Chapter Text
Fire.
It was as though the blood was boiling in his veins, throbbing and churning, searing through his flesh causing indescribable pain. He couldn’t open his eyes, though keeping them shut so tightly was causing his temples to throb. His throat felt like it had been torn open, burning with every single swallow of the saliva and blood pooling in the back of it, threatening to drown him in his own fluids. He coughed and spluttered. The pounding of blood in his ears was blocking out all other sound as his body struggled against death.
The pain he was in made him long for death; long for it all to be over. Why did the gods want him to suffer? Had he not suffered enough in this life already?
His body shifted and the ache radiated throughout his limbs, pulsing with a life of its own. Nagini’s poison was working its way through his nervous system causing every single nerve ending in his body to feel like it was on fire. It continued to course through him as his muscles reflexively tensed in response to the pain. Attempting to open his eyes proved fruitless. Everything was blurry. He closed them again, trying to suck air into his lungs through his undamaged nose.
‘Hush, Professor.’ He heard the soft female voice over the roaring in his ears. ‘Try not to move, sir.’
A cold, damp towel was dragged over his clammy, heated forehead. His body temperature was absurdly high as it attempted to fight against the toxins being pumped around it by his heart. It was ironic, really, that the organ responsible for keeping him alive was also likely to be responsible for a most painful death. His stomach tensed up and before he could give any warning, not that he could have from the state his throat was in, he rolled to his side and promptly vomited from the pain.
There couldn’t have been anything but blood and bile. He still felt terrible for whoever it was that he had managed to empty the meagre contents of his stomach on.
There was a murmured cleansing spell before gentle hands eased him back onto the cot to rest against the pillows. The cool cloth returned, swiping over his forehead, cheeks and down the uninjured side of his neck to cool his chest and shoulders. The relief was welcome, but the pain was still overwhelming.
‘We’ve won, Headmaster,’ the voice told him. ‘It’s alright. You can rest now. We won.’
Sagging with relief, his body lost some of it’s tension for a moment before a fresh wave of pain hit. This time his consciousness slipped and he was dragged back under to where he couldn’t feel pain.
He hoped that he wouldn’t wake up again.
The next time Severus woke, he was no longer at Hogwarts.
He’d somehow known that he had ended up in the school infirmary initially, though how, he had yet to ascertain. Things were not at all as he expected. He’d hoped to be dead by now, not whatever hell they’d seen fit to keep him. Swallowing, he noted that his throat felt dry, but none of the fiery pain was searing through his throat and chest. At least that was an improvement. The rest of his body felt as though it was apart from him, and he wondered curiously how that could be possible.
Breathing deeply through his nose, he slowly expelled it from his mouth, counting down slowly from ten as he worked up the courage to open his eyes. He knew that even with his eyes closed, the room would likely be too bright for him. Pushing past his anxiety, he allowed them to flicker open, squinting at how hard the light streaming into the room was compared to the sweet darkness behind his eyelids.
Severus longed to close his eyes once more and prayed that this time his plight may be over and his time on earth was at an end.
As he blinked, his eyes began to acclimate to the room. It was white and beige with little other colour around to distract. He’d know St Mungo’s anywhere. The room was small, though mercifully private, and he glanced to his left and right to see if there was a roommate he was being forced to share with. He was relieved to find that he was alone. Looking down at his arms, he was surprised to find that his wrists were not bound. Shifting his feet slightly, he noted that they were also not shackled.
Curious.
He would have expected that a murderer and Death Eater would have been subdued somehow, even if he was incapacitated. He emitted a soft groan as he tried to turn his neck in the other direction, seeking out the source of light in the room. Over by the window sat a chair, and in that chair, curled up with her arms wrapped around her legs and her head resting against her knees, was Luna Lovegood.
Managing to contain the sound of surprise from escaping him, Severus stared at her. She looked so small in the chair, though he reasoned that she was stationed on the opposite side of the room from his hospital bed. Her long blonde hair was clipped out of her face at the back of her head, and he could see that in slumber her dainty features were relaxed.
Her presence in the room raised a number of questions, namely, what on earth was she doing there in the first place? Of all the people he might have expected, she was quite possibly the last one. He rather thought there might be an Auror there watching over him like a prison guard, waiting for the moment he woke to drag him off to a life sentence in Azkaban for his war crimes. It didn’t matter that he was a spy and had been compelled by not one, but two unbreakable vows. The fact of the matter was that he had killed Albus Dumbledore, and he had naively become a Death Eater.
Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons rarely went unpunished.
