary at Hogwarts and a pang of deeply pained longing closed down his throat with a thick knot.
' Severus?... Is this any better? ' The voice. The man. The words themselves distracted him and he focused black eyes on that shadowed form.
' Where?... Who...? ' the raspy-voiced questions halted suddenly as his gaze recognised the red clothes. The golden buttons. The utilitarian tool-filled belt. The potions pouch. The prominently displayed wand-holder, fastened along the length of the left forearm...
' An auror... You are an auror. '
' Yes '
Such simple answer. So... unbending. Unequivocal. Final. He shivered in response. Fingers curling into fists as he attempted to analyse what was wrong here. Something rubbed him the wrong way about it all. Made him suspicious. Forced him to frown.
' Aurors don't usually call me Severus ' he muttered to himself, unwittingly following that muddled thought aloud. ' They tend to growl my surname, like a foul insult... '
It was then that he remembered: The war had finally broken. The Dark Lord was no more! And he himself had been... His hand shot up to his neck, searching for bandages, and he found them right were he expected them to be. Only the pain was absent now. Or dulled, through the blessed properties of one or other healing potion.
' Where is Petersen? ' He asked the most important question of them all. It was imperative to know immediately when his viciously vindictive carer would be allowed to strike again.
The auror's stand became rigid.
' Petersen is gone! '
Wariness settled over him like a thick, well loved blanket as the tone of barely restrained violence registered with him and he became aware of the fact that he was alone. Unarmed. At the mercy of some seriously pissed off auror who seemed to hate him.
' When is he expected to be back? ' he asked this cautiously. Politely. Willing to offer some courtesy in order to get the answer he needed with the least possible pain.
The auror's right hand twitched. An unconscious wrathful lunge towards the wand-holder, halted at mid-motion, and Severus felt his heart plummet to his feet. So... this was the answer to the stupid question he'd been constantly asking himself these last few weeks: This man, so easily angered, so firmly entrenched in the self-righteousness that usually came hand in hand with the uniform he wore, was, indeed, much worse than Petersen...
' That waste of magic is not expected back, Severus! Not here. Not ever. Nowhere near you! '
The tone warred with the words so much that he scowled. Uncertain. Uneasy. Afraid.
' Why do you insist in calling me by my given name? '
A shrug of powerful shoulders. A slight lowering of the head that drew Severus's attention to a wild mop of short, dark hair. The nervous scrape of a leather boot against the stone floor.
' It's your name, is it not?. I once met a man who used to call you by it all the time. '
Severus felt himself pale. Angry colour rose along the sharp edges of his cheekbones and he took one single, fortifying breath before he felt as if he could answer that taunting accusation without breaking.
' I killed that man '
Surprisingly, the resentful array of hexes he'd been expecting failed to materialise and he floundered in confusion when a saddened kind of chuckle took their place.
' I know that '
Taken totally aback, he blinked. Then inclined his head in as curt and dismissive a motion as he could possibly muster.
' Yes. I've heard it is common knowledge by now '
Silence.
Seconds faded into minutes and a sudden oppressive tension began to take hold of Severus. He wished the other man would act already. Reveal his purpose to be here and then... Well!... get on with it, For Merlin's sake! Violence almost always turned out to be far less frightening than the thought of it, at least in his experience. He held fast to the firm conviction that the sooner the stranger started to unload all that hatred that seemed to overflow his athletic form, the sooner he'd leave him alone. Until the next time...
' Do you remember the war? '
The question caught him on the raw. Peeled away several layers of protective armour. Poked holes in the crumbling shield he had no intention of pushing aside any time soon. Not in front of another bitter enemy, in any case.
' I remember dying ' he responded acidly. Scornfully. With such powerful hatred so very beautifully giving life to the words that it was a shame his voice rasped them pathetically, rather than spat them into the expectant silence.
He had not anticipated the flinch that seemed to shake that tall body. Nor the gasped, startled exhalation of air that exploded from the auror's throat, like a cry being suppressed.
' I'm sorry! '
Those two words shattered Severus's composure. He had not been prepared to hear them. Could not imagine why his very unwelcome visitor would even bother to pronounce them, unless they were meant to mock him...
' You should be. It didn't work very well '
He was shocked by the sudden flash of uncontrolled, powerful magic that shook every wall in the room with the force of an earthquake.
