Chapter Text
In all the legends and stories he had heard, Heaven, Hell or the Afterlife had never been described quite like this to Severus. Certainly, light was supposed to exist in Heaven, in large quantities, and fire in Hell, also in large quantities, but not both at the same time; there was no such thing as being in both Heaven and Hell. Maybe, Severus thought, only vaguely aware that he had a brain that could process thoughts, he was being punished for all the horrible things he had done, whilst also being celebrated for those things that would be called ‘good’. That certainly seemed the sort of thing the universe would throw at him, even after he had been mauled by that snake. How lucky.
Severus prised his eyes open as well as he could, deciding that he ought to face the afterlife head-on, rather than cower away. He was dead now, what else could hurt him, really? It was, however, absolutely no use to open his eyes; everything was just as bleary as it had been before, and the sounds seemed to merge together until something bounded, like nails on a chalkboard, out of the hubbub.
“I don’t believe it! I think he’s waking up!” It sounded suspiciously like… Potter.
This really must be Hell, then.
“Excuse me!” Potter’s voice, for it was definitely Potter, hollered for someone else, and Severus was aware of a feeling that was akin to a number of elephants pounding over his forehead. He wished he was still asleep.
“Awake? Are you sure, Mr. Potter?” That was not a voice he knew.
“Yes, go and look! I was sitting by the bed, and then he started moving, and his eyes opened! He must be awake.”
Severus was vaguely aware of these words for a few seconds before something obstructed his vision of bright light - a blurry human face, peering down onto him like an interested cat.
“Mr. Snape? Can you hear me?” The lips of the face were moving. Severus thought, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he ought to nod, or speak his assent, but nothing seemed to be working properly. It took him a great deal of effort to wrench his mouth open, and when he attempted to say the monosyllable, he felt nothing but fire in his throat, and a guttural rasp came out.
The face receded. “Well, he certainly made some noise. I think he’ll have some trouble speaking at first, since the bite was at his neck. Still, Mr. Potter, you are right. He is awake, which is a very good sign.”
The next obstruction to his vision was just as distorted as the first, only Severus recognised it this time, even with his less-than-satisfactory vision. Round glasses, behind which sat striking green, and messy black hair. This was Potter, and he ought to have expected it.
“Snape?” That was all the boy could muster, it seemed. Still arrogant, then. Severus had a few choice words that he would have fired back, only he did not fancy stirring up the flames in his throat.
It took a number of glasses of water, and at least an hour, before Severus felt anywhere close to being able to use his voice again, by which point the Healer had managed to prop him into a sitting position. Severus found his entire body to be completely useless in the pursuit of moving or holding itself up very well, and a dull ache had permeated it, starting at his neck, when he had regained more sharp consciousness and good vision.
It was somewhere around this point that he accepted that he was not in Hell, or Heaven, or any sort of afterlife. This was, it transpired, St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, more specifically a room somewhere in the Creature-Induced Injuries department. It was not a bad room, Severus decided, except that it came with Harry Potter, who sat patiently, yes, patiently on a chair as three separate Healers came into the room to ensure that Severus was actually awake and not just a figment of their, or Potter’s, imagination, and to ask him a grand total of seventeen times if there was anything he needed. Severus would have liked to say, by the time he had received the question for the fifth time, that he would have liked some peace and quiet to come to terms with not being dead, but every time he croaked or rasped, he only got more water. It was not entirely awful, because the water did, if only momentarily, do something about his neck, but Severus would rather have stayed asleep.
At long last, the Healers left, but unfortunately, Potter did not follow them. Instead, he stayed where he had sat all the while, looking at Severus with something that was a mixture of shock and sheepishness. Severus thought that Potter knew he would rather not be in company, and yet he did not seem to want to leave.
“Is there a reason that you are here?” Severus asked, half-surprised that his voice worked. It was not as smooth as it had been, but he appreciated the cold and sardonic tone it retained.
This comment of clear hostility did not cause a waver in Potter. Instead, he grinned.
“Nobody else would want to visit you, would they?”
This was a perfectly good point.
“Everyone thinks I’ve gone mad,” Potter went on. “Well, not so much now, but when I first explained about everything you’ve been doing during the war, they thought I was addled. Good thing you gave me those memories, I’ve convinced all the people who matter.”
Severus attempted to arch one of his eyebrows, and found that it would not work. “I think,” he started, his voice still not as strong as he would have liked, “that you need to be a little more specific.”
