Unexpected Fate (Severus Snape x Reader)

𝟕𝟑 - 𝓐𝓯𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓶𝓪𝓽𝓱

A battlefield's aftermath, a sanctuary for the wounded, a graveyard for the fallen. The long tables, once filled with food and chatter, now bore a far heavier burden, their surfaces littered with bodies, some still breathing, barely clinging to life, while others lay unnaturally still beneath hastily draped sheets. The flickering candlelight overhead cast long, haunting shadows across the stone floor, the dim glow failing to mask the devastation that stretched before me.

I could hear the whispers, the soft cries, the shuddering breaths of those left behind. Students and professors alike moved through the room with heavy steps, broken expressions, bloodstained robes, their faces marked by grief and exhaustion, by the weight of everything they had lost.

And then, as I forced my legs to carry me further inside, my gaze fell upon a group of people huddled together in grief, their bodies shaking with the force of their sorrow, their hands gripping onto one another as if holding on tight enough might somehow change what had already been written.

The Weasleys.

The sight of them alone was enough to make my stomach lurch. Their usual warmth, their unbreakable spirit, was now nothing more than fragments, their faces streaked with tears, their arms wrapped around one another in a futile attempt to keep themselves from shattering completely.

And there, lying motionless before them, was Fred.

His face was still, too still, his lips slightly parted as if caught mid-laugh, the expression frozen in time, a cruel echo of the boy he had been only hours before. It didn't look real. As though at any moment, he might stir, might turn his head and grin as if this had all been some elaborate joke, some ridiculous prank he had pulled to lighten the mood.

But the silence told me otherwise.

I took a step back, my hands trembling, my throat tightening with something too large, too painful to name. Another life stolen. Another heart left in ruins. But just as I thought I could bear no more, just as I tried to steady my breath and convince myself to keep moving, my eyes caught something else—someone else.

A few steps beyond the Weasleys, lying side by side, their fingers almost touching, as if even in death they had reached for one another—were Remus and Tonks.

For a moment, the world simply stopped.

The walls of the Great Hall blurred at the edges of my vision, my body no longer my own, my limbs heavy, useless, detached from everything except the unbearable sight before me. My chest constricted violently, a sharp, searing pain cutting through my ribs as if someone had plunged a blade straight into my heart and twisted.

And then, before I could stop it, before I could even think, my knees buckled beneath me, and I collapsed.

The impact sent a dull shock through my bones, but I barely felt it. I could feel nothing but the loss.

"No... No, no, no..." The words spilled from my lips, fractured and senseless, my voice barely more than a breath, a whisper, a desperate plea to a universe that had already made its decision.

My hands shook violently as I dragged myself forward, each movement slow, heavy, as though my own body resisted the reality I was forcing myself to face. My fingers hovered just above Tonks' hand—the one that lay closest to mine—so close, yet impossibly far.

A raw, broken whimper tore from my throat, louder than I realized, louder than I intended—loud enough to make the murmurs around me falter, loud enough that, for the briefest of moments, I could feel the weight of their stares.

Their gazes flickered toward me.

And yet, I couldn't bring myself to care.

"Please..." My voice cracked, my breath coming in short, uneven gasps as I clutched at the fabric of Remus sleeve, my fingers gripping the material as if I could somehow hold him here, as if I could bring them both back by sheer will alone.