' Do not say that! Do. Not. Ever! Say That! '
He frowned in alarmed recognition of that sullen, demanding tone:
' Potter?! '
The other man didn't deny that crazy idea. His wide shoulders squared. His head shock just once, in curt, almost challenging assent, and a few firmly taken steps closer brought him out of the gloomy range of the curtains and into Severus's viewing range.
' I'm sorry. I didn't realise you hadn't recognised me '
Green eyes locked with his own and he felt the God-awful touch of Legilimency.
' Do not dare! ' He snarled viciously, head turning brusquely to one side in order to avoid being breached. His shields felt weak and ready to crumble. He supposed the dammed sickness that had plagued him since he woke had, somehow, undermined his usual mental strength just as much as it had done with his physical one.
The boy had the grace to flush and a pair of slightly trembling hands rose in the air, palm out, in a soothing apologetic motion.
' It's not my fault! I find it very hard to keep you out while you are so weakened! '
Severus's hackles rose. He detested the very idea of this... this pathetic little whelp... finding him wanting in any way!
' What the hell do you want, Potter? ' He decided to attack at once, quite viciously, in the hopes of sending the brat away as fast as he possibly could.
The boy flinched. Wide green eyes flashed with bitter wariness as that unfamiliarly mature voice muttered darkly.
' Not this again! '
Severus frowned.
' Again? ' He repeated that one word stupidly, bewildered despite himself into demanding some sort of explanation from the irritant before him.
Potter's tone could have killed Dementors when he stated very coldly:
' We've done this before, Professor. Don't you remember?... I was your worst nightmare! '
A tension headache began to unfurl behind his right eye as he attempted and failed utterly to make sense of that cryptic statement.
' I hate to be the one to burst your bubble, Potter, but ignoring for the moment the fact that you usually manage to irritate me right to the very edge of murder, you have always fallen quite short of the threshold that would turn one of my dreams, from merely unpleasant, into the actual realms of nightmare. Let alone one of my worst!'
' Oh!... Mmhm... Really? '
Puzzlingly, the tension ready to snap those wide shoulders in two suddenly vanished and incoherence returned to the flushed, unfamiliar face of this grown version of the child who had, against his every expectation... Well...: Lived!.
' How did you do it, Potter? '
He dared to venture that one question in the quiet moment between one of the boy's owlish blinks and the next. Figuring that, he might as well get the answer to one of the millions of questions he'd pondered about incessantly, since he'd woken up to discover himself trapped within the cursed walls of Azkaban's infirmary.
Potter's expression gentled and he approached. Almost as if he was willing to satisfy whatever little point Severus's legendary curiosity could be bothered to address.
' How did I do what? '
Severus swallowed. Suddenly uncomfortable with the foreign emotion turning the child's voice so grave. Reacting unfavourably to the unnerving nearness of the imposing auror towering so casually over him.
' Survive. How did you survive?... Albus... '
He managed the name. But had no strength to continue. Not so soon after re-awaking. Not while in the company of one of the very few who'd been present on that tower the night he'd performed the most heinous of his crimes... His nostrils flared violently. Jaw locked into unyielding rigidity by the strength of his emotions. His eyes searched and found the fluttering edges of the beige-coloured curtains. Fastened to them as if he'd find, in their uninteresting blandness, the eternally sought-after spark of knowledge that could finally explain the very origins of Magic.
' It is O.K to miss him, Severus. He misses you too, you know? '
' Do not speak of Albus to me! ' he attempted to roar and was embarrassed when his shattered throat only managed to produce a wavering snarl that, in no way, managed to express his all-pervading resentment.
Potter's expression hardened like steel. A silence: long, heavy and as poisonous as Mercury built impregnable walls between them both in the blink of an eye. After a minute or two of hard, huffy staring the auror sighed; seemingly tired with the status quo.
' I survived because the Horcrux I carried was weaker than I was, Severus. Only one Avada kedavra. Only one life that could be taken... It came down to either a single, mangled piece of the Dark Lord's soul or the whole of mine...'
Severus's ebony coloured eyes widened in a sudden, amazingly relieved kind of understanding:
' The curse took the easiest way out...! They tend to do that... It's one of the basic principles of Magic. New hex creation revolves around the idea! '
A small smile curved the boy's lips.
