Severus Snape paced back and forth in his office, the heavy weight of anxiety gnawing at his mind. The scent of ancient potions and faded parchment filled the air, a familiar comfort that did little to soothe his nerves.
The silence of the night was broken only by the soft scrape of his shoes on the flagstone floor, a steady rhythm that matched the frantic beat of his heart. Earlier, he had been in the headmaster's office when Dumbledore received an urgent summons from the Ministry about a break-in.
Naturally, the old man had left to investigate, not expecting anything of true consequence. Snape had returned to his quarters, thinking the night would pass without incident, allowing him to dwell on the old man's rapidly dying state and his own precarious position. He had just settled in, his robes draped across a chair and a warm glass of firewhisky on the table, when it happened.
Pain.
Unbearable, searing agony erupted in his left forearm. It felt as though a thousand knives, white-hot and laced with venom, were being driven into his flesh, twisting and carving from the inside out.
Snape screamed, falling to his knees, clutching his arm with a white-knuckled grip, his body spasming involuntarily. It burned like it never had before, a fire deeper than skin, deeper than magic itself, a pain that felt like his very soul was being torn apart.
The dark mark... He knew it was the Dark Mark. His breath caught. Was the Dark Lord summoning him? No… this was different. Violent. Not normal.
This was not a call to duty, as it usually was. It felt like his magic was trashing around and eating his skin. Like his bones were being removed while he was feeling it all.
This had never happened before, not even when he got the mark years ago. Sure, sure, it had been painful being branded by magic on his skin, but this felt a thousand times worse than anything he had ever felt in his entire life.
The pain subsided after nearly a minute, leaving him gasping for air, but the tremors in his hand remained as he slowly rolled up his sleeve, his heart hammering in his chest, dread, wondering what the hell had just happened.
Shock appeared on his face, he couldn't understand, was this some type of mind trick, or was he just too tired and was seeing things. He closed his eyes and shook his head as if trying to clear his head before checking again.
And still there it was.
Nothing.
The skin was pale and smooth. No mark. No sign that the magical brand had ever been there. No trace of the skull and serpent that had haunted him for decades, that had dictated every choice he had ever made, every lie he had ever told, every betrayal he had ever committed.
The empty space on his forearm, once a symbol of his chains, was now a shocking, pristine canvas. Gone. Completely gone. Not faded. Not dulled. Vanished, as if it had never existed.
It didn't make sense. Not even when the Dark Lord had been vanquished years ago had the mark disappeared. That's why he and Dumbledore had always known Voldemort would return, because the bond remained, a lingering tether between master and servant.
But now? Now it was truly gone. The magic, the curse, the very existence of the Dark Lord's hold on him had been utterly, irrevocably severed. The mark, a magical anchor, had been wrenched from his soul, and the act of its removal was a declaration: the anchor's other end was no more.
It could only mean one thing.
Voldemort was dead. Not beaten, not banished. Not weakened. Dead. Irrevocably and eternally. Snape's mind reeled, grasping for a logical explanation. He had just considered throwing his lot in with the Dark Lord once Dumbledore was gone, a bitter, tactical concession.
But now, both of the men who had defined his life, who had used him as a pawn in their endless war, were gone. One was already half-dead, the other now truly gone. The two greatest manipulators, the two figures who had cast the longest shadows over his existence, had been snuffed out.
Snape stood still for several heartbeats, the firewhisky forgotten on the table. Then he let out a low, hoarse chuckle. That chuckle turned into a full-throated laugh, manic and unrestrained, a cackling, broken sound filled with equal parts disbelief and joy. All these years, all this time, all this pain... for this. He had done it. He had survived. He had outlived them both. He was free.
Free from the burden. Free from the games. Free from the endless, suffocating pressure of playing both sides. He was free to live for himself for once. Free from oaths, from expectations, from secrets.
He turned toward his desk, perhaps to pour himself a celebratory drink, his heart beating with a new purpose. His mind whirled with possibility, a future he had never dared to imagine.
What would he do next? Retire to a small cottage in the countryside? Run away to a far-off land and brew potions for himself, without demands or a timeline? Reinvent himself entirely, perhaps even travel the world and study potions he had only ever read about? He allowed himself, for the first time in decades, to imagine a future not defined by loyalty or death.
That was when the rift opened.
He didn't even hear it. One second, he was alone in his office. Next, Harry Potter stepped out of the shadows behind him and grabbed him by the back of the head.
