The world felt muted after the curse lifted. The searing pain that had consumed every fibre of my being was replaced by a hollow, numbing ache, both physical and emotional. I lay on the cold floor, trembling, the ghost of Severus’s kiss lingering on my lips. His hands were still on my face, warm and gentle, though his eyes betrayed the storm raging inside him.
I could barely catch my breath, the weight of everything — the curse, my guilt, his regret — pressing down on me, suffocating me. The tears came, not out of physical pain anymore, but from something far deeper, a wound that no spell could heal.
“Lillian…” Severus’s voice was hoarse, barely a whisper, as if he were afraid his words would shatter me further. “I shouldn’t have done it.”
I tried to speak, but my throat felt raw, burned from screaming. Instead, I closed my eyes, taking in the quiet after the storm, trying to reconcile what had just happened. The pain I’d begged for, the punishment I thought I deserved, was over. But instead of relief, there was only a heavy emptiness inside me.
“You shouldn’t have let me.” My voice cracked, a broken whisper that trembled between us. I opened my eyes to look at him, to see the guilt etched in every line of his face. His pale skin was even more ashen now, as though the weight of the curse had drained him as well.
He shook his head, his black hair falling into his eyes as he tried to pull away, but I gripped his hand weakly, stopping him. “No,” I rasped. “You’re not the one at fault here.”
“I am,” he said, his voice tight with anguish. “I did it. I cursed you. And for what? To prove a point? To ease your guilt?” He pulled his hand from mine and stood, his back turned to me, his fists clenched tightly at his sides. “What have we become, Lillian?”
I pushed myself up, my arms shaking from the effort, the pain still lingering in my limbs like an echo. “I asked you to,” I said, more firmly now. “I needed you to. I needed to feel it, Severus, to understand.”
He whirled around, his dark eyes blazing. “Understand what? Pain? Suffering? Do you really think that’s what this is about?!” His voice was harsh, a sudden burst of anger cutting through the suffocating tension. “This isn’t how you atone, Lillian. Inflicting pain on yourself or on me won’t undo what’s happened. It won’t bring back the past.”
I swallowed hard, my body trembling as I stood to face him. “I know that,” I whispered, the fight leaving my voice. “But it’s all I could think of. I’ve been drowning in this guilt for so long, Severus, I didn’t know how else to face it. I didn’t know how else to make it right.”
Severus’s expression softened, the anger in his eyes dimming to something far more heartbreaking. “You can’t make it right,” he said quietly, taking a step towards me. “But we can move forward. Not like this. Not with curses and pain. You and I… we’re better than this.”
I stared at him, the weight of his words sinking in. There was so much truth in them, truth I had been too afraid to confront. All the pain, the guilt, the self-loathing… none of it would change what had already been done. But maybe, just maybe, we could change what came next.
“Severus…” I reached out to him, my fingers trembling as they grazed his arm. “I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know how to fix us.”
He hesitated for a moment before closing the distance between us, taking my hand in his. “Maybe we can’t fix what’s broken,” he murmured, his voice soft, but steady. “But we can start again. We can choose to be something different.”
I looked up into his eyes, the darkness there no longer cold, but filled with the same vulnerability I’d seen before — that flicker of hope, despite everything we’d been through. He wasn’t pushing me away, not anymore.
“Do you really think we can?” I asked, my voice barely audible.
He nodded, his grip on my hand tightening slightly. “If we try. If we stop hurting each other, stop letting the past destroy us.”
I felt something shift inside me, a release of the tension I’d been carrying for so long. “I want that,” I said, the words trembling with the fragile hope that maybe, just maybe, we could move forward. “I want to try.”
Severus gave a small, weary smile, and for the first time in what felt like forever, I felt a spark of something light, something warm between us.
“Then we’ll try,” he said softly, as if it were a promise.
And in that moment, I believed him.
But even as the hope flickered between us, something darker lingered just below the surface. The silence that filled the room wasn’t peaceful — it was heavy, weighted with everything unsaid.
The dungeon walls loomed around us, cold and oppressive. The air felt thick with remnants of magic, as if the curse had left an invisible scar on the very atmosphere. The dim torchlight flickered against the stone, casting long, ominous shadows, distorting the features of Severus’s face. For a moment, he didn’t look like the man I knew — he looked like the shadow of someone else, someone worn and tired from too many battles, too many losses.
I moved closer to him, my legs unsteady, my body still recovering from the aftermath of the curse. He caught me as I stumbled, his hands firm but gentle on my arms, guiding me to sit on the edge of the table where I’d been cursed.
His eyes, dark and deep, were filled with an unreadable emotion. Guilt? Fear? Love? Perhaps it was all of them, swirling together in a way neither of us could articulate.
“You shouldn’t have asked me,” he said finally, his voice quieter now, but the weight of his words heavier. “You don’t know what it does to me.”
I looked up at him, my chest tightening. “What do you mean?”
He looked away, his jaw tense. “To hurt you like that. To see you in pain. You don’t know what it costs me.”
I blinked, confusion mingling with the lingering ache in my body. “I thought…” My voice trailed off, unsure how to continue.
“You thought it would be punishment for you,” he finished, his tone sharper than before. “But Lillian, do you really believe I can do something like that and not suffer too? Do you think I can hurt you and feel… nothing?”
The vulnerability in his words caught me off guard. “Severus, I…”
“I would have done anything to take your pain away,” he continued, cutting me off, his voice trembling with the weight of suppressed emotion. “But you… you asked me to give it to you. And I did it. I did it because you asked me, because I thought it would help you. But it tore me apart.”
The rawness of his confession hit me like a tidal wave, and the tears I thought I had cried out began to fall again. “I didn’t know,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “I didn’t realise.”
His eyes met mine again, and there was a sadness in them so profound it made my heart ache. “You don’t need to hurt to atone,” he said softly. “Not like this.”
I reached out, my fingers trembling as they brushed against his. “Then how? How do I move on from everything I’ve done?”
He took my hand, holding it tightly in his. “You start by forgiving yourself.”
The words hung between us, heavy with meaning. Forgive myself? After everything? Could I really do that?
The silence stretched on, the flickering torches casting shadows that danced and swayed like ghosts on the walls. Severus stood there, his presence steady and grounding, waiting for me to make the next move.
“I don’t know if I can,” I finally admitted, my voice small.
He squeezed my hand gently. “Then I’ll help you. If you let me.”
I looked at him, at the man who had seen me at my worst, who had cursed me at my request, and who now stood before me, offering a way out of the darkness.
And in that moment, I realised I wasn’t alone. Not anymore.
We were broken, both of us. But perhaps, together, we could begin to heal.
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Beyond the Dark mark
Fanfic~☆Beneath the Dark Mark ☆~ During Harry Potter's years at Hogwarts, Severus Snape is caught between his duties to Dumbledore and his past as a Death Eater. His life is complicated further by the arrival of a new Defence Against the Dark Arts profess...