' That's what I've been told. Yes. '
A wave of bone-melting relief washed over him as his mind pondered the thought in the ensuing calmness. He had to close his eyes quite tightly in order to ride off the utter, grateful joy that threatened to overwhelm him. Albus...! Albus must have, at least, suspected such an outcome. Dear Salazar! He, himself, should have realised the potential right away! He'd had the knowledge after all. He'd used it almost constantly over the years as he pandered to his insatiable need for independence. For self-protection. Tirelessly developing offensive curses only he had access to...
' Severus? '
His thoughts came to an abrupt halt as the voice suddenly reminded him of the boy's presence. And his eyes narrowed in horrified suspicion as another awful question rose to the forefront of his mind. One that Petersen had repeatedly refused to answer, every time he'd dared to ask it.
' How did I survive, Potter? I remember dying! '
The green eyes dulled with some kind of deep-set regret that Severus found disturbing.
' It wasn't me, professor. I wish to Merlin it had been, but the truth is that I failed you completely on that account! It was Draco. He heard me accusing Voldermort of killing you and set off to find your body! You were barely alive and he was wandless, but he... Oh, God...! Turns out that he is as clever as you always claimed he was... and he has an affinity with your wand that allowed him to cast that all-important stasis spell... We... We would have lost you. Just... lost you! If it wasn't for Draco!...'
Severus was taken aback by the depth of feeling so clearly vibrating in every syllable uttered by that passion-roughened voice. To realize exactly how upset Potter would have felt at being deprived of the opportunity to see him rot in Azkaban for his transgressions brought a sudden lump of ice to his dark heart. Surely, certainly, his demise should have become his fitting punishment... unless, of course, the fates agreed with Potter, and considered the death of a traitor to be too merciful for the likes of him...!
His head lowered in shame. His pulse pounded against his wrists with force enough to break him and he thought he must have finally, finally! reached the lowest point in his life.
' Potter... ' he called the mighty auror's name with exhausted, defeated resignation. Totally ignoring the sharp, startled widening of steadily darkening green eyes.
' What do you want, Potter? Why are you here? How are you planning to make me pay for the unforgivable?... '
There was a startled growl. A foreboding narrowing of those emerald coloured eyes and, then, the boy threw his hands up in the air in a sharp,frustrated gesture.
' I told them it'd be a waste of time! '
Severus didn't know what to make of that one sentence. Didn't care enough to bother unveiling it's convoluted nuances. He was tired. He was broken. He wanted to be left alone with his own misery.
His fists closed, in a reflexively defensive motion, when the boy strode suddenly close. Angry challenge turning the clean lines of his young face into a stony mask of unfathomable feeling.
' What would you say, Snape, if I told you that I've come to understand that you were Albus's greatest weapon? A far better one than I, myself, turned out to be! One without which the side of the Light would have miserably failed to win the blasted war? '
-What the Hell?-
'Do not mock me, Potter!' he snarled so viciously that the child froze were he stood. Green eyes, so much like Lily's, searched his angry features for a heartbeat too long before the auror's shoulders sagged in frustrated defeat.
' Why would I mock you? YOU! You saved my bloody life more times than I can count! You saved most of us, at one time or another, for God's sake! '
He didn't like the tone with which he was being spoken to. Screamed at, as if he were some utterly dim nincompoop, unable to even grasp the most elemental of truths. He was not going to allow this... this nonsensical drivel to irritate him into giving to this jerk the perfect excuse to pound him into next month that he was, so clearly, searching for.
' I saved your life. You'd like to repay my kindness by visiting my glorious bed-side in Azkaban and gloating all you can at my discomfort... I see. This is unexpected: even for you, Potter! Such exquisitely devious revenge doesn't normally capture the imagination of the run-of-the-mill Gryffindor... But then, of course, one mustn't forget that you were never truly prone to follow the rules.'
The idiot's eyes boggled and he gasped in outraged denial of the accusation, but Severus was past caring. His eyes narrowed like poisoned black darts and his lips spilled nothing but pure hatred into the pulsing, tense silence separating them.
' Nothing you can ever dream of doing to me will touch me, Oh, Great Saviour! Not. One. Bloody. Thing! You are an unimaginative little worm, lacking the true mastery of those who took pains to train me in the art of torture, boy!. You think you can come to my sick bed and frighten me to death? You couldn't possibly become any more pretentious, Harry Potter!' He laughed so coldly, so harshly that he saw the rugged auror's face first pale. Then crumble.
' You think I'd...? Severus, I...'
