Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to the Harry Potter franchine or AMC's The Walking Dead, wishful thinking aside.

Authors Note #1: (No zombies) AU on the ending of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" where instead of dying immediately the venom caused Snape to endure a slow, lingeringly painful death. Thus having time for some 'before death commiserating' with an old 'friend.' This is a Daryl/Snape (past relationship) and a Caryl (present relationship) fic.

Warnings: This is basically Daryl in the Wizarding word, visit Britain as an American wizard who did a brief exchange program thingie at Hogwarts during his fifth year while Snape was also a student at Hogwarts. Adult language, ust, canon character death, angst, drama, hurt/comfort, injury/illness and mild sexual content.

Specialis Revelio (because we both know the past is never passed)

Chapter Three

"Why did you want me here?" he finally asked, leaning back in his chair as a floorboard outside of the room creaked. Suspicious and whinging as he smirked without flair. Allowing the eavesdropper a few moments to bask in their so called prowess before casting a silencing charm.

Thinking how not so long ago he might have followed that up with a jinx, just for the hell of it. Would serve 'em right for puttin' their nose where it don't belong, after all. He canted his head when the thought refused to leave. Realizing that somewhere along the line, he must have gotten old. Because he wouldn't have even thought about if it he were anywhere else but here. Remembering the good 'ol days horsing around the castle grounds and drafty halls.

It was surprisingly hard to stomach, now that he thought about it.

About the time that'd passed them by and how much they'd changed because of it.

Depressing as shit, actually.

"You know why," Severus conducted, wand hand twitching again like an emotional tell. Eyes glassy and sunk deep into their sockets as the gauntness of his face surpassed skeletal and moved slowly into something most people would call desiccated.

"Do I?" he echoed, brow riding high. Leather robes swirling around his feet as he propped his boots up against the frame of the bed. Feeling the emotional backwash of the words rise up in this throat like sick-up. Hating himself for still letting it get to him after all this time. "You let me go."

"I had to, for more than a few reasons," the man returned, eyes sparking briefly, an echo of his old fire showing through. "Surely by now, after everything that happened, you know that. There was too much at stake, and I couldn't-"

"And what? That's supposed to make me feel better?" he snapped, getting a prime time view of his younger self shoving his shit into his bag. Showing the man his back as Severus just watched, cold and aloof, dark hair pooling in front of his eyes. Looking for all the world like he didn't care. Like he didn't want him.

He hadn't understood it at the time. Still didn't if he was being honest. Hours earlier he'd been convinced that there was nowhere on earth he'd rather be than by Severus' side. He'd been so sure. It hadn't made sense. The sudden turn – like a muggle light switch flipping from on to off.

He'd traveled home with the taste of him on his skin, his scent on his clothes. Trying to work through what had happened, what he must have done wrong after they'd had each other for months. Inseparable and practically drowning in one another since the moment he'd shown up at Spinner's End a few months after they'd graduated. Wilted and mussed from his broom flight across the pond. Living for the hungry spark that lit itself in the back of the man's eyes before he reached out and pulled him in. Surprising them both when the embrace lengthened and one of them – he never remembered which – finally had the balls to kiss the other stupid.

The expression Snape fixed him with might have been a smile.

Or maybe just a snarl.

"No. The truth never does."

He fumed silently. A muscle in his jaw flexing violently – struggling to hold back a whole stream of things he knew he'd regret - as he stared at the opposite wall. Because really, what else could he say to that other than a big steaming pile of fuck you?

"You could have stayed," the man pointed out, voice breaking like all the sins in the world were catching up to him. "I didn't say it, but I wanted you to."

"No," he replied, shaking his head with remarkably little heat and more than a tinge of sadness. Suddenly confident in the negative as thoughts he'd long come to terms with curled down his tongue and into the open air. "You wanted the best of both worlds."

"It's hard to compete with someone you placed on a pedestal before your balls dropped, Sev," he murmured, reaching forward and allowing their fingers to brush as the potion master's breathing began to thin out.

"The way I see it, you did me a favor. Probably in more ways than one."

"Will you stay?" the man asked, hours later. Hand gripping his tightly, unashamed and almost painfully tight as the wizard's eyes grew unfocused – blind. "Till the end?"

"Yeah, I'll stay. I'll keep you safe," he rasped, looking but not really seeing as the walls closed in, stifling with the memories of another time and another place when he'd told him the very same. Holding him through the aftershocks of one nightmare after another. The sheets still twisted around them, damp with sweat and slick as he ran his fingers through the man's hair and pressed a kiss to his temple.

"Always."

Whether by accident or design, the girl from before – Hermione - was on the deck when he slammed through the door and into the murky fall air. He caught her in his peripheral vision – curled up on the corner railing, knees to chest and remarkably small. But he just showed her his teeth, hating her immediately. Refusing to feel guilty about it as he leaned back against the door, fighting the urge not to haul back and punch something.

He felt- oh god, he felt.

Grief and rage intermingled as his magic coiled, tight and wandless underneath his skin. Threatening to boil over as he took a deep breath, then another. Forcing it back. Swallowing it down like the burn of fresh vomit as the flame inside threatened to explode outwards. Wreathing the world in fire as emotion was made flesh, then destroyed in kind.

