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Disclaimer: Every time I have to say it, I get depressed. I don't own these characters, I'm just mucking about in JKR's genius pool. Forgive me.

Summary: Snape pays dearly for his position as traitor in the Death Eater ranks. As a result, he loses his eyesight completely. Help and support come from a most unexpected source as Harry must lift Snape from the depths of despair to which he has sunk. Yet can both of them together make it- and each other- through the horrors that have only just begun?

Pairing: SS/HP

Rating: Subject to change. But probably won't go beyond R.

What Mine Eyes Can See

-MM-

~*~

Pain.

It was the first thing he was aware of when he was shocked back into consciousness. Pain, and a terrible, terrible light. He struggled to make sense of it all, sense of anything, where he was, what he was doing there, and the source of the pain that made it so hard to think.

"Severus..."

There was a voice he knew all too well. He flinched involuntarily as cold fingers brushed up against his face. A memory sprung unbidden into his mind, a memory of those same cold fingers closing around his throat, pressing him against the wall. Of a hand cracking sharply across his jawbone. Of a bright flash of light, then the blessed darkness that had swept him away into sweet oblivion.

He clung desperately to the last thought as he struggled against the light that held him still. Again the hand traced the lines of his face, resting against his lips, jaw and eyes.

"Why, Severus? Why did you do it?" The voice was wistful, almost sad. "You could have been great here with us. You could have been one of the greatest wizards in the world, you would have had it all. Power, fame, riches. Why did you leave?"

"Because." His voice, at least, still worked though it was harsh and rasping in its dryness. "Because, Lucius, I found out who I am. And who I wasn't. I could never be one of you, because I had something you never would. Call me Slytherin, call me traitor, call me what you will. I could never what you described because I still have a soul." At least, he thought he did. Maybe he was lying again. Maybe it didn't matter.

The hand stiffened. "Don't talk to me about a soul, Severus." Lucius' voice was hard. "You, who came back with honeyed promises and excuses, you who came back a sincere liar, you who killed dozens of those who once had called you brother, you who turned your back on your true calling in exchange for your pathetic life- you would look to talk to me of a soul?" Lucius laughed, and the sound sent chills down to Snape's very bones.

"I may have turned away from you," he interrupted Lucius, his voice harsh and grating. "But not for me. Never for myself. Because I would rather have died, Lucius, than have come back here as one of you. May I be cast into hell for all the times I called you brother. The only reason I chose to come back was so I could take as many of you out with me. I am not one of you."

"Oh, but you were, Severus. You once were. You were greater than many, you outstripped nearly us all even at your young age. You had enemies, Severus, more than you could ever imagine, but they feared you. Twenty one years old, and they feared you. You had potential if you had but chosen to wield it. You could have been greater than us all, than even Voldemort, if you had wanted to be. You just didn't know it."

"You're wrong." He felt an eerie calm fall over him as he spoke. "I was never a threat to Voldemort's power, because I lacked the crucial requirements. I had compassion, Lucius. Do you still know what that means anymore? I had honor, mercy. Things you will never understand, things that kept me from ever becoming more than I was when I was a Death Eater. Things that kept me human while the rest of you degraded into the monsters you are now."

He cried out as a fist connected sharply with his right jaw. Lucius' voice had changed. It no longer carried that wistful sigh of regret. It was as hollow and empty as the words he next spoke.

"You always had such a clear insight on things," he said as Snape shook his head clear of the pain. "You had this ability to see straight into the heart of the matter. It was a wonderful skill of yours, Severus, and one of your most irritating. I wonder how well you would fare without it, and without that sharp tongue of yours to do it justice." He sensed rather than saw the smile that crossed Lucius' features.

"Our Lord," he said, placing special emphasis on the first word, "has given me permission to deal with you as I will." The tapping of a wand came from his left. "I believe I have found a punishment most fitting. Let us call it poetic justice for a spy who has seen too much."

A dull roar filled the small room. He could hear it echoing through his ears as he lay on the cold stone, too weak to protest, too tired to fight. He was through with fighting other people's wars anyway. Maybe Lucius' spell would end it all for him. Somehow, though, he didn't think so. Death would be too merciful for a spy, especially a spy caught by the Death Eaters.

He was so wrapped up in his own hazy thoughts that he almost missed it. The roaring grew louder until it rushed past his ears like the winds of hell. The bright light that surrounded his vision grew brighter until he cried out in pain, but still it grew. Somewhere over the rushing winds he heard Lucius chanting steadily, his voice growing louder with each word. Suddenly, the roaring stopped and all was silence, until Lucius whispered two final words.

"Caecus nocium."

Then all was silence and light.