'Do not do me the discourtesy of using my given name without permission! That privilege was never meant for enemies of any kind! '
Green eyes, puzzlingly darkened to the very edge of unutterable pain, flickered as the boy blinked very slowly. Very carefully. With that same kind of deliberate cautiousness Draco used to employ, during his late teens, when attempting to prevent himself from crying in front of him.
' You might have been mine at one point, but I was never your enemy, Professor! Not really. I was your mark all along. Wasn't I? I'm the reason you remained alive after she died! I am the reason you plodded on at Hogwarts, through year after year of teaching children you had no desire at all to instruct!. Biding your time and keeping up old friendships with the darkest characters of our world! I was never your enemy, Severus Snape! But I was yours to hate. Wasn't I? Yours to protect. Yours to devote yourself to. Yours to die for... Because that's how SHE died! And you could not let go of her long enough to try fighting for your own happy ending! You. Wanted. To. Die. Just. Like. She. Did! '
Bile rose viciously up the back of his throat with every fiercely snarled word that the blasted creature dared to utter. With every single second he forced his dark eyes to remain locked onto the emerald twins of his beloved Lily. With every painful truth being so rudely exposed, so painfully dragged out into clear, uncomfortable sunlight.
He had never detested anyone with as much venom as he despised the man before him now. His whole frame had just frozen within the very first seconds of that brutally cruel dissection of his most precious feelings and desires.
He felt wronged and abused. He felt sickened by the idea that this... this bitter grown-up version of the child he'd once protected could read the very depths of his dark heart quite that accurately.
' I despise you, Harry Potter! ' He said the words quietly. Clearly. With the kind of conviction usually reserved for the basic truths of life: One's name. One's loves. One's faiths...
He saw the auror's face pale as if struck by the deadliest blow of all. Emerald coloured eyes darkened before dulling with the empty shadows of despair. He saw the shudder, clearly visible to him, that ran all along the rigid frame standing, so belligerently, not five paces away from the foot of his bed. He saw the golden-toned skin of that young throat contract and, then, expand around the boy's Adam Apple, as if he were attempting to swallow whole the very sword of Gryffindor itself.
' I knew that too, Professor '
That wasn't the answer Severus had been expecting: Not the words themselves. Nor the tone and, definitely, not the strangely restrained quality of the puzzlingly intense emotion they seemed to be... Hiding? Hinting at?
Ebony eyes, narrowed suspiciously, raked through the room in order to distract himself from his own puzzlement. He wanted this ordeal to be over. This conversation brought to an end. This whole... episode of... of... Revenge? Spite? Good, old-fashioned psychological torture?... to be done with already!
There was silence, for a long time, as he searched the utilitarian room for some kind of clue as to where exactly in Azkaban he might have been taken to. But the place was so disconcertingly similar to the infirmary at Hogwarts that he felt, once again, the overwhelming wrath of a fury that could so very easily consume the dammed child, if he so much as spoke another word.
Albus...! Albus would have been so disappointed...! He'd defended and pampered his precious Gryffindors with such zeal... He'd allowed Severus himself to become so... disillusioned... with the kind of world he wanted to create: One where the secret of a lion could be allowed to outweigh the safety of any snake... and all for what?... He'd die of shame if he where here! Witnessing the unprecedented cruelty Severus was being currently subjected to, by the greatest lion of them all: His precious Golden Hero! The Boy with the Power of Love! What utter tripe THAT had turned out to be!...
Delicate twinkling invaded his gloomy thoughts and he turned his head, once more, to face his captor.
Potter held an empty bottle in his right hand. Left one curled around a squat glass containing barely a mouthful of a liquid with the colour of sunlight.
Severus tensed. He hated men who drank at any hour. Deeply resented those who did it while still angry and could, definitely, not abide anyone who'd dare indulge in the harmful sin of alcohol this early in the morning, for any reason at all!
'I want you to remember that I tried!' The auror growled in a tone as hard as bricks before tilting his glass up and drinking deeply.
Severus could not quite quash his sense of dread. Ebony coloured eyes, widened in terror, remained fixed, frozen, tensely riveted on the strong lines of Potter's features as the man drained his shot.
