Seventeen Years (by timydamonkey)

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter; it's J K Rowling's. I am just writing this as a fan.

Author's Note: This is a Snape point of view story. As such, I've tried to be as true to his character (as I see it) as possible, and it means that he may make some disparaging remarks about other characters. This is Snape. It's not character bashing (which I strongly dislike); it's me trying to get into his head.

I've borrowed a few scraps of dialogue from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but not very much really.

Feedback would be appreciated. Now, onto the fic...

It all starts with an overheard message. It's the point of origin, the one point in his life that dictated everything after. It's the thing he can never change, where he can only look back and quietly curse himself.

It works like this:

You falter for one second, make one mistake, and spend seventeen years paying for it.

"Severus, please…"

He had once grovelled for forgiveness in front of this man, and now it's like looking at himself seventeen years earlier. Pathetic is a word that comes to mind. Weak. Frail.

Dumbledore is dying, yet he still needs Snape to play their game. Things are moving now, and nobody can stop them.

Nobody but Potter, apparently (and doesn't that thought make him sick).

Snape was little more than a scared child back then, but a long time has passed. In the past, he wore those Death Eater robes with trepidation, trying to conceal the shaking of his wand, blending in so nobody would look closer at himself. He'd motivated himself with righteous anger – those morally upright Gryffindors who'd never shown a glimmer of that when they tormented him, that mudblood who had wronged him…

(This defence mechanism, where everyone is to blame but himself because it's so much easier that way.)

Now he stands there in black school robes, no mask over his face, yet the pale white of his skin and the dead expression on his face is scarier than any mask.

For a moment, he considers disobeying. Let the man suffer. His stupidity had caused this; meddling with cursed objects is what has led them both to this conclusion.

Let Draco do it. He's doomed either way, so if he wants to prove himself so badly, he's welcome to. But Draco is obviously failing (he doesn't have the guts, part of him sneers in offence, and the other part remarks on his morals, which is more than Snape himself ever had). Besides, the Death Eaters are getting suspicious and paying too much attention, and Snape had agreed begrudgingly to sacrifice himself and Dumbledore months earlier. Now, he finds himself cursing his stupidity.

Dumbledore is the only thing that has been stopping the Dark Lord from making his move, but obviously not anymore. Staring at an old man with glazed eyes and glistening sweat on his forehead, it's almost impossible now to think this man has ever been formidable. (Impossible to think he cowered before this man, once upon a time, and admitted his sins.)

He's never hated Dumbledore as much as in this moment, with the heavy knowledge of what he must do, and an audience that thirsts for blood as if it's water. This act will sustain them, while this is the beginning of the end for him. Dumbledore knows it, too.

He raises his wand and exchanges a glance with Dumbledore; this is it, they communicate to each other without words. He intones, "Avada Kedavra."

The sacrifices they have made.

"This is intolerable." Snape scowls, pacing the headmaster's office – his office – as he tries not to consider what will be going on downstairs. He's heard the whispers that follow him around: that's the man who killed Dumbledore, the greatest wizard from the last century! He's seen the hatred in faces of children who think they hide it so well, but have never had to mask their emotions before. In the spy game, they would be dead.

They're just children. Snape doesn't dislike children as a principle: he despises stupidity and arrogance; people who think they're too good and those who just aren't good enough. This, he feels, describes the vast majority of the dunderheads he teaches (that he doesn't teach anymore).

Potter came tearing after him after he killed Dumbledore, appearing like a wisp of smoke and finishing with an explosion that would be impossible to miss.

Hearing Dumbledore's golden boy throw curses at him – and an attempted Cruciatus, no less! – did give a certain amount of savage satisfaction. (See, Dumbledore? As averse to the rules as his father!) Until Potter attempted to throw his own spells at him, of course, as if he hadn't been fool enough once throwing around unknown spells, now he was trying it when knowing full well what it did.

Potter's hate, it seemed, was more savage than even his.

He keeps it together until the last minute, until Potter shouts, "Kill me like you killed him, you coward-"

As if the little idiot wasn't stupid enough to invite his own death had it been anything else, but then, that word – coward –

A boy with a shaking voice reports a half-heard prophecy to the Dark Lord to save his own skin (to finally be helpful). The man that boy becomes roars, "DON'T CALL ME COWARD!"

He may have agreed to help Potter for Lily's sake though he's never liked the boy, yet he's never felt rage quite like this towards him either. After everything he's given up – after every risk he's ever taken to save his worthless skin – as if he hasn't given up everything on a gamble from Dumbledore that may not work out anyway, but will doom him either way…. A spell bursts from his wand, designed to incapacitate not to destroy even despite his lack of control, because he's spent so long agreeing to help save the brat that even unconsciously his magic's responding to that.

A vicious part of him wishes it had done something else. Even with Dumbledore's aid, he'd never quite been able to smother this part of himself.