Potter nodded, still not wiping that insufferable grin from his face. “Right. Well, we won the war. The Order. Voldemort’s dead. It’s been about two months, though, but you’ve been unconscious.” He looked a shade guilty. “That’s probably my fault. Hermione found antivenom in your robes, but I wouldn’t let her do everything she could have done, so you didn’t get proper attention until after the battle was over.” He sighed. “A lot has changed, Snape.”
Severus did not reply, but Potter did not seem to need him to, and continued talking as though a dam had been broken in his mind.
“Anyway, you’ve been here since the war ended, because you were injured. If you’d woken up right away, I think the Ministry would have sent you to Azkaban, but I gave the Wizengamot Special Commission the right information, and you’ve been cleared. So, no Azkaban, though for a while I wasn’t sure if that was going to matter.” His face fell. “The Healers were sure you were going to die. They’ve been saying, all this time, that even if you were to wake up, you might still be really sick, but… you’re talking, and sitting!"
He did not feel it was necessary to remind the boy that his voice sounded like that of a chainsmoker with a bad case of whooping cough, or that he had been unable to sit himself up, and would likely have to be aided in lying down, too.
Harry seemed to have said everything he could think of in a short amount of time, and he sat awkwardly for a few moments, before he opened his mouth again. “I can answer your questions, if you have any.”
It was not true that Severus had no questions; he had many of them. How had the Dark Lord been killed? How was Potter alive? Had he heeded Dumbledore’s last instructions, or had he not? Who was controlling the Ministry? Obviously, someone who liked Potter a great deal more than Fudge, Scrimgeour or Thicknesse had, since he was able to convince the ministry that Severus should not be thrown into prison. What had become of everyone? Potter was alive, but who else was? More importantly, who wasn’t ? His survival may be going on miraculous, but Severus was sure that that May night had hardly been one of miracles for all. The problem with all these questions was, quite simply, that Severus had no idea how to ask them. It would be distasteful, even for Severus, to ask who was dead in a brash way, and he also felt it was a touch insensitive to ask Potter why he was not dead either.
“I did listen to what your memories said,” Potter informed Severus, after a pause. “I went and found Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest, and he did try to kill me, I didn’t resist or anything, but I didn’t die. I was a Horcrux, you knew that, right? He killed the bit of his soul that was inside me, and I survived, only I pretended to be dead, and then I was able to sort of duel him again, and I won.”
Severus tried, rather fruitlessly, to search through the mess of memories and thoughts crowding his brain, sure that one of them was trying to poke its way through to him. Something he had worked out on his own, not an instruction of Dumbledore’s, what was it? He tried occluding, so he could begin to look through methodically, but it did not work.
“The…” Severus fought to find the word. “The wand…”
“The Elder Wand?” Potter asked, stiffening slightly. Severus attempted, and failed, to nod. The Elder Wand, that was it. He couldn’t entirely recall what it was for, but it had been relevant in some way, he was sure.
“Dumbledore did intend for you to be the master of it,” said Potter. “He told me, I’m not sure if he told you. But it didn’t work out that way. Malfoy- Draco Malfoy, disarmed Dumbledore on the Astronomy Tower before you got there. He mastered it before you, and then I took Draco’s wand in April, and mastered it. Voldemort had the Elder Wand, but he wasn’t the master.”
So, it had been luck . Severus did not say this, mostly because he could barely talk, but still, he thought that. It had been entirely by chance, which sounded just like Potter. Remarkably lucky, with some nerve and a bit of skill, but careful balancing acts and coincidences had killed the Dark Lord. Still, Severus thought that Potter would not call the Dark Lord ‘dead’ unless he was gone for good, and so it was a little bit relieving. Not everything had been in vain, then, both his bad and good. All had been resolved, and maybe he had played a part in it. Maybe.
The next days were filled more with Healers and potions than anything else. After the haze of his long sleep had faded completely from him, Severus had found that his pain was really rather bad, and he had required Pain-Relieving Potion, along with several others for muscle atrophy and nerve damage. The Healers did not describe everything that they were doing to him, but Severus recognised everything that he was being offered, or rather, force-fed, due to his own experience. As far as he understood, the Healers did not want to give him too much Pain Reliever, because it tended to induce drowsiness or numbness, and they really wanted to make his limbs move again.
Because it was his limbs that were the issue. As a Healer with a kindly face whose name Severus did not yet remember had told him, the snake’s venom had remained in his body for a number of hours before there had been any treatment, and had spread through his bloodstream very quickly, owing to the site of the bite. That, as well as him being unconscious for two months meant that his legs and arms had been inflicted by nerve damage, as well as the natural weakening that came with lack of use, and who knew what else, since Nagini’s venom was unique, and there was no other patient in the records with this level of contamination who had survived. Arthur Weasley, Severus knew and had been told, had been bitten by Nagini, but he had been given treatment within minutes and had been fully recovered in weeks.
