rarepair_shorts | Trick or Treat 2012: Song of Pain and Loneliness (Severus/Narcissa)

Title: Song of Pain and Loneliness
Character Pairing: Severus/Narcissa
Prompts: Trick: sneakoscope, Treat: bonfire, Location: Spinner's End
Rating: PG
Word Count: 824
Summary: Narcissa says goodbye.
Author's Notes: Angst and darkness lie here.

Narcissa slipped carefully through the door, her fingers trembling as she shut it behind her, wincing as it creaked loudly in the silence. Darkness reigned in the house, shadows black on grey and unidentifiable shapes looming all around her. Narcissa stood for a moment in the entryway and composed herself, breathing deeply and reminding herself that as horrid as the conditions were, this was a home she was familiar with. As frightened and sorrowful as she was, she was still a witch, and a more than competent one at that.

She walked on silent feet, her fingers trailing across dust-marred surfaces as she made her way through the house, wondering what she ought to take with her when she went. Nothing so obvious as to raise questions or suspicion; it would not do to shake her family up now, not when they had so recently been knit back together. No, if she did take something, it would have to be small and useless, invisible even. Narcissa did not know what to take.

As she entered the drawing room she noticed that there was a foe glass in one corner, and a selection of sneakoscopes on the table. She scoffed at the sight of them, for such defenses had done absolutely no good in the end, when death had grabbed Severus Snape about the neck and left him bleeding out alone. But perhaps he had wanted it that way; he had always been so dreadfully stubborn about bearing his burdens alone. Narcissa had hated that the most about him.

She would not touch the sneakoscopes, nor the glass that was still half-filled with brandy which stood beside them, rim coated in cobwebs. She would not take the Potions books or the thin, worn blanket which lay haphazardly across the divan. She would take none of these things; she would take nothing.

Narcissa had come to the home to cast the demons out, to say goodbye to a man she had once thought she'd loved with all of her heart and soul. Severus had been there for her during some truly terrifying times. True, he had sneered at her and spoken harshly; he had been cold and unfeeling. But he had also kissed her, and touched her when she thought herself untouchable. She loved her husband and son, loved them as fiercely as any devoted wife and mother. But Severus had been something else entirely.

Severus was gone now, gone to the darkness along with so many others, Narcissa's dear sister included. She had entertained the brief delusion that perhaps she might find them here still, Severus sitting in his favorite chair with that old familiar scowl, Bellatrix arguing and pushing as she did. It was well known that the veil between worlds grew thin on this night, All Hallow's Eve when the dead lingered to mourn their own lost lives and to haunt those they had left behind. Narcissa thought, perhaps, they might come back to her, if only as wisps of their formal selves, if only for a moment. But no; they were gone.

So much was gone, people and places and ideas long held up high amongst Narcissa's inner circle. Things were gone and times were changing, and she wasn't sure of her place in the new order. But she would find her way; she was strong, and she had always found her way.

In the end she left the home with nothing at all, because if Severus were alive he would have mocked her to see her place such sentimentality in material possessions, and because since he was dead Narcissa would do best to set him aside and not waste her precious thoughts on memories that could never again be relived. Her place was with her family now, and she would stand there proudly.

Still, there was one last thing that she could do for him, for the man who had helped her when she'd needed it most. Narcissa cast the spell and stood as far back as she deemed safe, lurking in a shadow with her back pressed against the stone wall of yet another abandoned building in the pathetic wasteland that was Spinner's End. It was good for the both of them, because Severus had always loathed this place, the haunted reminder of all the things he had never wanted to be, whispered secrets through reluctant lips passed across to her in the bed they had shared. Half-blooded, unwanted, unloved, and left behind in a house that sang of pain and loneliness. Narcissa had had her share of loneliness, too. It was for the best, because she could never come back here, could never bear having to look again upon this dark place with no one left inside of it.

And so she stood and watched the home burn in the bonfire. "Happy Samhain, Severus," she whispered when it was done, and fled away into the night, never to return.