Minerva McGonagall couldn't sleep. That wasn't odd, really, if one considered all that had been going on recently. First that strange letter from the Ministry that had Dumbledore all worried, then the agitation that had infected most of the students, especially the First Years. Add to all of that the fact that Snape had been sent to the Death Eaters days ago and there had been no word since, and you had the perfect recipe for insomnia.

After her fifth attempts at reading Third Year papers on the dangers of self-transfiguration, McGonagall gave up and pushed her chair back. She was getting nowhere just sitting in her office, so she decided to talk a walk by the lake, though it was well past midnight. She wrapped her cloak tightly around her shoulders and set off, hoping to clear her head with the cool night air.

As soon as she set foot outside, she began to feel better. The lake was still in the calm night, the moon shone off the surface as clearly as it would a mirror. The worries that had been plaguing her for the better part of a week seemed to lessen and disappear, slipping from her shoulders as easily as a cloak. It felt so good to be outside after being stuck inside the castle chasing runaway button beetles all over the classroom. McGonagall closed her eyes as she took a deep breath of fresh air.

"Oops! Sorry, Professor!"

McGonagall opened her eyes in surprise and looked down at the student who was picking himself up off the ground. "Mr. Potter. What are you doing out here at this time of night?"

Harry Potter shook his head, his black hair falling into his eyes. "I was awake," he explained. "Actually, my scar woke me up and I couldn't get back to sleep. I thought I'd come down here and see if a walk would tired me out enough so I wouldn't be nodding off in Professor Binn's class. I didn't think I'd find you out here."

McGonagall narrowed her eyes. "You said your scar was hurting?"

"Um, yeah. I guess I must have had a nightmare or something." He shrugged, rubbing absently at the lightning bolt that marred his forehead. "I don't remember anything, but then again, I usually don't."

McGonagall was about to speak again, but they were both interrupted as a voice filled the empty night with a ringing intensity, the sound filling everything that heard it with terrible dread.

"Morsmordre!"

She spun in the direction of the voice, heard Potter gasp behind her. The sound had come from the direction of the Forbidden Forest, and she scanned the night sky for what she knew she would find.

And there it was. Floating high above the treetops, an immense, grinning skull rose, blocking the stars from view. The familiar snake crawled out from its mouth, face twisted into the rictus of a snarl. Sparks of green flew and settled from the grotesque picture. McGonagall felt her stomach twist with fear.

"Not here," she whispered, staring at the mark of evil that filled the sky. "Not here, oh God, not now. Harry!" She grabbed the boy by his arm, breaking his trance as he stared fixated on the grinning skull. "Stay here. Don't go anywhere, do you understand me? I've got to find out where it's coming from. Don't move."

She set out at a dead run towards the Forbidden Forest. She could only pray that no one else was awake to see the dread Mark. Please, please not again. Not here, and not of all times now. Best just hope...

Suddenly she was aware of Potter running beside her. Anger clipped her words as she continued to run without slowing.

"I told you to stay back there," she shouted at him. "I can't risk taking you with me. Merlin only knows what caused that thing, and you aren't safe here!"

"This is the safest place I could be," he shouted back, matching her stride for stride. "Whoever made that Mark could be anywhere, I'm not safe back there, either! At least this way I'm with you if something goes wrong. We don't know who's out there, or where! I was no safer back there by myself than I would be anywhere else!"

McGonagall didn't reply, saving all her breath for the mad dash to the trees. Her heart froze with the dread certainty that when they arrived, what they would find waiting for them would bring more horror than they could imagine. That's the way it always was with the Dark Mark. There was only one thing awaiting you if the skull leered down on you. Death, destruction and pain.

She skidded to a stop when they arrived at the line of trees that marked the Forest's beginning. She looked wildly about, trying to locate the source of the Mark or a clue to the havoc it left behind.

"P-professor!"

Potter's voice was shrill and unsteady as he pointed. McGonagall's gaze followed the trail of his shaking finger. "Merlin help us," she whispered.

Slumped against a lone oak tree was a figure dressed in black robes. As they drew closer, McGonagall saw it was a man, battered, beaten and tightly bound. A pair of blank, unseeing eyes stared out from a gaunt face mottled with bruises. Blood trickled from the man's half open mouth, dripping onto the forest floor with a chillingly steady rhythm. McGonagall brushed the man's hair out of his face and felt her breath catch in her throat. She whispered a severing charm, and the ropes fell from the man's wrists.

"Mr. Potter," she said without looking up. "Go find Dumbledore. Tell him to come immediately to the Forest." She could have used a messenger spell, but she wanted Potter well away from the scene and safely inside the castle. "Tell him it's urgent." She cradled the man in her arms, though he whimpered fitfully at her touch.

"Tell him Severus has returned."