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Bad Faith: Requiem (Canto Three)
Title: Bad Faith: Requiem (Canto Three)
Author: nishizono
Pairing: Severus/Draco, Severus/Lucius
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Sadly, they aren't mine

Summary: "Remember tonight, for it is the beginning of always." -Dante Alighieri

Author's Notes: A tribute to Kurt Vonnegut Jr. May the work he has left behind serve as a continuous resurrection for one of the most profound authors of the twentieth century.

With this, I present to you the final chapter of Bad Faith...


~*~*~

It was one of those hot, silent nights, when people sit at windows listening for the thunder which they know will shortly break; when they recall dismal tales of hurricanes and earthquakes; and of lonely travelers on open plains, and lonely ships at sea, struck by lightning.¹

Just before dawn, Severus fell to his knees before a smooth white tombstone, pale and elegant like the man it memorialized. He ran trembling fingertips over the engraving.

Lucius Malfoy.

Severus Snape had been twelve years old the first time Lucius Malfoy smiled at him.

The grass had finally grown back, thick and green and soft. He clutched weakly at the earth beneath him, damp with dew and so many tears.

The end to this trial was near, he could feel it pulsing in his veins with every beat of his heart. His body trembled and threatened to collapse, but he knew that he must see this through to the end, watch the white lights dancing just behind his eyelids and hope- oh such strange and terrifying hope, burning like the anger that ripped through him, the righteous fury that made him lift his head despite the pain and stare up at the fading stars.

Severus Snape had been thirty-nine when the universe had shattered around him from the force of Rabastan Lestrange’s betrayal.

He had waited for this morning for three years. Three years since that final battle. Three years since Lucius’ death. If only he hadn’t been distracted by Draco’s scream of pain, if only he had understood the nervous excitement in Rabastan’s shout of warning, if only he had known that the man who advanced on them was rushing forward to aid his fallen son, then none of this would have ever been necessary- but he hadn’t known. He hadn’t known.

Oh, but he had known this day would come. They had both known.

Severus fell forward suddenly, gripping the edge of the tombstone as a wave of nausea crashed over him. Darkness crept into the edges of his vision, and his left arm felt as if it were being torn apart from the inside.

It was time.

With the last of his remaining strength, he withdrew a vial from the pocket of his robes- blue, so blue- and uncorked it with numb fingertips. It burned its way down his throat, searing fire racing through his veins, raking across every nerve in his body, and he was falling, clutching the grass, screaming his pain to the indifferent sky, every muscle tensed, shaking, aching, and-

Darkness.

When he opened his eyes again, he was blanketed in a purple haze. Death? Dawn.

Something was pressed to his lips, droplets of blood soaking into stark white linen. He blinked, lifted a hand, pulled it away. Black eyes stared at the tiny crimson mark next to the initials ‘L.M.’

Severus closed his eyes, crushed beneath the weight of his relief. “I wasn’t sure you would be here,” he murmured.

There was the weight of a familiar hand on his shoulder, soft lips against his cheek.

“But I am, and now it’s time to finish this,” the other man whispered, “Ride with me, Severus, to greet the dawn.”²

Severus smiled.

The first rays of sunlight were just visible over the horizon.

~*~*~

“It is a very mixed blessing to be brought back from the dead.” –Kurt Vonnegut

~*~*~

¹ From "Martin Chuzzlewit", by Charles Dickens
² Inspired by Tennyson, and Eight Times