Strangest sounds soar from the Sand by Hopeless Wanderer
Summary: Harry has been found. Severus has alternatives to a gruesome death as a result of imminent torture in public.

It's a cloudy day at the beach.
Categories: Snape Equal Status to Harry > Foes Snape and Harry Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Voldemort
Snape Flavour: Snape is Angry, Snape is Depressed, Snape is Desperate, Out of Character Snape
Genres: Angst, Drama, Tragedy
Media Type: None
Tags: Alternate Universe
Takes Place: 7th Year, 8 - Post Hogwarts (young adult Harry)
Warnings: Character Death, Out of Character, Suicide Themes, Torture, Violence
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 1 Completed: Yes Word count: 1784 Read: 816 Published: 24 Nov 2022 Updated: 24 Nov 2022
Story Notes:
Pay attention to the tags please~

This work has an open ending though major character death is heavily discussed and contemplated.
The strangeness of your sound by Hopeless Wanderer
Author's Notes:
Enjoy!
It's really strange, he thinks. He cannot stop thinking about it, as a matter of fact. The bizarre reality that is his life at this moment. He keeps thinking about the inconceivable moments that fill up the seconds that sum up the minutes that he's been sitting there.

How strange it is, the thing happening to him. The thing that is about to happen.

He's not sure how to react to this astonishment that surges in his weary veins. Should he cry? He wants to. But he feels like laughing too.

"Isn't it strange?" Harry voices his thought at last, "that this might be the last time we ever spoke to each other?"

The waves crash by their feet, and beside him, Severus seems unable to detach his eyes from the sea.

Harry continues, "The last time I spoke in general. Isn't it just... bizarre?"

Severus keeps looking at the waves, though he hears him, Harry is sure. Harry nods to himself and reaches for his shoes. Won't need shoes, in a few hours. He unties the laces, takes them off and fastidiously follows this action by peeling off his socks as well. He wants to feel the sand.

Last time he'll feel sand. God, that is hilarious.

He chuckles a bit. It's cold, the tip of his nose and the back of his throat feel glazed over with the chill. The wind sweeps their hair and clothes. Harry wiggles his toes in the wind, draws his knees to his chest and lays his head on them.

"The last of Harry Potter." He mutters, looking at Severus who mutely remains staring. Though, his hands clench the sand. Harry notices that too.

"You will be so happy, I bet. So glad. No messes to clean up anymore, no lives to save except your own. Will you run? Will you leave my body or—"

"Stop." He speaks at last. Harry lets the rest of his sentence adrift in a deep exhale. Snape finally turns his head to him, looking beyond bothered by the sand stuck to his Death Eater robes and boots, "just stop."

Harry cracks a wicked smile. He hopes it's wicked. He wants to be happy. He thinks that strangeness and happiness should be synonymous, even though they really aren't, "Would it help with the guilt? If I was as quiet as a mouse?"

"Aren't you going to run?" Severus asks him.

Harry buries his freezing nose in the fold of his sleeve, the jumper's wool scratches roughly against his skin and his arm digs into his glasses and they dig into his cheek. He thinks about it, he really does. He tries pushing past the oddity. The freak of nature he's left with.

"Run where?" He asks. He sounds like a child. He misses being small. Even though a small Harry was beaten and abused, even though he cried himself to sleep at nights. Life was simpler for him. It was just pain, chores, pain, heartbreak and school. That's it. And even before then, as an infant, he would just lay in his cupboard and cry.

It was so easy to cry back then.

"Anywhere. Away. You can—"

"Hush." Harry interrupts him. It's better to kill this sick dog than to let it fester into a scheme, "It's over, you caught me. You have to do your job now."

Snape swallows, his hands fist into the sand again. The wind lashes at them like a violent father. An abusive husband. It's cold. Harry shivers some more, and it doesn't matter, not really. He doesn't care if he dies healthy or with a cold.

Last time he would get a cold.

Harry wants it all, oddly. Harry wants to put an end to every experience he began at some point in his life. He huffs again.

"Do you want me to take you to him?" Severus asks as if it's a choice. An outing of Harry's choosing.

"Isn't that why you're here?"

"I thought you'd put up a fight." He admits.

Harry blinks at the man, "what fight?" He sounds genuinely confused, "Everyone is already dead."

Another strange thing perhaps. Their deaths didn't feel funny or strange to Harry. Quite the opposite, it was devastating, the decline of the people that used to love him over the years. Harry realises that he's not going to meet death as a young defiant man. He'll meet death as an old man. A dead man already. That's probably not how seventeen-year-olds are supposed to feel.

"He won't let you die easily." Snape says. His voice is comforting and that's odd too. Harry closes his eyes, "He will do every unspeakable thing. In public's eye, he wants everyone to see you taken at last and he will not—"

"Why?" Harry interrupts the frantic man. He can't really pretend this is a potion's class anymore. Severus sounds frightened, on his behalf, "why are you telling me all this?"