“You’ll get better, don’t worry,” Potter said, a week after Severus had first woken up. To his great annoyance, the teenager had taken it upon himself to visit Severus often, though he could not see why: Severus had always hated the boy, and the feeling had seemed mutual.
“The Healers reckon if you start trying to move about a bit, you’ll regain muscle mass, and it’s only up from there.”
Severus knew that Potter was being very optimistic. He had tried to move again, and he was regaining the use of his arms slowly, but that was not the end of his worries. He had thought his troubles occluding on the first day had been due to tiredness, but no matter how much he tried, Severus had been forced to realise that he could not do it anymore, and that was the real worry to him. His limbs being permanently or temporarily out of use was annoying, but Severus had always lived inside his mind rather than his body, and that appeared to have been destroyed. His last shield, his pride was damaged, and what else? Occlumency may have been as familiar to Severus as his own greasy hair, but it was still in essence, part of his magic, and it was now faulty. What else within that other part of him was damaged or destroyed? He had not tried to use his wand, though Potter had brought it to the hospital, because he was afraid of it not working.
For Severus, being a wizard, being able to do magic, had always been what kept him going. The fact that he was, in this way, better than his filthy excuse for a father, the bit of power it had given him, the hope Hogwarts had presented to him as a child who wanted nothing more than to leave his house. Whilst a student, Severus had also jealously guarded his magic, knowing, if nothing else, that he was good. He always understood spell theory, always grasped things before most others, always felt that he had some talent. It had been what made him more than a poor, working-class half-blood amongst the aristocratic wealthy pure-bloods which saturated Slytherin house in his day. His talent had been what got him noticed, and what kept him alive. Would Severus have even survived to be bitten by that snake if not for his power, his Occlumency, his skill? No, he would not have. And so the thought of having lost it all was more painful than the wounds on his neck, whose dressings had just been replaced. Severus Snape had never been anything, except of course, his talent, his magic. He had never had family connections or money or good looks to recommend him, he had relied on skill, and that might have gone from him forever. It mattered not what people thought of his actions, he could never live up to any of the good or bad he had done when all of it came from a power that was lost.
***
In order to fully distract himself from the fact that he may have lost hos best shields and skills forever, which was, admittedly, a weighty task, Severus devoted his time to understanding the whole story, and what a story it was. The tale of Potter’s hunt for Horcruxes - yes, multiple - could have filled at least two very large novels, Severus thought, even if it did comprise of a hefty amount of luck. Potter seemed to somewhat enjoy the retelling of his adventures, though Severus was not sure why. A lot of it sounded fairly traumatic, and Severus could not honestly say that he would have been at all happy to retell his own tale. Perhaps Potter simply enjoyed the bemusement or shock that invariably popped onto Severus’ still-pale face upon hearing of a particularly daring escape or else a particularly ingenious brainwave of Miss Granger’s. Severus was well aware that he had been very critical of Potter’s affinity for getting himself into trouble, and thought that perhaps the boy’s enjoyment merely came from the fact that he was able to one-up his old teacher by showing that his affinity had won him a whole war.
Because he certainly had won the war. Strangely, Potter did not talk very much about the battle, nor his own heroism in saving the whole goddamn wizarding community, but Severus knew, from reading older copies of the Daily Prophet that Potter was being celebrated up and down Britain with triple the vigour with which he was celebrated the first time he had defeated the Dark Lord as a baby. Severus wondered if perhaps all this glory had humbled the boy, because certainly he did not seem half as arrogant as Severus remembered him being at school. Following this thought, he had had a good log mental discussion with himself, trying to figure out if Nagini’s venom had somehow turned him soft as well as weak.
Because he was still weak. Slowly regaining the use of his body did not kid Severus into thinking he was getting back his old precision. His hands were clumsy, and Severus often dropped things if he did not have a firm enough grasp on them, and although he could get up and walk around his hospital room, the walls had become as much a tool to keep Severus standing as they were to keep the building up. He could not last more than about a minute before he needed to rest, and that was on a good day; often, simply getting up and depositing himself in the armchair six feet away was enough to tire Severus out to the point that he would fall back to sleep for another hour. The Healers had offered him a cane, but Severus had said no. He was a stubborn man, and told himself he would not be walking about with a cane aged only thirty-eight. Potter had attempted to convince him too, but Severus had refused to hear of it. He felt internally humiliated enough, not having recovered his Occlumency, and did not want to appear outwardly affected by his injuries.
