Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter, the characters, the settings, and the details are not my own. J.K Rowling holds the rights to these wonderful things, and I am in awe of her talent. I own only my original characters, and of those there are not many.
Chapter Eighteen: The Price of a Memory
"And after the storm,/ I run and run as the rains come/ And I look up, I look up,/ on my knees and out of luck,/ I look up."- Mumford and Sons "After the Storm"
Severus was standing in the Shrieking Shack, and the woman standing before him was staring with her head tilted as his eyes opened and he took in his surroundings. He remembered everything. He looked down at his hands and saw they were free of the many tiny scars he should have had from sculpting. He had two sets of memories, each perfect and complete, and each telling him that his life was a completely different track of experiences. He looked up from his hands to stare once again at her, and he saw that her eyes were now a stormy grey, and she looked more like Nona than Lily. She was lighting a cigarette and staring at him expectantly. His hands came up shakily, and he pointed his wand at her. When his voice finally pushed its way out of his throat it sounded hoarse and broken. "Why? Why would you do this to me?"
She considered his shaking wand hand for a moment and then stepped forward so that she was closer. "I don't understand Severus. Do what to you?"
Rage colored his vision, and his wand began to move before all the strength simply bled out of him. He dropped his hand and fell to his knees, crashing into the floor with a force that he couldn't control. He relished the pain that shot up his legs as he hit, and he buried his face in his hands. He couldn't stop the tears, but he didn't want to show them to her. He barely recognized his own voice when it escaped him. "Why would you give me all of that just to take it away? What have I done to make you hate me this much?"
He felt her tiny hands on his shoulders, and he looked up to see her through blurry eyes. Her face was sad, and she stroked his hair out of his face. "Severus what do you mean?"
"You tricked me. You gave me a vision of a life that could never be. Where I was happy. Happy.Then you took it all away. You yourself told me I am about to die in here, and you let Harry tell me as well. Why go to the trouble of creating such an intricate illusion?"
She still had her eyebrow raised, and then her face transformed from sad to joyful and she threw her arms around Severus' shoulders. It was a testament to his weakness that despite his anger Severus was comforted by the feel of her, so like the fake friend she had created for him. She stroked his back gently. "Severus you've misunderstood. Please calm yourself and I'll explain everything."
When his shaking subsided she pulled back and cupped his face in her small hands again. She wiped his tears gently with her thumbs and then raised an eyebrow again in silent question. Severus took a deep breath and held himself very still. "Then explain it."
She moved back from him so that she was sitting cross-legged on the floor a short distance away. "I am one of the Fates. I've taken a liking to you. I don't believe you deserve to die in this ugly little house at the hands of a madman and his pet. Everything you just saw is within my purview. I can reweave your thread so that you live, and the life you have is the one you just saw."
Severus swallowed cautiously. "With you masquerading as my friend?"
She laughed. "That wasn't me, although I was there. I was much smaller than that. I'm wearing Nona's face to keep you calm. I wore Lily's face the first time we met for the same reason. Nona is a real woman who really lives on the shore in South Carolina."
"What about Harry? Are you reweaving his thread as well to make him fall in love with me?"
She frowned. "No. As a consequence of your thread moving all the threads connected to yours must move as well. I don't have the ability to force someone to love another. Your thread and Harry's have been intertwined since before he was born. It was natural that once your thread moved his would move with it. I can't change your thread if you refuse it Severus. You have to tell me you want your life to change. I didn't think you'd understand if I just explained that to you, so I showed you instead."
"What if I refuse?" Her face fell and she looked away. He was torn between his anger, and the instinctual need to comfort her because of her resemblance to the woman he remembered so well.
"Then you will die in this room, and fate will go on uninterrupted."
"What will happen to Harry and Nona?"
She looked away from him and her lips pursed. "Harry will marry Ginny Weasley and have three children. He will give one of them your name and tell the little boy that the bravest man he ever knew was once in Slytherin."
Severus closed his eyes. "That sounds like a good life." His voice was more bitter than he wanted it to be.
"Yes well, on the surface it's fine. Except Harry will spend his entire life slightly dissatisfied and never knowing why. Slowly his discontent will grow as mediocrity ensnares him. He will die unfulfilled and quietly lonely."
Severus opened his eyes to consider her. She didn't look like she was lying, but it was hard for Severus to judge her honesty. He waited patiently for several minutes, and when she didn't continue he leaned a bit forwards and said, "And Nona?"
She winced slightly and met his eyes. "Will drink herself to death by the age of forty-one. She will be buried in the same plot as her parents."
Severus felt his heart clench almost as tightly as his fists. He struggled to modulate his voice as it forced its way out of his lips. "But if I choose to change my fate will I slowly go insane by Harry's presence? Is this a loop where I will keep coming back here to hear your explanation and then choose again?"
"No. This choice is final and binding. If you say you want to change I will rearrange your thread so that months ago we had this conversation. I will help you to brew the potion, and to create your replacement. You will leave yourself a note, and eventually you will choose to love Harry instead of remembering your past. After that the memories will stop completely. No storm and no returning to this place. You will never speak with me again."
"So your representation within that fantasy will be gone?"
"Not exactly. I simply took up residence where I could watch you. I will not take up residence once you make your decision. I do have my duties to attend to after all."
