Title: Le Ténébreux
Author: chiralove
Characters: Severus Snape, Lily Evans
Rating: R
Warnings: character death
Themes/kinks chosen: symphorophilia
Word Count: 1,095
Summary: " Je suis le ténébreux,- le Veuf, - l'inconsolé, Le Prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie: Ma seule étoile est morte, et mon luth constellé Porte le soleil noir de la Mélancolie."
Author's notes: Huge thanks to bewarethesmirk for the beta, and thanks to the folks at the slashretreat_dc for the brainstorming help! I was heavily inspired by Nerval's El Desdichado, and this work owes a great deal to that poem (although I was very nearly distracted by the fact that he kept a pet lobster … but I managed to finish this in spite of that, so all credit goes to Nerval!)



Winter bears its fruit – pomegranates, red in the snow and dark in the light, with their seeds that drop like stones into the river, falling under footbridges arched like the feet that tread on them. At the end of the season, winter's harvest is summer's loss.

Faces – men and women Severus never knew, men and women who he killed; he watched the arc of their bodies as the curse propelled them through the air, he heard the thud as their corpses hit the ground – he sees their faces still, half-blurred through the water and reflected in the tiles. The trickle of water falls like rain down the knobs of his spine – he broke them, fingers that had only reached out to touch door-knobs, opening doors to him. He crushed their fingers under his feet, and he killed the men who opened the doors, trusting him.

Nothing is safe, nothing is sacred. Severus trusts no one, and trusts his dreams least of all.

Outside, there is no hint of this carnage. There are snow crystals poised in midair, ready to be caught on children's tongues, and the first fall of the year has been broken by footsteps and the racing, swerving, honking cars that dirty the white world.

It has been dirty – it will be so again. Severus has dreamed it. The streets of London have been hot with fire and wet with blood – they will answer to the reign of the Dark Lord, they will tremble under Severus's feet as he deals death in the night.

Severus has seen the world and judged it lacking. The waning moon hung in the air, month after month, and held there, poised over dark land – he saw the world destroyed, London in ruins and Hogwarts in ashes, the torments of childhood replaced with the playgrounds of men, his dreams borne fruit and made real.

The skeletons in the empty streets bow down before him and the world is at his feet. Severus touches himself, running his fingers down his legs, chasing water away with soap. Bone and ligament and tendon – these hands of his that Lily held, this collarbone that she touched when it was broken – he is a man, as solid as any other. His breath makes solid crystals in the night air, water and vapour ascending and descending just as angels rise and fall.

When he sees the world, he sees a char-yard, a bone-yard, a midden where all of the filth is brought to light and all the light is merciless. The moonlight is harsh and bright enough to etch the streets in shadows and bring out the fear in men's eyes, and the sunlight is strong enough to wither the plants that are weak, but the light of the Killing Curse is master of them all, and enough to kill the strongest man.

The hot shower sends steam up into the air. Severus touches himself, leaning into the water, stroking and reaching for more. She never touched him here, never wanted him.

She is dead now, and this is his. In the night of her death, in the shadow of her tomb, with the sick-sweet smell of rotting lilies hanging thick and heavy in the air like a veil, he swore that he would have his consolation.

He will be consoled – he will be victorious, like Orpheus crossing the river. Lily, Lily–

With these fingers, Severus killed a man. His hand wielded the wand – wields it still. The spell left traceries of curselight in the air, like the creeping roots that anchored the willow to the earth and made it strong in the darkness, or like the veins that brought his blood to the surface of his skin. The power of it made his heart beat quick and his breath come fast.

Afterflashes of the curselight are burned into his eyes, lights eternal and unchanging – they blur the steam swirling in the shower, and Lily appears before him after all of these years.

Severus can see her through the steam, through the water, in the ruins of the world. He has seen her in her grave, has laid her out with flowers charmed to stay fresh, has kept watch with her through the coldest nights of the year, through the cold that touches her flesh through the grave.

Severus touches himself with hands that killed a man, with hands washed clean with soap and spells. He has scrubbed away the remnants of potions and the last of the ashes lingering from the night's revels. His blood beats through his veins with the tempo of the water on his back, hard and fast, and his skin stings.

He heard the man die. The Dark Lord watched, and Dumbledore knew of it. The three of them are complicit, but Lily's son slept, safe behind shields that were not his own, innocent in his dormitory. That is the one consolation that Severus has.

It is a siren-song, it is the first hint of spring in winter. The rain will wash the streets of the cities, driving winter's debris into the gutters. The rain will fall in churchyards and graveyards, over the frozen earth that holds her body.

The figure in the steam before Severus wavers and starts to drift away.

In the world of mists and shadows, everything has passed – in the world of solid men, one thing remains. Severus cannot touch her, but he can touch himself. Harder, faster, more – he touches himself, but he feels her hands on him, her body bent before him. They make love in the city of ashes, where the devil waits in the wings, and Severus takes her there, under the ruined tower and under the hanged man, fucks her hard and fast. The world is ruined, the world is his, she is his–

Even as he is reaching out to take her, to carry her with him, she slips away from him. He bites his lip when he comes, when he loses her, and tastes his own blood.

Like pomegranate seeds eaten until the sweet juice is gone, like Persephone who bids the world farewell each year, one kiss is allowed. Lily leans forward to kiss him on the forehead as she leaves, and he feels the touch of her lips on his skin for the first time, for the last time.

With a sigh, Severus leans against the stone shower wall. His semen washes down the drain with a last swirl of hot water – he closes his eyes and does not look at what remains.

Nothing is left.