Harry feels the dampness of the waves lapping up to his toes. The sun has a few hours yet to set. It's too cloudy for a sunset anyways. It's grey and that's strange too.

"I don't know. I wasn't expecting to find you but—"

Harry comforts him because that's all there is to do, "It's okay. We already lost. There's nothing left."

Severus shakes his head at him, "you're wrong, Potter. Dignity and grace—"

"For me?" Harry raises his head. "You want dignity and grace for me?"

Dignity and grace as opposed to what exactly? Publicly shamed and killed? The end result is the same, he can get some rest. He deserves it, doesn't he?

"I can… you can't outrun him." Snape points out, "but I can kill you."

Harry pauses, even in his breathing. The wind pauses with them, and Severus looks at him with an ashen face, a face that has contemplated a ruthless death, "what?"

"I can kill you. That's all that matters, right? If you won't fight him, and you can't outrun him—"

Harry laughs. He grabs his sides with frozen fingers and bends over with the force of the laughter that wretches its way out of his body like hacking coughs. His eyes sting and his voice rattles but he cannot make it stop.

"Potter—"

"You came all the way over here, to—" Harry wheezes, "to kill? Me?" He drops down on the sound and feels that maybe his hysterical laughter should really be called sobs of despair.

"They already have your trail. We cannot run."

Harry looks at the sky through a thicket of blur caused by unshed tears. Last him he'd look at a cloudy sky, he reckons.

"This is a brilliant plan, Severus. Your best, really." He mutters, and the laughter drops like dead weight beside them on the sand.

"Harry—"

"You had so many of those brilliant plans. Hunting down Horcruxes not knowing they were all set-up traps. Attacking the Malfoy Manor not knowing that it was a false call."

"I've made mistakes."

Harry cocks his head in the sand to look at the wretched man, "No, Severus. You were fully aware the entire time. You wanted him to win, didn't you?"

Snape looks as pale as chalk, "Do not be ridiculous. I wasn't the only one receiving and reporting false information—"

"It doesn't matter. Nothing really matters. I'm glad he's forgiven you, for your treachery."

Tom usually kills them, the traitors, the spies and the informants. Harry has seen countless people tortured to death for defying the monster. But he forgave Severus, strange that. Too strange.

"Was it because you're a potion's master? He couldn't find anybody else as capable?"

Severus stays silent, he looks at the waves and Harry looks at the sky, feeling the sand practically in his hair and clothes. The wind is gentler now that he is lying down.

"Or was it because you got everyone killed? Was it both?"

"My offer still stands."

"Will he forgive you if you kill me too?"

Snape sighs.

Harry closes his eyes and sighs too.

"If I am to kill you, I would have to die as well. He won't let me live for killing you."

Funny, how they're both sitting here and talking about their own deaths so casually. Being on limited time too, it's only a matter of time before they're both found. They've locked in on Harry's trace, most likely, if not through Severus' mark already.

There's no running. Though, to be fair, Harry doesn't want to run anymore. Maybe that's the strange part. Not death itself, but his own reaction to it.

"Would you? Be killed?"

Snape seems as though he didn't hear him, "If there was a chance, even a little, that we could beat him… he is invincible. A Horcrux of his can be anything. It can be a sand dune. It can be a paper clip...he won't die."

Harry knows. They both know. It's over, Voldemort won. It's no use. Him hiding before Severus found him was of no use either. He could only run so much.

"Ruthless chase. Goose chase," he whispers under his breath and opens his eyes. He sits up, doesn't really bother brushing off the sand caked on his body.

Snape reaches into his robe. Takes out two identical vials, green and shimmering as though dumped in glitter. Harry looks at Snape and the vial. He looks at the sea.

"Both for me?"

"One for each." Snape corrects, "it's quick. Painless. You'll be unconscious when it happens."

Harry doesn't like that though. Drifting off in his sleep. How would he know he's dead for real? How would he know he's not just dreaming whatever comes next?

Snape hands him his vial and they both sit back again. Harry's fingers are numb around the vial. He doesn't even look at it. He wants to hurl it to the wind, let the waves drag it away from him. He might just do that.

Maybe he should take his chances with pain. Maybe dignity and grace is what he'll have in the eyes of the many that will be forced to witness his death. Maybe bravery isn't dying with a poison. But maybe he's a fool who doesn't know what he's talking about.

"They're on their way." Snape warns him. Clutching at his forearm. Harry knows, the faint ache in his scar is indication enough, "Will you run or stay or die?"

Harry gets to his feet, shoves the vial in his pocket and turns away, "I'll just walk."

He won't get away from them, but he wants to take a walk on the beach by his own volition, one last time.
The End.
End Notes:
Happy reading?


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