The pieces of the puzzle clicked together. "You were Magellan."
She smiled brightly and nodded. "You were always a smart one. Now I need you to choose. "
Severus stood slowly and watched her carefully considering him. He looked up to study the room. "It appears that I will never escape the responsibility of saving Harry Potter from himself. I choose to live."
She stood and crossed the room to stand beside him with a small smile on her face. "I knew you would. Always a smart one." She pushed a lock of lank hair out of his eyes and studied him for another moment. "I'll miss being close to you Severus. You're a good man."
The ocean sprawled in front of him as the wind pushed his hair back from his face. For just a second it felt like a hand. Magellan had been barking. Severus wasn't sure how long the dog had been barking he just knew that it must have been happening for a while. He felt a strange rush of excitement, and then it was gone just as quickly, replaced by the sensation that Magellan had to be barking at a stranger, and Severus hadn't heard the bell or a knock on the front door.
"Hello? Hello is anyone back there?"
Severus tilted his head. The voice was British, and Severus hadn't heard the accent since his mother passed away. He waited for a breath, and then called back, "Yes. I am back here." There was a brief resurgence of that excitement, and it puzzled him to no end.
He heard a muttered curse as the visitor no doubt tripped over the low-lying fence, and attempted to right himself. Then the man came around the corner of the house. Severus watched as dropped his duffel bag to brush off his pants, and then he looked up. The young man wasn't very tall, and was built lean instead of muscular. His dress suggested a young man who cared nothing for fashion, and his hair was growing wilder with every second as the wind ran through it with little mercy. The man stared at Severus blankly for several seconds, before he stood straighter, and in a voice that conveyed both awe and relief said, "Snape. I finally found you."
He was sitting across the table from Nona and Harry. Three years of this life had softened any of his remaining reserves, and he didn't even try to control his laughter as Nona tricked Harry into eating a thick piece of fondant. Harry's look of disgust was just too perfect. His lover sent him a glare before turning back to Nona. "That tastes nothing like icing." His voice was almost petulant, and Severus felt his laughter gain in intensity.
There was a time when this sort of social interaction with Nona meant a bottle of liquor and a hangover in the morning. Harry had waited an entire year before he began to push the bottles back into the cupboard and suggest slightly drier pastimes. It was never a subject Severus would have lectured her about, and he was almost glad that Harry found a way to approach the subject without sending her running from both of them.
Instead she was spending the evening teaching Harry how to decorate cupcakes, and the young man had taken to the skill fairly quickly. His dexterous hands rolled out the fondant gracefully, and he was more than willing to listen to lectures about layering and shaping as he carved tiny lines into his figures. Nona's grin was broad and wide, and Severus couldn't miss how much healthier she looked these days. The cigarettes hadn't gone, but without vices she probably wouldn't have fit in to their little family.
She finished her fifteenth flower petal and set it down carefully before looking to Severus. "You gonna join us hon', or just laugh like we're monkeys at the zoo?"
He took a sip of his tea and considered that for a moment. "I believe that is an accurate simile, and that I will continue my spectatorship."
She shook her head ruefully and began to place petals. "Yeah I opened the door for that one."
Harry's laughter returned the soft smile to Severus' face, and he watched as the keen green eyes studied the little male figure he had been putting together. When those eyes moved up to catch Severus' he left the grin on and watched Harry respond to it. "It's ok Nona. He's obviously tired. Advanced age and all that."
Severus narrowed his eyes and gave Harry a dismissive hand wave. "We'll see who tires first tonight."
Harry turned almost as red as Nona, and Severus watched as she finished her cupcake construction quickly and began to make her way towards the door. "Yeah, uh, that's it for me ya'll. I got a buyer in the morning for that tapestry and I gotta be bright and fresh when he comes. Night."
Severus watched Harry move gracefully through the kitchen as he cleaned up the mess the two of them had created. After three years he still wasn't tired of seeing the smooth stride, the strong hands, and the small but easy smile that seemed to always grace Harry's face. He waited for the younger man to look up before he lifted himself from the chair and crossed the room.
Harry's breath hitched inwards when Severus latched his mouth onto the sensitive skin beneath his ear. He bit it gently, and then laved the spot with the flat of his tongue before moving his lips upwards. "Harry," he kept his voice low and silky, "would you like to join a decrepit old man in bed?"
Harry nodded once and then swallowed thickly. "Yes. I believe that would be a good idea. Wouldn't want you falling on the stairs."
They crossed the floor and ascended the steps together, and at some point between the kitchen and the bedroom Harry became the aggressor. Severus loved this as much as he loved the gentle smiles, and when Harry's hand traveled the length of his taller frame to capture his chin and hold him in place for a deeper kiss Severus moaned in the back of his throat to share his pleasure.
Deft hands had his belt undone and his trousers unbuttoned even as he was grabbing the hem of Harry's shirt and lifting it up. "Would you like to top tonight Harry?" He tried to make it sound authoritative, but Harry's fingers were tracing his hipbone and all his blood was filling his cock as the young man licked the joint of his jaw.
"No. But I do want you on your knees." Severus was happy to comply.
A/N: This has been an unforgivably long time coming. It has been a mixture of reluctance to end the story, real life, and a sudden and intense obsession with another story I am working on. My husband and I have begun watching