"Just kill me, Dumbledore."

"You know I cannot do that, Severus."

Their breath hangs grey and wispy in the air of the prison cell. Neither of them notices: this is too big for concerns about something so insignificant as cold. They stand face to face with the bars between them like black-scored lines across reality.

"Better death than the Kiss." There is no bitterness in him, no drama. It is simply a fact, as obvious as the greyness of the stone surrounding them and as inevitable as the Wizengamot conviction that only Dumbledore's influence has warded off this long.

"It won't come to that. I promise you, Severus, I—"

"I don't want your promises! I don't want words, I don't want kind thoughts, I just want oblivion!" Anger wraps around him, adrenaline giving him the strength his body no longer has. Not after dementors and cold cells and prison diets. "Set me free, that's all you can do for me. Kill me."

"No. There is still—"

"I don't need saving, I don't need rescuing! I am what I am and they know it now." Severus thrusts forward the bare arm where the Dark Mark sits, black and ugly and leering. "Let go, Dumbledore. Let me go."

Dumbledore doesn't even look at the tattoo, his eyes determined and fierce. "No. I will not give up."

"Then you are a fool. A fool intent on letting me drag you down with me. Do you think they will let me go? I am what I am and not even you can change that. They will destroy me and if you demand it of them they will destroy you as well. Stop playing the Hufflepuff and face reality. I don't need you, Dumbledore, I don't need you to be my saviour. Go find somebody who actually wants rescuing, go save the boy. Leave me out of it. Let me die. If you won't kill me, let me be Kissed. I don't care anymore, I'm ready to leave this whole damn world behind me." He falters, his voice softens to unaccustomed gentleness. "Please, Albus, just let me go."

Dumbledore's voice softens too and guilt lights his eyes. "I have failed you too many times in the past, Severus. I will not fail you now."

"Dammit, Dumbledore!" He turns away, paces the short length of his cell like the caged animal he is. And turns again to glare at the man still steadily watching him with determined, sorrowed eyes. "Sometimes people don't want saving," he spits, "sometimes they just want to accept responsibility for all the wrongs they have done and they want to be done with it all! I'm begging you." He steps forward, pleading in every line of his body. "I'm begging you, please."

"I will keep you safe, I promise you that."

Severus lifts his head warily, nostrils flaring, scenting danger in the inflexibility of Dumbledore's stance, in the grim set of his lips. He takes a step back, suddenly afraid. "What are you planning?"

"You will see." Dumbledore pulls together all of his considerable skill and power, tightening his magic into a blade of finely-honed weaponry. "Or rather, you won't."

There is a reason he was the only one Voldemort feared. A blinding flash of magic fills the room so that Severus cannot breathe, so thick is the power in the air. He throws up his hands, covering his head, closing his eyes tightly against the light and the sting. The weight of power grows and grows, filling the cell, piling up on top of him so that his legs buckle under him and he collapses onto the floor, forced down onto the stones by the vast pressure of a magic too great for anyone to bear.

And in the midst of the swirling magic a firm voice orders: "Obliviate!"

- 

"No!"

Harry jolts up in bed, gasping into the shadows and trying to lift his hands to ward off the nightmares, to protect himself against Voldemort's red eyes and the flicker of deadly magics, but he's tangled up in the sheets and he can't fight his way free. The bleed-over terror from his dream turns into panic and he struggles wildly, desperately, tearing at the sheets to try free himself from their clutching tentacles as the panic digs deeper and blurs his vision and—

And then Hermione is there, unwrapping him from the blankets, pulling him into her arms, holding him as he sobs in helpless rage and sorrow and despair. Hermione is there and the nightmare is gone, and so he just lies limply in her arms and lets the tears flood out of him until sleep grips him with dark claws and drags him back down. Down to where, because Hermione is there, he can sleep without fear.

He wakes with Hermione curled up against his back and Mrs Granger sitting beside him on the bed, running her hand comfortingly through his hair. It's the only motherly affection he's ever known; no one ever comforted him like this before, no one ever took on the empty role of his mother, and the pain of gaining all he never knew he'd lost aches through him.

"Sorry," he whispers. "I'm so sorry."

She looks down at him through the shadows and shakes her head. "No, Harry."

"I shouldn't have brought this on you, shouldn't have dragged Hermione in, shouldn't have—"

"You brought Hermione back to us."

He shudders. "I'm the reason she was taken in the first place."