He hadn't felt this unbalanced since-

When he came back to himself, cracking lids he hadn't realized he'd squeezed shut, she was staring at him openly. Curiously. Eyes warm and intelligent, looking out of place in her muggle clothes, wand in a holster on her thigh. It made him wince in sympathy. He'd looked like that once. Awkwardly trying to bridge the gap between two worlds. Magical and Muggle. Unwilling to fully give up one for the other even as the world of his birth grew less relevant by the day.

He wondered what she'd told her parents during the war. He wondered if they understood. Truly understood? God knows Merle never had. He'd never told his old man, letting him believe it was some boarding school for the gifted, free fuckin' education the old dickhead didn't care about one way or another. Too busy chasin' diner-trash to give two shits about what his kids were doing any day of the week. But Merle had known. He'd been the one that had told him to go. Speaking to him through the phone between the thick plexi-glass during his first stint in the big time after he'd punched that guy's teeth in. Cursing up a blue streak about 'fuckin' weird ass magical shit' one minute, before swearing that he'd wallop him right to the moon if he didn't write back and tell the school his ass would be on a plane to Salem in time for the start of fall term.

The magic around the house shuddered. Rippling like an inlet pond. Sensing more than feeling the change as Arthur began working his way through the proper enchantments. Honoring the man's final wishes as he prepared Severus' body for burial. And despite her age, he could tell she sensed it too. Lower lip trembling, blinking quickly before he tasted the edge of unshod tears as they graced the air - close and ungratifying.

He still hated her. He had to. Knowing himself well enough that if he wanted to get out of here with his pride intact, he had to make himself believe it. He had to feel the burn of it. Imagine a thousand things she probably hadn't done just to psych himself up for it. But then, somewhat predictably, she had to go and ruin it by opening her god damned mouth.

"There are things he did I can't forgive," she started hesitantly, watching him through a sheath of rioting curls as he stiffened reflexively. "But knowing why? Knowing the reason? Well, it doesn't make it better, but it makes it easier to understand. To understand why he did them."

He got the past back in flashes.

The sound Severus had made when he came.

The soft touches, surprisingly gentle.

Hands that didn't flinch when they traced angry scars.

Caresses unlooked for in the beginning, but no less welcome.

The torn expression in the man's eyes that had dared to give him hope in the end.

Then the harsh words that had sent him reeling back to the States, hating him.

Thinking that the man had never-

"Speak for yourself," he snarled, recoiling through the mental onslaught as several decades worth of latent grief threatened to pull him down with it – suffocating him while he was still screaming as the after image of Severus' face, drawn tight and transported in the moment of pleasure mingled with the gaunt stranger he'd spent the night treating vigil over. Holding him gently as the light inside dimmed and the tears he couldn't hold back trickled down the curve of the man's face. Sightless eyes vacant and staring as death pried his soul loose and set him free.

He twisted away, wand tearing itself from his pocket and jumping into his hand as the girl's sneakers hit the creaky porch wood. Mouth open and about to say something as he visualized his room at the Leaky Cauldron. Doing a shit job of muffling the wounded whimper that worked its way up his throat before he apparated jerkily. Leaving behind the scent of bitter rage and burnt rose pedals as he lost himself in the whirling blur of magic.

The last thing he saw was the girl's widening eyes. Startled but strongly kind as clarity rippled across her face like a Georgian sunrise.

He was man enough to admit that even years later – long after Severus had been put to ground - that moment still haunted him. Because the thing was, once upon a time, Carol had worn that same fuckin' look.

It had been the same night she'd looked up at him, shell-shocked and gasping as the moon rose against the distant sky, but still putting the pieces together. Still trying. Desperate for it. Hungry for it. Needing to understand as the slim form of her only child growled with bloody teeth. Taking it in with hitching sobs he could feel against his chest as he grabbed her close, keeping her from running forward as an arc of quicksilver sparks erupted from his wand. Shattering the thing that'd once been her daughter into tiny, slivering pieces. Catching the light like broken glass as the whites of watery blue eyes reflected in the growing pale.

She'd looked up at him then, delicate neck craning. Away from the pile of shattered color. Away from the mangled undergrowth and the ring of small little bodies still strewn around the clearing as Rick and Michonne appeared beside him, wands drawn - too little too late.

She looked up at him with eyes that had seen him first as a savior. Then as a murderer. And third, as a wall she could take shelter against. A solid protection freely given as the winds of change rocked her on her foundations. Threatening to take everything she had left as she buried her face into the crook of his neck and grasped him tight.

Shit like that wasn't something a man easily forgets. Especially when those eyes would eventually be those of the women he ended up makin' his. A woman who loved him despite who he was and what he'd had to do. Despite who he hadn't been able to save that cold winter day when push came to shove.

It had been his world that had done this to her. His. That failure was on him. He knew that. Losing her girl had cored her out. Guttering her spark despite the years that passed and the smiles she gave him freely. The wound remained, open and festering. There was no charm, no spell- no potion that could change that.

There was no greater crime than taking someone's light.

And that was what his world had done to him now, twice over.

So, maybe Severus would save him a seat in hell.

Because either way, he was pretty sure he'd be seein' him.

A/N #2: Thank you for reading. Reviews and constructive critiquing are love! – This story is now complete.