That, however, would apparently make people very happy, when the time came that the Healers would finally agree to release Severus from the hospital, so he had heard. Potter had been unable to avoid the topic any longer after Severus had got his hands on issues of the Prophet from mid-May, and had found a number of opinion pieces debating his own morality and whether or not he should be thrown in Azkaban upon his recovery. Potter seemed to think Severus was an integral part of the good side, but it seemed that his opinion had not extended to everyone. Once the news had broken that Severus was, indeed, awake, a number of people had called for his immediate transfer to Azkaban, despite his exoneration, and Potter had finally admitted, under questioning from Severus, that there were people who would like nothing more than to kill him in the street if they ever saw him.
“I know it’s not fair,” Potter said, uncomfortably, writhing in his seat like an uncomfortable cat. “The Ministry wouldn’t have exonerated you without good evidence, and they’ve tried explaining to the public, but some people are a bit stupid. They know you killed Dumbledore, and they can’t believe it was anything other than the original story, and they’ve heard all these rumours about you and got it into their heads that you’re still a murderous Death Eater responsible for as much as Voldemort was.” He said this all very quickly. “It’ll die down, I’m sure the hysteria is just because you woke up. That’s what Hermione said, anyway. Give it all time to settle, and you’ll be fine.”
But Severus did not agree with Potter here. It was true that things tended to be forgotten as time passed, but Severus doubted if everyone would forget everything that he had done. Even with the explanations about it all, Severus had still killed Dumbledore, had still played host to the Carrows, had still willingly received the Dark Mark at some point in his life, and that was something that many people would not forgive, Severus was sure. For one thing, he had killed a man, and there were undoubtedly people who thought that would always be bad, no matter the reasoning. Secondly, there were students who had suffered at the hands of the Carrows, and their parents who dealt with watching that trauma, and the excuse of ‘it was to keep my act up’ would simply not rid him of wrongdoing in their eyes, because they were parents. It was the same with Severus taking the Mark. How many people, across the two wars, had suffered directly or indirectly because of the Death Eaters? Many. And, even if he had left behind the beliefs of a Death Eater, and repulsed them to this day, those people who had lost loved ones to the organisation he had once devoted himself to would never be happy with his pardon, would never want any scum who had ever been a willing servant of the Dark Lord to walk free, and Severus could not blame them. He was surprised that Potter was willing to be in his presence; he had ended the life of his mentor, had given the Dark Lord the information which had killed his parents, and had allowed his friends to be used as punching bags by the Carrows and their lackeys for a year.
Potter seemed to think that Severus was being melodramatic about it all, and that he should focus on his recovery instead. It was easier said than done. For one thing, recovery was slow. On several occasions, Severus’ Healer, a wizard named Hippocrates Smethwyck, had explained that he was not sure of the full extent to which Severus’ nerves had been damaged, and that he could not tell whether the damage he could detect was permanent or not. He had been warned that he would need frequent appointments at the hospital even after discharge, and thus focusing on this strand of his life was no more cheering than on his reputation in society. For the time being, it looked as if Severus would be facing a rather grim experience, both in his body and in the world.
He had, at least, tried to do magic, after Healer Smethwyck had said it would help him to further diagnose the problems Severus was still having with pain and fatigue and mobility. Severus had not explained his lack of Occlumency, because he did not want to explain all of it, nor admit to it, but he did, grudgingly at first, pick up his wand to attempt some simple spells. Lumos worked, and so did a Summoning Charm, and Severus also managed to cast a Shield Charm, but it all made him more exhausted than walking, and Healer Smethwyck decided that, like moving, this was something which Severus would have to build up again, start from scratch. Essentially, he understood, he was starting from first-year all over again, only this time without any energy. Healer Smethwyck had already advised against Apparition, saying that it could kill Severus, and considering the relatively awful day he had had before that pronouncement, he had considered it just to get it over and done with, since life didn’t have much point anymore.