"None of it is your fault, Harry," she tells him, and her hand never stops that gentle movement through his hair. His heart aches, aches for all he's lost, for all he never had. For how close he came to ruining that for everyone he loves. "You didn't ask for any of it to happen. And it's over now. It's over."

It's over. He knows that.

He just doesn't believe it.

- 

In homes all across magical Britain the headline on the front page of the Daily Prophet screams: DEATH EATER ESCAPES AZKABAN!

The last known Death Eater, Severus Snape, has escaped from Azkaban. People are advised to remain calm and stay in populated areas. Anyone sighting Snape should leave the area immediately and notify the authorities. Under no circumstances is he to be approached.

Snape was in Azkaban awaiting sentencing for his Death Eater activities. He was certain to get the Dementor's Kiss, as did all other Death Eaters. The only reason sentencing has been delayed this long is because of the protests of Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, and Harry Potter, You Know Who's Bane, both of whom have tried to claim Snape was a spy in He Who Must Not Be Named's ranks. The Minister has said "The Death Eater probably used magic on them both. Compulsion charms or something. It's ridiculous to think anything else, he's obviously a Death Eater."

How Snape escaped is not yet known, but it is thought he took advantage of lowered security while visitors toured Azkaban. He escaped at the same time several Wizengamot members were visiting the prison and left Dumbledore, winner of the Order of Merlin, for dead. Dumbledore is currently recovering in St Mungo's.

There is no doubt Snape is a Death Eater as he clearly bears the Dark Mark on his left arm. The Dark Mark was the means by which You Know Who contacted his followers and, with his death, can no longer be hidden. While You Know Who was alive certain magics built into the Mark allowed it to be hidden from casual viewers.

There have been continued calls from within Britain and around the world to stop delays and finally rid the world of the last of the Death Eaters. Unfortunately, they were not heeded in time. We at the Daily Prophet trust the Death Eater will soon be caught and put to justice.

- 

Reluctantly Harry takes a seat on the Grangers' sofa and scowls at Dumbledore, standing on the opposite side of the coffee table and looking very wizardly and out of place in this Muggle house. "What do you want?" he demands.

Dumbledore sighs heavily, gustily. "I just wish to speak with you, Harry. Nothing more."

"No magic!" He grips the fabric of the cushion beneath him, trying to stop the power inside him from rising up and reacting to his fear.

Dumbledore looks old as he carefully and gingerly takes a seat. "At this moment, Harry, I could do no magic even should I wish to."

He grunts reluctant acceptance and they look at each other in silence. On back of the couch Hedwig preens and ruffles her feathers, keeping a watchful eye on Harry. Crookshanks leaps lightly onto the couch and curls up on Harry's knee. He listens to the cat purring, to the soft rustle of Hermione's clothes where she stands in the hall listening unseen.

"Harry..."

He scrunches down in his seat. He doesn't want to hear it, he knows he doesn't want to hear it. "Tell me he's safe."

"Harry—"

"Just tell me he's safe!" Harry screams. "I don't care what he did, I don't care what you did, just tell me he's safe!"

Dumbledore's eyes are opaque and there is no twinkle in them. "He is as safe as I can possibly make him."

Harry closes his eyes in wild relief, clutching Crookshanks to his chest as the cat purrs reassuringly. Hedwig nibbles comfortingly at his hair, and he knows that Hermione is holding herself back in the hall with difficulty. But whatever happened, the man is safe and that's what counts. He and Hermione are safe and that is all that matters to Harry in the whole world.

"Can you not tell me how you defeated Voldemort, Harry?" Dumbledore asks.

"No."

"You must tell someone, Harry."

"No. He's dead. That's all you need to know."

"But if there is even a chance he could return to—"

"No! He's not coming back." Never never never. Harry did that. Never coming back. "He's gone, okay! I did what you wanted and I got rid of him and he's never coming back! I took care of it. Just like you wanted. It's over. So just leave me alone. Leave me alone."

It's an old argument, running in familiar patterns, but no less painful and sincere for all that.

"You must return to Hogwarts at some point."

"I must do nothing. I killed your monster, I saved your world, you don't need anything from me anymore!"

"It is not what I need, Harry, but what you need."

"What I need? I need you even less than you need me!"

"You cannot run forever, my boy."

Harry looks at him. Just looks at him, for a long time. And then he says quietly, "I can if I want."