The Other Side: A Harry Potter FanFiction

Chapter XLI

The entrance to the Slytherin common room shattered in a shower of stone and dust. Severus Snape stepped through the newly made hole in the wall and scanned the room, then turned and nodded to his wife.

            Regina stepped inside gingerly. “All clear?”

            “It appears that way,” Snape replied, staring at the room he’d at one point called his home. Like much of the castle, it looked almost exactly how he remembered it; low ceiling, dungeon-like, with greenish lamps that cast an eerie glow on the stone walls and green chairs, and skulls all around. However, it seemed more personalized now, as if only one person lived there, not hundreds of students.

            That’d be, of course, because only one person lives here now, he thought.

            “I don’t like this,” Regina whispered. “It doesn’t feel right in here.”

            Snape said nothing. He strode across the room quietly, to a large object that’d been covered over with a sheet. It sat, collecting dust, in complete isolation from the rest of the room. He might’ve missed it completely, if not for the two clawed, golden feet visible just under the hem of the sheet.

            “What is it?” Regina asked.

            In answer, he grabbed hold of the dusty sheet and pulled it off.

            He hadn’t remembered it being so tall. It climbed all the way up the wall to the ceiling in height, with an ornate golden frame. Though it had faded, and it was so high up, Snape still knew what inscription was carved across the top:

Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi

            “‘I show not your face but your heart’s desire,’” he whispered in wonder, staring at his reflection in the magnificent Mirror of Erised.

            “The Mirror of Erised,” Regina breathed, “I’ve heard of it. Can’t imagine what it's doing down here…”

            “Voldemort probably loves to look at himself inside the Mirror exactly the way he is,” Snape said darkly. “Seeing as he already has everything he wants.”

            “I wonder what it’s like, having nothing to strive for,” she said, her eyes sticking to the mirror. “There’s really not much to live for without wanting things. Don’t you think having everything would eventually get boring?”

            “I suppose it would,” he said, watching as a beautiful woman with long, dark red hair and green, almond-shaped eyes appeared in the mirror beside him.

            He tore his eyes away, saying, “Don’t look too long. We’re not here to—”

            She grabbed his arm. “Did you hear that?”

            “Hear what?” he asked, though he’d heard it too.

            Hissing.

            They stared around uneasily. Finally, Regina whispered, “Obviously, Voldemort isn’t here. We should just leave and—”

            The hissing sound came again, from directly behind them. Regina spun around with a gasp, snapping her wand out. Snape whipped out his wand and said, “It must be behind the mirror. Get away from it!”

            But she hadn’t heard him. Her eyes were wide and staring, focused on herself inside the mirror.

            “Regina!” Snape called, taking hold of her arm, just as a large, long snake shot out from behind the mirror.

            He gasped and shoved her out of the way. With a scream she fell to the side, waking out of the trance the mirror held her in. Her eyes followed the snake as it snapped its jaws at Snape, close enough that it could simply jump forward again and sink its venomous teeth into his flesh.

            “Severus!” Regina shouted, realizing she’d dropped her wand at some point. She scrambled to find it, keeping an eye on her husband as he battled Nagini.

            It was faster than either of them could imagine; it snapped forward again, wrapping itself around Snape’s legs and tripping him.

            With a cry, Snape fell, just as Regina felt her wand behind her. She looked behind her with a satisfied grin and grasped it, then swung around to point it at the snake, to find that it had sunken its teeth into Snape’s throat.

            “No!” Regina screeched, “Stupefy!”

            The snake fell back, its jaws freeing of Snapes neck. Before it could recover, she shouted, “Petrificus Totalus!”

            Nagini’s long body straightened out and froze.

            Her heart pounding inside her chest, Regina crawled over to Severus’s body, whimpering slightly. “Severus, Severus, Severus…”

            But he wasn’t looking at her. His head had fallen to the side, where he could stare at himself and his heart’s desire in the Mirror of Erised, the life slowly leaving him.

            “Severus,” she whispered, “I love you.”

            A sort of wheezing noise came from his throat then, and a thin line of blood formed from the corner of his mouth, pouring onto the floor.

            Regina couldn’t bear to look at him. She closed her eyes and put her head to his chest, listening as his heartbeat slowed to a stop.

            “I love you, Severus,” she murmured, “I’ll love you for as long as I live.” Which might not be that long.

            She lifted her eyes to the snake then, white rage boiling up inside her. I’ll avenge you Severus.

            I promise.