Crazy thoughts whirled inside the privacy of his mind as he saw that wide, strong looking hand lower, ever so slowly, until the glass thudded against the surface of a table. -It's one drink, Severus. Just one drink!- he reminded himself firmly as his gaze followed that hand with focused attention. - One drink alone doesn't turn a man into a monster like your father! One drink alone will not hurt you...! Potter... Potter has no need of liquid courage to...-
' Do you know were Draco Malfoy is, Severus? '
The sudden question brought cold chills to his clammy skin and he blinked very slowly. Very carefully. Trying to remember what he'd learned about his precious godchild, courtesy of Petersen.
' I haven't seen him, if that is your question, auror Potter. Why? Has the boy become Azkaban's newest gaoler? '
There! He'd sounded harsh enough, uninterested enough that no one would ever guess the agony of worry that had gripped him upon hearing that totally unexpected question.
Potter laughed cynically. A cold and calculating sort of light had now entered the emerald depths of his unnervingly intense gaze.
' Amazing...! ' He whispered in mocking, bitter wonderment and started to clap sharply into the ever-increasing tension steadily filling the whole room. ' Four years locked into a magical coma that would have fried, not only the instincts, but also most of the memories of every other wizard... And you still have it in you to lie to my face like the scoundrel you are! '
He turned to stone upon hearing the accusation. The Arctic tone. The spiteful disdain they so clearly conveyed. Dark, blank eyes settled, once again, on the now empty glass. Wondering how... how was it possible for such a small mouthful to turn the whole demeanour of the man so drastically from outraged baboon to belligerent, cold-blooded shark.
Potter followed his gaze and smiled. Darkly.
' Ah!... I see!. I have finally gained your attention, dear Professor. Haven't I? Now I want to secure something quite different. Something more... difficult: I desire to obtain your cooperation '
There was something not quite right with this little scenario... Potter... Potter was acting out of character. His every word. The tone of his voice, even the frozen quality of his emerald coloured gaze seemed false, somehow. Fragile. Severus was certain that he was missing something. Something important. Something quite obvious. But for the life of him he could not quite grasp what that something might be.
' I am afraid I do not follow '
A small smile: Brittle and hard. Merciless.
' You. Do. Not. Follow...'
A shiver ran all along Severus's spine as the words coiled around him like a promise of death. His hands closed in two fists: white knuckled and impotent without a wand to hold.
' What would you say, Severus, If I told you that you've been uncannily right all along. As usual? '
Pale, pink lips compressed into a thin slash as he attempted to control his growing temper.
' Why won't you get to the bloody point, Potter? I had conversations with muggle wallpaper far more enlightening than this! ' he snapped in a frustrated, angry snarl that brought a bewilderingly satisfied smile to the bloody brat's lips.
' I am concerned about the fact that you... won't really get what you deserve in Azkaban, Severus Snape! '
Inky coloured blankness stared straight into that rugged face and saw only hatred.
' Yes. I know. We've covered this ground already, Mr. Potter! You are allowed to skip along to the parts not yet discussed, you know? Endless dissertations on the nature of revenge tend to be... slightly distasteful, if you'd care for my opinion '
Potter frowned. He looked down. He seemed rather lost, for just a second, before that wild mop of hair jerked upright once more. Almost as if pulled.
' I decided long ago to become the man who'd give you your just desserts '
' So... you have come to kill me, after all... '
Severus smiled then. Somehow relieved at his own fate but, also, saddened that they had all been so wrong about the boy: Albus and Lily. Minnie. Hagrid... He only hoped that Potter had the good sense to cover his own tracks. He'd be glad to take this secret to his grave, if it meant that those last two would never have to find out that he... he'd been right all along: There was far more of his dreadful father inside Potter than anyone had ever cared to admit...
A strange brightness turned the boy's eyes to glittering green jewels.
' Death is not what you deserve '
He faltered then, wrong-footed, and his eyes shot black daggers at the auror's deadly pale face.
' What do I deserve then, boy? Flagellation? Dismemberment? A public stoning? ' He challenged the brat with savage, gleeful brutality.
Potter looked quite sick. Strangely feverish. Detached from the situation and, at the same time, weirdly focused. He took a frantic, sudden step forward before halting the motion abruptly. Turning his face away to stare towards the door with a thunderous frown.
He seemed to be fighting some kind of inner demon and Severus felt relieved to see that, even if they had been mainly wrong about the boy, there seemed to be at least a smidgeon of a conscience behind that ruthless façade.