Before he could react, a surge of raw magic coursed through his body. His muscles spasmed violently as an electric shock wracked him. Snape screamed before his eyes rolled back, glowing faintly with a brief, ethereal light, and he collapsed into Harry's hand, unconscious.
Harry looked down at him with an expression of profound disgust.
"God, I feel dirty," he muttered, wiping his hand against his trousers like the mere contact had soiled him. "Ugh. Grease. I feel like I have to wash my hands in fire just to get this off."
He ignited a pale, eerie flame on his palms before extinguishing the fire. The flames hissed and danced in strange pink hues, flickering like living serpents before dying out. He stared at Snape's limp form on the ground.
"Oh, don't worry," he said casually, his voice a low murmur in the quiet room. "You're not dying yet. I wouldn't let you off that easily."
He crouched beside the man, his fingers glowing faintly with the telltale energy of the Authority of the Oneirothrone. A dream made real. Reality shaped by will and concept. He was about to show Snape true despair.
He promised himself that the man would suffer, and suffer he would.
...
Snape awoke to sunlight.
Warm, gentle rays bathed his face. A voice shouted for him to get up. He opened his eyes. His father stood before him. Tobias Snape. The man who had murdered his mother, the monster of his childhood.
Before he could react, the man slapped him hard across the face, sending him sprawling from the bed to the floor. The abuse began immediately—verbal, physical, all of it familiar, all of it just as terrifying as it had been decades ago. The fear gripped him like a vice. His mother pleaded. Tobias struck her, too. Snape tried to intervene. No wand. No magic. Nothing but helpless rage, just as it had been all those years ago.
A dream, he thought. No, a Nightmare. he would wake soon. Soon.
Days passed. Then weeks. Then years. He found Lily again. Hogwarts again. He tried to steer her to Slytherin. Failed. He tried to avoid James Potter. Failed. He tried to win Lily back. Failed. This time, at the end, he died, she killed him, did it herself, her final words to him a poison more potent than any he had ever brewed. He died. And then he woke up.
Sunlight again. His father again. Abuse again.
Another cycle. Worse than before.
Then another.
And another.
He died in countless ways. Betrayed every time. And every time, Lily drove a blade into him. He begged. Screamed. Took his own life in one loop. It didn't matter. It continued over and over.
Every death he suffered broke him.
He had run away at one point, avoiding Lily and Hogwarts entirely, but in the end, he still met his end at the hands of Lily.
He tried living life away from her, finding happiness somewhere else, and it turned into betrayal as they turned and killed him too.
He locked himself somewhere, and still he'd die.
The endless cycle of pain continued.
Harry just stared at the body of the man in front of him.
Every scar he suffered at his final end of a cycle would manifest on his body in the real world. His mind frayed with each repetition. His sanity unraveling like thread from a rotting tapestry. What little hope he had would dissolve after a few hundred to a thousand repeats. He'd wept. He'd raged. He'd curse, but he would have no rest.
Anytime he got to his mind shattering, his magic would put his mind back together, and the cycles would conti
nue.
There would be no peace in a broken mind. Only the cycles. Only the suffering.
Harry watched, his expression impassive.
Snape's body lay on the ground, twitching. Bruised, cut, bleeding. Each wound was a mirror of his deaths within the dream world, each a testament to his repeated torment. The Authority of the Oneirothrone allowed him to give substance to dreams, to turn illusions into truth. He had crafted a Tsukuyomi-esque prison for Snape, but instead of mental torture alone, each death manifested physical trauma. An endless loop of torment that blended pain, betrayal, and despair.
And he would repeat it for hundreds more cycles. Until the wounds catch up to him and he dies. Death by a thousand cuts, or was it death by a thousand deaths.
Harry crossed his arms, his brow furrowed with a mild sense of dissatisfaction.
"Could've made it worse," he said dryly. "Should consider yourself lucky I'm not half as creative as I could be."
He kicked a bloodstained parchment that had fallen from Snape's robes. A potion recipe, perhaps. Useless now. The body on the floor spasmed again. Blood trickled from the nose, the ears. The eyes fluttered, seeing nothing.
Harry looked down at him one final time, a cold, hard glint in his eyes. "You spent years acting like a victim and tormenting children just to feel better. Now it's your turn to feel helpless."
A rift tore open in the air, a shimmering tear in reality.
Without looking back, Harry stepped through, leaving Snape alone to endure the torment until his eventual end.
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