His arms felt weak as he tried to push himself up into a positing sitting up against the pillows behind him. A sign of muscle atrophy. He wondered just how long he had been unconscious for, if his muscles were so badly wasted away. With quite a bit of struggle, he finally got himself into the position he desired, and allowed himself to gaze back over to the window to where the young woman was still fast asleep.
There was a side table that he could see to his left, for which he was grateful. The right side of his throat felt tight and ached. His memory was flooded with images of the Dark Lord’s pet snake, striking at his throat and violently tearing it up. Severus hissed and closed his eyes, his heart rate rapid and his stomach filling with sick dread. Nagini’s bite. He’d quite forgotten how it was he’d ended up in a medical facility in the first place. Mild amnesia; the free prize that accompanied physical trauma.
He wondered for a moment what other delightful surprises were in store for him now that he had awoken from whatever coma he had fallen into. Nagini was a magical snake too, a bastard created by the Dark Lord. There was no way of knowing what kind of effects it would have on his body long term. Sighing heavily, Severus allowed his eyes to drift shut again. They were feeling quite heavy already, and he knew that fighting the inevitable was pointless.
Darkness claimed him once more, and he hoped that this had all been some sick dream concocted by his brain, and he was actually not really alive at all.
The next time he awoke the room was darkened, with nothing but the strong light of a nearly full moon pouring in through the window.
This time, the chair that had been occupied by Luna Lovegood was empty. Her absence made it easier for him to believe that he had actually imagined her there last time. He hoped it had been a dream and that all of this was not actually real. Though it was twisted and cruel of his mind to taunt him with the prospect of such a miserable existence.
He was startled from his thoughts when the door to his room opened suddenly, and his heart sank as the young woman in question entered. She was wearing a different outfit this time, so he knew that the last time she had indeed not been a figment of his imagination. She looked the same as ever, perhaps a little more tired than usual. There was a small scar on her pale, smooth cheek that had not been there before. Her blue eyes widened when she turned and her gaze met his. He heard a soft gasp pass through her lips, and she covered her mouth with her hand at the shock of finding him conscious.
‘Professor, you’re finally awake!’ she exclaimed, looking over him with concern drawing her brows together briefly.
‘Yes,’ he rasped, though the sound was ragged and did not sound like a noise he had ever made in his life before.
‘Let me get you some water,’ she offered, walking around the bed.
Severus watched silently as she poured a glass of water from a jug on the bedside table, and wondered just how she expected him to be able to drink it. His arms felt like two limp, useless noodles on either side of him, barely able to haul himself up against his pillows. How long had it been since he’d woken up last? The passage of time was fragmented and he had lost all concept of it.
The young woman before him moved in closer to the bed lifting the glass of water up to his mouth and she gave him a meaningful look. Did she expect him to drink from the glass like an invalid; like a child? But he was an invalid, barely even able to keep his eyes open without being exhausted. Reluctantly, he leaned forward a little, though even that movement had been painful for him, and took a few sips from the glass.
The cool fluid slid down his parched throat. He slowed his sips a little. It wouldn’t do for him to overdo it and make himself sick from downing water too quickly. After he felt as though he’d had enough, he sat back, leaning against the pillows again.
‘My thanks, Miss Lovegood,’ he croaked. His voice wasn’t nearly as harsh and raspy that time.
She placed the half-drunk glass aside and took a step back from the bed. ‘You’re welcome, sir,’ she replied, walking back around the bed towards the door. ‘I expect you probably have some questions. I should go and alert the Healers that you’ve woken.’
Severus’s eyes widened and he shook his head quickly, hissing at the sharp pain that the movement sent through the right side of his neck, creeping along the back of his hairline. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not yet.’
She paused in her movements and instead walked over to the chair at the window and dragged it over to his bedside, plopping down into it. ‘I will try to answer your questions if I can, sir.’
‘How long have I been here?’ His voice was a little raspy still, but it didn’t hurt to speak as much as he had expected. Apparently the damage to his throat had not rendered him mute.
‘Four months,’ she answered.
Severus contained his surprise by frowning. Four months. He’d been in a coma for that long? Apparently Nagini’s venom was more resistant to treatment than he’d originally thought. Though based on how long Arthur Weasley had been incapacitated a few years ago, four months was not that long, and his injuries had been far more severe. Not to mention all of the blood loss.
‘What happened?’
‘With the battle at Hogwarts?’
He nodded fractionally, wary of the stabbing pain he’d felt the last time he moved his neck too much. The pale blue eyes of the young woman misted over as she became lost in thought while searching for the answers to his question. When she looked back up at him, and sighed softly and nodded to herself as if she was affirming something in her own mind.