' I want to have complete control over you! You'll live with me. Sleep were I tell you to. Eat the food I give you. Work on what I see fit. Speak only to those I allow you to speak to! I want you to be as powerless as I was while in your care...! As powerless as Albus Dumbledore was left, while his wand hovered in the air before your face, and you knowingly turned the deadliest curse upon an unarmed old man...'
The words hit him like the lash of sudden Crucio and he felt them fall, like blows, across his soul. A knot closed down his throat. His eyes smarted and a painful, awful shame swallowed him whole.
' Do you think you can match me for cruelty, Potter? ' He sneered in defensive retaliation, challenging the bastard with every single ounce of determination he possessed to back down. NOW!. Before one of them was truly harmed beyond repair. ' You have the heart of a hero. Or so I have been told. Nothing you can possibly come up with, would damage me more than it would damage you! Your morals! Your untainted soul! Your very sense of self...! Am I really worth destroying any of it? '
Those eyes turned around once more. Spearing him with an intensity that flayed him. A pale face, rigid with unyielding determination, twisted viciously to spit aloud the first words the auror screamed since he took that blasted drink:
' You are worth EVERYTHING! '
His heart pounded as a pair of almost crazed emerald eyes raked him: From his dishevelled black head to the blanket-covered legs that felt like water. He was painfully conscious of the shocked, pained sorrow that he felt raising, like an unwelcome wave, from the very depths of his battered heart to the forefront of his absolutely livid mind:
He... he'd dedicated his whole life to guarantee this... this creature's survival, and the ungrateful runt dared to throw away, on a lost cause, the very essence of the soul Lily had loved enough to die for!
' I am afraid, then, that my "cooperation" shan't be on offer! I am quite settled right here in Azkaban, Mr. Potter! Why don't you go jump off the first cliff you come across and let me enjoy the peace and quiet of my spa retreat for a while, Eh? '
The sarcasm was as flawless as it used to be. The delivery a perfect combination of snarling distaste and utter disdain. He was proud of his own quip, although it was obvious that the little bastard was about ready to throttle him and Severus allowed himself, for the very first time during the whole harrowing ordeal, to rest his aching back against the fluffy mound of pillows that, some industrious soul, had stacked behind him while he'd been asleep.
He felt so smug in his own certainty that there was nothing, absolutely nothing!, the little terror could do to force his hand that he allowed a small taunting smirk to curve the edges of his thinly compressed lips.
' Cat got your tongue, Potter? ' He goaded the livid-looking auror and felt not a spark of fear when the man took a single menacing step forward and hissed through his teeth.
' I am not playing a stupid game with you, Snape! I'm going to get exactly what I want from you, by fair means or foul! '
Severus hadn't laughed quite so hard in so long that he'd forgotten how utterly exhilarating the feeling could be. He felt absolutely liberated! Exquisitely free for the first time in his adult memory. He did not give a toss about how grim his situation might become, after a mightily pissed of Potter stormed out of Azkaban, leaving him to the care of far harsher men. The important part was that, for now at least, he could be free. He could choose his own path! He had nothing to loose. Nothing to live for. He had no future to truly abandon. Nothing and no one to fight for, any more! His job had been done and his life, now, was over. As for the rest... The rest would be just... pain. He could take pain without even blinking. Almost without feeling it. Without really suffering from it any more at all. A few years under the tender ministrations of dear Petersen and he'd finally, finally! Join Lily. And Albus!... Specially Albus.
'What could you possibly do that would convince me to submit to your cosy little scheme, Potter? Are you planing to threaten me with The Kiss? Do you really think I'd care? ' He challenged the auror bluntly, just because he could.
Potter's frown deepened and his eyes turned deadly as he agreed in a tone that could flay dragons.
' No. I do not think you'd care! '
There was a second or two of strange reluctant doubt as the auror's jaw clenched tightly and he seemed to steel himself as if for battle. There was a clammy appearance to his forehead as he exhaled a puzzlingly shaky breath before he uttered the only words that could have, ever!, turned these odds back in his favor. The only words that Severus himself had never expected to hear, falling from the Savior of the Wizarding World's own lips! The only words with the power to still Severus's own hand. Bringing him kicking and screaming right where the blasted bastard wanted him!
' But you'd care if it was Malfoy facing the Dementor, Severus Snape! You'd sell your soul to me. To Voldermort! To Morgana herself! if it was your own Godchild the one to receive The Kiss, in your stead, and you had one single, hopeless chance of preventing it from happening...!'