I'd Die for You

I see

Harry's life beat a hasty retreat, like an ending film- the blackness at the corners of the screen engulfing the picture, shrinking his awareness until it was just a tiny point of light.

Then the blackness stopped eating. The picture waxed again slowly, bleeding into the periphery.

The first thing he became clearly conscious of was that Snape was murderous.

He'd hanglined Harry's attacker with what looked like a bit of string attached at the end to a windshield cleaner, strangling the man mercilessly. He looked mad.

Air burned a clear, new path in Harry's lungs again, the realization that Snape was alive giving the atmosphere currency. His eyes watered and he wiped them quickly, the look on Snape's face terrifying and transfixing him.

He found his voice. "Severus, stop!"

Gone was the man from the day before that'd made himself spineless like a ragdoll when a muggle, who could be no real threat to him, grabbed hold of him. In his place was a man Harry didn't recognize, in a violent trance, exacting revenge like it was science.

"STOP!"

But Snape just put his boot on the man's shoulder, cutting his throat deeper with the string. The guttural noise that followed made Harry feel as though he himself were being choked again.

He got to his feet, tried putting his hands on Snape's shoulders, tried to push the pressure away from the man's neck. "Severus, Severus please-"

There was the sound of a bell clanging- Ron burst through the door of the shop, blooded, rushing behind him to the car. Hermione appeared in the doorway after, looking stunned, and once Harry registered she was fine, he gripped the collar of Snape's shirt, his face, trying to drag that cold stare away from its target.

Ron yelled something to Hermione.

The man at Snape's mercy was dying as surely as a candle being snuffed out and Snape's eyes were trained on the flame, utterly unreachable.

"STOP! STOP IT! YOU'RE KILLING HIM!" He screamed in Snape's face, punched and tore at his arms to let go. "Fucking listen to me! Stop it!"

Harry scrambled.

"We could use him!"

"For what?" Snape growled, his arms twitching the string back still more, but seeming to peer through the haze of his rage for the first time.

"Information! He could tell us what we're up against! We could-," Harry rushed to say, the thoughts coming to him faster than he could communicate, "We could, we could take him somewhere our magic still works and we could force him tell us everything!"

Snape held on for a second longer, as if he knew it was the one more second he could afford before it would become too late to save the man.

Then he let go. The man fell, face forward on the concrete, gasping and grasping at his neck, coughing and spitting, but alive and Harry saw the icy blue eyes again, his dark hair and beard, the way blood rushed again to his cheeks with life. Harry held his own head in relief

"Seems you have a new master now, Severus." It was the gravelly voice of Amycus Carrow, who Harry barely recognized as Ron pulled him into sight from behind the car, wrapped around the middle with some kind of electrical cord that Ron was using as a makeshift restraint. Carrow's right arm was stained dark through his jacket with blood and he was thinner than Harry remembered, his blonde hair like ash and his whole person just like a picture sapped of color for age. He seemed to be shaking in pain and trying to conceal it.

"You know the rest of us only pretended to enjoy kissing the Dark Lord's feet, you vile piece of shit?" Severus marched toward Amycus.

"Stop!" Harry tried to come between them but Snape pushed him out of the way and kicked Amycus viciously behind the knee to make him kneel.