‘It might be best if you don’t talk too much for now, sir,’ she began. ‘I would hate for all of the Healer’s hard work to be undone.’
He couldn’t contain his snort at the comment, but nodded in agreement. The girl was bargaining with him, and he didn’t like it, but he would tolerate it for long enough to get his answers.
‘I don’t really know where to begin. So much happened that night,’ she started again. ‘The castle was half-destroyed that night by the Giants, but Professor McGonagall was able to see that it was returned to its former glory in no time. The school term is to begin next week, so I will be going back for my final year. Harry defeated Tom Riddle with Expelliarmus after telling him that you were on our side the entire time. All of the Death Eaters with the exception of the Malfoys were rounded up and taken to Azkaban. What else…?’
He made an opportunity of the pause in her speech to stare at her incredulously. ‘Potter defeated the Dark Lord with a disarming spell?’
Luna nodded with a faint smile ghosting over her lips. ‘It is rather anticlimactic, isn’t it?’
That was one word for it. Severus couldn’t help but remain completely baffled by that piece of information. Harry Potter had defeated the most powerful dark wizard of this lifetime with a disarming spell. He was almost furious so many years of schooling had been wasted on the boy.
‘The deaths?’ he asked.
He could hear the venom in his tone. Simply thinking about Harry Potter made his blood turn cold. As he lay dying on the floor of the Shrieking Shack, Severus had given a series of fragmented memories to Lily Potter’s son, hoping that it would help push him to do what needed to be done to win the war. They had both been marked to die, but Severus had survived it, and wasn’t that just brilliant?
‘Hmm, well we lost Remus Lupin, and Tonks! Fred Weasley, Lavender Brown. Colin Creevy…’ She held up fingers as she checked off her list of names.
‘And Potter? Minerva?’ he demanded.
‘Both alive and well.’
Severus heaved a sigh of relief and fell back against the pillows more comfortably. It was a shame the werewolf and his wife had not survived. While the two of them had been bitter enemies in the past, he had never truly hated Lupin. He knew they had a son too, and the child would have to grow up never knowing his parents. If the Dark Lord was dead, and Potter was alive, he had managed to perform his task and was finally free—free from both of his masters, and free from obligation.
Which led him back to considering why he was still obliged to suffer through more in the human shell he had been stuck with in life. Hadn’t he paid off his debts yet? Had he not done enough to assist with bringing about the end of Riddle? It pained him to think that after everything in his miserable existence, he would still have to endure more. More pain, more hardship, more hatred, more humiliation… When would it end?
‘Professor?’ Lovegood piped up, drawing his mind back to the present.
Eyes roving over her, Severus felt an angry sickness in the pit of his stomach, bitterness filling his mouth. Why couldn’t they have left him to die on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. It wasn’t a glamorous death, that was certain. But it was the one he would have deserved for being the one to tell Voldemort of the Potter’s prophecy.
‘Who retrieved my body?’ he demanded.
‘I did, sir,’ she answered quietly. ‘Hermione came to me shortly after the battle and told me where you were. I thought I was collecting your body so that you could be properly honoured. I was very surprised to find you were still alive.’
‘How did you know?’
‘I could see your aura,’ she answered, to which he scoffed. ‘It was faint, but I knew you were still alive. Madam Pomfrey helped me get you to the castle, and I assisted her with healing you enough to get you here to St Mungos.’
Staring at her in mixed disbelief and resentment, Severus found his words failing him for the first time in many years. He knew that logically Poppy and the young woman before him were simply trying to save a man dying. How were they to know he was prepared to die? A much larger part of him was filled with rage. All he could see was red. How dare they save his worthless life and deprive him of finally finding peace? How dare they take away his choices?
Rage simmering just below the surface, he turned his sharp gaze to the Lovegood girl and pinned her with a look of pure hatred. ‘Get. Out.’
Seemingly unperturbed by both his barely contained anger and the cold expression he now wore, she stood up from the chair, returning it to the space near the window. She walked back over to his bedside, a contrite look gracing her dainty features.
‘I’m sorry, Professor,’ she told him earnestly. ‘I will send the Healers in now.’
He didn’t look up as she left the room, keeping his gaze fixed on the rough cotton fabric of the hospital blanket draped over his frail form. The door closed quietly, and Severus breathed another sigh, alone once more.
After two weeks of physical therapy, he was released from St Mungo’s and returned to Spinner’s End to figure out what he was going to do with his life now that he was cursed to continue living it.
TBC