Rating: G
Characters: Snape, Harry and Draco

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"There, now," said McGonagall soothingly. "It will all be over soon, my dear."

"Not soon enough," he whispered, almost inaudibly. He'd all but lost his voice through lack of use and, recently, severe congestion.

He'd been having the fever dreams for days. He knew they were dreams because, vivid and sharp though they might be, he couldn't touch them. He'd tried, at first--thinking in his confusion that somehow they'd managed to overcome the Ministry's stubborn thick-headedness at last.

Only when the figures had evaporated like so much smoke beneath his hands had he remembered that Albus was dead. Of course it was only a dream.

The image of the old Headmaster had ceased to bother him, after that, but Minerva kept reappearing at odd moments--perhaps because he knew she was still alive. Or at least, she'd still been alive when last he had received any news of the outside world. Which might well have been years ago, now. He had no way to keep track of the passage of time in his windowless cell.

He'd tried to ignore the old Gryffindor witch; even the most vivid of phantoms was no substitute for the real thing. Strange, how after all those years of inter-House rivalry and working for the Order, she should be the one who stood out most clearly in his mind now.

Minerva wasn't the only one who had visited him, after all, for the brief span of time in which the Ministry had allowed it. Others had come by as well--Sprout, Granger, even Harry Potter had put in an appearance. All bringing gifts, offering their sympathy and promises to speak on his behalf, for what little good it had done. (He supposed it must be due to their intervention that his injuries had finally been properly treated. Too late to fully repair the damage from that last encounter, which had enraged him beyond tolerance at the time--but now, after ten years in Azkaban, Severus had learned to appreciate small mercies whenever they came his way. The place needed no Dementors to sap the life from its inmates.)

But Minerva hadn't come out of a sense of obligation, or out of pity. It had taken some time for him to realize that, in retrospect. She had enjoyed the visits as much as he had--and had been genuinely reluctant to go, when the guards came to escort her out.

He had never thanked her. Ungrateful bastard. The thought occurred to him (not for the first time) that while his sentence might be undeserved, it was probably for the best. For everyone except him, of course.

By no stretch of the imagination could he claim that his presence in the outside world had ever made it a better place.

"Balderdash," Minerva said softly, sitting on the floor beside him. "That's only the fever talking. Where would your Slytherins have been without you--the ones who stayed when the summons came? If not for you, we'd have lost the entire House to Voldemort."

"We lost most of them anyway," he retorted, unable to resist the temptation to answer--though he knew he was, in essence, talking to himself. "I was no help in the end to Zabini, or Bulstrode, or Nott."

"And Draco Malfoy?" Minerva asked.

"Draco saved himself. I had nothing to do with it."

A shadow fell over them, and the old witch's image wavered, dissipating before his eyes.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said a voice he had not heard for a very long time, "but I'm afraid I have to respectfully disagree..."

Snape looked up into a tired, anxious, sharply pointed face framed with fine pale hair. "Draco..?"

The young man nodded, smiling slightly.

"Well I must say, this is a new one--" Severus doubled over as the unaccustomed effort of speaking triggered an agonizing coughing fit. "Haven't seen--students before. Must be true, what they say--one's life really does flash--"

He was cut off by the most extraordinary sensation. Strong hands had grasped hold of him, lifting him from the cold stone; dumbfounded, he found himself turned onto his back, and looked up into a pair of vibrant green eyes. Bespectacled eyes that had once brimmed over with hatred, now filled with concern.

"Sorry we're late, Professor," Harry Potter said softly.

"Fifty points from Gryffindor," he breathed, blinking up at the insufferable brat, whose face blurred suddenly before him, "for extreme tardiness--and another fifty for jailbreaking."

The dark-haired boy snorted softly. "I ought to just leave him here, I really ought," he said wryly to his blond counterpart. But at the same time, he was drawing something from beneath his robes, and Severus felt a small box pressed into his hands. "Here, Professor. Something you misplaced."

He knew the outline of the box by touch, and his hands trembled more than usual as he lifted the lid and reached inside.

A jolt of tingling energy ran up his arm. He grasped the slender length of ash and pulled it out with a low cry, dropping the box with a clatter. "Impossible. It was broken and burned. They made me watch--"

"Hey. It's Harry Potter," Draco said, with only a hint of resentment. "Three impossible things before breakfast, right?"

Severus coughed again, shoved his arms under him, and hauled himself unsteadily to his feet. Both his rescuers moved to support him, but he shook them off imperiously, kept upright by virtue of adrenaline and sheer obstinate force of will.

"Get me the hell out of here!"

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Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all associated characters and concepts are the property of J.K. Rowling. These stories are fan tributes to her works, and generate no profit of any kind. No challenge to the intellectual property rights of Ms. Rowling, or any other author or artist whose works may be mentioned herein, is intended or implied. Story archived by permission of the author.