Truthfully, Severus had never looked seriously past the war, had never thought about what he would actually do or be if the Dark Lord fell. He had assumed that he might be thrown into Azkaban, and had not dared to hope for more. Faced now with a future that was not going to be spent in jail, Severus could not fathom what he would do upon leaving the hospital. He would not go back to teaching; Potter had come out with some nonsense about him taking up the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, which he had rejected quickly. The fact that he hated teaching aside, Severus knew quite well that the wizarding community would not appreciate his return to Hogwarts when many of them still thought he deserved to have died from the snakebite. Teaching had been Severus' only serious, real job; being a servant of the Dark Lord was hardly something one could write on a CV and he had been at Hogwarts since his twenties. He couldn't remember what he had once hoped to be, and Severus had no idea if that was because of the affects of the venom on his mind, or because it had been a good twenty or so years since anything such as hope for the future had crossed his mind. Maybe it was a mixture of both.
"You could brew potions and write papers," Potter suggested on one September afternoon when Severus had been forced to let him come in for a visit since he had nothing else on his schedule. "You reinvented all of the N.E.W.T potions, you could rewrite the textbook."
Severus held back a sneer as he recalled the fate of his once-treasured Potions textbook.
"My name is mud with plenty of people, you have already said this," Severus replied. He was sitting in his armchair, and had managed not to feel like passing out from the walk over there. "I doubt I would be a sought-after academic or brewer."
Potter frowned. "You're being quite negative about this, Snape. I'm sure there are people who know how good you are. Besides, academics don't have to be nice, they have to be good at what they do. Maybe they wouldn't care, if you had clever ideas, and got things right."
Severus said he would think about it. He didn't mention this to Potter, but he couldn't be sure if the damage to his mind and magic would extend to his abilities in potion-making. His fingers and wrists were certainly less nimble, something which was required for the skill, but Severus knew that if he lost his focus and deft mind, he would not be able to brew like he had done once.
"I can't say for sure," Healer Smethwyck replied when Severus finally dared to ask about the impacts on his magic and movement long-term. "I know it's not a very reassuring answer, but this is all so unprecedented. Personally, I think you will be able to get back some of your old strengths. Magic that's within a person can't be taken by anything, so I don't think you've lost your abilities forever. The problem is the control, the usage. Right now, your body is physically reeling and recovering. That's why your magic isn't as strong, you're just too tired to do what you used to do, but it's not the sort of tiredness you can get over by sleeping. Remedies and treatment is the way to go, and to make sure you're taking care of yourself even when you get discharged."
Discharge was what Severus wanted most. He was beginning to tire of his room, and the fact that he was being watched all the time by people who could barge in at any moment. The only problem with this, however, was that the hospital seemed to doubt his ability to care for himself, whether it be because of his fatigue, frequent pain, or because Potter had mentioned Severus' state of health before his bite, when it had been fairly obvious to everyone that he did not take care of himself very well. Severus suspected that Minerva McGonagall had had a 'discussion' with Potter about that.
"Undereating," he could imagine Minerva saying. "Even before the war. I don't know what he meant by it. He was always a scrawny boy, looked hungry and never ate well." Yes, Minerva would probably have a hand in ruining Severus' chances at ever having a quiet and solitary life, that was unless she still hated him.
She did not, or not really.
"For goodness sake, don't sit there looking so sorry for yourself!" She had come to visit him after the chaos of the beginning of the school term had passed.
Severus said nothing.
"You're alright, aren't you?" She peered at him like she had done so many times in the past, her quick eyes trying to discern his mood or state of health. "I mean, you're not-"
"I am not dying," Severus replied, curtly.
"Of course not," Minerva said, quickly. "When are you going home?"
"When they've decided if I can live alone." He had not meant to sound so depressed.
"But-" She straightened herself. "You're not an invalid . You know how to feed yourself." She eyed him with a severe sort of look. "And you'll do it."
"I'll have to come back here for appointments," Severus explained. "And I can't Apparate, so that makes things more difficult."
At first, Potter, of all people, agreed that he would escort Severus to his appointments after discharge. He had delegated himself as being Severus' emergency contact, and since Severus had nobody else to fill that role, he had had to agree. It worked, at the very least, in theory. They would use the Floo Network, and Potter's presence would mean that Severus would not be fussed over and not run the risk of being absent and unnoticed.
After all, it seemed that that was the way Severus was doomed to remain, unless he was being hated by the world, and that was just fine with him. Severus didn’t know exactly why he preferred to be alone, or if it was a part of his intrinsic character, but he often theorised, to himself, that it was because he could really only be honest with himself when he had no company, nobody looking into his mind, nobody asking him questions about the most recent batch of torture from the Dark Lord, no students squeaking about mistakes they would not have made if they had learned to read properly. Alone was the only state in which Severus could roll down his shields and attempt to relax.
Of course, the shields had been smashed now, but it did not change that part of Severus