Although his long-crippled, notorious reputation had been gloriously restored by the very object of his entire life mission, it was not without some irreversible damage; it had been lurking beneath muddy waters for so long that it would surely never gleam and dazzle like a polished prize, doomed to be stained by the crimes of his dubious past.
Better dead than a prisoner, was now his motto. Be it literally, as he was long due an Azkaban sentence despite his redeemer’s best efforts to clear him, or figuratively - chained to the pedestal of said infallible redeemer and the sheer pity that was to come with the exposure of his ‘better’ part. Severus Snape was not ready, nor would he ever be, to face a life he hadn’t earnt, and planned for. His death was to be the end of his suffering atonement, to crown his life mission and grant him respite. To go back to dust, slipping into the oblivion whence he came. His entire life purpose had slipped from his fingers twice before: upon realising the boy had been raised to be naught but a sacrificial lamb, and when the lamb had finally defeated the greatest evil against all odds. Severus himself had been expendable, and had exhausted his purpose.
So what was he still doing, roaming this cruel earth?
Finding a new purpose, perhaps.
Elias Prince released a light hiss from under his battered hat as he stepped on the train in King’s Cross, his gut twisting in anger that the tenuous new lead he laboured so hard to obtain had amounted to nothing. Hiding in plain sight had always been his strong suit so he had effortlessly waded the capital’s secret pathways, plunging between the parallel Muggle and Wizarding worlds like a shade in the shadow. He could have been spotted, and he knew the dangers; but he was always painstakingly careful to keep his interactions with the Wizarding world to a minimum. Anonymously donating rare and extremely laborious medicinal potions to St Mungo’s, purchasing smuggled magical creature feed and assassinating former supporters of the Dark Lord were his only exceptions. Despite what he told himself, truth was that he was not ready to face any of the people from his past. Ever. Again.
So it was with a plunge into an abyss of sheer panic that his heart greeted the figure of the man sat right across him, fortuitously asleep. It was unmistakeable, and as much as he wished it was a hallucination conjured by his mind, finally unhinged, the ravings of a paranoid ex-spy, there could be no doubt as to who he was. A man he hadn’t seen for three years - not since that humiliating night he’d attempted to save him, accidentally disfiguring the Weasley boy. He gritted his teeth, sucking in a breath as he regarded the ghost from his past through narrowed obsidian slits, and a flood of memories and tempestuous feelings stormed his constricted, helpless chest. He should have been relieved to see him alive and well, caught in his old habits. But despite his stony composure he felt sick, and he knew he needed to leave: no matter how meticulous his Muggle disguise and the fact that he was dead to the entire world, Lupin had known him well and for long enough to raise suspicions. He quickly glanced at his ticket: the reservation was printed in stark blank ink, mocking him. The train had begun to fill at an alarming rate as the air horn outside blared to signal the imminent departure, commuters duly taking their allocated seats. The doors closed with an unforgiving whoosh, and the platform started moving slowly as the train inexorably undocked. He was trapped. Well and truly trapped. He begrudgingly took his seat with a whispered profanity as a grumpy old man rebuked him for blocking the passageway, and cast a shadow upon his eyes with the brim of his hat before hiding behind a copy of the Evening Standard. He found himself bitterly praying to every deity in the pantheon his former colleague wouldn’t awaken, and, god forbid, recognise him.