"Well, you put yourself in this mess," says one of the portraits haughtily. The headmasters have given him a rather frosty reception, bar one, for what's happened to their school, that safe haven they'd worked so hard on nurturing. Snape looks at him with such venom that it must show in his face; the man pales and doesn't press any further.

"It could be worse," Dumbledore says.

The Carrows are stalking about downstairs on orders from the Dark Lord. They're there to crush resistance, but in reality it is so much more than that. He can hear the whispers of it already: sneeze, and the Carrows will get you. It's a power trip that they delight themselves over, while the other staff frown but can't do anything to stand out, either. Snape is going to have to watch them closely, discourage it without looking too sentimental.

Out in the world, the Death Eaters are finally moving. Seventeen years ago, this would be a victory. Now, it's just a momentous mistake.

"You told me to protect the students, Dumbledore!"

"And you are. If you weren't here, Severus, what would have happened?"

It's on the tip of his tongue that perhaps this wouldn't have happened with Dumbledore here, but he doesn't say anything. The moment Dumbledore let himself be affected by that blasted ring, it ceased to be an option anymore.

Hogwarts is his home. If he were a Gryffindor, he'd run downstairs and throw them out of the school or die trying. The patented Gryffindor stupidity. However, Snape is a Slytherin; he's always been a Slytherin. He will tiptoe around the subject, set little traps and play his part; on the surface a loyal Death Eater, and laying steps to the Dark Lord's downfall on the other. Even dead, Dumbledore is steps ahead of the game, and his portrait is manoeuvring his only remaining chess piece to control the rest of the board.

It's living dangerously, but there is no time for safety anymore. There has never been time for safety for him.

Besides, he's been living this double life for so long that it comes as naturally to him as breathing.

Snape gets his news from the Dark Lord. It's in what he says, and what he doesn't say. When he's angry, it's obvious that Potter has got away again, and Snape feels vicious satisfaction. This is what you get for hurting Lily, this is how you made a dangerous enemy. (He is able to think of Lily when not in Potter's presence.)

Dumbledore's plan seems to be working. Snape is begrudgingly impressed.

He watches and waits and plots. Then he sees Nagini, wrapped in a protective cocoon of magic, and Dumbledore's words rush back to him.

"…Lord Voldemort will seem to fear for the life of his snake…"

Everything is coming to a head, now. He doesn't know what Dumbledore's cryptic message means, but he knows enough to realise this will come to an end, one way or the other.

He has another job to do. He has to find Potter, tell him – everything – as long as he can get close enough to talk without the boy trying to curse him. He'd seen hatred in that boy's face, and understood it. He's so preoccupied with this; he hadn't honestly thought that Dumbledore's bizarre prediction would come true, certainly not right now, that he makes a fool's mistake and doesn't notice the Dark Lord's fixation on him until he mentions the Elder Wand and he suddenly pays rapt attention.

He's distracted from his study of Nagini, and stares into red eyes.

Now that he's looking, the Dark Lord's face is radiating danger.

This is it. He doesn't have time for this, he needs to find Potter –

The Dark Lord is saying, "…The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who killed its last owner. You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live, Severus, the Elder Wand cannot be truly mine."

The implication isn't lost on him. Dread coils in Snape's stomach. It isn't self-preservation; it's that he hasn't completed his last task yet, the one thing that can really lead to an end of this war...

"My Lord!" he says again, because there are no words that can save him. The Dark Lord doesn't have mercy, even for his own servants.

"It cannot be any other way. I must master the wand, Severus. Master the wand, and I master Potter at last."

For the first time in seventeen years, he's truly afraid. For himself, for the world, for the plan that's going awry right this minute… now his role is to roll over and die, die a traitor and a killer and with a secret on his lips that he has to pass on… The same role Potter has to play and doesn't know about yet, and for the first time he feels a stirring of sympathy but it's a bit late…

He hears a hiss, and doesn't need to understand it to know what's going to happen. Then Nagini lunges at him and all he feels is pain and the Dark Lord turns his back and is leaving without so much as a backwards glance and this is it he's failed they've failed and suddenly a face materialises in front of him and his eyes widen and –

He breathes, and sanity returns for a fleeting moment.

He's staring at green eyes in a too familiar face. He looks shell-shocked and not one trace of hate remains in his face, the sentimental fool (if it wasn't Snape, this could get him killed). But here… this is perfect, he grabs hold of Potter as if it will anchor him to life for a little longer, and he forces some thoughts to the front of his mind, and beyond…

"Take it," he croaks. "Take it."

For a moment, he thinks the boy doesn't understand, but for once Granger steps up and does something useful.

It isn't the way Snape planned it, but they don't have time to talk. This is the only option.

"Look at me," he whispers. (Look at what I have done, what you have done. Let me see…) Potter doesn't protest. With the boy's look of reluctant sympathy, he stares into those eyes in a face that, finally, reminds him of Lily for one last time.