Certain Dark Things || Book Five

iii. play the villain

A sudden crack broke the sleepy summer silence that lay thick upon the grounds of Hogwarts, and the black, staggering form of Severus Snape appeared before the castle's waiting gates. For a moment, his robes caught and eddied upon the passing breeze, then the Potions Master swayed, collapsing against the iron gates with a solid thud. He retched up his guts.

Really, it hadn't been any worse than Severus had expected. He'd seen worse—experienced worse. The vast majority of Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters were incarcerated and just as bloody mad as the Dark wizard himself, so Voldemort didn't have the option of turning away or slaughtering prospective followers, especially those as capable and well-placed as Severus. Both he and Dumbledore had known this before he went to the Dark Lord—just as Severus had known there'd be a price to pay for his "swaying allegiances."

It was the lot of a spy to sit on the fence, and they were always the first to catch the fucking backlash.

The pounding in his head had yet to abate. In fact, Apparition had only worsened it, a sick, swollen pulsation stealing through his mind, the pressure spiking until Severus tasted blood on his lips and vomited out the bile swirling in his stomach. His chest hurt. Merlin, it hurt—.

Without prompting, the gates swung in on their own accord, taking away what support Severus had, and he landed gasping on his knees. Agony bolted through his right shin—.

"Kneel, Severusss," spoke the high, shocking voice of the figure half shrouded in the dark, and Severus hesitated, hesitated too long, because the hex flew at his knee and he—.

Severus gasped again, louder, breathing in heavy, ragged gusts of air. The castle was there, just there, lights on in the mullioned windows, waiting for him to—.

"Get up," he whispered, spitting into the gravel. "Get up, get up—."

Again, the pain in his knee almost took it out from under him, but Severus held onto the feeling, anticipated it, welcomed it into his bones. He embraced the burning in his joints, in his nerves, the slick, sticky pull of cold sweat under the torn wool of his coat. His hair stuck to his neck—not sweat, not sweat, don't think about it—and Severus held his shoulders stiff, forcing one foot in front of the other until he was walking with some semblance of his usual dour aplomb.

He flexed his pale, trembling fingers, and they burned. He told himself it was a wanted burn, like that first pull of Firewhiskey straight from the bottle—Merlin, it felt like it'd been years since he'd had a drink. Had it been years? He couldn't remember. Severus laughed, voice echoing against stone—and he choked.

Oh, no.

His shields were slipping. Many a time in the past, years and years ago when he'd been little more than a snot-nosed brat himself, Severus had tried to explain to Albus that this was the most difficult and dangerous part of his double life, this liminal time after a violent interrogation in which he wandered and his shields began to pull back. Standing before Voldemort or Slytherin presented their own kind of thorny difficulty, but Severus thrived on adversity and took perverse pleasure in subverting their attempts to subsume his mind, like hammers falling against palace walls, battering the stones but never managing to break through. The Dark Lord had no trick, no tool in his torturous little arsenal that could break the ice of his thoughts.

It was now, when he returned—crossing into the perceived safety of Hogwarts' quiet halls, crossing the soft, feathery comfort of familiar wards—that his Occlumency began to fail, like a breath held too long, like adrenaline leaving one's veins when danger passes by. The danger hadn't passed—it would never pass—but even a man like Severus Snape could only bear so much before bending, releasing pressure from his own subconscious until it hissed through his thoughts like steam from a valve. Manic emotion roiled inside him, and he directed it as best he could, letting fury set in, then grief, then fear—fear for himself, for Hogwarts, his home, the girl, the war—.