𝐒𝐀𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄 || Severus Snape x OC ||

43. THE RAVEN'S CRY

*.·:·.☽ ✧ ☾.·:·.*

Quiet reigned in the boathouse, as Severus and Alice lay side by side.

As if out of nothingness, the scar upon the witch's wrist glinted silverily and dripped into the pools of Severus's blood and Alice's darker one.

The sound of a raven, flapping its wings and croaking as it flew through the broken window and came to land near them, sliced the quiet. Her raven. Her legacy. Gymynrodd.

And from the thin air next to the black bird, the ethereal form of a crone appeared. If Severus could see now, he would perhaps recognize the same crone that he had once seen outside Borgin & Burke's when he'd followed Alice in Knockturn Alley. For that crone, was Fate.

She reached for the raven by her side, her ancient hand caressing the dark plumage, and flicking her eyes to the fallen lovers. Once...twice... three times she passed her ancient hand over the raven, and the bird's form changed with each caress, until the shape of the bird disappeared and from it emerged a woman, young, and ethereal, no different than a ghost.

A woman that had once fallen for the wrong man. A woman who cursed the blood of that man without knowing that she was carrying his child, her daughter inside her. A woman who gave her life away, so that her daughter could survive, even if scarred, even if carrying a blood curse.

The ghost of Alice's mother.

Fate glanced at the ethereal being and smiled softly, she turned her gaze to Alice and Severus and nodded wryly before disappearing just as softly, just as otherworldly, as she had arrived, to escort a green-eyed boy through the Forest in the bravest journey of his life in this grim tale of witches, wizards, curses, and foes.

The debt here had been paid. The curse that bound Alice's blood had been, at last, broken.

Silently, the ghost neared the couple and touched upon the girl's scarred wrist where a silvery essence dripped down. And as the ghost's ethereal touch grazed upon her daughter's scar, the red wound turned fader, fainter, until at last it was healed, and the silver drops poured slowly into the blood and the darkness of the maledictus.

Out of the dark pool, emerged, like a shadow, the ghostly form of the beast that used to live within her. Her mother's ghost looked up to it as it bowed its head no different than a soldier. It had taken the lethal blow of Voldemort's curse on Alice's chest, sparing the witch of the instant death the spell would grant any other witch or wizard. And now, now that the curse was broken, and the Hocrux destroyed, the spirit of the beast was free to return to the world where it had come from.

The ghost turned her transparent gaze upon Severus and a wry, soft smile appeared on her lips. She touched the blood that had pooled around him, and then, as if by a spark of otherworldly magic, the blood moved.

*.·:·.☽ ✧ ☾.·:·.*

As if a thousand little needles pierced through her, her veins welcomed the essence of life as it surged through them, carrying life, carrying her true magic. Air found its way into her lungs, filling them, moving her chest up and down, slowly.

The scent of the night by the lake greeted her returning sense of smell, before the distant scent of smoke claimed her mind to awake. Eyelids parted slowly, and dark eyes fought the haze. The young witch moved, her gaze falling to the wooden floor where what blood existed, his or hers, turned into silvery mist, swirling higher under the faint light.

She clawed on Severus's coat, reached for his wound, not a thought of herself when all that her mind spoke of was his tragic end. But when her fingers pushed aside the torn, stained collar of his coat and of his shirt, she found that Severus' wound had closed, the skin knitting itself, the blood no longer gashing. She pushed to her wrist, looking at the floor again. What once was a pool of his blood, had now turned into a silver mist, and colour had begun to return upon the man's pale cheeks.